I write in margins

I was among the first ones who preordered Jolla phone on May 13. Finally, couple of days before Christmas, the phone arrived. The company promised to deliver the phone to the early birds before it was going to hit the markets. But what happened. Product packgage Fail #1 - forgetting the early adapters The company forgot it's first backers. Part of the early adopters, pioneers, who had eagerly waited the phone got it LATER than the phone arrived to the DNA's (Finnish mobile phone operator) shops. Fail which sounds not a big deal but is bigger than it's size. Never dissappoint your fans. They are the ones who write the early blog entries on the user behaviour and since they are the early ones they are perhaps more eager to forgive the early bugs. But if you do not get what is promised. You start to use your device with more critical view. I was the one who received the phone late. I was pissed off the fact that I had paid in advance a certain amount of the device...

I remember my first encounter with illustrations of Science Fiction and Fantasy landscapes. It was in a library in Eastern Carelia near the Russian border. I had found these huge American illustrated books presenting architecture, vehicles and landscapes of the worlds which did not exist - but which made me wish they would. Today I saw some images of Asian concept architecture on my Facebook friend's wall. Suddenly, I had a dejavú and started an hour long journey to the worlds which do not exist. I have travelled beyond stars, to our unknown past and our frightening future - and again these fantastic drawings got me out Science fiction and fantasy has always presented images of something unexisting or presenting a dream where our world should be heading to - or dystopy of a future we are heading with our current lifestyle. Most of the Art Critics doom these paintings and illustrations as a pulp art. Figurative painting, even of fantasy worlds, has not been taken seriously by...

Finnish gaming industry has got lots of publicity recently after successes by Rovio and Supercell. But this is not about the gaming - this is about other great Finnish applications which have somehow affected my life and working in digital world. My personal history of digital drawing I have drawn comics and illustrations commercially since I was fifteen. Already early in the home computer era I nomaded in to the digital drawing and I am still on that journey. During the past 20-30 years I have used the most graphical tools there are and many times desperately seeked free solutions to do the basic graphics stuff when the expensive proprieraty solutions were out of reach. Sumopaint is in the cloud Some years ago I was on the road and needed to have an graphics application for my digital illustrations. I like to keep my presentations visual and I hate to snatch and use images which are made by someone else than by me. So what to do? I did not want to use the crappy Paint in the...

Kun kerran vauhtiin päästiin . Aamulla irtisanoin Hesarin ja jatkoin siitä Soneran laajakaistapalveluihin. Hyvä naimakauppa DNA:lta ja säästöt nykyiseen palveluun verrattuna lähes 800€ sopimuskauden (24kk) aikana verrattuna nykyhintoihin. Tässäkin tapauksessa Sonera unohti palvella jo olemassaolevaa asiakastaan. Minulla ei ole ollut mitään palvelua vastaan ja olen ollut tyytyväinen yhtiöön. Aktiivisempi palveluiden tarjoaminen ja asiakkaan tarpeiden kartoittaminen olisivat varmastikin johtaneet asiakassuhteemme jatkumiseen. Mutta ei. Mukava puhelu kilpailevan operaattorin lappeenrantalaisen puhelinmyyjän kanssa johti minut toisen operaattorin syliin. Toivottavasti en kadu. Mutta kahden viikon testien jälkeen vaikuttaa siltä, että 4G LTE mokkula toimii hyvin myös kotioloissa. Yksi dramaattisimpia muutoksia on ollut langattoman tulostamisen nopeutuminen sekä luonnollisesti latausaikojen lasku. Viimeiset testaukset ennen irtisanomispuheluani: Sonera kiinteä laajakaista 24 Mbit...

Last weekend I was searching some statistical data for my lecture on social media. I popped in to many so interesting sites and news stories about the internet that I got an inspiration to create my second Infograph ever. The major sources I used were AllTwitter, AllFacebook, Wikipedia, Techcrunch & The Huffington Post which I judge to be relatively trustworthy sources in the subject matter. The figures mirror the status in the internet in December 2012. This is what happens in internet. In every minute. If you wish to use the image in your presentation you might find the high resolution image of it helpful. You'll find it in my Flickr-account . If you want to have this also in Finnish, just leave a commentary below. It does not take much time since all the bits and pieces are in place.

Yesterday evening I published a photo from my local pub in Facebook. It was a photo from a sign announcing a new drink called StarWars (Tähtien Sota in Finnish) made up by Hugo's bartender. Ja llu, a.k.a Jaloviina is Finland's Jack Daniels. Known as a drink for rockers, poets and bohemians. A real classic. Jaloviina won Finnish hearts in 1932 when the Prohibition was abolished in Finland after 13 years in practice. Jaloviina (noble spirits, free translation) is cognac blended with grain spirit. Blending ratio is expressed with the stars. One star Jaloviina's blending ratio is 1/4 of cognac, two stars' (came back to the market this year due to 80th Anniversary) 1/2 of cognac. So, the loving relationship and the cultural roots of the plausible succesful image sharing were existing. I published the photo in my Facebook account yesterday around 8 PM. Now, 19 hours later it has become viral. Through my account it has 550 shares, and when some people adopted my phot...