I have some friends from Florida coming to Bulgaria on Monday! Check back for their reactions to Eastern Europe, where we end up taking them and some pictures of course.

I had a long standing project, it was a Christmas present a year ago for my family. The ideas was simple, and cheap. I just needed to find the right software to run it all. I went through a bunch of them. Some gallery stuff already installed on my web-server, and a few others that I downloaded. The main thing I needed was batch uploading for the photos. I settled on the Coppermine software.

The Review:

Installation was easy. I had a couple hick-ups with the custom style, but once I actually read how to create it, it was a breeze. I had some odd refresh problems in the admin area changing the site settings when I was expanding and collapsing the individual setting groups.

So I finally had everything set up and was ready to upload the pictures. I have to say that I don’t really care for the batch uploading. I had a common bug with the database resizing and making thumbnails for the pictures - it didn’t work, the controls are a little clunky on it, for that matter, the whole admin section is not quite there. I got all my pictures on the site, threw a couple in the different sections of the site and sent an email to my family to get their pictures ready. I spent 4 hours on Skype with my sister trying to get her pictures on the site. Nothing was working for her, a lot of this I later figured out was her computer, but it should not have been that hard. I ended up having to make her a full admin (which is the only type of account that can use batch uploading) and talking her through how to use FTP.

Overall, out of 10 I would give the software a 6. It works, it’s easy and there is a decent amount of information on how to fix any problems you might run across. It has some nice user side functions, and a lot of plug-ins are available for the existing features, and add-ons.

Visit the site: JWD-Photos.com

Walking around Sofia and even small villages, I keep running into these horrible pants. Why. Where did these come from? Why would anyone spend their hard earned money on this?

Is this a fashion in America as well, or are Europeans the only ones blessed with this nightmare? I just don’t understand, I must be getting old. I never thought I would be confused by trends. I never thought what people wore would frustrate me. OK, there are the people seeking attention or trying their best to stand out, and what they do/wear can get out of hand, but this is different. People are trying to be on cutting of fashion with these things. Maybe they are comfortable, they have to be more comfortable than pants that look like they are painted on. That is what I will go with. They are the most comfortable pants that exist. Plenty of room for ‘accidents’ (it even looks like you have already had one), nice and airy and you can still breath while you are wearing them.

My wife loves music. So for her birthday, I went to get her a nice set of those noise canceling headphones. I had an idea of what they should cost me and left with every intention of spending all the money in the budgy. They didn’t have the headphones that I was looking for but they did have a very impressive set of Sony headphones that I ended up getting. They were far shy of what I was going to spend, but I didn’t have any ideas of what else to get her so I was on the way out - money saved. I was standing at the counter, when I noticed a cabinet glowing like a sunrise stocked full of IPods, and thought YES!! this is what she wants. I saw that they looked like 2nd generation IPods, and was a little confused that they were still selling them, but hey, the small ones were only 99 leva. They must be cheap because Apple doesn’t make or support them anymore. What a jerk I am.

She wasn’t at the office yet, and I set up a whole nice display on her desk with the IPod standing up in the box that it came in and her new MONSTER headphones plugged into it. She was thrilled, and immediately began playing with it. Off the bat, everything was wrong. The serial number didn’t match the box. The application didn’t match the manual, and it was an amazing 512MB. No, they don’t make 512MB IPods. We took it back to the store. Let me tell you something about Bulgaria, guarantees, returning merchandise, and refunds don’t work like it does in the States. Most places in America will take your word for it and at least replace whatever it is you bought. Here, not so easy and I don’t think there is a word for refund in Bulgarian. We knew that it wasn’t a real IPod, but my wife didn’t care. It worked, she just wanted something that held more music. The store switched it out no questions asked, and didn’t even ask to see a receipt. This terrified me, I looked around dazed for a hidden camera or a security guard ready to tackle me. In my shock, I left the store. When I got outside my head cleared a little and I took a good look at the new IPod. It had the same serial number as the first one, and Apple was spelled ‘Appls’ on the back. I thought for a second, and realized we would go through their whole stock before we got something that was going to be the right size and worked. So we got our money back after a little griping from the clerk.

The moral: PAY ATTENTION, most of the time it is your fault when you get ripped off.

All is good now. We went to the ‘Appls’ store in Sophia mall and got her a real IPod, it will be a cold day in hell the next time I see her without little white cables hanging from her head, and I couldn’t be happier for it.

There are a few major differences living in Bulgaria as apposed to the US. One that completely baffles me is the lack of closets. Growing up in America, I was never without a closet. Every house/apartment I lived in had a bounty of wonderful closet space, it is even a selling/buying point! I got to Sofia, and there isn’t a closet to be found. Now, I don’t know if closets are just an American thing, I haven’t been around to too many places in Europe yet to see, not even to Canada for that matter. If it is, America got it right with this one.

It is even hard to come by closet ‘accessories’ here. When I met my wife, she had a ton of nice work clothes but only used the paper covered dry cleaner wire hangers…free is hard to argue with I guess. So, being oddly appalled by this, I went out and bought her 3 or 4 dozen plastic hangers from Target, a short drive and $5 later I was a thoughtful man deserving hugs and kisses. I spent 8 leva (roughly $6) here for a set of 5 hangers, and this was after the third store I visited. Crazy. I went so far as to bring an extra suitcase with me on a trip back to America so I could pack it with those wonderfully cheap plastic hangers.

Your closet-less American,
Dave

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