Saturday, June 24, 2017

iPhone 6 WiFi + Bluetooth interference

I have switched my data plan from VIVA to Ooredoo because the wifi download speed was miserable and to my shock, after signing a data contract with Ooredoo, the download speeds were even worse. I went to Ooredoo tech support and spent over two hours trying to figure out what's wrong with the data line to no avail. One guy suggested that the problem is caused by my iPhone which I doubted at the time because my phone line was also Ooredoo and I get download speeds up to 60mbps!

I looked it up online and there were many suggestions that it could be caused by wifi network settings in the privacy>locations pane. When I turned it off I got slightly higher speeds but nothing more than a couple of mbps, from around 1~3mbps up to 5~7mbps.

After a couple of trial and error attempts I turned off Bluetooth which has been always on paired with my Garmen watch and guess what, the speeds jumped all the way over 40mbps!

Now I can confirm that this interference is causing the problem because my wife's iPhone 6 also had the same problem and I was able to surpass it only by switching off Bluetooth.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

The Origin of "Banak"

There was a heated discussion going on the past few days between me and my friends regarding the origin of what we Kuwaitis call "Banak". A salty hard shell seed, brown from the outside and brownish green from the inside, that is used as snack. We often refer to it by its country of origin like Bulgarian, Turkish or Iranian/Persian Banak but that's about all we know.

Now I've done my research and I'm glad to say I have finally found the answer. Banak, also known as Baneh in Iran, is a seed from a tree called Pistacia Atlantica. A close relative to pistachio seeds but its nutritional facts are unknown because it's used extensively in the Gulf region only, especially in Kuwait and Bahrain. It is sold raw by weight and gets treated by boiling it in salty water.

You can learn more about the tree and it's seeds by googling its name. #pistacia_atlantica #PistaciaAtlantica #بنك# بَنَكْ

EDIT: For those still in doubt, you can find three videos on this youtube channel showing the tree, pre-treated seeds and post-treated seeds.