The Big Buisness Idea Compatition

I am sure most of you who read the news from time to time had heard about this. It's basically a competition where an individual or a group present their business idea and hope to win a cash prize worth 6000RO given by Nawaras and Ernst & Young and an office in the The Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM).

So I attended the finals that was held yesterday in Crown Plaza. They were four finalists who had to give a 5 minute presentation about their business. And a panel of judges will choose who is most worthy of the prize.

The first idea was by Al-Faisal group. Saleh and Salim were the names of the group's leaders. Their idea was in multimedia. "Nobody in Oman knows about design but us" is what they said. Based on their presentation, everybody in Oman knows about design but them. Their idea were outdated and boring. I honestly didn't think for one second that they would win.
The second was by Oman Souq Online. Anwar Al-Tobi, Badria Al-Baqlani and Abdulhakim Al-Tobi were the leaders. This idea is basically a cheap version of the well known ebay. Nothing really creative about it except for the fact that they will be selling Omani handicrafts there too.
The third is called Oman design and I think you can tell what they are about. The leaders were Malika Al-Amri and Moza Al-Reyami. Same as the first group, nothing new, nothing different and really bad graphics in the presentation.
The fourth and last group is called Real Reflections Team. The leaders were Majid Al-Yaqubi, Khalid Al-Yaqubi and Nasser Al-Akhzami. Their idea was on e-research and e-surveys. To be honest, this is a pretty old concept in the Internet and there isn't anything new about it but it is a first of it's kind in the Sultanate so, I will give it credit on that.

I really thought more about this competition. I didn't know it was going to be for small minded collage students with nothing new to present except for ideas already made by others hundreds of times before. I didn't like any of these ideas much but from these three, i thought the fourth one should win.

Well guess what... they didn't. You won't believe if I told you the second one won which is Oman Souq Online. What in the world is so amazing and different about that?!
You have www.omanbay.com and www.omanaccess.com which all do the exact same thing. Why the hell do they deserve to win and not any of the others. I think the least the judges could do is justify their choice.

That's all there was to it. If you think you've missed something, you haven't. And if you have a great idea that you would like to participate next year but scared that you won't be able to win, don't be. You will probably find the same crap next year also.

Comments Removed

Most of you who visit this Blog regularly know about the Royal Cavalry Story. Some of you even heard about the Blog because of that story. For the people who didn't read this story, here is a link to it. I wont get much into details but due to some security issues, I was forced to remove some comments in that story. As I said, I won't get into details so please don't ask me about them.

But I would also like to take the opportunity to talk about freedom of speech in the country. This is the perfect example even though I won't really talk much about it. You don't know how much I hate to remove those comments as they have played a major part in the story and made it as big as it is.

Hopefully one day when the time is right, I will talk about what happened here but for now, it could cause harm to some people.

Call me service from Oman Mobile

I am not sure if all Oman Mobile users have received this message or not but I have recently received a message from Oman Mobile saying this: "Emergency! No Balance! Don't worry. Just sms your relative or friend number to 80555 and he or she will receive an sms bearing you number; saying (Call me. Call me service from Oman Mobile) the service is free.".

This is a great idea from Oman Mobile but can you imagine how many cheap bastards will be using this service just because they don't want to spend their precious 10bzs.

So, I tried the service and I got that message from the phone number that I sent the message from and not from 80555 and the message was exactly "Call me. Call me service from Oman Mobile". Can you imagine how confused a person you send this message to would be if they didn't know about it. They would probably think it's an add for Oman Mobile or something. I just wish it didn't have that last part "Call me service from Oman Mobile" in it. Then I could be one of those cheap bastards who don't want to spend their precious 10bzs.

So Eid is done...

To be honest, I don't have much to say about Eid anymore. I am going to leave that to you now. So, feel free to comment on what you have done during Eid and what you have experienced.

In my part, I would just like to apologize on taking the whole week of Eid off and not posting anything without announcing it first. It wont happen again (hopefully). I am sure you've also noticed that the posts are not as much and as good as they used to be before. That's because I don't have a computer anymore and it's hard to find time to go to the Internet cafe'. I am doing my best to buy a computer but all I've got so far from my savings and from Eid is only 50RO. Any Ideas, people?

So, anyways, back to our topic. So maybe I will share a little of what I've done during Eid to get you started. Well, the first day of Eid in the morning, just like every other Eid morning, I went to visit my grandparent's house and so did everybody else in my mother's side of the family. I usually go visit other members of the family after the breakfast but I didn't this year. Instead, I went back home because everybody felt sick (it's the flew season, you know). I didn't go anywhere in the evening of the first day. And on the second day, I went to the movies with my cousin but of course, all the tickets were sold out so, we were hanging around that place like idiots having nothing to do. On the third, I was invited to my uncles house for BBQ but as usual, none of my other cousins showed up and I ended up the only guy from my age group there (how fun).
And on the fourth (which is technically not Eid anymore), I am hear in the Internet cafe' making this post.
So basically, I had a pretty good Eid.

Now, it's your turn...

Eid Al Fitr

Eid is a special time to most people here in Oman. It always has this different feel to it. It's the break of the Ramadan fasting so, eating at day time feels a little funny.

Concerning the Eid holiday, ministries, public authorities and other departments of the state administrative apparatus will remain closed from Saturday, October 13 to Wednesday, October 17. And work will resume on Saturday, October 20.

I made a post on some of the Eid events that's going on in town. But as you've seen, I didn't post much because of the very little time that I have and also the fact that I have no computer at the moment and I am posting from an Internet Cafe'. So, I would love it if you share with us what other Eid events that are going on in town so that we can have a wider verity of plans.

I also added a poll in the right side bar concerning Eid. I would love it if you vote and see what most people usually do at Eid. And maybe after doing that, you can give us more details of what you usually do at Eid in the comments.

So, share with us... what's up for Eid?

The Ultimate Eid Guide

Don't you just hate it when you don't know what's going on during eid? You are usually told by people you know that something is going on in someplace right before they leave. Or when you are looking for places to attend so, you end up calling all the places that you know looking for something to do.
Well, we did (are doing) all that work for you. This is your ultimate eid guide!


Al Sawadi beach resort:

Day 1: "Lunch and games" Time: 12pm to 3pm. Cost: RO15
"Night event": Band and dinner. Time: 7pm. Cost:

Day 2: "Lunch and games"

"Night event": Belly dancing, Band and Dinner. Time: 7pm. Cost: RO20

Day 3: Same as Day 2.


Grand Hyatt:

Day 1: "Lunch": Authentic traditional family lunch and dinner at Mokha Cafe'. Cost: RO18 per person and RO9 per child (4 - 12 years).
"Night events": Copacabana with it's resident DJ until 3am. Club Safari with new resident band provides a unique setting for a relaxed evening with friends.
Day 2: "Lunch"
"Night event"

Day 3: "Night event"


Golden Tulip:

Day 1: "Night event" Filipino Band at the (Why Not Club). Arabic Band at the (Rooftop Club). African Band at the ballroom. Time: Clubs open from 6pm, bands start at 9:30. Cost: no entry costs in all except the african band is not yet decided.

Day 2: "Night event"

Day 3: "Night event"


This post will be updated depending on the number of information we get. If you have any other events that you would like to share with us, please feel free to give it in the comments. Enjoy!

Criticize "The Week"

This is a weekly post that discusses the mistakes, weird, funny and sarcastic stories that the week newspaper publishes or it could just be a story that's worth talking about. Because the week publishes every Wednesday, I make this post every Thursday.


This week we have something to talk about. If you read the paper this week, you will notice the new look it has. For you who are not bright enough to have noticed, the whole paper has less colours which gives it this clean look which I think is great also put together with smaller fonts. Who ever thought of that did a great job to be honest.

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

"The week" also had lots of new columns and sections. Some of which are: The Runaway Diary, Talking Tech, weekend planner, be a citizen journalist, In the hot seat and lots more...

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

The cover story this week is amazing. They discussed the first full game of Ali Al Habsi for the Bolton's Wanderers. The reason why it's so amazing is that a reporter from "The Week" actually attended that game him self in London. And funny enough, he is the very same reporter who came to the bloggers meeting, Ashley Mark. This is a big improvement I think. It shows that "The Week" is taking what they do seriously.

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

One of the freakiest stories I've ever read on "The Week" was a story in this week's issue. It's on the "the runaway diary" column. The title of the story is "How to boil a camel". I am a meat eater but let me tell you, the details given by this guy was so graphic that I got the chills. Let me just give you a small quotation of what was written in the story:

As the light faded and the camp settled down for another desert night, a
handful of men flung themselves into the animal pen and onto a young camel. It
screamed for it's life, of cause, just like I had the previous evening when I
had seen my first camel spider. The second step involved flinging it down
side-first on the bed of a pick up and driving off into the night...

An hour later the pickup was back with the entire camel in the rear - just
without it's skin this time...

You wont believe how much worse it gets. This is an actual picture taken by the writer. GOD!

Oman Blogger's Meeting Result

So, I attended the meeting and it was pretty fun except only another two bloggers attended. Amjad being one of them and the other would like to be anonymous. And lucky for us, two reporters, Ashley Mark and Ceri edward from "The Week" atteded the meeting after hearing about it here in [BeInOman].

Cinnzeo was pretty noizy at the time and we probebly spent most of the first hour waiting for the reast of the bloggers to show up that we didn't even order coffee.

The whole point of this first meeting is so that bloggers start to get to know each other. I got to know Amjad and "Anonymous" but that's it. The others kept on saying that they will be there but didn't.

Like I said earlier, it was fun. We talked about how it's like being a journalist in Oman and a little about web design but mostly about the experiances we had (not neccesarily blogging experiances).

Hopefully the next meeting will be more of a success and still have people from "The Week" show up.

Explore Oman: Diving

Oman Dive Centre is A Gold Palm 5 Star IDC resort.

Their facilities include:

• Excellent secluded private beach
• beach restaurant
• A Well stocked diving shop
• 4 comfortable custom-built dive boats
• Full dive equipment hire and Nitrox fills
• Custom-built dive pool and peripheral activities
  Romantic Beach accomodation
• Kayaks & Pedallos rental

Best Diving spots:
Bandar Jussa: Sheer coral reef outside our bay
Bandar Jussa provides 5 excellent dive sites with wonderful corals and boulders to swim around. Because of the shallow depth (up to 15 meters) this site is very suitable for training and night dives. Plenty of cuttlefish, spiny lobster and the odd turtle have been spotted. This is our house reef. Situated at the end of the bay only 3 minutes away from the Dive Centre.

Bandar Khairan: A Maze of beautifull dive sites
15 min away from the centre, a large area of outstanding beauty, with rocky outcrops, deserted beaches and small islands accessible only by boat. The underwater scenery does not disappoint with stunning rock falls, picturesque walls and reefs festooned with colorful arrays of coral and tropical fish. Bandar Khairan offers shallow bay dives and deep wall dives for both the beginners and experienced diver.

Fahal Island: The Shark Island...
Just 30 minutes away from us, Fahal Island offers a number of dive sites with an amazing diversity. It has the greatest variety of coral in one area in the whole of Muscat, and the dive sites are mainly reefs. The maximum depth is about 30 metres. Just East of North Bay there is a wreck of a tugboat at about 30 metres with a concrete barge situated shallower and close by. Abundant marine life, black tip reef sharks, rays and turtles are met regularly during the dives. Two offshore reefs give ample opportunity to see large ocean-going creatures, which sometimes include whale shark, and unusual coral, which are only seen at these sites.

Daymaniyat Island: Wild & untouched...
This is a string of offshore islands which offer a protected sanctuary for migrating birds. In order to be able to dive here, prior permission must be obtained from the Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Environment. The numerous underwater sites offer just 1h30 away from the centre,unspoilt diving, pristine coral gardens, reefs, walls, abundant fish life, large pelagic, turtles, rays and various sharks, including leopard sharks which have only been seen here. The whale shark is also a frequent visitor.

Ras Abu Daoud & Quriyat Wreck Down South..
1 Hour away from ODC, the wall at Ras Abu Daoud varies in depth from 8 to 30 metres. Here, you’ll find a delightful swim-through where you will literally have to push the fish out of the way! Your second dive is usually the Quriyat wreck "MS Mimoona", lying in 8-16metres. Cargo is still identifiable and spread over a large area. In the wheelhouse you can often find the some enormous resident honey comb moray eels. Schools of fish abound, particularly barracuda and occasionally the rare frog fish can be seen.