But I guess many of you feel that way, right? So for that one reader that is out there (my Google stats say so) – thanks for your support, haha.

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Client: Bend Software
URL: www.bendsoftware.nl
When: 2009

Customer: AccuDeals
When: 2010
URL: www.accudeals.nl

Client: InktCity
URL: www.inktcity.nl
When: 2010

Client: Jupio
When: forever, I hope
Url: www.jupio.nl

Client: Nedgame
URL: www.nedgame.nl
When: 2010

Among with these amenities came the immense offer of food that was served three times a day and in between. And trust me, no matter how persistent you may be in your “sane” eating habits, you will always end up eating more than you normally do when tempted by so much (“free!”) and good food.

So when we watched the holiday pictures on my new 60″ plasma TV (sorry, had to put that in there), the results of these feeding frenzies became painfully obvious. I was staring at a smalll but very eager belly popping out of my shirt – in full HD. Before going to Turkey, my girlfriend and I had already started to excercise mildly, but seeing these images called for more drastic measures.

Many of you will recognise this: you decide you want to start working out more to get in better shape. Maybe as a new years resolution, to make this even more cliche, haha. And because you’re certain this time you WILL succeed and keep it up, you reward yourself in advance by getting new shoes, a new outfit or even a full blown fitness-station for your bedroom.

At first, it felt the same when I decided we needed a fitness gadget: a digital scale. Although my girlfriend already purchased a semi-professional scale for her job as a weight-consultant, I wanted something more advanced to register my progress. You see I used to weigh myself and my fat-percentage in the morning and wrote it on a paper. But that wasn’t working all that well and progress was hard to track.

Then I came across the Withings scale, the first scale with its own iPhone app and Wifi internet access, yeehaah! Even the looks are apple-worthy. Installing it was easy breezy and can even be done by placing your iPhone on the scale. Then you make several profiles: in my case one for me, another for my girlfriend and even one for a friend of mine who gets on the scale every now and then.

Now every morning before I hit the shower, I get on the scale and eagerly wait for the display to come up. Then it shows my weight and my fat percentage, BMI etc. and that’s all: I get on it and after 10 seconds I’m done. The results are instantly and wirelessly sent to my online profile on the Withings website. I can log in there and check my progress but I can just as easily grab my iPhone, tap the Withings icon and voila: there I see the verdict of my actions from the day before.

And to tell you the truth, this has the potential to become obsessive! I set a goal to go from 99.7 kg. to 85 kg. and after a while you just want to see the graph get lower and lower. The occasional weekend “cheat-night” with ice cream and popcorn will end up in peaks in your graph and that’s what makes it work so well: you’re confronted with the results of your actions the very next day.

Together with a good fitness program called P90x and great tasting but “responsible” and well-balanced meals prepared by my girlfriend, this great gadget has helped me reach my (first) goal. So in about three months I reached 85 kg! (yes, you may applaud here) and it hasn’t even been really hard, to be honest. And the best thing is that I know by tracking my weight, I will never go back to my old weight – that is a promise I can keep…. well, provided I change the batteries of the Withings scale every four months

I sold my HP Pavilion tablet PC for a reasonable price so the pain of paying € 824,- for yet another overpriced Apple gadget became more bearable. But to be honest, I haven’t had a single moment of regret! I had read predictions of how the iPad would become a whole new type of device that would fill a gap that laptops, iPhones or netbooks are not. I now understand what they meant.

At home I had been using the iPad for various things but taking it with me on holiday has made me realize its true potential and versatility. For example: I’m writing this blogpost on the beach here in Malaga while listening to the latest podcast of Armin van Buuren’s A State of Trance in iTunes. Before takin a swim, I was reading Dan Brown’s latest novel in e-book version and I played some entertaining games. I also downloaded some PDF magazines and comic books that I haven’t even read yet.

I had trouble concentrating though: foreground or background? © 2010 Marksson

Of course I could go on and on describing the iPads versatility but I think you get the picture. No wait, I don’t think you do! On the way over here, my girlfriend and I easily killed 4 hours of flighttime by watching 3 episodes of True Blood, that new HBO series on vampires. With free Wifi in our hotel here, we were able to plan our walking route to the nearest beach. And since my Spanish was getting a little rusty, I decided to download a very handy dictionary app to digg up those forgotten words.

I think it’s the combination of perfect weight and size, together with the amazing battery stamina that make this device a true winner. Of course the evergrowing amount of apps has made the iPhone what it is today and no doubt the same will happen for the iPad. The effect the iPad has had on me was much like when I bought the iPhone: once you’ve used it for a week or so, you’ll never want to go back.

Client: Verloskunde La Vie
URL: www.verloskunde-lavie.nl
When: 2009

But there is just one thing about them that bothers me: their arrogance! Arrogance in trying to push their own formats and not taking their losses when they should. Let me explain..

I recently bought a next-gen Sony compact camera (DSC-WX1) with some really nice features: wide angle, great automatic panorama pictures and face and smile detection. “Do you need a memory card for that?”, the salesrep asked when I told him I wanted it. “No thanks, I have several 4gig memory sticks lying around at home from my PSP”, I replied.

Well, it turned out that the memorysticks I had could not be used without the camera warning me every freakin’ time I turned it on: with “memorystick” recording and displaying may be impossible. Excuse me? Fortunately it worked just fine, but only after I pressed a button to hide the message. Not cool if you need to take a picture in a split second.

Things got worse after a while though and believe it or not: it ended with the loss of all the images on the memorycard. That had never happened to me before. Reluctant as I was to buy yet another memorystick (newer version blabla), I dragged my sorry butt to the store and admitted my defeat.

But the real issue here is: why doesn’t Sony switch to SD cards which have more or less become the standard in photography now? Most built in card readers in pc’s and laptops now accept SD cards only. Gee I wonder why.

When I thought about it some more, I actually saw a pattern. When I was 18, I worked in a toy store and I sold a lot of “my first Sony” radios, those brightly coloured radios for kids (with karaoke microphone). I remember being embarassed when I had to tell customers the only power adapter that would fit, was the overpriced Sony adapter. Most of them left the store with rechargeable batteries instead!

Many years later, I was a strong believer of the minidisc format. (Is there even a device out there that lets you edit your audio recordings so easily? Not that I know of) I had MD in my car, a portable player and a stand alone recorder / player. I loved it! The discs where almost unbreakable and the audio quality was superb.

But then MP3 players started to take the market by storm and their advantages were obvious te me. Sony stuck to their Atrac compression format and that meant I had to convert every single track first. Much later – far too late – they allowed the mp3 format but minidisc was as good as dead. And I was just in time to sell all my MD devices on Ebay.

I think there are many other examples that show Sony has a tendency to force their products and formats. (recently the failed PSP Go) Why not listen to your customers instead? Such a waste of such a good brand…

But maybe it’s my own ignorance: they’ve been saying it all along with their slogan: Only Sony!

Client: can’t call my girfriend that!
URL: www.kokenmetkaren.nl
When: 2010

Another thing is that I’m never short of words – wheather it is an email or an sms – I have trouble keeping them short. I’ll put that to good use for my blog!

For now: just be patient please… first post is coming up.

Client: B-one group
URL: www.roadassist.eu
When: 2010

Client: B-one group
When: 2010

Client: Bulthuis Truck- en Traileronderdelen
URL: www.truckdesign.eu
When: 2009

Client: Praktijk Thomassen
URL: classified, sir!
When: 2009 – ongoing

Client: Praktijk Thomassen
URL: www.praktijkthomassen.nl
When: 2009