I just got invited to become a user of Gmail, Google e-mail service. The lucky invitation came through the fact that I was a Blogger.com(Google's blogging service) user and some Blogger users (not all, I hear) are getting the invitation. What's next ? All orkut(Google's social networking service) users ?
I'll post a review of Gmail soon.
I'm considering to switch blogging back to Bulgarian. If anybody out there is reading this and would like me to keep it in English, simply post a comment.
Deep Purple (with Ian Gilian and Steve Morse) are coming on a concert somewhere at the end of June. I couldn't get a ticket at first, but the local agent released more tickets and this time I managed to get one. There is a rumor floating around that Metallica are coming to Iceland this summer as well. The Metallica site says July 4th - Reykjavik. No tickets out yet.
No credit card yet. Some banks want credit history for even the simplest cards, others issue you a credit card with nice discounts and benefits with no problems. I'm still waiting for mine though.
Thursday 22 Apr was a national holiday. The beginning of summer. According to Icelandic tradition summer begins on this day. It is celebrated by giving presents to children and hanging around town. The "night" is becoming shorter and shorter. The civil night length is under 6 hours already. Sun set to sun rise is under 8h. On May 10th sun set to sun rise will be under 6 hours. From May 20th and on there is no civil night. Between June 10th and July 10th - sun set to sun rise is below 3 hours.
Eti's digital camera is in Reykjavik, waiting for some customs processing stuff. Anyway the price of the same camera here is about 40% higher than buying it from the States, shipping and taxes. I'll keep you posted on the quality of the gadget when I get to play with it. The camera is a prosumer class camera - Sony DSC-V1. Extremely small and lightweight for the price and features. Good value for money. I'll post sample shots to UrbanStyle and here somewhere next week. The next batch of Nikon D70 cameras is in stores. Wait for next salary and I'll order mine. Infrared photography is the next artistic thing I'll be looking into.
I bought a microwave oven with grill yesterday. Microwave popcorn is good. Haven't tried it for anything else yet. It is amazing how simple things have become to use. All you need to do is read a 5-page manual with pictures and examples and you are a ready microwave oven operator. Yet there are certain annoyances with my oven, especially the loud _beep_ sound every time you press a button.
There it goes again. Sitting in the office on the nice Internet connection, surfing, poking around orkut and what not. And the reason I am here is that some two hours ago I came in to take my PC, go home and study Icelandic. Not that I did it.
There is nothing funky around me these days. Bear with me. Nice posts will be back as soon as there is something interesting around me.
There is some stuff cooking in my head, but it is too early to share.
The case of the 500-mile email
high speed ravioli
I tried to scan a few of my photos today, but our nice HP scanner here in the office refused to work.
I first didn't manage to find damn thing's drivers CD.
Then downloaded the driver from HP's site. It didn't work.
Called a colleague, who said that another colleague had the same problem, and that I should use the CD instead of the downloaded drivers. He also pointed that the CD is somewhere around his desk. Nice.
Uninstalled, unplugged. Installed from the CD. Rebooted, plugged the scanner. Nope, It does not want to move the lamp for a preview scan, and says that maybe another application is trying to use it at the same time.
Tried to connect the scanner to another PC. Discovered that the power supply was the wrong one. Replaced the power supply. It didn't work on my PC with to correct PS. It didn't work on the other PC either. So the problem was not the power cube after all.
This seems to be a software problem.
Damn technology. Our scanner does not work and I spent half day to try and make it work.
What did I get of the whole exercise? A rant in my blog and albums full of not scanned nice photos.
Since I learned to snooze my alarm clock while sleeping and I don't even remember doing so after that, I bought a new one. This time it is a radio clock, so it will play until I wake up and walk to it to switch it off. Hopefully this new (for me) technique of waking up will be more effective. The previous clock will be donated to my girlfriend in the near future. This will probably keep the beast happy for a day or two. I'm kidding, of course. :)
I also bought a hands free set for my GSM only to discover that the exact model I bought does not fit my phone. The one that I bought is for siemens 55/62 series and my phone is a siemens ME45. Eti will get this thing as well.
I notice too many strange numbers on cars lately like -
997 which is one of the frequency plans for VDSL.
255 - 28-1.
Some strange labels all around as well -
CEF - damn, am I a geek. Cisco Express Forwarding
I will relocate the blog soon. Tomorrow seems like a good day for this task.
Google announced that they will start a free e-mail service with 1GB of storage here. Apr 3. It now appears that Gmail was not a joke.
Google hiring for jobs on the moon ? here (via anima).
Joro Chorbadjijski has been hit by a car here (in Bulgarian)
orkut.com continues to be a leader in technical innovations and is pleased to announce "Telepathic orkut" on its orkut social networking service. "Telepathic orkut is a breakthrough in online technology," comments Orkut Buyukkokten, the engineer credited with the invention. Users can now logon to orkut, create their profile and then telepathically fill in their deepest desires which only members of their network can receive. This is a huge differentiator between all the other run-of-the-mill social networking sites where users have to manually type in their personal and professional profiles. Prior to software development, Buyukkokten was trained to communicate with Siberian Tigers in Moscow.
No further updates to this post.
I'm just moving in to this host for my blog. I will eventually put some design touch to the new place. You know, buy IKEA furniture and pictures, paint the walls, etc.