Es ist nämlich so, dass es im ganzen Kanton Nidwalden nur ein einziges Fitness-Studio gibt, beziehungsweise gab, das Panthera in Stans. Und es gibt eine Menge Leute, die nicht zufrieden sind damit, aber mangels Alternative halt trotzdem hingehen. Das soll sich nun ändern, denn das Chraftwärch bietet in stilvollem Ambiente (kein Werbegefasel, meine Schwester hat Geschmack!) mit Ausblick auf den Pilatus eine Oase, um seine Muskeln zu stählen und ihre Rundungen zu formen.

(Anmerkung der Redaktion: für Geographische Korrektheit und politische Fauxpas übernehmen wir keine Verantwortung.)

Wie dem auch sei: www.chraftwärch.ch und am besten gleich selber vorbeischauen, das gibt den besten Eindruck!

Keywords: chraftwaerch kraftwerk fitness bodybuilding training center stans

On the 21st of December the party holding the majority of the Hungarian parliament voted in favor of a new media law that is a collection of some of the most oppressive and undemocratic laws from all over Europe and with some worrying changes.

To show our concern for fundamental rights and free speech we black out our online presence on the 5th January 2011 for 24 hours.

See the site blackout4hungary.net for more information.

Der nächste Umzug ist bald in Sicht, und den letzten habe ich noch nicht wirklich verdaut. Mir war erst beim Ausziehen aufgefallen, wie viel Sachen ich überhaupt habe. Darum habe ich mir gesagt, dass das so nicht weitergehen kann. Wie recht hatte Leonardo DaVinci doch: Simplicity is the highest sophistication. Einfachheit ist die höchste Vollkommenheit.

Zusätzlich bin ich inspiriert von der 100 Thing Challenge bei der sich ein Ami zum Ziel gesetzt hat, nur noch 100 Dinge zu besitzen. Ich fange mal an, hundert Dinge zu entsorgen. Weiteres wird folgen...

This is my advice to enjoy your holidays more - or at least longer.

When I was on a business trip in Curaçao two years ago I was sheltered in a nice hotel with great view and good room service. One thing I especially liked were the small portions of douche and shampoo they put in the bathroom. So while I was there, I always used the products from the hotel.

Once I was back in switzerland, I felt like the smell of those products was a little to girlish, and didn't use them any more. Instead my girlfriend used them sometimes. The interesting part comes now: Whenever she used one of the products, I had a complete flashback to Curaçao. I remembered the hotelroom, the view, the people, the sounds, the atmosphere. In short, I was there.

The most astonishing thing about it was that my girlfriend must have used the products more than a dozen times, where as myself in Curaçao I've used it like five or six times. This means the memories I made initially were not erased by a superior number of experiences afterwards.

So here is my advice: When you go on holiday, buy some local shower gel. And when you feel tired of daily life and ready for vacations, take the express lane to your memories with your special shower gel!

It might work fine with some perfume or eau de toilette too, I haven't tried this one yet. I'm not sure the effect will be the same because once you applied it, the smell will stick longer to you so the experience is not as punctual and might wear off more easily. But it might work when you only smell the bottle instead of applying it.

Bei meinem kürzlichen Wohnungswechsel bekam ich von der Verwaltung eine "Ausgangsabrechnung" zugesandt, die mir komisch vorkam.

Ausserordentliche Kündigungskosten       150.00
Total zu unseren Gunsten nach Abzug der Garantie     150.00

Das ganze mit der Bitte, das Schreiben unterschrieben an sie zurückzusenden, damit "... die Bank Ihre Mietzinsgarantie auflösen kann." Sie wollten, dass ich die Kündigungskosten akzeptiere und dies schriftlich bestätige, damit sie das dann direkt von der Mietzinsgarantie abziehen können. Das stinkt doch zum Himmel - wenn diese Rechnung gerechtfertigt wäre, könnten sie einfach eine normale Rechnung schicken, ohne die Koppelung an die Mietzinsgarantie.

Durch diese Ungereimtheit misstrauisch geworden, habe ich auf der Webseite des Mieterverbands Freiburg folgende Passage gefunden:

Mieter haben nach Art. 264 OR das Recht, ihr Mietobjekt ohne vertragliche Termine und Fristen zu beachten abzugeben, sofern sie einen Nachmieter stellen, der zumutbar und solvent ist. Es gibt für den Vermieter keine Rechtsgrundlagen, nach denen er die Mieter bei der Ausübung gesetzlicher Rechte mit einer Rechnung belasten könnte. Die Verwaltung hat die Umtriebe, welche Mieterwechsel mit sich bringen, genauso, wenn sich die Mieterschaft an die vertraglichen Termine und Fristen halten. Es entsteht der Verwaltung somit kein zusätzlicher Arbeitsaufwand.

Durch diese Bestätigung ermutigt habe ich (mit etwas Hilfe meiner persönlichen Juristin - merci Chlini) einen eingeschriebenen Brief mit folgendem Inhalt aufgesetzt. Glücklicherweise war ich nicht auf eine baldige Überweisung der Kaution angewiesen und konnte eine Wartefrist in Kauf nehmen:

Vielen Dank für Ihr Schreiben vom (...). Ich bin jedoch mit den „Ausserordentlichen Kündigungskosten" nicht einverstanden und betrachte sie als nicht gerechtfertigt.

Die durch meine ausserordentliche Kündigung entstandenen Kosten sind dieselben, wenn ich ordentlich gekündigt hätte. Schlussendlich hatten Sie sogar weniger Aufwand, da ich selbst Ihnen einen zumutbaren Nachmieter vorgeschlagen hatte.

Ich erwarte die Überweisung der geleisteten Mietzinsgarantie von Fr. (...) inkl. Zinsen ohne Abzug auf das besprochene Konto innert 30 Tagen, ansonsten werde ich gezwungen sein, rechtliche Schritte einzuleiten.

Wie zu erwarten war, verstrich die 30-Tage-Frist ohne Reaktion. Als ich mich dann telefonisch erkundigt habe, hiess es erst, es müsse abgeklärt werden, sie würden sich anfangs nächste Woche wieder melden. Was natürlich nicht geschah.

Als ich wieder anrief, wussten sie von nichts und wollten das Schreiben unterschrieben zurückhaben. Dann erklärte ich, dass ich nicht einverstanden sei, worauf mir gesagt wurde, ich müsse das schriftlich einreichen. Erst als ich sie darauf hinwies, dass es bereits geschehen war, lenkte sie plötzlich ein und erklärte, in dem Falle würde ich entweder nochmals kontaktiert, oder den Betrag gleich überwiesen bekommen.

Drei Tage später erhielt ich tatsächlich einen Brief mit folgendem Inhalt:

Wir sind ausnahmsweise bereit den Umkostenbeitrag von 150.- zu annullieren und senden Ihnen im Anhang eine Kopie unseres heutigen Schreibens an die Bank. Diese wird Ihnen die Mietzinsgarantie in den nächsten Tagen auf Ihrem Konto gutschreiben.

Na also, geht doch.

Wie Büne Hueber sagen würde: "Löht ech nüt la gfaue!"

The best way I've found to access files on a HFS+ formatted drive when running windows is the HFSExplorer by catacombae. It is small, no installation needed, and easy to use. Select files to extract, select target, go.

One downside is it's read only, and you need Java installed on your machine. Therefore don't forget to download JRE (look for the button "download JRE" and select your platform (eg. Windows).

Now there might be some issues with the layout since the order changed. Fortunately MT integrates several standard layouts, thus I had to

1. inverse the placement of the alpha and beta div
2. change the beta div to delta in order to float right instead of left, and subsequently the beta-inner div to delta-inner too.

Note: alpha, beta and gamma are float:left; and only delta is float:right;

Simple and effective.

• cd /usr/damian
  gehe nach Hause
• ls -alR
  schaue nach, was du alles besitzt (auch in den Schubladen und Schränken)
• ls -alR | grep " 2005 " | rm
  schmeisse zu alte Sachen weg
• tar -cf * banana.tar
  packe alles in Bananenschachteln
• mv banana.tar /dev/usb1/
  verschiebe die Bananenschachteln in ein Vehikel
• mkdir /usr/newdamian | cd /usr/newdamian
  kreiere ein neues Heim und fahre dorthin
• tar -xpf /dev/usb1/banana.tar
  packe die Bananenschachteln im neuen Heim aus
• shutdown -k now
  schmeisse alle anderen hinaus und hol dir ein Bier

No big deal I thought, let's just force delete it. And use the superuser command just in case it's an access rights problem:

$ sudo rm -f /Volumes/sams186/App.dmg

But this time it did not help: unable to remove. So I found that the resource fork could prevent files from being deleted. The resource fork is a file system structure which allows the system to store additional information to a file that does not belong to the file itself, but isn't a file system attribute either.

Open parenthesis:
File system attributes are properties of a file such as file name, block address, file size, etc. The number of file system attributes available and the constraints who apply vary from one file system format to another, which means HFS+ does not store exactly the same information as FAT32 or EXT3.

In the long listing of a directory, the existence of a resource fork is indicated with an @ after the access rights:

$ ls -al /Volumes/sams186/
-rw-r--r--@   1 damian  damian  224395264 16 Nov  2006 App.dmg

To show more information about the resource forks in the folder listing, use the @ parameter:

$ ls -al@ /Volumes/sams186/
-rw-r--r--@   1 damian  damian  224395264 16 Nov  2006 App.dmg
    com.apple.FinderInfo           32

To display the content of a resource fork:

$ xattr -l /Volumes/sams186/App.dmg

And finally, to delete a part of a resource fork:

$ xattr -d "com.apple.FinderInfo" /Volumes/sams186/App.dmg

Having removed that FinderInfo resource fork, the file could be removed without any problems.

After the aforementioned library hack I couldn't see any thumbnails from about 30-45 images, and some had the even the wrong thumbnail instead. (This might be due to an error in importing from the flash card, as some images ended up having the same file name.)

Even the right-click menu entries "Delete Preview" and forced "Generate Preview" wouldn't help. The correct image appeared on double click or entering fullscreen mode, but the preview won't change. I was always looking for an option in the mouse menu, I guess I'm working too much with windows at work -- the option I sought was placed in the "Images" menu and is called - surprise - "Generate Thumbnails".

This did solve the problem with the missing thumbs, but not with the wrong thumbs. Immediately after generating a new thumb from the image it helped. But somehow it seemed to me, generating new thumbs only postponed the problem. And I could observe files having a different original name mix up thumbs repeatedly, it was the same image that got the same wrong thumbs.

So what I tried to do

• Generate Preview on all images
• Generate Thumbnails on all images
• Delete .approject/AP.Thumbnails and other AP.* files

but nothing helped. Until I found that thread in the apple forum, where the user "firstlaunch" suggests to rebuild the database. His advice is to hold [Alt][Cmd] at startup, and then rebuild. In my case, a simple "Consistency Check" did do the trick.

Compare the screenshot below:

The other day I had to collect the pictures of FriScènes, a local theater festival. I freed up some 20 GB on my internal hard drive, and collected about as much data of raw photos in Aperture. After the festival I created a backup of the files on my external hard drive, and copied the aperture library also to the external drive (kind of unnecessary, but you never know).

Some days later I needed to access the photos of the festival. But Aperture (v2.1.4) won't let me set the Library path to the external drive, and I couldn't copy it back on the internal either due to lack of free space.

So after some fiddling in the terminal I found a way to leave the photo files on the external drive and access them anyways with Aperture:

1. copy the .aplibrary folder and all the files in it to your internal harddrive except the .approject files
2. create a symlink on your internal drive pointing to your external drive

In my case, the commands where the following:

 cd /Users/damian/Pictures/
 cp -rv /Volumes/wd590/Aperture\ Library\ FriScenes.aplibrary .

(which I interrupted with CTRL-C when I saw it copied actual image files)

 cd Aperture\ Library\ FriScenes.aplibrary
 rm -r *.approject
 ln -s /Volumes/wd590/Aperture\ Library\ FriScenes.aplibrary/*.approject .

This works fine, though the slower performance of the USB drive causes the thumbnails to appear one after another (instead of appearing instantly when running from the interal drive.)

There used to be a really cool drinks & booze recipe website - today I found the url being redirected to the threadless t-shirt community, which is not really the kind of advice I was looking for. After a bit of nosing around I found the skinnyCorp being responsible for both of those websites, and it's probably just an error in the domain name resolution.

However it started me thinking about the websites I use regularly (IMDB, MacEssentials) or I have entered data which has not been saved anywhere else (Facebook, criticker.com). What if they stopped working today? The decline of web2.0-bubble, the end of the world as we know the people being born after 1990 know...

Let's hope it will continue like it was for the past few years!

Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 install a new set of fonts - Constantia, Corbel, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas. Office 2007 users often use them without knowing they might not be installed on other computers, resulting in strange behaviour and changed document layout.

How can you see you don't have them?

If these two lines look the same to you, then you don't have them:

• The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.
• The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.

How can you get them?

Here is the official way how to download them for free anyway:

Go to the Microsoft Download Center and search for open xml converter. Look for the latest version of the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac (44 MB).

The inofficial way, for all of you who don't want to pollute your system with Micro$oft software, get only the fonts (6 MB).

For all the PC users, go to the Download Center and search for compatibility 2007 and then download the latest Compatibility Pack. If you don't need it and just want to use the fonts, you can uninstall the software, and the fonts will stay on your system.

Oh, and by the way, the real official way to get those fonts is to buy The Complete Font Collection - all 25 fonts for only $299, let alone if you buy them one by one only $35 each!

...still better than broken ones. Hope you get the idea though, it's never as beautiful as reality. And there is no scent on the web, either!

• If you use Bootcamp & an NTFS partition, you won't be able to access your Windows data from OS X
• If you use Bootcamp & an Fat32 partition, you could access your data, but the installation will abort with an hardware abstraction layer (hal.dll) error (also see this german blog)
• If you delete the 200mb partition, you can get over the HAL-error, but you're not able to remove the Win partition with the Bootcamp assistent anymore.

That was the dilemma... lose the flexibility to remove the Win partition easily, or don't be able to access your data. Until google published Mac FUSE which stands for File-system in USEr space. If you have some knowledge about the architecture of an operating system: this is a driver (running in kernel mode) allowing to use file system implementations in user mode, as the name suggests. But the really interesting feature is its implementation of a Linux file system API, making Linux file system adaptations ready to use on a mac. Amongst other [rethorical pause] NTFS!

Which solves us the problem described above. First install MacFUSE, and then the NTFS 3G driver and enjoy hasselfree Windows!