Twit everyone, twit more!
As always Dilbert is amazing. Catches the very point of what Twitter is all about!
P.S. Hmm... Should I twit this comic, or blogging is enough? 
Athens
Finally I visited Athens. Quite strange that it took me so long, as I live in Cyprus and we have like 4-5 flights there a day. Nevertheless this was my first trip.
I must say that I have quite mixed impression from this city. In some sense it reminded me of Russia in 90's. The first thing that one would notice is that its not the cleanest capital in Europe. Dunno if this is related to recent street fights or its the the normal state but all walls and buildings in the very center are covered in graffiti which looks rathe wired on a beautiful antique style main library.
Another observation is that amount of arbitrary street "markets" is vast. Every now and then you'd see people of eastern look selling something right on the street. I doubt that this kind of activity is controlled or allowed and yet there it is!
But what was most striking and what actually reminded me my home are people or rather their looks and expressions on there faces. Somehow I compare what I see with London, as I spent there the last year. Well there everyone seems relaxed, dressed how they like it, not hurrying anywhere . They just live there there lives and apparently happy ones. In Athens, though, people leave impression of stress and concentration. I haven't seen many smiling faces around...
On a bright side, I found that getting around the city to be fairly easy. Metro is very clean and all labels and announcements are repeated in English. But even if this was not the case navigating metro with just three lines is not rocket science 
So for me it was a transportation method of first choice. Much faster than busses and cars with all the traffic around the center.
Being in Athens, there is no way I could miss the opportunity to see Akropolis. I haven't spent much time there. Weather was rather ugly and a great part of it is under reconstruction (apparently a permanent one!). But even what I managed see was great. Having read so much about ancient greece seeing parphenon with own eye was a terrific experience! Wish I spent more time there and wish there was some kind of an audio guide cause I barely understood what those locations were!
A picture worths a thousand words, so here it is!
Giving up on MobileMe
Yeah, I know. I'm not the first one, neither am I the last. But every one got his own reasons. And not everyone describes the alternatives. This is exactly what I will do in this post.
First of all I want to say that MobilMe is great.... for unexperienced users who want something simple that "just works" and is now bloated with functionality they don't even understand. But its missing quite a few bits for the rest of us and bellow you can find detailed "what the hell" list.
- [BLOCKING] Mail doesn't support custom domains. It just doesn't work for me. I don't want to be stuck with the @me.com address for which I have to pay every year! Besides I need to use the SMTP server to send emails from other mail accounts!
- Mail has no server side filters, which kind of strange if you remember that you can actually sync the rules with MobileMe!
- iDisk is rather slow and there is now easy way to send links to public files. I have to send link to my whole public folder (what the hell?). Furthermore, its filled with unnecessary stuff they use for syncing purposes
- Blog engine in iWeb is something beyond my understanding. Why can't I have a web based admin panel like in blogspot?!
- [Half Blocking] Gallery public interface is bloated with JS and buggy in older browsers. So I never know if my friend will be able to open it.
- Bookmarks are not accessible from web interface. Syncing bookmarks between browsers without giving access to them is so not modern! What if I'm traveling and want to check that linked I saved right before living home?
- Mail is of course replaces with GMail! After playing around with IMAP settings and enabling some lab feature I set it up in Apple Mail just perfectly!
- Address Book is synced with Plaxo (www.plaxo.com), which is a fantastic services that allows you sync anything with anything and it's free!
- Calendar... hmm I wanted to sync that with Google but then the plugins are not free and I don't use it that much. But wait! Plaxo can sync it and then sync it with Google. Fantastic
- iDisk is surely replaces with Dropbox. Much cleaner and faster.
- Photo gallery - Picasa from Google
- Bookmarks go back to infamous del.ico.us service. And there is even a plugin for Safari which costs just 10$ (http://delicioussafari.com/). Buy it if you are a heavy user.
- Passwords can be synced with 1Password+Dropbox 1Password is an amazing tool for storing you secure information. 40$ and it worths every cent!
- Blog... well that can go anywhere. Why not blogspot, we have google account anyway.
Posting short notes to Blogger
Sometime I really feel like sharing wiht my readers something cool I came accross online. But going to blogger page, starting new post... argh too much hassle. And then I forget about it.
Now I found and ultimate solution! Turns out Google has a couple of dashboard widgets, one of them is just that a tiny and simple blogger client. yay! hopefully I'll post more often now
Check it out: http://www.google.com/macwidgets/
Ouch… Linux hurts after Mac!
For the last half year I was working almost exclusively on Macs both at home and at work. But now went on vacation and took my laptop with me. I used to think of my HP 6710s with 2Gb ram running ubuntu as a perfect workplace. Not any more! Man, it hurts having to work on anything but OSX now.
Anyone willing to trade it for a MacBook? 
Google Notifier in Leopard menu
Google Notifier is a "must have" if you are have GMail/Google Calendar like I am. It does its job, but doesn't look that nice in Leopard (10.5.x) menu. All icons there are black and white and gmail stands out shining in all colors. As usual, someone already fixed it! Have a look at this post .
P.S. Thanks to http://www.pajbam.com!
Лучшее, что я читал о БАК!
Дым рассеивается, у ворот рая стоят Равшан и Джумшут в белых халатах и в очках.
Открываются ворота.
Выходит Апостол Петр (Светлаков)
- Э, вы че тут делаете?
- А, щьто делаим? Э ми тут...
- Я вас спрашиваю, что у вас там бабахнуло?
- Бабащнуль, да сильна, бабащнуль белемге калайдер сламался,
нащяльника...
- Коллайдер? Да вы там ваще охренели что ли? Да вы поняли, что вы там
натворили? Вы нахрена его ваще строили?
- Хигис деляли...
- Какой еще хигис?
- Бозонма хигис делали... Адин сделали, фтароой сделали, и вместе их два
один сделали...
- Вы их че, столкнули что ли?
- Нет, нащяльника, защема сталкнули... Проста разагнали быстра... ощеня
быстра... они сами станълкнулися, нащяльника... а патооом, патооом
эжембе пещельбехъ бихтимиле шайтанама!
- Ну вы ваще придурки! Ну нахрена вам это было надо? Еще один Большой
Взрыв захотели?
- Зрыв бальшой, нащяльника, ощеня бальщой зрыв, шайтан - бабащнуль
калайдерма кирьдихълар..
- Ну, хрен с вами, заходите, экспериментаторы, блин.
- А там еще за нами потом заходить будут...
- Вы че, идиоты, кроме себя еще кого-то угробили?
- Защем угробили...? Не угробили, там калайдерма сламался...
- Ладно, сколько вас там
- Щесь милиардав... С половинама...
Virginia Water
Недавно меня один приятель просвятил, что совсем рядом с нашим универом есть чудесный парк Virginia Water, а в прошедшее воскресение не только расказал, но и показал! За что ему огрмоное человеческое спасибо!
Парк десйтвительно впечатляет! Если бы не аккуратные тропинки и высажаные в каком-то особом порядке кусты, можно было бы подумать, что это лес. Очень тяжело описать его. Лучше смотрите!
P.S. Надеюсь я туда поеду еще и сделаю куда больше фотографий.
If I had to choose just ONE podcast…
Если бы я мог слушать только один подкаст - это был бы FLOSS Weekly. Leo Laporte и Randal Schwartz беседуют с наиболее выдающимися людьми в истории OpenSource. Это и Ward Cunningham - создатель концепции Xtreme Programming и Wiki, и Richard Hipp - создатель SQLite, и, даже, Rasmus Lerdorf - автор PHP. И многие, многие другие.
Из этих интервью вы узнаете о том как зарождались технологии, которыми мы столь активно пользуемся сейчас, как они развивались и что нас ждет в будущем. Гости передачи деляться своим богатым опытом и взглядом на многие технические вопросы.
Каждая передача пронизана духом Open Source, ведь почти ни одна из этих технологий не стала бы на сотую долю столь популярна (или вообще умерла в зародыше) если бы ее автор не решил отдать свои идеи и наработки сообществу и продолжал бы на протяжении многих лет поддерживать и развивать свое детище. Для многих это стало постоянной и довольно хорошо оплаачиваемой работой, как, например, для создателя SQLite.
