kief.com Everything kief http://kief.com/atom.xml 2006-02-14T03:31:28-08:00 Snowy Mosque in Uskudar http://kief.com/images/snowy-mosque.html 2007-12-20T10:04:31-08:00 2007-12-20T10:15:56-08:00 kief This is a mosque in Uskudar, in Istanbul, down the street from where we lived after we got married. I could see this mosque at the end of the tiny backroad through the window in my home office. What's cool is this same mosque is easily visible from most pictures that show the famous Kiz Kulesi. I've got a soft spot for this part of town, even though Ozlem really didn't enjoy living there.

]]> This is a mosque in Uskudar, in Istanbul, down the street from where we lived after we got married. I could see this mosque at the end of the tiny backroad through the window in my home office. What's cool is this same mosque is easily visible from most pictures that show the famous Kiz Kulesi. I've got a soft spot for this part of town, even though Ozlem really didn't enjoy living there.

]]> Monkeys in the park http://kief.com/erel/monkeys.html 2007-10-27T05:49:40-07:00 2007-10-27T05:49:40-07:00 kief A month or two ago we took Erel to Battersea Zoo, where (predictably) his favorite animals were the squirrel-monkeys. A few weeks later, he started insisting that there are monkeys in our local park. As we stroll through the park, he points up into certain trees an announces "monkey!" At home, he points out the window towards the park and declares "monkey!"
I humored him, agreeing that it's possible there are monkeys running loose in the park, and kept my reservations to myself. The concept has a certain appeal.
The question was settled last week when I was pushing him throught the park in a stroller. He pointed and shouted "monkey!" yet again, and I saw he was pointing at a squirrel.
I haven't been able to disabuse him of his belief that squirrels are a type of monkey. I'm not completely sure I want to.

]]> A month or two ago we took Erel to Battersea Zoo, where (predictably) his favorite animals were the squirrel-monkeys. A few weeks later, he started insisting that there are monkeys in our local park. As we stroll through the park, he points up into certain trees an announces "monkey!" At home, he points out the window towards the park and declares "monkey!"

I humored him, agreeing that it's possible there are monkeys running loose in the park, and kept my reservations to myself. The concept has a certain appeal.

The question was settled last week when I was pushing him throught the park in a stroller. He pointed and shouted "monkey!" yet again, and I saw he was pointing at a squirrel.

I haven't been able to disabuse him of his belief that squirrels are a type of monkey. I'm not completely sure I want to.

]]> Pictures of Erel Swimming http://kief.com/node/387 2007-04-21T09:11:47-07:00 2007-12-20T14:35:48-08:00 kief Erel holding on to the edge of the pool

I've uploaded a few recent pictures of Erel, mostly with him swimming. If you want a page to go to see all of Erel's pictures on Flickr, they are here.

Yeni Ereli fotograflar! Hepsi Erel fotagraflar burada.

]]> Erel holding on to the edge of the pool

I've uploaded a few recent pictures of Erel, mostly with him swimming. If you want a page to go to see all of Erel's pictures on Flickr, they are here.

Yeni Ereli fotograflar! Hepsi Erel fotagraflar burada.

]]> Pictures from Charlie's fall tour in Europe http://kief.com/charlie-fall-tour-2006.html 2007-01-06T02:56:47-08:00 2007-01-06T02:56:47-08:00 kief Charlie has posted pictures of his gigs in England and Switzerland. We didn't get to see him play this time around, hopefully we will next time!

]]> Charlie has posted pictures of his gigs in England and Switzerland. We didn't get to see him play this time around, hopefully we will next time!

]]> Erelmania 2006 http://kief.com/erel/november-2006-pics.html 2006-12-17T08:58:01-08:00 2006-12-17T09:07:16-08:00 kief The very latest pics of the Erelmania 2006 tour.

]]> The very latest pics of the Erelmania 2006 tour.

]]> Erel in a dress? http://kief.com/node/382 2006-12-13T01:08:34-08:00 2006-12-13T01:22:11-08:00 kief


No, it's Erel's grandmother, 57 years ago. Erel degil, Erel'in babaannesi, bebekken.

]]>


No, it's Erel's grandmother, 57 years ago. Erel degil, Erel'in babaannesi, bebekken.

]]> F*cking Lebowski http://kief.com/node/381 2006-07-21T09:35:20-07:00 2006-07-21T09:35:20-07:00 kief If you liked The Big Lebowski, you'll love the F_cking Short Version. Not for the easily offended.

]]> If you liked The Big Lebowski, you'll love the F_cking Short Version. Not for the easily offended.

]]> More pictures of Erel http://kief.com/node/380 2006-07-20T14:06:57-07:00 2006-07-20T14:06:57-07:00 kief It's been a while, and we've had lots of demand from the family, so we've uploaded a new bunch of pictures to flickr. These are mostly taken in the past week or so, and include a trip to the park with Jonathan, Hacer, Uzay, Evrim, Olcay, and Edita. Uzay and Evrim really love their little buddy!

]]> It's been a while, and we've had lots of demand from the family, so we've uploaded a new bunch of pictures to flickr. These are mostly taken in the past week or so, and include a trip to the park with Jonathan, Hacer, Uzay, Evrim, Olcay, and Edita. Uzay and Evrim really love their little buddy!

]]> Who does Erel look like? (Erel Kime benziyor?) http://kief.com/node/379 2006-05-22T11:27:53-07:00 2006-05-22T11:33:52-07:00 kief * Ozlem\n* Kief\n* Kief and Ozlem (Hem Kief'e hem Ozlem'e benziyor)\n* Neither Kief nor Ozlem (Kief'e de Ozlem'e de benzemiyor)\n

]]> Erel Pictures on Flickr http://kief.com/node/377 2006-05-20T15:31:39-07:00 2006-05-20T15:31:39-07:00 kief I've started uploading new pictures of Erel to Flickr. You can see them by clicking on that link, they are tagged with "erel". There are also lots of nifty tools you can use with Flickr, for instance I've put a feed of pictures on the side of this site.

]]> I've started uploading new pictures of Erel to Flickr. You can see them by clicking on that link, they are tagged with "erel". There are also lots of nifty tools you can use with Flickr, for instance I've put a feed of pictures on the side of this site.

]]> No more tech stuff here http://kief.com/node/376 2006-05-17T09:51:37-07:00 2006-05-17T09:51:37-07:00 kief I won't be posting any more tech stuff to this website, I've set up a new site, Azedi Tech, which will be my professional/technical site.
kief.com has always been a weird mix, there is a small but loyal audience of friends and family who check it for information about what we're up to, and then there are those people who find one of my sporadic technical posts via search engines or blog aggregators.
The frequency of my posting on any subject is hardly enough to need two blogs, but I feel more comfortable having the separate places to post. I often feel self-conscious about boring people who subscribed to my feed because they saw a technical post if I post things about my family, and most of my family would be equally bored by my ramblings on Java, Unix, and similar gearhead topics.
So if you're interested in techie stuff, you'll probably want to unsubscribe this feed. This site is probably going to become a monument to my obsession with my newborn son, which I would find painfully boring if I were in your shoes. But please consider subscribing to the feed for Azedi Tech. That site probably won't be much heavier in traffic than this one was, but that's probably a blessing.
Thanks for your patience!

]]> I won't be posting any more tech stuff to this website, I've set up a new site, Azedi Tech, which will be my professional/technical site.

kief.com has always been a weird mix, there is a small but loyal audience of friends and family who check it for information about what we're up to, and then there are those people who find one of my sporadic technical posts via search engines or blog aggregators.

The frequency of my posting on any subject is hardly enough to need two blogs, but I feel more comfortable having the separate places to post. I often feel self-conscious about boring people who subscribed to my feed because they saw a technical post if I post things about my family, and most of my family would be equally bored by my ramblings on Java, Unix, and similar gearhead topics.

So if you're interested in techie stuff, you'll probably want to unsubscribe this feed. This site is probably going to become a monument to my obsession with my newborn son, which I would find painfully boring if I were in your shoes. But please consider subscribing to the feed for Azedi Tech. That site probably won't be much heavier in traffic than this one was, but that's probably a blessing.

Thanks for your patience!

]]> Erel Day One http://kief.com/erel/day-one.html 2006-05-16T15:16:58-07:00 2006-05-17T12:49:11-07:00 kief Introducing Erel Solon Morris. Born 1:15 AM 16 May 2006, 3.51 kg, 52 cm, in London. It's a boy!
These are the raw pictures from my phone, no doubt more will follow!
I gave some wrong data in the email I sent out, and originally in this post. Erel is 3.51 kilos, not 4.51, and he was 52 cm long at birth, not 36 cm (which was his head circumference).
I won't be sending out more emails generally, instead I will post pictures and information on this website, so those who are interested can check back when they like.

]]> Introducing Erel Solon Morris. Born 1:15 AM 16 May 2006, 3.51 kg, 52 cm, in London. It's a boy!

These are the raw pictures from my phone, no doubt more will follow!

I gave some wrong data in the email I sent out, and originally in this post. Erel is 3.51 kilos, not 4.51, and he was 52 cm long at birth, not 36 cm (which was his head circumference).

I won't be sending out more emails generally, instead I will post pictures and information on this website, so those who are interested can check back when they like.

]]> Skype is cool http://kief.com/family-skype.html 2006-04-23T12:42:41-07:00 2006-04-23T12:42:41-07:00 kief We've started using skype to chat with friends and family, mainly ones in Turkey, the US, and Switzerland. I think the coolest thing is not just that it's free, but rather the open nature of the experience.
We put the call on with the PC speakers a desktop microphone, and usually a camera, and we sit around the living room. So the call isn't a person to person call, but group to group. The fact that it's free adds to the relaxed, leisurely experience of the call.
Technically it's a bit fiddly. Setting up Skype is a snap, but the production aspects of the call, especially with video, take a bit of effort to get nice. It's too easy to have echoing, since most people don't know how to position the speakers and microphone to avoid it. Lighting and positioning can be a problem for the video. The quality of the voice and video connections are also an issue, it's quite choppy.
But these don't really slow people down. The thing that strikes me is the non-techie people in my circle love it, and are enthusiastic about taking it up as a regular habit. As open-room audio/video sessions like this become more widespread, people will become more sophisticated about
I think as this type of thing becomes more popular, whether via skype or other services, people will get more sophisticated about production values. If end-to-end network capacity continues to grow, the audio and video quality will improve with it.
I wonder how long it will be before we're routinely plugging these calls into our wide-screen, HD televisions, gathering people together from multiple locations to share family events.

]]> We've started using skype to chat with friends and family, mainly ones in Turkey, the US, and Switzerland. I think the coolest thing is not just that it's free, but rather the open nature of the experience.

We put the call on with the PC speakers a desktop microphone, and usually a camera, and we sit around the living room. So the call isn't a person to person call, but group to group. The fact that it's free adds to the relaxed, leisurely experience of the call.

Technically it's a bit fiddly. Setting up Skype is a snap, but the production aspects of the call, especially with video, take a bit of effort to get nice. It's too easy to have echoing, since most people don't know how to position the speakers and microphone to avoid it. Lighting and positioning can be a problem for the video. The quality of the voice and video connections are also an issue, it's quite choppy.

But these don't really slow people down. The thing that strikes me is the non-techie people in my circle love it, and are enthusiastic about taking it up as a regular habit. As open-room audio/video sessions like this become more widespread, people will become more sophisticated about

I think as this type of thing becomes more popular, whether via skype or other services, people will get more sophisticated about production values. If end-to-end network capacity continues to grow, the audio and video quality will improve with it.

I wonder how long it will be before we're routinely plugging these calls into our wide-screen, HD televisions, gathering people together from multiple locations to share family events.

]]> I'm an uncle http://kief.com/node/343 2006-02-23T06:38:41-08:00 2006-02-25T03:55:34-08:00 kief Brandon holding Tyler As of yesterday! Congratulations Brandon and Carla, welcome to the family Tyler!

]]> Brandon holding Tyler As of yesterday! Congratulations Brandon and Carla, welcome to the family Tyler!

]]> Yahoo web UI design patterns and widgets http://kief.com/yahoo-web-ui-patterns.html 2006-02-14T03:28:59-08:00 2006-02-14T03:31:28-08:00 kief This is already making it's way around the "blog-o-sphere", but I've got plenty of friends who are into web design but don't follow this stuff, so check it out. The Yahoo! UI Library is a collection of JavaScript widgets for things like calendars.
The Yahoo! Design Pattern Library is a collection of design patterns for web interfaces. Design patterns are a concept from "enterprise" programming, where best practice approaches to typical problems are described in a way that can be used by programmers using different languages. These patterns from Yahoo describe typical web UI patterns, such as paging multiple lines of search results.
There's nothing ground-breaking in the patterns, but it's useful to have these spelled out. It serves as a checklist, or a specification, if you find yourself having to implement one of these things. Even better, if you're asking someone else to implement some bit of web UI, giving them one of these patterns - modifying it if necessary -is a good way to make sure you're both clear on what you want it to do.

]]> This is already making it's way around the "blog-o-sphere", but I've got plenty of friends who are into web design but don't follow this stuff, so check it out. The Yahoo! UI Library is a collection of JavaScript widgets for things like calendars.

The Yahoo! Design Pattern Library is a collection of design patterns for web interfaces. Design patterns are a concept from "enterprise" programming, where best practice approaches to typical problems are described in a way that can be used by programmers using different languages. These patterns from Yahoo describe typical web UI patterns, such as paging multiple lines of search results.

There's nothing ground-breaking in the patterns, but it's useful to have these spelled out. It serves as a checklist, or a specification, if you find yourself having to implement one of these things. Even better, if you're asking someone else to implement some bit of web UI, giving them one of these patterns - modifying it if necessary -is a good way to make sure you're both clear on what you want it to do.

]]>