Dirk Bertels

What we do in life echoes in eternity

Home

Welcome

me in Gent This personal site covers a wide variety of topics including science, mathematics, computing and music. Use the tree navigation on the right to browse through them.

If you're curious as to my background and general view on things, the first entry (at the bottom) of the calendar notes page is the place to go.

You are invited to leave your comments and opinions on the have your say page.

Following headings cover the most recent additions and changes - listed from bottom to top. Also, many articles are continually reviewed and updated. In particular the calendar notes page, a kind of on-line diary, is updated regularly.

New commenting system

Another web programming project that uses Ajax. This one covers a commenting system I built for the web site. This system is easy to integrate in to any web page using Javascript (Ajax), PHP, and MySql. It is asynchronous, meaning it communicates with the server behind the scenes, has local form validation, security code entry in the form, and sends notification emails. Try it out at the end of the article.

Video Editing using Free Software

Finally managed to put this writing I started more than a year ago onto this site. It discusses editing video, such as video captured from a camcorder or webcam. It has a special section on editing DVDs and burning it back to DVD (a feature which is in great demand) - all this using free software. For the editing part, I use Avisynth which requires some scripting skills.

Using Ajax with PHP

Ajax is a great addition to the web developing world - mainly because of the new possibilities it brings in web design. Ajax, which is a Javascript subset that handles data transfer between client and server asynchronously, is truly the mother of the new generation of web standards, generally referred to as Web 2. This article illustrates some of my favourite Ajax applications, both with code and examples you can try out on the page itself. Even if you're not code-literate, try out the examples to get a feel of what it can do.

Piano Groove Tutor

My combined interests in music and programming have resulted in this simple but effective java application. This article covers the general workings of the program as well as some implementation issues. These issues are not only relevant to the Java Midi engine but also discusses more general topics such as interacting with GUIs created with Java's Matisse engine and substituting Java's lack of support for dynamic variables with HashMaps.
All in all, the program's use of midi files and well-formatted music scores are all one needs to create a very good practicing environment.
Update: A second page, piano tutor demo, has been added to assist you in trying out this program. It also has a forum for you to leave your comments.

Google Tricks

Google has achieved what few conpanies have - become a verb. While most of us google to find information on the net, not many are aware of the powerful capabilities we have at our disposal. The examples in this article illustrate how you can use the Google searchbar in more creative ways ...

Videos of Bach performances

Videos and commentaries on 12 of my favourite Bach pieces - all recorded on digital piano. The process of recording these, finding the software to edit them, doing the editing and finally posting them on to YouTube (from where they can be linked to this website), was quite laborious. Links to relevant sections of my page, Bach Workbooks, are given where appropriate. Some commentaries on how I did the deed can be found on the calendar notes page.

Concepts in Science

Quotations from various scientific literature, intermingled with some notes of my own, or from sources I have long forgotten. The notes were accumulated over a period of time and classified according to topic.

Philosophy of science

Philosophical quotations taken from literature on science.

PI

Some thoughts on PI. Contains a conceptual diagram and code to calculate PI

update: Pentagon

Added a section on the Pentagon Knot and some ramblings about soap bubbles.

Calendar notes

A kind of web diary for me to jot down thoughts, ideas, or notes which don't have a place in any of the categories. This should give my website a more personal touch (for better or worse).

Piano Diary 2000

Includes musical examples and lists some of my favourite piano blues, salsa, and funk licks. I have more diaries in the pipeline (they all need converting for the web). My more recent favourite music involves Jazz, African music and Bach.

PHI

Updated extensively to include a hypothesis of mine which states a unique relationship between PHI and the base of our number system, 10.

So far, I haven't come accros any documents that addresses this issue. So if you're intrigued by the nature of PHI, the Fibonacci series, the Pentagon and all that, this is a good place to look.

Penrose tiles

How to make amazing patterns using just 2 types of triangles inherent in the pentagon. Includes examples and necessary measurements to make these triangles.

Internet Explorer Privacy

How to get rid of secret files that stores information regarding ALL the web pages you visit, thereby compromising your privacy.