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category: Service in Germany

Servicewüste Deutschland - Sky mal wieder

2016-02-01 - Tags: servicewueste sky tv

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category: Tweet --> global

Tweet: My week on Twitter: 1 Retweets, 15 Retweet Reach....

2016-01-26 - Tags: tweet

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category: Tweet --> global

Tweet: My week on Twitter: 1 Mentions, 2 Retweets, 590 Re...

2016-01-19 - Tags: tweet

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category: Tweet --> global

Tweet: ErgoDox EZ auf Deutsch | Stephans Blog - und auf d...

2016-01-17 - Tags: tweet

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category: global --> keyboards

Mechanical Keyboard Razer Blackwidow Chroma on the Mac

2015-07-27 - Tags: apple osx keyboard

Mechanical Keyboard – the Razer Blackwidow Chroma

I type a lot… at work, at home, on weekends and during the week. So I am a fan of good and high quality keyboards. I was experimenting a lot during the last decades (yes, that long ;-)) with several different keyboard types. Some of them were quite cool, but not really useful (like the „Fingerworks Touchstream LP“) or just quite ergonomic (like the Kinesis Freestyle or several of Microsofts Keyboards or the very old but good Siemens Ergonomic Keyboard). All of those were good in it’s way, but the best keyboards I ever had, were the mechanical ones. The good old IBM Keyboard Model M (at least I think it was called that way) – Clicky with Cherry switches and heavy like made of lead – but very cool to type on and everlasting.

After that, I was using a lot of „normal“ keyboards, they are quite simple, easy to use. But not as long lasting as the mechanical keyboards.

I was using the Apple-Keyboard (USB, including a number pad) for quite some time now, but I was missing some things there – and it started feeling a bit „fuzzy“ – worn out is probably the best term here. The keyboard is quite good, especially for its thickness (or should I say thinness). But it does not have the feel of the good old mechanical keyboards, we all loved…

So, I was thinking about buying a good mechanical keyboard for some time now. But if I spend money on that topic, I wanted it to be matching my needs quite good. What I was looking for, is actually not so hard to imagine:

as I’m a developer, I write a lot of code and text. So the keyboard should give a good typing experience
as I also like to play a game once in a while, I wanted to have some features like Anti-Ghosting, N-Key rollover etc.
as I also play and work a lot in the dark, I wanted the keyboard to be lit – preferably in a color of my choice.
as I do all that on a mac, the keyboard needs to at least be kind of mac OSX compatible
although I’m mostly not looking at the keyboard at all when typing (which makes the backlight a bit obsolete, but when playing a game in the dark, you sometimes need to find the right key to press by looking at the keyboard), I wanted it to be German layout. I was using an US-Layout keyboard for quite some time, that was working alright most of the time. But there were too many occasions, where I had to think about where the key is located, that I just wanted to press. This was annoying me a lot! A keyboard without any key labels printed on would be easier to use (like the DAS Keyboard ultimate).
in most cases, a fully programmable keyboard is a good choice, there you can redefine your keys to your liking. Especially if you have a windows layout on your keyboard, you’d might want to switch some keys.

Actually – there is no such keyboard having all those features! You can have a combination of two of those features, if at all. So, for some time, I was just stuck with my old Apple keyboard that came with my iMac…

Mechanical Keyboards

Why a mechanical Keyboard? And what is the difference?

First, the difference is the feeling when typing. If you ever tried a mechanical keyboard, you do not want to go back. If you work a lot on a computer, try a mechanical keyboard, just once. You will feel the difference immediately. But at first this might not only feel different, but odd. You need to get used to it. And actually you will have to learn typing on it to improve your typing a lot.

Technically speaking the difference is, that mechanical keyboards do have a dedicated switch for every key. Whereas the normal keyboards do have some kind of rubber bumper beneath every key (called rubber dome), you have to press down to close a circuit. This causes you to not feel when the key is sending its event (when it was activated), but to feel, when the key hits the bottom. Usually somewhere above that the key really fires. You don’t get proper feedback about, when a key was really pressed or not. This is something mechanical keyboards are way better in – well, at least those with the tactile switches (like Cherry MX-Blue or MX-Brown, see below).

There are different switch types, you might need to think about. Almost all keyboards are either using Cherry produced keys or at least compare their own keys with the ones from Cherry. There are more or less 3 major versions (there are a lot more, but as I see it, those are the most common ones):

Cherry MX-Blue: clicky switches, good feel when typed. Also a good audible feedback (you hear and feel the „click“)
Cherry MX-Brown: not that loud, and the click is weaker.
Cherry MX-Black: no click to be felt, but hard to press (special Version would be the MX-Red, which is the same as the MX-Black, but with a lower activation force)

There are mechanical keyboards en masse that work fine on a mac (DAS Keyboard ultimate for example – no printing on the keys makes it a perfect thing for typists). Most of them are considered to be „Gaming“ Keyboards why not check here. I’m not sure why, but I actually like to think those keyboards are perfect tools for professional workers on computers, too. I’m a fan of the clicky noise actually. You feel and hear the feedback from the key: „I was pressed now„. This actually makes it easier to detect typos during typing actually. Because you know, when you accidentally typed some key, or not.

The noise?

Well, this is something everybody needs to decide for him-/herself. In my experience, the „click“ on the MX-Blue switches is actually not that loud. What causes the noise is the keycap hitting the frame. This is way louder on all mechanical keyboards I tested than the actual click. Yes, the idea is, that you learn to type without hitting the bottom and creating this noise. But this is unfortunately not only very hard, but somewhat impossible. Well, when you are concentrating on it, it really works some time. But when you are writing in a rush, this definitely will make you „bottom out“ the keys which causes a lot of noise.

If you use a mechanical keyboard, you should try to get „Dampeners“ for Cherry MX-Switches. They are not really expensive (125 pieces about 10€) and usually easy to install. But it dampens the noise of „bottom out“ a lot! The people around you probably will like it way better.

Why a mechanical keyboard

There are several reasons for mechanical keyboards. Most of them are highly dependent on your own taste and way you type and work. But there are some advantages, that „normal“ rubber dome keyboards cannot provide:

the Feel. Of course, highly subjective. But everybody who is typing a lot, actually likes the feel of the mechanical switches (at least, everybody I talked to about this topic). In my experience it also increases your typing speed and reduces typos – at least in my case it does (and some other people, I talked to confirmed my assumption)
the durability. Where a normal rubberdome keyboard can take about 1-5 Million hits per key, the mechanical switches usually last between 20 and 60 million types (depending on manufacturer). This does not mean, that after 5 million types of the letter „A“ on a normal rubber dome keyboard will stop working. It just means, that it will feel „worn out“ – and will feel different than the key next to it, which maybe were hit a couple of thousand times less. And there will be some keys, hit more often than others (if you play games, probably WASD will be hit way more often then others)
(Not only) gamer options like N-Key Rollover and Anti-Ghosting. Although this is happening mostly when playing games, it can also happen when you’re a fast typer using your 10 fingers to type. N-Key-Rollover means, that it is possible to hit N keys simultaneously (where N is a number from 1 to 105 – some keyboards state they support real NKRO, which just means, there is no limit – which limits it to 105 – maximum number of keys on the board) and the computer will recognize every single keystroke. Sometimes there is a limit to that, so usually you wont get N-Key-Rollover higher than about 10. But actually, I only have 10 fingers, this should be enough 😉 Ghosting is the effect, that when you hit several keys simultaneously, either an additional key is being „pressed“ or one of the keys you press just won’t work. This is related especially to the way the normal keyboards are built.
customizability. For most of the mechanical keyboards, it is possible to get custom or just different keycaps. As most of them use the Cherry MX switches (or something compatible), you can just pull of a keycap and replace it by some other keycap of your choice. Different color, different printing, different material, different… whatever. This is actually very important for Mac users, as very often only windows layout keyboards are available. But with a couple of custom keycaps (or a whole set) you can easily change that

You need to decide for yourself, is that something you need or want to have. Especially as all this comes with a pricetag. There is also personal taste. Some people just don’t like the „clicky“ sound. Some people just love it. Some don’t need or like backlight, some love it.

If you consider buying a mechanical keyboard, just get your hands on one to play with it a bit. Maybe you can get one from a friend for some time. Be sure, you want to invest that money and that you have the right switchtype.

The right one?

As already mentioned, there is not a lot of options I could chose from…

If I only wanted a mechanical keyboard for the mac, this would be a solvable problem. There are plenty options to choose from. But as soon as Backlight comes into play, things get a lot harder. I did an extensive internet research and found many good options when it comes to mechanical keyboards only. If you have a list of features as I had, this is a bit harder. You actually find some keyboards, that are backlit, have good switches, and so on – but need software wich is not mac compatible. Darn… like the corsair keyboards – those actually looked also quite good.

One very interesting fact: all of those keyboards are labeled „gamer keyboards“. And are only available in windows layout. This is very astonishing, as the typing experience is – especially with the MX-Blue switches – very good! And I don’t really think these features are only valid for gamers. I actually like to have some makro keys on my keyboard.

This really sux… Mac Users are gamers! And there is obviously a lot of them, most game developers seem to know that as most of the games now are available for Mac and windows, very often at the same time. But hardware and „gadget“ manufacturers actually tend to ignore that fact.

Guys listen to this: There is money to make!!!!

So, when you do the internet search that I did, there actually are not many options left as stated several times above.

To be honest, the only options which kind of does match all the criteria mentioned above is the „Razer Blackwidow Chroma“ (the Ultimate would be ok, too. But the backlight color is only green and it was not so much cheaper than the chroma) and some keyboards that were only lit in blue or red and did not need any driver (like the Code2 Keyboard). But when I compare the prices of those with the blackwidow, I took the blackwidow – it was actually cheaper then some others (even without backlighting) or at least at the same price level.

I am aware that the Blackwidow actually has a windows layout printed on the keys. That is a drawback, but it has all other features.

I’m typing with the Blackwidow just now, and it feels great. The Razer-Green switches seem to be comparable to the Cherry MX Blue ones (loud clicky). It feels really cool, the typing experience is great.
Anti-Ghosting and N-Key rollover is of course a feature of the BlackWidow
The keyboard has backlight – you can choose from 16,8 mio colors – actually for each key individually (or change it, when typing it or change it, depending on the running application… very very cool feature! I have different profiles for Safari, XCode, IntelliJ etc. Profiles contain different Macros and keybindings. Very cool feature!)
Here it comes: although not really stated on the Website of Razer (http://www.razerzone.com/), it works with OSX! There is a driver software available for current MacOSX which gives Mac Users the opportunity to use all of the cool features of the Blackwidow chroma. I actually just don’t understand, why this is not stated explicitly on the website?!?!? actually, there is a statement somewhere there that you „cannot use the windows version with the mac driver“. Well – there is no „Windows“ or „Mac“ Version there… really strange.
The chroma is available in German Layout, all keys are there. But unfortunately only windows style. This is sub optimal, but ok. I can live with it, as long as all other keys work right.

The driver software called „Synapse 2.0“ is nice, but the registration has to be done online. You need to register there in order to have your keyboard working properly…. This is… not really good. For those of you, who are capable of doing: install a firewall rule after registration, then everything still works locally but no data is being transferred.

But the registration-process actually sucks… big time! I was waiting about 48 hours to get my registration email including the activation link. Without activation, I could not use the keyboard. Arg… This is really annoying.

But the software works like charm. You can specify a color for every key, and you can reprogram every key! This is very important for Mac users, as you need to switch ALT and Window keys. And – this cannot be done in the keyboard settings of the mac – you need to change the key for the „menu“ key to ALT – otherwise you’re screwed 😉

Light show of the keyboard

Well, I was actually thinking about just having the backlight in one color – all keys the same. Of course, this is not the use of an RGB-backlit keyboard. But as mentioned above already, I think the profiles are very useful. Each profile stores different lighting effect (for each key individually) and different Macro settings. Even the keyboard may change between profiles. Switching between profiles can either be done by hitting FN+Number (depending on what is configured in Synapse 2.0), or depending on the current active Application! This is really awesome! Different lighting effects and different macro settings per Application – this is really useful, not only for gamers! Especially not for Gamers, I’d assume. But this depends, on personal use… I definitely love it.

The other lighting effects are somewhat… juvenile, if you know what I mean. It does not make really sense to show the siluette of Mario (of Mario Bros) on your keyboard, while typing. This is just for showing of at LAN Parties or alike. Especially effects like the „Ripple“-Effect where a wave of a certain colur rippels over your keyboard, is especially un-useful. If you type more then two keystrokes a second, you will just end up with a fully lit keyboard.

But I have to admit, these lightshows are fun to look at. And even fun to program them and play with them… maybe not enough reason to buy the keyboard, but definitely a gimmick.

Verdict

When you get the keyboard, you’ll first notice, that there is quite some weight. And that is a good thing. The keyboard lies rock solid on my desk, does not move an inch when typing. Love that.

The typing is really similar to typing with MX-Blue switches. The sound is also very alike. I could not tell the difference just by hearing it. The keyboard feels quite good, feels high-class. I hear that people tend to say that Razer keyboards would have a cheep feeling, or would use cheep components. And although they don’t use the original cherry switches, it really feels alike.

I only use the keyboard about a week now, but I really like it. The typing is a lot easier and faster here than on the usual rubberdome keyboards. I love the typing experience. And the backlighting is quite cool! Just looks awesome! I configured my keyboard to have different key colors depending on which application I am just using. This is very helpful. Actually even more helpful than the backlighting alone. I’m really happy that I got an RGB-Backlit keyboard. This features is something I’d really miss on other keyboards.

Example: I am developing very often, sometimes in the dark. When I sit there, the keyboard is in front of me, not really „under“ me. So, when I need to find the right F-Key for doing the job (debugging for example), I find it very helpful to have those keys lit in different colors: Green ⇒ Run, Orange ⇒ Debug, Blue ⇒ Step over, Yellow ⇒ Step into

Although those features are „Gamers“ features, I really like them not only for gaming. Or better: especially not for gaming.

I heard, there will be an API or SDK for programming the keyboard directly. Of course again this is aimed at game developers. But maybe it is possible to write some useful things for us developers there as well (like: in your IDE, when actually debugging, change the color of some keys, change macros etc)

Of course, there are some things that are not that good, I have to mention as well. For example the indicator lights for „Gaming Mode“, Caps Lock, Macro recording and such. These are above the number pad and are so faintly lit, that you almost cannot see them, especially when the rest of the keyboard is lit bright. This really looks like they never used that switches at all.

Although the backlight itself is very cool and looks awesome, it is really strange that the keys are somewhat selectively lit – for example the very important FN-Key does not shine through. You won’t be able to read it, when it’s dark and you depend on the backlight feature. Same with the multimedia functions on the F-Keys. Does not shine through, not visible in the dark. Or even the Shift-Symols on Number line, like !“§ etc. not shown. Strangely, the additional Braces []{} are shown… this is inconsequent and not really understandable.

There are some reviews in the internet, that the keyboard would produce errors after a short amount of time. I will hope, mine won’t show these kind of errors. If so, I will post an update here. I really like the feeling of the Blackwidow and really like typing on it. It is way more fun, than I thought it would be.

So, if you are looking for a new keyboard, even Gamer keyboards might be worth a try.

Update after one month

I still like typing on the Razor Blackwidow Chroma – a lot! But there are some issues, I’d like to share:

it is a shame, that Synapse forces you to be online. Sometimes I have to disable the firewall rule in order to have Synapse „call home“. Otherwise it would not start up
When the Mac is awaking from hibernation (or sometimes even from Screensaver), the blackwidow would not come up „completely“. Meaning, some keys just don‘t work at all. They are not reakting on your reactive lighning animations and – of course – the corresponding key is not working at all. When this happens, you need to disconnect the Chroma from your Mac completely and reconnect it – usually the Keys work fine after that
I did not manage to geht the <|>-Key (lower row, left, besides the y) to work at all! It would not fire an event to the system! I managed to get it to work somehow with Karabiner and setting a macro at this key

All in all this lowers the good first impression a bit….

UPDATE:

I use the chroma now for about 2 months and typing on it is a pleasure, gaming with it also… I love the opportunity to change the backlight with every game. Really cool…

Today there was an update for the Synapse software. And I was hoping to get my issues with the <>-Key resolved. Well, was hoping for too much. Actually, I was hoping things would work as they used to! But here also – hoping for too much.

The update is really somewhat annoying. The Razer-Updater freezes for a couple of minutes. I was tempted to force quit it, but it came back. This could be done better @Razer!

Problem gets worse: After the update, the synapse detected my keyboard as a US-Version, there is the key <> missing at all. And this caused problems. I restarted the app and voila – had to relogin and all my settings were gone! Comletely blank configuration, all macros, all backlight configuration, everything just gone!

Here is my tip: Export your settings from time to time, than you wont lose your macros – but the lightning seetings are gone!

I am in contact with some guy from the razer support. I told him, that the key actually works in synapse, that I can assign macros to it. But that is something, he does not want to understand. So the first 3-4 mails I told him, that this is probably not a hardware related issue.

Nevertheless, there was no help from the razer support yet, although there were about 10 mails send in both directions.

After the latest update, now the right ALTGR and Application keys are not working anymore. I wanted to reassign them in the synapse software, but if i map them to left command / left alt, they are fireing both alt and command when pressed. This renders the keyboard almost useless! Hope I can get a fix soon….

category: Computer

Stephans Blog wieder online...

2015-06-12 - Tags: allgemein blog

no english version available yet

Das war stressig. Zum Umzug kam noch hinzu, dass mein Server die Grätsche gemacht hat. Ich musste neu installieren. Was ja – dank Backups – eigentlich kein allzu großer Aufwand wäre, hätte ich nicht vergessen, ein Backup von der Datenbank zu machen… Deswegen jetzt der neue Start des alten Blogs ;-)

category: global --> keyboards

ErgoDox EZ in German on a Mac

2015-05-22 - Tags: ergodox ergodox-ez keyboard keyboard tastatur

The ErgoDox EZ in German on a Mac

This introduction and review is already available in German here. Yes, I admit, I was following the Indiegogo campagne of the ErgoDox-EZ quite a while. And since about 5 days now I'm a proud owner of an ErgoDox-EZ keyboard! Details about the campaign and the ErgoDox-EZ can be found here.

Unfortunately the keyboard was designed for the english speaking areas and does have it's issues with international layouts. Hence it also has problems with the German layout - that means, when setting the operating system to German, the keys are not at the place they should be. At least not with the default firmware. Most of the special characters were "somewhere" on the keyboard - ok, that could be learned. And you need to get used to this keyboard a bit. But some of the umlauts (öäüß) were spread around the keyboard as well. This made fluent typing (if you're touch-typing you know what I mean) nearly impossible. Well, the internet states this keyboard is fully programmable, everybody can make his own layout. Ok, this was not as easy as it sounds, but not as hard as it could be. Especially because I did not only want to fix the German layout, I also wanted to address other issues as well:

as already mentioned, the umlauts were spread across the keyboard, often in the lowest row of keys. They should return to the usual QWERTZ-location
I did have problems with the space key only being on the left side of the keyboard, as I'm typing space with both thumbs. (update: after using that, I learnt that having space on the right, having backspace on the left works way better!)
the location of CMD-keys was a bit bad * the ALT-keys were also a bit awkwardly located
I liked the idea of different layers, but the "Coder"-layer was not working with a German layout - about 70% of the keys were just sending the wrong keycodes (sometimes even umlauts) - that means, that about 70% of the keys were actually there, but at a wrong place. And the places were mixed up a lot. So, this thing is so greatly programmable, I read. let's go - how does that work? Well, this was kind of a setback, as this was not easy to find. There are a lot of github projects and forum discussion around the ErgoDox, but not really a simple howto. Thanks to Erez Zukerman (he initiated the indiegogo campagne) and that he replied after just a couple of hours after each of my questions (including the different time zones!), it did not take that long to get into the topic. Now, compiling a new custom firmware for the ErgoDox-EZ is no big deal anymore.

Disclaimer: what I describe here, are my findings, things that worked well for me. I'm not claiming this to be complete, or fitting for everybody (e.g. I cover only OSX German here). And, of course, this is probably not free of errors and faults. So, if you use these information, it's your responsibility. And please, read further documentation.

DE-Layout for the ErgoDox EZ on a Mac

I try to address all the issues mentioned above and created a first version of such a layout - it can be downloaded

here. Feel free to test it... This is what the layout looks like: There are some features I'd like to point out:

There are 4 layers in total, default layer (all normal keys), symbol or coder layer (containing all kinds of brackets, symbols etc which come in handy when coding), the media layer (there you can control the mouse and it contains multimedia keys like play/pause, volume up/down...) and last but not least a number block.
All umlauts are at their usual location * Because the umlauts are at their usual location, some of the special characters had to be moved to the lowest row of keys (like #)
the cmd and alt keys are now in the middle of the keyboard (on both halfs), CTRL is where the upper cursor keys were located. So, CTRL, CMD and ALT are located in a vertical row on the "inner" edge of each half of the ErgoDox EZ.
There is a space key on each half located in the thumb block
the tab and ESC-Keys were moved to their default location
the Caps-Lock-key is a layer switch now (as I don't use Caps-Lock at all)
several keycodes (like CTRL) are defined on multiple locations due to several reasons: sometimes I like to type for example CTRL on the right, sometimes on the left half of the keyboard, depending on the context. and I did not always know what to put at a certain key - too many keys there :) As already mentioned, this is a layout that works for me quite ok now. I will probably improve it over time (fortunately that is possible). It is opensource and available in github. Maybe you have additional ideas, how to improve things. Or you create your own custom firmware. But this is just the beginning...

Beginners guide / howto for ErgoDox on a (german) Mac

As we speak about beginning. I did not find a good howto, how to start with the ErgoDox-EZ on the Mac, especially with a mapping the keys and such, creating a custom firmware. There is an english wiki being created right now

here. No real how to or similar. But there are actually not many steps necessary to alter an existing layout, compile a new firmware and finally upload it to the ErgoDox-EZ (sometimes called "flashing" the device). But before we get to that, let's just explain some terms you'll read all the time when looking for information about the ErgoDox.

ErgoDox vs ErgoDox-EZ

The ErgoDox keyboard is already available quite some time now and could be ordered at massdrop.com. Unfortunately, it was necessary to build the opensource keyboard yourself. That means, you'd get a lot of parts, you need to put together, soldering them , build a case, etc... And this is not working for everybody, as some of us do not have the time for such a DIY-project, or simply lack the knowledge and craftsmanship. And: if a little mistake happens, you end up with a really beatuiful, but not working keyboard. This is where Erez Zukerman comes in - his indiegogo project addresses exactly that by creating a real product out of an opensource DIY-keyboard. A product, you can buy, like any other product, including warranty and support. But still: everything still is opensource, including the things that are built right now especially for the ErgoDox EZ (like custom firmware)

massdrop

At massdrop.com the first version of the ErgoDox (not EZ!) could be bought. As mentioned above, this was just a bag full of parts, you needed to do all the soldering and building it up from scratch. But at massdrop you get a configurator which is capable of creating .hex files directly and visually. You can create your layout there and end up with a file you can directly flash on your ErgoDox. There are some issues when it comes to non-standard keycodes, though. So I did not find a way to do the

long type or other special functionalities there. That's why I took the manual approach. If you only need a simple layout, without fancy stuff, the configurator on massdrop might be the easiest way to create a working .hex-file.

Teensy

This actually is the hardware the ErgoDox (and the ErgoDox-EZ) is built upon. This is not very important, only if you wanted to build an own custom firmware from another code base. You also need to upload the firmware to the ErgoDox, if you want to change the layout. On a mac you can use the tool

teensy loader, which is named after the hardware. This tool takes some .hex-files and uploads it to your ErgoDox. You can download your copy here.

QMK Firmware

This is the standard firmware for the ErgoDox-EZ. You can guess by the way I'm saying that, that there are probably some other alternatives out there. And on github you can find some of those. I did not dive into that topic yet, I'll stick to the "original" for now.

.hex-Files

As already mentioned above, the firmware for the ErgoDox-EZ (or more precise for the Teensy Microcontroller) es stored in .hex-files after compiling. Only those files are needed. When you compile, you end up with a whole bunch of new files (like .sym, .obj and alike) which are not really necessary. You only need the .hex file.

How to install a new firmware

This is rather simple if you already have a proper firmware file in .hex-format. Some examples of those can be downloaded from the official repository here. This is the firmware project repository for the QMK-Firmware - there is a subdirectory ´keyboard/ergodox-ez/keymaps´ where you can find some of those .hex-files. My version of the layout can be downloaded here. To install this file, you only need to follow these easy steps: 1. Download the .hex file (if you compile it yourself, you end up with such a file also) 2. Open the App Teensy Loader (see above - Teensy). Then take a paperclip and klick the button on the keyboard on the upper right (there is a little hole in the case). This brings your ErgoDox EZ into programming mode. 3. Open the .hex file (first icon from the left - looks like a document icon) 4. To upload (aka flash) the firmware file to your keyboard, click on the 2nd button from the left ("rounded" Arrow). You'll see a progress bar during the upload process. 5. now klick on the reboot button (small arrow, 3rd icon from the left) After that, your new firmware is installed and used. You should see your changes now. I experienced some kind of "failures" after the reboot, like, the keyboard was stuck in a certain mode, the left half of the keyboard would not react... but I could fix it by just unplugging it and replugging it after a couple of seconds. I flashed the ErgoDox-EZ now about a dozen times, and in maybe a 3rd of those cases, an error like described happened. All could be fixed in no-time. So, don't panic!

howto create your own firmware

To do this, you need to do some preparations. As already mentioned I only consider MacOSX here - I did not try the ErgoDox on Linux or Windows. You should install brew.sh. If you have macports installed, you might end up with an error. We need to install a so called cross compiler. This is a compiler, that produces code not for the hardware it is currently running on, but something completely different. In our case this is the Teensy 2 microcontroller. If you use macports you'd have to find, how to install this crosscompiler. With ´brew´ the installation is just a few lines: brew tap osx-cross/avr brew install avr-libc after that you need to checkout the project from github. Details you can find there, but this is the command, you need (creates a folder in current directory):

git clone https://github.com/jackhumbert/qmk_firmware.git
 now go to the directory

qmk_firmware/keyboards/ergodox_ez. for testing, you should run make there, this will create the default layout .hex file in this directory. The file is called ergodox_ez.hex. If you end up with an error message, take a close look. Probably you only need to install some tools or something. If you want to create a different than the default layout, you need to store the name of your layout into some environment Variable: export KEYMAP=osx_de if you run make now, this layout will be created. If the corresponding C-File exists in the directory

keymaps (here the filename is keymap_osx_de.c. You can easily change an existing C-File, create a completely new one (not recommended), or copy an existing C-File and alter it to your liking. You only need to change the environment variable accordingly. If you need additional information about what possibilities you have with this C-Files and what is possible, have a close look at the project documentation. I really hope, this little howto is helpful for you and your new ErgoDox-EZ!

Features of the ErgoDox-EZ - layout programming details

As you now know, how to compile and upload a new firmware, let's have a look at the features, you might use in those firmwares. I call the process of defining the layout for your keyboard in C-Files "layout programming" - it is not real programming, although there a datascructures involved, some C-experience is surely beneficial. But it is not real programming... you usually do not need to do loops, if-then-else or something. But you need to know some things.

Keycodes

First, every key can be programmed so send any keycode a keyboard might have (and actually mouse also). So, it would be possible, to change the position of keys completely (e.g. DVORAK, NEO or ADNW layouts. All alternatives to the existing QWERTY/Z layout). You could also create a special layout for a special purpose. Like a special software, where you actually do not type a lot, but really use hotkeys and shortcuts. (like in a game or other special purpose software, CAD, PhotoEditing... whatever you use). In the QMK-Firmware, every of those layouts needs a corresponding C-File (see above). In this C-File there is the layout defined as an array of 64bit integer values, every

place in this array determines the key, the value of this determines the keycode that is going to be send from this key when pressed (or released...). Imagine the keys are numbered from the top left, to the bottom right, each half of the keyboard separately. So in my layout, the first keycode in this array defining it is the ESC-Key. The name for that in the C-File is KC_ESC. All "raw" keycodes have the prefix KC_, there are international definitions of keycodes also with their corresponding prefix for the country (like, DE_), but in my case, those keycodes were meant for Windows, not OSX. But that is no big deal, just think about what you would type.

Layers

You can have several of those layouts defined in the c-file. Actually, the data structure is an array of arrays, the latter ones defining a layout each. So, when you switch between layout, you can completely redefine the whole keys (with one exception - the key you use for switching between layers, see below) There is one keycode defined, called KC_TRNS, which actually is no real keycode but telling the firmware, "if this key is pressed, use the keycode from the layer below the current one". This does not work with the first (base) layout in your configuration, because we need to have something defined to fall back on. So, when you start up the keyboard, you start with that layer 0, the base layer. When you hit one of those layer switches, you switch to a different layer, lets say layer 3. That means, layer 3 is on top of layer 0. If you have any keys defined as KC_TRNS in layer 3, pressing one of them when switched to that layer, acutally issues the keycode from layer 0. And to make things a bit more complicated: you can actually stack those layers. You could define a layer switch with one key, pressing anotherone will add a layer to that stack. KC_TRNS will then fallback to the layer below in the current stack. This feature could be used, if you need a similar behaviour like with ALT and SHIFT. Think about it: when you Press shift, the keys switch all to upper case, when you press alt, some special characters occur. But when you hit both, the layout changes again, at least for some keys. Acutally, this stacking of layouts is pretty standard. We just were not aware of it... With that you could create your own more or less simple layout, without any layers or any fancy features like long type or something. This is - at least as I understood it - what you can get from the massdrop configurator.

Special keypresses

But there are features, you might enjoy...

you can not only send a simple keycode, but also one in combination with a modifier (like shift, alt, cmd, ctrl... and so on). This can be done easily by adding for example LSFT to your keycode, LSFT(KC_7) would send a shift 7 keycode - usually the /. In this case it is actually pressing the left shift for doing that, but that usually does not make much of a difference.
you can make a key not sending a real keycode but making a switch to a different layer. in the DE-Layout this is actually done with the "Tab"-key, just switches to and out of the cursor layer. Please keep in mind: your layer-switch key, should always be defined to have the keycode KC_TRNS in the target layer, otherwise you might not be able to switch back. Toggling a layer on and of is done with the function TG(), as parameter you give the number of the layer you want to toggle, like TG(3) which would switch to your layout on index 3 (always starting at 0 (baselayout), this is the 4th layer!).

you have the option to define keys to behave differently when pressed long or just typed quickly. This is useful for modifiers. You can have the hyper key issued when pressed long, but when typed it sends a normal keycode. There are actually several ways of achieving this behaviour. First you can use the method LT() where in the brackets you add two arguments. First the layer it shoul switch to, when pressed long, the 2nd one is the keycode to be issued when typed. The other way is to use functions with the suffix _T, like CTL_T(). This one means, issue the keycode for control when pressed and held, but send the keycode given as argument, when typed. In my layout definition this is used for the Y and Minus-key to be also used as CTRL. Which comes in quite handy some times. with that you can define quite some layout - take a look at the baselayout for the osx_de version:

//Base layer KEYMAP(

    KC_ESC,                  DE_1,         DE_2,   DE_3,   DE_4,   DE_5,   DE_6,
    KC_TAB,                  DE_Q,         DE_W,   DE_E,   DE_R,   DE_T,   KC_LGUI,
    KC_LALT,                   DE_A,         DE_S,   DE_D,   DE_F,   DE_G,
    KC_LSFT,                 CTL_T(DE_Y),  DE_X,   DE_C,   DE_V,   DE_B,   KC_LALT,
    LT(SYMB,DE_LESS),        M(M_DE_CIRC_CTRLCMD),      M(M_DE_PLUS_CTRLALT), LALT(KC_LSFT),  LGUI(KC_LSFT),
                                                                    M(M_MEH_SH_ACUT),       TG(2),
                                                                                            KC_HOME,
                                                                    KC_BSPC,KC_DEL,         LT(SMLY,KC_END),
    // right hand
         M(M_CTRL_CMDC),  DE_7,   DE_8,   DE_9,   DE_0,   DE_SS,            DE_HASH,
         KC_RGUI,     DE_Z,   DE_U,   DE_I,   DE_O,   DE_P,                 DE_UE,
                      DE_H,   DE_J,   DE_K,   DE_L,   DE_OE,                ALT_T(DE_AE),
         KC_RALT,     DE_N,   DE_M,   DE_COMM,DE_DOT, CTL_T(DE_MINS),       KC_RSFT,
                              KC_LEFT,  KC_UP,KC_DOWN,KC_RIGHT,        LT(SYMB,DE_PLUS),
         TG(4),       ALL_T(DE_ACUT),
         KC_PGUP,
         KC_PGDN,KC_ENT, KC_SPC
),

One additional thing you should consider. When you have more than let's say two layers, it would be very useful to show the user, which layout is currently active. This is best done using the 3 different LEDs on the keyboard. To define that, you need to have a look at the method

matrix_scan_user. There you can do something depending on the currently active layer. In the case of the osx_de-layout, it looks like this:

void * matrix_scan_user(void) {

  uint8_t layer = biton32(layer_state);

  ergodox_board_led_off();
  ergodox_right_led_1_off();
  ergodox_right_led_2_off();
  ergodox_right_led_3_off();
  switch (layer) {
    // TODO: Make this relevant to the ErgoDox EZ.
    case 1:
        ergodox_right_led_1_on();
        break;
    case 2:
        ergodox_right_led_2_on();
        break;
    case 3:
        ergodox_right_led_3_on();
        break;
    case 4:
        ergodox_right_led_1_on();
        ergodox_right_led_3_on();
        break;
    default:
        // none
        break;
  }

};

I think this is more or less self explaining. The every case statement defines what to do for each layer. So for layer 0 (not listed here) all LED will be off. For layer 1, the led 1 will be on (the red one)... and so on. This function is called periodocally in a loop, so there you could add any other custom code, if you liked. These are the major features, I needed to implement my layout. There are more features, that might be useful (like stacked layers), but for now things work fine. I will work on improvements, if you have any suggestions, just leave me a note...

ErgoDox-EZ - Should you buy it?

Actually, that is a tough question. I think, it was worth it. But I use the keyboard only a couple of days now. I was quite fond of my "Razer Blackwidow" also and that changed over time. In this very moment when I'm typing this text I can only say, it feels very worthy, the switches feel like Cherry (but they aren't), the feedback is good as expected from a mechanical keyboard. Of course these switches do make som noise, you do not only get tactile feedback, but also audible one - I like that noise, but this is maybe not everybodys way of working. I installed dampener rings on the keys in order to reduce the sound wen typing through. But I actually like this "noise" a lot and it motivates me. But that is my personal opinion. And I ordered the ErgoDox-EZ with that Switches that are comparable with the Cherry blue ones, but there are different options. For me the ErgoDox-EZ is very close to the perfect keyboard. There are some things that might be missing (LED backlighting maybe). But I really like it. Right now, I like typing with the ErgoDox-EZ, it also helps me to go easy on my elbows and wrists, which are somewhat aching after a long day. This was one major reason in getting an ergonomic keyboard. I will maybe also create a ADNW-Layout (neo2 based layout, optimized for German and English typing), but that is a very different thing....

Update after one week: Still like typing a lot with the ErgoDox. Especially as i got my custom layout up and running. It makes things a lot more smooth. Typing is a breeze... Also, I have to say, the support from Erez and his team is great! Thanks again. I am really astonished, how quickly I could adjust to the new keyboard. After just a couple of days, it really felt awkward typing on a normal keyboard again. This actually is a good sign!

update after some weeks of use

I got used to the ErgoDox quite fast. Really still like typing on it. And I learned some things about my own layout: having space on both sides of the keyboard is actually not that great. I miss having the delete key easily accessible. So... I removed the space key on the left side of the keyboard and replaced it with backspace, putting the current backspace to be a DEL-key. This seems to work ok... And: I really was not using the CTRL-keys on the upper row. Used the keys on both pinky fingers for CTRL. That works better actually. I put CMD-C / CMD-V there... at least for now. Maybe I'll experiment with macros there... Did not come up with a better solution for that... Also still looking for something useful to put on the Caps-Lock-Key... right now its only a mode / layer switch. Did not come up with something fancy for that yet.

Annother update - one month in to 2016

I really like typing on the ErgoDox EZ, it feels great, I'm quite fast and my layout seems to be working fine now for me. Although I needed to add some additional features:

Smiley Macro Layer

I thought I need to play a bit with macros and wanted to put some things I often type there. So I decided to create a smiley layer. This is available in the currently merged version of the firmware. When pressing the lowest, rightest key on the left halfs keyboard thumb block you temporarily enter this layer and can type smileys with the right hand side! Works like charm! 😉 :-D EgoShooter Layer The default layout I have created is optimal for typing (at least for me) - but it did not work at all for EgoShooters like Counterstrike global offensive or alike. I had to create an additional layer. But I did not want to waste a key just for switching to this layer, and - obviously - did not want to have a key pressed all the time in order to be "temporarily" in that layer. I wanted to switch from one layer to this new layer and only there... Right now, when enter the symbol / coder layer you can switch to the ego shooter layer by typing the top left key on the right keyboard half. Then all 3 LEDs will be on indicating that you are ready to go for some serious ego shooting ;-) The changes are more or less minimal: * left side backspace becomes space * left side delete becomes control * left side < / symbol layer switch becomes Ctrl * the outer thumb keys on the left side become F1-F4 maybe there will be some additional changes to this, but right now, it seems to work quite good. Happy fraggin'

** Another Month - another update **

Still love typing on the ergodox, but I start feeling uncomfortable writing on a "normal" keyboard. I had to install the "reinforcement kit" last week, as I got one of the ErgoDox-EZ' with a slight fault (look here)

For some reason, I did not like having the numbers on the right side starting with 6, I wanted them to start with 7. So I changed the layout to reflect that. That works fine for me and has some advantages:

I could put the # to the top right key
I could put the F12 there as well
the 6 is now on the left side, top rightmost key. This was CMD-V before. Missing that to some extend. I'll have to have a look for that.

as some time went by, here is a new update again

I played with the layout a bit again. I did not like the asymmetric shape of the numbers, and it did not really work well. I changed a lot of things today:

moving cursor key layout back to the "deafult" ergodox
adding ISO-Cursor keys to the symbol layer
adding a CTRL-SHIFT key on the rightmost, topmost key on the left half
needed to move the # somewhere useful. Put it on the topleft key on the right half
some fixes, especially adding a , to the number pad. This caused problems with typing some numbers already

maybe this is the best layout for my case. I was astonished how hard it is to get rid of the "used" positions of keys. And I actually do not like to move things to totally different locations - this would mean I cannot type on an usual keyboard anymore fluently. And this is not working with carrying the macbook from meeting to meeting.

really like playing with the programming of the ergodox! this is fun. And it will improve the layout over time. Still need to find some way to build these layout pictures somewhat more easily - right now is's pain!

** Update on documentation **

The layout went through some iterations till today and for now it seems to be ok. Go check it out at github. There is also a new Project I created that (for now) helps me createing a png of the layout so that you get a better overview. Later this might be used to create layouts as well.

Check the post here and the github page here

the current layout looks like this:

category: Apple --> Computer

Have to dump my favorite Mail Client due to Exchange

2015-03-25 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: Apple --> Computer

Opinion: iOS or Android or Apple vs. the World

2014-09-17 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: Computer --> Apple

OSX 10.10 Yosemite & iOS 8 - erste Erfahrungen

2014-08-13 - Tags: osx

no english version available yet.

Natürlich musste ich mir auch ios8 installieren, wo ich doch schon mit Yosemite ganz gut fahre. Wobei so langsam einige kleinere Bugs auftauchen. In meinem letzten Post zu dem Thema habe ich ja schon einige Bugs erwähnt, es kommen aber noch einige dazu, insbesondere in den Einstellungen stimmt die Ansicht nicht immer mit den wirklichen eingestellten Werten überein.

Continuity und HandOff

Was allerdings wirklich nervig ist, ich schaffe es nicht meinen iMac mit meinem hier im Büro erstellten Wlan einzuhängen. Er geht nur über Kabel ins Netz. Das ist auch der Grund, warum Continuity und Handoff hier nicht funktioniert, denn dazu müssen die Geräte ja im selben WLan sein – IP-Netz reicht offensichtlich nicht aus.

Hier ist es so, dass alle Geräte, egal ob über Kabel oder Wlan angeschlosen im selben Subnetz sind. Anpingen der Geräte untereinander funktioniert, allerdings weigert sich der iMac seit Yosemite standhaft, sich ins Wlan einzubuchen.Roblox Hack Free Robux

wobei das nicht ganz stimmt, er bucht sich ein, bekommt aber keine IP-Adresse. Auch wenn ich die manuell vergebe, funktioniert kein Datentransfer, nicht mal Ping funktioniert – da stimmt wohl was mit der Verschlüsselung nicht

Ein test mit einem Apple AirPort Extreme hat dagegen reibungslos funktioniert. Klar, dass die neue Software erst mal mit der Hardware aus dem eigenen Hause getestet wird. Und auch klar, es ist Beta Software. Und da MUSS es ja noch Bugs geben… Insofern alles ok.

Neues Feature: Markup

Ein Feature, dass ich im letzten Post unterschlagen habe ist die neue Markup Funktion in Mail. Wenn man ein Attachment in eine Mail hinzufügt, kann man (je nach Dateityp), Markierungen in der Datei machen (wenn es sinn macht – bei Audio-Dateien geht das nicht. Bei PDF, PNG’s etc sehr wohl).

Wenn man das oben gezeigte Menü aufklappt und dort auf „Markierungen“ geht, kann man in der Datei (hier ein Screenshot) „rummalen“… allerdings funtkioniert das etwas besser als „üblich“. Normalerweise sehen mit der Maus gezeichnete Markierungen meist aus wie das Gekritzel eines 3-Jährigen. Hier jedoch werden die eingegebenen Formen erkannt. Apple Mail macht da auch einen recht guten Job mit der erkennung. Meine „Kreise“ sehen mit der Maus gezeichnet wirklcih eher krakelig aus, aber Mail erkennt den Kreis. Auch Dreiecke und Vierecke funktioineren ganz gut.

Macht man eine Linie und am „Ziel“ einen Spitzen Winkel erhält man einen Pfeil – meist etwas gebogen. Aber nachbearbeiten kann man ja auch immer noch.

Des Weiteren kann man auch seine Unterschrift (ähnlich wie das in Mavericks bei Vorschau.app geht) einfügen oder Formen oder Text.

Bei der erstellung der Screenshots für diesen Post ist mir genau diese Funktion allerdings mehrmals abgeschmiert. Läuft also noch nicht ganz Rund das mit dem markup. Aber die Idee ist super!

iOS8

Das Update hat auf den ersten Blick recht wenig neues gebracht (fotos dazu gibt’s ja zur Genüge). Klar, die neue Tastatur bemerkt man recht schnell. Aber sonst sind sich iOS7 und 8 sehr ähnlich. Man kann nicht auf den ersten Blick einen Unterschied ausmachen. Erst die Details machen es.

Stabil scheint Die iOS8 Beta 5 auch zu sein – zumindest auf meinem iPad funktioniert (fast) alles reibungslos. Ein paar Kleinigkeiten klemmen schon noch, wie z.B. dass die Multitasking-Bedienung nicht immer funktioniert oder das einige Apps nicht wirklich kompatibel sind. Aber das wird sich sicher noch ändern.

Da einzige, was wirklich auffällt, ist die neue „Tipps“-App. Da werden einem ein paar Hilfestellungen für den Umgang mit iOS8 gegeben. Die spotlight-Suche wurde auch verbessert und macht was her….

die Erinnerungen-App ist jetzt etwas „Bunter“ aber vom Funktionsumfang her nicht wirklich „gewachsen“.

Neu ist natürlich auch die Möglichkeit, per iMessage Sprachnachrichten zu verschicken, Dafür gibt es neben dem Eingabefeld für den zu sendenden Text ein kleines Mikro. Tippt man da drauf, kann man eine Nachricht aufnehmen und dann versenden. Wirklich praktisch, wenn man grad nicht so viel tippen kann.

Siri soll angeblich auch leistungsfähiger geworden sein, aber das kann ich im Moment nicht bestätigen. Die Erkennungsrate ist bei mir genauso gut oder schlecht wie vorher und so wirklich eine Neuerung in dem Normalen Umgang habe ich jetzt nicht gesehen. aber das kann ja noch kommen.

Sonst ist iOS8 auch recht gut geglückt, die Stabilität ist für ein Stück Beta-Software wirklich ganz ok.

category: Service in Germany

nie wieder 1und1

2014-08-07 - Tags: servicewüste

No translation available - this is an old entry from 2014!

Nie wieder 1und1

jetzt bin ich schon seit ziemlich genau 20 Minuten in der Warteschlange von 1und1. Und warum das ganze? Lasst mich von vorne beginnen...

Wie alles begann...

Ich war eigentlich Kunde bei 1und1 sowohl mit DSL als auch mit meinem Root-Server. Damals haben die mich echt geärgert und ich konnte den DSL-Vertrag nicht kündigen obwohl ich ca. 8 Wochen weder Internet noch Telefon hatte. Das ist eine andere Geschichte... Der Root-Server aus dieser Zeit lief aber bisher eigentlich immer noch ganz gut... ich konnte nicht meckern. Irgendwann, weil ich nicht mehr so viele Kunden auf dem Server hatte, habe ich den Server in einen virtuellen Server umgewandelt. Auch im Zuge dessen ,dass der Root-Server schon in die Jahre gekommen ist (5 Jahre ist schon ein Alter für so einen Rechner). ##Root-Server zu VServer Der Umzug gestaltete sich 1und1-typsisch super umständlich. Es gab da keine Möglichkeit den Server direkt umzuziehen oder irgendwie eine Migrationshilfe (wie es andere Anbieter anbieten). Das ist ja eigentlich auch kein Problem, schließlich bringe ich den Provider ja um den lukrativen Root-Server, damit ich einen billigen VServer nehmen kann.

Aber die haben es einem dann doch schon extrem erschwert, den Umzug zu ermöglichen. Durch die Verzögerungstaktik verstrichen dann Fristen, was eigentlich dazu geführt hätte, dass ich den ROOT-Server noch 2 Jahre hätte behalten müssen. Zum Glück kamen sie mir da entgegen....

Dummerweise konnte man damals nicht die aktuelle Ubuntu Distribution 12.04LTS wählen, sondern nur 10.04LTS - Grund wurde einem nicht genannt. Irgendwann haben sie ihre software wohl aktualisiere und jetzt geht auch die 14er... aber damals hat mich das etwas nerven gekostet.

Der Umzug war dann doch irgendwann geschehen, und eigentlich lief alles gut.

##Vserver Der Server macht nun wirklich nicht viel, ein wenig Postfix, dieses Wordpress, ein kleiner IMAP-Server... das war es eigentlich schon. Das wäre alles kein Problem und mit den angebotenen 2GB locker zu handeln gewesen. die 50GB Festplatte reichten auch völlig aus.

ABER: der blöde server wurde immer wieder aus heiterem Himmel ohne ersichtlichen Grund runter gefahren. Und zwar nur der "Container" nicht die VM selbst. Auch beim meinen Zahlreichen Emails, Anrufen und Kontaktversuchen konnte mir keiner erklären, warum der Server runter gefahren wurde. Ich habe sogar von dem 1und1-internen Monitoring eine Benachrichtigung bekommen, dass die Dienste nicht mehr erreichbar sind.

Naja, das war zwar nervig, aber nicht unbedingt ein Grund den Provider zu wechseln und alles neu zu konfigurieren. Bis heute...

##nie wieder 1und1 Ich bin mittlerweile über 30 Minuten in der Warteschleife, konnte währenddessen den ganzen Blogeintrag hier tippen....

Das konnte mir einfach niemand erklären, warum dieser dämliche Container andauernd runter gefahren ist, bei einer mehrere Anrufe und Emails dauernden Suche nach Gründen, wurde zumindest die Ressourcenknappheit ausgeschlossen. Wie gesagt, normalerweise ist das kein Problem, man drückt in der Parrlalls Console auf "Play" für den Container und gut ist....

Normalerweise, nur heute nicht - der Play-Button ist disabled. Jetzt kann ich natürlich nicht währen der Arbeitszeit einfach mal 30 Minuten oder mehr in der warteschleife von 1und1 warten, bis die mal ran gehen ans Telefon. Deswegen habe ich, heute im Laufe des Tages zw. 8:00 und 16:00 insgesamt 4 Emails an den Technischen Support geschrieben.

Keine Antwort.

Keine Hilfe.

Nix.

Nach ca. 35 Minuten hatte ich gerade einen Mitarbeiter der Hotline am Telefon. Der war zwar nett, konnte aber auch nix wirklich sagen. Ich soll doch in 20 Minuten noch mal anrufen, wenn seine "Diagnose" durchgelaufen ist. Dann können wir gucken. Wenn es dann immer noch nicht geht, "müssen wir ein Ticket für die Technik aufmachen"

Seit ca. 5 Minuten ist auch die Managemantconsole nicht mehr erreichbar - also irgendwas hat er gemacht. Nur ob es hilft ist noch nicht raus...

Heureka, nach ziemlich genau 15 Stunden und 57 Minuten ist der Server wieder online und alles ist "gut" - am Arsch!

Meine schlechte Meinung von 1und1 wurde wieder mal bestätigt, und deren TV-Werbung mit dem ach so tollen Support klingt für mich wie der reinste Hohn, da fühlt man sich doch als Kunde echt verar...

ich werde meine Domains jetzt woanders hin umziehen, fast egal wo...

Kündigen bei 1und1

Ich hab schon mal ein Paar der Domain-Verträge gekündigt. Dafür gibt es bei 1und1 eine extra Webseite (die man erst finden muss), wo man dann seine Verträge kündigen kann. Und weil man ja nicht einfach "so" mal kündigen kann, muss man natürlich auch noch mal anrufen. Aber bitte schnell, sonst können wir die Kündigung nicht bearbeiten.

Dort steht: "Sie erreichen uns zu folgenden Zeiten: DSL- und Mobilfunkverträge: Mo.-Fr. von 8 bis 22 Uhr und Sa.-So. von 9 bis 21 Uhr Hostingverträge: Wir sind rund um die Uhr für Sie erreichbar, kostenfrei aus allen Netzen."

Wenn man dann um 21:30 anruft, erhält man die Ansage: "Sie rufen außerhalb unserer Geschäftszeiten an. Erreichbar von Mo-Fr 8-20 Uhr, Sa. 9-19 Uhr"

Ohne Worte...

grml

So long, and thank you for the fish...

category: MacOS / OSC --> Computer

Mail App und Google Mail

2014-07-24 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: Computer

Update zum "Frust bei 1und1"-Post

2014-06-27 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: global

Neuer Bug in IOS - Keylogging möglich

2014-02-26 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: Apple --> Computer

Riesen SSL-Bug in OSX - alles total unsicher und gefährlich

2014-02-25 - Tags: ios osx security

sorry, no english version available

category: Service in Germany

Servicewüste Deutschland: Amazon

2013-11-22 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: Computer

using Qnap as GIT-Server - SSH Problems

2013-11-06 - Tags: git qnap

originally posted on: https://caluga.de

Linux really rules, especially if you consider the possibilities you get, adding functionalities to linux based gadgets or fix / add missing functionalities.

The latter one is something that also can be said about the Qnap storage system. I use git for my own little software projects. This is cool as a version control system and easy to use - better than SVN or CVS.

So I have my repositories on a share on my qnap. You can mount the share and use git to synchronize stuff, that works fine so fare. But causes problems, when working remotely where you do not want to mount the share in order to be able to push things.

Luckily you can install additional tools on the qnap, git is one of them. And it works fine out of the box, you can use ssh to access git and the repositories.

Unfortunately is the sshd that comes with the qnap somewhat works strange, you can alter the /etc/sshd to what you want, it won't be possible to log in as something else than admin.

I do not want to open some root login to this qnap, no way. So I digged a bit deeper and found out, that the sshd is altered to only allow logins as admin.

But I am root on this machine, so lets hack.

install openssh via the Optware installation frontend. unfortunately this alone does not work, as the installation is not replacing the existing one. So we need to go further
rename original in /usr/sbin: mv sshd sshd.qnap
create link: ln -s /opt/sbin/sshd
alter your sshd_config to your needs
restart sshd (either via the GUI by disabling and re-enabling remote login or via kill the SSHD - Attention, this might and often will kick you out)

ok, now you should be able to log in as someone else than admin.

now you only need to create your repositories to your liking. I created one special share for it (which can also be mounted).

in my case it would be something like: git clone user@qnap:/share/development/git/repo

if you think this might be a security risk, you could set the login shell for that user to git-shell to avoid direkt access of this user.

Happy Hacking

category: Apple --> Computer

Die OS-Wahl: Moderne Religionskriege

2013-10-21 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: Apple --> Computer

Touch ID geknackt

2013-09-22 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: global

TouchID doch gut?

2013-09-17 - Tags: apple iphone

sorry, no english version available

category: Apple --> Computer

Apple ist quasi schon pleite - Fingerabdruckscanner im iPhone!

2013-09-15 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category:

Mitwirken

2013-08-28 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: global

Datenschutz / NSA - Nachtrag

2013-08-23 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: Computer --> Test of Tools

Test of Tools: GPG Suite 2 und Verschlüsselung im allegemeinen

2013-08-12 - Tags: test of tools mac osx email

no english version available yet

category: global

Datenschutz oder bin ich einfach paranoid?

2013-07-15 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: Computer --> Test of Tools

Test of tools: Vmware Fusion 5 vs. Parallels Desktop 8

2013-07-11 - Tags: test of tools osx vm

no english version available yet

category: iPhone and iPad --> Computer

RTL Bericht über Smartphone Spionage #fail

2013-05-04 - Tags:

sorry, no english version available

category: Computer --> Test of Tools

Test of Tools: Alfred

2013-04-19 - Tags: test of tools mac osx

no english version available yet

category: global

Who is Stephan Bösebeck?

2013-04-19 - Tags: about

Whose blog is this? Yes, who am I ... this question is amazingly difficult to answer, foolishly. My IT career can be read here on the blog under My IT History.

There is not much more to say. There will be very little private life here, so my professional career will be in a nutshell:

After the Abi (and a rather stupid episode at the Bundeswehr - but that is another story) I studied computer science at the University of Passau
Degree with diploma
Since I had little or no BaFöG and my parents were not able to contribute much, I started to work while I was studying
Apart from a few student jobs (for example at the computer discounter ESCOM - unfortunately broke meanwhile, but since I learned a lot) I was from 1995 as an IT consultant
I have also made some certifications during this time: Sun Certified Trainer, Certified Java Programmer, LPI Certification, Certified C ++ Programmer, Certified Macro4 Trainer, etc. - I could presumably cover entire rooms with the receipt
Customers of mine were among others: IBM, Sun, Dresdner Bank, Deutsche Bank, HP, Unilog Integrata, Ixos Training, Goethe Institute ...
I have specialized in the technologies Linux / Unix and Java. Therefore also the certifications in the areas
I did Java training, especially for SUN and Integrata, from Beginner to Advanced Java Programmer Certification Training
It looked similar with Linux training, u.A. For IBM. From beginner training courses to advanced clustering and firewalling topics
Of course there were also training courses in other areas around Unix: Perl, TCL / Tk and a few other exotics (Python was still really exotic: smirk :)
The knowledge for the Schlulungen I have me in many, unfortunately usually quite small projects appropriated. There was a lot of small and medium-sized companies, for which I developed software. Or worked on larger projects.
Since I often can not realize the projects very often, I was quickly pushed into the role of the project manager / manager. As contact for customers, as subcontractor, etc.
Since I as a freelancer alone had hardly a chance to lead a large project or realize I have decided to work hard. In this case, I started as a project manager at Softlab
There I was able to realize some major projects (well, at least bigger than that before). Among other things for MAN and BMW
I wanted to gain more management experience and was then "sued" by Acronis. I started there as "Manager Training & Consulting EMEA". And had to build the training department there. First only for Germany, later for EMEA, then worldwide.
The training management and the training management has then more or less moved to USA, which is why I became "Head of Engineering" at Holidayinsider.com. Unfortunately HRS has bought us and now there are Holidayinsider also no more
I was then little more than a year Head of Technology at Simplesystem GmbH & Co Kg - but that was unfortunately not quite the correct
the next job is already fixed, but I will only post here, when I started there: smile:

category: global

My IT story

2013-04-19 - Tags: about

Because of a death in the family one quickly comes to think ... where do I come from, how did I become the one who I am now. And at least the becoming-a-geek-story is an interesting one (I think).

Well, how do I start there ... Because it is about the Geek or nerd in me, probably the first computer.

I got it when I was just around 9 years old. It was a C64 of the first design - brand new, just presented. I know exactly that I was super fascinated by the thing right from the start . And, unfortunately, also really ignorant.

I remember well my first very miserable attempts to communicate with the C64 and make him do something. After all, I had already seen "Star Trek", can not be too difficult ...

This I thought at least, but as the breadbox on my, tediously typed in the two-finger circle-and-seek system Hello Computer (ignore case, on the C64 you only had capital letters) only with a lapidary Syntax Error answered .... I knew I should read the manual - a profoundly hated activity. Even back than. (By the way, the attempt to use the English form Hello instead of the hello did not bring the desired success.)

Luckily there were other nerds in the area and somehow I had the first games loaded via my datasette (also such a great word - actually it was only a cassette tape drive. For the younger one among you: it once stored music, the predecessor The CD, so to speak). So cool, what suddenly suddenly flickered across the screen ... Super .... From then on I was busy with play computer games! Fortunately (I felt different then, but in the retrospective it was good) the loading times were long enough to be able to do homework. And the loading times were even with the so-called "FastLoader" still unbelieably long in todays terms (about 100kb in 10 minutes - slower than Edge on the phone).

But the very best thing about the datasette was that it has stored the programs on normal cassettes - empty cassettes could be bought quite cheap in a lot of shops and then save your programms on it ... or even the programs of a buddy.

You could also buy the cassettes - there were tools games or something else on it. It was only bad, if you wanted to listen to such a cassette by mistake - so many speakers broke because of that.

In the middle of the late 80s double cassette decals appeared. These were originally intended to be e.g. From buying audio cassettes single songs together (mix-tapes!). But you could also copy data tapes - you had to fiddle with it a little.

The datasette reads the data analogously from the magnetic tape of the cassette. And then the quality is important. And if you had a cheap double cassette deck, you had to screw a little at the position of the takers of the datasette, so that the copied games could be loaded (which also happened when you got a tape from one of your mates).

All in all, the loading times were really bad .. you sat there really several minutes (felt hours) until such a program was loaded.

Somehow, the eternal gambling was too stupid, I wanted to know how these graphics come to the screen .... And learned BASIC - from the manual! That was still pretty much the beginning, no idea how I did it, I also know that there was a lot of errors in the manual, which of course I corrected in my copy.

After a few weeks of intense learning I finally had my first sprite on the screen. The biggest hurdle turned out to be the binary system, which was an intellectural challenge for me as a 10 or 11 year old. But some day it worked. The sprite was there. And should actually go from left to right across the screen. It did so, but needed about 1 minute.

That was a joke, how can games show liquid graphics and animations and the sprite moves here only extremely slowly ... Even if I had increased the step size it was still much too long. And then it also did not look like a smooth animation... just a "jumping" sprite.

A little research with my Geek-friends at the time brought to light that there is also still "Assembler". A programming language, which one must learn for something like that. Ok, so I started to write C64 Assembler .... But that was not so easy, in the area where we were living, there were not so many geeks who could help me (or to whom I was friends with). That changed only after the move to Bavaria.

The datasette was terribly lame and impractical. Fortunately, my father had a similar opinion, and hardly a year later I got a floppy drive (the nerds amongst you will know what a 1541 was, right? ) - the loading times were still quite high, but much better than with the stupid tape thing called datasette. And the biggest innovation was that there was now a table of contents, and you could choose the file you wanted to load. Yes yes, that was theoretically also possible with the Datasette: meter reading, and then correspondingly fast forward and backward. Not really fast, convenient or easy (especially if the counters from Datasette to Datasette differ and one could not use the numbers from a datasette of a buddy when using the exact same tape in your drive). But such a floppy had already something ... Wow .... These were innovations ... After all, the 1541 had the same processor and the same Ram equipment as the C64 itself - was actually only missing a TV-out and it would have bin the first game console ever ... but ok ... my sister was still lucky as she had an NES (or as that was called) - but she had much less games than I did ... well ...

Only when I built a so-called parallel cable to the C64, the loading times were fast. This went so fast that my grades had suffered genuinely in school. Even when copying floppy disks, you had to wait a few minutes ... the best opportunity to do some homework tasks. With the parallel cable these few minutes shrunk to a few seconds - in the time I had hardly the right side in the book opened, let alone made something. And after copying was just before gambling, is clear.

Coding became more and more interesting to me, especially 8-bit assembler was really fun. At the new school there were also a few as crazy as me, with whom I then met after school to do some coding. That went so far quite well, magazines such as "C64" and "Happy Computer" have also helped. In particular, the programs printed in it, which were then typed with a lot of effort. Later even some hexdumps with checksums - we had really too much time, there were only 3 programs on the TV

We were standing in the story every month (and later every 2 weeks), to get the currentedition of the C64 or Happy Computer! We used our pocket money for those ... most of the others were there on kicker or so ... well. .. we were / are geeks.

That was a great time, you knew every bit by the first name, played with all possible stiff and even used soldering iron. I learned a lot more about computers and how they functioned in the course of their studies - but we still get to that. And my C64 looked towards end of this time as if was from Star Trek - An additional button here, a button there, a display there ... that was great!

Sure, you have also played the moste current games, partly still needing to bypass the copy protection and possibly add my own demo.Then you proudly showed this to your mates. At that time that was not yet punishable ....

Not at all, if you had it at home, you had no internet and something to distribute. And the BBS systems and so-called "mailboxes" came so slowly into fashion ... and with the 300 Baud Akkustikkoppler on the C64, the downloading was not really much fun ... that started actually when the PC was popular.

Sure, everyone who had a C64 at that time had pirated software like games or utilities. At first this was still legal (or not criminal), and one did not even worry about it. Then the law was changed and all of a sudden we were forbidden. The whole games could not have been afforded by his pocket money - and honestly, do not want to afford it - there was an enormous amount of scrap. Some have then added a so-called PLK - post card, something similar to a locker. It was thought that the secret of the letter would protect one .... But it did not, some of my buddies then were caught when these creeping copyrights became illegal. But no one had received any punishment, only an admonition. But it was enough - all in my close acquaintance have ceased to use ne PLK ;-) robbery copies were, of course, still in the schoolyard in circulation, but it became less ... if not much less.

I was really interested in coding ... I started writing software for all sorts of things: Vocabulary trainer (every time I had a bad grade in Latin, I wrote one, the old one was stupid anyway - so I created really a lot of them, games, sound experiments, graphic effects, demos, demos, demos and demos.

Coding Demos was Fun - simply only testing a new effect, like a scrolling text, sound, Sprites .... Whatever. The things did not make any sense at all, but they were fun ... it was also great to look at the code of others and learn from it. The highlight was a plasma effect, which has managed to change color all 4 pixels - I've only managed all 8 pixels with out logic or syncing. When I looked at the code, and found that the developer had initially packed a lot of "go away" warnings into the code and declared that he used illegal opcodes (ie, invalid Assember commands), that do "random" two things at the same time .... he found that with the help of an oscillograph - it was clear to me - now is the end of the flagpole reached (for me).

And then came the Amiga 500 - God, what a great thing. 16 bit CPU and a half megabyte of RAM (yes, dear kids - MEGAByte ...). It also had its own processor (Copper) for the graphics and one for copying data in the memory (Big / Fat Angus). This was a leap forward. My Amiga 500 was felt for a long time much faster than the PCs that my father used. So a 268er had no chance at all against the Amiga, only from the 386er onwards with an additional CoProzessor the thing was interesting ....

But I digress - on the basis of my experience with the C64, I am at the Amiga of course, immediately began to program assembler. This was already something else as on the C64. 16Bit addressing, 68000 CISC processor with alone several hundred possibilities of memory addressing (relative, absolute, absolute, with offset, absolute with offset in register, absolute with offset in memory address, etc.).

As fiddling with Assembler has a lot of fun, you could get much better sound (16 bit wow - even if I was never the real musician - I still hear from time to time some good old mods), much nicer graphics (There were porn slide shows to be recognized real - on the C64 were the only undefninierbare pixel clouds). The Amiga was really a really great device, was really fun to work with. Again, I was concerned with the included Basic - there was much more possible than with the C64.

Although the Amiga was the better and cooler computer - my C64 was still on my desk - actually always - until I mothed both the Amiga and the C64. At the time, we did a lot with both computers in the clique. So I wanted to flash a new kickstart ROM for the Amiga, which I had of course on diskette Amiga ... the eprom flasher unfortunately only on the C64 (at that time came often to use). The data had to be transferred somehow. The Amiga had a 3.5" drive, the C64 it was 5" ... There were synonymous 5" drives for the Amiga (I even had one), but that saved the data in a much higher density, so the C64 could not read the data (and vice versa)

In one of the usual night-coding-sessions a cable was then soldered, which connected the Amiga midi port and the user port of the C64, and we (a friend helped me) have developed a simple data transfer protocol in Assembler. So we could transfer the data then ... and get the Amiga a new kickstart ROM ... (even if the ROM does not fit completely into the C64 memory, so we had to transfer it into snaps and flash it - I believe 4x or so).

Wow, what would I have given, if it had already given Google then ... then we might have really invented something awesome. So, I just happened to come across the same solution as others. So I have created BubbleSort for one of my vocabulary trainer ... and of course the network protocol ... synonymous with encryption, 3D graphics or data maintenance concerns, I've come up with things that already existed .... Well ...

My dads computer was also exciting (and since I am supposed to be knowing "that stuff", I was also responsible for the thing to work), but the Amiga was at that time really much more powerful than the stupid 8086 and later even than The 286er ... And the first screens / grafix cards (EGA eg) were still monochrome - even the C64 was better ... but it was just a no "professional tool".

The hottest thing was "TURBO" button on the PCs - so you could change the clock frequency. It did not make sense, as you usually wanted as much speed as possible. And later it did not give any benefit, because even the "slow" setting, still too fastthat it would not help for debugging or so. I had a game, some jump'n'run written for the 286er. On the later 486 it was not playable, the monsters fell within a fraction of seconds over the game figure. So: turbo switch off - and look there - you have survived 0.25 sec - These buttons were completely for the A ...

The big advantage that the PCs had then were the hard drives ... I remember when I bought the first with my dad - the salesman said literally: "That's 20 MEGA byte - as whole libraries fit on it - that's enough Certainly for the next 10 years ". He was so wrong - that was not even 1 year ... but ok - who knew it better then ...?

At some point, I even built a 512kb memory extension together with a small 8086er in my Amiga - then the thing was even a PC (with dual boot) ... cool ... then I did not always have to scare off my father if I wanted to do sometthings on the PC.

But for the programming I found the PC quite boring - sound output was - except for the beeping sound - not so easy possible. Graphics output was much more complex than the Amiga - at least from Assembler. And the addressing types of the x86 were then with the 386er and the "Protected Mode" so much more complicated ... or even memory above 640kb appeal, was then not at all so easy ... (at least I found that at that time totally unnecessary ... And did not keep me busy, so it seemed so complicated to me)

For a long time, PCs were not for gaming and hence not really interesting... there were not many (good) games at first, but later the PC had really caught up. Probably also because Comodore then (unfortunately * sigh *) went bankrupt.

Even then, Windows has annoyed me. This was not possible to use it in the version 3.11 and before actually even worse. DOS was there much better and even more clearly and the good old MS Word 6.0 (in the text mode!) Was really great! Compared to the things that came after ...

If you believe it or not, there was also a time before Windows. There were so surfaces we called "GeoWorks" and consortia. This was significantly better than Windows - but unfortunately sold separately. We've been working with it for quite a while and I'm still crying for a little tear * sigh * Microsoft has won ...

But I was fortunate enough to get up-to-date hardware through my side job while studying. This was really cool and a lot of fun. And as it is with the computer scientists then it is now, one quickly becomes "independent" - one sets up computer for money. And so I could also play with hardware and software, which was otherwise too expensive for me.

With Linux, I came into contact because I was looking for a PC Unix - and the best suited for the small student money bag. The installation was - to say the least - adventurous - 32 disketteimages at the university download and carry with home (comparison: DOS two floppy disks, Windows derer 5 I believe). And it was always so that one of the last disks (so around disk 30 rum) was broken and again had to be played ....

I knew Unix yes from the Sun workstations, and so much I do not get soooo hard. Even if I have not done much with network ... that was about 1993 -> Linux version 0.99 or so.

Later I replaced in our dormitory the dingy Win95 server by linux - Windows is simply smeared all nose long and was so simply useless. I had luckily already had some experience with Linux and could expand that.

Since I had programmed all the time, I did not want to stop there either. I have a student version of Visual Studio worried (I believe it was called otherwise, Visual C ++ or so) and tries to go through it. C / C ++ was already known to me, but I was really frightened when I looked a bit behind the MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) ... that was really creepy, this mix of c and c ++ - and unfortunately little fault tolerant. Smallest errors led to total system crashes. A few experiments with "lost" pointers led to the source code as a filename on the disk - invalid under DOS / Windows ... no chance!

That was the moment when I decided to focus more on Linux and OS / 2. Unfortunately IBM had the better operating system, but Microsoft a huge advantage and above all the better marketing. OS / 2 died quite quickly again ... again * sigh *

It was very annoying at that time that you could not make any software for all systems, fortunately, Sun then released Java - that was great, if at first somewhat slow. I've been using Java since then, and even if the original idea of "run everyhwere" is no longer really in the foreground, Java and the technology behind it certainly still has its own existence ...

Although I have then programmed more and more Java, I have actually run to work only Linux. My favorite distribution was "Gentoo" - easier than SPF but the operating system for Geeks ...

Thanks to my self-reliance, I was able to implement everything with customers, learning a lot and having a lot of fun ...

Of course, I've always looked "over the box" and looked at me a little C #. And I must say: Microsoft, good job! They have taken Java as the basis and copied what goes, but the errors, which Sun made in java eradicated. Annoying is that they wanted to be "different" at any price. The world writes methods small - Mircosoft writes them big! This is simply stupid and shows again from the attitude of Microsoft, even if there are already some - and often at any cost - but still: C # and .NET were not really even in V1.0 evil. And if Microsoft had made the runtime environment more open, it might have run out of position. I'm not sure if this is the case, but I'm not sure if this is the case.

But this is a gaaanz other chapter ;-)

Linux was a great bastelei, the desktop environments (even before KDE and Gnome) had always great new features (like the enlightenment - which was far ahead of its time ... and now it is a little behind, but still available) - but it Was always a bostel! You make an update, then the GraKa driver is no longer ... super ... one makes an update, the settings are lost or the KDE behaves differently or the Gnome spins or or or

If you want to use Linux on your desktop, you should either have a lot of fun on it, or simply leave the booth as it is and never change it again - even if the crafting is a lot of the fun of Linux / Was.

I have in the absence of other OS my Windows with Cygwin tuned, then at least the shell was to be used. Of course, if I have worked longer, the Linux partition was always started ... but I must also say Windows XP was so bad not at all. And who wanted to gamble, just needed Windows. All games came out for the PC and possibly still ne Playstation / XBox out. And on the PC stop only for Windows.

So I needed my Windows partition the same way I needed my Linux. This eternal back and forth booted me genuinely annoyed, also the access to the Linux partition from Windows went only so one way and I've me more than a time so my partitions shot. But OK....

I had in this time synonymous with Mac OS - At that time still the version 9, I believe - that was the hell, which had what of DOS - only graphically. Ok, it was easy to use, it did not crash - which was probably due to the lack of storage management. It may well not be that an OS end of the Neuziger still requires that before the start of an application determines how much memory the probably needs. And multitasking was a real foreign word ... I was allowed to download something on the Mac, so I thought, I look at me in the meantime the rest of the OS ... until I realized that all apps pause by default in the background - also the download! ARG ... there was Windows bessser ...

Luckily, Jobs then Apple "took over" again and took the thing in the hand .... but I was still from Apple harassed ...

"The things are designer stuff, way too expensive and little use" - "do not buy the scrap only" - "How can you be so stupid to buy an Apple computer" etc

These were phrases that I have said, or so similar, to Apple users - and dummerweise also so meant. Sure, somehow "OSX is really good" and so on - nevertheless, it did not want me in the head that an Apple so much more expensive than a PC off the shelf (although I should have known better: I have earned money by assembling PCs where the components are matched - and despite the slow speed of the clock, they were always able to keep up with the GHz (and then still Hz) cars from Mediamarkt & Co - unfortunately they were twice as well expensive).

Fortunately, Vista came. I have briefly Installed, me annoyed and again XP made on it. It was an impertinence, not to be used. XP ran with me super stable without problems, but Vista ... Have not tested the thing? But in hindsight - thanks Microsoft!

Vista and the anger about it was the reason that I ordered my first Mac - an iMac ... I even took a day vacation to set up the iMac and .... I only took just 15 minutes and everything went ... No driver installation, no dull deletion of default programs and advertising, no virus scanner needed ... and and and. The thing worked simply.

This was already a revelation. So I always wanted the computer to work - and on the Mac there is a command line that is really useful: The Bash !!!!! Super ... I was at home. A Unix with nice interface, easy operation but all the advantages of Linux / Unix ...

When I see these trolls today, which are so exciting about the Macs / Apple, I feel very reminded of my start times. Sure, Macs are expensive, but that saves you 100% and more. This is simply not to be despised. I am now for 5 years Apple user and had in the whole time probably 3 or 4 real system crashes - and because it was defective RAM (which I myself have installed - as an old PC screwdriver, you have to do so quasi ;-)) , That can not be denied! The things work ... And the processing quality looks the same! I took the trouble to compare the prices before 2 or 3 years ago between Sony, Apple and IBM / Lenovo. If you take similar equipment, Lenovo and Sony are usually equally expensive or even more expensive - only these things are mostly plastic bombs, while the MacBooks are made of aluminum and much more stable. (Rock me if you want - but that's how it was)

And software: There is everything, I thought first I install Bootcamp and Windows - but frankly, I would not know what for! I do not need any Windows only software. Sure, if someone needs such software, you can think again about a switch. But there is certainly an alternative ...

I have not regretted the switch, and anyone who has technical knowledge and comes with such stupid statements as "they are way too expensive" or so - either is not the subject or simply will not! This is synonymous ok, if the OS does not like, or you often times a BlueScreen looks. But I am from the subject, have more than 20 years of experience and can only tell you: Do not believe these trolls!

For some reason, these guys see the choice of the operating system as a religion and take it as a personal offense if one says something different.

Long live the variety - "Choose the tool that best suits your problem - do not adjust the problem to your tool". And if you need Windows, then it is ok! For what I'm doing (Java code, administering servers, checking databases, and remote access to different networks), a Mac is the best solution and I do not have to compromise! With someone else is certainly different.

Again: everyone should use the OS, that he wants - I do not care, as long as you do not equal the same).

How did it go on ... I've also tried to use Macs, if necessary my own. This has also worked extensively, because I was out of the "support" of its own IT out ... me right-bungled me not in between.

And of course I find iOS quite exciting. I've even worked with Objective-C and at least for me a few small applications for Iphone & Co or the Mac built. This is really good - is really easier, for example, pure C ++ .. and the GUI designers of XCode are really ok. So you can get something ...

Yes, and here we are ... let's see what's going to happen in the blog in the near future ...

So stay tuned ...

This is the private blog of Stephan Bösebeck, covering topics like Multicopters, Drones, Games... Leisure stuff...

Mechanical Keyboard – the Razer Blackwidow Chroma

Mechanical Keyboards

The noise?

Why a mechanical keyboard

The right one?

Light show of the keyboard

Verdict

Update after one month

UPDATE:

The ErgoDox EZ in German on a Mac

DE-Layout for the ErgoDox EZ on a Mac

Beginners guide / howto for ErgoDox on a (german) Mac

ErgoDox vs ErgoDox-EZ

massdrop

Teensy

QMK Firmware

.hex-Files

How to install a new firmware

howto create your own firmware

Features of the ErgoDox-EZ - layout programming details

Keycodes

Layers

Special keypresses

ErgoDox-EZ - Should you buy it?

update after some weeks of use

Annother update - one month in to 2016

Continuity und HandOff

Neues Feature: Markup

iOS8

Nie wieder 1und1

Wie alles begann...

Kündigen bei 1und1