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December 27, 2002
Signing off
Signing off: Only a quick note tonight as we are all set to leave tomorrow on our "find the snow" vacation. Never tell your children you're going on a "snow vacation" and then reveal a day before that "there may well be no snow there next week". There's a moral in there somewhere.
So, no blogging until I return next weekend - talk amongst yourselves until then. I hope everybody has a safe and peaceful passage into 2003. There's a lot waiting for us over there.
Posted by Matthew at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2002
Diversity food
Starbucks & Co: Russell enjoys US "food" shops like Ben&Jerrys or Starbucks. When I first moved to Germany around 25 years ago - I missed English stuff like Cadburys chocolate and Walkers Crisps (ahh...salt and vinegar, beef, prawn cocktail...). German crisps only had one flavor back then - paprika. At first I was able to get hold of the odd bag of Walkers (or got them sent from the UK). And then - German crisp makers started to bring out their own versions and flavors. So now, I can get the flavors I like (salt&vinegar, cheese&onion) easily. And our local supermarket even sells Cadburys chocolate. So, the European side of things seems to be wrapped up, with the markets merging together (the crisp market being the example I follow :-)). On the coffee-side, Starbucks has only just started opening branches in Germany (Berlin). And they don't have it "down" yet. I was in the German Starbucks branch on the Ku'damm in Berlin last week. After ordering my "Latte", I was surprised they didn't ask for my name (as they do in the US - where they write it on the cup). So when the latte was finished and they called it out - about 5 people rushed forward. Ah well.....there's always room for improvement.
Posted by Matthew at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)
Call for ideas
Call for Ideas: The OSCON 2003 Call for Participation is up. This year, the conference takes place in Portland. Whoops - that should read "next year".
Posted by Matthew at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)
WiFi Relationship
WiFi Relationship: While I surf and blog from the couch using my work laptop, my wife is doing the same from our other couch using the iBook. All with the ease of WiFi. I just sent her an email....
Posted by Matthew at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
Easy listening
Can you hear me? Ordered and downloaded my first stuff from audible.com today. Then transferred everything to my iPod for vacation listening. Thanks to Steve for pointing to this one. I also grabbed the Robbin Williams interview with Billy Crystal while I was at it. If anyone has suggestions for good books to listen to - let me know!
Posted by Matthew at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)
Boxing Day
Good evening Europe!
Having my day-job laptop at home means I can easily blog from the confort of the dining room while the kids watch the Christmas DVD from my sister. Lots ot wrap up on - so off we go...
Vacation: I actually have a work-break until the 13th of January. So weblogging will be slow - at best. Saturday sees us leave for Southern Germany for the yearly "family in the snow" vacation. Unfortunately there is none. Snow I mean. Quite in contrast with what has hit the US East Coast the past days.
Segway: Aaron is reporting on his go with a Segway. Watch the movie!
Open Source Christmas: Comments on the little story I wrote. Also here and here. I came up with it while on the bus to work that morning. I just thought it an interesting - and funny idea. There is no statement on either Christmas or Open Source in there. Really.
Stuffed. No comment to add to this. Actually Steven, I am in for some wait loss - starting next week - what about starting a "Cocoon Diet" together? Then a book, a website, TV show... :-).
Update: Of course I meant "weight", although perhaps "wait loss" is an interesting subject as well.
Posted by Matthew at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2002
Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays: Open Source Christmas?
Posted by Matthew at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)
A Tree
Good morning Europe!
Seems to be a slow day here in weblog land - I wonder why :-)
Posted by Matthew at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2002
What is RSS
What is RSS: Mark Pilgrim introduces.
Posted by Matthew at 02:28 PM | Comments (0)
Recommendation
Recommendations: I just went onto the Amazon site - and they recommended I buy my own book :-).
Posted by Matthew at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)
BlogScene
BlogScene: I'm interested to hear more on what Erik is doing with BlogScene. As I understand it he is not yet using Cocoon but has thought about it - as the concepts seem similar. Seems he has lots of copious free time to do this in. Why don't you get on the Cocoon-Dev mailing-list Erik and see if there are others who would be interested in helping? Of course there is another weblogging system built on Cocoon and Xindice here, but maybe you can spark some interest/cooperation/free time. And Cocoon related projects can find a home here.
Posted by Matthew at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)
Thanks
Thanks! Thanks Russell. Thanks Gerhard. Thanks Mum. You know, being a December baby was quite an advantage when I was younger. My first computer, a VIC 20, was a combined birthday/Christmas present. So there are advantages. Of course when you reach my age.....(now everyone say aaahhhhh).
Posted by Matthew at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
Birthday
Good morning Europe!
Birthday: On this day in 1964....moi.
Posted by Matthew at 08:46 AM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2002
Evening notes
I can see clearer now: Russel puts me in the clear concerning his new job. Thanks!
Blogs are like Soap Operas: miss a day and sometimes you can be totally lost, like Matthew
Email woes: If, like Russel, you have sent me an email to my work email address: mlangham at sundn dot de - then it may have bounced. Don't worry - I still work there :-) - but we are having problems with the mail server. Hopefully the problems will be cleared up tomorrow.
Posted by Matthew at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)
DJ replies
DJ replies: DJ Adams replied to my RSS article. Seems as though he already has SAP R/3 generating RSS feeds. The next step will be when we see this little thing: 
appearing here, here or here. It's going to happen.
Posted by Matthew at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
Personal RSS
Personal weblog entries: Erik seems to have something interesting going. I can subscribe to this and receive just the entries he writes about me. Cool. But wait...imagine subscribing and then never receiving anything. I couldn't stand it :-).
Posted by Matthew at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
BlogTalk
BlogTalk: A European conference on weblogging. Planned for May in Vienna. Unfortunately they haven't finalized a date so I fear conflicts with other conferences like this one.
Posted by Matthew at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)
BBC 7
BBC 7: BBC 7 is now on-air ummm on-line... hmm.. Classical comedy and other stuff streamed to your desktop. Actually - when they call comedy you listened to as a kid "classic" - does that then also make you a "classic"?
Posted by Matthew at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)
Erik is blogging
Erik is blogging: I seem to have missed the start of Erik Hatchers weblog. But now I've found it :-). I had interesting breakfast and lunch chats swapping author woes with Erik at OSCON.
Posted by Matthew at 08:57 AM | Comments (0)
non-ugh
A non-ugh ending: Yesterday actually ended on a bright note with Dave linking to my RSS article from Scripting News. Dominic picks up and comments. Interesting subject and something I will be expanding on as we move into 2003. Stay tuned.
Posted by Matthew at 08:53 AM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2002
Good vibes
Good vibes: Send good vibrations this way please. Thanks.
Posted by Matthew at 04:05 PM | Comments (0)
Day to forget
Day to forget: Today is a day that we will just forget about after it ends, sometime after 11pm tonight. Not that anything bad has happened - it's just an "ugh" day. Outside, we have rainy/snowy/foggy/ugh weather and I am trying not to fall asleep after driving over 900 kms in 24 hours and spending most of last night convincing Christopher (8) to go back to sleep. He woke up at around 11pm and refused to go back to sleep until around 3 am this morning. He spent most of the time reading.......
Posted by Matthew at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2002
WLAN in Germany
WLAN is coming: Wireless LAN will be the hype of 2003 in Germany. These last few days of 2002 see a flurry of announcements on hot-spots being set up. The German railway (Deutsche Bahn) is setting up hot-spots in certain stations (but only for first-class customers at the moment). This article on Heise also describes how the cities of Hamburg and Wiesbaden are ramping up WLAN activity.
Posted by Matthew at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)
Last-minute business RSS
Last-minute business RSS: An article on aggregating business data into RSS feeds.
Posted by Matthew at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2002
Friday fruits
Happy Friday the thirte,,,,,,
Slashdotted: My favorite Mountie got slashdotted.
Wrapping up: The past 2 days have seen us teaching our new Cocoon friends how to write their own components. They are currently being treated to Cacheable Components. Then, later today we head back home.
Piracy: Tim on piracy.
Posted by Matthew at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2002
Weblog conference
Good morning Europe!
Dave is talking about a conference for webloggers. Sounds like something I would want to attend. First session at midnight - now that would be interesting to start with :-). Paolo comments - esp. on the cost. Travel expenses will be high enough for us Europeans to start with..unless of course the conference is held in Europe :-). Perhaps we will need to think about putting on a European version?
Posted by Matthew at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2002
Tired
Tired: Our third day of Cocoon training is nearly over and I am blogging this while Carsten gives a presentation on Avalon. We've been through forms-handling, authentication and the Cocoon portal today (including hands-on). The participants are now looking......tired.
Posted by Matthew at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)
Start the fire
Start the fire: Watch this without the music and try and sing along just by looking at the pictures. (via Frank).
Posted by Matthew at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)
Nicola
Nicola is blogging. I met Nicola at the Frankfurt Stammtisch. He now has a weblog. Welcome!
Posted by Matthew at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2002
Mooning
Moon - what moon? Scott Charney says that Trustworthy Computing is as ambitious as the first moon landing. And as we know that that was faked - what does it tell you about Microsoft?
Posted by Matthew at 05:27 PM | Comments (0)
Supernova: This seems to be
Supernova: This seems to be an interesting conference. When will we see conferences like this in Europe? Soon.
Posted by Matthew at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)
Catching up: All our newbie-Cocoon
Catching up: All our newbie-Cocoon trainees have left after their second day of training and Carsten and I are using the available Internet connection to catch up with mail and other going-ons in the world. I seem so out of touch not being able to check stuff out during the day. Sort of a junkie I suppose.
Posted by Matthew at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)
Old news
Microsoft and Linux products: According to this report on Heise, Meta Group analysts reckon Microsoft will be out with products for Linux soon. Of course you read that first here.
Posted by Matthew at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)
Cold Apfelwein
Cold: Really chilly here in Ludwigshafen. Last night Carsten and I attended the Cocoon Stammtisch in a rather cold Apfelwein-Keller in Frankfurt. That didn't stop the Cocoon talk from flowing though and in all nearly 20 people were there. I was able to put faces to quite a few names which was great.
Posted by Matthew at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2002
Commit me
Commit me: My first commit message. Ok, so I only added my name to the committers list - but I had to do something before leaving today :-).
Posted by Matthew at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)
Cocoon release out
Cocoon release out: Carsten has just released a new version of Cocoon. 2.0.4. Congratulations!
Posted by Matthew at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)
Stammtisch
Frankfurt Cocoon Stammtisch: For those of you who haven't yet seen this. Cocoon fans (including moi) from various parts of the world will be gathering in Frankfurt on Monday for a meal, a few beers and Cocoon chat. Preserving the buzz. What's a Stammtisch? Basically a pub table reserved for regulars.
Posted by Matthew at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)
Reading
More reading: As if I didn't have enough stuff to read. Steven points to this. Brand Community.
Posted by Matthew at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)
Looking forward
Looking forward: The next couple of weeks will see Carsten and I on the road spreading the "Cocoon" word over Germany. Next week we head South for a weeks training of eager Cocoon newbies. The following week I head to Bavaria to preach XML and then in the middle of next week we decend on Berlin to convince a large company to use Cocoon for what they are doing.
So you are in for a couple of weeks of reduced weblogging.
Posted by Matthew at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)
Snow
Good morning Europe!
#600: As of today I am now officially an Apache committer!. And I am committer #600. How about that! So I also have an Apache email address - cool. mlangham at apache dot org.
Snow: First snow of the season here today. Only light. But cold.
St. Nick: Today is the 6th of December and also St. Nicholas Feast. Here in Germany the kids clean their shoes and put them outside the door for St. Nicholas to fill with small presents. Not to be confused with the big "present day" which is the 24th of December. Today there was an article in the local paper about how people are worried that the traditional figure of St Nicholas (as described here for example) is being replaced by the guy as depicted by Coca Cola.
Why(te) Christmas: According to another news-piece in my local paper this morning, 1 in 3 German children do not know the reason Christmas (Xmas to you on the other side of the pond) is celebrated. 700 children were questioned and answers ranged from "because we're on vacation" to "so the shops can sell more".
Posted by Matthew at 08:39 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2002
RSS article
Article out: My article on RSS ("Small format makes it big") for the German magazine "XML & Web Services" is out. Unfortuanately it is not online. You'll have to buy the magazine.
Posted by Matthew at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)
Art - what art?
Failed: Mum doesn't like the new design. Oh dear. She used to be an art teacher - so she knows "things".
Posted by Matthew at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)
Nice pics
Pictures: Ovidiu has set up a great picture gallery. Makes me very envious (when I look out of the window at the grey day that is closing here). Can I come for a visit??
Posted by Matthew at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)
New technology is bad: Give
New technology is bad: Give your parents the power of new technology - and this is what you get. I sent the email this morning :-).
Posted by Matthew at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)
Conversations
Conversations: An article about Linux in government.
Posted by Matthew at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)
Change is good: I just
Change is good: I just thought my weblog needed a change, so here it is. I am an absolute beginner ("yes we can see that") when it comes to CSS stuff.
Posted by Matthew at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)
Don't panic - I'm just
Don't panic - I'm just playing around with new layouts!!! Getting there.. Slowly. Right nearly there.. Done. For the moment. What do you think?
Posted by Matthew at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2002
Birthday
Congratulations! It's my nephew's birthday today - Happy Birthday Ben!
Posted by Matthew at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)
1 Euro
1 Euro: Germanwings will be offering 50 000 tickets for 1 Euro on the 6th of December. Pity they fly from Cologne and not Paderborn. Now that the German railway have "reorganized" their pricing system - it now means you pay the old air ticket price to get to the airport by train.
Thought for the day: I seem to only be able to remember dreams if I wake up while having them. (Actually with 3 kids - that should read "am woken up"). Anyway - since this is the case - how many dreams have I missed?
Posted by Matthew at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2002
Books
Books, books everywhere: Reading through the weblogs always inspires me with ideas for books to take a look at. However I seem to have ordered so many that I need to take a break just to read them all. Today my copy of Smart Mobs arrived. I think I will soon join in with other webloggers and start an "I'm reading" section over on the right.
Posted by Matthew at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
WebDAV
Visualization: Anyone know of an easy way of visualizing WebDav directories in a browser? Also with the option of editing content stored there or adding new content (via upload). Simple stuff.
Update: Ok, I know how to see the tree-view when using Internet Explorer (open as web directory) - but that is only part of the story.
Posted by Matthew at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2002
Vanity: Added a new page
Vanity: Added a new page with more details about moi. I also restructured the right column. The links to published articles have now moved to the "about me" page..
Posted by Matthew at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)
Lousy software
Lousy software: According to Sam who quotes Guido who quotes Cedric who.. - lousy software is the result of: Inadequate testing. I don't agree - Most of the time (from what I have seen) lousy software is the result of Inadequate design to start with.
Posted by Matthew at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)