Greetings! Well, this is my very first post on any blog, ever, and I have good news right out of the gate. You can't see the awkward pauses as I grasp for something to write. I used to believe that a blog should have a focus and strive to be informative lest it become a public confessional and not worth reading. Since I had convinced myself  for years I had nothing informative to share (and even less focus)  there was nothing to write about. It was an excuse to not make the effort. I now realize that any reason is the right reason when starting a blog. Which leads us to my reason (finally...

jisho.org on Vivaldi Yesterday, I met one of my friends who is learning Japanese. He thankfully downloaded Vivaldi and started setting it up after I recommended it. One of the first things he did was add https://jisho.org/ as a Web Panel. I'd actually seen the page before - yes, it's one of the most popular Japanese-English dictionaries out there. I've seen some of my other friends using it. He wanted to look up the letter 矯, which I wrote in a document we were looking at. Even though his Japanese is good enough that we had almost all the conversation in Japanese and he got N2 in JLPT (meaning that his ability to understand Japanese used in everyday situations, and in a variety of circumstances to a certain degree is certified by

The Mod Making Process In the process of making a new mod for vivaldi, I thought I might document some of the steps I went through, to show one way you can make a mod. I'll follow how I made my "Site Security Info Favicon" mod. Some of the tools I use when modding - Vivaldi, VS Code, the Inspector... Finding an Idea The first step is a tricky one - I have to come up with an idea. If I'm lucky, someone else will suggest an idea that I can steal implement on their behalf. A mod is something that mixes up Vivaldi, changes how it looks, or adds something new. It's worth noting that not all ideas will lend themselves well to a browser mod, though: Some ideas might be better suited as web extensions, for example if they interact with the content of a specific website or can use data that is easily accessible through the extension API, like bookmarks Others might be nigh on impossible to develop and maintain, for example if the mod requires deep integration with the internals of the browser @Wagner's suggestion for Vivaldi In my example, there was a suggestion made by user @wagner, about showing the site's favicon in the site security box, next to the URL. This lends itself well to a mod because: It deals specifically with a part of the browser, not a webpage or data Making small changes to the browser's UI can be done in mods relatively easy, and the solution isn't likely to require a lot of change between versions Once I've settled on an idea that seems like it would make a good mod, I can move on to the next step: Getting my tools ready Writing a mod requires the right set of tools. If you've done it once, you don't need to re-do this step, but I'll go over the basics...

Just another Vivaldi tip. When you download Vivaldi, it has DuckDuckGo as one of the pre-added search engines. In the address field or after calling Quick Commands, try searching something by starting the search term with "d ", and you'll see the icon of DuckDuckGo (a duckie with a dicky bow). Calling DuckDuckGo on Quick Commands It's one of the few search engines out there which allows you to use POST method (most search engines only work by GET method), and you can choose it on Vivaldi. (So what, you say? Shhh, and read on. Also, you can turn on POST requests alternatively DDG's settings page as well.) "Use POST method" is checked off. Go to settings, and you will see the "Use POST method" option in the search section. When it's not checked off (which is the default setting), it uses GET method. To see what the option changes, try turning it on and off, search the same word and look at the address field. Example: search term - "Norway" GET: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=norway&t=vivaldi&ia=news POST: https://duckduckgo.com/?ia=news Obviously, you can't tell the search term in a POST request and never again, once you've left the page. Browser functions to visit pages you've visited, such as going back or forward in history,  don't work since the string doesn't include the search term...

Captain Ahab, Mandela, Eddy Merckx ... all had one single goal in their mind (or it seems that way) and were able to set everything aside in order to reach that goal. Nothing was important, but that lone objective. The problem I don't have this single goal, so no driving force to become a monomaniac. 'You have to fight for your dream', but do you have to do when you have 27 dreams? I want to be good in multiple domains, all at the same time: I want to learn how to write (and eventually write) compelling, moving stories, I want to to improve my programming skills and contribute in useful projects, I want to find a interesting job preferable in R&D (and excel in it, but that is an other problem), improving the world a little bit, I want to keep a certain level of fitness (I'm currently failing very hard, but don't tell anyone), I want to learn to cook delicious meals, I want to read the best books, I want to be loved and have lots of friends. Ow yeah, I also want to waste time by doing nothing, watch shows and movies. Another problem is my nature: I have difficulties to start working on something, if I do not see a satisfying final product within the (not too distant) future. This also happens when I have too much to do: too much stress results in wasting time...

More than a month ago, I published my first post. After seven days of intens blogging, a couple of weeks of complete silence and a new year, it seems to me the right moment to make a first evaluation of my experiences and thoughts. A first observation: it is more addictive than I ever imagined. I didn't expect that someone would read my posts, so after receiving the first positive comment, I wanted more. My hunger for approval resulted in  4 posts within the first seven days. I burned through a lot of the stories I wanted to share, leaving behind the fear that I will run out off ideas. After this first burst of blogging, I stopped. Of the eight posts on community front page of vivaldi, three were mine! This seemed a bit much...

3 Days in Iceland I spent 3 days in Iceland after Christmas and before the new year. Here are some of my thoughts on this trip. Flying out I went on this trip as part of a winter holiday with my family. We started by flying out from Glasgow (Scotland) with Icelandair to Keflavik airport. I won't say much about Glasgow other than the airport is a little confusing to drive through - spend some time beforehand looking at a map. We stayed the night before the flight at a Holiday Inn Express, link here, not to be confused with the Holiday Inn which is 100m to the west of it. Road signage to this effect is not particularly helpful. Finally in Keflavik, the airport itself is quite a ways out of Reykjavik (Reykjavik has an airport, but for domestic flights only), luckily there are is a bus shuttle services - I used flybus - to take you into the city, and these can go right to some of the hotels. The Hotel We ended up staying at Hotel Cabin, which is quite a low-budget hotel. The rooms are small and kind of packed together, making use of a configuration I must admit I've never seen before - 3 rows of rooms on one floor, whereby an unlucky patron (such as myself) can end up in a room with a window that has a nice view of the corridor...

Putting down the first impressions of using the Vivaldi browser off a Raspberry Pi system on a chip computer. The one I am using is the Pi 3, strongest of the boards so far. The Vivaldi seems to do quite nicely as a browser compared to my previous experiences with either Firefox or Chrome, both of which could not handle too many tabs open at the same time. My CPU usage is low, 12 to 15% while typing this and four tabs open. Watching the YouTube video tutorials for first time Vivaldi users was also a good experience. I like videos that are less than one minute long...