anderstornvig.dk

Firefox is without a doubt my favorite browser (sorry if I undermine your competences when saying this, but Firefox can be considered the better alternative to another browser called Internet Explorer as you probably know). The browser is, as well as the first application I start when booting, a crucial part of my everyday. I do research, troubleshooting, news reading, blog reading, discussions and youtubing. I also check book, music and movie reviews, even the weather, the TV programme, etc. I could continue forever – Firefox does it all very well. Furthermore, it’s open source, multi platformed and most importantly, it possesses the incredible feature of being extensible. Any user can at any time expand the functionality in the browser, only by installing a simple addon. The only acceptable approach to functionality in a browser. So, if you miss functionality in Firefox, chances are that someone with programming skills has already missed it – and actually developed it for you to use freely. Ah, the beauty of open source strikes again. Anyway, the addons are available either directly in Firefox (find it yourself) or at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/, where you can just search and install anything you want.

This intro leads me into the topic of this very post: The Firefox extensions/addons I use, simply because they make my life easier. Thanks to anyone who may have recommended one or more of them to me. You can search the headlines to the following descriptions directly. Here goes.

Adblock Plus. Blocks ads on the web. In other words, it basically applies a filter of known ads to any site you may visit. After installing it, the risk of having unwanted ads in five different places on each site you visit are noticably reduced. You won’t believe that you ever lived without it.

Delicious Bookmarks. When you want to synchronize and share bookmarks between computers or just browsers, Delicious is an ideal solution. This addon provides a tool for administering your delicious account.

Download Statusbar. Gets rid of that annoying popup download window which is default in Firefox. Instead, it adds another discrete statusbar in the bottom of your main window.

It’s All Text! If you’re annoyed by editing text on the web in textarea boxes, this addon provides an alternative. Each time you see a textarea on a site, you’ll also see a small Edit button. When you click this, your predefined, favorite text editor will pop up, and each time you save (and close), the text is transfered to the textarea. It works well.

Mouse Gestures Redox. Binds different browser actions to simple movements with your mouse. For instance, when I press right click, move my mouse left and release right click again, Firefox goes back to the previous site I visited. It also controls features like tabs, etc. Even though I’m normally a keyboard man, it’s sometimes comfortable to just lean back and browse with my mouse. On a laptop with a touchpad the addon is obviously not very conveinient.

Tabs Open Relative. Excuse me, but the brains behind Firefox must have had their heads under their arms when designing the algorithm for handling tabs. Luckily, they made user improvements possible with addons – yay! This addon implements another much more logical and conveinient way of handling tabs.

Vimperator. The most radical addon I use. It more or less changes the whole interaction with Firefox to something more like the interaction known from Vim. If you don’t know the Vim editor beforehand, don’t install this. If you do, well then you have to try it. A few keywords describing the addon would be Vim-like key bindings and generally efficient, keyboard driven browsing. After I’ve gotten used to Vimperator, I’m annoyed by the regular interface, and also really happy that I made the switch.

So, there you have them. Something to play with. Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll enjoy at least some of my recommendations.

One of my main interests is music. I’m simply fascinated by the way it sometimes hits me. Naturally, I also like concerts. According to me, there are only few things better than being in a dark, crowded room, listening to loud, great music with a beer in your hand. Actually, I’ve been going to concerts since my early teens, 14-15 that is. This post is about my latest efforts to hear some great music and thereby enrichen myself with a brand new experience – my weekend trip to Dublin where the band This will destroy you (TWDY) performed October 12th at Whelans.

Looking at my notes for this post, I suspect it’ll get long. Simply because it is a long and complicated, but hopefully interesting story. I’ll try to leave out unnecessary details. I took some pictures with my new camera which I’ll also include a few of.

The tickets. It all started in my summer vacation 2008 where a couple of mates, Søren and Morten, and I decided that we were going to hear The Lymbyc Systym (LS) live some time soon regardless of the expenses. As they’ve only toured in the USA so far, we talked/joked about going over there to see them. Fortunately, we didn’t have to, because it turned out that they were going on a EU tour in the fall as warm-up for TWDY – not passing DK though. Still, we had to consider this our cue, our cue to finally see them. After this realization, it all went very fast deciding on Dublin as destination and booking stuff like a hostel, concert tickets and plane tickets. Clearly, we couldn’t bear to miss out on this opportunity. We were really excited.

A month or so had past when we for no apparent reason clicked into the MySpace profile of LS. To our horror, we found out that only a few weeks after we booked the entire trip they had postponed their EU tour to January – JANUARY! We couldn’t believe it. We were speechless. Nothing to do. Our plane tickets were of course bought without insurance to save money and we had deposits hanging too many places to cancel the trip. So we didn’t. It was going to be a great trip anyway and after all, LS was only playing warm-up.

So what was this other mystery band they’d play warm-up for? That was the question I asked myself. When I wasn’t going to a LS concert, I may as well enjoy whatever name showed up. I slammed all of TWDY’s material on my Ipod and started listening to it – that’s one or two months ago. I haven’t stopped listening to it since. I think I’ve heard it every morning on my Ipod – absolutely amazing music. Won’t even start describing it, but give it a go when you don’t know what else to put on your Ipod. If you won’t like it the first couple of playthroughs, you will the next – if you’re into that kind of music of course : ). But anyway, we ended up liking it a lot. It took the edge of the LS disappointment and we looked very much forward to the trip.

The trip. So, the trip took off last Friday afternoon. We went on a plane, got to Dublin and found our hostel – The Abraham House. We had a room for three – bathroom, breakfast and TV included.

I’ve only stayed in a hostel a few times, but I think this place was great – at least for its purpose. Clean, centrally located and relatively cheap (around 200-250 dkr). There was even a snack machine. Wuu!

This leads me to my next subject: The food we ate. To say it mildly, I’ve rarely lived unhealthier. The first building in front of us when we stepped out of the bus from the airport was a Burger King. I guess it was fate. From that point we went there twice a day. If not there, then Donalds or some pizza place.

Between these visits we lived off the snack machine, coke (the drink of course) and beer. Okay, we had two decent meals, bananas and steak at a restaurant. Still, so unhealthy, so good : ). My concious is definitely not was it was before. Good thing I still have my morning runs and fitness visits going – they’re definitely kicking in again tomorrow.

The concert. When it became Sunday (concert day) we were a bit tired after a couple of late nights. Still, we had a great concert coming up at 8 pm. I know I was excited when we stood in front of the venue.

After walking through two wrong doors into the same building we finally found the place. The first warm-up band Mom was already playing, so we ordered something to drink and threw our jackets in the corner. The place was really cool – underground, small and very intimate. I don’t think there was room for more than 150 people.

Anyway, the two warm-up bands were alright, especially the last band Halves. No one beat TWDY though. When then they took over the scene, it was dark and the venue filled. It was a great, informal concert with great music. Even though they only played for something like forty minutes and didn’t talk much to the audience, there were definitely times when you thought they’d actually destroy you with their complicated, beautiful, big sounds, their intriguing rhythms and crushing effects. There was also a lot of great build-up and they really dedicated themselves to it. Big words, they don’t describe it rightfully though.

The informal atmosphere was really cool. It established itself in the facts that it was a small place, only one step up to the close scene, the warm-up bands became part of the crowd when TWDY went on, the bands acted roadies themselves and you could just go exchange a few words with them afterwards if you felt like it. I/We didn’t though : ).

Of course, I also had to get some merchandise – as I always do. The guy who sold it was really a character. Seemed so stoned, but also really nice. He’d made a small sign on which it said “I work for PINTS!”

Anyway, to make a long story short, due to some misunderstandings over the merchandise booth in “rush hour” right after the concert, I came home to the hostel with LS’s and TWDY’s new Field Studies album, Halves’ only album and a really cool, white TWDY t-shirt – in Large. Darn! I normally use XL or XXL. There’s was nothing to do. Fortunately, I had a grateful, smaller brother at home who was happy about the incident. I think I’ll search the web some time for another t-shirt for myself.

The photography. This paragraph may seem a bit out of place. I’m including it anyway. So.. I took a lot of pictures over there, 300-400 or something like that.

They were mostly results of experimenting and random clicking when bored, but there were also few where I tried to make an effort. So some were okay, but frankly, I’m not satisfied with the set (or whatever you call the entire outcome) at all. It sure was fun to play with, but I really feel that I missed a lot of good opportunities for taking some great pictures.

I was bad at taking the time necessary to focus the shots – did too much “walk, (stop, )click and walk again”. That has been my main problem, and I’m quite convinced that isn’t the camera’s fault.

I’ve also had trouble in darkness. When I turned up the ISO, the shutter became way too long, which made it impossible to focus.

Don’t know why I didn’t adjust the two settings at the same time. Guess I didn’t have a qualified idea of what they should be. At least I know a little more about that know. I’ve generally needed to know more about what the camera was actually capable of. The blitz was also a bitch to figure out, but I’ve definitely learned a lot. Also about what to actually take pictures of. Till now, I must admit that the photos taken with the auto buttons are best : ).

Fortunately, I only see it as an exciting challenge to take good pictures, and I look forward to clicking away some other time.

The end. So, I guess I was right when I suspected the post to get long. Thanks for reading so far anyway. To put an end to it, we got home Monday afternoon, and I can honestly say that I think it was a weekend well spent. It’s always fun to visit new, foreign places – Dublin was a really cool place, loads of people, weird beer. A trip abroad like this is also a great interruption of a stressful everyday. It was incredibly relaxing to just “chill around” in Dublin.

So, I’m looking forward to another trip, maybe another place – maybe even with the fantastic LS as main attraction.

That, and I also wanted a camera. After gradually spending more time on sites like flickr, I figured it’d be cool to have one, and since I just got an extra, unexpected pay check from my summer job, could it be more convenient? So a couple of weeks ago I started checking out the market. I’ve never had a camera before nor found them particularly interesting. In fact, until a couple of years ago I didn’t know the slightest about the impressive “science” behind it. The shooting itself is one thing. You have to find a motive, maybe a subject, get influences like light, focus, colours, angle, zooming, the moment, everything right. I obviously don’t know the fancy words, but I know that it can look quite amazing if carefully thought out. After that – the other thing – there’s also the whole post-processing phase if you’re up for it. My impression is that most use Photoshop, and apparently there’s also a tendency of photographers using/liking Apple – just something I noticed. Anyway, some find post-processing unnecessary, some indispensable. It’s all a matter of taste and of course the specific picture. I like when the photographer captures certain kinds of moods, atmospheres, expressions, quirks by using alternative, maybe even experimental methods. I also like dust, black/white, transparency, age, etc. No definite taste though.

Right now, I’ve no intension of becoming an (amateur) photographer like the above briefly describes. I find their photos very interesting to look at, but I have enough interests to take care of and I also simply can’t afford a camera that’s worth the considerations – that would be a DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera, way too expensive for a novice.

Instead, I’ve thrown my money at the “Canon Powershot G9” digital camera. In it’s price range (around 2800 dkr) I haven’t been able to find anything better. I can only find positive reviews of it, and I also read something about that it’s the DSLR users’ prefered compact camera. Without insulting too many, I guess one could call it a worthy middle ground between the two kinds. I bought it with a few accesories – that is a bag, an extra battery and of course some SD memory (4 GB). Total cost of everything together: 3440 dkr.

So Friday (it’s Monday now), I went to the cheapest place in DK – kamerashop.dk – and ordered it to get it delivered today. Of course it got too late in school, and on my way home I could therefore only wave to the postman driving past me in his car. In Aalborg DK you have to be home to sign the reception when the postman comes. If you aren’t, you’re forced to wait until the next day before picking up your package at the post office. Stupid system. That’s why I – nearly with tears in my eyes – stopped my bike to watch the postman drive by me. I had come like fifteen minutes too late, obviously unable to stop him (even though I seriously considered throwing myself in front of his car). Still, I refused to give up. I started giving the bike all I had – pedal with my entire weight. I got home, ran up the stairs (four floors), locked up my appartment and threw myself at the key for my car. Got out again, smacked the door back in, ran down the stairs (still four floors) and into the car. When I backed out from the parking slot I nearly hit a cyclist. I didn’t, but it made me think “Slow down, Anders, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get that camera today.”, took two long breaths, thought “Okay, maybe it is.” So I sat off in pursuit of catching the postman. When I got past the point where I’d met him on my bike, I started searching every side road. Eventually, I got to the end of the “big” road which divided in two. I choose the most likely and searched for another 2 km or something. It may seem that I looked for hours but it all took around 20 minutes. That was when I decided to accept my defeat and go home. Now I’ll have to wait till tomorrow and pick it up after school.

Till then I’ll keep considering a question I (probably should’ve but) haven’t answered yet. What do I want to take pictures of? No clue. Anything at any time I guess. When I get it tomorrow I’ll post a few test shots ASAP – just for show. After that, I don’t know of anything specific, but I have my Dublin weekend trip on which I’ll probably bring it. Stay put and in a week or so, you can read about that. I know I can’t wait : ).

By the way, this is my first post on the “new” domain. It has been mine for a long time but it has always just pointed at my own server. Now it points here – to my blog – and it’s nice to get rid of the subdomain.

Have a nice evening.