Movie-Review: The Man from Earth (verdict: 8.5)
Just once in a while you come across a movie which doesn't need special effects, cgi or a superb soundtrack. It can solely rely on a story. "The Man from Earth" is one of those fascinating movies. A tantalizing story which triggers your imagination and will keep doing so, even weeks later. It surely is not your average SciFi movie, and I even wonder if it can be categorized as such. But boy, can I recommend it if you like to challenge your brain a bit.
I came across this movie and was intrigued by the title, its rating on IMDB and a short excerpt of a user review in which the person in question said it made him a bit like when watching "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". These where enough reasons for me to take the plunge and watch the movie.
The first 15 minutes you (well, at leas I did) feel like: "what the hell is this about?". The movie sure doesn't look like it was made in 2007. But bare with the movie for a minute and you will find it intrigues you in more ways than you can think of. It is kind of hard describing the movie without giving away what the movie is about and where it is heading, so I'll head to describing some things about the characters in the movie.
The thing that balances this movie perfectly is the fact that the main characters can all be considered as experts in their field of work. And because of these expertise (which is not explicitly mentioned in the movie) everything becomes plausible and everything makes sense. Just in moments where you think "ey, what is that about?" it is backed by one of them explaining the ins and outs of it.
When your 30 minutes into the movie you will be really eager to know how the story will continue and where it will lead to.
I don't want to spoil to much of the movie, but after you have watched the movie, you will surely know you haven't thrown away 90 minutes of your life. I'll bet you will be thinking about the movie for a while and consider the implications of what you have experienced. You won't probably consider "what if this movie was real" but I do know that there will be moments that you will remember about certain aspects of the movie and think "Wow, it could be true.. And what if that was true... Well, then....".
Bottom line:
If you're a movie lover who needs to be entertained by CGI and Action: don't watch this movie
If you like being surprised once in a while, I can highly recommend watching this movie!
Verdict: 8.5
HowTo: Run a mailserver, even if your ISP blocks SMTP port 25
After some hard work we have finally gone beta with our service: RerouteMAIL. A service with which you can easily run a mailserver even if your ISP actively blocks port 25.
A while ago I posted about some wild idea's where you could go around the SMTP block of your ISP by running your mail through another (non blocked) mailserver and forward it to your mailserver which is running on a different port. Today, we go beta with a service which makes this possible for everyone!
The road from 'Proof of Concept' to 'Finished Product' was, as always, a bit longer than expected. First of all I switched from developing in PHP to Django (to expand my knowledge) and secondly, there are some pitfalls when you want to make this kind of service for more people than just yourself.
For the people who don't know what the fuzz is all about, a short rundown. There are ISP's in the world which believe that there are a lot of people who don't know what they are doing. So when those people run a mailserver chances are rather large that they don't configure their mailserver correctly, and they become an open-relay and thus, open for spammers to be used as spamming machine.
Although these ISP's are in their right to do so, we believe the clients (and especially the business clients) should have the chance to be able to run a mailserver if they completely understand the risks.
By default (and according to everyone and everything on the internet) a mailserver listens on port 25 for incoming mail messages. Because this is the default, ISP's block this port (incoming and/or outgoing).
Fortunately we have thought up a way around the ISP's who are actively blocking port 25.
As a lot of people (mostly unix administrators) know, you can run a mailserver on a different port than port 25, say port 26. However, the email world does not know this. So when a mailserver (for example the google mailserver) wants to mail to you, it tries to connect to port 25. And so you have to find a way to let the other mailserver think you are on port 26. But this can't be done easily and without your ISP.
It can be done via our new service: RerouteMAIL. The trick is that we listen on port 25. And then relay the incoming message to your mailserver running on port 26!
And the best part is, we have a fee free version which everyone can use, a hassle free registration, and no questions asked.
If you are interested or curious please have a look at: www.reroutemail.com or leave a comment on this blog!
10 reasons why development projects can and will fail
It really is everywhere! Until now, in every company I have worked for, I have seen it. Projects fail to hit their deadline. And total anarchy emerges from the ashes of those failures. Save yourself (or your company) while you can and learn from the top 10 list of reasons I came across in the passed 8 years.
I have been developing (web)applications for some time now. And although some people might consider the 8 years as being "new", I consider it long enough to be able to point out some important reasons to why projects fail.
Although it was really really hard, I tried to make up a top 10 list of things that can (and have gone!) wrong. And because if I have experienced these problems. You can bet others (you?) have and will too! So, here goes. My top 10 reasons:
10. Not all things have been taken into account
It sounds too obvious to be true. But it is. When people start a project they mostly don't take time to step back for a moment and consider the implications of the project. I haven't been in a meeting which went like this: "Hey! Is this really as easy as it sounds? Or are there hidden problems lying low and ready to jump at us when we least expect it!?". Most of the time people are too excited about the project and feel like they can take on the world! And they realize halfway through the project (if you're lucky!) that they didn't realize feature X would take as much time as it did! And so, their deadline creeps up on them and BAM... The deadline can not be met.
9. It's a rush job!
How many times haven't I heard this one: "I know it's a rush job! And we are aware of it!". Only to hear a few weeks later: "But how is it possible that this bug exists?! We just CAN'T have these kind of bugs!". And most of the times these bugs only surface after it has gone live for a few days.
8. There are no milestones
No proper milestones have been set for a project. And this is not good. Not for you, nor for the customer! If you don't have milestones, you have no way of measuring your progress. And even when you think you are on the right course, you can never know for sure. More so, you cant update your client (or customer) on the progress. Because you just don't know!
6. The customer lacks technical insight/knowledge
It can be a real problem when the customer (or your manager) is not as technically endowed (on this subject) as you are. But realize it is as much of a problem for them as it is for you! They wonder why you take so long to create feature X which seemed soooo easy to them. The biggest problem is not their perception of complexity, because this you can explain. The biggest problem is that they will not be able to explain their wishes to you in detail enough so you can make a correct estimate on the project length.
5. Ad-Hoc projects / Prolonged FireFighting Mode
Your morning at work starts and your manager runs into the room yelling and screaming: "WOEAAAH!!!!!! WE NEEEEEEEEED BUG 1337 FIXED RIGHT NOW!!!!". The sky has fallen! All customers have ran off and the cash has stopped pouring into the bank account of the company! All because of this bug! Or... so your manager led you to believe! You rush yourself to your computer and work long and hard to fix the bug as soon as possible! Finally! the bug is fixed! And you can continue your daily work on bug 1884. But then, after lunch, it starts again: "AHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!! THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH X AND Y! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!" and of course you need to fix it right away! This scenario continues some time.. Until at the end of the day, the things you had to work on that day didn't finish. A day passes by and you fix some "MUST BE FIXED NOW" bugs until one moment: "WOEAAAAH! WE NEED BUG 1884 FIXED!! AND IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIXED 2 DAYS AGO!". And the circle is complete... Because you were fixing bugs which seemed critical, you are not able to work on your daily routines. Which in turn, turn out to be "need to be fixed now"-bugs eventually.
The biggest problem with this is that you will always keep a feeling of behing behind all the time. And escaping from this vicious circle can be very hard. Although you can't prevent this problem directly, you can discus the matter before fixing the "need to be fixed now"-bug. Ask your manager "Is this 1337 bug really more important than bug 1884? And if so, are you okay with delaying 1884?". This will probably make your manager think the request over and it will allow you to fall back on the conversation when 1884 became a real "need to be fixed now"-bug
4. Communication problems (or lack of communication) "
It happens quite a lot. A salesperson has promised feature X to customer Y and has told the PM to make it happen. It slips the mind of the PM and the salesperson didn't remind the PM about the feature. Until the time approaches that it should be delivered to the customer and the salesperson asks the PM about this. "Damn!". The PM wraps up some developers and a technical lead and you'll hear something like: "We have promised the customer a month ago we have feature X in the release for the end of this week so build it and build it right!".
Everybody should know this is a recipe for disaster. You just can't build a feature in a week (or less)! No arguments. You just can't!
3. Total lack of specifications
You think you have done everything right. You talked to the customer, written things down, had the customer sign the document on what to deliver. But you don't write the specs. You didn't work out the details of the features and think you can manage it along the way.
Just Face it! In the larger projects (even if it is still a one man job) it is almost impossible to do things right the first time. And unless you have calculated a lot of refactor time (and I really mean a lot!) into your project, your deadline's will slip. And you will have an unhappy customer. Just take your requirements and work them out. Just make small mock-up of what you are going to create. Write down some flows. And be sure to show them to your customer and have them comment on them.
You don't have to create full detailed Interaction Designs. Work out all the Use Case Scenario's and write pseudo code for every function. Just make sure the outlines are there and have them approved or reviewed.
2. A Sales person determines the deadlines without consulting programmers
This I hate the most!
Operations come's to you and says: "Yeah we have to create X, and it has to be completed before end of the week!"
"Que?"
Damn, they have done it again! They promised stuff to the customer, and we don't even know if it is technically possible to do so! And even if it is possible, we don't know if we can have it production ready in that time...They haven't even discussed it with the PM or a TL.
1. There are no, or incomplete, requirements
This one is also very classic, and very easy to make. "We need a program that can do this and do that, <explanation of what and how etc>.. can you make it?". Sure you can! And there you go happily programming and creating what the customer asked. And after some hard weeks of working you and delivering you receive the following reply: "Ah, yes.. But... This is not how we wanted it. It should work like this and that!". So you reply: "But.. Why didn't you say so?". And the customer replies: "Well, er, it is obvious that it should work that way!". And there you go.. Throwing away a big part of the program, starting over again..
And the biggest problem is, there is really no one to blame! It's just that people won't exactly, with 100% certainty, know what the other person really means or thinks. So, even when you have requirements, it is quite hard to say "Well we decided this and that and I made it that way. So, its your fault!" because with that attitude you will only get your customer mad and create an atmosphere in which you can't work.
The solution? Make sure you agree on what is required of the project, and make sure you write them down. Have your customer specify what the program has to do to make it acceptable for him. And finally make sure you live the project as much as your customer does!
Well there they are! My list of reasons why a development project can and will fail. They are based on my personal experience in the passed years.
Have you experienced these reasons as well? Or have experienced others? Leave a comment!
All the best wishes for 2010!
After a few day's cool down (christmas, new year's eve and a nice long weekend) we can plunge ourselves back into real life and into the new year!
I would like to wish everyone the very best for 2010! I hope everyone will have a great, healthy and prosperous year!
I am looking forward to hearing from all of you some time in the future!
Movie-Review: Das Experiment
I had "Das Experiment" on my To-Watch list for a few months now. It was recommended by a friend of mine after discussing some things which are related to the experiment depicted in the movie. The movie is based on an actual experiment which was conducted back in the 70's. However there are some differences ofcourse...
The native language of the movie is German. So it is some getting used to for some people. For me it took me about 10 minutes or so and after that it didn't bother me anymore. Although the movie is shot in 2001, you can really sense it is a dated setting. In addition the dialog and scenes are set up in a way which gave me a strange feeling. A bit of a "Eh.. what is this about?" feeling. Although a bit strange it is totally appropriate and gets you into the story even more.
There are no special effects, blazing fire's, cutting edge sound effects and booming subwoofers in this movie. Instead it has sound effects which gives you a suspicious feeling and makes you want to hold your breath from time to time in anticipation of something happening.
The story is told in an a-typical way. It is told with some occasional unannounced flash backs which, the first few times, feels like you are missing something. Truth be told, after about 40 minutes I felt as if it took forever to get the story up and running. I even had a moment where I was thinking "Im gonna stop, go to bed, and watch it tomorrow night!". However I didn't turn it off as I was rather curious to find out how the story continues. Luckily the pace picked up and there was progression in the story. And from that moment the story totally grabbed me and dragged me right into the movie. I felt compassion and felt connected to the characters in the movie. You could feel what they where feeling. Their emotions, their reactions, their commitments. I felt anger, hatred! I wanted to go in there and punch him in the face! AAarg!!!!!
In those moments I didn't realize it, but after the movie ended I found out that the story was built in such a great a way that I slowly, unconsciously and without really noticing it, bonded with the characters. And because of that the movie made an even bigger impression on me.
The strange story telling, the unexpected connection and the great performances in this movie left a lasting impression!
A recommendation for everyone who wants to see something else from time to time. But be warned, it is not an action movie.
I don't wanna give it an 8 because it felt a bit too strange from time to time 
So I'll give it a 7.5!
Movie-Review: 9
"9"... A title which does not describe much at all. So I looked it up on IMDB to get a bit of an idea of what this movie is about. An animation/SciFi movie, rated 7.1, and staring the voice of Elijah Wood. It triggered something in me, so I placed it on my "To Watch" list.
I really had no idea what I was getting in to watching 9. A SciFi movie alright. And a rather short one, as it only lasted 90 minutes or so. From the start the setting was clear. A rather grim setting which is accompanied with great animation. To me it gave the same feeling as I felt when watching Wall-E, when he is working on earth. Silent and alone...
But that soon changed, only a few minutes into the movie the pace picks up and you have the feeling you are left behind in terms of the story. Things are happening, but you don't really know what or why. At that moment I was curious. And after a shock moment, I thought to myself: "Yes. This will probably be a great movie!". But I was kind of wrong, at least, in my opinion.
The drive of the characters is not really clear. You can guess but can never know for sure. The movie keeps you in the dark. Normally this is not a problem at all. But because I was unable to connect with the movie on any level, it was kind of annoying.
Only somewhere at the very end I had a feeling of a connection (although very small) with the characters. And when the movie actually ended, it left me with mixed feelings. Sure the movie was entertaining. And sure it was intriguing. But it never really caught my attention. Therefor I was kind of relieved when the movie ended.
I was glad I watched the movie! It sure has things which justify the 7.1 on IMDB. But for me, the overall feeling of the movie was just a tad off.
Sound wise everything is great. Lot's of use of the LFE in a correct way (I never had the feeling it was overdone). And the music was done rather nicely. Speech was a bit different. Sometimes I had the feeling the dubbing was a bit off. It just didn't feel like the voices where appropriate for the (animated) characters.
I wouldn't want to mis this movie, but as a final score I give it a solid 6.
The money problem with friend-groups: “Nah… I’ll pay! Pay me back later!”
You might recognise the problem. You have a close friend group and you do lots of things together. So when you go out, or go to the movies you decide that you'll pay something, and the others pay other stuff and you dont realy worry about the money. They are your friends, and you trust everyone, so, no biggy.
Now although this is true, the problem lies where you can't keep track of what you owe who, or who owes you what. And although you know it's okay, it just doesn't feel right. Especially when it concerns larger amounts. For example, you go on vacation as a group. Decide that everyone will pay amount X as a money stash for group activities. But you know it is a matter of time before the plan becomes a bust. Eventually someone forgot his card and could not make a withdrawl. The account was empty sooner than expected. Etc. etc. In the end person X has deposited €400 person Y €600 and peson z only €200 because of whatever reason.
Now I have, on multiple occasions, decided to make a nice little Excel sheet which can handle these kind of problems. You enter the money you have spent (its a friend case so you trust everyone supplies accurate numbers) of each of the members, and it calculates neatly what the average amount spent is, and you can see who owes what to whom. Further, if person Z afterwards gave person X some money for something else, it is handy that these numbers can be specified too. So it will always reflect who has already settled his debt and who hasn't. The biggest problem is you have to manually keep track of changes. If someone pays somebody (partially or full), and didnt notify me, I can't keep track of the changes. And so it is a matter of time before it is not accurate anymore so you can't rely on it.
Because I (we) have these problems. I'd think I'm not the only one! So I think about making some simple application which can handle these kinds of troubles. Attach a mail service to it so people can easyly be reminded of his debts or request for information. Combine this with some type of grouping of friends and you have a centralised application to handle all current and future money oweing problems without worrying about who paid who (or didnt).
Decided not to use the ‘custom’ layout anymore
For a while I used a custom layout for my blog. It is probably something everybody else already figured out ages ago... But, maintaining a custom layout just takes too much time to keep it up to date. Not to mention to keep it compatible with all the features in WordPress!
So, today started as a slow day. I couldn't get myself to doing something really usefull, so I decided to have a look at my blog and spice it up a little. But when I was tinkering around with it I soon realised that I had to invest a lot of time to get it working correctly with everything WordPress supports. And even if I got it working, the design wasn't my best design. So that design had to be done too!
After a while I decided it was not the way to go. And I went clicking through the "featured themes" of the WordPress appearence section and found a new design for my blog which kind of suits what I was looking for. A few minutes later it was up and running, and I was happy again
Sure it has some quircks, but overall it saves me time.
My Private Home Theater
It is the year 2002, and I was invited to a housewarming party of a colleague. When we came to his appartment the first thing I saw (or actually, everybody saw) was a big movie projector hanging from the ceiling. It was a huge Barco CRT projector. One with 3 tubes for red, green and blue. Ofcourse he had to show off his new big toy and showed us some nice DVD movies on a big screen. I was so impressed that ever since that moment I wanted to have my own projector and enjoy movies on a big screen too. Now, 7 years later, I went a step further and have my own Private Home Theater!
Ofcourse it all started from that moment in 2002. But to cut it short, since 2002 I bought (and sold) a Barco CRT projector, played around a bit with surround sound (Bowers&Wilkins speakers) and we end up at the beginning of 2009. This is the moment I had bought a Full HD projector and decided to realy make something nice. With the help of a great company which specializes in HomeTheater ("Beter Beeld & Geluid") and helps designing HT's I started making concept sketches and models of how I wanted things to be.
At first I created some raw models of the room in question. Although, as you can see, there are quite some obstacle's in the room, solutions can always be found. It is possible to work around them. The guy's at "Beter Beeld & Geluid" gave some pointers on how the room could be altered to be a great Home Theater. With these remarks I started creating a new model in which I used all the advice that was given.
Because the room is longand small (which affects room accoustics) we had to make sure the listening position is not in the exact center of the room. If you do place your viewing position exactly in the center, you will have problems with the lower frequency's. To make this possible the projection wall is placed 40cm in front of the real wall. This way you can move your viewing position further to the back and thus you won't sit in the center of the room (although it might visually seem like you are).
A second advantage of moving the projection wall 40cm is that you can place speakers and subwoofer behind the screen. But this requires an accoustic transparant screen.
A new wall should be created on the right side of the room. This is done to create symetry in the room and create space for a/v devices like the receiver, dvd/bluray player, xbox, etc. Plus, you can use this space to place side speakers if you want to go for a 7.1 speaker setup. This was actually advised due to the room being rather long and small. It would greatly enhance the soundstage and create a more realistic surround sound experience.
After this it needed the accoustic changes and a visual design. Again with some brainstorming and help from BB&G we came to the folowing definitive design for the room.
Accoustic material (absorber and diffusor) is hidden inside the left and right pillars. This too is needed to create a better sound stage.
From this moment everything was clear and I could begin constructing everything. I won't go into the exact details of the construction (I have done so in a Dutch forum, so if you would like more info, just ask me ) but the results are great! Just a few pictures to show off!
The speakers behind the screen:
And the projector side:
And, now the rundown of specs of what you see:
Projector: JVC RS-10. Projection Screen: Screen Research 110" diagonal (96" wide). Receiver: Yamaha RX-V3800. Speakers: Martin Logan Fresco i. Subwoofer: DIY - Peerless XLS12 (1 12" active and 1 12" passive woofer).
So thats it! It rocks big time. Expect, from time to time, some reviews of movies I have watched.
Movie-Review: Terminator 4: Salvation
I hadn't seen Terminator:Salvation yet because it never showed in Digital Cinema in Metropolis Antwerpen. As I now have a FullHD version of the movie, I could watch Terminator: Salvation at home... Finally! Large projection screen, great sound, killer sub. And most of all: No one running in front of me, no people sniffing, sipping a drink and baby's crying! And with this experience in my mind: My first blog-review of a movie...
As always, I try to watch a movie with as little knowledge as possible. Ofcourse I know the prequels, but I didnt watch any trailers or read about it online. At most, I look at the rating it has on IMDB and the length of the movie. The mind-set in which I watched the movie was "It will probably be somewhat like T3".
Well, I couldn't be more wrong. After the first 30 minutes I was totally convinced that the movie was nothing like Terminator 3, but still holds true to the Terminator story. There are lots of references to the other terminator movies and to its timeline. Not only storywise, but camera wise (and probably tech-wise) as well. Some of these references are more obvious and others are very subtle. In my opinion it was done really well. When I look back at Terminator 3, I would say it was a movie which was more the 'comic' side of the Terminator movies. A lot of things were overdone and it just didnt feel quite like Terminator. I was concerned that T4 would turn out to be, once again, a movie which would focus too much on a mediocre story, pointless action and stupid jokes. But in contrast to T3, Terminator: Salvation was the more serious movie. The storyline was surprisingly good, it was not top-notch, but still overall better than other action movies in this genre. Further the movie had some great surprises I didnt expect (i.e.: the scene at the gas-station) and they sucked me into the movie even more.
The CGI in this movie was awesome! No where in this movie I had the feeling the CGI was off as if it didnt fit into the movie. In a lot of movies (G.I. Joe had this on multiple occasions) you just notice that a CGI item is just not real enough. Though the CGI was really great, I needed some time to get comfortable with the colors of the movie. It had an overall colorless look which did complements the settings of the movie as being dark. But in my opionion it had, at certain points, just a bit too little color.
Right now I am only able to use the DTS Core track. Nevertheless the soundtrack of the movie was super. The seperation between music score and sound effects was certainly noticable. Though it was not done as great as in James Bond: Quantum of Sollace. The sound effects/surround sound of the movie was done really good, better than in most movies! You have the feeling you are placed right in the middle of the action. Sound is coming from everywhere and it is all just spot on! With this combine a great LFE track to support the explosions and gunfire and you are sure you will have some very impressive and intimidating moments!
Overall:
A great story, fun to watch, apropriate humor and ofcourse: Terminators!
Verdict: 7.5