Blog Archive: February 2015
An ex-pat living in Georgia since 2011, I trade stocks, take photographs, work out at the gym, and many more. Here I write about travel, finance, and other things that might interest me.
Latest articles
Maximizing Revenue: A Guide to Google Adsense Experiments
Google AdSense is a popular advertising network that allows website owners to display ads on their sites and earn money when users click on them. AdSense offers a wide range of ad formats and customization options to help publishers maximize their revenue. However, even with the best practices in place, it can be challenging to determine what ad types and placements work best for your audience. This is where AdSense Experiments come in.…
Building A Travel Map - Drupal Way (Gmap + Views + Selective Filters)
In this article, I'll show how I built a travel map using Drupal and a few extra modules. For a starter, you can see a live preview by visiting my Travel Map. In this map, I have listed all places I have visited since October 2013 (When I started my blog). I have used a few filters to allow limiting results on the map, for example, users can filter by Country, Region, and Theme (Category). To make it work better and more intuitive I have…
'Maspindzelo' Tbilisi Restaurant Review
Welcome to another series of Tbilisi restaurants, in this post I will speak about a restaurant 'Maspindzelo' located close to Tbilisi Sulphur baths. I first visited this restaurant just back in last summer, my visit here this time here was just a second time. Actually we were heading to another restaurant - a newly opened Accent restaurant, but we had a wrong coordinates of it's address an as it turned out we were staying next to 'Maspindelo…
Beit Rachel Synagogue In Tbilisi
Beit Rachel synagogue is located in Tbilisi Old Town on Leselidze street 28. I first discovered it a few years ago, when accidentally visited an alternative restaurant located just opposite to it. Beit Rachel synagogue is actually located just a few blocks away from Tbilisi Main Synagogue. Though this synagogue is located in the heart of Tbilisi Old Town, it's pretty well hidden from public, to find it you must enter a yard. Sign before…
Content Writing in the Age of AI: What You Should Expect
Content writing has come a long way in recent years, with the rise of digital media and the increasing importance of online marketing. However, with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), the landscape of content writing is likely to change significantly in the years to come. One major development in this area is the rise of AI-powered content creation tools, which use natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to generate…
11 Katkha Tbilisi Restaurant Review (Near Dinamo Stadium) (2015)
Welcome to another great Tbilisi Restaurant review - today I will speak about 11 Katkha Update 2023: This place has been closed for a while already. There are at least two other 11 Katkha restaurants in Tbilisi, one is in Saburtalo, second is on Baratishvili street (close to Freedom square), read my latest review here: 11 Katkha Tbilisi Restaurant on Nikoloz Baratashvili street 11 Katkha is a restaurant located in Tbilisi, Georgia, serving…
My February Savings Report - GEL Loses Another 16.5% Against USD; -17% Against EUR
Welcome to my third savings report, today I will look at historical exchange rates of GEL/USD and EUR and compare those with at the end of January (2015) with February 24. I started to save some chunk of money back in September 2014, since my "investments" was too small to buy some bonds, stocks or mutual funds, I decided to open a Savings account here in Georgia (I'm currently living here) in local commercial banks. I started low - by…
How Amazon Associates Receives Their Checks in Republic of Georgia - Part 4 - Bank Commission Fees
Welcome to fourth and final part of my blog series on how Amazon Associates receives and redeems their checks in Republic of Georgia (South Caucasus). How participants of Amazon Associates program are getting paid in the Republic of Georgia by a bank check is a blog series I originally made at the end of 2014 / start of 2015 while struggling to redeem my first bank check issued by Amazon, Although it's still technically possible to withdraw…
About Georgia: A Chef In Love (1996 Movie)
Last night was the Oscar night - Estonian/Georgian movie Tangerines was nominated for best foreign language film. They didn't won, Ida did. I decided to look is there some more Georgian movies nominated for Oscar, and turns out one film prior to Tangerines actually was nominated, back in 1996 - A Chef in Love. I was a bit surprised to learn - that main role in this movie is portrayed by a very popular French actor - Pierre Richard. A Chef in…
Tbilisi - Gudauri Transfer By Vazha Travel
Around two weeks ago we had a two day trip to Gudauri, where we stayed at Hotel Shamo, and enjoyed skiing opportunities in Gudauri. In this post I decided to write about transfer options from Tbilisi to Gudauri by a local company called Vazha Travel. Owner of this company is a personal friend, so I had all opportunities to bargain price down. Since this road offers plenty of spectacular views, I decided to add some photos to better illustrate…
How Amazon Associates Receives Their Checks in Republic of Georgia - Part 3 - Waiting 40 Working Days
Welcome to the already third part of my blog series on how Amazon Associates receives checks and get them redeemed in Republic of Georgia. How participants of Amazon Associates program are getting paid in the Republic of Georgia by a bank check is a blog series I originally made at the end of 2014 / start of 2015 while struggling to redeem my first bank check issued by Amazon, Although it's still technically possible to withdraw bank checks in…
Building A Simple Drupal Booking Engine From Scratch
Originally this post was planned to be a part of building a Drupal website from scratch series post, I did in late 2013. For some reason this post was left unpublished, so today I decided to review it one more time and make it public. In this article, I'll show how to create simple, but powerful booking engine for fictional tourism company's webpage using Drupal. Part 1 - Modules Download References module Node Reference URL Widget Extract…
China, Russia and DPRK to set up "visa-free" tourist zone on Tumen river delta on border of three countries
China is planning an international tourism zone in its northeastern border area with Russia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The Tumen River Delta international tourism area will include part of China's Hunchun City, as well as a 10 sq km plot each from Russia and DPRK, said the government of China's Jilin Province. The three sides will jointly build tourism facilities. At the ongoing annual session of the provincial…
Engineering An Empire The Byzantines
A long time has passed since I have reviewed some documentary film. Today, I watched an interesting documentary made by History Channel - Engineering an Empire The Byzantines. I must admit that now I feel more educated about ancient history. In this documentary is covered the time period from the founding of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) 330 AD, till falling of Constantinople in 1453. Santa Claus originates from Ancient Byzantine…