2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Today from work on our Fasttelco DSL connection I couldn’t access flickr using the URL www.flickr.com. When accessing flickr.com it would work but when I typed www.flickr.com I would getting the following error:

Forbidden
You were denied access because:
Access denied by access control list.

At first I thought it might have been just me and something to do with the server at work, BUT in the post below about flickr being banned in UAE, Bloboz commented that he was getting the forbidden access denied message. Is anyone else facing that issue? Is Fasttelco blocking flickr?

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

My brother sent me a link to a girls photoset on Flickr with pictures of her browsing flickr using her PSP. Here is the link.

Ok, I just installed Tiger on my Mac at work and I am fucked. One of the most important softwares I have called Extensis Suitcase is not yet compatible with Tiger. This means that I am stuck with default fonts in softwares like Illustrator and Photoshop. Now I need to figure out how to go back to Panther… THIS SUCKS!

Update: Ok this is what I did to kinda solve my problem for now. I copied the fonts I need the most to Library>Application Support>Adobe>Fonts. Now my fonts work with my Adobe Products. I will keep checking the Extensis Suitcase Tiger Compatibility Chart everyday till they fix it.

Someone is selling a 1999 model VW Golf on ebay that belonged to the new pope Ratzinger. I had a 1996 Golf in the same color. Cool. [Link]

Here is a list of the top 25 games of 2005 according to Joystiq.
Hmmmm no DS games?

* 96: Resident Evil 4 (GC)
* 95: God of War (PS2)
* 94: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (XBX)
* 92: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (PC)
* 91: World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 International (PS2)
* 91: Psychonauts (PC)
* 91: Jade Empire (XBX)
* 90: World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 International (XBX)
* 90: Silent Hunter III (PC)
* 89: Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GameBoy Advance)
* 89: World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 International (PC)
* 89: NBA Street V3 (PS2)
* 89: Tekken 5 (PS2)
* 89: Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (XBX)
* 89: Gran Turismo 4 (PS2)
* 89: Doom 3 (XBX)
* 89: NBA Street V3 (XBX)
* 89: WipEout Pure (PSP)

The Ghost That Feeds – Ray Parker Jr’s “Ghostbusters” vs. Nine Inch Nails “The Hand That Feeds” [Via]

I preordered 2 copies of the NIN new album With Teeth, limited edition dual disc version before they went out of stock on Amazon.

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.

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.

Was checking out what to buy with $15 on Amazon when I found a whole section devoted to Monopoly. There are 3 pages worth of various Monopoly games including a Monopoly Surfing Edition! Check it out.

Ok, in February if any of you remember, I placed an order on the Sultan Center website for A&W Root Beer. They were only getting the diet version here in Kuwait for some reason and it tasted like crap. So I asked them if they could bring me the regular version. Today I get a phone call, they got me regular A&W Root Beer! Carton contains 24 cans and it will cost me around KD4 per carton. Not cheap but better then nothing. I love root beer, when I was in Canada I never drank Pepsi or Coke, I always had a fridge full of just A&W Root Beer.

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

Ok, I had a $127 gift voucher to spend on Amazon yesterday and its all gone now except for $15. Anyone got anything interesting I could buy for $15?

Guess-The-Google is a very cool game. Basically the game displays some images and you need to figure out the word that was used to google it. I got 221 points the first time, 145 the second.. [Link]

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]