Fujairah - The other side of the UAE
Took a day trip to Fujairah, passing Masafi Town, Dibba, Khor Fakkan and Fujairah City on the way and stopping at Wadi Shawka on the drive back. Time well spent for sure.
Took a day trip to Fujairah, passing Masafi Town, Dibba, Khor Fakkan and Fujairah City on the way and stopping at Wadi Shawka on the drive back. Time well spent for sure.
Sofia - "Grows, but does not age"
Visited another new city this November - the capital of Bulgaria: Sofia. Commonly listed as one of the oldest cities in Europe, it indeed sports some impressive historical sites dotted around in the city, while there is a clear trend towards modernity. The Soviet legacy is slowly becoming a distant past, although it has certainly not yet disappeared from the cityscape. Also had the chance to visit Rila monastery, about 120km into the mountains - a truly impressive sight.
Visited another new city this November - the capital of Bulgaria: Sofia. Commonly listed as one of the oldest cities in Europe, it indeed sports some impressive historical sites dotted around in the city, while there is a clear trend towards modernity. The Soviet legacy is slowly becoming a distant past, although it has certainly not yet disappeared from the cityscape. Also had the chance to visit Rila monastery, about 120km into the mountains - a truly impressive sight.
The Abandoned Plane - A UAE mystery
Never stop exploring, and you may just find an abandoned plane at the old Umm Al Quwain airfield. Stopped here on the way back from Jebel Jais in October 2017.
Never stop exploring, and you may just find an abandoned plane at the old Umm Al Quwain airfield. Stopped here on the way back from Jebel Jais in October 2017.
Armenia - A weekend of history
Spent an amazing weekend in Armenia. Together with Georgia, these two countries present a very unique place on the gateway to Asia, with a rich history and a special atmosphere.
Spent an amazing long weekend in Armenia. As with Georgia, the country offers a very unique atmosphere on the gateway to Asia, with a rich history and amazing landscapes. Really enjoyed exploring it, perfect for a short trip from Dubai.
Singapore & A Day Trip to Bintan (Indonesia)
Had the chance to visit Singapore a second time, more than 10 years after the first visit. Definitely a city I could live in. Only an hour by ferry is the island of Bintan, belonging to Indonesia. Perfect for a day trip and full of peculiar and amazing sights.
Had the chance to visit Singapore a second time, more than 10 years after the first visit. Definitely a city I could live in. Only an hour by ferry is the island of Bintan, belonging to Indonesia. Perfect for a day trip and full of peculiar and amazing sights.
Budapest - 1 Day in Buda, 1 Day in Pest...
Another short city break - this time to the city of Budapest, Hungary on the river Danube. Spent two days in amazing weather exploring this historic place.
Another short city break - this time to the city of Budapest, Hungary on the river Danube. Spent two days in amazing weather exploring this historic place.
Print Works
For several months I had the idea in my head to create a few fine art prints of my photography, possibly in a small edition or similar. With tens of thousands of photos in my collection, surely there must be the odd one that would look good in print.
For several months I had the idea in my head to create a few fine art prints of my photography, possibly in a small edition or similar. With tens of thousands of photos in my collection, surely there must be the odd one that would look good in print.
A few weeks ago I went to a photography trade show in Dubai and ran into Rick from www.digitalprintmaker.com - located in Al Quoz in Dubai. Great guy and was able to give me some good and genuine advice on the process and paper choices.
I had previously only printed a few books from Apple's Aperture store, as well as some random small standard prints and one canvas print which is now hanging in my apartment, so my experience with true fine art printing was limited.
When I went to his shop we had the chance to go through his collection of paper types. I had the plan to try different types for different images and realized that picking photos you really (!) like is much harder when it is about choosing a print, and not just putting them on Facebook.
The papers he had were of excellent variety, and I settled for German quality from https://www.hahnemuehle.com which makes paper for over 500 years, and picked three different variants:
308 gsm Photo Rag® 100% cotton rag paper
325 gsm Fine Art Baryta Gloss alpha cellulose paper
305 gsm Photo Rag® Ultra Smooth 100% cotton rag paper
For the lion, city and church subjects, respectively. All prints are 35 x 25cm.
I'm very happy with the result of the test print, particularly the non-gloss variants. I'll have to take another look at gloss or satin options next time, as the current paper feels less special than the others. In the end, this is more an emotional aspect than anything scientific, aside from the texture it's difficult to tell the difference in quality.
Now it's time to look at some frames and for these shots and then possibly make a small edition print for sale - I also want to try bigger sizes.
The First Milky Way Shoot
I finally made it into the desert at the right time and with the right light to do some real Milky Way shooting - something that was on my list for a long time. Below the results!
I finally made it into the desert at the right time and with the right light to do some real Milky Way shooting - something that was on my list for a long time. Below the results!
Heidelberg - A few hours...
Had the chance to go to the Building IoT conference in Heidelberg this year. Having heard about its castle and old town, I decided to take the camera along and went out to explore one early evening...
Had the chance to go to the Building IoT conference in Heidelberg this year. Having heard about its castle and old town, I decided to take the camera along and went out to explore one early evening...
Hatta - The Other Side of Dubai
Went to Hatta for a weekend, the old mountain city in the Emirates of Dubai, high up in the Hajar mountains. Worth a visit for sure!
Went to Hatta for a weekend, the old mountain city in the Emirates of Dubai, high up in the Hajar mountains. Worth a visit for sure!
Zanzibar - Island Bliss
The last trip for 2016 took me to Tanzania, more specifically the islands of Zanzibar. This beautiful archipelago just off the east cost of Africa offers a unique mix of Swahili roots, island lifestyle, arabic influences and a rich, albeit troubled history.
The last trip for 2016 took me to Tanzania, more specifically the islands of Zanzibar. This beautiful archipelago just off the east cost of Africa offers a unique mix of Swahili roots, island lifestyle, arabic influences and a rich, albeit troubled history.
Moments of Maldives
10 years after my first trip to the world's lowest country, I was lucky enough to go back to the Maldives. It's definitely a unique place on earth and one that suffers heavily from the downsides of civilization. Go, explore and come back with a more conscious mind.
10 years after my first trip to the world's lowest country, I was lucky enough to go back to the Maldives. It's definitely a unique place on earth and one that suffers heavily from the downsides of civilization. Go, explore and come back with a more conscious mind.
Tajikistan - Journey into the Unknown
For Eid Al Adha, we took a 2 day trip to Tajikistan, which is only a 3h flight from Dubai. Admittedly I knew next to nothing about the country, starting with the name of its capital - Dushanbe. We spent one day in said city, and a second day driving into the Fann Mountains to Iskanderkul, a beautiful lake. Definitely worth exploring, beautiful nature and a new culture.
For Eid Al Adha, we took a 2 day trip to Tajikistan, which is only a 3h flight from Dubai. Admittedly I knew next to nothing about the country, starting with the name of its capital - Dushanbe. We spent one day in said city, and a second day driving into the Fann Mountains to Iskanderkul, a beautiful lake. Definitely worth exploring, beautiful nature and a new culture.
Athens - Old & Older
During Eid of 2016 I spent a few days in Greece, going to Vouliagmeni on the coast and Athens
During Eid of 2016 I spent a few days in Greece, going to Vouliagmeni on the coast and Athens
New Orleans - Leave Your Dignity Behind
Had a free day after HITEC 2016 in the Big Easy and walked around to get some shots.
Had a free day after HITEC 2016 in the Big Easy and walked around to get some shots.
Kerala, India - Three Days of Bliss
Had the opportunity to take a three date trip to Fort Kochi, Kerala in India last week. Absolutely worth it, amazing combination of nature, urbanity and relaxation.
Had the opportunity to take a three day trip to Fort Kochi, Kerala in India last week. Absolutely worth it, amazing combination of nature, urbanity and relaxation.
Georgia - A Week of Different
The full selection of photos I shot during our trip through Georgia, a beautiful and still relatively unknown country. We spent a whole week there, including a few days in the capital Tbilisi, but also in the mountains of Gadauri and Stepantsminda, the eastern wine region in Naparuli, and a few places around Tbilisi, including the historic Mtskheta. We also did a small video travel blog, which could turn out quite funny, will post it soon. This was a spontaneous trip, and it has definitely been worth it.
The full selection of photos I shot during our trip through Georgia, a beautiful and still relatively unknown country. We spent a whole week there, including a few days in the capital Tbilisi, but also in the mountains of Gadauri and Stepantsminda, the eastern wine region in Naparuli, and a few places around Tbilisi, including the historic Mtskheta. This was a spontaneous trip, and it has definitely been worth it.
Also check out the small travel blog video we did here: https://youtu.be/KkgB6e62xbo
Reef Adventure - My first Marine Aquarium
My journey through setting up and running my a Reef Aquarium. While it's not my first try at keeping fishes, this is my first marine aquarium and also the biggest one yet. Swim along...
I used to have fresh water tanks from when I was 12, starting with a tiny 20L and worked my way up to 120L in the end. My dad had a 300L marine aquarium and I've always wanted to make the jump to the reef. What better time to do that than when moving into a new place.
A few basic requirements I set myself:
- 300-400L
- Sump
- Cabinet needed
- LED lights preferred
- Don't want to build too much myself, so somewhat plug and play would be good
I had a perfect spot in a corner, so was looking at a corner aquarium with bow front at the beginning, such as the Juwel Trigon 350. It's a pain to convert these to marine though, so I thought of getting a custom built one, but of course that's a very expensive option and much more risky than an out of the box solution. After some research, I stumbled across the Red Sea Reefer 350 and that seemed like a perfect fit. Having seen one in person, I pretty much made my decision. The last question was black or white, and while that's a matter of preference, the white one fit nicely along with the other furniture. It's somewhat matt and looks quite classy.
The Red Sea Reefer 350. Tank, sump water top up system and cabinet included.
In terms of equipment, here is what my mix of research and dealer recommendations resulted in:
- Skimmer: Reef Octopus NWB-SSS 110
- Wave maker: Maxspect Gyre XF130
- Lights: Zet Light - ZS7000
- Salt: Red Sea Coral Pro / 22kg
- Sand: Red Sea Base 10kg
- Heater: Eheim 100 (mainly as a backup, rarely needed in Dubai)
- Return Pump: Reef Octopus 5500
- Chiller: Hailea 300A (in case the AC fails..)
- Chiller Return Pump: Eheim Compact 1000
- Carbon for the start: Hailea Carbon pack
- Mechanical Filter: Produc Ceramic
I also want to put some sort of controller like the Reef Keeper in, which I'll do over time though.
Once I had all the equipment, it was time to bring up one age old question - and that is "What water to use?" In the end, I went for the safest route, which is to use RO water. The downside is you need a filter system and it takes a long time to prepare the water, especially for the initial fill of the tank.
Setting everything up was relatively straightforward - but you definitely need two people to lift the tank. When everything is done, it looked something like this:
The cabinet with the sump and chiller. I've since cleaned up the cabling and piping further. The chiller position underneath the tank isn't best for heat dissipation but I don't expect that it will be needed this much, as I'll keep the tank around 26.5 degrees.
The tank - still empty.
The Zetlight hanging on the wall. Wish it was possible to hide the cable.
Unfortunately my Gyre wave maker broke down after just 15min. I think the controller had a short, but they were helpful and spare part fixed it.
I also wanted to hang the LED lamp on the wall rather than having it sit on top of the glass, which somewhat destroys the clean rimless look. Had the wrong hanging kit initially but now it is hanging above the tank.
The other issue was that the Reef Octopus return pump makes a relatively high pitched noise that is clearly audible and the Eheim chiller pump vibrates relatively strongly, which is also audible. Maybe they just need to run in, but that's bothering me at the moment since the rest of the tank and the flow system in the Reefer are absolutely silent.
The next step was to pick up some rock and start reefscaping. I chose Real Reef rock combined with some Fiji live rock, which was cured at the dealer. The Real Reef rock is expensive but you get great colour and shape. I used epoxy to glue some of the pieces together, but most of it rests freely. Once I was happy with the scape - which only really took 2 or 3 tries, I added sand and the final result is this.
Current state of the tank
I kickstarted the bio cycle with some bacteria solution recommended by the fish store. Initially I had planned to use natural ammonia, such as a frozen shrimp, but with some live rock being in the tank already I decided to go for the bacteria option.
Now it's time to leave the tank to cycle for a few more weeks and do regular water tests. Then I'll add a clean up crew of turbo snails and some hermit crabs. The first fish will most likely be Clowns, alongside some simple LPS corals.
Austin - HITEC 2015
Straight from WWDC, I flew on to Austin for HITEC, the world’s biggest hospitality technology show, where iRiS has been exhibiting for the past few years. This was my second, but also last show for the company, since after 3,5 years I’m moving on to new horizons in August.
Team Photo
Flying over the endless planes of the southern USA.
Straight from WWDC, I flew on to Austin for HITEC, the world’s biggest hospitality technology show, where iRiS has been exhibiting for the past few years. This was my second, but also last show for the company, since after 3,5 years I’m moving on to new horizons in August - more on that soon.
But before that, we still had a lot of new product to show and for that reason, the weeks before the show were very intense as always, although this year a lot of the burden was with the great teams I work with.
We had a team of 15 people I think, who stayed scattered across 3 houses in the city - much nicer than hotels. Sunday and Monday were largely spent preparing our stand and making final fixes and tweaks to the applications to get ready for the show on Tuesday.
As always, what we wanted to showcase was on the cutting edge of hospitality technology, and it took until the last minute to get everything perfectly polished and working - a big compliment goes out to my dedicated team for their effort. The highlights of our demos included Mobile Check In, Mobile Door Key, a new Windows based Lobby solution, a redesigned Brand Application and a new responsive Web Guest Service product, all with a number of integrations to third party systems such as the PMS, POS and Room Controls.
In the end, all worked pretty much flawlessly and made for a very impressed hospitality crowd, judging from the feedback I was able to gather. It also felt like we hit some of the general trends at the show - using your phone to check in and as the door key to bypass the Front Desk completely was something that everyone was after. Our excellent position in the space was also evident by the numerous partnerships with large technology companies such as Microsoft, Samsung and Oracle, all of which had iRiS products integrated to their solutions to showcase.
The bar scene in Austin offered a lot of good live music
We also managed to explore the city of Austin a bit, parts of which actually seem quite pleasant. Granted, you get the impression you are in a place with a strong and distinct culture to say the least, but that's always part of the enjoyment of seeing new cities.
HITEC days always end with numerous dinners and parties in the evenings. While we attended the big ones such as the Samsung and Newmarket events, the local bar scene also provided some great alternatives. We were (or maybe I was) particularly lucky with the live music at two of the places we went to - that made the evenings were the rest of the people enjoyed a drink or two or three very enjoyable for me as well, not to mention that it was the last time I got to see some of my colleagues (at least they might not be "colleagues" any more next time) and of course also a few people from other companies, it's a small industry after all.
Everything was over on Friday and I left Austin at 10am in the morning, to arrive back in Dubai on Saturday evening at 8pm - a long journey indeed, but those two weeks were definitely worth the travel time.
The iRiS stand.
San Francisco - WWDC 2015
This year, I had the chance to attend WWDC, Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. While the conference is mostly known for its opening day keynote, it’s actually a full week of sessions and events.
This year, I had the chance to attend WWDC, Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. While the conference is mostly known for its opening day keynote, it’s actually a full week of sessions and events.
I’ve never thought about attending previously, but this year I got an E-Mail from Apple announcing that registration was open. Knowing that the chances of actually getting a ticket are quite low - they used to sell out in minutes, but since 2014 Apple holds a lottery to assign the around 4000 tickets - combined with the fact that it just takes two clicks to buy a ticket on Apple’s online store, I went ahead and registered. Surprisingly, I found myself waking up to a confirmation E-Mail two weeks later, which meant I had to sort out flights and a hotel. Luckily, I had to be in Austin the week after for HITEC, hence a US trip was already on the cards.
Over the North Pole
I flew in on Emirates from Dubai on Saturday before the conference on the longest flight I took so far - almost 15h. The flight interestingly takes the route over the north pole, another first for me. I arrived on Saturday afternoon and went for a quick walk through the city to get some dinner, before heading back to the hotel early - 11h jet lag was catching up with me.
At the Keynote on Monday.
Having fallen asleep at 6pm and woken up at 2am, I went out to collect my badge early on Sunday morning after a breakfast at the Ferry terminal and got a nice Apple jacket as well. I spent the rest of the day wandering through San Francisco and shopping a bit, before heading to bed early. On Monday, I got up at 5.30 am to stand in line for the keynote - I really wanted to see it live and I knew that not everyone can fit into the room. Judging from what other people said, it probably would have been enough to get there at 8 am or even later as well. Seeing an Apple keynote live was a great thing to have experienced. While nothing groundbreaking was announced, the first 115min were spot on and well executed, with OS X, iOS 9 and watchOS 2 all showing a lot of potential. Personally, I'm very excited about the watchOS, I think the wrist truly has a lot of potential for technology, far more than glasses for instance.
Things got a little out of shape with the Apple Music announcement. That holds true for the presentation itself for sure and remains to be seen for the product. Jimmy Iovine was just not able to bring the point across, followed by Drake, who wasn’t really able to either (but was sporting a cool Vintage Apple jacket). Eddy Cue was his usual self, but spent way too long demonstrating an application that looked overly complex and with no clear focus. I am skeptical if Apple is on the right track here, but agree it was time for them to change something.
The second session of the day was the Platform State of the Union, where Apple’s product people give a deeper dive into some of the announcements of the morning and how they affect developers. Definitely some cool features coming that will no doubt make their way into Apps we are using daily. Lastly, the annual Apple Design awards showcased some of the best apps for iOS and Mac that were released in the past year, among them my favourite calendar App, Fantastical, and a very cool demo of Accessibility within Apps, where two blind Apple Accessibility QA engineers were using the Workflow App. That was truly impressive.
In the evening, I attended two of the many events and parties surrounding WWDC each year. I was a bit late registering for the parties and events, so the RSVP list for many of them was closed. I did manage to get into the Pinterest party - which wasn’t particularly great - but also got an invite from Jim Dalrymple of The Loop to attend his AltBeardBash at the W hotel. Great location and a nice event with Karaoke from some of the more (or less) talented Apple followers in the industry. I also managed to chat to John Gruber of Daring Fireball briefly and secured a spot for his The Talk Show event for the Tuesday - which was absolutely worth it, more on that below.
With Craig Federighi
Tuesday was a day with a few interesting sessions around UIWebView, WebKit, CloudKit and Enterprise deployments - much of them is at just about the right level for me - not being a developer - to still get a lot of value out of them, and addressed a number of points that are relevant for what I am doing in my current job. I also couldn't resist snapping a photo with Craig Federighi - Apple's SVP of Software Engineering, who is gaining fame in the geek world with his appearances at Apple's product introduction keynotes.
Phil Schiller with John Gruber
After the sessions, I headed over to John Gruber’s Talk Show event, who amazingly had Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of Marketing and known from many of the presentations, as his interviewee. Funnily enough I had seem him a few minutes earlier at Moscone and he was talking to someone about “walking over” - I had a hunch he might be part of the Talk Show. While the interview wasn’t groundbreaking, it was great to see them discuss some of the recent controversial topics in a somewhat private and casual setting and really shows how Apple's approach to PR has changed in the last years.
My highlight on Wednesday was a presentation by Debbie Sterling called “Think Audacious” about her journey as an Entrepreneur and the goal to bring more women into Engineering and Technology, as well as sessions on Safari and Webkit, since we work a lot on web apps at iRiS, and many of the our ongoing issues are being addressed in the upcoming releases. I also briefly attended Pebble’s / Atlassian’s WWDC party in the evening.
On Thursday, I had to take a care of a few work related things, so could not attend as many sessions as I wanted. I did see the lunch session with Disney's animation legend Floyd Norman, who gave a nice talk around how Disney's techniques evolved over time. In the evening, Apple had its yearly Bash at the Yerba Buena Gardens, with free food and drink as well as a performance by Walk The Moon, which was pretty neat. Surprisingly, developers are actually capable of enthusiastically enjoying a live performance!
Friday was the last day of the conference, with a few interesting sessions, among them new features in UI Dynamics, Notifications and the new system fonts in Apple's Operation Systems. I found topics like UI Dyanmics or the system font were particularly interesting, as many of the concepts involve bring together other disciplines - it's very typical for what Apple calls the intersection of technology and liberal arts. While my knowledge on typography is limited at best, it's easy to take good looking fonts for granted, when in fact there is an incredible amount of thinking, design and research behind them. The lunchtime session was a great talk on planet discovery. It's great that Apple is breaking up the presentations and labs with some broader talks on science, creativity or entrepreneurship.
After a short night's sleep, I headed to the airport to fly over to Austin for HITEC. More on that later. All in all, I'd recommend to attend WWDC at least once to anyone who is working on a product in Apple's ecosystem in some technical capacity. While there is most value for developers, even if you are not actually writing the 1's and 0's there are many sessions and labs that are useful on a higher level. I am not sure I'd fly in from Dubai just for WWDC every year, but since I had to go to the US anyway, it was a no brainer.
