From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Tue Jan  8 16:22:26 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:22:26 +0300
Subject: [General] [Fwd: NEW: iAthan for iPhones]
Message-ID: <47837912.3020700@kuwaitnet.net>

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From sabah at techsys.net  Thu Jan 10 10:52:04 2008
From: sabah at techsys.net (Sabah AL-Sabah)
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:52:04 +0300
Subject: [General] New Products for you!
Message-ID: <022301c8535d$b589ccb0$209d6610$@net>

 

Dear Linux Friends,

 

It is my pleasure to announce that we have just been granted an exclusive
distributor for  <http://www.silverstonetek.com/index.php?area=usa>
SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd.    

 <http://www.silverstonetek.com/> http://www.techsys.net/images/Logo1.jpg

 SilverStone is a manufacturer of high quality products, please see the list
below:.


??? ??? 


 <http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/enclosure.php?area=usa> http://www.
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 <http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/power.php?area=usa>
http://www.silverstonetek.com/images/products/PowerSupply.jpg

 <http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/cooling.php?area=usa>
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 <http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/storage.php?area=usa>
http://www.silverstonetek.com/images/products/Storage.jpg

 <http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/fan.php?area=usa>
http://www.silverstonetek.com/images/products/FanSeries.jpg

 <http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/accessories.php?area=usa>
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Click on the above links for more details.

 

PS. There will be 10% discount for Linux group Members during the
exhibition.

Thanks

 

 

 

Best Regards,

============================

Eng. Sabah Al-Sabah

General Manager

Technical Systems Est.

sabah at techsys.net

www.techsys.net <http://www.techsys.net/> 

 

cid:image001.jpg at 01C852F0.38A49D00

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From sabah at techsys.net  Mon Jan 14 10:37:05 2008
From: sabah at techsys.net (Sabah AL-Sabah)
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:37:05 +0300
Subject: [General] September 1752 - Interesting
Message-ID: <011f01c85680$4455dea0$cd019be0$@net>

Please see the following piece of information, I tried it on my system and
confirmed it !!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Best Regards,

============================

Eng. Sabah Al-Sabah

General Manager

Technical Systems Est.

sabah at techsys.net

www.techsys.net <http://www.techsys.net/> 

============================

cid:image002.jpg at 01C854FF.4639B5C0

 

 

 

?? ???? ??? ??? ????? 1752  ??? 19  ??? ???

???? ???? ????? ?????...

 


 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only> 




 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only> I was shocked looking at
this. Are'nt u? 

 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only> 
FunAndFunOnly (www.mails4u.net.tc) - SridhaR
  
FunAndFunOnly (www.mails4u.net.tc) - SridhaR

 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only> 



 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only> A month with whole of
eleven days missing. This was the time England shifted from Roman Julian
Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, and the king of England ordered those 11
days to be wiped off the face of the month of September of 1752. 

 

 

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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Mon Jan 14 12:17:09 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:17:09 +0300
Subject: [General] September 1752 - Interesting
In-Reply-To: <011f01c85680$4455dea0$cd019be0$@net>
References: <011f01c85680$4455dea0$cd019be0$@net>
Message-ID: <478B2895.3000906@kuwaitnet.net>

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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Mon Jan 14 13:30:18 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:30:18 +0300
Subject: [General] September 1752 - Interesting
In-Reply-To: <478B2895.3000906@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <011f01c85680$4455dea0$cd019be0$@net>
	<478B2895.3000906@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <862afa530801140230rb6255e7w2271429dd64481f4@mail.gmail.com>

Well, if the mlidae date changed once, hijri changes every month :). Don't
get me wrong here, but if we setup a meeting on 1st of sha3ban for instance,
do you know when that will be? Ofcourse not, not until one day before. And
even then, we may argue. It maybe a weekend, or weekday as well.

Hijri is good for islamic events, but miladi is more stable rather than
varying.

Anyways, fun and weird to see really.

2008/1/14 Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net>:

>  thats why we should use hijri :D
>
>
>  http://www.wathakker.com/showmatuyat.aspx?id=138
>
> check out this slide that explains exactly the below, details at page 3
>
>
>
> Sabah AL-Sabah wrote, On 1/14/2008 10:37 AM:
>
>  Please see the following piece of information, I tried it on my system
> and confirmed it !!!!!!!!!!
>
>
>
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> ============================
>
> Eng. Sabah Al-Sabah
>
> General Manager
>
> Technical Systems Est.
>
> sabah at techsys.net
>
> www.techsys.net
>
> ============================
>
> [image: cid:image002.jpg at 01C854FF.4639B5C0]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? 1752  ??? 19  ??? ???
>
> ???? ???? ????? ?????...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>
>
> I was shocked looking at this. Are'nt u?
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>
>
>
> [image: FunAndFunOnly (www.mails4u.net.tc) - SridhaR]
>
> [image: FunAndFunOnly (www.mails4u.net.tc) - SridhaR]<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>
>
> *
>
>  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>*
>
> *A month with whole of eleven days missing. This was the time England
> shifted from Roman Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, and the king
> of England ordered those 11 days to be wiped off the face of the month of
> September of 1752. <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>*
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing listGeneral at oskw.orghttp://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Mon Jan 14 13:55:07 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:55:07 +0300
Subject: [General] September 1752 - Interesting
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801140230rb6255e7w2271429dd64481f4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <011f01c85680$4455dea0$cd019be0$@net>	<478B2895.3000906@kuwaitnet.net>
	<862afa530801140230rb6255e7w2271429dd64481f4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <478B3F8B.8040008@kuwaitnet.net>

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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Mon Jan 14 16:29:54 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:29:54 +0300
Subject: [General] September 1752 - Interesting
In-Reply-To: <478B3F8B.8040008@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <011f01c85680$4455dea0$cd019be0$@net>
	<478B2895.3000906@kuwaitnet.net>
	<862afa530801140230rb6255e7w2271429dd64481f4@mail.gmail.com>
	<478B3F8B.8040008@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <862afa530801140529i5e10711dr14bc89e31076fca5@mail.gmail.com>

Hala :)

Yeah right, I didn't :). but now that you put off days in picture, hell yeah
why not! :)

On Jan 14, 2008 1:55 PM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:

>  hala elsemi
>
> it seems you didn't view the presentation file, i was thinking like you
> but when i read it i was shocked.
>
> although it has pretty nice notice for employees but not business owners
> ;) (regarding the off days per year)
>
> and regarding meeting at 1st of the month, just make it first XYZ day of
> each new month, for example every first thursday of each month ;)
>
> Best Regards,
> Bashar
>
>
> bashar abdullah wrote, On 1/14/2008 1:30 PM:
>
> Well, if the mlidae date changed once, hijri changes every month :). Don't
> get me wrong here, but if we setup a meeting on 1st of sha3ban for instance,
> do you know when that will be? Ofcourse not, not until one day before. And
> even then, we may argue. It maybe a weekend, or weekday as well.
>
> Hijri is good for islamic events, but miladi is more stable rather than
> varying.
>
> Anyways, fun and weird to see really.
>
> 2008/1/14 Bashar Al-Abdulhadi < bashar at kuwaitnet.net>:
>
> >  thats why we should use hijri :D
> >
> >
> >  http://www.wathakker.com/showmatuyat.aspx?id=138
> >
> > check out this slide that explains exactly the below, details at page 3
> >
> >
> >
> > Sabah AL-Sabah wrote, On 1/14/2008 10:37 AM:
> >
> >   Please see the following piece of information, I tried it on my system
> > and confirmed it !!!!!!!!!!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Best Regards,
> >
> > ============================
> >
> > Eng. Sabah Al-Sabah
> >
> > General Manager
> >
> > Technical Systems Est.
> >
> > sabah at techsys.net
> >
> > www.techsys.net
> >
> > ============================
> >
> > [image: cid:image002.jpg at 01C854FF.4639B5C0]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? 1752  ??? 19  ??? ???
> >
> > ???? ???? ????? ?????...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>
> >
> > I was shocked looking at this. Are'nt u?
> > <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>
> >
> >
> > [image: FunAndFunOnly (www.mails4u.net.tc) - SridhaR]
> >
> > [image: FunAndFunOnly (www.mails4u.net.tc) - SridhaR]<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>
> >
> > *
> >
> >  <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>*
> >
> > *A month with whole of eleven days missing. This was the time England
> > shifted from Roman Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, and the king
> > of England ordered those 11 days to be wiped off the face of the month
> > of September of 1752. <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fun_and_fun_only>*
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > General mailing listGeneral at oskw.orghttp://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > General mailing list
> > General at oskw.org
> > http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> >
> >
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing listGeneral at oskw.orghttp://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
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From huda.alnasser at gmail.com  Tue Jan 15 00:12:45 2008
From: huda.alnasser at gmail.com (Haya Alnasser)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:12:45 +0300
Subject: [General] which linux?
Message-ID: <6b5731800801141312y158473deo9bda2b34dc8d36f0@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,
i have been searching for a good linux to install on my laptop, which would
be a good start?

Thank you
Huda
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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Tue Jan 15 00:30:51 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:30:51 +0300
Subject: [General] which linux?
In-Reply-To: <6b5731800801141312y158473deo9bda2b34dc8d36f0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b5731800801141312y158473deo9bda2b34dc8d36f0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <478BD48B.2080105@kuwaitnet.net>

ubuntu[1] would be a good easy start



[1] www.ubuntu.com , www.ubuntume.com



Haya Alnasser wrote, On 1/15/2008 12:12 AM:

> Hi,
> i have been searching for a good linux to install on my laptop, which 
> would be a good start?
>  
> Thank you
> Huda
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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Tue Jan 15 00:34:35 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:34:35 +0300
Subject: [General] KOC deploys Sun Linux cluster
Message-ID: <478BD56B.3000208@kuwaitnet.net>

Originally from http://q8linux.net/article372.html :

Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has completed deployment of a Sun and 
Linux-based high performance computing cluster, which will be used for 
oil reservoir simulations and other intensive computing tasks.

The 154 node cluster is based on Sun Fire x4100 entry level servers 
using AMD Opteron processors, running Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition. 
The deployment was managed by Sun executive partner Kuwait Diyar Company.

According to KOC, the company was looking for a powerful, yet cost 
effective solution that would enable them to run simulations much more 
quickly than previously, and also tackle multiple tasks at once. The 
system has now cut the time required for complex simulation studies from 
days to weeks.

------------------------


amazing setup indeed :) anyone seen such setup or even smaller cluster 
in any other government / large enterprises in Kuwait?


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From majedb at gmail.com  Tue Jan 15 09:21:12 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:21:12 +0300
Subject: [General] which linux?
In-Reply-To: <478BD48B.2080105@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <6b5731800801141312y158473deo9bda2b34dc8d36f0@mail.gmail.com>
	<478BD48B.2080105@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801142221nf3e3410h7c024444d92067f5@mail.gmail.com>

I prefer Kubuntu. The difference is that the Window Manager (User
Interface) offers much more options.

You can see screenshots here: http://www.kubuntu.org/screenshots.php

Ubuntu, on the other hand, uses GNOME. You can of course install both,
but the hassle of changing the default Window Manager, is may be too
early for newbie :)

Kubuntu is the same as Ubuntu, they just changed the Window Manager.

On Jan 15, 2008 12:30 AM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:
> ubuntu[1] would be a good easy start
>
>
>
> [1] www.ubuntu.com , www.ubuntume.com
>
>
>
> Haya Alnasser wrote, On 1/15/2008 12:12 AM:
>
>
> > Hi,
> > i have been searching for a good linux to install on my laptop, which
> > would be a good start?
> >
> > Thank you
> > Huda
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>



-- 
       Majed B.



From majedb at gmail.com  Tue Jan 15 10:00:37 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:00:37 +0300
Subject: [General] KOC deploys Sun Linux cluster
In-Reply-To: <478BD56B.3000208@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <478BD56B.3000208@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801142300k3a657776xa9793e7c5a90a7e6@mail.gmail.com>

As far as I know, Al-Diar doesn't have the people to administrate
Linux, and only sell the boxes... also, the oil sector has its own
Linux-experienced admins, which is why it went for the solution.

I haven't seen any Linux cluster, but I heard that QualityNet has
moved to one, and I know that Dar Al-Shifa Hospital, runs its software
(some of it is even open-source CRM) on Linux & IBM AIX Unix.

KMEFIC (http://www.kmefic.com.kw/) used to use AIX, but because of the
*high* fees for support (I didn't see the figures as high, considering
the amount of hardware used), they're moving to Sun Unix boxes now...
Their setup may not work on a Linux-cluster, as they run a
multi-national cluster, and their clusters on sophisticated enterprise
technologies from IBM (HACMP).
As far as I know, their portal is Java based, so they might be able to
run the web-portal on Linux boxes, to reduce the over-all cost. (Run
it with tomcat, or WebSphere, if they need high levels of
administration & customization).

The majority of the companies in Kuwait go for Windows, because of the
abundance of people who call themselves Windows Administrators (ask
them to optimize the performance of a server, and they'll just pop a
few fuses in their heads). If there was a company that offers on-site
or off-site Linux Administration services, professionally, not just
people with lame certificates, I believe such a company would have a
lot of opportunities.

Just my 5 fils...

On Jan 15, 2008 12:34 AM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:
> Originally from http://q8linux.net/article372.html :
>
> Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has completed deployment of a Sun and
> Linux-based high performance computing cluster, which will be used for
> oil reservoir simulations and other intensive computing tasks.
>
> The 154 node cluster is based on Sun Fire x4100 entry level servers
> using AMD Opteron processors, running Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition.
> The deployment was managed by Sun executive partner Kuwait Diyar Company.
>
> According to KOC, the company was looking for a powerful, yet cost
> effective solution that would enable them to run simulations much more
> quickly than previously, and also tackle multiple tasks at once. The
> system has now cut the time required for complex simulation studies from
> days to weeks.
>
> ------------------------
>
>
> amazing setup indeed :) anyone seen such setup or even smaller cluster
> in any other government / large enterprises in Kuwait?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>



-- 
       Majed B.



From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Tue Jan 15 11:51:50 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:51:50 +0300
Subject: [General] KOC deploys Sun Linux cluster
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801142300k3a657776xa9793e7c5a90a7e6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478BD56B.3000208@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801142300k3a657776xa9793e7c5a90a7e6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <862afa530801150051k5dfdb87as1d13ed59c29889d9@mail.gmail.com>

The control center at ministry of power and water runs on all Linux SUSE
servers and mostly open source tools.

On Jan 15, 2008 10:00 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> As far as I know, Al-Diar doesn't have the people to administrate
> Linux, and only sell the boxes... also, the oil sector has its own
> Linux-experienced admins, which is why it went for the solution.
>
> I haven't seen any Linux cluster, but I heard that QualityNet has
> moved to one, and I know that Dar Al-Shifa Hospital, runs its software
> (some of it is even open-source CRM) on Linux & IBM AIX Unix.
>
> KMEFIC (http://www.kmefic.com.kw/) used to use AIX, but because of the
> *high* fees for support (I didn't see the figures as high, considering
> the amount of hardware used), they're moving to Sun Unix boxes now...
> Their setup may not work on a Linux-cluster, as they run a
> multi-national cluster, and their clusters on sophisticated enterprise
> technologies from IBM (HACMP).
> As far as I know, their portal is Java based, so they might be able to
> run the web-portal on Linux boxes, to reduce the over-all cost. (Run
> it with tomcat, or WebSphere, if they need high levels of
> administration & customization).
>
> The majority of the companies in Kuwait go for Windows, because of the
> abundance of people who call themselves Windows Administrators (ask
> them to optimize the performance of a server, and they'll just pop a
> few fuses in their heads). If there was a company that offers on-site
> or off-site Linux Administration services, professionally, not just
> people with lame certificates, I believe such a company would have a
> lot of opportunities.
>
> Just my 5 fils...
>
> On Jan 15, 2008 12:34 AM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net>
> wrote:
> > Originally from http://q8linux.net/article372.html :
> >
> > Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has completed deployment of a Sun and
> > Linux-based high performance computing cluster, which will be used for
> > oil reservoir simulations and other intensive computing tasks.
> >
> > The 154 node cluster is based on Sun Fire x4100 entry level servers
> > using AMD Opteron processors, running Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition.
> > The deployment was managed by Sun executive partner Kuwait Diyar
> Company.
> >
> > According to KOC, the company was looking for a powerful, yet cost
> > effective solution that would enable them to run simulations much more
> > quickly than previously, and also tackle multiple tasks at once. The
> > system has now cut the time required for complex simulation studies from
> > days to weeks.
> >
> > ------------------------
> >
> >
> > amazing setup indeed :) anyone seen such setup or even smaller cluster
> > in any other government / large enterprises in Kuwait?
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > General mailing list
> > General at oskw.org
> > http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
>       Majed B.
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Tue Jan 15 11:56:26 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:56:26 +0300
Subject: [General] Linux Reality podcast
Message-ID: <862afa530801150056r3573a112v1ff4ad8eb9775ca5@mail.gmail.com>

Hi All,

I'm not sure if you know about it, but Linux
Reality<http://www.linuxreality.com/>happens to be an excellent Linux
podcast that is aimed to help people get
started with linux, but it does not stop there. It starts from the
definition of a kernel in human-understandable level not geek one, goes into
history of linux, then gradually takes one through types of linux, run few
episodes on some versions from LIVE CD, and then it gets deeper and deeper
to some experienced level.

It's very nice and easy to follow, and neutral as well. Hope people find it
useful.


Regards,
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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Wed Jan 16 20:44:14 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:44:14 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
Message-ID: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_hi_te/sun_mysql;_ylt=AhRDDpexEPOHYISJ6w7XuYCs0NUE


2008 breaking news for Open Source technologies :)

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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Wed Jan 16 20:47:33 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:47:33 +0300
Subject: [General] Oracle to Buy BEA for $8.5 Billion
Message-ID: <478E4335.906@kuwaitnet.net>

another breaking news 
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Apps/Oracle-to-Buy-BEA-for-85-Billion/



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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Wed Jan 16 21:00:06 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:00:06 +0300
Subject: [General] KOC deploys Sun Linux cluster
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801142300k3a657776xa9793e7c5a90a7e6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478BD56B.3000208@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801142300k3a657776xa9793e7c5a90a7e6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <478E4626.1070208@kuwaitnet.net>

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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Wed Jan 16 21:01:14 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:01:14 +0300
Subject: [General] KOC deploys Sun Linux cluster
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801150051k5dfdb87as1d13ed59c29889d9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478BD56B.3000208@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801142300k3a657776xa9793e7c5a90a7e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801150051k5dfdb87as1d13ed59c29889d9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <478E466A.8090008@kuwaitnet.net>

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From majedb at gmail.com  Thu Jan 17 10:44:44 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:44:44 +0300
Subject: [General] KOC deploys Sun Linux cluster
In-Reply-To: <478E466A.8090008@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <478BD56B.3000208@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801142300k3a657776xa9793e7c5a90a7e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801150051k5dfdb87as1d13ed59c29889d9@mail.gmail.com>
	<478E466A.8090008@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801162344q590c7c78i990ddcf46d389214@mail.gmail.com>

Whether contracted or not, they're not good enough; the same applies
to Al-Babtain's Linux admins. I'm not bashing, just telling you from
the experience of those who have tried both.

Tivoli is the management application for the storage. We have 2 IBM
SANs here at work, managed by Tivoli Storage Manager, and it's been
doing a good work. Yesterday, it detected that one of the disks is
reporting errors, but hasn't failed yet, and it was up to me, to
either wait for it to fail by itself, or I could fail it manually and
replace it.
After failing the drive, the degraded array used the hot-spare disk
and started reconstructing the data, even though I had put the
replacement disk for the dead one. After reconstruction was done, it
copied the data from the hot-spare to the replacement!
Of course, this was the job of the controller, but the storage manager
provided A LOT of info and guided steps on what to do & how.



On Jan 16, 2008 9:01 PM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> wow thats something new!, is it internally managed by ministry staff or
> outsourced via another private sector?
>
>
>
>
>  bashar abdullah wrote, On 1/15/2008 11:51 AM:
>
>
> The control center at ministry of power and water runs on all Linux SUSE
> servers and mostly open source tools.
>
>
> On Jan 15, 2008 10:00 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com > wrote:
>
> > As far as I know, Al-Diar doesn't have the people to administrate
> > Linux, and only sell the boxes... also, the oil sector has its own
> > Linux-experienced admins, which is why it went for the solution.
> >
> > I haven't seen any Linux cluster, but I heard that QualityNet has
> > moved to one, and I know that Dar Al-Shifa Hospital, runs its software
> > (some of it is even open-source CRM) on Linux & IBM AIX Unix.
> >
> > KMEFIC (http://www.kmefic.com.kw/) used to use AIX, but because of the
> > *high* fees for support (I didn't see the figures as high, considering
> > the amount of hardware used), they're moving to Sun Unix boxes now...
> > Their setup may not work on a Linux-cluster, as they run a
> > multi-national cluster, and their clusters on sophisticated enterprise
> > technologies from IBM (HACMP).
> > As far as I know, their portal is Java based, so they might be able to
> > run the web-portal on Linux boxes, to reduce the over-all cost. (Run
> > it with tomcat, or WebSphere, if they need high levels of
> > administration & customization).
> >
> > The majority of the companies in Kuwait go for Windows, because of the
> > abundance of people who call themselves Windows Administrators (ask
> > them to optimize the performance of a server, and they'll just pop a
> > few fuses in their heads). If there was a company that offers on-site
> > or off-site Linux Administration services, professionally, not just
> > people with lame certificates, I believe such a company would have a
> > lot of opportunities.
> >
> > Just my 5 fils...
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jan 15, 2008 12:34 AM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net>
> wrote:
> > > Originally from http://q8linux.net/article372.html :
> > >
> > > Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has completed deployment of a Sun and
> > > Linux-based high performance computing cluster, which will be used for
> > > oil reservoir simulations and other intensive computing tasks.
> > >
> > > The 154 node cluster is based on Sun Fire x4100 entry level servers
> > > using AMD Opteron processors, running Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition.
> > > The deployment was managed by Sun executive partner Kuwait Diyar
> Company.
> > >
> > > According to KOC, the company was looking for a powerful, yet cost
> > > effective solution that would enable them to run simulations much more
> > > quickly than previously, and also tackle multiple tasks at once. The
> > > system has now cut the time required for complex simulation studies from
> > > days to weeks.
> > >
> > > ------------------------
> > >
> > >
> > > amazing setup indeed :) anyone seen such setup or even smaller cluster
> > > in any other government / large enterprises in Kuwait?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > General mailing list
> > > General at oskw.org
> > > http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >       Majed B.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > General mailing list
> > General at oskw.org
> > http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> >
>
>  ________________________________
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>



-- 
       Majed B.



From majedb at gmail.com  Thu Jan 17 11:17:04 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:17:04 +0300
Subject: [General] Oracle to Buy BEA for $8.5 Billion
In-Reply-To: <478E4335.906@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <478E4335.906@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801170017s17746a77gf575e4900f0665d1@mail.gmail.com>

KFH uses BEA (the only implementation in the world on windows!).

I think Oracle is preparing to fight IBM's Websphere.

On Jan 16, 2008 8:47 PM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:
> another breaking news
> http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Apps/Oracle-to-Buy-BEA-for-85-Billion/
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>



-- 
       Majed B.



From okhayat at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 17 11:26:43 2008
From: okhayat at yahoo.com (Ossama Khayat)
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:26:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
Message-ID: <750684.78524.qm@web31602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hahaha... Time to learn PostgreSQL then :-P

----- Original Message ----
From: Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net>
To: Kuwait OpenSource Community <general at oskw.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 8:44:14 PM
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_hi_te/sun_mysql;_ylt=AhRDDpexEPOHYISJ6w7XuYCs0NUE


2008 breaking news for Open Source technologies :)






      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ 




From sabah at techsys.net  Thu Jan 17 11:38:47 2008
From: sabah at techsys.net (Sabah AL-Sabah)
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:38:47 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <750684.78524.qm@web31602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <750684.78524.qm@web31602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <006601c858e4$61ac51d0$2504f570$@net>

I don't like to tell you "I told you so!", But I told you so!!!! :)

 

Best Regards,

============================

Eng. Sabah Al-Sabah

General Manager

Technical Systems Est.

 <mailto:sabah at techsys.net> sabah at techsys.net

 <http://www.techsys.net/> www.techsys.net

============================

cid:image002.jpg at 01C854FF.4639B5C0

 

-----Original Message-----
From: general-bounces at oskw.org [mailto:general-bounces at oskw.org] On Behalf
Of Ossama Khayat
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:27 AM
To: General OpenSource Discussion
Subject: Re: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion

 

Hahaha... Time to learn PostgreSQL then :-P

 

----- Original Message ----

From: Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net>

To: Kuwait OpenSource Community <general at oskw.org>

Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 8:44:14 PM

Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_hi_te/sun_mysql;_ylt=AhRDDpexEPOHY
ISJ6w7XuYCs0NUE

 

 

2008 breaking news for Open Source technologies :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
____________________________________________________________________________
________

Be a better friend, newshound, and 

know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ 

 

 

_______________________________________________

General mailing list

General at oskw.org

http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org

 

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From majedb at gmail.com  Thu Jan 17 11:39:41 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:39:41 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>

You can read more on the acquisition here:
http://blogs.mysql.com/kaj/sun-acquires-mysql.html/

Seems like a chance for Sun to gain market share in the Small & Medium
Businesses realm.

Also to note, from the link above, and from Sun's attitude towards
Open-Source, lately, it has been very friendly; it released Java under
the GPL (After a big fight, yes), OpenOffice, OpenSolaris, ...etc.
Plus, MySQL has an enterprise version, which is enhanced and aims at
corporations wanting to use MySQL and the support package.

One thing that I'm thinking of is, Google used to donate code to MySQL
(http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/24/1528232 and
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199201237),
so I'm wondering whether this will be affected by the acquisition or
not....

On Jan 16, 2008 8:44 PM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_hi_te/sun_mysql;_ylt=AhRDDpexEPOHYISJ6w7XuYCs0NUE
>
>
> 2008 breaking news for Open Source technologies :)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>



-- 
       Majed B.



From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Thu Jan 17 14:32:46 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:32:46 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>

I think Sun definately got a better deal than Oracle; who managed to pay 
close to $8 billion for BEA; compared to that, Sun got a giant bargain 
as MySQL definately has more momentum behind it.

Postgres already has a version (EnterpriseDB) which is aimed as a 
drop-in replacement for Oracle and traditionally speaking postgres has 
always had a more complete feature set than MySQL. Some features that 
were introduced in MySQL 4 (and later improved in 5) like stored 
procedures and views were are a staple of pgsql and other mainstream 
databases.

MySQL still lags a bit on proper SQL support and their recent switching 
-- or rather *fixing* their SQL syntax for joins has caused many 
application writers to scramble to release patches to their code (I deal 
with this stuff on a daily basis at my work).

Ever since Oracle released their developer product line (followed by MS 
SQL Express and then IBM with DB2) MySQL has been put more into the 
spotlight as it runs some of the most visible sites on the net 
(Facebook, Google, Nokia).

It will be great to see what comes out of this acquisition :) I hope Sun 
puts their considerable engineering and development muscle into action 
and irons out the remaining issues in MySQL to make it more enterprise 
ready. I wouldn't be surprised if we see dramatic changes to the 
enterprise MySQL version in the next few months as the deal closes.

Regards,
Burhan Khalid

Majed B. wrote:
> You can read more on the acquisition here:
> http://blogs.mysql.com/kaj/sun-acquires-mysql.html/
> 
> Seems like a chance for Sun to gain market share in the Small & Medium
> Businesses realm.
> 
> Also to note, from the link above, and from Sun's attitude towards
> Open-Source, lately, it has been very friendly; it released Java under
> the GPL (After a big fight, yes), OpenOffice, OpenSolaris, ...etc.
> Plus, MySQL has an enterprise version, which is enhanced and aims at
> corporations wanting to use MySQL and the support package.
> 
> One thing that I'm thinking of is, Google used to donate code to MySQL
> (http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/24/1528232 and
> http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199201237),
> so I'm wondering whether this will be affected by the acquisition or
> not....
> 
> On Jan 16, 2008 8:44 PM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:
>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_hi_te/sun_mysql;_ylt=AhRDDpexEPOHYISJ6w7XuYCs0NUE
>>
>>
>> 2008 breaking news for Open Source technologies :)
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> General mailing list
>> General at oskw.org
>> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 

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From majedb at gmail.com  Thu Jan 17 19:58:15 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:58:15 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks to Mr. Burhan, I realized that facebook is running on Apache as
well. (checked with curl -D header.txt facebook.com) .. I thought it
was a Microsoft house, but MS did buy a share of Facebook (5%).
[http://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+facebook+site%3Aslashdot.org&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8]

Recently, facebook acquired Plaxo, which is responsible for OpenID.
So, now some major Open-Source software is coming to the hands of
known entities, and hopefully, will become mainstream and stay open,
as it was before acquisitions.

Mr. Burhan,
  I'm not quite sure that Oracle didn't get a good deal out of BEA.
Middleware is not a small area, and a lot of organizations &
governments run on middleware, like BEA & WebSphere.
In fact, the ministry of interior has a deal with IBM to implement its
portals using WebSphere, which provides portlets, mashups, document
management systems, content management systems, and a lot more,
(without mentioning AJAX support for all these).
Check out the areas WebSphere tackles:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/websphere/

I believe this acquisition of BEA puts a threat on IBM, since now
Oracle can fight it in the DB & Middleware areas, but judging by
Oracle's lame approaches & very-high prices, there's a possibility
that they'd fail.
It would be nice to see more competitors, so that consumers get the
benefit of reduced prices, but some competitors don't know their heads
from their knees...
-- 
       Majed B.



From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Thu Jan 17 20:19:29 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:19:29 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <478F8E21.4030205@kuwaitnet.net>

Majed B. wrote:
> Thanks to Mr. Burhan, I realized that facebook is running on Apache as
> well. (checked with curl -D header.txt facebook.com) .. I thought it
> was a Microsoft house, but MS did buy a share of Facebook (5%).
> [http://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+facebook+site%3Aslashdot.org&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8]

Facebook is one of the shining stars of PHP + MySQL + Linux (aka LAMP) 
stack; one of the few and far between.

> Recently, facebook acquired Plaxo, which is responsible for OpenID.
> So, now some major Open-Source software is coming to the hands of
> known entities, and hopefully, will become mainstream and stay open,
> as it was before acquisitions.

The beauty of OpenID is that there are many implementations out there. 
Even .com giant NetworkSolutions has their own OpenID service (which is 
free for end users -- called PIP).

> 
> Mr. Burhan,
>   I'm not quite sure that Oracle didn't get a good deal out of BEA.
> Middleware is not a small area, and a lot of organizations &
> governments run on middleware, like BEA & WebSphere.
> In fact, the ministry of interior has a deal with IBM to implement its
> portals using WebSphere, which provides portlets, mashups, document
> management systems, content management systems, and a lot more,
> (without mentioning AJAX support for all these).
> Check out the areas WebSphere tackles:
> http://www-306.ibm.com/software/websphere/

Yes, there is middleware (good middleware); and then there is BEA :) I 
think Oracle's strategy is to eat up software vendors with all the cash 
its got and to lock in customers to its proprietary stack; which it 
never fails to pit against Linux stacks; and honestly if you ask me 
Oracle's push into Linux is more a slap at RH for acquiring Jboss than 
well meaning attempt at championing the cause of Linux.

RH + Jboss vs. IBM + Websphere (as you mentioned above)

> I believe this acquisition of BEA puts a threat on IBM, since now
> Oracle can fight it in the DB & Middleware areas, but judging by
> Oracle's lame approaches & very-high prices, there's a possibility
> that they'd fail.

This is the reason why I really don't like Oracle "lame approaches and 
very high prices". Oracle never really had a strong foothold in the 
middleware space; lets see how this turns out. Competition -- well, true 
competition is always good for consumers.

> It would be nice to see more competitors, so that consumers get the
> benefit of reduced prices, but some competitors don't know their heads
> from their knees...

These competitors -- I love them, because they pay for high priced 
consultants ;)
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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Fri Jan 18 08:21:12 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:21:12 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

I think both acquisitions are major. MySQL is gonna increase Sun's position
in the support for open source, and they will be able to provide perhaps
packages solutions with strong support to the MySQL DB, which some people
tend to think there is no such support. Funny some Oracle officials told me
that few days back "MySQL has no entity behind it. It's just open source"!

As for BEA, Oracle Application Server is really behind # 3 and BEA and
WebSphere are neck to neck. Now, Oracle have jumped great distance to reach
IBM, as Oracle CEO said they just can't catch up with them. They had to
acquire them. Now, anyone thinking of Java solution would say "WebSphere or
Oracle?" And since the best enterprise solutions for HR, Finance, CRM, and
others all come from Oracle after these acquisitions, it would be preferred
to go with single vendor for better support and perhaps special rate prices.

[Recently, facebook acquired Plaxo, which is responsible for OpenID.
So, now some major Open-Source software is coming to the hands of
known entities, and hopefully, will become mainstream and stay open,
as it was before acquisitions]...

I am really concerned about this part. Are you sure of this information? I
searched the net, and read the About us page of openid and Plaxo, there is
no mention of facebook name there. As to me, I love the OpenID and already
use it on Q8igg.com, however I trust them, I don't trust what Facebook would
do with user profiles. They have a very bad record so far. Do you have any
more details about this, and links preferably.

Thanks

On Jan 17, 2008 7:58 PM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks to Mr. Burhan, I realized that facebook is running on Apache as
> well. (checked with curl -D header.txt facebook.com) .. I thought it
> was a Microsoft house, but MS did buy a share of Facebook (5%).
> [
> http://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+facebook+site%3Aslashdot.org&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
> ]
>
> Recently, facebook acquired Plaxo, which is responsible for OpenID.
> So, now some major Open-Source software is coming to the hands of
> known entities, and hopefully, will become mainstream and stay open,
> as it was before acquisitions.
>
> Mr. Burhan,
>  I'm not quite sure that Oracle didn't get a good deal out of BEA.
> Middleware is not a small area, and a lot of organizations &
> governments run on middleware, like BEA & WebSphere.
> In fact, the ministry of interior has a deal with IBM to implement its
> portals using WebSphere, which provides portlets, mashups, document
> management systems, content management systems, and a lot more,
> (without mentioning AJAX support for all these).
> Check out the areas WebSphere tackles:
> http://www-306.ibm.com/software/websphere/
>
> I believe this acquisition of BEA puts a threat on IBM, since now
> Oracle can fight it in the DB & Middleware areas, but judging by
> Oracle's lame approaches & very-high prices, there's a possibility
> that they'd fail.
> It would be nice to see more competitors, so that consumers get the
> benefit of reduced prices, but some competitors don't know their heads
> from their knees...
> --
>       Majed B.
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Fri Jan 18 10:53:46 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:53:46 +0300
Subject: [General] Oracle to Buy BEA for $8.5 Billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801170017s17746a77gf575e4900f0665d1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E4335.906@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170017s17746a77gf575e4900f0665d1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <862afa530801172353u7345d14awa74e20d70fcbe52f@mail.gmail.com>

Wataniya also uses BEA, but not on Windows! It's sad that options are much
less now, and this will only push Oracle to make less portable solutions
giving fact that they have a leading Application Server under their belt

On Jan 17, 2008 11:17 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> KFH uses BEA (the only implementation in the world on windows!).
>
> I think Oracle is preparing to fight IBM's Websphere.
>
> On Jan 16, 2008 8:47 PM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:
> > another breaking news
> >
> http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Apps/Oracle-to-Buy-BEA-for-85-Billion/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > General mailing list
> > General at oskw.org
> > http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
>       Majed B.
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
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From majedb at gmail.com  Fri Jan 18 13:46:19 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:46:19 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>

"And since the best enterprise solutions for HR, Finance, CRM, and others
all come from Oracle after these acquisitions"
The best?! I pretty much doubt that! Oracle stinks at integrating its
numerous modules, and you'd be one of the few lucky people in the world who
got a working well-integrated implementation! And if you're talking abut
Oracle's Fusion, so far, it's still vaporware. They're promising and
promising, but we still don't see anything!!

Last year, my company started an ERP system implementation of SAP. The year
before that, we had 3 consultants digging info & comparing between Oracle &
SAP. Price-wise & technology-wise, SAP had all the advantages. Even their
various modules integrate like a breeze.

Regarding Plaxo, I heard it from a friend who uses OpenID like air! So I
took it for granted, but after you asked, I checked around and found no
solid proof of that, only rumors. Even Plaxo's "About Us" page, mentions
nothing of any acquisitions, or share buyouts. [
http://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+site%3Aplaxo.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8]

On another note, Google & Facebook had joined DataPortability.org [
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/goog-fb-data.php], allowing data to be
moved between different *networks*. Maybe this is where privacy issues
should rise? Is data kept on the older network? What if you moved, and
someone else took your old name, do they get your history/data?

More on that DataPortability.org thing here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=facebook+google+openID&btnG=Search
-- 
      Majed B.
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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Fri Jan 18 22:13:42 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:13:42 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>

Well Majed I personally haven't worked on an Oracle implementation, but I
heard it's good depending on the implementer. So if you've got some other
opinion or suggestion, please tell me about CRM, HR, and Finance ones you
know. I based my statement on other user reviews who seemed to just love it.
I think SAP is already suggested, so I will give it more thought. Thanks

Facebook and Google cross-sharing info, that's really scary now. If things
go correct without infringing on user privacy, this could be really
brilliant, as I personally hate locking my profile in one place. The
statement "where users can take their data from the websites they use to
reuse elsewhere" gives a bit of relief, if they really intend to follow it.
Meaning that I CAN move my profile. It's very much different than my profile
IS MOVED. Better keep an eye on those things


On Jan 18, 2008 1:46 PM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> "And since the best enterprise solutions for HR, Finance, CRM, and others
> all come from Oracle after these acquisitions"
> The best?! I pretty much doubt that! Oracle stinks at integrating its
> numerous modules, and you'd be one of the few lucky people in the world who
> got a working well-integrated implementation! And if you're talking abut
> Oracle's Fusion, so far, it's still vaporware. They're promising and
> promising, but we still don't see anything!!
>
> Last year, my company started an ERP system implementation of SAP. The
> year before that, we had 3 consultants digging info & comparing between
> Oracle & SAP. Price-wise & technology-wise, SAP had all the advantages. Even
> their various modules integrate like a breeze.
>
> Regarding Plaxo, I heard it from a friend who uses OpenID like air! So I
> took it for granted, but after you asked, I checked around and found no
> solid proof of that, only rumors. Even Plaxo's "About Us" page, mentions
> nothing of any acquisitions, or share buyouts. [
> http://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+site%3Aplaxo.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
> ]
>
> On another note, Google & Facebook had joined DataPortability.org [
> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/goog-fb-data.php], allowing data to
> be moved between different *networks*. Maybe this is where privacy issues
> should rise? Is data kept on the older network? What if you moved, and
> someone else took your old name, do they get your history/data?
>
> More on that DataPortability.org thing here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=facebook+google+openID&btnG=Search
>
> --
>       Majed B.
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
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From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Fri Jan 18 22:59:59 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:59:59 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>

bashar abdullah wrote:
> Well Majed I personally haven't worked on an Oracle implementation, but 
> I heard it's good depending on the implementer. So if you've got some 
> other opinion or suggestion, please tell me about CRM, HR, and Finance 
> ones you know. I based my statement on other user reviews who seemed to 
> just love it. I think SAP is already suggested, so I will give it more 
> thought. Thanks

The problem with any large deployment like ERP is that the 'proof is in 
the implementation'. If your implementation team (ie, the company you 
hired and their highly-paid, suit-wearing consultants) don't know their 
ass from their elbow, then no matter what software technology or vendor 
is behind the product, the implementation will stink.

Of course, the other side of this coin is that which company makes it:

1. Easy to create cross-integrated components and
2. Makes it difficult to create "bad" implementations or integrations.

What I know about Oracle implementations as I have been called on to 
consult on a few projects revolving around Oracle Financials and HR:

1. Upfront costs are quite staggering for Oracle compared to other 
implementations (like iscala or even SAP).

2. The quality of your deployment lies solely on the skills of your 
integrator; you might think that this is the 'norm' but some enterprise 
stacks make it very easy for you to create cohesive implementations that 
work -- while others make it very easy for you to goof it up and it will 
still 'work'. The difference between the two comes when you are trying 
to calculate the long term ROI (which by the way, a lot of companies 
don't do here -- strange, but true).

3. Amount of in-house talent required differs greatly. With Oracle; what 
you really need is a good DBA and a Java wizard to handle any front-end 
bugs -- both some would argue are easy to find.

I am personally not a fan of Oracle; they are pushy and overbearing. 
Have a costly product and they try to get you to bet the farm on their 
technology; a lot of their promises are still vaporware. I attended a 
seminar where Oracle was talking about their integration 'stack'; which 
would allow interoperability between various operating systems and the 
oracle backend; basically, their version of SSO. So your marketing 
manager with his Mac can use his system password to logon to your ERP 
backend.  I attended this seminar to find out what Oracle was doing in 
this space since at that time one of my clients was playing around with 
the idea of integrating their various logins using some SSO framework.

As I expected, their framework is only of use to those that have already 
invested (heavily) in the Oracle e-business suite; and for others that 
would like just the SSO framework, the support was pitiful at best. So I 
ended up advising my client against going for the Oracle solution 
especially since they were a very small operation (25 users).

As for your request regarding other suggestions for ERP, let me give you 
two opinions based on my experience. Every business and every 
implementation is different but I find that if you keep these two points 
in mind from the outset, then your end result will be better for you and 
your client.

1. Not every company *needs* and ERP implementation; but every 
CEO/CIO/____ wants a ERP implementation because they feel this is some 
magic bullet that will cure their operational and strategic forecasting 
woes. So before you advise your clients to go down this path, make sure 
they understand what ERP is .. and more importantly, what ERP is *not*. 
A lot of times my clients are just swimming in the marketing brochure 
hype of ERP integration and respond with words like "long term 
visibility" and "integration dashboards" and "information workers" 
without knowing exactly what all that means.  Sometimes, what all is 
required is a refactoring of the business process and a good reporting 
framework.

2. Not every ERP-nail requires the giant Oracle hammer; especially in 
the SMB market. There are a lot of other ERP vendors that target SMB 
specifically and these should not be discounted. A lot of times their 
value is in their experience in dealing exclusively with SMB and offer 
quite a tailored fit to the business. iScala, Compiere and Focus are 
some that come to mind.

My 0.002.5 fils (accounting for inflation)
--
Burhan

> 
> Facebook and Google cross-sharing info, that's really scary now. If 
> things go correct without infringing on user privacy, this could be 
> really brilliant, as I personally hate locking my profile in one place. 
> The statement "where users can take their data from the websites they 
> use to reuse elsewhere" gives a bit of relief, if they really intend to 
> follow it. Meaning that I CAN move my profile. It's very much different 
> than my profile IS MOVED. Better keep an eye on those things
> 
> 
> On Jan 18, 2008 1:46 PM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com 
> <mailto:majedb at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     "And since the best enterprise solutions for HR, Finance, CRM, and
>     others all come from Oracle after these acquisitions"
>     The best?! I pretty much doubt that! Oracle stinks at integrating
>     its numerous modules, and you'd be one of the few lucky people in
>     the world who got a working well-integrated implementation! And if
>     you're talking abut Oracle's Fusion, so far, it's still vaporware.
>     They're promising and promising, but we still don't see anything!!
> 
>     Last year, my company started an ERP system implementation of SAP.
>     The year before that, we had 3 consultants digging info & comparing
>     between Oracle & SAP. Price-wise & technology-wise, SAP had all the
>     advantages. Even their various modules integrate like a breeze.
> 
>     Regarding Plaxo, I heard it from a friend who uses OpenID like air!
>     So I took it for granted, but after you asked, I checked around and
>     found no solid proof of that, only rumors. Even Plaxo's "About Us"
>     page, mentions nothing of any acquisitions, or share buyouts. [
>     http://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+site%3Aplaxo.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
>     <http://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+site%3Aplaxo.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8>]
> 
>     On another note, Google & Facebook had joined DataPortability.org
>     [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/goog-fb-data.php], allowing
>     data to be moved between different *networks*. Maybe this is where
>     privacy issues should rise? Is data kept on the older network? What
>     if you moved, and someone else took your old name, do they get your
>     history/data?
> 
>     More on that DataPortability.org thing here:
>     http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=facebook+google+openID&btnG=Search
>     <http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=facebook+google+openID&btnG=Search>
>     -- 
>           Majed B.
>     _______________________________________________
>     General mailing list
>     General at oskw.org <mailto:General at oskw.org>
>     http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org

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From majedb at gmail.com  Fri Jan 18 23:01:05 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:01:05 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801181201x160bacbbp47abf493fd6b060a@mail.gmail.com>

2 or 3 people talked to me about their Oracle implementations.. I'll
ask them who was their implementor and let you know.

As for SAP, its neatly integrated and all parts play pretty well
together: HR, Finance, Warehousing, CRM, HealthCare, ....etc. If you
would like, I can give you contacts for our technical consultant.
E-mail me if you wish so.
-- 
       Majed B.



From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Fri Jan 18 23:15:36 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:15:36 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801181201x160bacbbp47abf493fd6b060a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801181201x160bacbbp47abf493fd6b060a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <862afa530801181215n42ddd95fqafa606c528335544@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks Burhan. That was a long and detailed enough piece of information. I
had the same feeling about Oracle during their presentation. They were
promoting the heterogeneous nature of their solutions, and how I could
combine one Oracle item with any other different vendor app. Soon after
presentation ended and QA started, it was all of a sudden, no it's  not
recommended to mix, buy everything from us and we will give you 50%
discount. So it's how they play it. Take the whole package and you get 50%
discount, dont take the whole package, and we will give you some hard time
integrating. This is why I hate their latest acquisition of BEA.

As to whether we need the ERP, well let's say I don't have a call on that
and I just need to advise for best solution :). Anyways, I will keep your
comments in mind. Thanks again very much.

On Jan 18, 2008 11:01 PM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2 or 3 people talked to me about their Oracle implementations.. I'll
> ask them who was their implementor and let you know.
>
> As for SAP, its neatly integrated and all parts play pretty well
> together: HR, Finance, Warehousing, CRM, HealthCare, ....etc. If you
> would like, I can give you contacts for our technical consultant.
> E-mail me if you wish so.
> --
>       Majed B.
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
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From majedb at gmail.com  Sat Jan 19 00:02:17 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:02:17 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>

You know, the biggest problem with any implementation, is the
management in the company. We had a hard time in our company because a
lot of the managers refused to cooperate, because the ERP system would
strip them of some powers. Even non-managers who had control over
things, that weren't traceable.

And what made matters worse were the fact that the said managers were
in the company for over 10 years!! They act as if they're part of the
company; as if they OWN the company. The owners were sided with the
managers, for the *benefit* of the company... As one would expect, the
implemntation was not going anywhere, and the IT dept. was being
blamed!!!
Anyway, things got much better & got kicked off, as soon as we got a
CEO, and the owners got into the shadows.

As for the implementing consultants, we've had some REALLY DUMB ones
onboard :/   You know, it just feels awkward when you know more about
Networking, Linux/Unix, Hardware & Databases, than the implementing
consultant !!!! (And I was a fresh graduate from Engineering!) -- This
is what happens when you go for cheap implementors: Bad project
management, incomplete info about the feature-set of the ERP, and a
few more hiccups. Sometimes, it got to the point where I would re-read
the manuals, after they tell me something, only to find that THEY did
NOT read the manual properly (whether on purpose or not) .....
So, yeah ... Where's my elbow, would be a normal question, they might ask you...

Marketing hype is a disease that crawls into the mids of project
sponsors. *cough* Microsoft *cough* ....
It's where managers swim in their pink dreams, thinking that a piece
of software would do all the magic & take you up on Jack's magic
beans. Foreseeing the future is a key-point, in any implementation:
How much growth is the organization expecting (if it was small or
medium, especially), and how hard it is to get the data migrated to
other systems in the future.
In our case, our organization is already big, housing multiple
industries under one name, and having around 1500 employees.

It would be nice if we had honest consultants/companies around...
Spreading wrong information, to sell a product, will only harm a
consultant's/company's image on the long run, but nobody seems to
care! Take Microsoft & Oracle as an example. Unless you knew which
questions you're supposed to ask, you won't get the proper answers;
the answers that matter to you, or your client.

I had this problem, personally, with Microsoft & IBM. Whenever I want
a product, I'd do my own research online, and THEN I'd approach them,
hoping to not have missed a point that can be exploited...

The 0.5 KD from a frustrated dude...
-- 
       Majed B.



From huda.alnasser at gmail.com  Sat Jan 19 02:56:07 2008
From: huda.alnasser at gmail.com (Huda Alnasser)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 02:56:07 +0300
Subject: [General] which linux?
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801142221nf3e3410h7c024444d92067f5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b5731800801141312y158473deo9bda2b34dc8d36f0@mail.gmail.com>
	<478BD48B.2080105@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801142221nf3e3410h7c024444d92067f5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6b5731800801181556r7e830cd1s92ed5ae8fcb963b5@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,
downloading take alot of time, is there any shops in hawally that sell or
install linux?
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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Sat Jan 19 03:04:04 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 03:04:04 +0300
Subject: [General] Netscape end of life
Message-ID: <47913E74.7060805@kuwaitnet.net>

they are shutting it down on 1st of Feb 2008

http://blog.netscape.com/2007/12/28/end-of-support-for-netscape-web-browsers/

what a wast of time and money for AOL
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From ab.alhamad at gmail.com  Sat Jan 19 03:37:25 2008
From: ab.alhamad at gmail.com (Abdullah AL Hamad)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 03:37:25 +0300
Subject: [General] which linux?
In-Reply-To: <6b5731800801181556r7e830cd1s92ed5ae8fcb963b5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b5731800801141312y158473deo9bda2b34dc8d36f0@mail.gmail.com>
	<478BD48B.2080105@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801142221nf3e3410h7c024444d92067f5@mail.gmail.com>
	<6b5731800801181556r7e830cd1s92ed5ae8fcb963b5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <fc7b7ed00801181637v35dabb66h756635b227568f69@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,
Never buy a Linux Distro. from  Hawalli. They are mostly out of date. Check
with somebody in the Linux group to supply you with the free CD.

Regards.

On Jan 19, 2008 2:56 AM, Huda Alnasser <huda.alnasser at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> downloading take alot of time, is there any shops in hawally that sell or
> install linux?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
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From ab.alhamad at gmail.com  Sat Jan 19 03:39:17 2008
From: ab.alhamad at gmail.com (Abdullah AL Hamad)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 03:39:17 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <750684.78524.qm@web31602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <750684.78524.qm@web31602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <fc7b7ed00801181639q6f57b2e3laec5449f7a801f8c@mail.gmail.com>

Hehe, No thats means it will have a better support.

On Jan 17, 2008 11:26 AM, Ossama Khayat <okhayat at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hahaha... Time to learn PostgreSQL then :-P
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net>
> To: Kuwait OpenSource Community <general at oskw.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 8:44:14 PM
> Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
>
>
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_hi_te/sun_mysql;_ylt=AhRDDpexEPOHYISJ6w7XuYCs0NUE
>
>
> 2008 breaking news for Open Source technologies :)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Be a better friend, newshound, and
> know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.
> http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
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From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Sat Jan 19 09:03:31 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:03:31 +0300
Subject: [General] which linux?
In-Reply-To: <fc7b7ed00801181637v35dabb66h756635b227568f69@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b5731800801141312y158473deo9bda2b34dc8d36f0@mail.gmail.com>	<478BD48B.2080105@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801142221nf3e3410h7c024444d92067f5@mail.gmail.com>	<6b5731800801181556r7e830cd1s92ed5ae8fcb963b5@mail.gmail.com>
	<fc7b7ed00801181637v35dabb66h756635b227568f69@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <479192B3.7070204@kuwaitnet.net>

I can get you a free copy of Ubuntu if that is what you would like. You 
can also order free CDs online; but they take 30 days to come by mail. I 
have copies of both 64 and 32 bit Ubuntu 7.10 (the latest version 
available).

Regards,
Burhan

Abdullah AL Hamad wrote:
> Hi,
> Never buy a Linux Distro. from  Hawalli. They are mostly out of date. 
> Check with somebody in the Linux group to supply you with the free CD.
> 
> Regards.
> 
> On Jan 19, 2008 2:56 AM, Huda Alnasser < huda.alnasser at gmail.com 
> <mailto:huda.alnasser at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi,
>     downloading take alot of time, is there any shops in hawally that
>     sell or install linux?
>      
>      
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     General mailing list
>     General at oskw.org <mailto:General at oskw.org>
>     http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>     <http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org>
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org

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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Sat Jan 19 09:46:15 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:46:15 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks Majed. I fully understand what you mean in terms of bad management
and bad implementers. Having worked 3 years in a supposedly leading company,
I have seen it all, had enough and quit really. It was affecting my career.
Over a year with literally zero achievement, and I  was wasting most my day
on it.

Oracle came presenting something as simple as DB Cluster and yet they
managed to make mistakes in numbers I pointed out from 1 hour reading a
head. Things like the cluster can take hundreds of nodes, while it only
takes 100, and cluster can work on different OS same time, or at least
different versions, when I am sure it only works on same OS and version
according to Oracle official document.

God help us on the management for now. Something I got sure of is, usually
in Kuwait, all management is like what you talk about, and all implementers
are also of bad quality. Implementers are just bringing the weight of the
product name, but they are not qualified at all to implement it. Otherwise
how would an Oracle official claim MySQL has no entity behind it, when the
company is about to go  public, and Sun is bidding $1 billion to buy it!
Database is your bread and butter and you gotta know your competitors
better.

Let's see how it goes. Thanks again for your knowledge sharing.


On Jan 19, 2008 12:02 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> You know, the biggest problem with any implementation, is the
> management in the company. We had a hard time in our company because a
> lot of the managers refused to cooperate, because the ERP system would
> strip them of some powers. Even non-managers who had control over
> things, that weren't traceable.
>
> And what made matters worse were the fact that the said managers were
> in the company for over 10 years!! They act as if they're part of the
> company; as if they OWN the company. The owners were sided with the
> managers, for the *benefit* of the company... As one would expect, the
> implemntation was not going anywhere, and the IT dept. was being
> blamed!!!
> Anyway, things got much better & got kicked off, as soon as we got a
> CEO, and the owners got into the shadows.
>
> As for the implementing consultants, we've had some REALLY DUMB ones
> onboard :/   You know, it just feels awkward when you know more about
> Networking, Linux/Unix, Hardware & Databases, than the implementing
> consultant !!!! (And I was a fresh graduate from Engineering!) -- This
> is what happens when you go for cheap implementors: Bad project
> management, incomplete info about the feature-set of the ERP, and a
> few more hiccups. Sometimes, it got to the point where I would re-read
> the manuals, after they tell me something, only to find that THEY did
> NOT read the manual properly (whether on purpose or not) .....
> So, yeah ... Where's my elbow, would be a normal question, they might ask
> you...
>
> Marketing hype is a disease that crawls into the mids of project
> sponsors. *cough* Microsoft *cough* ....
> It's where managers swim in their pink dreams, thinking that a piece
> of software would do all the magic & take you up on Jack's magic
> beans. Foreseeing the future is a key-point, in any implementation:
> How much growth is the organization expecting (if it was small or
> medium, especially), and how hard it is to get the data migrated to
> other systems in the future.
> In our case, our organization is already big, housing multiple
> industries under one name, and having around 1500 employees.
>
> It would be nice if we had honest consultants/companies around...
> Spreading wrong information, to sell a product, will only harm a
> consultant's/company's image on the long run, but nobody seems to
> care! Take Microsoft & Oracle as an example. Unless you knew which
> questions you're supposed to ask, you won't get the proper answers;
> the answers that matter to you, or your client.
>
> I had this problem, personally, with Microsoft & IBM. Whenever I want
> a product, I'd do my own research online, and THEN I'd approach them,
> hoping to not have missed a point that can be exploited...
>
> The 0.5 KD from a frustrated dude...
> --
>       Majed B.
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
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From majedb at gmail.com  Sat Jan 19 10:06:37 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:06:37 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801182306u6a0df7bet606f1787be73a9e5@mail.gmail.com>

Hey Bashar! Glad someone else is suffering besdies me! :p~

>From the chat I had with a great guy from KBM (An AIX admin), he said
it's possible to have a database on multiple OSes, or different
versions of the same OS, just as long as they're fully POSIX compliant
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX#Fully_POSIX-compliant] .. Windows,
as you might have guessed, doesn't fit in the window (pun intended),
because of many issues, one of them would be the way it represents new
lines: In Windows, a new line is '\r\n', while in *nix systems, it's
'\n' only.
That may apply to DB2 (IBM's DB) only, though.

Maybe, Oracle mentions that all DBs should work under one similar OS
of the same version, to avoid lawsuits when things don't work (got
bitten before?!), or maybe, because their DB may have exhibited
strange behaviors when deployed on different OSes, due to different
patch-levels of the OS, which may affect the patch-level of the DB.

There is only one implementer for SAP in the gulf, and they're not as
competent as they should be, but they're MUCH cheaper than their
European counterparts. Which is why the management chose them! (And
now paying audit teams from Germany to re-check their work...). Maybe
prices will drop later, when the SAP market expands further (As far as
I know, 6 major companies in Kuwait are seeking SAP).

By the way, SAP uses MaxDB, which USED to be under MySQL up until late
2007. Now, SAP is the owner of MaxDB.

I heard about a good example of good management, in KMEFIC, because
most of the managers are engineers. So, I guess, it just depends on
how lucky you are to fall in a place with such management! (3asa Allah
yarzegna enshallah!!!!)
-- 
       Majed B.



From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Sat Jan 19 10:07:18 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:07:18 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801170039l4ec5b202q9a36abb469cbc83d@mail.gmail.com>	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4791A1A6.5070204@kuwaitnet.net>

Just to add to the discussion below; I think that in addition to the 
"misguided" (and I use that term generously) management and poor 
implementation teams that are betting the farm on the name of their 
provider and not their talent -- another factor that comes into play is 
that no implementer or management stakeholder actually asks the 
question: "Do we NEED ERP?" I know I spoke of this earlier, but I think 
it bears mentioning again that most of the times the core business issue 
that is supposed to be resolved is lost and instead what takes its place 
is more of bragging rights:

"_______ company signed an agreement with _______ to implement their ERP 
solution for _______ (insert obnoxious amount of money)." -- this is 
usually a press release followed by a picture of the company upper 
C-levels and the implementer's C-levels shaking hands as if to say "I'll 
pay you a lot, just to make me look good".

Operational guys lose in the end because unlike the people in the 
picture shaking hands; these operational people are the ones that will 
actually be using the system.

And I agree wholeheartedly with the observation that most of the times 
the barriers to proper implementation are internal to the company; 
managers afraid of letting go and creating political red tape just to 
let others know that they are important.

*sigh* -- sometimes I really wonder how these people manage anything 
other than keeping sure that they are deemed important.

As a side effect of the above -- the burden is now on the consumer to be 
well informed. If you are not, then God help you if you fall for the 
crap that is spewed out by marketing heads.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Burhan

bashar abdullah wrote:
> Thanks Majed. I fully understand what you mean in terms of bad 
> management and bad implementers. Having worked 3 years in a supposedly 
> leading company, I have seen it all, had enough and quit really. It was 
> affecting my career. Over a year with literally zero achievement, and I  
> was wasting most my day on it.
> 
> Oracle came presenting something as simple as DB Cluster and yet they 
> managed to make mistakes in numbers I pointed out from 1 hour reading a 
> head. Things like the cluster can take hundreds of nodes, while it only 
> takes 100, and cluster can work on different OS same time, or at least 
> different versions, when I am sure it only works on same OS and version 
> according to Oracle official document.

I learned a long time ago to not pay much attention to the guy speaking 
about the product -- mainly because he is just reciting some copy from 
the marketing department.

> God help us on the management for now. Something I got sure of is, 
> usually in Kuwait, all management is like what you talk about, and all 
> implementers are also of bad quality. Implementers are just bringing the 
> weight of the product name, but they are not qualified at all to 
> implement it. Otherwise how would an Oracle official claim MySQL has no 
> entity behind it, when the company is about to go  public, and Sun is 
> bidding $1 billion to buy it! Database is your bread and butter and you 
> gotta know your competitors better.
> 
> Let's see how it goes. Thanks again for your knowledge sharing.
> 
> 
> On Jan 19, 2008 12:02 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com 
> <mailto:majedb at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     You know, the biggest problem with any implementation, is the
>     management in the company. We had a hard time in our company because a
>     lot of the managers refused to cooperate, because the ERP system would
>     strip them of some powers. Even non-managers who had control over
>     things, that weren't traceable.
> 
>     And what made matters worse were the fact that the said managers were
>     in the company for over 10 years!! They act as if they're part of the
>     company; as if they OWN the company. The owners were sided with the
>     managers, for the *benefit* of the company... As one would expect, the
>     implemntation was not going anywhere, and the IT dept. was being
>     blamed!!!
>     Anyway, things got much better & got kicked off, as soon as we got a
>     CEO, and the owners got into the shadows.
> 
>     As for the implementing consultants, we've had some REALLY DUMB ones
>     onboard :/   You know, it just feels awkward when you know more about
>     Networking, Linux/Unix, Hardware & Databases, than the implementing
>     consultant !!!! (And I was a fresh graduate from Engineering!) -- This
>     is what happens when you go for cheap implementors: Bad project
>     management, incomplete info about the feature-set of the ERP, and a
>     few more hiccups. Sometimes, it got to the point where I would re-read
>     the manuals, after they tell me something, only to find that THEY did
>     NOT read the manual properly (whether on purpose or not) .....
>     So, yeah ... Where's my elbow, would be a normal question, they
>     might ask you...
> 
>     Marketing hype is a disease that crawls into the mids of project
>     sponsors. *cough* Microsoft *cough* ....
>     It's where managers swim in their pink dreams, thinking that a piece
>     of software would do all the magic & take you up on Jack's magic
>     beans. Foreseeing the future is a key-point, in any implementation:
>     How much growth is the organization expecting (if it was small or
>     medium, especially), and how hard it is to get the data migrated to
>     other systems in the future.
>     In our case, our organization is already big, housing multiple
>     industries under one name, and having around 1500 employees.
> 
>     It would be nice if we had honest consultants/companies around...
>     Spreading wrong information, to sell a product, will only harm a
>     consultant's/company's image on the long run, but nobody seems to
>     care! Take Microsoft & Oracle as an example. Unless you knew which
>     questions you're supposed to ask, you won't get the proper answers;
>     the answers that matter to you, or your client.
> 
>     I had this problem, personally, with Microsoft & IBM. Whenever I want
>     a product, I'd do my own research online, and THEN I'd approach them,
>     hoping to not have missed a point that can be exploited...
> 
>     The 0.5 KD from a frustrated dude...
>     --
>           Majed B.
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     General mailing list
>     General at oskw.org <mailto:General at oskw.org>
>     http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org

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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Sat Jan 19 10:08:05 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:08:05 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801182306u6a0df7bet606f1787be73a9e5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net> <478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801182306u6a0df7bet606f1787be73a9e5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <862afa530801182308p2c6f23e1s517828ae5e1b51f@mail.gmail.com>

On the MySQL acquisition scale, does anyone else see it as a conspiracy
indirect acquisition by Oracle?
Read this link<http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/john-dvoraks-second-opinion-sun-mysql/story.aspx?guid=%7B88606B4A-A4AF-46FC-9C80-6B186A622456%7D&dist=hplatest>

On Jan 19, 2008 10:06 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Bashar! Glad someone else is suffering besdies me! :p~
>
> >From the chat I had with a great guy from KBM (An AIX admin), he said
> it's possible to have a database on multiple OSes, or different
> versions of the same OS, just as long as they're fully POSIX compliant
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX#Fully_POSIX-compliant] .. Windows,
> as you might have guessed, doesn't fit in the window (pun intended),
> because of many issues, one of them would be the way it represents new
> lines: In Windows, a new line is '\r\n', while in *nix systems, it's
> '\n' only.
> That may apply to DB2 (IBM's DB) only, though.
>
> Maybe, Oracle mentions that all DBs should work under one similar OS
> of the same version, to avoid lawsuits when things don't work (got
> bitten before?!), or maybe, because their DB may have exhibited
> strange behaviors when deployed on different OSes, due to different
> patch-levels of the OS, which may affect the patch-level of the DB.
>
> There is only one implementer for SAP in the gulf, and they're not as
> competent as they should be, but they're MUCH cheaper than their
> European counterparts. Which is why the management chose them! (And
> now paying audit teams from Germany to re-check their work...). Maybe
> prices will drop later, when the SAP market expands further (As far as
> I know, 6 major companies in Kuwait are seeking SAP).
>
> By the way, SAP uses MaxDB, which USED to be under MySQL up until late
> 2007. Now, SAP is the owner of MaxDB.
>
> I heard about a good example of good management, in KMEFIC, because
> most of the managers are engineers. So, I guess, it just depends on
> how lucky you are to fall in a place with such management! (3asa Allah
> yarzegna enshallah!!!!)
> --
>       Majed B.
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Sat Jan 19 10:25:38 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:25:38 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <4791A1A6.5070204@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net> <478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791A1A6.5070204@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <862afa530801182325j32129f4dg7f0f55c1fda7159f@mail.gmail.com>

Burhan: Pretty true. Not for ERP only, but I have seen systems installed and
on the moment of presentation to top management they go "That's IT?"... YES
presenter replies. "Then I don't want it!". The hundreds of thousands go
down the drain BYE BYE. No salary raises this year we lost many money :P



On Jan 19, 2008 10:07 AM, Burhan Khalid <burhan at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:

> Just to add to the discussion below; I think that in addition to the
> "misguided" (and I use that term generously) management and poor
> implementation teams that are betting the farm on the name of their
> provider and not their talent -- another factor that comes into play is
> that no implementer or management stakeholder actually asks the
> question: "Do we NEED ERP?" I know I spoke of this earlier, but I think
> it bears mentioning again that most of the times the core business issue
> that is supposed to be resolved is lost and instead what takes its place
> is more of bragging rights:
>
> "_______ company signed an agreement with _______ to implement their ERP
> solution for _______ (insert obnoxious amount of money)." -- this is
> usually a press release followed by a picture of the company upper
> C-levels and the implementer's C-levels shaking hands as if to say "I'll
> pay you a lot, just to make me look good".
>
> Operational guys lose in the end because unlike the people in the
> picture shaking hands; these operational people are the ones that will
> actually be using the system.
>
> And I agree wholeheartedly with the observation that most of the times
> the barriers to proper implementation are internal to the company;
> managers afraid of letting go and creating political red tape just to
> let others know that they are important.
>
> *sigh* -- sometimes I really wonder how these people manage anything
> other than keeping sure that they are deemed important.
>
> As a side effect of the above -- the burden is now on the consumer to be
> well informed. If you are not, then God help you if you fall for the
> crap that is spewed out by marketing heads.
>
> Thanks for your thoughts,
> Burhan
>
> bashar abdullah wrote:
> > Thanks Majed. I fully understand what you mean in terms of bad
> > management and bad implementers. Having worked 3 years in a supposedly
> > leading company, I have seen it all, had enough and quit really. It was
> > affecting my career. Over a year with literally zero achievement, and I
> > was wasting most my day on it.
> >
> > Oracle came presenting something as simple as DB Cluster and yet they
> > managed to make mistakes in numbers I pointed out from 1 hour reading a
> > head. Things like the cluster can take hundreds of nodes, while it only
> > takes 100, and cluster can work on different OS same time, or at least
> > different versions, when I am sure it only works on same OS and version
> > according to Oracle official document.
>
> I learned a long time ago to not pay much attention to the guy speaking
> about the product -- mainly because he is just reciting some copy from
> the marketing department.
>
> > God help us on the management for now. Something I got sure of is,
> > usually in Kuwait, all management is like what you talk about, and all
> > implementers are also of bad quality. Implementers are just bringing the
> > weight of the product name, but they are not qualified at all to
> > implement it. Otherwise how would an Oracle official claim MySQL has no
> > entity behind it, when the company is about to go  public, and Sun is
> > bidding $1 billion to buy it! Database is your bread and butter and you
> > gotta know your competitors better.
> >
> > Let's see how it goes. Thanks again for your knowledge sharing.
> >
> >
> > On Jan 19, 2008 12:02 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com
> > <mailto:majedb at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     You know, the biggest problem with any implementation, is the
> >     management in the company. We had a hard time in our company because
> a
> >     lot of the managers refused to cooperate, because the ERP system
> would
> >     strip them of some powers. Even non-managers who had control over
> >     things, that weren't traceable.
> >
> >     And what made matters worse were the fact that the said managers
> were
> >     in the company for over 10 years!! They act as if they're part of
> the
> >     company; as if they OWN the company. The owners were sided with the
> >     managers, for the *benefit* of the company... As one would expect,
> the
> >     implemntation was not going anywhere, and the IT dept. was being
> >     blamed!!!
> >     Anyway, things got much better & got kicked off, as soon as we got a
> >     CEO, and the owners got into the shadows.
> >
> >     As for the implementing consultants, we've had some REALLY DUMB ones
> >     onboard :/   You know, it just feels awkward when you know more
> about
> >     Networking, Linux/Unix, Hardware & Databases, than the implementing
> >     consultant !!!! (And I was a fresh graduate from Engineering!) --
> This
> >     is what happens when you go for cheap implementors: Bad project
> >     management, incomplete info about the feature-set of the ERP, and a
> >     few more hiccups. Sometimes, it got to the point where I would
> re-read
> >     the manuals, after they tell me something, only to find that THEY
> did
> >     NOT read the manual properly (whether on purpose or not) .....
> >     So, yeah ... Where's my elbow, would be a normal question, they
> >     might ask you...
> >
> >     Marketing hype is a disease that crawls into the mids of project
> >     sponsors. *cough* Microsoft *cough* ....
> >     It's where managers swim in their pink dreams, thinking that a piece
> >     of software would do all the magic & take you up on Jack's magic
> >     beans. Foreseeing the future is a key-point, in any implementation:
> >     How much growth is the organization expecting (if it was small or
> >     medium, especially), and how hard it is to get the data migrated to
> >     other systems in the future.
> >     In our case, our organization is already big, housing multiple
> >     industries under one name, and having around 1500 employees.
> >
> >     It would be nice if we had honest consultants/companies around...
> >     Spreading wrong information, to sell a product, will only harm a
> >     consultant's/company's image on the long run, but nobody seems to
> >     care! Take Microsoft & Oracle as an example. Unless you knew which
> >     questions you're supposed to ask, you won't get the proper answers;
> >     the answers that matter to you, or your client.
> >
> >     I had this problem, personally, with Microsoft & IBM. Whenever I
> want
> >     a product, I'd do my own research online, and THEN I'd approach
> them,
> >     hoping to not have missed a point that can be exploited...
> >
> >     The 0.5 KD from a frustrated dude...
> >     --
> >           Majed B.
> >
> >     _______________________________________________
> >     General mailing list
> >     General at oskw.org <mailto:General at oskw.org>
> >     http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > General mailing list
> > General at oskw.org
> > http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Sat Jan 19 10:31:21 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:31:21 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801182308p2c6f23e1s517828ae5e1b51f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<478F3CDE.4050606@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801170858g23c5e2cbh9ed6859326a23aa8@mail.gmail.com>	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>	<862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>	<70ed7c3e0801182306u6a0df7bet606f1787be73a9e5@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801182308p2c6f23e1s517828ae5e1b51f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4791A749.7040704@kuwaitnet.net>

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From majedb at gmail.com  Sat Jan 19 11:34:05 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:34:05 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <4791A749.7040704@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<862afa530801172121mb3ecf17n94971580824a6e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801182306u6a0df7bet606f1787be73a9e5@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801182308p2c6f23e1s517828ae5e1b51f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791A749.7040704@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801190034s35bead32wb08fd06ce0ff62e6@mail.gmail.com>

OK, dudes, seriously, who takes that moron Dvorak on any matter other
than a joke??? He has no clue what he's saying, he's just a paranoid
idiot, who makes speculations & questions everyones motives.
If you think that's just me, check out what the Slashdot comments say
about that moron:
http://www.google.com/search?q=dvorak+site%3Aslashdot.org&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

*IF* Oracle *sent* Sun on its behalf to destroy MySQL, don't you think
the open-source community would've objected? OK, forget the community;
don't you think Google would've objected and bought MySQL itself???
Google surely has the cash for it .. heck, it's bidding billions on a
wireless frequency, why wouldn't buy the database that it uses?

As for Dvorak's *suspecious* list of acquisitions, I can justify most
of their buyouts easily! The Cluster Filesystem Inc, would greatly
help in building a clustered filesystem for high-availability setups,
where the filesystem is shared, or scattered on different boxes.
If you look at each acquired company's speciality, you'll notice that
Sun was NOT a competitor to it, so clearly, it's not out there to
destroy these companies, but rather enhance its set of services &
hardware.
August 2005: Sun acquired StorageTek. Last year, Sun started shipping
their black-boxed datacenters & storage solutions ... surprise? Not
really!
-- 
       Majed B.



From majedb at gmail.com  Sun Jan 20 12:46:05 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 12:46:05 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801190034s35bead32wb08fd06ce0ff62e6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801182306u6a0df7bet606f1787be73a9e5@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801182308p2c6f23e1s517828ae5e1b51f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4791A749.7040704@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801190034s35bead32wb08fd06ce0ff62e6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801200146q7d87d17dvd2a514c87b6b9a32@mail.gmail.com>

I was checking some news & comments and found this:
http://www.news.com/2100-7344_3-5562799.html
It dates back to Feb. 2005 !!
-- 
      Majed B.
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From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Sun Jan 20 20:52:41 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:52:41 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801200146q7d87d17dvd2a514c87b6b9a32@mail.gmail.com>
References: <478E426E.1090205@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801180246p65a15476rcf6d98013890b2bd@mail.gmail.com>	<862afa530801181113v74c0b0en9c3cecf90d259a1f@mail.gmail.com>	<4791053F.3090100@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801181302r57cbb5edt59ff2adcb52f252f@mail.gmail.com>	<862afa530801182246w4170c1e4g815794b5bf6fdefe@mail.gmail.com>	<70ed7c3e0801182306u6a0df7bet606f1787be73a9e5@mail.gmail.com>	<862afa530801182308p2c6f23e1s517828ae5e1b51f@mail.gmail.com>	<4791A749.7040704@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801190034s35bead32wb08fd06ce0ff62e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<70ed7c3e0801200146q7d87d17dvd2a514c87b6b9a32@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <47938A69.9070001@kuwaitnet.net>

A bit more insight on this -- from the horses' mouth : 
http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/winds_of_change_are_blowing

Majed B. wrote:
> I was checking some news & comments and found this: 
> http://www.news.com/2100-7344_3-5562799.html
> It dates back to Feb. 2005 !!
> -- 
>       Majed B.
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org




From okhayat at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 21 12:27:42 2008
From: okhayat at yahoo.com (Ossama Khayat)
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 01:27:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <fc7b7ed00801181639q6f57b2e3laec5449f7a801f8c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <414699.77917.qm@web31602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

If you mean commercial support, I never used that :)

- Ossama

--- Abdullah AL Hamad <ab.alhamad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hehe, No thats means it will have a better support.
> 
> On Jan 17, 2008 11:26 AM, Ossama Khayat <okhayat at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hahaha... Time to learn PostgreSQL then :-P
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net>
> > To: Kuwait OpenSource Community <general at oskw.org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 8:44:14 PM
> > Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_hi_te/sun_mysql;_ylt=AhRDDpexEPOHYISJ6w7XuYCs0NUE
> >
> >
> > 2008 breaking news for Open Source technologies :)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 
>
____________________________________________________________________________________
> > Be a better friend, newshound, and
> > know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.
> > http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > General mailing list
> > General at oskw.org
> > http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> 



      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  
Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.  http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping



From majedb at gmail.com  Mon Jan 21 12:56:24 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:56:24 +0300
Subject: [General] Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion
In-Reply-To: <414699.77917.qm@web31602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <fc7b7ed00801181639q6f57b2e3laec5449f7a801f8c@mail.gmail.com>
	<414699.77917.qm@web31602.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801210156x42ac974cp942e40d18dd736d7@mail.gmail.com>

Well, it's true, I've seen quite a few places in Kuwait that refuse to
go with anything open-source because there're no big companies behind
them, or because they have no representation in Kuwait.

Now that Sun has MySQL, they can offer support plans through Al-Diyar,
in Kuwait.

There's one company that I know of their usage of open-source
software: Al-Shaye3
They got fed up of paying expensive fees for their ever-growing
user-base, and are migrating (or have migrated) from MS Exchange to
postfix or Zimbra... (Not sure which, but mostly postfix).
That's a great initiative from the IT management, but that also means
they have they're own Linux gurus there ;)
-- 
       Majed B.



From majedb at gmail.com  Tue Jan 22 04:57:28 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:57:28 +0300
Subject: [General] User Believes Linux Can Not Run Without Windows
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801211757n77488310ub59d4ec75fd920b1@mail.gmail.com>

The point-and-laugh sort of article :p

http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12355-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31199&messageID=579806&start=43
-- 
       Majed B.



From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Tue Jan 22 13:18:39 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:18:39 +0300
Subject: [General] User Believes Linux Can Not Run Without Windows
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801211757n77488310ub59d4ec75fd920b1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <70ed7c3e0801211757n77488310ub59d4ec75fd920b1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <862afa530801220218pd323423pf48ee8962aeef205@mail.gmail.com>

This is the type of people I hate to discuss with, but they are easy to load
with tons of bullet points with numbers that they would just stand and stare
back at you. The phrase "some new alternative could just snap into existence
overnight like that" is the really funny thing here. Linux is new and over
night? And about the OS/2, this guy better reads about why and who betrayed
IBM to make them lose :)

You can't just say $9 billion is not enough to beat Windows. You should know
what happened to that $9 billions :)


On Jan 22, 2008 4:57 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> The point-and-laugh sort of article :p
>
>
> http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12355-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31199&messageID=579806&start=43
> --
>       Majed B.
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
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From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Tue Jan 22 17:35:08 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:35:08 +0300
Subject: [General] User Believes Linux Can Not Run Without Windows
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801220218pd323423pf48ee8962aeef205@mail.gmail.com>
References: <70ed7c3e0801211757n77488310ub59d4ec75fd920b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801220218pd323423pf48ee8962aeef205@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4795FF1C.7090404@kuwaitnet.net>

This, my friends -- is what is known as 'flamebait' :)

bashar abdullah wrote:
> This is the type of people I hate to discuss with, but they are easy to 
> load with tons of bullet points with numbers that they would just stand 
> and stare back at you. The phrase "some new alternative could just snap 
> into existence overnight like that" is the really funny thing here. 
> Linux is new and over night? And about the OS/2, this guy better reads 
> about why and who betrayed IBM to make them lose :)
> 
> You can't just say $9 billion is not enough to beat Windows. You should 
> know what happened to that $9 billions :)
> 
> 
> On Jan 22, 2008 4:57 AM, Majed B. < majedb at gmail.com 
> <mailto:majedb at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     The point-and-laugh sort of article :p
> 
>     http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12355-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31199&messageID=579806&start=43
>     <http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12355-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31199&messageID=579806&start=43>
>     --
>           Majed B.
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     General mailing list
>     General at oskw.org <mailto:General at oskw.org>
>     http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org

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From majedb at gmail.com  Tue Jan 22 17:56:27 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:56:27 +0300
Subject: [General] User Believes Linux Can Not Run Without Windows
In-Reply-To: <4795FF1C.7090404@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <70ed7c3e0801211757n77488310ub59d4ec75fd920b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801220218pd323423pf48ee8962aeef205@mail.gmail.com>
	<4795FF1C.7090404@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801220656p7efe799ar4de5a932f3ef4834@mail.gmail.com>

Oh come on Burhan! Where's your sense of humor? ;p

I think Bashar was pointing at the fact that any person similar to
that in the article, can be easily defeated by playing his own game of
*facts*
-- 
       Majed B.



From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Tue Jan 22 18:04:44 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:04:44 +0300
Subject: [General] User Believes Linux Can Not Run Without Windows
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801220656p7efe799ar4de5a932f3ef4834@mail.gmail.com>
References: <70ed7c3e0801211757n77488310ub59d4ec75fd920b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<862afa530801220218pd323423pf48ee8962aeef205@mail.gmail.com>
	<4795FF1C.7090404@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801220656p7efe799ar4de5a932f3ef4834@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <862afa530801220704q70230261q7d4ccd2d5bc559b0@mail.gmail.com>

Indeed majed. And I'm not saying it just from top of my head believe me. Go
through the amazing "Bill Gates and making of microsoft empire book". It's
one of the best I've read. Teaches biography, technical and business
lessons. Also,  it lets you know why people hate Bill Gates, shows you with
evidence how the IBM OS failed while Microsoft rose. Microsoft were playing
double agent back then, and IBM fell for it. Ofcourse I never deny Bill is
hell of a genius, but that's not all that made him # 1.

Anyways, we are getting out of topic :), but still it's a great book if you
like reading about how big giants were made

On Jan 22, 2008 5:56 PM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> Oh come on Burhan! Where's your sense of humor? ;p
>
> I think Bashar was pointing at the fact that any person similar to
> that in the article, can be easily defeated by playing his own game of
> *facts*
> --
>       Majed B.
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
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From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Sat Jan 26 12:55:58 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:55:58 +0300
Subject: [General] Check and Send :: Firefox Add-ons
Message-ID: <479B03AE.9080009@kuwaitnet.net>

Ever sent an email with attachment and forgot to attach the file that 
you were supposed to send?
happened to me today and i thought of writing it , but said maybe 
someone thought if it and wrote it already, and guess what! someone did :D

this extension does it :)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2281

you define the words and if the trigger word is tagged and your email 
has no attachment it will let you know!

Open source Power
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From majedb at gmail.com  Sat Jan 26 19:30:53 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:30:53 +0300
Subject: [General] Check and Send :: Firefox Add-ons
In-Reply-To: <479B03AE.9080009@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <479B03AE.9080009@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801260830j3b7528a1yd0ac35adf3ed4f89@mail.gmail.com>

kmail already does this. I use it on my laptop for my company's mail
account and had saved me a few times.

Thanks for the suggestion, though :)
-- 
       Majed B.



From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Sat Jan 26 22:07:44 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:07:44 +0300
Subject: [General] Check and Send
In-Reply-To: <70ed7c3e0801260830j3b7528a1yd0ac35adf3ed4f89@mail.gmail.com>
References: <479B03AE.9080009@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801260830j3b7528a1yd0ac35adf3ed4f89@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <479B8500.5060001@kuwaitnet.net>

Majed B. wrote, On 1/26/2008 7:30 PM:

> kmail already does this. I use it on my laptop for my company's mail
> account and had saved me a few times.
>
> Thanks for the suggestion, though :)
>   
oh nice, although for mac/win users kmail is not an option ;)
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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Sat Jan 26 23:24:39 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:24:39 +0300
Subject: [General] Check and Send
In-Reply-To: <479B8500.5060001@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <479B03AE.9080009@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801260830j3b7528a1yd0ac35adf3ed4f89@mail.gmail.com>
	<479B8500.5060001@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <862afa530801261224u548b6c9do663669d0cefcedf9@mail.gmail.com>

It's strange. The url reads Firefox and the extension is for Thunderbird :)

This feature is really really useful and saves a lot of wasted time and
unneeded embarrassment. Should be included in Gmail :)


On Jan 26, 2008 10:07 PM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:

> Majed B. wrote, On 1/26/2008 7:30 PM:
>
> > kmail already does this. I use it on my laptop for my company's mail
> > account and had saved me a few times.
> >
> > Thanks for the suggestion, though :)
> >
> oh nice, although for mac/win users kmail is not an option ;)
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
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From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Sat Jan 26 23:39:09 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:39:09 +0300
Subject: [General] Check and Send
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801261224u548b6c9do663669d0cefcedf9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <479B03AE.9080009@kuwaitnet.net>	<70ed7c3e0801260830j3b7528a1yd0ac35adf3ed4f89@mail.gmail.com>	<479B8500.5060001@kuwaitnet.net>
	<862afa530801261224u548b6c9do663669d0cefcedf9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <479B9A6D.6060100@kuwaitnet.net>

bashar abdullah wrote:
> It's strange. The url reads Firefox and the extension is for Thunderbird :)

Both firefox and thunderbird use the same .xpi extension format. To 
install it for Thunderbird, just right click on the link, save it to 
your disk. Then in Thunderbird Tools > Addons.


> 
> This feature is really really useful and saves a lot of wasted time and 
> unneeded embarrassment. Should be included in Gmail :)
> 
> 
> On Jan 26, 2008 10:07 PM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net 
> <mailto:bashar at kuwaitnet.net>> wrote:
> 
>     Majed B. wrote, On 1/26/2008 7:30 PM:
> 
>      > kmail already does this. I use it on my laptop for my company's mail
>      > account and had saved me a few times.
>      >
>      > Thanks for the suggestion, though :)
>      >
>     oh nice, although for mac/win users kmail is not an option ;)
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     General mailing list
>     General at oskw.org <mailto:General at oskw.org>
>     http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org

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From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Sun Jan 27 00:13:21 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:13:21 +0300
Subject: [General] Yet Another Plus for Linux
Message-ID: <479BA271.4010602@kuwaitnet.net>

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205918815

"IBM has increased support for Linux with the introduction of versions 
of its Lotus Notes collaboration suite and Symphony productivity tools 
built to run on the open source OS -- and it's hoping the effort will 
help unseat Microsoft as the king of desktop software.

The company this week said it plans to ship what it calls its "Open 
Collaboration Client," made up of Lotus Notes 8 and Symphony, for 
Canonical's popular Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Lotus Notes 8 includes e-mail, calendaring, and contact management 
modules, while Symphony -- available as a free download -- features word 
processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications build on the open 
source OpenOffice.org standard.

IBM also said this week that it's working with Red Hat to develop a 
version of the Open Collaboration Client for small and midsize 
businesses, which are increasingly a focus for IBM."
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From majedb at gmail.com  Sun Jan 27 07:38:03 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:38:03 +0300
Subject: [General] Check and Send
In-Reply-To: <479B8500.5060001@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <479B03AE.9080009@kuwaitnet.net>
	<70ed7c3e0801260830j3b7528a1yd0ac35adf3ed4f89@mail.gmail.com>
	<479B8500.5060001@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801262038s6616763re521ebe33492e0d3@mail.gmail.com>

"oh nice, although for mac/win users kmail is not an option ;)"

Actually, with KDE4, it is possible to run KDE applications (like
kmail) on Win & Mac, since KDE4 is ported to Win & Mac! The initial
release is out, check it.
-- 
       Majed B.



From majedb at gmail.com  Sun Jan 27 07:43:07 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:43:07 +0300
Subject: [General] Yet Another Plus for Linux
In-Reply-To: <479BA271.4010602@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <479BA271.4010602@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801262043wc737125m556e449d4184d36b@mail.gmail.com>

Interesting. So, IBM has moved away from RedHat's Fedora to Ubuntu for
desktops. I guess they made the right choice, as Fedora has a 6-month
only life-cycle, and isn't as stable as Ubuntu.

I don't know why IBM offers Symphony for free, while its capabilities
are the same as OpenOffice.org ... Perhaps to migrate people to their
platform & eventually convince customers of *seamless* integration?
-- 
       Majed B.



From bashar at kuwaitnet.net  Mon Jan 28 10:34:18 2008
From: bashar at kuwaitnet.net (Bashar Al-Abdulhadi)
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:34:18 +0300
Subject: [General] [Fwd: [BSDCert] BSDA exam]
Message-ID: <479D857A.7060605@kuwaitnet.net>

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From ab.alhamad at gmail.com  Tue Jan 29 14:47:59 2008
From: ab.alhamad at gmail.com (Abdullah AL Hamad)
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:47:59 +0300
Subject: [General] Nokia Buys Open Source Trolltech For $150M
Message-ID: <fc7b7ed00801290347s714032e8o811941fc949c047e@mail.gmail.com>

Interesting.

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3724231
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From majedb at gmail.com  Tue Jan 29 15:28:51 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:28:51 +0300
Subject: [General] Nokia Buys Open Source Trolltech For $150M
In-Reply-To: <fc7b7ed00801290347s714032e8o811941fc949c047e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <fc7b7ed00801290347s714032e8o811941fc949c047e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801290428r1f74a130u216868e4e09f64fc@mail.gmail.com>

Great. Now Nokia is gonna botch QT and kill the GPLed version for a
commercial one, and in the end, will stick to Symbian :/
-- 
       Majed B.



From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Wed Jan 30 21:24:12 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:24:12 +0300
Subject: [General] Internet Slowdown
Message-ID: <47A0C0CC.2090701@kuwaitnet.net>

Salaam Everyone:

As I'm sure you all have noticed; the Internet has been anemic today, 
and for good reason. Two submarine fiber optic cables were damaged 
affecting the Middle East and most of Asia. You can quote the following 
in case you are being hammered by complaints. The local ISPs are aware 
of the issue (well, at least FT with whom I spoke).

"A submarine cable in the Mediterranean was cut earlier today, resulting 
in a dramatic slowdown in internet access for people in India, Sri 
Lanka, Pakistan and much of the Middle East.

A spokesman for Flag Telecom, the owner of the severed cable, told the 
Reg: "It is a problem off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt. For some 
reason ships were asked to anchor in a different place to normal - 8.3km 
from the beach. One of the ship's anchors cut our cable but there are 
multiple cuts - we're not the only company having problems."

He said they were in the process of getting a repair ship out to assess 
the damage but he warned the whole process could take 12 to 15 days even 
though the ship was in the Med. He said users in India would have a 
slower internet access as a result.

Such major damage to the internet backbone can cause major problems 
despite redundancy which allows some re-routing. The loss of so much 
bandwidth is likely to have an impact.

A Reg reader told us: "We've got some connectivity to our India office, 
but it's very flakey (currently losing half the packets) which could be 
a result of overloading. Is very similar to a couple of Christmas' ago 
when there was a earthquake near Taiwan and it severed undersea cables 
causing major bottlenecks on what was left to most of Asia for a couple 
of weeks."

Apart from being serious for the region, the cable break could also hit 
large UK and US enterprises which have offshored business processes and 
backoffice functions to companies in India, Pakistan or the Middle 
East." @ 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/30/india_mideast_lose_internet/

"International phone calls from the UAE were disrupted and Internet 
service crawled to a halt Wednedsay when two submarine fibre-optic cable 
systems ?snapped? in the Mediterranean.

The cables link the Middle East with Europe, but the slowdown was felt 
the world over, according to local telecom operators. The disruption, 
whose cause remains unknown, has wreaked havoc among millions of 
internet and phone users, etisalat and du said in a statement.

Du said two submarine fibre-optic cables, FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE 4, 
were ?damaged?.

?We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and assure them 
that we will keep them informed of the situation on a continuous basis,? 
said etisalat in a statement.

A company spokesperson said they are working closely with the concerned 
operators for urgent repair work ?to ensure the links with major global 
internet hubs are restored at the earliest.?

The company said it has activated backup links which meant that normal 
Internet browsing and essential traffic will continue to work ?at 
reasonable speeds?.

At the Dubai Media and Internet free zones and the Knowledge Village, 
web access crawled to halt.

?It?s a day gone to waste. They?re not telling us what time it?s coming 
back.

And they?re not even sure whether it?s coming back tomorrow,? a Media 
City executive said.

A du spokesperson told XPRESS the degradation of internet services and 
international voice calls only occurred for some customers during peak 
times.

?We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators to 
ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut, and they are working to 
give affected operators a recovery schedule.?

Etisalat said it has already started migrating internet and 
international voice traffic through other cable systems that have not 
been affected.

?Some congestion may be expected at peak times until this issue is 
resolved. We will keep our customers updated on its progress.?" @ 
http://www.xpress4me.com/news/uae/national/20005528.html

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From netdevil.m at gmail.com  Wed Jan 30 22:15:59 2008
From: netdevil.m at gmail.com (Mohannad A.K)
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:15:59 +0300
Subject: [General] Internet Slowdown
In-Reply-To: <47A0C0CC.2090701@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <47A0C0CC.2090701@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <6da8512b0801301115s7dbfc843n7cc3b206eef27821@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.seamewe4.com/
http://www.dubaicityguide.com/geninfo/news_dtls.asp?newsid=11044


 <http://www.seamewe4.com/>

Regards
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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Wed Jan 30 22:57:35 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:57:35 +0300
Subject: [General] Internet Slowdown
In-Reply-To: <47A0C0CC.2090701@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <47A0C0CC.2090701@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <862afa530801301157t2f241371v17c39abdefe4d14b@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks very much Burhan for this informative, though bad, news. I noticed it
was too slow could kill you. I am just wondering, why do we have to be under
the mercy of those stupid people in Egypt where they park there ships.
Shouldn't first of all the cable be more preventive to damages, as this is
seriously not the first kind of problem we faced in last 2 years. 2nd,
Shouldn't the whole backbone of the internet inside the middle-east have
more robust redundant and high availability infrastructure?

It's funny we talk about disaster side at work when the whole business is
pointless when a simple idiot mistake like that can harm the whole
middle-east, or in fact, the world!

Network is not my area, but if you can shed some light on those things, I'd
be more than grateful. I know high cost of redundancy under water is one
thing, but losing the whole internet is definitely more serious. I can
hardly call this internet really. A dial-up account works better than my 512
right now.

Thanks again

On Jan 30, 2008 9:24 PM, Burhan Khalid <burhan at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:

> Salaam Everyone:
>
> As I'm sure you all have noticed; the Internet has been anemic today,
> and for good reason. Two submarine fiber optic cables were damaged
> affecting the Middle East and most of Asia. You can quote the following
> in case you are being hammered by complaints. The local ISPs are aware
> of the issue (well, at least FT with whom I spoke).
>
> "A submarine cable in the Mediterranean was cut earlier today, resulting
> in a dramatic slowdown in internet access for people in India, Sri
> Lanka, Pakistan and much of the Middle East.
>
> A spokesman for Flag Telecom, the owner of the severed cable, told the
> Reg: "It is a problem off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt. For some
> reason ships were asked to anchor in a different place to normal - 8.3km
> from the beach. One of the ship's anchors cut our cable but there are
> multiple cuts - we're not the only company having problems."
>
> He said they were in the process of getting a repair ship out to assess
> the damage but he warned the whole process could take 12 to 15 days even
> though the ship was in the Med. He said users in India would have a
> slower internet access as a result.
>
> Such major damage to the internet backbone can cause major problems
> despite redundancy which allows some re-routing. The loss of so much
> bandwidth is likely to have an impact.
>
> A Reg reader told us: "We've got some connectivity to our India office,
> but it's very flakey (currently losing half the packets) which could be
> a result of overloading. Is very similar to a couple of Christmas' ago
> when there was a earthquake near Taiwan and it severed undersea cables
> causing major bottlenecks on what was left to most of Asia for a couple
> of weeks."
>
> Apart from being serious for the region, the cable break could also hit
> large UK and US enterprises which have offshored business processes and
> backoffice functions to companies in India, Pakistan or the Middle
> East." @
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/30/india_mideast_lose_internet/
>
> "International phone calls from the UAE were disrupted and Internet
> service crawled to a halt Wednedsay when two submarine fibre-optic cable
> systems "snapped" in the Mediterranean.
>
> The cables link the Middle East with Europe, but the slowdown was felt
> the world over, according to local telecom operators. The disruption,
> whose cause remains unknown, has wreaked havoc among millions of
> internet and phone users, etisalat and du said in a statement.
>
> Du said two submarine fibre-optic cables, FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE 4,
> were "damaged".
>
> "We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and assure them
> that we will keep them informed of the situation on a continuous basis,"
> said etisalat in a statement.
>
> A company spokesperson said they are working closely with the concerned
> operators for urgent repair work "to ensure the links with major global
> internet hubs are restored at the earliest."
>
> The company said it has activated backup links which meant that normal
> Internet browsing and essential traffic will continue to work "at
> reasonable speeds".
>
> At the Dubai Media and Internet free zones and the Knowledge Village,
> web access crawled to halt.
>
> "It's a day gone to waste. They're not telling us what time it's coming
> back.
>
> And they're not even sure whether it's coming back tomorrow," a Media
> City executive said.
>
> A du spokesperson told XPRESS the degradation of internet services and
> international voice calls only occurred for some customers during peak
> times.
>
> "We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators to
> ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut, and they are working to
> give affected operators a recovery schedule."
>
> Etisalat said it has already started migrating internet and
> international voice traffic through other cable systems that have not
> been affected.
>
> "Some congestion may be expected at peak times until this issue is
> resolved. We will keep our customers updated on its progress."" @
> http://www.xpress4me.com/news/uae/national/20005528.html
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
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From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Wed Jan 30 23:22:35 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:22:35 +0300
Subject: [General] Internet Slowdown
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801301157t2f241371v17c39abdefe4d14b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <47A0C0CC.2090701@kuwaitnet.net>
	<862afa530801301157t2f241371v17c39abdefe4d14b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <47A0DC8B.5040800@kuwaitnet.net>

Funny how we are all slaves to the might Internet and its mistress 
Bandwidth. Does anyone remember the days of 2600 BBS? :)

A ship's anchor is not a light beast; depending on the size of the boat, 
it might have one, two or four of these giant anchors. Anyway; what 
happened is that normally submarine pipes are marked in navigational 
maps so things like what happened in Egypt don't happen.

However, by some stroke of luck, the authorities shifted the locations 
where boats may berth (ie, park) and drop anchor. So what happened is 
one of these anchors damaged the covering over these submerged fiber 
optic cable 'tunnels'. As I'm sure you know, fiber optic uses light 
pulses to transfer information and the cables are actually very fine 
shards of glass -- the point being, not the most sturdy of objects.

The problem with the backbone is that it takes a lot of investment to 
plan, build and execute a submerged 'master link'; and most of the 
tier-1 bandwidth providers (like UUNet and AT&T) have already invested 
in linking major hubs via submerged cables. The reason? Its cheaper and 
faster than terrestrial (ie, above ground) and sat links -- not to 
mention fast; to make matters worse, these bandwidth providers are not 
the people that actually build these links, they are other companies so 
you can imagine the phone calls that are flying around right now.

Everyone buys upstream bandwidth -- even telcos like AT&T, Du, Etisalat, 
MoC in Kuwait, QualityNET, FT, etc. So when a link like this is 
compromised, it affects everyone from top down.

The reason the net is very slow right now is because the providers have 
shifted to their backup network (you will probably see some marketing/pr 
laced "report" mentioning how _____ telco is able to provide access 
because they have invested in next generation backup links blah blah 
blah)...anyway, the point is -- when you can't go underwater, you go 
above -- as in sat links with terrestrial base stations.

Satellite bandwidth has two problems -- giant latency (its not good for 
latency sensitive operations); its expensive (because of the nature of 
the technology) and requires additional systems -- terra stations; like 
the ones you see at the MoC centers (where there is a giant dish that 
moves depending on the time of day).

Satellite bandwidth is sold based on what's called a 'contention ratio' 
-- how many other people are sharing the access with you. To give you a 
comparison, typical home DSL is on a 10:1 contention ratio, meaning that 
any given time, there are 10 other people fighting over the same down/up 
pipe. Satellite bandwidth *starts* at 20:1 ratio, and the lower the 
ratio, the more expensive it gets. Of course, the lowest is 1:1 -- which 
means its you and some other lucky duck sharing the pipe (channel) at 
any given time.

So what is happening now is that routes are shifting (slowly) to 
satellite outbound and inbound. You will see lots of dropped packets 
because the channels are flooded; and eventually -- what goes up, must 
come down meaning that the signal must travel over (or under) ground to 
reach the DC where the server you are trying to access is.

Its a snowball effect that will affect systems in ME, Asia and 
eventually Europe and main net "hubs" like NY.

To fix such a problem, they have to send a repair ship, a dive team to 
assess the damage, then to do the actual repairs (underwater, mind you), 
then test connectivity between the two booster stations, and then 
restore bandwidth slowly. Even if they manage to fix it in one day, it 
will be flooded from all the 'back traffic' that is queued.

In summary -- a few days of patience are required :)

bashar abdullah wrote:
> Thanks very much Burhan for this informative, though bad, news. I 
> noticed it was too slow could kill you. I am just wondering, why do we 
> have to be under the mercy of those stupid people in Egypt where they 
> park there ships. Shouldn't first of all the cable be more preventive to 
> damages, as this is seriously not the first kind of problem we faced in 
> last 2 years. 2nd, Shouldn't the whole backbone of the internet inside 
> the middle-east have more robust redundant and high availability 
> infrastructure?
> 
> It's funny we talk about disaster side at work when the whole business 
> is pointless when a simple idiot mistake like that can harm the whole 
> middle-east, or in fact, the world!
> 
> Network is not my area, but if you can shed some light on those things, 
> I'd be more than grateful. I know high cost of redundancy under water is 
> one thing, but losing the whole internet is definitely more serious. I 
> can hardly call this internet really. A dial-up account works better 
> than my 512 right now.
> 
> Thanks again
> 
> On Jan 30, 2008 9:24 PM, Burhan Khalid <burhan at kuwaitnet.net 
> <mailto:burhan at kuwaitnet.net>> wrote:
> 
>     Salaam Everyone:
> 
>     As I'm sure you all have noticed; the Internet has been anemic today,
>     and for good reason. Two submarine fiber optic cables were damaged
>     affecting the Middle East and most of Asia. You can quote the following
>     in case you are being hammered by complaints. The local ISPs are aware
>     of the issue (well, at least FT with whom I spoke).
> 
>     "A submarine cable in the Mediterranean was cut earlier today, resulting
>     in a dramatic slowdown in internet access for people in India, Sri
>     Lanka, Pakistan and much of the Middle East.
> 
>     A spokesman for Flag Telecom, the owner of the severed cable, told the
>     Reg: "It is a problem off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt. For some
>     reason ships were asked to anchor in a different place to normal - 8.3km
>     from the beach. One of the ship's anchors cut our cable but there are
>     multiple cuts - we're not the only company having problems."
> 
>     He said they were in the process of getting a repair ship out to assess
>     the damage but he warned the whole process could take 12 to 15 days even
>     though the ship was in the Med. He said users in India would have a
>     slower internet access as a result.
> 
>     Such major damage to the internet backbone can cause major problems
>     despite redundancy which allows some re-routing. The loss of so much
>     bandwidth is likely to have an impact.
> 
>     A Reg reader told us: "We've got some connectivity to our India office,
>     but it's very flakey (currently losing half the packets) which could be
>     a result of overloading. Is very similar to a couple of Christmas' ago
>     when there was a earthquake near Taiwan and it severed undersea cables
>     causing major bottlenecks on what was left to most of Asia for a couple
>     of weeks."
> 
>     Apart from being serious for the region, the cable break could also hit
>     large UK and US enterprises which have offshored business processes and
>     backoffice functions to companies in India, Pakistan or the Middle
>     East." @
>     http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/30/india_mideast_lose_internet/
> 
>     "International phone calls from the UAE were disrupted and Internet
>     service crawled to a halt Wednedsay when two submarine fibre-optic cable
>     systems "snapped" in the Mediterranean.
> 
>     The cables link the Middle East with Europe, but the slowdown was felt
>     the world over, according to local telecom operators. The disruption,
>     whose cause remains unknown, has wreaked havoc among millions of
>     internet and phone users, etisalat and du said in a statement.
> 
>     Du said two submarine fibre-optic cables, FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE 4,
>     were "damaged".
> 
>     "We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and assure them
>     that we will keep them informed of the situation on a continuous basis,"
>     said etisalat in a statement.
> 
>     A company spokesperson said they are working closely with the concerned
>     operators for urgent repair work "to ensure the links with major global
>     internet hubs are restored at the earliest."
> 
>     The company said it has activated backup links which meant that normal
>     Internet browsing and essential traffic will continue to work "at
>     reasonable speeds".
> 
>     At the Dubai Media and Internet free zones and the Knowledge Village,
>     web access crawled to halt.
> 
>     "It's a day gone to waste. They're not telling us what time it's coming
>     back.
> 
>     And they're not even sure whether it's coming back tomorrow," a Media
>     City executive said.
> 
>     A du spokesperson told XPRESS the degradation of internet services and
>     international voice calls only occurred for some customers during peak
>     times.
> 
>     "We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators to
>     ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut, and they are working to
>     give affected operators a recovery schedule."
> 
>     Etisalat said it has already started migrating internet and
>     international voice traffic through other cable systems that have not
>     been affected.
> 
>     "Some congestion may be expected at peak times until this issue is
>     resolved. We will keep our customers updated on its progress."" @
>     http://www.xpress4me.com/news/uae/national/20005528.html
> 
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     General mailing list
>     General at oskw.org <mailto:General at oskw.org>
>     http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org

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From majedb at gmail.com  Thu Jan 31 06:40:56 2008
From: majedb at gmail.com (Majed B.)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:40:56 +0300
Subject: [General] Internet Slowdown
In-Reply-To: <47A0DC8B.5040800@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <47A0C0CC.2090701@kuwaitnet.net>
	<862afa530801301157t2f241371v17c39abdefe4d14b@mail.gmail.com>
	<47A0DC8B.5040800@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <70ed7c3e0801301940r41c98a5asff29f949f31b31e@mail.gmail.com>

For those interested in knowing where the submarine fiber cables are, the
Wikipedia article has a world map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable
I couldn't however find the diameter of these cables, but from the materials
used (shown in the picture below the map), it's pretty darn tough!!! So I
imagine that the ship that dropped the anchor was a huge one, not your
typical 9a3eedi fishing boat :p

As the articles supplied by Burhan say, there were two cables that got
damaged, so I was wondering: Why would they put two MASTER cables next to
each other?! At least spread them half a kilometer apart! I sure hope they
think of this while repairing the cables, since they can add more length to
it now...

As for satellite, back in highschool the delay was 3 seconds per packet!
Now, from what I see, it's 500-750ms (milliseconds). (Hard luck online
gamers!!)

Oh yeah, one thing Burhan forgot to mention, is that ISPs have prioritized
their customers, and home users can collect scrape bandwidth from the bottom
of the bandwidth pool (7akooka!)

So, for now, I'm shifting my Internet activities to where businesses &
people are asleep...

Burhan, thanks a lot for the detailed information.
-- 
      Majed B.
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From bashar.abdullah at gmail.com  Thu Jan 31 09:44:36 2008
From: bashar.abdullah at gmail.com (bashar abdullah)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:44:36 +0300
Subject: [General] Internet Slowdown
In-Reply-To: <47A0DC8B.5040800@kuwaitnet.net>
References: <47A0C0CC.2090701@kuwaitnet.net>
	<862afa530801301157t2f241371v17c39abdefe4d14b@mail.gmail.com>
	<47A0DC8B.5040800@kuwaitnet.net>
Message-ID: <862afa530801302244p5920c0c7g21531e6851b07fc0@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks once again Burhan. Guess we are impatient, no need to say that. I am
just wondering, couldn't he have done before the weekend? I had a lot of
plans ahead. So guess it's gonna be a family weekend after all :)

I will just pretend I did it from heart and not because of the internet
crisis :P


On Jan 30, 2008 11:22 PM, Burhan Khalid <burhan at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:

> Funny how we are all slaves to the might Internet and its mistress
> Bandwidth. Does anyone remember the days of 2600 BBS? :)
>
> A ship's anchor is not a light beast; depending on the size of the boat,
> it might have one, two or four of these giant anchors. Anyway; what
> happened is that normally submarine pipes are marked in navigational
> maps so things like what happened in Egypt don't happen.
>
> However, by some stroke of luck, the authorities shifted the locations
> where boats may berth (ie, park) and drop anchor. So what happened is
> one of these anchors damaged the covering over these submerged fiber
> optic cable 'tunnels'. As I'm sure you know, fiber optic uses light
> pulses to transfer information and the cables are actually very fine
> shards of glass -- the point being, not the most sturdy of objects.
>
> The problem with the backbone is that it takes a lot of investment to
> plan, build and execute a submerged 'master link'; and most of the
> tier-1 bandwidth providers (like UUNet and AT&T) have already invested
> in linking major hubs via submerged cables. The reason? Its cheaper and
> faster than terrestrial (ie, above ground) and sat links -- not to
> mention fast; to make matters worse, these bandwidth providers are not
> the people that actually build these links, they are other companies so
> you can imagine the phone calls that are flying around right now.
>
> Everyone buys upstream bandwidth -- even telcos like AT&T, Du, Etisalat,
> MoC in Kuwait, QualityNET, FT, etc. So when a link like this is
> compromised, it affects everyone from top down.
>
> The reason the net is very slow right now is because the providers have
> shifted to their backup network (you will probably see some marketing/pr
> laced "report" mentioning how _____ telco is able to provide access
> because they have invested in next generation backup links blah blah
> blah)...anyway, the point is -- when you can't go underwater, you go
> above -- as in sat links with terrestrial base stations.
>
> Satellite bandwidth has two problems -- giant latency (its not good for
> latency sensitive operations); its expensive (because of the nature of
> the technology) and requires additional systems -- terra stations; like
> the ones you see at the MoC centers (where there is a giant dish that
> moves depending on the time of day).
>
> Satellite bandwidth is sold based on what's called a 'contention ratio'
> -- how many other people are sharing the access with you. To give you a
> comparison, typical home DSL is on a 10:1 contention ratio, meaning that
> any given time, there are 10 other people fighting over the same down/up
> pipe. Satellite bandwidth *starts* at 20:1 ratio, and the lower the
> ratio, the more expensive it gets. Of course, the lowest is 1:1 -- which
> means its you and some other lucky duck sharing the pipe (channel) at
> any given time.
>
> So what is happening now is that routes are shifting (slowly) to
> satellite outbound and inbound. You will see lots of dropped packets
> because the channels are flooded; and eventually -- what goes up, must
> come down meaning that the signal must travel over (or under) ground to
> reach the DC where the server you are trying to access is.
>
> Its a snowball effect that will affect systems in ME, Asia and
> eventually Europe and main net "hubs" like NY.
>
> To fix such a problem, they have to send a repair ship, a dive team to
> assess the damage, then to do the actual repairs (underwater, mind you),
> then test connectivity between the two booster stations, and then
> restore bandwidth slowly. Even if they manage to fix it in one day, it
> will be flooded from all the 'back traffic' that is queued.
>
> In summary -- a few days of patience are required :)
>
> bashar abdullah wrote:
> > Thanks very much Burhan for this informative, though bad, news. I
> > noticed it was too slow could kill you. I am just wondering, why do we
> > have to be under the mercy of those stupid people in Egypt where they
> > park there ships. Shouldn't first of all the cable be more preventive to
> > damages, as this is seriously not the first kind of problem we faced in
> > last 2 years. 2nd, Shouldn't the whole backbone of the internet inside
> > the middle-east have more robust redundant and high availability
> > infrastructure?
> >
> > It's funny we talk about disaster side at work when the whole business
> > is pointless when a simple idiot mistake like that can harm the whole
> > middle-east, or in fact, the world!
> >
> > Network is not my area, but if you can shed some light on those things,
> > I'd be more than grateful. I know high cost of redundancy under water is
> > one thing, but losing the whole internet is definitely more serious. I
> > can hardly call this internet really. A dial-up account works better
> > than my 512 right now.
> >
> > Thanks again
> >
> > On Jan 30, 2008 9:24 PM, Burhan Khalid <burhan at kuwaitnet.net
> > <mailto:burhan at kuwaitnet.net>> wrote:
> >
> >     Salaam Everyone:
> >
> >     As I'm sure you all have noticed; the Internet has been anemic
> today,
> >     and for good reason. Two submarine fiber optic cables were damaged
> >     affecting the Middle East and most of Asia. You can quote the
> following
> >     in case you are being hammered by complaints. The local ISPs are
> aware
> >     of the issue (well, at least FT with whom I spoke).
> >
> >     "A submarine cable in the Mediterranean was cut earlier today,
> resulting
> >     in a dramatic slowdown in internet access for people in India, Sri
> >     Lanka, Pakistan and much of the Middle East.
> >
> >     A spokesman for Flag Telecom, the owner of the severed cable, told
> the
> >     Reg: "It is a problem off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt. For some
> >     reason ships were asked to anchor in a different place to normal -
> 8.3km
> >     from the beach. One of the ship's anchors cut our cable but there
> are
> >     multiple cuts - we're not the only company having problems."
> >
> >     He said they were in the process of getting a repair ship out to
> assess
> >     the damage but he warned the whole process could take 12 to 15 days
> even
> >     though the ship was in the Med. He said users in India would have a
> >     slower internet access as a result.
> >
> >     Such major damage to the internet backbone can cause major problems
> >     despite redundancy which allows some re-routing. The loss of so much
> >     bandwidth is likely to have an impact.
> >
> >     A Reg reader told us: "We've got some connectivity to our India
> office,
> >     but it's very flakey (currently losing half the packets) which could
> be
> >     a result of overloading. Is very similar to a couple of Christmas'
> ago
> >     when there was a earthquake near Taiwan and it severed undersea
> cables
> >     causing major bottlenecks on what was left to most of Asia for a
> couple
> >     of weeks."
> >
> >     Apart from being serious for the region, the cable break could also
> hit
> >     large UK and US enterprises which have offshored business processes
> and
> >     backoffice functions to companies in India, Pakistan or the Middle
> >     East." @
> >     http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/30/india_mideast_lose_internet/
> >
> >     "International phone calls from the UAE were disrupted and Internet
> >     service crawled to a halt Wednedsay when two submarine fibre-optic
> cable
> >     systems "snapped" in the Mediterranean.
> >
> >     The cables link the Middle East with Europe, but the slowdown was
> felt
> >     the world over, according to local telecom operators. The
> disruption,
> >     whose cause remains unknown, has wreaked havoc among millions of
> >     internet and phone users, etisalat and du said in a statement.
> >
> >     Du said two submarine fibre-optic cables, FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE
> 4,
> >     were "damaged".
> >
> >     "We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and assure them
> >     that we will keep them informed of the situation on a continuous
> basis,"
> >     said etisalat in a statement.
> >
> >     A company spokesperson said they are working closely with the
> concerned
> >     operators for urgent repair work "to ensure the links with major
> global
> >     internet hubs are restored at the earliest."
> >
> >     The company said it has activated backup links which meant that
> normal
> >     Internet browsing and essential traffic will continue to work "at
> >     reasonable speeds".
> >
> >     At the Dubai Media and Internet free zones and the Knowledge
> Village,
> >     web access crawled to halt.
> >
> >     "It's a day gone to waste. They're not telling us what time it's
> coming
> >     back.
> >
> >     And they're not even sure whether it's coming back tomorrow," a
> Media
> >     City executive said.
> >
> >     A du spokesperson told XPRESS the degradation of internet services
> and
> >     international voice calls only occurred for some customers during
> peak
> >     times.
> >
> >     "We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators
> to
> >     ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut, and they are working
> to
> >     give affected operators a recovery schedule."
> >
> >     Etisalat said it has already started migrating internet and
> >     international voice traffic through other cable systems that have
> not
> >     been affected.
> >
> >     "Some congestion may be expected at peak times until this issue is
> >     resolved. We will keep our customers updated on its progress."" @
> >     http://www.xpress4me.com/news/uae/national/20005528.html
> >
> >
> >     _______________________________________________
> >     General mailing list
> >     General at oskw.org <mailto:General at oskw.org>
> >     http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > General mailing list
> > General at oskw.org
> > http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
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From yaser at kuwaitnet.net  Thu Jan 31 11:23:32 2008
From: yaser at kuwaitnet.net (Yaser Ramzy)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:23:32 +0300
Subject: [General] Internet Slowdown
In-Reply-To: <862afa530801301157t2f241371v17c39abdefe4d14b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <47A0C0CC.2090701@kuwaitnet.net>
	<862afa530801301157t2f241371v17c39abdefe4d14b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <47A18584.1000800@kuwaitnet.net>


''Operators believe the damage was caused by ship anchors during a heavy 
storm at sea, Wire services reported that ships heading for Egypt's 
northern coast were diverted due to the storms, and their anchors may 
have severed the cables several miles from shore.''

http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/internet-access-in-middle-east-disrupted-080130/



bashar abdullah wrote:

> Thanks very much Burhan for this informative, though bad, news. I 
> noticed it was too slow could kill you. I am just wondering, why do we 
> have to be under the mercy of *those stupid people in Egypt* where 
> they park there ships. Shouldn't first of all the cable be more 
> preventive to damages, as this is seriously not the first kind of 
> problem we faced in last 2 years. 2nd, Shouldn't the whole backbone of 
> the internet inside the middle-east have more robust redundant and 
> high availability infrastructure?
>
> It's funny we talk about disaster side at work when the whole business 
> is pointless when a simple idiot mistake like that can harm the whole 
> middle-east, or in fact, the world!
>
> Network is not my area, but if you can shed some light on those 
> things, I'd be more than grateful. I know high cost of redundancy 
> under water is one thing, but losing the whole internet is definitely 
> more serious. I can hardly call this internet really. A dial-up 
> account works better than my 512 right now.
>
> Thanks again
>
> On Jan 30, 2008 9:24 PM, Burhan Khalid <burhan at kuwaitnet.net 
> <mailto:burhan at kuwaitnet.net>> wrote:
>
>     Salaam Everyone:
>
>     As I'm sure you all have noticed; the Internet has been anemic today,
>     and for good reason. Two submarine fiber optic cables were damaged
>     affecting the Middle East and most of Asia. You can quote the
>     following
>     in case you are being hammered by complaints. The local ISPs are aware
>     of the issue (well, at least FT with whom I spoke).
>
>     "A submarine cable in the Mediterranean was cut earlier today,
>     resulting
>     in a dramatic slowdown in internet access for people in India, Sri
>     Lanka, Pakistan and much of the Middle East.
>
>     A spokesman for Flag Telecom, the owner of the severed cable, told the
>     Reg: "It is a problem off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt. For some
>     reason ships were asked to anchor in a different place to normal -
>     8.3km
>     from the beach. One of the ship's anchors cut our cable but there are
>     multiple cuts - we're not the only company having problems."
>
>     He said they were in the process of getting a repair ship out to
>     assess
>     the damage but he warned the whole process could take 12 to 15
>     days even
>     though the ship was in the Med. He said users in India would have a
>     slower internet access as a result.
>
>     Such major damage to the internet backbone can cause major problems
>     despite redundancy which allows some re-routing. The loss of so much
>     bandwidth is likely to have an impact.
>
>     A Reg reader told us: "We've got some connectivity to our India
>     office,
>     but it's very flakey (currently losing half the packets) which
>     could be
>     a result of overloading. Is very similar to a couple of Christmas' ago
>     when there was a earthquake near Taiwan and it severed undersea cables
>     causing major bottlenecks on what was left to most of Asia for a
>     couple
>     of weeks."
>
>     Apart from being serious for the region, the cable break could
>     also hit
>     large UK and US enterprises which have offshored business
>     processes and
>     backoffice functions to companies in India, Pakistan or the Middle
>     East." @
>     http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/30/india_mideast_lose_internet/
>
>     "International phone calls from the UAE were disrupted and Internet
>     service crawled to a halt Wednedsay when two submarine fibre-optic
>     cable
>     systems "snapped" in the Mediterranean.
>
>     The cables link the Middle East with Europe, but the slowdown was felt
>     the world over, according to local telecom operators. The disruption,
>     whose cause remains unknown, has wreaked havoc among millions of
>     internet and phone users, etisalat and du said in a statement.
>
>     Du said two submarine fibre-optic cables, FLAG Telecom and
>     SEA-ME-WE 4,
>     were "damaged".
>
>     "We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and assure them
>     that we will keep them informed of the situation on a continuous
>     basis,"
>     said etisalat in a statement.
>
>     A company spokesperson said they are working closely with the
>     concerned
>     operators for urgent repair work "to ensure the links with major
>     global
>     internet hubs are restored at the earliest."
>
>     The company said it has activated backup links which meant that normal
>     Internet browsing and essential traffic will continue to work "at
>     reasonable speeds".
>
>     At the Dubai Media and Internet free zones and the Knowledge Village,
>     web access crawled to halt.
>
>     "It's a day gone to waste. They're not telling us what time it's
>     coming
>     back.
>
>     And they're not even sure whether it's coming back tomorrow," a Media
>     City executive said.
>
>     A du spokesperson told XPRESS the degradation of internet services and
>     international voice calls only occurred for some customers during peak
>     times.
>
>     "We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators to
>     ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut, and they are
>     working to
>     give affected operators a recovery schedule."
>
>     Etisalat said it has already started migrating internet and
>     international voice traffic through other cable systems that have not
>     been affected.
>
>     "Some congestion may be expected at peak times until this issue is
>     resolved. We will keep our customers updated on its progress."" @
>     http://www.xpress4me.com/news/uae/national/20005528.html
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     General mailing list
>     General at oskw.org <mailto:General at oskw.org>
>     http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at oskw.org
> http://mail.oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>   
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From burhan at kuwaitnet.net  Thu Jan 31 12:45:34 2008
From: burhan at kuwaitnet.net (Burhan Khalid)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:45:34 +0300
Subject: [General] French Police Choose Linux
Message-ID: <47A198BE.5070208@kuwaitnet.net>

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080130/tc_afp/franceinternetpolice

"PARIS (AFP) - The French paramilitary police force said Wednesday it is 
ditching Microsoft for the free Linux operating system, becoming one of 
the biggest administrations in the world to make the break.
ADVERTISEMENT

The move completes the gendarmerie's severance from Microsoft which 
began in 2005 when it moved to open sourcing for office applications 
such as word processing. It switched to open source Internet browsers in 
2006.

Linux is an open-source operating system, which used to be the reserve 
of computer geeks but is now an easy-to-use system aimed at average users.

The gendarmerie's 70,000 desktops currently use Microsoft's Windows XP 
operating system. But these will progressively change over to the Linux 
system distributed by Ubuntu, explained Colonel Nicolas Geraud, deputy 
director of the gendarmerie's IT department."
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From sabah at techsys.net  Thu Jan 31 20:12:33 2008
From: sabah at techsys.net (Sabah AL-Sabah)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:12:33 +0300
Subject: [General] Info Connect 2008
Message-ID: <006101c8642c$7a925c50$6fb714f0$@net>

 

cid:image001.jpg at 01C852CE.1FD2FA00

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