I couldn’t take it anymore so I created an audio input/output switcher indicator for Ubuntu.
Sound Switcher IndicatorSound Switcher Indicator for Ubuntu
Liberated from property
Prologue
The life in Holland, smooth in general, sometimes delivers nasty surprises.
On the last Liberation Day (May 5, 2012), I was liberated from my wallet (and the wallet, respectively, from me). It was stolen in Utrecht, a very nice city otherwise, at the Central Station, in a Chinese restaurant called Charlie Chiu’s, where we decided to make a pit-stop before a long and exhausting shopping round.
Bye Beatrix!
Queen Beatrix has just announced she would abdicate from the Dutch throne in favour of her eldest son, 45 years old Willem-Alexander.
The public has been expecting such a move from her for a while, since the moment a renovation of the Drakensteyn castle has started a few years ago.
A Winter Evening with Stream of Passion 2013
I realize everyone is alreay sick of my gig reports, but can’t really help it. Let’s just keep it short…
On December 28, 2012 the Dutch progressive metal band Stream of Passion, lead by the splendid Marcela Bovio, gave a festive Christmas/New Year’s Eve gig.
A fruit Xmas tree
In the New Year’s Eve we’ve made a fruit tree, a real one:
Pleasant Amersfoort
In November last year we and Amersfoort were officially introduced to each other.
The event is held once a year for all newcomers to the city. Its name Amersfoort Aangenaam, literally translated as “Pleasant Amersfoort,” is a standard expression used for introducing someone. The invitation was on the name of my girlfried as I’m no newcomer anymore.
How to make a ham holder
This is a how-to for making a jamón holder (a.k.a. ham stand or jamonera) from IKEA household products.
After all those jamón (Spanish dry-cured ham) stories by Alex Exler I’ve read, I felt an urge to give it a try. And one day I saw one in the local grocery store: Villar Jamon Serrano Reserva, weight ca. 7 kg for € 49.95. It is just advisable to get acquainted with jamón by tasting its cheapest varieties.
Happy New Year (again)!
Exactly one year ago, on January 1, 2012 I was late for the “New Year’s dive”, Nieuwjaarsduik, because it took me too long to find a parking space). Then I had to dive in solitude.
In case you have no idea what it is about: Nieuwjaarsduik is a stunning event when live people plunge into the water of a temperature slightly above the freezing point, organized in Holland nationwide by Unox. The main diving venue is in Scheveningen, near by the Hague, and people here run right into the North Sea.
My scripts on GitHub
Ubuntu/GNOME 3 XML wallpaper creation
I already published a script that sets a random image file as desktop wallpaper. It has only one downside: you have to run it every time you want to rotate your wallpaper.
However GNOME since 2.28 allows assigning a slide show as wallpaper by providing an image list in XML format. There you can specify the order and duration for each image. Moreover, you can even define a transition from one image to another.
So I decided to create a simple script that generates an XML file for a given set of images and, optionally, sets that as the current wallpaper. It requires GNOME 3+ or Ubuntu (11.10 or later).
New look a year later
It’s been exactly one year since I’ve had laser eye surgery. As aftercare I got a number of checkups: the next day, one month and three months later, and, finally, after a year.
Logitech Wireless Adapter for Bluetooth Review
I once needed to connect my PC’s audio output to the AV receiver to enjoy music played by decent speakers. The distance between the desktop and the receiver is a few meters, and I didn’t want to get entangled by wires (it’s the third millennium after all).
The almighty Internet offered an elegant solution, in the spirit of the millennium, concisely called Logitech Wireless Speaker Adapter for Bluetooth® audio devices: