British English for Americans

August 31, 2005
1 comment Misc. links

If you're American and plan to move to England, you do right in have a read through of this list. It's a ridiculously long list of cockney slang words but rather straight foward English common words.

I've heard most of them but some I don't dare to use because as a foreigner they'd just sound silly. Now I've learnt what Spend a penny and Porridge means at least.

Insect photography

August 24, 2005
7 comments Photos

Insect photographer This amazing hacker builds a camera (with its own custom built shutter) setup to photograph flying insects in his garden. I notice that he's got a Nikon camera with a 200mm lens and double flashlights.

To be honest I didn't read all of the text but by taking a step back and being just impressed with his willpower you get more impressed with his effort rather than the photos he produces. Yes, the sample photos are truely amazing.

I wonder if this has ever been done before? Taking pictures of sitting insects is one thing, but insects in flight I for one have never seen before.

Keep up the good work Frans!

An ideal company blog tool

August 21, 2005
4 comments Work

There's lots of small pieces of knowledge in our company. Not the kind of knowledge that requires thinking but stuff like,

  • where's the black stapler
  • how to add a domain to the xyz-server apache config
  • who to call to sort out the airconditioner

Most of this core "knowledge" we have tried to store in a relatively structured Wiki (we use zwiki) which has been a really good start. It's good because whenever I need to refresh my memory on some IP address or how to install a printer I can go to our company wiki and search for it there.

The problem is that it's such a choir to maintain the wiki. It takes several seconds to go there, log in and (biggest bore) to find the most appropriate places to write anything new or where to update something old. I know I sound disgustingly lazy, but when you have to do it many times per day you want the software to help you rather than being an obstacle. I'm now instead looking for a different solution: a blog!

Truncated! Read the rest by clicking the link below.

Back from Djerba, Tunisia

August 19, 2005
1 comment

Jump in the sand Now I'm back from a weeks holiday on the island of Djerba which is a tiny island just "south-east" of Tunisia. Djerba is part of Tunisia and there's even a bridge across to the mainland.

It was Johan, Anna, Julika and me for a week. We relaxed, swam, tanned, ate, rode dromedaries and enjoyed the warming sun day and night. The highlight of the trip was the Sahara dessert excursion where we travelled by bus all the way out to the mighty Sahara dessert just in time to see a big glowing sun set in the mist over the dunes. We also, on that trip, stayed the night out there in the dessert and slept under the stars without distracting backlight from any city. Wow!

Photos to come The hotel we stayed at was called El Andalouse which I can wholeheartedly recommend. Not expensive either and all people who worked there were really nice. They had a wonderful swimming pool and they didn't mind if we brought food to eat by the poolside.

I've got loads of photos that I'll upload as soon as I get a chance. Watch this space!

Ricardo Semler's Semco English website

August 14, 2005
11 comments Misc. links

Brynhildur kindly points out that the English Semco website can be found on http://semco.locaweb.com.br/ingles/

Not a terribly good website but it works and I can read some more about the company I didn't already know. Since it's a bloody Flash site I can't link to individual pages I'd want you to visit, but when you go there be sure to find the "The SEMCO Management Model" which describes in simple and quick terms what this is all about.

There's also an interesting Timeline animation showing what they were up to in different years. Since I read the "Seven-day Weekend" a lot has changed in terms of their business offering. Nothing of what they do seems mainstream or at least they do well in rephrasing themselfs so that it doesn't sound mainstreamed.

PS. If you want to know why I'm blathering about this corporate website, read my review of The Seven-day Weekend

Dream Theater - Octavarium

August 11, 2005
1 comment Music

Dream Theater - Octavarium My latest CD I bought in a real shop was Ocatavarium by Dream Theater. It's fantastic! If you like crystal clear heavy metal with an impeccable musical production, then this is for you. Unlike the previous album, Train of Thought, this one is much lighter and even more accessible for non-death metal lovers. Some of the tunes remind me a bit about Muse's latest album Absolution but that's ok.

My favorite song is still Panic Attack but the second half of the song Octavarium is just absolutely marvelous! If you appreciate genuinely good music that will last for years to come, get this album too.

Button tag in bloody Internet Explorer

August 9, 2005
136 comments Web development

I sincerely hate Internet Explorer sometimes. I never like it. Today it really pissed me off. If you use multiple <button> tags in one form, think again. It doesn't work in IE like it should do [...in Firefox]. If you have a form like this:


<form action="showRequestVariables">
<button type="submit" name="button1">Button1</button>
<button type="submit" name="button2">Button2</button>
</form>

Then, which ever button you press you'll get these request variables if you use Internet Explorer:


button1 = "Button1"
button2 = "Button2"

In Firefox you only get one; the one you pressed. Doesn't that seem logical? The Firfox way I mean.

Truncated! Read the rest by clicking the link below.

Jealous of Google stemming

August 4, 2005
1 comment Zope

Google's English word stemming is smart. I'm very jealous of it and want one too. If you, for example, search for set up ssh key then it perfectly finds "setting up ssh key" too. You can tell by how Google is bold-highlighting the words. Clever! I want such stemming too. I wonder if there's anything already done in Zope that I can use or if I have to write something myself.

Seeing how powerful this really is, I'm now more inspired to sort it out with my ZCatalog.