Archive for April, 2008

Summer tires

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

Yup, I checked and can confirm that really *all* the snow around Oslo is gone! So, it’s safe to change my winter tires for summer tires, which I did tonight at Sharif’s, THE place to be for a cheap but decent tire job!

(hmm, changing tires…not really something I’m used to do on Queensday, eh? ;))

WPhone, a WordPress plugin for the iPhone

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Awaiting the native iPhone WordPress application, I installed the WPhone plugin which enables management of my WordPress installation from my iPhone. The test post worked, great!

I need this after I discovered that the standard WordPress web-access didn’t really work with the Mobile Safari browser, anyone else experiencing the same?

Anyway, now I can rely on posting whenever I’m on the road, at least, posting on my .com domain…next on the to-do list is automatic duplication of these ‘iPhone’ posts to the Pivot weblog tool that I run on my .nl domain. I tried the MetaWeblog API Client plugin, but that one didn’t work at all…it seems still in beta-stage, it’s inconsistent at the moment and unfortunately lacks active development…any other suggestions?

Test post

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

This is a test post from my iPhone.

Podshow becomes MEVIO

Monday, April 28th, 2008

I almost missed the announcement last week…luckily I’m subscribed to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code! πŸ˜‰

In a memorable DSC #750 (what a milestone btw.!), recorded on my Birthday (another milestone ;)), he announced that PodShow changes name to MEVIO (press release). The reason being the fact that the word ‘pod’ in the name started to hurt their business, mainly on the advertisement side.

MEVIO.com is targeted to be a complete broadband entertainment network for the social Web and is focusing on development and delivery of episodic content that engages the audience, building a feature-rich network for the MEVIO users to personalize their programming and share it with others.

I’ve always been a huge PodShow fan (just didn’t get to start my own podcast, yet ;))…it’s an amazing to see the tiny movement from less than four years ago, growing so rapidly as MEVIO has become today, and ready for an even biggerΒ future…quite an achievement, congrats to the Podfather and his team!

PS. I assume the name MEVIO is taken from the keywords; MEdia, Video, audIO!?!

‘Broken’ weeks

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

The coming weeks will be over before you know it; at least one extra day off per week, I love it!

This week Thursday is Labour Day (also known as May Day or International Workers’ Day) and on May 5th, the dutch celebrate Liberation Day (and coincidentally I will be working in the dutch office that week, hehe).

The week after that is Whitsunday, with a day off on Whitmonday. The only day I’m gonna miss out on this month is the Norwegian Constitution Day on May 17…since it is a Saturday, damn!

Queensday in Norway

Saturday, April 26th, 2008

We managed to work ourselves into the organizing committee of the Queensday celebration here in Norway…not a big surprise actually. πŸ˜‰

It’s called Dronningsdagen here and It’ll be an event for children with traditional dutch ‘street’ games and typical dutch food.

Today is the day since the actual day, Wednesday, is not a day off here…tsss.

So, here we go; leve de koningin, hoera, hoera, hoera!!

QOTD April 25 2008

Friday, April 25th, 2008

Japanese Proverb: “Fall seven times, stand up eight.”

Cross country skiing

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

The next step into my cultural integration program was to do some cross country skiing.

I didn’t expect it, but at the very end of the wintersport season I got the opportunity to do this! I bought the skis some weeks ago (they were on sale at the end of the season), but didn’t think I would be able to use them this year…well, the company workshop up in the mountains I am attending these days, put skiing as part of the program, so…off I went!

My colleagues were disappointedly impressed, so I guess I did (very) well!! πŸ˜‰ Hehe, what can I say, I ROCK! πŸ˜‰

And…I actually liked it too! It’s not that easy and a true workout, but it is just great to be in undisturbed nature! Looking forward to next season!!

Birthday!

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Another year has past, today is that day again; it’s my Birthday!

I will obviously celebrate it in Norway this year, but was in New Zealand last year and in Japan some years ago…I seem toΒ  be out and away on this particular day, not intentional though…;)

Friendfeed, there’s a new kid in town

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Recently a new player entered the Social Networking field; Friendfeed.

This one is slightly different though; It’s not so much a Social Network itself, but more a Social Networking aggregator, targeted to be THE one stop shop for all your Social Networking updates as put up on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, your own blog, and 30 others.

The Friendfeed service creates a RSS news feed containing updates of other Social Networks and blogs you make part of your friendfeed, this way your friends can easily follow what you’re sharing on each network separately.

You guessed it right; I signed up, you can find my feed here!

Twitter *was/is* broken!

Monday, April 21st, 2008

So, it turns out that the issue I noticed with Twitter *was* a problem on their side, check out this message that they put up today:

Hope they get this fixed soon, I hate to miss out on all those nice tweets! πŸ˜‰

Running away from the mouse

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

My physiotherapist advised me that sports/working out can make a huge difference to fight the mouse in my arm…I never made the link and it struck like lightning…OF COURSE!!!! I stopped playing volleyball when I moved to Norway and didn’t do much other sports here, I guess I figured out why this mouse arm came up now and not before!

So, I will buy a bicycle in the coming weeks (mountain bike or speed cycle), and started running in the mean while.

Today was the first time after a longgggg time; I never have been a runner really (liked speed cycling way more), so it was HARD! Won’t give up though. πŸ˜‰

So much for the Honda

Saturday, April 19th, 2008

As mentioned before; the Honda will not be imported into Norway and driving it back to NL ain’t worth the trip, so we decided to unregister it in NL and sell it in Norway for parts. In order to do so, the car first needs to be unregistered in NL…I screwed off the license plates and sent them together with the registration papers to NL.

All in all a pretty straightforward process, but it feels kind of shitty to trash a car that is still driving ok. A friend suggested to take it out for some off-road rally racing on a private field, hmm, cool! πŸ˜‰

QOTD April 18 2008

Friday, April 18th, 2008

Richard Rybolt: “There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self destruct. It never fails.”

Fring on the iPhone

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

The current iPhone version of fring won’t do it for me; there’s no way to choose between WiFi and EDGE as (default) network and since I don’t have an unlimited EDGE-dataplan. I am preety sure that keeping fring running in the background will make my boss’s eyebrows raise when he receives the invoice at the end of the month…am expecting these kind of features in a future release though, the one I’m running now is just a pre-release! πŸ˜‰

Think with your heart

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Jan Polet, the infamous creator of The Hit Test, uses a great line to close his show these days

Think with your heart

I really like that one, the world would look a lot better if everyone does this don’t you think?

PS. Unfortunately the domainname is already taken, I would have loved to own it!

thinkwithyourheart.net points to a spiritual site by Lauren C. Gorgo (an Interdimensional Telepath, Author, Spiritual Counselor & Healer, Conscious Creativity Coach, Multidimensional Mentor & Advanced Integrated Energy Practitioner).

thinkwithyourheart.com interestingly enough is password protected?!?

Fring puts Skype on the iPhone

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

TechCrunch: “Fring is launching an iPhone version of the service…that allows users to access the fring, Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, SIP, Twitter, Yahoo and AIM services.”

It was to be expected, VoIP meets the iPhone!

I have been using the fring service on my Nokia E65 before, which was pretty good…to have this application on the iPhone could be killer, I’ll test it in the coming days.

The Virtual Barbershop

Monday, April 14th, 2008

I heard this one in Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code #745, it is truly amazing, thanks for sharing dude!

Make sure you are listening to this with your earbuds in, headphones on, or as Adam said; the car will work too with the volume up and your eyes closed! πŸ˜‰

Ready? Click on this link: The Virtual Barbershop

How’s that for a theater of the mind, eh?

More can be found via the Binaural recording Wikipedia page.

Yummmm

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

One of the great things of living in Norway is the rich choice of fresh fish (and for an el-cheapo price too ;)).

On today’s menu; ΓΈrret (=trout), made in the oven with cherry tomatoes.

As one can see, this fish is family of the salmon…and trust me, it was Yummmm!!!

The mouse in my arm

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

The mouse in my arm is present for over a month now…the pain and inconvenience almost diminished after the ski vacation two weeks ago, but seriously kicked back in this past week.

I will have to take it easy with the computer and mouse the coming period (again); nice for a computer and internet junky as I am, oof! Anyway, I ordered a joystick-mouse, hope it will help…along with left handed typing.