Last week was very active in sense of releasing new versions of programs you might had heard about somewhere. centericq 4.5.1 and motor 3.2.0 were released. With the former I decided not to wait for the new libicq2000 version to be released, for there parts related to other IM protocols suffered some changes, and there were added enough features requested by program users zillions of times. Testing done by enthusiasts from the mailing list and the fan-club :) proved good stability. Besides, one nasty thing did appear under RedHat 6.2. More likely it was related to the version of the C++ compiler shipped with the distribution by default. The worst thing is that the bug caused segfaults. So there is an advice for all happy users of the distro mentioned. Please use the misc/cicqsync script to fetch the recent changes along with the fix from CVS. But ok, enough about programs, because further info can be easily obtained from their ChangeLogs.

Now let's talk about the art of literature, belletristics, genres' rules, paper formats, and other issues of writing activities. Being involved in such things recently I've noticed some things I'd like to tell you about.

If you still believe that it's enough to write an article on a potentially intresting subject, using an easy language, following a needed style, etc, you're mistaking. Even if one of magazine's editors asked you to write something within a tough time frame, and then characterized the result as "really cool article". Don't believe it, for it's not enough indeed. In the end of December we were discussing collaboration opportunities with one of the editors of the popular Russian "Hacker" magazine. This discussion resulted in a request to write an article about centericq using their specific style and spirit. Exactly this specific style with various slang words and humour, jokes and stuff, is the most attractive feature there. It looks very unusual for a printed magazine. If someone here haven't read it yet, it's strongly recommended (please note you need to be able to read in Russian). Well, so I accepted the proposition with pleasure and started writing. Cannot say I slept bad, or didn't eat at all because of being busy with it, but it was ready exactly in time, i.e. in several days I sent the completed draft. Then, having said "really cool article" the editor had disappeared and stopped replying to my e-mails. I decided to wait for the new issue. Cannot say now I hoped a lot it would be there, but I was really courious what it would look like. So, in their first issue for this year .. guess what? .. sure, there wasn't anything there. Well, I mean there were a lot of articles on various subjects, but there was nothing about centericq. Just in case I wrote the chief editor an e-mail where asked to explain the situation. The reply said the editor I had been talking to didn't work for them anymore, and also he asked me to send the article again. Now let's see what's to happen this time.

Sure, those guys work under their own rules and it would be strange to be upset with them. Nevertheless, I'm a bit sorry for efforts I put. More, that the article I wrote for them noone else will publish. Thus, I only have to continue working on other ideas, waiting for their reaction one day.

But this one is not the only recent bad luck of mine in this area of activities. I found it a good idea to start collecting e-mails with refusals from another famous magazine, C/C++ users journal. Several days ago I received one more, about the article on ICQ client programs development, which was published before the New Year at freshmeat. Before this there was another refusal on the article about the tool-set of a GNU developer. Such kind of an e-mail from them looks like a template with a refused author's name being substituted. BTW, the mentioned article was published successfully at the linux.com web site.

So, my dear friends, I conclude that it's not that easy to start publishing your own articles. Probably the easiest way is to found your own magazine :)

Living in places where it's difficult to find anyone who speaks Russian, the only means to keep in touch with your own culture remains. It's Internet. Besides, it's not true. Here it's possible to receive ORT (Russian television) and one of Russian speaking radio channels from Moldova, for the border with the latter is about 80 kms away from Iasi. But since I have neither bought a radio receiver nor a TV aerial for the current moment I haven't got any. So, surfing the web, I managed to find the recent album of "Korol i shut" (King and joker), a punk band from Saint Petersburg. The name of the album is translated as "Like in an old fairy-tale". What can I say about it? It's really cool. As usual the guys tell various scary fairy-tales, fables and stories playing a nice and energetic music in parallel. Thus, it's exactly the music I listen every day at work. Strongly recommended to everyone.

Finally, a piece of information about my plans for the nearest future. I'm gonna visit a place which has much more post-Soviet culture than Iasi. It's the city of beauties, red wine, and the last hope of the international communist movement. It's Chisinau. This time we're going to take Gustavo with us. What is really amazing is that this trip is not supposed to be the first time for him to visit the place (I wonder if there are places he hasn't been to). Will try to write a report as soon as we're back.