Apparently I was still used to 2009 I didn’t notice it on the old Riyadh Bookfair web site! They have finally update the page with a new design, tolerable design and actual content.
Riyadh Bookfair Schedule & location
It will be held at the new REC building (Gowalla location).
As for the schedule, the fair will be open from 10am to 10pm except Friday which opens at 4pm:
Wednesday 3/3/2010 For All
Thursday 4/3/2010 For All
Friday 5/3/2010 From 4pm to 10pm For Men
Saturday 6/3/2010 For All
Sunday For All but from 4pm to 10pm For Men
Monday For All
Tuesday For All but from 4pm to 10pm for Men
Wednesday For All
Thursday For All
Friday 12/3/2010 From 4pm to 10pm for Men
“For All” means “family” “men & woman”, ya know. And yes, no women only days.
Update: Forget everything mentioned here, the fair site was from last year’s. Making a new post about this year’s one.
Riyadh Book Fair always have a new domain every year, before it was www.riyadhbookfair.org but they LOST THE DOMAIN?! seriously? How hard it is to renew a domain name? It’s not hard!
The new domain is riyadhbookfair.org.sa but the website is horrible and hard to navigate and.
What I find disappointing is the lack of technical publications, the only publication company listed (list is in Arabic only, nothing on English site) with a technical name is “ثري دي كمبيوتر سنتر ” no need to translate, it is pronounced “3D Computer Center”!
I was expecting more technical books so this is a major disappointment (yet again). The US publishers listed are “school zone publishing” (kids books) “INTERNATIONAL TRADE LINKS” (I couldn’t even find a website for them) and “مركز مصادر المعلومات” wait wha?
Riyadh Book Fair starts tomorrow, I could go if I have any time to waste … if you spot some tech books (computers mainly, but if you find something interesting please post a comment).
Here’s the Riyadh International Book Fair 2010 Schedule listed here (apparently only men with Afros are allowed, and no women only days):
Tuesday 6/3/1430 3/3/2009 Inauguration ceremony
Wed 7/3/1430 4/3/2009 for all
Thurs 8/3/1430 5/3/2009 for all
Fri. 9/3/1430 6/3/2009 from 16:00 to 22:00 fro men
Sat. 10/3/1430 7/3/2009 for all
Sun. 11/3/1430 8/3/2009 for all, From 16:00 to 22:00 fro men
Mon. 12/3/1430 9/3/2009 for all
Tues. 13/3/1430 10/3/2009 for all, from 16:00 to 22:00 fro men
Wed 14/3/1430 11/3/2009 for all
Thurs 15/3/1430 12/3/2009 for all
Fri 16/3/1430 13/3/2009 From 16:00 to 22:00 fro men
One important note that Fahad reminded me on Twitter: ” اذا بغيتوا تشترون من تي جشفندر لاتاخذون كلام البائع كله اعرف وش تبي قبل واذا نويت تجرب جرب كميات قليلة”. If you wanted to buy from Tee Gschwendner do not believe whatever the salesman said, you should know what you want and if you want to try something just buy in small quantities (100g, 50g). Yes, I agree with Fahad completely.
Update: Last time I ramble uncaffeinated! fixed facts! Sorry Mobily.
Both the Saudi Telecommunications Company (STC) and Mobily has announced yesterday that they are the first to offer HSPA+ (Evolved HSPA with download speeds up to 56Mbit/s!!!). They announced the same thing in at least 2 different Saudi newspapers: AlRiyadh and Al-Eqtisadiah simultaneously!
Here are STC’s “news” articles: on AlRiyadh newspaper and Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper (Arabic links). The two articles are identical, in fact they are most likely a press release by STC. STC claims to be the first in the country, however…
Mobily had the same thing: on AlRiyadh newspaper and Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper. In addition, the news was also announced in Saudi Gazette English newspaper. The first part was identical to the Arabic press releases however it did include some info about the new Mobily Connect modem promotion. Mobily claimed to be the first in the region, makes no sense because…
STC was wrong!Both were wrong!
At least one telecommunications company had HSPA+ with 21Mbit/s available in the region. Zain Kuwait had HSPA+ since September 2009 (Kuwait News Agency link) and is called e-GO. Isn’t Kuwait party of the “region”? So why is Mobily claiming to be the first in the region when Zain Kuwait clearly had it first and who is bringing it first in Saudi Arabia? STC or Mobily? Both claim to be the first.Zain Kuwait actually released an HSPA+ device (Kuwait News Agency link). I found nothing about Zain Kuwait updating their network.
The Big Question
Two major Arabic speaking newspapers (AlRiyadh and Al-Eqtisadiah) published conflicting articles, each claiming to be the first. Why didn’t the newspapers verify the information first? How can the readers take them seriously?
As I said earlier, STC’s free SMS is only helping spread rumors like this one at Arab News:
There are concerns bogus Health Ministry officials are visiting homes with the intention of robbing residents. Citizens and expatriatwes have been circulating warnings via SMS messages about the con men, although the Ministry of Health has denied the rumors.
As if that not enough, someone started another rumor: “STC free SMS are valid for the first part of a multi part SMS” and referenced Al Eqtisadiah newspaper as a source. Al-Eqt was quick to respond to this rumor, denying it in this SMS they sent to everyone whoever used their SMS news service:
توضيح من جوال الاقتصادية:
يؤكد جوال الاقتصادية عدم صحة الرسالة المنسوبة إليه والتي تم تناقلها عبر الرسائل النصية حول التصريح المنسوب لشركة الاتصالات السعودية بأن الرسالة النصية يتم احتسابها في حال تجاوز حجمها رسالة واحدة،وقد تلقت الاقتصادية بيانا من الاتصالات السعودية يؤكد مجانية الرسائل النصية والصوتية ورسائل الوسائط بغض النظر عن حجم الرسالة داخل الشبكة وذلك طيلة فترة المكافأة التاريخية والتي أطلقتها الشركة بعنوان ويتواصل الشكر.
وللمعلومية فإن رسائل جوال الاقتصادية تبدأ بالرمزaleqt5005.
STC continues to brib… I mean “thank” their customers by offering a month of free SMS/MMS. This came after a month of free calls. Oh yeah, many customers are saying that they got billed for their calls for the last month.
I will say it again: STC is still having problems with their billing system (from the complaints I see on twitter). Arab News talked about it in September and November: people still receive a bill way higher than their bill’s ceiling credit. CITC refused the original promotion only to back down from their decision.
Here is what’s bothering me: STC continues to turn a blind eye to their billing issues. They probably paid so much money for the new billing system and are too stubborn to admit that they have problems.
They call their offer (in Arabic) “استمرارا لمكافأتها التاريخية غير المسبوقة” which translate to “Continuing their historic, unprecedented rewards”. Yes, dear customer. We messed up your bill so much that we will grace you with a reward. STC should just admit it already, say that they are sorry and that they are making it up for their customers who did not abandon them.
By the way, %40 of mobile phones are now Mobily numbers.
And here’s something interesting:Al Eqtisadiah (The Economist) Arabic newspaper had a fascinating article about STC’s free SMS “promotion”. They had some observations: people are abusing the SMS system, sending idiotic messages such as “achoo, I sneezed”. Hoaxes and rumors are also being started using these messages. Don’t forget: a lot of Spam! The following video comes to mind:
The flood of SMS has apparently affected an important service that customers are paying for: Mawjood Extra. This service sends an SMS when you missed a call. According to Al Eqtisadiah many customers receive their Mawjood SMS after hours of the call. This “offer” is effecting the quality of service for many customers.
Update: I called STC’s 902 support, the guy was trying to avoid telling me what I wanted to know but in the end he said “you can call for 48 hours and it’s ok”.
Now STC has announced that they are offering one free month of phone calls starting today November 21st. Mobile (Jawal) and landline (Hatif) can call each other for free. Prepaid (Sawa) is not included.
2. The “press release” claims that it is a historic promotion and no telco has ever done anything like it. Most likely false, then again, not every telco messes up the billing system the way STC did. STC also said that they are “rewarding their customers”.
3. The billing system is still not working, people had their data usage jump from 400MB to 1TB! Arab News is probably the only Saudi newspaper that talked about it: “I’m sick and tired of this chaos. My bill limit is SR500. I received a bill after 4 months of delay for SR2,000. How is that logical?”. STC is trying to cover up their chaotic billing system by bribing customers.
4. This offer is actually limited. You have only 24 hours of free calls (1440 minutes). Assuming an average of 0.35SR per minute, that’s only 504SR! Remember: people were overcharged more than that! In this article someone was charged 2,000SR and their credit limit was only 500SR!
5. You know I’m picky about websites, especially for giant companies such as STC. So here’s an example of bad design: This image linked in the news post is named “freee” and it is actually a BMP file with a JPG extension. That’s annoying!
Many customers were over charged more than 504SR and STC until now did not issue their usual detailed phone bills. They also never announced that they had a billing problem. What I want from STC is: admit and apologize for their mistake and issue honest bills!
Update: looking at Netcraft, the server keeps changing from WebSEAL/5.1.0.0 Build 031024 to IBM_HTTP_Server/2.0.47.1-PQ94389 Apache/2.0.47 Win32. So the Apache server must be temporary.
Mobily (second mobile carrier in Saudi Arabia and the country’s exclusive iPhone 3G/3GS provider) is using Apache/2.0.47 (Win32), an extremely outdated version of Apache! Running it on Windows is also a horrible idea!
That explains why is their site functions so slowly. Thanks (haythamkhouja, waiel and yraffah) for pointing this out!
Update:Nathan: “I do want accountability. What Al Yaum did was wrong, but the tone of the discussion is also wrong. Outrage does nothing to solve our problems and does everything to create even more.”
Alwatan newspaper in Saudi Arabia has mentioned the Hilter and STC video. The article titled “هتلر والاتصالات السعودية ” talked about STC’s bad service, check the comments too (all in Arabic).
The video clip was watched almost 400 thousand times (not counting the download mirrors).
As for the schedule, the fair will be open from 10am to 10pm except Friday which opens at 4pm:
واذا نويت تجرب جرب كميات قليلة”. If you wanted to buy from Tee Gschwendner do not believe whatever the salesman said, you should know what you want and if you want to try something just buy in small quantities (100g, 50g). Yes, I agree with Fahad completely.
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