I’m getting a little nervous. Barcamp Brussels is gonna happen on Nov 24th or Dec 1st and I still haven’t found a location. All my options have returned negative. The previous times I never really had a problem with that.
So I’m gonna put the question out there: who knows a nice location for Barcamp Brussels #4? If possible, I would actually like it to be hosted at someone’s offices, since it’s on a Saturday anyway …
- In Brussels (not just the center, let’s take Brussel/Halle/Vilvoorde)
- I expect around 100 attendees
- we need 3-4 presentation rooms of 20-30 persons each
- a hall or lounge with seats and coffee would be nice
- catering on-site or otherwise a neighbourhood with restaurants at walking distance
- available Wifi would be handy – or we can set that up ourselves
- preferably easy to reach by public transport, or with sufficient parking
- if the location costs more than, say, 2000€, it’s not an option.
- I tried a lot of socio-cultural venues (KVS, BSB, DeBuren, BTCCTB …) , but the moment I mention ‘Internet’ they say ‘no’. So I gave up on those.
- none of the locations of the previous events
Suggestions welcome via mail or comment!
The TomTom One (the ‘old’ model) is my first ever GPS. Overall, an excellent design. I never had to open the manual because it is a very intuitive device. The route calculation is quite fast and accurate, and with the Spanish “Norma” voice installed, it is even a pleasure to be told where to go (”despues de ocho cientos metros, gire a la derecha“).
The only problem with the device is that within 6 months of buying it, the battery started running out very quickly. Actually, it is not always short of breath, but mostly. Sometimes when I turn off the ignition (which stops power to the GPS) it will die within seconds. Other times, it might keep on running for an hour. Feels like a bad contact inside but the standard engineering trick for this (”hit device hard with right hand”) doesn’t help.
According to TomTom support (but I don’t think that’s why my battery gave up):
Speaking of the battery, TomTom told me by phone today that I should navigate using the battery and not the in-car charger. The customer rep said that overcharging was an issue if I left it connected continually.
via reviews.cnet.com
When I check the boot screen (reset and keep pressing the power button while turning on, via) then my battery gives 4140 mV, which is a good enough score. So I don’t think buying a new battery would help (they sell for less than 20€ at e.g. www.mdsbatterie.com.fr). I guess I’ll just wait a bit and go for the TomTom One XL. Size matters.
I have wanted to buy a keyboard with Bulgarian layout for a while, and as you can imagine, you don’t find these in the local FNAC or Vandenborre. So when I saw that the Logitech site allowed purchasing online, of such exotic items like a Bulgarian keyboard, I quickly ordered one. However, the experience has been unsatisfactory:
- First try: I order the keyboard, do the checkout procedure, pay with credit-card and get an immediate reaction: purchase OK, shipment will follow soon. Wow, that’s slick. Several days later, UPS passes by my front door while I’m not there, they say, the package is signed off by a certain “Korenberg” and I get an email: delivery OK. Slight alarm bell: I know no “Korenberg” living at my appartment. When I get home this is confirmed: no one in the building knows anyone by that name. Keyboard is in the twilight zone. I file complaint with Logitech, they propose refund, I accept, I’m still waiting for confirmation. But, I still need a BG keyboard.
- Second try: I order another keyboard and try to pay with my credit card. Twice I give my credit card details, press “Process” and get redirected to the same check-out page, without any notion of whether or not my order is accepted. I check the “order history”, see that my recent purchase is not there and decide to give up on credit cards.
- I select “bank payment” and finish checkout. They tell me what bank account I should pay on (one of Bibit), and with which message. I do the payment, see that the number message is not a structured number (”gestructureerde mededeling”) and put it in the normal message box. Since then, nothing. Has Bibit recognized the money as the payment for Logitech? No idea. Has Logitech started fulfillment? I guess not.
- I visit the Logitech web site again, checking out the Squeezebox, and decide to test the checkout system again. I put a Squeezebox in my shopping cart. When I go to the customer care, I fly from shop.logitech.com (where I am logged in) to logitech-nl-emea.custhelp.com (which looks the same, but where another login is necessary, because both accounts aren’t linked, apparently). There I get into an eternal redirection loop, with an infinite number of “
&cl=BE,nl” adding themselves to the URL.
- I try to break out of that loop by going back to the shopping cart page. For some reason my shopping cart now contains 2 Squeezeboxes instead of one. That’s it , I’ve had it.
Bottom line: this online shop of theirs is as trustworthy as Lindsay Lohan saying she’s gonna stop drinking. I buy online a lot from shops like Amazon and Pixmania, so I think I’m qualified to say that their shopping application stinks. I’m gonna wait until next week for reply on the second purchase, if there’s none, I’m cancelling that order, and I’m never shopping with Logitech again.
It’s almost been 6 months, so here we go for the 4th time: I’m starting the preparations for Barcamp Brussels #4.
The proposed dates are: Nov 24th or Dec 1st. Location: to be defined. Sponsors: to be defined (you know how to reach me). Logo can be found on Flickr.
If you want to attend and/or present: please add your name to http://barcampbrussels.wikispaces.com/BarcampBrussels4.
(via www.barcamp.be )
While reading the specs of the PackardBell Store & Play, I fall upon “Foto formaten: JPEG, HD JPEG” As I am working with several aspects of HD (High Definition) video all the time, I am of course intrigued. There is a standard for HD JPEG? Wow, tell me more!
HD JPEG = HD Photo = JPEG XR (my guess)
Well, it’s not that easy, actually. When you do a search for “HD JPEG” on Google, all you see is promo talk. Vendors like Philips and Panasonic use it as a feature on their devices, but there is no official definition of what it stands for. What I think happened is:
- Microsoft developed a standard “HD Photo” (formerly Windows Media Photo) that corrects some of the disadvantages of JPEG:
- It can store color information at 32 bit per color instead of 8 or 12. (In current JPEG, “24-bit colour” means: 3 x 8 bits for R, G and B.)
- All encoding steps of the algorithm are lossless (except for quantisation). So it has a true lossless mode (all coefficients = 1). JPEG does not have this (at least, not implemented).
- All kinds of tech mumbo-jumbo reasons (read the Wikipedia article)
- “HD Photo offers image quality comparable to JPEG-2000 with computational and memory performance more closely comparable to JPEG”
- The JPEG committee announced that they would (consider to) adopt HD-Photo as a standard, with as a working name JPEG XR. Provided that, of course, …
One important aspect regarding the standardization of HD Photo is Microsoft’s commitment to make its patents that are required to implement the specification available without charge. Microsoft’s royalty free commitment will help the JPEG committee foster widespread adoption of the specification and help ensure that it can be implemented by the widest possible audience. The JPEG committee hopes and encourages all participants in its meetings to consider this royalty free approach when offering patented technology as a candidate for standardization.
- The hardware vendors didn’t like the “JPEG XR” name (it doesn’t really show clearly that it’s an upgrade from JPEG), so they combined it with an acronym that consumers know and associate with “better” and “more expensive”, so was born “HD JPEG”.
- in short: Technically, it does not exist. Practically, it sells flat screens.
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