Archive for November, 2009

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Dubai news

November 23rd, 2009

Number of motorists killed in car crashes fell for the first time in eight years – RTA.     

Dubai residency visas increase this year -New centres being opened to cope with demand, more people moving to Dubai. Dubai population grows 1.9% in Q2

Governor says the economy is ‘progressing well’, rules out move to depeg from dollar.       

Abu Dhabi awards $408m Mussafah canal contract -The 63.5km-long canal is set to be completed by the end of June 2010

UAE real estate will take ‘some time to stabilise’ – central bank

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Posted in Construction Software, Dubai and regional news

Sport

November 23rd, 2009

GolferLee Westwood wins Race to Dubai and returns to England £1.6m ($2.64m) richer after the ‘biggest moment’ of his career.

Brazil win Dubai’s beach soccer cup

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Posted in Dubai and regional news, Events

Arabic SKYPE

November 22nd, 2009

Arabic version of Skype site launched – intended to make it easier for Arabic speakers to connect

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Posted in Uncategorized

November 22nd, 2009

A recent FBI report indicates that phishing scams are  more common on social networking sites through a combination of viruses, hacked accounts, and decoy messages. If you’re always on Facebook or Twitter and keep up with the latest funny videos, then think twice before clicking on the next link, image, or video that a friend forwards to you.  More important don’t do it on either your employer’s euipment or a customer’s  computer or you could be in serious  trouble.

A recent report, titled “No, Your Social Networking ‘Friend’ Isn’t Really in Trouble Overseas,” describes scam messages, which  masquerade as warnings related to service agreements or other notifications, and contain malicious code that covertly installs software on victims’ PCs, to laid thieves to steal account names and passwords.

The thieves use the accounts to distribute messages to friends of the victim, requesting large sums of money and to spread the malicious code even further.

The FBI suggests that users should adjust privacy settings to protect personal information, disable options such as photo sharing when possible, and carefully scrutinize links before deciding to click on these, regardless of their apparent source.

The FBI issued its report in conjunction with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which reports that it has recorded nearly 3,200 cases of account hijacking since 2006. For more information on such scams and safeguards, check out www.ic3.gov  or www.lookstoogoodtobetrue.com

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Posted in Security and Compliance, Technology

SQL 2008 R2

November 22nd, 2009

SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces two new premium editions to meet the needs of large scale datacenters and data warehouses.

• SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter •

 SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse

Datacenter is designed to deliver a data platform that provides the highest levels of scalability for large application workloads, virtualization and consolidation, and management for an organization’s database infrastructure.

Datacenter helps to cost effectively scale  mission-critical environments. Key features new to Datacenter:

• Application and Multi-Server Management for enrolling, gaining insights and managing over 25 instances

• Highest virtualization support

• High-scale complex event processing with SQL Server StreamInsight

• Supports more than 8 processors and up to 256 logical processors 

 • Supports memory limits up to OS maximum

Parallel Data Warehouse a highly scalable data warehouse appliance-based solution. Parallel Data Warehouse delivers performance at low cost through a massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture and compatibility with hardware partners – scale your data warehouse to tens and hundreds of terabytes.

Key features new to Parallel Data Warehouse: •

 10s to 100s TBs enabled by MPP architecture

 • Advanced data warehousing capabilities like Star Join Queries and Change Data Capture

• Integration with SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS • Supports industry standard data warehousing hub and spoke architecture and parallel database copy S

 The following capabilities are new to Enterprise:

• PowerPivot for SharePoint to support the hosting and management of PowerPivot applications in SharePoint •

 Application and Multi-Server Management for enrolling, gaining insights and managing up to 25 instances

• Master Data Services for data consistency across heterogeneous systems

• Data Compression now enabled with UCS-2 Unicode support

 The following capabilities are new to Standard

• Backup Compression to reduce data backups by up to 60% and help reduce time spent on backups

• Can be managed instance for Application and Multi-Server Management capabilities

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Posted in SQL, Technology, Uncategorized

EDI Al-Adha

November 19th, 2009

The UAE’s Eid Al-Adha holiday for the private sector will be from November 26 to 28, while the UAE National Day holiday will fall on December 2, the Labour Ministry has announced.

Minister of Labour Saqr Ghobash Saeed Ghobash issued two ministerial circulars announcing the two holidays, the official news agency WAM reported.

According to the first circular the private sector will have a three day paid holiday for Eid Al Adha beginning November 26 until November 28.

The second circular announced a one day paid holiday on December 2 for the 38th UAE National Day.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Big 5

November 19th, 2009

Big 5, will be held at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre from November 23 to 26, 2009

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Posted in Construction Software, Dubai and regional news, Events

Eid Al Adha and the UAE National Day

November 19th, 2009

The Dubai Shopping Festival Office has announced a week of festivities to mark the occasion of Eid Al Adha and the UAE National Day that falls on December 2. The second edition of ‘Eid in Dubai’ – Eid Al Adha will begin on November 27 and culminate with the National Day Celebrations till December 3rd.

Yousif Mubarak, COO of DSF Office said, “For one whole week, Dubai will be the stage of unprecedented festivities and family activities. The DSF Office will be making sure to spread the spirit of Eid and the Glory of the UAE’s 38th National day among locals, expatriates and tourists. Through our carefully planned and chosen events, Dubai will be a first choice destination in the region during the week from 27th November to 3rd of December.”

  • Mamma Mia! On Ice
    Nov 27 – Dec 5, Airport Expo Dubai
  • Disney Princess
    Nov 27 – Dec 3, Dubai Festival City
  • Peter Pan On Ice
    Nov 27 – Dec 20, Arabian Center
  • Fuwallat and Dhiyafat Al Eid, Mall of the Emirates
  • Eidyat Dubai Mega Raffle
  • Eid Celebrations District – Dubai Festival City
    Nov 27 – Dec 2
  • Eid Carnival, Mall of the Emirates,
    Nov 27 – Dec 2
  • Eid Concert – Googoosh Live in Dubai, 9:30pm
  • Nov 29, Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Sheikh Rashid Hall

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Posted in Dubai and regional news

New Qatar tax law for companies,

November 19th, 2009

New Qatar tax law for companies, not individuals -New income tax law to apply to revenues of corporations from 1 Jan 2010 – (official)

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Posted in Dubai and regional news

Mixed economic views

November 19th, 2009

Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi – inflation falls to 20-year low – 1% for first 10 months of 2009

UBS predicts slow recovery for property sector, says prices may slip further 30%.  Some predict that Dubai property market ‘may take 10 years to rebound’

Qatar house prices set to fall 15% next year

New survey of 1,221 GCC white collar professionals reveals long hours

Arabian Business survey shows only 8% are more confident than previous quarter.

52% consumers still pessimistic over 2010 – poll

 

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Posted in Dubai and regional news