Lange hat es gedauert, und ganz unsentimental war ich dabei auch nicht, aber heute ist es soweit: Ich schalte meinen alten MovableType Blog ab und den neuen WordPress Blog an.

Designtechnisch ist nicht viel passiert, der Fokus lag primär auf Migration zu WordPress, aber ich habe trotzdem ein wenig an der Lesbarkeit der Seite gearbeitet. So ganz geht der Job an privaten Internetaktivitäten ja nun doch nicht vorbei. Ich hoffe, es gefällt. Ich schreib jetzt auch wieder mehr…

Eigentlich wollte ich ja hier auf meinem ollen, betagten MovableType-System gar nichts mehr bloggen, sondern erst wieder dann, wenn ich in ein paar Tagen Wochen (Monaten?) auf Wordpress geswapped bin.
Aber meine gerade eben vorgenommene Anmeldung bei YahooMail hat mich hier nicht mehr ruhig sitzen lassen. Man stelle sich vor: Der Account ist keine 2 min alt, und au?er meiner Postleitzahl (die auch die von Timbuktu h?tte sein k?nnen, solange sie echt ist), des Geschlechtes und meines Geburtsdatums wissen die nix von mir. Nix!
Und was blendet mir das angeblich mit Behavioural Targeting hinterlegte Ad-Netzwerk von Yahoo als allererstes in gro?en Flash-Skyscrapern an? -Haarwuchsmittel. Von Schwarzkopf. Weil jedes Haar z?hlt und der Albtraum beginnt. Danke Yahoo, ich bin 30, bitte helfen Sie mir ?ber die Stra?e.

Freunde, Umsteigen macht echt Spa?! Ich war ja auch immer einer derjenigen, die diesen ganzen Browser-Fuzz eher sp?ttisch bel?chelt haben, aber bei Firefox ist nun endg?ltig Schlu? mit IE. (Naja, zumindest fast, da sich die Uni ja vehement wehrt, stadard-gerechte Seiten und Applikationen zu programmieren.)
Viele Blogger, die MovableType nutzen, haben wahrscheinlich wie ich bislang noch gro?e Vorbehalte gegen?ber Mozilla-Derivaten gehabt, weil die Anzeige der Templates und Forms nicht immer wie in IE war, besser gesagt, man haz ja z.B. sehr die Richt-Text Editing Buttons im “New Entry” Template vermi?t. Das hier hab ich eben grad installiert, und seit dem ist auch mit diesem Bug endlich Schlu?!
Eine weiter Lobpreisung m?chte ich gerne auf die vielen unendlich-coolen Extensions f?r Firefox singen. Meine pers?nliche Hitliste wird angef?hrt von den Developer-Tools (unentbehrlich f?r Webdesinger und Coder), Mouse-Gestures (kennen und sch?tzen einige vielleicht von Opera), IE-view (falls es mal wirklich nicht ohne den IE geht, ?ffnet man mit einem Klick von Firefox aus den Link in IE), Image-Zoom (zoomen mit Maustaste und Scrollrad – endgeil!), und Edit-CSS (live-editing von CSS-Angaben f?r die aktuelle Webseite).
Fazit: Klein und schnell – browsing deluxe auch ohne Micro$oft!

okok, i was very lazy these days. of course i am back in one piece and yes, we took many photos, and yes again, we are working on our travel report as well as the galleries. just to give you the bare bottom-line: it was magnificent! btw, it would be smart to check traumdieb.comas well once in a while, since this is my upcoming movabletype-blog, which will replace this one here as soon as i find time and inspiration to get the design ready and work out a solution for my new site concept in the respective templates. — merely at home, i bought a new radio for my car. it’s a jvc kd-lh7r (which does not tell you anything i believe, right?) and this beautiful machine is capable of mp3. damn, why didn’t i switch to that earlier? for the first time now, it makes really sense to burn my stuff on a mp3-cd, resulting in 4 and more hours of music with just one cd. — these days, i basically get up very early to sweep filou’s piss and kick his butt to continue outside. you know, this damn dachshund is becoming more psychotic every year, but hell, i simply love him too much to be really angry with him. ok, i shout and yell at him just to let him know that i am not accord with his demonstration-riot-or-whatever-else acts, but hey, my parents have started that laissez-faire thing too long ago that i could stard reversing it during the 2 weeks in summer where i am in charge of the house. but maybe it’s simply filou’s way to express his sympathy to me; let’s therefore call it the daily “warm” welcome. — keep your eyes closed, for the sun is shining way too brightly.

the latest issue of our faculty’s newspaper eloquent brought light into the dark! finally, now i know what my thesis topic will be: “what are the logistical implications if planet earth gets blown up by hostile aliens?” -sounds strange? no, come on! we have a seriuos and well-defined problem statement, a whole bunch of corresponding sub-questions and hypotheses are imaginable, and it will truly be a work of academic importance, simply due to the fact that ‘little research has been carried out in this field’. and actually, this is the only problem that will arise: literature research will not be an option, given the fact that at our faculty famous sci-fi epics are not regarded academic literature. i just wonder how you would carry out your empirical research. mail questionnaires to outer space? well, the response rate would surely be lower than what is regarded as statistically significant. but there’s a workaround: simply form a hypothesis questioning that there will be any impact in the first place, which can safely be rejected because of the lack of proof for probability of human-alien contact. nonono, this whole thesis bla-bla is really driving me nuts. why not stress this absurd sci-fi scenario in a proper manner and win eloquent’s creativity award, if other people are allowed to write about daddy’s mid-size enterprise’s internationalization efforts on the lofoten, or about the importance of strategic sourcing for the inbound logistic compartement for training suits of their favorite soccer club, or why miss sixty shops on the grote straat in maastricht are worse-off than in rotterdam, ororororor… grrrr! — i have overcome the gordic knot: movabletype is up and running! if you are interested, you can follow my advances here. but no laughs, it is not looking good at all, and i am also still not ready with my template. but, i will postpone all the cosmetics until after my vacation. — wer zur h?lle braucht eigentlich die biographie von schnullerbacke alex superstar? was hat der piemel denn schon gro?es zu erz?hlen? -da fand ich dieters buch literarisch wertvoll dagegen, wenigstens konnte man da mal richtig herzlich ablachen! und dann effe. b?cher, die die welt nicht braucht! und jetzt dieser heini, der die nation mit den erlebnissen aus 19 jahren misgl?ckter kindheit langweilen will. zum gl?ck ein echtes sammlerst?ck, was wohl auch nur sammler wollen werden. der k?belb?ck dagegen schie?t gleich richtig scharf: er hat seinen achselschwei? w?hrend der ganzen DSDS-zeit gesammelt und in kleine fl?schchen gef?llt. jo, und das zeug verkauft er jetzt als parfum. nagut, wann’s schee mocht…

the only excuse for not blogging for so long is the weather and all the activities related to it. however, i have made several attempts in the past days to blog, but somehow i could not get the animated gif i wanted to share with the audience to an acceptable filesize (yes, there are still visitors using dial-up…), which was driving me crazy. now you guys wonder what the planned content was, and i will not fail to report my sheer exitement about a stunning afternoon at krefeld’s horse-racing circuit. don’t get me wrong, i still like horses best when smoked, sliced and on my sandwich -or at least from a secure distance-; but seeing these powerful animals flexing their muscles as they race for victory with sharp eyes and flying hair is truly an impressive scene. although we pretended to inspect the horses before the race (mainly by imitating the viewes and analytical talk the people next to us held), we didn’t place any bets. that was due to the fact that of the three horses i judged as either ‘cripple’, ‘tired’ or ‘weak’, two were among the top three and the other ranked fifth. so, when it comes to judging horses, next time i stick to my taste ;) — back home in hessen we had high-percentage sit-ins with my cousin (i haven’t seen her for at least 5 years) and my uncle. the next day, we made the first big move in my grandma’s house. my father had arranged for a huge van we filled up with equally old and heavy furniture, which was supposed to be my sister’s and my stake of the heritage. dividing up heritage-stuff in an empty house is a pretty shitty thing for all being involved, i can tell you. — today, alice and i booked our rental car for our holidays in crete. after having checked several rental companies, we were left with holiday autos and sunny cars, both offering almost the same price and conditions. as we found, it’s of crucial importance to select a rental company offering unlimited insurance coverage, especially referring to our irish outback action when we were lucky to have the extra insurance waiver. i just hope that everything works out as planned, since i tried to change our flights today. i must say, i was a little surprised when i checked the travel voucher with the tickets and all, as i had to find the flight’s duration to be almost 5 hours! gee, in five hours you can almost get to jo-burg. now, since we booked a direct flight from d?sseldorf earliest in the morning, i had to find that our flight stops at frankfurt, meaning that i could have boarded in frankfurt at a way more pleasant time due to an unmentioned change in the flight schedule. now, i am very curious how the travel-agency will handle my complaint and whether the airline is able and willing to change the booking to, all other variables being equal, frankfurt. — since my last blog, i have made a step towards movabletype: i bought webspace with all-inkl.com! so, i will surprise the interested visitor on www.traumdieb.com (which is still empty as i am writing this) with my first tryouts in mt shortly. i haven’t made up my mind yet how i will go on with this domain here, but my blog will definitely move to traumdieb.com. i am simply too much pissed by blogger and haloscan. new designs are already in the pipeline, but need thematic round-up, so to say. also, my photopages will have some decent rennovation (and an update, of course) as soon as i get accquainted with php and sql. besides, for those being interested in the dialect of my home village, i have put lots of work into mein-burgsolms.de lately, so check it out if you like. stay awake!

this is the 5th attempt within 24 hours to post something! it really drives me nuts to see what you can’t see right now, which are the the completely screwed up posts from the last weeks. i can’t wait to finally buy my allinkl.com webspace to get ready for movabletype. man, i hate when things i rely on do not work! — yesterday, i got reloaded – matrically reloaded, if you know what i mean. although i have read some pretty bad criticism and reviews, jan, alex and me went to see the movie anyways. well, now i think i should write something like a personal opinion on the matrix reloaded. oddly enough, i seem to not have a clear opinion! of course, the movie has its strong sides, no doubt. it is absolutely amazing how today’s special effects add value to a movie. but on the other hand, i believe that one should not compensate bad storyboard with special effects solely. without question, the cast is phantastic and well suited (the ladies may forgive me, but monica belluci and carrie-anne moss simply rock!). nevertheless, for all the girls out there favouring neo: man, look at him! this preacher’s coat and the ugly sunglasses look absolutely gay! anyways, regarding the plot i would say that the original fascination of the matrix-story and philosophy is completely gone in this movie, but rather, it is trying to carry the story further. i am not sure whether this succeeded in any way, since i did not completely get the story this time. what is absolutely certain, is the accumulation and consolidation of episodes from other action-packed cineastic events. we clearly identified “inspiring input” from blade I, starwars, superman, spiderman, speed and leon. now, all fine, but as neo raises his arm with his fist upfront to fly through the skies, you really wanna puke. nevertheless, all in all, it is a good movie to be watched in theatre – you will have a good time during the 150 minutes. especially, when paying only 5 euro on cinema day! whether you actually go see it or not, make sure you watch the gaytrix. — the weather really pisses me off! it has been raining, stormy or simply shitty outside for days! right now, it looks as if this will never end. doom’s day. people, i really hate getting depressed by weather. sure, this kind of weather is perfect for working on a thesis, but absolutely counterproductive when starting one, since you need to have at least a positive attitude when thinking of spending hours and hours behind your desk and getting rectangled eyes. but what do i do instead? -play postal 2! i couldn’t believe it would actually run on my antique machine, but it does! gee, this is a game just right for the mood i am into! “it’s not guns that kill people, it’s me” – i know, politically incorrect to the max, but hey, i still know what the difference between my left mouse-button and a real trigger is, alright? that’s what counts. these morons shooting people in schools or public places haven’t played too many of these games, but rather have access to weapons, that’s the problem. put away all private firearms and the problem is solved…

during the last days i made further migration attempts towards movabletype. i deleted everything i had done so far, downloaded it again and started all over from scratch. i even printed the manual! people who know me should laugh now, since the first thing i do whenever i unpack something new or run a new program or whatever it might be is to throw the manual in the corner and give it a first try without. well… certainly not with movabletype, that’s what i had to learn. i really gave it a serious moment and devoted quite some concetration on this project. after 2 hours of consequent working i had everything up and running. my thanks go to the people spending hours in the forum and answering stupid rookie-questions like the ones i posted! nevertheless, for all of you who are planning to install movabletype, i give you the good advice to proceed step by step always, be consequent and concentrated, and have a solid and profound understanding of how linking and folders work, and an at least basic understanding of sql. otherwise, please write me an email and i will install mt for you for a price lower the one mt asks ;). what should take me a couple more ages are the diffenrent templates i will have to develop (be sure that i won’t do with the standard ones!) and restructure my whole site to make the best out of mt. alice already declared me insane, for i already started with a new design, which also will account for the many new features i will deploy. wait and see – more great things to come! — acutally, besides my laudabile programming attempts, i have been quite a lazy bum since i am back to maastricht. however, yesterday i went to the library to have a first look at final theses. i was astonished how the different theses differed: the by far smallest thesis i browsed had only 37 pages, the most voluminous one 280. so i suppose i should plan to place my creative output somewhere between the lower quartile and the mean… if i only had a topic! i really need to find something soon, otherwise i will waste time madding about the ultra-shitty layout and design the majority of the people give to their thesis. this is certainly not true for esther’s thesis which i found by accident, since it was misplaced. her mother is a designer and made it a really visual delicacy as well: content and looks in perfect harmony. — today, dani will come and visit me for the first time. the notice of her arrival triggered mr proper in me, and i did something i had sworn not to do anymore until i could attest my housemates some effort in houskeeping as well. so i once more cleaned. and how i cleaned! after the bathroom, increasing frustration and disgust drove me to clean the whole house from top to bottom. it took me almost two hours, but i found it to be a great workout, for i was sweating as hell. i won’t bore you with that any longer, but just for the record i have to state that everything (well, almost!) is clean now! — i will probably take dani to the center tonight. it’s a little sad that she will be arriving relatively late so she won’t be able to see all this nice city has to offer. tomorrow, we will drive back home together, since thomas, kai and me will be celebrating 1st of mai in the location where we did this for the first time exactly ten years ago. man, where did time go? but in fact, i do remember remarkably vivid lots of details from this celebration. no wonder why, since everybody reminds me of my puking after too much mixing cheap sparkling wine and beer in my stomach. at least it is true for all kinds of fuddles: one learns over time! — i wish all germans a nice 1st of may (actually, it is “tag der arbeit – day of work”; so it’s a holiday for everybody) and drop me a line if you like!

first and most important: i passed finance! now i can only hope that i don’t become a victim of post-publication changes. at maastricht university, everything is possible, you know?! i cannot put in words how relieved i am! this burden is off me, and that makes me really happy. the other nice thing is that i also passed my exam for information management, which together with the good finance-news means that i am done with maastricht, except for the thesis which i will start to start with in the next days (depending on my enthusiasm). — currently, i am making my first migration attempts: away from blogger and towards movabletype. i have tried installing the mother of all content management systems on a test-account from all-inkl.com, which is very likely to become my new webhosting provider in the very near future. i might switch to them just because i am no more willing to pay the high prices at 1&1, although i have no complaints about their current service whatsoever. but i would need to pay 25 euros a month for the features and tools i would need for movabletype and that’s definately not worth it. with php, my image-galleries and structure of content will reach a completely new dimension. at least this is what webmaster martin is aiming at ;). so, my friends, i will keep you posted, awright?