I can't think of a title...
Filed underDubai
Bye bye tyre, take 2.
Plums, anyone?
This past week, a few of us gathered over at Tea Junction in Dubai to dabble in photography. The goal was to have an informal setting for people interested in photography/food photography (without necessarily being photographers) take a picture of a mystery food item - told to us at the venue - and use the settings around us to come up with 2-3 core shots that we'd share with the group. This could then lead to some feedback, suggestions and a general sharing of ideas. We also worked on a couple of concepts in pairs.
If, for some insane reason, you missed the title, then well, the mystery item was a plum. Well, okay, plums.
I went with three different colored plums so that I'd have contrast - a dark one, a mixed one, and a fairly light one. Unfortunately I couldn't get the whole 'journey of the plum' idea done well, although others were more successful [links will be posted soon]. My idea was to go with one very traditional food shot, one random one, and one hopefully somewhere in between.
To start with - and knowing my love for iced tea - I picked up a Boston Iced Tea (ie, Iced Tea with cranberry juice) since I knew the color symmetry would help. So the opening shots were very cookbook-like-traditional.
Union Co-op Barsha outlet bans single men via @bilalhouri
Well, well, well.
I had to really think about this one. I finally decided to file it under #funny.
Bachelors have been barred from entering a newly- inaugurated shopping centre in Dubai for fear that they would misuse the massive discounts on offer.
Union Co-operative opened a new branch at the Barsha Mall with an attractive promotion offering discounts of up to 50 per cent on select items such as fruits, vegetables and household goods.
The 14-day promotion that started on July 20 witnessed massive response with crowds coming in from as far as Sharjah, Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah, apart from Dubai.
Although all shoppers were allowed into the hypermarket on the first day, the management soon decided to ban single men.
According to a customer care executive this website spoke to, many of the promotions were being misused by small cafeteria and grocery store owners.
“We found out that many of them were buying our products on offer only to resell them in at their stores at the original price. So we have decided to turn away single men from entering the hypermarket until the promotion ends,” he said.
Only men accompanied by a woman are being allowed into the store.
The promotion, according to him has been a huge success due to the massive discounts.
A three-kilo Arial pack, priced at Dh33.50 is being sold at Dh19.95. Similarly, a 4-litre Comfort fabric softener priced at Dh23.90 is being sold at Dh12.95. Another hot seller is Harpic liquid. A (3*750ml) pack of Harpic liquid originally priced at Dh36.90 is being sold at Dh19.95.
Several products on offer disappeared from the shelves within a few hours on the first day and according to a salesperson at the hypermarket, a similar trend is evident on most days. “Every day we replenish the stock, but some items disappear within minutes. There are so many people in the store that there is hardly any place to walk around with trolleys,” he said.
Among those products that are in great demand are tomatoes and onions. With a price tag of just Dh1 per kilogram, shoppers were seen grabbing the plastic bags as soon as fresh baskets were brought in.
via emirates247.com & shared by @bilalhouri
Oh, and enjoy the hashtag currently in operation: #unioncooppickuplines
Dear @EtisalatUAE, as an ISP and all, you do know we use forward slashes in URLs, right?
Luckily for them, Chrome auto-corrects the address. Safari on the other hand, isn't so smart.
Dear @dutweets, maybe you can help me understand?
Actually, first of all, I do want to thank you. I mean, waiving my renewal fee and giving me lifetime validity on my phone - pure genius and you guys do maintain the best offers in the market, no doubt about that!
However I have a slight peeve.
You have a 'more international' option, wherein I get added credit for a limited time, but only for dialing international numbers. To be clear, I cannot use this credit for a local call.
You have an 'out of credit' call option, which allows me to make (only) local calls if I run out of credit on my phone. Super.
On the given day, I had credit in my 'more international' plan, but ran out of regular credit.
So when I needed to urgently dial a local number, I got the You do not have enough credit in your regular account to make this call. Fair enough.
I dialed in to the out of credit option, which was kind enough to tell me, You have enough balance on your phone, so you cannot use the out of credit option if you have credit.
So I cannot use my international credit to make a local call, my out of credit option to call local calls says I have balance (in my international credit which I cannot use for the local call I want to make)...so I can't make the call.
What's the point?
What I did to my tyre this fine morning
Oh joy. #TRA to suspend #UAE #Blackberry services
Blackberry services are to be blocked from October. Jeff Topping / The National
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has said that Blackberry Messenger, Blackberry E-mail and Blackberry Web-browsing services in the UAE will be suspended as of October 11.
The suspension is a result of the failure of ongoing attempts, dating back to 2007, to bring Blackberry services in the UAE in line with UAE telecommunications regulations.
Both telecommunications operators, Etisalat and du,were informed of the decision earlier today. The notification was delivered with an instruction to ensure minimal consumer disruption in the provision of alternative services.
All Blackberry services fall within the UAE regulatory framework developed by the TRA since 2007, however because of Blackberry's technical configuration, some Blackberry services operate beyond the enforcement these regulations, the TRA stated.
Blackberry data is immediately exported offshore, where it is managed by a foreign, commercial organisation. Blackberry data services are currently the only data services operating in the UAE where this is the case.
Today's decision is based on the fact that, in their current form, certain Blackberry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE.
Commenting on the announcement, the TRA director general Mohamed Al Ghanim said: "With no solution available and in the public interest, in order to affect resolution of this issue, as of October 11, 2010, Blackberry Messenger, Blackberry Email and Blackberry Web-browsing services will be suspended until an acceptable solution can be developed and applied."
"We informed both Etisalat and du that providing the option of alternative services to ensure the continuity of service from October 11 to its subscribers - both individuals and organisations - is the most important priority." Mr Al Ghanim added.
Mr Al Ghanim said, "The TRA notes that Blackberry appears to be compliant in similar regulatory environments of other countries, which makes non-compliance in the UAE both disappointing and of great concern."
via thenational.ae
Oh, brilliant. Coming hot at the heels of this news where they were "clear" that "we don't have plans to stop them" by the TRA Spokesperson, this is starting to get ridiculous. As such, we have issues with Skype, and restrictions over everything else. All the 20 years of building free zones and all that fun stuff to bring businesses to the UAE comes to nought if you're not going to let businesses communicate.
Yes yes, they'll either then announce, "Oh it was a misunderstanding," or the even better, "Look BlackBerry caved and we found a solution" memo before the deadline. But still, this is a huge issue for businesses. It leaves an unsettling doubt. Not a good sign. The right way would have been to give BlackBerry the deadline, sort out the issue, announce that you're working with RIM and then announce it when you have a solution. Golly, I don't even work in PR.
I'm an iPhone lover myself, but one thing's certain, businesses run on BlackBerry. And after hearing this, the iPhone or the Android are hardly out of danger, are they? I can already see the announcement: "We don't like their App Store/Marketplace."
Why is there such little professionalism around here?
Picture the scene. Your big corporate meeting, people flying down from Europe for a day. Let's all meet they said. We insist we have everyone. Schedule for late Thursday afternoon? Super.
I coordinate with a local contact to attend. Oh, I can't make it, I have to pick up my kids Thursday afternoon. Right. How about a different time? Yea, that's fine.
My battery proceeded to die in the evening. So he called me, and I missed it. Around 10 p.m., when I got around to checking e-mail, I see a "I was expecting a call from you." There was another e-mail regarding a project our companies were partnering on. I had an issue with it, and it was urgent, so I replied questioning his e-mail.
His response five minutes later: "I did not hear back from you regarding the meeting." I replied I did not get a confirmation so I will get back to him on that in morning. And well, you didn't answer my question.
I message him after the meeting was confirmed in the morning. He proceeds to call me and say "This is why I was trying to call you yesterday. I can't make the new time" Eh, what now?!
Confessions of a teenage drama queen
Right, so my post refers to this article, written about this event. It's fairly obvious from the comments section of the article that I felt rather strongly about the way it was written, because it represented very poor journalism on various grounds. Rather than go point by point on the issues I had with the article (I tried starting the post that way, but boy did it get too long), I've decided to approach it from another angle.
Before I do that, let me start by saying I did not agree at all with the policy in question. Refusing entry — based on clothing, especially if that clothing has cultural or religious significance — to a networking event, isn't right. I don't know if the venue should have been different, or something. To be honest, it's a bit of a double-edged sword: the law attempts to protect the culture and us, as humans, want to be treated equally and not denied entry to networking events.
If you don't know them already, allow me to introduce you to the Society of Professional Journalists. I'll let you read on-line what the organization stands for, but I'm going to bring up, in detail, their code of ethics.
