New Job (ok, sort of)

Here I am again, 3+ months down the line since the last post. I know, it's a horrible display of blogging on my behalf but the silence was worth it it seems, as after a couple of months of training in doing nothing really, I ended up in the best place I could have.. and I think I might just stay here until October which is when I get discharged:)

Writing these lines sitting at a desk at the airforce HQ in Athens, IT department, with a cup of coffee, brushing up .NET skills working with real projects just 2 months after joining the force is hardly what someone in my line of work could have expected or even hoped for. That would probably be driving some army vehicle (which I only narrowly avoided as I went through all of the driver's training) or at best a private car of some high-ranking airman on some island somewhere. I am glad to be in a position where I can now say thanks, but no thanks and avoid having my brain turn into complete mash (which I also only narrowly avoided as I went through all of the driver's training).

A lot of time on my hands now to get the old engine running again as well as a lot of free time, for both of which I am ecstatic. Hoping to stay in touch some more from now on.

A.

Christening revisited

Here I am once again.. It's been a long, long time coming but it's finally fact. A number of things kept me from blogging for the last few months - mainly the thing that had to do with my getting a bit bored of blogging - but I am considering picking it up again. In case that happens and in case it withstands the test of time, I'm also contemplating renaming the blog into something like 'Memoirs of a soldier' seeing as I'm starting my military service in about a week. Stay tuned only if you are not feinthearted! :)

We're not afraid

Last week, after the smoke from the terrible events in London had lifted, I couldn't help but notice how different my media consumption has been surrounding the attack from 9/11. Back in 2001 the whole family turned on CNN and just watched, glued to the TV for what must have been more than a few hours. As soon as I heard about the bombings in London I looked it up on Flickr, Nowpublic, Wikipedia, Wikinews, Google News and several blogs to mention but a few.

On that day, citizens became the media gatherers, journalists and editors to form a vast information base surrounding the blasts in a matter of minutes.

Terrorism represents the absolute worst in humanity whereas the response to these attacks, from the Wikipedia, to the blogs, to the international solidarity, to the overall resilience of the Brits represents the best!

Google SMS

Google SMS is out of beta. It is for US and UK residents only. For UK residents: http://www.google.co.uk/sms/demo.html

Nice

read more | digg story

Google Maps (yep.. yet again..)

Here's a cool new google maps application - live central london traffic cams. Click on the marker and get an instant, well-sized thumbnail of what the camera sees exactly that moment (which is actually looking really good now the weather's warm and sunny:). This has been made possible by the BBC being brilliant and opening up backstage.bbc.co.uk, an API which allows 3rd party applications to use live data from most of the content on bbc.co.uk website.

For future reference, this is bound to be really good generally - gmaptrack.com Save your own gmap locations with tags, descriptions, images, links etc and view them dynamically.. currently not much use as a lot of features are not implemented yet, but next release (which the developers claim will be sometime next week) should be neat enough to be useful I reckon.

Errol Flynn...

..your words ring true..

"My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income."

I've been wondering for some time where my problem lied.. Now I know:)

Bank Holiday Weekend

And what a weekend it was.. everyone - and I do mean EVERYONE - I spoke to on Tuesday was feeling tired and/or ill and/or deflated.. I was feeling all three:) Ofcourse I think the feeling ill bit was more psychosomatic than real seeing as I am perfectly fine today. Perfectly fine here is relative ofcourse, as well as a necessity, since I've been having a hectic one all day.

Those of you that saw the pictures probably already know we had a grand time both on Saturday at 'Kensington Roof Gardens' for K's birthday as well as on Sunday at 'The Lock Tavern' for N's. Plus the weather was good, unlike today, which always helps. Great fun all around.

I realise I can't even write about it... and yesterday I was so tired and bored I practically had to check my pulse every now and then to make sure I was still alive:) Everybody at work is back today from their weeks off though (add substantial amount of envy here), so that took care of that.. that's kept me busy. Today, ok.. yesterday, bad.

Hot Hot Heat

Woh! Just went out to get some food and it's HOT out there, I tellya. It's only noon and it must already be 30 degrees - and humid. Was thinking to go shopping this afternoon, but don't know if I can take it.

We're geoblogging..

I recently read an article in Wired about the different overlays people have developed for the ever so lovely Google Maps (see earlier post).. They do come in a lot of flavours, these cool little overlays - Google + Craiglist for house hunting, Google + Traffic.com for... traffic updates, Google + Subway Maps and so on..

Amongst them is a cool new web site which uses a bit of XML trickery to combine Google Maps with FlickR (and by definition works for us here in the UK too). This means that with a little bit of DHTML trickery of your own, you can tag your photos on FlickR with coordinates and let the overlay site (geobloggers.com) know about it. What it then does - very conveniently - is place markers of where each photo was taken on the google map of your choice.

I have geo-tagged some of my pictures which were shot in London over the last couple of years and here are the results. Zoom in and pan at will, click on the marker to see a bigger thumbnail and short description and click on the title to follow the link to the original picture posted on FlickR. You can also click on the markers in the list of photos that appears on the right, which pans the map and centers the chosen photo.

Now, how cool is that??

I will be geo-tagging more and more pictures in the near future, so I have placed a permanent link to my London photos in the 'My Links' section on the right.

Time to admit...

I am nerdier than 59% of all people:)

.. at least it seems like there's a lot of nerds around which makes me only lightly nerdy by definition.

The mother of all words

Outnumbered

When back in 2001 in a Telecomms and Networking class at QMUL we were finding out that mobile phones had only recently exceeded the number of landlines in the UK we thought that was interesting. Now, 4 years later we find out that mobile phones have actually outnumbered people. Noone can say it was unexpected, but still.. it is quite extraordinary if you think about it.

Here is the link to the story: http://www.vnunet.com/news/1162891

This is madness..

London 0600 9th May 2005: The time all known laws of physics were defied...

Surely, light snow at 12c is.. well... light rain. Feel free to correct me if you think I might have been daydreaming that particular day back in elementary school, if you think I might be missing something or for whatever reason you think I might be wrong.

Then again, this is London weather we are talking about and nothing surprises me any more.

inbox.com

News just in... head down to inbox.com and get yourself 2GB (or multiples of) of free (as well as ad-free) email storage. Why should you if you already have gmail is a fair question to ask.. I guess it has to do with the cool factor of owning a four letter user name @ inbox.com which you still can as it's kinda new. So snatch one while you still can.

'Don't Panic'

OK... catching up VERY quickly. I've just come back from watching 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' which I have to say far exceeded my (pretty low I have to admit) expectations. Having read the book and then seen the trailer, I thought I was in for a bad ride, but it's one of these movies you will watch whether you think it's a good idea or not. Zaphod (Sam Rockwell) is f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c and so is Marvin the robot. A good bunch of laughs packed in a so and so interpretation of Douglas Adams' books, but we already know that the book is always better than the movie now don't we children? In the Oh-God-I-hope-they-don't-screw-this-up-completely department it passes with flying colours and that's good enough.

Bank holiday weekend was great. That was some fine weather we got there for a spell:) Summer's still teasing everyone.. and I think it's working - even the met office don't know what to expect anymore. They might as well be flipping coins to tell us what's coming as far as I am concerned. They say rain, we get sun. They say sun, we say 'YEYYY' and get rain regardless.

The gig at Trafalgar Sq. on Sunday was short but rare.. It's not very often you get to listen to Libertines songs rendered live these days. Was really good to see Pete performing so amazingly well and being on top form after what seemed to be a very forgetable show at Koko on Friday. And by forgetable I do mean forgetable, I'm not using the term qualitatively - when I got home, I literally couldn't remember the fact that earlier on that night I had been at a Babyshambles gig. Wasn't that bad... just not very.. well.. memorable.

Mojo on a high and rising. Apologies for being inconsistent - stop pretending, I know you care - but I will make it up to you... I promise.

Shouting out loud

Hey there, thought I'd drop an update about the gig last night. Wasn't crazy about 'The Magic Numbers'. Don't see what all the fuss is about. I mean they are sweet and they displayed some good song writing skills and everything but is that it? Is this all?? Have to give them the benefit of the doubt though, because I do really believe it was purely a case of being out-staged by their supporting act, 'The Shout Out Louds'. Now I know that must suck, magic numbers.

It just goes to show that good rock music doesn't need deep, meaningful lyrics in order to shine. I mean, it always helps to sing about something, but it's definitely not a prerequisite. Bands like 'The Shout Out Louds' can eeeasily make up for that by simply owning the stage (and the crowd), by having a powerful presence, by playing a set that exudes energy and that is full of good hooks and melodies and generally by being brilliant at what they do. No pretense or anything. Now if you had all that AND lyrics that meant something, you'd be 'The Libertines', right?? But that is by no means an easy feat, as a lot of bands probably know much better than I do.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, go see them if you can, watch their new video on the website (or MTV), buy their album or their new EP and in any case, whatever you do, take a look at the fuzzy little pictures me and my trusty nokia phone took last night here.

Off to see babyshambles:)

Mmm.. what's that smell?

Could it be... the spring-like aromas of the weekend that are permeating the otherwise humid, so-called spring-time, london town air??:)

Don't know how, or why, but it came early this week. Might be that for the first time after a couple of weeks of feeling snowed under, I'm finally feeling on top of all the work that has been troubling me. A couple of - surprisingly - productive days yesterday and today did the trick.. If I knew it was going to be this easy I would have gotten on with it aaages ago... having said that, if I'd done that I might have been writing this being crushed under some new piece of work... so in a way I'm glad that I didn't:) I'm becoming a master at this...

So bring it on.. tomorrow we've got 'The Magic Numbers' @ The Basement Club. I just love the place, one of the most intimate little clubs you can catch a gig at in London - let's see if they are what they are hyped up to be. Was really hoping to catch that with K but work engagements stand in the way:( So if any of you eager, adventurous souls out there reading this (preferably non-strangers, if you know what I mean) want to join, gimme a tinkle.

Friday sees the Babyshambles returning to live action @ KOKO after some time and it's bound to be a good one (especially if Pete and the gang manage to turn up). It also sees us attending with a good size crew so it should be good fun. Expect some pictures from that one posted next week.

No plans as yet for Saturday, apart from the usual football 12-2 slot which has been killing my sleeping-in plans with K for the last 12 months - but I can't do anything about it, I am hooked and they won't move it. Probably attending church for the first time this year as well on Saturday evening, in true not-really-religious-christian-orthodox style, to celebrate Christ's resurrection. We'll probably do something good after that. I'm sure J.C. would have liked us to.

Sunday and Monday are unknowns - gosh this is such a long weekend it's hard to make plans - but I'll keep everyone up to date - yes don't worry...

Crack sandwich?

I betcha you can't have only one of those...

Mondays revisited

Ahh.. back to work it is again.. work which seems to be getting better by the day but is still so boring it will probably be June before it gets anywhere near being even remotely interesting again if - god forbid - we were to keep at this rate.

That aside, this monday feels exactly like last monday.. and the monday before that.. with the one major difference that I feel my mojo is on an exponentially upward inclining slope compared to last week and that, I do believe, has nothing to do with work.

There's a wise saying (as of now, I just made it up) that I am currently thinking of and keeps me going on a day like this: There's nothing better after a good, relaxing weekend than a good, relaxing Bank Holiday Monday.. which is what we're gonna be getting a bit of next week (the rest - and best - we have to wait till the end of may for) and I tell you this now: I can't wait.

Working from K's place today which is especially good because I get the odd moment of rare entertainment from this little fella

Apart from random entertaining moments he provides good companionship and support, just like in the photo where he is pictured loyally slacking away next to yours truly, while yours truly is doing the same.

Speak of the devil

I didn't even have time to complete my chain of thought in the last post about how buggy and unstable FlickR is and so on, the site went down for maintenance for a few hours redirecting all users to a page that lets us know that FlickR is not broken but is in fact only down for a massage:)

After this rather freaky turn of events that coincided with my mentioning FlickR's bugginess I am afraid the much advertised photostream will not be available on the blog for these few hours of downtime... Also, if you happen to have any enemies with websites you wanna have jinxed, you know where to find me.. I promise it won't take long and I won't charge much;)

Also, on this note, I found out why it might be that Google hasn't acquired FlickR yet... seems like Yahoo got there first this time round!:) Oh the irony...

Mojo news flash

Quick roundup... Had some spare time on my hands last night and made some changes/updates/improvements to the blog.

Apart from being able to subscribe to the RSS/Atom feed on your browser/RSS news reader, you can now subscribe with your email addy to receive updates to the blog as these happen. Yey!

Also - as you can probably see - I managed to add the much sought after third column to the template. That took some tweaking I tellya, but I did it and it looks good:) I know a lot of people are trying to do the same without luck, so if you want some guidelines drop me an email, I'll be more than happy to help.

Made my photobucket obsolete by moving my picture sharing server to FlickR which is great, if a bit buggy still but hey... it's yet to move out of beta! I'm surprised Google hasn't taken over a tool like FlickR in the all too familiar fashion and simply do a better job at it like they did with Picasa and Blogger to name but a few. Anyway, that's their business (unfortunately):)

Greatest thing about FlickR, apart from the boring good old stuff like huge capacity, original size photos, photo tagging etc., I guess has to be the photostream (the thingy on top of the right column in my blog) which can also receive pictures from a mobile phone via GPRS. Whereas now it displays some year-old pictures I'm upping to the server, once I've uploaded all my pics, that 'recent photos' section is pretty much going to do what it says on the tin - you'll even be able to see live pics taken with my camphone if I'm out and about;) Useless but how cool!

That's about it for now.. going back to work with a more positive than usual attitude. That's what Fridays do to my mojo.

Manicfesto

In the run up to the general elections and as things are really heating up, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party have published their manifesto - titled "Manicfesto". As usual there are some really good ideas - like the introduction of the 99p coin to save change...

Read the Manicfesto in its entirety at the official site:

http://omrlp.brinkster.net/Manicfesto2005.asp

You know it makes sense!:)

mojo.net HQ

The mojo.net lair's location for those who don't know.

Bulmer Mews W11

After using it and reading in some depth about how they've designed and put together this little monster back when the US version went live, all I can say is: what an amazing web app! It truly pushes web programming to some new frontiers. Some things you just can't deny..

Google Maps UK

Finally in public beta:

http://maps.google.co.uk/

Sweet! About time I say..

suethepresident.com

In relation to my 'ipod one' post, Jason sez:

"The good folks at Downhill Battle have registered the domain name suethepresident.com and are offering it for free to anyone willing to make a well-done parody site urging the RIAA to sue our illustrious leader for his acknowledged illegal file sharing activities (an ex-staffer loaded up the president's iPod with some -gasp! - music that the president hadn't paid for)."

What a good idea!

Ramblings on (an apology)

Hey, I'm back after a few days of absence which I appreciate must have caused my millions of readers some substantial concern - so I must apologise to all these souls that were so eagerly anticipating my return. But finally it's fact!

Let me explain.. Such a prolonged nonattendance to my writing duties can only be explained in one of two ways: Either I'm at or close to my computer but I am far too busy with work to blog, or I'm away from my computer, in which case I'm far too busy having fun to blog. In this case I'm afraid it was more a case of the latter, which now means I will probably not be blogging as often the next few days because of having to deal with an acute case of the former. Boy, do I have catching up to do..

It's monday, you've got loads of catching up to do and yet you are still blogging now, aren't you? - i hear you say. That as a matter of fact is a very fair point - is my reply. I could come up with numerous excuses for not working, like I'm too bored, got too much stuff on my mind etc etc... and that's in fact what I'll do. Only they are not excuses - they are all true.

Anyway, fun weekend all around, with a few inevitable twists and turns. Got to see my sister loads which was great and watched 'Rules of Attraction' for what I think was the 5th time...

I feel drained and low.. maybe it was that 5th time RoA that did it.. who knows.

Gotta get back to it.. Rock and roll.

'ipod one'

When everything seems to be going wrong, when you are feeling down, when you are having 'one of these days'... who's the one dude on the planet you can (pretty much) always rely on for a good laugh? Yep! You've guessed it, it's our good friend Mr. President.

Is he an amazing guy after all or what?

Finally, the truth about success

I just read this somewhere...

"Hard work has nothing to do with success. It does not produce success. It does not sustain success. And it certainly does not reverse a failure. It is passion that drives success. Love for one’s activity is infinitely more important to creating success than hard work. Yet for some twisted reason, parents, teachers, and leaders insist on emphasizing the importance of hard work. If you emphasize hard work to the youth, you will create a generation of most obedient servants. However, if you inspire passion in them, the sky is the limit for what can be accomplished."

I might aspire to agree with this one (for now), it being monday and everything.. might reconsider come friday:)

Christening

OK now... christening is defined as "giving a Christian name at baptism" and last time I checked neither mojo nor mojo.net were by any means christian (or names for that matter), but hey.. it's the first thing that popped in my head and sounded cool so that's gonna be the title.. and that's that.

I wonder what mojo is defined as.. hmm.. gonna ignore the first definition cause that's not exactly what I had in mind, but this one comes pretty close:

Mojo originated as a term with a specific meaning, but in the late 20th century became a very fluid term with many different meanings. It originated as a reference to a type of magic charm. The word traces its origins to Africa and entered English in the late 19th century or early 20th century through use by African-Americans. It reflects the belief, common in many cultures, that some people have the ability to influence others to their own advantage, by casting spells or hexes.

On a daily basis there are things that boost your mojo and there are things that kill your mojo.. there's just no way around it. Hopefully this blog's gonna be this magical space where I get to go on about these things and how they affect my mojo..