Mohammed Sameer's Online Aggregator

Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Wed, 31/12/2008 - 8:33pm

A pretty balance year for me this year. Many new learning, ideas, awareness and changes in my life ??? heck, I grew old a lot this year! Still, I know, I can do better ??? realization is already there. This makes me more excited for 2009 as I???ll continue what I started this year and push myself a little bit more. Continue to improve myself. Give more unconditional love and values to others. Keep learning new things. Enjoy every bits of my life. Keep my life lighter and simpler.

Thanks God for a great year.

Happy New Year to all!

Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Wed, 20/08/2008 - 5:48am
I’m so thrilled today as my favorite Task Management apps Things is now syncing - both in my Macbook Pro and my iPhone. It’s so cool, I can easily capture all my ideas anytime, anywhere as my iPhone is virtually always with me; and then use later my Macbook Pro to organize those stuffs by putting right tags (context), Areas, Projects, deadline and schedules. Looking forward for version 1 in desktop app and other more features like location aware in iPhone app. Things really transformed how I...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 19/08/2008 - 5:23pm
I’ll be in Dubai next week for SNPA (Securing Networks with PIX and ASA) Training. The training will be in Fast Lane Dubai from August 24-28. And I’ll stay in Towers Rotana since its very accessible - only 2 minutes walking distance to Fast Lane. It will be interesting if I can meet someone there who reads this website :)

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Mon, 18/08/2008 - 6:08pm
I missed to post this here - last August 12, I passed my 30 days trial without drinking tea and coffee. I decided to try this experiment, because I found out lately my intake of coffee and tea was really getting high. It gives bad effect to myself - I’m not able to focus and think clearly, seem like my mind is cloudy. And in my nature of job I need to have always a clear and strong mind ;) so I decided to start this 30 days trial if I can quit drinking coffee and tea. In this period, I want...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Mon, 18/08/2008 - 5:24pm
For couple of weeks now, I started going to Gym. It’s really fun as more than using Wii Fit, I found how physically unfit I am :) I don’t go there regularly as I’m giving priority to Dimpz. We cannot go together as someone should take care of the kids. So far my goal in achieving my ideal weight is in steady progress. I hope in 1 year period, I’ll not only achieved my ideal weight but also build some muscles :)

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 01/07/2008 - 1:04pm
I ordered Wii Fit immediately after it was released in US last May but I just started to fully used it last week. I like Yoga and Strength Training. Me and my wife compete in scores and its really fun as even my kids are enjoying working-out with us. Just for 1 week of using it, I felt big change in my posture and stamina - maybe this just show how bad shape I was physically before. Although my weight loss is just minimal, all I care for now is the agility and the extra strength I gained....

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 17/06/2008 - 8:00pm
Downloaded Firefox 3 all in my Windows, Linux and Mac machines; and its really awesome specially the Mac version. Although most probably same in core - the Mac version standouts in look and feel. Make sure to download Firefox 3 today and be part of the history.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 05/06/2008 - 4:03am
As I turn 32 today my main focus is to keep my life simpler and stronger. I’m very excited about my future as I’m looking forward for a big change this year or at most within 2 years - depends how fast I execute my plans. I have two options right now, in which, either way requires preparation and sacrifice to achieve the end point. What certain for me right now is: my upcoming years will be better and exciting than my previous years. I have right now enough motivation and inspiration. I...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 13/05/2008 - 4:59am
Later today, Fedora 9 will be release. As, I'm using Redhat Enterprise in my work, Fedora is always part of my Linux Multiboot Test System. Next to Ubuntu, I usually spend enough time exploring Fedora and trying many new things that I might see in the next release of Redhat Enterprise. It's always cool to try cutting edge stuffs even it means sometimes it breaks and you need to spend time figuring out how to make it work or fixing it. Well, this is how you learn and you enjoy things anyway, so...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Mon, 12/05/2008 - 8:04am
I’m glad Google made donation very easy to support the victims of the cyclone in Myanmar (Burma). Right now, it is the front page of Google page; but in case your not seeing it, go to http://www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/ and please donate. If you don’t have Google Checkout and really want to donate, please contact me and I’ll donate in behalf of you. Thank you so much.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 24/04/2008 - 3:34pm
One of my favorite Linux distro released today Hardy Heron, the second LTS (Long Term Support) for desktop until 2011 and for server version up to 2013. Download it here or request free CDs here. Also if you are here in Qatar, I can give you free CDs both the Desktop and Server version. New features include the Wubi Windows installer and Firefox 3 beta 5. Presently, I'm still using PCLinuxOS as my Desktop here in my house. Very stable and I very less issues I encountered. But later...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Wed, 09/04/2008 - 8:55am
I got an Evernote invitation from a friend and in my limited usage, this service seems promising, especially to people like me - information addict :) Evernote works using web, mobile phone, and as desktop application. Now, I can access my valuable notes seamlessly and centrally. Evernote is in close invite only beta. You need someone to invite you or you can request for invitation thru their website. I still have some invitations available left with me, anyone interested, just comment here...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Wed, 09/04/2008 - 7:43am
New upgrade is also available with this cute keyboard. Thanks Nonoy for giving this to me. This is one the most desirable stuffs in my office desk :)

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Wed, 09/04/2008 - 7:11am
I upgraded all my hosted blogs to Wordpress 2.5. Seems like a major upgrade, very cool!

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Wed, 02/04/2008 - 7:38pm
I had a great dinner today with the Structured Cabling Team of the ongoing Network Revamp Project that I’m doing right now. They did a great job and I promised them last week that if they able to finished all the termination of cables in excellent way, I’ll treat them dinner. Even I used my own money, hehehe, I had a blast spending some lighter moment with the team. I’m looking forward working with them again. Thanks.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Mon, 31/03/2008 - 6:11pm


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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Sat, 22/03/2008 - 6:44pm
Thanks God!

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 13/03/2008 - 1:48pm
After some downs and lack of motivation in my work and in life in general, thanks to recent inequality_incidence – now, I’m back with vengeance!

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 26/02/2008 - 8:04pm
Finally, my wait is over! Now, the hard time of selecting and deciding starts...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Mon, 25/02/2008 - 4:40pm
I’m reading right now a document I received from one of my favorite internet company regarding Software-as-a-Service. Very exciting! I’m thinking now a way how we can use this in our company.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Sat, 23/02/2008 - 6:46pm
Microsoft’s Skydrive is now available to the public offering 5GB of free online storage. I was using this service since beta and its pretty good. You can keep your data accessible only to you, shared folders accessible to your friends, and public folders open to everyone (which can be subscribed to via RSS).

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 21/02/2008 - 10:07am
I received some private inquiries about my previous post regarding Google Reader. One of them said, he found little bit difficult and unsatisfying to use Reader – he still preferred to visit personally the site he likes. Well, I agree if you have only tens of favorite website and you have all the free time to surf the internet. But once you have hundreds of websites you want to at least peek if they have new interesting contents, Reader will really saves you time and let you concentrate to...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 19/02/2008 - 6:52pm
I’m feeling lighter today after I finished reorganizing (proper tagging) my two ultimate online destinations: Gmail and Google Reader. I'm with my Google Reader 90% of my Internet browsing time. I’m a heavy user of Google Reader. All my favorite sites – hundreds of websites - are subscribed to Google Reader. I can “read” them all in less than an hour. Without Google Reader it will take more than a day for me just to glimpse them all and read the important and interesting one. If news feed...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Wed, 13/02/2008 - 4:58pm
Nice, Drupal 6 finally :)

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Sun, 10/02/2008 - 7:26am
I have many important and sensitive things to finish and decide today – but my mind is foggy because of some political issues and injustice here at work. I’m thinking how to turn this to my advantage.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Sun, 10/02/2008 - 3:54am
We love you so much!

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Wed, 06/02/2008 - 4:30am
The iPhone once again comes in two capacities: 8GB for $399 and now 16GB for $499. Apple sold 8GB and 4GB originally when they released iPhone, but it discontinued the 4GB model after it cut the price of the 8GB model to $399. And the iPod Touch have more storage now, with 32GB of capacity for $499. iPod Touch is now available in three versions, with Apple also selling a 16GB model for $399 and an 8GB model for $299. Way to go Apple! But when you will update your Macbook or Macbook Pro? My...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 05/02/2008 - 10:24am
Finally the most awaited news in the corporate world: Windows Vista SP1 is now finally released in RTM and will be also available in Windows Update next month (mid-March). A big relief also for some home users that are purposely holding the upgrade to Vista and waiting as a tradition to the first service pack before jumping ship. Meanwhile, in the more important news for me: Windows Server 2008 is also coming at the end of this month. I heard many positive feedbacks and reviews with Windows...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 05/02/2008 - 10:13am
Reuters is reporting that Yahoo is considering some type of tie-up with Google, potentially something smaller than an all-out acquisition. According to this report, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt phoned Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang on Friday to discuss how to avoid a Microsoft takeover, either by offering money or guaranteed revenue in exchange for Yahoo outsourcing its advertising to Google.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 05/02/2008 - 5:32am
Today, I’m motivated, inspired and excited about my job. Attracting changes to my working environment is a real challenge - but some changes happened and about to happen. Thanks God. Thanks universe.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Mon, 04/02/2008 - 6:41am
Conducting 5 sessions of Cyber Security Awareness Day was like listening to my favorite music again and again. Each time I listened and sang with it – different ideas and interpretations popped-up in my mind. How conscious you are in Cyber Security? How can you properly protect your Identity? As you know it only requires username (mostly easily known) and password (can be known) to identify yourself to most of the web services that you are using like email or in online shopping and even...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Sun, 03/02/2008 - 3:30am
Internet speed in our work seems now relatively faster than last week; and in our house Internet although slower compare in normal days – the speed is also now acceptable. I was expecting, situation might get worse as I read yesterday from BBC that another cable was cut. Read this news article for you to learn how we are dependent to those submarine cables.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Sat, 02/02/2008 - 4:37pm
Microsoft went public for a whopping a $44.6 billion cash-and-stock bid to acquire Yahoo. With Bill Gates retirement in Microsoft’s day to day operation – I think this is the right time for them to shift their focus from the classic desktop related software to the new paradigm in computing – the cloud based services and applications. In case this acquisition happens, I’m more excited as it will benefit us consumers and users as other competing companies will surely be more aggressive as...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Sat, 02/02/2008 - 4:37pm
Microsoft went public for a whopping a $44.6 billion cash-and-stock bid to acquire Yahoo. With Bill Gates retirement in Microsoft’s day to day operation – I think this is the right time for them to shift their focus from the classic desktop related software to the new paradigm in computing – the cloud based services and applications. In case this acquisition happens, I’m more excited as it will benefit us consumers and users as other competing companies will surely be more aggressive as...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Fri, 01/02/2008 - 5:31am
Last night we had a great dinner with Daddy Yum and Mom Mae in Romano's Macaroni Grill, located in Villagio Mall food court area. The food is great and we really had a blast just being together. Try this restaurant especially if you like Italian type of food.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Fri, 01/02/2008 - 5:31am
Last night we had a great dinner with Daddy Yum and Mom Mae in Romano's Macaroni Grill, located in Villagio Mall food court area. The food is great and we really had a blast just being together. Try this restaurant especially if you like Italian type of food.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 31/01/2008 - 9:56pm
The wind outside is really blowing hard. This strong wind seems the strongest so far in this winter season here in Qatar. Take care everyone as this kind of weather is not so friendly to our health.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 31/01/2008 - 9:56pm
The wind outside is really blowing hard. This strong wind seems the strongest so far in this winter season here in Qatar. Take care everyone as this kind of weather is not so friendly to our health.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 31/01/2008 - 11:24am
We received this notice from Qtel: Dear Valuable Customer, We have outage on international internet capacity due to Submarine Cable System outages. Due to this, we are experiencing overall degradation in internet performance; our technical team is working to solve the problem. QTEL apologize for the inconvenience. Related news are here, here, here, and here.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 31/01/2008 - 11:24am
We received this notice from Qtel: Dear Valuable Customer, We have outage on international internet capacity due to Submarine Cable System outages. Due to this, we are experiencing overall degradation in internet performance; our technical team is working to solve the problem. QTEL apologize for the inconvenience. Related news are here, here, here, and here.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 31/01/2008 - 11:08am
Tian posted in their blog that Mavis was tried to detain by security guys in Lulu just for listing and comparing the price to last year’s. I just called Tian and thanks God Mavis is OK and just cooling-off now in near-side mall. I think Lulu security guys over-reacted, as they can simply ask Mavis politely to stop listing prices as it is not allowed. But going to extreme like attempting to detain her is I guess unacceptable. Read their blog for more details and updates.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 31/01/2008 - 11:08am
Tian posted in their blog that Mavis was tried to detain by security guys in Lulu just for listing and comparing the price to last year’s. I just called Tian and thanks God Mavis is OK and just cooling-off now in near-side mall. I think Lulu security guys over-reacted, as they can simply ask Mavis politely to stop listing prices as it is not allowed. But going to extreme like attempting to detain her is I guess unacceptable. Read their blog for more details and updates.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 31/01/2008 - 10:27am
Wohoo! Finally, Tanc’s website is now in Drupal. Read here how he converts his website from Mephisto to Drupal. Amazingly how he able to do that without changing a single part of his old layout and also the blocks display. Great job Tanc!

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Thu, 31/01/2008 - 10:27am
Wohoo! Finally, Tanc’s website is now in Drupal. Read here how he converts his website from Mephisto to Drupal. Amazingly how he able to do that without changing a single part of his old layout and also the blocks display. Great job Tanc!

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 29/01/2008 - 3:55am
We had dinner here last night for Zubair’s farewell party. The place is nice and the food is also excellent. I mostly took sushi, sashimi, salmon roll, tempura, and a bunch of green salads. They have of course variety of other types of food that you will surely like. Best of all, the price is reasonable compared to other 5 star hotels here in Qatar. Zubair is one my closest colleague; and I’m honestly feeling a little bit gloomy that he’s leaving us. Of course I’m happy as he’s going for a...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Tue, 29/01/2008 - 3:55am
We had dinner here last night for Zubair’s farewell party. The place is nice and the food is also excellent. I mostly took sushi, sashimi, salmon roll, tempura, and a bunch of green salads. They have of course variety of other types of food that you will surely like. Best of all, the price is reasonable compared to other 5 star hotels here in Qatar. Zubair is one my closest colleague; and I’m honestly feeling a little bit gloomy that he’s leaving us. Of course I’m happy as he’s going for a...

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Mon, 28/01/2008 - 2:07am
Today is Ate Ams and Manoy's 12th Wedding Anniversary. Just like Mama and Papa - they are also our model. Keep it up Manoy and Ate Ams. We love you so much.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Mon, 28/01/2008 - 2:07am
Today is Ate Ams and Manoy's 12th Wedding Anniversary. Just like Mama and Papa - they are also our model. Keep it up Manoy and Ate Ams. We love you so much.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Sun, 27/01/2008 - 3:39am
Today is the 46th wedding anniversary of my parents. I don’t have any wish for them as – as I know, they already achieved all things they dreamed of. But I personally wish, as a parent - to be like them – even 10% of what they are - I’ll be very satisfied if we can achieve it. We’re modeling you Mama and Papa.

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Sandro T. Rafael: Technology and Qatar Living - Sun, 27/01/2008 - 3:39am
Today is the 46th wedding anniversary of my parents.

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