Meltir Gorth

New world

2008-11-18T13:44:00.003+01:00

Been almost a month since my last update.
I've decided to take the job i mentioned earlier.
So far it looks like i made the right call.

Funny, isn't it:
i practically found a new job right after i arrived.

I just moved to the new house on Sunday, a troublesome journey via the tubes had to take place before i finally lay my head to rest.
I think me and my mate spent most of the day searching for new ways to get to our destination, the tubes seemed to be closed down specifically to make it harder for us :P

No pics yet, dunno if there will be any - the room is rather small, but then again i never needed much space.

Tried looking up new paintball spots here in London, and found a few forums, but haven't done anything about it yet.

The last couple of days at work were annoyingly uneventful, not having much to do, and being held up by other people before i can progress with my work.

Thou - once i start - itl be more interesting then i anticipated :)
Got some cash from HR to help me get by, written off as an advance on my paycheck.

In two weeks the real paycheck will pop-up in my account, i wonder what figure is going to be on it :)

Sadly, i cant buy tickets home yet, since what i have on my account now isn't enough to buy a ticket both ways, and pay my rent for the next two/three weeks.

Ill just have to wait till December.

I'm enjoying London so far, i still have a lot to do here, and loads of things i want to try.

Whats next ?
Time will tell.

Going well

2008-10-17T19:06:00.003+02:00

It's probably the second (or so) time this has happened to me.
Got my first interview after arriving to my (i think) new home.
The first one went great, and i just passed the second level today.

Its - technically - a great job.
The money is good, and i would be doing something similar to what I've done so far.
I'm just not sure if i should take it. I do have a couple of other offers, but this is the first one i would be getting an 'OK, you can start tomorrow!'.

I have time until Monday.
Im not certain - and thats a bad sign, in and of itself.
I need to thing this through.

I hate being under this kind of pressure, with a decision this important.
If i do join the company - it will probably be for a longer term.
They don't want someone that is going to jump ship after a couple of weeks, and I'm not interested in a job like that - i want something stable for myself.

Mehh....
Decisions, decisions....

the countdown

2008-10-10T20:33:00.002+02:00

Just two days left.
The calls started coming in a couple of days ago - rewriting my CV was a good idea, along with actually writing a cover letter.
Next week is going to be very intense, quite possibly very stressful.
The first couple of days is already lined up with interviews.
The camera has been purchased, and works like a charm.
Not packed yet, but going to get that done tomorrow, or as soon as tonight.
Hadn't gone to the dentist yet, didn't have the time - going to go tomorrow morning. It may be a painful experience.

A lot is going on. Some of these things may actually turn out to be fantastic, but nobody is surprised when i say i have a bit of a stage fright feeling.

Will i make it ?
Will it all work out for me ?
Only time will tell.

2008-10-07T18:42:00.003+02:00

Again, time passed.
More and more changes coming along.
In essence - all is well.
The plan is slowly being executed, its all falling into place.
Im closing my current projects, and thou new ones are slowly popping up - i dont see any major obstacles before me.
Besides life itself - ive pretty much gotten rid of everything.
Now is a good time - there wont be a better one.

A lucky break

2008-09-20T00:10:00.000+02:00

Im trying to wrap up my school stuff.
This requires me to catch up on my index.
I went to one of my professors to get my grade, i failed the subject to i wasn't expecting anything special.
After all i only managed to give him two of the four required reports.
Well, it seems that he decided to give me a B instead of an F for some reason :D
I didn't exactly feel like arguing my point, and i decided to go home after he put the grade on my report card :P

This one event manage to light up my entire Friday :)
Hopefully this winning streak will last :)

Insomnia

2008-09-15T14:33:00.000+02:00

Still cant sleep.
I was actually hoping that it would be over by now.
Ive noticed that i often stay up, and go to sleep after 6 or 7 am.
I get up, get to work, do whatever im supposed to do that day, take a nap and get back to work.
My problems seem to be all but gone.
I made the first step today.

I know now what day its going to be.
The 8th of october.
Thats the day.

My little revolution has begun

2008-09-14T21:46:00.000+02:00

As you may have noticed, the blog has moved.
Ive switched over to blogger, i think this will fit my needs best for now.
At least i dont have to build the site myself.
What does my little revolution consist of ?
Well, it begins right here, and i have no idea where its going to take me.
My website (www.meltir.com) is no longer just my playpen, i setup a site that i intend to make kind of a greeting card, where you can see my work and get in touch with me if you want to.

What else...
Since im probably going to drop some of my domains, i added redirects that point here or to my main site.
Since all of my blog posts have moved here, i added apt. redirects that point you here.
You may have come in via a link from google or wherever - sadly, those links are now dead, but you can find whatever you were searching for right here.
Comments are on, and will stay on.

Im still pondering adding a link to this site from meltir.com, in the sense of wether to keep work and play seperatly.

There are a lot of other changes coming up in my life.
What happend and whats going to happen should remain my little secret.

But trust me when i say this - this is going to be the most freaky year in my life.

A year of changes

2008-08-29T21:42:00.000+02:00

A word of warning, this site is going down.
Its served its purpose, and its not going to be a blog anymore.
The blog functions will be moved to a different site, and what you see under this domain will be a professional reference only to the work i am doing and the work ive done so far.

The gallery has already been moved and is not really an issue, and the blog has been dead for a while now anyway.

But let me say this - this year, will truly be a year of changes for me.
More information in the new blog.

This site will change its function next week, sorry for the short notice.
There might be a link somewhere on the new site to my personal blog.
All site owners that link to my site will be notified, as they are mostly friends, this will happen shortly.

A small change

2008-03-29T20:40:00.000+01:00

Ive enabled the comments on this site.
Ive disabled them before mostly because i was sick and tired of removing thousands of spam comments by hand.
Today i added a captcha do the stories, so every time you want to add a comment, you can just solve the simple math puzzle.

Please post any comments you might have to any previous story as well as the future ones :)

If this doesnt work, ill just disable them again :P

-------
(not really a problem now that im on blogger)

Hacking picasaweb's flash player

2008-03-29T20:39:00.000+01:00

As ive mentioned in my last post, im currently transferring all of my photos to picasaweb :)
I love the service, and im really happy with everything (maybe except the weight of the javascript on the site itself).

Well - since ive effectively killed off my own gallery to for this to make sense, i needed to show off my flashy new gallery on this blog :)

I had a couple of ways to do this:
1) get a drupal module that would do this for me
2) use the embed player that picasaweb offers
3) make my own view using the picasaweb's public api

1) proved to be a no-go, the module is there, but doesnt do any of the things i need
2) is cool, but lacks certain functionality i needed
3) yeah, like i have the time to do that ;)

well, that really left me with only one choice - be happy with the standart player...
or did it ? >:)

The picasaweb flash slideshow player is pretty much like any other slideshow player out there.
Its always album specific, and allows you to only enable/disable the captions, and autoplaying.
This is how the source for the embed player looks like:
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
src="http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf"
width="288"
height="192"
flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&RGB=0x000000&
feed=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Flandrzejak%2Falbumid%2F5183182292933551745%3Fkind
%3Dphoto%26alt%3Drss"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>

It takes a list of photos and plays them...
You can already see how to change the size of the embed object by hand - so that it makes a better fit to your site.
Wait, back up - a list of photos, right ?
Where does it get this list from i wonder....

Well, a look at the source told me that it uses flashvars to deterimine what and how its going to get a feed.
feed ? :>
Yes, it uses a simple xml feed from picasaweb, just as described on the api docs.
It also uses some other variables, doesnt it ?
What might those do ? =)

RGB - is a pretty simple one - its the players background color.
Usefull - the default is black, so it wont fit this website at all, i made it white right away.
host - is pretty self explaining as well, and i dont think i need to change this one.
feed - is pretty straightforward as well, and it contains the feed supplying the list of photos to be played.

When you try to change the autoplay and cation options, two new items appear on the list of params:

noautoplay when present in the list disables the automatic slideshow, which now has to be stared manually
captions when present this displays the photo's caption

not too many, huh ?
i actually wanted to make the images repeat themselves and maybe randomize, by default the player just plays them as it gets them, and stops playing when it reaches the last image in the album.
maybe there are others ?
lets check ! :)
lets get ourselves a flash action script extractor, preferebly one that works under linux, and let it loose on the player that picasa provides.
Flare creates a nice text file that contains all of the action script present in the player.

How does action script extract the flashvars from an embed object ?
I googled out that those vars are present in _root.varname, so i grepped the action script produced by flare.
The results:


if (_root.host.length > 0) {
           this.hostname_ = _root.host.toLowerCase();
               this.hostname_ = 'http://' + _root.host;
               if (_root.port.length > 0) {
                 var v14 = _global.parseInt(_root.port);
         if (_root.scalemax != undefined) {
         if (_root.interval != undefined) {
           var v16 = _global.parseInt(_root.interval);
         com.google.photos.slideshow.LH_Viewer.viewer = com.google.photos.slideshow.LH_Viewer(_root.attachMovie(com.google.photos.slideshow.LH_Viewer.symbolName, 'viewer', _root.getNextHighestDepth()));
         var v2 = _root.feed;
         if (_root.font.length > 0) {
           v2 = _global.parseInt(_root.font);
         if (_root.text.length > 0) {
           this.caption_.rgb = _global.parseInt(_root.text, 16);
         if (_root.textBackground.length > 0) {
           this.caption_.background = _global.parseInt(_root.textBackground, 16);
         if (_root.textAlpha.length > 0) {
           this.caption_.alpha = _global.parseInt(_root.textAlpha);
         if (_root.captions.length > 0 || _root.capti..1 != undefined) {
         if (_root.noautoplay != undefined) {
         if (_root.RGB.length > 0) {
           var v2 = _global.parseInt(_root.RGB, 16);
         if (_root.font.length > 0) {
           v3 = _global.parseInt(_root.font);

WHOA ! What do we have here ?
It seems that apart from the ones we already know, there are severall other variables !
Ill save you the gueswork and explain the ones i found:
text - define the captions text color in hex
font - no idea, maybe it was supposed to be the font size, but it doesnt work for me
textAlpha - cation text backgrounds alpha
textBackground - caption text backgrounds hex color
scalemax - not sure, it seems to change the resize algorythm possibly producing images of a closer fit to the embed objects size (instead of just panning them out)
interval - how many seconds per image

As you can see - the ones i was looking for (repeat, random) are not there, but its still pretty interesting.
In the least, it lets you get a more personalized slideshow player :)

Now, playing just one of my albums was pointless, since i had no intention to change the the object every time i added new photos to picasa.
I couldhave just changed the feed to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/landrzejak?kind=photo
i couldhave also changed the number of photos from the default 100 by changing the feed to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/landrzejak?kind=photo
&max-results=100&alt=rss

The limit for the list of photos is 500 - and trust me, its too much for firefox and flash - the xml feed weighs about 1meg at that point.

And whats the point of showing the images, if i cant show all of them, or change their order.
Even i get bored when forced to watch all of my images from just one album - check them out, i pretty much make up in numbers what i lack in photographic skills.
Besides, i didnt want to show all of them, just the best ones....
Like the ones i set up to be the albums main image !
I changed my feed to get all of my albums, along with the preview images:

http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/landrzejak/?kind=album&alt=rss

That worked like a charm ! Looks like the player accepts any kind of picasa's feeds :D

So what did i end up with ?
You can see for yourselves on the right side of this page :)
The player now shows my albums covers, at the proper pace of one image every 5 seconds :)

Hope anyone found this usefull in using picasaweb on their website :)

Progress [or not]

2008-03-25T20:37:00.000+01:00

Well its been a few weeks :)
Some changes have taken place, some havent.

But lets start with those that have:
ive quit smoking.
Been going without champix for over two months now - and despite the brief moments of weakness (of which all have been overcome so far) :)

Ive had to cut down on the paintball, i lack the time and cash at the moment:
ive actually noticed different spending patterns, and the costs of my life have recently gone up :/

What else... Well - despite what ive believed so far - it seems that i have at least one reader :P

Lets see, what else, what else...
Ive moved all my photos to picasaweb, so if you guys want to watch any of them: http://picasaweb.google.com/landrzejak :)

Ah, the dancing !
Its going pretty good, thou not as good as i would want to :(
Im just not good enough, despite my best efforts.

Also - im back to school :)
And im convinced even more then i was before that its a totall waste of time and money :/
Sadly - its mostly about the waste of time - i have so little of it as it is, and here i have to go to school and waste it listening to stuff that i will never need.
I cant wait for the drafts to stop - its supposed to be somewhere next year.

What else....
Well - there is the whole game thing.
The boy-girl game ive been playing with a nice friend(ly girl :P).
Well, i have to tell you girls:
its a pain.
Its always worrying when youve worked on something for over a couple of monts, and you see no effects.
Girls - a tip, if you say that you refuse to go if you dont pay for yourself, that can easily be interpreted as saying 'we can go out, but not on a date'.
Also girls, remember - if you make the guy run after you for too long, he might die of exhaustion. Im pretty close to that myself.
The shitty thing is that i truly believe its in some part my fault. Maybe asking her out to the cinema and letting here chose the movie wasnt a clear indication of 'this is a date'.
Maybe all those other things i do arent a clear indication that im interested in her.
Maybe this is one of those 'the flirt is nice, but im not intersted in anything more' kind of things ?
Maybe im not devoting enough time ? If that is the reason - then there is no hope for me at all.
I just dont have the time, and im beggining to think thats one of the main problems.

Then again there is always the most probable, and simplest explanation:
i just dont know how to pick up girls.
Make them feel that im interested, and make them feel interested in me.
Its one of those social interactions i dont deal too well with.
The ones i dont understand nor controll - so i cant really induce it, can i ?

Either way, when i see no movement on the other side of the game field, the ball isnt thrown back, after a while i assume that she's left.
Its been fun, but now i want to see some interest.
Its supposed to be a two way thing anyway, so if its single sided now, i might as well just skip the middleman and get to being just friends.
The resolution i declared a while ago still stands. I dont mind being friends with her if it doesnt work out.
Thou i intend not to try anymore with anyone else, im just not cut out for this game.
No point in playing if you keep loosing :)

-----minor update 30008 0021:00-----
well, everything just got a lot clearer.
no intention of playing anymore, ill just stick to being a spectator - at least i dont suck at it :)

Well...

2008-01-26T21:37:00.000+01:00

Its happend.
Im quitting smoking.

Well - ive actually already started.
Been a week now, since i began.
Im using champix and its doing wonders.

With almost no effort from me, im doing pretty good.
After 8 days, ive smoked only 3 cigs today.
Considering that i smoked over 20 a day till 9 days ago - its an accomplishment.
Not going to smoke again today.
Ive made a promise.
A small thing really - but im sizing it up.
I have my reasons to size it up - not at all related to the whole 'quit smoking' effort.
A lot of people ask me 'why?'.

Some belive im trying to impress a girl, some think its a new-year's thing, some think its a bet.

Its none of those... well - maybe it was the first one at the beggining, but not anymore.
I just want to quit. No reason, nothing flashy about it.
No goals to set.

Every time ive tried to give it a reason - i failed, perhaps because the reason wasnt important enough.
This time i dont have one. Im doing it for fun - so to speak.
Its about bloody time to actually do it, and be free of the stupid friggin habbit.

Next order of buisnes - ive got contact lenses :D
Strange feeling really. Waited 4 months to get them, and made a terrible fuss when i didnt (got a years supply of fluid thou).
But ive got them on now, and i love them.
Im free of that peace of metal that i used to have on my nose at all times.
Im boud bound to a metal frame surrounding my vision :)

Wonder if i look any different (better ? worse ?) too bad i dont have anyone objective enough (or anyone objective enoug in the right manner) to tell me.

Another thing - not that it matters (does it ? im mentioning it here, arent i ?):
im enjoying dancing.
Getting better at it too (anyway - i think so).
Im thinking its the girl im dancing with - my partner.
'My partner' sounds better, more neutrall than 'the girl' doesnt it ?
Well - its a defence mechanism, its a lot more of 'the girl' then 'my partner' thing then i would feel comfortable with.
Well - she is amazing and i really like her, but in some screwed up relationship atm.
I dont really feel im the adequate person to give her advice on that matter, and its the topic she (understandably) thinks of the most.
Frankly - with her being 'the girl', im in no position to give her objective advice.
Ive had my relationships fucked with by someone giving good advice, and ive given good advice and unintentionally fucked someones relationship without proper merit (as ive learned later on - in both cases).
Im trying to avoid that now.
We shall see. Ill take my steps, but take them slow.
Ive fucked things like this up before - dont want that happening now.
Ill wait - if it comes to that.
Im a patient being.
Ive waited years for things to happen, and actually got mine.
Im going to wait this one off as well. Not for years, but im getting close with her, and im thinking a month or two.
If it doesnt work out - we can always be friends.
It wont be easy for me, but i can handle anotheir female friend that i would like to be more than just a friend.
Been there, done that.
I just have to start being more picky, and not let it happen all the time.
This time - i will. If it doesnt work out like i would want to - She's worth it.

A time of changes

2008-01-06T21:36:00.000+01:00

Its been a while.
A long one in fact.
Ive done a great deal of many things.
I just moved out of my mothers house today.
I just had my first night at my new home.
A nice neighbourhood, my own entrance, my own room.
One over 3 times bigger then my prev. one.
It has its quirks, but i think its a good start.
Im just renting it, but at least i have the freedom to change it anytime i decide i dont like it.
But so far its ok.

Ive met a great deal of young women.
None of them turned out to be what i expected, and im in no relationship atm. - but im working on it, and dont really care for now.

Ive taken up a couple of sports.
Mostly painball - and im insane about it :D
Ive spent so much money on the equipment, that i dont like anyone talking about it.
Pretty much every weekend we go out into the wods in a group of about 40 people and start playing.
5 hours later we go home, tired, dirty, scratched up, and satisfied :)

Ive started dancing - against my will at first, but now im beggining to like it.

Im seeing a shrink.
Its helping, thou not quite the way i expected it to.
I think the trick is to really know not just your limitations, but also where they come from. And conciously make decisions based on that.
Its.... interesting :)

I have a pretty big private project im working on, thats not ecommerce related.
Everything i do now is legal ;P

Im sitting here in my room, working on my laptop, talking about the shit ive done in the past couple of months. Freaky. I think ive changed a lot, but thats not for me to decide.
Well - maybe its not that ive changed. Ive changed the world around me :)

Maybe i should quit smoking ? :P
Funny thing - im actually considering it - something i wouldnt have done before.
But ill have to go see a doctor - i tried doing it without drugs in the past, the non-prescription shit doesnt seem to work with me.

Maybe i have changed.... ?

RFC ? WTF is that ?

2007-07-31T21:34:00.000+02:00

Well, some technicians actually dont know.
Ive learned this the hard way.
A recent task ive been assigned to is to build a csv parser.
We all know the format.
Comma separated values. If you want to include a comma into the value - you quote it.
If you have nothing to add, just insert a comma.
If your done with the data row - carrige return, line feed.
The standard flatfile has been known for decades.
It was one of the very first industry standards that everyone agreed on.
It was simple, and it just worked.

Then came microsoft.
The company that creates new standards, while destroying the ones already established.
Its like that with odf, it was the same with smb, and its the same with cvs.
A file format which full specification i just managed to enclose into 4 sentences.

But nooooo....
Lets change the comma into a semicolon. As to avoid confusion - we will keep the name (CommaSeparatedValues).
Oh, and lets assume the encoding. After all - everyone knows what excel's local standard encoding is, right ?
Sure we all do. Its win-12xx. Whatever the x.
Oh, and when a line finishes with empty values, lets not waste any bytes. We ignore them.
Just think of all those WATT's saved this way.

Heh.
But all this causes problems mostly on excels part and can be walked around from inside php.
But not all of it.
You have to know (i didnt before stumbling upon a bug) that fgetcsv is linked to the locale your system is running.
I have no fucking idea what difference does it make if the semicolon (below the 127 ascii threshold) is under iso-1/2/3/win-x.
But it does make a difference to php.
Any characters that are not in the locale encoding get cut out.
Obviously without any error message/warning/whatever.
I mean why bother.

Funny thing is - its not so hard to handcode a fgetcsv equivalent in php itself.
I managed to do it in less then 50 lines of code.
And now for the scary part.
Parsing a 7meg file, the php interpreted csv parser is 20% faster then the c++ written one invoked with fgetcsv.
I was fairly certain that i had an error somewhere and was ommiting data.
Doesnt look like it.
Its faster and has fewer restrictions.
Too bad i cant post it here - but its a work project and belongs to the company.

Note to self....

2007-06-13T21:32:00.000+02:00

Never invite a nice girl for a first meeting (date intro), allowing her to bring more then one friend.
Its not a date when you have to listen to a bunch of people talking about their stuff, and waiting for a moment that you can inject a single sentence in the entire conversation.
Especially when your not good with a crowd that you dont know, and that doesnt know who the hell you are.
Bad idea. Never again.

Mrrrrauuu.....

2007-05-25T18:27:00.000+02:00

As stated before - im looking for something new to do at home, besides tinkering with computers.
So - now, this sounds like im going thru some middle age crisis - i got myself a jaguar.
No - not the cat.
The car =D
I orderd it on sunday, low and behold: > :)
And by the looks of it - its going to be alot of work. But in the end i think itl be worth it :)
Ill post updates on my progress as i move on :)
I need to get the paint today :)

On a seperate topic, ive setup a new local server.
This time ive got 40 gigs of space in there, so ill finally be able to download entire dvd's over night :D
It just needs more ram, the 64 megs that ive got inside it will do, but only just.
Going to get 3 128meg pieces in a couple of moments.

Well, since im here

2007-05-21T21:29:00.000+02:00

Since im still online and dead bored (nothing new/interesting on rotten, dailywtf, slashdot and everyone on my forums is asleep), i figured i might as well post.
I just upgraded drupal, do you like the new look ?
I know - i need to change the logo, i might even change the icon too this time ;P
It put up quite a fight thou :)
Especially integrating it with the gallery.
I had to input the links to the modules by hand, because it looked like shit once you tried to enter it.
No that i had a lot of content, but the little content i have here is pretty precous to me.

Im netcating a 125gig partition over a 100mbs link so i have some time atm (being the only available person with admin privs sucks) - using the outlines from http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Backup#netcat_.2B_dd.
You have to give it to the gentoo people - they know how to make a wiki.
The server had to be put down (apache, mysql, proftpd pretty much leaving only bind and ssh).
Im currently at 100gig so i still have about half an hour.
I pray the server doesnt go down - im making the image because its under too much load and the drives might fail at any time.
Should you ever do this (netcat /dev/sda), dont gzip it on the fly.
The average compression ratio is about 20% for a raw disk image, and gzip doesnt use threads like it should so it only takes up one cpu.
That gives you a significant slow down, with almost no space gain.
Its counterintiutive - i know, but the fact that gzip uses up only one cpu at 100%, gives you a slowdown to about 4/5 megs/s, while you almost certainly get about 14 megs if you dont compress.
And i wanna get some sleep tonight so the 20% isnt worth it.
I found a nice tool that does use the smp that most servers provide, but its pretty outdated and im not sure i can trust it.
I wonder how im going to move the image to a usb drive ;P
The ones we have are about 140 gig, and usually have to contain something more then just one backup ;P
Probably gonna have to go and wipe the current backups this week.
We setup a nice 2tb backup machine in the company for local backups and our main server backups.
Its working great, and its amazing how much ive transfered to it in the week ive been here.
It may not be much for you, but for me handling 700gigs of data is a pretty nice feat :)

Im fairly certain noone is reading this blog.
The most hits i get come from googlebot :P
But ive setup google's stats, so that i can keep track of things.
We shall see.

-------
(no, im not using drupal anymore....)

As the days go by...

2007-05-20T20:53:00.000+02:00

Well its about time.
Updates of my life: none.
Still hard at work - nothing better to do anyway.
But im looking into finding something new for myself - in terms of private life.
Maybe getting back into snooker ? I always loved that game.
Maybe go back to swimming ? I used to be good at it - well maybe not exactly good, but i always enjoyed it.
Maybe put together model cars and shit ? I always like the precision of those tiny things, and the end effect, something that you can actually touch (being in IT as long as i have and doing nothing else, i have little to none manual skills and creating something that isnt just a series of ones and zero's... well - i think you get it).
Gotta get that drivers license, im doing pretty good, but still have alot to learn.

Either way - im currently searching for a passion.
Something that will give me a reason to live, that wouldnt be related to computers.
I just recently realised that - my god this sounds terrible - im 24 and ive been living attached to a computer for nearly 15 years. Sad. I gotta find something else.
Something that will make me stop being the uber-geek that i am.

Ive made some new friends. Im just not sure if i can call them that.
There ought to be a word describing someone whom youve met over the internet and never seen in RL, but have a great connection with.
Vfriends maybe ?
Why not. Its as good as anything.
Well - ive made a lot of vfriends. Interesting people that share my current attitude towards life. Or are just interesting enought to have a decent discussion with.

Im thinking about moving out of the house. Ive been here far too long. The same crammy room 1.5m by 3m. The same arguments, and the same treatment. Its not healthy.
I need something bigger. I can afford it, and i need to get on my own. You know, just for me. Freedom.
But im postphoning that for when i have a car. I suppose a couple of weeks, months at most.

Oh - have you noticed ?
I changed the domain for this site.
I upgraded the gallery.
I got a couple of domains for dirt cheap, some promotion at the register my company uses, and i was able to get 1 domain for 1$.
So i got 4, i might drop some when they expire, but who knows ?
The new gallery is much better imho.
But the photo's ive deleted before had to be put back in place - i couldnt do anything about it, i imported entire folders. And there is no way in hell im going to remember the ones that were deleted among the hundreds that werent.

Time goes on

2007-03-21T17:26:00.000+01:00

Well, its seems i didnt keep my promise :P

A lot has happend and i dont feel like getting into the details.

Lets just say i got a juicy promotion at work.
A nice raise accompanied it.
And a nice perk.

Which by the way - helped reality catch up with me.
Im going to have to get a drivers license ASAP.

Also, a while back i got a laptop from work. HP-Compaq.
Something i dodnt have time to mention previously.

I got myself a photo camera. Canon, nice cheap little thing.

I found a girlfirend. Great girl. I fell in love. And got dumped after 5 months, like i wasnt worth shit.
All good one minute, and the next it was all over.
This happend recently and im still not over it completly.
It came as kind of a shock.
Depression is sinking in slowly....
You can make out how she looks like from my photo gallery.
Ive been considering taking down those photos to keep the memories as far away as possible. But ive decided not to.
Perhaps some day ill have a different perspective on things and so on....

Work is going good. We are making progress.
The new version of our software will blow the competition away - so keep an eye out, its coming out really soon :D

Since i have more time to think, and more time to write - ill hopefully keep this site more up to date on what going on with me.

This may turn out to be a real blog after all ;P

PHPCON 2006

2006-11-12T20:53:00.000+01:00

K, so i fucked up.
The conference came along and i forgot about this site (yet again).
So let me make it up:
from 6.11 to 9.11 i was in frankfurt (beautifull city) at the internationall php conference.
It was really great, i met alot of interesting people, we exchanged ideas and such.
There were alot of geeky discussions, and alot of hacking on each others problems.
Should you want to go there and see for yourself, you simply must sign up for a workshop !
It was amazing, having an open discussion like that with about 30 other geeks .
The hotel in which the whole thing was hosted was rather expensive, but it was a 4 * hotel and you really got what you paid for :)
Hopefully ill have another chance to go there next year and itl be even better.

Its been a while

2006-10-15T20:34:00.000+02:00

Well, its been a while since ive last posted.

Ive been very busy, with becoming the project manager at work, taking on new people, our servers going down, and the legall hell that has been unleashed upon me.

Ill try to post at least once a week - some of the dates may be backwards - ive aquired alot of new toys since the last posts.
Alot has happend in the meantime, and alot has changed.

Ill try to keep you (the spambots that is - since obviously i dont get readers unless i post a new image gallery) up to date, at first on the past and - gradually - current events.

Heinekenmusic 2006

2006-07-10T18:31:00.001+02:00

Wow, now that was a party!!!
Official head count on the first concert was 30,000!
And then more people came!
My rough estimate would have to be over 40,000 people, maybe 50, dunno.
It was FANTASTIC!!!
Anyway i gave a couple of people links to this site so they could see the gallery, here is a shortcut:

heineken 2007

Big brother is watching

2006-04-15T20:33:00.000+02:00

Happy easter!
Well - now that ive got that 'seasons greetings' things out of the way - time to get to the point.
My new webcam is here!
The device is a Logitech Quickcam Communicator STX.
All in its a nice toy - allowing me to record myself, take snaps of various objects and such.
Yes - its a toy.
One more to add to the collection.
And yes - it runs on linux.
All you need is the right kernel module.
For those that dont care the specs - it allows me to record at a res of 640/480 24bit rgb, and at 25fps when the lighting is right and im running it at 320/240.
Atm im using it via mplayer, but im looking forward to find some other apps that let me play with it - like say - videochat and such.
In other news - im getting a week of from work - a long awaited rest.
Ill prolly get some flashy new toys - so ill keep you posted.

Going SANE

2006-03-16T20:33:00.000+01:00

I recently aquired a new toy.
Yes, anotheir one.
This one i have only for the time being - as it will eventually end up at the clients desk.
But for now - ladies and gentlemen - i present to you:
The Plustek OpticSlim 2400 USB scanner.
For a strangely low price - you can get one too !
Lets be honest - this is low end equipment.
Its designed to work with laptops - thus it requires no externall power source, other then the 5v that your usb2 port can provide.
It also looks pretty cool - its slim, a nice gray metallic, not much bigger then the standard A4 sheet.
And the best part of it all:
it works on Linux with almost no problems :)
There are a few catches that i got caught up in, mostly because last time i used SANE was about 2 years ago.

You need to extract the firmware from the windows drivers.
This isnt too obvoius - but it seems that alot of hardware thats usb connected these days doesnt have any firmware in them what so ever (besides the bare minimum that is needed to upload the real firmware). This is the case with some modems, printers and - yes - scanners.
So you basicly need to have a M$ system somewhere to get the firmware.
Once its all in there - you need to take a look at your permissions.
First thing - when playing around - you might as well do it as root.
You probably dont have the hotplug tools that change perms on the fly when you connect something.
Im sure they arent in any way sugdested or bundled with SANE in debian, so you might have to get that package.
AFAIK this is driver specific - so it might, or might not concearn you:
the scanner has a 15 wait to heat up the lamp on every scan you make. Loosing minutes - yes, but nontheless the speed is pretty good, so im not going to bitch about it.
I read somewhere that its a driver bug, but got no such response in #sane on freenode - so this might not be true. I dont really have a windows machine to test it on and see if its the same there.

All in all - i really like it. It worked almost out of the box - and the problems ive had were only my fault.
I would consider getting one for myself, but i would rather get a digitall cam, or an ipod B)

In (un)related news - the gallery "feature" is now fixed, soon i will post some images scanned with this puppy in there :)

Its not a bug.

2006-03-03T20:32:00.000+01:00

Now, to some of you this is nothing new, but i noticed it a while ago and considered it a bug:
sometimes when clicking on a image inside the gallery, you get the prev image, and sometimes you get the next one.
I enjoy applications that follow the KISS standards, and i try to make my own follow them, so it came to me as a shock when i just figured out that its not a bug, but a hidden feature.
The thing is, if you click the right-hand side of the image - you go to the next one, but if you click the left-hand side of said image - you get the prev one.
This would also explain a strange line that seems to show up in firefox when clicking said image - that seems to divide it in half.
All i need to do now is digg around in the admin options, or get ridd of it in the code :P

New toys

2006-02-25T20:27:00.000+01:00

Its been a fairly busy couple of weeks.
The new project is finally online (for certain reasons i cant provide a link).
The finals are over and - not without trouble - ive passed to the second semester.
And - i have a new toy in my box.

Said toy being - a new 250 gigabyte maxtor hd.
I tell you - this puppy can fly :)
Im getting about 60 megs per second when reading to /dev/null
The only problem being the noise - it tends to wake me up if i forget to take the machine down for the night.

Soon (like sometime this weekend) im going to put a 40gig in to my "server" and the old 60gig is going inside my sister's box.
Hope it will last a couple of years more - but i see no reason why it shouldnt.

I know this stuff isnt really interesting - but then again nothing really interesting is happening to me lately. Not much to post on a blog really.

Gallery added

2006-02-01T20:19:00.000+01:00

At LAST.
I finally got around to it, and installed gallery2 and integrated it with drupal.
Finally.
It integrates nicely, and ive already added some content.
Since i have no reall limits as to the size of my account - im going to keep adding images simply untill i run out of images to add .

Hope you like it - enjoy.

--------

kind of pointless, but im keeping this post as a memento.
current gallery is here

A candle on the wind

2006-01-28T18:54:00.000+01:00

A sad, sad time has come.
Just last week i was forced to attend the funerall of a good friend of mine.
She was 22 (just like me), working in .uk and on her way home, when some crackhead caused a fatal car accident.
She spent over a year working away from home, and just a few kilometers from it...
My friend informed me about this sad event via IM, and i couldnt believe it. I called him immediatly, just to learn that it wasnt a joke. After hanging up the phone i had to pick it up right away, his girlfriend was calling me up to tell me.
I still cant believe it.
I mean, c'mon !
We are just 22, so much is ahead of us. And we go out, just like that, in the blink of an eye ?!
I refuse to believe this.

The cursed player

2005-12-21T18:35:00.000+01:00

Consider this to be a warning.
However some of the products of the company that made my mp3-player may be valuable, some are not.
Its like this with every company.
No exceptions.
But this one ive had a bad experience on first contact.
Thats the main reason for this rant.

So - lets take it from the top:

About a week ago i bought a mp3-player.
It has everything i could want from such a device.

Its small

It plays mp3's wav's pcm's and other formats

It has a built in radio

It recording capabilities

It can record from an externall source (line-in), a built in microphone, and the radio

Its cheap (i suspect thats the cause of all my problems)

It has 256Mb memory onboard (-~10Mb for the OS)

It works with linux

SD/MMC card slot (and as such it works nicely as a reader for said cards)

The model is called z-cyber z-ling slot fx/256.
Z-cyber is zoltrix (as it seems) the company that used to make the modems we all remember. Its those guys that i believe helped make the internet what it is today.
A place everyone with some spare change connect to, and share.

Sounds perfect, right ?
Well folks, there is no such thing as perfection.
And once again - i had to learn that the hard way.

First off - the radio is crap. But ive heard that most of these devices have the radio just as something to put in to the specs - so i didnt expect anything else.

Second off - the joystick.
Its small, and not to handy, but the reall problem was that it soon stopped clicking and started to kinda jam when trying to rotate it to the left.
But mostly it worked fine.

And now comes the kicker:
it went berserk on me.
Out of the blue, no reason whatsoever.
Those that know me will tell you - im a tech freak.
If i buy something that runs on batteries - i will keep it looking and working as brand new for as long as possible.
I just love toys like this.

But here - it just jammed.
I cant say it crashed - it just stopped responding.

So i called the store i bough it in (an e-store).
They gave me a number to the manufacturers customer service in .pl .
So i called CS. No dice - something seemed to be wrong with the number.
So i went to z-cyber.pl and got a number for the people that sell it in .pl.
Thats when the jokes started:
the man that emediatly anwsered couldnt give an anwser.
But thats ok, i called the office - i expeted to be put on hold and redirected to a tech support person.
It took me 10 minutes of listening to music and hearing people tell me that they cant help me, and repeating the line "will you hold, please ?", at one point the guy that redirected me at the time didnt know that i could still hear him.
"Dont you fucking send them to me! Its not my job! Send them to the tech department, dont fucking send them to me!" was what i heard.
...Cute...
But heck - dont we all do that as soon as we hang up the phone with some client that was pestering us ?
I can understand the attitude.
But the fact is i only managed to briefly describe what my problem was, and asked him if he could help.
The conversation took about 20 seconds. Then another 10 for his rant.

Thankfully - it was then that i was redirected to the tech department.
The guy there was really friendly, i told him the groosome details of what had happend and asked if he could help.
The response was immediate:
reinstall the firmware.
WTF ?
Its a fucking portable device, its not fucking running windows98 !
But heck, why not.
What if it doesnt work ?
Return the device, it will most probably be replaced with a new one.
K.

Simple questions - simple anwsers. I liked this guy, there was no bullshiting in that talk.
So i asked THE question:
- does this shit happen often ?
- with your device ? Im sorry, its a common problem.

That was an "oh fuck" moment - trust you me.
I explicitly asked in the e-store if they had any returns of the device.
"Only two - one was because of some damage to the plastic case that took place in shippment. We sold about a 100 of them so far.".
I should have fucking asked what the other one was about - but i didnt. I mean - i have the money - they want the money - why would they lie ?
I suppose i was falsly assuming that i was dealing with a pro, or that they were just lucky and really didnt have only two returns.

Is there anything worse then a mad customer ?
It turns out there is - and thats a bad manufacturer.

So i got home from work, plugged the mp3player in to my pc, fired off windows and started the firmware update.

The updater informed me that there are no updates, but if i really want to - it can reinstall what its got and erase everything that was on the device.

I was ok with that - the mp3's i have in my archives, and the CS guy said it would help.
I figured i couldnt make it any worse.
So i went ahead.

And what do you know!

As good as new.

Everything worked dandy, untill after about an hour - when i got all my shit together to go out with my sister christmas shoping, i noticed something was different.
The firmware version was exactly the same.
But there were differences:
on a device that has 256 megs of space, and can be expanded into a total of 1.2 gigs (1 gig for the SD/MMC card and 256 megs built in)- managing the content is VERY fucking important.
The player had a simple menu item that showed you the directory structure and what files were available in what direcotry. It also allowed you to choose a song and start listening on the spot.

Than option was now gone.
Just like that.
Same firmware - diff options.

Tommorow im calling the CS again.
I want access to the same firmware that the device came with.
Otherwise - it makes no sense to buy the 512Mb MMC card that i had my eye on.
No content managment, except for the "next" and "prev" functions - which in my belief would kill the joystick in a matter of weeks.

Ill keep you posted.
Hopefully ill win, and z-cyber's name will be cleared.
But for now - it is my personall advice that you stay away from the company.

----------22.12.2005----------

Well all is well that ends well.
I feel that this is the appropriate moment to congratulate the designers of the firmware on their interesting and new ideas.
Who would have imagined that if you kept the "play" button pressed in while upgrading the firmware you would get something totally different then when you wouldnt ?

The differences are now more and more obvoius.
Aside from the browser being enabled i also noticed that most of the options are named differently !
They are pretty clear on what they do in both cases, but man...
Change your menu by keeping some button pressed while upgrading.
Its new to me.
Then again - the guys that made the documemtation are also responsible.
How much more non obvoius does it get fellas ?
C'mon.

But i have to give them credit.
It works exactly the same way as before.
But.... for how long ?

The godfather

2005-11-20T18:25:00.000+01:00

Today was a special day.
I was made a godfather of my sisters daughter, and im getting that 'Don Corleone' feeling inside...

Im not really good with kids, heck - they seem to hate me, and i pretty much share that emotion.
But susie (zuzanna to be exact) is different. A strange feeling - being in charge of someone's christian education and what not.
Not that i care for christianity - the entire God subject is enough for me to write a book on.
But that little girl...
Strange as it is - i had the strange thought that when she will be my age, i will be pretty much twice as old...
To her ill be an old fart... In fact - you could say that in comparison - i already am.
Makes you think... what do you really want to do with your life ?
Its just wierd - with no further analisys if its stupid, bad or ok - its just strange and lets leave it as it is.

Hopefully - once i get around to compiling libgd into this server - i will get a gallery going and post the photos of my goddaughter (is this even the correct term?).

In the meanwhile - cheers for a new life. Let her's be easier and better then mine. Whatever that would mean.

Cheers
Don Meltir Gorth

A new home

2005-11-17T16:26:00.000+01:00

Well - im off to a new start.
With the new job - i have the opportunity to set up my new site on a real server - with backups - unlike the last one (sic!), without downtime, and without ads (unless i put them up myself).
First order of buisness will be moving my old stuff - or should i say "the remains" - to this new system.
Hopefully i can find most of it in my archives, and hopefully it wont take forever to get it working.
The new engine is drupal - it looks promising, and moding it will hopefully be much simpler.
Second order of buisness - to get a custom theme.
Im not an artist, and i dont know too many - so your help will be appreciated.
I need a project, a design which i can follow - the tech stuff ill do myself. When it comes to something looking any better then the defaults or downloadable themes - im cooked.
Please send some nice, dark, bloody, goth/death/evil designs to landrze|REVER_SEtHis|jak@gmail.com.

Well - hopefully the site will grow, and content will vary. Possibly ill add some custom modules to the system - but all in due time.

Cya later, and get those themes going :>