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It started last Monday morning when I read this mail from the guys supervising the practical course I had saved for last:

Hi Michiel,

Congrats, your solution just passed our tests without any problems, so you passed the practical!

Not long thereafter, an email was received stating my grade had been submitted, followed a few hours later by an automated mail confirming that fact.

These messages were received after several weeks of hard work and even an all-nighter right before last weekend (which was both a really nice thing to do and a gruelling experience). There was a certain pressure, as I was rapidly approaching the ten year of studying that a student is allowed before he or she has to repay their grants (studiebeurs, OV) received from the government. I'm not that proud about taking the whole ten years and finishing that late in the semester (1 September - today - the new year started), but here I am, being a Master of Science at last.

The last few weeks have been quite stressful, not only on my part but also in my wife's head, who I owe big time for her worries and love. I had taken a lot of time off from work to finish the last practical works left on my list and every evening and other waking hour was spent staring at my various screens. I'm really glad that's over now and I can use them to watch my favourite series, play some casual games or just idly browse the tubes!

This also means I've freed up a lot of time in the evenings after work in which I might even start updating this weblog (dammIT) again. So stay tuned for a more regularly updated weblog (I know I've promised so in the past, but I really intend to rant more often) and expect to see my face more often :)

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 0 comments »

I just submitted the software and documentation of my second-to-last practical, leaving me alone with my very last course to finish. I will dive into it tomorrow and hopefully will have tackled all issues before Friday. That should give me some time to document everything and submit.

And then I'LL BE FREE!!! *cackles madly*

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 0 comments »

Quick update to point you all to Ineke & Michiel's website where the first wedding pictures have started appearing. More will follow. Also, it's no longer a site with our wedding invitation (it is archived, however), but also intended to host more info, pictures and other loose ends about us.

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 0 comments »

We interrupt this broadcast for a public service announcement.

Friday the 2nd of July 2010 at 13:00h CET, Michiel Scholten and Ineke Post got married at Castle Assumburg and became mr and mrs Scholten. Lots of pictures were taken, lots of fun was had. Pictures will follow.

Thank you for your time; we will now continue the regular broadcast.

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 0 comments »

If you want to log in using your Google account as OpenID (as Google is a provider), make sure you are logged in with that account and then use this url as ID on the site you're visiting:

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id

[source]

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 0 comments »

So I have this nice shiny light laptop (the Samsung X360). It came with Microsoft Vista pre-installed, but I never even booted it; I wiped it and installed Ubuntu on it immediately. It's working quite fine, except for some minor issues with its screen's backlight being a bit quirky (it needs a i915.modeset=0 part behind its kernel line in Grub's config).

Of course its manufacturer -- Samsung -- puts out bios updates (thankfully). It seems these could remedy these issues. However, instead of having some DOS-like application which can be run in FreeDOS or something, this is a Windows application which refuses to run under wine (bad idea anyway) and specifically checks whether it is being run on the specific laptop (so I can't extract things from it).

Problem is, Windows has been wiped clean from the machine and I have no intention to put the harddisk through a series of resizing tricks to install it again. I don't even have an install disk from the version it shipped with (a trend I quite hate, despite the laptop not even having an optical drive).

So, dear lazyweb, anyone having an idea how to flash the latest bios on it anyway? A BartPE livecd could be an idea, but I don't have WindowsXP handy...

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 6 comments »

Stack Overflow is a lot nicer as a source for good technical advice, but Experts Exchange still has quite some answers too; might come in handy for a second opinion/solution on which you can base your own. expert-sexchange is much less annoying with this bit of CSS added to Firefox's userContent.css file:

@-moz-document domain(experts-exchange.com) {
    div.qStats {display: none !important;}
    div.blurredAnswer {display: none !important;}
    div.allZonesMain {display: none !important;}
}

[source]

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 0 comments »

Ubuntu's GDM still does not have a settings window where you can change looks to your liking. However, there are some tricks to still be able to do just that.

First, open a terminal and type the following command:

sudo cp /usr/share/applications/gnome-appearance-properties.desktop /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow

You may also want to do the same with display-properties.desktop for setting the resolution of your screen and gconf-editor.desktop to change apps > metacity > general > button_layout to something like "/apps/metacity/general/button_layout".

Then logout, and you'll see an Appearance window pop up (and the other windows if you have copied those .desktop files too). Change it to how you prefer it, then close it and login as usual.

Now, to prevent those windows from appearing every time you get to the login screen, remove the .desktop files again:

sudo unlink /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/gnome-appearance-properties.desktop

And repeat for the other one or two, if you used them:

sudo unlink /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/display-properties.desktop
sudo unlink /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/gconf-editor.desktop

Done!

[Based on this how-to]

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 1 comment »

As we bought a house last year, we're actively following its process of being built. Photograph-loving people as we are, we document the timeline graphically.

The side not facing the street, aka the garden side :)

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 0 comments »

Soooo, it appears there was some small programming error which broke sessions in my self-written weblog software. This kinda blocked me from posting here. Combined with a rather busy life and me twittering small blurps instead of writing larger posts this led to dammIT be really neglected.

I plan on reviving this weblog. I will likely stop posting those blogmarks, which will stop the 'pollution' of the archive with lots of wrap-up links-this-week postings. This is still my platform of choice for writing larger pieces on Life, the Universe and Everything, so stay tuned.

Oh by the way, be sure to check out the 2D style refresh I did here ;)

Posted by Michiel Scholten | | 0 comments »