2013 UPDATES

[Site updates are described here, but practically all "blog-like" activity is made through Twitter.]

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2013

August 31, 2013
Whoa, a site update!

Ok, so there are still a few things that trigger a site update. (Remember, new pics in my photo gallery are announced on Twitter)
This time it's the good old About me -page that got and update.
One reason is the change of 'family configuration', -yup, I'm a dad now ;-) and the other one is the updated hardware in my computer. Ye, I own a couple of Tablets as well (Both Android and Apple) but for serious work I still need a snappy computer and a big screen.
So there! ;-)

January 1, 2013
It's that (rare) time of the year again, when we sit down and reflect over our experiences of the past year. Oh yes, here is another "New Year blog".

Like the year before, my site looked dead for the most part, with one big exception. More about that later.

As you may have noticed, the world didn't end on December 21st, 2012 so let's move forward. Here's my usual "the way I saw it" -rundown of the year 2012.

I usually start of with telling my thoughts about the tech-year that was, and although 2012 was an interesting year it brought somewhat moderate additions and upgrades to my tech-arsenal. Most notably, in May, I got my first tablet computer: A 3rd generation iPad with retina display. Now, I'm not exactly known as an Apple fanboi, but the allure of the retina display made me choose it over the competition at the time. And I have to say, for what it's made for (casual surfing, playing etc), it does its job well.. I did restore the Apple / Android -balance a bit by buying a Nexus7 tablet to my girlfriend / "sambo" for Christmas ;-)
At the beginning of the year I was absolutely certain I would replace my Samsung Galaxy S2 phone with a new model (Galaxy S3) but by the time the S3 was released, although a very nice phone, I decided it didn't bring enough "new stuff" to the table to motivate a new purchase. So far, the GS2 still chugs along quite nicely. However, its chances of outlasting 2013 are extremely slim even with the highly anticipated 4.1 update around the corner ;-)

My computer setup, did also get some attention, I threw in a 120GB SSD drive and upped the system with 64bit Win7 Ultimate. Other than that, the base hardware remained the same. I did also dust off my old HTPC project and replaced its internals with some fresh hardware (mostly passively cooled stuff) and now it runs Ubuntu Linux and it does it quietly.

What else... Oh yes, the never-ending battle for gaming supremacy. Well, still no new Playstations or Xboxses in sight, although the rumors floating around start to paint a fairly clear picture now. We should definitely see something interesting before Christmas this year. Not to forget - Nintendo did re-vitalize their Wii console with a new, more powerful version (WiiU). But Nintendo being Nintendo, the hardware feels about 6 years late. Still, they usually do manage to bring some innovations to our living rooms. The new Nintendo comes with a new tablet-controller while keeping its compatibility with the old Wii peripherals.
The general "feeling" is that this might be the last generation of expensive consoles. By that I mean, consoles that contain expensive hardware as opposed to something like OnLive gaming service where you stream content to pretty much any internet capable gaming device. We'll see about it of course, but Sony already owning the Gaikai service it's real easy to imagine that instead of releasing a Playstation 5, they start releasing advanced games running on super-hardware through the Gaikai service thus offering Playstation4 (and maybe PS3) -owners games exceeding anything that would be possible to do natively on PS4 hardware. I have no doubt we'll start seeing this sooner rather than later.

All right then, a few words about my photography. Gear-wise, it was a fairly slow year, the few additions being a couple more SpeedLites and a Canon f1.4 50mm prime lens.
The big news of the year was that I FINALLY managed to deliver on an old promise: to re-launch a rebuilt version of my photo gallery. At the end of September, it was finally time and I'm quite happy with my choice of the solution for the new site. It's easy to update and maintain and it looks pretty fresh. The main complaint is that it uses javascript instead of CSS3/HTML5 for its effect making it slow on phones and tablets. The good news is that the gallery is skin-based and it's easy to change skins.
In the process, I also registered a new domain for my site, and in case you missed it it's here www.f-pixel.com

Ok, enough tech-talk for one year, this brings us to the personal part of my life. 2012 was my first full year as a house owner and well... so far so good. :-) And oh ye, we bought a car to better blend in - (in our neighborhood) ;-).
The summer vacation for once didn't necessarily mean more sun or bathing this time around. We went to Scotland and drove around the highlands and the islands and we loved it. Totally worth it even though there was a lot of rain during the vacation. Just days before Christmas, we also threw in a quick visit to Bad Gastein, Austria, which was nice.
Other than that.. Well, the world didn't end on December 21st although something DID happen that day. Psy's Gangnam Style became the first ever video on YouTube (or otherwise) to receive over a billion hits, which is some kind of landmark for our culture as we know it. ;-)

So. In conclusion folks, as always, I wish you the best possible 2013! And a special "Hey dude, congratz!" to my old buddy Casper as he turns 40 today.


2012 Click here for older (2012) updates.

2011 Click here for older (2011) updates.
2010 Click here for older (2010) updates.
2009 Click here for older (2009) updates.
2008 Click here for older (2008) updates.
2007 Click here for older (2007) updates.
2006 Click here for older (2006) updates.
2005 Click here for older (2005) updates.
2004 Click here for older (2004) updates.
2003 Click here for older (2003) updates.
2002 Click here for older (2002) updates.
2001 Click here for older (2001) updates.
2000 Click here for older (2000) updates.
1999 Click here for older (1999) updates.
1998 Click here for older (1998) updates.
1997 Click here for older (1997) updates.
1996 Click here for older (1996) updates.
 

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