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I just came back from spending some quality time with a good friend of mine and I somehow had the urge to blog about tonight. We went to see “The Pursuit of Happyness“, a reflection on the life of Christopher Gardner, the guy who didn’t just live the American dream, no, he rewrote it.

The movie tells the story of the struggle and difficulties Gardner, who is portrayed by Will Smith, has to overcome in order to succeed. I must admit, the beginning of the movie was rather … shall we say, uninteresting, it was strange to see Will Smith use bad language, ’cause he barely ever does that and while I’m able to handle bad language, it didn’t seem fitting.

After half an hour though, the story had gotten to me. Smith is a great actor and he has portrayed some great characters, but this one, was, hands down, the best thing I’ve ever seen him do. Now, I’m no big shot movie critic but this movie has all it needs:

Smith and his (real life) son are portrayed in a great array of situations, you can see them having fun together and you can literally read Gardner’s mind, the thoughts that are crossing through it, the problems and challenges he is facing. It’s surreal.

The movie makes you feel bad, just looking at those pictures, the fight Smith has to put up to with in order to reach his final goal, to succeed in getting a job at Dean Witter Reynolds, a stock brokerage firm. The ordeals Gardner went through are … amazing.

Now, the movie portrays the whole internship thing as an unpaid training, while Gardner actually received $1,000 and there are some other things that aren’t told in the same way it happened back in 1981, but still, this movie touched me on a level that no movie ever did until now.

I may not have faced the hardships that Chris Gardner has faced and I may never face them, but his story and most of all, the way he solved the problems he was thrown at inspires me. Gardner doesn’t know the concept of “giving up” and for what it’s worth, he is a better man for that.

If you’re looking to spend a few bucks on a great story, I can more than recommend checking out this movie. No matter if you watch it on a DVD, in a cinema or just grab the book, the story will get to you.

For what it’s worth, this year might only be a couple of weeks old, but I have found my favorite movie of the year already.

Approximately two years ago, I wrote an in-depth review about a service called StuffBak. This service helps you retrieve lost items by means of a tag attached to your device, keycord or whatever you deem worthy of protection.

The StuffBak tags are the first thing I attach to devices that are irreplaceable and sometimes, I even create sets, so for example if you’d find my laptop bag, you’d be eligible for $100 worth in tags as well as another $600 in finder’s fee. It it works, ultimately, I can’t tell you, but at least I’ve taken steps to give people a chance to do the right thing.

When I first installed Windows XP, I created a boot screen that would contain my personal information, so if you’d find my laptop, you could use the information provided on screen to get in touch with me.

With Windows Vista, I wanted to do the same thing and as luck would have it, I came across a tutorial that explains how to create a boot screen.

Many people will go for something like a female with little clothing or an image depicting the superiority of one operating system above another, I went for something that made a lot more sense to me:

I tried to recreate the tag that is attached to the back of my laptop as closely as possible (and no, I don’t have eight zeros as my number) and I think it will do the job.

In my gallery, you’ll find both a preview image as well as the actual PSD file (works in Photoshop CS, CS2) that I used to create the image.

Follow the tutorial and you should be good to go. It’s very straightforward and you shouldn’t encounter any problems, if you do, head on over to my gallery and download a backup of winload.exe.mui (Windows Vista RTM, Home Premium, not sure if that matters though)

As always, all stuff provided here is free of charge and comes with no support at all. If you screw up, too bad for you.

Lately, namely, the last three years, it would seem that customer service is something out of the ordinary. Something you’re only entitled to if you have buckets full of cash. If you’re a normal customer, you shouldn’t even be thinking about getting to talk to a real person.

On blogs like the Consumerist, you can read about companies that eff up, businesses that treat their customers unfairly and the likes. Sure, there are situations when the customer is at fault, for example when yelling at a CS rep who didn’t even cause a problem. I totally understand (and agree) that such calls should be terminated as soon as possible, but there are also situations, where the customer didn’t do anything wrong and still doesn’t get what he is looking for.

A few days ago, I submitted a ticket to Flickr, in regards of a question I had. Basically, I wanted to switch the account name my Flickr account was tied to. My question to them was not if they could do it, but only if it was possible. All it would have taken is a simple “yes” or “no”. Now, I’m not the biggest Flickr user, because I have my own gallery and like it a lot better and in fact only bought the Flickr account so I could buy some MOO cards, but I am a paying customer nonetheless.

To date, I have not yet received any communication from them, other than the one their auto responder sends out telling me that my issue will be looked into as quickly as possible. Their site states that a human will be in contact with you, at some point. Really now?

Yesterday, I also came across an issue with YouTube. Basically, I was unable to update my channel info successfully. Whenever I entered my data in the fields, it would be saved but during the process, would also erase data I entered into other fields.

Since I thought this to be a general site issue, I fired off an email to YouTube support, letting them know of the issue. Naturally, I was sent a standard auto responder, telling me that the issue would be looked into, but that I shouldn’t expect any response. I’m fine with that. I’m not a paying customer, I know that YouTube is huge and if they would fix the problem, I’d be happy.

Google, apparently thinks otherwise. Less than twelve hours after submitting my original request, Elizabeth from the YouTube team told me the following:

Hi there,

Thanks for your email.

Thank you for your notification. It looks like the issue was the result of an issue with our website. It’s been reported to our engineers and should be fixed!

We apologize for the inconvenience, but you will have to try to make the changes to your channel again.

A simple mail, with an easy to understand answer. Sure, half of it may be text snippets, she just drags and drops into the response field, but at least they try - and to be honest, it’s working. I’m confident that the issue will be resolved in no time.

Google, while telling you not to expect an answer, actually always writes back (at least, they do in my case). I’ve had issues with AdSense, GMail and GTalk and I have always gotten answers out of them. All of these services are free to use and I’m not a paying customer. I’m no A - List blogger and I don’t have the power to kill their reputation, yet they treat me with the same kindness every time. Why they do it, I don’t know. I’m guessing it’s corporate culture and if it is, it’s a great one.

That same corporate culture is what makes people want to work at Google, it’s what makes those people proud. Now, I don’t agree with turning over all my data to Google and I only use my GMail accounts sparingly, but I gotta give it to them that they are doing (most of) the right things.

I think, if Yahoo! would take care of their customers a little more, they could actually gain back a nice piece of the market they lost to Google…

I was just talking to a friend of mine who had an interesting experience:

She and a friend of hers were speeding along a quiet neighbourhood, when all of a sudden a police officer pulled them over. Now, first thing most people would do is panic, but these two people kept their cool and actually managed to have a nice chat with the officer. Long story short, he didn’t sign a ticket and, awkwardly, asked for the number of the girl.

Regardless if he got it or not, I was wondering what I’d do in a similar situation (albeit, with a female cop):

The officer just saved you $50 or more and all they ask for in return is your number because they find you attractive and maybe even interesting. Should you feel obliged to give it to them? If you would, is it because you feel obliged to, because said officer kept your records clean or is it because the officer commands respect and you wouldn’t dare oppose someone in such a function? Would you give them your details based on a purely social evaluation, not taking the officer’s job into consideration?

Now, what would happen if the situation was slightly altered: replace the cop with a soldier, would you still feel that the job commands the same respect as a police officer does? Does a soldier command more respect? What about a firefighter, a (commercial) pilot?

If you give them your details, would you go for something highly associatable, like your land line number, something you could easily get rid off, like a prepaid cellphone number or would you go for a, rather anonymous email address?

An interesting topic to think about.

Just had to check some things on my server and came across this little thing:

Apparently, love is something inappropriate if you ask Linux. Maybe that’s why more and more people buy Windows and Macs? They just work and you’ll even experience the wow effect.

And yes, only a true geek (or someone with a technical background) can appreciate this kind of humour.

Today’s economy is all about money, it has been like that for years and it will probably be like that for the remainder of time, unless someone comes up with an ingenious solution that replaces money with another object of value that is easy to exchange, both in the real world as well as digitally. Since I don’t see that happening any time soon, I might as well discuss an idea I had about teaching our young ones how to “work” with money.

Before we start, let’s take a minute to think back. I think I got my first money to spend at the age of seven, but I had been spending other people’s money (namely from my parents) before that. I would be rewarded for school activity as well as the occasional monetary present for birthdays. While this worked out nicely for me back then, I think the system is flawed. Later on, when you’re a grown-up, nobody will give you money just because you turn a year older. Well, some people might do, but those are the ones with bad taste, and it’s never going to be enough to sustain yourself. Basically, I think that parents are teaching their children nothing about the value of money by “just” giving them access to funds.

What I’m proposing, basically, is the following: give children money, based on the work they carry out. Chores should of course be appropriate to their age, you can’t expect a five year-old to go shopping, you might end up with no money at all and a bill for the dentist. Have kids work around the house. Most children aren’t interested in that kind of stuff at those ages, so why not utilize a system that works so well, even primates pick up on it?

The “do this, get that” method is, if you ask me, a lot better than just giving kids an allowance that you replenish whenever the kids need it. Working for money is an essential factor of life, so why not start out as early as possible? Protecting your children from the harshness that is the world? Well, good luck with that. What good does that do? Ten years later, you have children who are completely incapable of managing the funds they have access to and you’ll end up having to teach them the whole system after all.

I’ve read about people who taught their children the value of money in creative ways. Mom would tell her son to look through grocery fliers and the more coupons and great deals he could get, the more they would save. The saved money then, would be his reward. Does that teach children the value of money? You bet it does. The more you save, the more you get to keep. It’s as easy as that.

Now, in todays digital world, you could enhance the whole process a lot. Create a game I say. One that is a win-win solution for everyone involved, parents, children and the economy. If you’re going to create it, however, you should do it the right way. A famous Dutch financial institution tried and in my eyes, fail to meet the goal I’m trying for.

Said bank came up with a system that let’s you save money. You have a piece of hardware, connected to your computer. Put in a dime and you’ll see the computer process it in a visual way. You can always see how much you have, but you can’t really use it. It works great to teach people about saving money, but, in the end, why do we save money? Exactly, to spend it, when the time comes.

Their system lets children play games that are branded with the companies logos and everything. Every game costs a certain amount of points. You have x points every day and a game costs, say 1/10 of x. So you can play ten games a day. Very nice, if you want to keep your kid from turning into a gambler, but it doesn’t teach them anything about the real value. Like before, the problem is that the points are restored daily. In fact, parents can even buy more points for you, if need be.

My idea is different. Let’s create a game that combines online and offline chores. It’s gotta be entertaining to the kids, or they won’t play it, but it’s also gotta be educative. I propose to utilize the “do this, get that” method.

The application itself, would be aimed at an audience between three and six, so it would be heavy on the visual side and only include easy to read (and understand) text for the player. The application is basically a shell, your access to a myriad of minigames, some of which could be branded by the companies that support this game (and I’m certain, there would be quite a few).

Each minigame has to be entertaining. You’d have simple games, for example, stuff where you match pairs but also more advanced stuff, for example, reading easy words and linking them to their visual counterparts. After completing a level, the “boss” of that level is a real-world chore, related to the game. If you matched pairs ingame, why not go help your mom match socks? Sounds easy, but it would help both parents and children. The idea is that the kids first play something, then complete a chore, related to the game and finally get their reward. Both points in game as well as a monetary reward.

The game contains sophisticated tracking systems so that you can see how long your kid takes for a certain part, but I’d advise to spend the time on the computer with your kid, after all, there’s no better guardian than the one that’s there, when they need it. The tracking system also will show you statistics, like what does your child like to do most? What does it not like? You can then adjust the rewards in a way that for example, cleaning up the room, something just about every child hates, becomes a lot more interesting, financially speaking.

Heck, we could even digitize the aforementioned idea about having your kid look through grocery folders. Said minigame would have to be sponsored by a grocery store of course and the coupons would be for their products only. The player would be presented with a selection of say hundred coupons and then mark the ones that are of interest to him or her. Once the “level” is finished, call your parents, have them check the list, print it out and if they approve, enter a special parent-code™ that would translate into the reward.

Said parent-codes™ are printed lists with an unique identifier. There’s a pair of two codes each. One you have to enter before you start a game, one you have to enter after the player has completed a level. The game doesn’t handle situations where you start a game, then start another though because players are expected to only commit to something if they are willing to pull through. Much like in real life, later on.

All in all, this game has the potential to do three things: help children understand the value of money, help parents with their workload and help the economy create people who understand the value of money and brand children with brands they will be buying later on.

At the beginning of this week, I finally received my Windows Vista DVD, thanks to GLS’ delay though, I wasn’t able to install it, yet.

Long story short, I’ll be installing Vista today and like a true prosumer, I’m not going to use the out-of-the-box version, but rather cook my own one, using vLite.

vLite is the successor to the much loved nLite. Both of the tools allow you to create custom install CDs (or DVDs, in Windows Vista’s case) that only include the stuff you really want (or need) as well as custom drivers. Basically, with these tools you can create your very own, very perfect install medium.

Step 1 is to get a copy of the vLite tools, so just head on over to their site and grab any of the packages. At the time of writing, 0.9 was the latest version. Extract it, start up vLite and you’ll be presented with something like:

Note that you can click on the inline images if you want to see a bigger version of the image.

Pop in your Windows Vista DVD, select the location where you want to store your modified files and hit “Next”.

Step 2 is where the real magic starts. The components tab allows you to (de-)select any items you do not need. It is important that you note that anything you select will be removed.

As you can see, I strip out everything that I have no need for but leave in those tools that require other things such as “Windows Mail” which is needed for Outlook. Your selection might vary and since I don’t have the time to provide support on this tutorial, it’s important to read the hints that vLite offers when you hover over an item. Only then should you decide if you want to keep or remove an item. Once again, if you remove it, it’s gone, for good. If you have any doubts, leave it in there or research your options.

For Step 3, we’re going to add some tweaks to our install medium.

Segoe UI is a lot more readable than other fonts, if your display supports Cleartype. Since mine does, Segoe UI is my font of choice:

Next step is to disable UAC. While the concept of it is very nice, I personally don’t care for the added layer of security. I know which sites not to surf to and which things I shouldn’t do, so I have little to no use for UAC:

The last tweaks tab allows you to change the hibernation behaviour. Since I’m a mobile user, I have a need for hibernation and as such, I leave the setting unchanged:

Step 4 is about adding drivers to your install disk. Since Vista miraculously includes all the drivers I need, there’s no need to add anything for me:

Step 5 is where the real fun begins. The last tab is where you create the actual ISO image of your install medium. First, you’ll want to change the options so that vLite creates an image for you:

The next thing you’ll have to do is to name the image. For maintenance reasons, I give it the same name as the Windows Vista DVD has:

Make note of the name and copy it into the vLite application:

Finally, it’s time to start building your image. The whole process takes a couple of minute to complete:

Once vLite is finished, you’ll see a message in the lower part of the screen:

Technically speaking, you’re done now. Grab an empty DVD and write your image on it, or head on over to Douglas Stockwell’s blog and read his thoughts about installing Windows Vista from a HDD.

If you’re looking for the easy, highly uneducative way out, grab my vLite preset file from here, put it into a folder called “Preset” in your vLite directory and load the preset from within vLite.

Happy customizing!

After having some trouble with GLS Netherlands last week, my package was finally delivered on Monday, undamaged even and I now finally have an OEM copy of Windows Vista Home Premium.

Now, one would think that this chapter is closed but there’s something else that annoys me to no end with GLS. When you receive packages from a courier, you normally have to sign for them. That is, the person who receives the package has to sign for it. Sometimes you have to identify yourself with a driver’s license or an ID card, sometimes you don’t. In any case, those people have your signature and you’re legally bound to the package at that time.

Obviously, this isn’t an issue if you or someone you know signed for it, it is a problem though, if the driver has the audacity to sign in your name, like the GLS driver did. Granted, he delivered the package and saved me the time of calling GLS (yet again) and getting them to redeliver the package, but if the package shows up damaged, he’s not liable for it anymore. I’m the last person to look for filing charges, but if I receive software that is damaged and I supposedly signed for it, what would GLS compel to solve this problem for me and make repairations?

Well, lesson learned - don’t ship with GLS if you want your package to be delivered in a professional way. Sadly, Perfect Systems has no intentions of switching carriers and as such, I don’t believe I’ll keep ordering stuff from them anymore …

February 14th, Valentine’s Day, a day that is traditionally used to express your love and affection towards those with whom you share a familiar love with, but also towards those you share romantic love with (and if you’re lucky enough to be able to have a 2-for-1 deal going, even better!)

Today is about showing your partner(s) how much you care about them, your chance to thank them for all the things they do. Things you might have started to take for granted, but believe me, they are not. So get out there (if you haven’t already done so) and surprise your loved one(s). They deserve it.

While you’re at it, you might want to consider extending Valentine’s Day beyond it’s original scope of only showing your gratitude towards loved ones, you might want to think about including those people you admire too, like I’m about to do:

We’ve met a few years ago, yet it sometimes feels like only yesterday. We’ve been through good times and the obligatory bad times, we’ve even been through no-times, that is, the dark period without regular contact. We’ve shared secrets with each other that other’s still aren’t privy too and probably never will be.

Yes, we’ve had our fair share of disagreements but we managed to pull through, most of the time. Our friendship, if you want to call it that, has been faced with events that would have destroyed any other friendship, yet, ours miraculously survived, even if it was put on life-support by me soon thereafter. In hindsight, it seems hardly thankful, after all the things you’ve done for me and believe me, there isn’t a day I don’t feel guilty about it. That same guilt is what kept me from telling you this a lot sooner, that same guilt, is what keept me from hangin’ out with you in the past.

In times of trouble, no matter which kind, you have stood by me, you have protected me and you stood up for me, even though you didn’t have to. You were there for me when I needed someone to talk to and you allowed me to help you when you needed someone to talk to.

You managed to captivate my mind and heart the day we first met and you continue to amaze me until this very day. You possess a gift, an inner strength that is unlike anything I have ever witnessed. You somehow overcome events that cripple others for a lifetime and even though I know that deep inside you, a little part of you succumbs to the pressure, you never show, you are always the same, blissful person.

I respect that and I admire you for it, a lot. So, here’s to you! You know who you are.

It’s close to 10 am and I’m sitting here with a group of other motivated students. Today’s session will be split in two parts: the first part will be about coming up with creative ideas for IT usage till the year 2020 and in the afternoon, we’ll try to think of possible ways to enhance the (IT - related) life of future students for the time till 2010.

We just received our welcome package with a nice gadget: a branded 256mb MP3 player, useless to me but nice nonetheless.

More updates to follow…