Then came Rodrigo y Gabriela. I discovered them like I think most of the people who are not that much into the independent concerting scene – when they were musical guests of Jay Leno’s. After I listened to Hanuman, I bought it in the iTunes store, listened to it the whole next day. That was using Apple’s default phones. The next week I spent with the music of Rodrigo y Gabriela almost any musical moment, which is most of my time out of the office and, depending on what I am working on, even a part of my office time. And I once have tried a cheap but good headset – the MDR-V150 – it is acoustically the strict opposite of small headphones – giving a powerful and profound bass an cutting a bit on the highs. This is a very good feature for me, because highs give me nasty headaches and my long years as a head-banger has left me with a certain soft spot for strong basses.

Now I have a new tech purchase aim, after I buy my iPad, of course (but this is a whole other theme and a huge one at that) – finding and buying a very good – meaning not bad audio quality and good wearing comfort for a reasonable price.

Today I traded this for the podcasts. There was time when to create a compilation of you favorite songs, or any kind of playlist required considerably bigger of an effort than simply dragging and dropping the songs on a playlist title. Listening to music was that way mainly done in “albums”. The other option was radio. But then again the non-stop music radios in Europe were not that many. This was good because that way I got to learn tons of stuff, created an interest for eloquence and proper language not only on paper, but spoken as well. Aside from that during the time that I spent in my early youth in then communist Eastern Europe, scanning the short waves for the BBC, RFI (Radio France Internationale), VOA (Voice of America) and DW (Deutsche Welle) was the only way to stay connected daily with the normal world. My love for the radio led me to later apply for work in a radio station and I spent 8 years working in radios, most of the time in front of the microphone.

Slowly my life kept sliding in the direction of the IT world and that gave me a chance to observe from within the products that became the radio killers. I have to say, that although I loved listening to my iPod and my own playlists, I still was using my excellent Radio Remote (it still works, by the way, and I use it from time to time with my trusty old 30GB iPod video). I listened the radio on a daily basis trough my iPod at least until Apple brought out the iPod touch and I of course bought it. Then, nothing. Apple killed support for this accessory and to date the only product that has a radio is the Nano – an iPod that for a user like me who uses his device a thousand ways simple doesn’t offer enough. Long before this happened, I started downloading Podcasts. It started with podcasts of radio stations that I cannot listen to at home in Switzerland – french ones, BBC, German ones, American ones. Then came the video iPods and the diversification of the Podcasts I got interested in. Today all the needs that the radio covered before, I meet with the podcasts. The excellent, witty, intelligent and competent guys from Macworld produce my number one tech podcast (iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=74223864). Fellow geek Cali Lewis is the charming gadget and other geek relevant news “anchor” (iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=110660001). The foodie that I am gets inspirations from the cooking in Le Casse croûte (video, iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=182438482) and Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food (iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=294194837) and the main professionally made by radio people podcast that finds place in the 16 GB of my iPod is Digital Planet by the BBC, which is my second technology podcast favorite presenting topics that I never might have thought, nor learned about. Those of you know, I am sure, who Laurent Gerra is, for the rest of you, he is a French imitator, stand-up comedian, singer and actor of remarkable talent and intelligence with a slight penchant for the overly provoking jokes. He has a 7 minutes long show every morning on the radio station RTL, which I obviously not being in France can listen to only online, or, since at the time it airs I am in the middle of my morning commute, I can listen to it the next day as a podcast. It is hil-la-ri-ous!!! Here is the link to it: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=290152576.

You have perhaps noticed that not all of those are audio podcasts. Yes, it does indeed look like my iTunes is gradually replacing the rest of my non-written media channels. Now if only Apple were not discriminating Europeans with the movie contents of the iTunes store…

I chose for the first shot my three keyboards at work:

1. A generic HP one, which I almost never use
2. My main keyboard, the one with which I work the most — a cheap flat keyboard by Logitech. Here’s the thing — as in most offices nowadays the USB ports are tabu, so you cannot buy any random keyboard and simply plug it in. I was previously using a Microsoft Natural Keyboard. but with time I started having aches in the wrists and noticed that this keyboard is far too high for me and my work stance. At home where I used this Microsoft keyboard a long while ago, I have an Apple aluminum USB keyboard with numpad. Although this is a plain straight form keyboard, it’s extremely low profile gives me an unequaled comfort. Another flat keyboard was the logical choice. Of course I didn’t need multimedia keys, nor other specialties on the keyboard. What I needed is a flat keyboard with a PS/2 connector. The choice, most of all here in Switzerland was not great, and I didn’t have the time nor the will to go and search for an online shopping for a keyboard. So I got stuck with this keyboard. Pro: Compact, yet with a numpad. Quite flat, not as flat as the Apple keyboards, but then again the price on this one is incomparable and most of all it has a PS/2. Contra: It is compact indeed, but it is as well crammed – the layout is awkward and the directional arrows are practically unusable.
3. The standard Apple flat keyboard that came with the MacMini. I find this keyboard so unusual, that I still cannot adapt to it. It is comfortable to use a the larger Apple keyboard, but it feels kind of weird (without forward Delete, without a numpad, and I have to say that now that I got used to F keys F13 trough F19).

I love Safari, its page loading speed, the general agility of the program, its rendering and last, but by no means least important colour profile management functions. The above-mentioned features though are real deal-breakers for me. Ever since Opera first introduced the multi-tab browser concept I am an adept, which basically means that I have almost a decade worth of developing the bad habit of having up to 20 tabbed pages at a time. Opera restoring those tabs in the next session has become a second nature to me and all the fuss about the pinned tabs in Chrome that made the front pages of many tech-oriented blogs is a non-issue for me ever since. The same goes for keeping all those tabs neatly organised, “tucked in” one single window. Of course Exposé does finding any application window a matter of a single keystroke and visually identifying the page you need, but even that is too much of an effort if you never had to do it before and there is a way to do it.

The logical question here would be, why am I not using Opera if it has done that much to shape my surfing habits and browser usage in general. It started at the time when few of the websites around were really standard compliant and most of the reading I was doing on the net was on such pages and it really did not make my life easier. This was the time when I started using massively more Mozilla browsers. Then I discovered Stumble Upon and although this coincided with the coming of the widgets in Opera (at a time when windows users only had Konfabulator for that (for those who don’t speak “geekish” – this is the grand dad of the Yahoo! Widgets). I dropped Opera for Firefox, only to come back to it screaming because the memory hog that Firefox is was making it impossible for me to profit from all that add-ons and plug-in goodness. Quite a while later Opera introduced the bookmarks and notes sync, which is a feature that was almost unknown in its ease of use in the Windows world at the time.

When I switched to Mac I took my favourite browsers with me and did not miss MSIE at all. Having developed the nasty habit not to trust the OS-built-in browser, I was barely using Safari at the time. Then I found the great http://pimpmycamino.com/ and from there naturally http://pimpmysafari.com/. Then I found Saft and the speed of loading and the beauty of the really well implemented system integration of Safari in the OS. This broke with Snow Leopard, then I had no time to check the Saft website (http://haoli.dnsalias.com/Saft/) and thus did not know that I need to upgrade to the next OS licence (this I find a bit cheap, but since I think that good developers, giving us useful tool should always be motivated and rewarded for their good work, so I finally updated). I have to say that with my new iMac 27“ 3,06 and 8 GB RAM, I don’t really notice Firefox being a memory hog, so I would not have returned to Safari if it were not for my iPhone and most of all the MobileMe service that I recently subscribed to. I gave up my laptop because I noticed that my digital life is divided between my iMac and the iPhone and anything I have on the two is being synced and pushed back and forth by MobileMe. For me to be able to use the full potential of the service it meant to return to Safari or give up on my browser sync between desktop and iPhone. This meant that I had to go back to http://haoli.dnsalias.com/Saft/ and as confusing and user unfriendly as this page might be, I had to update my Saft licence. This I did today and am again the happiest browser-user around.

There is no condition under which I would consider my book and other information consumption for educational and for recreational purposes (a snob’s way to say novels and web-surfing) as something that limits creativity.

To be honest even this post has gotten way too cliché for what it should have been, so I’m going on to other topics. I really should have written this a couple of weeks ago when the idea and the feeling for it first came to mind. This is part of the real issue, actually – I was so busy with other things, or so exhausted when I came home, that I didn’t really have time to sit and write about anything, much less defend an opinion on a topic, on which one could write a book.

Until recently I had a Hamptons Hybrid BBP bag (Bad Back Pack – http://bbpbags.com/hamptons.html) it can be seen with the huge load that I carried on this flickr-picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/beorn_ours/2520668457/ . This model is a sturdy, durable bag that resisted to a heavy daily usage for quite a while, but… The nets were the first ones to go. I guess this is not something to be surprised of and it’s either a lightweight net or some kind of kevlar mesh to withstand time, weight and pulling. This I never considered a problem and after cutting the remains of the nets of from the bag I went on enjoying the many compartments and the amazingly comfortable Bag2Pak system. The patented marvel transforms your messenger bag in a backpack. Aside from that the laptop compartment is one of the best protected out there — it is external to the bag itself, so you can take your machine out and put it away again quickly, the compartment has semi-rigid protective panels with a soft lining and the waterproof bag closes on your laptop with an additionally rubberised and isolated zipper. And then it broke… The bag is still whole and in a perfect condition, but the swivelling carabiner that attaches the strap to the bag, has a small knob-like head that attaches it to its lower part and this is where one day, while walking (not even running) to catch the train, this know snapped and my bag carrying my beloved MacBook, went flying. I was fortunately able to catch it before it reached the ground.

This left me looking for a new bag. I am quite familiar with the whole Crumpler lineup available in Europe, so I naturally thought about them. Then for a short while I considered as well Timbukt2. I don’t know about you, but I need one bag to give me enough compartments for me to be able to organise all the stuff I carry, which means many of them. That is something the Timbukt2 models I’ve seen so far don’t have. So I turned back to Crumpler. You can even feel the quality of those bags, not only see it:

• The strap is wide and thick that it will never curl and deform itself like it is the case with generic ones.

• The internal and external lining is doubled and thick, not letting the bag being deformed whether it is burst-full or absolutely empty
• Buckles, zippers and Velcro’s are sturdy, without being hard to use

It was an ordeal to find Crumpler’s or Timbuktu2’s in Zurich, where I live, I even asked on Twitter. For those of you looking to buy in Zurich a good messenger bag that isn’t Freitag (www.freitag.ch), don’t waste the time looking in sports stores. There may be Timbuk2 in some bike shops. Some of the smaller or camera-oriented Crumpler’s could be found in some photo-equipment shops. Me recommendation is for you to start the search in Jelmoli (www.jelmoli.ch). I found there my Cheesy Disco BIG LOGO (http://www.crumplereurope.com/?product=Cheesy_Buzz&page=details&product_line=648). The laptop sleeve is removable, the there are enough compartments to have in the general compartments only the sanitisers, my Ordning & Reda notepad (http://www.ordning-reda.com/pages/index.asp) and a small history book. There are two bottles at the moment in the bag one is jasmin green tea, the other a SIGG Black Retro Steel Works 0,6l bottle with cup (http://www.sigg.com/ch-shop/en/steelworks.html?id=23&___from_store=de) and the bag still isn’t feeling too full. I feel like I returned home after having being lost for a long time.

The total external volume of the bag was also something of concern this time. I was used to rather big bags and back packs and this time not only did I explicitly not want a backpack, but I wanted as well a considerable reduction of the size of the bump I had every day on my back. This would not have been possible if I hadn’t replaced my MacBook with an iMac at home and an iPhone for all other needs when on the go, but that is a different topic for a different post and another time. It’s gotten late even for a guy with a chronic insomnia like me.
7 décembre 2009 01:52:43

Cela est devenu à tel point une problème pour ma conscience, que même maintenant je me sens coupable de ne pas écrire ou enregistrer la vidéo.

Son jouet physique préféré est l’alphabet. Elle a un alphabet constitué de figurines représentant des personnages des membres de la famille Barbapapa. Elle est capable de jouer des heures avec l’alphabet en l’ordonnant par couleur (respectivement personnage), en plaçant les lettres sur les images correspondantes dans son abécédaire et beaucoup d’autres.

Il n’y a pas de papa plus fier du jouet de son enfant que je le suis aujourd’hui et je ne pense pas exagérer quand je dis que je pense, que je le serais encore plus dans le futur.

Je me sens assez bien. J’ai bien peur que ce ne soit une de ces sortes d’adrenaline rushes qui accompagnent mes indulgences de consommateur. J’ai bien dépensé les CHF 50 de crédit dans l’iTunes store. Cela me donne chaque fois presque le sentiment d’avoir un nouveau téléphone – les jeux, les programmes, la musique me donnent un nouvel environnement. Puisque l’iPhone constitue presque 70% de me passe-temps ce n’est pas si difficile que ça à imaginer. L’autre chose est que j’ai fait changer la batterie de ma montre Tom Tailor. C’est presque comme avoir une nouvelle montre et comme on le sait bien avoir une nouvelle montre me remonte toujours le moral.

J’ai discuté avec D. aujourd’hui quels motifs j’aimerais me faire tatouer sur l’avant bras et sur l’épaule. J’aimerais avoir cette Rosette de Pliska que j’avais eu sur un T-Shirt. Voilà l’image:

Un autre élément, et celui -ci est sûr comme tout, est ichtys:

*Iota (i) is the first letter of Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς), Greek for Jesus.

*Chi (kh) is the first letter of Khristos (Χριστóς), Greek for “Christ” or “anointed”.

*Theta (th) is the first letter of Theou (Θεοῦ), that means “God’s”, genitive case of Θεóς, Theos, “God”.

*Upsilon (u) is the first letter of huios (Υἱός), Greek for Son.

*Sigma (s) is the first letter of sōtēr (Σωτήρ), Greek for Savior.

Et le troisième sont la croix occitane et maltaise:

Maitenant je vais manger un morceau et je me mets à étudier.

Cela est la panoplie de survie d’un type qu’il a posté sur Flickr. Je pensais que je suis le seul à avoir cette folie. En fait j’ai découvert encore deux groupes sur Flickr que j’ai rejoint de suite:

1. http://www.flickr.com/groups/yourdisasterkit/pool/
2. http://www.flickr.com/groups/98965521@N00/pool/

C’est un hobby qui combine trois de mes passions – les listes, les gadgets et survival (celle-là c’est plutôt de la théorie, mais bon). Ce qui me plaît le plus c’est qu’enfin je peut m’évacuer de What’s in my bag qui est devenu un pool extrêmement féminin.

Je vais adapter maintenant mes Yahoo! widgets de montrer de s photos de ce groupe. Après je vais me concocter deux playlists – Albums vacances et Faves vacances. Youpi!!! Si je suis prêt avant qu’il soit l’heure de sortir faire du vélo je vais commencer la grande liste pour les vacances.

Pour la préparation pour demain je me fis une liste des choses à faire et à prendre. Comme il se passe toujours dans les cas où je fais des listes, je n’ai même pas besoin de la regarder puisque je l’ai déjà “imprimée” en mémoire. J’allai sur www.sbb.ch et je fis une recherche pour le trajet exact avec les heures de départ et les arrêts aussi bien que le numéro du tram que nous devons prendre une fois à Berne.

Maintenant je dois me rendre au lit aussi vite que possible pour avoir une bonne mine demain et avoir la force à continuer ce journal. Je suis très fier que j’accumulai autant de posts en une période aussi courte.

20 juillet 2009 00:57:28