At first I would like to thank all those who emailed and asked what’s wrong, and why ibrahimo.com lately is not as usual. Well I had couple of issues before and during the holy month of Ramadan, and then after Ramadan by around ten days my Toshiba Qosmio G30 stopped working properly, the screen would melt (as seen in the image) just after few minutes from booting. Later I find out it was the Nvidia video card which is embedded on the motherboard. After calling Toshiba (Al-Futaim) here in Dubai I gave them my notebook’s model number and an explanation on what was happening, and they quickly and over phone told me what was the problem, they told me they needed around a week to order the card from Germany!!
That was not the funny part though, I could not stop laughing when I was told that if I had warranty for one year it would be expired by now and I will need to pay something between 3500 to 4500 thousand dirhams!!!!! The notebook itself cost me something like 6500 thousand dirhams. So later I found that I was covered til 2010 and the repair will be done for free.
I was not posting on the blog as normal during the past 3 months, this blog is still considered semi-personal, I will post my views and opinions on Technology, Sports, Politics and TV. New improvements will be implemented soon. So stay tuned…
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October 25th, 2008
I became suicidal today, yes, this was the worst 2 hours dealing with customer support in my life. I call customer support of many companies, there are great ones and there are bad ones, DU is simply THE WORST.
Two Hours and I still did not get any info. Yes, I repeat I have spent two full hours and I still did not deal with my issue, I did not get any info, at all. The thing started when I got the "DU Call Select" device, I think they call it "Autodialer", am not sure. The phone number which was printed on the device and in the manual was 800155, so, silly me, I called the number and chose the Arabic language, after that I waited and waited and waited and…. you guessed it WAITED. I tried my luck in the English language hoping some human might answer and I waited and waited and oh! I suddenly heard a voice, could it be a human voice I said hello and the employee said hello… YESSSS!! At Laaaaaaast….
My dream came true and I reached someone and when I asked the first question he said "please wait" and the same obnoxious music started playing AGAIN, he didn’t even wait for me to say a word. I was thrown from one employee to another, don’t forget that until this moment I still did not ask any important questions this was only me starting a conversation. Anyway, eventually I reached another employee who was shocked why I am stressed and shouting, I told him why I was pissed and he said "oooh! you called the wrong number, you should have called 04-3905555" those are the ones who deal with landlines, but I made it perfectly clear I did not want help in "DU Land Lines" I want help in "Du Call Select" which has a device that when connected to regular (ETISALAT) landline you can call in DU’s rates.
He totally ignored my point and told me he is 100% sure that calling 04-3905555 will end my problems. So I called the number and after chatting for couple of minutes the lady tells me that they are not the ones who deal with this service and they deal only with DU Landlines and broadband and TV!!! So… She gives me another number, I call them praying that they can actually help or even answer my first question, but when I call them the guy says "Oh, I guess you made a mistake…", so I tell him "Don’t tell me that this is the wrong number, please do not give me another number", he laughs and say "well if you want help you should have called the number printed on the device, 800155"!!!!. I hangup, and laugh hysterically, non-stop tears run out of my eyes and I keep on laughing for around 15 minutes until I get myself under control and decide that this should be shared with my blog visitors & subscribers.
I think it is really a big big SHAME that a company such as DU has this low quality customer support, I believe that 800155 should be able to help current or potential customers in any matter ever, I like Etisalats new approach where calling 101 will lead you to each and every aspect and departments of the company. I am not saying that Etisalat customer support is fantastic but for sure they are million times better than DU. I also think that with DU not having such a great mobile service as everybody actually keeps complaining on the weakness of the network and mainly how crappy the reception is, I would have thought that they would be having a better customer service . Thank God that I do not have a DU card, my father and brother got it and they keep on having nervous breakdowns at least once a week.
Note: Please share any of your positive or negative customer support experiences with any company, especially Du or Etisalat.
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October 8th, 2008
I thought, like others, that Bab El 7ara Part 3 or Season 3 like some likes to call it, is the last one and the door will get closed. But those behind the series finds a great opportunity especially that the viewership of the third season did not decline, so now they have decided to produce two new seasons to be aired in 2009 and 2010. What does the director Bassam Al Mulla wants exactly, he wants us to see the grand grand sons of the series characters?
Bab El 7ara is getting more than it deserves, those who used to say that they wont watch the 3rd part because of 3abbas El Noori are actually watching, they want to know what happens to the other characters. If this goes on we could end up seeing Bab El7ara 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10, Until we reach to the current time. How long will they stretch this, I don’t blame them they found the chicken which will lay golden eggs.
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September 12th, 2008
Twitter, the pioneer in micro-blogging which now have hundreds if not thousands of clones all around the globe, was always blocked in UAE, don’t ask me why, while other clones like Pownce and Rejaw stayed available. Twitter is not the only blocked website that puzzled people, many other websites that got blocked had alternatives which was accessible and not blocked/banned such as Flickr and Photobucket.
It has been reported few weeks ago that more than 1000, yes ONE THOUSAND, websites will be unblocked/unbanned, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) will be instructing Etisalat and DU to unblock the websites as part of a new “Internet Access Management” policy. For full info on this matter you can check this article from The National. Until now there is no list of what websites will be unblocked but I guess eventually we will be having a list either official or non-official during the next few days.
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August 26th, 2008
Update: 11th of September 2008: Bab Al-Hara gets a fourth and fifth Season.
Update: I will try my best to show Bab El7ara here.. I had couple of problems the past 5 days, will be blogging soon. MBC changed the Schedule to 11:00pm Dubai time. thats 7:00pm GMT. More to come soon.
Everybody is waiting for Bab El 7ara 3, after two successful seasons in Ramadan 2006 and 2007 MBC saw an opportunity and jumped on it. They quickly struck a deal with the producer and director of the Syrian TV drama series and even before airing the last few episodes they announced Bab El7ara 3, and quickly created promos featuring the two stars of the series. But later everybody started loosing faith in the success of the 3rd season after it was officially announced on AlArabiya channel that one of those two stars "Abbas El Noori" was not going to be in the 3rd season and his character will die on the first minute of the first episode. Fans of the show got mad and bombarded all Arabic forums showing their anger on the decision which is believed to be taken by the director although he says it was the writer’s decision.
By the end of July 2008 new teasers of Bab El 7ara started showing on MBC and by mid August longer promos aired. Those fans who did not believe the news that "Abu Essam" the character of "Abbas Elnoori" got a clear confirmation that his character is dead.
Here are ALL Promo’s that aired on MBC starting from the oldest ad to the latest one:
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August 23rd, 2008
A 35-article law includes all procedures concerning a mortgage in Dubai was issued by His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The goal for issuing a mortgage law is to better regulate the emirate’s booming real estate sector.
According to Marwan Ahmed bin Ghalita, chief executive of Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Authority “the law is basically covering the mortgage procedures in Dubai”, this is an effort to protect the rights of lenders and borrowers and to improve transparency. The Mortgage law will come into effect after 60 days from its announcement.
The new law states that mortgage contracts must get registered with the “Land Department” of Dubai. The size of the loan, the repayment period and the value of the property must be specified. The law also states that the mortgages that are taken out on properties in Dubai can only be sold by registered financial institutions and also should be insured.
Full financial documents should be presented by the borrower and lender. “It gives more confidence to the lender and gives more security for banks” Marwan Ahmed bin Ghalita said. Dubai started allowing foreign investors to buy properties in Dubai on a freehold basis in 2002.
Since then the mortgage business grew rapidly. Back in July Standard Chartered warned that the prices of the still under construction real estate will be inflated due to speculators in the market betting on quick gains.
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August 21st, 2008
To those who do not know, Stumbleupon is a website that allows users to rate websites and share them with their friends and with other users who have the same interests as them. Just by installing the Stumbleupon toolbar on Internet Explorer or Firefox the user sets his interests and by just clicking “Stumble” he will be able to jump from one website to another, so for example if one of his interests is gardening he will come across gardening websites, then he can rate it and like that Stumbleupon will understand what the user likes and dislikes to refine choice of websites to be stumbled.
Web surfers in the United Arab Emirates got the bad news two days ago that Etisalat the largest Telecom Company in UAE have blocked access to StumbleUpon and users were getting errors when clicking on their StumbleUpon Toolbar. People were angry, mad, and all kind of bad feelings you can think of, all sort of people from your regular web surfer to the Web Developer, all did not like the news and tried to contact Etisalat and ask why is this happening, but you always would get your regular answers. Some Web Developers and Bloggers actually use StumbleUpon as a way to promote their websites.
But today morning, and like every morning (I know am addicted 
) I clicked on “Stumble” button of the StumbleUpon Toolbar and was shocked that it worked, I tried again and again and it worked, then just to confirm it I went to www.stumbleupon.com just to check if the homepage would load fine and it did. So I hope this comes as good news to all stumblers in UAE .
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July 8th, 2008
So yesterday we got the news that Britain have issued terrorism attacks warnings for their citizens in UAE. And I know many who just did not take this seriously, saying that USA still did not issue any warning of that sort. As if the USA is any better reliable source. Anyway, so now Washington replies by issuing the same warning of a possibility that there might be a terrorist attack in UAE. Australia is the third country to do the same.
At first and like many people I thought that this is just an attempt by both countries (UK and USA) to affect the economy and tourism in UAE. But after reading what Brown and Bush said yesterday and then how Iran have withdrew 75 Billion Dollars from Europe, all what I can hear is the drums of war.
For full info on the U.S. threat warning read Reuters Article.
Lets just hope that this passes safely and lets also pray that we see no more violence this summer in the Middle East.
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June 17th, 2008
I am not a pro political analyst, but just three headlines I read today made me believe that the Iran War is coming near and looks like its just matter of time. No one on this earth wants a war, except Israel I guess.
The first thing I heard was the announcement from the British Embassy that the risk of a terrorist attack in UAE is High. Then I saw Bush and Brown in a joint press conference where Bush said that although he hopes to settle Iran’s nuclear standoff through diplomacy he will not rule out the use of force. He said “I would like to say one thing about the Iranian demand for civilian nuclear power, it is a justifiable demand,” but he did repeatedly vow to keep the military option on the table by stating “consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran are such that military strikes are justified, whether a smoking gun is found or not”.
Brown echoed the same message, stating that an action will be taken against Iran, “Today Britain will urge Europe, and Europe will agree to take further sanctions against Iran, We will take action today that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the Melli bank, and secondly action will start today for a new phase of sanctions on oil and gas”.
The third headline that made it so clear, crystal clear, its the news that Iran withdrew 75 Billion dollars from Europe yes I know how you feel . Basically Iran withdrew the 75 Billion dollars from Europe to prevent the assets getting blocked under the new sanctions.
I do not know what other news today or this week gave other clues, but those are the three news items that made me think this way. I might be mistaken, well actually I wish I am mistaken, we do not need more wars.
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June 17th, 2008
Previous Posts
At first I would like to thank all those who emailed and asked what’s wrong, and why ibrahimo.com lately is not as usual. Well I had couple of issues before and during the holy month of Ramadan, and then after Ramadan by around ten days my Toshiba Qosmio G30 stopped working properly, the screen would melt (as seen in the image) just after few minutes from booting. Later I find out it was the Nvidia video card which is embedded on the motherboard. After calling Toshiba (Al-Futaim) here in Dubai I gave them my notebook’s model number and an explanation on what was happening, and they quickly and over phone told me what was the problem, they told me they needed around a week to order the card from Germany!!
Tremors were felt at around 3:00pm Dubai local time, at first I thought it was only me but I confirmed it with family and friends. It lasted few seconds, but sure felt as minutes. The source is a 6.1 magnitude earthquake in Bandar Abbas in Iran. In Dubai tremors were felt most heavely in tall towers.
