My life on the cloud

Cloud computing. Anyone that uses the internet on a daily basis will relate to this. Life without the internet? How was that? What did people do when they needed to access any kind of information and content? Wait for tonight's TV news? Wait for tomorrow's newspaper? What about that interesting show about [insert subject of your interest]? Missed yesterday's episode, now what? I want to know/see/hear that now!! We are really spoiled and blessed for living during such a rich information age.

People's lives on the web have changed a lot since it's humble beginnings, from having an e-mail, to using ICQ and mIRC, to having a really primitive and ugly personal page on some forgotten GeoCity, to using Napster and, finally, to the whole social networking explosion with blogs and profiles and what-have-you that we are still witnessing. I must be honest, I've always been a little bit sceptic as to the real advantage of exposing one's life on the internet, to say your name, where you're from, what you do, show your photos and your videos to complete strangers! I don't get it but I'm OK with it, if you enjoy doing that just go ahead and have fun while you're at it!

While I don't find that way of socializing that much interesting, I fancy the concept of working/living inside the cloud and using solutions like the ones provided by Google Documents. Recently, with the prices of web space going down and with the speed and bandwidth of DSL and cable going up, a new sort of service has been gaining acceptance. Online storage. During the last year some major players (Microsoft and AOL) and a lot of minor ones have been offering free (or payable) storage online. For free you can get something that can range from 5GB to 50 GB; some services are really simple, others are packed with really interesting features. Two of the services that I currently use are the ones I found to be more interesting - ADrive and Humyo. All other providers were of no use to me because of one (or all) of several reasons: weren't free, offered very little space (for my needs at least), limited the size of uploaded files absurdly (my main concern), didn't seem to be trustworthy...

During the last month I threw out a lot of CDs and DVDs with music, videos and movies and also deleted others from my computer. While I was organizing my data, one of my external drives (the one where I've temporarily stored my private documents and photos) died. Every data recovery software I used gave me nothing, I guess it must be a severe hardware failure - never happened to me before. It was bad but not that much as I was able to recover a lot of data from other sources. I don't know about you but I don't really like burning backups to DVDs, it seems to me stupid to keep piles and piles of redundant copies. Also, from my personal experience, CDs and DVDs aren't reliable for the storage of important data. Factory pressed copies seem more reliable but the ones you burn at home may fail to read a few years later. That's why I usually keep backups on hard drives, but if one drive fails you end up losing a huge amount of data at once. So when I came across the online storage solution it sounded as a great idea. Storing data on web servers, on computers and systems that are built from the ground up to store data in the most efficient and secure way IS, obviously, more reliable than the hard drive you bought on the local computer shop.

Long story short - I started using ADrive and Humyo. ADrive is a really basic, somewhat ugly, but efficient service that offers 50 GB. Humyo is amazing, it offers 30 GB (25 GB must be photo, music or video) and the possibility to stream your photos as slideshows and your albums and videos as playlists. Really great. The only thing that really bugs me about Humyo is the fact that you can't download more than one file at once (they claim that their service is so great you will never need to take all your files down, but you can do it if you buy the premium account). Why do I keep both services? I use ADrive as a backup for Humyo because, you never know, one of the companies may shutdown without warning. Going for the major players you know that, no matter what, your data will be safe - usually.

I highly recommend trying out these free services, they are great and - until today - have proven reliable.

Have you ever seen the rain

A couple of days ago, at the women's Olympic 20km walk, almost every athlete would burst into tears after crossing the finish line. We're talking about professional athletes who have finished dozens of walks before, including at the Olympics.


It got me thinking about the cultural, if not somewhat mystical, significance of rain. Anyone who's ever been to a good concert under heavy rain understands it. Just like that, it becomes a great concert. Like Senna's unforgettable victories under rain. Or like a good football match under rain - especially if the stands aren't roofed. Rain gives a mystical aura to things. Makes them (more) special, (more) memorable.

People need rain for agriculture and pastures, so in some countries and regions it is invoked and celebrated. In urban areas, however, rain is generally looked upon as something bad and sad, as opposed to the lovely and pleasant sunshine. Rain makes your clothes wet, ruins your hair and makes the floor slippery. The funny thing is, despite all that, it is still romanticised and glorified. How many big screen couples have shared incredibly romantic kisses in the rain? Or an equally romantic fight? A piercing look? Ask John Cusack how many lovers have suffered and cried in the rain... Pop culture is clearly not oblivious to the mystical qualities of rain. Be it purple rain, cold november rain or even chocolate rain. But don't worry, you can stand under my umbrella.

Just a box of rain
Wind and water
Believe it if you need it
If you don't just pass it on

Spreading the word

MESSAGE FROM MORRISSEY (published at True To You)

The slapdash release of Morrissey live at the Hollywood Bowl is done by Warner without any consultation to me whatsoever, and is in breach of their terms as laid out by themselves in an agreement made for the film between Warner and my ex-manager. Being Warner, predictably the sleeve art is appalling. It is the work of cash-hounds, and I urge people NOT to buy it. I am not signed to Warner, and no royalties from this dvd will come to me. Please spend your money elsewhere.
thank you, MORRISSEY.

How Fedrinka saved Federer (with a bit of wishful thinking)

I am not a tennis expert. I don't know the names of all the shots, I can't quote statistics by heart and I'm unable to make technical remarks on a player's performance. That said, I love tennis. I genuinely enjoy watching it. It's one of the most beautiful sports there is.

That means I can't not love Roger Federer. Tennis is a beautiful sport, but when the Swiss king is on court he takes it to a whole new dimension. He plays beautifully - and the fact that his style is not only beautiful but also effective is what makes him so incredibly special. Not to mention his humility, class and impeccable sportsmanship.

There's no need to say how tough 2008 has been on Federer and his fans, despite 8 being his favourite number. He has been losing and playing badly most of the season - although every now and then there is a backhand slice or a fantastic forehand that show you the real Roger is still there, just hidden. But it was painful to watch him these last few months. Because he lost, because he played badly and especially because he didn't look happy on court. I even thought something might be happening in his personal life to make him look so depressed. There was something about a mononucleosis, of which he was apparently healed after the Australian Open, but it didn't stop the downfall. What was wrong? Maybe he was just tired, bored, fed up. He's only human after all.

Federer is going to lose his #1 spot tomorrow, after 237 weeks, an all-time record he will probably hold for a very long time. I feared that after missing the 6th consecutive Wimbledon title and losing in the quarterfinals at the Olympic tournament, he would announce his retirement. He didn't seem to be enjoying tennis anymore, he was already filthy rich and he was having a terrible season. A combination that has been fatal many times before.

And then there's Nadal. The player Federer couldn't beat even on his golden days. A player who seems ready to take over the rankings the way the Swiss did 4 and a half years ago. Which, let's face it, would be a shame. Nadal's game is certainly effective, but it doesn't hold a candle to the aesthetic beauty of Federer's game. That's why I hope and, maybe against the odds, believe we are not about to witness the long reign of the sweaty Spaniard who picks his underwear before every serve. I believe Federer will rise again to prevent that.

How can I think that after this season? Because of yesterday afternoon - yesterday evening in Beijing. Federer finally won, but more than that, he was happy. Not only after the match, with the medal on his chest, but also during the match. While he and Wawrinka were playing, he seemed to be enjoying the game in a way I haven't seen him do in a long time. Tomorrow he's losing his #1 spot, but yesterday he was happy. Maybe that fun, pressureless ride with his mate Stan and the gold medal that crowned it were just what the doctor ordered.

Congratulations Roger and Stan. That was awesome.

From Firefox to Flock... and back!

Flock is "The" Social Web Browser. Take Mozilla's Firefox, insert native del.icio.us, gmail, blogger and flickr support (to name just a few) and you'll have something close to what Flock has to offer. It is like a Firefox special edition packed full of extensions but, because they are tightly integrated and tested with the code, you'll get a stable and really powerful browser for all your internet social needs. Kind of.

Flock is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. I'm a Linux user so my experience is related to this OS only. I've started using Firefox (in Windows still) over three years ago and about six months ago I took Flock for a test drive. I liked it. And I made the switch.
Why? Here's why:
- gmail support: Flock checks for new messages and lights up an icon when they arrive
- blog editor: Flock allows you to post and edit your blog (or blogs), be it in blogger or any other major site, directly from a browser window without the need to visit each site
- photo uploader: the same as above but with Flickr and the like
- online bookmarking support: Flock allows you to integrate your del.icio.us or Magnolia account and post your bookmarks to the browser as well as your online accounts simultaneously from a browser window
- feed and media reader and aggregator: you can add the feeds from your favorite blogs, organize them in folders and, like with gmail above, an icon is lit up whenever there's something new on your feeds; besides blogs you can also add media feeds from youtube and flickr and check them in the same fashion I described
- it looks good, flock has a really good looking interface

There is also something that is useless for me but for users of the social networking aspect of these sites (and once again, many more sites), they can have all their friends and buddys easily accessible on a side bar as well as messages, updates, etc, etc...

But today I'm back on Firefox. And Flock will be put aside. (for now?)
There are several reasons for switching back, here are some:
The Linux integration: I use PCLinuxOS, as far as I can tell, not even one of the major Linux distributions provide packages for installing Flock from the repositories and, on the other end, all that you can get from Flock's site is a compressed file with the program files, not .deb or .rpm installers and definitely not any easily accessible instructions on how to proceed to install it, create shortcuts, etc. I'm not a complete newbie on Linux, but I'm used to having some sort of guidance either from the distribution maintainers or from the software developers.
Maybe related to the above, Flock never really worked as good as firefox on my system, especially sites with Java applets were a problem. When Mozilla announced Firefox 3, Flock quickly warned "Fear not! Flock 2 with Firefox 3 stuff is on the works!", I decided to download the Flock 2 Beta 2 in hopes that it would solve some of the issues I faced because Firefox 3 was working really great on my system, better that Firefox 2 if I recall correctly.
Just then I realized: How the hell am I going to make Flock 2 use my profile, with my bookmarks, my passwords, yada yada yada? I tried uncompressing the contents of the tar.gz into the current Flock folder, it didn't work. I then tried putting the flock 2 files on a different folder and strangely it worked. I guess that's because I originally put Flock on ~/.flock . Anyway, now everything was working ok, but Java applets were still a problem and I don't know why www.meebo.com crashed Flock. That was a new and annoying problem. A few days ago the Gmail and the feed handlers got stuck in time and they aren't updating anymore. I don't know why either. I decided to abandon Flock 2 (beta software is beta software, use at own risk!) and get back to Flock 1.2.4, I figured it wouldn't be a problem, I still had that folder and didn't touch it since. My mistake, now Flock 1.2.4 refuses to run... and I'm not in the mood to loose more time with it.
I like to have some level of control over the interface and the inner workings of the browser I use. I guess I got spoiled by the flexibility of Firefox. The Flock people are proud of their product, they invested time and money making it perform well and making it look good and they aren't that keen on you messing with their work of art. I use the search bar a lot and the default size is not enough so I would like to have it a little longer at the expense of a smaller address bar. I can do that with Firefox, but in Flock not even hacks on userChrome.css worked. I also have a lot of search engines on the search bar and Flock doesn't allow me to set the order in which they appear or deleting the default ones, Firefox does.
Still related to the search bar, while Google is the default search engine for Firefox, Flock is endorsed by Yahoo. I'm ok with that. A free software house has got to make a living, so I even tried getting used to Yahoo but eventually I gave up and decided that Google was the way to go back to. Switching the default on the search bar was easy but, as you may know, you can use Firefox's address bar to access the "I'm feeling lucky" search from Google. I looked up Flock's site for help, found more people asking for it and Flock's answer was "Sorry, not possible at the moment.". But it was. A few posts later on the same thread a user came up with a solution, you just had to change a value in a line in the about:config page. Apparently that's a fix for Firefox and, obviously, it works on Flock. Once again I got the impression they were trying to hold back information because they don't want you messing with their product, that's ok by me, I accept that. But Flock must keep in mind that Firefox got people used to doing (pretty much) whatever the hell they wanted with their browser. I know that Flock aims at a specific type of user but (at least for me) details matter and attitude matters.

But really, Flock is a great piece of software, much more than just Firefox with a nifty skin and a bunch of extensions held together with duct tape. It really is great but I guess I'll wait until there's a more conscious effort to integrate Flock into the Linux world for a more streamlined experience, maybe then I'll take it for another test drive. If you're a Mac or Windows user and have accounts on the sites I mentioned on this post, you should really give it a try.

My second post

Enidka's right. I should welcome all our visitors and tell you that I hope my ramblings in this first experience in the blogging world can be of use to anybody else. Thanks for reading!

My first post

I'm happy to see my co-blogger is getting down to business already, but I need a little introductory chat. That's just the way I am. :o)

I've always had a strange relationship with blogs. I kept a blog in my native language for years. I didn't advertise it, didn't comment on other people's blogs, didn't allow comments. It was not exactly popular, with probably no more than a handful of readers. Only a couple of them have ever written to me. I think most subjects I wrote about weren't interesting for most people, and the combination of subjects I wrote about wasn't interesting for anyone but me. And even so, most of the time I felt that if the blog wasn't mine I'm not even sure I would read it. So I always had the feeling I would like to be doing something better with my blog. But I enjoyed keeping it anyway. Sometimes I didn't write anything for a few weeks, but then I felt like writing something and I was happy the blog was there.

After a few months of abandonment, I officially left my last blog to start this one. For the first time in english - because the internet is global, and if I can write in english then why not? - and for the first time with a co-blogger - because he also wanted to start a blog. Not much thought was given to any of the aforementioned decisions, but I'm confident both were good ideas. At least until proven otherwise. lol.

On my part, I'll try to make this a blog that I would read if it was somebody else's. That's all I can wish for. To meet my own standards. So welcome to Good day and good mental health!

The Harvesting Tutorial in Eternal Lands - where's that ninth flower species?!?

I've been playing a free MMORPG called Eternal Lands on Linux. It is a fantasy themed game in the line of World of Warcraft (I guess, I've never played that) and it's available for Linux, Windows and Mac.

It is a fun game, I'm still a newbie and i'm still exploring and taking the tutorials and here lies the subject for this post. When you ask the Tutorial NPC for details on the harvesting tutorial he'll tell you there are nine species of flowers on Isla Prima and you must harvest one of each. Finding eight of them is relatively easy but finding the ninth is really tricky. Here's a hint: the ninth flower is called Swamp Candle, if you want to know the exact location scroll down for the map. X marks the spot. ;-)