Life notes on the way

more walk to Munkkiniemi with camera - Easter'09

2009-06-27T18:31:00.001+03:00

it looks like Munkkiniemi shots are popular - here is more pleasure for searchers from past walks with camera

family too...

2009-04-04T20:52:00.001+03:00

04/04/2009
Originally uploaded by silpol

life consist not only from work - today we played with Geomag, and it is not only fun for kids

gift of alternative energy

2009-02-21T18:28:00.002+02:00

Going to office supply yesterday through underground garage, I stopped my sight on moving crates - they had "to dumpster" sign, yet another unpleasant reminder of cutbacks, cost savings, people leaving and other redundancies (I don't like term "downsizing" for all its Catbertish cynical meaning). Among those was a pile of old unstrapped folders, and since I was about to take any folder, I took one from top. It was moment of wow! Folder was full of copies (no, unfortunately not originals) of Home Power. The pile had almost all subscription self-printed or copied (tough to say) and accurately packed into folders, apparently by someone who had left work for company.

I knew about Home Power since mid-of-90's when I got to Internet. Time to time my mind had been returning to them, either bumping into old archive or just thinking on alternative power. But recent few months I was thinking more and more about alternative energy sources, and voila -- here it is, in your hands. I've rescued all folders, and took few home, so I will have a pleasant reading for next few weekends, or may be longer.

Sunday railway photo fun with abandoned steam engine at Pasila railway yard

2009-02-18T00:06:00.005+02:00

it all started with my wife noticing from commuter train's window the old steam engine, left at Pasila railway yard...

one winter Sunday - railway fun at Pasila
Originally uploaded by silpol

more Linux / Maemo job - open positions at Nokia

2009-01-14T17:08:00.003+02:00

I had been posting about open job postions within Maemo few times by now - [1] [2] [3] . Now my colleagues in HR has decided to invite even MORE people -- several vacant positions open in USA, Finland and India.

The Linux-based Maemo platform is the software that powers mobile devices such as the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. To make the Maemo platform even more powerful, we at the Maemo SW entity in Devices R&D are now looking for people to take it to the next level as part of the applications and platform development teams.

Nokia is hiring skilled and motivated professionals to develop the Linux based Maemo platform.

www.nokia.com/imaginemaemo

old photosets from 2008

2009-01-05T00:41:00.004+02:00

I have (finally) uploaded recently few photo-sets made in summer 2008 around Helsinki downtown. Enjoy ;)

Harbours, ships, markets and streets of Helsinki

another photowalk into Munkkiniemi Helsinki

P.S. there are still photos which didn't make yet they travel from hard-drive to Flickr, so check it up time to time ;)

Maemo community Fremantle support - September 2008

2008-09-19T13:06:00.001+03:00

Maemo Community Fremantle Support September 2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: community open-source)

Nokia and Maemo: Next Iteration

2008-09-17T15:10:00.001+03:00

Nokia and Maemo: Next Iteration

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: mobile software)

what I am missing on Nokia Tablets...

2008-08-16T12:45:00.005+03:00

yes, what I am really missing on Nokia Internet Tablets is handwriting. Unfortunately lack of TRUE handwriting is systematic, architectural and on purpose - tablets essentially are for browsing/surfing/watching/starring-at/lite-chat/etc and human input is expected at minimum. You may say "but on N810, there is a keyboard". Well, there is but... But it is not ergonomic for me - I find even chat over keyboard making me over-stressed soon.

What I do want is to be able to open "handwritten notes" application and write with stylus as I if wrote on simple paper. And as I progress further, to get ASCII-ed into simple text (well, to be precise UTF-8-ized). I am software developer and I know what I want is not that easy as I say - it is challenging wish. But it is doable. Now, it seem Evernote had it done ages ago and they could do same for maemo.org platofrm. If application were in price range of USD 20-50, I were buy it immediately. But Evernote (so far) has been having "resourcing issues with Linux programmers". I guess I have to shuffle old connections and try to contact them at Evernote. May be, one day...

Finnish traditional winter game

2008-08-03T21:38:00.001+03:00

MikontaloLights, Tetris
Originally uploaded by Ville Nikula

... playing Tetris with window lights in building :)

all smooth jazz sax show - again me too late

2008-07-26T22:35:00.003+03:00

I had been enjoying 10th episode of all smooth jazz sax show already for few weeks - Jur was just in time with fresh wave of sweet music. But it took me this long to write few words - I has been trying to get used for unusual opening tune of this episode by Jimmy Sommers.

The first track is from Jimmy Sommers, after that Eric Darius ft Norman Brown with "Just for the moment", next is a track from Kim Waters, then Boney James, Steve Cole, Mindi Abair's "Smile", "Mandela" from Pep Poblet, Eric Marienthal, Everette Harp, Gerald Albright with a song from his new CD called "Sax for Stax", Angelo Luster, Alfonzo Blackwell, and the last track is from Raw Stylus.

Thanks Jur for treting with good music again. I wish I could contribute too...

power of big numbers

2008-06-28T18:55:00.004+03:00

if all Nokia users would pull off their chargers when not used, we could power 100,000 average European houses.

more Nokia jobs within open source and Maemo

2008-06-16T00:56:00.005+03:00

my colleague Quim Gil has noted that his team is looking for somebody, who is very good at serving developers, i.e. position of product manager of the Maemo development platform at Nokia

also, for those who want to look straight for Maemo software related jobs (i.e. you want to work with Maemo, Linux, Nokia tablets, etc) among all open positions at Nokia , there is special section at maemo.org site named "maemo jobs" - have a look and please don't miss that "next" at bottom, as there is more than one page at the moment ;)

Espoo and Helsinki - better weather and more photos

2008-06-15T20:50:00.007+03:00

As one may have noticed, better weather makes me more prone to go out there and try to record what I see around. It might be short photo sketch like these

flowers in my neighborhood

warm days in Helsinki

or it might be longer shooting session with 100+ images and major walk through several areas of Helsinki or Espoo, like these

Samba carnival in Helsinki calls for walk

Sunday walk with camera through western Helsinki

Helsinki day, 2008

two very important quotes about software industry

2008-06-03T17:14:00.004+03:00

they seem to be about Netscape, AOL and time-line of "Netscape Navigator"-then-Mozilla projects in first place... but removing particular company & projects names makes it into different dimension.

Why? Because the company stopped innovating. The company got big, and big companies just aren't creative. There exist counterexamples to this, but in general, great things are accomplished by small groups of people who are driven, who have unity of purpose. The more people involved, the slower and stupider their union is.

And there's another factor involved, which is that you can divide our industry into two kinds of people: those who want to go work for a company to make it successful, and those who want to go work for a successful company. Netscape's early success and rapid growth caused us to stop getting the former and start getting the latter.

bold selections are mine.

nomo zilla, resignation and postmortem © 1999 by Jamie Zawinski, Author of Netscape Navigator, "used to be a hacker, now run a nightclub."

on maemo, open source and business

2008-06-01T09:43:00.002+03:00

my colleague recently noticed that Openmoko turn of strategy is very synchronous to what Nokia only contemplates... are they one step ahead or making piggy-back-in-future investments again? :)

smooth music cruise, finally

2008-05-25T09:51:00.007+03:00

clicking around, I came up by site selling "smooth music cruise" somewhere around Bahamas winter'09 - while I am not persuaded (yet?) to spend that amount of money for cruise, I was impressed by idea to runaway from cold winter into warm smooth jazz cruise. And name list is also impressive:

Boney James, Mindi Abair, Larry Carlton, Heather Headley, Acoustic Alchemy, Greg Adams, Marion Meadows, Steve Cole, Paul "Shilts" Weimar, Steve Oliver, Chieli Minucci, Michael Lington, Alan Hewitt, Althea Rene

There are few videos around on internet, from same kind of event in 2007, e.g. this one with Boney James, Candy Dulfer, Gerald Albright & more

I wish I could run away from my job one day ;)

good weather and digital camera...

2008-05-18T13:33:00.002+03:00

... makes some more photo shooting

one warm day in Helsinki downtown

and another warm sunny day at Strömberg park in western Helsinki

Smooth Jazz All Sax Show - more sweet music

2008-05-18T12:51:00.007+03:00

well, I had to write about this few weeks ago... Jur, author of great smooth jazz podcast, has delivered another episode as he promised - already for few weeks I get a fun from it

In Episode 9, April, of the Smooth Jazz Sax Show you can listen to some great Smooth Jazz Sax music again. The first track is from The Sax Pack ft Steve Cole/Jeff Kashiwa & Kim Waters, after that Kenny G with "Fiesta Loca", next is a track from Eric Daniel & Friends first solo album, then Courtney Pine, Richard Elliot, Bobby Rickett's "Back in the Game", "Together Again" from Dave Koz, The Rippingtons, Randy Scott, Nelson Rangell with a song called "City Lights", Gerald Albright, great Smooth Jazz talent Konstantin Klashtorni, and the last track is from Al Jarreau ft. Boney James.

caddies continue to follow me...

2008-05-18T12:48:00.003+03:00

last time I wrote about caddies, I thought they might read me, and eventually stop stalking me... well, they didn't

walk with camera in Munkkiniemi

2008-05-10T10:33:00.004+03:00

The weather has been so good last weekend that I couldn't resist to make another walk in down town with camera. It was Munkkiniemi district of Helsinki this time - it all started nearby of cafe Torpanranta after jump from 4th tram on end of line. Then I has walked along Tiilimäki hill, rather fashionable area. And finally came back to jump on 4th tram again.

ModelExpo'08 railroad model weekend - it was (supposed to be) ...

2008-04-30T10:28:00.012+03:00

... a nice show (fair) of railroad models in Messukeskus (Fair center) in Helsinki, Finland.

At least I was running for some usual show, to make some photo shooting session on personal fun (as I did back in 2007) and feel the atmosphere (though some of my colleagues call it dull and same-show-and-same-faces-all-the-time). Well, this year Model Expo 2008 (like the previous one ModelExpo 2007) has been done together with Child Fair 2008.

And that has been the very fault of organizers this year - running around kids en masse (in 2007) caused presenters to put all possible fences in most inconvenient way (in 2008), making life of photographer even worse... you can see how close you could reach with camera for macro shots in 2007 and in 2008

now you can understand...

well, I made few photos anyway so you can make your conclusions or impressions yourselves.

it has been week...

2008-04-27T19:35:00.003+03:00

... since I came back from vacations in my hometown

ZoneTag Photo Tuesday 10:51 am 4/8/08 Ivano-Frankivs'k, Ivano-Frankivs'ka Oblast'
Originally uploaded by silpol

howto: add USB webcam to the Nokia N810

2008-03-20T18:49:00.002+02:00

amateurs don't stop in creative attempts - first picked-up at jkOnTheRun, where Kevin C. Tofel refers to original post USB OTG goes webcam where the guy plays creative with Creative webcam (pun intended).

job again - my close colleague is hiring... again

2008-03-19T13:39:00.004+02:00

quote from his letter

Company: Nokia
Job Title: Technical Project Manager
Description:

Position Description

Our team is now looking for a Technical Project Manager to join us working on next generation browser technologies. Once onboard the team, you will lead the browser R&D development group in charge of implementing web browsing technology software for the Linux software stack based on an open source. You will drive our browsing technology platform work and help define and implement forward moving processes. What’s more, you will also interface with externals such as business partners, subcontractors and internal customers and will therefore need solid leadership and mediation skills.

Requirements

You ideally have 6-9 years of relevant experience including project-subcontracting management. To thrive in our multicultural environment you have fluent English and good communication and negotiation skills. Knowledge of Linux and Open Source and an understanding of browser and core web technologies are also very much welcomed. On top of this, you are able to function both independently and as part of a team and your dedication to quality drives you to seek opportunities for improvement and innovation. If you want to participate in creating future technology today, click on ‘apply’ now!