The way I feel tonight... ahh, today

Today Christian and Kasper went on their own to Illum and Magasin, two other shopping warehouses. They were gone most of the day but arrived here at 6PM.

We watched a DVD Christian brought, called Eurotrip, a fun youth movie with a lot of prejudices about what Europe is like. They also wanted to go to Denmark, but unfortunately they didn't That would have been fun to see what prejudices they would include about Denmark :-)

Christian brought me a magazine called Zoom, that I asked for, about cameras, photography and photo enhancement. I am so tired of my pocket camera because when I press the trigger to take a picture, the camera waits one or two seconds before shooting, so I want to buy a reflex camera. So I want to subscribe to the magazine, but before I do that I want to make sure the magazine is right for me. I will tell you more about buying new camera later. So far I am hooked on a Canon EOS 450D, but I want to scan the marked before I decide. Also I want to talk to friends and a camera shop to pick the right one. 

Christian and Kasper left early to go to their customer's place to demonstrate their web-system. According to Christian it went well except that the setup of the customer's computer wasn't quite as required so some of the things had to be demoed by logging on to Christian's and Kasper's server at home.

Prior to that we arranged to meet at Fields, a shopping center half an hour from here. Christian was suppose to call me when they left their customer so I could get a head start, but he forgot and called me when they arrived at Fields. They wanted something to eat so got there when they were done.

When we got home we wanted something to eat. I suggested having the rest of the 7 steaks I bought the day before with vegetables, but Christian suggested to have something else so we decided to eat the rest the day after. I ordered 3 Domino's pizzas online (it's "ages" since I've had pizza) all deep dish. But they would last for two days so I decided to put the 3 steaks left, in the freezer and leave on for myself for today. We watched a Batman DVD Christian had.

Today we went to IKEA, a furniture warehouse. Kasper needed to get some things he need when moving to Copenhagen to study. He already have a place to live, but attends another university so he wants to live closer to that one, than Christian who wants to live near his place of education (University of Copenhagen, but not where I work since University of Copenhagen is spread all over Copenhagen - 82 places, though in the process of decreasing to 37 places).

I went with them partly to get a new dresser (though I didn't get any), partly to spend some time with Christian. Of course I asked if this would be okay because I am aware that he might want to spend some time with his friend alone, but that was okay. I'm glad that he seems to want to spend some time with me also. After all we haven't spend that much time together as we could these past 12 years since he lives 6 hours away by train, so it's just been as much as we were able to.

Christian and his friend arrived yesterday at about 11:45 PM. Understandably they were both tired, so we went to bed almost immediately. I have two folding beds places in my living room (actually it's two living rooms with a French door in between, and they slept in the one I use for working (that I call my computer room). When Christian moved to Copenhagen, I expect that I will sleep there and he'll get my bedroom, if he ain't able to get any place to stay while studying, until he gets something.

Today we were just here, not doing anything special. Christian and Kasper used some time programming. We also went to Sunset Boulevard (the restaurant) to get something to eat. Actually a good place because of the nonlow-fat fastfood.

Right now my son is here. He and his friend will be here until Thursday. They are going to do a demo of their web-system for the Danish harbor pilot authority. So I have taken some days off while they are here.

Today I went grocery shopping. In the line, in front of me, was a young couple and in front of them a lady, I would say in her 60s. And she really had all day and thought we did too.

The 60 year old only had 4 small things to buy (I think it was 4 cans of tuna or something like that).

• First she wasn't sure the cashier entered the price correctly and discussed the price with the cashier
  
• then she didn't place her credit card correctly. The girl of the young couple kindly helped her put it right, but she kept turning it back the wrong way.
  
• She also tried to slide the card using the magnet stripe, which can't be used in Denmark anymore (security reasons)
  
• Finally she accepted to keep the credit card pointing with the chip downwards and towards her self, but now she entered the wrong code.
  
• Also she forgot to enter the "Accept" button.
  
• Finally, when she was done and only had to pick up her things from the end of the belt, and the young couple was being served, she was still looking at her things
  
• When I was done, all my groceries were mixed with her's, because she was still just standing there still trying to manage her 4 small things.
  
• 3 minutes after I was done, having checked by receipt, and on my way out of the store, she was still standing at the end of the belt managing her 4 things.

Oh man, that was the wrong lane I went to. I'm actually feeling sorry for her because she must be ill.

Friday was a busy day at work. All the other universities should transfer all the admission data from students who wants to enter a university. We host all the collected data from all of the universities in Denmark. And to be able to gain access to our servers, I have to open a security gateway to which only allows certain people to gain access.

Friday evening my mother called and asked me if we should make a family day the next day in Tivoli (amusement park) in Copenhagen. Not to try that much, we only tried two rollercoasters my sister and I, but to have a nice day, going to a restaurant and enjoy it.

After the Tivoli tour I went home with my parents to help my parents on Sunday with each of there computers and teach my mother using her new Set-top box for her television.

Christian (my son) have told me about a program that I can use to gain access to my father's computer by remote desktop, working wth it from my computer just like I am using his keyboard. There is a free version, but this requires that I install a program on his computer and that he invites me. With another version which costs a little, I can send him a mail so he can just click on a link to let me gain access, and this is much easier because I sometimes helps others with their computers. This way I can help them from remote (from my home). I haven't tried it out yet because my father's computer was so very slow that I couldn't use the remote desktop. But I will try it today.

At work most of the staff is on vacation so we're kind of busy sometimes. That said, all our users are also on vacation so most of the time we actually have time to do things we can't on the daily basis, which is nice.

Have you ever tried to guide a person by phone, trying to imagine where the person are and what's around him or her? It is almost impossible to explain what he or she ought to do and describe things for both parts.

Sometimes my father calls me with computer problems. Not being able to see what's on his screen I have to tell him where to look and what to look and imagine what is on his screen while he has to explain what he sees and what he is doing. And he has to understand what I mean when I use different terms for things. Not always being able to understand what I mean, he describes other things than I ask for making me confused about what is happening. It is so hard to both of us.

Today I talked with my father on the phone 1 hour, 20 minutes and 59 seconds (according to my phone logger) and I had to give up. First he told me that he couldn't get on the net (but that he could receive mails which can't be done if he can't get on the net), then he said he couldn't call a web-page, but later to explained that this was because he couldn't start the browser. After 45 minutes it appeared that he actually could start the browser, but that the page he was calling returned a "Page not found". He also told me about things that wasn't there and told me that things, I knew would be there, wasn't there.

Communication is so hard sometimes. So in the future, if I can't help him with the problem in, say 5 or 10 minutes, I have to turn him down and wait until I get to my parents place. I wish I had a program that could log on to his computer so I could see what's on his screen so I can help him, instead of having to guess.

Usually there is not that many problems on a watch so I figured that I would take my bike and visit me sister. I had some things of hers that she should have and then she would server supper. It's a ride of about 7.5 kilometers so it's not that far.

Almost immediately after I arrived, the first alerts started to sound on my cell phone. We receive alerts by SMS. And then another and then yet another. A disk had run full and the self service system had stopped working.

Fortunately I brought my laptop computer so I connected it to my sisters Internet connection and tried to connect via an encrypted connection. Nothing happened. It appeared that I needed user id and password to my sisters Internet provider to get connected to the Internet.

Less than a week ago I received a 3G telephone modem from my employer, but this won't work until 1 week after receiving it so I didn't bring it.

So there was nothing but to ride my bike the 7.5 kilometers home again, to fix the problem. The problem was fixed 1 hour and 16 minutes after I received the first alert. Too bad I couldn't connect.

The trademark farce continues. After complying to her request, choosing a different name for my blog, I mentioned on Facebook that I am trying to find out whether it was really a trademark offense. But this only spawned a new thread to me from the particular person, that this was a harassment, and that I should stop that immediately.

A guy commented on my blog (named with the alternate name), that the she (the offended person) is just making a fool of herself. I agree. And if it comes to a court case, I kinda look forward to that. He also commented that even thought she have registered a .dk domain, I am totally allowed to use the similar .com domain.

If her trademark is used for for other vocational purposes, there might be something to it, but since I'm a private person and I don't use the words for vocational purposes, there is no law that forbid me using it.

And after all, she can't remove the words from the dictionary, forbidding everyone else to use them.

Never in my life would I have thought that I should receive threaten proceedings for using a common Danish word for my blog. The term "ordkløver" is a common Danish term for a person who are concerned with words, and my blog is (or was, but will be under a different name) just about the way we speak, not to be against anybody, but just to have fun with words and the way we say things.

My old blog used the same name, but the newspaper's new blog-system will substitute and  therefore I just used the same name for it. Additionally I wanted to use the same address as the name, but since it contains a Danish letter "ø" this is not recommended for web-addresses, I used the address [*word censured*] (Danish for "blog letters"), simmilar to another blog named "Ordkløver".

I think it was not as much the word "ordkløver" as it was the Danish word for "blog letters", but I have sent her a mail to make sure.

I didn't know that it would be a registered trade mark, so to receive threads without warning makes me really sorry. Line is sympathetic girl and I am sure she don't mean no harm, like I don't mean her any harm, so I'm sure this will be settled in piece. But I don't like threads without prior warning.

I am shocked!

Today was my first real day at fitness. The last time was only introduction. Today I was on my own. It was actually quite nice and not at all too overwhelming. Well the 10 minutes run on the belt was a bit hard because I'm not use to running. I only did 7.5 minutes, but instead of just walking the rest of "the way" I stopped. I get some experience all the time. Next time I will keep going and when I get use to it I will be able to run longer.

I didn't go there last week because I had to go to the physiotherapist last week and yesterday because my neck hurt. I must have been sleeping in a wrong position, but it's okay again.

I am a little bit tired, but not much.

Real men don't make backups... they cry... But obviously I'm not a real man because I am paranoid when it comes to backups.

I recently attended a Photoshop Elements course, and one of the first things the teacher told us was that backup is not that essential, it's a waste of time. Coming from a journalist and photographer, who claims to have more than 1 Terabyte of photos (could be about 13506186 photos^[1]) saved on the disk, I really wonder why he have this attitude.

Yes, it can be very time consuming, but it don't have to. For most people it's just saving the files to another media like a CD og a DVD and store it elsewhere. I have an external disk what I use and it only take me half to one hour to back up my files (I have a lot), and I only start it and then it is the computer doing the work while I do something else. And it can be scheduled so you don't even have to think of it.

But like I said, I'm paranoid. On regular basis I also save it all to DVDs for external storage. ALL my data. And to do this I have to split the backup in to pieces to fit each DVD, which can only contain 4,7 GB each at the most. So this procedure have been taking me 13 hours yesterday (to split up the backup in pieces and back save them to DVDs)  and will take some more hours today (to save the rest to DVDs). And I will be using 12 DVDs this time). And yes, this is time consuming. But on my daily backups it doesn't take more than 10-20 minutes^[2]).

[1] One Terabyte is 1099511627776 bytes (or 1048576 MB or 1024 GB) and if his photos has a size of 640x480 (Width x height) with a resolution of 300 Dot Per Inch (DPI) - which was what he said they were saved in - this would make it about 13506186 photos total.

[2] You don't have to backup all your data every single time you make a backup. The files made since the last backup is normally enough, as long as you keep the others. And keep the backup separate from your computer, in case of a fire or flooding. You can place your backups at family members or if you have a box in the back you can save it there.

Today was my son's last day at the gymnasium. After the summer he will attend the university and it's likely going to be "my" university (I work there). He wanted to attend the IT university, but the requirements there are too high. But he will put it on the ordered request list anyway, just in case.

Also he wanted to stay at a certain college, but it's expensive and difficult to get a room, so he'll try elsewhere. And if impossible, he can always stay at my place - Of course he can. I would be delighted!!!

I can't wait 'till he moves to Copenhagen :-D

Today when I arrived at work I when in to my office, hang my jacket and went out to get some coffee (green line in the drawing). But at the same time I exited the office, my colleague, who I suspect is suffering from ADHD and is always very fast walking, arrived (red line in the drawing) with a lot of stuff in his arms and a long bread-knife pointing forward.

I was only a few centimeters from getting hit by the knife. I asked him to never walk with a knife pointing forward, because he might kill somebody some day. He got so mad at me like I had insulted him or accused him. I simply asked him to be more careful, that's all.

Had he stabbed me, even accidental, I would have reported him, at least for being careless with a long knife.

On my ride home from work today I stopped at Peblingesøen in Copenhagen to take some pictures for the header of my new trafic-blog^[1]. I took advantage of the Photoshop Elements course I've just attended. I took a series of photos that I want to use, some which is slightly overlapping.
  

Then I merged the two together


And this is the actual blog-header, which is 40% darker to make the overlapping header text readable.


It is amazing what you can do with Photoshop Elements. 

[1] A couple of months ago, the blog provider of two of my blogs announced that they would change blogging system, which was is great. They have been using a Norwegian blog system made by Petrograd, specially for them, but it have a lot of flaws and disadvantages so I (among others) have mailed them with a number of things suggestions, and I suggested using Wordpress - a widely used OpenSource bloggin system, which I use elsewhere as well.

Yeah, I have just attended my first fitness training. Today was introduction. A couple of weeks ago I paid a private membership. I know we have some fitness arrangement at the university, but the last time I watched the list, Fitness.dk wasn't one of them. And I joined Fitness.dk because it's just around the corner so to speak. But now I found out that the university do actually have an arrangement with Fitness.dk. So I'll convert my membership so I can get some discount.

I am suppose to work in each machine 3 times 12 with two minute brake. This means that I must do, what ever the machine is for, slowly 12 times then have a two minute brake, do 12 more and break, and lastly 12 more. Then immediately go to the next machine without break. But I have decided to take it very gently to start with, and get some experience with it first. Then I can increase the frequency. I could have stayed there longer today, but this must be enough for today. But man, am I tired already. My small computer arms is definitely not use to do hard work. But it was OK and I look forward to the next time.

Fitness.dk have a 40-days introduction, which is for people like me who doesn't even know why the heck I'm here. The next month I am on my own and then I meet with the trainer again. Well it's not actually a trainer. I can get a trainer, but this costs extra of course.

We started talking a little about what I want (no, not that! - well OK OK also that, but we didn't talk about it) and a machine measured my body fat. It is suppose to be between 11-22 (i think it was) and I one number too high. But this is very little. Though, I need to be a little more fit. All my childhood I've been told again and again to gain weight because I was too skinny and not I have to loose some.

I didn't know how much I was suppose to do the first time so I didn't bring any water. I have a 1½ liter bottle I will bring next time.

And since I live only 5 minutes from there I figures I could take a shower when I got home, but I should have brought my shampoo and soap, because that would have been good. I went strait to the shower when I got home though.

13 years ago we were just two people (Finn Skaaning and I) in the office what is now known as Corporate IT, who took care of the 5-6 servers we had with a little local network between them.

One day Finn requested that I made a user-account called jps. This could only be for one person, Jan P. Sorensen, who is a well known figure in data network community in Denmark. The login jps was already taken so I named the account japs instead.

Now that time is over. The university doesn't actually throw gold on the street (a Danish term for abandon something with a high value) as such, because Jan quit by himself, which Danish speaking people can read about in Version2. And I am really upset about this. Jan is a highly skilled and very structured network administrator, who have been maintaining the main roads (backbone) of the University's entire network between 83 locations around Copenhagen (not an easy task) on his own in a very efficient way. Jan knows the network like his own pocket.

It has always been a problem that Jan worked on his own. In his vacations I had great troubles being his backup, even though everything is documented in details (not an easy task when you ain't a network guy on a daily basis). So we must expect that we get more than one man to replace him. Because he is worth his weight in gold, which you can also read from the comments to the article in Version2.

My most regrettable decision I made was in Orlando, Florida in 2004 when I refrained from putting the make on a girl because I thought it might be inappropriate that she was too young for me. So that would be it.

As you may know I have a few blogs here and there. Of course my main blog is LiveJournal, but I have 3 other blogs whih is in Danish. One is about IT at my work which is a WordPress blogging system. My last two blogs is about traffic and "Hairsplitter" (about the way we speak). Those two is some Norwegian blog system that sucks.

But they've changed the Norwegian blog system to a WordPress blog system. So I am currently in the process of setting it up. And at the same time I have fellow bloggers I help getting started with the new system. Man, it takes a lot of time :-/

But I have been longing for the new system to be installed. Because the old one really sucked.

My blogs on the new system:

* Traffic
* Hairsplitter