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.

Lotus Notes is a great tool, and I enjoy developing applications using the RAD capabilities in Domino Designer. But I also create some web applications on occasion.
This past week, when Hurricane Alex was moving in towards Texas, John, the CIO (and my boss), grabbed me first thing Wednesday morning and asked me to build a webpage. He wanted me to use the Google Earth plugin to consuming some KML files he created from the policy database (built using Visual FoxPro).

As I blogged about a year ago, I wrote some code to get the latitude and longitude for an address, and John had then rewrote the code for FoxPro so he could get the coordinates for the addresses he had in his system. So he could now very easily generate a couple of KML files, one of all our policies and one of the policy holders potentially in the path of the hurricane.
I built the webpage in a Domino database, that is usually the easiest way for me to put up a simple webpage. I added some overlays, the two different KML files that John created. I also found a KML file online with different projected paths, as well as one of the current path of Alex. The users could turn on and off these layers as they wanted. Suddenly it was very easy to see if we had any insured customers in the path, etc.

Of course, the same web page could as easily have been created using Notepad or any other tool, as it was pure HTML. But my next plan is to integrate this page with other Domino data, and we are talking about building a generic reporting tool with all different kind of geographic data. Imagine being able to map every accident/insurance claim, see where the accident happens, where the insured is located, etc. Perhaps run statistics showing the average distance from home the accidents take place, etc.

I think it is critical that I, as a Notes/Domino developer, show the power and business use of Notes by integrating it with different systems. When I first started working at this company, I was tasked with building a claim system, to handle insurance claims. The company had hired a pair of Notes consultants, who set up the environment and attempted to build a claim system. They failed, and they also told everyone that Notes and FoxPro could not talk to each other. Of course, when I came in and sat down with my (then) new boss after a few weeks at the new company, we quickly figured out a way to get the systems to communicate.
It took about 90 minutes to come up with the solution (using COM), write the basic specifications (yes, they changed some over the years, but not much), build the COM object and write some test code in Notes. Today, that COM object is used for all kind of things we never envisioned back then, in 2002. It even sends PDF files into our document imaging system.

Of course, it helps to have a CIO/manager who talks and thinks development. I don’t have to explain things that are obvious to me, we can go straight at the business logic or functionality. Something that would take 10-15 minutes to explain to a regular manager just takes seconds or a minute.

My next project, which I will start on Monday, is a database to document the claim system. There are so many design elements, with different functionality and access rights. Some buttons are hidden from certain users, using roles or document status, other design elements are restricted in other ways. Very little of this have been documented over the years, and I need to get all that documented in a good way. That is the power of Notes: I have a need, I build a solution.

Today is Father’s Day here in the US. In Sweden it is actually celebrated in November (Nov 14 this year). I am thinking about my dad, who passed away in 2001.
My dad was a very intelligent person. He may not have had a fancy education and degree. As a matter of fact, he just had six years of school back in the 1930’s (he was born in 1926), then he had to start working. But he could build pretty much anything. He built us a summer house from scratch. He even did the design and the drawings/blueprints himself. At home he had a real architect drawing table. But he also repaired all kind of things down in the basement. He built his own tools, a powerful electrical motor and some pieces of scrap metal, and he had a lathe. When my sister needed a violin, he simply built one. And yes, it sounded great!
After I moved to the United States in 1998, he got a computer, and at age 70 he started learning how to use it and to send email.

 Working on the summer house, circa 1974

 Taking a break from the hard work.

Building a violin.

But my dad was not always working. Yes, he did work a lot, both to support the family and to (litterally) put a roof over our heads. But he also had time for me and my sister.
We went fishing, sailing (he got us a small sail boat and put me and my sister in sailing classes), and worked in the vegetable patch together with mom.

 At Midsummer celebration, circa 1976.

There are so many things that make me proud of my dad, I can’t list them here. But he was a great role model for me, and I hope my son Erik one day will be able to think at me in a similar way. He was also, for a very brief time, a grandfather. He died in March 2001, but not until after he got to see and hold his first and only grandchild. Erik was born in August 2000, and he (together with my sister) visited us in early November.
I was told that he printed out the pictures I mailed him, and was showing them to all his friends. He was so proud! I wish he would have lived a few more years so he could have seen Erik starting to grow up.

 Holding his grandson Erik, Boston November 2000.

 One more of the proud grandpa.

 Funeral, April 2001.

This picture, and the two previous ones, were taken with my Nikon D90 fitted with a Tamron 18-270mm lens. No tripod was used. The pictures were taken yesterday evening around 19.30 in the Sundance Square area of Ft Worth. Click on the images to see the full versions.