Working time in your life

How many time do you spend at your desk and away from desk?
From time to time we should think it over.
There's time for work and should be time for relax.
Unfortunately, time goes by and we should plan recreation and entertainment.
Let's do simple calculation.

8 hours - sleeping time.
1 hour - come to work.
8 hours - working time. Sometimes it might be more.
1 hour - come home.

so it has leaved only 6 hours. If this time isn't planned you won't fill it.
There's so much books about time management. I even attended training.
I should say it's very instructive and useful.

A few links regarding it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management - just in common.
http://www.time-management-guide.com/index.html - good source
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/success/time.html - exact example and videos
http://www.managementhelp.org/prsn_prd/time_mng.htm - good source
and the last link http://www.sellingsalesmanship.com/time.html - good quotes.

Well, sum it up:

Money, can only be gained or lost. But time I can only lose.
So, I must spend it carefully

Best quotes

People have ability of thinking. The more thinking, the more thoughts.
The more thoughts, the more you work to improve yourself.
Sometime you can't explain your thoughts and there's no better way as put into words.
I'd like to share my favorite quotes:

Albert Einstein

• You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
  
• The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Anonymous

• Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

Mark Twain

• Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

Winston Churchill

• Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

Mahatma Gandhi

• Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
• Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Traffic jam picture

Please have a look. I'm shocked. There is no ANY driving culture here.

If everyone just a little thinks of someone on the road there wouldn't be such traffic jam.
For example it's not a secret that everyone in Ukraine can easily buy driving license for 200-300 USD. It's simply disgrace.

I'm just wondering about getting driving license in other countries. Do you have the same?

Slovakia, Bratisliva. Cost of living.

I've already written about Belgium, Brussels a few days ago and I'm going to continue write the next country's survey. I had conversation with my friend which currently works in Slovakia, Bratislava.

Tax
38%

Transport

Taxi
A 10-minute ticket costs SKK 14, and a 30-minute ticket SKK 18, which is under 50 Euro cents.

Food

Clothe

Average salary

Flat rent

Cost of living is xxx.





you know, as i saw average salary ~50k. don't forget that they pay tax :), as i saw it was ~50%.
so perhaps salary grow down to 25k ^). because in my case as i told you they proposed me near 1.7 euro per/month so ~20k per year (but -25% because of tax). but the appartment in the center of the city in bratislava ~350euro+70-100 euro(charges). ~450euro. and food costs not so expensive like in Beussels, i'm sure. but the idea is great. maybe you should create something like table where you show everything.

sorry fro misstakes, i took one bottle of wine in fridge... he he.. it is one of our benefits on a job.

i'm still waiting you here, in Bratislava... here a good point to move to the Austria or any other country.

Google in Cairo

See office in Cairo :)

Springfield. A highly detailed map of the Simpsons' hometown

Recently, I found map of Springfield.
I don't even know that there're so detailed map.
Please see it on www.mapofspringfield.com. This's simple 2d map.

Also there's more expanded map on adn.blam.be. I like it. :)

New design of my blog

I've redesigned my blog.
Please check this out.
If :

• you encountered any problems/bugs/issues or
  
• something isn't convenient for you in surfing or
  
• you just eager to help me improve something in this blog

Please let me know by creating comments to this post.

P.S. Also now you have new feature.

• SUBSCRIBE TO COMMENTS on this blog and you will see all discussions.
• Search
• My other profiles were moved to the top menu
  

Belgium, Brussels. Cost of living.

As I mentioned before I have plans of moving to another country.
From time to time I'll write countries' survey.
I'm going to disclose following points: tax, transport, food, average salary, flat rent

Today It'll be Belgium, Brussels.

So lets go and have a look on cost of living.

• Tax:

From first sight Belgium is associated with highest tax. Lets check it.
I looked through "Centre for Tax Policy and Administration".
The table is below. Tax is 55.4%.

• Transport:

Here are some sample prices:
Single ticket – 1.50 EUR
5-ride ticket – 6.70 EUR
10-ride ticket – 10.50 EUR
Day pass – 4.00 EUR

• Average salary:

• Rent a flat of apartment:

All is simple here. We're google Brussels rent flat and take investigation on this point.
Instantly, I've found http://www.brusselshome.be and take a look on flat with 1 bedroom and 1 toilet. It costs 700 EUR + 125 EUR (charges) but I guess you may find flat cheaper. After rental survey it can tell the range is 500 EUR to 1500 EUR.

Homer Simpson's smiles

I very like Simpsons and recently found smiles of homer

Homer-Cossack
~(_8^(l)

Standard-Homer
`(_8^(l)

Cosmic-Homer
о--(_8^(l)

I can't stop laughing... :)

Salary survey and salary calculator

Salary is always delicate point during negotiation.
There is no rules salary discussion but there salary survey.
A few minutes I've found such one. Check this out. http://www.salaryscout.com/
Also if you plan to move to another country and you'll face with tax.
Often we don't know laws and that's why it's hard to estimate salary.
I was trying to find out some calculator and find :)
For example if we just google "salary calculator" we'll find following:
http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php

Wikia search

Today is official day of starting wikia search.
Search engine will be based on user activity that might improve search process.

Please check this out. http://alpha.search.wikia.com/
Unfortunately this engine is in alpha version and currently it's coarse. I believe it'll have future and become rival against to Google.

What do you think?

2007 has passed. Lets gather what we have,

I strongly believe we should be fair and honest-minded to ourselves this year. I decided to be more organized and determined. That's why I'm writing this article.

2007 has passed. It's time to outline and point out main achievements of last year and set goals for next year.

I saw a lot of articles with results and events of business, politics and IT in 2007 but I've not seen yearning to show private goals and achievements.

I'd like to commence new year from determining this point. I hope it'll be the rule for me. I assume it's very important to define "next year plan" both for private life and work.
Achievements:

• Promotion. Currently, I'm working in Luxoft Ltd. and take over Senior QA position.
• Travel. I visited Hungary-Budapest; Bulgaria-Nesebr, Sozopol; England-London.
  

Goals:

• Children. I'm eager to have children. I'll try to do my best concerning this point :)
  
• Property. Currently, I don't have apartment but I'll try to change this situation.
  
• Car. 2 years ago I could not even dream of it but now it's time to think it over.
  
• Move to another country. Ukraine doesn't give me enough opportunities therefore lets move next.
  
• Set up own business. I won't comment this point :)
  
• Travel. I'm going to visit Czech Republic, Italy and England again.
  

I guess next year I'll review this list and understand what truth is.

I'd like to share such idea with my friends and see such list on their blogs if you don't mind:
- Yuri Zozulya
- Dima Pastovensky
- Maxim Makivchuk
- Alexey Baytsurov