just to let you know

the way back

The day after the final

My third day in the capital and I feel slowly but surely settled in. An amazing number of places have changed dramatically changed shape here since 1985, I can tell you. Hard to believe that so much ahs been accomplished since 1990. Besides all the complaints about the high costs of reunification and revitalisation of all the ex-border zones, I think Berlin has definitely benefitted from it.

In case you were wondering about the Alemannia Aachen Cup final of last night: It's all over - we didn't make it. But it didn't really come as a big surprise, to be honest. Our team did well and fought bravely.

to be continued...

Green and Yellow - I'm in Berlin

Thu, 27/05/04, 9am (on the GNER train from Edinburgh to Newcastle) It's funny how modern times and low cost airlines transformed traveling for all of us. Return flight fares from Newcastle are way cheaper than a connection flight from Edinburgh to Berlin. I therefore decided to catch the train to Newcastle Central and from there make my way to the airport. Door-to-door the journey shouldn't last more than 7 hours - which I don't mind. To speak with Goethe: 'Man reist nicht, um anzukommen, sondern um auf dem Weg zu sein.' (One does not travel to arrive, but to be on one's way.).

The first leg of my journey takes me through the beautiful Scottish Borders and north english countryside. Blue sky, rich green fields and spots of shiny yellow raps all over the place. This makes me wonder if blue, green and yellow go well because of blue sky, green fields and yellow raps looking pretty damn good when put together. Or do we think they go well together because we know that they are all linked as they compliment each other?

Thu, 27/05/04, 13pm (on plane to Berlin)
... and now for the final stretch. It's been 19 years since I visited Berlin last.

When I was there in May 1985, it was still divided - swimming in a socialistic sea. Back then, I had to see it to believe it. I think my whole school class had to. A split city, the Wall, a different economic system, yet still the same language and heritage. It was weird. Growing up next to the western borders with the Netherlands and Belgium, I remembered the long queues at customs when crossing borders. In the 70ies and early eighties, things were far from amicable between us and our western neighbours, so I was somehow used to borders and territory. But nothing was as despicably mind blowing as the inner-german border was back then.

After the wall fell, I couldn't quite understand all the talk about the importance of Germany to be reunited. Much to the anger of my father, I questioned and challenged every statement that was made (and believe me, there were lots of statements made in the media during 1989 - 1991!). I couldn't see the reason why we should be reunited straight away. Blame my youth or my fairly unhistorical upbringing, but I thought that economically we would be heading for a disaster by trying to save the East out of its financial misery. Up to then, I had grown up in a country that was called "West Germany" - I obviously realised that there was an "East Germany" and that a famous german tabloid always put the letters "DDR" (GDR) in quotation marks - as if to say that this country is not for real and Germany should be one.

To be continued...

Cutting the mustard

Recently I've come across the expression "... to cut the mustard" fairly often. As with all of these phrases, once I've gathered their meaning, I start using them. My wife was amused and delighted when I used it the other morning.

I've just done a bit of research on it as I wasn't completely sure what the meaning of it is or where the expression comes from. The truth is, there seems to be more than one explanation/origin of the phrase. Here is a link sporting some of the various attempts to shed some light on its origin.

linkable

• Duct Wall taping is the name for taping people onto walls and ceilings whenever appropriate (or not). It can be fun, honest !? Guess the nationality of the guy who is cellotaped to the ceiling ! (and no, it's not me)
• Apple patches OS X security hole. Phew ! A german hacker saved us all.
• Network admins of the Technical University of Braunschweig have temporarily switched off all Email spam filters. 98% of mail was identified as spam - holey moley !
• ASCII roses, ponyrides in the Grand Canyon, an Amish straw hat and a friend in India are amongst the eyebrow raising offerings on GMailSwap.com. Incredible what people are willing to do to get their hands on one of Googles GMail accounts.
• Bill Gates recommends blogs to businesses as a new tool to share information.
• A party broadcast for the european elections showed a breastfeeding mum's nipple - british authorities all spared us this emotional rollercoaster the other EU nations wiht non-censored broadcasts will have to go through.

The young radicals of 1985

ImageWell version 2

Xtralean Software released version 2 of ImageWell, a new release of its Mac image manipulation tool. I raved about IW before and would like to give you a brief overview of the improvements coming with release 2.

At the time of this review I'm running version 2 Build 214. I should mention straight away that the current version can't be run as a toolbar app - I have been assured however that a toolbar variety of it will soon be available.

So what's new in v2 ? Well Xtralean must have listened to its users and crammed the following improvements into the next release:

• IW is now Apple-scriptable


• Drop shadow effect for your images


• Watermark feature


• Multiple server locations can be added and stored to your locations list.


• URL History means you can paste multiple images/links all at once.


• Image Preview


• Image Rotation


• Check for Overwrite on server


• Improved Graphic User Interface


• Plus over 20 reported bugs in Version 1, now fixed

The most useful feature for me by far are the multiple server locations. I regularly post images to different FTP locations and always was a little bit annoyed when I had to change the FTP parameters for each location. Another appreciated newbie is the drop shadow functionality and the watermarks.

When using the "More" menu, you're now greeted with some new, helpful additions such as image rotation and a launch button of Apple's Grab tool. The only disadvantage is that Grab only allows you to perform full screen shots when launched from IW. I do prefer to use the Capture variant of Grab - which still forces me to launch the app the old fashioned way.

Xtralean must have heard my demands for a JPG image quality manipulation. Version 2 now contains a little slidebar in the "More" section to change this. Wunderbar !

Altogether, I must say that Xtralean managed to produce an even better version of an already well-appreciated tool. Of course you can argue that all this functionality is available in other packages. What makes IW different though is that it is a "lightweight" app - extremely important if the job at hand doesn't require the usage of the heavy artillery of Photoshop and the likes.

I can only highly recommend ImageWell - My current version runs problem-free under Panther - I just signed up for a beta test version of the menu-bar app version of it (simply email Xtralean directly). You can also download the normal version here.

linkable

• The Civillian Space Exploration Team managed to launch the first amateur space rocket into space. It was reported that the rocket reached an altitude of approx. 100km - launched from the Nevada desert.
• german chancellor Schroeder being slapped in the face by party member.

linkable

• Free first Mac OS X Emulator for Windows (developed by 2 programmers from Aachen !) now available for download. (but it's only version 0.1 yet)
• US moves to ban furtive photos
• Google testing banner ads as part of their AdSense program
• The Royal Economic Society recently issued an interesting article (PDF format) on the Inefficiency of Splitting the Bill. So Germans are doing it better for a change by calculating exactly what everyone's due ?
• I guess there'll be lots of people shooting off to this years Masturbate-a-thon in San Francisco

German Worm Boy Wonder (not)

The BBC claims that Germany secretly celebrates the Worm Boy Wonder in an article relating to the arrest of a young German who has admitted to have developed the lethal computer virus Sasser.

To my surprise the BBC names "tageszeitung" (taz) and "Tagesspiegel" as -what they think- credible sources with large media influence. Reality is quite different though. Both papers and news services are only representing a small (even local) part of the overall newspaper circulation figures in Germany. As far as their news services are concerned the situation is very much the same.

I don't know why the BBC thinks that any German could have any pride in a kid that damages computer systems in such a way. And if the Tagesspiegel and the left-wing Tageszeitung feel that this is an indication for a sudden talent boost or even an underestimation of our youth's skill set then that is simply their own interpretation.

Finally, I feel that BBC's Clare Murphy makes her biggest mistake by starting the article describing the economic situation of Germany in a rather pessimistic and negative way. It might be bad, but not desperate enough for Germans to blow the nationalistic trumpet in the way described - not that we would do this anyway.

linkable

• Blogging service Blogger (owned by Google) relaunches with new functionality. There is also a BBCi news article about it.
• calling all webbies - a brilliant colour pattern tool
• some quite interesting shots from a Photoshop motion image competition
• Do you know what the Sauerkraut Cup is (german language)? It's a footie match between German language students of the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. This year, the former national team coach of Germany Berti Vogts ("Boeerdie Waughts") was present. I was told that the language students involved are hoping for the match to become an annual event.
• Pac Manhattan is the live variant of the arcade classic - played in NY using WiFied laptops. There is also an article in german in Spiegel.de about it.

addressing the nation

Aren't UK addresses incredibly long ? Anyone who has ever seen german addresses knows what I'm on about. Let me give you a fictive example, but I swear that it's based on an existing postal address.

Mr & Mrs. Wuthers
The Maple Stables
Old Farnsworth Path
Middlefritham (near Clusson)
XD7 89HY
England

Gorgeous, isn't it ? Usually addresses merely help you to find a location - but a lot of addresses in the UK do more: they tell you a story and seem to say: "Oh go away with all this modern nonsense !".

Bank Holidays !

I hate bank holidays. Why ? Because the company I work for decided about 5 years back to give its employees 6 days and in return abolished 5 bank holidays (bar Christmas Day).

Well done to that company, you might say, but here I am, sitting in the office on a sunny Bank Holiday May Day while the world and his wife spend time in the parks with friends and/or family - consuming ales and spirits. Playing badminton, netball or whatever. Oh it's just not fair.

I can hear you asking why I didn't take the bank holiday off then ? Well, I wanted to avoid the busy roads and take the time off another day....

Oh just forget this article again, will you ? :-)

England and Germany: schooling systems in comparison

Some while ago I spoke with a good friend who is visiting an english school for one year.

Both of us used to complain a lot about the german school system that made us learn the same things again and again (even some days ago i had an argument with my teacher because we were writing exactly the same stuff in our excercise books as last year). He told me that he was learning much faster in England even if you count the handicap of the language. Another thing we argued a lot about with our teachers was that we only have a few chances to get active in form of workshops or by organizing events at our school in Germany. My friend told me that he is much happier in his english school. The pupils from his grade had the opportunity to organize a theatre play in the city's theatre, where he had to run the soundcheck. He also showed me some good short films which he made with a group of other pupils (something that would me interest a lot) who visited the school for one year as well. But the best thing that happened to him was that he got the offer to fly to the Olympic Games for his school, because he speaks four languages (german, english, russian and french). One of his tasks at the Olympic Games would be to interview V.I.P's in order to write an report about the games.

Of course this example is a bit extreme but my school here in Germany isn't even able to organize school events by themself rather than let the pupils organize them! It would be no problem to have something like a video workshop once a week. I even found out that our school would be able to rent a camera from an institution that had been founded for this reason.

Politicians discuss the German schooling system a lot at the moment, but i think that we are stilling working in the wrong direction. Politicians are trying to make primary schools to teach english in first grade and let high schools give exams earlier to pupils instead of teaching them more. In my opinion, the worst aspect in this discussion is that pupils -like me- who critizise the system and mention that we dont have enough possibilties at german schools are the minority. This is also shown by studies that made the german schooling system turn out to be completely useless. I hope that politicians will manage to solve these problems although when i wont have to cope with this anymore (I am now in grade 11 and I am going to make my exams in grade 13).

it's gonna be a WiFi trip, Baby !