http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/ theodore karkoulis blog feed en http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=147 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=147 Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:49:48 +0300 So heres a nice tip on how to make your cold coffee even more enjoyable and nice. Credit goes to Giannis Mavropoulos a.k.a. Morheus :-) You make the cold coffee of your choice (frappe is better) with very cold water, ice etc. Make sure you mix a lot to make the whole thing as thick as possible. Add cold water and you're done! Now, if you're getting ready to drink it, don't! put it in the freezer for half an hour. Then take it out and enjoy! Freezer gives it this extra coolness that makes it really nice. Have a nice summer! http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=141 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=141 Fri, 28 May 2010 12:41:14 +0300 I am going to update this website with nice new content soon. My CV will also be changed to todays data etc. I hope i have the time soon enough, to deal with this. Even though, living here in Greece, I suspect we will have too much free time on our hands, soon... We wont have any work to do anyway, nor any money to spend. http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=103 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=103 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:47:36 +0200 ... And a Happy New Year! :-) http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=88 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=88 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:32:09 +0300 I had the live chat neglected for a bit, but now its back and i will be online most of the times. So if you would like to drop me a line, please do! I will answer as soon as i can. I would also like to thank my good friend Yiannis Alefantou for being here the other day, and filled me with hope again. Yianni, I will continue fighting for the thing we talked about, and we'll see where that will go. Thank you for showing me other alternatives so that I can correct my own mistakes! :) http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=87 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=87 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:45:06 +0300 ... and glad i did too! I was getting weary of having to manage drupal myself, in order for my blog to work. Now, here, all i have to do is post stuff, and the rest, i don't care about because the Chef manages everything for me!!! :) http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=86 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=86 Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:46:33 +0300 Inevitable, isn't it... On the other hand, winter allows people to work more efficiently (ok lets not generalize. It allows ME to be more efficient because during summer i end up being at the beach all day). So this winter there's loads of work to be done! From iPhone apps to ThemeChef evolution to ending and starting some new projects. I maintain 3 websites now (which this, my blog, a bit neglected - :( ). www.re-compile.com is our "corporate" website, where we are being projected as a team etc. www.themechef.com which is our DIY website application. my blog ... and i might be forget http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=81 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=81 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:31:51 +0300 Ever worked on something for too long and after long nights and lots of work you think "mmm yes, this project will end soon, i reckon sometime next week"? Then it will go all wrong, and you will find that all the bugs that wouldn't reveal themselves till that time, will be detected during the last week. Also when you _think_ that you are in the last development week, you are bound to remember things that need implementation but you decided to "save for later". So nothing really ends without working till the early morning hours during the last weeks, eh? http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=85 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=85 Thu, 21 May 2009 14:08:31 +0300 Why does the client have to pay big amounts of money in order to get a website? In most cases is a template and the developers just copy and paste modules without much effort. A revolutionary application comes to change all that. Yes, the client could just set up a drupal cms and be done with it. But what if the client doesnt know how to use these packages? The new application will allow anyone, and when I say anyone, i mean anyone, to create fully dynamic websites, with gallery and blog support, ajax navigation and themeing support, in just 10 clicks. There is no physical work from the http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=84 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=84 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:55:49 +0300 So heres another loss for Apple, at least for me. I had a nice MacBook Pro which seemed to work great until its NVidia display decided to overheat. Known issue, you say. Indeed. Apple will replace it for free. So it has been. I took it there, they saw it and 2 weeks later it was ready. They insisted on sending the package instead of me going there to get it. Very well, i thought. When it arrived it was in a delivery box, the ones made from really hard paper, foam inside, then my carrying case and the laptop in the case. But the laptop was messed up really. Scratches, bends and so on. Of http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=83 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=83 Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:52:15 +0200 Well, converting to various formats isn't easy. DVD Authoring is dead easy on the other hand. I have tried DeVeDe (http://www.rastersoft.com/programas/devede.html) a few years back and it would crash before it even turned itself on. But things changed, and the 1st time i used the latest version, i created a DVD video disk from a .avi file. So far, so good! Second problem was to embed (for various reasons) my greek subtitles into the .avi file. That is still a problem to be honest. I use this command: "transcode -i input.avi -x mplayer="-sub subfile.srt -utf8 -subfont-text-scale 3" -o ou http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=82 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=82 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:47:51 +0200 This post was deleted as i was writing it so... I will just go through it quickly... I couldnt boot my external USB HD from Mac bios because it wants to be given Firewire external media. I had an external firewire dvdrom which i wanted to use for instalation drive (oh yeah, superdrive never works). No PSU (power supply unit) though. That could mean only one thing. i had to make one myself. After testing and thinking, i came up with a design for a custom inlet for power for the drive, which i made using those little wires we use to tie cables together... and a PC PSU which produces the cor http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=80 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=80 Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:07:49 +0200 Day 4. The centre of Athens, spiritual capital of the Ancient world, the CREATOR of democracy itself, lies in ruin. Nothing will bring back Alexis, the 15 year old boy who never asked for all this. Nothing will bring him back to his family and friends. If we could ask his parents, in this time of mourning, would they approve of this behaviour? The answer is obvious, they wouldn't. How can you find comfort when, in the name of your departed boy, Athens is at a sort of war? There was a very touching by students, when they offered flowers to policemen. That is a REAL protest. The meaning of http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=79 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=79 Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:27:35 +0200 Once again, Athens is burning. The foreign press say quite a lot of things about this, and if you want my opinion, is not as bad as they tell the foreign people... its much, much worse. You see, the leading spiritual show biz trash tv idols here in greece, they provoke young people to be "rebels" because its "cool" and because its become "trendy" nowadays. So what happens is kids and students are raised believing that is so much FUN, burning half a city, and that this is their way of life. And dont think these people were enraged by the murder of the 15 yo kid. The murder of the poor kid http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=78 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=78 Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:50:49 +0200 Aftenergo, a school with European standards, here in Greece, has just had their website finished and published. URL: www.aftenergo.gr Platform: Drupal 5.x Hosted @ Codex O.E. (www.codex.gr) Created by ... me! Using drupal and other modules to bring a cutting edge website that never before a school has ever had, not here at least! Student log in, private sections to download educational material created by the school Teachers, Teachers lounge, publications, News, Activities, polls for both students and parents, and many more features! http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=77 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=77 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:34:35 +0300 You thought only Disney or Dreamworks can create great animation films? Think again! Open-source software now allows us to do this! Big Buck Bunny movie is a new open-source movie, like the older Elephants Dream, created using Blender3D, which runs on windows/linux/solaris/macos etc etc. Open-Source enters yet another industry! :-) http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=76 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=76 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:46:12 +0300 Here's how: You need to use cookies to propagate the language variables Can also use _GET[] variables but thats extra effort You read the cookie at the top of each page Set it to your default language of preference if you dont find any variables set for this purpose Load your language file Example: We have 2 .php pages: index.php and the language file en.php ( *language-prefix*.php) Heres the code for index.php:   session_start(); // start the session    if ( !$_SESSION['cook_language'] && !$_GET['lang'] )     $_SESSION['cook_language'] = 'en'; http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=75 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=75 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:25:43 +0300 It is true, im afraid. Been wondering what was wrong with this drupal theme (zubrick, http://www.drupal.org/project/zubrick) that i ported to Drupal 6.x. It just wouldnt display a transparent .png correctly. Safari, Firefox etc of course, display it correctly without problems. Explorer, of course, didn't. Therefore I had to switch to transparent .gif to make it work. I don't exactly know what the problem with explorer was, all i know though is that it couldn't render the transparency of PNG correctly. Change your transparent images to GIF then, if you want them to be displayed correctly i http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=74 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=74 Sat, 24 May 2008 21:22:11 +0300 Just finished upgrading an old work of mine, http://www.andromeda-pension.com New version Improvements (read on...): Div-ified (was tabled before) Uses jQuery effects (better than flash) Added lightbox Gallery Added guestbook Updated photographs (by Thomas Tzadimas) Updated Texts & Search Engine code Thats all for now, most updates to come! Enjoy the attic if you plan on visiting, very good stuff, without the usual attic monsters. Get a glimpse here! (demo version not to be online for long) http://www.andromeda-pension.com/ http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=73 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=73 Wed, 21 May 2008 18:17:31 +0300 I had a website that was full of validations etc, and used strtotime to get user input for dates and make the timestamp. All was well till i uploaded to the live server, where it didnt work at all! Hotel bookings for 10 days were suddenly 2257 days and users had to pay 380000euro for accomodation fees ! :-) changed to mktime and string split() to make it work. Any ideas why that happened? http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=72 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=72 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:57:17 +0300 I was asked to create a checkout form (and a big one too) for a conference website, which will be a booking sort of form, with hotel reservations, dinners etc. Its gonna be a custom form though, since its that complex. After validating and the user confirming their checkout, they will be taken into eurobank's secure payment center to pay, and then return back to the report page. It will need MySQL, PHP, an Apache server (http/https), and a basic admin interface for the people managing the whole thing. The times are extremely short, extreme pressure etc, but we'll make it ! -- UPDATE 4.25pm http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=71 http://www.theodorekarkoulis.com/?pageID=bg::31&blogItem=71 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:20:44 +0300 Just finished development of www.zephyros-apartments.gr, a website for a small hotel in a seaside village near Nafplio, called Kiveri. The website is set up using Drupal 5.x, using a nice theme which was altered to cover the needs of the client. Google maps embedded in there as well, some Ajax galleries, and multilingual content. Not a big project itself, but a quality one.