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August 28, 2003
News at 10
I've lost count of the number of sites Steve now either runs or submits to - but here's the newest one. He must be rolling in the $$ now :-).
Posted by Matthew at 05:12 PM | Comments (1)
August 27, 2003
Erik moves on
It was great to catch up with Erik Hatcher again at OSCON in July. However he made no mention of the changes he was planning. All the best Erik and I hope everything goes as planned!! When will we hear more about the new "top secret" book? And I for one know that writing a book is not enough to finance quitting your day job. Hell, I've written a total of 1 on my own and 2 with co-authors - and I still need a day job :-).
Posted by Matthew at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)
Kids away
We sent our 2/3 of our kids off to see Mum today. A strange feeling to see them go into the plane on their own with their UM tags around their necks. But they arrived safely and were well cared for. Thanks Air Berlin!
Posted by Matthew at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)
Bombing run
I saw an interesting documentary last week about the 2 year project to renew the main runway at Frankfurt airport. The interesting part about it is that the renewal is being done in pieces during the night - with the runway being fully used during the day. Interesting project management for sure.
Now the really interesting fact is that one member of the team is a specialist for finding old WWII bombs which are still in the ground under the runway. And they've actually found a few already. So since the runway was built the planes have been touching down on top of explosive facts. I'm not sure I wanted to know that.
Posted by Matthew at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)
EU vote on sofware patents
Today, many sites are protesting the upcoming EU vote on software patents scheduled for September 1st. To date, the EU does not officially allow software patents (although they have been granted in the past). The US does allow software patents and this has lead to things like Amazon's "One-Click" ordering being patented. A vote to grant software patents in the EU may effect Open Source development, as any developer could not be sure that he was infringing on a software patent when developing say a new component. To show their protest, some sites have changed their main page for the day. Examples: Orixo, Outerthought.
Updates: Andrew has a good post on the subject. The Cocoon page is protesting too.
Posted by Matthew at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2003
Freeing the Beeb
BBC to open up archives to the public. More here and here. I can't wait for this to happen.
Posted by Matthew at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
Another switcher
Welcome Steven. I think you'll be very happy with the TiBook - I just love my 12"!
Posted by Matthew at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)
You can't take it with you
Just before we left for vacation and within 3 days of each other two young mothers from my daughter's first-grade class died from cancer. Just something to reflect on while you are bitching over your partner, colleague, boss, neighbor or life in general. Thought for the day. Film at 10.
Posted by Matthew at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
DVD authoring
Using the remaining days of my vacation to author my first DVD. I'm using the material I collected on my new digital camcorder, iMovie and iDVD. Some things I've already learnt: It takes time to put all the material together, you need a lot of drive space, if they say DVD-R - they mean DVD-R and not DVD+R (duh), here in Europe you burn PAL and not NTSC (duh again). But after all that - my first own home-authored DVD has turned out quite good. Buy now :-).
Posted by Matthew at 12:46 PM | Comments (1)
August 24, 2003
Broadband again
Yippee! Now I'll have to wait for the GPRS bill. Anyway we're back from our Danish vacation. 9 hours drive and only one major traffic jam (20K). It was worse going in the other direction - which always makes you glad you're not.
Posted by Matthew at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2003
We are engaged in a resuce operation
The submarine surfaced just ahead of us as we were about to enter the Gothenburg Fjord. Off to side we could see a yacht on fire and the smoke billowing into the Swedish sky. Obviously the first target of this underwater mutiny. Our Stena-Line ferry broke off its approach into the Fjord and two crew-members boarded one of the motor-launches ready to head off towards the yacht. "We are engaged in a rescue operation", the nervous voice of the Swedish captain showed signs of the unexpected. Just as the ferry had completed its 180 degree turn back out towards the yacht, the captain told us that the operation had been called off, as the 4 crew-members of the yacht had been rescued. So the day continued as planned and we headed in towards the beautiful city of Gothenburg.
(And there's only a wee bit of poetic license in the above :-))
Posted by Matthew at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2003
Don't build sand-castles
Something I remember from when we were here last year is the advice not to build sand-castles on Danish beaches. This is a big no-no in Denmark and seen as being typical of German people on vacation here. Which is strange, because building sand-castles is also common in England - and probably also other countries. But not in Denmark. The Danes don't like people "marking" out their territory and erecting the typical walls to protect it. I wonder how they react to the trait of reserving your beach-chair with a towel at 5am in the morning?
Posted by Matthew at 02:40 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2003
Out of things
On the one hand it's good to be away from things and to find the time to do vacation stuff (we're set to day-ferry over to Sweden next week) but I feel strangely out of things. Due to the flakey nature of GPRS here I can only get the odd RSS feed updated and send the occasional email. At least I read that Cocoon 2.1 seems to have been released - congratulations guys! At last :-).
Posted by Matthew at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2003
Rain!
After two hot days here on the Denmark coast (East of Hjörring in a small town called Lönstrup), it actually rained today. We could see the front moving in off the sea and then about an hour ago the first rain (at least I think that's what it's called) fell. Only a few spots but it certainly marks the end of the really hot weather here (for now).
Posted by Matthew at 06:15 PM | Comments (1)
Rain!
After two hot days here on the Denmark coast (East of Hjörring in a small town called Lönstrup), it actually rained today. We could see the front moving in off the sea and then about an hour ago the first rain (at least I think that's what it's called) fell. Only a few spots but it certainly marks the end of the really hot weather here (for now).
Posted by Matthew at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)
Flying blind
At the moment GPRS is good enough for me to send receive email and post to my blog. But I cant't retrieve anything or surf.
Posted by Matthew at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2003
Posting with GPRS from Denmark
It sort of works. I'm using Telia DK - but the connection is either very slow or I need to configure the connection properly. Email works ok, as does posting to the blog. But I can't surf or download news to the aggregator. If you have any idea the email me at matthew at silent-penguin.com.
Posted by Matthew at 05:23 PM | Comments (1)
Posting with GPRS from Denmark
It sort of works.
Posted by Matthew at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2003
Winding down
Probably the last post before vacation. Seems to be somewhat cooler in North Denmark which will be a relief. Talk amongst yourselves for a couple of weeks and - to use a governing phrase: "I'll be back".
Posted by Matthew at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2003
Gadget vacation
In case you're wondering, both the iBook and the Powerbook will also be on vacation in Denmark :). We'll be using GPRS for some minor Internet stuff (if it works). After packing all the technical gadgets (camcorder, 2 laptops, iPod, 3 gameboys, 2 mobile phones, 1 digital camera, all the chargers) there may be some room left for clothes :).
Posted by Matthew at 09:21 PM | Comments (1)
New toy
Luckily my new camcorder arrived in time for vacation. I only took a quick look today and will actually read the manual next week :). Everything looks good though and transferring the film from the camcorder to iMovie is so simple. Fun stuff ahead.
Posted by Matthew at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)
Vacation packing
Busy packing for our vacation that starts Saturday. 2 weeks in Denmark - where hopefully it is colder than it currently is here. Temperatures are hitting 40 C during the day now and everyone is going mad. It really is tooooo hot to think, to move, to do anything really.
Posted by Matthew at 09:05 PM | Comments (1)
August 06, 2003
White things
This evening, I saw some white fuzzy things floating in the sky. Then I remembered what they were called....clouds.
Posted by Matthew at 10:47 PM | Comments (1)
August 05, 2003
Geronimo!
The J2EE cat is out of the bag. Go Apache!
Read the original proposal to start the project here. Compare the list of initial committers from the proposal with this list. And watch closely for some probably interesting comments.
Posted by Matthew at 09:25 PM | Comments (0)
Belgium in the Autumn
Always wanted to combine Cocoon with Belgium beer and hospitality? Nows the chance. Come and mingle with the Cocoon crowd in Ghent on October 6th and 7th. There's even rumors of a jam session!
Posted by Matthew at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)
SAP DB goes MaxDB
SAP DB will be rebranded as MaxDB when it is released by MySQL. I'm still not sure what the goal of MySQL actually is. After all, they then would have 2 database products (until the announced codebase-merge). Which one do I use when? Does SAP DB have a community? Or is the goal to make all SAP DB users switch to MySQL before ditching the SAP DB line?
Posted by Matthew at 07:48 PM | Comments (0)
GeoKidding
Steve goes geocaching with the kids. Seems like a cool idea for a Sunday outing. Another gadget for the wishlist.
Posted by Matthew at 07:42 PM | Comments (0)
Too hot to blog
Period.
Posted by Matthew at 07:39 PM | Comments (0)
August 04, 2003
Read all about it
An article about the controversy between RSS vs. "The other format whatever it ends up being called". Just at the time when RSS is starting to really take off the bitching between Winer and "the others" really has become just a mud battle. This is a great pity as it will cause at least a few companies to think twice before adopting the format. Winer comments: "[the article] may be seen as the last gasp in the Great RSS War of 2003". I think not.
Posted by Matthew at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
August 02, 2003
RSSJobs.com
It had to happen. Any signs of an RSSLastMinuteVacations.com yet? It'll happen.
Posted by Matthew at 07:39 PM | Comments (0)
Praise Erik
Because I find his weblog so good. A continuous source of interesting links about stuff I'm interested in. Actually, I would like to here how he "builds" it (copy/paste or automated in some way?).
Posted by Matthew at 07:38 PM | Comments (1)
Where does he find the time?
As I seem to be in a "restful period" at the moment when it comes to writing articles, it's good to see others are still hard at work. Erik seems to be particularly busy and has written some good stuff too. Check here for a pointer to an article on Struts/XDoclet and here for one on Lucene.
Posted by Matthew at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)
Hollywood - here I come
I've decided to get a digital camcorder so I need to start playing around with iMovie. Hopefully I will be able to get some filming in while we're on vacation and then I want to play around making DVDs.
Posted by Matthew at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)