Archive for October, 2007
IT Diaries
Posted by Bloggylife in work on October 11, 2007
Did you touch the mouse? Keep your hands away from the mouse.
Maskeena, that was me talking to an employee over the phone.
She couldn’t speak proper English or Arabic and I can’t speak Indian, so as you can see it was a dead end to solve her problem.
She called me, “I don’t have Internet ma’am“
“Since when“
“This morning, I was on vacation and when I came back…. ” the never ending usual vacation plot
I tried to navigate her around to help me troubleshoot her problem but damn some people really irritate you, then I remembered enabling the remote login for her account. So I asked her what is your user name and password. While I was attempting to login I was kicked out, unintentionally my voice hit a higher pitch note
What did you do? I told you not to touch anything from your side. Did you touch the mouse? Keep your hands away from the mouse.
Ma’am I didn’t do anything .. I .. was …
It’s OK, just don’t do anything. I’m trying to remotely login to your PC …. The speed is bad enough to get on my nerves
OK. What is your password?
Now think for a second here, which password did I mean, huh? Well not the PC password apparently.
Wrong password, are you sure?
Yes ma’am.
When a user is asked for a password, they’ll give you the following password, emails, applications, websites, hell even pin numbers but never think that what you need is the PC account password. Honestly, even if I’m sitting in front of their PC and they’re behind me and I’m facing their login window asking them what is the password.
After getting the password, she doesn’t know her user name *sigh* Anyway, she is a secretary and damn her PC is full of viruses, GOD knows what application and a proxy configured on her browser. I didn’t even attempt to ask her why because I already know the answer. It wasn’t me.
I’m going to die young *sigh*
Names vs Numbers
Posted by Bloggylife in family, Kuwait on October 10, 2007
I took my younger brothers shopping in the Avenues. I don’t know what kicked in but I decided to teach them something, from me, their big sister along the way ;D
I didn’t realize it was something odd until people start asking me questions, why do you memorize street numbers? Well, it’s easier, I truly believe that. Each street or highway in Kuwait has more than one name but one unified number so I go by that. Also, I hate it when people describe “خلي برج الساعة على يمينج” , there is more than one way to do that!
“اذا بدلي أحد“
I’ll say: take road 40, then the fifth ring road take a left, go ahead till you see road 60 take it all the way to ….
Even the bridges, 205 … I do keep forgetting some If I don’t go there for a while. But it’s a challenge. It is very useful when describing to the (اعليمية) people. I have a friend who I used this method to get her around Kuwait before she bought a car with a GPS system.
So I quizzed my brothers, and this street is ..
“الدائري الخامس“
good …
“صح هذا السادس“
Yup and those streets going across, this is 40 “King Fahad”, 45 “Damascus”, 85
Since everybody keeps telling me no one memorizes street numbers. I decided to increase the population of the people who do so by including my brothers, you can call it cheating but I don’t want to be the only one 
Moments in Life
Posted by Bloggylife in personal, thoughts on October 8, 2007
Reminiscing about my life, my whole life. Looking back at my journey. What have I done? What have I achieved? Most importantly how did I evolve as a human being? One thing is so clear to me now is that you learn most from life itself. Forget about your parents, school, books, life has the most influential factor in shaping up your character. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean you have no control over it. Every event has a double effect, you choose which one to carry on, the positive or the negative. Sometimes it is so clear to me that because of a certain incident I have learned this lesson and I have gained this quality, because of my journey and interactions so far in this world I am the person I am today. Life uses so many tools to teach whether they are hard felt or simply sensed and experienced. Through success, failures, sorrow, happiness, disappointments, surprises, teachings, most importantly through humans through your friends and enemies.
I truly believe in being the best you can be. It is hard to fight the need to be cruel and insensitive. To remain compassionate and forgiving. To treat people the way you want to be treated. The secret that I have discovered to keep your sanity is within yourself. To know who you are, to have confidence in the person you are today, to only change when you permit yourself to. No matter what people tell you, if you don’t believe it, it won’t make a difference.
As my sister always says, if it weren’t for what we went through in the past we wouldn’t have become the people we are today and frankly I do love the person I am today.
I allow myself to breakdown but the thing is I know I will be able to spring right back up, because deep down inside I know I have the power to do so, I believe in me. Even if the day comes when I will not be able to stand alone on my own feet, I have three extra pairs to lift me up. My three most important people in the world. I remember Rania walking in the linear algebra class, Maha in calculus and my beautiful sister Fatma whom without I don’t know how I will carry on. With them I can be me, strong, weak, smart, stupid, mean, kind, funny, talk about anything or nothing, life isn’t complete without them. If I ever want to talk about their influence and importance in my life I will never end. LOVE YOU ALL.
Today I completed a quarter of a century. In other words, it’s my 25th birthday. I usually sing to myself a song back in school
It’s my birthday today and I want to go and play in the park with a kite and some strings
But a kite I haven’t got so I’ll make it well why not when you’re happy you can do anything
And so it goes Don’t want to write the rest, this is embarrassing enough.
I don’t know why but it keeps popping in my head, I’m weird when it comes to songs ;P
I usually dress up for my birthday but since it is Ramadan and ana malee khilq I put on some mascara and wore a skirt which is a big thing for me 
Also, to mark my 25 birthday, I handed my resignation letter which will be effective insha’Allah in three weeks ;D
On another note, I’ll be going out with the girls tonight. I want to be treated extra special because it’s my birthday so you can carry me all night long ;D
On another special note, my big bro always forgets my birthday, he sent me his congratulations in August “امضيع“. But today he sent me this message:
Old lady, old lady, old lady 
happy birthday dear sister. Wish you a happy long life
I couldn’t ask for a better bigger brother, love you man :*
الرجولة
Posted by Bloggylife in thoughts on October 7, 2007
Click Away Time
Posted by Bloggylife in family, personal, work on October 7, 2007
My day started with me being late. I over slept and again my younger brother did too. I went to him ” قوم يالله متأخرين“. What I don’t understand is to this day I always finish dressing up before him even if I start after and I’m the girl and have to choose what to wear. Well the latter isn’t totally true, I have what you call clothes rotation for work ;P selective set of clothes that I wear for work every now and then As my sister says, “لوعتي جبدي, انت ما عندج غير هالهدوم تلبسينهم“
Today I had to ask about my resignation. Anyway I ended up with the manager of personnel department. He informed me that there is no need for prior notice.
“Really, are you sure? I thought I had to give a two weeks notice before I resign”
“لا من قال” he answered back
So I took his word and starting preparing my resignation letter which I am supposed to hand over to my manager to sign and forward to his manager and sign and so forth ….
As I was walking back to my office, I came across a lot of people. I had this huge goofy smile on my face. I couldn’t wipe it off.
“السلام عليكم … شلونك“, “Good morning, how are you?”, “Hello”, “Hi”
Came my greetings to all passers by. Security officer, cleaning lady, receptionist, one-eyed Egyptian painter and employees of course. Even I saw that grumpy manager, who has issues. I was about to stop him and ask, “Excuse me sir, but it has been over two months and you haven’t called about your network connection. Yes, you have been blocked ever since because you were on vacation “مو حاطين عليك لا تخاف” paranoia freak, how come you get your work done, huh, I guess that last drama tantrum you pulled four months ago about how busy you are was just for show”. But I decided otherwise But he’s still blocked, hehehe
I realized that every action, smile, gesture, conversation toward anybody at work now maybe the last. That thought brings a huge smile to my lips even my eyes are smiling along, wonderful colours surge through my mind not to forget the weird songs that pop in my head now and then that I have to hum away
Wireless Home Network
Posted by Bloggylife in family, technology on October 6, 2007
The current wireless router was giving us too much trouble, hangs every now and then. Taking my past experience with robotics I decided to go purchase a Cisco product Linksys. Along with that we had a signal extender also Linksys.
I had my brother connect his laptop to the old wireless router and I configured the new one and we got it working. The problem was with the extender and link light keeps turning red which means there is no connectivity. I tried auto configuration, for auto configuration to work you have to remove any wireless security settings on the router. My brother kept telling me there is something wrong with the extender. How many times have I told you there is nothing wrong with it *crossing my fingers and secretly hoping I’m right*, just give me time. Since I hate reading manuals and make them the last resort to solve a problem I went back to basics and did a step-by-step troubleshooting.
The extender doesn’t support the WPA wireless security mode. I didn’t know that, was I supposed to know that? Anyway I selected the WEP which is easier to hack but I also set MAC address filtering so by that I control PCs who get connected. The only problem is that the password is 26 hex digits long (128 bit encryption)!! To avoid my brother’s too long too complicated password speech I wrote it on paper and placed in his room and went to sleep
We’ll see how the new wireless network setup works at home. Yeah also I need a network hard drive. Still have to search for that.
Ferrero Roche
Posted by Bloggylife in family, food on October 6, 2007
Watching TV with the family after futoor. Ferrero Roche chocolate commercial comes up.
I turned to my brother and said: This man must really know women
Huh, why?
The chocolate is …. The simple combination of …. The crunchiness … The delicacy …The taste … and I wondered off imagining the taste and the texture …
You know it takes a woman to really appreciate chocolate
I waited for him to debate but as always my brother’s response came as a long stare, a smile and “والله امصدقة“
Latest Trip to Bin-Kaldoon
Posted by Bloggylife in entertainment, Kuwait on October 5, 2007
What movies do you want, I asked my brother and he gave me a list. Every now and then I go to bin-Khaldoon Street to get some movies. I haven’t been there for quite a while, so I have a long list. I get these high-quality DVD movies for 1 KD. Some may argue that this is not legal, I know. But it is rather tempting to pay this amount instead of 5 KD or even more per DVD. Not only this but you get them all cut and chopped. It is perfectly fine to tolerate the censoring when going to the cinemas but on DVDs. Can’t they have two editions and people choose? Anyway my trip resulted in buying 11 DVDs, Linksys wireless router and two DSL splitters. I wanted to buy network hard drive but all the brands that they have, I’ve never heard of. So if anyone has some advice. I was thinking of going online but is it really worth it?
I watched Blades of Glory, now this is a funny movie starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder. It is about two men who are professional ice skaters who end up skating as a couple. I do recommend it.
Van Helsing was rather disappointing I didn’t like it that much. I know it is an old movie but it was one of the movies I remembered not seeing and had to watch it.
Other movies that I have bought, Jarhead, Wild Hogs, Da Vinci Code, Die Hard 4, Ocean’s 13, Fracture, the number 23, Invincible and Fun with Dick and Jane.
Mind Boggling Issues
Posted by Bloggylife in funny, work on October 5, 2007
I come across a lot of problems from employees that need my attention. Most of them I do out of good intentions and my good heart , because they are really not problems they are inconveniences.
So here are the mind boggling issues that I normally think while solving their problems or sometimes voice them out.
Why do you keep them? In the hopes of one day that they will be active. Peer-to-peer file sharing, IRC (hate it), etc. All don’t work. Also, when I see those bypassing applications, the ones that make blocked applications work, I’m not going to say which because I don’t want to give ideas. Let’s just say our last survey showed that more than 80% of employees’ Internet activities are considered a loss of productivity, yeah like that was a shocker ;PSome employees really mess up their PCs. Even when their PCs are shutdown for two months it internally f*cks itself up. I was away for one month and now my PC isn’t working, comes a notable heard phrase from fresh out of the holiday employees. My boss asked me, I have been away for over two months and when I came back I turn on my PC, wait for 5 minutes and viola it’s working, I have the Internet and everything, WTH do these employees do to manage to screw everything up. My answer was a simple laughter and a I-have-no-whatsoever-idea shoulder shrug.
If Only …
Posted by Bloggylife in personal, thoughts on October 1, 2007
That doesn’t mean I’m not happy the way I am today. But a girl has the right to dream, hasn’t she?
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