iPhone tethering enabled with 3.1.3 on Proximus

My offspring told me the good news earlier today. He's on Mobile Vikings, a young and agile local operator, and he said that they have been recently 'advertising' to their subscribers about tethering on 3.1.3. I searched the net with the usual suspect keywords and to my astonishment I found quite a few stories about the 3.1.3 tethering ability for Proximus subscribers. I mentioned 'astonishment' because Proximus is notorious for leaving its customers in the cold about details like these. Anyhow, there are plenty enough friendly souls in the blogosphere who offer free advice to do the job instead of big lazy fatso Belgacom NV*.

Actually, preparing the iPhone tethering is quite simple. After upgrading to firmware version 3.1.3 the settings/general/cellular data network path leads you to three field groups, Cellular Data, MMS and Tethering. The Proximus setting for Tethering is identical to the Cellular Data, that is, APN is set equal to internet.proximus.be, and the Login and Password fields are left empty. Reboot and you are good to go. Make sure that after restart you set Tethering to 'on', following the path settings/general, just below Data Roaming. Morale of the story: you don't really have to go look for those conspicuous ipcc files corresponding to your host operator, and get pissed if you can't manage to get one, as your operator happens to be just one of these monopolistic mules (like mine is), who don't care a diddly squat about which hardware you use. All you need to do is manually enter the APN value for your operator** (mine is Proximus as you might have guessed), and then reboot, to be on the safe side that it'll work.

I must admit, I haven't been able to get USB to work on my Macbook. Don't exactly know why. I might have deleted by accident (!?) the corresponding port in my Network settings. First time ever I tried the tethering some time ago (was it with iPhone version 3.0?) the Macbook created such a port automatically, and connected to the iPhone the Mac way, no fuss whatsoever... I think. Not this time though. Who knows what happened to that USB port? The way I'm usually going about with my MacBook system software (and settings) nothing can surprise me anymore. So, this time over I tried tethering via Bluetooth. I have always had bad experiences with Bluetooth on my Macs, but this time the Macbook connected to the iPhone just fine, on the first try. The CyberGods heard my prayers after all, inchallah! After that happened, the familiar tethering alert appeared on the iPhone just below the clock title, in a blueish band. Browsing on the Macbook responded right away next, in a heartbeat.

Initially, I'd forgotten to set my cellular network to 3G, and browsing on the Mac was kinda slow, like in the old days, like with turtle slow modems. After setting the speed to 3G though, Macbook browsing went stellar. I was impressed, I mean it. On an iPhone, 3G browsing is pretty fast too, but as I just found out, way slower than the equivalent tethered browsing on the Macbook. I wonder what browsing speeds we shall end up experiencing on iPads, by the way. Will they be as fast as on tethered Macbooks or will they be more like iPhones? Who can tell? If the 3G-iPad web browsing proves as slow as on iPhones however, then it's no good to wait for these models to come out at all. Just go grab one off the first shipments, with only the Wifi available. Also, could the lowest spec iPad model be tethered to iPhones? I wonder about that too. A few more weeks and I suspect we shall get all answers to these burning questions. One way or another, I can't wait to put my hands on one of these marvels though. I love iPhone to my heart but web browsing and some other hot iPhone apps are desperately screaming for much larger real estate, especially for aging dudes with deteriorating vision like myself.

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* If Belgacom publishes 'help' tips about these issues, apologies for my earlier comments. It's curious though that, if they did, their tips don't seem to show up in Google's high ranks, like they do with Mobile Vikings and others like them...
** There are plenty of websites available showing APN settings for almost every operator on the planet. For tethering, just use the same settings as for Cellular Data - these are the values you're likely to spot on such websites.

Why TF do Angela's Krauts get so excited about Greece nowadays?

I had a Texan boss in the nineties who, when he found out one day about the awful state of a sales deal we were working on, he said... "you know, things get sometimes so bad that you can either shed bitter tears about it or laugh your ass off! Sorry dudes, but life's too short for weeping!"

I kinda felt the same way when I saw the picture montage above this afternoon. Trust me, I also chose to LMAO! Big time! No way I'd shed any tears for this shit!

Here's the thing, folks. Focus is a smart ass German tabloid, run by some genius editor-in-chief, who, looking to sell some extra populist copies to his miserable German audience, came up recently with a cover page shown on the left side of the shot. Large type sez: "Impostor in the European family..." smaller type continues: "...brings Greece to us (begging) for our money - and what about Spain, Portugal and Italy?"... in other words, those cheap f@cks (the Greek cabinet, that is) count on our honest German money to save their ass. And, fit to purpose, Milo's Venus has miraculously stem-cell grown a marble right arm (oh, the miracles of Photoshop) with her middle finger pointing up-yours! Say what? Sounds like "Anti-Christ"! And I thought Germans genuinely respected us, the modern Greeks, the sons of our forefathers, the Golden Age Classics... why should they else fill their cities, a century ago, with those ugly (neo)classic monsters to praise the grandeur of their blue-eyed blond Aryan superiority? Pity. No respect whatsoever for the poor Plato's and Aristoteles' offsprings. Our glorious ancients with our Olympus Gods must definitely turn around in their graves...

I gather the Krauts have got something against minorities... seventy years ago their grandpas and dads were after the Jews, Commies and the Gypsies, nowadays the Turks, followed by us Greeks... not far behind those poor sods from Portugal and then the Spaniards... with spaghetti Italians next... hey, hold on a sec! This ain't any minorities no more... holy Jesus, they are again up against the entire freakin' Europe... thinking that we are all after their honest sweat-earned dough (well... kinda honest sort of thing - ask those bedrüger at the top of their 'Aryan' Siemens, who not long ago were throwing Euro-Billions around for 'kickbacks'... talking about German integrity, my ass!)... I wonder, how long will they need to start taking the piss against the French and the Brits as well, again! Deutschland über alles, right? When did we hear that again?

Responding to this Focus farse, the Greek "bedrüger" answer was promptly printed on a local magazine with clever Greek humor (ROFL) for the Focus geniuses to enjoy, shown in the shot above on the right. A fifteen incher (no viagra needed) satyre telling the Krauts: "Mentioned our dues? Take this instead (suckers), after you paid our damages first from the last war..."

Seriously now, like I recently claimed in another blog, it ain't just the Greeks alone who are to blame in this clustefuck. It all started with the riches of Europe in the nineties who became obsessive about bringing-in the Euro, and then forced the small and the needy (those with no financial force to even wipe their own ass) into a permissible 3% GDP deficit percentage that was entirely from another world! And when the small and the needy said they were 'ready', the Godfathers replied: "come along kids". No questions asked. When the shit hit the fan next, like the meltdown we saw in 2008, the small and the needy imploded. The big shot Central European guns (you know, the usual suspects) who manage our destinies since the times this (ad)venture linked them with the three Benelux (Mickey Mouse) countries in the fifties, supported by their Euro-trash ECB apparatchiks who keep blowing the horns of rage out of Frankfurt, have now come out to take the shit on the small and the needy again, with the insanely naif Greeks leading the parade, waving the flags of financial shame, for deceiving them riches and emptying their wallets.

C'm on folks... didn't those Eurostat morons know the number cooking has been taking place for whole nine freakin' years? Anybody with a gram of gray matter in his skull knew that was going on for years now... remember, those financial engineering tricks used in Greece were first tested in the riches backyards first, starting from the likes of Wall Street and the City. Greeks are far too simple minds... they're pretty smart in thieving breadcrumbs off the riches tables but no loafs, trust me. I'd buy that, no questions asked! That's all they know how to do. They ain't that smart though for big ass financial engineering shit. They ain't no Goldman Sachs, or JP Morgan, or Lehman Bros, in their dreams. Greeks are kindergarden compared... Oh, yeah, and they are monumentally cretin too. Everybody else has played same dirty tricks and kept quiet, but them stupid Greeks are moronic to such a degree that they even started to boast about it, after they pushed their deficit off the charts. Playing more Catholic than the bleedin' Pope, kinda thing! And so, those Focus Krauts now think and keep moaning that it's just darn Greece who did wrong and begging for their coins, right? If you can believe that, then you better start faking an orgasm while jerking off... it's a more fun way to experience self-deception.

Don't know why, but I feel kinda like iron tits Maggie Th. today. I like Germany so much that I'd have liked to keep having two of them, after all...

How will you manage?

Interesting clip created by XPLANE, the visual comms company, for KRONOS, the HR company.

The presentation was created with Apple's Keynote, one of the three iWork components.

Constantin Erinkoglou's Notos in Brussels

"In de keuken" (in the kitchen) is a TV programme on Canvas (Flanders, Belgium) presented by Wim Opbrouck, a talented Flemish guy who really does far too many things to describe here. Among them, he runs NTG, he's an actor, he does documentaries, you name it. In this last gig he presents a food programme under a cool concept. He visits well-known restaurants in the country and interviews the Chefs. They talk about themselves, their careers, their ideas, and they also prepare a few fine recipes. They then hand those recipes over to Wim who next approaches a few BV's (short for Flemish VIPs) and asks them to cook in their own kitchen what the Chefs prescribed. Sheer fun.

In his last episode Wim visited Constantin Erinkoglou, Chef of the restaurant Notos in Brussels. I'm not sure whether this Chef has ever earned any Michelin stars yet, but, who cares. He's one of the best living Chefs... Belgian ex-PM Dirk Verhofstadt would undersign this statement in the blink of an eye! Of course, not every chef can manage to become a show off like Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver, this much we all know. You gotta own a Brittish gob to get that far. Not that English cooking is worth anything, mind you. Read Asterix in Helvetia to see what I mean.  In any case, to me, Costas is a much better Chef than either of them posh Brits... Voila!

Chef Erinkoglou cooked two recipes during the forty minute programme, that is, "Flowers of Pontos" and "Stuffed Shoulder" (Fleurs de Pontos and Epaule farcie, it definitely sounds tastier in French, right?). You can enjoy watching him preparing both recipes in the clips I posted on YouTube as Part 1 and Part 2 of that programme. To make it more fun I've even taken the amateurs' (Wim's BV friends) scene cuts out of the clips. They just spoiled it... sorry Wim. Especially that hilarious baldie with his Antwerpian accent and the Nazi name...

What about Constantin? You see, the thing is, I've been to his restaurant only four times in my life! It took me a few years to get there, after his fame has first reached my ears, and then, when I managed to visit, oh Gosh, I just wanted to come back. However, I only managed to do this 4 times... I promise you, I'll have to get back though, over and over... His cooking is sheer art! He does to your tasting senses what poems do to your ears... He manages to combine textures, tastes and flavors that I haven't tasted ever, certainly since I left home and my mom's cooking. There's another one I know, who gets kinda close in terms of skill, initially from Myconos, later moved to Athens... Η Ρένα της Φτελιάς for the Greek connoisseurs among you...

Why? you might ask... Why is Constantin such a star? Well, our experience of great cooking is generally pretty hard to describe with simple words. Watch the clips to see what I mean. This Chef is not just a cook! Above all, he's a courageous individual who exchanged the boring and uselss life of a Eurocrat for the life of a Chef. True story! He's also a wonderful poet! Poetry with food. The Aegean Sea, Mount Olympus and τα μπαχαρικά (spices) of the East! Minimalist but extremely powerful concepts. What do you need more? And Chef Erinkoglou does his craft to entertain us, miserable capitalists, bureaucrats, bankers and politicians. Listening to Constantin makes you love the Greeks and their country once again. Despite what the tabloids tell you about their lack of ethics in their financial dealings.

"...you must have a real talent" sez Wim. "Well", responds Constantin, "if you are motivated to do something, and you keep doing it day-in, day-out, well... that eventually becomes your talent". Reminds me what dearest Malcom Gladwell developed as a theory about the most skillful of the World in his recent bestseller "The Outliers". With persistence and hard work the best become even better. It's true!

I'd rather stop here. I'd spoil your experience if I continued. Watch the two clips instead. About 18 min in total. If you understand French and get the meaning of Constantin's talk, you'll be stunned by the quality of his reasoning. No wonder he turns simple carbs and proteins into poetry. Well done, bro!

Photofunia

If you feel kinda bored today and wanted to try something real cool, try Photofunia. A free app on the iPhone that offers a long series of scenes in which you can add a picture of your own and make it look real weird! I experimented with a bunch of effects they offer (by far not exhaustive of what they have available) and I must admit the results are way too cool, at least for viewing on a monitor (not enough pixels for quality printing though). Take a look at the album I posted in my gallery to get the taste. As I said, if nothing else useful to do, feel free to waste some of your life experimenting with this. BTW, if you were wondering what's so special about Miss Jolie in the shot here, ask my youngest sibling about it... He's still chasing me!