Meh

It's that time of year again where I update my blog; I haven't been great at updating in the past few years.

At the moment I'm not living in Dubai and I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing in the near future; unfortunately after living there for the past 20 years there are some things that leave a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth.

My journey in Dubai started with the gulf war when my family was forced to Dubai; after a huge amount of issues my parents were about to leave the country when one morning my mother suggested my father apply for a job advertised in the newspaper and remarked "you never know it could be for the ruler of Dubai!", and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why that remark was so memorable.

Unfortunately due to the presence of men of the right hand variety who can only be described as corrupt some things aren't really as shiny as they sound and it took a great deal of time until my parents could even break even... and even though we would all like to believe that loyalty is a good quality it doesn't always go rewarded in life and some things end because more and more corrupt right hand men show up.

It's taken a bit of a forced movement to get me out of Dubai and I have been a bit slow in admitting that sleeping at my friend's house on the couch and smoking shisha 7 days a week all day long aren't the makings of a healthy person.

Among the other things I have left behind are my monthly trips to Oman. That's right, driving across the entire country to enter the Omani border and then summarily do a u-turn and head back home like I'm a tourist.

My tattered and completely filled 30-odd page passport is a show of what can be the true cost of living in Dubai. After doing the visa shuffle for most of the past 2 years I have to say it really isn't a pleasant thing to know that at any time you could be barred entry from the place you 'live'.

Besides the stamps the huge economic footprint required to live and work legally in the UAE is really unwarranted. I don't understand why I should fork down something like 10-40k per year for a visa to work freelance. There simply isn't enough work in the first place (especially during a recession) and if I sound pretentious saying that such a fee is unwarranted I should mention the contracts I have signed on pieces of paper that have a clear government letterhead that clear them of any responsibility in hiring me because the visa should be [i]my[/i] responsibility?

If they actually had to hire legal freelance workers then nothing would ever happen in Dubai; yes, if the list of 36 countries that receive visas on arrival was cleared any time soon Dubai and the whole of the UAE would slow down to a crawl.

If people are going to sit there and tell me that every single person that works or is involved in all of the exhibitions and huge events that Dubai hosts every day has full residence visas I would call them ignorant--unfortunately the government hasn't caught up on this fact and it still requires a huge investment to work legally (to which you are afforded no benefits whatsoever).



To make matters worse there are a number of things that make it hard--you cannot share a house with any non relative legally which puts the cost of living in Dubai even higher and higher. You can't car pool and for most decent job titles you need personal transportation. The cost of living has been increasing and even though it is cheaper than a lot of big cities it is still getting more and more expensive.



Most of the benefits of legal freelance work involve getting a visa if you come from a country which isn't afforded a visit visa on arrival. Even legal freelance workers still get screwed around by every company running waiting for their pay because "the cheque signer is on holidays". As I write this I'm still waiting for a paycheque going on 2-3 months, the person who will give me this paycheque has also been put into financial problems because the person that was meant to give him a paycheque took time because the person who was meant to give him a paycheque took time (and the person at the end of that rather long chain is of course a government company from another Emirate).

In fact the cheque in question came from the project that broke the camel's back and pretty much made me give up. I worked extreme hours for 6 weeks straight (it was supposed to be 2 but due to the weather it became a complete disaster and due to the nature of the project the payment was not expanded in spite of the time it took).

After spending literally hours and hours on said project and bearing the elements I came to the only point in my working career where I was fully prepared to quit on the spot (even though I didn't in the end). All said and done I earned the worst salary I have ever had in my working life. I actually managed to see a discounted salary turn into the pitiful amount of less than 100 AED steadily turn into a negative number quickly after spending money on those necessities that some employers don't like to pay for (like food to fill your stomach while you're working on their job)

There are people who would be happy with such an amount, but in Australia at minimum salary (i.e. cleaning toilets) I can make multiple times more than that amount and  I can also enjoy the right to take anyone to court who doesn't pay me promptly. I can also work as a freelancer completely legally by taking a piece of paper and typing my name at the top.

(Yes it goes without saying it was a stupid project to work on and that is what happens sometimes and I'm sure there are people in every work on life who have endured crap even though they didn't want to)

Among the very real issues that Dubai faces at the moment is that no one will spend any money on anything, which goes for the government, private companies and individuals. Most people that live in the UAE will send a good portion of their pay cheque home and even though the head count might fool some people the UAE really is not a country filled with people who spend their money. Dubai is in the middle of a very real economic slowdown and no one can deny that fact in certain industries; maybe in 2 or 3 years things will pick up again but for now I can't see any sense of it.

This is why in the job market I'm competing against people that will offer to do the same job as I do for a quarter of the amount while I'm already doing it for less to try and get a constant stream of work in the first place to make ends meet and actually become independent. It just doesn't make sense working ridiculous hours and breaking my back so I can get my salary late when I actually find work because someone is doing the same work for much less.

There are of course benefits to working freelance in Dubai such as being able to get jobs on huge projects that would be extremely difficult in other places and I have definitely benefited from working in Dubai.

That is how I ended up working freelance in the film and media industry and as I am sure most people can imagine there aren't many movies filmed here. After working in that industry for a bit I think I am ready to move onto something else in life--I've had enough unbelievable opportunities that I don't feel the need to pad my CV in any capacity.

There is still a big part of me that misses Dubai and the UAE and I don't think that part of me will ever leave. I have friends who will live in Dubai forever. I'm grateful for the friends I've met and the experiences that I have had in Dubai. Especially having written this blog, the experiences from that alone have been great.

At the moment I am thinking of returning to university and entering another walk of life altogether that has more work that pays better and that actually pays on time. At the very least I'm taking a sabbatical from Dubai.

I will update this blog if/when I ever come back to Dubai.

flur

Sadly I learnt recently that a dear friend passed away in an unfortunate accident. He was someone who gave feedback throughout on this blog and I counted as someone when I was younger that I could always look up to and talk to.

Back in the heyday of the internet he used to be an administrator on an IRC (internet relay chat) room that was about Dubai. About 14 years ago I joined the channel and found the most entertaining thing to do was to spam the channel repeatedly until I got banned. Being curious about the internet I discovered I could just disconnect my modem and reconnect and spam until I got banned again.

Flurdoing was one of those people that would still take the time to talk to you regardless of how stupid you were. He invited me to his own private IRC network where I spent several years of high school talking too much about day to day life.

I spammed that IRC network so much that Flurdoing actually personally programmed a bot to give me a predetermined amount of lines that I was allowed to spam each day.

Eventually sensing I could turn all those lines into something productive I started this blog; flurdoing took time out of his today to provide feedback throughout. Even emailing me from time to time using his work account.

The world has lost a truly special person.

RIP flurdoing.

Identity Theft

"ABU DHABI // A significant proportion of UAE residents have been victims of online hacking, fraud or identity theft, a new survey indicates.
Of 751 residents questioned for Al Aan TV’s Nabd al Arab (“Arabs’ Pulse”) programme by YouGov Siraj, 24 per cent had been victims of hacking, 13pc of identity theft and 22pc of online fraud.
The result is widespread concern about the risks of social networks, with two in five (40pc) saying they were somewhat or extremely unsafe.
Perhaps because it is the most widely used, Facebook is also the site about which there are most safety concerns, with a third (35pc) of respondents saying it was the least safe social network.
And 42pc of respondents were concerned that Facebook’s new facial recognition feature posed a “big security risk”." --more here: 
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/online-concerns-focus-on-facebook

These have to be the most skewed statistics ever represented... To suggest that the UAE suffers from 3 times more cases of identity theft than the US is preposterous.

What on earth is 'online fraud'? How on earth can 22 percent of people be victim to online fraud? I just don't understand how that is even possible to suggest that almost a quarter of the population have been defrauded online.

I refuse to trust these statistics as being anywhere near accurate, however, I will state that most people in the UAE are completely unaware of any form of any internet security and refuse to adapt to the 21st century.

Most of the group of people that answered "yes" to being a victim of hacking are going to be the sort that install all manner of free, pirated crap of the internet and then cry wolf when they get a thousand pop-ups on their computer. That isn't even hacking.

As a computer-savvy person I often find myself being asked to reinstall Windows for people; I tell them to buy a proper copy so they get updates, but no one wants to buy it. I know dozens of people who rely on free anti virus services (mostly AVG antivirus which is to put it frankly crap), literally no one will spend around 200 dirhams on an antivirus suite. What happens when your computer gets filled with crap and all of your passwords are stolen by a Romanian trojan virus? Call me, I'll fix it for you, and then you won't spend any money to solve the problem and you'll have the same problem again in 6 months.

The reason that people feel they are victim to so much in the UAE is their complete naivety and unwillingness to adapt to the 21st century. If you take 10 minutes a day and read the news you will understand the grave privacy and security concerns that face everyone today and you will learn to change your habits.

It is ridiculous to see just how naive people are in this country, you have a good chance of convincing almost anyone in the UAE that Etisalat has awarded them 500,000 AED in a competition and all they need to do is go and buy 50,000 AED worth of phone credit and patch it through to you.

Recently, an encrypted form of one of my passwords was leaked online via a hack of the Gawker Media network (who, for the record are complete idiots) as a result all of my passwords on the internet have been changed and I upped my security 'policies' on everything I do. To give you a clue of what a proper password looks like, here is one that I used on a recently decommissioned web server:

2G5Hc0CN7M%#15#^Z!&JMKF3B6!kQgqdzB58inBc%6I3HF#J64z*WCU2hk*@MskA


I'm pretty fed up of how ridiculous the situation in the UAE is so here is...
My guide to security and privacy for people who do lots of stuff online:
-Buy Windows and stop being a cheap-ass (if you can't afford it then get Linux which is free), buy an anti-virus and firewall suite which is good (nothing under the brand of Norton, AVG or McAffee)
-If you trust your entire computer security on a 200 AED router then you're getting what you pay for; I run an entire computer just to act as a router and firewall for my internet connection and I never have any issues with hacking at all, as we speak a bunch of people I pissed off online have been trying to scan my computer for the past week and have had no luck at all.
-If you want to do sensitive things online where you would like a barrier between you and whatever service you are using, then buy a VPS; it takes 10 minutes to set up and can cost as low as 6$ US. This is also important as a storage facility to store stuff you value outside of where you live; that way if your house burns down tomorrow, everything you need is located in some random data centre in the Netherlands.
-Buy a password manager, lastpass is a great service that costs 12$ US a year; this allows you to generate passwords and save them for automatic logon as well as store secure information. You can also use this on your mobile phone. It is also great because if your house burns down tomorrow all of your passwords are still on it (I should note however, that your passwords are stored on this service in encrypted form, you have to unlock them locally with your own password)
-Don't let idiots use your computer and download and install shit, put a password on it and hit people who use it.
-If you don't trust people to not use your computer then store sensitive files inside an encrypted folder, you can use software such as TrueCrypt to achieve this.
-Use Gmail or activate Google Apps on your domain, it blocks out 99.9% of the stupid online scam shit that wastes your time; if you don't use gmail in this day and age then you may as well disconnect your modem and throw it out the wall, every single other email service is absolutely terrible. Never, ever use your company email address for personal stuff.
-Buy AdMuncher Premium, it costs around 40$ US and blocks all forms of advertisements on your computer (including those on YouTube or anywhere else), this also subsequently blocks a lot of stupid shit which can cause you problems. When I use the internet I literally do not see any advertisements at all. Ever.
-If you are going to use Facebook then make your profile completely private and make yourself aware of what you are posting using it.
-If you are going to write stuff online be aware of how it is indexed far and wide on the internet and that even when you delete content it may take weeks, months or years for it to disappear.
-If you don't want to give out your phone number online then there are a number of services you can register with online to get a phone number located in another country for as little as 1$ US per month
-Make sure you keep a current mobile number with your bank and activate any facility that informs you of account activity; they send these messages instantly and you will know straight away if your bank account information has fallen into the wrong hands.
-Don't believe anyone who emails you or telephones you. Ever. You haven't wont half a million dirhams.
-If you see free shit online, there's a reason it is free and that is because it is full of viruses.
-Never, ever give out your passwords to bank staff or anyone, if they do ask you for them then you are allowed by law to shout at them and report them to their supervisors.
-If you are on a mac you are still at just as much risk as anyone else so take proper precautions.

Overall, if you are serious about your security and privacy it may cost as much as 200$ US a year, but it is money well spent.

Don't be creative

Here's something you don't read every day in the UAE...

"ABU DHABI // Four masked men role-playing on a villa rooftop with fake assault rifles, pistols and knives found themselves facing the real thing - police special forces there to arrest them.

The men were dressed in camouflage outfits that looked like police uniforms, and were simulating fighting tactics on the rooftop in a compound next to a government building.

They were wearing bullet-proof vests and wielding plastic and metal clubs, and videotaping the game, said Col Ibrahim Sultan Al Zaabi, chief of Al Shaabiya police station in Abu Dhabi.

A neighbour reported suspicious behaviour on the rooftop and the men, three of whom were engineers, were in custody shortly afterwards. Police obtained a warrant and special forces raided the villa to apprehend the men "firmly and quickly", Col Al Zaabi said.

Col Al Zaabi described the men's behaviour as "absurd, childish, and unjustifiable".

He said an increase in the popularity of violent computer games had encouraged a culture of violence among children, and called for a ban on their import, as well as on the sale of fake weapons and firecrackers.

Society should encourage games that promoted children's creative abilities, and parents should control their children and promote cultural activities that enhanced their development, Col Al Zaabi said."

(source: thenational.ae

I particularly like the quote from the Chief knocking on the guys for being creative and saying we should only be creative towards children's games, despite the fact every article titles them as being 'men'. If you take a stroll on YouTube you'll see plenty of people reenacting scenes from video games and using it as method of learning pro-level software that could get them a job.

On reading through this same story on the Arabic side of things (at least via Google Translate) it appears that 3 of the men worked as engineers, so yes, let's ban video games for kids. They were also using airsoft guns which hasn't been reported in the English-language press that I have noticed.

Good luck on banning violent video games; I'm sure the 500 billion players in the UAE and GCC region who play Counter-Strike from dusk till dawn will be agreeable. I'll see you guys at the world championship for Barney's magical bus in Abu Dhabi next year.

Khaleej Times by far has the most entertaining write up on this whole story:

"ABU DHABI — It was like a war scene in miniature. Four masked men entered the terrace of the villa, holding guns in their hands. Fully equipped with arms and bullet-proof vests, they started shooting each other, hiding behind the water tank and AC units. As the fight continued, one or two among them fell injured.
Watching the reel-like scene over the window, a neighbour had shivers down the spine. The first thing to do was to call the police. Minutes later, a well-trained Q7 Special Forces unit reached the area with full preparation to storm the house where 10 people were supposedly staying in."

So basically, the problem is some guys went on a rooftop and shot some airsoft guns and filmed it, some neighbor was concerned (I'll judge that if I ever get to see the video) and a bunch of people got arrested.

Chinese gangs

A while ago I tweeted about the 15 or so police cars that were on my street in the middle of the night; I first noticed two police cars at about 3:30AM and then stayed up until about 9AM watching them perform a massive manhunt; the total number of Police and CID personal was astounding.

Apparently, it was a Chinese gang in action and they had stolen from a few houses in the area; the police had caught one of them red handed but he had evaded them; initially everyone thought they'd only stolen from one house and it must've been someone important for them to send out more than a dozen squad cars.

From what I have heard the entire gang was caught and arrested a few days later and were then paraded around our neighborhood (I must have missed this part)

I have to say it is impressive to know the CID and Dubai Police take theft so seriously and it goes to show how safe the UAE is when it comes to 'gang' crimes.

EmiratesNBD

What does the only bank worth your time in the UAE do with a big bundle of money? Aside from sending me 45 page long bank statements?

Put some woman waving her arms repeatedly about their 'enriched service' on the front of their website. And redesign it to provide practically nothing of use to a customer.

How about redesign the internet banking facility (you know, the place where people conduct online transactions which generally speaking make banks money) so that it looks and acts like something that wasn't designed two decades ago? Nope.

How about release an app for Android or god forbid iPhones that allows internet banking (you know, the place where people conduct online transactions which generally speaking make banks money)? Nope.

Yeah, that's right, change some fonts and put some woman waving her arms on the front page and that will make adding phone credit to my account from my mobile phone work (actually, no it doesn't)

And then add some sharing buttons...

What exact purpose do those serve for a customer? I really just don't understand it at all.

"HEY LARRY DO YOU USE THE EMIRATES NBD INTERNETS BANKING FACILITIES?!"
"WHY YES I SIGNED UP FOR IT WITH MY ACCOUNT BUT I DO NOT KNOW INTERNET"
"ITS OK LARRY, DO NOT FRET, I WILL USE THE SHARE BUTTONS CONVENIENTLY LOCATED ON THEIR WEBPAGE TO SHARE THEIR INTERNET WITH YOU AND THEN YOU CAN CONDUCT TRANSACTIONS WHICH MAKE THEM REVENUE USING THE AFOREMENTIONED ONLINE FACILITIES"


Here's how you can improve your site Emirates NBD:
MAKE IT WORK ON MOBILE PHONES. 


Here are some other banks that have applications for mobile users, many more banks do not have these applications but they have banking websites which ACTUALLY WORK ON A MOBILE:


Please revert back to me at the earliest inconvenience with a woman waving her arms on the front of your site when you have completed the assigned task. kthx bai.

Stuff and Things

It's high-time I updated this blog again. It has been a really long time since I last updated.

2010 was a great year in many ways. I got the chance to work an awesome project in 2010 which I never guessed would be a part of my career; then another project straight afterwards (with literally only enough time to get a car-wash and discovering and repairing a damaged tyre in-between the two projects). After working far too many 72-100 hour weeks I crashed in January and have been living in my cocoon since.

Sadly, 2011 began on a sad note. I learnt one morning just a few days into the new year that a friend of mine from high school had died. The same guy I used to go out with practically every weekend. The same guy who I never saw with anything but a wide smile across his face and a string of practical jokes up his sleeve.

I still remember a funny story when he once asked to use my headphones when we were on a school trip in the UK; I told him no because I was sure he'd break them. After some back and forth I relinquished and let him use the headphones. Of course, not more than 30 seconds later, sure enough, the headphones were broken.

Another friend of mine broke the news of his death to me quite abruptly--I sense from now knowing how well I knew said person. I was in shock and awe for a good few hours due to the usual name confusion that accompanies news of a death in this country. It was an extremely sad event.

The funeral was a hard event because of the familiar faces from a few years ago that were so sad.

I'm regretful that I lost touch with him several years ago when he left the UAE to study abroad and wish I hadn't.

Last week my grandfather passed away after more than an eventful life. I remember him mostly from my childhood as a Doc Brown-type inventor/scientists. His accomplishments during his life were truly monumental. I'll always remember him fondly for his tales of adventure and life.

I still remember him asking me when I was a child if I was going to marry a Dubaian woman.

A photograph of his casket that I was sent brought tears to my eyes--the simple items that would seem obscure to anyone not knowing him placed with it were enough to spell out his passions in life... a National Geographic magazine, a gauge, welding goggles, a saw and a hammer.

Sadly my grandfather suffered from Alzheimers and the last opportunity I got to see him he couldn't remember who I was, but his personality still shone brightly.

I'll always remember him as an adventurer, sailor, inventor and engineer and most importantly my grandfather. I miss him a lot.

My parents have finally left Dubai after around 20 years of living here; I still doubt that they're gone forever because they've been spinning the same story about leaving for the whole duration of our stay here.

My girlfriend went off to university in greener pastures and now we're doing the long distance thing. Have been really excited for her and I'm going to see her hopefully sometime soon which I'm really looking forward to because I miss her so much.

And of course, logically, after living here for 20 years I'm here on a visit visa once again. Life in Dubai is in its usual unsettled fashion.

updates

My blog turned 5 in august.

5 years of blagging.

I should probably update at some point but for now I will make yet another post saying i'll update it next Thursday for sure.

Du, Etisalat, the TRA and the future

According to The National, Du is (finally) soon going to gain access to Etisalat's telecommunications network...

The telecommunications operator du is set to gain access to the network of its rival Etisalat within weeks, ushering in a fresh wave of competition in the phone, internet and television market.

If the move goes ahead as expected, UAE residents will finally have a choice of telecoms providers regardless of where they live.

Etisalat has a monopoly on traditional telephones, internet service and cable TV throughout most of the country, while du services a small area of Dubai that includes newer neighbourhoods such as Dubai Marina and Media City.

“Welcome to competition,” Farid Faraidooni, the chief commercial officer for du, said this week.

The development will be a boon to du, which has been able to offer UAE consumers only mobile and landline services because of regulatory and technical issues.

Here are my personal predictions for broadband internet access and telecommunications in general in the next 12-24 months:

• Du and Etisalat will begin a price war and heavily reduce the cost of their bundles (i.e. internet/tv/phone bundles) whilst increasing several-fold in a short timespan in an effort to gain market share.
  
• We will see impossibly ridiculous combinations of high-speed internet with low bandwidth (like Etisalat's connections that you can only use for 6 hours at full capacity in an entire month) In light of bandwidth increases for internet connections it is likely (and already on the way to happening) that we will see people having to pay for additional bandwidth through their teeth (like Telstra in Australia
  used to charge 465 AED per additional GB). Because of these bandwidth restrictions we will be 'heavily reliant' on content provided by Etisalat / Du.
  
• They will make it harder to individually purchase services (i.e. a separate internet connection) and harder to purchase services with no obligations.
  
• They will both introduce things like yearly contracts, ETF (early termination fees) and start ramping up the fees so we can enjoy full duopoly greatness.
  
• While the price of telecommunications will seemingly come down, we will all be at the mercy of contracts with our telephone companies and will pay heavily for breaching them.
  
• Skype will still be cheaper.
  
• The TRA will probably say "no comment"
  

(Of course this is in many cases a worst-case scenario prediction and is just a prediction so take it with a grain of salt. But please do ask Du and Etisalat as much as possible before signing anything and research whatever services you purchase as much as possible before agreeing to anything)

RTA 'virtual tour' of Dubai Metro

According to Gulf News the RTA has launched a virtual-reality-portal-metro-tour-website. It is so virtual that you can actually choose your sex and race:

The simulation/game sets timed targets for how fast you can purchase a ticket:

Here's a video of some of the tour: You can visit the site directly here (http://www.rta.ae/virtualtransport)