Personal

Back in July, Barry Goffe (Director Windows Vista Ultimate) mentioned that the missing Extras identified in January would be released at the end of the summer. I just got a bit curious about when these Extras would finally be released, so I visited windowsultimate.com again. And there it was: DreamScene was released recently (September 25th). And although I’m not quite sure if I’ll use this ever day, it’s kind of a cool feature. Isn’t it?

WOW
The single player mode feels like a multiplayer game, with excellent gameplay. Certain parts of the game are pretty creepy, and I like it that there are some surprising elements in there. Sometimes you expect something to happen, which doesn’t. And when you least expect it…. So the (story in the) game is original. That makes a game interesting to play. One of the things I like a lot is that you can use almost everything your opponents use, like vehicles and weapons
The multiplayer part is just great. I played online with some friends this weekend, and we had a blast!

So, after some relaxing at home and a very cool holiday in Spain, I’m about to go to work again next monday. And with that, I’ll be picking up all my ’normal day’ hobbies and stuff. So, I’ll try and pick up blogging (and taking pictures) again, just for you guys ;). Stay tuned … !

As you may know, I started out at blogger. I haven’t used that blog over there for the last two years, but now it is up and running again{.}! This time, I’m using it as my photo blog. I recently got my new camera, and I didn’t want to mix picture-posts with my software development related posts over here. So if you’re interested, go take a look over there. Next to the link earlier in this post, you can find a link @ the news section of this site, in the left sidebar.

Last tuesday evening I ordered them, and just over an hour ago they came in: my new toys. I’m talking about my brandnew Canon EOS 400D!!! I started out with the kit lens (18-55), and I’ll get going with that, trying some stuff with this lens. And I just might order another in the future, but you have to start somewhere, right 😉

A while ago I wrote about my laptop not wanting{.} to connect to the internet or an Exchange Server. Two days later, I thought I found{.} the updates which were the cause of all this. It wasn’t exactly true, but in the end everything worked… Because of that, I let it go for a few days. But after a while, I couldn’t help myself: I had to know the real reason for the problem. So after thinking long and hard about the (configuration) differences between my laptop and my ’normal machine’, I could think of only one which could be big enough to have this kind of impact. My laptop has had (the trial version of) Norton Internet Security installed, and my ’normal machine’ did not.

I found the two updates which crippled{.} my laptop’s Windows installation. After uninstalling and re-installing lots of updates, it seems that these two updates caused the problem:
– Update for Windows Vista (KB936825) This wasn’t the one. The problem was back this morning. 🙁 I’ll be checking this out later today.
– Update for Outlook 2007 (KB933493)

I took the test Adel blogged about. And guess what? I’m binary!
Does this mean I’m 1337? 😉

Which Programming Language are You?

I ran into a nice little riddle on thinkgeek.com{.} today (in the shirts section).
If you enjoy silly humor: take a look over there.

How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?

It took me a while, but in the end everything worked out and life’s good… Most important changes are I have my very own server now, containing all the general stuff like mail, music, development stuff and that kind of data.
My workstation received a small update (I was able to upgrade based on the ‘old’ machine of a friend) and is now running Vista quite smoothly. To be honest, I haven’t found any major issues yet.

It’s been a while since I blogged, because…
– I started a new (exciting but busy) project building a technical framework (and ‘proving’ a reference architecture along the way).
– it looks like I might become a published writer when I hand in my article for the Dutch .NET magazine anywhere in the next couple of weeks.
– we had lot’s of meetings @ LogicaCMG lately, like the yearmeeting, an architect meeting, a funmeeting (bowling can be cool!), and so on.
– I’m planning on doing more along the way of competence development for my team, so I have to do some research and come up with a plan on how to do so.
– I was part of the orgnisation for the reunion of the musical I played in. We’re having it this saturday.
– our house still needs some ‘home improvement’ and I’m the guy to do it (preferably not ‘Tim Taylor’ style).
– I haven’t even had time to use my Xbox 360 the past couple of weeks!

Today I changed the appearance of my blog. The header has changed, and the content part is much wider. Because of the self-made banner I think this is a little more personal. Or a little less ordinary, whichever you prefer. If you have any feedback, please let me know. I think it’s pretty sweet, although this won’t show up pretty in a resolution below 1280 x 1024… Ah well, I think most people in our line of work will meet this requirement.