Martin @ Blog

Because I now use a Macbook for development, I had to install some stuff I needed for development. Unfortunately, Mac OS X does not provide a convenient method to install all the stuff using a single tool (such as apt-get/Synaptic on Ubuntu), but installing some basic stuff is not very difficult. After some research, I choose to install the following packages:

• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• PHP 5
• Eclipse

Read on for the location of the packages I used (more…)

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the battle against buttons at Apple which is lead by CEO Steve Jobs. The article explains why he thinks buttons are evil and how various important people in the history of Apple think about this issue. For example Bruce Tognazzini, who worked with Norman and Nielsen, mentions in the article that Jobs did not want arrow keys on the keyboard for the Apple II computer in order to stimulate software developers to support the Apple mouse instead of relying on keyboard navigation. Other obvious examples of the ‘battle against buttons’ designs are obviously the iPod and the recently introduced iPhone. Very intresting article, and I think this ‘vision’ is one of the key factors for the user friendliness of the Apple products. Although some people do not agree with this statement…

Yesterday, I had a nice letter of the Centraal Justitieel Incassobureau (CJIB), the Dutch organization which is responsible for collecting the money for tickets given by the police and other governmental organizations. The letter announced that I was a ‘suspect of a crime’, which makes me a bit scary. Further reading reveiled that I had received a speeding ticket which was rather high. In my opinion, it is a little bit unfair to give me such a high fine (of course) considering the time and location where I drove too fast. (more…)

Currently, I’m already working for one and a half week at my new job at Finalist. Thus far, it has been a pleasant experience. Obviously, I met a large number of new people. Last week, there was a quarterly meeting of the company which included a wild water raft experience which was very nice.

Mieke, still in China, is now halfway her internship, so only six and a half week to go before she returns to the Netherlands. I’m very looking forward to this, because it is quite lonely without her. The trip to China, from which I returned one and a half week ago, was very nice. I will write about this (probably in Dutch) later and put the photos online. Mieke has already uploaded some pictures to her gallery.

In my free time, I’m renovating my bicycle. Currently, the bike is completly stripped and I’m planning to paint the frame this weekend if the weather allows it. Then I can put the bike toghether again and replace the parts which can not be refurbished, such as the breaks and the rear mudguard.

Tim Berners-Lee, one of the founders of the Internet and chairman of the World Wide Web Consortium, is interviewed by ITworld.com. It is an intersting read, about various subjects. Berners-Lee believes very much in the so-called semantic web, of which he is one of the initial creators. (more…)