2009/12/08

Couple of books I found today

I had some free time in downtown Helsinki today so I swung by the Stockmann bookstore and was checking out the Technology books section and while there came across a couple of surpriseing books.

The first was Complete Web Monitoring. This book is a written summary of what I have been learning about over the past couple of years. The first part is some simple basic theory about why you should monitor, but the middle to sections where what I have been working on for the last couple of years (the Web analytics not so much but the Web Perfromance and End User Experience was an almost exact match).
The last section on communities is something I have been taking part in as a memember of various communities for the past few years, and again did seem to be just a collection of various writings from around the web.

THe second surprise was to find a friend and former collegue's book on the shelves, The Art of Application Performance Testing.
I had a look and it seemed like a very good summary of all the lessons learnt over the last 10 years of Performance testing.

2009/11/27

how to copy in the Nokia N900 browser

as this is not 100% obvious (at least for me), writing it here.
In order to do this you need to make use of the "mouse cursor" mode.

Swipe from the left bottom quarter of the screen (basically between the ear-piece/speaker-hole and the URL bar area) in approximatley 1cm.
A pointer in a box will appear
tap it to "lock" the cursor (a red-line appears through it)
Now when you draw on the screen it will high light or otherwise behave like a mouse cursor.

To stop the behaviour, click on the Icon (the one that first appeared and now has a line through it).

The icon will disappear if not used after a few seconds.

You can see it demoonstrated in this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUCc2C4JPJE
Learnt about it here - http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=394006&postcount=37

2009/10/25

geeking out at ALT-party

Interesting event, and mix of people.

lots of cool technology, like a Cray CX1, NeXT station, old consoles etc.
YLE had brought a bunch of "stuff" (cameras, consoles etc).

I missed most of the actual content (did not spend so long at the event), but Jeri Ellsworth's talk was inspiring at least.

2009/09/08

I'm also over there now

I have been toying with the idea of having my own domain, and switching to another blogging platform.

Well i have taken the plunge, and you can also find my semi random scribbles over at Sauna Penkki.

My current plan is to post more life/personal stuff here (lets see how that works out eh ;)

2009/08/29

Packing list for Camping at unconferences

Based in part on https://wiki.har2009.org/page/Camping:Some_guidelines, and my experiences at the recent SSWC here is my packing list:

Essentials:
- Tent - be aware most tests seem to be designed for tiny people, so get a slightly bigger one if possible.
- Ground sheet/sleeping mat/air mattress
- pillow
- Towel
- Torch
- Warm jacket
- Waterproofs
- phone charger (unless your phone is one of those really simple ones that can last a couple of weeks on one charge!)

Good to have:
- Spare torch or one of those head mounted ones
- Spare towel
- extra jumper, multiple thin layers
- knife or multitool
- string
- hat/pippo

Things that will make life easier
- multi-block/extension lead - there are never enough power outlets at these events.
- Jesus-tape/gaffer-tape/duct-tape
- bungee cord/luggage strap
- Case trolly - the bigger the wheels the better. Useful if the wheel on you back breaks, easier to clean, if you hurt your back and can't carry your bag.

(I have used Clas Ohlson not because thaey are any good (in fact not sure where i got my stuff from!), but as they have pictures for the things where the name it not 100% obvious, and sell it in Finland and Sweden)

2009/05/12

Tab Sweep - Funnies

Inspired by Tim Bray's Ongoing, here is my first Tab Sweep (basically, a bunch of tabs that are open, but are not worth sending to del.icio.us or twine. These all came from either Jaiku or Twitter links

First, this video, which is a response/inspired by this one (Warning, slightly NSFW if you work somewhere that does not like sexual references or rude words)

Then it seems that Tribbles have arrived

Bit USAian in it's outlook, but still true - the 8 levels of drunkeness

Then, a story about internet sucess from a couple of years ago. Someone submits a picture to deviant art, and then gets a job working drawing the Simpsons.

2009/04/16

intersting things happening around Jaiku

Checking Jaiku this morning, it seems that a couple of potentially significant things have happened over the last 24 hours.

First @lemonad puts up a post announcing that he is looking at getting the Mdot version back up and running.

And then I see @jyri's announcement of a 20% project that has the potential to solve the feed fetching problem, and thereby allow feed fetching back into Jaiku.
Check the FAQ (that is linked in the comments) for what problem this is designed to solve.

Also, by checking the #Jaikuengine channel you can stay (sort of) upto date with whats happening with the development of Jaiku.
The Bug tracker is here while there is a seperate code review tool here.

2009/04/10

Next steps for Evolve Design Consultants

Just checked out my friends new website, looks pretty cool.

Spent some time discussing some ideas how he could take print design into the web and work with the curent media companies to create some exciting things

2009/03/25

BarCampHelsinki III

Fjord have put up a post announcing that they are hosting BarCampHelsinki III.

So far they have been excellent hosts and have managed to even get WiFi working (are rae occurence at most events!!)

2009/02/03

MobileDevCamp.fi - Starting to come togeather

So after answering the call to for volunteers, it seems that the sponsors are coming in to allow us to create the potential for a really good event.

The reason for only saying potential is that it is the people attending that will make an event, and the attendee list so far is looking rather good for an interesting event.

Details of what is happening can be found on the web site