Slow everywhere

At work, in the newspapers, at Internet, with sports ... August is not a very entertaining month for these aspects. So everybody is writing lame stories or writes about stuff that already happened ages ago. For me it is more or less the same. So I have time to check out more websites and products I'd like to use. As written yesterday I found Springpad, very interesting service indeed. It is a productivity tool , like in GTD.

It is one of the services that tries to combine a lot of functionality. Still not sure to which other I should compare. It has something of Nozbe, something from Facebook, something from Wordpress. Meaning, list, social and blogging. So what is in? Well mainly it is about notebooks, they call it Springpads. Many predefined, but you can also add your own.

Some predefined, holiday, grocery, wedding, recipes, etc.

You can add tasks and (returning) meetings, which are sent by e-mail or in USA also by SMS. This is one of the disadvantages, until now it totally focuses on the USA, so it is less interesting for us over here as for instance no info from Europe about companies etc is added.

What I found out is that most people are using it, for the social part, to share recipes. Why? I do not know, but there seems to be great interest in this part.

You are able to import addresses from Google, works fine, but I would like to be more flexible by adding vCards or even synchronizing with Outlook of Apple Address book. They state many more connections will become available over the coming months. I think a product to watch.

Saturday Vimeo Video: ant-views

Just discovered "Springpad"

I was checking out CRM systems and online notebooks and todo list and found Springpad. I have played with a bit and think it has a lot of potential.

Springpads are free online notebooks that help you manage your life. Use your springpad to keep track of notes, photos, maps, to-do’s, contacts, appointments & more. But it goes way beyond the standard simple tools. Connect to Gmail, connect to Flickr, also to Facebook and Twitter, it's all there.

I am testing it now to plan my upcomming Holiday and make a weblog in it. It is like Twitter and Inbox on Steroids ...

Check out the many examples and demos.

No traffic jams

For the last two weeks I have not seen nor experienced any traffic jam, at least not in the Netherlands. Most of the time in the Summer Holiday this is often the case, but this year it seems to be extremely quiet. I can not remember it being like this. It seems that the crisis does not have any impact on going on Holiday in a foreign country. Although some newspapers stated much more people are having Holidays in their own country.

Most probably it is only a luxury for some weeks and in one or two weeks in will be back to normal again. Normal is 200-300 Km in the morning and all in a limited area around the bigger cities Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam, that is just 1.600 square Km. When it's raining (and that is often) or snowing it can be 600-700 Km, and that is something stated as Black Saturday in a much bigger country like France, we have that often ....

Google launches Chrome gallery; almost all ugly

Wrong camera but nice video

Long weekend Mannheim

This weekend I have been with my 7 year old nephew to my sister in Mannheim, Germany. It was his first time and it went very well. Friday afternoon we had a good workout at the Felsenmeer near Reichenbach.The phraseFelsenmeer ('sea of rock') is the German word for astone run. In a Felsenmeer, frost and ice have quickly broken up the top layer of the rock, covering the underlying rock formation with jagged, angular bolders. The depth of the layer of bolders can vary depending on vegetation, climate, and rock type, and can be as much as twelve feet deep. Basalt and sedimentary rocks often produce larger, more numerous Felsenmeer's than other types of rock.

 

The Saturday we went to Heidelberg and took the cable cart up the mountain near the the old Castle.The castle is a mix of styles fromGothic toRenaissance. Prince Elector Ruprecht III (1398–1410) erected the first representative building in the inner courtyard as a regal residence. The building was divided into a ground floor made of stone and framework upper levels. Another regal building is located opposite to the Ruprecht Building: The Fountain Hall. Prince Elector Philipp (1476–1508) is said to have arranged the transfer of the hall's columns from a decayed palace ofCharlemagne to Heidelberg.

In the 16th and 17th century the Prince Electors added two representative palace buildings and turned the fortress into a castle. The two dominant buildings at the eastern and northern side of the courtyard were erected during the rule of Ottheinrich (1556–1559) and Friedrich IV (1583–1610). Under Friedrich V (1613–1619), the main building of the westside was erected, the so called "English Building".

The castle and its garden were destroyed several times (during the 30 Years' War and the Palatine war of succession). When Prince Elector Karl Theodor who resided in Schwetzingen tried to restore the castle, lightning struck the Castle in 1764 and finished all attempts to rebuild the castle. Later on, the castle was misused as a quarry - castle stones helped to build new houses in Heidelberg. This was stopped in 1800 by Count Charles de Graimberg who made any effort he could to preserve the Heidelberg Castle. In spite of its Gothic interior, it was not before 1934, that the King's Hall was added.

Today, the hall is used for festivities, e.g. dinner banquets, balls and theatre performances. During the Heidelberg Castle Festival in the summer, the courtyard is the site of open air musicals, operas, theatre performances and classical concerts performed by the Heidelberg Philharmonics.

The castle is surrounded by a park where the famous poetJohann von Goethe once walked. TheHeidelberger Bergbahn funicular railway runs from Heidelberg's Kornmakt to the summit of the Königstuhl via the castle.