Some time ago I’ve bought “Casino Royale” by Ian Fleming. There was this promo on Amazon, so it cost only 3$ and I’ve said to myself why not. I’ve seen all Bond’s movies already, and liked them a lot (most of them at least), so why not to end this little ignorance and read the book it was based on. So I did. And I liked it, however movie not so much. Daniel Craig as Bond is not for me, and it was more action movie than typical Bond fantasy. I’ve liked the story, the way author written it. The details, like how to play Baccarat or how to make James self-invented drink. Yes, 007 was not always drinking Martini. He had his own drink, and after reading the novel I know why he stopped drinking it. It was intense, movie was shallow. And the best part of this story was that Bond wasn’t a super hero there, he was normal guy (well trained, but still human) with his doubts.

Today I’ve received email from Mozilla that they’ve taken down my add-on. They did that by request from Facebook as trademark infringe claim, because my add-on had Facebook in its name. As to not let the same happen to my text hosting service I’ve changed its name to Text Hoster. I hope that it would be enough as linking to Facebook is really an option for my service, not the main feature.

Recently my favorite book portal (Polish) posted on their Facebook page a question. “Do you prefer to read book first, or maybe watch movie adaptation?”. That made me thinking and my post would be a reply to that question.

I always prefer book, as movie adaptation is always worse. You simply can’t contain 300 pages in 90 minutes, it’s impossible. Something would always be cut. Not to mention that movies often have really invasive producers with their “excellent” ideas how to make particular scene, or entire movie, better. Want an example? Read “Phantoms” by Dean Koontz and you’ll see. Great book and lame movie. Not to mention my favorite example “Dreamcatcher” by Stephen King, where movie stripped entire psychological edge which was core of the book.

Recently I have started using Chrome as primary browser (and I’m happy so far). Because of that I’ve needed to log into my Google account to be able to use Reader and other Google apps. I’ve typed my login and password, but as I’m using 2-step verification I was asked to input a code I should’ve received by sms message. I was trying to log on August 30th somewhere around the noon and was waiting for code to arrive for a good while, then finally gave up and used Printable backup codes (good that I was already authorized on Firefox as I’ve lost this printout). After a while I’ve started receiving Google codes (I’ve tried to repeat login procedure few times). First code arrived on August 31st 1 PM my time (Prague), last one today few minutes ago:) Wow! And what if I would really need to access my Google account as a matter of emergency and wasn’t logged on other machine/browser and lost my Printable backup codes? I would be literally fucked. 2-step verification in login procedure is great for the security, but it must work fast to be useful. Maybe it’s only problem with Europe and Americans got their smses on time, or maybe it’s only my phone/network (T-Mobile). I don’t know, but I’m pretty annoyed.

As LifeHacker hasn’t published my comment, I’m still waiting for verification email to arrive, I’ve decided to write this post. I must admit that I’m a little angry after reading article comparing Office 365 with Google Apps. Actually only one paragraph made me mad, so I would quote it here entirely before I would get to the point:

User Experience
Google Apps v. Office 365 Feature Showdown: Which Should You Use?The way the user interacts with the application suite may be the biggest difference between Google Apps and Office 365. When you use Google Apps, you live in your Web browser. You edit documents and spreadsheets in Google Docs through your browser, you get your email through Gmail, and you chat with colleagues using Google Talk – all in your browser.

Since yesterday I’m a happy subscriber of Office 365 P1 plan. I now have 25 GB Exchange mailbox (using only 0,5 GB), Lync IM (awesome), Sharepoint site (quite useless), and access to Office web apps (which are free anyway). As I’m “half American” I was able to buy it for only 6,38 USD, which is a little less than what I was paying Apps4Rent (6,95). I’m pretty happy with the service, setup went smooth. I was even able to trick O365 a little, so my domain is still managed by my main hosting service, but I have all records as they should be. If you have your domain elsewhere and want to keep it there, but you want to use it for O365 services do as follows:

Few days ago I’ve watched Arthur. As for modern comedy (they’re not making good comedies anymore) it was quite entertaining. I was actually pretty surprised because I don’t like Russell Brand, but in this movie he was quite good. Maybe because he is so similar to character he’s playing, so he wasn’t playing a lot. However I wonder how much of his IRL behavior, which is quite extravagant, is real. Anyway, this picture is entertaining and I don’t feel that I’ve wasted my time watching it, but original Arthur was better. Why? Let me break my answer into points:
1. Object of Arthur’s love.
In the original this role was played by Liza Minnelli, do I really need to say more. In the new version it’s Greta Gerwig and she’s “plastic”, not very pretty, has no charm. Generally I don’t like her. Also I’ve preferred this character to be a shoplifter than unlicensed tour guide. It simply felt better. The story they’ve made up to fool the police was also better in the old one. This new girl just seemed to be more like a wallpaper than a character which is really important to the movie.
2. Arthur’s fiancee
Maybe Jill Eikenberry was not much impressive as Susan, but Jennifer Garner was just awful. Garner has no ability to play with the face, she could be replaced by car crush dummy and nobody would spot the difference. She’s pretty, but it’s not enough. She was not convincing at all.
3. Arthur’s chauffeur
Luis Guzmán was total misunderstanding. I haven’t smiled once on his “jokes”. I believe he and Jennifer Garner attended the same acting classes, if any.
4. Hobson
As I love Helen Mirren, she is in top ten on my list of favorite actresses, I must say that John Gielgud was more convincing as a nanny. And I think that a man was better choice for this character. When in original movie Hobson was dying I’ve felt really sad, now it was just a glimpse of a feeling. Also connection between Arthur and Hobson felt stronger in the old movie.
5. Absence of grandmother
Where is Arthur’s grandmother?! She added depth to original movie and Arthur felt more legit when you saw that he has his insanity in blood.

I’ve read very interesting text about 3D movie projectors used by cinemas and how bad security design led to worse end-user (viewer) experience. You can find full text here. But I want to write about something I’ve recalled after reading this text.

Few years ago I was working at call center for major Polish telecom (TP SA). I was help-desk for ADSL service called Neostrada. We were divided into two groups:

Today I’ve read about Financial Times launching their HTML5 based app (instead one for iPad only) to deliver their content. Good move as it means access for more people. But it’s not what I want to write about today. I wish Wired would do the same. I love this magazine, however to buy it in shop here (Europe) it costs around 12$ per issue, international subscription is better, but still it’s 75$ a year. They have iPad app with annual subscription for 20$, which is acceptable, but you must have iPad. And I don’t want to have iPad! I hope that they would follow Financial Times soon, possible profits should be best incentive. We’ll see.

Well, actually not. But as I’m a fan of Bruce Schneier and TED I’ve wanted to do something to support them. So I’ve translated subtitles for Schneier’s talk about Security Mirage into Polish. And reviewer needed to fix only few issues, mainly punctuation:)