Ok, I think its highly likely that this blog stuff is highly addictive. However, its a real spin out running into a friends that already know what I have been up to.

The Technology bit:

Anyhow, ego tripping aside, for your viewing pleasure I have been working towards stitching the panorama photos we took while on our trip around the world. Yesterday I reviewed some panorama software for OS X that does automatically (guesses) at how to stitch the photos together. I trailed:

Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Commercial)
DoubleTake (Shareware)
hugin – Panorama Tools GUI (Open Source)
Kekus Digital (Shareware)

I ended up settling on DoubleTake because it has a nice user interface, unlike hugin or Kekus, and Photoshop is to bulky for my needs and I wasn’t happy with the results. My trails were not by any means extensive and should serve as a guide for your own research. I wanted something simple and fast, light weigh (as I’m running it on my laptop). On principle I would prefer to use hugin because of the open source nature of the project, however I couldn’t justify the time to read the manuals and work it out.

Here is a sample of the panorama photos to come.

[qt:http://www.madteckhead.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/web.mov 400 300]

Note for above image: Mouse Click & Drag to Look Up, Down, Left, or Right.
Control to Zoom In, and Option to Zoom Out

Note: Click to see full image (not as cool as first image)

In the Gulf of Thailand, just a couple of hours north of Koh Samui, lies the island of Ko Tao. Once the haunt of sea-turtles, this small island with its quiet beaches has become a favorite destination both of paradise seekers and divers who come for the best coral diving in the area.

This is where I spent my birthday while on the road over summer. We had to hold our stomachs for the trip out to the island, as being monsoon season, there was some bad weather. The waves were so large that a couple of local fishing boats almost flipped over. This prompted all the boats in the region to head for safer waters, which just happened to be the cove where we planted our selfs for a few days (also waiting for calmer waters before heading back to the main land).

I also stumbled across another neat little module for my blog. You can now see map of the world in my right sidebar. This will let me (and you know) where in the world people are reading my blog from. Neat, hu? Will require a bit of road testing before I give it the thumbs up though.

The travel bit

Anyway, I’m back in Tubingen now catching up of a few odds and ends and waiting for Ellie to get back so we can get some FOOD!!! We had to split up and get separate rides back from Hanover because we could not find a lift with two seats. I scored a lift of the train accompanying a disabled person who was really lovely, studying economics near by. If you are in Germany and looking for (or can offer) a lift, its well worth checking out http://www.mitfahrgelegenheit.de/. (Thanks Seven for the tip! Saved us a couple of hundred in just one trip)

Back to ar…. procrastinating I guess… it the only way to get things done.

Cheers,

Nathan

It has been a while since my last post, again, so heres what I’ve been up to (with no fluff).

• Finished my A1_1 German course (scoring 78%);
• traveled to Hanover with Ellie to spend the Easter with her host families;
• spent a day exploring Stuttgart (including a trip to the Opera);
• went on an afternoon adventure to Reutlingen to buy some nice tea;
• have had a few drinks at the pub mostly with other new international students.

Computer related things:

• designing a template for the online store I am setting up (keep you eyes out for the link), I found a really great program for CSS layout & design called Style Master if thats your thing;
• setting up an Intrusion Detection System to monitor internet traffic to and from my computer (Google SNORT & ACID if your interested in finding out more);
• found a great free (not as in beer) open source learning aid program that simulates flash cards using a card repetition strategy that is proven to increase learning capacity and long term retention. jMemorize is a java applet that can run on almost any operating system. I have made a few German sessions that I will share here shortly.
• installed a program that generates ‘white noise’ sounds like rain, great for masking out background noise (and an annoying ringing that I have in my ears as a result of to much loud music);
• finally registered the domain madteckhead.com, and for the moment it redirects to here;
• created a Wordpress blog for Ellie that can’t be found yet because she hasn’t posted anything. For the record I didn’t choose the bad 80’s acid color scheme. Keep checking back for the address.
• added a exciting new feature to my blog so readers can a personal audio recording on my virtual answering machine. To do so just click the record button on box at the bottom of the right sidebar. (I still really encourage you to leave a text comment or opinion so others can read it and comment; thus creating a virtual discussion space).

The fleshy (tofu) bit:
Happy Easter and all that to family and friends. Hope you all find your self safe and festively plump. I wouldn’t say my Easter has not been terribly relaxing, coming to Hanover proved out to be much like meeting the extended family, only the family all speak another language. They are all lovely people, and have done their best to make my stay warm and welcome, however I find my self increasingly frustrated and mentally drained trying to understand conversations and have input. This also means alot to Ellie so I don’t want to put my foot in it and come across rude either. For those of you out of the loop; Ellie has 3 families she stayed with while in Hanover for a year on exchange in 2002ish (yes, they all cook very well). So since we got here its been once family a day. Today we have exhausted our fresh supply of friendly host families though so I’m sleeping in and bunking down in the spare room. I’m looking forward to the next few days at a slower pace.

Still no job, however to be honest I felt a bit out of my depth, given the language barrier, on the first day I went looking and haven’t been out of my way to find an opportunity. Instead I’ve been directing my spare energy into setting up an online Photo gallery store. I hope this will generate a small stream of revenue to cover some web hosting expenses, and showcase my talents in design and e-commerce solutions to potential clients. As a side note, a special thank you to the first person to make a generous donation into the Tip Jar. Yes we will ensure a portion of the donation goes to subsidising our Easter chocolate consumption.

The Photos (hold mouse over image for description)