Category: Information

In reply to the previous post titled “Crackdown in Wonderland“, a regular reader Fadibou commented saying the following:

Hi Mark and all of you. I work in a software company here in Kuwait and its frustrating to see people supporting Piracy. Piracy is a nice word for stealing. Copying software and selling it without permission and without giving money back to its creator is pure theft. As for the crack down, it will increase and hopefully soon there will be no place to buy pirated(stolen) games and software. As for your remarks that a lot of games are not worth buying, well try getting evaluation copies or demos. They should cover your investment before you buy. As for Rihab, Can you please tell me which shop did help you get Doom 3?

Doom 3? I don’t know what you are talking about.. (starts whistling casually)..

Yesterday Adobe announced a merger with Macromedia. The largest issue I saw with the merger was that Freehand would be killed off. That didn’t matter to me since I prefer Adobe Illustrator but I know there are many designers who prefer Freehand. So I decided to do some research and this is what I found out.

It turns out that this is not the first time Adobe buys a company that owns competing products. Back in 1994, Adobe purchased the company Aldus which back then was releasing Freehand which it marketed under license from Altsys Corporation. Adobe also picked up Aldus’s PhotoStyler which was a competing product for Photoshop and Hitchcock which competed against Adobe Premier.

After the merger, Adobe killed both PhotoStyler and Hitchcock in-favor of its own stronger products Photoshop and Premier. Freehand was the biggest issue back then though. The merger between Aldus and Adobe came close to collapsing many times because Altsys Corporation who had licensed out FreeHand to Aldus claimed that it would be unfairly hampered by Adobe’s competing product Illustrator. To resolve this issue once the merger took place FreeHand was sold off to Macromedia. Now after yesterdays Adobe and Macromedia merger, Freehand is back with Adobe.

The biggest gain of the Adobe and Aldus merger was the software Pagemaker. Pagemaker was released in 1985 and is generally credited with creating the desktop publishing field.

The issue with Adobe’s GoLive webdesign software conflicting with the newly acquired Macromedia Dreamweaver software was also dealt with before. In 1999, Adobe acquired GoLives CyberStudio software and renamed it to Adobe GoLive. With that acquisition, Adobe killed its own webdesign software PageMill due to the superiority GoLive had.

In conclusion, although the merger between Adobe and Macromedia is a big thing, its also not the first time something like this has happened. Out of the previous mergers Adobe was able to improve its suite and benefit us all. But, monopolies never are a good thing either and if Adobe decides to slack off then we will all be in trouble. Many people are now expecting Adobe to purchase its major desktop publishing competitor Quark. But I believe that might not happen since all Adobe would gain is to kill off a competitor its already slowly but surely beating. So we will now have to wait and see what Adobe will do next.

Resources:
Aldus and Altys settle dispute over FreeHand
The Aldus Adobe Merger
Adobe kills Aldus PhotoStyler, Hitchcock
Aldus on Wiki
Adobe acquires Aldus
About Adobe, Premiere, and All That

The PSP sold 620,000 handheld units and 1.1 million software units in March while the Nintendo DS has sales of only 420,000 to date since the begining of the year. The PSP launched on March 24th that means that Sony sold nearly one PSP per second in the first 8 days of the handheld’s launch. [via]

If you remember last month I posted about the new terrible BKME logo. Well since then I heard that the logo was done by an international agency (hard to believe) and I heard another story that it was designed by Horizon here in Kuwait (more believable). Yesterday I also got an email from someone called Jeeb, this is what he had to say about BKME and the logo:

The sphere isn’t only about a pearl, a BKME personnel indicated to me that two pepole reaching each other are actualy represented inside! I said who in the world would know or see that? By the way when copied, the “pearl” or “human reaching each other” logo goes white! Vanishes..

It also took me 2 days to open an account! Still confused, I received 6 e-mails with 6 user numbers bkmeonline/e-trading, which one to use? Why the guy kept telling “use another username this one is giving an error”? Now, ofcourse, i can’t use any of them, each had a password which i don’t remember now!! Bmke didn’t reply, i have to waite till sunday. Talking about making “life simple” for us!!!

I drew with a red line what “might” be 2 guys, one seems very fat. Also I can understand about the terrible service, when I tried calling them to ask about the logo 2 weeks ago it took me all morning to get a hold of someone..

Yesterday while chatting with Tivo Guy over lunch about my DSL options, he mentioned UCC. I was like UCC? Never heard of them. Turns out UCC is Gulfnet which is Kuwait.net. I thought they had died a few years but turns out they are still alive. So later on in the evening I got to Shownet to cancel my account (finally got it over with) and the guy there was tells me that they have a new DSL only service in collaboration with.. UCC. Interesting how when you hear about something for the first time and then suddenly hear it again. Turns out Shownet is an official GulfNet DSL distributer and they are packaging showtime packages with Gulfnets DSL offerings. I ofcourse refused to have anything to do with Shownet anymore and said no thank you. So UCC is United Cable Company which is GulfNet which is Kuwait.net.

Tivo Guy asked if there was another service other then Aramex’s Shop & Ship. The answer is yes, there is, MyUS.com. I haven’t personally used it but my old boss did. The prices are more expensive then Aramex but the packages are delivered by DHL, and you have more control over your mailbox. For example, you can tell them to ship your magazines once a month but packages as they come. You can also for example ship the packages on your command. That means you can fill up your box and when you think you have all your stuff you give the order to ship. You also have the option to insure your packages, a good option when ordering items like laptops and expensive gear. Again, this all comes at a price.

4lb’s of weight with Aramex would cost you KD7, while with MyUS would cost you KD12. Aramex also has a one time setup fee of KD10, and then its free annually. MyUS has a setup fee of KD10 but it has an annual fee of KD40 for 12 months, or KD5 monthly.

If you are totally fed up with Aramex, there is another option, but are you willing to pay the price?

[Link]

There is free wifi at Häagen Dazs at Souk Sharq according to a recent post by nibaq. Further investigation has revealed that this is just temporary. By next week the connection there will NOT be free. So take advantage and to those of you attending todays blog meetup, have fun.

There’s a fairly simple way to achieve multi-player gaming on two PSPs using a single UMD disc, by starting the game on one console, starting an Ad Hoc Multiplayer game, then hot swapping the disc to the other device. It’s apparently working for Tony Hawk, Twisted Metal, and Ridge Racer with perhaps a few protocol tweaks here and there. More complete instructions here.

Daniel Craig is set to be the new James Bond, The Sun can reveal.

Daniel, 37, has been offered a three-film deal by 007 producer Barbara Broccoli. [Link]

So who is this guy again??

Facing a problem parking your car when you shop at TSC Salmiya? Now you can leave the parking to us! Just drive up to the valet parking kiosk in front of the store, collect your ticket, and begin your shopping. When you’re finished, visit the valet service desk inside the store to arrange for your car pickup. Then pay for your purchases along with just 1 KD for the valet service. Your car will be waiting for you when you exit the store.

Hours of operation: 10 a.m – 11 p.m daily.

How to use TSC’s Valet Parking Service
– Drive your car to the TSC Valet Parking Kiosk
– Collect your ticket from the valet
– Perform your shopping
– Before paying, visit the Valet Service Desk inside the store to arrange for car pickup by showing your ticket number
– Pay for your purchases along with 1 KD for the valet service
– Cashier will stamp your valet ticket
– Keep your TSC invoice and stamped valet ticket
– Your car will be brought to you just in front of the exit door, where your purchases will be placed in the car
– Show your invoice and your stamped valet ticket to the valet
– Take your car and have a nice and easy day

Policies and Procedures
– Please keep the valet ticket, as it is the only proof of your ownership of the car.
– In case this ticket has been lost, please inform the company as soon as possible in order to take action at once, or else the company will not be responsible for any car lost.
– In case of ticket loss, kindly provide the company with all your legal papers to prove ownership.
– The company is not responsible for any mechanical problems that occur to the customer’s car during the receiving, parking, and delivery of the vehicle.
– The company is not responsible for any item lost from the car during the valet service.
– All cars are insured against accidents when they are under our custody and by company’s drivers.
– All cars should be picked up by 12:00 midnight

[Link]

Today they added two new things in Gmail. First you can now spell check your email, and second you can now have rich formatting, which means you can make your stuff bold and colorful if you want. Also they now double the storage space, you get 2GB of space instead of 1GB. Amazing.

G is for growth
Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn’t mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we’re giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people’s lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more.

I just woke up today morning and realized I paid $468 on a PSP. Thats the same freakin price of a Mac Mini!!

I have been trying to call them since 8:30 in the morning. I was calling them on 812000 and when it asks if I was a customer or not, I would choose No I am not. Then I would get the corny message that they would like it if I would join them, then the phone rings and no one picks up. So finally I got fed up after trying for over 2 hours to get a hold of someone. Now when I called I pressed 1 which is the option for if you are a BKME customer. Right away someone picked up. I asked them what the circle in the logo was, the lady answered a pearl. I said thank you and closed the phone.

So the sphere turned out to be a pearl like we all assumed in the first place.

Everything you need to know about the PlayStation Portable.

Question: What tips can you give mark regarding domain registration? in terms of url name, company, pricing, and so on..

Answer: I am gonna divide my answer into two parts, Domain Registration and Web Hosting.

Domain Registration
I get my domains from Directnic.com. I have been using them for a couple of years now since they first opened up. They offer domains for 15$ a year. There are other registrars like Joker.com who provide you with domains for $7 a year. I haven’t tried those registrars and I wouldn’t risk it also. There are some unspoken services which are offered and I don’t know if these other registrars offer it. For example with Directnic, incase you forget to renew your domain they will still hold the domain for you for up to 40 days. Then after the 40 days pass they will still hold the domain for you for another 30 days but you will have to pay an extra fee to get it back. Then after that they will let the domain go into public domain. With other registrars they might not hold the domain for you at all, some might even charge you an extra fee if you forget to renew it by 1 day.

Webhosting
There are thousands and thousands of providers to choose from but I will make it easy for you. If you register with Directnic, they provide you with free hosting for your domain but you will have their banner on your site. For a small yearly fee they can provide you with simple bannerless hosting. Now if you need something better then there are two ways you can go. Windows or Linux hosting. For Windows hosting I would recommend Fasthosts. I have a reseller account with them and have been using them for over 5 years now. They are VERY reliable with maybe only 1 down time in 5 years. They have excellent service, and their servers are very fast. I would also recommend Interland as a second option here. They also provide reliable Windows hosting for a decent price. For linux hosting you have a lot more cheaper options. If bandwidth isn’t an issue then I would recommend Interland here again. They are a good hosting provider for newbies. They have a very good “Help & Advice” section with lots of information for beginners. If bandwidth is something you need, then I would recommend Powweb. PowWeb offers 5GB of bandwidth a day for as little as 7$ a month. But the downside to Powweb is that their backdoor where you set your web settings and emails isn’t very easy to use at all. Other providers you might be interested in are: Addr, Dreamhost, Pair, iPowerWeb and LunarPages.