Archive for January, 2008

Dutch / Norwegian New Years dinner

Friday, January 11th, 2008

Am off to have dinner celebrating the New Year at a small restaurant close to the ski-area Trollsvan near Oslo. As the place is owned by a dutch guy (Robbert) I expect a nice Dutch/Norwegian combination of food, drinks and entertainment!

A way to save YouTube vids

Thursday, January 10th, 2008

As you might know it is not possible to download the movies directly from YouTube. There are however some sites that have a workaround making it possible to save the Flash Video (FLV-file) on your harddrive.

The process is itself fairly easy, just paste the link to the YouTube
video you want on to one of the following sites and download!

Since the
downloaded file will be a Flash video file (.flv), you will need a Flash Player
to play them. The ‘all-media-files’ player VLC will play them too, converting the file with a flv-to-mpg converter and then play it in Winblows MediaPlayer is another way 🙂

http://keepvid.com/

http://www.savetube.com/   (& tutorial: http://www.savetube.com/tutorial.htm )

Flash Video Player & Converter:

http://www.flvconverter.org/

http://www.onlyfreewares.com/Audio-Video/Video-Converters/Free-FLV-to-AVI-Converter.php

http://www.videolan.org/

Migrate raymondpoort.com domain, part 4

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

The process is completed, my .com domain is now transfered and hosted via GoDaddy!

Have to admit, the pudding was sweet and contained just one tiny sour part; Email remained up sweet as honey, the website however was down for some hours 🙁

And it’s still not up as it should. All is caused by the domain forward not working properly. For now the domain is html re-directing to the .nl website and I guess it will remain that way for a while…hardly any time to work on it the coming days.

Am also thinking of changing the weblog tool from Pivot to WordPress, what do ya think?

Rock on with ‘Air Guitar Hero’

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

I’m still a big fan of Guitar Hero (am saving up for a PS3 to rock at home!). At CES 2008 Veronica Belmont shows us ‘Air Guitar Hero’…yeah, this thing ROCKS!

Check out Mahalo Daily with Veronica Belmont for your daily shot of geek stuff.

Migrate raymondpoort.com domain, part 3

Monday, January 7th, 2008

As said before, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’…so, let’s eat!

I just finished the last steps of the .com domain transfer and set up the hosting account. Have to admit, the migration process so far went really smooth, it just took some days (and the weekend inbetween didn’t help I guess).

Current status for the domain hosting is ‘Pending DNS’, so by the time the new location for this domain (with GoDaddy) is propagated through the root nameservers (appr. 24-48 hours) I should be good to go!

The MX-records are already adjusted for Google Apps and I have set a domain forward to the .nl domain (actually matching what it is today). This means that opposite to what I thought earlier, there should be no downtime for the website nor email…fingers crossed!

Boeing Dreamliner…a Hackliner?

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

Oh man, this better be fixed before the airliner is used in commercial flights…and let’s just hope they don’t run any Microsoft Windows! 😉

Wired: "Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner passenger jet may have a serious security
vulnerability in its onboard computer networks that could allow
passengers to access the plane’s control systems, according to the U.S.
Federal Aviation Administration.

The computer network in the Dreamliner’s passenger compartment,
designed to give passengers in-flight internet access, is connected to
the plane’s control, navigation and communication systems, an FAA
report reveals."

Cultural differences NL-N (1)

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

One of the cultural differences between The Netherlands and Norway is the social behaviour on the streets. Everbody has a phone to his ear, nobody is noticing anything anymore, or looking at eachother, or saying ‘hei’ when passing another.

It’s clearly related to the mobile age we’re living in, the mobile society where the ‘device’ seems more important than the one-to-one contact with the guy/girl sitting next to you. The fact that Norway/Scandinavia has a much longer tradition in mobile phones than other countries probably made this behavior a cultural thing which also prevails when people don’t have their cellphone at their ear.

Perhaps this situation is also different in Norway compared to NL due to population density.

Since your neighbor could be literally far away, the Norwegian culture has historically developed itself to be much more oriented on the individual and family, living in your own house and minding your own business (although one will ALWAYS help another when asked…Norwegians are far from a-social and of course I have been generalizing!)

Have to admit that I’m the kind of guy who always tries to greet the people I pass, make eye contact and smile…it’s just amazing to see what happens to the other person if you just smile, you should try it too! 🙂

QOTD January 4 2008

Friday, January 4th, 2008

Marilyn vos Savant: "To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."

Proof, pudding, eating & GoDaddy

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

I learned today that the proverb phrase ‘the proof is in the pudding’ actually originates from the proverb ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’.

The proverb is especially applicable today since I just ordered the domain transfer and hosting package for my .com domain, all with GoDaddy…so, since it turns out that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, it’ll be interesting to see how smooth the migration process will be. Go daddy, satisfy me! 🙂

24h – 48h downtime for website and email is unavoidable, expect it somewhere coming week…the .nl site and email will stay up though!

PS. Obviously I have been using the GoDaddy Promo Code from Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code (dsc2)! It gave me an additional $5,- off the order, yay!

‘everyday choices’ on DSC#703

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

Am doing pretty good in my podcast catch up project…managed to listen to four Daily Source Codes today! 🙂

Pity Adam missed my audio comment congratulating him with DSC#700, there was however another 😉 great piece of audio in DSC#703: ‘everyday choices’ by Colin Mutchler, his spoken words start around 6 minutes into the show.

The original lyrics are on Colins ccMixter page, the audio file played in DSC#703 can be found on his Podshow page.
The transcript:

the markets are starting to question themselves
the bloggers exposing our blisters
as the everyday words of everyday people
are shifting the tone of the televised speeches

and the artists are starting to question themselves
and the poets are speaking like leaders
and the everyday choices of everyday people
are facing the storms and curing diseases

so go skype an ipod, premix some wages
but don’t forget to make a version for the sages

because when we look beyond our next meal, our next post,
we are responsible for our everyday votes,
the ones we use to buy our shoes,
to buy our homes, to buy our tunes.
Yes I’m talking about our dollars, our euros, our pesos, our yen.

because what if the next 20 years are happening again?
what if we’ve already arrived…it’s 2025.

and the doomsday duos, the war and peace heroes
haven’t avoided the global cooling, the flu grown zeros
and the forgotten people

Yes the markets are starting to question themselves
and the bloggers exposing our blisters
as the everyday words of everyday people
are shifting the tone of the televised speeches

and the artists are starting to question themselves
and the poets are speaking like leaders
and the everyday choices of everyday people
are facing the storms and curing diseases.

And the embedded track from the Podsafe Music Network:


Yo…Mr. Adam Curry…*that* was deap shit indeed, I love it! Thanks for sharing this dude!

Catching up on podcasts

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

Having friends over and enjoying time off in the holiday season is very nice and relaxing, it does however set me back on listening to podcasts I’m subscribed to…the current unplayed showcount is 47, consisting of:

Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code

Steve Gilmor’s The Gang

MacBreak Weekly

The MacCast

Dave Winer’s Morning Coffee Notes

No Agenda with Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak

The Science Show

and TWiT (This Week in Tech)

…I plan to catch up in a week time orso, hehe, it’s over 30 hours of listening pleasure…my earbuds will be on fire!! 🙂