My first reported bug was fixed today

I submitted a trivial bug to eGroupWare project and today it made it into the fourth release cadidate! I had attached a fix, but this was in the wrong area of the code, oh well, can't win them all. It is really coming along nicely now I must say, quite a nice application.

I am feeling a bit better today so expect to be back to work again next week. Time to get the documentation rolling on the English 1.2 Manual.

Manual translations started

About two weeks ago I was given the task at work to spend one day a week supporting our eGroupWare setup. Seeing as I was the one who did the initial research and handled the initial testing phases before implementation, it was a logical step.

I contacted the current calendar lead (Ralf Becker) and made myself know as wanting to join the development team. It seems to me that eventually being in touch with the core developers of eGroupWare might be of some benefit should we desire to submit bug fixes or wish to have any input at all.

Ralf was very nice but let me know that they are currently busy with 1.2 release candidates, so not much time for new members. I made the offer to jump on the manual documentation, updating the current English version to match the soon to be released version. This offer was accepted and I now have access to the documentation.

The idea is to translate the current German version over to English, luckily I can still remember some of my German! I have taken a look but think I might just free-wheel a bit to make sure we are documenting everything. I started and completed the initial Calendar page, but there is much to do:

I have already been contacted by external users who wish to comment or request documentation features, so I guess I will be busy for the time being!

Sick as a dog!

So, today for the first time in 48 hours out of my bed... bah, what a flu. Since Monday evening I have been sleeping, can you imagine?

The worst part of being sick here in house Schabell seems to be that everyone gets to share in the misery. It all started with my daughter, she has been having the sniffles since last weekend. Then I got it Monday evening, but much more severe. Today my wife has got it too, off to bed and see you in a few days.

So the story is that our daughter is pretty much over it, happily playing away between naps and either mommy or daddy haning sickly on the couch trying to keep her happy... it has been a tough week so far, let me tell you.

I am off to bed again, just up to check the email and see if the world was still turning after two days of sleep.

Working much too hard the last few weeks

Have been putting in overtime on a work project, IRIS Publication Management System. Is coming along quite nicely though and am about half way to v1.0.

This has been leaving me with very little time for my own project, About Time Linux. So in the mean time, I have been helping support a course at the Radboud University Nijmegen called Requirements Engineering. The students take a semester and work on a case study to produce an actual requirements document. I have taught this course before so wanted to help out again by providing a case study for the students. I have crafted a small part of the AbTLinux requirements into a depEngine project. It is the dependency engine I will need to use for my package manager!

They have been working quite hard and with 6 teams I hope to get a very well researched requirements document by Christmas. This will then be implemented with the help of my contacts in the Artificial Intelligence sections at the university.

In the personal sphere, I have started biking. I have always biked quite a bit, but now have purchased a racing bike from Van Tyul, a 730 with 24 gears. Very nice! I am averaging about 90 - 110 km per week (weather permitting), with 50-70km being on this new bike. My bike is silver with red accents, so this picture is the same but in blue:

I am almost having my birthday (this sunday) so will be hopefully collecting some more gear (need nice winter jacket, some gloves, etc...

More after my birthday!

More on PFC Henry L. Hooper

My sister did some digging the the state of Washington archives online and came up with some of the following.

A listing on the Washington State Roll of Honor site.

The problem is that with out a birthdate it is pretty hard to get any closer than the 300 names that come up in a white pages search for Washington... pretty frustrating.

A site like Family Search would be a great help if we had a birthday. Maybe someone will see this out there and come forward with some info. Just post something to the guest log to contact me or send an email to info at this domain.

PFC Henry L. Hooper

I have adopted a grave from the American Military Cemetery in Margraten...

I have created a page on this site dedicated to this person in the hopes of finding out more about him, his family and what happened to him.

I will be chronicling the events as I attempt to find out more about this man.

Benoit visit to the Netherlands!

Another long time Source Mage developer stopped by yesterday here in my corner of the world. Benoit dropped by with his wife and we had a nice time chatting, laughing and looking at the sights.

Was great to chat about the old SMGL days, laugh about current projects and plan a bit for the future. I really hope that Benoit will not be too busy to help out with the AbTLinux project!

This makes three developers I have personally met from free software projects I have worked on, really nice to meet the persons behind the nicks.

We made a tenative plan that our first ever AbTLinux developers meeting should take place in France. ;-)

Have a safe trip home Benoit and look forward to working together in the future!

Rycee stops by for a visit!

One of the long time Source Mage developers with which I worked closely with stopped by the Netherlands on a vacation bike tour. He found the time to stay a week. While there we met in s-Hertogenbosch for beers, terras sun and bitterballs (don't ask, you have to try them).

We ended up having such fun that I invited them both over for a bit of a BBQ. He saw my place, my family and we had a nice evening before they headed back to basvg's home.

Robert, was great to meet you and I sincerly hope you find the time to drop into my AbTLinux project. I could really use your talents.

That's it for now, time to get get my world back in order after a three week vacation to start working again on monday... sigh.

PS. Almost forgot, Benoit is in the Netherlands too this week! We gonna meet up and I will drop a line or two about the visit later this week, stay tuned!