Do you know that feeling of being completely absorbed by what you are doing? Being on a roll, concentrating so hard that you are no longer aware of your surroundings. Then (part of) the job is done and you kind of wake up from this trance, becoming more aware of your surroundings, realizing that 3-4 hours have passed, and suddenly feeling the pressure in your bladder. Over the years, has it become easier or more difficult for you to enter this zone? Browsers with 5 open tabs, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, word processor, spreadsheet, Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo! or Live messenger, … When was the last time you have experienced this trance like productive state? I am experiencing it now. Read more…
Mac OS X
blogging, GTD, Mac OS X, review, software
It was called in as a robbery. So you can imagine Sergeant Sue Smith’s mood as she watches the video footage of the heist being carried out by a band of Orcs and a Dragon, and realizes that the robbery from an online game company is actually a robbery in an online game. Things aren’t to get any better for Sergeant Sue Smith as the consequences of this robbery start affecting the real world outside and bodies start showing up. Read more…
Books
Books, Charles Stross, geek, review, scifi
I have been a discworld fan since I read my first one some 15 years ago. Terry Pratchett is one of the maybe a handful of writers of which I keep on rereading the books, some even for the 5th time. I keep on discovering new jokes and references. For those not familiar with Terry Pratchett’s work, his books contain lots of references to contemporary society, economy, politics, computer networks, Shakespeare, the press, religion, movies, TV-series, Taoism, … While rereading his work, you sometimes discover new references. Read more…
Books
Books, discworld, fan, fantasy, review, Terry Pratchett
I confess, I was the kind of guy who never clicked on an ad. My eyes were trained to ignore ads in all shapes and sizes to the point that I didn’t even noticed them. That changed when I added AdSense to my blog. Read more…
Varia
review
Just as I was finishing my review of the beta version of Zend Server CE, Zend proudly announced the release of Zend Server and Zend Server Community Edition (CE). So I had to start all over again with a fresh installation of Zend Server CE 4.0.1. I was pleased to see that they fixed some of the quirks and bugs I had encountered in the beta version, but oddly enough they introduced some new ones too. Read more…
PHP
LAMP, Linux, PHP, review, Ubuntu
Rating: 8/10
How do you build or in this case rebuild a nation ? Is there more than one way to do it ? What do you need ? How do you deal with the voices from the past (aka tradition) ? This and much more you will find out in Terry Pratchett’s latest novel, Nation. This review contains no spoilers or at least a lot less than you will find in other reviews on forums, blogs, online bookshops and newspapers. Read more…
Books
fantasy, review
Rating: 7/10
The Demonwar Saga part 1 – Rides a Dread Legion by Raymond Feist
This review does not contain any spoilers. If you haven’t read any books of Raymond Feist yet, this book is not a good place to start. Although it is the first book in a new series, The Darkwar Saga just like the other series (The Empire Trilogy, The Riftwar Saga, The Serpentwar Saga, The Riftwar Legacy, …) is part of a bigger series. I recommend reading them in a more or less chronological order. Read more…
Books
fantasy, review
I have been using my BeBook ebook reader for one month now, so I thought it was time for a first review. In this post I will write about the BeBook, what you can use it for, its features, possibilities, limitations and quirks and give you some advice before you buy an ebook reader. I have used a lot of its features, but not all of them and I also encountered some of the limitations and quirks. I will probably post an extra review in a couple of months when I had the time, the need or felt the desire to explore the rest of the features and possibilities. By the way, I love my BeBook. Read more…
BeBook
BeBook, ebook, Hanlin v3, reader, review
