Archive | Lebanon

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – May 27th 2015

By Rami on May 27, 2015 in Lebanon

Another week goes by and it’s time again for my picks from Lebtivity. I’m personally planning to attend “Tout tout a Beirut” in Hamra and “Marché du livre” in Jbeil.

Make sure to check Lebtivity.com for more ideas, and don’t forget to participate in their 3rd anniversary competition.

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – May 20th 2015

By Rami on May 20, 2015 in Lebanon

Below are my picks for this week from Lebtivity. My personal favorite events for this week are The Garden Show & Spring Festival, Cabriolet Film Festival, and Yasmine Hamdan Concert at O1NE Beirut.

It’s also worth mentioning that the cool people at Lebtivity are currently celebrating their 3rd anniversary and for the occasion they’re holding a massive competition in which 33 lucky winners will receive 3 gifts each over a period of 3 weeks. Participating is pretty simple and consists of answering 2 simple questions on their Lebtivity Facebook page.

For additional options, don’t forget to check out Lebtivity.com.

My take on new bidding websites BidAffairs and BidZeed

By Rami on May 19, 2015 in Lebanon

bidaffairs

Every once in a while Lebanon buzzes about certain type of websites. A few years ago group deals websites were mushrooming everywhere, and right now seems the time for auction websites like BidZeed.com and BidAffairs.com.

Judging by their names these website first seem like regular bidding websites, but the process of purchasing their offered items has little to do with the real concept of bidding.

To be able to participate in the ongoing auctions, you first start with buying a number of bids ($17.5 per 25 bids at BidAffairs for example), and from then on each bid you place will increase the price of the item by one cent, and at the end of the auctions you end up paying for the bids you have placed ($0.7 for every single bid) in addition to the final price of the item. So for example if an item in fact costs $500 and got sold for $10 (1000 bids), then the website will earn $0.7 x 1000 + $10 = $710, while the user will end up paying for the number of placed bids plus the final item price.

Some people will consider such deals a steal, but I tend to see it more as gambling since each bid you place is non-refundable. Assuming you place 20 bids and don’t end up winning then you practically have paid $14 for nothing, and there’s actually a high probability for this to happen since the website keeps on extending the auction end time by 15 seconds each time someone places a bid. So it’s not like the whole thing is limited by a clear time-frame in order for users to try to make use of the last few seconds.

I wouldn’t go as far as calling such websites a scam, but they just don’t feel right to me.

Update:

BidZeed team e-mailed me last night to let me know about a feature I missed on their website called “Buy Now”. In case you weren’t the highest bidder at the end of an auction, this feature will allow you to purchase the selected item at retail price while deducting the value of the bids you have spent from the original price.

I thought it’s worth updating the post to mention that such feature exists since it differentiates BidZeed from other similar websites and gives you the option to not waste your bids for nothing, given that you of course want to purchase the item in question at the price set on their website.

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – May 13th 2015

By Rami on May 13, 2015 in Lebanon

Here’s my pick of events from Lebtivity for this week. My top three favorites that I hope I’ll be able to attend are Beirut street food festival, the sand competition at Tyr’s Rest House, and the Garten opening.

Don’t forget to check Lebtivity.com for many more options!

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – May 6th 2015

By Rami on May 6, 2015 in Lebanon

Lot of cool events are happening this week but I personally found the most interesting one to be the screening of the “On The Rails” documentary by Zeina Haddad which includes stories from the employees who used to work in the railways. The event is taking place this Monday at the UNESCO palace.

Don’t forget to check Lebtivity from endless other options.

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – April 29th 2015

By Rami on April 29, 2015 in Lebanon

It’s time again for a new round of events picked from Lebtivity. Make your choices wisely!

Don’t forget to check Lebtivity.com for many additional options.

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – April 22nd 2015

By Rami on April 22, 2015 in Lebanon

Ever since I had a kid I started valuing the car free days that are set around Beirut every now and then much more! So needless to say, among the below event I picked from Lebtivity for this week, I’m mostly excited for the “Discover Armenia Street” this weekend by Achrafieh 2020!

Don’t forget to also check the endless option over at Lebtivity.com.

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – April 15th 2015

By Rami on April 15, 2015 in Lebanon

The biggest thing happening this week is HORECA which is one of the region’s big exhibitions for hospitality and F&B companies, so expect a buzz about it on the foodie blogs as of Monday!

For more options, you can always check Lebtivity.com.

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – April 8th 2015

By Rami on April 8, 2015 in Lebanon

It’s time again for the weekly picks from Lebtivity. Being a fan of Game of Thrones, my favorite event this week is definitely the season 5 premiere screening at Metro Al Madina.

For more options, don’t forget to check out Lebtivity.com.

Volatile Cedar – A Cyber Espionage Operation by Lebanese Hackers

By Rami on April 2, 2015 in Lebanon

governmnet-cyber-espionage-conspiracy1

Check Point Software Technologies, an Israeli IT Security firm, reported a couple of days ago the unveiling of a cyber espionage campaign that hit more than 10 countries including Lebanon, Israel, USA, Canada, UK, Japan, Peru, and Turkey, and traced back to Lebanese hackers with possible ties to some active political group (hinting at Hezbollah).

The operation was called “Volatile Cedar”, and experts claimed it has been ongoing since 2012 with targets being carefully chosen and ranging from defense contractors to telecom and media companies. Attackers infiltrated these organizations by mainly compromising their web servers and planting malware on them, and then waiting for server administrators to simply plug in some USB devices which led to infecting other servers and workstations. Check Point however did not provide additional information about neither the affected organization nor the nature of data that has been stolen.

I personally found the news quite surprising because such big espionage operations are usually sponsored by governments, and we all know we don’t have a cyber bureau in charge of similar things here. So one cannot but admire Hezbollah for their capabilities if it was really them behind it, and at the same time feel worried about some big firms being infiltrated like banks and our two mobile operators!

If you’re interested in learning more about the Volatile Cedar operation, you can download this document by Check Point with a lot of interesting technical information about the used malware.

← Previous 1 … 11 12 13 … 97 Next →