There are two sides. Either you Love "Da Google" or you hate "Da Google". Some people trust Sergei and his friend implicitly , some people don"t. And I must say: I'm one of the former ones. I have been using Google and Gmail for over three years now, and so far I am loving it. Over the last five years i've been down quite a path when it comes to Email solutions. When I just had one computer , it was not really a problem, but once we had several computers the whole POP3 email solution just did not do it for me anymore. So I have tried several things. I setup my own SBS server, Pop3'ing my emails INTO the exchange server and accessing them using Outlook or via Webmail. That worked pretty fine. But the trail version I had of SBS expired (read : i could not find a working crack ) and I had to go and look for other solutions. That's when I found FIRSTCLASS. A free email server (with the ability to pop3 email INTO the server , just like exchange) and access it via a client or via the web. AND there was a client for both Mac , Windows and Linux computers ! Worked all fine and dandy but .. you had to have your own server running. 

At some point, I don't know where I decided to pull down our Firstclass server and look for another groupwise-email solution for Nyana and me. ( I think one of the reasons was that the Firstclass mailserver had two old scsi drives that made and insane amount of noise ) So that's when I turned to Gmail. I let go of the whole 'hosting your own server' and put my faith in the hands of the guyz at G. 

And so far that has been going great . For the last three years every email that we sent back and forth went into our Gmail account and got archived. Whenever we needed something , we searched and found. Once the whole IMAP thing got started we moved to open source clients on the different operating systems , or accessed the system using Gmail. Calendar sharing and chat came soon after that , so for the last 2 years we have been heavily "Google-ized".

Do I mind that Google gives me little adds on the side ? To be quite frank, I hardly noticed them and have never clicked on one. Do I mind Google "reads my email" .. not realy . They don't give me spam. As a matter of fact, they offer me the best spamfilter I've seen in quite some time.

So this week I took it one step further and activated "Google apps for domains" . Its a free service by Google and what it eventually does is that Google now becomes your email provider (instead of just using one mailbox , all the mail gets sent to Gmail) Once you have it setup you get to play "administrator" for your own Google-domain.  So you can setup mailaccounts for you and your family, (all with an @yourdomain.com domain name) , get to play with shared calendars , Google Sites , Google chat etc etc .. and its all for free. 

Technically it takes a bit of reading to get it all setup (just follow the steps at www.google.com/a ) and make sure you are in touch with your hosting company that hosts your domain  (cause you have to change some Cname and MX dns records) but once that that is done , you are up and running. So far I've setup our mailaccounts, shared calendars, contacts and so forth. There is nothing realy NEW about the whole setup , but this way I can easily make new mail accounts and make sure that the outgoing addresses that gmail sends out are @mydomain.com instead of " on behalf of @mydomain.com, from @gmail.com" as it is when u use a regular gmail account with additional sender addresses.

Conclusion ? Instead of having my own flaky mailserver slurping away power at home, I now rely on google's infrastructure, the chance that all severn (!) of their MX servers go down is slightly smaller then the chance this could happen to my own server. Ok , i've " handed off" the real email collaboration to another company but hey ! Its for free, its stable and it lets tech work for you.

Sorry for not posting over the weekend, but I had my hands full. :) Not only with "daily life" kinda stuff, to be quite honest we didn't leave the house. But with Nyana down with the flu we didn't have a lot of choice. She's slowly getting better, but the most part of my weekend was spent on the couch beside her, watching over her , pampering her and of course playing with my new toy. Saturday morning I had gotten a buyer for my Asus EEEpc (yes !  I SOLD IT ! ) who came and picked it up for a very decent price. Why did I sell it ? Just because it was time for something new. And that something was the ACER ASPIRE ONE. Now I know I mostly talk about Acer products in the tones of 'crap, noobie laptops, disposable computers' and such, but for 299 euro's I could not pass up on the ACER ASPIRE ONE. Sporting an 8 gig Sd Drive, 2 cardreaders, 3 usb ports, a 9 inch screen (res 1024*600) a webcam and a slightly bigger keyboard, its a very VERY nice piece of kit for that price. I had of course done some research wether or not Ubuntu would run on this little machine (it does) but decided to take it one step further. Since we don"t have a Windows machine in the house (seriously , its all Mac and Ubuntu here) I thought it would be a nice challenge to DUAL BOOT Xp and Ubuntu on that little machine. It took me quite some time to get everything done but the end result is awesome. (i'll write up a little review this week). Furthermore I decided to take the plunge and move the Knightwise.com domain over to Google apps. And that also takes up quite a bit of time, mailing back and forth with my hosting company and more. (Howto coming up). So as you see, I've been a busy body. Now its off to work for another day. 

So close to reality its not funny anymore .. Thanx XKCD

A few weeks ago, me and my old web buddy Swift, got some tickets to the "Star Wars Exhibition" in Tour and Taxis in Brussels. This expo, featuring sets and costumes from the Star Wars movies was heralded as " The Ultimate Star Wars Experience !" (whatever that may be), So me and "Tha SwiftMeister" decided to go for it. The train ride to Brussels offered us some extra sightseeing as we got pretty close to the crash site where an African Boeing had broken up on the runway of the Airport in Zaventem. Its pretty cool when you see the pictures on Flickr.  At the expo I thought that we would have the place to ourselves, this being the last day of the exhibition and all that, but the place was packed and because the T&T complex is mostly underground .. it was hot as hell.  Armed with my digital Camera I was just WAITING for the next Star Wars nerd to appear at the exhibition dressed like Jar Jar binks or something. Swift briefly recalls the wonderful videoclip of Triumph at the Star Wars première a few years ago , a viral video that had me shedding tears with laughter. But no dressed up geek in sight. What was funny was the AGE Of the average visitor. Fans of the "original" Star wars movie, had brought their children who were fans of the "new" Star Wars movies. A kinda Cross-generational thing that should set the scene for some cool father-daughter bonding.

The expo was cool, Filmsets, costumes, stuff like that, all ordered chronologically. (Beginning with episode one). I'm not a fan of "the new Star Wars movies" so I was just waiting to meet Jar Jar Binks and kick him in the Balls, but unfortunately he was hiding. The costumes of Princess Armidalla where impressive to say the least, and the fact they where mounted on a big wooden box pointed out the fact that Nathalie Portman is not only CUTE , she is also very tiny. 

But the kicker for me were the expo items from the "old" Star Wars movies. Boba Fetts costume, ( Ruined forever by the fact that you find out who is actually inside in "attack of the clones") was still very impressive to look at. And of course : Darth Vaders original costume. Magnificent and horribly simple (watch for the details as you see the clumsy buttons and control items) and.. A full size model of a Speeder Bike (The Return of the Jedi.) That one piece was, for me, the greatest thing of the whole expo. When no one was looking i put my hand down on the cold metal of the Speeder Bikes Nosefin .. and for me ..All those childhood times, pretending to be Han Solo, playing with Star Wars toys, Watching the movies over and over again.. At that one moment it became very real.. As i got  a chance to physically touch a piece of childhood nostalgia. 

Of course there where some more costumed clones, and people making a mockery of themselves swinging laserswords in front of a green screen.. and there was lots and lots of overpriced merchandise .. but for me ? Nothing could beat the Speederbike thing. All in all ? great time (as always with Mr Swift) and .. the force was with us. Enjoy the pictures 

Credits : Pictures by Knightwise and Swift. Swifts website can be found at www.maisonswift.be (in dutch)

Is she real or is she a computer generated image ?

Manga Knightwise	Real Knightwise.

There are plenty of sites out on the Net that help you waste your time. And every once in a while I like to talk about some of them. The latest addition to ' How to piss away 15 minutes of your existence on planet earth" is www.faceyourmanga.com. The setup is quite simple. Go to the site and create a manga version of yourself. You can add beards, piercings (yeah , like you've got one , NERD ) ties, glaces, shirts and more of that crap. So go out there, do your damndest and shoot me your results. The best ones will be posted on the site. Have fun with FACEYOURMANGA.COM

Thanx XKcd.