Ravintokoodi.fi - try to sign in

I signed myself to Ravintokoodi.fi few months ago. I thought that it's a great service.

Not that there is anything wrong (quite the opposite) with the content, but after few months of trying it seems just annoying just because they didn't know how to make the sign in.

1) If all social web services (with confidential content) use cookies and allow Keep me signed in, why doesn't this obsolete service containing only my nutrition details?!
2) At least it could hold the username in place - after all I don't have a slightest clue how this service wanted it..
3) And finally, why do I need to go to a different site (www.pirkka.fi) to reset my password?!.
3.1) It would be nice if the link went straight to appropriate password reseting page instead of www.pirkka.fi mainapge to start the quest from.

Send a postcard with your own photo from your mobile phone - Posti/Itella

Sending a postcard with your own photo from your mobile phone sounds like a great idea. -Heard about it from my friend and rushed into Posti (or Itella) site to download the Mobile Postcard (Mobiilipostikortti) application.
There's so many things wrong in the application that it's unbelievable that somewhere there is a Symbian coder, who is so unaware of basic principles.
You need to know about hidden and visible drives on your mobile to find your photos and know how to change seccurity settings to avoid  question about wheather application can access your data. -And finally, there's no preview the picture you are sending - at any point. -Not even thumbnails in the folder view. Which I managed to get visible only that one time I took the pictures below :/

-My god XP

 

 

 

Photo tagging - a simple application needed

One thing what I have been looking for is the easy way of tagging pictures, instead of moving items into specific folders to be able to find photos later. By tagging I can add two totally different tags, like Art and Oulu into same photo, and by doing that, find the photo among art references and among the pictures of Oulu city.

Picasa provides rather simple possibility to edit and search IPTC tags. Few days ago I was glad to hear that even my favorite viewer IrfanView also provides a possibility to view and edit IPTC data of .jpg files with just a few klicks. -It could be easier, but it's sufficient.



The surprising thing is that applications use this powerfull and potentially delightfully simple tagging system so little or create a complicated system around it..
Somebody interested in creating a nice little viewer with intuitive and effective tagging possibilities would pobably make a huge impact on the scene!

Added feature for dog flex

Carrying a poop-bag is supposed to be a natural and daily job for a dog owner. -Why not to ad a hook or holder for the poop-bag and get rid of tying or occupying the other hand? Even the ergonomy and balance would support adding a loop to the lowest point of the flex.

Legos - after long time

The christmas came early this year. I ended up to toy shelves and bought a box of technic Legos.

It seems that the prices have gone down, which is nice :) Competitive pricing is necessity for Lego, after they have lost the competitive edge what they used to have 15 years ago. Now after some years and seeing some rationalizing actions in companies it is interesting to see how profitability crisis in Lego has affected to the product itself.
-First disappointment was the package. No change of peeking in and looking all the interesting new parts. This one was glued closed. To open the box, I had to brake the front. Although this probably saves several cents, I personally would have considered different direction. One of the problems with legos is that you might want to keep them safe and possibly in boxes. In this respect the old boxes were more trustworthy.
Update 1) Actually markings on the package led me tear away the Hinge of the package. The tape which was closing the package on the front wa not marked clearly. And attached illustration about the rip seal was lightly dubious.
-Another eye catching thing was that instead of separating different sized part into pits on a box, the package included several plastic bags, including various parts, possibly coming from different plants or lines, but including parts not considered to belong with each other.
-But the best part is that there's a huge amount of new parts which I wanted to create already when I was ten (still dreaming to be a lego designer some day;)

This also creates a sociological test. -For kids, building legos is considered to be way more constructive than playing video games. When a grown man leaves battle on the tv-screen and starts to play with legos as recreation it will be interesting to see how people around value the change.
Update 2) Legos are not considered important for grown person, thus building those is considered as escapism in a relationhip ;)

Timer for engine heating

Time to plug your Toyota into winter-AC.
My first encounter with my current heating timer was filled with amaze. Is this the most perfect example of design and mechanics not working together or is this the example of what happens when R&D hasn't used any UX-input.

Is it really so that nobody figured that I most probably want to toggle the power for NEXT few hours, and not for the past.
Secondary scenario would be that I come from work at afternoon, and want to set the heating on for the next morning. This would mean that the mysterious opening should be a bit wider, to reach times at the range of 15 hours. Now the hours available for settingare between 18-24 hours.

Facebook jamming emails with nonsense

I'm a regular user of Facebook and rather untrendly consider it as a good service. I have been complaining earlier about the security issues in article Contradictions and safety in Facebook. Fortunately they made some changes and provided more options as article Facebook makes improvements for privacy describes, but unfortunately there is too many options now. There is basicly three levels of friends in Facebook users, friends who you keep contact to also other vice, friends that you want to maintain but are not so close to you and then the ones that you wish to add, because you know them, but don't want to open your life to. -Why not make ready made options based on these three groups?

Another thing which is bugging me (and probably millions of others), is that I need to have a dedicated email account to direct the amazing amount of spam which coming from Facebook when my friend comments on my picture or changes his status.
-Why can't I turn of this function if I already visit the service twice a day and have the update RSS feed coming to my intranet page?!
-I would imagine that that kind of mass posting is already doing something for global use of data transfer statistics ;D

CORRECTION: There actually is an option to turn off the email notifications. Actually 2 pages of option where to choose the occasions you wish to be notified. (See PIC) -How PC can you go?

Chocolate -out of the- box experience

High quality chocolates are often packed into a cardboard boxes. The orientation of the chocolate bar might be a relevant factor in paper packaging, but box offers a possibility to improve the user experience.
These boxes are often opened from the bottom. And after the opening, the bar lays on the premium looking folio -upside down.
Manufacturer could turn the bar around, thus facing up for customers delight and to show the high quality surface of the chocolade instead of the bottom..

I have always considered that every organization should have a person totally without a responsibility of what so ever. -This person could spend ones time looking for details that are left uncared and make the corrections. Unfortunately I've come to the conclusion, that this kind of activity would be useless to the companies because they already know most of the problems. So finding the uncared details is not the problem, but having the resources or willingness to correct all the problems is.
Picture: bathroom detail from Hilton Metropolitan, London.

User name for frequent flyer profile

Since 2000 I have been a member of both Star Alliance and One World frequent flyer programs. And every summer I face the same problem when I'm about to book a holiday flight. -There's no way i can remember my user name thus not being sure if i remember my password right. Airliners have a fairly strict rules about how user names or passwords should be structured. And calling for help is usually a long way.

The same year as this contradictive union with airliners started, I was highy amazed that there was a person in my company who refused to use Windows machines because of the unreasonable need to change password every 40 days. -Because everybody writes it down underneath the keyboard on a Post-It (although he encrypted it for three times before writing it down, it was too risky for him). Later he changed the company, but his strong opinion has been in my mind since.

I have written about this earlier too, but this time I wanted to point out also that services should also consider using reasonable security measures to enable people to use good passwords and systems attached. Next time I'll log myself into this page, I will probably use password like 'password'.

Posti / Itella being stingy with phone costs

I ordered a new TV from Verkkokauppa for two weeks ago. The reason for this was that they had stock. And I was silly to think that Posti (Itella) home delivery would be quick and painless.
First problems came up when an email from sales manager comes with a brief comment that they cannot process the order because my information on Population information system was not consistent with the information I had on Verkkokauppas service. (how could it be, I had just moved and changed it) Then after a brief exchance of mails, they decided to deliver it. -After few days I received a phone call from Posti. -The package was in Rovaniemi, which wasn't at all what was agreed with Verkkokauppa. Ok Posti shipped the package to Oulu.

Yesterday I waited for the delivery guy two hours and no telly, no phone call. I was sure that the delivery had been for a wrong door, because the building is quite tricky and contacted Posti to mention that they should call if they can't find my apartment and agreed on new delivery schedule.
Today I waited again the agreed time window and after that contacted Posti. The delivery had been right here behind my window, but the buzzer seems to be broken.. -Still there was no phone call to make delivery..

This isn't the first time I ended up having trouble with the Posti home deliveries. This time I new to ask their policy about phone calls. -The policy is, that every delivery includes only one phone call. The first and only phone call is when the delivery schedule is agreed with the customer.
-I really think that Posti should invest one more phone call if customer is not reached. I could start counting how much one phone call would have saved compared the cost of trying to make the same delivery tomorrow for a third time...

Configuring Windows wireless connection

Sometimes when repairing windows (it must count as a hobby) you end up in quite contradictive situations. Maybe most of these situations are related to internet connections.
Here Windows tells that everything will be fine after I can connect to internet. -Yes, I know that. That's the reason why I'm trying to fix it..
-Just put the article on my system!

Why mobile keyboard is below the display?

Posted from N73 through Flickr

I've been wanting to have a reversed phone for a long time. I cannot see why it couldn't be possible.
In the regular layout, with the hands of taiga- region dweller, it's nearly impossible to reach the lowest keys like C.

Headset interface

When I wrote about the headset wires I got a hunch that I had a sketch in my bedside notebook about how the interface could be used through shirt or jacket.
Still I might prefer one which would be U-shaped and would come out-and-front from the collar. Never the less, now after I searched the pic, here you go..

Headset wiring

I bought a Nokia HS-20 headset, a really enjoyable purchase. Especially the plugs fit into my ears perfectly and shut a lot of noise out. -Should try them today in night-train instead of normal plugs..

It's just that the wires in the headsets are so incomprehensible. You need to keep the microphone near you mouth and that creates a fair length of extra wire near your neck. With this kind of miniplugs you wouldn't need the connector behind your neck. My headset lacked the connector, but even with that, the wires would bee too long.

-I wish there was a place for extra length or the wires would be adjusted to this use. And am I really the only one who want's to lead the wire under my shirt, because there's no headset that allows it properly?

Nokia and Outlook calenders and holidays

Today we were talking about placing appointments accidently on public holidays.
Nowadays you can live your life based only on virtual calendars. I think MS should provide local calendars for Outlook, so that at least holidays would be marked, preferably also other calendar information.
My colleague brought up the the way how traditional calendars are sold to different target groups and the thing is, there could be 3rd party providers for different kind of calendar items. -Outlook might actually start to look more attracting and inviting, rather than _the_ dull office application.

Coffee related trash

Posted from N73 through Flickr

While having a coffee I usually cannot avoid thinking; Where I should put this litter I'm creating with papers from sugar etc. This is a problem especially in airplane where table space is limited, or outside where the wind tends to grab things.

The answer was surprising: Cappuchino cups in FAZER Cafe had an elevated plate to hide the bottom of the cup and it could be used also for small litter created during your coffee moment!

I'd go there again just for the cups, but luckily the coffee was great too!
(btw: they also have a great 'eat all that you can' -type breakfast ;)

On the road

Lapin Kansa just wrote that "Peltipoliisi jäätyi pakkasessa". They are adding heating into these automatic surveillance boxes.. :D

*21/02/07*
Yesterday I drowe to Oulu and back. On the way there was time to think.
Generally I think that road users have been forgotten in what we call user centered design.

Think about the traffic signs. What makes it so sure that you can see every single one of those?
You might be passing somebody or looking at the traffic.
In the city it might be impossible to see the signs placed in the crossings, where you would need to look up and right - a place where there isn't any of the pedestrians or other crucial elements of making the turn. The reason for this idea comes from the contradiction of usingautomated traffic controlling (see earlier post), while the road user still has to monitor the speed limits manually.
A great thing about these speedtraps in north is though that they are most of the time unusable because of the snow ;)

Another idea which came to my mind came up when I drowe through 'game-fence' that tries to keep moose and other animals away from the road. -Both ends of this fence are dangerous because game try to go over the road, and they will do it at the end of the fence. At dark, roads are lit, but it wouldn't be a big effort to place some extra lightning at the ends of the fence.

Shower faucets

*edit*
I got my study-room back in order and started to rehabilitate my sketching by wacom.










02/07/06














Why are shower faucets made in a way that when you close the tap, water gets trapped into the hose?
A research acclaimed that the biggest problem for the shower users was avoiding cold water, that comes before it is in optimum temperature. -And it happens every time you take a shower..

I would like to make a such tap the water from the hose runs out after I close the tap. Or you could empty the hose by pushing the lever a little more down while closing it.

Power plug of the motor heater

Yesterday evening -already dark- I tried to attach the connector of the motor heater into it's tiny hole. Basicly I like things getting smaller, but in case of these jacks, I'm not sure if it was right direction.

-There could be some mapping done, or at least guides to make it connect smoothly. It's asymmetric enought to give you trouble, but not enought to help you. Even the cap has to be attached in certain direction..

Today our visiting lecturer Juha Kosonen told an experience about same topic. Instead of guiding, he was amazed that why isn't there already cables with a built in led at the end of the cable.!
-How creat can it be. Good market for the spareparts dealers and no need to make expensive changes to the othervice crappy system.