I was having a very interesting talk with Ian and Glyn yesterday during dinner about the DataPortability workgroup. I can start explaining what the idea of data portability is, but I think that this next video explains way more. Let me just say that Google, Facebook and Plaxo recently joined for a good reason.

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I had a few offers for my Macbook, but never enough money to pay the price difference between what I would get for my old Macbook and what I would have to pay for a new one. With a recent project I finally managed to get that difference covered so I sold my 1st generation Macbook (including the stickers), and bought a basic model 4th generation. I switched my custom bought 160GB Western Digital before I handed my old Macbook to my friend Amir.


Ik had al een paar aanbiedingen gekregen voor mn Macbook laptop, maar ik had nooit het geld om het prijsverschil tussen de verkoop van de oude en de aankoop van de nieuwe Macbook te kunnen overlappen. Door een recent projectje kon dit eindelijk wel, dus ik heb mn oude 1ste generatie Macbook verkocht (inclusief de stickers) en een nieuwe 4de generatie basis-model Macbook aangeschaft. Ik heb nog even snel mn 160GB harddisk uit mn oude Macbook gehaald en gewisselt met de harddisk uit de nieuwe Macbook, en toen heb ik mijn oude Macbook overgegeven aan mn vriend Amir.

My old Macbook was a 1.83Ghz CoreDuo with 2GB of Ram, a 160GB harddrive and a ComboDrive. I bought a new Macbook for £699(€980) and spend €80(£57) on upgrading the memory to 4GB. Al of this gave me the following upgrades:

- Wireless N (not that I have a router that supports that, but maybe in the future)
- 4GB of ram (+2 on the old 2GB)
- 1 year of full warranty (seriously worth a lot of money)
- 144MB Graphics card (vs 64MB)

Don’t have my 4GB or ram yet which makes it very slow at the moment using the standard 1GB. Macbooks really need at least 2GB of Ram. The 4GB will arrive at my parents’ place Wednesday, but I won’t be there before Thursday.

Mijn oude Macbook was een 1.83Ghz CoreDuo met 2GB aan geheugen, een 160GB harddisk en een ComboDrive. De nieuwe Macook heb ik gekocht voor £699(€980) plus nog eens €80(£57) voor het upgraden naar 4GB geheugen. Dit alles geeft me de volgende upgrades in mijn systeem:

- Wireless N (niet dat ik een systeem heb dat dit aankan, maar misschien in de toekomst)
- 4GB aan geheugen (2GB meer dan voorheen)
- 1 jaar volledige garantie (serieus veel geld waard!)
- 144MB Video geheugen (versus de 64MB in de oude Macbook)

Mijn 4Gb is nog niet binnen dus ik zit nu met 1GB te werken, wat de Macbook erg traag maakt. Macbooks hebben echt 2GB aan geheugen nodig minimaal om lekker te draaien. De 4GB komt vandaag al aan bij mn ouders maar ik ben morgen pas daar, dus ik zal een dagje moeten wachten.

So, I was trying to get my PS2 EyeToy to work on my G4 Mac Mini for a while now. I had done this a while back on a Windows machine and I loved it, so I was hoping it would be a breeze to get to work in Mac OS X. It took a while though to get it working, not because it was difficult to do or something, but simply because there was only one place on the whole internet that gave me an interesting link! So now I will try to make a more Google accessible blog post that can serve as a point to go to for everyone in the future.
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Why are only now developers starting to really bring “push”-like services to the desktop? I mean: originally internet related services (like email and web pages) required the user to “pull” the data from the internet. Now recently there has been a lot more development for creating some “push”-like content like widgets, gadgets, twitter, etc.

I am just amazed by this recent focus on “push”-like services while originally services like telephones and sms have always been push services. Has the technology really never been there for the internet or has there been a refusal to go push by developers?

I know that this might be confusing with all my OpenID talk, but I just stumbled on a concept called OpenDNS. The concept is simple that instead of using the official DNS system which is closed property, you would use the open DNS servers of the OpenDNS network.

The advantages are numerous, and I quote from the OpenDNS site:

Why is OpenDNS safer than what I’m using now for DNS?
OpenDNS intercepts phishing attempts. OpenDNS customers will be warned if they attempt to visit a phishing site.

Why is OpenDNS faster than other DNS servces?
Two things make OpenDNS faster than similar services. First, OpenDNS runs a really big, smart cache, so every OpenDNS user benefits from the activities of the broader OpenDNS user base. Second, OpenDNS runs a high-performance network which is geographically distributed (see network map) and serviced by several redundant connections. OpenDNS responds to your query from the nearest location. That means we’re very fast (and extremely reliable, to boot).

Why is OpenDNS smarter?
We fix typos in the URLs you enter whenever we can. For example, if you’re using OpenDNS craigslist.og will lead directly to craigslist.org.
When you try to go to a website that won’t load, instead of a browser error we show you OpenDNS Guide and help you get to where you want to go.

Now my really big question is: can I trust these guys? What is the quality of their service and is it really worth the trouble? Soon I will be getting my proper internet connection here and it might be interesting to set the router to OpenDNS but I would really like to know what others think first.