Dreams Unlimited©

Diary

archives

A list of recent thoughts, things I saw or things I spotted on the Net, things that excite me (Uuh, baby!) or upset me, stuff I hate or love or in any other way find worth the trouble of blogging right here for your entertainment or interest and my archive. ;)

	Wednesday, March 29 Microsoft takes aim at open-source vendors over patents #Posted by Dreams on 11:53 I knew they'd hint towards this sooner or later: Microsoft CEO takes aim at open-source vendors over patents. Steve Ballmer has dropped enough hints about sueing Linux vendors with Microsoft patents, that it may frighten the blooming Linux market into the ice ages... :( Oh man, wish I had a general all-covering operating systems patent right now to throw in his face! :)
	Holographic breakthrough crams in 0.5TB per square inch #Posted by Dreams on 09:38 Slashdot reports that InPhase Technologies has 515 Gb of data per square inch. The new world record for highest data density was achieved using holographic storage means and delivers 3 dimensions for storing data. (Funny how that works!) How does it work? "Densities in holography are achieved by different factors to magnetic storage. Density depends on the number of pixels/bits in a page of data, the number of pages stored in a particular volumetric location, the dynamic range of the recording material, the thickness of the material, and the wavelength of the recording laser. For their test, they crammed 1.3 million bits per data page, and 320 data pages spaced 0.067 degrees apart were stored in the same volume of material. We'll see the first drives later this year with 300GB on a single disk and a 20Mb/s (approx 2.5 MB/s). April last year they achieved 200 Gb/in², now already 2.5 times that... Can't wait for what's next!
	Puppys Vs. Cat Video #Posted by Dreams on 09:21 There is this adorable video of a whole litter of puppies discovering a cat... the cat just sits tights and miauws but the puppies! You have got to see the 1.5 minute video!
	Tuesday, March 28 Fujitsu creates 200 GB notebook harddisk #Posted by Dreams on 21:09 Fujitsu has created a 200 GB 2.5" SATA notebook harddisk! They claim it's the biggest in the world. I wonder for how long... The MHV200BT drive features NCQ and has high shock absorbance as well as low heat production and power consumption, making it ideal for PVR/DVR laptops. Cool! Too bad my HP nx9030 has IDE/ATA drives. The SATA won't fit :'(
	Friday, March 24 Macromedia has Flash for Mobile Phones #Posted by Dreams on 15:26 A friend of mine from the UK, Graeme Crowley, told me about a Flash version especially for mobile phones... :blank stare: I had no idea it existed and has for quite a while now. :shame: Anyway, he's working on some demos for the Nokia N70 phones but the Flash lite player is supported by almost every Japanese phone out there. No surprise there! ;)
	Spring is here: fireplace too #Posted by Dreams on 09:21 March 21st, first day of Spring. Temperatures are up. Sunshine is stronger and warmer. It's light earlier and stays light longer. Birds and ducks are chasing each other, finding mates and we... we install a fireplace to get us through those long, cold summer evenings! LOL During my study week at home (I'm soon taking the Novell CLP exams), our small wood-burning Morsø 1410 stove was installed. It's not fully done yet. They have to fix the backside of the fireplace and hook up the stove to the smoke canal. But psychologically it is done. ;) Looks good too, don't you think!?
	Tuesday, March 21 Induction currents #Posted by Dreams on 16:52 You may not remember much high-school physiscs, but I do. I was always amazed by induction currents... A magnetic field inducing an electrical current in a wire nearby. Current, amps, voltage out of nowhere! So Cool! And when you open a circuit where an electrical current flows, the current kinda wants to stay there and a smaller (induction?) current is created to try and compensate for the loss. Well, induction or not, imagine what happens when someone opens a switch at an electrical powerplant where 500,000 Volts are normally running: 500kV Switch Opening. See more phenomenal (lightning) sparks at OTCB. Source: Google Video [edit: post revised based on comments]
	Monday, March 20 AOpen MiniPC - MP915 #Posted by Dreams on 10:42 AOpen MiniPC It's an Apple! Nope. It's a MiniMac! NOPE. It's a DVD player! Nope. It is a mini PC that looks like a MiniMac. It runs WinXP and Linsipre (Linux) and it is a desktop PC the size of an external harddisk. :) The specs are nice, but a barebone will be better albeit bigger. It has room for 1 GB of RAM, 10/100/1000 LAN, 2 USB and a firewire port, uses the Intel 915GM chipset (also used in many laptops), has a DVI video output and built-in AC97 5.1 soundchip but outputs only 2 channel stereo... hmm, weird. I guess there was no room for the additional speaker jacks. :)
	Friday, March 17 Happy St. Patrick's Day! #Posted by Dreams on 09:12 I just want to wish all the Irish and the wannabee's a Happy St. Patrick's Day!
	Funeral of Gies Heetman #Posted by Dreams on 07:44 Yesterday, we attended the funeral of Gies Heetman in Norg. It was in a little church in Norg and some 450-500 guests showed up to pay Gies their last respect. That was good to see. The service was very nice too, all according to Gies' last wishes. Very personal, very touching and also funny at times. I think Gies would have been pleased. Sadly I don't have pictures from within the church, but I do have a few from our way to the cemetary where we all put a tulip on the coffin...
	Wednesday, March 15 Loss of a good friend... #Posted by Dreams on 09:47 It is with profound sadness that I tell you that Gies Heetman, PR-officer and a good friend and colleague of mine while at KPN Research, died last Sunday due to colon cancer. After a 4 year struggle, it finally became too much to bear. He died in bed in the arms of his wife. May he finally have his rest. /me chokes...
	Tuesday, March 14 WNC's GW1 dual mode GSM/WiFi phone #Posted by Dreams on 08:46 I think I blogged this before, I'll check, but I really want one of these types of phones. If Nokia or Sony or better Palm could make me one, I'd be eternally grateful! If a normal mobile phone, type Nokia 6230, but it has WiFi built-in too. Brilliant! No more sync problems, just sync everything over wiFi. Easy as pie! Oh and BTW, this particular phone runs embedded Linux/Qtopia. ;)
	Friday, March 10 Samsung unveils 10-megapixel phone #Posted by Dreams on 11:31 Samsung has done it again: they unveiled the SCH-B600 10-megapixel phone at CeBIT yesterday. The phone has 3x optical and 5x digital zoom and shutter speed upto 1/2000th (!) second. :respect: Like the recent Sony Ericsson camera phone, it also has auto-focus. Samsung already showed a SGH-i310 smartphone with 8 GB (!) harddisk... Niiice!
	ChrisTV! #Posted by Dreams on 10:44 I'm on TV! Woohoo! No, not really, but ChrisTV is a cool sounding Windows app to turn your PC into a PVR.
	Thursday, March 9 Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth: 3.6 Billion Degrees in Lab #Posted by Dreams on 13:30 Scientist have been able to produce plasma matter with a temperature of 3.6 Billion Degrees in a lab. They have been able to reproduce it several times, making sure they were right. However, they still have no idea why it is happening. :) Read the whole article on LiveScience. Source: slashdot
	TextPayMe - PayPal on SMS #Posted by Dreams on 11:50 There is a new service that could become very popular: TextPayMe. Instead of PayPal, where you send people money using your Email address, TextPayMe does the same thing but coupled to your mobile phone number over SMS... interesting!
	Tuesday, March 7 Apple's Multi-touch screen movie #Posted by Dreams on 22:28 You've gotta see this movie about a new screen by Apple: Multi touch screen on Google Video! A m a z i n g!
	Sony 80GB Digital Photo Album #Posted by Dreams on 17:34 This was only a matter of time of course: Sony 80GB Digital Photo Album. About half the size of a regular DVD player, it holds an 80 GB hard disk and reads 7 types of flash media cards: Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, CompactFlash, Microdrive, SD and xD Picture Cards. "Featuring eight slideshow styles with image transitions synchronized to pre-installed background music and high-definition video output, the new HDPS-L1 hard drive photo storage unit offers an interactive way to view and share high-resolution photos from holidays, reunions and birthday parties on a home theatre system."
	Sunday, March 5 Happy DayZZ presents Jochen Miller #Posted by Dreams on 12:28 As we hadn't seen our friends Arjen and Isabel for months, after their long trip to Afrika last year, we were sad to have to cancel Arjen's birthday party 2 weeks ago, to go to visit Petra's (sick) mom instead. However, it gave us a fine opportunity to make it up to them and to give Arjen a bday present as well: Jochen Miller in club Happy Dayzz! Woohoo!
	Theaters Diligentia & PePijn #Posted by Dreams on 12:13 In Barcelona, in our tapas bar "El Bitxo", we met these two women, Mied en Karin, who were killing time before their blues concert (DeeDee Bridgewater) in a near-by theater. One of them turned out to be kinda famous, but unknown to us three. She was playing in a national theatershow "Vrouw Holland" and said she'd love to meet us when they were in Den Haag... we didn't mind and were kinda curious too, so we said we'd meet them there. I just checked and found out that Vrouw Holland is playing Theater Diligentia next Friday! :) So I booked two tickets and we'll see! :D LOL Mental note: must tell Marleen too!
	Fireplaces or stoves, wood or gas burning #Posted by Dreams on 11:19 My parents gave us the chance to rebuild one of our two fireplaces in the house. We have a large livingroom in two parts, with fireplaces where gas heaters used to be, 60+ years ago. Sadly, one of them was completely destroyed, but the other is very well preservered except for some cracks in the marble. Anyway... We chose to rebuild the missing one because it's in our seating area and the other good one is in the dining area. So we went to Houweling in Den Haag to check out possibilities. Problem was the rear smoke canal, but it tested fine, and the size of the fireplace/stove. We can't fit in a modern gas-burning fireplace, the area is not deep enough and it would come into the room all the way. So instead we chose for a smaller Morsø wood-burning fireplace, which incidently also has a high efficiency (8KW) so it can double as a real room heater instead of only being decorative. :) We also looked at SCAN Andersen stoves, but they are relatively deep (60+ cm and high (75-80 cm), which makes them a bit massive for our place.
	Friday, March 3 Fuel Cells for Laptops Due Next Week #Posted by Dreams on 10:54 Finally, getting a battery for your laptop and being able to work a whole day with it. Or game, of course. ;) AVC and Antig Technology will demo a production-ready fuel cell for laptops next week on CeBIT trade show. Woohoo!
	In-depth review of Windows Vista #Posted by Dreams on 09:33 ExtremeTech has an in-depth review of Vista, the net version of Windows XP. They gather together all the under-the-hood updates, upgrades and innovative features to show you Why Windows Vista Won't Suck. Kernel, audio, networking, Aero, DirectX 10, etc. It may not be close to what we'd like to have, but it won't be terrible either. If only we'd have had this 5 years earlier. ;)
	Thursday, March 2 D'sound in Kölner Stadtgarten, rev'd #Posted by Dreams on 15:12 $D\'Sound$ Having trouble getting my hands on tickets for D'Sound in Cologne... The website of the Stadtgarten venue where they're playing offers online tickets, but only with a German bank account. The phone number listed wasn't answered and the Stadtgarten itself doesn't sell tickets. What's that all about!?! So I made an online reservation anyway and wrote them an Email too to ask about getting tickets. We'll see...
	Wikipedia Publishes Millionth Article #Posted by Dreams on 09:17 Wikipedia has published it's 1,000,000th article! Although recently the quality discussion and censoring of certain articles has gotten some media coverage, I still fully support the idea. I think it's brilliant. If you know something about one thing, you write about it. Other people also know a bit about it, add to it, correct it, fix it, maybe get you thinking so you investigate more and in result know even more about that one thing. Wikis are absolutely brilliant for use in knowledge-centered organizations! It's the lowest threshold documentation tool I know of. They are great to gradually build up information and knowledge, organize the unordered, converge towards a common goal or just brainstorm in a collaborative way.