Drupal Patch For Location Module To Update Province List for Latvia With Latest Data

9 May, 2016 | Drupal Development | 5 seen

Made a simple Drupal patch for Location module to display latest administrative divisions of Latvia. Default one is still showing outdated data using old "Rayon" as administrative divisions of Latvia.

Will try to submit this patch to official module release on Drupal.orf

From Wikipedia:  

According to the Administrative territorial reform of Latvia (2009), Latvia changed its administrative divisions from two-level municipalities (the districts were the first-level municipalities, while towns, cities, towns countryside territories and parishes were the second-level municipalities) to one-level municipalities - districts were liquidated, but towns (Latvian: pilsētas), towns countryside territories (Latvian: pilsētu lauku teritorijas) and parishes (Latvian: pagasti) were merged into 110 municipalities (Latvian: novadi) and there are 9 republican cities (Latvian: republikas pilsētas) with their own city council and administration.

To update to the latest administrative…

Repairing Old Brick Chimney

7 May, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 10 seen

On April 20, 2016 we completely changed a top of our brick chimney at our rural country house. It was not planned actually to change all top of chimney, just to add two rows of bricks. Thus after a quick inspection it was clear - it's time to replace it all.

Read how we lost a chimney in past: Replacing Roof - Part 3: Removing the old roofing (Losing Chimney)

Workers inspecting chimney

It was clear - there are no other option, but to remove brick by brick from atop of the chimney, and rebuild it from scratch (almost)

Removing old bricks from chimney

It was much easier that it seemed - due to the harsh weather and lack of any maintenance for the past 25 years (at least) bricks were detached from the mortar and in fact it was already dangerous to have such an unstable and unsafe chimney.

Red bricks for chimney

They are not new, they are actually some 80 years old, as we took them from the second chimney base (the one we lost last summer)

The mortar

Half way there

I was told a chimney should have seven rows above the roof.

Done…

Restaurant "Ukrainochka" in Batumi

6 May, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 26 seen

Restaurant Ukrainochka is located at Batumi Railway Station terminal building, some 3 km from Batumi city centre. Food served here is true masterpieces of Ukrainian cuisine, not to mention blonde and beautiful Ukrainian girls serving your meal here. 

We enjoyed our Ukrainian meal here, while waited for train departing back to Tbilisi.

Spacious space at Ukrainochka in Batumi

Menu at Ukrainochka restaurant

Both traditional Ukrainian cuisine and Georgian is served here

Traditional Ukrainian Borsch served with smetana (sour cream)

Really delicious

Pancakes served with cold milk

Milk was not offered in menu, but I asked to the blonde Ukrainian girl, is it possible to manage it, as pancakes and cold milk is the best. She was a quick learner and sold us milk as matsoni (Georgian yogurt). 

Restaurant Ukrainochka in Batumi central station is one of the best Ukrainian cuisine restaurants I have visited lately, great food, excellent service. The price? We paid about 60 lari here, which might be a bit above average.

Batumi Railway Station

5 May, 2016 | Railway / Bus / Ferry | 371 seen

Batumi railway station has been recently constructed and opened for public, making travels by train from Tbilisi to Batumi a little bit easier.

Prior that, train stopped at Makjinjauri station (some 7 km from Batumi city center)

I took a train ride from Tbilisi to Batumi at start of March 2016, and was 100% sure that new station will be located somewhere in Batumi city - I was wrong. The new station is still located some 3 km from city, and to actually get to the city, you must take additional taxi or bus. Very strange.

Newly constructed Batumi Railway Station

It has been opened in Summer of 2015. Former Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili praised the opening of the new railway station.

"This is a very important investment for Batumi. Partnership Fund and Georgian Railway contributed significantly in implementing this project. Batumi’s potential is growing and we all should support the city to use its potential,” said Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili.

A Georgian Railways representative said the new train station was another major infrastructure project…

How To Make Burger Buns at Home

4 May, 2016 | Food blogger | 18 seen

If you asked me how to make hamburger buns at home question some eight years ago - I would say - it's complicated and most probably impossible. Ask me today - and I will not only exactly tell - but I will show some cool pictures of both how to make burger buns at home and some really delicious home made burgers and variation of hotdogs.

Allow me to inform you - I'm not the original creator of what you will see next (I was allowed just to photograph) - but since we made burger buns at home - let me say - there is nothing impossible a man can handle. For today's photography I used 100mm zoom lens (My findings: 100mm are really cool for food photography).

• See my first attempts of simple homemade hamburger recipe (using buns bought at local supermarket)

For burger buns dough we took Belle's Hamburger Buns recipe from allrecipes.com

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 (.25 ounce) envelope active dry yeast
• 1 egg yolk…

The Big Spring Territory Cleanup

3 May, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 8 seen

Few days ago I announced start for Season 2 of our home remodeling adventures. We have some really big plans to achieve this year - like getting a water supply and constructing from scratch few walls. Also a bathroom is planned to be finished until end of this Summer.

But our home renovation tasks starts with outdoor territory. More precise with the big Spring cleanup. We had to clean area not only from old leaves and branches, but also from plastic bottles, cans and even TV picture tubes.

Let me introduce - The Big Spring Cleanup of 2016

Dump with old TV picture tubes, plastic bottles and cans

We got this together with house already last year. Previous owner (RIP) seems have collected TV picture tubes and sold nonferrous metal parts from them. I don't have other explanation why there can be so many of them at one place.

Sacks of dump

Today we collected 13 sacks of dump - 9 from TV dump, 4 old leaves and branches from garden. It will ask another 25 sacks to complete our Big Spring Cleanup.

The Big Spring Cleanup in the garden

Old leaves and branches, as well few cans…

Batumi Botanical Garden

2 May, 2016 | Tourism objects | 32 seen

Batumi Botanical Garden is a must have to visit tourism attraction site when in Batumi.

Botanical Garden is actually located at the place called Mtsvane Kontskhi ("The Green Cape") in distance of some 10 km from Batumi city on the Black Sea shore, it is one of the largest botanical gardens in the former Soviet Union. 

You can get here either by hiring a taxi from Batumi (I negotiated price for about 10 GEL .March 2016) or using mini vans (marshrutkas) from city,

If you have already visited Tbilisi Botanical Garden you will notice that Tbilisi garden is a weak echo of botanical garden if compared to this one, located in Batumi.

Our taxi driver recommended us to take second entrance, instead of main entrance. Which means - you don't have to walk twice (forth and back) the same route, instead you start your walk from the end and reach main entrance, from where marshrutkas departs back to Batumi.

Entrance fee at Batumi Botanical Garden: 8 GEL

Tourist cab at Batumi Botanical Garden

For additional 3 GEL you can take a ride in such vehicle to explore garden, we decided to…

I Will Miss This Tbilisi Wall

1 May, 2016 | Living in Georgia | 6 seen

I have observed this wall for the last three years (with short interruptions, when on longer travels) from our Tbilisi balcony. Probably, right at this wallI started to improve my photographer skills when about two years ago I reported first time lapse - Brick Wall turning green.

Looking on this wall I have spent countless hours by zooming, experimenting with f stops, changing lenses and so on, making many photographs for my 365 days photo challenge project. The following picture is how I will  remember you, my dearest wall, for next couple of months, until I will return back to Tbilisi to our lovely apartment, probably I will visit you even sooner, who knows, right now I', spending my days in another interesting walls and roofs project, see  Home Remodeling - Season 2 starts now

Tbilisi wall

See you soon Tbilisi and Georgia.

Home Remodeling - Season 2 starts now

29 April, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 9 seen

Loyal readers of this blog are already familiar with the home renovation and remodeling process which we started a year ago, if not, make sure you check out article - How it all starts.

On April 14, 2016 we made a long and tired journey with our cats to get where we left this process at the end of Summer 2015. I was really glad that I had spent whole winter improving my photographer skills (see digital photography school), so it was just a matter of installing a tripod in meadow and setting my camera to capture HDR images.

There are two major things we did last year - replaced roof and landscaped surrounding territory - the results - looks amazing (if compared how it was a year ago). For this years plans - a water supply is a must have, in order to get water here, we need to dug a well at first. We plan to construct a bathroom (for that we will need to change few bearing beams and rebuild from scratch few walls). I believe a lot of effort will be put on territory improvement, one of the things we plan to do on this - to dug our small fish pond a bit bigger). But for now - take a look, how well Spring around our rural house looks through my camera lens.

Drupal String Overrides For Comment form + Translated Month names

27 April, 2016 | Drupal Development | 10 seen

In yesterday's article How to hide Drupal comment Subject line and help text I talked about a simple and neat module Simplify, with help of whom I was able to get rid of confusing Subject line field and help area under Drupal comments. I was working with a Drupal for a non-English language website and had to translate some strings - of course I could go for Internationalization module, but since this site is just in one language - Internationalization might be too much - I didn't wanted to install Drupal in other language than English - I was left with few options to rewrite some of English language strings to other language. 

Luckily, some time ago I was working on Georgian language site, and I remember I used neat module String Overrides:

Provides a quick and easy way to replace any text on the site.

For todays challenge - I had to change (translate) strings on Drupal comment form and provide translated version for month names. Let's start with changing strings for comment form:

Download and install String Overrides module, from modules configuration page enter Original string, for…

How to hide Drupal comment Subject line and help text

26 April, 2016 | Drupal Development | 42 seen

There are several ways of hiding Input format options for Drupal comments, the simplest (but the wrongest) way is by just hiding area with CSS (display:none), second -  you can use the hook_form_alter function to make changes to a form before it is rendered (See article: How to Theme the Comment Form in Drupal 7)  and third one is by using a simple module with simple name: Simplify.

In this article you will find how to hide help area for Drupal comments using module Simplify.

I must admit, I have always avoided using default Drupal comment system (which ships out of box for any Drupal site, you just need to enable it from modules page) - I don't now actually why I have been avoiding them, and opted to use third party comment providers (Disqus, for example)

I was working on non-profit Drupal site (voluntary) and wanted to build it without involving any third party plugins, the site involves blog posts and for a comment system I opted in for default Drupal comment system. Just shortly after enabling them - I really didn't like them, because of - confusing Subject field and filter tips area.…

Top 20 Intel Core i7 processor Laptop / Notebook models

25 April, 2016 | Laptop Reviews | 737 seen

When it comes to power and endurance a fast processor, plenty of RAM and a great graphics card are among the top three to look at.

In this article, I have listed the Top 20 laptop models with the  Intel Core i7 processors.

Below listed models will be the top choice among gamers and business users. Creative graphic designers, video animators, and photographers will enjoy these powerful laptops as well.

See: Top 5 Best Selling Intel Core i9 (Gaming) Processor Laptops

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This article contains affiliate links to Amazon.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a purchase on the Amazon site, I will earn an affiliate income at no cost to you. Prices for laptops listed on this page are retrieved using Amazon Product  Advertising API and are updated daily. For actual prices please refer to the product page on Amazon.

Drupal - How To Add Read More Link To Copied Text (addtocopy)

25 April, 2016 | Drupal Development | 13 seen

Time after time I have received negative comments on my blog, where users were complaining about disabled copy functionality from my blog - For a very long time I had disabled to copy any text and images from my blog using simple but neat Drupal module: Copy Prevention. See case study here: How To Protect Drupal Content (Articles and Photos) From Being Copied

My main concern was at least to somehow protect my digital artworks (I have a few gigabytes of my photos uploaded and stored in this blog).

Following words I used to describe my situation around a year ago:

Some time ago I noticed some website has copied my content including all texts and photos. I immediately contacted the website owner with a request to take down this copy/pasted content. This simple approach worked this time and indeed my content was taken down.

Although in next morning I found another website has just copy/pasted my content with text and images, again I contacted them with request to take my content down, because of I have not given such permission to re-publish my contents and photos.- Read more: https://www.reinisfischer.com/how…

Cafe La Brioche in Batumi

23 April, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 30 seen

Cafe La Brioche is located at Batumi Pizza square on top floor at clock tower - delicious Italian coffee, masterpiece desserts and gourmet food is served here.

If being in Batumi you feel an aroma of Italian coffee in the air, bravely follow it because you will be surely led into the heart of the city, on the Piazza Square, in the famous French Cafe “La Brioche”.

Entrance doors at Piazza clock tower 

Inside interior at Cafe La Brioche

Free English newspapers are available here, while waiting for our supper to be served I red a few ones.

Here lovers of magnificent architecture and live music can always relax in the summer outdoor cafe. And fans of the more quiet atmosphere and comfortable ambience can spend time at the cafe on the third floor of the tower with a library of more than 700 books from all over the world.

Strawberry dessert 

Start your day at «La Brioche» with filling breakfast. On the menu is oatmeal porridge, fried eggs, omelette, pancakes, cr?pes, croissants and of course the best Italian coffee from 100% Arabica beans.

Mushroom cream soup

Piazza Square in Batumi

22 April, 2016 | Tourism objects | 105 seen

Piazza square in Batumi is one of the landmarks of city - square features luxury and boutique hotels, cafeterias and interesting architectural elements. A small Italian renaissance in Georgian sauce. 

The visiting - card of Batumi, local peoples and tourists favorite place of meeting. Batumi Piazza was built in 2009 in Old Batumi. Square was designed by famous Georgian architect Vazha Orbeladze and it is a mixture and an unique ensemble of different styles and trends.

Clock tower at Piazza square in Batumi

Inside the tower building there are lovely restaurant and a boutique hotel located

Piazza Square in Batumi

Visit www.piazza.ge to learn more