kaapro.com - germany

Looks that the final countdown on my German experience has started. About a week from now I'll be heading back to Finland and will continue my private life. Its been interesting time in here and I think I'll be writing some type of summary once I get home.
The next week will be quite busy. Trying to provide my team mates as much information as possible on the areas I have worked on, providing some basic DB architecture introductions and naturally having the final parties in the Dorf.
But as said, I'll try to update with the full summary later on this month.

Looks that I have had another long pause between updates. There has not been so many  interesting things going on in my life. I traveled a bit, boosted my working style, set some goals for my sports and started planning the end of this year.
The traveling part contained few visits to close by cities. I visited my friend in Amsterdam. We had a nice peaceful weekend with at least 1 interesting experience: Ethiopian food! That was really interesting. Quite good tasting with extremely strange pancake type of things. All other parts of that visit were quite basic. Sauna, Beer and talk :D
Other destination I visited was Essen. Compared to Düsseldorf a bit smaller place but the style of the city from architecture point of view completely different that created the feeling of busy little place. Essen is a university town so it has quite a bit more active environment than we have here with lots of young people around the place. Something I'm missing here.
I also visited Helsinki around a week ago. It was truly wonderful to go to our office and meet my colleagues whom I have not seen since January. The attitude of working was quite different compared to german way. People really solving problems fast without too many calls to get approvals etc

Differences between cultures, working methods, foods and so forth are usually really interesting. Most of the time it opens up eyes on different approaches

Lets have a bit different blog entry today. The day started with full-on nerd stuff on gamescomm fair in cologne. 4 Huge halls presenting the latest and the greatest new games to come. Some really nice ones but way too many people to enjoy all that the fair could offer.
Once I got back to home I decided to explore a topic that had bugged be for a while: Can I connect my Mac via iSCSI to one of my Linux servers and how secure that connection would be.
The basic concept is that you need to have a target (aka server) and an initiator (client) for the connection. To get started with the setup I needed to explore the server part for starters. I had a Fedore Core 12 server at use so the target part was quite easy to build. I added RPMFusion to my repositories and installed iSCSItargets and kmod-iscsitargets to my system. I had some problems since my kernel version didn't match the availale packages so I ended up getting the packages from the project page and compiling them by hand. After getting the basics in place I created a small disk image for the setup using "dd if=/dev/zero of=/storage/lun1.img bs=1024k count=20000" and since I have an OS X initializing that for hfs+ using "mkfs.hfsplus -v test /storage/lun1.img ". Next step was to edit /etc/ietd.conf to get the LUN available via iSCSI. Important part was to create a Target setting with both IncomingUser and OutgoingUser in place so that the server and the client would need to authenticate agains each other. After this I only deeded to start the service "/etc/init.d/iscsi-target start" and I was ready from the server side
The Client side was a bit more tricky. Disk Utility does not have selection to manage iSCSI disks for some reason so I needed 3rd party software. GlobalSAN was a nice tool to do the job. Download, install and reboot and I was on my way. Go to System Preferences, GlobalSAN iSCSI and add portal with the address of your target server. In few moments I had a list of available targets. Selected the one I wanted to connect and went to Authentication settings to set the User and Target credentials. The drive appeared as mounted iSCSI device on my desktop.
The next problem was to secure the connection. Normally your iSCSI connections are on dedicated production network in your controlled datacenter but my setup was over the internet and as iSCSI does not have any transport encryption (that I know) available I needed to list my options. 1) have ipsec tunnel for the connection to encrypt the traffic 2) create an encrypted partition. Since I work usually via various vpn connections the ipsec was going to cause some problems, hence I chose to create an encrypted volume using TrueCrypt. I created the volume and mounted that as HFS+ to my mac. Traffic was now encrypted, the connection needed authentication and I even installed tripwire on the server to see local modifications on the test file so in the end I think I'm in quite good condition with the connection.
Problems that I will for sure have is on extending the volume and securing it from server failures. But as an experiment providing me deeper understanding of the technology I think I reached my goal!

Life is getting back to normal mode. Summer is over, work has started and so is planning for future. The last few weeks of July was dedicated to relaxing. I started my vacation by heading to Finland for a few days. First to Turku for Turku Modern festival and cruising in the Turku Archipelago in a party boat. The scenery there is beautiful and the people on the boat fully charged in dancing.
After Turku it was time for my brothers kids christening. It was actually the first time I meet the new born and he really was an angel. No crying, no nothing, just peaceful little kid. The day was just perfect! Sun was shining and the closest family gathered in my parents garden. The kid got a very good name: Miro Daniel!
Time in Helsinki continued for few more days. Sun was shining and we took couple of bike tours around the city. I had a chance to see quite a few of my friends and enjoy the Finnish summer. That didn't continue so long since we headed to Spain for a week.
Andalusia tour started in Malaga. After an extremely long flight (due to some strike in France) we got to our hotel and headed out to see what kind of place Malaga was. It was a nice small place that offered a good starting point for our tour. Some walking around the city center and some tapas and sangria to get us on the holiday mood works pretty well. Our full tour consisted of Malaga, Marbella, Gibraltar, Tarifa, Los Canos de Meca and Sevilla. Hopping from one city to another almost every day by car. Los Canos de Meca was the only place we staid for longer and it was worth it. Other places were a bit touristic but still nice. Good food and lots of sunshine with the best company ever got my mind of all daily things.
We started heading back from Spain on Wednesday and stopped over in Berlin for the rest of the week. Partying a bit, spending time with our friends and having late breakfasts. I think the best bit on this trip was the Spreepark in Treptower park. An old entertainment park that was abandoned some 10 years ago but never cleaned. Old rides were still there although on a restricted area so we had to be a bit careful not to get caught - exiting isn't it? :)
Returning from a perfect holiday with my lovely girlfriend to the daily business in Düsseldorf has been a bit rough. I'm still trying to find the motivation to do my work and I'm wondering why I'm not living under the same roof with Maija. Time with her is always so good. Perhaps the only way to get trough the autumn is to start planning my next steps.

Looks like I'v had a bit of a break from updating what is going on in my life. Summer is here! Actually it has been here for quite some time already and I have even had a chance to spend few weekends just relaxing, out of Düsseldorf!
In the middle of June Me and Maija visited Barcelona for an extended weekend! Weekend full of love, joy and friends. Naturally some really good parties, drinking and beaches. Barcelona is still one of my favorite cities in Europe. It is good in size and shape and it offers so much to do in completely relaxed way. No one is in hurry to do something but anyway things seem to get done. People are there to enjoy life!
After Barcelona we had a mid-summer simulator aka Juhannus here in Düsseldorf. We gathered a group of Fins and headed out on a beach, enjoyed grilled food next to the bonfire and made sure that everyone felt like it was the real Juhannus! Naturally when Finns do it, they end up in a hangover of some kind but thats how we live!
The Worldcup started, Düsseldorf gathered to watch the games in Altstad and Germans celebrated their success. At the office all other nationalities got reminders of how sure Germany was of their victory in football.
Before the Wordlcup got to end we had a weekend in Berlin. Most of my friends were there (some very important onces missing though) and the parties continued. Berlin once again offered the possibility to get your mind of work and see that the best thing in your life is friends! The weekend was HOT, I think temperature around 30 and no wind so we didn't have that much strength to do anything special but nevertheless we had lovely time together with Maija.
After the Berlin weekend it was time for the quarter finals! Locals extremely exited and almost certain of victory. It was really fun to watch the people yesterday when Spain showed Germany how the game is played! The people were completely shattered after the humiliation they got! Just Lovely!

Now the last week of work starts before summer holiday. Heading to Finland and then a bit around Europe (ok, Spain and Germany again :D). I'm currently really excited to go away from here, spend lots of time with Maija and have some time to think what will happen next.

For those who know me better, they also know that there is one man in the world with his band that really moves my world. Simon Posford aka Hallucinogen was the one who introduced me to psychedelic trance some ten years ago. The event that got me really going was Hallucinogen @ Makasiinit I think around 2001? After that it was all about seeking the same feeling that he created in a deserted railway station hall in the hearth of Helsinki.
Today - during my expat time - Hallucinogen Live was performing on a surprise gig in Helsinki. Again a surprise gig as the few previous ones around the world. Unfortunately the time and the money just cant give all in. One week before the event the flight tickets are around 500€ for the journey. Just something I cant throw around without regrets and weeks of remorse.
With the anticipation of some real psy parties, I googled what people know about Finland and about the psychedelic scene over there. It is really amazing actually to read about the crazy experiences: People go into woods for the 1st time in their lifes (like really in the middle of nowhere) and experience what is referred as Suomi sound in the there. The sound is the most twisted, uplifting and hard all at the same time - something completely different than anywhere else in the world. The product of a mind that is kept in he darkness for 6 months of a year and then put to constant day for the next 6 - the Sun does not go down for quite some time in Finland and that creates these mad geniuses that make the trolls and fairies dance in the forrest.
** A promise to be made: I will go to the next Hallucinogen live in europe what ever it takes **

What a week! It started with some work (only little since thursday was a bank holiday) and ended in the Opera. Really amazing stuff in between in the cold weather of Dusseldorf. The highlights of the week were as follows:
Wednesday after work I had a chance of excersising some target practicing with a stick and some balls.  A nice night of pool with a collegue. Its really been a while since I last played but I still know the basics and apparently you can get quite far with the basics. My opponent was a bit better but as he says, "Its the tools that get you to the goal".
Thursday was a day of relaxation. I managed to sleep late and spend most of my day reading. The late evening ended up in the movies. I went to see the latest edition of the Robin Hood. This time made by Ridley Scott and starring Russel Crowe as the Hood. I kind of think I had seen that movie earlier but at that time it was called Gladiator. The basic entertainment you would expect from those two, quite enough for me (due to lack of english movies in the region).
Saturday was another day of complete relaxation. It started in the Claudius Therme in Cologne. Really good Saunas with a German twist. 1st of all you are not allowed to throw water in to stones (like you do in Finland). 2nd commandment: No talking! 3rd: have these strange events during your Sauna experiment where you rub salt and honey to your naked body in front of everyone. Now visualize the same thing you just did but with a fat 60+ woman!
After the Sauna it was time for entertainment: Cirque del soleil - Verakai! It had been quite some time when I last visited a circus. This time it was different and well worth it! Seeing how amazing acrobatic movements the circus folk did got me really excited! No special effects, no computer animation - real life people with complete control over their bodies and the ability to do things you could never imagine. Circus is in the town and I really recommend that to everyone!
The weekend ended up in the Opera. I went to see Rigoletto by Verdi in my local operahouse with a group from RhineBuzz. Around 10 opera lovers from the expat community. The opera was great from the singing point of view. The stars really did know how to use their voices. The only downside of the event was that the acting part was modernized. Instead of having these beautiful surrounding with old fashion clothing the guys were in jeans and girls had normal (grey) dresses. The only things on the stage were dummies - the once you see in shops displaying clothing. I really dont like this type of stageing. Unfortunately it seems to be fashionable at the moment so it might take a while before I see something that pleases the eye as much as it pleases the ear.
As a wrapup: it is really good to have weeks of culture and sports (oh jeah, I did that too: badminton and jogging) instead of drinking and partying. I feel so much more energetic at the moment!