Category: Internet

I was chatting with Nibaq today and he mentioned that he might have read somewhere that Flickr was either banned in UAE or the ISP there is doing something to slow down the uploading of photos. So I decided to ask some UAE people on Flickr and this is what they had to say:

manaal says:
no idea….working fine with me.

w6an 3mry says:
it’s not banned but i think they are doing something to block some of the bad photos

Avish says:
:s inshAllah they don’t ban it totally coz i don’t know what i’ll do 🙁

7abo0ob el Emarat says:
la hopefully they wont cuz we all cant live without it 🙂

ZexySamurai says:
I can live without it! ‘_’ Hehehe, but I love it loads so I hope that’s not true…
P.S. the uploading speed is fine with me..

Eneas says:
what’s UAE?

Green Peace says:
it is working fine with me

Yesterday I got a phone call from Qualitynet. They wanted to make sure if everything is ok and if I had any problems at all. I told them no nothing, everything is running fine, the guy once again told me that if I ever had any problem I could contact support on 804444. I thanked him and hung up. This is the second follow up call I have received, the first was last month right after I got the connection. Very nice people.

I was placing some orders on Amazon today when I decided to get an Amazon Prime account. What is that? Basically for $79 a year I get unlimited 2 day shipping on anything I purchase on their site. I calculated how much I spent on shipping last year and it was in the hundreds so $79 is a good deal. Now whats cooler is that Amazon Prime allows you to invite 4 other household members to use this account. Doesn’t sound interesting.. until you realize ALL of us Aramex users are counted as living in the same household since we all have the same address. So I sent an invite out to Tivo Guy and Nibaq since they’re my best friends. If this works then we are going to have so much fun buying stuff of Amazon. Also if you need anything delivered overnight, as an Amazon Prime member you only have to pay $3.99 to have any of your items shipped overnight. Amazon just keeps getting better.

I have had atleast 3 people ask me today who is Jason Kottke and what is being Kottked. Firstly Kottked is just a word I made up to imply that my site was linked by Kottke. Who is Jason Kottke? This is what was on Wikipedia (yeah he is listed on Wikipedia!):

Jason Kottke (born September 27, 1973) is a well known blogger and former web designer currently living in New York City. He designed the popular Silkscreen font which has become widely used in web design and has won a Lifetime Achievement Award as a blogger.

Kottke was a pioneering blogger who began his blog in March 1998. As of 2005, his blog is one of the highest-ranked personal sites on the Blogging Ecosystem.

In 2000, Jason Kottke and then-girlfriend Meg Hourihan were profiled in a New Yorker article, You’ve Got Blog, which introduced blogging to a wider audience. The minimalist web design of kottke.org is considered influential, and Kottke was one of the first bloggers to create a sideblog called “Remaindered Links”, which are interesting web links with no commentary. His contributions to blogging were acknowledged when he won a Bloggie Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.

His blogging also got him in trouble with Sony when he broke the news of Ken Jennings’ loss on Jeopardy!.

On February 22, 2005, Kottke announced he had left his web design job in order to work on kottke.org full-time. He pledged that all content on the site would still be free while encouraging readers to become “micropatrons” by making an optional contribution of any amount. This made him the first person to “professionally” pursue his weblog without sponsorship. By close of business on the day of the announcement, there were over 200 people listed as micropatrons on his website. As of April 15th, 2005, the total number of micropatrons stands at 696.

[Wikipedia]

At the office I am on a 512kb Fasttelco connection. At home I am on a 512kb Qualitynet connection. I ran a bandwidth test at both locations and the following were the results:

Qualitynet
Communications: 475.4 kilobits per second
Storage: 58 kilobytes per second
1MB file download: 17.6 seconds
Subjective rating: Not Bad

Fasttelco
Communications 362.5 kilobits per second
Storage: 44.3 kilobytes per second
1MB file download: 23.1 seconds
Subjective rating: Not Bad

In both trials, no one but me was using the connection on the network.

Winner of Round 1: Qualitynet

I finally have internet at home. It feels soo good to finally have decent internet at home. First thing I did was go to Bandwidthplace.com and make sure I was receiving the bandwidth I was paying for. As expected it registered at 58 kilobytes per second. Second thing I did was run Quake 3, its the only game I ever play online and the latency measured at 164 which is 4 times better then what I was getting with shownet. This will make playing online games with my PSP a breeze. If I have any problems with Qualitynet I will definitely post them here. For now though they seem fantastic.

Just got a call from 808888. It was qualitynet, they just wanted to call and tell me that my account has been activated and that if I ever needed anything that I could call support on 804444 anytime 24 hours a day.

So far I like the service!

Just passed by Qualitynet today morning to get my DSL account, and now, 3 hours later I get the following SMS:

Dear Customer, We wish to inform you that your DSL service on Tel. No. 57xxxxx has just been installed. Please call 804444 for any inquiry.

Have you guys tried Habbo Hotel before? I used to be addicted to it back when I was still in university. Habbo Hotel is basically an online community and its based in a hotel. You create your own character and you wonder around the hotel meeting people. You can hang out at the bar, or at the club or even in the lobby. The whole thing has a Sims feel to it although Habbo Hotel was around long before The Sims was released. If you guys never tried it before it is worth the experience. [Link]

Yesterday night I passed by the Qualitynet branch in Eureka. My first experience, they are nice friendly people. The guy tried to help me out as much as possible but due to the fact I was a Shownet customer and had a Satellite/DSL combo, I have to go to the main branch in Khaleejeyeh Complex. I did finish most of my paper work though. At one point he was calling this one guy who had more info about my situation, and he was like “I hope the guy answers, there is a big game today”. I was like big game? what big game? He was like Barcelona and Real Madrid are playing. I found that very funny and luckily the guy did pick up. I am sure if the guy hadn’t picked up my first impression about Qualitynet would have been much different.

The reason I went with Qualitynet was the price. For KD32 a month, I get a 512KB connection and a free DSL modem. This is with a 1 year contract which you can pay in monthly installments. I was planning on going with Fasttelco at first though. I had spoken to an FT salesman at Al-Ghanim Electronics, the guy told me FT had a double your bandwidth option also. It would cost me the same price, KD32 if I paid the bill online. Disdavantage is I had to pay KD20 for a DSL modem but the advantage was, this one a month by month contract not a yearly one. After leaving the salesman at Al Ghanim I decided to pass by the main FT office. When there I asked them again about the double your bandwidth option, they told me it existed but ONLY if I did the yearly contact which I had to pay the full amount all upfront. He told me if I wanted to go month by month I would only get a 50% increase. That meant 384KB instead of 512.. not enough. So, I decided to go with Qualitynet.

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.

Tips on how to remain anonymous and other tips. Link

According to our “secret” source. There is free wifi available at The Palms, Kuwait University, and the Kuwait Airport.

Oh my god I really can’t believe this. So my internet hasn’t been working for over a month now and I they are still taking 50KD a month. No one can come fix my connection at home because they cant come after 5PM and I finish work at 5:30. So I just went to shownet now in Farwaniya to cancel my account and guess what. They fucking close at 6. There is no way I can make it from Kuwait City to Farwaniya in less then half an hour. I might but it I doubt if I get there at 5:55 anyone will be willing to help. So this means I dont have internet and I can’t cancel my account. unfucking believable!

I am gonna disconnect my internet now and go to shownet and finally cancel it. I might be back on tonight with a regular dial up but I dont see how 3.6kb split among 5 computers on my network is gonna do me any good.