Tag Archives: FAIL

Dec 7 2023

Debunking pathetic boycott Israel campaigns

So propaganda like this I see quite a lot. This was posted by someone from Denmark.

Its been shown both in the Muslim world, or by the extreme left and Muslims living in the west.

Its highlighting that a group of well known brands are giving money to Israel, and by stopping business to them will “help the cause of Palestine”

Lets dismantle this.

Mcdonalds. They are an American company of course. There’s Mcds in Israel, who employ Jewish and Arab staff. And not in the Palestinian territories but a lot of Arab Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan and more. They operate as a franchise. I don’t recommend you support McDonalds in the Middle East, as there are thousands of smaller restaurant businesses run by Jews and Arabs that are loads better.

KFC. This is an American company, also operates as a franchise. This opened in Israel some years ago. Then they shut. Not because of political reasons. They just didn’t do very well as there are plenty of local fast food places.

Coca Cola. I wrote on this a little while back. You can get Hebrew branded Coke made in Bnei Barak (Israeli city) or Arabic brand coke made in Ramallah (Palestinian city) Its made under licence and sold most parts of the world. If you want you could get some kind of generic cola drink instead.

I’ve not been to Ramallah. But its were the Palestine authority government is for Fatah (not the same as Hamas who run Gaza) This picture above is from Ramallah. On the left some coke is being delivered in a van (Palestinian cars have white or green licence plates, Israelis have yellow) On the right, there is a big poster with some Arab lads drinking Coke.

Starbucks. US company. Tried running in Israel and it failed. Too much competition. Israelis would rather support their own cafes. I think they do ok in UAE and Saudi though.

Nestle. They are based in Switzerland. I think their products are sold in Israel, but Israelis tend to buy their own home grown food.

Cadburys. This is a British company started in Birmingham by a Christian family. I’ve never seen Cadburys chocolate in Israel, except in Arab shops where it had Arabic language versions made in Egypt and imported.

Israel makes a lot of technology products. HP, Apple, Intel, Motorola, Cisco, Qualcomm, Google and Microsoft have significant research and development done in Israel. As well as indigenous tech companies like Waze, Amdocs, Monday.com, NICE systems are Israel start ups.

If you want to boycott Israel you will have to throw away your favourite gadgets.

Like it or not. Israel is here to stay. Israel’s Messiah is also coming back to Jerusalem one day. Stop hating and get used to it.

Mar 28 2011

Windows 7 90 day trial activation FAIL

I played with some of the beta versions of Windows 7 back in 2009 when I worked in a hospital, and I also got the RC-1 version, I suppose I am late as a full on Windows 7 adopter, I am quite a satisfied user of XP and it hasn’t really showed that much sign of aging despite being around 10 years,mainly because when I am using a computer for personal use, I just want to chat to people, get news, listen to music or buy something online and not have to maintenance like at work.   I didn’t bother with Vista because of its poor performance and stability.

But this week I have decided to be daring and put Windows 7 trial version on my work PC and on my personal laptop.

This trial version is offered to IT managers to test it out for 90 days.  It requires no licence code, just install it and you are done, however you have to activate it.

So far, everything is been running, drivers were no trouble at all.   There is a bit confusion in control panel, finding things, like joining a domain, setting up file sharing and other things seem a bit alien.   The new control panel is like being in a kitchen at a party at a friend’s house, everything is not where you expect it to be, and you open 6 or 7 drawers to find a can opener or something. 🙂

Microsoft has a poor track record for the activation and anti-piracy methods on Windows, you have to jump through too many hoops in the past.   7 seems to be no exception, my relatively blissful new operating system experience has just come to halt.  So why won’t this activate properly on my 2006 model Toshiba laptop?   A brief Google search seems like a weird hardware compatibility problem with certain BIOSes on some PCs.

For instance with XP, try installing Windows Media Player 11 on a normal XP computer with no connection to internet.  I like to set up computers with as many patches and security software before I give it a live connection to the internet, so it doesn’t become a sitting duck for viruses and nasties.  In the case on WMP11 it accuses me of having an illegally licenced copy of Windows.   Its a how-the-heck-did-they-not-spot-that-one bug.   Install it again with a network cable attached you are fine.

Now as this Win7 90 day trial doesn’t have a licence key, I am assuming that I can put it in multiple computers?   Within 90 days I am planning to buy it for myself, and have a new Win7 roll out in progress at work.  So Microsoft, please, please put some proper thought into anti-piracy methods that don’t fail on legitimate users at the wrong time, you will just continuously stop people being early adopters at your software.

Otherwise Windows is stable, quick and very pleasant to use, and will be the next big success for Microsoft, probably with a life span of 10+ years like XP was.

I understand there should be copy protection systems should in place, but its should not be some maddening frustrating that the chances are the user will turn to a dark corner of the internet looking for a way to cheat the system.