Jimmy Messinis Weblog

Face recognition

2006-02-04T22:43:00.000+02:00

Found this very cool website. You upload a picture of yourself, and it works out which celebrities you resemble. Check it out:

My heritage

Just for the record: I resemble Bill Clinton, George Clooney, Juan Pablo Montoya, R. Federer(the swiss-south african tennis player)

Pagerank Update

2006-01-26T17:12:00.000+02:00

Well, its the 26th of January, and still no Pagerank update from google. That makes it 98 days since the last update. A quick web search brought up pages that estimated the update would occur yesterday. Still waiting.

Whats with the weather?

2006-01-24T06:29:00.000+02:00

Talk about El-Nino...
Russia has been suffering for 2 weeks, Ukraine has reported over 40 people lost, and the whole of Europe is freezing.
Mother Nature is taking revenge me thinks.
-31 degrees Celcius in Turkey?? You must be kidding...

A young man looks though a frozen window of a tram in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006, as temperatures plunge to - 30 C (- 22 F). Abnormally cold weather that has gripped Russia, came to Belarus as well . (AP Photo)

Ubuntu Linux

2006-01-20T21:05:00.000+02:00

I just installed the Ubuntu distribution of Linux on my pc.
Still sorting out some basic needs.
Its a big step, since I've been a Windows user since always.
But the overall look and feel is great.

New ideas

2006-01-20T03:20:00.000+02:00

I cant stop thinking about this idea I've had for years, and how to implement it.
No, I'm not going to say what it is.
But I will say that I'm currently trying to learn how to use XUL. (what is XUL?)

Thoughts that cross my mind quite often:

Since google/blogger are into the whole AJAX vibe, why not use it to its full potential?
When bookmarks were first introduced, the idea was to use them as their name suggests. As bookmarks. Websites I intend to read. NOT as pages I like to read every once in a while. We've got RSS feeds for that.

Setting goals

2006-01-19T23:18:00.000+02:00

If there is one thing I've learned from my brother, it's that the only way to live your life normally (if not successfully), is by setting certain goals. Not long term, big goals. But little, easy to obtain goals. Put them all in a little schedule, and -after a while- you'll find yourself in a better position than you are at the moment (gee, those lectures finally paid off).

Here are my goals for this month:

Write a decent C.V. I'm fresh out of the army, eager to work, so its time to...
Get a job. This is vital. I've been sitting doing absolutely nothing for too long now.
Help my sister promote her websites. All-of-a-sudden I 've obtained a reputation as a pretty good website promoter. So I promised I'd help her promote her easy investment and lose weight fast websites. It's a tricky task, any help (including backlinks, cheap advertising ideas) would be highly appreciated.

Ok that's pretty much enough for this month. I'll keep updating on my status.
BTW, major traffic increase this past week, though I'm pretty sure it's the aftershock of the digg post on the All-Seen project.

Bluetooth theory.....

2006-01-19T17:07:00.000+02:00

Today I had my first major encounter with the bluetooth technology.

One of my friends has a Sony Cybershot digital camera. So I borrowed it last night, took a couple of photos, and shot a video. Naturally, I'd like this stuff on my pc. So i bring it home. I had forgotten to get the only-works-on-sony cable from my friend, since the Cybershot doesnt have a normal usb port. So i had to think of other alternatives. I took out the memory stick duo, and stuck it in my sister's Sony Ericsson v800. I then borrowed my brother's Bluetooth adabter, stuck it in my usb, and waited. After a while the 2 devices succesfully paired. So I browse the phone, find the memory stick directory, and voila, the pictures and videos are all there. I felt really smart at the moment. Drag and drop the files into a folder on my pc, thats all i had left to do. Or so i thought...
Its speed is supposed to be 720kbps. Thats like 90kB/s. Just like a good cable line. Right?
Then why am i still transfering a 40 mb file from my sisters phone to my pc? Why am I getting speeds like 14 kB/s ? I guess bluetooth just isn't such a great technology afterall.

Personal note:

2006-01-18T05:06:00.000+02:00

Blogger sucks.
Its time to start thinking of alternate blogging solutions, because taking 2 minutes to upload a 100 kb image onto my blog, on a 512 kbps line, is simply unacceptable.

Something on religion...

2006-01-18T04:42:00.000+02:00

A funny but also insightful little story :)

Kissing Hank's Ass by Rev. James Huber

This morning there was a knock at my door. When I answered the door I found a well groomed, nicely dressed couple. The man spoke first:

John: "Hi! I'm John, and this is Mary."
Mary: "Hi! We're here to invite you to come kiss Hank's ass with us."
Me: "Pardon me?! What are you talking about? Who's Hank, and why would I want to kiss His ass?"
John: "If you kiss Hank's ass, He'll give you a million dollars; and if you don't, He'll kick the shit out of you."
Me: "What? Is this some sort of bizarre mob shake-down?"
John: "Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank owns this town. He can do whatever He wants, and what He wants is to give you a million dollars, but He can't until you kiss His ass."
Me: "That doesn't make any sense. Why..."
Mary: "Who are you to question Hank's gift? Don't you want a million dollars? Isn't it worth a little kiss on the ass?"
Me: "Well maybe, if it's legit, but..."
John: "Then come kiss Hank's ass with us."

All-Seen project - update

2006-01-15T15:57:00.000+02:00

An idea just crossed my mind regarding the All-Seen project.
Make it resemble of some kind of project like Seti@home.
The program sits in the background of a users pc, creating the images.
Then the user will be able to see the pictures created, in some sort of gallery, and clicking a "yes" or "no" button, to define whether or not the picture is anything other than noise.
The program then sends the contents of the picture in ASCII format(eg. which colours are used on which pixels) to a main server, where other people check out the 'filtered' images.

Some comments on the project from tempusrob on the project's digg:

Something like this crosses my mind every now and then ... then I do the math and quickly forget about it.

Consider 256x256 pixels, 256 colours. That's 16,777,216 possible combinations. Nevermind computing them all ... who's going to LOOK at them?

Further, there are some mind-boggling implications with doing something like this. By creating every image possible, we're opening up the door to the most absolutely horiffic/funny/scary/etc image anyone has ever seen. I'm of the opinion that there could possibly be images created that would simply drive people out of their minds. It's a scary thought.

News...

2006-01-15T01:22:00.000+02:00

Well I haven't slept in about 34 hours. I've got that whole duracel thing going on. (That was supposed to sound funny, but, hey, its 2 am and I haven't slept in 2 days)
Seriously, there's no time to sleep. Today I got my hands on one of these, so I've been planning how to use it.

The All-Seen project article was digged on digg.com, which lead to a HUGE impact on my blog traffic, thus justifying J.Kottke's article. The article never reached slashdot. But it recieved some nice feedback on digg.com

Daz, who runs a SEO forum, was kind enough to point out that I was violating the AdSense TOS , by encouraging people to click on my Google Ads. Fixed

I also added a few blogs to my blogroll (well, its not an official blogroll, i'm too bored to sign up at blogroll.com)

Finally on top!

2006-01-15T01:01:00.000+02:00

As of this morning, when you search google for "Jimmy Messinis" , this blog will show up at #1!. When you search for "Messinis", it drops down to #3, just below some Messinis' that rent apartments. But the Messinis family website is still at #1 ;)

2006-01-13T16:30:00.000+02:00

FireTune for Mozilla Firefox v1.x was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox. It is based on a collection of popular and well working optimization settings used and tested by the experts.
Usually you have to optimize Firefox manually, which can be time consuming and difficult for the novice user. FireTune helps you here - it includes all the performance optimizations. The only thing you must do is: make your selection. FireTune does the work for you.
Download it

The All-Seen project

2006-01-13T02:18:00.000+02:00

Imagine a 2.560 x 2.560 pixel image.
Then imagine it with all the possible colour combinations. A different colour in every pixel. Every combination possible.
You can imagine any possible image, right? Because any image is just a combination of colours. And I mean ANY image.
Landscapes, portraits, artistic masterpeices.... They're all just pixels filled with different combinations of colour.
So why not give it a try? Well, basically, because the combinations are endless. At least at that kind of resolution. But what if we reduce the resolution. To say 100 x 100 pixels. And reduce the colours to 256 colours. That means a lot less combinations. But still enough to realise the power of this project.

The All-Seen project is an idea my good friend Kostas had.
His idea was to use the computing power of a PC to create these combinations, and evaluate them. Since neither of us are Math-majors, and as it seems this needs quite a bit of that, I posted the idea on my blog hoping to get some feedback, ideas, help.
Any comments are appreciated.

Digg vs. Slashdot (or, traffic vs. influence)

2006-01-13T01:35:00.000+02:00

An analysis-comparisation of digg and slashdot, the 2 main geek sites out there.
Written by Jason Kottke. Good read, interesting conclusions:

There's been lots of talk on the web lately about Digg being the new Slashdot. Two months ago, a Digg reader noted that according to Alexa, Digg's traffic was catching up to that of Slashdot, even though Slashdot has been around for several years and Digg is just over a year old. The brash newcomer vs. the reigning champ, an intriguing matchup.

Last weekend, a piece on kottke.org (50 Fun Things to Do With Your iPod) was featured on Digg and Slashdot[1] and the experience left behind some data that presents a interesting comparison to the Alexa data.
Read more

History of Greece

2006-01-12T15:04:00.000+02:00

While searching for "photographs of pre-WW1 Athens", I bumped into Matt Barrett's "A history of Greece".

Starting from the Bronze age and the ancient greeks, all through to the recent arresting of terrorist organization "17 Noemvri". His writing based on facts from history books, as well as greek folk stories that passed through the generations mouth-to-mouth.
All I can say to Matt is excellent work. His work on greek history is very good.

A very good read.

Globalization

2006-01-12T14:46:00.000+02:00

I was just checking out the stats for my blog. 1 visitor from Sri Lanka?? Wow! Talk about globalization!
BTW I would love some comments on what you are looking for.
View my blog stats

SitePoint.com

2006-01-12T13:15:00.000+02:00

I ran into a very useful website yesterday after searching google "how to put a tiny little icon next to your URL in the address bar". Ok , i didnt actually use those search terms. But none the less, i ran into SitePoint.com
When you enter the site one of the first things that makes an impression is its 344.402 subscribers. Wow, thats a big number. 344.402 people cant be wrong me thinks.
So I sign up and check out the tutorials. The tutorials are great. And free.Another pleasant surprise is that Adam Polselli(one of the top web-designers out there) writes there too.

Check out http://www.sitepoint.com

Lego digital designer 1.5

2006-01-10T19:44:00.000+02:00

Create what ever you want using those digataly enhanced plastic building blocks. Excellent Graphics and very easy user enterface.
Once you create your masterpiece you can print out a build list or submit it to lego.com for review.
Who knows?, maybe it will be the next model for sale.

Download it

Starbucks Coffee - Toffee Nut Frappuccino Crème

2006-01-10T12:33:00.000+02:00

Ever since I've finished with my service of the Greek Army(+-2 weeks), i've been waking up every morning to the smell of coffee. I love coffee. Especially Starbucks coffee.
Hey, it's not cheap, (no beverage at Starbucks costs under 3 euros), but if you have one cup a week, its affordable.
The coffee is great, the non-smoking policy is respectable, and their business model is no.1

Here's a tip for now:

The secret to enjoy a Toffee Nut Frappuccino Crème:
I've seen one too many people ask for extra sugar in there Frappuccino. Well, dont. Thats why they have the whipped cream on top.
If you find the coffee too bitter, simply pull out the straw, and use it as a pick. Get some whipped cream on the top of the straw (dont forget the toffee) and place it in your mouth. Then drink some coffee. Thats the way to do it.

Free and original Photoshop brushes

2006-01-07T13:50:00.000+02:00

I found this excellent website that is offering free Photoshop brushes.
Get them here.

To install: after you have downloaded the file, unzip it to the following directory:
Program Files|Adobe|Photoshop|Presets|Brushes
Open Photoshop and from your brush menu,
choose|load brushes|and from the list which will open, choose the
brush(es) you would like to load.
Once done, choose the brush you have just added to begin using it.

Windows security flaw

2006-01-06T22:28:00.000+02:00

Windows XP and Server 2003 contain a flaw in the component which displays certain image files. This flaw allows software to be installed, if any Windows application attempts to open a specially-crafted image file.
At least one irresponsible person has published an example of exploit code, demonstrating exactly how to take advantage of the flaw.

The flaw is extremely serious. You can become infected with malware
just by visiting the wrong web site or opening the wrong email. Some
people are worried that the flaw could lead to an automated worm. That means that merely connecting to the internet could lead to infection.

Microsoft has come under extreme pressure to release a security patch
as quickly as possible, ignoring the normal monthly update schedule.
Microsoft listened and a patch is available now. If you use Windows, you
need this patch:

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-001

HP Learning Center

2006-01-06T20:07:00.000+02:00

About a week ago my brother, Stavros, suggested I take a look at the HP Learning Center. They provide free online training for many popular software bundles (Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office etc.), as well as general training on misc. subjects (Firewalls, Wi-Fi security etc.)

I didn't really think the courses would be any good, seeming that they were free (I have come to the conclusion that nothing in this world is free), but despite my disbelief, I decided to try the Adobe Photoshop CS2 course.
Having being a Paint Shop Pro fan since its early release in 1996 (version 3), I had never actually seen the wide range of tools that Photoshop has to offer. This course changed that all.
Im not going into details, follow the link, sign up, and give it a try.

When you finish a course you get a very cool Certificate of completion, PDF format, to show off to your friends or maybe even in your CV.

TIP: When signing up, state that you're a U.S. Resident, even if you aren't. The free course is only for U.S. Residents.

Jimmy Messinis Weblog

2006-01-06T19:15:00.000+02:00

Hello All

This is my second blog.
This is where I'll be posting my thoughts, opinions, and generally anything that catches my eye on the net.