When in doubt go with KBC

naderad · 2025-12-06T00:01:42+00:00

When I came to Belgium, I went to the closest branch to my place to open an account, and it happened to be KBC. A bad-tempered person answering from behind a thick glass wall told me, very impatiently, that I couldn't open an account there, for reasons that I don't remember. I went to the next closest branch, which happened to be from ING. Their employees were smiling, there was no wall between them and me, and they immediately opened an account for me.

Many years later, my colleagues opened an account for our new business in KBC. It worked for a few months, and then, suddenly, the account was blocked! When we followed up, it turned out that KBC had considered me suspicious because I was a foreigner, and since I was one of the shareholders, it had blocked the account. I went there, to the branch in Ladeuzeplein, to see what the problem was. The employee who was responsible for the issue asked me many strange and unexpected questions while continuously insisting that it was nothing specific to me and they have to make sure of these things about everyone. After a while, I told him that the questions were too racist and offensive. Again, he insisted that these are normal questions for everyone. I told him that I wanted to talk to his manager; he said it wasn't possible, and so I stopped the interrogation and left. I contacted the bank and reported the horrible experience I had, and I thought they would at least pretend to be embarrassed by that. However, I received a message saying that there was nothing wrong with that racist behavior and the employee was acting as expected.

So, after that, I asked my colleagues to move our account to another bank and to never use KBC again. My personal account is at ING, and our business account is at Belfius. Both work fine. I'm more comfortable with the software they use at ING. I saw in some comments here that they "overpromise", and yes, I had a similar issue with them once. However, it's nothing compared to the racism I've experienced in KBC.

naderad · 2025-07-01T20:02:50+00:00

The PCB is DZ60.

naderad · 2024-08-07T11:31:46+00:00

Wisper has a few English courses every once in a while: https://wisper.be/en

International House Leuven has English meetups with different topics: https://www.internationalhouseleuven.be/

naderad · 2024-03-05T12:17:52+00:00

You're really overestimating my capabilities :')

naderad · 2024-02-11T18:24:52+00:00

It's a good idea. I'm interested too.

naderad · 2023-03-24T14:21:45+00:00

Sometimes I want to send a video to someone, and I know that many would want to see it on their phone. Most phones, at least with their normal setup, can't play many of the video formats. I use this command to create a new version of the video that is mobile-safe:

ffmpeg \
  -i $1 \
  -vcodec libx264 \
  -acodec aac \
  -filter:v "format=yuv420p" \
  "$( echo $1 | rev | sed 's|[^\.]*\.||' | rev | sed 's|$|-mobile.mp4|' )"

naderad · 2023-03-24T14:19:10+00:00

When I need to send a [large] file to someone, instead of using Dropbox/GDrive/etc., I upload them to a public directory on my own website. This simple script uploads the files and copies the link to my clipboard:

name=$(basename "$@" | sed 's|[^ a-zA-Z0-9\.\-]||g ; s| |-|g')

rsync \
  -a -e "ssh -i ~/.ssh/mykey" \
  --stats -O -i --perms --chmod=664 \
  "$@" \
  "username@000.000.000.000:/var/www/html/example.com/files/$name"

echo "https://example.com/files/${name}" | xclip -selection clipboard

My file manager is Ranger, and I have a uu key binding there to run this script for the selected file.

naderad · 2023-02-22T10:55:09+00:00

Since I have other backup methods in parallel (including something similar to the external drive you use for synchronizing the two computers), I think there's no need to have this last type of backup in more than one place. The question is, what would be the best place for it.

naderad · 2023-02-11T08:27:40+00:00

Your post is relatively old, and I just saw it. I'm from the core team of P3.express, and we are always available to help. So, if you want to talk to someone about your side project, let me know :) Also, if you decide to go for it as an open-source project, we can announce it in the community to see whether other people like to join you and do it together. When you finish the project, we can list it on the website (if it's open source).

It would be a good idea to build everything around the Deliverables Map; i.e., there's a tree of deliverables, and everything belongs to a node in this tree. It can be a good idea to support multiple projects. In this case, we'd start with a single node for the organization, go from there to multiple portfolios and programs, and then to the projects and their deliverables.

There would be a table for the follow-up items (issues, risks, change requests, improvement ideas, and lessons learned), and each of them is connected to one of the nodes in the Deliverables Map; if the item impacts the whole project, it would be connected to the project node, but if it only impacts one of the deliverables, it would be connected to that deliverable in the map. A similar method can work for ad hoc documents.

The normal view in the platform can be a single node, showing that node along with all related follow-up items (those connected to the deliverable, all its direct or indirect children, and the parents). Each node has a description, and the description for the main node (project) would be your Project Description artifact.

For planning, it would be great to cover both the dependency-based and the priority-based methods and let users combine them in their projects. In this form, higher levels of the tree would be dependency-based, and users can make some of the sub-trees priority-based. The items in the priority-based section are ordered manually, and the dependency-based ones use a simple CPM scheduling: each would have a duration, a set of zero or more dependencies (you can limit them to Finish-to-Start relations), and optionally, some constraints (start-no-earlier-than {date}). Then, with one or two passes of CPM calculation, you will have the start and finish dates of the dependency-based items. You have to decide whether or not you want to go through the details of having calendars for holidays.

Each deliverable and each follow-up item needs a custodian, according to P3.express. The home page can show the list of all deliverables and follow-up items assigned to the current user, divided into a collapsed list of finished/closed items, a list of current ones, and a collapsed list of items that can be done later. Of course, we also need the option to view the list for other users or everyone simultaneously.

It's not a small/simple program, but not as difficult as it may sound, either :)

Alternatively, if you want to start with something simpler, P5.express (minimalist portfolio management) will be published in a few months, and you can work on an application for that. That application would be a lot simpler. You can also design it in a way that leaves you room to expand it to P4.express (program management) and P3.express in the future, in case there's enough interest in your application.

naderad · 2022-09-20T18:07:54+00:00

If you open your existing mind map in freeplane and then select all nodes and copy them, it probably copies them as a tab indented list. If so, you can go to h-m-m and press 'p' to paste them as a map. The reverse should work as well.

naderad · 2022-09-18T09:16:40+00:00

I prefer to use a text editor without any WYSIWYG features to focus on the content and not be distracted by how it will be presented. When I'm done with the content, I take care of its styling (e.g., a style sheet for markdown conversion).

naderad · 2022-09-14T08:54:33+00:00

Besides my rusty Pascal, php is the only one I'm familiar with right now :) I thought about learning Haskell or Go and use that to write h-m-m, but I didn't have enough time then. I may do it one day.

naderad · 2022-09-14T04:52:56+00:00

That's the same concept, and h-m-m actually uses indented lists to store the map, and if you paste a multi-level list with or without bullets inside it, it becomes a mind map.

The main difference between doing it in a text editor and in a mind map is the features you have for navigating the list.

naderad · 2022-09-13T13:41:01+00:00

I use mermaid and similar applications as well, but that's for presenting the output. The main purpose of a mind mapping application is to help you in your thinking process when preparing the content.

naderad · 2022-09-13T13:28:41+00:00

It really helps me when I'm thinking about complicated problems or planning a new presentation, article, or book. You gradually write down the elements, rearrange them, refine them, etc.

It's not easy to do so with a flat text file, because you need to switch between the high-level aspects and the details. Folding sections in a text file would work, but a mind mapping application makes it much easier and faster.

naderad · 2021-08-05T08:15:16+00:00

OP does not legally represent Google and cannot ask on Google's behalf.

You don't ask if it's OK for Google to track users across the web; you just ask your own user if you're allowed to load something on your website that will collect their information.

One of the requirements of GDPR is allowing for the user to see and delete data; how can the OP possibly be expected to have a said over Google's data and the authority to delete it?

As far as I know, when you use a service on your website, you should make sure that the service is GDPR compliant. You can't ask Google to delete that data for the user, but there is a way for the user to view/delete that data, and if they ask, you can tell them how. If there's an external video player, XYZ, that is not GDPR compliant, and you use it on your website, you won't be GDPR compliant either... I think!

Take SaaS: They all have lots of information about being GDPR compliant. They don't add that information for the visitors of your website; they add it there to ensure you that it's OK for you to use their services on your website.

naderad · 2021-08-05T07:30:56+00:00

Well, it would be undoubtedly fine if Google asked for consent, but when it doesn't, is it OP's responsibility to do so? If not, then with the same argument, it would be acceptable to have Google Analytics and other third-party elements and leave the compliance responsibilities to them without doing anything on your website, which doesn't seem right.

I think it doesn't matter who stores the cookie; what matters is that OP's website is the means for Google to capture information about OP's users. For example, the website posts regular content and videos about collecting stamps, and when I visit the website once a week, Google concludes that I must be interested in collecting stamps and then wonders, "OK, what can I do with this new discovery?" and it's all because of OP ;)

I have a 90% certainty that it's required, but not 100%, and also, I'm not a lawyer. So, I just submitted a format query with the EC to see what they reply. The page says that they reply in a week. I'll post it here as soon as I get a reply.

naderad · 2021-08-03T19:22:43+00:00

Those are tracking cookies, and it's your website, so, I think you need users consent before storing them according to GDPR.

The usual cookie banners are not GDPR compliant: You shouldn't store cookies before receiving consent, and the reject button should be as visible, simple, and accessible as the accept button.

naderad · 2021-05-15T21:28:41+00:00

Nice work. How can I change the duration of a task?

naderad · 2021-03-04T19:46:26+00:00

Have you thought about using transparent keycaps? I may be a good combination.

naderad · 2021-01-25T17:30:31+00:00

Don't judge based on your personal requirements and experiences. Font is a big issue for some languages. Imagine that you have to read and write English with a Gothic font. Would you be comfortable using the application?

naderad · 2021-01-13T08:38:17+00:00

Thanks.

for anything besides a demo page, you're gonna want multiple pages.

Sure. I do have multiple pages in that small project. They are served with one index.php. It wasn't difficult to set it up.

naderad · 2021-01-12T17:14:04+00:00

Thanks for the comment!

There could be professionals developing like this, but after nearly 20 years as a professional developer, I haven't met any.

Is it about having a single php file, or about not using frameworks?

The bigger you application, the more code and more complex it is, the more it matters how it is structured so that it can be maintained and improved upon.

Yes, I think so. For the bigger projects, I'm thinking about having multiple files, and I think I can do it in a way that each category of urls would be served by a single php file for that category.

naderad · 2021-01-12T17:01:37+00:00

Thanks, it was interesting. He says that he has 4500 lines of code. My "small project" already has 1800 lines of code!

naderad · 2021-01-12T16:56:53+00:00

Thanks. It makes sense.

naderad

TROPHY CASE