1. New Intel Core i7 processor from Intel; although the quadcore and core 2 processors are still ruling the market, Intel has prepared probably for the Q3 09 the new generation of processors Core i7. They will probably have 4 times the processing power from the current top processors, incorporating 8 to 16 processors in the new microprocessor; also, with the new processors, Intel has rethinked the whole internal structure of the microprocessor, and the way it reacts to the impulses inside.

2. OLED technology will become a certitude on the market; and what does it mean to the user? New Star Trek gadgets, from the folding and thinner TV screens to new computer devices (remember the folding piano keyboard from the Star Trek? well, it’s here with the new tech). Cars, TV’s, Ad Media Panels most will switch to the new technology

3. Windows 7 - although Microsoft said will be delivered on 2010, i don’t think they afford to wait untill than for the new operating system launch, and here are the reasons why: Google will probably launch at the Q3-Q4 the new operating system for the PC’s, they already have Android for mobiles, Apple’s Mac is getting a bigger slice of the pie each day, Linux is stabilizing on a 12-14% market share, and Vista is still far more unpopular than XP. So, the new Vista 2 or Windows 7 will be forced our in second semester of 2009. The much promised WinFS will still be a promise for future, but the touchscreen technology and wireless integrations to the new OS will gain some points for the Redmont giant.

4. Apple’s rise - iPhone3G is a revolutionary phone, but still it has 2MP camera, still has no MMS, no way to change it’s battery and much more things to improve. And probably with the new WiMax, will have a new iPhone on the market, probably not in the summer, but the bets are for Q3 09.

5. New broadband connection: WiMax rules in predictions, but maybe only US will get to step to the new nationwide broadband network. In Europe, the 50Mbps internet access will gain more popularity, and in Eastern Europe, the standard will stabilized around 15-20Mbps speed,

What we will still miss in 2009:
- the US government will still keep Tesla’s inventions filled under top secret, so we will probably not have in 2009 wireless electric power everywhere
- the planet still have oil reserves, so there’s no point in letting electric cars rule the world / market
- the new inventions in airplanes will still be under top secret, so we will still make over 7 hours from Paris to NYC and 15 from Europe to Brasil; no point in speeding things up to more MACH speed, while you can have a video call with friends instead of dinner or youtube for the Rio festival, instead of being there
- no jump to hyper-processing era of 50-100 GHz processors, 10TB of storage on a CD, USB 500MBps transfers
- no alternative energy burst (solar batteries, eolian energy) we still have the nuclear, hydrothermal and oil energy to waste, so the owners of the resources will still force the non-disclosure of the new energy saving technology
- no Venus Project application (or adaptation to 2009 realities)

I mean you have such a great poker name on your side, and you let the market that SHOULD be yours to be taken by competition like PartyPoker, UltimateBet and even LuckyAce or some second hand brands …. c’mon PokerStars? What the hell are you doing, you should know to read and react to poker markets all around the world; instead your taking the way to short your chip stack asap, and you probabily will be forced soon to go all-in with BiG Blind.

My opinion: you should need to reevaluate your managers from the London office. Not owning the Romanian online poker and not involving into the Romanian poker / casino events, while having maybe the most famous Romanian poker player on exclusive contract - and much more - skiping Bucharest and making the EPT (European Poker Tour) in Budapesta, while on Bucharest you got access not only to Romanian players but also it’s an intersection of Bulgarian, Israelian, Italian and Russian poker players with some Turks, Greeks and Germans along the casino halls … it means one strong thing to me, as a person who watch and was involved in the casino / poker business for the last year: Major market misreading, wrong development plans.

Poker Stars, after all, is poker stars, but in the Romanian market, there’s Party Poker, without Negreanu. I should feel ashamed for this misfortune.

Probably many of you have been a customer of Vodafone Europe; probably not many have been using the Vodafone Romania’s services and customer support; if not, then let me tell you that IT’S A BIG DIFFERENCE between how the Romanian customer is treated by the Vodafone customer support and how the European (France, UK, Italy you name it) is taken care of.

For starters, my general impression after being almost 10 years a Vodafone subscriber is that Vodafone now doesn’t give a shit about me, my options, the services they offer to me or anything else except for me having the phone bill payed on time. It’s becoming harder and harder to get to Vodafone support people, and when you have an request that might seem normal in European market and services, you get the answer days away, if they will even bother to give it to you.

It doesn’t matter that you have stayed with Vodafone in crisis times, through changes time and against all odds, you kept on haging on that red and white logo like a beacon in the communication market. You don’t even get a bonus for being in their network after all that time and if you pay monthly bills around 150 euros, you get after 3 years a bonus of … hang on … 100 euro. 150 euro x 12 x 10 = 100 euro. That’s the bonus you should expect when you buy a new phone from Vodafone.

But since the post is about Vodafone, lets talk about the services: if you have a roaming and you want to call in Germany for example, you pay over 80 eurocents, this while the EU legislation is reglemmenting the fees for roaming within EU around 45 cents and lower. If you want to call other mobile networks from your country you get call fees around 16 cents / minute; while in Frances, for same situations you get 3-4 cents / minute call fees.

Now the best of the best: Vodafone mobile. You stay online 7 days, and Vodafone charges you for 2 weeks in spend online times. This while the 3G connection speed is a little bit higher than dial-up connection.

Now, if you are a Romanian, there are chances that you are used to be cheated by almost everyone. The state and government steals from you, makes you pay for everything - like from radio fee, raindrops fee, chairs fee - so Vodafone acts like a Romanian company, although it’s a world-wide corporation. Don’t you love this ? ” I do”

Do I feel it’s Christmas? Definitely NO. Why? Because, first of all, I don’t feel the energy the Xmas supposed to give it to people; all around me I see tired faces, people that work and forgot about the magical times of the winter holidays. I see people too tired for having a little bit of fun. Christmas has become more of a gift giving and TV watching/look-a-like holiday than it’s initial spirit: be with your close ones, celebrate not as much the news of the Jesus child (although from some latest discoveries seems that he was born in June or July) but the joy of being with the people you love, appreciate and care for. It’s not a contest of drinking as much as you can, but as drinking with the people who represent something for you.

Does it feel like 4-5 years ago? Again, definitely NO. Part of the reason explained above, part of the situation in Romania; shitty crisis makes the holiday spirit go away.

Do I have the energy to celebrate it? Yes. Definitely. I got almost the same energy to hump and party as 10 years ago, but as it goes, I don’t have my friends to back me up as 10 years ago; maybe I get old a little bit less than them, maybe because I still don’t have a child on the way, or maybe … maybe I’m more relaxed then them. Who knows, maybe it’s time to get a new group of friends, 8-10 years younger. Maybe.

Or maybe this will be a magical Christmas, against all signs that it’s gonna be worst than the one last year. Maybe.

Don’t vote! a social vote awareness clip promoted by the US government on social media, tv and print.

To quote Paul’s original  “Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.“(read entire article here).

My question is what about the country differences? what works for US or Western Europe doesn’t go well in Asia or Africa, or even Eastern Europe, including Russia here. What do you think, it’s better to stop blogging and start texting/ sms ?

Update: opposite view, why blogs will rock in 2009 here

Yahoo looks in an optimistic view at 20% workforce reduction, and AOL one of the biggest market players for US is looking at almost 40% cutbacks. Google, who recently has become a teenager with 10 years of existence is taking a stand back and analyze position, while online financing / credit market is looking also at 30-40% cutbacks. Steve Jobs rumor of heart attack is taking an byte in Apple shares also. Top 3 US banks are getting about 700 billions $, so we’re looking at 40-50% stock raise for Citibank and JP Morgan shares.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street faced last week the biggest downfall in the stock history, with almost 10% down and a stop of short-term transactions until 2nd October. Realestate market is on the way down around the world, and Europe / Asia are looking with fear at the next months and feedbacks from the American financial crysis.

Planet oil reserves are planned for the next 20 years, while US government is rushing the production of the electrocars with 5-7 years, according a 25 billion loan for the biggest 3 car manufacturers, Ford and GM are on the way to top Toyota Primus with a car model early next year.

welcome to the new world! would be this way, all the way now or do we get back to the happiness of 90’s ?

1. Although the medium salary is around 1.000 RON (~300 EUR), if you will place an hiring ad on the market for a job that requires a lower salary than the medium one, you will hardly find youth people(18-25 yrs old) that will comply with your requirements and will be able to function within the job’s parameters. You will get CV’s and salary proposals from ppl without any experience asking you for 2-3 times the medium salary, although they don’t even know how to deal with the job requirements. If it’s an international job, you better go an hire Chinese, Africans or even Arabs, they will do the job more properly.

2. Be prepared to pay more than in European countries like Italy, France, Spain, UK for almost everything; even the legendary burger for Hard Rock Cafe costs in Romania 15$ compared with NYC 9-12$ price; be sure than you will pay more for everything, starting for the basic bread till the meat and every vegetable that you want to eat.

3. Remember, you have to stay in a store less than 10 minutes if you don’t want  to buy something. If you stay more, the sale person will regard you with suspicion, going on the idea that you probably are a theft.

4. Don’t apply the American way here! You can’t make it your own way; you will be at the mercy of authorities, state or other persons that have higher ranks than you. Corruption is still a growing business and probably, if you decide to invest in Romania, you will have to pay for things that comes without any problem in democratic countries.

5. Prepare to be treated like dirt by state institutions and employees. Although most are public functionaires, they act and react as gods; they know everything that you can afford with your money and if you’re not willing to pay, than you will have to wait a couple of months for everything that can be solved within 5 minutes or on email. It will stay the same way until you’re exasperated, you address petitions to EU instances or courts; after that it might resolve everything.

6. Do you have a car? Well, don’t bring it here: we have the crappiest roads in Europe, and on a EU Road you will make about 9-10 hours to get from Timisoara (Western city) to Bucharest (Capital city) for about 550 km, but for the first 300km you will probably make about 7 hours if you want to travel by car; every country in Europe makes the better roads to West, we make them near East; did i mentioned that we have about 300 km of highway, but they are always under construction or on repair? and you will find them near Bucharest. Trains will take you within 8 hours for 550 km so, the medium speed should be around 70km / hour; compared with France’s TGV 350kmh …. sorry, cannot make that comparison.

7. We have beautiful and affordable girls, if you plan to have fun; but watch your pockets, credit cards and everything that has connection with money and your account. A night can cost you a lifetime savings sometimes.

8. Did you know that EU threats the E’s within the aliments, food and drinks carefully; we don’t. You can eat cancerigene food anywhere: hotels, restaurants, fast-foods (more than usual).

9. Justice is for money. Everything is right for you if you have money; if you don’t then you can die with the justice in your right hand, cause almost no court will give you a win in a case you clearly and undoubtely have the winning reason on your side. It’s not enough!

10. Everything works on relations: no public bidding will help your business if you don’t have connections to help you win; you have the chance to find and witness corruption in everything, from sports to media, and from politics to farmers and small state employees. If you’re a non-smoking person, there’s little chance to find a restaurant where you can eat without the cigarette smoke in your nose; If you’re a vegetarian, remember that there are 3-4 restaurants for you at each million ppl, so keep close to big cities: Bucharest, Timisoara, Constanta, Cluj, Brasov.

You don’t have to be sorry. just walk away; Romania is a beautiful country, but unfortunatly … the management sucks!

But, what will stay in my mind is the opening and closing ceremony. The footsteps (don’t care if they where artificially created for TV) over the Beijing heading to the Olympic Stadium, the paper monitor, the sidewall run to light up to Olympic Torch, the human spectacle in the field, the strange of the entrance order for the country teams, when from J we skipped to A then to M, and the closing ceremony with the torch tower, Jackie Chan singing,  the silk flower and the London bus, as in expectation for London 2012 Olympic Games; another thing that will stay in my mind, strange as it seems, is the inner need to visit China, to see close-handed the dog-hamburger, to eat the red fish and to listen to the beautiful Chinese songs (actually to see the beautiful Chinese singers, but hey … ).

Over all, I think that although China is a closed system, with it’s own values, restrictions and rules, they and we can all dream the dream of Pierre de Coubertin: one nation, one heart … one dream. We can take a deep breath of air for all the chinese and say, without modesty: thank you China for the beautiful show you offer us in the summer of 2008, and I hope to see you soon.

According to the MIT researcher, he and his team found a way to split the hidrogen and oxygen from the water at the room temperature, and they are doing this without any expensive matterials or items. Again, if this works 100% then within a few years we can forget the oil, we can forget the oil crisis and we can start using the new solar energy everywhere and anywhere; it’s almost like Tesla wireless power invention, but this time I think the US government will no longer classify the information. Good job guy, and welcome into the top celebs of the 21st century!

Read more about this invention and view the video interview here: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

One noticeable fact over “my promenade” was the attitude of the sales persons: most of them where more friendly, almost approaching to the European attitude of a vendor/tab person. I’ve even seen ice-cream people selling their products with a smile on the face, which is an totally unseen attitudine in the Romania, happiness and smiles from the person that sells you something can be seen starting from the Romania / Hungary border, heading vest.

Iulius Mall: ofc, I’m there almost every 2 days but now I spend more time watching over people’s faces; and my Romania’s impression was confirmed again: sad or grumpy selling people, with eagle eye, watching you all the time and worring that you might steal from them. WTF’s wrong !!!!

- After waiting for more than 14 days for the monthly invoice, the person that collects the money from the clients arrived at my house with the wrong invoice

- One visit two days later at their invoice center; it’s morning, 9:30 AM, much too morning for my taste. I got to the office, and took the seat in front of a sales manager; she was talking to the telephone, of course to a friend or relative, about some trivial stuff. As I seat down, she noded at me, but she didn’t rush her call to end. Noooooo. …. telling to her friend what she watched on tv last night and her impression of someone she and the phone interlocutor knew WAS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THEN ME, THE CLIENT WHO JUST ARRIVED. After a few polite attempts to capture her attention, she FINALLY said “talk to you later” in the phone and hung up; this was 7 minutes after I was arriving and took the seat in front of her. 445 seconds counted. RIGHT! 445 seconds later! So I wasn’t important, I’m just garbage people (and BTW, what’s the trend of speaching from the company phone hours with your friends? RETIM, any idea why your phone bills are so high ? ). Finally, I started explaining that they made a wrong invoice, doubling over the night the number of people from the invoice, and the amount they perceived, and that I wanted to be billed by the number of persons from the contract signed 2 months earlier; she told me to make an request asking them to bill me after the contract. WTF did I signed the contract ? Again, for RETIM policy, CLIENTS = GARBAGE = AREA OF ACTIVITY AND EXPERTISE. The good news was that they promised the send the new invoice in two days. There’s no why in discussing openely with the lady in front of me, so I made the request to be billed according to my contract not to some fantasy some worker had over night, and leaved the building with the promise that 2 days later I will have the new invoice.

- 6 days later, oh you already guessed ? no invoice. So I called today, monday at their 0256 499 490 phone number. BIIIIG MISTAKE. The first men that answered was the centralist; with a tone raised he asked me what I want; no hellos, no how may I assist you; just a shouted what do u want. Again the garbage stuff. I started politely to tell him the story of the invoice, and he decided to transfer me to the payments dept. With an irritation on he’s voice (did I interrupted him from a BJ’s or something ? ) he made the forwarding. Again a lady, irritated and shouting at me; I haven’t said a word yet, but I was already yelled at. WTF! Again, I started to explain the invoice story, but the lady, with a more aggresive and much more irritation in voice than the previous men,  decided to interrupt me 3 times, just without reason. As if I was GARBAGE, not client.., After finishing the story, the lady shouted at me: what do you want from me, this is an invoice problem, why did you get here. Ofc, I asked for the invoice phone interior number, and also for the invoice value, which she could tell me. Again, no presentation, no hello, no how may I help. WTF is wrong with the people there? and WTF do you have against your clients RETIM Timisoara? Why do you treat us so bad ? Having the monopol over the garbage market doesn’t give you the right to have grumpy employees that shout just when they answer the call, and ignore you when you seat in the clients chair.

Conclusion: I know I used and abused of this word in the article, but WTF is wrong ? Is anyone responsable for this situation (I’m already guessing not, but what the heck)? Long live and prosper Timisoara and the garbage monopol! I love you RETIM, keep it up the same way, we, your clients, just LOVE to be treated as garbage!

Poker world is something amazing from whatever angle you would look at it. The entry is free for everyone, but the tables and seats most of the time are forbidden to those with little knowledge of the game and human faceread. Maybe because World Series of Poker, the world known poker tournament wanted to be sure that the winner of it’s main event is given by the knowledge of the game, they postponed the final table of the 10k event to November 08; have you ever heard of Jamie Gold after his glorious win in 2006? I have seen him in a couple of poker shows - like Poker after Dark on NBC - but on a high stake table I haven’t. Anyways, here is the list of the top 9 runners up for the main title (Nov 9th - so long till then):

Seat 1: Dennis Phillips - 26,295,000
Seat 2: Craig Marquis - 10,210,000
Seat 3: Ylon Schwartz - 12,525,000
Seat 4: Scott Montgomery - 19,690,000
Seat 5: Darus Suharto - 12,520,000
Seat 6: Chino Rheem - 10,230,000
Seat 7: Ivan Demidov - 24,400,000
Seat 8: Kelly Kim - 2,620,000
Seat 9: Peter Eastgate - 18,375,000

There are 4 runners around 20M chips, for the rest seems to be allin time. Everyone in the first 9 is already a millionaire after they will finish the table, and the winner will bring home around 9,100,000 USD. I can’t even spell right that number 9.1M$.

whoohooo!

Anyway, welcome to the mobile market, may your stay be long and prosper for both, users and vendors.

When you enter into a casino, no one ask you if you got money on your pockets, or how much money you got on your credit card; it asks for your name and ID Card, and check it with their database, same as you check your ID when you enter into a hotel room. Of course, they (casino employee) expects that you have money on you, but the fact is that you can enter and play into a casino with 10 or 20 USD in your pocket, and none of the casino staff will tell you that you’re poor broke or just your place is not there.

I really don’t understand why after more than 18 years of “liberty” since the ‘89 Revolution, the Romanian middle class and low class don’t go to the places considered tabu in the communist regim. I know, I mentioned that is the wrong-image of the casinos that still persists, the lack of information and promotional materials, the somewhat dark-stories about some casinos,  but … c’mon, we have internet, we have media that writes almost weekly about Daniel Negreanu, about high-life in Las Vegas and since we’re humans, we have the curiosity. And we have lots of movies, the last one on the silver screen right now is 21, you can see the trailer below.

And, for you, the Romanians who never walked into a casino, please remember: IT’S FREE FOOD AND FREE DRINKS! You don’t have to spend any RON / USD / EUR for getting a free beer or soda, so why don’t you step in ?

After more than 10 minutes, a girl having no more than 23 yrs came to me, looked and asked me straight: what do you want ? Ofc, was a shock the way she acted, and the quite direct approach, and …  the rest is personal history, but after the evening I remained with one question: is this better than 70’s ?

(picture from http://opoza.blogspot.com/2007/09/sunny-sunday.html )