Das Blog

I saw Knut today. Das ist alles.

— by Robert Thomson, created 25th Dec, 2007, last modified 25th Dec, 2007 | Tags: World

I am moving house this week. I found myself a nice “shared” apartment in the Zeeheldenkwartier, a nice part of the Hague. I have my own kitchen and bathroom but we share a common entrance and the hallway on my level. The main room is 30m² and the kitchen and bathroom are of a reasonable size. It’s about half the cost of my current place. It will take me a little longer to get to work and home again, but I will actually have shopping centers that are open late.

In other news, the Aussie guy I had sharing the excessive costs of my current apartment, did a runner without paying almost €600 in rent and phone costs. Just in case you ever have any financial dealings with him, his name is Rohan Anderson, he’s from Sydney, his birthdate is the 7th of September, 1976 (7/9/1976), he does skateboarding, snowboarding, and other winter sports.

Here are some pictures of him and his girlfriend, Inga Hendrix of Germany. She’s also responsible for a small part of the debt, having been there for 2 of the 6 weeks of unpaid rent:

He seems like a nice guy and somebody you’d call a mate. I did. He didn’t steal anything (except one key which he hasn’t returned yet), but it appears that he’s a coward, unable to face life’s responsibilities. If he ever pays his debt, I will update or remove this page. His facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/people/Rohan_Anderson/841300611. Rohan Anderson

— by RobertThomson, created 4th Dec, 2007, last modified 19th Jan, 2008 | Tags: World

I wiped Vista with a fresh copy of Fedora 8. I'm normally a Debian & Ubuntu person, but I decided to give Fedora a go for a change. It installed without any major problems. It would've been nice if it had started NetworkManager for me, so I could easily configure my wireless network.

Yesterday I decided to install a copy of Windows XP, which I had lying around. Once again, I'm not a Windows person and booted into Windows maybe twice a year on my old laptop, but since I have a license, I may as well put it on. There were issues with the boot CD and it not going any further. Recommended BIOS tweaks for the HDD to be detected did nothing either. So I am now trying an alternative method. I installed Windows XP under VMWare, installed all the drivers for the laptop that I could, and will try to copy the vmware image to the real partition, resize using ntfsresize, modify the boot sector and the boot.ini, and then see what happens. I will of course document my steps if I'm successful. Sounds neat, no? :-)

— by RobertThomson, created 26th Nov, 2007, last modified 26th Nov, 2007 | Tags: Tech

It arrived.. I'm generally happy... but I've had some issues with Vista (never played with it before, and decided to download a Linux ISO using it).

I normally like to leave the pre-installed Windows partition in-case I ever need to do Windowsy things.. but I'm seriously considering wiping it. Who would have thought that Microsoft could get such basic things wrong?

• I didn't have a choice of language or OS when ordering, so I just went with the Dutch version of Vista, figuring the language could be changed later. Not so! You need Vista Ultimate to change the language. Dutch isn't Greek, so I get by.. but wtf?
• It has severe hardcoded TCP/IP connection limits, which breaks applications such as Torrent downloaders (and other TCP/IP apps when it's running) .. I spent ages trying to torrent a Linux ISO using uTorrent without success... was pulling out my hair.

The first isn't an issue for most people, because most people never buy computers outside their home country. The second is an issue to a significant number of people. There are various attempts to fix it out there, most involving replacing tcpip.sys ... I tried that one, and discovered the system restore feature of Vista very quickly.

— by RobertThomson, created 22nd Nov, 2007, last modified 22nd Nov, 2007

It's reasonably priced, in a good location, sharing with nice people. I have my own kitchen and bathroom. It's 3 rooms on the first floor of a two story townhouse. We share the same entrance and stairwell, but that's about it. There's a fourth room which is currently being used for storage, but will become a kind of working room for the girl above. The other tenants are a young couple, and presumably her father owns the building (he lives next door, which is actually downstairs).

The room is 30m², currently unfurnished, but they're going to furnish most of the room, I'll buy a few things, and I already have a few things here. First priorities are a bed and a fridge. Everything else can come later. They have a spare couch that can go in there. I'll just need a bed, working desk, chair, a coffee table, and perhaps a small dining table. I'll probably visit the nearby Kringloop and see what they have. It's a bit like the Aussie garage sale by the look of it. :-)

— by RobertThomson, created 16th Nov, 2007, last modified 6th Jul, 2009 | Tags: Private

I just ordered myself a new toy – a [[http://www.laptopmag.com/Review/Dell-Inspiron-1520.htm Dell Inspiron 1520]]. The specs are:

• 15” LCD (1440×900)
• Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 processor (2.2Ghz, 4MB L2-cache)
• 2GB RAM (667Mhz)
• nVidia 8600M GT with 256MB
• 250GB hdd
• Intel 3945 802.11a/b/g card
• 9 cell battery (adds a little bulk but I’ll appreciate it when traveling)
• Black matte finish with integrated webcam
• And best of all¹: Windows Vista!!!

My current laptop (Compal PowerNote CL50) has served me well for 4 years now, and I hope that this new laptop will serve me just as well. Choosing a new laptop is a tough decision and unfortunately having to make compromises is par for the course. I think I’ve made a good choice… not too small, not too big, and powerful enough to last me for a few years. It’s hard to find similarly spec’d laptops here with the same resolution.

For a case I ordered the [[http://reviews.cnet.com/notebook-accessories/kensington-contour-cargo-messenger/4505–6459_7–31898142.html Kensington Contour Cargo Notebook Messenger]]

For your information, the other main contender was: the Acer Aspire 5920G ([[http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/notebooks/0,39050489,40634980p-2,00.htm mixed review]] – a few differences in the EU market though)

So.. I bet you’re all wondering what I plan to do with a spankin’ new laptop, and what I couldn’t do on my current beloved laptop. Here’s what:

• Virtualisation – My current laptop’s not up to the task, and being an IT guy, having suitable hardware to play with in my free time is vital to keeping my skills up.
• Similarly, having a second laptop means that I can experiment with one while still maintaining my primary working system. It can also serve as a nice quiet server.
• Games – I hardly play them, but every couple of months I get the urge and it would be nice to have a laptop capable of playing most modern games.

¹ That’s a joke, folks. I’ll be installing Linux ASAP. :-)

### Update – 9 Nov 2007

Still in preproduction. :-( Why, oh why, must I wait so long? Newsflash Dell – it’s not Just In Time if you have to wait days or weeks for parts. I’m a child of the Internet age – I want instant satisfaction. Hop Hop.

— by RobertThomson, created 3rd Nov, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | Tags: Tech

I’ve decided to stay in Den Haag past the new year, so I’m now looking for an room in a shared apartment. If you know of any, let me know. I wrote a [[RoomWanted webpage]] outlining what I’m looking for, and I’m hoping that I find something suitable with some interesting flatmates. I’m looking for something cheaper than I have now, because I plan to travel back to Passau often to see Sophia, which costs around €280 return for the flight plus trains. I’m also looking for a flatshare so that I have less initial costs and more flexibility in the future, in-case my contract isn’t extended next year (although at this stage everybody says it will be).

My eventual plan is to move back to Germany, and most likely to Munich because of the IT companies there, and its close proximity to Passau and Sophia. The job market is picking up, and I’ve already had expressions of interest from a couple of companies there. But they’ll have to wait for the time being. :-)

See: [[RoomWanted Room Wanted Advert]]

— by RobertThomson, created 28th Oct, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | Tags: Private

I’m helping to revamp the build infrastructure here. Until now, we’ve been using a bunch of home-rolled scripts and [[http://autobuild.org/ Test::AutoBuild]].

We decided to look at Fedora’s build system and processes, since we’re developing RHEL and using RHN Satellite, didn’t want to re-invent the wheel, and Red Hat would similarly be trying to keep closely aligned with Fedora’s processes also. Yum repository support is official in RHEL5 and supported by RHN Satellite 5.

Mock was relatively simple. Create a Yum repository (extract latest version information from Satellite and copy the RPMS and comps.xml to a directory, then run createrepo), create a group and the directory structures, the configuration files for our build targets (x86_64 and i386) and it’s a go.

Koji’s a different story. Koji doesn’t support straight Username/Password logins – it uses SSL certificates and/or Kerberos to authenticate. I tried to follow the instructions for the [[http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Koji/ServerHowTo Koji Server HowTo]] but my setup is a bit different in that I’m installing everything on one machine. For me it meant that I didn’t need (and couldn’t use) a separate cert for kojiweb and kojihub..

For the ClientCert’s, you need a combined PEM file containing both the cert and the private key. If you don’t have that, you will see a python error with PEM something-or-other in it. This applies for ~/.fedora.cert (whatever path’s mentioned in $HOME/.koji/config for the cert), as well as for the WebCert in /etc/httpd/conf.d/kojiweb.conf, that used by kojid (cert= in /etc/kojid/kojid.conf), and of course that used by kojira (as explained in the [[http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Koji/ServerHowTo Koji Server HowTo]].)

The “Python ProxyDNs” option should correspond to the DN of the web host (or maybe hub, but for me it’s the same) .. if you get this wrong, don’t worry, you will (when the rest is correctly setup) receive an error from the web interface with the proper string.

Now that I can login, I just have to learn how to use Koji. :-)

Update: Koji turned out to be too much of a pain. It really is a complete distribution management solution, and we already use RHN Satellite for that.. so I built my own distributed build system based around Mock. It works quite well, although it lacks a lot of the pizazz of Koji.

— by Robert Thomson, created 25th Oct, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | Tags: Tech

I signed up with the VSP (Virtual Service Provider) VoipBuster. It's actually one of the many VOIP websites run by BetaMax, a German company. After paying €11.90 (€10 + 19% VAT) I can now make calls freely or cheaply to many countries for 120 days or until I run out of credit. From home, where I have a VOIP adapter, I can call Australia or Dutch numbers gratis. With my mobile, I can call a landline number in the Netherlands (relatively cheap, plus it's a work mobile) and then use the VoipBuster service to dial to Australia or Germany for 1¢/minute (OK, 1.19¢ with VAT). German mobiles cost just 20¢/minute, thereby undercutting the new EU roaming tariffs, if you ignore the local phonecall required from my mobile (as I do).

VoipBuster and the similar websites do occasionally switch which countries are free to call to, and rates do vary between the websites (smsdiscount.com has 1¢ SMS', whereas VoiceBuster has 5¢), but overall it is (they are?) still one of the cheaper VSPs that exist. The multiple websites and the requirement to register using the Windows client turned me off at first (and the client requirement still does) but I can accept that the multiple websites are largely just a marketing game to generate buzz, differentiate themselves from the competition, and get around the one-size-fits-all model to exploit niches.

— by Robert Thomson, created 24th May, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | Tags: Tech

From Wednesday evening until Monday afternoon I was once again in Passau. It was a brilliant long weekend. I got to meet up with a few old friends and ran into a few acquaintances in the streets and while out. I stayed in Sophia's tiny student apartment, but we managed OK. The Maibaumkraxeln went ahead on Sunday and it was a perfect day for it - perhaps even a little too warm and sunny, even, as I am now sporting a visibly red face and arms.

I recommend to anyone who wants to experience some real Bavarian/Austrian traditions that they should go along to the Maibaumkraxeln one year. I don't know where else in Germany or Austria this goes on - it may only be this one city, actually. The fastest person took just under 8 seconds to climb the 15 meter high pole (the pole's still higher, but decorated on top), which means he broke the world record.

In smaller villages in Germany and Austria, it's traditional for the people of one village to try to steal the Maibaum of the neighbouring village, and if successfully stolen, it costs one crate of beer per meter to buy the pole back. It's also a common tactic to leave a crate of beer by the pole the night before, so the guardians-of-the-pole get drunk and fall asleep on the job, at which point the pole is easy-pickings.

The downside of going back to Passau is that Den Haag once again feels foreign and a bit depressing. Hrmph! Photos soon!

— by Robert Thomson, created 22nd May, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | Tags: World

Let me clarify the title. All Telcos are bastards, but E-Plus is the bastard of the moment in my life. I found the choice of mobile plans in Germany particularly limited. I feel that the german government is not encouraging enough competition and looking after its people, in the hope that the German monopoly (Deutsche Telekom) will have enough capital to invest in other EU countries - and one of the trickle down effects of their lax approach to competition is that the price of telco services in Germany is one of the highest in the EU, despite having the single largest population.

But that's not my primary rant. Before signing up for a mobile plan, I did a lot of research and calculations. It worked out that if I were in Germany for 6 months over a 2 year period, it would be cheaper to sign up to a plan and get a mobile than use pre-paid and purchase a mobile. Unfortunately, 3 months after that, I got this contract in Holland. So - I lived with the loss, but still used my German mobile for SMS' back to Germany as I don't want to carry around a dutch phone in addition to my German and work phones. I've been paying €0.39 for every SMS I send, which is quite phenomenal, but I accept the cost every time I send one. But last month I decided to phone home.. There were some problems with some of the calls - I don't know why - but there was no connection, so I tried a few times, and either succeeded, or gave up trying. I also rang once or twice, but hung up before anyone (or voicemail) picked up. I was very surprised to see that these calls appeared on my phone bill at €0.79/call, because that's not normally what happens. I assumed it was a problem in the way that calls are billed between countries - so I complained, and told them that they were in error. Sure, billing errors happen - but the reason *why E-Plus is a bastard of a telco* is their off-hand response to my complaint. They came back simply saying, "We have reviewed your bill and it was correctly billed." (in German, of course). I have complained again, telling them that it is not correct, and that charging for services that weren't provided is actually illegal, and I await their response. I dislike that I have to bring the law into complaints - I would hope they would be already aware of it.

It also appears that Germany does not have a telecommunications ombudsman like Australia (or the Netherlands or in fact most civilised countries) so the consumer's only option is legal action. I wonder how many other telcos are similarly charging for non-service. Hopefully this will be resolved, and they will fix their billing issue - I intend to test it again.

If they give me a hard time (or fail to point me to a section of their contract which states they can bill me for uncompleted calls, which I'm fairly confident doesn't exist and would be illegal if it did) then I think my next step is to accuse them of breaching the terms of the contract and instruct them not to direct debit any more money from my account, and ask for the address to which I should ship the phone and SIM card. If they then withdraw money, I will have an additional basis for a legal case. I can also complain to the EU regarding deceptive billing practices.

Update: E-Plus, while not admitting any billing errors, has given me credit for the phone calls. I think I'll contact the EU anyway. I realise it's most likely the Dutch telcos' fault for charging for the uncompleted calls, but I'm not a customer of the Dutch Telco, so it's up to E-Plus to keep them honest.

— by Robert Thomson, created 6th May, 2007, last modified 8th May, 2007 | Tags: Private

I’ve just purchased a Linksys SPA 3102 SIP gateway.. now I’ll just have to wait for delivery.

It will allow me to use my standard home phone as a land-line, and also route calls to/from PSTN & SIP through it.

I shall configure it to use my voxalot account (sip:111555@voxalot.com) but also register my landline number on E.164.

Not certain which SIP provider(s) I’ll go with yet.. I just know that I really didn’t want to give KPN (the local telco monopoly here) any more than the required €10/month copper-tax here.

Update: The SPA 3102 works quite well, but the configuration was a bit confusing for a first time telephony user – the supplied documentation is virtually non-existent. I’ve also configured it as a PSTN-to-SIP gateway, so that I can call home then make an international call through my VOIP accounts (and land-line calls are cheap). The quality is quite good. Now the only task now is to encourage enough other people to switch to VOIP also, and therefore remove all middlemen. I suspect, unfortunately, that it’s not as easy as one would hope to configure a VOIP adapter or phone, so getting sweet old Aunt Betty online may require a personal visit. Now, all I need is a cheap SMS gateway, since most of the time I’m near a computer and I could save considerable amounts and not be subject to the whims of bastard telcos

— by RobertThomson, created 27th Apr, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | Tags: Tech

I've been in the Hague now for over two months. I'm settling into the work environment alright, and the apartment is growing on me, although I still think that it's too big for my needs (it also means that I have to clean all that extra space). But at least I can find an apartment - not like friends and family in Australia, who are being out-bid for rentals consistently. The weather's warming up, then cooling down, then warming up, then cooling down.. but I'm confident there'll be a warm spell of a few months somewhere in there. The night-life here isn't anything to rave about - but I'm meeting a few people (mostly from Shell) and it's OK. I've had to throw away my cap, because here (much like in South Africa), wearing a cap indoors is a *big* no-no, and I'm sick of being told off by bouncers and staff. Of course, most of the cap-wearers around these parts are usually teenagers wearing baggy pants and permanent looks of disdain, whereas in Passau it was just optional casual attire.

I'm also leaving shortly to go to Berlin for the weekend (and doing a bit of telecommuting tomorrow morning). Sophia's birthday is tomorrow, and I want to be there for it. There'll be one or two other people I know there, so it should be okay. I'm looking forward to seeing Berlin again, and going out somewhere on Saturday night (I get to practice my German with family and close friends on Friday night), although her parents both speak good English, I believe. I'm really looking forward to this weekend!

— by RobertThomson, created 22nd Mar, 2007, last modified 22nd Mar, 2007 | Tags: World

I moved into my new apartment yesterday. The apartment is quite nice, but the location is a little ordinary. It will be convenient to ride to work from there (15 minute ride) or into the city center (A five to seven minute ride). But all the tramlines and a main train station are within 5 minutes walk. Here's my apartment's location on google maps. I was a little sad after signing the contract - I think because it's a sign that me being here is something more permanent, and that I'm abandoning my Passau life. I've been generally quite happy the last couple of years, and the idea of moving on isn't that appealing, even if I do like the contract work with Shell at the moment, and I know that I will settle in soon enough. Maybe I can spend the next couple/few years saving and investing, so that I can settle into the lifestyle and location that I want.

— by RobertThomson, created 12th Feb, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | Tags: World

I've just made a verbal agreement for an apartment in Den Haag. The Apartment itself is very nice, but it's in a "cheaper" part of the city. A lot of people were warning me against the area, but the current tenant (an Australian originally from Merewether in Newcastle, as a matter of fact) told me that he'd never had any problems, and that it's mostly suburbs on the other side of the train station that are responsible for the area's bad reputation. By European standards the apartment is certainly not cheap at EUR€740/month plus approximately €150/month for water, gas, and electricity.. especially considering that I was sharing a nice apartment with river views for €255 all-up in Passau.. but it's not tooo bad by Sydney standards, and there's a higher population density here. I do have a spare room with a single bed, so it will be good for visitors, or short term sub-leases. But the best thing is that it doesn't have a German style toilet! No shelf!

Thom's kicking me out on Friday because he has another friend arriving (he's been a great sport, though!) and I'm going to travel to Amsterdam and Zwolle on the weekend, meeting up with a dutch friend Willem who I studied German with in Passau. Then I've organised to stay at a workmates place for the week after I arrive back. I'm sorted!

— by Robert Thomson, created 30th Jan, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | 1 comment | Tags: World

I've just finished my second day of work for SHELL. There's a lot of initial "onboarding" to do before I'll get involved in projects. Health and safety is a very big thing here. I'm sleeping on a mattress on Thom's floor, but am looking around for accommodation. I signed up for a bank account on Monday, and if Shell's internal post office doesn't destroy my mail, I should have my card on Friday. It's quite useful to have a bank card in the Netherlands - they're slowly becoming a cashless society. I should also have an automatic overdraft, which will be useful this first month, as I don't want to spend my Australian money when I'll have Euros so soon.. and I'll have to pay two months rent up-front when I find a place to stay.

Somebody within Shell misspelled my name so I'm now known to all as "Robert R Thompson", which makes me cringe.

— by Robert Thomson, created 16th Jan, 2007, last modified 16th Jan, 2007 | Tags: World

I'm told that the paperwork will be sorted out by the end of today, but I've given the recruiter permission to accept on my behalf based on our discussed rates and start-dates. Now - to find accommodation. I may be one of the better paid homeless in Den Haag.

I'm actually going to stay with Thom May for a couple/few days when I first arrive.. but I don't want to impose so I'll do some frantic apartment hunting. I'll also use this time to get my SOFI (tax file) number, a bank account, and a dutch phone number.

It's quite sad to be leaving Passau, but Passau has no IT industry to speak of, and this is very much the kind of opportunity I was looking for last time I was looking for work in Europe.. but at that time I wasn't prepared to move too far from Passau. I'll probably keep my apartment here for now - I may sublease it, or just give up the lease.. but I've got a reasonable amount of stuff to move, so I'll have to come back and sort through things soon enough.

Update (9 Jan 2007)

I just heard, I start on Monday, and I get the rate I hoped for. I'm dusting off my suitcase as we speak. Farewell dinner/drinks on Wednesday.. probably train on Thursday.

Update (11 Jan 2007)

Leaving tomorrow morning at 11:22am, arriving around 8:30pm.. changing trains once in Frankfurt, and once in Utrecht in the Netherlands. I'm sure I'll be up for a good meal and a beer after that journey.

— by Robert Thomson, created 8th Jan, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | Tags: Passau, Tech, World

A few weeks ago I thought I'd jump into the 21st century and check out a web framework or two. I looked at RoR first, and after a little mind-bending I understood it reasonably well. It really requires you to be one with RoR to grok it fully. Shortly after that, however, I noticed the Netherlands contract advertised, which was of course for a Python developer. Since things were going well there, I decided to focus once again on Python.

There are a few interesting web frameworks for Python.. but my eyes fell on Django and I gave it a go. I must say, I'm impressed. It's far less hyped than Rails, and it's really quite simple. I wrote this entire website with under 350 lines of Python code, plus HTML templates. The administrative interface is quite neat, although I wish it were a little more customisable and a little less tied to the database structure. The basics required only 200 lines of code -- comment spam checking, email integration, and custom captcha code took up the rest. It took quite a while to get here, though, as I was learning on the way.

I'm using SQLite, because I really don't need or want anything more. In fact, I still think that a database is overkill for a blog/wiki. I am, however, mildly impressed with the result. I'm also using Markdown (modified) for a more wiki-style of editing.

— by Robert Thomson, created 3rd Jan, 2007, last modified 18th Jun, 2009 | Tags: Tech