Alexandar Tzanov ~ The Titan » Around the World

srcTitle – the answer to the “null” title for the “from” link in Google Buzz feed

Alexandar Tzanov — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:54:23 +0000

This morning I implemented Google Buzz. You can see the button on the left of this paragraph. After playing around with the code, I buzzed my last post, which was about high fructose corn syrup. When I checked my Google profile I noticed that after the title of the article there was a “null”, which linked back to the home page of my blog.

After spending few minutes searching on the Internet, I wasn’t able to find much information on the problem. Next I decided to look for API documents and other help information published by Google. Seeing that the Google Buzz button works by sharing via Google Reader, the best place for the answer was in the Google Reader help docs . I found this post – Adding a ‘Share in Reader’ link to your website or blog.

The solution to the problem is very simple and logical. As “title” – the title of the item you are sharing, is to “url” – the address of the item you are sharing, “srcTitle” is to “srcUrl”. In which case the former is the name you want to use for the source of the item, and the latter is the address to that source.

... &srcurl=123&srctitle=numbers ...

The use of “srcUrl” is completely optional for your Google Buzz button, but keep in mind that if you do use this URI parameter, then you should probably also use “srcTitle”. Otherwise people will be seeing ”null” in their Google Buzz feed, and some of them might not like that and start deleting buzzed/shared item and eventually completely stop sharing your content.

By the way, you can set the “src Url” and “srcTitle” to anything you want. In my case, I am contemplating between setting them to to my blog’s home page or to the author’s post archive. I suppose the latter would be more crucial/useful when used on blogs or websites with multiple authors!

High-fructose corn syrup

Alexandar Tzanov — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:08:36 +0000

I'm in everything

Why, why, why is this part of our food? I recently noticed that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is one of the main ingredients in maple syrup. Why? Am I buying maple syrup or am I buying maple flavored corn syrup? I’m so tier of reading the ingredients on various products’ packages and seeing high-fructose corn syrup listed. It seems that this “poison” is part of the ingredients of almost everything. Last time I was surprised to see HFCS as an ingredient was when I read the label on a Heinz ketchup bottle, where I discovered that it made 40% of the product!

Yes, high-fructose corn syrup is a cheap sweetener alternative to sugar, but its long term negative effects to Americans greatly outweigh its sweet qualities or its monetary benefits to the price of our consumables. The results can be seen in the public’s health care bills. I only mention Americans because I haven’t heard of any other country using high-fructose corn syrup in the quantities or the extend it is being used in the United States. Personally I ratter pay an extra dollar or two for a product, but know that whatever my children, my family or I are consuming has real sugar in it, and our organs or link)','caption', 'Deoxyribonucleic acid' );">DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) won’t be changing or suffer some other undesirable or health hazardous effects over time.

I recently heard of some study, which was conducted by an Asian organization, it had concluded that American men, who consume large amounts of soda, have a greater risk for prostate cancer. This is not a surprise. Soda has been part of our life for over a century now, but this was never a problem before. What has changed is the fact that in the last 15 or 20 years HFCS has become the main ingredient in soda and many other product. Maybe it’s not the amount of soda being consumed. Maybe it is the amount of a very common ingredient that is inescapably being deposited in our bodies via the food we consume!

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Now available in Bulgarian.

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:56:11 +0000

As a Bulgarian I’m always excited when I see “[...] available in Bulgarian.” or simply a link titled “Bulgarian” linking to a Bulgarian version of whatever site I am on. Today, one of these sites I came across was WordPress.org.

Wordpress in Bulgarian.

There are many Bulgarian communities around the world. To my knowledge the largest one is right here in Chicago. I’m not counting Bulgaria, because that’s a whole country! Bulgarians make many contributions to many web sites, science, industries and technologies. We have also made significant invention contributions to computers and aviation, as well. Something to be proud off.

Firefox and DNS prefetching

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:39:59 +0000

Firefox and DNS prefetching – I read about this being a feature in Google Chrome, but I wasn’t sure if it was, yet, a feature of Firefox. It is in Ff 3.5. Here you can find a list of the new features in Firefox 3.5.

What is DNS prefetching? – It is the process of requesting domain name and IP (Internet Protocol or Intellectual Property) address resolution used in links, images, documents and other content linked to from a page a web surfer is currently browsing. Theoretically, by taking care of the name resolution before a surfer desires to navigate to a file or another page from a link on the current page can save fractions to X number of seconds. Name resolution being out of the way the surfer should arrive at its next destination faster. The former is my definition and understanding of DNS prefetching. In my experience, at leased in Google Chrome, I am able to see performance improvements.

I needed to know how can I tell if it is on or off. In Google Chrome it is in the options menu and it can easily be turned on and with a simple check-mark click.

Google Chrome DNS prefetching option.

But, in Firefox this is not a function in the options menu. At leased not at this time.

Verizon rep – being a long time customer is definitely important, but….

Alexandar Tzanov — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:30:59 +0000

I just got off the phone with a Verizon Wireless representative. I was inquiring about upgrading my phone and what kind of deal they could offer me. I had to revert back to a 5 year old phone due to a recent mishap with the mobile phone I was actively using. The deal they could offer me was … none! Even after I mentioned that I have been a Verizon Wireless customer since 1998 the guys could not offer me anything, because my number still has 6 months left before it becomes eligible for the “sponsored” upgrade, which of course comes with a mandatory 1 or 2 year contract.

What the heck? I have been a Verizon customer for over 10 years now. I have had Verizon land line numbers, I’ve had Verizon DSL. I have also had and still have multiple mobile lines with Verizon, but apparently none of this is a factor. What happened to customer appreciation for brand loyalty. I can tell you what happened to it. It is gone, if it ever existed! From my experience with Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and other companies, a customer’s loyalty is only tracked as long as that customer doesn’t change their number, address or service. More on that in a future post.

Unlike AT&T we have not ever had any problems with the service, but I do wish Verizon did show back some love to loyal customers when the rare call from them comes.

Good morning ……. (Hmmm should I respond?) …….. Yooo

Alexandar Tzanov — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:08:00 +0000

Wow, I said “Good morning” to someone earlier and I could see that person actually contemplating about responding to me. Eventually, after I had already started walking away, probably 20 seconds later their response was “Yooo”. WTF!! What kind of a response was that, how is it even relevant to what I said, and most important of all, what took so long to even happen.

“Yoo”?!!? WTF is that. First of all – I have a name, and that person is well aware of it. Second, a similar response or something in the lines of “What’s happening” will be more in line of the “topic” of what should be a dialog, but a lot of times ends up being a monologue for many people.

If it takes someone more than half a second to a second to provide a response, which at this point in their life should be automated, then don’t bother responding. It won’t be the first time. Same applies if you have to think about responding or not in the first place!

In my opinion, the time limit rule for comebacks also applies in this case.

BTW, most of the time, my verbal response to the lack of one in cases of “Good morning”, “Good afternoon”, “Good day” or “How is it going?”, is “That good, huh?”.

Exclusive Terminator 4: Salvation footage.

Alexandar Tzanov — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:20:59 +0000

I came across this 4 minutes long exclusive Terminator 4: Salvation footage video this morning.

I find it to be revealing as far as plot and Terminator canon changes. Something I wasn’t expecting, making it even more desirable to see. At least to me.

Will you see Terminator 4: Salvation in the theater or on DVD? Let me know in the poll below.

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Google – son of a bitch search.

Alexandar Tzanov — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:28:59 +0000

Google has many uses, one of which being a spellchecker. But when a word has different spellings, whit different meanings, it is time to start experimenting with searching for the word in sentences.

This morning I was looking for the correct spelling of the plural of “son”. I was not sure if it was “sons” or “sones”. The first describes male offspring, the second apparently is: a unit measuring the loudness of sound as subjectively perceived, equal to a tone of 1 kilohertz at 40 decibels above the threshold where sounds become audible to the listener. Thank you Encarta. One of the pages in my search results was – What’s the plural of “Son of a Bitch”?!

I would answer #5, just because I find it hilarious. But I’m sure that many would choose the last answer

Domain whois record: Google, Encarta, BestAndWorst

A Dad Moment – Reading in English

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:15:59 +0000

The following quote is from my desktop Dads calendar, given to me by my wife:

A Dad Moment

Ricky held his one-year-old daughter Emily in his lap. She was jabbering in baby talk as she flipped the pages of a picture book. Nearby, Ricky’s five-year-old son Tim said, “Dad, make her read it in English instead of Spanish.”.

I extremely enjoy listening to my son talking in his own language. It is fun, entertaining and animated – full of facial expressions and gestures. Moments like these are priceless, which only parents can appreciate for their true value and not just their comical relief.

Bullets are cheaper.

Alexandar Tzanov — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:30:59 +0000

In America police cruisers, also known as police interceptors, are designed to ram other vehicles, especially when pursuing an offender. One of the techniques used, if the policeman can get close enough, is to clip the offender’s vehicle in the rear, either on the left or right side of the car. This causes the vehicle to spin and in most cases results in the engine seizing, which in turn gives cops just enough time to surround the offender.

It appears , though, that in Russia bullets are cheaper, even when the chase is moving at less than 10 miles per hour.

It appears to me that after the long! chase, the offender had finally given up as a result of losing control over the vehicle due to nearly dieing from laughter. Unfortunately a quick beat down was administered by the police!

Thank you EnglishRussia.

Email Signatures – I Hate Them.

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:11:59 +0000

I f-ing hate email signatures. For most part they are useless and only take more space than the actual email content is. In my time of receiving emails and providing customer support I have come across a variety of email signatures and other text and image email appendages that are completely unnecessary. It is rare for me to come across an email signature that is simple and small.

People use company logos in addition to their names, emails, alternate emails, phones, mobiles and fax numbers, as well as toll free customer support numbers. To those we corporate addresses, social network addresses, instant messenger addresses and you end up with a lot of information that gets tacked to every email of an email string. Why? It is a waits of bandwidth and space, and also time consuming to sort between the signatures and the actual email content.

Not to mention people who use double and triple signatures, because they are part of multiple organizations or want to show off their affiliations and other sorts of background. Also lets not forget that if you use a free email service, like Hotmail or Yahoo, they also append their own signatures, to promote their service and that they provide free email service. Or when someone emails from a business/corporate account, then there is a security message that comes with the email to inform every recipient that the information contain in the email “is confidential” and sharing it might violate something or another.

Image thanks to Transformatum.com

Overall there should be some standards to email signatures and what other information may be automatically appended to an email. I doubt that that will come to fruition, though. People and companies have been trying to standardize emails since the email system was invented decades ago, but as we can observe today – this has yet to happen. I would only hope and wish for that email signatures are only appended in an initial email. When there is an existing string of emails going back and forth then there is no need to append a signature. The involved parties clearly know who they are and what they can do. A signature should be appended only if the email string is forwarded to a new recipient.

Another thing that I am not a fan of, but it doesn’t bother me as much is when people forward emails and I can see that the email was forwarded 2, 3, 4 times and I can see tens of emails with each forward section. Not only does this take space, it consumes bandwidth, but most importantly it is a security problem. It creates an opportunity if one of the recipients is a spammer, or pissed at the sender to harvest the emails and use them to SPAM the rest of the recipients or cause damage to the senders reputation.

Are you also bothered by the above issues? Take the poll and let me know by leaving your comments below.

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Barack Obama presidential inauguration live video stream

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:50:59 +0000

For anyone that is not at the Barack Obama presidential inauguration or at home watching it, and you would like to watch it, you can do so here. I have embedded the UStream.TV live video stream below. The nice thing is that there is also audio, not just silent video.

07:48 AM Currently it is showing the presidential limo, staff members, secret service and other security waiting for president elect to come out and be take to the inauguration site. I can also hear in the distant background the inauguration orchestra practicing.

Update 08:21 AM That’s a lot of people. I am sure there is two or three times that somewhere around also attending the inauguration ceremony.

08:21 AM Presidential Inauguration - a lot of people

Update 08:28 AM I was just thinking, because of its significance and because of the people involved, this is probably one of the most documented events in our history! Publicly and privately.

Update 08:39 AM Here is another screenshot of the amount of people attending the presidential inauguration.

08:39 AM Presidential Inauguration - lots more people

Update 09:01 AM The AP reporter just said that there are between 1 and 2 million people on site. Sorry I missed his name, but if you know his name feel free to leave his name in the comments below, I will update here. He also said that people are also as far as 1 mile away from the ceremony site. I don’t know what they can see from that far, but binoculars or telepresence will do, I suppose. The white rectangles you see on the right of the first and second images above are telepresence movie screens mounted on 18 wheelers.

Update 09:12 AM Bush and Obama together at last for the traditional transitional coffee.

Bush and Obama pose for a photo op.

The Ultimate Thrill Ride.

Alexandar Tzanov — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:39:59 +0000

I saw this video on enterprenurer Morten Lund’s blog. I want this robot installed in my house. Getting flung around, safely, looks like so much fun, unless of course you get motion sickness.

I enjoy the fact that it can be programed. Although in the begging of the video it looked like that guy’s head was about to be smeared all over the floor.

Do you guys have any robots you would like to have. Leave me some links to pictures or videos of your favorite/wish to have robot in the comments below.

[cb type="person"]morten-lund[/cb]

Friendfeed and Twitter – is it time for an intervention?

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:28:59 +0000

I have decided to write this post sort of as an echo of Michael Arrington’s call for an intervention with Robert Scoble’s addiction to Freindfeed and Twitter, who has spend more than 2600 hours interacting with those services. I am rounding up from Michael’s post, because Robert states that he spend at least 7 hours every day. But he also responded to the TechCrunch and in his post Robert states that he started in February and it is only about 200 hours. Both question if the Scobleizer blog was harmed. I would like state that in cases like this there is more than just a traditional service that is harmed. In my case I did not allow my addiction to extent to my family, but it did affect other aspects of my life.

Twitter can be addictive! I never got into FriendFeed, only because I find it cluttered, or better yet – way too much going on. There is way too much going on in the activity stream to keep track of and to pay attention to comments. That is not to say that I have not picked up on some good images or links from the activity stream, but I do not use its commenting system. Actually, even thought some times I spend 50 to 60 hours per week on the Internet, I really do not find it useful. I know that many content creators, just like me, prefer to have/own comments either by us or to us. What happens if these services go down? All those comments will be gone.

I used to be addicted to Twitter. Just look at the graph below. But thanks to the type of work I do and its needs I was able to realize how much time I was wasting posting and refreshing all the time. At times I would simply sit and refresh the page for minutes at a time, hopping that “I won’t miss something”. Pretty ridiculous, huhh?! To me that was the biggest waist of time, because even though I was micro-blogging I was still spending more time REFRESHING A PAGE.

Twitter Stats by TweetStats.com

Some say that Twitter and micro-blogging is the next evolution of blogging. I disagree. I think that 140 character blogging, if you can call it that is a digression, not an evolution. I have concluded that Twitter and 140 character blogging is simply a retarded form of a chat(instant messenger) system. First of all, as a blogger, I hate the character limitations. Listen I have A LOT to say. If you go back in my Twitter history, you will see that I used to use TinyPaste to compensate for the limitations and to say what I have to say. Some would say why don’t I simply write an email or use an instant messenger. Well, because emails take too long to get a response to and not everyone uses an instant messenger. The Twitter users, with whom I communicate, they would hardly be willing to spend time writing a lengthy email, when they have the wonderful use of Twitter’s instant response – in short. I’ve also expressed on many occasions my disgust with how Twitter and services alike are forcing users to become grammar unintelligent so they can say what they have to say.

Probably about a month or so ago I decided to cut down on Twitter. I still get my urges to check it out, and I do. I do glance over what others are doing, but I hardly post now – mostly in response to others. Lastly, I found Twitter to be damaging to one’s social environment. That is not to say that Twitter is not good to start new friendships, keep up with people and expend one’s views, but that’s how far its usefulness should extend. A good personal example is from my work environment – instead of simply using my voice or getting out of my chair and making 5 steps, I communicate via Twitter with my coworkers. This also goes back to my statement that Twitter is a retarded form of chat/instant messenger.

Maybe it is time to evolve from Twitter and micro-blogging back to blogs and maybe then we can come up with a new better form of instant online communication. There are web sites which are trying to compensate for the character and hopefully grammar limitations by starting services, which mimic Twitter and such, but also allowing for longer post. But, again, if you think about it, isn’t that simply creating another blogging platform?!! Looks to me that people are evolving back.

Follow me NOT! What’s the point?

Alexandar Tzanov — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:15:59 +0000

On Twitter, a user by the name of Donna Mahony started to follow my domainventory account. She claims to be a domainer of 10 years and supposedly is the founder of Domain Boardroom forums and some other domain awards web site. When she started to follow me I responded in kind and also direct messaged her for more information on her “private” forums.

BTW, what exactly is the point of having private domaining forums? Some of the biggest and most successful domaining forums have succeeded not by being private, but by charging for services and features.

Anyways, after couple of weeks I did not receive a response to my message. So, I simply registered on the forums, while doing so I was asked to provide 3 domains to verify my identity. I listed TitanFusion.net, Innovadix.com and DomainVentory.com. All three have my name on the domain record info. The following day my registration was rejected – “did not meet our membership requirements”?!?! As domainer with few hundred domain names to my name I’m pretty sure that I do meet the “requirements”, but, whatever. The point of this post is to illustrate poor customer service and public relations. Why? Because after I received the registration decline email, I emailed back to ask Donna what gives, because she was already following me on Twitter as domainventory. I did not receive a response from her, nor did I receive one after I tweeted about it.

Not responding to a potential customers or partners after multiple attempts via different channels is a poor way to do business. Do not write off the small ones, because someday the stands might be reversed and you might be in their place. Be prepared to be treated the same way you treated them!

Developing a business website solo – I underestimated it.

Alexandar Tzanov — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:00:59 +0000

I have been working on and off on developing a business website with functionality other than this is who we are, this is what we do for some time now. It has been taking me some time now to make some progress on the DomainVentory project for Innovadix, because of duties like family, day job and simply being tiered from everything that needs to be done every day. But anyways, every thing with its time.

The reason why I am saying that I underestimated the time it will take me to develop the site is because of all the things that pop up in my head that needs to be included in the web site as I work on it. Unlike other website project I have worked on, this is the first time I am developing a business and a websites with a variety of features and needs from the ground up. Granted I contemplated for a very long time if I should use a CMS or build my own interface, I decided to go with using one of the more popular CMS simply to get he project off the ground. Once the website and it is functional and servicing clients it can always be upgraded. It won’t be anything new. Over the years I have seen many websites which have switched from one CMS to another, or simply gone with developing a proprietary interface and vice versa. Every time I sit down to work on the site, as I am working on something at least half a dozen other things come to my mind that need to be included and once I place them on my to do list, half a dozen more pop up for each of them. For example tonight I am working on documenting how customer’s will be referenced across multiple sites, especially ones that are not mine. As I figured out how I am going to do that and started to document it, the fact that I also need to collect and maintain customers’ personal billing information also came to my mind, and as I typed the previous I realized that that data needs to be encrypted.

It is definitely a learning experience. Even though my grand parents, my father and my Amanda’s father all owned or still operate their own businesses, being an entrepreneur was not something that interested me until 3 years ago. Thus I do not have much knowledge or experience with it. The who start up and get going process can be difficult especially when building everything solo with limited resources and the most valuable of them being time to work on business development.

So far the planing stage seems to be taking long time, but not as long as documenting how everything is going to work. The most important thing is to make progress. Some times it is a lot, other times it is as little as few words, or paragraphs.

GoDaddy discount lacks the discount. It’s OK though.

Alexandar Tzanov — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:58:59 +0000

Last week I was contacted by a GoDaddy company representative by the name of Logan, who provided me with a list of my expiring domains until the end of the year, informed me that he has been assigned to my account and can offer me a discount. I responded to him by asking for more information about the discount. The discounted price per domain he provided me with, in his replay email, was the same price I receive as a member of the domain discount club.

One would thing that when offering discount to their customers GoDaddy would check to see if it is worth doing so, when the customers are members of the domain discount club, and the company is not willing to offer a greater discount! I suppose it makes no difference, because this is a courtesy service and a money raising act, but if it was me I would have taken a different approach.

My experience with GoDaddy, as a customer since 2003, has ALWAYS been positive. I have always had a good experience with their customer support, which I am glad is located in the States and I can call them at any time. To my knowledge GoDaddy does not outsource, so I must give the company and Bob Parsons props for doing this and keeping Americans employed. I know that part of the company’s customer relations strategy is to provide courtesy services, like company representatives personally calling me and emailing me to remind me of my expiring domains. In the past I have benefited from it, I enjoy it and appreciate it.

[cb type="company"]godaddy[/cb]

I was right! Buy Yahoo stock.

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:08:59 +0000

yhoo stock rebound - image from TechCrunch

Last week I tweeted that Yahoo’s stock was at $10 per share and it was time to buy. Comments on my link)','caption', 'Micro post.' );">tweet (Micro post.) said that it is pointless to do so. As I was on my way to New York, I wasn’t able to provide a response to the comments.

With today’s reports about Yahoo’s CEO, Jerry Yang, stepping down I wish I had listened to my own advice. But there is still time to buy, buy, buy. People have been complaining about Yang and wanting him out of the decisions circle. Now he is out and I can only imagine that the stoke will continue going up as the company finds new leadership or is bought or merged with another one. I would like that company to be Microsoft.

[cb type="company"]yahoo[/cb]

No smoking for you! Not in this car.

Alexandar Tzanov — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:05:23 +0000

Recently Amanda and I went car shopping. Now that Alexandar is growing bigger and we are planing on having a family expansion we needed something other than the Jeep. So, we went looking at minivans. After looking at the 5th minivan I was becoming more and more bored of the activity and pretty much all of them started to look the same to me – a vehicle with lots of space inside. Having gone through the majority makes and models of minivans on the market we decided to go to CarMax and see what they had to offer in addition to saving $20,000 from the price tag. What I noticed in majority of the minivans and crossover vehicles we had looked at is that ashtrays are no longer a build in feature. Ashtrays seem to have become an extra feature you have to request.

Personally I don’t care that there is a lack of ashtrays, but I do not think that it is fair to those who have chosen the slow suicide. Yes it is an option to order one, but what if you are reselling the car. Some people won’t buy the car for the lack of one. I suppose it is a marketing and economic decision. If the manufacturer does not have to make the space for it, they won’t. Same goes for spending money on the materials to make it.

I just find this trend strange. What do you think? What new trends have you picked up on that have surprised you?

Get of the phone asshole, your sons are about to drown.

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:13:24 +0000

Amanda and I spend last weekend at Kalahari resorts’ Wisconsin location. In their indoors park they have a lazy river, the dept of which varies from 1 foot and 9 inches to little over 3 feet, and at places the current is actually fast. As Amanda and I were floating down the river we came by an on/off location and there were two little boys that had just entered the “lazy” river. At that location the current was picking up and it swept the boys away from the stairs. As they lost control, and because the ledge was too high for them to grab onto, panic was becoming apparent. I stopped and stopped them from further floating away. I asked them if they wanted to get out. The affirmative answer was more than obvious. As I picked them up to carry them out, I looked up and their dad was walking by the ledge, talking on this f*ing mobile. The guy was there the whole time, he saw what happened before I became involved. Even after I had already engaged them he never reacted to their panic, neither did he acknowledged what I did for his sons. Even after I helped them out of the water he simply started walking with them back to wherever their belongings were. This douche never got off his mobile, nor did he even interrupted his conversation to say something to me or at the least to ask his sons if they were OK.

Cajun crawfish for dinner

Alexandar Tzanov — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:11:28 +0000

Just a while ago I finished 3 pounds of Cajun crawfish and 2 cans of Mountain Dew (my favorite non-alcoholic drink), and it was awesome. Sadly the crawfish, that are available in my area from the only place in southern Chicago, if not in the whole Chicago metropolitan area, are no longer produced and packaged in the USA, but are from China.

I recently had oysters produced and canned in China, and they weren’t very good. There were bits and peaces of shells. I had to go to a more expensive store to buy ones that were made and canned in Germany. I can tell you now that the quality was significantly different . From the size of the oysters to the quality of the oil there were in – just an unparalleled improvement.

What king of sea food do you like? Have you had similar experience with can foods?

Valve being bought by Google. Please say it isn’t so.

Alexandar Tzanov — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:20:10 +0000

Valve being bought by Google! That is a horrible thought, but there are number of web sites which are reporting this. Here are a few links:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/17/google-valve
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/google-to-acquire-valve/

I decided to send Valve a quick email, and I think that everyone that is agains this happenign should do as well.

Good morning,

TechCrunch and TheInquirer are reporting a potential acquisition of Valve by Google.

Please say it isn’t so. I’ve been a fan of you company and games since you guys first started. I have been following your company and enjoyed your products all these years. An acquisition by google might seem like a financially good choice but technology and product wise it is not.

Valve has managed to remain financially independent and overcome a variety of obstacles all this years. Please do NOT give into the google idea. Be yourselves. Visiting Valve headquarters and working for Valve is a dream for many people. Don’t destroy your fan base.

Sincerely,

Alexandar Tzanov

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/17/google-valve

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/google-to-acquire-valve/

You can email Valve at contact@valvesoftware.com, or contact the company in the following ways

Telephone:
425-889-9642

FAX:
425-827-4843

Postal address:
PO BOX 1688
Bellevue, WA 98009

The community has already started a discoution on the Steam forums.

Twitterers’ tweeting rate … and bloggers

Alexandar Tzanov — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:43:58 +0000

Based on the people I follow on Twitter, I have noticed that people are tweeting more before lunch CTZ than in the afternoon, regardless of geographical location. It seems like people stop tweeting for the second half of the work day, then they pick up again latter in the evening.

I guess it is true, people slack in the morning more than in the afternoon. Of course I have read other wise, but I think that the opposite is only true for the first quarter or half of the work day morning.

I believe the same holds true for pro bloggers. There seem to be more posts in the morning. My guess is they write some in the morning and more in the afternoon, which would explain fewer posts in the afternoon. They publish in the evening writings from the afternoon, then write some more and schedule the posts for the morning. If all that makes sense.

So, tell me twitterers – what do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Have you noticed any other trends or facts about twitterers’ personalities, behavior, or patterns?

[cb type="company"]twitter[/cb]

Comcast gets owned by the FCC. Well, sort of.

Alexandar Tzanov — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:51:01 +0000

Another win for Net Neutrality. Today it was reported that the link)','caption', 'Federal Communications Commission' );">FCC (Federal Communications Commission) “disciplined” Crap…Comcast for their violation of their customers basic write to access information on the Internet. I say disciplined, because Comcast was not punished via a financial burden. They were just told “you were bad. Don’t do it again. Fix it.”. It is hard for people and especially for companies to learn their lesson, when negative reinforcement is not used. Comcast was not punished, so they have noting to loss. If they had to pay fins, for example in the form of free or discounted service for their customers, then they, as the money garbing leach that the company and its operators are, will think twice before violation the freedom of access to information and data of real people and some intangible IP (Internet Protocol or Intellectual Property) address.

Now, because they were not cause to pay fines, the operators of the company will have learned, in their attempt #1, what they can do. Because the company did not have to pay fines, it will again try to throttle its network, but at its second attempt it will know how far it can go with certain actions and how to hide its procedures better.

You can read the announcement here: link)','caption', 'Federal Communications Commission' );">FCC Comes Down On Comcast For P2P Blocking

[cb type="company"]comcast[/cb]

That’s a bit far!

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:15:26 +0000

I recently decided to track how many mile I drive to work. It so happens that I drive 70 miles to work and back every day. I spend between 2.5 and 3 hours driving, and almost everyday half of it is sitting in traffic. I spend $70 every 5 days to fill up my sedan.

Waste Management – You are doing it wrong!

Alexandar Tzanov — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:13:18 +0000

My house is serviced by Waste Management. A company, supposedly, on the forefront of thinking green and working to recycle and minimize pollution. Well, I can tell you guys that you are doing it wrong! I don’t know if this is standard procedure, but I for sure know that other companies, which offer recycling, don’t do it that way.

Here is my problem with them. WM asks its customers to separate recyclables from their garbage into different containers, something that is necessary to make recycling easier. But when they come to pic up my garbage and recyclables, they are both dumped into the same container. To me that does not make any sense. Supposedly they sort out the garbage at their station, but then why would you ask your customers to separate these objects if you are just going to put them back together and then “waste” money to pay someone to separate them again? Other companies have trucks, which have compartments for the different recyclables and waste. Why doesn’t WM have these type of trucks?

I think that combining the recyclables with the garbage, just to separate it again at a later point, ruins much of the potential recyclables, like paper products for example. Many times the garbage bags have juices and liquids in them as well as sharp objects. When they are put together and then compressed inside the truck these bags break and all those liquids flow out soaking into any potential recyclable paper products and thus ruining them.

BTW, WM new has a social network called Greenopolis, which is part of their Think Green educational program.

[cb type="company"]waste-management[/cb]

That’s too many cart stalls

Alexandar Tzanov — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:54:26 +0000

We live in the suburbs now. Tonight Amanda and I went to the grocery store. As I was parking the car I noticed that there are 3 cart double stalls on each side of each lain. They were placed every 3rd or 4th parking spot. Coming from the city I was baffled to see that many cart stalls, when in the city for a parking lot two to three times that size of the one we were in, there is usually at the most 3 cart stalls.

From what I have observed, there aren’t that many active shoppers, at any time, to justify the need for so many cart stalls. I don’t think that the store even has enough carts to fill those stalls. I guess Amanda was right when suggesting that the ‘burbs’ folk just don’t like to wall far. Plus in the city, the stores spend their money on buying the carts with the range-lockable wheels.

On the the Ads’ target.

Alexandar Tzanov — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:25:27 +0000

If I was not involved in the online advertising sphere I wouldn’t have probably noticed this, but this morning I visited att.com and Vonage.com. Ever since I can say that about 85% of the banners I have seen on all of the web sites I have visited, so far, are att and Vonage!

Oh noes, I’m being tracked on the web. Lol. I should probably check which company is serving the banners.