BPI inside

Once again it's such of a time where I'm quite busy with personal and work related issues that I don't find the time to put up a new post. Just about now I've got some spare minutes and thought of it and there you have it now.

What I found today is, that the all famous Dr. Dobb's Journal for software developers is available online from NXTBook Media. It's accessible here: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/cmp/ddj0407/.

With some URL-modification there are also older editions available until back to Aug. 06. Somehow I have the feeling that the availability of this magazine and the older editions was not intentional because normally you have to pay for a subscription. Nevertheless, I've downloaded all of the available editions as PDFs (on some editions you do not have a direct link on the starting page but have to go through the Save-button) and look forward on how this develops in the future.

Update Apr. 13th: The May issue of DDJ is now also available here.

Posted by Kosi2801 on 3:38 PM tagged as Computer/Programming, Personal | Permalink

It's already been more than a month and quite a pile of links has accumulated, wow. So let's get it on:

Cool Stuff

• SuperMagnete.de is a shop where you can order all sorts of magnets from the tiniest to the strongest. Strong stuff here.
• The Animated Knots page has a great list of knots for all possible reasons (the "Decorative" section is very nice) and an animated guide for every single knot

Personal Development

• "Clean like a maid" lists up some tips on how to get your rooms cleaner and finish faster in less time
• 7 Helpful Tips To Immediately Increase Your Confidence gives hints on making a confident impression
• 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better wants to improve your learning experience
• 15 Tips to cope with a demanding life has tips on getting your work and private life in shape if you don't have much time
• The 10 R's are a small ruleset which you can follow if you want to succeed
• These 11 steps to a better brain contain advices to improve and expand your mind
• Stressless parallel parking is something many people have their difficulties with. Look here for some aid on that
• The Prioritizer helps you if you have difficulties in deciding which things are how important to you and in which order to accomplish them, works not only for money goals

Management/Work

• A list of 101 ways to organize your life and improve project handling
• Why Extreme Programming is Great for Game Development points out another time the good stuff in XP
• The Google Powered Office is a small series of articles which show how corporate environment and work can be done using Googles webapplications

Computer Technology

• Feng-Gui analyzes your webpage using mathematical and statistical models and tells you where your visitors are visually focussing on
• The OpenLink AJAX Toolkit is another AJAX toolkit with a rich collection of widgets, event and data access layer management systems and a nice online demo
• ImgBurn is a free and lightweight imaging and burning application with support for many formats and drives
• A Roundup for Developers is quite a good list of webpages and tools for aiding software development and surely contains something for everyone

Games

• Wii Games Review Scoring
• Virus2 - My Score: 43337, Growth 23, Attemts 25
• Core - Just an endless minigame with nice effects
• Torus Trooper - Fast-paced endless shooter
• Desktop Tower Defense - Build up defense towers and don't let the critters survive

Environment

• Australia pulls plug on old bulbs - Banning standard lightbulbs, use energy-saving bulbs instead; surely a good idea
• EU agrees on carbon dioxide cuts - Finally some really challenging decissions, I hope these last

Posted by Kosi2801 on 10:00 AM tagged as Link Dump | Permalink

(from) That's it, Amen.

Posted by Kosi2801 on 9:42 AM tagged as Digital Nonsense | Permalink

Yesterday the clutch of my car wore off. I recognized it in the morning when I was on the highway trying to overtake another car and my rpm-display went up but my speed-display stayed the same. So I decided to drive defensively for the rest of the day and make an appointment to the garage in the afternoon. I had to go there anyway for an optical repair someone caused last Saturday by touching my car during parking (which is already paid by him).

I decided to combine the clutch repair with a complete service which is also overdue now by 2 or 3 thousand kilometers (a few weeks of driving).

My misfortune was that repairing the clutch is not a trivial task with my car and that the service for my vehicle also includes a change of the cam belt at 120.000km where I'm around now. Also no trivial task.

In total the estimated costs are currently almost equal to one months salary but I expect them to become even a bit higher than that. I'll know more next week, when the garage is finished with the car.

Posted by Kosi2801 on 2:14 PM tagged as | Permalink

Ah, finally. After years of working on the same project with the same customer now, the chances are high that I'll be participating in another project somewhere starting in the next few weeks.

It was quite a long hike but now I can really expect something changing within a month, maybe even faster.

I also had already some introduction-meetings and next Monday will be another one. The new challenges cover new technologies, Java, more database contact and I think I may get in touch with a few other people in the company.

This time it really looks serious. Seems as if my stubbornness and constant talking with people from other projects have finally paid off :)

Posted by Kosi2801 on 10:36 AM tagged as Career, Corporate | Permalink