Dumitrache.net

I first listened to this yesterday on VH1’s Hard Rock Countdown. I think it captures the spirit of the 80’s pretty good.

18 and life…

Mountains, starry nights, bonfires, guitars, incredibly smart people, programming, design, innovation… these are the keywords that describe InfoEducatie, a national (in Romania) IT competition that takes place every year between the 4th and 10th of August, in the Carpathian Mountains at camp Galaciuc

In this competition, students from all over the country showcase their own personal projects which consist of software applications or web pages that they developed at home over the last year. I participated with Xpression News 3, the latest version of my news publishing script that was not yet officially launched.

This is the third time I participate at InfoEducatie. I also participated at the 2007 and 2008 editions but this edition was the most important for me. (continue reading…)

That was actually yesterday. This trip to Istanbul wasn’t planned too much in advance. My mother suddenly decided to visit the city along with one other family and insisted that I come. Even though I have a lot of important projects that I need to finish this month and such a journey didn’t thrill me, I accepted the offer.

And so we went on a 11 hour bus journey from Constanta (Romania) to Istanbul (Turkey). (continue reading…)

One very important choice that you have to make in order to put your web site on The Internet concerns the web host. Commonly, there are three types of hosting plans. I will list them in price order and  will explain the differences. 

(continue reading…)

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.3 degrees on the Richter scale took place earlier today, 25th of April, 2009 – 20:25 EET in Romania. According to media reports it was felt in many regions of my country. I live at the 6th floor of an apartment building and the initial wave almost knocked me of my chair, then the building started to swing and walls wobbled. It lasted around 10 seconds and occurred at a depth of 120KM.

As usual, telephone lines went down and stupid people started to call the emergency number 112 just to ask details about the earthquake, not having any real emergency. So far, there are no reports of damage or any human loss. Of course, the lousy TV stations broadcasting news here are exaggerating it all and low IQ presenters are barely hiding the excitement of a live earthquake behind a dramatic expression.

People are now thinking at possible aftershocks of higher intensity. However, officials are assuring us that this earthquake is not similar to the one that affected Italy on April 7th, 2009.

This subject has been on my mind for a few years now. I’m not a driver yet but I’m going to acquire a driver’s license in June. Since I don’t own a car, I spent some time on the Internet looking for offers, getting an idea on prices and technical characteristics.

The idea of driving a gas powered vehicle doesn’t thrill me. In my opinion, this technology is old and inefficient, it is a technology that should slowly die over the next years, not progress. Of course, the interests in the petroleum industry continue to be very high, which may be a cause for the slow development of cars that use alternative means of propulsion.

Sadly, that’s not the only reason the electric car has such a weak reputation. A simple Google search can confirm that. There are few producers that make this kind of vehicle and most of them are anonymous names. A name that stood up was Tesla Motors who produced the first electric roadster. My question here would be: Why the hell would you start production with a race car? Why would you do that? Ok, it has great capabilities… Take a look at the specifications.

That’s almost a race car. Now, can you guess the starting price? Little over 100,000$. Yeah, who will buy that? Even if your house is made of money bricks and you want something that fast, you wouldn’t throw your money on that. There are cheaper alternatives that run on gas, pollutant gas.

On the other hand, there are the producers that nobody ever heard of. The Internet is full with poorly conceived websites of such makers. They also produce cars way too expensive for their performances. Most of these cars can’t go longer than 50 miles (80 Km) without needing a recharge. The average top speed ranges between 15-40 mph (24-64 Km/h), the power is low, not to mention the design, which doesn’t always resamble a car.

Chevrolet promises their first electric model in 2010. No price yet. Who knows how many digits will it have. In my opinion, car manufacturers with reputation should invest in research for developing an affordable electric car. Wether it will use batteries or hydrogen, it must be cheap for eveyone to afford it. We are running out of petrol. That’s a matter of only a few decades. They should stop working on huge tank-like gas cars that are a disaster to the environment and work on the future.