I've been in a car accident a week ago. First time ever. The car is totaled, but I'm totally fine, just a couple of scratches. Happily I was alone and was driving slowly enough. That's been interesting experience though, but not that I wish to anybody to have. Kind of "driving the very right ...
We spent this holidays season in Seattle area. For my wife and our little Cat it was first trip to the USA. And traveling between Middle East and North West USA with 20 month old girl is a challenge (Scott gives pretty good advices for kid-wise traveling). She did very well though, mostly ...
Well, new year is here and I couldn't agree more with Kent Tegels - I'm glad 2006 is finally over. 2006 sucked on so many levels, but mostly on a personal one. 2007 must be a better year. This is my unexpressive but hopefully achievable new year resolution. As ...
I still own xsl.info and xpath.info domain names and still have no time to build anything around there. If anybody have any ideas about any community driven projects - let me know, I'm willing to donate domain name and may be participate. And if anybody want to buy these domain names ...
Ok, I'm off on vacation for 3 weeks. We gonna visit our families in Ukraine and introduce to them our little Catherine. ...
Happy New Year everyone, I hope you are not sick and depressive as I am. But I'm slowly recovering... Good news in the mailbox yesterday - I got Microsoft MVP Award again, third year in a row, 2004, 2005 and now 2006. In the "Windows Server System - XML" category ...
First chair for Catherine. Too big one, but not for long! ...
The company I'm working latest 5 years for, Multiconn Technolgies, has melted finally down. 4 developers left including myself have been picked up by a parent company, BluePhoenix Solutions and so now on I'm working for a company with funny name Outlook & BluePhoenix. I will be woking on a ...
Future developer? No doubts! ...
Well, I recently decided I need to be an MCAD. That requires to pass three exams. I passed one (70-315) in December and yesterday I went for a second one - 70-320 (Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual C# and the Microsoft .NET Framework). Should admit ...
Today it's 5 years as my wife and I repatriated to Israel (in Hebrew it's called aliyah - ascent) from Ukraine. I'm happy we did it. Today Israel is our country and we just love it, it's amazing, unique and beautiful. ...
Here are some first photos of our little Catherine: Catherine's gallery. I believe I start feeling something unusual seeing her. That's really amazing. ...
Saturday, March 19 11:55AM the following transformation has occured: <xsl:template match="family[@surname='Tkachenko' and husband/@fname='Oleg' and wife/@fname='Alenka']"> <xsl:copy> <xsl:copy-of select="@* | husband | wife"/> <child sex="female" birth-date="2005-03-19"/> </xsl:copy> </xsl:template> For those who can't read XSLT, I translate to English: last Saturday at 11:55AM my dear wife gave birth to our lovely wonderful ...
I turned some sort of a page in my life and now I'm starting a new one. Still tabula rasa, but some outlines are clearly visible. I'm going to launch a new site, xmllab.net, which I see as a better place for my blog (nobody's able to pronounce tkachenko.com anyway ...
I was doing annual papers cleaning back in the Hanuka/X-mas days and found a voucher for one discounted Microsoft Certificatied Professional exam, which I completely forgot about and which was about to expire at December 31. So I decided to give it a try. I chose 70-315 exam (Web apps ...
Well, it's not about USA elections. It's about elections in Ukraine, the country where I was born and grew up. The president elections were just terrible. Calling them fraudulent is saying nothing, they ware super-fraudulent. Violence, intimidation, abuse of state resources in favor of the prime minister, frauds such as ...
Today it's Rosh HaShanah holiday in Israel - the Jewish New Year. The new 5765 year starts on the sunset. As a matter of interest, in Hebrew years are written in letters, not digits, e.g. new 5765 year is written as תשס״ה. It's not really that Israel lives accordng to ...
Isn't it cool to have a small personal page at microsoft.com? :) Every MVP got such one recently. Here is mine (aka http://aspnet2.com/mvp.ashx?olegt). And here is the XML MVPs gang. ...
So I'm back. That was crazy trip Tel-Aviv-Prague-Berlin-Amsterdam-Paris-Bavaria-Prague-Tel-Aviv. Bad weather was chasing us, but fortunately it was mostly warm enough even for us sun-accustomed Israelis. Mailbox overflow did happen and all incoming mail has been bounced during 06/01-06/03. If you were trying to send me something that days, you may ...
That's all, folks. I'm on vacation from tomorrow for two weeks. We gonna fly to Prague, stay there for some days and then make a car trip across Europe. No laptop. I'll read my mail occasionally though (I'm afraid otherwise my mailbox will explode with all that spam and I ...
I'm blogging sparely last time due to trivial lack of time. I'm taking two MVP academy courses (advanced C# and ASP.NET level 200) simultaneously, trying to catch up with what I've promissed for Mvp.Xml and XInclude.NET projects, preparing new article and working on my new pet project, which I'm going ...
Ivan posts a link to the "GHOST TOWN" - a story of a real girl riding on a motorbike through the closed Chernobyl area, where nuclear powerplant has exploded back in 1986. Lots of fantastic photos. Abandoned cities 18 years after the disaster. Deadly amazing and sad story. I've been ...
MVP list was updated this night to reflect recent awards. Now it's 13 XML MVPs. It's nice to see the number (IMHO rough analogue of importance and appreciation within MSFT and the community) is growing. Meanwhile I've started to enjoy MVP benefits :) I didn't explored all yet, being lost ...
Well, another wave of MVP awards spreads these days. Now I got it too. In XML area of course. Thanks to all who supported me. Thanks to MVPs who nominated me. I see two more XMLers - DonXML and Daniel Cazzulino have been awarded too. Congrats, guys! Update: another XmlInsider ...
Done. I moved from Linux-based Java-featured hosting to Windows-based .NET-featured one. No problem at all, even with MovableType database. It just works, all I needed to do is to add DB_File perl module as described in MT install guide. ...
Finally I'm moving to the new hosting. I'm going to make it during x-mas holidays, probably the site and email won't work couple of days. If you need me, reach me via IM (I'm oleg@tkachenko.com there). ...
This site was down yesterday for who-knows-how-much hours because some troubles with Apache httpd of my hoster. What's the most annoying I didn't managed to get in touch any customer service. Plain silence. I'm keep getting randomly scary and mysterious "Quota exceeded while writing "/var/spool/mail/oleg"" messages, mysterious because I've got ...
Well, I'm getting tired of my current hosting. I'm ready for change, can anybody recommend unexpensive ASP.NET hosting, 100Mb/2Gb? ...
The day brought new toys - these for me: And this one for Ju-ju: ...
8 hours of meeting on extremely boring topic... Oooooooh, I feel like I'm in dead message queue. ...
This Wired report is overwhelming: the guy who has been sending threatening messages back to the spammers, which refused to unsubscribe him from their spam mail list now faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. /. discussion here. Mark Pilgrim's prediction has been proven. ...
Well, in fact I want my blog to be free of agitprop, I really got fed up enough with that stuff being born and grown up in the USSR. But today I feel tired after jogging on the beach and then shopping with my wife too much time so forgive ...
By the way I've rummaged a bit in Google archive and found my first posting into microsoft.public.xsl newsgroup. It was 2002-11-02, more than year ago. I was totally Java-oriented guy at that time, just started learning .NET and feeling like entering a new world. And the new world hooked me ...
Here are the sacral list of simple exercises to improve your karma and become a real guru. Just for neophytes and those who missed this practice somehow: Dilbert PC and Pixel Userfriendly PvP Working Daze More links are welcome. ...
Via Carnage4Life: Top 50 IRC Quotes My favorite one: *** Quits: TITANIC (Excess Flood) ...
Well, it's over. Just came back from the Matrix Revolutions. Couple of spoilers - its' not really about revolution, but peace talks. Nothing unexpected, the Hero is sacrificing himself to save the Mankind from the Dragon, an eternal archetype... Anyway, this installment is certanly a way better than the Reloaded ...
It's Sukkot holydays in Israel. My mother came from Ukraine to visit us and provided that she is the first time in Israel, this week (and next three) I'm working mostly in tourist guide mode. There are plans to be in Jerusalem, Dead Sea, Eilat, Sea of Galilee, Golans, Caesarea ...
Does anybody have any recommendations/advices for buyng a notebook? I want to get one, something like from Compaq Presario series, which I only have an experience with. May be this one? ...
If you'd ask me what's the best of the Tim Bray's ongoing, I say it's photos. Of course rants are great too, but I like his photos even more than holy XML homilies. So I decided that my blog needs photos too. The ship below is rusting in port of ...
Finally I managed to run IM at my work (firewall issue), my sign-in name is oleg@tkachenko.com. So whenever you need me... ...
For those interested - I'm selling old hebrew book "Diaspora and Assimilation" by Zeev Zhabotinsky. Just found it recently in the loft :) Published in 1936 in Tel-Aviv (Palestine at that time). ...
I managed to transfer my xsl.info domain from NetworkSolutions (what an annoying registrar! terrible! very expensive!) to GoDaddy.com. Gosh, finally. Any ideas how to build it welcome. Meanwhile XPath.info got a chance to get out its permanent under construction stage, more info coming soon! ...
On my way to M1 28:02? ...
Have rummaged in http://www.simulation-argument.com all the morning. Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? by Nick Bostrom How to Live in a Simulation by Robin Hanson Living in a Simulated Universe by John D. Barrow to name a few. Well, now the simulated programmer goes back to a simulating programming ...
Joshua Allen: When I started blogging a few years ago, I hoped that one day many MSFT employees would be blogging. The theory (to my ENFP mind) was that people would have a better opinion of MSFT if they could see that MSFT is not a monolithic evil juggernaut, but ...
Wow, while reading CORPORATE MOFO reloads THE MATRIX by Ken Mondschein I felt my flesh crawled when he shows how deep the ideas behind the Matrix movie can be. "cinematic ass-stomping" :) Worthwhile reading anyway. I knew it at the heart - the Matrix movie is just a postindustrial ...
Finally Matrix has been reloaded in Israel. Just back from the movie. Well, for sure I have to contemplate on that and to see it again, may be then I will be able to formulate my feelings... ...
Quite interesting analysis by Chris Suellentrop, unexpected conclusion - Neo is an early adopter of the Matrix product. [Via Robert McLaws.] ...
I'm moving to a new house these days, so practical life's questions totally occupy me, I just have no time to blog unfortunately. Hope I'll pop back in a week or so. Main question bothering me is how to get DSL before Passover holiday week in Israel has started ...
They say it's snowing in Jerusalem again (at the end of March!) and as I can see outside it's hailing, thundering and heavily raining here near of Tel-Aviv. I know, winter rains are a blessing for Israel, Kineret goes up 10cm everyday and this is daily-good-news here. Still almost two ...
Well, blogging is really infectious disease and finally I got the infection. I have installed Movabletype engine on my site quite easily (c'mon, it's cgi based) and here is my first record. Lets see how it works. Administering is not bad and default template looks really nice, but I'm sure ...