Giving thanks is a great american tradition, and I would love to share it with all the people I know!

Lord almighty, thank you for this delicious food and the opportunity to share it with these wonderful people. Let them prosper, let them abandon their worries, let them be happy and give happiness, let them be blessed! Amen.

Today I’ve finally uploaded a new style-sheet and new graphics to change the default Green Light template! It wasn’t hard to change all that, but still required some skill and adjustments. After a couple hours work in Photoshop and another hour adjusting the design on-line, I’ve managed to have a basic ’skin’.

Please note, that this is not ‘work-all-done’, but rather a sketch, a wire model, ready for the future enchancements and tweaks.

I’ll be making small changes as the blog grows up. Stay tuned!

Recently I’ve changed my internet provider. The one I’ve been using for a long time (more than a year now) failed to provide me with enough bandwith. Especially now, when I need it not only for this blog, but for the new job as well.

SkyLink branded EVDO revision A modem

To make things clear, let me first paint out a problem. I don’t have a land-line phone, and there is no possibility to get one in a near future. So, there can be no ADSL-based solutions. Cable internet providers are not good at connection and pricing in the Moscow region (I mean, not in Moscow, but rather in the ‘countryside’ where I live). So, there is the only way to go: over-the-air solutions, the cellular networks to be specific. All the major cellular companies have intenet-optimized contracts. My choice was with one of them, Megafon, and it did pretty good job providing me with EDGE (enhanced GPRS) connection (by the way, if you happen to travel to Moscow and need to call back to US a lot – go ahead and purchase Megafon’s best offer among the others, the ‘Edinyi’ contract, wich prices overseas calls a dime per minute!)

Recently another cellular company, SkyLink, introduced a very lucrative contract with much greater bandwith and less pricing, not to mention the easy set-up… But let me hit it now.

Yesterday winter has come to Moscow. It’s not all strengthy and permanent, but snow does cover the ground without melting away! Not many people have prepared for the snowfall good enough, as tv and radio comments on increased number of accidents. Still, there is a lovely winter picture out of my window!

Another ‘great’ thing happened today as well. Apple iPod Touch/iPhone 2.2 firmware update is out! Along with the iTunes 8.02 software update! No wonder I can’t get to iTunes Store, since there are thousands of people trying to download the goodies all at once! Oh, well, let’s wait… and have a walk in the first snow taking some pictures!