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I have been using Iconnecthere for Internet telephone. They provide and adapter that allows you to use a regular telephone over the Internet. It took me a while to get it setup as they did not pre-configure the adapter like they should of. Well anyhow the adapter was stolen last summer when we were away including a DVD player recorder and some old camera gear.

I tried to use Skype but they make it impossible to pay for Skype Out from here. Skype out lets you use Skype to call land lines. The Skype software is a zillion times better than the iConnecthere dialer.

There is so much Internet fraud that Skype won’t allow payments from here. They can tell by your IP address where you are. And if you use an anonymous proxy connection like Anonymizer Skype will also reject your payment. In a way you can’t blame them, as I’m sure stealing free phone calls on the net is a top scam that is tried.

And, you ask, why the Prohibited Access? That is because telephony is regulated here by the Kuwait Ministry of Communications they don’t want you to use Internet telephony. I think this is mostly to not allow the Asian Expats here to setup call centers. The local news often has stories of them busting up call centers.

Ottawa spends $155.9M to help oil industry go green

Ottawa will spend $155.9 million to make Alberta’s oil and energy industry more environmentally friendly, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Thursday.

Most of the money will be spent studying ways to capture carbon dioxide emitted from the province’s oilsands and store it underground, instead of releasing the polluting gas into the atmosphere.

And they are going to run out of natural gas anyhow as it uses lots and lots to process the oil sands. Nuclear may be the answer. Years ago they talked about even detonating a nuclear bomb undergroud and then the heat would liquefy the oil sands. I don’t know how radioactive the oil would be though?

I finally got my repaired iPod nano back. It took some time!

The way it works here is you normally in warranty directly call the distributor, not the store. But as there are multiple distributors, the one I called wasn’t the right one.

So, I took it into the store where I purchased it. This was just before the Independence Day holidays so things were delayed.

And then Eureka called me and said they are not going to repair it but give me a new one. So OK, then I would come in and pay the difference to go to the 8 Gb NANO rather than the older 4 Gb one that I have.

This was good for me. Then Eureka called me and said, oops, no they are going to fix it. So one week later I have the old one back with the scroll wheel replaced. I have a previous post about it here.

Eureka told me that it only had a 3 month warranty and that caused the confusion on what to do. But fortunately I had an extended warranty, so the warranty agency paid for the repair which they said cost about 35 KD.

Lesson in this, and in my previous Ikea posting as well. Make sure you know what warranty stuff has and consider extended ones as they are not too expensive.

We’ve learned that on the washing machine here too. It is a Samsung and has needed lots of service calls. I wouldn’t buy another like that.

Oh and also the new Fridigaire fridge, which we bought also has needed multiple service calls and also had the extended warranty.

Some people here say it is because of the quality of the electricity?

One of Geni’s long-term aspirations is to build a family tree of the whole world.

Interesting!

The Next Net: Startup Watch: Geni (Build a Family Tree, and a Network)

This is a good page with explanation also of the regional variation in how the Sari is worn.

How to wear an Indian Sari

Wealth in the year 2002

If the world was made out of rubber, and would stretch according to the certain parameters…

See more starting at: Dark Roasted Blend: World Imbalances Shown on Unique Maps