ALKHOBAR, 22 June 2004 — We begin this week with a true story of mouse madness. An employee of a large enterprise in Saudi Arabia was shifting her office to a new location. During the move, she discovered to her dismay that the old office was suffering from a mouse infestation. Retreating to a nearby telephone, she called support services and ordered them to send someone to deal with the mouse problem. They said they would make her request a priority. The next morning therefore the lady was surprised to find a computer repairman waiting at her office door instead of an exterminator.
“What are you here for?” the woman inquired. “Didn’t you call yesterday and report a mouse problem?” the technician answered. After hearing the true nature of her mouse misfortune, the technician looked at the woman in astonishment and went away laughing.
What could she do? The lady had to call support services again, only this time she explained to them loud and clear that she had a mouse problem, spelled R-A-T, and somebody had better get over to her office immediately and kill it!
I swear this is an honest tale and it definitely shows how far we’ve progressed in Saudi Arabia in such a short while. Now on to some real IT madness.
How many times in a row is it normal for a machine to go to blue screen? In my case after experiencing electric blue horror eight times in an hour, I decided that something more was going on than an OS tantrum. Calling for urgent tech support, immediate analysis was made of the problem. Could it be a virus or some other malicious bug? Perhaps, but doubtful, as all updates and patches were installed.
The situation deteriorated rapidly. Soon the machine wouldn’t even reboot in safe mode. We began discussing the best way to pull vital data off the hard drive as reformatting would take a day. Swinging into action, the cover on the box was unscrewed and at that moment the problem became clear. One of the wires was cut on the fan that cools the processor and the fan wasn’t working. Even though the airconditioner was on in the room, it being the afternoon in Saudi Arabia, the temperature was still over 25 degrees indoors. The machine was sitting next to a large printer that was giving off heat, and with no fan the processor was cooking instead of computing.
In need of an immediate solution we brought a room fan and angled it so it pushed air through the machine. Even then it took about 30 minutes for the processor to cool down enough to function properly. Relating my story to others I was told terrible tales of notebook catastrophe. Most notebooks have vents in the bottom of the machine. When the notebooks are placed on flat surfaces the vents are blocked. In the summer in Saudi Arabia there are numerous cases of motherboard damage due to overheating. If the side vents are blocked too because the notebook is placed beside sofa cushions or pillows on a bed the chance of overheating increases.
To save yourself from processor meltdown, in the case of a desktop, unscrew the case and look inside to see that the fan is spinning. Then shut down your machine, unplug it and get rid of all the dust that has accumulated inside the case. Some dirt can be gently vacuumed out (be careful not to vacuum up any components) but other dust must be blown out using compressed air. Cans of compressed air may be purchased from computer or hardware stores. Always blow dust AWAY from the motherboard and out of the case. Ensure that you don’t disconnect any cables in your cleaning frenzy. Pay special attention to cleaning vents and fans because this is where dust and hair usually build up.
As for laptops, if you see visible dust and hair underneath the case vents take the machine in for service. Only technicians should open a notebook case. In the summer months try to keep a free flow of air passing through all the vents, even those on the underside of the machine. There are stands and mats from numerous vendors that prevent the notebook from resting flat against a tabletop and heating up. These can cost as little as SR100 and probably are a worthwhile investment if your notebook seems to be running hot.
Speaking of hot, it’s summer in the Kingdom and everybody who possibly can is leaving on vacation. This has caused considerable overcrowding at the offices of Saudi Arabian Airlines. One customer arrived at the airline’s Alkhobar office last Saturday and took a number. He discovered that his number was 379 and No. 244 was currently being served.
Desperate to avoid waiting room torture, the expatriate went home and accessed the Saudi Arabian Airlines website using his 256K ADSL line. He’d heard it was possible to book their airline tickets online and thought he’d give it a try. The man entered all the required information cities, dates, number of tickets, etc., then clicked “Go.” And he went nowhere.
A message came up advising him that “Your session seems to have expired. Please restart your process. The session is configured to time-out after a certain period as a security precaution.” Thinking he hadn’t typed in all the information quick enough, he tried filling out the online form again, and again. Finally, the man gave up and did the only sensible thing he could think of. He convinced his wife to go back to the Saudi Arabian Airlines office and wait in the women’s line, which was shorter!
By the way, after hearing this story yesterday I analyzed the expat’s experience and was overwhelmed by a deep suspicion. I asked him what language he had used in booking the site. “English, of course,” he answered. So, I tried to book a flight through saudiairlines.com using the English version of the online booking function. It was impossible. Then I switched to the Arabic version of the online booking function and guess what? It worked.
How did I know this would be the case? Because I had a similar experience with Saudi Telecom (STC). Back in April, during Gitex Saudi Arabia, STC had been heavily promoting its new electronic services. Delighted to have the chance for a change to write something good about the company, I decided to sign up for e-services. I merrily went to stc.com.sa, clicked to the English section of the site and attempted to register. It was hopeless. Even after several days of hassle to get my e-services account activated, I couldn’t then register any of my subscriber account numbers. This was annoying.
Activating my local human resources database, I soon tracked down the man in charge of STC’s e-services. He was nice enough but arrogant. He assured me that thousands of customers were using the e-services and that the registration problem must be mine. I resisted my violent impulses and somehow politely convinced him to at least check out my experience.
Later in the day I received an SMS from him stating that a “small bug” had been found on the English account registration page that I had been trying to use. It would be fixed the next day. In the meantime, if I was in a hurry, I should use the Arabic page. I felt vindicated but unhappy.
We have invited millions of expatriates to work in Saudi Arabia and many of these people cannot function in Arabic. Organizations such as Saudi Arabian Airlines and STC are supposed to serve the entire population of the Kingdom and beyond. I do not think it is unreasonable to expect that they will make at least their online services available in English. In fact, the requirement for English functionality must have been part of the specifications for these websites. I am certain too that a large fee was paid for the development and maintenance of the sites. So why is the English functionality unavailable?
Quality assurance. If there is one item lacking in the online operations of Saudi organizations, it’s quality assurance. Saudi companies have got to start caring that their websites work, or they should take them down.
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