Area51, here be raliens

• Thoughts about children toys
• Children, educational software, another suite for children
• Calibrating a CRT monitor
• File name starting with a dot, what's the problem?
• Defeating keyloggers
• Free online Unicode character map
• Flip-text (Unicode in all its glory :-)
• Michael Crawford, Geometric visions - although I am not a fan of this type of music, I appreciate the fact that the author is sharing it with us
• Microsoft Office Word team blog
• Free audiobooks
• Timeline creator
• Canon digital cameras, how to squeeze more out of them; power consumption in Canon digital cameras
• Google chart API + Python bindings
• Setting up multimedia keys in Windows XP
• Steve's tagging for museum exhibits - the concept is very close to the previously discussed image labeling tool
• Python print statement with a twist

Note, it is likely that such posts will soon be rendered obsolete by my delicious profile.

"I often catch myself thinking about it. Is it because I'm not very good at relationships, not being involved in a serious one, in spite of the fact that I'm 22? Is it because most of my friends have already dated at least 5 partners? Is it because some of my peers are already married, or have become parents? Is it because of the Internet? Hollywood? Music?
Hmm... It seems that I'm so much behind the rest of the world that I will never be able to catch up. Is this true? And if it is, is it bad? And if it is, can I change that?

Read more »

Cred că a vrut să scoată în evidenţă ineficienţa acestui mod de a transmite un mesaj: dacă un şofer deja a acoperit inscripţia "nu", atunci altul care vine, vede doar "parcaţi" - şi consideră că poate staţiona acolo. Apoi, când primul vehicul pleacă, rămâne doar inscripţia "nu", care nu transmite nici-un mesaj altor şoferi care vor trece prin zonă.

Deci, acest "indicator" lucrează doar atunci când locul este 100% liber, iar eficienţa acestuia depinde de decenţa primului şofer (dacă decide să parcheze, oriunde nu o face - va rămâne doar o parte a mesajului, deci se pierde esenţa acestuia). Desigur, ceilalţi şoferi pot presupune ce scrie în partea care lipseşte, dar oare o vor face?

În final, câteva vechi surprize noi de la Orange. Oferta este optimizată pentru piaţa din Moldova, aceasta se vede de la o poştă - au scris în paranteze cum să pronunţăm corect numele serviciului. De ce au decis că nu e bine să găsească un nume în română?

• Să nu-i supere pe acei care vorbesc doar rusa?
• Sau poate au vrut un nume care sună în acelaşi mod în ambele limbi?

Au găsit soluţia optimală, alegând un nume care sună "echivalent de bine" şi în rusă, şi în română; ofensându-i şi pe unii, şi pe alţii :-)

Nu ştiu de ce ei consideră că e mai bine să spună "pripei":

• Ne învaţă să vorbim în engleză?
• Sau ne învaţă cum să nu vorbim în engleză? (mai bine scriau "pripăi")
• Sau ne învaţă cum să vorbim in engleză, dar să se simtă că suntem vorbitori de română?

Orange, mulţumesc pentru lecţie, acum vor fi posibile aşa scenarii:

Un moldovean în Moldova, intră în magazinul Orange:
- Buna ziua, cât costă 3 kg de pripei?
- 45 lei

Îi transmite banii, primeşte produsul, pleacă.

Un moldovean în Anglia, intră în magazinul Orange:
- Hello, do you have any pripei?
- So, how are things in Moldova?

That's it, Noteman is now open source - a tool for taking notes, sorting them by categories; designed for quick and easy access to the collected information.

This is a program I wrote some years ago; before any kind of formal education in programming - see the details in the sections that will follow.

At its time it was pretty successful, I relied on it, and a couple of my friends still use it (it has been more than 7 years). I promised I would release updates, but somehow I never had the time to actually do that.

Here is the program itself - download Noteman 4.0, there is a readme in the archive, with a detailed description of what it does, what the features are, and how they are used.

Some stuff about the feature set (from the fine manual):

NoteMan v4 (tLPT) The Lazy Ppl's Tool (tm), features

• As many note-windows as you wish
• Custom colors for each tab in the window
• Customizing Hotkeys
• Beep @ sharp hour
• Auto-add to registry (if neccessary)
• Configuration in ini-file
• Auto-Calculate form size and position and write the values in the ini (also automatically)
• Auto-Save the notes
• Icon in the systray that offers control of the program
• 15 TimeReminders (see Reminders in pop-up)
• Custom actions for TimeReminders, Shutdown PC added. works in 2k as well
• unlimited number of DayReminders (via ini)
• Install/Uninstall using command line params

Disable/Enable

• hotkey usage
• dayreminders
• wordwrapping
• tabs
• text centering

Changing

• Font type
• Font size
• Color of the text (in RGB)
• Color of the background (in RGB)
• Form Size
• Form Location
• Primary and secondary hotkeys
• TimeFormat mask

It also comes with a nifty feature that allowed me to use free dial up internet from Relsoft (and other providers); they had a free login/name that you could use for 15 minutes if you dialed precisely at a sharp hour. If you call and someone else made it ahead of you - tough luck. With Noteman's help I was able to log in almost all the time - the program renders the exact system time in the top left corner (above all other windows), and I had a prototype version that would tell my dialing program to start dialing at SharpHour-delta (delta is how long it took my modem to wait for tone, dial, connect, and perform authentication). Ah, the memories... My dad once removed the modem from the computer because the phone-bill exceeded the boundaries of common sense :-)

Programmers, read on to find out why this is an example of "how not to write software", how to get hold of the source code, how to compile it, and so on.

Read more »

Imagine that you have a cube made of the hardest material in the
universe (tm), so hard that nothing can break it; so heavy that each
pound of this material weighs one hundred thousand pounds!

Now, imagine that you take a rabbit, accelerate it to the speed of
light, then throw it at the cube.

Will the rabbit succeed in breaking up the molecular structure of the
cube? Of course not, because it is made of the hardest material in
the universe (tm).

Even an infinite army of rabbits won't make a single dent in the cube :-)

Read more »

Here is some stuff I've discovered recently:

• What the Prefetch folder does in Windows (no point in deleting it, it will be created anyway; deleting it won't make the system faster; there is an upper bound on the number of files that will be in that folder - so there is really no need to "optimize" it in any way);
• How to disable system $ shares in Windows (previously I used a BAT file which was executed automatically when the system starts);
• [Russian] Exotic things in Python, part 2 (I really like the else trick, subtle and handy);
• Abstraction and Variation;
• Another short story on humans and multitasking (it is assumed you've read Joel's Human task switches considered harmful);
• Another point of view - Active vs Passive voice (recommended reading - Use passive voice to shift the blame on someone else);
• [Russian] Goal-oriented vs process-oriented people;
• [Russian] Humans, learning, input channels (recommended reading - Mnemonic chains);

I'd like to make two highlights here, you will notice that two entries point to Diomidis Spinellis - my latest greatest discovery. His web-site is packed with interesting articles, I read all the 2005-2008 stories in one breath! Insightful, informative, interesting, useful. I wish I were his student... I strongly recommend his site, it is an invaluable source of information for folk interested in computer science, engineering, operating systems, programming. He is also the author of several books, one of which I will probably buy in the near future.

The other highlight is this blog in Russian, it's quite difficult to describe it. The focus is social connections in IT [in a company, between companies], thoughts on human resources, human behaviour, how programmers think, etc. Some entries can be filed under "psychology". The audience is also pretty advanced, as the comments are informative too (although not even close to the comments on Slashdot). Many ideas covered there are also a part of the "office space" stories which I currently have as drafts for this website.

Happy reading!

Another funny and insightful story for office dwellers.

Homework: think about ways to avoid such things from happening within your company.

In the Beginning was the plan.

Read more »

This is a funny story I've heard a long time ago, and today it has reached my mailbox again. It is not only funny, but also insightful; a great entry for the "office space" section.

Homework assignment: analyze your corporate/academic/family/personal habits, and find examples of "that's the way its always been around here". Naturally, the other assignment is to do something about it!

Start with a cage containing five monkeys...

Read more »

A fost odată un site, care a devenit un alt site, apoi un alt site, apoi un alt site - acel pe care îl vezi acum. Timpul trece, feţele se schimbă, feţele se uită, şi mai apoi nici nu poţi recunoaşte o faţă care îţi era cunoscută cândva.

Recent am aflat că veştile circulă repede, şi că lumea e un loc destul de mic; cu toate acestea, multe lucruri nu se observă, spre exemplu: linkul "the beginning" din partea de sus a acestui site :-)

Ultimele cercetări arată că dicţionarul "Tipologia fetelor" a ajuns mult mai departe decât se presupunea din start. Se pare că faima fetei comune, a "bârfitoarei goroţkaia" a reuşit să treacă de pereţii liceului Liviu Deleanu. Tot atât de departe a ajuns şi "bicika nativus", "petite femme ruralis", şi chiar şi "rabdus vletelnis"!

Read more »