Made a simple website for local TEDx event, TEDxMaribor, which is held on 2.2.2010 in Maribor. Entrance is free of charge and there were 100 tickets that were all gone in about 10 minutes.

Quick list of speakers include:

• Mercedes Lovrečič, psihiatrinja
• Andrej Detela, fizik in izumitelj, IJS
• Matjaž Kuntner, biolog
• Gregor Veble, vodja razvoja v podjetju Pipistrel
• Matjaž Kek, nogometni selektor
• Mitja Jermol, vodja Centra za prenos znanja, IJS
• Iztok Kramberger, raziskovalec, FERI
• Miloš Horvat, fotograf

Running on WordPress, registration & event management by Eventbrite.

I was planning to get there before the opening, to see how’s the lightning and find some good positions, but unfortunately came there just when they were about to start. Well, they shut the blinds on the windows and turned off half of the main lights so the conditions weren’t really ideal. But anyway, with ISO at 800 and f2.8 I managed to make some nice shots and was quite happy with the outcome (especially depth of field).

After a long use the lens feels rather heavy but at least you have a feeling that you’re holding something.

Here are few samples…

Next time, I’ll try to make few macro shots. I played once with additional (reversed) 50mm/1.8 lens and you get quite a magnification.

They’re in gray scale, 16×16 px size, PNG format with sharp edges. Here’s a preview.

Feel free to use them on both, your personal and commercial projects.

micros_icon_set.zip

At the end, we decided for a popular circle among tourists which starts in Lima and continues to Cusco, Machu Picchu, Puno, Arequipa, Nasca and back to Lima. Everything went pretty much according to the plan. We had a great weather and the whole trip was awesome. We didn’t experience any major altitude problems (most of the trip was on 3000m-4300m), only light headache on first two days. Oh, and we felt  tired just from climbing few stairs. But that’s what 40% less oxygen in the air does to you. :)

Anyway, it took me a while to sort all pics but I finally put them online. Hope you enjoy.

The highest part, 4300m.

Lama overlooking Machu Picchu

Sauce made from mud.

Since the times of Bulleting Board Systems (BBS) the internet was something mystical to me. I started experimenting with a small, pocket sized modem but then my father brought home my first real modem, a 14.4Kbps Zyxel, the size of today’s external hard drives. That’s around 1.6KB per second. Most of the time, due to bad lines and connections, this number was even lower. But hey, everything was text based back then and the biggest apps around were few 100KB anyway. ;)

So, when I stumbled across “Where Wizards Stay Up Late” by Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon and saw a bunch of good reviews, it was matter of seconds and the book was on its way. If you were ever wondering what led to the computer connection back in ’60s, why’s there the @ sign in your email and how the internet was born, then that’s the book for you.

I actually read it well over a year ago but remembered it watching this short animated documentary explaining the major milestones in internet evolution.

Finally, I could say. I’ve been planning to launch my new site for quite some time now. The first date was in November last year cos I put my old site online then, 3 years ago. The next date was on first day of the new year because…well, it’s a new year. :) I was away most of the December so I had to postpone it again. I had the new design ready but didn’t find the time to choose the back-end and make the implementation.

Design…

I actually got the idea for this design when working on some other project. When playing with the layout and different options I kinda deviate from the original plan and somewhere in the middle realized, that this is something really close to what I’ve been looking for. I must say here that I was already thinking back then about redesigning my site but didn’t know yet which style to choose. There’s been, or still is, a trend of going from graphical to more minimalistic, blog-type, style but I’m not a big fan of it. If you’re a designer, let it show. :)

Platform…

After I was more or less satisfied with the looks it was time to choose the engine for the whole site. For a short time I was playing with the idea of using some framework such as CakePHP or Codeignator to make the site from scratch. I quickly realized that doing it this way, would take even more time and the site would never be up. So I decided to try my luck with CMS.

Since my new site is meant to be pretty simple, and that I had a chance to work with it on few of my projects, I’ve chosen the WordPress. There were few changes of the initial look as I was getting to know WP in more detail, but I also got few new ideas out of it.

The site will probably be work-in-progress for some time as I’ll change or add some content later. I put up only the basics and will work on details later, as time permits. Specially the portfolio part which will show only the latest projects for now…with a link to the old site.

Anyway, I hope you like the look and that I can put on some useful content. :)

PS: A big thanks to Elliot Jay Stocks whose advising and help with WP I really appreciates