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Ok I noticed I am turning 2:48AM into a videogame blog bit by bit with all these PSP posts, I think I need to find other things to talk about…

Back in the days of the Sega Dreamcast, the coolest thing was the fact you could connect it to the internet and download game saves directly onto your memory card. Now with the Sony PSP I will be able to do the same. If you are fed up trying to beat the game or if you have problems trying to obtain money or a car in a Need for Speed for example, this way you will be able to download a save off the web, move it to your memorystick and use it on your PSP. You can download PSP saves from PSP-Vault.com.

update: Found another site with a ton of game saves also. GameFaqs.com, just click on the game you want and then on the link for gamesaves. [Link]

My Sony PSP has shipped, it should arrive in my US mailbox on the 4th via UPS and hopefully arrive in Kuwait by Thursday.

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.

Sony has the official PSP section of their iTunes-wannabe Connect music store up and running, its full of free video downloads, a tutorial for beginners on how to get content onto your PSP, and a help section to answer any questions you might have on making the most out of your PSP. They even have Speed Racer and its all for free! [Link]

From Engadget: Damn, it’s only been a week since the Sony dropped the PlayStation Portable on us and people already pieced together a ton of different hacks and how-tos for the new game console. We’ve thrown together this list of all the hacks and how-tos we could find, we’ve probably missed a couple, so let us know and we’ll add ‘em to the list:

How to use non-Duo Memory Sticks on your PSP
How to browse the web with your PSP
How to get TiVoToGo shows onto your PSP
How to get e-books on your PSP
How to read web comics on your PSP
How to get manga on your PSP
Creating Sony Thumbnail files
PSP dead pixel checker
How to use your Mac to play PSP games over the web
How to take apart your PSP
Reading RSS feeds on your PSP
How to get videos and DVDs onto your PSP

For those of you who follow my Miskan posts, here are the pictures I promised of the paper pack samples. [Link]

Today I found a spelling error in a CNN.com article. The first time nataly found a spelling mistake she posted about it so I decided to post this to. CNN wrote stable instead of label in the following paragraph:

Knight founded the label now known as Tha Row Inc. in 1992, signing some of the world’s biggest rap artists, including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. His stable dominated rap music for much of the 1990s.

[Link]

Update: My mistake, one of the definitions of stable is “A group, as of athletes or entertainers, under common management: a stable of prizefighters”

Just found the best PSP bundle so far online, here is what it includes:

– Included in this bundle is the PSP system value pack, Tony Hawk Underground: Remix, WipeOut: Pure, Need for Speed: Underground Rivals and a Starter Kit

– The PSP Value Pak includes all the extras you need – memory stick, soft case, headphones, battery pack, an AC adapter, plus a movie/music/video sampler disc

– The PSP Starter Kit comes complete with an all-in-one case, car charger, USB data cable (for transferring movies and pictures), high quality earbuds, four UMD disc jackets, screen guard, and a system polishing cloth

Here is the [Link]

I have been trying to call them since 8:30 in the morning. I was calling them on 812000 and when it asks if I was a customer or not, I would choose No I am not. Then I would get the corny message that they would like it if I would join them, then the phone rings and no one picks up. So finally I got fed up after trying for over 2 hours to get a hold of someone. Now when I called I pressed 1 which is the option for if you are a BKME customer. Right away someone picked up. I asked them what the circle in the logo was, the lady answered a pearl. I said thank you and closed the phone.

So the sphere turned out to be a pearl like we all assumed in the first place.

Since my post the other day on the new BKME logo I have heard two definitions for the sphere. The first is that its not a pearl its the moon. The second definition is that its a crystal ball. Both sources for these answers were BKME employees. So I decided I will contact BKME myself and find out. I sent them an email 2 days ago and I didn’t get a reply. I called them up last night and believe it or not their customer support line works only during regular working hours! So since today morning I have been trying to contact them on 812000 but no one is picking up. If I was planning on being a new customer I would have moved on and looked elsewhere by now. I will keep trying to call and will post when I find out anything.

Update: turns out its a pearl

You might be a syrian in lebanon if

10. you spent the last two months hiding in ‘jall mowz ‘ on the outskirts of saida

9. you hang out at the termoss unemployment line with 5000 other guys like you

8. the market for skekeen matbakh in dbayyeh burst like the internet bubble in 2001

7. the syrian you were watching who was watching a lebnese was sent back home

6. you’ve spent the last couple of months training to say “keefak “and “mish heyk?”

5. the last time you remember being so scared, you were still in syria

4. you painted your yellow chevrolet 1956 taxi “cedar green”

3. you get free bus rides from homs to beirut if you agree to carry a lebanese flag

2. the big wasta you had from your sisters husband from korda7a who is a colonel in the syrian airforce is only good to get you a seat on a bus back to sham

1. the last time you earned money was when you showed up at Hizballahs PROSYRIA demonstration in beirut

By Naycola

Have you guys seen the knew BKME logo? Its depressing. How can a bank like BKME be so stupid I don’t know. I don’t blame the designer. The designer is crap, I am sure he knows that already. I blame the people at BKME who accepted such tragic work. My god, its a disaster! Firstly, before I start talking about the logo, lets talk about the 4×3 Mega’s on the road where the logo is on. You DO NOT use yellow type on a white background. Its very unreadable. They not only used yellow type on a white background, they used it on their outdoor ads!! If you are driving up to the ad on the street you will not see “Al Awsat” written in yellow until you slam into the ad. Its impossible to read when its in a newspaper yet alone an ad on the street 50 meters away while you are zooming buy in you car at 100km/h. Thats their first mistake. Lets talk about the logo. Is that a pearl? Come on, who was the genius who thought of that? Very creative. I am sure no one ever thought about it before (Note: I am being sarcastic here). Even Gulf Bank uses the pearl for their Dana account. Anyway, whatever, fine, go with the pearl, but at-least be a bit more creative about it. It looks like a shop that sells marbles for kids. Their logo really pisses me off.

You know what the problem is? People think being a designer is easy. People think anyone can be a designer. People think that if they take a course in Adobe Photoshop at some trashy institute in Salmiya they automatically are designers. Thats bullshit. If thats true then what did I do for 4 years at university? Why do designers go get their masters then their PhDs? Taking a course in Photoshop at an institute just means you now know how to use 5% of Photoshops capabilities. Thats all. We spend the first two years of university not being allowed to use any computers in our design work. They teach us that the computer is just a tool, its just a means to get what you have in your head onto paper. Thats all. So they spend the first 2 years teaching us about other tools like drawing, painting, silk screen printing, sculpturing, stencils and tons more stuff. Not only that but as a designer you need to be creative, and have taste, both things which many people lack. Why is GianFranco Ferre designing clothes and you aren’t? Why is Philip Starck designing everything from hotel rooms to sneakers and you aren’t? They got it you don’t, its that simple.

Anyway it doesn’t matter. BKME is the one losing here. The new Osoul logo even has a readability problem. Osoul in arabic can be read as Osoul or Osoud. The reason for that is the L in the end is not shaped correctly. The L could look like an L or a D. It goes both ways. Fine the majority will read it as an L but the fact that it might be read as a D is a problem. Now the logo is out and I am sure Osoul is getting comments about it. It could have been so easy to fix but it wasn’t. Below is just a mockup I did in 2 minutes of what could have been done to avoid this Osoul/Osoud mix up.

Osoul Logo

Osoul Logo Fixed

But anyway this post has become to long so I will stop. Its just very frustrating for me because these bad designers give us all a bad reputation and image. The client needs to be able to trust us and bad designers make this trust harder to form.