Things we do not like

It's one of those things, for the past year I have been struggling to get iChat video-conferencing to work with my father in the Netherlands. After wasting another 3 hours today I finally discovered the culprit; the UPnP setting on our Belkin wireless router. I turned it off after having tried all suggested solutions out there on Mac-related forums and it turns out that it solves my problem, both on my G5 and all the other machines in the network.

So for all Mac users out there with a Belkin wireless router (and possibly other routers with similar configurations) and an 'error -8' after trying to start an iChat videoconference, this one's worth a try. Note that the problem persisted with iChat after the upgrade from Tiger to Leopard.

One day everything ZeroConf and UPnP will work in beautiful harmony and the use of internet-based services around the home will be a bliss, both in terms of ease-of-use and in terms of security (about the same as hoping for world peace...) I hope the above suggestion is at least useful to someone out there.

Posted by robert at 05:33 PM | Permalink

Why is it that Alitalia does not offer me a proper facility to work when my flight gets cancelled and I have to wait at Malpensa airport for the rest of the day until the next flight. I even specifically asked for it, I need power for my laptop. Instead I get a voucher for lunch (I can pay for that myself thank you) and I'm told that there'll be plenty of power sockets in the waiting areas at the gate. I'm typing this since I managed to find one, but that was after I walked halfway across the airport (the other one I saw was taken by a teenage girl charging her phone).

Continue reading "Alitalia customer service" »

Posted by robert at 11:49 AM | Permalink

If you are looking at this website using Internet Explorer... I'm sorry, we have not found the time to fix some of the #%@&!(* CSS issues, so use another browser or squint a little bit while reading.

The image above was created using the excellent python-based Nodebox application for Os X in combination with the Core Image library by Tom De Smedt, providing us with direct access to all the Core Image goodness under the hood of Os X.

Posted by robert at 04:11 PM | Permalink