Archive for November, 2007

QOTD November 10 2007

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

Tallulah Bankhead: "Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it."

iPhone hits Europe

Friday, November 9th, 2007

 

Today it’s ‘Say hello to iPhone’-day for Europe as the ‘Invention of the Year’ (according to Time Magazine) hits stores in the U.K. and Germany.

France is to follow on November 29, which makes me wonder when it’s Norways turn…then again, with the current decline of the dollar I’m a lot better off saving my X-mas $’s for a hacked U.S. iPhone. 🙂

Gillmor Gang..uuhh…Gillmor Group is back!

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

Jason Calacanis: "The Gillmor Group… is back (don’t tell anyone)"

Check out these Facebook posts for last weeks episode. It’s cut in the usual four parts, for what we all hate Steve ;)…fellow geeks, I am thrilled!!! (looking forward for tomorrows commute)

Dutch Club Oslo

Wednesday, November 7th, 2007

We just came back from the monthly gathering of the Dutch Club Oslo (Nederlandse Club Oslo)…it was nice to meet with some fellow cheeseheads and exchange experiences.

Most of them have been in Norway for years already and it was good to see that they are well integrated and still positive about the country and its culture (without loosing that typical dutch touch!) 🙂

As other norwegians they seem to prepare for the cold and snow…you bet it’s gonna be special this winter!!

Adding Facebook & Hyves friends

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

The results of my little test were not too surprising…still, without *any* effort I managed to get 4 friends on Facebook and 8 on Hyves. It shows that social networking is what the name implies, SOCIAL networking, a two way communication tool.

One of the most amazing things though is that an old dormmate from Hampstead Centre (way back in 1994 when I was studying in Australia), found me on Facebook last weekend…very cool!!

I’ll start adding friends myself and grow my social network…let’s see what happens. 

For the record, Facebook is relatively small in NL (the ‘Netherlands‘ network only has 80,615 people…Norway for instance has 418,937 people in the ‘Norway‘ network, a country with roughly four times lower population!)

Remember, remember…

Monday, November 5th, 2007

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder, Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder, Treason
Should ever be forgot.

The rhyme is commonly known from Guy Fawkes Night…this year the event is used on the internet by supporters of the Ron Paul For President campaign in order to raise *a lot of* money in just one day and thus create (media) attention for the candidate and his message.

QOTD November 4 2007

Sunday, November 4th, 2007

Jeffrey Rowland: "We’ve
always been here and we’ll always be here. We are a specific
arrangement of particles and this instant is infinite. Did we luck out,
or didn’t we? The odds against this sentence having ever being typed,
much less the odds against you reading it were inconceivable. Smile,
because the fact that you’re able to is almost impossible to
comprehend."

Mac Mediacenter

Saturday, November 3rd, 2007

My G4 Mac mini is hooked up to my tv- and stereo system, and I’m using it everyday to watch movies and play music from my iTunes library.

Since there is no IR receiver in the mini I purchased a Keyspan Remote Express (which works great) and have been testing lately some mediacenter apps to work with it (a hack to run Front Row on my G4, CenterStage, iTheater and mMedia which are all freeware. As well as the non-free MediaCentral and XHub in demo mode).

Before I was able to come to a final conclusion I upgraded my system to Mac OS X Leopard.

One of the features of Leopard is the the fact that Front Row now is included in the OS and also runs on older G4-machines…no more need to hack it, and it runs like a charm!

This new version of Front Row (2.0) is doing a nice job as MediaCenter app, the interface is slick (copied from the Apple TV) and it works great with my Keyspan Remote Express. I will keep an eye on CentralStage though…if they can pull off what they show in the screenshots, they have a killer app.

But for now, Front Row it is…Apple pulled it off again!

Ring Oslo, speed limit

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

As of November 1, there is a 60kph speedlimit for the Oslo ring, the roadsigns tell me that this is due to a ‘miljøfartsgrense’…or, a speedlimit to save environment?!?

I also understood it has to do with wintertires with spikes…they cause extra dust particles poluting the air. Lowering the speed lowers the concentration of particles…hmm, guess we’ll have to live with it, until freakin’ March 30 2008…aahhh!

Winter tires

Thursday, November 1st, 2007

Hmm, someone told me yesterday that from November 1 one can get fined in Norway for not having winter tires when road conditions are bad (snow/ice).

Despite the fact that today is lovely (sun’s out with a amazing temperature of 8dgr!? Winter? No way!), I’d better buy some sticky tires soon…today that is! 🙂