Since the dawn of time, man has looked to the heavens and wondered: where did the stars come from? He has looked at the great diversity of plants and animals around him and wondered: where did life come from? He has looked at himself and wondered: where did I come from?

Later, he began to ask more complicated questions. He looked in his wallet and asked: where did my paycheck go? Am I on the right bus? Who do you like in the series?

To the former questions, at least, science has provided answers.

If coffee isn't working any longer for you ...

It is Friday (and even the 13th) and therefore time for some fun !

If you ever wondered what the touch screen is made for on your mobile phone this is the answer.

This blog is not about Wallace & Gromit, it is instead about a nice day in the city of London I'd spent yesterday. I am on an "ECR for Developers" training at the premises of MTV in Surrey, London and used the chance to arrive one day early do visit the National History Museum. Beside the Science Museum it was still on the list of museums I wanted to visit.

It is Friday afternoon and weekend is really close. So, it's time for the Friday fun !!!

Swyx has officially launched their Technology Partner Programme  (short: TPP) this week. From now on you will find a constantly growing list of applications, SIP Devices and SIP Providers being listed on the TPP web page

• http://tpp.swyx.com

For the long weekend (I hope you have one) something that brings you into "none-working-mode":

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If you do love Star Trek and Monty Python this is what you want to see !

That's the headline of a story in the online version of The New York Times . Bottom line is that

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I just wanted to share the current view from my office window with you.

Have you ever wondered how to do workouts in the office ? Well, there is an American company selling the Hawaii-Chair.

This year's 1st of April was again, like every year, filled with lots of nice fools in newspapers, websites, tv shows, a.s.o.

Martin blogged about a fool "Adaptive Personal Response Inference Layer" in the German computer magazine c't.

After years of "beta" versions (0.9x) the first v1.0 has finally been released !

Last weekend I'd configured a new test machine at home and figured an interesting bug-chain. I was also able to reproduce it yesterday in the Swyx QA lab. Under special circumstances it is possible to use the GSE "Send Email" block to sent an Email to more or less the entire world. I guess that's the wet dream of every spammer (and I sincerely hope they don't read this article).

You don't believe it ? Read this article...

Apple is currently "featuring" their Safari for Windows web browser by providing it via iTunes update mechanism. Martin has already written about it in his blog Trust!?.
Is it really about trust or is it about the "sheep behaviour" or "short attention span syndrom" ?

Martins blog GRB 080319B reminds me of a conversation between Timon and Pumba in Disney's The Lion King.

Last night Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, died in Sri Lanka, aged 90 years.

Swiss biologist David Brawand published his results on a special gene research. This explains quite impressively how humans like all other mammals switched from eggs to giving birth. The main conclusion is: it's the milk that replaced the eggs.

plublishing blog articles via Windows Live Writer works successfull. Stay tuned !

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As I am a child of the 70's I grew up with the Jim Henson's 'The Muppet Show'.

Every sunday afternnon my brother, my father and I had a fixed appointment with the TV. We all loved it. My absolute favoriute was and still is Fozzy Bear and his never ending struggle to become a funny comedian, well at least a comedian.

There are so many famous quotes of him, just like when he was driving along with Kermit in his Studebaker through the Rocky Mountains and watching the terrific nature: "Ahh, the natural habitat of a bear - a Studebaker".

One of his best performances on the stage is the following (I still remember couldn't stop laughing when seeing it the first time):

 



 

So, this is my delayed friday fun blog for you guys

...

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(The following is in german lanugage available only)

Heute Abend, 12.02.2008, läuft um 20:15 Uhr im BR-TV (3. PRogramm) die Münchner Runde mit dem Thema

Doch mehr Soldaten nach Afghanistan ?

Teilnehmer der Diskussion sind:

• Peter Scholl Latour
• Dr. Schmidt (Staatssekretär im Verteidigungsministerium)
• W. Nachtwei (MdB/Grüne)
• Dr. R. Erös (Kinderhilfe Afghanistan)

Wer sich für das Thema interessiert sollte sich diese sicherlich kontroverse Diskussionsrunde nicht entgehen lassen.

BTW: Peter Scholl Latour wird am am 9. April 2008 in der Berliner Buchhandlung Dussmann in der Friedrichstrasse das neue Buch Unter Taliban, Warlords und Drogenbaronen von Dr. R. Erös präsentieren.

Hey, it's friday afternoon ! You know what that means

Ever wondered how the big movie companies make their money and what happens if there is a "shortage" in revenue ?

Well, here is a nice little movie showing the real world of making animation movies:

• Picture This

The movie loads a little bit slowly but it's worth waiting for it !

Maybe it's a good idea to ask the manager of your favorite super market to play domino with you !

This is how that could look like: 

Just a hint: you should definately ask before start setting up the "domino stones" (unless you do not intend to visit this super market again).

Yesterday Martin posted a link to a panorama view of the

• A380 Cockpit

As this is already quite impressive there some other panorama views from the interior available

• A380 Interior Views

But I have to admit, that I like the cockpit view most ;-) Allthough there are lots of switches and screens it doesn't seem too complicated to handle once you know a little bit about how to fly jets. That's something you can teach yourself within MS Flight Simulator. Well, at least theoretical and/or simulated.

Sorry, the following is available in german language only.

29.01.2008

Pressemitteilung "Winterhilfe Afghanistan"

 

Im Westen und Norden Afghanistans herrscht seit Wochen einer der kältesten und schneereichsten Winter seit Jahrzehnten. Hundertausende Menschen - vor allem Kinder - sind vom Hunger- und  Kältetod bedroht.

Die Mintrachinger "Kinderhilfe Afghanistan" hat daher eine umfassende Hilfsaktion gestartet.

Afghanische Mitarbeiter der "Kinderhilfe Afghanistan" transportieren seit gestern mit geländegängigen LKW 15 Tonnen Hilfsgüter, insbesondere Nahrungsmittel, Winterbekleidung und festes Schuhwerk für Kinder, Decken und Heizmaterial (Spiritus-Tabletten und -öfen), in die entlegenen Gebiete im Westen und Norden des Landes. Die Aktion wird in den nächsten Wochen fortgeführt.

Dr. Reinhard Erös wird am Wochenende persönlich nach Afghanistan reisen, um die Großaktion vor Ort zu organisieren. Der ehemalige Bundeswehrarzt dankt den Soldaten der Bundeswehr in Mazar-E-Sharif,...

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A little bit late for a lazy friday afternoon in the office, but not too late for the next week

Have you ever played "Rock Paper Scissors" (Schnick-Schnack-Schnuck) ?

Here you will find some professional hints to make sure you will become the champion in your office !

 

VideoJug: How To Win At Rock Paper Scissors

...

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What are we going to do once all existing silicon on the world is already used in our computers ?

Well, one possible solution would be to go back to the good old vaccum tubes. This at least would give us the chance to build our computers by our own again instead of using all this highly integrated stuff. You don't believe it ?

Check out this !

Ok, you're right, one would need silicon for the glass bulb of the vaccum tube as well... But the video is really amazing, isn't it ?

As Morten has moved into the norwegian wilderness (no phone, no dsl, no tv) it is up to me to post his fun-blogs every once in a while...

Well, this is not a fun link but a very nice and informative one: the Sience Education Company.

Here you will find lots of videos with simple but astonishing sience experiments like how to make an emergency glass from a leaf.

From Ian's posting in the forum you might have noticed that Morten and I do not have many hairs populating our fabulous heads. Clearly speaking: we are getting bald !

But we are in good company. Many great men have been or still are bald as well. One of my favourite actors is bald as well, so lets listen to what he is saying about baldness (and he is also able to talk about it in the 24th century):

Patrick Stewart on "Baldness"

The Swyx Forum Team, that is me (Tom) and Morten wishes all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thanks for all your support here in the community and lets make sure it will grow even stronger and larger in 2008 !

Remember ? The other day I linked two videos here in my blog that could lead to the conclusion that education is not one of the strongest attributes of the US. The first video showed a blond girl in a TV show assuming that Europe is a country. The second video showed a guy playing around with statistics on how clever americans are (or not). Well, especially the last one could have been biased as it was just the voice of one strange guy.

So, is it true what he said ? Are americans dumb as hell ?

Americans are NOT stupid

It's amazing, I didn't assumed that "Europe is a country" could get worse... (poor Australians!)

100% ...

This is a strictly mathematical viewpoint... it goes like this: What makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wondered about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here'sa little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions: If A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 then H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K 8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98% and K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96% but A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100% and

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103% and, look how far ass kissing will take you: A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G 1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 127%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while hard work and knowledge will...

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(Sorry, the following is in german language available only!)

Die Kinderhilfe Afghanistan, welche durch Teile der bisher eingenommenen Sponsoren Gelder durch Swyx Forum unterstützt wird, hat eine Zusammenfassung ihrer Aktivitäten im Jahr 2007 zur Verfügung gestellt:

Jahresrundbrief der Kinderhilfe Afghanistan

... you find this on your desk in the morning: 

Some kind of ignorance of knowledge can't be related to certain countries of the word, allthough it most definately looks like...

But listening to youngsters in a bus or underground (in the USA, in Germany, in the UK, in France, ...) really get's you scared of the upcoming generation and what they will be with the world ! Stupidity is not related to a certain country but is a result of the way we are living today, of the mass media, the gaming industry, MTV, or what ever.

The following is a really nice example. Maybe there are some relations between "not knowing" (not to say "stupidity") and the color of the hair ... 



 

Well, and this a some statistical information on education in the USA. But I am pretty sure this is valid for other countries as well ! 



...

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While reading myself through a couple of articles on the most hip CMS systems I found a very usefull site which compares all currently availalbe systems in a matrix.

This site is maybe also of interest for you, so here is the link:

• The CMS Matrix

(BTW: Swyx Forum uses DotNetNuke as CMS)

Some time ago the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has started to release their lectures/courses to the public as so called OpenCourseWare. The idea behind is to open up the world of today's knowledge to everyone.

There are more than 1800 course available online, many of them translated into other languages or even available as audio/video presentations.

The content of the courses touch a huge variety of topics from Architecture and Planning, Engineering, Health Sciences and Technology, Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Management and Science (Biology, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Chemistry, Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Mathematics Physics).

The MIT has also just laucnhed a program to deliver special courses for high school pupils.

If you are interested in any of the above mentioned topics it is worth a look !

MIT OpenCourseWare ...

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After my vacation is over and my evenings and weekends are fully booked my hoster finished setting up the root server for Swyx Forum. Setting up DotNetNuke (incl. database) is up to me, but this will take some time now

Actually there was a reason why I ordered the server one week before my two-weeks vacation...

Anyway, there is a light at the end of the tunnel now

Yesterday I found myself in a time machine boosting me back in time into the year 1991. It was the year where I had to do my 12 month military service at the german navy. I was sonar operator on a so called mine hunter. We searched see mines (ground mines) by using sonar and then used a small remote controlled submarine to dop a bomb directly beside the mine to simply destroy it. In 1990 Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait and dropped hundreds of mines into the persian gulf as a barrier to make sure no military vessel or oil tanker was able to approach Kuwait. A number of NATO countries as also germany sent their mine seachers / hunters down into the gulf to get rid of these mines. During this time I was stationed on the MHC Koblenz (M1071). So, that was the time where a saw quite a lot from the world ;-) A few years after my military service the german navy replaced to old mine hunter fleet we were stationed on by new high-tech vessels.

One of the ships (MHC Weilheim (M1077))  was handed over...

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Randall has just started his new project Swyx WebCDR.

It is a web based CDR (Call Detail Record) tool. Please take a look onto the project pages for more details.

The current version is written in PHP (Apache Webserver) but we are also looking to provide an ASP (Microsoft IIS Webserver) version. So, if your are willing to help on this, feel free to join the team !

Ok, Morten has promised that I will write about my norwegian experiances, so here they are. At least in terms of "having a traditional norwegian dinner".

Friday night we went out to a quite nice fish restaurant in the newly build shopping and restaurant area Aker Brygge in down town Oslo, directly at the harbour. The name of the restaurant was "Lofoten" which clearly indicated that we were not going to get some nice english style steak (if you don't know about the Lofoten you should read about them here).

As I already promised weeks before to give taditional food a try the waiter didn't provided me with a menu. In fact most of us (we were nine people at all) skipped the part with the menu, except Morten and his wife, the other Morten and Thomas. The fact that both Mortens as real norwegians were not going for the traditional fish should have worried me... Well, to be honest, it did, at least a little bit.

As a starter we got something that is called "rakefisk". Stop, that's not true...

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The weekend is close and therefore it's time for something to smile about

Being David Copperfield isn't that difficult as it seems. Everyone can do such magic things. You, me, eveyone !!!

See for yourself !

Over the last two weeks the down times of Swyx Forum have increased as you might have noticed. Unfortunately it always takes some time to get it up and running again as I do not have direct remote access to the machine to restart the webserver by my own but instead need to ask my hoster to do so.

The reason for these downtimes is, that the web framework Swyx Forum is using (DotNetNuke) is somewhat unstable in virtual environments, which is in fact a problem of asp.net, the web layer of Windows itself. After updating to the new forum version the downtimes have increased dramatically. Obviously this version touches unstable functions of DotNetNuke / asp.net more often than the old one.

But, good new is, HELP IS ON THE WAY !

Swyx Forum will definately move to it's own server machine which brings two major advantages:

more stable environment direct remote access for me and Morten (to be able to react faster on any kind of problem) Further advantages will be of course

...

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Usually the following chain reaction is not possible in online stores, but you never know...

http://producten.hema.nl

"Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!"

That's the title of a set of books, written by Richard P. Feynman, one of the greatest physicists of our century. Not only was he brilliant in his profession, theoretical physics (which won him the nobel prize), he was also a remarkable lecturer, story teller and finally also bongo player. He died in 1988.

His lectures where crowded with students, everyone wanted to learn from him. He had the ability to explain the most complex relations in simple words giving even "outsiders" of physics a chance to understand what's going on.

His "Feynman Lectures on Physics"  (three volume books on the basics on physics) are still the most popular books for students.

Last year I was happy finding an audio cd collection containing original recordings of his lectures from 1961-63. I was even more happy realizing I was able to follow his explanations

...

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Snowball is a medium sulphur crested Eleanora cockatoo and he loves to dance and sing.

He loves the Back Street Boys. No one taught Snowball to dance... he just heard this song and suddenly felt like dancing. When he's really in the mood, he dances and sings.

And at the end of the performance he takes a bow or two or twenty !!

But see for yourself:

http://birdloversonly.blogspot.com/2007/09/may-i-have-this-dance.html

After Sebastian started his new project Swyx IM on his own pages, the Swyx Forum project pages are availalbe now as well.

Swyx Forum provides community services for the project, mainly the forums. For downloads and issue reporting you will be diverted to Sebastian's own page automatically.

Please let me thank Sebastian for all his efforts (and lots of spare time) he spends on his projects, SwyxIt! Gadget and now Swyx IM as well. I know how busy he is already with his daily job ...

So, if you feel like "wow, that's cool, what can I do to support this project (or others)" don't hesitate to get in touch with us. The more people we have in our project teams the more work can be done and the better the projects will become

Today I am facing several down times 

It seems, that the new forum version causes somehow more problems in the virtual environment than the previous version.

I am already working on a solution to get Swyx Forum on it's own root server which promises much more stability. If this will work out as expacted/wanted, I will be able to move the site in one or two weeks from now (fortunately I have vacation during this time...).

If you feel like wanting to support me on this you can do so by becoming an official sponsor of Swyx Forum. It is just a question of money... (as always). At the moment the costs are not yet secured.

As I am going to update the forum module the following weekend, you won't be able to access it from saturday morning  presumingly until sunday afternoon. All other areas of Swyx Forum (projects, downloads, wiki, a.s.o.) will stay available during this time.

Hi everyone.

Due to a massive hardware failure in the datacenter of my hoster Swyx Forum (and lots of other pages) where down far about half a day. As Murphey tells us: everything that could fail will fail, it took some time to get the datacenter back to life.

Swyx Forum is available now again and I am looking forward to the weekend to update the forum module.