Actually cheeky Microsoft is pushing their new Internet Explorer 8 as an Update Packages and people like me ( ) not reading carefully will get their IE 7 replaced by just clicking away a single (not really innocent) window. Stupid ME!!

Now doing websites you always need a variety of web browsers checking your work for rendering issues within different browser. And therefore it is not unusual for a web developer to have more than on box to test and code on.

So IE 8 is of course of interest for me, but not necessarily on my main box.

Getting aware about I’ve lost my IE 7 (not a real drama – as for you can choose the rendering engine within IE 8 and set it back to the old behavior) I quickly went for info running it parallel. It is possible and not even difficult to do … But at the end not really necessary!

Already a while ago I picked up info about a company with name Xenocode, and makes their point about bringing application into the web. "Run software instantly from the web, with no installation or hassles." is their slogan. And at least when it comes to Internet Browsers it is already reality.

Install their plugin and the friendly company will allow you to run all major Internet Browsers (and Versions) directly from the web without installation first. Boy, that rocks!

Yesterday on a quick move we decided to head to the movies. Feeling keen to see the new Will Smith movie " Seven Pounds" (btw it’s German title is "Seven Lifes"), to be honest, I wasn’t really aware about what I would see.
But having heard about it a bit I didn’t really expect an easy to consume movie though.

The movie does start somewhat confusing and it really needs a while for you getting an idea about what is going on here. And believe me or not, I really can’t imagine some thoughtfully and caring person not leaving the cinema later on feeling "touched" by the story.

The movie is as fascinating as scaring at the end. And the idea behind about balancing something bad you have done or forced earlier with something good now – however good it might be – is something "rather" strange. Especially as for we all know about it doesn’t work! Nothing in world can make something not having happend first.

It is our fate or luck …. however you like to see it …. that our brain is made to forget about bad things quickly and instead thend to store nice and pleasant memories even more "pleasant" as they might have been really.

As a commited organ donator this story touches me in several ways. First of all seeing what can be done is great and encourages me in my thinking. But on a second look, it is very deep touching as well and I can’t ommit me thinking that such doing (story or not) would turn the whole tingy into an absurdness???

I really can say this movie keeps me busy thinking about! It is a touching movie – not sure I would call it "good" movie though!

Dealing with performance issues is always dragging. Now being called as an expert and pleased to join a workshop about advising and solving performance issues is much more "delicate".

Mostly you don’t know all people in advance and the application itself is something totally new. The customers is already upset and grumpy and very often another "expert" has already tried to advise. So preparing for such an workshop always does consume a lot of time. Time you need to get confident about things first. And for sure time to find things not working proper or at least suboptimal to have something back in case no one else … has something to say!

So next week I will head into such a workshop and last few days I did deeply dig a database and did try to find out about the problems this customer is dealing with. Tiring for sure! But also interesting on the other side.

As mentioned you know nothing about the application. You just have the database, their info and indicator and the incoming SQL as for to analyze. Now I haven’t done since a while, but now after investigation I’m once again impressed about what you can find out about …. when you look at things first.

This people do really not know about coding and relational databases. They have quickly ported some "Access" & "Excel" crime soft project into a bigger environment and more users and now feel curious  about why it doesn’t perform as wished.

So from principle it is easy. I already see the way to the end of the tunnel were light does appear again …. Just …. Hm! …. How to tell it the customer without upsetting him immediately? 😉

I know that a lot of people have fun using their computers, playstations, gamepads, handhelds or mobile phones for playing games. That is ok for sure, a big business to make money … and at the end everyone should do at his or her pleasure anyway.

Personally I’m not much into this kind of amusement. I was never ever really good in driving a car on a TV screen and besides SimCity and a few early DOS based computer games I’ve never did spend much time with "games".

So when I speak about playing with my computers, I’m talking about spending time with them discovering something new. Learning or modify things and therefore making them able to do or serve things they couldn’t do before.

Last few days I did spend time playing with my new toys which I have mentioned earlier before. It was good time and I learned a lot about it and got a deeper idea about the concepts behind. Now it would not have been even necessary, as for I got an unlocked version I couldn’t prevent to read about the "breaking it" instructions and knowing about was the "point of no return" starting to "play" with it.

Today now feeling prepare enough, I finally did it … a full cycle through all … ending up in restoring initial and original state again. Somewhere in between I must have missed something as for not all features did work in "broken" mode as wished.

But this is nothing I do mind – it was no wated time at all – just the intro into another "playing session". And I’m sure it will not last long until I can’t resist anymore, starting again with it. 😉

Sure it is not necessary …. but it is possible!

This evening I had a lovely catch up with Petra. She is a hairstylist running her own business and a friend of me since ages. Now given the fact that she seems to be anyway the only person in world being able to subdue my hair, I’m frequently enoying both … a friendly relaxed chat with a friend, as also getting a perfect haircut by someone knowing exactly how I like to wear my hair.

Talking about god and the world (means everything) I ended up in telling her about my "knights dinner" recently and was very surprised about her telling me that she has processed some new interest in medival markets.

You know such events? They are held here frequently with a lot of folks coming together playing knights, farmer or warrior … lol virgins or witches … in authentic dresses and wearing swords and stuff. Mostly it has some commercial background with handicraft men selling their stuff, but often it is also just for fun.

Now speaking about she told me that she feels really fascinated by that idea and really would like to do some "view" into this era …

Thinking about it, I’m sure I wouldn’t …. as long I can remember I was always interested in the opposite. The future with all it’s gimmicks, technical process, new techniques and science in general and first of all new cool inventions is what I would go for. Give me a working Stargate and I would use it – now, yet and immediately! 

But?! What time would you like to see my friend???