This and that - for now

IT/TECH: Ever wondered how to install PHP on IIS 6/7.x

2010-03-18T01:20:00.009+01:00

From time to time I stumble into the situation to install PHP on a Windows Server. It is an easy task, but if you never ever did it or didn't do it for a while... well, here are some tips...

Why would you do so? Well, a) it is faster than on any Linux/Unix System I saw it running and b) for a developer it is a bit more convinient (at least if he's a Windows geek like I am ;) ).

I have here two links which are quite helpful:
a) A complete and working instruction from Ruslan Yukushev
http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/246/using-fastcgi-to-host-php-applications-on-iis-70/?ref=thisandthatfornow.blogspot.com

b) A short instruction on how to set the timezone in php.ini - Mr. Yukushev forgot to mention this ;)
http://de3.php.net/manual/en/datetime.configuration.php#ini.date.timezone?ref=thisandthatfornow.blogspot.com

In short explanation: search for date.timezone within php.ini, uncomment it and set it for example to: date.timezone = Europe/Berlin

That would not only make phpinfo() work ;)

An interesting note is from my experience, that neither the Webplatforminstaller from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/web/Downloads/platform.aspx?ref=thisandthatfornow.blogspot.com) doesn't really make the job as well as the MSI- installers delivered on http://windows.php.net/ doesn't.

So always download the ZIP- file, extract it on a folder of your choice (ideally c:\php or c:\program files(x86)\php) and handle everything from hand.

Coming to an additional tool to use to even speed up the PHP experience on Windows. Install the Windows Cache Extension for PHP wich can be found here: http://www.iis.net/expand/WinCacheForPhp/?ref=thisandthatfornow.blogspot.com.

Installation is quite easy: Simply download the file, extract its content to the extension folder of php and add the extension within the php.ini - a detailled instruction is given within the archive - read the readme ;)

A note about the cache extension: It does work only with the NON thread safe PHP- version!

Well, so much for now from me...

2010-08-23 Appendix
The MSI installers for the most recent versions of PHP seem now to work well, so you might want to save some time by using them to install. Alternatively the Microsoft Web Platform Installer (http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx) does a great job in installing or updating PHP on Windows machines. Nevertheless, php.ini fine-tuning should be done anyways.

IT: Windows 7 and Vista (x86/x64) codec package even for PEBKAB's

2009-12-23T11:31:00.003+01:00

Hi,

I recently were seeking a complete codec package for Windows enabling me (and especially my Windows Media Center ;)) to a) play nearly any codec and b) rip blue-rays to my discs so I do not always need to insert the fragile originals but can play them directly via streaming on my TV.

I found many tools and codecs but were missing an installing routine - consequently, I had to install them hand by hand and had to create registry key files for special settings I wanted to use.

During the past days, I stumbled upon http://shark007.net. The author of this side created a tool which even PEBKAB (Problem Existing Between Keyboard And Chair) can use.

It does work for both, x86 and x64 Windows Vista and Windows 7.

You may want to give it a try :)

LIVE: Little man - the way girls are

2009-12-17T18:14:00.002+01:00

Hi there,

the good thing about being ill and having issues with concentration on something etc. is that you can go through the douzend web sides of people you know and see (and wonder) how much time they have and how much they invest it into their personal blogs, homepages, ...

Well, even though all the sides I've been going through the past days were either informative or / and funny, one thing jumped into my eyes. On the blog of Phil von Sassen, I found a very funny, short movie about man and wife.

Here the link to his entry: http://sassen.org/wir-werden-frauen-nie-durchschauen/

And if you want to see it directly, here is the embedded player :)

Well, thank you Phil - and have a great Christmas to all of you.

IT: Hey IT

2009-07-24T11:31:00.003+02:00

I just stumbled upon an article in TechCrunch about IE6 haters.

Actually, I am with these guys and therefore and herewith want to support this initiative. Here is the link: http://hey-it.com/

The link to the above mentioned article is http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/23/woah-people-really-dont-like-ie6/.

Surprise Germany - cheap food results in cheap (food) tricks

2009-07-19T00:34:00.003+02:00

In Germany they started to realize that food is not only cheapest food in Europe (no, not yet realized) but as a logical cause to that, food is not what it pretend to be.

For example some shrimps are only made of albumen - so actually they are immitating shrimps (even though albumen is death which does in the widest sense give them something in common :o)) - with other food, it is the same. Guacamole which does contain nub fat instead of Avocado fat, and so on.

Surprise, surprise Germany!

Anyhow, a country that just realizes that quality, quantity and prizing really belong together even though nearly everone here believes that quality and low prizing belongs together and is of course archived by high quantities... (yep, quantity and quality can go along, but high quality + high quantity only if low prizing is raised to realistic prizig, putting it away from chep to reasonable!) can't, of course, accept such thing.

Consequently - and typical German - we discuss it.. meanwhile, at least a daily growing list with products exist here: http://tinyurl.com/ltx4j8

But if I am allowed to make a guess, whilst everyone is going to talk about it and is either resignating or otherwise for higher prizing (as long as he isn't affected) and more control (which again raises the prize I guess ;)), for our upcoming election, the typical amnesia will come up and all electors forget about the issue itself - until it is opportune to remember.

My question to you, dear reader is, if

there is a guarantee for objective, non industry paid, quality assurance and control
that means that quantities are lowered and the one or other fruit will not be available through out the yeat
that also means that not any fruit looks perfectly shaped (like the cucumber finally can be again)

would you pay reasonable prizes for such products?

Let me know your thoughts, I am looking forward to them.

Sincerly,

Ingo-Stefan Schilling

Live: What's the origin of: It's raining cats and dogs

2009-05-26T21:20:00.002+02:00

Hi,

thanks to www.twitter.com/baerlie I do now know (the) one answer: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/raining%20cats%20and%20dogs.html

Just in case you have been wondering about this as well :D

TECH: Install PHP on IIS7 - and find out that DLL's are missing...

2009-05-04T22:16:00.004+02:00

This dll's are OCI.dll, libcs.dll and maybe some other...

Well, going through Google a lot of good meant tips and tricks are named but they all compiled do help - finally.

Therefore, if you get an FastCGI- or similiar error message first try to test whether PHP does work from the console. Simply open it and run it via php-cgi (if you created a phpinfo.php on your inetpub root). Maybe you want to try it with php-cgi phpinfo.php.

Usually you'll get the mentioned error called:
*.dll was not found, for example: OCI.dll was not found, libcs.dll was not found ...

Well, that's easy to handle - if you know what todo.

a) OCI.dll is related to Oracle stuff - therefore, if you don't need it just open you php.ini and outcomment everything that is related to Oracle and extension - I mean EVERYTHING :)
b) libcs.dll is related to Symantic - so do the likewise to a) with Symantec related extensions.

And here we go. Everything works fine.

BTW: If you are using an 64bit system, the whole thing does work perfectly here as well.

If you find that the whole thing doesn't work at all, adding HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Wow6432Node/PHP a string value called IniFilePath with the path to your PHP installation does do the thing. Under a 32bit system, you find the PHP- Entry below SOFTWARE :)

Tech: Developing C# on 64bit - A little debugging tip

2009-04-27T11:19:00.005+02:00

History

A very long time ago I started my development carreer with Basic on a C64. Later on, my first real debugging experience was with Amiga- and Gfa Basic. Both allowed my to change my code during the debugging session which was, especially in larger projects, of some great help - and of course I was finally able to try the one or other thing while in debugging mode. Later on, doing my Visual Basic development, I was able to go on in enjoying this way of development.

Today

With Java and C# this way of development ended - so my thoughts and experience. I read that debugging and changing code should work at least in C# but have never been able to do so...

Some months ago I figured out why - and felt like a perfect idiot, especially since I pointed out some years ago in a developer forum (I think Skype) that - on 64bit systems - there is a border to cross.

The tip

If you develop on a 64bit system, VS 2005 / 2008 per default turns the platform target (Properties-Build) to Any CPU for C#. This consequently does result in you not being able to debug and code the same time.

If you do not code something doing 64bit operations or is in need of 64bit only compiled libraries, you might want to change the platform target to x86. The result is - back in debugging and coding business...

Well, sometimes it is as easy as this to make a developer happy 8-)

Question to Microsoft

When can I debug & code in both environments? 64bit debug & code only doesn't work - yet?

TECH: A possible but strange IE8 Tab performance issue solution

2009-04-22T18:11:00.002+02:00

While searching for a solution to IE8's obvious tab 'performance' issue, I stumbled upon the an article of Ed Bott http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=2443&cpage=2.

I tried it and partially it worked out - so maybe you experienced the same issue and search for a solution, this might help you as well.

TECH: Apple's iPhone, Jailbreaking and so on

2009-03-12T11:03:00.002+01:00

Eine Freundin machte mich auf einen Artikel im deutschen, mobile ZDNET aufmerksam. Der Titel lautete: Ist Steve Wozniak kriminell? zu finden unter: http://cgi.zdnet.de/mobile/?p=178.

Grundsaetzlich geht es um die Frage ob 'Jailbreaking' des iPhones legitim ist oder nicht und vor allem um Apples Sicht der Dinge.

Ich kann es mir nicht verkneifen das zu kommentieren ;)

Apple als Urheber eines Produktes und hat durch Veroeffentlichung der Rahmenbedingung zur Nutzung nach dem Kauf jedem User / Kaeufer die freie Wahl gelassen das iPhone im Sinne Apples zu nutzen oder es eben sein zu lassen. - Was wohl fuer viele bedeuten wuerde es nicht zu kaufen und Wohl oder Uebel auf ein Statussymbol zu verzichten.

Konsequenterweise ist also eine der typischen Behauptungen der iPhone- Jailbreaker, sie haetten keine Wahl gehabt, glatt gelogen.

Aber, so ist unsere Gesellschaft heutzutage leider in vielen Bereichen. Trotz (klarer) Regeln und (klarer) Kommunikation dieser ist den meisten Menschen scheinbar egal was oder wie etwas sein soll, schliesslich kann man sich einfach darueber hinwegsetzen. - Stimmt! Nur leider muss ich immer wieder feststellen dass dies dann auch die Art Mensch ist, die gleich schreit wenn die eigenen Rechte ebenfalls ignoriert werden - oder aber ein Unternehmen wie Apple gegen den Verstoss der zuvor mit dem Kauf aktzeptierten Nutzungs- und Lizenzbedingungen vorgeht. Selbiges gilt natuerlich auch fuer die Musikindustrie, etc. pp..

Verwundert oder erstaunt duerfte also kein Jailbreaker sein der ein Problem bekommt - ebenso natuerlich Apple nicht. Wieso ausgerechnet im hochreglementierten Deutschland etliche Regelungen der Nutzungs- und Lizenzbedingungen Apples nicht funktionieren habe ich nicht recherchiert - aber evt. greift auch hierzulande der Verbraucherschutz mal im Sinne der Verbraucher ;) -, jedoch ist festzustellen dass dies Jailbreaking deshalb nicht weniger fragwuerdig macht.

Es mag sein dass es 'legal(er)' ist, doch waehre es nicht nachhaltiger und sinnvoller nicht wie ein Lemming das iPhone zu Kaufen sondern Apple davon in Kenntnis zu setzen dass man(n) dies zwar taete, jedoch nur zu aktzeptablen Bedingungen?

Fuer die meisten Menschen sicherlich eine unueberwindbare Huerde - es sind ja nicht ihre Wuensche und Forderungen die schlichtweg ignoriert und mit Fuessen getreten werden!

Ich kann nur hoffen das wir auf diese Menschen nicht angewiesen sind (wenngleich es doch leider sein werden) sobald es darum geht Demokratie aktiv mitzugestalten und im Rahmen der gesellschaftlichen Regelungen zu handeln ... denn an diesem Punkt wuerden sie unter Umstaenden scheitern und garantiert ins Gegenteil verfallen - so lange es Opportun ist, natuerlich.

Zu guter Letzt moechte ich noch einen weiteren Punkt zum Thema Apple und Lizenz- Nutzungsbestimmungen anbringen. Jeder Apple Juenger - zumindestens die, die schon laenger dabei sind - weiss das Apple grundsaetzlich und nebenbei bemerkt mehr als die Microsofts, Standard Oils, AT&Ts, Bells etc. dieser Welt, immer schon darauf gesetzt hat eine kleine und feine Enklave mit maximalem Protektionismus zu erhalten.

Frueher wurde dies kuenstlich mit Hardware und beinahe unueberwindbaren Lizenzbestimmungen aehnlich Commodore gemacht, heute eben nur noch rechtlich - und beim iPhone zusaetzlich mit ein wenig Hardware. Haette sich Apple nicht dem Diktat der Zeit hingeben muessen und damit rechnen koennen dass das iPhone perfekt ist - ich garantiere das es keine Moeglichkeit zum flashen und somit Jailbreaken gebe, jedenfalls keine so einfache :)

Persoenlich frage ich mich warum noch niemand auf die Idee kam (weder die EU hier bei uns noch in den USA die klassischen Verdaechtigen) Apple zu verklagen. Schliesslich wurden Microsoft aehnliche Praktiken vorgeworfen und es hat zumindestens teilweise Fruechte getragen.

Es waehre in jedem Fall der richtige und demokratischere Weg, oder?

On my own score: Changing the world of Social Networking and e-Commerce OR Banner advertisement isn't working!

2009-01-31T14:41:00.011+01:00

During the past years, I always wondered how Social Networks and other Web 2.0 bubbles could survive. In discussions, I was always seen as the black painter, the pessimist ... because I was telling these concerns and referring to the first new economy bubble.

Well, even though my predictions are not yet fulfilled and the Web 2.0 bubble still exists, and even though it looks like it is not breaking as bad as the new economy bubbles back in 2000/1, the signs are showing that several things will happen similiar like in the past. And - many of the Web 2.0 bubble companies are Social Networks of which many have done more for todays mankind than new economy bubble companies back than. Therefore from my opinion they need a second chance to make it through the upcoming issues.

The biggest issue with monetizing these networks is their audience. If I am saying many users are freeloaders, I don't mean that in any way insulting but, looking to the users behavior the moment they should pay for the service they use (the one or other way) you must recognize that this association isn't far away from being truth - as said, I am not wanting to insult someone here nor I am saying that this is in general the case!

During the past months, some friends of me and I made up our minds and after playing around with several ideas, and due to the fact that we are also acting in the VC scene in Germany and partially supporting global VCs in terms of doing due diligences etc. for them, we found that it is time to explore the other side: So we started a new business called SocialCom.

The marketing yadayada is:

Our understanding is that in a world where Web 2.0 is a smashing success regarding user involvement but a crushing disappointment when it comes to revenue generation, SocialCom goal is to rewrite the rules. SocialCom enriches social networks with tools that enable Social Commerce in a reliable, measurable and profitable way without being intrusive – no sensitive user data, no ad space, no banners needed. As a result, social networks can expect significant revenues without putting off their ad-weary audience, while the audience can expect exciting new content.

Consequently, we believe - and see - that Banner advertisement is not working!

In fact, the marketing yadayada is not that far away from the real world. In fact nearly all, non-business Social Networks are 'suffering' from their users and do have massive monetizing issues - even though they are (of course not) telling this to the broad audience.

We have been in many discussions and due diligences during the past 18 months and can tell you as one result: Social Networks are, from my personal standpoint, helpful and making the world smaller - and hopefully a better place. Fact is, however, users are not willing (and often even not able) to pay for this.

Coming back to our idea of SocialCom: Since the audience of Social Networks is quite weary if it comes to advertisements and usually very sensitive if it comes to personal data - even though I personally believe most users are still not sensitive enough! - the Social Networks are in the middle of a dilemma.

If they are placing more ads in today’s formats, users are leaving - aside the point that the sensitive ones realize that they are spammed with Cookies from their Social Network as well as from different ad-networks (this is going to be another blog entry I am writing about soon!).

If they are going to sell the user data they a) don't know if the data is correct and b) it will end up in going public in the worst case --> users are leaving or changing their data (as happened to some large Social Networks nearly instantly after they changed their policies ..) this or the other way, income is decreasing or stagnating.

So what does make our idea of SocialCom different:
a) SocialCom is not about trademarks
b) SocialCom is not about advertisement
c) SocialCom is about products - and products ONLY.

d) SocialCom does not need to know that the user is Chris Right or Lieschen Mueller
e) SocialCom does not need to 'hunt down' the user with cookies and therefore is not tracing him over all websites he has been and will be - as most ad- and affiliate-networks doing it!
f) SocialCom does indeed need some information like: Someone who is of age 33 (or between the age of 30 to 40, or...) and is a he (or neutral) is currently in (or coming from) Germany... is currently on our Social Network and we would like to show him some products that may interest him (and which he's hopefully buying ;) ). That is it.

About f) since we do still not know nor trace who you are in person, nor make any connection between you and your trails (behavior, interest, gender, …), we protect your personal information since we don't know it at all... but of course we put you into a pigeonhole to deliver you (and therefore the Social Network) some product ideas which are displayed in a non-intrusive way. And hopefully you are interested in them and buying this via the offered way to support your Social Network – and of course SocialCom, which consequently means me ;o) The information delivered by the Social Network to our systems is, by the way, immediately deleted the moment the conclusions are calculated and the products are chosen and delivered to the side to be shown to you!

The promise of SocialCom is
a) To the End-users - so usually you - We are not penetrating your privacy nor tracing you in any way!
b) to the Social Networks - We are not going to sell your users nor collecting data about any individual but deliver you tools and chances to monetize

I could, undoubtedly ;o), go on in writing a lot more – but I am asking you to discuss the idea explained here. I am looking forward on your feelings and questions about it. And of course I will, as long as it isn't compromising the current stage and IP of SocialCom, explain more here if you like me to.

ich-tue-nichts-für-glück / i-do-nothing-for-happiness

2009-01-03T17:58:00.002+01:00

Someone I know started a blog, beginning from January, 1st 2009. I like her idea so I want to share it with you here.

EN: http://i-do-nothing-for-happiness.blogspot.com/
DE: http://ich-tue-nichts-fuer-glueck.blogspot.com/

Greetings,

Ingo

How does money work? - and why do we have our crysis?

2008-12-01T10:18:00.003+01:00

Hallo everybody,

why do we have our crysis? -

Or, let me ask: Do we really have one or are we just creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Well, that's coming soon. Here, at first, I would like to offer a link I just stumbled upon which is giving a first and easy to understand idea on how money works at all.

It is the diploma thesis of a German student, made as a 3 part video and its two years old (which doesn't mean it isn't actual anymore). Anyways, the explanation is great and you should take the 15 minutes.

Sorry, but it is in German, I haven't yet found something similiar easy in English - but you are welcome to post a link here :)

Part 1 of "Wie funktioniert Geld": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BrLrwbkQWQ
Part 2 of "Wie funktioniert Geld": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK2yZlHk4cA
Part 3 of "Wie funktioniert Geld": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VOtdQrCoyk

Well, let me know how you feel about this :) In some days I am going to write down my personal thoughts about the 'crysis' we are in.

Have a great week,

Ingo

i brought my own, thanks.

2008-11-29T12:54:00.001+01:00

i brought my own, thanks., originally uploaded by tobe mayr.

One of my former co-workers at Xendex had this one here in his flickr photo-stream.

I am not sure but he might be able to support your next relocation - and surely he'll be a huge saving for that... seems like he might be handle it alone ;)

Great photo, Tobe, thank you :oD

TECH/BUS: Bad economy

2008-10-31T02:06:00.003+01:00

Here is an interesting article of Paul Graham about why to startup a startup in bad economy times. Since I wanted to write something similiar I am thankful to Benjamin for the link and Paul Graham to his article because I do not have to anymore...

Interested, read Paul Grahams article here: http://www.paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html

TECH: Chrome is out - on a second glance

2008-09-03T19:31:00.005+02:00

Well, after now round about 6 hours in using Chrome and comparing the results to IE7 and FF3 on Windows Vista 64bit the following is what I can tell by now:

The good things and

Nearly all pages I visited with Chrome browser work perfectly, except the one or other mainly CSS glitch. Those pages didn't display well don't do so as well in IE7 and FF3.

Here again I have to stress that the current IE8 beta is doing way worse (even in IE7 mode), again having me MS asking to speed up, because many of the IE8 features are of great benefit (not only to Windows users :))
Chromes all in all performance are astonishing, and the system consumption is really low, especially if you compare it to FF3 (which is a monster in terms of consuming system resources). I am quite surprised about Chromes JavaScript speed, with the exception of handling large JSON tables with more than 200 data rows (of round about 512bytes each), Chrome is very fast. At least it beats the other here mentioned browsers depending on the page in seconds, some only in milliseconds.

I wonder if there is something like a JavaScript benchmark out there - for sure it is I am going to find some :)
Opening a new tab is insanely fast - I really love this and wonder why the others are so slow.
Drag and Drop does work between IE and Chrome and sometimes (whysoever) also between FF and Chrome. AND it does work vice versa.
The view source function is fast AND like FF's Add Ins for Sourcecode, I like especially the line numbering :)

the bad things

Chrome does not allow to change the language - which is pain in the Ass since many, especially the Google- pages like this blog - depend on the information and somehow the Browser, why-so-ever, comes always to the point to show German instead of English. This even though my whole system is EN, every program including Chrome is EN as well - and I even setup USA as region. Chrome is anyhow resistant and insists on German wherever possible... I feel like this is a bug, easiness forth or back, to me that am a pain. - Or didn't I simply find the button?
Handling of large data tables coming from JSON as well as simply being delivered as tables (optimized or not doesn't make a difference) is a problem for Chrome. This is something I might investigate this weekend more in deep since it seems like a render issue.

The same happens on pages making extensible use of tables - even though this is depreciated for positioning (and hopefully designers and web programmers sooner than later forget about this at all) - still many sites are relying on this technique.

Chrome suffers dramatically in terms of speed here - I guess some deeper investigation will show whether this is only a table issue... and to be honest, which new browser hadn't had this issue? - I can't remember one, do you?
I still miss my Google- Toolbar... where is it?
At least on the BlogSpot page, Chrome always changes my Arial font back to Georgia - which is just pain.

All in all, Chrome has the ability to drive me away from IE, except the issue that Google is watching me ... which is the worst and bad thing with this browser. I also want to refer to a very interesting article on heise online (sorry in German only): http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Googles-Webbrowser-Chrome-wuehlt-das-Web-auf--/meldung/115371

More to come soon,

Ingo

Since at least some people seem to read my blog (thank you very much for doing so), here is the system I am testing on:

Manufacturer:	self made
Processor:	Dual Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 185 (2 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
Memory:	4094MB RAM
Hard Drive:	~2 TB Total (4x Raid 5 for data; 4x Raid 0 for system) - all drives are 10kRPM SATAII drives
Video Card:	Radeon X1950 Pro
Monitor:	2x Samsung SyncMaster 930BF
Sound Card:	Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
Speakers/Headphones:	Creative Labs Inspire T-7900
Keyboard:	Microsoft USB Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (IntelliType Pro)
Mouse:	Microsoft Habu
Mouse Surface:	Raptor-Gaming
Operating System:	Windows Vista™ Enterprise (6.0, Build 6000) (6000.vista_gdr.070828-1515) SP1

TECH: Chrome is out - my first impression

2008-09-03T12:09:00.007+02:00

Well, Google develops a browser and the world is writing about it - even more interesting, most writers never ever saw the browser but have the best to say about it.

So far so good, after downloading it in a fabulous short time and trying around I have to say I wish MS would deliver such a browsing experience with IE8 (the current Beta is from my personal feeling more an Alpha).

It (Chrome) is fast on most pages, it has some difficulties with pages making extensive use of JS (JSON especially) and with pages using nested and / or large (data) tables.
I'll test it more in deep soon and write more about this here.

@Google: Hey guys, great browser, but were is my beloved Google-Toolbar and its features?

Mac OS X & Windows... "two" worlds ? Issue #1 of ~

2008-07-23T13:26:00.007+02:00

Today's issue: Mac and Windows: The randomly missing SPACE

Hallo everybody,

this is the first issue, so before I start writing please allow a short foreword:

The consulting I am currently doing get's me into the wonderful situation to sit between all seats in terms of the IT environment. So I thought it is time to start occasionally Issues about interoperability between Apple Mac OS 7 - X and Microsoft Windows 2000 - Vista and Linux diverse distributions and UNIX diverse variations at all - but mainly I am very sure you will read stuff about Apples and Microsofts OS'es :-)

I promise - even though I consider myself more "in love" with Windows - to be as neutral as possible. If something is wrong on the one or other side, I am happy to correct it.

Note Users of both sides tend to be polemic and fundamental the moment you are talking about 'their' OS - since this is a moderated blog, everything I believe is a polemic, fundamental or whatever and does not help forward to overcome the issues etc. will not be published. So please think twice before you start posting.

Now the issue: The randomly missing SPACE

Prologue
We got an interesting lead - thanks again Jörg - and I started to write the offer on my Windows PC with Office 2007, after some hours I finally felt like I entered the road to victory - the last thing was to have someone doing the editorial and of course the proofreading. As you know, after several hours working on the same doc, four eyes see more than two. My counterpart for this was a Mac OS X user with Office 2008 for Mac. After some forth and back changes us decided that's the offer to go. Great so far...

Two days later we got the information that the management of the company we offered our services declined the offer and to work with us - simply because they felt like we just delivered a sleazy made offer to them.

What happened?
Thunderstrucked by lightning we wondered what they mean. And "of course" they didn't give us the slightest hint. Re-reading our offer, we figured out that we lost several spaces so their feelings definitely were not about the numbers we were offering to them.

After some investigation we found the issue: Mac OS X & obviously many programs running on it do have several interoperability problems with SPACES. Even though this is nothing real dramatic since other systems despite of their age did and do have similar issues, here the issue is quite annoying - especially since I didn't get the chance to discuss the offer and of course didn't get the contract as well.

It also looks like this issue is not only limited to one version of OS X, up until today, 2008-07-23, all versions / updates of OS X do report similar issues - even though I found only one posting in the macrumors forum that is in relation to Word 2008. I described the issue more detailed at my answer of this post. The thread can be found at http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=5886400.

Solution
Not a solution, a work-around: As of today we simply changed our processes in the hope sooner or lattle Apple or Microsoft get's the problem solved. Our process enhancement simply forces everybody to do proof-reading of the entire document before it leaves the company or is stored as final.

Important
Due to the fact that Mac users won't see the problem at all when printing the doc or reading it on their screen, they should save a PDF Version of the doc and proof-read here, this seems the only way to pin the issue down - or, give it to a 'Windows" colleague to open and save it on his machine and proof-read afterwards.

I am looking forward to get more stories or feedback on this one,

Sincerly,

Ingo-Stefan Schilling

A real cool blog

2008-05-28T20:30:00.003+02:00

a friend of mine gave me this link - and first I was curious, now I can't stop laughing.

This guy is writing great and funny. I have no clue who he is, except that he was a co-worker of my friend, but it seems he's coming around and he's a sports guy.

Anyways, enjoy the blog - btw. it's German, sorry.

http://blacktarmac.blogspot.com/2007/11/tod-auf-dem-nil.html

More to come soon.

Happy Eastern

2008-03-24T14:41:00.003+01:00

My dear readers,

well, a little bit late but the Easter Rabbit had some surprising presents for me I was enjoying so far :)

So happy Eastern to all of you, I hope you had the time to enjoy with your beloved and families.

Ingo

Life: Alba vs. Ulm

2008-03-20T14:30:00.000+01:00

Well,

thanks you Frauke and Peter, old friends of mine, I was in the lucky position to be live in the Stadium when Alba kicked off Ulm in a basketball war.

Even though I was really sceptic since I am not the fan of watching sport at all - I have to admit it was somehow funny and a real nice experience.

I added some more pictures http://picasaweb.google.com/superdummy2001/AlbaVsUlm.

Thanks a lot Frauke and Peter,

Ingo

Recycling - and what others do to help

2008-02-29T19:53:00.002+01:00

Hi,

in one of my fields, the IT, currently everybody is talking about green IT.

Manufacturers, Data Center, etc. are all talking about less energy consuming computers and equipment. Some of them even realized that it may be a good idea to use wood or other biological material for future PCs.

Well, nice ideas but folks, it's the same stupid thing to-do as with Bio-Gas for cars etc... Here for example, the raw material, canola etc., might be regenerative - but on what costs. Energy investments for fertilizer etc. have been so far not taken into account. The same btw. for all regenerative energies - I hope that sooner or later people really will start to walk the production process entirely and not picking out the rosins.

For the PC's etc., the answer must be - from my point of view - don't look only on the current energy consumption, have a look to the production process and related materials as well. Maybe you'll find methods here which are way better then regenerative materials to cover our computers :o)

And, you might have a look to http://www.recycling-atelier.de. - The page is currently only German, but the idea is obvious. A friend of mine and her partners started to recycle existing and wearied out furniture and make new, great looking furniture from it.

Transporting this idea to the IT industry, there might be better ways to come over the problems. I know, a Pentium 4 or previous processors aren't the best example - nor energy consuming / wasting gamer PC's like mine - but maybe there are people smarter than me having ideas on farming these machines and archiving tremendous performance (by putting an application layer of all systems or so?) and finally we do not need new machines but can recycle old once.... or whatever way to go here.

Well, I wonder if someone is reading my blog at all - but if so, maybe you have some ideas about what and how to recycle - let me know. I am anxious to get your thoughts.

Greetings,

Ingo

Do we need to prevent youth crime or not

2008-01-12T17:55:00.000+01:00

Elections in some states in Germany - and, how else should it be, Roland Koch is at the front of populistic phrases.. as other German politicans do as well, the one or other way at least.

What's the exitment about?
In short: We had - once again - some 'teenies' with migration background who conducted brutal crime. Not to say that we do have the same type of crime also with 'teenies' with NO migration background every day as well.

I wonder why everybody is talking about deportation, Jail etc.. Why are only a few people talking about youth crime prevention? - Ok, they are talking but not walking their talk at all. I remember an article in the Berliner Tageszeitung about a police man who was brutally attacked by some teenagers a year or two ago. The very interesting thing these days was, the discussion was the same, politicans of all parties were blaming the others and of course demanding the one or other at this moment opportune thing.

What was the outcome?
As far as I am informed by some members in my living community working in the field of "Jugendfoerderung" (my bad english translation: youth encouragement) told me that by law 15% of the youth etat given in Germany should be used for youth encouragement. Since the above mentioned incident with the police man, only in Berlin, this went down to nearly 5% and this year, 2008, to below 1%...

Why's that?
I don't have the answer, but I think that prevention is not as easy measureable and supporting the gaining of a good image of politicans and others then waiting for the guaranteed and populistic event of conducted crimes. I know - even this here is quite populistic and I should do a better investigation before writing something like this in a public location - but I think as a discussion base, this is an interesting point to start from.

So the question is: Prevention or not?
I personally believe that prevention is the best method to go for - maybe we should provide politicans and other responsible people with a measurement method giving them the chance to gain image from such projects instead of provocating new events like the once currently in the discussion.

Disturbing...
... is to me that the press always reports bad things but does not support - nationwide, not locally - such projects by reporting about them on a long run and supporting them by this way and making them more interesting for the mass of the people in this country. This would be education we are lacking from and it would destroy the base for populists as well.

How was 2007 for you?

2007-12-24T23:39:00.000+01:00

Hi,

looking back the first time in life, I have to say that 2007 was one of the worst years for me, personally and from a business perspective.

Personally I lost the only woman I loved more then my live. She is the only one I even started to change for - even though this was to slow.

Secondary, I betrayed all my ideals. Why's that? I recognized that my ideals do not work in todays world, looking back for the last 10 years, I figured out that nearly everyone I know ripped my ideals for his/her own sake - well, I am not resentful since I allowed it in the one or other manner. Anyways, this ends in 2007 - so something good happens at all.

Third, I decided to change my workplace in 2007 - and stumbled out of the frying pan into the fire..

Well, what else could happen - so far nothing more, but way enough.

Let's hope for 2008 - I am cautioned optimistic :-)

Have a great, healthful and successful 2008 - who ever and where ever you are. And let me know how your 2007 was..

Christmas time and years end race

2007-12-24T23:36:00.000+01:00

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to those few reading my blog :)

Some stuff about Games, story telling etc.

2007-05-21T23:01:00.000+02:00

Alternate Reality Games: I'm Not So Sure I Love Bees. - http://www.fileplanet.com/fileblog/archives/2007/02/entry_210.shtml

GameSpy's Top 25 Video Game Cinematic Moments - http://www.gamespy.com/articles/771/771937p1.html

GDC: Game Developers Rant II - http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/2006/03/gdc_game_develo.html

David Freeman on the Art of Writing for Games - http://www.gamespy.com/articles/596/596254p1.html

Why writing isn't taken seriously - http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/game-writing-1.ars/2

Why Isn't the Game Industry Making Interactive Stories? - http://www.gamespy.com/articles/596/596223p1.html

Storytelling vs. Gameplay: Can't We Get Along?

2007-05-21T22:53:00.001+02:00

Everyone wants more stories in games -- at least they say they do. But what does that really mean? And how do you create a meaningful story in an interactive medium? Fargo takes a look at the differences between Hollywood and games, the techniques developers can use to tell stories in games, and what we'll see in the future.

read more | digg story

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2007-05-09T00:14:00.000+02:00

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a beginning...

2006-08-26T02:05:00.000+02:00

well, how to start something you didn't thought you would ever do?

Well, maybe by simply doing it the way I always do it: just starting it by trying around an analyzing the results ;)