VMware Player running Ubuntu under Windows 7

This is a system you are most probably already using, if you are akin to test driving various operating systems and software combos: VMware Player is a free virtualization software tool that can be easily applied to set up different, “virtual PCs” inside a single OS installation. Very useful, if you do not want to mess up your primary system each time a new interesting tool or OS comes available. I followed these instructions to set up Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala to run as a virtual machine inside my Windows 7 workstation. Seems to run just fine.

27.11.2009, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

This is probably the least sexy topic for techno-blogging like, ever, but here we go. Our old faucets were having rather bad leaks over the tables and over the floors, I was getting water to my head from the shower while trying to fill a bucket with water from the faucet underneath, and so on. It was definitely time to move on. After some deliberation and consideration, we ended up ordering the installation of Oras Vega (the new eco-button model) to the upstairs wash basin, the slightly more fancy Oras Vienda faucet to the parade side basin in the first floor, and two Oras Optima thermostatic bath and shower faucets to the bathroom in the cellar. There are all sorts of nice engineering details in the valves etc., but I really liked the overall functionality of design and the feeling of workmanship. Using the shower faucet is now a small, everyday pleasure: the control movements feel natural, and mechanisms react with pleasing, muted ‘clicks’ and ’snaps’. Donald Norman has written about “emotional design”, and this is exactly it. Oh, and we bought a new toilet seat also. IDO Seven D Image model. It has something called Siflon on its inner surfaces (no need for detergents, I am told). Dunno. But it looks cool and feels good…

Lumiyö / Night with snow, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

These days you can find pretty nice bird tables, like this little house we have now in our front yard. It was originally designed to be hung from a string, but it was pretty easy to hack into a suitable stick. So, now we have a regular show going on, with five pheasant, a flock of small birds and a squirrel fighting over the nuts and seeds.

Quiet at the night time, though. The photo was taken at the point when the snowfall had turned into light rain (of water), using my trusty old Canon EOS 350D (exposure time 3,2 seconds, I was using a Manfrotto stand), and I admit a serious graving of 7D with its environmental sealing and advanced autofocus point selection system… (More here: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos7d/ )

Since I really do not have time to tweak all the style options and edit CSS files manually, I decided to pay my way out, and bought a new, professionally designed theme for my blog. Thesis advertises itself as an “search-engine optimized framework” and it is actually pretty cool in terms of how easy it makes to tweak with the look and feel of your WordPress blog. It also adds a load of new functionalities that are only visible to the site admin. Expect more tweaking of this site in the future!

Staring at this blog numerous times per day, I am starting to feel it needs another facelift at some point. But since I do not have the time to start tweaking with the WPress theme frameworks, child themes etc., I just try a minor tweak — changing the typeface and the character spacing a bit towards more spacey and readable (I wish) format. Any comments?

Last summer, I wrote about our terrace and pergola project; and in May this year I mentioned that we are continuing with the paint layers next. After that, most of May and June free time was spent adding a couple of layers of paint to every surface of the construction. The rafters (or laths) supporting the transparent roofing were painted while still on the ground. The transparent roofing was made from Icopal Fastlock Uni — a strong polycarbonate sheet material, which has UV filtering top layer and a 10 year guarantee. However, I think “Fastlock” is a bit exaggeration on the fixing mechanism: it took a couple of days of dedicated pushing, pulling and nailing to get the thin, 20 cm sheets connected and then solidly fixed to the rafters. The outcome was nice, though. The roof looks pretty neutral (and it is a must in a climate like we have in Finland). Here are some photos:

Freshly painted terrace, doing some washing:

Fixing the “fastlocks”:

The finished terrace & pergola:

You can see the entire story of the project in photos via this link.

As you might remember, I spent the entire last summer vacation building a terrace and pergola into our garden. As these things take their time, this job continues this summer, including some additional constructions to support vines and other plants. The entire thing also needs to be painted (you cannot paint fresh preservative-treated wood as it contains too much water — now, as it is one year later, it is possible). We will be using Valtti Non-Slip from Tikkurila for the floor and Tikkurila Aitamaali for the upper parts. More photos in Flickr:

Being a carpenter is not really my forte, but having a house of your own sort of comes with this sort of things. We had had the elements for ages, but now, during the holidays was the once-in-a-winter chance of putting the damned wardrobe together. Laura had the basic functional ideas, like combining Elfa shelving and drawer storage elements together with the sliding doors framework that was manufactured by Kirena. There is a surprising number of measurements, drill holes and other details you can get wrong in a simple piece of furniture like this one. But this is ready now — after just two days of work. (Only one similar one left to go…)

An example what you might come up with, when you have the Holiday season and you need to invent something (anything) to keep the toddler (and yourself) entertained:

(sorry, Luka…)