2006-11-02
... but, at least I took the time to try out XGL/Compiz as many others have done before me. The Ubuntu CompositeManager/XGL manual worked flawlessly, to be honest; it was a breeze to get things working the way I wanted.
I'm not going to post a screenshot of my own stuff here, since I can't be bothered to clean up the desktop enough and set up a spiffy drool-worthy collage of transparent windows, full-speed movies and real-time window/icon previews, etc etc.. Ontop of that, the whole thing really doesnt look as cool in a screenshot anyhow; it's full of motion and effects that only video can do justice to..
Soo.. here's a link to a YouTube Search for a list of XGL-related videos. this one in particular is kinda nice as it's a dual-screen setup.. THIS one is also very nice; it shows how touchscreen+xgl really makes for a nice combo.
The effects may look like they'd suck massive amounts of CPU-power , but really it runs nice and smooth and takes less than 10% CPU-time for even the most intense effects, so far.
So, if you're running Ubuntu Dapper Drake (aka: 6.06 LTS), go ahead and try out the above-mentioned HOWTO to get it running. It's easy enough to set up GDM so that you can select an XGL-enabled session without risking losing the way back to 'normal X'.
Power to the candy!
2006-09-14
Well, as seems to be traditional on this blog; here's another post about the status of the ongoing project I call 'home'.
That is to say, here's some new(er) info on what's been going on in my work towards making my appartment more than just a collection of walls , a floor and a ceiling where I happen to have a bed.
We've (dad and me) been working mainly in the kitchen/hall area for the past month or so. Ceiling's been done with water-resistant board, coated in water-proof gunk and then rolled with moisture-resistant structure-paint; should be able to survive a flood by now, if you ask me. Like the rest of the ceiling(s) we've created so far, we've opted for an approach where there's hatches patterned across the surface in strategic places to serve a dual purpose as a light-well (halogen spots, etc) and access to the cabling/piping that's routed above the ceiling. Most, if not all of it, has been nicely hidden out of sight and it really does make weird light-switch/power-routing decisions a breeze to implement.
The floor's been keeping us most busy as of late; the hall and kitchen , being 'areas where water/dirt is likely to fall on the floor a lot' were to be tiled. But, to make the tiling the same thickness as the planned wooden floor in 'the remaining space, we've had to think of some way to raise the floor there. A friend advised using something called 'Fermacell'; a truly lovely product. It's made of compressed chalk and newspaper-fibers; it's heavy as brickwork and very stable (doesnt shrink or expand significantly over lengths of up to 40 meters in one stretch).
We've basically been laying out Fermacell boards on the floor, cutting them to size to fit them in all the weird angles this place has and then proceeded to tile ontop of it (after applying an absorption-reducing agent). Fermacell is also usable to tile on wooden floors without risk of breaking tiles or seams. With the tiles, grouting and glue adding extra weight to the whole thing, it's really one solid mass that won't expand or shift whatever you do with it. Oh, and did I mention it's a lot easier to route piping through slots in Fermacell boards than it is to cut them into concrete ? Gas and electricity sticks up nicely from the middle of the kitchen floor now; right where the stove-island's designed to be.
A note about tiling: one thing that simply 'looks nice' when doing tile-work is to have the tiles on the floor lay in a 45 degree angle with respect to the tiling on the walls. It prevents a kitchen/bathroom from looking like a notebook-grid in 3D; but also helps make an altogether nicer design when floor- and wall-tiles don't have the same sizes (which is most often the case). The seams will end up not 'connecting' all along the line where the walls meet the floor. Doing a diamond-pattern avoids this 'problem' at the cost of a bit more complex tiling-procedure. Having used a few pre-drawn pencil-lines to identify "45 degree axes" in the surface really helped simplify the process. Also, while tiling, keep on 'checking if you're going the right direction'. Tiling-spacers aren't micrometer-precise, not to mention the tiles themselves (and the accumulated mess of glue adding another uncertainty factor).
A short word about grouting: it's a mess... but it'll end up looking better when you've cleaned it... once... or twice... or perhaps you'll need three cleanings.... or four..
Now, the first of the cupboards to be placed has been purchased. I've put it together yesterday; oven and microwave now have a home. Now i've got to wait for some money to find it's way to my account so I can get the rest !
(ps: pictures will be added... soon... ish.)
2006-07-20
It turns out that the problem I had with the spots on my sensor have actually been there from the very first picture I made with the camera. In other words , the camera's been delivered with dust on the sensor , right fresh from the shop.
The only thing I had done before making that first shot was unpack the camera, remove the protective lids on the camera and lens-back and join those two together. The chance of that action alone producing that amount of dust is negligable..
The interesting thing is that I don't seem to be the only one having had this problem; there are reports on the net of other people with spots on their sensor that report that the dust has been there from the start. Also, people complain that there's a chance that if you let Canon clean your sensor for you; you'll get it back with the dust re-distributed, but not removed.
So, €60,- onwards, at least I fixed the problem and have geared myself up so that I can solve further issues by myself, too.. but somehow my sense of justice is forcing my criminal mind to think of ways on how to extort that €60,- back out of Canon for having me go through all these hoops just to get what I paid for; a camera that'll produce spotless pictures (at least that may be expected of a €1000,-+ camera, right ?
Mood: Annoyed at Canon , Grrrrr
2006-07-13
The scene: two days before I'd be leaving on a trip to Oerol Festival my old camera happened to give out and started producing weirdly distorted images.
To solve that, I hastened myself through what felt like hundreds of online reviews and guides about many different models of digital mirror-reflex (SLR) cameras, though I really already knew what I probably would end up buying.
Enter, Canon 350D or Canon Rebel XT (for those in North America) or even the Canon Kiss (for those in the Nihon region).
Since I'd already acquired a Canon Eos Rebel 2000 earlier from a colleague, for the paltry sum of €75,- , it was ultimately a simple decision to go with another Canon camera since their lenses can be interchanged. That is, my analog lenses would fit the digital body; the reverse is not always true (the EF-S series lenses don't fit the analog bodies).
So, hastily purchasing a Canon 'Photo Kit', I'm not in slight financial trouble but at least I've got a working camera again! As an aside, let me inform you that, in case you're debating buying one of these babies aswell: go for a/the kit. That is to say; there's many kits out there and most shops only stock the 'only camera' or 'camera + lens' kit. Since the lens only adds €20,- to the purchase-price for the kit, it's a good deal. Ontop of that, there's a kit with the following:
. The camera
. The basic 18-55mm EF-S lens (which doesnt fit on analog cameras)
. A 55-200mm EF USM lens (which DOES fit on analog cameras)
. A battery-grip that'll fit two Canon battery-packs OR 6 AA-penlites (HANDY!)
The fact that the battery grip costs $220,- seperately, and the lens was on display for €275,- at the shop I bought the camera at; the extra €300 that I paid for the set was well worth it; especially since the extra lens was of a type that I could use on the 'old' analog camera, too.
Allright, so then it only took about 4 days for me to get all manner of dust and spots on my camera's CCD sensor. Reading up on the subject, I quickly found out that it's basically something that happens to a lot of Digital SLR owners quite early on. 4 days might be a record, but then, I have yet to ascertain wether or not the spots were there when I bought the camera, already, or not.
The 'nicest' way to get rid of the spots is to let Canon clean it (€75), or perhaps a professional in Amsterdam (€45,-), or maybe even a handy photographer not so closeby (€15,-). However, I reckoned that since it only took 4 days for me to get dust on the sensor, it might be better for me to invest in some method of being able to learn to clean it by myself.
Now, since I'm a particularly stupid person; I had to go about messing with the camera to get it off by 'other means', first. The Canon manual states that air is the best (and only!) way to get the dust off in any 'safe' way. I'm sure it is, but since the pressure of the bulb I had wasnt sufficient, I decided blowing into the camera. Ofcourse I made sure to blow my lips dry first, etc. and it all went well for the first 10 times I tried to get a particularly recalcitrant spot off the glossy surface of the sensor. However, it only takes one 'oopsie' and there you are; little particles of moisture on the sensor and a camera owner about to cry.
The option that remains then is to choose between different kinds of Sensor Swab or Sensor Swipe products. The first is a 'real product', that is to say; all parts are actually produced by Photographic Solutions, Inc. But at €50 and up for 10 'swabs' and a bottle of Methyl Alcohol, it aint cheap. Especially not since most sites reviewing 'sensor cleaning methods' informed me that it'll take at least 4 or 5 tries for you to 'get the hang of it'.
The second product (SensorSwipe) is actually just a 'prepackaged and commercially available' continuatin of the idea to use a modified spatula and a Pec*Pad to clean the sensor. The idea being that a silicone-rubber spatula is flexible enough to make sure you don't press too hard on the sensor. The Pec*Pad being a product sold by the formerly mentioned Photographic Solutions Inc. it's an interestingly conflicting product. PSI maintains that the PEC*PAD shouldnt be used for cleaning anyting as delicate as a CCD-sensor and produce their Sensor Swab product in 'Cleanroom Environments' to be sure that no contaminants get mixed in with the fabric.
Since the SensorSwipe product comes with PEC*PAD's enough for '100 uses', I decided to go for that option instead of the 10 Swabs I'd be getting with the SensorSwab product. And, indeed, it took a heart-wrenching and nerve-wrecking 6 tries to get the sensor completely clean; mostly due to the spots left after blowing into the sensor from my mouth.. (don't do this kids!.. I mean it!).
Now, the sensor's clean as a whistle again and I still have 94 PEC*PADs left to clean up after my next fuckup. Phew ! ;)
In the process of looking for online photography resources, I've bumped into a large number of cool DIY projects related to things you can do with/for/by digital photography... I'll be posting a list with some neat resources some time soon.
Keep you posted!
2006-06-10
I GOT TICKETS! Really I do, really ,really, really, insert happy happy joy joy song here.
That is; waking up way too early this morning, I managed to get first in line at the post-office for a voucher-ticket that promises that you'll be the first in line about 45 minutes later. It's a weird piece of voodoo , if you ask me, but I'm sure there's a wonderful commercial reason to do it this way.
In any case; three of the tickets are already bespoken; but I've got a fourth one. Now, let the games begin; round one...fight!
That is; cough I'm sure there'll be somebody worthy enough for the extra ticket and I don't really wanna set off a bidding-war. But, ofcourse...if you hit me with a 5 digit number, it's a deal !
In any case; I'm gonna be there the 27th of June, Heineken Music Hall...together with all the other cool kids.
2006-06-03
Wooh; yesterday I found out that one of the more 'funnily unsurvivable' board-games out there (i'm talking about 'Doom - The Boardgame' here), actually has spawned a daughter..err...son, err....demonoid or somesuch that improves on it's parent's tendency to (rightfully) favor the Alien invaders in their (just) quest to destroy, nay pulverize, the pitiful insect infestation in the galaxy calling themselves 'humanity'.
Keeping it simple and to the point, so that even witless humans may grasp it's meaning, they've called it 'Doom - The Boardgame - Expansion'! Hurrah for clarity and imagination! Well, one of those two anyhow.
I have yet to find haplessly foolhardy humans (aka: prey) that'll want to take it up against the tons of new goodies (and baddies) that this expansion has to offer... (volunteers anyone ?). Basically, the game doesnt change (much) the general gameplay (much) except intruducing a few errata's here and there and providing more monsters, more cards, more tokens and some new map-pieces. It also comes with a set of extra/optional rules that might be fun to use to actually have some human survive for once.
For those of you who (stupidly) don't know what 'Doom - The Boardgame' (henceforth 'DtB' and 'DtBE' for the expansion) is about, let me give a (brief) overview of what the game is about.
You're marines; you're in a moonbase on mars (hah.. a marsbase, yes), and 'stuff has started happening'. Now, 'stuff' here involves 'the entire population of the base having died or turned into zombie-killer alien mutants wielding spanners, gattling-guns and chainsaws...aided by a further infantry of assorted alien killer-dogs, giant spiders, fire-ball throwing imps and the like.' Needless to explain (though I will), it might be a good time to not be in that particular place at that moment; getting outta there is your prime perogative.
Okay, okay; sounds like the movie, I hear you say. YES!...but!...imagine the movie, right ?...on a board...like....surface .with...erm... Okay; let's not compare it to 'the movie flattened to a board'; that'd be insulting even a human's intelligence.
Basically; you're one of three plastic miniatures representing one of the (max) three marine-players in the game. Multi-shaped 'tiles' represent the floor-plan of the base-complex that you're situated in. The tiles interlock nicely and combine in an infinite amount of ways to make sure marines will get infinately lost.
If that's not bad enough; the marines only get to see those parts of the base that they've actually done any exploring in. Open another door or round another corner and another piece of the base is laid out for the players by, (here it comes): the INVADER player.
See, the invader-player (aka: me) is my favorite part of this game (obviously). The invader player is the one that puts new pieces of the base-map onto the table and gets to show just how deep into shit-creek the players really are when each corner seems to offer another fresh batch of nasty aliens for them to (try and) kill. They might even find some ammo or, god forbid, some new weapon somewhere in the base, too (lies, lies, i tell you, lies!). Meanwhile, the invader player also is able to play 'invader cards' that allow him to do all manner of fun things like surprise the marines with some more un-expected and unwanted visitors, or make weapons malfunction, turn off the light and reduce visibility to zero or close and open doors behind the players just when they thought they were safe for a moment.
The expansion provides a greater plethora of aliens to kill marines with, offers new/different invader-cards to make life even more nasty and even has some extra modes of play for marines to enjoy! Deathmatch and a Capture-the-Flag mode ! Gotta keep those marines in good shape , fighting eachother , so that they'll be nice and juicy when they haphazardly stumble into an infested base!
The bad things: bad things in the game are...2 lower! difficulty level options for the game (boooo!) and more health and armor tokens (what use do they have for that ?) and even an extra weapon ! (rule number one about the soulcube: we do NOT talk about the soulcube)..
The good things: ALL of the stuff mentioned before the bad things...AND the fact that there's also two difficulty-level options to make the game HARDER to beat. Huzzah!
Now all I need to do is to find fresh meat and lob a self-aiming rocket-grenade at them from around a corner......ohhhhh yes.
2006-01-20
Just a little bit of a status update here since it's been over 1.5 months since I posted anything about the progress behind re-doing the appartment that I bought on the 9th of November, last year (2005).
Things have gone really quick ! And yet, at the same time, they've been going really slow. There's still so much to do still, but at least some projects are nearing their 'good enough to use'-status currently.
Before we were able to start on anything however, first the 'Concrete-wood fibre ceiling-tiles' needed to be efficiently removed and disposed of. Ofcourse, an appartment's hollow ceiling is a regular mouse-heaven!
Which the following lovely images clearly illustrate.
Then, with the ceiling ripped out, all that was left was to... hummm get rid of those nice stairs. Luckily, the stairs were just made of 5 milimeter thick solid steel plating and tubing... And it's only 4 meters tall or something... so that's not too bad, is it ?
Missing here is a photo-collection of how we got the sucker removed and thrown right into the back garden through a removed window-pane... I'll get them on here as soon as I've got them; ofcourse I was a bit too busy to hold a camera. Somehow I found myself lugging 3 sections of a staircase .... Dunno how that happened.
In any case; once you start ripping stuff from it's proper place, you're stuck with having to having to fix it up again. Drilling 116 holes into the circumference of the gaping chasm isnt a fun thing to do, but luckily I had an expert doing that for me g. After that, a sheet of water-proof multiplex got shored up against the underside of the hole and the real work began. After that, it takes a deca-liters of water to make the concrete harden and a tough stomach to dare and step onto the surface afterwards; having only known it as a big hole, before. But, this is what you're left with.
A good example of actual progress would be my bedroom. That is, in the last few months we've worked on several things surrounding that part of the appartment. Mainly it consisted of fitting in beams and ribs of wood to build the lowered ceiling with. Basically made of plaster-board and painted with texture-paint; they've come out rather well.
The walls got a nice layer of paint after a few of them had been 'stucco'ed first to be nice and smooth instead of being the white-washed 'basic concrete brick' texture they were before. The glassblock wall got finished, cleaned, etc, and "all was good"(tm).
Soon after, my parents (bless their souls!) helped me get the floor boards laid nicely , even right below the radiator (we had to disconnect the sucker for this one... learned a few new things about respecting good plumbing).
Ok; next step, the drill! That is; having a nice lowered and hollow ceiling allows you to drill right through it and fit lights right where you'd like them best. Like here and here for example. That allows you to take a nice and close look at the floor indeed.
Talking about light... Glassblocks look really pretty in the right light !
Now, the rest of the appartment has had several things done to it; hall got stucco'ed and painted, one of the walls of the kitchen (the one that is also the hall-wall) got extended a little and stucco'ed roughly from the other side, in preparation of tiling being done on it. Another large brick wall got stucco'ed and painted , the radiators got cleaned, dried and painted (Thanks mom!, they look great!), and we brought in most of the materials to get the tiling of the walls and the floor in the kitchen and hall done in one go. This is all going to be happening in the next month, most likely; after the floor in the bedroom gets a good sanding and finishing.
For those of you curious "where the hell I've decided to go and live", I won't put up my address here, since that'll only invite abuse from happening. However, I have made a few pictures of the surroundings, which you can browse through here.
You can also freely browse through all the pictures associated with this update here.
More soon(ish).
... turned into a whole lot of unexpected events.
Let me start at the beginning of it all, however; on the 9th of November I got the keys to my new appartment. All the papers had been signed (well, all except some of the mortgage papers of the people that were selling the place), and I was handed over two keys.
Two keys, for three doors ?
In fact; the two keys were for the front door and the mailbox; the other two doors had no keys accompanying the congratulations of the real-estate agent before he hopped out of the room at the signing-office.
In any case, I soon got all the cylinders replaced with new ones; all fitting the same keys (of which I have five). All in all, that Saturday on the 13th of November went rather smoothly, apart from me arriving a lot later at the appartment than I first planned.
However, I managed to get the glass-blocks that I needed for one of the walls picked up on the friday before, and on saturday I was able to move about 40M2 of flooring out of my storage space at my old place and into the new appartment.
There's now a fridge, some tables with stuff on them and a couple of couches I picked up from the sidewalk close the appartment. I also brought a couple of fluorescent tube-lighting 'chassis' (with two TL's each) to make working there a lot more fun.
Well, that was saturday; apart from me going home way too late, it was quite an ok day. Even managed to get a wifi-connection there; some joe-random-luser with a crappy-slow connection (sadly) and an open wifi AP (luckily.. for me).
However, it turns out that the cover for the shower-drain's entirely corroded away and the previous owners have solved that problem by simply plugging the hole and making it impossible for any water spilled on that floor (or other fluids, for that matter) to drain away. So , there's a bit of research cut out for me there... It's not stainless steel but some amalgate of copper; nice and gold-colored (underneath all the calcium deposits and paint).
Late at night, I remembered that I had been invited to a party that me and a colleague/friend of mine made a nice Led-lighted hat for (don't ask; long story). Dropped by there for a bit and made it home even later.
So, the next morning, it takes me some time to get showered and dressed, pick up a small ladder and some other supplies, and get to Amsterdam to pick up a tuner and DVD/VCR combo that he was going to throw away since he was scheduled to move to a new appartment , the next monday (the next day).
When I came there, it turned out that he had gotten himself into a bit of a pickle; asking me to stick around for a bit since it turned out that he had locked himself out of his new appartment by leaving the keys on the kitchen counter...
Since I'm quite happy to inform people about the wonderful world of security (and how to circumvent it's enforcing measures), I decided to try and help him out by seeing if we could perhaps get a key to fit the lock and produce a bump-key from that key (we couldnt, since the only key-shop we could find could only create exact copies of any key you had; no re-shaping of any key there). Attempts to open the door with pieces of semi-stiff plasticard failed, sadly, even tough the locksmith we got to look at the lock used pretty much the same technique to manipulate the latch as I was trying with the plasticard; sadly the plasticard was just a little too brittle and it kept on snapping in two. The stuff the guy brought was quite a bit better, however. In the end, that cost my friend 135Euro, since it was on a sunday, at night, etc.
Well; with him living in the middle of Amsterdam, it was perhaps not too much of a surprise when I got back to where I had parked my car to find that it had gone missing. It got towed away by 'stadstoezicht'. Turns out that the sign next to the parking-strip I used meant 'Parking ONLY for taxis, from 19:00 to 07:00' instead of 'Taxis parking only between 19:00 to 07:00'..
All in all, that cost ME a coolk 229Euro to get my car back...
Yay
And then it was nearly 22:00 and I had still to get my ass to my appartment and get my car unloaded and do some actual work.
When I got there, a lady with a dog steps through a door close to my backyard and we greet and introduce eachother when she finds out that I'm to be the new owner or the bottom floor of the building she's 'Building Representative' for; the 'Toren-Vertegenwoordiger' for the Commitee of Owners (hereafter referred to as 'VVE' which is the acronym for it's dutch title).
She turns out to be a pretty nice lady who will help me get all the relevant rule-books/guides/etc concerning the building. She also reminisces a bit about the people that used to live in my place; how their house used to look, etc. It turns out that this guy apparently was an architect (I knew that), who had been working on the Amsterdam Opera building, aswell as some other constructions in Berlin, etc. (I didnt know that!).
Next thing I know, she explains how he used to have a few Andy Warhol paintings on this and that wall, etc.. completely boggling me! I must try and find out some more about this previous owner; might be interesting ; will keep you posted on that.
She then tells me that some of the trees that are currently overshadowing my backyard will probably be taken down in the next three years; I can't wait! The trees apparently are only meant to be there for a life-time of 28 years or so; and that's soon approaching.
Well, then, the mess continues a little when I find out that for some forsaken reason my laptop's wifi-capabilities decide to utterly fail functioning the way i'd like them to, so I'm stuck having to spend a bit of time getting that fixed again (tomorrow!). Deciding that I'd better get some useful business of my agenda, I start working on parts of the ceiling with a crowbar (yes, it's 23:00 or so now).
The ceiling turns out to be the usual mouse-graveyard, combined with all the perks of having had those little critters as pets; a gallon of expanded styrofoam granules, a cup of mouse-droppings, perhaps 5 mouse-skeletons, dust.. dust.. dust..
The good part is that the construction that's above it is pretty sturdy and I might be able to put some of the main beams there to continued use as ceiling-support beams. Pictures of the mess will follow, later on.
Meanwhile, I find out that there's one electric-group that for some reason doesnt seem to have any wall-socket connected to it; I pull the switch in the closet and absolutely nothing happens.
Then, there's another group which seems to have something to do with the heating-system. I have this feeling that, when I pull the switch of that group, some background noise , originating from one of the heaters, seems to cease. The 'Tower-representative' didnt know of anything like that and was quite sure that this was not 'standard'. Oh well.
I'm sure I forgot to mention a few other things here, like having to arrange a 'Ontheffings-verklaring' for the little parking-spot next to my backyard so that I can use it for parking my car whenever I bring in heavy materials from that direction. That I should still pay my car's repair bill after it got broken into last time, aswell as fill in the right forms for the insurance to get it reimbursed.
For now; bed-time. Tomorrow I'll suck the pictures of the ceiling from my camera and either add links to this article or dedicate another precious blog-posting to them.
Update: 2005-11-14, 2:52
I found the guy!
Pi de Bruijn; a really famous architect, it turns out; just take a look at this list of stuff he did while employed at http://www.cie.nl/!!!!
Now sleep!