I use rel-license since a pretty long time now and when I heard of hCard, I wanted to try it out immediately. But for several reasons I wasn't really sure, how to implement it. So now I just made a module and let it annoy me - therefore forcing myself to work on it some more! ;)

It's all about metadata, semantic markup and insert your favourite buzz-words. An image says more than a thousand words, so have a look:

In the bottom right corner, right besides the 20 Errors (yes, I'm not yet ))W3C-compliant(( :P ) you see the microformats-logo. After double-clicking it, the Tails FireFox extension opens up in the left column and shows my vCard. The tails-extension is far from perfect, but it is a very good tool for recognizing microformats on pages and getting an initial look at them. There are other extensions, that directly allow to add contacts to your address-book, etc.

I haven't blogged in a long time now. Need to catch up again..

But for now I made some changes to this site:

• Added CV
• Added contact information
• enabled search
• disabled anonymous comments

I'm sorry about the last one, but I never was really happy with it, since Tiki doesn't allow for giving your name, when you comment as anon. And now spammers used the comment-feature on this site - so I finally had a reason to really disable it. I plan to allow registering with this site though to allow people to comment again.

The world in which you live, the soil you stand and walk on, the city you call your home, the shape of the continent you roam - who made them?

1. God
2. The EU or it's member states
3. Big Bang
4. Natural emergence

Well, I admit, that you might choose different answers, but I hope, that no one answered "The EU".

Geographical data is given, like coastlines - or created by a huge network of collaborating humans, like states and cities. It concernes everybody and somehow no-one at all, as it seems. Well, at least we can say, that it doesn't belong to anybody - except for god, the big bang or [Fill in anything, that fits your believes].

The EU at least seems to look a bit differently at this issue after several rounds of its complicated, pyramidal and inefficient decision process.

If you don't think, that legislation should give governments the copyright of what belongs to everyone - then make your opinion count:

Petition for Public Access to Geographic Data in Europe

Sign this petition and not only help preserve your rights, but also show, that there are people who care about what the government does! Show them, that there are ways to collaborate with a huge amount of human beings!
The day will come, when people proposing free access to information will be heard right from the beginning. Let's defend our rights and speed this up..!

I'm No. 502 - you can still make it to be one of the first 1000! ;)

It has been some days now, that krugle has been announced. But this could really be an interesting step towards the idea of global knowledge sharing. I haven't yet grasped, how krugle will technically do, what it promises - but it is a huge and interesting mission. Making code searchabe, annotatable and accessible to anyone - wherever that code resides or was invented. Google has gone evil since some time now - and if no free alternative arises, krugle supposably will, too! Or it will be bought by Google - which doesn't make any difference!
Never the less I'm eager to see the technology behind it and the site working. :)

I was very happy four days ago, when I heard, that Novell contributes in a truely Open Source manner to the 3D enhancement of the X-Window system. Them doing everything right and integrating it into X.org, where every window-manager profits from, made me even happier.
About a year ago, when I first heard about M$'s Windows Vista, which shall get a fancy 3D Desktop environment, I was a little concerned, that this might slow down Linux adoption for the masses, since eye candy counts more for them, than technological advantage. I already tested the X.org compositing extension, but it is slow and unstable though not providing much more than transparency and shadows. John "maddog" Hall recently made a good point about the 'Vista-threat' though: Microsoft has a problem says maddog @ itwire.com. The extreme hardware requirements being a big obstacle for the adoption of Vista - which was an eyeopener and a little relief.

What though really, really relieved me, was seeing, that Novell's XGL is up to whatever there comes! :)
Yes, there is a video available, check it out! It's worth it!! Prepare to stand in awe! Novell has some on their web-site, but here is a downloadable XVid-version:

Compiz Window Manager Released
Get it! And spread it!

M$'s Vista Vapourware doesn't stand any chance against XGL:

• Vista needs high-end machines to run
  • One In Two PCs Won't Run Vista's Interface @ slashdot.org
• XGL is said to run even on Intel's i810 integrated graphics-chip
  • Which is believable since it utilizes the OpenGL standard
• Vista's technology just plain sucks - using DirectX9 at least
• Vista's eye candy and usability enhancements are ridiculous compared to XGL
• XGL runs even faster than a classical 2D-Desktop

Looking Glass was already a good start, but flawed from the ground up, not having enough performance - fixing this and getting it stable seems like a task, that's not really worth it. But now, with XGL, Linux got an already bleeding-edge 3D-Desktop and considering, that most Linux Desktops are better in usability and feature-count than Windows counterparts, it's only a matter of time, when we will do stuff, that you for now only know from Sci-Fi movies. Vista lost already, it looks dusty though it's still only vapour! M$ was pushed onto the loosing lane a big bit!

Thanks Novell!