Google's scoring

Strangely enough my own webpage went up on Google. The search for moyogo on Google returns my webpage as the third main result. I have drastically simplified the page (moyogo's homepage), removed the link to Moyo Go Studio and made sure it was XHTML 1.1 valid.

I'll see where my future changes lead.

gtk+ and gnome patches

I finally got my hands dirty in some little gtk+ hacking.

I've always wanted to improve the gtk+ IPA input method. Currently it's rather lacking a lot of characters, diacritics and modifiers. Instead of writing my own set of sequences or arbitrarly adding some to the current method, I went on and implimented the X-SAMPA sequences. This might not be the best sequences but at least the set covers almost all of IPA. The maintainers suggested including this in gtk-im-extra instead of the gtk+ package. My only worry is that gtk-im-extra is not included in any distribution and is not updated frequently (hasn't been released yet).

Then I also played around with the window selector applet from GNOME. I hacked an action menu on third button click, here's the patch.

De Standaard

The Belgian Dutch-language newspaper, De Standaard, has a RSS Newsfeed (and others available on the mainpage). This is great. All newspapers should have newsfeeds.

Cogprints

Browsing through Francis' website, I found a link to Cogprints, an electronic archive for papers in Psychology, Neuroscience, Linguistics and many areas of Computer Science. I'll have stuff to read for when I'm bored.

ECMAScript Menu System

Thanks to a blog (456 Berea Street Quicklinks) subscribed on Planet HCI, I read about a great ECMAScript Menu System that allows clean and lean code (separating content from presentation). Sweet.

Next year's (4)

The Utrecht University Council (Utrecht Universiteitraad or U-raad) has a website or so I found. Interestingly enough, the Internationalization workgroup has 2 objectives. One is to bring more international students into the English speaking programmes. The second is to figure out how to give them proper representation in the council and other similar entities. This is great.

To attract more international student is not an easy thing. I heard of UU thanks to the European Masters in Language and Speech, UiLots and other little things, like the Academic Ranking of World Universities. I spend numerous hours looking for European universities and LST Master programmes. Even though the CAI masters is sort of brand new, UU was my first choice because it's the Dutch university I heard the most of, the program being the second reason since other universities had very similar programmes (almost the exact same course choice). (ah... Amsterdam might more fun tho')

What the uni definitely needs is more English media, all the pages that could be read by an (potential) international student should be in both Dutch and English. Then I also think the university should make the international experience easier. By that I mean, finding a place to live your first semester/year should be beyond easy. Right now, the ways to find a place are just excrutiatingly painful, the SSHU has a 18 months waiting list. You need to be in Utrecht to sign up for the SJHU. All the websites with classifieds related to housing in the netherlands are in Dutch --- WoningNet, Kamernet, StudentenKamers. An English-speaking one would be a great relief for internationals.

Life on campus should be different. I don't think there is a head student organisation. Each faculty might have it's own student association/organisation and then there's the council. But it doesn't seem the students have organized themselves that much. Even if we consider ESN, the only international oriented organisation with an English website, there is no organisation run for and by the internationals. (I hope I'm not beeing ungrateful by saying that.) It seems the problem is tricky, since The international are either in the UCU (with proper student run organisations), exchange students for short period of time, or at the Master/PhD level, where they either don't have the time, or won't be there long enough to get involved in student councils and organisations.

Is there a student paper in English? A good start would be an couple of page in the Ublad.

I wonder how many internationals there are in total at UU (including UCU with about 600).

The Paradox of Choice

Spotted on Planet HCI, an interview of Barry Schwartz, "The Paradox of Choice". The story of my life, at least for the last few years.

ALSA hacking

ermmm, OK, it's not really hacking but whatever. It's already a good place to start. I read part of the ALSA 0.9.0 HOWTO, wrote the little audio playback program, and it runs! w00t! So now all I have to do is set up some kind of capture stream and play that back.

What I would like to end with is a decent way to record with my webcam. So far only Gnomemeeting can do that. but doesn't save the audio as file, what I would like to do.

Working in the Netherlands

There is a rather interesting site, Undutchables, for people looking for jobs requiring another language than Dutch in the Netherlands. the site also give useful tips. (Found through Jobs in Holland)

Student Language and Speech journal

After browsing around the EACL and looking at conferences they will hold this year. I stumbled upon, this student journal, the European Students Journal of Language and Speech, that I remember seeing before. I should read some papers, it could be interesting.

Next year's (3)

Ach... Still looked for some info for next year. After looking at the CambridgeLaan residence website, I followed a link to the United Students Party, or the ICC (InterCultural Committee). The ICC is a international students association for the CambridgeLaan rez. They seem to know how to have fun.

Next year's (2)

So... I ended up doing nothing today. I have an excuse, I did drivesafe for McGill students last night. That was real fun, yet very tiring.

I was then wondering if UU had similar services for and by students. I've been wondering how the students have organized themselves... or is it organised? Anyhow, There doesn't seem to be any union or federation of student's associations. I remember seeing a page about how student's interact in the administrative decision, but I'm not sure it was at Utrecht anymore. Whatever! The question still stands! Are student represented by peers? Is there a nationwide/EU-wide student association... ah.... where did I start? Oh, yeah! Drivesafe. So, are there major partying events organized by students societies that could use some "let's drive the students home safely" concept. Is there something like walksafe? Ah... seems I could be busy between studying, capoeira and my life.

Next year's

I was just reading about my optional courses for next year, well first I had to find somewhere central where to find the info. The Master students CAI website and the CAI Master programme are pretty useful. The second one is pretty much just a copy of the CAI Master's brochure (pdf). Ach... I'm still a bit disappointed by the English coverage of some university sites, but in general things are available in English, which is good for people who are clueless about the Dutch language

Anyhow, the funny thing is: Out of the 5 optional courses I can take. There are only 4 courses available during the last 2 sessions of the year of 4 sessions. So if I take 2 courses a session, well I guess I'll have to take those 4. That leaves me with really one course to choose from... How did that go unnoticed before? Hopefully I'll be able to take more than 2 courses per session in the first two. I can't choose between all those "interesting" topics.

Volunteering

I was checking out some volunteering sites today. I stumbled upon one I might seriously consider once I get 3 years of professional experience, geekcorps.

XChat and it's notifier applet

I installed xchat systray, it's nice little applet that allows you to get notifications in the systray (Gnome, KDE and what not), among other things (like setting the away status or even browser/email client launching). There's a .deb package just works right of the bat with Ubuntu.

Utrecht in English

A friend of mine is thinking about going to Utrecht this month or the next one. It just made me realize how little the number of English useful resources are. There's a youth hostel I remember seeing, Strowis. It's right in the center and quite cheap, luckily the site is in English. There another cheap hostels/B&B, the B&B Utrecht City Center.

For longer term housing there aren't any classified ads websites in English, at least any good ones to my knowledge. In Dutch, I know only, Kamernet and Studentenkamers. I wish there was a site more oriented towards international students. (update) I should also mention the SSHU with its 18 months waiting list and the SJHU that requires you to be there.

The international/exchange student society in Utrecht, ESN-Utrecht can be helpful, with their mentor program. At least the have an English website compared to AEGEE-Utrecht and SIB.

The Utrecht University's Student Services Centrum can be resourceful too, but they pretty much link to what I just mentioned (found in Dutch tho', wasn't very easy to find in English).

I noticed there's no decent English language movie (what's playing and where) website. There isn't any site for activities/places. Maybe I should look into this and create such a site.

There is no English languages student paper, at least to my knowledge. Maybe the single University Paper, UBlad could have an English section (single, at least online and to my knowledge).

Overall, I just think I'm not too happy about the general coverage and services offered to internationals. If they really want to attract international students they should make it easier for them. I will be busy next year I think.

Nice graph: Mac for the Masses (by Paul Nixon)

Paul Nixon made a very nice graph to get an idea of how Apple is aiming for The Masses. It would be nice if Apple actually gets a decent size user base. Maybe I should do the switch one of these days... wait a minute... I barely use Windows already.

Geez, I didn't even notice that 43things had added my entry into my blog. So that function works well, sort of. Links don't seem to be parsed properly, it just print the address as text not as a link. Ah well, too bad, what can I do about it?

There's a blog entry on how to boost your Firefox.
You can also try using a version compiled for the kind of machine your using (Windows/PC) from moox. First use the CPU tester to find which one to download.

google

That's interesting. I was just googling "moyogo" and my page one 43 things appears to be one of the tops hits, even before my personal home page, "moyogo":http://home.sus.mcgill.ca/~moyogo (http://home.sus.mcgill.ca/~moyogo). I really wonder how come my personal webpage went down in hits, even if I link to it from other places.

(See more progress on "Try out 43 Things"...)