My brother set up his own business some time ago and naturally I helped him to establish some online presence. His company A-Trukit sells spare parts, complete forklifts and everything related. So, in case you need new Hyster forklift or trukkien varaosia contact A-Trukit.

We have settled down quite well in Finland. Our rented flat in Myyrmäki is still a bit of a mess as we are about to paint walls and some furniture. Weather has been disappointing as there hasn't been any snow yet.

FinJUG - Finnish Java User Group has started nicely and we had our first meetup in Helsinki. Planning of the technical meetup is underway and the event will take place in January. The tiny problem is that there are plenty of Java devs in Finland but they aren't all in Helsinki. So we might set up regional meetups.

Since last update I have changed job and country. We decided to move to Finland and we relocated last Saturday. I am now working as a software consultant for Valuemotive.

So it has been quite busy but I am trying to find time to start Java User Group Finland as well.

We are planning to do a little bit longer (around 200 miles) cycle trip this summer. It will cover Outer Hebrides and there is also a charity fundraising aspect. Read more about it in its own blog:

http://hebrides-challenge.blogspot.com/

We left Kirkcaldy a month or so ago and moved back to Edinburgh. The new flat is in Leith so the area is somewhat familiar. Quite many things changed though.

This new flat is reasonably new, it has some modern comforts like dishwasher and double glazing. Hmm... I must have spent long enough in UK because I am mentioning double glazing as an extra. Anyways, nice and modern flat with some sea view. I think I should write down an article about flat hunting and related matters. At least I have experience from three different occasions.

Otherwise life is pretty much same here, I am still working in the same company developing open source Java CMS. It will be published soon but the exact date is still unclear at least for me.

I wrote some thoughts down after photographing couple days with Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F. That is a film SLR camera from the 70s. Read it from my photography blog.

We made a nice and busy trip to Belgium. We spent most of the time in Brussels but we also visited Antwerpen and Bruges. Tasty beer, rude museum staff, sore feet and tons of photos to sort. Plenty of things to see and especially Antwerpen railway station was pretty impressive.

At work I am busy the soon to be released open source CMS. The content management UI is built on Ext GWT aka GXT so it looks pretty nice and it was quite pleasant to develop. The server side is usual EJB3, JPA/Hibernate etc... there is some REST API, website templates can written in Velocity and there is even possibility to add extra functionality with server side JavaScript. So bunch of cool technologies and it has been great learning experience.

Meanwhile we have been enjoying Scottish autumn weather and I have been trying out Android SDK. Tomorrow I will visit Scottish Open Source Awards - this time just as a spectator.

Yesterday I attended DevDays in London and it was pretty good event. Most of the speakers were good and I think I learnt something new from every one of them. Unfortunately there was not too much time to network with other developers as the breaks were short and the catering was failing. I am look forward to attending it next year.

Some photos of the event

I have been really lazy to blog recently but my Facebook and Twitter accounts have received regular updates. This seems to be common among bloggers as it is so much easier to blurp couple lines for an update. But blogging is not dead because it is a medium for longer articles.

So, to summarise past month I could mention couple highlights. We made a trekking trip to Kingussie which was fun but we did not reach our goal. The route to the munro was way too muddy for our shoes. A pair of rubber boots would have been better.

Then we had an autumn holiday. I visited Finland and Dóra visited Hungary. My trip was mostly about hunting with very modest results. I did not have time to visit friends but I met my brothers and their families.

Among other things I have been dreaming about buying Canon 7D but I think it is a bit too expensive. And our Canon 450D is still doing pretty fine after 10K shots so there is no good excuse to spend around 1700 GBP...

In Hungary I sometimes had nasty headaches and clearly they were neck muscle related. I assume some tense muscles were pushing or blocking nerves and that caused migraine. But for my delight that seems to be history now.

I think there are two things contributing to this. First of all, I do much more workout and outdoor activity than in Hungary. Visiting then gym with sauna two or three times a week keeps neck and back muscles fit. It also helps to relax after work and allows me to get rid of some code originated frustrations. The monthly fee of the gym is not too bad and I see it as investing in myself.

Getting a new computer to replace 12" PowerBook has helped as well. 20" iMac results in a much more ergonomic home setup and I think the bigger screen is better for my eyes as well. I picked a nice mesh back computer chair from a local store couple weeks ago so things have improved even more. I think the next step would be buying a bigger table with more space for all these items.

Ah, last weekend we were about to go biking around Loch Leven but bad weather and my flu ruined that plan. Instead the weekend was all about resting - which is not bad for some time. But next weekend should be better.

I also had bad luck with cash ISA (tax free savings account) as I applied for higher rate account but First Direct introduced new lower rates while they were processing my application. I did not like that so I cancelled the opening - luckily I did not send transfer order before that.

But at least now GBP seems to get stronger against Euro. That is good because our trip to Finland is approaching... holiday I say!

As mentioned before, I ordered a new toy for myself. This toy is a tiny RC helicopter - Walkera 4#3b. Despite its tiny size and relatively cheap price it has 4 channel controller and it actually flies. Because it is electrical and tiny, it is possible to fly indoors. I did not have any experience with helicopters so I ended up crashing and crashing until I learned how to keep it hovering. Great fun and plenty of challenge!

The sauna in the topic has nothing to do with helicopters. Instead, we found a nice gym in Kirkcaldy and it has a proper sauna. I would pay the membership fee almost just for sauna usage but being able to do some work out is a big plus.

I have met some other Finns living in Scotland in couple different events. For some reason most of the other Finns were women married to Scottish men. Maybe Finnish men took Scottish women to Finland - or they avoided them altogether. Anyways, the wappu event organized by Scottish-Finnish Society in Edinburgh was a great way to meet up and taste excellent home made sima.

On the photography front I have taken plenty of photos but I have not spent fortunes on new camera gear. I think the current setup is decent enough and might need only couple minor things. A set of Kenko extension tubes is most likely next thing to get. Obviously the set is never complete, there is always a better lens or camera to buy.

At work it has been busy enough. The project has been progressing nicely and working with GWT/GXT has been a good experience. The most recent highlight was from today as I set up a soft RAID 1 for new hard drives in my Ubuntu dev box. Of course I did not figure out the setup myself, the instructions were clear enough.

Oh yea, I also ordered a new toy for myself. It is still on the way from Hong Kong so have not tried it out, yet...

View Kirkcaldy-West Wemyss-Dysart in a larger map

Today my colleague gave me a leaflet advertising Social Innovation Camp. The idea sounds interesting and most likely I will try to attend because there will be a camp taking place in Glasgow. Now I just need a great idea or two...