Search: “ace”

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 read an article on The Register about how the latest Bluetooth scare is that if you go to the United Arab Emirates, someone might hack your phone, implant porn on it, and you’d end up in jail. There are many people out there with bluetooth phones who could easily fall victim to this. I know this because I have witnessed 2 fellow employees at work, both with new phones and both the first time owning a bluetooth phone. Someone in the office had a nokia phone infected with a virus and it sent it to the 2 new phones, the employees thought someone was trying to chat with them and accepted to install the virus. These were young men in their 20s so imagine the problems older less technology understanding people would face. It would really suck to get thrown in jail for mobile porn.

The Lebanese communitee in Kuwait is organizing a Fund raising dinner gala aimed at providing financial contribution to all those who lost their jobs, suffered bodily injury, or endured tragic loss of life since the hideous crime carried out against the martyrs that fell on February 14th, 2005… and among them, fell the martyr Rafiq al Hariri.

The dinner will take place on the 14th of April, as we commemorate 60 days since the assasination, at the Lebanese famous restaurant Burj Al Hamam (Gulf Road).

We invite you to be part of a fund raising dinner that will take place in Kuwait as a support for our friends and families in our beloved country Lebanon. The event is supported by most of the Kuwaitis media, Future TV and companies in Kuwait.

For further information about the event’s program, tickets & reservations please contact: Mazen on +965-7899386 or Kaiis on +965-9865744

Today I had Burger King for lunch and was able to try the new Spicy Chicken Royal sandwich. Its been out for a while now but I hadn’t had the chance to try it till today. I have to say, I was very impressed. I think this might be my favorite sandwich of the week. I ordered the Spicy Chicken Royal sandwich with cheese combo plus a regular burger as a side order. Its not extremely spicy and if you like the Zingers at KFC then I would definitely recommend this sandwich. It actually has a similar flavor to the Zinger except without all the grease. I couldn’t find anything flawed with the sandwich except for the fact the cheese wasn’t really melted well. I prefer my slices of cheese melted on my sandwich and not just placed there. The final score for this sandwich, a high 4.5 out of 5.

There are many occasions when I need Dummy Text for my work. I might be working on a layout or an ad and I need some text to work as place holders until the final text is ready. So, instead of typing gibrish or using InDesign’s lipsum “Fill with placeholder text” option, I use an online real text generator. You tell it how many paragraphs you need and it will give the amount back. Here is the link.

This post is dedicated to Simply Stinni. BMW Films came out I think 2 to 3 years ago. They were short movies directed by famous people and starred famous people. For example the movie “Star” was directed by Guy Ritchie and starred Madonna. The budget was provided by BMW and each film had a different story then the other and different actors, except for one, Clive Owen. He played the same person in all the movies, a driver. Here is a summary of the movies from BMWfilms.com

Brace yourself for intricate plot twists, riveting car chases, and a dose of wit. All eight short films of The Hire, created by Hollywood’s finest talent, are available now for downloading and streaming.

These brilliantly produced films star Clive Owen as the driver. Hired for his superb driving skills and unshakable poise, the driver encounters unexpected obstacles that put his abilities to the test. Watch as each film reveals new depths of character, intrigue, and cinematography.

There are 8 movies in today. All free to download. Make sure you watch the Season 1 films.

[Link]

There’s a fairly simple way to achieve multi-player gaming on two PSPs using a single UMD disc, by starting the game on one console, starting an Ad Hoc Multiplayer game, then hot swapping the disc to the other device. It’s apparently working for Tony Hawk, Twisted Metal, and Ridge Racer with perhaps a few protocol tweaks here and there. More complete instructions here.

Just got back from a BBQ party. Its 11PM, we got there at 10. 1 hour is all I could handle. The party was at a friends place, a guy I have known since I was in highschool. A very nice guy that knows too many people. Me on the other hand I currently have 8 numbers on my phone, 4 of them are related to me. I am not a social person and I don’t like meeting new people. There were tons of cool looking people at the party, but making new friends takes time and effort, both things I lack. So an hour after coming to the party, me and nat got bored and left. An hour at the party is good, last time we went to a party at Hilton Resort, we left after 3 minutes.

Facing a problem parking your car when you shop at TSC Salmiya? Now you can leave the parking to us! Just drive up to the valet parking kiosk in front of the store, collect your ticket, and begin your shopping. When you’re finished, visit the valet service desk inside the store to arrange for your car pickup. Then pay for your purchases along with just 1 KD for the valet service. Your car will be waiting for you when you exit the store.

Hours of operation: 10 a.m – 11 p.m daily.

How to use TSC’s Valet Parking Service
– Drive your car to the TSC Valet Parking Kiosk
– Collect your ticket from the valet
– Perform your shopping
– Before paying, visit the Valet Service Desk inside the store to arrange for car pickup by showing your ticket number
– Pay for your purchases along with 1 KD for the valet service
– Cashier will stamp your valet ticket
– Keep your TSC invoice and stamped valet ticket
– Your car will be brought to you just in front of the exit door, where your purchases will be placed in the car
– Show your invoice and your stamped valet ticket to the valet
– Take your car and have a nice and easy day

Policies and Procedures
– Please keep the valet ticket, as it is the only proof of your ownership of the car.
– In case this ticket has been lost, please inform the company as soon as possible in order to take action at once, or else the company will not be responsible for any car lost.
– In case of ticket loss, kindly provide the company with all your legal papers to prove ownership.
– The company is not responsible for any mechanical problems that occur to the customer’s car during the receiving, parking, and delivery of the vehicle.
– The company is not responsible for any item lost from the car during the valet service.
– All cars are insured against accidents when they are under our custody and by company’s drivers.
– All cars should be picked up by 12:00 midnight

[Link]

I pass by McDonalds nearly every morning to have breakfast. It started off at first as a way to kill time before I got to the office, but now its become a daily routine. I love a good breakfast and I haven’t found a place in Kuwait yet that provides as good a breakfast as McDonalds.. for the price. 850 fils will get you eggs, muffins, sausages, hashbrowns and a coffee or orange juice. 400 fils will get you 3 large pancakes. 350 fils will get you one of the McMuffin sandwiches while 700 fils will get you a McMuffin sandwich, hashbrown and your choice of coffee or orange juice. I like passing by in the morning on my way to work because it gives me time to sit quietly and think while also allowing me to read the morning paper. Surprisingly, the majority of McDonalds breakfast people are local woman of various ages. Some look like university students, some look like government employees while others look like mothers who had just dropped off their kids to school. For those of you who have never had a McDonalds breakfast I definetly advise you to try it out. Where else can you get eggs, pancakes, muffins, hashbrowns, sausages, and orange juice all for only KD1.250?

There is a new car show on Discovery called 5th Gear. They have only shown 2 episodes so far but they have been really great. There are two famous guys, one of them is from the BBC show TopGear, the other guy is the host for Thunder Races. There is also a girl who I also think is from TopGear. The show has everything, from car reviews to news and facts. Like last time they spoke about car safety and how most headrests in cars are mostly not designed right, they also spoke about the Sinclair C5 also. In the second episode they talked about radar detectors and jammers, they reviewed the new Golf and they also took us to Disneyland Paris and showed us this one show they had that involves car stunts and chases. So if you haven’t watched the show yet I would definetly recommend it. Next showing is on April 7th at 4:30PM on Discovery or 5:30PM on Discovery +1.

Nibaq yesterday left his Nintendo DS over at my place.. deliberately. He is trying to get me to like the DS and convince me that its a much better system then the PSP (yeah right). I tried playing wario ware on it yesterday, I found the fact that you could blow on the DS for some of the mini games interesting and original but other then that I wasn’t impressed. I find the second screen useless as it serves really no purpose and the touch screen is so uncreative since I have had it for ages on my PDA and the only good thing its for is clicking links on and not controlling a car. If anything the two screens actually make me a bit dizzy. So since my first experience with the DS, I haven’t gone back to playing with it again, neither has nataly who is busy playing Metroid Zero Mission on the Gameboy SP. Will I crave the DS today? We will see but I doubt. So far, it really sucks.

Starting today the free wifi you have been using at places like Jamaica Blue, Haagen Daaz, Le Notre and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf are not free anymore. Zajil wifi hotspots have gone commercial and are now charging KD1.5 per hour. The Zajil hotspots at the airport and on educational institutes will remain free.

Today they added two new things in Gmail. First you can now spell check your email, and second you can now have rich formatting, which means you can make your stuff bold and colorful if you want. Also they now double the storage space, you get 2GB of space instead of 1GB. Amazing.

G is for growth
Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn’t mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we’re giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people’s lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more.