World's most successful PR-campaign?

I seriously doubt that there are people out there who haven't heard about the big release these days. Few have seen it (except the official photos), even fewer had a chance to put their hands on one of them. The product is kinda pricey and lacks a couple of key features (which will most probably be fixed in a Rev. B, or the European edition). Still people have been standing in line, all across the States to get one of the iPhones. One of the world's most successful PR-campaigns is over, and the reviews will soon tell if it really is a revolutionary product or just an over-hyped one.

However, I just had to post this when I saw the front pages of a couple of big newspapers (online). They're all mentioning the introduction of the iPhone last night! Check it out.


The Polish Gazeta Wyborcza's front page


"Most read" section of the Swedish Dagens Nyheter

Best picks from Hönö

Here are some photos from Hönö (and one or two from Göteborg). I upload a selection of good shots. I hope you like them!

Some statistics

Hi folks!
Today I'd like to show off some of the stats for you. As I browsed through the Google Analytics pages for my blog, I noticed that You - my visitors - come from many different countries from 5 continents! I would like to say thank you for your time and attention, I hope you enjoy this somehow-frequent blog and that you return every now and then (to be honest, I can tell from the statistics that you do :-)). Take care!

Pictures from Poland

I have one more photo blog post for you this evening. It containts a selection of pictures from Poland. Scenery, family and friends, buildings... You can click on any photo to view a larger version.

Pictures from Borlänge

This week I returned from Poland, and as I promised in my earlier posts, I publish pictures from my recent trip to Borlänge today.

I'm trying out the new, embedded photo album from Picasa (as it simplifies the process of publishing, since I have a "export to Picasa" option directly in Aperture, check out the new plugin ).

You should easily see the pictures as a slide show (Flash player needed!), but you can also click on the yellow icon in the bottom-left corner and select "View Jacob's gallery" to go to my Picasa gallery and view bigger versions of the photos!

A short vacation

Today I'm leaving for Poland for some time (rather short than long visit). That most probably means no updates, as I will be busy visiting family and such. I'll post the pictures from Borlänge when I'm back. Maybe something else as well...

Meanwhile, Apple has released new, Santa Rosa based, Macbook Pros. If you happen to have too much cash, OR if you just need a really really good notebook computer, check them out at Apple. Speaking of which, I guess we'll see some Apple related news during this and next week as the WWDC is approaching, with a feature-complete demo of Mac OS X Leopard. Stay tuned!

700 year aniversary

As I promised in yesterday's post, I'm going to upload pictures form the trip to Borlänge very soon. First though, I'd like to get this one online...

I took a walk to the town centre today, to see what's going on with the 700 year aniversary celebration in Halmstad (it meens it's been 700 years since Halmstad got the status of a town (btw, the city was Danish at that time - intressted in more history, search the Wikipedia and/or the Web)). I snapped a couple of photos downtown, check them out below. By the way, if you'd like to view high(er) quality/download any of these pictures, right-click on it and select >Download. Bye!

Back, for a little while

Hi folks!
Just recently, I returned from the short vacation in Borlänge. Beautiful scenery, I've got tons of pictures which I'll try to upload during the next few days. As I returned, I read a couple of interesting news stories that I'd like to share with you.

First of all, there's a new "thing" on iTunes Store called iTunes U. It looks like a co-operation between Apple and some universities and colleges in the States, and the result is a lot of classes, from schools like MIT, PennState or Berkeley, available online - for free! There's a broad range of classes availeble and if your interessted I recommend you to check it out at iTunes Store->iTunes U.

The other news is the introduction of something called Microsoft Surface. I saw a demonstration of this kind of device about a year ago at some Internet TV Channel on Democracy. Then, it was a scientist introducing a working device, and it made a huge impression on me. Now it looks as Microsoft is rolling it out in the winter of 2007. Go to the website and check out those three short video films now! It's seriously cool stuff...

Guajira y son

I just finished watching the 1999 movie "Buena Vista Social Club" (IMDB). I love watching it over and over again, even though the spoken language is Spanish while the subtitles are in French. Since it's a documentary about Cuban musicians, most of the movie consist of recordings and live performances, so it doesn't really matter that I (officially) don't understand what they're saying/singing. I think that when it comes to music, there's always a way of understanding each other. So, I highly recommend you watching it, although it can be hard to get your hands on a copy Good music is (with some exceptions) not the same as popular music, but we all knew that already.

Tomorrow's the P-Day ("P" as in Presentation. Funny, huh...? Erm...whatever). I'm kinda excited about it, especially what our opponents will say. It's really hard to know if we've done the entire project "the right way" (if there's any "the right way"). Well, guess I have to wait and see. Time for a break, ciao!

A big update.

The second time I woke up today was at 2pm - exacly the same moment as Apple introduced its new , speed-busted MacBook update. You see the connection? No...? Neither do I. Anyway..

The first time I woke up today was about six hours earlier, at 8am. You might think that's late, but considering the amount of work I've lately put into a damn project at school, and the fact that I came back from school at 1.30am that night, you may understand. The project was pretty much done today at 11am, so after handing it in to the project leaders, I felt that a quick nap might be just what I need.

What else can I say? My life has been circling around that project lately. Wake up, workout, think about what needs to be done today, get to school, work, eat, work, eat, work, get back home, think about what else could have been done if there was more time, eat, try not to think about the project, fail not to think about the project, eat, hit the pillow, try not to dream about what needs to be done tomorrow...

Aw, I just figured out that there's a short description of the project online. Feel free to check it out over here, under "Student Projects" -> Health Check.

I feel kind of guilty about not updating this blog in almost a month. As I realized the visitors number dropped to below 1 person/day I thought it's time to lighten things up again.

One more thing (I almost forgot that one): photos from the "celebration" of Valborg, over two weeks ago, are online. You should see them in a box below. These are un-edited so don't expect too much quality this time. I just wanted to put them online so I could get rid of them and stop answering those "when-are-you-gonna-upload-the-pictures"-questions.


That's it for today!

Some latin chords

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a couple of great CDs from a label named Putumayo World Music. As the name suggests, the label's CDs feature international artists - all of them previously unknown to me. I particularly like the latin CDs, such as "Baila - A Latin Dance Party", "Nuevo Latino" and "A Mediterranean Odyssey", as well as others, including "Gypsy Caravan" (a compilation of gypsy music from different European countries) and the untipped "Mali" (from the African country of Mali - this CD is actually much better than what one would expect!).

I couldn't hold myself back from playing along, and since that resulted in a transcription of some songs, I'd like to present the chords for two tracks today.

The first one can be found on "Nuevo Latino". It's by Raul Paz and the track is called "Mulata". I can't find the lyrics, unfortunately, but the chords are pretty easy. Here they are:

Verse:
Am Fmaj7 - 2x
Dm C Dm E7
Stick/chorus:
Am G Fmaj7 - 2x
Outro:
Am Fmaj7 E7 till fade

The other one is from "A Mediterranean Odyssey, Athens to Andalucia". It's written by (I think...) a french artist named Tekameli and the track is called Que Son. I couldn't find the lyrics for this one either (although I've tried searching for not only "lyrics" but also "líricas" and "lyrique" ;)). The chords are really basic (though I'm sure one could go on with some more advanced grips). The hard thing with this one is to catch on with the rhythm, so listen carefully before playing!

Verse:
Em D C (not so sure here) B7
Pre-chorus:
Em B7 a couple of times, listen to the CD
Chorus:
B7 Em - Try to keep up with the rhythm! :)

That's it for today, have fun!

(Update 1: Ooops, the chords were eaten up by HTML-markup tags since I put them inside << & >>, fixed!)

StreetB, pre-party & "Maluch"

I don't really feel like writing today. And besides, let's face it: I know that most of you don't even read this crap - you're here only for the pictures. ;-) So here they are:


This one goes out to all my Polish friends out there: A Maluch i Sweden. Haha!

Below are some pics from this Friday (btw, the weather has been outstanding this weekend!).









Last night's pre-party with friends from school:






One last thing: if you have more photos from the pre-party, please send them to me! Cheers!

A couple of weeks in a life

Intro
Two weeks, no posts from me. Again. Sorry. I'm not a good blogger. I know. I'm doing my best, but still it's not enough. Too bad. Most of my readers probably left a long time ago and aren't coming back anytime soon. But, the good thing is that if you're reading this, you're obviously still interested about hearing from me. That's good, thumbs up dude!

Anyway, enough of that bullshit-talk. Right now I'm busy with the last project for this semester. It's a major IT-related project which is just staring up, so I can't tell that much yet. So far there's been a lot of reading and comparing to gain the necessary theoretical background. Yeah..they call it research I guess... Yawn.

And oh, BTW, another reason for lack of updates was my lack of a stable Internet connection. But I'm working on solving it, it should be up within a week or two. Can't wait!

"I Was Here" /Summer '07


Somebody's taking a swim. March 28th, 2007, Sweden.


So far it's empty, but within a month or two... well, we'll see!

Unfortunately, the last week was a bit colder, with temperatures only around 10 C degrees, but it looks like it's on the way up once again. Sweet!

Hair make-over

A new haircut, yuppie! Here are some shots from the make-over...


Not ready...


Nope, it's ain't done here either...


Tadda! Everything's done, just a little clean up. And you will see the result another time cause we forgot to take the pics when the hair was done.

Miscellaneous

Among others, a friend visit and how a good cup of cappuccino should look like. Enjoy!

Summer's comming!

Hi folks!
This post won't be long. Not because I have nothing to say, nor because I'm busy (which I kind of am, as usually), but because of this:



Amazingly, the summer's pretty much here already. It's hard to say how long it will last, but this weekend has been great, with daily highs around 15 Celsius degrees. It might not like that much, but it's enough to take of the jacket, at least in the sun.

This weekend we took a walk to one of the beaches around here. Here are some pictures...


A normal day in Sweden...


...one more.... No, seriously, we believe this was a fire exercise.


Somebody took a looong ride with her or his bike... ;)

Finally, an update!

I'm alive and all good, folks. I've been really busy lately, mostly school-related stuff (kind of a mid-term exams, projects deadlines, and so on...). Just a couple of days ago I had an opportunity to go out and shoot. Here are some of the results!

Halmstad is a nice city to live in, even if you have high aesthetic demands on the surrounding environment. Some examples:


Some nice, new apartments


The Halmstad Library



Today, me and some friends from the class (as well as a couple of others from the school) went to Göteborg for an exhibition about future IT-related job opportunities. The best part was probably the free bus trip... (So much for Gösta...damn!) Anyways, here are some pics:


Going with the Älvsnabben across the Göta river.


Tourists... ;)


A view upstream the Göta River, toward the Göta Älv Bridge


Famous "Barken Viking" with its hotel on board


The Opera House


Somebody's weirdo...


Somebody's cool-o... ;)

Last couple of days...

So, what's been going on here lately?

Well, while some of us played games, others were trying to come up with new, weird poses...



Some of us were shooting the weather (and one of the school buildings)...



...while some tried to get a good view. Which wasn't easy in these weather conditions... But I'm planning to get better shots of the town, so stay tuned for that!



While some of us were cooking (this particular meal was one of the best this year, even if it looks simple and was easy to cook, it tasted delicious and luxurious)...



... other's been putting up new curtains....



...while other's were playing basketball (and some of us watched the game and took some nice shots).



That's it for this time, come back for more soon!

Sweet little video

It's an old one, but I haven't seen it until a friend (;-)) found it today and since it's a blast to watch I highly recommend it!
It's about a small, flightless bird - Kiwi. Here it is:



And hey, stay tuned for more updates later on this week!

E-paper at school

This week, during our interaction design class, we were able to play around with some different portable devices, in order to evaluate the different interfaces. One of this devices, the prototype of the iRex iLiad is one of those new upcoming electronic paper book/newspaper readers. It was really nice to have the opportunity to play around with tomorrow's technology during class, and of course, I took some shots!

Two different types of tablet PC's running Windows:





Since these devices do not contain keyboard (unless you attach an external one), there must be some way to do the (in)famous Windows trick: Ctrl+Alt+Del. So how did they solved it? Like this (look closely):



That's right, use the pen to push the reset button which sends the Ctrl+Alt+Del command to the system. This reminds me of my Windows-age back in the days (before Linux and just recently OS X). =)

What else do we have? The Samsung Q1 is a real hottie. The interaction, considering the size of the touchscreen, is impressive.





And finally, we have the electronic paper device, iRex iLiad (who came up with this kind of name anyway?!). You can read more on electronic paper on the Net, a good started is (as always), Wikipedia's article on the subject. Here are some pics:








Okay, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed this post! (And sorry about those two last pictures, I can't understand why Blogger has such problems with rotating my photos properly.)

/JW

What I've been up to lately

Hi there! Here's a brief sum up of what's been going on the last few days. I go for the pictures instead of boring you with me poetic descriptions of the world around us.


Friday: Quick meal 'n quick shot.












Saturday:
Studying at school. Checking out an extraordinary thin cell phone.


And looking at the first reboot in 25 days (it was necessary after an firmware upgrade).














And in case you still haven't seen anything interesting in this post, here's a final photo which might change your mind. Cheers!