Monthly Archives: December 2007

Bloggers in arms

The Abu Dhabi paper will have a number of bloggers on the books. I’ve only been in touch with a few of the recruits so there are surely more… When I get a chance I’ll add a separate AD blogroll, but for now, check ’em out:

Rasheed’s World. Rasheed Abou-Alsamh, the paper’s deputy comment editor.

France Salut. Colin Randall, executive news editor.

Tomorrow Never Knows. Matthew Chung, national news reporter.

Hugh Naylor. National news reporter.

Getting my move on

 starcase.jpg

The cat tries his best to help me pack.

The time draws near for my move to the UAE and my brain has gone into overdrive trying to think of all the things I’ll need. Thankfully I seem to be on top of things, though the baggage allowance is fairly miserly. Mais c’est la vie. I take one of the first flights out on St Stephen’s Day and I’m not sure what my internet access will be like for the next few weeks. I hope to settle into my apartment quickly and hit the ground running. Will I succeed? Watch this space.

Things that piss me off

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 1720. Last night I was fiddling about with DVDs and was delighted to find all regions played. This morning I tried it again and Windows Media Player insisted my DVD player was set to region 8 and refused to play anything. A check of the device manager showed the drive had gone from “no region specified” to “region 2” — and that there were only three region changes left of the five it came with. It’s a WMP problem, and is apparently another Vista blunder. Way to go Microsoft.

Martin Newland

In case you had trouble with the Sky link below, here’s Martin Newland, editor of the new national paper in Abu Dhabi, giving a brief explainer on the newsroom:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMcuaxr0zZ8[/youtube]

Moving while frazzled

Tá tuirse orm — tuirseach traochta. I fly out in six days and have nowhere near enough done yet. My Arabic learning has slowed to something slower than a crawl, I have to finish doing up dozens of passport photos (bureaucracy awaits) and there are untold numbers of loose ends to tie up before leaving for Abu Dhabi. And yet I can’t wait to get out there and get settled in 🙂

I’d also like to thank my now former colleagues for the send-offs on Friday and Tuesday nights. Thank you and I hope to see you all again!