My hometown, 1st important bicycle city in the world

Today I was sent a YouTube presentation of my home town city, Groningen, the Netherlands, made by RAI3, Radio Televisione Italiana, 3rd programme.
Of course, the language spoken is Italian, but please let the images tell the story:
- how relaxed a cyclist can be/feel in my city's traffic
- how principles of safety between cyclists and motorists have been legally established
- how thousands of bicycles are comfortably stored minutes from the Central Station
- (by way of encore) how Italians see the actual situation in Pisa (Italy)
The video my take some seconds to load... please be patient!

I joined Facebook recently

Unlike Hyves, Facebook is US based and in English only. It's today's most rapidly growing social network community.

Facebook is a global social utility that connects people from all over the world with friends and others who work, study and live around them.

Facebook is made up of many many networks, each based around a company, region, or school. You can join the networks that reflect your real-life communities.

Facebook's Platform enables anyone, anywhere, to build complete applications that you can choose to use. The possibilities are endless. Define your experience on Facebook by choosing applications that are useful and relevant to your world.

To learn more about Facebook before joining, take the Site Tour at http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/

Top 4 photobook printer services worldwide

I liked to create a magazine-like, soft cover, glossy, high quality, largely configurable printed photo album.
To find out, I tested dozens of album printing services worldwide, including every existent Dutch alternative.
Here is my choice of top 4 services:

* Myphotobook, a Germany based company, offering "regional" sites in several European languages... the link brings you to the [.co.uk] site (just change co.uk to [.nl], [.de], [.fr] etc. for other countries).
The downloadable software is extremely configurable and there will probably be no limit to your artistic imagination.
Printing quality is superior, comparable to international-magazines standards.

* Ex aequo: Albert Heijn and Kruidvat
I haven't been able to compare printing quality, but you'll find serious restrictions with regard to configuration options.

* FlickR's QOOP album printing service.
Even more configuration restrictions and less colourful printing results.

Pricing should not be a problem in your decision making process: all services roughly charge € 0,50/$0,59 per page, with a maximum of 144.

Laugavegur pictures online

Pictures of my 2007, Iceland Laugavegur trek have been published at FlickR today. Most of them are tagged [Private], only family and friends will have access to the set.

Laugavegur trek is an 8-days hike from Landmannalaugar in the SW highlands to Skógar on the Atlantic in the South.
Marijke and I did the walking from 22 June - 2 July under wonderful weather conditions... actually, we had no rain at all (OK, one day of walking in a cloud bank), which is said to be rather exceptional in the region.
Fellow travellers say this trek is one of the top three hiking trails worldwide...
I think they might be right.

Day 0 was the flight Eindhoven > Kevflavik and the transfer to Reykjavik.
Days 1-8, the transfer by bus from Reykjavik to halfway the trail to Landmannahellir, then the real trek from Landmannahellir > Landmannalaugar > Hrafttinnusker > Alfavatn > Emstrur > Þorsmörk > Fimmvörđurháls > Skógar...
some 100 kms / 62 miles or 70 walking hours.
Days 9 and 10 in Reykjavik
Day 00, flight back home

New Iceland Trek in a couple of weeks...

Today, we're less than a month away form our new full swing Iceland trek: Starting at Landmannalaugar in the geothermic and volcanic inland, the Laugavegur trail will bring us, Marijke and me, north-south to Skogar on the Atlantic in 8 days of walking through an absolutely fascinating scenery... this trail is said to be one of the three most beautiful treks in the world !!
Michel Blomgren from Sweden walked the path in July 2006 as part of his Iceland Travers 2006 between 65 and 63 degrees, north to south. His very interesting video registration (287 MB downloadable DivX/mp3 avi file from the linkpage) gives a really good impression of both the northern and the southern part of the trek.
You can watch images from our southern Laugavegur trail as of minute 41:30 in Michel's video.
Enjoy!

And the winner is...: Box.net

Recently, I've been testing a series of currently available File Sharing Applications (client side) and Services (server side). At the end of the race, there were four candidates left: Pando, Zapr, BoxCloud and Box.net

It turned out that, today, Box.net offers the best combination of requested features and options to synchronise with Trilobite House:
* It's a Web based Service; my PC doesn't need to be online for users to access my files (unlike Zapr & BoxCloud)
* No need to send e-mails to potential users to provide them with an access-link (unlike Pando, Zapr & BoxCloud)
* No need for users to register in order to have access to my Public Pages (unlike BoxCloud)
* No need for users to download & install the client (unlike Pando & BoxCloud)
* Very nice and handy automatic post-to-blog flash widget for direct file access (see integration in the right-hand menu, orange box >>>>>

Conclusion: Box.net is very user friendly, highly configurable and has a dynamic developers team. They offer several pricings, including a free version if you don't exceed the Space 1GB/mo and Bandwidth 10GB/mo limit. RSS subscription, .zip file support, sub-(work)groups and collaborative document writing are all available in the paid versions... very cool.

La Plagne (France), slide show of a splendid day that was.

Guess what's a good thing to do when Marijke is in France on skiing holiday for another couple of days....? well, first of all: not to be envious about the fantastic weather in La Plagne, sunny and temperatures round + 4 by day and - 4 at night with not a breath of wind.
Here's a picture from around 3 p.m. when the sun is already fairly low and not far away from disappearing behind the nearby ridges...
Next thing I did was really fun: you can have a look into a short half-screen slide show from local webcam captures during just one day (ok, a bit hanky-panky, but who cares?)... Select the presentation from my FlickR pictures set [France 2007 La Plagne]. On the set page select [View as a slide show]. Enjoy.

Flickr adopted as default picture sharing application

This is a test blog post from , almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.
You'll find a clickable FlickR picture badge image in the menu to the right, so you can easily access my images from now on. Enjoy!

I have several good resolutions for 2007...

one of them being to resume the thread of this blog again...
So, let's wait and see whether or not this this will be the first step of going to hell, since it is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions :-)

Started playing the double bass again

A day to remember, indeed!
I entered into a lease of a double bass occasion in good shape for an initial period of half a year.... Believe me, it really was an exciting moment because I haven't been playing the big fat "seducer" for nearly 20 years now. It was quite a thrill to feel again the effecting impact of the magic resonances of low strings touching body and soul... an emotional reunion.

This is Bert Boon, an expert violin maker, who offered the double bass, obtained in part exchange, on trial. On the picture above, the instrument waiting for me in Bert's atelier (well, not exactly that one of course... it's a similar instrument on a picture from his website)

Why do Italians say "Firenze" and most others "Florence" ?

This is a question that preoccupies me already for a while...
To give an idea of the confusion, here is the start of a site on Firenze's history; it's in Italian ... and a translation in English: Primi insediamenti accertati nella pianura fiorentina. Sono tracce di un popolo (forse i liguri) che aveva importanti rapporti commerciali con la Grecia e la Sardegna. In plain English: Traces have been found that, round 2000 B.C., the plain of Florentina was inhabited by a population being in close commercial relationship with both Greece and Sardinia.

One of my friends thinks that Fiorentina has become Firenze just because this fits the phonetics of Italian: (flor,flower) = fiore. So, words like Fior(entia), later, by phonetic reduction for the ending sounds [-tsia] > [-sja] >[-za]> Fiorenza > gradually became Fiorenze... but the other step?
How is to be explained the cut off of the –o and the change from [jo] to [i] in F[jo]renz(a/e) ??

WordPress blog development canceled

Today I decided to stop the development of my WordPress test blog at mynamexxx.wordpress.com. Given my modest requierements on blog's flexibility, I had already chosen to get the Free Blog on a WordPress.com server and only apply some CSS modifications for color, fonts and images.
Guess... WP makes a $ 15 charge for the service to upload your saved coding to the WP server... per year!
Blogger offers even more extended functionality for free... a better deal !

Trilobite of the Month, August 2006

Believe it or not... there is a Trilobite of the month nomination, published by Dr. Sam Gon III, a biologist (PhD, Animal Behavior; MA, Zoology (Ecology, Behavior and Evolution) who is greatly intrigued by the expression of ancient biodiversity that trilobites represent. Sam has long been interested in paleobiology and in teaching himself about trilobites, using hyperlinks to cross-reference terminology and concepts, found himself developing a web resource of potential interest to a broader audience. The site was first unveiled in August 1999 and has attracted feedback from around the world. (facts from source http://www.trilobites.info/#author)
On the site you have easy access to interesting topics like Species Fact Sheets and The Big Trilobite FAQ, Reconstructions and Artist Impressions. There is a special site offering a big choice of images and animation galleries, check The Anomalocaris Homepage

This is one of Kyoichi Sasazawa's earlier animations that can be seen at The Anomalocaris Homepage

Communication channels section added

Of course you can easily add Skype to your blog... nice buttons and reliable communicataion, great.
Less-known is a more business and education oriented application called Campfire, that lets you set up password-protected group chat rooms in just seconds.
On their website they say that the big advantage of this programme is that you don't need to download, install, or configure anything (no IT department required!). All you need is a web browser and an internet connection. Isn't that anything to lick your lips for??
You can have an inside look using the Campfire communications channel (Blogger HTML and Javascript tool added to the right menu bar). To experience full functionality, you should consider creating an account at the Campfire website... it's free.

Will World66 survive?

Some four months ago (on 20 April 2006) World66 as well as Wikitravel became part of the California based Internet Brands family. The press relaese told us that both organisations were very excited! It said that "With Internet Brands we will be able to grow World66 faster, we will be able to implement new features better and with Wikitravel also on board we will get a much better shot at realizing the big dream: making an open travel guide that beats any other travel guide you can find, both online and printed".
I was also said that "by teaming up this goal is within reach."
Well, we're more than 4 months later now... still no concrete plans have been published for the near future... It looks like there is a complete radio silence from the headquarters... They say they're working on the new developing plan, but no strategic discussions and/or decision making proposals so far... this shouldn't last too long... More and more, I get the unpleasant feeling to be kept up in the air --> decreasing motivation to do my part of the job.

Radio interview with Trilobites specialist Richard Fortey

Today, I found an interesting radio interview with Richard Fortey, author of the book TRILOBITE, Eyewitness to Evolution.
Richard Fortey is a paleonthologist, specialised in, guess..., Trilobites. Besides the fact that he spent years and years in studiying these prehistoric life forms, he knows how to present his findings, both oraly (in elegant British English) and in print...
Should you like to hear (part of) this interview you can download the mp3 file from here (3,9 MB). Here is a text transcription.
Amazon.com offers an inside look in Mr. Fortey's book. Amazon.co.uk proposes best prices, should you wish to buy a copy... check my Wish List in the left colomn for the address.

File Sharing newcomers

One of the last posts to msn blog in February last year was about YouSendIt. Here is copy of that blog:

New feature added > YouSendIt 1 GB big files transport
New in the [files] section is a link to YouSendIt.com, which enables you to send me files that are normally too big for e-mail attachment uploads. All you have to do is click the link, copy your local file in the form and send it !!! It's that easy. Your file will be temporarily stored on a YouSendIt web-server, until I will retrieve from there... no fuss and bother , no subscriptions, no passwords, free! Great service.

In 2006 another 3 interesting applications have been launched:
BoxCloud, that lets your contacts share your selected data from the remote BoxCloud server - 1GB/month for a free account... not bad!
Pando, also allows sharing from a remote Panda server. Beta is limited to 1GB per email. This application is currently number One in the States.
Zapr, shares selected data from your own local PC, which is rather innovative... you have all advantages of an own web server wihout having one... cool! The application is currently in early beta release and is having server troubles from time to time... under (challenging) construction. Trilobite's Choice (of course, he's a beta tester for this Australian programme :-)

New House for Trilobite

Hurrah, today I'm back in the active bloggers world as you can see here... In fact I've been away for more than a year, stopped blogging in http://trilobitehouse.spaces.live.com on March 3rd, 2005, just after the 2005 Crete track booking.

Ok, I'll pick up the thread again... here is a copy of that last 03/03/2005 msn blog:

Booked today, a short hiking tour at Crete (Greece) in April in the Eastern part of the island...Starting point will be Agios Nikolaos on the NE coast, then from Kritsa up to the Lassithi plateau, down to Karfi and the ancient Minoan places of worship and religion, up again to the Dikti mountains, and finally down to Myrtos beach on the SE coast... click maps B3 & B4 for geogrphical details.

Got experienced in the new online "flight reservation electroninc ticket service" system.... We'll not be flying from Amsterdam (a non direct flight via Athens), but directly from Bremen. It's as easy as this: Shuttle bus Groningen>Oldenburg Bahnhof, then direct train to Bremen + tramway to the airport.... total travel time: 2h30 .... equals Amsterdam required travel time, but Bremen (regional airport) offers quick boarding .... no queues.... that's great!