Posts Tagged ‘europe’

Schindler’s List – A must see classical movie about the terrible Jewish Holocaust during World War II

Wednesday, September 10th, 2014

schindlersList-a-classical-movie-about-the-terrible-jewish-holocaust-during-world-war-ii
A very little is known in these days especially among young people of Europe about the terrible attrocities of the Jewish Holocaust and the concentration camps like Auschwitz organized by Hitler's Nazi Germany in World War II.

Schindler's List is a very good American movie (from 1993) retelling a true story about how enterpreneur Oskar Schindler managed to save about 1200 Jewish people from extermination in the camp of dead – Auschwitz during WWII.
Schindler's List is a movie that shows how even a deeply business oriented money obsessed man like O.

oscar_schindler_Schindler-list-movie-main-actor-with-a-cigarette

Schindler was before the beginning of war could grow in the love of Christ and Christian faith to risk his life and well being in order to be liable and honest with himself in a years when most of Nazi's Germans become totally unhuman and obsessed to wipe out existence of Old Testament God's Choosen People – The Jewish.

The movie is based on a popular novel Schindler's Ark by Canadian Thomas Keneally about how the German Shindler saved lifes of thousand Polish-Jewish refugees by creating an own business (fabric) run in Nazi's Germany before WWII and later inside a concentration camp. The movie is shot by the the film legend Steven Spilberg (who is also a Jew) intentionally Black and White to put an extra artistic impact and is very much made to look like a documentary.

The movie is 3 hours 28 minutes of Drama and has multiple awards for  Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score. The movie plot starts from how the anti-semitism in Germany started and how it progressed a little time before the emerge of war and the start of Jewish persecution. The main actors are Oscar Schindler a member of German Nazi Party whose dream is to make a big fortune out of the war. By using bribes and his bright manipulative personality he manages to bribe Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces) and WWII SS (German special forces). Schindler uses the local Jewish Itzhak Stern who has plenty of contacts in Jewish Business community and black marketers to form a cheap-hand jewish labour force for his factory for metal vessels to be used within Germany Nazi's Army. Many high qualified jewish was more than happy to be hired in his "Fabryka Oskara Schindlera" fabric, because this was quite a better alternative than being in one of the deadly concentration camps.

schindler-list-atrocities-of-the-germans

The movie shows, how jewish were forced to obey an always changing and unclear criterias in order to convince them they're no good for nothing and thus for Nazis to find reason to kill as many as possible of them. At a certain point the situation gets out of control and Jewish peoples who are forced to live in Jewish ghettos start being randomly mass murdered for missing reasons in Płaszów concentration camp. SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) Amon Goeth is responsible to oversee the Plaszow camp , once the camp completes its construction by jews, he orders getto liquidated.

small-kid-hiding-from-the-German-Nazis-in-the-toilet

As the Germans start loosing the war, an order is made to sent all surviving jews to the most deadly Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.

Shindler-list-killed-Jews-dead-bodies

Oscan Schindler (also known by all jews as the director), witnesses the jewish massacres and in being profoundly affected, makes full effort to convince the Nazis the his company jews are important as a workforce and he needs them to produce ammos and military weapons in order to make full profit.
He has to pay almost all his earned money in early prior war times and first 2 war years in order to ransom the jews and sents him to work in another established factory of his (he manages to convince Nazis that even children and handicapped are useful for his company thus managing to save a multitude of doomed innocent people. As the train carrying women and children is accidentally redirected to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Schindler bribes the commandant of Auschwitz with a bag of diamonds to win their release.

In his new factory Shindler forbids the SS guards to enter the factory and orders the production of ammos and weapons to be produced defective by his workers. Letting them to even to observe their Jewish Shabbath (Sabbath). In the next 7 months Shindler bribes multiple Nazi officials and runs out of money in 1945 exactly when the War in Europe is over with  Germany surrender. The SS Guards are being ordered to kill the Jews as the red-army is advancing and soon liberate the concentration camp, however Shindler succesfully convinces SS's to let Jews alive and go to their families and homes.

shindler-list-movie-jews-scene-with-a-young-kid

As a sign of thankstfullness his jewish workers give Schindler a signed statement attesting to his role saving Jewish lives, together with a ring engraved with a Talmudic quotation: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.". Schindler is deeply ashamed for not doing even more to save more Jews from extermination. Schindler has to flee the concentration camp to escape being killed by the approaching red-army. On next morning Soviet soldier comes and announces liberation of Jews. The evil Hitler follower Goeth is executed for his crimes against humanity and his unwillingness to refuse his Nazis ideas.

The movie is quite hard to grasp, so prepare for a lot of bloody scenes, nomatter that it is one of the best movies I've seen and has good spiritual elements. It is also good to see for it shows that the Good always triumphs victoriously over the evil.
Happy Watching!
 

Bulgaria Top outsource destination – 5th in the World and 2nd in Europe in list of best countries to outsource business to

Thursday, December 19th, 2013

 

why outsource in bulgaria bulgaria 5th in world and second in europe in outsourcing1

I was stunned today to find out my countryland Bulgaria is 2nd in Europe and 5th in the world in terms of most attractive outsourcing destination according to BTA (Bulgarian News Agency).
Bulgaria is ordering 5th after, India, Indonesia, Estonia and Singapore. The ranking of most attractive destination is based on factors;

  • General Competitiveness of Labor cost Worldwide
  • Eligibility of Workhand
  • Multilingual English speaking population (mainly young people)
  • Expertised highly educated people
  • Very Low Taxes (if compared to "developed" European countries)
  • Decreased transportation costs (produc transportation to Europe is generally cheap)
  • Internet bandwidth speed and high bandwidth connectiveness to worldwide Trade Markets

All this opens a big opportunity for economy development and inflush of fresh-money from outsourced jobs. Due to higher and European standard level of education in Bulgaria, the workhand pool in Bulgaria is usually more knowledgeable and better in quality if compared to rest of 3rd world countries India, Indonesia, Sinagopore etc. Bulgaria has generally good infrastructure and offers easy transportation of people and resources, something not so well developed yet in lets say India or Indonesia. Therefore opportunities for further development in Bulgaria as a leading outsource center in Europe are immerse in the coming 10 years. So far big companies who already realized the great Bulgaria potential like Comverse, HP, IBM etc. started actively hire people in Bulgaria and outsource their businesses but this mainly happens in Sofia.

bulgaria top business destionation for outsourcing 5th in world and 2nd in europe for outsourcing

The trend in long run however is that European leading companies start outsource in smaller cities and towns as well. Right now most prepared personal ready for outsourcing in Bulgaria is in field of Information Technologies, Electronics, Marketing, Transportation Equipment, Business Management, Chemical Industry, Food & Bevarage and Logistics. General outsourcing trend is more and more people working in not high qualitified labor to enter the market of out-sourcing. There are plenty of companies already in Bulgaria involved in textile (clothes) industry offering their cheap and high quality workhand to large external multinational companies like Zara, H & M , Versace etc.

Currently Bulgaria is considered the poorest countries in the European Union with the shocking minimal wage of 310 leva about (155 EUR) and avarage monthly sallary of 812 leva (406 EUR) monthly. The cheapness of Bulgaria is still unidentified gold field ignored by many Western Multinational companies. Outsourcing in Bulgaria has great advantages for European Countries based companies in terms of product logistics as product transportation cost and taxation within the European Union are very cheap if compared to rest of top non-EU outsourcing countries. Due to оbviously advantegous conditions in Bulgaria there are plenty of companies in Bulgaria already specialised in auditing outsourcing business risks and planning steps a company could partake to outsource its business in BG. Current Bulgarian government is making further attempts to relieve country's conditions to attract new business investors by 'Simplifying country's business registration and operations administration requirements and fostering better business environment' as said recently by second minister of economics Krasin Dimitrov in recent business forum "Opportunities and Challanges in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Shared Service Centers (SSC) in Bulgaria"

Trip to Geographical Center of Europe Polotsk Belarus

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

I spend 3 days from last week with my beloved girlfriend Svetlana in Polotsk Belarus. Since I'm here in Belarus for only 21 days, I'm trying to see as much as possible from what is remarkable from this beautiful green country. Polotsk is famous with;
 

  • Polotsk (Полоцк) is old Orthodox Christian Spiritual center and oldest city of Belarus (founded y. 862)
     
  • It is famous for being home city of Saint Efrosinia Polotskaya
     
  •  Polotsk  is Geographical Center of Europe
     
  • Saint Ephrosinia Church (12th century) – where Cross of st. Efrosinia is kept
     
  • Museum of Book-printing – one of the best in Europe
     
  • "The Stone of Boris" – monument of old Slavonic culture

    stone of Boris monument Polatsk Belarus
     

  • Spaso Efrosinievsky Nuns Monastery (Convent) – (established y. 1582) – monastery islocated 15 minutes from Central Train Station

It is interesting that probably the greatest Belarusian enlightener enlightener Frantsysk Skorina was born in Polatsk, Skorina is among most important people of Belarus of all time. It was in Polotsk also when first Belarusian "printer" was used.

I went to Polotsk with absoultely no idea what to expect. To reach there we travelled on a Belarusian train in a sleeping coupe. Mentioning train I should say train station in Minsk is very well organized and looks very European, the only inconvenient thing from other Western countries trains is you have to call Train Station and reserve ticket in advance. If you don't do so there is a high risk there are no free tickets.

Вокзал Vokzal Central Train Station Minsk Belarus

Central Railway Station Minsk, Belarus

Minsk Central Train Station Vokzal Minsk / Вокзал Минск

Minsk inside Central Train station (Copyright Wikipedia)

The train we were in was old probably 25 or 30 years old, but inside all was clean and well maintained, the train windows had curtains and in between coupe corridors there was even carpet. The train toilet seemed a bit ancient and was a bit dirty, but I guess this is normal as even in developed countries like Holland train toilets are bit dirty. Smoking inside the train just like in Bulgaria nowadays was prohibited. Overall train travel was from 11:53 to 08:20 The train is quite slow if compared to Western European but, was confortable and most importantly warm. Going down from train in Polotsk, I noticed even though the train station was little it was generally well organized. We left our laggage in a Luggage Keeping Room (very cheap for 1 day it costs about 1 euro or less!).

Polotsk is a famous tourist destinations for people from Russia and Ukraine, so finding and booking a Hotel in advance was a bit of a struggle. Thanksfully Svetlana managed to book in advance a Hotel Parus. Hotel cost was cheap too about 12 EURO per night for person. Parus hotel was destinated quite good, with rooms having a sightview to Dvina River
After leaving our luggage in Train Station, we went for an eat and find out prices in cafeterias are very low too. We eat quickly in tiny cafeteria – Mini Cafe and for Coffee Tea and a small snacks we pay only about 1.5 euro!
As Polotsk is small with inhabitants of only 80 000 ppl and is a famous spiritual center for centuries – the city "feels" very calm and relaxed. It is very easy to orientate too, the central part of the city is located in less than 10 minutes walk from Central Train Station. Next to train station is the Central Bus Station. The central part has few old monuments and just 3 minutes after crossing the central part (on the right)you reach the part with 3 of city landmarks;

– Historical Museum of Book Printing
– Saint Sophia Cathedral
– Bogoyavlensky sybor (Epiphany Cathedral Church)

saint Sophia Cathedral Polatsk Belarus

Saint Sophia Cathedral Polatsk

Polock River Dvina view

River view to Saint Sophia Cathedral Polatsk

polotsk-bogoyavlenski-sobor-Epiphany-cathedral-Polotsk

Cathedral of Epiphany Polotsk, Belarus

Svetlana planned, we stay 1 day in Polotsk and then travel to one of the other old cities of Belarus Grodno and then to Vitebsk, however we were so tired and Polotsk was so beautiful that we decided stay in Polotsk for one more day. On first day in Polotsk near the hotel there was a small Inn (Damyan) offering menu with traditional Belarusian kitchen food. We ate two nights there and in general  the prices there were normal for a tourist city – a dinner for 2 costs 15 / 20 euro. The inn decoration was with traditional tools and objects used in old times Belarusian living style. Unsurprisingly many of the tools were very similar to ones in Bulgaria so I felt pretty much like in our traditional  Bulgarian taverns ( Mehana ).

On Second day we catch bus number 4 (IRC) to reach to Spaso Efrosinievsky Monastery – named so in honor of st. Efrosinia of Polotsk. It is my first I visit Belarusian / (Russian) Monastery and honestly I was amazed how well all in monastery is organized.

Spaso Efrosinievski manastir Polotsk Belarus main Church building

Starting from Buildings Church buildings and even Nuns and Priests I met I can say Belarusian Spiritual Life is on supreme level. The Monastery had 3 Church buildings, where on the picture you see two of the Church buildings. The architecture of main Church was very much in Byzantine Eastern Style and the Church architecture differs from the usual Russian styled Churches, I've seen in Minsk and Polotsk. The Church architecture very much reminded me of our homeland Churches in Bulgaria.
The main Church building keeps thousand of Christian saints and st. Martyrs Holy Relics. Just to name a few – relics of St. martyr Georgi, st. Seraphim Sarovski, st. Longin (the keeper of the Lord's tomb), st. mrtr Panteleimon, st Nicolas, st Spiridon …
On the left near the alter walls are kept the Holy incorruptable body of saint Efrosinia Polatskaya, The holy incorruptible body of the saint is 10 centuries old!

saint Efrosinia Polatskaya Orthodox Christian icon

In Church photography was prohibited so unfortunately I couldn't take picture of st. Efrosinia's Holy Body. On the left and right corner of the Church near the outer doors there are a number of saints Holy relics to venerate. On the right near the Church Alter, there was a shrine containing a holy relics piece of approximately 100 of the greatest Christian saints!!!
The blessing one gets by visiting the monastery is great, being in the Church and near the Holy relics makes one feel the Pure Joy of Grace of the Holy Spirit flowing.
I and Svetlana stay for half of the evening service and then took to our hotel in Polotsk receiving the blessing of multtude of saints. On the next day, took our baggage and on our way to Train Station, we saw an old house used currently as Kids Museum. I've been in a kids museum already and I know though it is made for Children the joy to be there is not different even for adults as in each of us lives a kid. Below are few pictures from the Kids Museum 🙂

Kids-Museum-Polotsk-Belarusian-architect-Church-in-building

Inside Kids museum (Church inside building 🙂 )

old-Belarusian-things-traditional-Belarusian-instrument

Old Belarusian Musical Instrument (top in Yellow)

kids-museum-Polotsk-Georgi-and-Svetlana

Weighting tools Kids museum (Me and Svetlana)

On 3rd day of our stay in Polotsk, we catch a bus back to Minsk. The bus was a small mini-bus very similar to ones we have in Bulgaria. Just like with almost everything in Belarus it was necessary to reserve and buy our bus tickets in advance (on previous day).
In General we had great time in Polotsk. It is cheap there are things to see and it is small and everything is nearby you. If you happen be in Belarus visit Polotsk for a day or 2 its worthy.

Fun: Development of Windows OS graphic interface 1995 – 2008, Computer design is repeating itself

Sunday, January 27th, 2013

history from aol to windows mobile phones OS history of IT is repeating itself or where Windows OS stole their interface from :)

Do you remember the old days, when AOL (America on Line) was part of Windows 95 / 98 progam components / menus? Most brand new Windows 95 and Win 98 installations had AOL by default. Though AOL was standard internet ISP in America, I think they never took the lead in Europe in my home country it was impossible to use AOL, so Win installs back in the day just had desktop shortcut which had to be deleted. However in America AOL was well known company providing Internet access via dial up in the yearly days of Internet years 1995 – 2000.  In above picture you see screenshot of the order of buttons, design and coloring of AOL Windows 95 / 98 application compared compared to modern (Mobile) Windows powered 8 / Windows phones, the likeness is striking! Doesn't seem too much like incident or innovative design, does it? 🙂 The difference between 1995 and now in functionality is not significant too the main difference is in 95 the Net was slow, there are some improved graphics and mobility which is so common today, the res is just redesign and re-inventing the steel. Probably if one takes the time to compare other old computer interfaces with newer one find many similarities. This is also true for Macintosh / Apple products.
Big thanks to my dear friend Nomen for handing me in the pic 🙂
 

How to configure NTP server (ntpd) to synchronize server clock over the Internet on FreeBSD

Friday, February 10th, 2012

 

FreeBSD ntpd logo / How to configure ntpd to synchronize with internet time servers on FreeBSD

On FreeBSD ntpd , ntpdc , ntpdate , ntpq doesn't need to be installed via a specific package like on GNU/Linux as they're part of the FreeBSD world (binary standardly shipped with FreeBSD basis system).

The FreeBSD handbook has a chapter explaining thoroughfully on ntp on FreeBSD ,however for the lazy ones here is a short few steps tutorial on how to install and configure ntpd on bsd :

1. Copy sample ntp.conf file to /etc/

freebsd# cp -rpf /usr/src/etc/ntp.conf /etc/ntp/

No need for any modifications if you don't want to apply some specific restrictions on whom can access the ntpd server. If you update regularly the FreeBSD system with freebsd-update or directly by rebuilding the FreeBSD kernel / world adding restrictions might be not necessery..

If you check /usr/src/etc/ntp.conf you will notice freebsd project people are running their own ntp servers , by default ntpd will use this servers to fetch timing information. The exact server hosts which as of time of writting are used can be seen in ntp.conf and are:

server 0.freebsd.pool.ntp.org iburst maxpoll 9
server 1.freebsd.pool.ntp.org iburst maxpoll 9
server 2.freebsd.pool.ntp.org iburst maxpoll 9

2. Add ntpd daemon to load on system boot via /etc/rc.conf

By default ntpd is disabled on FreeBSD, you can see if it is disabled or enabled by invoking:

freebsd# /etc/rc.d/ntpd rcvar
# ntpd
ntpd_enable=NO

To Enable ntpd to get loaded each time it boots , following 3 lines has to be added in /etc/rc.conf .

ntpdate_enable="YES"
ntpdate_flags="europe.pool.ntp.org"
ntpd_enable="YES"

Quick way to add them is to use echo :

echo 'ntpdate_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
echo 'ntpdate_flags="europe.pool.ntp.org" >> /etc/rc.conf
echo 'ntpd_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.conf

Now as the 3 rc.conf vars are set to "YES", the ntpd can be started. Without having this variables in /etc/rc.conf , "/etc/rc.d/ntpd start" will refuse to start ntpd.

3. Start the ntpd service

freebsd# /etc/rc.d/ntpd start
...

One interesting note to make is ntpd can also operate without specifying any config file (/etc/ntp.conf), the only requirement for the server to start is to have a properly set ntpdate server, like lets say (ntpdate_flags="europe.pool.ntp.org")

4. Permit only certain host or localhost to "talk" to the ntpd server

If you want to imply some ntp server restrictions, the configuration directives are same like on Linux:

To allow only a a host inside a local network with IP 192.168.0.2 as well as localhost, to be able to fetch time information via ntpd server put inside /etc/ntp.conf:

restrict 127.0.0.1
restrict 192.168.0.1 mask 255.255.255.0 nomodify notrap

If you want to prohibit ntpd to serve as a Network Time Server, to any other host except localhost, add in /etc/ntp.conf :

restrict default ignore

Allowing and denying certain hosts can be also done on pf (packet filter) or ipfw firewall level, and in my view is easier (and less confusing), than adding restrictions through ntp.conf. Besides that using directly the server firewall to apply restrictions is more secure. If for instance a remote exploit vulnerability is discovered affecting your ntpd server. this will not affect you externally as access to the UDP port 123 will be disabled on a firewall level.
Something good to mention is NTP servers communicate between each other using the UDP source/destination (port 123). Hence if the NTPD server has to be publicly accessible and there is a firewall already implemented, access to source/dest port 123 should be included in the configured firewall …

5. Check if the ntp server is running properly / ntp server query operations

[root@pcfreak /home/hipo]# ps axuww|grep -i ntp
root 15647 0.0 0.2 4672 1848 ?? Ss 2:49PM 0:00.04 /usr/sbin/ntpd -c /etc/ntp.conf -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -f /var/db/ntpd.drift

To query the now running ntpd server as well as set various configuration options "on the fly" (e.g. without need for ntp.conf edits and init script restart), a tool called ntpdc exists. ntpdc tool could be used to connect to localhost running ntpd as well as to connect and manage remotely a ntpd server.
The most basic use of ntpdc is to check (server peers).:
freebsd# ntpdc localhost
ntpdc> peers
remote local st poll reach delay offset disp
===================================================

kgb.comnet.bg 83.228.93.76 2 64 377 0.00282 -0.050575 0.06059
*billing.easy-la 83.228.93.76 2 64 377 0.01068 -0.057400 0.06770
=ns2.novatelbg.n 83.228.93.76 2 64 377 0.01001 -0.055290 0.06058

ntpdc has also a non-interactive interface, handy if there is a need for requests to a ntpd to be scripted. To check ntpd server peers non-interactively:

freebsd# ntpdc -p localhost
===================================================
kgb.comnet.bg 83.228.93.76 2 64 377 0.00284 -0.043157 0.06184
=billing.easy-la 83.228.93.76 2 64 377 0.01059 -0.042648 0.05811
*ns2.novatelbg.n 83.228.93.76 2 64 377 0.00996 -0.041097 0.06094

ntpdc has plenty of other ntpd query options, e.g. :

ntpdc> help
ntpdc commands:
addpeer controlkey fudge keytype quit timeout
addrefclock ctlstats help listpeers readkeys timerstats
addserver debug host loopinfo requestkey traps
addtrap delay hostnames memstats reset trustedkey
authinfo delrestrict ifreload monlist reslist unconfig
broadcast disable ifstats passwd restrict unrestrict
clkbug dmpeers iostats peers showpeer untrustedkey
clockstat enable kerninfo preset sysinfo version
clrtrap exit keyid pstats sysstats

ntpdc is an advanced query tool for ntpd , servers. Another tool exists called ntpq which syntax is almost identical to ntpdc . The main difference between the two is ntpq is a monitoring tool mostly used just for monitoring purposes, where ntpdc can also change plenty of things in the server configuration.

For people who want to learn more on ntpd the man page is a great reading , containing chapters describing thoroughfully exactly how NTPD time servers operate, etc.

How to fix wrongly configured timezone in Debian GNU/Linux and Ubuntu

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

During the install of a new Debian GNU/Linux server I was in a real hurry, so I mistakenly choose a wrong timezone of US/Pacific

As a consequence the server date and time was incorrect and I had to fix that to adjust to the proper server location which of this case was:Europe/London

Here is the quick fix:

debian:~# dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Next I choose my timezone from the ncurses interface navigating with arrow keys and used ntpdate to synchronize the time for the server like so:

debian:~# ntpdate time.nist.gov
3 Aug 16:02:26 ntpdate[26658]: adjust time server 192.43.244.18 offset 0.000802 sec

Done 😉