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Now that the long-awaited Google Drive is finally upon us, it is time to rethink my document sync strategy.

As a long-time user of Dropbox, I find the sync between computers, cloud and mobile devices extremely useful. I use it daily, but there is one feature that I was hoping Google Drive will introduce – ability to edit documents while away from your computer/mobile device and save it back to the cloud. I was hoping that Google Drive, with its integration with Google Docs, will make my dreams come true. Alas…

Google Drive lets you sync any file with the cloud, but you can only edit the native Google Docs online. This is a step further than Dropbox. You can only view and comment on Word documents, which, truthfully, is just not good enough, Google.

Enter Microsoft Skydrive. On top of the whopping 25GB that they just gifted to me, I can have the same features as Dropbox/Google Drive (syncing of folders) and add the ability to edit MS documents in the cloud.

I have not used it much yet, just tested it out, but I think we have a winner! This is the service I will be recommending to my mother, which is highest accolades, in my books!

The picture above is the constant cause of slagging at work and just happens to be the Google image search result for the word “farmer”.

Sorry, iStockPhoto, but I am not going to buy the image just yet.

12 Pubs of Christmas

Unfortunately, I will not be able to go on the 12 Pubs of Christmas pub crawl this year, due to other commitments. This is very unfortunate and I am very saddened by this fact. I was saddened even more when a co-worker shared this invitation that he received from his previous place of employment. This is the 12 Pubs of Christmas for the Actuarial department at another insurance company:

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Book List

If you are ever at a loss as to what to give me for birthday/Christmas/any other occasion, here is NPR’s Top 100 Sci-Fi and Fantasy books, that I would love to have, with a (hopefully) current status of whether I read them or not:

 

Book NameStatus
1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. TolkienRead
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas AdamsRead
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott CardNot Yet
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank HerbertNot Yet
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. MartinNot Yet
6. 1984, by George OrwellRead
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray BradburyRead
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac AsimovNot Yet
9. Brave New World, by Aldous HuxleyRead
10. American Gods, by Neil GaimanNot Yet
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert JordanNot Yet
13. Animal Farm, by George OrwellNot Yet
14. Neuromancer, by William GibsonRead
15. Watchmen, by Alan MooreRead
16. I, Robot, by Isaac AsimovRead
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert HeinleinNot Yet
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick RothfussNot Yet
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt VonnegutNot Yet
20. Frankenstein, by Mary ShelleyNot Yet
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. DickRead
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret AtwoodNot Yet
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen KingNot Yet
25. The Stand, by Stephen KingNot Yet
26. Snow Crash, by Neal StephensonNot Yet
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray BradburyNot Yet
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt VonnegutRead
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil GaimanNot Yet
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony BurgessNot Yet
32. Watership Down, by Richard AdamsNot Yet
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffreyNot Yet
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert HeinleinNot Yet
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. MillerNot Yet
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. WellsRead
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules VerneRead
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel KeysNot Yet
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. WellsNot Yet
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger ZelaznyRead
41. The Belgariad, by David EddingsNot Yet
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer BradleyNot Yet
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon SandersonNot Yet
44. Ringworld, by Larry NivenNot Yet
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuinNot Yet
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. TolkienNot Yet
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. WhiteNot Yet
48. Neverwhere, by Neil GaimanNot Yet
49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. ClarkeNot Yet
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan SimmonsNot Yet
52. Stardust, by Neil GaimanNot Yet
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal StephensonRead
54. World War Z, by Max BrooksNot Yet
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. BeagleNot Yet
56. The Forever War, by Joe HaldemanNot Yet
57. Small Gods, by Terry PratchettNot Yet
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. DonaldsonNot Yet
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster BujoldNot Yet
60. Going Postal, by Terry PratchettNot Yet
61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry PournelleNot Yet
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry GoodkindNot Yet
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthyNot Yet
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna ClarkeNot Yet
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. FeistNot Yet
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry BrooksNot Yet
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. HowardNot Yet
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin HobbNot Yet
70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey NiffeneggerRead
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon SandersonNot Yet
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules VerneRead
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. SalvatoreNot Yet
74. Old Man's War, by John ScalziNot Yet
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil StephensonNot Yet
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. ClarkeNot Yet
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline CareyNot Yet
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuinNot Yet
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray BradburyRead
80. Wicked, by Gregory MaguireNot Yet
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven EriksonNot Yet
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper FfordeNot Yet
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. BanksNot Yet
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary StewartNot Yet
85. Anathem, by Neal StephensonNot Yet
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim ButcherNot Yet
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene WolfeNot Yet
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy ZahnNot Yet
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana GabaldanNot Yet
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael MoorcockNot Yet
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray BradburyNot Yet
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinleyNot Yet
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor VingeNot Yet
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac AsimovRead
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley RobinsonNot Yet
96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry PournelleRead
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie WillisNot Yet
98. Perdido Street Station, by China MievilleNot Yet
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers AnthonyNot Yet
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. LewisNot Yet

Google Buzz is not dead!

Contrary to what the tech journalists and pundits are saying, Google Buzz is not dead. The hosts of This Week in Google, Leo Laporte, Gina Trapani and Jeff Jarvis, started saying this merely a few months after it was borne. Initial privacy faux pas aside, Google Buzz is not as social as Facebook and yet more verbose than Twitter – something that appeals to some people, myself included. Google Buzz simply found its niche among the real people, not the tech journalists and meterosocials.

Here is my use case and I am pretty content with it:

I have about 25 friends who share or comments on Google Buzz. The primary source is their Google Readers with an occasional direct post in Buzz. We get a modest amount of discussion on each post before it disappears into oblivion. The posts that I find interesting and potentially worth revisiting in the future are starred.

Here is the use case of most of the tech journalist/pundit crowd, that was so quick to proclaim it a failure:

Tech journalists add each other to their Buzz friends and in turn everyone invites Robert Scoble (the Scobleizer). This results in the Scoble effect with comment and sharing overload at which time everyone calls it too noisy and polluted and leaves with only those who really appreciate the tool remain behind.

So what I would love to see now is the integration of Google Buzz with Google+ so that I can have seamless reading experience in one source.

Thank you,

Anton

Jobs etc

I have been recently trying to remember all the menial jobs I ever had before “hitting it big” in the corporate world. Here is a comprehensive list, for posterity:
  1. Ice cream sales from a bike* – first job in Canada!
  2. Grocery store clerk – first job that consistently paid.
  3. Gas station in Newmarket – just for fun, had to drive an hour outside of the city to work for 5 hours and make $50.
  4. Packing polyurethane foam into bundles* – it is pretty much rock bottom when you have to wear a respirator at work.
  5. Intercon Security* – first decently paying job AND I got to wear a clip-on tie!
  6. Condominium concierge* – a real tie this time!
  7. Research analyst at Pollara – first office job where I got to use some of my brains rather than solely relying on my good looks.

* – jobs that really make me appreciate where I currently am in my career/life.

job perception chart

P.S. Forgot to include #5.5 – assembling polystyrene insulation panels for pouring concrete.

Missing Money

Imagine the following scenario: you open a savings account, use it for a few years and then withdraw most of the money, leaving a small balance behind. Then you forget about this account and move to a different address/city/country. The bank now has no way of contacting you and returning your money so it just sits there, earning pennies in interest.

These funds are not limited to banks and can be anything from a refund from GAP to unclaimed matured insurance policies. Different countries have different regulations when it comes to handling this leftover forgotten funds.

I have been dealing with this recently.  Italy has regulation that mandates the Italian insurance companies to pay these forgotten funds to the Government Social Fund (read charity) if the funds have not been claimed for two years after product maturity. These are known as “sleeping policies”. The United States have a similar process, called The Escheatment Process.

There are sites that help you identify whether you are owed money by any institution in your country. Have a look at these links:

http://www.missingmoney.com/ in the States or http://www.cuar.ca/ in Canada. I am sure there are similar organisations for the rest of the world.

Bottom line – don’t complain that you are broke if you left breadcrumbs of your cash all over the place!

The Queen is coming!

So we are expecting Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to arrive in Dublin tomorrow, 16 May 2011. Then on 23 May 2011 we will be visited by President Obama.

As a result of this, the Gardai (local police) have sealed all the manhole covers around Dublin with silicone and some paint in order to prevent rogue assassins from emerging from the underground. These measures are also serving the dual purpose of keeping the sewer alligators at bay:

Dublin manhole cover sealed

About #$@%~ Time!

That’s right, I finally did it! I finally remade my childish self-made-nickname.com into a full vanity presence on the web! Say hello to antonkobelev.com – THE definitive resource of all things me on the web!

Now, if you are reading this post and think that this is sooo pretentious and self-centred, do check out the homepage antonkobelev.com! What do you think now!

Anyway, enough smart-assedness. The real reason why I renamed the site is because I want people to find me here if they Google me for some reason. I want the homepage to be my virtual resume on the web. Think what you may!

I am also finally giving up with the self-hosted photo album search and will host all my pictures on PicasaWeb. 20GB is only $5/year now!!! I plan to eventually upload all my photo albums from 2001 on to there!

Do you think I finally lost the plot? Do you think I need to go to false-celebrity rehab? Do you have any tips? Do you? Let me know!!!

Thanks for putting up with me!

Anton

One more review: http://t.co/4DcIcCD via @52podcasts

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