My office window

The latest theme for Flickr blog is called “my office window“.  There are some nice photos, as always, but what’s more interesting is that it is quite an engaging subject.  Pretty much everyone who ever worked somewhere can participate, share photos, and discuss.

For me personally, the last few years weren’t very lucky in terms of a good office window view.  I currently work in the premises which are on a busy Omonia avenue, which runs between the new port of Limassol and the highway.  Not too much to see.  My previous office was even worse – it had no windows at all.  The office before that had some windows, but the view wasn’t any good.  And so and so forth.  But I don’t feel bad about that. Because for six years or so I had the best office window ever.  It was during my time in PrimeTel, where I had a sea view window. I especially enjoyed it when I was working night shifts.   I had to see a sun rise several times a week!  And also PrimeTel’s office being next to the new port of Limassol, there were always ships to provide some focus and highlight to the view, not just sun and water, which I guess would have become boring pretty soon.  Here is one of the many pictures I took during those mornings.

What about you guys?  What’s you office window like? Do you have one? What’s the view like?  What was the best (or worst) office window you ever head?  Got any pictures to see?

EFF big win over DMCA

Most of the times, when I donate money, I don’t really expect anything back.  I don’t see them as an investment to the future of the person or organization, but rather a gratitude and appreciation for the past.  It was also how I saw my support of Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  Today I received a press release from EFF, which made me proud to be a member and also a little extra happy about the money I donated over the last few years.  It’s a big win over Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which is one law that I never liked too much.  Here is a quote to get you started:

San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won three critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anticircumvention provisions today, carving out new legal protections for consumers who modify their cell phones and artists who remix videos — people who, until now, could have been sued for their non-infringing or fair use activities.

“By granting all of EFF’s applications, the Copyright Office and Librarian of Congress have taken three important steps today to mitigate some of the harms caused by the DMCA,” said Jennifer Granick, EFF’s Civil Liberties Director. “We are thrilled to have helped free jailbreakers, unlockers and vidders from this law’s overbroad reach.”

Continue reading the full press release and supporting documents.

As a side note, once again I am amazed at how much influence some American law has on my life, which happens to be far away from the United States territory.  Being a daily user of many services provided by Americans and from the United States soil, I am impacted by rules and limitations faced by those people who provide those services.

Stupid piece of crap (NSFW)

I must have seen this video a trillion times by now.  It entertains me on so many levels, that I think it’s absolutely genius.  There is a lot of English swearing, so if you are easily offended, you’d better skip this one.  Not Safe For Work (NSFW), unless you work in some cool technology company.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyVh1_vWYQ]

Check The Onion for more or subscribe to their YouTube channel.

Compact Archives

Anyone who has been running a blog even for a couple of years, knows how annoying archives can get.  Each year brings twelve monthly archives, and the more years you work, the more archives you have.  And they just keep multiplying until there is no easy way to use them any more.  For anyone who is suffering from this problem while using WordPress platform, I recommend a solution – Compact Archives plugin.  If you are not on WordPress, chances are there is a similar plugin for your content management system, but even if there is none, creating one shouldn’t be a huge problem.  See how it beautiful it is – in action on my newly re-created Archives page, or on the screenshot below.

Simple, intuitive, and scalable – just the way it should be.