if i only knew...

Illustrators from Hungary and Sweden

I just found the online gallery of my favourite Hungarian illustrator, Edua Szucs. She has charming line drawings, take a look at them (the site is in Hungarian - the links to the illustrations are in the three boxes at the bottom of the page)!

I love looking at illustrators' portfolios, because they are always brimming with colors, creativity, and interesting visual interpretations. Today's new find: swedish illustrators' gallery.

Speaking of interesting visual interpretations, i found an awesome Vasarely art book in the second hand bookstore today, but didn't have money with me, so i won't be able to dive into it until tomorrow (i reserved it). Oh, the agony!

My first (fake) lomo pics

Because a Lomo camera costs €180, i must make do without it for a little while more (hopefully not too long though...). So i tried the lomo-effects at photolog (found via kottke) and i am quite impressed. Are you? (click on the image for larger version)

My little Beetle again

Wow, a New Beetle has parked in my Ford Fiesta's spot!

Go, little Beetle, go!

(wondering what the hell this is?)

Discovering lomography

I have never heard of Lomography before i checked out the Photobloggies nominations. Now i want a Lomo Camera! The vivid colors, fun light effects and the vintage feel make it irresistible. Here are a few links to follow if you are a newcomer to lomoworld like i am:

>> lomography.com - from the people (in Vienna) who discovered the Lomo and rescued it from Eastern Bloc demise - all you ever wanted to know about lomography, and wonderful galleries
>> Dawn @ lifeuncommon.org has wonderful lomo photos all the time, looking at her archives made me realise that i *need* a Lomo camera ASAP (lomo galleries: chicago, xmas, doggie)
>> Edulis from Finland also has a lomo gallery (discovered through the mirror project)
>> terence patrick has amazing lomo photos from several locations

Silly paws

Note to self: when i finally get a dog or a cat i shall not forget to take pictures of it from silly angles.

Parking spots numero uno

I sent in my first parking spots photo! Click on the image to be taken to the site:

Salon blues

Oops, the end of Salon? SFGate reports that salon can't pay it's rent, and is in deep financial trouble... meaningful quote from the article: "Salon reported a loss of $1.3 million on $1.1 million in revenue in the last quarter of 2002. (...) Over the years, Salon has accumulated losses of $81 million."

Yikes. I loved Salon, even though i stopped reading it regularly quite a while ago... but i just cannot comprehend how they could let those figures happen. I once worked for a dotcom who burnt through 3 million US$ cash in half a year and then went bust because investors stopped putting money in it. The key phrase being "investors stopped putting money in it". After 3 million. Not 81 million.

Bought a new Beetle

I bought this little new Beetle toy car to make photos for Parking Spots. It's already dark outside, so the first photos will be taken tomorrow, i can't wait!

This is my third new Beetle. I have a tiny blue one, about 1 inch long; a 1:18 scale model by bburago (yellow); and now this 1:43 model by bburago (blue). Now i only need a real one. *sigh*

New layout (not yet)

I finally sat down to work on the new layout for the blog, and i went back to the one i used while i was at Blogger, but i use new colors (spring!). For a sneak preview click here. (UPDATE: It's now up on this blog!) (And let me know how you like it, and first of all, whether the color sheme keeps things readable!) I have to work on the archive templates and then it will be done!

I spent quite a few hours trying to make a 3-column layout is CSS myself, but in the end i gave up and again hacked one that i used before to achieve the desired result. But it's still kind of cool to see it and know that I worked on it, and it's beautiful (i think!).

Blog conference finally in Europe too

Finally, a blog event happens near my part of the world. BlogTalk - A European Conference on Weblogs in Vienna, May 23-24. They are also accepting paper submissions about all things blogging (which will be reviewed by Rebecca. Note to self: accelerate thesis topic brainstorming and try to come up with a suitable topic that will be suitable for both the conference and the thesis. (more on this later today - i have to go to class)

Google buys Pyra

Just a few months ago i wrote about how the Google guys have done it again: put a twist on a basic web service and brought it to a new level (Google News). Reading today's news of Google buying Pyra Labs, i can't even imagine what new possibilities this opens for the blogworld.

Google has been excellent at indexing weblogs and making sure that the voices of blogs were being heard no matter what you are searching for (see my previous thoughts on this). I am looking forward to seeing what comes out of their working together with the pyra team.

A few years ago the big big innovator company of the net was amazon.com. For a few months, even a year now, that award no doubt goes to the Google team. I think I would pay them to be able to work for them. ;) It must be fascinating (and exhausting).

Give peace a chance - at home first?

I wanted to go to today's anti-war demo in Budapest, but my afternoon nap turned out to be more powerful than my urge to go. I woke up when the demo was almost over, so i didn't go. It turns out, my gut instinct to sleep was right.

The antiwar protest in Budapest turned into chaos and ridiculous fights and throwing snowballs (yes, s-n-o-w-b-a-l-l-s) on the speakers of the event. Reading the reports, i felt like it was April Fool's Day... it's just too bizarre to be really happening.

I don't really want to go into politics here, but this is again a day when i am really sorry to be living in a country that is not mature enough to join a worldwide action chain on such an issue - an issue that - for this day at least - should unite people from across the complete political spectrum to say no to war, to violence. The organizers used every media outlet and every opportunity during the week to emphasize that this demo will be against war and violence and NOT against political ideas, parties or movements. But it seems like our little country is not yet grown-up to think in terms of the big picture. :(

The move to Movable Type

Voila! The migration from Blogger to MT went much easier than i expected. This was my first ever time installing cgi and working with mysql (although i did install apache and php and mysql on my linux machine a few years ago - but haven't touched it since then), but the MT documentation covered everything i had to do, and the MT support forums provided answers to my questions before i asked them.

So now, welcome to the new environment. I am still figuring things out, most notably: how to move my previous template to movable type. It will be a few days until i can get it to work - if i can, that is. So until then, here is the generic MT template that i tweaked to add my links and photos. It's just a temporary solution until i can get a decent new design together.

As a side effect of the move, all the comments that were left before the move are gone. That is because i used a third party comment system and MT couldn't import those with the entries. So now it's up to you to leave the first comment ever (hah!) on this second generation incarnation of my blog. First person to comment gets an ecard from me. :)

To Do:
- assign categories to all previous entries (done from today backwards till August 30th, 14 months' worth of entries left to do)
- figure out how to include the categories in this template
- whip up the new design
- put together a better About me page

Fun study for Valentine's Day

A new study found "that your kissing partner is twice as likely to turn his head to the right than to the left for smooching." The guy came to the conclusion after spying on 224 kissing couples in various public places on 2 continents. So i wonder... when he kisses his partner these days can he really stop thinking about what side he just turned his head? :)

Looks like some of you

Looks like some of you are already on my new web host, while on the other hand I, on the old continent, still only see the old host's pages. This means that some of the stuff (especially the archives) here won't work until the DNS serves in my area start working with my new host. I ask you for just a little bit of patience until this happens, and things will be back to normal. Hopefully.
Of course, when the serves start working, i will be moving this blog from blogger to movable type, so that will be another pain... But let's hope everything goes smoothly...

UPDATE: I can now see the new pages, so i can get my hands dirty in movable type CGI. I think i fixed everything on this blog for now, if something doesn't work - please leave a comment and let me know! Thanks!

I am moving to another

I am moving to another webhost, so the site may be unavailable for some time between now and the next update. I hope it goes smooth though...

My first photo at the

My first photo at the mirror project:

If i had $2900 to

If i had $2900 to spend on a photography book, it would be this one. Take a look at a selection of its photos here and here.

Funny and cute photo essay

Funny and cute photo essay with excellent photography: Jeff Phillips: The Chick Magnet. [found through 2003 photobloggies - vote for him!]
And also a photobloggies find: a cute little beagle dog has a blog!

For a few weeks now,

For a few weeks now, I have been wondering how come google indexes my blog much faster and more frequently than my other websites, and why it makes sense at all for Google to index all blogs in the first place when the content changes so frequently. What i didn't realize is this: it's not the individual blog's content that is important for Google, but the links in the blog. With every single link in the blog we "vote" for a site in the google rankings (google analyzes both the relevancy and the popularity of a page before it ranks it in its search results), as explained in microcontentnews' Googleloves Blogs article. One more pieve of evidence to the power of blogging. No, blogging will not make us bloggers journalists, no, our blogs will not earn us fortunes, but they do influence the web, and what gets found on the web 150 million times a day.

Here is an eye-opening article

Here is an eye-opening article if you're against fur (like i am) from the NY Times: "The unintended consequences of the war against fur have hurt the livelihoods of thousands of Canadian Natives, and have enticed them to replace their lost incomes by welcoming into unspoiled areas the oil, gas and mining interests they once opposed." It certainly puts things into another perspective but i still wonder what to do now?
A report comes to mind that i saw on CNN's Global Challenges last week about wildlife works, a business founded in San Francisco that saves the environment on another continent and turns a profit (they created a wildlife sanctuary in Kenya, put an eco-factory in there where the local residents - who were poaching the endangered animals before ww came - work on ww brand clothes that are sold in US stores and on the internet. Ideas like this would be the only solution to the problem, because surely, reversing everything and going back to making fur trendy to save native Canadians and their land from oil monopolies is not a very smart way to solve the problem.

Seth Godin is a genius...

Seth Godin is a genius... read his marketing plan for his new book. Should be required reading for marketing students anywhere. I am a marketing student. And i learn more from this guy and the likes of him than i do in the classroom or textbooks at my college. Shame on the current business education standards ... where i study anyway...

Absolutely silly link of the

Absolutely silly link of the day: you take a toy car and position it on a picture you take in such a way that it looks like a real car in the traffic among the real real cars, and post your photos on Parking Spots. Yet another piece of evidence that people have too much time on their hands... I have to try it next week... [found through metafilter]

Ugh.... i just realized that

Ugh.... i just realized that the archive page on this blog has been broken since the last redesign... sorry... i fixed it now.

Look at this amazing photo

Look at this amazing photo of the view from Columbia in space...

Yet another explanation to why

Yet another explanation to why i hate SUVs and the people who use them:
"Many of the accidents being reported on the Long Island Expressway involved SUVs. WCBS TV station was reporting that SUV drivers often spin out of control because their four-wheel drive vehicles give them a false sense of security. Some New York area schools were reported closed, according to WCBS." - from CNN

Two more finds before i

Two more finds before i go to bed:
Jupiter Research analysts have blogs and finally i found a nice internet marketing blog.

I am very very happy

I am very very happy to hear that the US authorities actually punish people who pick up and keep Columbia shuttle debris... "There also are 17 open investigations of people who have supposedly tried to sell shuttle debris on the Internet auction site eBay." (from CNN) It's just amazing to realize how low people can actually go...

I decided it was time

I decided it was time for actually getting my own hands into CSS instead of cheating by using templates done by generous designers who let me use their work (see bottom of page for link to the site i got this layout from). If you're ever in doubt about whether CSS is the way to go for web design, take a look at Eric Meyer's Edge experiments in CSS, and you'll have no doubts any more. It's just amazing how smooth and beautiful pages CSS can produce (as opposed to using tables for layout).

Two funky design links today:

Two funky design links today: Pixeldecor (very funky retro) and IconFactory

Just to underline my last

Just to underline my last thought posted just below, a few lines from Laurel Clark's last email from Columbia:
"Thanks to many of you who have supported me and my adventures throughout the years. This was definitely one to beat all. I hope you could feel the positive energy that beamed to the whole planet as we glided over our shared planet."

Buzz Aldrin (1 of the

Buzz Aldrin (1 of the 3 austronauts in the Apollo 11 crew that first stepped on the Moon) wrote an editorial in the NY Times today about Fear and Flying.

Columbia's accident is a horrible tragedy and there are no words to describe the horror and sadness. But instead I feel better if i think about how happy these 7 people were in their 16 day mission. How they could realize their dream. How they contributed to science and space exploration. I watched the footage CNN showed of their inflight interviews and satellite conversations and they all looked so happy and content and proud. Especially Ramon, and Chawla, and i am glad that those images are stuck in my brain. If i think about Columbia, that's what comes to mind, and it always will.