Monday, June 30, 2008

mourning Estonian newspapers :(

And now they spoiled the last online daily in Estonia ....

It was in early 2007 or late 2006 when they made a photostore out of my previous favorite Estonian daily Postimees. By doing so, they decided against easy access to real news and glossed out all the crappy news. That time around I actually bothered myself and wrote them an email informing that their website is so crap now that I am switching my preferences for good - to another major daily Eesti Päevaleht.

Yet today morning I had to think twice whether I accidentally clicked a wrong website or something, because from today on Eesti Päevaleht website looks more or less exactly like that of Postimees. So here goes the last readable online daily in Estonia. This time I will most likely not even bother to write them an email, and simply have to switch reading international news only or check out maybe some news services have decent online editions.

And this is all sad - it is not like Estonian newspapers had superb quality anyways. Now they have gone and spoiled the visual experience too.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Touring Eastern Europe


Team: Kristi, Raiko, Maile & Mihkel

4.06. The planned start at 4pm was delayed by 2 hours. First because Mihkel needed express replacement for his last pair of unpacked pants that someone had thrown into the washing machine and were soaking wet when he got home to change the suit. And then because the TomTom we borrowed apparently only has a proper map for the Baltics, so Mihkel borrowed a small GPS locating device that can be attached to a laptop and used for routing with maps in the computer. It turned out a small and nice-looking gadget that was useful sometimes in large cities, but useless on highways as the lag was too large to enable real-time navigation.

But once we had the pants for Mihkel and the GPS-thingie we were on our way towards Riga to pick up Raiko who had decided to make good use of the fact that we were on the way towards south anyways and get some work done.

5.06. Kutna Hora and Prague
highlights - church decorated with human bones in Kutna Hora

6.06. Prague
highlights - palace, art museum and dinner

7.06. Prague - Ceske Budejovice - Ljubljana
highlights - beer festival; sluts on the border; passport control on Austrian border; car accient in the tunnel (fortunately not our car)

8.06. Ljubljana - Opatje
highlights - killed the laptop; met Veikko and his rooftop apartment; finally at the seaside

9.06. Opatje -Rijeka - Krk island and city - Plitvice lakes - Split
highlights - dead snake; bullet-dotted houses; the lakes; Split old town

10.06. Split - random beach - Dubrovnik - small town close to Herceg Novi
highlights - beach; Dubrovnik old town

11.06. small town close to Herceg Novi - random beach - Bar - Uljnie
highlights - beach; male-centered society

12.06. Uljnie - Skodr - Tiranja
highlights - horrible Albanian roads and lack of signs; horse- and goat-carts all around; rabbits and parrots and a skunk in hotel; rotating Sky-bar and striped houses of Tiranja; small kids selling smokes and slutty 5-year old girl

13.06. Tiranja - Vlore
highlights - bubble-bath; bookstore with no books; again horrible roads; cows on the road; romantic sunset; party on the beach

14.06. Vlore - Dherm - Skopje
highlights - on top of the world on the way to Dherm; serpentines and more serpenrtines goats and lots of bunkers by the roadsides; Mercerdes- country; most beautiful beach; Estonian-loving Albanian friend; dead animals on the road

15.06. Skopje - Belgrad
highlights - Turkish bath building; bazaar - all-you-need- and-dont-need place; more Estonian-loving people; no shopping on Sunday; Serbians do not like Albanians indeed - they'll let you know already on the border; as though there's never been a war

16.06. Belgrad - Zlate piesky by Bratislava
highlights - could be almost another Prague; military museum; lots of hedgehogs and lots of campers

17.06.Zlate Piesky by Bratislava - till home next morning

Sunday, June 01, 2008

individual's information manager ... continued

Just to follow up with more ideas/options - yes, last time I forgot to mention the various types of tagging systems for files that have been created. While this is a useful option and a step forward, I would still call it just a baby-step as it only solves a tiny bit of the bigger issue.

... to be continued further