Fring - VoIP calls and instant messaging

Today I saw a little text on the contact list of my messenger; www.fring.com.
-By far this is the most perfectly quided installation of any service for multimedia phones.

You should try it just to see the installation. But after half an hour use, it's really great. It really brings your Skype and Messenger in to your pocket. And the application even stays on, unlike Nokias own applications.
-Try it, probably you love it :D

Visa electron

During last two days Nordea has experienced some major problems with their data connections to confirm Visa electron purchases.

I have been amazed by the willingness of banks to push Electron to market. On users point of view, the card is very unreliable and even humiliating when you have to keep the cue waiting the card to confirm itself.

-Why not provide a proper cards for the customers?

Mikael Jungerin syytä erota?

Sorry folks, finnish again..

Joku aika sitten kirjoitin Ylen ongelmista digitelevisio kritiikin kanssa.

Tällä kertaa huuto taitaa käydä kovaksi..
Mikael Junger selitti hymyssä suin äsken televisiossa, että ensin sairaalat ilmoittivat etteivät halua joka televisioon digiboxia, sitten kuulemma taloyhtiöt. Asioita on ratkottu yksi kerrallaan ja nyt on tultu siihen tulokseen ettei digiboxeja tarvitakaan.
Ei sovi pohjalaiseen mentaliteettiin tälläinen. -Jos ajatus oli, että siirretään Suomi digiaikaan, niin sitten siirretään! Harvoin tulee sellaista oloa, että jonkun erominen tekisi asioille mitään hyvää, mutta nyt tuli.

Pari hauskaa testiä ja Spreadshirt

Blogilandiasta löytyi tälläiset testit perjantai-illan ratoksi.
-Toinen iloinen jälleennäkeminen oli Spreadshirt, jossa voit teettää paidat tai vaikka alushousut haluamallasi painatuksella!

Kiroileva siili on tyypittänyt persoonansa riviin, voit löytää sieltä omasi. Minä olin näemmä lähimpänä sarjan päähahmoa..


e-on tekee saman kodinkoneilla..

Olet sisäinen tulisielu, vaikka ulospäin näytätkin herkästi viileältä. Jos joku sattuu tulemaan luoksesi väärään aikaan, saattaa heiltä palaa näpit. Et välttämättä kaipaa suuria joukkoja ympärillesi ja viihdyt itseksesi varsin hyvin, mutta jos menet juhliin, menet sinne tyylillä.
Olet tarkka työssäsi ja yleensä jälki on erittäin siistiä. Paneudut työhösi antaumuksella.

Radio Säteily

The new week started with a workshop with Japanese quests.
Our goal is to make a lamp with costs closing zero..
I like the way Japanese work on their projects, they have a limited materials and amounts. Today we didn't have limitations. Sometimes the way that everything is allowed makes things really messy. Let's see how we survive out of this..

The weater was great today. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to take pictures of people ice fishing or skiing on the river. 8)

Anyway there's a party at railway station this evening. -Exotic experiences which only Rovaniemi can offer ;) Today it's about Radio Säteily, which starts in two weeks. Station is run every year for some weeks by the students of department of arts.

Been busy

I participated a workshop called Green Imperative in UIAH about sustainable developement by means of converging technologies.
The week was busy, but enjoyable. It was really interesting to see how groups worked on the subject. And also to see, in vhich topics we all ended up thinking the same way. -In bad and in good.
We set the aim as far as possible, because it seems that everytime we fail to go far enough.

Our point of view was from the side of wireless technologies (including breakthroughs on nano, bio and information sciences). We ended up to a basic idea that available information for decision making on every level of the society might create holistic understanding about the causes of our decisions. This increased knowledge and understanding together with economical (and ekological) pressures would start to change consumption, production and also the way we are living.

Thanks for the group and all other new friends, hope to see you soon again :)
And some irrelevant pics from UIAH to fill the space ;)

PhotoShop

Check this video to see how photo shop ought to be used!!


-And there just happens to be video of Scarlett Johansson from same artist ;)

Updating N73

There were some bugs in my N73, so I decided to update it's firmware.
Firstly I was surprised that I could do it myself. But the major surprise came a little later.

I used the backup option on the phone to store 'something' into my memorycard. Then I updated the firmware and restored the data from the card..
..Everything was back. And I mean EVERYTHING including all the 3rd party applications. Only things that didn't survive were the theme, the order of the icons and a text message which I opened just before the phone went black.
-Amazing!

This has been a problem in Windows for -god knows- how many years. And then suddenly Nokia pulls it of! -And I know it can be a lot trickier on PC, but anyway. Thanks guys! ;)

Rasism

I enjoyed of videoclip where some US. people were asked about some questions on international topics.
Not that this is any kind of truth, but it still reminded me some US politics can be elected.
-Usually rasism is something what you practice against a minority, but are you rasistic if you don't like majority?

There was interesting article in NYT about rasism and how we can actually might cause harm with our over tolerance for Everything.
Also spending some time with japanese people I started to think, should I behave like a normal Finn, or try to adapt to their customs.. After all, the saying goes "When in Rome, do as the the romans do."

Power point file sizes

Power point files tend to become quite massive. The fill your hard-disks and your mail. Some of them are junk, some usefull. But the general problem is the large pictures imported into the show.

Some time ago Microsoft added a handy function for this problem:
When picture is selected and Picture toolbar is visible, click Compress picture, and continue selecting All pictures, 150dpi and Crop. The result is probably up to ten times smaller file size.

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.

Other sights along the way

Suunto X6HRM is a really nice wrist computer, but has a really crappy plastic strap to attach it with. There's no hint of that metallic, almighty feeling the titanium watch is othervice giving.

The chrome version of the same watch is also really nice, and it actually has strap made of real leather! -Really neat, but I wonder if I would like to use it in shower and while swimming like I use mine nowadays.

Another thing which I really don't get is why both Polar and Suunto are using those both-sided buckles as in the picture. It is somehow managable in men's watches, but in women's watches the buckles are so small that you really have to struggle to get it done and undone.


Really nice and funny shoes from El Naturalista. Notice the imaginative soles :D








The last picture is just for those for whom I have praised the rear window of Opel Astra.