torsdag, mars 15, 2007

Waiting for Easter

We are of course waiting for Easter. Tempratures has been rising again. We are hoping that we will be able to keep the snow for all the skiing that has to be done.

Plans for Easter has still to be made though. I guess it will be another of those. Jump on a band wagon and see what happens....

Mossaka Evening

The first time I tried Mossaka was on my Bosnia tour in 1998. It reminds me a little of Lasagna but then again it is actually quite different. So I decided (by request) to try to make my first Mossaka. Would I be able to put it all together? I did the usual food research to see if I could get some tips. And suddenly there is was. An almost perfect Mossaka dinner...

It was also the first time I made a Greek salad. In fact I liked the salad even more. Reminding me of the time spent in Thessalonica in 2001 before we went into Macedonia. (Pictures and info about this tour can be found here: http://home.online.no/~chand1/Web-page/index.htm )

I ultimatly made another Greek Salad two days later as a main course. Yummy.

Windows Vista (Software)

It is true. As soon as you tried it you will never go back to Windows XP again. I who never really like the once so "fancy" sides of Windows XP always run it with optimal performance and classic views have now been enchanted by Vistas new look and you do suddenly have a reason to run it with all the eye-dropping features on.

ON!

With my AMD X2 3800+ with 2GB ram + 1GB Ready boost it is fairly responsive and quite fun to use. However it requires almost all the processor power and the CPU FAN is running constantly and the CPU temperature is high and on the rising.

Telling me: I need a new computer.

The new interface is in many cases a pure rip-off from Mac OS X. And why not, it is a good OS to rip-off from. In fact Vista is the first OS (of my opinion) that has some truley user friendly features. The big icons on the desktop are to my dislike but I see that it will loved by many.

The HUGE dialog boxes that assist you in what's going on is also something I dislike, but again something that is user-friendly and will be good for many.

For example, I have a friend that has had nothing but problems with his PC in such level that it never would work - resulting into it being quite useless for him to have a PC. After a long time of this I suggested to him to switch over to Mac OS X and he has been happy ever since. No problems at all. While the switch to Vista won't be ass painless - it is a step in the right direction.

Something I really don't like is that it often can become totally non-responsive, even to such keyboard actions as CTRL-ALT-DEL - It has not crashed - you basically just have to sit and wait for Vista to sort itself out.

You also have plenty of new or changed tools to help your system out. I suggest you to familiarize to these as soon as possible.

Vista will for sure boost Hardware sales to a new top. Everybody needs a new computer now. Xp is old-fashioned.

Office 2007 (software)

Earlier I wrote a little about the beta 2 of office 2007. Sadly things are not as bright anymore. Do not get me wrong here. Office 2007 is of course still the best on the hill and there is still a huge cleavage to the next contenders...

What I am all about is since I have been using Office 2007 since the beta 2 stage, and while the new interface was a big welcome and refreshment for most of us.

Problem it looks good, but many tasks have become harder. Instead of creating productivity sometimes it has me gaping for air in despair over how to do something, and sometimes I can't even figure out how to do even simple tasks that has been more or less standard since Word 2.0.

Please Microsoft. I do like new and refreshed GUI, but I would like, I need the possibility to customize it the way I want it myself. Customization is King!

The save as PDF is not delivered as standard (by pressure from Adobe, they still want us to by Acrobat Pro) but can be downloaded for free as an add-on from Ms. What is the purpose for that really? MS have of course made they’re own subset of PDF, as they always have a problem to keep down to standards. They have also made their own format XPS as a competition to PDF.

I never really liked PDF myself, but accept it as a industrial standard brought on though on us by Adobe. In the Future however we might see changes to this, but will it be changes that are better for the consumers? I doubt it.. Hopefully I am wrong.

There are more things to Office 2007 as well. More that I don't like with it. In fact I think I am giving the vote to keep office 2003 a little longer.

tirsdag, mars 13, 2007

Audi Alpine World Cup 2007 - Kvitfjell

I can’t believe that it has already been 10 years since I was here last time. Last time I was in charge of the official video. And before that I was a timekeeper in the slope. The highlight was of course The Olympics in 1994. But also afterwards it was one of the highlight of the year to work in the World Cup. Reason is of course it is a great sport. Kvitfjell is a great arena. And it is just so much fun and party.

This time my friend Almir asked me to join together with Fjerdrum School from Gausdal. I agreed of course and there we were with fog all around us and no Norwegian medals.
Still I was among winners as Fjerdrum School went away with the 3000 kroners price for the best banner.

You can see the pictures at

http://84.202.125.197/photo/index1.php?currdir=WCKvitfjell2007/

fredag, mars 02, 2007

Frøken Ur er død (norwegian)

Hjelp.

Jeg er skikkelig deppa om dagen. Hu som vi alltid pleide å ringe dirty telefoner til. Hu som alltid gadd å høre på, Førken Ur er dau. Hvem skal vi ringe til nå?

Hvor lenge kommer vi til å sørge over 'a?

Solaris (movie)

When I went to Oslo film school we learned how to build up a classic story. Solaris does not fit in this picture as it is in many ways made in a artistic and poetic way. The movie is so beautiful and ugly at the same time. In fact the contrast (as well as all shades between) between nature (beauty) and synthetic (ugly) is a major component of this movie. It is hard as a viewer to know what is going on as we are not always told directly how the story is unfolding. The dialogue is mystic, cold and sometimes quite confusing. However every scene tells us its story through all the elements shown. This are required to watch every little detail.

The cut is most of the time slow and dreamy, but this is not the rule as it becomes quick when needed. In fact it is so well done that you are often amazed. Very few movies dare to lay out such a tempo that requires all the viewers’ skills.

The main theme is not new. It is about human and what is the difference between a human and a made man. In many movies this is shown by using robots or droids. In this case it is a almost perfect human replica. This theme seems to be forever returning because it is important for people. Combined with this there is a unusual strong love story here, as it should be to put the main theme on its ultimate trial.

To sum it up this is a classic that everybody should take the time to see. Just make sure you are up to it!

Crank (Movie)

Can I adrenaline kick it? Yes you can! More often nowadays we see a movie that tries to give us a constant adrenaline kick. Speed is an issue and a constant drive. This movie could be called The Transporter 3 (except that it then would have to keep some of those story elements).

In genre it is a classic B action movie and it gets more points because of its rush, there is some really irritating overuse of effect cams. You also have some interesting erotic scenes. No deep story, just lot of bull. One of the better action movies this year I think. The ending does not quite live up to the hype and is also poorly done.

The Weather Makers (Book)

I have been talking about this book earlier, however now I have finished this book and its time to sum it up. Tim does quite an impressive show on the issue. The first half of the book is more or less a full view on all the damages to the environment since the industrial revolution. Then later on it goes on a few stories and ends up in a few solutions to the problem.

What I find more interesting is that as I also said earlier is that during childhood. Issues of the ozon layer and pollution the environment was big. I even have to stand on the blackboard once in front of class and tell them what Global Warming is. As a cause of this major fossil energy companies started lobbying and spreading the idea that the Gaia theory was not only a theory that stated that earth was a major organism, but also that it would manage about whatever Man would throw at it. The second thing was that the climate changes was only due to normal climate changes that would occur over time. This idea, in fact this lie was so widespread on news and media that most people believed in it, including myself.

However over the years more and more organizations and scientist have left this idea. Even some of the hardcore ones because the Man made changes are getting so severe!

Tim states that early as 1976 (my birth) the first major breach and changes in global environment happened. And that one more has already passed and that nobody knows when the 3rd breach will be and what changes it will do to our environment.

Another thing I remember from childhood was the drought of the surrounding the African desert. The people were blamed for extorting the nature while Tim states that it was simply business as usual and that global warming was the cause.

As a negative aspect I say that the first part of this book is quite massive and I actually had tp have a break in the middle as it was a bit too much. I think Tim would have made an even better book if he would have mixed the information in first part with the middle part and the solutions more often - minimum 3 times.’

What we do know is that world is changing, environment is changing and that extreme weather is getting worse and worse. Change is needed and everybody needs to participate. Again as I said – no hysteria is good. However more energy efficient cars, and electrical appliances, energy on renewable sources needs to increase.

With so many major breakthroughs in technology – I am sure it will be a key element to success. And of course – Governments has to support it. As I said earlier our Government has made tax changes on cars, however a Toyota Prius is costing about the same as my Beetle (way too much) and the cost should be cut to the half (quite possible with our car taxes!) to be an interesting option.

All in all a good book that everybody – including you – should read