Q8Ba7th Official Blog

One Question: Can it block Wataniya spam SMS?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Name: Alworud.com

Site: http://www.alworud.com

Type: Sport / Soccer

Brief: For the first time I think, girls have a decent indoor place to practice soccer and other kind of sports. For 30 KD an hour, no more than men usually pay, girls can get their own indoor artificial grass field, and on the side can set and enjoy the cafeteria, and hey, Wi-Fi. How come we don’t have that? Interested people can even book the whole place for one day for, umm, 240 KD. But that’s good for large gatherings and special occasions I guess.

They also have a website for online booking called Inspor, although I have to say, the mix of the two sites is a bit confusing.

At all rates, I think it’s a great thing to have, and hope the girls can enjoy it (without invading our territory please!)

Popularity: 1% [?]

I started receiving several copies of this spam email in the last couple of days. I’m not sure how many of you have had as well.

Now I have safely ignored it for the first time, but as it kept receiving more and more copies, I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Regardless of the supposedly opt-out message at the bottom, I want to know how did I get added in the first place to this acs-newsletter.com. I also got a similar email from acs-ads.com. Both of which have no launched site. How did they get my email then? Doing a whois on the site, you can tell they belong to a company called Absolute Career Solution.

And Googling for the Absolute Career Solution name, I came across one company in Kuwait with that slogan, namely Wazeefa1. But that might just be a coincidence. But once you whois Wazeefa1, things become so clear.

Clearly belonging to the same owner, Nedal, and under same company name, Absolute Career Solutions, a.k.a Absolute Spam Solutions. I did a search on my email, and no, I do not see any record of me registering with Wazeefa1. And if for the sake of argument I did register (to seek for jobs), why would I receive Sultan Center restaurant spam ads?

So do your self a favor, and stay away from this site. Nothing good can come from a business being run this way.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Aramex it seems are extending their Ardiya office working hours to more than 12 a day. At such time when everyone seems to be going away from Aramex for their prices, and slow delivery, I would think this is the last thing Aramex should be worried about.

What people really want I think is, first faster delivery, then cheaper prices, and better (much better) tracking.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Name: Soccer Scene

Site: http://soccerscene.com.kw/ / UK Original Site (to see what they have)

Type: Sport / Soccer / Store

Location: Avenues Mall, Kuwait

Opening Date: Expected February, 2010

Soccer Scene, as I heard, the famous british soccer specialized store is going to open a branch at Avenues Mall next February hopefully. The store brand was established back in 1980, and they say you can’t miss it if you’re sport shopping in UK.

While we have several stores now at Avenues, I still find my self lacking variety and some items sometimes, so let’s hope this coming store can fill up the gap, and at reasonable prices.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The Ministry of Education in Kuwait have released electronic versions of the Kuwait public school course materials and made available for download from their website as PDF files.

I’m not sure if this includes all of the material, as I saw some First Episode books without the second, but it’s still a very good move for both students and teachers, to gain easy and quick access to the material, even if it’s late on print (like always!).

Now the real bad thing about it is how they decided to split it into chapters, and you will have to download each chapter separately.

I wonder why, as the size is really just a few MBs and bandwidth is less of an issue now. Worst case is allow for chapter or full book download. So if you really want it as a single document, follow the two simple steps:

1. Download all PDF files manually, or I suggest you use DownThemAll add-on for Firefox to retrieve all the relevant PDF files. Put them all in one directory.
2. Use MergePDF.net or else the steps described here to merge all the files in one. Make sure to keep them in the right order though.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Name: Al-Bairaq Mall Cinema

Type: Cinema / Shopping Mall

Location: Egaila, Block 4

Brief: The newest cinema in Kuwait, from no other than Cinescape ofcourse, opened in the recently opened Al-Bairaq mall in Egaila, featuring 3 screens only, compared to the latest brand openings in 360 and Avenues.

Review: Being few minutes drive from my place, I was still hesitant to try this cinema out. Alas, Cinescape had a clue people won’t favor this place, and showed Toy Story 3D exclusively there for a whole week at least. Being a favorite for my kid, and for the love of 3D I hold, I decided to try it out.

Parking: First let down is that, unlike 360 and Avenues, this mall has zero shaded parkings, and all parkings are outside. So you will be parking your car under the sun.

Friendliness: For the first time really I encountered some rude guys at the snacks stand. When I was standing first inline before they opened, and they started serving others from another line. I pointed that I’ve been standing here first and I shouldn’t be asked to line behind others, the Philippine seller rudely replied that this is the open cashier and they start with it. It’s not the waiting but the principle of respecting a person’s turn that would piss you off even before you start enjoying the movie.

Cleanliness: Having been opened for a week only, and being on the first show of the day, I really don’t see any explanation for unclean seats and some left overs on the floor. It wasn’t quite filthy, but not clean as well.

Disturbance: During the show, it was mostly quite. However most people are coming to the theatre to book at last minute, and the guy showing them to their seats doesn’t really care the movie started and you paid to enjoy it. He would stand in your face and point the light for the late coming people.

The Show: 3D glasses are quite as good as the 360 experience, if you have experienced it. Ofcourse it’s not IMAX here but still, the 3D experience is wonderful, BUT! It’s very hard to miss the dirt at the top right of the screen. The theatre is just one week old, I kept wondering how did the dirt make it to the top right of the screen. Doesn’t anybody notice it at least? Or doesn’t simply anyone care.

Conclusion:

Some of the raised points here are common sadly among all cinemas. Others are I think Bairaq specific. And while it’s a 5 minutes drive from my home, I think I’d rather do 30 minutes drive and enjoy my self instead, that is when I decide I want to see the movie in Kuwait Cinema and not at home.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Name: Q8Traffic

Site: http://twitter.com/q8traffic

Type: Twitter / Info / Traffic

Language: English (mostly)

Brief: Q8Traffic is a new simple, yet can be very useful, idea. Q8Traffic is basically a twitter account that retweets all tweets that includes the hash #q8traffic. So by following it, you get what everyone else says about the traffic condition on Kuwait roads.

Example: You’re driving by Road 50 towards Kuwait City, and road jams at third ring road.

You tweet: “Traffic jam at Rd 50 towards Kuwait city near 3rd ring rd.”

As I’m following Q8Traffic, I would get an instant update about the traffic and be able to avoid it. What’s in it for you you say? What goes around comes around, and other people will be helping you as well hopefully.

Ofcourse, we’re not suggesting here you tweet while driving 120 km/h (or more) ofcourse, but if road is already jammed, this update can help others avoid the jam, and minimize it as well.

Snapshot:

Popularity: 1% [?]

Name: Kuwait Restaurants

Site: kuwait-restaurants.blogspot.com

Type: Food / Info

Language: English

Launch Date: August, 09

Brief: Kuwait Restaurants is a newly launched blog based directory for Kuwait restaurant phone numbers and addresses. It has just launched, so far has no photos, has a very ordinary design, and has a listing of 98 restaurants.

Since it turns out we don’t have any comprehensive listing that is constantly updating, it’s good to mark down any site with such listing for when you need it. I personally hate dialing central numbers to get restaurant number I need. I prefer to seek it online always.

Snapshots:

And by the way, you can search for their listing from Q8Ba7th Phones Search.

Popularity: 3% [?]

For sometime now, Urood.com has been down and it seem to be long gone. I’ve really liked it in the past, although I’m not a heavy user of classifieds. Having tried it only once, the site was easy and nice to use. Alas, Kuwait is a small market, and getting a community around any Kuwaiti site is no easy job.

Shame to loose such a site.

Popularity: 2% [?]