Nice Work If You Can Get It: Developing Websites in Slovakia
At first glance, the homepage of the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava would appear to be the gateway to your average, run-of-the-mill website.
Yet appearances can be deceiving. For this website — for which the kid who mows your lawn on Saturdays or your nephew in Wichita might charge a hundred bucks or so – came with a price tag of over 25,000 euros (or $33,000), according to a report by Slovak daily SME.
The director of the gallery told SME that it was money well spent for the minimally designed site, though many a comment under the article disagreed with that assessment.
Of course, the Slovaks who are footing the bill for the site should be delighted that they got such a bargain. A couple of years ago, their neighbors to the south, Hungary, paid exponentially more for a presence on the worldwide web.
Shuffling Away from Opera 11.60
If you are not one of the top 1%, in fact, if you belong to one of the lower wealth percentiles, as would be the case for anyone who thinks they can earn a living from a website like this, then you know all about doing the “browser shuffle”.
The browser shuffle is a virtual dance performed by anyone too impecunious or miserly to purchase a new computer or upgrade his/her hardware on a regular basis. Its dancehalls are computers clinging to life on limited RAM, memory and other obsolete parts.
As noted, by dint of circumstances, we at Chortler are regular performers of the browser shuffle, on the constant lookout for programs in which to view the World Wide Web with comfort and ease.
Comfort and ease are not the words that leap to mind when using the latest version of Internet Explorer on an antiquated machine, so we shuffled off to Firefox, which soon became more bloated than a couch potato on a trans fat diet.
Undeterred, we switched to Google Chrome, a light and graceful browsing partner at first, but ultimately it would weigh too heavily on the CPU to view even the least cumbersome websites with any degree of speed.
Ergo, we switched to Opera, the best dance partner we have had so far. So good was Opera that we blew kudos its way over the summer.
Sadly, as the masters of the browsing world – a land in which the old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is never uttered – are wont to do, Opera appears to have made an unfortunate upgrade.
A few days into Opera 11.60, and browsing has once again become a misery, with webpages taking ages to load, and forcing us to contemplate either scrounging up enough money to procure a new computer or going offline and reading a book and sending letters by regular post.
About That Blackberry Service: All Bets Are Off
Blackberry services are even money to be down on Monday, according to Ladbrokes.
The British bookmaker is taking bets that long-suffering Blackberry users will have their email and BBM access fully restored in five days time. Odds are 66/1 that the outage lasts until Christmas and a whopping 250/1 that the service stays down when the Olympics hit London next summer.
“The odds don’t look good for Blackberry users. Misery looks set to continue at least until next week,” Alex Donohue of Ladbrokes said.
Finland Triumphs at 2011 World Mobile Phone Throwing Championships
Competitors from the land of Nokia prevailed at the 2011 World Mobile Phone Throwing Championships held in Savonlinna, Finland on August 20.
Finnish contestants beat all challengers to the leaderboard, holding down the top three places in the men’s, women’s and junior competitions.
Oskari Heinonen led the men with a mobile phone throw of 76 meters, followed by Antti Aikio at 75 meters. Ilkka Aaltonen and Janne Mielikäinen shared third spot at 71 meters apiece.
Netta Karvinen dominated the women’s event with a toss of 48 meters, outdistancing her nearest competitor, Marja Olli, by 12 meters. Saara Torpakko finished third at 30 meters.
Junior contestants were led by Muusa Makkonen, 35 meters; Sonja Torpakko, 26 meters; and Moona Makkonen, 20 meters.
The only area the Finns did not control was the freestyle category in which contestants, according to the Mobile Phone Throwing Championship rulebook, receive “points for aesthetics and creative choreographics.”
Australia’s Elaine Jung took home the freestyle prize with 15 points. She was followed by Russians Elaine Mia Zarring, 10 points, and Sergei Mukhamedov, 8 points.
The competition has been held in Savonlinna every year – except one (2008 in Narva, Estonia) – since 2000 as a way for people to release some of the tension the ubiquitous technological devices can cause … and, well, because it can be done.
Contestants are allowed to choose among all kinds of mobile phone brands and models to throw. Each contestant must make two throws within a minute. The longer of the two is measured.
The World Mobile Phone Throwing Championships, August 20
The 2011 World Mobile Phone Throwing Championships are set to take place on August 20 in Savonlinna, Finland.
The coastal city, also famous for its annual opera festival, has hosted the event since 2000.
There are two mobile phone throwing styles for this year’s event: traditional and freestyle.
According to the official website of the competition: “Traditional style ie. over the shoulder throw, where the length of the throw is crucial. In Freestyle the style is free and the contestant gets points for aesthetics and creative choreographics from 4 to 10. In both categories the contestant with the highest score wins.”
The organizers provide each contestant with an official mobile phone used especially for the event.
As for any competitor who might be contemplating the use of performance enhancers, the rules state: “There will be no doping tests. However the jury can rule out the contestant if his/her mental or physical preparedness is not adequate for full a performance. Contestant can also be excluded from the Championships if he/she is considered to be a danger for himself/herself, to other contestants or to the public.”
Competition starts at 3pm and costs 5 euros for individuals, 2 euros of juniors and 50 euros for teams.
