At last today we started some serious planning for the imminent Romania holiday. I'm going to exploit the blog to report my findings maybe this time I will not go over the same searches and findings over and over again. This part may bore some readers to death so I'll take no offence if you skip over.

Places to visit (Romanian Tourism Itinerary Suggestion)

• Sinaia – Nature and Bird watching base with the option of tracking (see Proposal 1). Also visit Peles Castle and Black Church
• Brasov – Main city base in South Transylvania region. Visit Bran Castle
• Curtea de Arges – Visit Dracula's original castle climbing a flight of 1425 steps (see Trip Report)
• Tulcea – Stopping city for Danube Trip
• Danube Delta – Main bird watching location

Transport (Trains)

• Bucuresti Nord Gr A -- Sinaia – Brasov (direct connection between 3 hrs)
• Brasov -- Curtea (PROBLEM !!)
• Brasov -- Bucuresti Nord Gr A -- Tulcea Oras (1 stop approx 7 hrs)

I've spent a whole weekend battling with DC++ because I couldn't download anything. I was able to connect to hubs as usual, but could not search or download anything, not even simple user file lists. Like all first attempts I tried turning off the Norton Personal Firewall but the problem persisted. After re-installing the program about 5 times using different versions I looked in the forums and searched for the timeout error. Upon browsing it occurred to me that that I could have Window's Firewall activated, and could be conflicting. Upon turning off Window's Firewall DC++ worked fine. These automatic system firewalls are very irritating with default activation. I had the same problem with ipchains on Linux and spent a whole week to sort out the problem. At least it was at work.

While taking my Cadbury High Light Mint Chocolate Drink and reading Simon Willison's blog at work I came across the Infinite cat project link. For anybody who likes cats or is interested in a really original idea … check it out.