Category: Information

Nibaq told me he was going to watch Star Wars III at the movies on Tuesday, so I decided to check out the KNCC website for showtimes. Turns out there is a showing on Tuesday at 12:00AM at Marina Mall so I just bought 2 tickets and reserved our seats online. It was the first time I tried using their website and it was also the first time I bought tickets online. Its a very easy feature to use and I am surprised we have this technology in Kuwait.

1) First you need to sign up on their website, a very easy and quick process.
2) Then you look for the movie you want to watch.
3) Once you find a movie you want you then have to find a showtime that would suit you.
4) The next step is to reserve your seats. This is the best option, they show you a map of the theater and then you can choose where you want to sit. Very cool.
5) You pay for your ticket online using Knet, Credit Card, M-Net or a Smart Card.
6) You receive an email and SMS message confirming your order.

Very easy and very simple. I now might watch more movies because of this.

I take a few shots during the day and at night I post them on Miskan.com. What you don’t see though is how the pictures looked before right out of the camera. I shoot everything in RAW format which basically means the pictures are stored on my memory card unaltered. The pictures aren’t compressed in any way, no white balance is applied, no sharpening, no nothing. Its pure. When I open up the pictures in Photoshop, I have to set up the Raw options before the picture opens up. Its basically a window where I can control various aspects of the picture from brightness and contrast, to exposure and the white balance. It time consuming since I have to open each image and post process it till it looks good. Each one of my raw files are also over 5MB (on older cameras they are twice the size). The advantage is I get to control the settings, not the camera. Most of my pictures are usually shot under exposed because you can always brighten a picture but you can’t darken an over exposed shot. Shooting in RAW also means I am now more picky with my shots, I don’t want to get home and have 50 pictures I need to open and adjust one by one. I just don’t have the time for it nor the computer processing speed to do it quickly. Below is a shot I just took now in the office to give you an example of the importance of post processing.

In this first picture you can clearly see the white’s are grayish, the floor is dull and the whole picture lacks decent contrast.

This picture is the first one but it’s been post processed. I increased the brightness, contrast, a bit of saturation, set the white balance to neon and then proceeded to manually set the white balance till it contained a decent amount of magenta.

So in conclusion, don’t expect to get good pictures if you don’t post process. Remember when in university you took photography? Remember how in the dark you spent time experimenting trying to get the right contrast and shadows etc.. this is the same thing. If you don’t do it right don’t expect excellent results.

update: I think from now on whenever there is a cool shot I upload onto Miskan.com I will post the original unprocessed one here just to show the importance of post processing.

Best Airports
1- Hong Kong International Hong Kong, China
2- Singapore Changi Singapore
3- Incheon International Seoul, South Korea
4- Munich Munich, Germany
5- Kansai Osaka, Japan
6- Dubai Dubai, UAE
7- Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
8- Schipol Amsterdam, Netherlands
9- Copenhagen Airport Copenhagen, Denmark
10- Sydney Sydney, Australia

Best Business Class Lounges
1- Cathay Pacific Hong Kong, China
2- Virgin Atlantic London Heathrow
3- Gulf Air Bahrain
4- Asiana Airlines Incheon Seoul, South Korea
5- Swiss Air Zurich, Switzerland
6- Singapore Airlines Singapore
7- SAS Scandinavian Copenhagen, Denmark
8- Malaysia Airlines Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
9- China Airlines Taipei, Taiwan
10- Qantas Airways Sydney, Australia

Best First Class Lounges
1- Cathay Pacific Hong Kong, China
2- Thai Airways Bangkok, Thailand
3- South African Airways Johannesburg, South Africa
4- Asiana Airlines Inchon, South Korea
5- Malaysia Airlines Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
6- Lufthansa Frankfurt, Germany
7- Singapore Airlines Singapore
8- Qatar Airways Doha, Qatar
9- Gulf Air Bahrain
10- Swiss Air Zurich, Switzerland

[via]

Finally, no more flash in flickr. The reason it took me so long to get with flickr was because I hate flash. And now, flickr has stopped using, thank god, feels good and fast now. Adding pictures to groups is so much more practical and easier now.

Couple (Husband and Wife)
Annual: KD990
6 Months: KD590

Single Female
Annual: KD650
6 Months: KD390

Single Male
Annual: KD790
6 Months: KD550

Children (2-11 years old)
Annual: KD150
6 Months: KD100

Children (12-17 years old)
Annual: KD350
6 Months: KD225

The membership includes the following benefits and facilities:
– Outside lap swimming pool
– Outside kids and family pool
– Marina’s exclusive beach area
– Beach volleyball court
– Fully equipped gym with the latest equipment
– 1 squash court
– Steam bath, sauna and jacuzzi
– Female and male massage available (extra charge)
– Fitness instructor available for personal training (extra charge)

Massage Treatments

Facial Therapy
A deep cleansing, moisturizing skin care treatment with a facial pressure point massage.
45 minutes KD25

Swedish Therapy
A gentle massage encompassing the entire body using a variety of techniques specifically designed o relax muscles.
45 minutes for women KD20
60 minutes for men KD25

Sports Therapy
A classic massage focusing on every muscle group.
45 minutes for women KD20
60 minutes for men KD25

Relaxation Treatment
A gentle massage from head to toe that melts away tension.
45 minutes KD22

Aromatherapy Massage
A full body massage using exotic essential oils to improve circulation and relieve tired muscles.
60 minutes KD25

Relaxing Head Massage
This massage helps relieve headache and stress, stimulates healing and is done without using oil.
20 minutes KD15

Triple Treatment
The head, neck and shoulder massage is a decadent treatment that promotes the relief of day to day stress.
45 minutes KD25

Head and Foot Reflexology
A traditional massage using the reflexology technique focusing on pressure points that exist in the hands and the feet.
45 minutes KD 22

For more information call 2244970 ext 8510 or 8515

Recently I started using A9 for my web searches because Tivo-Guy mentioned if I did I would get a discount on Amazon.com. Well after using it for a couple of days I now have the A9 Instant Reward!

So I did a quick search to try and find more details about the Instant Reward and this is what I found.

You can save an additional 1.57% (π/2%) on virtually all your purchases at Amazon.com by simply becoming a regular user of our new search engine at A9.com. Once you use A9.com for a few days you will automatically be eligible for the A9 Instant Reward.

All you need to do is use A9 for your searches and you automatically get your products cheaper on Amazon. How easy is that? You can find out more info by clicking this link.

Yesterday I installed Tiger on my PowerMac G4. It wasn’t very easy. The problem I have is that my PowerMac can’t read DVD’s and Tiger came on a DVD. To solve the problem I figure I could put the DVD in Nat’s PowerBook, then connect her mac to mine by booting hers up in target disk mode. When I did that though I only was able to see her hard drive and not her DVD drive. Then I decided to try something else. I opened up Disk Utility on Nats PowerBook and in the options chose to create an image of the DVD and saved it on her Hard Drive. A few minutes later I had a 2.3GB image file of the DVD. I then connected a mini ipod to the powerbook, and in disk utilities chose to format the ipod. I then told it to restore an image onto the ipod and chose the Tiger image which I had just made a few minutes earlier. This move basically turned the ipod into a Tiger boot disk. I then plugged the ipod into my Powermac and a finder window opened with the Tiger setup file. I double clicked on it and it told me I needed to reboot my mac. Once it restarted it loaded up the Tiger installation and i proceeded to install tiger on my mac.

The Problem
After finishing installing Tiger I booted up and everything was working fine. When I tried to connect to the internet though it gave me a modem error, something about it not being turned on. I look at the modem and it was blinking red instead of the usual green. Turns out the DSL modem drivers are not compatible with Tiger. To solve this issue I went to Hawalli and purchased a DSL Modem with a built in wireless router for KD30. I then came home and set it up to connect to the internet and share it across the network. It worked. Now since the new DSL modem does not require a computer to be connected to the internet, I can now reboot my mac and shut it down whenever I want without it effecting anyone on my network. Previously I had my powermac connect to the internet and share the connection over the network. That wasn’t practical because if I rebooted or shutdown my mac for some reason, the internet would disconnect.

Tiger Experience
I have been using it for a short while now and things seem a tiny bit faster. When I first booted up Tiger it was a bit slow doing stuff because Spotlight was trying to index my whole drive. Once it was done indexing things came back to normal. The new mail program looks a lot more cleaner and cooler. Dashboard is interesting, my favorite widget is the flight tracker. It actually shows me the departure and arrival time of any flight plus where the plane currently is on the map. I might post a more fuller review later on but so far I like Tiger.

My Mac Specs
Graphite PowerMac G4 733MHz
1MB L3 Cache
896 MB SDRAM

Update: someone made it aware to me that I could have booted the powerbook using the Tiger CD and put my powermac in Target Disk mode. Then on the powerbook when it asked me where I wanted to install it I could have chosen the drive from my mac. Might have worked and been quicker.

I tried using A9 ages ago but I never got into it. Today Tivo Guy tells me that if you are an A9 regular user you can get a π/2 (thats pi over 2) amount of discount on Amazon. Thats around 1 point something percent off by just using A9. Not a bad idea, so I decided to check out A9 and I was incredibly surprised at how much it has improved since the last time I used it. Its fast, very customizable, it remembers your previous searches and my favorite part.. you can search for websites AND images AND wiki all at the same time! Really cool check it out www.a9.com

Warning: For mac geeks only. A guy who got Tiger has posted 50 observations about whats new. Tivo-Guy got and installed Tiger yesterday and hopefully I will get it off him today. Can’t wait. [Link]

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]