So when I started my six months internship I decided to save the money and buy an iBook which I did. Now I’m on my third Apple computer, the Mac Mini. Plus I have a netbook with Leopard on it, so I really kicked that Windows habit cold turkey back then.

While many people’s objection to a Mac is that it doesn’t has many choice in apps like on Windows, which by the way is becoming less true. The apps available for the Mac are way nicer and better than Windows in my personal opinion. But then again everyone likes something different.

The apps

TextMate

For coding PHP, HTML, Javascript and others except CSS, I use TextMate. TextMate is a very versatile coding app that supports more then 50 languages. I’m not a hardcore coder so I don’t take advantage of all the shortcuts, macros, etc. But the lightweight and simplicity of the app is what attracts me. I use the very hard to find iLife color theme and Anonymous Pro as font. You can find the iLife theme in this theme bundle.

When editing files through Unix command I also use TextMate for editing. With a simple mate php.ini the task is done. I remember using vi for editing and it was just a pain while with TexMate and most other editors supporting command line it’s way easier. It even supports sql files, which make it a breeze to scan the content and with find and replace I can edit the whole sql file in one click to change tables name for example. Although this is something most apps dealing with code are able to do.

CSSEdit

For writing CSS I use CSSEdit which is like the easiest CSS editor I have ever used. It has auto-complete and suggestions, a validator and a sidebar with a list of each item you have in your style sheets plus comments that make it easy to browse your style sheet. Especially when working with large style sheets. I’m so used to using CSSEdit that I can’t even use other apps to do some small editing. At my old job they only had Windows and I never got used to using Dreamweaver.

Transmit

Another app that doesn’t has an equal on Windows, I have tried so many FTP clients on Windows and none come even close. Transmit is simple, nice interface and fast. I keep different FTP accounts sorted in folders, I live edit my files through Transmit. You can set it to edit specific files format with specific apps, so when I want to edit a css file it will launch CSSEdit, TextMate for html and php files, etc. For each FTP account I can specify which local folder to open with it so I don’t have to navigate to the local folders each time I use a different account. And with the sync option I can synchronize my local and server folders with each other. Transmit is a no-brainer to use.

I feel the price for each of these apps are worth it, I use them daily and they make my work flow easier. Which reminds me, all these three apps support the use of tabs. This means minimal windows clutter when working on several files at once.

Before settling for these apps I tried others like BBEdit, Coda, StyleMaster but none where to my taste. As long as TextMate, CSSEdit and Transmit do the job I want I’m satisfied.

I’m from Aruba and there is currently only one 100% active online news website. But I can’t stand that website due to many issues. For one it’s full of ad banners, now it’s common knowledge that news websites needs ad banners to generate an income. But these are for 98% flash banners, 12 ads to be exactly on every page.

It would be better to have non obstructive banners/ads. Secondly a great part of the visitors are Arubians living abroad. So these ads have no value whatsoever. The companies based in Aruba pay a fixed price to place their ad on the this news site. So these ads only have impact on the locals. And due to the ads system I’m guessing the site keeps reloading every 30 seconds or so.

Then as a web developer myself it bothers me to spend time on a site with bad code and markup which is the product of using Joomla and a generic template, instead of having the template build from scratch and suitable for this online news source.

This is where PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser comes in. At first I just wanted to use their RSS feed but they only provide a few lines content per news item. So to get my news fix from Aruba I needed a website scraper and the simple DOM parser offers an elegant solution.

From this I created this. The purpose was to get the news plain and simple.

With a simple function you can generate the content from a given website:

 function scraping_24() {
    // create HTML DOM
    $html = file_get_html('http://www.24ora.com/index.php');


    // get news block
    foreach($html->find('table.contentpaneopen') as $article) {
        // get title
        $item['title'] = trim($article->find('td.contentheading', 0)->plaintext);
        // get date
        $item['date'] = trim($article->find('td.createdate', 0)->plaintext);
        // get introcontent
        $item['content'] = trim($article->find('span', 1)->plaintext);
        $item['photo'] = trim($article->find('img', 0)->src);
        // get permalink hardcoded
        $item['permacoded'] = trim($article->find('div.show-linkmore a', 0)->href);
        // get comment
        $item['comment'] = trim($article->find('div.show-comment a', 0)->outertext);

        $ret[] = $item;
    }
 
    // clean up memory
    $html->clear();
    unset($html);

    return $ret;
}

As you can see I had to weed through the mess of code of the news site and figure out the HTML tags that encloses the content that I need. Only the the code structure of the news site isn’t consistent so it can happen that when printing the results content might be missing for some news items on the news index.

After getting to scrape the content right the next step was to present it. The news site uses lightbox for the photo gallery on individual news articles but their version doesn’t work well. So I just scrape the whole gallery table and the images already contain rel="lightbox" I just had to add jquery and a lightbox script. If the article doesn’t has an image gallery the PHP returns a message:

if($photos!=''){echo "$photos";} else { echo "E articulo aki no tin potret";};

For the image thumbnails on the index I used a jquery based preview script. It’s not that elegant but it does the work for now. Considering they use a full sized image of different formats the resize is a bad quality. My next step is to resize the preview in percentage to retain the image quality.

The parser scrapes the news content without the HTML tags so it returns one block of text. To fix this when displaying it I use PHP Markdown.

$content = $ret[1]['content'];
$content_html = Markdown($content);

I’m a big fan of Markdown and have been using it since John Gruber released it. Markdown transforms all line breaks into paragraphs rather then using the break tag. Off course Markdown is more powerful then this but you have to be writing your content with Markdown syntax. But it handles this one issue nicely and I’m sure I could use other methods too like Textile or so.

Summing it up I spend quite some hours perfecting the scrape results, dimensional arrays are quite a pain here due that the news site HTML structure isn’t consistent. Each time that an array item came empty it threw the whole output results off. So I had to run if statements to skip empty arrays, and create dummy arrays using the few consistent tags to keep the output stable.

While working on this I read more on jquery, I only use javascript when it’s a must. But javascript is really an essential part of any website so I’m digging deeper in to get a stronger grasp of it. As for why jquery I can’t really say, maybe because using Wordpress uses it but also because it’s one of the more popular javascipt libraries out there, thus a lot of resource available.

And for a little fun I added a browser detect script on the side, it tells you what browser/version you are using and if you are using Internet Explorer no matter what version it suggest you to switch to Firefox or Safari. The idea to do this came up due that I shared this site with some friends on Facebook and I know most of them are not aware of differences between browsers. So the message just says that with Firefox or Safari you can experience the newest website technologies.

And finally for the simplistic design I used a template based on Helvetireader by Jon Hicks.

End result: News in Helvetica

This project was fun to work on and left me wanting to do more, I just need to think of something. One idea I have is to redesign and code an existing website using HTML 5. I know it’s not official supported yet but it will be the next big thing, already becoming one might say.

The VX was a breath of fresh air after using older bulkier versions and wired versions of Logitech mouses. I spend long hours behind the computer, mostly surfing/reading, editing photos and coding websites. I comfortable mouse is important for me.

Then last month suddenly the left button started acting up, when I wanted to change a file name I normally click once on it to edit the name, but every time I clicked the file it registered a double click and opened the file instead of just making the file name editable. I thought at first it as the Logitech software, LCC, that handles Logitech hardware on Apple. So I uninstalled it and tried USB Overdrive, but the problem persisted. In short my VX had a defect left click exactly like mentioned on the Logitech forum.

Logitech Marathon Mouse M705

After some quick research I decided that the Logitech Marathon Mouse M705 would be my next mouse.

Mostly because it has about the same build as the Revolution VX and long lasting batteries. The Marathon was just released in Europe last month so luckily one or two store already had in stock. The current mouse stock at the moment of my purchase really left no other choice then the Marathon as there wasn’t anything new nor did they sell Revolution VX anymore.

The Marathon feels more sturdier in the hand then the VX, compared to it the VX rattles a lot more then the Marathon. The buttons are dark plastic which is more nicer then the chrome look on the VX. Also the Marathon body has a more matte finished plastic that feels nice in the hand.

The only con of the Marathon is the normal click-to-click scrolling to hyper-fast scrolling button. It is situated just above the scroll wheel, so it feels like a bump under the finger when scrolling. They could have made it that button sticks out a little less.

And last the Marathon uses the Unifying receiver, it can be paired with up to six compatible Logitech mice and keyboards. Plus it so small sized it can nicely fit with the latest Apple keyboards. I don’t use LLC anymore but now I use SteerMouse. It works flawlessly, only the 4th and 5th button, the back and forward button thus must be programmed to work as such in web browsers, in my case Firefox; CMD Right Arrow and CMD Left Arrow. Make sure you don’t have LLC or other mouse management app installed at the same time, they interfere with each other.

Long term expectation

After using the mouse daily now for almost a month I expect it will start having same hardware issues as I had with the VX. The right button doesn’t feel sturdy and already is very sensible on click, so it will were out fast and overtime start doing the same thing as the VX.

Logitech gives a three year factory warranty if I’m not mistaken. I lost the purchase receipt of the VX but I’m planning on calling their customer support soon to see if they will replace it considering it’s a known issue with their products. I hope they do because the VX is not a cheap mouse and I had expected it to last longer than two years.

To be safe I already put the Marathon receipt together with all my other hardware receipts and I’m even saving the box to be sure. Because I’m not planning on shelling out 60 euros again next year on a mouse.

But all in all I’m happy with the Marathon it works well, thanks to the fact it uses two AA batteries it feels just heavy enough. And it has the same ergonomic build as the VX to minimize pain in the hand after long hours behind the computer.

I remember considering doing the same but really didn’t want to take the risk of buying one and then having it breakdown and not be able to use the warranty. In any case the few who had the first generation iPhone where mostly tech savvy people considering you needed to know how or know someone who could jailbreak the phone for use. For one year the first generation iPhone was a status item in the Netherlands.

Then in the summer of 2008 T-Mobile started selling the 3G iPhone as an official Apple reseller. On launch day it was craziness of long lines at every T-Mobile store, everyone and their grandmother standing inline to be one of the first to buy the 3G iPhone. Due to lot of things not going smooth right away I waited until fall when my contract with T-Mobile was up for renewal to get an iPhone.

The iPhone went from an exclusive gadget to a an everybody gadget. People bought the iPhone which comes at a minimum with a 2 year contract starting at 30 euros a month. They didn’t even know right what the iPhone could do or not. I remember a colleague arguing with me that “yes the iPhone 3G can record video, of course it can”. And I was seriously dude it can only take photos.

People bought the iPhone just because it was/is an wanna have gadget, most will know their way around and get it under the knee. But most will just use it as a phone/sms/ipod and a few popular apps like Facebook, train info(Trein). But the advanced options like syncing your Google Calendar, iCal and such will go unused, most don’t know to turn off data roaming when abroad consequently getting bills of 500 euros.

So now you could say there are different levels of iPhone users:

• the casual user (phone, sms, ipod, maybe email and few apps and games apps)
• the business user (phone, sms, (multiple)email, calendar and and few apps)
• the power user(phone, sms, (multiple)email, calendar, tethering, lots of apps like twitter(some more hen one twitter app), facebook, wordpress, as of recently dropbox, feed readers, Ego, Airme, Camerabag, Flickr, etc.) Note I don’t mention iPod because most power user have an iPod also.

Off course not everyone is a fan of the iPhone. Just like the Windows/Apple war you now have the Blackberry/iPhone “which one is better” war. Here in the Netherlands the iPhone came out first and then the Blackberry. There are iPhone users who switched to Blackberry and there are those gadgets fan who now own both. As for me the only pro I saw in the Blackberry was the ping system. But as of recently the iPhone has it’s own ping app. It’s a no contest really; the touch screen, the huge amount of available apps and the eye candy of most apps. This makes it a no brainer, for me anyway.

The general notion is that since the introduction of the iPod and now the iPhone Apple went from a small “exclusive” user base to a wanna have products to the general public. For Apple this is good because it means more income. For the ones who are using Apple before it became a wanna have it means patience.

Last I was standing in the Apple store waiting to be helped, I had to wait half an hour while the store guy kept answering question after question about the iMac before the guy decided to buy the thing. Core Apple users know their stuff but now with a broader base of users you’ll have to pack an extra dosis of patience before going to an Apple store.

Robert Langdon is back and racing against time solving symbols to save his mentor and friend who has been brutally kidnapped by a fanatic who is totally of his rocker. and meanwhile we learn a whole lot about Washington D.C., makes me want to take at trip there soon.

I don’t know if religious people or the Vatican will feel ‘attacked” for lack of better word. But reading The Lost Symbol I felt Dan Brown learned from his experience with the Da Vinci Code and made sure to to try keeping the facts strait although I’m sure people will question those facts. Sure the book is still a fiction story otherwise nobody would read it. But it is a fictional story based on some real facts.

But for pure reading pleasure this book is a home run, I couldn’t put it down. I spend two whole nights reading those 500 something pages. What makes it more fun to read is how the iPhone, BlackBerry, Twitter, Google all get mentions in the book.

Now if you haven’t read it yet and don’t want to be spoiled stop reading now.

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The Lost symbol focuses on the Freemasonry and their secrets. Robert Langdon doesn’t consider the Freemasonry as anything as a threat or anything but basically just as a brotherhood who celebrate life by meditating on dead as I put it in my own words and understanding. All over the world there are brotherhoods and sisterhoods of the Masons and Eastern Star, even in Aruba for example. I’m pretty sure their rituals aren’t anything at all as the one described in the book. On Aruba they mostly focus on charity work, e.g. donating money if I’m not mistaken.

In the book the Masons are guarding an old secret believing to contain The Ancient Mystery. As the story in the book goes The Ancient Mysteries will bring enlightenment and understanding to the one to find it. Now off course this is the fiction part of the story..partially.

For a couple of years already I have been reading a lot of new age books. The Lost Symbol isn’t all fiction when it talks about that we humans are not consciously aware, if we are honest we live in a materialistic age where money is the main factor to happiness or what we believe is happiness. A lot of books have treated the topic of humans becoming enlightened and that our minds are real powerful and that we barely use it to the capacity that is possible.

Summing it up

In the first chapters when Noetics Science is being explained I could already see where the book was going, page after page I kept waiting for the ball to drop and finally on page 408(UK Edition) it is revealed “December 21 2012″. According to Mayan Calendar that is the day that a shift will happen. A lot of scholars, amateurs, basically everybody have their opinion on what the Mayan predicted that will happen. In all cultures this date comes back. Most people believe it will be the end of the world, others that it will be a cosmology happening and others believe that the humans will become enlighten and aware of the meaning of life.

As for an end of world, Armageddon or Apocalypse I don’t believe that will happen. I mean have you looked at the world recently? Does it look like we need supernatural help to finish off the world? And Apocalypse doesn’t mean the end of anything and I quote Wikipedia:

Apocalypse (Greek: Ἀποκάλυψις Apokálypsis; “lifting of the veil” or “revelation”)

Ironically enough in “The Lost Symbol” the Masons are protecting what they call “The lost word” and I was baffled that the lost word stands for nothing less and more then the plain old Bible, the Torah, etc.

If one thing is true in this world is how badly the Bible has been miss used and miss understood. People have done atrocities during centuries in the name of the Bible or it’s equals. People always forget that ancient scriptures shouldn’t be taken literal.

In any case this book is still just that a fiction book. I just found intriguing that a lot of actual subjects are used, especially as to the spiritual world. We are in an age that a lot of people don’t or stopped believing that there is more to life then we are aware of. And it brings on questions that has kept us busy for centuries; Is there life after dead? Do we have souls?

We all have opinions and I guess this book will bring on some discussions. But I guess the Vatican can’t be mad this time as with The Da Vinci Code, because it just made the Bible interesting to read.

But for one thing I’m really wondering what, if anything happens at all in year 2012. But I’m pretty sure it won’t be the end of the world. I leave you with a few Wikipedia links:

• Apocalypse
• Isaac Newton
• Noetic Consciousness
• 2012 phenomenon

It is nice to have some topics to theorize over and read more about, keeps ones mind busy.

Support is something difficult to guarantee, it depends who handles your support more then what the company promises. When I send in a support ticket I always make sure to specify the problem, what I already tried to do to fix it, etc. So it’s obvious that I know my stuff. Yet a lot of time I get replies assuming I’m a noob.

In any case I just wanted full control and want to provide the same for others. So together with someone else we got a dv server(rage) from Media Temple. Yesterday it went online so this week when my new website design is done I’ll be moving this weblog to its new home.

The price range for the packages is based on the market on Aruba and the Netherlands. Also it’s not the intention to stuff the server full with websites risking it to random sites slowing it down or affecting it in any other way. I’ll be doing the support myself together with my server partner. Also I’ll be focusing on clients with no tech knowledge so I’m the one who will be doing the basic things like creating databases, emails, etc.

So in account of all the above I came with Storage Nine. I think of it of web hosting services with a personal touch. In any case it will be for website clients I already have, and small to middle business who need website or/and an email server.

And as an extra because Google tells me a lot of people look for it: a specific package to host your Feed a Fever app. I run my own Fever install on the server and it runs well, it passed the compatibility test without problems. I’ll be doing a write up shortly about how I moved my installation from one host to the other.

So to sum it up I’ll continue my freelance services and now web hosting under Storage Nine.

Originally the Minox 35 GT uses PX27 style battery which has been banned for years now in the U.S. and in Europa. There isn’t a same sized replacement. There are a few solutions to this.

The most nicer one and also most expensive one is to buy the Minox 35 GT Power Pack. It is made by Minox to replace the battery chamber. You can put 4 LR44 type batteries in it. I wanted to order this from Adorama but they and other stores in the U.S. charge like 45 dollars just to ship that piece of plastic to the Netherlands, I mean I get books price and shipping together cheaper then that from Amazon…talk about being ripped off.

The next option will contain a few DIY but will cost way less. After some Googling I read that most users dismantle an old PX27 type battery and use the plastic in it as a case for the 4 LR44 type batteries. Now I’m a visual person I need pictures along with instructions and none of them provided clear instructions. So I took photos of my DIY to make it easier for others who might need a battery hack for their Minox.

The first photo shows the dismantled old PX27 battery. The plastic tube contained 4 mercury cells glued to each other each in a small aluminum encasing. Dispose the batteries correctly as they are hazardous. Next the idea is to fit 4 LR44 batteries in the plastic tube, respecting polarity so: -+-+-+-+.

In my case those batteries where to big for the plastic case. So plan B next: I got some isolation tape and taped the batteries together as seen on the second photo. Now just put the battery pack you just made in the battery chamber “-” down and “+” up and done.

Now to do a battery check, my camera doesn’t has any film in it yet as I want to be sure the battery works before wasting film. So advance the “film” and now look in the viewfinder and press the battery check button. The needle should drop and then jump to more then 1/125 as the manual says, but that is okay. This means your camera has power.

The old mercury batteries where of 5.6V and these 4 new batteries make a total of 6V but the camera can handle it. So there you go, basically all you need is isolation tape and 4 LR44 type batteries.

You can read more on the battery check and working of the camera with this Minox 35 GT online manual

“We don’t want to tell you what happens in this story. It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it so we will just say this: This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice. Two years later, they meet again — the story starts there… Once you have read it, you’ll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don’t tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds.”

This got my attention and the fact that the book is on the top 10 list at the bookshop made me buy it. I read it in three nights, I had to force myself to stop to get some sleep. The book is a fiction story based on actual facts.

It’s about a refugee woman in England and an English woman. I like the other back flap version more:

“…we will only say this: It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there, but the book doesn’t. And it’s what happens afterward that is most important…”

The author’s intention isn’t to educate its readers on the refugees looking for asylum in the western world. But to provide the facts and for the readers to make their own opinion. It’s not about immigrants looking for better life, but refugees who flee for their life. I notice that this difference is overlooked a lot among citizens and even politicians.

I don’t want to spoil the book because they are right that you should read it without having any or much knowledge about the book. But it sure opened my eyes and made me realize again how good we have it in the western world and how much atrocities happens in third world countries as a direct result of the western worlds involvement in those countries. We should be remembered about this once in a while and not take things for granted.

I leave you with this quote from the book, it is said after the horrific beach incident.

“That is a good trick about this world Sarah. No one likes each other, but everyone likes U2″ –Little Bee

This experience made me realize I should shoot with film as much as with digital. I always shoot in RAW format with the Nikon D70. I have no idea why but I’m starting to like film more, I think because you can’t see right away how the photo will come out. And there is something about just pointing the camera and only worry about the composition. With the Nikon I use manual mode 90% of the times and it gets to technical.

I dusted off my Olympus Trip 35 and do my best to carry it around all the time to take mostly street photography. I have been reading interviews on PetaPixel and what keeps coming back is how difficult it is to just get out there with your camera and not let the people around you intimidate you and just shoot your photos.

Also it’s not the equipment that takes the photo but the person using the equipment. Taking photos is like reading a cosmo or maxim(she/he) magazine and after finish reading your self esteem lowers a few points.(This was proven in a research). So when you see your own photos result it’s hard not to compare them to others. After all we all are our own worse critics.

So after reading these interviews with various photographers I have decided to just stick to the Nikon D70 and not worry to upgrade to D90, costs too much anyway. And for film I will use the Olympus Trip 35 which is a manual camera and I recently got a Yashica T5 which is automatic and has a good lens. These three cameras will be my main equipment for now.

My next project now is trying out different film to see which one I like best. I already shot B&W with the Kodak T-MAX 400. And the photos came out all right. This is my best BW photo yet, shot with the Trip:

In any case back to prints, I framed a couple of them and handed them as gift. A few examples:

I like matte prints more then glossy, but the opinion is that glossy comes out sharper. I haven’t decided yet if I find that true. Since the MOO mini cards I haven’t used their service anymore, so I ordered a pack of 20 postcards. Besides the two photos with color issues, they are too yellow although it does give them a vintage look. But that was just me doing too much photoshopping on them, the rest came out good.

With the best one being this:

A preview of the the rest:

In any case bottom line is, when I’m taking photos I can forget about all daily life issues and just enjoy the moment. Especially moments like when I shot the Warawara bird last month in Aruba.

I wanted to eat mostly seafood there, because Caribbean seafood is not the same as seafood here in west Europe. Getting a lobster dinner was the real challenge; finding a restaurant where it’s nice to eat and also serves quality food. But lets go through the seafood I enjoyed there.

The first week I went to Driftwood restaurant where I had dorado fish with creole sauce. It was superb as they fish their own fish everyday so they only serve catch of the day. Another day I ate for the first time homemade conch stew. I never ate conch before, although when I dinned at Driftwood I had conch fritters but I thought it was something else. In any case the conch stew was real good, conch has the same texture as squid, so it was quite chewy.

Another night my mom and I went to dine at Peanuts, where they serve local food at very good prices. I had the fish balls platter with creole sauce, fried polenta, and a local bread which is called “pan bati”. Although the sauce wasn’t good the fish balls where very tasty.

My uncle invited me over for dinner and he made pan fried red snapper with creole sauce and polenta. The red snapper was extremely good, there wasn’t any leftovers. It was a simple meal but real good.

And then on my last friday we went to Fishes and More where I finally had my lobster meal. I started with a ceasar salad with was like a meal on itself and then I got my lobster, four medium sized lobster tail, pan fried with garlic and served with melted butter with vegetables. It was real good, so good that I now can live with being allergic to shrimp, because fresh lobster just tastes way much better.

I tried to take photos of my meals but sometimes I was so hungry or just wasn’t thinking about photos that I didn’t take one every time.

The first photo is of a conch stew that I found through Google as I didn’t take a photo. This one resembles the one I had most. The second one is the fish ball platter, the third is the simple but finger licking good red snapper that my uncle made. And last the Lobster tails, the photo says it all.