Warning: include_once(/home/.sites/143/site40/web/weblog/pivot/pv_core.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/raymondpnl/domains/raymondpoort.nl/public_html/weblog/archives/archive_2006-m05.php on line 10

Warning: include_once(): Failed opening '/home/.sites/143/site40/web/weblog/pivot/pv_core.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/opt/alt/php71/usr/share/pear') in /home/raymondpnl/domains/raymondpoort.nl/public_html/weblog/archives/archive_2006-m05.php on line 10
raymondpoort.com - It ain't much if it ain't dutch :)

Contact

raymond at raymondpoort dot nl

Calendar


Notice: Constant INWEBLOG already defined in /home/raymondpnl/domains/raymondpoort.nl/public_html/weblog/archives/archive_2006-m05.php on line 80

Warning: include_once(/home/.sites/143/site40/web/weblog/extensions/calendar/calendar.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/raymondpnl/domains/raymondpoort.nl/public_html/weblog/archives/archive_2006-m05.php on line 82

Warning: include_once(): Failed opening '/home/.sites/143/site40/web/weblog/extensions/calendar/calendar.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/opt/alt/php71/usr/share/pear') in /home/raymondpnl/domains/raymondpoort.nl/public_html/weblog/archives/archive_2006-m05.php on line 82

Archives

Next Archive Previous Archive

01 Dec - 31 Dec 2007
01 Nov - 30 Nov 2007
01 Oct - 31 Oct 2007
01 Sep - 30 Sep 2007
01 Aug - 31 Aug 2007
01 Jul - 31 Jul 2007
01 Jun - 30 Jun 2007
01 May - 31 May 2007
01 Apr - 30 Apr 2007
01 Mar - 31 Mar 2007
01 Feb - 28 Feb 2007
01 Jan - 31 Jan 2007
01 Dec - 31 Dec 2006
01 Nov - 30 Nov 2006
01 Oct - 31 Oct 2006
01 Sep - 30 Sep 2006
01 Aug - 31 Aug 2006
01 Jul - 31 Jul 2006
01 Jun - 30 Jun 2006
01 May - 31 May 2006
01 Apr - 30 Apr 2006
01 Mar - 31 Mar 2006
01 Feb - 28 Feb 2006
01 Jan - 31 Jan 2006
01 Dec - 31 Dec 2005
01 Nov - 30 Nov 2005
01 Oct - 31 Oct 2005
01 Sep - 30 Sep 2005
01 Aug - 31 Aug 2005
01 Jul - 31 Jul 2005
01 Jun - 30 Jun 2005
01 May - 31 May 2005
01 Apr - 30 Apr 2005
01 Mar - 31 Mar 2005
01 Feb - 28 Feb 2005

Raymond Poort's OPML blog
Raymond's photos (Flickr)
GSE 2004
Promotie Op Maat
Jaap Dekkers Trainingen
Rob Kouwenhoven

CURRY.COM
Scripting News
The Jason Calacanis Weblog
Scobleizer
The Dawn and Drew Show!
The MacCast

Miscellany

Powered by Pivot - 1.40.4: 'Dreadwind' 
XML: RSS Feed 
XML: Atom Feed 

31 May 06 - 23:36

The Alchemist

Things come to you when they are supposed to;

Yesterday I started reading 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho, a book my cousin gave me for my Birthday.

I've heared of the book before, but actually didn't know what to expect...well, it's 'A fable about following your dream'! Nice timing since I am thinking a lot lately about where I am today, where I want myself to be and how to get there :)

A related quote from the book: "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."



Comment / trackback - §

30 May 06 - 21:50

Mowing the grass


Our 9 square meters of grass in the backyard really needed a mow (10 inches is too much :)).

It stopped raining after a week and I got the summer in my head! Nothing beats the smell of freshly mowed grass...:)



Comment / trackback - §

29 May 06 - 20:22

Tax on email and SMS?!?

I just read a story covered by nu.nl (a dutch news-site, so in dutch!), mentioning that the EU is investigating options to put tax on sending an mail (0.00001 Euro-cent) and SMS (1.5 Euro-cent)!!

What the fuck?!?

I've heared of the idea before, never thought it would be seriously considered/investigated.

Basic reason for it is the fact that globalisation of market and economies make it harder and harder for authorities to collect enough tax-money to run the country. It is for that reason that the European Parliament is finding new sources of income?!? Other ideas for instance are taxing on the online purchase of flighttickets (which in a way would make more sense).

But putting tax on emailing? Or sending text messages (SMS)?? CRAAAZZZY!

Sending an ordinary slain-mail message isn't taxed? The stamp you put on the envelop is to pay for the *transport* of the letter. With email this is all digitally and obviously one is already paying for the transport mechanisme (your internet-feed), so what the heck?!?

The fee that is proposed is near to nothing, so no one will really feel it (besides the small number of large corporates sending 100,000's of mail per day), but the idea alone...STOP IT!

How would they like to track this anyway? Setting up and maintaining a system for this would probably cost more than can ever be collected.

Thinking about this a second time...the only advantage could be that spammers suffer from it, then again...they are not trackable anyway, so will most likely not be taxed. 

The SMS-tax is considerably higher and will most certainly be harder to implement, again...the idea is off-base!

Comment / trackback - §

26 May 06 - 17:15

On the road again

It started last weekend and will go on for the coming 5 weeks orso, packed weekends!

This weekend I'll be starting by staying over at family, go to a 'newly born' party on Saturday and visit friends in the south of The Netherlands in the evening. Then on Sunday I'll play soccer (!?!huh???) in a family tournament...guess I'll need Sunday evening to rest! ;-)

Am trying not the miss the Monace Formula One race this Sunday, will probably have to tape it! :)



Comment / trackback - §

25 May 06 - 17:40

QOTD May 25 2006

Aldo Leopold: "Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher standard of living is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free."



Comment / trackback - §

24 May 06 - 10:13

Flickr problems?!?

All of you who wanted to see last weekends photos on my Flickr-page in the last hours (in the timeframe of posting them yesterday till approximately now), will have noticed that they were not available, incomplete and a lot of 'bad links'?!?

Apparently there has been a major database problem at Flickr which they have worked on through the night. Most of it seems to be fixed now, it should work again!

So, check 'm out! :)



Comment / trackback - §

23 May 06 - 23:54

Pictures of last weekend in the Belgian Ardennes

I posted a nice selection of last weekends Belgian Ardennes pictures on my Flickr-site, check 'm out!



Comment / trackback - §

22 May 06 - 18:58

I won a Golden Ticket!!!

I'm in!!! :)

Listened to the 5th DevCast this morning and won a 'Golden Ticket' (YEAHHH!!) giving me access to the Podshow Delivery Network and Podshow+, all still in Beta. Am able to take part in/follow the Podshow development...YESSS!!!



Comment / trackback - §

21 May 06 - 23:24

Back from the Ardennes

We've jsut returned back from the Ardennes, lovely weekend! The weather wasn't too good, but that couldn't spoil the fun. Great to spend a weekend with the whole family!

Pictures to come tomorrow, off to bed now! :)

(I found the 'best' way to decide what name to use for the Ardennes area in Belgium; both have hits in a Google-search, but Ardennes completely smashes Ardens! :))



Comment / trackback - §

19 May 06 - 17:23

Off to the Ardens (or Ardennes?!?)

'nuff for this week! I'm off to the Ardens/Ardennes, enjoying a weekend with the whole family, celibrating my parents 35th marriage anniversary! Catchya all later!!

Comment / trackback - §

19 May 06 - 13:39

Opening Apple Store 5th Avenue, NYC

Apple will open its Apple Store flagship today. The store is underground, with a glass cube as entrance (designed by Steve Jobs himself!) sitting on top of it, amazing sight!

  

The store will be open 365 days, 24 hours a day ready to serve people 'round the clock, targetting to set a new standard in retail experience...I've never been in New York, but this is another reason to go there...soon!! :)



Comment / trackback - §

18 May 06 - 22:29

Future search engine?

Via frEdSCAPEs:

The next generation search engines could very well look something like InquisitorX.

Check it out yourself! It's a nice cross-over between a standard search engine and the highly valued Mac OS X Spotlight search technology which displays the results while you type. Supported search engines are A9, Amazon, Digg, Flickr, Google, Technorati and Yahoo!



Comment / trackback - §

17 May 06 - 18:41

QOTD May 17 2006

Lucille Ball: "Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world."



Comment / trackback - §

16 May 06 - 20:08

New MacBook

Apple: "MacBook: the most advanced affordable Mac notebook ever."

Today Apple released the successor to its entry level notebooks, the MacBook! It replaces the G4 iBook as well as the 12" G4 Powerbook and can be seen as the little brother of the "MacBook Pro" line of Intel Core Duo based notebooks released earlier this year...uhhhh...I wanna have?? :)



Comment / trackback - §

15 May 06 - 19:49

QOTD May 15 2006

Joseph Campbell: You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning... a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be."

Comment / trackback - §

14 May 06 - 23:11

Michal & Eva in Amsterdam

Michal & Eva in Amsterdam
Michal & Eva in Amsterdam,
originally uploaded by raymondpoort.
Robbert and I met up with Michal and Eva whom we know from Pohoda last year. Great to see them in our country! They love Amsterdam...uhhh, despite of or thanks to the coffeeshops? :)


Comment / trackback - §

14 May 06 - 23:04

three-wheel car

three-wheel car
three-wheel car,
originally uploaded by raymondpoort.
A car you don't see that often anymore, a three-wheel car (or tricar for the British), picture taken in Amsterdam today!


Comment / trackback - §

13 May 06 - 12:44

moblogging works!

It worked...great!

Now I have another way of posting to the site...it's not completely mobile blogging, since sending email from my GSM is not activated (and I can't activate it myself since my work is not enabling GPRS).

Still it can be quite convenient to post an entry by just sending an email!

The last thing to overcome is to get rid of the standard signature that my provider puts in ('----- Scanned for virus and spam')...



Comment / trackback - §

13 May 06 - 12:09

moblog test

It would be cool to see this email being posted on my blog, cause it
means that the moblog is set up correctly!! :)
-----
Scanned for virus and spam

Comment / trackback - §

12 May 06 - 16:57

Busy weekend coming up

Friday afternoon, sun is still out, this doesn't feel like The Netherlands at all...but I'm NOT complaining :)

A busy weekend coming up;

'Da girl' is enjoying Malaga with friends, so I have my hands free...well, uhhh, free?

Tonight a Norwegian colleague with his Slovak wife (and new born boy) will stay over, tomorrow I'll spend the evening with the guys 'left behind' by the 'Malaga'-girls and Sunday I'll be in Amsterdam seeing some Slovak friends whom I met at Pohoda last year...inbetween I have to find some time to clean the shed, the house and work on some websites I maintain, oh...and I would like to watch the Formula One race...oofff! :)



Comment / trackback - §

11 May 06 - 22:25

QOTD May 11 2006


Eckhart Tolle: "Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have."



Comment / trackback - §

11 May 06 - 12:33

Pim Fortuyn & the Big Lie

Last Mondays DSC #382: Adam referred to an essay he wrote right after the assassination of Pim Fortuyn (four years ago last Saturday) and the Big Lie...still worth reading!



Comment / trackback - §

10 May 06 - 20:17

BBQ in the garden

BBQ in the garden
BBQ in the garden,
originally uploaded by raymondpoort.

Just came home from work, sun's still out, BBQ is on!!

Life is a bitch :)


Comment / trackback - §

10 May 06 - 18:34

BrainWave Generator

The BrainWave Generator: "Want to relax? Meditate? Learn faster? Focus attention? Increase your awareness? Try self-hypnosis?"


Let me know if it worked for you! :)



Comment / trackback - §

09 May 06 - 12:58

QOTD May 9 2006

 

Gloria Swanson: "Never say never, for if you live long enough, chances are you will not be able to abide by its restrictions. Never is a long, undependable time, and life is too full of rich possibilities to have restrictions placed upon it."



Comment / trackback - §

09 May 06 - 10:57

email SPAM :(

I've been hit with spam on my domain-emailaddress last night. Guess you can call me lucky that it has started only after 1.5 years of having the mailaddress (!!), then again...I HATE IT!

Perhaps my domain service provider changed their spam-filters overnight, letting through some of this junk?



Comment / trackback - §

08 May 06 - 12:28

Playing in the sand

Now that the sun is out for a week already (!!), we can start thinking of enjoying the beaches again.

What else to do than playing in the sand? :)

The dutch are great in building sandcastles (mostly referred to as dikes :)), the germans are following us by digging pits to s(h)it in, but all of us can learn from the canadians, check out these amazing sandsculptures!



Comment / trackback - §

05 May 06 - 09:22

Apple died??

As I'm posting regularly on Apple (Appel in dutch) news, this fits in. :)

Yesterday the famous dutch artist and painter Karel Appel died at the age of 85. He was one of the founders of the European avant-garde movement 'CoBRA' (Coperhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam).



Comment / trackback - §

04 May 06 - 21:49

Garden collage


A nice impression of our garden in springtime!



2 Comments / trackback - §

04 May 06 - 19:51

Memorial Day (dodenherdenking)

...or actually 'memorial 2 minutes'...:)

Tonight between 20:00h and 20:02h all public life in The Netherlands stops so people can remember the fallen from and since the Second World War.



Comment / trackback - §

04 May 06 - 10:00

'Get a Mac' ads

Apple released some great video ads lately in which two guys (one is a 'PC', the other a 'Mac') compare Macs to PCs.

Topics covered are: Viruses, Restarting, Better, iLife, Network, WSJ (Wall Street Journal)...hilarious!

Enjoy and...SWITCH OVER! :) :)



Comment / trackback - §

03 May 06 - 21:45

Native Bittorrent support in Mac OS X 10.5??

A rumor that has been picked up by various sources in the last days; the next version of Mac OS X, 10.5 Leopard will support native BitTorrent support via a system-level BitTorrent client built in the OS...geeks and techies agree, it *is* the next logical step! Can't wait :)

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is expected to be released by the end of 2006/early 2007, around the time that Microsoft expects to release Vista...ehhhh, a recent Gartner report showed that it could very well be June 2007...hey Microsoft, in need of a Project Manager? :)



Comment / trackback - §

03 May 06 - 19:23

Summer is coming

I had a long day in Brussels filled with customer meetings...INDOOR as usual :(

Just came home in time to catch the last bits of sun, temperature is still great! Fixing some dinner with a beer, I'm out! :)



Comment / trackback - §

02 May 06 - 23:30

Dutch Podcastplatform

Podcast Platform.com: Our Goal: to make Podcasting available for Everyone!

A new dutch initiative to promote podcasting in The Netherlands, welcome on board, wish you all the best! No RSS-feed though...huh???



Comment / trackback - §

02 May 06 - 15:30

New header graphic

A new month, a new header graphic! Nice duckies, eh? :)



Comment / trackback - §

01 May 06 - 23:38

Thunderstorm podcast

Hehehe...Dave thought about the same thing as I did: yesterday a year ago he published his 'thunderstorm' podcast. An great podcast with so much 'said' between the lines...silence can be golden, eh!

Dave, we should hook up again someday...do some 'godcasting' :)



Comment / trackback - §

 
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.