Fredrik's Blog

DIY - fixing the gear on a Gaucho Rockin' Electric kid's car

2010-09-13T19:37:00.020+02:00

My neighbor came over the other day after cleaning out his garage and asked if the kids wanted a Gaucho Rockin' Electric car. Of course they did.

One small problem however. The gear-shift didn't work, the build quality was just not very good, and it needed a replacement.

I found a couple of online retailers selling what looked almost what I needed. However they were quite pricey, and I had to wait for overseas postage & handling. I drew up the schematics after having disassembled the gear-shift, and it boiled down to two functionalities:

switch between having the 2 engines coupled in parallel or in series to allow for 2 seperate speeds.

switch the polarity to allow for reverse gear.

The first part could be handled by a twin SPCO* (nor: dobbel endevender**), the latter by a four-way switch* (nor: kryssvender**). These are the kind of switches you normally use to have a set of switches control a single light-source (the SPCO are at the end of the wiring, the 4-way-switches are between them).

Wiring it all up: Luckily these were both stock parts at my local DIY-store, Clas Ohlson***, so I went rigth their way and bought one of each. I screwed the switches to a small piece of plywood, which I mounted were the original gear-shift was mounted. Finally a picture on how it looks: The original shift didn't allow for high-speed while dringing in reverse, however the modified version does. I don't have any problem however seing that this might not be such a good idea :-).

* Wikpedia: switches (english)
** Wikpedia: switches (nor)
*** Clas Ohlson product-page

If you have any ideas on how this could have been done otherwise, don't hesitate to make a comment of it.

Billa Benny

2010-06-07T13:37:00.001+02:00

Yeaahh! My picture won this week's #TwPhCh which was "Macro/close-up"! Read about how I took this picture on the #twphch blog.

Random file-names using bash/perl

2010-01-27T13:50:00.009+01:00

A couple of times I've wanted to sort files in a random fashion, and allways worked around it someway sorting for size, dates or other things.

I needed a random sorting of pictures when making a slide-show for my mother.

run the following command to give the files a unique "random" 10-digit number.

ls | perl -ne 'if (/.jpg$/i) {chomp;while(-e ($n = (int(rand(10**10-1)).".jpg")) || length($n) < 14) {print "Too short: $n (" . length($n) . ")\n";} rename $_, "$n";'}

(it prints out names being to short just as info)

I also needed to group these files into some subdirectories. Run the following command to create a number of sub-directories:
for i in `seq 1 8`; do echo "creating $i"; mkdir $i; done
(it prints out the directory-names)

run this command to move the files into the sub-directories:

ls | perl -ne 'if (/.jpg$/i) {chomp; $dir = ($dir++ % 8 + 1); print "$dir\n"; rename $_, "$dir\/$_"; }' | sort -n | uniq -c

(it prints out the number of files and the name of the directories)

Getting Canal Digital DVB-C up & running on my MAC mini

2010-01-18T12:01:00.041+01:00

I've tried to search for info on this the last couple of months, but haven't really found any good info on my setup with the components I'm trying to get up & running:

How to set up Canal Digital Cable TV (DVB-C⁴) in Norway on a Mac Mini

New TV

I bought a new television (Sony KDL-40WE5B) set a few weeks ago, and because it an IDTV³ and has an integrated CAM-reader and digital HD-tuner, I also bought a CAM² (of type Conax) and after a couple of days I got my brand new card from Canal Digital (CD). Plugged it into the TV-set, and after 15 minutes I everything worked fine, with EPG⁵ and everything.

Getting this to work on my MAC

Great! then I started thinking I wanted to extend my MAC mini in the living room to also have all these digital channel, and preferably also the 5-or-so HD-channels CD includes in their basic package.

Trying with the Elgato Hybrid

I started out trying to configure my Elgato Hybrid with an external CI¹-CAM²-reader. However I found out that the DVB-C⁴ support on the hybrid stick is not supported for my version (which is about one year old). Elgato has since added support for DVB-C⁴ on the hybrid, but I suspect this is only for unencrypted channels. My hybrid actually broke (for the second time) - http://forums.elgato.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=527 - and I expect to get a new one within a couple of weeks, so I'll test it's capabilities when I get a new one back.

On to Terratec

So I went and bought a Terratec's H7 from Komplett.no which is both a DVB-C⁴-tuner and a CAM²-reader. Plugged it in and started a channel-search specifying DVB-C⁴ in Elgato EyeTV. Luckily it found (most of) the channels right away (took about 20 min). But for an unknown reason there are a few channels missing - most notably National Geographic HD, Rush HD, and Silver HD. At first I thought it might have been a problem with finding HD-channels, but both TVNorge HD and Discovery HD, as well as a couple of others are present. I haven't figured this out yet, so I'd be very grateful for any tips on how find these.

EPG

I had a suspicion EPG⁵ would become a problem, both because I've used a lot of time dealing with it when having analog cable, and because of tips from twitter⁷. It just didn't work, even though the EPG on the TV-set worked flawlessly. EyeTV actually found program-data from one channel (I think it was Swedish TV4), but for none other. Supposedly this is due to the way EPG-data is sent (multiplexed) across the cable (Elgato forum, Elgato forum).

When running my Elgato Hybrid with analog cable I set up an external EyeTV-EPG Proxy which fetched XMLTV⁶-data from http://epg.mspc.no/xmltv/ running tv_grab_no_gfeed. However I couldn't get this to link up with the new set-up because I couldn't find the type of connection needed for EyeTV to link the type of connection to the XML-response from the server (see 5a. on this page). (tried a lot of different types and also tried to grep/search the EyeTV-execuatble without any luck). big :-(

XMLTV

However EyeTV now support XML - it didn't when I set up the proxy a few years ago. For some reason the xml-file from xmltv has to be manually transfered to EyeTv for some reason. I wished it could be set up to poll the EPG as the other services. Anyway, this can be automated by calling the script:
open -ga EyeTV.app xmltv.xml
This could even be set up as a cron-job, which actually seems to work ok. I trig this after downloading the xml-file from xmltv.

The Norwegian channel-list on http://epg.mspc.no/xmltv/00index.html is unfortunately both incomplete and somewhat buggy. After importing it with tv_grab_no_gfeed, I run the result through the following script to clean it, and merge programs from nrk3 and nrksuper, which is actually the same channel:

#!/bin/bash
# Clean xmltv-file from http://epg.mspc.no/xmltv/00index.html
DIR="/tmp"
FILE="$DIR/xmltv-A_00001.xml"
BAK="$DIR/xmltv-A_00001.bak"
TMP="/tmp/hei"
TMP2="/tmp/hei2"
TMP3="/tmp/hei3"

# take a backup
cp $FILE $BAK

# replace some chars
sed 's/<br>//g' < $FILE > $TMP
# fix stop-time for nrk3-programs
sed -e "s/\(.*stop.*\)193000 \(.*nrk3.*\)/\1063000 \2/" $TMP > $TMP2
# fix stop-time for nrksuper-programs
sed -e "s/\(.*start=\"\)\([0-9]\{8\}\)\(.*stop=\"\).*063000 \(.*nrksuper.*\)/\1\2\3\2193000 \4/" $TMP2 > $TMP3
# merge nrksuper with nrk3
/usr/bin/replace -s "channel=\"nrksuper.nrk.no\"" "channel=\"nrk3.nrk.no\"" -- $TMP3
mv -f $TMP3 $FILE
chmod 644 $FILE

Remaining problems

Some channels are still not recognized by EyeTv (even though they work on the TV); most notably National Geographic HD, Rush HD, Silver HD

Lots of channels missing in Norwegian xmltv-feed on http://epg.mspc.no/xmltv/00index.html

If you have any more tips on how to stream-line this or how to fix this otherwise or with other components, please feel free to add a comment. Ditto if you have any questions.

Thanks for help and tips along the way to @nilsga and @meerblickzimmer, both from Twitter, and from a lot of postings both on avforum.no and forums.elgato.com.

Overview of components

MAC mini, 2 GHz, w/ 2GB RAM, OSX 10.6.2

Elagto EyeTv 3.3

Terratec H7

Conax CAM-reader, Bought at elkjøp Jan 2010

Canal Digital subscription, Basic package

Canal Digital Card

¹ CI: Common Interface http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Interface

² CAM: Conditional Access Module http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional-access_module

³ IDTV: Integrated digital television http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Digital_Television

⁴ DVB-C: Digital Video Broadcasting - Cable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-C

⁵ EPG: Electronic program guide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_program_guide

⁶ XMLTV: http://wiki.xmltv.org/index.php/Main_Page

⁷ nilsga@twitter: http://twitter.com/nilsga/status/7704889099

Jordmor Matjas kåk

2009-10-05T15:04:00.006+02:00

Last week's challengde in TwPhCh was "Alf Prøysen", a beloved Norwegian poet and songwriter. Amongst the most famouse of his songs is "Julekveldsvisa", which is a Christmas carol where one of the lines is:
"den blankeste ta alle, hu er så klar og stor -du ser a over taket der a jordmor Matja bor."

The Big Dipper

2009-08-25T08:59:00.002+02:00

New week, new challenge in #twphch. This time it's "small people". Even though I've got two of them at home, I choose a more abstract interpretation.

Oslo Opera

2009-08-20T08:25:00.004+02:00

Took this picture last night trying to catch some curves & lines for this week's twphch 015: "Kurver, linjer og former" translated to something like "Curves, Lines, and forms". This is Oslo's latest pride: it's new opera-building. I kinda liked the LED-lights illuminating the ground.

log4j, appenders, different files

2009-08-18T14:20:00.007+02:00

I seem to end up doing the same searches on Google each time I want to set up a log4j-configuration; and mostly I want to be able to do the same things each time. Thought I'd just post an example log4j.properties which does want I want... Se comments below for some explanations.

log4j.rootLogger=WARN, file

log4j.appender.stdout=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
log4j.appender.stdout.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.stdout.layout.ConversionPattern= \
    %d{yyyyddmm HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %-5p %c{1} - %m%n

log4j.appender.file=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.file.maxFileSize=200KB
log4j.appender.file.maxBackupIndex=10
log4j.appender.file.File=kpimon.log
log4j.appender.file.threshold=DEBUG
log4j.appender.file.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.file.layout.ConversionPattern= \
    %d{yyyyddmm HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %-5p %c{1} - %m%n

log4j.appender.db=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.db.maxFileSize=100KB
log4j.appender.db.maxBackupIndex=10
log4j.appender.db.File=db.log
log4j.appender.db.threshold=debug
log4j.appender.db.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.db.layout.ConversionPattern= \ 
     %d{yyyyddmm HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %-5p %c - %m%n

log4j.additivity.org.springframework.jdbc=false
log4j.logger.org.springframework.jdbc=DEBUG, db

log4j.logger.org.apache=WARN
log4j.logger.my.package=TRACE

One dedicated file for DB-logging. replicate for anything you want logged to a specific file.

included appender for STDOUT, even though it's not in use in this particular example

TRACE-log-level for my own classes/loggers

WARN-levels for everything else. The line with org.apache is redundant.

rotation (and deletion) of logfiles

Customized log-file-format (ConversionPattern)

Only print clasname in default (file) appender.

No fish

2009-08-18T14:08:00.002+02:00

I'm quite happy with this picture of my daughter and niece taken on the see outside our summer-house this summer. It even made a fifth place (down to around 10 now) on Flickr Explore.

Jo Christian @ oterbloggen's article on his creative flash

2009-06-17T09:57:00.008+02:00

Jo Christian @ oterbloggen's fine article (in Norwegian) on his creative use of flashes has inspired me to enter the world of flash-photography. I guess having it dedicated to me makes me somewhat biased.

First step: get some new gear - notably a couple of Canon 580 EX or 580 EX II. And possibly also an off-shoe-cord.

Another great and incredible in-depth source of information on flash-photography for canon I found was the tutorials and articles written by Chuck Gardner.

Also these 3 articles from Canon should give some insight:

Can't wait to dig deeper into this field.

The Universe & Us...

2009-06-04T11:24:00.003+02:00

The Universe & Us...,
originally uploaded by fmmr.

I took this picture one night in the garden.

The stars are actually me holding and releasing a flash, and the globe is lit by a third flash.

Checking uptime on several hosts using bash & ssh

2009-04-03T16:12:00.013+02:00

not a very pretty script. I guess I should take the time to re-format it, and delegate some of the code to functions. however - it seems to work... It loops forever through some servers calling uptime, and then color-format the output according to $LIMIT, and then sleeping $SLEEP seconds.

update: now using bc, which simplifies thing quite a lot...
update 2: finally made function


#!/bin/bash
#
# Loops forever through servers in $SERVERS
# calls uptime remote using ssh
# color-formats the output according to $LIMIT
# sleeps $SLEEP seconds
#
# © Fredrik Rodland 2009
#
# Feel free to copy or use this script, but don't blame me if
# something goes wrong.
#
# v1.0 made function echo_with_color to reduce duplicate code
# v0.5 using 'bc' instead of bash integer arithmetic
# v0.1 initial version


LIMIT=.50
SERVERS="server1 server2 serverN"
SLEEP=10

NO_COLOUR="\033[0m"; 
RED="\033[1;31m"; 
BLUE="\033[1;34m"; 
GREEN="\033[1;32m"; 

function echo_with_color {
  tmp=`echo "$1 > $LIMIT" |bc`
  if [ $tmp == "1" ]; then
    echo -en "$RED"
  else
    echo -en "$GREEN"
  fi
  echo -ne "$1$NO_COLOUR"
  let "n++"
  if [ $n = "3" ]; then
    n=0
  else
    echo -n ", "
  fi
}

# ugly bugly code
while true; do
  for i in $SERVERS; do
    up=`ssh $i uptime`;
    pre=`echo $up | sed -e "s/\(.*\) \(.*\), \(.*\), \(.*\)/\1/"`
    min_1=`echo $up | sed -e 's/\(.*\) \(.*\), \(.*\), \(.*\)/\2/'`
    min_5=`echo $up | sed -e 's/\(.*\) \(.*\), \(.*\), \(.*\)/\3/'`
    min_15=`echo $up | sed -e 's/\(.*\) \(.*\), \(.*\), \(.*\)/\4/'`

    echo -ne "$BLUE$i$NO_COLOUR: $pre ";
    echo_with_color $min_1
    echo_with_color $min_5
    echo_with_color $min_15
    echo                                                                                                               
  done; 
  sleep $SLEEP; 
done

FINN torget - bør annonsetiden bli kortere?

2009-03-10T10:14:00.007+01:00

FINN torget sliter med at det ligger mange annonser på siten som er solgt. Dette skaper frustrasjon for potensielle kjøpere og fører til en dårligere tjeneste. FINN adresserer dette gjennom en "poll" og en liten artikkel.

For meg høres det ut som om FINN prøver å løse et (reellt) problem ved å innskrenke tjenesten, i stedet for å se på hva som er kjernen til problemet.

Problemet

Problemet: det ligger mange annonser på torget som er solgt. FINNs forslag til løsning: kortere annonsetid, som igjen gjør at eldre annonser blir satt til utgått, uavhengig om de er solgt eller ikke.

FINN burde etter min mening snarere lage incentiver som gjør at selgerne selv markerer annonsene som solgt. En annonse er etter min mening like aktuell* for en kjøper uavhengig av hvor lenge annonsen har ligget på FINN (forutsatt at den ikke er solgt selvsagt).

Hvorfor markerer ikke selgerne annonsene som solgt: de får såpass lite henvendelser at de ikke tar seg bryet med det.

Hvorfor får man mindre henvendelser på eldre annonser: FINN torget sorterer sine resultatlister på dato, synkende, slik at de nyeste kommer først. Jeg vet det er mulig for brukerne å endre sortering, men min hunch er at ytterst få gjør dette eller er klar over det. Jeg har dette som en forutsetning i resten av innlegget.

Hvis man så innser at problemet er at det er korrelasjon mellom alder på annonse og antall henvendelser på annonsen, burde det være en rimelig enkel sak å løse: fjerne datosorteringa på annonsene. I så fall må man finne en annen sortering, feks alfabetisk på tittel, tilfeldig sortering eller en eller annen form for relevanssortering.

+1 for relevanssortering:

Mange elementer kan inngå i en relevansvurdering, hvor det mest åpenbare er en tolkning av søkestrengen opp mot innholdet i annonsene. Dette er søkemotorer jevnt over veldig gode på, og man kan vekte forskjellige deler av annonsen forskjellig, se på antall forekomster av søkestrengen, hvor tidlig i teksten søkestrengen forekommer osv. Men det finnes en rekke andre elementer man kunne vurdert og eksperimentert med:

Alder på annonser: man kunne sågar tenkt hel anderledes og boosta gamle annonser, slik at vi motvirket korrelasjonen
Tags: latt brukerne selv lagt til noen nøkkelord som beskrev annonsen. Ofte er disse veldig relevante, og mye enklere å vekte høyt enn ren "prosa" som annonsetekst og tittel. Her er det fare for misbruk av brukerne, og det er i så fall viktig å opprettholde FINNs annonsekontroll. Man kan velge å vise nøkkelordene på annonsen, eller man kan velge å la være.
Informasjon om kjøperen (hvis han/hun er innlogget), feks hvor han/hun bor. For gjenstander på FINN torget vil jeg tro at det er en vesentlig faktor om man bare kan stikke og hente dem i stedet for å bale med postoppkrav og slikt. Annen informasjon som kjønn, alder, interesser, tidligere sette annonser, etc kan virkelig berike tjenesten.
Pris: søket er i første rekke til for kjøperen. De fleste kjøpere vil synes at billigere er bedre.
Bilder: gi høyere relevans til annonser med bilder.

Poenget mitt er altså:

Gjør relevanssortering til default sortering på FINN torget
Jobb aktivt og kreativt med hva som inngår i relevansen

Som et første ledd bør i det minste søk som inneholder søketermer (som altså brukeren har tastet inn) relevanssorteres. Så får an jobbe med de andre elementene kontinuerlig og switche sortering når man har nådd noe man er fornøyd med. Som i en bieffekt vil søkene generelt returnere et mye bedre sett med annonser for kjøperen. Et eksempel: Et søk på trapp ga 8 trapper hvis man sorterte på dato, men 13 trapper når man sorterte på relevans. Ved hjelp av for eksempel tags/nøkkelord tror jeg at dette tallet lett kunne vært enda høyere. (ps: dette er kun et eksempel og kan variere).

Motargumentet mot relevanssortering kan være at kjøperne bruker resultatlista på FINN til å holde seg oppdatert visuelt. Dvs at man "husker" hvordan resultatsiden så ut i går/forrige uke og dermed enkelt kan se om det har dukket opp nye annonser hvis listen er sortert synkende på dato. Å holde seg oppdatert på sine søk er en nyttig funksjonalitet, men her burde FINN laget nettopp dette, i stedet for å bruke dette som argument for å tilby et dårligere søk. FINN har også en ypperlig "mine søk"-tjeneste som tilbyr nettopp denne funksjonaliteten både som mail og RSS, begge glimrende kanaler for å holde seg oppdatert på sine søk. Hvis brukerne "krever" å ha denne på web i tillegg er det ikke noe veien for å lage dette, men det bør da kobles opp mot innlogging, og man kunne hatt en egen link som ga nettopp en slik liste, kanskje med markering av hva som er nytt siden sist. Å gjøre selve defaultsøket dårligere som følge av dette er etter min mening feil vei å gå.

*Som et apropos (som taler i mot min løsning) vil jeg også tro at det er en viss korrelasjon mellom alder på annonse og hvor "godt kjøp" det er. MAO eldre annonser er dårligere produkter, og burde således fjernes.

Disclaimer: Som tidligere søkearkitekt i FINN er nok dette en sak som ligger mitt hjerte nær ;-)

Operaen nettsider

2009-02-10T12:54:00.018+01:00

(For English readers: this is a Norwegian blog-post regarding the incredibly awful web-pages of the new Norwegian Opera in Oslo)

Dette tema har vært en gjenganger, men de fleste tidligere artikler tar for seg ett (eller noen få) irritasjonsmomenter. Sidene til operaen.no er så sjeldent dårlig, samt at det har gått ca 10 måneder siden lansering, at det er på plass med en oppdatering.

Bare så det er sagt: Jeg er ingen ekspert på dette, og noe av det jeg reagerer på kan gjerne være basert vel overveide beslutninger. Dette er kun et subjektivt syn på en av de mest elendige nettsider jeg noensinne har sett. Noen ting er kritiske, noen er bagateller, men alle irriterer meg i alle fall. Noen er helt sikkert knyttet opp til at jeg kjører på Mac OS X, og at jeg ser på sidene med nettleseren Firefox 3.0.

Rare overskrifter

[LC.CMDBACK]?
[LC.HEADLINE]?
[LC.HDRSHONAME]?
hæ?

Tekst over annen tekst

Hva er viktigst? Valg av teknologi? Valg av konsulenter til å utføre jobben? Visuell profil? At man faktisk er i stand til å lese teksten på siden?

Språk - Blanding av norsk og engelsk

Norsk og engelsk brukes om hverandre på flere deler av siten. I følge webmaster skal dette ikke skje dersom man har stilt inn språkinnstillingene i browseren. Jeg har stilt inn språkinnstillingene i nettleseren, og dette skjer definitivt. (jeg har riktig nok stilt inn disse på engelsk). Jeg synes operaen har tatt et feil valg i la denne innstillingen i browseren, som jeg tror et fåtall av brukerne faktisk har et forhold til, være styrenede for valg av språk på en såpass lokal site. Jeg hadde definitivt hatt norsk som default på denne siten uavhengig av nettleser-innstillingene, og latt brukeren velge eventuelt andre språk med flagg. Flagget ligger allerede oppe til høyre på sidene til operaen.

Norsk flagg er ikke tilgjengelig selv om siden vises på engelsk. Velger man det engelske flagget, dukker det norske opp, men selv etter å eksplisitt ha valgt det norske flagget vises det en masse engelsk tekst.

powered by enta

Who cares? Står nederst på alle sider som et forstyrrende element. Man skjønner tydeligvis at det ikke er viktig for elementet har nesten hvit tekst på hvit bakgrunn, men teksten er allikevel så ulik hvit at den forstyrrer. Det er ikke mulig å klikke på for å finne ut mer hvis man mot formodning skulle være interessert.

Kjøp-link fra forestilling selv om ingen ledig

Trykker man på kjøp-linken fra en forestilling på en dato det ikke er billetter igjen får man følgende fullstending hjelpesløse tekst (se bildet for nok en herlig sammenblanding av norsk og engelsk):
There are no prices available for the selected performance. Please contact the helpdesk.
Event details:
Event:
Hvorfor finnes i det hele tatt en kjøp-link hvis det ikke er billetter?

Grå tekst

Hvorfor bruke grå tekst i listen over forestillinger? Er det for å minske betydningen av innholdet? Eller er det bare for at vi rett og slett ikke skal kunne lese innholdet særlig godt? Legg også merke til den knapt synlige "powered by enta". Hvis det er så lite viktig at man ikke engang skal kunne lese det, så dropp det fra siden!

Prosent i treffliste

I trefflisten man får etter å ha søkt står det et prosenttall. Det er imidlertid ingen forklaring på prosent av hva, eller annen forklaring på tallet. Jeg vil tro at det muligens er en indikasjon på hvor godt operaen mener at treffet er. I så fall så er det jo besynderlig at på søket "forestilling for barn" får den helt generelle "Den norske opera og ballett" 100%, mens siden som omhandler forstillinger for barn kun får 45% score.

Kan velge seksjon selv uten ledige billetter

Inne i valg av billetter fra salkart (flash-delen) kan man valge seksjon uten at det er en eneste ledig plass id en. Man ender da med en fullstendig grå sal. Trykker man back (se neste punkt) går man helt ut av det. Det er heller ingen hjelp til hvordan man skal komme tilbake til seksjonsvalget. (ja, det viser seg at breadcrumb-trailen faktisk er en meny). Men hvorfor la brukeren velge denne seksjonen i utgangspunktet?

Innhold går på øvre og nedre del av siden

Det er ikke spesielt vakkert at innhold ender opp som hvit tekst på hvit bakgrunn. Nok en gang så lider innholdet av valg av teknisk løsning og dårlig håndverk.

Bunnmeny

Jeg tror meningen med bunnmenyen er at den skal ligge over hele bredden på siden, og i liten grad endres fra side til side. Så er imidlertid ikke tilfelle, og her ser det bare fullstendig rotete ut. I tillegg blandes menyen med den tidligere omtalte "powered by enta".

Kalenderen

Kalenderen nederst til høyre på forsiden har en rekke checkbokser. Alle disse er markert av. Dette betyr tydeligvis at alle er valgt, for alle de forskjellige typer steder og forestillinger vises. Hvorfor ikke bare merke alle? Velger man for eksempel ballett så forsvinner alt som ikke er ballett. Når man merker noe i en checkboks så sier man "velg" ikke "velg bort"

Bruk av skråstrek (/)

Er det bare meg, eller er denne bruken av skråstrek helt overflødig, og (dermed) rotete? For meg hadde det sett ryddigere ut å bare droppe dem.

Prisliste

Operaens prisliste må lastes ned som PDF etter at man har lagt menypunktet. Operaens sider er åpenbart bygget på et CMS, så hvorfor ikke legge prislisten rett ut på sidene? Hvorfor belemre brukeren med dette ekstra steget? Prislisten er på over 3.5 MByte, som vel er ca 1000 ganger (mitt estimat) så mye som de hadde trengt hvis man hadde kastet ned tekst i stedet for et scannet bilde i en PDF.

Utskrift av spilleplanen

Jeg prøvde å skrive ut spilleplanen. Første siden av utskriften inneholdet (kun):
/OPPLEV OPERAHUSET /FORESTILLINGER /KJØP /PRESSE /OM OSS Søk ok
Andre side inneholdt spilleplan, men kuttet etter ca 25 forestillinger.
Tredje side innholdt sponsorene.
Hvor ble det av resten av spillelisten? Og hvorfor all denne hvitheten på første og siste side?

Søk (1)

Søk på barneforestilling: 0 treff
Søk på forestilling for barn: 15 treff
Hva med at ta en liten runde og tenke litt på søket sitt? Da mener jeg tenke på hva brukerene til operaen faktisk søker på. Jeg tviler på om det er gjort særlig arbeid her (har flere eksempler på lager).

Søk (2)

Etter å ha søkt kommer man til en side med resultliste. Øverst er det et søkefelt, antagelig for å kunne søke en gang til. Gjør man dette kommer man til en blank side, med teksten HTTP404 der hvor høyre-menyen pleier å være.

Flash for å bestille billetter

sitat: Valg av billetter via salkart krever installasjon av Adobe Flash versjon 9,0,135 eller høyere.
To ord: fullstendig unødvendig

Flashanimasjon

Irriterende å måtte vente på å se flashanimasjonen i starten av salkartet. Særlig når man vet at dette gjerne kan være (nok en) bomtur.

Back-knapp

Er man inne i val av billetter via salkart og trykker back-knappen i nettleseren kommer man helt ut av bestillingen og må starte forfra.

Manglende nettleserstøtte

Sidene er ikke mulig å se i Safari. Flere (se kilder under) har meldt om at de heller ikke funker i Opera (ironisk nok). Andre melder om at IE 6 ikke funker.

Kjøp billett v/ utsolgt forestilling

Hvorfor er det en link til "kjøp billett" hvis forestillingen er merket som utsolgt?

Kjøp billett v/ ståplasser ledig

Hvorfor er det en link til "Kjøp billett" hvis forestillingen kun har ståplasser igjen, og disse er nødt til å kjøpes i billettluka, og ikke selges på nett?

Javascript-navigering

Det er ikke mulig å sende en link/url til en liste over datoer for en forestilling, fordi denne ikke har en egen URL som vises i nettleserens URL. Prøver man kommer man til den generelle listen over forestillinger.

Lansert april 2008

En skulle jo tro at dette var rimelig god tid på å evaluere, og hive seg rundt og lage sider som folk faktisk kunne bruke. I flere av artiklene listet nederst har representanter fra operaen uttalt ting som f.eks.:
Operaens nettløsning er på ingen måte ferdig, og vi bestreber oss på å få til et system som fungerer i alle nettlesere
og
Webtjenesten er vi veldig fornøyde med, men det er en del ting som må tas hånd om. Vi er i en kontinuell utviklingsfase, sier han.
Her er vi alstå, 10 måneder senere. kontinuell og kontinuell, fru Blom...

Mail til operaens webmaster

Jeg sendte en mail med en del av tingene påpekt i denne artikkelen til webmaster (klikkbar link nederst på alle sider). Eneste fornuftige hun hadde å melde var at problematikken med 2 språk var brukerfeil:
...men har man stilt inn nettleseren på norsk språk samt benytter de norskspråklige sidene, så skal man ikke få en slik blanding av norsk og engelsk...
samt at hun bekreftet at Safari ikke kunne brukes på operaen.no. Alle de andre punktene mine ble i grunnen besvart i "sekkesvaret":
Brukervennligheten ellers på sidene er til vurdering...
Ganske lite tilfredsstillende når man vet når sidene ble lansert. Jeg venter i alle fall ikke i åndeløs spenning, er nødt til å puste oftere enn som så...

Avsluttende kommentar

Det som virkelig er synd med dette er at jeg merker at dette går ut over mitt forhold til selve operaen. Det er selvsagt urimelig, og jeg skjønner også at den kunstneriske kvaliteten til operaen, både ensemblet, forestillingene, scenografien og ikke minst selve bygget ikke har noen ting med dette tekniske makkverket å gjøre. Imidlertid kjenner jeg at jeg blir litt fed-up hele greia. Jeg klarer knapt å bestille billetter her, og i hvert fall for denne gang, så gidder jeg ikke mer. Så får jeg se om jeg ikke tar en telefon om noen måneder og bestiller noen billetter når jeg har kommet over den værste skuffelsen.

På den annen side - i følge forestillingsplanen er det kun et fåtall billetter igjen før sommerene, så kanskje sidene er et strategisk ledd i å vanskeliggjøre tilgjengelighet på billettene, og rett og slett minke presset. PÅ en av artiklene listet nederst er det sågar en smarting som uttaler: Jeg setter pris på denne typen tilbakemeldinger. Men vi har faktisk fått mye skryt for disse salgssidene. Uff, for en virkelighetsoppfatning...

Kjære opera, kan dere ikke:

fjerne all fancy dippedupp CSS

lage en informativ og helt enkel site hvor det er mulig å hente info og kjøpe billetter

Så kan dere sakte men sikkert legge på et visuell profil som matcher det dere ønsker.

Disse har også skrevet om websidene til operaen.no:
20080413: iAllenkelhet
20080414: Eirik Newth
20080414: Dagbladet
20080414: ITavisen
20080414: Computerworld

update 20090310: Jeg fikk en mail fra webmaster@teaterbillett.no som egentlig sa seg enig i del av punktene. Riktignok litt defensivt, for han starter med

De punktene jeg ikke kommenterer, er ting som jeg er enig i eller ikke har noe å si på.

(og det er de fleste punktene gitt). Her er hele mailkorespondansen (PDF) for de som måtte være interessert.

First try at a Greasemonkey-script

2008-10-29T16:00:00.008+01:00

Greasemonkey allows you to customize a web-page to get to look and behave the way you want using javascript. A friend of mine wrote a script transforming the result-page for estates on finn.no a year ago, and I thought it would be fun to write a similar script myself; so I did. It tweaks the results-page from FINN Eiendom by:

displaying price pr sqm - uses 'real' price - see below
scrolling to the results - skipping junk on top
hiding broker-names (just clutter)
hiding top ad
'real' price: changes original price with the sum of original price AND fellesgjeld
adding orignal price to owner-info
calculating the average price pr sqm and displays this at the top.

to run it:

Install Greasemonkey
Install the Greasemonkey script
Visit FINN Eiendom: http://www.finn.no/finn/realestate/homes/result

Favorite Firefox Extensions (Add-ons/plug-ins)

2008-10-27T13:47:00.041+01:00

Firefox is a great tool, and the availability of plug-ins is really almost endless. Listing them is a great way for me to remember which ones I like to be able to remeber them next time I install Firefox. I thought the list might be helpfull also for others to see... The icons are all linked to the add-on described.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchornizer

I really think this is the most important plug-in I have installed for Firefox. It gives me access to the same bookmarks (and stored passwords) on every installation of Firefox I use. Instead og trying to remember a link or send myself e-mails, I just bookmark pages, and am able to retrieve them from both home, work, etc. You have to ability to set ut different profiles, so you can decide which bookmarks get synced where. They just released a version which is also capable of handling store passwords (encrypted) for forms which is equally handy.

Firebug

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Greasemonkey

Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. There are hundreds of scripts, for a wide variety of popular sites, already available at http://userscripts.org. You can write your own scripts, too. Check out http://wiki.greasespot.net/ to get started. update 20081031: I've written a script which transforms the result-page for FINN Eiendom (finn.no).

Stylish

Installed to be able to style Firefox as I like it. First- and foremost I use Stylish to be able to get a handy, small bookmark-toolbar in firefox with small icons (favicon) and no text. If I remember correctly this is actually pretty close to how firefox for windows behaves pr default if you delete the text on you bookmarks on your bookmarks toolbar. Several scripts were already made for this purpose and I tweaked them to my own likings. The image above is a capture of my firefox toolbar. See the my script for details, and feel free to use it if you like it.

Fast Dial

Instead of a blank page when you create a new tab i Firefox you get a page with large thumbnails (by default 3x3) of sites you decide.

Download Statusbar

A great little tool that simplifies both displaying and handling downloaded files.

Forecastfox

Get international weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable and unobtrusive extension.

Ubiquity

Ubiquity is a Mozilla Labs experiment into connecting the Web with language in an attempt to find new user interfaces that could make it possible for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily. Head on over to their page to learn more.

Web Developer

One of the most feature-rich plug-ins there are. Gives you lots and lots of tools when doing web-development, such as CSS-manipulation on the fly, different web-browser-sizes, cookie-management, etc. Very, very useful.

YSlow

YSlow analyzes web pages and tells you why they're slow based on Yahoo's rules for high performance web sites. Analyzing some of the sites I know well really pin-points some big issues.

/Find Bar/

Allows you to tick a simple box on the find bar to enable regular expression searching. Comes in very handy if you want to find multiple similar terms or if you're unsure of the spelling.

Elasticfox

Tool for handling Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), volumes, snapshots and more on Amazon's EC2-service. You can start machines, log in to them, and more.

S3://

Tool for browsing, uploading, and deleting files on Amazon's S3-service.

Screen grab!

Taking screen-shots directly in Firefox. Very handy. Able to choose "visible portion", "Complete page" or "Selection". Also allows you to choose between making a copy to the clipboard or saving it to disk.

seq on MAC OS X

2008-10-03T14:40:00.011+02:00

I've got several scripts that uses 'seq' to egenrate a sequence of numbers. This could be backups, looping over files, etc. I've also come to like the simplicity of this tool over the years. 'seq' is not a part of OS X. I stumbled - well actually while searching - over this post describing 'jot'. Great - but I'd still like to use the old-style interface to 'seq' (actually only the middle part, which takes 2 arguments):


[fmr@ally ~]$ seq --help
Usage: seq [OPTION]... LAST
or:  seq [OPTION]... FIRST LAST
or:  seq [OPTION]... FIRST INCREMENT LAST
Print numbers from FIRST to LAST, in steps of INCREMENT.

So I wrote this little bash-script which seems to do the work - at least for my use (just copy and save to a file called seq, and make it executable):


#!/bin/sh
# Fredrik Rodland
# dev_____AT____rodland.no
# http://rodland.no
# 20081004

MIN=$1
MAX=$2
PAD=$3
LENGTH=${#MAX}

if [ $PAD ]; then
     W="-w %0$LENGTH""d"
fi

let NMB_STEP=$MAX-$MIN+1
jot $W $NMB_STEP $MIN

I also added a (third, optional) padding argument, which pads all numbers to the same length. Examples:


fmr@dixon ~]$ seq 8 12
8
9
10
11
12
[fmr@dixon ~]$ seq 8 12 p
08
09
10
11
12
[fmr@dixon ~]$ seq 98 104  p
098
099
100
101
102
103
104

Backup my iPhoto 08 library

2008-03-26T11:37:00.009+01:00

In the process of converting from the PC-world to the MAC-world, one of the things I really struggle with is the fact that iPhoto hides most of how it handles my files - i.e. photos.

I used to use Google's Picasa, and used to be very happy with that. It let me organize my own files, and created sub-directories for changes I made in Picasa.

After a little digging, I found out iPhoto organizes my pictures hierarchically for each year, and with the name of the event as the folder name. Further more it has 2 parallel directory-structures, one for the original pictures, and one for the modified.

Seems like this script, using rsync, does the job, at least for a local copy. It's easilly modified to make the backup remote (using ssh).

Update: Seems like I'm having trouble trouble with the apple -E switch for rsync. It's working ok for local backups, but over the net it's really slow due to the fact that lots of files are transfered each time. Also I can't really seem to get how the "use modified if it exists, else use the original" really works. I guess I'll revert to backing up both the Modified and Originals directory separately. See this discussion on apple.com for more info on the -E switch.

Update: After quite a lot more fidling, and being afraid of not getting all the keywords and stuff included I ended up with a rsync-one-liner:

alias r="rsync -av -e ssh --delete /Users/fmr/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/ fmr@10.0.12.51:/mnt/data_2/bilder/_IPHOTO --exclude 'Caches/*' --exclude '.DS_Store' --exclude 'iPod Photo Cache' --exclude 'Auto Import'"

Favorite Computer: hmm...

2008-01-29T16:02:00.000+01:00

This is a really tough one...

I used to have a powerful (and a monster of a...) laptop - the DELL Inspiron 9100. A couple of years ago I bought myself an iMac, mainly to start editing video with iMovie and/or Final Cut Express. Even though I haven't really edited a single minute of video; I've become very found of the computer and the mac-applications, such as Mail, Safari (even though I also regularly use Firefox), AddressBook, and all the others. The 20" is soon to be raplced with a new 24" with a boost in disk space, CPU-speed, and memory. I also installed Parallels, and transfered my entire old PC-laptop onto it to be able to run the few applications not yet supported on Mac.

I used to own a really noisy media-pc, with a really crappy TV-tuner, in fact so bad I never even used it except for the time trying it out. I used the computer for streaming videos over my home network, and for watching online videos (YouTube and nrk.no). However I'd always had to turn if of after using it due to the noise, and it took a long time starting it. Last fall I replaced it with a brand new Mac mini paired with eyetv hybrid and the eyetv software. This works great and I'm finding myself watching TV almost exclusively through this. With iTunes (to download video-podcasts), QuicktTime PRO, Perian and Flip4Mac this has become a very good solution.

I used to have a really really slow laptop at work doing development on Norway's largest classifieds-site. I had all sorts of trouble with this computer. I changed the disk once (some of my colleagues changed theirs multiple times), it always seemed to do anything but what I wanted it to do. In comes a new 17" MacBook Pro! This changed my working day from misery to joyfully! I find that running development tools (like the Intellij IDE, DB Visualizer, TextMate) is a breeze. It runs fast and without any hassle. The screen is wonderful, and the fact that Mac OS X is based upon a UNIX operating system makes life so much easier and less troublesome.

So which do I prefer? I guess I love all three of them - each for it's use, and I guess that the point of creating such different computers - they each fill a specific set of needs. One thing is certain, I won't re-enter the PC world any time soon.

Favorite IM Client: Trillian Astra

2007-11-26T09:46:00.000+01:00

Astra is Cerulean Studios' latest version of Trillian. What's really great about this client is that it integrates all your (mine that is) IM-protocols. I use some protocols for my everyday work (jabber, MSN), while I use other to communicate with friends and family (AIM, Yahoo). All of them are nicely integrated in one, great interface. It even allows you to add meta-contacts with several IM-addresses attached to it.

What's really new about Astra (at least for my part) is it's web-interface - you can actually log into a web-page and start chatting away with your contacts on the protocol of your choice. The fact that they're actually in the process of making a OS X-release.

They also state that there are/will be improved performance on Astra compared to Trillian 3.1. I haven't actually that impression yet, but then again, it's in Alpha...

Trillian Astra is currently in Alpha-testing. You can sign up for alpha test here.

update 20080129: After converting to a macbook pro at work I've discovered Adium is not a bad candidate either. However Trillian suitesmy needs better, and I'm still waiting for them to release to MAC-version for testing...

Favorite file manager: Total Commander

2007-11-25T16:36:00.000+01:00

I've been using Total Commander from the days it was named Windows Commander - I think it was the 2.0 release. It's a great tool, and gives you great control and overview. The things I value most;

(un-)packing (zip, rar, and lots of other formats)
directory-synchronization (actaully quite fast, I use to sync my pictures)
Integrated FTP-client
Integretaed file-viewer, which supports lots of formats.
Plugins (packer-, file-system-, lister-, and contents-) which great third party
and of course moving and copying files.

I think this application (together with the fact that OS X tries to abstract the (abstraction) of files) is one of main reasons why I'm not able to make the full transition to using my iMac. Of course, if Christian Ghisler would make an OS X-port of Total Commander, that would change that :-)

Favorite feed-reader: Feeddemon

2007-11-23T12:39:00.000+01:00

Really a great application. I have been using it for some years, and am very happy with it.

very intuitive view of feeds, items & content
displays images and video in it's own window
synchronizes with Newsgator for reading on multiple computers
good off-line mode
frequent updates
watches for tracking your favorite terms
Panic-button - :-)
lots lots of other features...

link

Started work... (again)

2006-08-28T15:58:00.002+02:00

I started working at Finntech last week. So far it seems really good. Of course I was immediately put to work in the FAST-project which is porting some of the application at finn.no over to the latest version of FAST: ESP 5.0. I guess I'm happy with that for the time being, nice to know some of the environment even though I'm a newbie to everything else...

Summer-vacation

2006-06-16T11:04:00.000+02:00

I've left my job at FAST, and started my 2 1/2 months summer-vacation :-) Great - finally some time to do all the things I don't otherwise find the time to...

Tusenfryd 2006

2006-05-08T23:25:00.000+02:00

My father got some free tickets to Tusenfryd, and decided to take his son and grandson with him :-). Martin and I had a great time, and don't think the grand-father had it so bad himself. See the pictures...

SONOS (update/final)

2006-04-25T09:37:00.000+02:00

After a couple of months of thinking, trying, drilling holes in the walls I think I've finally reached a near-optimal setup of my SONOS-installation. We now have a totalt of 5 zones, of which 2 are outdoors. Sitting on the terrace listening to radio or my favorite record, only to wlak indoors to find the same music being played in the living room is so cool. Listening to something else than Kardemomme by (Norwegian children record, always played in the living room during my son's waking hours) in the kitchen when cooking food is also somewhat relaxing. This system is everything I hoped it to be, except of course (and again) for the horrific price. 2 controllers (CR 100) Zones (ZP100): -Living room -Kitchen -Study -Courtyard -Terrace I'm considering getting a ZP80 in our bedroom to hook up with our Tivoli Audio Model Three.

New job: Finntech

2006-04-24T14:43:00.000+02:00

I guess it's pretty official now: I'm switching jobs. I'll have my last work-day at FAST by the end of May, and then start at Finntech. I've learnt a lot in my time at FAST, but I felt that it was time (again) to actually implement something. At FAST, my job mostly consisted of tuning somebody elses installation. So I'm looking very much forward to my new position, and time will show if it suits me better.

Easter 2006

2006-04-18T14:11:00.000+02:00

Just came back from this year's easter-vacation near Alvdal where we spent a week together with Vibeke, Lars-Erik, and Andrea. Nice weather, lots of outdoor activities, good food, and a some great time off. Martin really impressed us all with his abilities to ski cross-country - especially going down the hills.

iPod Video

2006-03-24T09:33:00.000+01:00

I finally got a chance to try out my iPod Video on our trip to Italy. It's really a cool little gadget. I got it from a lot of friends at my 35th surprise-birthday-party in December, but this was the first major opportunity to test it out. I converted some videos prior to the trip, and watched both "Kill Bill" films. I was surprised to see that the quality was much better than I expected. The only thing not really comfortable was finding a way to hold the iPod while watching.

Italy - 2006

2006-03-23T14:51:00.000+01:00

Just came back from our trip to Tuscany, Italy. We stayed in a nice hotel in the (really) remote town of Poretta Terme between Bologna and Florence; but mostly we went south to the cities of Siena and Florence. Very nice places, but Tuscany in March is way colder than we imagined. BTW: The picture is from San Gimignano, a small but very picturesque village on top of a hill near Siena. We also spent a wonderful day with Trude & Andreas & Eva in Sinalunga.

SONOS

2006-03-23T14:35:00.000+01:00

Finally: After months of looking at, reading about, wanting (actually desiring) one: I've bought a SONOS system. Set up with three zones and a (awesome) controller this is really the audio-system of my dream. Only bad thing to say about it: the price - it's just insane.... Check out their web-page: sonos.com update (20060325): Bought Linux-journal today, and Doc Searls has written a great article on the Sonos system.

Last.fm

2006-03-23T14:31:00.000+01:00

Registered at Last.fm: fmmr Pretty cool - exploring other's with the same taste in music as myself.

Oslo is world's most expensive city

2006-01-31T16:08:00.000+01:00

:-( Link to Yahoo's article: Oslo is world's most expensive city

The best net-based Sudoku around

2006-01-24T10:23:00.000+01:00

At least the best I've seen.... LIFE - Sudoku Created by Fantasy Interactive for Life, featuring Sudokus by Michael Mepham.

Google Mobilizer

2006-01-19T14:04:00.000+01:00

A cool little app: Google Mobilizer. View the mobilized version of my own homepage. It actually works quite well, for instance with picture-galleries.

Martin's birthday

2005-12-19T10:36:00.000+01:00

Today it's my son Martin's 4th birthday. Yesterday we had children-birthday-party with lots of toys, cake, and fun. Today family and friends are coming over to celebrate. From his parents he got a toy race-way. His father is certainly looking forward to play with him!

Xooglers

2005-12-19T10:29:00.000+01:00

An interesting blog written by X-employees of Google: Xooglers.

Dive Into Python

2005-12-19T09:57:00.000+01:00

A very good introductory book to the Python programming language: Dive Into Python. And it's free!

Jo Christian Oterhals' søkeblogg

2005-12-16T13:31:00.001+01:00

A quite good (Norwegian) blog on events and news in the search-world. Focused on Norwegian searches, but comments on international events as well.

link

update (20060323): This blog has ceased to exist...

NSLU2

2005-12-16T12:55:00.000+01:00

The coolest little box ever: NSLU2. A small, cheap, and silent little thing which runs linux. Follow the instruction at NSLU2 to mod it, and you've got yourself a web-server, ssh-server, file-server etc also capabel of running mdaap (itunes-server). You could also have a look at Linksys' own NSLU2-page. Drawback: Since it's running Linux, and the default filesystem installed on the disk is EXT3, it's not so easy to share your disk with friends (who typicaly run Windows).

fredrik m. rødland

2005-12-16T11:40:00.000+01:00

My personal website...

Visit it at rodland.no/