raymondpoort.com

The tech-dudes at Twitter planned a special Valentines Day surprise. It caused so much traction that I saw the server breakin’ every now and then.

So, what did they do? Ha! They made it fun to send some love around! A great idea, I love ‘m for that, one can never send around too much love these days!

How did they pull that off? Well, whenever you send a reply (via @username ) with the message <3 (the IM-shortcut for love). This text shortcut then turns into a heart in your Twitter timeline!

Nice one dudes! Let’s spread those hearts!




PS: it was nice to receive some love from iJustine:

…she’s still not following me on Twitter though.

Last week Thursday 1/4 of the world population (the Chinese ;)) celebrated the start of their New Year.

2008 is the the year of the Rat, as you might know Chinese name their years after animals.

Coincidentally, I am born in the year of the Rat…a different kind of rat though. 1972 was the year of the Water Rat, 2008 is the year of the Earth Rat…oops, am afraid it’s gonna be muddy for me this year!

Am manually redirecting (301 permanent redirect) older posts from the Pivot blog in the .nl domain to the WordPress blog in the .com domain…I use John Godleys redirection plugin for WordPress which makes things a bit easier, but it’s still a shitload of work, am at 1/3.

It’s the last phase before I will say byebye to the old blog and point the .nl domain directly to the .com domain.

Oh, I also updated the header graphic…it’s back to the norwegian state of mind I’m still in!

Hehe, is it obvious I’m home alone or what?

Have been working on the layout of the .com site.

It’s not as catchy as I want it to be, need to find a better template (and customize it) . At least the Twitter updates are there again, but there are still some thing to go through…I’ll be putting a domain forward on the .nl site when I’m done with the design.

I have to say that WordPress is helping me a lot with the great template support; changing layout is really easy. In that respect the score WordPress - Pivot is 1 - 0.

Yay! I just SIM unlocked my iPhone (myPhone ;)) and am able to use *all* it’s features!!

Sorry Apple, I have to admit that doing this makes me feel sad in a way, since it’s not how I normally like to do business with you, but, your product is just TOO cool and it’s taking you too friggin’ long to release it in Norway! (according to me that is THE major reason why so many iPhones get unlocked on unauthorized carriers!)

Anyway, I made the right judgement call last week, to wait for a software based SIM unlock instead of paying EUR 100,- for a hardware SIM trick (StealthSIM, TurboSIM, etc.)…last Thursday the software based method was released. It’s a major break-through in the cat and mouse game between Apple and developers (a term Apple will judge I guess ;)).

A tip for other people wanting to unlock their iPhone;

Check the following sites before actually going through the process of unlocking your iPhone, it helps you to understand the process and they provide a great source of information incase something unexpected occurs or completely screws up:

• iClarified - Apple News and Tutorials
• ModMyiFone.com - iPhone Forums and News
• iPhone Atlas - iPhone guides, help, applications, news and more, updated daily.
• Unlock the iPhone - the simple tutorial!

Both iClarified.com (which I used) and unlock.no automated the entire process…it really was easy as 1, 2, 3!!

Everyone who has been using chat in Skype knows the sound the program makes to get your attention when you’re having another application active (focused / on top) and a new chat message comes in the Skype chat window…’zuwob’.

I learned today that this sound is matching the plopping sound that you hear when you’re taking a shower, washing your face and moving your hands from your face over your ears to the back of your head…don’t ask, indeed, I learned it doing exactly that!

Try it!

Am back in The Netherlands for a day and have been conveniently working from the dutch office. Spent the evening with my nephew, Tygo, what a beautiful baby boy!

Charlotte-Catherine: “The more passions and desires one has, the more ways one has of being happy.”

Being a hotel junkie this week (will be in three different hotels in four days), so my internet presence has been depending on WiFi availability in the first two hotels (Geneva and Brussels). Both hotels were not elite, but certainly not cheap (EUR 200 and EUR 150 per night!). I can’t understand that even in 2008 these type of hotels still don’t include free WiFi as part of their standard service (hey, they provide a hot shower too, right? ;))…it’s not about the money (well, EUR 3,50 per 30 mins in the NH Hoteles in Geneva and EUR 10,- in the IBIS in Brussels ain’t all that cheap if you ask me), but it’s just inconvenient (leaving your room to buy these scratch-cards, etc.)…sjeez guys, wake up in the new era and fix it!!

Damn! That was my first reaction when I read this article on macnn/ipodnn today: Apple launches 16GB iPhone. Having my iPhone for just a week that felt badbadbad up to the moment I found out that the price for this model is up $100.-, pfewww!

8Gb is actually enough for me (I still have my 60Gb iPod ;))…so I wouldn’t have paid the premium for the new model anyway.

Being on the road the whole day, working my ass off and uhhmmm, actually loving it, leaves me without internet access for most of the day…still a bit of time to let y’all know I’m alive!

It’s time to build a team and have a good time though…the moment is NOW!

Wow…I’ve never seen anything like this before! This is truly Art…Sand Art by Ilana Yahav.

There are many more Sand Art videos available on YouTube, check ‘m out!

Big announcement in the tech industry yesterday (long anticipated though); Microsoft brought out a $44.6 Billion takeover bid on Yahoo!

I guess Microsoft has no other way to go, just watch the EPIC 2015 video!

Rainer Maria Rilke: “Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty… Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.”