Zealus Web design. Owner's monologues.

Official Google Blog: Google welcomes Picnik

2010-04-16T13:24:00.000-04:00

Anyone from Picasa dev team interested in what users have to say? Here's the

Google’s Picasa TO DO List: Wake Up And Get It Done

Official Google Blog: Google welcomes Picnik

2009-03-17T23:33:00.001-04:00

Jury duty - over and out

2009-03-16T09:52:00.001-04:00

Promoting my new blog/FAQ: http://ping.fm/OryH0 - let me know if it's better off as wiki or blog?

2009-03-05T07:47:00.001-05:00

Customizing Your Smart Phone series (last article has all links): http://ping.fm/C6CIU

2009-03-04T01:15:00.001-05:00

Biggest users of H1B visas for 2007: http://ping.fm/blukA

2009-02-10T14:12:00.001-05:00

eBay Customer Service excels in every way: http://ping.fm/ZMEXa

Link Building Experiment

2009-01-20T15:05:00.002-05:00

Here's a PR 7 web page that points to three other sites that have PR of 0, 2 and 3. My goal is to see how PR of the page itself will change as well as the PR of other web sites.

2009-01-19T01:52:00.001-05:00

5 reasons to own a smartphone: http://ping.fm/AIDEU

2009-01-07T16:29:00.001-05:00

Are you still outsourcing? http://ping.fm/q5VC1

2008-12-30T22:59:00.001-05:00

If you think it's worthy, please vote for my idea: http://ping.fm/8RGmN

2008-12-28T11:45:00.001-05:00

Finished new web project: www.makemeuprenee.com

2008-12-23T16:03:00.001-05:00

OMG, I am such a family man now...finally searching for gingerbread man recipe online... who could've thought...

2008-12-20T13:41:00.001-05:00

Pandora released WinMobile client taxed by AT&T: http://ping.fm/SMj49

2008-12-16T22:32:00.001-05:00

Upgrading the last blog... ura!

2008-12-15T10:23:00.001-05:00

Upgrading blogs to 2.7... slowly

2008-12-07T21:13:00.001-05:00

Wedding pics: http://ping.fm/jNQiy

2008-12-03T12:45:00.000-05:00

Just noticed my blog http://ping.fm/txuoA looks horrible in IE. Time to change the design.

2008-12-03T12:14:00.001-05:00

Designer shopping at really big discounts - use this invite to Gilt: http://ping.fm/KzDQ2

2008-11-28T21:55:00.001-05:00

3rd day in Vegas: Venetian, Wynn and then to Canyon

2008-11-27T23:54:00.001-05:00

Prime stakehouse @ Bellagio with a view of fountains

2008-11-27T20:51:00.001-05:00

It's done, there's two of us now

2008-11-27T20:13:00.001-05:00

Little delay and chapel web cams are down

2008-11-27T19:14:00.001-05:00

Waiting for the limo, about hour left to the wedding

2008-11-26T15:41:00.001-05:00

Hello, Vegas!

2008-11-26T05:58:00.001-05:00

This was a slowest check-in I've seen so far...

2008-11-26T05:52:00.001-05:00

On the check-in line @ US Airways

2008-11-21T13:25:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - search control and API. API says: I'm done. Control says: your dead rezultz - I foundz them!

2008-11-21T12:42:00.001-05:00

Okay, now I am certified Ektron developer. Hurray!

2008-11-21T11:52:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - version 8.0: public beta in January, possibly be able to run alongside 7.x for content compatibility

2008-11-21T09:12:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - day 4 (last day). APIs and version 8 preview.

2008-11-20T14:52:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - multiple languages done smart

2008-11-20T14:29:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - social features are aplenty. Nice.

2008-11-20T11:25:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - memberships and social networks. Skimmed over calendar and map controls, although these are more important.

2008-11-20T10:46:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - getting a forum up is a no-brainer, but where's the fun of tweaking phpBB ?

2008-11-20T10:33:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - creating a blog is almost as fast as installing Wordpress. Only nearly isn't that easy.

2008-11-20T09:17:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - day 3. Web 2.0 features - blogs, forums and social networks.

2008-11-19T17:58:00.001-05:00

Applebees @ Nashua made me run back to hotel for ID. It's 30 or below

2008-11-19T15:41:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - everything is customizable, but the amount of customization files escalates out of proportion.

2008-11-19T09:35:00.001-05:00

A funny idea for CMS hack - wherever breadcrumbs are used, create an animated icon of birds, feeding off the breadcrumbs. Memorable.

2008-11-19T08:55:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - day 2. Morning coffee and bagel w/creamcheese. Content organization and navigation options.

2008-11-18T19:21:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - day one is over. A lot of interesting stuff, but still - too cumbersome, own solution would be feasible in this timeframe

2008-11-18T13:22:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - quicklinks are stored in the library. Counterintuitive - just as everything else.

2008-11-18T12:28:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - lunch time: enchiladas! Beans with beans. And 20 people in the room...

2008-11-18T11:27:00.001-05:00

Friend told me their company ditched all outsourced development and kept inhouse devs - because of quality. Interesting trend.

2008-11-18T10:51:00.001-05:00

Ektron Training - the big mistery uncovered! That intranet thing I am working on has been designed in a wrong way. ALL OF IT!

2008-11-18T10:16:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - some passages are so 90s. Like how to persuade that company needs website.

2008-11-18T09:56:00.001-05:00

Ektron training - day 1. Now I know why Ektron was so poorly designed

2008-11-17T21:09:00.001-05:00

New Hampshire is dark, cold and I got free upgrade to jakuzzi room

2008-11-10T10:29:00.001-05:00

m.ping.fm - to blog from Vegas off the cell phone

2008-11-04T14:17:00.001-05:00

Can't concentrate on blogging about dealing with US Airways. Who could've thought airlines loathe their clients...

2008-10-28T10:03:00.001-04:00

Rainy mornings make me feel tired as soon as I wake up

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Calendar and Docs gadgets

2008-10-27T22:18:00.000-04:00

New useful feature from Google Labs - available to the public!
Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Calendar and Docs gadgets

2008-10-25T21:43:00.001-04:00

Have a feeling that AJAX-powered company phone directory will be the only used feature on the whole Intranet. Took me less then an hour...

2008-10-25T19:47:00.001-04:00

Finally, made the shipping calculation working! Virtuemart is a bit perverted piece of sofware...

2008-10-17T14:29:00.001-04:00

Story continues: http://ping.fm/k2NAH

2008-10-17T11:47:00.001-04:00

CitySearch sales rep Angie.Ekford@citysearch.com just can't leave me alone, I repeatedly asked to stop their e-mails but to no avail...angry

2008-10-16T16:43:00.001-04:00

Forgot to blog: Max Brenner Chocolate By Bold Man SUCKS! Lousy service, overpriced and undervalued. Chocolate was tasty though...

2008-10-14T16:34:00.001-04:00

Corporate Math 101: http://ping.fm/yFvKo

2008-10-13T13:55:00.001-04:00

Ping.FM Test - updating all networks. Тест рассылки через Ping.FM (russian letter test).

Official Google Blog: Google Calendar Sync

2008-03-06T01:56:00.001-05:00

Official Google Blog: Google Calendar Sync

Finally! This is just indispensable. Now I can have my calendar with me no matter what laptop I am using. Having my smartphone sync with Google Calendar was a major breakthrough, and this fits right in.

iStudioWeb

2008-01-21T18:54:00.000-05:00

Since iStudioWeb.com blog tanked from PR=2 to 0 I decided to revive this blog for promotional purposes. Let's see what will happen by the time the next Google PR update hits us.

IMified in the blog

2007-08-11T13:08:00.001-04:00

IMified (www.imified.com) is a really neat (as I am currently discovering) tool to post to various services via assortment of instant messengers, namely AIM, Yahoo, MSN and Jabber/GTalk. Additionally, WordPress, Blogger (as you can see) and bunch of other sites are supported. Not sure if I like the idea of posting to web services via IM, but when on the road this tool might really be helpful.

Amazon FPS

2007-08-06T15:05:00.000-04:00

Last Friday I have signed up for Amazon's FPS (no, not First Person Shooter), but Flexible Payment Service. That's about all the news I have for now, but we're working on an e-commerce web site that probably will be using AFPS for payments. Stay tuned.

Someone up there loves me

2007-08-01T15:14:00.000-04:00

Yes, someone up there must love me, here's the HTC Advantage that is large enough to read/view/game away plus it acts as a GSM cell phone. Just the answer to my yesterday's rant. Well, at least to the first part.

The only two noticed problems are the weight/size (damn, with 5 inches of screen real estate the thing weights around one pound) and the price - Amazon has them for $849.99. CompUSA all sold out, unfortunately, as I was going to try to hold the thing in my hands. Obviously, it will be quite hard to hold it during a lengthy conversation, so bluetooth (or wired) headset is a must. I got two of bluetooth headsets plus one wired, so recharging shouldn't be an issue here. Judging by reviews the PDA is large enough not to fit in small pockets and I hadn't noticed the option to carry it on the belt.

My contract with Verizon expires on August 18th, so if by that time Verizon will not come up with something decent (and judging by some leaked information - it will not) - I'm switching my main Zealus phone from Verizon to (most likely) Cingular - it's the only company I haven't been a customer of yet.

What is it that I want

2007-07-31T12:59:00.001-04:00

While moving tons of my ex-IT stuff from old apartment to new (and losing some ISA network cards on the way) I realized what is it that I ultimately need while most of my stuff is unavailable (like when I am moving, traveling, vacationing and so on). So think of this as of unofficial wish list:

PDA/cell phone. Not a smartphone, it's a poor excuse at being a decent organizer having a screen size of a matchbox and no keyboard. Something like an iPhone, but runs Windows Mobile and doesn't look like a proletariat's weapon of choice. With hundreds of software titles already available, seamless sync with Outlook and (again!) large screen size, so I can actually read documents/books/emails without hurting my eyes, watch stand-up shows or documentaries in the gym or on the road such device would win me over any fancy useless gadget. Oh, and add regular headphones jack (instead of smaller non-compatible one) and no-cradle sync/recharge cable for easy packing to that.
Small cheap laptop. I currently own IBM/Lenovo T60p, T42 and T40p. None of them qualifies neither as cheap nor as small. Something with screen size of 10 - 12 inches (1024x768), solid-state disk and price tag below $600 - $700 with decent battery life (at least 4 - 5 hours) should suffice. Every time some teenager or poor old lady entering backwards into subway car smashes into my backpack with my $3000 T60p with two hard drives in it, or my car hits the bump on the road, or airport security kicks a basket with my laptop out of scanner - I think of solid-state disks and cheap (read - replaceable without busting my budget) laptop.
Personal Media Player with removable storage. It's amazing to see all those gazillion-gigabyte iPods, Zens, Zunes, iRivers and other misspelled words to try to host all owner's music collection in a single place to make it easier to loose all in one take. I owned Creative Zen 20GB - thrown away as their web site is total mess and no drivers I downloaded would work with my player after attempt to hook it up to a new PC; had Toshiba Gigabeat 30GB - stolen, but I didn't like it anyway - their sync software tries to act as DRM-police and extremely slow, player just won't play directly uploaded mp3 files, sync via cradle didn't work as expected plus none of my girlfriends in the passenger seat could figure out how to navigate "that cross thingy". So all I want for now is a media player that will accept SD or Flash (or both) cards of any denomination and just play whatever is on them. With simple buttons like Play, Stop, Skip, Rewind not arranged in a puzzle or some other cryptic combination.

Re-read all of the above. Why do I need office, again?

7 Habits - Part V

2007-06-04T18:50:00.000-04:00

Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Analyzing the example from the previous paragraph of what made the merchant to do what he had done, we find the answer: he put himself in customer’s shoes. He thought of the trips the customer had to make to post office, the problems that could arise during shipping (packages do get lost, with all the tracking systems, even more often than they used to), customer’s disappointment with arrived package and possibility of future lost business with this client. The solution came from understanding and knowing from experience on how customers react to certain things in merchant-client relationships. Thus, by understanding the customer, the merchant was understood by many more people as reliable and trustworthy. It would have turned in much more than $50 in advertising costs should the merchant convey that same message by any other means.

Surely, understanding your peers is just as important as understanding customers. Peers usually see your performance from the side, so while not being in the middle of the things, they could be a perfect source of wisdom at that precise moment when you need that “How does it look?” opinion. Understanding their point of view, listening to their perception of things is very important for understanding how to be heard and pass your message around. And knowing that people will listen to you and understand what you are saying leads us to the next habit.

London 2012 Olympics Logo - My eyes! My eyes!

2007-06-04T13:57:00.000-04:00

This is the most weirdest (put lightly) logo I have ever seen in my life. Even though I myself not an artist, I think I would've done better. Whoever came up with this must have had a good time playing around in Paint.

"This is the vision at the very heart of our brand," said London 2012 organising committee chairman Seb Coe.

Please, visit your local eye specialist. Your vision definitely needs improvement.

7 Habits - Part IV

2007-05-31T10:40:00.000-04:00

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

How often can you expect to strike a mother lode? That about a thousand times better chance than having a clean win-win situation in business. However, when you are lucky or, speaking in terms of real world, if you are proactive enough and your best laid plans didn’t go awry, then win-win is so rewarding that you’ll easily forget how hard you tried and failed previous 187 attempts at it. Thinking win-win requires a lot of thinking, experience and, of course, a little bit of luck. Turning a situation into a win-win is much simpler then it may look. However, it also demands that win-win attitude for which you need all the previous experience. The perfect example for me was set when I read the story in one of the online forums recently. Customer purchased something worth $50 from a merchant, let’s call it a widget. The sum is average for such widgets, so there is nothing that stands out in this sale. It was supposed to be square, but upon receiving the widget it turned out to be round. Customer calls the merchant and asks for a replacement. The regular process would require a customer obtaining a Return Merchant Authorization number, shipping the widget back to merchant and then waiting for replacement to arrive. Customer was prepared to go through all these loops, as it’s a normal procedure at 99.9% of merchants. What turned this regular business situation into a win-win case? Merchant said “Keep it”. No forms, no numbers, no trips to post office. The proud owner of two widgets for the price of one boasted about it on the forums for several days. The result was ten more confirmed clients to that same merchant and revenue that must have paid for that widget tenfold. All that done with the power of just two words. I call it brilliant.

Impress me

2007-05-31T10:37:00.000-04:00

There are (mostly) two ways of telling a story. One (the common approach) is to lay out the dull facts. Another is to lay out the facts in such a form that will keep me (or anyone else for that sense) interested. Dish depends on a sauce, as we all know. The only reason I remember that French Navy fleet won one (and the only) battle while protecting US from Great Britain is because it was told in an unforgettable way.

The problem, it seems, is that now "audience" has seen it all. What's the sauce of the day?

7 Habits - Part III

2007-05-23T10:47:00.001-04:00

Habit 3: Put First Things First

There are only 24 hours on any given day, so making each of them count if you can’t prioritize can turn out like jumping the plane with aqualung instead of a parachute. This is where Habit 2 – planning – comes in very handy. It isn’t advertised anywhere, but for most businesses (including mine) there are clients and there are Clients. When several projects collide, knowing the difference may mean everything – from staying afloat to staying in a better suite on vacation. Recently we had to drop a very interesting and ambitious project because working on it meant less time for larger clients and less time for building our own assets base. It wasn’t because there was no money in it, no growth or no interest. It was because it didn’t fit our long-time goals. As the old saying goes – you can’t earn all the money in the world.

Zealus.com Customer Service Representative

2007-05-23T10:45:00.000-04:00

One of Zealus.com customer service representatives decided to pose for company's blog at his workplace.

Oh, no! He gave away the best-kept secret!

2007-05-23T10:34:00.001-04:00

In the recent article Wired tells about the artist and Rutgers professor Hasan Elahi, who was mistakenly targeted by FBI as a suspected terrorist. Yep, he's the one who decided to put all his life out there in the open to make sure authorities know he's innocent. "I've discovered that the best way to protect your privacy is to give it away" - damn, now every paranoid would set up his lifeblog online. Hear me, good people of Internet - next thing you know would be some smart ass sending out bulk spam with his/her daily activities.

7 Habits - Part II

2007-05-21T15:46:00.000-04:00

Habit 2: Begin with the End in mind

“And enterprises of great pitch and moment, with this regard, their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action” (Shakespeare). Often overlooked and underestimated, planning short and long term goals are a must. Finish the project. Start the advertising campaign. Begin using accounting software instead of writing notes on torn pieces of spam envelopes. Making plans and sticking to them is not only useful in the long run, it also teaches the discipline much necessary in running a business. The consequences may chase up pretty fast. This year I spent much more time than necessary while preparing tax statements, because didn’t bother using any special tools for company books. However, didn’t have any downtime when my workhorse laptop was undergoing repairs because I planned for it and prepared a replacement. Short term goals are easier to plan and stick to, because the outcome is much more predictable and faster to see, unlike more long-term goals. That’s another long-term, hard-to-stick-to plan: keep long term goals in shape.

Zango Time!

2007-05-21T13:41:00.000-04:00

Out of all the latest lawsuits this one is particularly hilarious. Here's the quote:

Online media company' Zango, which gained notoriety for redirecting adult affiliate traffic and the first ever MySpace worm, is now suing the anti-spyware vendor PC Tools, maker of an application called 'Spyware Doctor', for removing Zango applications off the consumers' PCs.

As some sharp Slashdot reader pointed out: "This is like Osama Bin Laden filing a federal lawsuit in Washington D.C. alleging that George W. Bush is interfering with Bin Laden's rights to advance the agenda of fundamentalist Islam and kill innocent Americans."

By the way, if Zango decided that they need to clean up their image (for real), maybe they should have started with removing self-installing spyware first?

7 Habits - Part I

2007-04-20T10:13:00.000-04:00

This could be a little off the topic of this blog, but I just feel like sharing this. There are 7 parts of various length of this text, so sometimes it may look like "too many words", sometimes it will not. In any case, here we go.

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Being proactive is like being constantly hungry. While chasing the next opportunity, next customer or approaching next deadline, being proactive may mean various things: from staying up late in order to finish the presentation, to removing all but necessary resources from a project so that nothing is intervening on that last mile. However, all these variations have some base to them. It’s the constant search for an opportunity to do better. In my business most customers think that every little change requires little time even though in 90% of cases it is not so. Being proactive for me means offering something, whether it’s a service or a product, or both, that will be more than customer wanted, but, thanks to me being proactive, he doesn’t have to ask for. On the other side, being too proactive is purely bad because offering too much leaves a customer dissatisfied. Why dissatisfied? Because after a customer rejects the proposal for whatever reason, it leaves him with the impression that you’ve offered more, but yet he got less. That’s why many books insist on following the simple rule: promise less, deliver more. Experience shows that this works like a charm. Another disadvantage of being too proactive is that customers start feeling this constant sales push and start avoiding you. It usually happens at times when you need this least. Finding balance, as always, is the hardest thing to do. It is number 1 on my TO-DO list.

TemplateMonster...

2007-04-18T13:39:00.000-04:00

I had no idea that TemplateMonster was sued by Corbis for piracy of stock photos.

Best Buy Uncovered

2007-03-05T15:46:00.000-05:00

I was ranting about BestBuy in my other, more personal, blog. Today, however, I found out that I am not the only one. Looks like it's a good idea to shop at other places, before you-know-what hits the fan.

On servers, hosting and other things

2007-03-05T11:02:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I was quite busy. Busy waiting. The main Zealus.com server went down some time around 10pm Thursday. At least that's when we noticed. I went to our web hoster's help desk to file the ticket, but the helpdesk was down too. So, it would seem, was the e-mail of the web hoster. Then I went to WebHostingTalk (WHT) - the popular forums, where most hosters and their direct clients hang out while datacenter reboots their servers.

The thread on the provider being down has already reached 4 pages when I joined in. Looked like all the servers managed by the same company went down. People were upset, angry and aggravated.

The guy who was answering my e-mails sounded very apologetic - little recourse knowing that our main site is down. Thankfully most of our clients were on another server, so they were only affected in a way that their communications with us was temporarily impeded.

Around 10:45 AM on Friday I found out that the issue seem to be at the data center, not the servers. Our web hoster informed me that they are changing providers. The reason was not, however, clearly communicated, although several people on forums had asked. I was assured that "we expect everything to be working today anytime soon".

Knowing how annoying the e-mails could be when you really have nothing new to report, the next time I contacted the hoster was around 3:45 PM. Again, I was assured that "Some of our IPs are already up, your server should be up soon". Future just looked a little brighter.

At 5:35 PM our hoster announced on WHT that most of the servers are up. However, none of the WHT members save one confirmed that. Their servers, as well as our, remained down. By 11:00 PM I inquired (on WHT) what servers have been brought up, so myself and other WHT members could see that the progress have been made. No response to that, though. Just regular "go back to your tickets, we'll update you there".

Saturday, 1:01 PM - another inquiry. The hoster replies that "we only have few machines down left, yours is one of them". Great news! Not only I got in the game last, I'm about to leave the game last. However, by 3:45 PM hoster posts on WHT that there is another problem with some of the servers that refuse to boot. What happened to "you will be updated in your tickets"?

At 4:00 PM I am promised that "By midnight CST we should have your HDD in new hardware and sites online". Great, it's only 1:00 AM by EST, so I can cut on sleep again, tomorrow's Sunday anyway. However, the server was up at around 4:00 AM with cPanel licenses and other minor things yet to be resolved. The whole thing seem operational as of Sunday, the e-mails started to come in and the rest of the dust eventually settled down.

Now, a bit of reflection. The team seems nice and the tickets are responded to properly. However, the constant lack of communication suggests that in critical cases like this one we will not be able to rely on the responses of the hoster's team. A lot of questions went unanswered, for example - we still have no idea why hard drive from our server failed to boot in others. Why the system failed to boot at all in the first place. What was the reason the servers were down for more then 48 hours? And, ultimately, why have all these questions went unasnwered while they were asked? For example - I explicitly asked for the reason the system didn't boot three times - and all three times my question was ignored.

By this time the quality of service doesn't matter much, as well as price and server features. You can get roughly same deal from various hosters, give or take. What matters - is the quality of communication, the quality of customer service, the responsiveness of the whole team - server admins, customer service reps, techicians and even billing. So I don't even count the past events, I am not saying I am upset because I had to ask for root password 4 times because they kept changing it right after I asked. I am not saying I am upset because I have found several high-traffic web sites left on my server, although it was supposed to be clean install. What I am upset about is that people I trusted with my client's data and services failed to deliver up to the promise - several times. This - not the downtime - is the reason for leaving.

Russian Teacher Case

2007-02-16T17:10:00.000-05:00

Given how much publicity the case with Russian teacher Ponosov got (here's the link to the latest on Wired) I think I also have to shed some light on it, given that most people don't really understand what's really going on. However, bear in mind - I am not a lawyer, so whatever you may find below is my personal perception based on knowing the situation in Russia just a bit better then folk on this side of ocean.

Is a nutshell - the principal (called director of school, basically the administrator who runs whole 11-grades establishment between kindergarten and university/college) got apprehended by Russian authorities for having a classroom with computers without Windows licenses on them. As the case unfolded, it was established (judging by information from public sources) that he bought computers with Windows already preinstalled.

Now, this is a spot where I need to stop and make some things clear. Most of schools in Russia don't have computers, let alone money to pay for the software. However, as it was uncovered in this case, the problem was that Ponosov allegedly bought computers from some third-party that installed unlicensed copies.of operating system. Where did the difference in money go, of course, was not disclosed. Again, it wasn't Microsoft who chased the guy, it was Russian authorities for good solid reason.

Next thing you know - Mikhail Gorbachev (when did he surfaced?) asks Bill Gates to intervene, Putin is personally overseeing the process, Microsoft (as always) gets all the blame, Ponosov claims he's not guilty even after he was offered to settle things outside of the court and then - boom!, case dismissed.

Now why would anybody want to have a process like that? Personally, I see several goals of such thing, even though at first glance the whole thing looks like an exercise in moronity:

Putin shows to the world that he fights piracy in his country. The fact that in real life in Russia nobody cares about piracy is somehow gets forgotten. No, really, you think someone with salary around $200 - $500 a month could afford buying an OS that costs about that? Plus the Office? Especially when pirated copies cost around $5 - $10 per CD with every possible version of Windows on it? Give me a break.
(whoever was behind this idea) got the message out very loud and clear - stop using ~~Windows~~ proprietary/commercial in Russia. Why? Because you never know if and when authorities will come after you. However, with Linux/OpenOffice combo, there are no licensing fees to pay, no restrictions, therefore it's just plain safe to use.
this puts additional pressure on software companies that sell their products in Russian market to lower the price. Not because Russian companies cannot afford it, but because Russian consumers don't want to pay for it. In simple language - they wouldn't buy the product if there is any way they can steal it. Practically no amount of meetings, agreements and even discounts would change that type of psychology any time soon. Of course, with larger companies the situation is different, but on the end-consumer market it is considered plain old idiocy to pay for Windows.

First two bullet points are pretty obvious to anyone who have been following (anti)piracy news from Russia. Third one has a very long history, which I have neither time nor wish to go through. Just to summarize the whole thing - it seems very interesting how Russian-produced PR actions get a lot of people very emotional. Looks like they got some kind of gurus back there in Moscow. Nice job, guys.

Yahoo holds its ground

2007-02-12T16:29:00.000-05:00

Last week I subscribed to Yahoo music. Yeah, I know. But I was going to give it a try anyway.

Surely, the service sucked from the very beginning - you have to download a special player (called Yahoo Jukebox), that downloads tons of crap while playing my purchased music. This itself is a very fishy concept - why would company force me to view ads while I enjoy a content I paid for. If the music was free - I would have understood the ads. But I already paid for this - why do you have to feed me all those stupid ads full-screen at 1600x1200 pixels resolution, if I only want to hear music - is totally beyond me. Of course, finding something useful (unless it’s a today’s MTV hit) is next to impossible.

But the real excitement begins when you are trying to cancel the account. Do you think you can cancel from JukeBox? Wrong, you can only upgrade. Do you think you can cancel from Yahoo Music Home page? Wrong again. In fact, the only way you can cancel the service is to go to My Account page, select Manage Premium Services, then Manage Service link next to Yahoo! Music Subscription, then Cancel Service. But you didn’t think it would be THAT easy, didn’t you? While following this narrow path to freedom you are asked for your password twice. Upon the clicking on Cancel Service link another screen appears that (legitimately) asks you for the reason of your cancellation - I selected "The service was difficult to use". Then another screen apologetically offers to get online help or contact support. However, if you insist on cancelling - hey, we warned ya! - you need to enter your Yahoo password again (third time). Guess what happen then? Wrong, you need to enter your password again. And again. And again. And - it’s the infinite loop. You also cannot change the payment method, should this idea cross your mind.

I do realize that this might be some sort of glitch in software. I do realize Yahoo doesn’t really benefit from my 70 bucks that it is trying not to give me back so hard. But I do realize one important thing - if I trap the customer in a loop like that, I’ll probably loose more then just one customer. Guess what just happened to Yahoo?

Post2Blog

2007-02-08T11:51:00.000-05:00

Trying out new software - Post2Blog - (version 2.10a). So far it looks as convenient as Microsoft’s Writer (or what was the name of that Beta thing). It automatically discovered settings for both my Blogger and WordPress blogs and offered to save pictures either to ImageShack.us, Picturelli or Flickr (I choose latter). There’s also a somewhat useful feature - Quick Snippets - whenever you type something like ’zealus’ it will be replaced by Zealus.com (i.e. in my case - web site name with link).

Worth a look, if you into this sort of things.

Many, many, many things happen

2007-01-30T18:11:00.000-05:00

While everybody and their grandmothers write about Vista release - I'll write of other important things. First - there is this totally geeky thing that I would love receive from somebody. I cannot even reiterate how much I would love to see it on my table.

Another thing was this absolutely hilarious video. I can't stop laughing and it took me around 5 attempts to just finish watching the damn thing.

While you're on YouTube, watch this - it's nowhere near funny, but actually is a very good prototype of the "next-gen" interface. I'd love to see it implemented when I'll be buying my next ThinkPad.

Maybe I'm getting my hopes too high in terms of schedule availability, but I plan to attend one-day start-up school.

We'll have a range of experts speaking on all the things you need to know to start a company: what makes a good startup idea and where to get them; what to look for in a co-founder; how to get angel and VC funding; how to incorporate a company and what agreements founders should have among themselves; when and how to apply for patents; what can go wrong in a startup; what acquirers look for; and how the acquisition process works.

Loved this presentation. You will, too, if you haven't seen it before.

And just before this post was out - found this interview with Lee Dodd, forum owner, who

once famously posted a check in excess of $220k for 3 months of earnings

Stay tuned.

Security through ignorance?

2007-01-26T11:46:00.000-05:00

It's nice to see that a list of passwords hasn't changed much since 1997.

Common Passwords: The top 20 passwords are (in order):

password1, abc123, myspace1, password, blink182, qwerty1, fuckyou, 123abc, baseball1, football1, 123456, soccer, monkey1, liverpool1, princess1, jordan23, slipknot1, superman1, iloveyou1 and monkey

Although as I recall, top 3 admin passwords back then were password, god and superadmin.

HD DVD & Blue-Ray DVD encryption bypassed

2007-01-25T10:54:00.000-05:00

A virtual interview with muslix64, who created a proof-of-concept program that bypasses encryption on both formats.
This passage is especially good:

I'm just an upset customer. My efforts can be called "fair use enforcement"!

Oh, and speaking of fiber optic...

2007-01-23T16:30:00.000-05:00

...that I was whining about here - Verizon already rolling with it. Some of my clients in Long Island, NY and Fair Lawn, NJ are the game. My OptimumOnline cable, however, isn't all that bad with 1Mbps/6Mbps upstream/downstream, but Verizon's prices are unbeatable.

Call me lazy, but...

2007-01-23T16:17:00.000-05:00

... but I just found out today that Google's Gmail has this nifty feature of checking POP3 accounts for you. It doesn't really matter that it's been around from other providers for years, and Google's only made it available to some of the customers (for example I only have it enabled on one out of three of my accounts). What matters is that if you add the ability to send e-mails as from that another account (which is already available) - and you can use Gmail as your full-featured POP3/SMTP e-mail. Given that most of people don't have 2GB of backlog e-mails anyway - very nice trick. The real breakthrough would be if Google made an import routine to upload old messages preserving dates from e-mail programs, such as Outlook/Outlook Express, TheBat!, ThunderBird and others.

Overall - I'm starting to be more and more taken into whole online-office thing. E-mail client, word processor, spreadsheets - and now talks of Google acquiring ThinkFree, that also has presentation creator - all looks very promising. Obviously, I'm not planning to ditch the Office package, however, I'll think twice before upgrading to the next version. After all - I don't have a 2.5GB Excel spreadsheet with all the hedge fund transaction history, as some company I was interviewed at three years ago.

Weebly...

2007-01-17T01:00:00.000-05:00

Took me less then 5 minutes to create this page: http://zealus9.weebly.com

I'd say it's a lot easier then Google Pages. Google, pay attention :)

Folksonomy

2007-01-16T16:34:00.000-05:00

Ah, here it is: http://www.uie.com/articles/folksonomies/

I'm having problems explaining this in plain English/Russian to people who are too lazy to read. Basically I need to clearly explaun in just two sentences how the whole system works. $2 million dollar question.

Backups, backups or I want a fiber-optic line!

2007-01-09T14:29:00.000-05:00

Last week I ran out of second hard drive space. My laptop (IBM/Lenovo T60p) is equipped with two hard drives (instead of hard drive and DVD-RW) - main (80GB) and secondary (60GB). Pretty much all work resides on main (that is - e-mails, contacts, client's data, software, etc.), part on second (temporary data, raw documents/files, etc). Plus, as usual, some music, movies, small game or two to busy myself on the trip.

Total rough estimate of my E-mail archives + client's files + other files including raw files that I believe should be available within reach is about 30GB. In other words, 30GB is the amount of data I would like to be able to back up at least weekly, preferably online - so that I will be able to grab them from any place.

There are a lot of online storage options available - ranging from AOL's Xdrive and hosting services like Rapidshare.com to various dedicated business solutions. However, they all seem to have one problem in common: in case of a "disaster" the process of recovering 30GB of data off of the internet storage would take me much much longer then fetching a hard drive from home. Now, I'm not saying online storage is bad and is being (ab)used only by illegal software distributors (it is heavily used, though). Unfortunately, most of our internet connections don't allow us to take full advantage of such services.

Obviously, people who only need to save couple of spreadsheets and contacts database (no matter how important they are) would think different, but as important those several megabytes of data to them, as my 30GB are to me. The difference between our options, however, is tremendous.

Added to Technorati

2007-01-05T13:36:00.001-05:00

I wish I knew why is it so cumbersome.... Technorati Profile

Traveling Willberries

2007-01-04T12:24:00.000-05:00

As I was traveling to Arizona for New Year holidays, I discovered a great trick-in at Pointe Hilton in Phoenix. It's easy - build a hotel in such a way that cell-phone reception is hardly present, charge $10.00/day for limited internet access and $24.95/day for true high-speed broadband and voila - you get even more money then if you tried to trick guests with those $2/minute phone charges.

Vista Shoots Itself In Both Feet

2006-12-26T14:22:00.000-05:00

While anxiously anticipating Windows Vista to arrive on shelves accessible by consumers, I keep doing my homework researching how it will handle my collection of DVDs, CDs and mp3s. In other words - I'm thinking of using Vista not only as a productivity center, but as media one as well. However, the DRM craze seem to be putting away this idea for good.

While following links from Slashdot to originating site, I discovered the Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. This is, obviously, not an accounting cost-analysis, but a well-weighted walk through all the issues that arise while implementing a protection for premium content. While I do think author exaggerates a little, however, the hammer is about to fall.

Microsoft, by implementing this customer-unfriendly scheme, is preventing regular users from watching premium content on Vista PCs/laptops thus tossing away a share of market for Media Center PCs. After all - why bother with $1000 Vista PC while there are a lot of much cheaper options, like set-top players?

The whole story actually (in my view) is giving Vista a very bad rap. Personally, I don't want it anywhere near my movies. Nor anywhere near my laptop. At least not anytime soon.

Still outsourcing?

2006-12-26T01:44:00.000-05:00

Are you still outsourcing your customer service?

Watch this!

Windows Of Choice

2006-12-21T13:29:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Exler!

Fatboy Slim's song Weapon of Choice, with Christofer Walken:

Microsoft's spoof ad - Windows Of Choice. Watch it, it's amazing. Rumor has it - these are actual MS executives, although I don't know any of them personally.

This is hilarious!

2006-12-20T00:25:00.000-05:00

Flags of the countries... with clients' comments... Click here.

New movie for AquaShield

2006-12-19T17:10:00.000-05:00

In the process of creating a new flash/TV movie for AquaShield. To me it looks amazing, you can see a screenshot on the left. The movie features pool cover assembly process in full 3D and full color. Honestly - I wanna see this on TV :)

Pricing Structure

2006-11-29T19:45:00.000-05:00

Not sure if I am the only one who get clients like this one, but ~~hear~~ read me out.

Potential client calls and asks for a pricing quote. We assess the scope of work and present him with certain numbers that we think are reasonable and well thought. Clients immediately (i.e. without any sort of consideration) replies that "5 years ago someone else did the site for this guy for XXX dollars, why are you charging more?".

Indeed, why?

Rupak Basu here...

2006-11-09T10:48:00.000-05:00

Well, here, there and everywhere. Another Indian spam-design company... oops, did I say spam? Noo! They are "ISO 9001:2000 certified organization providing world-class IT solutions since 1991" company, based in Salt Lake Kolkata, India. Long time outsourcing partner with "large client base in India as well as in USA, Canada, UK and Australia". You know - big guys. The cream of the crop. The brass. What's interesting though, is that these guys even provided their pricing:

Website design starting at US$ 300 - Web programming at US$ 10/hour - Flash design starting at US$ 75 - Logo design starting at US$ 45.

What I still fail to realize is why would any self-respecting web design company fall for that? It is widely known by now that especially indian programmers are producing especially bad results and (this I know from first-hand experience) even Americans from India refuse to work with programmers and web developers from India.

Generally speaking - there's nothing wrong with outsourcing or India. It's just that combined they don't work. Especially, when I start getting as much Indian web design spam as I do get *various body parts* enlargement spam or nigerian spam letters. Sorry, folks, but if you spam - no cookies for you.

Old case, new case

2006-10-10T16:44:00.000-04:00

Just called Lenovo for the status of my old laptop repair. So far they only got the replacement fan yesterday and fixed the whole unit today and shipped it today as well. In the meantime, they moved to new software so now reps look up orders in two versions of support software, giving wrong trouble-ticket numbers and messing up other stuff.

Good news - I'm putting Vista and Office 2007 Beta2 on my old laptop tomorrow.

Bad news - need to sell the old laptop ASAP.

Updated blog

2006-10-04T14:25:00.000-04:00

Updated blog with Beta version of Blogger. Also, changed design a little.

So far, the system looks a little friendlier, with labels (aka Tags), design editor and other nice things. However, I was unable to put an AdSense banner under this blog's title area. Strange.

Despite the promises - not much real change in Dashboard. A little cleaner, though. Settings page looks less crowded, which is also nice.

One MAJOR change - no more "wait while your blog is updated". That's an improvement! Thank you!