L.A. Marco

2009-07-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

Changing pedals on your bike.
So there are a lot of tutorials/videos on the web how to change your bike pedals. From old experience I learned the hard way that there is something special about this 'simple' operation.

The best video tutorial I found was

http://bicycletutor.com/replace-pedals/
Note the easy way of positioning the bike You don't need a fancy bike stand.

They stress out that the left-pedal removal is a regular loosing, and that the right pedal is counter threaded and must be loosened the reverse way. (as if you were tightening a bolt).

Bad tutorials:

http://www.trails.com/how_127_change-bicycle-pedals.html
(no clear mentioning between the difference of left and right)

http://www.ehow.com/video_4468306_remove-bicycle-pedals.htm
(pretty simple? but why don't you mention the difference between left and right)

2007-10-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

Lot of people probably read that it was difficult to download the new Radiohead album. Site slow, long download ... Well maybe that was true on the day of the release, but it just took me a few seconds to go through the whole process. As you can see in the screenshot I had a download speed of 300 KB/s. So even that is no excuse to use bittorrent.

If only we did not have to go through that registration process. I really don't need fan mail. I'm 100% capable of finding the information on the web myself. No push technology (by sending emails) is necessary.

Anyway, I'm a happy customer and listening to their new album. Hope other bands will follow.

2007-07-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

The T-Mobile dash is not a phone you want to have. The phone is bulky and very fragile. I had the phone a few months and the LCD screen stopped working. Initially T-Mobile informed me that it was covered by warranty. A few months later they added $ 108 to the phone bill. Thank you T-mobile. You are definitly not on my favorite five.

2007-06-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Add a web reference to an eclipse project

Who would have thought that the WSDL eclipse plugin has exceeded a total of 34.000 downloads!

I've been the admin of this sourceforge project, but have not looked at this code since 2003.

Interestingly around 2006 we reached an all time high of almost 2000 downloads in a month. That was after the project has been inactive for 3 years. Also surprisingly is the number of enhancement requests (less than 5) and other developers participation. I think in total I received less than 5 emails from other developers.

See the stats here

2007-05-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

We are in the final stages of testing our 1.5 release of the Rule Manager. One important part is the click-once deployment. Our new release is requiring the .NET 3.0 framework. The previous version required the .NET 2.0 framework.

For internal testing I had some troubles with IIS. I did had the mime types configured:

You need to add the following Mime Types

.application (application/octet-stream)
.manifest (application/x-ms-application)
.deploy (application/x-ms-application)

But you also have to make sure that the Executable permissions are on 'Script Only' (and not including executable). Else you get some strange issues when the setup.exe is invoked from the Install button.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | US 'opposes' G8 climate proposals

2007-05-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's time for all countries in the world to stop supporting USA economically, military and politically. USA is a pretty bad team player on this little earth.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | US 'opposes' G8 climate proposals

Good to know that history has shown that empires come and go.
It's really time that they leave the stage.

2007-05-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

The true ambition of a software engineer: Get your mark on the
Hello World - world map of eternal fame!

2007-05-09T08:06:00.000-07:00

Windows Live WebMail

I have a Yahoo email account, Windows Live email account, and a Gmail account. Windows Live Web Email client recently has change it's web functionality.

Yahoo's and Google's web mail is still far superior than the new Windows Live. And that is just for one reason:

They don't have these annoying big banner ads when you access your email.

Banner ads are very distracting. And Google has proven that you don't need these things to make good revenue on advertisements. Maybe they should hire Jacob Nielson for some web usability studies.

2006-01-29T16:20:00.000-08:00

Start of the day with 'koffie verkeerd'

2006-01-29T16:15:00.000-08:00

Reflections

2005-12-31T17:40:00.000-08:00

Venezuela, Caracas

2004-08-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

Dilbert on Circular Reasoning

2004-06-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

Working hard on BizTalk 2004 rule policy creations. But making a steady progress.
The BizKnowledge.blogspot.com needs a different template. Viewing input, code and output results need more space. But the orange of this site is a bit too bright. But today it's the most appropriate color: Holand is going to play Portugal in the Euro 2004 half-finales.
I'll be watching it in StudioCity L.A.

Late at work

2004-05-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

TO B or not TO B. I've been wondering (probably too long) if I should blog or not. What is the main objective? Is it just going to be public diary? We see how it will evolve.

At the moment I'm working hard on tool development targeting at BizTalk 2004. There are not too many articles written about defining Business Rules using BizTalk 2004. I think I keep this spot personal and dedicate a seperate blog to BizRules, BizThoughts, or BizKnowledge.

2004-04-26T13:00:00.002-07:00

Downtown Los Angeles: Disney concert hall

2004-04-26T13:00:00.001-07:00

Downtown Los Angeles: Flower sculpture from classic dutch printed tiles

From left to right: Marleen - Chea Seon - Jan

2004-04-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

Downtown Standard Los Angeles with Jan (reflection)

2003-12-02T21:04:00.000-08:00

Arizona dream; I always thought it was a movie. But I don't think I've seen this one, I'm confusing myself with Raising Arizona. Anyway I'm stuck in one of those hotels away from home. This week is a start of a new adventure what looks all very promising. I said goodbye to my existing stable full-time position as a senior software engineer just before thanksgiving and I took the path of the road-less-traveled what I kind of abandoned too long. Not that anything ever has been really stable, but if we don't force ourselves every time in new challenging situations, we don't experience true life anymore. The struggle is what keeps us alert.