Watch out for the ball

Djurgårdens IF Stockholm vs. Ilves Tampere in FC Inter Turku -98 junior football tournament 2011.

Canon 7D and EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L USM IS

More pictures in my Picasaweb album.

P.S.
Ilves won 3-2.

Preparing for change, simple free Spotify playlist export

If the uppcomming changes to Spotify will happen I guess a lot of people, including me, wish to save their Spotify playlists.

If the only thing you need to save is artist and track name as text in a list, then it's easy:

The only thing you need is OpenOffice.org but apparently also MS Word works.

In Spotify:

1. Select one track by clicking on it.
2. Press Ctrl-a
3. Press Ctrl-c or press the right mouse button and in the popup menu select Copy HTTP Link.

In OpenOffice.org:

1. Create new empty Text Document.
2. Press Ctrl-v or press the right mouse button and in the popup menu select Paste.

Thats it.

I find this change really disappointing since the free version of Spotify has been an innovative and useful service, a radio station with commercials but where you as a listener can select the music. Spotify has been excellent way to explore old music and to find new still fairly unknown artists.

Are EliteBooks really Elite, a HP EliteBook laptop review

This blog post has been waiting in edit state for a few months now, so lets finish and publish it.

So this is a short and compact HP EliteBook laptop review summarizing my experience of two HP EliteBooks, 8540p and 8440p.

HP EliteBook 8540p 15.6"
- Too small CR key
- Too small dash symbol (visually)
- Arrow keys too tight

+ Matte display
+ Good, clear screen
+ USB3
+ fast processor

The machine is really fast (Intel Core i7 and SSD) so compiling code is a joy, but in my opinion the keyboard is completely unusable for both programming and using the command line, and for me that is a show stopper.

HP EliteBook 8440p 14"
- Only 2 mouse buttons
- really bad black reproduction
- strange contrast
- poor viewing angle

+ Better keyboard than 15.6" model. Home, PgUp, PgDn and End keys still awkwardly placed.
+ Matte display

Even if the machine is a bit thick, the size is otherwise really OK for mobile work. However the display panel is the worst I have seen in 20 years. It really reminds me of laptop monitors from the late eighties/early ninetieths. The eye strain produced bu the display is absolutely staggering.

Both:
- Surprisingly sharp lid metal locks, watch your fingers.
- cheap matte aluminium palmrest that feels like a chalkboard.
- Ugly, non professional design (debatable)
- Idiotic trackpad button wiring. See below.

The track point mouse buttons are hardwired with touch pad buttons so you can't disable the trackpad while using track point. If you do, then you loose the trackpoint buttons and are left with a way to move the cursor but you can't click.
Having the buttons disabled while the machine is docked easily leads to an surprisingly challenging exercise in using the keyboard to reactivate the buttons (or borrow a mouse) if you forget to reactivate the buttons when you take the machine off the dock. IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads never had this problem.

+ sturdy monitors, they don't wobble and the hinges feel solid and smooth.

Conclusions:
Both machines are absolute toys compared to IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads and feel cheaper than HP ProBooks. Also the design of the machines are childish looking in a business world where matte black or white/silverish products dominate (Lenovo ThinkPads and Apple).

P.S.
To answer the question in the title, no they are not elite.