Raul's thoughts

Changes in blog

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:11:09 +0200

I'm merging Estonian and English language blog areas from now on.

I will post in future only in the previous Estonian area.

I'll post everything which could be interesting for foreign friends in English and all local stuff in Estonian.

Visit the blog in http://www.liive.net/et/ from now on.

You can see English only posts on address: http://www.liive.net/et/in-english/.

Dear Mr President

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:15:48 +0200

The talk is short.

Watch the video.

Halina hiding herself from teargas

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:16:01 +0200

Halina is hiding her face from teargas what was 15-30 minutes before we arrived spreaded all over the area by police.

You can see full set of pictures made while being in Athens here.

What's happening?

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:11:50 +0200

Prague Airport in the morning of 20th March.

Whats wrong weatherman? Can we help you to have a winter when it should be and spring when it should be there?

Bought some internet

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:12:16 +0200

Just when wondering around in Athens found a shop in alley street which sold internet. So I bought a good bunch of it for myself also. I hope it will not out date :P

Even 5 stars hotels have bugs

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:06:29 +0200

Found a bug in a 5 star hotel ;).

Two young Belarussian activists harrased by KGB

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:46:38 +0200

Today, day after we left Minsk, two Belorussian activists were asked for an interview in KGB, because they have been meeting with DEMYC delegation members in Belarus.

If you do not know then bare in mind that in Belarus there is dictatorship and you are not allowed to think and make decisions you should be just following what the "big leader" says and be silent.

They will see most probably difficulties or exclusion from university and other "fun" in the life. In addition as worst thing they could face a up to 15 days arrest.

Yuris and Masha keep it up.

Your country will be free sooner or later.

Pictures about Belarus demostrations and more

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:39:41 +0200

I visited Minsk, Belarus for a five days.

Here are some pictures from the trip, including a set of last Thursdays demonstrations on Independence square against new law which harasses small businesses.

Later I will write more detailed post about what I saw and what happened there. There is lot to write about.

Stay tuned.

Skype emoticon on underware!

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 22:42:12 +0200

Thanks to Priidu, who found a picture on Flickr which has a Skype (hug) emoticon on back side of panties. I just can not keep it just to me and I need to share it with others.

So what up next, status icons like do not disturb and available or even SkypeMe?

11 million concurrent users on Skype

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:11:49 +0200

Today 82 days after hurrah for 10 million concurrent users Skype has hit 11 million accounts logged in at the same time.

According to Jean's table it's exactly the same time as it took to get from 8 million to 9.

When we will hit 12 000 000?

Estonia gets 90 years old in 2008

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:53:52 +0200

So this is new year? Most people are giving promises what they will do more or better or what they want to achieve during this year of 2008.

I'm not going to give any of those, but on the other side I would like to share some details why this year is important for my country.

It's time to celebrate.

On 24th of February, it will be 90 years from declaring Estonia as independent nation from foreign powers.

It all happened in short time buffer on 1918, between two occupations, but the real independence was fought out from 1918 till 1920 in War of Independence. You can read more on history from Wikipedia.

Look at the special site dedicated to celebrate a year when Estonia declared itself as independent.

Check out YouTube channel EEESTI which has bunch of short video clips about everyday IT life in here.

To end with funnier tones check out explanatory video on Estonians, though it's has audio in Estonian, but still a good to watch:

Merry Christmas!

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 14:40:05 +0200

I would just like to wish you all joyful and happy Christmas with beloved ones.

Just from my side I have given a gift meal for seventy Cambodian child's.

See the e-card.

Merry Christmas!

Year is coming to an end, some conslusions

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:05:36 +0200

2007 is coming to an end and I try to make some conclusions of the year.

Life

The biggest thing happening would be that I moved month ago to my own apartment. Just a cozy not too big or small place where to stay and be.

Studies in university are going forward, not as well as they could be, but there is constant progress.

I have met and got to know many great persons.

Work

It has been long, hard and successful year.

We at Skype have released during this year four major Windows client versions, two Mac versions and two Linux ones. In addition to this there has been lot hard work on other fields.

In addition to that we had many great events, I took apart Skype's Developer conferences in Prague, Tokyo and Skype Night in London.

Politics

We did a successful parliament elections campaign in the beginning of the year for Ken-Marti Vaher, who got elected to parliament. A big bow in front of everyone in my team.

Our party Pro Patria and Res Publica Union got not so good results from the elections, we won 19 seats out of 101, which is about third less than we had before.

We are currently third largest party in parliament and second largest in coalition with Reform party and Social Democrats.

We have lot of work to do towards next elections in 2009.

On more personal side I have participated actively in international political youth organization work through DEMYC and I also attended EDS Summer University in Ohrid, Macedonia.

I also ran myself on three elections inside our organization, out of which on two I got needed support. On the elections to elect head of one Tallinn district organization I got the honorary second place, but on the other had I was elected audit committee for Tallinn city organization with 360 votes, with most votes. I'm also part of leadership for Young Conservatives Tallinn city organization.

Traveling

During this year I have traveled lot more than on previous years.

More remarkable countries and areas where I have been would be:

Japan
Kosovo
Serbia
Ukraine
Albania
Macedonia
Montenegro

I'm not going to mention here usual locations like Latvia, Finland, UK etc.

In total I have been out of country bit less than 2 months in time wise.

Conclusion

I would say that it has been a busy and successful year, now it is time to take some time off until new year.

Will be working on 2008 to have it even better year than 2007 has been this far.

There is no hill with too steep angle for climbing.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Want to call Santa? Call him with Skype!

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:14:33 +0200

Ho-ho-ho Christmas is coming.

Want have a video call with Santa?

Now you can have it for yourself or for your child.

Check out http://www.santa1to1.com/.

NB! The site has pretty high CPU load.

Is there a bubble in internet business sector?

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 12:59:59 +0200

A short video describing a nowadays internet businesses, especially web 2.0 applications and new startup's.

Is the end of new internet bubble near?