The Whitehawk

There comes a time in every man’s life where he wishes for a better car. Something with a more efficient engine, more power, something that looks more modern, sleeker and faster. And I think that time has finally caught up with me.

The last few days/weeks I’ve been going a lot of googling about it and I’ve yet to find a seriously good reason for not buying it. It’s like the damn car is it’s owner’s honeymoon ride.

I’m talking about a 93 Honda Del Sol with a Vtec engine.

It’s sports a 1.6cc engine with 160hp, very comfortable, very fun to drive, and underneath it’s mild purr lies an incredible amount of power, ready to be unleashed whenever your foot desires. I hope I don’t have to use the full power of this engine very often (when I do it will probably be to show off a little).

I took it for a test drive today, and got opinion for quite a few of my friends and family, all of which liked the car very much, but it was only when I lent it to my friend that I saw it blossom and witnessed it’s true potential. It’s not turbo charged, or anything of the sort, in fact, most modern sports cars can overtake it, but it’s no pushover.

Whereas my Peugeot is exciting to drive (exciting as in, oh dear lord it accelerates so quick and leeches all of my gas), the Honda’s engine has better manners and let’s you grow accustomed to the acceleration, and I have to say, it really sucks you in.

Regarding consumption its’ more or less what I expected. It seems to consume as much as my Peugeot does on normal roads, but I’ve yet to properly evaluate it on a highway, I reckon it won’t drink too much there, because it has been compared to Prius’ consumption in some of the reviews I read.

I’m hoping on making the deal soon, as soon as the owner and I sort some kinks out. But I have to say, from all the cars I’ve driven this year, and they were quite a few, this is by far my favorite.

If you want to see some pictures I took of it today, head on to my flickr homepage.

Today I had the privilege to participate in my first ever web convention, and what a convention it was.

If this were a Hollywood movie the cast would consist nothing but top actors in the business, think Pulp Fiction without the guns, swearing, sex and violence but with lots of insightful thoughts and ideas on how to develop better websites. In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t like Pulp Fiction, but the quality was definitely there. » Read the rest of this entry «

My father came up to me one day, with an odd statue of Don Quijote made out of nails and screws and other odd pieces and decided to get it for me.

I was surprised of getting such an odd gift in for no particular reason, but just as I was about to leave I asked him why he thought it was a good gift for me. To which he replied:

“It’s so you’ll remember to never stop chasing windmills”

I was puzzled, but at that time I didn’t think much more about it. But given some recent events in my personal and professional life, I started to understand what he really meant.

I’m a child at heart, as most people are, eager to obtain and toy with new things, feelings, places. To discover and experience as many things as possible. One of the things that recently made me happy was the new camera I bought, which surprised me with it’s incredibly quality right on the first shots.

But it wasn’t until I took off it’s “training wheels” that reality hit me. It wasn’t me who was adjusting the settings, make them just right so the shot would come out great. The camera did that for me. And taking a picture without those assistants isn’t as easy as it sounds, but I’m slowly grasping it, and applying what I’ve learned from friends and relatives.

How long I will use this camera is anybody’s guess, but in the same way that I use a computer and never get tired of it, I wonder if it’s really possible to get tired of photography? Perhaps one day I’ll get tired of the device itself, or feel tempted to obtain a newer model with new things, most of which I’ll never use.

But I don’t think I’ll ever lose that “want to discover”, whether it’s in my photography, my code, my games, my life, I’ll always thrive to find and chase new windmills.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, then one of the things you should have heard about was my decision to move to the United Kingdom, in order to pursue a career in web design. I thought that I would only have to move once, from home to the airport, but it appears that I’d have to move once more than expected.

Things aren’t going too well between me and my father, perhaps because we spend too much of our time together, perhaps because of the age gap between us. Regardless of the reasons, things between us were deteriorating quickly, so rather than let them get too far, I decided to move out, hoping that the change would do us both good.

Ironically, the blog that made me kick off my “career” as a blogger was recently sold for the second time to Splashpress Media and they decided that rather than keeping the editors, they’d use their own. So I’m out of a blogging job right now, but hopefully not for long.

David Peralty has been great with me, and instantly tried to hook me up with some of his contacts looking for quality editors for their websites. Whereas most would simply turn their back to me and wish me well, he went the extra mile. So when you read this David, I just want you to know that I really appreciate all of your help and care, and I’m sorry if I haven’t sound resoundingly happy these past few days.

In a way, I’ve been down for these last few days because I had to leave the house where I was brought up at, and the blog that nurtured me into a decent writer. On the other hand, I sort of feel relieved because perhaps this move will give me the strength I need for when I move to the UK.

Hopefully, from Tuesday onwards I’ll be able to resume work on the redesign when the cable company installs broadband at my mother’s apartment, and I’ll resume blogging here as usual. So I’ll see you next Tuesday readers, and thank you for your comprehension.

As I stand here typing this, I can’t help but to wonder how many people have “accidentaly” stumbled upon an unprotected Wireless network and have tried to use for no good misschief.

I live in two homes at the moment, my father’s where I have my “office” and where I usually do all computer-related tasks, and my mother’s apartment which is sort of like a weekend resort where I can just sit back and relax without the drudgery of the internet life.

Even though I enjoy being here, my hectic schedule, and the lack of an internet connection have sometimes come between what I need and want to do, but today, I surprisingly came across a slightly weak signal for a wireless network and managed to connect to it.

Despite being happy, after establishing an internet connection the first thing I did was to see if I could detect the owner’s computer, and if he was protected. My first concern was to alert him. Unfortunately, he isn’t, so there doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop me from using this privilege as much as I like. So should I?

No.

I hate to use such a corny quote such as this one that has been repeated half a dozen time in the Spiderman movies, but “with great power comes great responsibility”. When I told a friend of mine about my “discovery”, the first thing he told me was that I shouldn’t download too many things, because the owner might have limited traffic (in Portugal, most of the ISPs have very limited download limits).

If you’re relatively tech-savvy, going to any website that tests your connection, like SpeedTest.net, will give you an idea of how good the connection is. Thankfully, I have determined that this connection is one of the more expensive ones, so there’s plenty of bandwidth and unlimited traffic.

Being aware of this fact, should I take the opportunity to download things via P2P? That depends on whether the owner is using the connection or not. A quick trip to Microsoft Network will usually tell you if there are any other computers connected.

Should I alert the owner? Definitely. But right now it’s 2am, so I’ll do it tomorrow if he’s at home. How can I detect where the Wifi is coming from? Well, basically I just have to do a small trip with my laptop turned on and check when the signal gets strong or weak. I should be able to easily determine the floor, and I already know on which side of the apartment the router is on.

A lot of people avoid wireless networks, and technology altogether because they are badly informed or don’t bother reading the manual to properly protect themselves. While some could seize this oportunity to abuse the connection as much as they can. I will use it to help the owner, and “save him” from future problems with less mature people.

After my harsh breakup, and my father’s coincidental retirement, I have decided, for both personal and financial reasons, to move to the United Kingdom and start off a new career there.

Being in an island that works with a lot of international groups, where many Brittish people come to live in, certainly gives me an advantage. And my friends and family have been quite supportive so far. Also, thanks to my father’s involvement with the Rotary club international I may even be able to get some support from UK members.

I feel sad about leaving my friends and my family behind. But I also feel excited, nervous and motivated to start off on a new career and explore a world which is completely different from this small, secluded and peaceful island.

On the bright side of things, I’ll be closer to many more international companies, with a lot of opportunities to develop my skills and to earn a better payment. I have been looking at many job offers, and I’m happy to say that my CV can fit most of them, even the most demanding ones.

This also means that Design Journal will return, and thus I will start transforming the design you’ve been seeing during the past months into transitional XHTML and CSS. As for Anime, I’ve been watching a few here and there, but for the time being, I must focus on my future and on my skills, so don’t expect much Anime content in the near future.

I put this one under both the journal and rants, because it’s a little of both. My girlfriend and I recently broke off, or in her own terms, she wanted some “space”, so I gave her it, willingly, knowing that my space was just about to be taken from me.

There’s nothing worse than forcing a person into being with you. That is something that has always worried and plagued me, for as long as I’ve lived. It’s funny how you feel, after all of the goals that you set disappear, because your relationship ended. Surely, other people go through harsher hardships. Some relationships leave emotional scars, or babies to rise. I can’t say I’ve experienced the later so much, although I can understand, or at least relate to it a bit. But I can certainly relate to the first.

You can’t help but to compare yourself to the one who replaced you. People who’ve seen her, with him, tell me that they have no idea what she sees in him, compared to me. I know that some people will say anything they can, just to make the other feel happier, but I can’t admit that I don’t think about it myself. I don’t look at him as someone inferior, just someone fortunate to have seized the moment, but perhaps unfortunate when the future rises.

It’s funny that all of the things that we promised to each other: honesty, regardless of the consequences, friendship, even if we became separated; all seem to break as easily as the words came out of our mouths at that time. It’s funny how all the moments, the pictures, the love we shared, the love we made, the things we cherished, the people we were with, all disappear, and turn into nothingness, when compared to the pain of losing one another.

I hope that no one else ever comes to know this pain, no one else but her. What goes around, comes around. I have to believe that, or else I’ll lose my sanity. And right now, it’s the only thing I have left to lose. Everything else feels empty and meaningless.

Hello readers,

As you have probably already noticed, I haven’t made any Design Journal entries lately. At first it was because I wanted to give something to the Anime readers, but now something much more serious has happened, that forces me to temporarily stop making them.

I am having some personal problems, namely my relationship. As you can guess, it’s a bit hard to try and create something beautiful, when your feelings don’t correspond to that. I will continue to watch and post about Anime, I will probably need to watch a lot of it to overcome the hurt, if things take a wrong turn. But I wouldn’t expect any major Design Journal entries soon. At least until this part of my life is settled.

I’m not going to do like a blogger I knew, and keep my readers, as little in number as they may be, out in the cold. I can’t promise I will post twice a week, like I’ve been doing lately, but with the free time I have I might feel like giving a small monologue about my feelings and my relationship. Maybe it will even feature in the next Scrivs Tyme podcast, who knows?

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all of the readers who already know of the situation and have been trying to give me moral support. Even though I can’t respond to is as well as I would like to, I just want to say that I appreciate it.

Hello everyone, I’m back, and I know I already broke some of the promises I made, sorry about that. First of all, my internet connection is now fix, sort of, well, at least it’s now acceptable. I currently have a 1 Megabit connection, but I’m still nowhere near getting the 8 megabit connection I want, even though my line supports it.

I finished watching Ouran High Host Club a few days ago, and it was excellent. I’ll be posting a full review of the series during this week, most likely on Wednesday. And feel free to nag me if I don’t, I’ve been a bit lasy with this blog lately.

I also didn’t put any picture of my vacation yet, due to 2 reasons. First, due to Yahoo!’s decision to force “old-school” users of Flickr register a Yahoo! account in order to use it, and secondly because I lent my camera to Cristina, my girlfriend, for a few days. But right now it is in my posetion, and I’ll try to post the pictures asap.

Easter vacations have also ended, and I took all the time I had to rest, and catch up on Ragnarok Online, so you’ll probably see some articles regarding that also, perhaps a Hunter leveling guide. In any case, thanks for all who’ve kept visiting, and I hope you’ll continue to in the future.

I just returned from a short, yet satisfacting weekend on our neighbour island, Porto Santo. Although the weekend itself was nothing special, and a bit disapointing in some aspects I still managed to enjoy parts of it, mostly because I was with my girlfriend, but also, it was the first time we slept together in the non-naughty sense of the word

Franqly, I think I really needed, and deserved, a rest because of all the stress I’ve been going through lately with my new (and retarded) ISP. Also, it was nice for me to put mine and my girlfriend’s compatibility with each other.

And what did I conclude from that? That we have even more things in common than I expected. First of all, I discovered that we both dislike “planned” vacations. We went to the small island together with the Mini club (because my father-in-law has one, and is a member), and therefore we had a small schedule to keep. Although the schedule wasn’t really tight, it allowed little or no time whatsoever to go to the beach, which is the main reason why people go, and come back to Porto Santo.

On Saturday night, since I noticed that I might not have an oportunity to swim a bit on the sea, I decided to go for a quick swim, at the end of the day. It was a bit chilly and very windy at the time, so Cris (my girlfriend) didn’t join me in the water, but still went with me near the ocean. Cris’ “juvenile” sister also noticed that she probably wouldn’t get a chance to swim, so she seized the opportunity and went to the pool at the same time that I went to the ocean, and although it was against her mother’s will, she still went ahead, and her mother accompanied her.

Today, when we had another “break” between events, my girlfriend thought that she’d get the chance to swim in the ocean a bit. But this time, since it didn’t interest her sister to come along, she was unable to convince her parents to let her, and they even argued a bit briefly. In short, it seems that her sister’s desires are mandatory, but Cris’ are only “luxuries” that can’t be “afforded”.

Oh well… despite that small mishap, the rest of the weekend was still enjoyable. I drove in the Mini for the first time, and I enjoyed it greatly. Before sitting at the steering wheel, I thought that the car’s only carisma was just it’s form factor, but after driving it, I have a whole new impression. It truly is a brilliant car, and it’s a shinning example of what cars should be: compact, easy-to-use and fun-to-drive. It’s no wonder that most modern small-sized cars are usually succesful in terms of sales (like the Smart, for instance).

I’ll put a few pictures from the trip when I get my camera back (I forgot it in Cris’ purse). In the meantime, I’ll review a few “old” Anime series I’ve been seeing lately, since with my current “turtle” connection I’m unable to download the most recent episodes.