thoughts on design, tech and society
Aika kuluu ja postauksia ei kuulu. Veikkaan, että leiska hieman hajoaa kun päivitän WordPressin 3.0 -versioon. Korjaan joskus. Nyt töitä. Välissä uimaan – onhan ulkona reilu 30 astetta – ja sitten takaisin toimistolle.
Päivitys: Kaikki näyttää toimivan edelleen!
Julkaisin ensimmäisen blogipostaukseni tasan kolme vuotta sitten – vuonna 2007. Alun aktiivisuuden jälkeen aikaa rupesi viemään muun muassa gradu, mutta ennen kaikkea Facebook ja Twitter muuttivat täysin tavan jakaa. Olen informaatiotulvan keskellä ruvennut entistä enemmän kaipaamaan taustoitettua ja jäsennettyä sisältöä sekä uutisten suodatusta. Uskon, että lukeminen ja julkaiseminen tulevat radikaalisti muuttumaan; tähän palaan lähipäivinä.
Jatkossa tulen kirjoittamaan pääosin suomeksi, sillä olen huomannut, etten viime vuosina ole pahemmin enää tällä kielellä kirjoittanut. Osa lainauksista, linkeistä ja muusta tulee luonnollisista syistä olemaan englanniksi. Katsoin juuri, että minulla on WordPressissä 23 draftia. Osa vain otsikoita, osa pidemmälle pohdittuja.
Loistavaa alkanutta vuotta!
It is done. There are still some minor bugs to iron out (like the status error) and I’ll update this post with some background as soon as I’m finished.
Interesting weeks ahead. Or at least for the ones who are following this blog; might include only me. However, I have planned some major changes. I just updated my backup platform and moved to Time Capsule and while I’m waiting Apple to release new notebooks to replace my MacBook (2.0Ghz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, Mac OS X 10.5.2), wait to see the following noteworthy changes:
WordPress 2.5 – First of all, I’ll update to the just released WordPress 2.5 (hopefully 2.5.1 is out by then issuing some minor problems which are always present in first releases). I have had some spam problems lately which I hope this update will also address. New theme may be applied too, but I have to make some further comparisons. Wait to see a more interactive design including comments, photos and links.
Flickr – I’m planning to move my photos to flickr after all. Now as flickr just enabled short videos and has an adequate RSS support (iPhoto subscriptions are possible, but not for full resolution images), it is the best service at the moment.
Posts – There will be more posts in Finnish as I noticed I’m writing mostly in English, excluding some short emails and sms. I hope to get back on track with weekly updates too. I know, I have said this before, but now as my graduation is getting closer it might be possible…
Every once in a while I do a major revamp to my computing habits. I have always liked to keep everything in hierarchical order and preferred storing all the information locally on my hard drive; including mails and bookmarks. But now, as finally the online services are mature and digital convergence has taken big steps (internet & mobile, tv & computer), it is time to move on. It is not hierarchy anymore, but tagged material (metadata added) accessible everywhere.
For me there are four major areas/needs for everyday computer use: e-mail, rss-feeds, web sites (bookmarks) and communicating tools like Skype and Messenger. In addition, there is the entertainment aspect including music, photos and tv. In the following chapters I concentrate on rss and boomarks.
1. iGoogle
This is the starting page for my web experience. Google Personalized Homepage is a customizable homepage with the capability to add web feeds, Google Gadgets and apply themes. There are many other and more advanced webtops, like Netvibes, but iGoogle is suitable for my purposes and the nice thing is that there is no need for another account as many of us already has an Google Mail account (I have been thinking also of moving all my mails to Google Mail, but this needs some more evaluation).
My iGoogle setup.
2. del.icio.us
I found my bookmarks bar to get filled with stuff and was re-arranging and cleaning them twice a year. But what if there is no need to store bookmarks in hierarchical folders? Maybe they can be used more like e-mails: one folder with good search tool and the ability to add tags. Del.icio.us is one of the many social bookmarking web services for storing, sharing and discovering web bookmarks. The service is a little slow, but most importantly: your bookmarks are accessible wherever and to whoever. The share feature is also nice: no need for “this is a nice page / interesting article” e-mails as it is possible to send bookmarks to friends using a for: tag.
These are my bookmarks.
3. Google Reader
RSS enables keeping up with news and updates without the need of manually visiting sites to look for updated content. I was using Safaris built in reader, but it was quite limited. Once again I didn’t want to use another separate application, so Google Reader came nicely out. Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline. This is Google, so once you have logged in to iGoogle, you have the access to your feeds. If you are lucky enough to have an iPhone, RSS mixer might be worth checking out.
With this view I spend at least half an hour per day.
4. LinkedIn
It is good to have an online cv and also keep updated if your friends change their work place. LinkedIn is a business oriented social networking site and as of May 2007, it had more than 11 million registered users. The features are kind limited, but hey, this is for business, not playing.
View from my contact page. Here is my profile.
5. Facebook
If LinkedIn is missing some features Facebook has them all plus a dozen more with the recently launched Facebook Platform. The service was first only for university students, but is now open for everyone. As a result, there are some scaling problems as the service has over 30 million members worldwide and is growing rapidly with over 150,000 new users daily.
When registered to the service, you can build a profile similar to this.
6. Last Fm
Last.fm is a UK-based internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It is one of the world’s largest social music platforms with over 15 million active users. So, when listening music using iTunes or iPod, a special application can send all the data to the service resulting different charts and displaying info about artists etc. You can also listen to personalized web radios, check out what your friends are listening and can discover new music. Adding events is a nice feature and it is possible to even sync those with iCal.
7. Jaiku
This might be the coolest application for mobile. Jaiku is a social networking and micro-blogging service (a little like Twitter, but has a mobile aspect) developed in Finland. According to Jaiku’s web site “Jaiku’s main goal is to bring people closer together by enabling them to share their presenceâ€. The service can be used and presence information updated using a computer (there is a really handy dashboard widget for mac users), but if a mobile application is installed, the service is great. You know your friends location, can see if they are busy and when was the last time they were using their phones. There is also a nice mashup called Jaikuvision.
The Simpons Movie is out (interesting it took 18 years before a movie was made) and I’m planning to visit the local movie theater this week. Related to the subject, in the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar (August 007) there are fantastic illustrations in an article titled “The Simpsons go to Paris with Linda Evangelista” (more images here).
Versace, Chanel, Gaultier, Vuitton – cool illustrations by Julius Preite.
Over a week has passed since the Midsummer eve. This is the difference between mid-winter and mid-summer:
I hope to post some longer stories during July and after that no one knows as I have to start and finish my Master’s Thesis.
Half year ago I was valuating different possibilities to share my photos. Few months have passed and I have tried different possibilities like Flickr and Gallery, but was not satisfied. My collection of 6 000 photos is waiting for tagging, therefore I’m eagerly waiting for a new release of iPhoto – software I use for my photo management – that is speculated to have support for Google Maps and Geotagging. This would enable totally new ways to share and search for photos; not only by time or keywords, but location. Hence, while waiting for the future, I decided to continue with the old way: publishing some galleries if there is a reason and need.
Three days gardening reveals many nice creatures like this snail.
Thanks to Lordi, Helsinki hosted the Eurovision Song Contest this year (more details in wikipedia). As this quite surely was once in a lifetime opportunity, I had to check out Semi-Final’s Dress Rehearsal on Wednesday at 21:00.
True Fantasy artwork
An airport style security check welcomed the visitors when entering Hartwall Areena. The hall itself was transformed from an ice-hockey arena to an enormous studio with thousands of lights and massive amount of other technical equipment clearly broadcasting in mind. The stage and surroundings were aesthetic and professionally made (probably none of the team members in charge of the 2005 World Championships in Athletics were involved this time).
Lights and screen after 4,000 hours of programming.
The rehearsal was an exact copy of the semi-final including all the interviews and voting results. Two large screens located in both upper corners of the arena showed the actual TV picture with all the graphics and postcards between performances. The stage with the enormous transparent LED-screen (after a closer examination I found it to be actually a metal net with small LEDs located about 3cm from each other to create the illusion of transparency) worked well and visuals, meaning mainly light and screen design, were fascinating and unique for the presenting artists. The screens were made by Barco and the moving lights by Robe – both links include interesting technical details. Pyrotechnics were also widely used, which is an interesting detail as almost everything is prohibited especially in indoor concerts. Camera work was mainly enjoyable and especially the spider cam moving above the crowd was impressive.
The stage formed a transformable entity with five screen areas.
Well, Serbia won the final (no idea why). It felt that better songs were present in semi-final than in final. As an example Andorra and Denmark were eliminated. My personal favorites included Georgia (Sopho – Visionary Dream), Bulgaria (Elitsa Todorova – Voda) and Hungary (Magdi Rózsa – Unsubstantial Blues). Rózsa won the Best Composer Award which is given to the best songwriter among the Eurovision song composers every year. Belarus was a catchy one and Germany neither France was bad.
Mikki Kunttu’s and his team’s light design in use (notice the turned off LED screen).
For once, a decent production not to be ashamed of as a nation.
Uskomatonta. Ryhdistäydyin vihdoin viime viikolla hiomaan ja lakkaamaan kynnykset (4 kappaletta yhteensä). Lakka ynnä muut tarvikkeet oli ostettu jo vuosi sitten, mutta lukuisista yrityksistä huolimatta projekti ei ottanut valmistuakseen (vaikka kuinka odotin). Lähes kaksi vuotta kestänyt remontti on siis virallisesti valmis, sillä eilen sain suoritettua viimeisen tyovaiheen eli itse kiinnityksen.
Vastavalmistunut kynnys loppusijoitettuna.
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