Saptamana trecuta, Razvan mi-a aratat acest print de pe adsoftheworld, print ce face parte dintr-o campanie a Skoda pentru a-si promova masinile cu acoperis panoramic.

Acum cateva zile mi-am amintit de el si am zis sa mai arunc o privire. Uitasem pentru ce producator auto era, asa ca am cautat Citroen, stiind ca Citroen au masinile (Citroen C4) cu acoperis panoramic de ceva vreme. Nu am reusit sa gasesc, pana la urma mi-am amintit ca numele afisului continea cuvantul “skydiver”. Am fost uimit cand am descoperit ca acel afis nu avea legatura cu Citroen, ci cu Skoda.

Printul de mai sus m-a dus prima data cu gandul la siguranta masinii si la cat de bine absorb scaunele socurile, nicidecum la un acoperis panoramic. Am continuat sa ma uit si la celelalte afise – seria incepe cu afisul “Human cannonball“-, sperand sa ma lamureasca ele.

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Am citit din nou din cartea “Copywriting” a lui Mark Shaw. Am inceput sa am un ritual pe care il execut din cand in cand. Iau cartea si citesc bucatele din ea pe care le intorc pe toate partile, le verific, incerc sa le demontez sau sa amplific puterea ideilor din spatele lor. Tot citind cartea asta, mi-am dat seama ca oamenii care ajung sa lucreze in publicitate au o obsesie pentru verbul “a crea”. Vor sa creeze. Vor sa isi lase amprenta asupra lumii. Poate suna un pic exagerat, dar nu este deloc asa.

Diane Ruggie, intervievata in aceasta carte spune ca a fost intotdeauna interesata de puterea cuvintelor si si-a dorit sa lucreze cu ele intr-un fel sau altul. Aceasta dorinta a aparut cand a descoperit ideea ca literele alfabetului pot fi aranjate in diferite feluri si face oamenii sa rada, planga, sa se roage sau sa injure. Cuvintele bine alese pot starni emotii. Daca stii cum sa intorci acest lucru in favoarea ta, vei fi foarte incantat de rezultate. Mutand acest lucru in lumea online, cat de eficiente mai sunt cuvintele? Mai sunt oamenii atinsi de cuvinte bine aranjate, de expresii care ar fi trezit de obicei amintiri sau i-ar fi facut sa priveasca increzatori spre viitor? Read more »

I recently got a NAS server and tried to map a network drive in Ubuntu. I was very happy about it and wanted to automate the mounting of the network shares. As there’s no GUI for doing this – or even a simple way as Windows has, the “map network drive” command – I had to go to the console.

So I asked for help through the almighty Google. I found this wiki page, this forum thread and this help page. The help page is the hardest to understand. It looks like it was written by geeks for geeks. It seems that the open source community hasn’t yet learned a valuable lesson: not everyone has your experience when it comes to configuring servers, writing bash scripts or whatever.

While browsing the web, I found this presentation of Shay Howe about the right way of writing for the web. Although the Internet is mostly about content, it seems to be considered the least important part of a website when developing one.

Here’s the presentation. I hope you’re going to find it useful:

This is something I wrote when 2010 just started. It’s mostly a draft, but I think it’s enough for the moment. I’m posting it now or I’ll never do it.

2010. This year looks so Sci-Fi when you write it down. Just try it for a few times. Write 2010, 2010, 2010. Now, if you lived sometime around the 40s-50s or even the 60s, you would’ve imagined that in 2010 flying cars or those flying personal shuttles like the Jetsons had would exist.

So, what do we have now? We’re not making any real progresses. We’ve made only really small steps, steps that seem to show up mostly online. We’re living our lives connected, online, sharing everything. We *HAVE* to be connected. Just that and nothing else.

Exactly 100 years ago, in 1910, Edison demonstrated the first talking motion picture. You can have a look here. Chemotherapy was born in the same year. Wow, two major things at the beginning of a century. Interesting, isn’t it?

These are just two things that happened 100 years ago. We’re in 2010 and we get excited when Google launches Google Buzz or when Steve Jobs presents the iPad. We surely are on the wrong track. Let’s hope that this decade will bring its geniuses up front.

Am o problemă când vine vorba să scriu pe blog. De fapt, sunt mai multe probleme, dar toate duc la același lucru: scriu extrem de rar pe aici.

Unora le este foarte ușor să scrie despre absolut orice și chiar să pară că se pricep la lucrurile despre care vorbesc. Mie mi-este greu să vorbesc pe lângă subiect – și, uneori, să vorbesc despre ceva la care mă pricep -, ceea ce mă duce la o altă problemă: mi-e un pic greu să-mi expun părerile. Pot scrie foarte ușor când este vorba să inventez ceva, dar mă încurc când trebuie să vorbesc despre un subiect dat. Mi-e frică să nu scriu vreo tâmpenie. Cu alte cuvinte, mi-e frică de ridicol. In cel mai rău caz, stau și mă gândesc prea mult ca apoi să nu mai acționez în niciun fel.

Așa că vin și cer ajutorul persoanelor care scriu des – și bine – pe blogurile proprii: cum reușiți să lăsați temerile deoparte și să scrieți exact ce vreți, oricând vă doriți?

Am primit de la Irina aceasta leapsa, am preluat-o fiindca se leaga de un subiect care-mi place tare mult: cartile. Si uite asa ar putea editurile sa creezi profiluri ale unor cititori. Pe gratis si la indemana.
1. Când citiţi, pentru a marca locul unde aţi rămas cu lectura, folosiţi semne de carte sau îndoiţi paginile?
Semne de carte sau tin minte pagina la care am ramas. Imi place sa imi creez propriile semne de carte, uneori.
2. Aţi primit în ultimul timp o carte drept cadou şi dacă “da” care a fost aceasta?
Da, am primit. Se numeste “Omul duplicat”, iar autorul este Jose Saramago. E un pic greu de urmarit, datorita felului in care este scrisa.
3. Citiţi în baie?
Niciodata si nu am de gand.
4. V-aţi gândit vreodată să scrieţi o carte şi dacă “da” care ar fi fost aceasta?
Da, m-am gandit. Inca scriu la ea, o sa o mentionez cand e gata.
5. Ce credeţi despre colecţiile de carte de la noi?
Pot spune ca imi plac cele de la Polirom. Dar rar ma orientez dupa colectii cand este vorba de cumpararea unei carti.
6. Care este cartea preferată?
“Crima si pedeapsa” a lui Dostoievski. Nici o carte nu a reusit sa ma faca sa simt ca sunt “acolo” cum a reusit aceasta.
7. Vă place să recitiţi unele cărţi şi care ar fi acestea?
Rar recitesc carti si chiar nu imi vine in minte ce carte as reciti.
8. Ce părere aţi avea de o întâlnire cu autorii cărţilor pe care le apreciaţi şi ce le-aţi spune?
Mi s-ar parea interesanta o asemenea intalnire. Ce le-as spune? Chiar, ce le-as spune? Probabil as vedea in acel moment ce le-as zice. Read more »

We share so much personal babble about us on so many social networks. The internet has become the marketer’s dream, if one knows how to use it in one’s interest.

We’ve started to shed the clothes of anonymity, thinking that the Internet will give us at least a small amount of fame. Those 15 minutes of fame, at least. Or 15 MB of fame, if we move the whole thing online.

I am witnessing – as we all do – a complete renunciation of privacy in favor of a weird transparency that on the long run will affect our relationships, whether they are professional, love or family relations. We’re in a fast-forward medium that also allows us to skip moments. We only want the start and the end, forgetting about what’s in-between.

We share pictures on Facebook, let the whole world know we’re in a relationship with another Facebook user, tweet about things that a decade ago were considered intimate.

That’s why I am asking you: where are we heading? What’s the future of “sharing” and how does the current state affect us on the long run?

I was searching for a file on my computer and I stumbled upon this image:

How many times were you seen as a "triangle"?

I think I made this when I got a small Wacom tablet for my birthday and I played around with it. Anyway, the thing is: how many times were you seen as a “triangle” among “circles”? I am pretty curious about this thing so please let me know: were you seen as a triangle in a positive or negative way?

P.S: I’m sure you appreciate that I’m such a talented person. (I’m joking, of course!)

Although I was making fun of the “New Year’s Resolution” trend, I decided to give this thing a try and post my resolution.  I have a list of five most important aspects of my life that need to change/improve/add and will be changed/improved/added in 2009. Here they are:

1. Living healthy and leaving behind all my depressive moods that were too many this year. “Healthy” includes food, exercise and why not? a healthy spirit too.
2. I will get involved – much more than I used to – in the open source community and in organizing different events that will take place in Romania.
3. Get back to writing. And I’m not talking about blog posts. I’m talking about “offline writing”. This includes lyrics, too.
4. Really show appreciation to those who helped me in 2008 and will still be there for me in the next years. I was pretty selfish and didn’t show gratitude to those who deserve it.
5. Become completely independent. I want to do this to prove myself that I can do everything on my own, without help from my family or friends.

I hope you will have a lot of accomplishments in 2009 and complete all the tasks you’ve proposed to do for the forthcoming year. What are you going to do in 2009?