Month: November 2005

Pictures of the four seasons in Norway

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Springtime Summer Autumn Winter

More fun with my pictures from the year 2005. These pictures are a very good illustration of the four seasons here in Norway. The temperature vary from -20 to +30 degrees celcius. (And please note that -20 is the extreme low. Winter here in Oslo tend to vary between -5 and +5, still talking celcius). Summer should be from +15 to +25 C.

…and to make it easy for the people using an ancient system for measuring temperature:

Extremes through the year: -4 to +86 F
Normal winter: 23 to 41 F
Normal summer: 59 to 77 F

Pictures of the four seasons in Norway

One year outside our window

eirikso54 Comments
One Year in Norway

For the last year I have been taking a picture out of our living room window at random intervals. I have found a place in the window where the framing is almost identical for each picture. My plan is of course to edit this into a short video that will morph through the year.

While working on it I made this index overview. Even that one looks quite nice. It starts with a picture taken in the beginning of January 2005 top left and ends up with a picture taken december 2005 down to the right.

Update
Here’s the video:
http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf
You find more information about how i did this here.

Update2:
The high definition version is now available here.

I will post back here when I have finished the video. My plan is also to publish all the pictures so that you creative people out there can experiment with them as well.

All hints on software that could help when putting the video together is appreciated. Use the comment feature on this post.

Update:
And here are four pictures that describe the four different seasons very well.

Update2
Been there, bought the T-shirt.

Seasons - T-shirt

I want to keep on providing strange little projects like this one. I have a truly excellent hosting with Dreamhost. It’s cheap but not free. So, here’s the deal. This probably extremely limited edition T-shirt will give me a couple of euros to use on hosting and domain registration: Eirikso T-Shirts

And what’s that other T-Shirt? The guy with a bag on his head? Well, that’s Bill the Hacker. A character from another very popular post here on eirikso.com.

Yes I know. This is pathetic. “His blog got digged and now he starts selling T-shirts“. How awful. Don’t be afraid. Eirikso.com will not turn into a big shop. Making a commercial site out of this one will take the fun out of it. Consider this an experiment.

And why the limited edition? That comes as a natrual result of the fact that only a very limited amount of very intelligent people are going to buy it!

Please comment if you want me to set up a US shop as well. 🙂

One year outside our window

Come on. Take it all. Do what you want!

eirikso6 Comments
NRK Online Spotlight meeNorway

So, what’s these two pictures? The one to the left is NRK’s official service for Windows Media Center Online Spotlight. The one to the right is a very unofficial NRK media center plugin for Meedio.

As mentioned in my post about Webshots and Flickr, one of the reasons why Flickr succeed is because they have a powerful open API. I have linked the acronym API to Wikipedia for the people that want to know more. The quick version: API is short for Application Programming Interface. It gives programmers a possibility to build new services on top of the service that provides an API. Google provides an API. In other words: people can build new services on top of Google. An example is the classic google fight.

Even without an API it is fairly easy to build new services on regular web pages. A plugin for Firefox called Greasemonkey puts this into a system with special scripts for adjusting and editing web pages as you visit them. Currently there are more than 400 000 scripts out there. Doing anything from removing the side bars of Slashdot.org to building advanced price comparing capabilities on Amazon.com. Wired magazine has an excellent article on Greasemonkey, explaining the details.

As the internet users get more advanced and the tools and programming languages become easier to use things like these happen. The BBC has experienced a lot of unauthorized remixing of their content and have been running around closing down web sites that is built on top of their news services and programme tables. Not anymore:
Continue reading “Come on. Take it all. Do what you want!” →

Come on. Take it all. Do what you want!

Flickr and Webshots – A classic web2.0 case

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WebShots vs Flickr

Alexa is a web site that tracks traffic over time. The data from Alexa is collected from the people running the alexa toolbar in their browser, and in general that is enough to give a quite reliable picture of how a site is doing.

You can also compare charts, and the chart that shows the traffic rank of the popular photo sharing site Webshots vs. the chart of the relatively new but much hyped and right now just as popular service called Flickr is a very interesting illustration.

Webshots started as a general photo sharing site in 1999 and are celebrating their 10th anniversary as a brand these days (they started out as a professional service around 1995). Flickr emerged around february 2004. So, how come that a new site with a name that is difficult to spell and impossible to pronounce can rival Webshots after less than two years? It is difficult to say exactly why Flickr has this fantastic success. But, as it has been discussed all over the web as people realize this interesting and relatively new service – there are some properties of Flickr that is a good example of the successful web 2.0 service:

– A system that is easy to understand
– A clean interface with focus on usability
– Social functions like tagging, groups, commenting, evaluations and friends
– RSS feeds for everything
– An open API

The high usability grabs even your mother as a user. RSS feeds and an open API give them cred and collect users from the tech savvy digerati. The social network and possibility to create communities make both your mother and the geeky neighbour happy.

And while you’re here, please vote for my blog in the Norwegian competition that wants to elect the best technology blog in norway: Now I really need your help 🙂

Update:
Thomas Hawk has extended this article with more thoughts on the comparison of WebShots and Flickr here.

Update2:
Narendra Rocheroll has some interesting issues as well. Definitely worth a read.

Update3:
Due to a heavy load of spam on this post I have closed the comments and trackbacks.

Flickr and Webshots – A classic web2.0 case

Some food with all the technology

eirikso3 Comments

Right now I have quite a bit of Norwegian visitors coming over from the election of the best norwegian blogs over at Dagbladet. My blog has been nominated in the technology category. And yes, I am a geek. Still, I am seriously interested in what we eat and drink.

So, to compensate for all the technology I invite my norwegian readers over to my Norwegian Food Blog as well. For my international readers I give you a possibility to take a coffee break or maybe make some fantastic mustard.

For the people that still don’t care about all this food you can have a look at another interesting post on technology issues:
Hackers predicted the future of Apple back in 1999

Some food with all the technology

P2P and TV distribution

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Dan Glickman Bram Cohen

Now this is a classic picture. Dan Glickman, chairman of the MPAA, and Bram Cohen, creator of BitTorrent. One grey haired man looking suspiciously into the camera. One legendary programmer looking satisfied and thoughtful out of the picture.

The fact that Mr. Cohen’s technology is on its way into serious use in the media industry is good news. BitTorrent has already changed the industry. But, the real fun hasn’t even started. Software like Videora that lets you subscribe to media content and easily convert it to your portable devices will acellerate use of both illegal downloads and possibly also very interesting legal services and huge amounts of interesting indie- and long tail content. For the long tail content the DTV project is especially interesting. With their Broadcast Machine they make it easier for people to distribute as well as consume media.

A story on how a TV show originally was rejected and found its way back to production thanks to file sharing is also interesting. Channels like NerdTV and use of Creative Commons instead of copyright could also help bring interesting content back to the television screen. The BBC already use BitTorrent technology in their iMP application.

These are interesting times. Maybe Bob the Millionaire can download Lost in HD legally in the future? Dan Glickman and Bram Cohen: go-go-go!

P2P and TV distribution

Now I really need your help :-)

eirikso16 Comments
GullBloggen

Update: I actually won the competition!

This blog, www.eirikso.com has been nominated by one of the biggest newspapers in Norway (Dagbladet) to the prestigious title “Gullbloggen”, or in plain english: they want to find the best Norwegian blogs.

First, huge amounts of blogs where nominated by the readers of Dagbladet. Then, a panel of experts selected three blogs in the following categories:
1. Politics
2. Technology
3. “Under 20”
4. Open Category

Actually, I did not know about this, and would like to thank the person that nominated Eirikso.com under “Technology”.

The other nominated blogs in the technology category are in Norwegian, but very interesting as well:
Espen Andersen: Tversover
Jo Christian Oterhal: Jo Christian Oterhals’ søkeblogg

Of course, now I need your votes! The page is in Norwegian, but I have provided some nice instructions and translations. Click the image to see a bigger version:

Gullbloggen Instructions

Then you vote for eirikso.com here.

And, for the people that need a reason to vote for this particular blog, here are some posts to give you an impression of this site:

My insane, yet slightly interesting experiment with images:
Everything you would ever want to see

The story of Bob the Millionaire:
How Bob the Millionaire became a pirate

Help for the people that need to know more about all this talk about blogging, flickr, del.icio.us, BoingBoing, RSS etc…
Help for “the left behind”

A quick list of links with help for building a home theatre:
A quick update on the home theatre

Some fantastic vintage computer ads:
Whatever happens in the future it will fit into this space

Help for the people trying to make interesting presentations:
How to avoid making boring presentations

Now I really need your help :-)

Illustration at Om Malik’s blog

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Skype

I am honoured by the fact that Om Malik has used one of my illustrations in his recent post about Skype.

It was originally drawn on the back of a business card. A good reason to immediately send you all over to Gapingvoid and the classic post on creativity.

And for the people coming over here because they want to see more of my strange little drawings, here are some links:

How Bob the Millionaire became a pirate
The similarity of cars and computers
Norwegian princess daughter named after Princess Leia
Legal threats and the internet

And no, I am by no means a designer. Anyway, if you like my kind of childish lines, they’re licensed under a creative commons license so feel free to use them. Any feedback (good or bad) is considered motivation.

Illustration at Om Malik’s blog