Old news

This weekend, Marabu invited some former CPC freaks to the Castle Sommershausen for the first time in 17 years!
It was quite nice to be back there. So little has changed and yet it felt different to be back there. But nonetheless, we had a greate time as you can see here.
 

In December Face Hugger and I went to meet BSC in Cologne at his place for our yearly meeting. Fraggle couldn't join us this time, because he is busy renovating his house.
But the three of us had fun even without Fraggle. You can look at the pictures from that meeting here.
 

As every year, this year I also attended the Xzentrix meeting in Seeshaupt, even though this little Bavarian town is a 7 hours train ride away!
Unfortunately this year a lot of the CPC fans couldn't attend the meeting, but it was fun anyway. See the pictures here.
 

Finally I've uploaded the pictures I took during the CPC reunion 2009 in Erlangen! This year was special, because the Amstrad CPC turned 25 this year and this called for a special celebration! See the images here.

This weekend there was the annual Xzentrix meeting in Seeshaupt (Bavaria). It was a fun meeting, I met and talked to a lot of old friends and played some Wii with Brainblaster, Tolkin and others. We really should do this more often...
Oh, by the way, the pictures I took at the Xzentrix 2008 can be found here.
 

Last weekend I met Fraggle, Face Hugger and BSC at Fraggle's apartment in Hannover. The pictures I took and a funny photomontage can be found here.
 

Two weeks ago the Xzentrix 2007 took place in Seeshaupt (Germany). As every year my brother Odin and I attended the meeting. It was great fun and over way to quickly! Maybe next year we can prolong the Xzentrix to four or five days? Anyway you can find the pictures I took during the Xzentrix by clicking on Amstrad -> CPC Party pictures or by clicking here.

Last month I went barbecueing with The Villain, Jodel 5 and Odin. Kangaroo intended to join us, but unfortunately did not. Well it was fun anyway. You can find the pictures of that barbecue trip in the parties-navigation or by clicking here.

Over the past couple of days I've finally removed the frameset on this webpage. I didn't like to use a frameset in the first place, but since I wanted to use a variable navigation bar on the individual pages, I had no choice but to use a frameset.
Now each page has the navigation included and thus there is no need for a frameset anymore. Besides that, I also fixed three missing images and a broken link.

Today I've put up a couple of images from Jodel5s' good bye party. You can find a link to the image page in the Parties navigation or click here to go the page directly.
 

In the past two weeks I've moved the whole Odiesoft webpage to a new server! The page was offline for four days from September, 22nd to the 26th. I hope you didn't miss it too much...
Some people who definitely have missed the webpage and especially the guestbook are the spammers! Since I record the spam being put into my guestbook (July, 11th 2006), there were over 5000 attempts to put unwanted advertising in my guestbook - a tragic record. But the good news is: my spam protected guestbook hasn't let a single of this efforts through.
An interesting side note: International spammers obviously have a sense of sympathy - the day on which the least amount of spam was sent to my guestbook was September, 11th, the day of the World Trade Center attack (sic!). The average amount of spams per day is 150, on September, 11th there were only 6 tries!

Riding back to Hamburg in a train from Seeshaupt where the Xzentrix 2006 was held has it's disadvantages (because it takes so long), but also some advantages (because it takes so long): Since I had so much time during my train ride I've already set up the html pages for the Xzentrix 2006 slideshow!. You can see all my pictures from the Xzentrix in the party pictures section on the Amstrad pages or if you click here.

The images from this slideshow are already three months old, but due to my relocation to Hamburg I didn't find the time to set up this slideshow any sooner!
Anyway now you can take a look at some images from my "Bye-bye Konstanz" party in May. The images are as good as uncut, I only removed the out-of-focus images and some images which couldn't be recognized... The new slideshow can be found in the Party-subnavigation by the name "Bye-bye Konstanz 2006" or you can click here to watch it.
Also I've worked on the guestbook program again. Now it blocks 100% of the spam messages and none of the wanted posts (at least not during my test-runs. Maybe you want to leave a post, so that I can see, whether or not it works with other people besides myself!). You now can see the number of blocked spam messages at the end of the guestbook pages. This spam-block-counter is updated once a week! So keep coming back ;-)

Some days ago I had to realize that spammers found a new way to circumvent my spam protection in the guestbook on this webpage. Thus I had to take additional efforts to improve the spam identification and protection procedures in the guestbook program in order to block unwanted postings to it. Hopefully I've now found a method to get rid of these unwanted postings to my webpage. You, as a regular guestbook user, won't notice the difference - but still I thought it's worth mentioning.
Btw.: a new slide show is coming up soon, so stay tuned and visit my webpage regularly!

I've put up another picture gallery. This time with embarrassing pictures from the Fasnet (Carnival) in Konstanz. My roommates, a colleague of mine and I dressed up and hit the road. It was quite a lot of fun as you can see. Now there remains just one question: Can you spot me between all those dressed up people? Click here to go to this new slideshow.

Okay, I'm a little late with this, but I've put a new picture gallery online with pictures from last years Halloween Party. I haven't yet had the time to create this gallery, but since I was asked for it, I've finally taken an hour to create the gallery and upload it. You can find it in the party navigation or click here to go there directly.

After I had to take down my guestbook since it suffered from massive spamming of companies selling medical placebos and "crotch hardeners" it is now back online! I've changed the guestbook script so that spammers won't have a chance of placing their junk in my guestbook anymore (at least, that's what I hope).
So if you want to leave me a message, now you can do so again!

Added some more pictures from Alans birthday party in Sonnenbühl house Q. Use the party navigation on the left side to go there or click here to go there directly.

Today I've put up the pictures I took on the Xzentrix 2005 meeting in Seeshaupt at the Starnberger lake in Bavaria. You can find the slideshow in the "Amstrad/CPC Party pictures" section or click here to go to the party pictures page directly.
I also fixed a number of broken links to older picture shows which were hosted on a tripods account and have now been moved to the local webserver. If you ever find any other broken links or pictures, please let me know (you can find my e-mail address in the "contact" section).
Over and above that I've created a spam-filter for my guestbook since I had so many nonsense and commercial entries to my guestbook lately.

Finally also the pictures from a Party in Xiaonongs Place are on my webpage. Now all the pictures from the parties from the past two months are online (well from the big parties only - there are several other pictures, but I think the ones online now are enough embarrassment for the moment).

Go to the party pictures section in the main navigation to see the pictures or click here to go to the party pictures page directly.

Today I've uploaded another set of pictures to the webpage. This time from a party in our apartment on June, 4th. There's still another set of fotos taken during a party in House Q in Mai that I intend to share with the internet audience. I'll upload these in the following days as well. So come by another time to check out these pictures!
Again you can find this new slideshow in the "Party pictures" section or click here to go to the party pictures page directly.

I've finally uploaded lots of pictures from a party in our apartment in late April. I wanted fix some of the pictures, like adjust the focus, fix the contrast, exposure and colors and remove red eyes, but I just didn't find the time to do that - so most of the pictures are still in the same form as when they were taken.
You can find the slideshow in the "Party pictures" section or click here to go to the party pictures page directly.

I've finally uploaded my pictures from the SymbOS preview party in Moers in January, 2005. You can find the pictures in the Amstrad gallery section. Click here to go to the SymbOS party gallery.

On the "Megablasters in the media" page I've finally uploaded the scans of five pages from different Amstrad Action issues covering Megablasters. You can find these pages here.
Then I've added two scans of original pages with songtexts written by Kangaroo and BSC on the Odiesoft Party #1 and one scan with the list of participants for the Megablasters battle competition held during the party. I've found these pages some time ago in a file folder. These pages only have historical value, but I thought it would be nice to put them on my webpage. Maybe someboy is able to decipher the hand written songtexts? You can find these new scans here
Finally I've fixed some broken links on the "Sylvester 2002" and on the "Hohen Neuffen 2003" slide shows. For some reason the images have disappeared from the server on which they were hosted...

After being asked to explain the Tunnel Demo effect, I've posted my explanation also on the website, so that everybody can learn how this Green screen demo was created. You can take a look at the explanation here.

In the past couple of weeks I've spent several hours on changing the Perl program for the guestbook. This new and improved guestbook looks virtually the same since the changes run mostly in the background.
The first major change is a email protection. Up to now the emails of the guestbook writers were stored in a mailto-link on the guestbook HTML page. Email crawlers from spammers were easily able to grab these email adresses for their spamming lists. Now the email adresses of the guestbook writers are referred to with an identification number and emails can only be send through a web interface that I wrote especially for that purpose. So spammers have no means to steal your email adress from my guestbook anymore.
The second change is that the guestbook entries are now stored in a database. Upto now the comments were written directly to the guestbook HTML file. This method can easily lead to errors or loss of data. Now all entries are in a database and can easily be changed or edited by me. Besides that the new guestbook will distribute the comments over several pages with 10 comments per page and some navigational elements to each page.

Finally I've also put up a page with links to other CPC pages. This list isn't supposed to cover all CPC pages in the web. It's more like a list of pages I like to visit once in a while or whose creators are friends of mine.
To get a more exhaustive link list you should probably go to Nich Campbells CPC Game Reviews

I've uploaded all my CPC party pictures now. You can browse through the gallery in the Amstrad section of the homepage! Besides that I've also updated all the other picture galleries, so that the slideshows now have "next" and "prev" links to the next or previous images respectively.
Oh, and before I forget it: after 5 years I've finally scanned the images from the Animagic 1999 and put them online. Enjoy!

I've started to scan all the photos from CPC parties and related events of the 90th and I'm going to put up different slideshows with these scans on my homepage over the next couple of weeks. So if you like to wallow in nostalgia go to the CPC section and take a look at pictures from a time when we were still teenagers or early twens and the name CPC was still known by the computer freaks and magazines...

As promised last week I've now set up a download section where you can download all of the finished and unfinished demos and games presented in the CPC section of my homepage. Now you can enjoy the unreleased demos and games, indulge in memories of the old times or laugh about my first feeble steps as programmer on the CPC.
To go directly to the download section click here.

I've finally done it! I've just uploaded the last page planned for the CPC section. Now all the demos, programs and short program I deem worthy to mention are being presented on a separate web page in the CPC section!
The next thing on my agenda is the download page on my webpage. You can expect this to appear on this page by the end of next week (February, 27th).

Over the Christmas holidays I've finally found the time to finish my Megablasters tribute!!!
Now you can find out everything you ever wanted to know about my only commercial CPC game ever!
I May, have to update the Megablasters pages soon, since I asked Rex to write some comments as well, but I thought I should upload the current version already as my special Christmas present to the remaining CPC fans out there!
So enjoy reading these 24 pages with over 300 kb of hints, information and thoughts on this exceptional CPC game!

I just added an old guestbook Perl script I had lying around on my computer to my homepage. Now you can leave me comments, ask questions and tell me all the things you ever wanted to tell me, but couldn't.
Other news are: I'm almost done with my Megablasters tribute, I just need to add two or three more pages. I hope to upload the tribute around Christmas 2003 (so obviously I wasn't able to keep my promise from the September, news... Oh well gaduate students - they never keep their deadlines!).
So stay tuned for a comprehensive page on my only commercial computer game, Megablasters.

I've uploaded three photo albums to my homepage covering past events of this year (in the party pictures and Amstrad sections respectively)
I'm about to leave for a two week holiday trip to Crete/ Greece. When I get back I intend to finish my complete coverage of my game Megablasters and upload it to my homepage. I'm confident that I can finish the Megablasters documentation by the end of October, 2003. So why don't you drop by on October, 31st and see whether I kept my promise or not!
Until then I hope you enjoy this page and that you come back later this year!

During the past weeks I've updated the CPC secion of my homepage on an irregular basis. As I write there are information and images from 29 demos and 17 games online and yet there are still more to come. I haven't even started to write up my Megablasters Tribute (in which I intend to reveal all secrets, present all enemies and levels - so there's a lot of work to do...) and I also have a number of unfinished games, some demos and intros for games that I cracked that still need to be described. So be patient and enjoy the information that's already online.
One question that I'm always being asked is: "Where are the .DSK files?". The answer is simple: "On my PC at home.". The reason for not creating download links on each of the 46 pages covering my CPC productions is not this simple. I intend to transform my homepage into an interactive experience where you have to sign up to download the DSK files, where you can vote for my productions and sign the guestbook or participate in Trivia games. Since I'm still working on the CGI routines for that I don't want to put up the DSK Files so that I don't spoil these plans that I have.
Please be patient with the DSK files. They are coming! I'm currently highly motivated to continue my efforts to complete the CPC section of my homepage even though being a doctorand doesn't leave me this much leisure time anymore.

Finally I've found some time to put up a few new pages in the CPC games section.
Since I've started working I don't have this much leisure time anymore, so the additions to my homepage will be rather scarce in the next few months...
The good news are that I'm working on the DSK Files for all the demos and games introduced on these pages.
The bad news are: I don't know when I'll be done with compiling these DSK files... just hang on there and check out my page every now and then!

I've added a link to a page with pictures from the Animagic 2002 in Koblenz 2002 earlier this year. I've also changed the navigation and split the CPC Demos page into a CPC Demos and CPC Games page.

For over two weeks I'm no student anymore! I've finished my diploma on November, 19th and started with my PhD training on the day after that!
As the past two weeks have shown I don't really have this much more spare time being a researcher with a full time job, but I still intend to continue to create new pages with information on my CPC demos and games!

Check out the actual list with 33 different demos and games: My CPC Productions

I should write more papers and exams!
Everytime I have to study for an exam or work on a paper I come up with so many things I would rather do than studying - and thus I actually do get some work on my homepage done. Amazing!
Today I added a new page to the Amstrad CPC section. Click here to check it out!
(Actually I've just changed the layout on a CPC page I used to have on my old homepage, but still that's better than nothing, isn't it?)

I'm currently doing a lot in Perl and so I got back into the mood to write a small Perl programm for my homepage. It was really fun again!
Btw: I've found out that the public server of my old homepage is gone for good - hacker attack. Sorry about that...

After popular demand I've scanned all my pictures from Jodel5's New Years Eve party and added them to these pages. Enjoy the show!

I've finally taken the time to write an introduction to my planned Amstrad CPC section of my new homepage!
But don't expect too much. I'm still very busy preparing for my exams and working on my Diploma thesis. So I cannot tell you when I'll continue the CPC section.
Don't worry, I still have it in the back of my head all the time. So sooner or later I will put up more CPC stuff on this page.

Even after killing my whole hard disc with all my work of the past 10 months I've taken the time to scan my pictures of the CPC Reunion 2001. Unfortunately all my converted CPC files have also been lost - I have to get back to my CPC to transfer them to the PC again. So the DSK files with my old demos and games will have to wait a little longer...

This week has seen some minor changes to my homepage: the first content pages have moved in! The two pages about a Japanese Animation convention called Animagic just contain pictures, though. But at least it's a start.
These two pages are mainly meant for my friends who were at the Animagic 2001 in Koblenz with me this year. But anybody who is interested in this stuff is also welcome to browse through the images. Back orders of the images are limited to my friends only! Sorry.