Macbook osX reporting USB stick full with free space

I was having this problem before and every time it takes me a bit of time to figure out that osX likes to use .Trashes directories to hold trashed files on the volume itself instead of moving them off onto the macbooks own trash folder.

It is irritating as the Finder applications does not show dot (.) files by default and I hate to mess around in a file browser. Next time you encounter this you can try this in your terminal:

$ df -h

Filesystem                Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s1              984M   970M    14M    99%    /Volumes/USBStick


$ ls -a /Volumes/USBStick

.
..
.DS_Store
.Trashes      <<<< need to dump this.
._.Trashes
BPM Paper


$ rm -rf /Volumes/USBStick/.Trashes


$ df -h
Filesystem                Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s1              984M    45M   939M     5%    /Volumes/USBStick

This will get you back your free space.

Will It Blend? - iPhone3G

This is just the best usage of an iPhone I have ever seen!

PMS BibTexManager class on PHP Classes site answers

"Dear Eric,

 I looking for a php package to publish the list of my publications
contained in a bibtex file on a website, and to sort them according to
their type, year, .. I've found your BibtexManager package on PHP
Classes. I wish to know if it was powerfull enough to do that, and if
you had some documentation or example to use it correctly."

This is an example of the kind of questions I have been getting lately about a class (there are a few other related classes I get questions about, but this is the main one) I wrote for the Radboud University Nijmegen's Publication Management System (PMS).

I wanted to put the basic answer I keep sending out here so that future queries can be easily referred to this page, so here goes:

You might want to take a look at the PMS project, an Open Source project I setup that manages a database full of publications and bibtex data for the Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands. Here you will find the running PMS application using this code and other related classes.

The project code can be checked out at the CodeYard hosted PMS Project site.

The PMS application website is built with e107 CMS and the PMS code is the backend. Feel free to post questions here and I will try to help out where I can.

Backyard renovation project completed

The backyard renovation project (link takes you to before pictures) has been completed!

As you can see when we left on our vacation the backyard was almost finished. Just a few finishing touches were needed and the gardener took care of these before we got home.

What we encountered is pictured on the bottom right, a very nice job indeed! A week later the electrician came over to wire the lighting into a remote controlled switch in the garage. I can sit anywhere in my house and turn on the backyard lighting at the push of a button. The lighting consists of 4 LED lights in the big stepping stones and 5 spots arranged in the border plants around the yard. I spent the evening in a patio chair, drinking some rose wine, and switched my new backyard lights on and off with a big silly grin on my face...

The watering system is also built into the backyard, two sprinkler heads that pop up when water pressure is in the system. They cover the entire yard, excluding the back left corner so that we don't have to spray the back patio.

We are very happy with the results and as you can see, the kids are already playing on the slide and with their soccer ball. They have even been running through the sprinklers once already! ;-)

Cycling in the Belgian Ardennes by Rochefort

I just spent a lovely vacation in the Ardennes with my family and had the chance to cycle almost every two days. The weather was great, mostly around 26 degrees. I have mapped out some of the better climbs and routes I took.

View Larger Map

I rode a total of 135 km spread over 5 rides, 52 km was the longest, and it was either climbing upwards or descending downwards. I was unable to find any flat roads at all. I spent the better part of my best rides in the 180+ heart rate range, just loving the steep hills.

See the map for details about the better climbs I found.

Visited Bastogne memorial to Battle of the Bulge

For those of you who don't know me very well, I have a soft spot for visiting historical battle fields, monuments, and generally historical military points of interest.

While on our vacation I was able to visit Bastogne. This is the sight of one of the more famous battles of World War II in the European theater, the Battle of the Bulge. The Mardasson Memorial marks the spot and is pictured in the top left corner.

My daughter and I climbed to the top of the monument which offers an amazing view of the entire area. There are 10 pillars holding the building up on which the Bulge story unfolds as you are led around the interior.

In the middle of the monument you have the plaque you see pictured on the bottom left. The flowers were still there from the most recent memorial day.

The museum was not much to see, but the monument was worth the ride. I am always in awe when confronted with historical facts while standing on those same hallowed grounds...

PRIMA project final grades

Today was the final presentation and defence of their thesis at the Fontys School in Eindhoven. As you can see here it went pretty well (on the board is their grade, a 9.0) for the PRIMA project, which explains the big grins. ;-)

Graduation is in July but I am glad to see that Lisa and Ikram received a good grade for their work. Lisa will be starting a new job at DAF as an Information Analyst and Ikram will be starting a Masters at the TU in Delft this fall. They both worked hard for this and the results have been more than we expected throughout the entire project.

I want to wish them all the luck in the world and hope their paths will cross mine again in the future.

Backyard renovation approaching completion

Today the backyard renovation project laid out the new ground and got ready to lay down grass. To shape the boarder they also bricked out the edges of the lawn.

You can see clearly here the new stepping stones that form the path, which include small LED lighting in each second stone. You can also see the flexible hose used to hook up the sprinkler system that will mean I do not have to run around with a hose anymore!

The next step will be to put in manure, plants, and grass, so stay tuned.