Category: Technology

When the M1 iMac came out back in 2021, I bought one with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. It was fast, especially after moving up from an old Intel-Mac iMac. More than 3 years later the iMac was still great, I never felt it was slow and really didn’t have any issues with it except for two things:

• The color no longer suited my apartment. I went through a major redesign last year and the green iMac wasn’t working in my space.

• The second issue I had was with the hard drive, 1TB wasn’t enough anymore and I kept running out of space. I couldn’t solve it with an external drive since majority of the space was taken up with my Photos library. I thought about moving it to an external drive but I read I would end up with issues which I didn’t want to risk or deal with.

I was also honestly looking for an excuse to pick up the Mac Studio, I loved the way it looked and just wanted to have one. I kept building a Mac Studio hoping I’d eventually pull the trigger but I kept hesitating and eventually knew I was too late to buy one since it was due for an M3 or M4 upgrade. I stayed patient and then the M4 Mac mini was announced.

It looked like the Mac Studio, but was a lot more smaller and much more cheaper. So I pulled the trigger and bought one.

Initially I wanted to get the Mac mini with the M4 Pro chip, but after realizing how much upgrading to 2TB was going to cost me, I decided not to go with the Pro. I never had a speed issue with my M1, and from what I read about the M4 Pro, I wouldn’t really benefit much from it anyway so to save some money I decided to stick to the “regular” M4. I ended up upgrading the RAM from 16GB to 24GB, and the hard drive to 2TB. The hard drive upgrade cost me $800! That’s more than the cost of the Mac mini by quite a bit. It’s crazy, but I guess that’s how Apple manages to set the entry price of the Mac mini so low, they make up for it with the upgrades. $200 to go from 16GB to 24GB RAM, and $800 to go from a 256GB hard drive to a 2TB one. $1,000 worth of upgrades on a $600 computer!

But, overall it was still a lot cheaper than the Mac Studio I had been building on the Apple website for months now which is why I still pulled the trigger.

I ended up buying the Apple Display from Xcite since they were selling it for KD499, similar price to apple.com not including tax or shipping. Once you include tax and shipping the price shoots up much higher than Xcite. You can find the display cheaper on Amazon but even then, once you add tax and shipping the price ends up being similar to Xcite.

Now that I have everything installed and running I really love my new setup. The Mac mini is really small and doesn’t take up much space on my desk. The Apple display is big and beautiful as well, it’s not much bigger than the iMac screen (24″ vs 27″), but it does give me much more room to have two windows open side by side comfortably. It also expands my USB-C ports by an additional 4 ports, and has a Mic built in which is great since the Mac mini doesn’t have a mic.

Having 2TB is probably the biggest relief since I don’t have anxiety about running out of space and this should last a pretty long time with me since I don’t really store any large video files or anything of the sort on my iMac, just my photos which are around 600GB, and work and blog related files which are less than 300GB.

The only negative I have with the Mac mini is that the headphone jack is on the front which means if I want to physically connect them to my speakers I need to have a wire running out the front. I have KEF LSX speakers next to my display and with my previous iMac I ran them over Bluetooth. But it isn’t very reliable as in every few days the speakers lose sync with the video on my Mac and I need to disconnect and reconnect to get them to sync again. With the Mac mini I was hoping to connect them with an optical out or audio out but from the back. I have a USB-C to headphone jack adapter but decided to get a USB-C to optical out and ordered one from Amazon. But I now have another issue, the adapter I got doesn’t support volume control from the Mac so that’s around 15KD wasted and I either need to find another optical out that supports volume control, or just give in and use my USB-C to headphone jack and connect the speakers that way.

But other than that I don’t have any complaints, and no regrets with my purchase either!

I hadn’t heard of “F1 in Schools” before so was confused when I found out they were opening in The Avenues. I thought it might be a racing school but it turned out to be engineering related. This is how it’s described on Wikipedia:

F1 in Schools is an international STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) competition for school children (aged 11–19), in which groups of 3–6 students have to design and manufacture a miniature car out of the official F1 Model Block using CAD/CAM design tools. The cars are powered by CO2 cartridges and are attached to a track by a nylon wire. They are timed from the moment they are launched to when they pass the finish line by a computer.

While researching I found out that in Kuwait, BSK were already involved with F1 in Schools (Check the post above). With The Avenues location opening the program will become accessible to more children. The Avenues location will be managed by the non-profit organization Sabah Al-Ahmad Center for Giftedness and Creativity and KFAS.

I’ve reached out to find out more about this and when they’re planning to open, but for now you can check f1inschools.com for more information or watch the video above to watch the 2023 world finals

This is just a quick review of this really great tiny and cheap Bluetooth transmitter/receiver. I’m posting about it for anyone googling a solution for their Bang & Olufsen A9 like I did.

Back in 2013 (so over 10 years ago which is crazy), I bought a Bang & Olufsen A9. Not sure what had gotten into me, probably related to some trauma from my divorce back then, but I somehow thought it was ok then to pay 890KD for it. The speaker actually ended up costing me more than that because after setting it up at home and realizing it didn’t look as good in my apartment as it did in the shop, I ended up redecorating my whole apartment around it (true story)!

Fast forward to today, I got married again and so redid my apartment and the A9 is back in the spotlight again. It looks even better now with my new aesthetic, but because technology has come a long way since I bought the A9, I was having issues streaming music to it. The AirPlay would work on and off, sometimes I needed to reboot the speaker to get it working right and it was just annoying to use, and so it was there for looks only. I was then googling to see if the unit had Bluetooth and confirmed it didn’t, but then I came across some people asking if there was a way to get bluetooth installed and someone mentioned getting a Bluetooth receiver. So I started researching and realized that, if I found a bluetooth unit tiny enough and ran off USB power, I could potentially strap it onto the back of the A9 with velcro or something, and just like that I’d have Bluetooth on my A9.

After doing some research on Amazon, I eventually decided on the LAICOMEIN 2-in-1 Bluetooth Adapter. It was both a Bluetooth receiver and transmitter, it was tiny, could be powered with USB, and it cost just $30. Now that I have it I can’t believe how perfect this little thing is.

My B&O A9 has a small compartment on the back with a cover. Inside the compartment is where you connect the power cable, ethernet, and RCA inputs. But, there is also a USB port which was used to connect to the iPhone during the first time setup. The LAICOMEIN came with everything I needed to connect to the A9 and the set up was SUPER easy. I just had to put the switch on the bluetooth unit to receiver mode, I then connected the USB cable and line-in cable to it, and then plugged the other end of the USB cable to the back of my A9 and the line out into the RCA inputs. As soon as I plugged it into the USB port a red light came on to let me know it had power, I then pressed and held the power button down to turn it on and switch to pairing mode. That was it! The A9 automatically detected there was a device connected to the RCA input so switched to that, and then my bluetooth turntable saw the A9 and connected to it. The whole thing took less than 5 minutes to set up.

The LAICOMEIN is also so small that I didn’t need to figure out a way to strap it to the back, it just fit inside the tiny compartment at the back of the A9, and then I just closed the cover and you can’t even tell there is anything there. It’s perfect!

Speaking of my bluetooth turntable. I recently found a great deal on a Pro-ject T1 BT turntable on eBay. It was a brand new open box unit and I managed to snatch it up for $284 with tax and shipping (add another 30KD to ship to Kuwait). In comparison it costs $499 on Amazon without tax so I basically got it for half the price. But, the T1 BT has the WORST implementation of bluetooth I’ve seen on any device ever. The bluetooth module is a separate unit at the bottom of the player with a separate on and off switch. The plan originally was to pair it with my KEF LSX speakers, but I couldn’t get the pairing to work. There are no lights on the T1 letting me know if bluetooth is on, if it’s connected to anything, or if it’s pairing and I just couldn’t figure it out. Eventually I gave up on it, but as soon as I installed the bluetooth receiver into the A9, I turned on the bluetooth switch on the side of the T1 just out of curiosity to see if anything happens, and right away it connected! So now my record player is connected to my A9 and I think I like this setup now.

So yeah, at just $30, LAICOMEIN 2-in-1 Bluetooth Adapter is a great purchase and I’m now thinking of getting one for my B&O Beolit 12 which I also purchased 11 years ago and also only has AirPlay. If you want to get Bluetooth on an old device, I totally recommend this, here is the link to it on Amazon.

Over the past couple of days there have been rumors floating around about Elon Musk coming to Kuwait. It’s being reported by some local news sites which I hadn’t heard of before, which is why I’m marking this as a rumor for now.

Allegedly, Elon Musk is expected to visit Kuwait in the next few days for discussions aimed at establishing Kuwait as a global hub for artificial intelligence.

This is where things gets strange, there is a secretive GPU cloud startup in Kuwait called Omniva that have plans to build a huge data center in Kuwait. The company is headed by big names who came in from companies like Amazon AWS, META and Microsoft. The data center which is under construction is located at the entrance of Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City (Road 278). source

I reached out to Elon Musk and Omniva to confirm all this, but I haven’t heard back from them yet.

It’s been a year since I first tried 5G and so I wanted to post a quick update on how it’s been. Since my initial review last year, a lot more people have now gotten 5G and the prices have dropped considerably. When 5G first came out we got it at the office and our monthly fee was KD45. When I got mine last year, I was paying KD19 for 1TB. Earlier this year prices dropped even further and so Zain called me up and told me that they were changing my package from KD19 for 1TB to KD19 for 4TB. A cool gesture considering on two occasions I had exceeded my 1TB bandwidth before the end of the month.

But, because there are now a lot more people on the network, the speeds aren’t what they used to be. When I initially reviewed 5G I was getting speeds of 650-750Mbps on average with the occasional 1.0-1.2Gbps. For the past 6 months, the highest speed I’ve seen is 390Mbps which I was actually surprised to see this morning when I ran the speed test for this post. In full transparency, that was actually the fastest speed I achieved over a number of tests this morning with the lowest coming out to 290Mbps which is close to the speeds I’ve been getting recently. On CITRA, the highest speed I got was 366Mbps.

The fastest connection I could get where I live before 5G was 28Mbps with Zain Beam. So although I’m not getting the 600+ speeds I used to get, I’m still getting speeds 100x 10x faster than my previous connection. I think as long as it stays around 300Mbps I’m good, if it drops down to the 100s I’d still be ok I guess, just annoyed because I used to get 700Mbps. According to Open Signal real-world download speeds, the average 5G connection speed in Kuwait is 185Mbps (one of the telecoms must be killing the curve) so I’m above average. Kuwait actually has the 6th fastest 5G connection speeds in the world according to the same data.

So do I still recommend 5G? Yup, 100% especially with the current prices (10KD for 1TB). So if you’re still on 4G it’s definitely worth upgrading.

A few weeks ago I ordered a new turntable (Fluance RT81) from Amazon since the one I had was from the 60s and sounded great when playing old stuff, but not so great with newer music. Once the record player arrived I decided I’d look for a new pair of speakers that I would just use with it. I ended up passing by Xcite and narrowing down my options to the KEF LSX and The Sixes by Klipsch. Both sounded great, The Sixes looked retro which matched well with my player but they were also fairly big and bulky. The KEF were a perfect size, but they didn’t have the retro look of The Sixes which I liked. In the end, I decided not to buy either one because the KEF cost KD340 and the Klipsch KD240. I already had my B&O Beolit 15 speaker which I wasn’t using, so I decided to connect that to the turntable instead and save myself some money.

No bullshit, a few days later I log into Reddit from my browser and noticed someone had sent me a direct message with the chat feature. I check Reddit from my phone daily but the app I use doesn’t support chat and so I didn’t know someone had tried contacting me. The message was two weeks old from someone at Xcite asking me if I’d be interested in reviewing the KEF LSX. I right away replied back with my phone number hoping I wasn’t too late. A few days later I headed to Xcite to pick up the speakers to review.

Full disclosure, I have a long-standing relationship with Xcite who provided me with this speaker to keep. They’ve been very supportive of the blog from the very early days and they’ve lent or given me a number of items over the years to review, as well as hooking me up with discounts. I’m a huge Xcite fan.

The KEF’s turned out to be a perfect size for my turntable. They don’t overpower it and although they don’t look retro, they did fit in looking very cool on my cabinet. The speakers come in five different colors but I opted for black since it would match my space better. All the colors are clad in a fabric made by the Danish contemporary textile designer, Kvadrat so the speakers look and feel very premium (they’re also pretty heavy).

Each one of the KEF speakers has it’s own built-in amplifier so I had to connect each speaker to a separate power outlet. The reason for this is the speakers can be used wirelessly and placed in different areas around the room so they each need their own power supply. The KEF has four sources of input, Bluetooth, WiFi, optical input and a 3.5mm auxiliary input. I connected the record player through the auxiliary input and as soon as I played one of my records I was completely blown away. I didn’t think records could sound so good or clear, that partially had to do with the fact I had previously been listening to records with my vintage record player but it also had to do with the fact how good these speakers sounded. For their small size, the speakers were crystal clear and fairly loud. I could hear so many different layers of instruments and even at max volume, they never distorted or sounded muddy. In fact, the speakers sounded so good I started researching KEF speakers for my home theater.

For those of you who are interested in wirelessly connecting to the speakers, other than Bluetooth they support Airplay 2 and have Spotify and Tidal built-in. Although I’m using it with an analog connection to my record player, I do have the speakers connected to my WiFi network so I could connect to it with the KEF app. The KEF app allows you to manage all the settings of the speaker including the volume control, input port as well as various detailed sound options.

Speaking of the volume control, there are some downsides to these speakers with the main one for me being the lack of a physical volume knob. The only way to lower or raise the volume is with the included remote control or through the KEF app. I guess that’s practical if you don’t want to get off the couch, but with my vinyl player I tend to spend a lot of time up next to it swapping records and flipping them over, so I want to be able to reach out and raise or lower the volume without having to pick up the remote. The other negative is the lack of deep bass. Although most reviewers online state the unit has good bass, that really depends on the music you listen to. I wouldn’t listen to electronic music with these speakers, not unless I attach them to a subwoofer (it has a subwoofer output port). But since most of my vinyls are composed of old music from the 70s or MTV Unplugged sessions, the speakers performed really well without needing a subwoofer.

At KD340 these speakers aren’t cheap, but then again you wouldn’t be looking at KEF speakers if you wanted something cheap. The best way to really appreciate these speakers is by listening to them in a quiet environment because no matter how many YouTubers say these speakers are great, you’re not gonna know what great sounds like unless you hear them in person. Personally, I think these speakers sound incredible, so much so that I’ve been trying to figure out how to make more use of them since I don’t use my turntable a lot and I really want to listen to these speakers more.

If you’d like to hear the speakers, they’re on display at the large Xcite in Avenues and their Al-Rai location. The speakers are also available on their website.

Yesterday while going through some old boxes at my parents place I found my old pager from high school (circa 1994/1995). I didn’t know I still had it so was pretty surprised to find it. I looked around the device to see what kind of charging cable I needed but I couldn’t find a charging port. Then I remembered it used regular batteries so I popped open the battery cover and inserted one AA battery and lo and behold, the pager turned on!

For those of you too young to know what a pager is or how it works, it was basically a device that was used before mobile phones when you wanted to talk to someone. Every pager had a phone number and when you called it, the number you’re calling from would display on the pagers screen. The pager owner would then call back the number when they were near a phone to see who called. When you would call a pager, the automated answering system would also ask you if you wanted to leave an optional 3 digit code. That 3 digit code would show up on the persons paging device when you called. So usually you would assign different codes to different friends, so say my best friend would use “666” that way when I get a page and I see “666” after the phone number, I know it’s my best friend trying to get a hold of me. If you left “010” it basically meant fuck you, “911” meant it was urgent and I’m sure there were other numbers that also had other meanings.

What I also remembered was how when you got a page you’d go looking for a shop that would let you use their phone so you could call back the number from. I mostly ended up using the phones at baqalas but it was also an issue the other way around. Sometimes you would use the phone of a shop or a baqala to page a friend, and then you’d just wait at the place near the phone for your friend to call you back.

The pager model I had I think was the most popular (Panasonic EK-2097), but I think there were only ever two models of pagers available to choose from back then. There were no private telecom companies, the pager I have was from the government operated Mobile Telephone Systems Co. (K.S.C.) which I think later became Mobile Telecommunications Company (M.T.C.) which later became Zain. If I’m wrong, let me know in the comments.

It’s been almost two months since the release of the Nintendo Switch and in this latest podcast we discuss our overall impressions of the console, why we’re loving it, what issues we’ve had with it and how its changed our gaming habits.

Play in Browser | iTunes | Android | Download | RSS

Post by Patrick

This is a pretty random post but its a slow news day so whatever. I’ve slowly started replacing all my bulbs at home with LED ones as the old incandescent light bulbs burn out. I’ve been hesitant so far mostly because the popular Philips LED bulbs found in supermarkets are too cold colorwise and so would make my place look like crap.

But, I decided to try the IKEA LED bulbs and surprisingly their color matches my old incandescent bulbs pretty closely. In the picture above I’ve got the three different bulbs in use to show you the differences. In reality though the color difference between the IKEA and regular incandescent is barely noticeable. Can you figure out which are the incandescent, IKEA or Philips bulbs in the photo? Once you’re done guessing you can find out if you were right by clicking [Here]

Not only do the IKEA bulbs have an accurate warm color, but they’re also around half the price of the Philips LED bulbs. So if you’re interested in LED bulbs, IKEA is the way to go.

A couple of weekends back I went camping in the desert and nearly got completely lost on the way there. I usually go camping with a friend of mine in this secluded area around an hour plus drive into the desert from Al Salmi. This time around my friend headed into the desert first since I had some errands I needed to get done during the day and then headed into the desert in the afternoon. The whole journey takes around two hours from Salmiya so by the time I got close to camp it was dark and I couldn’t see anything except the road in front of me. I had Google Maps coordinates of our camp site on my phone and was following it without issues until I hit what I think must have been Kuwait’s Bermuda Triangle.

As I got close to our camping spot my phone just started messing up. I’d be driving towards my blue dot on Google Maps and then 15 minutes later the map suddenly rotates and so now the blue dot is behind me. So I’d turn the car around and head the other way, 20 minutes later the map rotates again and now the blue dot is on my right instead of straight ahead. It did this a couple of more times before I realized I was driving around in circles wasting precious fuel in the empty desert and completely lost. I was about to give up and just camp in this random spot in the middle of nowhere until the sun comes up when I remembered I had a little Garmin eTrex 20 in the trunk with my camping gear.

I had bought the Garmin for exactly this situation, to use if I ever get lost when hiking or camping. So I dug it out of my gear, turned it on, entered the coordinates of my campsite and right away the Garmin pointed me to the right direction. I was so off course I had to drive another 30 minutes to get to camp. Moral of the story? If you’re ever heading into the desert don’t rely on your phone for navigation. Instead, invest in a dedicated GPS device since it could save your ass one day.

Back in 2013 I picked up the Beolit 12 from the local Bang & Olufsen dealer. Although I had buyers remorse at first, I quickly got over it as soon as I started using it and then instantly fell in love with it. Other than the beautiful design, the Beolit sounded incredible especially since it was a small portable unit that ran on batteries. It turned out to be a great buy and I started taking it to the beach and outdoor gatherings with me, even friends were always telling me to bring it along, thats how good it was.

But, back in January my Beolit stopped holding a charge. I ended up with a fairly common blinking red light issue with the and the battery was just dead. Thankfully the unit was still covered under warranty and the local dealer (who are great btw) managed to order a new battery from Dubai and get it installed in my unit. Everything was great again until last month when I got the blinking red light again. This time my unit was out of warranty but I couldn’t even pay to get it fixed since the model was discontinued and the dealer had no more batteries to swap. Instead the dealer offered me a discount on the newer Beolit 15, and I would be able to buy it for KD175. I checked Amazon UK though just to compare and noticed that with shipping to Kuwait the price was KD133 for the exact same model. I sent them a screenshot and they got back to me telling me the lowest they could do is KD150. I took that deal and I’m now a proud owner of both the Beolit 12 and 15.

Since there weren’t any decent comparison posts online I figured I’d put one together. Originally I was planning on selling my Beolit 12 but now I decided to keep it since I realized although both models look the same, they’re pretty different with how they work.

First thing you’ll notice is the price difference, the newer Beolit 15 is considerably cheaper than the 12. I originally paid KD250 for the Beolit 12 but like I mentioned, you can get the 15 from Amazon UK delivered to you in Kuwait for just KD133. I think the price drop probably has to do with the fact they’ve cut a few corners (more on that later), that the Beolit 15 no longer uses Apple’s proprietary protocol Airplay (so no licensing fees to pay Apple) and also because they’ve now been producing the Beolit for a few years so it’s probably cheaper to make.

The Beolit 15 no longer uses Airplay and instead uses Bluetooth which most people will prefer, but not me, and I’ll explain why. With the Beolit 12 I could setup the unit on my home network and then stream music to the unit whenever I wanted from wherever I was in the house. The Beolit 15 on the other hand uses Bluetooth. I like Bluetooth, it definitely makes things more convenient as a portable unit, it also allows Android users to stream music to it but it also makes it less practical as a home system compared to the 12. B&O have included a “power saving” feature where after 15 minutes of inactivity, the unit shutdowns… even when connected to a power source! This means every time I want to stream music to the Beolit I need to go to my bedroom and turn it on first. Doesn’t sound like a big deal but it is because I didn’t have to do that before and there is no technical reason why B&O you shouldn’t be able to keep the Beolit 15 always on when connected to a power source. Another issue that arrises because of Bluetooth is that my phone now has to be close to the unit. I have my Beolit in my bedroom, if I play music when I first wake up, I can’t then take my phone and move to my laundry room to iron a shirt because the music will start cutting off. I need to leave my phone in the bedroom if I want the music to keep playing which isn’t practical. This is why I’ve decided to keep my Beolit 12 as my permanently-plugged-in-always-on-bedroom-speaker, and the Beolit 15 strictly for when I need music when I go camping or to the beach. On the bright side, side by side the Beolit 15 surprisingly sounded a bit better, the music sounded fuller and I think it’s because it has a slightly different speaker arrangement. It’s not a big difference but it was noticeable when switching between one unit and the other.

There are a few other differences between the two models. The Beolit 12 has flat touch buttons on top of the device to control the unit while the Beolit 15 has push buttons. I prefer the flat buttons since I think it makes the device more water proof. I’ve had liquids spill on top of the unit and the buttons kept working because there was nowhere for the liquid to seep in. I’d imagine with the new push buttons, the liquids would be able to make their way inside unless the buttons are weather proofed and I haven’t be able to find any info on that. Another change is the leather handle, the Beolit 12 had a thicker harder leather handle while the 15 has a thinner softer leather handle so I’m worried the new handle isn’t as durable as the older model. Finally the power cable on the Beolit 15 is a regular black cable that feels cheap and looks out of place while the Beolit 12 had a cable with a color that matched the unit and was also thicker and had a nice texture to it.

If it sounds like I’m being picky thats because I am. End of the day this is a beautifully designed speaker by Bang & Olufsen and small things like using a cheap looking black power cable hurts the design. Instead of feeling like I stepped up with the Beolit 15, it feels like I’ve stepped down to an economical version of the Beolit 12. But then again that would explain why it’s now considerably cheaper. Battery life on both devices is supposed to be similar but I haven’t timed it or anything myself. B&O say the Beolit 15 has a 24 hour battery life but they said that about the A2 and I have yet to make it last more than a few hours. So thats marketing BS, expect it to last around 4-8 hours depending on how loud you play it, just like the Beolit 12.

Would I recommend the Beolit 15? As a portable unit for sure, I doubt you’ll find anything that sounds as good or looks as good and with the new price point its definitely much more accessible. But if you’re looking primarily for a small home speaker and you use Apple devices, then I would recommend the older Beolit 12 instead. It’s still available to buy and although slightly more expensive, the ability to keep it always on and being able to keep your phone anywhere you want in the house makes it a much more practical home speaker.

If you’re interested in the Beolit 15, they come in a variety of colors (mine is polar blue) and is available locally I believe for KD195 and on Amazon UK for around KD133 or KD150 (shipped to Kuwait) depending on the color. Here is the Amazon UK [Link]

3D printers are a lot more common and accessible nowadays and I’m fascinated with the technology. As a huge Star Trek (TNG) nerd, a 3D printer to me is the first step towards a Replicator, a device that prints out whatever you want from food to gadgets. 3D printers are still a long way off to becoming a fully functioning Replicator, but we’re on the right track and they’re becoming more mainstream and affordable which brings me to the Micro 3D (M3D) printer. The local M3D dealer sent me a Micro 3D printer to review and I’ve been playing around with it for a few weeks now and figured it was about time I write about it.

The Micro 3D printer started off as a kickstarter project back in 2014, their goal was originally to get $50,000 worth of pledges but eventually ended up getting $3,401,361. It was a huge success and a year later they started shipping them out. So what is a 3D printer? It’s basically like your regular printer except instead of printing ink on paper, it uses plastic ink (filaments) to print out three dimensional objects. Over the course of the period I’ve had the printer I’ve printed random stuff like iPhone cable protectors (pictured below), a AA battery case, a Nintendo 3DS cartridge box, a small toy robot, a wrench for my Dremel (because I lost my original one) and a bunch of other random stuff. Even a new adapter for my Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Now all the items I printed were already 3D modeled since I don’t know how to use 3D software myself. The website with the largest library of 3D models is probably thingiverse.com. You can find anything you want there from car parts to the latest optical illusion that went viral last week. You just download the 3D model, load it up in your printer software and click print. Need a new iPhone cover? Just print one yourself, need a privacy shield for your iMac camera? Print one. A Pokemon ball? Print one. And if you do know how to use 3D software, then you could basically create anything you want.

The Micro 3D printer is a very compact device that doesn’t look intimidating at all. It comes in various colors and will sit nicely on any desk. There are no buttons on it, everything is controlled using the software so it has a very clean simple look to it. There is even an internal filament holder so that the ink stays hidden in the device but you could also mount the ink externally. One of the first things I printed was an external ink holder from the M3D website and it made swapping inks more practical. When it comes to the inks there are tons of colors to choose from and there are even two types, regular PLA ink and what M3D calls, the Tough Ink. I tried both types and prefer the Tough Ink since unlike the regular PLA, the Tough Ink has a rubber like feel to it and is flexible. Here is a video comparing the two [Video]. The disadvantage of Tough Ink is that it’s more expensive and a roll doesn’t last as long.

Over the few weeks I had the printer I did run into a bunch of issues, most of which aren’t printer specific. When your laser printer at home has a problem, it’s most likely a printer jam or you’ve run out of toner. With 3D printers there is so much more that can go wrong, for example here is a 3D printer troubleshooting page to give you an idea of all the various issues you might run into [Link]. Even something so minute as the room temperature can have an affect on the printing. It was frustrating at times but when you get everything working properly again you get a sense of reward, like you just cracked the Enigma code. Another issue is the amount of time it takes to print stuff out. The quickest thing I’ve printed took maybe 50 minutes while the longest took around 10 hours. I basically print stuff and go to sleep or leave the house. I’m not sure how much faster or slower other 3D printers are but it’s still something I wanted to point out in case you’re expecting to print stuff in a few minutes.

3D printers are still in their infancy but if you want to dabble in it then the M3D printer is a great way to start. The M3D printer costs KD155 while the regular PLA ink costs KD6 and the Tough Ink costs KD9. It’s one of the most affordable 3D printers on the market and I believe the most affordable one you can buy in Kuwait. It’s such a strange feeling to click print, go to sleep and then wake up to find a new object in your house that wasn’t there the night before. You’re essentially printing objects out of thin air and I’m really looking forward to seeing how this technology will evolve in the future.

If you’re interested in the M3D printer, the local dealer have a special deal right now for my readers, if you add the printer to your shopping cart and with it two regular PLA inks, use the promo code “248am” on check out and you’ll get the filaments for free. Here is the product page [Link]

Update: Here is a link to my collection of various 3D items that I’m interested in or already printed on [Thingiverse]

Haven’t tried using this app yet but hopefully it’s more reliable than the other taxi app I’ve tried using before, Q8 Taxi. I tried ordering a cab with Q8 Taxi when I had to drop off my car for detailing and the drivers kept canceling my taxi request. Whats taking Uber so long to launch in Kuwait??

To download Abi Taxi on your iPhone just search for Abi Taxi in the app store or click [Here]

Beitomatic is a small start up that belongs to a good friend of mine and I figured I’d post about it since he’s currently running a cool offer. It’s a home automation business and right now they’re running an offer on a home starter kit thats composed of Control4 brand components. So if this is something that interests you, check out their website [Here]

If you’re planning to buy an iPhone 6s in the next coming days I’d put a hold on that since I just found out that phone is officially launching in Kuwait this coming Saturday. Ooredoo sent out an invitation awhile ago for a midnight launch party this Friday to celebrate the launch of the phone. So if you were going to buy an iPhone this weekend you’ll most likely get a better price if you wait until till next week.