Category Archives: Old Blog Post

Back when I was a journalist for Computer Sweden, I got to interview some very interesting people from the IT industry. One time, I think it was in 1996 around the time Windows NT 4.0 was released, Microsoft had a press meeting at their Stockholm office. We were perhaps 8-10 journalists total who got to meet Jim Allchin, then in charge of the development of NT.

After the regular PR fluff, slides and presentations, there was time for questions. I eventually asked about a feature in the the then newly released OS/2 Warp 4.0, namely that you could run virtual DOS sessions in OS/2. I think you could even set different sessions to emulate different versions of DOS (I am old enough to remember when certain programs needed particular DOS versions to work). You could even run Windows 3.0 in a virtual session in OS/2.

Today we are all doing this, using tools like Parallels and VMware. But Jim Allchin was not impressed: "Circus acts of a dying operating system" was his comment. For the rest of the interview he glared at me every time he mentioned Windows NT in comparison with OS/2…

This morningI blogged about processing a photo to look like a painting, and I mentioned Picture Publisher, a graphics program from Micrografx (later purchased by Corel).

I started using Picture Publisher sometime around 1993-94, and I was using it until a little over a year ago, when I finally switched from Picture Publisher 10 (released in 2001, if I recall correctly) to Photoshop CS2.

So why did I use such an old product? Perhaps because Picture Publisher did it´s job, and it did it well. It had all the functions I could ask for at that time, and I could do pretty much anything The program also did use few resources and very little memory, it was fast and also was easy to use.
What it was lacking was layers and other features that the competing programs eventually got. In the lat 90´s, Micrografx stopped developing the product, and it was not until 2000/2001 the two final versions (9.0 and 10) came out. If Picture Publisher would have had layers and a couple of other features, I would probably still been using it. I wonder what it would have looked like if Corel had not stopped developing it”…”

The second "old" program I am using is Cam2PC from NaboCorp. Version 4.6.1 came out in October 2007. It is a very competent program, and as the name indicates, it is used to transfer pictures from a digital camera to the PC. This it is doing better than any other program I found. The pictures are organized by date, and during download you can enter a description to be included in the folder name. Simple editing is built in, like cropping, sharpening, red-eye removal and levels/color. In the paid version (there is a limited shareware/trial version) you can burn pictures to CD/DVD, provided you have Nero Burning ROM installed, and you can mail pictures directly from the program. Well worth the $20 it cost.
I have not found any program to replace it, including Picasa, F-Spotor Shotwell.

So did they simply make better programs a few years ago? Perhaps. Or am I just in my comfort zone and don´t want to learn new things? I don´t think so. I love getting new software, but they have to add something. If they have less functionality than an older program, why should I switch? It´s a little bit like the switch from Notes to Exchange. If it is working and doing the job, why switch to a product that have less functionality, just because it is newer? It is not until the current program is lacking functionality that you need you start thinking about switching.

In my Notes and Domino applications I have standardized on one icon set. That one is the FamFamFam Silk web icons. They have a muted and nice look that match the Notes client (especially Notes 8.x), and they are free.

Here are some sample icons:

Go take a look if you haven’t done so already!

A few months ago, I talked to someone about printing photos in large format on canvas. When I got home, I located a packet of "canvas inkjet paper" I purchased many years ago, but never used up. It is a pretty cool paper, it is thick and has a structure like a painting but is of course blank.

At first I though about just printing a photo, but then I remembered something. Back in my pre-Photoshop days when I used Picture Publisher from Micrografx, the software had filters that emulated a few different drawing styles, including charcoal, water color and oil painting. However, there is nothing native in Photoshop giving the same capability.

I did some searching, looking for oil painting actions, plugins or filters. Finally if found Dynamic Auto Painter (DAP), a $49.95 program that sounded promising. I downloaded the demo version and tested it. I was amazed, this was a really neat program. Perhaps a narrow niche, but worth the money. What the program does is to analyze the picture and then redraw it from scratch, using different brushes and tools, in many layers. Just like I imagine a real painter would do it. There are about a dozen or so different filters, and the user can change parameters like color palette, detail level, how fine brushes to use, etc.

I picked a few photos and ran them through Dynamic Auto Painter, and below is the result. The photo of the Waxholm ferry is not the same as the one I processed (I don’t have access to it at the moment), but they were taken just a few seconds apart.

I printed the picture of the ferry on the 11" x 8.5" canvas paper, and it turned out really good. My biggest issue now is to find more paper like that, as the manufacturer seems to have closed business.

Last Sunday I downloaded the latest version of Ubunu, 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat). I then decided to use the Update Manager in Ubuntu to upgrade the version I was running (10.04) in-place. The download was nice and fast, I was asked a few questions, and then it was time to restart the computer. Instead of the GRUB menu, I was met by a message that some file was missing and I ended up at a rescue prompt. Nice. The boot loaded had been nuked/damaged. Seems like I am not the only one”…”

Finally, after some Google searches and some other tricks (including using a bootable CD with Clonezilla and Gparted I happened to have laying around), I was able to boot on my Windows XP partition. I got the Ubuntu CD burned, as I had been foolish enough to just download the ISO file but not burn it, as I assumed the install would work.

Eventually I got GRUB restored on my computer. Then I proceeded with copying the few files I had on my Ubuntu partition to one of my other drives, and reinstalled Ubuntu from scratch, so I had a nice new install. I actually first installed on top of the existing version, juts to try that out. That worked, but none of the new software in 10.10 were installed, so I opted to start all over.

I had less problems with this version compared with previous version. Perhaps it is that i am getting used to Ubuntu, or perhaps the distribution is becoming easier to use, My network card, a Netgear WG311, is still not supported natively in Ubuntu, but by installing ndiswrapper (which comes on the CD but is not installed by default) I would use the Windows XP drivers for the card. Very slick, took just a few minutes.

I had to install the Nvidia graphics drivers separately, but again, that was easy. The tricky part was to get my left monitor (I have two older CRT monitors connected to my system) to run in a higher resolution than 640×480. After some searching through Google and editing the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf file I was able to get 1200×1024 on that screen as well.

What about Notes 8.5.2 then? I am happy to report that it was extremely simple. I downloaded the compressed .tar file from the IBM Passport Advantage site, unpacked the contents (half a dozen .deb files) to the desktop and simply right-clicked on one file at a time and opened them in the Ubuntu Software Manager, Answered a question or two, and after just a few minutes I was all set. Actually much faster than installing it on a Windows XP PC at work, which I did today. Well, a small disclaimer, my system at home got a faster processor, 3 GB memory (vs. 768 MB at work) and probably faster hard disks”…”

Over the last year, I estimate that I have been in Ubuntu about 80% of the time, and in Windows just 20%. Perhaps even less. And after I installed some additional programs this week, for example to transfer digital video from my old camcorder, I might work even more in Ubuntu. I am not ready to fully let go of Winodws, I need a particular remote control program to connect to work. Of course. Vmware or VirualBox would solve that as well.

So if you haven´t looked at Ubuntu or some other Linux distribution lately, try it out.

The other day I noticed a posting on LinkedIn, in the Lotus Notes/Domino Technology group by a Joseph Roblee asking "Does anyone know of a talented offshore Domino 8.5 development group you can put me in contact with?"

I find it interesting that Mr. Roblee, who happens to live in Austin, TX, is looking at India when there are so many US developers looking for jobs”…” I wonder what his neighbors (a simple google search for his name reveals an address in Cedar Park, a suburb of Austin) would say if they were told that their nice neighbor is exporting jobs away from the US, while the country has record high unemployment.

Perhaps I will see him at Lotusphere, because surely "one of the leading Lotus Notes developers in the United States" will be there”…”

I notice that Mr. Roblee proudly tells that he got an MBA (as well as MCSE). I know a CEO who went back to school to get his MBA, and he came back with the "knowledge" that one can hire brilliant developers in India, with MBA and higher degrees, for $5/hr or similar. Is that is what is being taught in MBA trainings across the US?

There are a number of responses/comments to his posting from people who either have Indian sounding names or identify themselves as from India (as well as a few from Latvia, South Africa and some other countries). What I heard from people who actually been involved in offshore development is that the culture is very different in India. You have to be aware of that. Not oly is the actual development process different, other cultural differences also comes into play. If you are not aware of those, and have a very strong project leader, the project can easily get larger/longer/more expensive that projected.

Also, from judging at what I been reading in the past in the (now pretty dead) usenet newsgroup comp.groupware.lotus-notes.programmer (and to some lesser extent in the DeveloperWorks forums), it seems like many of the most basic questions came from people with Indian sounding names, or identifying themselves as from India. Often the question is extremely basic, or showing that the person has no clue about what Notes is or how it works. There is often a comments saying "I never programmed Notes before, but I was put in this project for a client”…”" or similar, the proceeding how to do relational lookups or similar. To me that sounds like they took on a project, and now want the very same people they just put out of a job to do the training or actual work for them”…”

I also found it very interesting that Kirankumar Nellore from Bengalure [sic!] is commenting and trying to get the business from Mr Roblee. In another Lotus-related group on LinkedIn, he asks What is difference between lotus notes normal application and composite application??. Shouldn´t a certified Notes developer and administartor (as he claim he is) know that? Or am I just setting the bar too high for what the certification indicates?

I can understand the lure for business owners to save a few dollars by developing a project in say India. But the loss for the US is greater. Americans lose their jobs, and this will eventually force the taxes to be increased for everyone to cover unemployment. The interest rates to borrow at the bank will be higher du to the increased number of foreclosures when people lose their jobs. And of course the loss of knowledge. We all know that if you don´t work with something, you get behind and lose knowledge.

So the companies makes a profit while the tax payers foot the bill. Why not add a "offshoring tax" for companies to cover the additional cost for the country? Any US-based company, or company with a major US presence (say more than 10,000 employees or more than 25% of the workforce in the US), who employs a call center or development department/company outside the US will pay an additional tax. I will leave it to the bean counters to decide the actual amount, perhaps 5% of the profit before taxes and deductions? Perhaps 10%? Since money is the only thing CEOs seem to understand, hit them where it hurts since they can´t do The Right Thing without being forced”…”

For the record, I have nothing against people from India or any other countries. But I think it is wrong to export jobs from any country when there is high unemployment.

My son, Erik, has taken up soccer (or football as it is known in the world outside the United States) this year. After 5 years of playing baseball, I am happy that he choose a sport where he get to move more. At first he wanted to try football (the American version, where they hold the oval shaped "ball" and run, wearing heavy padding), but his mom was not too thrilled about that. Erik quickly changed his mind and wanted to do soccer instead, as heliked watching the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament.He loves playing soccer, andalso likesto go to the home games of FC Dallas.

His team lost the first 3 games, but won the fourth one last Sunday and tied the fifth one this past Thursday. As he and his mom lives over an hour away, I was not able to attend the first couple of games, but I went last weekend and brought my camera. I ended up taking quite a few pictures and here are a couple, mostly of Erik (number 10), I wanted to share.

It´s an appropriate day to release the latest version of the Linux distribution Ubuntu, called "Maverick Meerkat". or 10.10 as the official version number is. The version numbers in Ubuntu is, as you already may know, the year and month of the release.

I will shortly try to install the new version from within my existing 10.04 installation. This should be as easy as to go to the update manager and click on a button to install the new version. However, last time I tried it, going from 9.10 to 10.04 back in April, the download and install took many hours, so I opted to just download the ISO file and install from there from scratch.

I am currently downloading the ISO file, just in case I will need it. But hopefully the online installation will be smoother than last time. It will also be interesting to see how Notes 8.5.2 is working in the new version of Ubuntu.

Here are some links I want to share to anyone else who want to try Ubuntu, or is planning to upgrade.

How to upgrade to Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat from ubuntu 10.04 lucid, karmic| Desktop & Server

Top things to do after installing Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

Custom Compiz Effects configuration in Ubuntu10.10 Maverick Meerkat

Great themes for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx (this one was originally written for 9.04 but has been updated for the 10.04 and 10.10 releases.)

I have not done many product reviews on this blog, but in a previous life I was reviewing 2-3 products/week as a journalist/test editor at IDG. I plan to start to review some products I been coming across, in all different categories.

Today I will be looking at the 3M Filtrate Water Station. I have been seeing the ads on TV for a few weeks, and since I already own a Brita water pitcher, I was curious to see if the claims of much shorter filtering time was true, and how that affected the taste.

The Brita pitcher consists of two chambers, a top one which is filled with water, and a lower one where the filtered water ends up. Between the two chambers, there is a cylindrical carbon filter. The end result of the Brita pitcher is nice clean water, and I usually keep it in the fridge to make sure the water is cold. The two main issues with the pitcher is that it requires the top chamber to be filled up twice to fill up the lower chamber (which can hold 64 oz of water), and that the filtration time is fairly lengthy. The MSRP for the model I have is $31.99 and the filters are $7.99 for one, $20.99 for 3. Each filter lasts 40 gallons according the the manufactures website.

What about the new 3M Filtrate Water Station? It filters straight into four 16,9oz (0.5 liter) bottles attached to the station. The bottles are made in hard plastic, with a special lid that can pop on and off. You can fill any number of bottles, there is a valve for each bottle that automatically close when no bottle is attached. The filter is circular and flat. 3M claim that each filter can process 100 gallons before being replaced.

It does filter much faster than the Brita pitcher, and it is convenient to fill straight into bottles. It takes less than a minute to fill all 4 bottles. The top section of the bottle can be unscrewed, to allow for easy cleaning (they are dishwasher safe, but 3M recommend washing by hand).
However, there are a couple of issues with the product. The bottles are somewhat hard to open and close. Could be because they are new, but the mechanism is not perfect. A screw lid attached with a chain would been a much better solution. The time I spend trying to open and close the pop-lid is as long as it would take to screw/unscrew a cap.

3M Filtrate Water Station

Manufacturer: 3M  Price: $37,44 (unit), $9.99 (100 gal. replacement filter), $14.99 (two extra bottles)  Pros: Fast filtering, water stored directly in bottles, low cost per filtered gallon, dishwasher safe, convenient,saving moneyby buying lessbottled water.  Cons: Expensive extra bottles, hard to open/close bottles, does not filter as good as a thicker/slower filter.  Summary: A good alternative to water pitchers, but need some debugging/tweaking to be a killer product.

I am not fully satisfied with the quality of the water. I can´t put my finger on it, it does taste better than the water straight from the tap, but it is not fully as crisp and clean as bottled water or the water produced by the Brita pitcher. But it is good enough to drink, especially when flavored with Crystal Light, something I blogged about a while back. And I hope to save substantially by cutting down on my purchases of bottled water.
My son consumes large amounts of water, he wants a bottle next to the bed for the night and I often have to throw away half-empty bottles that have been opened for a few days. He want his water "cold and fresh", so he just go and get a new bottle, and never put the partially used ones back in the fridge. So now the waste will be substantially less.

I purchased the 3M Filtrate Water Station for $37.44 (plus tax) at Walmart, and a replacement filter was $9.99 if I remember correctly. I also purchased a 2-pack of extra bottles, for $14.99. The price for extra bottles is way too high, in my opinion. The water station itself is not much more expensive than a pitcher, and store about the same amount of water.

I think 3M need to iron out a few kinks, mainly the mechanism of the lid and improving the filter some, even if that will slow down the filtration speed.

Disclaimer: Obtained by personal purchase.

This week I started looking into High Dynamic Range imaging. This is a technique that can be used by a photographer to make pictures look better by taking three pictures of the same motive, but with one image over exposed, one under exposed and one with normal exposure. The pictures are then combined, using software like Photomatix and Dynamic Photo-HDR.

Yesterday I was taking pictures at a birthday party in Ft Worth. The venue (The Petroleum Club) was a fairly dark room on the 39th floor, with big windows giving a panoramic view of downtown Ft Worth. So I decided to try some HDR pictures, and for a first attempt I think it turned out pretty good.

Here are the three original pictures, unedited:

In the first, darker image you can actually see some of the landscape outside the windows, while in the last, brighter image you can see the interior but not the outside, as that part is over exposed. Below is the result, without really any tweaking, of Photomatix:

You can see that the outside is still visible, as well as is the interior.

The pictures were all shot using a Nikon D90, in regular JPG (fine) mode. No flash was used, but I used a tripod.

If you like photography, and end up taking pictures of (for example) buildings against a bight sky or inside shots with windows or bright outside light, I would recommend looking at HDR as a method to improve your pictures.