Niklas' blog

I’ve just had a couple of traumatising nightmares in a row, the type where you end up with your girlfriend dead and your life generally ruined by the side. So I’m having a cup of coffee, am writing this and hope that said mares are over and I wake up soon. In the mean-time…

AllPeers are entering a new, exciting beta-phase; a bunch of testers have now received their Mozilla plug-in for activating this very interesting new P2P-program. As I’ve only been given the names of two cohorts to share the fun with at the time being, I’m still waiting for things to happen.

Speaking of excitement, I believe most morons will understand the greatness of dabble db a few weeks after it hits, because of lack of imagination and their having to see some finished product before they can get some clue on how to actually harness its power. I haven’t even tried the damn thing, but being able to Ctrl+A an Excel spreadsheet and pasting that into dabble db just gives me the chilly willies; not only because it’s amazing that people will probably be able to build database-solutions with web front-ends, but that people will be able to squander data in new ways. Interesting, web 2.0, interesting. With the new tech comes new fears. I’ve seen people be really scared of their employees copying confidential files onto their USB-sticks and coming up with smart ways to prevent that, but who will create a Ctrl+A-free environment, so to speak?

Some companies, however, insert other ways of getting their staff to work. Word is that Microsoft has implemented an internal scavenger-hunt for bugs in Windows Vista, giving every employee 100USD per bug-report and fix. I really, really, really wish they’d do the same for their Windows Update-patches, especially now that Microsoft have started to send out patches for products they have not made. First out is an update for the flash player, which Microsoft seems to have bungled. Read that link if you want a fair insight on what can happen (or not) if you patch your Microsoft system quickly; of course, you can get hacked if you don’t apply the fixes quickly, but then again, there are other solutions.

The Country Formerly Known As Imperial Great Britain is now reporting that the average income of the richest 20% in the conglomerate is 16 times that of the poorest. I wonder if that’s what automatically happens to places that become the lap-dog of the USA. What a way. I shan’t refrain from noting that our Swedish king is still at large with his family, as they’ve been on the dole for hundreds of years, but unlike our homeless, they don’t have to do anything to receive their gigantic wad of cash. Our, the tax-payers’ cash, that is.

As Microsoft have now explained that Word 2007 will allow you to blog from it, they’ve recently snuck this little “white-paper” under us, where they let us know how they want us to create Excel spreadsheets.

Sofia Coppola is interviewed by her sister on “Marie Antoinette“, her coming film. Too bad they didn’t speak more about the music of the film. New Order is evident, but Bow Wow Wow? Hm. Maybe they will incorporate some songs about jealousy.

Sony are releasing this very anti-ergonomics-looking computer-mouse and phone both-in-one. More on that, here.

Three interesting Windows freewares for you:

Launchy. A description from their site:

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.

Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

Taskbar Shuffle. From their site:

No hotkey, no extra steps, drag and drop the programs on your Windows taskbar by simply… well, dragging and dropping them!

KeePass Password Safe. Screen-shots available here. From the site:

KeePass Password Safe is a free, open-source, light-weight and easy-to-use password manager for Windows. You can store your passwords in a highly-encrypted database, which is locked with one master key or key-disk.

A nice feature of that program is that it shows you the strength of your password as you type it into the program.

Speaking of software, it is said that FinePrint can affect your printing a lot. It’s like a print-driver on top of the existing driver, giving the user a lot more options. Very interesting; I must try it.

Here you’ll find a few interesting thoughts on controlling, attending and participating in meetings. It isn’t hard, but requires discipline and is simply shaped.

Aaah. I must get new clothes. New clothes. I feel like Leo in “Twin Peaks”, almost walking around the edges of Stockholm, shouting “New shoes! New shoes! Must get shirt. And trousers. And shoes!” Expect me around your vincinity soon, if I don’t purchase new clobber soon. Bring a stun-gun on my Olowokandi ass.