Ilyia Kaushansky

Essential Applications - Mozilla Firefox - An alternative to Internet Explorer. Firefox is more secure, faster, but most importantly - it's plug-in architecture allows the browser to be extended in some very powerful ways. - Vim - Text editor for programmers. I still do most of my coding in Vim. It doesn't have as many programmer friendly features as many popular IDEs such as IntelliJ, Eclipse, Visual Studio and others, but it's blazingly fast. And that's why I still use it. - Miranda - Universal instant messenger. Why install MSN, AIM, Yahoo IM, Gtalk, ICQ, when you can install Miranda and talk to anyone who uses any of the above IM clients ? (To be quite honest, ever since Google integrated chat right into Gmail, I don't really run Miranda either. Most of the people I talk to have Gmail accounts, and so Gmail chat is sufficient most of the time). Essential Firefox Extensions - ScrapBook: Save web-sites on local drive for offline viewing - IE View Lite:...

First it was Leninade , and now it's Borsch : Google cafeteria never ceases to surprise me ! Borsch is a soup we often used to eat back in "the mother Russia", but it's not every day(or should I say every year), that you get to eat Borsch here (unless it's a Russian restaurant, your wife is fresh out of Russia, or you still live with Russian parents). So imagine my surprise when I come in to work in the morning, and see a fresh bowl of Borsch just waiting to be eaten. And so I did! Cool!

Lately, whenever I want to look up information on a famous person, a city, or any other known entity my first destination is Wikipedia . Gotta love that resource ! I just wish Google and other search engines would rank Wikipedia entries higher. Not only would the users be redirected to great information, but that would also spark more additions to Wikipedia. After all, Wikipedia is created by users like you and me (all information on Wikipedia is entered and edited by simple users), and so the more people know about it(and understand how it works), the more people edit Wikipedia, and so it becomes more accurate and bigger.

Last weekend(March 4th) I went to New York for a Paul van Dyk party. The whole thing was a little nuts: I arrived in New York at 8PM saturday, partied, chilled with friends, and was back in SF late Sunday night. Sleep wasn't on the agenda. The party was pretty good, though I think I'm starting to grow out of Trance. Paul van Dyk played a really good set(he was on for 6 hours), but I wasn't really feeling it. By the end the set, I actually wanted to leave, and that doesn't happen very often. Nevertheless, I thought the trip was a success. I got to see friends whom I haven't seen in a while(they made the trip from Toronto), so overall I'm very happy.

For those who may not know, you can now upload your videos for free to Google Video , and then "embed" them on your web page. Here is a short video clip that taken back in May 2005. Shortly after graduation, a few of us gathered in a park and burned our university notes. This is what came out.

This saturday I went to see house legend Danny Tenaglia spin a 12 hour set at Ruby Skye nightclub here in San Francisco. I have to say that I was entirely unimpressed. The guy is over rated. The best part of the night was the fact that the bar was reopened at 6AM.

Today I realized how poor are my writing skills when it comes down to writing with a pen on a piece of paper. I was trying to write an address on an envelope, and it turned out to be surprisingly difficult. I might even say it was irritating and frustrating writing those few lines of text. Then I thought to myself: how often do I get to write using a pen these days? The answer startled me: virtually never ! Is writing on paper becoming obsolete ? The second skill( first is reading ) that we are taught at school is turning out to be useless ! I wonder how long it's gonna take before writing with a pen is no longer taught at school ?

First it was Apple offering downloadable copies of past TV shows($1.99/episode), and now it seems that TV networks CBC and NBC are following up , and offering past shows for $0.99/episode(those aren't exactly downloadable, but instead can be viewed on Comcact On Demand.) I think this is a great step forward ! While currently they only offer recent show, I can imagine that sometime soon we'll be able to download pretty much any show that ever aired on TV and this really excites me !

Halloween - what a great holiday ! I wish people were wearing fun costumes everyday ! Not only is it extremely funny seeing supermen, witches, policewomen, pirates, etc., but also every everybody looks different. Anyways, I think Halloween is my favourite holiday right now...

I've just finished watching first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm , a popular sitcom produced by Larry David(who is most known for being a producer of Seinfeld). I have to say that I was pretty impressed. The show is really funny, not as funny as Seinfeld, but somewhat more realistic. A+ !

So this weekend I went to Seattle to see my friends Alex and Diego , who I know from the good old times at the University of Waterloo. Seattle turned out to be a better city than I expected (excluding the fact that there are way too many Microsofties in there, sorry Diego). The nightlife in Seattle is vibrant, with a great selection of clubs, lounges, and social pubs(ala Bomber at Waterloo). Recently I became more of a lounge fan, and I think Seattle offers a little more choice in that respect than San Francisco. During daylight hours we've explored the city, visited a nice park, and checked out a Boing museum, which was the highlight of the trip. It's been a while since I've been to a museum, let alone a very interesting one. This one was definitely great; it houses a lot of different airplanes from different times of the century - it was very cool seeing them from up close.

I'm going to Settle this weekend to visit my friends, who have recently moved there from Canada. Should be a very fun weekend !

Unbelievable, Absolutely Unbelievable ! This year's Love Parade was even bigger, more fun than last year, and the weather could not have been any better! Tens of thousands of people dancing and going absolutely nuts to the variety of musical styles(all electronic), anything from House to Trance to Drum'n'Bass. The parade started at 1PM at 2nd and Market St, and then proceeded to the Civic Center. As last year, during the parade I was following the Psy Trance float with an Indian DJ. That was the float to be at - crazy beats and people did not hold back when it came to dancing, jumping, smiling and just enjoying themselves to the fullest. Great energy ! The parade concluded at the Civic Center around 3PM, and turned into a giant party. So huge, in fact, that I don't even think we ever covered the entire ground. (lesson learnt: never try to meet-up with people during such big parties. It's nearly impossible, especially considering the fact that cell phones practically...

YES. YES. YES ! If Love Parade 2004 was any indication, this year's one should be off the hook ! With DJs such as Carl Cox, Paul van Dyk, Above & Beyond, Ferry Corsten and many many others the DJ line-up is absolutely phenomenal by North American standards. I recommend everyone to attend this. Fun times are guaranteed !

I recently bought Joel's Spolsky's latest book Best Software Writing, which is a collection of software related essays written by various authors over the past few years. It is a pretty good read, though not as good as Joel's earlier book . One essay that has I especially liked is called Closing the Gap, Part 1 , by Eric Sink. It is available online free of charge, and I highly recommend reading it. It is an easy read, very humorous, and highly educational.

Went to my first Russian party in San Francisco yesterday. I have to say that I was impressed. The club was really nice( which was a surprise - many nightsclubs in San Francisco look like dumps compared to clubs in Toronto ), the music pretty good( mostly Russian dance and house ), and there were lots of great looking women. People were well dressed, and smiling which couldn't be said about Russian parties in Toronto. I got the impression that Russians in San Fran have adapted much better to local lifestyle than Russians in Toronto. Overall I really enjoyed the night, and I think will be attending more of these parties in the future.

All I can say is WOW . I'm not generally a big fan of house music, but this set has not left my playlist for the past month or so. 2.5 hours of dark, dirty, electro house; incredible ! Here is the tracklist: 01. Pastaboys - Tribute 02. Audiofly - Science Fiction 03. Vintagent - Rock N Roll 04. Dj Marbrax - Freakin 05. Tiga - Louder Than A Bomb 06. ID 07. Beginerz pres Def E - Wipe Those Tears Away (Vocal mix) 08. Steve Lawler - Illectronic Music (Vocal mix) 09. Mark Knight + Martijn Ten Velden - Acid Test 10. Mylo - Destroy Rock N Roll (Tom Neville mix) 11. Motel - Feel The Rhythm 12. Trophy Twins - Anarchism (Disciples of Sound & Kid Lopez mix) 13. Funky Green Dogs - Reach For Me (Steve Lawler mix) 14. Tommie Sunshine - Head To Toe In Drag 15. T-Total - Give Me Funk 16. Didier Sinclair and Chris Pie - Heavenly (Sharam Jey Club mix) 17. Max Linen - Flashback (D Ramirez mix) 18. Boombox - The Slam 19. Live Element - Dont Bring Me Down 20. ID 21. ID 22. God...

As you may know I arrived in California on July 27th, 2005. But what you may not know, is that today, on August 13th, 2005 was the first time that I prepared food on the territory of the United States. The natural question would be - "What did you cook?" The answer is simple: a hot dog.