Trying to upload 1 photo to FB is more difficult than you'd think!

We're having fresh canterelles baked in garlic and onions. The smell alone is divine!

Had a very slow day, spent the afternoon out doing groceries, playing in Frankendael and having drinks with Natasha and Thomas.

Had a really nice evening with Ted, but now I am not feeling fit. Hope I do feel better again tomorrow...

Kishen doing a demo of groundcontrol

Scrum Demo time again!

Got scammed for the first time

The internet scams finally got the better of me. Not for a fortune, just 100 Euros, but if that scam worked on me, it must have worked on a lot of other people as well, and if they all do a payment for something like a 100 Euros, it is a simple way to get some holiday money fast!
For the first time I was scammed, by a guy who has a webshop via "http://www.mijnwebwinkel.nl/". It all looked ligit enough, in his email communications he provided all kinds of useful data, such as:

a home address:
Kerkhovensestraat 28
5061 PJ Oisterwijk

a KvK number:
KvK: 20144203
email addresses etc.

All of that connected properly to the WHOIS data (which we checked only when no shipment was received.

A whois lookup gave me teh following:

Registrant:
BOK002758-PROVI
I. Boksteijn Bogaers
Kerkhovensestraat 28
5061PJ OISTERWIJK
Netherlands

Administrative contact:
BOK002759-PROVI
I. Boksteijn Bogaers
+31 (0)630437587
boksteijn@live.nl


When trying to retreive the money we found that the payment provider, mulitsafepay.com is less than helpful and extremely unclear about where to go.
First of all, on their site you cannot find any contact form, so contacting them is very very difficult (even more difficult than contacting PayPal helpdesk!). When we finally found a contact email address (support@multisafepay.com)we received a reply from them, where we were CC-ed and to the owner of the domain, whom we had already tried to contact as well, stating "Mathijs, yet another customer who didn't receive any package" and the contact details for Multisafepay (I have left out the name of the "Sales & Support Executive" on purpose but if you are interested, I can give you the details):


Multisafepay
Postbus 37159|1030 AD Amsterdam
Tel. NL: 020
8500500|Tel. BE: 0032 28083449
http://www.multisafepay.com
info@multisafepay.com

After another week of waiting for a reply, we were by then quite sure that nothing was ever gonna come back from the site owner, but still had hopes that this multisafepay would be helpful. I can tell you, they are even worse than the initial scammer.

Their answer to possible restitution was:
We cannot restitute any money since the user account has been removed from our systems and there is no balance left on this account. If you want to file a complaint about this please refer to our "Algemene voorwaarden" to find out how to go about that. If however you want your money back, you should check to see if it was paid for by CreditCard so that you can call your credit card company and have them refund/ withdraw the payment."

I say, never use Multisafepay.com, they are clearly unreliable and do not care about their users.

Be smart, either use iDeal via Bibit or do it the smart way and use PayPal!

Chip ppl are confusing, pink caps?

Going to play out in the sun for a bit. See if I run into some food as well

hmmm link went wrong. http://ping.fm/7ZiO3
Still a WTF moment though..

Typical case of WTF? http://ping.fm/MHOsM[source]=rss#m91416 So that's what they waste my tax money on!

Little tourguide points the sights...

seems i have found the way to make HDR with the ultra compact do NOT use a mini tripod, just set it on a surface and fix with your own hands

Some of my first HDR images...

The first HDR photo looking out over the Valentijnskade/Kramatweg in Amsterdam Oost-Watergraafsmeer.

Nothing special was done, this is a fairly straightforward HDR photo.




The same HDR photo looking out over the Valentijnskade/Kramatweg in Amsterdam Oost-Watergraafsmeer.

This photo has only 1 filter applied: Orton Effect.




The inner courtyard of our building.

This photo has only 1 filter applied: Orton Effect.

After finishing the next HDR I am off to the bath to enjoy a good book in hot water! (me in the hot water, not the book)

Some day that bear will take revenge

Heading back to the highway. see how many times my photo can be taken this time.

Here's what happened when David Hasselhoff realized he *is* David Hasselhoff: http://ping.fm/OnpFd

Checking out het goed

Next challange, find a way to make a HDR Panorama photo :)

Really underwhelmed with the quality of sound and music kinkfm.com broadcasts.. they used to be good, now it is like listening to Radio 2

getting sad when I see the "speed" at which bugs are being "fixed" during regression. 2 days overdue and still there are open issues.

Panorama photo playfullness

Been playing around making panorama photos.
The full size of them is somewhat huge though...

The view from our balcony




Our living room

playing around with some photo stitchers: http://ping.fm/wwXgS http://ping.fm/dVdsM

We still need to get ourselves a campingbed for Ted for our next holiday. Remarkably eBay does not seem to have any on site! Checking MP now

changing the exposure is easy enough on the camera, just keeping it exactly the way it was is difficult. guess there is no macro for it?

Cool! HDR is doable, even with an ultra compact! Just extremely uncomfortable to fiddle with a small cam and not move it on a mini tripod

making some first attempts at HDR photos with an ultra compact Lumix camera. Tripod is extremely wobbly!

Some photos from my new camera, a Lumix DMC-FS6

Captain Awesome fell asleep...

We can hardly wait till he walks alone!

Bloodbath from eating berries...

Ted is going for the drawer with sweets

Looking forward to a nice day of playing with Ted!

RT: @jellebc 'Volgograd Obama' bids to be Russia's first black elected official http://ping.fm/kdHGD

grmbl just saw GoogleWave on Milton's machine. now I need to have it as well. so give invites!

Survived the meetings, kinda. feeling cooked, boiled and done for by now though.

getting ready for a 3 hour meeting session. I believe meetings that last more than 30 minutes lose focus. Let's see what this session brings

Grabbing coffee before the rest of my day with meetings commences. Hope my packages arrive within that hour so I can see my new toys first!

Ted decided to sit up whilst asleep. He the toppled over, moaned a bit and fell asleep again doubled forward. Weird boy!

getting mentally prepared for the VVE meeting tonight... Hope to get home dry first though, starts looking very dark

Ted playing with a fountain!

Just received a big box with photos!! Approximately 900 photos on hardcopy!

It was eerily quiet out on the streets. The only cars I passed were garbage collectors and moving trucks (basically the same I guess...)

uploaded all movies we shot at Le Boulay during the holidays to Teds video blog.

Great TED Talk by Jeff Skoll about Betting on people who do good: http://ping.fm/RdMEG

In the hammock with mama at #polder

Playtime after dinner before dessert...

Drinks with inna and lau at #polder

Ted in his new jeans looking awesome!

Ted is off to bed for a bit. When he is awake we will go off for some groceries at cccpamsterdam

Standing up to throw toys away...

Having a nice early Sunday morning coffee with Ted.