This is the blog of Gerd Riesselmann, a freelance software developer from Cologne, Germany. This site contains articles about software development and user interface design in general and object oriented programming in special, covering a set of programming languages from C++ and C# to PHP and Javascript. Additionally, you'll find code snippets and modules for Drupal, the open source content management system powering this site.
Firefox Spotted in Cologne Subway
In Cologne subway stations there are so-called "Info-Screens", which are screens sized about 2 to 3 meters that display short news, advertising, weather forecasts etc. And guess what: yesterday's news was about FireFox hitting 50 Million downloads.
taz-köln-Redakteure online
Kein richtiges Blog aber trotzdem interessant ist die Seite von Dirk Eckert, seines Zeichens Redakteur bei der taz köln. Er hat auch einen RSS Feed.
A Braindead Simple PHP Feed Writer Class
Creating a feed usually is a quite simple thing, since the structure of both RSS and Atom feeds is rather simple. However, simplicity covers its own traps - and the similarity of RSS and Atom often leads to duplicated code. I wrote a braindead simple PHP class to avoid this.
Cross-Browser Transparency
Thanks to Richard my menu bar is transparent in IE and Safari, too - and not only in Mozilla.
Safari first to pass ACID2 test
Safari is the first browser that passes the ACID2 browser compliance test. Respect!
Grete Humbach died
I don't know what's happening, maybe it's the weather. Two Months after her 100. birthday, Grete Humbach died on April 20th in Cologne. Grete Humbach was one of the few people who actively fought the Nazis in Germany, and therefore earns deepest respect. Beeing a communist, she also was persecuted in the early days of the Federal Republic.
Dr. Erika Fuchs died
Dr. Erika Fuchs died on Friday, April 22nd at the age of 98. Erika Fuchs is well known for her famous German translations of Disney comics and especially those done by Carl Barks. This is a great loss for the German comic community. I offer condolences to her relatives and friends.
Tutorial XHTML2 and XForms
Last event in my "Do as much in a couple of days as you would normally do in a year"-week: Together with Natalia and Catarina I attended Steven Pemberton's Tutorial on XHTML2 and XForms, organized by the German and Austrian section of W3C.
Pemberton is a brilliant speaker, easy to follow for both unexperienced and experienced users, and entertaining, too. He covered the basics of XHTML2 and explained why things were decided the way they were. The recommendation looks quite promising. However, of course, it will be of pratical relevance in about five to six years from now - if at least.
Marx Brothers Radio Show in Cologne
On Monday I visited the play The Marx Brothers Radio Show, based on - well - the radio show the Marx Brothers did in the 1930ths and rewritten for theatre. They are playing it currently - and again in May - at the Arkadas Theatre. If you like the Marx Brothers and if you are in Cologne, go visit it. I enjoyed the play - and I also enjoyed sitting and talking with the actors afterwards up to midnight.
28th Annual Meeting of D.O.N.A.L.D
Last Weekend I attended the 28th annual meeting of D.O.N.A.L.D. (Deutsche Organisation der nichtkommerziellen Anhänger des lauteren Donaldismus - German organisation of noncommercial members of pure donaldism) in Aachen. Besides the new Mac Moneysac Award was (in absence) given to Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank AG, several new scientific researches about the life in Duckburg were presented. All in all it was an entertaining and instruktive meeting.
