There was a small party in our garden to celebrate the occasion. I had sent out the invites only 2 days ahead so naturally several friends had to decline as they already had made plans.
I was sending them a few “What is more important than cake and champagne” SMS messages but they would not budge. No sweat, the more cake and champagne there was for the rest of us.
It wasn’t as bad as I had expect it to be, to turn 30. I did wake up with a head ache and for a brief moment I was terrified that maybe after you turn 30, you would have a constant head ache. Nobody had told me that. The head ache disappeared next day however so all was good again.
I was overwhelmed by the preparations my wife had put into it all. She even sent me away to a favourite restaurant of ours to “pick up some things”. There was nothing to be picked up. Instead a 90 minute massage appointment was waiting for me across the street, at Bliss.
There were also presents involved in the celebrating. A few friends combined their efforts and surprised me mightily with a Nikkor 20mm 2.8D lens. An object of desire that I would not have indulged my self in otherwise.
Fine wine, cigar accessories and sporting gear were other high-lights. I felt spoiled rotten!
Blast on London underground and buses
Around 9am today (Thursday) several London underground trains and busses had exploded. All of London underground network is currently suspended and people are being evacuated.
Initially the incidents were being reported as “power surges” on the underground. After several buses had exploded as well it was clear that it was actually bombs that had exploded.
Currently (11am) there have been a few (2) fatal casualties.
No information regarding who is responsible for the attacks as of yet.
I am fine and so is our family. I have been in touch with several close friends who are all fine as well but I am very worried that not all have been so lucky.
Update 3.30pm
Currently there are more than 33 fatalities confirmed. More than 300 people have been treated.
Other sources
Real time Wiki
BBC Timeline
Sky News
Mowecam: Mobile Web Camera
Update
Visit the Mowecam support forum to ask any questions.
What is it
Mowecam is a J2ME experiment with a camera enabled mobile phone and a publicly accessible web server.
The application takes periodical snapshots from the mobile phone camera and posts them to a web server.
The latest image is then avaible for inclusion in a web site, for example a web log (blog).
The usages are the same as for a standard web camera and can include security, watching a party progress, weather, baby monitor and many more.
Mowecam enjoys the freedom of not being dependent on a computer, nor any hard wired Internet connection. If you are within GSM network reach you can start broadcasting photos from your location.
Requirements
A modern Java enabled mobile phone with a camera.
The mobile phone needs to support the Mobile Media API (and being able to take snap shots which excludes SonyEricsson T610 and T630).
Mowecam has been developed and tested on SonyEricsson K750. There will be problems on other mobile phone models but many of them can be worked out if you let me know.
Usage
First of all download the application to your computer and install it as you normally do. This may be via infrared, Bluetooth or similar. Certain phones require both the jad and the jar file, others require the jar file only.
Due to tighter security in the new J2ME version, you will be asked to confirm when the application is about to take a snapshot and when it is trying to connect to the internet. Check the manual of your phone to find out how to change the permission settings for Mowecam to “ask once only” (or else it will not be able to send images without you confirming it can go online).
Go to the settings page and enter a unique key. This will later be used to identify your image when you retrieve it via a browser. An email address is often unique and I recommend to use just that. If you are worried about the email address ending up somewhere where you don’t want it (a spam data base), add a few letters or numbers to it. FYI, the unique keys are not stored anywhere, instead a hash is being used.
The other setting is URL endpoint which is where the mobile phone will post images. Use the provided URL: http://www.davidkaspar.com/mowecam/postimage.php (this is the default URL in the application). If you have your own web server you can instead upload the post image PHP script (below) to your own server and the postage images will stay there.
The refresh rate is in seconds. Please note that each image is around 5KB and will incur costs on your mobile bill unless you are on an unlimited data plan.
Use the following code to include the image in a HTML page: <img src=”http://www.davidkaspar.com/mowecam/getimage.php? email=[unique_key_here]”>. Replace [unique_key_here] with the unique key you have provided in the application settings.
License
This is the first version of the Mowecam and only binary code is provided (mainly due to the source code being in such a mess).
The code has been developed on Netbeans 4.1 and its excellent j2me development kit.
It is free to use and to distribute as long as this license notice is provided with the binary.
As always with free and beta software it is provide without any warranty and the developer(s) cannot be held responsible for any bad consequences of running the application.
Download latest version
Mowecam (This URL should also work for OTA, over the air, installation if you type in the URL in your XHTML capable mobile phone)
Mowecam: Post image PHP script v 1.0, released under GNU General Public License.
Credits
The application architecture is inspired by Midlog made by Rawsocket.
The application is using a hash algorithm from www.partow.net
The application is using Base64 code from kobjects.org
Midnight sun in Luelå, Sweden
Luleå is a small city in the North of Sweden. While it isnt most northern city, it is very beautiful do being by the ocean and due to its breathtaking archipelago. In the summer you have nearly never setting sun. In the winter on the other hand, you are faced with many months of darkness.
This is a trip that we had been looking forward to for a good while. My father in law, coming from Brazil, was especially mesmerised by the prospect of constant daylight (23 hours of sunshine). So he and his wife travelled nearly 16 hours to get to Luleå.
I had once previously celebrated Swedish Midsummer in the North of Sweden and it was a lingering experience. A lot of eating and drinking, a lot of dancing around the Midsummer pole and a lot of wearing silly garlands of flowers.
Luleå on Midsummer night however turned out to be a very deserted, windy and cold place. Only due to the caretaking of our good friends did we manage to get to a proper Midsummer banquet. This was no easy feet because the location was on a remote island, 25 minutes away from shore by a supreme speedboat.
On the way back we all stopped over for a couple of days in the capital city of Sweden, Stockholm. It turned out to save the trip with its sunny atmosphere, crowded streets and open colourful shops. I guess that once you have gotten used to sharing living space with many, many other people the total lack of human presence is uncomfortable.
Check out some of the photos from Luleå and Stockholm, those places are quite scenic.
yawn
Yes it is 5:01am.
Ginger, our Golden Retriever, has just had her fourth and last puppy.
Surely she is able to take care of her newborn pups so it’s time to get a few hours rest.
Zzorry for the incoherent writing.
—
Turns out that last puppy was not so last after all.
Two more puppies were delivered before 7am. By then I had already passed out in the living room, so I did not notice.
Prepare yourselves for a whole load of puppy photos in the near future. Eating puppies, sleeping puppies, puppies playing and puppies in jars… no, not that, sorry.
—
Turns out that the six puppies are all boys. What is the chance of that?! (Actually it is 0.5^6 or 1:64 or 1.6%).
Since we cannot keep them all, 5 of these Golden Retriever puppies in London will be for sale second week of August. This of course after an excrutiating interview process 🙂
Use the contact form to contact me.
Heavy
I am freakin heavy. That was the only thing I could think about during todays entire run.
Back in the days a 1 hour run was only refreshing, nowadays a 30 minute run is excruciating. The only thing that pulled me through was Blue Sonics Deapseediver*.
One positive thing with being out of shape is that you get to understand the huffing and puffing of the slightly over weight people while they work it out in the streets and parks during the weekends. I am one of them 🙂
So to all the wannabe runners that are trying hard, keep at it, it will get better. To all the aces that effortlessly run and run, please have some compassion for the ones that are trying. One day it could be you again.
* Tune in to Digitally Imported for great Trance and Dance tunes. If you use Winamp with Streamripper (free software) you can even save the high quality MP3 tunes for later 😉
SonyEricsson K750i on Vodafone
The good news is that the new SonyEricsson 2 mega pixel handset is available on Vodafone UK. The bad news is that it is heavily Vodafone Live! branded and has limited functionality compared to a standard SE handset.
1. Vodafone has disabled MP3 ring tones.
2. The user interface is different from the SE original. Buttons have been reassigned, menu icons are Vodafone versions (uglier) and have different positions.
3. Vodafone logo on bottom of phone, Vodafone button above joystick.
4. This “special” edition handset is in silver (brushed metal) unlike the standard black.
5. Vodafone Live! is accessible from at least 5 different points (buttons and menu options).
Orange has also branded the K750i. While the branding is not as heavy as the Vodafone one, the icons have been replaced with low quality version.
O2 is currently the least branded k750i, unless you get a SIM free version.
Some of these issues can be remedied. To be able to play MP3 tones, MP3s can be altered with the SonyEricsson DRM (digital rights management) packager. The packager will add the digital rights in a quick step (less then 5 seconds/ song). The files will get the dm file extension and can be used on the Vodafone Live! branded K750i as ringtones.
Location 1
After using the phone for a couple of days I find the features of the phone to outweigh the Vodafone branding so I can still recommend it, especially if it is a “free” upgrade.
The 2 MP camera is very good for a mobile phone. Maximum resolution is 1632×1224 pixels. Auto focus has been added which lets you focus on certain items by pressing down the shutter button half-way. Macro mode actually works and a light has been added to be able to take pictures in dark environments.
The phone records decent mp4 video clips as well. All can be stored a Memory Stick Pro Duo (that’s a mouthful) card which nowadays are available up to 2 GB.
Please use the Vodafone branded SonyEricsson K750i forum to post any questions.
Update 05/01/06
Just a note that I have successfully flashed my SonyEricsson k750i with the R1AA008 non-Vodafone firmware using the standard USB cable and the DaVinci Team software.
Total Vodafone debranding. The standard SE icons are much nicer. The middle button functionality is restored. Can use mp3s as ringtones. No “risk” of accidentally connecting to Vodafone Live. No annoying game demos were included. A few fully functional games and apps were included. I even chose a language combination that includes Swedish so that I can use Swedish T9.
Highly recommended!
Related: SonyEricsson k800i on Vodafone
Roland Garros in the spring
Roland Garros welcomed us with thunder and rain but the weather cleared up quickly and the men’s semi finals were on, just 60 minutes delayed.
The match between Swiss Roger Federer and Spanish Raphael Nadal was touted as the “battle of the giants” and it really was. A truly spectacular game with the French audience adding extra spice by cheering on the players both in well and awkwardly chosen moments.
Nadal won 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 which took him to the finals against the Argentine Puerta. A nice touch was the fact that it was Raphael’s 19th birthday. He could not have wished for a better birthday present.
Nadal went on to win the French Open last Sunday by beating Puerta 6-7, 6-3, 6-1, 7-5.
Unlocking your mobile phone for free
Our lovely mobile networks have for the last 2-3 year been locking mobile phones provided by them. The “network lock” renders the mobile phone unusable when a SIM card from a different network provider is inserted. Using multiple SIM cards is especially handy when abroad because using a SIM from a local network is so much cheaper that roaming.
When you sign up for a mobile service contract (as opposed to Pay As You Go, PAYG), the network often gives you the chance to purchase a heavily subsidies phone.
I can understand that the operator wants to recuperate the cost of the phone but to keep recuperating that costs indefinitely I think is uncalled for.
There are “unofficial” methods to unlock your SonyEricsson phone but they cost, will most likely void any warranty and may in rare cases damage your phone. Nokia phone owners are more fortunate as Nokia phones can be unlocked without the need for any hardware and there are even sites that provide Nokia unlocking codes for free.
#PAGEBREAK#
Instead I wanted to pursue a free and more civilised approach and thus decided to contact my Vodafone customer support and start arguing.
During the last 3 days I have been given several answers from Vodafone customer service:
- It cannot be done
- We do it because all other networks do it
- We have to contact the manufacturer (SonyEricsson), it will take weeks and cost you £30
- Just pop into a Vodafone shop and they will do it for you for £15
- Of course sir, your contract has expired and as such you have the full rights to your mobile phone. Here is the unlocking code
It was the customer support responsible for “Using your phone abroad” that was finally able to help. I recommend you to navigate (via the multiple choices phone system maze) to them if you are at the end of your contract and would like to reclaim your mobile phone.
#PAGEBREAK#
Regarding the other UK operators such as T-mobile, Orange and O2 (BT) and I can only hope that they are reasonable enough.
The whole mobile phone locking reeks of anti-competitive practises that might possibly be contested with EU laws but nobody has chosen to take a mobile operator to court for those £15-£30.
Huzah, another consumer victory!
Update 18/08/05
Comments have been closed, please use the unlocking your mobile phone for free forum to post any questions or requests.
End of the Star Wars saga
So it was the 00:10 performance, probably the first public viewing of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. The official release date in the UK was Thursday, 19th and the ten past midnight just about satisfied that.
The general manager of the cinema held a little speech to the excited Star Wars geeks fans. He pronounced that he had seen the flick couple of hours earlier and that it really was “all that fcuking amazing”. We all thought good for you but let us watch the freaking movie so we can say the same.
Breathtaking start. Could possibly be the best action sequence of any of the six episodes. I was amazed at how much detail there was in each scene. Shows how much CG (computer generated graphics) has advanced since the first episode in 1999.
This was the part where the pretty boy (my female friends have told me) Anakin Skywalker would become Darth Vader. While that is common knowledge, we were all psyched to see how it would occur. This was the highlight of the movie, for me at least so it was good to see that Anakin’s transition to the dark side was a bit hasten but very enjoyable.
What will the future bring? It would be truly awesome to see the original three episodes (4, 5 and 6) remade but that may be too much to ask for. I have heard rumours that episodes 1-3 will be made in 3D version in the near future. There will also be a TV-show and various live performances (think amusement parks).
Regarding the episodes 7-9, George Lucas has once said that Star Wars was a “trilogy of trilogies” but more recently he has made it clear that episodes VII, IIX and IX will not be realised. Why is then that the whole Industrial Light & Magic team had to sign NDAs about the episodes 7-9 [TheForce.net] and that the British actor Peter Mayhew (plays Chewbacca) said that “his contract also stipulates that he’d be required to appear in Episodes 7, 8 and 9” [hotdogmagazine.com]?
Times seen: 1 2 3