Oulu suburbs in english

Local newspaper in Oulu has "translated" names for the Oulu city suburbs into english. Not much for a english speaker, but for a local these are great. Here's some samples, the actual listning can be found on Kaleva web site:
"Alppila = Alpineshire
Etu-Lyötty = Frontbeatup
Heikinharju = Heikki´s Ridge
Heinäpää = Jointhead/Hayhead
Hiironen = Mousie
Hintta = Pooh, Homa
Hönttämäki = Stupidhill
Höyhtyä = Oh-hoh United
Intiö = Armysh"
-Last one being my favorite becouse I served there for a year ;D

Reppo by Joonas Saaranen

I must join the choire of several blogs around the world and boost a bit more about Reppo.
Joonas Saaranen from University of Lapland has gained a massive attention (check Google) by his ghettoblaster backpack Reppo. -Great work mate! :)

Facebook makes improvements for privacy

I have been complaining (as far as FB itself) how difficult it is to add Facebook friends to 'show only my restricted account' -list.
Finally it is possible to just click the friends from the list instead of writing their names. For me it's convenient. It's just how you want to use your account. For me it's still bit under consideration wheather to make it more open or more closed circle..

Messenger Live has experinced this week a major setbacks on security point of view. There's at least one attacts going on. First being a page which promises to reveal who has blocked you on messenger. -just give your email and password.. ;D -Then it starts to send the web address to your friends. Other one possible connected to the first one is sending you a message from your friend, saying somethin like "Is this really photo of you?! :S -and a webaddress", which asks you to download a tiny program..

"so much to learn from getting under other peoples skin"

Lately I have been vigorously writing my masters thesis. Today I read two nice texts which I want to quote:

"On a gloomy day, when nothing seemed to be going right, I once said to wearily to a colleague that I didn't want to go on doing observations for the rest of my working life. Actually that is not true. There is so much to learn from getting under other people's skin, being in their environments, and so much that can be drawn from it to improve the products and services people (including us) have to deal with.
There is genuine satisfaction in moving from what people need to ensuring it is realized; in negotiating within project teams, using persuasion, charm and (occasionally) bloody mindedness, to get the best results for the end users. There is even greateer satisfaction in seeing ordinary members of the public using things - from post boxes to personal organizers - where you know you have introduced a user perspective there might otherwise never been.

(Black Alison, 2003. Why I Work in User Experience Consulting. In Emphatic Design, user experience in product design (Koskinen et.al.). IT Press.)”

””Compassion” may, at first blush, appear o be a strange concept to stumble across in a work devoted to the nuts-and-bolts practice of usability engineering. But to my mind this is the idea at the heart of the discipline: being able to imagine, and share the frustrations of, the human users of the artifacts we design, in the hope that these frustrations can be reduced or eliminated.

(Greenfield Adam, 2003. Foreword. In The Psychology of Usability (Sinkkonen et.al.). IT Press)”

Demonstration against internet sensorship

Yesterday 500 people was demonstrating at the parliament house against governments secret internet sensorship list for child pornography. People feel that it is not the solution to mask these pages from the users, but to act in a sense which would really try to prohibit the crimes and not just make a good conscience for ministry of communications, Suvi Linden.

The threath of restricting freedom of speech and information exhance is real and evolving. In september EU commissioner Franco Frattini wanted to have a law, which would disable internet searches for words "bomb", "kill" and "genocide (kansanmurha)"
(Tuomas Kangasniemi, Tekniikka ja Talous, 12.02.2008)

I'm quite surprised that finnish people dared to act on this manner in this contradictive issue. I have sensed a kind of over sensitivity in finnish culture. Any topic which might offend some group is just neglected, despite there would be a problem to solve.

Suvi Linden was already before a minister, but was forced to resign because goverment funding given to her golf-club. This new law can be seen as an effort to please at least some people on her new position. An address promoting Suvi Linden's re-resignition can be found here.

My personal poster favorites were:
Bush: "Terrorism" - Linden: "Child pornography"
Pääasia unohdettu (Main point forgotten)
(Photo: Viima)

Existentialism

People who tend to think about existential issues usually choose religion, filosophy or something similar. Design isn't actually that far from being a existential discipline.
When going deeper into the user experience, the psychological reasons why people buy products and services and further, the values by which we determine what we want to express to other, the nature of the thinking process starts to be kind of existential.
-If considering teology but not quite sure - try design ;)

Service design - phase two. Case Facebook

Earlier this week a radio-person on YleX was complaining about Facebook getting quiet. As she mentioned, the thrill of getting new friends diminishes after you got all your geek-friends invited.
-And like me, working and doing graduation thesis - the time window to create new contacts is quite small.

Then what? What's the catch and thrill at this point after the first service promise is experienced? -I hope there is, because not all have facebook as a shortcut on their mobile. And the users who see some trouble to see those notifications want the thrill, or turn into passive faces.

Noodle House & Bar1

Already two months ago I was glad that next to my local bar there's a Noodle House.
Despite it sounded tempting I haven't seen a single customer inside. -That usually says something. Still I engouraged myself and tried the place. The noodles were great! And actually 3 other customer seemed to be thinking like me because they popped in while I was waiting my portion.

My local bar, Bar1 does it differently. It's a new bar, but it seems that they make sure there's a regular growd sitting around to make it comfy. -Place worth to visit. Both on Kauppurienkatu in Oulu.

Time pauses

In othervice hectic office pace there's a place where time twists. It's IT helpdesk. There everybody stays calm, nobody panics. Even customers behave, surrounded by the aura of silence.
The thing is, when there's two of you restarting Windows, it's been turned into ritual rather than annoyance.
-Get back to your seat and the rage comes again..

Smell of plastic

Younger, I thought that plastics don't have smell. Nowadays after some plastic workshops and plastic manufacturer visits I do know that they smell.. -Melting and burning plastic is one of the most alerting smells nowadays. Especially alerting that is when you smell it at home and around your laptop.

This time it was even more annoying since it was the 3in1 usb(/AC/12v) charger from Hama, which started to melt. -Not only because it was my only usb charger for my phone, but the fact that I've been promoting this to So many friends.. -So please fellows, don't leave that unattended when you use it, ok?

Picture #1: Property of Hama

Feeling Lappish

Services doesn't always have to appear perfect, as long as they deliver their offerings in honest manner.
Example of little things one starts to take for granted is Teboil in Peura. This morning on a way from Rovaniemi to Oulu I felt pride to be that much of a local to know the perfect place for a pancake and coffee :)

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...