System Migration (Is easy?!)

So my work laptop’s hdd kept running full and I had to regularly delete files and applications which I would not use on a every day basis. This resulted in reinstalling and redownloading files I needed every now and then. The solution to the problem was obviously upgrading the hard drive.

Sounds easy so far, but I could not afford the time needed to reinstall dozens of applications and plugins (let alone remembering everything I would need and finding it in the net). I asked my colleages about how they would migrate the system and I was told to use dedicated system imaging tools like Acronis and CloneZilla and then dedicated disk partitioning tools like GParted to do the job.

Was this really so cumbersome? Getting shitloads of tools, making bootable discs just to get my system written to an image? Manfred, one of my colleages then told me that Windows 7 can do all of this – easy and painless. All I would need is a backup USB drive to put the image on and make a Windows Repair Disc to play back the system image.

I gave it a try and it worked like a bliss! SURPRISE! All I needed to do after restoring the system image to the new hdd was resizing my partition to its maximum size which also was easily done with the built in Windows tool (and I didn’t even needed to reboot *gosh*).  It took maybe 2 hours of which my laptop was blocked only one hour during system restore. The backup was done live in the running Windows OS.

To everyone who did not know (like me): System backup and restore can be done easily with Windows alone! Microsoft you are getting better. Slowly, but you do. Nice.

Of Outlook Mail Files

The other day at work I wondered why by the seven hells my HD is running full again and again and again. I checked everything: downloads, documents folders, temporary files -everything! But I never came up with a reason for where these 12 GB went.

So I sat down for maybe an hour and finally found, that my Outlook mail file had grown to obscene 16GB !! And I am using IMAP for Christ’s sake!

MICROSOFT WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING !?

Probably not much. Anyway, “compacting” (didn’t know that was even a word) actually gave free a whopping 13 GB. Lesson learned? “Compact” your mail file, stupid!

Empires in Arms – Prelude

I got the opportunity to participate in a Grand Campaign of Empires in Arms! Until now my experience with this great game was very brief. I played as Turkey in a Grand Campaign about 12 years ago. But it died just shortly after it has begun. We didn’t even play through the first year as I recall.

This campaign however seems to have a better fate. After playing through the first year of the campaign, I decided to write a War Diary on my blog. We meet every other week for about 3-4 hours. Each session we get through about 2-3 months of the game. I will report about what happened from my personal and biased point of view as the player of Great Britain. Enjoy!

The Cast

We managed to assemble 7 players! UMP rules are hopefully out of the window in this campaign. The group is a wide mixture of ages and gaming experience.

Crazy Susan. She has played a few campaigns already and managed to gain control of Austria in the bidding.

Cheapskate Dirk, commander of the great French army. He also has experience playing EiA. And it seems he has a talent to drill even the last penny out of his allies.

Clemens Minute-Jack. As the leader of Prussia he really knows which boots to lick and when to turn his coat!

Pessimistic Miro. As leader of Russia he claims to be a realist. But we all know he isn’t. Though he has lots of experience with strategy games, this is his first time playing EiA.

Laughing Kai. The leader of Spain knows how to give that smile against which you just can’t declare war.

Julius Youngblood. Grand Vizier of Turkey. He is the youngest in the group with the least experience.

The first year

My notes on the first year are quite thin, so I will just give a short summary. Events may not have occurred in exactly the order I mention them here.

We play with bidding on the major powers. I got Great Britain for 30 VP, Russia went to Miro for 21 VP, Julius got Turkey for 12 VP, France went to Dirk for 30 VP, Austria was gained by Susan for a whopping 27 VP, Clemens got Prussia for cheap 9 VP and Spain went to Kai for a mere 6 VP.

As Great Britain I decided it would be a great idea to attack Denmark just after winter 1805. I earned nothing but laughter from the veterans in the group when I declared war on Denmark. They laughed even louder when France got control of Denmark. How wrong they were! I managed to conquer Denmark and Norway against the French! WAHAH! And with a bit of luck I even managed to preserve the Danish fleet, which I hoped would come in handy later in the game.

Prussia and Austria got some weird deal which resulted in a brief war between the major powers in which Austria ended up with all Polish provinces. But for some reason did not declare Poland.

In an event of which I still don’t know if it truly was an accident or a plot Prussia got into an alliance with France. Clemens, the Prussian leader asked all major powers for an alliance in 3 concurrent diplomatic phases. An opportunity which France seized the third time. Whatever the background may be, it smells fishy!

With Prussia as possible enemy gone, Great Britain untouchable, and all army corps on the eastern fronts, Dirk decided to go to war against … Austria (you may have guessed this). With Prussia turning to France, Austria’s only hope was an alliance with Russia and/or Turkey. At least Russia agreed to the alliance, while Turkey turned to France (traitors!). Russia mobilized its forces to reinforce Austrian corps but suddenly ran into …

A Prussian declaration of war! Even though no battles were conducted between Prussia and Russia this war effectively prevented a quick relieve of Austrian forces. To add salt to injury, Turkey joined the campaign against Austria in late 1805. Crazy Susan on the other side managed to catastrophically fail against all French attacks which resulted in Vienna fall to Napoleon in June and an unconditional surrender in December 1805. Austria lost many provinces including Hungary. Even though Austria was now safe from further French punishment, Susan now got a hungry Turkish horde on her heels.

To give Austria much needed relieve, I decided to send an expeditionary force to the Mediterranean Sea consisting of three fleets carrying three corps, lead by Nelson and the Duke of Wellington.

This year was a hell of a start for France!

Razer Dreamsuite Contest

Gaming is fun but my trusty equipment has come past its best days. Keys are not as responsive as they used to be and sometimes even get stuck. My mousepad has started falling apart months ago and even the seasoned Diamondback seems as if it has become tired. Time to get some fresh air onto my desktop with some nice Razer hardware:

• Lachesis mouse
• Megasoma mouse mat
• Lycosa keyboard
• Megalodon headset for LAN-parties
• Mako 2.1 for home gaming
• Armadillo cable management

Tu was gegen das Computerspieleverbot!

Zur Zeit läuft eine Petition im deutschen Bundestag gegen das Computerspieleverbot. Lass dir nicht vom Aktionismus unserer Regierung so ans Bein pissen! Tu was gegen die Staatswillkür!

Deine Stimme gegen das Paintballverbot!

Bis zum 28.07.2009 läuft auf der Website des dt. Bundestages eine Onlinepetition gegen das geplante Verbote von Paintball, Laserdome, Airsoft und ähnlichen Spielen.

Wenn Du eines dieser Spiele schonmal gespielt hast oder es in der Zukunft mal ausprobieren möchtest, dann gib deine Stimme für diese Petition!

Sold Out: 3

What is this about? Start reading at the beginning!

Stephen stared into the whiskey glass. Sunken in thoughts he listened to the soft hum of the lamp above him and the dampened noise of the bar outside the back room. He retrieved a small device from the inside of his coat, held it in front of his face and examined it thoughtfully.

He pressed a small button on the device andthe discussion which just had taken place filled the room. Stephen had been into this kind of business for too long to not have an insurance up his sleeve for this kind of job.

Stephen did not care for who the suit really was. All these Mr. Smiths or Blacks or Andrews or whatever stupid alias they gave themselves. They all had their skeleton in the closet. And they wanted Stephen to get rid of it.

With a deep breath he got up from the chair and gave the suitcase on the table a last suspicious look. Without a word, Stephen left through the door and dove into the noise on the other side.

Sold Out: 2

What is this about? Start reading at the beginning!

People think the filth of the city is in the poor districts. The bummer. The whore. The cutpurse. The drug dealer at the corner. I have been the filth. Now I am even less than them. I don’t exist. I am the shadow between the worlds. I do the work no one wants to do or talk about. A ghost. No one cares about me.

At least they are filth.

In front of Stephen however sat the scum. He couldn’t tell which one is worse. The dealer who sells Red Ice to teens or the father who sells his daughter to a mega corp. This guy with his expensive Armani suit, accurate necktie and clean shave. He smelled of wealth. He radiated this sense of arrogance which only the scum of the city can possess.

“So we have an agreement then?”

The suit’s slick voice sounded damp in the dimly lit back room. Stephen took a deep breath. The air smelled of cold smoke and dried sweat. The sweat of fear.

“Fifty grand now. And another fifty on delivery. It’s a lot of money for that kind of job. You must be loving her badly.”

Stephen’s rough voice cut through the silence like a hacksaw. The suit’s slim smile faded.

The scum does not like being pointed at their sins. They never do. It shows them, they’re no way better than the filth they so much despise.

They shaked hands. The suit left. Stephen opened the suitcase. Fifty grand.

He emptied his whiskey glass.

Sold Out: 1

A word from the author: This is the first part of my serial story, which is supposed to grow into a short story or maybe even small novel. I’ll be posting a few paragraphs about once a day. Nothing is pre-planned in this story, I will write everything as it comes to my mind. Let’s see where this will lead to …

All she felt was cold when she woke up. It felt wet and damp. Thick rain drops splashed in her face. The pain in her head blurred vision and hearing.

Where was she?

She struggled to sit upright and gazed at her surroundings. A gutter. A back alley. She was sitting in a dirty pool of water. Her head almost burst of the pain when she looked up. She didn’t know what happened to her nor who she was.

But for some reason she knew she had to go on.

The young dark haired woman pulled herself up. She reached inside her red leather jacket and touched her rib cage. A flash of pain hushed about her face.

Then, step by step she went down the back alley.

Deep Thought going live ?

Wolfram Alpha. What does it sound like ? It sounds like technology to me. It may be a new beginning. A new way of understanding. The next Big Thing in the web.

Have you ever typed in a question in natural language in Google? Probably. Have you ever got a useful answer? Probably not. Wolfram Alpha is going to change that. It might even change the way we retrieve factual knowledge from the web. It will make us think about how we will use computers in 20 or 30 years from now.

Stephen Wolfram is the mind working behind Wolfram Alpha. He is known for developing the renowned computational software Matematica and his book A new Kind of Science.

In his latest blog post, Stephen talks about Wolfram|Alpha, where it came from and where it will go to. A very interesting read.

Fifty years ago, when computers were young, people assumed that they’d quickly be able to handle all these kinds of things.

And that one would be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer.

He also invited Nova Spivack to his labs to have a thourough look on the system. Nova reported his findings in a blog post over at TechCrunch.

Wolfram Alpha is like plugging into a vast electronic brain. It provides extremely impressive and thorough answers to a wide range of questions asked in many different ways[...]

One can hardly imagine where this will lead to if the technology turns out to actually working. I can only say, that I am excited!