Category: Site News

This website is very old. It’s been with me for many years. There are plenty of articles which are useful both for myself and the rest of the world. Bit by bit, word by word, link by link, image by image, this site was filled and filled over the years. Technologies changed. Some new techniques and concepts came up. Some old ones faded away. Spending as much time as I possible can (after everything else) on this site, sometimes I manage to introduce big changes – like a new bit of functionality or a totally different look. Not to confuse and scare everyone, I try to be open about the changes that were made. When something big is changed I post a description of what it was and why I felt the change was needed. These updates are published in this category.

I’ll sell it any day now. NOT!


My blog is worth $18,065.28.
How much is your blog worth?

The blogosphere is going crazy with this new toy from Technorati. My blog is slightly over $18K. And although I doubt anyone would want to buy it, I won’t sell it anyway. It carries my name after all. So, how much is your blog worth?

Still, I think it would be nice if there was a tool that could be seriously used by those who buy blogs – I don’t know who they are, don’t ask me. If there was such a tool it would be so easy to measure blogs, build blogs for sale, find buyers, and sell them, that it would be a good business opportunity for those of us, who … well … dares to try.

Until than we should simply blog blog and blog hope. We should hope that someone with the will and money will one day find our piles of posts and offer us something in return, so that we could finally go and spend some quality time with our families. No. I don’t think that would inspire that. If bloggers will be paid for what they do, they would probably do more of it. Or so I think.

P.S.: Last two paragraphs were put here for one reasona and one reason only – to make this post look good. You see, because I use DIVs instead of TABLEs, once in a while I get this weird formatting glitches that require me to put more text or be abandoned by all my audience, starting with me. You can stop reading now. Like you even did. I bet you are already cleaning the history and cache of your browser to help you forget this URL faster.

Scheduled downtime

I am planning to bring the server down today for a few minutes. The reason for the downtime is the upgrade of the system. The machine is almost out of disk space and its hard disks urgently need replacement.

It’s been a while since I ugpraded hard disks and therefor it runs on a bunch of really outdated disks like 40 and 60 GBytes. I will pass by the computer shop today to see what’s the current situation with hardware and if the prices are good I am planning to get at least a 200 GByte disk. Maybe even a 300 GByte disk. Or maybe even a couple of 200 GByte ones.

This upgrade should also free up some space in the server’s case. At this moment there are five IDE devices installed in the room designed to hold only three of them.

Update: I’ve just purchased Seagate Barracuda 200 GByte hard disk in ComputerLand Center for a mere 68 CYP. It will be installed shortly.

Update: The old 40 GByte hard disk that was hosting root filesystem has been replaced by the new 200 GByte disk. Some hard disk tetris is yet to be played though. I still have to free up some space in the case and disconnect some old junky hardware. But all this will be done later. I am tired of the noise and dust at the moment.

Updated Google Ads

I have done a few minor changes about the Google Ads that I run on this site.

Firstly, I have added another vertical ad on all pages. It appears below the search field and makes the sidebar look not as lonely as it used to when scrolled further down.

Secondly, I have changed the color scheme of all ads to match the new colors of the site. Luckily, I didn’t have to mess around with CSS and hexadecimal numbers myself. Google Adsense has a theme that closely matches the colors that I wanted – Steely Gaze.

Thirdly, I have separated all ads into three channels – sidebar, comments-above, and comments-below. This will allow me to get better reports from Google. From now on I will see which ads are more effective and also will be able to play around with different color schemes and ad formats.

I hope that all these ads are not too annoying and that you’ll be clicking on those that really match the content of posts. I am less than $10 USD short for my second paycheck from Google and I hope to get it before Christmas.

It looks like a newspaper!

I’ve been getting some positive feedback about the new look of the site. It seems that most people like it. There is one who doesn’t though – my wife Olga. Here’s how she expressed it:

Olga: I don’t like the new look.
Me: Why?
Olga: I don’t know.
Me: But if you think about it, maybe there is something you can put your finger on.
Olga: Well, it looks like … like … like … LIKE A NEWSPAPER!
Me: Hm…
Olga: Yes, exactly. It looks like a newspaper. Before it used to look like a magazine.

After a short discussion, we realized that she meant that there weren’t enough colors on the site. It looked black and white to her. Interesting.

Oh, and while I am listening to all opinions, I am not going to change anything just yet. I myself like the new look a lot and that’s the most important thing of all, isn’t it?

I promised you movies – I give you movies.

I know that this doens’t go very well with my recent connectivty degradation, but I though I would post this anyway, as I promised it for a while now.

I have setup added a special album called ‘Movies‘ to the gallery. It has the same organization like my photo albums, but instead of photographs it has a number of moving pictures. These are mostly unedited and “unbeautified” pieces that were shot on different occasions. These clips mostly hold value to Olga and me and to Maxim when he will grow up. Some of this clips are rather heavy traffic-wise, so you might think twice before watching them.

Also, please don’t ask me how you can see them on Windows or Mac – I have no idea. They all play just fine on Linux. If it helps, most of them were encoding with ffmpeg. Google will help you if you have a problem.

I have uploaded all the clips that I had minus some really really bad ones – content-wise or technical-wise. I will also be posting new clips if I will have any.

I would like to thank Vladimir Ivaschenko for it was his two cameras that shot most if not all of this material. Let the internet save our memories now.