Tennis

Managed to play a little bit of tennis this weekend.. it's been a while, so as suspected a was pretty trashed afterwards.. It felt good though.

Also, we went to visit some family in the north of France (near Amiens) - I enjoy coming a bit away from Paris, enjoying the peace and quiet (I'm becoming an old fart... ). We had some good food up there, they certainly know how to feed a Dane ;)

Came in to the office this morning, with the ever growing backlog awaiting.. it's getting increasingly tiresome trying to keep up with everything. Have a bunch of FreeBSD stuff I need to do as well, apparently there's still problems getting amaroK and libtunepimp-0.4 to get along. I hope I'll have a few moments tomorrow to play around with it.
Got a mail from Andreas Klemm with a bug-report on sysutils/hackbot. Basically, the path to the datafiles required by hackbot was wrong, so hackbot would bail out with an error... Last time I made a commit to the hackbot port was in March 2004.. Amazingly nobody else pointed out the error..

In other news, I can report that Dimitri looks more or less like a roadkill. He had a rugby playing "accident" and ended up with about 15 stitches in the eyebrow.. It's a sorry sight.

amaroK 1.3.2

Just committed the amaroK 1.3.2 update to the portstree.
New features include:
- A new sexy volume slider
- Improved podcasting support
- Additional context menu for playlist window
- Scrolling through tabs

I built it on 4.x / 5.x / 6.x and -CURRENT.

I have yet to test it with the much anticipated libtunepimp 0.4.x version.

FreeBSD work

Supporting FreeBSD 4.x is becoming more and more of pain, I wish we'd drop that branch soon - so we can focus on 5.x / 6.x. - many ports needs heavy patching and quirks to be able to compile on 4.x..

Anyways, I managed to commit the long awaited amaroK update (1.3.1) the other day. I haven't received any bug reports yet, so I guess all is good. The amaroK dev team, just released 1.3.2, so my tinderbox is happily building away testing the build on different branches.
Akode engine support has been dropped (unfortunately), and Helix (realplayer) been added. PostgreSQL support has also been added, and it seems to work really great.

The aterm-1.00 update created a bit of noise, since most of it has been completely rewritten. Managed to solve most of the problems, there still a few loose ends though - Pav's been reporting some weird flickering behavior, that I've been unable to reproduce...

I also ported two new KDE apps; databases/ksqlanalyser and databases/ksqlshell. I'm particularly happy with the first on, as I'm now able to work on our ERP, MS-SQL powered server without vnc'ing to it. The latter is similar to the first, but created a nice GUI front-end for PostgreSQL and MySQL.

Long time no see.

Yup, we haven't really been around for a while.. For my part, I was on vacation for 3 weeks in the south of France, and the south of Italy, so frankly I could't be fucked posting anything on no god-damned blog.

I'm back now though, and in an attempt to kill time between now and 5pm, blogging comes in handy.

I've finally made it over to the enlightened side! I now have FreeBSD installed on my HP DV1100 laptop, and so far it's been pretty damn cool. It's nice to have a system that is free, boots in 15 seconds, is stable as hell, and had a bunch of really cool apps (which are once again, totally free). OK I have to admit, not everything worked off the bat after we installed FreeBSD. Getting 1280x768 resolution to work on my widescreen was fun, as was trying to figure out why some my mouse buttons weren't responding. There still are a couple things i need to figure out, like how to get my cd/dvd burner burning and my Compact Flash Bluetooth gizmo communicating, but I guess dealing with that shit is the price you have to pay!


I'm also running the coolest media player ever, maintained by that jackass of a buddy of mine. I must say Amarok was part of the reason I switched over - It was like a toy mich had which I could never, ever have. Well now it's mine. And it rocks.

Well that's all for now... ciao!

Long time no blog

Not getting too much blogging done these days, I guess I haven't got that much too report on..

Been reading a couple of good books lately:

- Blink: The power of thinking without thinking, by Macolm Gladwell

- A dogs life, by Peter Mayle (This is an excellent read)

and most recently Naked by David Sedaris. It's outright hilarious, and an easy read. Next in my queue is "The art of war" by Sun Tzu. I've been wanting to read it for a while, so I'm looking forward to it.

Hitchhiker

On my way home last night, I discovered this hitchhiker on my car:





He's pretty hard to make out, as my phone cam resolution is sooooooooo crappy.. but rest assure, he's there ;)

Tinderbox

Spend some time last week setting up Joe Marcus' tinderbox scripts. Works really well, and enables me to test ports builds on different FreeBSD branches. In addition, it makes installation packages that I can deploy over my servers, hence saving build times.

I've setup build environments for: RELENG_4, RELENG_5 and the newly branched RELENG_6.

Spent some time HTMLizing the README file, here it is.

Read more and get it here.

Pimp up da Firefox

Just came across a splendid article, on how to do fine-grained tuning of Firefox.

Give it a try.

Mom, can i have some Reebok Pumps please?

Mich and i just had a coffee /smoke break, and we were discussing the pros and cons of being a single child (as i am) as opposed to having siblings (like mich).

We came to the unanimous conclusion that being a single child rocks.

I tried to argue that being a single child was ok, but very lonely since you ended up growing up alone (which leads straight to multiple personalities). I would have loved to have had a bro or sis, (to beat the hell out of the bro, and kick the shit out of the sis' boyfriend), just so i wouldn't have had to play everything on both sides of the board. Conversations like this were common in my room at the time:

Dimitri: "Hey man, you want to play checkers"
Dimitri2: " Sure bro, I'll be red"
Dimitri: "No i want to be red, and i get what i want because i'm an only child"
Dimitri2: "Screw you jackass, go SABO. I'm having the reds."
Dimitri: "I don't want to play with you. You suck"
Dimitri2: "Right back at you buster."

On the positive side, you are the center of attention, and you get pretty much everything that you want, well, almost everything. I mean I didn't always get what I wanted, but in 90% of cases, I got the damn Matchbox car if i really wanted it (crying, yelling, pouting, anything would work).

Now there is something I never got and always wanted being a teenager. I mean I could have gotten them, but my dad's job didn't permit me to get them. Here it is: Reebok Pumps.

You remember these right? Every kid had them, and they were the ultimate sign of middle school coolness. All the cool kids had them, and of course all the dorks (as I) wanted them, so they could get one step closer to that impossible dream: being cool.

Well here's the deal. Why couldn't I get these? Why wouldn't my parents buy them for me?

At the time, my dad worked for Adidas. I had 25 pairs of trainers in my closet, but none of them were Pumps, and that sucked!

In addition, i was not allowed to wear anything but Adidas, that was it. I couldn't buy anything that wasn't Adidas. Any Nike shirt or Reebok accessory was forbidden. The problem is: at the time, Adidas was not cool, it was boring, passé, it had joined brands like Converse, - the definitely NOT cool shoes. I was not only laughed at for being fat, I was ridiculed for having dorkish shoes...Of course a couple years later, when my dad didn't work for Adidas anymore, and I had grown 15cm and couldn't fit in any of my 25 pairs of trainers, Adidas was the shiznit - everyone wanted them.

So yeah, being a single child rocked, but I still have a regret - not having those pumps. Overall though, I can't really complain, i mean life wasn't too rough for me as a child...plus, whenyou have a schyzophrenic half to play with, who needs siblings?

I need to help this person in the Ivory Coast

Dear Readers (or non-readers)

It has come to my attention that this young lady needs some help, so i have decided to help her out.

Here is the email I recieved:
----------------------------------------
Aisha Kone,
Cocody Abidjan,
Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire)
E-mail: konea@latinmail.com


Bonjour,

C’est avec un plaisir que je vous écris, mais je ne
vous force pas à le faire pour moi

Je suis Aisha Kone. j’ai 19 ans , je suis la première
fille de Monsieurs et Mme Kone
Mon père était un homme riche (vente de cacao) en COTE
D’IVOIRE

Mon père s’était rendu en France pour ces affaires et
il est mort mystiquement sans Qu’on ne sache les
vrais raisons de sa mort le 12 FEVRIER 2002 et pour
finir on S’est rendu compte que c’est notre propre
oncle qui l’a tué .

J’ai perdu ma mère quand j’avais 4 ans ce qui fait que
j’avais tout l’amour de mon père . Avant la mort de
mon père le 12 FEVRIER 2002, il appelle son secrétaire
étant à l’hôpital Et lui dit qu’il a déposé la somme
de 2.500.000. US dollars dans une première banque à
ABIDJAN

Etant toujours à l’hôpital , il dit à son secrétaire
que l’argent qui se trouve à la banque porte
Son nom et il charge son secrétaire avec une lettre
pour la remettre à son avocat , puisque Tous les
documents se trouvent avec lui

Actuellement je suis à l’université , j’ai 19 ans et
je ne sais pas comment faire par ce que je veux
transférer l’argent en EUROPE à cause des problèmes
politiques dans mon pays .

Je voudrais que vous me veniez en aide .
Je voudrai vous posez quelques questions .
1.Est ce que vous pouvez m’aider comme étant votre enfant ?
2.Est ce que je peux vous faire confiance ?
3.Et si on arrive à faire le transfère sur votre
compte la bas combien de pourcentage voudriez vous ?

S’il vous plait considéré ma note et faite moi
parvenir une réponse
Merci pour votre attention
Mlle Aisha Kone.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Get a fucking hint man, this shit does not work, stop spamming us you fucking idiots.

Go stick a banana up your poohole.

Warm Regards,

A picture's worth a 1000 words..

Mich found this little beauty. Exceptional shot, I must admit.


We're thinking about finding this lady and picking up a couple shirts - these will be collector items in a couple years.

Great news

Two absolutely magnificent things happened today:

1. EU rejects patents directive. Bloody marvelous, if you ask me. Don't know why it took them 4 years though.

2. London wins Olympics 2012 bid. Wonderful, we won't have to deal with an even more overcrowded city, and stupid tourists.

New Mobile - Bye Bye Orange/Itineris/France Telecom

Got myself a new portable device ( which is always loads of fun) because by crappy Samsung T100 died a horrible death last week... so I decided to change the whole subscription - called up Orange to kill my membership, and got the best service i have ever gotten of them. On saturday afternoon, i went over to a Bouygues shop and got myself a new subscription with a Nokia 6230i for 49€. Due to a promotion they were having, I got 40€ off, so the phone ended up costing me 9€... Although i didn't particularly care for a phone with a camera (I think it's just a damn gadget), the damn thing has one, so I put it to use.. here's one of the first pictures. I thought it deserved a warm spot on our blog.

Serbian - "Parce que je le veux bien"

It's Friday, and I just got home from hell^H^H^H^H ehh.. work..

What better way to relax, after a hard day - than with a delicious home-made Serbian Ice Tea ? Well, I can't think of a better way. So without further ado, I give you "Michael's end-of-the-week treat" :



Tomorrow, we are throwing a small bash for friends (and Dimitri) - I'll probably end up stone-drunk, AGAIN.. oh well, you can't teach an old dog new tricks - isn't that what they say ?

Bottoms up - see you on http://ghetto-net.blogspot.com tomorrow..

SOCKS and friends

So you're sitting at some random cafe, having a cold beer - whilst surfing your favorite porn, using some semi-public WiFi access-point, in the vicinity of your local beer pusher. How to login to a non-https site, without all the other suckers around you sniffing up your password ?

Quite simple actually, you'll use ssh(1) and it's local "dynamic" application-level port forward - ssh will simply act as a SOCKS server.

On your laptop (running some sort of Unix - obviously), do the following:

ssh -v -D 8989 -N user@host

-v: Verbose mode - in order to see what the is going on
-N: Tells ssh, not to execute a remote command (optional)
user@host: should obviously be replaced by credentials and a box, you have access to.

Next, open your browser (Firefox, obviously) and go into "Preferences" and open the "Connection Settings" dialog box. Click "Manual Proxy Configuration" and enter "localhost" and "8989" under SOCKS.

Voila, you are surfing through the box you port-forwarding to - and traffic between your laptop and your remote box is tunneled through ssh.
Obviously, the traffic from the remote box, to the site your are sending your HTTP request to is not secure, but that's another story.


You can most likely do the same with a windows box, but I'd be fucked if I know how - go ahead, and google it.

Monsoon - Paris Style

I must say we had a greatly entertaining day yesterday.

The day started off with a bit of golf at 12 (I wasn't really awake before then anyways). The weather was FAN-Tastic (35° C, not a cloud), and we were enjoying every bit of this delectable moment.

Then all hell broke loose.

At around 3:45, Clouds started coming in from the SW, big clouds. Within 40 minutes, we had gone from full sunny daylight, to almost pitch black darkness. You know when day becomes night that shit is about to hit the fan, and it hit that fan real hard.

At around 4:30, this is what paris looked like:

The clouds opened up, and we got hail and heavy rain for around an hour....


It goes without saying that Météo France didn't know about this'light drizzle' before it was in sight (literally), and therefore didn't really warn anyone.

We lost power for about a minute, so did our local McDonald's, and all the traffic lights in the area went out of service, reaking havoc everywhere.

Overall I tend to love chaos, so I was loving it from the start. I would have loved to have seen a cow go flying by like in Twister, or see some cars (with their occupants) being thrown around, but i guess just seeing people panicked and scared is pretty cool too..

Guess what? 'They' say that we should have a storm today too.. sweeet!

In the sign of golf

This week, has really been in the sign of golf - and I've got a feeling that so will the weekend.


Dim and I, are now zooming out to the driving-range in our lunch break. We've discovered, that have exactly enough time to shoot 1,5 bucket, and make it back to the office in time.

On Wednesday night, be went out and practiced bunker shots, and putting as well. It's good fun, and gives us an opportunity to profit the great weather.


Btw, it's nice to see that Blogger has added an image hosting service, so you can upload pictures directly to your blog.

Fete de la Musique - Paris, France. June 21st 2005

Well here you have it, another successful "Fete de la Musique". We walked around the Latin Quarter of paris from 8 to 2am, listened to A LOT of loud music, drank A LOT of beer, had A LOT of fun, but didn't have enough merguez sandwiches for my taste. In any case, it was a blast!

Fete de la Musique

Well, well well... it's that time of year again. The annual Fete de la Musique bash is tonight - for the love of god is blows my mind, why this event is not scheduled on a weekend - cause, you *know* that everyone will get shit-canned tonight.

I'm not a huge fan (like everyone else), primarily because of the whole transportation issue. It is impossible to bring your car, and the metro/bus system will be flowing with vomit and fucked up folks. Getting a taxi is less than likely..

I checked out the program for tonight. Not too much that peaked my curiosity, unless you're in to new-wave-tree-huggin' fusion music. Oh well, there's always cold brew and plenty of merguez around - so I guess it won't be a lost cause.

Firefox extensions

Over the next couple of months, I'm going to blog about my absolute favorite Firefox extensions. It might be useful for some people ;)

GreaseMonkey
One of my most recent extensions (and already one of the most useful). GreaseMonkey enables you to "load" any given piece of DHTML while loading a page, hence enabling you to change the behavior of the page. Fx. a small script is Linkify (if you have GreaseMonkey installed, you can right click on the link and press "Install User Script"). Linkify well crawl through all the contents of the loading page, and change all URLs that do have an <a href=... tag - so that you can click on them.

There are hundreds of ready-made and ready to run scripts available here:
GreaseMonkeyUserScripts

The Dim-needs-a-golf-license-but-is-too-broke Fundraiser!

Hello Dear Friends,

I am writing you about a very serious subject. It takes up a vast part of my life and is of utmost importance to me. Of course I am talking about golf. I love it, everything about it. I love hitting the living crap out of that stupid little ball, I love breaking tees, I love hitting 'warning shots' to the group ahead and see their pissed off faces when my ball lands 20 yards in front of them, I love caddies, I love the childish way us men buy our clubs like boys with new toys, I love the cold beer after finishing up a round. I'm sure you've understood, I love golf.

Here is the problem. I can't play golf. I mean I can play golf, but I can't actually go out on a course and play a round, because I do not have a Federation Française de Golf license. I am confined to the premises of our local driving range in Rueil-Malmaison, hitting basket after basket of wasted balls, balls that go up and land, but have no meaning, no "raison d'être*" I do not have a license because I do not have the money to buy one, not because I am cheap, but simply because I am broke.

Hence my request to you, my dear friends and virtual companions. I need to gather 43 € (yes, ONLY 43€!) in order to buy myself a license, and an additional 30€ to play my first round. Any help from my beloved entourage** is welcome. Please contact me if you can help me in any way, or go to the FFG website and buy my license for me. You can also click on the google banners on the blog, hence making us some money. This is my goal in life right now.

You can make my dream come true.

Thank you


Dimitri
(golf-ball-wacker-guy)


*"Reason of being", in Swahili.
** "entourage" means: "the fuckers that hang around with me, or have the luck of knowing me.

Store Wars

For once that vegetables are good for something...

A buddy of ours sent this link to us yesterday- it's too good to not be posted. I admire the ingenuity of the people who made this little film - absolutely amazing, and hilarious. I'm still not going to give up meat and cheap industrially produced vegetables though.. screw that!

AdSense

Yeah, I've put a google text-ad on the sidebar. I invite you all to go click on it, so I can buy more alcohol.

In the hope that I can soon retire, and live (like a king) on my banner earnings alone.

New clubs

Yesterday, Dim and I had the exquisite opportunity to try out our newly acquired clubs. It was good fun, and one of those moments where the "ordeal" is well worth the while...

Dim picked up a Big Bertha 4 iron, with a regular flex graphite shaft. Quite interesting, as we normally play with steel shafts. Here's the clubface:

I picked up a Big Bertha Warbird 3 Wood - also with a regular flex graphite shaft. Very nice indeed:

Both excellent clubs, that gives you a joy - whilst hitting the living crap out of the ball.

The Concorde Lafayette Panoramic bar

Well that's a view in a half! Yesterday, after a long night of Serbians, a keg of beer and various other beverages, mich, myself and our ladies went to the top of the Concorde Lafayette building at Porte Maillot for some coffee.. I must say that although a Grand Crème is 6 euros, it's well worth it considering the view. I recommend the Panoramic bar on the 34th floor - well worth the dosh.

Hello Piratebay!!!

Haha, you devils you!! Piratebay is back online, bigger and better than ever. They even have different languages and everything now. You tricksters you. Well, back to downloading stuff....

Bittorrent replacement

The government (and their friends the lobbyists) are finally catching up with the popular BitTorrent p2p filesharing application. BitTorrent depends heavily on "tracker" sites that will show you the availability of torrents. As many (read: all) those sites are being shut down by the authorities, it is becoming increasingly difficult for filesharers to find the torrents.

Enter Rodi.

From slashdot:

Rodi is a small-client P2P application, written in Java, that improves on BitTorrent by allowing both content searches and full anonymity. It's released under the General Public License (GNU). Even your IP address can be hidden using Rodi through a process called "bouncing." That is, if A wants a file from B, they get C to agree to stand-in on the exchange. B gets C's IP address, not A's. Through IP Spoofing A can even hide their identity from C. Rodi can also be used from behind corporate firewalls and LANs using Network Address Translation (NATs), something most home gateways have.'

Bye Bye PirateBay

Well it finally happened. The PirateBay website was finally brought down by the Swedish anti-piracy authorities.. I guess they made fun of the legal letters one to many times....

The French NON

Well, well, well - so the (majority) of the French voters, opted for NON to the constitution. Is that because 55% of the voters were extreme right-wing or extreme left-wing (as the media apparently will have you believe) ? Not really, it's a desperate scream for change in the French administration. It is a shame, that a the referendum had to be sacrificed - but I do not see it as a big problem.
At worst, the EU constitution will be slightly delayed. On the positive side, it might force the politicians to amend the current "draft" to something even better ?

Oh well, what the hell do I care - and could not cast my vote anyway.. (why is that by the way ? Since, I am an European - that works, lives and pay tax in France - why should I not be able to cast my vote ? )

Another wedding

Last weekend we went to the wedding of Sabrina and Stephane. It was a beautiful ceremony held at an old manoir in the north of France (Manoir de Bloisonville, between Honfleur and Deauville).
We had booked a room in a small hotel in Barneville (5-6 km from Honfleur), called "L'Auberge de la Source". It was very nice, especially as it was located well out on the countryside close to a forest.

I'll see if I can grab some photos from somewhere to put up one of the following days, as I (as usual) forget my camera...

Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith

I finally got my shit together, and went to see the "masterpiece" ! It was great, the CGI was awesome - and a lot of loose ends were explained/tied up.
I think, I'll watch episode 4-5-6 in the upcoming days, perhaps it'll be interesting watching them with a different background..

A few things, about it - I loved that we actually saw the homeworld of Chewbacca, also we saw that Obi-wan Kenobi is a hardcore motherfu**ker - and last but not least, it's great to see Yoda in some one-to-one combat.
The only thing, that bugged me a bit - was how easily Anakin was turned to the dark side, I know we are suppose to believe that he was "blinded" by his love for Padme - but hey, as a Jedi - he is trained to resist the temptation.

If you haven't seen it yet, then you should definitely go and see it - it's one of those movies that really needs to be seen on a big screen.

Google Portal

Tonight (I believe) google will change the frontpage, so you can switch between the classical google page (as it is now) and the new portable-like customizable google page.

It integrates Gmail (should you use it) and Google News. You can also include stockquotes, quote-of-the-day, NYtimes headlines and BBC news headlines.

Check out the preview here.

A few cocktails before the weekend

So i've finally decided to post something, and what else could it be but a few cocktail recipes. Here we go

Jack and Sam

This is one of our favorite shots, when we get to the point of ordering these at the VD, it's basically the beginning of the end. I think this shot makes you blind, deaf, stupid and angry. This is a real man's shot, none of that "creme de mure" or manzana flavored sissy crap.

Very simple to make.
- In a shot glass, pour in half Sambuca (Greek aniseed liquor).
- Layer Jack Daniel's to fill the second half of the glass.
- Shoot that shit.
- note: if you don't have or can't find sambuca, some Uzo will do, or any Aniseed based liquor. The advantage of Sambuca is that it tasted just right, and has the liquory consistency which enables an easy layer, which is handy when you're canned.

Another great way to have sambuca in a shot is to fill a shotglass with sambuca, throw in a couple coffee beans, light the beverage on fire for a couple second, and shoot it (I hope you choke on the coffee beans mich).

Irish Car Bomb

This is a variant of the Flaming Dr. Pepper posted earlier. The principle is the same, half a glass of beer (except THIS time it's not lager, but Guinness or another stout) and a shotglass of alcohol (in this case it's half whisky, half Baileys). So it goes something like this:

- fill half a pint glass with Guinness, Beamish Stout, or any equivalent Stout. Let it settle.
- fill a shotglass with whisky and baileys. You don't have to layer it.
- drop the shotglass into the beer, and chug.

That's all for now, more to come.

Ciao!

Back to work

Back to work as of yesterday, and it is definitely harder than I thought.

The wedding of Thomas and Karine went perfect, and I believe everyone had a great time. We all met up in a small village about 10-15km outside of Toulouse. This is were Karine's family live. The couple were wed by the assisting mayor, whom also know Karine (and her family) since her childhood - which made for a very "cozy" ceremony. It was particularly fun, when he tried pronouncing Danish names ;)
After the official wedding, we were transported another 5-10km out on the country, where the church wedding were to be held. I am personally not much for going in church and whatnot, but I have to admit, it was a very pleasant ceremony, and the priest actually seemed very nice (especially when he cranked up the volume of the Ray Charles CD that was playing..)

Afterwards, everyone drove (while honking their horns like crazy) to the place the reception and dinner would take place. A very nice place, in a remote area - where the kids could play in the outside area while the adults could get loaded on the (excellent) punch.

Dinner was excellent.. fois gras and magret de canard among other things. I, as usual, got plenty of good wine, and finished off nicely with Armagnac.
Met a bunch of cool people, both Frenchmen and Danes - but also brits.
Looking forward going back to Toulouse, hopefully it will be a little bit less stressed for Thomas and Karine so we can chill out, and drink some pastis and play some petanque.

Ripped off from http://ledanois.blogspot.com

Anyhow, congratulations to the newly wed.

Going to Toulouse

Leaving for Toulouse tomorrow morning. We are going to the wedding of Thomas and Karine, and I have a feeling we'll have a real good time. We have decided to stay a couple of extra days, to look at apartment prices in Toulouse, and of course, enjoy a pint or two.

As we've found a hotel in the center with a parking, I've decided to drive.

I'll give a short recap once back in Paris (and fully recovered from the festivities)

Easier than expected

Just got off the phone with our salesmanager in Germany. Apparently, one of network adapters in our firewall got nuked due to power fluctuations last night.
I asked him to fetch a shiny new 10/100 network adapter, and guided him over the phone how to change it. Remarkably it went smooth, and now everything is working again..

I had been considering leaving *real fast* for Germany, but I guess, sometimes you just need to have a little faith in our sales staff ;)

Merge !

It seems that Neuf Telecom & Cegetel are about the merge their IP divisions (for now). Cegetel actually does pretty well in terms of service, and if they can "bump" up the service of Neuf Telecom they might be "big enough" for AOL, Free and FT users to switch ISP.

I, for one, will follow this transaction closely. Free (my current ISP) have a lot of great services, but they do little release engineering when launching them so the quality and stability often suffers..

FreeBSD 5.4-REL is out !

Go get it before your neighbor..

What's new.

A little media player i stumbled upon. Open source, fast, free, i don't see why you wouldn't like it!
check it out here, or chose a mirror to download here.

First (serious) firefox exploit

Yup, you read it right.. a cross-site scripting exploit for firefox 1.x has been released today.. Obviously remote exploitable which can give the attacker system access. I guess it was just a matter of time, let's hope the folks at Mozilla will release a patch RSN.

Until then, you can use the following work-around:
1. Disable JavaScript (always a good thing)
2. Disable the "software installation" function

Read the full report here.

Update: Firefox-1.0.4 has been released, in which the above mentioned exploit has been fixed.

Text2Speech

Very nice little tool :

At&T text to speech engine

Pro*C is shabby

We've got a couple of Pro*C programs, that needs updating. Jeez, Pro*C is a pain in the ass, especially when the original author of the code wrote it in a hurry.. I'm contemplating rewriting it..

What is Pro*C?
Is a oracle supplied preprocessor, that enables you to write you SQL code directly in your C code. Before compiling it, you run the proc(1) preprocessor that converts the SQL code to C.

Why not omit the preprocessor, and write the SQL directly in C?
Cause I suck.

Firefox hits the big 5-0

Today firefox downloads worldwide hit the 50 millions barrier. Holy crap, that's a lot. Hopefully, soon my web statistics will show a majority in Firefox users.

Congrats must be in order to the firefox team.

Just back from Munich

Just came back from a trip to Munich - we moved our office location in Munich, so I had to rollout new firewall pack. This time with a twist though.. We did not want to purchase a big PBX solution from Deutsche Telekom, so we only purchased a couple of ISDN2 lines. Together with VoIP enabled router and a bunch of 7940 Cisco IP phones we've got a nice solution.
Of course, it's going to be better once we route all calls to other offices though our Internet connection, but it will suffice for now.

Had a shitload of weissbeer.. I love coming to Munich, simply because of the excellent weissbeer.

Cisco fun

So I was testing some stuff in my lab for a friend of mine, and I discovered an alternate use of the AUX port on your Cisco router.
Actually I've always been aware of the AUX port, but only thought it would apply for some modem callback stuff.

Here's a cool way to use your AUX port:

r3#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
r3(config)#int loopback 0
r3(config-if)#ip address 10.10.10.10 255.255.255.255
r3(config-if)#no shutdown
r3(config-if)#exit 
r3(config)#line aux 0
r3(config-line)#transport input telnet
r3(config-line)#^Z
r3#

r3#sh line
 Tty Typ     Tx/Rx    A Modem  Roty AccO AccI   Uses   Noise  Overruns   Int
   0 CTY              -    -      -    -    -      1       0     0/0       -
*   65 AUX   9600/9600  -    -      -    -    -     14       2     0/2517358   -
*   66 VTY              -    -      -    -    -     14       0     0/0       -
  67 VTY              -    -      -    -    -      0       0     0/0       -
  68 VTY              -    -      -    -    -      0       0     0/0       -
  69 VTY              -    -      -    -    -      0       0     0/0       -
  70 VTY              -    -      -    -    -      0       0     0/0       -

Line(s) not in async mode -or- with no hardware support:
1-64

I'll now plugin a rollover cable in the AUX port, and the other end into the console port of some other device (in this case a Cat5)

Now I'll be able to do the following:

r3#telnet 10.10.10.10 2065
Trying 10.10.10.10, 2065 ... Open

Console>
Console> sh ver
WS-C5505 Software, Version McpSW: 6.3(4a) NmpSW: 6.3(4a)
Copyright (c) 1995-2002 by Cisco Systems
NMP S/W compiled on Feb  9 2002, 19:11:26
MCP S/W compiled on Feb 09 2002, 18:56:22

System Bootstrap Version: 5.1(1)

Hardware Version: 1.0  Model: WS-C5505  Serial #: xxxxxxxxx

Mod Port Model      Serial #  Versions
--- ---- ---------- --------- ----------------------------------------
1   2    WS-X5550   022301142 Hw : 1.2
                            Fw : 5.1(1)
                            Fw1: 5.2(1)
                            Sw : 6.3(4a)

     DRAM                    FLASH                   NVRAM
Module Total   Used    Free    Total   Used    Free    Total Used  Free
------ ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ----- ----- -----
1       32768K  18662K  14106K   8192K   3910K   4282K  512K  185K  327K

Uptime is 0 day, 5 hours, 30 minute

Pretty nifty, If you need console access to a device that is behind a core-router..

Awesome..

A nice article on how to set up VSAT, picture step-by-step.

Read it here

[via boingboing]

Coolest music video EVER!

It's a damn shame that only these modern artists, are not using the KISS principle when creating music videos.
You've got:
* chicks
* the band
* a cheap plastic tent from Toys'R'Us
* and some sweet 70s groove

(click on the image to see the full video)

Retro

I was walking around Virgin Megastore the other day, when I stumbled upon this _really_ retro offer:

I was actually considering getting it - but I really do not have any space for it. Too bad, there's a bunch of classic games on it.

Culture

We had my brother visiting over Easter.. We had some good fun. Got some booze, and good food.
As usual we walked a lot around Paris, and also visited Notre-Dame (I hadn't been there in ages.. ) - Lots of people, and especially lots of tourists.

Easter monday we visited Le Louvre, I hadn't been there since 1997 or so, not much had changed, except they had finished the Egyptian section. As always, I had forgotten my camera, so the few photos I managed to take, has been taken with my phonecam.

I was quite impressed with the Egyptian exhibition, and can warmly recommend it.

Angry lookin' mofo




They actually have a Sphinx

We also shopped and ate at "Le Caroussel du Louvre", which is a sorta mall/gallerie beneath Le Louvre. They've got a bunch of overpriced shops, and a huge restaurant with food from all over the world.

Sick as a dog

I'm rarely sick.. even more rarely to the point of not going to work. There is nothing more frustrating than sitting at home being sick..
Well, the jump from winter to summer did it for me, my body freaked out. I'm sneezing like a madman, and my throat is sore as hell.

Though, it gives me some time to catch up on some work (from the comfort of my own bed) - naturally my coding looks "interesting" as I'm pretty much super high from all the drugs and antibiotics.

Thieving bastards

I came home last night to a nasty surprise - my semi-monthly bank "statement".. It would seem that, while I was at the bbq event on Sunday - I was simultaneously using my creditcard with a passion somewhere in Belgium..

Result: ~1700 EUR charged from my account. Fucking hell..

Went to my bank this morning, and made the "opposition" and all the other damned papers that needed signing. My creditcard had to be destroyed, so I have to wait a week for a new one.. Jeebus, what a mess !
Good news is, that my bank insurance covers everything - so I've got nothing to worry about.

I'd like to get my hands on those sorry-ass hobos that duplicated my card.. it'd almost be worth the 1700EUR..

Summer is here

So we went from winter directly to summer - seems like we completely skipped spring !

Last week we had snow, and were all wearing big sweaters, scarfs and gloves. Yesterday and today it's around 23 degrees celsius - and I'm just wearing a shirt.. no need for a jacket.

I love the summer..

New laptop !

Wohooo ! My new laptop just arrived..
FreeBSD-CURRENT installation in progress.

Monday night fight action

So I was sitting at home watching a movie, when all of a sudden all hell broke loose down on the street where I live.. A couple of no-good-drunken-hobos from the little bar next to my place, had gotten into a regular fist fight..
Jeebus, they kicked the fuck out of each other, yelling and screaming like a couple of dandies... Anywho, shortly after the fight a wholelotta cop cars came, including a firetruck.. They must have been bored ?

It provided a good supplement from the crap movie I was watching..

First BBQ of the year

Went out to the 'burbs yesterday, and had this years first BBQ - and (as usual) it was most excellent. Few things are better than a shitload of meat sizzling on the grill.
It was still a bit chilly, but definently do-able.
Dim, Rog and myself also threw back a few nice cold brewskies..

aahh.. I feel the summer comin'

On a side note: The next person to send me a sms.ac invite, will be entering a world of pain..

FUCKING HELL

Alright, that's it! If someone else sends me a fucking dumbass invitation to that
STUPID FUCKING SMS.AC SHIT, I will personally fucking unscrew their heads.
I am sick of getting that stupid goddamn invitation for a service that is absolutely
fucking idiotic. FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE! I dont want your shabby fucking no-good
service.


fucksake!

Snow

Hello All,

well guess what i woke up to this morning..



And from work..



Needless to say it was damn cold this morning. You have to understand we get about 2 days of snow in paris per year, so this is a big deal. You've got kids out there raking the snow off Peugeot hoods to make 3 inch snowmen, I mean Jacques Chirac might make a speech or something, might even fire the Assemblée there..

So it's pretty cool, I mean, it's a change in the daily routine. Did I mention I almost killed myself 7 times this morning walking on ice...


Snoop concert

The Snoop Dogg concert last week was most excellent - I had a superb time. There were roughly 15.000 people in Bercy, and the atmosphere was great !
Warm up was done by Flypside (??) and "The Game" - I especially enjoyed "The Game" - as he gave a little extra performance by jumping directly into the crowd, and kick some ass - as someone from the crowd had insulted him.. Anyway, it was great fun, especially from far away...

Snoop played a bunch of the classics, and a few songs from the new album - it was beautiful !

Needless to say, the majority of the crowd lit up da blunt, which helped to easy the tension, and after the concert - I was amazed to see everyone so calm and passive.

Spicy Chicken Basil

Hello all,

Monday! Yay!

Went to an Asian market over in teh 13th yesterday to do some shopping. You can find some great stuff in there, not expensive, and things that can really make your meals a hell of a lot more fun. Here's a link to the supermarket's site, plus their addresses..

Tang Freres
Shop address: 44 and 48, avenue d'Ivry, 75013 Paris. Tel.: (33)(1)45708000
Transport: Bus 62

So we went apeshit in that store, bought a bunch of stuff, including a rice cooker and a huge knife (for me), which I put to work on the following recipe. This takes around 15 minutes to prepare. Get your rice cooking before you start, so it's all ready at the same time.

Spicy Chicken Basil.

What you need for 2 servings.

400 grams of chicken scallops.
Half of red and green peppers, chopped up in cubes.
10 basil leaves. Try to find the type used in Asian food, as it has a different taste.
half a teaspoon of ground chili powder
half a teaspoon of papkria
2 teaspoons of Soya sauce
2 teaspoons of Oyster sauce (just do it, it's worth it)
2 teaspoons of fish sauce (Nyok Mam is good)
2 small spring onions, chopped up
half a chopped up lemongrass.
2 teaspoons vegetable oil (I used olive oil, don't have any vegetable oil, and it came out fine)

How to do it:

- In a hot wok or pan, pour in your oil, and cook the chicken between 2 and 4 minutes, depending on the type of burners you have.
- Once the chicken is golden, pour in the Soya and Oyster sauces, the Nyok mam, the chili and the paprika. Let this cook for another 2 minutes.
- Next throw in the spring onions, lemongrass, peppers and basil leaves. Let cook for another 2 to 3 minutes.

Serve right away, accompanied with that fine rice you made

Voila!! That's an easy enough recipe, fast, and damn good. Enjoy!!

Snoop concert

Tonight Dim and myself are going to see the Snoop Dogg concert in Paris Bercy !!!

More to come..

Today's Drink: Screaming Orgasm

Hello All,

Here we are for today's drink. I made it a special one.

Screaming Orgasm.

In a Shaker:

Ice
2cl. Vodka
2cl. Amaretto
2cl. Baileys
2cl. Kahlua
10cl. Milk or liquid cream (nicer taste)
SHAKE vigorously.
Top the glass with whipped cream.

Now this may seem like a chicks drink, but don't put the whipped cream (so you still feel like a man),
and you've got a pretty strong smooth drink.

Another drink (today's special- SNOOP AAAND COLOMBO!!)

White Russian:

Lowball glass filled with ice
Build this drink, no shake.
4cl. Vodka
4cl. Kahlua
10cl. milk or liquid cream

Black Russian: Same as White Russian, except you don't put any milk/ cream.

and your BONUS SHOT for today:

The B52

in a 6cl shot glass: (adjust for smaller shot glasses)
2cl. Kahlua
2cl. Baileys (layered)
2cl. Cointreau (layered as well. Use Cointreau, not triple sec, as triple sec is a less refined alcohol,
therefore heavier, hence will not float properly. Cointreau on the other hand will float easily.
Use a teaspoon to layer if you can't do it otherwise.
layering instructions: http://www.drinknation.com/bartending/howto_layer.php

Take your time, and you should be able to light the Cointreau.

Stick a straw in the shotglass and down the drink immediately. Voila!

Cheers!

Spam

Roughly 75% of all emails sent in 2004 were spam - and statistics show that if nothing is done about spam - about 95% of all emails sent in 2006 will be spam.. Holy cow, we need to get something done about this NOW !

I'm using SpamAssassin, first on a corporate level - and I'm filtering on my local box once more with a much stricter ruleset - however, I still have something like 5-10 spam mails in my inbox every morning - it's crazy. (My caughtspam folder gets something like 100-150 mails pr day)

I've been looking into the whole Sender Policy Framework (SPF) thing - and I'm not convinced that it will solve our problems...

Snoop Dogg

Picked up the latest Snoop Dogg album the other day - that's some snizzle-dizzle good stuff ! Good quality music, with well constructed lyrics. This is the absolute best Snoop album since Doggystyle..

Go pick it up at your local cd pusher..

Today's Drink: Long Island Ice Tea (Paris-style)

Hello!!

Today's beverage is a classic, I grew up on this stuff, and it is also the granddad of the Serbian, so Respect!

Here's how I make a Long Island. Mich, try this tonight, it's bound to make you giddy.

In a BIG-ASS GLASS (Pint glass preferably, minimum 40cl, recommended 50 or 60cl glass)
- Fill the glass with a good amount of ice.
This is a drink you "build", so no shaking is involved
- pour in 2cl. of each of the following: Gin, Tequila, White Rum, Vodka and Triple Sec.
- next, pour in sour mix to up to 2/3 of the glass.
- top the rest of the glass with coke, pour it in gently so it floats on top of the sour mix.
- add a couple pieces of lime, no straw...

- make sure to mix the drink up before downing it.

Voila! Enjoy

Drinks - a gogo !

So tried out a few drinks the last couple of days.. Here my sad little report..

Tequila Sunrise:
- 6cl Tequila
- Orange Juice
- a dash of grenadine

Fill a tall glass with ice, and pour in the Tequila - fill the rest of the glass with orange juice. Stir it up real good, and finally add a dash or two of grenadine (note: when adding the grenadine, do it with a swift movement so the grenadine falls to the bottom of the glass fast - it will then raise a bit from the bottom and give the drink that authentic sunrise look)

Best enjoyed in the comfort of your couch.

I tried out that Gin Fizzzz ala Dim.. (No I did not choke on the wedge, as I used the straw.. sucker)
It was good, though you might want to put a little more gin, and a little less sour mix.. (I mean, we drinking this shit for a reason)

Today's Drink - Gin Fizzzzz

Hello Fellow boozers,


Here's Today's cocktail recipe... enjoy!

Gin Fizz (my way)

In a shaker:
- 4 cl. Bombay Sapphire gin
- 2 cl. Triple sec or Cointreau
- 15 cl. sour mix (if you don't have this 'mich', put half lime juice, half sugar cane syrup, so that's 7.5 cl of each, approximately)
- throw a wedge of lime in there, for color.
Shake all that (vigorously)
Pour into a nice highball glass (yeah mich, a big glass)
Top the mixture up with some Sprite/ 7up.
Add an umbrella, and a straw.

Voila (I hope you choke on the lime wedge mich)

Cheers!

Dimitri

Gotta love the Firefox

If you haven't already done it, I urge you to go into the "preferences" menu in Firefox, choose "Web Features" and click "Advanced.." - in here you can disable all those nasty things that javascript fucks around with..

I can especially recommend, disabling "move or resize existing windows" - so you can surf poRn in the office hours without worrying about some naked chick being blown up fullscreen in 1600x1200 resolution.. yay !

Personal Bar necessities

Hi all,

Here's a little something for those people who want the quality of a good drink in the depth of their living room couch (mich...), or for those who are sick of seeing bartenders pretend they know how to make a drink.

I've decided to place here a little lists of ingredients you might need to open your own personal living room bar. Being a former bartender, i can guarantee that the following is what YOU need to have a cocktail party in the warmth of your own home. Of course i have made this personal bar as I would make it, and with the ingredients which would end up in my favorite drinks. Here we go.

Alcohols - the fundamentals.

Scotch whisky (just normal stuff. You might want a good bottle of pure malt as well)
Bourbon - Jack Daniels No7, Wild Turkey, Four Roses
Vodka - a bottle of normal vodka, I have a bottle of Zubrovska (polish) vodka lying around as well.
Gin (Bombay Sapphire)
Tequila (José Cuervo)
Rum (Bacardi white, and a bottle of dark agricultural rum as well)
Triple Sec or Cointreau
Blue Curacao (It has exactly the same taste as Triple sec, it's just blue to be pretty)
Baileys or some Irish cream
Kahlua
Amaretto (just cheap stuff, no need for the expensive stuff)
Peach schnapps or Crème de Peche
Sambuca (very important, for one drink in particular)
Cachaca
Malibu
Southern Comfort

Mixers.
Orange juice
Pineapple
Cranberry
Coke / Pepsi
7up/ Sprite
Tonic (Schweppes)
Club soda
grenadine
mint syrup
Sour Mix (Lemon, Lime, and sugar cane syrup)
milk
Sugar cane syrup
Limes
Lemons
Mint leaves
whipped cream

Ustensils.
Shaker
Glasses
Ice (lots of it)
straws and paper umbrellas (if you want to look cool sitting there in your boxers on your couch)

I know all these seems like a lot, but once you have a bottle of each, it'll last you a while (unless you go by the name of mich or dim..) I've probably omitted some stuff, but fuck it.

Here are some drinks you can make. If you need the recipes, send me an email. I'll try to put up recipes later.

Alright, so with the above ingredients, you can make.. (short list, there's more)

Screwdriver, Tequila Sunrise, Amaretto Sour, Gin Tonic, Gin Fizz, White Russian, Black Russian, Screaming Orgasm, Long Island Ice Tea, Serbian Ice tea, Mai Tai, Planter's Punch, Blue Hawaiian, Kamikaze, Jack&Sam, Irish carbomb (need guinness), Flaming Dr.Pepper (need beer) B52, B57, Mudslide, Blowjob, Cosmopolitan, etc etc etc.

Cheers!

The Buck

Had myself a couple of nice drinks this weekend - I can warmly recommend "The Buck" :

6cl Gin (Bombay of course - accept no substitution)
4cl Freshly pressed lemon juice
2cl Get27
Top off with Ginger Ale

Mix Gin, Lemon juice and Get27 in a shaker, and poor it into a glass filled with ice. Top it off with Ginger Ale and garnish with a couple of mint leaves and a slice of lemon.

Enjoy !

Snow

Arrived in Warsaw, Poland last night. Holy crap is cold up here.. It's been snowing constantly, and it's white all over the place. I should have brought a bigger/better coat, cause I'm freezing my ass off.

Went out to a nice restaurant last night, and had a decent meal - pretty good. Afterwards went to "Paparazzi bar" for drinks.

Finished the evening talking to some brits in the hotel bar over some more drinks.. this morning was a bit hard - but I survived.

Got the firewall up and running, now configuring the workstations - things seems to be going smoothly (for once)

Universal Remote

I've been thinking about getting an universal remote control, as I'm sick and tired of having the better part of my sofa-table filled with remotes. So far a I have the following remotes:
- TV
- VCR
- DVD
- DivX Player
- Freebox
- Xbox
- Receiver/Tape deck
- CD player
- Minidisk desk

That's just too much.
The only problem with the majority of all those universal remotes, is that their functionality pretty much limits to volume up/down, channel up/down and power-on/off.

The other day, I discovered the One-In-All Kameleon URC-8210 - that is a nice piece of hardware. I can hook up 10 different devices to it, it is upgradable (download new codes from the net) and has a recharge station - and most importantly it looks friggin' awesome. It's a touch screen kinda thing, with a cool blue lit background..

The only downsides so far:
- I don't think it can replace the Freebox remote, as it is pretty special, all the others should be ok though.
- The price.. A whopping 149EUR.. it's a little steep - but hey, after all it is the rolls-royce of remotes.

Should I get it ?

Update: Looks like I'm gonna have to wait, as it seems that the remote will not be available on the european market before end January or start February.

Golf

Went out to the driving-range yesterday, and hit the crap out of a bunch of golf balls. I gotta admit, it's pretty relaxing, especially with the fresh air all around. It's the first time in months, I'm at the driving-range so I'm pretty busted today..

Note to self: I really need to get into shape.

I need to buy some new clubs..

CanalSatDSL

CanalSat just activated my account this weekend. It's pretty cool, and it works flawlessly. It's nice to have the extra channels, especially with "switch language" function on some of the channels - I am no longer forced to watch all my favorite shows dubbed in French - yay!
As I signed up before 31/12/04 - I benefit from this offer:
- All channels + movie channels pack 20EUR/mth
- No startup fee (normally 40EUR)
- They'll upgrade my Freebox to v4, which will give 15Mbit/s downrate (normally 90EUR)

In addition, I know have digital channels, and a semi-working EPG (they'll probably extend their service in the coming months, as this is brand new) - without the hassle of having a satellite dish.

STOP

Alright.. could everyone just STOP sending those goddamn Eurorest hoax free hotel stays mails ?

Search for Eurorest on google - and hit #3 is : HoaxBuster

It is a nice way of creating a database with potential spam victims - and no, you will NOT get free hotel stays.. fuck sake, nothing in this world is free..

(At least stop feeding them my email - k? thx)

Hot temper

So.. got the suitcase... now let's get a cab..

It's really interesting to see how people from the south are much more hot-headed than people from the north.. or at least people from the north are better at controlling/hiding it..

The first cab in the huge line, was loading his car with his clients suitcase - and apparently taking too long so all the others started to honk their horns.. and the cab driver went off on them.. which resulted in a bunch of angry drivers getting out of their cars yelling back at him.. "Move that piece of shit.." - "Go fuck yourself.." "You're such a fool, that you can't carry yourself.. now move !" [roughly translated by our Spanish speaking salesmanager]

Quite amusing actually..

Btw, holy crap there's a lot cabs in this city !

Spain

Arrived in Madrid yesterday.. It's a nice city, with cool people. It's actually my first visit here, though not my first visit to Spain..
After the usual boring flight (what a waste of time flying is..) - the first interesting point of action, was the baggage delivery. While waiting for my baggage to arrive on the little rolling-table-thingie (yes, the right one according to the information screen, and the other 150 passengers from the plane) - I noticed another of the rolling-thingies running around filled with baggages and nobody to claim it. While inspecting these baggages the original rolling-thingie started to turn, all while a spanish airport worker ran around like a headless chicken, telling people that some of the baggages arrived on the first rolling-thingie and some on the other..

Go figure..

Happy newyear !

Wishing all you suckers an excellent new year - with plenty of booze and (subsequently) lots of hangovers..

stay beautiful..

Tartiflette

Went up to the christmas market at La Defense, and had Tartiflette and sausage from Savoie today... goooooooood !!!!!! It's not christmas without it ...

Merry xmas, have a good one everyone !

Chunky Monkey

Last time I went back home, my mom had gotten me an icecream maker. Tried it out this weekend, and ended up with a pretty damn good result..

In my efforts to boycott US products, I've been forced to stop buying "Ben & Jerry - Chunky Monkey" - Chocolate-chip/banana flavored icecream..

Recipe for "Chunky Monkey ala mich":
5 egg yolks
100gram of sugar
1/2L of Cream
1Tbsp of Vanilla Sugar
2 Bananas
50g of dark chocolate

Whip the egg yolks together.. and the sugar, vanilla sugar and the cream. Whip it together, and take your time to make it completely liquid.
Chop the bananas into smaller pieces and add them to the mix, and whip it together with a blender - until there are no "pieces of banana" left. Finally, chop or grate the chocolate into small pieces, and add it to the mix.
Pour the mix into the machine, and let it do its magic for about 20 minutes - and voila !

Citrix

We are currently migrating old our users from Citrix Metaframe 1.8 to fast'n'dandy Citrix Presentation Server 3.0 Load-Balanced serverfarm - it's good stuff.. Hopefully, the increased processor power, will accommodate our users and all their excel/outlook/word shit..

On the old setup we used Uniprint, to handle printing - and apparently this is no longer needed on Presentation Server 3.0.. Normally using the generic Citrix printer drivers, should we sufficient - however one of our HP printers has addon stuff (such as extra trays) - and the generic driver can't handle that. So, it looks like we have to install the HP driver.. Last time I installed a HP driver on a Metaframe server, the thing blue-screened, and we were without metaframe for over a week...

Lazy..

Just ordered a bunch of new domains for work.. I just looked at the price we are paying for Worldcom to handle our domains... Jeeez, you'd think they were handling plutonium.
What a waste of money.
I really oughtta install our own DNS server, though I've really got plenty of stuff to do...

FreeBSD 5.3

Just ordered my complimentary copy of FreeBSD 5.3 on DVD-ROM.

Now I just need a linux install-party to crash ;)

Pick up your copy HERE

Firefox

Just made a group wide policy at work - no more IE for anyone. All employees are getting Firefox installed, and are required to use it.

(I've setup a bogus proxy server in IE, so when opening IE it is unable to connect to any site)

Let's hope we'll see less spyware, hotbars and shit.

Busy as hell

I'm neglecting the blog a bit, but I'm just too damn busy to write something semi-interesting. We are still struggling with our new CRM system. It's like an onion, the more layers you peal off the more it stinks !

Also, we are setting up a new citrix server farm.. It's actually coming along nicely. Doing last configs now, and hopefully tomorrow or Friday people will be able to logon..

Sweet mother of all that is good and pure..

Woke up an hour earlier than usual this morning, and went out for a small run. I am sooooo out of shape.. I ran for about 25 minutes, and when I came back I was about to go into cardiac arrest..

Anyway, who would have thought.. Me, waking early up and going for run.. ? Perhaps, this is the beginning of a new era ?

Jesusland

Jesusland

[via ledanois]

(Experiment to check out visitor increase)

Good French products

Successful non-US products evening:

Start out with fois gras and champagne.

Continue with well-seasoned grilled chicken, and oven-grilled potatoes - with a nice bottle of Saint-Emilion.

Finish the dinner off with, coffee and Hennessy (Cognac)

Who needs US products ?

Day off

Went into the office on my day off, as we had a server crash.. Fucking hell..

Nanterre / La Defense looks pretty deserted on the morning of a national holiday:

Sticking with it

Oh, in case you were wondering.. Dim and myself, are still sticking with the US product boycott. It's actually easier that I had anticipated. Besides from the coke and the jack - I was not buying too many US products.

Good news for those following our program, I've been in contact with the customer relations department of Cadbury/Schweppes - and they assured me that they were a 100% non-US organization. So go ahead and drink:
* 7up
* Orangina
* Snapple
* Dr. Pepper
* Oasis

Paris

Off this morning to a meeting about VoIP at place Saint-Augustin in the 8th. I checked out the itinerary on Mappy last night, it suggested that the trip would take about 14 minutes.

The meeting was scheduled at 8h30, so I thought I'd make great time by leaving at 7h35. Until I saw this: [200 meters from my street]



I arrived at 8h45!
70 minutes to drive a distance of 6km.. Holy crap !!

I am so glad I don't have to drive around in Paris every day.. The traffic is getting worse and worse..

That's it

Well - it looks like we're in for another 4 years of crap with that JACKASS George W. Bush - I am soooo happy I do not live over there !

So what I do, to show them that I oppose their election ?
Well, I'll boycott US products over the next four years. No more:
* Coke
* Jack Daniels (Yup, it'll hurt)
* McD (That might actually be good for me)
* Mars, twix, snickers etc etc
* Levi's, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein..
* Motorola, HP, Cisco, IBM..
* etc etc etc

It'll be rough.. but I'll try to stick with it for as long as it takes.. if we all (us non US-residents) boycott US products, it will have a huge impact on their economy - and that is (in my opinion) the best way to punish them.

The boys are back in town..

'nuff said

That guy with the ponytail..

On the way over to the MCI arrangement (previously mentioned) - we saw Karl Lagerfield (Is that how it is spelled ?). We had just parked the car in parking Place Vendôme - while "en route" to Boulevard de la Madeleine, we saw "that guy with the ponytail" (as Dimitri called him) snapping some pics of a model posing on Place Vendôme..

Who the hell wears sunglasses at around 9pm, when it's dark.. what a jackass..

I snapped a pic with my phone, but the quality sucks - so I'm not even going to bother uploading it..

Wine pop quiz

Last night Dim and I went to a wine tasting arrangement at Lavinia. The arrangement had been organized by MCI (our ISP) - and since we've been loyal clients (before-, during- and post-chapter 11) we were invited. It was great fun, and Lavinia is a cool shop, they have a vast selection of wine and booze of all sorts.
During the evening, a "wine trivia pop quiz" was held.. Jeez, that's stuff is not easy. First off, we tasted 6 wines (2 white, and 4 red) and we had to map down where in the world they came from. I believe, there were wines from Chili, Argentina, Italy, India, Australia and South-Africa. I think my favorite was the redwine from Italy (Tuscany).
The last part of the "quiz" consisted of 20 questions, about wine and its origins. Fx.:
Q: Who was Petrus?
- A famous chef
- A General under Napoleon the third
- A sommelier under King Louis the XIV

We tried to cheat, and looked some of the questions up over GPRS on my phone, but it was taking too much time, so we tried calling some wine-savvy person we know - whom helped us with a few answers..

We didn't win... (surprise surprise) - well, actually we believe that MCI "fixed" the winners, as the winners were all big accounts (such as Renault)
We were #1 of all the small companies, and we won a book about wine ! Yay!

We finished our glasses, grabbed our "prize" and headed for the exit.. Stopped by a pub and a couple of pints and a shot of Jack...

All in all a nice evening, though we both feel a bit busted today !

Peerio

Exit skype - enter peerio..



Pure p2p - no server - no hazzle !

A sign from god

Engaged in the extreme sport of Tennis this weekend.. big mistake.. I had played for about 6 minutes, when I lost my balance and slammed into the ground while running... Result: big wound on my right knee, and a fucked up right arm. I also seem to have a "pressured" rib. Which is the result, of me not being able to sleep very well, nor sit up, stand up, walk, cough, laugh, sneeze etc etc etc without an agonizing pain in my upper chest..
I suppose it's a sign from above, that I should not practise sport of any kind, I should just sit tight on the couch with my pint of lager while watching TV ?

Gmail

I've got invites.. anyone wants one ? Drop a message, or send me a mail.

SalesLogix BLOWS

We've been changing CRM systems. Before we used some semi-home-developed stuff called SuperOffice .. it blew. We had more and more trouble with it over the last 12 months, so some months ago we decided to switch system.
We chose SalesLogix developed by Sage. This was an obvious choice, as our financial systems are also Sage - this would in theory enable us to only have customer information one place. A "bridge" between the two systems have been setup, and we are able to synch the accounts. Excellent, in theory that is.

The salesrep from SalesLogix told us, that installation and import of data from the old CRM system would take approx. one day.... We've been in the process of getting it working for about one month now. Go figure..

Considering ditching it all together and go back to SuperOffice...

Ever noticed...

So... I'm trying get a new phone.. I've been looking at the Sony-Ericsson T630. Yes I know it's not state-of-the-art, and it cannot anticipate my toilet needs, do my groceries, and feed my cat - but it seems like a nice phone to me - in addition it is no too big, nor to pricy.

OK, I know which phone I'd like - the rest should be piece of cake, right? Not really.. I've been looking into the different operators in France, and also the subscriptions they offer.. jeeez.. you have to have a phD or something to understand that.. Apparently you need to know how many calls you place and receive and where they go to (national, local or international) how many MB you'll download with GPRS etc etc.. I have no fucking idea, alright ?

So, I call a "diagnostic service" with Orange... First off, when you call them, before getting connected to a "real-live-person(tm)" you need to tap in your phone number (the one you are calling from) via DTMF tones.. and what is the FIRST thing they ask for ? The number I am calling from ! Are you kidding ? I just entered that into the voice-service-system.. god damn it.. they are fucking with our minds..
On top of that, they weren't very helpful..

More to come..

Think McFly, Think !

Well, well, well.. today I received another good proof that city-officials have had their head replaced by their ass.
My street runs into a main road, that leads directly to central-Paris, and the other way the street heads to a bigger city, and the motorway network around Paris (A86) - I don't really need to get on this main road, but I need to cross it, in order for me to come to work... Thus this morning, late as usual, I'm going about my business and half-asleep on my way to work.. When I discover that the city officials have decided to make major road-work EXACTLY where I need to cross the main road ! Goddamn it ! I sat there and waited for 12 minutes, hence making me late for work.. AGAIN !

Now you might go, "ohh.. well road work needs to be done, and that does not make city-officials stupid.. bla bla bla".. well, yes.. yes it does.

Anyone knowing France (Paris more specific) are aware that the month of August is dead - because of school vacations and what-have-ya.. so why, oh why, can't they make their stupid-ass road work in August, thus not bothering a shitload of people ? Noooooooooo... we'd rather wait until the first day of September when everyone's back, and where we can annoy a bunch of people !

Argggghhhhh !!!!!!!

That's it ! I'm not paying anymore taxes.. they have fucked with me for the last time !