Log

Things change. For quite some time now, I’ve been planning a return to Northern Europe to be closer to my Scandinavian roots, family and friends. Two weeks ago, I started my new job as an Interface Developer at a Copenhagen-based digital agency TRIPLE LBi (the Danish office of the global digital marketing and technology agency LBi ). More »

On Sunday 16 May, 2010, Ronnie James Dio passed away. Having grown up listening to heavy metal bands from the 70’s and 80’s, I just can’t believe the man is gone. Rainbow — one of the bands I listened to extensively — was the main reason why I started playing drums in the 80’s. Thank you for the music, Ronnie, and rest in peace!

Recently I’ve been checking various ways for optimising frontend code. In Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (2nd Edition), Nicholas C. Zakas speaks about best practices for deploying websites in production (among other good things). Having a solid build process for deployment saves both time and bandwidth, and helps automating repetitive tasks. There are plenty of online resources about the subject, but Julien Lecomte’s Building Web Applications With Apache Ant explains really well what possibilities Ant offers for frontend code build process (see also Setting up a JavaScript Build Process). For more details, see Apache Ant Manual.

Based on the advice from those articles, I’ve put together a basic Ant script which concatenates and minifies both JS and CSS files during the build process. This could be used as a base template for frontend production code. More »

Just came back from skiing holiday in beautiful val d’Anniviers in Switzerland. Lots of sun and good skiing. Check out these photo sets from Grimentz and Zinal!

Time goes quickly — especially on the web — so I though it was time to realign and give this site a new, fresh look. While streamlining the site and reorganising some of the content, I changed to HTML5 DOCTYPE (divs with HTML5 class names rather than the new HTML5 elements UPDATE: now using the new HTML5 structural elements, with the HTML5 IE enabling script), and applied some CSS3 enhancements for browsers that support them. More »

It’s already 2009 — time sure flies! I thought I’d pick out some personal highlights of the passed year, in no particular order. More »

In 2007 I listed my observations about Brussels, both praising and criticizing the city. While I still agree with all those comments, I now have some things to add, to further illustrate the fact that Brussels is a city of contradictions. More »

Today, on a sunny Sunday, Brussels feels like a perfect place to be in. There are just a few cars around as only public transport, taxis and emergency vehicles are allowed to enter the city streets. Cyclists, skateboarders, rollerskaters, pedestrians, and even horse-drawn carriages take to the streets. I just wish it would be a bit like this tomorrow too; but I guess I’m asking for too much. More »

Two good concerts during the last couple of days: first Maria Schneider playing at Brosella Folk & Jazz, and then Paul Simon at Forest National. The former I’ve seen before in Finland many years ago, but the latter never. Paul Simon, glad you came to the cold, humid Brussels. More »

My Windows XP machine crashed some days ago, which actually helped me to finally stop using Windows as my primary machine at home. Why bother when I have Linux and Max OSX too? (Luckily I had separate partitions on my Windows disk for the data, and also a backup of that data ;-) ) More »

Times have changed. I used to avoid using JavaSript as I didn’t see the point. Why use JavaScript when many users disable it anyway? Searching for code snippets and tutorials on the web took a long time and often those scripts didn’t work properly — and I didn’t know how to fix them. But after reading a couple of good books, DOM Scripting (New Riders Press 2005) and Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and AJAX (Apress 2006), and after understanding the concepts of graceful degradation, progressive enhancement and unobtrusive Javascript, I began to see the benefits of using JavaScript. However, I didn’t know where to start, or how to build or choose a good framework of functions that can be reused. More »

Happy New Year! To kick off 2008, I thought I’d write a few words about blogging (and social networking). I’ve got a new job too, but more on that later. First of all, I find it difficult to post here regularly. The problem is not that I don’t have anything to say, but rather that I don’t have time to do background research when preparing articles. It’s not easy for me to “just start writing”. Writing requires inspiration and practice. Writing takes time — especially when you’re not a native English speaker. More »

Next year, 2008, is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Olivier Messiaen, a French composer, organist, and ornithologist. He must have been one of the most original composers of the 20th century: by mixing his own modes of limited transposition, birdsong transcriptions, exotic rhythms, religious ideas, and colourful instrumentation and orchestration (see ondes Martenot, for example), he created some truly original and inspiring music. More »

Lists are nice. I’m a big fan of “best of” lists as they help me keep things in one place for future reference. By viewing lists compiled by other people you can get new ideas and refine your own lists. It’s fun and useful. This time, I’ve put together a list of restaurants in Brussels that I particularly like. This is not exactly a “best of” list. It’s merely a collection of restaurants I’ve found to be good and not too expensive. In Brussels you can’t have a bad meal even if you wanted to! More »

During the last week or so, I’ve heard three good concerts here in Belgium: first The Chemical Brothers in Antwerp, then SoundCheck at Beurskafee in Brussels, and finally Meshell Ndegeocello in Leuven. Some weeks ago, Bobo Stenson Trio played in St Truiden (too bad I missed that). More »

To follow up with my previous post about travel photos on Flickr, I’ve uploaded some new photos. If you have a minute, go ahead and have a look (arranged below by tags). More »

After returning from holiday in Sweden, I uploaded some photos to Flickr (see photo sets from Gothenburg and Helsingborg). I’ve had an account there since quite some time, but I didn’t really use it that much, until now. Many people use Picasa, but I somehow prefer Flickr — partly because you don’t need any additional software (just a browser) to upload your photos. It’s fun and useful! More »

A few days ago, I came back from a trip to Sweden. After a couple of days in Helsingborg (a nice town with beautiful seafront!), I continued to Gothenburg. I still have a very special relation to that city; after all, it’s the city where I lived in the nineties (as exchange student). More »

Shopping in Brussels used to be a very frustrating experience for me: I spent hours in crowded streets and chain stores without finding anything. Something was missing: the small, cool boutiques. Maybe I just didn’t know where to find them? More »

Could 2008 be the year of the Linux desktop? With the latest release of Ubuntu Linux (7.10), I believe for me it will be the year when I finally drop Windows and continue using only Mac OSX and Linux. At home, that is. At work, it might be a different story. More »

Radiohead’s new album, In Rainbows, has become available for download from Radiohead website. It’s up to you to decide how much you pay for it! Now, this is a brilliant idea which I hope will carry on to other people and change the way music business currently works. More »

People in Belgium live in two (or more) different worlds. Some even say they don’t want to live in the same country with the rest of its population. Or is it only something the national media and some crazy politicians want us to believe? I admit that I didn’t realise until now, during the current crisis, how deep the linguistic divide in Belgium actually is. Or is it? Why are media and politicians exaggerating things? More »

Joe Zawinul, one of the greatest musicians and composers of all time, has passed away in Vienna. I was lucky enough to see and hear him live in Paris in 2002 — but I still regret I never experienced a live gig of the greatest group in the history of improvised music: Weather Report. (I was too young!)

I’ve been listening to Weather Report half of my life. There is something in the music that never dies. Thank you Joe Zawinul for all the inspiration and joy you brought us. You will be remembered forever.

No more support on akikoo.org for dead browsers: Internet Explorer 5, 5.5, or 6. If you’re reading this with any of the above mentioned browsers, you’ll see unstyled content only (with just a few basic CSS rules applied). More »

Brosella Folk & Jazz festival is one of the highlights of summer. This year, I missed the folk (so I thought) by going there on Sunday to check out some jazz. The evening turned out to be quite “folky”. More »

Two Father Christmases, bright lights, giant balloons, large amounts of confetti, video projections and great music. Wayne Coyne and The Flaming Lips delivered big time on this year’s Cactus Festival. More »

They dedicated one tune to the worst president in history. Then they played Machine Gun. The message was clear — and their funky beats irresistible! The Roots from Philadelphia, played yesterday at Couleur Café festival in Brussels. What a nice evening it was. More »

Today, while feeling miserable and being fed up with Belgian weather, I remembered someone has said: there is no bad weather, just bad clothes. Well, in Brussels you can’t find rubber boots (so I bought trekking shoes instead). And you can’t use your umbrella because the wind will tear it down in seconds. So what can you do? Stay in your car? NO! Stay home and play with your favourite Linux distribution, for example ;-). That’s what I did today. More »

As I mentioned in Books to bring to a desert island, Part I, I will now concentrate on books about music, art and inspiration. I realise that my bag is getting heavy. But don’t worry, I’ll keep the headline but keep on adding books that I like :-).

Special thanks to Anders Jormin who recommended most of the Swedish books on this list. More »

Without these books — or without having met the people who recommended some of them — I wouldn’t be the kind of person I am today. I’ll start with some of my all-time favourite books that mean a lot to me personally. More »

I thought I’d share some personal observations and impressions about living in Brussels. But first, let me make myself clear that I’m only talking about the city and people of Brussels, not Belgium as a whole. I believe Brussels is like Paris in that it’s like a small country within a country. It seems to be quite different than the rest of Belgium. More »

Before visiting Berlin for the first time in 2005, I didn’t really know what to expect. Even if I had heard only positive stories about it, I thought it would be a tiring city full of ugly buildings and traffic noise (I don’t really know where this impression came from; probably my ignorance). I’m so glad I was wrong – Berlin is such a nice and creative city. More »

After having my website online for years without any major updates, I at last found the time to design my new WordPress powered site. I have a new domain name too: akikoo.org.

For the first time in a personal project, I’m using blog software — which I find pretty useful as a cms too. RSS 2.0 feed is available for those who can never get enough of the web.

If you have any comments, don’t hesitate to post your wisdom, or contact me.

Back in 1998, I created a “cheat sheet” containing the most common instruments and their ranges. The idea came after I found it too time-consuming to check the ranges in various books whenever I wanted to write music for a particular instrument. After all, it’s difficult to keep everything in your head. More »

Portugal holiday photos from #Sintra http://tinyurl.com/22ny7j4 and #Sesimbra http://tinyurl.com/27ysnxt on Flickr.

HTML5 Boilerplate (http://lnkd.in/bWSTnd) and HTML5 Reset (http://html5reset.org) – templates that can save hours of work.

Proportional leading with CSS3 Media Queries: http://tinyurl.com/253d6ey by #Malarkey

The WebM video format – the saviour of open video on the web? http://tinyurl.com/2faqbw8

HTML5 For Web Designers: http://tinyurl.com/23v2cp5. There’s no mention about advanced JavaScript APIs, but I’m going to buy myself a copy!

Making AJAX Applications Crawlable: http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/index.html

Is it true that in #Drupal you can only overwrite core functions that start with ‘theme_’? Wouldn’t want to hack the core…

Checking #Drupal theming and boy, those default themes are suffering from chronic divitis/classitis! So bloated that it makes me miss #MODx. Luckily the output can be customised in template.php.

How IE8 Determines Document Mode: http://tinyurl.com/yg4r66y

Great general advice on job interviews, and specifically for a front-end engineer from Nicholas Zakas at Yahoo!: http://tinyurl.com/ycb2bj2

“No one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost.” The Snowflake Man: http://snowflakebentley.com/

Priori Acute typeface by Jonathan Barnbrook: http://tinyurl.com/y8ga3vy – remember M.C. Escher?

Keep calm and carry on (with HTML5): http://tinyurl.com/y8qockb – a great piece from #Malarkey as usual.

Infographic of the W3C’s browser statistics since 2002: http://www.axiis.org/examples/BrowserMarketShare.html

How a web design goes straight to hell: http://tinyurl.com/yhez853 ;)

Smashing Magazine killed the community: http://tinyurl.com/ykyvmhx. Great article about the recent trend of “10 best whatever” list articles.

Upgraded #Ubuntu from 9.04 to 9.10. This time it broke only graphics driver and Home’Bank application (so far). Ubuntu is getting better ;)

Redesigned my site, go have a look! http://www.akikoo.org/. Revised structure, #HTML5, some #CSS3 enhancements and flexible 13-grid layout.

Just saw The Flaming Lips for the second time in my life…nice show like always :) They played songs from their latest album Embryonic too.

Steve Souders article on #font-face and performance: http://tinyurl.com/yh6xsso. Interesting read.

Excellent article by Bruce Lawson: #XML on the Web (http://tinyurl.com/yab5ghk). Be sure to check the comments too.

Another great article about font embedding: @font-face in depth, http://tinyurl.com/yarvccj. Thanks Zoltan for collecting these resources.

Methods for detecting Chrome Frame: http://tinyurl.com/ycjttkz and http://tinyurl.com/yamh662

Trying out Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress.

Checking Google #Chrome Frame (http://tinyurl.com/m3s5jz). What a crazy idea, but I’m loving it.

Digging IE6 Aggressive Graceful Degradation: http://tinyurl.com/m5cvj6

Using Twitter RSS feed through a Yahoo Pipe, then Twitterfeed and Ping.fm web services to display tweets as status updates in LinkedIn.

A very nice shorthand method for designing UI flows: http://tinyurl.com/lzzkfj

A good collection of #SEO tips: http://tinyurl.com/mhhfgw

Bulletproof @font-face syntax: http://tinyurl.com/mnpflh. Brilliant! 2009-09-06

A Shared Encyclopedia of Typefaces: #Typedia – http://typedia.com/ 2009-08-28

Started working with #Git (http://git-scm.com/). SVN is nice, but Git is better – and it’s incredibly fast! 2009-08-10

YouTube to drop support for IE6: http://tinyurl.com/kmj7u7. Nice move. 2009-07-15

Good piece from @adactio about the “death” of XHTML and the rise of HTML5: http://tinyurl.com/nf62d6 2009-07-07

Looks like HTML 4.01 Strict/HTML5 is the way to go. XHTML is dead: http://www.w3.org/News/2009#item119 2009-07-02

Managed to build a dynamic 3-level nested menu on #ExpressionEngine using related entries and the Query Module. Yay! 2009-06-29

A very well written tribute to the King of Pop: http://tinyurl.com/rxwfsg. R.I.P. 2009-06-27

Micro$oft plans to use Word engine to render HTML emails in Outlook 2010. Stupidity has no limits. See http://fixoutlook.org 2009-06-25

Trying to build a 3-level nested navigation menu (that would be reflected in the URL structure too) on Expression Engine. Not straighforward 2009-06-25

Google “Let’s make the web faster” site: http://code.google.com/speed/ 2009-06-24

Mozilla’s reply on using HTML5 video without using JavaScript: http://tinyurl.com/l9c772 2009-06-23

Required reading: Five CSS design browser differences I can live with by @Malarkey (http://tinyurl.com/4towwg) 2009-06-23

Palm Pre sounds interesting – should I buy it too, like Marco did? See http://tinyurl.com/luanmg 2009-06-21

A solution for using HTML5 video: http://tinyurl.com/kr2phh. Let’s free video from the “plug-in prison”!

Time to stop showing clients static design visuals: http://tinyurl.com/4wtqou). A very good piece from Malarkey. 2009-06-20

A solution for using HTML5 video: http://tinyurl.com/kr2phh. Let’s free video from the “plug-in prison”!

Checking Expression Engine stuff.

Checking Expression Engine stuff.

HTML 5 rather than Flash or Silverlight?

HTML 5 rather than Flash or Silverlight?

In memoriam Jarmo Savolainen (1961-2009). Thank you for the music and everything – R.I.P.

In memoriam Jarmo Savolainen (1961-2009). Thank you for the music and everything – R.I.P.

“No IE onboard Windows 7 in Europe” (http://tinyurl.com/nso6kt). Why the EU attacks M$ while using their products themselves? Apple next?

“No IE onboard Windows 7 in Europe” (http://tinyurl.com/nso6kt). Why the EU attacks M$ while using their products themselves? Apple next?

Trying out NetBeans (http://tinyurl.com/sxt7d) with Nettuts+ ‘Twilight Theme’ (http://tinyurl.com/qc36ra ) – fantastic, check it out!

Trying out NetBeans (http://tinyurl.com/sxt7d) with Nettuts+ ‘Twilight Theme’ (http://tinyurl.com/qc36ra ) – fantastic, check it out!

Finally found some free time to play with Cufón (http://tinyurl.com/awm6ux)

Finally found some free time to play with Cufón (http://tinyurl.com/awm6ux)

Typekit (http://tinyurl.com/o3r69f) – looking forward to this.

Google Wave sounds interesting: http://tinyurl.com/lar4vn

Typekit (http://tinyurl.com/o3r69f) – looking forward to this.

Google Wave sounds interesting: http://tinyurl.com/lar4vn

Found Malarkey’s Universal IE6 CSS (http://tinyurl.com/odf43t). I’m liking this idea, a lot.

Found Malarkey’s Universal IE6 CSS (http://tinyurl.com/odf43t). I’m liking this idea, a lot.

Good article about the X-UA-Compatible header in IE8: http://tinyurl.com/qfgect

Good article about the X-UA-Compatible header in IE8: http://tinyurl.com/qfgect

Checking the Mozilla.org redesign (http://redesignmozilla.org/) – looking good.

Checking the Mozilla.org redesign (http://redesignmozilla.org/) – looking good.

Looking forward to the Pirate Bay trial, Episode Two

Fed up with U2’s tour policy.

Fed up with U2’s tour policy.

Microsoft requires developers to opt into a standards rendering mode in IE8. This is outrageous.

Microsoft requires developers to opt into a standards rendering mode in IE8. This is outrageous.

Following the Pirate Bay trial with a great interest.

Boycotting the Israeli economy: http://tinyurl.com/7jkhe3

Boycotting the Israeli economy: http://tinyurl.com/7jkhe3

I’m so glad that Bush the Pig (http://tinyurl.com/9ufu7t) is gone now.

Enjoying music on Spotify.com

Enjoying music on Spotify.com

Finished reading Anna Politkovskaya’s book A Russian Diary, which should be called A USSR Diary instead. Recommended reading. R.I.P., Anna!

Finished reading Anna Politkovskaya’s book A Russian Diary, which should be called A USSR Diary instead. Recommended reading. R.I.P., Anna!

Finished reading Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. War is economics === continuous growth for rich people.

Finished reading Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. War is economics === continuous growth for rich people.

Digging modular layout systems: http://tinyurl.com/65de9x

Digging modular layout systems: http://tinyurl.com/65de9x

Finally set up an on-line Subversion repository for my own website too, need to track source changes (and not only rely on latest backup).

Finally set up an on-line Subversion repository for my own website too, need to track source changes (and not only rely on latest backup).

Digging Fleet Foxes.

Digging Fleet Foxes

Spotify, please let me in!

Waiting for *The Roots* concert tomorrow!

Waiting for *The Roots* concert tomorrow!

I love MODx.

I love MODx.

Listening to good old Jan Hammer…

Listening to good old Jan Hammer…

One the greatest Finnish musicians and composers, Pekka Pohjola, has passed away. Thank you for the joy you brought to the world – R.I.P.!

One the greatest Finnish musicians and composers, Pekka Pohjola, has passed away. Thank you for the joy you brought to the world – R.I.P.!

Mitch Mitchell, thanks for everything – R.I.P.! 2008-11-13

Just back from Geneva, where smoking ban was overturned earlier this autumn. Can’t understand why. Smoking is SO old-fashioned. 2008-11-12

Well done, Obama! Now, fuck off George W. Bush! 2008-11-05

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18: what a fantastic camera! :-) 2008-07-12

This is a list of courses included in my Master of Science (Econ.) degree – 250 credit units all together.

In Finnish Spatiaalinen ääni graafisessa käyttöliittymässä. Pro gradu -tutkielma Jyväskylän yliopistossa 2002.

In Finnish Kritiikkiä ja parannusehdotuksia opiskelijan näkökulmasta.

In Finnish Englantilaisen säveltäjän Thomas Adèsin nousu kotimaansa menestysten kautta yhdeksi Euroopan suosituimmaksi nykymusiikin säveltäjäksi. Tiedonhankinnan menetelmät–kurssin lopputyö Sibelius-Akatemiassa maaliskuussa 1999.