... When you listen to the original song, and start to sing along the Weird Al lyrics. Oops!

I was just browsing around a bit, when I found a new website by the Afûk, the Academy for Frisian Language & Culture. The website, aimed primarily at parents-to-be, also has an index of Frisian names and their meaning. Here's what I found:

 

Looks like I had a bit of a recent influx of visitors, putting my counter at over 60,000 visitors. Nice!

I promised to post these sources some time now, but the truth is there has been a lot going onl lately, and I just forgot. Zac sent me a message earlier today however, asking me for the source of my Zune Add-Ins for the purpose of building a Last.FM plugin. Very cool stuff (I had initially planned on making one as well, but I suppose I no longer have to do that now ;-)).

 

Anyway, here you go. The Zune Add-In Sources (Clicky!). There is no guarentee that it will run out of the box, because the last time that I tested this, I was still using Zune 2.3. Whatever is in the \Content\ folder should be hacked into the shell resources DLL by using reshack (I haven't come around to creating an automated tool for this yet, so for now it's manual). Although I doubt it will be useful as a stand-alone kind of thing right now, it should provide enough information you need to start writing your own "add-ins".

 

Youre free to use the source in any of your own applications, but please do be a good fellow and include (at the very least) some "thank you" somewhere (even if it is only in your source).

 

Have Fun!

I'll be graduating (if no unforseen problems occur) in a few weeks (6-8 weeks). Then, I'll be job hunting. Recommendations for companies are welcome. Bonus points for finding a company that doesn't use PHP (ugh.). Additional bonus points for a cool company in the Netherlands, rather than one far far away. I'm willing to relocate anywhere within the Netherlands, and I wouldn't mind teleworking (i.e. work from home or from a local branch).

 

My technical skills include the general HTML/XHTML/Javascript/CSS business, as well as PHP, Perl, Python and MySQL. As for less web-oriented languages, I have several years experience with Java and C# (with a little bit of experience of the ASP.Net libraries). Avid Microsoft and Windows Live fan, I know a lot of stuff about the Windows Live platforms and what not. Very interested in web 2.0, but also interested in developing regular console or desktop applications.

 

I'm fluent in Dutch and English, as well as Frisian (might that ever come in handy).

 

Go.

 

---

 

Current contemplations:

 

Here's a bunch of questions for you.

 

Recently I've been wondering about the state of third party Messenger clients. First things first -- I am subscribed to several development distribution lists, and I can see that every popular client out there is (seemingly) still worked on. However, throughout the years, I haven't actually seen that much progress. Sure, some new features were added, mostly to keep up with the new MSNP versions, but no one did a complete overhaul of its UI, no one polished it, made it shine. I know we don't all want the eye candy, but a lot of people do -- let me correct that, a lot of normal users do.. And with the state of theming technologies these days, how hard can it be?

 

This pretty much sums up my feelings about some of the current clients:

 

Feel free to debate some of my statements with me on IM (if you have me added), or add a comment. Maybe you convince me I'm wrong about your favorite client. Until then, I will remain ignorant and proclaim my opinion is valid.

 

Either way, this prompted me to ask you the following questions: If someone were to write a new client, which features would you like for it to have? Which features are really lacking from other clients? Should it be open source, or should it just be cross-platform compatible? Which of the previous clients is currently your most favorite one (i.e. which you use the most).. and why? (aside from the obvious "I use Linux/Mac").

Sweet. I too have become victim to the Messenger Team's endless 9.0 silence and marking suggestions as Won't Fix on Microsoft Connect. Thanks Messenger Team, for listening to mine and everyone elses input and not doing a fucking damn thing about it. There, just had to say it. Pardon the swearing.

... And its goddamn inconsistency!