Seasonal view from the deck

 Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Sitting in a meeting with a laptop and nothing is going on? Need to shoot some time? Check-out the best time-wasting websites: http://freebies.about.com/od/710/tp/timewasting.htm. I have to finish now an play a little bit more in the sand ...
Tuesday, January 03, 2006 6:27:10 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Thursday, December 22, 2005

There is a movie trailer out there for the Mel Gibson flick 'Apocalypto', for details check the IMDB site, but someone at work mentioned that you should play close attention to the trailer around the 1:45 mark. It is really hard to spot - but here is it for your viewing pleasure...

 

At 1:46 you see this frame ...

 

 

 

A couple of frames later, you see this frame

 

 

 

The funny frame is in the middle, Mel Gibbson having a good time ...

 

nice marketing ...

 

Thursday, December 22, 2005 5:15:27 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Sunday, December 04, 2005

As an owner of a XBox360 I added my gamertag to the title page ... Gamescore of 55 probably means I don't play enough ...

Sunday, December 04, 2005 1:39:39 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Friday, November 18, 2005

Gamespot run an article on "Video Cable Comparison" for the XBox360, here:
   http://www.gamespot.com/features/6139690/index.html

Nice article to give you and introduction to the different video modes, and the visual comparison done in the article with sample pictures is pretty nice.

"How you connect the Xbox 360 to your TV could mean the difference between brilliant visuals and mediocre picture quality. If you have an HDTV you're going to want to use component cables to hook up the Xbox 360. For normal televisions, your best bet will be S-Video. Should you have an older-model TV that doesn't have an S-Video input, composite video might be your only option. Lastly, if your TV has only an RF input and you bought an Xbox 360, you probably should have bought a new TV first."

Summary: I see more hme entertainment investment in my future.

Friday, November 18, 2005 10:41:18 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Tuesday, November 15, 2005

For the last couple of month I was a happy user of FolderShare, a simple way to create a peer-to-peer network helping me to synchronize data between different machines (and also work places). The software worked just great for me, no problems with NAT, proxies, whatever. I finally decided to pay the modest fee of $49 for the extended version (better protocol, less limitations...). FolderShare has been acquired by Microsoft (something I take as a sign of quality for the FolderShare software), and I received mail from FolderShare stating that the service is now free of charge and I will be receiving a refund of my fees at a pro-rated basis.

All I can say 'Excellent', great service, I was not really expecting a refund. Thanks, keep improving the software, and I won't mind if it stays free ...

Tuesday, November 15, 2005 2:16:51 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Sunday, November 13, 2005
It has been quiet for a long time, but I had to make a quick trip to Seattle followed by a 10 day vacation to Fuerteventura with my wife. I posted the vacation pictures on my Flickr account. I also managed to get a view nice pano-shots going, the collection is here, and you can zoom to individual entries.
Sunday, November 13, 2005 7:21:31 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Thursday, October 06, 2005
I always thought that many movies can be summarised in one sentence, now I know for sure it is true. Even bunnies can re-enact a movie in 30 seconds … it is actually pretty funny… take a look at Angry Alien!
Thursday, October 06, 2005 10:30:47 AM (W. Europe Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Tuesday, October 04, 2005

My wife is running this charitable organization ‘Dormagener Tafel’, and I try to help sometimes, like carrying boxes, or setting up the computer, web-site, and maintaining it.

They still needed a printer for the office, with key characteristic: color (their letterhead is in orange), photo printing not needed, cheap, cheap ink costs, good text quality, low maintenance, fast... After some browsing I bought the Canon Pixus IP4200. These days it seems to be impossible to get a printer who is not able to do ‘photo quality’ printing. The printer is designed well, still small, can manage two different paper feeds, duplex printing, CD printing, etc.—and on top of all that, reasonable cheap, and individual printer cartridges for each color. Now I’m really jealous …

Installation was a breeze, finally an installation program which only lets you install the needed drivers without default-installation of all the other fancy software you need for photo printing, etc., but you in real life will never touch. The drivers look stable, well designed from the configuration possibilities, and text look amazingly sharp (didn’t try any photo prints). If this printer is still running strong in a couple of month, I might switch away from HP as the standard text printer for my home office...

Tuesday, October 04, 2005 6:09:42 AM (W. Europe Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   |