This morning the official launch of Tribler took place in Amsterdam. Unfortunately I had to leave the conference to fly to Switzerland. It did mean though that Tribler was available in both Switzerland and France only a few hours later.

The ICT~office gala was very nice. A good combination of interesting people, music, food, snacks and drinks. The key message in the openingsaddress was that 2006 will be another year of growth, just as 2005 was. Again with a structural shortage of people to get the job done unfortunately....

As I imagined the biggest hit of the new iMac is photobooth. Roderick has claimed the iMac as 'his' now and is flabbergasted by the fun of the picture application......

My Leicas were firing on all cylinders today as I was asked to cover the Dutchbloggies. Over 400 pictures taken and nearly half of them have been posted on flickr, with a first for me using the flickruploadr. What a great tool!

The event was fascinating and all congratulations to Frank Meeuwsen and the rest of the crew and a special mention to Gabe of Xolo.tv for the great vlogs.

Switching to Intel from the bottom up. I am nearly fully moved from windows to mac. The last more or less active windows machine was my Sony Z1 in heavy use by Caroline and Roderick. That one will be in less use now too, as I ordered a Intel Core Duo iMac for Roderick and Caroline to use (I might occaisionally sit behind it myself......at least until my Macbook Pro arrives). As I wanted more mobility, I ordered an iGo movable desk to go with the iMac. Awkwardly it had to come from further and still arrived before the iMac, which is due on Monday. So for now the bottoms only switch to Intel.

Where the Dutch Creative Industry Fund is created to support entrepreneurs, the Digital Pioneers are created to support non-commercial digital projects. With a group of experts we went through interesting projects and made selections and added some suggestions to further improve.

Eckart always surprises with nice gifts at special dates, like birthdays. This multitool is indeed a multi-useful-tool.....

Most of today was based around activities for the Dutch Creative Industry Fund. At the Nextstage meeting a number of interesting companies presented their ideas, companies and products. Some did so using pwrpoints, some read their story from a couple of paper notes. But according to the presenter with the paper notes, all ready the proposition for several million euros was already oversubscribed....

With the final bad wheather, computer based creativity is a nice alternative. Larger and larger media markets are around, now even with specialised Apple instore shops with staff in Apple outfits. I had a quick look at the new Intel Core Duo iMac I ordered. Indeed a great family machine.... According to the latest info, it should be arriving later this week.

Being a city slicker has not deterred Roderick from jungle life. We are Friends of Artis and go to the zoo quite a lot and Roderick's jungle room at home is progressing quite well. To his pleasure I can add....

Ties are becoming back in to fashion again. I quite like wearing them actually. And even in ties innovation has struck..... Thomas Pink introduced the commuter tie, attaching a snazzy pocket at the back for inserting ones iPod Nano..... What a spot to listen to venturevoice or blognomics podcasts....

Snow in March.... messed up the football.... as traffic jams were built like there was no tomorrow...

Financing for the creative industries is a combination of art and craft one might say. Therefore it is always useful to discuss these matters with those specialised.....

The ABNAMRO tennis tournament in Rotterdam had a difficult start due to withdrawl of key players. Maybe that was one of the reason that the final game was finished in 45 minutes. Some curious fun was created by a new format of 'streaker' in a tutu with "new balls please" written on his chest....

Roderick is spending the weekend with his niece. Right when the Digicomp I computer arrives! The plan was to build this machine together, now it will have to wait a little..... The concept of having an analogue computer up and running soon is appealing I must admit, great pay of by the way "watch me think" for the Digi-comp.

Succesfull entrepreneurs often work in tandem, creativity/technology on the one hand, business accumen on the otherhand. The Steves of Apple are an example. Podbrix is also a good example example as the company issues interesting wannahaves surrounding the Applesphere and the Steves, combingin creativity, technology and business. A nice examplefrom the catalogue is is the Wozwear t-shirt with a really old Apple microprocessor attached. Limited edition and I wonder whom I might see with such a shirt....

Sunday afternoon on a clear day at the end of the winter. Nice to go for a little shopping for the new collections in town and get the latest magazines. Blueblood the Dutch/Italian label has some nice specials that come in a great box.

Writers have found blogging, photographers have found phlogging and filmers have created vlogging. Where the bloggers and phloggers have created millions and millions of blogs and phlogs, the vlogcommunity is still small compared to the other two. But growing fast and having already created some great material. Space to watch and follow.

Often interesting things happen by sheer coincidence. Planning to meet the Dutch vloggers, we spotted the creative capital programme organised by VIP05 in De Balie in Amsterdam. Three good speakers Van Dalm, Reijndorp and Mayor Job Cohen shared with us why the creative industry and a creative capital are both important and how these concepts can be implemented best. A good discussion with the audience came in the package too.

Intermediate step was great and fast Japanese noodles. At a day full of broadband, creativity, appliances, technology and sofort, some good food is needed.