Just launched a new site dedicated to Mr. Putin.

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Has this world gone mad or is it the rainy weather to blame? If someone can tell me the difference between an assault and a battery and  which should be used to describe the event below, I would really appreciate it.

Yesterday at 5:25 PM I was travelling on 5^th street towards the freeway. I turn left on Minna street, which connects 5^th and  4^th streets behind the Mission Street Garage (www.fifthandmission.com). Minna is a one way street and I was travelling in the left lane. About half way right a front of me, a black Mercedes Benz SUV exited from the garage. To avoid the collision I used my horn to warn the Mercedes and moved to the right lane.

What happened next has very little explanation. As I continue travel on Minna, I see that the driver of the Mercedes, which is still technically inside the garage, opens the door and begins to chase me. I slow down because I have no idea what will happen next. The guy reaches for the driver side door handle and tries to open the door. I stop. He starts to yell and reaches his hands through the partially open window. When I try to close the window, the man simply spits in my face.

I see a security guard approaching and the man starts running back to his Mercedes. I open the door and walk towards the security guard asking to call the police. The security guard is confused because he has no idea what just happened. What happens next is scary.  The man notices that speak to the security guard, turns around, grabs a black object from the car and runs towards me. He raises his right arm as he wants to hit me. The metal object might have been a gun or a small metal pipe. As the man runs towards me he repeatedly threatens me. Realizing the potential consequences of his violent behavior, I run towards my car to call the police.  

November 20, 2011 17:38

I make the 911 call and explain the dispatcher that I have been assaulted. The dispatcher was nice, she tried to calm me down, asking if I was physically hurt and in need of a medical unit. She asked me if I got the license plate number of the car and, if the car is still visible, I should not pursue the car. She offered that I have two options: 1) wait for the police officer to come to my location or 2) drive to the police station myself.

November 20, 2011 17:55 Ingleside  Police Station

I came to the window and asked to speak to the officer. The officer at the front desk asked me what happened and why I need to speak to the officer. I explained to her what happened. She asked few standard questions. When I told her the location of the incident there was a sense of relief – “It is not our district”, she said. “Southwestern will handle this”. She asked me to write down what happened and issued me the case number. She said the case will be transferred to the San Francisco police department  Southern district in the morning and I can call the Southern office in the morning to speak to the investigator assigned to the case. There were no attempts to look up the driver using the license plate number. I was simply told to wait until the case gets to the Southern office.

I have witnesses and I have the license plate number of the Mercedes. I am trying to understand whether the above is an assault or a battery or neither. The officer at the Ingleside police department made me feel like this was not a big deal at all. She did not explicitly said that, but that is the feeling I got.

 November 21, 2011 10:45

Called Southern office. Friendly dispatcher asked for my name and why I am calling. I gave a brief explanation of why I am calling and tried to give the case number. The dispatcher explained that considering the fact that the incident happened yesterday evening and was filed at the Ingleside station, the report will not be transferred until after Wednesday, which is at 48 hours from the time the incident took place.

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Just found this on YouTube. Very funny video about the United Russia manifesto

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I try to use my Windows Phone 7 for everything from making calls and sending SMS messages to getting directions and keeping track of my fitness goals. Keeping track of my workouts is great - I know what type of workout I did and seeing the statistics is very helpful. I use the Run Keeper application to keep track of the miles I ran and the miles I rowed.

The overall experience is flawless, except for a small issue with the GPS. Take a look at the image below. As you see, the map displays my movements on the water.

Now take a look at the elevation and speed. The speed seems to be correct, while the elevation reported by the device is wrong. My expectation is that the elevation should be consistent at 0 ft, but, as the graph shows, the elevation goes up and down by a lot.

Not sure if this issue is only specific to Windows Phone 7. If you take your mobile phone with you on a boat and experience similar GPS related issues, please let me know.

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I have been talking about Apple products lately. Maybe it’s because everyone talk about Steve Jobs passing or maybe every time I launch Safari it brings me to the Apple homepage with the picture of Steve Jobs or maybe my because my macbook is in need of maintenance, especially after installing xcode 4, which crashes every time I launch the application. I knew it was time to clean up my macbook, and, since its the Lion time, upgrading to the new OS seems like a good idea.

Let me begin my saying that Apple failed to deliver the flawless upgrade experience. At first I was thinking that someone at Apple just went crazy and made this experience as hard as it can be. Then later I started to suspect I was to blame. Then I wanted to buy a new mac with Lion preinstalled. Then I started to miss my Windows 7 computer.

1) the Apple Store application told me that I already have Lion installed. Are you kidding me? How can such trivial task fail?

2) installation from a DVD failed multiple times with different useless error messages.

3) you can't boot from the DVD unless you extract the dmg file from the Lion package and burn a new DVD. Even when you boot from the DVD, all you see is a spinning icon. I waited for hours to get a welcome screen, but it never went past the screen with the apple logo.

4) creating new partition gave me a bit of hope because running the dmg file and

selecting the new partition resulted in the installation progress to go to the next step - the Lion installer started to download required components. That step never completed successfully.

5) Moving the original Lion installer to the desktop and running the installer worked. After 45 minutes the computer restarted with Lion. I removed the old large partition, but could not find a way to resize the new small partition.

I knew I was close. My intuition suggested to install Lion on the old partition, remove the new partition and then resize the old partition. That solution worked perfectly, not to mention the lost weekend.

Does this mean Apple is starting to lose its vision to deliver best consumer focused user experience? Many people say Cook will do better than Ballmer and Apple will remain the company we got know and trust in the last 10 years. Nonetheless my experience shows otherwise. Windows 7 has been great. Windows 8 preview delivers amazing experience. Windows Phone 7 finally competes with an iPhone.

I do not want Apple to fail, yet I do want Microsoft to win.

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Do not get me wrong please, I am curious, what would I spend my money on? Maybe I would by more real apples and spend more time enjoying live, without blood rushing through my head when I see another Apple product being released. Yesterday was no exception - I made 2 trips to 2 different stores and bought two Apple products. I spent my afternoon trying to make something work, which in turn, should have simplified my life.

Would it be nice if I could:

• Watch live TV on my ipad
• Stream live TV from my ipad to my television

We live in the world dominated by Apple technology and I already have ipad and a quick search reveals details on how to achieve exactly what I need to get. All I need to do is to go to the Apple store and spend money on an adapter to link my ipad to my television. The cost is 40 dollars.

This relatively inexpensive solution works fine, but the sales person told me about another device called Apple TV, which was designed around my scenario and I should definitely consider it.

So what is my scenario? I wanted to stream live TV from internet to my television. I want no new wires and I do not want to run to my computer to begin a new program. I want something similar to the HULU app built in my Samsung TV or turbofilm.tv or tvteka.com. 

Tvteka.com has decent collection of Russian movies and the interface is great, not to mention that the site is built in HTML5 and works amazingly well on an ipad. It does not offer hi-def streaming like etvnet.com, but it seems to be more stable than other sites. Did I mention HTML5 is great?

So I go back to the Apple store to get the Apple TV, because, according to the sales person, it will do just what I want. So I got the Apple TV and it did not work.

The sales person failed to mention that Apple TV works well with itunes. If I want to stream my video streams like youtube or tvteka from an ipad to the Applie TV box, I need to get ipad 2 running ios 5. What was even more interesting is that I can't stream video from my mac book [running Lion] to the Apple TV box. Ok, the last statement was not accurate - I can stream my home videos from itunes, but not from the web.

Am I doing something wrong? Or maybe I begin to expect too much from Apple?   

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I like Bing and I favor Bing over Google not only because Bing does better searching, but also because Bing does not censor third party content as much as Google does. At least I could not find evidence of that.

For example I went Google News looking for news about Obama’s uncle. Google suggests everything about Obama, but nothing about Obama’s uncle. I saw many articles about Obama’s uncle getting arrested yesterday, but not today.

Now let’s do the similar search in Bing.

Any idea why Google would remove entries related to Obama’s uncle?  

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This is exciting. Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is coming to Russia. Many stores I visited still carry HTC devices running Window Mobile 6.5 and according to several sales people at these stores, these soon to be discontinued devices are still hot.

I managaed to find one seller with the HTC HD7 unlocked device for 16000 roubles, but since the Windows Phone 7 does not support Cyrrilic, the device is not as popular as the older WIndows Mobile devices. But there is excitement in the air and, once the new devices are introduced, there is no doubt - the Russians will love Windows Phone 7.

Sadly the story is very different back home. Apparently is really difficult to buy a Windows Phone 7 in the Bay Area. Very strange statistics:

• The AT&T store had only one phone on display -- with a damaged screen.
• The reps at the Sprint store and Verizon kiosks suggest to buy an Android phone instead
• Verizon rep admitted that most stores don't even carry any Windows Phones.

Could it be that the carriers just don't have enough incentive to push Windows Phones?Windows Phone 7 has a great user experience, but there's no venue for people to discover it.

If Microsoft really expects to pass Apple in market share by 2015, as a couple of recent analyst reports have predicted, more Microsoft stores have to be opened between now and then.

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Yesterday I got my hands on my second Windows Phone 7 device - Samsung Focus. It still had the Russian MTS sim card and, yes, it was very outdated. My LG Optimus E900 has been running the Mango for few month now and using the old Samsung Focus was really annoying. So I decided to update the Samsung to Mango. 

First of all the update was very smooth and relatively fast. No issues were found durning the update and the phone booted successfully after the update.

What I noticed is that the Samsung is much slower than the LG Optimus. The perfomance has definately decreased on the Samsung after the Mango upgrade. There is a slight, but very annoying delay when navigating the UI and I hope this issue is being worked on right now.

I need to look at the specs for both phones to see why LG Optimus is more responsive. Any idea?

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One of the benefits of working for Microsoft is that I can try the new product months before it is released to the public. Yesterday was an intersting day because I got an invite to try out the new windows phone operating system called Mango. Here are some of the new features I found so far. Some are from the xda-developer forum and some I found. There are more than 500 new features. Help me find them all.

Sockets support

This is really hot feature and it wont be long before Skype app will appear in the Marketplace. I am also a big fan of TalkAtOne - the iphone application that is very usefull for staying in touch when travelling overseas.

IE9

Full IE9 integration with hardware graphics support is the best mobile browser I have ever used.

Pople Hub

Twitter “people hub” integration is very interesting.

Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Messenger is so damned easy that I didn't see it staring at me. Pick Messaging, slide right to Online. Set Chat Status (icon at bottom), hit +, and send a message to any Messenger contact. And/or if anyone sends you an MSN, you get a ding just like a SMS, and it appears under Messaging.

Mango automatically made my Windows Live account that my phone is registered under, which is also my Messenger account, work. Others have noted that it's not possible to have a second Messenger account -- only your PRIMARY Windows Live account is linked to Messenger.

Facebook chat is set up also from Messaging -> Online. Some people have had trouble with this... read down to see some possible solutions.

Voice Activated SMS/Messaging

To allow Voice recognition from Messaging (like SMS, Messenger) while on Carrier Data, go to Settings -> Speech and check Enable Speech Recognition over Network.

This is REALLY cool. Put on a headset; leave your phone on the home screen. When someone sends you a Messenger, it announces that the person has sent you a message, Read It or Ignore. If you say, "Read it", the phone reads the message. You then have an opportunity to reply via speech!

Visual Voicemail

Evidently, this is in Settings -> Phone (or Phone app, slide up, call settings). But it doesn't show up for everyone -- it's carrier dependent (doesn't show up for Telus phone on Fido for me).

Exchange/Gmail Server Search

To search the server for older (for example, Exchange) go to Outlook, click the on-screen search button, make a search. At the bottom of the results, tap "search more in Outlook". When the server search is done, at the bottom of the results, you'll see "get more results" and "search all folders". Woohoo!

Bing Visual Search -- and OCR!

Tap Bing key. Click eyeball. You can snap QR codes, Microsoft codes, or TEXT. If you snap text, it will then detect it, and you can translate it (for example, from French to English). But as someone mentioned, you can translate from English to English... and the results come as text that you can then Copy and Paste! Quick and easy cloud OCR that you have to see to believe.

Skydrive, Office

Just, Wow!

Go to Office. Slide over to Locations and SkyDrive. You can see any of the documents on your SkyDrive, and edit things like Word. It's perfect.

Notes (OneNote, synchronized with SkyDrive and your Desktop OneNote as long as you're saving to Web) is really slick. Office 365 and SharePoint are under Locations.

Easy Ones

Music Controls - This one's easy. Play a song, pause it. Hit lock key. Controls are on the wallpaper. Unlock, hit volume keys -- Controls appear.

Multitasking - Hold down Back button. It's a beautiful implementation. To remove a task from the list, pick it, then hit back button once.

Outlook Threads - Just tap a conversation thread to expand it.

Outlook Account Linking - Outlook -> ... -> Link Inboxes

App Grouping - tap the letters above the groups of apps, just like the phone book (tapping "a" gets you all the letters, tapping "s" jumps to Settings)

App Find - tap magnifying glass on apps list

People/Groups - Tap People hub, tap Family or +. You can make your own Groups, and then SMS or email everyone in the group that has SMS or email. Or quickly call them, since they get big tiles.

People/History - Tap a contact in the People hub, slide to the right, and see History. It shows call/messaging history, and "search Outlook" at the bottom.

Really Nice Subtle features

- Improved buttons during a voice call (larger, blockier, and harder to mispress)
- People Tile is really pretty now
- XBox Live Hub, Avatar, Messages -- way, way nicer. Best game hub ever.
- Marketplace is much better organized; Games are split up into categories.
- Power Down (hold lock button) now "confirms" with a prompt to slide down
- Hardware Search button now always brings up Bing; on-screen search button for context-sensitive.
- Dithering on browser eliminates banding in most cases

Custom Ringtones

1. Copy MP3 or WMA to Zune Collection. Choose Edit, and type in manually under Genre "Ringtone". The song must be less than 40 seconds and smaller than 1MB.

2. Go to Settings -> Ringtones + Sounds, tap Ringtone. Your custom ringtone will appear under a new tree called "Custom", above "Windows Phone"

Note that it is identified by the filename, rather than the track title.

Also, you can tap and HOLD a ringtone, and Delete will be offered (but only on the Custom ones; preloaded ones grey out delete).

Wifi Hotspot support

Still yet to find it. Anyone?

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If the story of a Chinese teenager sells kidney to buy an Apple iPad 2 and iPhone is true then I have to say Microsoft fanboys are just much smarter! Why? Because have you heard anyone selling a kidney for the newest Microsoft gadgets, or any other tech than apple? I have heard people getting beaten for a pair of Apple headphones. I have heard stories of people getting teeth knocked out because of iphones, ipods, stickers and plastic bags with apple logos. We live in a crazy world. Well this guy is dumb and the ipad2 wont help him.

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If you did not watch the biker arrest video carefully, you might have missed the term Citizen's arrest. Do you know what citizen's arrest means? I did not.

"A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval Britain and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers."

In the video, the transit sheriff makes citizen's arrest. Can someone explain why he used such term? Was he not acting as a police officer, but as a regular citizen? Does not the sheriff held to the principle of strict liability before the courts including any infringement of the biker's rights?

Just take a look at the picture below. The caltrain conductor was checking tickets and ignored the crowds at the door. Just imagine what would have happened if the train required evacuation.

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Its been 6 month since I got a Windows phone 7. I have a Samsung Focus and LG Optimus 7. Both phones are great and I am very happy with the way Microsoft challenges the competition.

The Samsung Focus works very well with my Mac. I tether my macbook pro everytime I commute by train. But I am puzzled why I can't tether the LG Optimus 7 with my macbook?

When I connect the LG optimus 7 phone to my macbook pro I do not see the new network interface notification. What bothers me the most is that the phone is recognized and is working fine with a Windows 7 laptop. Is there a workaround with the LG Optimus phone?

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Thank you everyone for contacting me about my Caltrain ordeal. Many of you asked the name of the conductor and the name of the sheriff, and whether or not I filed a complain against the conductor. My goal is to clear the air and release the unnecessary  tension between each party involved in my case.

However, I am outraged by the police actions in the Caltrain arrest video, in which a passenger gets arrested for delaying the train. 

The police officer with the sheriff sign on the back of his shirt is the person who questioned me on the San Carlos platform on Thursday morning.  What had happened to this case after Scott was arrested? What did the community do to ensure that THIS does not happen ever again? 

Regardless, there are plenty of Caltrain conductors that are fun to be around. They do their job very well and make the train ride safe, fun and pleasant. Just to name a few of my favorite conductors: Randy, Tom, Nathan and, of course, 'Dangerous' Bob Widin aka "Vitamin Bob. 

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Today is Thursday, May 12^th 2011 and I got removed from the Caltrain again today, however today a sheriff boarded the train and asked me to depart the train. I am hoping this will not become a weekly habit. Maybe I am banned from riding Caltrain altogether?

Anyway, here is what happened today. As usual I boarded Caltrain  #210 at the 22 street station. The same first car as yesterday and the day before. Upon me entering the train I was silently greeted by the conductor, which harassed me a week ago. It’s important to note that I rode the train everyday since the incident, including the days when the train was operated by the same conductors that removed me from the train on May  5^th. 

So I take my seat, open my laptop and begin to work. At the San Carlos train station a Sheriff and the conductors board the train. The conductor points at me, the sheriff approaches me and asks me come outside with him. I put away my laptop and follow him on to the platform. The door closes and the train departs the station.

The sheriff asks me for the driver license, which I remove from my wallet. He copies the data to his mini notebook, asks for my phone number and where I work, and begins questioning me.

The leading question was really interesting – “Do you know why I removed you from the train”? No, I replied, but I have been removed from the train before (recently), and I have a growing concerns, this is becoming a Thursday morning routine.

The sheriff asked me questions about the events that took place on May 5^th. I said that the conductor lost his balance; I protected my property, and myself, but then end up threatened, humiliated and embarrassed.  

I was advised to contact an attorney, as most likely this case will end up in court. I guess tomorrow I will call my lawyer for a consultation.

After waiting 45 minutes for the next train, I end up missing my morning meeting. Not sure if filing another complain with Caltrain is a good idea.

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I want to begin by saying I like Caltrain and I have been riding Caltrain regularly for several years now. I rode the Caltrain when travel time between San Francisco and San Jose was measured in hours, there were significantly more stations and the Caltrain conductors sold tickets onboard. With introduction of the speedy bullet trains, Caltrain became the primary choice for my daily commute to work. I enjoy reliable Caltrain service, comfortable and clean trains and, not to mention, I have made new friends.

On Thursday, May 5 2011, I was boarded the southbound Caltrain #210 at the 22^nd street station. I sat at my usual aisle seat in the first car, powered on my laptop and started replying to emails. There train was relatively busy and the high school students were roaming around the car looking for empty seats.

As train continued to move somewhere between San Carlos and Redwood City, a person standing next to me loses balance and begins to fall on me. The whole thing happened so fast, and to protect my laptop and, not mention, my legs, I reached out and blocked the person from falling further on my lap.

What happened next was shocking. The person turned around and began to yell at me. There were no apologies, instead the person with anger, began threatening me. He came so close to me with his fist right next to my face I was sure he was about to hit me. I, fearing for my safety, politely asked the person to stop threatening me and immediately end the aggressive tone of voice.

Unfortunately, the person turned out to be one of the Caltrain conductors operating train #210 that morning. When train arrived at the Menlo Park train station, another conductor came to me and respectfully asked me if I have a problem. Having lived through this humiliating ordeal, I was terrified by the actions of the first conductor and politely replied yes, I do have a problem. The second conductor asks me to follow him on to the Menlo Park platform. On the platform he politely asks me what just happened, suggests I take another train, boards the train and the train departs the Menlo Park station without me.  I end up walking from the Menlo Park to Palo Alto to catch the next train.

What happened today was distressing and alarming. A Caltrain conductor has no authority to treat me this way. Removing me from the train was an extraordinary method to deal with the situation, but if that would not have had happened, I would have departed the train anyway.  I felt threatened, defenseless and vulnerable staying on that train.  

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Да, прямо праздник у нас, столько лет этого ждали, и вот, наконец, свершилось!

Вот убрали Лужкова и назначили, временно, Ресина и в чем прикол? Или какая разница? Сколько они вместе работали?

Мне это напоминает старый анекдот:
"...сегодня в лагере смена белья , первый барак меняется со вторым..."

Вперед к победе путинизма - товарищи!!! Цирк только начинается, нужно усесться по удобней и смотреть как эти уроды, будут друг друга мочить.

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… которое взяли у него Ксения Собчак и Ксения Соколова

Ссылка на полный PDF

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