blog.zgraggen.name  All-day insanity or I have a blog too!

Do not trust this company! Ignore phone calls and do not respond to inquiries!
Here is why:

A few weeks ago I got contacted from both my previous employers. Both said that they get bombarded with phone calls and emails from WKPRM. This polish company tried to confirm my employment background.
Email:

Dear Sir,

On behalf of WK Personal Risk Managers.I would like to confirm the employment of GUIDO Zgraggen in your company. Such verification is required for the recruitment process, because the above mentioned person has recently applied for a job.

Since, my previous company didn’t respond, they sent an email in German:
(Which is a 1:1 Google translation)

Im Namen der WK Personal Risk Managers.I möchte die Beschäftigung von GUIDO Zgraggen in Ihrem Unternehmen zu bestätigen. Eine solche Prüfung ist für das bewerbungsverfahren erforderlich, da die oben genannte Person hat vor kurzem für eine Stelle beworben.

The weird part about this is that I was never informed about this background check. Furthermore, they must have called several people till they reached my boss from the apprenticeship. Since the company was renamed and also reorganized. Besides I didn’t mention anywhere the name of him. btw: This was also almost 10 years ago!

Even though it was a little far-fetched I asked my current employer if they asked for the background checked. But they told me that they never heard of this company. My next thought was that someone must be using my identity especially my background (resume) to get a job. So I contacted this company to find out what is going on. But WKPRM never responded to my emails. So therefore the only reasonable explanation left is that this company is a fake!

For the curious people here is the link to their website.

Other theories?
Thoughts?

I had a weird problem with the update mechanism of Thunderbird. When you restart Thunderbird for an update an error message shows up and says that it cannot do the update and closes the problem. But then it starts the program again, because you said you wanted to restart it. When starting the program it tries to perform the update and fails again. This goes on and on…

After a while Mr. Google told me the answer:
When the webcam software from Logitech is running the update fails. Don’t ask me why, or what the connection is…

When you stop the “Logitech QuickCam Software” the update goes smoothly without problem.

My recommendation for all Thunderbird lovers which own a Logitech Webcam:
- Stop the Logitech software before you update Thunderbird.

If anyone has an idea why… please let me know!

Initially, I wanted to publish the first relict post, but I have news which are more important!

America is often called the land with unrestricted possibilities. Sometimes, I have the opinion a better name would be the land with an unrestricted amount of ridiculous rules.

Today, I went to the swimming pool at the University Center. After the training, I went to the diving board to have some fun. After a few jumps from the 1m board, I decided to climb the 3m board. I was surprised when the pool attendant was whistling against me. After CLIMBIMG DOWN from the 3m tower, she explained that only the diving team is allowed to jump from the 3m tower. When I asked why, she told me for security reasons… The sad thing about that is that I had to find out that even CMU has ridiculous rules!

Maybe, I should start gathering all the ridiculous rules, which prevent me from having fun!

Tonight when I got back to the bicycle station my bike was gone! I could not believe it! Someone stole my bike. “Das verdammte Arschloch!”
I’m really upset! Even though it was an older model I still liked it and for me it is the most comfortable way to go to the train station. From tomorrow on I will have to travel by bus again

=>Nume tuble uf de chugle!!!

Last Monday I had to bring my SuperDuke (see the picture of the motorcycle in the header) to the service in the evening. Therefore I went to work by bike or at least I tried. First all went fine and then suddenly on the streets was snow and slobber. It was hard and awkward to drive with these unpleasant conditions. I decided to leave my motorcycle in Wetzikon at the train station and go to work by train. In the afternoon when I got back to my bike I noticed that someone had stolen my fall protection of the bike. I really got upset, because I’m sure who ever this had been he did it only for fun. Because the mounting for the protectors where still there. So it is definitely useless. Moreover it is a special construction for a SuperDuke.
I can not understand why people do stuff like this…? Did they observe me and laugh their ass off? Or was that just because they were bored?
Either way, I hate those bastards!

I found the picture beneath in the Blick while waiting in a café. The big picture shows Prince Charles looking through a night vision device. The describing text mentions that Charles wasn’t surprised that he didn’t see anything but darkness and only after the removal of the cap it work.
Sorry, but this is just Bullshit!
Normal night vision glasses work by daylight with the cap on. Because they have a little whole in the middle and that is just sufficient to test the device. Furthermore most night vision glasses will get damaged if used by daylight without the cap.

But my guess is that this columnist remembered the picture of George Bush and thought it is a funny story. But why be surprised about the profound research by Blick.

Ps: I did not link to Blick because it is not worth it!

In the last few days I did some work on our MathML plug-in for FrameMaker. It is about three years ago when I did a term project with Christian Cavegn on this topic. We started working with FrameMaker7.0. Since then I am burdened from time to time to do a new release for the current release. I had no problem with version 7.1 and 7.2. But now with FrameMaker8.0 it is different.
First, when downloading the FrameMaker Developer Kit (FDK8.0) I noticed that the included documentation is still for FDK7.2. Finally I found some parts of the documentation online, but not the things I needed. So the only thing I could do is work with the well known principle try and error. But that is not the way we do our work at the IFS. So unless our costumer pays for guessing around (which I doubt) I am done with it

Yes, I know it does not sound too bad… but of course there are several other things to mention about Adobe especially the Acrobat Reader. Why does the installer need to reboot after the update process? Not only that it gives an alert which recommends a to reboot the system. Sometimes it even reboots the system automatically after a few minutes. Nice feature when you are compiling or letting the computer work itself without controlling the monitor.
And not to forget how slowly this document viewer is… Compared to other pdf viewer!

btw:
Other cool Post about the reboot process (in German)

The stereo from my parents did not work properly. Some times one loud speaker did not work so you could hear the sound only on the left or on the right side. It is quite a while ago this curious behaviour started. My father said to me lets open this thing and lets have a look otherwise we through it away. After we dissassembled the whole device. I started looking for a defect part. After a short time I noticed a few cold solder connection. I took the soldering iron and made this connection new. After reassemble the apparat, you will not believe it, it is working properly. I know good and high quality devices are hard to find especially with the strong competition today. No wonder money is safed everywhere. As it look like the conections on the print where made by machine automatically, but all the cables and other connection to the main platine where soldered by hand. And it looks like this people who soldered it had no clue how to do it…. Besides the stereo it is no long ago I fixed a toaster and a sauna heat controller (of our sauna) on the same way. Only by solder this joint again.

Once again my favorite website…

Maximum number of users reached and this on a big company website where thousands of people take their test every year and pay great many for this service.