Preslav Rachev's Blog

My del.icio.us experiment

rachevp — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:01:28 +0000

Yesterday, I was happily surprised by the face lift that del.icio.us has undergone. After facebook (yep, go to new.facebook.com an give it a try), and last.fm, del.icio.us is the third major web 2.0 tools that was redesigned – the key issue again – SIMPLICITY. Anyway, I will analyze this trend in one of my next posts. This time, I will set the beginning of an interesting personal experiment. Every week, I will post a tag cloud based on the popularity of my del.icio.us tags. This will allow me to keep track of my personal preferences with time. Right … here is the first screenshot in the series, thanks to a brilliant piece of web software, called Wordle

This shot clearly shows my laziness – the huge TOPROCESS tag is not a good sign, and I will try to read articles, rather than just stacking them for future reference

Simply Audi

rachevp — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:11:31 +0000

This is the second wallpaper. I tried to achieve the cinematic effect of high speed with the red color, the motion blurs, the panoramic size, and last, but not least, the animated effect of the car.

iDARK

rachevp — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:03:36 +0000

This is the first of a series of wallpapers that I did in a matter of 2 days, being charged with creative energy. Each of them was done using my “Sit-Down-And-Do_It-At_Once” technique. Usually, I will give myself a very limited period of time ( 1hr let’s say), and will try to give my best to produce a finished result in that time. Even when I can’t finish the thing in the time-frame given, I mostly have enough ideas in my head on how to continue. This technique is very good for overcoming the start of every new project. It allows the designer to get concentrated and let the ideas flow on the screen rather than only in his/her mind.

A Promise…

rachevp — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:59:45 +0000

Right, right….

A promise I give to myself … to make sure that I keep my blog as updated as possible from now on. As soon as possible, I will put a separate page for all of my freelance projects and other stuff.

I promise !!!

Blue Dreams

rachevp — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:15:01 +0000

Project #2 – The CakePHP e-Commerce Website

rachevp — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:03:09 +0000

All of the projects that I’m dealing with give me an opportunity to make mistakes, and then learn from them.

Yesterday, for example, I spent almost all of my energy, trying to implement something without a clear idea in mind, and without looking at the API for reference. My time was limited, and I decided to jump straight into the code. I had assumed that if the functionality worked for one group of users, it would work for all of the others, with minor additions to the code…. Two hours later, I got stuck with a code that still worked quite well, but was impossible to extent without major interventions. In a few words, I was in the classic dilemma – whether to use to time to code, or to plan a little bit. Of course, you know the answer.

Project #1 The Ruby Essentials Presentation

rachevp — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:30:03 +0000

On March 27 th, I will start a series of presentations concerning the Ruby language, and its applications (Ruby on Rails mostly ), and as expected, there will be a short workshop on how to build a complex web application in merely 20 minutes. I am doing this as a part of our seminar schedule in the AUBG Computer Science Student Union. CSSU for short is a very nice student initiative where we have weekly student seminars, lectures by prominent figures in the IT industry, or even field trips to software development companies (three weeks ago, we went to the headquarters of Telerik).

What’s more, on my presentations there will be some professors from the Universities Accrediation Agency in Bulgaria, which means that I will have to be more than perfect next week. Therefore, since today, I have started a serious campaign towards refreshing my mind about the language and its applications. I will post my findings here, thus, not only keeping track of my own progress, but also providing some useful information for other people in my situation.

So till next time … stay tuned

Back on Track…

rachevp — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:56:07 +0000

After spending several months away from my last blog, I decided to come back home.

During that time, I a lot of things happened, some were good, others not as much. I am still here, though, full of energy and excitement, willing to start again. I have forgotten what a good system for personal life-tracking blogging is.

Right now I am surrounded with so many projects and ideas that if I don’t start doing it again, I am afraid that I will really miss something.

To summarize it in a few words: I AM BACK ON TRACK.