Lifelog

Tired of navigating through different subfolders to reach that specific directory you were looking for ? Saving an image from the web to a certain directory takes you over 1 minute ? Stop looking for the same folders over & over again, let me introduce Dirkey.

Dirkey is a small utility that enables you to define bookmarks for folders and go back to these bookmarked folders from within File Open/Save dialogs and Windows Explorer. You can set and go to these bookmarks using your keyboard or your mouse. When Dirkey is active you can press Ctrl+Alt+0..9 in e.g. an Open/Save File dialog and a bookmark will be set on the current folder. You can go to any bookmarked folder by using Ctrl+0..9 in the same or another supported window. All bookmarks are global and are preserved when you turn your computer off. You can also open bookmarked folders in a new Explorer window.

Source : Dirkey Homepage

Plain simple, it rocks. I feel my life has gotten simpler. P.S. For xPlorer users, there is an xplorer plugin on the dirkey plugin page.

Some weeks ago i got some new monitors for my employers (2x Samsung Syncmaster 226 Bw). After checking out some monitor specifications i was fully convinced that these 22′ monitors were the best available monitors (price/quality), the Samsung 226BW has a response time of 2ms and a contrast ratio of 3000:1. After wortking with these monitors for 2 weeks, i was convinced of Samsung, an upcoming power in hardware parts.

So after the nice “Ricoh incident“, i needed a new printer. Again checking review websites as well as pricewatch listings, i didn’t find a suitable printer that would offer me the functions i need. This is what i had on the requirements list :

• Laser color printer
• Less then 800€
• Scanning capabilities
• Scanning capabilities
• Fax

When calling around & checking some various shops, one of those shops told me he had a brand new Samsung CLX-3160FN in stock (the last one), it’s a new Laser printer (all in one) solution that wasn’t even listed on the belgian Samsung website. (so i guess it was really new). I went to pick it up, although i noticed the specifications noted the CLX-3160FN printer could only print about 4pages per minute (in color), at the same time it had many other functions to compensate for the slow color printing (black&white has 16ppm). I was pleasantly surprised the printer had the retail price of 500€, what was less then i paid for the Ricoh machine 2 years ago.

Coming back @ our office, i immediately unpacked it. The CLX-3160FN comes with very good & brief instructions. You could call it a ‘fool-proof’ installation procedure. The printer picked up an ip adress from the DHCP server, allowing us to connect to it after about 10 seconds. After installing the drivers i noted the menu’s & applications were very clear & user friendly. I got a 10minute “godmode’ feeling when playing around with various features like : scan to email, scan to application, multi scan, fax from computer, fax to email etc…

I’ll write about some of these features later, it all comes down to my main point : “Samsung & CLX-3160FN rock ! ”

Digital Base is looking for young skilled Belgian (dutch speaking) web developers. If you want to work in a small team on various projects (medium to large business) in a relaxed & friendly environment send your CV to me at snk00sj@digitalbase.eu Before you do that, make sure you have the following qualifications :

• under 30 years/old
• native or perfect dutch speaking
• decent knowledge of english
• good social skills
• excellent PHP knowledge
• good OOP knowledge
• close/around Leuven (office @ leuven)
• basic knowledge of version management systems (cvs, svn)

Make sure to mention your references and/or degrees.

Talk to you soon

Hi all, it’s been awhile. I enjoy life as an independant consultant. It’s my second month fully independant (fulltime), and i’m loving it. Infact, new projects are coming in too fast, so we’re hiring.

We are looking for young skilled Belgian (dutch speaking) web developers. If you are interested send your CV to me at snk00sj@digitalbase.eu Before you do that, make sure you have the following qualifications :

• under 35 years/old
• native or perfect dutch speaking
• decent knowledge of english
• good social skills
• excellent PHP knowledge
• basic knowledge of version management systems (cvs, svn)

Make sure to mention your references and/or degrees.

Talk to you soon

Because i’ve read alot of good things about Ubuntu 6.06 TLS (codenamed Dapper Drake), i decided to give it a go this week. After seeing the movies (here, here and here) of the eyecandy (Compiz & XGL) i couldn’t wait to get it up & running to start drooling over my new & shiny laptop. I included some movies so you can see what i am talking about :

[gv data="PNWA1jT-gJ4"][/gv]
[gv data="IWQL56pMUSA"][/gv]
[gv data="qvRx_GCE8GQ"][/gv]

Update: after working with Compiz/XGL for a while, i’ve noticed there are still some major flaws/features missing, the ones i miss the most at this moment are :

• saving state/position/size of a window
• some windows suddenly dissappear without further notice, i can restore em by killing them and starting them again

I’ll post some more thoughts pretty soon…

EDIT : Because i got some negative e-mails, i want to point out (just to be clear), that the flaws in compiz/XGL do not have anything todo with Ubuntu Dapper release itself, i found this debian based distribution very easy to install, flawless and self-explanatory…

We all know the Google algorythm is a big secret, search results depend on so many factors, that eventually over the years the job of SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) was born. Now whats BigDaddy ? BigDaddy is a term used in the SEO blogworld and over at google itself to name a new datacenter infrastructure (not finished). This will add new capabilities in the “so popular” search engine and change the SEO world once again.
For a more detailed article concerning this matter follow this link.

Some more google news from ITworld.com. Some people think that google homepage will get a makeover soon. I hope they keep it simple and clean like it was before, not too much clutter and unuseful information….but i am sure the brainiacs know what they’re doing…

And some more google news, google launched google news in belgium and netherlands. Google news is a rss feed reader you can customise to your needs. If you want a decent rss feed reader in dutch, have a look at google news

And then another link to something less common, “google admins online stumble” with google video search. Have a look It’s not every day you hear negative google news…

If you are following tech news, new technologies it makes me feel like it’s going to be a very exciting year for us (webdesigners) and also end-users. Firefox is coming out with v2.0 of their browser, the roadmap looks interesting. With AJAX getting more attention during 2005, all kind of interesting apps / packages / websites are popping up using the “Asynchronous JavaScript And XML” possibilities…

Too much new things are popping up, i can’t seem to catch up fast enough (combined with loads of work and social life)…but hey, what else is new ?

As i told you in my previous post, i updated the blog to wordpress 2.0 (new features), which is now available for public on wordpress.com. Slowly the first wp 2.0 themes & plugins are popping up and because i am too lazy (and don’t have time) to write my own plugins / themes, i am always curious to test them out…

Digg told me that K2 is coming out for WP2.0, thats why i decided to give it a go, you can see the result here