Gardenia Shevardnadze - Flower Garden in Tbilisi

17 September, 2015 | Shopping Venues | 68 seen

Gardenia Shevardnadze is a lovely garden of ornamental plants, located close to the Tbilisi Sea, where you can buy seedlings for your yard, balcony, terrace, home, or office. Or just enjoy a tranquil afternoon.

I first discovered Gardenia Shevardnadze back in 2014 while Cycling to Tbilisi sea and back

We have been returning to this place ever since. Sometimes with a tripod, sometimes not. Sometimes for macro photography, sometimes just to enjoy a good cup of coffee at the onsite cafeteria. If you are into photography, then you will enjoy Gardenia Shevernadze just as I did. 

Little Cafe at Gardenia Shevardnadze

Although this is a place where some can buy plants, it's a very popular place thanks to its cafe as well.

You might end your day not buying any plants at all, but you will definitely taste some cake at this lovely cafeteria crafted with many small details.

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 Plants at Gardenia Shevernadze

 Plants at Gardenia Shevardnadze

​Now this is a pretty good photo I managed to capture using some 5 seconds of exposure

At Gardenia Shevernadze…

Cirava Evangelic Lutheran Church

16 September, 2015 | Churches and Monasteries | 44 seen

Cirava Evangelic Lutheran Church is located in historical region of Courland in Latvia. Cirava church is closely located to Cirava manor complex, those of you traveling to Latvia and especially to Courland, it's woth to pay a visit to Cirava as well.

Cirava Church​

This massive church has been built in 1780-1781, and had been rebuilt in 1876 and 1888. The church is known for its exquisite Rococo altar, pulpit and organ. Read more (In Latvian)

Architectural monument

Cirava church

View to Cirava church from distance

Abandoned Manor Complex in Cirava (Latvia)

13 September, 2015 | Tourism objects | 21 seen

Now, this was a quite interesting experience discovering a small village in western Latvia (region of Courland) - Cirava.

I was so fascinated about this place that I decided to make two separate articles - one for the manor complex and the second for the church. Today I will write about the manor complex which actually seemed abandoned for me, but as it turns out it's actually sold to some Italian investor for about EUR 700 000 back in 2014. So seems this is money you should have in your pockets to acquire a badly managed manor complex in Latvia.

Cīrava manor from a birds flight during the golden hour

Cirava manor complex in Latvia

Originally built for blue blood German barons - rulers of lands which now are part of Latvia, this place has experienced a lot. So for example a forestry school and agriculture school during the Soviet times.

Tourism indication in Cirava

​You may find a museum, stadium, two schools, pond, a rhododendron garden and even a cemetery in Cirava village.

Old Dwelling house in Cirava

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The same…

Monument to the Sailors and Fishermen Perished in the Sea (Liepāja)

12 September, 2015 | Military Heritage | 19 seen

Although this monument in Liepaja (in seaside park) is dedicated to the sailors and fishermen perished in the sea I decided to add this place in military heritage category, because for me it kinda reminds something from Soviet military. Well actually this is a great example of Latvian architecture, as it turns out it's designed by local Latvian designers Alberts Terpilovskis and Gunārs Asaris.
Anyway - once in Liepaja, this place is a worth of visit.in case you are heading for a lazy walk on seaside park you will definitely notice this monument and hopefully enjoy views from its stairs.

View to the monument form park

Not the best picture I managed to capture here, too much light.

Monument to the sailors and fishermen perished in the sea

Pretty interesting installations on the pavement

Monument to the sailors and fishermen perished in the sea

There is an inscription on plate saying: 

Sing, sweet zephyr, gently, gently,
Carry not the waves ashore;
In the sea's tender depths slumber
My dear, beloved, brothers
 

View to the park 

Practicing Photography: Doing Night Shots - Tbilisi By Night

11 September, 2015 | Digital Photography School | 13 seen

Tonight was one, a really great evening, it was the first time I started to understand how ISO actually works. I took my DSLR camera, a tripod and a friend of mine and we headed to Zaarbrucken Square (Dry Bridge) in Tbilisi.

At start I was planing to make some photos at Rose Garden (I actually did) but latter, when post-processed, I understood  they don't look so interesting as images attached bellow.

Sameba Cathedral in Tbilisi by night

This is a pretty interesting picture, I got using a 30 second exposure, a tripod and kit 18-55 mm lenses. I believe from this vantage point it would be lovely to attach some other lenses as well. I enjoy two things in above picture - the traffic lights and mirroring effect on the water

Deda Ena park in Tbilisi

Now this picture is done using ISO 100

Deda Ena park in Tbilisi

At this point I started to experiment with ISO settings, the ISO in above image is 1600, but since I had no clue which ISO should I set here, I did it on Auto mode. Should I mention that with naked eye it was impossible to see any monument here at all. Just amazing…

Most Popular Value Deal Hotels in Barcelona City Centre

11 September, 2015 | Hotel reviews | 5 seen

I probably wont be too original by saying that Barcelona for me is among the most desired travel destinations. I first time headed here back in October 2014, and was so impressed of this city that I even created my Barcelona Travel Guide. Although back then we traveled by a rental car and we had an option to stay at cheaper but more remote locations in Barcelona Read more: Hotel Hesperia Sant Just in Barcelona Review), my suggestion to you is, if you truly would love to experience Barcelona stay at city centre, enjoy a morning coffee at Rambla, walk around Gothic quarter and etc.

In this article I have listed few hotels in Barcelona that are located in city centre, are for pretty affordable prices, so you can enjoy truly your Barcelona experience.

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This boutique hotel offers a gym and a rooftop chill-out terrace with a swimming pool and wonderful city views. It is located 100 metres from Barcelona Cathedral, in the historic Gothic Quarter.

Each elegant room at the Barcelona Catedral Hotel features wooden flooring and air conditioning. Rooms have free Wi-Fi, a laptop safe and flat-screen TV with international…

How To Fix "Server has a weak ephemeral Dillie-Heffman public key" For Jboss Server

10 September, 2015 | Servers | 53 seen

A few days ago a customer of mine experienced an error by not being able to access his management system on intranet I built a few years ago. The error we got was following:

What basically means:

If you see this error, it means that a secure connection can't be established because of outdated security code on the website. Chrome protects your privacy by preventing you from connecting to these sites. You won't be able to visit this page using Chrome.

I spent some time to figure out what all is about, and since the software we were running on intranet was installed with just a few clicks (apt-get install ...) and compiled from source. And turns out it all the thing was running on Jboss server, since I'm not very proficient in Jboss or Tomcat it took me some time to find a solution.

After all I followed the advice on Google Support:

You have a few options to fix this error in Chrome:

• Enable ECDHE and disable DHE (preferable)
• Use a 1024-bit (or larger) Diffie-Hellman group for the DHE_RSA SSL cipher suites
• …

Liepāja Seaside Park and Blue Flag Beach

10 September, 2015 | Tourism objects | 25 seen

I'm continuing my Latvia travel guide notes I have taken (photographed) at start of the June 2015. This time I visited a lovely Liepaja Seaside Park and Blue Flag Beach. 

Map of the Liepaja seaside park

According to the official Latvia Travel guide - This is the Latvia's largest dendrological park, now extending for about 50 ha, was gradually developed from 1870 to the early 20th century. The park boasts more than 140 different species of trees and shrubs.

Drums in Liepaja

Liepaja is famous of being a Rock Capital of Latvia, and there is no surprise of seeing a huge monument of... drums.

Wooden boardwalk heading to sea in Liepaja

Blue skies and letters of Liepaja

Wall art: I love Liepaja

For the guests' comfort, public bathing facilities or a Kurhaus, and luxurious summer homes were built, tennis courts were laid out, and a fountain was installed. The baths have not survived. The Seaside Park today invites for a pleasant stroll; there is also a stadium, a tennis court, a concert garden “Pūt, vējiņi!”…

Asus X552M Laptop Review

8 September, 2015 | Gadget Reviews | 876 seen

For a long time I have been making laptop reviews, since yesterday I bought a brand new ASUS X552M laptop on a local Georgian Carrefour shop I decided to describe my first impressions and a few photos of my new best buddy. This model I believe is only available in Europe, for North American customers I believe there is an ASUS D550MAV or something.

I could probably buy this one or even a better one for even a cheaper price on Amazon (and that's the thing I'm actually recommending to others) but since I just returned to Georgia I needed a quick solution, and by saying quick I mean - right now!

So I went to a local shopping place - Tbilisi Mall and bought the best I could get.

Please note this article contains links to Amazon by clicking on links on this page and by making a purchase on Amazon site, I will earn an affiliate income from that.

Asus X552M in the box

Pretty slim suitcase actually

Lovely cover of ASUS X552M

Although I must admit that cover gets greasy pretty fast (unless you are working in gloves)

Rear view of ASUS X552M

…

Doing photography in Tbilisi

7 September, 2015 | Living in Georgia | 1 seen

Not much words today

Blog Traffic Report - August 2015 - 34,509 Users

3 September, 2015 | Blogging | 10 seen

Welcome to the 23rd blog traffic and statistics report. Since the very first month of my blogging career I have created a monthly blog statistics reports and starting January 2014 a blog income reports. These numbers helps me stay focused, motivates and hopefully can inspire you as well.

If you want to learn more about how to start a blog and make it successful - I recently started a blog post covering things you should do. 

I'm very excited to report that despite many obstacles in my offline life (Generally all August was spent on home remodeling tasks) This August managed to crack another very important milestone - for a very first time my blog crossed 30K users milestone - it's more than 1,000 users daily. It's just amazing. I still remember those days when I was dreaming to get over 100 daily users. I mean - 1,000 users? Daily? That's AWESOME.

I believe the recent Google Panda 4.2 update helped me a lot.

As I already mentioned August was a record breaker month and in total this blog attracted pretty decent 34,509 users - It;s already more than one third of my goal…

How To Display Username In URL For Drupal Site

2 September, 2015 | Drupal Development | 16 seen

I know for some experienced Drupal developers such question might sound bizarre, because  - hey..it's a piece of cake... 

I have been subscribed to the LinkedIn Drupal group and exactly such question arise here:

hey guys is there any way to display username in URL when user logged in like example www.example.com/username

was asked by one of the group members

I added my solution for this question on that post already and I decided to share it on my blog as well since other Drupal users might ask such question as well.

At first you will need to have pathauto module to be enabled on your Drupal site and all the other required modules - (Path, Token). Once you have installed a pathauto module go to the File Path section (admin/config/search/path/patterns) scroll down until User Paths and in blank field enter: [user:name] 

Drupal User Paths

Dont forget to save your configuration and then bulk update your existing path.

Hope this explains how to add username in Drupal URL.

If you have any Drupal related question, feel…

New Orleans - Most Unique in United States

1 September, 2015 | Travel guides | 16 seen

I'm continuing to summarize my memories from my latest trip to US back in Summer of 2013. Finally we have arrived at the city I probably like a lot - New Orleans. City of alternative cuisine, Jazz birthplace a lot of Voodoo and ... most interesting emotions from US.

Although we spent some week or even more here, we actually settled in a another much smaller and much quiet town of Gretna. We did spent our nights at Gretna while our days were spent in New Orleans.

Palm Tree in New Orleans

I know it's like comparing apples with oranges, but if I might ad my fifty cents - New Orleans reminds me a Georgian seaside resort town of Batumi.

Downtown New Orleans

Author of this blog captured in New Orleans

Legends of New Orleans

Cook Books: Kitchen Witch in New Orleans

Downtown New Orleans

Downtown New Orleans

Pier in New Orleans

Pier in New Orleans

From this pier you can take a boat ride on the Missisipi river... or you can take a FREE boat ride on the same Missisipi river. I will continue about free boat ride in New Orleans in one of the next blog posts. 

Privatbank Offers Check Redemption in Latvia

29 August, 2015 | Investments | 17 seen

When it comes down to bank check redemption it's always a struggle to find a bank (at least in Europe) which offers such service. You may find my discoveries of finding a reliable bank in Republic of Georgia, when at the end I found Bank Republic.

In case of Latvia, you have few options, like SEB or Swedbank, but both of them require you to have an active bank account at their branches for at least 6 months before you can start such a simple bank operation like check redemption.

After a quick search I did find a Privatbank offers such service, for really affordable prices and really quick (if you can call it actually a quick) time. So it will cost you $35 for a check and 20 days to arrive money to your bank account, if you are not willing to pay $35, you can pay even less - $25 but then you should wait 40 working days for money to arrive at your bank account.

It took me some 20 minutes to open a new bank account at Privatbank, I did chose Branch in Liepaja and I'm very thankful to lady who serviced me - Tatyana, as I remember, if correct. She was even so kind that agreed to combine 2 separate checks into one, so I do not have to pay double bank commissions.…

Lux Express - One Of The Best Options To Travel Between Riga and Tallinn

26 August, 2015 | Railway / Bus / Ferry | 35 seen

At the start of this August I traveled to Estonian capital city Tallinn from Riga (Latvia) to celebrate my birthday and I had a few options to choose on how to actually get there - like, car, coach (bus) or plane (I believe there is a rail connection as well, but I also believe it takes some 12 hours to travel a short ~ 300 km distance)

The fact is as I believe it will be even cheaper or about the same to fly between those two Baltic Capital cities, rather to use a bus. But since I'm sick and tired of all these airport procedures, I decided we will use a bus leaving Riga International Bus Station.

Waiting for our coach at Riga Coach Station

Riga - Tallinn coach also goes through city of Parnu in Estonia

Lounge seat and Free Wifi at Lux Express coach

I had a chance to do some little Drupal development and of course to upkeep my blog. A lovely feature. For some extra EUR 7 you can have a separate seat and enjoy your ride. They serve a free coffee and tea at this coach as well. 

Tallinn coach station

If you are really for comfort and not in rush - you will enjoy Lux Express ride, pay…