I’ll do the best I can to only do those things which will prevent me from getting any criticism.

This can be applied to ethics – instead of applying a pure & morale set of ethics, I might only do some things which will prevent me from being judged.

- But that person said it’s OK, so I did it.
- But to you it was OK?
- This is irrelevant. That other person said it. I’m covered.

How about not covered for a change? Unfortunately, while I do notice the problem, I have no current solution to this.

It’s not my fault!

Maybe it is.

(via)

• Scroll down.
• Visit another web site.

, I’d suggest you first select the text you ended up reading.

Why?

• If you scroll down, it will be much easier for you to see where you’ve left reading.
• If you visit another web site and return, it will be easy for you to see where you have been the last time.

So, go & select.

P.S.: Coca-Cola, selected locations only.

• Ideile din finala Restart România | NetSquared Beta

a lot. Great ideas, they can move Romania forward!

• Gmail – Tips – great tips by Google.com itself!
• Master the New Gmail with These Tips, Shortcuts, and Add-Ons
• Top 10 Gmail Labs You Should Enable
• Read more on Lifehacker.com: gmail site:lifehacker.com – Google Search

But I won’t bother you with these.

I will bother you with two other things (which I found about via A Linkbuilder’s Gmail Productivity Setup | SEOmoz):

• Rapportive

To quote them:

Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox.

• Boomerang for Gmail – Scheduled sending and email reminders

Again, a quote:

Boomerang for Gmail is a Firefox / Chrome plugin that lets you take control of when you send and receive email messages.

• With Boomerang, you can write an email now and schedule it to be sent automatically at the perfect time.
• Remind you if you don’t hear back - There are times you need to make sure you follow up within a specific time frame after sending a message. You can select to only be reminded if nobody replies, or regardless.

Finally, if you want to get some statistics on how you use Gmail, you can see:

• ToutApp – Your Year in Emails

P.S.: I have personally used all of the recommended applications, and I’ve read a lot of tips on how to use Gmail.

Album 1 (full-screen):

Album 2 (full-screen):

Album 3 (full-screen):

2009 was a poor year, 2010 was better than it. Probably 2011 was no worse than 2009/2010, or at least it’s somewhere in that area.

Specifically for Romania, see:

• De ce numarul celor care protesteaza nu este atat de mare – o alta perspectiva » businessday.ro

Yes, there is a crisis. But the economy is much better than it was in 2000, 2005, perhaps even 2007. Yes, there was a slowdown, yes there was even a reduction. But, still, it’s a much better situation than years ago.

Is there a crisis? Yes. Is it deeply affecting us? Not so much.

• How to play the lottery? What numbers to choose? – Get a result now!

Now the question comes – should you or should you not play the lottery?

Strictly rationally, playing the lottery is a poor investment. Your chances of winning are smaller than the risk of losing. Strictly economically, you shouldn’t play the lottery.

Why should you do it, then? Because of the feelings of:

“Hmm, I might win the lottery. Hmm, how would this feel? Hmm, perhaps I’d like it. Hmm, a winner, I can only imagine! Oh, how I would spend the money. I would buy this and that and I would be so happy”.

Thinking about winning the lottery may produce in you the same feelings as winning it. And, thus, it’s worth paying each week 3 euros for these feelings.

This may explain why lottery players tend to play a small amount each week. Theoretically, they could put a large sum of money at once, and not play for half a year. But this would deprive them of their happiness source. The feelings must be reinforced each time.

It’s all about the placebo.

Watching football is similar. You know you will, most likely, never be in an actual match of Barcelona team against Real Madrid. You will only watch the game on TV, never using the information you got. You may not even play into a second league football team in Romania in a friendly match. Thus, knowing perfectly how Vaslui team plays will give you no advantage in real life (how do you use sports strategies? Having a very rare example when you do use it only shows that these examples are very rare, thus irrelevant). But, boy, oh boy, the images that rush in you when you see your favorites, imagining yourself you’re actually there, you could score a goal, these stick in you. You are happy when your team (representing, on a large scale, you) wins, and you wait for the whole game for a recovery when your team loses. Emotions rush in you in a football game, even though the fate of the match should not concern you.

Strictly rationally, watching sports is a waste of everything – time (a lot), money (some), effort (some). As an irony, due to loss of opportunities, you may actually have physical problems for watching sports (you don’t exercise, because you don’t have the time anymore, and you associate watching sports with poor foods and drinks). Rationally, you shouldn’t watch sports (the benefits, like understanding the principles behind a game, are far smaller than the losses).

You will never practically use the rational parts of a game when watching it. But you’ll enjoy it, nevertheless, as a placebo.

Both placebo work – I’ve seen people who are genuinely happier, perhaps due to this (although correlation does not imply causation). The lottery asks for a small amount of money each week (plus some time to go and buy the tickets) and gives you the expectations of winning, while football asks for time and small investments while watching it at home, and larger investments (of both time and money) when you watch it in a football stadium, and gives you back a variety of emotions during a game.

Lotteries help reinforce the placebo by having certain periodicity – each week there are events at the Lottery, you can play with a certain repetition pattern. Football watchers help reinforce the placebo by choosing a favorite, with witch you attach. You like Vaslui, and no other team in Romania. You like Chelsea and no other team in England. You like Juventus, and no other team in Italy. When you watch a match with teams from South America, even if you have no prior personal favorite, you pick one. “Oh, I like Argentina, they’re my favorites”. And if they score, you’re happy, and if they lose, you’re sad. Thus, you reinforce the placebo.

There are other things, too: you can see the lottery balls with numbers (they’re physical,  you can imagine the process of picking 6 successful numbers), most lottery winners are announced public. In sports, there is a lot of emphasis on “your team” – the team for Romania (country), the team for Constanza (county), the team for Năvodari (town). In schools, there’s the “high-school team”. It’s “my team”, the team I know. Lots of emphasis on “national” – anthem, flag, patriotism. It’s “my team”, I should watch it.

Also, do you know anyone who wants to see a rematch? So, the game was last night at 11 PM, you didn’t watch it, you can see it on a computer today.

“But I’m not there, how can I attach to the match if it’s not ‘live’? How can I be there if the match was last night. Ah, you don’t fool me!”

The final question: should you do it – should you watch sports and play the lottery? Yes, if your pleasure and benefits exceed costs. Don’t think rational about the choice, the rational choice is irrelevant for the current context. Go for emotions, instead.

You are a Social Liberal (88% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (83% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

I think the self-representation results are accurate.

• Get a result now!
• Fii eficient!

with the intent and with the desire of becoming more efficient / focused on results.

Today, I’m pretty good with this – what started as a goal has become, in some part, a reality.

It seems I was wrong, it’s much better to focus on the fitness level. So, an overweight person who is fit, may well outlive an unfit skinny person.

• Fitness Level, Not Body Fat, May Be Stronger Predictor Of Longevity For Older Adults
• NetDoc – Fitness level is predictor of longevity

I’ve lived at Năvodari for the most part of my life until now. I’ve seen some changes in the street in front of my block, but in the recent years the changes have been more substantial.

I noticed I feel much better & happy now for the looks of the street than I was years ago. Surely, if I’d live there, instead of coming just now & then, probably I’d get used to it. But right now, I do notice a difference, which is a bit surprising to me (I thought it wouldn’t matter).

• English-speaking countries have an advantage over other countries.

This may seem counter-intuitive at first – what should be the importance of speaking English? Why would it matter if a country speaks English or Spanish or French?

Well, it does matter:

• See the movie industry, in which a lot of movies which stay well in box office charts are in English.
• A lot of the best selling of music albums are in English.
• A lot of the important newspapers / magazines are in English.
• A lot of things technology-related are in English (web sites, programming languages).

Sure, Chinese has more speakers. Sure, you can find better and more relevant books for the French people written in French, for the Italian people written in Italian. But, worldwide, it’s an advantage for a country to have English as the main language.

He co-authored a book which I currently read:

• Principles of Economics: Robert H Frank, Ben Bernanke: Books

There is a dedicated page on this book for “the philosophy of this text”.

I won’t present it exactly, but I will present you the main idea.

Let’s say you are about to create an introductory text for a science. Any science. The trouble is, there are lots of notions to be learned, lots of different things.

How do authors generally approach this issue? “Oh, we’ll briefly present all or most of the ideas in the field, and, by the end of the book, the student will have a glimpse on what those ideas are”. Sometimes, this is taken to the extreme – “here are all the ideas / concepts / notions in the field” -, but most times it’s merely moderate – “these are the most important ideas in the field, have a glimpse of them all”.

And here comes a strategic idea by the book’s authors – don’t strive to present everything. Instead, you should pick the important things for the student and present them thoroughly.

Let’s detail these, shall we?

• Picking the most important things – you, as a book author, have probably read all of the most important books in your field, you are hugely experimented, you know what is important and what not. Surely, in a perfect world, every student could retain everything. But in an imperfect world, it’s hard to memorize and understand a lot of concepts. It’s much better that you make the decision, instead of leaving it to the student.
• Present ideas thoroughly – a lot of times, when reading a school manual, you may get the impression that it can go deeper. A lot deeper. While an introductory book can’t aim to fully cover a subject, it should, on the other hand, try its best to make the student understand the subject well. In the book presented above, they go deeper than this. Since there are not that many principles/ideas presented/covered, they are mixed. So, you can see a cross-reference from chapter 7 to chapter 3, from chapter 14 to chapter 5 and so on. Once you read & understand an idea, you are, then, encouraged to use it. And an idea is much better understood if explained thoroughly.

Let’s have a broader look at the strategy:

• You can write a shallow book, presenting all the notions for a specific subject.
• You can go deeper and pick the most important subjects for the student.
• You can write a very niche book, with one subject, detailed and thorough (but this is not likely to be an introductory book).

The authors of the book I currently read:

• Principles of Economics: Robert H Frank, Ben Bernanke: Books

go for the second option.

Strategically, to me, this is one of the best ideas that I’ve read in a book. It was mind blowing.

You can apply this in other fields. When you want to synthesize information for someone, you might feel the urge to present lots of ideas, just to make the receiver get a glimpse on them. While this is not necessarily bad (especially if the person whom you address this understands each idea well), it might be better to just pick what’s the most important. You’re the expert – you pick.

Another thing is the need for explanation. Surely, you can get off by just presenting an idea, but it’s much better to provide an example, to show a life case study, to detail the principles of functioning.

So, the two takeaways of this blog post:

• Choose the most important things for your reader, don’t let him do this.
• Detail things, go deeper than the shallow surface.

can be put to great use in writing a school manual.

My current situation is like this – never ignore, always act, do, work.

But sometimes, it’s over the board.

Let’s say there’s a discussion on the Internet, someone comments on something I said. The comment can be:

• Genuinely interested in receiving an answer, polite & logic.
• Anything else – impolite, sarcastic, illogical, not interested in an answer, not asking for the solution.

Until now, I tended to react to everything in the above list. Right now, I’m thinking I should much rather focus on answering the things which ask for a reply.

Is ignorance bliss? Perhaps. But how about ignoring things? This thing surely is.

• It will not snow in Bucharest;
• Some medical achievement will occur;
• There will be lots of fights on the political scene in Romania;
• The EURO will be stronger;
• The USD will be stonger, not so much as the EURO.

• EN - Le Notti di Cabiria – The best movie I’ve seen. The one movie I recommend seeing to anyone I know over 15 years of age. Go see it now! – Get a result now!
• RO - Le Notti di Cabiria / Noptile Cabiriei / Nights of Cabiria (1957): uita-te la filmul asta fie si doar ca sa ai motiv sa vezi alte filme – Fii eficient!
• RO - De ce îmi place Le notti di Cabiria (1957) atât de mult? – Fii eficient!
• RO - De ce să vezi “Le notti di Cabiria” (“Nopțile Cabiriei”, 1957) a doua oară? – Fii eficient!

For the full list of movies, see:

• Ce filme mi-au placut in mod deosebit? – Fii eficient!

To read how do I watch movies:

• How do I watch movies? – Get a result now!

Now, what movies have I seen in the second part of 2011?

2011.06.10 – Andrey Rublyov (1966)

165 min – Biography | Drama | History
Director: Andrey Tarkovskiy
Writers: Andrey Tarkovskiy, Andrey Konchalovskiy
Stars: Anatoli Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov and Nikolai Grinko
Comments: I can’t say one word of this movie; understood close to nothing; sometimes aggressive; I’m really really trying to get the message of the movie; the trouble is, there’s more than one, and it’s complicated; so, I don’t try too much; yet, this movie makes me somehow happy;

2011.06.17 The Straight Story (1999)

Director: David Lynch
Writers: John Roach, Mary Sweeney
Stars: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek and Jane Galloway Heitz
Thoughts:
- Very boring;
- The old man was kind of nice;
- A lot of emphasis on common sense;
- In the movie you could get a vehicle (not car) with 350 USD; it’s not cheap, but it’s certainly not expensive;
- No stray dogs;
- An old man, almost blind, with little to no help, barely being able to walk, gets this long distance; is it just America or is that something worth mentioning?
- There was a lot of egoism in a seller’s thinking – he had two objects, very necessary, but still, two of them, and reluctant to let one go to a person in the need of one; didn’t like this at all;
- The priest said at one point “I say ‘Amen’ to that”; OK, generally I don’t appreciate brining religion in talks, but in this case it felt right (it was a good context for the affirmation, and he was, after all, a priest; what can you expect from such a person?);
- One guy wants to convince his wife to help the main character get somewhere; and he starts this complicated speech, with reasons which could only have led to his conclusion; a bit disappointed by this (what I consider to be) uncharacteristic way of thinking of an American (not direct at all); on the other hand, he was nice and left the other person the option – “OK, you may also not want to think like me, that’s fine”; this is the kind of liberty which, on the other hand, I appreciate;
- I didn’t quite get the message of the movie; OK, he wanted to go from A to B to make peace with his brother; why not get a bus? Why not hitchhike?
- After reading reviews on IMDb and the Wikipedia page;
“But because Alvin’s legs and eyes are too impaired for him to receive a driving license” … OK;
- There’s supposedly something with sticks and hitchhikers; didn’t get it;
- Reading the review, I did get that part where Alvin (so that’s his name!) tells them that a brother is a brother; OK; that was nice;
- I didn’t get this:
“The two men sit and look at the stars, as they had done as children.”;

2011.06.22 – American Teen (2008)

95 min – Documentary
Director: Nanette Burstein
Writer: Nanette Burstein
Stars: Hannah Bailey, Jake Tusing and Megan Krizmanich
Comments: I’ve seen this documentary following a recommendation by Adrian CIUBOTARU;
It was a good watch, worth the effort; the movie went too much into a cliché, and a lot of things were predictable; on the other hand, just reconfirming some previous knowledge / assumptions about the American life of teenagers was nice; nothing fancy, a cool watch and that’s it; didn’t learn too much from it, though; I recommend it for enthusiasts only;

2011.06.30 – Zerkalo (1975)

108 min – Biography | Drama | History
Director: Andrey Tarkovskiy
Writers: Andrey Tarkovskiy, Aleksandr Misharin, and 1 more credit »
Stars: Margarita Terekhova, Filipp Yankovsky and Ignat Daniltsev
Comments: I’ve read the plot, I’ve read one review; OK, I get nothing from this movie; nothing at all;

2011.07.23 – Notre-Dame de Paris (TV 1999) 

150 min – Music | Drama | Romance
Director: Gilles Amado
Writers: Luc Plamondon (libretto), Victor Hugo (novel)
Stars: Hélène Ségara, Daniel Lavoie and Bruno Pelletier
Comments: I liked the song, I didn’t quite get the play, but I thought the play went well, as the singers sung their songs; good visual effects, but a rather unimpressive spectacle; the music was nice, though;

2011.08.04 – Offret (1986) 

142 min – Drama
Director: Andrey Tarkovskiy
Writer: Andrey Tarkovskiy (screenplay)
Stars: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood and Tommy Kjellqvist
Comments: I liked the last song; I got used, a bit, to the style of Tarkovskiy, with very long scenes; I still couldn’t focus on the movie and understood almost nothing of it; I did notice some philosophies; and didn’t like any of them in particular;

2011.08.24 – Solyaris (1972)

167 min – Adventure | Drama | Mystery
Director: Andrey Tarkovskiy
Writers: Stanislaw Lem (novel), Fridrikh Gorenshtein (screenplay), and 1 more credit »
Stars: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis and Jüri Järvet
Comments: I read the reviews after I saw the movie, but still couldn’t understand one thing from the movie; nothing;

2011.08.30 – Chinatown (1974)

130 min – Crime | Drama | Mystery
Director: Roman Polanski
Writer: Robert Towne, and 1 more credit »
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston
Comments: Finally, a movie I understood; quite interesting, not that I liked it too much; intelligent, but rather casual;

2011.08.31 – Oldeuboi (2003) 

120 min – Drama | Mystery | Thriller
Director: Chan-wook Park
Writers: Garon Tsuchiya (story), Nobuaki Minegishi (comic), and 4 more credits »
Stars: Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu and Hye-jeong Kang
Comments: very good movie, see my review on fiieficient.com.

2011.09.03 – Hall Pass (2011)

105 min – Comedy | Romance
Directors: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Writers: Pete Jones (screenplay), Peter Farrelly (screenplay), and 3 more credits »
Stars: Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis and Christina Applegate
Comments: saw this movie as a recommendation from a friend; pretty good, relatively funny; parts of the movie seemed very low profile, with poor jokes and poor comments, but, all in all, a good watch;

2011.09.03 – Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

136 min – Action | Adventure | Fantasy
Director: Rob Marshall
Writers: Ted Elliott (screenplay), Terry Rossio (screenplay), and 7 more credits »
Stars: Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz and Ian McShane
Comments: I liked it, funny, good show; but not that smart, and other than laughter I got no other emotions; and not especially funny; but a good watch and not a waste of time;

2011.09.06 – Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010)

94 min – Comedy | Family
Director: Thor Freudenthal
Writers: Jackie Filgo (screenplay), Jeff Filgo (screenplay), and 3 more credits »
Stars: Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron and Rachael Harris
Comments: The trailer was much (as in *much*) funnier than the movie itself; I looked again at the trailer for the second part of the movie, and found it funny; but I’m not watching another movie based on a trailer, after this disappointment; I didn’t like the movie; I mean it was decent, but mostly a waste of time;

2011.09.07 – Monanieba (1984)

153 min – Drama – 1984
Director: Tengiz Abuladze
Writers: Tengiz Abuladze, Nana Janelidze, and 1 more credit »
Stars: Avtandil Makharadze, Ya Ninidze and Zeinab Botsvadze
Comments: I understood close to nothing of the movie; I can barely say what the movie was about; thus, I have no feelings whatsoever on the movie;

2011.09.08 – Barry Lyndon (1975) 

184 min – Drama | Romance | War
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick (written for the screen by), William Makepeace Thackeray (novel)
Stars: Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson and Patrick Magee
Comments: Good movie, two insights from it.

2011.09.12 – Some Like It Hot (1959) 

120 min – Comedy
Director: Billy Wilder
Writers: Billy Wilder (screenplay), I.A.L. Diamond (screenplay), and 2 more credits »
Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon
Comments: funny, nice, pleasant, sexy; good watch;

2011.09.14 – The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

161 min – Adventure | Drama | War
Director: David Lean
Writer: Pierre Boulle (novel), and 2 more credits »
Stars: William Holden, Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins
Comments: I liked the stubborn guy who wanted to show he has principles; until, at the end, when it was obvious his principles suck and he just put principles above everything, with no ability to judge things;
Aneta BOGDAN said that in life you have to pick between the two – either principles or life with no principles; you can’t really have a middle path; you have to choose;
In this case, I think that living just for principles pretty much sucks;
Good movie, nice effects, nice play of emotions, good scenery, good scenario;
But with no morale, no lesson, and nothing much learned;

2011.09.17 An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

100 min – Documentary
Director: Davis Guggenheim
Stars: Al Gore and Billy West
Comments: I don’t agree totally to his ideas, but Al GORE can speak right;
Good movie, nothing spectacular, not too much to learn, but the way in which he presents information, although an old information, is great; I blogged about it;

2011.09.17 Rio (2011)

96 min – Animation | Adventure | Comedy
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Writers: Carlos Saldanha (story), Earl Richey Jones (story), and 5 more credits »
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway and George Lopez
Comments: very good psychology of characters; I learned stuff, seeing the way in which the characters think;
Quite an obvious movie; I could predict some things, the ending had to be positive;
Good script, I liked the use of flight in the script (how things were flying / not flying);
Family was important, and so was fun; Brazil is great;
Funny in some parts, a bit stressful to see the main character and the owner girl a bit too stressed; but they let go (in some way);
I didn’t get it how the bad guys got to jail;
Seeing how the main character used his brain to get out of problems/things was great; a bit too analytical, though;

2011.09.20 The King’s Speech (2010)

118 min – Biography | Drama | History
Director: Tom Hooper
Writer: David Seidler (screenplay)
Stars: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter
Comments: this is probably the first film I admire for the play of the characters; I could easily see how difficult it must be for someone who doesn’t usually stammer to start stammering;
It’s also a movie with good psychology / play of emotions;
Examples – Lionel LOGUE is very good with emotions, with his own family and others; he can interpret fine;
Then the tension builds whenever the King has to speak from time to time;
At the final speech, Queen Elizabeth cries; I also cried at this moment, it was touching;
Also, the script was unexpected; I didn’t see things coming;
A very enjoyable movie; perfect, in way in which you like things to be perfect; imperfect, in a way in which you want even more than perfection;

2011.09.20 Alexis Zorbas (1964)

142 min – Adventure | Drama
Director: Mihalis Kakogiannis
Writers: Nikos Kazantzakis (from the novel by), Mihalis Kakogiannis (screenplay)
Stars: Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates and Irene Papas
Comments: the main character is the essence, he loves life and lives it passionately;
He tries to do things good, he doesn’t succeed that well, but he’s happy;
He has a lot of courage, and he’s good with things in life (knows a lot of life things);
On the opposite, he is sometimes not all that smart, and says rough things;
He can savor things, yet a bit too much;
Reminded me of a family member;
Good movie for the actor play, not that huge amount of things to learn;

2011.09.30 Home (I) (2009)

95 min – Documentary
Director: Yann Arthus-Bertrand
Writers: Isabelle Delannoy, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, and 5 more credits »
Stars: Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Glenn Close and Jacques Gamblin
Comments: nice movie, lots of emphasis on emotions & feelings, not so much on demonstration;
Cool images, impressive way of putting things;
But not so much impressive movie; OK, but nothing too much;

2011.10.04 Horrible Bosses (2011)

98 min – Comedy | Crime
Director: Seth Gordon
Writers: Michael Markowitz (screenplay), John Francis Daley (screenplay), and 2 more credits »
Stars: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis
Comments: very funny movie, nothing too smart, though; but enjoyable to watch; I wish for more, but accept it was an OK movie;
A bit too sexual for my taste, and nothing that smart, no true insights;
Still, it brought me pleasure;

2011.10.15 Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

91 min – Animation | Action | Adventure
Director: Jennifer Yuh
Writers: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger
Stars: Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and Jackie Chan
Comments: funny, not excessive, captivating, quite a lot, surprising, not too much; an all-around good movie; I didn’t go home with a message, but I liked seeing it;

2011.10.23 Black Swan (2010)

108 min – Drama | Mystery | Thriller
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Writers: Mark Heyman (screenplay), Andres Heinz (screenplay), and 2 more credits »
Stars: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel
Comments: The first ballet I saw was “Swan lake”; it impressed me visually; after seeing “Black Swan”, I got a similar feeling – a deeply visual image; this is, pretty much, the only thing that impressed me about the movie;
Quite depressing, quite hard to understand; perhaps it’s a good movie; I don’t know; I didn’t like it;
I didn’t get the ideas – what was X supposed to mean? I don’t know;
Oscar for “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role”? Sorry, didn’t see that come through; sorry;

2011.10.23 Cars 2 (2011)

106 min – Animation | Adventure | Comedy
Directors: John Lasseter, Brad Lewis
Writers: Ben Queen (screenplay), John Lasseter (story), and 2 more credits »
Stars: Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy and Michael Caine
Comments: A decent cartoon, entertaining, it kept me watching, I’ve seen it as a whole (not like a usual movie for me, in sequences); pretty fun;
Not that smart though, and with a boring happy ending;

2011.10.24 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

110 min – Adventure | Western – 24 October 1969 (USA)
Director: George Roy Hill
Writer: William Goldman
Stars: Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Katharine Ross
Comments: I saw the movie with a friend, on a projector;
What I liked was the remembering of old, past times; men were men – strong, powerful;
The story, in spite being of thieves, has a lot to do with courage;
And lots of adventures;
OK, at the end of the day I get little more than pleasure, but it’s a good, old, nice pleasure with a world you can’t see today anymore; and, thus, I should see it;
Some lines in the movie were pretty smart;

2011.10.25 The Smurfs (2011)

103 min – Animation | Adventure | Comedy – 29 July 2011 (USA)
Director: Raja Gosnell
Writers: Peyo (characters), J. David Stem (screenplay), and 5 more credits »
Stars: Hank Azaria, Katy Perry and Jonathan Winters
Comments: I don’t get it; “Black swan = great”; “The Smurfs” = bad; whaaaaaat? To me, it’s nothing like that;
On the subject: Papa Smurf is a nice character; the graphics weren’t great; I didn’t recognize neither the actors nor the voices; it was, at points, too much melodramatic;
But it was fun, cute & simple; it was not very credible, but it was supposed to be a cartoon – lots of imagination & get what you wish of them;
I used to watch “The Smurfs” when I was a kid; I remembered little to nothing of them, but now I can see why I liked them;
It was a cool cartoon and the movie was nice; I mean, nothing special, nothing fancy, but pretty OK;
OK, some humor was terrible (Gargamel’s part was very poor, with sad jokes), but I did enjoy the movie;
“Oooh, what a bad movie”; whaaat?

2011.10.25 Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

118 min – Comedy | Drama | Romance
Directors: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Writer: Dan Fogelman
Stars: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore
Comments: Seen it at cinema; very good movie, almost to the level at which I’d recommend it to anyone; what I liked? Good lines, interesting dialogue; Ryan GOSLING (played by Jacob PALMER) was great; interesting turn of events; and, finally, I liked the unexpected; “What would happen?”; I wouldn’t know; I was surprised, and this was great; and funny;

2011.10.31 Julie & Julia (2009)

123 min – Biography | Drama | Romance
Director: Nora Ephron
Writers: Nora Ephron (screenplay), Julie Powell (book)
Stars: Amy Adams, Meryl Streep and Chris Messina
Comments: Calm, pleasant, quiet movie; lots of emphasis on the human relations; easy to grasp; easy to comprehend; complicated relations, though; a life (1900+s) long gone; a life (2000+) ever more actual and present in Romania, too;
I liked the relations between Meryl STREEP (Julia CHILD) and Stanley Tucci (Paul CHILD, Julia’s husband); what I didn’t like was Meryl being a bit fake; I did like her enthusiasm and joy & optimism;
Julie POWELL was a kind, nice character;
Bottom line? Nice movie, easy to understand, quiet and calm;

2011.11.06 The Soviet Story (2008)

86 min – Documentary | History | War
Director: Edvins Snore
Writer: Edvins Snore (creator)
Stars: Andre Brie, Vladimir Bukovsky and Norman Davies
Comments: good movie; see my blog post for details

2011.11.12 (or so) La tigre e la neve (2005)

114 min – Comedy | Drama | Romance
Director: Roberto Benigni
Writers: Roberto Benigni, Vincenzo Cerami
Stars: Roberto Benigni, Jean Reno and Nicoletta Braschi
Comments: I liked the movie a lot; BENIGNI is very passionate; and he likes to take serious things not seriously; and he has a lot of courage; and he can see the unexpected; and he is willing to totally sacrifice; and he can succeed where others fails; and he won’t be let down; and he will try and try and try until he will make it; and he won’t take credits for his work; and other times he will take more credits for his work than required;

2011.11.14 High Noon (1952)

85 min – Drama | Western
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Writers: Carl Foreman (screenplay), John W. Cunningham (magazine story “The Tin Star”)
Stars: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly and Thomas Mitchell
Comments: nice movie; nothing fancy; I like the stubborness of the main character; I didn’t like it at all that no one stood by him; tis wife was nice too; the scenes had a nice sequence, easy to follow through; I could understand the movie easily; the priest was partially right and partially wrong, and, thus, to me, 100% wrong; there was a lot of poverty in the movie and lack of choices;

2011.11.19 The Apartment (1960)

125 min – Romance | Comedy | Drama
Director: Billy Wilder
Writers: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond
Stars: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray
Comments: The ending is sublime; I was so happy; the movie is so & so; I could understand it; I liked the girl; I liked the main character; I didn’t like a lot of the people (which I think was also the intention); I got some questions on what love is (it seems strange, in the movie); coming back to the ending – a cute movie, nice, happy; boy, it made me happy;

2011.12.01 Der Untergang (2004)

156 min – Biography | Drama | History
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Writers: Bernd Eichinger (screenplay), Joachim Fest (book), and 2 more credits »
Stars: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara and Ulrich Matthes
Comments: It seemed real; what amazed me was the difference between the normal, casual Hitler & the Hitler who lost his temper, and started yelling, and was very aggressive; also, the non-love for life of many characters; it was shocking to see the un-love for life;

2011.12.03 Wild Carpathia (2011)

Documentary movie by Travel Channel;
Comments: nice to understand more about Romania, quite interesting; some scenes seemed fake (all the peasants wore national costumes; in one scene two persons work on the roof of the house and when they are filmed, they just finish it; come on!); Romania is beautiful, it seems; I didn’t know all those things about bears, and wolves, and deers;

2011.12.18 Annie Hall (1977)

93 min – Comedy | Drama | Romance
Director: Woody Allen
Writers: Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman
Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts
Comments: I liked the innovations, like talking to the camera. I didn’t quite bond with either of the actors. I liked the tranquility of the movie. It was quite an intellectual movie. Not very engaging, though.

2011.12.19 Ladri di biciclette / Bicycle Thieves (1948)

93 min – Crime | Drama
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Writers: Luigi Bartolini (novel), Cesare Zavattini, and 5 more credits »
Stars: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola and Lianella Carell
Comments: I have people around me which remind of the guy’s incredible persistence, even when wrong; close relatives (in my house), and close people (where I live) have the same stubbornness, even when wrong.
It was an OK movie, nothing fancy, though. I liked the kid – pretty nice one.

2011.12.31 Grave of the Fireflies/Firefly (1988) Hotaru no haka (original title)

89 min – Animation | Drama | War
Director: Isao Takahata
Writers: Akiyuki Nosaka (novel), Isao Takahata
Stars: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi and Akemi Yamaguchi
Comments: I didn’t bond very well with the characters, thus felt little emotion for their sufferance. It made me unhappy, but not crying or weeping. I would have preferred things to go better, but wasn’t too saddened about death. I liked the fireflies’ games in the night, quite nice, visually.

2011.06.15: “The Psychology Student’s Survival Guide” by Robert S. FELDMAN and Sara Pollak LEVINE
McGraw-Hill College, 1999
ISBN 0-07-232521-6
Comments: My thoughts on the book are on the blog;
I’ve read it three times;

2011.06.15: “Monahismul ortodox ca viață profetică, apostolică și martifică” – mitropolit Ierotei VLAHOS
Editura Mitropolia Olteniei, 2005
ISBN 973-86551-7-X
Comments: Blunt ideas, didn’t like it;

2011.07.09: “Învață să învingi: cancerul de sân se poate vindeca” – Brândușa ARMANCA, Dana HARBUZ-MIRICIOIU
Editura Curtea Veche Publishing, 2006
ISBN (10) 973-669-276-0
ISBN (13) 978-973-669-276-5
It was so shameful for me to read it in the train, I didn’t look at the pictures, and the covers made it impossible to turn the book upside down without showing any naked pictures;
The stories were very motivating for me to put (even) more emphasis on health; and reading how do women think was a bit amusing; quite a poor book, overall;

2011.07.09: “Acasă se vorbește în șoaptă: dosar & jurnal din anii târzii ai dictaturii” – Stelian TĂNASE
Editura Compania, 2002
ISBN 973-8119-42-21
Pretty boring, but with some interesting thoughts by the author; interesting to spot what was life in communist time; I don’t recommend it;

2011.07.18 “N. Steinhardt și paradoxurile libertății: o perspectivă monografică” – George ARDELEANU
Editura Humanitas, 2009
ISBN 978-973-50-2382-9
I liked it a lot, lots of notes; I will blog post about it on fiieficient.com;

2011.07.31: “Peter Pan” – J. M. Barrie
Editura Prietenii Cărții, 1996
ISBN 973-573-092-8
Comments: My thoughts on the book are on the blog;
Very good book!

2011.08.07 “Jurnal”, vol. 1 & 5 – Gala GALACTION
Editura Albatros, 1996 & 2003
ISBN 973-24-0228-8 & 973-24-0887-1
Comments – I’ve read only partially volume 1 & 5; this is the second reading of the entire series; I started reading the journal and couldn’t understand what I liked about the books when I first read them, back in the winter of 1997-1998; I absolutely hated Gala GALACTION now, couldn’t read it, it overwhelmed me with hate; despicable books;
His passion goes into last, his own hate is overwhelming, he’s whining, he adheres to socialism, he can’t think straight;
Yet he speaks in fine words, which makes it even more troublesome (so, he has the intelligence and culture to speak with refined words, but not that to speak normal, with normal thoughts);
Perhaps he’s just an ordinary guy, although he doesn’t seem to act like one; in this case, he’s excused; but for my previous placing of him, someone close to a model, he’s a bitter disappointment;
I don’t want to read anything from him right now;

2011.08.19 “Creștetul ghețarului” – Constanța BUZEA
Editura Humanitas, 2009
ISBN: 978-973-50-2550-2
Comments: see my blog post;

2011.08.21 “The Western experience” – Mortimer CHAMBERS, Barbara HANAWALT, Theodore RABB, Isser WOLOCH, Raymond GREW
McGraw-Hill College; 8th edition, 1999
ISBN: 0-07-01306
Comments: nicely written, good pictures, good organization of the text, crammed with cool data; I couldn’t focus very well on the text, though (a bit sleepy), so I didn’t quite understand much; but it is a good lecture; good book;

2011.10.07 “Oliver TWIST” – Charles DICKENS
Editura Prietenii Cărții, 1996
ISBN: 973-573-097-9
Comments: I knew the basic plot of the book, so I could follow the reading, at least in the first part; a rather sad book, but also a book about the values of life; despite everything, there is still a lot of good in life; Oliver was a nice boy; I couldn’t follow the book on the second part;

2011.10.17 “Ivanhoe” – Walter SCOTT, volume I
Editura Prietenii Cărții, 1996
ISBN: 973-573-74-X
Comments: Sorry, I couldn’t follow the book; I don’t know what it is about; some basic style I did understand – old words in the book;

2011.10.17 “Tales of mistery and imagination” – Edgar-Alan POE
Editura Prietenii Cărții, 1995
ISBN: 973-573-010-3
Comments: Sorry, I couldn’t follow the book; I don’t know what it is about; some basic style I did understand – rather like a detective, in some part;

2011.10.17 “Jurnal: 2003-2009″ – Oana PELLEA, cu o prefață de Ioana PÂRVULESCU
Editura Humanitas, 2009
ISBN: 978-973-50-2436-9
Comments: see my blog post;

2011.10.21 “Ivanhoe” – Walter SCOTT, volume II
Editura Prietenii Cărții, 1996
ISBN: 973-573-75-8
Comments: Sorry, I couldn’t follow the book; I don’t know what it is about; some basic style I did understand – old words in the book;

2011.11.01 “Tom SAWYER” – Mark TWAIN
Editura Prietenii Cărții, 1995
ISBN: 973-573-050-2
Comments: I understood little from the book, but what I did understand, I liked;

http://getaresultnow.com/2011/11/setting-a-state/

2011.11.19: I was at the seaside, I was playing football, and unlike the real life, I was the best scorer, actually only I was scoring; we were playing a game called “Victoria”; a guy from Năvodari, which I haven’t seen in years, and who did some football classes around 1997, and was much better than me (it wasn’t actually that hard) was playing with me; we called him “Grasu’”, I think; at some point, I was in the water; the sea was very calm; I’ve never seen a calmer sea; I was actually a bit worried about this;
2011.11.20: I wanted to go to a Catholic church; I made a phone call; I don’t know how it happened, but I got to an Orthodox church, the church in Agronomie;
2011.11.21: I dreamed some worms; they were little at first, then they got to be huge; how to get rid of worms? That was the question;
2011.12.28: I dreamt Marius GHENEA; he was about to give me a lift to Năvodari, from Bucharest; we were supposed to leave in the evening, but it took too much, so the event was cancelled.

1. I was in student hostels for years during Faculty time (2001-2005). In time, I got to notice that I either got to care about my room buddies (at times, we sat four people in the same room for a year), or hate them. It was rarely a feeling of “Hmm, who are you? I don’t know you”. After spending a lot of time with people, we either bonded or we didn’t stand one another. I formed my best friends during those years.

2. Even earlier, in the secondary school, I had some differences with a guy at school. One teacher decided to do a surprising move – she moved us close to another, and we sat like this for almost two entire school years. At first, it was striking to me (what? how?), but after a while, I got to understand that other boy better. OK, not like him a lot, but, still, understand him better.

And the conclusion – I don’t think that opposites necessarily attract. But you can get quite interesting insights on opposite things.

• CV Olivian BREDA

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.

• Concert de Crăciun la Universitate – Media UB.
• Concert de Crăciun, la Universitatea din Bucureşti.

Program included works of Ludwig van BEETHOVEN, Marc-Antoine CHARPENTIER, Constantin ARVINTE, Ioan D. CHIRESCU, Vasile CORJOS, Gheorghe CUCU, Dumitru G. KIRIAC, Alexandru PODOLEANU, Timotei POPOVICI, Georg F. HAENDEL, Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART, Joseph HAYDN, Robert MOZES şi Pierre PIERPONT, Franz GRUBER, Richard WAGNER.

Director: Vasile CORJOS
Solists: Smaranda DRĂGHICI, Elena SERSEA, Mihai PICU, Valentina NĂSTASE, Mihai GROMAŢCHI.

Program:

Preludiu din Te Deum – Marc-Antoine CHARPENTIER
Bună dimineaţa la Moş Ajun – Alexandru PODOLEANU
O, ce veste minunată – Dumitru GEORGESCU-IRIAC
Astăzi s-a născut Hristos – Timotei POPOVICI
Moş Crăciun – Dumitru GEORGESCU-KIRIAC
Am plecat să colindăm – Gheorghe CUCU
Pe cel deal cu flori frumoase, Slobozi-ne gazdă-n casă – Emil MONŢIA (Solistă: Valentina NĂSTASE)
Domnul Iisus Hristos – Dumitru G. KIRIAC
Trei păstori – Timotei POPOVICI – Vasile CORJOS
Cetiniţă cetioară – Gheorghe CUCU
Noi umblăm şi colindăm – Mihai BÂRCĂ (Solist : Mihai GROMAŢCHI – Nai)
Fluierul cel păstoresc – Vasile CORJOS (Solistă: Elena SERSEA)
Colindul lui Moş Crăciun – Vasile CORJOS
Cântec trist de Crăciun – Stelian OLARIU
Binecuvântaţi părinţii – Vasile CORJOS
Colinde din Transilvania pentru Violoncel şi orch – Robert MOZES (Solist Mihai PICU)
Măriţi pe Domnul – Ludwig van BEETHOVEN
Imn de Crăciun – Ludwig van BEETHOVEN
Imn nupţial din opera “Lohengrin” – Richard WAGNER
Pastorala din Concertul de Crăciun Op. 1 Nr. 8 – Pietro LOCATELLI (Solişti: Ştefana ZAHARIA, Georgiana SECULA, Andreea BERNEVIC, Radu BARABANCEA, Alexandra PASCARU)
Aleluia din motetul “Exultate Jubilate – Wolfgang Amadeus.MOZART (Solistă: Saranda DRĂGHICI)
Salvatore del mondo – Anonim italian
O, Sanctissima – Ludwig van BEETHOVEN
O, Tannenbaum – Melodie germană
Silent Night (Stille Nacht) – Franz GRUBER
Joy to the World – Georg Friedrich HAENDEL
Jingle Bells – Piere PIERPONT

Photos (in full-screen):

See all the videos:

See videos one-by-one:

The computer was made with the big help of:

• burebista (Google him);

First, the question:

Salut burebista,

nu știu dacă mai faci configurații, îmi încerc norocul; dacă nu poți, pun mesajul pe forum și gata

Pentru ce voi folosi calculatorul:g
- Mult browsing (zeci de tab-uri constant);
- Cât de cât office;
- Ceva multimedia (filme + muzică);
- Multe software deschise tot timpul în calculator (torenți, antivirus, dropbox, messenger, muzică tot timpul, rescue time);
- Un pic de software mai complicat, potențial (din când în când, rar, editare foto);

Ideea e că stau cam 50 de ore pe săptămână la PC, în medie, am PC-ul de pe care tastez acum din 2007 (un X2 3800+, 3 GB de RAM, video integrat) și vreau ceva nou și future-proof;

Așadar, am nevoie:

• Procesor i5 / i7;
• RAM 6 GB minim, nu doresc să fac vreodată upgrade, dacă pun 6, 6 rămân, dacă pun 8, 8 rămân; alege tu capacitatea;
• Un SSD;
• Placa video + sunet integrata in placa de baza (nu joc nimic, dacă voi dori vreodată sunet mai performant, voi investi separat)
• Carcasă + sursă (preferabil un singur pachet)

Mă interesează costurile ulterioare de întreținere:
- Să consume non-mult curent electric;
- SSD-ul să nu se “ducă” foarte repede;
- Nu doresc să fac upgrade-uri anii viitori (da, schimb SSD-ul la un moment dat, dar cam atât);

Am deja hard-disk (1 TB) + monitor (24″, full-HD) + mouse + boxe (2.0) + tastatură + DVD writer (eventual aleg eu altul nou), nu doresc;

Probabil voi instala Windows 7 acum și Windows 8 când apare;

Nu voi face overclocking;

Nu joc jocuri; nu fac editare video;

Nu țin să fie de la un singur furnizor toate componentele;

Nu am buget, dar nu doresc “cel mai tare” nu-știu-ce; să meargă foarte OK următorii 4-5 ani; îl voi cumpăra înainte de 15 decembrie;

Mersi.

Încă ceva – mă interesează mult best buy, fără să pierd foarte mult din calitate.

De exemplu, când mi-am luat monitor, m-am uitat la cele mai vândute monitoare peste 22″ de la emag, m-am uitat la price.ro la top zece și un BENQ de 24 de inch, led, era cel mai vândut și și la PC Garage e în topul vânzărilor. Am citit comentarii și modelul respectiv e noul Horizon de 22″, pe care l-am și avut până săptămâna asta, când l-am schimbat cu BENQ.

Am căutat pe net și l-am luat la un preț foarte bun – 630 de lei pentru 24″, LED, BENQ, e un preț OK.

EMag au avut la promoția Black Friday un 27″ la 900 de lei. Nu am apucat promoția, dar în fața alternativelor, merg pe BENQ – 3″ nu merită creștere de preț cu 50%. Oricum, era la limită, era o ofertă foarte bună, Philips ș.a.m.d.

Asta aș lua și la sistem – ceva relativ performant la un preț bun. Nu doresc nici monitoare de 27″ la 1500 de lei, dar nici un 17″ la 350 de lei, dacă cu 600 de lei pot lua 24″ la calitate bună.

Mersi.

And the answer of burebista:

‘Neata,

Aia cu nu am buget fix ma omoara.
Io-te o idee sa zicem.

• CPU: i5-2400. Arhi-ultra-mega suficient pentru ce vrei tu
• MB: AsRock, noul best-buy ca brand. Ti-am pus una cu chipset Z68 ca e ultimul racnet de la Intel. Daca n-ai nevoie de SSD caching, video integrat si un OC limitat simultan se poate opta pentru un H61 ceva.
• MEM: 8 GB ca e pacat la cit de ieftine sunt acu’
• PSU: Enermax cu aroma de CWT. Aici e discutabil, as prefera un Fortron Aurum 400 de exemplu daca intra in buget.
• SSD: Ultimu’ racnet, SATA3 si SandForce SF-2281.
• CASE: Solutia integrata carcasa/sursa e de la Antec si nu e tocma’ ieftinuta. Am preferat sa le pun separate, acest Fractal mi se pare foarte reusit in pretul ei. Din pacate carcasa tine de gusturi asa ca nu insist prea mult, arunca un ochi la garaj/emag/whatever si vezi ce ti-ar place tie.

Cam atita deocamdata, astept feedbacu’.

Numa’ de bine,

Pitt.

I bought this:

You can see here:

• https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-1xGXSBg4cYMmRmNjE3MzktZTQzYi00MDRhLThlYWYtNTAxZmI2NzZjMmFi

a detailed table with the costs.

Observations:

• When I bought the items, they were all with the best prices on the Romanian market;
• I needed a bill (for my company), or else I would have considered buying items from abroad;
• Regarding the most expensive three items:
• Camera video Sony HDR-CX130, RED not only has the best price in Romania, even today, but also comes with a pack (extra battery, video camera case) which is very valuable; it’s an extremely good price;
• Procesor Intel Core i5 2400 3.10GHz box – it has the best price, even today, weeks after having bought it;
• Monitor LED BenQ 24”, Full HD, G2420HDBL – after I bought this, I got a discount of 50 lei for the next buy; so I bought a new monitor, for a friend;
• The minimum increase for the minimum price for eMAG is 8%; this means, that for the four products I bought, they put a price which is at least 8% higher than the minimum on the market; eMAG recently had Black Friday, with 10% off of their entire base of products; if you don’t mind buying from a smaller retailer, you can usually get a discount which is better than eMAG’s Black Friday (see the Excel with details on this);
• Where did I lose some money? Only three items are currently cheaper in the online market:
• The PC case Carcasa Fractal Design Core 3000 was only available at PC Garage when I bought it; it’s worth buying something which is new on the market; a thing to praise PC Garage for – even though they were the only seller of the item, they didn’t put a premium on this; actually, when I bought it, they were cheaper than today; today, there are 8 other stores on price.ro with the case; PC Garage did this – brought the product, offered it for a test, tested it, sold it at the usual price (not for a premium), created a market for the brand; others followed; I think it’s fine I paid more for the item;
• Camera video Sony HDR-CX130, RED – the price on edigital.ro varies quite a lot, the price just happened to differ;
• Placa de baza ASRock Z68 Pro3 is cheaper on edigital.ro than in Romania, but they have a premium for delivery, which pretty much cancels the discount;
• OK, I could have bought the BenQ with a discount, but this doesn’t count, there was no way I could have got this discount;

About buying the items from stores with the cheapest price:

• The main reason for buying from eMAG or PC Garage is warranty; you buy from a big brand, you can trust them that they won’t risk damaging their brand by providing you with poor quality service regarding warranty; I take my risk with this, and don’t follow this rule; I’ve detailed this – The warranty (extended or not) for a product is not required;
• Another reason would be quality of communication / customer service: pre-sales, on sale, on delivery, follow-up; to me, this is an insignificant factor; I don’t care that much about the attitude of a person who fills in a form, receives some money from me and hands me a product; this is not that relevant to me;
• I was never treated very poorly, to any shop I’ve ever bought online in Romania, other than when requesting warranty from 24pc.ro, a store which does not exist anymore in its old form; I’ve been buying PC (most of them on parts) for years, I was never treated very bad (angry voice, not replying to mails / phone); never; not one store;
• For buying the current PC, I have nothing to complain for;

Other than these, I also bought:

• Another monitor with a price cut (details) with 580 lei, for a friend; it was better than the smallest price on the market with close to 8%; I bought it (see above) with 630 lei;
• For that same friend, a DVI-DVI cable from IT Arena.ro (research on price) ~25 lei;
• A 16 GB USB Flash Drive from Corsair from IT Arena.ro (little to no research; it was a gift, I had to buy it fast; the price was a criteria; I would buy a different product now, I read some poor reviews on the cover of the Flash drive; I’m not sure on this, perhaps it’s just FUD) ~90 lei; the price was good, it was only <4 lei bigger than the next shop, it wasn’t worth going to a different store, I needed to buy from IT Arena, so there it was;
• The second bestselling mouse (back then) on eMAG (price cut) little more than 20 lei, Logitech, two buttons & scroll, pretty nice; I didn’t see it prior to buying, it was a gift, it was a bestseller, it was on a discount; what more to ask for a mouse for another person, not an intense user?
• (returned) A card reader from eMAG; most sold card reader on eMAG; it wouldn’t read my cards – ~20 lei;
• A video card for 475 lei; I bought it from eMAG since I could trust them that if it wasn’t compatible with my PCI x16 v.1.0 slot, I could return the card; I’ve read about the issue, talked with IT experts, and bought it from eMAG on this factor only; they had a price cut after this for this card, and after that, it wasn’t on their offer anymore; I wouldn’t typically buy a 475 lei card from eMAG, but in this case I needed the warranty badly;
• A keyboard (A best buy keyboard: Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 – Get a result now!), bought from Auchan with 70 lei (a bit expensive compared to online prices – 49 lei on DC-Shop -, but I was in the store and not sure if I could get the model online, and I also didn’t know what is the price in a hypermarket compared to online; it was worth the small investment, very good keyboard);
• A PC video camera for ~95 lei; it came with the PC case, it was no point of going through town for 3 lei, and burebista would get some discount from me for the transaction, it was worth it;
• A tripod for 79 lei – Braun; nothing fancy, it was “good enough”; I bought it for the price;
• A 16 GB A Data card for my camera; good price;

How to buy stuff?

• To find the best price for a product, just do a Google search for the name, and add “pret” to the query and also look on a few price comparators (price.ro is, in my opinion, the best, but shopmania, compari.ro are good enough to have a look at, and they’re generally better than a simple Google search for the product); then find the best price;
• For an item cheaper than 100 lei, just do this – go to PC Garage / eMAG and sort products in a category by the most sold; read a few things about the three most sold products on one of these categories; read some comments, Google “review + item”, read some stuff; ask some IT friends; look on some forums; but not too much, just a basic research should do; then go find the cheapest product (so buy from another store than eMAG and PC Garage) and get it; you can also go to price.ro and go “Top 10″ for a category, but I find it more and more unreliable (a lot of products in there are plain weird – old, only on one store, it’s a weird system); this procedure should cover a lot of products cheaper than 100 lei; I’ve bought the tripod just like that; the mouse on eMAG for 20 lei was on promo, it was the second most sold, and it looked fine; I bought it from eMAG in that case (any price cut somewhere else would be miniscule);
• For a product 200-500 lei, it’s worth doing a little research on the product category; Google, search, find, ask; or ask someone (expert, not amateur);
• For products more than 1,000 lei, I advise to do serious research; I’ve read about 40 pages * 20 comments per page on SoftPedia forum on fridges prior to buying a fridge for the first time (I bought on warranty, but it’s a bit different for fridges than it is for IT equipment, read SoftPedia for details on this); I’ve researched my current video camera for about two days; and this came after another few hours research a few months ago; even when asking someone else, I’d do a little research on this, if the current level of expertise is zero; on the Internet it’s quite easy to become not good, not very good, but an expert in a very specific field; for the time frame of 3 months, I think I’m pretty much an expert in answering the question – “What can I buy in Romania, from a Romanian company, for a video card somewhere in between 1,200-1,800 lei budget”? I consider myself an expert in answering this question; I may not be so good for a 600 lei camera, for a 3,000 lei camera, for a camera bought in Germany, but for my specific question I think I’m pretty close to being an expert; self-made, via Internet; my expertise would also invalidate itself in 3 months’ time, when newer cameras may either appear on the International market or be sold in Romania (and they aren’t now, I’ve seen cases like this – great products elsewhere, nowhere to be found brand new in Romania, just second hand); my solution? Read everything (it’s not that much) you can for the product you need to buy; find top 10 products, and focus on the best products; look for expert reviews, but also read all the comments a product has on a retailer’s web site (I’ve read all the comments for my video camera everywhere I could find one);
• Finally, depending on what you buy, you may not need research at all, but ask the right person – When you buy IT things, should you do research or not?;
• Why do research? You may look at the blog post above and think “it’s not worth all the fuss; I’ll just buy something and it will worth it”; the thing is, you’ll run a lottery not only for your money (risking to buy something more expensive), but for your purchase quality also (you’ll risk buying something which will not satisfy you); sure, you can settle for #2 out of 40 products; but don’t settle for “I’ll ask the seller in the store”.

Related to this message are:

• Feedback of my current components:
• (December 2011) BenQ G2420HDBL Monitor LED 24″ Full HD, 16:9, DVI. From clickshop.ro (versus my old one – Horizon 2206 SW 22 inchi wide – de ce să cumperi acest monitor LCD?)
• (December 2011) Sony HDR-CX130 – again, on buying a camcorder; this time it’s for real
• (December 2011) Choosing a DVD Writer – Asus DRW-24B3ST
• (August 2011) Singurul model de mouse pe care l-am cumpărat și a doua oară – Mouse optic ACME MN-01, cu fir, USB, negru: desfacere produs, utilizare, impresii personale
• (December 2011) A best buy keyboard: Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000
• Buying things philosophy:
• When you buy IT things, should you do research or not?
• Components testing vs. components endurance
• The warranty (extended or not) for a product is not required
• Where to buy from?
• eMAG – the strong points
• Why should “I” buy from PCGarage.ro? Why should “you”?
• On buying thing on components:
• Configurare PC? Apelează la un forum
• Asamblare calculator în București? Ia legătura cu Alin-Constantin PORCARIU

Extra readings:

• Great resource:
  http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af150/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/Guide.png
• How to Build a Computer from Scratch: The Complete Guide
• The First-Timer’s Guide to Building a Computer from Scratch

Update 2012.01.07: I came back from Năvodari. First impressions, compared to using my old PC – the resolution is better on the new one. I like the keyboard better. It moves better. Also, I get to use a better PC at Năvodari (I went with the old PC there). All-in-all, I’m happy.

Update 2012.01.12: my PC just got a new Placa de sunet Asus XONAR DS – 7.1 canale, PCI, bulk for 174 lei, from Vexio. Very pleased with the acquisition, so far.

My previous monitor was a Horizon 2206 SW 22 inchi wide – de ce să cumperi acest monitor LCD? – Fii eficient!. Quite a good monitor, I still have it today. I bought it in the spring of 2009 (close to three years ago). It works like a charm.

Still, today there are larger resolutions (it has 1680×1050, instead of 1920×1080, which is full-HD), and cooler technologies (LED is considered to be cooler than LCD/TFT).

I didn’t do a lot of research. I looked on:

• Monitoare LCD – number 8 on all the monitors listed, none of the 7 above it are more expensive; I think they look at sales from all the times, which may be a bit irrelevant (their most sold monitor is the monitor I bought almost three years ago);
• Monitoare LCD & LED – eMAG.ro – number four out of all monitors listed, none of the 3 above it are more expensive;
• Produse de top Diagonala 20 si peste, Preturi Diagonala 20 si peste – they have strange criteria, I wouldn’t trust them so much; just have a look and see that BenQ is three times in the top 10, and my Horizon is also there – strange, isn’t it?

Now, let’s make some cooler filtering, shall we?

Sorting by resolution – 1920×1080:

• Monitoare LCD & LED Rezolutie optima 1920 x 1080 – eMAG.ro – another 21.5″ monitor listed as #1, my BenQ is #2;
• Monitoare LCD Rezolutie 1920 x 1080 pixeli – another 21.5″ monitor listed as #1, my BenQ is #2;

For this, you have to think a bit – I own a 22″ monitor, and I’m not very satisfied with the 1680×1050 pixel resolution. Forcing a 21.5″ monitor to full HD would make the pixel very small, so, in my opinion, even if the price is bigger, the extra screen estate is worth it. 21.5″ & full HD? Bad idea;
Also, one of the two smaller monitors is LCD, not LED.

Now let’s focus only on 24″ monitors:

• Monitoare LCD & LED Diagonala 23.6 – 24.6 inch – eMAG.ro – #1;
• Monitoare LCD Diagonala 24 inch – #1;

Following this, I started reading about the monitor:

• I’ve read at least one comment (I think there were two actually) stating the 24″ BenQ is the next 22″ Horizon; quite a good follow-up, huh?
• I’ve read online on International forums / blogs about the monitor – the monitor was compared to top notch monitors it didn’t went that well; the main message was – good for its price, but not top quality overall;

I was pretty satisfied with the result. I’ve read quite a few opinions on the monitor, most were positive, even the negative ones praised the price. So, I started focusing on the price (this is also a good strategy – even if you haven’t found the “ideal” product yet, look for the price, if you find a huge discount for a specific model, it may be worth to buy #2 on the list, in favor of #1). So, I found out about ClickShop, an online store of RomTelecom. OK, perhaps a bit too much in corporate style, not too friendly, not too much room for negotiations, but the price is a killer.

Right now it’s not the best price on the market (596 lei), but when I’ve bought it (629,99 lei) it was. Still, you can get a discount on ClickShop in December 2011.

If you want to buy it from where I’ve bought it:

• BenQ G2420HDBL Monitor LED 24″ Full HD, 16:9, DVI – ClickShop.ro.

Impressions? Good monitor, BIG, nice colors, I’m happy with it. It’s better than my old monitor. I needed a DVI cable, I used the one from the old Horizon. A good buy.

“I don’t do change”.

Essence of life – one doesn’t do change. It may inspire it, provoke it, ignite it. Not actually do it.

“We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.” – Mother TERESA (Mother Teresa quotes; Mother Teresa – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

It’s an important distinction: change, great things, huge accomplishments take a lot of things. But what I can do is small things. With love, as mother TERESA puts it.