I will be working on our “newest” application, written in Delphi and with a Firebird database, both of which are new to me. These first few days, I have mainly been busy getting to know the software (and my colleagues of course), but I am very anxious to start programming and do some “real” work!

I’m going to post a few separate updates, but I will predate those, so you will see them below this one, just as if I posted them long ago. Nowbody will know I didn’t.

We also bought a little wireless monitor, the SMA Sunny Beam, to keep track of the production of the solar panels. “Wireless” as in a wireless connection to the inverter, the SMA Sunny Boy 2100, but the device can also be connected to a pc, to download the data stored on it. Having done that, you can visualise the production of your solar panels, just like this:

The production on a cloudy day in October,

or on a sunny day in March,

or the total amount of energy produced over a four-month period.

(Sorry for the cheesy Excel graphs — I haven’t got anything better at the moment.)

The interesting thing is that we first use the energy produced ourselves. When the panels produce more than we use, the electricity is delivered back to the net. So on a sunny day, when you see on the electricity meter that the energy is being sent to the net, you know that everything in the house runs “for free”, and you’re even getting paid for whatever is left over!

Of course, we are very proud of this little baby and happy that all is well with both mother and daughter. Also Marijn is very proud to be a big brother now and all he wants is to hold and cuddle his little sister and to cover her in kisses.

Check out some more photos on Picasaweb.

What a mess it has been to move our phone line and internet connection.

We started by calling KPN to inform them we would be moving on September 17. We received a confirmation that our phone line would be transfered on September 29! We called to say the date wasn’t correct and so we received a new confirmation of the corrected date.

We first received a letter saying that (because it’s a new house) some work still had to be done. Later, it was confirmed that all the necessary preparations had been done.

In the mean time, we had cancelled our old internet provider per September 17th and subscribed to a new provider per that same date. However, our new provider called to inform us the request could not be processed until the new phone line would be active. That would be, for all we knew, on September 17th. From then it would take up to 5 weeks to get the ADSL working!

So we called KPN to try to move the activation date forward. We called four times that day. We were told it wasn’t possible, because we had already changed the date once (which was their fault, not ours). We were told there was nothing we could do, not even request a new phone line. The KPN woman even hung up on us! So we called again, and got someone else, who put us on hold… forever. So we called again and got someone on the line who actually helped and moved the date forward. We even got a confirmation letter with the new date: September 9th. It cost us more than an hour calling to an expensive service number, but hey, we got a result.

September 10: we’re disconnected! The phone is offline. Luckily, the internet connection still works! However, our new phone line isn’t working… So we call KPN (with a mobile phone of course). They cannot seem to find a record of us being connected on September 9th. They even deny the confirmation letter we got! So they did disconnect our old line, but they cannot connect our new line. When we ask them to reconnect our old line, they say we will be called back about that. That never happens…

On September 18th, the day after we moved, we still don’t have a working telephone line. So we call KPN and they tell us they cannot give us an activation date! However, we will be called back about it within four working hours. Four working hours later, it is the next Monday, September 21st. We are called back and told that we will be called back the next day. The next day we are called back and told that we will be connected the next day! Then, on Wednesday, September 23rd, our phone line finally works!

So, our new internet provider had told us the request for the new ADSL connection could not be processed until the phone line would be active. We had told them that would be September 9th, after we had received that confirmation letter from the KPN. It wasn’t to be… The provider tried to request the ADSL connection after Septemer 9th, although they had said they couldn’t do that if the line wasn’t active and although earlier they could perfectly well see the status of the phone line. So the request failed because the phone line wasn’t active yet, and the request was cancelled. Yes, cancelled. But they didn’t tell us. Not until we called them on September 23rd to inform them that our phone line was active. So we had to request a new subscription. By phone of course, but not the number we were calling at the moment. We asked if they could put an “URGENT” on the request, but for that we had to call yet another number. Well, after some more calls in the following weeks, we finally got the installation package last week with a letter saying that our internet connection should work on October 13th. But boy, are we lucky or what? When we installed the modem yesterday, the connection worked immediately! How about that?

While Irene stayed at the old place, I already went to our new house, because the very same day, the kitchen would be installed. A case of Bad Planning ™, I fear, although not entirely our own fault.

Around noon, the movers arrived at our new house, after they had picked up a lift to hoist the 40-or-so boxes with books (and much more) to the second floor.

It was a very busy day, but the movers were great, very careful and tidy, and they worked very hard, the entire day, until about 6 pm. But in the evening, we could sleep in our own bed in our new house. We’d moved!

Ten months after construction was started it’s finally finished now. Although, it’s not quite finished yet, there are still some things that have to be done, but that will have to wait till after the holidays. But at least, in the mean time, we can start painting, cleaning, et cetera. We plan to move on September 17th.

Coincidently, this picture was taken exactly one year ago today, before they started building. So what do you think, does the house look like the drawing back then?

My old laptop had become soooo slow. Even after completely reinstalling Windows XP, but hardly any other software (yes, a browser, office suite, and a few more), it still seemed ten times as slow as when I bought it. I blame Windows for that; obviously XP is not what it was five years ago.

Anyway, I searched around, mainly at laptopshop.nl, and was about to order an Acer (Aspire 5738G, to be precise), when I saw that Dell had a discount on the Studio 15. The specs were similar to the Acer and now the price was almost the same as well. I chose the Dell.

The main specs are:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 (2.1 GHz)
• 4 GB DDR2 memory
• 320 GB 7200 rpm SATA hard disk
• 512 MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 graphics card
• 15.6″ widescreen display (1366 × 768)
• DVD +/- RW drive
• Integrated webcam
• 9-cell 85W battery

The only thing that bothers me, not just with this one, but with similar laptops as well, is the low resolution of the display. Even the one I am working on right now, which is five years old, has a 15″ display with 1400 × 1050 pixels. If you want something like that right now (1440 × 900), you have to go for at least a 17″ display, or be willing to spend some more money on a Sony Vaio.

Anyway, if all goes well, my new laptop will be delivered next Wednesday.

Update (2009-7-22): my laptop has arrived. This afternoon, two packages were delivered at my door:

Some first impressions, after working with it for a couple of hours:

• Microsoft sure did a great job in creating the most annoying piece of software ever with User Account Control (UAC).
• Vista takes some time getting used to. Yes, I was still running XP on my old laptop.
• The first thing to go was the Windows Sidebar. The second was the Dell Dock. Yippee for all the free Dell software you get pre-installed on your machine.
• I already mentioned the screen resolution. The widescreen is nice, but the vertical size is quite limited, which is most obvious while browsing or working with digital photos. BTW, where did this resolution of 1366 × 768 come from?
• The battery life, so far, is great. The extra large 9-cell battery has worked for about 5 hours, although I haven’t actually measured it exactly. But even when it was at 0%, it kept working for another 15 minutes!
• Finally, this laptop is quite a lot faster than my old one! But then again, it would be strange if it wasn’t.

On the outside, the house is almost finished. The scaffolding has already been removed. Part of the windows and the doors still have to be put in, but it’s really starting to look like the pictures we fell in love with.

On the inside, some of the walls have been plastered, most of the wiring is finished, and they’re busy installing the bathroom. In the mean time, we have been planning what has to be done after we get the keys, i.e. the walls, the floors and the kitchen. This will still take a couple of weeks, so probably, we will be moving sometime around September 15.

On Saturday, we had agreed to help a friend move home, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to help at all. I could hardly walk, let alone carry boxes. In the afternoon, Irene said I felt warm, and we decided to go to the hospital.

To make a long story short: from the blood test it appeared I probably had an appendicitis, so I was scheduled for operation that evening. Normally, this would have meant I could have gone home the next day, but during the operation, they found that my appendix had burst. Instead of leaving the next day, I had to stay in hospital for five days with intravenous antibiotics.

I have been home for a week now, and I’m getting better and better. I am up and about, although standing or walking still hurts after a few minutes. My appetite in hospital was really terrible, I hardly ate at all, but luckily that’s (almost) back to normal now. I’ve also started working for a couple of hours a day, and hopefully next week I’ll be able to work full days again.