de tomKronieken

Computer graphics

I remember a professor in college who said "the goal of computer graphics (as a scientific discipline) is to render images that are indistinguishable for the unknowing user from real photos". From these pictures, I would conclude that he will be out of a job real soon now. Awesome.

An understanding soul

Thank you. Now at least I know I'm not the only one who thought these comments were weird. You might also notice that some (if not most) of those comments were just copy&pasted. And I'm glad not everybody hires this way.

13 months ago...

... I described my ideal job. And now I've found it. Unbelievable. The best part is: I didn't remember this post until after I signed the contract. And rereading it, I became more and more confident that I made the right decision. I'll miss the people at my current position though. In the mean time: 67 traffic jams to go, and I'll bike to work!

Details coming as soon as I'm sure the legal issues are solved.

A new virus in town?

All of a sudden, my mailbox is full with

The message cannot be represented in 7-bit ASCII encoding and has been sent as a binary attachment.

messages. Do we have a new scriptkiddie in town?

Update: it turns out that all the to-addresses are different, but all end in @tomk.be. Some worthless piece of program has hijacked my domain?

Another update: Yep. Thanks Koen.

A new star is born

Tuur Klaasen - 13 Januari 2004 - 16u30 - 3,740kg - 53cm

Photos coming soon.

Update: The first photo

Mobile maps

Inspired by this list of mobile sites, I checked the other maptools that I use frequently. It turns out that both Mappy and Maporama have the map functionality. And in addition, they have itineraries for Belgium as well.

Must... read... instructions...

Mobile Internet - Start:

1° Request your access
Request your access to the Mobile Internet service by calling number 0800 55 085. Proximus will activate the service and there you are, ready to surf the net!

Duh. The "I am smart so I don't need to read all this stuff" syndrome? Or just the "I am plain stupid" syndrome... Everything works like a charm now.

New toys and GPRS

I'm still getting used to my new toy, a Nokia 6600. There are some minor annoyances (I have to search for everything time and again, and I can't create shortcuts. And when I select "Update time automatically", it is off by 1 hour), but the biggest problem is that I can't get my GPRS to work.

I've tried to get the settings for my operator (Proximus) from the Nokia website, but to no avail. I am able to start Opera, but once I type in a URL (eg. http://users.pandora.be/tom.klaasen), it comes back with the very helpful error message http://users.pandora.be/tom.klaasen - Warning!. That's it. No "couldn't connect". No "I can't get along with that damn DHTML". No. Just "warning". And then in the upper left corner, a little G in a box starts flashing. Which I can only stop by restarting the phone.

I've begun reading the manual (150 pages!), but it boils down to a disruption where the phone manufacturer's settings stop, and where the service provider's settings start. The language used is not exactly the same, and it seems that there is some holes in it. Pretty much reminds me of my first time when I was trying to get a JDBC connection working: Sun ended with "here comes your connection string", and Oracle started with "this is your schema, and your url, and your username, etc" without explaining how to get from that to a connection string.

But enough raving. Did anybody get Opera working on a Nokia 6600 with Proximus? Or do you know some particalur twitches with either of them? I would be much obliged.

Cell phones

Will Cell Phones Render iPods Obselete?. Of course they will. As a matter of fact, I was shopping for a cell phone the last few weeks, and this was my wish list:

• Able to call somebody. By far the most important requirement.
• Camera. And a decent one, one I can use when I forgot my Olympus, not one that takes poststamp-size pictures. Even better: one that excees my Olympus in capabilities.
• Speakerphone. I've had one too many call from my parents-in-law, discussing a meeting time, which ended up in me acting as a proxy between them and my girlfriend.
• Java functionality. Hey, I want to at least know what it feels like to program such a thing.
• MP3 player. But a good one, one that can carry more than 30 minutes of music.
• GPS system. I end up driving through Brussels quite some times lately, and I always end up getting lost.

All of these devices exist seperately. But my pockets just ain't that big. Nor is my wallet. I am convinced that in the not-so-distant future (one year?), such a device will become available. In fact, Sony-Ericsson's P900 comes very close. I expect that, in a not-too-distant future, these devices become affordable to anybody (as in: you'll see grandma's shopping with it, just like you now see grandma's calling home to ask if dear husband wants chicken or fish for dinner).

But I digress. The point is: all these devices will become one. No question about it.

If you're interested: I ended up buying a Nokia 6600, partly thanks to Russ. Now I need to learn how to program this toy. If you happen to have a link, don't hesitate to send it.

Please identify yourself

In dust we trust seems to know me. Looks like (s)he is an ex-collegue of mine, interested in Cocoon, living in Ghent, into techno, and has me in his/her blogroll. I can only come up with one such person, and he's blogging here. So dear Mr(s) Dust, who are you? You don't mention your name, or an email address...

Copy protecton in Belgium

Once again, Belgium fights a fight that (a) is worth fighting, and (b) seems impossible to win: Belgian watchdog sues record biz over copy protection. Let's hope at least some good comes out of this. I know that I, for one, have lost much interest in music due to record company marketing techniques ("Best Of" albums with just one new song, just to mention one). Let's hope Test-Achats can make a difference here.

Drunk internet

I sometimes feel the online world is a glimpse of what it would be like if we were always drunk.

Dividing people into categories might not be the most politically correct thing to do, but I recognize most of Alan's personae. Of course, everybody who reads this thinks she's in "The Frontline troops". Let's all try to be there.

Life just got easier

I got one of these, as described here. Seems to work like a charm. My only worry is to remember to take it home when I finish my working day...