samboosa.net

A Letter to Steve.

2011-10-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Steve,

You were my friend. In a we-never-met-and-you-probably-woudn't-have-wanted-to-be-friends-if-we-had sort of way. But I like to think that doesn't matter.

We had an Apple IIe and it was kept in the spare room of the house. We had to use a transformer to get the right voltage running through it. Right next to the power switch on the back of the Apple IIe, there was a screw. That screw would electrocute the living day lights out of you if you touched it. I hated that f*cking screw.

But I loved the Apple IIe. I loved writing basic, i loved the discs, i loved the monochrome screen. It was magic, pure and simple. I remember the day we upgraded to colour. It was like christmas had come early. And Santa Claus looked a bit like Steve Jobs.

One day, I switched on my Apple IIe and smoke started coming out from the back. It had died. It died from what I assumed was the computer equivalent of heart-failure. God rest it's soul. Steve, do computers have souls? You seemed to think so.

Which brings me neatly to the Mac SE. The MacSE that can still run, even in this day of apex predator cat operating systems. Getting the internet to work on it was a challenge. But I made it happen. So help me, I did.

I had to tell all my Amiga-loving friends that they were idiots. Fools. Barbarians. So what, if they had 56 colours on screen at any time and I only had two. My two colours were in high resolution. I laughed at their pathetic 512k of RAM, for I had 4MB. That's right. Four real life EMBEES. Fools, curse them. They didn't believe, Steve. They didn't believe. But a time would come when they would. Everyone would.

Time passed and I needed colour. So I got the LCII, a very pretty little pizza box of a computer. I had thousands of colours now. Where were the Amiga users? I called to them, but their company was dying. I mocked them. Mocked them hard. I didn't know, Steve. I didn't know that the PC users were now giving me weird looks. Their computers started having megahertz in the triple digits. I was afraid. I didn't know what to do. I told them their operating system sucked. That they were all thieves, begotten from thieves. I believed it. It was true. Not even my PowerMac 9500 could hold them back. Nothing could.

Windows got better, and we were alone. I huddled together with other mac users for warmth, but one by one they died. Turning into zombies, living in windows made with the glass of false hope.

You were gone! What was I supposed to do. You tell me!? I started experimenting. I bought…. a …. a PC. … but just for programming. Because I needed a Java compiler.. I really needed one. The one for Apple sucked and ran a long deprecated version of Java. I was sad. I started running YellowDog on my Mac. I needed to find a way out.

But then you came back. You came back and we saw that it was good. The light shone through the pages of MacFormat, telling me that it was good. You told us that everything was going to be fine. And just to prove it, you made people by the original iMac just because it looked good. … at least we thought so at the time.

I bought a G4, with OS10.0 … Cheetah as it would have been known. Though it was slower than cold honey. I turned to other users and said " BEHOLD!!! posix compliant with a great GUI?! What say you Linus? what say you Bill?" . My friends kept asking me who I was talking to.

I dreamt of a phone. We all did. We waited, we waited. The streets were full of white headphones by now. And we wanted, nay, needed a phone. I dreamt. Then one day I dreamt no more.

They all use Apple now. They all do. We were your army. Zealots fighting for an ideology. Fighting for beauty, for art, for creativity, for identity, for magic. And in my mind, I tell myself "relax, it's just a tool, just a tool"…

But that's just it, it isn't. It never was. It was always more. That's what made it special.

Goodbye, Steve. If heaven has electronics, they're gonna start looking a lot better.

Cafe Lilu Review. Part 2: Still No Closer.

2011-09-06T06:15:00.000-07:00

A lot of time has passed since my my first attempt to eat at Lilu. Many things have changed, I've changed. For one thing, i'm a lot wealthier than I was in those days ( I would like to give a quick shout out to my business associate from Nigeria, Roger Obike Johnson who contacted me out of the blue via email with a great business opportunity).

My new found financial situation has put me in a position where I can afford to drive something a bit more fancy than the Toyota Echo I owned previously. I don't want to mention exactly what car I drive because it may seem like i'm showing off, so i'll just make up some random name and say i'm driving a Berrari (On a side note, the car is great. It features an amaaaazing parking sensor that helps you park *exactly* in the middle of two parking spaces).

As I didn't want to eat alone, I called up my old friend, Ahmed Smith.

" Hey Ahmed Smith, long time no see!? Feel like grabbing some breakfast at Lilou?"

" WTF!? Seriously? the last time I saw you, you were running away from the front of my house towards your crappy Echo after you keyed the paintwork on my BMW. Piss off and die, you bastard" And with with that he hung up the phone.

"Screw him" I thought to myself. I called up the only other number I had stored on my phone, which happened to be my Ex-Girlfriend..... and Ahmed Smith's current girlfriend.

"Hey Angie-baby! How you doin? Wanna grab some breakfast." I said, using my most charming voice.

"Are you kidding me?! Go to hell, creep" She replied and hung up.

"Bullocks" I said into the phone receiver, feeling slightly deflated.

6 Things That We Need to Get Past

2011-08-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

Congratulation's Bahrain. We've cracked. We've finally cracked. We really didn't want to get involved in all the current affairs about the protests but its' just not possible anymore. There are many things that really bother us about what's going on right now. Not least of which are the blatant mistruths that seem to be all the rage these days. Not since swine flue have we seen everyone so energized about spreading pure BS. Here is some of the nonsense that really needs to stop:

1. The Protestors were rioting, Iran-loving, violent, traitorous bastards.

If one follows certain views on twitter and indeed much of the national media, one would be forgiven for thinking this. But let's face it. We KNOW this isn't true. Sure, SOME of the protests overstepped boundaries and many people felt it was an attack on their way of life, but let's face facts, if the protestors really were rioters, things would have been very different.

Consider the events in London, If the protestors in Bahrain had behaved in any way shape or form like the "yoof"in London did, Bahrain would be a smoking pile of rubble right now. Any survivors would be wandering around looking for stray dogs to cook because there would nothing else left. They didn't. Let's not pretend they did.

Also, Is there such a thing as pure bahraini? Didn't everyone here at some point or another come to this island from somewhere else? I could be wrong though, it's possible that humans evolved here independently.

2. All pro-government people are paid, blind, salivating, racist, "baltajy" trolls.

Again listening to the twitter (apparently no one can read more than 140 characters - we certainly can't), you'd also be forgiven for thinking this. But we also KNOW this isn't true. The fact is many sensible people were perfectly happy with the way things were. Let's face it, Bahrain was never ever, ever, ever, ever, as bad as Tunisia, Egypt or Libya.

Is it so wrong for people to appreciate all the things we had/have in Bahrain? Sure things could be better, but sticking up for the Government doesn't make you a blindly loyal miscreant. It just makes you someone with a perfectly valid opinion on the situation.

3. If you're not with us you're against us, moron.

Well both sides have been playing this song to death. And unfortunately this song has all the virtues of Rebeca Black's "Friday". There's a whole bunch of fence-sitters out there that really don't feel the need to go rushing headfirst into discussions that inevitably seem to involve insulting the other side.

4. The Silent Majority wants (insert your personal belief here).

You know what the problem with the Silent Majority is? They're silent. You see how that might be a problem? Everyone and his twitter account seems to think they represent the silent majority. Now at Samboosa.net were gonna go out on a limb and guess that the Silent Majority is pretty pissed off at EVERYONE.

5. There was no torture or violence apart from the torture and violence committed by the other side, bastards.

Yes, and Denial is a river in Egypt. Everyone needs to acknowledge that transgressions were committed by their side. I know this is hard. It's very hard. How many times have you told your friends that it definitely was a sodding penalty and that referee got it right, only to have your friend tell you that you're too blinded by your love for Manchester bloody United to see that the referee had all the observational skill of 3 hour-old housefly that's already been eaten by a gecko. It's hard to accept a truth that we don't like. But in this case we really need to try.

Take a step back. Admit your side also made mistakes.

6. Social Media was an enabler of democratic change, blah, blah blah blah..

I challenge anyone to follow the Feb14 hashtag and not be overcome by all the hate on there and to not A) Get an automatic sub-machine gun and shoot everyone on the island. B) Shoot yourself. C) Close your twitter account and crawl into your closet and spend the remaining days of your life rocking back and forth muttering the words "unclean... unclean". D) Start a blog that not many people read and get it all off your chest. Not necessarily in that order.

Social media is great for communicating ideas to like minded individuals in a constructive way that helps to move our society forward. Unfortunately, it's also a great way to show the world your seemingly unending depths of creativity when it comes to insulting people.

Final Note:

I'm currently typing this from my closet. I really hope people stop this nonsense and come to the realization that we live on this rock together (you can take the word "rock" here to mean Bahrain, Earth, or if you live on an actual rock then you can assume it's that).

Love, Samboosa.net .

Not an in-depth Review of OS 10.7 (Lion) .

2011-08-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

By Loki

I recently upgraded to Lion, despite advising others to wait till 10.7.1 (or 10.7.0.1 or some such release) I decided to go ahead. As I was running out of disk space on my existing setup, I decided to get a new disk and do a nice fresh install on that.

Installation: Doesn't Suck Yet Sucks So Hard It Bends Light Towards It.

Installation was smooth enough. I downloaded the installer from the App Store. Ran it. Selected the disk I wanted (one of the other disks on my Mac Pro). 1 restart, and 20 minutes or so later, hey presto, I have the brand spanking new release from Apple. So far, absolutely doesn't suck.

But wait, there is something that really keeps bothering me. You have to get this via the App Store. You have no other choice. Not as of the time of writing at any rate. That's just wrong. I can't go to a store and get a physical medium. Call me old fashioned, but when I want to pirate an OS on to half a dozen machines I want to use a DVD.

Seriously though, the download is about 4GB. That's no joke, especially not in Bahrain. With most providers that will take a while, or can be very expensive, or both.

First impressions: Welcome to the future.. 1997.

The Finder has a new look. I can't help but think of OS 8 when I see the "new" dialogue boxes. System 8 was released in 1997. That said, I like it. I think the OS has a more uniform look now.

New Features:

The OS has clearly lifted a lot from iOS (no, not the cisco one…). Launchpad is basically the iOS homepage plastered on to a desktop OS. Can't say I'll be using it much, but maybe my 2 year old daughter will, or my great grandmother. I prefer to hit command-space and type the first three letters of the App I want into spotlight. Still, I can see many people using this. It might even keep self destructive noobs from screwing up the Applications Folder.

Then there's Mission Control, Which is basically a combination of Expose´and Spaces rolled into one. I'm undecided if this is unnecessarily clutter or a simplification. I'm leaning towards the former, I quite liked expose and only used keyboard shortcuts for Spaces. That said, Expose´is still there and can be switched on again.

iTunes, Finder, and Mail have all been revamped. The last vestiges of Carbon have been removed and it's all Cocoa goodness from here on out. wohoo…. big deal. Sure that's great for Apple, but does the average user really care? No. Finder is not sufficiently different to be exciting. iTunes now allows you to view and download all previous purchases. A very welcome improvement - Nice.

As usual the OS is littered with tiny seemingly insignificant little changes that you only really appreciate once you are forced to you use an older version of the OS.

Hacksaw: This OS ditched Rosetta, Carbon, Java, and MySQL. Lovely.

Getting rid of the first two is fine, Java is not an issue as the minute you try to run a Java application, the OS asks you if you want to download a JVM. If you click yes, it promptly does that for you and you can go about your Javaesque business. MySQL has been replaced with PostgreSQL. Still, installing MySQL isn't exactly going to be a challenge for those that need it.

Mail:

Mail now features a nifty thread based view of emails. That in itself is a big improvement. If I was cynical (which I am), I would say that feature should have been introduced a long time ago. That feature should have been introduced a long time ago.

Address Book: Address book has had the iOS treatment and looks awful. Just plain awful. It looks like it was designed by my gardner. My gardner has ZERO experience in software development, BTW.

iCal:

My gardner's been busy. This application is almost as ugly as Address Book.

Swipe swipe swipe:

The entire OS seems to be geared around using touch pad as the primary interface. Seeing as the majority of mac users use laptops, this makes sense. As someone who uses a track pad even on my desktop machines, I find this a nice evolution in HCI. 2,3 and even 5 fingered swipe gestures help you navigate your way around with minimum effort. A bold move from apple. I like it.

The Downright Freaking Annoying: There's quite a lot of these so i've made a list:

1. I can't stress this enough. Address Book and iCal are hideous.

2. I find myself having lots of trouble sending emails despite the fact that all my settings are correct. A quick look around the inter webs and I find I'm not the only one with that issue. That said, no one I personally know is complaining of this. Still, this is REALLY annoying.

3. iPhoto - I don't like the new interface. In fairness this has nothing to do with Lion per se but I needed to get that off my chest. The plus button for the albums is gone (really, apple? really?). Also, when you share photos via email, it no longer opens them in Mail, instead it creates an email in iPhoto which, get this.. … DOES NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR ADRESS BOOK DISTRIBUTION LISTS! Wow. APPLE FIX THIS!… please.

4. System Preferences crashed every time I tried to add my .me account. Really, EVERY time. I had to do it via Mail.app instead.

5. Many of my apps in the Applications folder went missing, including iPhoto. Yes, they just disappeared. I had to redownload them from the app store. Just to make matters worse, launchpad thinks i have two copies of those apps. *facepalm of doom*

6. When I finally managed to enter my .me information. Address Book wiped all my contacts on iCloud despite the fact that I specified for iCloud to replace the content on my Mac. Not cool. Luckily I had a backup.

That's about it

Bottom line:

This release has some very good new features and dumps a lot of the bloat, BUT I feel it's still not rock solid. You may want to wait for the next update before taking the plunge. Also, I'm not sure this warrants the name Lion. Perhaps Honey Badger or Aardvark or Pine Martin might have been more apt.

2.5 / 5 samboosas

Cafe Lilu Review. Part 1: Prologue

2011-07-05T02:56:00.000-07:00

Three years ago, a friend of mine (Let's just call him Ahmed Smith for the sake of maintaining his anonymity) suggested we go for a bite to eat in Cafe Lilu next to Aali Mall. I hadn't been there before so i agreed to his suggestion. I met him there and was set to get my food on.

Just as I was about to enter, a waiter blocked my way and said "Sir, is that your Toyota Echo?"

"You betcha!" I replied, with slightly more enthusiasm than the car warranted.

"I'm afraid we don't have a table for you"

" … what?"

" You can't eat here."

"what? because of my car?"

"Precisely, it doesn't meet our standards."

"What are your standards!? I mean this bullshit, do you have a list of pre-approved cars?!"

"Yes." And he handed me a list of pre-approved cars. It consisted predominantly of German and Italian cars.

" You mean to tell me I can only eat here if I have one of these cars? That's the ONLY way in?"

"Of cours not sir, that would be silly. We also let you in if you are a woman with a stroller and a child."

"oh…… I see" I stared at the list in disbelief.

"We have a table for *you*, sir." Said the waiter to Ahmed Smith. Ahmed had arrived in a BMW. He looked at me, shrugged, and walked into the restaurant.

"Sir, could you please leave"

I left dejected. An hour later, Ahmed texted me to tell me the food was great. I always hated that son of a bitch.

FDN - Latest Edition!

2011-03-03T01:48:00.000-08:00

Movie Review: The Hurt Locker

2010-02-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

By Rodriguez Van. Hosenhoven

After a short time away on Holiday [ read prison - ED] i'm back at samboosa.net to write a movie review.

I recently acquired The Hurt Locker from Bit Torrent my local DVD store and decided to watch it on my home entertainment system/laptop.

My, what a great film. Truly a great film. I don't know who the leading actor is but he looks a little bit like that guy from that teen drama series about a bad boy who moves into a town full of rich people in California. Anyway, this film is basically a war movie set in a fictional country called "Iraq" which apparently the Americans have moved to.

So aside from being a war movie, this film is also an action film. But here comes the clever bit; Instead of the hero blowing stuff in order to save the day, our hero unblows stuff up in order to save the day. Throughout the film, he is continuously unblowing things up. In order to accommodate this bizarre take on action films, the writers of the Hurt Locker have come up with the novel concept of a "Bomb disposal unit". Truly an original idea.

The tension in the film is extreme and the action scenes of things being unblown up are fantastic. WIth superb dialogue, set-pieces, and great leading actor, this film is a gem.

4/5 samboosas

10 signs that you are a geek.

2010-02-06T04:24:00.000-08:00

By Loki

Being a geek has come a long way over the last two decades. Once a term laced with derision and contempt it now carries with it a hint of respect and dare I say, a modicum of cool. It as though the modern geek knows a bit more than everyone else about something. Non-geeks are not sure what that something is, but they suspect it might be important.

If you think you might be a geek but you're not sure. Here is a checklist that you can follow to see if you are or are not, a geek.

1 - Everyone who knows you thinks you are a geek. This one is easy, if you have repeatedly heard the phrase " man, you're such a geek". You're good to go.

2 - You do the tech support calls on your mobile for your family. Congrats, you're a geek.

3 - You are one of the first people you know who connected to the internet probably using 14.4k modems or the like. Also, you probably used Alta Vista and Mosaic. That alone should get you into Geek hall of Fame territory.

4 - You use words and abbreviations like OS, throughput, ping, paging, VM, FSF, HTFS, NFS, ZFS, RROD, BSOD, compiler, GUI, HCI, and you assume people know what you are talking about. They don't, and you're a geek.

5 - You've joked about UNIX terminal commands such as talk, zip, touch, finger, mount, unmount. Not only are you a geek. But you have a geekish sense of humour.

6 - You think a three hour argument over whether Linux, Unix, OS X, Solaris, Windows, Amiga OS or BE OS is the better operating system is perfectly reasonable. Of course it is.

7 - You have VLC, Handbrake, Mplayer, and X11 installed regardless of the operating system. Tools is tools, man. Tools is tools.

8 -You joined facebook AFTER everyone else caught on. And even now, you won't stop complaining about it.

9 - You've installed linux on a device that really isn't supposed to have it such as an iPod, Xbox, Play Station, etc.

10 - You check tech news sites before anything else.

If you have answered yes to any of these questions, you sir/madam, are a geek. I salute you.

[ ..ZzzzZZzzzz.... huh, what? - ED]

Review Batman: Arkham Asylum (xbox360).

2009-12-03T19:38:00.001-08:00

By Rodriguez Van. Hosenhoven

I hold a special place on the team here at samboosa.net, that of official movie reviewer. It is my ability to quantify and measure my own reasoned and emotional response to the film media that has made me ideal for this writing position. [ That, and no one else wanted to to do it …ED]

This review is NOT about a film, but rather a video game. I would normally leave this sort of thing to our technology writer; Loki, but he's not here right now. And, I've been playing the game for the last two and a half days straight, and I think he's a jack-ass anyway.

Within a minute of playing this game you become at one with awesomeness. You, as Batman, beat seven shades of … black out of your enemies. You descend silently from a high perch and land soundlessly behind some sort of Joker henchmen and proceed to break his neck without him noticing. Who wouldn't want to do that in really life.

So I did. I had been playing the game for approximately 59 hours straight. I was vaguely aware that the lighting in the room had changed over two cycles. The kids at various points came up to me and mumbled something about "really hungry". Eventually, I realized enough was enough. It was time to put down the game, write this review and become Batman.

Citizens of Bahrain, fear not! The Dark Knight has come. I must leave now….

Me and US Customs Officer.

2009-12-01T01:47:00.000-08:00

By Badoos

I recently travelled to the USA. Anyone of the green passport carrying variety will tell you horror stories of their experiences with the customs officials in the USA. I had my own experience this time.

You must remember I had been traveling for almost 24 hours continuously before ending up in the immigrations queue. As it was my turn to walk up to the immigrations officer, my heart started pounding and every sweat gland on my body went into over drive. The conversation, or should I say, interrogation went something like this:

Me: Good Morning.

Customs Officer (CO): Good evening.

(he was clearly mocking me, though technically he was right, it was evening)

Me: I see, so that's how its gonna be eh ?

(I throw my passport into his face)

CO: what??

Me: …..

CO: ……

Me: …..

CO: how long will you be staying in the United States?

Me: listen buddy! I know your thinking I'm gonna stay here illegally and take some poor americans cab-driving job, BUT IVE GOT NEWS for you, i'm here for a week and then i'm getting the hell out of here. Not everyone thinks the USA is great.

CO: Sir, there's no need to be ru..

ME: isn't there?

CO: ….

Me: …..

CO: Ooookay then, do you have any documentation proving you intend to stay for that period of time.

Me: Hello? what century are you in? duh? I have two words for you: E-ticket.

CO: What is the purpose of your visit sir?

Me: Well i'll tell you what its not! I'm NOT here to blow up buildings or highjack airplanes or any other activity that you want me to do sot that you can lock me up in Guantanamo.

CO: So, why are here?

Me: Tourism.

CO: Where will you be staying during your visit?

Me: I'm sure that's none of your business, Professor Nosey.

CO: actually it is.

Me: Fine, violate my human rights why don't you. I will be staying at this address.

( I slammed the Hotel brochure that I printed from their website onto the counter)

CO: ……, Thank you.

(he looked at the brochure, made some notes and handed it back to me)

CO: can you please place your finger on the fingerprint scanner.

Me: Here we go! I KNEW it. Just because i'm Arab, isn't that right!?

CO: Sir, we scan everyone...

Me: Everyone who happens to be arab.

CO: Nnnnno, everyone. Are you carrying any food items on you?

Me: Only these peanut M&Ms. Is that alright with you, huh!? Or is that a national security, orange alert, terror threat?! well is it?

CO: no, that's fine. Are you carrying any weapons?

Me:…..

(now, from the experiences of friends, i knew I shouldn't reply sarcastically. Their prison release dates have not yet been confirmed)

Me: No. none.

CO: Ok, here's your passport enjoy your stay.

Me: You'd like that wouldn't you. tyrant.

After going through this kind of experience, its no wonder people don't want to travel the US. When will the americans learn that they need to improve their attitudes towards the rest of the world.

Magic Mouse - Review

2009-11-17T03:24:00.000-08:00

by Loki,

OK… I bought my Apple Magic Mouse from iSpace and I've been using it for about a day now.

its beautiful, if a bit small. The touch sensitive scroll works very nicely and the right click now works in exactly the same way that every other non-apple mouse has been working for the last 2.5 decades. So well done Apple. You've created a two button mouse with scrolling. good job.

lets not dwell on the fact that finding a two button mouse with which you can scroll down a page is very hard nowadays. If you walk into an electronics store you'll be hard pressed to find any mouse with less than four buttons. I mean sure, I now have to use the keyboard to perform functions that I could previously do from the mouse. But hey, it looks beautiful.

lets face facts, not all Apple products are great. There have been some real, what's the word, epic fails. The Pippin, Cube (with its power failure), the Mac Portable and last but not least, EVERY. SINGLE. MOUSE. the company has ever made.

Bottom line: if you only use two buttons, this mouse is great. If like me, you expect to be able to use expose´or reveal desktop from your mouse, then this is one step forward and two steps back.

2 / 5 samboosas.

Fake Daily News - Edition 2

2009-10-16T06:10:00.000-07:00

Movie Review: District 9

2009-09-29T04:58:00.000-07:00

By technology contributor Loki

Once upon a time in the late 70s, a small company was started by two guys in a garage in Cupertino, California. The company was called Apple Computer Inc. and on went to make those to guys (and many others) very rich indeed. ((Fast Forward))… and the companies continuos decline seemed unstoppable.

I thought you said this was a movie review for district 9?

I did, and it is. Be patient. in the mid 90's while Apple Computer Inc. was at its lowest point, a little games company called Bungie was producing truly awesome games for the Mac platform. These games were the "Marathon" series. They were true works of art. Combining cutting edge graphics with a great story line, soundtrack, and artwork. Unfortunately for them, the Mac platform was shrinking fast. You must remember this was before there was such a thing as iMac let alone iPod or iPhone.

Enough with the Apple history lesson! Get on with it.

Patience grasshopper. Bungie actually made their Marathon series available for Apple's games console the "Pippin". Alas, that console was an utter failure and Apple likes to pretend it never actually happened. While all this was going on, a certain company called Microsoft had taken a keen interest in Bungie and in a certain game they were working on. That game was "Halo", it was set to be an FPS game about an alien invasion of earth. In 1999, Steve Jobs, who had by this point returned to Apple as the prodigal child/savior, announced that Bungie was releasing Halo for the Mac and Windows simultaneously. Microsoft had other plans.

Look, i'm getting seriously sick of this. Are you reviewing the movie or not?

Yes, yes. We're almost there. in 2000, Microsoft acquired Bungie, and Halo became the flagship title for the about to be released Xbox. When the game went on sale, it smashed all previous game sales records. Bungie has since released Halo2 and Halo3 all of which have received both popular and critical acclaim.

Hey screw you, i'm leaving!

WAIT! now we are at the movie part. Given the HUGE success of the Halo game series, Microsoft thought it might be a good idea to make a Movie out of the game. Whilst, Game -to- Movie projects rarely result in anything but utter crap (e.g. Street Fighter, Dead or Alive, etc,etc), the Halo game series could just work as it had a storyline with potential and millions upon millions of dedicated fans. Whats more, the name that was being floated for producing the film was non other than, wait for it, Peter Jackson (If you have to ask who he is, you shouldn't be reading this …… oh alright, he's the guy that made Lord of the Rings and King Kong).

Ah, I see, Ok. Still, what's this got to do with District 9?

Peter Jackson wanted an up and coming Director called Neil Blomkamp to work on the film. Blomkamp had directed the award winning short-films for the Halo video game. All was set to go, apart from one minor hiccup. Funding for the Halo film collapsed.

Peter Jackson however wasn't finished. He decided to produce an adaptation of one of Blomkamps earlier short films, "Alive in Joberg". This film was released under the name District 9. District 9 happens to be about aliens landing on earth.

So, you utter moron, is the film any good?

No, its awesome. District 9 grabs you by the eyeballs within the first 30 seconds and doesn't let go until the credits start rolling. The plot is truly original. The setting is excellent. On the face of, it's an alien SciFi film, however, it does have some deeper undercurrents. Within the first half hour of the film, one can't help but see parallels between what the film is showing in a completely fictional environment and what happened in the real world. This is especially true given the films setting in South Africa and that country's tragic history of the treatment of non-white people.

Everything about this film is good, the acting, the visuals, the story line, EVERYTHING. SciFi fans will love it. non- SciFi fan will enjoy it.

Samboosa.net rating 5/5

(This is the last time we let our Technology contributor write a movie review - ED)

Fake Daily News - Edition 1

2009-09-27T05:31:00.000-07:00

Our humble imitation of the Glorious GDN.

Special Offer!!!! Take Advantage Today!!!

2009-09-26T09:57:00.001-07:00

They say that when there is a gold rush, the way to make money is to sell shovels and pick axes. Taking that further, when there is a swine-flu-caused school closing epidemic in Bahrain, the way to make money is to sell education.

At Samboosa.net, we take education very seriously and we believe all children have the universal right to a well rounded education …. for a fair price of course. To that end, we will setup underground schools that will offer to enlighten the hungary, vacuous minds of the young people of our island.

We considered the expertise of the samboosa.net team and have come up with the following list of courses and pricing:

1. What Not To Do To Other People Whilst Suffering From Swine Flu (BD FREE!)

2. How to setup a free blogging account in 24 hours (BD 230)

3. How to make 1230 Dinars! from a free blogging account (BD 1000)

4. Ninjitsu Classes Grades 1 to INVISIBILE! (BD10,000)

5. Post Modern Architecture in Bahrain And Why There Isn't Any (BD3)

6. Modern Economic Theory and its Impact on The Bahraini Sheesha Prices (BD30)

7. The Rise of Black Markets and the Bahraini Illegal Pork Trade (BD10)

8. How to Become and MP and Enjoy Yourself (BD 1000)

Depending on demand, we may offer a wider range of these life-changing, career enhancing, finance boosting, courses.

DEATHMATCH Cancelled Due to Swine Flu Fear Attack. Boon For Shawarma.

2009-09-23T04:17:00.000-07:00

By Samboosa.net Contributor - Badoos Fichabdak.

Our planned Tikka / Shawarma DEATHMATCH has been cancelled due to swine flu. The two contestants were supposed to have settled our Tikka Vs. Shawarma debate last night. Representing the Shawarma team was Samboosa contributor Loki and representing the Tikka team, was Sambaoosa contributor N()()8K1llA_IpwnU@H4L() - whom we shall refer to as Abood for short.

It seems that yesterday morning Abood woke up with a sore throat. Convinced that he had contracted the H1N1 virus which seems to be all the rage these days in Bahrain, Abood rushed to the Hospital. In his haste to get medical attention, Abood forgot to take his car and actually ran towards the hospital. No mean feat considering the hospital is about 9km from his house. Not surprisingly, Abood collapsed after about 300 meters and was picked up by sympathetic passing motorists who drove him the rest of the way.

The good news is that Abood that did not contract the H1N1 virus. The bad news is that he is recovering from exhaustion in hospital and is ofcourse in a building that is full of people with the H1N1 virus.

As such the Shawarma's have it by default. Shawarma is officially king of take aways. We would like to wish Abood is a swift swine free recovery.

Shawarma Vs Tikka - Finding the King of Takeway

2009-09-16T07:12:00.000-07:00

Here in Bahrain, there are no shortage of places to eat or get a quick takeaway. In fact, a recent survey carried out by one of the samboosa.net researchers indicates that there are more places to eat in Bahrain than actual inhabitants. Approximately 1.3 takeaway places for every person.

Putting aside the industrial by-products that are resold at McDonalds and other such places, there are some rather nice places to eat. At samboosa.net , we take food very seriously. So we had a discussion about the best place to grab food from. It soon became clear that where to grab the food from wasn't an issue, the real "meat" (awful pun - Ed.) of the discussion was WHAT to eat.

after a brief 2 hour discussion, we realized that the samboosa.net team fell evenly into two camps. Tikka and Shawarma. Whilst we all agreed that samboosa was the king of side dishes, no clear winner could be established between the two classic local takeaway dishes.

As we could not resolve this issue though rational debate alone, it was suggested that a settlement could be reached through an eating DEATHMATCH involving one contestant from each camp. We all agreed to this suggestion.

The DEATHMATCH will involve us ordering tons of Tikka and Shawarma. After starting the clock, both contestants will be required to eat their respective food of choice continuously. Whoever, chokes, dies, or faints first loses. Thus, we can chose which food is king.

Sometime over the next couple of days we'll go ahead with this. Stay tuned for updates.

Episode 10: Company Resources

2009-09-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

Wacom Tablet + boredom

2009-09-12T07:40:00.000-07:00

Episode 9: Nasty

2009-09-11T03:45:00.000-07:00

Apple Mac OS 10.6 Review, seriously.

2009-09-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

By Technology Contributor, Loki.

Right, I got my family pack Snow Leopard Disk from iSpace. The first surprise was the price. 25 beeds for 5 licenses. Not bad. That's a saving of about 100 BD over the family pack for the old Leopard. To put that into perspective that's TWO HUNDRED PORTIONS OF TIKKA !

Installation: - Doesn't suck.

Unlike past upgrades where you install by booting from the DVD, Snow Leopard lets you install the OS from the Desktop. To me it doesn't make a huge difference but it did seem to be quicker.

The installation took about 35 minutes and two restarts. That's one restart more than the usual Mac Os install which is slightly annoying. Other than that, it was smooth as can be.

First impressions: - Hello?

What? I'm pretty sure i just upgraded my OS? At first sight NOTHING is different. You may even start to question whether you bought the OS and installed it or if it was all a dream you experienced while being kept in some kind of bio-pod for the purpose of generating electricity for a malevolent Artificial Intelligence.

Usage: - I have seen the light

Aha! now we're talking. As you use the system you realise the tweaks throughout. Firstly, its noticeably faster (on a mac pro at any rate). Finder has been re-written in Cocoa and has some new tweaks here and there. Its been pointed out by other reviewers that if Apple went through the trouble of completely re-writing the Finder, why not make some major changes. Its a good question...... and .... I don't have an answer.

Among the more prominent changes, the Dock and expose are both improved. The Stacks view now has scroll ability which instantly turns it from something useless to something useful.

Value for money: - Its all about the Tikka

As already stated. The price of the OS is quite cheap. its worth the price for the performance increase and finder improvements alone.

Final Words:

Snow Leopard was never meant to be a whizbang upgrade. Rather, it was meant to optimise and introduce new APIs . This will become evident as developers start taking advantage of Snow Leopard's features. Its not a a must have, but at that price you might as well.

Samboosa.net Rating:

4/5 Samboosas

For a full, and I'm talking seriously full review, visit arstechnica on:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars

Finally! Not the Snow Leopard Review!

2009-09-07T05:22:00.000-07:00

By technology contributor, Loki.

This is NOT the Snow Leopard review because I have not yet obtained my licensed copy of the OS. The good people at iMachines assure me that I will receive this today.

Move along people, nothing to see.

----------------------

UPDATE: Our editor has told me that this is quite possibly the most pointless blog posting in the history of internet. I concede that this is a possibility.

UPDATE 2 : My copy of OS 10.6 still has not arrived. ........ i'm feeling quite sad about that.

Episode 8: Electronic Mail: Part 2

2009-09-04T05:35:00.000-07:00

Movie Review: Watchmen

2009-08-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

Movie Review: The Watchmen. - By Samboosa.net contributor Rodriguez Van. Hosenhoven.

At Samboosa.net we pride ourselves on being on top of things, that's why I would like to present this movie review of Watchmen. Now, you maybe wondering: "why now? this movie has been out for ages, you moron". Keep wondering.

Anyway, I first watched this film in Saar cinema. I had purchased my popcorn and made myself comfortable. My expectations were shockingly low. After all, I had seen the trailer. As far as I was concerned, I was going to put my brain in neutral and watch a fake Batman running around pretending to be Batman. Five and a half hours later when the movie finished, i left the cinema in tears. It was the most beautiful work of art I had ever seen. That night, I burnt all my Batman DVDs.

Batman: The Dark Knight, was a good film (or rather, it was an all right film with an awesome Joker). It had action, Batman, Joker, and posed questions on morality (albeit in a somewhat infantile way). Watchmen, takes Batman: The Dark Knight and rips it to pieces, pours gasoline on it and sets it on fire, takes the ashes and dumps them into a cement mixer. That's how deep Watchmen is.

Samboosa.net rating.

5/5 samboosa

Episode 7: Electronic Mail

2009-08-29T06:57:00.000-07:00