Holiday with Joel

Last week we had a break both from Credit Suisse and renovation projects. My brother Joel was here for the whole week and together we did our best to explore Switzerland and Milan. In the beginning of the week we went south-west and visited Geneva and Montreux. We stayed at a French motel though close to Geneva, which could be a good advice for people who want to spend their cash in the restaurants instead of in the hotel. We walked around and looked at houses and gardens.

After a day in Adliswil, we were ready for next trip. Neither Tanya or I had been to Lugano and now it was time. The traffic towards Italy has always been less than tempting at summer time but on a Thursday it is still possible. We stayed a few hours in Lugano, strolling in the small but pretty city center and along the lake, before heading further south to Milan. Milan is, as all big cities, heavy on traffic so plan your car trips there accordingly. We had a hotel outside of the city center but the tram made it rather convenient to explore the city center. Even though Milan is a big city, it is still possible to make a sightseeing trip by foot. None of us had been to Milan before so it was nice to get a glimpse.

On Saturday we did some serious sun tanning and swimming at Nordiska and ended the day with a visit in the cute town Rapperswil. On Sunday we went hiking at Pilatus, and this time we walked the full distance down the mountain. It was a good four hour walk which we still can feel in terms of sore muscles.

When time allows, I will publish some photos in the photo album on the struggling web server.

Now I am a few days into the work week and back in the hamster wheel. Fortunately we have another holiday planned for September so there is still light in the tunnel…

Posted in resor, semester | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Renovation update

Since I wrote here about a month ago, we have finished the small room, the bathroom has been equipped with the radiator, all the doors have been carefully refurbished, we have made progress in the kitchen (water tap, radiator, more cupboards, fridge, oven, stove, microwave) and started renovating the living room. The living room is being prepared for new wallpaper and floor. Tanya does not like the “eye brows” made for supporting the curtains over the windows since she says the room looks smaller then, so shas removed all three in the living room. I have to agree, the room looks slightly more spacious without pelmets. Hopefully we can start with the wallpaper this weekend and finish the floor next week.

Today I went to the company gym at Uetlihof for the first time. I have signed up for a year and aim to go three lunches per week (Mon-Wed-Fri). We also bought a swimming pool subscription for Tanya. When the renovation is done we will have so much sparetime… 🙂

Last weekend we got access to our new room in the cellar. For the time being we store tools and IKEA furniture there but later on we will prepare that room a bit to make it look nicer. I have noticed that the Powerline network works there with decent performance so it should be possible to locate some servers there at a later stage.

Tomorrow at lunch time we will go to a “WillkommenapĂ©ro” for new inhabitants in Adliswil. We were invited already a year ago but could not attend then.

This weekend there is also a big city party, ZĂŒrifĂ€scht, which is taking place every third year. We will do like I did three years ago and go to Nordiska for bbq and fireworks. I can hear now, it is Friday evening, that the celebrations has already started with fireworks also today.

Between the apĂ©ro and ZĂŒrifĂ€scht I will try to cut the hedge. Whenever I have had an opportunity, the weather has been crap. The forecast for the weekend is very positive so I think it should be possible tomorrow. It is not easy to do during the week since one is not allowed to make noise in the evenings. In the mornings I have been drilling and preparing for Tanya’s day time activities.

Freja is still a very pleasant lady who’s company we enjoy a lot. She has learnt two more tricks lately, “Up” and “Spin”. Besides such playful activities, she is also doing her best to assist in the renovation project. She is sweeping the floor with her tail and keeps us company whatever we are doing.

Yesterday we had some team activities at work in order to celebrate a big release that took place last week. Tonight, as many Fridays before, I had another release for a product I am looking after. Next week I will have another release for the same product but after next week I will have a week of holiday and Joel is coming to visit us. We plan to do some excursions and have a break from the renovations. Hopefully we are able to finish the living room until then but at least the small room is done so we can provide a guest room.

This week I have hidden a little toy in the garage but that’s a secret for now so I’ll write more about that another time.

Posted in arbete, datorer, djur, freja, hÀlsa, hus och hem, styrketrÀning | Tagged | Leave a comment

Crappy weather but renovation progress

The weather in May has been historically bad here in the Zurich area. It has been alright though since we have been busy indoors with the renovations. Tanya has been working a lot with the door and door post painting meanwhile I have built up parts of the kitchen. There is still a lot of work to do, especially in the kitchen and the small room, but the bathroom is finished except for the radiator renovation and installation. It is indeed very convenient to have two toilets and a bathtub.

The room in the cellar that we will rent from 1st of July has been equipped with proper light and an entrance door. It is a rough room so it would also need some care at a later stage. My secret plan is to put my servers there later but I need to solve the issue of quick network access first. The wireless network extends to there but it won’t do as network connection for servers…

We have not planned much for the next weeks since we need to make some more progress with the renovation. In August though, Tanya is going for two weeks to Novokuznetsk. Freja and I will need to stay at home since my holiday account unfortunately is limited. In September we might go to Turkey for a week but it is not definite yet.

Seems like my blog has turned into a monthly status update. It might be like that now but I think there will be time for other things than work and renovation later on.

Posted in elektronik, hus och hem, resor | Tagged | Leave a comment

Ongoing renovation

Primarily Tanya, but also myself, has seen a need for an apartment renovation and the last four weeks this idea has been put into practice. Tanya’s father has been here to help but at the moment the workforce consists of Tanya and myself.

The first phase includes the bathroom, kitchen, corridor and the small bedroom. All rooms are still work in progress but the major work has been done. After stripping all rooms plus corridor down to the concrete, tiles for floor (except for the small bedroom) and walls in bathroom and partly in kitchen have been mounted. A bath tube, WC, and new water tap has been installed in the bathroom. It is mainly wallpaper, painting, and IKEA furniture assembly work left. There is no extreme hurry now that we soon (some more days needed) will have bathtub capabilities. The winter garden is acting as temporarily kitchen and our old kitchen furniture, including kitchen and freezer, is still operating from its new location.

There was no WC in the bathroom earlier, but now that it has been restored in the bathroom (there used to be one earlier in the bathroom but it was removed by the previous owner), it will be easier to renovate the small bathroom, which previously hosted the only WC in the apartment, later.

Next week, probably on Wednesday, we’ll go to Sweden for dad’s 60 year celebrations. I have seen that there are some decent flight tickets on offer but we’ll go by car this time. Then we can easily take Freja with us and transport some remains from my stuff in my previous apartment in Gothenburg. If there are no major issues, one day of driving should be sufficient since we are going to meet up in Malmö.

Posted in arbete, bil, bÄt, tÄg och flyg, hus och hem, resor | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Summary of the last two months

There has been a lack of activity in the blog the last two months. In other words, time to summarize some highlights.

In the end of January, and also later in February, our friend Rita from St Petersburg visited us and spent some nice days here. Among many things, we went for a Schumann concert in Tonhalle.

Sasha and Ira from Moscow were also here for a full day and we did some proper sightseeing, including lunch at Zeughauskeller, in order to see what there is to see in Zurich in one day.

Rasmus was here last weekend and the main event was a trip to Geneva and the Motor Show. None of us had been to a Motor Show like that before and it was a nice visit. We took a walk in the city center before going back to Zurich. Our old Saab is still moving but it is getting closer to retirement and we are keeping our eyes open for a good replacement. After the car inspection in May we will know how urgent it is. If it passes the inspection without major issues we might wait until next year. The car tax is getting more expensive next year for big and strong cars, so there might be a price drop for heavy BMW X5’s and Volvo XC90’s with powerful engines. This X5 in Emmen is representing the X5 option at the moment meanwhile there are also XC90s available, e.g. this D5 Executive from 2008.

This weekend we went to GrĂŒsch, on the way to Klosters and Davos, about an hour from Zurich. They had a festival on the top of the mountain and many of my team members from work went as well. It was a nice evening and felt very much like a Swiss country side festival. We stayed at the local hotel and went back to Zurich at lunch time today. We did not go skiing this weekend since Tanya has caught a cold. After taking a a walk with Freja, I am now watching an entertaining bandy final via TV4 Play. It’s a pity VSK could not make it to the final this year but I will follow VIK in the playoffs via Viaplay.se.

At the moment there is a lot of work for my team and this week was another 70 hour week. Not very sustainable in the long run so that is something to keep an eye on. New attempt next week.

Posted in arbete, bil, bÄt, tÄg och flyg, natur, sport, tv | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Winter walk at Uetliberg

Today’s major activity was a walk at Uetliberg. Both me, Tanya, and Freja enjoyed the nice winter weather a lot. We took the closest path up to the mountain and the path close to Felsenegg on the way down. That is a two-and-a-half-hour walk with our slow tempo.

Since I have upgraded our photo album to Gallery 3, I had to create an album with some photos from the walk in order to try out the new version. Seems like it works just fine. I have imported the photos from Gallery 2 so it is all available in the new photo album.

As a side note, did you know that Adobe has made many old version of their products available for free? Since I am not a power user in this area their old version are sufficient in many cases. Maybe for you too.

Posted in djur, fotografering, webbprojekt, webbservern | Tagged | 1 Comment

Manual geotagging of Canon photos

I recently bought a new camera and once again I bought a Canon. It was not an obvious choice and I was hesitating since the new version I was interested in does lack the GPS receiver that the predecessor, S100, had. The new model, S110, has WiFi and the idea is that you log the geographical coordinates with an app for your iOS or Android GPS-equipped-device instead.

The concept works fairly well if one remembers to keep the clocks synced and starts the app before shooting. It helps if you have many batteries or access to power outlets every now and then since the GPS logging is quite expensive battery-wise. Big “if’s” but I think I belong to the category of people who actually still find it quite useful and manageable. If I had to choose between WiFi or GPS, I think I would choose WiFi since I anyway can get the geotag feature and the WiFi feature is quite handy for example in order to show photos on the iPad directly from the camera.

The tagging is easily done from the app and works the same way in the iOS as the Android version. Obviously the app must have some kind of log where it keeps track of when the device was somewhere. Let’s say you want to geotag a photo manually, since you forgot to start the app, and you don’t know the location but you know that you were at the same place as earlier when the app was logging your location. There is no option to export the GPS log from the app in order to inspect the tracking points but I found the GPS logs in the iOS filesystem after some digging:

/var/mobile/Applications/5F585866-2CBC-4D3C-A8A1-0AED7EDDFCC6/Documents

I think the iOS device needs to be jailbroken in order to do this but that will hopefully not stop you. The directory 5F585866-2CBC-4D3C-A8A1-0AED7EDDFCC6 is probably called something else on your iOS device but you can easily find which by SSH:ing to the device as the user “mobile” and running find . -maxdepth 3 -name *.app|grep "Canon CW"

In Android I found the logs much easier and on my old Android phone I found them in /mnt/sdcard/Canon CW/.geolog/

In that directory the GPS logs are saved and a log entry might look like this:

$GPRMC,104430.000,A,5345.78060,N,8708.99040,E,,,080113,0,A*46

The location can easily be found in for example Google Maps by entering the coordinates in this format:

53.4578060,87.0899

The date and time can also easily be extracted. The date is in the end, 080113 is of course 8th of January 2013. The date is recorded in the beginning of the string in the GMT time zone: 104430 in the example below was taken at 17:44:30 in local “NOVT – Novosibirsk Time” time.

So, let’s look at how the manual geotagging procedure could be like. Canon has not been kind enough to log in GPX format which would have been very convenient. Luckily for us, it is simple to convert to GPX with help of the GPS visualizer website. By pasting from the GPS log and choosing GPX as output format we can retrieve a proper GPX file. This file can be loaded and applied to photos with help from the Java application Geotag. It can be started with Java web start. Before starting, please make sure you have ExifTool installed.

After I had adjusted the time stamps in the converted GPX file to match the “GPS time” in the EXIF data of the photos, Geotag kindly added the latitude and longitude to the photos. The added geo locations are recognized by other software so they appear to be applied correctly.

Geotag applies geographical data from gpx files to imagess

Posted in elektronik, fotografering, resor | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Activities in Novokuznetsk

After new year we have had some lazy days here in Novokuznetsk with late mornings and late evenings (at least in local time). We have not been sleeping on the couch the whole days though, both bowling and ice skating has been on the agenda so far.

Today we went to the dacha to prepare for tomorrow’s trip to there. We made sure the heating is working in the house and the sauna (Russian: banya) and in addition we also cleaned some paths and a parking place in the meter-deep snow. It was around -20 degrees Celsius but my feet, which often get cold, were not close to being cold thanks to woolen socks and valinki.

At the moment I am watching the hockey final between Sweden and US. Sweden played Russia in the final last year which was great but at least they met in the semi finals this year.

The skiing trip have been been postponed for now. It was -30 there today so skiing would not be much fun anyway.

I am continuously updating the new-year-photo-album.

Posted in resor, semester, sport | Tagged | Leave a comment

New Year in Novokuznetsk

We arrived to Novokuznetsk as planned in the morning on 29th of December. The car trip during the night from Novosibirsk went smoothly and we went to the dentist after sleeping a few hours. Before new year there were further preparations like hair dresser, nail studio and beauty saloon for Tanya, etc. We celebrated New Year’s eve in traditional Russian style. It was the third time for me so I am slowly getting used to the concept.

The initial plan was to go skiing in Mezhdurechensk today but it was -30 there and beyond -20 is not optimal for skiing. We will soon go bowling instead and might make another skiing attempt later if the forecast shows better temperatures. It has been 15-20 minus degrees today in Novokuznetsk but Mezhdurechensk is closer to the mountains and thus colder.

I am currently keeping an eye on the quarter final in the championship in junior hockey. Russia is facing Switzerland and it is 1-1 after the first period. I am confident that Russia will win comfortably though.

Posted in resor | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Russian mobile number

I have not bothered earlier but now I got myself a Russian mobile number. It makes more sense to be available via a Russian operator for the next two weeks and for upcoming trips to Russia so I have signed up with the same operator as Tanya, MTS. MTS is also the only operator with coverage at the dacha, kind of comparable to Telia in Sweden it seems like. And it is of course better to call Tanya and other MTS users for free compared to being on roaming with Swiss and Swedish operators in Russia. Since I stick to my Android-and-iPhone concept I have temporarily kicked out the Swiss SIM card.

One funny thing about mobile phones in Russia, at least with MTS, is that you do “roaming” with different rates also within the country when you leave you “home region”. In my case I am registered in the Kuzbass region and one can see from the prefix that I have a Siberian number.

So, my new Russian number is: +79832230631

Posted in elektronik, resor | Tagged , | Leave a comment