Some of my prior posts in the Dutch Design category I forgot to number. I found the correct number:-)
Dutch designers Colin Finnegan and Gerard Glintmeijer of FG Stijl have had a important influence in the design of the Amsterdam College Hotel. I now have access to press material from their site and also, after setting up my new computer, I am able to resize their high resolution photos without getting the famous blue screen. Therefor I now can offer my dear readers some additional photos.
Amsterdam College Hotel Front Desk
Amsterdam College Hotel Room
Amsterdam College Hotel Restaurant
I do like this style. The College Hotel is partly staffed by students from a local hotel school. Therefor the service is sometimes not entirely up to the standards that FG Stijl has set for this hotel.
Update May 14, 2008:
Recently the owner of the Hotel (the Amsterdam school ROC) was forced by the Dutch Government to sell the school. Dutch Government deemed the risks of owning a hotel too high for a state funded school….The buyer is Michael van de Kuit’s Nedstede Groep BV. Contrary to many property tycoons, Michael van de Kuit wishes to stay as anonymous as possible. To that extent he even has retained a PR adviser to keep him off the journalists’ hooks.
If you live in The Netherlands, you are so used to the beauty of our Dutch ladies, that you tend pass them by without even noticing their beauty. It happens to me, although I use to brag having a keen eye for female beauty with my fair share of a beautiful wife, two beautiful daughters and a number of photo shoots in my small hotel with likewise very nice photo models.
So it is great getting an eye opener via Dutch News that featured:
Friesian model Doutzen Kroes (23) is the fifth best paid model in the world, earning €3.8m in 2007, according to Forbes magazine. The top earner is Brazile’s Gisele Bunchen who earned $ 22.4m.
As an aside: I did it automatically: writing Frisian, and not Friesian. Why? because a Friesian is a type of horse bred in Friesland.
Also thank you for this Eye Opener Forbes with your top 15 list of models’ earnings:
Doutzen Kroes
$1.5 million
The Dutch model, 22, rapidly rose through the pages of Vogue, where she’s been featured in the last three issues (including the May cover). She’s also bagged contracts with Calvin Klein’s Eternity fragrance and L’Oreal.
Just a thought for the the (French based) Michelin Guide: They should start giving stars to countries on the basis of their womans’ beauty. Most certainly The Netherlands would end up with three stars, meaning: The Netherlands is worth a trip solely to enjoy the Beauty of its woman!
Happy Queen’s Day!
On January 30, 2008 our Queen Beatrix reached the venerable age of 70. The Dutch Queen´s birthday is celebrated officially on April 30th, since Queen Beatrix ascended the Throne. It is a public holiday and everybody goes out partying. In Amsterdam you can walk over the heads of the visitors. Many cruise the Amsterdam canals in little boats totally clad in Orange. Other people use Queen´s Day as their annual garage sale day, because everybody is allowed to sell everything freely all over the cities. So did my family.
Under Queen Juliana´s (Beatrix´mom’s) reign there was an official defile at her palace which went on for hours and hours. Beatrix changed tis rather boring tradition satisfactorily and decided to pay two Dutch cities a visit in celebration each year. Today the Frisian cities Makkum, world famous because of their polychrome “Delf” blue ware, and Franeker had their turn.
She does that with the whole Royal Family. This often leads to humorous situations as the young Dutch princes are always in for a little playful game. Today you could see some princes trying to collect rings from poles while riding on a small tricycle.
The Queen herself made a few dancing steps with a Frisian Salsa dancer in Makkum. I was glad I found this nice photo to prove my right in my previous post.
The Salsa dancer was clad in a dancing dress made of the pattern and colors of the Frisian Flag over an orange dress. The Frisians have their own flag and own language and are very proud of it.
I found this excellent photo on Flickr where it appeared to have been uploaded by Ethiopian Eyasus Solomon. Thanks Eyasus.
The Dutch can now put their orange clothes in the cupboard until the European Football Championships.
Recently I found this apt picture with apt title and color.
The picture is apt because the wooden shoes or clogs stand as a sort of fake national symbol for The Netherlands, whereas hardly any Dutchman (or Cloggy as I am actually teasingly call my fellow countrymen) actually wears wooden shoes.
The Title is as aptly untrue as the clog as national symbol as the Dutch do Dance, even on wooden shoes (later more on the subject of wooden shoe dancing).
Actually the color is the only really apt element of this picture for today as orange is the Dutch national proud, not the national color because that is red white and blue, because it is the color of the House of Orange. Our Queen is a descendant from William of Orange who led the Dutch in their 80 years war against the Spanish. Tomorrow , 30th April is the official celebration of her 70th birthday this year and we will celebrate and dance!
But before the Dutch celebrate Koninginnedag or Queens day several cities celebrate the night before the day. In The Hague we celebrate Koninginnenach. It is a free pop festifal throughout the city. There are several Pop- and Jazz podia. In several theaters and bars there is life music and all is one big party.
I will not get permission from my dear wife to enter the festivities with my cameras because I am just recovering from a flu alas. It is her good excuse to keep me from partying:-)
If you want to have a nice overview of Konininnenach pictures do a Koninginnenach search on any photo site.
Update:
And you should read the post about Dutch Orange Day in New Holland from antipode (from Down Under) James Clarke from the Australian I Travelnet Blog. Then you will understand why I am proud to be a Dutchman. And I am curious whether Nomadic Matt will report about his Amsterdam Queensday experience.
Update May 1, 2008: Nomadic Matt did indeed post about Koninginnedag, But the post has disappeared since….
Last edited by GJE on December 13, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Some time ago I came across Piclens from the company Cool Iris via a recommendation from Internet Guru Doc Searls. Doc has no search function on his Blog. A severe neglect! At first I couldn’t find his post back.
As an aside: He also recommended Flickrfan in a post Less T, More V , but that is for the Mac aficionados. I have no Mac.
Eventually my persistence did find me Doc’s: Nice Plugin.
Another aside is that a commenter to that post advised to have a look at Photo Synth. I didn’t (yet). What is Piclens?
Piclens is available as a plug in for Firefox and some other browser flavors to view large numbers of pictures on sites like Flickr. It is an amazing quick way of browsing around a lot of photos. Much quicker than Flickr’s slideshow and also much quicker than Adobe Bridge or Adobe Lightroom of Adobe for those who work with it. Brilliant!
The Full Screen
My first impression:
Wow! Cool! but you can’t link to the photo you like. This has been fixed with version 1.6.3 and hence I believe it is ready to become a mainstream plug in.
The Full Screen with one photo in the centre zoomed in
and following you each time you move your mouse
A video wall alike browsing screen
For these examples I used the ITB2008 Berlin Travel Blogger Summit Flickr Pool.
A Screen with one photo zoomed in maximally
Be aware!
Today the plug in page of Firefox only offers version 1.6.2 without the tagging and linking possibilities and not yet version 1.6.3 with the tagging and linking! That you should obtain from the Piclens site.
Piclens now for Youtube!
It took me some time to find out how Piclens would work with Youtube. It is only a small indication somewhat forlorn on the site of Piclens:
The only way to open a Youtube video search
You always should launch Piclens first from your tool bar where it installs itself. In the Piclens screen you then open the Youtube search tool of Piclens which you find at the top of the Piclens screen.
But then you have something!
The result of a Piclens search on Youtube. The video starts playing immediately!
I like this instruction video and its song best
Here is the video itself:
The song is “Technologic” by Daft Punk, also a must have:-)
Further goodies
You can download a tool to make your own site Piclens compatible.
There is a WordPress plug in: A must investigate.
Disadvantage
I see one big disadvantage of Piclens. Flickr Photos are uploaded under various licenses and cannot be copied easily. With Piclens you can make a screen dump and avoid the license protection of Flickr easily.
Rest assured: I am not trespassing copy rights here, because most photo’s I showed you are my own.
Post Alia
Today again Philippe Wolff was talking about the perfect storm he sees in the online travel world. See Kevin’s post at Travolution’s Blog. Well I would say this small plugin will definitely add to that storm!
