To share or not to share?

Recently (past couple of weeks) I've had several of my pics on Ovi Share flagged as inappropriate by someone (or more than one person??). For example this one:

I need a bigger hand!

(What can I say? I like taking pics of shiny gadgets :) Especially those that I have some part in creating.)

The other flagged pics are also of/about Nokia devices. Does that person(s?) have something against Nokia? Or against me?? :( Or perhaps against me working for Nokia? :P

Transposition and transformation

Spent the evening tuning the timpani. Only managed to tune 2 (out of 4), partly because it's been a while since I balanced a timpani head. The other reason is that another band was practicing down the hall, and there's no soundproofing whatsoever. Their playing was a hindrance to my tuning, and probably I was disturbing them as well. Unfortunately the only "free" evening in Attila from any practice sessions is tomorrow (Thursday) and I have Finnish class then. Well, at least I took care of the 2 most used ones (for the pieces we're playing this season). I'll just have to find another time slot to do the other 2.

The band mentioned above is Torvikopla. They are a big band consisting of mainly students from the two universities in Tampere (similarly for the orchestra I'm in). I almost joined them last year when I was looking for a band/orchestra to play in. I emailed them in June or July and received a reply saying I was welcome to join them when they resumed rehearsals in August. But between celebrating my birthday, nursing a broken heart, getting sick in Greece, and falling out with a good friend, last August went by in a blur. For some reason I decided not to pursue it... having more pressing issues to deal with in my life then I suppose. It's a good thing I waited though, for I'm to hear about TASO from a friend only this year. While I do like big band music and will probably have lots of fun playing in Torvikopla, I simply *love* the music that I get to make with TASO.

And to think they both rehearse in the same premises - Attila, an old shoe factory now university library! Perhaps not too surprising, since they are both student music groups. In fact, the Tampere University Singers also practice here. Maybe I should just join all of them and spend all my evenings making music :)

Check out the following possible new skyline of Tampere. I hope this "facelift" plan gets approved! It'll be another reason to be proud to call this lovely city my home.

Tampere's Cityscape May Get Major Facelift

(photo source: yle.fi)

Dark November

First thought that came to my mind when I stepped out of the office yesterday: wow, it's dark. Partly due to the end of daylight savings time over the weekend which reduced daylight in the afternoon by an hour. Another part is of course the rapid shortening of days towards the winter solstice. So while now there's still light for my morning walks to work, in a week or so (definitely less than 2), my weekdays will be sans daylight. (The precious few hours of daylight will be spent in the office, and now without a window view at my new desk.)

Thus this morning's sunny walk to work will be treasured for a while. Even at -4C, it felt warmer than yesterday's cloudy and windy +8C morning. Well, ok, probably my thicker jacket helped too. Although the days will be shorter next month, there's usually (hopefully) more snow in December, that can help brighten things up a bit. Which is why November is generally considered the dreariest month in the northern hemisphere, and things like NaNoWriMo happens.

I've thought about NaNoWriMo-ing for the past couple of years but never got started. Will I start this year? Hehe, probably not. I plan to blog more though, now that I've kinda resumed blogging. The posts on here before today are imported from Google Buzz from around July when I decided to try blogging again. It wasn't really successful, but my excuse is that Google Buzz isn't optimized for blogging. Now with Blogger I should have no excuse. :P

I'll be uploading more pics too... still have stuff from earlier this year and last year (and even before that) which I have to sort and upload. "Have to"? More like "want to". To share with family and friends, and even for my own viewing pleasure. I find that I'll look at the photos more when they are on Facebook or Ovi Share, rather than just sitting on my hard disk.

November is also TASO month. I'll be busy with rehearsals and performances. We have three concerts coming up within the next few weeks: in Kouvola (13.11), Jämsä (28.11), and Tampere (1.12). Should be lots of fun :)

With words, pictures and music to fill my days, November doesn't seem too dreary after all.

Test

wonder what I should use this blog for...

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edit 30/10/2010: Perhaps I should stop thinking and just start blogging. But first I'd like to import some posts from Google Buzz. Can't seem to find an easy way to do it aside from cut and paste...

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Had a moony celebration today surrounded by kids (Taiwanese/Finnish mix)

Unboxing mooncakes!

Jaakko never misses a chance with the camera while Bella is mesmerized by something on TV.

Coconut and coffee mooncakes - some interesting flavours. Also had some traditional red-bean and egg-yoke ones (not pictured).

wondering if I should have coffee with the coffee mooncake...

Of Symbian, new CEO, HW and SW...

Symbian and the Case of Growing Noticeable -- a great write up by Antoine Wright

http://arjw.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/symbian-and-the-case-of-growing-noticeable/

Much better thought out details of some similar ideas that I've had, in response to a friend asking for comments on this article:

Nokia’s New CEO: Challenges | Monday Note

which I replied on FB and just copying it here:

"there are definitely a lot of challenges for the new CEO. however i personally don't think that adding (or replacing) another OS to our portfolio is the answer. many people have speculated/suggested Android, some even WinMo and RIM. sure we've had a couple of rough years with Symbian and also the transition from Maemo to Meego. but I think we made a good move acquiring Trolltech (Qt) and Symbian -- and then made them open. (although that added growing pains to the past two years as well.) in this way Nokia has control over the main directions the OSes take, yet avail these open platforms for developers. there are great strides made for Symbian^3 and towards Symbian^4 as well as Meego, and I think we'll be seeing some nice results soon but we have to keep the momentum. NOT reducing effort or giving up altogether and jump onto another platform controlled by another company. that would be a stupid move, imo.

(btw, it's not that i dislike Android or other OSes, i've played with Android and i quite like it. i just don't think it's the right choice for Nokia in the foreseeable future.)

the challenges, then, are in other areas. Marketing, for one. not MORE marketing, but better. also improving support for developers, making the development for Symbian/Meego platforms desirable and easy (as in smooth process for publish apps, not necessarily easy in terms of programming, although Qt is rather fun to use once you get the basics down). because at the end of the day, 99% of phone users won't know/care about the details of the OS in their phones, but rather how their phones can enrich their lives with useful/entertaining apps and services. and speaking of services, another challenge will be to better integrate Ovi with the phones, as well as Ovi itself as a service platform."

Rounding up with some media... an excellent demo from Nokia World of Nokia C7 running Symbian^3

Nokia C7 hands-on Overview at Nokia World 2010

a pic which i took, edited and tweeted; and in turn prompted Antoine to write a poem!

My dear job, have i told you lately that i love you? (photographer: N97 mini, editor: N8)

http://arjw.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/poem-dear-job/

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Update 17/9/2010:

One more article my friend linked to: http://daringfireball.net/2010/09/nokia_next
talking about HW vs SW in Nokia, and he mentioned that SW must come first.

My response:

yeah we're still rather HW focused, and i agree we need to make it more about the software and Ux. i just don't agree with "one software platform" or "moving to Android/WinMo7" as being the solution.

i've read a very different “competitive analysis” of the iPhone as the one mentioned in the article. that's another problem in big companies - many duplicate efforts.

(then another commenter comparing Nokia to Windows (Microsoft), HP and Dell etc.)

Me again:

well, there are hardware companies (HTC, Dell, Samsung if you ignore Bada) and there are software companies (Google, Microsoft). so it's not surprising that HW companies focus on HW, SW companies focus on SW. Nokia and Apple are both. however Apple basically makes 1 OS for 1 phone, whereas Nokia has multiple OSes for many many many phones. one model is not necessarily better than the other, but given what we have,we've got to make it work. and having both HW and SW means there needs to be a workable and profitable balance, and Nokia is still learning to be a SW company finally with all the SW assets under one roof (as mentioned previously, Symbian, Qt, and Meego (with Intel) which are all fairly recent mergers).

Of Swedes and Russians

It was a very Swedish weekend for me. I went to IKEA twice. Yes, twice, on both Saturday and Sunday. Had meatballs twice. Punctuated by a visit to an Irish pub on Saturday evening. So not completely Swedish after all. Oh and Vietnamese dinner on Sunday. But still, many hours spent in IKEA. It was huge and very hard to get out of.

Swedish meatballs @ IKEA!

Back to Ikea the very next day for more meatballs... and some loot this time! (27€ for 10 items)

And the Russian. The tempting valkovenäläinen in a can. Resist him, or he'll leave a bad taste in your mouth. Just say no and thank me later.

Canned white russian. Bad experience last weekend. Deceptively smooth at first, but leaves bad aftertaste.

End of birthday month roundup

There's a little something I wish for my fellow Leos Betty Ortiz, Andrew Tank and Nicholas Tank at the end of this post...

- had a lovely birthDAY which started off with a blood test and the nurse jabbing me a couple of times while drawing blood. however the evening was definitely more pleasant, meeting up with Jessica, her boyfriend Antti, and her mom who cooked me a delicious chinese meal with my favorite jiaozi and the requisite "long life noodles"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiaozi
http://baike.baidu.com/view/254411.htm

oh and we went glow bowling after dinner at Kaatopaikka :)

- the next day Minna and Mika brought me to Helsinki for a wonderful weekend celebration: picnic in Suomenlinna, U2 concert, "Ten Thousand Waves" multimedia exhibition; ending with a Dim Sum lunch meetku with Mike, Jens, and Valerio.

U2 with Minna (photo by Mika)

U2 360°!

- TASO rehearsals have resumed after summer break! it's so nice to be making music again. In fact we've already had our first performance of the season today, at the Tampere University's 50th anniversary festivities. My first time performing in front of an audience with this orchestra! (last time we were up on a balcony in city hall, i.e. heard not seen.)

- helped with the purchase decision for some new percussion instruments: a snare drum and cymbals. Bass drum will also be coming soon. New toys of a different kind!

- my first Crayfish party in Finland, fun and crazy night in Helsinki (again) with Hanna, Andrea and Jaime. Many thanks to Hanna for hosting and inviting us! Drunk discussion about mobile operating systems with taxi driver before stumbling into bed in hostel. :P

My first crayfish party!

Here's looking at you, kiddo

- August ended in laughter, watching Toy Story 3 with Andrea, Minna, Mika and Jukka. A sequel that's as good as, if not better than, the original!

- almost forgot, another new toy (or rather new part for old toy) http://cybette.blogspot.com/2010/08/gift-of-life-for-my-laptop.html

- and the gifts are still coming! thank you all! no need to stop, it's never too late for birthday gifts :D

Update: i'm hoping for more birthday gifts, not for me, but for my little friend who has his birthday just 2 days before mine. here's what's happening to him: http://twitter.com/chibbigirl/status/22830556505

and here's how you can help: http://muad-dib.us/blog/2010/09/02/please-help-a-pair-of-dear-friends/

Thank you thank you thank you!

( First half here: http://cybette.blogspot.com/2010/08/recap-of-first-half-of-my-birthday.html )