PC and Scanner problems
Wednesday : 05 Dec '07 - 10:34 | damen 
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No comments yet | 
In the week after we came back from our vacation to
Thailand the main computer somehow broke down completely. Suddenly the mouse and keyboard weren't working anymore, soon after that I found out that all USB was dead
The solution was to get a new motherboard , but as the video standard changed from AGP to PCI-Express I also had to add a new video card, so again too much money went down the toilet too quickly. I must admit that I did think about buying a complete new system, but that would increase the costs really so much that there was no way to get it passed the decision board
So I go myself a new motherboard (
ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA, microATX, NVIDIA nForce 6100 Grafik, MCP-410, PCIe, SATA, Raid, LAN, VGA) and a new video card (
NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS, 256MB, MSI NX8400GS-T2D256E (V096-020R), TV-Out, DVI). So after this small operation the computer is up and runnign again, and this time I can also really use my multi-monitor setup :) Because as you maybe know,
you can never have enough screens.
One of the things I've also did was switching back from Vista to Windows XP. As I only have an upgrade of Vista (the guy who bought it for me thought he did me a favor by saving me those 10$. Thanks Thomas
) I had to install my full version of Windows XP anyway to get it running, and especially on my box you really notice that windows XP is so much faster. So Vista has to wait for a bit on the shelves until I have got an
ultimate development rig like Scott has.
Travelmap
Wednesday : 31 Oct '07 - 20:17 | damen default No comments yet |
This site of Travelmap shows the countries in the world I've bin to.
Quite nice to do
Just to compare, below the map of my father. But that is because he visited most of them professionally
Travel Schedule
Saturday : 27 Oct '07 - 19:53 | damen default three comments, already |
For those of you who want to have a general idea on the trip we take in Thailand, here is a basic idea of what we want to do:
11/02/2007
We'll leave from Frankfurt Airport at 22h10 on Friday evening with
Ethihad Airways flight EY8. For the trip from Nürnberg to the Airport we have a Rail-and-Fly ticket, but this could become a problem as the German train drivers are currently on strike. So we also made a reservation for a car, just to be sure :(
11/03/2007
We have one stop in
Abu Dhabi (
airport site), were we will arrive at 07h10. There we fly out again two ours later at 09h10 to Thailand with
Ethihad Airways flight EY408.
We'll arrive at the new
Bangkok International Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) at 18h25. Due to the timezones we'll then be traveling over 18 hours. The time difference is 6 hours.
We take the
Airport Express Bus to Koh San Road, where our hotel (
Hotel Royal) is just around the corner. We will probably be very tired, so no long nights in Bangkok
.
11/04/2007
We spend the day in Bangkok:
11/05/2007
We spend the day in Bangkok, doing the stuff we did not do the day before. If we are ready for it we'll take the train to
Ayutthaya, a word heritage with lots of old dynasty temples.
Because we arrive in the evening we have to find a hotel or guest house in Ayutthaya.
11/06/2007
We will spend the day in Ayutthaya and hopefully see a lot of cool stuff (
Info,
Info on storing luggage).
In the evening we'll take the night train further to Chiang Mai, where we'll arrive in the morning
11/07/2007 - 11/08/2007
We'll spend the time in Chiang Mai, enjoying the local markets and perhaps take cooking classes.
11/09/2007 - 11/11/2007
We want to take a hiking tour in the Mountains around Chiang Mai, there should be a lot of tours offered from Chiang Mai.
Site of Wayfarers Hiking
Real Travel Chiang Mai - Things to do
Chiang Dao Nest Tours & Trekking, very interesting tour 3 days 2 nights
11/12/2007
We have to take the night train back to Bangkok and from there the plane to the south - Krabi.
We will arrive in Krabi somewhere in the evening and have to take the ferry to the island of Koh Lanta
11/13/2007 - 11/20/2007
We'll spend some relaxing time in Koh Lanta, enjoying good food, the beach, snorkeling and of course some dives for Martijn
11/20/2007
We have to take the flight back to Bangkok and spend the last two days in Bangkok (shopping).
11/23/2007
Our Ethihad Airways flight EY407 will leave the airport at 08h40 in the morning, which means we have to be at the airport very early :(. Then we'll arrive in Abu Dhaibi at 12h15 and leave again at 14h00. We'll arrive in Frankfurt at 17h50 and hopefully we can take the train home and be home at midnight. Too soon!
Packing List
Saturday : 27 Oct '07 - 18:52 | damen default No comments yet |
Less than a week to go and we'll be in Bangkok, somehow the vacation is now really close. In order to ensure that we bring everything we need and especially nothing too much we are going through lots of packing lists. Luckily with this again the Internet is your friend and we found several good places with tips:
The unofficial Thailand FAQ
Has some good tips on what to bring and what to remember on Thailand
Some lists of fellow travellers:
The Universal Package List Generator
interesting help for generating packing lists for different kind of travels
New monitor
Monday : 22 Oct '07 - 20:56 | damen default Only one comment |
Today I received my new monitor for my home system. I got the same one I
already bought, but this time there are no dead pixels so I am very happy. One interesting thing I discovered was that my video cart (Nvidia FX5200) does not support a resolution of 1680x1050 on the DVI port. This is quite annoying, as that is the native 16x9 resolution for the screen.
So now I'm really thinking about upgrading my system completely to a new one... but that is something to be discussed after the vacation to
Thailand
Useless links
Thursday : 18 Oct '07 - 18:26 | damen default No comments yet |
Just check
this out, make sure you are on headphone though
Rights on SQL Express
Tuesday : 16 Oct '07 - 08:21 | damen default Only one comment |
IF you have problems with the rights on the sql express 2005 server when running a local IIS try this:
Add the rights for the following user:
\ASPNET and give it rights to the database you need.
Update: still fighting with it, somehow it does not accept the settings. Now I just used a test/test user and had to change the authentication mode as described here
Vista problems
Sunday : 14 Oct '07 - 08:21 | damen default No comments yet |
Strange thing happened today, as I logged in onto my home machine vista started to complain that my profile could not be loaded. And the worst thing was, it was not loaded! So I ended up with a default temp profile, where I had none of my settings etc.
Some searching on the web brought me closer to a solution, they suggested to have a look at the registry entries at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\. So I went there with the tool regedit (Start, run, regedit) and found out that my original profile had a .bak behind it (somehow that did not change since the good old dos times
) and there was a new profile with exactly the same key, which was the new temporary profile I had.
So I removed the profile Vista added and renamed my old profile back (just removed the .bak) entry, and then it worked again.
But I still do not know why this happened.... some websites talk about it having to do with a missing network connection due to Microsofts new TCP stack, but that sounds very out of order..
Then I solved another problem I had, somehow Firefox caused my system to not understand the .xps (
the Microsoft document format) anymore. Each time it would open firefox and then complain it could not load the file.
To solve this I installed the standalone XPS Viewer that can be
downloaded from Microsoft.
Auto broken again
Saturday : 13 Oct '07 - 16:33 | damen default three comments, already |
Yesterday we went to visit our data center in the city of Karlsruhe, about 2,5 hour drive (without traffic jams) from Nuremberg. Due to the distance we took a rental, but as we left early in the morning I already noticed that my car did not respond to the remote transponder anymore. So I expected the worst as we came back around 10pm. And yes, the remote control would not open the car anymore, and with that also did not allow me to start the engine (there is a circuit breaker controlled by the remote control in the car).
So I went back home with public transport and this morning I went back to the office to have the ADAC check on the car. They could not help me and towed the car to the nearest KIA shop, where they can have a look first thing on Monday. sigh.... never KIA again
BLTV-Ausbildertagung (dive instructor seminar)
Monday : 08 Oct '07 - 07:58 | damen default No comments yet |
This weekend I spent most of my time in a seminar on diving. Each year the BLTV Landesverband is having their annual meeting for diving instructors, the so-called BLTV-Ausbildertagung. That is a two day seminar which we have to do a minimum of every five years to ensure we keep our instructor license. There was of course a lot of official talk on the strategy, new regulations and laws etc. But one of the talks was really good, here a pilot who was also a diving instructor discussed the issues with decompression sickness in a plane and what could be done there.
This can happen if somebody is dumm enough to go flying within 24h after their last dive, and in that case they have double trouble, because next to the sickness they are also responsible for the accident, something airlines like to sue over.
All together a very good weekend and I learned a lot of stuff. Also I met one of the instructors that took the exam with me in Teneriffa, and we agreed to look deeper into taken our TL2 next year (next level of diving instructor)
Oktoberfest and few weeks until vacation
Friday : 05 Oct '07 - 11:41 | damen default Only one comment |
Yesterday I was on the Oktoberfest for the first time in my life. Even though I was prepared for the worst, the sheer size of it blew me away. We were invited by one of our suppliers and had a table in one of the "Festzelts". Starting at 6 the band played different kind of music (thank got not only hoempapa music) and everybody started dancing on the beerbanken.
Because I still had to drive back to Nürnberg I wasn't able to drink any beer, which was definitely not a good idea. Somehow I really have the feeling this fest is better when drinking a lot, because that would make the fest bearable. Somehow it was not something I have to go to again, next time I prefer the
berg
Further I am currently really ready for vacation, but this Dilbert of Today did not help
Night diving manual
Wednesday : 03 Oct '07 - 09:36 | damen default No comments yet |
I kind of specialized on the diving specialty night diving, in the last year I had a couple of people who got their specialty course with me. In order to do that I put together a small manual for night diving, which can be used by my students. For those that are interested and are able to read German
it can be found
here.
Please let me know if you have any comments or ideas for this document.
Weekend
Monday : 01 Oct '07 - 08:18 | damen default three comments, already |
This was again a very nice weekend
It started a bit rainy as I went to Erlangen for the kids diving class, this time we had about 10 children eager to dive. The Saturday afternoon was spend with a wine tasting event, with four friends and little Sarah we drove to the city of Sommerarch, where we walked a bit through the winery and then enjoyed a typical franconian 'Brotzeit' and some of the local wines.
After about 4 hours it was enough and we went home, of course packed with some wines
Then on Sunday we drove to Manu's parents where we were invited for a great meal, they has fresh roasted duck with potato dumplings, just awesome. After that I helped here mother with the wine making. A couple of weeks ago I gave all of my wine making stuff to her parents and they are currently making different wines, and Sunday was the first pressing day. I was really a very long time ago since I've been doing this wine making, we used to do it a lot during university, but somehow the time and room (you really need a garden) was not there anymore.
But this time it was really fun, and much easier/better than doing it in my kitchen
Then we drove to their weekend house nearby to plant a tree. This was the tree which was actually meant for Jeroen and Anja and their wedding, but I forgot it due to the early rise last week. So we decided to plant it here at the weekend house, and with that I have fulfilled one of my three tasks as man.
Because we were active in the garden anyway we decided to finish a task that was due anyhow, cutting down a tree. So we planted one tree and cut down another. That was a cherry tree which somehow did not bear fruit, and therefore had to go.
So as summary, wine tasting, wine making, planting a tree and cutting a tree, all combined with great food. That is what I call a good weekend
Lifehack: Start windows media player with 3fm
Sunday : 30 Sep '07 - 10:28 | damen default No comments yet |
Just want to post this small lifehack I build for myself. I like to listen to the Dutch radio station 3fm when I work at home, so I had a direct link to their stream as shortcut on my desktop. But as I have installed firefox as my default media player, things became too complicated.
Clicking the link would popup firefox, which would ask me if I wanted to download the link, then on clicking yes Mediaplayer would come up and firefox would remain in the background with an empty page. Not the way I wanted to have it.
So I searched for the parameters which could be used to control Mediaplayer from the command prompt and found
this site on MSDN with all information. So now I have the following command as shortcut on my desktop:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" http://www.omroep.nl/radio3/live64.asx
Windows Mobile 6 (Crossbow)
Sunday : 30 Sep '07 - 10:08 | damen default No comments yet |
Today i felt like playing around with some software, therefore I searched the web and came up with a manual (in German) to update my O2 XDA Neo with Windows Mobile 6 aka Crossbow. This time I was clever enough to first save all of my settings and stuff with
SPB Backup, as I'm not amused if I turn my mobile phone into a paper weight.
So first I backed up all of my data using this backup tool. Then I go to
this page, where the manual can be found.
Oops, reading the pdf manual which is in the download I see that I have to do it using a windows XP machine. Currently I do not have this, so I'll have to get my laptop up and running. Update will follow!
IIS after asp.net install
Friday : 28 Sep '07 - 09:40 | damen default No comments yet |
I just installed the IIS on my machine, but somehow I got the following strange error:
"Failed to access IIS metabase."
This was caused because of the order of installation: first asp.net 2.0 and then IIS.
In order to fix it I had to install the asp.net again for IIS, using the command "aspnet_regiis -i" within the VS2005 command prompt.
And hey, suddenly it works
Next trip to Holland
Friday : 21 Sep '07 - 06:23 | damen default Only one comment |
This will be the third weekend on a row that I'll be traveling to the Netherlands. Last weekend we had the bachelor party of Jeroen and today he will say the important little word to his future wife, so again it is up early and getting on the train to Aachen.
update:
It was a fun party. I arrived yesterday around 11:30am in Aachen and took a cap to the hotel in Heerlen, where already a bunch of my friends were. The only stupid thing that happened was that I, not too good early in the morning, forgot to take the tree I had bought as kind of 'Giftpackage'. So this morning my train was leaving and this tree was still standing in our living room. Bad luck. But then I called Niels, who lucky enough was able to buy a tree for us on the way here. So we changed it into a real moneytree and presented it during the evening
Around 2pm we gathered in the oldest border station in the Netherlands, the home of the
Zuid-Limburgse Stoom Maatschappij where the wedding ceremony was held. After the official part, which interesting enough was performed by the mother of Jeroen, we all went into the train and had a one hour ride in the classical carriages with the steam train. All very nice and typical for Jeroen
But not to worry, they arrived in a carriage with horses, so there was a good balance between the passions of bride and groom
After that we moved to the party location, where we had a very good diner and after that the party started, with several 'stukjes' which showed the lives of Jeroen and Anja from very different perspectives. Here was also the moment to give them the tree, with the classical words:
"Ein Mann muss drei dingen im Leben tun:
- Ein Haus bauen, ein Baum planzen und ein Sohn gezeugt haben"
Especially the German colleagues new this of course
After the end of the party, with lost of talking and dancing, we got the taxis back to the hotel and now it is too early again, and I have to make sure I get to the train.... back to good old Germany
Hopefully the travel is reduced after this, perhaps only a short trip to the states end of October and then 3 weeks Thailand
Bachelor Party
Saturday : 15 Sep '07 - 11:29 | damen default No comments yet |
Today I had to get up quite early because I had a train to catch to Aachen, and the thing left at 06:01 AM (!!) This meant getting up at 5am, gathering all my stuff and enjoy a 4,5 hour ride to Aachen for the bachelor party of one of my friends. It will actually be the first bachelor party I have with one of my university friends, somehow all are getting married now.... makes you wonder, doesnt' it
Anyway, we'll be with a small group, also some friends from Singapore and Washington are coming over, so there is no excuse for me not to come. The exact plan for today is of course secret (JT will probably read blogs to get info ahead
but we'll sure have some fun. The only thing I'm not too happy about is that I have to get the train back on Sunday 10am already, so that probably means not too much sleep
After the weekend I'll tell how it was and were we went (at least were we pretended to have spend the evening
, no photos though gnagnagna
Zakje
Tuesday : 11 Sep '07 - 21:39 | damen default Only one comment |
I just discovered that they have a lot of the short comedy factory movies on YouTube. Ofcourse our all time favorite is also there, the legendary show on
the beautiful Dutch word
