Updated a Wikipedia article for the first time
Yeez,
It was only when I tried to persist the changes that I noticed that I never before created an account for an update to an article. But there you go...
I updated the article Technical Debt with some background information concerning Lehman's law that I grasped while studying Normalized Systems.
Updated the Picasa Web Album plugin for WordPress
Updated the Picasa Web Album Plugin for wordpress today to version 0.6.4.
This version is a bug fix, the content of the picasa array got changed over time and I failed
to update it in a timely fashion but here ya go.
Kind regards,
Stefan
Ebook readers
Just a small overview of my ebook reader saga as it evolved to be.
I bought a new shiny Sony PRS-350, after the initial fiddling and showing off at work with it I took it with me to Abu Dhabi to get some reading going on during the flight and my holiday there.
After cursing a few times on the flight I noticed that 2 out of 5 buttons were not operational at all...
Given the fact that these were the options and font size buttons that was something that was not easily to be discarted for a new device. Then I did the stupid thing I tend to come up with quite often...
Instead of reading on it as is, sending it back to the company, wait for probably 4 to 6 weeks and do a lot of stupid phone calls to helpdesks I decided I would have a better solution... Fix it myself.
Note to all readers, this is not a good idea.
Not only is the reader protected with white plastic clippings to surround the metal device to prevent anybody from taking a peek without leaving serious damage to the outer white rings (that could be glued together however, if I got that far) but is truly a tremendous job just to unscrew all screws and mark them to make sure I didn't end up with what I like to call 'spare screws'.
This part however went fine, although I took some serious time and trying to find out how far I should disassemble before I would see the parts I needed. In short, you need to go all the way. Since that is something (most people that know me in person seem will agree on this one) I tend to do off I went.
After about an hour I ended up with the mainboard dissambled, the screen separated and all that. On top of it all it was still functioning (minus the faulty buttons). After close inspection I figured the problem should be on the extra board containing the push buttons. When I snapped that part off, the device rebooted, froze during the reboot (since the e-ink doesnt go white after power off I am still guessing if it is completely bricked or actually frozen) and that was that. I didn't discover any broken or missing links on the board, couldn't figure out why it seemed bricked now and ended up with a brand new shiny completely unusable device.
Needless to say warrantee doesn't go that far.
So I needed a new ereader, and fast !
Deciding I didn't want to try my luck with bol.com again I opted for a company located in Antwerp (I don't want to give away any advertising space unless the device works flawlessly for at least 2 months) that could deliver within 24 hours.
Instead of going for the winner of all reviews, the cheapest device with one of the best screen (amazon kindle) I decided to give the Onyx Boox 60 advanced a go. And I am happy with it since.
Some minor comparisons seem in order
Build quality
The sony feels better, has a high quality metallic finish but was faulty when opened, which kind of sucks.
The screen of the sony is still the best quality and brightest I have seen.
The onyx is black, simple and the same size as the kindle, although the screen of the kindle and sony is better, and both feel snappier when navigating between pages and menu options.
Software
I tried the Sony and Onyx with Calibre as my application, both work without any problems. The menu of the sony is more intuitive and has cover art enabled by default. The way books are categorized is also better imho on the sony.
The onyx receives frequent firmware updates, has a lot of community supporting it, and it is sold as a number of devices. Bebook for instance is exactly the same as the onyx boox, its just more expensive and doesnt come with a free cover. The software is comprehensible, has all the options you need and keeps getting better each month.
Package
The sony comes in a nifty box, well wrapped and generally looks and feels right.
The onyx comes in a more we-chinese-copy-only-what-we-think-is-important casing, but has a free cover with the ereader, which saves up some cash. The onyx feels solid, when comparing with the Kindle I could see that they share the same button placement for navigating pages. The onyx however comes with a wacom tablet underneat, the kindle settles for a keyboard.
In general I would recommend the Onyx at the moment to anyone looking for an affordable, well supported by community ereader.
If you can handle the extra bucks and are more lucky than me I would go for the Sony PRS 650 (same screen size as the kindle and onyx, but a much brighter screen and looks way better)
Reason for not going for the kindle was the mobi format, lack of epub support (transforming each document towards mobi is not an option imho) and the fact that I want to have freedom in where I buy my books. (I dont buy all books from amazon)
I also misassumed that the delivery of a kindle would take 2 weeks, which was wrong. People around me have seen delivery times around a week in total. Although it is a safe bet to assume that I would be the one with the delay.
Visual comparison between Kindle and Sony PRS 350 can be found on top of this article.
The Onyx looks as follows :
What’s Eatin’ You
Hi y'all.
It seems like I forgot about this blog for a long time.
Small status update on what I am currently doing:
- Writing some personal C# applications to facilitate what I am doing in my free time
- working in Czech Republic for 60% of my time since 2.5 years
- got divorced, met new girlfriend, sold my house, bought land, trying to select an architect now
- started to go back to school (part time ofcourse) to get a masters degree
- maintaining some websites that I should definitely finish and hand over
- picked up starcraft 2 a while ago to discover that even with 2x2 hours practice a week I still suck at it 
- bought a Sony PRS-350 recently to solve the problem of heavy luggage on each visit to Prague
- no sports whatsoever since almost a year now, should tackle that problem in a few weeks
Things that I would like to be doing:
- Fix the problem with comments not being mailed to my mail account
- Update to the latest wordpress soon
- Sleep more, ... really
- Pick up some sports again
- Update the intellitunes app
What can you expect from this blog ?
Since I feel there are better sources out there for technical, programming articles and the likes I'll be posting thoughts and reviews of books I read from now on.
I will focus mainly on enterpr. IT architecture and methodology since these tickle my interest most.
... and yes the title is from the Runnin' Wild album of Airbourne
Updated intellitunes today
Hi y'all,
Just finished updating intellitunes and uploaded the new version to the old location.
What changed ?
- Support for processing all songs of your itunes lib in one run
- Changed the searching on amazon for artwork to comply to the new regulations
- Changed the way to search for lyrics from lyricwiki.org (api was revoked) to lyrdb.com
Should all be up and running now, well on my machine it is anyway.
Drop me an email if you find any problems. stefan dot venken at gmail dot com should do the trick
Download it here or visit the product page here
Kind regards, stefan