Launching Simple AMP Version for Drupal Website

20 July, 2017 | Drupal Development | 7 seen

I might be late to the party of implementing AMP for my Drupal powered website, as AMP have been around for a while already, it was just tonight I finally managed to implement and validate AMP for this blog.

In this article I'll share some of my notes on how to implement AMP for Drupal, compare load times before and after and of course will touch a topic of about possible SEO gains (though, seems that AMP is not a ranking factor yet)

Here is the short version about what's AMP:

The AMP Project is an open-source initiative aiming to make the web better for all. The project enables the creation of websites and ads that are consistently fast, beautiful and high-performing across devices and distribution platforms. Learn more: https://www.ampproject.org/

I should admit, that implementing AMP for Drupal was kind of challenging and in total took me more than8 months to get first validated results. I started working on Drupal AMP version at the end of 2016, spent some good time learning how to use composer and even started using Drush. 

There is a great module for Drupal - Accelerated Mobile…

About Night Life in Tbilisi

19 July, 2017 | Travel guides | 7 seen

Any city looks different when the night falls and the muffled lights are sparkling in the yellow rays of lampions. Level of intimacy is at its highest and you just have to dissolve into the dark.

Tbilisi is extremely beautiful at night as all its main attractions’ virtues are highlighted by the strong bright projectors. It really looks like a phantom city with its old castles and ancient churches. Of course I am talking about the city-center and not its outskirts or uptown as the main beauty is concentrated in the heart of the city that embraces Liberty Square, Rustaveli and Marjanishvili Avenues.

When coming to Tbilisi the first rule you should remember is that the gurgling night-life with lots of people in the streets is not a part of Georgian reality as all the locals prefer to stay at home or in the yards and play backgammon and drink beer while talking about football. Night can radically change one’s opinions and desires. Something miraculous happens out there in Tbilisi – suddenly you feel free from the system and as if the second wind opens - you want to live, learn, and even create.

It was mentioned many…

Postcards from Chania

18 July, 2017 | | 14 seen

At the start of June, 2017 we traveled for a 3 week leisure trip to the island of Crete, Greece, and our first stop was lovely coastal town Chania. We spent a lovely night discovering local Cretan cuisine and I photographed a lot nightly scene, equipped with a tripod and long exposures, lovely.

That said - postcards from Chania!

Chania lighthouse

Lively Chania promenade with lots of cafeterias

About 18 months ago we visited the so called Italian Riviera - Portofino, see: Portofino - picturesque harbor village in Italian Riviera, now we can draw parallels with both coastal town - truly amazing for romantic escape. 

Street vendors in Chania

Ah, those lovely ghost long exposures.

A bench

Just love this long exposure.

the girl and the lighthouse

Amazing, beautiful and truly inspiring. Chania we love you!

Invest in Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum and other) Peer to Peer Lending - Poloniex.com

17 July, 2017 | Crypto | 23 seen

Seems that crypto currencies are a hot thing on this blog during this Summer, though it was just recent, not even a month ago, when I decided to diversify my investment portfolio and allocate up to 5% space in it for crypto currency investments (buy and hold here).

From my initial investments in crypto at the start of July (see: First Investment In Crypto Currencies - Bought 0.2 ETH for EUR 50) I've lost in value more than -50% in just 2 weeks, see: Crypto currency volatility, lost -54.42% in just two weeks

Now, despite the pretty serious loses here, I still feel pretty optimistic about crypto currency future, and plan to invest there once in a month using dollar average cost approach by the end of 2020. 

For about last 6 month I've been investing in a more casual form of peer to peer lending - mintos.com, focusing my investments in Georgian loans. See: Invest in Georgia - Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending - Mintos.com 

As I'm already familiar with peer to peer lending concept, and currently in the exploration phase for crypto currency investments, I thought it would be cool - if I could lend out some or all of my…

Crypto currency volatility, lost -54.42% in just two weeks

16 July, 2017 | Crypto | 17 seen

In the past two weeks, my investments in crypto currencies have lost it's value by -54.42%, that's insane, but here is the thing - I don't care much, as I believe in the long term run they should raise, break even and even grow in value.

My story with crypto currency investment started just about two weeks ago, during a leisure trip to Crete, Greece I decided to allocate a small piece (up to 5%) from my investment portfolio in crypto currencies. Also I decided to use dollar cost averaging approach and constantly buy more coins each month. 

After seeing a drop by more than 50% in just two weeks I've started to think to limit crypto currency part in my portfolio to some 2-3% instead of 5%, as such huge volatility actually impacts my overall portfolio performance.

Cryptocurrency volatility 

How To Track Your CryptoCurrencies Portfolio Automatically Using Google Spreadsheets

From three crypto coins in my wallet, ether has lost the most, -101,18%, bitcoin - 41.16% and litecoin -35.64%, and that all have happened in just two weeks. Insane!

On…

Athens International Airport

14 July, 2017 | Airports | 25 seen

Athens International Airport "Eleftherios Venizelos", commonly initialized as "AIA", began operation on 28 March 2001 and is the primary international airport that serves the city of Athens and the region of Attica.

It is Greece's busiest airport and it serves as the hub and main base of Aegean Airlines as well as other Greek airlines. Athens International is the 28th busiest airport in Europe.

I had a chance to visit Athens airport, during a short connecting flight by Aegean Airlines from Tbilisi to Chania (see: About Tbilisi - Athens - Chania (Greece) flight by Aegean Airlines ) at the start of June 2017.

Athens International Airport

AIA is located between the towns of Markopoulo, Koropi, Spata and Loutsa, about 20 km (12 mi) to the east of central Athens (30 km (19 mi) by road, due to intervening hills). The airport is named after Elefthérios Venizélos, the prominent Cretan political figure and Prime Minister of Greece, who made a significant contribution to the development of Greek aviation and the Hellenic Air Force…

Chania International Airport (Greece)

13 July, 2017 | Airports | 20 seen

Chania International Airport, "Daskalogiannis"  is an international airport located near Souda Bay on the Akrotiri Peninsula of the Greek island of Crete, serving the city of Chania, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) away.

Moreover, it is a gateway to western Crete for an increasing amount of tourists. The airport is named after Daskalogiannis, a Cretan rebel against Ottoman rule in the 18th century and is a joint civil–military airport. It is the fifth busiest airport in Greece and 8th in Balkan peninsula in terms of passengers. From 2010 to 2016 has a great increase about 100% in passengers arrivals. The airport is connected with many countries (about 30) from Europe and Asia especially in summer season and with flights connections in Greece and Cyprus whole year. 

I traveled to Chania with connecting flight through Athens from Tbilisi and back with another connecting flight to Riga via Copenhagen in June 2017. We headed to Crete for about 3 week vacation. 

Chania International Airport

The focus on civil aviation for the west of Crete has not always been on the current location. It…

Postcards from Athens

12 July, 2017 | | 14 seen

Just like in the case of postcards from Istanbul, we had just a few hours to spend in Athens, Greece, between layover flight to Chania (Crete). 

Equipped with camera and adventurous spirit we dive in the narrow streets of Athens to discover it's beauty and visit some ancient sites.

Square in Athens

One of our first stops in the city center arriving from Athens airport. 

Graffiti in Athens

View towards Athens

From distance Athens seems very similar to Tbilisi, the place from above picture reminded me some scenes from our hiking trips in Tbilisi near Turtle lake. See: Hiking in Tbilisi - Turtle lake (Kus Tba) - Vake Park

Archeological excavations in Athens

Streets of Athens

There is a metro station somewhere around, here I bought a sim card from Vodafone, see Planing a trip to Greece: How to get a Prepaid SIM Card with Internet

Ancient site of Agora

Read more here: Ancient Agora of Athens

Modern architecture in Athens

That said - another city, another postcards from! 

Ancient Agora of Athens

11 July, 2017 | Tourism objects | 19 seen

The Ancient Agora of Classical Athens is the best-known example of an ancient Greek agora, located to the northwest of the Acropolis and bounded on the south by the hill of the Areopagus and on the west by the hill known as the Agoraios Kolonos, also called Market Hill.

It was at the start of June, when I first visited Athens, Greece during a brief layover flight to the island of Crete, see About Tbilisi - Athens - Chania (Greece) flight by Aegean Airlines. We had about 10 hours between our connecting flight, once we left Athens airport we took the metro to the city center and just explored, without any particular goal or something. 

We found ourselves visiting Ancient Agora of Athens site, pretty cool right?

View towards Ancient Agora of Athens

After an hour of wanderings around narrow streets of Athens, we finally noticed this place.

Excavations at Athenian Agora

The ancient Athenian agora has been excavated by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens since 1931 under the direction of T. Leslie Shear, Sr. They continue to the present…

Q2 2017 Online Income Report - $6,116.98

10 July, 2017 | Blogging | 8 seen

Wow - that was fast, another quarter of year just passed and we are already in the middle of year. Last three months have disappeared as another flicker. Time flies. 

Now let' s see how did it go for my online ventures in Q2 2017 (April, May and June).

During past three months I've traveled a lot - in mid May we went for a short trip to Germany (Dortmund area), then after about a week returned to Georgia for a week via Istanbul, Turkey. And in the start of June we fled to Crete, Greece and spent amazing 3 weeks there. That's a lot of countries in just 3 months. 

Despite my concerns after Amazon Associates reduced commission fees for select product categories (starting March), last quarter managed to beat first quarter of the year by $154.  And here is why - diversification of online income streams. Since the start of 2017 I've launched tour booking platform in Georgia - tourgeorgia.eu and I'm starting to make first earnings from dividend paying stocks and peer to peer lending. 

I cover separate series on dividends and peer to peer lending, make sure to check them out also: Dividend…

Dollar-Cost Averaging as part of Cryptocurrency Portfolio

9 July, 2017 | Crypto | 57 seen

Those of you following my blog in the recent weeks (months) probably have already noticed, since the start of the 2017 I've been building my retirement portfolio from scratch. It has been already more than 6 months since the start of this journey and the great news are following, I'm at 80.27% from this years goal to invest $8,561. (That's roughly about 31% from my annual earnings).

If at the start of year I thought that I will invest in mutual funds, stocks and peer to peer lending, and also I thought that to save $8,561 will be really tough (hard but doable), then now 6 month later I have found that it is quite possible to put some chunk of money from earnings month to month in savings and I'm more than sure that I will save more than $8,561 this year (I'm looking right now to save in total for 2017 $10,000).

Also for my investments I've extended portfolio to cash and crypto currencies.

As I like to think - it's all about finance discipline and smart decisions.

Now, when speaking about smart decisions and investments in crypto currencies, this is the part where I'm very uncertain - right now…

Phidias Lounge Bar in Athens

9 July, 2017 | Restaurant reviews | 13 seen

Phidias lounge bar in Athens was mine second cafe / restaurant in Greece, as just early in the morning we arrived from Tbilisi to Athens and had a few hours before our connecting flight to Chania, Creete.

We used spare hours and from Athens airport went directly to the city center by metro. 

Phidias lounge bar in Athens

Since we hadn't been to Athens before and were kind of limited in time, we decided to visit only things that will be close to our route, that's how we turned out near to the Ancient Agora of Athens site, after wondering around (and not inside) for about 2 hours first cafeteria that crossed our route was Phidias lounge bar. 

Just now, when writing these lines and using Google maps to locate this place, I learned that there is actually a hotel Phidias, and lounge bar is just an extension. Maybe next time when going to Athens, it' s good idea to book hotel Phidias, price seems fair - about EUR 90 per night. And a lovely sight towards Ancient Agora of Athens site.

While I was bussy ordering cold frappe, my seat was already taken:

Greek cat

What a lovely mate to enjoy coffee…

How To Track Your CryptoCurrencies Portfolio Automatically Using Google Spreadsheets

7 July, 2017 | Macroeconomics | 211 seen

It was just recently I made my first investment in cryptocurrencies, I spent EUR 50 to acquire about 0.2 Ethereum. As I bought them for a long term (buy and hold) and actually I'm planning to acquire more coins every month using dollar cost averaging and decided to build a separate Google Spreadsheet to track value changes, gains, or losses.

For support please visit the Terramatris website: Custom Google Spreadsheet Development for Crypto Currency Portfolio Tracking

I see investments in crypto currencies as a great alternative to diversify my portfolio. Right now crypto currencies stand at about 0.8% in my portfolio and I'm looking to increase it to about 5% by the end of 2017. 

Update: This article originally was written back in 2017, the formula(s) listed in this article have changed several times. If not working look into the comments section for any help

The idea of the following spreadsheet was inspired from a regular stock tracking sheet, see: Simple Google Spreadsheet to Track Stock Portfolio Changes Using GOOGLEFINANCE

Here is a catch, to get real-time updates in Google…

First Investment In Crypto Currencies - Bought 0.2 ETH for EUR 50

6 July, 2017 | Crypto | 38 seen

It was in the late evening of July 3d, 2017 when I finally successfully bought my first crypto currency - I paid EUR 50 and get for that - 0.2 ETH. ETH stands for ethereum. Wonder what the heck is that? Don't worry, me neither.

Or let' s say this way - I know there have been bitcoin around for about a decade or something, though I don't see any practical reason for using that, while real money is in power. Right? It was so until about two weeks ago, while sipping freshly squeezed orange juice in rental apartment in Crete, a fellow affiliate marketer contacted me and we started to speak about investments, stocks, peer to peer lending and ... crypto currencies. My buddy told me he is doing some kind of arbitrage day trading stuff with crypto currencies. 

As I'm quite opposite - buy and hold investor, and since the start fo 2017 I've been building my wealth portfolio from scratch by investing in stocks and peer to peer lending, idea of having long term investments sounded very appealing to me and I decided to allocate about 5% space in my portfolio for crypto currencies. 

Investment Portfolio July 2017

About Tbilisi - Athens - Chania (Greece) flight by Aegean Airlines

4 July, 2017 | Travel guides | 8 seen

There is a pretty convenient option when traveling from Tbilisi to the island of Crete (Greece), probably there are some direct charter flights, but at the start of June we opted for a connecting flight Tbilisi - Athens - Chania by Aegean airlines. Bought online tickets about a month prior, and in fact didn't paid too much (about 200 EUR for two persons)

This was the first time for me traveling to Greece, and I quite enjoyed option to spend few hours in Athens and visit some of the Ancient world sites. Really cool.

Now, that said - I've another airline company on my radar, when traveling to or from Georgia. Aegean is is the largest Greek airline by total number of passengers carried, by number of destinations served and by fleet size. A Star Alliance member since June 2010, it operates scheduled and charter services from Athens and Thessaloniki to other major Greek destinations as well as to a number of European and Middle Eastern destinations. Its main hubs are Athens International Airport in Athens, Thessaloniki International Airport in Thessaloniki and Larnaca…