I visited on a sunny but cold April day. The wind blew quite hard and I had bit of a hard luck, the cranes did not come very close to the viewing areas, but kept to themselves down on the fields. If I am going to visit another time I’ll probably try to rent a tent or a small bird watcher cabin down by the lake, and plan for a longer stay. This time I just stayed for an hour or two.

There is quite a history to this lake. About 100 years ago they tried to drain the area and change the swamp and wetland into agricultural land. They have tried to restore the lake to its former glory now, and by dumping several thousand kilos of grain down by the lake every day they have created a haven for migratory birds.

Anyway it was quite an experience to watch, I would recommend it for any nature interested person.

Here are some of the pictures I took (and one that my girlfriend took of me). Remember, you can click on all the pictures to see them in a larger size.

Overview to the North West (extra large)

Cranes dancing

In flight

As close as I got

Battle of the great birds - obviously some swans do not like cranes.

A stroll by the waterside

A lot of birds

Swedish landscape

Big wings

Look I am jumping

Not only cranes

Me in the cold wind

Here are some galleries that are better than mine (Link in Swedish)

Other Resources
Expedition Hornborgasjön
Aftenposten Reise
Web cameras
Common Crane (Wikipedia)
Lake Hornborga (Wikipedia)

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.

Lift me up

Ready ... aim ...

Fire!

Pointy foliage

Even the plants around this place have their hard edges.

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.

Not an iPad 1

I do not buy pirated products, but occasionally I get to see what other people have found out there. This is one of those times. I recently got the opportunity to see a device that supposedly was an iPad 1 with 128 GB memory, a built in camera and what seems to be an SD card reader. “What the …” you say? Where might one find a device like that? Well, China seems to be a safe bet, and in this case it is the truth as well. In the sake of anonymity we will just say that the owner of this device visited China last year and found this device in a market in Beijing. From a distance and while turned off it looked like an iPad and it was cheap. It even was packed in something with a superficial resemblance to the real packaging. Now after the bargain had been struck and he arrived at the hotel to check it out he found a few strange things. It had a separate charger pin input. The regular iPad connector could be refitted with an adapter that made it possible for the device to connect to a regular network cable, an USB cable and (updated, see below) several other cable types. All in one adapter! That was kind of neat. Oh and it ran Android!

Not an iPad running Android version 2.2

Android? On an iPad?

Yes …. and no. This is of course no iPad. It might look like one but the there are several things that these images do not tell. Among else it is made of plastic, and feels cheap. Another tell was that it stopped working after a week. Now it only gives you the startup logo and then nothing happens.

But as a curiosity it may now live for a long time on the internet.

Not an iPad with more than one connector

Not an iPad with 128 GB memory

Not an iPad - backside

Not an iPad with a forward facing camera

Update 2012-02-06: I managed to take a few pictures of the included dongle as well. I remembered slightly wrong though, It only has two USB ports and one ethernet port available.

iPad dongle

Winter fog

I am not sure if you have ever considered that weird thing that surrounds us everywhere we go. The air around us. The atmosphere. This thing that we very seldom bother noticing.

There are moments when the air and what it means to use is more visible than other moments. Fog is maybe one of the most obvious ones. The weird fact that misty air can reduce the visibility to such a degree that we lose detail and color, in fact so much that we might get lost in our own well known woods.

Here are a few photos I have taken of fog over the years. I have a couple of misty images from Venabygd as well.

Autumn fog

Spring fog

Bridge

Crane in the mist

Now personally I use the cloud for several services, and I feel that such services may be very useful and probably secure enough for me as an individual. The problem is that there are several reasons for not thrusting your corporate or business data to an external service provider. The most obvious ones are based on regulation, in Norway government entities probably will not be able to put their data on servers located outside of Norway, or worse, outside of Europe. There might be risks regarding this even for private companies, foreign governments might insist on access to data stored on servers located within their countries, either for security or legal reasons. Another issue might be the security of the information itself, other companies might be able to break into the service and gain access to your corporate information. Several security officers at different companies are also very protective of their information and data, and would never accept that anything like this should be available externally. All reasons may be resolved as the solutions and regulations evolve, but as an IT-consultant doing business right now, I would like to have the following framework available when dealing with cloud based services.

1. Intra-social: I need to be able to implement a copy of a cloud based social service or product internally in an organisation. Using all the normal protections and security that the different corporations demand I follow. Examples might be protected sub-groups, protecting content, firewalls, single-sign-on and so on.
2. Extra-social: I need to be able have a “demilitarized” version of this product available for partners and other external participants that make it possible for them to collaborate securely and share information trough the same services that the companies are using internally. These users should probably only be able to access a subset of the information available internally. I would like to be able to enforce encryption of the communication and use strong log-in features. Of course it should be possible to protect content and have access-groups here as well.
3. Inter-social: Now the big differentiator is the connection to open services on top of this. By using semantic technologies and other modern integration techniques I would like to intelligently be able to integrate these internal and external parts of my social software with the corresponding public service. Sharing information and collaborating on open issues should still be possible, and this would make it possible for the users to use the same tool for collaboration both internally, externally and on the open internet.

Do you have any comments? Please tell me your feelings on this below.

Posted from Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

A view trough the fence while others are driving trough

A bent world view using a fisheye lens

Waiting for the ferry in Oslo

You better stop before going trough here

Update 2011-01-22: My friend has gotten is own blog now. Please give him a visit at hwfoto.net 

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.

I happen to live near the cost, and while enjoying a sunny -1 degrees Celsius, I walked down to a beach called “Elleskjær” near me.

The usual suspects greeted me when I got down to the beach. They were alert though and flew away when I tried to get a bit closer.

I tracked them, but as most of you know, seagulls are capable of escaping in 3 ways; walking, swimming and flying. I was prepared to engage in only one of those activities.

A seasoned tracker could probably tell the sex or something like that from this print. All I can tell is that it most probably was a bird that can swim. And most likely a seagull.

This is a northern view in two ways I guess. It is the view towards the north, and as you probably have guessed; this was photographed in Norway.

During the summer most boats you see are slick, big, fast motor powered boats. During the winter the "real" men are out using other means of propulsion.

The sun got down to my height after a while, and the snow almost went totally white.

It is always nice when the sun shines trough the trees.

 

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.