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May 29, 2006

Alpe d'Huez: been there, done that!

Yes! In 1.48, number 355 of the 420 who made it to the top of Alpe d'Huez. Big fun, wonderful weather, three unforgettable days. And some Dutch hope for the future: Bart Dielissen, a 12 year old kid from my hometown Breda, danced to the top faster than Lance Armstrong at the same age.

Another hope for my own future: my namesake Jan Krijnen (no family), at 77 the eldest participant of the pack, did it seven minutes faster than me. But then again, my guess is that after another 22 years of training, I will better my first climb by seven minutes too.

Check out the photo album

 Posted: May 29, 2006, 11:58 AM | Comments (0) |

May 27, 2006

Cracker Jack

The longer I am working with computers - or have to, my combination of job and hobby is daily hit by highs and lows - the older I get, the more skeptic my view at protecting computers and systems, networks or protocols. A view opposing what I adviced during the last two weeks: move your complete kit and caboodle to the web, because that move will make your computerlife easier and you will sleep better.

in Dutch at @ DutchCowboys

I'm still behind that recommendation, because the value of the content in my digital toko - some text, a few pictures, some sound - is such that a hacker is not going to spend one minute of his valuable time trying to get in. Furthermore almost everything is shown in the window of the webserver, for everybody browsable in this free library.

In a secure locker in the back of the shop are some documents and data ment for my own eyes only, but even those are no state secrets worth something to somebody else. Nevertheless I change my passwors every once in a while - and not too simple, mor like #$CracKeR55jacK2309@#, a precaution that probably prevents some misery.

But assumption stays the mother of all fuck-ups, as was shown last week, when Microsofts Xbox was hacked and cracked. In an effort that only took four months, even though somebody at Microsoft had predicted it an impossible accomplishment, because the level of security was something nobody in the hacker community had ever seen before . . .

Regarding security and digital protection of content; that will all be sorted out in a couple of years. Artists, producers and consumer organisations, will reach some consensus, some new commercial model that everybody can live and work with. Without digital protection, always doomed to be cracked sooner or later.

Perfect security is much more needed in other models and systems, like banking and payments systems. By the way; what about voting systems?

According to someone who knows what he is writing about - Bob X. Cringely - it's easier to crack an American Diebold voting computer than an Xbox. As far as I know over here in The Netherlands we are voting for at least twenty years with the same voting computers. I'm wondering if those machines are as easy to cheat as the ATM's over here which were emptied by criminals after adding fake mouth bits tot the money machines. Hows that?

Link: KRO Reporter over Rop Gonggrijp

 Posted: May 27, 2006, 11:28 AM | Comments (0) |

May 22, 2006

ServersCheck is suing Google

A Belgium network-monitoring company called ServersCheck is going to sue Google because it's tool bar points directly to pirated software.

The suit claims that the 'Google Suggest' feature tells possible new buyers of ServersCheck software where to get the latest cracks and illegal versions.

According to Maarten Van Laere, ceo of ServersCheck, a search on ServersCheck will give you suggested search terms such as 'serverscheck crack,' 'serverscheck pro crack,' and 'serverscheck keygen'.

original post @ DutchCowboys

Google says it will remove websites with illegal content from its index, but it cannot tweak the Suggest feature citing censorship concerns.

The real news is in the previous sentence. I mean, big or little companies suing Google for one reason or another . . . Some do it because they don't show up in the places where they would like to show up, other show up where they don't want to be seen, and some sue because they like some publicity.

So; the real news is that Google says it cannot do something. Crap, because Google can decide tot the very letter, to the very bit what shows up where. Apart from that; Google does allow censorship of its product in China. Now what makes this impossible in Belgium? Tell me.

 Posted: May 22, 2006, 10:18 AM | Comments (0) |

May 18, 2006

Google Notebook

This one is written in the newest root at the ever expanding GoogleTree: Notebook. While I'm writing, I'm figuring out what it can do for me, five minutes after I've downloaded and installed it on my iMac as an extension of Firefox. Although the boys and girls from Google warned me in the disclaimer that the Notebook extension might be a bit buggy on OS X, nevertheless it's working like everything else that Google delivers: interface as simple as possible, and fast.

Dutch translation @ DutchCowboys

Like almost every other handy browser tools, the Firefox extensions; whenever they're working on my Dell XP at the newspaper, they will run as well on the iMac on OS X.

By cultivating and watering my expanding collection extensions my Mac starts a bit to look like what it inevitable and unavoidable will be in the near future: a network machine running only one program: the browser, operating system as well as web browser and everything else.

Lets call it the Xbrowser, or the Gbrowser, or SuperFirefox, whatever, but when I'm looking at my machine, I'm having a look at the future.

Thanks to the integration of GoogleSearch, Gmail, GoogleGroups, GoogleCalendar, Google-RSS, -Notebook, the browser based content management systems I'm using for my work (Escenic) as well my digital kindergarten (MovableType) there are days that I'm hardly ever leaving Firefox.

The Web Developer Plugin lives up to it's name, I'm writing, reading and communicating from my browser. In the meantime my music is conducted from within Firefox, by means of just another plugin that iTunes obeys.

There's only one elementary part missing, and Firefox (running, one might say, on top of iTunes) is the only program I will need. The last plug in (nice title for a movie) is the one I will be using to resize and enhance my pictures before the'yre being kicked to the web, through another web-based interface. For enhancing and resizing I'm using Paint Shop Pro on the Dell or PhotoShop on the Mac at thome.

Actually I wouldn't even need them anywmore; as well the nepwspaper content management system as my personal version of ImageFolio automatically generate the right sizes for thumbnails and photoalbums, and ImageFolio als sharpens on the fly, by means of scripted median values.

But both applications accept only smaller than sizes: Escenic only less than 1500 pixels width or height, ImageFolio's iBulc uploader only less than 3 or so mb. Which means first I have to resize, and there's no resizer - yet - in the Web Develoment plugin for Firefox.

Yeah, I know there's Picasa, and that's free - and it's from Google as well - but being a browser freak I want it to be integrated as well.

 Posted: May 18, 2006, 04:46 PM | Comments (0) |

May 15, 2006

Webjunk

According to some people working with computers is very bad for mind and body.

While I’m wondering if that could be true, I’m fanatically hitting keys eight days a week, for work as well as for fun.

True or not, as someone who has been able, by some luck, to turn one of my hobbies into my job, I shouldn't’t complain about long hours.

Although I have to take care not to become addicted, always a problem where work and hobby meet.

Translation @ DutchCowboys

I think I’m socially functioning reasonable well, but whoever who in the real world is skeptical about it, send me a mail, or ping my chatserver.

While I guarantee a reply, there’s only one frequent warning signal regarding my computer behaviour: my still growing collection of reading glasses. One by one they’r being replaced by stronger pairs.

Bigger dangers out there on the web. Two warning were issued last week, both from scientific sources: working with older computers is very bad for morale. And old or new; if you’re sitting on your butt in front of them for too long, thrombosis is a real danger.

Regarding the old machines I fully agree, and I hope IT and budgeteers are reading with me: providing me with a new machine every six months or so is a very good investment indeed. Health, productivity, office morale, work ethos, everything will be better. Guaranteed ☺

The e-thrombosis showed up in one of my RSS feeds – courtesy Sydney Morning Herald. SMH mentions a story in the European Respiratory Journal, in which New Zealand researchers report a thrombosis, caused by computing too long.

Before you start running away from your screen, the case in question looks pretty extreme, even to my ow standards.

A 32-year old webjunk – a patient indeed – ‘who used to sit immobile at his computer screen, at work and at home, for 12 hours a day, and on occasions for up to 18 hours’ .

At first he ignored a swollen calf – too busy chatting – became increasingly breathless in the ensuing weeks, and finally collapsed when a massive blood cloth that had formed in one of his leg veins, finally broke off and travelled to his lungs.

While I am very curious about the strength of his reading glasses, I can’t help wondering about some factors that might have influenced the research.

For decennia we’re been told that drinking too much coffee might be a cause of hart disease. Until someone mentioned another possibility: people who drink more coffee than the average, are also smoking, more than the average.

Someone who sits in front of his computer for 12 to 18 hours daily, hasn't got too much time time left to work on his fitness and his sex life will be completely virtual.

Fort the time being I’m not going to worry about defects caused by doing my work and/or hobby for too long.

What’s more: the sun starts shining. I put my Mac to sleep, perfect day to make some miles on my race bike.

 Posted: May 15, 2006, 10:00 AM | Comments (0) |

May 05, 2006

Moving house and the FlashMac

My complete computer content has moved to the web, I realised this week.

Over time my machine has become nothing more than an interface between my living room and the Internet. Everything that's valuable is somewhere out there on that evil web, but I don't bother at all.

I trust Verio, the keeper of my virtual magazines, I trust Google, my digital amanuensis, I trust Apple, my mechanic.

Behind my blog at Verio rests what I want to keep safe and hidden, Google saves other things, indexes and searches, distributes, receives and sends, and on the iDisk at my Dot.Accounts is a system backup ready, in case things go wrong.

The web has become where I live and work: for what do I need a hard disk?

Translation @ DutchCowboys

For the five thousand or so mp3 songs in the iTunes folder? Matter of time; bandwidth and web space are already almost so gargantuan as well as cheap that my music collection will be streamed to some disk in some rack in some data center as well, to be streamed to wherever I want to listen to it. Beat it.

In a lot of offices they have arrived: machines without hard disks, no more than keyboard and screen. The hardware is hidden in the screen (I'm typing this on my iMac) or in a matchbox sized box, and everything is connected to a company server and/or the Internet.

Soon you will be working on such a thin client at home. Don't invest any money in hard disks or DVD recorders, because you won't need them anymore.

If anything important dies on a computer - Mac or PC - it's a hard disk, eight out of ten. Number nine a fan fails, causing the processor to overheat, and in mentioning the occasional cup of coffee over the keyboard the top ten of computer failures is complete.

On a machine that's nothing more than a screen and a keyboard nothing more can fail, it costs no more than, well, as keyboard and a good screen, and as a bonus the machine is really quiet.

So all I really need - let's forget about my music for a moment - all I need that hard disk for is for booting OS X.

My guess is one or two more keynotes and Steve Jobs will present one: the first FlashMac - laptop or desktop - without a hard disk, but with one or two gigabyte flash memory. And no more super drive, cause nobody needs disks anymore because nobody will burn anymore. You will save your stuff on the web, or you will save it on flash memory.

OS X will be waiting for you in flash and will boot up in a flash, in one or two seconds.

Every picture, every document, every file, every keystroke, will instantly be saved, somewhere on the web. That's what I'm doing already, while I'm saving some money for my FlashMac.

 Posted: May 05, 2006, 03:45 PM | Comments (0) |