Can you afford to rely on free services?

Published on 21. March 2013 in technology. 0 Comments

Along with the outcry after Google’s announcement to kill their popular Reader service, people have started to realize the danger of using online services. Yes, they’re incredibly convenient, and they’re often free, but they do have a cost all the same. That cost is risk: online services are outside your control. It follows that any data you place in these services are also outside your control!

Essentially, we are trading convenience for risk. How much risk are we willing to accept? Have we ever considered how much risk we can afford to accept?

Continue reading ‘Can you afford to rely on free services?’

I <3 Windows XP

Published on 22. January 2013 in leisure and technology. 0 Comments

After cursing over Window 7 for more than a year, I’ve finally formatted the disk and installed my beloved Windows XP instead. I needed to borrow an external CD drive to do that because the machine didn’t want to boot XP  setup from a USB stick (but Ubuntu can boot from USB… weird). Continue reading ‘I <3 Windows XP’

Maybe not selling after all

Published on 21. January 2013 in leisure and technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Some who know me also know that I have a couple of very cool, very weird keyboards — Star Trek weird: They’re completely flat, have no moving parts, and have no keys! Except that they do have keys, but they are just printed on the surface. And they also act as a mouse and multi-touch gesture surface at the same time.

Continue reading ‘Maybe not selling after all’

I’m officially no longer wise

Published on 20. November 2012 in family. 0 Comments Tags: .

Don’t worry, this is not your average dentist horror story — on the contrary!

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Continue reading ‘I’m officially no longer wise’

What an odd duality

Published on 29. June 2012 in business and technology. 0 Comments Tags: .

Business-wise I have no doubts that iOS is the most sensible platform for my Audiopad productivity app. This is where I’ve put a significant chunk of my money.

But personally, I feel much more wowed by the possibilities with an Android smartphone and Android tablet. Despite of Audiopad, my next devices will probably be Android-powered.

What’s the difference? Continue reading ‘What an odd duality’

Do you remember Fukushima?

Published on 7. March 2012 in leisure. 0 Comments

Time flies — on Sunday this week, a year will have passed already. The earthquake and tsunami, and the reactor failure that followed, all happened on 11 March 2011.

Has it really been a year already? My heart goes out to my friends in Japan, and to all the affected people. Time does not fly for these people, who live every day with the immediate problems and the fear of the unknown long-term effects troubling them. Continue reading ‘Do you remember Fukushima?’

Go read something by Cory Doctorow!

Published on 2. March 2012 in leisure. 0 Comments

I’ve read a lot of Cory Doctorow’s novels and short stories lately. They’re available for free through various e-book readers like Stanza (iTunes link), and of course also as regular books on Amazon etc. If you want a real eye-opener, then grab one of his stories!

Continue reading ‘Go read something by Cory Doctorow!’

Multilingualism

Published on 1. March 2012 in business and leisure. 1 Comment

Several months ago I met a guy at work who studies Scandinavistic, and he learned Swedish. Ever since, we’ve met once a month to eat and chat – in Swedish of course. This is fabulous practice for both of us and today I noticed that, five minutes into the conversation, I was even thinking in Swedish! Continue reading ‘Multilingualism’

Duality

Published on 28. February 2012 in leisure. 0 Comments

It’s weird sometimes.

I sometimes feel like this twenty-something cosmopolitan guy with a sweet girlfriend and a taste for crazy board games, sci-fi movies, and submarine novels. Life is fun.

But I’m also nearing forty, married, a father of a two-year-old, with an old car and a mortgage on a suburban flat, a boring bank employee maintaining IT systems. I’m fine with that too, I like my life.

Why this duality? What does that mean?

Apple, begone!

Published on 23. February 2012 in technology. 1 Comment

I’m pretty sure my next smartphone, tablet, laptop, and desktop won’t be from Apple. My future hardware will be powered either by Android or  by Linux (Ubuntu to be precise). And here’s why. Continue reading ‘Apple, begone!’