The Dead Sea is quite alive, as long as humans count as its fauna. In fact over 33% concentration of salt and other minerals in water, makes underwater life completly dead. This gift of nature located in Jordan, is one of places in the Middle East on “have to see” list. Continue reading
My Salomon Crossmax skates are history. For a long time I could not decide which skates would replace them well. Finally I got Powerslide Metro freeride skates, because they receive positive comments, because I checked them personally and because… I got discount. Continue reading
I was thinking of Kindle 3 for some time: eBook reader with paper-like light-reflective display available at reasonable price. In Chicago I noticed Kindle 3 version called “Kindle with Special Offers” (KSO) for only $114. It was attractive alternative for regular Kindle 3 available for $139. You can get this $25 discounted device only in USA; the deal here is that KSO displays books ads when switched off. I did not bother these “special offers” at all, but my “dismantle first” instinct pushed me to find out a way to get rid of it. Continue reading
Some time ago I bought miniUSB-microUSB adapter for pennies to avoid collecting more and more USB cables. I have used it for USB power adapter with miniUSB plug to charge my HTC Desire with microUSB. To my surprise couple days ago, when I tried to exchange data, I noticed my PC does not see HTC, which in turn detected “charging only” source. When I opened up USB adapter and saw only two cables for power lines this behavior was obvious: so far USB cannot natively trasfer data over the air… Continue reading
With the advent of IBM BPM 7.5 I was invited to US for internal training in mid of June. So far Chicago was a connection point travelling to other places, this time I had one week to hang around. Most impressive part was that I could not easily predict short term weather conditions – one cannot see much of the sky covered by skyscrapers. Continue reading
I am happy user of vsftpd that gives me necessery features but encryption. I was trying to replace existing approach but did not succeed. Here comes the story.
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Cairo never sleeps. I could experience it on my way from airport to hotel, catched by massive traffic jam at 11pm. In the morning I could sense typical arabic metropoly like Casablanca but raised to the power. Constant honking of car horns, smoky diesel engines and blazing hot got me tired from the beginning of a day. Continue reading
After almost 12 years of marriage with Nokia brand I decided to try something else. I wanted to have phone with portable GPS with a screen big enough to see maps while driving a car. Anything more was an option I thought. My ignorance ended up right after I started to play with smartphone of my colegue. Out of sight, out of mind. Continue reading
I remember my first digital circuit made up when I was teenager, an electronic dice, made of TTL logical gates, driving 7 LEDs formed to display any combination of dots of thrown dice. I realized it would be good microcontroller playground. Flexibility comming from programming allowed me to plan a bit more comple hardware: double dice display plus sound buzzer. Continue reading
How long would it take to travel 300km to another city for 2 hours business meeting and then get back? In Western Europe it is 5 to 7 hours depending on means of transport. In place where I live it would be mission::impossible. Let me tell you how PKP, national railways, gives a middle finger to passengers. Continue reading
