Q8Ba7th Official Blog

Hi all,

Sorry so many people complained about the online version for two reasons:

1) It did not handle Arabic characters accordingly. I needed to change a bit in encoding
2) It was not importing back successfully. As expected, it’s something to do with line breaks. I was making line breaking, but no carriage return.

Both issues are now fixed hopefully, and you can start converting much faster, and really FREE. No hidden costs

You can go ahead and try it here.

Popularity: 13% [?]

You may have already heard about the Offline Java and Windows converter available. Some people are facing issues with either installing or running the program, especially the Windows version. Cross-platform compatibility also comes at a price. The Java version requires JRE 1.6, which has a considerable download time.

To provide a simplified and quick solution, we have also included an online converter version, where you simply upload your Contact Info CSV file, click convert and get the output converted file on the fly. There is a limit right now for 100 KB, which should be enough in most cases. My 16 KB file has over 300 records and numbers. If you have a larger file, you may want to consider the offline version.

You do not have to worry about your confidential information being stored anywhere. We do not store any information about you, or your file. The file is placed in temporary location for on the spot processing, and the output file is pushed immediately to the user.

If you are savvy enough with the online version, please just follow the steps below:

Important Notes

The service you are about to use processes CSV files blindly, and does not use country field to distinguish Kuwaiti from non-Kuwaiti numbers. Instead, it will process the file, and whenever a pattern of Kuwaiti number is found, it will convert it accordingly as a Kuwaiti number. Kuwait patterns are numbers like: 7 digits, 6 digits starting with 8, +965, 00965, and +00965. 3 digits numbers are still the same and will not be altered. If you have numbers of such patter in your list that are non-Kuwaiti numbers, especially the 6 and 7 digits, make sure you handle them separately later on, or take them out of the CSV file and recreate them manually. Your international dialing codes will be preserved in all cases. If you have +965 or any other prefix infront of your number, the converted number should still hold this prefix accordingly.

1. Synchronize your phone with your favourite PC address book software. This could be Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Mozilla Thunderbird for example.
2. Once done, export your contacts from your address book into a CSV (Comma Separated) file format, say contacts.csv. Make sure you remember the location of that file.
3. From the 8 Digits Converter Form below, Click on Browse and select your newly generated CSV contacts file, contacts.csv in our case, then click Open. (Max file size: 100 KB)
4. By default, all Kuwaiti phone numbers will be convertered. If you require only specific numbers to be converted, e.g. Wataniya numbers only, uncheck the unwanted prefixes, for example, MOC and Zain.
5. Click Convert. This process will take a while, depending on your file size.
6. If successful, you will be prompted to save the output CSV generated file. Save it to a new file name. Never delete your old file
7. Go back to your address book and delete all contacts.
8. Import the new contacts-8-digits.csv file back to your address book. This should create the same old contacts with the new numbering plan.

Terms Of Use:

8 Digits Online Converter is an online FREE service from Q8Ba7th.com that will help you update your phone contacts to the new 8 digits numbering plan coming to Kuwait October 2008. The web service is designed to overcome the problems of the offline versions, from compatibility, and download time, and instead, make the process a lot easier and faster. This ofcourse comes at the cost of uploading your contacts information to a public server.

Nevertheless, rest assure we do not store any information about the user, or keep the contacts information, or any part of it, onto our system. Once uploaded, your file is placed in temporary folder for processing, and the final output is pushed directly to the user.

The service is FREE to use, and is provided as is, use it at your own risk. Always keep a backup of your old contact information in case you need to get back to it. Conversion is done based on the officially announced new numbering plan in the newspaper, aided by further checkings with mobile operators. Should there be any mistake in the conversion, we encourage you to inform us about it.

The software is being provided absolutely FREE. Feel free to use it and share it, as you like. It was meant to help people do the transistion. We encourage people however to download the software directly from our site, to ensure they get the latest release with all the updates. Please note that you are not allowed however to do any modification on the code, part of it, change or add anything to it, or claim ownership of this product. You should not also try to use it for commercial purposes
like selling, rebranding or service providing.

While this software is FREE, and we believe will be important for many people to migrate to the new numbering plan, we are open for business owners who would like to discuss sponsoring this program, having their brand shown on the web page and software it self. If you like to sponsor this software, do send us an email at the address provided below.

Not Happy With Online Version?
We fully understand and respect the opinion of people who do not wish to send their contacts to a public place. In that case, you are welcome to try the offline versions. Our recommendation is to use the Java version.

Wataniya WBackup Converter

I believe all Wataniya customers got this SMS today about WBackup for FREE conversion of their numbers. It’s a pretty smart move from Wataniya to utilize the eight digits to promote and educate the public about their online backup solution, which I don’t think was selling pretty much before. I’m sure also Zain will come with their own solution pretty soon, but still late! If you want to give it a try, go ahead. Note however that WBackup is only FREE for 3 months, so you need to deactivate the service if you don’t wanna get charged.

While it might be a useful and quick way to convert, I have these points and concerns to preserve and think about before using it:

1. The service is about storing the contact information permanently on their system until you delete them.
2. I would double check if it converts all numbers or only Wataniya ones. Does it preserve the international dialing codes as they are?
3. Incompatibility: This is ofcourse an application based service you store on your mobile. A good large amount of handsets are supported, but still not all. iPhone for example is not in the list.
4. WAP Based: Does it mean I have to be subscribed and paying for WAP to use this service? This is double charging at the end.
5. Most Importantly: One thing I really hate about phone contacts is how each handسet uses it’s own contact fields. E.g, home number, work # 2, Home Fax. You go ahead and use those numbers, until you sync and move to a new phone, only to find out those numbers were not moved because they are not recognized by the address book or your new phone. Would WBackup be able to handle all kind of phone fields, or be missing some of them? When I designed the Eight Digits Converter, I wanted to avoid this problem, which is why the converter only looks for number, regardless of column name, you will still get it.

If you give it a shot, do let us know how it goes.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Sadly, Wataniya just sent a late notification for migrating their Wataniya numbers to the new plan starting today. The SMS is requesting all users to add a 6 to all their Wataniya stored contacts. I also heard Zain are doing the same as well. This is a very tedious job, and I didn’t have that in mind in the original Eight Digits Converter release.

We have worked on a quick solution to allow you to specify the operator you want to convert specifically. It’s pretty much the same. You basically just uncheck the operator you don’t want to convert to right now.

You can check all the latest updates and download the new release at the Eight Digits Converter page. Or if you like, you can download the software directly from here:

• Eight_Digits_Converter.jar (Version 0.2.0 Fix) - Java JAR File (All platforms) - Requires JRE 1.6
• EightDigitsConverter.zip (Version 0.2.0) - Windows Installer (Windows only)

For Java Version: Please make sure after installing JRE 1.6 that you set it as the first to use. For Mac, check the Java Application Runtime Settings. For Windows and Linux, check the path environment variables.

UPDATE: I got an SMS from Wataniya saying you can convert your numbers using WBackup. I did not find any relative information on the website, but you may wanna call and ask about the service. It’s an application you install on your phone that lets you do the conversion. According to the SMS, the service is FREE of charge. I think it’s FREE for first 3 months, and you will need to store your contact information on Wataniya servers.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Some people reported problems running the Eight Digits Converter Java version, getting the following error:

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/jdesktop/layout/GroupLayout$Group

For Geeks, problem was building GUI Apps using Java, the editor for some reason does not include some primary classes needed for the GUI Interface in the built JAR file, and those classes are not included in the Java versions by default.

For everyone, the problem is now fixed and you should be able to run the new version 0.1.1.

Please note I am not changing the file name in reaction to people linking probably directly to that file from their site, thus people will download the old release by mistake.

Popularity: 12% [?]

If you are living in Kuwait, you should already know that by 17th October, the Ministry of Communication will start rolling out the new phone numbering plan, adding an extra digit to all 6 and 7 digit numbers as follows:

1. MOC 7 Digits Numbers: Add 2
2. MOC 6 Digits Numbers: Add 1
3. Zain Numbers: Add 9
4. Wataniya Numbers: Add 6

Zain is going to start their testing on 18th of this month for Zain-to-Zain calls, and reports say Wataniya have already started their testing. The testing period will wrap up 6 months as I know, during which both the old and new numbering plan will be working, to educate public on the new numbering plan, and start migrating gradually.

There is an awful lot of work and money being put by telecom companies, and all other corporates will need to be updating their customer contact information as well. But what about us the end users? Once the migration is completed, all our mobile contact information will be incorrect, and we will have to manually check each number, see for whom it belongs, and add the new digit accordingly.

Thus, I have quickly developed a tool for converting the old Kuwait numbers to the new ones. The software is available in two versions, Windows only (VB), and Java for all platforms. To avoid the hassle of developing the application for each phone differently as well, the program does not integrate with your phone at all. Rather, it expects your phone contact information in CSV (Comma Separated Values) file. The program will go through it, find Kuwaiti-patter numbers (e.g. 7 digits, 6 digits starting with 8, +965, +00965, 00965), and add the new digit accordingly.

Online Version: You can now try the online converter version without need of installing any additional software.

Download (Offline Version):

• Eight_Digits_Converter.jar (Version 0.3.0) - Java JAR File (All platforms) - Requires JRE 1.6
• EightDigitsConverter.zip (Version 0.3.0) - Windows Installer (Windows only)

For Java Version: Please make sure after installing JRE 1.6 that you set it as the first to use. For Mac, check the Java Application Runtime Settings. For Windows and Linux, check the path environment variables.

Instructions:

But First: Important Notes

The software in hand processes CSV files blindly, and does not use country field to distinguish Kuwaiti from non-Kuwaiti numbers. Instead, it will process the file, and whenever a pattern of Kuwaiti number is found, it will convert it accordingly as a Kuwaiti number. Kuwait patterns are numbers like: 7 digits, 6 digits starting with 8, +965, 00965, and +00965. 3 digits numbers are still the same and will not be altered. If you have numbers of such patter in your list that are non-Kuwaiti numbers, especially the 6 and 7 digits, make sure you handle them separately later on, or take them out of the CSV file and recreate them manually.

Also, if your contacts contains Arabic or non-English characters, please make sure you use UTF-8 format in your file. Unicode formats will not work.

1. Synchronize your phone with your favourite PC address book software. This could be Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Mozilla Thunderbird for example.
2. Once done, export your contacts from your address book into a CSV (Comma Separated) file format, say contacts.csv. Make sure you remember the location of that file.
3. From 8 Digits Converter, Click on Browse next to the Source File textbox field, and browse to your newly generated CSV contacts file, contacts.csv in our case, then click Open.
4. By now, Destination File should be already filled with same path as original, contacts.csv file, with a trailing 8-digits file name, e.g. contacts-8-Digits.csv. You may change this location if you like, but we suggest you keep it as it is.
5. By default, all Kuwaiti phone numbers will be convertered. If you require only specific numbers to be converted, e.g. Wataniya numbers only, uncheck the unwanted prefixes, for example, MOC and Zain.
6. Click Convert. This process will take a while, depending on your file size.
7. If successful, once done you will see a log in the designated area, and stats about the processed and generated file. A log file is also created for your future reference in the same directory with .log extension.
8. Go back to your address book and delete all contacts.
9. Import the new contacts-8-digits.csv file back to your address book. This should create the same old contacts with the new numbering plan.

Browse now and skim through your contacts. Make sure you all your contacts are there. If there is a problem, delete all contacts, and import the old file, contacts.csv, back to the address book to restore it to the original condition.

Terms Of Use:

8 Digits Converter is an offline FREE tool from Q8Ba7th.com that will help you update your phone contacts to the new 8 digits numbering plan coming to Kuwait October 2008. The applicaiton has two versions, Windows only, and Java to be platform independent, so you should be able to run it on your Windows, Mac, or Linux system of choice. The Java version however uses the latest Java version, so make sure you have JRE 1.6 or later installed on your system before you try to run it.

The software is provided as is, use it at your own risk. Always keep a backup of your old contact information in case you need to get back to it. Conversion is done based on the officially announced new numbering plan in the newspaper, aided by further checkings with mobile operators. Should there be any mistake in the conversion, we encourage you to inform us about it.

The software is being provided absolutely FREE. Feel free to use it and share it, as you like. It was meant to help people do the transistion. We encourage people however to download the software directly from our site, to ensure they get the latest release with all the updates. Please note that you are not allowed however to do any modification on the code, part of it, change or add anything to it, or claim ownership of this product. You should not also try to use it for commercial purposes
like selling, rebranding or service providing.

While this software is FREE, and we believe will be important for many people to migrate to the new numbering plan, we are open for business owners who would like to discuss sponsoring this program, having their brand shown on the web page and software it self. If you like to sponsor this software, do send us an email at the address provided below.

Also, please note this software is still in Beta, until we gather enough feedback and do enough testing. So if you find any bugs, or would like any further assistance, please do let us know by adding your comments here below, or sending us an email here.

Hope you find it useful. Happy Gergean from Q8Ba7th.com

Known Errors:

• Some people reported errors on Windows installer. We are checking that out right now.
• Java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Sorry guys. This’s been a mistake from my side. The JAR file was missing some core GUI classes and won’t run on all systems. (FIXED NOW)

UPDATES:

• 20-9-08: Fix for handling double quotes was applied
• 19-9-08: Both Java and Windows version gets update for version 0.2.0, allowing you to limit conversion to certain operator only. Since mobile operators are starting testing between their customers only, Zain and Wataniya users will need first to convert only their operator numbers. This release will help you do so.
• 18-8-08: Fix for Java version 0.1.1: Java version was not working on all platforms. Some missing classes were added.

Popularity: 97% [?]

Ramadan Kareem first, and God bless you all. Ramadan is a month of religion, prayers, and it’s also a lot more. It changes the social life style of all Islamic countries for people of all religions. It brings families and friends back together, strengths the social life, somehow encourages the sporting activities that we see Ramadan tournaments now more popular than the official soccer league. And heck, you can’t find an empty pitch to play! People keep writing about what they do and how they spend their Ramadan. So we figured, why not vote on it?

What’s your activities in Ramadan?

Q8igg for Ramadan section. There you will be able to see, vote, and submit the most popular Ramadan activities. The old way is changed, you no longer need to submit a URL for your news. For the sake of this practice, you can now write an editorial your self. Participating in this event is pretty easy:

1. Login to Q8igg (Register if you haven’t already. Takes three minutes)
2. Click on “Submit a new story” button
3. Write the original news url (if you have one) and click Continue
4. Write your story title. Could be something like “Play soccer”, or something more specific as well, such as “Play at Roudan contest”. Up to you. Please make sure though you check other stories before you submit yours. Chances are someone has already submitted the same activity, and you can vote there directly. Try not to generate duplicate content
5. Tags: Comma separated. Make use of them. For example, playing soccer at Roudan tournament could give something like “Sport, soccer, roudan, tournament”.
6. Upload Image: Would look much nicer if you have one. It would also make it show in sidebar rotating news box
7. Description: As much or little as you like. Shorter and more concise however might be more convenient for readers.
8. Category: If submitting for Ramadan, make sure you select Ramadan from the list.
9. Click “Preview and Submit”
10. Take a final look. All good? Click “Submit story”

That’s it! Now go on and submit some more if you have. Tell your friends to share their thoughts. See what other people are doing, give votes for what you like. Keep in mind there are two places for news:

Ramadan Upcoming: Where new stories are queued until they receive enough votes. Be sure to check there and get your favorite activities published.
Ramadan Published: Activities which already got the blessing of the community (i.e., enough votes).

Also, while you are there, you may want to check the other news categories. We are regularly posting news from Kuwait and Worldwide. You can also subscribe to any of our list of RSS feeds as per your desire:

Popularity: 12% [?]

So much information you need to look for out there, and a single window is just not enough. You frequently have to open more and more tabs to do more and more searches. And sometimes, when searching for local piece of information about Kuwait, you end up with an overwhelming amount of results from all over the planet that makes it difficult to reach the information you need, which is only inside Kuwait. This is why Q8Ba7th was made. Q8Ba7th is a Kuwait focused search engine powered by Google, that intends to make your Kuwait searches easier, giving you more relevant and focused results. This is opposed to searching the whole web when your search is aimed at only few hundreds or thousands of sites. But people often ask, why wouldn’t I Google the information I need directly? Google is more global and I can definitely find what I need there. The site I’m looking for may not be listed at Q8Ba7th.

This was one thing we thought of when we implemented the new interface. Another thing we aimed for was ease and quick of search. Ability to reach various amount of information, without needing for the browser to refresh. Something that will make the search experience smooth rather than discontinuous.

We’re happy to be releasing the new AJAX advanced search mash-up interface, that would give you literally 7 search results in one page:

If you click the link, or take a look at the image above, you would see two tabbed columns there:

Left Column: Kuwait Results - Q8Ba7th. That includes

• Kuwait: Search Kuwait sites
• Phones: Search Contact pages and phone directory pages of Kuwait sites. This is useful when you are looking for specific phone number, say EUREKA.

Right Column: Global Results. These are Google results that covers:

• Web: Normal Google web search. So now you can search what you want on Q8Ba7th, and see if Google Web results have anything useful as well.
• News: Google News Search. See what are the latest news on the topic you are searching for, like elections for example.
• Blog: Google Blog Search. Includes Blogspot alongside other professional blogs
• Image: Image search results for your query. Sometimes an image is worth a thousand words they say.

So that’s six resultsets. Where is the seventh? It’s the video bar below, giving you YouTube videos related to your search query. That’s gotta be worth more than a thousand words I say!

If you prefer the old classic mode, you can find a link at the top right to switch back to Classic mode. Also, below each resultset, you can click the More Results link to browse more results in Classic mode.

Popularity: 22% [?]

It’s been a while since any major update happened at Q8Ba7th. At first, I was busy with Q8igg, and then during Ramadan things just weren’t going as I wanted them. But I have been working slowly and silently on something new. It’s not a technical breakthrough, but it’s something that will hopefully ease for people in Kuwait finding the information they want. Another custom search has been created to search for Phones numbers in Kuwait. I noticed that many sites list large amount of useful phone numbers, and many companies as well have their phone number listed at their site. But try to search that phone number on Google. Most of the time it’s not easy because of the increasing number of pages that have the same keyword. Say you are looking for a worldwide famous restaurant number. You would get large number of results. Now try it with Q8Ba7th search for Kuwait site. You may also have difficulty finding that information from the increasing number of blogs talking about each and every restaurant or company they deal with.

With Q8Ba7th Phone Search, we have tried to restrict the search to pages with useful phone numbers, and also the contact pages of companies and different sites. All in one custom search for you to find. That means you will get much smaller results in general, but more focused as well. In some occasions, where site does not provide company number, or the whole site is flash based, we try to put the link as close and relevant as possible. Sometimes to the contact us form, and others to the main flash page where it’s easy to browse then to the phone number usually.

So why don’t you give it a try now and search for something like وزارة المالية, hardees, Embassy, or anything else you may need. See if you can find it. To switch between phone search and general search, please use the new radio buttons below the search box to specify your search.

I’ll have to be honest with one thing. Building this directory hasn’t been much of fun, low on technical challenges, so much time wasting that I even thought about abandoning the idea several times before I saw some potential to it. Nevertheless building the index have taught me a lot on how to plan for the information to be retrievable and useful for the end user. It has also confirmed to me once again Google Custom Search has still some work to do before it’s stable enough. Read below to see why you may not find the information you are looking for at times.

Why Can’t I Find The Information I Need?

Wish you could find everything that easy, and we will try our best to make it as good as possible. Not finding your result could be for several reasons. (Warning: Some technical details included below):

1. You did not write the exact phrase: As there is no intelligence in the search, you will mostly need to write the name exactly as it was written. Try different wording, and try to search for it in both English & Arabic. Some famous brands have only listed their brand name in one language. Sometimes only in English when it is commonly used in Arabic among public.
2. The site or information is not searchable: Google Custom Search can go through text only. They cannot search your flash site or phone number that’s inside an image.
3. The site is not titled properly: Unfortunately, many sites ignore the necessity of the Title for the reader and searching engines, and simply use the title as Contact Us. So when I search for the company name, the search engine may not return the result as the company name is not written in the title, and sometimes only written within an image header. Making the search engine clueless on what the page is about. A more convenient and better way would be to write “Q8Ba7th - Contact Us” in the title. Also, company or site name should be visible at top of the page as well. If it’s inside an image, then use the Alt attribute to label it accordingly. Otherwise search engines can’t return it as a result for the user query. You would be missing your target customer traffic in that case.
4. Dynamic Content: Like the Ministry of Education School Search. Loads of useful information are only pulled from their system dynamically upon user custom search query, thus making it hidden from search engines. Otherwise, you would be able to run a query for “مدرسة بيان الثانوية” and get your result.
5. It’s not added to our index: We do not have all sites of Kuwait added most certainly. We are working hard to enhance our directory all the time. So if you happen to know a resource or URL we are missing, please let us know.
6. Bugs?: Yes. Our search is powered by Google Custom Search, which is a great service by the way but it needs more tweaking. Sometimes even the pages that are added to the index are not returned in the results. We have contacted Google for the issue and they seem to be improving their index all the time. Forza Google!

Please, feel free to use the service, and be encouraged to give me back your feedback on it.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Q8igg, pronounced Kuwaitig, is a new Digg like site for Kuwait. The site, still in Beta, allows you to post news, articles, and your favorite links. The name of the site comes as you might guess from the word Kuwait + igg, which is the common trailing trend for Digg like sites these days. Why is it different than Digg? Well we noticed that if you submit Kuwait related content to Digg, there is a very small chance it will get any attention. However with this site, it’s mostly about Kuwait, and Kuwaiti community votes for the good news to bubble up.

The way it works is very simple. You just need to go through the quick registration process, and submit the link you want. Once you do so, it will appear on the Up Coming news. If enough people vote for the news (Q8igg it), it will come up in the Published News area. If you like the site, make sure you checkout the Tools section to see how you can incorporate voting widgets on your site or blog. You can easily add them to your blog post so that people submit your content to Q8igg.

That’s only half the good news though. By registering and submitting news to Q8igg, you get the chance to display your own ads on the news page that you submit. All you need is your own Google Adsense account. Provide your account number in the profile page and you’re good to go. All Google Ads revenue on the news page is yours. Why would we do that? Well, we like the concept of sharing revenue with the site content generators, who are you at the end. We gave it a thorough thought as we didn’t want money to overcome quality. We hope though that by giving you this opportunity it will encourage more and more quality posts to come. I am not %100 sure, but I think we are here the first site here in Kuwait that offers revenue sharing with it’s community.

Please note that we are still in Beta. So please bare with us, and help us improve by submitting your favorite stories, giving us your comments and feedback, and spreading the word about it. And remember, a community site is only as good as it’s members.

Happy posting.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Hi All,

Thank you for visiting our blog. This is the new official blog for Q8Ba7th where we will speak of the latest updates happening on our website. We will be giving some useful user hints from time to time. There will also be reviews of the interesting and useful Kuwaiti sites we come across as we build our site index.

The blog is still empty but it won’t be long hopefully before it’s fill with content, so save the RSS feeds and wait for the updates. If you have any comments you would like to share, please do let us know here.

Thank You.

Popularity: 7% [?]