Niiranen.info

This is more related to the content I write on my Microsoft CRM blog called "Surviving CRM", but I though I'd do a quick cross-posting here, for the sake of my firends outside of work (if I still have some left after all the overtime). Check out the pictures I managed to grab during our visit to Microsoft Convergence 2008 EMEA conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Yes, even work can be fun occasionally.

We all know that today's office worker (or some might say information worker) is bombarded with emails every few minutes. This afternoon I noticed there had been 200 new email messages in my Outlook during three working days. Just out of curiosity, I started doing a calculation on how much time I could in theory invest per average email message (either reading or writing). The result, as you can guess, was quite hilarious. Let's see now:

Emails in Outlook

200 emails (received + sent) in 3 days

22 working hours

9 emails per hour

7 minutes per one email

Meetings in Outlook

7 hours of scheduled meetings

= 15 hours remaining

4,5 minutes per one email

Sites and web apps in IE

700 distinct URL’s visited (many tens of times)

30 seconds per every URL visited = 6 hours

= 9 hours remaining

3,5 minutes per one email

Documents on C-drive

110 new documents added

30 seconds per every document = 2 hours

= 7 hours remaining

2 minutes per one email

Offline stuff (guesstimates)

10 calls & conversations x 5 minutes x 3 days = 2,5 hours

4 visits to coffee machine x 5 minutes x 3 days = 1 hour

= 3,5 hours remaining

1 minute per one email

…so better stop calculating and start processing, before the clock hits zero!

 http://www.43folders.com/izero

There's a meme doing the rounds on various blogs about listing an album for every year of your life. A nice idea, but I think it's more suitable for the 40+ audience who are so fond of the traditional 10 track album format. Many of my favourite artists have never made a proper album, and certainly the most memorable songs are almost never originating from the most memorable album.

That's why I'll change the rules a bit and list one track per year instead. As a bonus, this allows me to conveniently present the timeline also in a YouTube playlist. Enjoy the 30 year ride, in a "back to the future" reversed style. 

Kraftwerk - The Robots (1978)
Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight (1979)
Diana Ross - I'm Coming Out (1980)
Soft Cell - Tainted Love (19981)
Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force - Planet Rock (1982)
Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (1983)
Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy (1984)
Depeche Mode - Shake The Disease (1985)
Europe - Final Countdown (1986)
M/A/R/R/S - Pump Up The Volume (1987)
Jungle Brothers - I'll House You (1988)
KLF - What Time Is Love? (1989)
2 In A Room - Wiggle It (1990)
Bomb The Bass - Winter In July (1991)
Hardfloor - Acperience 1 (1992)
Hyper Go Go - Never Let Go (1993)
Cosmic Baby - Loops Of Infinity (1994)
Wink - Higher State Of Consciousness (1995)
Kadoc - The Nighttrain (1996)
Double 99 - Ripgroove (1997)
Binary Finary - 1998 (1998)
Darude - Sandstorm (1999)
Push - Strange World (2000)
Barthezz - On The Move (2001)
Modulation - Darkstar (2002)
Motorcycle - As The Rush Comes (2003)
Mylo - Drop The Pressure (2004)
The Chemical Brothers - Galvanize (2005)
Fedde Le Grand - Put Your Hands Up For Detroit (2006)
Alex Kunnari - Lifter (2007)

Summer is almost over and so is my 2 week vacation. Here's how me and my girlfriend spent the first week by touring around Southern Europe. Photos can be found in my Picasa web gallery, a modest collection of 165 shots from all the various locations we visited. What a fun ride!

Day 1: Arrival

Flying to Slovenia, we arrived in Brnik Airport at around 19:30. The terminal is quite a small one and is located in the middle of a forest, but everything worked smoothly, apart from the strange 50 meter bus ride from the gate to arrivals hall. In about an hour, we were already at Ljubljana bus station, which was only a couple of blocks away from Hotel Lev. Although claiming 5 stars, it's more of a 3.5 star establishment by modern standards, but being built in 1964 it's got a nice Soviet touch to it. After quickly unpacking, we went for a quick walk around the Ljubljanica river banks. On a warm August afternoon the area is quite crowded, which is no surprise considering the beautiful surroundings and laid back atmosphere of the city's bars and terraces.

Day 2: Ljubljana tour

In Ljubljana center you can see the castle high up on the hill from almost anywhere, so that was naturally our first official sight to spot during this trip. Up with the funicular, a few photos of the city skyline and a long hike back down to the river - must be a common path for tourists. Back in the center, we decided to head to the nearby Tivoli park (not a fun fair, just a park) to hide away from the burning sunlight. At around 3 PM we already felt like most of the compulsory sights had been covered. Ljubljana really would be a convenient place for a quick weekend trip, since everything is within a walking distance.

We (well, one of us) decided to spend the afternoon by doing some shopping and later on grabbing a dinner at Gostilna AS terrace, which was quite a good choice. Before the main course hit the table, drops of rain started hitting the terrace roof, but nothing alarming yet. When looking for the next place to grab a drink, the rain really started to pour down on us. Since it was summertime, no one wanted to sit inside the bar regardless of the moist surroundings, but we just had to give up and hit a local rock bar for a pint of Guinness to escape the rain drops. After a while it started to look imminent that the rain was not about to stop, so eventually we had to do a quick run back to the Hotel. However, that was the last bit of rain to hit us during the entire trip, so the worst was already behind!

Day 3: On the road

We weren't planning to stay in Ljubljana for a whole week. I had booked us a rental car for the remaining days and our intention was to tour around Slovenia, Croatia and Italy. After recieving the keys to our lovely red Mitsubishi Colt and plugging in my brand new Garmin Nüvi 250 GPS, we were ready for our next destination: Postojna. This small town hosts an incredible 20 km long Karst cave system. There is a train system (first built already in 1872!) which takes you deep inside the caves, where a walking tour around the caves of different ages and types starts. 1,5 hours in duration, this is definitely an experience not to miss if you are travelling in Slovenia. What a shame we didn't spot any olms!

Our next hotel in Sezana was quite an experience: Hotel Casino Safir. This very modern building is located so close to the Italian border that it is in fact in the middle of the truck parks and highways related to the border crossing point. If you aproach it from the Italian side, be sure to take the very first exit after 200 meters into Slovenia or else you'll miss it! As the name suggests, this hotel is also hosting a casino, which can easily be spotted from the huge neon signs covering the whole building. The interior is quite nice and there's not a word to complain about the place, but it is nevertheless one of the quirkiest hotels I've stayed in.

Since we were practically already in Italy, we decided to head for Trieste to spend the evening. I'm not sure if the fault was mine or Garmin's, but we ended up taking a very bizarre route there. The road was so steep and narrow that passing an oncomig SUV was my first true test of manoeuvring the Colt. We eventually reached a glorious hillside location where the whole of Trieste's coast was in front of our eyes, after which it was only a case of sliding down the hills and applying enough breaks to keep us on the road and at the same time out of the way of those crazy Italian Alfra Romeo drivers. We made it safely to Trieste center, walked around a bit and landed ourselves on the terrace of the charming Caffè degli Specchi at Piazza Unità d'Italia square. The tiramisu was to die for, but the local stand-up show on the nearby stage was quite something else...

Day 4: Mediterranean sun

Due to a glitch in the travel schedule, we didn't have a room booked for the next night, so we took the easy way out and booked a second night at Safir. After that we headed for Lipica, which is apparently known all over the world from its very own breed of horses: Lipizzaner. Turns out the whole village is actually just a horse farm + golf course, so unless you're interested in either one, there may not be too much on offer here.

After the farm tour we set our course towards the Mediterranean coast line, driving through Italy again to reach Slovenia's prime summer resorts. Piran is a nice example of an authentic coastal town, with its narrow alleys and beautiful sea views. On a somewhat larger scale, our next stop, Koper, represented the modern version of the same theme, also with a proper old town and beach boulevard, but it really lacked the idyllic atmosphere. Also, we had difficulties locating any decent diner in the center of Koper (plenty of cafés to choose from, though), so we decided to drive back to Italy as the sun was starting to set.

Parking is a huge problem in Trieste and since we were already hitting the eight o'clock dinner time peak traffic, we had to just keep driving along the coastline for quite some time. Eventually we pulled over at the small town of Sistiana and located an interesting looking wine restaurant with a lovely garden terrace, called Gaudemus. Although initially empty, the place quickly filled with locals, which is always encouraging. Not speaking any Italian, we chose some safe bets from the fish oriented menu and enjoyed probably the most memorable dinner of our holiday trip. Driving back at night through pitch black Italian highways with incomprehensible signs was not such a pleasant experience, but eventually we made it safely back to our neon lit hotel.

Day 5: Into Croatia

Next it was time to leave the EU soil behind and enter the Istrian penisula of Croatia. Crossing the border was quite easy, no one even wanted to see my International Driving Permit that I had paid big bucks for... Garmin's GPS coverage for Croatia was almost nonexistent and the road conditions started to deteriorate, but surprisingly the local drivers were much more well behaved than their Italian counterparts, which was a positive surprise.

On our way down towards the city of Pula there were plenty of coastal towns to visit. Our first attempt to stop at Novigrad didn't succeed due to the lack of Kuna coins to feed the parking meters with, so we headed towards the next one, Porec, and located a nearby supermarket parking lot. The weather was getting really hot (+33 degrees), which took a toll on my enthusiasm to walk around the town. The sea view and beach boulevards were nevertheless very much worth the visit.

Upon arriving to Pula we settled down at Ribarska Koliba Apartments, which was located next to a big holiday resort area at the Verudela penisula. The apartment itself was sort of a spin-off of the nearby restaurant, which gave a nice human touch to the service as well as the surroundings. Moving back to Pula's center we did the usual tour of the old town (which started to feel like a daily routine by now), but some threatening looking clouds drove us back to Verudela quite early. Later in the evening, the sky was full of the most magnificent lightnings, but funnily enough there was hardly any rain drops disturbing our nocturnal stroll along the Verudela harbor and beaches.

Day 6: To the beach

We had missed the Pula amphitheather last night, so that was our first pit stop for day six. I haven't been to Rome, but I think it would be easy to take some fake Colosseum photos here at the Croatian equivalent. Another important task for the morning was finding an internet cafe, to book a room for the last night of our trip.

In the afternoon we drove to Rovinj, yet another coastal town. It's historic center was again quite wonderful, apart from the very slippery stones used in the pavement. Perhpas it's just a ploy to make people walk slower and pay more attention to the hundreds of merchants offering their flavour of souvenirs, who knows. Unfortunately we didn't have time for taking any of the attractive cruises (also pirate ones!) to nearby islands, so we had to settle for an ice cream portion at the harbour.

We hadn't yet tasted proper beach life during our trip, so by the time we returned to Pula we packed our beach gear and entered the nearby resort around Fort Bourguignon. I must say I'm glad we didn't actually stay in any of these tourist traps, but it's fun to have a look at what life is like inside one. Returning to our apartment, we wanted to see what the reastaurant side of the business had to offer. Ribarska Koliba means "fisherman's cabin", so the menu was naturally heavily tilted towards sea food. We enjoyed a 2 person fish plate in the most appropriate surroundings, on a terrace right next to a pier full of fishing boats.

Day 7: Returning to Slovenia

It was time to say goodbye to Pula and start our journey back towards Slovenia. On the way we first stopped at Pazin for some morning cappuccino and a tour of the Ethnographics Museum of Istria. Then we visited an amazing town called Motovun, which is built on a tiny mountain top. Be sure to check out a picture of it, as the place is just too hard to describe with words.

There were not many rooms available on the Croatian or Slovenian coast in August with one day notice, so we ended up staying at Hotel Bio in Koper. This place had surely seen better days (a few decades ago), but it was a convenient halfway stop on our journey back towards home. Having already visited the town once, we didn't have any tight agenda for the evening but rather just strolled around the marina area and admired the vivid colours of the Mediterranean sunset.

Day 8: Last breath of mountain air

After a relaxed breakfast buffet at the hotel terrace, we packed our bags into the car and rolled on to the A1 highway leading to Ljubljana. However, we weren't gonna spend the last day in the already familiar city but rather we wanted to go explore the mountaneous areas of northern Slovenia. The Brink airport was in that direction anyway, so we wanted to make the most of the little time we had left.

Our initial target was the famous town of Bled, but our choice of route took us through the narrow and steep mountain roads to Lake Bohinj instead. The small forest beach was full of German and Italian tourists as usual, but the view from the lake to the nearby mountain tops was something quite unique. Afer a quick swim and sunbathing, we drove by the river bank to Bled, which is a picturesque place just made for great postcard shots. Lake Bled hosts Slovenia's only island and the nearby restaurants serve a local delicacy called kremšnita, a cream cake with a fearsome amount of calories. What better place to have the last cup of cappucino before boarding the airplane?

By 6 PM we had successfully returned our rental car at the airport and had a few minutes to write the compulsory postcards to folks back home. All in all, it was a truly enjoyable trip and the locations we visited can definitely be recommended for anyone wanting to explore the wonders of Southern Europe.

Very quick greetings from Japan! Since I'm in the middle of starting to renovate my flat and therefore quite pressed on free time, I only have a chance to provide you a link to my photo gallery with some snapshots of Osaka and Tokyo. Next time I go there in the fall, I'll be sure to give you a little more info on what it's like out there in the distant island of Nippon.

We took a quick 4 day vacation to Romania a couple of weeks ago. I didn't really know what to expect from this recent member of the European Union. If you ask any Finn what's the first thing that comes to their mind from Romania, I think most would say it's the hordes of beggars populating the streets of Helsinki nowadays.

We spent two nights in Bucharest and one in Brasov. Despite of the bad tourist reviews, the Romanian capital turned out to be quite a nice city to roam around in. Not too different from the other East European capitals I've visited. I'm sure all the funding from EU will help them in cleaning up the streets and luring in more corporate cash. Judging by the number of big SUV's driving by, it seems like a small portion of the population is already doing quite well for themselves, but this is of course far from the typical life of an average Romanian. Prices were still very reasonable, but comparing them to the rates printed in tourists guides, inflation must be racing at a formidable speed, so you might want to go before it's too late.

Brasov was quite a different site compared to Bucharest. Located up in the hills of Transylvania, it's a mid-sized city with a very idyllic old town. Hotel Bella Muzica was located right next to the city hall square in the old town and can be recommended as a place to stay if you ever end up around these parts of the woods. The newer Brasov probably doesn't provide much to get excited about, so in case you are travelling by train through Romania, then schedule a one night stop here and take an early morning ride up the funicular to enjoy some peace'n'quiet with a lovely with to go with it. Bran Castle might have been a nice experience, but quite frankly I was just happy to lounge at the terrace with a pint of cold Ursus in my hand.

Go and see my Picasa gallery for some photos from the trip.

On a warm June afternoon, I was typing away at my PC when some crackling noises coming from the open balcony door caught my attention. Turns out the trash cans on the yard opposite to my appartment had caught fire. The heat wave was immense, even though I was far away on the other side of the block. Luckily the fire department also resides 2 blocks away from my place, so the fire was under control in about 15 minutes. A few burnt cars and a sad looking shed is all that remains. Naturally I had my camera near, so I took a few pictures of this small scale tragedy for you to enjoy. Visit the gallery here.

CD1
01. Flying High
02. Hold Me (Vocal Radio Edit)
03. Poor Romeo (Radio Edit)
04. Knowing Me, Knowing You
05. Don't Break My Heart (Album Version)
06. Waiting All My Life
07. Hold On Tight
08. I Feel Like You (feat. X-Perience)
09. I Will Come Again
10. Fortune & Fate
11. The Choice Is Yours
12. Poor Romeo (Kalsi Radio Edit)
13. Flying High (Cid Inc Radio Edit)

CD2
01. Flying High (99 Radio Edit)
02. Hold Me (D-Tune Radio Remix)
03. Poor Romeo (Dance Cut)
04. Knowing Me, Knowing You (Dacia Remix)
05. Don't Break My Heart (Radio Edit)
06. Fortune & Fate (Alternative Mix)
07. Hold Me (Chorale RMX Cut)
08. Hold Me (Bluebear Project Remix)
09. Flying High (D-Tune Radio Remix)
10. Flying High (Cid Inc RMX DRD Dub)

A1 Music, 2008

This has been my defining soundtrack for the first part of 2008. Having re-started as project in 2005 (since their 1997 debut as DC-10), DCX has finally managed to kick out a debut album, and what a treat it is!

The Finnish audience may already be familiar with most of the content on the double album, since it pretty much covers everything DCX has released on singles and b-sides. Their first two "recycled" hits, Flying High and Hold Me, cover a whopping 40% of the album tracks, but no one is forcing you to listen to the remix CD, so let's stop whining about it and focus on the rest of the material.

With a couple of well known cover tracks as their most recent single releases, there was a clear and present danger that DCX would have fallen into the Cascada territory and delivered an album full of uninspiring, generic cover trash that has dominated the dance charts for far too long now. Luckily this is not the case at all. Original tracks like Poor Romeo, Fortune & Fate and The Choice Is Yours clearly outshine the aforementioned singles. So what if the melodies are simple and familiar, that's how dance pop has been since day one, that's part of the whole charm.

Jole and Ari have produced some kick-ass sounds to wrap the cheesy tracks into a polished package of pure eurodance euphoria. Unlike many of their German counterparts, the guys never venture on the wrong side of good taste with their selection of supersaws. As a result, you can simply lean back and enjoy the ride, since there are no nasty surprises awaiting around the corner.

When both the song material and quality of production remain on a high enough level throughout the entire album, only then does the result become greater than the sum of its parts. I think this 2CD definitely gives you more than a mere cherry pickin' of the single tracks would. There's no other way to explain why such a collection of mostly familiar tunes has such an effect on me. So, if you're new to DCX, be sure to check out the album sampler on www.dcxmusic.com and see what the fuss is all about. If you're an old fan, don't be afraid to add this wonderful CD into your collection.

I had been looking for a new watch for quite some time now. It's not that I wasn't happy with my existing time piece from Lambretta, but everyone should have some variety in the accessories they wear. Even guys, believe it or not.

The watch I was originally eyeing was Certina DS Podium, a nice and basic chronograph that you can wear with a suit or a T-shirt. I had already put aside a couple of Stockmann's gift certificates to go and get me one of those as a Christmas present, but they just never seemed to have the exact model I wanted. Either the strap was not correct (have a leather one already, so this one had to be metal) or the color scheme was a little off. Of course I could have ordered the version I want from any online shop, but with a metal strap you'll need to head down to the watch dealer's to get the strap length fixed (unless you fancy playing with some precision tools yourself, of course).

Today when going out for a cup of coffee at the Iso Omena mall, I stubled across a jewelry shop that was advertising a 20% off deal for all watches. I didn't see Certina in their selection, but another Swiss brand was represented: Tissot. I had earlier paid attention to one of their chronographs and, it being a somewhat lucky day, that particular model happened to be on display: Tissot PRC 200. So there you go. It's from the same Swatch Group as Certina and probably uses exact same technology under the hood. Plus this one's got yellow hands, which is just a lovely break from the norm.

Everyone knows the mark-up on watches is pretty substantial. The logical consequence of this is that many people will try to haggle and get the suggested retail price down to an acceptable level. I, for one, am not in favour of such a practice, since I don't see the point why a potential buyer should need to go through unneccessary small talk and come up with all sorts of BS reasons why the price is too high and beg the seller to give a better deal. The price is either right or it ain't, period. This is why I was happy to see the 335 euro price tag reduced down to an acceptable 268 euros right away. Much more convenient, I'm sure the dealer still got a fair share for their efforts.

How much should you pay for a watch then? I guess there is strong analogy to a question like "how much should you pay for a car". I've opted for public transit and have decided to pay nada, whereas many people will gladly shell out tens of thousands for the pleasure of sitting in their very own Beemer instead of a bus. If all you need is to know what time it is, a cell phone is all you need. If the time indicator needs to be permanently attached to your wrist, twenty euros will get you a piece of modern electronics that'll achieve the goal quite nicely. When your looking for a status symbol to display your wealth and attract females, sky's the limit. Having lost a couple of watches after an unnoticed strap failure, I wouldn't feel comfortable carrying around a true investment watch like Raymond Weil's and what have you. To cut a long story short, justification can be found for any price range, which makes reasoning quite futile in this case. Watches are men's equivalent for women's jewelry, they just go by a different name.

01. Fun Fun Fun (Radio Edit)
02. Fun Fun Fun (Original Mix)
03. Fun Fun Fun (Fredo & Thang 123 Piano Remix)

Prestel Records 2007

Now here is a fun release indeed. The retro house sounds sort of remind you of Axwell's huge hit I Found U, although this one isn't quite as hands-in-the-air material but rather a bit more sophisticated in its approach. Not surprising then that Dada Life is also a Swedish combo, although I surely didn't expect to find Phasio in the line up. Maybe even Basshunter will one day be producing credible house tracks... Anyway, I've been listening to Fun Fun Fun on repeat for several months now and its twisted melody still won't let me go, so be sure to give the track a listen on the boys' MySpace page. Fredo & Thang on the remix duty don't quite hit the spot with their version, but the original is such a stormer in disguise that I predict we'll soon be hearing plenty of Dada Life productions on MoS compilations.