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This is pretty long story, don’t know quite where I should start.

Let’s start with monday. It started as a normal monday and then some minor issues appeared, a bit of stress but all in all rather a normal Monday. Ok, Tuesday already started a bit worse and then … Internet connection is gone. We try to call the Provider (Optima in Kiev, hands of this provider! Really! but this is a different story). As usual no answer from Optima.
Then it came to my mind that there where some road works around the corner and said “can it be that they destroyed the phone lines?” Well, unfortunately I was right! They destroyed ALL phone lines and Internet lines, a gas pipe and also electricity, although I don’t understand how they did that since I was expecting that electricity lines are above the ground, but I don’t have to understand everything.
Now without internet of course I had so many things where I just needed a quick patch or something I could only get via internet. This went like this all week and each day brought new problems and I needed Internet more and more. But for larger things I could still download them at home and bring them to work with me.

Weekend, finally weekend. After a quite stressful week it was time to relax a bit, watch a movie and half way into the movie my MacBook just froze.
WTF? What is happening, no way to get my MacBook to react so I shut it down and tried to start it again. Well … I didn’t really expect any problems but as it seems my bad luck wasn’t over since my MacBook refused to start. I tried a second time and then … this noise …. this “clack – clack – clack”.
Well, what do you think, my hard drive is dead! I hear you say Backup? Well, I do have a good backup (thanks to Time Machine) but the problem is that my backup was made on my fileserver at home, in Vienna and we are currently still in Kiev, so copying 47 Gig over the internet is quite the best solution.
I tried! Really, the download was very fast, 1.2MB/s but unfortunately I have a download limit, what I didn’t know and this resulted in no internet at home! So now, no Internet at home, no Internet at work and a dead hard disk. What I did manage to download though was my Leopard Disk Image (from my purchased Leopard DVD). So what now? The fastest solution was to buy a external hard disk but I didn’t find one with firewire so I got a USB version, with a bad feeling since I wasn’t 100% sure it would boot from USB. Apple never claimed officially that it does (at least that’s what I read) but … it works! It works great actually.

So now I have a naked Mac OS Leopard and no internet, still not quite optimal, but after one day, the internet in the apartment was payed and stupid me tried to download the backup again, since I still didn’t know about my limit and initially though the company owning the apartment just forgot to pay. Well the result was once again no internet, for one day so I had to give up the idea of downloading my backup, I have to restore when we are back home, which is pretty soon.

But, this isn’t the end of my story, meanwhile a week has passed and we still had no internet at work! It is really incredible what “I don’t give a shit” mentality Optima has!
Finally, after 1 week and one day we had internet again, but only for about an hour, since after that hour they blocked our internet, because we had to “charge” our account! Incredible, after leaving us offline for over a week they have the guts to block our access because of payment.
This is pretty complicated in Ukraine as I have noticed. Almost everything is prepaid here. It’s pretty strange to get used to it, especially if you are working with big companies (Kyivstar, Volia Cable, Optima etc) and pay them monthly huge amounts, that you still have to prepay the use their service.

So in conclusion, get yourself some small external disks where you can do your backups, and have the backup on the fileserver as second backup, in case your laptop gets stolen which probably means that they have also stolen your external disk!

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This was one of the worst movies I have seen in my life! But I had to ask myself this question about one hour ago.
As usual I park my car in front of the apartment, a normal street where you can also park, no sign of parking not allowed.
I park the car there since 2 weeks and I am not the only one parking there.
During office hours the street is full with parked cars but in the evening it gets better and I find a place to park my car when I come back from work. Yesterday I came home, found the last free place to park my car, parked and went in the apartment.
This morning I come out, want to get in my car to drive to work but … where the f*** is my car?
All cars from the street where gone and the street was closed by the police. Now the noises we heard the evening before made sense! It was no construction noise, it was the truck that picked up all the cars from the street.
Great! How much will this cost and how will I get my car back?
I went to a policeman and tried to talk to him but no luck, didn’t understand english and also wasn’t willing to understand my sign language. Then his colleague came and helped me out. Some phone calls and 10 minutes later, he told me the car was moved on the next street at number 12 and he pointed in the direction I have to go. Well after 20 minutes walking and looking I found nothing!
I then came across the next policeman, this time again one that didn’t speak english but with some few russian words I piked up since I am here in combination with sign language (imagine me showing how my car was picked up and then showing him that I don’t know where it is). One phone call later he sends me back in the direction where I cam from and told me to pass the street where my car was and then I should find it.
So finally after some walking I found my car just around the corner from where it was initially parked, hidden by the terrace of the restaurant at the corner of the street. Thanks to the policeman that sent me in the wrong direction. Maybe that’s why he wished me “good luck” after he told me where to go.
I didn’t find out from the police why it was towed away but I didn’t have to pay any fine so this means I didn’t do anything wrong.
At work I asked if there is something important happening in the city today and then I found out that today is the 1020th anniversary of the regions conversion to Christianity. (read more about it in Kyiv Post). With this occasion Bartholomew is visiting the city. Not sure if its Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople or some other, I am really not up to date with this religious stuff. Anyway, I still don’t understand why they had to remove all cars from that street. If I am not mistaking, the Presidential Secretariat should be on Bankovska Street, that’s where the apartment is.

Technorati Tags: Kiev, pissed

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Well since we have to stay a bit longer in Kiev we have to move to an apartment which is cheaper and more convenient (kitchen, washing machine, a big fridge for Ukrainian beer…) and I will also rent a car to move around.
It looks like I am used to much to the digital world and doing everything online, which isn’t always simple as it seems.
Lets start with the car. I checked out the big companies (Europcar, Avis, Sixt). The first frustrations where with Avis, their site sucks big time! After filling in all the data it complains that you can’t rent online for a longer period then 31 days. Ok I changed the date and submitted again. This time it complained about not being able to rent a car so soon if you order online. So once again I changed the date. I think there was one ore error which I don’t remember. Nevertheless the result was that they don’t have a car for that period. This wasted about 30 in of my precious time. Next one was sixt. Everything worked as expected, the first query gave me a result, 750 Euro. Doesn’t sound that bad but I wanted to compare to Europcar .. well, I don’t know what Europcar is renting but they offered me something for 2800 Euro. Yeah right …
This seems to have worked quite fine online, but I wanted to be sure, got the number from Sixt and gave them a call. The guy on the phone made me an offer for 2900 Euro. wtf? I was quite pissed of already because of the problem with the apartment, which brings me to the next story. I got a link from a friend where I could look for apartments. The problem with that site is that you can not enter a period and see only the apartments that are available, you always see ALL apartments. If you book one that you like you will receive a reply if it’s available or not and only then you will receive some offer for different apartments that are available.
This task takes some time.
I tried a different way, I let someone that speaks Russian call the agency and ask what apartments are available. They promised a call in 5 min. Some hours later there was still no call. We called again. Still no result. Then I booked one apartment online and got an automatic reply that someone will contact me within 12-24 hours.
Some hours later, after calling them again, they told us that the apartment isn’t available for the complete period I requested and that they will send me an offer with some other apartments.
Very frustrating. In modern times where you can look up everything on a computer this is a task of some minutes and not days.
Well, back to the rent a car. After sixt pissed me of with that stupid offer, we found (with a helping hand since I was busy finishing some work) an offer at budget, for the same price. I called them and the price was confirmed.
Meanwhile, my helping hand, found a new agency to look for an apartment.
I sent them an email and received quite a quick answer with two apartments, checked them out, decided which one to take had some more mail conversation with that guy and everything seems to be OK now with the apartment.
But I will only be sure of that after we are in the apartment (which should be tomorrow to see the apartment and sign the papers).
So what happened to the car? I had someone call them again, this time someone who speaks Russian, and got the same offer as I received with budget, a bit more expensive then online but still much better then 2700 Euro!
Tomorrow I will pick up the car and hope everything is OK, they should have everything they need and just should check my ID and drivers license and I am ready to go …. in a VW Polo or a Skoda Fabia

Technorati Tags: Kiev, travel

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Well the title is a bit exaggerated, what I am talking about is the European Soccer championship. I’m not really a soccer fan and when they close some major streets in Vienna due to the stupid championship …. well then I am kind of pissed. If it would have been in August when most of the people are on holiday and the city quite empty … well that would have been perfect, but in June? I guess there will be a lot of traffic around the first district in Vienna which will affect non soccer tourists. I will try to avoid anything within reach of the “Ring” (the street where parts of it will be closed). I am sure a lot of people will be surprised about the street being closed since I didn’t quite hear or read about it, it’s more an accident that I was there and noticed the sign mentioning the one month blockade of the street. The good thing is that I don’t really have to go in that area, to work I use the freeway. The only problem would be visiting my parents which would lead me either near the “Ring” or near the Stadium, which sure will be also very crowded. Well, all we can do is just sit and wait. I’m curious if the Austrian authorities did everything right.

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Ieri seara am fost dupa un Prieten la Airoport in Viena. Pe drum inapoi se opreste traficu si nu se mai misca nimica. Dupa catva timp stat am aflat ca sa Rasturnat un Autocar Romanesc care venea din Spania. Am ocolit accidentu si pe drum tot mai apareau Salvari, deci era clar ca ii destul de grav.
Mediafax.ro nu avea nici azi dimineata o informatie despre ce sa intamplat. Dupa ce a trimis prietenu care l-am luat de la airoport un mail la mediafax cu _link_ catre ziaru din austria cu ce sa intamplat, o aparaut si pe mediafax, dar cu putine erori de traducere care deja deforma putin realitatea. Dupa toate astea vine si ProTV si sa schimbat nr pasagerilor, numarul ranitilor si ca sa deformeze de tot realitatea, pune filmari din arhiva de la complet alt accident. Bravo ProTV. Imi pare rau ca nu m-am dus ieri sa vad ce firma de Autocar era ca acuma toata lumea crede alt ceva dupa ce au vazut filmarile respective.

Pt cei care sun interesati: Articol Mediafax

Varianta scurta fara erori de traducere: Autocaru venind pe S1 a ratat iesirea catre Budapest si o mers drept inainte, dupaia cumva (nu se stie inca cum) o trecut peste balustrada si o dat in un camion din Bulgaria si sa rasturnat.
30 Pasageri la bord, 20 raniti, 5 grav printre care era si un copil.

Faza cu copil se pare ca o scos medifax iara. Ca initial era la cuvantu Copil si o reclama. Macabru, copil ranit grav si voi bagati reclama despre premiu cu Disney Land.

Technorati Tags: Romania

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Bad news for all People driving a diesel car in Austria. Diesel is now more expensive the normal Gasoline
On Sunday I noticed this and it didn’t change in the last days. A quick check over the internet shows that nothing changed. Well let’s see what comes next. Still waiting for a 100% electro car that can get me to work and back.

Technorati Tags: cars

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As expected and announced on the news, it snowed last night till today. But as every year there are some idiots, especially lory drivers, that think they are king of the road and they don’t need winter tires. Well the result of this was, as most of the time when it snows, trucks get stuck, blocking the freeway, by this blocking the complete traffic and also the cars that should clean the snow. Since last night, the A21 was blocked, thousands (as far as I can remember from the news) of people blocked on the freeway. All trucks coming from eastern europe trying to go towards germany where also blocked. The freeway S1 was a big lory parking lot. With lorries parked on the first lane and on the emergency lane for about 4 km. I would give them huge fines to driver and to the company that owns the lorries. But it’s not only the lorry drivers, also car drivers are stupid.
Yes, you don’ have to have winter tires, but at least don’t be so fucking stupid to go anywhere with your car with summer tires if you see the huge snow amount on the street. If you where to fucking lazy to put on your winter tires in time, then leave your fucking car at home and use the public transport. I mean … it’s middle of november, when did you intend to put on your winter tires? March? April?

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Ich habe vor Jahren etwas bei Pixmania bestellt und es hat alles geklappt. Vor kurzem habe ich wieder etwas bestellt hier meine Geschichte:

* Es wird Automatisch eine “Versicherung” zu jedem Produkt hinzugefuegt die man nur duch umstaendliche extra klicks, auf einem Link der mir “Details” beschriftet ist, entfernen kann. Die Buttons um ein Produkt aus dem Warenkorb zu loeschen sind zwar vorhanden, aber deaktiviert bei den Versicherungen, was einem den eindruck gibt das es nicht moeglich ist etwas ohne dieser Versicherung zu kaufen.

* Es wurde mir meine Lieferadresse nicht angezeigt und ich habe zu schnell auf Weiter geklickt (o.k. mein Fehler). Es wurde die Lieferadresse genommen von meiner Bestellung vor ein paar Jahren. Es war leider nirgends ersichtlich welche Lieferadresse ich hinterlegt habe. Eine Aenderung der Bestellung war nicht mehr moeglich. Ich musst eine Mehrwertnummer anrufen.

Da mir so etwas doch ein wenig auf die Nerven geht habe ich die Bestellung telefonisch stornier. Bezahlt habe ich ueber Paypal, eine Rueckerstattung des Geldes ist aber laut Hotline nur mittels Ueberweisung in einer Woche moeglich! Eine Rueckerstattung per Paypal ist nicht moeglich (aussage von Pixmania hotline)

Nach einem Monat war immer noch kein Geld da, noch mal angerufen und mit Anzeige gedroht. Ploetzlich kam dann eine Mail mit der Info das die Rueckueberweisung initiiert wurde da es aber eine Auslandsueberweisung ist dauert das 8 tage.
Nach etwas ueber einer Woche bekam ich dann E-Mail von Paypal das mir von Pixmania das Geld rueckerstattet wurde! Via Paypal, was angeblich nicht moeglich ist bei Pixmania!
Ich wurde also ueber ein Monat hingehalten und dann bekomme ich noch das Geld ueber Paypal wo ich Gebuehren zahlen muss um mein Geld in Bares umzuwandeln!

Fuer mich => NIE WIEDER PIXMANIA!

Technorati Tags: Pixmania, Online Shopping

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Seems like AON is trying to fool consumers. They have launched (quite some time ago but I saw it now for the first time) a commercial campaign against mobile internet. They say that “real broadband” is better, faster and cheaper and also that if you have reached your limit you will have to pay for mobile internet but with “real broadband” you pay from 4 euro more and have flat rate.
Ok, lets compare
We will take the cheapest AON has to offer, that will be AON speed 500. This will be 20 Euro a month and receive 500MB traffic included and a speed of 512kbit/s down, we will ignore upstream. This means you could download with max 64kb/s!
And what if you exceed the included 500MB ? You pay 7 cents for each MB!
Oh, almost forgot, you need a phone connection for AON ! This means you also have to pay the phone, this is NOT included in the 20 Euro.
Now let’s look at what one HUI has to offer.
You pay 10 Euro a month and get 250MB for this, if you want extra 250MB you pay 5 Euro. So you have the 500MB for 15 Euro. How about the speed? See for your self

And what happens at one if you exceed the 500MB? Your speed will be limited. Thats all, no extra costs.
So, it’s cheaper, faster, which one would you chose?

But wait, AON said something about 4 Euro and flatrate …. yes, if you have the big package which costs 40 Euro, else the flatrate costs 10 Euro.
So it would be possible to get a flatrate from AON for 30 Euro (not included phone costs) but sure not as cheap as they are trying to tell you in the commercial.

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