Friday, 29 March 2013

way tooooooooo many adddddddsss

tired, tired and tired... i don't even know how to express my frustration... i am becoming an old cranky internet user who loved the way things were before, i am conservative and nostalgic at how surfing the web was 10 years ago .. it was slow, but it was faster in the way when you wanted something it was there in front of you ... no roundabouts 

try to watch videos lately in youtube... forget about using the playlist (i made one for my kids, with toddlers cartoons and all they see are adds (not even kids related) what does a 3 year old needs to see a car ad or the new paramount movie or a finance advice for?)

try to read news in the bbc online and all you watch is a pre-advertisement - sometimes the new's clip doesn't even play... 

i am frustrated... i lone for my internet... the way it was ... i was searching for youtube alternatives, but all alternatives had commercials ... and i don't mean the banners or the flash adds or the click-in.. .i am talking about the pre-commercials running before the clip - sometimes the add will be longer than the content in the video... sometimes you only need to scan if this is the video you want to see, (but first you have to swallow the commercial to jump to an other video/commercial in the search for content). videos on the internet have now more commercials than TV ... ENOUGH ... i worked in marketing, i did online advertisement, i created banners, adds and pre-commercials campaigns ... and i also say ENOUGH! THIS IS JUST UNBEARABLE ... companies are killing the joy of surfing, searching,  learning... surfing is becoming a horrible slow cluttered  experience 

I also searched for some plug-ins to download... but those also seem to fail after a while and companies learn a way to delete them or block them... so here is probably the best solution... is writing code in your own computer - my search got me to a post that had this link  
http://www.lolloland.com/2012/12/12/technote-how-to-remove-video-ads-youtube/#sthash.hCaboEwX.mOuRA3aj.dpbs

just in case this link also gets deleted in a near future, I copied the instructions from  LollOLand original post 



How to do it (I assume you have a Windows machine, if not, find the HOSTS file on your system):
Start Menu -> Accessories -> right click on “Command prompt” -> click on “Run as administrator“. A black window will open. If you have a Windows XP pc, simply open a commad prompt window;
cut and paste in the command window this string “notepad c:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts” (then press “enter” key);
notepad will open, then put those lines at the end of file
127.0.0.1 s0.2mdn.net
127.0.0.1 s1.2mdn.net
127.0.0.1 googleads.g.doubleclick.net
You should see something like the picture;
close notepad saving the file;
in the command window run this command ipconfig /flushdns (“enter“!) to flush DNS cache of your PC;
close the command window.
Try to navigate Youtube, now you shouldn’t see any Video ADS before your preferred videos.
NOTE: Thank you to Lorenz for troubleshooting and comments.





if you want to make comments, please visti LollOLand's original post


i am dreaming of a clean internet just like the way I used to know... 

Wednesday, 9 January 2013

FLAT WALL BOOKSHELVES

And an other DIY project for the kids bedroom... 



this one inspired (plans included from Ana-White) - if you still don't know who Ana White is... check out her site; IT IS BEAUTIFUL, AMAZING and above all INSPIRING - I first came across  Ana's site, 2 years ago when I was searching about DIY bunk-beds - she didn't had a design that would fit the kid's room (so I am making my own one)... but she has so many other ideas and plans, that I keep going back to her site ... next one on my list (also from Ana's plans) is a Mood-room or entrance storage cabinet  (but that's for next time...) 


A while back I realized that with the new layout for the room we'll end up with a "death corner", in the other hand we also need it more kid's friendly shelves (where the children could reach for the books by themselves). This is when I started to think that a flat wall shelving unit would be the perfect solution. My husband and I waited to the last week of the year to build it. It took over 2 days to complete; as before, (we recently find out our local DIY store pre-cuts the wood free of charge :-) so here is an other plus to easily customize our home furniture) in this case we used MDF 12mm, but first we adjusted Ana's original plans to better fit our needs. 






Even when most of the board was pre-cutted, my husband still had to do some work, like hand-saw the round indents and other bits and pieces. 
Our flat wall shelving unit comes to 170cm long, 80cm wide and 20cm thick (the distance between shelve is 40cm, I need more space than the original designed plan as some of the books we own are already 32cm long) 


Then, it was a matter of sanding, nailed together with the stapler's gun, and painted the following day (as it was getting dark by now)- I painted in a light cream green colour as the opposite wall





Tuesday, 8 January 2013

Stairs Renovation

You might remember I mentioned a while back (ok, almost a year ago) I would do a renovation on our home staircase... I promised I will post images before and after renovation; well it's been almost 4 month since my husband finished the MEGA-HARD-WORK.. I keep telling him this is the best renovation job he has done in the house ever (yes, this is what happens If I leave my husband alone for one month in the house meanwhile I was in Spain with the kids during the summer holidays... he went nuts and started scrapping, polishing and painting ... this is the before, during and after (& now present);

before renovation
before renovation
before renovation



during renovation
during renovation
during renovation



now
now
now


I am so happy to have an accomplished man that can tackle any tough job. I am so proud of you, thanks hubby!  






Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Find Masters in Europe: MastersPortal.eu

Masters in Europe: MastersPortal.eu:

I need to tag this page, for when the kids finally go to school and I will have free time for myself!!!

so far a few had grabbed my attention;

  • M.A. Corporate Communication-  Sheffield Hallam University
  • M.A. Online Communication-  Sheffield Hallam University
  • M.A. / Master in Media and Communication-  European Graduate School (EGS)
  • M.A. Communications, Media and Public Relations-  University of Leicester
'via Blog this'

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/

searching for Wooden Letters

Today I updated the initial design I made (back in march 2011) on how I though the kid's room would look like. Based on the original baby furniture we bought at Baby-Dump (in 2009), consisting of;
  • a dresser
  • a baby crib
  • and a wardrobe
  • (we already had the upper-self from Ikea)

Here is my initial sketch and measurements back in 2011 - I tried to re-use most of the baby furniture.
 

I am now updating the design to incorporate the upper shelf we built during the weekend (where the loft bed is going to rest) this will also add more space between the beds.


I also updated the 3 section shelf (lower bed) to the actual 5 existing compartments. I am also thinking to add the kids names above their bed area. In our last visit to Italy we drove till Collodi (in the Italian Toscany) where Pinocchio was created. The old town in the hills of Toscany was amazing, well worth seeing, in the other hand I was more excited to see wood workshops and to shop for unique wooden letters, unfortunately I came across to only two shops selling "wooden souvenirs, mainly Pinocchios", so I had to come back empty handed from the Italian trip.

I am now back behind the pc, searching (& possible ordering) Wooden Letters on line. The are a couple of website I have visited, so far the one I like the most is the wooden letters company (UK based). I am almost ready to order the names from their site, the only thing stopping me is that I first I wish to visit the Xmas market in Cologne (Germans always have the most lovely wooden toys) and somehow I still have this romantic idea of smelling & holding wooden letter on my hands... we are even contemplating the idea of making them at home. I never thought it would be this difficult to find wooden letters.

Monday, 8 October 2012

building the bunked (2nd part)

It is October again, almost a year ago we left the project "building the kid's bedroom" half way done; 

At that time, our son was a baby, small enough to fit in his crib. 

Still he is not even two years old (and even when I believe he could use it for an other year more), he, in the other hand thinks it is definitely over sleeping in the baby crib. 
The idea now, is not to get rid of the crib completely, but more of dismantle and reuse its part in order to building the kid's bunkbed

So following, from where we left it 1 year ago; 

This weekend we built a shelf unit to go on top of the dresser (it was a pretty fast job, as the blades were custom made and pre-cut at the hardware store to fit the space above the dresser, we assemble it at home the same way as we did for the self unit (in the lower bed) all attached with help of a staple gun) -  


In the coming weeks we'll have to make a rail for the side and back of the bed (at 120 cm height  same level as the shelf unit) where the bed frame is going to rest. 
we also have to make the bed-frame itself, the ladder and the safe railing for the upper bed)
But now I realize we still going to have so much free space at the back of the dresser, I am also thinking to leave an opening in the bed frame (of the upper bed) to access the area (eg. for storage) as we did in the lower bed - 

I'll post more pictures as we advance in the project.

to be continued... 

Friday, 28 September 2012

Francisco Viyuela , director de Independent Advisor en Estrategias Tv (27.06.12) - YouTube

Porque no se liquida bankia? Porque no bajan los precios de los inmuebles en España?

gracias Francisco Viyuela por tan acertada exposion!



Monday, 24 September 2012

The road to serfdom

great series on world economy, as usual from the bbc open university bbc.co.uk/mastersofmoney accompanied also by funny short videos on economy 60 second adventures in economics - no to be missed