A friend just gave me a link to YouTube video of a guy playing on theremin. I’ve never heard of this instrument before, but I’d like to get my hands on one to try to control it. 2

Sunday, March 30, 2008

The Weekend

We’ve had an eventful or uneventful weekend. Nothing really happened, but it seems that we’ve managed to do a lot of stuff.

Yesterday started with Alena wanting to go to some hair salon on 86th Street to get something done to her hair and I didn’t want to drive back home, so I went to visit Ignat. We ended up watching some TV, talking about travel, technology and all other kind of stuff. Read more…

In: Life In General Tags: Floyd Bennett Field, weekend, West Wing
Time: 21:39 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Pingbacks

Artem has made a post with a pingback to our blog today. When I saw it appear in the comments section looking all nice and clean I remembered that for some reason my pingbacks always come out completely screwed up.

I started digging the WP code to see how it grabs the excerpt. Turns out that you need to have some kind of important tag separating your actual post text with your header and comment sections, so it wouldn’t grab those. Also it turned out that DIV is not one of those important tags. P however is.

It took me a while to realize that, but I must say that I impressed myself. All should be well now.

In: Software Tags: blog, pingback, WordPress
Time: 23:33 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

Monday, March 24, 2008

Script: Image Captions

Image Captions is a simple script that uses the alt attribute of your images to create a mouse-over captions for them. The captions do not change the layout of your site in any way and the installation is as simple as including 1 line of code in the header of the page. If you kept the alt attributes of your images in order you won’t have to change anything else. The script finds the right images and adds the captions automatically.

You can see the example of the script in action on the image above. To get that result all I had to do was to add the following to my post:

<img src="mac_screen.jpg" class="centered"

 alt="Image Captions Script on Mac Screen"/>

The script will work on any page and does not rely on any WordPress functionality. The code has been tested in the following browsers: Firefox 2.x, Firefox 3.x, Safari 3.x, IE 6.x and IE 7.x. Read more…

In: Software Tags: automatic, caption, image, JavaScript, photo
Time: 15:45 Comments: 4 Comments Post a Comment

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Walking by the Bridge

Уже конец марта, а на улице до сих пор холодно! Непорядок!

Сегодня уехала т. Лиля — она приезжала на месяц погостить у Даниных родителей. Время прогарцевало мимо лёгкой иноходью, оставив за собой лишь лёгкое чувство недоумения — неужели ТАК быстро мы постарели на месяц?

Вчера ночью приехал Лёнчик, который будет в Бруклине пару деньков — какой-то там у них отпуск случился. Он немного рассказал нам о своих буднях. Вот что меня поражает, так это то, какими лёгкими в его устах звучат испытания и тренировки — ну прям Read more…

In: Food & Dining, Photography Tags: Brooklyn, HDR, Lenchik
Time: 00:34 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

Thursday, March 20, 2008

New Year Video

I finished editing the footage from our New Year 2008 celebration. I figured I’d post it here. I’m sure it’s going to be boring for most of our visitors, but I just want to give the link to my parents.

In: Life In General Tags: 2008, New Year, video
Time: 14:51 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

Monday, March 17, 2008

Mac: First Impressions

It’s now have been a couple of days since I’ve started playing with a Mac. There are both positives and negatives that I’ve run across. For me something new is always interesting, and considering that I’ve been using DOS, Linux and Windows for decades now — Mac OS I’ve only seen from a far.

I’ll start with specs of our machine — MacBook Pro.

2.4GHz Intel Penryn Core 2 Duo
2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM — 2×1GB
200GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB
15-inch Glossy LED Widescreen Display
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS - U.S. English
Multi-touch Trackpad

Apple is a master of the eye-candy. Everything looks nice and clean with nifty animations all over the place. Read more…

In: Gadgets & Gear, Software Tags: Mac, MacBook Pro
Time: 14:24 Comments: 3 Comments Post a Comment

Just read an article which has a video attached to it about a new extreme sport which combines highlining and base-jumping. What got me interested is the place of the action — Moab, Utah (which we’re going to visit soon). I can’t imagine doing anything close to the crazy thing Dean Potter does! 0

Friday, March 14, 2008

MacBook Pro is Here

Today I’ve met up with Alena after school near the local Apple store. I’ve got to give it to Apple — even the design of the store itself is nice.

Now this is going to be embarrassing — I touched the iPhone today, for the first time.

It is as nice as I thought it was. I was especially impressed with Read more…

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: Apple, iPhone, Mac, MacBook Pro
Time: 19:24 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

Not exactly the news anymore, but here’s a well written article explaining one problem with iPhone SDK — no multitasking for 3rd party application. Do note that Apple’s own apps do not have this limitation. 3

I think there is a Mac in my future. I am just not sure if it should be MacBook or MacBook Pro. Is MacBook Pro worth an extra $800? The biggest difference seems to be an on-board video card vs a dedicated one. 8

Eldar says: Subscribed

March 11, 2008 @ 21:34

What? Thats heresy! Honestly, is there any reason to have a Mac in this world when such a huge library of software is available, in many cases for free, on the PC platform? Do you want to be one of those people constantly asking if such and such software is “available for Mac”?

Yes, these days we all think that we can pass time with WoW and Photoshop, but really the question of platform is dependant not on what software is available but rather the “loss of opportunity” by not utilizing the largest software library ever.

Daniel says: Subscribed

March 12, 2008 @ 08:53

I probably should have said that I’m not throwing my PCs away.

The main reason is really the fact that iPhone SDK only runs on a Mac, and I really want to try that. I’m fairly certain that I will get an iPhone this summer or fall — as soon as they 2nd one comes out.

Also it is a nice platform by now, and I think I’ll enjoy doing certain things on it more then on Windows.

But no, no way I’m going to switch to Mac as my primary computer, pretty much for all the reasons you stated above.

Part 1, by Alena. There is first time for everything — and tonight Danya and I watched the Fiddler on the Roof for the very first time. Originally we wanted to see the musical on Broadway, but, unfortunately, it is not currently playing. But the movie was great too. We watched it with Danya’s parents after celebrating the March 8th in the local Russian restaurant.

Part 2, by Daniel. I actually wanted to post something along these lines, but Alena beat me to it.

Originally I was not very fond of an idea of watching a musical, but I was wrong. There definitely is a difference between bad ones and good ones.

The fact that the movie is interesting to watch is in no small part thanks to the Israeli actor Chaim Topol who played the main character.

My favorite parts were If I Were A Rich Man and To Life. 1

Friday, March 7, 2008

Utah Road Trip

We have booked our mega road trip two days ago. It took us approximately 3 hours to do. If somebody will want to repeat this in the future below is a full plan¹ of action.

On the morning of Friday, April 18th, we fly² out to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We rent a car³ and proceed to drive to Santa Fe, New Mexico. We return to Albuquerque the same day and spend a night⁴ there.

In the morning we drive to Cortez, Colorado, making a stop at Four Corners — can’t pass up an opportunity to Read more…

Visit Google Maps for a larger map. Green pins are for the hotels, blue ones are for the points of interest and tour destinations. [↩]
Delta Air Lines, $397 per person, round trip. [↩]
Avis Rent A Car, estimated at $701 for the trip. [↩]
Hilton Albuquerque, $120 for the night. [↩]