Kuwait Times reported the ban, and soon after it was picked up by many other sites like The Next Web & Engadget.
Kuwait Times was the only newspaper in Kuwait to mention this story without any merit or proof of the ban. The government didn't make any official statements either.
Now, Kuwait Times has edited the article retracted the shameful piece of news.
News websites that picked it up should be ashamed of themselves for not seeking the info from other news outlets, and for criticizing the whole country based on one lousy article.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Untangle To Include Web Cache
Untangle is a gateway controller built on top of Linux. It can act as a router or a transparent bridge in the network.
Untangle is open source and offers a free version. The free version provides the following:
It currently does not provide a caching proxy, but I received an email notification today that the Untangle Web Cache feature request ticket, that was opened 2 years ago, has been assigned to a developer and should be included in Untangle 8.1. The current version as of this writing is 8.0.
I don't know when it's due, but that's certainly great news! I've been told by many people that making squid work with clamav is a huge headache as it often just dies (squid). So I'm guessing the Untangle team has finally worked a way to get around these issues.
Untangle is open source and offers a free version. The free version provides the following:
- Web URL filter
- Virus Scanner & Blocker
- Spam Blocker
- Attack Blocker
- Phish Blocker
- Spyware Blocker
- Protocol Control (Layer-7 filtering)
- Captive Portal
- Firewall
- Intrusion Prevention
- OpenVPN
- Reports
It currently does not provide a caching proxy, but I received an email notification today that the Untangle Web Cache feature request ticket, that was opened 2 years ago, has been assigned to a developer and should be included in Untangle 8.1. The current version as of this writing is 8.0.
I don't know when it's due, but that's certainly great news! I've been told by many people that making squid work with clamav is a huge headache as it often just dies (squid). So I'm guessing the Untangle team has finally worked a way to get around these issues.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Bad Business Practices: Dealing With Haters
If you're a business owner, how do you deal with haters? Like any problem, you have to understand why you have the problem before you grab your tools & start fixing it.
It doesn't take a genius to see why people hate Oracle, but this post is not about Oracle. I'd like to use Khalid Al-Zanki as an example here because of some of his tweets that have been surfacing ever since Bashar and I wrote about his bad business practices.
Before going through some pictures, I'd like to note that we've never mentioned his personal life. We've only highlighted his fraudulent approaches to marketing his services and himself.
As you can see, in these pictures and ones from previous posts, that his approach to all our exposures was to warn people to not listen to us, write a general post about what his method is without saying that he uses it, and rather than looking at things from a professional point of view, he quickly saw them as personal.
How did Khalid deal with haters? Not as a professional for sure:
- He didn't bother replying to us directly.
- Always deleted our questions on his posts.
- Switched his Twitter account to Private, disallowing his followers to read about what's going on.
- Rather than admitting his mistakes, he hides for a while then pushes for more.
- He scolded people publicly when he didn't like a reaction or something someone did (like tagging him in an event in Facebook)
So from the last image, in addition to his funny typo, we can guess what he's gonna be up to & count on us coming after his cunning and dirty approaches at doing business, over & over until he learns about something called ETHICS.
It doesn't take a genius to see why people hate Oracle, but this post is not about Oracle. I'd like to use Khalid Al-Zanki as an example here because of some of his tweets that have been surfacing ever since Bashar and I wrote about his bad business practices.
Before going through some pictures, I'd like to note that we've never mentioned his personal life. We've only highlighted his fraudulent approaches to marketing his services and himself.
As you can see, in these pictures and ones from previous posts, that his approach to all our exposures was to warn people to not listen to us, write a general post about what his method is without saying that he uses it, and rather than looking at things from a professional point of view, he quickly saw them as personal.
How did Khalid deal with haters? Not as a professional for sure:
- He didn't bother replying to us directly.
- Always deleted our questions on his posts.
- Switched his Twitter account to Private, disallowing his followers to read about what's going on.
- Rather than admitting his mistakes, he hides for a while then pushes for more.
- He scolded people publicly when he didn't like a reaction or something someone did (like tagging him in an event in Facebook)
So from the last image, in addition to his funny typo, we can guess what he's gonna be up to & count on us coming after his cunning and dirty approaches at doing business, over & over until he learns about something called ETHICS.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Kuwait Law Needs Presence
How many times did a policeman stop you and tell you that something you did/have is illegal?
I remember 3 occasions, and probably forgot more. In each time, the policeman would say it's illegal without providing proof or making sense as to why it is illegal. When questioning him, seeking a logical explanation, I get the same answer: "it's illegal."
Example: Bumper Stickers on cars.
Verdict: Illegal.
Reason: Because he said so.
Actual reason: A friend had a small questionnaire for the Department of Motor Vehicles in Kuwait, and it turned out that what they meant is stickers that change the color of the car, i.e., those that cover the entire car.
As you can see, what they meant is not what was being applied because there was not enough description of the item being banned.
Ironically, if you have a sticker that covers the entire rear window but it's a picture of the Amir or it's verses from the Quran, it's not illegal!!!
My proposal to this is to force all government agencies to publish Kuwait's laws & regulations online, in both Arabic and English, so that everyone knows what are their rights, be able to easily search for them without paying a lawyer, and to be able to even question the details or application of these laws.
There's a legal software being sold in the market for many years, monopolized by one lawyer, which contains laws of Kuwait (I don't know if it includes DMV regulations) and their changes throughout the years.
This software targets lawyers, but since a digital copy is available, it's quite easy to publish it online! Yet no one seems to care to go for the effort.
I'm tired of questioning mindless policemen over idiotic regulations that they keep coming up with. I need evidence. Or maybe they should carry booklets of regulations as proof.
I remember 3 occasions, and probably forgot more. In each time, the policeman would say it's illegal without providing proof or making sense as to why it is illegal. When questioning him, seeking a logical explanation, I get the same answer: "it's illegal."
Example: Bumper Stickers on cars.
Verdict: Illegal.
Reason: Because he said so.
Actual reason: A friend had a small questionnaire for the Department of Motor Vehicles in Kuwait, and it turned out that what they meant is stickers that change the color of the car, i.e., those that cover the entire car.
As you can see, what they meant is not what was being applied because there was not enough description of the item being banned.
Ironically, if you have a sticker that covers the entire rear window but it's a picture of the Amir or it's verses from the Quran, it's not illegal!!!
My proposal to this is to force all government agencies to publish Kuwait's laws & regulations online, in both Arabic and English, so that everyone knows what are their rights, be able to easily search for them without paying a lawyer, and to be able to even question the details or application of these laws.
There's a legal software being sold in the market for many years, monopolized by one lawyer, which contains laws of Kuwait (I don't know if it includes DMV regulations) and their changes throughout the years.
This software targets lawyers, but since a digital copy is available, it's quite easy to publish it online! Yet no one seems to care to go for the effort.
I'm tired of questioning mindless policemen over idiotic regulations that they keep coming up with. I need evidence. Or maybe they should carry booklets of regulations as proof.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)