Sebastian Brandes Kraaijenzank

Dansk proxyserver til danskere i udlandet

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 13:30:20 +0200

Da jeg selv bor i Spanien, ved jeg hvor besværligt det er at tilgå danske tjenester som f.eks. Sputnik, DR NU og ViaPlay. Der findes ikke rigtigt nogle gode proxy-udbydere i Danmark, så det har været svært at komme til at se mine favoritprogrammer på de danske kanaler. Det besluttede jeg mig at gøre noget ved.

Jeg har startet tjenesten DanskProxy.com, som er en dansk proxyserver for danskere i udlandet. Serveren hostes i Danmark, hvilket betyder, at du kan logge på serveren og derved opnå en dansk IP-adresse, som tillader dig at se tv fra Sputnik og de andre.

Du kan billigt få adgang til serveren. Da jeg blot har planer om at få serveren til at løbe rundt, har jeg sat priserne så lavt som muligt:

1 måned koster 40 kr.
3 måneder koster 105 kr. (35 kr./md.)
6 måneder koster 180 kr. (30 kr./md.)

Serveren hostes hos Exaweb, som er en af Danmarks mest stabile hosting-udbydere. Det betyder for dig, at du kan være sikker på altid at kunne forbinde til servicen og dermed se tv fra Danmark, når du vil.

Kig forbi www.danskproxy.com, og kom i gang allerede inden for 5 minutter. Har du spørgsmål eller kommentarer, skal du være velkommen til at kontakte mig på: info@danskproxy.com.

Amazing week in Madrid. Welcome, Spring!

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:15:05 +0100

Amazing week in Madrid. Welcome, Spring!

Denmark's Economy and Society

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:42:36 +0100

I recently had a discussion with an American friend of mine. The discussion was rather political as we discussed different ideologies, what works and what doesn’t work in a society, what is right and what is wrong and a number of other topics. My friend was shocked over the introduction of the recent “Fat Tax” in Denmark, which is a tax on unhealthy foods (see video here). She meant that Denmark sounded like a society greatly inspired by communism. So after I got home and I decided to write a blogpost about Denmark’s economy and society.

I wanted to write a post about how we live in Denmark. Though, I won’t write much, as I am more interested in finding sources that explain how we actually live in Denmark. Hence, this post will actually be more of a collection of articles rather than my opinion about Denmark. So here we go. I will focus on a number of topics and link to a number of online articles, which I will save using WebCite, discussing each topic. Happy reading!

Economy

Denmark is in the top 5 richest countries in the world, measuring GDP per capita according to the International Monetary Fund: World Economic Outlook Database, September 2011
Denmark in The World Fact Book by the Central Intelligence Agency, USA
Articles on Denmark’s economy by OECD (captured on Feb 4, 2012)

Taxation

About Taxation in Denmark by The Danish Ministry of Taxation
Denmark wins highest tax competition by The Copenhagen Post (Mar 11, 2008)
The happiest taxes on earth by The Wall Street Journal (May 19, 2009)

Business Environment

Denmark ranks #5 in the report Doing Business in Denmark by The World Bank Group (2011 rank)
A longer report, Doing Business in Denmark, was made by Kromann Reumert (2006), explaining in detail the Danish business environment

Happiness

Denmark is #1 in the list of “Best Countries of Work-Life Balance” according to a report by the OECD (2011)
Denmark Is Happiest Country, U.S. Misses Top 10 according to the OECD (Oct 13, 2011)
Denmark ‘world’s happiest nation’ by BBC News (Jul 3, 2008)
Denmark ‘happiest’ country in the world by CNN (Jul 2, 2008)
Denmark: The Happiest Place on Earth by ABC News (Jan 8, 2007)
Denmark ‘happiest’ place on earth by BBC News (Jul 26, 2006)

Transparency

Denmark, Singapore, New Zealand Tie For Lead In New Transparency International Index by The Wall Street Journal (Oct 26, 2010)
Denmark ranks #1 in the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International (2010)

On a small side note, here’s something about Denmark’s sports culture:

Sports

Football: Despite being just the 111th largest country in the world (with a population of approx. 5,5 million), Denmark is in the top 10 of FIFA’s world rankings (Oct 2011)
Handball: Denmark is in the top 3 of IHF’s world rankings (Jan 2012)
Tennis: Danish tennis player Caroline Wozniacki ranks #1 in WTA’s world rankings (Dec 2011)
Cycling: Danish Team Saxo Bank ranked #1 in UCI’s team rankings in 2010
Motor Sports: Danish Tom Kristensen holds the record of having won the world’s most challenging endurance race, 24 Hours de Le Mans, most times (8 times) as of 2011
Speedway: Danish Nicki Petersen is a 3-time world champion (2003, 2007 and 2008) of motorcycle speedway

I wrote this blogpost and spent time on finding the articles linked here mainly for my own sake because of the discussion with my friend. This process has learnt me even more about my own country. So in a nutshell: Yes, Denmark has some of the highest tax rates in the world. But we rank #1 on happiness, work-life balancing and transparency and we are in the world top 5 on topics such as “ease of doing business” and nominal GDP per capita. We work and pay some and we get some. That’s how Denmark works and it works well!

Minimal Ubuntu VPS: Setting up VNC

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:01:08 +0100

I’m writing this blogpost because I recently got myself a virtual private server (VPS) from the German provider Hetzner.de. I chose a small one (512 MB RAM, one CPU core, 40 GB space) for just 7.90 euros per month (including German tax that can be deducted if you’re a non-German citizen, which I am). I fired it up with Ubuntu 11.10 (the minimal version) and I wanted to get Apache, MySQL, PHP and phpMyAdmin running right away. So I started checking stuff out via Google and I learned a number of things. In this blogpost, I will boil these things down to a simple step-by-step guide. So here it is:

Part 1: How to setup your Ubuntu VPS with VNC

First of all, many VPS providers ship minimal versions of Linux (whether it be Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu or any other distro). So to be able to use VNC (remote desktop), you would want to setup the desktop interface. I’m running Ubuntu 11.10 here but the same commands might work for other systems. Log in via SSH and, once connected, run these commands. Setting up the desktop:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Setting up and configuring the Gnome Desktop Manager and XServer:

sudo apt-get install gdm

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Now, we would be having a fully working desktop interface on our Ubuntu server that started off being “minimal.” With this in place, we can install the VNC server that would let us connect to the server via remote desktop. I tried out different VNC servers for Ubuntu and I liked TightVNC the most. So that’s what I’m going to use:

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver

Installing TightVNC via the package manager doesn’t take long. The next step is to configure the first instance of the server. When you connect to TightVNC from your client desktop, you would normally connect via port 590x (where x is the number of the instance you want to connect to). Let’s setup the first instance:

vncserver :1 -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 -pixelformat rgb565

You will be asked to set a password. This can be of 8 characters at the most. Set the password and you’re done. Now, there is one last thing that we would need to do and that is to make TightVNC use the Gnome Desktop Manager. This is not configured by default. So open up the TightVNC config file with either VIM or nano. I will use nano here:

sudo nano ~/.vnc/xstartup

We don’t want to use x-window-manager so comment out that line by adding a number sign (#) in front of the line. Add this line to the bottom of the file:

gnome-session &

Restart your VPS by this command:

sudo reboot

Wait a minute or so before connecting via SSH again. Once the VPS has restarted, connect to it via SSH and start your TightVNC server. TightVNC does not automatically start when you reboot your VPS:

vncserver :1 -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 -pixelformat rgb565

That’s it! You’ve got VNC running on your Ubuntu server with desktop interface. Connect to it with your favorite VNC client (the Chicken of the VNC client is good for Mac and the TightVNC client is good for Windows). Use the IP or hostname given by your provider. The port to connect through would be 5901 and the password is the one you configured yourself. Done!

Part 2: Setting up LAMP on your Ubuntu VPS

We’ve configured VNC for our Ubuntu VPS but in this part I will work entirely through SSH. For operations like this I prefer SSH because it’s a lot faster. Check the following blogpost for this part of setting up your LAMP server.

Link: …

Going to Spain...

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 19:12:00 +0200

As I have published on various media, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a variety of forums, I am moving to Spain on the 26th of August to pursue my graduate studies in business administration and quantitative methods. I’ve been accepted to a great university in Madrid called Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M). I’m going to study there for 2 years (starting this September) on the program MSc in Business Administration and Quantitative Methods.

I was in doubt about choosing Spain over other grad schools that I had applied to. Though, in the end, the choice came to me naturally as moving to Spain, perfecting my Spanish, living in the vibrant Spanish culture and hooking up with a lot of new Spanish friends was too appealing. I got into the school, booked my flight ticket and found myself a place to live. My address will be:

Paseo del Prado #40, 4ext izq., 28014 Madrid, Spain

In connection with all this, I had to do a minor task of translating my diploma (in English) that I got for my BSc degree at Aarhus University. UC3M required it to be in Spanish so I checked out a couple of certified translators in Spain. I ended up choosing Leon Hunter and I am very happy about that. I had a great experience with Leon who helped me quickly and who was rapid in answering my e-mails. That was cool.

There are a lot of different translators out there — I reckon many of them might be quite rotten. For that reason, I am happy that I chose Leon and I would recommend you to do the same if you, too, are in a situation where you need to get something translated. He knows Spanish and English and has the official Spanish certification to offer those services. Check out his website here:

Translation between Spanish and English by Leon Hunter

When I arrive to Spain (in just one week from now), I will come up with another update. I am thinking about bringing my old travelblog, www.enjoyinglife.dk, back to life. That might be fun! :-)

Thoughts on Mono and MonoDevelop

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 19:40:00 +0200

This weekend I have been playing with the Mono framework and the accompanying integrated development environment (IDE) MonoDevelop. I come from the Microsoft world of software development, as I started out with Visual Basic back in the end of the 1990’s and the beginning of the 2000’s. Throughout the past couple of years I’ve spent most of my developing time in Visual Studio working with the ASP.NET MVC framework. Thus, C# is my preferred language.

As a side project — related to my startup, Mivando — I have been interested in building a local app that allows the user to run a web browser that renders webpages based on common web standards (such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript) plus the Liquid markup language that we use to render dynamic content in shop templates. The purpose of creating such a web browser would be to enable designers of Mivando themes to run and view how Liquid would be rendered in Mivando — without needing access to the Internet.

Now, a number of options when it comes to cross-platform development seem interesting with Java being a popular choice. But since I am a C# developer, at a first glance, Mono seems much more appealing. So I have spent something like 24-26 hours this weekend playing around with the framework and the IDE. With this blogpost, I will express my initial thoughts on the framework and community around it.

What is Mono?

Mono is a free and open source project led by Miguel de Icaza and his company Xamarin. The objective of the Mono project is to create an Ecma standard compliant .NET-compatible set of tools. This includes a C# compiler and a Common Language Runtime. Mono (as well as the MonoDevelop IDE) offers an easy way to get started with developing desktop applications for both Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Rather than using WinForms, Gtk# is the preferred toolkit for building graphical user interfaces. Off the platter, the drag-and-drop features to creating a nice looking interface and the well-known syntax (C#) make it easy getting started.

I should mention that I have been developing with MonoDevelop on my Mac (OS X, v10.6.7). I have been using Mono v2.10.1 and MonoDevelop v2.4.2, which currently are the latest versions available. As mentioned, the purpose of developing in the Mono framework has been to create a unique web browser that can render Liquid markup. Thus, my project has involved some external libraries — such as the WebKit-Sharp library (which I have used as the web renderer) and the DotLiquid library.

Developing with MonoDevelop

MonoDevelop resembles Visual Studio to a very large degree. This is a very good thing. Despite the fact that I don’t have much experience with programming languages outside of the Microsoft world, I believe that Visual Studio is the best IDE out there. MonoDevelop offers the same benefits, including auto-completion and a version of IntelliSense. Writing C# code in MonoDevelop is probably as fast and as intuitive as in Visual Studio. Thumbs up to the development team behind MonoDevelop.

MonoDevelop offers a source code-view and a designer-view. This works as you would expect it to if you have any experience with developing desktop apps in Visual Studio. The drag-and-drop features makes it incredibly easy to put together a great looking user interface without writing a single line of code. Each widget of the Gtk# framework can trigger on different events and send signals back to the “code-behind”. Even a 5-year-old would be able to put user interfaces together with Gtk#.

I spent the most of the day yesterday building my app, which I finally got to work just as I wanted it to on my Mac. The result is a single executable (yes, a .exe file) that can be executed by running the command in Terminal: mono NameOfApp.exe. It is possible to pack the raw-looking .exe file into a beautiful Mac app-bundle by following a few simple steps. Great! Until I tried running my app in Windows and in Ubuntu…

Porting to other platforms? Huh?

To be frank, I had hoped that it would be much easier porting an app to other platforms. First of all, the Mono framework must be installed on the target platform (unless a bundle is made, which I will discuss later). The dependent libraries also need to be installed on the target platform. With these prerequisites in place, the app should work on the target platform. I finished my app and got it working (on my Mac) in the afternoon yesterday. I then spent all yesteday night and most of today trying to figure out how to bundle up these dependencies and create one executable to be distributed. And I still haven’t found a solution.

I have tried a variety of options with the mkbundle function being the one that has taken up most of my time. Much more can be read about mkbundle in the link provided and by searching on forums (such as Stack Overflow) via Google. In short, mkbundle is a tool that can be run on a Unix system to create a bundle combing the given app with the necessary dependencies (even with the complete Mono framework).

After many attempts, my conclusion is that mkbundle really does not make my life easier. I started missing my usual Windows platform and Visual Studio a lot. The main problem (at least for me) is that combining assemblies and the actual app into one bundle has been very much of a hassle. I have kept myself busy managing static links as well as dynamic links to assemblies depending on specific versions of the Mono framework and the Gtk# GUI being installed. Ugh! While I am very positive about the MonoDevelop IDE in itself, I have been very sad about the options to make an easy deployment. This is simply missing in Mono in my opinion.

It might be that I have become spoiled with the extremely easy-to-use NuGet package manager that ships with VIsual Studio as well as the one-click deployment process. But I really do think it is a pity that such a promising and interesting framework as Mono lacks the final step of the process of developing an app. I want to spend my time coding and designing — not hassling around in my Terminal trying hundreds of options to make a simple thing work.

Mono is really a great framework

Unfortunately, I think it is obvious that Mono is based on the contributions of many different contributors. While a large number of contributors obviously is a good thing for any project, it costs a lot on the simplicity account, in my opinion. Moreover, the documentation of less popular libraries is extremely scarce and not many forum posts exist on the topic.

Until May (this year), the Mono project was backed by Novell. But after Novell was bought by Attachmate, all of the developers working on the Mono project were laid off. Now, Mono is officially backed by Miguel de Icaza’s startup, Ximiran. I admire the great work done by de Icaza and the other contributors to the Mono project but it is a shame that no large corporation with the necessary resources stands behind the project any longer.

Despite some hassle, I will definitely keep on working with Mono. It’s definitely not as complete as Microsoft’s .NET framework and IDE. But, really, what would you have expected? I already love Mono for being the way it is. Also, its features for mobile app development seem interesting and I will definitely check them out. My calendar tells me that I’ve got nothing to do the upcoming weekend. I’m already thinking about what to explore next within the world of Mono.

¡Hoy mismo nos comemos a los suizos!

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:50:20 +0200

¡Hoy mismo nos comemos a los suizos!

The final between Switzerland and Spain in the UEFA Under-21...

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 20:56:13 +0200

The final between Switzerland and Spain in the UEFA Under-21 Euro Championship at Aarhus Stadium, Denmark.

Er du den nye GNOM hos Recommended?

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 11:05:14 +0200

Er du den nye GNOM hos Recommended?:

Har du mod på at prøve dine marketing-skills af i et af Danmarks fedeste reklamebureauer? Tjek GNOM-projektet hos Recommended.

Danmark vs. Hviderusland (U21 EM). Fyldt stadion i Aarhus og lav...

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:50:53 +0200

Danmark vs. Hviderusland (U21 EM). Fyldt stadion i Aarhus og lav sol over byen. Fedt! :-)

Børsen har i dag afsat en hel side til os og fortæller lidt om...

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 16:55:18 +0200

Børsen har i dag afsat en hel side til os og fortæller lidt om vores historie og om hvordan Mivando er blevet til. Det er vi glade for her på Mivando-kontoret! :-)

Export Asics Training Plan to iCal

Tue, 31 May 2011 19:57:23 +0200

Export Asics Training Plan to iCal:

I really like Asics’ training site (check it out at www.asics.co.uk). My goal is to run a marathon and for that I’ve created a training plan. This rocks!

Though I would like to export this plan to my iCal but it didn’t seem as an option on the Asics site. So I developed a quick scraper to convert a Asics Training Plan to an ICS feed for your iCal, Google Calendar or Outlook. Check it out at: AsicsCalendar.com

BACHELOR THESIS DONE!!! :-)

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 21:53:10 +0200

BACHELOR THESIS DONE!!! :-)

eXtrem maraton 2011 i Silkeborg

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:47:22 +0200

eXtrem maraton 2011 i Silkeborg:

Anders Skovsgaard, som jeg sidder på kontor med i GeekHouse, og jeg har besluttet os for at deltage i eXtrem maraton 2011 i Silkeborg under navnet Team GeekHouse. Jeg er hermed blevet sendt i træning af min lillebror, der spiller for AGF og er ret hård til løb. Det skal nok blive vildt! :-)

One-man band in Aarhus C. Very talented!!! :-)

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:02:10 +0200

One-man band in Aarhus C. Very talented!!! :-)

Danish Comedians Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen allow all...

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:48:18 +0100

Danish Comedians Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen allow all pirates to come clean. Pay 10 DKK (around $2 USD) and get your soul cleaned. All your illegal downloading and copying will be forgotten and you can return to an innocent living. Now, that’s an idea! ;-)

Nice lille digt! :-)

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:05:44 +0100

Nice lille digt! :-)

Sortedam in Copenhagen, I want to live next to you! Such a cool...

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:52:18 +0100

Sortedam in Copenhagen, I want to live next to you! Such a cool and beautiful place.

Casper Christensen rocking in Klubben at Aarhus School of...

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:18:42 +0100

Casper Christensen rocking in Klubben at Aarhus School of Business!

I was in Copenhagen most of last week. When I came home late...

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:24:08 +0100

I was in Copenhagen most of last week. When I came home late Sunday night, the Tuesday (Feb 22, 2011) edition of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten was lying waiting for me. It had a feature of me regarding entrepreneurship in Denmark. Pretty cool! :-)