There’s also been progress in terms of user interfaces: Banca Transilvania, the proud owner of the most useless banking web application in history finally upgraded their website for cross-browser support while removing the ridiculous certificate-based authentication. However, their service (BT24) is still bordering uselesness.

Banca Transilvania is one of the few banks that seem to think Romania is the only country in the world and due to that they demand that even international transfers towards Ronanian accounts should use Romanian-style addresses. Example: if you want to transfer money from a UAE account to Romania, you can’t because in UAE the bank doesn’t have your street address, instead they record a PO box for correspondence. Of course, Banca Transilvania will reject the transfer due to these, even though normally in a civilized country all one needs for a transfer is an IBAN and a SWIFT. Go figure!

Speaking of that, the internet banking application of Banca Transilvania requires a ridiculous amount of information for a transfer. Why exactly do you need to input TWO countries related to the person you want to send money to? And why do you also have to input yet another country for the bank of that person? Compare this to a more civilized internet banking application (featured: Credit Agricole), where the only info you need to provide are: the name of the person, their IBAN and the SWIFT. That seems reasonable. What difference does it make if the person is a Bulgarian living in France? You are logged in to your account and you need to send money to a certain account in a certain bank, identified by the IBAN and the SWIFT respectively.

We can only hope that Romanian banks will be able to close the gap between them and the more civilized banks.

The second, there are some components that you might want to keep and replace them with cheaper items in your system so that you can sell them for more separately.

Here I’m talking about your RAM chips and power source unit (PSU). Why?

It’s mostly because when you have a better brand of RAM and/or power source unit, the buyer will not recognize its value. Therefore, the slice of price comprised by these two can’t properly reflect even the devalued value.

You might have a CL4 chip of 4Gb DDR3 running at 667Mhz. It might be OCZ (for example), but your buyer will sneer at the fact you’re not selling him 1333 Mhz RAM. Sure, you can explain to him that the 1333 Mhz in a system is actually achieved with two chips each running at 667 Mhz in dual-channel mode. But during a sale that sounds a lot like bullshit regardless of source.

The power source unit is the most forgotten part of a system. Aside from being there and keeping the system running, nothing else matters. Sure, you might have invested in a good Arctic Cooling or Sirtec PSU, that has a fast yet silent fan, uses 500W of power but actually holds a 600W load. That won’t matter in a sale. Asking for a higher price for your PSU? Can’t have that. You need a lot of luck to make the buyer understand that a cheap power source would consume 550W but offer your system only 400W, without any reserve for over clocking. Your buyer won’t understand that the cheap noisy fan can’t keep the PSU cool and that will increase the temperature of each and every other component of the system. As long as it keeps the PC running, it’s good for him. So why not oblige and buy a cheap PSU that costs 10% the devalued price of your good PSU and sell the PSU later separately?

This is is why I don’t get Instagram and this is why I do think that the acquisition of Instagram for 1 billion USD is definitely worth the font page of every news agency and blog. How in the world did that happen?

Why I realize is: perhaps today’s IT industry isn’t in the hands of jews (like oil or banks) but in the hands of hipsters. They are controlling us.

The good: Xbox 720 is set for a Christmas 2013 launch. Although not yet officially confirmed, a confirmation is expected this summer and has been back by several inside sources. Also hardware rumors include the use of dual AMD GPU’s (confirmed) and a Blu-Ray drive (unconfirmed). The design is close to the current 360, as some Microsoft partners claim, while it will be able to play Xbox 360 content. So, the Xbox 720 is coming.

The bad: Amid rumors of pulling out of the console game, Sony has done little to quench that. Still unconfirmed rumors say that the reason is that they are using the Orbis codename instead of the PS4 and they are also ready for a launch in 2013. Traditionally Sony kept at least one year ahead of Microsoft so this delay raises questions. Still, it is said that it will be a multicore CPU finally able to play 1080p video for games (PS3 having 1080p BD play, but only 720p in games).

The ugly: Microsoft partners also say that the Xbox 720 will need an always-on broadband internet connection to play games. On the Sony side, the PS4 will not be backward compatible with PS3 games and for exchanging games as well as buying second-hand games, there will be a fee to pay to unlock them. The Sony monster has been adding restrictions upon restrictions to its Sony Playstation Network but if the rumors are true, they are trying to top themselves.

In the end, it’s the same idea. If you’d rather watch the movie in your browser than in your own video player, then there’s really no difference. Sure, currently the applications are limited. After all, you don’t have a real Photoshop online now, do you? But then again few people use Photoshop for more than a quick crop and framing and for that there are good online tools (pixlr.com and fotoflexer.com, for example but new HTML5 tools are on the way).

But if this idea is an expansion of the previous article, my objections are also an expansion of my previous objection. Therefore, they revolve around the idea of control.

So, your files are not really your files. You have no control over what happens to them. What if one day legislation changes and some of your files are all of a sudden outlawed? Or what if the company that hosts your cloud is subject to a different legislation than yourself? Your files will disappear overnight with no hope of getting them back. After all, you can’t use recovery tools on an online drive. Basically, you are at the mercy of your host. Also, there’s no real guarantee that the service will always be there for you. Just as in the case of current file hosting companies, video streaming service, etc, clouds might one day cease to exist and we can imagine a variety of reasons.

Why then would you want to relinquish control over data? Choosing to go to a web service to watch movies means you don’t have control over quality, what codecs you use and the availability of the movies (not to mention the simple fact you’re dependent on an internet connection – even though having one is ubiquitous, using it even when you don’t).

But there area rumors in the west … the one world that seemed untouched by computer gaming, World of Darkness, is said to join the MMORPG craze. What’s the new there? Well, according to its makers (CCP Games, makers of Eve Online), it will be an uncensored free world that will rely heavily on its source materials. This seems to hint that sex and politics will be heavily featured, as well as … ummm … permanent character death (known as permadeath in online gaming). How will all that work is a mystery and all we have today is a low quality presentation.

Although there are no dates in the air, this is definitely exciting news.

There are various degrees here. In France, Orange and SFR jumped in the board of the “three strikes” without much of a fight. British Telecom fought a double-sided battle and still pokes at technicalities while strangling peer to peer traffic.

But the Irish flagship Eircom fights a wholly different battle. As Ireland implemented a “three strike” law similar to France in a bid against piracy, Eircom barely put up an opposition and was quick to jump in the RIAA boat following political pressure. At the same time, it was the only one. And, to their surprise, they remained the only one. While Eircom was quick to make a deal with RIAA, all the other Irish ISPs won various legal battles to protect their customer base, with the obvious result that many of them slided over to the competition.

Hilariously (or not), Eircom has taken RIAA’s job of trying to persuade other ISPs to join in on restricting internet access of peer-to-peer users. Even more interestingly, the telco giant UPC was one of the first to say a direct ‘no’ to Eircom and RIAA.