some luxury

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Lindt easter bunnies made of chocolate and already on sale although it’s still some weeks till Easter.

They btw started selling Xmas cookies as early as September last year.

Scary.

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Leek Flower Paste. I still haven’t figured how to use this on food (@KPT – weißt Du es?) but it was really cheap so I HAD to buy it. Looks interesting.

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Daifuku Mochi. I love these little sticky rice cakes and so often forget about buying them when buying food @ the Asian supermarket. The ones pictured were a little bit salty though – coming from Korea…

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Sushi rolls for a hefty price in Frankfurt downtown. I love Japanese food but not when it’s that expensive + most of these rolls are filled with vegetable and other special combinations for the European market.

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This new mall opened in Frankfurt downtown – the picture above is from Thursday last week when it opened. People stormed it until late in the evening like there’s no tomorrow. I haven’t been inside yet because – after all – it’s just another mall. Tapio was there and did a video on it.

Very interesting architecture. It’s also very impressive to see what modern reinforced concrete construction is capable of – such thin walls and floors, statically interesting (for an engineer, at least).

Frankfurt 101 and the mouse

Bought this mouse for the netbook today – an A4tech X6-60MD in black – which has this retractable USB cord and comes with a somehow smarter “GLASER” diode/sensor which is said to also work on a glass table (most optical mice don’t).

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X6-60MD mouse compared to the wireless desktop mouse

Attaching the mouse to the netbook actually adds a lot of convience to the system – the keyboard and tiny (yet brilliant) screen, however, aren’t that comfortable to work on. The keyboard on this 8,9″ netbook has the same size as the one on 7″ netbooks – next step would have been a 10,2″ netbook though which again adds another 0,3 kg. So this combination will have to do fo the moment. Connecting the netbook to a UMTS phone is a matter of seconds, so it really is a perfect NETbook – even on the road.

I’ve btw stayed with WinXP on this netbook (instead of EasyPeasy 1.0 or eeeUbuntu Standard) because of the special function keys that just work perfectly well with WinXP. Resizing the screen resolution to a compressed 1024×768 (instead of the normal 1024×600) is a matter of one key press. This may of course also be possible with a tuned Ubuntu, but again: not as easy as with XP and I just don’t have the time these days to figure it out. Besides, some of my fav. apps only work with XP and not under (the Windows emulator) Wine.

Sooo….blogging from the netbook (I am currently writing this post on the eee 901) is ok, but due to the keyboard not as convenient as it should be. You’ll quickly end up using 3-4 fingers only. :-(

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Someone from Asia also needs to explain to me one day why there’s so much plastic involved in the packaging of such gadgets. A simple cardboard box would have done as well! At least this one could be opened easily and didnt require the scissors. Stupid.

Another thing to note about A4tech products is that their drivers are much better than the Logitech software package which bricked my desktop system the other day.

Oh, and it’s really amazing how long the battery lasts on this netbook. @E-Nyce: the wear-out level is down to 93% on this used battery/netbook, which is still ok I think.

Once my 15,4″ notebook (= desktop PC with an external 22″ monitor and external keyboard/mouse) retires (hopefully not too soon), I’ll probably go for a 12,2″ or 13″ notebook from either HP, IBM or Samsung and also make sure that it has a bright enough screen (= not as pale as the one on my 15,4″ notebook).

AOB:

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Took this snapshot earlier this week right here in Frankfurt am Main because it reminded me of Taipeh 101.

I am now officially registered as a resident of Frankfurt/M. It may not be the best city to live in, but it has Germany’s biggest airport and is located in the middle of Germany which means I can reach Hamburg or Bremen (in the North) and Munich or Freiburg (in the South) in 3-4h only. Strategically convenient.