It's been a while since I've changed the design of this site, so it was time for me to make something change. I've decided to go for a more fresh, minimal look and hope I've succeeded.
posted on June 3, 2009 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webAs I did last year, I wanted to have a look at this year. This year was quite the year for me, with the birth of our second child, a lot of conferences, the reviving of the dutch PHP Usergroup and new symfony versions.
posted on December 29, 2008 - 0 comment(s) - tags: 2008, php, symfony, year, left on the webI just did a quite big update of the software running this site, adding some new features. Some are as easy as putting a little script on a page, others are quite a bit harder. Let's have a look at what I added.
posted on March 9, 2008 - 0 comment(s) - tags: symfony, left on the webAside from the earlier announced Dutch PHP Conference , symfony will get more attention during dutch events the coming months. Because of this, I decided to make a small event calendar on this site.
posted on February 22, 2008 - 0 comment(s) - tags: php, symfony, event, left on the web, conferenceAnd yet another update. They're coming quickly these days. But there were some things that needed fixing, again...
posted on December 5, 2007 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webAnother update for the weblog, this time quite some bit bigger. Some bugfixes, but also a new homepage. I had this in mind before launching 4.0 but wanted to get 4.0 out the door, so it got delayed a bit... but it's here now.
posted on November 25, 2007 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webNot all that interesting probably, but here's a short update on Left on the Web.
posted on November 18, 2007 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webWell, as you can see I have a new site. I finally replaced my old Textpattern website with a spanking new symfony-based custom-written weblog.
posted on October 27, 2007 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webI'm currently a bit stressed out. Trouble with a client while nearing the end of a project, no fun at all. I've had little time for fun. I've done some digging and I suspect this site will soon be "re-done". I have made the decision to move away from Pivot and towards Textpattern. Different reasons for that, with the main reason being a problem I recently had with Pivot where I for a minute was afraid I had lost all posts. It might just have been a glitch and was easily solved, but for now I'm moving this site away from Pivot. Downside is that I will have to write my own converter for the move, since there is no Pivot -> Textpattern converter available right now. But that's a nice little project to do once I've finished this damn project and hopefully solved the problems with the client.
posted on September 13, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webNow this is something I'd like to have. What a beautiful keyboard! And useful as well, being able to map the keys and not even that, also to map whatever the key says! Very cool! I'm sure it's going to be expensive, but if it's not *too* expensive I might actually get one.
posted on July 18, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webSo finally I actually started looking into those link-sites, and decided to sign up for Furl. Don't ask me why I chose Furl, I just did 
Not sure if I'm really actively going to do something with it, but starting from now, you can find my recent Furl links in the sidebar on the right (just below the Flickr badge).
Enjoy.
The last week I've been playing around a lot with the javascript xmlHttpRequest functionality that is these days better know as AJAX (what a name!). A client requested me to implement it, or at least look at the possibilities of implementing it, in their intranet. And I must say, there are tons of possibilities where using AJAX could highly enhance the user experience. No need for reloading your page anymore. AJAX will take care of it. I've been using a very specific AJAX implementation called OpenRico, which is a very useful library with lots of possibilities. Very flexible. Very useful. Using AJAX, I must admit that I've seen a renewed need to get into javascripting. Indeed, OpenRico provides an implentation that ensures I won't have to do all the very complicated javascripting, but still implementing it into a system will still require you to at least know some basic javascripting. Most of it is pretty basic stuff, with sometimes slightly more complicated stuff for specific situations. But still, it was a good reason to get my some basic javascript skills.
posted on July 13, 2005 - 4 comment(s) - tags: left on the webSo, for the past few days, Justus was at our place. He's travelling through Europe for months and we planned on meeting eachother while he was in The Netherlands. He ended up accepting our offer of a place to sleep for two nights. It was quite nice. Justus is a really cool guy. On friday, I picked him up at Amersfoort trainstation, and basically we just stayed at our place for the day. On saturday we went to Utrecht, to walk around, for Justus to take some pics, and to arrange a bed for him. He's gonna stay in Utrecht for a few days before travelling further. It was quite nice. I'm gonna meet up with Justus in Amsterdam in a few days. On thursday, we'll be going to 5 days off to see Amon Tobin, maybe a bit of Funckarma, Speedy J (in 5.1 surround), Richard Devine (in 5.1 surround), Autechre, and then maybe check Luke Vibert for a bit. It's gonna be fun, that's for sure.
posted on July 10, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webIt seems I missed out on another fun Internet thing lately: The puppy poo girl. A girl who had her dog with her on the subway, and he dog dumped some crap right there. She only had a a few words to spare for the elderly people asking her to clean it up: "fuck off". What happened next was someone with a cameraphone taking a picture, posting it on a popular website, and the hunt was on. Shortly after, they found out all information about the girl, and a public shaming campaign started against the girl. This whole situation started a discussion about the ethics of such a public shaming campaign. I'm not sure yet how I feel about this. On the one hand, if you know something like this can happen, you might be more careful in your response in a situation like this (maybe even do The Right Thing™ and actually clean up the mess). On the other hand, is it ethical do ruin the life of someone in this massive way? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I'm not sure yet about that. (Here's the image)
posted on July 10, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webSome people come up with great ideas. For instance to combine data found on different places on the web. AudioFlickrScrobbler is one of them. It combines the last 5 songs you played on AudioScrobbler, and uses the Flickr API to find pictures with that. A very cool idea!
And so I now have my own AudioFlickrScrobbler page. Enjoy
In the category 'cool and useful', I'll today present you with a nice Firefox extension called ForecastFox. Using this nice plugin, you can get your local weather forecast as nice little icons in your firefox Statusbar (or in various other locations in Firefox!). Very cool, and pretty useful if you want to know what kind of weather to expect.
posted on July 5, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webYou better believe it. Sauron exists. The hubble telescope brings us the proof. Quite scary, huh?
posted on July 1, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webToday I wanted to comment on an entry on Livejournal to find that they had a new identity system implemented. They now support OpenID. When taking a closer look, this system looks mighty interesting. I think I'll have a look at how this works, see if I can somehow implement this using PHP.
posted on June 29, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webNow this is cool. If you have no phone line, no electricity, but you still want to use the phone, what do you do? Of course! Get a computer, modify a bike, and create your own electricity and a wireless connection to phone over IP.
posted on June 23, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webToday 5 years ago, James Atkinson started a simple UBB-like forum on his own website. The name James gave to this forum was phpBB. Happy birthday phpBB!
posted on June 17, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webAs you might remember I recently switched window manager to Openbox. I'm still quite happy with it, but I ran into some trouble. The main trouble was that some KDE apps for some reason started with an offset of -40 or so, causing the menu to disappear above my screen. There was no way to move it back. Luckily, today, zeroK pointed me to Devil's Pie, a small app that you can run in the background, and which helps you to control the placement (and quite a few other attributes) of new windows that appear on your screen. Very nice! So now, all my windows start nicely at offset 0,0 in the upper left corner of my screen.
posted on June 13, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the web[[popup:bloglines.jpg 
thumbnail):Bloglines fun:1:center]]
When compared to my son, I'm so incredibly big.
posted on June 10, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webShocking news today in the world of Apple. Apple is ditching IBM, and moving to Intel for their future products. Quite shocking, since the Power PC chip has been the core of Apple computers for, well, ages.
posted on June 6, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webToday, I stepped back as phpBB Support Team Leader. I've written a short announcement including some of the reasons here. I look back with a very positive feeling, and look forward with an even more positive feeling. I rest assured that Techie-Micheal will do a good job as the new Support Team Leader. And I'll still be a part of the Support Team, doing that which I like most: helping people with phpBB.
posted on June 1, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webAll you need is love. That's today's phpBB-related theme. Huh? Yeah, really. Because letha found her true love through the phpBB forums. She asked for support, someone helped her, and now they're getting married! A funny way of meeting your true love, if you ask me. But if it happens, it happens. As this thread proves.
posted on May 31, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webOh boy, I just got passed the musical baton by dominik. Well, let's see then. Total volume of music files on my computer… Well, let's see. I've got two places where my music is stored. On my network server is the biggest chunk. And on my laptop, I've got the other part, for when I'm working at a client's office, or when I'm on the road. Now, let's see the disk usage of those two: du -sh /mp3/
48G /mp3du -sh /home/stefan/mp3/
13G mp3/The last cd I bought was… The Chemical Brothers - Push The Button ... I used to be one of their biggest fans, but really couldn't get into Surrender, and Come With Us was even worse. Now, with this new album, they're back to full strength imho. Yes, I'm a big fan again. Song playing right now… Nothing at the moment, I'm watching TV. You can always check my Audioscrobbler profile to check what I've last listened to. Five songs I listen to a lot/mean a lot to me… Live - Lightning Crashes ... just the best track ever probably. Beautiful. Liquid - Liquid is Liquid ... A beautiful dreamy breakbeat track. dEUS - Little Arithmetics ... The legendary belgian band with one of their most legendary tracks 79Cortinaz - Deirdre's Song ... Still not that well-known irish band, very much UNlike U2, with a beautiful debut Orbital - The Box ... What can I say. Simply beautiful. The five people where this meme will go on… My wife Marjolein zeroK Steef Roel Matthijs posted on May 21, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the web
Not sure if this a new feature of Flickr but they've now got some fun Flickr Badge system. You can see what it is in the sidebar on the right. You see a random selection of 3 photos from my Flickr account. It's quite customizable too.
posted on May 21, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webThe movie critic that comes by on TV every thursday morning was quite positive this morning about the new Star Wars movie. He says it makes up for the weak movies that part I and II were. This one seems to be more about emotions, and focussing on Anakin becoming Vader.
Interesting. I'll probably go and see it anyway, whether it's good or bad.
The newspaper was also quite positive, giving it a 4/5 rating.
Some of you may know that I'm a big fan of laidback electronica. Nice stuff to relax to. In that vein, I can recommend Brent Mottley's 'treeline'. Great laidback music to chill to. Unfortunately the people at Hippocamp seem to have some server trouble at the moment, but linking to archive.org directly works fine 
Listen here
Wow. Pretty cool. Firefox commercials. And good ones too!!!!!
posted on May 12, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webUntil yesterday, I was a happy user of Fluxbox. A lightweight not-too-graphically-oriented window manager for X. But yesterday, zeroK pointed me to Openbox. Right now, I'm running Openbox. And I'm quite happy. Graphically, it is very similar to Fluxbox. However, instead of flat files with a specific syntax for configuring the system and menu, Openbox uses XML files for configuring. Works great. Much easier to configure. So yeah, I'm quite happy with Openbox. I'll probably keep it on my system.
posted on May 11, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webIt seems that a new alternative to Paypal will be launching later this year. It is called GreenZap. From the description, it looks very similar to Paypal. It is always good to have an alternative IMHO.
I've already contacted GreenZap to see if there is an API that developers can use to integrate GreenZap into their site. Should be interesting.
Oh, and if you pre-register now, you'll get $25 into your account for free. A nice gesture from the people at GreenZap
Well, we've just Rebooted the WebKoffer website. After a few months of black-on-white standard design, we now have a real design up! Over the next week's, we'll still be tweaking it a bit, but this'll give you a good impression of how it's going to work!
posted on May 1, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webIn the category 'useless but so friggin cool', Elliot Back brings the Image to CSS converter. Amazing. Looking really really good. For instance, have a look at the seperator image I am using. I say: wow!
posted on April 27, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webAmongst the tons of plugins for web developers, there is a new one. The Zend Studio Plugin integrates some Zend Studio functionality with the browser. Of course, only useful if you use Zend Studio for your development, but since I do, I've just installed the plugin.
posted on April 25, 2005 - 6 comment(s) - tags: left on the webI hereby declare today Thinner Day. I'm going to load all the mp3's I have from the Thinner netlabel into a playlist and just play their music for one day.
And I suggest you do the same. Because the music released on Thinner is worth it. Bigtime.
When the Internet was young, or even before the Internet, when computers were young, most of the games you could play on the computer were text-only RPGs. Soon, simple ASCII graphics took over. Then when the Internet was young, it was MUDs all over. Multi-player textbased RPGs. Of course, soon, graphics got better, computer got more powerful, and everyone was aiming for graphics. Now, a new game is on the horizon, using a recent technology: Wiki's. Here's the description of Lexicon: An RPG. It sounds like lots of fun. If anyone is interested in playing, I can easily set up a game and we can think of a theme to do this with.
posted on April 21, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webHere's 10 CSS tricks you may not know about. I didn't know about some of them, and some might actually be useful. However, I am having a slight problem with trick #4. In my humble opinion, that's more of a bug in IE. Though it might be useful in some cases, using it might break your layout might the IE developers decide to fix this in either the next minor upgrade of IE or in the next major upgrade of IE. So calling that a trick is maybe not good.
posted on April 19, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webYesterday was the day of release of two beautiful new EP's on my netlabel Laidback Electronica. This time it was the ambient duo Ambient Ashand who brought 4 chilling ambient tracks, and german minimal techno-meister Lomov whose Unterflughydrant is a very inspiring release to dream away to. Both releases are available for free download.
posted on April 15, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webOK, I ran into this problem today and luckily Googling answered my question. I thought it would be nice to share
I was working on a system where I had to open a new window, where the user would select a certain item from a list, and when clicking on that item, the item would be selected in the original window. Problem: I got an error message:
Error: uncaught exception: Permission denied to get property Window.miloformNow, thanks to the Gecko DOM reference I found the answer to my problem:
I can not access the properties of the new secondary window. I always get a javascript error in the console saying "Error: uncaught exception: Permission denied to get property <property_name or method_name>". Why is that? It is because of the cross-domain script security restriction (also referred as the "Same Origin Policy"). A script loaded in a window (or frame) from a distinct origin (domain name) cannot get nor set properties of another window (or frame) or the properties of any of its HTML objects coming from another distinct origin (domain name). Before executing a script, the browser in the main window verifies that the secondary window has the same domain name.It turns out that the client I am building this for has two domain names, and the new window was opened from a different domain. Yes, that would be a problem, knowing the above. posted on March 31, 2005 - 7 comment(s) - tags: left on the web
(reload, reload, reload)
posted on March 29, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webWonderful. These new intelligent SPAM bots that only SPAM sites that can be found when searching for certain keywords. For instance. Take this Mercedes-related site. I just got this e-mail:
Hi, I took a look at your site a couple of hours ago... and I want to tell you that I'd really love to trade links with you. I think your site has some really good stuff related to my site's topic of Mercedes Benz and would be a great resource for my visitors as it deals with some great aspects of Mercedes Bbenz that I'd like to give my visitors more information about. In fact, I went ahead and added your site to my Mercedes Benz HQ Resource Directory at [SPAMmed URL] Is that OK with you? Can I ask a favor? Will you give me a link back on your site? I'd really appreciate you returning the favor. Thanks and feel free to drop me an email if you'd like to chat more about this. Best wishes, MarkI got this on the e-mailaccount for my website FantasyLibrary.net. Why, would you think? Well, probably because there is an entry for an author called Mercedes Lackey. Oh the joys of supposed targetted SPAM. posted on March 29, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the web
Oh, and a little reminder: I still have tons of Gmail invites left. If you want a Gmail account, just let me know on which e-mailaddress to invite you.
Last year, I won a license for Zend Studio at the PHP Conference in Amsterdam. I was quite happy, I never really used an IDE before and thought it was all bloat. Zend Studio definately did proof the opposite. Today I found out that version 4 of Zend Studio was released recently. It has quite an extensive list of new features. Interesting. So I checked if I could also download this new version with the license I had, expecting I'd have to buy some kind of upgrade package. But no, I could just generate a license key for Zend Studio 4. They've decided to split Zend Studio up into two different versions. The $99 Standard version and the $299 Professional version. And the license I had gave me access to the Professional version! So yeah, I must say I'm really charmed, once again, by Zend and their Zend Studio IDE. I've yet to start using the new features, but I'm sure they're just as good as the IDE that I used with version 3.5.
posted on March 19, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webEvery once in a while, I am shocked by the lack of responsibility of some hosting providers. A lot of hosting providers offer their clients free phpBB installations, either through a control panel or as an added service of their support. However, a lot of these hosting providers do not tell their clients that installation is not all. That phpBB should be regularly updated when new versions are released. Of course, this does not limit itself to phpBB, but really to any web application. We're currently at phpBB 2.0.13. And today, someone comes to the phpBB support forum because his forum, phpBB 2.0.4, was hacked. I quote:
My hosting service provided that version of phpBB and I never really saw it necessary to upgrade (until today!!)Hosting providers should really tell their clients who want to use free software installations that they should be on the lookout for updates. It's also in their own interest, because sometimes, whole servers can be taken down by malicious hackers. posted on March 19, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the web
A new Google internationalization: Google Hax0r The funniest new thing since Google Klingon.
posted on March 16, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webThis can not be happening. Unbelievable. Even though there was massive resistance, the European council has accepted the Softwarepatents proposal. By accepting this proposal, they have signed the death penalty for many small software companies, who may need to start paying high amounts of license money for using certain techniques or even work methods that are patented by big corporations. I just made up my mind on what to vote when the elections are held here in the Netherlands on whether to accept or reject the European constitution...
posted on March 7, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webWell, I finally did it. I ordered this book. Plone really looks interesting, and I should finally widen my focus. PHP is great, of course, but having more choice than just PHP is even better.
posted on March 3, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webWhen you rip most of your cd collection, you may walk against some trouble with xmms or other music players trying to generate a long playlist of all your music, especially when the music files are located on a network share. In my case, access to this networkshare is pretty slow as well due to the supposedly bad combination of NFS and wireless. Still, you'll want to generate playlists and the easiest way then is to simply load an existing m3u file. zeroK came to the rescue for me. It's quite easy to create those files on linux. You need a single, simple command:
find /mp3 -type f > playlist.m3uOf course, you need to replace /mp3 with the path to your mp3's. But then you're done. A great and easy way to generate a playlist file of your music. posted on February 25, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the web
Online Poker. A topic that is mostly something that results with furious responses from website owners and especially webloggers. But it's time to strike back. Ozh has the solution. Or well, maybe not really the solution, but definately a nice way to strike back.
And so, I write a post about Online Poker. Let's get Wikipedia the google rank that it deserves, and thus beat the comment/trackback/referrer spammers on their own territory
To add a small extra to it, I've added rel="tag" to the links to Wikipedia, so that Technorati might also pick up on this.
I usually hate flash stuff, except when either incredibly funny or incredible impressive. this one falls under the incredibly funny category.
posted on February 21, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webNetscape has literally died a thousand deaths already. And for some reason, everytime the browser is given up on, afterwards they come up with a new version again. And again. Soon, there will be a beta of Netscape 8. And boy, check out the screenshot to see how ugly as hell this new version will be. It's based on Firefox. Well, after seeing this screenshot, I definately am impressed by the designers at Netscape. Nobody has been able to skin Firefox *this* ugly so far
This is a good tutorial for those who want to start writing in their own weblog.
posted on February 18, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webFor a while already I've been working hard together with some other people to develop a new open source CMS. Yes, yet another CMS. I've tried a lot of software already, but nothing suited my needs. Well, you can now see the results of that hard work. Because the first beta release it now available. Download it here. A bit of documentation can be found here. And if you find any bugs, please report them here.
The main focus for us for the coming time will be fixing reported bugs and documenting the system. So in the near future, everything will hopefully make some more sense.
Anyway, come by, download, and start testing it!
And for those who wonder: yes, we WILL be getting a Real DesignTM, but we probably won't be making that public until the release of 1.0 stable.
Every once in a while, something really funny happens regarding to spam. Today, I got a funny SPAM mail. I have my Thunderbird configured to show plaintext mail if possible. So today I get an e-mail from someone I don't know with the following text:
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. -- Frank SinatraI am quite puzzled, but after inspecting the source of the message, I find that it is simply porn SPAM in the HTML part of the message. They just entered a random quote into the plaintext part of the message, probably in the hopes of that way not being stopped by SPAM filters. Thunderbird's SPAM filter indeed didn't catch it as SPAM. And it brought a smile to my face, getting an e-mail like this. posted on February 16, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the web
As some of you may know, I'm slightly... uhm... geeky, in my hobbies. Aside from scripting php (which is also my work), I also collect Transformers. Yesterday, I re-organized my collection a bit and decided to also make some pictures. Here are some.
posted on February 14, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webInteresting. A quite extensive browser speed test for browsers in Linux, Mac and Windows. Very good to see the different browsers put next to eachother. It's not an official test, it's not a scientific test, but a test by someone who wanted to test the speed of the different browsers for several aspects. Which actually leads me to believe in it's results.
posted on February 12, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webDarn, the people in the USA are lucky. I'd like to see this happening in Europe as well. Would be quite an interesting thing to attend.
posted on February 11, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webThe 10 (or so) Commandments of Web Design SUNNYVALE, CA (REUTERS) -- A recently located makeshift 'instruction manual', has been located under the backseat of Tim Berners-Lee's car. The 'manual', a short treatise on web design principles, was scrawled on a series of old Denny's napkins and has revealed the lost 10 Commandments of Web Design - now made public, exclusively at CoolHomepages.com!
posted on February 10, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webNow here is a book I'd like to have. Anyone feel like buying me a nice new book?
Marco van Hylckama Vlieg, a.k.a. i-marco, has written an open letter to the people at Google. Topic of the open letter is his, and with him most bloggers', frustration about comment spam, trackback spam and referrer spam. In his letter, he makes some good points about comment spam and the importance of Google in this. Though the nofollow attribute is a nice addition, in the long run it won't make a difference, because by far not all weblogs will be secured with this tool. I definately agree with marco's points, and I sincerely hope that the Google crew will respond to this open letter. I hope a discussion will be started here about how to stop comment spam, with the most important party in the whole comment spam, Google, openly joining this discussion. After all, Google *is* the main reason for comment spam to happen.
posted on February 9, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webYesterday, I received an e-mail from a client. Some of the text on their website, that was editted with a rich-text textarea editor, had gotten a different font layout as the rest of the site. Of course, this was not what was supposed to happen. Cause of this, I soon found out, was some markup that didn't get filtered by the "Word HTML filter" I built in, since this client pastes a lot of their website text into the site from Word. And so I needed to find out how to overrule style attributes in these Word-generated tags. Thanks to zeroK I found out about the !important rule in CSS. And so, by adding the following CSS to the site's header: * { font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif !important; } I overruled the font-family style attribute added by Word. Now, all text in the site is always the same font-family, as it was meant to be.
posted on February 8, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webSome of you may know this, and some of you may not. But across Europe, a highly irritating song is high in the charts and being played on radio almost constantly. It's a song about a Crocodile. It's horrible. But now we can finally strike back!
posted on February 7, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the web
create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands
Anyone want a Gmail invite? I still have a few left. If you want one, leave your name and e-mailaddress in the comments and I'll invite
TinyMCE, or Tiny Moxie Code Editor, is a WYSIWYG textarea replacement written in Javascript. I am actually very impressed with it. After using HTMLArea and a few others in the past which never seemed to work exactly right in Firefox, it seems this one does pull it off. Judging from the Compatibility Chart, their system works in most of the good browsers of today. I've just integrated it into the management interface of my CMS simply by copying over the js files to the CMS directory and 6 lines of code! It is very easy to configure the editor using simple parameters in the init function of the code. Very, very good.
posted on February 4, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webFrench techno god Laurent Garnier has cancelled his upcoming US Tour. His website tells us why.
I am very sorry to have to cancel my forthcoming tour in the United States. I have decided to cancel further to what I consider to be completely unreasonable demands from the US Embassy in France in order to renew my working visa. In order to obtain this new visa, the rules have once again changed since November 2004 and I would now have to not only fill in an exceedingly probing application form, but also be interviewed by a member of the Embassy staff, and provide proof of ownership of my house, details of my bank account, my mobile phone records, personal information on all my family members and more. I consider these demands to be a complete violation of my privacy and my civil liberties and I refuse to comply. I am horrified by these new regulations and feel really sad that this is what some call freedom and democracy. It has now become almost impossible for an artist to come and perform in the United States. And until this new legislation changes I will unfortunately refuse to comply with this nonsense. Thank you for your understanding. Laurent GarnierIsn't it amazing that the US is so full of bullshit that a well-known techno artist can't even get into the US anymore without providing the most useless of private information to the US government? posted on February 3, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the web
Online Music World, which was only a discussion forum so far, has now added a weblog to it's site. On the weblog, a team of representatives from the online and independent music scene will be writing about, well, the independent and online music scene. The design is not finished yet, but the first post is now there. More will follow.
posted on February 1, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webLately, I've been looking a bit more into Technorati and it's system. Quite impressive, and very interesting. I already added a technorati link to my dutch weblog but hadn't done that here yet. So just now I've added the Technorati link here as well. Now, I'm already planning to write a plugin for Nucleus to include Technorati Tags in that system, but I guess it would be good to also have an extension for Pivot. I don't think the extension system is not really documented yet.
posted on February 1, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webThe Register published an interview with a link spammer. You know, one of those annoying people who spams your comments with links to all kinds of porn sites or casino's. It's an interesting read for everyone with a weblog.
posted on January 31, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webThere is a short list of records that I am still looking for. And every once in a while, I manage to win one on eBay. My latest win this way is the classic record Ramirez - Hablando. A true classic for people who were into the house scene between 1990 and 1995. And since that was the period I was active as house DJ, this record is definately a classic for me. Of course, I was stupid enough not to buy it when it came out. But I have it now! I am a happy man
Chriss Shiflett writes about a new page that lists a whole lot of examples/test cases of XSS issues. Using these, you could test your site/system for XSS vulnerabilities. A basic knowledge of XSS is expected already, but in his posting, Shiflett also links to some websites about the basics of XSS.
posted on January 27, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webIf you're running Linux and you have a wireless card based on the Texas Instruments chipsets, then you don't need to search for any Linux drivers for those cards. That's what I found out after purchasing a license for my D-Link wireless card from Linuxant. It seems that Linuxant has landed a deal with Texas Instruments, resulting in the free use of the Linuxant Driverloader software for users of TI-based wireless cards. Now that's what I call good service from TI. Also good service by Linuxant, by the way, who promptly refunded the license I bought. If you're NOT using a TI-based card, however, the Linuxant Driverloader software is still a very good buy. I have it running on my laptop (Intel Pro Wireless 2200 card) and it works perfectly. And the installation was dead easy. Definately a well-spent $20.
posted on January 27, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webDon't be scared. This is still the same site. I just changed the design... uhm, slightly?
The default Pivot template is, well, a bit boring of course. And one is expected to alter it. And so I did. I based this design on Persian for WordPress. Of course, with Pivot's slightly different setup, I had to alter it slightly. But it works well imho.
Only thing I know is that in Internet Explorer something is not going well, but that might also be related to the Calvin & Hobbes comic I posted earlier, because the image is a bit too wide for this design. I'll tweak a bit and see how it works
Anyway, enjoy
Calvin and Hobbes rule. Everybody knows that. And some people get some serious inspiration from Calvin and Hobbes. (low)
posted on January 25, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webSo, lately it has been in the news that Spongebob is promoting homosexuality or something like that. First thing I think of is: You either are or you aren't, you'll not quickly be "persuaded" into homosexuality unless you already have that in you ... but ah well. Some people are not that smart I guess? Anyway, RobotJohnny makes a good point about this whole issue by looking at some random Bugs Bunny cartoons.
posted on January 25, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webIf you are looking for an mp3 player, and also look to refresh your breath, then check this one. A very cheap way of getting your own nice mp3 player. And a fresh breath. (metafilter)
posted on January 23, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webI've written before about downloading music. Legal downloads are hard to get. Most downloads require the downloading computer to support DRM and the only technology that currently supports it enough to be used is Microsoft's Windows Media Player. This poses a big problem for people not using Microsoft's operating system, because both Mac and Linux/Unix can't run this.
But, finally, I have found a system that can be used for legal downloading of a lot of music. No, it won't have most of the music that is released by the "Big 5". Instead, it focusses on providing music by the smaller labels, by those independent labels and artists that deserve our support more than those that get plugged by the Big 5. This system is called eMusic.
Instead of using DRM'ed Windows Media files, you can download high quality MP3 files that can be played on all computers, on all portable music players, everywhere. Quite similar to Bleep but with a slightly different payment system and a much bigger catalog. With eMusic, you pay a monthly fee, and in return you get a certain number of downloads. All tracks you download take 1 away from the download. And you don't have to "pay" twice for the same track: If your download fails, your connection gets lost or whatever, and you download the same track again, that will not take another download credit from your account.
And don't think there is only unknown music on eMusic. They've been able to convince quite a few smaller labels to offer their music through eMusic. Think Fleetwood Mac, Tom Waits, The Future Sound Of London, Frank Zappa.
Yes, I really like this system, and I think more people should. It's the perfect legal downloading. No annoying technologies that only work on certain operating systems. And a lot of great music that need our support.
And the best thing is, if you sign up for a free trial account, you'll get your first 50 MP3 download's for free! If you consider signing up, please contact me, because if I refer you to the site and you end up signing up, I'll get 10 free tracks as well
This article was also posted on Electronic Music World
Retro just got a bit better. Finally, it's been released! The C64 Direct-to-TV unit! Finally we can play all those old games again, straight on our TV, with this simple unit. And for a quite acceptable price.
posted on January 21, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webCan anybody donate their old PlayStation 2 to me? I want to play GTA:SA so much. I hear all kinds of good stories about that game
When you see the text: support only on the support forum What do you think? Let's send a Private Message to this guy asking for support? It seems some people do, because I get at least two PM's every day asking me for support on their problem. Amazing, isn't it?
posted on January 15, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webUbuntu Linux. A relatively new distribution in the Linux world, with a Gnome desktop. Being the lover of editting configuration files manually and such, I didn't think it was for me. When my wife wanted linux though, and she disliked Slackware because it wasn't intuitive enough for a new Linux user (can't blame her), Ubuntu was my first thought. I'd received a few installation cd's (you can order those for free!) and thought I'd give it a try. Wow. I never thought I'd be impressed this much by a graphically oriented distribution. I mean, I also use X, but don't use Gnome or KDE because I don't need all the eyecandy, but this is good. Much better than, for instance, the default installation of Gnome that you get with Slackware, which was mainly what I was basing my opinion of Gnome on. The menu's are very intuitive, and there's a lot of graphical configuration tools. Perfect for someone who has just left Windows for Linux. Very, very impressive. And maybe even more impressive is the great support. On the Ubuntu Forums you can already find answers to a lot of questions, simply by searching around a bit. I bumped into some minor issues, but had quickly found all the answers I needed. Yes, Ubuntu is definately one of the best distributions, especially for people new to linux. There might be some minor flaws, but in general it definately works well and looks good.
posted on January 13, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webGet a bear and help Asia. That's what Bertie Aid is all about.
posted on January 10, 2005 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webHere's a small plug. I'm selling some items on eBay
Paul decided that it was time to call back some people. As the Support Team Leader, I also get regular messages through PM, e-mail or even in the comments of my weblog of people asking me for support. That is not what is supposed to happen. It's clear from the forum rules, the README and my signature that I (and all other team members) should not be contacted with support questions in any other way than through the Support Forum.
OK, that's all now. Walk on through.
Artists Support Asia - A Call For Help By now, everyone will know of what happened in Asia. An earthquake followed by tsunamis has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of wounded people and millions of homeless. Now, two days after it happening, help is getting started. And those organisations involved in this need our help. They need money to buy food and whatever other material that is necessary to help people. Artists Support Asia is calling out for artists to help in their own way. Donate a track, one of your old tracks, one of your unreleased new tracks, or a track especially written for this project, to Artists Support Asia. We will be compiling these tracks into compilation cd-r's and sell them. All proceeds will be donated to the International Red Cross. Artists! Want to help out? Join us now! Go to http://www.artistssupportasia.org/forum/ to show your interest in joining this project. Let's make a statement! Let's tell the world that independant artists can also show they care! Let's raise money to help all those affected by this terrible disaster.
posted on December 29, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webMy christmas present to the Nucleus community: NP_ASrecentlist: A Nucleus plugin that fetches the last 10 tracks off your AudioScrobbler account and displays them in your weblog.
posted on December 26, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webI will probably get scolded at from the real Linux people. But after ages of struggling with my wireless network setup, I've finally found a solid, stable way to keep my wireless network running. This solution came in the form of the payware software Linuxant DriverLoader. Now, I know that using their software does not give a good signal towards hardware manufacturers. And if I would've had time enough to spend on getting it to work, I would. But all I needed was a good, working wireless network. And I've got that, with little trouble, thanks to Linuxant. I don't care anymore than I have to pay $20 per computer. I don't care that it's not Open Source. I've got a working network, and thats the most important thing for me.
posted on December 22, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webWell, I've got 4 gmail invites again. Leave your e-mailaddress on which you want to receive your invite if you want one.
posted on December 21, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webOh! Fun music! Mash-ups are mostly crap, but sometimes there are really interesting mash-ups. The Beastles is a good example of really fun mash-ups. A guy called DJ BC mashed up The Beatles with The Beastie Boys. And they're really good!
posted on December 21, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webNow, Bugtraq contains a lot of people that are not that smart. Just for the record, there are also a lot of people there that *are* really smart though
Anyway, I just got pointed to this vulnerability that was recently posted. It seems that in phpBB 1.4.4, there is a vulnerability in the image bbcode.
You know when your country is fucked when your artists tour around the world and start apologizing for their own government and their people who have been able to re-elect one of the worst presidents of all time. On monday and tuesday, Live's Ed Kowalczyk did just that during their shows in Rotterdam.
posted on December 17, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webA saturday night out. It's been a while, and now that I'm gonna do it, it's gonna be good. And varied. I'm starting with a performance by Adam Kowalczyk, followed by a nice party with performances by Owen, Apparat and Lackluster. So, starting out with a pop/rock gig, and then moving to danceable electronic bleeps. Yes, this is going to be a good night.
posted on December 11, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webIt is really hard to type when you have a 5-week-old kitten sleeping on your arm. Trust me on that.
posted on December 8, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webI frequent quite a few forums, related to different subjects. n5MD is a very cool independent label where good music comes out, and they also have a forum. Today, a wonderful topic was posted on that forum. It gives an interesting alternate view on schizophrenia. Read it, and think about it a bit more.
posted on December 5, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webA few months ago, through various forums and mailinglists, I was alerted of the presence of a site called JetGroove.com that was selling mp3 downloads of independant artists and labels, without the permission to actually do so. The site currently only has a temporary page telling visitors it's "down for maintainance". In the meanwhile, a forum that I am responsible for got spammed with a promotional message for a site resembling the old JetGroove so much that it couldn't be a coincidence. It is the exact same site design, and a very very similar catalog of independant music. They only rebranded the site! So here is my warning. Please, please do NOT buy music from www.audio1.org. Buy the music directly from the labels and artists! They need the money much harder and actually deserve the money you're spending.
posted on December 3, 2004 - 1 comment(s) - tags: left on the web'Blog' is now word of the year. For some reason, a lot of people didn't know what the word 'blog' meant this year. Isn't that strange? I mean, everyone and their grandma have at least one weblog, and yet nobody knows what it means. Personally, I hate the term 'blog'. I'd rather speak of a 'weblog'. 'Blog' sounds like a scary disease.
posted on December 2, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webI really really need to dive into Python. There are things for the web that are very interesting. For instance, Zope, and the Plone application that runs on Zope. Very interesting all that. Of course, PHP is just as interesting and though I've mastered big parts of PHP already there is enough that I could still learn about it. So it's a dilemma: Fully master PHP first, or broaden the horizon by diving into Python, Zope and Plone. Installing a Zope server with Plone on it is slightly harder than installing Apache with PHP though. Time to make some considerations.
posted on December 1, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webSometimes something happens, and all of a sudden you realize you're very lucky. Today I was in a small car crash. The car is gone, total loss. I don't even have a scratch.
posted on November 27, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the webAnd you were alone. And this was all that was left on the web.
posted on November 26, 2004 - 0 comment(s) - tags: left on the web
