After the quake that shook well all East Coast of the US, now we must prepare for a hurricane. Irene is a huge storm that looks like is going to sweep through the whole East Coast, despite mellowing down to a hurricane category 1 storm. The storm is suppose to arrive in the Chesapeake are (southern MD) around 2 AM tomorrow with winds up to 80 mphs. It's 10 am here and already is started raining...no winds yet..but probability of flooding is quite high. Now i just need to keep my fingers crossed and hope that the storm will not do significant damage, as monday I need to get to NYC and fly back to Europe out of JFK airport. We will see..
Saturday, August 27, 2011
A (very) interesting week
After the quake that shook well all East Coast of the US, now we must prepare for a hurricane. Irene is a huge storm that looks like is going to sweep through the whole East Coast, despite mellowing down to a hurricane category 1 storm. The storm is suppose to arrive in the Chesapeake are (southern MD) around 2 AM tomorrow with winds up to 80 mphs. It's 10 am here and already is started raining...no winds yet..but probability of flooding is quite high. Now i just need to keep my fingers crossed and hope that the storm will not do significant damage, as monday I need to get to NYC and fly back to Europe out of JFK airport. We will see..
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
My first earthquake experience
Yes, it had to happen sooner or later. Did not happen while I was in Japan or in California, but here on the East Coast. I was in the house addition (1st floor) while the house started rocking. At first, I though that a big truck/SUV was entering the garage underneath the house. However, when the wall clock started to shake and make sounds from its pendulum I knew that this is serious. It took me a couple of seconds to decide between crouching under the table and rushing to the other end of the room to stop this wall clock from dropping to the ground. Eventually, I just froze for 3 seconds in the middle of the living room to think things through. those moments felt like ages, everything dilated and it was all unclear. That saying that your life flashes your eyes is not true...but you just fill like you are making a big leap into something new. Finally, when this revelatory moment passed by, I just sat on my knees on the floor and waited for the jolts to stop. Then started to shout through the (huge) house looking for the others. My knees were still a bit weak and i felt like donating some adrenalin away but it did not show. Pheww...good to put it behind me. And also thank God I wasn't anywhere on the 20th floor or something like that.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
CCleaner for Mac
Got excited to see that the famous Crap Cleaner which is and has been forever in my Windows toolkit made the trip to the other side. As i morph more and more into an avid mac user, this makes me happy. HAd some alternatives, some even better, but also a bit dangerous in terms of tweaking registry entries (especially since from my experience things are far more complicated under mac osx than win), CCLEANER came through.
Saturday, July 09, 2011
Back again...
Romania stayed the same..after almost a year from my previous incursion. Hot hungry and contrasting. Walking through the park and seeing all those high-school kids with music on their cell-phones speakers, you feel the distance, just like those bare footed kids playing in the dirt in rural Cambodia. There is nothing really in common except the language. Pretty slim girls hand in hand with fat-belly guys in debatable summer fashion. Coffee and cigarettes at every corner and high consumption of it. A strange melange of "wow! was i also like this?" & "get me outta here, I never want to come back" is common. And now it's summer which makes things so much better. Hofstede or not, the cultural shock is present since you land in RO: those small luggage belts unavoidable get some chuckles from Dutch, french and german loosers that take low-cost crappy flights to exotic destinations like Eastern Europe, in search of fame, fortune, cheap booze and puss for which their home crummy salaries and days-of-eating-cheese sandwich-after-cheese-sandwich are perfect. Anguish. Revolt. but there's nothing more true that the way people extract an 10% tip out of you, or looking into the eyes of a professional old lady beggar in Le Gare du Nord and saying "Nu" (No) I don't have any spare change. 
And if this is it you're lucky. Brace yourself for having to deal with any hospital...bribes, doctors, liches, and parents that have this messed-up beliefs that staying at home and doing nothing about it will eventually cure any problem. But this is it. I am here. I am from here. At some point you just loose will in fighting everyone and everything. And you start cutting your losses. Next step would be buying a beach hut somewhere in Mexico and just stock up on those Margarita umbrellas. :) However, blue mountain ridges calm me a bit. Still, Romania is a wonderful country with lots to offer. It is just a pity that we don't exploit these options to the fullest.
And if this is it you're lucky. Brace yourself for having to deal with any hospital...bribes, doctors, liches, and parents that have this messed-up beliefs that staying at home and doing nothing about it will eventually cure any problem. But this is it. I am here. I am from here. At some point you just loose will in fighting everyone and everything. And you start cutting your losses. Next step would be buying a beach hut somewhere in Mexico and just stock up on those Margarita umbrellas. :) However, blue mountain ridges calm me a bit. Still, Romania is a wonderful country with lots to offer. It is just a pity that we don't exploit these options to the fullest.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Can Windows 8 do what 7 and Vista failed to do?
Read and judge for yourself (below). I personally am divided in assigning it either way. Competition is good and that's what we should aim for.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/eight-windows-8-features-that-could-save-microsoft/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/eight-windows-8-features-that-could-save-microsoft/
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Friday, March 04, 2011
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
10 Free Software to Mount CD or DVD ISO Image File as Virtual Drives
Mounting CD, DVD images can save you a lot of time...by not burning the content.
XP has a nice toy tool for that, but unfortunately people have move on in terms of OS.
So, quickly, www.raymond.cc does come up with a list of top 10 free utilities to mount an image. There are not all free however, worthwhile going through the list, and finding popular names at a certain point in time in my life.:))
Hat off, www.raymond.cc:
The list below are arranged based on the file size (from small to big) of the installer. Reason is I am looking for a simple software to mount the Windows Automated Installation Kit ISO image.
1. Microsoft Virtual CDRom Control Panel
- There is no official page for this tool and you can’t even search for it in Microsoft website. What I like about this tool is it doesn’t require installation and the whole package is very small in size. The only drawback is it can only run in XP.
2. WinCDEmu
- Mounting an ISO image file using WinCDEmu is really easy. Just install and all you need to do is to double click on the ISO image file to automatically mount it to a drive letter. If you want to unmount, just right click on the drive and select Eject.
3. ISODisk
- Very straight forward interface for you to mount an image file. However this tool is unable to mount ISO-13346 (UDF) images. It can create ISO images from disc though…
4. MagicDisc
- MagicDisc is created by the same developer of the popular MagicISO. It can mount a wide range of CD/DVD image formats and can also create CD/DVD image from disc. Supports from Windows 98 to Windows 7!
5. Virtual CloneDrive
- Supports XP and Vista. Mounting a CD/DVD image is as easy as double clicking the file.
6. Pismo File Mount
- This tool works a little different by mounting the image file like a network mapped drive.
7. Phantom CD
- Phantom CD supports XP and Vista 32-bit. This software installer is quite huge in size compared to the above and it can only mount 1 drive letter plus cannot create image from disc.
8. DAEMON Tools Lite Commercial
- The “Commercial” keyword for the title of the software is a little confusing. Usually commercial means shareware but for this one, it is a freeware. Be careful during installation because it will ask to install Browser Toolbar and also set DAEMON Tools default Search Provider. It can create image from disc. Supports XP and Vista.
9. Gizmo Drive
- This is the only free virtual disc emulator that can create image from both disc and folder. Support both 32 and 64 bit of XP, Vista, 2003, 2008, and Windows 7.
10. Alcohol 52%
- Can create image from disc. You have to go to Virtual Drive option to set the number of virtual drives before mounting an image because by default it is set to 0.
XP has a nice toy tool for that, but unfortunately people have move on in terms of OS.
So, quickly, www.raymond.cc does come up with a list of top 10 free utilities to mount an image. There are not all free however, worthwhile going through the list, and finding popular names at a certain point in time in my life.:))
Hat off, www.raymond.cc:
The list below are arranged based on the file size (from small to big) of the installer. Reason is I am looking for a simple software to mount the Windows Automated Installation Kit ISO image.
1. Microsoft Virtual CDRom Control Panel
- There is no official page for this tool and you can’t even search for it in Microsoft website. What I like about this tool is it doesn’t require installation and the whole package is very small in size. The only drawback is it can only run in XP.
2. WinCDEmu
- Mounting an ISO image file using WinCDEmu is really easy. Just install and all you need to do is to double click on the ISO image file to automatically mount it to a drive letter. If you want to unmount, just right click on the drive and select Eject.
3. ISODisk
- Very straight forward interface for you to mount an image file. However this tool is unable to mount ISO-13346 (UDF) images. It can create ISO images from disc though…
4. MagicDisc
- MagicDisc is created by the same developer of the popular MagicISO. It can mount a wide range of CD/DVD image formats and can also create CD/DVD image from disc. Supports from Windows 98 to Windows 7!
5. Virtual CloneDrive
- Supports XP and Vista. Mounting a CD/DVD image is as easy as double clicking the file.
6. Pismo File Mount
- This tool works a little different by mounting the image file like a network mapped drive.
7. Phantom CD
- Phantom CD supports XP and Vista 32-bit. This software installer is quite huge in size compared to the above and it can only mount 1 drive letter plus cannot create image from disc.
8. DAEMON Tools Lite Commercial
- The “Commercial” keyword for the title of the software is a little confusing. Usually commercial means shareware but for this one, it is a freeware. Be careful during installation because it will ask to install Browser Toolbar and also set DAEMON Tools default Search Provider. It can create image from disc. Supports XP and Vista.
9. Gizmo Drive
- This is the only free virtual disc emulator that can create image from both disc and folder. Support both 32 and 64 bit of XP, Vista, 2003, 2008, and Windows 7.
10. Alcohol 52%
- Can create image from disc. You have to go to Virtual Drive option to set the number of virtual drives before mounting an image because by default it is set to 0.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Austan Goolsbee Show
Austan Goolsbee made a (ridiculous, in my humble opinion) appearance on the Daily Show. Is this the way an economists talks about deficits, productivity and something else, innovation or something?:))
I was seriously disappointed. Have a look.
I was seriously disappointed. Have a look.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Austan Goolsbee | ||||
| ||||
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Not So Merry New Year
After 8 days of serious battling the flu, I was feeling better and ready to enjoy my trip across the pond to land of the stars and stripes. So, I went fully confident to a New Year's eve party close to Rockville, MD, a Romanian party that was. Unfortunatelly, nothing really went the way was supposed to. The delicious Romanian specialities were not delicious at all, scarce as hell and modified compared with the original menu. Around 2 AM I was feeling bored and hungry (?) despite a table full of food (which it did not really appeal to my senses). However, things would only get worse. 
Around 3 AM a nose bleed started and things started to precipitate. I never had a nose bleed before and this was pretty bad, couldn't stop it no matter what I did and I started to panic in the bathroom after i lost quite a lot of blood. Eventually, after I swollen a lot of this blood, I started also the feel light headed and almost fainted because I was getting sick to my stomach. Fortunately there were a couple of nurses in the party that took care of me and waited through the three bleeding episodes I had until 6 AM, when finally I was on the move again. Moreover, one of them (Ms. Luminita) was nice enough to invite us to spend the night at their house (10 min away) instead of driving back to Lothian (1+ hrs) which was the best alternative. A big scare that was. White, lightheaded, hungry and frustrated I was. But at least I was not bleeding anymore. Just hope that this is not a pattern for the NEw Year's.
Around 3 AM a nose bleed started and things started to precipitate. I never had a nose bleed before and this was pretty bad, couldn't stop it no matter what I did and I started to panic in the bathroom after i lost quite a lot of blood. Eventually, after I swollen a lot of this blood, I started also the feel light headed and almost fainted because I was getting sick to my stomach. Fortunately there were a couple of nurses in the party that took care of me and waited through the three bleeding episodes I had until 6 AM, when finally I was on the move again. Moreover, one of them (Ms. Luminita) was nice enough to invite us to spend the night at their house (10 min away) instead of driving back to Lothian (1+ hrs) which was the best alternative. A big scare that was. White, lightheaded, hungry and frustrated I was. But at least I was not bleeding anymore. Just hope that this is not a pattern for the NEw Year's.
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