Saturday, December 31, 2005

Artist of the Year: Banksy

By pushing the legal limits of what is allowable, Banksy's art builds that much more relevancy. His work in many ways becomes an artistic statement and protest against the tiny little insignificant power figures that pop up everywhere, cops, security guards -- all the little people who want to exert their personal authority and tell you what you can and can't do with art.


Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection: Artist of the Year: Banksy

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Microsoft Ends IE for Mac

Microsoft Ends IE for Mac:

"Epilogue: All of this made it a lot more easy for me to quit and go work at Google
Reminder: I may or may not be leaving some parts out for NDA reasons."

Interesting read.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

The Spoof - Winnie the Pooh & Christopher Robin Out of The Closet and Planning to Wed in 2006

The Spoof - Winnie the Pooh & Christopher Robin Out of The Closet and Planning to Wed in 2006: "Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh announced on Wednesday that they are in fact in love and have been a couple for the last seventeen years."

Saturday, December 17, 2005

2005 CD Sales Down … Way Down - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com

2005 CD Sales Down … Way Down - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com: "Who wouldn’t want to buy products from major media companies that openly despise their best customers? What college student wouldn’t spend his money at the record store when his friends are getting sued? Why wouldn’t we flock to the store for discs that deposit malicious spyware in our computers? Why wouldn’t we think of music first at gift-giving time, when major labels are getting busted for corrupt and criminal activity?"

Schneier on Security: Computer Crime Hype

Schneier on Security: Computer Crime Hype: "Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers."

Boing Boing: PSP 2.01 firmware unlocked

"anti-customer measures"

Nice.

Boing Boing: PSP 2.01 firmware unlocked:

Boing Boing: Warner/Chappell Music apologizes to PearLyrics

And I still say, fuck the majors.

Boing Boing: Warner/Chappell Music apologizes to PearLyrics

Boing Boing: Congress: "Merry Chrismas! We're Turning Off Your Analog Outs"

Boing Boing: Congress: "Merry Chrismas! We're Turning Off Your Analog Outs"

Friday, December 16, 2005

cease & desist to the music mafia

I should send a cease & desist letter to the music industry: "Stop what you are doing and I might buy from you again."

EFF: Lyrics Browsers, iTunes and Copyright Law

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

C+?

"Browser pioneer Marc Andreessen, chairman of Zend, a PHP company, says the shift is like the one in the 1990s from traditional programming languages C and C+ to Java."

Java? It's So Nineties

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Overpeer is Just Over Now - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com

Overpeer is Just Over Now - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com: "eventually the major labels that contracted Overpeer were over it, and moved on to other strategies like suing mothers for thousands of dollars."

Thursday, October 27, 2005

shahine.com/omar/ - Trading one set of problems for another

Whenever you switch from one platform to another, or one program to another, all you are doing is trading one set of problems for another. If you think otherwise, you are kidding yourself.
...
The k-jam, while more reliable at making/receiving phone calls than any other Windows Mobile device I have used, seems to do so at the sacrifice of the functionality I really care about… getting my data when I want to.
shahine.com/omar/ - Trading one set of problems for another

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

A List Apart: Attack of the Zombie Copy

"Every executive knows that constantly delivering superior customer value is an imperative to veritably creating shareholder value."

-or-

"If you want to make lots of money, you have to please your customers more than the other guy does."

A List Apart: Attack of the Zombie Copy

MIT Student Editorial on File-Sharing Ethics - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com

"The marketplace lacks morals; it is as dumb as a falling object in a gravity field, acquiring its desires in the most efficient possible ways. You might as well say “may not fall” to a brick dropped from a window, or suggest that the brick reconsider the ethics of hitting someone below."

MIT Student Editorial on File-Sharing Ethics - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com

Monday, October 24, 2005

NASA - How We'll Get Back to the Moon

Interesting to see NASA's plans for their return to the moon.

NASA - How We'll Get Back to the Moon

Friday, October 21, 2005

Washingtonpost a "pesky news site"

"Sometimes Web users can circumvent the process of having to use a password at all. For Web surfers who don't want to register at pesky news sites that want your e-mail address and demographic information, one site, http://www.bugmenot.com , is a clearinghouse for bogus accounts. It'll set you up with cheeky fake names and passwords -- like 'noinfo1@fromme.com' and 'death_to_logons' -- that already work on the site you're trying to access."

Bypassing the Password Prompt

"You are too paranoid"

Something strange happened to me recently: a friend told me I was too paranoid when it comes to security. It was strange because he was the third person to tell me that in a couple weeks. Sure, I expect most people to call me paranoid, but these were all colleagues in the security industry. Is it time to worry when security professionals consider you too paranoid?
...
I use very long passwords for everything, even with the lamest accounts I have. I require my kids to use at least 14 character passwords on our home network and I'm considering issuing them smart cards. No one else, not even my wife, knows my network password.
Security for the paranoid | The Register

Nielsen would be proud

Creative's Zen Vision has no fewer than 11 buttons that can be used during playback, two for volume, two for rewinding, three for forwarding, one for play/pause, one for turning an overlay on and off, and one to bring up a menu for screen size changes and seeking. In addition to its separate volume and brightness buttons, Sony's PlayStation Portable puts up a bewildering array of 14 icons on screen and leaves you to scroll, sort through and figure them out. Simple as they are, the iPod's stripped controls just work.
Apple Computer iPod 5G with Video (30GB/60GB) | iPod Accessory Review

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Unhappy Birthday

Singing Happy Birthday in Public is a Copyright Infringement...

Unhappy Birthday

Genuine VC: Seven Founding Sins

Genuine VC: Seven Founding Sins: "Seven Founding Sins"

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Thursday, October 13, 2005

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

"Why is 'Enumerating Badness' a dumb idea? It's a dumb idea because sometime around 1992 the amount of Badness in the Internet began to vastly outweigh the amount of Goodness."

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

Sex again



What is the fucking problem with these Partner Search Sites?

Why do many adverts look like they advertise something from the red light district?

By the way, you can find the article here:
http://portables.about.com/od/mp3players/a/videoipodrel.htm

Don't be evil

Google Germany is offering an internship.

IT Web Developer, Internship
...
Google is looking for a creative, hardworking web developer with strong artistic skills, technical knowledge, and impressive portfolio.


Responsibilities include:

  • ...
  • Fulfill several projects requests simultaneously while meeting tight deadlines.
  • Day to day duties assisting the German IT Team.
Requirements:
  • High level of creativity and proficiency in Photoshop and Illustrator applications.
  • Proven drawing/sketching abilities.
  • Expert HTML skills.
  • Technical knowledge of file sizes, types, and color formats.
  • Experience implementing and maintaining web content.
  • Keen eye for clean UI implementation and knowledge of website design best practices.
  • Excellent attention to detail.
  • Ability to set priorities and meet deadlines in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
  • Ability to iterate quickly and synthesize feedback from multiple sources.
  • Strong CGI scripting skills with experience in Unix environment highly desired.
For me, this dosn't look like an intership, more like slaveship. What happend to "don't be evil", or isn't this true for Google Germany?

I once heard tales about Google, how they treat their employees, that they have the chef from the Grateful Dead, that employees work for one day a week on their pet project, that milk and honey flow in vast streams on the Google campus.

This must be some other Google.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Netsukuku

I guess this new p2p routing system named "Netsukuku" is something we have to look out for.

Netsukuku the Anarchical Parallel Internet || kuro5hin.org

Saturday, October 08, 2005

How to promote your music

"obscure musicians are promoting themselves at Apple's iTunes Music Store. They're recording cover versions of hit songs. That way, when someone searches iTunes for the hit, the cover version also pops up in the results, giving the unknown artist a jolt of free publicity."

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Head phakes

Google Reader is here

How could I miss this?
Google Reader

Who wants to own content?

"Distribution? It was already dethroned — though, again, the old barons of bandwidth don’t know it. Owning the printing press, broadcast tower, cable plant, movie theater, or chain of stores is a cost burden when your competitors and customers can, without friction, effort or cost, bypass your distribution and even your marketing."

BuzzMachine � Blog Archive � Who wants to own content?

Where Yahoo Search is better than Google

I just searched for my pseudo "t-mix" both on google, msn and yahoo.

First surprise: Yahoo drives circles arround google for this term. Well, google list all pages that have the words "don't mix" in it. MSN is slightly better, but still only second.

Second surprise: There is/was a producer named T-Mix. But I seem more important tham him (at least concerning the search engines). What fun :-)

"After beginning his career as a producer for Eightball & MJG in the early '90s, T-Mix became a house producer for the Suave House label and began expanding his reach, producing tracks for non-Southern rappers such as Ice Cube, Beanie Sigel, and Krayzie Bone. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide"

T-Mix

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Usability review of remote controls

"Until I conducted a small usability review of my remote controls, I didn't realize why the task was so difficult. I knew only that I found it bothersome, which left me in basically the same situation as most victims of the crummy products that the consumer electronics industry inflicts on the public."

How true...

Remote Control Anarchy (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Open Source and Hot Rods

"On the IMAP mailing list, I CONSTANTLY see people submitting patches to the U.W. IMAP server proposing tweaks to fix one thing or another (even though it’s the wrong mailing list, the patches still come in). And Mark Crispin shoots them down all the time, because the person making the patch didn’t really understand the system – their patch might have fixed their problem and their configuration, but it either opened up a security hole, or broke some other configuration, etc."

Larry Osterman's WebLog : Open Source and Hot Rods:

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Don't make people leave your website

- Unless your site is a search engine.

"Advertising on search engines is the final exception: the only reason people visit a search engine is to leave it and find another site."

Nielsen: Designing Web Ads Using Click-Through Data

The Word Spy - joy-to-stuff ratio

The joy-to-stuff ratio

We should never rate stuff over joy.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Fuck. Pop-Up Blocker not working in FireFox 1.0.7



And, no, I don't want to remove any, ahem, cough, errors from my computer. I like my virus scanner.

And I have no need for any error removal software, that by someone elses definition might be called spyware or adware.

Kaispeicher A


Kaispeicher A
Originally uploaded by t-mix.
Something different.

One of my photos I really like.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Sven Wars - A New Hope

So I heard from a former colleague of mine, that the complete team of the company I used to work for has told the CEO of the company that they are no longer willing to accept Sven as head of software development.

A brave move, one I wish I would have participated. But its too late for me, I have only minor interest in software development now. But it fills my heart with deep gratification that this person is getting the cheque for the things he's done. I wish my former colleagues all the best.

So tune in for the next epsiode:
Sven Wars - The Empire Strikes Back

Joi Ito's Web: Plague on World of Warcraft

There is a plague spreading on the MMORPG World of Warcraft.

Joi Ito's Web: Plague on World of Warcraft

Daring Fireball: Rhymes With Ditty

The iPod shuffle clone from Dell.
Or why Dell should be more like Apple.

Daring Fireball: Rhymes With Ditty

Even Microsoft was afraid of Y2K

In the last few days of 1999, the main Windows development building was prepared for a wholesale catastrophe. Generator trucks were brought in so that the entire building could be kept up and running should the power fail as part of a worldwide Year 2000 meltdown.
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/09/19/471240.aspx

Friday, July 01, 2005

Macworld UK - Sony products are too much trouble - The Queen

Macworld UK - Sony products are too much trouble - The Queen: "iPod user HRH Queen Elizabeth II has admitted she finds Sony products too difficult to use. 'I have a lot of trouble with your remote controls. Too many arrows.'"

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

TWAS 503: (Warnings and Promises)

TWAS 503: (Warnings and Promises): "You should be eagerly welcoming me; new loves always mean new records. You should have people following me around with piles of CDs in their arms, trying to help me learn what I love, instead of all these security guards wearing ear-plugs and standing by the exits. I will buy 100 records once I figure out which ones they are, so why are you trying to make it harder and more expensive for me to get through the first dozen I have to eliminate to find them? But you never understood this before, why should you now?"

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Episode II and a half

Well, it's done, I have seen Episode III - Revenge of the Sith yesterday. The ring is complete.

I don't know what to think of it. I feel like it is the weakest movie of them all, much weaker than Episode I. Ok, I have to say that after the death of my friend Justus, it seemed "unimportant" and "small".

(Warning: SPOILERS ahead)

Many people critiqued Episode I because it had to introduce so many characters. I have to critique Episode III because it did little more then close the gap between II and IV. There was no real story behind it: War, all but two Jedis killed, The Emperor, Two babies, Padme dead, Darth Vader here, Yoda and Kenobi leave the stage. Count Dooku didn't play any important role, neither did Mace Windu, Senator Bail Organa or General Grievous. There was a cameo appearance of Chewbacca, Captain Antilles, Aunt Beru, Uncle Owen, the Death Star and the Millennium Falcon. Both the transistion from Anakin to Darth Vader and the splitting up between Padme and Anakin are still not believable. The opening fight sequence was nice, but that was it, I'm afraid.

What I'm missing that there wasn't one new character introduced that played any important role (like there was in every other episode, except maybe VI). I think part of the charm for me was the appearance of someone new who played a important role only in one Episode, maybe to appear in another. Like Jar Jar, Wattoo, Jango Fett, Dexter Jettster, Aunt Beru, Uncle Owen, Boba Fett, Lando Carrisian... These characters are adding depth that I'm missing in Episode III.

Still, I'm looking forward to the extended version on DVD.

Friday, May 27, 2005

A friend has passed away

Today, I got a phone call. Justus, a friend who has been suffering for some time now has passed away. Much too young. Wrong diagnose and wrong treatment. He leaves his wife he has married half a year ago.

He was diagnosed with a cerebral tumour, got radiotherapy, a first biopsy and chemotherapy. It was never really clear what kind of tumour he had. His father, a doctor himself, managed to ask several experts only to get several diagnoses. About three weeks ago, after much strength, effort and a big fight with the doctors, his wife and his father got the doctors to make a second biopsy. Then it was discovered that he didn't had cancer but tissue inflammation. But at this point it was too late. He was too weak.

I didn't managed to visit him since the last biopsy. I was busy. But I was afraid too.

I feel deeply sad. A friend has passed away and nothing I can do will bring him back.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

If I wouldn't boycott the music mafia...

... I would buy everything from Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground and Suzanne Vega.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Parallels

I have to start this post with a disclaimer: I don't want to say that the terror regime of the Nazis and the democratic goverment of the US are comparable, but there are some paralles that can not be simply dismissed.

As I have started to learn more about German's fascist history I have learned many things about the terror regime they have established.

Some points:
  • Creating a climate "Us against Them" and "If you aren't on our side, you are a enemy".
    It was enough to say something against the goverment to get into trouble with the security forces.
  • Creating the image of a difuse enemy
  • Invading a country based on fabricated evidence
  • Imprisoning people without indictment and trial
  • The torture of imprisoned people
  • Using the language for their purposes (Propaganda)
  • Massive usage of national symbols
  • Corporatism: Certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process
Again, the USA are a democratic country and the scale is not compareable. But Germany was a democratic country before they Nazis rose to power.
I lived in Munich for four years, and visited the Dachau memorial as well. I think the most disturbing section is the one describing the transformation of the Weimarer Republik into a ruthless dictatorship. The many "first times".

The first time SA stormtroopers marched through the streets, destroying jewish storefronts, with the police standing by and doing nothing.
The first time a judge officially dropped a charge against a member of the Nazi party because it would hurt national reputation.
The first time German jews weren't granted the same rights in court as regular German citizens.
The first time the national press was "gleichgeschaltet" (~equalized), and any dissenting views were prohibited.
And so on and so on.

The Weimarer Republik was a normal state with laws and regulations. Germany didn't become a dictatorship overnight. It was little step-by-step-by-step.

"Wehret den Anfängen!"
http://man-eegee.dailykos.com/comments/2005/4/15/232243/606/72
?mode=alone;showrate=1#72

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Upcoming

So I started to use Upcoming.org. It is interesting, it is kind of flickr for event dates. There are some things that aren't right yet, but they some interesting features. As it is in beta, they are still moving forward.

The user interface is made for events that are like concerts: One date, one location. The user interface supports adding events like exhibitions, but its not nice...

http://upcoming.org/metro/de/hh/hh/

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Monday, March 14, 2005

Climb


Climb
Originally uploaded by slight clutter.
Short Supply
Tracy Chapman

Where are
The sunny days
The blue skies
The flowers for the children
The colors for their eyes?

I will be on the Cebit on Tuesday

I'm going to the Cebit on Tuesday. Mainly to find a new job, but I want to see what's hot and what's not.

I will take my camera with me and expect to take 150+ pictures.

I related news: I'm working on a Plan B. I can use this change I am currently going through and try to become a professional photographer. The unemployement benefit I will get can be used to start my own company, so this would be great. I have some ideas what I want to do. Some involve writing software for photography, maybe special frontend software for flickr. Need to make a plan and get a 3rd party to write a certificate that my business idea is sound.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Marketing High Technology

I recently read the book "Marketing High Technology" by William H. Davidow.

William H. David has many interesting stories to tell about his time at Hewlett Packard and Intel. When he writes about "Marketing High Technology", he means measurement/test-systems or microprocessors. But his ideas can be applied to other areas as well.

Sadly I can summarize this book in a few points:
- The Product is the device plus all services, the distribution channel, the perception in the market and what the product does for the customer
- "Plan products, not devices"
- If the distribution channel does not match your product, your product will fail
- Your device can be inferior, but your product may be better (E.g. it better does what the customer NEEDS)
- You need at least 15 % market share to survive in a market
- The market entry barrier is about 70 % of revenue of the biggest competitor in a market
- If you can choose between better and different, let your product be different
- In the end, it is all about customer satisfaction, not device features
- If you can't deliver the service that customers expect, you'll loose


The worst on TV

Thursday, February 17, 2005

The only killer app in the history of computer technology is human communication.

Eric Nehrlich's Rantings: "The only killer app in the history of computer technology is human communication."

Groupware Bad

Groupware Bad: "'Groupware' is all about things like 'workflow', which means, 'the chairman of the committee has emailed me this checklist, and I'm done with item 3, so I want to check off item 3, so this document must be sent back to my supervisor to approve the fact that item 3 is changing from `unchecked' to `checked', and once he does that, it can be directed back to committee for review.'

Nobody cares about that shit. Nobody you'd want to talk to, anyway."

Make nice URLs

Make nice URLs

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Giving responsibility without giving up control is a manager's way of trying to take credit

Eric Nehrlich's Rantings: "Giving responsibility without giving up control is a manager's way of trying to take credit without wanting to be blamed. And it's demoralizing. I've become incredibly allergic to such situations at work. Some might say that I should just step up and make the best of it. And maybe I should. It's something I've been struggling with."

Eric Nehrlich on Social Software

Eric Nehrlich's Rantings: "One example would be that I think it'd be really useful if my calendar could include all of the cool concerts/clubs/presentations that my friends are going to, using RSS or something to put it all together. Unfortunately, given the dynamic nature of events, and the effort associated with entering events into a calendar, it seems unlikely that something like this would work from a reality standpoint."

iTunes and Tags

Can I please, please, have tags in iTunes?

How Tags can improve your life

matt.griffith - How will tagging in WinFS help?

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Why sideshows are important

MoneyPants: "11. How did you get the idea for Flickr?

Flickr was a side project! We originally started the company to build a massively multiplayer online game. It was a very socially oriented game, including instant messaging, groups and a social network. We added the ability to share photos and Flickr was born. Flickr grew like wildfire, and grew to take over the whole company."

Monday, February 07, 2005

I am honestly and positively surprised

The new US foreign secretry Condoleeza Rice seems to be doing something right. She trys to improve the relation between the US and "Old Europe". She has visted President Abbas and gets the peace talks moving again.

Yes, I am positively surprised.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Lost Frog


Lost Frog
Originally uploaded by t-mix.
Sorry, this had to be done.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

iPod Accessories

A BMW

Eric Nehrlich's Rantings

Eric Nehrlich's Rantings:
Instead of saying, 'Y'know what? Eric totally forgot to check his code and that's why it broke', we say 'We need to have a process in place for checking code to ensure that this does not happen in the future.' All of these things drive me nuts.

Management by numbers

And it gets back to a common theme I've been on with regard to being treated as a person. The thing that bothers me about the timesheet method of management is that it treats me as a resource. Not a person. The timesheet reduces me to a number to be crunched into budget allocations and project management. And I think I find that fundamentally degrading.
Eric Nehrlich's Rantings - Management by numbers

Amazing pictures - Not on flickr...

The Morning News Gallery - The Bear by Witold Riedel

Joel on Software - Rick Chapman is In Search of Stupidity

So read it, chuckle a bit, and if there’s a stupidhead running your company, get your résumé in shape and start looking for a house in Redmond.


Joel on Software - Rick Chapman is In Search of Stupidity

Sunday, January 30, 2005

The lost frog - And the story behind it

Hopkin Explained :: mike.whybark.com

Bus Graveyard - version two


Bus Graveyard - version two
Originally uploaded by shadowplay.
and the mighty robot stood up and glared at the tiny humans in front of him, his eyes half shut in his daze between earth and sky, his vowels growling still from the might of his engines ....

Photoshop War

JC'S WORLD: "Photoshop War"

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Woman repairing BMW 02 Engine


http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmix/3920842/

http://photos3.flickr.com/3920842_a8bc427bba_m.jpg

Woman repairing BMW 02 Engine

Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/tmix/ t-mix.


Let's see if we can't drive traffic to flickr, he he. :-)

Fuck flickr, they deleted my account.

Flickrzen - A wonderful idea

Flickrzen

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Who let the readers in?

I am surprised. I have readers. Plural. I you have never left a comment here: Step forward! Leave a comment! Speak out about your doubts and fears! It's easy and I don't bite (unless you bark).

I know Elizabeth reads my blog and she is the most important reader.

But I have more readers. Four colleagues know about this blog, but I don't know if they read it regularly. There have been a handful of comments by people I don't know personally. Not much, I would like more comments, but I guess I have to write about stuff that interests people first ... :-)

I found a http://www.flickr.com/photos/nerdherd/3392423/ nice nerd picture on flickr, left a comment there and Matthew Deutsch left a comment here. He asked me if we want to trade links and I have to reply: Yes Matthew, just done it :-) Matthew makes the kind of blog I sometimes think I want to make. Cool gadgets. With his blog arround, I think I should focus more on Software Development.

The other thing I wanted to say is that Ross Rader has included me in the "Feeds I Read" section. I stumbled a couple of times accross his blog in the past. And I got the impression, here is somebody who writes very profound about important things. Important for me at least. Google, Microsoft, Internet, RSS and so on. I subscribed to his feed and kept reading it from time to time. Now I did a little bit of ego surfing, searched for "t-mix BETA" and found that he has included me in his blogroll. I'm shocked. That happens if you read the RSS feed but don't visit the website.

How did he discover me? I guess because I commented on one of his posts.

So now Ross Rader reads this blog. At least he wants to :-) I know how it is: You are subscribed to so many good blogs but only have limited time to read them. And after you are done reading 10 Blogs you realize that you just have spend 3 hours and that you have 40 more good blogs to read. And my blog isn't that good. I'm improving, I sometimes have a good post or maybe even an useful one. But I'm not A-List. At least not yet (Just joking)

And I keep saying that I write this for myself, but do I really? Or do I want people to stop by, read this and think: Here are some interesting thoughts, useful links and good insights?

I will continue to say I write this for myself until I have a dozen regular readers :-) But will it change my style or what I write about, if I know that people come here to read about X and not Y?

Let's see.

The future's bright. The future's blogging.

P.s.: Comments don't seem to work at the moment, at least for me. So, Elizabeth, I will make comments on your blog tomorrow.

MSN Search - Knowledge of Perl a plus

Not a job for me, but funny:
Job Title: Software Development Engineer
Job Category: Software Development
Product: MSN Search
Job Code: 126008
Location: WA - Redmond
Travel Required:

The newly-expanded MSN Search team is looking for a talented, highly motivated individual to help develop new software to improve our Search Engine Results and give us an edge on our competition. A successful candidate will be highly customer focused, and will have several of the following qualifications: experience with C++; experience with object-oriented design; very solid coding/debugging skills; ability to work independently. BS CS or equivalent. Knowledge of Perl a plus. Any knowledge of Pattern Matching algorithms (such as SVM, Neural Nets, or Statistical modeling) a plus.

So, you see, inside of Microsoft they are not afraid of those software commies and their cryptic tools.

http://www.microsoft.com/careers/search/details.aspx
?JobID=0f093531-d415-4a6a-b001-23f9e58496b7

Where did all the joy and wonder of creating software go?

"Tank, I need an exit.....Fast!", The Matrix

I am sick and tired. I can no longer maintain my current job. I have to quit.

I am trying to get a decent job. But I feel burned out. I am not able to write much code lately. I need a time out. I need an exit.

I have an exit. I will cut back on living cost. I will sell my car. I will rent out one room (Hello roomie!). And I will get a job like I did while I was at university: Work through an temporary employment agency like Adecco.

And I will start my own business. As part time only, but my own. I will have a day job I don't have to care about and develop software for my own personal satisfaction.

Haven't figured all out yet, but I need change and this is the kind of change I am looking for.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Lunix

8. Is your son obsessed with "Lunix"?

BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. It is based on a program called "xenix", which was written by Microsoft for the US government. These programs are used by hackers to break into other people's computer systems to steal credit card numbers. They may also be used to break into people's stereos to steal their music, using the "mp3" program. Torovoltos is a notorious hacker, responsible for writing many hacker programs, such as "telnet", which is used by hackers to connect to machines on the internet without using a telephone.


http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html

The Alphabet according to Google

I usually just type the first letter in the address field and select the first entry from the list that pops up in Firefox.

These are my esentials at the moment. And this works very well. Excpet for some hick-ups, when I am to fast and firefox starts searching for the letter I typed...

I thought, it would be fun to see what google.com thinks to whom a letter belongs (The first result). Lets see:
  • a yourDictionary.com
    Good start, you search for a and get something starting with y.
  • b btselem.org
    Better luck here, something starting with b. Interesting site.
  • c CNET.com
    Of course. Something for the nerd.
  • d D-Link
    The first company making real world products (even if it is for computers)
  • e E! Online
    Ohla Hollywood!
  • f f-secure.com
    Thank god, we are back to computer products, even if it is only software.
  • g GMail
    GMail, not Google, a little bit surprising. You never know.
  • h h-net.com
    Humanities and Social Sciences Online? Never heard of you.
  • i iTools.com
    What is this? Google for the poor?
  • j JenniferLopez.com
    Yes, J.Lo!
  • k KDE.org
    KDE, the computer desktop to conquer them all. We are back in geeks realm
  • l Council of Europe (coe.int)
    Even if google claims at the moment that it belongs to "Active Server Pages error 'ASP 0126'"
  • m Texas A&M University
    With Bush Library. A pity George Double U doesn't read.
  • n Blue Web'N a library of Blue Ribbon learning sites on the web.
    Now this one is odd. This one is the first deep link (www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/) And what an ugly deep link it is. Whats wrong with www.blueweb.org?
  • o O'Reilly
    Books for gardening. No, of course books for computer nerds.
  • p PFLAG.org Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays (PFLAG)
    Can you make this a little bit longer? Like include Children, Kindergarden, Home, Work, People, The World, Life and all the rest? PFLAGCKHWPTWLAATR.org is still free.
  • q Q4music.com - The World's Greatest Music Magazine Online
    Never heard of you.
  • r The R Project for Statistical Computing (r-project.org)
    "Your browser seems not to support frames." No clue about search engines but they have beaten ToysRUs...
  • s McDonald's
    "Select Country/Market." You already have selected every Country.
  • t AT&T
    Why t and not a? And whats blogger.com doing on place seven? Sometimes I don't understand google.
  • u The whatUseek Network
    "Does it seem like your hit counter is broken?" No, I don't use medival web-design. And "Copyright 2002" is a nice one.
  • v Bobby Online Free Portal (www.cast.org/bobby)
    Another deep link. And no v. And http://www.cast.org/ is a good one in Firefox.
  • w GO P.com :: Republican National Committee
    Sorry, this had to happen. The second time we run into a hedge bush. By the way "FRIDAY FACTS The Nation Hopeful About President Bush’s Second Term" Who writes believes this bullshit? I hope UU doesn't set the world on fire.
  • x X.Org
    Back on safe geek ground.
  • y Yahoo! Messenger
    Again same as Google/GMail, not Yahoo but a product from them.
  • z HealthAtoZ - Innovating Consumer Health
    "HealthAtoZ provides lifestyle modification programs in a consumer-empowered environment" What the fuck?
So, this is enough for today.

[Update] Obviously other people have done similar things before. Damn, I thought I am so original.

I'm a flickr addict

Strike that, I hate flickr. The f$%^$%^g a#$%#$% from flickr deleted my account.
I became a total flickr addict. Why?
  • It's easy to participate
  • It's fun
  • It's easy to participate
  • You can find people who share your taste in photography
  • It's easy to participate
  • You can share pictures with your friends
  • It's easy to participate
  • Did I mention, that it is fun?
  • It's easy to track down all you comments and even fix spelling errors in them
  • You are not constantly force to log in and log out (Does this make flickr insecure? Don't know, but it makes it easy to participate)
  • The people who work for flickr are fun
  • They have a wonderful simplistic and intuitive web UI
  • They use tags, which don't use as much as I should. But tags are far better than any other classification you can make. File a car under Things->Cars->Volkswagen? But what if it is a old volkswagen on a scrap yard and you see a flower growing out of it? Nature->Plants->Flowers? Or both? Simply tag it "Volkswagen Flower". Voila, done.
  • You have your own address at flickr you can give other people. My screen name is t-mix and I choose the address http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmix/
  • You even have a easy address for tags. You want all pictures tagged cat? Easy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/cat/
  • No need to have a account to browse the free pictures.
  • You are never ever hustled by the UI. The flickr staff has done its homework.
Now seriously, flickr is cool. And what the other sites don't get, that there is so much more than storing pictures. It's easy. You don't have to share the pictures with the world. If you don't want to, set them to private. It's easy. Keeping track of pictures and people you like. It's easy.

I only regred that I don't have digital camera at the moment, but that will change.

One more thing. I like flickr so much, that I have developed an idea for a web plattform myself. It is basically flickr, but with different content that pictures. You will have:

  • A Profile
  • Tags for the content
  • An easy way to add content (Most important)
  • An own address
  • Easy way to bookmark things like all content tagged with cat
  • No need to have a account to browse free content (Important)
  • Business modell? Not sure yet, but I go for google ads and some premium services, but everything essential should be free. This plattform will only work if people participate
What will be the content? Shhh, it is a secret, so I'm not telling.

Let's see if I pull this through. First step: Get into ZOPE.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmix/favorites/

Mini Mac Media Center?

When OS X 10.4 ships, the Mini will suddenly become Apple's version of a media PC.


PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column

Saturday, January 22, 2005

mantis fu


mantis fu
Originally uploaded by fubuki.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It is hard to get credibitity - But it is easy to loose it

Creating Passionate Users: Users shouldn't think about YOU:
I was determined to prove that the 'establishing credibility' thing was not just unnecessary, it was a harmful misconception. I had evidence that students come IN believing you're credible, and as long as you don't do something to screw that up, you don't need to convince them. In other words, you start the class with a pre-established credibility balance. Points will be deducted if you do or say something stupid, and most especially--if you get caught LYING by pretending to know something that you don't, or failing to admit when you're guessing.


Friday, January 21, 2005

Learn German

Learn German - Speak German

The most common gender in German is the masculine. (Keep that in mind the next time you're guessing.).

Found this via beissholz.de

DRM - The License to Sit

You agree not to attempt to understand how chairs work.

via http://www.treehugginpussy.de/index.php?p=1051

flickr daily zeitgeist

http://www.flickr.com/fun/zeitgeist/badge.js.gne

Fuck flickr, they deleted my account.

Asynchronous TV

TV will change.

The technologies existing today will have an impact on TV. P2P and RSS will make it possible to watch any TV show at any time anywhere in the world.

The TV stations will fight it. The copyright holders will fight. It will be bloody. But you can't stop change. They will slow it down, but they won't stop it.

What's already possible today (record and distribute a TV show to friends) will be much easier and more widespread. And one day TV stations will start to offer TV shows via RSS. Asynchronous TV. You come home and watch your favorite show. Or watch it the next day. You are no longer a slave to synchronous TV.

But the business model will have to change. How can you make money with advertisments, if people can simply skip it? How can you charge for a TV show, if anybody can distribute it? You can try your luck with Digital Rights Managment, but DRM does not work. You can fight it with the law, but why fight your consumers?

TV will change. It will change, because the technology will force it to change. But how, only the future will tell.

I'm not considering this

To be considered, all candidates must have a very good degree, Masters or a PhD.

I stumbled across some of these jobs. And I'm not considering them. Is this wrong? Maybe. But I once worked in a company so keen on the kind of degree you had. There was a very clear order in this company. The chef was a professor at a university, the person in charge was a PhD, the person I worked with came from a better university than the others developers and at the bottom was I, without a degree. It didn't matter that the person I worked with had no clue whatsoever about software development. I don't want to go through this again.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

A Day In The Life

[Sugar plum fairy, sugar plum fairy.]

I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They'd seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords
I saw a film today oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
But I just had to look
Having read the book
I'd love to turn you on

[4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24]

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
Everybody spoke and I went into a dream
[Oh shit!]

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I'd love to turn you...

(crossfade into orchestral crescendos)

this is what i do in my spare time

I want to live in flickr

Now if there is one place I could pick where I should live, I would pick flickr. It's like a magical place where everybody is your friend, you are invited into every livingroom, you can go to any country, visit any city, see a thousand sunsets a day and never get tired.

You can choose to live in a black and white world, you can choose the most beautiful colors ever seen.

Flickr is the window to a world I never get enough of even if I am sick and tired of the world arround me.


Fuck flickr, they deleted my account.

Grant Robinson online

Grant Robinson online: "Montage-a-google"

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Duke Nukem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Duke Nukem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Come get some!"

:: ak13 :: A Sicilian message from the White House?

Slowly, it dawns on you that Junior is much more frightening than his father ever was. Where the father understood the value of leading through respect and co-operation, the son knows only how to use violence and fear – leadership at the barrel of a gun. Suddenly, the old man starts to look pretty cuddly by comparison.

:: ak13 :: A Sicilian message

flickr pictures on 43things

Flickr: Forums: FlickrHelp: flickr pictures on 43things?

Oops, I think I might have started something here.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/43things/

Sempre em frente


Sempre em frente
Originally uploaded by Vi.
The direction should be clear.

A farewell to my Access Virus KC


http://photos3.flickr.com/3510927_9cb803aa5a_m.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmix/3510927/


Virus

Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/tmix/ t-mix.

As I didn't make much music with my Virus Synthesizer I decided to sell it. It just wasn't meant to be.

So, before it collects anymore dust, I will sell it. While I prepared the auction on ebay, I played around a bit with Gimp. Simply by changing the color curves, I created this little picture. Black is still black, white is still white, but I pulled the dark gray to white and the light gray to dark. I like the way the knobs stand out and how they reflect in the "black" area.

I hope the new owner will make more music with it. My Virus deserves to be played :-)

And the auction is going well so far. I put it on eBay for 1 Euro and was afraid it might sell for only 350 Euro, but within 24 it has already reached 805 Euro. And it still runs for five days. Anything above 1000 Euro will be fine, if it reaches 1400 I will be really happy.

Goodbye old friend, may your future path lead you to good music.

I for my part will reinvest the money in a digital camera and do something I understand more: Taking pictures. I look forward to having a nice EOS-20D and a http://www.flickr.com/upgrade/ flickr pro account. Fuck flickr, they deleted my account.

No more English TV

Well, it had to happen. I had a device, which enabled me to watch TV in English language. Don't ask me what or how, I will not give any details.

Anyway, it enabled me to watch movies and series like "Office Space", "Friends", "CSI" and so on in Inglese.

Not anymore. It stopped working today. Pitty. Now I have only German TV and DVDs. As I'm boycotting DVDs and German TV brings almost nothing in English language, I feel a bit like on the dry.

On the bright side: I was looking forward to the day with the hope that I would watch less TV then. But since I started blogging, the internet more and more replaced TV, so my TV consum is pretty low already. Let's see how this develops.

So the last movie I have seen was Where Eagles Dare with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. The last thing I have seen was CSI.

Microsoft first contact

After receiving an email from an MS recruiter, I got a phone call today. They already have the resume from me, but she wanted to gather some more data from me, before she would send these information to the program manager. It was basically some questions like do you look actively for work, are you still employed, why do you want to leave your current employer, why do you want to work for Microsoft, you seem to have an expertise in audio, how did you come to this. I guess I should have been a bit more active and leave out some "aehs" but I guess it was ok for first contact. Still I don't know if I hear any positive feedback. She promised that she would contact me Thursday the latest, even if there was no news, so I will see.

The only question that threw me a bit off track: "Do you want to add anything that is not in your resume?". I had to say no, but I guess that wasn't a problem.

What might be a problem, that she asked if I did any work in a specific area of algorithms, where I had to say no. So I guess she is looking for somebody with more specific experience in this area. I wouldn't mind doing it, but I guess if they find somebody more profound, the will go for him.

ps.: Boy, she could write VERY FAST in her computer what I was saying. Kind of strange that somebody types what you say. I felt overly important and it disturbed my concentration a bit.

Project Snakeoil - We bemoan the tragic loss

I though I had it.

After reading Joel's Painless Functional Specifications I tried to do something similar for project Snakeoil. It was nice. It uncovered a lot of things noboby has thought of. Making a spec forces you to think about a lot of details. Where and how are errors displayed? What happens if? How should we interact with the user?

It was written mainly with the UI in mind, but it touched some points concerning the algorithm and hardware.

As mentioned, a lot of companies are involved. First there is the mother of our company, lets call them A. Then we have company B where I work. Company B is in a different country than company A. And we have company C, which is located in yet another country surrounded by water.

Now, company C should be in charge of the product and the hardware, as they will brand and distribute it. Company A will do the algorithm and company B will do the UI stuff (my work).

Last week, I visited the algorithm guy at company A (remember, different country). I needed to talk with him about integrating the algorithm in the UI. As I thought it would be nice to have his input on the UI spec, I send him the document. The result was something I didn't expect. It seems, he has been working in some sort of vacuum, as there was nobody else involved at company A. He has been once to company C, but that was it. Now my spec suddenly fuelled his energy. See that his algorithm would soon turn into a product, made him very cheerful. Amazing.

So, here I was with a draft for a spec. And I had made somebody happy with whom I had to work. Suddenly I feel I have energy for this project. I can drive this project to a product. Me, a measly developer, not somebody with a management title. Effectively, I was in charge.

Then came a meeting.

With the head of software development at company B.

Now we lost the person driving the project. Me. We bemoan the tragic loss. I'm just no longer interested. If somebody else wants to drive it: Go ahead, feel free. But don't count on my support.

JUCE - How to make a button

As I am currently starting to create an application with JUCE, I thought I post every now and then some things I find. Might turn out to be a little tutorial.

Today on the the first part :-) I give you THE TEXT BUTTON

// ToolTip does not work currently on Windows...
TextButton * button = new TextButton( T("Button"), Colours::lavender, Colours::teal, Colours::springgreen, T("tooltip") );

if( button )
{
// We only care about the height, as we call "fit text" for the width
button->setSize (100, 28);
button->changeWidthToFitText();
button->setTopLeftPosition(10,360);

// We need to add an Actionistener
// We can simply inherit this class from ActionListener
// and overwrite the actionListenerCallback()
button->addActionListener (this);

addAndMakeVisible( button ); // Voila, done!
}

Sunday, January 16, 2005

There is NO Revolution in Technology

That's how things go forward.

1. Somebody develops some brand new technology. Real tough work. After he's done, he marvels at it. He thinks it is a revolution, but he doesn't know what for and how to use it. (We call it "the mouse". Should we add more buttons? Lets put as many buttons on it as we have space there! Whats it good for? You can use it move a block around the screen. Other stuff. Well, honestly, I don't know.) As nobody else knows what to do with it either, nobody else thinks this is a revolution.

2. Somebody, years later, figures out how to use this new technology. Everybody sees this and thinks it it is a revolution. But is it? The thing has been lying around for years.

There is no revolution. Only a point where everybody suddenly realizes: "This is the new shit!"


Saturday, January 15, 2005

Why didn't anybody tell me this?

Did you know that by default full keyboard access is not enabled on the mac.

Goto Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Short cuts & tick the check box at the bottom to "Turn on Full keyboard access". This enables the tab key, arrow key, and other keys to select buttons, lists, and other items.

I got the tip from http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/archives/000079.html


http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/003868.html#comment-13999

Friday, January 14, 2005

Datagrid Girl

A good looking geek-girl? This must be a fake.

http://www.datagridgirl.com/

Panopticon Central on Software Patents

I have nothing but contempt for any company that tries to use patents to achieve what they could not through purely competitive means.


Well put. The thing a company should do is compete. Have the better product. Be cheaper. Be faster. But then it should need any patents, right?

Well the problem is this:

So while the good fight goes on to get rid of them, I also believe that it would be dangerously naive to not play the game as best we can in the meantime in as principled a way as possible. There are a lot of people who would love nothing more than to just take a piece out of Microsoft either because they can or because they want to get rich and not for any better reason than that. I've been around long enough to see the kind of trouble that patents can cause us, and so I believe the best defense is a good offense. While I don't believe in using patents in an unprovoked way, I do believe in having a robust patent arsenal with which to defend ourselves should someone get it in their head that they want to hold our products hostage for money or just to cause trouble.
So the only reason to have patents, is that you can defend yourself against somebody who decides to use their patents against you? If this is true, we should really get rid of them. The only ones who will profit from this are lawyers and the patent office.


Meaningless Words - Today Misunderestimating

Alan Krueger, Princeton University: "Misunderestimating TERRORISM, Economics and the Roots of Terrorism"

What is Misunderestimating? Can somebody explain this word to me?

Ok google finds about 15,000 results, so it is not a word that Alan Krueger at Princeton invented yesterday.

But what does it mean?

http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/

HTML Hell

unnecessary border spacing
In this particularly moronic variant of large fixed-size tables, the designer puts the entire web page in a table and pads the edges with empty columns of a fixed width. Duh. This is a sure sign that he or she is one of those pathetic desktop-publishing weenies who thinks HTML is a page description language. Hanging's too good for them...
Ok, I plead (partially) guilty.

http://catb.org/~esr/html-hell.html

Not an average looking blog

http://www.malevole.com/

Killer or Coder?

http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Apple are idiots (or possibly geniuses)

So there’s the paradox. On the one hand, the open and increasingly-cuddly giant that everyone loves to hate, and on the other the secretive and knee-jerkingly litigious underdog that inspires devoted loyalty from its customers fans. Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Cutting Through - A live case study

Floating Point Arithmetic

Floating Point Arithmetic, Part One on "Fabulous Adventures In Coding"

Amazon.com: Who Moved My Cheese?

Amazon.com: Books: Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life

That's the way I like it - Mac mini

And yes, Mac mini will take advantage of your two-button USB mouse with scroll-wheel

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

What is a blog ...

... without cat content?

http://carnivalofthecats.com/

Monday, January 10, 2005

Steve Jobs hates Bloggers

Not enough that we don't get a live feed from this years MacWorld keynote, now any "live blogger" will get into trouble.
Today I’ve been informed that there are actually people roaming the crowd during the Keynote Address watching for bloggers who are connected to the net. They’ll throw you out if they find you doing it.
Steve, I know, a good product is all you need and everything else is secondary, but don't you think you go to far to prove this?

http://www.keynoteuser.com/news/MWSFLive.php

via MacOrama (German)

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Cory on DRM

1. That DRM systems don't work

2. That DRM systems are bad for society

3. That DRM systems are bad for business

4. That DRM systems are bad for artists

http://www.craphound.com/msftdrm.txt:

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Where I have been in Europe




Ok, I looks like a sick fantasy of Greater Germany, but I'm a liberal. Really. I promise.

Where I haven't been, but want to go



That's where I haven't been yet, but want to go one day.

That's where I have been




That's where I have been in my life. Ok, I have seen about one pixel of Brazil. And I have been to South Africa as a little kid and remember only a very little bit.

World66.com - Create your own visited country map

Friday, January 07, 2005

:: stor troopers ::

:: stor troopers ::

Create your own avatar.

MicroSpeak

Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing a project failed and who was responsible.

CGI Joe: A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.

Chair Trap: When you trap yourself in your office chair by accidentally hitting the pneumatic seat adjustment, causing it to drop suddenly, thereby locking your legs under your chair.

OGF: Overall Good Feelings or Overall Goodness Factor. Used to describe the minimum consensus required in order to move forward on a project or to a new feature


And many more
http://www.hands-on-labs.com/only4gurus/techlib/miscellaneous/MicroSpeak.pdf

My Nerd Score...

"I am nerdier than 49% of all people." (Picture)


Could be more impressive...

http://www.wxplotter.com/ft_nq.php

Avoid programming cleverness

5. Avoid programming cleverness. Instead, assume a good compiler and write readable code.

Cycle-counting and compiler-specific optimizations are favorite pastimes of hackers, and sometimes they're important. But we could never have completed the Graphing Calculator in under six months had we worried about optimizing each routine. Rather, we dealt with speed problems only when they were perceptible to users.

We made no attempt to look at performance bottlenecks or at the compiled code of the Calculator until after running execution profiles. We were surprised where the time was being spent. Most of the time that the Calculator is compute-bound it's either in the math libraries or in QuickDraw. So little time is spent in our code that even compiling it unoptimized didn't slow it down perceptibly. Improving our code's performance meant calling the math libraries less often.

Programmers are often tempted to spend time saving a few bytes or cycles or to fine-tune an algorithm. If the change isn't visible to users, however, the benefits may not extend beyond the programmer's satisfaction. When most of the code in an application is straightforward and readable, maintenance and improvements are easier to make. Those are changes that users will notice.

http://www.pacifict.com/Develop.html

The Story of the Graphic Calculator

Avitzur sneaked into Apple's California HQ for six months to write a software program that, through luck and hard work, is still included on every Mac sold today.

Unemployed and living on savings, Avitzur worked 12-hour days, seven days a week, to create Graphing Calculator in the unlikely hope that Apple would bundle it with new computers.


and

We wanted to release a Windows version as part of Windows 98, but sadly, Microsoft has effective building security.


http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66138,00.html

http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Snakeoil Down My Throat

So I working on a fun product. It is trying to look like an improvement, but it is more or less Snakeoil. Snakeoil is something to make you feel good about your audio equipment, but it doesn't improve much. I would like to create something useful. Tools, not toys, you know?

But what's more, we are running on a tight schedule, the hardware isn't finished, the algorithm isn't finished. Three companies in three countries are involved, two project/product managers. People I have never met. There is no clear spec. Everybody thinks the other party is the expert. I'm supposed to make the UI and maybe even port the MATLAB code to C. I should use a new UI and audio I/O framework for this. I have no experience in porting MATLAB to C. Neither seems to have the guy, who has written the MATLAB code. Everybody wants to be involved. Nobody wants to make decisions. "No, don't ask about this, make a decision", but then "How could you make a decision without asking me". And we want to ship end of April. But it isn't even clear if we want to give this project the green light. We have started it, but we might stop.

Since September I'm motivated as piece of rock. I hate my boss. I haven't written much source code since June 2004. At least not much DSP or C/C++ code. And the circumstances give me no warm and fuzzy feeling. And I fear this will be my first project to fail. Be totally late. Only cost money. Never make it to market. And maybe my last project for this company...

#include <beer.h>


include beer
Originally uploaded by cheesepuppet.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Follow the Malware

Part1: http://isc.sans.org//diary.php?date=2004-07-23
Part2: http://isc.incidents.org/diary.php?date=2004-08-23
Part3: http://isc.sans.org//diary.php?date=2004-11-04
Part4: http://isc.sans.org//diary.php?date=2004-11-24

Use MSN Mappoint and you get arround

A colleague send me this:

1. Go to: http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
2. Start: adress in: norway / city: haugesund
3. End: adress in: norway / city: trondheim
4. Press „Get Directions“
5. Wonder...
6. Press back in your browser
7. Change Route Type: Quickest -> Shortest
8. Press „Get Directions“ again
9. Wonder again ;-) (But its shorter...)

Quickest Route to Trondheim According to MSN Mappoint

Shortest Route to Trondheim According to Mappoint

[Update] Try the same in ViaMichelin and you know what comfort is: E.g. the zooming works FAR better.

del.icio.us - I underestimated you

I had my "first contact" with del.icio.us a couple of month ago. I looked at it, thought "This looks too simple to be any good" and went away. Boy was I wrong. This bookmark collection is almost that what I was looking for.

I had the same experience with google a couple of years ago ("This looks too simple to be any good"). And I thought, I'd be a little more open this time...

I should really try out things more carefully, before discarding them as "no good" or "not for me".

I Finally Managed To Check Out del.icio.us...

... and I kind of like it. Let's see how I go from there ...

http://del.icio.us/tmix

Boy oh boy...

... do I look forward to the day I quit my job.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Developer quits at Nokia - Because of Patents

Don't know, if I should believe this:

I no longer work for Nokia.

Before I joined Nokia I had formed an understanding that Nokia was using and would be using its patent portfolio defensively. [...] Yesterday at a Nokia internal patent workshop I came to the conclusion that my understanding was not only wrong, but that the reality was quite horrible. After thinking about this for an evening I came to the conclusion that my conscience would not allow me to work for Nokia anymore.

Now I'm unemployed and rather urgently looking for work. Any hints about nice jobs (open source development preferred, of course) would be welcome.

http://liw.iki.fi/liw/log/2004-12.html#20041208b

(Via Alp Uçkan)

Outlook - Unread Mail


Outlook - Unread Mail
Originally uploaded by t-mix.
I'm so happy.

The Balloon Project

Balloon is an Open hardware development board intended for anyone to use in their projects. Balloon should be viewed as a versatile 'computer component'.

...

Balloon 2.05 Spec
  • Intel Strongarm SA1110, to 206MHz
  • Rom, to 32Mbyte (really just trying to be boot rom)
  • Ram, to 256MByte (64MByte without stacking)
  • Nand-flash, to 2GByte, including 16-bit interface variants.
  • SmartMedia card, to whatever the limit is today
  • Codec (16bit, 44KHz, stereo mic in & stereo line out)
  • 2W per channel power amp (class D, so efficient)
  • 3 serial ports (2 at 12V, one at 5V)
  • Reset (including pushbutton) and power control.
  • LCD interface for STN & TFT panels (including bias voltage generation, to +-28V, 100mA, resistor settable, software adjustable)
  • LEDs & inputs for debug.
  • Unique ID chip / Silicon serial number
  • USB two slave ports (to attach to a PC) and 2 host ports (to attach peripherals) - including power control.
  • CompactFlash socket (not hot-plug)
  • Power supply takes 6-42V - ideal for automotive / battery / lab use OR...
  • Single 5V supply (local supply voltages derived on-board)
  • Software control of subsytem power supplies
  • JTAG programmable for both Boot ROM and PLD
  • Real Time Clock with connector for battery
  • Whole address / data / control bus buffered and sent to docking connector on back of board.
  • 103 x 56mm (credit card, extended by 1cm on long side)
  • Weights 20-30 grams in typical configurations
http://balloonboard.org/

MusicDSP Wiki on Sinus Sweeps

http://www.musicdsp.org/phpWiki/index.php/About%20swept%20sine%20measurements,
%20swept%20bandpass%20filters%20and%20time%20delay%20spectrometry%20(TDS)

Monday, January 03, 2005

Bad?

Even worse!
http://knockoffproject.com/

Selling Music Gear: Virus, Reveals, PowerCore

As I don't make much music lately, I'll be selling some stuff. I will put them up for auction on ebay in the next days.

Here is a list of stuff I'll sell:

  • Access Music Virus KC: Virtual Analog Synth, 32 voice polyphon, 61 semi weighted keys, Emulated Mini Moog™ Filter
  • Tannoy Reveal: Passive monitor speakers
  • TC Electronic PowerCore PCI (Basicly a PowerCore Element with MasterX3)
I'll post links to the ebay auction, as soon as they are online.

[Update] Here are the links:
Powercore
Tannoy Reveal
Virus KC

As I am trying things out here...

... I changed the name of this blog to t-mix BETA.

Prepare to pay big time for this service, once we are out of beta

LOL, SCNR

Welcome Comment Spammers

Just enabled comments for anyone. In case of spam, I will disable it again. Let's see how long this takes...

43 Things