skoop.dev

We’re live!

April 13, 2006

technology, tomtom

Well, live … slowly going live. The project I’ve been working on for the past months, the server side of TomTom HOME, is now available to the public. At the moment, only people who have bought one of the new TomTom devices (the GO510, GO710 and GO910) can upgrade their TomTom HOME to the new version 1.1, which contains all kinds of new server-side features such as automated updating of their device content (such as the TomTom application, Points Of Interest etc etc), a shop to buy new content, and free traffic alerts (useful when you’re at work and want to be alerted of the current traffic information on your way home!).

Soon, TomTom HOME will also become available to the general public, and users with older TomTom devices (such as the GO300, GO500 and GO700, the ONE and the RIDER) will also be able to use it to update the content of their device. Even people without a TomTom can use it, for instance to get the traffic alerts I talked about earlier.

It has been hard work for me. Of course, I’ve not done this alone, but it’s the first time that I’ve worked on a project this big, with a schedule this tight. And there are some complicated things happening on the server-side, I can tell you that! The result is something I am really proud of though. And we’re going to enhance it even more!

I’d tell you to give it a try, but of course, you can’t at this point. I’ll probably warn you on this weblog when the software becomes publicly available for download, so you can play around.
The holy root

April 12, 2006

linux, technology

There are many *nix purists that feel the root is holy. Only the basic, default directories should be located at the root. An ideal system probably looks something like this:

/ /boot /dev /etc /home /lib /opt /proc /usr

I recently encountered such a purist. He felt that adding something to the root, be it a directory or a mount, was wrong. I don’t really understand why.

Sure, mounts can be located in /mnt (or /media in some distributions). But some things are very important. Especially with web servers, a location in the root would be much better. For instance, if you have a webserver offering downloads, then you could place these binaries, which you want to keep outside of the document root of your website, in /binaries or something similar. We have a similar setup at work. So what is wrong with this? All important stuff goes in the root, so why not something as important as this. It’s being used system wide.

On my home fileserver, I have a shitload of my cd’s ripped to mp3 or ogg format. I have these files located at /mp3. I see no need to put this somewhere else. The mp3’s have their own harddisk, and the music is shared so that I can access it from my laptop, and my wife can access it from her PC.

I understand that you don’t want to clutter your root with too much directories and mounts, but adding very important information at the root should not be a deadly sin as some people seem to think.
KittenAuth?

April 8, 2006

fun

CAPTCHA? Question challenges? The latest anti-spam thing is kittenAuth!!

(via)
Paradise, here I come!

April 6, 2006

music

I only have to survive tomorrow today at work and a free saturday. And then it’s time! I’m very excited about the concert, having seen Live in Paradiso in 1997, which was a very intense experience for me.

But tomorrow this evening we have an apetizer already! Ed’s brother Adam Kowalczyk will be playing in Utrecht in Stairway to Heaven! Nice! For those that don’t know, aside from playing in Live, Adam has his own band making quite nice music.

Yeah, it’s gonna be a good weekend.
Zend Framework, lots of ideas!

April 3, 2006

frameworks, php, technology, zend, zend framework

There’s lots of work and even more thinking about the Zend Framework being done. Proof of that can be found in the first Framework roundup. Interesting reading! Especially the part about Authentication and ACL caught my eye. I’ll definitely be keeping a good eye on the development in that area. The Framework is very promising.
R.A. Salvatore – The Two Swords

April 2, 2006

books

This book has been on my stack of books to be read for way too long. I’m a huge fan of Salvatore‘s books about Drizzt Do’Urden, and The Two Swords has been out for quite a while, has actually been standing on one of my bookshelves for quite some time. I am glad I finally started reading the book.

It’s been a while since I read the previous book in the series, and so it took me a short while to remember what happened in the previous book. Funny enough, Salvatore didn’t even pause to look back and just went on with the story. This is good of course, because you don’t want to linger in what you know already, it just proved to be a slight difficulty for me since I needed to remember the previous storyline a bit. There were enough references though for me to pick up on the story.

As all books about Drizzt Do’Urden, this one also brings a lot of excitement, a great storyline, wonderful descriptions of the surrounding (The Shining White sounds wonderful!) and great characters. With Drizzt being seperated from his friends, believing them dead, for the biggest part of the book, you actually follow two completely seperate storylines, until finally the storylines come together and the friends are finally re-united. The death of Wulfgar’s wife was a bit shocking, though I suspect this paves the way for another romance, that might cause Drizzt’s heart to be broken.

I suspect by now at least one new book in this series is available, so I’ll soon have to order that one to get my fix of Salvatore. I definitely again am fully into Salvatore’s books, and am looking forward to reading the next book.
New Ufdi network member: Consonants

March 26, 2006

technology, weblogging

I am proud to announce a new member to the Ufdi Network! Consonants is the weblog of andrew kennedy from the UK, where he writes amongst other things about Java, Unix, Security. Or, as he describes it himself:

the grkvlt irregular publishing mechanism – enterprise java, web development, information security, statistics and probability, gambling, book reviews and technology discussion, together at last!

Welcome to the network Andrew!
A man shot

March 26, 2006

personal

As I do nearly every saturday, I left home yesterday afternoon to pick up my wife from work. She works in Amersfoort, and bus connections are not ideal. Plus, it’s fun to walk through Amersfoort every once in a while.

Anyway, yesterday was different. I walked out of the parking garage walking my usual route towards the shop where my wife works, only to find myself blocked just around the corner by police. Lots of police. Just down the street, where I walk every week, a white but bloodstained blanket was covering someone, apparently dead.

At first, I was quite intrigued by something like this happening here, and truely to finally see this happen for real, with the dutch CSI in white coats searching for evidence, is a pretty thrilling experience.

But when you think on it a bit more, you realize what it is that you’ve seen. This is a street that I walk through every week at least once. What if this happened while I was walking there with Tomas on my arm, and the shooter had missed? Why would someone kill another person in the first place?! Especially when you hear (though this is not officially confirmed) that the motive behind this was an argument between two guys about a girl, you just can’t grasp anymore why this happens. You don’t kill over being dumped or cheated upon, right?

It really makes you think.
Books I’ve read

March 19, 2006

books

This weblog is turning more and more into a booklog it seems 😉 I’ll try to write a bit more about technology and such in the near future, ok?

Anyway, for now, let’s take the list of 50 most registered books on BookCrossing and see what I’ve read of those:

1. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

Though I’ve read them in the wrong order (first Da Vinci Code, then Angels & Demons) I’ve read them both. I got the special illustrated version of this book, my sister and her boyfriend gave it to me 🙂

2. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

see #1 😉

5. The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

A great Grisham book!

7. The Firm by John Grisham

Another great Grisham novel

20. The Client by John Grisham

I used to be a big Grisham fan 😉

25. The Rainmaker by John Grisham

Another one. Grisham seems to be the most-registered author!

35. The Partner by John Grisham

See? And I’ve skipped a few already that I haven’t read!

That’s not too much. I guess I don’t read the most popular books for BookCrossing.
Stress

March 19, 2006

mental health, personal

I’ve had stress before, obviously one will never do a development job where at one point or another, you get a bit stressed. However, the way it works within the company I currently work for, TomTom, it is all new for me. It is not a short period, a few days, of pressure. The pressure has been on-going for the past few months, first leading up to Cebit obviously, and now towards release.

Last Thursday we delivered the first release candidate of our latest project. Supposedly, this will lower the pressure for a bit. We’ll see. I could do with some lower pressure. Having high pressure for weeks, months is quite harsh on your body, even though you don’t do any physical work.