VROOOOOOOM!
April 23rd, 2009
Well after playing with the iPhone for a month and discovering all the coolness that comes with it, I finally found a nifty little app so that I can post directly to WordPress from my phone.
It’s really simple to setup and use and the landscape keyboard goes a long way to improve typing speed. Haven’t played around with all the features yet, but this little app might just me to blog more. As a matter of fact, this very post you are reading came right off my iPhone.
For those of you interested you can find more info here.
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February 21st, 2009
I purchased a new motherboard to replace my previous one due to some weird USB issue. I suspect it was software related but I got so frustrated that I decided to just update my hardware. I decided to get the Asus P5Q3 (much to the disappointment of my friend) that supports DDR3 memory, built in WiFi, two lan adapters, and a feces-load of other features.
VROOOOOOOM!
First thing that caught my attention right out of the box is how racecar-like the motherboard looks. I mean, it’s a stationary piece of hardware with no moving parts, but it looked like it could do zero to two hundred in 2 seconds flat.
Second thing that impressed me is the Express Gate feature. From boot to web in 5 seconds (practically it’s a little longer but impressive none-the-less).
Third thing that caught my eye (and the reason for the title of this post) was what Asus calls a Qconnector. Very simple concept really. Its a seperate module that allows you to connect all front panel and chasis cables to it which then connects (very easily) to the motherboard.
Genious!
It’s two-thousand-freakin-nine and they just thought to do this? One of the things I hated the most when building was connecting those microscopic little plugs. I can’t believe it took the industry this long to come up with a (simple) solution. How they haven’t standardized the plugs into one universal connector is beyond me. They (whoever ‘they’ may be) are so caught up on making us consumers buy new RAM and new CPUs every 6 months that they miss the simplest details.
Ho hum…
What can you do except bitch about it on your blog?
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February 21st, 2009
Yes I know it’s almost the end of Feburary, and the typical excuse is work got the better of me, but to be honest… it did. I actually forgot that this blog existed; it’s been out of my mind for a long time.
Three days ago I got fed up with everything. This has been the worst month for me as far back as I can remember. I have never had so many things go wrong within such a short time frame in my life. I’m starting to think that there is a higher power out get me for all those bad things I did in 2008. All I can say is…
I HAVE LEARNED MY LESSON! PLEASE STOP!
I know that my problems are absolutely nothing compared to what other people must be going through. It makes me feel petty to complain about my problems, when there are people in Africa dying from hunger and people in the Middle East getting killed by bullets.
It’s all relative I suppose. I really can’t relate to those people as I only have my experiences as a benchmark. That, however, doesn’t make me any less sensative to the pain and suffering that exists in the world.
Putting it in that perspective, I suppose that I really don’t have any problems at all, but I digress.
So the point of all this is, I got fed up. I made all these promises to myself when the year changed but they went out the window when they became too difficult. So I’m taking a step back.
My first priority will be my health, mental and physical. That’s why I’m slowly going to bring back Project:Thinner. For those of you who don’t know what Project:Thinner was/is, it was my first failed attempt to get healthy and lose weight. Hopefully, it wont be the monumental failure that it was the first time. That takes care of the physical part, as for the mental… I will focus on balancing work and life.
My second priority will be work. Specifically, how to be more effective and productive doing it. That means coming up with a system that will allow me to be better organized. I know there are dozens of productivity systems out there, the most famous being GTD, but reading all the criticism, it seems tough to implement. My productivity system will probably be a mashup of a bunch of different techniques, that will be more in tune with he way I work. Right now, I have to invest in Moleskins. 
Last but not least, pixelPLAY… Something needs to be done and soon! Feburary was a really bad month, our worst yet. If this keeps up, I’m afraid I’ll have to close down. I need someone on the outside to help me create a strategy to get more people in the door and spending more time and money while here. Simple offers don’t seem to cut it anymore. The store needs an overall image change and a better focus on what it is we offer.
As I reread, my tasks feel daunting… like a huge mountain before me. However, I’ll never get over it unless I take the first step to climb it, so… here I go!
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December 31st, 2008
5, 4, 2, 1… Ο δήμαρχος της Αθήνας είναι βλάκας. Oh well.
Χρόνια πολλά και καλό 2009!
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December 7th, 2008
A fifteen year old boy, shot by a cop: Tragedy?
Yes.
Does that give people the right to destroy millions of euros worth of property and with that, the livelyhood of many families and individuals?
No.
I wonder if at any time while these so called “anarchists” were throwing rocks at all the storefronts did they realize that they were jepardizing the employement of so many hundreds of people.
After the damage done to Plaisio (Πλαίσιο) on Stournari, I doubt that it will ever open again. That’s about 100 jobs lost. These “anarchists” also destroyed another store down the block from Plaisio causing over 100,000 euros in damage. The owner is a family man with a wife and daughter. All the man could do is cry. His life was ruined. And he wasn’t the only one.
Many of the store owners on Patision (Πατισίων) took to the streets to confront these arnarchists and protect their properties and way of lives. The police were doing nothing (as usual) and the anarchists were getting more and more bold. Our livelyhoods were threatened. Our neighborhood was threatened. We had to take action.
A few of us decided to fight fire with fire. Rocks flew, curses yelled and, in the end, a handful of us managed to push back the gang of “anarchists” two city blocks and out of our neighborhood.
The “anarchists” gave way to our onslaught because they are in reality not a gang of individuals fighting for an ideal, but a bunch of pussies that where there only to have a good time and maybe get a laptop out of it.
Of course, everyone there will probably go back home and tell exhagerated stories (as I am doing) of how we saved our neighborhood and took back the streets. The police was doing nothing to help us, so we helped ourselves.
For me, it was the first time “power to the people” actually meant something.
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December 3rd, 2008
The last 2 days have been crazy. Random restarts and crashes. Internet drop-outs. Electronic chaos…
Having that happen to one computer is stressful enough, but what about when it happens to forty? Apart from the inconvenience of some gamers having to restart, some people lost a lot of important work.
I just hate having to appologize to irrate customers for something like this, but it happened… again… and again… and again… and again…
So after two days of crazy, I came upon the reason and the solution while desperately searching online. I stumbled upon this article in PC World and depending on who you ask, the culprit was either Conficker.a or Downadup.
So cute that they give them names like that. Fact of the matter is, those “cute” WORMs, screwed with my whole network and my reputation as a realiable Internet Cafe went to hell. It’s so hard to gain back an customer’s trust…
It’s one thing to have a problem and fix it, but it was driving me crazy not knowing the reason why the preverbial shit hit the fan.
Lesson learned, I guess. First thing to do when things go wacky? Update Windows! Now I know. And knowing is half the battle!
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November 10th, 2008
I’ve been using a custom version of Kaf Oseo’s post-image plugin for a long time and I decided to release my version to the world to get feedback and see how I can improve on it. This will give me a chance to practice on my php coding and see exactly how difficult supporting a plugin can be (as if I don’t have enough to do already).
What this plugin does is retrieve the images that are associated with a particular post. This plugin has far fewer options than Kaf’s plugin, but offers the ability to choose which image to display.
By no means am I an expert coder, so if I inadvertedly left your site vulnerable somehow with my code… uhmm… sorry. I really didn’t mean it.
Download wpGetImage and try it out!
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October 26th, 2008
So yeah, I re-started my blog and as is the trend, I will begin to make changes live as they come to me. Expect this site to look bad, broken, and sometimes unreadable in the coming weeks.
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October 26th, 2008
Yeah the title sucks, but how else could I have described logo evolution in one word? Anyway, I found a very interesting article over at Hot College Girls Guide to Graphic Design *ehrrm* about the evolution of 50 very popular company logos.
My favorites? Apple’s first logo along with Volkswagen’s swastika-ish logo from before WWII… pretty cool piece of history.
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October 25th, 2008
According to Adobe’s website, the new Creative Suite (CS4) Master Collection costs $2,499. Coverting to euros with today’s exchange rate that’s about 1,970€. With me so far? Good…
Clicking the link to buy the software, I’m taken to Adobe’s Eastern European web store where the price of the same exact piece of software costs 3,386.79€.
Why is adobe charging 1,500€ more in Europe than it is in the States? After some research, I’m not alone in my concerns. There is a discussion on Adobe’s User to User Forums about this very same thing. What’s frustrating, however, is Adobe’s response to all this. I mean, I studied business, but even if I hadn’t, I still would be able to see through their bullshit.
People have gotten very upset, going so far as to start an online petition to solve the problem. The petition was started for Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 and judging by Adobe’s response many had hoped that by the time CS4 was released, european prices wouldn’t be so high.
No such luck… Adobe (as mentioned above) charges 1,500€ more for European markets. At amanwithapencil.com, Nigel Moore argues that Adobe’s price gouging is putting up barriers to entry, allowing US companies to be more competative in the international market, and he is right. I’m just surprised the EU hasn’t stepped in to do something about it.
And they wonder why people pirate software… sheesh!
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