My latest blog - 'Excuse My German'

I have to advertise my latest blog: 'Excuse My German'. Besides technology and sports, I have another topic to write about: 'everything'. From time to time I feel the need to rant. My friends often suffer from my lengthy monologue, but with the internet I can be boring interesting in a whole new dimension.

I built the template for Excuse My German out of this template. This was the first time I created an own template. Normally I took a default Blogger template and add third column.


I plan to change the logo every two months. I'm going to show you all the best of my good ol' Germany in 200x200 pixels. Check out the latest blog of Bald Guy's universe!

The XML Challenge - IDUG sponsors a big contest

The International DB2 Users Group (IDUG) is sponsoring a big contest - the XML Challenge! The IDUG contest is looking for the XML superstar.

If you're already a master of XML, XQuery or DB2, then this contest will be the perfect platform to present your XML-knowledge to the world. The XML Challenge addresses students and hobbyists as well as professionals. No matter if you have great XML experience or if you are just a novice, you can participate in the contest. The contest offers five different parts of varying difficulty. The 'Video Contest' and the 'Query Contest' is for beginners, because you don't have to be very skilled in XML and developing. 'Gadget Contest', 'Ported App Contest' and 'XML Contest' is for experts in software development. I think the XML Contest is the heart of the XML Challenge, since you have to develop useful, user-friendly XML apps from scratch. You can participate in all five contests and collect participation points. The contestant with the most participation points will be given a special prize and the title 'XML Grand Master'.

Beside the fame you can win a lot of nice prizes like a iPod Nano, a 80GB Zune or a new notebook. Maybe there are some job offers and internship from IBM in it for the contestants. After all this is more than just a contest, this is a chance to achieve popularity among the developers all over the world.

Even Google fails - Lively will be shut down

Two month ago I asked: 'Lively - Google's next coup?'. The answer: NO!

Lively was started about 5 month ago. Google experimented with this 3-D chatroom service, but now decided that Lively is no longer worth the time and money. Google announced that it will focus more on their core business: searching, advertising and creating apps. Read more about the end of Lively in the Official Google Blog.

Google encourages the Lively user to capture their artistically precious rooms by taking videos and screenshots. After December 31st Lively will be wiped out of the internet.

Farewell Lively!

Web Hosting Geeks - Information from geeks for geeks

I just visited Web Hosting Geeks. A nice site with lots of information about web hosting. The guys (or should I say 'geeks') from Web Hosting Geeks gathered a lot of useful information about the certain companies. At a glance you will find information about basic features like space, traffic and price.


Why is Web Hosting Geeks different from other web hosting rating sites?
The answer: the user reviews. I really like the different opinions on the same service. Every customer shares his experience with a certain web hosting company. Some people had problems with the customer support, others disliked down times while a lot of customers had no problems at all. Most web hosting services require 12 or 24 month prepay, so you are better off choosing company based on a lot of informations. Yes, the user reviews are valuable, because customers are honest and incorruptible.
Besides the reviews Web Hosting Geeks also features a nice tutorial section about web hosting in general and about finding the right web hosting service.

The 'geeks' created this web hosting blog for us: the customers. If you are looking for a web host, visit this site and find the web hosting service, that fits your needs.

NanoStation - a credit-card-sized external hard drive

This external drive has the size of a credit card. It is a little bit thicker, but nevertheless this is just amazing. We are talking about 60 gigabytes storage packed into a device smaller than a cell phone. The extricable USB cable is part of the casing. Put this hard drive into the pocket of your tuxedo and people will consider you as a spy like James Bond, because this piece of equipment looks futuristic.

This is Buffalo's NanoStation and it will be available soon.

Gun O' Clock - Shoot your alarm clock legally!

Do you remember the Light gun and 'Duck Hunt' for the Nintendo Entertainment System? Have you ever played Time Crisis with the GunCon?
Before the Wii Remote the infrared zappers were shaped like guns and I loved those plastic pistols. And now Bandai brings back the guns!


Yes, it is a alarm clock with a target and a light gun. When the alarm goes off, you need to hit the target to turn it off. You need to hit the bullseye once if the alarm clock is in the 'normal' mode, but if you turn it to 'hard', you have to shoot the harasser five times. This is the perfect alarm clock, if you are not a morning person! Start the day by shooting something...just wonderful!

C'mon Bandai start selling the Gun O' Clock in Europe!

Picasa - The best way of storing photos on a laptop

A good friend of mine just came back from his trip to Hawai'i. He created a blog and shared his impressions with his envious friends (that includes me, too). That's the good thing about the information age; all you need is laptop and a digital camera and you can share your vacation memories right away.


What else do you need? Picasa!
Google's media management software is the perfect solution for every laptop. It is compatible with most digital cameras and it detects your camera at your USB port. So it's pretty easy to import pictures into albums. Picasa also features some basic editing tools such as picture cropping, red-eye removal and switching from color to black&white. You can create slide shows and collages. With Picasa you can upload your pictures from your laptop to your Picasa Web Albums. Yes, Picasa is the perfect software to store photographs from digital cameras on your laptop.

Picasa is free, but notebooks and digital cameras aren't. So if you are looking for cheap laptops and low priced cameras, check out Savebuckets.co.uk for price comparison.

Interactive Mirror - Narcism in the 21st century

Touch screens or interactive screens are built in everywhere; Mobile devices, notebooks, mp3-player, cameras, even on household article like refrigerators. In the future most appliances will be controlled by touch screens.

But why should we use interactive screens just for technical gadgets? How about interior decoration? I stumbled over this little presentation of the Interactive Mirror and I fell in love instantly. Let me explain why I want the Interactive Mirror. We have some sort of interactive mirror already. It's a big mirror in our hallway, we write messages and memos with board markers on it. That's so 20th century, I want to take a step into the future!

Interactive Mirror from Alpay Kasal on Vimeo

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