two reasons to run for the iPhone-5

my (old) iPhone 4 still works like a charm, battery life is ok, no scratches, reliable.

So - what reasons did I come up with to convince my wife (aka Ministress of Finance) that I really need the new model? None, obviously.

So I ordered it without any particular reason, signed up for somewhat cheaper monthly plan (save approx 5 Euro/month) and got the fancy gizmo on Friday, premier-day here in Germany.

After using it for two days now, I found two reasons for *really* loving it:

1.) the new form factor, its slender and lighter design feels perfect for me!

2.) the panorama camera - (available in options menu when taking a picture), automagically stitches together images to terrific results - without the slightest manual step required.

See this 180 degrees example, taken in our (small!) garden:


imho this is great - deformed perspective, but what do you expect from 180 degree images?

THIS has high addiction potential!

Apple-TV: Set Favorite Radio Stations...

To set any internet radio station as favorite, just press the middle-button for a few seconds (see image below) while this station is playing... and a menu appears!

On the iPad Remote app it's even simpler - in the lower left corner you find a "favorite" button...

(Baum-)Klettern in der südlichen Türkei

Wer mal die Gelegenheit hat, in Side, Manavgat oder Sorgun Urlaub zu genießen, dem empfehle ich einen Abstecher in den wunderschönen Kletterpark am Stausee in Oymapinar (Nähe Manavgat).

Schön gelegen, interessante Parcours (für Kinder ab 1.20m Körpergröße schaffbar, für Erwachsene balancetechnisch teilweise anspruchsvoll!), technisch super-sicher gemacht.



Die Veranstalter fotografieren auf Wunsch - und brennen dann >200 (!!) Schnappschüsse auf CD - für einen ganz geringen Kostenbeitrag (bei uns 12€).

Insgesamt ein wunderschöner Ausflug - tolles Kontrastprogramm zum Strand!

42 rules - even in climateprediction

I participate in a distributed climate prediction project
(using the cool BOINC software infrastructure) - and recently looked up my rank. The result astonished even me - a hardcore 42-enthusiast:

Geniales Rockerlebnis: Queen Kings

Im malerisch gelegenen Waldschwimmbad (!) hatten wir ein Konzerterlebnis der besonderen Art: The Queen Kings rockten unglaublich nahe am genialen Original, frisch und musikalisch aufregend gut. Knapp drei Stunden Musik für 16 Euro Eintrittspreis (und Kinder hatten freien EIntritt) - das nenn' ich value-for-money.

Selten habe ich ein Bass-Solo derart genossen wie die kurzweilige Darbietung von Rolf Sander, der nahtlos Passagen von Smoke-on-the-Water in sein Cover von Another-one-bites-the-Dust: Umwerfend, Kompliment!

Die Stimmen von Mirko und der Backstage-Dame Susann gehen unter die Haut,
die Gitarrensoli klingen meisterlich, und der Schlagzeugpart von Matti Schmidt war begeisternd gut, ein instesamt überzeugendes Erlebnis.

Wir gehen wieder hin - keine Frage!

Kandidat für "Nutzloseste Website"...

Ich spende seit einigen für das Rote Kreuz Blut - und bin immer wieder
positiv von der Motivation der vielen ehrenamtlichen Mitarbeiter
dieser Organisation überrascht. Blutspenden hilft, Leben zu retten. Eine gute Sache also...



Nun aber hat die Marketing-Abteilung des DRK (Deutsches Rotes Kreuz) aus meiner Sicht eine der nutzlosesten Websites der letzten Monate gebaut: Eine Online-Community für Blutspender... Wer soll die denn bitte nutzen? Aus der Werbung für diese Site:

"Lege deine eigenen Fotoalben an" (ok - höflicher wäre es, "Deine" zu schreiben). Schon was von flickr gehört? Oder Facebook? MySpace? Die können auch Fotoalben. Und sie haben massig Besucher...

"Verabrede dich online mit anderen Spendern". Toll. Wozu denn das? Ist das "Dating für Single-Blutspender"?

"Verwalte Deine Termine einfach online im Kalender": hust hust... auch das gibt's bereits im Dutzend - und zwar in ziemlich cool.

Meiner Meinung nach hätte das DRK das (wahrscheinlich viele) Geld für diese Community-Website besser in Informationsflyer für Schüler und Studenten gesteckt... die durch die tausendunderste Möchtegern-Community mitnichten zu überzeugten Blutspendern werden. Es aber durch vernünftige Information werden könnten.

Also, DRK: Entsorge den oder die Berater, die diesen Unfug empfohlen haben. Und informiere lieber - statt ohnehin vorhandene Services zweitklassig zu kopieren. Schade um das Geld!

Ich komme übrigens weiterhin Blut spenden :-)

One of the coolest things I've seen in a long time...

an absolutely stunning T-Mobile marketing event - happend January 2009 in a London underground station...

From one reviewer at youtube:

Whoever thought of this idea can rest on this one idea for many years to come. Brilliant at many levels. Music can change the world. We've just witnessed it at a railway station in London. And old and young. And black and white. Love this video. Kudos to T-Mobile.

(happend to be my mothers' birthday...)

If you like it, I found its making of video...

Video On Demand: First (positive!) Experience

In some respect I'm a little behind the "bleeding" edge in technology, and VOD (video-on-demand) is one of those areas.

Today was the first time in my life I paid money (5Euro) to watch a streamed video (the third
game in the German DEL (ice)hockey playoffs, with my favorite Cologne team playing Berlin).

It's filmed and streamed by Premiere, the imho leading German pay-TV giant.

At first I tried with Firefox on my Mac - but was informed by the Premiere system check that their DRM (digital rights management) requirements are not met. So I tried my old Dell Windows machine - which immediately played the system test trailer...

I had to register - that was a real nuisance: At least three times their payment-management system wasn't available - so I had to re-enter my data again...

The image and sound quality is very acceptable, and the price (5 Euro) was ok for this event
(although the game finally ended up with my favourite team loosing in the last few seconds...)

Köln: Bürger dürfen mitbestimmen

Nur für Kölner: Die Stadt bietet hier die Möglichkeit, per Internet (vorher: einfache Registrierung) über Spar- und Ausgabenvorschläge abzustimmen.

Sehr schön für aktive Bürger der Stadt - unbedingt mal reinschauen (ich habe für Vorschlag 2488 gestimmt..)

Not Hungry? Try this Appetizer

Whow - just in case you still have no idea how to surprise your partner -
try one of those mouth-watering recipes.

I found it via Flickr...

To All Fathers: You Still Got A Chance...

VERY funny short film about a young father fighting back:

Fight For Kisses //// www.ffk-wilkinson.com

Habits of successful ...

In lieu of Steven Covey's "7 Habits of Successful People", Yuwanda Blackput together a useful collection of seven alternative habits for freelancers. Valid for most entrepreneurs though, not just freelancers!

My (overly brief) summary/adaption/commenting:

1. It's a passion, not just some job. {Write|Design|Program|Model|Work-on-it} every day. Manxy of us freelancers love their work, and spend loads more than 40h/week with it. When asked "what's your hobby", "work" is very often contained within the first three to five answers (my answers are "family, sports, work, food", with family first and the others in no particular order)


2. Market yourself - don't wait for opportunities, create them!


3. Work with more than one client at a time. Lowers overall risk, increases usefulness for a single client as you bring in experience from multiple other sources.


4. Have a niche, sometimes called USP (unique selling point). You may even call it professional hobby, as that's what it is in my case (currently there are at least two of them, arc42 and rule-based-systems.)


5. Have a website. I do not understand freelancers and entrepreneurs in the IT sector who currently do not maintain their own. But there are such folks around...


6. Remain hungry: be consistent marketer. Speak at conferences, write articles, books, blogs open-source software. Ensure the market does not forget about you.


7. Long ago we stopped working 40h weeks. See point 1 - it's a passion. A familiy is always around, so is your enterprise. As long as you feel in control of your life, you're living your life your way, it's ok to work longer hours.


In my humble opinion you should add the following:


8. Maintain active and symbiotic/synergistic partnerships with others of your kind. Treat them as equals and friends, not a contenders. Support their search for appropriate projects - and they will in turn support you.



9. Give away freely. Give your books to your clients and prospective clients, contribute to open-source projects, create free whitepapers and the like. Readers will love it and come back to you, maybe even years later. If your stuff is good, people will remember it! (thx to Jerry Weinberg for this valuable hint!)
   

Sponsoring Internet-Radio!

Today I donated a few bucks to my favorite internet radio station (Whisperings). Although it's tempting to just consume streaming audio, the artists of out-of-mainstream-stations surely have more problems earning a decent income than we IT-people... and I'd like stations like that to be available for long!

Amazon: Success in a (not-so-small) logistical problem

For something not directly related to IT: Today (July 21st 2007) was a special day in three ways:

1. (12th) anniversary of our marriage - a reason to celebrate (what we did, read on).


2. First day of our first-holiday-ever in the Austrian moutains.


3. Harry-Potter's latest novel hits the stores, completely unrelated to the previous two events...

Now for the logistical problem: I preordered the Harry-Potter at Amazon and gave them our hotel address to deliver to. Beeing one of more than 100.000 Potter-addicts, I was really curious wether Amazon would succeed in delivering my parcel to the Austrian mountains on time.

To my surprise they did: When we arrived after a smooth 7-hour-ride, the "Deathly Hallows" awaited me...

Congratulations to Amazon and their logistics partner DHL: You earned mental bonus points today. Well done.

Motion and Coordination Heroes

I was watching the gorgious Cologne Pole Vault Festival on Sunday. Those guys left me deeply impressed: With the (immensely heavy!) pole they sprint with 10m/sec (which is world-class in itself), hit the ground on the spot the size of a handkerchief and somehow turn into a perfectly balanced handstand in approx a split-second....

Whow! A short video sequence (quicktime) shows the complexity - enjoy!

And a detailed photo session..

Homepage (gernotstarke.de) was down

Due to the immense inflexibility and customer-disorientation of
my (previous!) webhoster (1 und 1), my homepage has
been disconnected from the web for a few days.

I'm really sorry for any inconvenience caused by this event - some explanation will follow.

But: It's up again (now hosted by HostEurope)