On Saturday Phil came over to Edinburgh and we were hoping to have nice weather for some dslr nerding. Sadly it was foggy during the day and at some point around 4pm ish the fog got even worse. Visibility was nada for taking nice pics. So we just decided to stop and have early dinner at the Mussel Inn. After that we went to the Whiski Rooms and spend the rest of the evening there having a few Whisky’s Today the weather was very nice warm and sunny but sadly we were leaving today. Why couldn’t it have been the other way around, yesterday nice weather and today foggy. Oh well, c’ est la vie. I had a good time and I definitely see myself visiting Edinburgh again. Almost back in London, just 30 more minutes in the train and we arrive back at Euston. Then off to home and food. Signing off for now  … cheers.

Yep it’s all part of being a consultant for TOPdesk UK. We’re covering the whole country including Ireland and the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. Luckily there are two other consultants who are gonna be heading out to customers as well. But in the meantime my calendar is jam packed until June. Granted I might have a day here and there which can be used but wait time for my services are as of now is roughly 6 to 8 weeks O_o

Guess I will be needing that vacation in the first week of June, which is the week the Queen will celebrate her jubilee and we will have bank holidays on Monday and Tuesday. The thing I like about the UK is that you will always get the bank holiday, even if it falls in the weekend. For example if Christmas falls on a Saturday you just get the Monday after off. Gotta love that. In the Netherlands you won’t get that so whenever holidays fall in the weekend you just have tough luck. The flipside of being a consultant in the UK is however that traveltimes are on average a minimum of 1:30 hours getting to a customer, unless the customer is London based. Looking at my average travel times it’s on average 4 to 5 hour a day. That is half a workday already, but I knew what I was getting myself into when applying for the position in the UK office.

I might sound negative about being here in the UK but aside from longer traveltime I really absolutely love it here. I get to travel around the UK visiting various customers and seeing a lot of different city’s and places. Granted I don’t get to see a lot of the city’s I visit on average but I get to enjoy and experience the regional differences that exist in the UK. And times like this week I get to go to Schotland for two days of consultancy in a place called Ayr. Somewhere I would probably never have gone to travel if not for TOPdesk.

I will be arriving there tonight at 21:30PM and then off to the hotel and sleep. But tomorrow after work I will most definitely go and explore the local highlights with my Canon 500D. Since I am in Schotland anyway on Friday after work I will head off to Edinburgh for the weekend. It’s only a 2 hours trip from Ayr anyway and it beats havng to travel back to London on Friday. I would probably be arriving in London around midnight if I did. So Saturday it’s chill and relax time in Edinburgh and Sunday I will head back to London.

I have never been there but I hear good tings about the city and it’s historical feel. So I am looking forward to the weekend and take some nice pics. Which ofcourse will be spammed on Facebook (the jpg’s) and on my flickr account (the post processed raw’s) at some point in time. Anyway, why am I sitting here in the train typing this while I can still catch some sight of the scenery while it’s still light out here. See you at the next update.

Tomorrow a customer in Manchester and then it’s off to Ayr, Schotland. Which is another good 4 hours from Manchester. I’ll be ending the work week there since I’ll be at the same customer on Thursday and Friday.

And then it’s weekend Since I’m already in Schotland I decided to head off to Edinburgh on Friday and stay there for the weekend. On Saturday Phil (a fellow consultant) will be coming over to Edinburgh on Saturday and we will do some sightseeing and some camera nerding. Anyway, this is it for now. Halfway to Manchester, just another 30 ish minutes to go and then off to the hotel. Man it’s been a long day.

No OS is perfect, Android is to fragmented (and sometimes buggy) but very customisable, iOS is very smooth but I can’t easily manage my music (as in plug in iPhone and just copy paste music on it, unplug and just play the songs). No I NEED to use frigging iTunes for that, missing widgets, not being able to frigging remove the search tab/screen! I mean come on, wtf do I need an whole sreen with just a mini search bar for! Just give me the option to remove it! Why does eveything need to be placed on the screen and why not just a programs menu (as in Android) where I decide if I want it on any of the homescreens that I set up? Widgets for some things like weather, calendar info. And don’t start telling me the you have the notifications bar cause that’s just BS and a work around. And some other things I dislike about iOS. Windows Phone 7, I haven’t really tried but from  my short experiences in the phone shops I must day that I do NOT like the whole tile “Metro” interface. Can’t really explain why though, it just doesn’t feel right when I was playing around with Windows Phone 7.

Anyway, back to the iPhone 4s. Short summary, I like it but I hate the limitations that Apple has built in for me as an power user. For some of the things I like and want I need to jailbreak my iPhone and I think it’s just not worth my time and effort to jailbreak. In my opinion there should be a power user mode where I can just to the things that at current moment I have to frigging jailbreak my phone for. I’ve gotten used to iOS now and use it with reserved pleasure. I’ll probably go back to Android again for my next phone but you never know what might happen. Who knows I’ll be using an Windows Phone 8 device as my next phone.

It was also perfect during the westcoast roadtrip since I could just use the tablet part during the day and in the evening in the hotels just click it into the dock and voila Andriod laptop for browsing, mailing, banking etc. When I got the Transformer it shipped with Android 3 aka HoneyComb (HC) and while it worked nicely you could see that Google just rushed that version of Android to the market so that hardware vendors could release some tablets since Android 2 wasn’t suited for tablets. The recent update to Android 4 aka Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) is very nice and makes working with the Transformer a better experience. Eventhough you can still see that Google needs to do better to match Apple iOS 5 in terms of consistancy and all the apps being supported for ICS. Because that is the biggest drawback of Android in my humble opinion. Anyway, a lot of developments have been here on the tablet market the last year and out of all the vendors producing Android tablets I still think that Asus is the one with the most guts and being innovative. The Transformer Prime which is in sense an evolution of the Transformer like the iPad 2 was to the original iPad. And the interesting looking concept of the PadPhone.

Padwhat? PadPhone! The concept sounds relatively simple yet never done they way Asus is doing it. The PadPhone is an Android phone which docks into an tablet sized screen. When doing to it becomes a tablet, and when you get incoming phonecalls you use the stylus which comes with the tablet as an headset to call with. And then the last step is you can get a Transformer style keyboard dock to connect the tablet making it an netbook. All powered by the hardware in the phone, and he tablet and dock are just extending batteries and connection ports. Gonna definetaly take a look when it hits the stores to see if Asus has managed to pull the concept off. Only time will tell if the padphone will be as successful as the Transformer lineup but I do like what I see. Especially with Windows 8 being released this year it’s going to be an exciting year in the tablet world. Looking forward at the Lenovo Yoga Windows 8 tablet and see what that can do.

Then again … will tablets have a future when thin & light laptops, oh wait excuse me, I mean “Ultrabooks” are also getting more mainstream. In the meantime I’ll just happily use the Transformeron my daily commutes in the train for consuming content and some mailing and on holidays like now to have a 2 in 1 device.

USA Westcoast Roadtrip September 2012
Yep I did a roadtrip with my Amsiecrew (Marco, Jay, Dennis, Kristine, Saskia & Julitta). I started in NY for a few days while Marco & Jay started in Vancouver (Canada). The whole Roadtrip crew met up in San Francisco and that’s where it all began. The trip took us from San Francisco to Yosemite Park, Sequoia Park, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Vegas, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas again en lastly back to Los Angeles to go back to Dutchland. The highlight of the roadtrip in my humble opinion was experiencing the sunrise at the Grand Canyon. That was just amazing! The least interesting was Los Angeles, it has no appeal to me. Las Vegas was an interesting city, during the day not a lot to do but when the sun is out and gone the city comes to live with all the lights. The casino’s themselves are mazes to keep you on the gambling floor. No exit signs and to get to your room you have to go through the casino part. And no clocks either making you lose all sense of time. Though it was nice to have “free” drinks when you gamble. Just sit at the penny slots and order all the drinks you want. Cheap way of getting drunk Anyway, it was an amazing trip and I had a lot of fun with the roadtrip crew. For pics on my Flickr account click here Westcoast Roadtrip 2012.

Transfer to TOPdesk UK in London
Yep, before my roadtrip in September I got the opportunity to be expatted the UK office of TOPdesk for a year. Which started in October right after I got back from my Westcoast roadtrip. It was quite an hectic period, just getting back from a 3 week roadrip and then within 2 weeks move and go to London. The first 6 weeks I stayed in hotels because I had to look for an place to rent and when I did find one it didn’t become available untill end October. Also setting up a bank account and doing all types of paperwork but that all went relatively quickly. It’s been 5 months since moving to London and I can definately say it’s been a fantastic experience up untill now. The travelling here in the UK is on another level then I was used to in The Netherlands but I know what I was getting myself into. Time is really passing by so quickly and I am on the road roughly most of the time, only my administration day at the office in London.

That’s what I’ve been up to in a nutshell. Which leads up to now, March 3rd 2012 with me sitting in the plane to NY typing this blogpost on my Asus Transformer. I’ve still got a good 5:30 hours to go before touchdown at JFK. Think I’ll might write some more blogposts … if I feel like it. See you on the next blogpost …

Other than work I’ve been to Venice and Florance in March with my sweetheart Ana to spend some time together and to celebrate our 2 year anniversary. We spent the first few days in Venice and we were lucky because it was carnival in Venice. It was an amazing time in Venice seeing and experiencing carnival. Though at some point I was getting tired of the massive crowds while trying to walk around Venice. If you want to see the pics just click here for general pics of Venice and here for the costumed people. The day after carnival ended we headed off to Florence for the remainder of our vacation. We also did a daytrip to Lucca and Pisa. In the morning walking around in Lucca and in the afternoon a quick stop at the leaning tower of Pisa before heading back to Florence. I enjoyed Florence more then Venice, but that might have been because it was less crowded in Florence compared to Venice. And it was a lot cheaper hotel and food wise. Florence pics can be found here. The vacation was very nice and it was good to see my girlfriend again. Will be seeing her again in June when I go visit her in NY.

Last week I’ve been to the Keukenhof which is a yearly event in The Netherlands where you can see lots of flowers. For more info about the Keukenhof click here and for the pics click here. It was the first time I went and probably the last time too. The flowers were nice to see but the whole Keukenhof didn’t quite meet my expectations, the flower fields we saw on our way looked more interesting.

Well that’s what’s I’ve been up to the last four months. Tomorrow I’m off to the Autorai with Marco, Jay & Dennis. Gonna bring along the cam and do some camera nerding look at new cars. Happy easter to you all.

This was the year of weddings apparently since three friends of mine got married and a few more got engaged. In July Sheng (one of the TSF family) got married which meant a TSF reunion. Ana, June, Steven, Kevin and Andrew all flew over to Dutchland for the wedding (for pics click here). It was one crazy week for me picking up and dropping off the TSF crew but it was very nice seeing them again and ofcourse spending time with my sweetheart Ana. We even managed to squeeze in a trip to Cologne and saw the yearly fireworks “Köln Lighter”. Cologne pics click here. The week after I went to London to visit the UK office of TOPdesk which was a nice experience. London is a beautiful city and I managed to get some nice nightshots while I was there. London pics click here.

In August I turned 30 leaving behind the twenties I wasn’t planning on celebrating it but my parents arranged for a surprise birthday party with friends and family I haven’t seen in a while. Loved it and had a very enjoyable evening. September was the wedding of Rezi & Marc and in October the wedding of Yip Wing & Naomi. I’ve known Rezi, Yip & Naomi since highschool, so that would be roughly half my life. I had a blast on both weddings and am very happy for them.

The last week of October I went on holiday to San Francisco with Ana. We met up with June and had a blast in SF. I love SF and definitely want to go back again in the future since there’s quite a few things to see in and around SF. If you want to see the pics click here.

Gadgets wise the last seven months I’ve spent quite a bit of money. Hey I can’t help it, I’m a gadget nerd. I got myself a Macro lens the 100L from Canon. I love this lens to use for Macro’s and tele shots. Though I must admit on a crop DSLR like my Canon 500D it is a bit too long inside for normal use. Can’t wait to use it on a full frame but that will have to wait until Canon releases a 5D mark III. I also replaced my trusty old Canon Ixus 800IS point and shoot for the Canon Powershot S95. For the times I don’t want or can’t bring my DSLR along. Which is weekdays when I head to clients for work, then I can use the S95 to take pics when I’m on the road. I also got myself a new phone to replace my Nokia E72, which is still a very good phone but I started to find the lack of app support for Symbian getting annoying. So after years and years of Nokia Symbian phones I got myself the HTC Desire Z with Android. Wow, it really showed me how much catching up Nokia has to do with their Symbian OS compared to Android and iOS from Apple. But then again, I didn’t really check out the newer Nokia models with touch screens so I can’t really say if there had been an improvement. The last gadget I got myself was something I didn’t think I would get, an iPod Nano 6th Gen. Or should I say iPod Nano G6? It’s definitely Fly like a G6

Since it’s been a long while that I updated my website I decided to change the theme, hope you like it. The picture right above the menu’s in the header is one that I made. I’ll try to update it every now and then with new pics that I shot. Well that’s it for now, once again Merry Christmas! Enjoy the holiday’s and I’ll leave you with a Christmas song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrsdOwVZcs

The last time I went to an Alicia Keys concert was on 13th of November 2002 in the Heiniken Music Hall. It was a lot smaller and the concert was part of something called MTV 5 Night Stand. Don’t know what it was but that’s what it says on the tickets I still have. Anyway, Alicia Keys had just dropped her debut album that year “Songs in A minor” and since  I loved the album I went to her concert. I still remember the energy, vibe and ofcourse incredible performance and hoped to catch another concert of hers in the future. When I was in China she came back to the Netherlands for her “I Am” tour and I was pretty annoyed that I wasn’t able to see it. But I got another chance when I heard she was gonna to a concert this year for her latest album “The Element of Freedom”.

On 28th of January when Marco, Jooky and me were having hotpot at Marco’s place we were talking and at some point after eating the conversation went to the fact that Alicia Keys was going to do a concert here in the Netherlands (in the Gelredome in Arnhem) so we decided to check when it was and if there were still tickets left. Well, there were still tickets and in the spur of the moment we decidede to get the tickets and voila. Flash forward into time it’s 8th of May and we were off to the concert.

We left Amsterdam eraly afternoon and arrived in Arnhem at the Gelredome and parked our car there and went off to downtown Arnhem to chillax. We met up with with some other friends of mine (Pamela, Sheng, Yingying, Ying, Sammy, Xuan and a friend of Xuan) that were also going to the concert for dinner and after that we were off back to the Gelredome.

The support act was Melanie Fiona, which when I heard the was like … ehhhh who is she? O_o But when I heard her perform I was like ohhhh I know two songs of hers (“Give it to me right” and the song “It kills me”) But then again, I was there to see and hear Alicia Keys. After the Melanie and a short break the concert finally started and what a perfoemance it was. It was amazing, just like the concert I remember from 2002 and I loved the songs and energy. I am bummed that I didn’t bring my point and shoot to the conert. But I will definatly try to go to any future concerts Alicia might give because I’ve been a fan of her music since her debut album. Though I must admin that I prefer her first two albums more that the last two, but maybe that’s because I need to listen more to them. I had a blast yesterday and the concert was the icing on the cake. I’m off to listen some more Alicia Keys and see you next post. Leaving you behind with a vid someone else made at the concert yesterday. Damn I’m still bummed out that I didn’t bring my point & shoot Anyway, enjoy Empire state of mind. C ya.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Gtkx9LN2w

Anyway, I went and looked around at the laptops when this little baby caught my eyes. I was kind of looking for a new laptop which I can use for lightroom and would be much more portable for vacations and stuff. My good old trused Asus M6Ne is roughly 6 year old and had trouble with lightroom where cpu usage shot up to 100% and stayed there when I was post processing raw images.

Like I said, I was looking around at the 13 inch laptops and I already had this model in mind and the Asus U30 (new ones with the new i3, i5 or i7 cores from intel). But since they only had the older versions I started checkin out the HP DV3-2350ed. I liked the specs: i5 Core, integrated graphics AND dedicated graphics ATI 4550, 13 inch, 500GB harddisk etc etc etc … but the price wasn’t that nice € 999,- but since MediaMarkt was having that  offer I decided to see if I could get it with a nice discount. It had to be cheaper than € 780,- since that was the cheapest I could get it for online. I was lucky and together with 3 other people we managed to get a discount of 22,3% making it cheaper then the cheapest online price I could find at that time. So I ended up with a new laptop and I’ve been using it ever since. Battery life is great and I can work on it roughly 3 to 4 hours on one charge.

I do need to still get used to some of the things that are different in Windows 7 compared to Windows XP and since the HP DV3-2350ed comes with Windows 7 Home Premium. Ever since I tried the Windows 7 Beta on my Asus laptop (read here) I’ve been very impressed with it and have been waiting untill laptops started shipping with Windows 7 and meeting the demands I had for them. Because HELL NO I was NOT going to get a laptop with Windows Vista. Granted Vista seems to be good after SP2 came out but I didn’t want the hassle. I know since my gf Ana has a laptop with Vista and she has had a lot of issues with Vista. In short, I am happy with my new portable laptop and hopefully it will keep me company as long as my good old truted Asus M6Ne did because 6 years is a LOOOOONG time in the world of computers. The only thing I need to do is find a nice ghost image program for Windows 7 so I can make a nice image which I can restore shoud I ever want a fresh install. Or I need to check what kind of features Windows 7 Home Premium has concerning back ups. Yep, there’s still a lot to explore in Windows 7 for me. Time to start Windows nerding again …