Category: Internet

Google will launch a new feature Wednesday: Google Health, that will help you find treatments, symptoms or alternative medicine treatments. You can try it today (be sure to set your Google interface to English). [Link]

Taken from digg

I just noticed that a9.com is using Windows Live instead of Google for their results.. sucks.. [Link]

Thats a really long list. [Link]

If you have a video and you want to share it online with everyone you have a couple of options the most popular being Google Video and YouTube. Personally I have been using Google Video because it allows viewers to download the videos onto their computers, but the problem with Google Video is that you have to wait anywhere between 24 to 48 hours to get your video approved before you can share it with everyone.

So today I found this article via digg that compared 10 video sharing services with all their advantages and disadvantages. After reading the article I was planning on trying out the recommended service called Vimeo, but it turns out the site is currently blocked by Fast Telco which is just lame. So now I am stuck using Google Video until I try out the other video sharing services myself. [Link]

Late last month I placed an order for the IPEVO free.1 Skpe Phone and I just received it yesterday. I have to say its just the coolest accessory for my Mac, even cooler then my CueCat!

I ordered the white version while my sister ordered the black one and they are honestly both great looking. I prefer the white since all my furniture in my computer room is white plus white is more Apple like. The phone works really great with the Mac, all you need to do is install this application which runs in the background and whenever you want to use Skype you just pick up the phone and click on the Skype button which will then launch the Skype application. You can then use the up and down controller on the phone to move up and down in your Skypes contact list, once you highlight a contact you just click the call button and you are suddenly calling your contact all without even touching your computer. Say you want to dial a number that isn’t on the contact list then you just input the numbers on the phone and press the call button. Very very easy to use just like a regular phone. The build quality of the phone is just superb and combined with its looks its hard to believe it costs only $30.

I couldn’t wait to try the phone so I quickly called my brother up in Lebanon and spoke to him a bit, even when we ran out of things to talk about I tried to stay on the phone as long as I could since it felt great using it. After I was done with my brother I tried to find someone else to call just so I could use the phone again. I really love it.

In conclusion, I would definitely recommend this phone. It looks great, the sound quality is great and the phone feels much more expensive then it actually costs. Its integration with the Mac and PC makes it really easy to work and use which makes it very user friendly. The only downside I could think of is that the USB cable is too long, 2.5 meters to be exact which I guess could be a good thing for some people but not if you are planning on using it with your laptop. Another downside is expect your Skype bill to go up because you really just want to call more because of it. I hated the headphone+mic combination, it just didn’t feel natural but since this looks like and feels like a phone I am more comfortable using it. The final score is a 4.5 out of 5.

Buy the white IPEVO phone from Amazon
Buy the black IPEVO phone from Amazon
Visit the IPEVO website

Thanks to Simply Stinni for finding this, it has to be the strangest local website so far (stranger then q8beasts.com even!). Order your maid house keeper online now! [Link]

Note: Check out the catalogue

Update: Site seems to be down at the moment..

Update: Seems if you view the site using Internet Explorer you can’t see the links on the left side. Interesting.. a site optimized just for Firefox.. Here are direct links to the catalogue:
Philippines
Nepal
Indonesia
Sri Lanka
India (Specialized)
Ethiopia

Wikipedia has a list of all of the big pranks that have happened today and the list keeps growing. [Link]

[source digg]

I am currently trying to see if I can improve safat. I know Nibaq is really busy and since Nat is out of town I have a lot of free time so last night I started working on what I think safat should be like. I don’t really have a major problem with safat I just think the theme should be changed into something neater and that Nibaq should move away from the Drupal software which he currently uses over to WordPress.

The site where I am testing my version of safat is 248pm.com (finally found a use for it). At the moment I just have some of my favorite blogs listed since I am just working on the basic look and layout. Its still beta ofcourse and I am keeping it very simple with a web2.0 feel. Check it out. [Link]

Note: This is what I am recommending for safat, its not sanctioned by Nibaq or the Safat board of directors…

update: just got the full list of bloggers from Nibaq and added them to 248pm feeds. By tomorrow it should be working smoothly like safat. Also it checks for new feeds every 15 minutes so it should be faster then safat.

update 2: so far 248pm.com is getting feeds faster then safat which is what I predicted. I replaced the Store link on the top navigation bar of this blog with 2:48PM since its more practical that way.

I just checked CNN.com and they have redesigned their main page. Looks interesting so far.. although I find it sticking too much to the left hand side, its going to be hard to get used to it. [Link]

Thanks to Arabesque for pointing it out in the Forum, Marina FM have just relaunched their online website and you can now listen to them online and also check out whats going on in their studio using their live webcam. There is also a section on the site called “Blog” which should turn out to be interesting once they start posting. [Link]

[original source of info grafika]

I was just reading Zaydoun’s post on how he has been blogging for three years and it really brought back some good memories. You see, before it was just Zaydoun’s “Kuwait Unplugged” blog and qHate which was made up of me, Rampurple and Nibaq. qHate originally was Nibaqs idea and it started off as a blog about life in Kuwait but when the US decided to invade Iraq, qHate quickly turned into a war blog. We were posting on things that were going on in Kuwait like the sirens, the panics and the gas masks we even got the chance to stalk meet Wolf Blitzer and John Vause. It was a lot of interesting little things that showed people how everyone in Kuwait was living during this uncertain time. Checking my first post (2-2-03) now though I realized it was actually related to the war.. so now I am wondering if war blogging was part of the original plan… It was cool how me, Rampurple and Nibaq used to blog together in one blog and now we all have our own separate blogs. I keep telling Nibaq we were like a rock band that split up and all the members went solo.

In the end the site ended after we hit our peak, the war was over, there was barely anything to post about and only Rampurple was left posting and she finally also said goodbye. Maybe one day we will all be back together again, like a reunion..

This is an interesting surprise. Yesterday I posted my views on the Toot the Arab blog network and what I saw as problems with the way things were laid out. Well I just checked the site now and it looks like most of the problems are getting fixed. The first change you will notice when you check Toot now is that instead of 9 blogs being highlighted on top, you now only get 3. The second change and probably the most important one is the tootstream. No longer is it just a long boring list of blog names and post titles, the list now contains a brief snippet of what the post is about. This makes things a lot more interesting and more usable, even the post titles are now larger and more clearer… check it out. [Link]

The official website of 99.7FM super station is suspended and it looks like its because they didn’t pay their hosting bill… [Link]

Toot is like safat but instead of it focusing only on Kuwait Blogs, Toot focuses on all Arab blogs in the region.

The idea is good but I just haven’t been able to use Toot the way I use Safat. In Safat I scroll down the page reading a “post title” followed by reading a sentence or two from that post. If the post preview sounds interesting I open it in a new tab and continue reading the full post on that bloggers site.

With Toot I can’t do that since the only thing I see is the post title and the blog its from.. no post preview. Sure they have a section on the main page called tootreads but these are a few handpicked posts and they are not updated very often. Even the tootstream where all the latest post titles are displayed isn’t easy to use since the name of the blog is highlighted more then the post title itself. I would think the title of the post would be more important then the title of the blog since you are there to find new posts to read and not to read blog names. Another issue I have is with the voting system. If you like a certain blogger you can vote for them and give them a rating. The problem is its not an easy procedure, to vote you need to give them your email address and they will send you an email with a link to confirm your vote. They are doing this I am guessing to keep away cheaters but this isn’t a full proof plan and it makes voting a pain in the ass.

I do like the general visual theme of Toot and I really think Safat needs to get redesigned into something thats as appealing. Even the “new” Safatoo isn’t any better and if anything its a lot worse then the classic safat. Safat is lacking an identity and thats where Toot is succeeding the most. Anyway if you haven’t checked Toot out yet please do and tell them what you think. [itoot]

Fasttelco is now also blocking BoingBoing. Qualitynet also haven’t removed BoingBoing from their block list even after all the emails and phonecalls. Sucks.

Update: You can now visit BoingBoing by just going to mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com/bb