New blog design

I decided to fresh up the ol’ blog a little this afternoon and went out theme hunting. I came across this free theme by WooThemes through Arnt Eriksen’s blog and found it looking pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. Oh, by the way, Curb Your Enthusiasm is back on September 21st! Love that show.

Anyways, the logo is home made, with my extraordinary  design skills and my never ending love for the Apple/Web 2.0/Shinyshiny reflection effect.

So, what do you think? Your comments are welcome – here on the blog, on Twitter and on Facebook.

Did Facebook just censor me?

For over a year now I’ve had a page on Facebook for my open source project, iTunes Agent – a Windows utility enabling you to use non-iPod media devices with iTunes and easily transfer music to them. It has been very low activity on the page, and I’ve mainly used it to send updates about new versions of the application.

However, last week I decided to increase my posting frequency and I started posting a couple of links to news articles related to iTunes, mobile devices etc. One of the articles was about the story which has been flooding the internet lately – that iPhone is spying on it’s users.

Yesteday morning I went on Facebook to check my iTunes Agent page, and was quite surprised to find that the whole page was gone! Nothing left! It still show’s up in the drop down below the search box whenever you search for it, but trying to visit it, or the URL http://facebook.com/itunesagent only takes you to the front page. Now, I did not delete the page, so where has it gone off to?

Not to be paranoid, but I am starting to wonder; have I just been  censored by Facebook? Did Apple not like that someone criticised one of their products and told Facebook to do something about it? They’re known for having silenced critical sources in the past.

If Apple is unhappy with the fact that an application which only brings more users to their iTunes Music Store has “iTunes” in it’s name – I would expect a professional, decent letter asking me to please change the name. If they did not like the fact that I informed my fans by posting the news article – fine! But that’s no reason for Facebook to simply delete the page of the face of the…. book?

I’ll keep you updated over the weekend.

Integrasco’s new website

We have just released a new website at Integrasco today, with a brand new logo design as well. A good upgrade for our online profile and we’re very pleased with it

Head on over to www.integrasco.com and have a look. Also make sure you become a fan of us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

I am back home

I am back home after traveling around France, Spain and Italy with Aleksander for the last three weeks. It has been one hell of a blast, and I am definitively going back on a trip like this! It has been a big success from beginning to end, and I’ve seen so many great places, and met so many great people.

This map on Google Maps shows the places we ended up visiting. There were several other places we wanted to visit, especially in Italy, but it turned out that even 22 days of traveling was not nearly enough to cover everything. But that just gives a good reason to go on a similar trip another time!

It has been 30+ degrees and sun every day except for a few rain drops the first day in Paris. Some places, like Venice, was almost unbearable, but you kind of get used to walking around with waterfalls down your entire body after a couple of days

Sightseeing-wise Rome was my absolute favourite with the Colosseum  and the Vatican city. A truly amazing city. Party-wise Barcelona is of course on top. We had four great days there, and Kabul Hostel is definitively the place to stay if you’re heading to Barcelona to party and enjoy the beaches.

When it comes to food, I think the two days we enjoyed in the tiny village Sus, in the French basque country, tops the list. Of course every place we went to had great food, and I wish I had eaten more at every place, but I have a special thing for French cuisine Again, a big thank you to Arnaud and Isabelle and Arnaud’s parents for enduring our stay and travelling around with us Hope to see you in Norway sometime soon!

The spirits of backpackers is something I did not really think much about before we left, but it is something I quickly discovered makes the whole difference between this kind of travel and the more regular kind of vacation. Every single fellow backpacker we’ve met on this trip has been friendly and it has not been a single day where we have not met new people and gotten new friends all over the world. We’ve been sleeping in hostels almost every night, in rooms with anything from 3 to 20 beds and there is no way you will manage to be lonely. There’s always someone to talk to, share experiences with and enjoy a cold drink with Exactly this makes it a little difficult to adjust to being back in Norway and the quiet every day life, so Aleksander and I ended up going out last night just because we needed to be around people (We even found gipsy beer in our local pub!)

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, there’s a little over 600 of them

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaran/sets/72157621176920120/

Best vacation I’ve had so far in my life!

Tomorrow I’m off!

Tomorrow I am finally off to Paris and the start of mine and Aleksander’s four week trip through France, Spain and Italy. I won’t see the inside of my office again until August 3rd – it almost feels too good to be true

I have not had a longer vacation, where I travel somewhere and not just stay at home, in five years – so I really feel it’s about time! And it’s been a very busy Spring (actually it has been five very busy years ), so I feel it’s a well deserved holiday as well.

My backpack is packed. All that remains tomorrow is to empty the fridge and make sure there’s nothing which would not be so much fun to find when I come back in four weeks

My online presence for the next couple of week will be minimal, but stay updated on our trip at http://europebaby.jaranweb.com!

See you all in August!

Hove 2009

The Hove Festival 2009 is over – I am exhausted! It has been four incredible days with lots of good music, beer and sun. We could not have asked for better weather and my geeky white skin is long gone!

Among the best concerts this year was The Killers (no surprise really), Ratatat, Little Boots, Hockey, The Gaslight Anthem (only caught the last half though),  Franz Ferdinand and the Prodigy.

I have just woken up after sleeping constantly for almost 12 hours – probably a sign my body is happy to have a few days of restitution before going back to work on Monday. Just one more week and it’s of to Europe!

Here’s my pictures from Hove 2009 on Flickr.

Hove, baby!

Tomorrow is the first day of the Hove Festival, at Hove just outside of Arendal. The previous years I have only had day passes for one or two days, but this year I will be there all four days! I’ve managed to steal the house from my parents, who are living in Arendal and will enjoy the comfort there – I am not really much of a camping person, hence we’re not bringing a tent with us for our Europe trip either!

So, tomorrow I am heading to Arendal and Hove for the first concert at 16:30. This year’s big must-see (and hear!) on my part is The Killers on Tuesday. There are lots of great bands this year, though, so I won’t have any problem filling the days with great music. On my top list are:

• Montée
• White Lies
• Franz Ferdinand
• Hockey
• Ratatat
• Casiokids
• Little Boots
• Faith No More
• M83
• Prodigy

Looking forward to my first week of vacation this year – spending it in the sun drinking beer and listening to music Then it’s back to one week of work before Aleksander and I head off to France, Spain and Italy for four weeks.

Party with beer!

On Friday we had our Summer party with Integrasco. What a blast! It turned out a great evening with lots of good food, lots to drink, a good game of Kubb and generally just a great party – Integrasco style!

Here’s a couple of pictures from the party As the social media addicts that we are, we of course had our own Twitter hash-tag for the event

On our way to the party

The meat is on the barbecue!

The food is served. Look how perfect the beef is!

The staff enjoying themselves

Source QA tactical planning

The boss showing off his Kubb skills!

Source QA in action

Thanks for a great evening, all

Monday’s remedy

I’ve fallen in love with the Lord of the Rings soundtrack when it comes to curing the Monday Blues. So this morning I figured I would share my remedy with you in the form of a Spotify playlist The list will expand and evolve, and will feature other music than just from Lord of the Rings.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by work and wishing it was Sunday still, press play, lean back and close your eyes for a few seconds. Imagine flying over beautiful landscapes, breathing in the fresh air, without the tiniest of worries. I am sure it’ll make you feel much better

• Here you go!

Opera 10 Beta (really?)

Opera 10 Beta 1 was released earlier this week, after several iterations of snapshot and alpha releases. I was quick to download the beta (even before they got “Ubuntu” up as an option for 64-bit Linux versions), backed up my Opera data folder and installed.

The reason I have titled this post with “(really?)” is that I have yet to find any serious bugs! For me Opera 10 Beta 1 has been running just as stable as the previous 9.6x version I had installed. The only thing I have seen so far is that the mail composer does not update the signature if I switch the account I want to use when sending. Other than that it is working like a charm, and believe it or not, it feels even faster than before. [...]