From the Desk of Asif Nawaz

I recently wrote an article about why London will never be New York.  The article was met with lots of positive and negative criticism; some love London, and others love New York.  One gentleman was so furious he dubbed me an American who doesn’t know any better, because New York is nothing but a concrete jungle (as opposed to Liverpool Street or Holborn?).  Of course, we are all entitled to our opinions.

As some of you may already know, I have spent a couple of years in Dubai.  Although my experienced, possibly jaded opinion says that London will never become New York, I can comfortably tell you why, and how, Dubai may one day actually become London, and take away a good chunk of the tourists that come to London (that’s great for some Londoners, eh!). 

Living in Dubai made me quite Anti-Arab, and on many occassions, anti Muslim.  Ultimately, I was extremely frustrated with the general incompetence of systems, the bad quality of service, general lack of common sense and common courtesy, and people’s undying, inevitible ability to do everything wrong an average of three times before getting it right.  Hoarding money, overcharging, ripping off residents and immigrants, lying, cheating, deceiving, and not thinking through what the hell it is that they’re doing are among some of the common mistakes they made in Dubai.  I’m sure they still make them.  When I lived in Dubai, I compared everything, civil infratstructure, Information Technology, shopping experience, quality of life, cost of living, etc. with the US, and Dubai lost on practically every ground.  I was never sure where the Arabs & Muslims had come up with their system, their costing & pricing, their inefficient ideas, and their con-like way of life in Dubai.  I used to blame them and their kind for it.

And now, I realize, that on some level, I owe them an apology for criticizing them for making Dubai the way it is.  Well, maybe not.  But what I have realized is that comparing Dubai, or any other part of the world for that matter, with the US way was a mistake.  I knew nobody in the Muslim world (except maybe Iran) would make effort to reinvent or recreate the wheel, but I always assumed that Dubai was trying to mimic New York (with Sheikh Zayed Road being their pride and all), but they failed miserably.  Well, that was my mistake.  I hadn’t experienced London yet.

And now that I have, well, Dubai is really not that bad.  When I compare the way of life in London to the way of life in the United States, I see the same fallacies that I saw in Dubai.  The same traditional cultural hoardiness, sticking to culture and tradition (which nobody really knows much about, in London or Dubai - don’t get me wrong, there are people who do, but most are pretty lost), sitting on money, enjoying other people’s misery, lying, deceiving the public, being overcrowded, etc. etc.  My, I thought, am I making the same mistake that I did in Dubai?

Probably.  Comparing London and New York is not necessarily fair.  The cities emerged differently, were built by different people with different visions and served different purposes in different cultures for different people with different mentalities and ideologies.  But Dubai, gosh!  Dubai is a hotter, modern, dusty, inexpensive, (maybe) glamourous (dare I say), cleaner (definitely!) version of London.  How, you ask?

Well, London is built with one aim and one goal in mind: impress those who visit and take as much money as you can from them.  But what you build is what you get, i.e., that is also the mentality of the people who live there.  I’ll continue this attitude of the people later, but Dubai does impress a lot of tourists, and with the certain allure it has created, people spend a lot of their money in Dubai, which what their ultimate goal is.

Dubai is ultimately built by the British.  You see British civil engineering at work in the Dubai road infrastructure, you see the British bureaucracy/systems in place when dealing with most day-to-day things (getting a landline telephone - the equivalent of BT in Dubai is Etisalat, getting a mobile phone, paying your bills, banking, etc.).  Basically, Dubai is a carbon copy of British systems, and that’s because it’s built by the British.  In that British re-creation of Dubai, you see some efforts to rectify the mistakes in London, and as a result of that, the wow factor that Dubai offers for some people may be more than what London can offer.  Of course, Dubai doesn’t really have a history, and it will always fall short of London in that department.

But where Dubai really succeeds is in having used the American system to successfully market.  It seems like they may have solicited the British and other European nations for help when it came to developing their city, but the Arabs know and believe that no one is better at positive marketing than the United States, and this could be the one biggest factor why Dubai can cause quite a dent in London’s tourist revenues. 

So, how does Dubai compare with London?

Just Visiting?

When you’re visiting or passing through, be it for leisure or business, you want it to be cheap, efficient and fun.  You want to be pampered and you want to feel important, and you definitely want to make the most of it, right? 

Hotels

Okay, London has a fine line of great hotels, but then so does Dubai.  In fact, with the Burj ul Arab, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Madinat Jumeirah, Royal Mirage and a plethora of others, Dubai has a collection of modern five star hotels with a traditional touch that will dazzle just about any visitor.   What else?  Dubai offers add ons with your hotel service like buttlers, which will make even the most seasoned traveller feel like a king.  Dubai can do this because they’ll charge you over GBP 500 per night for your hotel room, while the guy who will carry your lugggage, clean up, and do all the dirty work will get paid less than GBP 300 a month!  That may be a violation of human rights on some level, but it certainly works well for visitors and tourists.  I remember an uncle of mine telling me about his visit to Grosvenor House in London in the 80s, and how he had to carry his bags up to the room himself.  In Dubai, you’d never do that.

Shopping & Fashion

There were days when the world came to London for shopping for the latest fashions and gadgets.  People still come to London for that, but I’m not sure they come with the same expectation or enthusiasm anymore.  Dubai has successfully marketed and built itself several world class shopping centres, and interestingly enough, some products may even cost you more in Dubai than they would in London.  But that’s not true of all the products, especially once you learn the right areas and the right places to shop in Dubai.  Even though I’ve seen that the same shops in Dubai don’t get the latest products that they would stock in London or New York, Dubai has definitely entered this market, and quite possibly has a much better pricing position than London for a multitude of reasons (no tax, no excise and customs etc.).

We know that the fashion headquarters of the world are London, Paris, Milan, New York and maybe Los Angeles.  Dubai has made a serious effort to enter this market, and they’ve certainly gotten somewhere.  Dubai regularly hosts fashion shows, and the biggest designers do not mind hosting and displaying their products in Dubai.  That’s a big attraction for tourists and visitors, as trivial as that may be for some of us practical people.

Living or Working in Dubai?

If you move to Dubai from London, you won’t find much of a difference in the culture.  Neither of these places are by any means American in Corporate Culture, and that may very well be a cultural and traditional gap for the best.  Londonders will not find it very different in Dubai, except that if you go to Dubai from London, chances are you will get VIP treatment and your quality of life may improve, although for someone who is well settled in London, the kind of life Dubai offers may very well be trivial.

The area Dubai lacks in professionally is, well, professionalism.  There is a serious lack of professionally competent people in Dubai, and although London has its fair share of incompetence, it generally has a much better employee set than Dubai.  So, naturally, for the striving, aspiring person, London has more to offer:  access to a bigger market, access to more resources, better faciltiies, etc. etc.

Education, you say?

Education is certainly a developing area in Dubai, but it’s no where close to being acceptable at this point.  I won’t say any more in this section, except that London and it’s surrounding areas house some of the world’s best educational institutions.  Dubai doesn’t have any decent higher education yet, but I believe it is in the works.

Cleanliness

Well, Dubai takes the lead here easily.  It’s very clean, especially the areas all the tourists and western people visit.  All such areas are practically spotless, although they come at the expense of slave labour.  Of course, most people are oblivious to things such as slave labour, so this is a big plus point for Dubai.  Parts of London have become extremely filthy, and I needn’t comment more on this.  I said plenty about it in the article that compared London with New York, and there’s no point in repeating myself.

Traffic

What can I say?  Both London and Dubai suck.  Road tax is killer.  Tolls are killer.  London has better public transportation, but Dubai intend to roll out their fancy planned metro in 2009.  That will certainly create cultural and class issues in Dubai, the effect of which remains to be seen.  This blending of the racial discrimination of the east and west sides of the Dubai Creek could make or break the comfortable working class of Dubai.

 Why won’t Dubai Compete with New York?

Quite simply, because Dubai isn’t marketing itself as an American city.  It offers faciltiies like London, it offers services like London.  The flat, housing and apartments feel more like London than they do like any part of New York or other American cities.  But Dubai is using the grace of New York.  It is painting itself the metropolitan image that London lacks, and it’s doing a fantastic job.

Fancy skyscrapers, a tube / subway system, big roads and highways, the world’s biggest businesses (even if they don’t any business and get rent free buildings to fool everyone else), and the image of success.  It’s a very well told lie, and a perfectly created fassad, created by the British and Europeans for and by the Europeans, and you can see it has been a successful venture so far.  How long it lasts will be interesting, but Dubai may never make it because it’s very difficult to gain a sense of ownership or ‘homeliness’ in Dubai.  A place that will never call you its citizen, a kingship that will never treat you as one of its own, will never get the dedication of the people who reside there to make money; it’s that simple.

Where Dubai Fails?

Well, there are several pitfalls Dubai needs to overcome before it can consider competing with London.  Among them, a legal system, decent education, more condusive laws for business people, and less lying.

Major businesss in Dubai were given free buildings to move in in areas like Dubai Internet City, so that other striving and aspiring businessmen follow and pay the outrageous fees.  The fassad worked, but I don’t know when people will start to see it isn’t what it claims to be.  Most of the businesses, even if they are functioning in other countries, fail to take off in Dubai because they’ve bought into this lie.  This needs to stop; Dubai needs to help develop business inside rather than make it fail.

Laws are important.  Company law that is 4 sheets of A4 paper typed in 12 point font with more grammatical mistakes than my 2nd grade english paper will not suffice for complex international business.  After all, how long will businesses settle disputes in and according to the law of the United Kingdom in Dubai?  Lawyers are full of crap, trying to offer you legal help on law that’s 4 pages wrong.  Please don’t fall for this trap in Dubai.  Lawyers are pathetic everywhere, but in countries where implementation of law is non-existent, and even worse, in countries like the UAE where law is non-existent, lawyers need to be booted.

Dubai needs to be less racist.  The racism and discrimination is unacceptable at all levels of human decency; just because you’re brown or Indian doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be respected; Arabs certainly don’t have the right to disrespect anyone; let’s avoid this discussion, shall we?  But Dubai needs to be weary of this; once the metro in Dubai is complete, it could lead to a blending of the eastern and western population of Dubai, that could make the latter very uncomfortable, and I’m not sure Dubai has  a ‘plan b’ for that.

There’s a lot more to be said on this, but it can’t be said without me not being nice.   I’ll take up more issues in the future, but I think if Dubai keeps on the right track and focuses on the right things, it may very well compete with London.  It is likely that Dubai will overcome its fallacies, although there certainly are no guarantees about when and how.  Then again, given the level of competence in Dubai, London may not have too much to worry about.

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Folks, here are the new download keys for HP QuickPlay.  Please, use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered.

To download QuickPlay, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one of the following appropriate keys.  Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it.

Hp QuickPlay Direct 2.3:  cbb6d22b102bb067b210ea32e0cbee0e

HP QuickPlay for Windows 2.3, 3.0 & 3.6:  24deb04c698239fdbd9863ac77232f8f

HP QuickPlay TV:  8268dae277b7fa34b8a445b120226881

Winrar 3.6.2:  595b90bcd5bb6a2294b4ba6abfd301a1

Well, you could say that’s because London is London and New York is New York.  Let’s be honest: in the last few years I’ve heard and read various things like London stealing the financial business from New York City, London seeing more growth, London becoming a better all over exprience due to immigration and America’s terrorist obsession, etc. etc.  But, lets face it, London does not give you the experience New York does, and it never will.  Why?  Let’s see why.

Filth / Garbage

Well, I’ve been to New York City several times, and I’m not saying it’s like Singapore, but hey, it’s relatively clean, especially when compared to London.  Have you seen the trash on the streets of London lately?  What’s with all the chewing gum stains on the pavements and the roads?  I don’t think New York has that kind of a stain infested issue, does it?

Then, how come people aren’t supposed to clean their dog poo and pee?  What in the world is that about?  I know this is the land of royalty, but can we please tell people to clean up after their pets?  It’s only polite.

Mind you, I’m not saying New York is immaculate, but unless it has become filthier the last few years, I certainly don’t remember it being this dirty.  I mean have you been to Marble Arch, Edgware, or Edgware Road lately?  I’m sorry, but Edgware reminded me of Karachi for a minute!

Customer Service, you say?

Okay, call me spoilt, but the American saying “the customer is always right” does have its treats.  It is so frustrating when you walk into a store in London that no one really gives a damn.  The quality of service is horrible.  Have you ever been to a bank in London?  No one is at the counter, and you have to wait for more than 5 minutes before someone will come to attend to you.  It’s the same everywhere you go.  Cell phone stores, grocery stores, restaurants, banks, offices, etc., the service is nothing short of horrible.

Customer Service staff, that takes less interest in their lives than probably anyone does, try and lecture you on things like the Data Protection Act and other laws, when they really have no idea what they are talking about.  Everyone has an excuse for doing something the wrong way, and no one needs an excuse for not doing anything!  It’s a privilege to to get any kind of service in London when you are paying for it.  Be it NatWest, Barclays, HSBC, Orange, O2 or any other business, their customer service sucks, which makes for a very unpleasant shopping or service experience.

The US is great at this.  I don’t know if it’s because of the out-of-whack US liability laws or simply because they’re smart enough to know that happy customers make good customers, but they do everything it takes to get the job done right.  I’m not saying that the level of customer service competence is better in the US, but New York makes for a much more pleasant shopping experience than London.  Ask any Brit who’s been to New York.  They only have good things to say about it.  So many of them want to move there, despite what they think of George Bush and US foreign policy.  Well, who can blame them, right?

Ofcourse, outsourcing of customer service over the phone is a problem in both cities/countries.  But given the fact that the liability of bad service in the US is greater than it is in the UK, US outsourced customer service is much better.  I guess this strings from the fact that no major corporations in the US are government owned or government vested, as British Telecom is, say, in the UK.

Who’s more friendly?  New Yorkers or Londoners?

Everyone in London is upset most of the time.  This may be due to traffic, poverty, expenditure, tourists, or whatever.  But hey, New Yorkers are just as fed up of the crap at their end.  But my experience is that Americans are generally much more friendly than the British.  In school, we used to read of British Hospitality and all that good stuff.  Well, most of it has apparently faded, at least in the working class.  Who knows why that is.  I guess life in London is more difficult than in New York City, which makes for crankier Londoners than New Yorkers.

If you’ve seen the phrase “Welcome to New York” used in movies when something goes wrong with someone in New York, well, it is just as suitable for London, if not more.  But maybe Londoners don’t share the same sense of humour!

 Rowdy Kids

Okay, this has a lot to do with the low drinking age and the excessive use of drugs.  That’s just not cool, because kids get rowdy and rude and puke all over the place in London, which ads more to the existing dirt, which isn’t cool either.  I’m not going say too much about this, except that this needs to stop, and infusion of drugs into London teenagers needs to be controlled urgently, because this is not only a hassle for us who live here, but even for those who are visiting for fun.

The Fascination Factor

This may be subjective, but I clearly remember the first time I visited NYC (let’s not count Brooklyn or Queens, shall we?).  I stepped out of the Subway Station o 5th Avemue and I stood in awe at skyscraper after skyscraper.  The impression that New York makes on a new or first time visitor is far superior to the one that London makes, and Londoners will tell you that.  New York is a City that’s built to look like a Metropolis, and it certainly feels like one.  London may have big city life, but I think it fails to make that impression that adds to the initial buzz of being in one of the world’s most dynamic cities.

Food

Oh my!  New York City has more variety in food than London does.  New York City’s portion size is much larger (as is the rest of America’s), and the cost is far less.  Also, since I think Americans are far more passionate about eating (compare the obesity rate between the US and UK at 38% and 33 %, respectively), the overall taste and experience of dining and food in New York City is better than in London.

And for those of you who say Americans pig out and don’t enjoy their food, well, the obesity gap isn’t that much, and here is news for some of you:  New York City is the world’s first city to ban trans fat in restaurants.  That’s right.  I think the law kicks in in June, but now who cares more about the health of tourists and residents?

Bloomberg Vs. Livingstone

Come on now, there’s no comparison.  The New York Mayor (Michael Bloomberg) is much cooler than London Mayor Ken Livingstone.  Bloomberg, that just sounds much cooler than Livingstone.  Need I say more?

The Experience (Corporate, mostly)

After having lived in the US for several years (and not really having lived in New York), I think that London, and forgive me for saying this, is like an American village.  I’ve already mentioned that London doesn’t feel as Metropolitan as New York; but even Denver or Dallas feel more metropolitan than London.  Well, maybe I’ll discount Dallas from that.

There are many reasons for that, but I think a lot of it has to do with British mentality and culture.

The Corporate Culture of London is, at best, outdated, compared to the corporate culture anywhere in the US.  The technology in use, the ideology, the methodology all is about 20-25 years behind the US.  I think the reason for that is the traditional approach of British Businessmen.  They like to stick to what they’re comfortable with, and then British pride knows no end.  Since the UK isn’t exactly the pioneer of new technology or British methodologies, British business is hesitant about adapting to it, with the result say, if the CEO or Managing Director of a major corporation has been in charge for 10 years, he technology in place is 10 years old.  Until a younger crowd comes to manage the company, the technology won’t change, because each generation, I think, in this country, brings an update to technology and methodologies.

That’s not the case in the US, which is a dynamic environment that thrives on new processes, technologies, and methodologies.  Things are always being improved, with the ultimate goal to weed out inefficiencies in the business processes.

When I was in the US, I used to hear how much ahead of the US Europe was in the cell phone market.  Well, not really.  Just because the US has a different release schedule for mobile phones and they use different cell phone networks doesn’t make their service or technology inferior.  London has more mobile/cell phone signal problems than I ever had in the US driving from Colorado to New York.  So, you shouldn’t really believe every such thing you hear.

In addition, the US, to this day, and even NYC, provides a positive corporate culture for new entrants.  It is an environment where you can get a job or thrive on merit alone, at least upto a comfortable level, if not a super rich level.  In London, merit doesn’t really count; you have to know people to get to even very junior places, and that kind of stuff is just not cool.  But I think, again, it is something that comes out of the culture of royalty, and although it may be a bad thing, it has become a way of life that the locals are used to.  More power to them!  I guess as long as you know who you know, what you know is not really important.

Let’s just say that I’m trying to say that the Business Acumen of London is nowhere close to that of New York, or any other major US city.  That doesn’t mean the London economy is very small, we’re just talking about business acumen and business intelligence.

Price

In a few words, New York provides MUCH BETTER value for money than London does.  Living, shopping, partying, everything in New York City is half price of what it is in London.  Throw in the other factors mentioned, and New York makes for a far superior experience.

Okay, this may not have been the most comprehensive guide to London and New York, but it’s just my opinion, which means it may be prejudiced, biased,or simply ill founded.  But nonetheless, it is my opinion.  Personally, I preferred Denver.  It had most of the advantages of a big city without the rutt and problems.  But then, it’s neither London nor New York.

What do you think?

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Okay folks, as those of you who’ve been regular visitors know I’m hosting with InnoDomains (http://www.innodomains.com), this is just a quick update to let you know that I’ve upgraded hosting to a premium package, that, well, COSTS me twice as much.  So, what does this mean for you?

- Downloads shouldn’t time out as much.  I’ve had multiple complaints from people complaining about downloads timing out.  This should help that.  How, I’ll explain here shortly.
- Fewer 503 Server down errors.  I wasn’t using up all of the bandwidth, just about 200 GB a month max.  But the consecutive number of users connecting to download QP direct along with other visitors (exceeding 450 uniques a day with over 1500 hits/pageviews) meant that if at any time there were simultaneous connections in excess of 25, well, you’d get that error.
- Now, that is also one of the reasons the downloads could be timing out.  So, please try and let me know what the results are.
- If you have been able to download and install quickplay, please consider donating.  I’m only asking for USD 2.00 per successful download & installation as a donation.

Lastly, InnoDomains service has been good.  With the Premium Package, I’m getting much better server and database response time, and I haven’t had any server maintenance or overload errors, which I was getting before.

If you’re looking to host a web site that doesn’t require a dedicated server, I would definitely suggest InnoDomains.  It’s good.  It’s not Rackspace, but then you pay for what you get.  As long as the service stays consistent, I think @ USD 20.00 per month, the Premium Hosting package is actually worth.

Check it out.

Picking a mobile phone carrier in London has been difficult.  None of them have good reviews, and apparently, all of them provide the same service.

I finally decided last week that I was going to make the move to O2.  I had seen their simplicity package advertised, where you could simply buy a SIM for free, and pay GBP 30 per month for 1200 anytime minutes, 500 or 1000 texts (if ordered instore or online), and a free additonal bolt on, which in my case, is the Unlimited Web Bolt On.  I decided to go for this because I do not want a new phone.  I’m happy with Sony Ericsson p990; the firmware upgrade has made the phone much more stable, and it almost every feature you’ll need:  Web, GPRS, 3G, WiFi, Browser, Email Client, Media, etc. etc.

O2s mobile phone service has been good.  I don’t get any unusual signal outage, and the internet speed on the phone is also pretty good.  But their Customer Service is nothing short of horrid!

Since the day I got my SIM from O2, I cannot view my bill or allowance online.  Over the last week, I’ve had luck with viewing my billing/allowance only once on the web site.  I have exchanged about 5 emails with customer service, and oh my, they are as incompetent as they come.  I thought HP (hewlett packard) had everyone beat when it came to bad customer service, but O2 is quickly surpassing HP to new, unknown levels of incompetence and customer dissatisfaction.

When I try to view my bill, I get an EBPP_1102 error.  When I try to view my allowance, I get the same EBPP error code with a different number.  Now I’m not sure what kind of a programming glitch their web development team has made, but their customer service has absolutely no idea about what’s going on.  They’ve come up with the wildest suggestions, like deleting my temporary internet files, having a corrupt cookie, having an old browser that doesn’t support 128-bit SSL encryption, or having an ISP that needs to be contacted because the problem is at their end.  They should really try telling that to Virgin & BT, and I’d want to see how either of them reacted to that.  I’d want to see the size of the hole in O2s tushi when BT is done responding to that (not that BT is a blessing in any way either).

First rule of thumb, train your god damn customer service representatives, and please, train them to be honest.  If they don’t know what’s going on or have NO idea about what the problem is, they DO NOT need to make incorrect suggestions or accusations about our PCs, cookies, or ISPs.  They should say that they don’t know what’s wrong, and that they will try to find out.

Second, why the fuck does every person who responds to my email an Indian, who has no fucking idea about how O2 works, secure socket layers or web browsers work, or how ISPs work?  I’m going to assume that O2 is being cheap over here, and they’re outsourcing customer service to India.  I’m sorry, is there any shortages of Indians in the UK?  There are lots of competent ones here, please hire them.  They’re educated (in real, for the most part, not by University of Kerala which prints PHDs only), and they’re less prone to lying and giving ludacris suggestions.

And your web development team?  Are you outsourcing this to Pakistan or India too?  And exactly how much money is O2 saving on it is unfathomable.  The website is pathetic.  They’ve tried to use AJAX without getting the basic functionality right.  Does O2 really think I’m impressed with AJAX when I get an error every time I try to access my billing or allowance?  Here’s a hot tip for O2:  NO!  I want it work, and I DO NOT want to speak to low IQ, incompetent, customer service who doesn’t the difference between a client side and server side error and tries to talk IT.

Here’s a little tip for O2 Tech Support:  The error is server side.  You’re running a script that’s trying to access my bill & related details from a database (I hope & not a text file), but it fails to do so, either because it cannot connect to your server or because their’s a coding error.  Either way, I CANNOT fix it at my end.  You need to do it.  Browse the internet and see how many other people have the same problem.  What are you, stupid? 

If you can’t get the service right, don’t offer it.

To top it all off, I get a call from O2 Customer Service today saying they don’t have the right billing address?  Well now, who in the hell changed it.  Not only was the woman who called UNABLE to communicate properly in English, but she told ME to call customer service and get my address updated because she could NOT take down the address.  I mean what the fuck is this, a fish market?  And how in the hell did my address get changed on the web site?  Why does customer service fidget with our account information when they don’t need to?  And, WHY the hell does the update my details feature NOT work on the web site?!

I’m this close to writing to the head office and asking them if they need help with their web site and customer service training, because clearly, a monkey could do a better job than O2 is doing right now!

Here are the download keys for HP QuickPlay.  Please, use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered.

To download, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one the following appropriate keys.  Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it.

HP QuickPlay Direct 2.3:  a15d2a58d86dd1a5e0d81d3b6a6da507

HP QuickPlay for Windows (version 2.3 - 3.6):  f17037f62712c2f977772e6e567fa19e

HP QuickPlay TV: b5c183527d42bf61f81a21a59ccf4546

Winrar 3.6:  a179758a565e86b63ff550be6c89f562

Happy downloading & installing!

I received this relatively disturbing news via email from the DN (Domain Name) Forum today.  Please sign the petition and help domain name owner’s keep their domains:

Dear DNF members,

We feel it is our duty to bring this to light and make people aware of what’s happening. As you may have heard, Senator Olympia Snow (R-ME) has very recently introduced a bill that could threaten the future of the domain name industry and internet commerce. Snowe’s bill has been introduced as the “Anti-Phishing” bill, but contains provisions that are largely unrelated to these objectives. These provisions radically and unnecessarily expand the rights of trademark owners to essentially provide them with monopoly rights on registered trademarks. This would be to the detriment of millions of individuals and businesses engaged in lawful and legitimate Internet commerce.

If the bill passed through congress, it may allow large businesses to take domain names with little to no effort. Trademark owners already prevail in 85% of all UDRP complaints and nearly 100% of all ACPA cases. Yet some apparently now wish to establish a new regime for contesting allegedly “infringing” domains that is tilted even more in their favor by denying basic due process and substantive protections to domain name registrants – and that provides the possibility that they can use their power and influence to sway public officials to expend taxpayer dollars in defense of private Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs).

The proposal unfairly targets domain name registrants for a widespread Internet practice – if it’s aim is to halt the advertising monetization of brand names and typographical variations thereof when consumers engage in direct Internet navigation or in web searches it utterly fails in that endeavor, as this activity is also engaged in systematically by search engines, web browsers and ISPs.  

We need to do as much as possible to make sure the bill is revised to serve it’s purpose of preventing phishing scams and not to bury domain name owners. Please sign the petition at http://www.SnoweBill.com to help in the fight and to review all portions of the bill.

Thank you for your time and attention in this matter.

Lots…

Last few days I have kept pretty busy, and I think it’s going to get like that, but I’m going to work Asifism.com into my schedule too.

I’m currently setting up a new business (more information on that will come soon).  I’m also in the process of working out with a franchise issuing organization to purchase an accounting/bookkeeping franchise (more information on that will follow too).  In addition, I am studying for CIMA and actively working on DesignerPottery.com (http://www.designerpottery.com/blog).  I need some help on this, so if this even remotely sounds like something you can help out with, please visit the blog and give me insight, feedback, or simply contact me for how you can help.

Of course, business is my priority.  As part of marketing my accounting/bookkeeping consultancy, I am launching, in conjunction with VAFTA Solutions Limited (http://www.vafta.com) an accounting blog, which will start with me completing the second part of the accounting software article, where I will discuss and compare various accounting software.  Consider it a QuickBooks Vs. Peachtree Vs. Sage Vs. Microsoft Office Accounting.  Oh, and for the record, Sage sucks.  Don’t buy it if you can avoid it.  Get Quickbooks or Peachtree or Microsoft Accounting.  They’re all three about 10 times better than Sage.

Basically, this new blog/section is about the following:  many modern accountants/bookkeepers are able to use accounting software, but really, when you have a complex issue at hand, you always need to go back to your basic T-Accounts, i.e., the debits and the credits.  I’ll start off with the basics, and as I study for CIMA, I’m also getting a refresher of all the basics.  In addition, and this is probably going to be extremely productive and useful for some accountants or professionals, as I embark upon this journey to discuss accounting in hopefully an unambiguous way, unlike any other damn book (published by CIMA or Gleim or Kaplan or anyone else), I will point out the differences in the way the accounting is done under US GAAP and the way it is done under UK GAAP / IFRS.  This itself is a bit of gap bridging activity for me, since almost all of my practical experience is US GAAP driven, and now I have to adjust to the IFRS.  Please note that the differences arise at the basic level, and are carried through to the final stages, and there are problems if you hold a reluctant frame of mind about how the accounting needs to be done.  Consistency past borders is hard to find in this profession, and that can get frustrating.

In addition, I will discuss some of the certification processes along the way.  I am a member of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) in the USA, although I never really got a chance to sit for the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) exam while I was there.  In the UK, CMA doesn’t mean much, but CIMA means everything for good financial & management accountants.  So, I’m indulging in CIMA now, unfortunately, from the basics, and I’ll explain why when discussing the certification.

However, stay put for this new set of articles and lessons in the Accounting & Finance Category of Asifism.com.  In addition, these lessons may be reproduced on http://www.vafta.com/blog, but I’m not so sure of that.  If anyone is interested in writing on accounting, please be sure to email me at asif[at]asifism.com for more information.

For those of you who come here for QuickPlay.  That will keep coming, as will more information regarding it that comes irrelevant.  I’ve had some new problems with my HP dv2415, and I haven’t really had time to key that in, but I’ll be dicussing that too.  More Memoirs of the HP dv2000 series!  Please, the offer for the DVB Card/Software article is still on the table, but unless people are serious about it, we won’t be spending time putting that together.  Please vote on that:

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In addition, if you have hard success or failure with HP QuickPlay via Asifism.com, please let me know and leave comments on what needs to be changed. 

Of course, as I get time inbetween, I’m also dying to give my cynical political insight on things like the triple victory of Hillary Clinton over Obama (in Texas, Ohio etc.).  And of course, I’m dying to put down a few lines on Bush backing up McCain, and John McCain being very happy about it.  Like anyone cares what George Bush thinks anymore!

Well, that’s all for now folks!  Let’s get this rolling!

Is it just me, or is Marks and Spencer trying very hard to be green?  I’m all about being green, but I’m not one for supporting pathetic, horrible business ideas, and Marks & Spencer have really done it with this one.

Apparently, they’ve conducted research which concluded that the average life of a plastic bag was short-lived, and that it was bound to hit the trash can shortly after the goods were purchased and handed to the customer in the bag.  So, instead of learning from better business in the United States, they’ve now decided to charge every customer 5 pence per plastic bag, like that’s going to make any sense.  So far, this applies to Marks & Spencer Food only; the flashy plastic bag image must stay with the clothing or what?

Look, I think it’s simply a stupid idea to ‘help the planet’ by charging people for bags.  Do they really think that someone who’s spending £50 in a department store will mind paying 5p for a bag in a country where the sales tax / VAT is 17.5%?  No!  Not only that, the best solution to a problem is not to penalize the end, but to tackle it at the root.

Why doesn’t Marks & Spencer switch to paper bags?  There are environmental hazards with paper too.  But come on now, it’s a step in the right direction.  This attempt at winning the ‘green supermarkets war’ is a bad one; all Marks & Spencer will do is turn off customers.  Anyone with even a little common sense can see that there is a problem with this model to help the planet.  Just charging customers is a pathetic publicity stunt, one at which I hope Marks & Spencer fails, because it is an extremely superficial attempt to justify their savings and profits above and beyond a rather noble cause.

Help the UK and the environment by switching to paper bags that can decay, Marks & Spencer, not by passing on your cost to the customer.  A fine should be imposed on all stores that supply customers with plastic bags.  Then we’ll see who charges 50 pence and who switches to paper bags.

On another note, why isn’t the UK switching to paper bags?

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I recently read in an article published in a British Magazine which stated that the fact that Obama is leading the polls over Hillary Clinton, and it appears will most likely beat her, is proof of the fact that America is no more a racist society; well, maybe not as racist as it used to be a few decades ago.  On the other hand, another gentleman, who was interviewed in the article, stated that it’s not that America is no more racist, it’s just that America has learnt to deal with the racial problem better.

That may well be true, but it appears that America is no more interested in the (at this point democratic) political ideologies of the mature, white person.  But is that the only reason that Obama is winning?  The simple fact that he’s young, and black, and has a different attitude toward most things than, say, the Clintons or the Edwards or the Kerrys?  Probablt not.

But here’s what I can tell you.  If you read the news, the interviews, the poll results, the poll analysis, political experts, etc. etc., it seems like the US public has become so fed-up of the corruption in the White House, that at this point they’re willing to take up new blood, new blood that’s different, that won’t change his/her mind every now and then, and new blood that may offer something new.  The new part is key, because we’ve all seen what the Bush’s are capable of doing; between father and son, they’ve done it for almost 16 years, and America is more than hurting because of that.

The one simplest reason why Obama is leading the presidential race ahead of Hillary Clinton and John McCain (who looks like he’s angry all the time; maybe he should be checked into anger management or something) is because he is NEW.  People don’t know what he will do or what he can do, and people are desperate.  They have seen what the white folk have done (no racism meant), and they’re willing to take their chances with what NEW brings, because with white they now have to associate the sadistic presidential rule of President George W. Bush.  That’s a distaster, for both Clinton and McCain.

But there are other reasons why Barrack Obama may win the US Elections.  Despite the attempts of Hillary Clinton and John McCain to defame him on the public financing / funding issue, these are not serious enough allegations to damage his credibility.  With Iraq being a failure, Hillary Clinton’s former stance of supporting the war has from the very first day put her on very questionable grounds.  John McCain is all about war; civil, international, world.  He’s a war-like people, and he’s too traditional, which again gives Barrack Obama an edge.  Obama, on the other hand, never voted for the Iraq War, and that gives him the only head start he needs in addition to being NEW.

What plays against Obama, however, is the lack of confidence people have in the leadership of black people.  The same article also discussed the fact that although people are all for new and all for Obama, they are slightly hesitant, because they think that since a black man has never been a president, can he do it?  White people have been becoming US Presidents for the last 200 years, and they’re bred for it.  But is a black man educated, complicated, and charismatic enough to lead America.  Well, we’re going to find out, won’t we?

I’m not voting, since I’m not a US National and don’t live in the US.  But tell me, who do you think will win the election eventually?  Not who’s best, who do you think will become commander and chief?

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