Year: 2005

Signed up for Google Analytics

Everyone and their brother is talking about the new Google service – Google Analytics. Basically, this is a smart way of getting website statistics. Instead of installing and configuring a local web log analyzer, you just sign up for the Analytics, insert some JavaScript code into your website and have the best stats ever made ready for you. Or not.

Google Analytics is called the biggests failer release by many. Things didn’t work as they were supposed to. Instead of fast and dynamic stats, people wait in queue for their statistics. Lots of bugs and lots of misbehaviors. I signed up myself and I had to wait for alsmost 12 hours for the site to be accepted. And now I have to wait for another 12 hours (or so I am promised) to get the first reports.

For me the idea of having stats done by Google is a pleasant one. If I think Google can do one thing right that wold be data aggregation. The paranoids all around us make lots of noise about privacy concerns and Big Brother is watching you conspiracies. Well, I simply don’t care.

Those of you who do care and want to avoid being tracked by Google can easily do so. All you need to do is block your browser from doing HTTP requests to “www.google-analytics.com”. Read this good article on the subject.

Weird consumer behavior

For years now Limassol is inhabbited with crowds of Russian people. There are so many of us that many locals somewhat speak the language, many restaurants offer menus in Russian, as well as shops have “special” price lists.

One of the sides of the strong Russian community is a number of “Russian” shops. These are rather small shops that sell all sorts of goods that many Russian people miss. Mostly those are books by suicidal novelists and food items like caviar, pelmeni, and vodka.

For years, both Olga and I were going to visit one of this shops just to see if there was anything that we’d like to buy. We always knew practically the complist price list, because so many of our friends shop in these places regularly and tell us all about them. But we never got our act together. Either we were to lazy, or didn’t care much – I am not sure.

Our shopping routine was almost rock solid for all this years. A weekly trip to Woolworth Ermes covered almost all our food needs. Nearby bakery supplied us with fresh bread. And when we felt like and adventure we would sneak into the enemy’s camp go shopping to either Chris Cash & Carry or Orphanides.

Guess what have changed last week? You’ll never do, as we were surprised ourselves. Our best and favourite supermarket Ermes opened a small section with products for that Russian market. Some of the products are imported directly from Russia – cereals, beer, bread. Others bought from European countries that have so many Russians that it is economically feasable to produce those goods – canned mushrooms, tomatos, and meat.

When we discovered this Russian shelf near the butcher’s section were were laughing out loud. They say that if gnome won’t come to the mountain, the mountain will come to gnome. True indeed.

Now we have even fewer reasons to go shopping at another supermarket. Not only we have everything we need in Ermes, but we surely have more.

P.S.: Russian beer sucks big time. Canned (salted or marinated) mushrooms imported from Germany are pretty good. Canned (salted) tomatos are superb! Just in case you were wondering.

The 40 Year Old Virgin

The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)I don’t know about you, but when I first heard the title of the film “The 40 Year Old Virgin” I knew that I didn’t want to see it in about quarter of a second. It just shouts “cliche” in every word and then some more. I immediately knew that it would be a romantic comedy about a somewhat old loser that never got laid. And that his truth will come out and some guys will act upon it and will try to get him laid. And by the end of the movie he will fall in love and yada yada yada. The only minor question was if they would use a guy or a girl for the main character, and all those cliche shouts were suggesting that it would be a guy. That was later confirmed by the poster.

So why did I change my mind and went to see it? Well, just out of curiousity I checked the film’s rating at IMDB and was surprised to find a whole 7.5! I mean I know there are a lot of kids, losers, people who never got laid, and those three types combined into one, but I could never imagine that there were more than 10,000 of those using IMDB.

Directed by: Judd Apatow
Genres: Comedy, Romance
Cast: Steve Carell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Leslie Mann, Jane Lynch, Gerry Bednob, Shelley Malil, Kat Dennings, Jordy Masterson, Chelsea Smith, Jonah Hill, Erica Vittina Phillips
IMDB raintg: 7.5
My rating: 6.5 [rate 6.5]

Continue reading The 40 Year Old Virgin

iPod did some good too

I am trying my best to be objective and open minded. I am not always good at it, but at least I’m trying. The other day I wrote a somewhat negative post about iPod. Ok, and a few negative comments too.

Because I try to stay open minded and because I don’t want to become an always complaining gramp, I try to find positive sides too. I thought about the iPod issue a bit and I think that obviously there is a good thing about it too. And not just some theoretical crapy good thing that is good for some abstract iPod user, but a really good thing for me and you.

iPod hype has increased the popularity of podcasting.

What good is in podcasting? Well, I happen to think that podcasting is a good idea by itself. It is one of those applications that make Internet more popular with the masses. And that’s a good thing. Podcasting, in turn, increased the popularity and common knowledge of such modern technologies as feeding (RSS and Atom) and audio compression (mp3 and ogg). That’s another good thing.

So, with iPod, as with any other thing there is good stuff and there is bad stuff. I found both. Now is your turn.