Chances are someone has already snapped up a small business owner’s first choice domain name. As a result, many small business owners have settled for less than perfect alternatives, leading to dissatisfaction, and in some cases, lost business. A new survey by Wakefield Research, found that nearly half of small business owners are not completely satisfied with their current domain name.
The survey was conducted among 500 small business owners at companies with 100 employees or less, between April 19-29, 2013, using an email invitation and an online survey. Among other things, the results show that:
- 49% of small business owners tried more than one domain name before settling on their current one
- 55% believe they have lost business by not having their first choice domain name
- 52% would change their current domain name given the opportunity
The survey shows that the vast majority of small business owners lack the knowledge necessary to make informed domain name buying decisions. For instance, when choosing a domain name, 63% of small business owners fail to even consider the domain name’s “extension” (that is, the letters that come to the right of the dot, like .org, .com, .co, etc.); and upward of 80% do not consider the name’s potential impact on critical business drivers, like social and mobile media.
First things first: I’m not complaining. We’ve lived here a long time because we like it here. I won’t bore you with all our ‘reasons to be cheerful’ but suffice to say they are legion.
But there’s a report in today’s Gulf News, which talks about how 60% of young Emiratis surveyed are apprehensive but not frightened of the UAE’s overwhelmingly expat demographic – 85% of the overall population here is expat – it’s higher in Dubai, which is 90% expat.
That’s nothing new. The UAE population has been numerically dominated by its expat workforce since the year dot.
Buried deep in GN’s long analysis of why this is really good news for everyone is an interesting figure, though. According to a certain Dr. N. Janardhan, the average expat makes a contribution to the state of Dhs 2,507 while the state invests Dhs 14,066 a year in each expat.
I’m afraid I rather screeched to a halt. I’m sure Dr Janardhan’s figures are skewed by the preponderance of the UAE’s labourers, but I can tell you that I for one am paying a great deal more than Dhs 2,507 in fees and taxes. And yes, I know the UAE’s tax free, but when you charge a fee as a percentage of a transaction, for instance the tenancy contract registration fee, calling it a fee is really just obfuscation.
I got to Dhs 8,000 pretty easily and hadn’t even started down the road of the cost of power here (which is significantly more than in the UK, despite the fact this is an oil producing country, because the expats subsidise the Emiratis). Try as I might, I couldn’t work out where the Dhs 14,066 comes from, because you pays for what you gets here, from healthcare to transportation.
It started me wondering what the cost vs economic contribution would be for yer average expat. In short, what’s our ROI?
A motorhome usually comes with what looks like a little apartment or loft inside the vehicle. Depending on the size, most motorhomes have kitchenette, dining and recreational areas inside the motorhome. It’s like a home on wheels.
If you are interested in purchasing a motorhome, be sure you do your diligent search. A motorhome or RV is similar to buying any vehicle. Choose what you want before you visit the dealer, determine and stick to your budget, and decide why you want the motorhome. Motorhomes or RVs are large leisure vehicles that people travel in around the country.
The motorhome dealer is all about making money more than making sure you’re getting the best RV for your money. There are ways to make sure you get the best deal when purchasing a motorhome.
Stick with the budget
Before you head out to buy a motorhome, be sure you know the type of motorhome you want and the features that you want. Don’t let your eyes get your pocketbook in trouble. Know how much you can spend and stick with it. Emotions can blur our thinking easily. And all too often, most of us experience buyer’s remorse after purchasing something because we let our eyes and emotions get the best of us. So, try to avoid doing something that will cause you to regret purchasing a motorhome. Make up your mind what you want before you leave the house.
Determine how much your budget is and how much you can truly afford to spend on a motorhome, and stick to it. Can you afford a new or used motorhome? What features can you afford? What other expenses will arise with the motorhome and make sure you have those covered. Make sure your reason for buying a motorhome is a reasonable one. Not just because you like the way it looks or someone else you know has one. Having a motorhome may not be for everyone. Be sure you understand the costs involved, like repairs, gas, etc.
Select the right model
Find a model that you are interested in and stick with it. You can search for motorhomes online or at dealerships. It’s best to shop online first to avoid the hassles of dealing with a salesman before you are really ready to buy anything. Search online and read reviews about the type of motorhome you are interested in. Find out the different features, gas mileage, cost of repairs, operation, pros and cons, and of course, the cost.
For more information about motorhomes, visit JustRVs website. If you know anyone who owns a motorhome, ask them if they can give you any advice. Ask can you ride in the motorhome so you can get a feel of what it’s like. You can attend a motorhome show too. Or, you can rent a motorhome for a weekend and try it out. This will help you make a better decision and help you to decide quickly once you go to the dealership.
Determine The Usage
Decide what you will be using the motorhome for. Will it be long or short trips, will you travel often, do you want a motorized or towed model, how much space do you want, and so on.
A motorhome is big investment, but if you make the right choice it’s an investment you will definitely enjoy and one that will make your travels enjoyable. American motorhomes are looking for A class RV’s. Visit the site, if you are interested in selling your RV.
Sandra has written several career-related articles for various websites for more than seven years. She loves to travel and write.
Originally posted at 3 Basic Tips for Purchasing a Motorhome
Dubai’s largest construction company, Arabtec, has faced a relatively well co-ordinated labour dispute over the past few days, with UAE media reporting on the affair being somewhat patchy to say the least.
Gulf News in its story today says the company’s Abu-Dhabi based workers refused to leave their accommodation on Saturday, with Dubai-based workers refusing to work the following day. However, yesterday’s Gulf News story “Arabtec workers return to work” is at odds with 7Days’ front page splash yesterday, which ran with ‘workers down tools’ in its story, ‘How can we feed our families with Dhs750‘?
The Abu Dhabi workers were based at the ‘model’ Saadiyat Island labour camp, with TDIC, Abu Dhabi’s tourist authority and the master developer of Saadiyat Island (where Arabtex is building the Louvre) telling 7Days yesterday all ‘workers have reported for work as usual’.
7Days’ piece yesterday talked of ‘hundreds’ of workers on strike, with Gulf News talking about ‘thousands’ of strikers. Reuters goes with the ‘thousands’ figure in its story, run by GN today, which has Arabtec as stating ‘the delivery of projects was unaffected by what it called a partial labour stoppage.’
Rather than running a Reuters file about a labour dispute on its own doorstep, 7Days today uses that old skill, journalism, to report on the end of the strike, saying that at least 6,000 workers had been involved in the work outage but they now felt they had ‘no choice but to return to work as they are poor men’.
Quotes from both sides of the dispute point to a minority leading the majority to take action, which is hardly a surprise. Some workers had talked about being pressurised to join the strikers. And while it’s fashionable to wring one’s lace hankie and bemoan the fate of the UAE’s labourers, these men signed contracts to work for that salary and are being housed in the best quality labour accommodation in the country. They are by no means the worst off – I have heard of Sri Lankan workers’ wages in the garment industry here being more in the line of Dhs 400 a month.
It’s also worth noting here that their pay, while a pittance by Western standards, is double the minimum wage in much of India and as much as four times the minimum wage in the worst-paid parts of the country. Bangladeshi labourers are comparatively much better off, earning over five times their country’s national minimum wage.
On that same comparative scale, a British minimum wage labourer would be pulling in over $8,000 a month in the UAE, with food and accommodation paid for.
And before you pile into me for pointing out this very inconvenient truth, here’s another one for you. We are all here in the Gulf on the back of minimum wage Asian labour – it’s helping to fund our cosy expat lifestyles. And as you hammer the keyboard of your Mac to leave me an infuriated comment, reflect for a second how happy you were to buy that cut-price product made on the back of minimum wage Chinese labour (paid less, incidentally, than the Arabtec guys) working in conditions so harsh several have taken their own lives and anti-suicide netting is strung up in their labour accomodation.
Labour conditions in the UAE have improved immensely over the past twenty years and are likely better than those of neighbouring countries and although those conditions don’t sit well with European sensibilities at times, still the labour comes here because this is still a comparatively better place to be for all of us, labourers included.
Meanwhile, Arabtec has apparently said it will hold the ringleaders ‘accountable for their actions’, which doesn’t really strike that warm fuzzy peach note of conciliation. Bear in mind, too, Arabtec would hardly be pleased at the prospect of increasing the payroll by Dhs200 a month (the strikers’ apparent demand) – that’s a cool Dhs1.2 million loaded on the monthly payroll if we took just the strikers into consideration. But ArabTec employs 52,000 people according to its website. So that’d be around Dhs 10 million in extras every month.
Of course, quite apart from the massive cost, a wage increase now would also be seen to be rewarding the strike action. I can’t see it happening, somehow – whether we, from the comfort of our armchairs, would like it to or not.
The Incredibles may finally be getting a long overdue sequel as its writer and director Brad Bird has finally gone on record confirming his willingness to develop a followup to his 2005 superhero satire. With Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol being Bird’s second attempt of doing a Bond like movie, following The Incredibles, it is not surprising that he may take Pixar back to the source of his success with The Incredibles II.
“I’ve been thinking about it. People think I have not been, but I have. Because I love those characters and love that world. I am stroking my chin and scratching my head. I have many, many elements that would work really well in another (Incredibles) film, and if I can get ‘em to click together, I would probably wanna do that…”
Brad Bird
So who is going to be helming the next episode of the rebooted Bond franchise? Probably Christopher Nolan (pictured above) as The Daily Mail broke the story that he has been approached by the Bond producers to possibly direct. With his version of a Bond movie, the seminal Inception, coupled with his gritty re-imagining of the Batman character being hugely successful, this director’s name has been constantly linked to the official Bond franchise. How this could come to fruition only time will tell, as Nolan is already in pre-production for Interstellar.
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| Courtesy of Umbridge1986 |
Moving away from Bond, the pre-production for Independence Day 2 which now goes under the title of ID Forever, is well on the way with director Roland Emmerich spilling the beans on what to expect.
Although the cast list has yet to be confirmed it is expected that at the very least Bill Pullman will return in the new movie, with the primary focus of the stories being on a new generation of characters. One of them will be Will Smith’s character’s stepson.
The next two chapters in the trilogy (yes there is also going to be a part 3) are currently being developed back to back, with a story Emmerich says will be set in a ‘parallel history’, following the years after the events in the first movie. Furthermore if these films are successful, expect to see a whole ‘series’ of Independence Day movies.
”That’s actually what we talked a lot about – the mythology of why did the aliens come in the first place, what is the bigger story of this whole thing? And we talked a lot about swarm intelligence, and humans are individual intelligence. Even though we kill each other and have wars against each other, we have something special. We have this domino human spirit to believe in good and over coming enemies.
”And it’s a little bit about that and when you get a bigger mythology going, I think then you have the chance to do not only one or two or three but you can create a series and that’s what we want to do.”
Roland Emmerich
So ZZ Top make it to Bethlehem but have still not played in Dubai? I think this attitude lets their fans down.
This has to be the oddest diet advice I have ever seen on the pages of Gulf News.
Ten litres a day, with little change to diet or exercise?
This chap must have spent most of the day on the loo.
Gulf News’ Bassma Al Jandaly reports today on the case of an Indian university lecturer who has been held by Dubai police, while on a visit to the country, for defamation. Arrested on the 5th May, two weeks later he’s still in Dubai, out on bail but with his visa held by police.
The lecturer worked for a “private university” in Dubai’s Academic City. According to the story in GN, police confirmed the man had his contract terminated without reason by the university – Dubai courts found in his favour and he had received his end of service benefits.
However, returning to India, the lecturer appears to have indulged in the activity known as the grinding of the axe. I think I found his blog, which makes for highly entertaining reading and lets the university have it in no uncertain terms with remarkable vigour and an almost obsessive degree of staying power. Although comments are turned off and the YouTube videos have been made private, the rest of the content is up there and there is certainly plenty of ‘masala’ on offer.
The university’s response was apparently to lodge a defamation case against the man at Rashidiya police station. And so when he travelled from the US, where he is based according to GN, to the UK and stopped off to see his Dubai-based wife, his collar was comprehensively felt.
In a rare moment of sheer cravenness I’m not going to link to his blog because I can’t be entirely sure this is indeed the blog in question (given there are no names in the story, I found a blog that seems to fit the bill quite nicely by Googling “dubai university lecturer india end of service”, as you would) and I’d rather not be joining him over at Rashidiya nick trying to defend myself against a charge of sharing links to material alleged to be defamatory.
It’s interesting (and noteworthy bloggers, tweeters and all you other online commentators – as I pointed out in my last post, in fact) that in the UAE, defamation remains a criminal rather than civil matter. Now covered by the provisions of the UAE’s cyber crime law, the mere accusation of online defamation has resulted in this man’s liberty being taken from him. He can now look forward to a lengthy and expensive trial process unless the defamation case is dropped.
In choosing this course of action, I would argue that The University That Must Not Be Named has ensured greater reputational harm will ensue from this affair than if it had chosen not to pursue a criminal case of defamation in the UAE.
However, in the meantime, our lecturer friend would appear to be in rather a lot of hot water…
Warning: Very mild spoilers.
Part two of the semi rebooted franchise starts of with a bang and continues to gain momentum right up until the end credits. Star Trek Into Darkness aka Star Trek 12, is an exciting action adventure that is clearly quite high on drugs. This steroid fuelled adventure sees the young and painfully inexperienced Captain Kirk battle terrorists from within Starfleet itself as London becomes subject to a homegrown (i.e non alien) terrorist attack, the first of many.
Since 9/11 Hollywood and terrorism have become close bed buddies, with shows and movies like Homeland and Mission Impossible 4 milking the American public’s fear of destruction. Director J.J Abrahms takes a surprisingly liberal look at the subject matter, almost even daring to address it in several shades of grey.
The plot follows the actions of Section 31, a secret Starfleet ‘black ops’ department who were originally created by the writers of the dark 90s TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. There, they were a morally ambiguous organisation that worked under their own autonomy, responsible for unsanctioned assassinations, kidnappings and torture. In Into Darkness they surprisingly play a key role as they struggle to get to grips with a terrorist they unwittingly unleash on the world via less than ethical means. Thus what follows in between the colourful laser fights, the late 1960s fashion and some funny one liners is a morality play on how terrorism ultimately begins at home, and it is the fear of terror that can start wars abroad. Allegorical comparisons to real life concerns that those in power over us may abuse this power under the pretext of protecting us, are explicit here.
Addressing the same issues that were laid out 15 years ago in Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Into Darkness looks at the morality and ethics that accompany today’s War on Terror and asks are the sacrifices of both the freedoms and the lives of a handful of innocent people ever an option if it can end the threat to the lives of millions? While Deep Space Nine never gave a definitive answer to this question despite examining it in detail, Into Darkness being a 2 hour summer blockbuster movie, somewhat glosses over these issues in order to keep the popcorn scooping crowd’s brains entertained and not taxed.
Overall, although Star Trek Into Darkness may not be as good as the 2009 movie as many of its plot elements are directly lifted from the previous instalments – giving it a slightly cut and paste feel – the feature is still good. Although at times the story threatens to go into a darker X-Files/Bourne/Dark Knight territory, it still addresses serious contemporary real world issues in a light and breezy manner ,allowing for the pacing to remain fast, consistent and exciting. 7.5/10
Genre: Sci-fi
Bad Language: Mild
Sex and Nudity: Moderate sexual references
Violence: Mild/Moderate
