Many years ago, I bought my first mobile phone. At the time I wanted to make sure certain people could reach me at all times, in case of an emergency. This has always been the main reason why I carry my phone with me at all times outside of my house. After a while, I upgraded the phone to newer models and eventually to a smartphone/PDA. I still hardly ever use it to make calls, except for when I am running late for an appointment. The phone has always been just one of those things, and sometimes I will forget it for a day, and that is fine too.

Until a couple of days ago, when I was supposed to go somewhere after work. That day I forgot to bring my phone, and all day I felt uncomfortable. I never realized how much I depend on the phone to feel “safe” and comfortable knowing I can always get in touch with someone if I need to. I have noticed this with other people before. Now I have reached this phase. What's next, actually using the phone for stupid small talk calls to people I am about to meet in five minutes? Someone better stop me before that happens!

It must have been over five years ago when I first compiled a simple html page that would display a bunch of my favorite online comics. I still use that page and manually update it, so it always shows the comics of today. Yes, no doubt there are programs that do this, but my simple method works for me. Even though lately I have been able to subscribe to an increasing number of comics by rss.

I love reading comics. Sometimes one of the comics or cartoons is so funny or appropriate, I want to share it with people. This is usually limited to taping a printed comic on one of my walls at work. Sometimes it would be cool to show people on one of my sites what made me laugh that day. Most comic sites online have a very strict reuse policy. I.e., don't do it! In fact, years ago when I found some funny cartoons I contacted publishers to ask if it would be ok to display a single cartoon on my non-profit (very low volume, we're talking 10 visitors a month) web page. The only way I could do that, was to pay a hefty sum of money. Hah. No thanks.

Comics.com is one of the comics sites that has been around for a long time. I checked it out and didn't like it. It would only email comics and I didn't like html mails. Still don't. Recently, comics.com got a major overhaul. And lo and behold, now there are lots of social options. A lot of comics now have great options like view full size, votes, share to social networking and bookmarking sites, printing, and embedding of comics. Which is what I intend to give a try at the end of this post. Best of all when it comes to easy reading of comics: if you register, you can create your own comics page that contains your selected comics, get your comics by mail, or as rss feed ... That is awesome.

Available options probably depend on artist or publisher policies. I notice some comics don't offer the share and embed options, while others (such as Dilbert) can't be selected for your comics page/rss. A good thing Dilbert has its own page, complete with rss, share, and embed options.

It looks like the embed option simply gives you the proper html including the correct image link. Since it is basic html, it should work on any site. So, let's see if I am right by pasting a recent Pearls Before Swine episode.



Oh, this is going to be fun!

The Dutch optician/eyeglasses store franchise Eye Wish Groeneveld is running an ad campaign about small print. It invites people to send in examples of ridiculously small print, e.g. in contracts and manuals, or on products. Part of the campaign is the release of a screen magnification tool.

Called the 'Websitevergroter' (web site magnifier), the small application does more than it suggests. It not only magnifies text and graphics on web sites, but also on your desktop. This makes it a good solution for people who have trouble reading a regular computer screen. Of course, Windows has its own accessibility options, including the option to use larger fonts, different resolutions, and a Microsoft magnifier. I considered including an example screenshot, but that doesn't seem to make sense. It would probably be resized when you see it anyway. So if you need this kind of software, you should try some alternatives. I do notice that this particular magnifier seems to do better than the few I checked, and it works well with pictures too. Which is another application of course, use it to zoom in on pictures on sites, if you don't have a Firefox add-on to do so. The program requires .NET to run.

Wondering if there are other freeware magnifying programs available, I came across magnifiers.org, a site dedicated to accessibility software, in particular to screen readers, magnifiers, and text-to-speech solutions. this site then led me to DesktopZoom. In addition to zooming areas around your mouse pointer, DesktopZoom also has an option to show a small display of your page in the corner and then show a magnified version of part of the screen. See this example. This is good if you need magnification almost all the time, but it makes me wonder: if you need magnification, will you be able to use the small display to navigate or is that impossible to read?

Another free solution is Virtual Magnifying Glass, which comes with a lot of options.

Websitevergroter is Dutch, but that does not have to bother you. It only has three settings: zoom factor, speed, and size (of the magnifying glass). To use it, click the icon and then drag it to the part of the screen you want magnified. As soon as let go of the left mouse button, the magnification ends. Which is annoying if you need to magnify part of the screen for a while. Like when you need to write down a phone number. Kind of hard to do with your 'bad' hand when you need your 'good' hand to hold the mouse. Virtual Magnifying Glass is better in this case. You click its tray icon and it starts magnifying where ever you move your mouse, until you click again.

Although I don't need any magnifying software right now, I figured it can't hurt to read up on it and be prepared. Plenty of older family members who may benefit from this at some point.

No no, I am not insane and I won't give it a try. But this guy is doing exactly that: he is going to live a month without Internet access.

I know, there are plenty of people who rarely spend time online. I even know at least one person whose only Internet access is when he looks over my shoulder while I search for something. But as someone who is used to being online a large part of the day, I find it hard to imagine a month without Internet access. Even if there was a way to stay in touch with my loved one without Internet access, I would still find it hard to be offline. Kind of strange, considering what I do online. Which is mostly reading news sites and playing an occasional game. Surely I could just watch the news on tv and play offline games? Surely ... Well, maybe I could. But I think I would feel left out, like I would miss something really important. The kind of things that don't make the 8 o'clock news.

A month without Internet access. At this point in life, after years of (almost) 24/7 online access, I don't see how I would do it. I get severe withdrawal symptoms after a day, two at the most. I think I will have driven myself and everyone around me nuts by the end of the first week, if I ever lose Internet access for that long.

In a time when two major European Airlines (Air France and Alitalia) happen to be affected by strikes and delays, the EU has announced an e-mail address for passengers affected by matters such as strikes and airline travel problems. EU passengers can mail passengersrights@ec.europa.eu to receive help.
[Source] (in Dutch, try this for news in English.)

An interesting idea, which begs the question: how long will it take to get a reply from this address? Is it operated 24/7 with a quick turnaround, or will the wait for an answer take just as long as the wait for the delayed flight?

(Of course one drawback to this service is the high cost of mobile internet on phones throughout Europe. € 25/mb not being an exception when one uses roaming mobile web access.)

[Edit: fixed the English link, thanks ]

Once upon a time I (legally, imagine that) acquired a copy of Microsoft Office 2000. This is the software I still use when I want to read or write Office documents such as Word or Excel files. So far, this used to work well, since even that old version could read the newer files created by such interestingly named applications as Word 2003. With the switch to Office 2007, this no longer is the case. The new “docx” files are not compatible with the older Word versions. So anytime I receive a file with a docx extension, I have trouble reading it. Not anymore though, since there is a fairly simple solution.

Microsoft must have understood that it would piss off a lot of customers if it would make it completely impossible for users of older Office versions to read the new documents. Enter the “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats” that you can download from the Microsoft web site. Simply download and run the exe, which will then magically enable your old Office software to read the new file format.

I guess this means I'm good for another while, until Microsoft comes up with yet another new standard. In which case I hope they publish a new conversion tool/fix, since I am not looking forward to buying a new Office version. At that point I would probably switch to OpenOffice for real.

Ever since hearing about those so-called browser “cookies” for the first time, I have been very wary about accepting and storing them. Over time, I became slightly more comfortable with cookies from some sites, while still blocking other cookies. Even my own site uses cookies nowadays, because they do serve a purpose.

Thinking I quite thoroughly scrub cookies from my computers, it was quite an unpleasant surprise when I heard about Adobe's Flash storing cookies as well. Cookies stored in a location that can't be accessed by my browser, so they don't get deleted when I delete the regular cookies. Now, I forgot where I read this (it was in one of the many RSS feeds I read, and a while back so I can't track where I read about it first), but it turns out you can actually delete those flash cookies. In addition, you can manage future storage of cookies. All this, through Adobe's Flash Player help pages. Delete cookies using the manager at this location. Use one of the other tabs in the manager to change other settings.

Yes, it has finally happened! A Bomberman version for the Wii that lets you compete against up to 7 other players, by yourself or as a team.

I loved Bomberman on the Amiga and had great fun playing with and against friends. It could get a little crowded, with five of us huddling around one Amiga, but man was it fun. Of course I will never have that same feeling playing against online opponents. Not even if they are friends. Not even if we end up using some kind of online voice chat. But at least the game will let me play against actual opponents and not just computer opponents. Maybe I will stand a chance. Some of the time.

The objective of the game is simple: each player plays a little terrorist (hey, these days everybody with a bomb is a terrorist, after all) armed with a single bomb. The bomb is used to blow up walls, or opponents. Once a wall is blown, it may reveal power-ups, such as extra bombs, or a larger blast radius. The last bomberman alive is the winner. Simple premise, simple execution. No need for amazing graphics or sound track, just great gameplay.

Bomberman Blast is available through the Wii Ware channel, which means you need to have online access and you need Wii Points. The game costs 1000 points, equivalent to 10 euros. Well worth it.

Now, excuse me while I go practice, so the next game will indeed be a blast.

Check out some images and video of the game.

[edited just minutes later to add: read this lengthy review if you want more details of the actual game]

Every once in a while I find an application that really surprises me. Dropbox is such an application. Dropbox lets you move files between your computer and online server space, allowing you to synchronize data on several computers. Plus, files in the online space can be shared with specific people or made public.

It really takes only a couple of minutes to install Dropbox. Simply download the installer from the site and run it. Once it is installed, Dropbox sits in your system tray. It can/will start every time you start windows, but you can easily shut it down. With Dropbox comes a Dropbox folder. Any file moved to that folder will also be copied to your online storage. The maximum storage size is 2 GB, enough for average home or work use. Plenty of room to put some mp3's and Word documents, perhaps even a (home) movie. Your online folder can also be accessed through a web interface, so no matter where you are, you can always access your files.

Online storage space is not new. However, many alternatives require you to use the browser upload function, which is a hassle if you want to upload several times. Your dropbox folder is accessible like any local Windows folder (there is also a Linux version). Simly drag and drop files, rename them, open them and work on the files, no problems there. It should be possible to put your favorites/bookmarks in your dropbox folder from home so they sync with the online version. Then you go to work, install dropbox (if policies allow or at least enable you to do so) and access the bookmarks from there. Which should result in always having the same bookmarks. I did not try this yet though.

The main application I see right now, is to move files more easily between home, work, and laptop, without having to resort to ftp or uploading individual files. Since it is possible to grant access to certain folders to specific users (based on email-address), this is a great way to work on files in cooperation with others. Should more than one person work on the same file at the same time, Dropbox will alert about conflicting versions. If you just want to share some some photos, Dropbox installs a default image folder, with example pictures. You can also upload files to the 'public' folder, which is accessible to anyone. Using right-click and the context menu, links to individual public files can be created, so you can mail these to people, or put them on your web page.

Note: when I say a folder is 'publicly available' this means the synchronized folder on the server is accessible. To the best of my knowledge, it does not mean anyone is actually acessing the folder on your local hard drive.

From what I have read, Dropbox uses Amazon's storage service to facilitate the storage. This should be a fairly reliable (as in uptime) solution. File transfer is encrypted, but of course you are storing files online, so if files contain sensitive data or if you just want to make sure nobody can see what you stored online, go with encryption. Encrypt individual files, or create an encrypted volume/storage container inside your Dropbox folder.

Basically, Dropbox seems to be so easy to use, if I install this on my mom's computer, I can easily exchange files with her without her having to learn anything new. Just basic file management stuff. Impressive.

After watching The Website Is Down, I consider myself lucky my experiences with users are not quite like this. Nothing much I can say about this short movie, except that I actually laughed out loud several times while watching it. A good thing I didn't watch this at work.