One year passed since my last post

It's really starting to feel awkward when I stumble back in here. I always go on reminiscing throughout my older posts without any idea how I even wrote them back then! Oh how I wish I could get back into blogging but either I'm getting older for this or "blogging" is getting older for the internet.

Anyhow, since I dropped by I guess I could use a quick note for my future self when I stumble back in here again...

الحمدلله رب العالمين

الحمدلله الذي رزقني بولدي الثاني عبدالله من بعد زيد

الحمدلله رب العالمين

اللهم ارزقني برهما واعفني عقوقهما واجعلهما من عبادك الصالحين يا رب العالمين

Dying MacBook Pro "Late 2008 Model"

My late 2008 MacBook Pro is slowly dying on me. It all started when my older built-in HDD drive started slowing down so I swapped it with a Crucial SSD and bumped the RAM from 4GB up to 8GB. Ever since I had that upgrade my Mac improved in terms of performance but it went downhill in regards to portability; the battery life is being leeched so badly it could only last for an hour or even less. Then few months ago I had an incident where I pressed the power button but it never booted up. I detached and reinstalled the battery and for some odd reason it booted just fine making me put the blame on the battery (Late 2008 MBP battery is accessible by removing the latch at the bottom unlike newer unibody models).

Then few weeks ago I encountered the same problem but this time the first method never resolved the issue and so after almost an hour trying to figure out a way to make it boot, out of desperation, I blew air into the optical drive opening just like we used to do with Sega & Nintindo game cartridges (old school gamers can relate), and yet to my shock it worked! That also lead to one conclusion... Removing the optical drive because it was useless and wasn't working for a very long time anyways hence I swapped it with a dual drive enclosure and installed an HDD. The process was a smooth one and the Mac went on working normally again up until yesterday when I came to boot it and it didn't work. Yet again it took me a couple of hours of attaching and detaching things until it booted one last time for a quick sweeping backup. Now I'm not really sure what might be causing it not to boot but I honestly do not want it to die on me, at least not this year.

If you have experienced something similar or have a fix please contact me in the comments.

iOS 7.1 Location Services Arrow | Fix

Why I think I should move to iPhone 5S

School wall demolished over two cars

No matter how bad your day is, just look at this and be thankful.

A wall of a school under reconstruction, apparently demolished from the inside out, was taken down over two cars early this morning. The only casualties were that Porsche Boxter and VW Passat CC.

3rd RedBull Flugtag Kuwait 2012 | Dragonfly Team | 1st place, 2nd time!

Dragonfly Team

We succeeded in defending our 2010 title by winning this event with record breaking performance! Although we had so many difficulties including hot + windy weather, broken wing (then fixed by using rope/cable-ties), and also been delayed for take off from 8th to 29th (last team to fly) due to the fact that our plane cart weighs 100KG+, 3 by 3 meters wide x 4 meters high, and is made of non-floating material (aluminium), yet we still outperformed the other teams and snatched a total of 176 points, 16 meters (new Kuwait event record) and creativity award for best design.

Related articles & blog entries:
www.redbullmea.com
- Grey's Blog
- Froyonation
- Banana Q8
- Buz Fairy
- Q8AllIn1

Dragonfly History:
- 2010 Event (1st Place) [link]
- 2007 Event (6th place) [link]

Thanks to all people who have covered this topic online.
And a special thanks to Dawey7D (Instagram/YouTube) for his beautiful coverage,
generosity and great spirit.

Anybody tried WIMD services? Is it good? Is it worth the money?

Redbull Flugtag Kuwait 2012

Join us Friday, October 19, 2012 @ Marina Waves.

Dragonfly Team 3.0

Yet another year

Zain Bahrain | Update

After calls and complaints I got my credit back.

No wonder why telecommunication companies always making profit. Some people ignore when the company sucks small amounts of their credit and that is so wrong. We should stand up against them.

Zain Bahrain | Blood Sucking *censored*

I would like to send out the longest, loudest and meanest curse upon Zain Bahrain for being such a *censored* in the @$$.

For seven months now I have had my Zain prepaid line working without Internet. Last week I tried to give it a shot and try their weekly subscription. When I asked about the service they said for 2BD I will have 1GB of data, and I will receive a message BEFORE the service expires telling me either it will be automatically renewed or the credit is insufficient and it gets turned off. I subscribed last saturday and it expired yesterday, Friday, while I had about 3.5BD credit. The service did not renew automatically, it simply expired without sending me a notice message.

I woke up today to find that my credit had vanished and the service is not renewed. When I called their customer service the guy said I will forward your complaint and they will get back to you soon. Few hours later I get a message "Dear Zainer, your subscription at the Data Bundle service failed to be renewed automatically, kindly check your balance and dial *555# to subscribe. Call 107 for more details." *censored*!

No wonder why my credit just vanished when I had my cellular data running with no subscription, but that is not my fault. They should either send the message before expiry or at least hold the subscription from sucking credit! Besides, my credit was more than sufficient. It should have been renewed normally without any problems.

So here's the thing, if this issue doesn't get resolved soon then it's war between me and Zain.

Wanted at any cost.
Terra Paprika Chips

Gmail & Google+ Acting Up After Safari Update | Fix

My Gmail & Google+ pages look weird after Safari update. Gmail doesn't load emails and G+ aligns to the left with slow page loading.

UPDATE: Problem resolved. "Go to your applications folder, right click on safari, "get info" and uncheck the "32bits" option."

-Thanks- @Anonymous comment.

I Want This Watch II

I'm just $81,000.00 short!

URWERK UR 110 [link]

Google love

Simply in love with Google UI design revamp, especially Blogger.

January 21, 2012

الحمدلله الذي أنعم علي بنعمته ورزقني بمولود

Thanks to Allah for blessing me with a beautiful baby boy.

Recording OS X Text to Speech to an Audio file using Terminal

This is a very useful method to record OS X text to speech into an audio file.

1. Create a text file using TextEdit and write whatever you want the Mac to speak then save it as "text.txt" on your desktop.
   
   
2. Open Terminal
   
   
3. Type cd ~/desktop and click Enter
   
   
4. Type say -v Alex -o "audio.aiff" -f "text.txt" being "audio.aiff" is the name of the audio output file and "text.txt" is the name of your text file saved on your desktop then click Enter

Once you click Enter the audio file will appear on your desktop.

You can change the voice with any of OS X system voices (Kathy, Vicky, Victoria, Alex, Bruce, Fred) by replacing Alex with any of the names.

Note that even ".rtf" files can be read as well so in that case just change "text.txt" with "text.rtf".

Learning Misconception

Here's an advice for all of you graduate students...
NEVER defy your instructor even if he/she was wrong.

I'm doing my masters degree in instructional design for open and distance teaching and training. Our current module is "Design and Presentation of ODL materials" and part of our study is learning HTML attributes. It is funny how my basic knowledge of HTML became useful.

What we are being taught in our workbook is that "ALT attribute" for graphics and media is basically a mere tooltip option rather than accessibility feature. There's also no mention for the "Title attribute" which is in fact the rightful attribute for tooltips on web pages. When I told the instructor it is a misconception he told me to wait and see. He defined ALT attribute for an image on dreamweaver to demonstrate how it works and when he moved the mouse over the image waiting for a tooltip to show text he entered nothing happened. I told him this has nothing to do with ALT attribute, it's Title attribute that handles tooltips. He insisted that there's a problem with his browser and all of us should try it on our computers.

I, being ignorant, defined my image with a Title attribute. When he came to check my work, to his shock mine was the only one working, I told him see this is the right attribute. He stood still for a couple of seconds. Goes back to the center of class and says arrogantly "When I ask you to do something you do it precisely. I don't need your help rather you need mine." Double/you-tea-ef ?!

Ok, my fault. I don't need to tell a professor what's right and what's wrong but if he is teaching us this misconception how is he expecting us to succeed? No wonder why our learning outcome sucks and nobody seems to understand what he/she is doing.

Belated new year resolutions

My blog has been up for the past 6 years *shocked how time passes by* and I'm still here, not active as I used to be but still alive and kicking'. My belated new year resolutions are:

• Be a better person (that includes being a better son, husband, brother, uncle and friend)


• Blog more often


• Do my best in my masters study


• Become super dad for my upcoming baby


• Buy a new car without having to sell the one I have


• Enjoy photography even more


• Ease up on shisha ( yeah right -_- )

Vaporized Money

I've been away from Kuwait for the past three months studying in Bahrain. Last week my brother called me telling me the company that I'm storing my furniture at called him telling him they have not received any payments from me and they are going to press charges unless I pay.

The story begins at NBK. Three months ago I made a debt transaction directly to the company's account and for the past three months their money gets deducted on the 24th of each month however it neither goes into their account nor back into my account. Where is it?

I got back to Kuwait last Wednesday hoping to resolve this issue and get back to my study but as we all know no one can finish anything in one day, this is how our system works. When I went to NBK they said as long as the money never got back to your account then the transaction is accurate, and when I went to KFH (company's bank) they told me I cannot do anything, a company representative should come and deal with this issue.

The dilemma started when the company and I wanted to resolve the issue. They asked me to cancel the monthly transaction. I went back to NBK and they said we cannot cancel it unless you bring us a release paper stating that there are no outstanding amounts due to the company! WTH? I made that transaction personally, it is not an installment! I had the option of transferring the money online each month but I didn't want to deal with that hassle. The company accountant said they don't have release forms of any kind and since I made it I can cancel it but NBK refuses to cancel. W T F ?

I couldn't stay for long so I'm back in Bahrain now. I gave the company my account statement which clearly shows every deduction and they can look for their own money, and after talking to some people at NBK I signed some papers to cancel the transaction but it won't happen until transaction department look into it.

UPDATE: Jan, 2012 - Problem resolved