Search: “kuwait”

Dr Farah Al-Nakib is holding a talk entitled: “Beyond Demolition and Heritage: On the Conservation and Re-Use of Kuwait City’s Early Oil Landscape.” The event is going to be looking at the importance of preserving and reusing old buildings in Kuwait instead of demolishing them or turning them into museums which is what seems to always be the case in Kuwait. Dr Farah will be sharing some real examples of how some people (mainly businesses) have made use of old buildings to revive areas and create “locally made business communities”. One great example she will be sharing is the Seif Palace strip where Pink Moon, Slider Station and Burger Hub are located.

If you’re interested in attending the event it will be held in Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah this Tuesday. For more information click [Here]

Last week I posted about a new internet provider that I found out about. Turns out they aren’t really new and have been in business for some time now but they were catering mostly to companies and certain individuals until they decided to expand their presence and showed up at InfoConnect for the first time this year. I was looking for a new internet provider myself so I got in touch with them and they came over yesterday to install it.

The internet provider is called WiMD which stands for Wireless Mobile Data. They provide you (obviously) with wireless internet to your home using the 5 GHz wavelength which is kinda similar to a wifi connection except it can transmit a lot further (in theory around 70km I think). To setup their connection you require the installation of a small white box that needs to be pointed to one of their towers. This is probably the most difficult and complicated part since the box needs a direct line of sight to their towers. If you’re living in an area like Salwa, Mishref or Bayan where all the buildings are low then you won’t have a problem. But, if like me you live in an area where you’re surrounded by tall apartment buildings and in my case Salmiya, then you’ll most likely NOT be able to get a direct line of sight. But I got lucky.

When they came over they tried installing the box on one of my balconies but it wouldn’t work. One balcony had tall buildings blocking my line of sight to their Hawalli tower while the other balcony wasn’t pointing towards their Ras Salmiya tower. Since the box is tiny I managed to get permission from my building to install it on the roof specially since we were just going to connect it to an existing pipe. Once we got onto the roof we were able to see their Salmiya tower (which is the communications/post office building near Salmiya Coop) and get a strong connection.

The white box is small and light and can be connected to any existing post on top of your building. You then need to run an Ethernet cable from the box down to your apartment and to your router or directly to your computer. There are two different connection speeds you need to know about. The first is the actual connection speed from your apartment to their tower. In my case the connection speed was around 15Mbps. The second connection speed is the one you subscribe to. So say you have a 15Mbps connection to their tower but you subscribe to their 1Mbps internet connection then you get just a 1Mbps internet connection. WiMD uses internet providers like Fasttelco, Zajil etc.. to provide their customers with internet. That is a good thing because it means if one internet provider is congested or having problems their system is smart enough to shift the balance over to the rest of their providers.

Right now I think they have my connection speed unlimited, so I’m getting internet as fast as my connection to their tower can handle. I’ve provided some speed test results below but really they do not do justice to the connection. Ignore the numbers below because in real world use the connection is super fast. Regular browsing which is what I do 90% of the time is very quick with instant page loads and no sort of lag whatsoever. Downloading files varies, I was downloading the 1.3GB Lion update from Apple at around 300kbps but that’s because I had one session open and it’s probably a limit by Apple. By using the software SpeedDownload I opened up a number of sessions and hit 1.2MB/s. I downloaded torrents as well and the accumulated speed of all my torrents was around 2.85MB/s! That’s by far the fastest I’ve ever downloaded torrents. Whats even better is the fact that while my torrents were downloading at that speed I was still browsing as usually not noticing any slowness. Their upload speed is also faster then anything I’ve ever had before.

I had my brother who lives next door and connected to my network try out gaming online and this is what he emailed me back:

The connection is f****** amazing. I always had trouble playing Halo but with this new connection there’s zero lag at all. Literally, no lag. I would have trouble connecting to games, no trouble here. Pretty cool

and later

I just tried FIFA, another game I had issues with, worked really well.

So first impressions, this connection kicks ass. Now I just need to figure out what speed to subscribe to. Originally I was thinking 6Mbps, then moved up to 10 and now really want to go even faster but once you go higher their connection isn’t exactly cheap. Below are their yearly prices again in case you missed my previous post:

1Mb KD130
1.5Mb KD150
2Mb KD180
3Mb KD225
4Mb KD270
5Mb KD320
6Mb KD325
7Mb KD355
8Mb KD390
9Mb KD473
10Mb KD523
11Mb KD590
12Mb KD660
13Mb KD730
14Mb KD800
15Mb KD870
16Mb KD940
17Mb KD1,010
18Mb KD1,080
19Mb KD1,150
20Mb KD1,220

If you’re interested in a connection you can call them on 22475841 and 22475842 or visit their website [Here]

Investigations are currently ongoing in a case in which a group of friends claim that an enemy they were preparing to fight against almost released a large tiger at them. The alleged incident reportedly took place on Al-Blajat street in Salmiya where the 12 young men approached someone they had unfinished business with, and decided to settle their differences the old fashioned way.

Soon enough, the enemy was joined by a friend, who reportedly had an adult tiger sitting in the backseat of his car. The group opted to flee when the tiger’s owner threatened to release the wild beast at them. They reported the incident at Rumaithiya police station immediately afterwards. Investigators are working to confirm the allegations before further action is taken.

WTF? [Source]

Someone from WiMD the new internet provider I posted about earlier in the day left the following comment:

Many thanks, first of all, for giving us a platform to voice our services.

First things first, WiMD stands for Wireless Mobile Data. The name implies the meaning, so no gimmickry with names and how strong and powerful we are. Our technology is not based on the WiMAX standard and we don’t believe in sharing the customer subscribed bandwidth. We have nation wide coverage for our residential customers as of today.

Having said the above, we pride ourselves in what we commit to our customers. In today’s age of blogs and forums, we are aware that customer satisfaction is of prime importance and any wrong information/commitment can only do more harm to us than good.

As most of your readers have mentioned, they have never heard of us. This is true as we didn’t launch or market our services in the residential domain before today. All our existing residential customers till date have been through word of mouth and personal referrals. For obvious reasons you don’t get recommended for bad service or performance, do you?

We don’t want to take any further space and just want to introduce ourselves us a healthy alternative to your existing miseries with limited bandwidth and slower speed. Our request to all is, don’t judge us without even trying us. Our company policy for bandwidth commitment to customers is based on the site survey we do before delivering our services. Fair and transparent. Our NOC and Helpdesk are equipped to answer your queries.

And even after this, if your satisfaction quotient is not reached, kind reminder to our existing and prospective customers. We have a fair money bank policy which means, if you are dissatisfied with our services, you get the remaining balance on your contract reimbursed upon cancellation.

Just want to remind your readers, we are in Hall 6 @ InfoConnect. Please feel free to drop by.

We mean business and that is what we are here for. So no strings attached, no hidden dramas. JUST PERFORMANCE.

No idea on the price but one reader mentioned they start from KD385 per year.

Update: Here are their prices per year

1Mb KD130
1.5Mb KD150
2Mb KD180
3Mb KD225
4Mb KD270
5Mb KD320
6Mb KD325
7Mb KD355
8Mb KD390
9Mb KD473
10Mb KD523
11Mb KD590
12Mb KD660
13Mb KD730
14Mb KD800
15Mb KD870
16Mb KD940
17Mb KD1,010
18Mb KD1,080
19Mb KD1,150
20Mb KD1,220

Update2: I’m going to be trying out and signing up for their service. First hurdle is to see if I can install the antenna on my balcony instead of the roof since I don’t have access to my buildings roof. Hopefully the balcony would work, I’ll find out on Saturday.

From what I read on their website it looks like they will providing internet by rolling out a large Wifi network that covers all of Kuwait. No idea when they’re planning to start (or if they’ve started already) and how much their prices will be. If anyone manages to get a hold of them and find out more let me know. [Link]

Thanks Sabah

A presentation of the new Kuwait Airport by Foster+Partners. [YouTube]

Update: I’ve updated the video link to a working one.

I hope this actually gets built. Find out more about this project [Here]

The first Alexander McQueen boutique in Kuwait will be opening this coming Sunday 29th of January at Althuraya Mall. [Link]

Family Bookshop in Salmiya is sadly closing down for good. I previously posted that they had a court case against the owner of the building but it looks like they lost because they currently have a closing down clearance.

It’s worth passing by the store one final time as a farewell to what used to be one of the best bookshops in Kuwait. Bit by bit what’s left of our childhood is being eroded away which is depressing.

On a similar note Waleed toy store which is located in the same strip is also closing down. Like Family Bookshop, Waleed toy store has been there for over 30 years.

According to the blog 965Malls, the international french fries chain New York Fries is opening up at Marina Mall. New York Fries shouldn’t be confused with the already open New York Friez who tried to convince me poutine was made with chili and cheese and not gravy and cheese. Hopefully these guys will be able to do it right.

I was invited by X-Cite and Sony to attend a preview of the Playstation Vita in Dubai. The even would give us an intro on their new portable gaming console as well as preview some games and more importantly allows to play with the device.

Introduction
The GM of Sony MENA, Robert Fisser stated that the Vita will have the strongest line up of launch games for a Sony console which is possible since the first party and third party games lined up for the Vita’s February 22nd launch is fairly strong.

When you purchase a Vita among the included items will be 56 WAAR (Wide-Area Augmented Reality) cards that you’ll be able to use with AR (augmented reality) games which you’ll be able to download for free from the PSN store. What differentiates these AR games from others is that these games will be a lot more advanced, sophisticated and use a big area for game play. There are also two social services that Sony are pushing in Vita called Party and Near. Party lets you voice chat with friends on the Vita at anytime, even if you’re playing different games while near lets you see all your Playstation Network friends status’s and what they’re playing (or have played). You will also be able to see if their are other Vita gamers in your proximity and invite them to play a game. Finally you can also unlock gifts, or give gifts to your PSN friends.

Another big feature Sony talked about was sharing save files between your Vita and the PS3 and cross-platform play which basically mean you’ll be able to play head-to-head between the Vita and PS3. They showed us a demonstration when one of their Wipeout 2048 game designer who was using a Vita raced against a producer who used a PS3.

A reader emailed BBC regarding the recent problem with the reception and this is what they responded:

Regarding Kuwait, we are aware of a change of reception quality of our signal. It appears that the authorities there have changed the transmitter site resulting in poorer reception for at least some of our listeners.

We are examining possibilities of rectifying this situation but at present cannot be sure of what the final outcome will be.

That sucks.

The Superdry store in Marina Mall is now open in place of Diesel. I’ve noticed both the Marina Mall and Avenues branches of Superdry are always pretty empty when I pass by. I’m guessing no one knows Superdry in Kuwait…

It’s been over a year since the young Kuwaiti iPhone app designer Abdulrahman al-Zanki created his game but he’s still making headlines, most recently in the New York Times:

It took Abdulrahman al-Zanki, then 14, a few weeks to develop his first game, Yellow Taxi, and upload it to Apple iTunes in 2010, learning from written instructions between school hours and homework. Since then, the Kuwaiti teenager has created 22 more iPhone games in less than two years, including the highly popular Doodle Destroy.

You can read the full article [Here]

Three Kuwaitis killed a crocodile which had apparently sneaked out of a farm and strayed at night before it came face to face with them.

The two brothers and their friend were sitting near a camp just outside the capital Kuwait City when the two-metre reptile crawled slowly towards them.

“One of them who had a hunting rifle shot the crocodile as they were afraid it might attack them…the crocodile had apparently managed to sneak out of a nearby farm in Bar Al Abdali area,” Alanba daily said.

If someone makes a movie about a crocodile that goes on a rampage in Kuwait City I’d watch it. [Source]