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Holy crap, time’s flying like there’s no tomorrow (ugh, how’s that for a shitty metaphor?). A merry Christmas to you all!

For those of you who don’t know, I finally graduated from college, moved to Munich and got a kick-ass job there (although not in that order ;) And it only took my ISP six goddamn weeks to hook up my internet, adding technical difficulties to my latent laziness as far as blogging is concerned. I was gonna write a review of the NAS I bought for my movie collection, but it crapped out on me about a month ago and that was that. Which also explains why there haven’t been any movie roundups for a while.

As for 2010, I think it’s gonna be a great year. I plan on putting my private little movie theater into practice, step by step as my wallet permits. There are a couple of fairly interesting projects at work that I wanna share with you once they’ve matured a little bit, and considering the fact that I do get paid for implementing them, there’s a pretty good chance that that is actually going to happen.

Also, I am definitely gonna post my “picks of the year” for 2009, but I won’t be able to do that until I’m back in Munich which will be in early January and chances are I’ll date it back to December 31st.

Whoohooo, I’m now officially a Zend Certified Engineer. Besides looking nice on my application it was actually a pretty good exercise and preparation for my upcoming job interviews. I wouldn’t say it was particularly hard but you definitely need to prepare yourself, if only to know what kind of questions to expect. And I did learn a thing or two, some more useful than others (there is a function called strspn? Really?).
One could argue that quizzing people about the behaviour of particular functions isn’t really all that meaningful. After all, that’s the kind of stuff you can look up in the docs should need be. But then again, this is a PHP-specific certification and not one about your general ability to program. With that in mind it actually makes sense to ask some rather pedantic questions about PHP.

I’ve thought rather long and hard about what kind of jobs I should be applying for. I’ve worked with PHP, Java, C# and C++ and although PHP definitely has its quirks and shortcomings I do have a somewhat masochistic love/hate-relationship with it. It’s just a fun language. So for that reason I’ve been looking for a job as a PHP developer and it seems that there are plenty of openings and the offers are slowly trickling in. This is a very exciting time and I believe you can make or break quite a lot with your first job. Let’s see how things turn out, wish me luck.

Whoah, that was a pretty long time with no serious posts whatsoever. In my defense, I am a lazy bastard. Also, I was fairly busy with college. But now I’m done with my thesis and my last seminar and only have one more 20-minute oral to go in late October. Until then, I’m free. Well, free in the sense that I don’t quite know what I’m gonna do yet. Suggestions welcome :)

Celina and I hung out with Guy Kemper last Saturday, and I tell you that man is a funny fucker, and a great story teller as well. I don’t claim to know much about art, but I’d definitely put some of his stuff in my apartment if I could afford it.

I’ll be in Poland for about a week starting Thursday, so there is my perfect excuse for not blogging anything. I’ve heard very scary things about polish weddings… so if you guys don’t hear anything from me for a while, I’m probably somewhat comatose and need some time to recover *coughs*. Should make for some cool photos, though.

I got myself a new cell phone! Yay for me! And I shall share my joy with you whether you like it or not. So shut up and listen.

The contract with my cell phone provider recently expired so seized the opportunity to pretend I needed a new phone. I made a short list of what I wanted (namely WiFi, GPS, Symbian and a good, replaceable battery) and what wasn’t all that important (multimedia capabilities, camera and touchscreen) and the list of possible candidates quickly became very short.

I was fairly excited about the Blackberry Storm when it was announced last September. Of course now we know that it didn’t really live up to all the expectations it initially raised, but even if it had done so, not having WiFi would still be an absolute no-go. The iPhone is a great piece of engineering, but the battery isn’t replaceable and I don’t agree with the overall concept Apple is pursuing with its App Store. The Android-powered phones (all two of them) are somewhat clunky and in my opinion not quite mature enough yet.

I’ll only comment on a few things instead of boring you with a lengthy in-depth review, there are plenty of them out there already, and I agree with them for the most part (take a look at All About Symbian, Mobile Tech Review or Engadget Mobile). But truth be told, who really sold it to me was Joel Spolsky – I trust that man :-)

Synchronization

I manage all my contacts and appointments using Zimbra, so seamless synchronization was mandatory. Turns out that Nokia’s Mail for Exchange does exactly that. Just enter the URL and your login credentials and you’re all set, no need to manually synchronize with your PC.
There’s also RoadSync which is more powerful but puts a 50$ deep dent in your pocket. If I ever switch to Exchange I might take another look at it. Until then, Mail For Exchange is just fine.

Battery

Now that’s a big one. I just hate having to recharge my cell phone every other day. The E71 easily lasts four or more days, and that’s including some semi-serious WiFi usage. Plus the battery is replaceable which is great. You can get a new one for as low as 20€, should need be.

Keyboard

As you can see in the picture, the E71 features a full QWERTY-keyboard which rather small keys. I was very skeptic as to how tedious typing on it would be. Turns out, it really is a breeze once you’ve gotten used to it. The positioning of the ‘ü’ is somewhat awkward but that’s no biggie. I was very pleasantly surprised.

WiFi & Web

Unfortunately, the way the E71 handles WiFi connections isn’t terribly smart and you have to manually select the appropriate access point for each program each and every time you want to connect to the Internet. If, however, you can bring yourself to shelling out 10€ you can get Psiloc Connect which will take care of all of that hassle.
The device comes with its own browser but I didn’t even look at it given that Opera Mobile is indisputably the weapon of choice here. I have to admit that surfing with the iPhone is a lot more fun due to its touchscreen (and larger display). So if that’s a primary concern for you then you should probably go with the iPhone. I, however, am not planning on spending too much time on the web. All I usually do is look something up on Wikipedia, post on Facebook or read news. For that the navigating with the keyboard is perfectly fine.

All in all, the E71 is a truly great phone. The only thing one could complain about is the mediocre camera and possibly its multimedia capabilities (or lack thereof). Then again, it’s a business phone. And a good one at that.

Sometimes more really is more. Case in point: computer screens. Unless you do nothing but “office stuff” and watch YouTube you simply can’t have enough screen real estate, especially if you’re a developer. Any serious computer user who says that he wouldn’t prefer two or more screens over one any day of the week is either lying or has never even tried it. But more on that in few days.
A few months back I decided to get a new screen but just couldn’t make up my mind what to get. After weeks (seriously!) of weighing up the different options and their pros and cons I ended up buying a Dell 3008WFP. Thirty decadent inches of awesomeness. (Yes, I need help. Shut it.)
There are – believe it or not – actually a few practical arguments for getting a 30″ monitor. First of all, it has a significant higher resolution compared to smaller ones. The step from 1920×1200 to 2560×1600 is huge – a difference of almost 80%. Compared to my 21″ and 18″ screen it’s more than twice and three times the resolution, respectively:

Secondly, its sheer size is in some cases truly advantageous and not just a dick by proxy. While getting two 24″ screens probably would have been more reasonable, cheaper and possibly more ergonomic, it’s obvious that watching movies is a job for the Big Gun. That damn thing is so insanely huge, it’s not even funny. You know how now matter what screen you buy you always get used to it eventually and everything feels like before? Not with this one you don’t, no Sir! I’ve had it for several months now and it still impresses the crap out of me.
If you sit at an unhealthy distance of say 60 to 75cm (that’s 23.5 to 30 inches, you American SI heathens) it fills out most of your field of vision and you can really immerse in movies and games. Right now I’m playing Need For Speed: Undercover and holy god damn is that fun. With a surround sound system you can hear the cops behind you, you can hear the swoooosh when you pass another car and when you ram something you can actually feel it, thanks to the subwoofer. That’s an experience you can’t have with a small screen, no matter which way you spin it.

That’s not a very exciting screenshot, I know that. Just click on it and view it in full size. If your browser shows scroll bars, you lose ;-)