Ken McGuire

Tag: uae

  • Even The Sheikhs Are Tweeting

    Sheiks on Twitter

    How do you, as ruler of Dubai, send your congratulations on the launch of an e-library? By tweeting, of course.

    His Highness Shaikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai (very long title) is keeping people updated on government issues, business issues, a recently taken photo of Dubai from NASA, videos of the Dubai metro launch (was under construction the last time I was here but has opened as of last month), which are also available on his Facebook account.

    I’m impressed.

    “The Istanbul-based Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA), which is affiliated with the Organistaion of Islamic Conference (OIC), has one of the most valuable references on the Islamic civilisation. This includes 65,000 rare reference books and 200,000 historic documents and images on the Islamic civilisation dating back to many centuries.

    The project which was launched in 2008, aims to digitise all of the library’s contents, making its valuable resources available to the public through a multi-lingual portal.”

    The turning of the library into a full e-library is being made possible with a grant from the Sheikh. (via Gulf News)

  • Flickr Unavailable

    Flickr Surf Safe

    Guessing the holiday snaps won’t be going up on Flickr this time around. I’m convinced I was able to upload them this time last year but but the TRA and its Internet Access Management Regulatory Policy has outfoxed me this time. (If you’re in the UAE and try to click the Flickr link above you’ll be presented with a very large version of the above graphic)

    I was wondering as much when I spotted some of my daily blog reads with vacant real estate on screen. Signing into the Flickr uploader won’t work either.

    Thankfully it looks like there’s no problem with Pix.ie. Looks like that’s where the holiday snaps are headed this year.

  • Blogs Banned In Dubai

    Blog Banned In Dubai?

    I thought this might happen…

    I ran a search on Google earlier this morning for ‘blogging in Dubai’, to see what bloggers in this neck of the woods are up to. While some of them opened, others presented the above note…

    Du is one of the country’s mobile operators and I’m guessing one of their internet providers as well. Browsing in general in the country goes through a national proxy in order to filter out inappropriate content but everything else I’ve been doing so far – my own blog, KilkennyMusic.com, flickr, twitter, the Irish Times, and a lot of my regular web haunts don’t flag anything… yet.

    Note: managed to get a few more pics up on Flickr from the N95.

  • Dubai Here I Come

    Jumeirah Hotel
    Creative Commons License photo credit: James Temple

    I don’t go away places often. Flying to Toronto in 2006 was the first time I’d been on a plane in about ten years (that said, on years in between I had taken a ferry over to France now and again).

    But since college life began seven years or more, I haven’t gone away many places. While good friends decided to sample the delights of Thailand, Australia, America, South Korea and more – some of them still are – I decided to stay in Kilkenny and work for myself.

    Working one job is enough for some people but when the design started, soon too did the music, and the theatre. When one phone switches off at 5pm, two more go on and the world continues as normal.

    I don’t take holidays, and I don’t take sick days (some companies would love that in an employee). I do enough things with my day that there isn’t time to be sick, unless of course I’m on holiday (touch wood).

    When I got to Toronto in 2006 I had spent the previous fifteen months working close on seven days a week, something you’ve got to do when you’re working for yourself, or something you find yourself doing rather quickly more to the point. From December 2006 to now it’s been exactly the same, almost two years flat out in the office, with gigs and the theatre, the latter growing into something I’ve become extremely proud of for the work we do as a team.

    So getting to give the whole lot up for ten or eleven days will be a shock to the system.

    Not only that, but I get to try some indoor skiing, catch a glimpse of the QE2 (or so I’m told), track down some camel racing and generally disengage myself from my working life.

    Sure, long weekends away are great (though 9/10 times involve some kind of work) but to get out of the country and disconnect from phones, work, music and everything else is a blessing.

    I leave this Sunday and I’ll see all y’all in December.