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Monthly Archives: May 2011

Memorial Day

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

Today the United States is celebrating Memorial Day, a day when the fallen soldiers are remembered/honored. In November, Veterans Day is celebrated, honoring all men and women who served in the US military.

I am originally from Sweden, a neutral country who have not been in a formal war since 1809. Despite this, Swedish soldiers have fought and died in several wars since then, though. In 1940, many Swedes volunteered to help Finland in the Winter War against the invading Soviet Union.
In the early 1960’s, Sweden sent ground troops as well as jet fighters to Congo during the Katanga crisis.

Sweden has also lost troops in Afghanistan, where about 500 Swedish soldiers currently are part of ISAF. Five Swedish soldiers and one dual-citizen Swedish-Norwegian who was serving with the Norwegian forces have been killed this far. They are pictured below.

image

So my Memorial Day is not just to honor the men and women of the United States armed forces who died over the years, but all soldiers who served their countries to the best of their ability and paid the ultimate price.

In my close family, I have my uncle Karl-Heinz, whom I am named after. He served in the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) during WWII, first as a glider pilot, later in an anti-aircraft artillery unit.

image

Unteroffizier (NCO) Karl-Heinz Groeling
1919-1945

 

 Note: I wrote this entry over the weekend, but due to the BleedYellow blogs having technical issues, I was not able to post it until this morning.

 

Icon Collection for Notes Applications

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment
As of Notes 8.5.2 the Notes client now support prettyapplication icons, using thePNGformat. A handful of icons have been released on OpenNTF.org by Mary Beth Raven, but I have been looking for more.
 
I found a nice set of icons yesterday, and I thought they might look good as application icons.Imailed the page owner where I found them to find out moreThe icons were purchased from IconExperience, a full set of the X-Collection (XP look) is $289 and the V-Collection (Vista/Windows 7 look) is $379.I consider that a very good price.
 
In the mean time,I decided to just try some of the iconson a couple of my existing databases. I think it really makes a huge difference. See below for a sample.I believe I am covered under Fair Use when publishing this screenshot since this only are 8 of the 2,400 icons in the collection.
 
I think the important thing is to getthe look ofthe icons consistent, not mix different looks. I happen to know that The Lotusphere Widow plan to design some icons in the near future,that will match the icons posted on OpenNTF.So keep your eyes open…
 
PNG Icons in Lotus Notes 8.5.2
To clarify, the upper row in each sectionare the applications, and the row below are the templates.
In previous versions of Domino Designer I used a solid red background colorbehind the icons to indicate templates, that would be a nice enhancement in un upcoming version of Domino designer, to have the chicklets in a different color for templates.
 
 

 

Product Review: Gillette Thermal Face Scrub

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

This is a non-technology related post, but I wanted to share my experiences with this particular product.

I have always been shaving with a razor and gel, that is how my dad did it and I followed his lead. For the last 20 years, I have been using Gillette products. They simply worked the best for me. YMMV
As a true geek, I have always been using their latest model of razors, and I am currently using the Fusion Proglide Power. A couple of weeks ago, I had to buy new blades (they are getting pretty outrageously expensive, though!), and in the packet I got s small travel size sample of their Thermal Face Scrub.

I have always been very skeptical to that kind of products. Soap and water have worked for me the last 40 years”…” A year or two ago I got a face scrub to use once a twice per week, and even if I have to admit it felt nice, I dis not see a need to get another one when I ran out.
So I tried this sample from Gillette, and it was very interesting. I rinsed my face as usual, then applied a small amount of the product. The skin got nice and warm. I then rinsed it off, according to the instructions, applied the shaving gel I use and shaved.

The result? Well, I almost hate it when the commercials or advertising is correct. But it was a noticeable difference. I shaved at 6.30am, and by 6pm, my face was still as smooth as in the morning.
I had used brand new blades, which might have made a slight difference, so I tested it a few days later by using brand new blades on one side of the face, and some well used (about 1 month) blades on the other side. The difference was hardly noticeable, with of course the side where I used the old blades felt slightly rougher. Still an improvement compared to not using the product.

I do not know if long-term use of this product will have any effect on the skin, but I usually don´t shave during the weekend, allowing the skin to rest. I really like the product and purchased a full size tube a few days later, saving the travel size one for travel.

Disclaimer: Sample received free, purchased full-size product.

 

CrashPlan online backup

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post, Software, Utilities Leave a comment
I have been thinking about using one of the many online/cloud services for backup. I have plenty of photos (200+ GB) and also other important documents I don’t want to lose. Today I have them mirrored on an external USB drive, but in case something happens to my place, like fire or burglary, that drive will most probably also be gone. So an online service would make sense.
There are a number of contenders out there. Carbonite and Mozy are perhaps the most high profile ones, because of their advertising. Mozy just switched from unlimited storage to plans where you pay more if you store more.
Carbonite still offers online storage for $59/year, but they don’t support backups of large files (4GB+), don’t include video files by default, and don’t support external drives. There are also bandwidth restrictions. Up to 35 GB you get full speed, then it drops to 512kbit/s up to 200 GB. After that the bandwidth is throttled down to 100 kbit/s. An online calculator showed that 250 GB would take me 83 days to upload.And I actually have closer to 400 GB that I want to backup. Both services also lack a Linux client, the clients are only available for Windows and MacOS.
However, I stumbled on a new service yesterday, called CrashPlan.Not only does it cost about the same as Carbonite, at $5/month or $49.99/year, they also claim not to have bandwidth restrictions (throttling). In addition they have clients for Linux and Solaris, as well as apps for Android and iOS.
But the really cool features are some that Carbonite and Mozy does not have, and that to me are very useful. You can backup not only to the online storage on the CrashPlan servers, but also to external USB drives, network drives or even a friend across town or in another country. You can create different backup sets, and have them being backed up to different places.
I installed the client at home, and created a few backup sets. My photos are backed up to my external 1.5 TB Seagate drive, as well as to the CrashPlan servers. My documents and images (like icons and graphics I use for my Notes/Domino applications) are backed up to the online storage only. My MP3 files are backed up only to the external drive.
I also plan to setup CrashPlan on my sister’s computer in Sweden and backup my photos there. The files are encrypted on the external drive and at the friend/family member, so they can not see the filenames or the content.
I think this combination of backups in multiple places is brilliant. I am currently using the 15 days free trial, but I intend to purchase theservice in the next day or two, if it lives up to the promises.
Update: CrashPlan is now $59.99/year or $5.99/month for the cheapest unlimited plan. Details here. Also, something both me and other noticed is that the upload does take time, about the same as Carbonite. So they have some kind of bandwidth limitation, but it seem to be constant, or possibly they just have so much traffic that their bandwidth is not enough.

 

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