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Time for change, time for DebConf?
Okay I did thing I considered already for several months - I decided to quit my current job at SYSGO, make one month holidays in summer and find some new job meanwhile. So I'm looking forward to free August, which I will probably spend travelling somewhere :-).
This brought up again question whether to go or not to go to this year DebConf. The only problem with this is distance - flight to Buenos Aires will be something around 2000 USD and it means lot of money for me. I applied for sponsorship for half of the price (well I'm not sure if I can really pay the other half, but I would feel really bad for asking that much money) and let's see how it turns out. On the other side, I'd love to visit Argentina, but that would probably require much more time and money. Let's see how it all turns out, there is still time to decision...
PS: If you have some interesting job offer, just contact me at michal@cihar.com.
My cycle computer got crazy
After today short ride, I just wanted to look at how fast I was (well rather slow as my body is slowly getting used to usual travel distances). There was nothing surprising in most values, but maximal speed did really impress me:
I just hope that it is really mistake of the computer and I did not really go that fast at some point ;-).
How to name your job?
If you don't know much about things you do, work for a small company and want to look like a professional working for a big company, then the Japanese way to do this is to write following job name on your business card:
Embedded System Technical Division
Operating System Section
Chief Engineer
When I saw this for first time, I thought this business card is some kind of joke, but not, they're real.
Back in Japan
After two weeks being back in Czech and mostly offline, I got back to Japan this weekend. The travel went quite okay, the only thing I really don't understand is why Japanese customs always want to check my luggage. There must be something special on it or I probably look like drugs smuggler, but he did not answer my question why they always select me for checking things :-).
Anyway I already processed most of email backlog, only about 100 mails remain, I hope to read and reply them during this week.
Time for Christmas
Today is last day when I'll be more or less online, so if you wanted something to me this year, it's probably already too late :-). I will somehow follow emails, but do not expect much.
Tomorrow I'll spend by traveling back to Czechia (NGO - FRA - PRG), then I will just enjoy time being home and not being pushed to deliver tons of papers to somebody.
This is also most likely last blog post this year, so I can not skip the merry Christmas and happy new year phrases ;-).
We need quantity and not quality
Working on the project here at Japan is sometimes really fun. Tomorrow we have important delivery and this afternoon out Japanese colleagues decided that 2000 pages describing our software solution is not enough. They need at least 500 extra pages. Fortunately it could be any existing documentation, so we randomly choose POSIX standard Part 1 (535 pages) and the Eclipse basic tutorial (592 pages). Japanese guys were really happy that they have 1100 more pages and we're happy that we don't have to produce more documents. Now I only wonder why the hell customer is interested in quantity of paper and not in quality of work.
DRM is here just to upset people?
Being in Japan has also one great feature - even if you are in same DVD region as in EU, you are still unable to play your DVDs, maybe because of PAL/SECAM issue, I don't know. I think it must have been intentionally designed this way.
The hardware player I have here at my room just tells me: Disc Error, Playback feature may not be available on this Disc. I have no idea what this error actually means, but I somehow expected I'll be able to play my region 2 DVDs in region 2 DVD player. Good luck that I still have my laptop with illegal dvdcss library, where I can play whatever DVD I put into it.
I know this is not real DRM at all, but this has also started as a technology to limit copying or whatever....
Pentax won
On Friday I finally made the decision - from the two cameras that left in choice, I bought Pentax K10D. And first experiences are quite positive. In fact I didn't find anything really disappointing during first weekend of usage. I only learned, that I should better check manual choices I've made in the past, because changing white balance at interior, going out and taking photos there does not really produce great pictures.
The camera feels really good in my hands and I was able to figure out most settings without reading manual, but I think now it is time to do so :-). Maybe it will help me to get even more out of it, especially in controlling manual modes.
I have to admit that most of photos were left to automatics and I just tried what I can do with it. Combined with trips to Kyoto, Nagoya Castle and Inuyama, it is no wonder that I took almost 1000 photos during weekend.
Thanks to everybody who helped me with their suggestions, it really helped me in the decision!
Nikon D80 or Pentax K10D?
That's the question I'm trying to solve right now. From wide range of cameras, I reduced to this choice, but the decision is now quite hard. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and there is not easy to choose as it was to cut down previous list.
I used Google a lot in last weeks to find some experiences with both cameras, but none of them really helped me.
Pentax pros:
- Shake reduction in body (saves money on lens).
- Dust removal from sensor.
- Modes like TAv.
- Manual tuning of white balance looks much easier to use and provides many options.
- Dust-proof weather resistant body (although I won't have matching lenses at beginning).
- Manual flash control - it won't pop up when I don't want.
- Dedicated RAW button (I probably will take most photos in JPEG, but I want to be able to switch without going deep into menu).
- In camera RAW development (I'm not sure I will use this).
- Won lot of awards this year, so it should not be a bad camera, right?
Pentax cons:
- Underexposure in some conditions (maybe I just set something wrong on camera in shop).
- Lower lenses availability in Czechia (but I'm in Japan for next few months, where it is not that big problem).
- No option in kit lenses.
Nikon pros:
- Faster AF.
- More lenses and accessories available (but I'm not sure if I really need them).
- Scene modes (but I might anyway stick with manual settings).
- A bit cheaper here.
Nikon cons:
- Feels slightly less comfortable in my hand.
From the list it is visible that I was able to find more pros and cons on Pentax. Nikon seems to do its job pretty well, but does not provide any extra gimmicks. This is also reason why Pentax is winner for now. I'll buy the camera sometimes during next week, so things can still change.
Looking for digital SLR
Being impressed by prices of these toys here in Japan, I decided to finally buy one. This decision was quite easy, but it implies much harder one - which one to choose. Looking at my money availability and what do shops here offer, I have five possibilities: Canon EOS Kiss Digital X (EOS 400D in Europe), Nikon D40x, Nikon D80, Pentax K10D or Sony α 100.
Well it's hard choice. However for now I prefer something with shake reduction, what limits selection to either Pentax or Sony (or some of the others with lenses which do the same). And from these two, Pentax looks like much better choice. As this will be my first SLR, I don't have to stick with same vendor to be able use my equipment, but I'm much more interested in availability of add-on lenses and other stuff. And in this are seem to win Nikon and Canon. So that are points for the other side of the match.
I played with all these cameras in shop, but I really didn't find any of them much better than others. I just take few shots and nothing surprised me there. And I was able to switch them all from Japanese to English quite quickly ;-). So this step did not decide anything. Reading various reviews also didn't help much, as each camera has advantages and disadvantages...
For now my temporarily winner is Pentax, but I think I should find some more convincing arguments before buying it :-).
PS: I know there exists a bit cheaper variant of Pentax branded as Samsung GX-10, but I haven't seen it anywhere here in shops.
First Japanese experiences
Thursday morning I arrived Chubu airport near Nagoya and at this time started my first visit to Japan. It will take quite long time (3-6 months), so I should have enough time to do as much sightseeing as I want. But there was not much time for sightseeing so far. Besides work and having rest after 24 hours of travelling, we only went today to see a bit of city. No real sightseeing, it was rather finding out some things.
The most important was to find ATM accepting our credit cards. I didn't expect it will be that difficult, but it turned out that most ATMs accept only Japanese Visa and MasterCard cards and not ours. Fortunately post office has ATMs accepting foreign cards, so we finally have enough cache to survive next week ;-).
The next step was to buy something we can start to learn Japanese a bit. It would be great to be able to read at least some signs and menu in restaurant. We bought few books, but later in restaurant it turned out to be almost useless. Fortunately the cook can a bit English, so we managed to order something we wanted. But this is the largest problem here - our poor Japanese knowledge as there was not time to prepare for this back at home...
Antal - horrible experiences
This time my experience is fresh and horrible. We went after work for some beers to restaurace Antal. Service was really slow and we waited long time till we could order our five beers. When they arrived, there were quite empty to call them half liter of beer.
No matter what we drunk them and ordered another one, this time asking for full beer. Well it didn't arrive and our complain followed. Waiter seemed to be surprised that guest dares to complain and looked very angry. However after some minutes we got full beer. All of us agreed that it was filled with water. This time we found phone number to owner and called there. Owner was at the bar and ensured us, that there was no water in our beers.
We still resisted as we had ordered food. For most of us it arrived, only my colleague didn't get his one. But after several urgencies, it arrived and by accident he had some paper in it.
However we were still strong and resisted and ordered another beer. This time it seemed to be okay. Last surprise came when we payed as waiter calculated somehow two more beers than we have.
Simply avoid this place if you can. Looking at other experiences (in Czech only), we're not alone who has such feeling about this pub.
Back from vacation
It has been almost two weeks of silence from be because I was enjoying vacation on Sicily.
Now I've read almost all mails and getting back to work ;-). There were opened lots of bugs in Gammu bug tracker, so it is first thing I need to look at. Fortunately there were no new bugs on my Debian packages, so at least this part will be easy (and only Sonata package needed upgrade, which has been done right now).
Happy new year!
Maybe I'm a bit late, but happy new year! I was quite silent in last days as I was having rest from computer and enjoyed real life.
What will this year bring? I will hopefully become Debian Developer, as only required step right now is account creation. This is good news for Gammu users who run Debian, as I would like to upload testing versions to experimental (as well as appropriate python-gammu builds).
What else? Some new releases of my projects :-). I'm still working on Wammu and configuration wizard. There is a bit more work than I expected, but it should be ready during January. I don't expect much new features in python-gammu, it will be just kept in sync with gammu.
The only remaining project is Ukolovnik, which is in perfect state for me, however other users request more features and I should sometimes get at least to patch merging :-).
Čistá duše - Music club with African music
This time it won't be about food, but only about entertainment. Čistá duše is music club in Prague centre (on Charles square). I think it can be called as meeting point of African culture (well at least it looked as such to me :-)).
Every evening (probably) you can listen there to rhythms of African drums and enjoy dancing on them.
Drinks are for reasonable price for this part of town, but you won't get there anything to eat, so you should choose something else to fill your hungry stomach.
Happy new year!
Maybe I'm a bit late, but happy new year! I was quite silent in last days as I was having rest from computer and enjoyed real life.
What will this year bring? I will hopefully become Debian Developer, as only required step right now is account creation. This is good news for Gammu users who run Debian, as I would like to upload testing versions to experimental (as well as appropriate python-gammu builds).
What else? Some new releases of my projects :-). I'm still working on Wammu and configuration wizard. There is a bit more work than I expected, but it should be ready during January. I don't expect much new features in python-gammu, it will be just kept in sync with gammu.
The only remaining project is Ukolovnik, which is in perfect state for me, however other users request more features and I should sometimes get at least to patch merging :-).
Restaurant Orlík - fair prices on waterfront
Restaurant Orlík is yet another restaurant in Prague center I will write about. It lays on waterfront just next to Šítek water tower (Czech only), few minutes of walk from National theatre.
You can select from many traditional meals, I guess everybody will find something what will attract him. Everything I tasted there so far was very good, so I can really recommend you this place to have a lunch or dinner.
You can drink Budweiser Beer here, it is not cheap, but also not expensive and it tastes good. They also offer variety of wines, which are good priced.
Orlík is yet another restaurant in Prague center, where you can go without affraiding that you will pay too much for food.
Weather complications
For most of winter, we had troubles because there is no snow. Right now there is trouble because there is too much snow. And it is still falling. This happens just few days after Kyrill has caused quite a lot of damage, maybe the Earth wants to get rid of people who destoy its environment ;-).
In most places in Czechia 15 to 30 centimenters of new snow occured over night. Many people can not drive their car safely in these conditions and this causes lots of traffic problems. Maybe they should think before going out and use public transport instead, but it is not as comfortable as driving damn slow, because they still have summer tires…
