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I treated myself to some nice new toys and I am very happy with them, so here comes a short review. Logitech G9x Laser Mouse I already have a G9 at home, which is the best mouse I ever used. It is really a gamer mouse, but the high resolution laser, free rolling scroll wheel and the cable make it perfect for programming and desktop use. It also comes with adjustable weights, which helps to make it feel just right. I just bought a new one because I wanted to replace the G5 I had at work with this one. The G9x is pretty much the same with a better case and higher resolution. The new colour scheme also goes better with the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (which is the only Microsoft product in my house). As the G9 and G9x are the same price, the choice is really easy. With the G9x you can also adjust the colour of the LEDs and as everyone knows: a gadget is not a gadget if it has no blue LED. Nokia microSD/HD map 16GB MU-44 This is a memory upgrade for my Nokia N79. And when did memory get so small? The size of this is just silly, you can breath it in if you are not careful. SHARKOON SATA QuickPort PRO The main reason for this order. I needed another USB backup drive, because I want to make a backup before I do the Fedora 13 upgrade. I looked around for 2TB external USB drives or NAS, but they are all much too expensive. I also usually have some old hard-disks around that are leftovers from computer upgrades and needed a use for them. The Sharkoon is a dock where you can insert "naked" Sata drives directly. You connect it with e-sata and/or USB to your computer and that is it. It also acts as a USB hub with two ports and has a slot for SD/MMC/MS memory cards. It also has a switch to turn it off when not in use, which is a lot better than the usual external drives. It is also bloody fast over e-sata (they do a simpler version which just has USB). And that is it already. I am backing up everything now so Fedora 13 is next.

While my girlfriend is away on holiday I use the opportunity to eat the things she hates. Today a quick little octopus salad. The idea for this one is from my sister. 200g pulpo (octopus), boiled and cleaned 3 tomatoes 1 small onion 1 lime pepper light soy sauce sesame oil lots of fresh coriander Cut the octopus and tomatoes into slices and small pieces. Slice onion. Add juice of lime, coriander, a little bit of soy sauce and sesame oil. Pepper to taste. The soy sauce and sesame oil is really optional, you can also use more lime and a bit of olive oil.

This year I am doing the updates every four months and April is nearly over, so here it goes. 1. Loose weight: going very well. I dropped from an average weight of 79 to 74.7kg and moved from “overweight” to “normal weight” BMI category. I didn’t my lifestyle too much, I just eat and snack a bit less. One big helper has been the physics diet website, which keeps a nice average graph and helps me to stay motivated. I just have to go another 1.7kg to reach my goal for the year. 2. Reduce time spend watching TV, reading e-mails, blogs, facebook and twitter. I reduced the number of RSS feeds from 600 to 479 and the posts I read per day from 365 to 240 (including tweets). And I spend less time on each post, as I use readitlater to mark interesting posts and read them when I have time for it. I also stopped watching a few TV shows and stopped using facebook. Overall I notice that I have more time and I am sure I can do a bit more in the next eight months. Using GTD more also helped with my time management. 3. Do something about my so called “career”. This could mean doing something more fun, working less and/or earning more money. As mentioned in the previous post, I have decided to go for something more fun with a job at softonic. I will judge how it turned out in the coming months. For some reason I seem to have too many choices at the moment. Maybe I should have chosen more goals, but the success so far seems to be an indicator that it is good to concentrate on a few. Next update will be at the end of August. Some left overs from last year, which I worked on this year too: ...

This week I started my new job at Softonic. After three years at opus5 I decided that it was time to move on. I learned a lot in this time and as I like to say, a lot of things I really never wanted to learn. I worked in a great team and wish them all the luck for the future (And in case you are looking for a PHP job, I am sure they are looking for more people). While writing my 2010 New Year’s Resolutions, I came to the conclusion that it is finally time to make a move. I was looking for a company, which is more focused on development and the possibility to learn new stuff. ...

Katja and I spend the last few days in Marrakesh. We were looking for a cheap holiday in a not too cold country and Morocco was pretty much the only choice. The flight to Morocco was with Ryan Air. I already knew how much I hate them, but they confirmed it again. We stayed at a small hotel Riad Alksar in the Medina. A Riad is a house with a courtyard and the rooms build around it. It doesn’t have any large windows to the outside. The area of the hotel is pretty poor with the exception of a handful of similar hotels. The hotel has eight rooms and each of these would usually house a family. Our host was very nice and the hotel clean and with a minimal design. One of the perks is the roof terrace, which we used a lot to chill and for breakfast. Because we didn’t have too much time, we spend most of it shopping in the Souks, visiting a few of the palaces and enjoying the food market at night. The food was very good and I can only recommend it to everyone. The most amazing thing was how friendly everyone is in Marrakesh. You get hassled once in a while by people trying to sell you various rubbish, but they leave you alone after you said “no” twice. Everyone was helpful and I never felt like I should have to worry about pick pockets or similar. Very different from the situation in Barcelona. But pictures speak more than a thousand words, so have a look…