BlogOhotos

Very cool infinite-zooming mosaic

2006-05-25T11:06:00.000+02:00

Found this photomosaic that you can zoom in forever on Boing Boing yesterday, very cool indeed!

Going offline

2006-05-24T10:22:00.000+02:00

It has been very quite here lately and will be even more during the next weeks. This blog will be on hiatus until I will be back online in July or August. In the meantime I will be busy with our move to Montreal and will only have access to the Internet from time to time.

Red Bull Air Race

2006-05-08T12:40:00.000+02:00

On saturday I went to the Red Bull Air Race here in Barcelona. Very spectacular! An amazingly huge crowd of 1 Million people on the beaches! I'll post some more details later.

Finally old Europe is on the maps

2006-04-27T08:52:00.000+02:00

The Official Google Blog just announced Google Maps in Europe. So far beta versions of Google Maps for France, Germany, Italy, and Spain are online. For Barcelona (probably for other European cities as well, didn't check) it even has the metro stations. I have been missing this feature for my soon to be home of Montreal.

Eye-Fi - the revolution that digital cameras need

2006-04-26T11:34:00.000+02:00

I have been thinking about this before and hope it will become reality soon:

Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » More on Eye-Fi
...you'd love this. No buttons to push. Just turn your camera on when you're within your WiFi network at home (or possibly at WiFi hotspots that are open around the world) and everything happens — automatically. When he took my picture my picture appeared on his computer without him touching the camera further. Obviously there's a bit of setup, but that's easy. Anyone who can use a Web browser could setup the system.
...You don't need as much memory if you have an Eye-Fi. Why? Cause your camera's memory is just a cache. As soon as you're within a WiFi hotspot the camera could spit the photos to your favorite photo sharing site (BubbleShare, for instance, lets you upload and download full photo files, so you wouldn't need to store them on the local camera)....

As Scoble says, I want one... that is if they come out with a CF version!

Free Cone Day!... was yesterday

2006-04-26T09:27:00.000+02:00

Thanks Metroblogging Los Angeles for having me made aware of Ben&Jerry's free cone day. Yesterday I got three scoops going from one B&J's to the next. Cherry Garcia, Oatmeal Cookie Chunk and Chunky Monkey, mmmmmm, they just make the best ice-cream!

How to switch to the new Yahoo! Mail beta

2006-04-25T12:52:00.000+02:00

Even though I only occasionally use my spam-filled Yahoo! Mail account I must say I was a bit jealous when my wife (who has a Yahoo! France account) got the invitation to switch to the new Yahoo! Mail Beta recently. I had to get it too! Well, I am so happy with my Gmail that I more or less forgot about it, but today I found this little hack to get an invitation while surfing some blogs:

Get in on the Yahoo! Mail beta - Lifehacker
- Log in to Yahoo Mail
- click Options
- select Account information from the left panel
- go to Member Information, General Preferences, Preferred Content
- select, for example, Yahoo UK
- click Finished
- go to Yahoo Mail
- you’ll see a page that says “It’s the New Yahoo! Mail Beta… and you’re invited.”
- click on “Try Beta Now”.

In my case I changed the preferences to Yahoo! Canada as I will be moving there soon anyway (see my project) and it worked. However this won't make me go back and use Yahoo as my primary e-mail. The new Yahoo! Mail Beta may be a bit better than the old but my first impression was: sloooooooooow! It doesn't look very good either, sort of like Outlook with ads! Since I have been using Gmail I got so used its thread view and to labels instead of folders that I cannot imagine working with something else.

Now there it is: Google Calendar is live!

2006-04-13T07:33:00.000+02:00

A nice gift from the Google folks to start the day: Google Calendar is live as of this morning. I just started up the PC and tried to log on using the known CL2 login page and there it is Google Calendar, yes it's not CL2 as was speculated, this seems to have been an internal name only. First impression after a few minutes of use: blazing fast, no bugs! Probably this day will be dedicated to trying it out from A to Z. So is this good-bye 30Boxes and Kiko? Probably yes, though I have somewhat grown to like their own (still imperfect) calendar implementations they'll have a hard time to make their stand against Google.

UPDATE: The Gmail integration is still missing, I cannot see any "add event", "add to calendar" or other links to Google Calendar in my Gmail account, even in e-mails containing event-specific data.
UPDATE II: It seems they will roll out Gmail integration during the next days, some users already reported having it. Just a few minutes ago the official announcement came in:

It's about time
...we invite you to try Google Calendar -- a tool that simplifies keeping track of events, special occasions, and appointments -- whether they’re on your own agenda or on the calendars of contacts who opt to share their schedules with you...

New Version of Kiko Calendar

2006-04-05T10:10:00.000+02:00

Right when I was about to forget about Kiko Calendar I received this announcement in my inbox yesterday:

We've spent the last few months with our heads down, and we've finally released the new Kiko. We're sporting a brand new, much cleaner tabbed interface and a whole host of new features:

Appointment reminders via email, text messages, and AIM
RSS feed for upcoming events
Natural language appointment creation
Import appointments and contacts via iCal and vCard
Sharable URLs for your calendar
Check out the new site at http://kiko.com/. You can sign up with a new login or migrate your old account by signing in with this email.
Cheers,
The Kiko Team

Just by curiosity I signed back into my Kiko account to check it out and I must say the new version doesn't seem that bad. Overall the look and feel is better than before and reminds me a lot the screenshots of the upcoming Google CL2 calendar. Even a few CL2-like features for example drag-to-create are nicely implemented in Kiko and the whole thing is a bit more stable than before.
So will I switch back from 30Boxes to Kiko? I don't know yet, 30Boxes is very easy to use and has some nice features but Kiko is catching up and I haven't used both calendars enough to say that I couldn't live without them as I am still waiting for Google to get their thing going. Even if Google is a bit late to this race they will probably end up winning it because of full Gmail integration and their large user base. What the heck, they should just buy both Kiko and 30Boxes!

Listen to Dani California online!

2006-04-04T11:48:00.000+02:00

I am really looking forward to the RHCP's new album "Stadium Arcadium" due out on May 9th. Since yesterday I have been listening their new single "Dani California" and I must say that Anthony Kiedis' singing becomes better with every new album and John Frusciante's guitar play is outstanding! You can now listen to Dani California online at the Chili Pepper's site.

Walk / Don't Walk

2006-03-27T09:02:00.000+02:00

Walk / Don't Walk
Originally uploaded by oHoTos.

Saw this while walking around in Barcelona on saturday - pretty confusing!

Writely now part of Google

2006-03-09T21:05:00.000+01:00

Well, when this day started I thought this was a nice rumour, I didn't expect this to happen that fast. Google announced on their official blog that they have just acquired Writely, my favorite online word processor:

Official Google Blog: Writely so
For the last five months, I've been part of a Silicon Valley startup called Upstartle, which makes Writely, a collaborative word processor that runs in a web browser. Well, as of Monday, I'm happy to say that I, and the rest of the Writely team, are now part of Google.
...
To be clear, Writely is still in beta, and it's far from perfect. Upholding our great user experience means everything to us, so we're not accepting new registrations until we've moved Writely to Google's software architecture. If you're interested in giving us a try, we hope you'll get on the waitlist so we can let you know when you'll be able to try out Writely.

Google, Writely In Talks?

2006-03-09T08:30:00.000+01:00

A nice rumor to start the day. Hopefully this will turn out to be true, I would prefer to have more of the services I regularly use under my Google account and Writely is one of them:

Google, Writely In Talks?: So you all know that Google’s got designs for a G:Drive and doing an end run around Microsoft? Now what if you can simply store and save data on that drive, but that’s not clearly as much fun. What if you could write a document in a browser, much like you write on Microsoft Word, but then save it directly to the G:Drive? That would increase the utility of G:Drive tremendously. Maybe that explains why Google is rumored to be in talks with Writely, a browser-based document processing application, for a possible acqusition. Writely, is the first product of Upstartle, LLC. (More on them here.) Writely is one of the Business 2.0 Next Net 25 companies. The pending deal has been making the rounds in the Valley today. I picked up this very strong rumor from fairly reliable sources, when visiting the money corridor (aka Sand Hill Road) this morning. Now I am still waiting to hear from Google and Writely about the rumors, and will treat this chatter as just that, unless of course I hear otherwise from the two companies. Now buying Writely is in line with Google thinking of using browser for everything. I mean an online word processor, and online excel spread sheet make a lot more sense than making people switch to OpenOffice. Anyway will update the story later when I hear from the two respective companies.

Now is the Google calendar coming or not?

2006-03-08T11:25:00.000+01:00

TechCrunch has some exclusive screenshots of Google Calendar . I really hope that I won't be disappointed and that "CL2" will be available soon (...April 1st???). Currently I am still using 30Boxes but I am missing the tight Gmail integration that Google will probably offer.

Theee Simpsooons... dü dü dü di dü...

2006-03-06T11:11:00.000+01:00

Now this is really, really cool. The Simpsons intro as live action recreation, they must have put a lot of work into this, it's so true to the original! Found this through one of the better blogs out there WWdN

Speed limit

2006-03-01T17:13:00.000+01:00

This experiment with the speed limit makes a good point, see for yourself:

What if Microsoft designed the iPod's packaging?

2006-03-01T17:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I watched this cool video:

Schmap city guides

2006-03-01T10:36:00.000+01:00

Schmap, apparently a new online city guide service just contacted me through Flickr because one of my CC-licensed photos was shortlisted for inclusion in one of their guides. I previewed their San Francisco guide after downloading their small viewer and it doesn't look bad but if Google would come up with something similar integrated into Google Earth it would beat them. Their service is going live by the end of March it seems.

Google Pages

2006-02-23T12:33:00.000+01:00

Google Pages is another new Beta from Google. It's an ajax WYSIWYG-editor and you can host a whole site on Google's servers. I just tried it and it's very easy, here my first try at a Google page: oHoTos' stuff

3GSM Congress in Barcelona

2006-02-16T17:53:00.000+01:00

Chocolate fountain
Originally uploaded by ohotos.

Yesterday I dropped by the 3GSM Congress for two hours, my employer kindly offered me a pass. If you're not interested at checking out the gazillions of new mobile phones it's actually quite boring. This chocolate fountain at the Oracle booth was quite a success it seems.

Red Hot Chili Peppers or Stones?

2006-02-09T17:23:00.000+01:00

I just wanted to look up some tour information from the Red Hot Chili Pepper's site and the result that came up from my search Google Search: red hot chili peppers was somewhat weird. They are both great bands but I already have tickets to one of the next Stones shows. Did the Stones hijack these search results or what?

New online calendar

2006-02-06T09:19:00.000+01:00

30 Boxes , a new online calendar is starting to open to the puplic now. I have been toying around quite a bit with Kiko Calendar lately and liked it so far, but 30 Boxes is likely to make me switch for now. After five minutes of use I already prefer it over Kiko, it is way faster and less bugged. Now where is my Google Calendar ?

Changes

2006-01-21T22:52:00.000+01:00

So I finally took some time to change the design of this blog, the colors are not definitive yet and some more CSS and graphics stuff have to be changed. But at least it's starting to look better.

Nice weather today!

2006-01-19T13:40:00.000+01:00

weather Barcelona - Google Search

Cleaning up!

2006-01-19T00:14:00.000+01:00

My BlogOhotos became a bit cluttered and out of control with too much code that I added to the template. For now I have cleaned it up - back to default. Hope to get some time to set up everything again soon.

The Great Flickr Tools Collection

2006-01-18T09:25:00.000+01:00

I just upgraded to a Flickr pro account. I've had an account for quite a while now but only started really using it a few days ago and was quickly reaching the upload limit.
Now I have to check out this Great Flickr Tools Collection

ohotos'Photos - a photoset on Flickr

2006-01-17T15:06:00.000+01:00

pic'oHoTos - a photoset on Flickr- some of the first photos I took with my new Olympus E-500.

How to fold a shirt in japan - Google Video

2006-01-17T07:30:00.000+01:00

Now this t-shirt folding video is resurfacing again. I 've been using this method eversince I saw it for the first time about a year or two ago.
how to fold a shirt in japan - Google Video

About that pixel problem...

2006-01-13T12:16:00.000+01:00

The problem I (thought) I had with my Olympus E-500 has disappeared! First I though that the sensor had a hot pixel but after looking more closely I ultimately found out that it seemed to be on the LCD viewer, not in the photos themselves when looking at them on the PC. But now the problem just went away, I never saw that red pixel again. Is it possible that a pixel gets stuck on a LCD and repairs itself after a while? I'll do some research on that and hope it won't reappear.

Nice housing concept - the Loftcube

2006-01-13T11:37:00.000+01:00

I read about the Loftcube in a local paper and it would be great to have one of those and just put it on top of a building in a city like Barcelona where real estate is getting more and more expensive. They are only something like 35 square meters but are affordable, ready built, and can be deposited on a building by crane or helicopter.

Review of the RIU Yucatan Resort Playa del Carmen Mexico

2006-01-10T11:17:00.000+01:00

I was quite busy/jetlagged/lazy after coming back from a great week in Playa del Carmen, but finally I decided to attack my review of the RIU Yucatan Resort I stayed at with my wife from December 12th to the 20th.

The RIU Yucatan is located in the Playacar urbanisation which is just south of Playa
del Carmen which can be reached in 50 minutes driving south from the Cancun airport. After arriving shortly after 9.30 pm along with about 30 other guests we were brought to a room (apparently some dance club that was never open during our whole stay) above the reception. Once there our tour operator rep and someone from the hotel explained us a few things and handed us envelopes with the room keys, the lock for the safe and towel cards. We were assigned to a ground floor room in building #8, which is on the back of the resort, a two minute walk to the reception and about 4 minutes walk down to the beach. At first we thought about asking to change for a room closer to the beach but the building was really quiet as opposed to the ones closer to the beach and the restaurants so we finally decided to stay. Our luggage arrived in our room only a few minutes after we had arrived and we were ready to get a late meal at the Steak Restaurant that had been arranged for our group.

Rooms: The room was very nice, standard size and amenities like TV, Minibar, alcohol dispenser with rum, gin, wiskey and vodka. The minibar always contained enough water, beer (local Corona), Pepsi, 7up and some local soft drinks. The beds were a bit hard but we still managed to sleep comfortably. The bathroom area was separated from the room with a curtain and had a nice large sink area, a closet, a nice shower and a seperated WC. What we didn't like is that the safe was not a combination safe but worked with a key that you always had to carry around with you, same with the room keys that were not cards but actual keys so it was not that convenient to take those two keys to the beach everyday, I would have preferred to slip a card-key in my shorts. All in all the room was very clean and no complaints regarding the daily room cleaning, new sheets and towels every day.

Grounds: The resort grounds were very nice and clean, beautiful landscaping and not much visible damage from Wilma. Lots of birds, some exotic rodents I don't know the name of and even iguanas can be found while walking through the resort.

Pool: The pool was OK, clean but very crowded most of the time so we mostly avoided it.

Beach: However the beach was very beautiful. Powdery white sand, turquoise-blue water... this is what we had come for and we got it! Finding a beach chair was no problem here as opposed to the pool even if in the afternoons it was quite crowded as well. A few rocks in the water but not too much. Walking to the south there were only two other resorts and then just the beautiful almost empty beach. The water is very nice but there is not much to see for those who want to snorkel. Lots of fish but the visibility is not that good if you stay close to the shore where the fish are. I highly recommend taking the snorkel tour that is about 30$/person. After a 15 minute boat trip you get to a secluded beach with a very nice reef and lots of fishes and marine life.

Food: Right next to the reception and lobby area was the main restaurant (I think the name was Hacienda). Breakfast, lunch and dinner consisted of a buffet with a very wide choice of different food. I didn't miss anything... oh yes, actually I did miss some more Mexican food like burritos, they could be found but only one day or two during our stay. For lunch we were allowed to go to the other RIU resort's restaurants as well and the buffet at the Tequila was very good whereas the one at the Playacar was a bit disappointing. For dinner there were three other reservation only restaurants. Next to the buffet was the Asian restaurant. We tried it twice and the selection of sushi and other "Asian inspired" food was excellent. The Steak Restaurant close to the beach and pool had very good meat and we didn't get to try the Mediterranean Restaurant - coming from Spain we have enough Mediterranean cuisine here! Overall the service was very good in all places. The bars drinks where somewhat inconsistant but we still enjoyed our Pina Coladas and Daiquiris.

The RIU Yucatan is sold as a five star resort but compared to other ones I have visited I would give it a low four star rating.Would I come back? Maybe. But I think I would rather go a bit more to the south on the coast where the beaches seem to be even nicer and more secluded. It would have been a bit more relaxing vacation if it were less crowded. In the next days I will try to update the post with a few photos.

First hot pixel on my E-500

2006-01-02T11:56:00.000+01:00

So this last week-end I took my new E-500 with me whenever I went outside and while I start to get the basics now I am still far from mastering the advanced possibilities that a DSLR offers. I have read the advanced manual but it's quite a challenge to memorise everything, anyways, everything comes with experience so I'll just shoot and shoot and shoot.
While shooting at night I noticed what I thought was a dead pixel, after some research I found that it's rather a "hot pixel". See: De Pixeles Muertos (dead pixels) y Pixeles Caliente (hot pixels) backfocus for those of you who understand spanish. Just found a quick definition in english as well: Dead pixel/hot pixel
And it seems I am not alone with this problem: New E-500 with possible dead pixels.

My first DSLR

2005-12-30T10:51:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I traded in my old Olympus mju:400 (Stylus in the US) for a new Olympus E-500 DSLR. I wasn't that happy with my old point-and-shoot anymore and wanted to upgrade to a DSLR to have more control and be able to learn to do some more serious photography. Being on a limited budged I had to go for an entry level DSLR and after reading some reviews I was hesitant about going for the E-500. The Nikon D50 or the Canon EOS 350D Digital Rebel XT would have been a better choice according to most of the reviews I read, but most of the packs available in my local stores were 100-200 € more expensive than the Olympus one including two lenses, that not including a memory card that I would have needed to buy as well if I had gone with either Canon or Nikon. Having three of the (expensive) xD cards that Olympus uses made the decision a bit easier for me. Sure, no camera in that price range is perfect, the E-500 has a few known downsides and I will likely discover more when learning to use it but I still expect it to be a solid learning tool for a DSLR newbie like me.

Until now I only had the time to unpack it play around for a few shots, I am a bit worried about the plastic body that has a nice finish but doesn't seem to be the most robust. After reading the manual I will start putting it into action over the week-end and hope to get back with my impressions.

Rolling Stones Barcelona Date announced

2005-11-29T13:33:00.000+01:00

Well, I already know what to do on May 27th.
RollingStones.com events.tickets

Update to yesterday's twisters

2005-11-16T14:40:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately I had no camera when I witnessed yesterday's Tornadoes here in Barcelona. Today the local newspapers had some photos. Foto: ANTONI PASTOR / EL PERIODICO

Google Base live and working!

2005-11-16T10:31:00.000+01:00

Google Base is live and I just posted my first item, my mountain bike. I don't think that this will actually help me to sell it but it was the first thing I could think about that I could post. Posting an item is really easy and I wouldn't wonder if this eventually becomes the eBay killer everybody was talking about a few weeks ago when Google Base first surfaced.

Now where is my Google Wallet???

Well, let's try the base

2005-11-16T10:12:00.000+01:00

First Base: "Posted by Bindu Reddy, Product ManagerToday we're excited to announce Google Base, an extension of our existing content collection efforts like web crawl, Google Sitemaps, Google Print and Google Video. Google Base enables content owners to easily make their information searchable online. Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items. We'll host the items and make them searchable for free. There's more info here.Some organizations are already using Google Base. Here are a few examples.

'Students need as much information as possible when they are searching for the right college or university. Google Base helps us reach students and parents and deliver more of the information they need when making important college decisions.' - Hal Higginbotham, President, CollegeBoard.com

'We want to use knowledge and information about the environment to help motivate more responsible public and private action. With Google Base, we can bring the public key insights on sustainability issues – like climate change, human health, and resource consumption – and bring about change.' – Amy Cassara, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute

'CareerBuilder.com's business model is built on providing employers with as many avenues as possible to connect with job seekers. Feeding our jobs to Google Base "

Just observed two tornadoes

2005-11-15T09:53:00.000+01:00

That was a cool sight, two tornadoes clearly visible from our office at the WTC in Barcelona, one over the sea, about a few miles out and one over land, not very far either. This was the first time I saw a real big tornado.

They were visible for at least ten minutes but are gone now.

Like I said a few posts ago... we now have a tornado season here in Spain!

Donavon Frankenreiter show in Barcelona

2005-11-13T22:41:00.000+01:00

Donavon Frankenreiter did a great show tonight here in Barcelona.
Here the setlist:

Butterfly
Heading Home
Swing On Down
So Far Away
On My Mind
Bend In The Road
What'Cha Know
That's Too Bad
Love
Call Me Papa
Stay Young
Fool
Free
Make You Mine
It Don't Matter

Special guest was The White Buffalo

This is so weird

2005-11-09T10:37:00.000+01:00

It just started to snow here in Barcelona, very unusual and even more considering that it's November! Even though the snowflakes melt before touching ground, I never saw this before.

Slick browser-based AJAX IM solution

2005-10-25T11:40:00.000+02:00

I just discovered meebo.com and will give it a try. I am just tired to install more and more software that makes a mess on my PC so the concept of browser-based applications realized in AJAX is very compelling to me.

More tornadoes!

2005-09-09T08:41:00.000+02:00

This makes me wondering if there is anything such as a "tornado season" in Spain???
Another article in english.

Spanish press gets it all wrong

2005-09-08T20:41:00.000+02:00

The Spanish free daily newspaper 20 Minutos announced the iPod Nano as being the new 'iPhone' - I wish they were right because the Motorola ROKR's design doesn't knock me off my feet.

What would you do if you had 630.000 € spare?

2005-09-08T11:26:00.000+02:00

Why not charter this super-yacht for a week. I have been seeing this from my office window (the Barcelona WTC is in the middle of the port) for the last few days, it's the 116 meter Turama.

Tornado in Barcelona!

2005-09-08T10:15:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was really really windy in Barcelona, but I would have never thought that there were tornadoes. These photos were all over the papers today, they were taken at or close to Barcelona's airport:

Great expectations!

2005-08-30T16:24:00.000+02:00

The new Stones album due out very soon can now be listened to in full length at Rollingstones.com: A Bigger Bang. After a quick listening session I have to say that at least 50% of the songs are really good or great. My favorites so far: a really funky "Rain Fall Down", bluesy "Back Of My Hand", "It Won't Take Long", "Laugh, I Nearly Died" - which reminds me of Tattoo You's "Heaven" and even Keith's "Infamy" is not bad. I am counting down the six days remaining before I can buy it.

Evidence

2005-08-26T17:48:00.000+02:00

I had never heard of this idiotic movement before reading the Wired article about Yomango yesterday. And then when walking home from work I found some evidence of it so I decided to bring my camera today and snap a picture of it. The text says "Pasa del consumismo absurdo" meaning "Ignore this riduculous consumerism".

Everybody's... (google) talking!

2005-08-24T10:33:00.000+02:00

Yesterday evening I was all exited playing around with the new Google Desktop and adding some of the cool plug-ins and then this morning I heard the news about the new Google Talk. The first reactions seem to be that this new IM is nothing special and that more was expected from Google. The user interface sure looks good without all these ads and pop-ups that I remember from Yahoo IM, MSN Messenger and ICQ. Google Talk uses the open jabber standard so I guess a lot of those unhappy with its UI will use it through Trillian or Gaim. As for me I hope that over time Google's Gmail, Desktop, Talk, Blogger, Picasa and other utilities will become more and more integrated and finally offer me what I am really looking for (I will know when I see it!).

Finally Online!!!

2005-08-13T14:19:00.000+02:00

After two month waiting I am finally online at home now. Spain really seems to be in the developing world when it comes to telecommunications. Let's see if my ISP will offer a good DSL service.

Just a small experiment

2005-08-12T08:57:00.000+02:00

It cannot hurt to try this The J-Walk Blog Link Experiment, especially since I will finally get my Internet connection at home today and have to start thinking about getting to blog regularly again.

Still offline

2005-06-02T11:08:00.000+02:00

Sorry, no new regular posts here. I still have no internet access and yesterday I cancelled with my provider after being tired of waiting two months for the installation of my line. I am looking for a different ISP now and still hope that one day I will have an access at home.

Waiting for connection

2005-05-03T13:12:00.000+02:00

I haven't been blogging lately because I am currently waiting to get a new ADSL line at my home. Right now I have only access to the Internet at work but here I don't have time to blog. I hope to get the new line by next week.

Whoaaaaa!

2005-04-04T15:24:00.000+02:00

Back at work this morning I was very happy to discover that my GMail
account was upgraded to 2GB. After six months or so I am only up to 4%
of Gmail storage and I wonder if I will ever approach the limit.
Anyone still needs an account? I still have plenty of invites for you.

2005-04-01T17:09:00.000+02:00

Haven't seen a lot of april fool's news today, but Google is always on the innovative side!

Nice Google logo today!

2005-03-30T10:47:00.000+02:00

More Google logos here: http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html

Something's screwed up

2005-03-18T10:24:00.000+01:00

Well, it seems like something is wrong with my PC, no virus, but
something is definately wrong. Some websites or parts of them do not
display correctly and I get strange "page not found (707)" errors,
never seen them before! Let's investigate a bit...

Where are my ads???

2005-03-17T15:35:00.000+01:00

I really wonder what's wrong, for about two weeks now I haven't seen
any of the Google AdSense ads on any of my two blogs. The html code is
still in my templates... I don't understand. Already have contacted
Google support but no answer. Anyway, it's been a while that I haven't
posted anything new or interesting: too much work! I hope I'll be back
soon with something to say.

2005-03-17T15:27:00.000+01:00

My first steps on Wallop, more on this to follow

Cool site

2005-02-16T11:21:00.000+01:00

Although I don't plan having a baby anytime soon this is a cool site that I wanted to share: The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager

Seems I am too stupid for the Shuffle

2005-02-01T14:32:00.000+01:00

This seems to be the solution to my problem with audiobooks: Russell Beattie Notebook - Playing Audiobooks on the Shuffle
Maybe I shouldn't have cancelled my Audible account yet?

iPod Shuffle ups and downs

2005-02-01T09:52:00.000+01:00

So I've used my Shuffle for a few hours over the last three days now
and I have to say that it seems to have more limits than I thought.
The first time I filled it using autofill I was pleasantly surprised
by the resulting playlist in shuffle mode. Naturally, I like most of
the music that I have bought, so I had to skip a track only once in a
while when for example one of my wife's mp3s came up. Speaking of my
wife, a negative thing about the iPod Shuffle is that I will probably
have to buy one for her as well - until then I have to share it, do I
have to blame that on Apple or my wife?
While listening to music from my library I never felt the need for a
screen, I recognized most of the songs, and if not... who cares, it
won't kill me!
Wanting to try all the capabilities of this player I got a trial
Audible account to download some free audiobooks and this is where the
no-screen-option becomes a problem. If you listen to George W. Bush's
inaugural speech (got this because it was a free download) I was more
than tempted to look at a screen to be able to see the remaining
time...
I got two more audiobooks and find it quite tiresome to listen to it,
switch back to listening to some music and then having to fast forward
through four hours of audio to be able to continuing to listen the
audiobook where you left it... I guess that I will never become a fan
of audiobooks, at least I can say that I tried.
Another thing that I still have to take some time for is to figure out
how to make this iPod work on two PCs. This seems to be a big problem
until now. I have one PC at home without Internet access and one at
work with Internet access. On both PCs the installation of iTunes
screwed up something, Windows won't shut down properly anymore and
there seems to be no way to fill up the iPod from two different
libraries without disassociating it from one every time. More on that
when I get some time to play around some more...

First contact with the Shuffle

2005-01-28T14:51:00.000+01:00

My iPod Shuffle just arrived, 15 days after I ordered it from the
Apple Store - not too bad, I was fearing it would take longer until it
would be available in Europe. I have always liked Apple's designs but
was never really considering to buy something from them until the iPod
and iPod Mini appeared. However the arrival of the iPod Shuffle and
its competitive price prompted me to buy my first ever Apple product.
Now my first impressions upon opening that nice little green box:
small,... could have been a little shorter though, light,... very
light. Very nice look and general feel! The USB cap has a good fit,
don't really think this is something you would loose easily. Didn't
have time to install iTunes and load it so I just took it without the
headphones and headed back to work after lunch.
On my work PC I plugged it in and it was recognized within a few
seconds as removable drive. Loaded a 630MB video file on it that
couldn't fit on my 512MB USB drive - done after about 8 minutes.
Let's see this evening what else this little thing can do!
To be continued...

It's on its way...

2005-01-26T16:23:00.000+01:00

Just received an eMail from the Apple store that my iPod Shuffle was
shipped and that I should receive it in three days. The estimated
shipment date was scheduled to happen on or before february 3rd, so it
seems that there is no shortage and the Shuffles are being shipped in
Europe now.

Last Gmail invitation gone

2005-01-17T23:29:00.000+01:00

I have given away all my Gmail invitations for now. If you still need
one keep checking out my blog, I will let you know when I have new
ones.

The new iPod shuffle - I couldn't resist!

2005-01-13T13:37:00.000+01:00

Usually I am not an impulsive buyer but I must confess I just ordered the brandnew Apple iPod shuffle that was announced at MacWorld Expo before yesterday. 149,-Euro at the Apple store for the 1GB model, I still wonder how to explain this to my wife! True to the original iPod style, the new shuffle just looks cool. Having always hesitated to get an original iPod or iPod mini because of their rather hefty price, this one made me crack even though it has some downsides like no screen as points out this article: MacCentral: Digital audio vendors not afraid of iPod shuffle .
Now I am eagerly awaiting it to arrive at my door - according to Apple it should ship before february 3rd here in Spain. Once I get it I will post my review and impressions on the latest of the iPod family.

Sunscape the Beach Resort Map

2005-01-12T09:30:00.000+01:00

Most of the visitors I get seem to be interested in getting information about the new Sunscape the Beach Spa & Resort in Punta Cana. Something useful that I didn't make available until now is a map of the resort, so I posted one now, just click on the picture for a larger version. I hope it will help you getting an idea of the resort layout. If you have any question leave me a comment and I will be glad to answer you. In the future I will try to post some more information out of their brochure that I still have lying around somewhere. In the meantime, all of you who are considering to go to this fabulous resort... have fun!

The mystery of the human brain

2005-01-05T09:59:00.000+01:00

Just found this while surfing some blogs: Welcome to Michland.........: can someone explain to me HOW this works? This trick is really hilarious, just try it:
While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right
hand.
Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about
it!

More Gmail invitations

2005-01-04T15:59:00.000+01:00

Here they are, just got 3 more invitations for a free 1GB Gmail
account. If you want one just leave me a nice comment and I'll send it
to you!

Interesting thought on world events

2005-01-03T13:14:00.000+01:00

How comes that I am better at remembering plane crashes (where, when, how many victims approximately...) than remembering big natural disasters like earthquakes for example? This question came into my mind after reading these interesting thoughts: Malletrivia: Back when -I- was a kid, the world was a better place ... right ? Media coverage doesn't seem to be based on a certain number of victims but on a certain number of "western" victims. It seems that we tend to forget horrible events after a couple of weeks if they don't touch or indirectly touch the western civilization because they get way less media attention. In the case of the SE Asia quake and tsunami a very popular tourism region was directly hit - but who still remembers details of the other disasters such as the cyclone that killed over 130000 in Bangladesh in 1991?

Sorry, no more Gmail invitations

2005-01-03T13:12:00.000+01:00

All my Gmail invitations have been sent out for now, sorry for those who didn't get one. As soon as I get more invitations I will let you know.

Gmail invitations to give away!

2004-12-29T16:28:00.000+01:00

For anyone who is interested in an invitation for a free 1GB Gmail account leave me a comment with your e-mail address - I have three invitations to give away on a first come first served basis!

Review of the new Sunscape the Beach Spa & Resort Punta Cana

2004-12-29T09:43:00.000+01:00

Finally here it is, my review of the new Sunscape the Beach resort. Me and my wife were lucky to stay at this brand-new resort in the Dominican Republic from December 6th to 20th 2004.

After a taxi ride of about 45 minutes from Punta Cana Airport we arrived at the Sunscape Beach at about 7.30 pm.

Check-in:
We were immediately impressed by the lobby which was very clean, spacious and beautiful, on first sight no construction was going on in this part of the resort and we were relieved that we wouldn't have to spend our vacations on a construction site. At the reception desk we were greeted by Eusebio who seemed to be very nervous about making a good impression... and he was very nice and professional. Check-in was done without hurrying but within a couple of minutes and we were welcomed with drinks, refreshing towels and cookies.

Rooms:
We were assigned room number #3121 which was on the ground floor with a partial ocean view. Building #3 is halfway between the lobby and the beach and we thought that this is quite convenient. Buildings #1 to #5 are all very close to the pool with #1 being closest to the beach and #5 closest to the lobby and main building with the buffet. Buildings #6 to #9 are a bit further away from the pool and were not yet finished and occupied during our stay. Once we arrived at the room (our baggage was brought there quickly as well) we started exploring it: nice bright colours, not very big but OK. I had booked a standard (deluxe) room so we got one with two double beds a nice large TV and enough space for storage. However the room was dusty, the bathroom was a bit dirty and there were used cocktail glasses in the room. The bellboy wanted to show us the safe but didn't manage to open it so I suggested that he could call someone from the room to come to fix it but nobody came until the next day when I called again. The air-conditioning in the room was not working but at that time Ididn't think about it because it was not too hot. After we were left in the room without a working safe I found out that the sliding door to the terrace didn't close correctly, you could open it anytime from the outside by just pushing it. I called reception to have someone come over to fix it but nobody came until about 1 hour later when I had to call again (I think I went to the lobby to request a room change because of the door problem but that was refused). Finally the door was fixed and we could finally go out and have something to eat. After one night without sleep because the bed was just too small for me and my wife and I didn't want to sleep in a seperate bed I decided to go to the lobby in the morning to request a room with a king-size bed. After several calls to the reception and visits to the lobby it became clear that everything really is slower in the DR and so we had to keep the room for another night. On the next day I made some more calls and visits to the lobby and finally spoke to Kätlin from management and finally we got an arrangement to get a free upgrade to a premium room. During the afternoon we changed to room #3308, which was on the 3rd floor with a pool view. The room was more what I had expected with a nice large king-size bed plenty of storage space the same big TV plus a small sofa and table. The balcony was nice as well with an overview of the pool and hotel grounds. In this second room the air conditioning didn't work either but I called once to have it fixed and by the time we got back from the beach everything was OK. The bathroom was the same as in the first room, it had a tub with a shower, nothing special here. What was very nice is that they provided plenty of toothpaste, toothbrushes and even sunscreen lotion in the bathroom! This room was very clean, sheets were changed daily and the room was made twice a day. Never any shortage of towels and the maids always made sure that we were not missing anything.The minibar was stocked daily with plenty of water, Coke, Fanta, Sprite, local Bohemian beer, Budweiser and Bud Light. On one day we even found a plate of very good sushis in the minibar along with a bottle of white wine in the room. This room had an additional door and after checking it out I found out that I could just open it and walk into the neighboring room (there were someone's baggages so this is quite bad, the doors should be locked from both sides by default). That third evening we were tired and wanted to sleep early (because of two bad nights before) and at midnight the alarm clock in the next room started to ring without ever ending. After knocking on the door for a while I just walked into the room to put out the alarm (it seems that all the alarms were set to 12.00 by default). The next morning I advised our neighbours about the door problem and managed to lock it from both sides. I heard from at least two other couples that they just walked into other rooms with people in it through the connecting door and one that was given a room which was already assigned, this should be taken care of because it is a security problem. Noise levels in the room were OK, however noise comes quite easily through the connection door between two rooms, which was a problem once when our neighbours were still out and the maids had left on the television in the rooms (it seems they did this in every room), after calling reception this was solved rapidly, someone came to switch off the TV after 10-15 minutes. Several times there were electricity or hot or cold water outages but this was not too bad as it happened mostly during the day when we were at the beach anyway.

Food & Restaurants:
The food was generally very good. The World Café (buffet) had a very nice selection of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The El Patio mexican restaurant was OK, but the taste not as good as expected. The japanese-asian style Himitsu was just excellent, whereas the Oceana restaurant was good for seafood lovers and the Seaside Grill for meat. Overall everything looked fresh, clean and nicely presented, the meats and seafood were very good everywhere. Once a week there's a big buffet on the beach for dinner, which is a good way to meet new people. We tried almost everything and had no serious stomach problems. The service was very nice and friendly but a bit disorganized it seemed, sometimes at the Oceana or at the Grill we had five or six different waiters kind of fighting for our table which was a bit strange. During our second week the service level went down for a few days because large groups of local people arrived for four days and the resort wasn't really prepared to handle the amount of guests. Waiting times became really long during this time but were back to normal once the large groups had left. A big plus over most of the other resorts in the area is that they have 24h room service, you can order a nice meal to your room anytime.

Beach & watersports:
The water sports equipments was very nice and better than I had expected, windsurfing equipment, two Hobie catamarans, some kayaks and plenty of bodyboards were available. The beach was very nice, white/yellowish soft sand and plenty of fun waves, so no turquoise-transparent water here - this is not the caribbean but the atlantic. The water was very warm though but right in front of the resort there a quite a few rocks in the water that you don't see easily. It is better to walk down the beach a bit to the right or left where you can walk for miles (the next resort, Sirenis is about 45 minutes to walk to the left, followed by the Secrets and to the right there's absolutely nothing for over an hour).

Animation:
The animation team was very nice, they sometimes had a hard time finding people to participate in their games. The resort has a nice theater but we didn't get to watch a show. Once a week they show a movie on a big screen on the beach.

Other facilities:
The pool is really, really huge and easily accessible from most parts of the complex, however I found it quite shallow. At the pool and the beach you will find plenty of comfortable beach chairs and palapas for shade. The resort has a nice large gym and the SPA is very nice as well but was not functional for most days of our stay. We used as well the two tennis courts and game area with pool tables and lots of other games. There is an internet café, some (very expensive) shops and a nightclub which we didn't try. The landscaping is very nice and will certainly only get better with time.

Overall impression:
Arriving there only four days after the big opening I expected some glitches, but our vacation at the Sunscape The Beach was a really excellent overall experience. We think that once the staff is fully trained this would be a really awesome five star resort. Most of the staff speak english and there are no big communication problems for those who don't speak spanish. The construction noise from buildings 6-9 was hardly noticeable and no problem at all. I would recommend this resort without a problem considering that they just opened they really did a good job.
I posted some pictures of the resort as well so that you can get a better idea of what it looks like.

2004-12-29T09:40:00.000+01:00

Resort view from the main building (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:39:00.002+01:00

The pool at night (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:39:00.001+01:00

The beach looking right (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:39:00.000+01:00

The beach looking left (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:35:00.001+01:00

Watersports (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:35:00.000+01:00

Oceana and Seaside Grill restaurant building by the beach (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:34:00.001+01:00

The lobby (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:34:00.000+01:00

The Spa and Gym building (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:33:00.000+01:00

Resort grounds by the main building with Spa in the background (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:32:00.001+01:00

Wedding gazebo and main theater in the background (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:32:00.000+01:00

The beach (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:31:00.000+01:00

Resort gardens by the main building (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:30:00.001+01:00

Pool overview (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:30:00.000+01:00

The beach (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:29:00.000+01:00

The lobby driveway (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:28:00.001+01:00

Premium room overview (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:28:00.000+01:00

Premium room overview (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:27:00.000+01:00

View of grounds and pool from the balcony(Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:26:00.000+01:00

Premium room (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:25:00.000+01:00

The beach in front of the resort (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:23:00.000+01:00

Beach to the left of the resort (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

2004-12-29T09:22:00.000+01:00

Aerobics close to the Manatees pool bar (Sunscape the Beach Punta Cana 12/04)

Back to work

2004-12-24T20:02:00.000+01:00

After two sunny weeks in the Dominican Republic I am now back at work here in (relatively) cold Barcelona. Still suffering from jet-lag I have to work off my e-mails.
Next week I am going to post a full review of the brand new Sunscape The Beach Spa & Resort Punta Cana.

First post ever

2004-12-03T14:07:00.000+01:00

2004 is referred to as "the year of the blog" - now we're in december and I still don't have my own blog! Well, I just decided to start mine. No real idea yet of what it will cover but let's hope I don't get tired of it and there will actually be some useful stuff in there in the future.
Today is my last day before my vacations and I hopefully will be back at the end of the month with some news about what I did during two weeks on the beach in Punta Cana...