Andrej Tozon's blog

In the Attic

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Photo::Quetzalcoatl

Mexico City, December 2002. Sandra and I arrived to the ruins of Teotihuacan around 8 a.m. We were among the first to arrive to the site that morning and were immediately attacked by the hawkers trying to sell us stuff. One guy has been tracking us the whole day, offering us a couple of statues, made of obsidian stone - representing the sun & moon gods. We kept lowering the price the whole day and actually ended up buying them just before we left the place. As it turned out, the price was more than reasonable, compared to other deals offered to us later.
The face on this picture belongs to Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent Aztec god. Taken at Teotihuacan, the temple of Quetzalcoatl. Canon EOS 300 w/ Sigma 28-135 lens.

Quetzalcoatl

Word(s) of the day

Gulosity... Synaesthesia... Schlimazel... Words like these mean anything to you? Sure, youve heard them, you have some vague idea of their meaning, but youd rather not go throwing them at people just like that Subscribe to one of the Word of the Day RSS feeds out there, just to be sure of what youre talking about. Expand your vocabulary. And knowledge.

1. http://wordsmith.org/words/, RSS

2. http://education.yahoo.com/college/wotd, RSS

3. http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/, RSS

Medieval careers: what's your distinct personality?

The Discoverer
Your distinct personality, The Discoverer, might be found in most of the thriving kingdoms of the time. Your overriding goal is to go where no one else has ever gone before. Regardless of the number of available natural problems to be solved, it is not unusual for you to continually challenge yourself with new situations or obstacles that you have created. You are an insatiable explorer of people, places, things and ideas. You thrive on constant change and anything new or different. On the positive side, you can be creatively rational as well as open minded and just. On the negative side, you might be an impractical and indecisive procrastinator. Interestingly, your preference is just as applicable in today's corporate kingdoms.

To boldly go

Find out whats your distinct personality here.
Found via Chris Sells blog

HBO is coming

Finally! HBO, the popular TV movie channel, is coming to Slovenia. 12 hours of movies a day, for 12 Euros per month, with introductory first two weeks free of charge. Beginning tomorrow, September 23rd.

The movies? Well, first three months include the premieres of Ocean’s eleven, A Knight’s tale, Training day, first chapters of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter ... Nothing new and exciting, really.

I’m more excited about the recent release of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVDs (on my Amazon wish list ;) Apparently George Lucas made some additional changes to the trilogy for this release. Read full review on The Digital Bits.

A week with Canon EOS 300D

I've got a new toy - Canon EOS 300D, a digital SLR camera. After owning EOS 300 & 300v, this one's my entry into digital photo world. I have to agree with Andrej - it does feel plasticky, especially the included 18-55 EFS lens, which is more like a toy product. However, the lens is very light and the pictures aren't so bad either. I just wish it wouldn't make squeaky noises when zooming in and out. Maybe oiling it wouldn't hurt :)

The following are some pictures of kittens, playing in my back yard, taken with this camera and my Sigma 28-200 lens.


  


Although there is plenty of software ready on the included CD, I'd recommend complementing that collection with David's GetCanon! tool for easy camera-to-PC picture downloading.

Čara


Čara, the Maine Coon cat

The books are here

Every now and then I browse through my Amazon wish list and pick a few items I’d like to have. Three books made it to the latest package that arrived earlier this week: 

·        Steve McConnell's Code Complete (2nd ed.),  After reading so many positive reviews about this book I decided on getting a copy

·        Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, a classic Sci-Fi novel, was also recommended to me

·        Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Baigent, Lincoln, Leigh). This one has been on my list for quite some time now. I’ve first heard the story behind Rennes-Le-Chateau about 5 years ago and took immediate interest in it. This book is considered one of the best on the subject

As a developer, I naturally started with Code Complete :). To find out more about this book, go see this interview with the author on MSDN TV. 

Google day

Thanks to Matija and Goran, my coworkers (yes, it was a joint effort, don't ask), I now have a GMail account. You can help me test it by sending me your mail on andrej.tozon at gmail.com. While I wait to get some invites to give away, I would want to follow this lead.

I also signed up for Google AdSense program and added some ad space to my blog. Just to see how this works out

Having said that... I google a lot. Mostly for information, but there's more to it. Google's calculator not only performs advanced mathematical calculations, but is also a measure unit converter. To convert a person's height to centimeters simply enter this in the search field: 5.9 feet in cm and you'll get the result. Needless to say, I don't use the Windows calculator anymore.
Another Google's best is the Definitions. Type define: programming in the search box and you will get back various definitions from various dictionaries available on the web.
More Google tools on this page.