Jeroen Sangers

A while ago I tried out the new Google Reader, and haven’t looked back at my old RSSBandit ever after. It ran very smoothly since the start, and I just love the ‘River of News’ view.

But lately the experience has decreased. The last few days Google News feels slow, taking about 2-3 seconds to go from one article to the next one when I press the J key, which was also noticed by Robert Scoble.

I also noticed that sometimes it doesn’t load all my unread items as it did before; after reading about fifty articles, I reach the bottom, while there are still many unread items waiting for me to be read. This is not a big issue, as I can simply press the R to refresh. The last days I noticed another glitch: zombie articles:

Google Reader tells me ‘Your reading list has no unread items’, while at the same time it shows that I have two unread articles from tech.memeorandum. For me, this is the most irritating glitch, as I have to leave my River of News to open the specific feed, change my setting to show all articles and go down the list to find the zombie.

Google Reader still is my preferred reader, and I hope they will solve these glitches soon.

More and more bloggers unite in so-called blogging networks. Robert Scoble published a good overview of the most important networks in Competitors of PodTech that I love, er, going to the Content Mall. A content mall is the same as a blogging network.

As I am interested in blogging in general, I have been following various blogging networks for some time. I can clearly see the benefits of blogging networks for the bloggers involved, but have been wondering for a long time what the benefit is for the visitors of a site part of a blogging network. So I posted the following comment:

It is clear that 'content malls' bring in huge benefits for the sites within a mall. They can work together and link to each other to boost PR.

But what benefit is there for the visitors? Shopping malls bring benefit by sharing a physical space with various stores. After going shopping for clothes I can buy some electronics without having to drive to another place. Very comfortable.

But when visiting a fashion weblog part of a content mall I can go to the technology weblog of that mall just as fast as I can go to any other techblog. I won't visit the technology weblog because it belongs to a certain group, but rather because I like it in spite of being part of that group.

Answered promptly by Robert self:

By joining a network a blogger/podcaster/videoblogger will probably be able to get paid much more than if he/she tries to do it on his/her own.

That money might let them quit their jobs (that's what happened to GeekBrief.TV, for instance) which will enable that person to produce even more content for you. Or, maybe, afford better equipment. Or, maybe be able to afford a trip to more industry conferences where they'll be able to bring you more news and information.

Robert completely hits the nail on its head here. What is good for the blogger is good for his/her reader.

Sometime, thing that have been in place for many years get in the way. In such cases, it is better to get rid of them.

Today, I said goodbye to the music jukebox the place where for the past two years you could find tasty music. In this age of streaming music and video, there is no need any more to share MP3 files. Sites like last.fm and pandora are of greater help for discovering new music you like.

I also removed the jeroensangers.com site. Until now, that page showed an ugly photo of me (is it even possible to have a pretty photo at all?) and some links to my various sites. I am going to rethink the purpose of that site, which will probably contain more dynamic content. Until then, the site is in stealth mode.

Now, that feels a lot better!

[Via Volker Weber]

Just like most other weblogs, this site has its ups and downs, and you might have noticed that it has been down lately. I am quite busy at the moment, working parallel at several projects.

The company I work for is preparing for the SIMO trade show in Madrid, where we will present the new versions of our products. Though I won’t be present at the show (my responsibilities lie outside Spain) I do have a lot of extra work concerning translating and testing the new software.

Then I am working on the new Fimcap web site. This weekend we are going to finish the forum functionality and start working on the design. We already did some brainstorming and I am happy that we are all more or less on the same line. Once the design is finished we will start using the first parts of the new site, and gradually transfer more functionality.

Once in a while I also work a little bit on BryteNet hosting. Little by little the customers are coming in, but as everything is running smoothly and automated, I don’t have much work on it.

And finally there is the blogging thing. I am planning on taking it more seriously, using Brain Tags for playing around, and doing the real blogging at The Wizard of POS. I am rethinking my work flow to crank up the posting frequency –now once a week– and have a more diverse range of articles. Furthermore I am working on a new weblog in Spanish about GTD.

You see, I have plenty of work, so I better stop writing and get something done!

The campaign for the upcoming Catalan parliament elections officially started last Sunday. Main opposition party CIU started in a very American way by including a one hour DVD called ConfidencialCAT criticizing the current government with any Catalan newspaper.
I was shocked.

Not because of the movie, which I haven't seen yet, as in the past three years CIU has done nothing else than criticizing and whining. No, I was shocked because all newspapers co-operated. Every single newspaper in this country got blinded by flash of sensationalism and opted to distribute plain propaganda. Last Sunday, the newspapers of Catalonia lost their independence and transformed themselves into propaganda vehicles.

Everybody who knows me a little bit will admit it: I am a lazy person. Because I am so lazy I work in the IT industry, dreaming about automating all those boring tasks. Of course, automating tasks is hard work, but I don’t want to think about that.

One of the problems I wanted to automate for a very long time is making backups of my PC. I know that it is very important to backup my files, and usually after tweaking my backup system I backup every X days. But after a while I loose interest, and days become weeks, and weeks become months,…

Media choice is another problem with backups, as the amount of data I have is growing exponentially. Back in the MS-DOS days, all important data fitted on e few floppy disks. As I started my studies and got involved in Jong Nederland I produced more documents and changed to ZIP disks for my backup. When I started ripping MP3 files, I was forced to change to CD’s and DVD’s. And now that I am creating my own video’s I need even more than that. I thought about buying a USB hard disk, but the thought of spending a lot of money for a medium that will be outdated within two years kept me from going to the store.

And then I found Carbonite Online Backup. Carbonite is a little application that will automatically backup my files to a server on the internet, without any user interaction. The best part of Carbonite is its price: $5 per month for unlimited storage!!! So for only $5 per month I can sit back and relax, knowing that my files are safe, and I won’t have to worry about running out of space in the future.

I quickly downloaded and installed the demo version (15 days free), which promptly began to upload data. Now there was a little problem, as our broadband connection is ADSL, and the A stands for Asynchronous meaning that you can download at high speeds, but have less bandwidth available for uploading. It took me two days to get all my files to the Carbonite server.

When checking what files were present on the Carbonite server, I noticed that there was a lot of crap. In the installation procedure, I had selected that I wanted to backup My Documents and the Desktop, which Carbonite had interpreted as being the whole Documents and settings folder, including cached files, etc. I tweaked the settings a little bit, and was able to reduce the backed up volume by one third. I also added some other files such as my ActiveWords database and my Trillian preferences (both installed under Program Files).

I’ve got the whole system up and running for some weeks now, and am very happy with it. My backups are always up-to-date and I don’t have to think about copying files anymore.

The only problem I have found is my mailbox. As I typically have e-mail open during the whole day, the inbox file changes continuously. Besides that, the file is rather big, taking a while to upload. The result is that this particular file is hardly ever backed up. I am still looking for a solution, possibly using another tool to create a local copy and adding this copy to Carbonite.

In short: Carbonite is a very good product giving great value for its money.

Cal Paller is a lovely little cottage (Casa Rural) in the mountains near La Seu d’Urgell. We had the pleasure to spend three days in one of the six available rooms, and have enjoyed it a lot. Cal Paller is the perfect starting point for mountain walks, mushroom ‘hunting’, horseback riding or skiing (winter only of course).

We found Cal paller a very special place. The location is fantastic and the 18th century mansion has been restored with great care of detail. There are many little corners where you can sit down and relax. Eva and Pep, the owners of the place, are very caring and the food Eva prepared us for supper was absolutely fabulous.

I have uploaded some photo’s we made during the weekend, so everybody can see what a fantastic place Cal Paller is.

N.B. If you also have a Flickr account, let me know, so I can give you access to even more photo’s.

I was very surprised when I received the magazine promoting the biggest cultural event in Lleida with a huge photo of me on the cover.

In case you are interested: we are preparing the clasical Caracols a la llauna. The snails are prepared on a big plate and for the best results they will have to be placed upside-down. My job is to throw salt to prevent the snails from turning around.

For me the holiday period is not only a period for relaxing, but also a period of reflection. I never make any January 1st changes to my habits, but usually do so in August or September.

For a while I have been thinking about doing more sports, as most days my physical exercise is limited to the daily walk to the garage to pick up the car. We do occasionally walk in the mountains, but that’s not enough. I have been thinking about it for a long time but never found the activity that suited me. My working hours make it difficult to commit to team sports and I don’t like the gym as I prefer something in the open air.

This summer it finally occurred me: inline skating could me my thing. I’ve always enjoyed ice skating in the Netherlands, and like the freedom of making little tours around my hometown. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Right after coming home I bought myself some Rollerblades, the Geo II model, and downloaded some braking instructions as I knew that I’d had to learn different breaking techniques that I used on ice.

This week I went out skating two times on an empty parking lot. The coming weeks I will go back there to practice my breaking skills before I hit the streets. And you know what the best thing is? I already feel good about myself!