“Hmm, interesting how, as a programmer, I tend to look at most aspects in life from a very logical point of view” (Obligatory xkcd reference).

By this, I mean that I often find myself thinking in terms of computer logic when I think about how things work or happen. (This sounds so much geekier than it really is. I hope.)

As I continued to philosophize on the subject, I realized that it might perhaps make interesting subject matter for some blog posts or articles.
I then wondered if a domain name like lifeasaprogrammer.com, asaprogrammer.com, likeaprogrammer.com and/or ofaprogrammer.com would still be available. (This is when I realized I really should invest in a UMPC, because now I had to get out of bed and switch on my PC to check this…)

As it turns out, these domain names were indeed still up for grabs, so I very impulsively decided to order all those domain names plus their .net equivalents… They’re dirt cheap anyway

Right now the idea is to have a blog-like site on there, where I talk about all sorts of stuff that keeps me occupied as a programmer. What I’m writing on, which technologies I’m stoked about, that sort of stuff. But obviously I’ll also want to write about other aspects of life from the programmers point of view, because that’s what the site is called.

Especially the asaprogrammer and likeaprogrammer.com domain names are pretty sweet, because I can also make sections for things like tutorials (code.likeaprogrammer.com) and virtually anything else I can think of.

I also have a passion for such things as movies and games, so if I want, I can pretty easily create reviews.ofaprogrammer.com where I would review these things. The programmer aspect of it kind of gets lost there, though.

I still have a lot of pondering and designing to do though. What section do I want there? Will I use an existing CMS like WordPress or will I roll out my own using something like Django? What will my site look like?

In the end it very well may never really kick off. It all depends on whether I feel I can come up with something that is actually going to be worth reading. Because if the site would see as many visitors as this one does, then I really don’t think I should bother

One of the guys living in the same house called the janitor and acted like he lived in the room of one of the French guys and that he had forgotten his key and was as such locked out. The janitor here has no idea who lives where, so he opened the door without asking… Quite a large security issue, but that’s not really relevant now.

In a team effort, we moved everything out of his room. Laptops, TV, Wii, Desk, Bed, Couch… Everything. Some of the people then continued to inflate some condoms and hang them around the room. I’m not sure what they were thinking when they did that latter, but whatever.

So today (or technically yesterday) ‘the French’ returned, so we got ready outside the window of his room in order to watch (and record) his response.
Whilst standing there waiting, I put my hands in my pockets, because it was cold. When doing so I felt two small bits of plastic. Not knowing what they were, I took them out:

Sorry for the poor quality, it was dark and I was too lazy to switch on the lights.

The timing was perfect, too, because tomorrow I’m going on a trip to Riga, Latvia, for three days. Great! Luckily I still have my credit card, but that’ll cost me more money. Furthermore it’ll take some time to get a replacement - especially when factoring in the Finland issue.

Anyway, since I was ordering a new one, I went and designed my own card in the process. It was only ~2 euros more to make my card totally awesome and unique! Behold:

Look familiar?

Anyway, I’ve been planning on going abroad for my work placement for quite some time. A good friend of mine went to Finland about 2 years ago I think it was, and he came home with such good stories that I’ve always wanted to go to Finland ever since. I’ve somehow always thought that Finland was a pretty cool country. The land of Metal, cold weather, and incomprehensible languages.

Anyhow, I recently started to do the things needed to get there for my work placement which will be from February until June. At the moment the plan is to go to a company called doRego (or some other variation of the capitalization of that word) which is a company in Salo, some 2 hours west-north-west of Helsinki. The aforementioned friend went there, too. The plan is also to go with a classmate and good friend (Roel).

Recently yet another friend of mine (Jan-Jaap) bought an XBOX 360 and we (Roel, Jan-Jaap and yours truly) have been enjoying a great many games like Assassin’s Creed, Halo 3, etc. So now I’m saving money to buy an XBOX 360 myself, which I think may come in handy in Finland if we ever get bored (which should not happen because there should be a lot of international students there to socialize with).

I’ve also been thinking of taking my PC along. Doing some quick calculations (two screens of 5 kg each, plus a case which I’ve estimated at around 15 (may have been a gross overestimation) would amount to a total shipping cost of 270 euros, with UPS). Although that does seem to be some sort of express delivery where it gets delivered the next day, so maybe it’s cheaper if I tell them to take as long as they want.

How do I make money for buying xboxes and paying shipping costs, you ask?
I’ve been working as a (Visual Basic 6.0) programmer, which is great fun and lucrative! I’ve just finished writing a printing system (which took ages to write because I tried 3 different methods and found out they all Failed Badly™) and now I’ve started to work on a way for the application I’m working on (Dutch website: Voetbaltrainingsuite.nl) to be internationalized. It’s a bit of a makeshift solution at the moment though.

I shall no doubt be posting more about (and possibly from) Finland in the coming months, because I’m quite excited about going there

• I wasn’t updating it because I don’t take a lot of pictures
• Lately my website’s been terribly slow. After complaining to orudge a bunch of times, it seemed that spambots spamming on my gallery were stressing MySQL too much. Oops!

It was also a terribly outdated version of the software, so that might’ve been a reason for it, too.

I don’t think it will be missed too much

Writing about what happens in my life is not really for me. Not necessarily because nothing ever happens, but just because I don’t really realize at the time that it makes for blogging material.
Instead, I think I’ll just blog about anything technology/computer related that I engage in, stumble upon, am excited about or feel like telling people about

While I realize that there’s bound to be a smaller audience for that than for the more generic topic that is my life, I’ve decided not to care for one very good reason:
Nobody actually reads my blog posts NOW, so I don’t have to worry about losing any readers ;). So if I’m going to write for no one but me, why not write about stuff that interests me?