Blue Chi’s

1- Almost one month is exactly left for me at work before I start my official leave to go do my masters. I can’t wait. Even though work in the summer becomes less, the fact the the number of people staying at work is even lesser makes it extremely hectic for the few ones remaining in office. I have loads of files I do not know how I will ever finish them.

2- I have not booked my flight to the UK yet, but I am planning on traveling after the 20th of September because enrollment supposedly takes time around the end of September. I am not going to stay for Eid, and even though I will probably spend 20 days or so with my family this Ramadhan, it will be the longest time period I spend at home with my family for Ramadhan in 12 years! (I was in a boarding school for 7 years, spent 4 years at uni, and started working a year and a half ago).

3- Went to Lulu Ghubra right after work today to take lunch from their hot food section (their Indian rice food is not too bad) . I was carrying in my hands lunch in small container, a tiny salad container, a small biscuit pack, and two cans. All the counters were busy, so I just stood at one with a Omani girl cashier, an old Asian woman was having her trolley full of items go through the counter at that time, and a white man was behind her with his trolley.

I was not concentrating at what was going on, but the Asian lady stuff took a real while to go through, I was dreaming away when I heard the Omani cashier shout at me saying “Do you want to pay for your things?”(in Arabic), it took me a second to get what she was saying, and then I didn’t know what to do cause THE STUPID WOMAN DID NOT ASK any of these people in front of me if they would mind having me go first, so I just looked at her with a blank face and looked at these two people in front of me. She had to repeat what she said “DO YOU WANT TO PAY FOR YOUR THINGS?”. Of course the white guy in front me had no idea what that woman was saying. It was embarassing, but the quickest solution was to just go pay! I moved a step to the front, told the guy “I’m sorry, do you mind if I go?” and moved along, I can’t remember what he said but he just nodded (it’s not like he had a choice), the old woman had a problem with some item or something but she was standing still there, I paid and left!!

Because I was coming out of work so not only I was wearing a dishdasha but I also had my mussar on, I do not know if I would have received the same treatment if I was not Omani or if the people ahead of me were not foreigners. This was a very weird experience. I feel a TINY LITTLE bit guilty for having received a preferential treatment, but not enough to make a fuss about it. (Come on, the bias was in my benefit!!)

Just posted about Cafe Ceramique at the Omani Cuisine. The place is really awesome, everyone should check it out!

Painting was really fun, but now that I think about it, there weren’t any brushes that were small enough, and the outliners were seriously bad, but yeah, I came out with this. It should be fired and glazed by the end of next week!

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce to you MoodyGamer.com, the newest hot blog on the Omani blogosphere. Moody Gamer is a video game blog written by Mohammed Al Balushi (we are not related and we never met). Mohammed is very passionate about gaming culture and has been a gamer for as long as he can remember. He will be posting about all sorts of gaming related stuff with a little focus towards PC gaming as it is his gaming platform of choice.

Moody had previously published his blog on http://omanigamer.blogspot.com/ – I provided him with some setup help and advice in moving his blog to MoodyGamer.com. You will see one post written by myself on Moody, but that was just a little experiment and I will not be regularly participating with him on his blog.

I wish Moody the best of luck with his new blog. Check him out at MoodyGamer.com.

The most ridiculous idea for the day is the ‘Omani Directory for Internet Websites’. A person decided that the best way to find the URL of an INTERNET website is by consulting a PRINTED book that has all the addresses of Omani websites. The idea is so ridiculous because the WEB is supposed to be the tool that helps you find things when you do not know where you are. This guy is advertising on the daily newspaper like there is no tomorrow about his latest awesome project and all of you guys have to go out now and ask him to add your websites to the directory.

How many people do you think know how to use the internet but have never heard of Google or Yahoo? We already have hundreds of useless ‘Online Directories for Omani Websites’ in Arabic, this person thought that he will take them to the NEXT LEVEL by PRINTING ONE out!

The ‘Directory’ will have ALL the URLs of government website, company websites, AND personal websites in Oman, but, wait for this one, you will have to pay to get your URL in the directory. The Directory will also provide advertising spaces than can cost as high as RO 1000+.

But you know what the funny thing is? I think that a lot of Omani people might buy it, stupid Omani companies and government bodies that know nothing about the Internet will probably pay to get their address in the book, and will not mind paying to get a ‘handy’ copy of it around when they ‘need’ one.

There are tens of new websites coming up on daily basis even here in Oman, there is no way somebody can catch up with the number of new websites out there and there is absolutely no way to track which of these have expired, are suspended, or are still alive.

I am not if we are witnessing the situation where (a) a smart person realised that the public is so stupid they will by any stupid product, or (b) a stupid person is selling a product that he does not realise is stupid to stupid customers!

Ironically enough, I am not able to find the URL of the *official* website of the Omani Directory of Internet Website, a hard copy of it would’ve helped. LOL! (Seriously though, I do not know the name of the company or even the proper name of the ‘project’, an advert has been running for it on all Arabic dailypapers for the past week or two).

The real thing that Omani websites need is learning Search Engine Optimization and NOT stupid offline directories. Search enginers are the gateways to all the internet traffic. If you cannot be easily found on Google your wesbite’s existence is not counted.

Last week I got a brochure advertisement with my daily newspaper at the office about this Omani website that was running on a monetary subscription model. I was really impressed by how smart the owners of this website are. Unlike the thousands of Omani people making random forums on the internet, the people behind “The Omani School Network” built an online business in which they are providing people with real helpful content and are making money out of it.

The Omani School Network (Arabic only) is an educational resource for Omani teachers and students. The website offers teaching plans, lesson preparation material, teaching models, sample tests, online lessons, and so much more.

The website has a two pillar model, they are making money from (1) advertising {nothing new}, and (2) paid subscriptions! To access the majority of the content you have to register – and registration requires buying a membership card.

A membership card costs RO 6 per user – I am not sure for how long it works (probably one year, I can’t imagine asking people to pay RO 6 per month).

The membership are card are available in libraries in Salalah, Khasab, Seeb, Khuwair, Aamirat, Wadi Kabir, Ruwi, Barka, Musaana, Saha, Suhra, Rustaq, Shinas, Khaboorah, Suwait, Nizwa, Fanja, Izki, Bahla, Manah, Samayil, Hamra, Ibri, Adam, Buraimi, Ibra, Jaalam, Kamil Wal Wafi, and even Dhalkoot!!

And it is worth noting that the website is a proper business registered with the Ministry of Trade and Commerce and has a telephone support line (9918 9918).

Targeting the teachers community is a very smart move, teachers make up a great bulk of the working Omani population, all of them have internet access at school at least, and they can make use of the digital products offered by this website. Students are just the same, a great number of them will pay for a sample test paper (they are already sold in hard copies in bookshops!!).

The cool thing about the website is that it also has some free content, so you do not need to pay just to see the website, however, the majority of the proper content that teachers and students need is premium content. I am not sure about the forum, but I cannot even see where it is.

The payment collection method is amazing, online content management systems with subscription features are available off the shelf for negligible prices. Printing the cards is probably also dirt cheap. The amazing part was making a deal with all these bookshops from all around Oman to sell the cards and not to mention that they are advertising in national newspapers.

The website can probably benefit from an interface and design fix up. It looks a bit too generic and is seriously way too cluttered. I just hope that the owners do not get tempted to widen the scope of their website which can easily harm the conception by the public of what their website is really about (ie harm their brand). It can be argued that the website already offers way too many things for it to have a definite scope.

Anyway, I still nicely surprised to see that there are smart Omani people out there who are providing real value to the public and are making money out of it!

MOLA is giving out five scholarship opportunities for Omanis to do a Masters of Law degree in the UK for the upcoming academic year.

• Anybody with a university law degree can apply (You don’t have to be a government employee).
• The applicant’s university grade must at least be equivalent to 2.5 out of a 4 point score system (good or higher).
• The applicant must be fluent in Arabic and English.
• The applicant must score 7 or higher in the IELTS exam (or equivalent).

Tests and interviews will be conducted for all applicants during the selection process.

Those who get the scholarship will have an obligation to work for the government for a two years. (Will most probably be required to work for the Diwan)

Application forms are to be collected from the Ministry’s HQ in Al Khuwair. Call 2448 9802 for info on how to get there, you may call the Human Resources guy (Mohammed Ali Al Farsi) in the Ministry at the extension 237.

The deadline for submitting your application is the 13th of August.