My ISP finally sent me the new router so I can enjoy som ADSL2+ goodness. And trust me, I do enjoy 🙂
Side 26 af 30
About a year ago I posted about a small python script that shows a pop up each time a new email arrives in Evolution.
Since then I’ve been working on a new version from time to time and with the release of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn it’s time to release a new version of my code. This time around it creates a status icon and a status icon pop up when new mail arrives as seen below
When the icon or the pop up is clicked the Evolution window receives focus through the use of wmctrl. Unfortunately I have not yet been able to retrieve and display the subject of the email or to select the newly received email when giving focus to Evolution. Perhaps that will happen for v3. Feel free to give me pointers!
The script can be downloaded here.
To run the script you will needs these packages on Ubuntu:
apt-get install python python-dbus python-notify wmctrl
If you needs pointers on how to implement something similar I can recommend Python’s Status Icon doc as well as the Desktop Notifications Specification for communicating with dbus.
I created a profile on LinkedIn.com a little while ago. Feel free to make a connection…
Holy cow! Bayside released a new album! Back in February! …and no one told me! Not cool.
Video for the first single Duality is below.
New photos are up from the yearly summer house trip with the boys. Actually they’ve been up for a while I just totally forgot about it. The first night was a little crazy as I’m sure you can tell from the pics. This year I also bring you a small video clip – slightly NSFW – enjoy 🙂
I’ve had my new TV for a little while now and am really satisfied with the picture quality for both HD and SD content. The problem is the amount of HD content I have access to is really rather limited. A HDTV feed in my area is too expensive for my taste so that pretty much leaves me to get HD content via the Internet. I am considering getting one of these HDDVD drives, but I would rather wait and see how this whole next-gen format war goes.
Anyway, so far I found a couple interesting HD sources on the Internet. There is Microsoft’s WMV-HD Showcase, but they’re only fun to watch for a short while. Then there’s Elephants Dream, which is an animated short film. It’s sort of an open-source movie which is pretty cool. You can download all the production files, making of and extras along with the movie itself from their website.
Probably the most interesting thing I found so far is Mariposa HD, which, as they put it, is the world’s first HDTV show for the Internet. If for nothing else, the show is worth download just for all the nice girls. I also like the scenic parts, which is quite amazing in HD. Their sixth episode will be out later this month so check it out.
That is pretty much all the free stuff I’ve found so far. Not a lot. Of course there’s a lot of HD trailers for both movies and games around, but that only goes so far. If you know of any other free HD stuff around please let me know.
Oh yeah, I also found this pretty cool Sony Bravia advert in HD, but it’s kinda wrong to play it on my TV since it’s a Philips 🙂
So this years April 1st is over and a lot of good and not so good april fools jokes surfaced on the internet. We did a little one over at Frantic Sound simulating an acquisition by MySpace with a new design and an attempt at an hilarious news post. I don’t know if it worked too well, but at least I had fun making it 🙂
You can see the frontpage design by clicking on the image on the right and the news post here.
I’ve listed some of my favorite april fools jokes from 2007 below:
- ThinkGeek’s 8-bit tie
- Python On Planes
- Postgres Engine for MySQL
- Google TiSP (especially the How it Works guide)
This post may look like fiction to the untrained eye, but these events did in fact take place during the past two months.
I had planned for a long time to get myself a new flat screen TV during January this year, so early January I sold my old TV. About a week later I had done enough browsing and decided on the Philips 37PF9731D, and as I always do, I checked the pricelisting sites to find the cheapest place to buy. Tape Connection in Århus was the chepeast with an actual real life store, so I decided to order from them.
The order went well and after a couple of days I was notified that they were out of stock, but would be able to deliver about three weeks later. Dammit, I thought, but I was prepared to wait since the price was reasonable.
Three weeks pass and I was contacted by Tape Connection. Now they did not want to sell me the TV becuase they experienced too many issues with this specific model (See previous post). My initial reaction was something like “*!@#$, are you kidding me?!“, but after a little thinking I ordered the 32PF9731D instead – and this is where the real fun begin!
As with the first order I receive a delivery date notification, which in this case is in one to two days, since the TV is in stock. After a week with no futher messages from Tape Connection I send them an email asking what’s going on. I receive no reply. A couple days later I call them. And I call them. And I call them. And I… well I think you get the point. They don’t answer, except for one time where I got through, but apparently to a mobile in someones pocket, since all I got was noise and no response. After trying to reach Tape Connection 8-10 times via phone and several via email, I come to the conclusion that I really don’t feel like doing business with them. Since I couldn’t reach them on the phone. I sent them yet another email to cancel the order.
At this point I check the pricelisting sites again I find laptops.dk to be even cheaper than Tape Connection. Since laptops.dk is a netshop I call them to check on what to do if I have issues with the TV and suchs, but it’s no different that if I had purchased the TV in a real store. I order the TV around 4PM and received in the next day around noon. Speedy delivery indeed! So a little over a month after I sold my old TV, I receive my new TV. Good thing my Xbox was broken in that time period as well or I would probably have had a psychic breakdown 🙂
Unfortunately the story isn’t over with Tape Connection. The next week they notified me that they had sent me the 32PF9731D TV. I call them immediately, they are a little puzzled, but accept that I want to cancel the order. Conclusion to this little predicament: They don’t read their mail. However they already withdrew the money from my account. The next day they transfer the money back, the only problem is they transfer the amount for a 37″ TV instead of a 32″ TV, which is approximately 50% too much. Since I’m an honest man I call them to tell them about the error. I get their accountant; she’s absolutely clueless. She immditaely thinks they owe me money. I explain it to her, but she keeps mixing up my two orders. After several minutes of me explaining, she reiterates what I told her and she got it all wrong. At this point I’m seriously considering hanging up the phone and just keeping the money, since they would probably never find the error anyway. But after a couple more minutes of explanation, we decided that I should simply transfer the difference between the two prices back to them.
This concludes the Tape Connection purchase expirence so far. In case you were in doubt, I highly recommand you do not order from them. Still, I have read about people that are satisfied with Tape Connection, but let’s just say I’m definitely not and let’s stop right there. At this point in time I’m just wondering if they are going to mix up the orders again and withdraw or transfer more money from/to me. I hope not.
If you understand Danish, you can read more about the reasons and issues with the Philips 37PF9731D on recordere.dk. I believe this is the reason why Tape Connection didn’t want to sell me the TV and judging from their website they don’t sell Philips TV’s at all anymore. Currently my TV shows no sign of these issues, but in case they show up it’s just a matter of calling Philips anyway, and so far it’s been the TV of my dreams. 1080 HD input from the 360, 720 HD input from the media center (which this post is written on :)), ambilight, dual tuners, UPNP capable media browser, instant Text-TV and all the other stuff. I highly recommend it!
There’s a brilliant review at LCD Reviews and the Philips website has more information.
Crap, crap, crap. I can’t get the TV I ordered a while back. The place I ordered have had a lot of issues with that specific model and simply don’t want to risk the hassle of a lot of defictive TV’s. In short: They’ve decided not to sell it.
This sucks as I was really looking forward to a 37″ TV and this specific model because it has a lot of nice features. I’m going to settle with the 32″ version of the same model, which actually was my original plan anyway – but that’s a different story.
The e-mail I received is quoted below (in danish).
Vi har i den senere tid oplevet flere problemer med Philips 37 PF 9731 og vi
håbede at Philips havde fået styr på problemerne, men det har desværre vist
sig ikke er tilfældet.Derfor har vi taget konsekvensen af det og ønsker ikke at levere den
pågældende model da vi ikke mener at kunne stå inden for kvaliteten.
So I received a new Xbox 360 last friday and so far it’s running just fine. It’s produced on the 26th of March 2006, so it’s not really brand new. I just hope it will last more than 13 months from production date like my last 360.
Anyway, the communication with Microsoft Xbox Support was really an experience. You see, in Denmark we have the option for either english or swedish support, not danish. I had to call them three times to just get my 360 shipped.
First time they messed up with my address, so I had to call again so they could correct it. Second time they were kind enough to send me a card board box I could return the 360 in. People on the ‘net call this a coffin, which is kinda fun 🙂
So after about a week UPS delivered the card board box, but they refused to take it back. So I have to call support a third time and luckily this time the girl on the other end actually understood english. About two weeks after my 360 died, it was finally shipped off to Microsoft Repair Center.
According to UPS tracking they received it monday 29th, and I received a new Xbox on friday 2nd. It was really rather unexpected they would resolve it so soon, so I was a happy camper this weekend. Well, actually I got sick, so not really, but at least I got a 360 to keep me company again.