Saying goodbye to my dear email address

I currently have more than 15 email addresses. But how many of them I use daily, only a few. The ones I check daily are only 3 (now 2), weekly 4, irregulary 3, never 5-10 or more?? :)

I lost one of my email addreses. :( The one I used to check every 5 mins. I was thinking that I was more accesible with email rather than a phone. And what happened, my account is just closed down. I hope you are not naive enough to think I dropped it in the street. :p

Instutional emails last as long as you are there. They are not for free. (Remember, there is no free lunch!) I guess this is the problem with these kind of domains. It is better to use some free web service instead of an email connected to some instution. (Big news, Hotmail will be offering 5GB service soon. If you are one of their old customers like me I am sure you will be very happy 2MB->25MB->250MB->1GB->2GB->5GB! Sounds good...)

Smartly I was aware of the fact that one day it would be closed. Because of that I have not used it too widely, out of that network.

Anyway, bad news comes like 3 months before account closing date. They told me they will close it soon, I would better forward my emails. (Of course, even forwarding does not work after my account closed. Should I still call it my (: ). I have not done anything until last week. Finally I have send my contacts my new email address. (Actually my oldest email address, my dear Hotmail address.)

Well, I think if you read it does not sound like a sad story but it is sad for me. Show some respect to my pain :p.

For those of you, who always looks for something significant to read. Moral of the story is, losing an email address is not the end of life. Go get free email address and enjoy your new happy life. And you will get much less spam email in an introductory period of ~1 month. Sounds like introductory 0% APR :D. And the best part is you do not even have to pay me for my advices... :)

PS: Farewell my dear ...@...dot...

Free Licensed Software!!

Anybody does not like the idea in the title? They do not need read further but for everybody else...

I have found out a totally new way of advertising non-free software. I think which is far better than shareware, trialware, crippleware etc. for the end user.

First check this site out, I am sure you would grab the concept fairly quick. But assuming that most of you would be lazy, here what it is.

They publish one software everyday and you can download and install it during that day. (They have an activation mechanism to check for the time.) The software could be anything but something normally sold for real money. Of course you are not getting any support or upgrades but you are getting the full version in a perfectly legal way.

So, what is the deal? Why a software maker would like to freely give away her program? What is the limitation? Limitation is 24 hours. After 24 hours you are no longer able to install the program. If you uninstall, your system crashes, you change your computer etc. you cannot install it for free again. In that case you go and buy. Or maybe you like the program so much you would like to buy some other titles from the same programmer. It is mutually beneficial as you can see. Thinking that, you are getting the software for free and you do need to uninstall.

They publish "free" games also, on weekends. If you want to spend some time on weekend you can give them a try. (I already tried Ice Cream Tycoon. It proved that I cannot even manage the smallest business! :( )

I hope you enjoy it. And here you can check what they give out today :

New Years Resolution

I have heard so many resolutions for 2007 so that eventually it became very tempting for me to prepare one for myself. The problem is, I do not have a list ready in my hand. I have to think and write at the same time.

I am not sure if we have sth. similar in our culture. At least I do not know... We also make wishes for new year but preparing a list is too much.

I do not believe that I will intentionally try to achieve any of these... anyway let's begin.

My 2007 Resolution:

• Tidy up my desktop, real life desktop.
• Buy a faster computer.
• Visit i new cities. (i=2, seems reasonable ??)

This should be enough for a short year! I still believe this is nothing but wishful thinking.

I hope all (at least most of) your wishes come true for this year.

Cheers and have a happy new year.

Simply 6

Are you looking for a password? Then, you would better look around. This is like a game, say a puzzle. You will not reveal any secrets at the end but it is still fun to play. Caesar may help you find where to look for a square? Everything you need is here on this post. Neither a big nor a real challenge is this. However it was a big deal for me to prepare it. Final hint, minimum sentence length is six, I would say you better consider this. Now it is time for secrets to reveal.

I would read carefully if I were you, from now on. You get it right, I am not busy nowadays and preparing puzzles for you my dear readers. Read again and look for more, if you cannot figure out what is this at the end. This step will let only worthy ones to move on next. All you need is an open mind, open eyes may also help though. For your convenience lots of redundancy is added appropriately, use them! Acrostic is an important thing to know, in order to decipher this correctly. I guess that is enough here comes the first part. May the force be with you!

WALT ADWH TNSO WMAE HTDE YTYP OTDS AHTA OLWP

FAQ:

1. Starting from this point, do not look for keys, codes, hints or etc. This portion is just to give a general idea.
2. This is a simple treasure hunt style game. You have to find keys to move on next steps.
3. At the end, nothing real waits for you, your only compensation is the fun you have while solving this puzzle.
4. Do not ask me about new hints or the answer. I will give the answer in 4 weeks time.
5. I may update, this faq portion from time to time.
   

Looking for *guest* bloggers

I WANT YOU

Hey, dear friends and fellow readers. Now it is your time to write. To make this place more fun for all of us, we need some post from others. Would you like to consider writing one for me. I would be grateful.

What am I looking for? Anything. Just send me anything that you want me to publish on this blog. I prefer it to be in a "blog" format but still this is not a requirement. Do you want to post only images, that is also okay.

You don't need to know me personally. You are my friend only by reading my blog. You don't need to write long/aesthetic bla bla bla. Just write as you are.

Which language? I would personally prefer Turkish, English or German. However, you can send in any language. Which ever you like most. I would be very happy if it is sth. that Babel Fish can translate.

You can run but you cannot hide.

Yes, I know you are reading this page. I know lots of ppl read this page from many different places. I know you do not like writing comments (excluding H.) but this time make a favor and try writing sth. for me. ( Well, If you do not feel like writing today, you are still welcome to these pages. And if you want to send sth. to me but do not want to it to be published - as some of you did - that is also OK.)

Thank you all.

More Google For Me!

I recently find out that Google offers a personalized homepage. (www.google.com/ig)

It allows you to modify your Google homepage as you wish. The beauty of the system is there are infinitely many modules to use (including 3rd party modules). You can add whatever you like to your page.

Now, my personalized home page allows me to read some RSS feeds (some of my favorite blogs and newspapers). I can see a summary of my GMail inbox. There is a calendar, which works synchronously with my Google Calendar. I have a quick e-mail sending module. My daily horoscope is always there :). I also added a Wikipedia search tool under my Google Search... Yes, if someone sends me a Google Talk message, I can easily respond it. Did I mention about my post-its?

Google is so huge, it offers so many tools and now I can integrate all in one page. I wish I could add more modules w/o slowing down it so much.

Try it, I am sure you will love it. And if you like, you may also add RSS of my blog to your homepage (or to your Google Reader, whichever you like.). Simplest way to do so is to use the link on the side bar.

Google, I don't know are you evil or not but thanks for simplifying my life.

Knowledge++

Yet I learnt one more thing about people. It is hard to formulate, but let's try it.

If someone thinks most of the people are weak in some aspect, probably he has a suspicion that he has a weakness.

Well, this does not seem to work. Let me try to explain with examples,

Say Alice thinks that everybody on this earth is a liar. She is probably a liar. Since we people think that everybody resembles each other, she thinks other people are liars also. She does not trust anyone because she is not trustworthy but she is not aware of this.

Or, say Bob is a real paranoid. He is probably thinking that everyone is also a paranoid and they are working for his failure. ( People who are not paranoids are not people actually. They are out of this world. Mulder, who is the only normal guy that Bob knows, is working on them. And "truth is out there, somewhere", even though Scully does not thinks so. ??? )

(off-the-record geek, in cryptography related texts parties trying to communicate with each other securely are named Bob and Alice. They are both nice people indeed. Neither Alice is a liar, nor Bob is a paranoid. Maybe, they should change the names in the books with Scully and Mulder and let Bob and Alice enjoy the spring instead of working for crypto textbooks as dummies)

I hope you get the point. Because I do not think I can explain it better. I know it is not crystal clear....

...

(This one turned out to be one of my stupidest posts. I decided stop this torment right now. Thanks for being nice and reading up to this point. Have a nice weekend! :) )

Long time no post...

Because of the technical difficulties I experienced with my blogger/server company combination I was not able to post new articles for the last few weeks.

I decided to move on WordPress and Murphy laws worked at the same instance. Blogger start working after I installing WordPress. So, at least for now, I will keep using Blogger. I guess the source of the problem was Blogger. There was a maintenance yesterday and now it is working. I am not sure about it though...

I hope, my friends are still checking this site for updates. Once again "Welcome Back!".

PS: Onur, thanks a lot for your continuous help, during this situation. :)

*my* Digital Camera and Luck

(This is a continuation from "How to Buy a new Digital Camera and Fate".)

I received my camera 2 days ago. First hear this more interesting story. I was tracking my package from internet. And at about 6:55 pm, I saw my packaged delivered at 6:20 pm. I was like WHAAAT? I look in front of my apartments door, and voila my package was there. What kind of world are we leaving on? The delivery guy, did not knock my door but instead left the package there. I have learnt that there was a package, in front of my door from the internet. All madness...

Beyond this, my luck went good again with this camera issue. Amazon just gave an offer for a memory card with a purchase of a Canon camera. I send them an e-mail and they let me use this offer, although I bought my camera before this offer. (I ordered a Viking 1GB SD memory card, waiting for it now. Instead of listening the door for the delivery guy, I am just more frequently checking the tracking web site!) (And now, they listed out both the camera and the offer, am I one of the lucky persons who saw them together in 2 days period???)

I really did not have enough time to play with the camera. It has a two hundred sth. long manual, and too many features to learn. And definitely I am not going to read it. I can learn by myself.

If I somehow learn how to shoot good photos, you can see more picture postings on this blog.

And as a final remark, in the future -but not in the near future- you can expect too see some amateur photography related posts here, as my skills improve. Hopefully...

To be continued...(not in the near future!)

Bye Bye.

How to Buy a new Digital Camera and Fate

It is now 4 months passed since I decided to buy a new digital camera. Definitely I am not good at giving quick decision. (In this story I really paid for it, 4 months full of memories had gone off without a trace.)

Recently, I decided I have to do sth. , immediately before everything gone with the wind.

After a short period of investigation (i.e. finalizing my decisions of what I need, generating performance vs price graphs including various models and brands... [kidding!] ) I came up with two models.

A point & shoot model ( Canon SD550 ) and a high-end digital model ( Canon S2 IS ). Do not ask me why Canon. I only looked for Canon, Nikon and Sony models. I do not think brands other than Canon and Nikon use good enough lenses. Sony offers expensive and cool models but without enough technical capabilities.

These two models have nearly the same price tag. (They are under $400 models and they are literally just under that :) )

What is good about a point & shoot models are they are light-weight. You can carry them in your pocket. You can catch all the funny moments.

And pros of the high-end models you can play with them, manipulate your photos with them. Their manual modes offer too much. You can start with p&s photography, and when you get bored of that thing, you can officially give your amateur-photography skills a chance.

One other good thing about, Canon S2 IS is, it looks like my old analog Zenit machine. ( Russian made machine before 90's. I did not even get one good photo with it. All the things over it was written in Russian, and without correct settings, it was impossible to get good results. It was my bad actually, I knew it was a very good machine)

My Fate Is Changing...

[Feb. 20] I am checking the Amazon.com, and try to decide on one of the models. I am bouncing from one side to the other side.

[Feb. 21] Canon, announces more than 10 models including next generation Canon S3 IS and... Immediately prices of the cameras goes down by about 15%. This is not the moment for losing time anymore, my fate is trying to tell me sth. Yes, I finally decided!

I ordered my new Canon S2 IS today, I hope, I will get it before March :). Wait for me beautiful sceneries and mountains...We are coming...

Coming Soon

Maybe I cannot write a review on this machine after I get it. Better I can start reading on amateur photography (focus, ISO, shutter speed etc.) and write on them. Visit this page, some time later in two weeks time and you will see.

See you later.

PS: This note is intended for ppl, thinking that I am believing in fate too much that even I let it control my life. No! There are some results, some outcomes which are so absurd that I cannot find a really good analytical reason. I simply say it is fate and keep going. Not because I believe in fate that much, but I believe thinking about those things does not help any more.

Wine Tasting Class ?!!

Yes I know, it is hard to understand but there is a wine tasting class here. (Yes, I know where am I and still that is the case!) And I am seriously considering taking the class with a friend.

I asked myself why? and get these results :

• I like wine.
• I recently watched Sideways.
• I am so close to Wine Country, and class has a one field trip.
• I need to bring my own wine glass to the lectures :). I think it will be a good practice. After bringing my own calculator to bla bla bla for years, now I will have my own wine glass to bring. Even I may feel like a non-engineering student for a quarters time. So cool!
• Knowing how to taste wine may be a good idea.
  
• There will be a lot of people like me, with similar interests.

And, as I said previosuly one of my friends also thinking about this class. So, I think I have enough reasons, eh.

So, wait for me beatiful Vineyards of the country, eh.

PS:Don't ask me what is "eh", even I do not know what it is. :)

To Friendship...

I have lots of things to speak about, as if I was waiting for this moment for years...

It's kind of a bit different feeling to have new friends *instantly*. I normally can't make new friends easily. However, under these circumstances everything becomes easy.

Everybody is new to here and none of them has a solid social cycle for 10+ years in this small place. And transition time required for a friendship is shorter than anything else.

In Ankara, I don't need new friends, so may be that's why I am hanging out with same ppl for long years. (Definitely I am not remorseful about that. I spent most cheerful years of my life with them.) However, here I am considering each person I recently met, as a potential new friend.

Having new friends, with different backgrounds (I mean *really* different in all terms) is funny. You have so much to talk about. Every subject is new, every sentence has new openings.

It may sound a bit strange, but what I think is, being good friends does not necessarily needs long time. You can become friends instantly, lightning fast. And then you will have a life-long experience with those people, which is hopefully not that fast.

Especially, I want to thank you H. for not leaving me alone, when I really need support. I am grateful to you, and it is so much fun to talk with you. And sincerely I wish you all the best. Thanks again.

Have a nice weekend.

PS: I want to use my chance and thank to all my friends, for all their support. Not only for this limited time of 6 months but for all the years we left behind.

Probabilities and Spam Mails

Let's say, I am receiving new e-mails with Poisson distribution of rate = 'L' (at average) , and probability of an e-mail being non-spam is 'p'. (Assume every event is independent.)

Now calculate, some interesting things:

... ( I am working on the calculations now, please wait for the results.)

1. Average time between two non-spam e-mails are : 1/(L * p). (Although, average time between receiving two e-mails is only 1/L )
   
2. I want to see at least 1 non-spam e-mail in my inbox with probability greater than %99. (Say 'n' is the number of unread e-mail in my inbox) Then I have to wait until n > (-2/log(1-p)) (log is base 10.)
   

For one of my e-mail accounts, I find out that L=4, p=0.05. (I am counting only my Inbox, not including Junk Mail Folder).

Which means, I receive an email every 15 min. and I receive a non-spam email every 5 hour. I have to check my inbox after receiving 90 mails in order to have at least one normal e-mail with probability >%99.

I may expand this list, by giving more "real numbers" but I think even this much is enough to show, the status of my inbox. (This is only for 1 account and I have incountably many e-mail accounts, for different purposes!)

My special thanks goes to all hardworking spammers...

to my Quals Studying Group

Dear Hattie, Bobby and Emre

Since you were complaining about not being able to read the posts, I decided to write something for you.

First of all, there is nothing interesting in this blog. I am living more or less the same miserable life like many other EEs. So don't worry, you are not missing anything.

Maybe years later, I won't remember anything about quals. However, there is no way that I can forget, Cookie Monster from Bobby, Bobby's -forgotten- Formula, Formula sheets (or notebooks ?) of Hattie (the Manager), 2 Chinese people trying to speak Turkish (and vice versa of course.)

As Bobby said at the beginning of the quarter, we are on the same boat. I wish you good luck in "the exam". And I want to thank you all for all the things we shared.

Wish you all the best.
Ahmet.

PS:Don't forget, we will have a "movie watching group" for the next quarter.

For Non-Turkish Readers of This Blog

Dear Reader,

Although more than 80% of the visitors of this blog are from outside of Turkey, these pages are in Turkish. Why? Because, I am writing these blog for expressing my emotions, feelings etc. Since my native language is Turkish, best I can do this expression thing in Turkish.

Interesting thing is that, the reason I am writing here is forcing me to write in Turkish. This blog has more non-Turkish readers than Turkish readers. (This is a cause). And this new cause is becoming a (strong) reason for me to write in English, to keep my readers (you! :) ).

Another reason for me to keep writing is, keeping in touch with my friends. (Good guess! Most of my friends are from Turkey...) There is also a little change in my friends spectrum, in the last 3-4 months. Now, I have some international friends. So, this is another (not-that-strong) reason for me to write in English.

Maybe I will also write some posts in other languages. German, Spanish, Latin... just kidding :)

I am really not sure, but maybe in the near future I will increase the content in English in these pages. So keep checking these pages for updates.

Hope to see you soon. :)

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