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So there I was, angry while waiting for the late company delivery when I received an Arabic SMS from sender Message. My smart phone is not smart enough to read Arabic yet (I’m too lazy to reformat it in other words), so I just saw the number in the SMS and called it from a phone line:

Me: Hello

Him: Hi

Me: Did you just send me SMS?

Him: Yes.

Me: Well! What is it? (forgot I was supposed to already know the message content, thinking this might be a friend)

Him: Yeah we do web site design if you like.

Me: (Man you so much got the wrong guy at the wrong time) 

No Thank you.

Him: OK.

Me: (Not gonna let it go easy) Where did you get my number from?

Him: Oh we just send bulk SMS to all numbers

Me: Ohh… so you just disturb everyone in case some few people are interested?

Him: Well, some people are interested.

Me: Well, there are newspaper designed for ads you know?

Him: Yes. 

Me: So you can use them.

Him: Yes, sorry for bothering.

Me: OK. 

(I Hang Up)

To his credit, he was more decent than I thought over the phone, he took my harsh message well. However those people just don’t realize bothering thousands of people to target tens is a lot of disturbance. It drives people away rather than gets them, and website design is not like something you go searching for. Such services are all over the area.

I do not blame those spammers however. And neither do I blame the telecom companies in the first place. Their job is to maximize revenue in any way possible. If you were a manager, what would you do? The only one to blame is MOC over all of this, for taking it too easy, and not criminilizing any of those SMS Spam practices, keeping completely shut about them.

On the other hand, I was looking today at an official paper that should be signed by the ministry to clear out from the customs any routers, switches, or devices that might have to do anything with VoIP technology. It should testify not to use it for any illegal (though human beneficial) way, such as making VoIP international calls (all that MOC cares about).

I think in our 21st Century, the new slogan should be “Spam Does Not Pay”. At least, it doesn’t do as good as crime does it?

Popularity: 15% [?]

I’m not sure if they had newspaper ads or anything else, but this is a short notice. Wataniya sent mass SMS to it’s customers last night informing us they are moving to the eight digits plan today (Friday), and we have to add 6 to all the Wataniya numbers.

If you saw already, there is a converter tool to convert your phone contacts from 7 to the new eight digits numbering plan accordingly. It’s been also updated just recently to allow you to specify which operator you want to convert specifically, to adapt to this gradual migration phase.

I suggest you try the Java version if you can get the latest JRE 1.6, as the Windows version is built on an old release and is causing some compatibility issues. Ofcourse since it’s commercial software, I can’t afford to spend thousands for the sake of this program, and neither I intend to extend my Windows development life cycle. So please, bare it :).

Popularity: 28% [?]

Recently a phenomenon started to spread, at least in Kuwait, of receiving international SMS Scams telling you you have won in a draw, Mercedes in my case. My brother won a 250,000 amount I guess. Frankly, I was a bit jealous from him being younger and bigger winner. Email scamming is cheap and easy, but I wonder how the guys can afford and expect to make money with international SMS scamming.

Beware of such SMSs. Remember how many times you have entered a draw and not winning. What are the odds of winning without entering? Pretty low I guess. The same message has been sent to some others as well.

Popularity: 16% [?]