Finally, our 3rd semester final project has been finished, printed, uploaded and handed in. There were good times while working upon it and there were bad times but, as usual, we managed to pull it through. The examination will be on the 13th of January so that gives us/me plenty of time to focus on other aspects of life such as writing on this blog. The URL can be seen at http://herrera.victorelu.com and this is everything I write and will write about this project.

Meanwhile, stuff has changed. I still feel a little bit like how I felt before my last visit to Romania in July this year (article about that here) but time surely changes things. To be honest, the only reasons I want to go back to Bucharest are my family and my friend. Yeah, you read it right, unfortunately it seems that I only have one friend left back home whom I can trust and whom I care about and I do that although he’s a bad ass ugly bastard. Other than that, I have all the reasons in the world to want to stay in Aarhus. I even got a double, 140cm wide double bed now so…

Comparing to last year, August – December 2009 was a lot better. I went out, I made friends, socialized, worked, programmed, made friends and learned how to live life at its fullest. I’ve learned to appreciate the simplest things in live and see good where there’s bad. This was about to cost me during the work upon the last project but since I promised to keep my mouth shut in regards to it, I will keep my word.

I’m 4 days away from being home now and I’m still wondering what to do till then. I am also wondering what to do in Romania but I can safely assume that my schedule is going to be easy to fill. Come to think about it, the first thing on my agenda starting now is a drinking session on my return to Aarhus on the 7th of January lol.

Last but not least, I would like to say that I hope you all passed your projects, exams and so on with high grades (or handed them in on time) and have a happy week until the Merry Christmas that is about to come! Oh, and if we haven’t spoken about this already or haven’t settled for anything and you want to meet for a mulled wine/beer/coffee/pool game, just drop me a line somewhere because maybe, just maybe, we can go out. Victor.. Out!

Unfortunately, I find myself in the impossibility of figuring out how the teenagers now-a-days think like around the world, either in Romania or in Denmark. I am mostly referring to the way they interact, socialize and create impressions about another one of their age.

I remember when I was in the 6th grade and one of my classmates had a black and white (actually, black and orange) screened Alcatel 301. We were all playing on it, creating stupid ringtones on its software. And yes, some of us did consider him cool for having a mobile phone! Then I got to high school and everyone had a mobile phone. Come to think about it, when I got in high school, nobody really gave a crap about which mobile phone you had but then again, the iphone was not launched at that point.

Now I got to college and mobile phones are the least of anyone’s worries. Except receiving messages from extremely beautiful girls, my mobile phone is only used as an alarm for waking up in the mornings and evenings. However, the only gadget we can actually compare in class are the laptops and nobody seems to give a crap about them anyway! I mean, I do have this feeling that people owning a Toshiba are noobs but I am trying to change my mind…

I’ll just go back to the teenagers now. I honestly have no idea how they think like and how it is like to be a teenager. 5, 6 or 7 years ago we didn’t have any social media network on our hands (well, maybe MySpace but nobody really used it in Romania). When you liked someone, you were struggling to find out whether or not they have a boyfriend or girlfriend. You were dying to see them the next day at school since you couldn’t see any photos of them on hi5 and it also makes me sad to imagine how teens ask for the messenger id of the people they like.

Therefore, I would like to ask for anyone who has some info about this: how is it like to be a teenager, today? How often do you use the internet to contact your “friends” and how often do you actually interact through some old fashion methods?

So, there I was on Thursday morning at school when one of my classmates invited me to go with him on a trip to Skagen, Denmark’s most Nordic point. We left from Aarhus sometime around 8:30 in the morning and we only had 2 stops till Skagen. They are marked with the round dots on this map but their position is somehow approximate. Obviously, the green dots are the markers of the starting point and the arrival point..

The road to Skagen was pretty fun since our talks were interesting, to say the least. Yeah, we gossiped, drank coffee, made fun of different countries but we deserved it!

Our first stop was at a gas station close to Aalborg where we bought that bloody expensive coffee and we tried to sit down in the gas station but we were not allowed to sit because we hadn’t bought the coffees from that exact same shop. Needless to say that out of 30 tables, only one was occupied… Yeah, it did feel like in Romania. After passing by Frederiskhavn and getting off the E45 highway, we stopped to check out some sand dunes and to see one of the best places for camping during the summer, on the beach, in Denmark.

And then, we got to Skagen. Honestly, I never thought the place could be so beautiful and cold at the same time. The wind was blowing like never before. I actually felt sorry for my hair since it hadn’t been washed for 3 days and we couldn’t take any perfect shots hehe Basically, Skagen is the place where two seas meet together and waves from both seas hit eachother. Well, that’s what the story says since we were not able to get all the way there because of the following wonder of the nature that keeps Romanians and Macedonians away from Denmark’s extreme Nordic point:

We did manage to take some pictures though and they can be seen below:

And a very short video with some stop-motion pics that my friend took with his brand new camera, a Canon 500D. Hope you enjoyed seeing these pics!

Serban sent me the following problem and I have no idea what-so-ever about how to resolve it. Any input would be nice, honestly.

Out of 214 computers with viruses, each of which is infected with
at least one of Magistr, Badtrans and Hybrid, 79 have Magistr,
111 Badtrans, and 82 Hybrid. 16 have Magistr and Badtrans,
29 Badtrans and Hybrid, and 22 have Magistr and Hybrid.
(i) How many have all three viruses?
(ii) How many have exactly two?
(iii) How many have just one of these viruses?

I guess I am willing to give a prize for any correct solving.

How did it all start?

So there I was on a lonely Thursday evening, trying to do something if not cultural, at least interesting. I couldn’t find anything and I ended up on my facebook’s news feed and here’s what I saw:

I honestly don’t know the girl who posted that message nor do I keep in close contact with the person who had this thing posted on her wall. I did however felt like something was wrong. Therefore, I clicked on the link. Using any bullet proof browser like.. well, anything else except Internet Explorer. In my case, Mozilla. And I got to the following screen:

Well, that was pretty expected. I don’t know, however, who would attempt to hijack some facebook accounts. My best bet goes towards some Farmville or Mafia Wars maniacs but I am not pointing any names yet. So, anyway, since I’m not afraid of getting any virus/malware/whatever (yeah, I’m that cool), I ignored the warning.

How to tell if you’re in the course of a forgery?

First of all, it’s obvious I didn’t fill out that form. I did however go this far in order to show you how to easily detect a spoofing. If you haven’t realized this so far, spoofing is the term used for a web page which has the same design as one of your usual login pages but it’s sole purpose is to steal your account info. Spoofing can occur on any type of web site that deals with data: internet banking, e-mail, social media and so on.

Therefore, let’s go back to the screenshot. The first thing that should get you alerted is that big thick red bar which would be present right under your tabs. It only appears there if you’re using mozilla and my guess is that if you’re using mozilla, you wouldn’t need me to point the other two clues:

1. That’s not a facebook address. Period. Whenever you enter any personal information into any forms on the internet, always check if the domain you are sending the info to is the one you expect it to be. Well, not on any form. Nobody really cares to steal e-mails from the e-mail newsletter service but that’s a whole other thing.
2. Facebook without full language support? Come on, the guys have 300 million user accounts, worldwide and you expect them to show question marks ( ???????? ) instead of the actual Japanese or Chinese characters?

What to do if things went too far?

Basically, if your account has been compromised, there is only one thing you can do except praying: changing your password. If you don’t do that, you will never be able to sleep peacefully. Nightmares will haunt you and by the time you wake up, compromising stuff will be posted from your account to your friends walls.

If your password has already been reset, you should immediately reset the password yourself, with the help of the e-mail that you have registered your facebook account with. If you don’t have access to that account anymore, my suggestion is to contact Facebook in order to resolve the problem.

Conclusion

That would be about it. This has not been the first or the last guide against spoofing but there is always a lack of tutorials on this theme. Surf safe and don’t do drugs!

I have been feeling sick for quite some time now. However, the way I was raised taught me not to go to the doctor except if it’s mandatory: there are people in a whole lot more need than I am. However, sometime around the last Saturday evening, I have started developing a fever. And when I say fever, I mean FEVER! No matter what I had tried, the best outcome I was getting was by taking paracetamol or ibuprofen but those would have effect for 1 or 2 hours at most and then the fever would be back. I couldn’t take the pill again since it would’ve been too fast for my body to handle and I just had to resist.

Sometime around 12 AM, I realized that something was wrong: I have never had this kind of fever. I do get sick pretty often so anything out of the pattern rings a huge bell in my brain. Therefore, I have decided to call the emergency doctor in Aarhus. For those of you who don’t know about him, he is practically the first step before calling 112 and he should be called if you don’t have an immediate emergency like a robbery, fire or accident.

Therefore, I called him. After being held with a very crappy music for some minutes he answers me. I tell him what the problem is and what he told me shocked me: “It is most likely the Influenza type A. You know, H1N1, Swine Flu”. I got scared. I told him that I was practically burning and that my eyes were about to be on fire and he told me that I should just continue taking one Paracetamol every 6 hours, drink a lot of teas and just stay inside. Wow, I don’t think I would have ever considered that! That’s like a genius treatment that I have never ever tried before! After getting out of the shock of hearing the treatment suggestion, I asked him about this swine flu. I did know what the symptoms of this flu are but I never knew you can evaluate it by phone. He told me (and pay attention here) that his brother has had the same symptoms, followed this treatment and he is better now. I thought myself “What a jerk!”, told him to have a good night and went to bed myself.

Meanwhile, the fever persisted for a little while, then disappeared. However, all the other symptoms started bursting all over my body: coughing, continuous nausea, stuffed nose and sore throat. I knew that taking the paracetamol or the ibuprofen will not take the flu away but rather hide the symptoms. Eventually, I decided to go to my assigned doctor but in order to go to him, you need to make an appointment.

I wanted to go there on Monday but I couldn’t contact them on Monday morning. Tuesday came and I was not able to contact them and finally, today, after being held with the crappy music for around 15 minutes, I got an answer.

Again, I started telling what the problem is and again, I was in a shock: I was told that it’s most likely the swine flu(!!) and that they will not schedule a meeting with the doctor for me because there is no point in doing that. They just said that I should stay at home, in bed, drink teas and take paracetamol. Should I make any comment? I guess not!

So here I am, staying at home, without knowing whether or whether not I have the swine flu. Usually, the doctors have to be trusted but it’s just hard to trust a diagnostic made through the phone. I could have a normal flu or just a very unusual sore throat and chances are that none of these are contagious. However, due to the lovely doctors around here, I am not able to go to any place where there are more people: what if I pass them the swine flu which I don’t know if I have?

It could all be dealt with so easily: accept my meeting with the doctor, do me a fast test so I know what I am dealing with and make me feel comfortable: Don’t tell me I have the swine flu if you don’t know for sure. I do have an internet access and can easily see how many cases of death there have been. What if I would get scared and do something foolish?

But then again, technology with the doctors around here is so good that they can evaluate the Influenza Type A through the phone. I should trust them! I wonder though, what if I had listed the AIDS symptoms? Would they have told me by phone that I have the AIDS? That surely wouldn’t surprise me.

I’ve been stuck with this flu for quite some time now and the fever just won’t let me go. I guess I’m just too lovely hee hee.

So, anyway, I’ve decided to publish my list of bookmarks. These have helped me hundreds of times and most of them are worth at least one glance. Don’t forget that from time to time, I also post some interesting links on my twitter account so, go ahead and follow me

CSS Related

• Ten CSS tricks you may not know
• Creating DIV Layers
• Bucaro TecHelp Design : Easy CSS Popup Windows
• Making Your Footer Stay Put With CSS ~ Blog ~ FortySeven Media
• Most used CSS tricks | StylizedWeb.com
• A Roundup Of 25 Advanced CSS Tips And Tutorials

Design Related (useful materials)

• 50 Fresh Useful Icon Sets For Your Next Design
• 100 Beautiful Free Textures
• Floral swirls brushes – Free Photoshop Brushes
• Flavour Extended: The Ultimate Icon Set For Web Designers
• 80 Stunning Background Patterns For Your Websites
• 25 Great Free Photoshop Texture Packs
• 30 Most Incredible Textures for Vintage Style Design
• Best Grunge Textures and Photoshop Brushes All In One Place
• 750+ Stunning Icons In 49 Icon Packages
• 172 final flag icons – Custom Icon Design team
• Stock Images – Royalty-Free Stock Photography Images and Photos at Jupiterimages
• Free and Commercial Stock Photography Sites

Typography and other design related bookmarks

• Give Your Photos a Retro Comic Book Effect
• Vital Tips For Effective Logo Design
• Beautiful New Free Fonts For Your Designs
• 10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To
• 10 Beautiful and free must have Serif Fonts
• 10 wonderful fonts you can embed with Cufon and Sifr
• 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines
• 21 Fonts That Shouldn’t Be Free…But Are!
• Best User/Web Interface Designs and How To Create Them
• Useful Glossaries For Web Designers and Developers

Javascript, jQuery, PHP, Wordpress and so on…

• Structure of a Wordpress Plugin
• Access FlashVars parameters with AS3
• jQuery (mb)Gallery 1.0
• Wordpress Theme Development Frameworks
• 10 Advanced PHP Tips Revisited
• 70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques
• JavaScript Slider Example
• Definitive List of Free WordPress Theme Frameworks
• Create a Slick and Accessible Slideshow Using jQuery
• In the Woods – Create a Funky Parallax Background Effect using jQuery
• jQuery slideViewerPro 1.0

I hope you’ll find something useful among these links. Some of them are real gold!