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Belgacom introduces unlimited internet for 10 EUR/month
edited by on June 1st 2010, at 09:33

Starting this month, every type of subscription can be upgraded to have unlimited (i.e. no volume limits) internet access for an additional fee of only 10 EUR/month. Belgacom is doing this to counter the offer of Telenet; they have removed volume limitations to their higher subscription types (TurboNet and FiberNet).

About four months ago, both Belgacom and Telenet announced the ending of the volume limits in Belgium. This policy gained more and more resistance from various companies, claiming that the limitations were preventing from certain services to be expanded succesfully. Belgium was one of the last countries in Europe to have a volume barrier.

 
Licensed to radio
edited by on May 27th 2010, at 19:57
Yesterday, I did my exam for a radio-license. This license officially gives me permission to use a radio in aviation. The exam took place in Brussels at the office of B.I.P.T., civil aviation branch.

The exam itself was pretty simple compared to what we have been practising during the course; it was much more complicated then, but that's a good thing (of course).
Aside of the obligated part about theory (regulations etc.), there was a short pratical exam in which a "virtual flight" has to be made, during which you have to follow the right radio procedures and aviation regulations.

Now, all that's left is to send the necessary forms and the license will be officially a  ...
 
Exam for passenger license
edited by on April 26th 2010, at 22:32

Over the last year I managed to gather my required 50 hours of solo flight time, and yesterday was a good time as any to take my exam for a passenger's license.

The exam itself was basically a revision of most elementary flight manoeuvers (stale turn, high turn, stalling, etc.), accompagnied with an additional back tow (i.e. when the cable does not release).

While I succeeded in my exam, it goes to show that even those things really have to be maintained; I was a bit rusty in performing some manoeuvers. Guess I'll be practising them a bit more.

 
McAfee's take on svchost.exe
edited by on April 23rd 2010, at 20:42
One of my clients at work was also a victim of the latest McAfee false-positive trouble. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, read the official statement (and remedy): https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?id=KB68780&page=content.
Basically the issue is that McAfee wipes svchost.exe from your system because it thinks there's a virus in it. And this file is in fact quite critical for Windows to function properly.

My client managed to skip by the worst part of the trouble, and only had this issue on two of their desktop computers (running Windows XP SP3). Their systems were not entirely crippled as they would still boot and log in, but they were otherwise unable to use networking, s  ...
 
Condor patch 1.1.3 released
edited by on March 23rd 2010, at 22:12

The long awaited Condor patch v1.1.3 has been released. It fixes a critical bug with the newer nVidia drivers, and was particularly a hassle when running Condor in Windows 7.
Aside of the fix, an additional tow plane was added in the mix.

Download the patch: http://www.condorsoaring.com/downloads.htm.

 
Flying season 2010 official kick-off
edited by on March 14th 2010, at 00:43
And so the flying season has started again, pretty much in the same way it ended: it was a dark damp and cold day, and not at all without technical difficulties.
The issues with our tow plane that were supposed to be fixed weren't really fixed. Our backup did perform flawlessly (a luck we did not have at the end of last season).

All of the little troubles and discomforts did not thwart the pleasure of having done about a dozen flights, most of them check flights to sign on after a long winter's break. Although having flown last week, it feels good to have flown a succesful tow and subsequent flight and landing on our own field. Kinda reminds me of last year's start and all.
The winter is ru  ...
 
Raptors finally arrived
edited by on February 24th 2010, at 19:26

Finally got the final parts of my computer: the HD's.

Currently, I was using an old HD (a Maxtor 500GB) from my previous system. The idea with the new disks is to set up two Raptors in a RAID0 configuration. As Raptors are already fairly fast, the additional RAID0 - I've been using this method a few years already - should give it an extra edge.
I'm keeping the old HD in to have additional 500 GB of pure storage (like downloads and such, things that don't need the speed).

 
Telenet applies Fair Use Policy
edited by on February 11th 2010, at 13:23
In Belgium, internet provider Telenet announced the application of fair use policy on a number of their internet subscriptions. Additionally, two new subscriptions have been launched under the common name FiberNet, which will be using the new EuroDOCSIS 3.0 specification to obtain the higher speeds.
After Belgacom, Telenet is the second provider in Belgium to apply fair use policy.

The fair use policies will be applied to the TurboNet and FiberNet subscription at the beginning of July this year. ExpressNet and TurboNet will also benefit from a speed increase (30Mbps instead of 25Mbps). The first of the two will not be upgraded to fair use but its traffic limit will be increased multiple   ...
 
The tooth brush trick
edited by on January 9th 2010, at 19:13

Having a bit of a problem with our toilet at home lately: the flushing mechanism gave out. Apparently, the thing was a bit exotic, as we had to wait for about 6 weeks for a replacement part. Luckily, my father is not all uninventive...

So we actually have to pull the toothbrush in order to flush the toilet. It's actually funny every time we have guests over, and are explaining the quick-start usage guide on our toilet. Their faces are just priceless!

 
New ways to copying bank cards
edited by on December 26th 2009, at 11:37

Beware when you go shopping with your credit card or bank card.
Apparently there are some new and very clever ways to copy your cards, and steal your PIN.

It shows how Eastern-European gangs use the latest technologies to copy cards, and steal PIN codes, without the victim's knowledge.
It's actually a bit scary to see how far they have developed.

 
Building blocks
edited by on December 24th 2009, at 21:38

A quick update on the build of the computer. So far, not all components have arrived yet, but the ones that were present already allowed me to start building the system.

 

The case, motherboard, CPU, PSU have arrived and are built in. See the attached screens for a shot on these, and take a look at the attachment list to see descriptions with each pictures.

A few important things are still missing: RAM, video card and disks. Oh yeah, and the BD-drive.

 
Next-gen gaming
edited by on December 15th 2009, at 21:08
Going forward with plans for a new gaming computer, I've ordered the components. I didn't really have a specific budget in mind, other than the fact that I'm going for quality and performance, rather than selecting components based on their price.

Case: the case is an Antec Twelve Hundred gaming case. I always wanted to select a gaming case for the next one, but a nine hundred would have been just fine. The only reason why it's a twelve hundred is because of a wrong delivery a few months back, where the Antec PSU being delivered was an EC one (thus only fits in a select few cases of Antec).
The PSU is an Antec EC-850W, which is enough for now.

Motherboard: will be an Asus Rampage II Extrem  ...
 
8800GTX broken
edited by on December 14th 2009, at 23:26

Crap! Looks like my 8800GTX video card is broken. That's a serious bummer.

The card does some very serious funny things: as soon as going in-game, the card doesn't really freeze up, but has some sort of memory corruption problem, which remains throughout reboots.

Very coincidentally, I just ordered new hardware for my new gaming computer. The only thing not being replaced was the video card, because I thought it would be better to just wait a while until the next generation of cards from nVidia were available.
Apparently, Fate has decided otherwise.

 
Welcome to Black Manticore v3
edited by on December 8th 2009, at 17:36
Welcome to the next (and hopefully final) edition of Black Manticore.

Black Manticore is basically my personal webspace. It contains my blogs, galleries and projects I wish to share with the world.
Additionally, as a ICT engineer, I often come across some things that which to have archived somewhere (problems and their solutions, nifty tips and tricks, etc.). So why not use a blog of sorts, so that this information is available for everyone.

This is the third installment of the website, and there are some very big differences between the previous editions and this one. Those that have seen it before, will notice it's a completely different style, and content. Moreover, this one is   ...
 
Albatros, recommended by SFA
edited by on December 8th 2009, at 16:19
Soaring club Albatros received the unique opportunity to present its beloved sport of soaring at the open house day of Sabena Flight Academy on December 5th.

Albatros was already recommended by SFA as one of two clubs where future candidates for ATPL/CPL training would be able to follow a pre-entry training course of soaring. This would allow candidates to learn the basics of flying before actually starting the complete training.

 

To recommend this training course to all interested candidates, we were present with a full professional booth. And we can honestly say soaring got quite some attention.

As thanks, we also manage to score some simulator time in a Airbus A320 sim.



Pic  ...
 
Going forward with a license
edited by on July 12th 2009, at 20:05

So I finally got my 15 hours of solo flight time in, and worked up the nerve to take the final check for obtaining my license. And guess what...

I succeeded in obtaining my license. Yes yes, it's still a license for solo flight (still 35h fly time to go), but it's a start.
Now I can start for competition training, etc. The worlds open up, again.

 
Mathies is born
edited by on July 4th 2009, at 19:48

After 9 months, my nephew is finally born. His parents have named him Mathies.
And yes, he's just as cute as you would imagine.

 
First Jeans flight
edited by on April 13th 2009, at 20:43

Up until now, I was flying my solos with a Twin Astir II. It's a 2 seat glider which we use at our club for training (among other things).
The instructors thought it was time I moved on to something else: a Club Astir (also known as the Jeans).

The Jeans is a one seater, sort of the 1-seat equivalent of the Twin Astir I (yes, there's a difference between Twin I and II). It's a small and swift craft; not very recent, and it's a bit fickleish at times. In short: I love it!

 

I'll be flying this for a while, at least until I've enough hours on the thing to move up to the next glider.

 
Going solo...
edited by on August 31st 2008, at 18:39
After a full year of education, I finally got the clearance (well, actually, my instructors basically forced me to do it) to go solo.

 

The experience of flying all alone is a bit weird at first. Knowing that you don't really have anyone to back you up, gives one a funny feeling. On the other hand, after the funny feelings are gone, there's the feeling of ultimate freedom, flying around in the sky with only you.
The very first flight didn't take long (some 15 minutes or so), but for myself, they were the longest 15 minutes ever (and I mean that in a good way).



A tradition among soaring pilots is the not-so-all-famous initiation ceremonial ritual thingy. All trai  ...
 
Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire MySQL
edited by on January 18th 2008, at 13:03
 
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