All posts by Jim Geurts

Budapest (round 2)

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Last night we went out in Pest after a full day of walking
around.  We went to a really neat outdoor beer garden.  Then
we ended up at a dorm party, which was sort of weird.  I talked to
a girl from Germany for a while and she could not understand why we
chose Budapest for a vacation destination.  She said something
like “it’s so dirty here…”  and I do have to admit that it
smells like piss more than any other city that I’ve been to. Anyway,
she is studying here for university and was very friendly. 

Again, I cannot get over how beautiful the girls are here.  Even
the non native girls are nice looking.  I could really see myself
living in eastern europe.  Other than that, this city seems a
little more relaxed than Amsterdam and some other cities.  Maybe
it is just because we’re here during the week.

Today we toured Buda…  We walked all around some monuments and
got some nice views of Pest.  Buda is pretty hilly, so it has a
nice vantage point of the rest of the city.  Once I can find a
fast enough internet cafe, I’ll post some pictures that have been
accumulating on my camera.  Most of the internet cafes are
slow.  The last one I was at was part of a yarn shop and I
couldn’t post a picture without the connection timing out. 
Hopefully things get better for that, with our luck with cameras

Also, we decided not to go to Vienna.  That way, we’ll get more
time in Budapest and Prague.  We’ll be taking a train from
Budapest to Prague on Thursday.

Well, I’m off to go taste some Goulash…

Chow…


Update: Here is a video of us going up a tram on the Buda side, overlooking Pest.

Budapest

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I’m currently in Budapest… We had to leave Amsterdam a day early due
to some conflicts with airline tickets.  I’m not too disappointed with
that, however.  We were able to go to the Banana Bar and the Heineken
tour, and that’s all I really wanted to do in Amsterdam. 

I got the shit scared out of me, though.  We were at the airport ready
to go to Budapest, when I found out that I had some leftovers from a
coffee shop.  I didn’t really want to make a huge scene, so I just left
it in my pocket.  Then the alarm went off when I went through
security.  Apparently my sandals make the European alarms go off. 
Anyway, they didn’t find the goods, but it did make my heart beat a
little faster.

Oh, and Amsterdam has two security checkpoints. They have a normal one
and then they have one at the gate.  It’s probably good, too, since
they stopped a guy carrying a hand gun.  The guy said he was coming
from a flight from Japan… This all happened right in front of me…
before I boarded the plane. 

I’m finding that I really like Budapest women.  90% of them are
absolutely beautiful.  So far, everyone that we have met on the trip is
very friendly.  Most people that we run into speak some English, so
getting around hasn’t really been a problem.  We did find out that
Budapest has two types of cabs.  They have private taxis and taxis that
are owned by a single corporation. If you take a taxi in Budapest, you
want to stay away from the private taxis.  They tend to charge about
3-5 times the amount that the corporate taxi would charge.  You can
spot a corporate taxi if it has the telephone number on the side.

Yesterday, we went to a spa.  Apparently Budapest is famous for their
spas.  I have to admit that the spa was amazing.  The size of the
outdoor pool was really impressive.  We sat around the pool and swam
for the majority of the time that we were there.  I plan to go to
another spa tomorrow for a massage.  They do different massage styles,
but I think I’ll go for the Thai massage. 

Last night, we went to a couple pubs.  One was called Fat Mo’s and they
had a nice cover band that was playing.  The other place was called Old
Man’s.  I’ll just say that the people were very friendly there… 
We’re planning on going to Buda Beach tomorrow.  It’s a huge outdoor
club with a house dj tomorrow.

Budapest is two cities, really.  On one side of the Danube, there is
Buda and the other side is Pest.  We’re currently staying in an
apartment in Pest.  The apartment worked out great.  It only costs
about 15,000 HUL (about $80) for the 4 days that we’re here.  Other
than that, we found out that Budapest is best to visit on the weekends,
if you want to go out.  The discotek are really only used Thursday
through Saturday.  With that bit of knowledge, we’re headed to Prague
for the weekend.  We’ll be there for 4 days, also…

Amsterdam

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I made it to Amsterdam yesterday… my luggage, took a little
longer.  I have to say that Heathrow blows.  That is the most
unorganized airport that I’ve been to. 

After walking around the city for a little while, I ran into all of the guys that I know.  We ended up going to the Banana Bar
and some coffee houses.  It’s early and my head feels dull, but so
far I have to admit that Amsterdam is a nice place to visit in the
fall.  Much better than winter. 

 

To Europe I go…

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I’m headed to Europe tomorrow… this will be my third trip and I
have to admit that I am really looking forward to it.  As it
stands right now, I arrive in Amsterdam Saturday (Sept. 10th)
morning.  I have a ticket from London to Chicago on Sunday Sept.
25th.  What happens in between will sort of be figured out along
the way.  The current plan is to go to Amsterdam, Budapest,
Prague, and Munich.  If there is time, I’d like to see Venice, but
that might be stretching things a bit slim. 

I’ll be meeting up with some friends
that have been cruizing around London and Barcelona for the last
week.  The beauty of this trip is that there is no real game plan,
other than having fun.  I’m planning on writing entries about the
trip as much as possible.  Now, I’d like to not censor what
happens on the trip, but I’ll make that choice as it’s presented. 

Also, if you’re going to be near any of those cities and want to meet, send me an email…

Linux… the big question

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I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about computers… I can
only imagine how people feel about Linux, who know less than I
do.  I want to use Linux, but this is why I currently do
not…  Mainly, it confuses me and I’m uneducated about it…

    * There are so many distros that I’m not really sure
which one fits me.  I don’t know which one would fit the uses I
plan for Linux.
    * There are two main GUI wrappers (KDE and
Gnome).  I don’t know the differences and it seems like I have to
target one or the other for any GUI apps that I develop.
    * I like that I can go to Windows update and get all of my updates at once, in one [sort of] clean process.
    * Installing software on a linux box is a
pain.  (this comes from my previous toying with linux a couple
years ago).
    * Recompiling the kernel… yeah, I tried this one a
couple years ago and it didn’t work out so well for me.  As a
daily user, I shouldn’t have to recompile the kernel.  If I were
writing device drivers, it may be different.
    * File sharing… maybe this has changed, but I
remember that sharing files between windows and linux (using SAMBA) was
not trivial.  This is a must have…

So what am I looking for specifically?  I want:

    * A flavor of Linux for development.  My
current setup is Windows XP/2003 with Visual Studio .Net 2003.  I
currently develop web apps, primarily with the occasional gui/console
tool.  It is generally written with asp.net/c#.  I have to
admit that I like what Mono is doing, but I’m not sure what web server
easily works with asp.net apps.
    * A flavor of Linux for a webserver.  I host my
own website(s) and wouldn’t mind using Linux if it was a transparent
switch.
    * A flavor of Linux for casual web browsing, mp3
playing, and office apps.  I often have to setup/reformat older
boxes for people.  If I could install linux for them, I would…
this is tough, since those people know even less about computers than I
do.
    * Automatic updates.  I’m not a fulltime
security geek… I want my applications/OS to tell me when updates are
needed…better yet, the apps/OS could auto download and install
updates on a schedule.  I have no problem downloading updates and
clicking a button to install them.  I just don’t see myself
keeping up with patches/updates without this feature.  This should
include kernel updates with a once click (or similar) method to update
to the new version.

That’s all for now.  So if anyone reading this knows a lot about
linux, or if someone you know would, I’d like a couple of these
questions answered.  You could convert a fulltime windows user to
a part time windows user, if things were more clear.  A feature
comparison chart for distros would be nice.  Also, feel free to
debunk any myths that I might have raised in these bullet points.

Ice around the a/c tube

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I had the distinct joy of coming home to a house problem
yesterday.  I got home and thought that the house was pretty
warm… so I checked the thermostat and it was reading 85, even though
the a/c (central air) should have been keeping it around 75.  So,
I went outside and examined the a/c unit.  Everything looked fine
outside.  Next, I went to the basement where the a/c line connects
to the furnace.  “damn…” I thought… there was a huge ice chunk
around the pipe and the connection was leaking (from the melting
ice). 

I called one of my really good friends, who just happens to know a
thing or two about houses, and he said that this is a pretty common
situation.  Apparently the a/c unit is low on freon. 
Everything iced up because there wasn’t a large enough difference
between the outside temp and the temp coming from the a/c unit.

Anyway, to remedy the situation, I turned off the a/c, but explicitly
turned on the fan (part of the furnace).   This allows the
ice to melt.  The next step will be to have a HVAC person to come
out and recharge the a/c units.

Just some venting…

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I can’t deny that I’ve been a bit short with people as of late.  I
have noticed it at work and a family member mentioned it when I last
spoke to them.  I’m not completely sure what is causing this short
temper, but I imagine that stress is the major factor.

When it comes down to it, I feel the need to change my life/lifestyle
and I don’t think it’s happening quick enough for my
subconscious.  I really hope that it’s not that I’m getting burnt
out doing a tech job because I do like the creativity and challenges it
provides.  That aside, I must admit that I’ve really begun to
enjoy being outside during the day.  Though, I’m sure that part of
that is from the beautiful summer days that have been occurring lately.

I continually wonder what I would want to do if money didn’t matter but
so far I, unfortunately, haven’t come up with anything practical.

Anyway, I guess acknowledging that I’m aware of the situation is the
first step to fixing it.  Perhaps I should start meditating
again… that seemed to generally make me calm, when I did it on a
regular basis before.

Javascript: How to pass objects to window.setTimeout

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I was hacking some javascript and wanted to add a timeout to a callback
request (XmlHttpRequest / Ajax).  Note, only async requests
support the abort() function.  Many bad things happen when you try
to abort() a synchronous xmlHttpRequest.  A bit of background… I
create a new xmlHttpRequest object for each callback, so I couldn’t
just use a global variable as my one callback object.

Anyway, I needed to call a function with a parameter via the setTimeout
function.  I soon found out that passing variables/objects to the
specified function is not supported nicely.  So… I used an
anonymous javascript function to do my bidding.

This is the function I wanted to call via the setTimeout function:


function AbortIfCallInProgress(xmlHttpRequest)
{
    switch (xmlHttpRequest.readyState)
    {
        case 1, 2, 3:
            xmlHttpRequest.abort();
            break;

        // Case 4 and 0
        default:
            break;
    }   
}

This is how I called it:


 window.setTimeout(function () { AbortIfCallInProgress(xmlRequest); }, 5000);

Since this is not supported:


 window.setTimeout(‘AbortIfCallInProgress(xmlRequest);’, 5000);

Getting comfortable, socially

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I don’t really know how to start this, so I’m just going to dive in and
see where it takes me.  I’ve noticed something about the social
interaction that goes on when I venture back to my home town.  I
have some great friends from high school who I, unfortunately, only get
to see a handful of times per year.  It seems that as more time
passes between each visit, the amount of time to get “reacquainted”
gets progressively longer.  I’m sure there could be a handy
equation, but I’m not feeling that adventurous yet. 

Currently, that time is about 1 night (about 4 hours).  This
varies depending on how many people are involved, but that’s the
current general estimate.  Meaning,
it takes about 1 night of bullshitting with each other (usually at a
bar) until we feel comfortable to just “hang out.”  It takes that
time to go through all of the crap going on in our lives… After we’re
done with that part, we hang out like we did when we were growing up
and just getting to know ourselves.

Now, I’m guessing this could be avoided if we all talked more.  But that just doesn’t happen…

The scientist in me wants to relate this to brain waves… I’d like to
think that since we’re all coming from different places, our brains are
all going at different frequencies.  That first night is like a
buffer.  It allows us to all get more in sync with the brain
waves.  So the following days, our brains are operating at similar
frequencies, making interaction more fluid.