Year: 2010

Adding Google Apps GTalk account to Pidgin

Google Apps help page is a little bit outdated and I had to spend a few minutes working out the solution, hence this post.  Here is how you add your Google Apps GTalk account to Pidgin.

  1. In Pidgin, click on the Accounts menu.
  2. Select Manage Accounts.
  3. Click ‘Add…‘ button.
  4. Select XMPP protocol.
  5. Specify account’s local part in the Username field.  For joe@example.com that would be joe.
  6. Specify account’s domain in the Domain field.  For joe@example.com that would be examle.com.
  7. You can ignore the Resource field and leave it empty.
  8. Specify account’s password in the Password field.
  9. Switch to Advanced tab.
  10. Change Connection security to ‘Use old-style SSL’.
  11. Change Connect port to 443.
  12. Change Connect server to talk.google.com.
  13. Press Save.  You are done.

Red

Being a big fan of action comedies, I’ve been waiting for this one – “Red“.  Thanks to a whole bunch of trailers on YouTube, I knew pretty early that I’d love this film.  And indeed I did.

It’s exactly what it promised to be, and even a bit more – funny, action packed, with brilliant cast, and so on and so forth.  Even the story is not totally stupid, like in most action films.   And it gives you something to think about.  Even though that’s really not the point of the film.  The point is entertainment, and the movie tackles that in a great way.

Overall, a 5 out of 5.  I had a blast.

More improvements for Movie Reviews

I’ve just added even more improvements to Movie Reviews.  If an article is a movie review, the list of assigned categories is not shown anymore.  Instead of the boring ‘All, Movies, 4 stars’ only the rating is displayed, using an appropriate amount of stars.  Images are way more fun to look at than text, aren’t they?

Also, in movie review articles, ‘Tagged with’ has been replaced with ‘Cast: ‘.  I know, I’ve used all sorts of different approaches to tagging my movie reviews, but the most recent direction seems to be tagging movies with people who directed, wrote, produced, acted, etc.  Hence the caption change.

And now for my favorite change so far.  Related movies are not displayed using poster thumbnails rather than the boring text.  It looks way better and makes me wanna click and read more.  Hopefully other visitors will feel the same.

Here is a screenshot that demonstrates the above described changes.

Due Date

The other day I went to see the comedy written, directed, and produced by Todd Fillips – “Due Date”.  Todd also played one of the supporting roles in this film, which is somewhat usual of him.  Two main roles were played by Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis.

Even though I did enjoy this comedy quite a bit, I still felt that it was rushed into production.  Some parts of the movie are hilarious.  I’ve been laughing out loud more than twice.  And even laughed to tears once or twice.  But there were parts of this movie which were unnecessary, boring, and disconnected.  It felt like these were early drafts.

Robert Downey Jr. was interesting – a somewhat more dramatic character than most of his recent movies.  Zach Galifianakis was exactly as he usually is in his most recent movies.  There were weird moments, but overall the duet worked together.

I won’t recommend this film strongly, but if you have a chance to see it – see it.  It’s not a total waste of time.   Ranking-wise, I’d give it a 4 out of 5.

Day in brief

  • I love it when I implement a new feature even before I have my morning coffee. Gives me hope for the rest of the day. #
  • Yey! That problem wasn't due to my bug. It's somebody else's problem. #
  • And once again I am bitten by PHP's lack of precision on floating point calculations. Switching to bc-functions… #
  • I favorited a YouTube video — "Шла Саша по шоссе"_HD.avi http://youtu.be/Mb5TjO_MuU8?a #
  • I favorited a YouTube video — Ark Hotel Construction time lapse building 15 storeys in… http://youtu.be/Ps0DSihggio?a #
  • I favorited a YouTube video — Grandpa Rocks Pedestrian Zone http://youtu.be/nclaJzMWhR4?a #
  • I favorited a YouTube video — Pagani v Lamborghini: Need for Speed Hot Pursuit http://youtu.be/cm8f-TvxJR0?a #
  • I favorited a YouTube video — Call of Duty: Black Ops – There's a Soldier in All of Us http://youtu.be/9yzeCsv-qrM?a #
  • I favorited a YouTube video — Call of Duty: Black Ops – Launch Party Teaser http://youtu.be/BIwa2s5D1do?a #