VDSL Roll-out Starts in 2008

W00t... KPN is finally starting to upgrade their network to support VDSL. This COULD mean a major speed upgrade for me. Currently I only have a 4Mbps ADSL2 line (but with a 1Mbps upload, thanks to XS4ALL). This is the maximum throughput for me, since I live too far from the distribution hub. Other interesting news is that KPN won't charge their customers for MOBILE data connections made from the 21st of December till the 30th of December 2007. So, it's all you can download via GPRS, UMTS :-)

Click to read more ...

PGP v9.7 released

The release of the beta PGP v9.7 a couple of weeks ago, made me kinda curious if I had to pay for the new update. I bought v9.0 officially, and every update 'swallowed' my old license info. And what happend today, when I installed the newly released full version of PGP 9.7 Desktop... It swallowed my old license. B.t.w. the original purchase was for the Windows version of PGP, but the license also works on the OSX version of the software (it always did). So it's not necessary to buy a new license when you switch platforms. There is a downside though; It's not possible to download a full version for the license holders. You need to download the 30-day trail version. And you'll only get it when using a valid e-mail address. In the old days they had some restriction on how many times (and in what time frame) you used an e-mail address. Major bummer: the sign and encrypt buttons are no longer available in the Apple mail.app. So you need to use the builtin PGP proxy. So basically, there is no way of manipulating single messages (other than using the clipboard). There is no need for me to sign every mail I send, nor is there the necessity of encrypting every mail I send to a certain person.

Click to read more ...

Installing Coldfusion 8

Having a day off from work meant that I had some time to clean-up my server from everything crap. This also meant trying to upgrade Coldfusion MX 7 to Coldfusion 8. The new version supports some nice new features, with which I wanted to experiment. Since none of my production websites run on Coldfusion (currently PHP), I could safely uninstall and install the new developer version. When I pressed 'remove' I had this flash from the past. When I tried to install version 7 I had humongous problems with the installer (services didn't register correctly with IIS, etc.). But this could be just a coincidence... Installing Coldfusion itself was straight-forward. The fun began when the installer wanted to launch the admin-panel to finalize the installation. No responds from the webserver. Even my blog was not working ("System cannot find the file specified"). Seemed that there were references to the old Coldfusion parser in the IIS.. After removing those instances, I had my blog back up-and-running. Next was to finalize the Coldfusion 8 installation. I had to manually add the Coldfusion parameters to IIS (allowed Web Services, document types, ... the works) After screwing around for nearly two hours, I could finish the installation. Just to make sure that it wasn't me, I installed it also in a virtual machine. And off course it worked flawlessly. Guess I need to reinstall my server in the next couple of weeks. Who knows what else is f*cking up the system. Oh, another thing; I used to use RDS for development of the websites, so I tried to configure it again.... Well you might guess it... Not working. After yet another hour searching I found that RDS uses a 'virtual file' called 'ide.cfm'. This file is located in /CFIDE/main/. The actual location (main/) doesn't exist, so IIS returns a 404 error. It seems that you need to uncheck 'Verify if file exists' in IIS for the .cfm extension for RDS to work. Or do as I did; create the directory 'main' and create an empty file called ide.cfm in that directory. Well, this was an afternoon well spent.... NOT. Next mission is to upgrade MySQL to version 5. So expect some serious downtime. UPDATE: MySQL has also been upgraded to v5.something. It went surprisingly easy.

Click to read more ...

New iMac 24" :-P

My new iMac 24" arrived this week. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time in setting it up (business and social obligations), so I had to wait a bit... Very annoying. Anyway, in the mean time it's up and running, and man.... it is fast. I ordered the basic 24" version (2.4Ghz, 1GB RAM, 320GB HD) with the wired UK keyboard. On it's arrival I immediately bought 2 * 2GB RAM to upgrade the memory to 4GB. I bought it later (and not from Apple) because of the big price difference. The iMac with 4GB pre-configured was hundreds of euros more expensive, and 2 Kingston DDR2 667 (PC2-5300) SODIMM were around 80 euros a piece. That saved me some money. Money I can use to buy me a larger FW800 or NAS unit for backup. Hooking up the iMac was easy (as you expect from Apple). Downside was that Leopard wasn't installed, so I had to install it myself (original Leopard DVD was included in the package). In the mean time I could setup the other devices around my iMac (audio, 12km of cables, and my 24" Dell TFT). After Leopard was installed I had two 24" displays on my desk.... SWEET :-P . There is one small problem with the two displays... They don't align (vertically) very well, so I have to raise the Dell 24" about an inch with something :-( . The purchase of the iMac would also be my first experience with the new aluminum keyboard and the Apple Mighty mouse. I choose the wired keyboard, because I can't be bothered with replacing the batteries. They always die on a Sunday evening when there's no way on getting new batteries in time. The experience with the mouse was kinda disapointing. It just didn't feel right (I tried it for a couple of hours). So I replaced it for my old Logitech MX510. The keyboard however is awesome. It's small, but with all the features you expect from Apple. The keyboard requires a little getting used to (about 5 minutes). The next thing is migrating data from my old Windows PC to the iMac, and figuring out Boot Camp. This still allows me to install Windows XP and run some games or Windows specific software on the iMac hardware.

Click to read more ...

PGP Public Beta v9.7 Released

Since the upgrade to OSX Leopard, I've not been able to use PGP, since it simple won't work. Yesterday I received an e-mail that the public beta of PGP 9.7 has been released (for Windows and OSX). This one does work on Leopard (until December this year though), so I guess that I need to BUY myself yet another version of PGP. I found one 'bug' in the meantime; I seem to be missing the encrypt and sign buttons in the OSX Mail app. Or I might be missing something? I don't want to use the PGP service which signs or encrypts everything. I want to sign and/or encrypt when I want to, and not when an app tells me to.

Click to read more ...

Holland Oyama Cup 2007

The Holland Oyama Cup was held on November 4th in Zevenbergen. I made a Quick-and-Dirty gallery of the event which can be found here. I also placed some Black&White versions on Flickr. Enjoy

Click to read more ...

Photogear Shoppingcart

I do have a (small) wish list for my hobby. The list (in a random order) consists mostly of high quality glass, and the combined total is a small 5000 euro (yikes!!)..... Anyone got some change to spare?

• Nikon AF-D 85mm F/1.8
• Nikon AF-D 35mm F/2.0
• Nikon AF-S 70-200mm F/2.8 VR ED Black
• Nikon AF-S 28-70mm F/2.8 ED Black
• Nikon AF-G 10.5mm F/2.8 G ED DX

Now where did I leave my lotterytickets??? UPDATE: w00t, I actually won..... 10 euro's :(

Click to read more ...

iMac on it's Way

A couple of weeks ago, my Windows PC was starting to crash. Hard disks were going; 'plonk, plonk, rrrrrrr, tac tac, rrrrr '. Most of the times this resulted in system freezes or blue screens. So ever since that weekend, I've been looking into an iMac 24". Last weekend I ordered my iMac in the online Apple Store. It's the standard 24" with 320GB drive and 1GB of RAM. My current PC also has only 320GB of diskspace, and I'm not even close on filling that up. I will upgrade the 1GB of RAM myself. If I buy the memory at my 'local' computershop it saves me around 600 euro's on 4GB. The Apple prices for memory are just ridiculous. Another point of frustration is the keyboard layout. Every PC sold in the Netherlands (wel, almost every PC) has a English-US keyboard. Why isn't that layout available as an option. I hate the vertical 'enter', and the small 'left-shift' on the NL, and UK keyboards. Too bad, that you can't order an iMac without keyboard and mouse. So, anyone interested in a new (thin aluminum) Apple keyboard and MightyMouse (both on a wire). This only leaves me with my Windows server at the moment. It would be nice to replace that one with a Mac Mini.

Click to read more ...

Aurora Be Gone

The default background image on OSX Leopard is this annoying Aurora/starfield kinda picture. To change this, just change the desktop background image by using the rightmouse button on the desktop.It's something different to change the background image on the login screen. Some searching revealed that it uses the DefaultDesktop.jpg in the /System/Library/CoreServices/ directory. 'Just' replace that file with your own picture. There is a small catch. If you replace it, it will get the wrong permissions on the file, and therefor won't show up on the login screen.Just 'reset' the permissions on the file like this:

• sudo chown root /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg
• sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg

You may need to enter a username and password while executing these commands.

Click to read more ...

Flevo Shoot

I totally forgot to mention that we had another photo fieldtrip last week. This time we went to the Flevopolder (Flevo-Landschap & Oostvaardersplassen). We had good fun, cold weather, and some interesting pictures.

As usual, you can see an extract of them on my Flickr page.

Click to read more ...