Software Changes

There are some changes in the software section of my computer. They are not quite ordinary changes in application version, or new software installation. The changes are in browser and anti-virus sections.

Firstly, I switched from Maxthon 1 browser (the latest build in version 1) to Maxthon 2 when the browser left the Beta stage of its second version. I hadn’t done it before because it was in Beta and many user reviews said that the Beta wasn’t stable or didn’t work as well as the first version.

I still have to get used to Maxthon2. Firstly I imported plugins from the old Maxthon (and downloaded some newer versions of them). The installation file of Maxthon2 comes without any plugins and with only one default skin. There is no Combo version like it was with older Maxthon (with more skins and plugins already there). So, on the one hand, it is kept to a minimum, and on the other, you can add whatever. But it is not so convenient for novices and those without ability or desire to browse the add-ons site.

As for the plugins I’d recommend Weather, ieSpell, EditPage, enablerightclick, flashsavewithconfig, LookUpWord, o-devart, Policy Manager, View Sourse. There are also Hotmail Tools, Yahoo!Mail, Technorati sidebar, Bloglines, CoComment, Del.icio.us Sidebar, Digg Sidebar, Float Bar, Technorati Sidebar. But to tell you the truth I don’t use any plugins. So maybe the clean version without them is all right for those who just browse the Internet.

As for the skins, I downloaded and installed Safari skin (had it in Maxthon1). It is the best skin of all that are found on Maxthon add-ons site. Though Safari for Maxthon1 is different from Safari to Maxthon2 (in the new version menu buttons are highlighted in blue when you point your mouse at them  like in Apple Mac OS) and I have to get used to wide tabs (at default, but could be altered through Settings), I quite like it.

What I don’t like is that History opens in a new tab, rather than in a Side Panel (as in Maxthon1). In the same way Maxthon Settings menu opens in a separate tab instead of a pop-up window.

As for menus and settings they are done in much the same way as in Maxthon1, except for some, like AdHunter. In the new version AdHunter settings are grouped into several lines in the Settings menu insted of being grouped in one “AdHunter” block. One thing that doesn’t work is RoboForm Bar. I managed RoboForm to work and it displays windows with login info when a site with stored login information is opened, so that you can autofill the login forms. But there is no RoboForm Bar (you can only open it at the bottom of the browser window). Well, maybe I need to get used to more space in my upper bars section.

The rest needs testing, but I don’t think I’ll have to go back to Maxthon1. Maxthon is still the best IE based browser (and for me, simply the best) out there. With Safari skin it is better-looking than Safari browser (and doesn’t have Safari Beta problems in Windows). It is more vivid and less crowded than Opera. It is not as orange and fuzzy as Firefox. It is certainly much nicer and more customisable than Internet Explorer. And remember, it had a working tab interface when IE didn’t even think of having one.

Secondly, I uninstalled Kaspersky anti-virus and switched to Avast.

Believe me, Kaspesky worked fine, had a good Russian interface, short and up to the point pop-up menu when clicked on its icon in the quick launch bar next to the system clock. What I didn’t like were its irritating habits. Namely, 10-12 days prior to licence expiration it annoyed me with its pop-ups on every startup reminding me about “x” days till it expires. Also, it is not a free program. I got my licence key every month from computer magazines. But it takes looking for those magazines and buying them every month, or you could buy a box version with a year-long key but paying a lot at once. One more thing that bothered me was that Kaspersky was the only software that had 50-100 undeletable registry items that were identified by my RegCleaner (4.3 by Jouni Vuorio) as old/obsolete/unnecessary. Every time I ran RegCleaner they were there and didn’t disappear. And Kaspersky was always the most fragmented chunk as shown by PerfectDisk.

Now I am with Avast but cannot yet say if it is as good as Kaspersky. Well, I have the Russian-language version with Mac Lover skin (as the default skin is really ugly, though there is a nice KDE skin included in the default set). BUT, there are som many items in the pop-up menu (when I click on the Avast icon in the quick launch bar). Kaspersky had a better menu. There were fewer items and I could open it by clicking the icon. In Avast clicking that icon opens the settings window, not the application itself. And though Avast has the update option there, it is divided into two parts, updating the base and updating the program. Kaspersky had it all together.

If I become irritated by Avast, then this rather fucked-up quick launch menu may become a serious argument in favour of returning to Kaspersky even at a cost of buying magazines every month.

Cucumbers

Today I’ve been to our neighbour’s dacha (summer house) to gather cucumbers. There hadn’t been anyone on the cucumber plot for at least a week, and there I was with two heavy bags tightly filled with those green things, little, medium, big, overgrown (some of them, they will go to my aunt who will grate them to eat). I even picked very little ones as when anyone gets there the next time they would be too big.

Recently I’ve found out that cucumbers go well with sausage (smoked or semi-smoked), with or without bread, and you can even drink tea at that. Bizarre, isn’t it?

By the way, cucumbers are said to have quite a nice balance of minerals and they contain great amounts of water. All this makes them quite perfect for quenching thirst, healthy diet, and a mandatory ingredient of many mixed salads.

In Russia cucumbers are also pickled (or, to be exact, salted). You can choose between little-salted (when in the summer cucumbers are salted/pickled and eaten after a short while, often salted in barrels), and regular salted/pickled (securely closed in glass jars and eaten in autumn, winter and next spring). You can also find mixed versions with tomatoes, sweet peppers. Obligatory ingredients of pickles are black currant leaves, dill trunks and seeds, salt, pepper, vinegar, garlic, sometimes onions (I don’t like it personally). In the past (and some people maybe even now) some also used to put aspirin tablets. Pickles can be eaten on their own, as garnish to other dishes (most often, mashed potatoes), as ingredients of “vinegret” (mixed salad of pickled cucumbers, pickled cabbage, boiled and diced beetroot and carrots, sunflower oil, salt and pepper).

My Flying History in Logos

The time of flying logos are used. Thanks to Aerosite for all except Aeroflot Nord logos. Aeroflot, Atlantic Coast Airlines and Delta have changed their logos since I last flew them. Vanguard Airlines went bankrupt. Air France teamed with KLM and there is a joint new logo.

Mondamin: Excerpt 2

Camp and Its Neighbourhood.

Mondamin is situated to the south of Hendersonville in the mountains of Western North Carolina. To the north of Hendersonville you get into the Blue Ridge Mountains (now a park area) with their capital, Asheville. To the west there is Pisgah National Forest, further west – the Great Smoky Mountains. All of these are parts of the Appalachians. The highest peak in the Eastern US, Mount Mitchell (6684 feet/2037 metres above sea level) is to the north-east of Asheville. There are numerous lakes, rivers and waterfalls in the area. The neighbouring Transylvania County is even called the Land of Waterfalls.

If you go to the east-south-east, you’ll soon find yourself in the Piedmont, a lower area of North Carolina Heartland. At some point you can see how the western mountains give up to the central highlands, and further east to the lowlands. While you are in the camp, you are surrounded by mountains on all sides: not snowy peaks, but green giants sloping down to the lake. The land of the blue waters and green mountains, brown naked slopes and white-pink-red magnolias and other trees – that is where Mondamin is.

Tuxedo stretches along Route 25 (the Old 25 serves as the street, New 25 goes behind the town). Legally speaking, Tuxedo is not a town, as it has no City Council, but just a dwelling in Henderson County. Tuxedo was originally called Lakewood but later renamed to avoid confusion with another Lakewood. In the past there was a textile factory there, which is now out of business and is replaced by some recycling facility. There is a gas station, privately owned, with a store, and a library nearby; another gas station almost on the other side of the street, an ice-cream shop, an antique shop (you will find those in plenty in any American town, it sometimes seems that people buy only antiques), several churches, a school, and a few other buildings of public interest. There is also a public beach, close to the camp, in the corner of another harbour.

If you ride a car, you will get from Mondamin to Hendersonville in 10-20 minutes, to Asheville in 30-50 minutes, to Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in South Carolina in 40-50 minutes. There is also a regional airport in Asheville, and an airfield in Hendersonville (now a museum).

Between Tuxedo and Hendersonville lies an area called Flat Rock. It is built around a tremendous outcrop of granite which is said to have been the site of Cherokee gatherings. Old Indian grave sites are known. A great deal of this big rock has been blasted away and used for material for highways. At present the rock is visible for about 150 by 100 feet (46 by 30.5 metres), but it continues just under the soil for some distance.

First large summer estates were built there some 150 years ago. So many of the families came from Charleston area, SC, that Flat Rock was called “The Little Charleston of the Mountains”. The entire district of Flat Rock is included into the National Register of Historic Places and is home to many attractions: Flat Rock Playhouse (the State Theatre of NC and considered one of the best ten theatres in the country), Carl Sandburg Home (National Historic Site; the house was built around 1838, there is also a working farm), St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church (built in 1833) and others.

Three roads lead from Tuxedo to Hendersonville: US 25 (also called Greenville Highway, through Zirconia and Flat Rock), US 176 (also called Spartanburg Highway, through East Flat Rock), and Interstate 26. The last two do not pass through Tuxedo but are within easy reach and are used by the locals: if you need to get to downtown Hendersonville you can take the first two, if you are going to Wal-Mart or to Asheville you opt for the Interstate. Greenville Highway winds through Flat Rock; it is narrow and the most picturesque of the three roads: you pass through the wooded slopes, the apple orchards of Zirconia past a post office, then several golf courses in Kenmure with rolling green lawns and blazing flowerbeds.

Mondamin: Excerpt 1

Camp and Its Neighbourhood.

Camp Mondamin for boys was founded in 1922 on then-new Lake Summit. It is in the place called Tuxedo, Henderson County. Mondamin is situated on the northern bank of the lake. Part of the camp’s buildings is on a small peninsula that forms a convenient harbour for sailing and canoeing practice. A gorgeous view on the lake, mountains and an island is open from the waterfront: dining hall balcony, a waterfront tower, and piers.

Some cabins, the dining hall, workshops, trip room (storeroom of dry foods for trips), mountaineers’ office, counsellors’ lounge, coin laundry (since 2002) are situated on the peninsula. Office rooms, bikes storeroom, Internet room, gym, and the crafts shop (all in one big building), and cabins for senior campers are on a hill rising above the waterfront. There’s also an infirmary there. Some cabins are under the hill from the other side of it and onto another shore of the peninsula. There is the lowest place in the camp there. If it rains heavily it might be flooded, so there is some kind of drainage there; and one of the cabins is called the Swamp. On the outskirts of the camp there are other facilities, such as a laundry with rooms for some staff on the upper floor of it, the barn with three riding rings and some tennis courts (there are more on the peninsula), a parking lot.

Finally there is the Queen’s – a three-storey house (from the road it has just two storeys, but from the camp’s side one more, as the house is on a slope). The first floor (from the camp’s side) is occupied by the workshop (maintenance office). The two upper floors are for kitchen staff: the first is divided into rooms and has two bathrooms; the second floor, which may look like an attic, has an anteroom, a big room and a bathroom. The legend says that a lady called Queen (she was a nurse in the Bells family) lived in this house, so it is “the Queen’s”.

The camp is owned by the Bell Family: Frank Bell, Sr. (usually known as “Chief”) founded the camp and was its director till 1972, his son, Frank Bell, Jr. has been directing the camp since that time. There is also a sister camp, Green Cove, for girls on the southern shore of the lake. It is directed by Frank’s sister, Nancy Bell. The Bells also own about 800 acres of woodland and pastures to the south off Green Cove down to the border with South Carolina. Lake Summit (350 acres) is actually a water reservoir (which are universally called “lakes” in the States) formed on the Green River after a dam was built. The dam is owned by the Duke Power Company, a family business and the biggest power producer in North Carolina; but the lake’s bottom is said to belong to the Bells. They also own an island on the lake.

The camp is oriented towards nature programme and non-competitive activities: horseback riding, mountaineering (including backpacking and rock climbing), mountain biking, swimming, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, walking trips, plus tennis (a mildly competitive exception), crafts (like drawing, silk-screen printing, pottery, weaving, etc.), ropes course, various in-camp activities (ICA: soccer, volleyball, tennis, archery, outdoor games). Swimming is compulsory for everybody as most of other activities are connected with water, to some extent at least. The Bell family has a number of horses. Several vans for carrying children and staff are rented for the summer. Of course, there are numerous boats, canoes, kayaks; they are kept in the gym in winter. All the offices are collected at Mondamin for the winter. Frank Bell lives in a house right below the main hill.

Windows Live Writer 2 (Beta)

Windows Live Writer has been upgraded to Version 2, though still in Beta. If you know what WLW is, you won’t wait and download it from here, or directly from here. If you are a novice to this free software gem, then you should give it a definite try.

WLW is an application that lets you write posts, save drafts, edit drafts, publish posts and drafts in many blog clients (WordPress, Live Journal, Blogger, Windows Live Spaces and many others). You can inserts links, pictures, tags. You can even add new categories without any need to log into your blog dashboard (administrative regime). You can prepare posts, then log on the Internet (if you don’t have a permanent connection) to just click the “Publish” button, wait a few seconds/minutes and have your new posts published online.

The .exe file is 5.4 MB. It is practically ideal and it is FREE.

I’ve just installed it and it says that it is version 1 (but still a much newer version than the one I’ve had). The design though is less appealing with darker blue background of the menu that looks threatening and … dark. Also, it still takes it some 2-5 seconds to open. But the design doesn’t make this application worse. The menu looks twice as big and varied as it used to be. There are other features that I haven’t tried yet. And they say you can configure it further using third-party plugins. One more thing is that it takes more space (more than 8 MB) on my harddrive and installs another, Winows Live folder (1+ MB) for no reason (I’ve disabled all Windows Live options on installation, but … ). Again, all these “buts” don’t even come close to make me think of dropping WLW. I’ll keep on relying on it in my blogging and advise you to join in.

Mondamin Revisited

Yesterday I finally went to Mondamin website and looked through the summer photos. Those are mostly of children swimming, riding horses and bicycles, camping, kayaking and canoeing, having fun in a million other ways. There weren’t many pics of simply nature around but still some photos of kids climbing rocks had stunning backgrounds of North Carolina mountains and woods.

It is such a heavenly place that the moment I saw the first pic (even just the camp’s logo) I was there in my mind, wandering along the paths, swimming in Lake Summit, soaking up the sun and the wind, resting my sight on high hemlocks and being soaked by the Mondamin morning fog.

Choosing a Digital Camera

I am thinking about buying a digital SLR camera. After browsing models that fall into my price range (in Russia) I’ve stopped my search on two cameras: Sony DSLR-A100 and Samsung GX-10. I’ve read a lot of reviews, tests, articles and comments on the web and in magazines. Now I am totally at a loss and with a strong desire to have a camera that would be both in one.

If there are people who use(d) any of these cameras, please leave your own personal comments. If someone has used both cameras and can compare them, that would be of special interest to me.

I am interested in your personal subjective view on how functional they are and what quality shots you get with these cameras, with or without much manual interference, with kit optics (preferably) or with third-party optics (which and what’s the difference). Any other comments would be appreciated. But if you are a die hard fan of Canon or Nikon, please, don’t attempt to make me change my mind.

Sony DSLR-A100 kit 18-55Samsung GX-10 kit 18-55

My Screenshot

This is a screenshot of my computer monitor. I’ve had it stylised for Apple Mac computer monitor for more than a year. Only recently I’ve changed the screensaver from traditional blue Mac one to this picture of a corn ear.

The computer is run by Windows XP SP2. The Windows taskbar is not fixed, therefore it is not seen in the screenshot. The taskbar at the bottom of the screen is freeware ObjectDock with icons I found on the net, mostly from Deviant Art. From left to right the icons represent the following applications that go under my personalised [names]: My Computer [iMach], Control Panel [iCon] (Mac dashboard icon), My Documents [iDoc], Picasa [iMage] (variation of iPhoto), Orange CD Player [iMuse] (Mac iTunes icon), Windows Media Player [iMovie] (Mac icon), Maxthon web browser [iSurf] (Mac Safari icon), QIP instant messenger [iChat] (variation of Mac icon), Address Book [iDress] (Mac icon), Recycle Bin (Mac icon), CCleaner [iSweep], ObjectDock clock. The iNet icon (variation of some Mac icon) is clicked to connect to the Internet.

The calendar (with Events and To Do Sections) is freeware Rainlendar 2.

Roxette World

I am finally at the point in exploring music from which I started some 12 years ago when ordered a copy of Roxette audio tape from some shop. It was the first piece of music that was my own, not parents’ old LPs, half-scratched and lacking LP player. Now I’ve got it all on CDs, the whole (or almost whole) Roxette music.

Pearls of Passion (1986, extended reissue 1997), Look Sharp (1988), Joyride (1991), Tourism (1992), Crash! Boom! Bang (1994), Have a Nice Day (1999), Room Service (2001), A Collection of Roxette Hits. Their 20 Greatest Hits (CD+DVD, there is also a CD only edition, 2006), All Videos Ever Made and More. The Complete Collection 1987-2001 (2001, DVD with 40 videos and 2 hour-long documentaries).

There are more CDs that generally contain tracks from the above CDs: The Pop Hits, The Ballad Hits, Baladas en Espanol, Greatest Hits – Don’t Bore Us – Get to the Chorus!, Rarities, The Roxbox 1986-2006 (a 6-CD collection of all music and videos).