Mike’s Blog

While going through some rather old backups, I stumbled across a folder from 1996. At the time I was student at the Institut Superieur de Technologie in Luxembourg. One of the projects we worked on at the time was to create a navigable QuicktimeVR movie. We chose to take the Library as scenery for the QTVR movie.
We used an Apple QuickTake digital camera to take the pictures, which is one of the reasons for the rather low resolution images. But performance of the computers at the time was certainly also part of it, after all, this little gem is now over 13 years old.
The final project included a clickable map of the room, done using Macromedia Director if I remember correctly, but I don’t seem to have a copy of that part anymore.

The first clip was a test taking in one of the studios, while the second one was the final result and you can click through the clip to “walk” through the not so impressive library.

Well, after having had my little blog for nearly two years now, It was time to refresh the design a little bit. I hope you like it, although I am still tweaking it here and there.
At the same time I have also decided to move the blog to a different, more obvious domain name.

Update: I am not too happy with the look yet. I will be modifying the template (or go for another one) in order to make better use of teh screen-estate. Stay tuned….

Merry Christmas to all of you!
There couldn’t be a better day for me to post the following video. The text is based on a true story. In 1897, a little girl wrote a letter to the New York Sun (one of New York’s newspapers at the time). She basically only had one question: Is there a Santa Clause. The letter ended up at the Desk of Frank Church, one of the editors at the Sun. This short clip contains his response as it was published 110 years ago in the New York Sun.

You can read all the details about the story at Wikipedia.

Credits go to David Ippolito, who took the story and included it in one of the songs on his Christmas album from 1999 (Just a Thought for Christmas). Please visit David’s website and listen to his podcast and his music. I love his music since the day that I saw him play live at “the hill” in New York’s Central Park.

(video clip: WinterMuse from johnnycli)

Since it promised to be a nice and sunny day today, I decided to keep my old camera running pointed towards the O2 dome during the day to capture the view I have. The first one was recorded during the early hours of the morning and shows the dome appearing out of the fog. The second one shows the dome from early afternoon until late evening.

Enjoy!

You can see my collection of videos on Youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/mikehellers

Last Thursday I went to see Herbert Grönemeyer at the Royal Albert Hall here in London. I was kind of hoping that it would be a nice evening, and guess what: It was even better! It was certainly one of the best concerts that I have seen this year!

Grönemeyer clearly enjoyed playing at the Albert Hall, and guess what, the audience was amazing!

Below is a short clip which I took during the concert. I have some further clips,and as soon as I get to it I will edit them together an upload them.

Another nice weekend in London! The weather was wonderful and there is always something new to see in London. One of this weekends events was the Carnaval del Pueblo in Camberwell (next to Elephant and Castle in South London). It is the biggest latin Carneval event in the UK, over 100′000 visitors last year. I spend most of Sunday afternoon/evening there with some friends, and it was great fun! Although, I have to say that maybe some of us had too many cocktails/beers at the end, but hey, great fun! Great music, great fun fair, great environment, great people and all of this together with lot’s of sun made it a wonderful event!

As some of you know, I actually enjoy watching "The Apprentice" TV series, especially the UK version. Well, as I am in London, and somehow wanted to enjoy it even closer, I decided to apply for a ticket to go and see the Live recording of "The Apprentice: You're Fired" show, which is shown on BBC2 each week directly after the actual episode. Well, I got assigned tickets for the 24th April, which interesting enough is a Tuesday, meaning the day before the new episode will air. I shall provide you with my impressions after the show, which is actually being recorded at the Riverside Studios in London.

Well, everything is moving ahead rather quickly. I have signed the rental agreement for an apartment in London. It is only a 10-15 minute walk away from my workplace. As such, I won't have to "enjoy" the morning and evening fun on the different means of public transport. But since it is located in the docklands, I am still only 15-20 minutes away from the city centre, allowing me to enjoy the city whenever I want. Pictures can be found on my homepage.

As a lot of you know, I will be leaving Switzerland after a little bit more then 7 years. I guess it will be a rather big change, especially moving from a small village near Geneva to a real city: London. I will keep you informed about the progress. I am rather excited about it and look forward to a new city, and a new job.