Put some pictures from last weekend when we 1. celebrated having finished our presentation in ITEC810 - Information Technology Project, and 2. ehh.. just partied :p

The pic above is of some of the people in my project class after our presentation; Frank Moisiadis (.au/.gr), Michael (.au), Markus (.de), Oksana (.ru) and me Jan (.no).
On Saturday we were VIP guests at Home nightclub - actually there was at least 100 VIPs, so we didn’t feel that ‘VIP’. They got a nice view over Sydney Harbour (since its located at the waterfront):

It was Home’s 7th birthday, so the place was packed, and Sneaky Sound System were playing among other DJs;

And to finish of that night, Tanja and Markus;

The rest of the pics are available in the Gallery. All photos taken by Markus Spillner.

The rest of this week I’ve been working on my ITEC831 - Advanced Internet Programming assignment. Had to develop a J2EE application for a high school data entry&reporting system. Pointbase database, Sun Application Server, business logic, servlets, JSP, HTML and God knows what else I put into it. If that wasn’t enough my laptop died on me when I needed it the most. Windows just thought it was best to destroy my filesystem so that I could live at the lab at the university for the rest of the week - nicely done to keep me at the university for up to 18 hours. Well, going from frustration and almost giving up I at least looking at a decent score - I think.
Being that stressed the last month I just had to relax, which I’ve done yesterday and today - done absolutely nothing except reinstalling my laptop and watching tv-series
Starting up with exams on Tuesday. Have a written exam in ITEC852 - System and Network Security and a oral exam in ITEC854 - Security Management on Thursday. A small oral exam in ITEC831 thereafter, but I don’t really count that as an exam… more like a ‘friendly chat’ =)
Just looking so much forward to finishing of this Master in IT and have a nice summer vacation down here in Sydney, Perth-Broome, and wherever else I should end up.

And I’m having my 26th birthday on Tuesday - so expecting plenty of big green dollar bills and hard packets then (unless you’re female and give really good hugs :p)

Put up some photos of some people in our postgrad lab at Macquarie University in my Gallery.
Also re-arranged the structure of the album a bit, so old links will not work any longer.
Update: Seems like all links/images work - thanks to Gallery.
Head over to Various Pictures to look at these guys:

And yeah… I’ve forgotten to blog that, but I’m flying over to Perth to do a 2-week car trip with Tanja, Markus and a friend of him right after our exams. Looking forward to that!

Wired News has an article about some of the worst software bugs known to man. Interesting reading for developers that might write software that might end up being catastrophic.

Last month automaker Toyota announced a recall of 160,000 of its Prius hybrid vehicles following reports of vehicle warning lights illuminating for no reason, and cars’ gasoline engines stalling unexpectedly. But unlike the large-scale auto recalls of years past, the root of the Prius issue wasn’t a hardware problem — it was a programming error in the smart car’s embedded code. The Prius had a software bug.

History’s Worst Software Bugs

Microsoft introduces its WSYP (We Share Your Pain) program after heavy testing in their laboratories.

Who haven’t seen the usual “Program x has crashed, do you want to report it to Microsoft?” prompt. I’m so paranoid and skeptic that I do not send Microsoft anything that isn’t necessary - thinking that my error report goes directly into Bill’s trash can.

Microsoft has however now convinced me that they actually take our reports seriously, and punish developers for errors in their code. The punishment might be considered a bit cruel by somebody, but altogether I think the WSYP program will help Microsoft create better and more reliable software.

Check out the movie from the UK Technet.

Nice British humor; brutal, sadistic and fun! Even shows that Microsoft has a bit sense of humor. 6 out of 6 from me to that movie.

I’ve got a nickname!

Guess I’ve become a regular customer at the Marxines at Macquarie now before the exams. So regular that my choice in coffee and size is known among the employees.
Was walking over there yesterday and one of the waitresses looked at me and exclaimed “large mocha?”. I of course started laughing, thinking that “was my preferences that well known?”, and she said “well, you’re the mocha man”
Inbetween my laughter I had to tell her make that another regular for a friend of mine also. “Thirsty today?” :p

From now on you can all call me The Mocha Man.