the Catch Blog

Changing Jobs

It's been a long time since I blogged last time. Well now there is something interesting happening in my life and that gives me a reason to write something here again.

I am changing to a new job. My new employment starts at the end of this month (April) and I'm pretty excited about that. In fact I haven't been so excited in a long time. The reasons I accepted this new opportunity include following:

• This is a new startup company and it will be interesting to see how things get going.
• We will be building something new. In my current job I've been mostly involved with legacy code and it's nice to implement something completely new for a change.
  
• I get to use my Flash video skills in addition to Java (I've implemented this nice little Flash video player called FlowPlayer)
  
• I get to learn new technology.
• I have a change to work with talented people.
• The Web site that we will build will kick ass

I plan to start writing about software development and about this new project here in this blog.

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Bought a new Nokia and it does not work

I picked up a new Nokia 3230 from a shop today. My first impressions: Camera just gives an error or locks up the thing completely and all other functions are depressingly slow. Whenever I select the camera from the menu I just get "System error" (in Finnish language in my case). Additionally, the selection of different applications from the menus is too slow in my opinion. The processor this gadget is equipped with is too damn slow.

Of course I will be able to get the phone fixed because it has a warranty. But they will not give me anything to compensate the additional time I have to use in order to get to the shop and get it fixed or replaced. So if you expect to get a phone that works out-of-the box, consider some other brands than Nokia.

Update: The reason for the camera problem was the memory card. The card was broken and it was impossible to format it in the phone or by other means. Now with an accessory card everything works. I'm now trying to get my Gmail account configured in order to have mobile e-mail access.

Podcasting

During my summer vacation I started listening to podcasts. I was heading to our summer cottage that does not have an Internet connection and to compensate the lack of possibilities to read blogs I decided to download a bunch of podcasts into my Ipod. I searched interesting channels from Odeo. So far the experience has been quite  good. Especially I have enjoyed all the episodes that have come from JavaCast. Listening to those is an enjoyable way to stay current on what's happening in the Java scene and all their interviews have been just great.

Apart from the summer place I have listened to mainly technical podcasts in several occasions: For example, while doing some paint jobs in my house. I would really like to be able to connect my Ipod to my car stereo so I could listen while I'm driving to the office and back. It would provide some value to the time that I spend behind the wheel. Some kind of radio transmitter for Ipod would be an option but I'm afraid the sound quality will suck.