Most of Ireland

OK is is rather early to think about, but as written in an earlier entry I think Ireland will be my next Summer Holiday destination. Most of the time I am arranging everything myself, but I have found an agency working with vouchers for B&B's and I think this might be a very good alternative.

They also have an interesting planned trip "Most of Ireland".

Translated it's like this:

The 12-day itinerary Most of Ireland: 

Day 1: 
Arrival in Ireland, transfer to Dublin. You stay one night in a B&B in Dublin. 
Day 2: 
From Dublin, drive to Kilkenny. Here you have enough time to see all the sights of this medieval town and to explore her famous and majestic Kilkenny Castle, the medieval St Canice's Cathedral and the whiskey brewery Smithwick of 1710. You stay two nights in a B & B in Kilkenny. 
Day 3: 
Today you drive a spectacular route along the south coast of Ireland that takes you through the Wicklow Mountains back to Kilkenny. In the Southeast, visit the Waterford Crystal Factory, Duncannon Fort and the Hook Head peninsula. In the breathtaking Wicklow Mountains is one of Ireland's major attractions, Glendalough, an ancient religious establishment surrounded by beautiful nature. 
Day 4: 
Today discover the interior of Ireland to mysterious places like the Rock of Cashel and the Athassel Priory. From here, travel along a portion of the South Coast known as one of the most famous Gaelic-speaking areas of Ireland. Through the port of Cobh in Cork you arrive. You stay one night in a B&B in Cork. 
Day 5: 
Leave Cork and a beautiful drive along the coastal route to known fishing and sailing towns of Kinsale, Clonakilty, Bantry and Glengariff. Pass the Beara Peninsula through the spectacular Healy Pass and arrive in Killarney. You will stay three nights in a B&B in Killarney. 
Day 6: 
Today, drive the world famous Ring of Kerry "on the Iveragh Peninsula. The many attractions such as the Kerry Bog Museum, Staigue Fort, the House and the Skellig Islands Derrynane will make this trip an unforgettable experience. 
Day 7: 
A day at the beauty of the Dingle peninsula to explore. So you can enjoy a stroll along the picturesque fishing port and the many souvenir shops in Dingle, the spectacular Slea Head drive route, with magnificent views and many prehistoric and Celtic remains of a boat trip in search of Funghi the dolphin, who has been in the Bay Dingle 'lives'. 
Day 8: 
From Killarney you drive to Tarbert and cross the Shannon River by ferry. In County Clare, visit the spectacular Cliffs of Moher. From here you drive a scenic route through the fascinating landscape of slate, called the Burren. At the end of the route arrives in Ballyvaughan. You stay two nights in a B&B in Ballyvaughan. 
Day 9: 
Today you drive a magical route through the Connemara. This area is known for its magical lakes and mysterious landscapes. The route takes you past the world famous National Park, the stunning Twelve Bens and the picturesque town of Cong. 
Day 10: 
From West coast to coast, crossed the Irish Republic today two very special places where you pass, Clonmacnoise with the remains of a religious city, and after Brú Bóinne (Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth), a valley full of Neolithic remains. You arrive in Dublin where you again two nights stay in a B&B. 
Day 11: 
A whole day and night in Dublin with sufficient time for any sightseeing. If you can not just visit 'standard' highlights like the world famous Trinity College, the Guinness Brewery and St. Patrick's Cathedral, but you can also stroll through the Phoenix Park, a selection of museums, fine dining on the south banks of the River Liffey, and end the evening with a pint or two in the Temple Bar nightlife area. 
Day 12: 
Transfer to airport for departure.

Mixed feelings weekend

Nice dinner and Gala at Saturday, lost game at Sunday.

The Saturday evening started out with a very nice dinner. We were with 3 veterans teams, A, B and C. Around 50 people in total, all dressed up to go the Gala afterwards. The Gala itself was in a very nice venue, especially the quality of sound was terrible, still feel my ears. It was less interesting compared to earlier Gala's. There were less people, and lot's of older member were no there this time, a real pity.

The Day After was starting with a game to Xenios, a team like a "angst gegner", we many times lost. Again Sunday, we lost 4-3, not good at all. Next week to our brothers of B and that is the last game for the winter stop.

thisMoment

Today I discovered a very interesting way of sharing info; thisMoment

thisMoment is the new way to save and share the moments of your life. Combining the latest technology with a simple to use interface, thisMoment lets you create a digital reflection of your life - the moments you've experienced with family and friends, or through work, travel, school, and much more. As you create moments, they are saved on a timeline, providing a sense of the flow of your life, past, present, and future

Check my test at http://yimvmd.thismoment.com/

 

Below my embedded test.

See Hans's full public timeline at !

Saturday Vimeo Video: Ethav - Sleep

Ireland

Although extremely early to think about ... I might opt for a close by and much cheaper Holiday in Summer 2010. Ireland is high on the list. It is a mix of sceneries of what I experienced last years and has a lot of culture to add to that.

About Ireland from Wikipedia:

Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɪrlənd/  ( listen), locally [ˈaɾlənd]; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə]  ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann, Latin: Hibernia) is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain. The sovereign state of Ireland (official name Ireland, description "Republic of Ireland") covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom) covering the remaining one-sixth of the island, located in the northeast.

The first settlements in Ireland date from around 8000 BC. By 200 BC Celtic migration and influence had come to dominate Ireland. Relatively small scale settlements of both the Vikings and Normans in the Middle Ages gave way to complete English domination by the 1600s. Protestant English rule resulted in the marginalisation of the Catholic majority, although in the north-east, Protestants were in the majority due to the Plantation of Ulster. Ireland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. A famine in the mid-1800s caused large-scale death and emigration. The Irish War of Independence ended in 1921 with the British Government proposing a truce and during which the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, creating the Irish Free State. This was a Dominion within the British Empire, with effective internal independence but still constitutionally linked with the British Crown. Northern Ireland, consisting of six of the 32 Irish counties which had been established as a devolved region under the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, immediately exercised its option under the treaty to retain its existing status within the United Kingdom. The Free State left the Commonwealth to become a republic in 1949. In 1973 both parts of Ireland joined the European Community. Conflict in Northern Ireland led to much unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s, which subsided following a peace deal in 1998.

The population of Ireland is slightly under six million (2006), with nearly 4.25 million residing in the Republic of Ireland and an estimated 1.75 million in Northern Ireland. This is a significant increase from a modern historic low in the 1960s, but still much lower than the peak population of over 8 million in the early 19th century, prior to the Great Famine.
The name Ireland derives from the name of the Celtic goddess Ériu (in modern Irish, Éire) with the addition of the Germanic word land. Most other western European names for Ireland, such as Spanish Irlanda, derive from the same source.

Busy weeks to come

This week some interesting parties, Saturday the Pinoke Gala. Next week I will be in Berlin again for Online Educa, where we have a booth with one of our partners for their product SharePointLMS. With Christmas I am at home with my family and for New Year's Eve I am traveling for the first time to Rome. Returning beginning of January to hopefully start a better year.

link: Weebly - Website Creation Made Easy

New Malicious Worm Affects Jailbroken iPhones in Netherlands

BBC reports that a second worm has been discovered that attacks certain jailbroken iPhones. The malicious software was discovered by security company F-Secure but appears to be isolated and specific to the Netherlands. It is specifically targeting people in the Netherlands who are using their iPhones for internet banking with Dutch online bank ING. It redirects the bank's customers to a lookalike site with a log-in screen. F-Secure estimates the number of affected phones to be only in the "hundreds" at this point, though it could theoretically spread. The worm appears to exploit the same users as the harmless Australian worm which displayed a photograph of popsinger Rick Astley. Only individuals who had specifically jailbroken their iPhones, installed SSH and not changed the default password seem to have the potential to be affected. This particular worm, however, is potentially far more serious as according to F-Secure it also "enables the phone to be accessed or controlled remotely without the permission of its owner." Update: Additional information from Intego reveals that the worm also steals personal data as well as opens the iPhone up to further access/control. When active on an iPhone, the iBotnet worm changes the root password for the device, in order to prevent users from later changing that password themselves. It then connects to a server in Lithuania, from which it downloads new files and data, and to which it sends data recovered from the infected iPhone. The worm sends both network information about the iPhone and SMSs to the remote server. It is capable of downloading data, including executables that it uses to run and carry out its actions, as well as new files, providing botnet capabilities to infected devices

link: Mac Rumors: Apple Mac Rumors and News You Care About

Good weekend

Saturday perfect weather and with my parents strolled through de 9 straatjes in Amsterdam. It was rather busy and terraces were full op people. When there is some sun we act like it is Summer again, but actually the temperature was only 14 degrees Celcius, but with no wind and a clear sky it was rather welcoming after a bad week.

Sunday we finally won again with hockey and also the first mens team did, so it was a good party afterwards.

The weekend I also worked on Weebly, a very nice blogging solution, which might become a favorit of mine, see the started site.

 

'A Christmas Carol'

And that is completely animated ...

Saturday Vimeo Video: Ommwriter

A wise man once said "We are all at the mercy of our wild monkey minds. Incessantly swinging from branch to branch.” With multiple windows and applications all vying for our attention, we have sadly adapted our working habits to that of the computer and not the other way around.

Ommwriter is a humble attempt to recapture what technology has snatched away from us today: our capacity to concentrate.

Ommwriter is a simple text processor that firmly believes in making writing a pleasure once again, reinvindicating the close relationship between writer and paper. The more intimate the relation, the smoother the flow of inspiration.

If you are a scriptwriter, blogger, journalist, copy writer, poet or just someone who enjoys writing, welcome back to concentrating.

Google Chrome OS UI Concept Video

What is Google Chrome OS?

Even the girls can't dance at Microsoft ....

And a much more fun one :-)

And another nice one ...

Sinterklaas

I have had my nephew over this weekend, one of the things we did was go to Sinterklaas' entry on Dutch soil.

About Sinterklaas:

Sinterklaas (also called Sint-Nicolaas or De Goedheiligman in Dutch [ pronunciation (help·info)]) and Saint Nicolas in French) is a traditional Winter holiday figure in the Netherlands, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles and Belgium, celebrated every year on Saint Nicholas' eve (December 5) or, in Belgium, on the morning of December 6. The feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of, among other things, children. It is also celebrated in parts of France (North, Alsace, Lorraine), as well as in Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and in the town of Trieste and in Eastern Friuli in Italy. Additionally, many Roman Catholics of Alsatian and Lotharingian descent in Cincinnati, Ohio, celebrate "Saint Nicholas Day" on the morning of December 6. The traditions differ from country to country, even between Belgium and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas' Eve (December 5) is the chief occasion for gift-giving. The evening is called "sinterklaasavond" or "pakjesavond" ("presents evening"). In the Netherlands, children receive their presents on this evening whereas in Belgium, children put their shoe in front of the fireplace on the evening of December 5, then go to bed, and find the presents around the shoes on the morning of the 6th.

link: Sinterklaas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We went to Almere, the weather was bad, rain and rather cold, so for the little kids not that nice, but all together it was a great Saturday.

Google plans Chrome Mac beta for December

Google plans to release a Mac beta of Chrome in early December, judging by some chatter on a mailing list for the browser. Chrome 4.0 is available today as a beta version for Windows but only as a rougher developer-preview version on Linux and Mac OS X. The standout feature of the new version is customization through extensions, a technology that long has been a core asset of another open-source browser, Firefox. Google has been moving to a new extensions presentation technology called Browser Actions that let people interact with extensions through a small button toward the upper right of the browser window. "We've noticed that many of you have updated your extensions to take advantage of the new UI. We'd like to encourage the rest of you to do so as well," said Nick Baum, a Google Chrome product manager, in a mailing list posting. But here's the hitch: Browser Actions only work on Windows and Linux right now. That means those building extensions will leave Mac Chrome users behind for a time. But in telling those developers they won't have long to wait, Baum mentioned the deadline for the beta version. "The earlier you switch, the more time you will have to polish your experience for our Beta launch in early December," he said. And Google is on the case for adding Browser Actions to the Mac version of Chrome. "We realize this means dropping Mac support for a couple of weeks, but we already have people working on that," Baum said. "If you prioritize the Windows and Linux versions, we'll bring you cross-platform parity as soon as we can!"

link: Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET

Testing Blogs.mu

As I am still a big fan of Wordpress I am testing now a multi Wordpress installation at Blogs.mu.

It seems to be working fine and for a mere 9$ a month you can have 10 blogs running, all connected to each other.

Problem I see is there is no way of installing any other plugin ... not sure how to use it this way ... will check.

Youth of today :-)

20 Years Anniversary Fall of the Berlin Wall November 9th 2009 "Domino Wall"

World's Most Expensive Fountain in Action

Saturday Vimeo Video: "Get Trauma"

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2012 - Exclusive Scene

I have to say great animations and effects...

First Apple store in France

worth waiting for ..

Today "Mosselmaaltijd"

It is a yearly eating party at our Hockeyclub Pinoké and most times I am/was present. It is all about eating "mosselen" or mussels, drinking Wine and networking all evening. It will be cycling home :-).

Mosquitoes: Augmented Reality game for iPhone & iPod Touch

Square Space iPhone App

Writing my first mail in the new Square Space iPhone app and I really like it. I also have iBlogger which actually works with different blogging systems. The app is very modern, includes taking direct pictures and what is unique is you also get a statistics report of activity. Very nice.

USS New York Warship Is Made With Steel from the Twin Towers

NEW YORK—The symbol of American spirit and integrity, the USS New York arrived on Tuesday, sailing along the Hudson River and finally docking at Pier 88 on the west side of Manhattan ahead of its official commissioning on Saturday, Nov. 7.

The patriotic ship was built with 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center welded into her bow.

Crew members from the ship were filled with enthusiasm for the USS New York and its namesake.

“New York can rebound back from any kind adversity. No other city can rebound as fast as New York,” said nine-year Marine and native Bronx resident Jim Purekal, who sailed back to New York on the USS New York.

Marine Jessy Johnson requested his assignment to the USS New York. “It is like phoenix rising out of the ashes,” said Johnson. “It is touching. … When I looked out onto the ship, I felt bigger than myself.”

“The message of this ship and what it symbolizes is the rebirth or the transformation of something very evil to something good,” said another marine.

The USS New York arrived on Tuesday after sailing from Norfolk, Virginia.

It is the sixth ship to hold the New York name with the original ship dating back to 1776. The last ship to hold the New York name was constructed on Sept. 11, 1911, exactly 90 years before the 9/11 attacks.

Because state names are usually reserved for submarines, Gov. Pataki wrote a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, petitioning for the name to be given to a surface ship for honoring the lives lost on Sept. 11 and those fighting the war on terror. The request was granted.

"The USS New York will ensure that all New Yorkers and the world will never forget the evil attacks of Sept. 11 and the courage and compassion New Yorkers showed in response to terror," said Gov. Pataki.

'Endless Racing Game' iPhone

Oasis of the Seas

My Alaskan ship was big, but this one ...

MS Oasis of the Seas is a cruise ship in the fleet of Royal Caribbean International. At approximately five times the size of the Titanic, the ship displaces the Freedom-class cruise ships (also owned by Royal Caribbean) as the world's largest passenger vessel, carrying 5,400 passengers. The ship was completed and delivered to Royal Caribbean on October 28, 2009. Two days later, it departed for its intended home port of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Its maiden passenger-carrying voyage is expected to take place on December 1. The ship will operate year-round cruises to the Caribbean.

Oasis of the Seas will offer passengers features such as two-story loft suites, an amphitheater with poolside performances, zip-lining, a mini-golf course and a carousel.

The Royal Promenade will have many of the same features as the ones found on the Voyager and Freedom Class ships, but there are some new amenities. These include a skylight; that will let natural light flow inside from above, and the Rising Tide bar, which is a bar that will move between three decks of the ship. There will also be a shopping mall of sorts aboard, with some shops and cafes including: a champagne bar, Cafe Promenade, Sorrento's Pizzeria, a Close Shave men's groom and barber shop, clothing, jewellery, a general store, and a bar. The space will still be the length of a football field but the width will be 19 meters, more than two times the width of both the Freedom class Royal Promenade and Voyager class Royal Promenade.

Less social?

The Netlog behaviour made me think if I should use these kind of systems any further. We all know that whatever you write in the open is also there to stay. It can be to your advantage or disadvantage, especially when writing something negative and/or special.

I am not sure yet if I will quit most of the newest tools, but it is for sure a lesson not to have a company/website/tool takeover your agenda like Netlog did.