Archive for the ‘About IT’ Category

Make Gmail better

There are a lot of things to make Gmail better:

But I won’t bother you with these. +Continue Reading

Why put the highschool in a CV?

It may come as a surprise – I allocate one row in my CV:

to this piece of information:

High-school in Informatics (2001)

Nothing more than this, no mentioning the name of the high-school, or the town (it’s Năvodari).

Why do I do this:

  • I don’t believe the name of the high-school is that important. Also, where I’ve done it (in a town by the seaside – Năvodari, Constanza). Much more relevant would be my performance at the high-school, or the correlation between the three (It was not the best of the high-schools, it was not in a big city, but I entered first, and graduated first. Considering it’s one of the high-schools with a very high number of pupils in the county, I can say I did much better than the average, although I wouldn’t have been the first at a National College). But even my performance isn’t that important.
  • What is important is that I did an Informatics profile, for two reasons:
    • Informatics is highly related to my current job (SEO). It’s very relevant if for four years I studied Informatics as a main subject. Perhaps not the most modern programming languages (Turbo Pascal? C++? FoxPro?), perhaps not with the most modern equipment, perhaps sometimes the subjects weren’t taken very seriously, but for studying four integral years in informatics is a much better predictor of who I am today than an internship or a single client I may have. Think about it – as a teenager, I studied informatics. It matters.
    • For a success predictor, Informatics was considered the best classes in the high-school (So, if you wanted a good experience in a high-school, you should have looked for Informatics). This is a rather minor reason, though.

My new PC – i5 2400, 8 GB RAM, SSD 60 GB, 24″ BenQ LED monitor + video camera

Below you’ll find the history of buying a new PC. +Continue Reading

BenQ G2420HDBL Monitor LED 24″ Full HD, 16:9, DVI. From clickshop.ro

In November 2011 I decided I needed a monitor, I wanted to buy one (due to a rather complicated story concerning my family, I decided to buy myself a monitor, and send the old one to Năvodari). +Continue Reading

A thing you can do with 3 Euros

With around 3 Euros, you can buy a DVD cake with 10 blank DVDs. That’s about 43 GB of data. If I were in other people’s shoes, I’d make a few DVDs like these, and if I traveled to other parts in the country, I’d back-up important data in my PC, and leave them there. Or I’d put the box somewhere safe, in a building different than mine. This way, if my computer has a problem (and lost of things can happen), I can get the data back safely. Not all of the data, but surely, data more valuable than the 3 Euros, the cost of a 10 box.

Comcast Offers – what do I like about this web site?

Let’s have a look at Comcast Offers; what do I like about this web site?

  • Clear fonts; I can easily read most of the things on the web site;
  • The logo is in the upper-left corner of the web site, where it should;
  • Clear contact phone right in the header;
  • Toll-free number;
  • Minimal requirements to submit a form (address, unit, zip code);
  • The packages prices are placed up front, you can easily know how much you’ll end up paying;
  • Lots of text in the footer, it makes you keep browsing the current web site;
  • Distinctive colors for the call-to-actions;
  • As a business, they have a presence in a lot of states in the US;
  • The image in the offer is attractive;
  • The use call-to-actions (call, please enter, find);
  • They have legal disclaimers right on the page;

P.S.: You can also see Comcast Cable TV Deals.

Components testing vs. components endurance

Sometimes, you read a component testing – a video card, a hard drive; sometimes, you read about electronics testing – a video camera, a fridge; other times it’s about cars;
The thing which strikes me most is this – tests focus on functions: “This product has the following 10 functions, which do this and that”; or “The design of the product makes us think that …”;
Wait! I want to know more not about functions and capabilities, but on endurance; how long will this product work fine? Will this car, which is cheap to buy, cost a lot to maintain?
Sure, if you really want to, you can find out about reliability tests on car; but these tests are mostly restricted to some fields; I would like more if these tests applied to much more fields than just one.
So, I would prefer to know more about product endurance than on products functions.

A good idea with a less-than-perfect implementation: silicone keyboard

Silicone Keyboards (Amazon.com: Portable Flexible Silicone Keyboard: Electronics) are a great idea – keyboards which can be folded; on the other, hand implementation does matter and, in this case, it’s relatively difficult to easily type on it; the keyboard seems great – big, foldable, stress-free; but it also has to be a good product, which, currently, in my opinion, isn’t.

Why should “I” buy from PCGarage.ro? Why should “you”?

First, have a look at this image:

Since the image is not self-explanatory, let me do the job for it.

  • I order a DVD Writer in August 2006 (152 lei); I cancel the order;
  • I order a printer in August 2006  (162 lei); I pay the order, and take the product home;
  • In August 2006, I cancel some headsets (26 lei);
  • I pay for a 17″ monitor in September 2006 with 947 lei (it’s a huge price, even for today’s standards, I bought two monitors since, one with 22″ with ~350 lei, and one with 24″ with ~630 lei);
  • Ka-boom! For a friend, in December 2006, I get a person from the Internet to create me a PC configuration within some budget limits, and order a PC & a monitor; my friend comes with me to pick the order and doesn’t like the headquarters (we were supposed to get to the headquarters, but they move slightly to another block, I didn’t know this, and got to the wrong address; my friend didn’t want to hear about looking for it again); the big problem - the PC I wanted was a custom configuration; I paid no money in advance; the PC Garage team had to assemble it (for free, of course), and me & my friend weren’t there to pick it up; what to do with such a PC? Sure, it’s new, but it’s not easy at all to sell a custom made PC, even if new; you can’t put the pieces back into their boxes and sell them as new, either; you’ve just got a new PC which won’t sell; the PC was 1,000+ RON, the monitor was 650+ RON; +Continue Reading

Where to buy IT components from?

My experience in buying IT components is quite vast, I’ve bought quite a few components & full PCs.

So, where to buy from? +Continue Reading

Sony HDR-CX130 – again, on buying a camcorder; this time it’s for real

I told you before about buying a video camera – Deciding to buy a video camera – step by step – Get a result now! – and how I decided not to buy one. Now, it’s time for a change of hearts. +Continue Reading

Choosing a DVD Writer – Asus DRW-24B3ST

I will speak about picking a DVD Writer, in this case,  Asus DRW-24B3ST. +Continue Reading

A best buy keyboard: Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000

I’m assembling a new PC and I also need a keyboard; I want to give you my impressions on a keyboard – Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000. +Continue Reading

When you buy IT things, should you do research or not?

The answer is – it depends:

  • I think that when buying certain items, you should do research (monitors – research; video camera – research; hard drives, power source, media player, motherboard, processor, video card – research) if you’re not a professional / expert in that field.
  • On the other hand, there are items which you should definitely check out yourself (mouse, keyboard).
  • At other items, you may do research or buy by checking things yourself – head phones; loud speakers; computer case (perhaps monitor&video cameras, if you’re a professional working with graphics);

+Continue Reading

Presentation tip – subtitles for movies in a PPT

Let’s say you are about to hold a presentation; this presentation will include a movie; you don’t know a lot about the location you are about to hold a presentation; lots of things may happen – no Internet connection (for YouTube clips); no sound from the laptop; no sound from the room; too much noise in the room; no codec for viewing the video; poor laptop and a large resolution video; some people may not understand well words in English;

You can solve most of these things by repeating the video prior to the event, on the same laptop & the same equipment;

But in some cases where this is not possible, it may be wise to just embed (hard-code is best – How to hardcode subtitles to AVI files – my-guides.net -, but you can also include the subtitle as a separate .txt or .srt file) subtitles;

For a two minute video, it will not take you long to create those subtitles; but in such a way you will make sure that you solve a lot of hearing problems (from no sound, to poor sound, to interferences, to not being able to properly understand words in English, to a large audience with different hearing needs).

Dropbox vs. SugarSync: how to synchronize files into the cloud?

I’m user of both Dropbox and SugarSync; what are these systems? In a nut shell, they’re web services where you can save the files which you wish pe Internet; you save a file on your home computer, and synchronize with another Internet device (like an iPhone);

The advantage? You can take the files with you wherever you are, the synchronization is very quick – you just put the files in a folder in the computer and the synchronization is automatic;

Details:

There are other cloud storage systems for files, you can see here 10 alternatives for Dropbox:

So , you can try : Dropbox and SugarSync.

Real estate projects in Bucharest – optimizing the titles

For the following links:

how about optimizing the titles? +Continue Reading

Apartments in Bucharest – how to promote them?

Let’s take a series of web sites:

How can one promote them? +Continue Reading

Running a tires-selling web site – best practices for location

I focus today on a web site with tires, various products:

What’s a great idea to locate such a business? +Continue Reading

Small tip: how to download a document from Scribd without logging in?

Scribd is a nice web site; but sometimes you need to download something, and Scribd either asks for a money investment or for an upload; to skip these, change an URL like this:

  • http://www.scribd.com/doc/24733157/Yamaha-T135-Owners-Manual

into another one like this:

  • http://www.scribd.com/mobile/documents/24733157

This should cover it;

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