Just a couple of months short of this blog's second anniversary; I finally made the decision to move over to Wordpress. Lately I was finding Spaces to be more and more restrictive, though it does take credit for providing a friendly platform to help me take that first step.

Wordpress is a powerful tool for managing your blog and you can host your blog on a domain if you have one and you have complete control over your blog, or you can go for a simpler way and opt for the solution where they give you a blog on their own domain and you still get a lot of flexibility and features.

You can get your free account on Wordpress.com here.

Who'd have thought that there was more than one way to lace your shoes. A colleague of mine sent me an email about this and some quick Googling resulted in finding Ian. This guy has made a hobby out of this seemingly mundane task and he's come up with 31 different ways to do it too. Bravo!

[Link]

Its been over 40 days since my telephone line has been dead. You'd think that a decent communication infrastructure for any country would be a very basic requirement, let alone something as basic as telephone lines. Not in Kuwait it would seem.

In all my time in Kuwait, and we're talking over two decades here; I never heard of, or experienced a dead phone line. Now, within a span of three months, its happened twice. The first time around lasted less than a week and even that got me upset. This time takes the cake though - believe it or not, I have no phone connection in my home since the 10th of January 2007!

Its not only me; its the whole building. I've made over ten visits to the exchange on Amman St. now and the people who receive the complaints have failed to tell me what is the cause. It seems that the '56' series is in big trouble and no one cares. I've been bouncing from office to office with my complaint and it is taking its toll on my patience, not to mention my mobile bills. Last week I got through to one Indian engineer there and he told me he'd get this addressed but couldn't tell me when. He said that they have recently lost about 25 staff and the lines are really messed up. I do hope this gets resolved soon enough since I see no justification for this sort of service (or lack of) whatsoever.

I've been thinking for sometime to upgrade the video cables in my home entertainment system at home. This has been on the back of my mind ever since I got an HDTV Ready (1080i) TV a while back. I finally stepped up my research and went through the different connection options available to me between my TV, HDD media player and DVD player.

Initially there was a lot of confusion with so many options available like; RCA, Composite, Component, HDMI and S-Video. I finally settled for Component cables since they provide excellent images (they support HDTV and look better if your DVD player supports progressive scanning- mine does) and now all I need to do is place an order for two sets on Amazon. Most likely I'll be going for the THX certified Monster Component cables.

For those not in the know, Component cables are tri-cables (Red, Green and Blue) that transmit only video signals and support high-definition. The more accurate term for Component video is Y'PbPr as the term Component can be used for a variety of different video signal types.

Thanks to Marzouk, who has been pretty helpful by providing his insight and helping me weed out the other options.

[Component video Wiki]

I think I've reached a point with Windows Live Spaces where I want to move on. I've been with it since it started as MSN Spaces for almost two years now. Its been pretty alright so far and it had the right amount of user-friendliness to encourage me to start with this whole blogging thing. However, it is time to bid farewell assuming I can find some way to migrate my posts as I don't want to lose them.

I feel I need a more powerful blogging platform and I am seriously considering Wordpress. My only concern is if anyone knows of any mechanism to import my Spaces posts to Wordpress. I don't think Live Spaces offers any exporting options, so my best bet is to have a tool which would allow me to directly import my posts from this blog.

If not, then does anyone know of any other blogging platform that imports from Spaces?

Global Voices Online is an online platform which amplifies the voice of the global online community outside the US and Western Europe. It is categorized by different countries and highlights the activities on different blogospheres.

It came to my notice when I started getting some hits when they put up one of my posts in their 'A Week Goes by in Kuwait' section.

My post on their site can be found here.

[Link]

OK, so this post is a day late but it reflects my stand on the subject. Personally, I don't think Valentine's Day means much especially post marriage. Since after marriage, any day can be a cause to celebrate love and you don't need the excuse of an official day to do so.

However, we did end up going out for dinner (and once again Rohail was an extremely good boy) at Delhi Darbar. It is my current favorite Indian restaurant. Mind you, I'm not a fan of Indian restaurants in the first place since I get similar and better tasting food at home. However, their food has excellent taste and if you're a fan of Indian food then make your way there soon. The one we went to is located in Salmiya right next to Marina Mall in the shoddy looking building that houses multiple restaurants/shisha places.

Back to the subject - on a similar note; I'm not a believer of this whole mother's/father's/relative's/sibling's/friend's/you name it's day thing either. Am I really that distant from these people that I need an official day to declare my feelings? No, thankfully all the people who matter to me are well aware of my love and feelings for them and I don't care much for imposed upon dates to express these feelings.

However, birthdays and anniversaries are a different and significant matter altogether as they have a direct meaning to the person in question and that does make them special.

That's my $0.02.

Yesterday we went over to Maliha's sister's home in Ahmadi as they had been asking us to come over to check out the decorations for the upcoming independence and national days (25th/26th Feb). I must say that the Kuwait Oil Company has really put in a commendable effort. They've practically lit up every tree, bush, round-about and lamp-post on the main roads and it all looks very pretty albeit you get a strong Diwali vibe.

I wasn't able to take as many pictures as I wanted as we were in a bit of a hurry after having a nice dinner at KOC's Hubara Centre nevertheless I'm putting up a few.

Yesterday we took Rohail to the local clinic for his vaccinations that were due after two months. When it was his turn we put him on the table in front of the doc and he looked at her casually as she prepared three (yes three!) injections. He was first given Polio drops which he didn't seem to like much.

His expression completed changed the moment the first shot one was given; you could clearly see the transition from surprise to shock and then to pain accompanied with a loud wail. While he was screaming the onslaught continued with the two remaining shots and this added to his distress. It wasn't easy for Maliha and myself holding him down (and probably worse for him!) but after a while he calmed down and later on we gave him some pain killers given by the doctor. He was uncomfortable throughout the day due to the pain and slight swelling in one thigh (which is supposed to be normal). Hopefully things will be better today.

I finally got a laptop at work yesterday. I was supposed to get one a few months ago but everytime there was some mess up or confusion. All this worked to my favor as now I got a really fancy one, which I wouldn't have, had I received one of the other models that I was supposed to get earlier.

Its an HP Pavilion dv2000 with Intel Core 2 2.0 GHz processor, 2 GB RAM, DVD RW, built-in 1.3 MP cam, 120 GB hard disk, 128 MB GeForce Go 7200 graphics card and a 14.1" WXGA high definition BrightView widescreen display along with a remote control, multi-card reader, wifi, bluetooth, etc. The external body is glossy (piano finish) and has an overal sleek look.

Now I just have to make sure I get some work done on it too!

[HP DV2000 Review]

Today is our 3rd wedding anniversary. The presence of our son; Rohail, makes it all the more special. The day started off with our parents calling in to wish us and we've been getting congratulatory SMSes ever since. The three of us plan to head out for a nice dinner and hopefully Rohail will keep his cool through it all.

In celebration, I traded in my dying Nokia 6260 for the Sony Ericsson K800i (the brown edition). I mentioned about this mobile in a post last August when it was announced and now 6 months later I still couldn't find something that seemed as good as this. I did consider for a few weeks getting a smartphone but after some serious thought realized that I had no need for the slew of features they offer.

I just stumbled upon Google Reader which seems to be an aggregator of sorts for your favorite websites and blogs. Google calls it 'your inbox for the web'. They've also prebundled some packages according to different tastes and categories but I would much rather make my own bundle/subscriptions based purely on my favorites.

I plan on checking it out as it would be nice to see all my favorite site and blog posts on a single platform.

Google definitely seems to be the way to go now. All they need to do now is integrate their messenger with Microsoft and Yahoo and I'm good to jump on the wagon.

[Link]

Now that I'm on the career path I want to be on, I thought it is a great time to invest in my career. The PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from PMI (Project Management Institute) is what I'm really after though I have decided to start off with the CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management). The CAPM is a less intensive certification and will allow me to get into the groove.

These are project management related certifications (doh!) and basically provide you the guidelines to ensure the smoothest possible execution of a project. They detail the different possible phases within the project's life-cycle and the expected inputs and outputs of each phase. You are also exposed to the standards and pertinent knowledge areas and all this has been encapsulated in the PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge). Since project management isn't an absolute science (more likely, a combination of art and science), it has been mentioned in a lot of places in the book that the PMBOK provides the guidelines, however, the ultimate decision to select, drop or fine-tune a process lies with the team members and the project manager.

I'm pretty excited about this and have already started preparing for the exam and I intend to give the test in a couple of months at most, so wish me luck!

The other day I was at my father in law's place and saw the book 'Three Men on the Bummel' by Jerome K Jerome lying around. That and perhaps its more popular predecessor; 'Three Men in a Boat' are two of the most humorous books that I have read. What is great about JKJ's writing style is how he extracts wit and humor from seemingly normal activities and situations. It is all about observation to the details and conveying it in a manner that is highly amusing.

The first time I read his work was back in school during our English comprehension class where we had a concise chapter on 'The Man Who Was a Hospital', and I have been hooked ever since.

I would strongly advise everybody to read them atleast once, though don't blame me if you find yourself wanting to read them time after time. I guarantee that you will be smiling throughout the read and that it would be an enriching experience.

So far I'm really happy with my new camera (Kodak Z612). The colors are brilliant, focus is pretty spot on and the zoom is simply amazing. I've still got to sensibly fool around with the manual settings (meaning that I've already done some random fooling around with interesting results).

I picked up a case for it from Eureka (electronics and accessories store in Salmiya, Kuwait) for the necessary protection. The screen is a major fingerprint magnet and I now regret taking off the thin plastic sheet over the screen. Another negative I noticed is that during video recording the mic picks up a lot of sound from the zoom motors and that there is substantial blurring while you are zooming during a video shoot. I'm not sure if these are standard problems that come with video recording with digicams but its not a major issue for me; since I only use it to shoot 1-2 minute clips of my son. I also turned off the Continuous Focus option in favor of One Time Focus since the lens would constantly be adjusting and readjusting at every slight movement and it would no doubt be the source of major battery drainage.

The zoom on this thing is awesome and image stabilization plays a major role at 12x zooms; in fact it would be pretty useless without it. Below I've added two snaps of a gate lamp taken from the same spot at both extremes of the zoom without any digital zooming (I guess Spaces will compress the images but you will still get the idea), and at maximum zoom the focus and clarity was very good. I've also thrown in a couple of macro shots of flowers though I still need to really exploit the manual settings for optimum results.

Just learnt from Mark's post that today MTC has launched a wireless internet service called e-GO. Apparently they give you this small USB device which you connect to your laptop/desktop and it has its own SIM card which hooks you to the World Wide Web. The rates and packages are still not announced though it says on their website that you can get further details from their branch offices or by calling 107 directly.

I hope they've got decent prices and that the service is good and reliable. Internet services really have a long way to go in Kuwait in terms of speeds, prices and overall quality of service. The more the competition; the greater are the chances that we will get there soon.

[MTC homepage]

After Rohail's birth last month, I had to go through the process of getting his residency. Once again, its a lengthy and somewhat complicated procedure and since I've got friends with new babies just arrived or on the way; I though I'd document it.

A point to note is that the process I'm detailing below is for a first born, who has been born in Kuwait. I say this, because most of the officials asked me if this was my first child so it could be possible that there may be some variations if its not your first kid. Also note that you've got two months starting from his/her birth to get this done, else there's a fine.

Also try not to make the officials repeat things if you don't understand their crap English or when they don't look directly at you and mumble something, as they can get offended and you'll have to hear some rude 'tsk's and comments (as per my experience which happened at a few of the steps below). My advice; resort to the helpful (at a small cost and sometimes free) Bengalis wandering around.

1. After birth the hospital fills up a form, attaches copies of your wife and your passport and marriage certificate and sends all this to the Health Ministry for new kids (I'm not sure of the exact name). Make sure you've decided the kid's name by now as it is needed at this point. The hospital folks gave me a pink slip and asked me to go there after a few days. If its not a private hospital, I think they require you to go with all these documents to your local clinic and get them to send it over to the Health Ministry.


2. Report to the Health Ministry, which if you're living in Salmiya, is located close to the Traffic license office and next to the Hussainiya (white mosque, green dome) in Maidan Hawally. Take along copies and originals of your passport, civil ID, marriage certificate and the pink slip that the hospital gave you. There's no tickets and you just take a number, hand over the documents and they give you back the pink slip with a date to come and pick up the Birth Certificate.


3. Report to the place on the appointed date and pick up the Birth Certificate. Head straight to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in Shuwaikh) and get it attested at a cost of KD.5.


4. Take the Birth Certificate and all your documents to your embassy and get your kid endorsed in your wife's passport. Some embassies require you to apply for a new passport.


5. Now you need to get health insurance. Take the birth certificate along with its copy and your civil ID original and copy to the health insurance place. Note that this is no longer done in the insurance shops and for Salmiya, you need to go to the office right behind Mubarik Al-Kabeer Hospital in Jabriya. This is a 5 minute job if you go in early and it costs KD.31 for a year's worth of coverage, KD.61 for two year's worth. The guy will give you the health insurance card and the certificate which you need to get signed by the guy he points you towards.


6. Now you're ready to head to your local passport office ('shaoon'). Its better if you get the relevant form prepared beforehand from the multiple shops that do this stuff. Head over to 'shaoon' with copies of your passport, civil ID, health insurance certificate and the application form. It costs KD.100 for the first kid and in my case, my wife's visa was cancelled and she was issued a new visa with an appended item which included my son's name. The expiry date remained the same so I ended up not getting a complete year of residency for my son. The reason for this is because he was not on his own passport and I guess it is better since in the future, I can renew the residency for both of them at the same time.


7. Finally, you need to get the civil ID. Get the forms, fill them up and submit them. It usually takes a few days till the civil ID is ready for you to pick up. You're done! Celebrate with a shawerma and a samadi.

You must have heard those specific words travel agents generally use to accurately convey codes ("5, charlie, alpha, 2, 9, hotel"). Here's a list of words that correspond to the entire alphabet used by the police. I've tried it a few times and sometimes find myself searching for a good word; 'psychology' and 'pneumonia' it ain't!

I've usually heard 'Nancy' for 'N', instead of the 'Novemeber' listed here though.

[Link]

My new company required me to get my degree attested (in Arabic) in order to process my visa transfer. I've detailed the entire process as experienced by me so others may benefit from it. It is a somewhat lengthy and complicated process (no surprises here).

Steps 1 and 2 would vary if your degree is not from a British university.

1. Since my degree is from UK, I had to first get it verified and stamped from the British Council. Duration: 5 days, Cost: KD.5.


2. Then the British embassy attested it. Duration: 30 minutes, Cost: KD.12.


3. Take it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (between Kuwait City and Shuwaikh, opposite the new Pizza Hut and opening soon Starbucks). Duration: 30 minutes, Cost: KD.5.


4. Get it translated to Arabic from an approved place in Kuwait City (a lot of shops doing this opposite the main bus stand of KPTC). Duration: 1 hour, Cost: KD.3.


5. Take the translation and original to the ministry complex (3 storey white buildings right opposite the Liberation Tower). Go straight to the 3rd floor and get it verified and stamped (KD.2) by a few ladies sitting right next to one another (could be easily done by one person, but that's job creation in action). Getting hold of a Bengali worker with a half KD tip at the end will be a worthwhile investment. Then take it to the ground floor, get it stamped (KD.2) and signed again, and then once more signed at another counter (amazing job creation going on here). Duration: 40 minutes, Cost: KD.4.5 (including the tip to the Bengali).


6. Take all this to the Liberation Tower building and head to the 2nd floor and you'll find a small office for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here. Take a KD.5 stamp from a human ticket dispenser sitting in a corner and get it verified and stamped. Duration: 30 minutes, Cost: KD.5.


7. Mission accomplished! Celebrate with a shawerma.
   

Happy degree attesting.

Yesterday I finally got my Kodak Z612 digital camera that I'd ordered from Amazon a few weeks ago. I had been using the Kodak LS420 2.1MP model for around 4 years now and it was time for something better.

I wasn't really interested in the typical point and shoot, super slim models out there as I wanted greater manual control, better zoom capabilities and higher quality pictures. Someone recently pointed out to me that such cameras fall in the 'prosumer' category (somewhere between professional and consumer).

The Z612 was my choice after a lot of research as it fit my budget, met my requirements and had a lot of positive reviews. However, it isn't exactly a pocket fit but at the same time its not that large or heavy either and looks surprisingly smaller than you would think (looking at the images).

Listed below are the key features:

• 6.1MP with 12x optical image stabilized zoom (Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon lens)
• 32MB of internal memory (I purchased a 1GB SanDisk from Amazon to go with it)
• PASM (Program/Aperture Priority/Shutter Priority/Manual) modes
• A cool EVF (Electronic View Finder) that also displays image information and settings
• Video recording with sound at 30 fps
• 16 scene and 5 color modes
• Li-ion rechargeable battery with the charger (I despise the 4 AA-battery solution - hint; Canon - despite having otherwise superior digital cameras)
• Great build - looks and feels like a great quality product, which it is

I still have to really play around with it and I intend to take tons of pictures.

Hopefully, I'll put up a review of this once I've used it some.

In the meanwhile, I'll be ordering this book from Amazon soon, which is apparently a simple yet informative guide to shooting good pictures using the manual options. It has some very positive reviews and I need something that is to-the-point and works. I'm developing a serious interest in understanding and using the manual settings (hence this particular camera).

Images courtesy of Amazon.