Blue Chi’s

Here is an exclusive to the readers of my blog, we are launching a new project called ‘Chemical Orange’ tomorrow at KOM’s eGames conference. Chemical Orange is a portal for downloading free mobile phone games. The slogan of Chemical Orange is “Fun, Fresh Gameplay” and that is exactly what it’s about. Our games are very *ethnic*, simple and addictive. We have two games at the launch and they are compatible with a large number of phones (all Nokia N-Series and E-Series all other phones running the Flash Lite Player). Our games are free of charge, but you might need to pay for using data on your phone, however, our games are about 50KB to 80KB in size, so that is about 40 to 25 baisa if you are on Oman Mobile’s postpaid. You can also download the games onto your computer and then transfer them to your phone if you don’t want to use the mobile portal.

To access the mobile portal, open your phone browser and access m.chemicalorange.com. Our actual website can be found at http://www.chemicalorange.com/

I am also going to speak tomorrow at eGames conference, hope to speak to some of you attending the event tomorrow!

I really hesitated before getting a new laptop because I read a lot of bad things about Windows Vista, I already invested in computer application license that will run on Windows, so Mac was out the question (Yeah, I know I can run Windows on Mac, but was the problem with Vista the hardware?)

Anyway, I eventually bought a new laptop last week and to my surprise I’m loving it. I got an HP Pavilion dv2000 running Home Premium on 4GBs of RAM and 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. I tweaked it a little bit to remove the annoying Account Control – the thing that keeps on asking you if you are sure you want to do whatever you want to do.

It takes a while to get used to the new folder layout and stuff, but I guess that’s usual.

I am looking for a 14″ laptop bag, any advice on where I can one?

BTW, I bought this from Emax and I hated the experience, if I had a choice to buy it from anywhere else I would have, don’t buy anything from Emax if you have an alternative.

I finished reading another book by Douglas Coupland today, I bought a pile of books from Amazon recently, but I couldn’t wait longer to read this book by Coupland. I am addicted to books by Coupland, they are amazingly personal and touching.

Hey Nostradamus! is an emotional story about a school massacre that happened in 1988 in Vancouver (inspired by the Columbine School Massacre of 1999). The story is divided into four chapters, each told by a different character in a different time period. The amazing thing about the book is how this event and its consequences is told through those four characters who are connected, but yet had completely different experiences of it. I love the way the book tackles issues such as religion, family, and miracles.

This book is more like Douglas Coupland “Eleanor Rigby” than “jPod”. Recommended for anyone interested in contemporary fiction.

Amazon.com: Hey Nostradamus!: A Novel
Amazon.co.uk: Hey Nostradamus!

(This is the eighth Coupland book I’ve read so far, I’ll probably read everything he has ever written within two years!!)

Just got back from the Digital Nation seminar and dinner was served even though I did not expect it!!

Jokes aside, it was a good one, the topic was about the Digital Divide, which I do not think is as bad as much as people think it is, the Omani population is made up mainly of young people who will need it to survive, I think that the ITA is doing a great job, I love these guys.

Can’t believe that the Ministry of Legal Affairs was mentioned so many times during this seminar, the ITA is bitching about us to everyone saying that the e-commerce law is with us and that they are just waiting for us to approve it – I work at the Ministry of Legal Affairs, but I have NO IDEA what is happening about this law. I’ve seen it in our electronic archives, and I’ve read some of it, but I do not know why it is taking so long. Some government officials went to the states earlier this year to get some advice on it I think. Our FTA with the US has a chapter on e-commerce, so the the Americans would love to get involved as much as they can – which I think is in our benefit. Will snoop around MOLA to know what is happening.

I had dinner at The World’s Most Boring Table, hated it, I fortunately then had a super quick meet up with fellow bloggers Abdulla of BeInOman and Kishor Carippa.

I’m surely going to the next one!

Something completely different, I FINALLY GOT MY BOOKS, I ordered several books from Amazon.co.uk and just collected them today from Al Manahil. Got two novels, two business books, one law book, and one web usability book! Will tell you more about them later – I’m so excited about these you guys have no idea!

I was getting pretty depressed with Oman3D earlier in February and thought that I was wasting my time and that I am not going anywhere. It is very hard to stay motivated in this thing when I am working all by myself, it can easily get very lonely when there is no human to talk to.

There is nobody really to look up to. There is nobody to guide me through what I should do. I do not know anybody around me doing anything similar. It is true that I have my team, but I almost always have to push everyone forward, plan ahead and tell everyone what to do. At many times, I make loads of plans and just nothing happens. That sucks. It really does.

But then I really thought about it, and I thought that god only gave me all those gifts in order for me to do something special. I do not want to blend with the rest of the crowd, get a job at a stupid oil company and just forget about it.

I think that I have what it takes to do this, and I know that all I need to do is focus.

Today was a good day. Just checked our stats and two days ago we broke our record of daily visits and pageviews, we received more than 8,000 visitors and 17,000 page views in one day.

Our accumulative traffic for Feb was good, we are almost at 400,000 page views a month. I can’t wait reach my target of half a million page views, I’m sick of this paper banner in my room.

Just a little bit more…