Cleaning up the mess Thursday 2010-01-14
I have finally made backups on everything I think I’ll really use, killed lots of old install batches and moved lots of gia bytes worth of images and project files. This all as a preparation for installing windows 7. I got it from my employer in in an ISO image and burnd it twice on DVD:s to be safe.
None of them were bootable in the end, and I the reading was too slow och none. So I just mounted the ISO as a disk and copied it to a fresh directory. Then I took the dare devil approach and launched the setup from within Win XP. I know ther is no upgrade from XP to Win 7, so that was a scary step. From there I did a fresh installation selecting the XP boot partition. I knew that would kill it all 
It all went very smooth and the Win 7 installation process took its proper time and restarted a few times during the process. It went out and fetched some update. After that I installed the AVG free virus protection.
I went on to install Firefox and the MozillaBackup utility, that I had used to backup the firefox and Thunderbird data with earlier. I run the utility to restore my bookmarks, plugins, settings and saved passwords. Somewhat to my surprice it was all there, so when I logged in to my blog to write these lines, Firefox rememberd my password even better then I did.
This is really how it should work.
Now I’m going to install Thunderbird and do the same on that. Hopefully I’ll bet my mail login and all thousands of mail in all my boxes back. Well if not, I have a separate backup on the mail boxes.
If I like Win 7? I don’t know yet, but I surely like the smooth and fully automatic installation process.
Sandy 3D a Fine Release Monday 2009-12-07
Hi all! I’m happy to say that we now have a bug fixed release of the very useful and well documented Sandy 3D Engine. Back in March came the long awaited upgrade to 3.1.1 and the goal was to release a bug fixed version fairly soon. However very few people had the time to work on it. After persistent work, mainly by Makc, we now have the a hopefully bug free version 3.1.2, so go get it!
Sadly enough this seems to be the final release, if nothing exceptional happens. This doesn’t mean that the engine cannot be used. On the contrary. It is working well and it is well documented and indeed it has a very friendly and helpful forum that works for newcomers and skilled developers alike.
Then there is the future bound haXe version, with which it is possible to compile for Flash as well as other targets, e.g. JavaScript for the browser canvas.
On a cleaning rampage Friday 2009-11-06
After installing WP 2.8.5, I can create a QuickPress post and this is the first. Now it seems that I got into a cleaning mode, which is fine, now that my computer nearly grinds to a halt. I have decided to backup and reinstall.
But you know how it is – I don’t have a terabyte disk for backup, so I’ll only backup the most important stuff. And I’m bound to forget something, oh well, nothing new there. Usually ( lucky me ) I succeed in formatting and installing on my primary partition, and find that all the others survived.
But oh my – all that good programs and tools I have to reinstall. Will I find them and will they work on Windows 7? Scary stuff! And will I find working drivers for all equipment, that hangs in the end of cables, bluetooths and IR connections?
Will I even get on the net again to search for what is missing, to chat with friends and make may status updates on facebook.
If not see you later!
Cleaning Up/rensar PetitOn Tuesday 2009-10-27
Dear readers, if any
I’m about to upgrade my WordPress publishing engine to the latest. Also I’m planning to clean it up a bit, and get rid of testing posts and other interesting stuff. I have come to the conclusion that I have too many categories, being over ambitious when I started. I really don’t publish that much. Then I’ll try to move personal stuff to some other blog.
If you don’t find anything here the next couple of days, I did something foolish 
See you!
Trogna läsare! Jag har för avsikt att uppgradera min WordPress och dessutom rensa ut gamla onödiga testartiklar och annan skrot av föga intresse. Dessutom försöker jag flytt mer personliga artiklar till någon annan blog.
Om du inte hittar någonting här den närmsta tiden, beror det på att jag misslyckats
Vi ses!
[Edit] Upgrade success!
Bilbo Tuesday 2009-10-06
Bilbo, vår trogne vän och familjemedlem, lämnade oss 5 oktober. Han gav oss femton år av kärlek och glädje.
Vi kommer alltid att minnas dig!
Regulating Ads in Social Media Saturday 2009-09-19
WPN, Web Pro News reveals that there are investigations under way on how and if the US government should regulate ads and other forms of promotion on social sites like Twitter and Facebook.
This of course raises some questions. An intervention by government on what can be said on the internet, is seen by many as an attack on freedom of speech. This is the traditional view on the web that spawned the EFF Blue Ribbon Campaign for freedom of speech in February 1996. At that time business hadn’t yet understood how to make money on the web, and the question was less complicated.
In this second millennium things are quite different, and with the broad electronic highways and new technique everything human is present on the web. We by things, listen to music and watch movies, and we live part of our lives in a virtual world, that reflects the “real world”. In fact the Internet is part of the real world. So I think it is inevitable, that the need for regulation of what you can do on the Internet will grow. Already you can commit many types of crime on the internet, which has to be sanctioned.
When it comes to ads or other forms of payed promotion, regulations are there for new papers and television, to make consumers aware of what they are reading. An argument against state supervision is that people will understand what is and what is not payed promotion. I don’t think that’s always the case, and why should it be any different than reading a news magazine or watching television. The tricks always always be the same.
I’m one of the early users of Internet, and my blog is carrying the blue ribbon, so I’m really sorry to admit, that as the web has matured, it’s become more and more like the rest of the human domain.
So lawmakers, come on, but be careful and let us be as free on the Internet as possible!
The Sandy 3D Site is Down Monday 2009-06-22
On 19 of June I discovered that the Sandy site and forum was down, and hoped for it to be resurrected in a few hours. Not so – its now June 22 and all we get is server errors. This may be just a little bit better than the “404 – Not Found” message, I got then. It seems that a lot of work by Thomas and all other contributors is lost. Weather this is the work of some cyberspace vandals or some fatal mistake from the web host, I don’t know. I really hope that they keep a recent backup. If not, they are idiots, even if the service is free.
If you offer a web document storage, free or not, you must realize that the domain owner is dependent on your ability to host the site.
The tutorials and the forum are goldmines, so hopefully this is not all lost in the big black hole.
[Edit] I’m more than happy to tell you, that there were indeed backups, and that the Sandy site is up for our enlightenment
Chimein Anonymous Twitter Friday 2009-05-15
This Indian American guy is really full of ideas. Now he has come up with something new, a site where you can chime in and say whatever is your hearts content. That is if you can express it within 140 characters. This unique place is called Chime-in.
If you know something new, if you are in a mood, if you urgently need throw out your frustration for the world to see. Well, then this is the place to go. It’s a free, no log in, no fuzz service. And you can trust their privacy policy, because you remain anonymous.
Liberté, égalité & fraternité – note least freedom of speech
Physics in Sandy 3D Saturday 2009-05-09
I haven’t used the Wow physics engine to get the 3D objects to obey the laws of physics in a Sandy world. That may be a mistake, as I don’t know how good it is. Lately there has been som buxx around the jiglibflash 3D physics engine, and I decided to take it for a test run. It’s really an amazing piece of work, and the author muzer and codevelopers really know a thing or two about physics.
Thomas created adapter classes between Sandy and jiglibflash to make it easy to connect Sandy 3D visual objects with the physics aware objects of jiglib. The adapter classes, one representing a Sandy shape and one being the facad or proxy for the jiglib engine, are very helpful in creating new twin objects.
There isn’t much documentation for the physics engine so far, so I had to search the web quite a bit, as well as reading code for other 3D engines and try to understand the code. I also got firm and fast advice from the jiglibflash forum by the author himself.
I finally managed to get a tutorial rolling. It is by no means exhaustive, but I believe it will get you started. Have a look and do some experiments.
It’s awfully fun
Shutting Up the Meeting Bully Thursday 2009-04-23
A really funny iPhone application was added to the Apple App Store today. When you sit in a meeting and the ordinary dictator takes over the show, to let his well modulated voice be heard, and to tell everyone how well he knows the matter of today, and what decisions have to be made.
Then you discretely pick up your iPhone and press a button, that will shut him up, at least for this meeting.
This is what the designer of the application says on his site “The Meeting Nazi“:
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of a business meeting gone awry. Lost productivity cost corporations millions and impact personal growth and success.
For those frustrated masses concerned about productive meetings, we have the app for you. Harnessing the knowledge of 100’s of books and training seminars on running effective meetings, we have boiled it down to one simple approach inspired from the “Seinfeld” TV classic Soup Nazi.
As usual, you can download the app from the app store using iTunes.
Do that and have your laugh at the next meeting!
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