Many of us are familiar with finding the qibla in a hotel when visiting Muslim countries. Even more of us are familiar with using a pocket compass to find the direction of prayer in our homes and offices. Now, with an internet connection, you can find the Qibla via QiblaLocator.com.

This service will be a practical tool for travelers or anyone needing to find the qibla in a new, unfamiliar region. In other words, no more excuses.

This reminds me of Shaykh Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi’s advice on finding the direction towards the right path using Islam as a guide: “Turn right, go straight”.

Thanks to Ijtema for the reminder, ibn Mas’ud for developing QiblaLocator.com and to Kevin McGill for the photo.

Wuala invites available! Thanks to our friends at TechCrunch for the opportunity to test out this alpha release of an online file storage system.

How to get an invite:

1. Subscribe to this blog – see sidebar, enter your email, click ‘Subscribe’
2. Once you have subscribed or if you are an existing subscriber, forward your copy of either your confirmation email that you have subscribed or an email of previous IslamCrunch posts
3. We will confirm your subscription and send an invite
4. Do it now, very limited invites available

What is Wuala?

Wuala is a new way of storing, sharing, and publishing files on the internet. Free, simple, and secure.

Wuala, your free online hard-disk

Wuala is a new way of storing, sharing, and publishing files on the internet. It’s a free desktop application for Windows and Mac that brings you a convenient and secure online storage. Unlike traditional online storage systems, Wuala is decentralized and can harness idle resources of participating computers to build a large, secure, and reliable online storage. This new technology has a number of advantages and it allows us to provide you a better service for free.

Access, share and publish files

You can use Wuala to upload a file and access it from anywhere else, even when your computer is offline. Or you can use it to share files such as photos, videos, music, or documents with friends or groups. Furthermore, you can publish files for the whole world to see. In the public area, you can search and browse for what others have published. You can store any file you want in any size you want. Downloads are fast and there are no traffic limits.

Start with 1 GB, get more if you need

You start with 1 GB provided by us. If you need more, you can simply trade some space on your hard disk for additional online storage. The idea behind Wuala is not to give you more storage in total (apart from the first GB provided by us), but to change the quality of your storage: It is able to transform local storage into online storage that can be accessed from anywhere and at any time, even when your computer is offline.

Security and privacy

Wuala is secure and protects your privacy: All files you store are encrypted such that only you and those authorized by you can access them. All encryption and decryption is performed locally and your password is never sent to us – so not even we can access your files.

Free, convenient desktop application

Wuala comes as a convenient desktop application for Windows and Mac. After a quick download, Wuala is ready. It is integrated into your operating system so that you can conveniently drag and drop files, upload files in the background, open files in your favorite application, and stream media files directly.

Sidenote: Is it us or does the Wuala logo look like it’s using Arabic letters? Meem alif meem hamza seen?

Our favorite file sharing service, Driveway, recently announced free 2GB online storage accounts. We use Driveway frequently to send large files, designs, mockups, samples and miscellaneous files to clients, friends and family. So, how do you get a 12GB account? By referring your friends. Here’s the kicker… your friends do not need to accept and you will automatically receive an extra 10 gigabytes of storage space!

Today, we signed up for the free 2 gigabyte account, referred 5 of our friends and clients who we thought would benefit from this and PRESTO! we had a 12GB account. If you do not want to share this with your friends, add your numerous personal email accounts as referrals

Benefits of Driveway:

• Users can upload multiple files, up to a maximum limit of 500 MB per file.
• Driveway web widget – add a widget to your website, blog, social network
• Driveway desktop widget – easy access from your desktop
• Driveway plug-in – send files from your computer

Benefits of Driveway online storage:

• Manage and share files easily
• Track file downloads
• Create and update web widgets
• Easily share files with your personal address book

Note: IslamCrunch has already received a 12GB account. This is not a referral post, just wanted to share Driveway with our readers.

Not your typical daily activity, but just imagine performing your dhuhr (afternoon) prayers while in orbit. Yes, we hear both sides of the space station saying that ‘you are above the ground’, ‘you need to be firm on the ground’, ‘you must rotate in prayer’, etc. But just imagine being in a zero G environment, floating and raising up to the qiyam (standing) position? And you thought praying outside on a windy day was tough to keep your praying mat from blowing away. In space, your praying mat would simply float away…..

Many of us have thought about this but… how does this apply to us? Well, performing your ibadah (worship) in space may not apply to you now but don’t forget we are in the 21st century (or 15th century after hijrah [migration]). Space is the next frontier as Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor will be experiencing soon. On October 10, 2007, our fellow Muslim from Malaysia will be lifting off this Earth and going beyond our upper and outer atmospheres. This gives him about 3 days of fasting. So if you find yourself fasting the last days of Ramadan in space, would you sight the moon or use the astronomically ‘perfect’ calendars found in your local mosque to celebrate Eid il Fitr?

You can read more about Astronaut Muszaphar’s story here: A Muslim Astronaut’s Dilemma: How to Face Mecca From Space

And if you ever find yourself orbiting Mars or Jupiter, you can use the following document (found in the article) as reference for your worship: Guidelines to Ibadah at the International Space Station.

And if you ever find yourself on the dark side of the moon… bring a flashlight.

Photo: Associated Press / Mikhail Metzel. Story contribution: Ebadur Rahman & Neaz Noor (Thanks!)

As promised in our earlier post about Pibb, here is the embedded Islam Channel from Pibb. As of this posting, we have only discovered one other Muslim using Pibb. If you are interested in new technology, new methods of communication or love using instant messaging, you should try Pibb, it’s all of the above and more.