Category: Personal

I don’t know where to start this review because I’ve got a ton of good things to say about the Archos 7 but an equal amount of bad things. I guess I will start with the bad things.

The Archos 7 is extremely buggy plus I think I have a problem with mine. There are three brightness settings on my A7, low, medium and high. When I put the brightness on high the back light flickers between low and high constantly. I checked online and some people faced this issue when the screen was set on low brightness but I am the first to report this issue with the brightness set on high. Luckily for me I don’t have any problems when the brightness is set on low or medium, the two settings I will be using most while traveling. I read this issue could get fixed with a firmware update but so far since I got the device over a week ago there’s been two firmware updates and both haven’t solved the flickering issue.

As I mentioned earlier the device is also buggy. I haven’t used the A7 much but so far its crashed with me while watching a movie once. At times it just crashes while getting charged or while its on sleep and I need to reboot it, a quick process but nevertheless it shouldn’t do that. I had it connected to my Mac for over a day now and it was working fine until awhile ago I tried to turn it on and it wouldn’t. For some reason it wasn’t charging over USB which it should have been and the battery got completely drained. URGH! The last negative thing I have to say is that the Archos is pretty heavy. I love using my iPhone after I am done with the A7 since it makes my iphone seem tiny and ultra light. Oh and one more thing, I can’t seem to remove the battery, its like jammed or something!

Yeah there are A LOT of issues but… I still love the Archos 7! I love the screen, the battery life, the ability to just drag and drop my movie folders onto it, the way it plays ALL my files without needing to convert them, the touch screen, the browser, the web TV, web Radio, the stupid flash games, the little stand on the back of the device, the way Archos keeps improving the device with firmware upgrades and finally the fact that I can stream videos off my main server at home over wifi and watch them on my Archos from anywhere at home. When I bought the device I didn’t know I could do that but it turns out I can and easily. I just browse my home network from the Archos, find a video file, double click it and it starts playing instantly.

When I purchased the Archos 7 it was because I thought it was the best portable video player on the market but now I know it is. As of this post I am not aware of any other device on the market that has the same features and abilities as the Archos 7 and thats why I have no regrets. Final score is a 3.5 out of 5. Yeah it has a TON of issues but at the end of the day all it needs to do is play movies for a very long time without running out of battery and that it does perfectly. Of course I am hoping Archos will work out whatever bugs I have with the next firmware update.

160GB Archos 7 is for $272. [Amazon Link]
320GB Archos 7 is for $412. [Amazon Link]

By the way there is also a smaller version called the Archos 5 which sells for $280. Its the same as the Archos 7 in every way except the screen is a 5inch and the battery lasts around 5 hours. [Amazon Link]

I’ve had my Wrangler for 4 years now exactly and I’ve noticed an interesting trend with my dealership after they merged with Al Mulla who are renowned for their terrible service centers.

– An oil and filter change originally used to cost me KD8. I would pop into the quick service center and come out 30 minutes later. It was still called Behbehani Motor Company here.

– An oil and filter change later became KD12. I would pop into the quick service center and come out an hour later. This is after Behbehani Motor Company and Al Mulla merged.

– An oil and filter change now costs me KD16. I now pop into the quick service center and come out two and a half hours later.

So as I posted earlier, my Archos 7 arrived today. I watch a lot of movies and tv shows on the plane when I travel and I’ve been using my old iPod to do that. It served me well but the tiny screen and the 4 hour battery life wasn’t cutting it for me. I also didn’t like the fact I had to convert all my videos to a format the iPod would read because it mean I had to plan ahead of time what I was going to take with me so I could spend a couple of days converting them.

I wanted a player which had a long battery life, a large screen and a player that could play Divx and Xvid formatted movies. Thats why I ended up going with the Archos 7. The battery lasts over 8 hours, the screen is a huge 7inch and I could just drag and drop movies onto its 160GB hard drive without converting them.

My first impressions so far are good. The screen is great and much more responsive then I was expecting. It doesn’t get smudged easily because its a matte screen but the back of the device which is shiny is full of smudges. I moved a few tv shows and movies over to the Archos and it played them all except for one which had AC3 sound encoded. To play that I needed to purchase a plug-in which I did. The US site has 3 plug-ins listed for the Archos 7 at $20 each while the global version of the site had the 3 plug-ins bundled together for $40. I decided to get all 3 plug-ins for $40 and I can now play HD movies and movies encoded with AC3 without a problem. I don’t like the idea of paying for plug-ins but I am glad I have the choice to do so instead of no choice at all. I tried watching tv with the built in web tv and although it works I couldn’t find a decent channel to watch except for Sky News. The web browser on the Archos works really well and I was able to load up my blog without any issues. It even displayed the flash ad banners which I have on my site, something which Safari on the iPhone can’t do.

Now the negative stuff. The device is heavier than I expected which isn’t really a problem for me since I will only be using it on the plane. I also had trouble playing one movie, every time I tried it would just crash the Archos. I am thinking its because of the way the movie was encoded but need to experiment more with this. It was a 1.8GB file. Quantum of Solace which I have encoded with AC3 sound and coming in at around 1.4GB played flawlessly.

So far I am really liking the device. I know some of you might have specific things you want to know about the Archos just ask me below and I will try to reply. The Archos 5 and 7 are basically the same device except for the larger screen and longer battery life on the 7.

160GB Archos 7 is for $272. [Amazon Link]
320GB Archos 7 is for $412. [Amazon Link]

Aramex just dropped off my Archos 7 and it looks AMAZING. Will take a better shot of it later but I just took this quick one to show how much larger the screen is compared to my iPhone. This is going to make watching movies on the plane a lot better now!

I was at Smoke House with Nat having lunch when a friend of ours called up saying her friends had rescued 3 puppies and didn’t know what to do with them. We finished up our lunch and headed towards Adan area where we met up with our friend, Jasem from the Six-K Club and his best friend. Jasem and his friend rescued the three puppies after finding them locked up without food or water.

Turns out the owner of these dogs went insane and the cops came to take him away. When they came and found the three puppies they locked one up in the bathroom and then shoved the other two into a small pigeon cage in the back yard. No water, no food, just left there to die. They had been left like that for 6 days before Jasem and his friend found them. The puppies were very dehydrated and starving.

We first called Animal Friends League and no one picked up, so we then called PAWs and as usual no one picked up from their side. Once we hung up we got a call back from Animal Friends who asked us if we could drop the puppies off at their farm in Wafra which we agreed to. After giving the dogs some water and food we took off to Wafra.

Its extremely extremely disappointing and sad to hear how the cops treated the puppies. I don’t know what to say, maybe they should just ban dogs in Kuwait once and for all. At least that way the dogs won’t suffer in the hands of abusive kids or get left to die in tiny cages under the scorching sun. Thanks Animal Friends for taking in the dogs. They need all the help they can get so if you want to know how you can help them out click [Here]

The blog is currently being prepared to be moved over to the new server on Rackspace. The forum is going to be shut down until the move is completed and there will be no posts on this blog until Saturday.

If you leave a comment from now till Saturday on this blog there is a chance it won’t be there once the blog is up on the new server. Sorry for any inconvenience, it should be a quick and painless move.

Update: Ok the forum is now on Rackspace. Its no longer mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com/forum you now can access it by going to forum.mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com

Update2: The blog is now on Rackspace. Took only around an hour thanks to Rami.

Update3: My email is still down at the moment.

Update4: Email is working and by the looks of it everything else on the blog. The move is complete, I just have a few things related to the theme and the forum I need to adjust. Rackspace my server provider emailed me and then called me because they read on my twitter I was having minor issues. They read my twitter and then called me! Thats fanatical support!

Aramex dropped off my Konia Auto S3 rangefinder today. It turned out to be a lot smaller then I expected, maybe around half the size of the Yashica Electro 35 GSN which I got last week. I actually bought this camera because it was going to be small since Nat will be using it and its small enough to fit into her hand bag. Now we just need to find something to shoot!

Smoke House is a place I heard about recently from a friend. They opened up just two months ago in Mahboula and I posted about them a few days ago. Everyone who visited the place had good things to say about it so I got there with high expectations only to feel let down once I saw the place.

Smoke House is a very tiny restaurant with a very lame looking exterior and a pretty uninspiring interior. There is no love at first sight here more like what the frak brought me to this place! I passed by with a friend of mine and when we arrived 2 out of the 4 tables were occupied. We sat down and were greeted by a very friendly waitress and were given the menus to look over. I quickly decided to go with a chili cheese fries for starters, a Smoke House Burger (medium well) with cheese for my main dish and a side order of mashed potatoes with gravy. My friend ordered the lamb chops with a side order of coleslaw and sweet corn and butter. For drinks I decided to order root beer since I noticed one of the other diners was drinking root beer out of an A&W root beer jug so I decided I would have one also.

My burger arrived awhile later and I was totally shocked. It had to be the best burger presentation I had ever seen and I don’t mean just in Kuwait. The plate had a very gourmet like presentation to it and the burger looked very appetizing, I quickly took my shots before I bit into the burger. The burger didn’t come with any lettuce or tomatoes just a bit of thinly sliced onions and cheese. I think I’ve mentioned this before but I don’t think lettuce or tomatoes belong in a good burger, it takes away from the flavor which in this case was great. The patty was thick (not too thick) and very juicy. The bun was soft, looked wonderful and although was surrounded by some juice when it arrived it wasn’t soggy. The only negative thing about my burger was the fact the cheese wasn’t melted properly.

I went to Smoke House expecting a good burger but I didn’t expect this. I’ve decided to give this burger a 4.5 out of 5 making it the highest rated burger in my burger challenge so far. The root beer I ordered by the way tasted like crap. Turns out they weren’t using A&W root beer just their mugs but the waitress was nice enough to swap it with a regular coke and I wasn’t charged for the root beer. Other than that issue the sweet corn and butter was great, the coleslaw was very good, my friend’s lamb chops were supposedly also delicious and the quantity was huge. For dessert I had an apple pie and I ended up really liking that too. They really need a nicer and much larger place but according to the waitress if they do good for 6 months then they will be opening up a bigger place which makes good sense. The prices are also very affordable if anything maybe a bit under priced and I liked the way they dealt with my complaint, very professional. I’m actually going back there tomorrow with another friend and I am going to try and convince myself to have something other than the burger, maybe their Philly cheese steak. Good stuff.

Smokehouse is located in Mahboula
The cost of the Smokehouse Cheeseburger is KD1.950

Update: It seems they’ve changed their burger! Not sure why anyone would do this but their new burger doesn’t taste the same as the one in the review.

I really hate how trees are not given enough importance in Kuwait. Everywhere else in the world the planting and growing of trees is encouraged but here in Kuwait we cut them down, dig them out or landscape the hell out of them until they look “cute”. Yesterday a friend of mine living in Salwa told me about how the authorities came into Salwa and started destroying trees planted on government property. I thought that was very sad until I saw some pictures a forum user posted and now I’m furious!

I’ve seen the same thing happen near my place in Salmiya. There was a parking lot that had planted trees on the pavement around the lot and the authorities came and cut the trees and left. The square sand boxes where the trees used to be are still there just without the trees. Whats so bad about planting trees on government property? Why can’t the trees be left alone?

Thanks Ramez for the pictures!

Today Aramex dropped off my Yashica camera which I posted about two weeks ago. The camera turned out to be in even better condition than I expected. I am going to load up some film and take some pictures which I will post here once I get them developed.

I don’t know whats up with me and photography lately. Just purchased another camera, this time a Konica Auto S3 from the late 70’s. I found one in mint condition on eBay and it cost me around KD60. Its got a very fast and sharp 38mm f/1.7 lens and I think it one of the best looking compact rangefinders ever. Speaking of film, Ashraf and Boushahri both don’t carry any decent film and neither do they sell slide film. Kodak no longer even processes slide film while Boushahri luckily still does. This means I’ve got to buy my favorite film (Fuji Velvia 50) from Amazon or wherever I travel to.

So my plans of getting a Voigtlander Bessa R3A on hold for now. Instead I decided to get a near mint condition Yashica Electro 35 GSN. This rangefinder was produced between 1973-1977 and has a very sharp 45mm f/1.7 lens. I got mine from eBay for around KD20 which is actually considered expensive since most of them go for $20 or less. If you want to see samples of photos taken with the Yashica you can check out the Yashica Electro pool on flickr by clicking [Here]

After taking the picture of “The Almond Tree” with my Sony W300 I decided I wanted to invest in a macro lens for my Nikon D70 and D90. A macro lens would allow me to shoot subjects from extremely close distances. I started looking for a cheap macro lens because it isn’t something I do a lot of (macro photography) so I didn’t want to spend too much money on it. After a bit of research I found the Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro lens. At $255 it wasn’t very cheap but got great reviews and the lens was very sharp.

But as I said, $255 wasn’t cheap and on eBay used ones were still around $150, cheaper but I still wasn’t convinced. Then I found out about “reversing adapter rings” (pictured above). Turns out there is a ring which you fasten to the front of your lens, and that ring allows you to connect the lens to your camera in reverse. When you connect your lens in reverse to your camera you get to shoot in macro. Sounds strange I know, and connecting your lens to your camera the wrong way round is sure to raise some eyebrows but I bought the ring and it works!

Below in the first shot you can see the bushes outside my office building. I took that picture with my 50mm lens at the closest distance I could get before the lens stopped focusing.

In the second picture I shot using the same lens just mounted in reverse using the adapter ring. It’s much more closer and it’s still using the same lens!

I don’t know whats the Canon version of this ring but the Nikon one is called BR-2A. I got mine from Amazon.co.uk for KD10. There is a ring on Amazon.com but it doesn’t mention if its the BR-2A although it looks like it and its selling for KD5.

So if you are looking for an affordable way to get into macro photography this is the way to go. The adapter rings works on both my 28mm and 50mm prime lenses.

Update: Another advantage of this ring is you don’t need to carry another heavy macro lens with you, you just carry this ring.

I recently decided that whenever I travel I want to take a 35mm film camera with me instead of a digital camera. I realized when I have a limited amount of pictures I can take (36 per roll) I tend to take only the shots I really want and not just everything I see. With digital cameras I come back from my trips with hundreds of photos and I spend a lot of time deleting random junk because instead of spending more time taking 1 shot I use that time to take 5 shots of the same thing.

So I decided to stick with film instead of digital. When I went to Munich last year I took my 30 year old Nikon FE and came back with a lot of cool vintage looking shots. [Check here] Thats why I started looking for a new film camera, one that has personality which is something very important for me.

I started first by checking out the Nikon F3, then the Nikon F4, then the Yashica Electro 35 GSN, then the Canon QL17 GIII, then the Konica S2, followed by the Konica S3 until I finally landed on the Voigtlander Bessa R3A which is pictured in this post. Its one of the best looking camera I have ever seen. Its extremely well built and to some people its one of the best rangefinder cameras ever made right behind the Zeiss Ikon. I found one on eBay second hand that came with the fastest 40mm lens ever made, a Voigtlander 40/1.4 Nokton. Bidding was ending at 4:50AM so I set my alarm to 4:40AM and went to bed at 10PM. The maximum I wanted to pay was $500 since brand new the camera and lens were selling for $940. Sadly I didn’t win the bid. Even though I ended up increasing my budget to $600 the auction ended at $606 and the other person bidding looked like he could have taken it even further.

Now I need to decide what to do but I just wanted to share this camera with everyone now that the auction is over. Its such a beautiful camera!

I got home after work to find a bunch of retards fighting under my building. I parked my car in the basement and walked up to the ground floor to find around 20 teenagers (16-18 year olds) shouting, screaming and shoving each other around. I watched them for like 5 minutes and then decided to go upstairs and watch them from my balcony. A lot of fights erupt next to my building because there is a billiard place in the building next door that attracts a lot of the wrong crowd. There is also a prostitution ring that operates in that same building but they only open for business like once a week and its a pretty tightly run ship with high end customers so they never cause any problems (I should post about them one day). The billiard place on the other hand just attracts all these trashy kids that want to fight for the dumbest reasons.

While watching the fight from my balcony I heard what sounded like one guy yelling at who I thought was one of the Bangladeshi janitors in my building so I went back downstairs to make sure no one did anything to the workers. Turns out the workers were inside the building away from harms way but the fight outside had turned really violent with guys holding cutters and some guys bleeding. I live in a shopping mall in the old Salmiya street and these guys were basically fighting in the backside, then moving inside the mall and then back out to the front of the building onto the main Salmiya street. It was ridiculous! So I asked the landlord if he had called the cops and he told me yeah when the fight had first started but no one had come yet.

20 minutes later and the cops still hadn’t showed up. Actually the fight dispersed and everyone ended up going their separate ways and the cops never showed up. I went back up to my apartment while the janitors started to clean up the blood stains. Unbelievable.