A revamp for Emirati

Emirati has redesigned his blog: formerly An Emirati's Thoughts, it's now called EmiRaTeS MeMoirS and comes with a brand new colour scheme.

He has also added a new blogger, Moona, to add "a bit more positivity and lightheartedness" - hopefully Moona will be a member here as well soon.

You can read more about his changes here.

'We are defending our identity and our being in this place'

7DAYS - Film asks questions

Quote:

This week the country's first full-length feature film goes on general release. Its makers hope it will help strengthen Emiratis' besieged sense of self in a land many worry is no longer their own.
. . .
"This building, it's a building in a UAE-style. But if you walk inside maybe you will be the only UAE man walking there, and that's very strange. After a while you will raise the question, who am I? Is it my country or am I a tourist?"
. . .
"I haven't made anything up, it already exists," Shaibani said, denying he was promoting a more liberal aesthetic for women. "Most women here are different..the story includes women who are free.”

Show times

Google's blogsearch - let the games begin!

I know this is a bit 'meta' in that it's another post about blogging, rather than blathering on about life in the sand, but this is just too geeky to resist.

Google has just launched its blog search engine and, unsurprisingly, it's a belter:
http://blogsearch.google.com

And because this is Google, there's all sorts of behind-the-scenes info crunching going on to serve up the most revelent links. So, before the actual search results are listed there is a short selection of "Related blogs" which Google deems to be...well, who knows? The most influential? Most traffic? Funniest?

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=dubai&btnG=Search+Blogs

As of this evening, Google's recommended reading for those searching for 'dubai' are:

- the dubai chronicles - The saga of Jeff Vergara living in the City of Gold. Presently living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, unravel his journey throughout the city...
- Secret Dubai diary - Intrigue and adventure in the United Arab Emirates
- Dubai, US embassy medical examination - جراح زبردست و سرشناس ایرانی در سال...
- From Dubai directly to your heart - http://henseldogg.nomadlife.org/
- Dubai Daze - http://jumeirah.blogspot.com/

So there you go - a Top Five chart of Dubai blogs. Well, according to Google.

Shameless Plug

Hello all,

I'm a Brit expat who has been living in Dubai for about 15 months, prior to that I spent 8 months in Kuwait. I've been blogging nearly two and a half years at www.wetheundersigned.co.uk, but last week finally got round to updating my blog with a new name, new software, and a new direction: White Sun of the Desert is where I post from now.

I didn't realise the Dubai blogosphere (excuse the vomit-inducing term) was so established, and it was only yesterday that I came across the superb Secret Dubai Diary quite by chance, and this led me to what has been under my nose all along.

So, glad to be aboard and I look forward to reading and writing about Dubai on the web in future.

Dubai and the Asian Games

Over at LiveJournal's UAE community, a poster is asking for opinions on Dubai hosting the 2016 Asian games for a university project:

"I'm a university student in Singapore, and for one of my geography modules, we have to do a project on an Asian city that would be a good choice to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, and my groups has chosen Dubai. :) I was just wondering how local Dubai-ites would feel about this - whether all the development and crowds would be welcomed. I just need to know you think you would react if your city got chosen to host the olympics. Aside from the glory and the economic benefits, I need answers at a more individual level. How would you feel about all the problems that such a large influx of people into the country would bring? Do you think that Dubai is (or will be) capable of hosting such a large scale event in the next ten years? My research shows that it is planning to bid, but it hasn't officially been approved or something."

If anyone would like to contribute a view, do drop by there and reply, or if you don't have a LiveJournal login, just reply below.

Internet Filtering in the United Arab Emirates in 2004-2005 :: opennetinitiative

Link: Internet Filtering in the United Arab Emirates in 2004-2005

Link posted here for information and discussion by the UAE community blog writers and readers.

How Lame...

Wouldn't it be better to use the $5.5 billion, that is going into the (stupid) Falcon City project, on improving roads, law enforcement, education and healthcare?

Why do they think that it is necessary to build stuff that is (or had been) already built? Did they run out of "the tallest (input some crap here)" ideas?

I nearly puked from frustration when I read the paper on this project.

To those project people; "There's already an Eiffel Tower. It's in Paris. There's already a Great Wall. It's in China. Why don't you guys travel a bit and get educated?"

Skype gobbled up by eBay

Ebay, the auction giant, has bought Skype for $2.6bn. Most of us love and use Skype to keep in touch with families and friends back home, and I hope eBay will keep it as a general-purpose VoIP tool, and not just make it another eBay software.

Secret Dubai comes to the attention of the New York Times

Link: Dubai Opens Door Wide to News Media, but Journalists Note a Catch :: NYT

The September 11th issue of the New York Times includes an article by Hassan M. Fattah on ambiguities surrounding journalists freedoms in the UAE. It's worth reading.

Our very own Secret Dubai comes in for a mention - quote:

The Internet is the most often censored; the Emirates' phone provider, Etisalat, uses an electronic filter for all Internet traffic and, the government says, blocks sites deemed prurient or troublesome. Pornography is certainly blocked, as are gambling and dating sites, according to a statement by Etisalat.

But the system has blocked material on other subjects, like alcohol and breast cancer. More controversially, content that verges on the political has also been blocked: Secret Dubai Diary, a quirky blog about Western expatriate life here, was blocked for weeks this summer, raising howls from the blogger community. Etisalat says users can appeal to have a block removed.

For almost a day in June, the Web site of The Times was blocked, possibly, the company said, because it contained words that activated the filter; Etisalat quickly unblocked the site after numerous complaints.

Etisalat cutting Al Shamil prices

Gulf News:

Etisalat has announced it is to cut the price of its broadband subscriptions.

The cuts of up to 46% for the Al Shamil home connection service are being brought in to accelerate the UAE’s broadband take, according to the telecom company.

Customers previously paying Dh450 per month for 1mb broadband under the old structure will now find their bill drops to Dh249. The price for a 512kb connection will drop from Dh250 to Dh189. [1Mb drops to Dh249 from Dh450, and 2Mb drops to Dh349 from Dh650]

The price cut is intended to ensure a total of at least 100,000 home-user broadband accounts by the end of the year said Abdulla Hashim, Senior Manager E-Company.
He said there will also be incentives for new subscribers worth up to 1,777dhs, including Siemens modem at 50% of market price.

The price-cut follows the announcement last week of a free upgrade in bandwidth for existing customers.

We've ordered but have yet to have our Al Shamil installed but this seems to be good news for the UAE. Now more people can afford broadband and more people can afford faster broadband. Or perhaps this is just a way of smoothing over all the upset feelings over the performance issues ;-)

How popular are these bars going to be?

"Workers in Dubai Media City have just three months to wait until the free zone begins to offer its first venue for out-of-hours socialising. In December, Radisson SAS will open the first hotel within the DMC campus, housing three restaurants and three bars, marking the end of a four-year ‘dry’ period for the media zone."

However, the outlets are reported to be:

• "Italian restaurant and a fusion diner with a 'vibrant and trendy' bar."
• "Mezzanine bar, which will serve Spanish tapas, will transform into a trendy nightspot in the evenings."
• "A rooftop terrace lounge with views of The Palm."

I'd like to know why the third one isn't going to be trendy. And, I can't help thinking an honest-to-goodness Irish Village style boozer would have gone down better.

More here.

Traffic spike

Media coverage - ie the Gulf News article that John posted - can give a noticeable traffic spike to your blog (John and Adnan should also have seen one on their blogs):



But more excitingly, this place got its first mention!

"An enhanced sense of community is apparent in new sites such as UAE community blog that combine contributions from several bloggers."

It doesn't seem to have affected traffic here, which is quite steady and healthy. You can see the typical "weekend dip" pattern - clearly most people log on from their office!

Feel free to dig around the stats to see who's coming here. You can also add a Sitemeter to your own blog, it's free, and easy because they have an auto-install feature for certain blog hosts, including Blogger/Blogspot.

Bss & Brn in Al Ain: Fun with Google Maps

Brn's post provides a link to Google Maps (Beta) and gives tips on finding some local UAE landmarks. One further tip: the default is "map" which is not available here. Click on "satellite" to see the satellite imagery. Most of the photos appear to be several years old.

Other UAE forums

There are several interesting UAE web forums around, that often turn up interesting stories. Here are three I have found:

SkyscraperCity Forums - United Arab Emirates

British Expats.com - Middle East

Springs, Meadows & Lakes Community - Breaking News

If anyone has any others, please do post!

Blocking of site bolsters bonds among bloggers

Link to Gulf News story.