Friday, September 29, 2006 at 19:17 As many might have heard (or not); Microsoft is going to launch a mp3/movie player. It's supposed to be THE Microsoft answer to the iPod, and it's called 'Zune'. BBSpot did a rather rather weird comparisson/benchmark of the two. BBspot - Digital Music Player Showdown: Apples iPod vs. Microsofts Zune For those who don't care to read the test: the iPod wins :)
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at 20:48 The reasons for not switching to the Mac platform completely are gaming for my regular PC, and some typical Windows software that I use on my server. I use NewsLeecher on my server to download linux distro's and other stuff ;) from the Internet. There is no (Mac) application that comes even near it in terms of usability etc. The last couple of days I heard, and read some good reviews about CrossOver. This application emulates (or whatever you call it) a Windows environment for that single application. So no virtual machines etc, where you need to install windows first, and then the application in that Windows OS. When installing the application in (or with) CrossOver it looks like the Windows application is actually running on OSX. So it was time for an experiment.... I needed to check if NewsLeecher would run in CrossOver (note: NewsLeecher has not been tested according to the compatibility database on their website). The installation process of newsleecher was quite simple. You get all the same screens etc. After the installation I tried to launch NewsLeecher, and the application crashed with an error stating that "gdiplus.dll" was corrupt or missing. After adding this DLL (copied it from a Windows machine), NewsLeecher started :), BUT crashed a bit later on a OLE error :(. Next thing was to copy all OLE related DLL's from my Windows\system32 directory to my Mac. After this the application actually ran (it started with a warning). I could add newsservers, and subscribe to newsgroups. The only downside was that SuperSearch wouldn't work, and downloading news articles crashed the application :(. Eventhough NewsLeecher wouldn't run without crashing, the CrossOver application itself is wonderful. It supports most of the normal Microsoft applications like Office etc., and lot's of other apps. I guess it's just a matter of time before (almost) every application for Windows can run on a (Intel) Mac. This also means that I need to save me some money to buy me a new server (Mac Mini) first, and after that a new workstation (iMac 24", or a Mac Pro).
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at 20:20 A while ago, I mentioned that my ISP is XS4ALL. I also mentioned that they do a lot off things for their users. OK, they are a bit more expensive than most other ISP's, but they offer more and more additional (free) services. Today I received a letter (good oldfashioned snailmail) from XS4ALL, mentioning that I'm able to upgrade from Fast ADSL (1024kbps up/12Mbps down) to Ultra ADSL (1024kbps up/20Mbps down). Well, more speed is allways welcome, but the nice part is..... it doesn't cost anything. The upgrade is completely for free, and to make it even more interesting they also give (!!!!) a new ADSL2+ modem/router with WiFi (worth about €90). The only "downside" is that I need to renew my XS4ALL account for a full year. Well, since I've been using them for the last 6 years, that shouldn't be to much of a problem. An other thing might be that my IP address changes with this upgrade (it happened in the past with upgrades etc.), so expect downtime in the near future.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at 14:03 Just got back from a deserved (ultra short) vacation from Dubai (United Arabic Emirates). Damn, it was hot. At night the temperature got as low as 35 degrees celsius(!!!!). I didn't want to know what the temperatures were during the day. Thank god for airconditioning. Four days of sun, and bloody good food. Dubai itself isn't that attractive, because most of the city is still under construction. Everywhere you look are construction sites, and every building company wants to deliver a bigger and more beautiful building. That results in a massive amount of 50+ floor buildings. Mind you that Dubai isn't the cheapest place to stay. I was gratefull for the "sponsering" we received. It's definitely a place for the rich and famous (which I'm not). It is, however, a good place (for our mortals) to make some good money in a relatively small period, since you don't pay taxes over there :), and they do need lots of hands to build the city.
Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 12:23 I'm looking for a (cheap) GPS unit for my holiday in Africa. The only thing it should do, is record coordinates and save waypoints (about 100-200). With these coordinates, place my photos on Google Earth, so everyone can see where those pictures were taken. I do have a iPaq handheld with GPS software and a separate GPS mouse, but this combination is a bit fragile, so I need something more solid. Minimum requirements:
Gadgets Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 23:31 Today I got a Cisco 876W router to play with at home. The router has an ADSL interface, wireless, and several fast ethernet ports. So it's an ideal replacement candidate for my Thompson ADSL modem. Since I'm a software nerd, I'm not that familiar with hardware devices (understatement), but since the router has a web interface for the configuration, I thought... "how hard can it be?".. Well, damn hard. I had the LAN part up and running within minutes (well almost :) ). I even got my WAN interface up after two hours (the dialer interface received my "almost-static-IP adress" from my provider). The only problem I have at this moment is that there's no routing (or whatever) being done between my LAN and the Internet. I SHALL NOT GIVE UP! HELP!!!!! b.t.w. I'll be posting my basic (future) working config later on (If I don't throw that piece of crap out of the window first).
Monday, September 18, 2006 at 9:29 XS4ALL is the quality (security/privacy) ISP in the Netherlands (I'm using them for years now). In the last couple of months they've introduced a number of (beta) services for their customers like;
Sunday, September 17, 2006 at 9:37 A couple of days ago I picked up my new Sigma 80-400 Telezoom lens with Optical Stabilizer. The lens costs a few dinero's, but you get one hell of a good lens for it. I'll try to post some photos demonstrating the Optical Stabilizer in the next couple days.
Monday, September 11, 2006 at 15:25 We're going (back) to Africa in a couple of weeks. So for that occasion I would like to get a new Telezoom Lens to go with my Nikon D100. Some researching on the Internet left me with the "Sigma 80-400 F4.5-5.6 EX DG OS". Today was the to be the day to order it (got approval from the CFO :) ), but the Nikon mount has some stock issues. The lens is NOWHERE to be found in the Netherlands :x. This leaves me with two options:
Tuesday, September 5, 2006 at 22:55 Today, I ran into a "little" annoyance regarding the forgotten password thing on Yahoo / Flickr. I access my Flickr Pro account from several PC's and use (don't ask why) different browsers (IE, Firefox and Safari). Somehow, my main PC "forgot" the password (or misplaced the cookie) for my Flickr account, so I needed to log in again. For some reason, my password didn't do the trick, so I thought; "let's reset it then"... Well there's a challenge. You need to know exactly what (personal) data you entered when you signed up. Thagt is date of birth, ZIP code, country etc. As if everyone tells the truth on the Internet??? Fortunately, I gave the proper dates etc. when I signed up. So that wasn't hard to remember. Anyway the first challenge was to get the right ZIP code into the form. In Holland we use 4 digits followed by 2 characters (e.g. 1234AB), but this is used in two ways. Namely with or without a space between the numbers and characters.... So what did I use? Furthermore, is this case-sensitive? Is it "1234ab", or "1234 ab", or "1234AB", or "1234 AB"??? I tried them all, and every time there was the error about not filling in things correctly AND not entering the security code correctly. So after a few retries, my account got locked :x :x, so don't expect any new photos on my Flickr PRO page soon...... Why not simply have an e-mail sent to the e-mail address you used when you signed up?? Almost every other service uses this method. UPDATE: Well, with no thanks to Yahoo (and all), I found my password hidden in a obscure file cabinet under the "M" for Miscellaneous :)
