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@jarown you can buy boxes full of them. (know by accidentaly buying à box once)

Thursday, May 26 2005

NLUUG spring conference

I was at the NLUUG conference yesterday promoting and informing about gnome together with Ronald. The location and set up was quite similar as with the novell conference a few months ago. I think it went really well, the 20 to 25 ubuntu warty cd's i brought all where gone at the end of the day, and also the flyers with information about gnome where gone too. the ppc version of ubuntu was harder to get rid of, although they also where mostly gone at the end of the day, although i suspect some people din't really notice that it was ppc and also dint ask us about it.

A few problems that we got questions about where as following;

• We got quite a few questions about accessibility in gnome, but apart from the themes for the visually disabled, the assistive technology support menu and the fact that Ronald knew that gtk in a way forces developers to think about accessibility because it is required by the interface with gtk objects. (at least thats what i picked up about it with half a ear) A bit bummer however was when the accessibility project page was showed. The first thing one will notice is that the "latest" news is from 26 of june 2004. Which especially in computer terms is off course old news.
• We also got a few questions about gnome in solaris, and how to update that version. which to be frank i don't know a damn thing about. But we exchanged cards with the company that asked about it, and will have a little look around to see who or what company knows a bit more about that.

A very big plus at the conference was that Ronald had a "Alpha" version of gstreamer/totem running that had some cool new features we could demo. Which turned out to generate quite a crowed when he gave a demo of it. So for the next conference/event where going to be, we certainly should bring some cool tech demo. I was thinking luminocity perhaps, since it is quite easy to build and because of the xfake trick that makes sure that when it all chrashes you only have to start up a the Xfake again and luminocity and your off again. And whe can simply tell people what Seth bloged.

Also Ronald, me the kde-nl people and probably a lot more got asked to go work for Yacht. So if your into IT and have knowledge of UNIX/LINUX and are in need of a job, you might want to look there.

I also will rewrite this blog post when i get home from work to include some proper grammer and spelling :)

Saturday, May 21 2005

Buying a house is bad for your mental well being

It all sounded so wonderful and so easy. About a half year ago, "i just needed to put my little scribble on a contract and in a few months the house would be mine". I just needed to get a mortgage and that would be that, no worries and no problems.

And it was all done, at least for a few months it was. Then the mortgagor decided that they din't like the contract and all hell broke loose. Notaries telling me on the left that there's nothing wrong with the contract and my mortgagor on the right telling me that they don't care if it's legal or not they just wont accept it. Evidently this stressed out our assigned notary because he decided to take a unannounced vacation.
Well happily 2 months later and 2.5 weeks before the transfer of the house, (where i need to have a mortgage or pay a 10% total cost penalty) it all got straightened out. A new contract was made and everyone was happy.

And what a joyous week that was, because then the life insurance company decided they needed me to take a medical test and a small blood test, which is perfectly normal, yet not perfectly normal 12 days before the transfer especially not when they have had my request for at least 3 MONTHS. (image this having to go from a doctor, to a doctor at a company whom decides if i can get a insurance, who notifies the mortgagor that it's all right, who then can give me the mortgage. I suspect normally this would take at least a month, perhaps two. Yet now this has to be accomplished in less then 12 days, including weekends and a bit of GUEDAC.

So therefore i can conclude, that if you haven't bought a house, you don't know the meaning of the word stress.

Monday, May 02 2005

Business cards

After much talking, designing, sweating and frustration where almost done with the business cards for gnome-nl. A few final modifications have been made, the results is a very `GNOME` card. The front-side is designed by uws, it is very clear, holds all the needed information and looks very professional.

The backside of the card will hold a full visual that will be different for every batch of cards per person. This will give the cards a very personal touch and a playful style that is certainly present within the gnome community. Some final decisions around what kind of images will be used and some legal stuff is still being done, but this won't pose a significant problem i think. It's simply just wrapping it all up. So here i present a sneak preview of the current final design of the gnome-nl business card.



Don't worry about any missing info on the card, that will all be dynamically generated on demand with the hurryjane.com system. Whom also are sponsoring us these cards at no cost. (YaY)