starting out

here are a couple of resources i've come across that have helped me so far:

1) Arabic: i'm still plowing through the alphabet a little at a time, but i'm starting to get used to the letters. i've been using the arabic alphabet and a little notebook to practice in and tend to practice in front of the tv in the evenings.

2) Salat: so i started out with how do i pray, which has a little animated guy and says the prayers out loud. my only issue is that you can't rewind and have to keep starting over if you're trying to learn the prayers phonetically. the good parts are that you know what you're supposed to do and what it's supposed to sound like.

3) Qibla: i like islamic earth, where you can enter your address and it can put a little arrow on the map to show you which way to face.

4) prayer times: i use a gadget on my desktop that has a little clock with the name of the next prayer and a little countdown timer.

5) clothes: shukr takes up most of my closet, although i also like islamic design house. my favorite scarves are from shukr, veiled by design, and the hijab shop and my favorite hijab pins are from muslim base.

6) food: i've had good luck with zabihah.com in my area.

7) and some podcasts: for faith matters, i've found several of the talks on zaytuna institute very helpful and i love the ibn 'Arabi society talks-- beware, they're pretty deep. for lighter fare, i like islamophonic, altmuslim review, and mecca one and because i'm suddenly curious about this part of the world mosaic has a review of news in the Arab world which is interesting and fun to watch.