07 February 2012
Switzerland in Snow
Tourist weather
So I'm here in Switzerland since last week Tuesday. I've had some
great business meetings and events (yay! new customer!), I've seen some
really good friends, but above all I've had a huge share of freezing
cold and snow, -18c in the mornings, -8c during the daytime.
The first few days it was mostly cold with only a small dusting of snow.
The snow in the air was thin seemed mostly to be snow brushed up by the
wind. Yesterday it really started to snow though, and this morning thick
snow fell, turning the air and everyting on the ground to white. Tourist
weather.
In practical terms, what's annoying me is my ever-running nose and all
the time spent to get dressed for going outside and get rid of gloves,
caps, shawls, coats when coming back in. It could be worse, I'm prepared
with good, warm clothes.
Here in Switzerland they have good heating too. Back home in Greece,
temperatures have been much more mild, but heating and isolation of
houses are not in such a good shape. Not to speak of the many people who
do not have the money for heating this winter. This here is an island of
the lucky and right now I'm one of them.
15 February 2012
Back in Greece
by way of Paris
So I arrived back in Athens yesterday. Travelling was unexciting and a bit tiresome, but overall OK. I still have to put order to everything that was in my luggage. Today I started working on the new client's code, so excitement all over!
I had been for almost a week to Paris again after Switzerland. Ate a lot of good food there, had much, much fun with friends.
17 February 2012
Got a new ebook reader: Cybook Odyssey
Replacement due to breakage
My old ebook reader (Bookeen Cybook Opus) fell down some time ago, the
screen cracked. It wasn't really an excellent product, but it did the
job, so I don't think I would have replaced it anytime soon if I had had
a choice. But with this turn of events, I had to look around. The "big"
offerings from Amazon and the like were out of the question for
"political" reasons, no way am I going to tie myself into those
corporate orwellian worlds. Besides, I'm mostly reading the classics,
which I get from Project Gutenberg.
In the end I decided to look for Bookeen's latest product, the
"Odyssey". (Someone should examine my psychology for buying again from a
company that I bought a rather shaky product from before.) To my
defense, I must say that this time I checked some reviews through the
mobileread forum, and those reviews looked satisfactory. So, how have I
been faring?
Continue reading "Got a new ebook reader: Cybook Odyssey"
19 February 2012
Scanning Cross Processed Slide Film
For Fun and Recycling
Yesterday I've been scanning some film for the first time in a while.
The films from my recent trip aren't developed yet, but I still have
some older (and lots of really old) stuff to scan. So I scanned some
cross processed slide film, which always gets funny results...
Continue reading "Scanning Cross Processed Slide Film"
23 February 2012
Caecilia Font for ebook readers
Caeciiiiiiilia... !
Somewhere on the MobileRead forum (where I'm only lurking), I found a recommendation for the Caecilia font for use on ebook readers. The poster said that the font has thicker serifs, which would work better on e-ink displays. You can download the font on the FontYükle site. I got the "Roman" version, tried it out on my Bookeen Cybook Odyssey, and I think it's working fine - I still use it since I loaded it.
I don't think that it's a matter of "thicker serifs" though - I think the font just draws a bit "fatter" and wider, which works better on the display if there is lower ambient light. It's not as fat as the "Emboldened Text" setting of the reader, just slightly fatter. On the downside, the text looks less like in a book now to me. So from an aesthetic point of view, I don't like the font so much - while from an utilistic point of view it works well for reading.