Last night, we had another power cut in the flat around our area. Although a little frustrating, the part that really has begun to annoy is the fact that our ISP, or to be more precise, upstream of them, where Kazakh Telecom’s hardware comes into play, is unable to automatically enable internet access following suck [...]

At school, during lunch breaks or particularly dull lessons, there would usually be a few card games going on. Although I never really got the hang of poker, blackjack (you may also see it referred to as Vingt-et-un or 21, depending on your location (though there is a small difference when it comes to a [...]

In just three weeks time I will be in Amsterdam. Given the time difference, I should have hopefully just hopped off a train at Centraal Station, dumped my bags in a locker (to be picked up when Alex and ChrisD have arrived a few hours later), and found a nice coffee shop to… have a [...]

Whether your company needs to know where their valuable assets are at any point in time (be they transport and their drivers or stock), or as a parent you want to know where your child is, location based services have moved beyond the scope of only FTSE100 companies or police forces. A few years ago [...]

I can not believe it was really a whole twelve months ago that they were born. Until we had our own kittens, I was always cautious of cats. I liked them a lot, but if they were within my 50cm comfort region, I’d tend to feel uncomfortable. I have known a few temperamental cats in [...]

For just $4.95 per month, idrive.com can help you backup unlimited amounts of data currently precariously stored on your hard drive. If you think it is relatively safe there, just check my older posts - I have had two hard drives fail on me in the last twelve months. Losing personal data, such as pictures [...]

These are the photos we took of Dasha and Tima last weekend, when Balzhan, Ildar, Sasha, Dr. Natalya, Sveta, Losha, Igor & his wife, as well as Asen’s mum all came round randomly on one day!
First we have the traditional weigh in, which shows he has almost doubled in one week!

Next we have a couple [...]

Looking for something a little different to give as a gift? Do you like personalised items, but find mugs, pens and baseball caps a little cliche? How about looking into the high quality products available from VisionBedding, such as their Photo Blankets? Although the very principle of being able to add your own photos to [...]

OK, as you may have read from earlier posts, I have been experimenting trying to find the best way to encode videos to ensure high quality clips on YouTube. So far things have not gone well. I have ascertained that I do need de-interlace the raw DV video from my camcorder. I have tried different [...]

If you have not yet come across the company Future Steel, they are involved in steel - from the design and construction of buildings to the actual manufacturing of the steel frameworks. They sound a lot like the company my father in law works for, over here in Kazakhstan.
Rather than creating the usual grey, faceless [...]

A court in Moscow has confirmed that the head of the company that runs allofMP3.com is NOT breaking any Russian laws. Prosecutors originally bought a case against him for selling MP3s without (mainly Western) record companies’ permission, nor paying them. Russian music labels are not thought to have kicked up a fuss, as they have [...]

With several Birthdays amongst family and friends coming up, as well as Christmas too far away, I have been starting to keep an eye out for good deals online. Rather than trawling through dozens of sites by hand, Coupon Chief’s site allows you to discover exactly which companies are offering coupons and exclusive deals.
For example, [...]

As I mentioned in the previous post, we (Ira, Me, Balzhan, Ildar, Masha, Dr. Natalya, Sasha & Sveta) went out to celebrate Dr. Natalya & Sasha’s new car. In the same way as you ‘wet’ a baby’s head, major accomplishments are celebrated with a drink over here; if you have something to drink, you should [...]

This evening we went out and washed our friend’s car. However, no sponges, wax or buckets were involved. Instead it refers the tradition of having a drink or four when is time to celebrate somthing. In this case Dr. Natalya and her husband bought a ‘new’ old car, so we went out to celebrate the [...]

Due to the national holiday tomorrow (30th August), companies give their workers Friday off as well. Then make then come into work on Sunday. This means they have three days off in a row, then have to work six, possibly seven if the following Saturday bosses decide there is too much work and call everyone [...]