The Next iPhone

Gizmodo scoops the next iPhone, it comes with a front camera, higher resoltion display, bigger battery and looks better than the older iPhone 3GS.

More information here.

Ripping DVDs and Loading them on to your Nokia Mobile with Handbrake

I just got a new Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic mobile with 8GB memory. That memory needed to be filled. The Nokia 5800 is touchscreen meaning that if you where to play a movie it would fill the whole screen. I asked on twitter what would be the best tool to rip DVDs from and I got an an answer from the ever helpful blasha and 3baid. They both recommended handbrake, which as described on the site as an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. meaning you can use it to RIP DVDs and convert them to files you can store on your iPod, iPhone or Nokia mobile or any other gadget or computer that can play those files.

Of course, only rip your legal family DVDs, and none of the copyrighted stuff.

I tried to rip a few DVDs and load them on my Nokia mobile but it would not play it, I looked around the web on the best settings for Nokia and I did not find anything useful, I did a few ripping experiments and succeeded.

So here are the best setting for your Nokia Mobile.




I would also recommend playing around with the picture settings to have the output less than or equal to the resolution of your mobile, to save on space of the final output file. After the movie is ripped, you can transfer it normally to your Nokia mobile via USB or bluetooth.

My mobile powered off

My mobile just powered off. I did not charge it last night and thought it would survive today with the remaining electrons orbiting inside its small battery.
I shook the mobile hoping I might budge some electrons into giving it a little extra shot of electrical adrenalin, but no use. It was as dead as a high tech brick.
My first reaction was a slight panic; I was cut off, isolated, castaway on a desert island.
I felt like I lost one of my five senses. I am not one of those people constantly having their mobile fixed to their ear like an extra appendage but I need to know that I can, on a whim, call anyone, connect to anything, or just have my mobile comfortingly cradling in my hand.
In my isolation I drove home, driving fast, afraid that opportunity might come knocking in the form of a ringtone and the caller will not be able to get through. I rushed in the house, plugged in my mobile and watched patiently as the dark screen lit up. The reassuring battery bar was pulsing like a heart post CPR. I felt whole again.

Viva - not too original

The new Saudi third mobile operator in Kuwait has named itself VIVA. It chose a bright colored logo with a fun sounding name and you can expect massive ad carpet bombing all over kuwait announcing its arrival on the mobile market.

Here is a picture of the logo (I borrowed this from Some Contrast) :



Quite a few nice comments about the logo, but unfortunality, no originality, just a copy. That logo exists already and is used by an Indonesian mobile operator called Axis. Check it out here.

Here is the Zain Ad with the hidden code

Ok, not so hidden code, you can see the coordinates at 0:49.

Thanks Mark for the youtube link.

If you don't know what I mean, go to my last post.

Zain TV Ad - or - breaking the Zain Code

I just saw a new Zain ad on MBC4. It showed scenes of different people and places doing things and smiling and raising their hands.

One particular scene showed an elder man behind a counter with some scribbling on the wall with the words "GPS S 33 53 88" and I could not catch the rest.

I loaded my Google Maps and discovered that 33.5388 is the longitude of Beirut. The S was just put there to throw us off, it should have been an N.

Hidden messages in ads, I should pay more attention.

Long Busy Week

It has been a long busy week and I have not updated my blog as much as I would like to. I hope to get a good night sleep today and update it tommorow with some interesting posts. I bought an HTC Touch Diamond and have been trying it out for the last week. I also had a lot of interesting email conversation with my friend MQ about the Diamond versus the iPhone. I will post these emails after I edit all the typos and make it readable.

Here is a short clip of the HTC Diamond being used for sending a text message:

Seven Popular Myths Debunked - and a few of my own

The following medical myths where proven untrue by scientists:

* People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
* We use only 10% of our brains
* Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
* Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser
*Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
* Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy
* Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.

Full article here.

A few of my own follow:

Mobile phones are not dangerous in airplanes, I had my mobile phone turned on in my carry on luggage and nothing happened to the airplane.

Eating Vegetables make you lose weight, if this is true, why are cows so fat?

Playing video games is a waste of time. Actually, I played a lot of video games and I got great hand eye coordination and an appreciation of the technology involved, therefore my time was not wasted.

Doing the Business

I went to the work bathroom stall to do the business, send a fax, recycle my coffee, water the plants, donate to charity or whatever euphemism you prefer.

In the other stall next to mine was someone really doing the business, and I mean it in the literal sense. He was talking on his mobile negotiating a contract, giving commitments, setting up a meeting all while he was "doing the business".

Tip for today, if you are "doing the business", do not do your business.

My Life With Blackberry

I have been using a blackberry for the last two weeks. A blackberry is a mobile device that has a full keyboard and a large screen but is small enough to fit in your shirt pocket. Its main feature is its push email, meaning emails sent to you apear on your blackberry as if they where SMSs.The blackberry has good support for business attachments like MS Office documents and Acrobat PDFs.

I hooked up my Blackberry to our corporate network so I now can see all the emails that I receive immediately.


The problem now is that the I am constantly checking my emails and responding or forwarding or zapping the ocassional spam. I wake up and first thing I do before I open my eyes is reach for my Blackberry, get dressed with my black centimeters away from me. Driving somewhere, my eyes go to my blackberry screen instead of the road ahead.

I am writing and answering emails at the strangest single digit nocturnal hours. Its like the blackberry is glued to my hands and my thumbs have permanent chicklet shaped indentations now.

Now I know why a lot of people call it a crackberry. It is addictive, it is dangerous, it keeps you on the job literally 24/7.

PS I wrote this post from my blacberry.

Wallpaper for your Mobile

To entertain yourself before futoor, here are some cool wallpaper backgrounds for your mobile. A few samples are shown below, and the full collection is here.

Have fun.

Zain Cybersquatted

Cybersquatting is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.

Someone set up a blog called Zain Kuwait on domain zain-kwt.com, they did not even get a good picture of the Zain Logo.

Looking up his whois info about the squatter, it seems he/she set up the blog on 13 September 2007, and his email is onasiss.11@hotmail.com. I doubt Zain would use a hotmail email for their registration. The telephone number he put is 9690969 which is MTC/Zain's voicemail number.

Very amateur but it could fool some people. The orginal Zain webpage for kuwait can be found here.



The Fake Zain






The Original Zain

iPhone versus Nokia N95

Check out these funny videos comparing iPhone against Nokia N95.

The link is here.

Hilarious!

Nokia thinks Saddam is still in Power

The new Nokia N95 has GPS capabilities with basic maps showing your location and important landmarks preconfigured.

While browsing around the different areas, I discovered that the Baghdad International Airport is still called Saddam International Airport.

Who Manufactured your Mobile

To see the country of manufacture for your mobile, press "* # 0 6 #" without the spaces. A 15 digit serial number will appear.
Find digits 7 and 8.

if they are 02 or 20 then the mobile is assembled in UAE (yaay Gulf Made)
if 80 or 08 then it is German made (not bad)
if 10 or 01 then Finish made (very good)
if 00 then French made (best quality)

My new Nokia N95 is Finish. Cool

iPhone and the rest

The iPhone created a mini revolution once it was announced with all the mobile companies struggling to catch up with its looks and features. You can expect a lot of lookalike phones to enter the market and it already started with the first shot fired by LG with its Prada designed phone.





Excuse my limited fashion knowledge, but doesn't Prada make shoes? How would they know what sort of phone would be useful to me. If that is the new trend, associating your self with a shoe maker, you can expect zanooba mobiles or tamima mobiles.





Motorola already released a D&G RAZR a few month ago, doesn't D&G make overpriced T shirts and Jeans? How can they contribute to making a mobile better? All they did was paint the RAZR gold. If the mobile companies don't come up with more innovative ideas, the iPhone will eat up the market once Apple decides to release a cheap iPhone version a la iPod shuffle.

The Loans Issue in Kuwait

Have a look at this video about clearing the debt of Kuwaiti citizens.

It would be nice to have your debts cleared by the government and maybe get some extra cash but come on boys and girls (in the video) you make it sound like you are dying of hunger and your means of transportation is a skinny donkey that you have not fed for the last 3 days. Rather you are wearing the latest fashions and holding the latest mobiles and I can bet your luxury limousine is parked nearby with the driver waiting for you to bark your orders on his mobile.

Here is another video of the parliament session that was held a few days ago.





Sa3at yfashloon rabi3na.

House Disturbance

The Time: 8 Years ago, in August
Location: My old house

I was coming back home at around 11pm. As I maneuvered my car to park in front of my pavement, I notice that the top floor lights are on. I knew my house was empty except for the maid. Something did not look right. The maid would usually be asleep and not have the lights on. I pulled out the crowbar that I keep under the front seat of my car for protection. I walked through the front gate of the house and pushed open the main entrance and got inside. I Looked up the flight of stairs as I was about to go up, I heard banging noises, the repeating noises sound like a heavy object hitting a door. Two men are talking softly in Arabic. I realized that someone is trying to break into a room upstairs. I quietly walked out and locked the front door behind me, crowbar still in hand. I went to the back of the house to check that the backdoor is locked also. The idea is to lock the burglars in, and call the police giving them time to catch the burglars red handed. I called the police on my mobile softly whispering my address and what is happening to the dispatcher. The 7osh (courtyard) is dark; I never bothered to put in new bulbs after they burnt out. The only light is from the street lamp outside. As I was about to go to the front of the house, I saw a dark figure climbing down the ground floor window. I ran to him, waving the crowbar above my head, I wanted to split his criminal head. "Stop", the figure commanded, as I ran towards him. I see his arm outstretched ending with a menacing gun aimed directly at me. I quickly thought, crowbar versus gun, not a very fair fight. I froze, "Drop what you have", he barks. I did as he said. "Lie down on the floor". I curl in a fetal position, my arms wrapped around my head. My thoughts where, if he is going to shoot my head, I might have the remote chance that my arms would slow down any bullet flying towards my precious brain. A bullet anywhere else in my body would not be lethal, I figured, or at least buy me time for medical help. He picks the crow bar from the ground, swung at my bent leg; I heard a dull thump, after what seems to be a little time, I felt a hot growing pain mixed with numbness growing from the point the heavy metal struck me till the throbbing pain spread across my lower left leg, no bones cracked. I lied still. "If you move, I will shoot you", I did not move for a few minutes as he makes his get away.

I get up. My leg hurts but it is not broken, I got out and stould on the street waiting for the police to arrive. I made a few more calls to high relatives with high ranks in the police force. The police arrive fifteen minutes later. They surrounded the house and closed off the area I lived in. They hesitantly entered the house guns drawn and go upstairs. I follow after them. We find the maid tied up with duct tape, frightened but otherwise unharmed. One locked door has the handle badly damaged. It seemed I surprised the burglars and they could no break the door. No one is hurt and nothing is missing from the house.

The Time: Today
Location: My new house

I am outside having a coffee. I get a call on my mobile from my maid. She hysterically shouts on the phone saying she heard a big noise downstairs. I think fast. It could it be another burglary in the making. I am far away and it would take me 30 minutes to reach the house in this Ramadan traffic. I tell her calmly that I am outside and far away. I assure her it is probably nothing  and ask her to quietly go down and see what the commotion is. I tell her I will call her back after five minutes. I did a quick mental scenario calculation. If it was another burglary, the most that could happen to her is that she gets mummified with duct tape. If I was to rush to the house, I would be too late, and secondly, I might get another gun pointed in my face. I call after five minutes, if she does not answer; it could mean trouble and I will call the police. She answers, laughing, saying she discovered a cat jumping around in the 7osh. All is well; history did not repeat itself today.

Lie Detector for your Mobile

We all have been lied to from time to time. When you are facing the liar, you can detect the lies from the body language and furtive movements. Sometimes, it is easier to be lied to on the phone.

Well, here is a lie detector for your mobile that tells you the stress levels of the person you are talking to and you can determine if you smell bull proccessed grass.

You can get the mobile software from here.

Mobile Tag

Kuwaiti Chopper Dude tagged me. So here goes:

This is my phone display picture



  


And for the people I’ll be tagging, these are the rules:

- a clear picture of the inner surface of your mobile (cell) phone to show the display picture you have on your phone.

- it should show the name brand of the mobile (cell) phone.


And for fun and not part of the tag, here are all my old mobiles:



   


Click on the pictures if you want a bigger view.

I tag all of you that think this is cool.