Here, There and Everywhere

Suspend fix for Joli OS

2011-07-13T10:41:00.001+02:00

Hello dear peoplez! Vacation! In my book that means spending more time with linux and figuring out small problems which might or might not drive me nuts. Since one of the previous upgrades I have not been able to suspend my netbook, which runs Joli OS 1.2. This drives me nuts. I figured out I have too little swap space for suspend or hibernation to work. If you, like me, installed Joli OS from Windows, using a windows installer (Wubi), go ahead and follow this small tutorial. If you installed Joli OS on its own partition, you should use GParted to increase the size of the swap partion (I won't go through that here though). Happy tweaking!

UPDATE1: I've added a link to a script which will turn off WLAN when entering suspend mode. This is also essential for suspend to work with Vaio P on Joli OS (or Ubuntu). Your suspend troubles may depend on either too small swap space and/or WLAN keeping your netbook awake.

Estimated time needed: 20 minutes.
First, check your free swap space. Press Alt+F1 to open a terminal and write:

free

In the same window information about RAM (mem), buffer and swap will appear. Compare the sizes of the mem and swap values. They should be around the same sizes. In my case my swap had changed size to 10% the size of my RAM! Let's get started!

Press Ctrl+Shift+T to open a new tab in the terminal window. And write the following:

sudo bash
(write your password to login as root)
swapoff -a
cd /host/jolicloud/disks
mv swap.disk swap.disk.backup
dd if=/dev/zero of=swap.disk bs=1024 count=EnterYourRAMSizeHere
(this will take about 15 minutes for 2 Gb, so take a nap or watch your favourite TV show!)
mkswap swap.disk
swapon -a

In order for us to see if the change had an effect write:

free

again to see the current RAM, buffer and swap sizes.

UPDATE2: Here is the link to the script that will turn off WLAN when suspending your netbook. Note that the power LED on the wireless switch will be on, even during suspend.

Smart Saturation

2011-07-06T19:41:00.001+02:00

I have been looking around GIMP plugins for a smart way to increase saturation without the overly processed and unrealistic look. The problem, I concluded, is that the saturation tool in GIMP doesn't distinguish between light and dark areas of a picture, and often the dark areas of the picture are too saturated to give a natural look. This problem can easily be avoided by using a layer mask which filters the saturation effect depending on the luminosity. Sounds interesting? Please read on...

Step 1: Open up your image in GIMP. And start by pressing CTRL+A to select the whole image, followed by CTRL+C to copy it. This will later be our layer mask.

Copy of Background layer.

Step 2: Now duplicate your layer. Rename the duplicated layer if you want to and right click on the top layer and choose Add layer mask... to add a layer mask to the top layer (which I have renamed to Saturation). Press OK in the Add layer mask... dialogue to make the top image completely opaque (this is less important since we are going to paste our copied layer in the next step).

Duplication of Background layer.

Step 3: With your layer mask selected (if you haven't selected anything else it is already selected, otherwise just click on it in the Layers panel) press CTRL+V to copy the image onto the layer mask. Click on Anchor the floating layer at the bottom of the Layers panel.

Selected layer mask (white border).

Copied image needs to be anchord onto the Layer mask.

Top layer selected (white border).

Step 4: Go to Colors > Hue-Saturation... and play around with the Saturation slider until you get a result you are happy with. Here is my example without the layer mask (to the left) and with the layer mask (to the right).

Saturation without layer mask

Saturation with layer mask.

Vaio P, OpenGL and Windows 7

2011-02-21T14:03:00.002+01:00

Hi there, fellow nerdz! I was going to turn this into a how-to and pro/con article on OpenGL on the Sony Vaio P (on Windows 7). But since I installed the XP IEGD driver for Intel GMA500 I have had nothing but trouble with it. For those of you that want to try it out for yourself, and/or want a bit more information on my massive fail, continue reading. To others: don't bother with this driver.

Update1 (2011-08-03): Seems like mmmsheen at notebookreview forums has discovered a way to unleash the performance of the GMA 500. Function keys still don't work, but wakeup from sleep does. Watch the video here.

Like always my research around the GMA500 started because I wasn't happy about how things worked (I cannot play Minecraft on my netbook for crying out loud!). But as I delved deeper into the knowledge pool that is the internet, I realised it wasn't the chipset that was holding my computer back, it was the driver. The Vista and 7 driver has among others no support for OpenGL and limited support for 3D acceleration and DirectDraw. This performance problem netbook owners are experiencing isn't because Intel don't want to write a good driver, but because there is some sort of legal licensing problem. This is also why Intel has no Linux driver for the GMA500 (still you can install some linux distros: I've written an old tutorial on Jolicloud and Vaio P which might still be valid.

But hurray, for XP users you can get a developer version of the GMA500 XP driver (IEGD - nonconsumer driver) which you can (with a little extra work) use on Vista and Windows 7. I went ahead and installed the driver in this fashion:

Downloaded the IEGD Driver from here. Also downloaded the Windows 7 driver from Sony's website in case something would go wrong (which it did).
Right-clicked on Computer in the start-menu and chose Manage.
Clicked Device Manager and clicked on Display adapters and uninstalled the GMA500 and removed all the drivers.
Restarted and installed the IEGD drivers.
Restarted and...

All looked fine. OpenGL Extension Viewer showed me the computer did now support OpenGL 2.0. I could choose the screen resolution but I was stuck with 16-bit colours. Not to worry. I played a few HD movies I had on my harddrive, and performance-wise it did great. I went onto Youtube and Vimeo and noticed maybe a small improvement in FPS (frames per second) in the HTML5 player, but nothing dramatic. Flash was still as useless as ever (why do Adobe make their programs so heavy and slow?). I copied the Windows Experience Index of my previous setup and ran the tests again. The result was disappointing. By installing the XP IEGD driver my Graphics and Gaming graphics scores had dropped from 4,2 and 2,7 to 1,9 and 1,0. Update2: this is due to the fact that the IEGD driver isn't signed.

I had a lecture at the hospital so I went there, booted up the Vaio P and started to take notes. In the brake I put it to sleep (by closing the lid) as I normally do. Unfortunately the XP IEGD drivers don't wake up on Windows 7. They also cannot adjust the backlighting of the screen. When I got home I tried it again but with hibernation. Nope. The drivers don't like it. So I finally tired of it all and installed my old drivers again. I know, I should have tried a game or two to see the performance there. But seriously? Would you use a driver that makes your computer crippled?

I went on this quest (can I call it quest? please?) to see if I could enhance the performance of the GMA500. I couldn't.

HD movies on Vaio P

2010-12-17T11:04:00.000+01:00

The best and the worst thing with the Vaio P is its screen. It is amazingly detailed so those HD-movies you have on your harddrive will look amazing on that screen. Unfortunately the high resolution of the screen means the hardware is going to be put to the test, and since the hardware in the Vaio P is very limited (Intel GMA500 and Atom processor) you might have to do some tweaking.

If you are running Windows on your Vaio P there are many options for videoplayers out there. I've tried Windows Media Player (WMP) 11, 12, Windows Media Player Classic Home Cinema, Fast Player and VLC Media Player. You can make all of these players play 720p movies on your Vaio P but for this tutorial I will stick to VLC, since it's new codecs are ace (v.1.1.5). If you decide to go for one of the other players I recommend using ffdshow filters so you can play all formats out there. The tweaks applied to VLC can also be applied to ffdshow.

First install VLC. It has its own codecs so no need to download anything else from the internet. Let's start tweaking:

Turn off the controller in fullscreen. I never use it (you can use CTRL+right arrow to skip forwards and SPACE to play/pause). The reason you would want to turn it off is because any mouse movement during playback will cause the video to stutter. To turn it off go to Tools > Preferences and uncheck "Show controls in full screen mode".
Change output from Default to DirectX (DirectDraw). The default output is DirectX 3D. DirectX 3D will give you a smoother picture, but if you prefer a high framerate you should use DirectX. To change the output to DirectX go to Tools > Preferences and click on the Video-tab. In the dropdown list choose: "DirectX (DirectDraw) video output".
Change settings for ffmpeg audio/video decoder. Here you will find the most influential settings that will affect video performance. Go to Tools > Preferences and click "All" under Show settings. This will bring up the advanced settings. Now go to Input/Codecs > Video codecs > FFmpeg in the left pane. Here you can turn off error resilience and warkaround bugs. I've checked "Hurry up" and "Allow speed tricks". The most important setting is to skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding. In the dropdown list choose: "All". This loop filter is a deblocking filter that normally applies smoothing to the picture. But let's focus on performance rather than quality.
Don't check "Use GPU acceleration (experimental)". This will somehow turn skintones into blue colours which looks really bad (unless you're into Avatarasing all your movies). Update1: actually checking "Hardware decoding" might work with VLC 1.1.11 and the newest driver (Intel GMA 500 driver 8.14.10.2030). BUT you definitely have to uncheck "Use hardware YUV->RGB conversions" under "Video". Some movies encoded in mp4-format will stutter and wmv-format videos will turn into LSD-heaven.

This ought to do it. Now you should be able to watch 720p movies on your Vaio P! :D

Perfect HDR without a Tripod

2010-10-14T20:22:00.006+02:00

Hi there! As usual, it has been too long and I cannot blame the studies for being too hard. Soon I'll be enjoying a 4 day weekend! Nice! But before that I would like to share a post-processing technique that will save a few bad HDR's (High Dynamic Range) in my collection (and hopefully a few in yours). If you are anything like me, you don't like running around with a tripod or maybe you just forget it at home. But then my brilliant brain (yes, sometimes it is brilliant) thought of a way to use Hugin, a free cross-platform program for making panoramas, to align multiple photos and re-save them as remapped images. Lets see a before and after at 100% crop and then start the tutorial!

100% crop of before and after alignment

First of all you will need Hugin (and maybe GIMP) and the photos that will make up your final HDR image. Here are three exposures that I have choosen for this tutorial:

Sample images for HDR

- Start Hugin and drag your images onto the window. It will automatically load the EXIF-information from the files.
- Go to the Images-tab and choose Align image stack instead of Autopano-SIFT-C (if you have autopano-SIFT-C installed you can go ahead to the next step) and click Create control points.
- When the control points have been created go back to the Assistant-tab and click Align.... This will align your images.
- Go to the Stitcher-tab and choose your projection. If you don't want any distortions choose Rectilinear and click the Calculate Field of View and the Calculate Optimal Size buttons. To be on the safe side, check you image by going to View>Preview window.
- If all looks good uncheck the Blended panorama under Normal output and check the Remapped images box under Exposure fusion. Click Stitch now! Choose where you want to save the images and wait for Hugin to save them. The image format will be TIFF.

(If your images have a weird projection you can specify the center of the image by left-clicking on where the center should be, and you can rotate by right-clicking at the edges of the image. But rotating is easiest done in GIMP)

If your remapped images have black or white borders, use GIMP to crop them before loading them into your HDR program. Now you are almost done. Here's my result:

Final HDR image (created with Essential HDR)

WWAN, Why You Should Not Use It

2010-09-12T20:28:00.004+02:00

I now can tell you first hand why you should avoid WWAN, also known as 3G broadband, mobile broadband and the like. It is awsome… in theory. It is awesome…. when it works. But as it only works 50-60% of the time the monthly fee of “woah-you-pay-THAT-for-broadband” starts to scare you more than that creature that lives under your bathroom sink.

I know this because I have it. Yes, I admit it, it was foolish on the same scale as colouring your hair pink or invading Iraq. On 3’s homepage it says that there will be some rate-loss when you are moving (like in a car, plane, boat, bus, spacecraft…) or if you are in a rural area with bad connectivity. I am sitting on my arse in central Odense (which would be considered rural if you’re from London, New York or other cities of similar size) which is supposed to have great connectivity. But I’m still waiting for a clip to load on youtube, that I clicked half a decade ago! A quick speed test gives me a download-rate of 17% of the speed I’m supposed to get. Not OK. But 3’s support thinks it’s OK. So I warn you: don’t do WWAN. Since most teenagers would kill themselves without instant 24/7 access to facebook and youtube, this is actually a health warning… from your future doctor. Don’t do WWAN. It might kill you (or slowly ruin you, while the rest of the world is laughing at that email the boss sent last week but is still downloading on your computer… don’t do WWAN).

The Burn Tool

2010-07-06T17:23:00.011+02:00

Now that I finally have some vacation, and some time to write, I thought I compile a short tutorial on one of my most used editing technique. I don't remember how I started using this technique, but I remember reading an article about landscapes. In this article it pointed out that the depth in a landscape photo is created by difference in colours and contrasts in close objects and distant objects. Distant objects are hazy, with subdued colours and little contrast. Objects close to the lens are, in contrast to distant objects, sharp, of vivid colours and much contrast. You can add some depth to your photos by using the burn tool. This tutorial is for GIMP (free download).

Step 1 (selecting a photo):

Open up a photo. I will use this one for demonstration (shot in Belgium, next to unkown road from Rochefort):

As you can see, it is a plain looking photo. It is a good photo (exposure-wise) but it doesn't pop, like the photos you see posted on Flickr. But we can fix that...

Step 2 (create a lower gradient):

In GIMP, add a new layer and rename it if you feel like it. Select the Gradient Tool in the Tool Box (pressing L is the keybord command). Select the foreground colour as black and the background colour as white (it is automatically set to this by default). Drag a gradient from outside the picture, to somewhere close to the horizon (pressing the CTRL-key will make the gradient tool "snap" to preset angles, such as 90 degrees).

The result will look like this:

Step 3 (change the blend mode):

In the Layer Tab (where your different layers are shown), select the newely created layer and change the blending mode to Burn.

The result might shock you but don't worry. Adjust the opacity slider until the picture looks normal:

At 51%, I was pretty happy.

Step 4 (create upper gradient etc):

Repeat steps 2 and 3 but for the upper gradient.

This is my final image, which looks much more interesting than my original:

You can use the Burn Tool as an enhancer in many different images. So with this tutorial I encourage you to try out your own different styles. Enjoy!

Setting up Jolicloud on the Vaio P

2010-06-06T20:13:00.006+02:00

EDIT 2011-03-11: Since this is one of my most popular articles I thought I should update it a bit. Jolicloud is now on version 1.2 and most sections in this tutorial can be skipped (everything in the basic section at least). I'm not going to re-write it at the moment, since I have lots to study, but I will add a tips I found on Ubuntu Forums on how to get scroll to work! Pretty exciting right? I will guide you in the right direction: here is the script and here is how to install it. It has to be run at each boot. I added the script to my startup applications (Dashboard -- Local Settings -- Other Settings -- Startup Applications). Cheers!

This guide is divided into two sections (basic and advanced). The first section (basic) covers the basic fixes to make your Jolicloud installation run. The second section (advanced) covers some useful tips and tricks. Everything writen behind code should be entered in the terminal. Before we start, remember to do a backup! Also remember that this is not my work, but simply a compilation of tips and tricks regarding Jolicloud on Vaio P!

Basic

Start by visiting http://www.jolicloud.com/ and download either the Windows installer or the ISO-image.
If you are using the installer, start it and follow the instructions on the screen. If you use the ISO burn the ISO on a CD, use an external CD-drive and reboot your computer. In the CD-menu, choose option 1 in the list (Try Jolicloud without making any changes to your system). Click on Install Jolicloud to start installation. Follow the instructions on the screen, and make sure you don't choose to use the entire disk in the partition manager (unless you want to use Jolicloud as the only OS on your computer, but that's not recommended).
When you start Jolicloud for the first time you will be greeted by a "Low Resolution" screen since Jolicloud cannot use the graphics just yet. But as noted by AdamW all you have to do is change the kernel parameter for the memory. Open a terminal window and write the following:

code: sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

and write your password (the cursor won't change when you do this, this is normal).
In the window that just opened locate:

title

uuid

kernel

initrd

quiet

At the end of the kernel line, add mem=1800mb nosmp

The above specifies the memory amount as 1800 megabyte. This has to be done so the graphics adaptor has some memory too. nosmp makes the kernel boot in uniprocessor mode (if you don't add this, Jolicloud freezes unexpectedly).

Restart the system and everything should work like a dream (as long as that dream doesn't include high-def media or loads of youtube-streaming).
If you find the text too small, change the DPI under System -- Preferences -- Appearance and click the Fonts tab and click Details in the lower right. Change the number to something that lets you read easily on the screen. Press the windows-key to access the menu.

Advanced

In order to use compiz you have to disable the netbook launcher (sincer there is a conflict), which is the application that shows all your applications on startup. It's a bit of a dilemma, but you can use Jolicloud without the netbook launcher if you want to. Note that you will have to add a desktop background, launchers for different apps (if you want to) and a menu (replacing the Go Home button in the upper left corner) which I will not cover this in this tutorial (search Google for add launcher ubuntu and add to panel ubuntu).

To disable the netbook launcher go to System -- Preferences -- Startup Applications and untick Netbook Launcher.

Install Compiz

Open a terminal window and write:

code: sudo apt-get install compiz

If you need to, enter your password.
Now write the following:

code: sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Go to System -- Preferences -- Appearance and click the Visual Effects tab.
Click Normal and apply the effects.
Go to System -- Preferences -- CompizConfig Settings Manager and play around with the settings. I recommend using the zoom function, but remember to change the key-bindings (I use Alt+Button1 for zoom in, Alt+Button2 for zoom box and Alt+Button3 for zoom out, which utilizes the Vaio P's all mousebuttons to zoom in and out). Most other settings are too heavy for the small Vaio, but the zoom is a great feature for those non-dpi-sensitive apps.

Install cpudyn

I was going to add a section on this. But now it's getting late and I should study some more. So why should you use cpudyn? The inbuilt cpu-scaling works good, but when you run on batterypower you might want to specify the maximum frequency the cpu should be allowed to use. This can easily be done with cpudyn if you enter:

code: echo xxxxxxx > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

Where xxxxxxx is the frequency of the processor in Hz. That means that 1400000 is 1.4 GHz, for exampel. Remember that you have to have root privileges (write sudo bash followed by your password to login as root).

Now I wish you good luck with your linux system on the amazing Vaio P! But don't uninstall Windows if you want to watch that HD-movie or use all the features of the computer! And also goodnight :D!

Which OS for your Vaio P?

2010-06-06T09:49:00.007+02:00

Long time since my last post. I blame the medicine studies which takes up most of my time these days. But now, with only one week till exams, I think I can spare an hour to put together some of my thoughts regarding Vaio P, Linux (Ubuntu and Jolicloud), Windows Vista and Windows 7.

I've had my Vaio P for 9 months now, and I honestly love it. Weighing just around 0.7 kg with the large battery attached you can carry it with you everywhere. With about 6-7 hours of battery and connectivity options like WLAN, bluetooth, GPS and a 3G modem, you can pretty much use it everywhere too. If you like all the above you should considering buying one. If you want an SSD (solid state drive) harddrive and the fastest Intel Atom processor, you should consider buying from http://www.conics.net/. My Vaio P came with Windows Vista Basic as the standard operating system, but if you buy one today you should get Windows 7 (if you do, stick with it).

Windows Vista sure had it's problems but I honestly couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. I've used Vista on my Vaio FE-series notebook for maybe 2 years, and I've been more than happy with it. On the Vaio P, however, Vista runs less smoothly and you can feel the little "netbook" struggling to run the heavy operating system. Theoretically the Vaio P can play HD movies (720p) but it didn't matter what kind of tweaks I used, it wouldn't give me more than a choppy framerate of 10 fps. This is largely because the inbuilt graphics are Intel's Graphic Media Accelerator 500 (GMA500 for short), and the processor is a single core low power one (albeit running at 2.0 GHz in my case). But this wasn't the problem at all, as I discovered when I installed Windows 7 on my Vaio P. In Windows 7 the Vaio P plays videos in 720p without trouble, and even the occasional 1080p movie (after a lot of tweaks in VLC media player). Suffice to say that Windows 7 makes the Vaio P more impressive than it already was, and also a lot faster.

But what if you don't have a fortune to spend on a Windows 7 DVD? Yes, you could pirate it, but that's not what I was thinking of. What I was thinking of is Linux! Any linux distro? No, unfortunately Intel hasn't made a linux driver for the GMA500, the poulsbo-driver which has become rather notorious in the linux community. However, some clever guys have made it work, using an old driver and several liters of softdrinks and coffee. It now sort of works under Ubuntu 9.04 and in Jolicloud.

Why should you bother? It's free and when running Compiz you get some neat tools (like a fast zoom function) which will make your life easier. Also my Jolicloud boots in under 30 seconds, is more functional than the Instant On OS supplied with the Vaio P. Connecting to the internet takes less time and surfing generally feels faster, so it's definitely worth checking out.

If you're planning on installing Jolicloud OS on your computer, check out my next post which will guide you through all the steps to set it up successfully on the Vaio P!

Pizza Dreams

2010-01-18T10:28:00.005+01:00

It's a warm summers day. The weather is too good for anything but a cold beer at a street corner café. As I drink the first gulps of my beer I realize that a friend from school sits next to me and looks out over the traffic. Not only is it odd to see him but he also drinks a beer which is unusual since he is a teetotaler. Not knowing what to say I continue drinking my beer and watch the cars pass by. My friends reaction to his encounter with alcohol results in him throwing a piece of cheese into the traffic. I've seen much worse things happening to people as a result of alcohol but disturbingly the car, avoiding the piece of cheese, skids up the pavement and hits a man leaning against the wall. I am not certain of what happened and I cannot remember what happened to the poor guy. I vaguely recall that he was already dead before the car hit him.

Wandering up a hill I see a couple of parked cars with the same number plate. Odd again. A man stood cleaning one of the cars and he saw me watching him. He amazingly understood exactly what I was thinking and replied that he owned all of the cars, and that was why there only needed to be one number plate for all of them. His argument seemed reasonable enough to continue the steep climb up the hill (which I now think is somewhere in Gothenburg). At the top I started to hear voices. I could not hear what they were saying but they seemed friendly and they were not talking to me.

This is where I wake up, take a sip of water, and still hear voices. No worries dear reader, just my roommates greeting each other in the corridor. Conclusion: pizza (and maybe exam nerves) give you strange dreams.

Painkillers

2010-01-06T15:24:00.005+01:00

At the local pharmacy.

Me: Hi, I would like some Ipren (a brand of ibuprofen [iso-butyl-propanoic-phenolic acid]).

Pharmacist: Have you tried it before?

Of course I have tried painkillers before, I'm 21... surely at some point during that time I've must have been in some sort of pain. Tempted to say: "No, does it hurt?" I pushed away that very amusing thought and said...

Me: Yes, I've used it before.

Pharmacist: Do you use some other medicine at the moment?

Me: No.

Pharmacist: Have you had problems with stomachache, reflux or anything like that?

Technically yes, but I had already gotten irritated at the lenght of this interrogation and my throbbing head wasn't helping either

Me: No.

Pharmacist: So you know how to use them?

Me: Yes.

All you need for this experiment is a glas of water and a painkiller, open your mouth, put the pill in, take a sip of water, swallow... there, pretty sure there doesn't need to be a "Don't try this at home" warning after the instructions

Pharmacist: I would recommend you to eat something before taking the pill.

Me: Ok, thanks for the tip.

Pharmacist: Do you want a box of 20, 50 or 100?

Oh no, I'm not making this up. Danes must be irony-blind. No sane person could miss it. Ipren is rated to "dangerous" to sell as an OTC (over the counter) over 400mg but you can buy 200mg in boxes of 20, 50 or 100. In Sweden you can buy Ipren 400mg in your local supermarket and without the long interrogation bit, that I assume is supposed to scare me?

Me: 20 is enough.

Ah, that's better. My headache is finally gone and believe it or not, I still live in a house and not on a bench or under a bridge. I'm not vomitting blood all over the place either. But to be on the safe side: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!

Noise Cleaning and Photo Sharpening

2010-01-01T15:16:00.010+01:00

Happy new 2010 to all of my readers! I've been quite busy lately with a lot of anatomy and biochemistry to study but now I'm going to take the time to write a tutorial.

This tutorial presents some basic photo editing that hopefully makes your images look better. Previous tutorials have been written for both Paint.NET and GIMP but this tutorial requires some plugins that are only available for GIMP. Similar plugins exists for both Paint.NET and Photoshop so it's not impossible to use this guide for those programs.GIMP if you intend to use this program. Then download GREYCStoration and install it. If you're on Windows Vista or Windows 7 go to C:\Users\"youraccountname"\Documents\.gimp-"versionnumber"\plugins\ and paste the GREYCStoration executable in this folder. Under Windows XP change Users to Documents and Settings. When you start GIMP GREYCStoration should be under Filters>Enhance>GREYCStoration.
First get hold of

Now open a photo in GIMP by either using File>Open... or by dragging an image into GIMP's main window. You have several options to zoom into your image: 1. keep the CTRL-key pressed down while scrolling makes you zoom in and out 2. Use the Zoom Tool in the Tool Box, holding down the CTRL-key while clicking makes you zoom out 3. Choose a zoom percentage at the bottom of the main window. The picture that I've opened looks like this (cropped to 100%) and as you can see there is some noise:

Now go to Filters>Enhance>GREYCStoration. A dialogue will pop up a preview windows and many sliders. The sliders I tend to use the most are Strength and Noise Scale. For this image I found that the default noise scale value was good enough but the strength value was a bit too high. Using all default values and a strength value of 30 I got this result:

which clearly has less noise than the original.

Now you want to sharpen the image. This doesn't make blurry images sharp but this tool makes a sharp image even sharper by enhancing local contrasts. Go to Filters>Enhance>Unsharp Mask... and again you are met by a box with a preview windows but less sliders. 80% of the time I use the standard settings but sometimes I make the radius smaller (say 4.0 px) and increase the amount a bit. When your done this image will look like this at a 100% crop:

At a 100% crop it might actually look worse than the original but when you compare a whole image to a noise cleaned, sharpened cropped one, you will see that the original almost looks a bit hazy compared to the edited one.

Hope this was some help to get your photos stand out. Next time I will show you how to use gradients to make an object stand out.

Song of December 2009

2009-12-20T12:54:00.002+01:00

Yes, I'm earlier than usual with this monthly post. But since the song of december 2009 obviously is a christmas song I thought I post it before christmas so you can listen to it now. I'm sure you have all heard this song. Many artists have done a version of this song but my favourite is with Nat King Cole. The song is The Christmas Song of course. Listen to it here on Spotify! Lastly I want to wish all my readers a very merry christmas and a happy new year!

Song of November 2009

2009-12-02T21:20:00.002+01:00

This month is going to be a bit special. I have a song for the month BUT I will also publish one of my favourite Spotify playlists. I constantly change my playlists in Spotify but there are two of which I'm particularly fond of. But first the song of the month. Studying has been more intense now than before (anatomy, biochemistry - ATP generation in particular, and some muscle fysiology). So the music has to be relatively calm, melodic and contain no lyrics. Easy, it has to be classic music or soundtrack. What better than the amazing soundtrack of Lord of the Rings? When the movies came out what struck me the most was the fantastic soundtrack, written by Howard Shore. In combination with the amazing scenery of New Zealand it makes the movies amazing. The song I've choosen of the many good ones from this particular soundtrack is from the third movie, The Return of the King, called Into the West. It features one of the most beautiful piano passages and the overall theme just makes you feel good. One interesting thing is that it has a beginning very similar to the theme from For Your Eyes Only (a James Bond movie). But on another note, here is my Rock & Blues playlist which is one of my favourite playlists. I think my dad will like it too! Until next month!

The Decline of Top Gear

2009-11-19T16:59:00.009+01:00

So it's finally happened. Season 14 of the popular tv-show Top Gear (also known as New Top Gear) has just started. I must say, as a Top Gear addict that I sincerely looked forward to the new season of Top Gear, but after watching the first episode I cannot understand why they even bothered. I have watched almost all episodes from season 2 and onwards, so I count myself as a hardcore Top Gear fan. And I'm not the only one, since the show has hundreds of million viewers all over the world. The problem with having such a popular tv-show is deciding when to stop. I thought Series 12 would be the last but then Series 13 was announced.

Top Gear has always been mad but before Series 12 I would describe the show as funny, factual and lastly mad, while I would describe Series 13 as funny, mad and lastly factual. Unfoftunately I think you can see where this is going. As many shows become popular they throw away the charm it had and go for crazy and uptempo with a more jokes per minute than before. This is why I wish Top Gear would have stopped at the peak (Series 12?) instead of showing us three middleaged men trying too hard to be funny and repeating the jokes that sells (blowing up things and smashing cars is probably more fun for an audience with an IQ below 100, besides it only contributes to the stupefication of the people).

I will force myself to watch the rest of Series 14, but honestly I wish Top Gear had ended with a big bang instead of this slow agonizing death (at least for the hardcore fans).

[Update1 27.11.2009] In episode 2 series 14 Clarkson, May and Hammond decide to build an electric car... and end up smashing it in a wood. Through bad acting they look stupid as they parked the car on a steep slope (without the handbrake) with some trees just beneath. If you're 4 years or older you understand that all this was planned. Just like the smashing of the Dacia Sandero in the first episode (stupid me, I parked a car behind a backing lorry...). Intentionally screwing up just to look like idiots is the current theme of Top Gear. What happened to "Ambitious but rubbish"? Now there's less ambition and more rubbish. However, they turned the show around at the end when they tried to make their electric car road legal (ambitious but rubbish restored).

Song of October 2009

2009-11-08T17:34:00.004+01:00

With less than 2 months 'til 2010 I realize I'm starting to slack on the blogging. But after a weekend full of youtube watching and some photographing I have no reason not to post the song of october... which I have known for quite a while. Looking back at the music I've posted so far I also noticed that I haven't choosen one single classical piece, which is odd, since I find myself listening to classical music the most, as it's excellent to listen to while studying. As I was studying for my genetics exam (which I had last week) I listened to the song of october, 2009. I also listened to it on the flight to Glasgow, earlier in october and it seems to be extremely good at calming me down when I'm feeling tense.

The song of october 2009 is one of my favourite pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and was written in 1791. One of the reasons I like it is because it's calm, unlike many of Mozart's rather fastpaced music. The song of october 2009 is the Clarinet Concerto in A K622. There's not too much more to say (unless you're a music history buff) so please listen to it here.

Heard @ the Airport

2009-10-16T13:10:00.002+02:00

Airport security: Is this your jacket, sir?

Me: Yes, it's mine.

Airport security: Please follow me, sir.

I followed the security person on my socks, since other security personnel were busy examining my shoes for shoebombs or if the smell could be lethal (which wouldn't suprise me at all).

Airport security: We saw something strange on the x-ray, sir.

Me: Ok...

The security person felt my jacket for bumps and found one and suddenly...

Airport security: What's this?!

I opened the inside pocket of the jacket and showed him my cardholder.

Me: It's a cardholder.

Airport security: What do you use it for?

Me: I store credit cards in it.

I opened the cardholder to show him the cards. He took one out (to test it for sharpness?) and soon put it back, a little disappointed that I wasn't one of those bad guys he'd seen in the movies as a little boy.

Airport security: Ok, that's fine. You can go, sir.

Sure I could have killed someone with my VISA that day, but lucky for the cabin crew I didn't feel like it (busy vomiting in a brown paper bag).

Song of September 2009

2009-10-04T19:54:00.005+02:00

It's already October and I'm a little late with my post. I blame this late post on the course I'm studying now, which makes me unmotivated and a bit lazy. This doesn't mean I've stopped listening to music. But I have been listening to many different types of music lately. So the song of this month could be anything from Basement Jaxx newest album Scars, the Watchmen soundtrack (Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix etc.). But it was when listening to Mark Ronson's Ooh, Wee that I realized where I had heard those violins before: Sunny by Boney M. It's not often I choose to listen to disco music, and I'm still not sure if this should be the song of the month, but it's something with those violins. Anyway listen to it here on Spotify. And while you're at it, listen to the slightly better version by Bobby Hebb.

Song of August 2009

2009-09-12T18:28:00.003+02:00

Oh my, totally forgot to post the song of August! Since I have really much to do I'll just do a short presentation: That's Life. Short enough for ya? So which artist has made the best version of this classic jazz tune? Easy, Michael Bublé of course. Listen to it here on Spotify from his album Call Me Irresponisble.

Song of July 2009

2009-08-03T10:48:00.002+02:00

Already time for a new song to be posted and now it's only one week of my summer vacation left. This month I've listened to much music but not so much to Spotify as I used to since I got a new mp3 player when I was in Belgium. I have now transfered around 9 Gb of songs and re-ripped much of my CD library in better quality mp3s (yes, I'm listening to music in 192 kbps now!!). I also took the time to download some free iTunes songs I got from Coca Cola. One of these songs was Fire by Kasabian from their album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. It's the usual Kasabian/Kings of Leon style of singing/mumbling but always with a catchy refrain which has been stuck in my head for most of July. Listen to it here on Spotify.

Also check out some of my new pictures. Unfortunately you have to be a Flickr member to comment but I think anyone can comment on Picasa (not uploaded to Picasa yet). Click links in the header (above), note that not all pictures are posted on both sites due to space restrictions and lack of time. Enjoy!

Bing: A New Search Engine

2009-07-31T10:41:00.004+02:00

I know my posts are not evenly spread over time. But this time it's a short one. Some of you have been following the Yahoo! and Microsoft drama. It's been going on for a long time and I sort of lost interest. Now it seems they have some sort of agreement going on where Yahoo! is supposed to drop it's search engine for Microsofts new one, called Bing. We all know that MSN search sucks but Bing is really interesting. Among others it's picture search is great. You can search for pictures, as in Google, but when you click a link the webbpage opens up inside of the search page. Yes, pretty much like Google, but you can still see the other search results in a bar to the left, thus eliminating the need to backspace if you want to click another link. You can also preview videos from MySpace and YouTube by hovering your mouse over the video. Pretty neat! Still, Google gives the most relevant search results but Bing could be a contender.

Tutorial: Make Your Images Stand Out

2009-07-30T15:42:00.007+02:00

Despite the boring title this is quite important and you'll be amazed at how easy and how proffesional it looks. This isn't some fake HDR tip, it's much simpler. I have browsed some photo's on Flickr and have come to the conclusion that what you need for your image to stand out is a border.

Stop laughing! I did the same mistake of underestimating the use of a border. If so, please tell me which you prefer of the two photos:

Both images are exactly the same, except for the border. Convinced? Lets start!

Open your image in Paint.NET or GIMP.
To add the first border (I used a white one, please use simple colours/gradients):
In Paint.NET go to Effects>Render>Borders N' Shapes (if you don't have this plugin installed go to Image>Canvas Size... and increase the size of approximately 120% and remember to center the image. Then choose the rectangle, adjust the pixel width (in the top left) to about 10px (depends on picture size) and use it to create a border.
In GIMP go to Image>Canvas Size... and increase the canvas size. Check the preview and don't forget to center the image by pressing Center. Go to Select>All to select the image and then go to Edit>Stroke Selection... Choose width (around 10px) and press Stroke.
Add the second border:
In Paint.NET use the fill tool to fill the appropriate colour. Remember to set the Tolerance Level (upper center) very low, about 1-3%.
In GIMP go to Layer>Transparency>Add Alpha Channel and go to the layers palette and add a new layer. Fill the new layer with the wanted colour.
Add some text:
In Paint.NET create a new layer and choose the Text tool. Add the text and position it using the Marquee Tool. An alternative way is to use the Center Object plugin.
In GIMP use the Text tool to add text and reposition it.

Now you should have a good looking border. If your border looks wrong for some reason try changing the colours (example) or use a transparent, blurred one (example). Remember to browse Flickr och Picasa for inspiration!

Song of June 2009

2009-07-05T13:02:00.001+02:00

No, I haven't forgotten to publish my favourite song of June 2009 (because I'm publishing it now)! But I've been on vacation in Belgium for a while and decided I should work on my tan instead. I will keep this short since I have loads of unpacking to do. You will also be able to see some photos under the Photos link above. So, the song of June! It's a song I've listened to quite much, especially during my revision/reading week period. The song is the main theme of the movie Gran Torino and has the same name (listen to it on Spotify). It's sung by Jamie Cullum who I've listened to before. He continues in the jazzy style that he started on his album Catching Tales. If you haven't heard him and like Michael Bublé, Katie Melua, Norah Jones etc. you should really check him out. That's all for now and happy summer holiday to all.

Killing Spree

2009-06-29T22:13:00.002+02:00

I had him cornered now. Lying awake I had been planning my revenge; each and every move. A faint light from the window from the rising sun and you could see him feeling the walls for a way out. His shadow was dancing on the walls. A last macabre dance. I chose my moment carefully. Not too quickly, as to prevent him from getting a chance to escape, and not too slowly so that he would not get his hopes up. He sensed the tension and froze. I smacked my hand against the wall. Mosquitoes versus Ruben, 0-1. I went back to bed.

Song of May 2009

2009-06-01T09:51:00.004+02:00

Two weeks until my first exam and in three weeks I'll be on holiday in Antwerp, Belgium. Can't wait! With that said I first want to draw your attention to the best program in the whole wide world. I'm not exaggerating, I really think this will make us look at media in a new way. The program in question is Spotify. The idea is simple: listen to all the music you want and (unless you pay for the premium account, which you might have to do in some countries) in order to support the music industry there's a short commercial spot every 30 minutes. And it's not like your limited to never-heard-of-coverbands, all the famous singers and composers are out there.

So what's the catch? Since it's only beta you have to be invited to use the program (just like with Joost, Gmail beta etc.) but you can always pay for a premium day just to get an account (9 SEK, 0.99 USD). Still the program and the community is great and as long as the major music companies are playing along we can soon listen to any music we want where we want (assuming you have a internet connection). I also hope this will catch on in the movie industry, then illegal downloading would be history.

The song I've choosen for this month is a soundtrack to a classic movie series. I've never been a James Bond fan but through the sexist, racist and macho facade there's humour you can only find in 60s and 70s movies. This soundtrack is from On Her Majesty's Secret Service where Bond is played by George Lazenby. Oddly the movie is more similar in character to the newer ones where Bond suddenly appears to have emotions and in the end 007 actually marries! If you know your Bond facts you know the song is We Have All the Time in the World sung by Louis Armstrong (OPEN in Spotify). This is apparantly one of the most played wedding songs and it's not hard to see why. Who doesn't love Louis Armstong's characteristic voice and John Barry's romantic violin sections?

I have of course added the OPEN in Spotify links to all the monthly songs. Enjoy.

A Tale of Two Operating Systems

2009-05-19T20:49:00.018+02:00

Not trying to think too much on what Charles Dickens would have done to me if he'd read my blog title, I'm going to write about Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.04. The reason for this sudden exploration of new operating systems (OS) is that they've recently been released (Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate)) and that I want do do something else than reading about tissues and cell differentiation for a while. I've got both OSs installed along with Windows Vista, which is my standard OS. This isn't a review but it's more factual than my standard rants.

Starting with installation there was no real trouble. Ubuntu had it's own partition manager and it automatically created it's own partition. For the Windows 7 installation I had to create a new partition. Not hard to do, but still an extra step. Windows 7 RC had some problems with corrupted files (which weren't really corrupted at all) but this might fix itself for the RTM version whenever it is released. Both OSs installed in 15-20 minutes.

Windows 7: During the install I was prompted for the WiFi password. When I supplied it, Windows automatically installed drivers for my videocard and for my webbcam. Impressive considering every driver installation is manual on XP and Vista. It didn't install drivers for my touchpad, or for the volume buttons, on the other hand. Again not hard to do manually, but would be great if it was automatic. Programs installed with Windows 7 are the usual system tools, browser (IE8) and media player along with some games Vista users will recognize. The defragmenter has improved a lot and you can now see percentages instead of the irritating rotating blue circle. The taskbar and the new desktop options (including comparison view between two windows [UPDATE1: This is available in Vista too, right-click the taskbar and choose Show windows side by side]) are great and might save a lot of time. What's irritating (and really so) is that Microsoft has stuck with User Account Control (UAC) which asks you every time if you want to continue with the started action [UPDATE2: You can turn it off easily, or change the way it notifies you, by typing UAC in the start search field]. The security center also dislikes my choice of Antivirus program (COMODO) and flags it as a security issue in the taskbar. This just makes me want to disable the security center all together (which I did on my Vista sytem). If Microsoft cares about security it should be something that just works in the background instead of annoying users. On the upside Windows 7 RC only takes around 500 Mb in RAM compared to Vista's 800 Mb.

Ubuntu 9.04: Booting for the first time it told me there were proprietary drivers for my videocard. After a restart I could use the good looking and sometimes irritating Compiz Fusion which handles all the effects in Ubuntu. As it turned out Ubuntu had installed drivers for all my hardware and I was ready to rock (some issues with the webcam, though). There are so many programs installed, ranging from office tools to games, and you really wonder if you're ever going to need them. But it's there and it works. What doesn't work is power options. I have run Ubuntu since 7.04 and it has never been able to dim my display natively (nVidia users might wnat to check out smartdimmer or nvclock) and CPU scaling (using lower processor frequency to save power) has more or less to be done manually to save power. I have a quite batteryhungry setup but all I can muster with Ubuntu i 45 minutes of batterytime compared to 1 hour and 20 minutes with Vista (Windows 7 hasn't been tested yet).

And when you get to media and flash Ubuntu feels hopeless. The theory behind Ubuntu is that it's supposed to be completely free. No codecs for third party movie formats, the codecs included are for ogg movie, an open source format. It's fairly easy to install working codecs but I had some real trouble installing a flash player. It took me actually 5 attempts to install it. Not cool, and tiresome (youtube addicts might actually kill themselves).

So which is the better? The winner has to be Ubuntu 9.04; it's fast, easy to use and just works (sort of). But the OS for my system has to be Windows 7 RC. It feels just like Vista (which isn't as bad as people might think... I've had no problems at all with Vista) but it's a step up in usability. It's faster than my Vista system (but I know that in a year they'll both be equally slow) and it looks marginally better. The reason I will use Windows is actually because it's mainstream. You should note that I hate mainstream but when I need to download that specific program I just know it will be available for Windows, maybe Apple's OS X and if I'm really lucky for Linux. Skype installed easily on Ubuntu but I've still haven't got it to work. If you stick to the applications installed with Ubuntu it excells over any Windows version, but if you really need those specific programs you will have to stick to Windows. Check out WINE for Linux if you want to try and run Windows programs under Linux.

The final question then: will I spend money to upgrade to Windows 7? Unless it's close to free for existing Vista users I don't really see the point. I like the new taskbar but not enough to pay for it. Since my Vista sytem has worked without any problems an upgrade to a similar OS seems ridicoulus. But an upgrade from XP suddenly makes sense.

UPDATE 3: Now I've used Windows 7 moderately. I've installed OpenOffice.org, Spotify, Chrome, Live Essentials (with A-patch) and K-Lite Standard Codecs 4.9. Everything works but some things work better than others. Chrome takes up very much CPU time, sometimes up to 100% which causes the system to freeze. A reinstall didn't help. This leads me to Internet Explorer 8 which is really snappy and quick in Windows 7. And that is the first time Internet Explorer and quick has been used in the same sentence. I can also inform that Windows Media Player 12 is no big difference from WMP11, looks slightly better (especially in full screen). However I had real problems playing HD content on my harddrive and on youtube. Maximum 11 frames per second which isn't watchable. I tried VLC but it had the same problem and couldn't play the audio (same problem in Vista and Ubuntu 9.04). Not everything is perfect then. On the bright side Windows 7 is really quicker and uses between 500 and 600 Mb of RAM.

UPDATE4: After writing the above I remembered what I really wanted to say: within 2 or 3 seconds after login you're connected to the internet! That's really quick compared to Vista. Sleep and waking up speeds has also improved. This is good news if you're mobile and want quick access to the internet after login. (The internet connection thing is supposed to be fixed with Vista SP2, which I haven't tested but should be released any week now.

Song of April 2009

2009-04-29T16:49:00.002+02:00

AUGCCTTACGTTCCCGCCTTAATTGCCTGGTCTGGAAATGTACTGTGCCCAATTGGGGGCTGAATGCTGAAGCCTTT is the gene that codes for the protein which makes me dislike long random sequences. You would think that ACTC codes for the gene that makes you love the song Thunderstruck. But apparently it's a part of the gene that codes for the protein that makes me go "Aaah" when I burn myself. I haven't been able to map the gene that codes for the protein which makes me feel undecided about this month's song. But I'm aware that my song choices so far have been alternative and mostly oldies. I therefore thought of Pendulum's new hit Propane Nightmares, a drum and bass song that's probably their best song so far (not that I've heard all their songs). But then I thought I should continue the alternative theme I've chosen. A few years back I discovered my parents LP collection and I found ABBA, Mozart, Bach, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, many more and my father's favourite band Genesis. The LP album I found was A Trick of the Tail which now is my favourite Genesis album. From that album my favourite song is Ripples (OPEN in Spotify) so I guess that is the song of April. Back to genes, cells, embryos and cookies.

Wednesday Afternoon

2009-04-23T13:07:00.003+02:00

Initiator proteins. Helicase. Some protein keeping DNA strands apart. DNA polymerase. Oh, end of lesson. Not raining anymore. Took the bus here so have to take the bus home as well. Wow, that's a lot of people waiting for the bus. Poor girl, that laughter is a turn off. Have a lot of embryology to read when I get home. Embryology. Wonder how many points that is in scrabble. Why do I care I haven't played scrabble for ages. Finally, the bus arrives. Got to look cool while pressing the bus card against the stupid reader. Come on read the stupid card! No place to sit. Just got to stand up for 20 minutes. Wow, the chauffeur is really stressed now. Impressive taking that turn at that speed. Maybe his reckless driving will cause a crash and I have to save them all with basic life support. Cool. With loads of Hollywood-like explosions and people crying. Dammit, that was my stop. Have to walk a bit then. Hmm, what should I have for dinner. Chicken with rice, chicken with pasta or chicken with bread. No wait, I have fish as well. Chicken with fish, that's it.

Song of March 2009

2009-03-27T16:17:00.002+01:00

So there we are, about 75% of 2009 left. On the upside 2009 sucks less now compared to before. On the downside I have much less free time. So I will keep this short. The song of March is as alternative as the previous songs: Don't Bring Me Down with Electric Light Orchestra (OPEN with Spotify). It's the last track from their album Discovery, which was released in 1979. I like it so much I've listened to it at least once every day for the past month. In a week I will return to Sweden and be 100% blogger.

For Every Cigarette, There’s Nicorette

2009-03-14T18:21:00.003+01:00

Update on my life: I live, I eat, I study, my immune system takes a nap and forgets to tell me it's invited streptococcus pyogenes but I found out anyhow because they had a big friggin' party in my throat and now I have to clean it up with penicillin.

And oh, the heading refers to the ad campaign they're currently running on the pharmacies in Odense. My father, working for McNeil, that makes Nicorette, will be so happy.

Song of February 2009

2009-02-26T13:17:00.003+01:00

With two days to go 'till March I thought I would announce this month's song. This month has been mostly 70's music and mostly Genesis' albums like The Lamb Lay Down on Broadway and The Trick of the Tail. First I was thinking of Ripples by Genesis but then I thought of the song I've actually listened the most to: Don't Stop Me Now by Queen (OPEN in Spotify). It's from their album Jazz and it's been my alarm signal for the last month or so. I've probably listened to the first 10 seconds before snoozing and falling asleep again, but still I think it's a really good song. It's not as alternative as Bicycle Race or Bohemian Rhapsody and it's just so Queen. I believe Don't Stop Me Now was voted the best driving song on the not-so-factual-anymore Top Gear. And if I had a car I would definitely listen to it while driving.

Second I want to post a picture of my new room. It's in the centre of Odense, 5 min walk to their shopping street (Vestergade), 15 min on bike to the Uni and around 15 min to the University Hospital. There are three food stores, a bank, bus stop (busses go to a shopping centre, Uni and University Hospital) and a brewery within a radius of 500 meters from my apartment. Nice! The photo is actually several photos stitched together to get this faux wide angle shot of my room (there's a lot of garbage in the picture which I will remove shortly).

Wild Nights in Odense

2009-02-14T18:03:00.002+01:00

No, I haven't actually been out partying much. Mostly because I'm not a party person, and second the first weeks have been quite hard, in terms of studying. Organic chemistry has never been my strongest side. In fact I found a way to get around the hard organic chemistry questions on the final exams (you simply choose kinetics, equilibrium or something else fun). But now I cannot escape, so it seems I have to put a little more effort into my reading.

The title then refers to my stay at Danhostel in the centre of Odense. And with centre I mean next to the central station. Actually Östre Stationsvej seems to be one of the most favoured routes by ambulances, police and firetrucks. So my nights were calm (and sleepless) but some other people surely had a lot of action. What's good is that I now can sleep through almost anything. I'm off to celebrate my sisters 18th birthday but you can see some Norweigian humour about their Danish language. Hilarious if you're not from Denmark.

First Day at SDU

2009-02-02T19:20:00.003+01:00

My first day at medical school is over. Or not really, I still have 3 essays on Hypermobiltas articulorum to read. Yes, from now on I will show off my latin skillz (like I had any) whenever I get the chance. Interesting day though; I started the day by coming late to my first lecture (which was more of a morale boosting welcome "yes you can"), then a small discussion two and two, to get to know each other. We were then introduced to the task ahead (write a five page essay together [groups of 4-5 this time) based on the articles on Hypermobilitas articulorum). I am sure we will complete our task with merit. Then the tour, ending with body parts in formalin followed by lunch. Tasty curry chicken sandwich, fruit and water. More discussion and explanation and that was about it.

Tomorrow we'll have a real lecture on Life, Health and Disease (very roughly translated) and very much can be brought up within those loose boundaries. Still, we are a few who really look forward to real lectures (although in Danish) so it should be fun.

Hopefully you can see pictures of my recently bought books (Essential Cell Biology, Cellular Physiology, First Aid and Documenta Physiologica) and my anatomy study cards. There is also an arty view from my window. When I get a real internet connection (in 2 weeks) I will post the full size ones.

Song of January 2009

2009-01-25T22:16:00.002+01:00

This month has been very electronic in my playlist selections. Massive Attack, Juno Reactor and Rob Dougan are some of the most frequent artists reoccurring on my mp3-player at the moment. Dark and evil songs about death should do fine for January of 2009 considering the war in Gaza and the economy crisis. But why not highlight the other big, hopefully happy, changes: president-elect Obama moves into the White House and it's my first term at university. So the song I've chosen is not Left me for Dead or Nitrogen but Divinity
by
The Future Sound of London
(formerly known as Amorphous Androgynous)(OPEN in Spotify). The song is from their album The Isness, which is probably their best album (available at iTunes Store). A strumming guitar (in major chords only to make it extra happy), a sitar, and other acoustic instruments are helped by electronic effects to produce something in the direction of world-electronic-music (I think alternative is implied).

I could have chosen many of the songs on this album, like Go Tell it to the Trees Egghead, or Meadows. But it is the vocals that make the song stand out. It's not that they're good or that they are advanced. It's rather the alternative singing appeals to me and can be found in Galaxial Pharmaceutical and Mello Hippo Disco Show.

If you don't like electronic or acoustic music this is not for you. If you on the other hand love acoustic and electronic music and you long for the summer and better times this is for you…

I Do Not Know Anything About Companies but…

2009-01-21T13:13:00.004+01:00

… isn't it strange that Sony Ericsson will fire 2 000 people although the company didn't do as bad as predicted in the fourth quarter 2008? What's even more disturbing is that Posten (Swedish Post) is charging one more SEK for every letter you send, while the CEO of Posten earns 900 000 SEK a month (~€83 211, £77 832 or $107 759). Last year Volvo fired 4 000 people but the CEO still rewards himself with 1.8 million SEK a month (~€166 423, £155 665 or $215 518). Skånetrafiken (responsible for public transport in southern Sweden) has increased prices by 2 SEK per trip (about 240 SEK more for my occasional trips but much more for commuters). Isn't that stupid to do since it's less expensive to take the car, thus polluting the air, thus contributing to global warming, and then the Earth explodes and we all die?

Something tells me they got it right in the East: Toyota cut the annual bonus of the 10 000 bosses in the company by 10% and reducing production in their luxury daughter company Lexus. Samsung will survive this economy crisis by cutting bosses wages with 20% and re-structure the company into two separate parts.

Why make the rich richer? How much is a CEO's work really worth? Aren't football players a bit overpaid too? And how much would you pay me to see me kick a leather ball in fishing net attached to white poles? Huh?!

How to Take Photos of the Moon… with a Compact!

2009-01-14T11:23:00.003+01:00

This will probably be my last tutorial before I move to Denmark. This will take some time to master and since clear skies are rare I reckon it will take some pictures before you have a decent photo of the moon. If you don't own a D-SLR, a telescope and a fitting adaptor this is what you'll need:

A compact camera, preferably with manual focus.
A pair of binoculars or a telescope.
Tripod.
Flashlight.
Optional: carton, tape, glue, rubber etc (in order to build your own adaptor ring; building instructions not included in this tutorial)
Patience.
Luck.

If you have all the above we are ready to roll. Put your camera on a tripod. If you use a telescope (which usually has its own tripod) try making an adapter ring that will hold the camera in place. Pair your camera with the binoculars/telescope. Use the built in zoom of your camera to get rid of vignette effects in the corners. If you are using binoculars the easiest way to focus is to use the cameras manual focusing to get the picture sharp. On a telescope you should be able to manually focus using a dial. Take a few test shots in daylight. Pray for clear skies and wait.

When there are clear skies and the moon is up (preferably at a low angle so you won't hurt your back) you are almost ready to take a picture of it. But before you direct your binoculars/telescope at the moon you have to do some more tweaking with your camera. If you have a full manual mode (noted M) you can manually set your exposure. For a full moon I can recommend a setting around 1/600 but for a half moon or less you are alright with 1/250. Remember that the exposure time may vary depending on the optics of the binoculars/telescope (since they let through different amounts of light; 7x50 lets through more light than 7x35 etc) and also how much sunlight is reflected from the moons surface (see below). If your camera hasn't got image stabilization of some sort you better use a timer so pressing the shutter won't spoil the picture. With some luck you just took a brilliant photo of the moon. It is more likely that your focus was a little off or that the camera or binoculars/telescope wasn't perfectly still during the exposure. Try again and again until you are satisfied or tired.

If you don't have full manual control of your camera (which is a more likely scenario considering we are using compacts) we'll have to fool the camera into shortening its exposure time. This is easily done with a flashlight. With your camera manually focused to get a clear picture of the moon remove it from the binoculars/telescope. Direct your camera at the flashlight and half press down the shutter to get an exposure reading of around 1/600 for a full moon or around 1/250 for a half moon. With the shutter still pressed half down, pair the camera with the binoculars/telescope, direct your setup at the moon and press down the shutter. Tada. Chances are it didn't work or that you let go of the shutter button and that's why you need patience and loads of luck.

In order to encourage you not to give up you could visit my photo page on Picasa or click the images below to enlarge. If you look in the description you see that the exposure of the white blob was 1/61" and the exposure of the full moon was 1/60". This is because the blob was photographed when the moon was at a higher angle, which means more sunlight was reflected from the moon which in turn means more light into the camera and shorter exposures are needed to get a good detailed picture.

Come to think of it this was more of a project than a tutorial. You really have to experiment your way to good results. So have fun experimenting!

17 Days till Lift Off

2009-01-10T14:50:00.002+01:00

No, I am not going to be the first person in space (I am apparently 48 years too late). The metaphorical rocket I am writing about is going to somewhere a lot smaller than space, somewhere they speak a language resembling Swedish spoken with a swollen tongue and severe toothache, somewhere my money is worth much less: Denmark. Actually I am very excited about studying in Denmark. There will be cultural and language complications of course but I will finally have a life (get a life they told me but who's laughing now)!

This means I will have considerably less time to blog and I will probably rant more about dead bodies, blood and all the diseases I will discover I am suffering from. But don't worry I will definitely squeeze in some more photo tutorials and other stuff. As you might have noticed I have been very interested in photography lately and my interest will increase when I finally buy a D-SLR this summer. The reason I don't buy one now is simply that the D-SLR will act as bait and I will reward myself with it if I pass this year's exams!

In order to have something reoccurring to blog about I am going to use my other big interest: music. Each month I will post a song and a brief explanation of why this song is important to me. In the end of 2009 I will have posted 12 songs and maybe you can vote for your favourite. I haven't really thought this through but I am very excited.

Next up: How to take photographs of the moon… with a compact!

Simple Pin-Up Effect

2009-01-01T15:28:00.003+01:00

Happy New 2009! I have always liked Pin-Up Posters so why not start the new amazing 2009 with a short tutorial on how to get that 50's look. For this tutorial you need Paint.NET or GIMP. If you decide to use Paint.NET you will have to download Ed Harvey's Plugin Pack). If you are really into Posterizing and its effect download Posterize in HSV Space. In this tutorial I have posted example images to guide you along.

Open the picture you want to edit and duplicate so you have two identical layers.
Select the top layer and desaturate it (in Paint.NET: Adjustments>Black and White and in GIMP: Colors>Desaturate…)
With the top layer selected increase the contrast and fiddle a bit with the brightness too. You want to keep the basic outlines and important shadows.
With the top layer selected apply some Gaussian Blur (in Paint.NET: Effects>Blurs>Gaussian Blur… and in GIMP: Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur…). You actually don't want the picture to look completely blurry but slightly softened. (Update1: You can also use some surface blur (Selective Gaussian Blur in GIMP) to soften the shadows)
Press the eye button to the left of the top layer to make it invisible. Select the bottom layer and posterize it (in Paint.NET: Adjustments>Posterize… and in GIMP: Colors>Posterize…). I find that a value of around 10 works quite good but again it depends on the picture you are using.
Now we need to use some surface blur to get rid of those sharp looking edges between colours. Surface blur keeps the detail (ie the borders) of an image and only blurs parts with similar colours. In Paint.NET: Effects>Blurs>Surface Blur… and in GIMP: Filters>Blur>Selective Gaussian Blur…. Now this layer should look painted.
Select the top layer and make it visible again. In layer properties set the blending mode to Multiply. Adjust the opacity of the top layer to your liking.
The final touch is to give the picture the yellowish look associated with pin ups. Add a new layer and move it to the top. Choose a bright yellow colour of some sort. I used #FFE591 (in hex).
Set the top most layer's blending mode to Multiply and adjust the opacity until you get the proper look.

You're done! If you want visit DaFont to download some 50's looking font and make your own 1950's ad!

The Filborna Map

2008-12-20T21:27:00.002+01:00

No, I haven't spent the last week shopping for Christmas presents. I happen to believe that Christmas I overrated, especially Christmas presents (To all my family: you can give me money and presents any day of the year!) What I've actually spent time doing (and a very long time, thank you) is to build a map for the game Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield. If you love thrillers and have not read the book (Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy) you should do it during your Christmas holiday. The game uses the Unreal Engine 2 and that means that the Unreal Editor 2 is now on my top tree most used programs. I wouldn't say it is the most user-friendly of programs but most things actually works.

So where or what is Filborna? It is my previous school. A number of students have tried to put it on fire but amazingly it still stands (considering IKEA built it it's a miracle) and I have always wanted to make a map for my favourite game. Now it has reached a beta stage (basically it means: it works but just barely) and so I decided to post a download link to the beta version. The map has only been tested with Raven Shield 1.6 so I would recommend using that version. Read about known problems below:

No breakable windows (but I hope to fix this a.s.a.p).
No textures behind windows.
Hall-of-mirrors-effect in some rooms.
Proportions are a bit off (not going to fix this).
More static mesh is needed to make the map look realistic.
Update1
Lack of Path Nodes (working on that)
Minimum number of terrorists is 31 (isn't that great!)
Terrorists spawn in the same place every time (working on that)

But on the whole the map is playable (31 terrorists in place) and if you like Raven Shield and have been in the Filborna School you should enjoy this. I will post the final version when it's ready.

How to Create Star Trails

2008-12-13T10:38:00.002+01:00

For those of you who haven't seen my star trail picture on http://ruub.jalbum.net can check it out here. Because I didn't know if this would work with my cheap Samsung L73 compact camera I decided to only make a 150 second exposure. I obviously read how to do this in Practical Photography, issue November 2008. In Practical Photography they took 120 photos with an exposure of 30 seconds. The photos were of an interesting foreground object with a clear night sky in the background. I didn't have an interesting foreground object so I directed my camera at the night sky and started firing off shots, each with the longest exposure I could get, which is 15 seconds. If you want to make a star trail photo, here is how to do it:

Check the space on the memory card; you want to take a lot of pictures. I used 10 photos for the final image, and I wished I had taken 50 at least.
Put your camera on a tripod, directed at the sky. You don't have to direct it exactly at the polar star but it looked great in Practical Photography. I directed my camera NNE and it still turned out great.
Set your exposure to the longest possible. If you own a compact camera you might want to switch to Night Mode or something similar, to get the longest exposure.
If you can, set your camera in continuous shooting mode. Then you could use tape to keep the shutter button pressed down. Better still; buy a D-SLR and a cable release to go with it. That's what I'll do when I get richer. If you cannot put the camera in continuous shooting mode at least turn off the automatic preview function so there is as little delay between the pictures as possible.
Start taking pictures. My camera processor took a while to process each 15-second photo, which can be seen on the original photo as gaps between the stars' different positions.
After 5:48 minutes I decided it was cold and I wanted to see the result. If you want longer trails you'll have to stay out longer.

Now it's time to combine all these exposures so you get a nice looking trail:

Open up Paint.NET or GIMP.
Add all the images into layers. There is no specific order required.
Change the blending mode of all the layers to Lighten. In Paint.NET select each layer and press F4 and change the blending mode in the bottom of the properties box. In GIMP select each layer and change the blending mode in the layers dock (top right).
You should now have a star trail. If your camera needed some processing time between each photo, resulting in something resembling LEDs: continue reading.
Flatten your image (in both Paint.NET and GIMP go to Image>Flatten)
Select a group of star trails that have roughly the same angle (pointing in the same direction). In Paint.NET go to Effects>Blur>Motion Blur leave the effect to 10px and drag the angle in the circle so that it matches the angle of the selected star trails. In GIMP go to Filters>Blur>Motion Blur… adjust the angle by dragging the angle slider and keep an eye on the effect in the preview window.
Repeat the above step for all angles of star trails.

The effect is really cool and if you feel like it add a foreground object. Remember to "paint" some light onto the foreground object in the last photo (using a flashlight, flamethrower etc). Actually don't use a flamethrower or if you do don't blame me (but send me the pics).

Focus Stacking

2008-12-09T19:42:00.005+01:00

Not too long ago I was introduced to HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography; a fun and inspiring technique which can, if done properly, give mind blowing results. When you create a HDR you merge a bunch of images with different exposures which results in one picture with a wider range of colours and luminosity, which could not have been created in one picture (unless you shoot in RAW and tweak around a bit). After reading an article on an interesting technique where you merge photos with different focus in this month's issue of Practical Photograpy I decided to try it out. The focus stacking technique is brilliant and here is how you do it:

Take your camera and put it in manual focus mode (if you have a function dial you can probably find this setting when it is turned to P (program mode), M (manual mode) or something similar; if unsure consult the instructions book that came with your camera).
Put your camera on a tripod or anything that will prevent the camera from moving around.
Take your first image with your foreground object in focus.
Take another image where something else important is in focus.
Take some more photos continuously moving your focus further from the camera.
It is important that the focus goes from macro to micro (close -> further away).
Download CombineZM and install it. It will run (according to forums) smoothly on a Linux machine using Wine. I don't know if there exists a program like CombineZM for Mac OS X. Update1: On the Focus Stacking Wikipedia page there are some programs listed for focus stacking. Check it out. Those who are afraid of spiders don't check it out.
Open up CombineZM and in the main (large) window click: File>New.
Select all the images you wish to include in the final image. Check if the file name of the photo is still the original one, assigned by the camera. This is important since the program uses the numbers in the filename to see which photo comes first, second etc.
Go to Macro>Do Stack or press Shift+F1. You can follow the progress in the CombineZM Progress window.
Prepare to be amazed. The image (usually) looks great and resembles those taken with lenses that can handle really large F-numbers.

All credit to Practical Photography for inspiring me and to Alan Hadley for programming CombineZM, which is completely free. Next: How to shoot star trails.

Enhance Clouds in Paint.NET (or GIMP)

2008-12-07T16:09:00.005+01:00

I get really annoyed when people (read magazines) post photo editing tutorials which reads: "Try this at home for free" or "Photo editing on a shoe-string" and later refers to Photoshop specific tools. Photoshop CS4 will set you back 7912 DKK (£920, $1351 or €1065), which is a lot. And this assumes you have got Windows or OS X. When I say free I mean free (well you have to pay for the computer and a camera, of course) so let's roll.

Pictures often look very plain and boring if you have a gray sky. The problem is that usually there isn't happening much, contrast wise, in the sky. But there are ways to enhance detail between gray and gray and get more interesting pictures, sometimes even stunning (the example pictures aren't stunning I know). For this tutorial you need the latest version of Paint.NET or download the Curves+ plug-in.

Open your picture in Paint.NET or GIMP.
De-noise the image if necessary (In Paint.NET: Effects>Noise>Reduce Noise and in GIMP: Filters>Enhance>Despeckle)
Adjust the overall contrast and saturation settings to your liking (In Paint.NET: Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and Adjustments>Brightness / Contrast and in GIMP: Colors>Hue-Saturation… and Colors>Brightness-Contrast…)
Select the sky, since it is uniform use the Wand tool to select it (if it selects too much use the top slider (in the left dock when using GIMP), which is set to 50% by default (15 in GIMP), to decrease the percentage and increase if it selects too little)
With the sky selected go do Adjustments>Curves+ (in GIMP: Colors>Curves…).
What you'll see is a diagonal line and a histogram of your selection. By default it is set to Luminosity. The Curves+ window can be resized and I recommend making it bigger so you can see the histogram clearly.
Lock the diagonal line (by clicking on it) where the histogram starts and ends (use the vertical lines as a guide).
Lock the line in the middle of the two points you locked in the previous step. Click to the left of the middle point and slightly lower it (this makes darker parts darker).
Click to the right of the middle point and slightly increase it (this makes lighter parts lighter).
You can adjust the new curve by clicking and dragging a locked point around. Remember to keep an eye on your picture and don't overdo the effect, it quickly looks fake or edited. Also keep an eye on the foreground to see if the brightness of the sky matches.
When you're happy with the effect click OK, and press CRTL+D to deselect (Update1: In GIMP use CTRL+SHIFT+A to deselect)

The reason we don't use the Brightness / Contrast in this situation is that we can adjust which gray tones should be lightened and which gray tones should be darkened. Curves+ is by far the best plug-in in Paint.NET so be sure to play around with it. Use the RGB mode to enhance colours (only in Paint.NET), invert luminosity while keeping the original colours (drag the ends of the line to the opposite sides) are some things you can do with ease using Curves+ (only in Paint.NET).

My last example picture was quite boring until I retouched it. Of course it is easier to do this kind of editing if you shoot in RAW as all information is saved. If you shoot in JPEG you will find that some images cannot be fixed as there isn't enough information to work with.

Another Christmas Song

2008-12-01T19:18:00.001+01:00

It's december and now I can sing christmas carols and listen to them without feeling bad (to be honest I've been singing them since august). Here's Another Christmas Song by Stephen Colbert. No, seriously it's called Another Christmas Song.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

A Colbert Christmas: Another Christmas Song

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Bad Ideas and Nightmares

2008-11-25T17:36:00.003+01:00

This whole post is a response to something Dror Feiler, an Israeli Swede, said while discussing the concept of punk on Swedish radio. Despite being a middle-aged man, he is a proper punk himself, or maybe rebel is a better word. His best idea and dream is peace between Israel and Palestine. He uses some unconventional methods to say the least. Still I will choose to discuss the worst of his ideas, and what implications it has:

I believe that we should not be able to own anything. We should not even be able to "own" a relationship (no man can be someone's husband and no woman can be someone's wife).

I feel the world tremble as illegal downloaders jump with excitement. The above is not a quote and it is translated from Swedish to English. The idea is communist without a doubt, and it will not work… ever. The real problem is that it does not even work in theory. There cannot be a society where nothing can be owned. A whole legal system would collapse. For instance, how do you define theft? If I see a BMW that I know nobody owns I could just take it. A person who also wants it could kill me (can I own the right to live?) and take the car. Chaos.

I got really angry at the first statement but then Dror Feiler continued with a real life example where they had tried this. Somewhere on Earth a group of people put all their watches in a basket. Then they all picked a watch from the basket and got stuck with it. Amazing, but wait. Didn't they just trade their own watch for another (which I suspect they didn't like)? Trade: You give something you own in return for something else. If they didn't like their new watch could they go to someone with a watch they like and trade again? After endless watch swapping would everyone end up with the same watch they had in the first place? Probably yes.

Modern humans (well since forever) define themselves by what they own: The clothes we wear, the amount of money we own and the property we own. This creates class differences (which communists don't like but from which we cannot escape) and it has always been this way. For many years it has been about land, the more you own the better. The Roman and British Empires are examples of this and in the animal world the owning of big pieces of land is sometimes essential for survival.

High on some hippie drug, Dror Feiler, thinks that humans should do something that has never been seen before: create a community where nothing can be owned, where everyone is the same, where no one has the right to choose and where any present swingers club will look like Sunday church. I hear the lions roaring with laughter.

Create a Slipstreamed Vista DVD

2008-11-16T15:06:00.004+01:00

One of life's great annoyances is reinstalling an operating system. Not only do you have to retransfer all your previous files, like documents, but you have to install every single driver and update, including service packs, again. On the upside you have a fresh, fast system that is less likely to piss you off on a daily basis. I decided to have a go at slipstreaming a Vista DVD, including important updates, turning off Windows features I never use, and integrate drivers I always use. This is something I've always wanted to do, but it was not until January this year that I bought myself a copy of Vista Ultimate.

Download and install vLite. A nifty little program that does all the hard work while you watch a movie.
To run vLite you have to install WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit). Run vLite and a popup will give you the link.
After WAIK has been downloaded and installed go to its installation path (normally C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86) and copy the files wimfltr.inf and wimgapi.dll to the vLite installation folder (normally C:\Program Files\vLite)
Start vLite again, if you use an installation DVD, insert it, and select the drive/folder where you have the installation files. In my case F:\.
Select a place on your hard drive where you want to copy the installation files (this step is only for those of you who have installation files on a DVD, or ISO)
Under the Tasks tab choose what kind of slipstream you want to make. I checked all of them. Start with the Service Pack integration. Vista SP1 for 32-bit can be located here. Integration took almost one and a half hour on my PC, and this is the part where you fire up a movie and relax.
The next thing I did was to integrate drivers. I am very happy with my driver set so I used DriverMax (free and very useful) to backup my drivers to a folder (I used C:\User\Ruben Larsson\My Drivers). Then use Insert>Multiple Driver Folder to add all your current drivers to the installation DVD (If you happen to use a nVidia graphics card I recommend a visit to http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ for latest nVidea drivers, read Modified INF section if your card is not supported).
You can tweak around a bit, disable things you are not too fond of, like Windows Firewall, Vista Welcome Center and the extremely annoying UAC.
Finally click Apply to slim it down and use the ISO tab to create an ISO-file or burn a disc.

Piece of cake. And next time you reinstall Vista you do not have to search for driver CDs and download 72 new updates before the computer is usable. I quick reminder: DON'T FORGET TO BACKUP YOUR DATA BEFORE YOU REINSTALL.

UPDATE1: So Vista SP2 has just been released and you can download it from Microsoft's Download section but not too fast! It appears that if you've used vLite to integrate Vista SP1 AND you have deleted components with this program you will not be able to upgrade to the latest service pack. If you just integrated SP1 with your Vista install disc you can do a work around as described on this forum: msfn.com. Looks like I have to do a reinstall or an upgrade (though it's an downgrade in this respect).

I'm Not a Geek

2008-11-14T22:48:00.007+01:00

In a response to Pont's latest blogpost, I am not a geek. So, to prove it I have to postpone my Vista slipstream special and post some more photos. I tried to come up with a story based on a ridiculous claim by a Israeli Communist speaking on Swedish radio: "There should be no ownership". Great idea, nuthead. Redefine "theft", please. Maybe I will discuss this in a later post, first VAIO Photo Elite.

I have brought this up before, and I cannot stop thinking about how sweet a Sony Alpha 900 would be (only one left to win now) so I keep posting photos every week hoping that quantity will solve my lack in quality. All editing done in Paint.NET, (the first image is a HDR and was merged by Photomatix Pro 3.0) by the way, so now you know what you can do (and should not do).

Inflated Ego Alert

2008-11-07T19:09:00.003+01:00

I absolutely agree when people claim I have no life. And now I will prove it! PhillyD, aka sxePhil on YouTube.com, responded to a conservative viewer (claiming we should make it worse for gays), i.e. Prop 8 in USA which will make same-sex marriages illegal. The person making that statement later claimed to be sarcastic but a hot debate (well everyone thought it was rubbish) broke out. My contribution was probably unnecessary, but anyhow:

Ruub Says:
November 5th, 2008 at 10:05 am

Wow, UnknownSpartan5's statement is sooo 1930's Germany. Start with treating minorities badly and ends in war and killing "deviations". Definitely d-bag of the day!

So I got quoted in sxePhil's November the 6^th video (well, partially quoted… or maybe not, I let my readers decide). In a very childish way I feel happy. Now I will go back to pretend I have superpowers and that I am the only one, except Clark Kent of course, who can save the world!

My 40th Post: Win a netbook

2008-11-07T09:43:00.003+01:00

So it's not me supplying the Acer Aspire One. But hey, I've done the test and thought I could give you the answers in a good samaritan (or cheatin' bastard) kind of way. As you might notice the questions are in Swedish.

The laptop thrown from a brigde lands bottom first.
The laptop falls apart into 4 separate pieces.
The skatetop (skateboard made from a laptop) does not break.
The skater successfully skates on the skatetop (without falling off)
The screen on the netbook dropped in water goes out immediately when it touches the water.
Describe, using a maximum of 20 words, the best way to use a netbook when it is not turned on (as a frisbee, coaster etc.)

Good luck and happy 40th post!

How to Spot a Desperate Salesperson

2008-11-02T14:07:00.002+01:00

You are shopping around casually when suddenly you are confronted by a salesperson. You are not really interested in what s/he has to offer but s/he seems so nice, and the product actually makes some sense when the salesperson is talking about it. You buy it, overpriced of course and with an extra insurance, because you can never be too careful, and using the product for the first time you know you have been swindled. No, don't feel bad. We have all been there and here is what you should watch for the next time:

"I actually have one of these at home and I haven't had any problems with it" There are variations on this line (my wife/husband/best friend etc), but basically what they want you to think is that you "know" someone who "owns" this product and is very happy with it. The naïve part of you wants to believe it, and you will be more likely to buy the product.
"This is one of the most sold items" A total irrelevant remark but the line implies that the product is "popular" and that the "majority" of the people choose to buy this product. Why should you deviate from the majority?
"This product will be 100% compatible with future standards" I wonder if those who bought HD-DVD players agree with that statement today. Nothing is 100% compatible with future standards.
"You are lucky, we have one left in stock" A statement that wants you to think that the product is popular and because there is just one left you should probably buy it now, before someone else does. A little tip: If it really is popular other stores will have this product, and there will probably be future shipments. No need to be hasty.
My last tip is: Salespersons never "small talk", when they talk about the weather or compliment your taste they are trying to be "friendly", i.e. to manipulate you. Chances are you will buy the product from a "friend" and not from a stranger.

To know if a product is good use sites like pricerunner.com, kelkoo.com, prisjakt.nu (link to the right), etc. and read customer reviews (or CNET reviews). The problem with reviews in magazines is that they usually recite specs, which is not as interesting to a potential buyer as a pro and con list of the product. The last tip in this post is: It is always cheaper on the internet and cheapest in Germany.

The GIMP vs. Paint.NET

2008-11-01T13:52:00.005+01:00

[Note: This is an old post and I can now say that I have made a full transition to GIMP. Install of the newest version went smooth as silk but I will let all the information be on the page, as a history lesson I guess. I still like the interface of Paint.NET better and it's easier to use, but for serious photo editing you need GIMP. Thank you for your interest.]

Desperately trying to win a Sony DSC-H10 or a Sony Alpha 900 in the VAIO Photo Elite contest, I've decided that I cannot win this unless I unleash my Photoshop abilities. Unfortunately I haven't got Photoshop. But thankfully there are free alternatives which are just as competent, and less bulky, than Adobes award winning, extremely expensive photo editing software. Those of you who read my last post know that I placed Paint.NET as number four on my easiest to use software/OS top ten (unfortunately Blogger decided to transform my countdown list to small yellow blobs). And I also said that GIMP was slightly harder to use. And here is why.

While waiting for Paint.NET 4.0 (which probably won't be released anytime soon) and long awaited features (like: RGB Channels, masks, native customizable brushes, a skewing tool, a smudge tool etc.) I decided to try GIMP… again. My most recent experience was when my hard drive decided to fail and I played around with Ubuntu on a live DVD. GIMP is competent and fun, but it feels… a bit GNU-like. So what's wrong with that you probably wonder (especially you who don't know what GNU means)? Well, GNU assumes you like starting programs from command lines, and editing bin files to make things run smoothly. When toying around in Linux this seemed fun, but for everyday use it's a bit tedious.

So installing the newest GIMP 2.6.2 on my Vista system proved no different. The language was in Swedish and since 99% of Photoshop/Paint.NET/GIMP tutorials out there are in English I wanted to switch to an English interface. That was easier said than done. After realizing that you could not change the language in the program I consulted the GIMP forum. I was not the only one with the problem, and it had been "resolved"… on XP. The mental vision in my head was of a bunch of GIMP developers grinning at my "incompetence". By accident I stumbled upon a Flickr forum where François Collard had solved it by creating a batch file.

Open notepad and write the following lines:
set lang=en
start GIMP-x.y.exe
Where x.y is the version number of GIMP (check the folder Program Files/GIMP x.y/bin)
Save as GIMP_en.bat and make a shortcut on your desktop (you can change the icon using Properties>Change Icon and browse the GIMP x.y/bin folder and select the original exe file.

When you start GIMP with this batch file everything will be in English. Hooray. To be fair The GIMP is an excellent choice for broke amateur photo editors with the will to fiddle around a bit. It is more powerful than Paint.NET. If you are a broke amateur photo editor with less or no programming skills Paint.NET is for you.

A GNU program you shouldn't even bother with is Jahshaka (video editor) which is truly incomprehensible, even in English. See you next time when I'll discuss "How to spot a desperate salesman".

Update 1.
Since many of my readers visit this page I thought I would extend with some further details.

Features in GIMP you would like to use in Paint.NET:

Customizable docks
Brushes with variable softness (feather)
Eraser with transparency setting
Masks
Channels
Perspective tools

Features in Paint.NET you would like to use in GIMP:

Opening multiple pictures in tabs
Setting English as your default language
A simple interface that is easy on the eye
The fantastic Curves+ tool

It seems that GIMP has won, at least on paper. And that is where I am torn; I like all the features in GIMP, probably like them more than similar features in Paint.NET, but Paint.NET is just so easy to use. It really is an upgraded version of MS Paint. Simple, sleek, but with quite advanced features, which makes Paint.NET my first choice. Paint.NET 4.0 is exciting news, and some of the features I miss will probably be implemented then. I should give GIMP another try someday, but not now: I am having too much fun in Paint.NET!

Why is Simple Hard to Find?

2008-10-27T16:27:00.001+01:00

I would have liked to premiere my new Danish bank card this weekend in Odense but oh no: why should you be able to make a simple money transfer from a Swedish account to a Danish one within the same bank? Speaking to a gorgeous female clerk in the bank I became convinced that it was me who was the problem and if I wasn't the problem I should call customer support when using the net bank. But after getting several warnings and blank drop down lists in my net bank I suspect the problem has nothing to do with humans but with Danske Bank's programmers. After speaking with another nice gal from customer support the problem turned out to be 98% inferior programming/layout and 2% my fault (for not trying hard enough). Apparently there are two different ways to transfer money. One of them works and the other obviously does not.

Now I could have discussed program structures but I will choose not to embarrass myself trying to show off my non-existing programming skills. Instead I will make a Top 10 list of easy to use software:

Vista. Don't be surprised. A three year old could use it, and it is impossible to wreck.
Mozilla Firefox. Straight forward, fast and customizable. You won't need another browser (use the IE Tab to visit Internet Explorer specific pages)
SpeedFan. Keep computer temperatures and HDD S.M.A.R.T values in check.
ImgBurn. ISO images are still not natively supported in Vista. This is your saviour, and a straight forward CD/DVD burner.
Photomatix 3.0 Pro. Import images. Merge. Tone map. Export. And now you've made your first HDR photo. As easy as it gets.
GOM Player. Faster and more useful than Windows Media Player and better looking than VLC.
Paint.NET. Simple, fast and great layout. Some prefer GIMP but Paint.NET feels easier to use.
CCleaner. Get rid of junk files. Two clicks and the junk files are gone forever.
Foobar2000. Despite its ridiculous name this is the music player every Windows user should use. Why has no one else thought of tabs for playlists? Great.
Anything by Google. Google Search, Toolbar, Desktop, Gears, Gmail, Google Docs, Blogger, Picasa, Chrome, YouTube… Everything is simple, sleek and fast. Credits to the Google team for these amazing apps.

Congratulations to the software above, they make my day tolerable.

VAIO Photo Elite Contest

2008-10-23T09:41:00.009+02:00

Readers who don't check out my twitter messages (to the right) will not know that I've entered the VAIO Photo Elite competition on Club VAIO's website. But now you know. The rules are simple: since VAIO is celebrating their 10th anniversary you should upload a picture that describes the recent ten years of your life. Feel free to upload as many photos you like. It should also contain the VAIO logo somehow. And, oh... don't forget that the photo(s) should have something to do with celebration. Right. And who decides who will win? I guess I’ll find that one out.

Just to check out the competition I entered the gallery and looked at some of the "elite" photos already uploaded. Most of them were rubbish, futile attempts to paste a VAIO computer into sunsets, under the paws of puppies, in citrus trees… and so on. Most of the photos did not meet the above criteria so I decided to just upload some of my favourite photos.

So why are there so many desperate attempts to win? Anyone know of Sony’s Alpha series? Two (very) lucky winners will win a Sony Alpha 900, a digital SLR camera with a whopping 24.6 Megapixels, a specially built CMOS sensor and it can take 5 pictures per second. Wow. And that’s why I have uploaded not less than 10 pictures so far. There are also 6 Sony DSC-H10, with 8.1 Megapixels and 10x optical zoom, which you can win.

But since most of the competitors are from Germany, there is a quite good chance that the winners will be able to take better pictures of sausages than before. But I won’t give up since 5 of my photos have been in the Hall of Fame (Top 30) and thrown out of there. Nevertheless, here are some of my photos, including the Tassi (cat) versus VAIO photo shot!

DIY Project: Cool Down Your Laptop

2008-10-14T12:18:00.005+02:00

I like DIY (Do It Yourself) projects more than anything. Well, as long as it's simple. Since I had 3/4^th of Arctic Silver 5 (thermal paste) lying around and my laptop fan spun up everytime I wanted to watch a video, I decided to open up my laptop and clean the cooling system (copper heat sink and fan). I mean, how hard could it be?

It turns out not very. I know that when the Top Gear team uses the term "How hard can it be" it most certainly ends up with a big crash, lots of smoke and a bill with a very large number on it. So here is my bill (average prices):

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste – €10.5, £7.5
Screw Driver Set – €13.3, £9.6
Anti-static Wristband - €4.3, £3.1
99.5% Ethanol – smuggled from a reliable source
Microfiber Cloth - €2.1, £1.5
Finehaired Brush – €3.2, £2.3
A stiff card of some sort. A credit card is perfect.

Tweezers are not on the list and they will really speed up the work, at least if you drop screws all over the place, like me. Another thing that will speed up the final assembly is putting screws in small containers (I used five: heat sink, hard drive bay, screen, CD/DVD, and chassis). And one other thing before you start: set aside at least two hours for this project. I did it in 1 hour 10 minutes but I am fairly experienced.

Put on your Anti-static Wristband and connect it to any metal surface that has ground contact. Remove the laptop battery and AC cord (we don't want any current in the components when we are fiddling around.
Remove all screws and panels from the main chassis. If the HDD bay comes loose, or the DVD-burner, gently remove them (pull straight out of socket, don't wriggle it around) and put them somewhere safe.
Depending on your computer make you should be able to remove the chassis, uncovering the motherboard. Don't be afraid to use some force, but if it gets stuck watch for additional screws before proceeding. I had one extra screw under the HDD bay, and two more where my RAM is installed.
Remove the heat sink and the fan. Be careful not to loosen any connections on the motherboard. As you can see from the pictures further below it looks like a baby monkey put on the thermal paste. It is way to much, which overflows and traps heat in the CPU and chipset.
Use the brush to get the dust of the fan. If you want you could open it up even more, or remove it. Just remember to reconnect it to the motherboard if you do.
Clean the contact areas of the CPU, chipset and heat sink by dropping small amounts of Ethanol on the microfiber cloth and rub the cloth in circles over the contact areas.
Repeat step 6 until you can see your own face in the contact areas. It should be clinically clean.
Apply very little thermal paste to the CPU and chipset. Use the card to smear it out evenly over the CPU and chipset. Don't get thermal grease outside the contact area, this will trap heat (the heat sink has no contact with it and therefore the heat cannot escape).
After you are done put back the heat sink and fan (there should be contact). Screw back the screws, put back the chassis, hard drive and DVD-burner. Put the battery back in and fire up your computer. If you happen to have a CD in the drive you might get a slight shock.

Final note: The temperature decrease will not appear to be noticeable at first (the thermal paste needs about 200 hours to settle) but you will notice it. My computer has an idle temperature of 33°C which is 4°C cooler than it used to be.

When You Cannot Sleep

2008-10-13T16:37:00.003+02:00

Sometimes I go to bed without falling asleep and spend the time thinking for one or two hours. Not only is it frustrating but the thoughts I have are as irritating as the question "What is the meaning of life?" So I've decided to post a list of things I think about when I cannot sleep:

If there is no spoon, in the movie Matrix, why are there buildings, pavement, and stairs in the way? Shouldn't Neo be able to realize that these material things do not exist in the Matrix? If Neo could see that there is no spoon, he should be able to travel through the floors like the twins in Matrix Reloaded.
First the ratio between the width and the height of a TV screen was 4:3 now it is 16:9 (4²:3²). Will future TV sets have the dimensions 64:27 (4³:3³)?
Steven Wright once said that "Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire". Does that mean that dancers are better in bed? Or do they just want it more than others?
Would I sleep better if I untangled myself from this bubble wrap and put my pajama back on?

(I bet you cannot sleep now, huh?)

In the Supermarket

2008-10-08T17:19:00.002+02:00

Today I decided to do my shopping in Mästerlivs. It is a supermarket but it has range of unusual provisions which you are not likely to find in any other supermarket. Unfortunately they apparently lack some common provisions, like raisins. This is a translated conversation between me and one of their employees (obviously not of the month):

Excuse me, where do you have the raisins?
They are on the shelf to the right of you, waist high.
That's dried plumes.
That's the only kind of raisins we have.
Ok (interested and a little scared). Do you have… dried grapes?
We have dried fruit over there (pointing to the fruit section).
Ok. Thank you. (I paid for the rest and got the hell out of there)

Tomorrow I will hand in my CV to Mästerlivs with an added ability: "Can distinguish between raisins and dried prunes."

Stephen Colbert Says It All

2008-10-03T20:05:00.002+02:00

While I am struggling with my writers block (also called laziness) I turn you over to Stephen Colbert. Oh, I wish he was running for president!

Odd One Out

2008-09-29T17:18:00.002+02:00

On my way home from my morning run I realized I wasn't going blind. There, on a bench, an older woman dressed in pink was sucking on a dummy. Her dog was as impassive as its giant wannabe-baby owner. My first thought was: Poor woman. My second thought was: Do I smell bacon? And my third thought was: Help! This is one of the kinds of people I will help as a future doctor.

On my final sprint I told myself to calm down. I don't have to think of this now; they will certainly teach me how to interact with people like her in medical school. With a pulse of 190 BPM and panting like a dog with a hyperactivity disorder, I felt completely calm: No need to plan for tomorrow when you can't. Or that's what I told my imaginary girlfriend when she told me she was pregnant.

My HDR Photos

2008-09-23T19:08:00.001+02:00

Internet: Freedom of Speech or Loss of Etiquette?

2008-09-23T12:07:00.002+02:00

Internet has without a doubt given normal people (with access to a computer and internet) the chance to express ourselves freely on the net. This blog is, in fact, one of the best examples I can think of. But YouTube is of course another brilliant example. On YouTube you are not only limited to words and pictures but can air thoughts and feelings through the medium of video. To be frank, not every person out there is a video persona. I have seen some creepy videos out there, but never have I had the urge to spat out something like "Idiot" or "You need help, you psycho" - like the majority of YouTube visitors seem to have.

So why is it that when we are left with an opportunity to say something useful we revert back into 6^th graders bullying other kids. Well, it is quite easy to write obscenities in the comment section when all you have left behind is a cryptic nickname like HitMan26 or MisterDonkey87. My mind first wanted to correlate these internet comments with prank calls, which gives you a similar anonymity, but prank calls are just jokes while a comment like "Idiot" or "Take off your clothes and have sex" (which was a recent comment to a video of two girls pretending to be Sarah Palin's daughter and her friend) are just… preposterous.

So that's it then; when we are faced with an opportunity to choose a new internet personality we choose the identity of the bully and know-it-all with a my-dick-is-so-small-and-I-haven't-got-some-in-ages complex so deeply rooted that not even the brightest psychiatrist could help this poor SOB. I sincerely hope that dictatorship is not the answer to this misuse of free speech. (But if it is the only way out I would like to apply for the job as a dictator or mad scientist, please get back to me @: ruben.la.clae+dictator@gmail.com)

Laptop: It has Survived!

2008-09-22T14:05:00.003+02:00

As you might have figured out from my header, VAIO now celebrates its 10th birthday. And my VAIO laptop, on which I am now writing this post, just turned two years old. Which reminds me of someone who claimed that laptops couldn't live longer than a year. It did, and I will be surprised if this laptop won't see its 3rd birthday.

Personally I like the FE series (which I have) and it has been replaced by the newer FZ series, and the newest FW series which looks really rediculous. I get the point of having a 16:9 form factor on a multimedia notebook but 16.4 inches is way too big. 15.4" is almost too big in my opinion, but I guess VAIO can pull this one off too, since its sleek, metally design cannot be compared to anything else on the notebook market today.

More Cars on the Road, Less Competent Drivers

2008-09-15T19:52:00.003+02:00

I recently read in Time magazine that roundabouts are becoming a huge success in the US. They have approximately 1000 roundabouts over there. I know at least 10 roundabouts in the city Helsingborg, where I live.

I am forced to idle thus forced to kill the Earth

I really understand the popularity of the roundabout; it is time efficient (no idling), good for the environment (no idling) and sometimes they are even pretty, decorated with ornaments and the occasional roundabout dog (Swedes had a tradition of putting a dog in the center of the roundabout, not a real one obviously). So far so good.

But what is the point of having a roundabout if people cannot show where they are going. Yes, I am speaking of something as fundamental as an indicator. By turning on your indicator just before exiting the roundabout you can inform people that you are on your way out thus leaving space for other vehicles to enter the roundabout. This is what I have learnt to do in driving school, but older and more "skilled" drivers seem to think it is cool not to show where you are going.

I realize when I write this that I am starting to sound like a grumpy old man although I am just 20. But come on people, the point of roundabouts is to decrease, and often eliminate, idling time but by not showing where you are going I am forced to idle thus forced to kill the Earth. I usually find myself stopping although I had not needed to, had the incompetent driver just used his indicators. I do not mind starting and stopping a lot (but Al Gore does) but I rather cruise at constant speed than to stop when I really do not have to.

HDR, a New Artform?

2008-09-12T12:31:00.004+02:00

To be honest I have seen more wacky HDR images than good ones since I discovered this technique of enhancing the range of exposures in a digital image. HDR is short for, High Dynamic Range, and means that bigger range of values between light and dark parts of the image. When you take a photo of a building the exposure will be adapted to the building, the lighting and colours are shown correct. But if you look at the scene with your own eyes you will probably notice the bright blue sky and maybe some clouds in the background. This is not shown in the image because the camera has a limited range of intensities for a given exposure. By taking multiple shots of the same scene with different exposures, and later merge them into a HDR image you can see a wider range of intensities.

So when I tried this for myself I started to understand why I have seen so many wacky HDR pictures. It is not easy to do (especially if you cannot afford the right software) but there are some guides out there. Personally I like Paint.NET which is a free and very competent program. Unfortunately it cannot merge HDR images natively like Photoshop CS2 and CS3 or Photomatix. Before you run out taking pictures like a madman, remember to bring a tripod. Yes, I know you might feel geeky putting a compact camera on a tripod but it is the only way to take three or more photos looking exactly the same, except for the exposure. Tip number two: don't try to make a HDR picture of moving things, unless you spent £350+ on a camera that saves pictures in RAW.

Those of you who are just too lazy or do not want to spend too much time can check out this tutorial, which only requires one picture. The tutorial is for Photoshop but it works in Paint.NET too. Just make sure to use Overlay instead of Soft Light and put the Opacity level to 110ish for a good effect.

Privacy Issues

2008-09-11T09:35:00.001+02:00

Google Chrome has apparently security issues. Among other things your surfing habits could be stored by Google since the information is not anonymous. And I am afraid opening an incognito window will not be solving this issue. Google however promises that this will be fixed along with some other security issues. In the meantime you should think of which parts of the web you browse and maybe limit your browsing to some test sites, like www.google.com.

This will be all of my blogging for today. But stay tuned for a HDRI special. For those of you who do not know what HDRI is, check out this site.

Google Chrome: How fast is it?

2008-09-03T10:33:00.016+02:00

As I started tweaking with HTML-settings in Blogger I realized how different IE7 and Firefox really are. I know they render web pages differently but I have (still) no idea how it's done. I instead decided to check the speed difference between the two browsers. But what if I added another browser? Since I have a few (very few) blog readers who use Safari, I decided to test the Vista version of this Konqueror offspring. It turned out that I was luckier still. Apparently, to my surprise, Google has decided to launch its own browser Chrome. It is of course in this test.

Test specs:

OS: Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP1

CPU: Intel Core Duo T2300 @ 1.66GHz

RAM: 2 Gb

HDD: Samsung HM320JI

Internet connection: ADSL 8Mbit/s

Time of test 8AM – 9AM GMT Tuesday and Wednesday

No other computers were connected to the network at the time of the tests. No other computer program, than the browsers, took up network space.

Round1 (Startup and Shutdown):

If you're like me you hate waiting for programs to start up. The first start up is a cold start, which means that the browser is started as the first program after OS boot. After that I measured the time to warm start the browsers (running it for a second time). And finally I measured how fast they all shut down. These are the results.

Browser:	Cold Start (s):	Warm Start (s):	Shutdown (s):
Internet Explorer 7	10,5	6,5	1,3
Firefox 3	8,9	4,6	0,5
Safari	15	8,3	0,2
Chrome Beta	2,2	2	0,2

Round2 (Average Page Load Time):

87 random pages were loaded in each browser. Internet cache was cleared in each browser before loading a new page. The time was taken with a standard stopwatch (this is not a proper way of calculating the time, I know) from the push of the enter button until all content on the page was loaded (including ads, no ad-blockers were used). The average time to load a page was calculated:

Internet Explorer 7 – Average Page Load in Seconds – 4.3

Firefox 3 – Average Page Load in Seconds – 4.0

Safari 525.21 – Average Page Load in Seconds – 3.4

Chrome Beta – Average Page Load in Seconds – 3.2

Round3 (To Tweak or Not to Tweak):

Only 5 pages were loaded by each browser, otherwise same setup as above. Only the first three browsers were tested since Chrome had not yet been released.

Internet Explorer 7 – 7.2% faster

Firefox 3 – 17.2% faster

Safari 525.21 – 29.4% faster

So it looks like you should apply those tweaks if you don't want to be waiting forever.

Round4 (Security):

The following page was used: http://bcheck.scanit.be/bcheck/ to check browser vulnerability.

Internet Explorer 7 – Passed

Firefox 3 – Passed

Safari 525.21 – Passed

Chrome Beta – Test didn't start

Conclusion:

This test really changed my view on browsers. Chrome proves to be a worthy competitor in the browser challenge. It is the faster browser, but its usability is yet to be proved. The other eye-opener in this little test was Safari. I haven't really bothered to check it out before. I knew Konqueror was fast so why not Safari too? Still, it is not the browser I would choose for now. The bookmark menu, among other things, needs improving. Firefox and Internet Explorer have great bookmark menus and I think that Firefox is the overall winner (from my viewpoint). It's a balance between speed and usability that I like. A final note to the Microsoft guys: Work, work, work… unless you want IE8 to do as badly in a browser comparison next time (but I still like IE7 for making my blog look pretty).

Update1: I guess I need to say one other thing. Google Chrome is a revolution in the sense it can treat web applications as if they were programs on your hard disk drive. I am sure Chrome will evolve to a point where we don't need IE7 or any other browser for that matter. But Chrome is still beta so don't expect wonders just yet.

Grumpy Young Men

2008-08-31T20:15:00.007+02:00

Not only is the summer almost over, but the summer of our youth is almost over too. The counting-wrinkles time approaches rapidly and soon enough we have to worry about our pensions. I speak for a minority born in a decade when Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Phil Collins blared through the radio speaker. And that didn't help, did it. All generations have their own troublemakers: the 60's had the hippies, 70's had punk rockers and we have EMO's? That's it? We are left with self-pitying herds of people with black dyed hair, claiming that they are more sensitive than other people and that they are revolting against mainstream. Being EMO is mainstream. And grumpy young men don't like mainstream.

All generations have their own troublemakers: the 60's had the hippies, 70's had
punk rockers and we have EMO's?

A grumpy young man has never understood the concept of the iPod. It is a music player, just like every other music player on the market but the Apple sect screams: "No, it is more than a music player, it's an iPod, a revolution." The grumpy young man shrugs and feels a little left alone as he watches a group of EMO's ask the Apple-store salesman if it comes in black.

Longing for a time long before he was born, the grumpy young man cannot understand what hip hop is all about. This Rhythm and Blues deviation should by all logic be dead, but instead bottled up sexual rage and other aggressive feelings are formed into words that are blurted out to the rhythm of a synthesized drum. More irritated than fascinated the grumpy young man turns on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon and wishes he was sometime else.

If someone from the BBC reads it: I'm sorry but don't put me in jail. If the person from BBC liked it, mail me: ruben.la.clae+grumpy@gmail.com.

…Or Maybe Not

2008-08-21T11:30:00.004+02:00

I still don't like Excel (read this for more info). But apparently I did something wrong when plotting my graph. When entering the 'chart wizard' you should choose 'XY (Scatter)' and not 'Line' (even if you want a line through your points, don't pick the 'Line' option!!). In the wizard you can then choose to draw a line through the points and the graph turns out to be alright. So when would you want to use the 'Line' option? Seriously: I don't know. I cannot find any use for this (unless you try to skew the graph to your advantage, much appreciated by business people, I suspect) so don't pick it. Never. Or use Graph 4.3, Which is a really competent little program and it's free!

The Death of Science

2008-08-19T11:38:00.009+02:00

What really got me started was an article I read in Time a couple of weeks ago: Mystical Mischief in New York by Aravind Adiga, an Indian. In the article Aravind describes how the popularity of palmists and other psychics has increased. What was crazy thinking several years ago is now, somehow acceptable. As a joke, Aravind writes that one day soon the western children will wear turbans and serve the rational eastern children in Mumbai. I know it is a joke, but actually I see some disturbing misuses of science in our western society.

But it is to Excel I owe my dramatic heading. I am desperately trying to figure out what is wrong with my hard disk drive (I've sure written a lot about it on this blog). In order to see things clearer I decided to collect data from the hard disk drive and analyze it. With over 400 different data I try to make sense of it by plotting it in graphs. Since I stored all my data in Excel plotting the graphs would not seem to be a problem. I now have four different graphs, and they were easy to plot. But most important of all: they look good. And that was the problem. The points were evenly spaced although I recorded the data at completely irregular times.

Slightly surprised I ploted the data in Graph 4.3 instead, and the graph looked very different, but this time it was at least correct. How (in the name of god?) can Excel, which is used by millions of users, plot a graph that is incorrect? Maybe there is a hidden function which solves the spacing problem, but shouldn't Excel show the proper spacing by default? My trust in Microsoft is officially non-existent. Whenever I got the time I'll switch to Linux. Bite me Microsoft!

And oh! I think I know why the Koreans at Samsung did not respond to my "scientific" investigation of their hard disk drive. I was stupid enough to include a copy of my good looking, but incorrect, graph… plotted in Excel.

Best of Summer 2008: Introducing Benelux

2008-08-05T16:18:00.005+02:00

Ever wondered if there's just one type of Belgian Waffle? Or wondered where all the water goes when it's raining in Antwerp? If Maatjes Herring really tastes as awful as it does when bought from Swedish supermarkets? Or if all you can buy in a flower shop in Amsterdam is tulips and Cannabis starter kits? Let's find out!

For those of you who don't know, I'm half Belgian (the part craving french fries in mayonnaise, chocolate, beer and other high-calorie stuff). The following text will, of course, be based on my small whereabouts in north-western Belgium and my views will be as subjective as ever. Let's talk food first.

The answer to the first question is No. There are (to my knowledge) two types of waffles. The ones you buy from Belgaufra are from Liège, which is the south-eastern, and French-speaking, part of Belgium. The Liège waffles are good, but of course not as good as the Brussels waffles which are crispier and less sweet. As you might remember from geography lessons, Brussels is in the north-western part of Belgium. You can eat both types of waffles in all good cafés (that I've been to) so try them out on your next (/first) visit to Belgium!

Obviously you need some exercise after eating all those waffles. You could go to any gym if you lack imagination or you could do something entirely different: a walk in the Ruien (read: sewers). Actually I don't recommend going there just after you've eaten, since there's a quite bad smell (you get used to it though). And if you have phobia for rats and/or spiders you should definitely avoid it. If you wonder why they don't just kill off all the rats the answer is simple; fat clogging the rui/sewage system (which was built by Napoleon by the way). The rats eat fat and there's no clogging, voila! The number of rats is of course controlled by poison. The tour takes about three hours, of which one hour is below ground. Afterwards you can go right across the street where you can buy Indiana Jones stuff. For more info, click: http://www.ruihuis.be/

No! Real Maatjes Herring is available from May to July in both Belgium and the Netherlands. It tastes so good I could eat it for the rest of my life. But if you don't like fish you're not going to like this either.

I don't have anything against Amsterdam, but please don't get me started on their coffee shops and their legalized-prostitution-bit. After passing coffee shops with names such as Perfect Paradise and Perfect Extase you start to wonder how they can manage everyday tasks when they are stoned. I always get a bit uncomfortable when high business men start to stuff their pipe with cannabis or when it says Peep Show with big, bright, pink letters and there's a half-naked woman on a giant poster hanging outside. And yes, all you could buy in the flower shop we passed was tulips and Cannabis starter kits – and bonsai trees. And on the other side of the street there was a Christmas shop counting down the days until the next Christmas. Only the bloody Dutch…

Pictures from the top:

Antwerpen "Onze Lieve Vrouwekathedraal" and "Handwerpen" (51°13'17.21 N, 4°23'58.43 E)

Antwerpen "La Place" in the "Stadsfeestzaal" (51°13'03.65" N, 4°24'42.19 E)

Amsterdam "Nemo Metropolis Cinema, VOC Ship" (52°22'21.09 N, 4°54'49.00 E)

A Day at the Psychologist

2008-07-26T12:48:00.004+02:00

Any resemblance to real or fictional characters is purely coincidental.

Frasier: So you are having trouble with a depression you say?

Ruben: Yes, you could say that. Not 'sad-sad' but a little depressed, yes.

Frasier: And why is that do you think?

Ruben: Well, it started out about a year ago when I graduated from High School. I got a quite good grade, above average, but it didn't grant me a place at medical school…

Frasier: Ahh, medical school… where you learn the essence of intelligent thinking, achieve a deeper knowledge, you stop being someone and become something! – I still remember when I went to Harvard, one of the most excellent…

Ruben: Excuse me Dr. Crane, could we stick to my problem?

Frasier: Yes yes, of course – your grade didn't grant you a place at medical school…

Ruben: So I decided to do a retake and now I have the maximum grade possibly achievable in the Swedish school system but I am still not granted a place at medical school. I know I don't have the best result on the University Test…

Frasier: I'm sorry Ruben, I must stop you there. What is a University Test?

Ruben: Well, it's rough translation from Swedish: Högskoleprovet. It is a test that is supposed to test logical thinking, mathematics, languages, and specific words.

Frasier: A bit like the English UKCAT then?

Ruben: Yes, you could say. But with tricky words you're supposed to know – like sanguine or…

Frasier: You don't know – what sanguine means?!

Ruben: Maybe the opposite of genuine, I don't know. But the point is…

Frasier: For heaven's sake, no wonder you weren't let in to medical school. Sanguine is everything you're not at the moment: cheerful and confident! Ruben, listen to me: Maybe you're not sad because you're not granted a place at medical school but you are sad because you think you want to go to university, when in fact you don't.

Ruben: What do you mean?

Frasier: I mean, you can manage just fine without any education. In Sweden, for example, you can enjoy a high salary as a manager without any particular education, and since you're a man you will earn more than any woman, even if they've gone to university. Maybe university is not for you.

Ruben: Well, that's true but I've always liked to think of myself as a doctor, or neurologist to be specific…

Frasier: I'm sorry, but I can't see that happening – so will you trust me, Ruben. Will you do that? Trust me? You do not want to go to university.

Ruben: But…

Frasier: Will you trust me?

Ruben: Ok, sure – university is maybe not for me. Thank you Dr. Crane.

Frasier: My pleasure. Oh, I see our time's up. I'll see you next week.

We won’t get fooled again

2008-07-12T18:33:00.006+02:00

Lately, many angry columnists in Swedish papers have written about the new FRA-law, which makes it legal for military authorities to listen to civilian communications. Their writings have not so much created a debate, as converted people to hateful rebels who spam the government with protest e-mails.

...[A]s long as you don't write "Bombing, 1800, Stockholm Central Station" in your
e-mail header you'll be just fine.

I, on the other hand, was prepared since this law has been discussed since 2005 (when the previous government ruled the country). People who think this came unexpectedly should think again, although I can agree that the FRA-law has been hushed down a bit, which could be perceived as worrying, but I am not worried and here's why:

What people seem to think is that the government will use information collected from citizens to control us. I am pretty confident that no Gestapo constables will come knocking our doors, angrily pointing at an e-mail which possibly could be perceived as a threat against the nation. Those of you who are afraid of the possible privacy infringements that the new FRA-law leaves in its wake can take a deep breath; they will not read your love letters. Can you imagine how much information is exchanged between people in Sweden? Can you imagine how little manpower (or in this case computer power) FRA really has? They can't even theoretically interpret all this information exchanged between people. This will not be 1984 or any other police-state-oh-my-god-dictatorship movie, and as long as you don't write "Bombing, 1800, Stockholm Central Station" in your e-mail header (which actually a wannabe-rebel, writing in the local paper, suggested everyone should do) you'll be just fine. So please don't get fooled by what this law implicates.

Speaking of fooled; the iPhone (3G version) has now come to Sweden. No need to get too excited though as you will pay around 8 000 SEK ($1 350, £680 or €850) in total. Seems a bit too much for a phone with touchscreen (yes, I hear you Apple fans screaming "it's not just a phone, it's a revolution", but to me it's just another phone).

Diablo sect members will also be fooled when Diablo III is released. As it seems now only two character classes will be included which means they will have to pay for expensive expansions to get more out of the game; The Sims style.

Have a great holiday and for those of you who didn't get it: We won't get fooled again is one of The Who's best songs.

Bizarre Art and the Japanese Food

2008-06-26T18:11:00.003+02:00

As my sister's off to the Economics Course in Italy, I and my family decided to spend the entire Sunday in Copenhagen. Apparently there is a modern art museum just outside Copenhagen (close to Ishøj) called Arken. I'm not much for modern art, but Louisiana (also in Denmark) actually does impress me… sometimes. Arken didn't. As it is called Arken it is designed as a boat, but it looks newly painted and smells funny although it has been there for some years.

Actually, my collapsed body in blood would have blended in like nothing else

To get to the coat room and the toilets you had to climb down stairs that looked like a fire escape and the toilets looked like small prisons. But now on to the art; their main exhibition (if you can call it that) was called Nordic Lights. I felt so dark I could have killed myself. Actually, my collapsed body in blood would have blended in like nothing else into that cold environment. I felt sick and my lens decided to pop out; the timing was perfect. My dad commented on a picture of a forest. He thought it great to name the photo Forrest. Then there was another picture of a boy doing a number one into a river. It was called Ohne title which roughly translates Untitled. Brilliantly imaginative. We left pretty soon, having laughed at how obscene it would have been to give the finger to the receptionist and say: "Finger".

We had already decided in beforehand to eat lunch at Sushi'n'Sticks. It doesn't sound fancy but I like to think it is as it is quite pricey. The food there was delicious as it always is and we walked away a little happier. Even the sun broke through after all the raining.

Why New Technology Fails… Big Time

2008-06-12T14:38:00.002+02:00

First of all I am sorry to bring up technology again but it is a big part of our lives. Unless you live in a stone cave, but then you wouldn't be reading this, would you. First things first: mobile phones. Mobile phones are extremely popular and most people like to switch to a new one every 6^th month or so. However, there is very little focus on the phone as such. A built in 5 megapixel camera with optical zoom and a flash is more popular than the quality of the microphone. And the new slick designs are so attractive millions of people end up with an 18 month pre-pay plan for a phone they'll only like for a year.

Don't get me wrong. I love technology and design very much but why put in a 5 megapixels camera and make it ultra-slim when a person with a well functioning brain can figure out it won't be as good as a separate camera and a phone. And yes, they break down… and mine did. Well, it wasn't 5 megapixels (only 1.3) and no, it had no built in GPS either but it had millions of functions I have never cared or known how to use. Now I use my old mobile phone which can call other people, receive calls and send messages… good enough for me really.

Next up in this "New technology that fails" post is my HDD. I've written quite a lot about it and that's because the hard disk drive is a rather important part of a functioning computer. You see, my HDD has a G-Sensor which in case of a free fall will retract the read/write heads from the disk so the that the disk won't be damaged, and all my data will be safe. In theory, like the mobile phone/megapixel camera, it is a perfect idea but it doesn't really work. What happens is the following:

The G-Sensor records a free fall (although my computer is perfectly still, sitting on my desk).
The read/write heads are retracted so fast it causes a loud click from the HDD.
The S.M.A.R.T value show a load/unload retry since the heads had to be retracted so fast.
The S.M.A.R.T value for G-Sense Error Rate increases ridiculously as it understands it wasn't falling at all.
The S.M.A.R.T values will eventually (after some months) reach the threshold value and the system will report the drive as broken.

I just want to congratulate all hard working multibillion electronics corporations for making products we are fooled to buy, when the gadgets will live a life of its own and die after laughing us in the face. My personal theory is that they want to put new technology on the market too fast. Please develop the products first will you?

Now it's your turn. Please comment on a new gadget that has wrecked your life. I know I'm not alone.

R6: RS Lan Summer 2008

2008-06-10T17:59:00.003+02:00

"Brilliant, extraordinary!"
- The Guardian

Well maybe not but here it is! Please comment a time and date for this event and download Hamachi and TeamSpeak Client if you have not already done so.

Countdown, Magpies and Unnecessary Phone Calls

2008-06-09T18:12:00.005+02:00

Previous night I decided to sleep with my window open. I usually don't do that but after a quick glance at my thermometer (which read 25°C or 77°F) I decided that the drag racers did not disturb me as much as the temperature. Around 04:30 in the morning I was proved wrong. Magpies were bullying my cat which had decided to go out for a stroll in the night. My cat has been bullied before by these nasty creatures and has since long preferred the tranquillity of my bedroom chair. Whole my family was awakened by the magpies, which should give you a picture of how loud they were. My first idea was to shoot the bloody birds, but apparently that's illegal in residential districts… but who will ever notice a few missing birds 04:30 in the morning.

My first idea was to shoot the bloody birds, but apparently that's illegal

The second thing that troubles me this lovely Monday afternoon is my new Samsung hard disk drive. As you might now, my previous HDD died unexpectedly and I had noticed strange clicking sounds. These clicking sounds seem to originate from the driver heads when they fail to load/unload properly. Dick from notebook review forums has noticed that the S.M.A.R.T values prove this right. Now I've also discovered that the G-Sense Error Rate values are increasing and the current and worse values are alarmingly decreasing towards the threshold value. This could be the data that predicts the life of my HDD. According to calculations based on G-Sense Error Rate values only my HDD has 2 years left to live. Just before the warranty runs out in other words. Those calculations should be valid unless the ECC Error Rate goes through the roof.

Other than that I love my Vaio. And Vaio Support seems to love their customers. Or why else would they phone me every day? You feel you missed something? Read my other blog posts!

2008 – The European Year of Intercultural Dialogue

2008-05-31T10:38:00.001+02:00

Well, first of all it is quite hard to have a dialogue when we even don't know we're supposed to have one. Second, the dialogue only seems to be between France and the UK, which probably won't lead to much news. I on the other hand had a proper dialogue with the closest neighbour, Denmark. I went there for my interview and learned among other things that Danes are particularly fond of staring into a blank wall for two hours before the interview and two hours after the interview. Or at least that's what they let us do.

I actually understand that they didn't want us to upload interview instructions to the internet (though I doubt they would be of any use to others), but why not solve the long wait with a nice tour round their fantastic facilities? It probably was a stress test (and I might have failed that one) to see who breaks first. I didn't break but got mildly upset and hungry since I obviously hadn't bothered to read the final sentence on the info-papers sent to me: "Bring something to eat since there will be a quite bit of waiting".

Another thing I've come across as strange is the fact that Vaio has called me more than my friends the last two weeks. I called them since my rubber foot on my laptop has come off. They sent me a new one (of the wrong sort) but they are very keen to follow this one up. They have apparently sent me a new one of the right kind and bothers to phone me every other day to check if it has arrived and if I am happy with their support so far. Not much to complain about and not much for Vaio to do, I say, just put it in an envelope and post it to my address. I really wish Samsung would care about all the M5 and M6 HDD's braking down, as much as Vaio cares of their customers.

That's it for this EYID special, so get out there and talk to foreigners in your native tongue like you don't care, start a war or something, like I care what you do. :D一点刺

Silent Majority Speak Up

2008-05-08T16:20:00.004+02:00

After one and a half year out on the market, Vista has had some though time. I myself was forced to upgrade due to lack of hard disk drive support in my XP OEM version. You often see top 5 reasons not to buy Windows Vista (1 it costs too much, wait… this is not what I intend to do). One of the reasons used to be that Vista was not entirely trouble free.

So maybe it is time just to accept that Vista has come to stay

A recent poll by CNET.com shows that 49% have no problems at all (the remaining 51% do not have Vista or they do have problems with the operating system). Mac sect members might think that Gates' new job is to skew polls in favor of Microsoft. I do not think so, but I know that Steve Ballmer is employed to throw Macs on the ground (shame on him).

So maybe it is time just to accept that Vista has come to stay. It really runs smoothly on my computer and I do not miss XP a bit. Here is my list of things that has improved over XP:

Looks (obviously). Animations are so nice.
Speed. Norton 360, Office 2007 and IE7 run much faster on Vista than XP (Vista on 5400 rpm hdd vs. XP on 7200 rpm hdd). And my boot time has decreased from 2 minutes to 1:15.
Search feature on start panel. Comes in really handy and is my favorite way of starting programs or accessing bookmarked web pages.
Media. Although Media Player 11 feels bulkier than it did on XP, the new Media Center has improved much in terms of usability. Personally I still prefer CyberLink PowerCinema but the Windows version has improved much.
Security. Oh, here we go. Microsoft showed in their report that Vista had fewer security leaks than OS X or Linux. We cannot know that this is for sure but the built in HDD encryption is a fact, and it's good.

Since I do have more important things to do, this list will have to suffice for now although I am sure I could list a few more promising features in Vista. Please feel free to comment and tell me if I am wrong. To my friends running OS X: I use Vista, and I like it!

MCQ Odense

2008-05-06T16:24:00.001+02:00

I am back and alive. Not that I shouldn't be but thought you would want to know. Anyway, IB math exam tomorrow, which is fairly exciting as Paper 1 is without calculator this year. Suppose I have to use that grey matter inside my head. I had to use it quite recently actually. This weekend I spent in Odense, doing a multiple choice test (MCQ is for multiple choise questions) and getting a feel for the city. And it is nice, although I and my dad were greeted with a thunder storm.

I had a feeling it went rather well but better not celebrate yet as I heard that there were over 2000 people to take the test. Yikes. Maybe it is an effect of the 80's baby boom or the fact that applying to Swedish uni's (and apparently Norwegian too) is like playing the lottery. Good news for IB students though: http://www.hsv.se/publikationerarkiv/lagarochregler/hogskoleverketsforeskrifter/199622.4.5b73fe55111705b51fd8000964.html. This link will take you to the new regulations set by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education. Using the new rules I get a score of 19.95 out of 20.0 (based on expected retake results). Not bad.

Back to studying I guess.

Stockholm 2008 Day 3

2008-04-30T22:57:00.002+02:00

With nothing planned for the day except the trip home, we took it easy and started off with breakfast and other necessary stuff. Since we were supposed to check out quite early our first stop was the central station and lockers big enough for our suitcases. We also decided we wanted to revisit some places where we were reminded that we had forgotten our cameras or just were freezing too much to stop walking. It was still cold as hell, so when the National Museum opened we were among the first inside. Of course we started by trying out their café.

No need to say the national museum had some amazing paintings. As long as it is not modern art you almost certainly will find something that you like. I fell for a Swedish artist, Anders Zorn, which has painted the neutral "Midsommar Dans". When we began to tire of all the paintings it was almost time to return to the central station. A seafood wrap was bought as lunch and Gerald Seymour's A Line in the Sand was the means of entertainment for the trip back home.

So that is it for now. Next Up: Who knows?!

Stockholm 2008 Day 2

2008-04-29T08:50:00.002+02:00

Of course our second day in Stockholm started with breakfast (how else would we survive until lunch). Since it was sunny we thought it would be quite nice weather outside. The ice patches on the street told us a different story. Yes, it was still cold (as hell) and my face, upon leaving the hotel, instantly froze into a fixed facial expression… and it was not one of the better looking.

We had of course something planned for the day, otherwise we would have lost my sister in any shopping mall and I would have checked out the newest gadgets in an electronics shop. So we had tickets to the show Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde which was performed at Kinateatern (the China Theatre, roughly translated). But it was not until 3pm so we had some time to spend. First thing to do was to buy gloves and a hat for my too optimistic sister. I was also freezing I must admit. So in order to survive (I mean it) we went into a few shops along the way. NK (Nordiska Kompaniet) and Åhlens were some of the big ones. We also went to the older part of the city (Gamla stan) and into Storkyrkan (one of the churches).

And finally: lunch time! We ate the famous and delicious fish-soup at Saluhallen in the center of Stockholm. After a short visit at the hotel we went to the play. We were able (the staff actually insisted) to upgrade our balcony seats to better ones. If you wonder, the loud talking man sat in front of us, the family with too young children was on our right and the noisy teens with enough plastic wrapped candy to make all Swedish dentists top themselves were behind us. Imaging the loud talking man the size of a grizzly bear and his slightly deaf mother next to him, he touching 60 and probably still living with his mother. The row behind them was empty.

The show was really good. I have not read the book yet, but I roughly knew the story beforehand. The show is still on (and it must go on, according to Queen), and I have seen some TV ads for it, so if you are going to Stockholm anytime soon I would actually recommend it!

Dinner time! We saw a cozy Italian restaurant in the older part of Stockholm and we decided to try it out. Really good food and super fast service made our day complete. We decided to walk to the hotel from the restaurant and the cold could have killed us all… but again, we survived. Since this trip was to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of mum and dad, I and my sister decided to give our gift a little too early. A GPS, so they do not have to discuss which road to take anymore. I hope this "less-conversation-more-action" gift will make them stay together for another 20 years. Because of the extreme heat loss outside, we binged candy and fell asleep to restore energy.

Stockholm 2008 Day 1

2008-04-20T13:22:00.002+02:00

It was Friday morning, the 21th of March. Not too cold and knowing we would spend the next 6 hours sitting we decided to walk down to the central station of Helsingborg (approx. 3 km or 1.86 miles). Since we packed light we were soon on our way to Stockholm. Of course the train was delayed, reason unknown, and we had to stand in the snow at one of the most boring stations known to man: Hässleholm. We got to Stockholm checked in at our hotel, which was close to Odenplan.

I have probably forgotten to tell you why we did this trip, but here it is: my parents were celebrating their 20^th anniversary. The first thing we were supposed to do was to eat dinner at Ulriksdals Wärdshus, where they ate their wedding dinner. And oh yes it is fancy! And due to the long trip we were a bit (at least my sister and I) giggly, we almost seemed tipsy. And looking upon the stern, snobbish faces of the other upper-class guests did not make us stop giggling. Actually, when the waiter came to take away our main course plates I was snorting with laughter at my sister imitating a fish being strangled (I nearly got it on video). Next to us was a couple, seemingly on a date. The man was mostly interested in his mobile phone and the woman, with nothing else to do, gulped down her wine. In doing this she turned extremely red, which people who drink too much might do. Her date suddenly got really interested and put down his mobile phone to talk to her. I reckon the words in his head was: "She's drunk, I might get lucky tonight". This gives you an image of how our evening was. The food was delicious, the wine was overpriced so overall a fantastic first evening in Stockholm.

The rest of the evening we discovered that everything was closed except for one café (reminding me of Mezo in Helsingborg) which was open until 02.00 am. We spent some time there and soon went back to our hotel to get some sleep.

Computer Up and Running

2008-04-17T18:29:00.001+02:00

Finally! My new HDD has arrived and all my most used software has been installed. Everything is running smoothly. Before I post pictures from my families Stockholm trip I have some other news to share:

Bad news first, I got unsuccessful from all my applications in UK. Does not bother me so much now as I got other options. Funny thing is staff of Cardiff should have a few more geography lessons, or perhaps reading lessons. The first letter from Cardiff was sent to me, my street address, my city... and Denmark. Since I live in Sweden (the long country next to Denmark) I laughed a bit at their mistake. The second letter, however, was still sent to me, my street address, my city... but under this information a handwritten "Norway" was crossed out and replaced by "Sweden". This really got me wondering, since the whole UCAS application is computer based... how hard can it be (aah, the first Jeremy Clarkson quote) to get it right?
And good news: I passed my driving test on my first go! However it was ridiculously simple so no need to cheer, people. If I really told you how simple the test was I might get murdered by people who failed their first attempt.

Next up: Stockholm Trip 2008 (with full colour pictures!)

When your computer fails on you

2008-03-26T18:59:00.002+01:00

Problems! I really wanted to write about my amazing(-ly cold) weekend in Stockholm but I haven't transferred the pictures from the cameras yet (we were four people and three cameras). Actually I won't transfer my pictures to my pc. No, I'm not lazy and yes I got all the three different cables. The reason is my new hard drive which I installed 3 – 4 months ago. It really gave my computer the performance boost I needed but out of the blue (I haven't noticed it earlier) I got read errors (which extremely old drives along with my new one suffer from). HD Tune confirmed the errors but Samsung Support wanted me to check with their utility (HUTIL) instead. This morning I spent over an hour in DOS just to see that there are actually eight bad sectors on the drive. That's funny since I haven't dropped the drive or the computer at all.

A final test was needed: do the same test again but with all data erased. Since I have the old drive left I decided that I simply would put all the backup data on the new one (a bit risky I know) and then clone the new drive to the old drive. In this way I would not lose any documents, music files, installed programs etc. Now, writing this I have to abandon my plan (actually no plan could have saved my entire OS or installed programs). When trying to clone the defect drive it could not complete... because of read errors. So this is probably one of the last things I will write on my Word 2007 SP1 and I have to face another excruciating pain reinstalling software I need and re-uninstalling software I don't need. Now that I'm complaining I might as well whine about Microsoft's Live-ID which only seems to work half of the time. If Microsoft really wants to make a "Cloud OS" people might actually want it to work.

That's that for this post. Hopefully next time (on a freshly installed machine) I will be able to post some photos from Stockholm along with comments from dinners at fancy restaurants.

Åbent Hus (SDU – Odense)

2008-03-11T18:43:00.002+01:00

That's an interesting title for those of you who aren't Scandinavian or didn't take a Danish language course just for fun. It really means 'open house day' and SDU-Odense is one of Denmark's largest universities. Actually I have given up the hope of being able to choose a university quite long ago, since I don't have top grades and I want to be a neurologist (brain doctor). But it is always nice to visit the university just to get a feeling for it. Odense has a really modern look but despite this it feels rather dark inside. When we reached the top floor during the guided tour it felt like we were in a cellar. Funnily enough they have huge windows, but apparently the choice of colours (brown and rust red) makes it feel darker, which actually bothers me a bit. The point of building a modern campus would, in my opinion, be to make it as light as possible.

The people at the medicine stand were nice and overall Odense seems to be a good place to study. The city (located about 5 km from the campus) is medium sized and has many shops and restaurants. Not that a full-time student will ever have that much money or time, but the amount of places you could spend your time/money feels important nonetheless.

Other important things I've just done are: passing my driving theory test, completing my application for Danish universities, and reading the newspaper backwards.

Microsoft revival

2008-02-28T12:31:00.002+01:00

I just decided that I wanted to talk a bit about technology. Technology plays a big part of my life and I am constantly amazed by what engineers can put together. This post will be software related as Long Zheng on www.istartedsomething.com (link in list to the right) drew my attention to a speech by Roy Gould on TED talk (www.ted.com also in the list to the right). Roy Gould presented Microsoft's World Wide Telescope. Just like Google Earth lets you explore the Earth, the World Wide Telescope lets you explore the whole universe as a seamless 3D experience. World Wide Telescope will be downloadable from www.worldwidetelescope.org somewhere during the spring 2008.

This technology makes me think of the Seadragon and Photosynth projects which are also in progress. Check them out at www.labs.live.com. This definitely makes Microsoft look a little better after ruthless buying other competing companies. It seems like Microsoft is in a really giving mood this year. Dreamspark just kicked off this spring and students worldwide can now download expensive development software for free. All you need to do is to prove that you are a student. In Sweden this is done by surfing to www.csn-kortet.se and to link your student card number with your live-ID then go to www.downloads.channel8.msdn.com and download what you want.

As I said this makes Microsoft look better in times when Google gives away excellent software for free and alternatives to Windows, such as Linux and Mac become more competent. I am still not going to buy Vista but I am really impressed by the projects going on.

Sweden (Pictures from Europe)

2008-02-23T21:41:00.005+01:00

I haven't seen the movie but the title is really catchy. The photos and text written are not really a universal blast from the past but rather a blast from my past, so hang on.

Welcome to the year... 2004! Well, the reason for going back just 3.5 years is that I bought my first (and only) camera that year (Mustek DV-4000). Text and stories are fun on their own but pictures really add the extra dimension to memories.

The panorama above is from Gullbranna in Halmstad, Sweden (56°35'10.37" N, 12°56'25.17" E), where we had violin camp a couple of times. Actually I don't remember that much from the camp, but it sure was beautiful.

I and my sister went to another violin camp that year: Bohus-Malmön's International Violin Course. Apart from meeting wonderful people the view was magnificent.

One thing you might observe when travelling from south to north along the west coast is that beaches will disappear and be replaced by rocks and cliffs (58°20'36.49" N, 11°20'34.61" E) and (58°20'54.06" N, 11°20'10.74" E).

The great thing with this international violin camp was that I could meet new people from other countries, such as Belgium. To be honest there were only Belgians and Swedes but still international. Another great thing when communicating with Belgian people is to have a Belgian mother. I happen to have just that.

(I have tons of more pictures but as I have not asked for my friends consent in presenting these pictures they will not be uploaded yet)

So let's see my hometown: Helsingborg.

Dunkers house of Arts in the northern part of Helsingborg (56°02'50.13" N, 12°41'19.87" E).

And the goddess of the Sea by Carl Milles is also situated in the northern parts of Helsingborg (56°02'42.01" N, 12°41'25.60" E).

And last but not least the Helsingborg Town Hall (56°02'45.93" N, 12°41'35.65" E).

Hello World

2008-02-23T10:51:00.001+01:00

And another blog is born. Now you might want to know what you can expect of this blog. The answer is as simple as the question: nothing. That's right! Everything written on this blog is 100% subjective and you never know what I decide to write about, although you might want to rule one thing out: my present life due to the lack of interesting happenings.

Feel free to comment anything on this blog although I reserve the right of deleting any obscene comments. Updates will be up soon.

Ruben Larsson