Rigas Parathyras Blog

Olive picking weekend

2008-11-07T21:37:00.004+02:00

November is the start of the olive picking season in Greece and having olive fields in Chalkidiki, me and my family are also involved in this. This year I invited more people to come volunteer and participate in the olive picking. Marco from the Netherlands, Heloise from France, Cam from Australia, Fam from Norway and Dimitris from Greece joined me, my sister Villy and my mother in the olive picking process. The weather helped in making it more enjoyable as it was unusually warm and sunny.

Okido Yoga Workcamp

2008-07-23T09:50:00.004+02:00

The second SCI workcamp I have ever participated in was once again in the Netherlands. It was in a center for a special kind of Yoga, Okido Yoga, in Laren, Gelderland. I was very excited right from the beginnng when I expressed my interest to become a coordinator of the workcamp in a meeting of VIA (the dutch brunch of SCI where I am active in). I thought it would be a unique experience, especially as I would get to know more about a different culture and way of life.

14 volunteers, all from different countries and from different age groups were there. Jasmin from Uk, who had been in the center 15 years ago was coordinating our work, Donja from Netherlands and me from Greece were workcamp coordinators, Rita from Australia, who had introduced the center to SCI, Mojca from Slovenia, Peg from US, Sabina from Croatia, Leena from Finland, Slavo from Poland, Damiano from Italy, Merve from Turkey, Anita from Austria, Sanna from Sweden and Sarah from Ireland. Mizue from Japan was responsible for the center and Yoga classes and Yunko was our great cook and massage specialist.

We had a great time during the workcamp doing garden work and , but also learned many things: ways to take care of our body, do exercises the right way, Shiatsu massage, health, nutrition, eastern culture and food. The work in the garden we were mostly busy with was also interesting, as we saw innovative ways of recycling material, making compost, creating brick steps, doing cement work, and making a pond and a little hill. But most importantly we got to know new people plus did many things together including the trip to Amsterdam and Zutphen, playing games, dancing with locals and sitting around the fire in the evening and a bicycle trip that I missed.

A report about the workcamp in the local newspaper (in Dutch)

With Couchsurfing on German TV (RTL)

2008-01-21T22:06:00.000+02:00

I have been participating since May 2007 in Couchsurfing an internet community for hosting people and being hosted. Through this amazing community I got the chance to get to know many people from all over the world.
One interesting experience I had was participating in the creation of a short reportage for the German TV Channel RTL prepared by Mirjam. I hosted Ulf from Köln in my house in Amsterdam and was filmed.

Other couchsurfing Videos:
Mega Channel Morning show (Greek)

Me and cycling

2007-09-27T22:53:00.001+02:00

As most of my friends know, my relationship with cycling is quite special. Many Greeks consider it weird that I was using it as my main means of transport in Athens. I was also participating at Podilates cycling community in order to promote cycling as a means of transport in Athens.
I was also very excited when Evridiki asked me to contribute with a mini-interview (pdf) at Kathimerini's weekly magazine "K" in her article on Cycling in Greece. (also available in English)
Having moved to Amsterdam, a paradise for cyclists, I decided to start a "Cycling Report from Amsterdam" blog (in greek) in order to communicate things I see here that might be interesting for the greek cyclists. Stay tuned...

Moving to Amsterdam

2007-09-01T00:37:00.000+02:00

This is my last week in Athens. In 10 days from now I ll be living and working in Amsterdam. I am not sure I have realized that. I am flying on September 11th - watch out terrorrists! Don't ask me how long I 'll stay, time will show. I feel excitement for the new life but melancholy for what I am leaving behind, mixed with some stress for the last minute arrangements.

Sifnos, Folegandros, Antiparos, Amorgos

2007-08-21T01:31:00.000+02:00

This year I had the chance to visit 4 islands in Cyclades, Greece (Sifnos, Folegandros, Antiparos, Amorgos) as well as pass by 3 more (Naxos, Paros, Despotiko). Here are some tips if you are interested to visit them.
Sifnos: Accommodation and bike/car transport is hard to find at high season. Be prepared and book in advance. Nightlife is lively with many bars for most tastes. Watch out for a great sunset at the port.
Folegandros: The camping is nice and quiet even on August 15th. Don't miss the great beaches Katergo and Aghios Nikolas as well as the paths that lead to them (alternatively you can reach them by boat). The main village (chora) is cute and cozy. If you 're lucky as I was, you might run into the festival with live music in the main square.
Antiparos: The cave is very fascinating, 90m deep in the ground. Boat trip to Despotiko island nearby is a must there are some surprises on the boat waiting for you as well as a great sandy beach. The camping is noisy, cool and funky. Having a vehicle of your own (bike is all right) will help to explore the island.
Amorgos: You will enjoy it if you like calmness, . The whole island is about views but the view from the monastery is amazing! The beach of Mouros is probably one the best ones I have ever seen: Great waters and so many caves you can swim from one to another. Distances are quite large and a car might be more preferable than a bike. There are also many paths for walkers: There is a path practically to every place on the island. The main village is also cozy, traditional and not too touristic.

For SCI Hellas on TV

2007-08-12T00:58:00.000+02:00

Greek newspaper TA NEA included recently an article titled "Getting to know the world through volunteering" which included experiences from Greek volunteers volunteering abroad including me (pdf)! I talked about my participation in a cultural workcamp in Nijmegen, the Netherlands some years ago through SCI .
Other journalists found the idea interesting and I was given the chance to talk in the National Greek Television NET which made a similar report on this in the central news, interviewing 2 volunteers and the coordinator of SCI Hellas, as well as SKAI (ΣΚΑΙ) Television which invited me, representing SCI Hellas to a morning show to talk about volunteering.

Tips for FOP Upgrade 0.20 to 0.93

2007-06-18T18:24:00.000+02:00

Apache FOP is a great tool for converting FO documents (that can be produced from XML or XHTML documents) to PDF and other formats. FOP is still not in a stable version but was rewritten and its current version is 0.93. The article below describes how existing java applications that use FOP 0.20 can be upgraded to use FOP 0.93. The things described below are only a part of what should be changed in this upgrade.
Time Consuming: Before you go ahead and do the upgrade, make sure that you have the necessary time to do the changes and to test. Almost all possible parts have changed, so you should expect to work several working days in order to do this upgrade. The process is quite difficult to revert, as many parts are involved, so it is recommended that you do a branch in your versioning system.

Upgrade Process:

Download latest jars

First of all you have to download the new version of FOP. Note that most jar files have changed. The fop.jar has also changed, althought the jar name is not versioned. This means that your project's ant files for compiling and deploying as well as your IDE's libraries and Manifest files have to be updated to use the new jar files. Also make sure that old fop.jar is deleted from your system's build directories, in case your build process does not overwrite it.

Embedding API Changes

The API for calling the FOP has changed a lot. The call to create a pdf is now a JAXP call. The old code uses the Driver and class which have been removed in the new API and been replaced with the Fop and FopFactory classes.
Tip: Although the above lines taken from the FOP website mean that you can run FOP with any parser, I would recommend using the Apache xalan transformer.


TransformerFactory factory = new TransformerFactoryImpl(); // gets xalan transformer
//TransformerFactory factory = TransformerFactory.newInstance(); // gets a default

FOP Configuration Changes

The new configuration in FOP is also quite different. It basically gives the extra option to add a configuration for each rendering engine.
When configuring FOP programmatically in java the classes for Configuration and Options have been removed in the new API.
The distinction between the base url and the font base url is also clearer. It is important that the font base url does not have the file:/// prefix (this worked without it in FOP 0.20), but for base url it is not necessary.
Another important change is the introduction of the user agent. An application can have one FopFactory but many UserAgents. The base url should be set for the user agent as well. The nice thing about it is that it supports setting document properties, such as keywords, author, etc that would otherwise had to be set with iText or other pdf post-processing tool.
Tip: Fop has as default the option "strict". Set this option to false (at least when starting testing Fop 0.93 for the first time), so that it does not throw Exceptions when it finds syntax that is not correct
fopFactory.setStrictValidation(false);

Font Changes

The xml fonts glyphs have to be recreated with the latest version of FOP. In case you foget this step, you will get a quite descriptive error that your font xml files are of an oder FOP version. There is also some new API to do this compilation on the fly, rather than referencing a static fonts glyph xml file.

Supported Features

This is the most difficult part. After all this you have to see if the fo files that you were using to create pdfs don't throw any errors and that they actually produce the same result. The best starting point for this is the FOP compliance page. It is important to note that not all features of FOP 0.20 are supported in FOP 0.93! I will mention some important blocking things that I have used, which are only a part of the things that one should be looking at.

Fop 0.93 throws an error if there is a <fo:inline> element outside a block type element (list, table, block), so make sure these are removed in the fo.
Empty table rows (without table columns) are not allowed.
When there are invalid attributes in elements, they should better be removed.
The bookmarks have changed completely: The fox extension used for pdf bookmarks in 0.20 is replaced by a neat bookmark tree in 0.93 where multiple levels of bookmarks are also supported

AJAX Photo Album

2007-06-06T12:17:00.001+02:00

Use this script to create a simple photo album in your site. This photo album uses technologies like AJAX, XML, Javascript. It stores the names of the photos neatly in an external XML file and it can be easily customized. Take a look at this preview and see how I use it on my photos page to get a visual idea about how it works.

Features

AJAX: It has the concepts of AJAX and dynamic HTML so it therefore when navigating, it does not load the whole page but only the parts that change.
Bookmarkable URLs: Use of url with hash so that every page that is viewed is bookmark-able. A bookmark can be created that points to specific albums or images.
Back button: Use of browser's back and Forward button is supported, since URLs can be bookmarked!
Albums: Ability to group the photos in albums that have their own title.
Paging: In case an album has a lot of photos, they are shown in different pages, so that the user does not have to scroll a lot to see the whole album in the browser. The user can configure how many photos will be displayed per page.
Photo Pre-loading: While an image is viewed, the next image to be viewed is preloaded, so that it takes zero time to load when navigating to it. When an album is viewed, its images are also preloaded while the user is viewing a picture.
Thumbnails: There is the option to use a separate folder to store the thumbnails.
Photos Configuration: The photo's file names as the description of the photos are stored in an XML file externally.
Script Configuration: The script parameters are easily configurable in a separate file.
Slide-show: Option to show the photos in slide-show mode.
Browser Compatibility: The script has been tested in Firefox 2, 3 and Internet Explorer 6, 7

Instructions - How to use it

Download the zip package (370kB) and extract it to a desired folder. This contains the html and script files as well as some sample configuration and images to get you started.
By opening the file photos.html the photo albums are displayed. The user can navigate between the albums by pressing the Next and Prev buttons. By clicking on a photo, the album is in photo mode and the navigation is now between the photos of the album. There is also the option for slideshow.
Add the photos you want to display in the directory photos*. A recommended photo size would be length 500px. The photos should have the extension .jpg.
Add the thumbnails of the photos to the directory thumbnails*. A recommended thumbnail size would be length 120px. The thumbnails should have the same name as the photo and have the prefix th_*. For example for a photo named me.jpg, the thumbnail should be th_me.jpg.
Edit the photos-sample.xml* file by grouping your photos in albums and specifying a description for every album and every photo. Use the name attribute for the photo to specify the photo's file name (without the .jpg extension).

* These are configurable in the photos-sample-config.js file.

Therapy? Live in Athens

2007-05-16T19:17:00.000+02:00

It was nice seeing a band I was very fond of a decade ago playing live in Athens, Gazi. I thought they would be too old for a gig and play all their songs in acoustic versions, but all the songs they played including Diane really rocked. As expected songs from Troublegum like Screamager, Die Laughing and Nowhere received massive enthousiasm from the crowd. Other favourite songs I like but of course were not played are Opal Mantra and Bowels of live.

The Killers - Mr Brightside (Remix)

2007-04-21T19:31:00.000+02:00

Crazy about this song, although not sure what it is about

Αστυνομική Βία

2007-04-19T00:17:00.000+02:00

Τους τελευταίους μήνες ακούμε όλο και πιο συχνά διάφορες ιστορίες για τη βία που προκαλείται από την ίδια η αστυνομία σε θύματα σε πορείες και διαμαρτυρίες. Αν και είμαι κατά των ταμπελών, είναι πλέον δύσκολο να πιστέψουμε οτι οι αστυνομικοί που προκαλούν τα περιστατικά αυτά είναι οι εξαιρέσεις, ενώ πλέον διαφαίνεται οτι υπάρχει και κάποια πολιτική σε αυτό, δηλαδή οτι το ψάρι βρωμάει από το κεφάλι. Ελπίζω ο συνάδερφος μας ο Τάσος, που υπέστη έναν άγριο ξυλοδαρμό από αστυνομικούς στο χωριό του να είναι το τελευταίο θύμα αυτής της κατάστασης.

Dear Vivodi customer service!

2006-11-30T13:18:00.000+02:00

Dear Vivodi customer service!

Δεν ξέρω αν φταίνε οι υπηρεσίες σας ή είμαι απλά ένας άτυχος πελάτης αλλά η απογοήτευσή μου για τις υπηρεσίες σας με ώθησε να κοινοποιήσω τις εμπειρίες μου. Please read on...

Ίσως να φταίει οτι κάναμε κακή αρχή. Μου είπατε οτι θα μου συνδέατε το δίκτυο σε 20 εργάσιμες και τελικά μου ήρθε σε 3 μήνες. Αλλά δεν πειράζει, περασμένα ξεχασμένα.
Eίχα κατά καιρούς διάφορα μικροπροβληματάκια: τη μια είχα δίκτυο (και τηλέφωνο) και την άλλη μου κοβόταν και μου ξαναερχόταν σε 3 μέρες. Είχα συνηθίσει όμως και δεν παραπονιόμουν. Μια φορά που μου κόπηκε για 10 μέρες είπα να σας ειδοποιήσω και μετά κόπων και βασάνων μου φτιάχτηκε – εγώ δεν ειδοποιήθηκα ποτέ οτι φτιάχτηκε απλά το συνειδητοποίησα μια μέρα που έφτασα σπίτι και είδα το λαμπάκι αναμένο!!
Zήτησα εκείνη τη φορά να μου αφαιρεθεί από το λογαριασμό αναλογικά το ποσό που αντιστοιχεί στις μέρες που δεν είχα σύνδεση στο δίκτυο. Μου είπατε θα το κάνατε σε κάποιον επόμενο λογαριασμό – σε ποιον ακριβώς, το μέλλον θα δείξει.
Η σύνδεση συνέχισε να είναι κακή αλλα, για να λέμε και του στραβού το δίκιο, το διάστημα που δεν είχα δίκτυο ήταν μόνο για λίγα λεπτά. Απλά μιλούσα στο τηλέφωνο με τη φίλη μου, κοβόταν η γραμμή και την ξαναέπαιρνα σε λίγο.
Κάποια μέρα ξανα άρχισα να μην έχω Internet για 3 συνεχόμενες μέρες. Η περίοδος συνέπεσε με την περίοδο που όλοι λέγαν οτι οι γραμμές τις Vivodi αναβαθμίζονται και τετραπλασιάζεται η ταχύτητα! Ουάου!! Εγώ παρόλα αυτά είχα μηδενική ταχύτητα.
Τελικά με έχει καταραστεί ο Θεός γιατί σαν να μην έφταναν όλα αυτά μου κάηκε το μόντεμ! Ήρθα από την εταιρία σας και μου δώσατε άλλο και μου είπατε οτι θα παίζει αν το συνδέσω με Ethernet. Τζίφος.
Μάταια προσπαθώ να πιάσω γραμμή από το κινητό μου να βρώ έναν άνθρωπο στο technical support να μου πει πέντε πράγματα, αλλά δυστυχώς δεν έχω αρκετή υπομονή και στη μισή ώρα το κλείνω. Σε κάποια στιγμή νόμισα οτι έπιασα γραμμή αλλά δυστυχώς είχα πατήσει άλλο νούμερο και μου βγήκε άλλο τμήμα - το τμήμα πωλήσεων (ολα κι όλα, να σας πείσουμε να βάλετε Vivodi έχουμε πολλούς). Προσπάθησα να κάνω στατιστικά να δω ποιες ώρες είναι καλύτερα να βγάλεις γραμμή για το technical support αλλά δεν είχα αρκετά μεγάλο δείγμα. Αλλά λογικό γιατί αν είναι όλοι σαν και μένα θα θέλετε ένα άτομο για κάθε πελάτη.
Τελικά με email είναι καλύτερα. Σας έστειλα ένα email ένα πρωινό, με πήρατε τηλέφωνο την άλλη μέρα το μεσημέρι. Σας είπα να με πάρετε σε 10 λεπτά (ώστε να φύγω από τη δουλειά μου και να πάω στον υπολογιστή μου) και με πήρατε σε 1,5 ώρα. Αλλά δεν έχω παράπονο – καλλιο αργά παρά ποτέ. Δυστυχώς έπεσε η γραμμή ενώ μιλούσαμε και μάταια περίμενα άλλη 1 ώρα μήπως με πάρει εκείνος ο ευλογημένος ο άνθρωπος. 12 κι ουτ’ ένα τηλεφώνημα. M’ αυτά και μ’αυτά δεν έχω ακόμα σύνδεση στο δίκτυο.
Ευτυχώς που έχει δίκτυο στη δουλειά (Hellas on line) και μπορώ να στείλω αυτό το email.Τουλάχιστον δεν τα 'χω χάσει: Ο άνθρωπος της τεχνικής υποστήριξης μου είπε: "Πράγματι βλέπω οτι εδώ και 3 βδομάδες η γραμμή σας έχει πρόβλημα." Θα ειδοποιούσαν τους τεχνικούς, αλλά ακόμα περιμένω...
Τελικά το πρόβλημα είναι οτι το σπίτι μου είναι >1km από το σταθμό. Και η ερώτηση είναι... Και ως τώρα πώς γινεται να είχα σύνδεση; Τώρα μου το λέτε;
Άρα φταίει ο ΟΤΕ. Εχουν και απεργίες εκεί οπότε τρέχα γύρευε
Τελικά.... μια μέρα που ήμουν άρρωστος και έτυχε να ήμουν σπίτι (χωρίς δίκτυο) έρχεται ο τεχνικός της Vivodi!!! Αυτό που έφταιγε τελικά ήταν κάτι χαλασμένο στη μπρίζα του τοίχου που ήταν παλιά!

Εάν έχουν και άλλοι παρόμοιες εμπειρείες παρακαλώ αφήστε τα σχόλιά σας εδώ.

Muse - Starlight

2006-10-06T17:48:00.000+02:00


Great video, great song..Muse - Starlight

Lostprophets - Rooftops

2006-09-13T23:50:00.001+02:00


A cool song "Rooftops" by "Lostprophets".

Your Mobile Phone Secret Number

2006-09-10T20:34:00.000+02:00

Your mobile phone device has a 15-digit hidden serial number which is its electronic id. In case your mobile phone gets stolen, your provider can use this number to lock the device, making it thus useless to the thieves. Of course you might not find your phone again, but this might prevent thieves from stealing mobile phones in the future.
To find out this number, just type *#06# (works in all mobile phones). Write down this number and hopefully you will never nead it :)

Chalkidiki - Kassandra on Fire

2006-09-05T23:21:00.001+02:00

A few days had passed since we had driven along the hills of Kassandra peninsula through the beautiful pine forest. The view was wonderful all the way through, as we could see the sea on both sides of the hill.

Some days later I heard in the news about the fire in the peninsula, which had destroyed this forest completely. Although I don't like mowning, it's really sad because there is little that we can do about it now but hope for a better future for this planet and act in order to achieve this.
Read more

Rockwave Festival

2006-07-12T20:35:00.000+02:00

Having heard the debut album of Franz Ferdinand around 1000 times last month, I was eagerly waiting to see them live at the Rockwave festival. They did not disappoint me at all. In fact, I felt 7 years younger, as if being at my first Rockwave (Blur, Garbage, Placebo, Prodigy @ Agios Kosmas, 1999).

Pictures I ve taken (Panos, Sotiris, Psomas, Dimitris, Ageliki, Katerina)
Rockwave site

Χρόνια Στοργής

2006-07-07T19:25:00.000+02:00

Yes, that's my favourite band from now on. I watched my friend Aris last night playing live for the first time with his band ¨Χρόνια Στοργής¨ ("Years of Affection"). Intresting melancholing rock sounds that travel us to forests and lands of fairies....

Trasys Greece 2 yr Birthday

2006-07-02T12:27:00.000+02:00

Fri, 30 Jun 2006
In order to celebrate my company's 2 year's presence in Greece we organized this day event at a hotel in Saronida. It was really fun doing water sports (couch, flying dolfin) with other colleagues - I also experience falling in the water, which was the most fun! We also had the chance to do archery and shooting (my performance there not very thrilling at all).

Bike excursion for swim

2006-07-02T12:05:00.000+02:00

That was a cool trip! Around 60 cyclists participated in this small excursion from Athen's center (Syntagma square) to Voula beach, organized by the cyclists club "Ποδηλάτες". The route was quite fun, a bit slow with three stops, one of which was for water splashing fights (μπουγέλο). Although the beach was not that exotic, we were really eager to jump in, after riding under the hot Greek sun for more than an hour
See a journalist's view on the ride
Podilates website

Antiracist Festival

2006-07-02T11:59:00.000+02:00

Antiracist Festival was held this year as well in the same place (Field of Mars) in Athens. Many organizations were there (including the volunteering organization I participate SCI), got interesting reading material, tasted international food and heard Spiridoula band and other interesting music

Ios Island

2006-06-27T22:44:00.000+02:00

10 - 12 June 2006

Off to Ios island for 3 days. These are my impressions in brief:

People: Mostly British, Canadian, Australian, Italian, Swedish, American, Finnish and Greeks of course. Many youngsters around 20 - 25.

Entertainment: I had heard a lot about this place, namely that it is full of drunk people puking in the streets, but I didn't actually see this aspect of it. Maybe it's because I was going to bed around midnight and also because it's still middle of June and the tourist crowds have not arrived yet.

Beaches: It's definitely worth visiting Maganari and some of the desert beaches in the south east coast (Capo Laoutiaris, Kalamos or Papa) if you are really into VERY quiet / exotic beaches. Mylopotas is the most popular beach, quite nice to swim, sandy. It's worth visiting the "historic" beach bar/camping "Far Out" where you can practice all sorts of beach and non-beach sports.

Prices: The island was cheaper than I had expected this time of the year. 30 Euros per day for a very nice hotel, 10 Euros per day to rent a bike, 5 Euros per day to do camping, cheap drinks with special offers. Prices may rise in July or August.