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I started of the year with a citytrip to Paris. It has been 5 years since I was there, when my girl took me for a surprise weekend, because I turned old (30). That was loads of fun! The pictures of that visit are here. The pictures of this little trip will be uploaded soon. Anyways, had a great time there! It was hellacold, but we spend 90% of our time outside anyways. Ey, we ain’t a bunch of wankers, right?

So, what did we do there in Paris? We just wondered around town, checked out the Eiffel tower, Arc de Triomph, Moulin Rouge, Euro Disney, had some drinks and food here and there. All and all really enjoyed ourselves. I’ve uploaded some small impression movies. Just a few, because the cold just drained my batteries like crazy! Here they are:

It really amazes me, how fast a year actually goes by! This is the last day of 2009 man… Time really flies! So, what do you do at the last day of the year? You look back at the previous year. Well, that is what everybody seems to be doing though. Sure, loads of things happened this year, but the really noteworthy have been posted here already, so why repeat those? Another popular thing to do, is looking ahead to the next year. Well… I have no idea what the next year will bring. Sure, do have some things planned, but ey, I cannot look into the future. So, wont do any predictions here neither.

Yeah, I know, it’s boring. All I actually want to do right now, is wishing everybody who actually reads this, an awesome 2010! Hope all your wishes come true and you have a blast! Enjoy new-year’s eve and watch out for teh fireworks!

I find it really intriguing, that the older you get, the more you look like a monkey. Apparently all the hair that disappears at the top of your head, grows back on other places. And not the places you’d like it to grow. The beard gets broader, hair starts to grow on your back and shoulders, your ears get hairy, it grows out of your nose, your eyebrows get huger by the day… Man! It costs a fortune to keep yourself human! I really wonder why it works this way. I mean, what the hell do you need all that body hair for anyway? I’ve got sweaters man! Those will cover me from the cold. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t look like a monkey yet. But it sure as hell is going that way. I’ve got me a tweezerman and waxstrips to keep me monkey-less. But it’s a time consuming job…

This makes me wonder, why all these products are aimed at women. Or do women go monkey as well? I think there is a huge market out there to de-monkey men. Buying de-monkey products is like buying booby magazines. You buy a booby magazine and some used car magazine together, to pretend you need a new car and buy the booby magazine for a “friend”. This happens with the de-monkey products as well. Because they are so feminine, men buy a feminine de-monkey product and rubbers, to pretend the de-monkey product is for their girlfriend. Hmmm, maybe that is why there are no manly de-monkey products! It boosts the sale of rubbers!

It is not something people tend to be talking about easy, the monkey transformation. But it is happening to all of us! Did you notice any really old people lately? They don’t walk around with straight backs, but they are curved. Like a monkey! So my guess is that Darwin was wrong after all: first there was man, then there was monkeys!

A big yay for the boxes that arrived today! Three new bad-ass servers, a bunch of memory, several hard disks and two gigabit switches. Pretty sweet stuff to go and play around with, right? Sure, it creates a load of work to get it all up and running, but ey, it is a fun job to do! This hardware was all ordered because of the stuff I learned at the course I attended in Saint Petersburg the other week. It sometimes is hard to convince management to do large investments, but the course armed me with loads of ammo. I mean, it is better to spend a little more to prevent loads of trouble at a later time, then spending less and get in a shitload of trouble. Which will cost you a lot more then when you would have invested just a bit better in a more expensive, but stable solution.

So, what am I going to do with the new stuff? Two of the servers will be used as database servers, running linux and mysql. All scsi based. Yes, those two are beasts! Well, they should be, because they are the base for a real-time system, with quite a lot of queries running. One of the servers will be a slave for reporting. Besides the new servers, some “old” ones I already have here, will be upgraded. Three dialers and two webservers. All tux based of course. The dialers with asterisk and the webservers with apache.

All of them will work together with Vicidial. Yes, it’s a shitload of work to get it all up and running and put them all in the racks, but ey, it’s a fun job! Better go and get started now…

Yes, back in town again baby! Back from a week hanging out in Florida. I went there for a Vicidial course. This course was pretty good and it was awesome to see the actual Vicidial building and employees. Really nice and capable people, who taught me quite a bit about the suite. I already knew quite a bit from working with the suite, but it really helps if somebody gives you a bunch of live info. I mean, just reading documents is ok, but nothing beats human interaction. I’m far from a Vicidial master yet, but going to do some really hard work to get up to pace. I have some nifty ideas for some cool features as well. Now all I need is time… :/ Ah well, it will work out! Anyway, if you use Vicidial, I can recommend taking a course with these guys! Not only are they crazy smart, they also know very good spots to have lunch. I know that has nothing to do with learning stuff, just mentioning it…

So, what else did I do there? I started out with not doing that much, because Saint Petersburg appeared to be a bit of a boring town… Almost nobody in the streets and an empty mini-mall. They had a gamestop though, so got me some new games. The prizes are unreal man! I have no idea why we have to pay so much more for a game in Europe. Anyway, did some walking around the town, blistered my feet because of the flip-flops i was wearing and had some nice views. Because it is beautiful there man! The ocean, nice sunny weather, big ass birds. Pretty sweet! I did get me some new open shoes at the mini-mall as well, because those blisters man… they hurt! I lost some blood trough those. Picked up some Birkenstocks to be able to do some more around town walking. I have to say: it can be quite boring, being alone. There were some cool people who worked at the hotel though, who were nice to have some conversations with. And this girl who worked at the restaurant next door, where I had my breakfast every day, was very cool as well. But besides having some nice chats with those people, you are still alone in a big city.

So, that’s when the power of social media kicked in! I’ve did some work/brainstorming for a project a while back, where I met up with a guy, who happened to live at Saint Petersburg! I happened to remember I knew someone there and checked my Brightkite account if I remembered correctly. I did! I found that Matthew was living there. He actually lives 9 blocks from the hotel I was staying at. So, decided to contact him and guess what: had a great time with Matthew and his girlfriend. We started of with a dinner and ended up spending quite some time together. They are awesome people who took a lot of effort to show me around town and did all kinds of cool stuff with me! We visited cool places, did some bike riding, had lunches and dinners, went shopping. They even took me to the airport on my departure day, but not before making me pancakes! It was really awesome and we had a good click together. The meet-up with those guys made my non-course days a lot cooler then if I would have been there all alone. I would probably have been bored and poor, because it was not very easy to get around town without a car. Those distances man! They gave me the all-American experience, by taking me to places I would never have found on my own and telling me about the local food, which I would probably not have ordered if I would have been eating out on my own. So yeah, Brightkite is a very useful product!

So, all and all had a great time at Saint Pete’s. Made some really cool new friends and learned a lot about Vicidial. What more can you wish for, right? And yes, I took pictures, but haven’t had the time nor the energy to put those up yet. After a 16-17 hour journey including transfer time and a jet-lag I have not done anything with them. Yet! Will put them up as soon as I feel like it though. This week will be a bit of a tough one for me, with the jet-lag and all. Hope it will not take more then a day or 3 to get over it. Ah hell, jet-lags are worth it man, just had an awesome time!

Man, I’ve been neglecting this blog waaaaay too long. Again… I know.. Well, I’m still alive and kicking. Just hellabusy. Just didn’t make any time to write something here. I know, that is lame, but ey, what can you do? Anyway, what is going on in my life? Well, same old actually. Just working, eating and sleeping. Nah, not just that. But really busy with work. Making (too) long hours, too much TV and PS3…. That’s all. But, still around! I will think about some new posts and get back to writing again asap!

I was thinking about what tools I use, and noticed that there are actually quite a lot. Then I was thinking about what tools do I use and actually pay for to use them? This narrowed the list down quite a bit, which, made me and my wallet a bit more happy. Still, I do pay quite an amount of money to use these tools, but ey, the tools do rock! Just to put it down again for myself, I thought it would be nice to make a little roundup of these tools. And hell, maybe you like some of these so you can start paying those tool-builder guys some money as well!

Evernote is one of my favorite tools. I use it to store about everything I need to remember. Ey, a mind can remember loads of stuff, but not everything. So, Evernote’s slogan remember everything was good enough for me to persuade me into using it. But seriously, this is an awesome tool! You can use the free version as well by the way. I started out using the free version as well, but since this tool got more and more important to me, I decided to go premium. Not only do I think it’s fair to pay if you make extensive use of a service, but I also feel better that my data is safer, because I pay to store it. Now, I know that the fact that I pay for a service means that I can never ever lose my data, but at least it gives me the opportunity to bitch at someone if it does get lost. When you use something for fee, you lose the right to bitch if you ask me…

So, why is this tool awesome? Check it out here and decide for yourself if you think I’m an idiot to be using this or not…

Oh yeah, I pay to use gmail,gcal and other Google services. Why? Because I think gmail is the most kick ass mail tool around. So why do I pay for this while the free version is just as good? Well, kind of the same story as with Evernote or any other payed service I use: I feel better and saver when paying for tools that contain data which is very, very important to me. That’s why…

This is where I keep my photo’s. And yes, pictures are extremely valuable! Just to me ofcourse, as your pictures are extremely valuable just for you. Anyway, SmugMug is an awesome tool to keep you pictures save! And yeah, it does look cool too! Check out my SmugMug page to see what I mean. And yes, I know that I did not customize it yet… The reason I pay for this service is because, well, I already said it: pictures are important! Besides having a nice way of displaying these pics, it is also a great way of backing your stuff up. All pics are uploaded and kept in the original format, so if my hard disk ever breaks down, not to worry! I can download all my albums again. Hell, SmugMug does even send you a bunch of dvd’s if you can’t/won’t download. This one really is worth a look and your money if you ask me.

Yeah, as I mentioned before, I just cannot remember everything… That is why I use Passpack to store my passwords. And trust me, it is safe! And it makes logging into different services a breeze. Why do I pay for this? Well, besides the fact that my passwords are quite important, I also like to support cool services to keep being a cool service. And Passpack charges just a little bit, so I have no trouble with paying cool dudes.

Yeah, this tool I actually only use to sync my gcal with my mobile phone. This is cause I have a Nokia phone and the syncer that google provides just doesn’t do the job. Goosync appears to be a master at doing this right, so yeah, I’m willing to pay for that. I got myself a lifetime subscription, so I never have to worry anymore…

Now this is really an awesome tool! Loved it ever since I started using it. Sure, they have a free plan, but 2gb of data just doesn’t cut it for me. Oh, what is it? Dropbox is a sync tool, which allows you to sync data between several computers and the interwebz. Seriously don’t mind paying for this tool, because it saved my life at several occasions, especially because of it’s time-machine. If you don’t know Dropbox you seriously should check it out! Start here. Trust me, you’ll love it!

This one is one I do not pay for. Yet… I’m using it more and more lately, so I think it would only be fair to pay some bucks to the Rememberthemilk.com dudes. This is the most awesome tool to manage your todo’s. Well, it is when you ask me that is of course. Well, go judge for yourself here.

Ah, writing down why the hell I pay for these services really made me feel better again! Seriously, you have to think about where and why you spend your money. Money still is not very easy to come by, right? I have to work hard for da money, so it is good to spend some time evaluating where you spend it. Anyway, I know I’m doing the right thing again. And ey, maybe some of these services do it for you as well!

Yeah, I started a diet again. Southbeach this time. I’m one of those people who get fat once in a while. Well, let’s call it heavy, because I don’t get really fat. Anyway, I gained too much weight, so I decided to give it a try again. Well, I can tell you: this diet is not for me! I’ve dieted before, for weeks, even months in a row and lost loads of weight. The first time I really dieted was years ago and I managed to loose 26 kg’s. 2 Years ago i dieted as well, for about 9 weeks and lost 10 kg. So I can do it. It feels a bit like a sport to me actually, really. I have fun doing it. But this diet man… It definitely is not meant for me!

I feel drained all day long, I have zero energy and my brain works at a quarter of it’s power. And believe me, it ain’t much at a 100%, so can’t get anything done! This week I produce way below my average. Code I mean. And I don’t like that! Neither does my boss by the way. I did manage to loose 3 kg’s in 3 days though. I do wonder if that is even healthy man! I mean, if you loose that much in such a short time, how the hell are you going to keep that off? It feels like loosing loads in a short time equals gaining even more when you go back to eating a bit normal again. And I certainly don’t want that!

When I was driving home today, I thought I was unable to make it there. Every corner in the road required high concentration. And since my car just got fixed, I rather not crash it again. I went for a game of squash Tuesday night and I saw more stars then squash-balls man! That ain’t healthy! This diet is killing me, so I quit! Tada! Trust me, I’m not a quitter when it comes to dieting. It’s way easier do diet then to quit smoking. Well, for me it is anyway. But feeling like crap all day: no thank you! I’ll loose weight another way man. I’ll eat healthier and will pay attention to what goes in. I will hit the gym again next week a few times a week and then I think I will loose weight as well. Sure, not a kg a day, but at least I will feel good instead of going to die all day. And loosing weight a bit slower feels way healthier then this, with less risk of gaining double what I’ve lost.

So, sorry Southbeach, not for me!

Man, do you know that feeling, when you have a problem with some big company, they just sent you back and forth without actually helping you out? I’m in the middle of one of those right now. So, what’s going on then? Well, I’ve got a Vodafone simcard in my phone. I can call anyone I like and I receive any incoming textmessage directed to me. So far, no problems. No, when people want call me from a Tmobile phone, they just get the “The number you tried to dial is not a valid number”. It took a while for me to notice that Tmobile clients are unable to reach me, because they couldn’t call me to tell that I’m unreachable for them.

So, what did I do? I made a call to Vodafone. And what do you think Vodafone says? You should call Tmobile… And yeah, what do you think Tmobile tells me? To call Vodafone of course… Come on! I don’t let them of the hook that easily of course, so called them both several times. Vodafone tried to call me with a Tmobile simcard and they were able to reach me. Strange! You know what the lady on the phone told me? “Well sir, if you have so much trouble with this sim card, why don’t you just take another phone number?”. Yeah right! I have to inform a shitload of people that I’ve changed phone numbers again. And who is going to pay for all the text messages I have to send to do that? Yes, me! That is NOT a solution Vodafone!

The Tmobile dudes told me that I had to inform the Tmobile users who are not able to reach me, to call Tmobile and tell them about the problem. So, you want me to call all people I know with Tmobile and ask them to call customer service to have this problem fixed and waste precious time of their life on the phone about some stupid problem they should just solve? Come on! My girlfriend is one of the people who is not able to reach me, because she has a Tmobile phone. Tmobile told her: “Yeah, well, you have an Iphone. That might be the problem.”. Yeah sure…

I know they tried to solve things, because I received some anonymous calls which got hung up before I could even say my name. If they can reach me, they assume the problem is solved. Well, it is NOT! I really don’t get why they do not make a bit more effort on this and have the Vodafone engineers call the Tmobile ones and solve this annoying problem. It is impossible for me to reach the right people at the right department, because I cannot get past customer service of both corporations… This is so annoying. I pay for a phone that should be reachable, no matter what the provider of the caller is!

Ah, just received word that I’m not the only one at this company with this problem! There are more! Come on freaking Vodafone, solve it!

UPDATE: Apearantly I’ve finally managed to get in touch with the right people. Don’t know if it was this post that did it (guess not, but ey, that would be sweet!), but things are finally moving. I got several calls from Vodafone tech support, the REAL tech guys, who can get in touch with the REAL tech guys from Tmobile. So, hope this issue will get resolved after two freaking months! I’ll keep you posted on teh progress.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Man, it works again! Since I got hold of the right people it got fixed in a few days. So this proves again: Customer Service is useless if you experience real problems. You just gotta get hold of people a bit higher in the tree. I got lucky after a few months… This time! Anyway, all of you Tmobile users are able to call me again. Worth a w00t if you ask me!

Yesterday some new idea hit me. I was at the toilet, taking a dump and it just hit me! Now, don’t turn away directly, since we’re talking shit here! I mean, everybody takes a shit. I do, you do, the queen does, supermodels do, that hot actor you like does, hell, even your girlfriend does! So, why not talk shit a bit? Taking a shit is something we do everyday, since we were born until the day that we die. So, nothing weird about that. I know, it’s a bit of a taboo to talk about your shit, but ey, going to the beach in your bikini used to be one too. So, why not take away the taboo and do something with your shit?

So, what was my idea? Well, a hardware device in your toilet, with a built in scale and an accompanying website to post your shitty results to! Wouldn’t that be awesome? I mean, it could be the next big thing! All I need is a venture capitalist, some office space in the valley, a hardware manufacturer, time and a bunch of beta testers. How would it work? Well, the device for the toilet should be blue-tooth or wifi enabled. Since everybody has a cellphone nowadays, this could be used to communicate with the hardware device. It should have it’s own web-server or have some other sockets. It would be maximum compatible if it could be reached by native apps for iphone, symbian, android, windows (for the three people using that) and a local web-interface. Your phone can be used to log into the hardware, which communicates with the main shit server. This way, you can also post your dump results when taking a shit in another toilet then your own.

It is important to get as many toilets as possible equipped with the hardware, so you can take a shit in a train, at the office or even abroad on holiday or business travel. The website could be hooked up to several other services like facebook an twitter. The service could even be expanded to do a bit more. Imagine taking a picture of your product and post that with the weight of it. Or make the hardware a bit more advanced and have it analyze the shit, so it can post the chemicals that reside in it. Imagine a world where you share your shit! Wouldn’t that be awesome? I mean, we share everything already. Our shit is just that final frontier of sharing your life online!

So, if you have a big bag of money and think this idea is hella-awesome, contact me. Together we can make this a success! Beta testers wanted too! Just leave a comment and you will be contacted as soon as the shitty company is launched.