We all know the mobility problem : we have a 17" laptop which is all neat 'n dandy, but carrying this stuff around leaves you with a nasty big red stripe on your shoulder at the end of the day : this stuff is *heavy*. So maybe you acquired a smartphone, which allows you to surf the web, either through 3G or WiFi. But using this thing intensively, quickly gets on your nerves : too much horizontal scrolling, dog slow and way too less RAM to load large websites.


Enter the eeePC : a small, sturdy 7" laptop (the 701 model), or the 9" 900 model. Extremely light, cheap, and carrying our most favorite operating system, Linux. I ordered the 900 model in the beginning of the week, and received it Friday evening. First thing I noticed, even while looking at the packaging : this thing is *small*. There is nothing that prepares you at the small size, even after seeing hundreds of pictures on the web, or even after seeing a colleague carrying the 701 model. It is so small it almost looks like a childs toy. It really is not much larger than a DVD case, and that's really small for a laptop.


Second thing that surprised me : it's much heavier than expected. Despite its 1 kg weight, it looks so light on pictures. But fear not, in comparison with your laptop, it's as light as a feather.


I like the screen : neat, offering a good crispy view from all sides. A resolution of 1024x800 is large enough for most webpages. Using the keyboard is more difficult : very small, and I have trouble of pressing hard enough for some characters on the outer edge of the keyboard. But that is something I have on most laptops. The 900 eeePC gets fairly warm, too; in contrast with the 701 model, this doesn't run underclocked.


The default installation of the 900 model is a Xandros Linux based install with 1 GB RAM and 20GB of storage. When I enter an unknown Unix or Linux system, I quickly run through the /etc and /proc dirs to get some feeling of the system. As it turns out, the 900 model has a fast 4GB SSD disk, and a slower 16GB SD card. Xandros boots very quickly, I guess it reaches the desktop from a cold boot in about 20 seconds. The default desktop is a simplified series of screens carrying big application starter buttons. All in all, I think that Xandros did a good job in delivering an easy-to-use Linux desktop for all kinds of users. It has even a nice tool to update the BIOS. Xandros offers a way of obtaining a full blown KDE desktop by first installing ksmserver and kicker. This offers a new option in the logout screen where you can opt for the full desktop.


Xandros uses unionfs for all filesystems, which means COW for all disk access. USB disks get letter notations like on Windows (/media/D:), which I rather dislike. I used Xandros for a while, but quickly found the default desktop too limiting, and the KDE desktop too irritating. So I decided to sweep the disk, and install another eeePC optimized Linux distribution on it. Doing this leaves the user for a difficult task on chosing one : Ubuntu alone has three versions for it (eeebuntu, eeeXubuntu and Ubuntu eee). I chose for the latter because it meant the least amount of thinkering with the system and the fastest way to productivity.


Ubuntu eee boots way slower than the stock Xandros kernel, but I sortoff expected this. The performance is still reasonable, even with compiz enabled. I installed the base OS on the 4GB SSD disk, and opted to transform the 16GB SD disk to a LVM volume group for /opt and /home (I had to manually load the dm-mod kernel module before I could create the logical partitions, apparently a bug in Hardy). No swap to reduce the amount of writing to the SSD device, and for the same reason I chose ext2 as filesystem. I needed to write a small stop init-script which removes the snd-hda-intel kernel module explicitly before shutting down, otherwise the eeepc doesn't cut the power after shutdown.


What still remains is some small stuff like cleaning up the 4GB disk from some unneeded apps, optimize Firefox for the smaller screen, test out Skype and the webcam and install the latest-and greatest TSM server on it.

Everyone knows we're living into a 3 dimensional world, whereas time is being defined as the invariable 4th dimensional frame we're experiencing. Dimensions is a website explaining this stuff in nine chapters, two hours of maths, that take you gradually up to the fourth dimension. Mathematical vertigo guaranteed!


If you really want your head to go for a spin, then watch this video of how to imagine the 10th dimension, the place were quantum physicists believe this is were superstring particles vibrate, and thus create subatomic particles.

Eye candy galore : 5 Mac OSX docks for Ubuntu and other distro's.

According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, specific absorption rate (or SAR) is "a way of measuring the quantity of radiofrequency energy that is absorbed by the body." For a phone to pass FCC certification, that phone's maximum SAR level must be less than 1.6W/kg . In Europe, the level is capped at 2W/kg while Canada allows a maximum of 1.6W/kg.
CNet has a list of the radiation level of different phones, ordered by manufacturer. My Nokia N80 has a SAR value of 0.86, which leaves it around the middle average. Best (minimum) SAR values of current phones are around 0.16 W/kg.

All right, so you got your Canon Rebel but are confused about all these terms about focal length, aperture and white balance ? Fear not, cause here's Bernie's geek guide to photography, to transform you into the better paparazzo.
And while we're at it, here's some tips to make better pictures with (let's admit it) your crappy mobile phone camera.

Hieronder nog enkele foto's van het trouwfeest, gezien de vorige reeks reeds van internet verdwenen is.

Cardhu is regarded as a typical Speyside single malt scotch, and is the basis of the famous Johnnie Walkers blends. In 1811, John and Helen Cumming sited their first still at Cardow Farm on Mannoch Hill, high above the River Spey. At this location, spring water, naturally softened by rising up through a layer of peat, bubbled from the ground. It is alleged that Helen Cumming distilled the first gallon of Cardhu, the only malt whisky to be pioneered by a woman.


The Cardhu I acquired, came in a orange leather purse like thing. Rather strange leaving a liquor store with an orange purse in my hand (Blackadder's YOU HAVE A WOMAN'S PURSE ! jokes aside), but luckily I kept a Talisker bottle in my other hand, to compensate somehow. I don't know, but this reminds me somehow of Chivas, where the bottle and the decorations suggests a rather feminine target audience. Same thing here with the Cardhu, as if it targets female whisky drinkers.


Cardhu is part of the Classical Malts concern, where it is presented as the Speyside classic malt whisky. Time to find out if it deserves this label.


The smell : very sweet, candy, round, some bitterness which reminds of marzipan.
The taste : round, mellow, reminds me somehow of Dalmore. Fruity, a hint of nuts. Difficult to find a specific taste in this, not because it's complex, but rather light and mellow.


Conclusion : a fine single malt, not complex and uncomplicated. Not a malt that I would give a classic label, though.

I recently purchased a small HDD based camcorder, the JVC Everio. It features a hard disk of 30 GB, which should suffice for 7 to 30 hours of recording time. The choice between a regular and a high-definition camcorder was difficult, but the fact that
- I won't purchase a high-def TV within the next 3-5 years
- and that the low-range high-def camcorders only offer recording on micro-SD cards
confirmed the choice for the Everio.


The cam is neat, small and light, so very easy to carry around. Only drawbacks are the video quality (but that's general for this range of camcorders, I suppose), and the battery life.


The camcorder produces .mod files, which are actually disguised MPEG2 files. Plugging the cam in the USB port automatically mounts the Everio's hard disk in Linux, and the MPEG2 files can be transformed to Divx/XVid with the following command :

transcode -i MyFilm.MOD -o MyFilm.avi -y xvid

A week holiday in a medieval Italian village - a white wine every evening, sitting on the edge of a private pool - skinny dipping in ice cold water - insane curly roads and crazy u-turns - driving 15 miles to find a decent shop - horrible Italian restaurants and unfriendly shopkeepers - an official wine tasting in a medieval village.


These are some of our impressions during our visit to Tuscany in Italy. We didn't had lots of luck with the weather or the food (anyone praising the italian kitchen is either romantisizing it, or has never eaten there), but that couldn't spoil too much of our holiday. Check out some of our pictures.

EMC World 2008 has ended; great event, lots of interesting stuff in the domain of storage and backup. Data deduplication certainly is a hot item in backup apparently, funny that we were actually looking into this area before even knowing of data dedup in VTLs. Interesting to see how inband dedup (like Avamar), outband (in VTLs) and the dedup technology in the upcoming TSM 6.1 will work together (or not at all ;)


I survived the last couple of nights mainly on Johnny Walker Black Label. Johnny Walker has always been one of my favorite blends, but the black one (12 yo) I had yet to taste. I tasted spicy heat and sweetly malty, creamy vanilla, and a very very small amount of peat.


Time to leave Vegas, but first why not stay a day longer and have some more fun in Sin City ? The US is the land of milk, honey and lots of guns, so we decided to go for some target shooting at the Gun Shop. I chose a shooting session with two of the most renowned automatic rifles, the AK-47 and the Uzi 9mm.


The AK-47 is better know as Kalashnikov, is a true legendary weapon, known for its extreme ruggedness, simplicity of operation and maintenance, and unsurpassed reliability even in worst conditions possible. It is used not only as a military weapon, but also as a platform for numerous sporting civilian rifles and shotguns. The gun, which is way more lighter and slimmer than I expected, is fed from 30 rounds, stamped steel magazines of heavy, but robust design. Shooting the AK felt very light, and the gun almost has little or no backdraft. Very sensitive trigger too, it's no wonder lots of accidents happen with this baby.


The Uzi 9mm is a much smaller gun, with smaller bullets too. The UZI submachine gun was developed in Israel by designer Uziel Gal in around 1949. UZI had been adopted by police and military of more than 90 countries, including Israel, Germany, Belgium. It was also produced under license in Belgium by FN Herstal; more compact versions, Mini and Micro UZI, which were developed in the early eighties, and are adopted by many police forces around the world. The Uzi has the same shooting experience as the AK, though the trigger is less sensitive. Bullets from an Uzi leave larger bullet holes too : whereas the AK left nice round holes, this one almost shreds the target paper.


Shooting these arms subdues the gunman literally with a rain of bullet shells. These empty shells fly all around, are burning hot, and leave an impressive burn mark whenever they hit a naked arm. Lets just say I have a nice souvenir from this experience ;)