There is an interesting story in The National today on Emirati bloggers. The blog scene in the UAE - at least the English-language one - leaves a lot to be desired, but it is still cool to see it getting some attention and analysis.

One of the most remarkable things about the UAE's blogosphere - or at least the English-language portion of it - is how even-tempered it all is. Ali Gargash, the author of the Dubai Nights blog (dxbnight.blogspot.com) recalls the incendiary spirit in which he began his blogging career four years ago, when he was still in his teens. "When I first started I thought I'd be extremely controversial and all that. I thought that I had to blog under a secret name and everything," he says.

The story talks to the writers of some familiar blogs like Bujassem and An Emirati's Thoughts. I would have loved interviews with the epic trolls Proud Emirati and A Blessing in Tragedy, both of whom have a brilliant talent for annoying foreigners through pitch-perfect obnoxiousness.

Spot On's poll yesterday said that 40 per cent of people are blogging less now because of Twitter. I have basically abandoned my personal blog since twittering began, but have made a solemn promise to start again. There is something about blogs that should stay alive long after the culture of monosyllabic grunts fades away.

- Gulf News explains How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Etisalat How du Made Etisalat Great, explaining that "Etisalat continues to be fondly remembered and - thanks to the arrival of du - its services have improved and its renewed competitiveness has ensured its future prospects."

- Yahoo Maktoob, the biggest regional tech story of the year - and probably the biggest regional business story as well - led to some great pieces of writing. In case you didn't catch them, here are three must-reads. Ahmad Humeid of 360 East reflects on 15 years of Jordanian dotcoms, Fadi Ghandour of Aramex fame reflects in Maktoob Business on what makes a great startup, and Business Week takes the macro view, looking on the deal from a US perspective.

- We all know that Twitter is reducing public discourse to a series of monosyllabic grunts, but today the Jordan Times reports that it has also taken the Jordanian blogosphere to pieces. The evil twitterbeast must go down!

- Are you a media / advertising type who longs for greener pastures? Then head to Abu Dhabi, Business 24-7 reports. Apparently the capital is becoming something of a Big Rock Candy Mountain for those in the media business.

- Fresh from a racy cyber squatting scandal and the Dh7 million VIP.ae domain sale, the UAE telecom regulator will embark on a promotional campaign to get 200,000 new .ae web addresses registered by next year. May the speculative bubble begin!

Samsung have made the first official launch of an Android-powered phone in the Middle East, announcing the I7500 (occasionally known as the Samsung Galaxy) will be available in the UAE and - we guess - across the region.

At Dh2200 ($600), Samsung are certainly pricing this bad boy right at the top of the market, and it will be interesting to see whether they get much traction. Once the market of phone geeks with more money than sense who want to play with Android is tapped out, I'm wondering how many peeps will drop 600 large on something that isn't an iPhone / Nokia / BlackBerry.

Then again, maybe it's awesome and I've got it all wrong. The I7500 / Galaxy has not been out in the wild for long, so there aren't many reviews of it floating around. Generally speaking it has all the features you'd expect (big touch screen, GPS, 5 megapixel cam, Google apps in the operating system), some nice bonuses, like 8 gigs of internal memory.

Read on for a nice long video run-through of the phone, courtesy of Tech 65, and the full specs and press release from Samsung.

- Don't expect any ownership changes at Injazat, the UAEs largest technology outsourcer, even though its joint-venture partner HP is looking at selling off outsourcing assets. As reported in The National today, HP wants to stay put in the venture, which is grabbed some pretty decent new clients in recent months.

- The Seven Million Dirham Domain (VIP.ae) also gets a closer look today in The National, which speaks to its current owner about all the crazy multimillion dirham offers he has been receiving. But he better look out for the long arm of the regulator, because as reported, the TRA says it will look poorly on people registering .ae domain names purely for speculative resale purposes.

- You think Twitter is a bad medium for engaging in meaningful discussion?

Two weeks ago, Arabian Business ran a great story on a man whose registration of a .ae web address was taken away from him by the regulator. He said the decision not only put a cloud over the entry of his business into the UAE, but raised questions about the transparency and reliability of the .ae web domain. The story got a fair bit of play on the web.

About a week later, the TRA hit back, saying the man quoted in the story had registered irena.ae (he represents a British nutritional brand called Irena) in the days following the announcement of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), headquarted in the UAE. He immediately offered the site for resale, the TRA said, basically suggesting that we have a cyber squatter on our hands...

Arabian Business quickly ran a story where the man dismissed the claims. But there seems to be a lot more going on here than it seems. As covered in The National this weekend:

"Someone of the same name as Mr Reed was caught up in a similar dispute brought to the attention of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

In December 2008, the WIPO panel that resolves disputes over internet domain names said a Kevin Reed and his "alias or accomplice", John Pepin, were associated with more than 3,000 domain name registrations, many of which led to trademark-related disputes.

The judgment came in a case in which Mr Pepin lost the rights to the masdarcity.com and masdarcity.net web addresses, in a dispute lodged by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar)."

The whole article a pretty fun reminder of how much more is often going on in the background of what looks like a fairly typical story.

- Can Rupert Murdoch redeem us all, or at least keep the media / internet professionals among us gainfully employed? Today in The National, I ask whether the Sun King's absolutely mind blowing, out-of-the-box concept of charging people for your sevice could be an online game-changer. If anyone can do it, its Lord Murdoq, who like me, started out in the sleepy Australian town of Adelaide.

- Those begging for one more sweet speculative bubble (and who aren't already buying up .ae domain names) might have to wait a fairly long time, but if you're desperate for a fix of the good stuff, there is an IPO coming on the Dubai bourse, Al Ittihad, via Business 24-7, reports. No details yet on the company, industry or anything, really, but according to the paper, it will happen after Ramadan, and is one of three IPOs that have been proposed to the market regulator.

- In truly shocking news, "the local PC assembly segment has no potential for growth in the UAE," Business 24-7 reports, blaming "a lack of government support and changes in customer purchasing patterns." There's a local PC assembly industry? They want government support? As the market floods with cheap laptops and netbooks, the whole idea of a desktop computer is seeming more niche by the day, let alone a desktop that someone goes to the bother of custom making for you.

- Orange has won the rights to operate Jordan's first 3G mobile network, after a long, kind of complicated tender / bidding process. Of all the people in the Middle East who deserve to be blanketed by a lovely high-speed mobile network, Jordanian's take the prize, what, being in the heartland of Arab geekdom and all. As said before, Beep Beep is a big Jordan fan. According to ITP.net, Orange has six months to roll out the network, after which it will get to enjoy a one-year exclusivity period.

Ever had a great idea for a funky little web application, but can barely remember the HTML code to post a link on your blog? Are you a geek wannabe, loving the culture but lacking the deranged mind needed to build an actual piece of working software?

Hope has arrived, and its name is not Barack. Atlas, a new program from the developers at 280 North (of Cappucino and 280 Slides fame), is a browser-based application builder that looks so simple that even the idiot writing this blog could probably work it out in a few decades.

The hard working staff of thousands here at Beep Beep headquarters have been told that the people selling VIP.ae are looking for Dh7 million ($1.9 million). They have already turned down multi-million dirham offers, apparently deeming them too low.

A site like VIP.ae (and horse.ae, which was bought for Dh6 million a couple of weeks ago) is unlikely to be bought for commercial reasons, and I can't imagine many dotcom startups having room in their business model for a seven million dirham domain name.

This is at the nexus of pure vanity purchases and vaguely sound business sense, based on a never-ending vanity bubble, much like the multi-million dollar sales of "premium" license plate numbers. Let us all take a moment to bask in the glory of a bubble whose fundamentals are far stronger than speculative property investment: people with money will always love spending it on silly things, and for that we can all be thankful.

Behold the Thuraya XT, "the world's toughest phone" according to a press release sent out today.

Thuraya, owned by Etisalat, uses a network of satellites to get reception anywhere in the world.  Its phones are popular among people who often find themselves in the corners of the earth where catching a regular signal is tricky. Aid workers, soldiers and explorers find them handy, and now thanks to the XT, not only can you use your Thuraya on a misty mountaintop - you can use it as a bludgeoning tool to lay the smackdown on any half-starved mountain lion that decides to cause you trouble.

Read on for five incredible facts about the Thuraya XT, plus the company press release.

Five things you probably didn't know about the Thuraya X1
(with thanks to www.chucknorrisfacts.com)

- When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for the Thuraya X1.

- The Thuraya X1 doesn't read books. It stares them down until it gets the information it wants.

- There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures the Thuraya X1 has allowed to live.

- Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with the Thuraya X1.

- The Thuraya X1 does not sleep. it waits.

I feel special, like one in 9.6 million, after receiving my very own SMS from the UAE Ministry of Interior warning me to "be aware of falling into SMS calls scams, and never respond to such type of calls."

Say what you want about life in the UAE, but there are plenty of places in the Middle East where you are extremely unlikely to ever hear the phrase "With compliments of Ministry of Interior."