Vikkel.com

Heroes Season 3 introduces new characters in the first episode

Vikkel.com — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:03:08 GMT

Since I am looking so much forward to see the upcoming season of Heroes, I did some investigation myself (apart from what was in my last post).

A trip to the IMDB listing of the upcoming episode disclosed the following 5 names not being credited in the previous seasons of the series before:

Bruce Boxleitner plays a yet unnamed character, and
Blake Shields plays the role of 'Flint', and
Francis Capra plays the role of "Jesse Murphy", and
Brea Grant plays the role of Daphne Millbrook, and
Jamie Hector plays the role of Benjamin "Knox" Washington.
There is a few more to mention, but something even more interesting is this entry...

Ali Larter will play the role of Tracy Strauss!!! I wonder what is up with that. Is she even more of a schizo than in the previous seasons (portraying Niki / Jessica Sanders)..?

Looking forward to see if these new players have any abilities, and if so, what they are...

Heroes season 3 coming soon

Vikkel.com — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:50:38 GMT

One of my favorite shows are soon back on the air. The 3rd season of Heroes will air September 22nd. Finally.

I have previously written about the series, and commented about the similarities the characters in the show has with old comic book superheroes. But now the next season is only weeks away. I can't wait to see what is going to happen, and what new abilities will be uncovered.

If you can't wait either, not even till the 22nd, then head over to Aint It Cool News for some spoilers. Just don't let me know what happens.

Oh yeah, and do check out the novels available on nbc.com/heroes for more background info on various of the characters.

Enjoy!

Yet another blog

Vikkel.com — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:07:00 GMT

This is not breaking news, but still worth sharing. I took on the challenge of blogging about my job at Sitecore before summer 2008. My main goal with this initiative was to let the partners (and other interested parties) know what is going on in my unit (Sitecore International).

Many of my colleagues are also sharing nice valuable information. Most of these blogs however are very technical. I took my blog in a different direction to promote the initiatives and work we are doing in the field. Regardless, I may post something technical, or share a module of my own now and then.

Interested in what i'm busy with at Sitecore..? Then head over to http://sitecore-on-the-road.blogspot.com/

Cool stuff: Using photos to enhance video quality

Vikkel.com — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:18:18 GMT

Recently I stumbled over a link to this site: Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene. These guys have developed a very cool technique where they blend high-resolution images into digital video to enhance picture quality.

Check out the demo video of the process, it is very impressive what they have accomplished.
I for one am certainly hoping their tool will be available at some point. It would sure help improve some of my own video captures. Not just by enhancing quality, but also making hand-held clips stable in motion (about 4 minutes into the video).
As they say, there are already tools on the market that help stabilize video, but their technique seems to be the winner.

Dammit Alexa!

Vikkel.com — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:35:59 GMT

It's been countless days since I last shared some info here. I blame it on my job and my sparetime interests.

Regardless, I just realized something today when I was checking up on stuff on Alexa.com. (Alexa is a register of basically all of the worlds websites, ranked by amount of traffic.) How they collect the data, and if it can be considered accurate is not the subject of my post this time around.

However, my current ranking (vikkel.com) was a bit of a surprise to me. I rank 4,298,595 in their list. Wow I'm in top 5 million. What is interesting here I guess, is how other Danish sites rank in comparison. Carlsberg.dk rank 803,034 (about 5 times better than me), which is not very impressive.

Microsoft.dk however, ranks at 3,700,343 - which means I only have to be a little more active to generate as much traffic as the Danish Microsoft office. Makes you wonder what the hell they are doing out there in their fancy office. Obvoiusly their marketing dept. should consider working faster if they don't want to be passed by yours truly on alexa.

Ok, enough blabbering for now, welcome back to hopefully a lot more posts coming

A new year and a new job

Martin Vikkelsø — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:08:52 GMT

First of all, happy new year dear reader!

As the headline suggests, I started 2008 at a new company. This means that I no longer work at Mondosoft, which was actually my ticket to Copenhagen way back in 2000. That's right, I worked there for 7+ years.
It wasn't just the bad news about the company that made me look for new adventures. I must say I was beginning to feel like a dinosaur (a MondoSaurus?!?).

Anyway to make a long story short (and skip over the part of the story that should just be left untold*) I now work for Sitecore. An old colleague of mine needed some help building his channel and had a feeling I was right for the job. I can't wait to prove him right :-)

So I got a new job, new job title, new responsibilities, new challenges, new laptop, and new colleagues. What else can you ask for?

However, despite the job change I still plan (and actually have current plans) for getting together with most of my old co-workers. Quite a team we had, kinda like the musketeers. All for one, and one for all. :-)

Ok, but enough about the job situation. Here's some of my plans for the first part of 2008:
Loosing 8-9 kilos, updating my server, installing the Sitecore Express for a web-project of mine and hopefully showing off my mad skillz. Oh, and continuing my education of course. And then I owe about a tonne of postings on this site and the Danish mirror. Ooof. I really gotta get my act together.

* lets just say that declaring bankruptcy can result in unwanted tension, stress and disbelief.

Solutions and problems

Martin Vikkelsø — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:45:09 GMT

There's two kinds of people:
Those who think every problem has a solution,
and those who think every solution has a problem...

- of which, only the latter seem to have a long-term strategic mindset...

A new cool toy

Martin Vikkelsø — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:16:12 GMT

I may not be the biggest gadget freak in the world, but I do love getting some cool toy every now and then.

Gitte made my dream come true on my recent birthday, and got me a Sony HDD video camera. How cool is that!!!

I've been taping her nephews confirmation + my buddy's recent wedding with it. Very nice piece of hardware I might add. The 30GB of storage can hold hours and hours of footage, and the usability is top notch.

Also, the camera has a 40x optical zoom and yet, it is so small it fits in the palm of my hand. The camera also comes with a USB 2.0 docking station, so transfering video onto my PC is as easy as it gets.

I actually guarantee you, that my "DVD Project" category will list quite a few new posts over the summer...

Possibly the best gift ever!

Another year almost gone

Martin Vikkelsø — Fri, 11 May 2007 21:16:56 GMT

Tomorrow im turning 27.

Twenty-seven. Damn.
This last year has passed by so fast, that I can hardly remember all the things that happened. Maybe I'm just getting old... ;-)

It's been quite a ride actually, and I hope the coming year will have at least the same amount of good times. For now, the whole next month seem to be packed with places to go and stuff to do. But alas, its almost vacation time, and I am very much looking forward to get offline for a while.

Working about 50 hours a week is ok for shorter periods of time, but holidays are greatly appreciated after that kind of effort. For now I got 2 weeks planned with Gitte, and 1 week is reserved to go sailing with my mates. Yarrr.

In the mean time, I will of course keep posting stuff here now and then + on my company blog. And maybe I will also get my new project at imitatingsanity.com jumpstarted as well.

Take care, and feel free to send me presents tomorrow...

Heroes - Dead characters revisited

Martin Vikkelsø — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:29:22 GMT

WOW!

Those 3 letters cover the essence of what I think about episode 20. Wow!

So much stuff happened, but to keep the info from being available to the unsuspecting reader, i will hide it once again.

Click this link to display the spoilers.