There is one downside on the C90s: it has an operating system installed that's called Windows Vista. Yes. not even 64-bit but just plain 32-bit. Half crippled because it must be compatible with zillion of programs already around but on the other hand not quite compatible.

Furthermore, it also includes the microsoft well-known user experience paradigm. This means that after I have tried it for one day, you just were not quite happy with all the requesters about licenses to accept, warning that you really should enable something, update something or even worse: restart your system. And that's where the trouble starts: your whole installation has been contaminated by at least a dozen (that's 12) programs with either limited functionality, time-limited functionality, or functionality you did not even ask for, such as:

• A 90-day trial version of Symantic Norton whatever that slow your system down.
• A trial version of Microsoft Office that's useless after starting a number of times.

The OEM version of Vista does not even allow you to run it in virtual machine on the same machine! So for an experienced linux-user it's useless.

 And then, Windows Vista is amazingy slow: At least before it tells you the computer is started. Please include logging in into this time. The time all your icons on the lower right have been loaded takes just as long as in the Windows XP times.

To be honest I did not spent too much time on Vista, not did I do a comparison with XP. There was some strange line in the license agreement about that you were allowed to run older version of Microsoft Windows on your computer, but Microsoft will not provide you that version and your always have the right to upgrade again to Vista.  I'm not sure what this means...

Let me introduce: Spock. It's my new laptop which falls out of the category of reasonably-priced laptops due to it's speedy NVIDIA 8600M GT video card.

 But there is something more awkward  about his device: it runs on an Intel Duo Core 2 E6600. Yes, if you read carefully: It has a desktop-CPU. Why? Except for extra warmth on a winter day in the low lands, it has CPU performance that cannot be matched by any other high-end notebook. But there is more: most parts can be replaced, including CPU, video card, memory, hard disk and some say even the display can be replaced. Of course, that will strongly depend if after 3 years or so that you want to upgrade, these sockets, connections, etc. are still mainstream.

Vandaag rond 12:00 vloog er een groot vliegtuig verdacht laag over onze wijk in Nieuwegein. Ik was iets te laat om een foto te maken maar het toestel heeft een groen of blauwe staart, het lijkt een beetje op een Alitalia. Opvallend is dat het landingsgestel uit is wat duidt op een terugkerend toestel.

 Update :Na overleg op het werk kwamen we er achter dat het waarschijnlijk om een Antonov-124 zou gaan gezien de grootte en vleugel die bovenaan de romp vast zit. Het NRC gaf vanavond uitsluitsel: het blijkt inderdaad een Antonov die een Chinook in z'n belly naar Afghanistan brengt. De landing op vliegveld Soesterberg verklaart ook de lage naderingshoogte, want hij zat op downwind voor de landing.

The garmin forerunner 305 is a perfect companion to do your lonely running exercises: It has a very accurate GPS and compared to the older 301 model it is a lot smaller, just a bit more fat than an average full-featured digital watch.

I used it to do one of my favourite training run of exactly 5.4km (which I now know thanks to the 305). It can also measure my heartbeat by wirelessly connecting to a belt around your chest.

The windows software package can project your course and that's where the -until now- one minus point is: it projects some highways but as you can see in the picture, the highway is a bit too much to the right as I did not go under the Dutch A2 but just walked in parallel with it. 

One of the nicest things in here (and as I only used it once I did not yet test it) is that you can run against yourself: you can give up your previous run and it will project on the watch where you ran the last time.

So who says that running is no fun?

Last week during our short holiday in the Eifel, Germany, we stumbled upon this piece of equipment. If you look carefully you can see the stairs, so this baby is --huge--.

As part of the Max Planck institute it looks for radio waves, just like the LOFAR that's being built right now in the north of Holland.