If I were to take a wild guess, I would say that most of the people reading this post are using Microsoft Windows. Some of you might be using Apples OS X to run your computer. These are all called operating systems.

You may have heard of Linux but don’t really know what it is. Basically Linux is a FREE open source operating system. The overwhelming majority of web servers actually run Linux based systems because is it credited with being much faster and more secure than windows.

Linux has always had the reputation for being for techie geeks only, but recently Linux distributions have been coming out with the aim of making Linux more user-friendly to use for those raised on Windows and Apple computers. The most popular of these distributions is Ubuntu. (more…)

A tip for those who wish to do multiple postings quicker is to open up multiple submit pages and do the submissions simultaneously. I hope that helps until we find a way to speed things up.

Bubbl.us
By far bubbl.us is the easiest mind mapping web application to use and yet still remains a very powerful tool. Within minutes you will have figured it out how to use it. The interface is largely intuitive and you can even use it without signing up, though in order to take advantage of all the features you should get yourself a free account.

features:

• Create colorful mind maps online
• Share and work with friends
• Embed your mind map in your blog or website
• Email and print your mind map
• Save your mind map as an image

Mind42.com
This one is has potential for more detail as you can attach notes and links to any nodes that you wish. Also, like bubbl.us you can zoom in and out to get a birds eye view. The major down for this app is that there is no collaborative capability.

features

• Create and share your work online with a private link.
  
• You can Create a diverse amount of diagrams,charts and layouts.
• Save on your PC (Save as .PNG or .PDF)
• Share diagrams with others (via private link)

Glinkr.com
Glinkr is based on boxes linked up with arrows. It is easy to learn and like Mind42 you can add links and descriptions to the boxes. In all honesty I think that Bubbl.us has a smoother work flow and looks prettier. Glinkr, like bubbl.us, features is the ability to share your mind maps by embedding them to your own site or third party site. Also, the embedded mind maps will be updated automatically if you ever change them.

Thinkature.com
Thinkature has a really smooth interface that also includes a versatile drawing feature in addition to the text boxes linked up with arrows. You can also add images from the web or yoru hard drive as well. The major selling point of thinkature seems to be collaboration as they not only have a text-based chat feature but also a voice chat feature. If you will be using mind mapping primarily in a collaborative environment this app is the one for you.

Wisemapping.com
While Wisemapping has a clean look and familiar features like sharing, embedding mind maps in blogs, it seems bloated with an extended tool bar that allows you to change the shapes and colors of different nodes, tag them, and puts various fonts at your disposal. This seems a bit uneccessary to me and an additional drawback is the inability to collaborate. One unique feature, however, is the ability to link documents to different nodes.

ImaginationCubed.com
Imaginationcubed is unique in that it is more like a stripped down paint program with an optional grid background. This might be fun to play around with or it may serve as a good medium to sketch something simple out really quick and send it to someone but it’s not all that serious a competitor to any of the others mentioned here.

Did I miss anything? Please feel free to share your favorites in the comments.

Grand Theft Life by Suhaib Webb

Shaykh Suhaib warns Muslims against the evils of the Grand Theft Auto video game series and against wasting their time but the real shocker in this piece was the quote: “I’m ashamed to admit that my exposure to this game was limited until I began to travel the Muslim world.” Wild man, Subhanallah!!!

Canadian Union of Postal Workers Campaign Against Israeli Apartheid

This was truly inspiring. According to the article this is “the first time a country-wide labour union in North America has voted to participate in the global campaign against apartheid in Palestine, CUPW’s resolution represents a critical juncture for the involvement of North American labour in this campaign.”

“Verily, the victory of ALLAH is near!”

This gives me hope that when the Muslim reconquer Jerusalem for the second time it will be as the first, a bloodless victory inshallah.

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School

While this article is about Debbie Almontaser’s dilemma after being forced to resign due to the media’s branding her secular school project, a radical madrasa, what really stood out was a quote from Daniel Pipes. He warned against “lawful Islamists” who are conducting a “soft jihad” against America by “working through the system — the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like — [to] promote radical Islam.”

I don’t need to tell you how outrageous that sounds. Apparently, even the nonviolent participation of Muslims in American society is dangerous!

Imam Siraj to Give Khutbah in Defense of America’s Imam

This one is about some important activism. If you are in the area of Newark, New Jersey you should come down, at least for the Jumaa salat if you are able to lend your support to the beloved Imam Mohammad Qatanani who is unjustly facing deportation. I call him America’s Imam because he is the model of what an Imam in America should be. His efforts in helping the Muslim community are tireless as are his civic and interfaith activities. Because of his reputation high profile Rabbis, Priests and politicians, including Governor Corzine of New Jersey, have given him public support. Help out or spread the word. inshallah.

Well that’s all for the first edition of Islamify Inspires, if there is anything on Islamify that inspires you please comment and let us know.

Essentially, tags are a form of metadata which is data about data. The internet is just one mass of unorganized information and the challenge that many social media web services are tackling is how to organize that data and make it easily accessible.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Live were at the front lines for helping people find what they were looking for on the internet. But now with Web 2.0 and the rise of social media web sites like Islamify, Digg and Del.icio.us, the use of tags has become an important and more efficient means to organize user submitted data.

To take Islamify as an example, whenever someone submits an article they must also submit tags, which are basically words that describe the article in a relevant way. For example, this is an article which was submitted to Islamify.com: “Morocco trains female imams to spread moderate Islam.” The tags in this case could be “morocco, imams, women, moderate islam.” This allows searchers to easily find articles that they are looking for or topics they are interested in.

Tags are also increasingly used to organize data in ways that are more in tune with the way people think. For example, the email organizing system that Gmail uses is essentially based on tagging except that tags are called labels. When filing away your email you can put several labels on one message. This allows you to place one email in several different categories making it superior to a filing system that forces you to decide on only one place to file information that might be relevant across many different topics.

Another popular use of tags is to create a tag cloud which organizes tags on the basis of popularity. A tag is represented with larger type and bolder font the more often it is used. This gives you a visual representation of the hottest topics on a blog or social media site.

Check out the tag cloud on Islamify.com and find articles that interest you.

Was this article helpful? Are there other questions you might have that we can answer? Please let us know in the comments.

Well, here’s some good news. Believe it or not, there is a small but growing trend of Muslims creating Islam related Facebook applications that can actually benefit other Muslims. At the moment there are about 20 such applications. Twenty applications sounds like a lot and can really cramp your Facebook profile, but lucky for you I have compiled the top four Muslim Facebook apps here for you in no particular order ;).

1. Islamify.com by Islamify.com

This app is the number one Muslim news application on Facebook. The Islamify team set up this application so that the top stories from Islamify.com, a Muslim Social News site, show up on your Facebook profile. This gives you instant access to the hottest Islam related news right from an automatically updated application.

2. Quran Verses by Abdullah Arif

Add verses from the Noble Qur’an to your profile from over 23 languages! This application offers great flexibility in choosing the suras (chapters) from which to choose the verses, the number of verses to display, among many other options!

3. Hadith by Khaleel Mughal
This application will display a random Hadith (saying of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) on your profile, allow you to search for hadith and bookmark your favorites, its also in English and Arabic!

4. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Quotes and Teachings by ByteSize
This application allows you to get the words and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad on your profile and phone!

There you have it. Now you can use these apps to enrich yourself or for dawah through your Facebook profile. Inshallah these apps will become as viral as “Superpoke!” and spread like wildfire through Facebook. It’s all in your hands. I’ve linked the above list directly to their corresponding apps, so don’t forget to click on the ones you want!

Are there any other Facebook apps we might have missed? Comment and share them with us.

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