Pictures

.. of silly things

In the past week I took some pictures with my phone which I would like to share with you. The pictures have in common that they both brought a smile to my face and a wrinkle on my forehead.

These pictures just make me wonder if there are people out there that just do stupid things out of good intentions.

Inspirational poster

For the past couple of months I have been involved at a project at Getronics PinkRoccade. That was recently taken over by CapGemini. On the 1st of December things got really going. We had coffee cups with the CapGemini logo and there were pens (the whole familiy now uses those) and peppermint and all things wow!

The same day the logo was taken of the building and replaced. Also posters appeared throughout the building. Including the one above.

So, now we are invited to "do what we want". I don't think that will do the progress of the current project much good. On the other hand I ahve now more time to do one or the other blog post.

Parking lot

Then this weekend I visited a restaurant in the NH Hotel just outside of Kaatsheuvel, The Netherlands and spotted this sign.

The parking lot was slightly wider. I measured it and found that this was four steps wide and the others were three steps wide. So, the parking lot was conceived by someone with the conception that women need more space to park their cars in. That must have been a man. A male chauvinist pig with a tiny brain. Every right thinking man knows that women drive in smaller cars so they do not need extra space to park in.

Thinking back I wish I had spotted the sign before I parked my own car. If I had seen it earlier I probably would have parked like an asshole square across at least two parkings spaces. But then again I would have needed a big SUV for that.

Probably

Probably both these have been created by someone with good intentions, but they have both failed completely in my opinion. But still they failed with success.

Getting more hits through a banana

.. and maybe more bananas as well

In recent times I have published about the banana button and its use and also many competely useless posts about bananas. This being a more serious blog (ahum) there must be something about these banan posts. Well, I could try to pull together an interesting study about my GREAT PLAN that can take over the Internet as we know it, but no, no such plan exists. Yet.

There is just something about bananas that has always apeeled to me. I like to eat them, they're tasty and nutritiuous. But they are also connected with a smile: the curve looks like a smile when held up the right way. Bananas also have slapstick component through the eternal slipping on the peel. Top it off with the bright yellow skin and it is just a very attractive piece of fruit.

Why then yet another banana post?

Does the web need yet another piece of nonsense about bananas?

No.

Image by Technofreak via Flickr

Why then continue?

I have seen many visitors ome to this blog from very weird searches in Google and sometimes they seem totally unrelated to the blog and the content. They are however not totally unrelated. As an example, I keep getting traffic from image search for "Pippi Longstocking". I had mentioned her in a post or two along with a picture I had taken in Sweden.

The second post even increased the traffic more.

So. let's change that banana

It's a bit disturbing to get traffic to your blog like that, but on the other hand if you want traffic above anything else it is a way to do just that. In comes the banana! To the rescue comes the banana. For the people: the everlasting banana.

Bananas are healthy

It's just another stupid experiment to continu writing about all aspects of the banana to tray and make this post become one of the banana resources one would find high in serach reslts.

Bananas beat Google

As I have mentioned before apart from bananas bullets are important too.

A quick recap:

• Bananas are tasty
• Bananas are nutritious
• Bananas are fun
• Bananas are slastick
• Bananas are superior
• Bananas are traffic magnets
• Bananas are Bananas!

Let's go Bananas!

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Five years ago

.. I ran in the dark in Oregon

This morning while scanning my news feeds I cam across this post from the Official Google Blog. It's about running the Hood to Coast run.

I just had to smile. I did that ficve years ago and I really, really like it. Today, by coincidence I am wearing my Hood to Coast tee from five years ago.

Start the day with a smile

The post made me think back of the team I was thrown in at the last moment, being the third reserve. It turned out to be a great adventure and a lot of fun. Met some great people and did some great running in a great part of the world.

Eventhough a small misunderstanding in communication eventually led to a conflict with a chaotic team lead more than a year later, it's a memory I cherish.

I wish I could do it again.

Google OS is a browser

.. well, well, well

Today, the world was shook up by Google in almost Apple style. There was a leak a day or maybe hours earlier than it would officially be announced. Or was it on puropse? Anyhow, the blog hive was alive with buzz-buzz-buzz. Google Chrome was announced.

There has been persistent rumors about the secret Google Operating System and any self respecting Google watcher was certain that one day that would become official. And today it has, sort of.

Well, maybe not. The OS is not an OS, it's a browser. A completely new browser. Designed by today's standards and today's demands. Not building on parts of the past.

Image by l0ckergn0me via Flickr

Well a pleasant shock

This is a pleasant shock and I am really looking forward to this and how this browser will behave on my various sites I built. Will they still render as intended. I think so, since the browser uses the WebKit rendering engine.

Much greater is the anticipation about what the general public will think of it. Will they adopt it now there is browser with a really big name out there. There is big reputation at stake here. And will it nibble away more share from Google or will Firefox lose share? Will it become another tech toy for nerds and proffesionals?

Uhm and then this

Also today I came across this article explaining how IE8 behaves on a Windows system. How much memory it grabs and how much processor power it needs. Astonishing! Compare that with the story of Google Chrome and you can only shake your head.

Watching the official announcement

Doing some live blogging ;-)

• It surely does look sexy.
• The Omni Box seems more versatile than the Smart Bar, good name.
• Web application becoming very much like desktop applications
• There is a Porno Switch as well!
• Crashing a browser will only crash tab, that's cool. I have seen and still see crashes of Firefox and IE and those ARE annoying!
• WebKit is blistering fast!
• Who wouldn't want a V8 under the hood? And what about a V8 running your JavaScript?
• Built on Danish Virtual Machine expertise. Hidden classes, hmm, interesting.
• Ha! I am already downloading!
• Downloading and installing takes less than two minutes to get started as well! Again blistering fast!
• 20:58 local time I am now editing this blog post in Google Chrome! I might be one of the first in the World!!!
• LOL ".. based on my extensive testing for the last three minutes"
• LOL Statistics for nerds
• I am really impressed, but will still hold on to Firefox for the time being, but also will be using Google Chrome!

So, I had a quick look at one the statistics that run on my site to see what the Chrome browser is identfied as and .. Lo and behold! It's being recognized as Safari 1.3! This will no doubt be fixed pretty soon. But there is also a mention of Chrome there.

Blog log

Safari 1.3 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/0.2.149.27 Safari/525.13

Fun!

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Wanna tip?

.. go ahead

Recently tipping on the Internet has gained some momentum. It's nearing the tipping point, ahum. On various blogs and site you see things popping up like Tipjoy. Sites like these provide the possibility to tip the authors of good, helpful, funny or entertaining content.

I try to be an author of good, helpful, funny or entertaining content. So, I have decided to include a Tipjoy button in my sidebar on the right. It's an experiment.

Probably will never get rich though

I do not think that I will soon be maintaining this blog from a yacht in the Carribean with Satelite Internet but you'll never know.

Looking at the numbers I published recently when literally every visitor clicks the button an donates $0.10 then over a period of almost three years I would make $1271,10. That would hardly pay for a inflatable boat with outboard engine and would certainly not get me to the Carribean.

But then again, you'll never know. So, please start clicking.

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There are more like me

.. and out there in the wild

How about a banana shoe?

I would vote for it. But do it quickly, voting ends today.

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A banana a day

.. keeps your visitors at bay

Readers of this blog may have noticed my passion for bananas as they are all over the site and pages. I just think the banana is a nice thing, easily recognized object, it's tasty, nutritiuos, kids and adults love them. Well, I better stop before I the water from my mouth starts to run on to the keyboard.

Image via Wikipedia

But there's more to bananas than just fruit. There is? yes, there is. The banana is a symbol that brings a smile to a face, because you know someone might slip on the peel. The banana is also oasis of distraction in a busy world. Hmm that might just stretch it a bit.

The banana as part of the website optimization

Yes, again this seems far fetched, but I do believe in it. I have seen an experiment happen and I saw the effect it had, but can not go into much detail. But, today I found an article on a Dutch site that describes almost exactly the same strategy of using a banana on a webpage.

Here's the story

For those readers that can not read Dutch I give this short translation.

The article is about the three B's of SEO.

• Bananas
• Bullets
• Bold

Starting bottom up. Using bold throughout the text makes it significantly easier to scan. Users can quickly identify the important words and phrases on a page. As a bonus search engines recognize these important keywords as well.

the use of bullets is already shown above. A small list is very easily recognized and is also easily scanned. If you get 4 seconds to scan a page you will straight away go for the headers and sub headers, bold words and the bulleted lists. Mind you, web readers tend to scan pages even fatser than that!

Finally, the banana. It seems a bit out of place, but the article tells about Seth Godin who states that "website visitors are like little monkeys looking for bananas". A picture of a banana on a webpage acts like a strong magnet that pulls the mouse and vistor towards it. The urge to click is irresistable. Create a big button with just a banana on it and users will just start to click on it and they know they will get where they want to go.

I know it works

I have seen the banana on a site and I have seen the data and I know it works. I will now find me a big banana picture and create me nice big banana button.

It's so easy to mistake a madman for a genius and vice versa.

Update

Yes, I could resist it. And then again: who can resist the call of the banana?

Who's the scary man?

.. and why is he touching me?

Hang in there girl! He will go away soon.

I know, it can never be soon enough.

Yes, he is gone!

Good Cheap and Fast Service

.. sounds too perfect to be true

In fact it is too good to be true.

Anyway, two out of three aint bad.

Wanna know how Gmail works?

.. different from what you expected!

On the official Gmail blog they announced a challenge for people around the globe: to show how Gmail works in an funny video.

The official Gmail blog

A few of us on the Gmail team came up with an idea to stitch together a bunch of video clips that all share one element: someone hands the Gmail M-velope in from the left of the screen, and hands it off to the right. Put them all together, and they form one long chain of hand-offs

This what came out of that idea.

Consultants

.. bit of self reflection

In the past I always have been looking at consultants as people from a different planet. There was a time that I really believed that they actually know everything. Now I know it's just one big secret society with silent rules about what to do and say and when, how and where to say that. I know, because I am one of them now.

Sorry.

Some definitions and observations

The following definitions and observations concerning consultants are true.

• A consultant is someone whom a manager gives a number and then takes that number goes away for some time and then hands that number back to the manager with an accompanying invoice. Somehow that is satisfying to the manager, as long as the number doesn't change.
• When you ask a consultant what time it is, he will give you instructions on how to build your own clock.
• There are three kinds of consultants: those that can count and those that can't.
• When you ask a kid or any sane person how much one and one add up to they wil answer two. Which I still hold to be correct. A consultant will ask: "well, how much would you like it to be?"

And slowly and surely I begin to understand this.

And slowly and surely I begin to lose my senses.

Almost vacation

.. but I'll give you this

This might not be completely original and very new, but I just discovered it and thoughht I would share it with you, dear reader.

Mashing up is easy

.. with Google Mashup Editor

Yep, it tickled my imagination and so I tried it out: Google Mashup Editor

So, here it is:

I know, it's not much, but it was half an hour fiddling about. Fun!

Other disclaimers

.. can be fun as well

Some time ago I published the disclaimer for this blog, well because some people needed to be aware that no sheep were hurt. No dogs either.

Now there are more of these disclaimer around and I stumbled into this one today.

I thought it was funny although sheep were hurt in the making of th book ;-)

Time too waste?

.. easy!

Well I thought Flickrvison was a nice way to stare at a computer screen for hours and do nothing.

But now Google has come up with another great way of spending valuable work hours.

I wonder what comes up next.

Hawking

.. quick one

Just a little something to smile about.

A lovely quote

Speaking to a sold out crowd at the Berkeley Physics Oppenheimer Lecture, Hawking said yesterday that he now believes the universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing. He said more work is needed to prove this but we have time because 'Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.'

Again: Naturally this wasn't you!

.. my dear colleague!

This post is a follow-up to my previous complaint about the behavior of colleagues and was inspired by the wonderful You park like an asshole site.

This person apparently does not understand what the blue lines are indicating. They are outlining PARKING SPACES!Hey, there are plenty free parking spaces. Why then don't you park in one of them?

The same SAAB as the photo above. Apparently he likes to leave as much space for others as possible. All right, let's call this social good behavior.

To confirm my theory another SAAB has parked also very socially as to leaving as much parking space available for others. Then again, it could also be that SAAB drivers are socially inept and avoid any contact with others. I am not sure, but a pattern seems to be emerging here.

And here's another confirmation of the theory. This is what we now call the "Wall Hugger". Again, leaving as much space as possible for others. SAAB drivers maybe shy, afraid to get into the way of anybody else.

Look very carefully for the painted wheelchair. The owners of these two cars are not handicapped. Thank you very much.

And here one other colleague who has no idea why these blue lines are painted all over the square. There were in total nine spots free but this driver decided to park as close to the entrance as possible.

I really do hope you have better behaving colleagues.

I wish I had seen this site earlier: I got have ordered the bumper stickers!