May 2012
2 posts
Diesel gets expensive these days...
We’re using diesel for our heating, and guess what… it costs now more than a euro a liter in Chile. We’re at 1.0175 a liter…
Esso is coming to our place to fill up the tank. 500-700 liters… pain in the wallet.
April 2012
4 posts
A power outage - and the recovery
This post is a bit of a rant… but hey, I’m pissed off…
An power outage is one of the most disturbing events you can get in a business, especially if your job is to create computer software. Here in Chile we have power outages about once every 4-8 weeks, often of a short duration, sometimes they take somewhat longer.
The problems with outages is they always come unexpected and...
Translate a scientific problem in plain English →
This Stack Overflow question has an answer to put in a frame. The problem is about as complex as the solution, nevertheless this has been one of the best answers I have seen in a while…
March 2012
7 posts
Felix Baumgartner, Daredevil Skydiver Seeking... →
“Fearless Felix” Baumgartner has jumped 2,500 times from planes and helicopters, as well as some of the highest landmarks and skyscrapers on the planet. Now, he’s making a 13-mile test jump.
The jump lasted 3 mins and 33 seconds, (accourding to the austrian news source, not the linked article). A Dutch version of this story here.
Rubber Duck Problem Solving - By Jeff Atwood →
Jeff explains how to solve a problem by reformulating a question…
Greymail, just another word for spam
Microsoft is calling unwanted newsletters that you have subscribed to… “Graymail”. Right… Wasn’t “Graymail” something like blackmailing the government to evade prosecution? Silly that Microsoft’s marketing gurus overlooked that… or didn’t they?
In either case, I think that any newsletter that does not provide a one-click opt-out…...
How long is it going to take to get localization...
Microsoft is one of the few software companies to actually get localization of their software right. If you have an English version of your OS (i.e. Windows), you will get English installers, English speaking software basically everything else in English.
Several other companies simply don’t seem to get this. I live in Chile, so my location is set to Chile, the keyboard layout is US, the...
First impression about my new PC
My new PC is up and running, it took me a whole Friday to put it all together and the better part of the weekend to make everything run like I want it to… (including probably a Monday & Tuesday as well) but it is worth it.
The computer case is a Cooler Master Storm Enforcer.
To the one who designed this case: you are a genius! This is one of the better cases I worked with. It has...
Servicing my UPS
My UPS has been running non-stop for almost 5 years now. I’ve bought this device in April 2007 and it has been working fine ever since. Yesterday I decided it was time to rearrange my little corner of my office, take out my PowerEdge server and with it, service my UPS and clean up that little corner.
Now first of all, if you are not very handy with technology, do not try this at home....
February 2012
3 posts
Why I care about power consumption...
This post is a bit more about power savings. If you read the last post you probably noticed that I’m going all happy about saving electricity with my computer, let me explain why.
In the past I had 2 servers. One simple one, a DIY PC with some neat motherboard, proc, etc and one professional Dell PowerEdge 1900, dual processor machine.
Guess what the PowerEdge did? It used a lot of power,...
Time for a new PC
My PC has become unreliable lately, so it is time for a change. After 2.5 years of heavy duty I’ve decided to perform some delicate surgery…
My current PC is quite a feat of engineering. Let’s take a look at the specs:
Processor: AMD Phenom II 940 Black Edition Quad Core
Motherboard: Lanparty DK 740FX-M2RS
Memory: 8 GB (4x2GB)
Video: Two Sapphire ATI Radeon HD4870
PSU:...
4.7 Earthquake near Santiago
We had an earthquake last night, not a really heavy one but look how close to Santiago…
You can see all the details about this quake overhere.
January 2012
2 posts
My schedule is now online
Often I get questions like “When do you have time for…?”, now you can see it yourself! I’ve published my calendar online, you can see it at http://jeroenlandheer.com/Calendar
Or if you want it to add this to your Outlook, simply open this link.
Update: For security reasons, I’ve decided to only publish free/busy information. Being busy does not mean that I’m...
Internet Access - Is it a human right? →
Well, no… according to Vinton Cerf, one of the pioneers of the Internet.
November 2011
2 posts
October 2011
4 posts
A new website layout
I decided to change the website layout, I hope you all like it :)
Fun with byte arrays
Some easy and fun byte array extensions
static class ByteArrayExtensions
{
public static string ToHexString(this byte[] bytes)
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++)
{
sb.AppendFormat("{0:X2}", bytes[i]);
}
return sb.ToString();
}
public static byte[] Copy(this byte[] bytes)
{
...
August 2011
1 post
Holy smokes! →
Try to wrap your head around that solution…
June 2011
8 posts
Time for a universal software updater?
Just one of the things the average user is batteling with every patch tuesday is that if you have 10 different software products installed, you have 10 different update procedures to go through. Something tells me this could (and should) be a lot simpler. One of the best updaters in the software industry is Windows Update. Without a doubt it is the least intrusive (no popups), does it work when...
Text to Morse Code in C#
This was one of those questions on code golf that was very interesting: “Write the shortest program to transform the standard input into Morse code. Characters not in the table should be printed as they are.” The C# Answer was actually a pretty clever one: class P{static void Main(string[] a){foreach(var t in a[0]){var c=”“;for(int i=” ETIANMSURWDKGOHVF L PJBXCYZQ ...
99 Bottles of Beer →
With an answer in BrainF***!
Tuesday Morning Post: By patch day be purged... →
Last week, Ahune busted our instance servers. This week, Ragnaros gets the chance to do the same as we fully expect patch 4.2 to go live as of this writing. Now mind you, I’m not saying servers will crash, but hey…
Exporting 'non-exportable' certificates - What the...
Certificates that are stored in a Cryptographic Service Provider (CSP) of a computer, marked as non-exportable should not be allowed to be exported, ever… It seems though that iSEC found a way to ‘Jailbreak’ non-exportable certificates. The big question is: is this a hack or is this using official supported functionality? Probably a bit of both. Nevertheless, Symantec already has...
MJ Loves Creating FUD →
Microsoft splits up its XAML team: What’s the fallout? There is none. XAML is one of the technologies that will be a core part of Windows 8 and Silverlight won’t get moved out any time soon….
Zzzzz
Why is it, that in weekdays I have trouble to wake up and in weekends I can’t sleep in the morning? I got up at 7 AM this morning, way too early for a saturday…
Hurray, My weblog works!
Hello world! It has been a long time since I blogged and put stuff out there on the internet. Too long. So from now on I’ll be posting something at least once a week on how everything goes.
You can expect things here that have to do with tech, software development and system maintenance.
I also will put some fun stuff here and some things for entertainment. So keep an eye on this and...