I used to do a lot of work at the main KFOR base in Kosovo (Film City in Pristine), and could only get a connection via a Bluetooth connection to my Nokia 6210i, dialing in to my Hungarian ISP.
It wasn't a zippy connection, but it worked well enough. Cell phone connections are EXCELLENT in the Balkans. (Americans have no idea how good cell phones can be...)
I have also used this method to connect from the Macedonia/Serbia border (where you can wait up to 9 hours to get though), and all over Bosnia and Croatia.
Now that I'm back in Seattle, I just go to my local coffee shop!;-)
Here is a quick way to give yourself more time during the day. I used this at Apple, NASA and JavaSoft, and it REALLY WORKS.
Get in to work early. Seriously. If you can get in at 7:AM, then you can update your calendar and already have a LOT of work done before the teeming masses get in around 9:30.
The morning hours are absolutely the most productive of the day. It may take a week or so to get used to getting up early, but once you do, you will really find you can do a LOT more work.
Good luck! - xtian
Production was probably more fun to watch...
on
Underworld Trailer
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· Score: 2, Interesting
This movie was filmed in Budapest, and much of that took place within a few blocks of my house. One night I got to lean out my living room window and watch them slide a new Maserati around on the wet cobblestones for about 3 hours until they finally pitched the car into the wall of a building and had to wrap for the evening.
They had a great artificial torrential downpour, too!
I am willing to bet 2000 Forints that watching the movie being made was much more fun that watching the final product in the theater!
The building that my flat is in, here in Budapest, is well over 100 years old. (The mosaic laid into the marble entryway floor says "1887".)
It is built of solid brick, and the load-bearing walls are almost a meter thick. It maintains the warmth in the winter, and keeps cool in the summer. The interior of the building has been reconfigured three times (that I can tell) from when it was originally built.
Since I just did a major rennovation to my flat (all wiring, plumbing, etc), I know how sturdy this beast is. I don't think that I am stepping out of line to say that this building has at least another 150 years in it.
I was the original Tech Support department at Jasmine Technologies, a Mac hard disk (and other peripherals) manufacturer. We had some good data recovery stories, and in fact my staff from Jasmine became the original DriveSavers gang!
One that comes to mind from Jasmine was Joe Cocker. He was on tour in Italy and his keyboard player had all their sounds stored on a 160mb drive. (HUGE drive for the time.) It died.
So over the phone I took the guy through some board-level repairs to the controller card of the hard disk so it would work long enough to get the data off. And they gave me free tickets when Joe Cocker came to SF!
The other one was when I was supporting the original PowerBooks (100/140/170) at Apple. An Indian man called with a laundry list of problems with the computer. After listing 25 or 30 things, I asked him what the heck happened to it!
He explained that he had been using the PowerBook too much in bed, and his wife had hit him over the head with it!
Then Steve Wozniak called with some problems, and I got to go to his house and fix his computer. Not often does one get to say they fixed Woz's computer!
Also the famous PowerBook at the bottom of the Amazon was my call. Customer called and explained the situation to me, and I got them in touch with DriveSavers (who had just opened their doors a few weeks earlier). I knew there was nothing I could do for them at Apple, but the DriveSavers gang were top-shelf techs.
I got hundreds of those kinds of stories. Maybe I should write them all down. Mail them to posterity, or something....
I got the M100 about 3 months ago after having owned the first Palm Pilot many many moons ago and never having found a use for it. I figured for $90 I would give the Palm a shot again.
I chose the M100 specifically because it is focused, only does 3 things, and does those three things well. I don't need or want color, internet or any other crap in a handheld. That is why I have a desktop machine...
Anyway, the M100 has far exceeded my expectations in build quality, usefulness, and reliability.
I work in the Balkans in military bases where there is regularly no electricity, much less water and other amenities. The M100 has put up with blistering heat, frigid cold, dust, dirt, excess humidity, being dropped, etc. In fact, the little protective door has popped off twice due to getting slammed in a truck door, and my falling on my ass with the M100 in my back pocket....but the door is designed to pop off, so I have always been able to pop it back on, and it has not broken.
Software-wise, I have had to do a soft reset twice due to a poorly programmed game. Since removing the game, everything has worked flawlessly.
I am sorry the original poster has had so many problems, but in my case the M100 has been the perfect tool.
So buy it from someplace that provides a good return or exchange policy. Maybe you will get a machine like mine and won't have to return it, but if you don't, then make sure you have the possibility of a return/exchange. ================
A common scenario in American football is a 180-pound receiver, standing completely still while catching a mid-field pass, being slammed into by a 250-pound linebacker running top speed. This generally does not happen in rugby.
You clearly haven't played rugby. I am an American (living in Budapest right now), and I do play rugby all over Central/Eastern Europe.
A winger in rugby (the guys out next to the sidelines) is usually a very small guy. They need to be fast, not big. (Read: Wide Receiver in American football.)
However, they need to run against whoever faces them. And usually that is not one, but two or three guys. And if the scrum has been anywhere near by, that means a 150 lb winger running into props and forwards, usually more than one, at over 250 lbs per.
This, of course, is Rugby Union. Not Rugby League.
Slashdot Mirror
I used to do a lot of work at the main KFOR base in Kosovo (Film City in Pristine), and could only get a connection via a Bluetooth connection to my Nokia 6210i, dialing in to my Hungarian ISP.
;-)
It wasn't a zippy connection, but it worked well enough. Cell phone connections are EXCELLENT in the Balkans. (Americans have no idea how good cell phones can be...)
I have also used this method to connect from the Macedonia/Serbia border (where you can wait up to 9 hours to get though), and all over Bosnia and Croatia.
Now that I'm back in Seattle, I just go to my local coffee shop!
- Christian
Seattle, WA
Here is a quick way to give yourself more time during the day. I used this at Apple, NASA and JavaSoft, and it REALLY WORKS.
Get in to work early. Seriously. If you can get in at 7:AM, then you can update your calendar and already have a LOT of work done before the teeming masses get in around 9:30.
The morning hours are absolutely the most productive of the day. It may take a week or so to get used to getting up early, but once you do, you will really find you can do a LOT more work.
Good luck!
- xtian
This movie was filmed in Budapest, and much of that took place within a few blocks of my house. One night I got to lean out my living room window and watch them slide a new Maserati around on the wet cobblestones for about 3 hours until they finally pitched the car into the wall of a building and had to wrap for the evening.
They had a great artificial torrential downpour, too!
I am willing to bet 2000 Forints that watching the movie being made was much more fun that watching the final product in the theater!
- Christian
Budapest, Hungary
The building that my flat is in, here in Budapest, is well over 100 years old. (The mosaic laid into the marble entryway floor says "1887".)
It is built of solid brick, and the load-bearing walls are almost a meter thick. It maintains the warmth in the winter, and keeps cool in the summer. The interior of the building has been reconfigured three times (that I can tell) from when it was originally built.
Since I just did a major rennovation to my flat (all wiring, plumbing, etc), I know how sturdy this beast is. I don't think that I am stepping out of line to say that this building has at least another 150 years in it.
That's 3-4 generations without breaking a sweat.
- Christian
Budapest, Hungary
I was the original Tech Support department at Jasmine Technologies, a Mac hard disk (and other peripherals) manufacturer. We had some good data recovery stories, and in fact my staff from Jasmine became the original DriveSavers gang!
One that comes to mind from Jasmine was Joe Cocker. He was on tour in Italy and his keyboard player had all their sounds stored on a 160mb drive. (HUGE drive for the time.) It died.
So over the phone I took the guy through some board-level repairs to the controller card of the hard disk so it would work long enough to get the data off. And they gave me free tickets when Joe Cocker came to SF!
The other one was when I was supporting the original PowerBooks (100/140/170) at Apple. An Indian man called with a laundry list of problems with the computer. After listing 25 or 30 things, I asked him what the heck happened to it!
He explained that he had been using the PowerBook too much in bed, and his wife had hit him over the head with it!
Then Steve Wozniak called with some problems, and I got to go to his house and fix his computer. Not often does one get to say they fixed Woz's computer!
Also the famous PowerBook at the bottom of the Amazon was my call. Customer called and explained the situation to me, and I got them in touch with DriveSavers (who had just opened their doors a few weeks earlier). I knew there was nothing I could do for them at Apple, but the DriveSavers gang were top-shelf techs.
I got hundreds of those kinds of stories. Maybe I should write them all down. Mail them to posterity, or something....
- Christian
Budapest, Hungary
I got the M100 about 3 months ago after having owned the first Palm Pilot many many moons ago and never having found a use for it. I figured for $90 I would give the Palm a shot again.
I chose the M100 specifically because it is focused, only does 3 things, and does those three things well. I don't need or want color, internet or any other crap in a handheld. That is why I have a desktop machine...
Anyway, the M100 has far exceeded my expectations in build quality, usefulness, and reliability.
I work in the Balkans in military bases where there is regularly no electricity, much less water and other amenities. The M100 has put up with blistering heat, frigid cold, dust, dirt, excess humidity, being dropped, etc. In fact, the little protective door has popped off twice due to getting slammed in a truck door, and my falling on my ass with the M100 in my back pocket....but the door is designed to pop off, so I have always been able to pop it back on, and it has not broken.
Software-wise, I have had to do a soft reset twice due to a poorly programmed game. Since removing the game, everything has worked flawlessly.
I am sorry the original poster has had so many problems, but in my case the M100 has been the perfect tool.
So buy it from someplace that provides a good return or exchange policy. Maybe you will get a machine like mine and won't have to return it, but if you don't, then make sure you have the possibility of a return/exchange.
================
You clearly haven't played rugby. I am an American (living in Budapest right now), and I do play rugby all over Central/Eastern Europe.
A winger in rugby (the guys out next to the sidelines) is usually a very small guy. They need to be fast, not big. (Read: Wide Receiver in American football.)
However, they need to run against whoever faces them. And usually that is not one, but two or three guys. And if the scrum has been anywhere near by, that means a 150 lb winger running into props and forwards, usually more than one, at over 250 lbs per.
This, of course, is Rugby Union. Not Rugby League.
FYI,
- Christian
Budapest, Hungary
After reading this post I decided to go buy a copy of the Mandrake PowerPack, but it was a little bit too expensive for me:
Product: $69.00
Shipping: $20.00
Total: $890089.00 $USD
Maybe when they sort out their online store I will feel more comfortable giving them my credit card number.
- xtian
Budapest, Hungary