Words of history
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on August 22nd, 2008
a word cloud of badsoda.com by Wordle
WP Themes: premiumthemes.net
Posted by Thomas in Computer Interfaces on June 19th, 2008
Wordpress users have thousands of themes to choose from. This site sports one by R. Bhavesh from premiumthemes.net. Prior to this site making the big switch I had hunted around and found quite a few of that were really good such as the beatiful HemingwayEx. Never being happy with things in their status quo however, this hunt has never really stopped. Over the last 2 months I’ve had a look at a few hundred themes to try to find the one that truly fits the bill.
During this search a few themes have really amazed me. Not only were their designs a true work of art - worthy of the best CSS as found on sites like CSS Zen Garden - their code was well optimized, search engine friendly and supported widgets and popular plugins right out of the box.
One desiger however truly stood out. I’d like to take a moment a moment to applaud the work R. Bhavesh in this regard. He is no stranger to well designed sites themes, having recieved recognition from places such as Smashing Magazine for his WP Premium theme as well has the WP Remix theme. Among the 20+ themes on his site, premiumthemes.net, you will find one called: SimpleSite. It strikes just the right balance on all aspects which I find important:
- a stong design and continuous user experience throughout.
- great support for popular plugins such as Contact-Form, Gravatar, Social BookMarking, Ajax rating etc.
- multi-level drop menu ready, which if you’ve ever tried to implement this on top of an existing theme you know you’ll spend hours on.
- supports a dynamic photo gallery allowing you to simply write a post, upload an image and the thumb will automatically be displayed in home and portfolio pages.
- flexible placement of the sidebar right from within the admin tools.
- and much more ….
Why on earth don’t I implement this theme if it’s so good? Well sadly I’m not in a position to shell out the necessary cash to implement it on a site for which there is little traffic. Call me cheap, 50% of my blood is after all dutch.
That being said and for the more fortunate readers I really encourage you to have a look at what PremiumThemes has to offer.
The future barcode
Posted by Thomas in Computer Interfaces on May 13th, 2008
Working in the transport industry I routinely come across forms of data encoding and retrieval for the purposes of tracking the movement of goods such as bar codes, RFID etc. The uses of these technologies outside of managing a supply chain have so far completely eluded me - and to be perfectly honest I was never interested in it.
That changed recently when I came across QR-Codes. QR Codes are a particular implementation of a two dimensional bar code. They are similar to a linear (1-dimensional) barcode, like the ones you find on products at your local supermaket, but have more data representation capability.
What I had failed to realize up to now is that these systems encode data, whatever this data may be. While your typical UPC or EAN barcode, which is used in retail, only has the ability to handle 12 decimal digits the more recent encoding systems go way beyond this. In the case of QR-Codes you’re able to encode over 4000 alpha numeric characters. This opens up a whole new market of possibilities. 
Stop and think for a second about it. What information can be conveyed to you in 4000 characters? What are the typical things for which you re-encode information as you move from one medium to another? What information is prone to “write once - read many” situations where the medium carrying the message does not have inherent technology to support the reading?
Top of mind for me would be books. Encoding such things as title, author, year of publication, publisher, anything within the ONIX standard would be really useful. Imagine you’re a shopkeeper and you have the ability to add titles to your catalogue simply by scanning the barcode! Another example would be encoding of IPTC and EXIF information on the back of printed photos. On the more sensitive side you could imagine encodig personal details such that instead of inserting your ID card or bank card into a reader you would just swipe them in front of a camera. The possiblities are limitless.
Weekend in Paris
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs, What to do when in... on May 12th, 2008
It was Wifie’s birthday today. For the occasion we took off to Paris for the weekend leaving the rugrats with their grandparents.
Having arrived yesterday and after day of shopping and good food - and the inevitable walking around town - we went to the thearte. We saw “Le Dieu du carnage“ or rather “The God of Carnage” by Yasmina Reza with Isabelle Huppert at the “théâtre Antoine”. The play had gotten some pretty good reviews and did not dissapoint despite a small moment where even the actors got caught up into the spirit of things and shared a giggle.
After resting a little - did I mention we walked a lot - we headed off to the restaurant. It is located on the enchanting “Ile Saint Louis” in the middle of the Seine. Our resevation at “Mon Vieil Ami” was at 9:30 which gave us plenty of time to lounge around and enjoy the sunset. Upon arriving at the restaurant we were told to wait a few minutes while our table was being dressed. That’s when, to my utter surprise I recognized one of the other patrons in the place: Prince Philippe and one of his daughters (I can’t remember which one). Not wanting to intrude on what was obviously a familiy outing we did not press for an autograph or a handshake. Besides, the security detail had already taken note of our recognizing him. After he’d stepped out we were shown to our table. The meal was very pleasant and although the starters were not so great they more than made up for it with an excellent main dish and a great dessert. The wine was good, and more importantly well priced. Given all of that this place definitly has my thumbs up.
This morning we took it easy and headed down to the Eiffel tower after breakfast. We didn’t go up because a) there was a huge line and b) the top floor was temporarily closed. After wandering a bit we headed down to the Marais, the jewish quarter of Paris centered around rue de Rosiers, to get some food and shop for gifts for the kids. As is now customary for us we got our sandwiches from the famed Jewish boulangerie, Sacha Finkelsztajn“. If you are ever to go there you can’t miss the the signature yellow facade.
After eating our pastrami sandwiches we headed over to the Maison européenne de la photographie where an expo of Valerie Belin was taking place. It was an enjoyable visit although her work it seems did not quite do it for my wife. It was now getting time for us to get our bags and head home. The kids were surely waiting for us and we were equally anxious to see them agan. After a short trainride we were back home, in Brussels, and the weekend was over, it had gone just as quickly as I had feared.
Working with reflective surfaces
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on May 6th, 2008
I was going for an action shot of her going down the slide. I set it a bit too fast for that but I’m not displeased with the result. The details are stunning and the colors are just right for the time of day.
The shot could probably do with a little cropping although I’m told that the break on the left ensures the image remains within its context
The light was starting to dim and I was hoping to catch her hair in the early evening sun which worked out just fine. There’s another picture which Maya took last summer which really has me going on this. Her hair has the ability to look like its on fire.
What were they thinking?
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on April 2nd, 2008
This video is now over a year old. Nevertheless, it made my day
Where have I been?
Posted by Thomas in Reflexive blurbs on April 1st, 2008
I’ve taken stock and it ain’t too bad for a 32 year old. Just about set foot on half the continents thus far.
- Create your own travel map or travel blog
- Visit TripAdvisor.com