Hey , your source is open !

Dec 29

Out shopping today i hit the local bookshop/software store and went browsing around in the software section. Found a copy of Windows XP pro and was amazed at the price : allmost 400 euro's ! When i picked up the home edition I saw that that was 300 euro's. A quick calculation , adding office ( 350 euro's) Nero (50 euro's) and an antivirus program (50 euro's) , made me realise that using non open source software legaly is quite an expensive hobby. When you think of the misery we encounter when using Windows / Office and other programs sometimes cause us (misdesign, flaws, buggs) its amazing that people put up with it. A: they buy the soft and put up with the shit , B) They use the soft illegaly and put up with the shit. Now the second group has no right to complain. But the first group ? I would be shitfaced if something that cost me a 1000 euro's all together would be so buggy !. Lately i've been thinking about what a Linux-geek-friend of mine said. "The best thing that could happen to open source software , is that people would REALY HAVE TO PAY for all the non – open source software they are using right now." And thats true. People use windows cause its easy. But imagine you would REALY have to pay for it . It would be worth your time (not to mention over 200 euro's in software-money) to try to use Linux, Openoffice and Tha Gimp. Cause software is so easy to copy and distribute illegaly, people stick to using things like Windows, and for example an illegal copy of Photoshop. But if you where to make them pay for it , they would switch to open source in a flash. I'm not one FOR buying all your stuff legaly, If i look at the quality of programs like XP and so on I think its an outrage to spend that amount of money on it. But I do think that IF there is a way to use an open source program instead of using a pirate version , one should do that. In the past I used adobe Photoshop. Not because I needed the advanced functions of Photoshop, no just because I needed a program to do some image editing. Now I found out THA GIMP, the open source Photoshop alternative, and its available on Windows too. Cause pirating software is to easy , people use overkill software for their basic needs (using photoshop to resize a pic) Plus they stick to what they know as long as they don't have to pay for it anyway. Who needs open source when you don"t pay for your software anyway. Its not right is it. In a way Windows IS open source, because they let you ! Otherwise they would lose their high percentage of the market like that. I for one have made my new years resolution to go "as straight as possible" . Not because I want to kiss MS's butt, NO , because I want to find out as many open source alternatives that I can find and USE them. Letting the world know you can survive on open source ! Firefox, The Gimp, Open Office, Firstclass, Jabber, etc.. you name it , you can find it . FREE !

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White power !

Dec 28

Have I gone fachistic ? not to worry my friends. But I must say I have wondered of the beaten path today. It was time for a change, time for something new and unexperienced as yet. A time to make a drastic choice. It was once again time for that one moment I have once every few years : What laptop am I gonna get for next year ?. As you know , every two years I switch laptops. I sell my old one and get me a fresh one. And since I have had this little Acer travelmate 660 for over a year and a half , it was time to shop around. Before disclosing the new candidate let me just point out how happy I have been with my good old Acer. Its been a great laptop, with a 15 " screen it was a bit on the large size but nice and flat. The screen resolution however was 1400 by 1024 and THAT my dear friends is a luxury you will not have on any laptop. Its great to fitt a lot on your screen. Its fantastic when you want do do website design and so forth. Surfing is a charm with a whopper resolution like that . So to anyone who wants to get a PC/laptop : GO ACER !. And yess ! I have spilled the beans : my next laptop is going to be 'different'. Looking for a smaller laptop with a more limited budget to spend , Its hard to find things that meet your needs. The new top had to be small, compaqt, multimedia capable, light and … a challenge. Now what better challenge is there then to .. BUY AN IBOOK. Yess my friends you have heared it right. In the light of eclectism it is important to widen ones view of the computer industry. So inspired by how pleased I am with my Ipod, driven by the enthousiam of fellow Podcasters and blown away by the sheer beauty of the baby ( I am gonna get LOOKS with this one) I chose to go for a 12" Ipod. Small in size, light in weight and versitile in possibilities. Ok , it cannot be compared to my ACER when it comes to desktop publishing (screensize) but its something I can drag around anywhere (the Ibook is about the size of an A4) Powered by OSX (linux on the inside , mac style on the outside) it should present the most stable and versitile OS yett. When a pc is used to mess around with , you use a Mac to do your work. I know , that is hyped up mac-fanatic talk. But hey check out this example. I've spent months browsing the internet for the right MP3 player, read tons of reviews, browsed 100's of websites , compared , checked prices, filtered out unworthy candidates etc… It took me a long time to find the correct mP3 player. Had a creative, had a muvo, had a Rio , they where all lacking in some way. And then I bought an Ipod. And all discussions where closed. End of story. When I opened the box and stared using it , its like i heard : You have chosen the ultimate product , further discussion does not apply. And its true. Once you buy an Ipod you don"t NEED to discuss it anymore. You have the ideal product. Period. And being so pleased with my pod-buddy, I took the next step and put my money where my mouth is and bought an Ipod. Its not so expensive HERE is the price and configuration i payed for my Ibook. As you can see 512 megs of ram and everything. HERE is the pc price-equivalent. Now let us not compare processor speeds and all that. The one thing I AM pointing out is that for the same amount of money , the IBOOK is head and shoulders above its PC cousin in terms of quality. I will take 2 weeks for the Ibook to get here ( I bought it in Germany to catch the VAT on the rebound ) and i'm very curious how it will turn out.

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May all of us find peace of mind.

Dec 24

All over the world people are starving and getting killed in some war. Peace is a distant speck of light in a dark night of blood and humanity is racing towards its own oblivion within the next 200 years. Merry Christmas everyone ? If you can sit and pat your belly tonight, actually believing that Christmas is a time to think of your fellow man and all that then I hope you know who you are kidding. Once more the clock is ticking down on one of the saddest, most hypocritical and most disgusting nights of the year. Yes I don't like Christmas. Why ? because its become an orgy of presents and "getting". Under the all seeing eye of Santa clause (invented by Coca cola) we spend tons of money on useless crap, give it to each other and pretend that you are pleased with what you get. Christmas is no longer about sharing with your fellow man. We stuff our face with food as others starve, we give expensive gifts as others are poor. And we pretend to sit around the table with the people we love (or the ones we can 'stand') while others are lonely. Christmas is no longer the feast of peace. We are almost at war with each other fighting to get those presents bought. And peace is the farthest from my mind. Peace of mind that is. Why ? Not because I have the troubles of the world on my mind. Not because I’m thinking of 1000 starving children in refugee camps.. No .. They don't touch my soul the way 'she' does.

Who is She ? She is a little old lady, a little old grandmother with sweet eyes and a lovely smile. She is the one i always walk by whenever i go shopping in Aachen. I see her sitting there, At the base of the Aachen cathedral. All her belongings in plastic bags, huddled against the cold .. but ALWAYS , ALWAYS smiling at the people that pass by. Gentle but proud eyes. A warm smile when you put your change in the turned over hat she has before her. She never begs, never asks. She just sits there and smiles. And somehow I can't bear the thought of her sitting there. I can't banish her eyes from the back of my mind. Can't get rid of the thought that with the money we spend on gifts and presents, this lady would be able to survive for months to come. And I cannot sit and eat and feast .. knowing there is ONE person that cannot share what i have. I can banish the thousand children from my consciousness. But I cannot escape her smiling eyes.

So i refrain from wishing you a merry Christmas. You who are well fed, warm and covered in comfortable clothes. I will not wish you peace and happiness, for you have it all… More then you know. If if have my wishes to give it will be to her. That she may find peace in her struggle for survival. That she might find joy in these dark days. That she might find company when loneliness cuts like a knife. And that the good luck might pass us by and walk straight into her arms. In these days when everything is so unfairly divided, I can only pray for one peace to come to us.. Peace of mind.

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One ring to rule them all.

Dec 24

Well, to those of you who thought we would never do it : We did. To those of you who thought that it would not happen : It did. To those of you who hoped she would never say yes : She did ! After being together for over eight years me and Saskia thought it was time to take our relationship to the next level. So just like a knight of the old code would do, I got down on one knee and asked the perfect girl to marry me. And she said yess. We have been through so much together, this does not change anything between us. We don't feel more secure then we did before and frankly (as with all things) we have our own philosofy behind this. Our 'engagement' is more a signal to the outside world, that we have found our soulmate, then anything else. We knew then as we know know we are made for eachother and make eachother happy. This ring is more a signal to the outside world then a reassurance of our own relationship. Some reactions of the people around us gave me a very interesting insight into how our relationship was percieved by the outside world. " I don't see why you should get married " a friend of us said. And quite frankly he was right. Why should we ? And just because of that, we can. For if you have a reason to get married , you presumably need your marriage to re-assure you in your relationship. We don't need that, and just because we don't , we do it anyway. " I thought you where engaged a long time ago" another friend said. I thought that was the nicest comment 🙂 It gave me a new insight into how people saw us together. And the classic is of course 'I thought you said you would never get married." And that comment is also justified. We did say we would never get married. And we"ll stick by that. We won't get married the "average way" (white dress , church etc) and we won't get married a 'special way' ( driving to the church in 25 identical mini's ) We'll probably marry someday 'our way'. And thats quite hard to explain. To us this engagement is not about tying the knot. It has been tied years ago. Its giving the outside world a clear signal that we belong together (and also telling some bachelors and bachelorettes to 'lay off') Its our way of telling the outside world we have chosen eachother and want to make it public. And for ourselves its just a question , a ring , a smile and a tear of joy. No big deal, no big change, no big next step. Its just another day where we let the outside world SEE that we have sealed our packed a long time ago.

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Misfortune, fun and FAME !!!

Dec 13

Almost a week since my last update . DAMN DAMN DAMN , Don't have nearly enough time to type everything out. Whatever happens, this baby needs to podcast or otherwise I won't get a chance to 'put it all out there'. Lets start of with Friday. Yeey ! Weekend , I thought (and rejoiced at the thought that my beloved Ipod had been delivered at my parents place). Raced down to find a BRAND NEW IPOD sent back from apple. Talk about service ! Whohoow. Too bad the podcasts that I had stored on the old one are now lost forever. Well. I'll make some new ones. Dug up a microphone stand for my podcasting studio from the basement. As I was holding it against me as I had my hands full, I unfortunately bumped into the door with the extended 'mike-arm' As the pressure bumped the heavy steel foot into my chest I suddenly heard a gut wrenching SNAP. I went like … OH OW … And yes. As I reached into my breast pocket I retrieved my unprotected Cell phone (p800) and found the touch screen shattered. * DAMN ! ! ! ! !* Goodbye P800 :§. Talk about an unlucky streak 🙁 . After cursing in 14 tongues I went into problem solving mode and went for one of the toughest choices I regularly face : What new cell phone to buy. For a geek like me , that’s no easy assignment. After a lot of surfing around my eye fell on the same cell phone my buddy Kiwi kid has , a Motorola MPX200. I had sworn never to buy one again.. but faith decided differently. It took me a while to find one but finally after a LOTT of searching around, finding it priced 541 euros in one shop an 169 euros in the other shop (I’m not kidding people) I got my hands on one. So my next door neighbor Kiwi Kid is going to help me flash the phone up to windows pocket pc version 2003 and what do you know.. I'm going to be the owner of a windows-powered smart phone. (wonder when I’ll get it to blue screen). Damn , there is so much more to tell and I don't have freaking time to talk about it all :(. I REALLY need to get the podcasting site up to date so I can yapp my bloggs instead of ramming them into the board. *** What else. Shopping on Saturday afternoon . I DESPISE Xmass shopping ! ! ! ! Lounged out on the couch in the evening, I was so damn tired I fell asleep right there and then. Did some cleaning on Sunday morning , while watching "the never ending story" (corny corny movie ! , great music) and went over to see some friends in a little obscure cafe somewhere in 'scherpenheuvel' where a Flemish crooner took residence (according to Nyana it was BARRY white , but we'll settle for Johny White) In the evening we took Kariens new boyfriend out for a test drive. (gave him the full 40-questions) and marked 'approved' all over him … (way to go dude , we kill most of you guys in the first 2 minutes, however you survived.) Although it was disturbing that the poor boy had to be 'warned' about us. (also the comment was .. 'keep away from children'… DUUUUH , we are not children-unfriendly !!) .. ok maybe we are a little children unfriendly.. But we don’t lock them up or stuff like that (yet). But hey , that was the day ! *** OH YEAH THIS IS IMPORTANT !!!! Remember I told you guys I Fixed Adam Curry up with a little intro for his pod casting show (it was like kind of a joke) .. BUT CHECK OUT Today’s PODCAST by Adam Curry . and with that , I close the daily blogg. ! Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (comment you F***s)

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