Dirk's Blog Thing

Awesome Artist:

http://patryk-garrett.deviantart.com/gallery/

Hmm. Galactic readiness 98%.
That was easy.

Also got a Human Vanguard at level 20. Seems like a waste of XP to continue playing a character once you reach level 20.

Had a Krogan team mate earlier. T'was fun watching him play. Headbutt of Doom!

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Not entirely sure what Livejournal means by that.
The third line urls to http://www.livejournal.com/manage/account/ but having a permanent account there's nothing to upgrade to.

Sometimes I use googlefight to find out about the correct spelling of things.
I might have to reconsider that.

I discovered GeoZen a few days ago, and it looks nice.

GeoZen works as an app you install on your smartphone. Android only so far it appears, but it's still in beta anyway. They'll probably release a version for That Other Phone at a later date.
It lets you define so-called zones via google maps. You can then set additional conditions and actions that are performed upon entering that zone, or exiting it.
You can also define global zones: Those let you define conditions that don't depend on a certain location.

Examples of actions to perform include enabling or disabling WiFi, Bluetooth, and Airplane Mode, increasing or decreasing the ringer volume (including muting your phone), launching an app, checking into foursquare, or sending messages.

Personally, I've set various zones which log me into foursquare. I've also set it up to mute my phone while I'm at school, and to turn on WiFi when I'm at home or at work (also turning it off when I leave). I'm also using a global zone to enable Bluetooth whenever I put the phone in the car dock.

There's some caveats though:
First of all, using it properly means leaving your GPS locator turned on at all times. The app allows you to select other means of locating (network primarily), but that's a lot less accurate and defeats the purpose of it.
Consequently you have a certain drain on battery life. You can change the locator interval, but in my case the battery is well dead at the end of the day.
Of course, there's also the issue of privacy. With the app determining your current location via GPS every few minutes, it's theoretically possible to create a very precise movement profile. Their privacy statement points out that they don't do that, but it's rather difficult to verify, especially since the app accesses the net too.
Lastly, when installing you have to agree to let it access and send messages. As I understand it, it wants access in order to use text to speech to read messages to you (which is an action you can set up). You can also set it to send a message, so it needs rights to do that too.

All in all, if you can get over those privacy / security issues, it looks very promising. The beta status means that there are probably more features to come (for example, checking into venues via Facebook doesn't seem to be an option yet).
It's available in the Android Market.

Datenleck bei Onlinehändler: Banken sperren Kreditkarten

Gestohlen wurden die Daten vermutlich bei einem deutschen Onlineshop, den die Banken auf Rückfrage von heise Security jedoch aus rechtlichen Gründen nicht nennen wollten.

Genau, weil es wichtiger ist, einen Onlineshop vor der Veröffentlichung einer solchen Peinlichkeit zu bewahren als die Kunden dieses Onlineshops vor einem finanziellen Nachteil zu schützen.

Concerts I'd go see if I had the money ...

Therapy?
Ray Wilson
Deep Purple + Marillion
Bagalutenwienacht
Van Canto
Busters
Long Distance Calling
Wishbone Ash
Skunk Anansie
Within Temptation

Oh well, at least I'm seeing Sylvan and Gazpacho. Gazpacho in particular is a top priority, since I haven't seen them before.

T-Mobile hat vor Kurzem seine Tarife angeglichen und erweitert ... Weil's ja noch nicht unübersichtlich genug war ...

Ich hab mich also gerade eine knappe Stunde mit meinem aktuellen Tarif und T-Mobiles neuen Tarifen beschäftigt. Ich kam zu dem Schluß, dass T-Mobile jetzt ein Komplett-Angebot hat (Combi Relax 120), das sowohl preislich als auch inhaltlich (fast) vollkommen identisch mit dem von mir vor langer Zeit zusammengebastelten Basistarif (Relax 120) + diversen Optionen (Messaging S, web'n'walk HandyFlat) ist.

Der entscheidende Unterschied: Während in meinem alten Tarif die Hotspot-Nutzung eine zubuchbare Option für 9,95€ pro Monat war, ist sie im Komplett-Angebot konstenlos inklusive.

Noch ein Unterschied: Früher habe ich für Tarif + Optionen 39,85€ gezahlt, der neue kostet 0,10€ mehr. Andererseits bekomme ich eine Gutschrift über 3€ dafür, dass ich niemanden bei T-Mobile mit meinem Anliegen genervt habe und stattdessen das Online-Kundencenter benutzt hab.
Davon mal abgesehen: 10 Cent extra pro Monat für HotSpot-Nutzung ist akzeptabel, 10€ nicht.