And a (non-virtual) role change

May 1st I arrived back in Denmark after spending a year in the US assisting with assembling and training the GREAT team that we have there now as well as working with some truly skilled and passionate partners (you know who you are). I must say it’s been a great learning experience as well as a very exciting time – both for EPiServer but also for me personally.

Now, that I’m back in the old world again it seemed like a good time to try a new angle at producing great software – and as luck would have it I was offered to try on the shoes as product manager. Even though I’ve always had a deep passion for coding I’d love a chance to really influence the future of creating great web sites in a way that only a product manager at EPiServer can do it.

I believe that the most important job for any software product company is to create software that solves real problems that people in their markets have. This is the key factor that more than anything should be driving both the development and sales process – solving real problems for real people. And of course solving the problems in a carefully designed and planned manner so the solutions adapts to the users needs and skills – and not the other way around. Too many times have I seen countless examples of technology and features in various products (in all industries) that are there for no other other reason than adding a feature – but not solving any real problems. Flashy as some of it may seem it’s still essentially useless. The consequence: development time that could have been spend solving problems wasted, and users confused with features that doesn’t make sense.

Luckily EPiServers history shows that we have been very successful in solving real problems. And I believe that’s why so many web sites, editors, developers and marketing people use our entire product portfolio as their platform of choice today. But of course we can still do even better. Especially with YOUR help. I want to learn how you use EPiServer CMS. And even if you don’t use it – tell me how you manage your online content and which problems we could solve for you.

Awesome nostalgia trip!

Do you remember the good old Sierra Quest games? Well – I do. I loved those games. Especially police quest I->IV which could run on my dad’s old PC. I’d play them again and again during the late 80’ies / early 90’ies and to this day I hold them responsible for me learning english (although my english teacher in primary school did give it a nice try as well). Of course, Space Quest, Kings Quest and the immortal Leisure Suit Larry were classics I played as well.

Anyway, yesterday sitting in Philadelphia airport waiting for my flight back to civilization (Chicago) made me think: If only someone would port those old abandon-ware classics so I could run them on my iPhone. And guess what – Martin Kool has. And not just to the iPhone – they have been converted to javascript and can run on pretty much any modern browser. And now they even have multiplayer mode.

Check out the great web site here – but be prepared that it will take you hours before you can once again escape from nostalgia land.

Martin: I’m a great fan of your work. Keep it up – can’t wait to see more classics out there.

New Tool: Convert .FB2 files to PDF

It all started a couple of months ago when my wife, @othraen, got her Sony eReader. She loves it, and reads a couple of books a week on it. I can definitely see why she likes it – it’s slick, simple, and very pleasant to read on. Great toy, if you like books!

Anyway, with the speed she’s reading, not even the 5000000000000000 (or whatever count they reached now) free titles at Google Books is enough, and she’s started looking online for public domain Russian language books (most Russian is like Greek to me, but she likes it :-) ). As it turns out most of the Russian e-books online are in the FictionBook 2 format (.FB2). It’s an open XML format, probably defined by a league of Russian e-book publishers or so – it doesn’t seem to be all that popular in the rest of the world.

As you might imagine, the friendly people at Sony didn’t take this into consideration when planning on which formats to use in the eReader, so it is not supported. However, our friend, good old reliable PDFs are of course supported. It didn’t take many Google searches to find the fb2pdf.com website – a site devoted to converting fb2 files to PDF. It worked great on the first book….And on the second book. But later on, several of the books she tried to convert wouldn’t work. It would just freeze up and we could wait for ever and ever. As it so often happens, this resulted in the statement I fear so much “Honey, can’t you spend a little less time playing around with that programming stuff and a little more helping me get this book I want to read on my ereader??!” (yes, one of those questions where there’s only one right answer). In this case it would have made sense to simply drop a mail to the owners of the before mentioned website, asking them to fix whatever bug that caused the conversion to fail – but I was determined not to let this be the first time I give in to common sense :-)

Instead this was a perfect opportunity to take a closer look at FB2, PDFs, the iTextSharp library, SharpZipLib and ClickOnce deployment. At the same time, I’d get to program in my spare time – and with a perfect excuse – helping her :-)

It didn’t take much more than a couple of hours before I had a working windows application, that can load .fb2 files (or zip-files containing 1 .fb2 file), correct / change their Author / Title (since the ereader doesn’t seem to support Cyrillic characters in the title browsing menu), and convert into a PDF. It’s a ClickOnce application, which means you can install it directly from it’s online source – and it will automatically get updated if I upload a new version. The only tricky thing in developing it was actually embedding a font to show the Cyrillic Unicode characters that most Russian books are comprised of.

[UPDATE 2009-12-20] I finally found some time to fix a few bugs and add two new check-boxes: "Optimize for Sony Reader" and "Optimize for Kindle". Right now, all they do is to optimize page-sizes, so it should work better on the respective devices - but in the future they might also adjust font, font-sizes, etc. Let me know how well it works - I don't have a kindle, so I can't test it myself. Update should install itself.

Install the FB2 to PDF Converter tool from here.

Busy Times

A lot of people has been asking me what I'm up to lately - and complaining that my posts aren't as frequent as they used to...
I know it's been way too long since I blogged on this blog. It's not because I have nothing to blog about - in fact every day a new interesting blog-topic springs to mind and I begin writing it...But before I finish it, work or family-life or another idea interferes and break away my concentration.

I just got back last friday from Sweden where I had spend more than a week. First I went to a terrific(!) partner summit and after that I stayed to work at the office with the rest of the Research team. Unfortunately I learned the hard way that I should stay away from local food when traveling to exotic places like Stockholm, so that took a couple of workdays out of my calendar.

At the summit I presented a Wiki built on EPiServer - one of the projects that's been taking a bit of my time lately. Soon I'll do a dedicated post about it - and put it public somehow.
Meanwhile I'm also working on a ton of other stuff - like a new version of EPiDiff, Defining design patterns for EPiServer, LINQ, and a couple of gadgets that I'll reveale in the coming weeks.

Sunday I'm leaving DK again and once again heading for Ukraine, where I'll get to meet our new team in Kiev as well as some developers from a Partner in Kharkov.

Off to Stockholm

After a terrific first week at EPiServer Denmark, I'm off for a 3-day introduction tour to the swedish HQ.
In the first week I accomplished most of what I set out to do: I got my laptop up and running, with a decent dev. environment, almost learned my way around Vista (still don't know if I like it) and got started on a couple of really interesting projects.

I've also started an episerver-based blog on the Research site, r.ep.se - but don't worry, I plan to crosspost a lot so you shouldn't be missing out on anything here.
So far EPiServer seems to be both a great product and a really nice company - I certainly can't complain about the way I've been received so far.

So, now all thats left to do is to look forward to some of the famous swedish cuisine in the next 3 days to come...

First Day on the new Job

Today was my first day at the new job at EPiServer, and I must say that the future is looking bright!
A lot of new cool hardware had arrived for me (in fact, I'm posting this from my new Lenovo T61p laptop) and - yes, I've taked the step to Vista (finally).
So, naturally I spend a lot of day unpacking hardware, installing and learning my way around Vista (only made it crash twice).
I also had a chance to discover what some of the first tasks for me will be, after I have my dev-environment set up and memorized all of the EPiServer API by heart. It looks like I'll get to play around a little with building a wiki for EPiServer (there seems to be a demand) and I also get to finish a little project that I already started some days ago, making a Mail2EPiPages job. I'll try to post a little more - but don't be surprised if it's all EPiServer specific. Although I'll try to cross-post a lot of my posting will probably be on a blog on the EPiServer Research site.

I owe a big thanks to the great welcome I've received so far at EPiServer - and EPiServer Denmark (THANKS Michael!). I really have a good feeling about my future in this company...

New Job!

Just a quick personal update: I've decided to join the great team at EPiServer, starting october 1st as a Technical Architect. I'll still be based in Copenhagen, Denmark - but my primary work-area will still be within development (which for the most part is in Stockholm) so I guess I'll once again get to try working virtually with people all over the world.
I'm looking very much forward to joining the EPiServer family and I hope that I'll be able to contribute to make the EPiServer CMS an even better product (although it's already quite good).

...And just to answer an obvious question: Yes, this means that there might be more CMS and EPiServer related posts on my blog in the future - but I'll still try to find time between changing my sons diapers and developing CMS features to post some more unrelated crazy code :-)

PRSS = Post Release Stress Syndrome

It's been a while since I last blogged, and a lot have happened in the time.
Mostly I've been busy with the post-release of Maximilian 1.0 (= my son). It's amazing how tricky it is to code and blog, with such a cute kid to distract you and a lot of diapers to change...

Now, however, we're slowing finding a routine in our daily lifes and I'll try to start blogging again - but bear with me if I don't post daily like I used to.

I have a ton of unfinished coding and blogging projects in the pipeline that I'll try to finish off while at the same time I'll try to keep posting my comments when I see new cool developments in my spheres...Like today when Mats, you pointed me to the fact that EPiServer 5 RC4 just has been released. I already have a download in progress and I can't wait to see what changes it has brought since RC2.

My own MiniMax implementation

As you might have noticed these last couple of days has been kind of slow tech-blog wise.
This is of course due to the birth of our wonderful boy, Maximilian, who was born monday morning.
I expect it'll be a couple of weeks before I again have time to write tech-blog entries :-)

Check my personal blog for personal updates.

Happy birthday to me!

Today is my birthday. I love birthdays..lots of cake and many presents. The last couple of years (okay...ever since I lost my childhood innocense) the presents have gotten more and more "boring" (= practical and nice but not really play-toys).
Being the eternal kid that I am, I was naturally extremly pleased this year when my wonderful wife (!!!) gave me Mindstorms NXT.
I can't wait to start playing around with it and code C# applications to it.
A quick googling showed that this could be a good place to start!

New Job!

After about a month filled with interesting job interviews and exiting offers, I finally decided where I'm going to work!
As of tomorrow I'm working as a Software Architect at Infopaq International.

I find Infopaq to be a really interesting company, mainly because of their ideas and infrastructure. They monitor a lot (!) of media, write news resumees and distribute the relevant news to their customers, along with doing some really fancy media analyzing. In other words, they seem to have tons of data and information to play around with - something thats always fascinated me. I'm looking very much forward into taking the step from Information Retrieval into working for a genuine Information Provider.

On top of that they seem like a fun company with a lot of clever guys and with some great ideas and visions. I can't wait to get started and learn all about this new company in details.

The joy of being unemployed!

Ahh..posting again... I know, it's been a while, but now I hope to be back again. Now I've been through the first month of unemployed life, and I must admit that it has been nothing like I had imagined. It's been crazy! No time for sitting in front of the local supermarket drinking 6-packs of beers all day (as I had been told unemployed people are supposed to do), no time for playing around with technologies and ideas (as I had hoped) and no time for blogging either...Well, perhaps it's just a bad excuse, but I've been really, really busy.
During the first couple of weeks I got contacted by 40+ companies that wanted to discuss job oppertunities! Early on I was really eager and polite and noted everybody down and did my best to keep track of them, but I must admit that after a couple of weeks I started to sort them roughly at the initial contact. For instance I turned down all consultancy companies, cause I don't feel like body-shopping. At least not now.
But even with thoroughly sorting it mounted to around 15 initial interviews I had to go to. This part is really terrific and quite an ego boost (currently my bloated ego has reached a size where it can hardly fit into living room), that can definetly be recommended. Each interview was around 1,5h - most of the time talking about one of my favourite subject, me. As you can imagine it took quite a lot of time to go through all these talks, and following up on them afterwards. Meanwhile I constantly kept track of all advantages and disadvantages to each job, and after a couple of weeks of initial interviews I had a list of 10 companies offering me 15 different jobs, ranging from software architect, product manager, senior developer to researcher.
Then it started getting tricky!
Cause all these jobs on my shortlist sounded really good and I could easily see myself enjoying each and every one of them. But only one can be picked. So I decided to measure companies on more criterias and narrowed down the list to 5 companies that I decided to have a second talk with.
Now I'm down to considering 3 companies, and of those I must admit I do have a favourite - but I'm not telling which - at least not until the contract is signed and everybody's happy!

Just overwhelmed

Since Monday I've been practically flooded with interesting job offers. It's quite a wonderful situation to be in - to be able to pick and choose like this (and potentially to have 5 months with full pay to make a selection in). I've even considered using these next months to work on my own, blogging and building a second-life empire - or perhaps make my own little code-piece shop online?

It's overwhelming and a little bit scary. Whichever job I choose will probably be interesting and fun but it will also mean to not go down all the other interesting roads. I wish somebody had implemented Save & Load features in life, like in computer games. Imagine hitting a button, saving your state and then always being able to restore it later. That way all options could be carefully explored and enjoyed. Ah well. I haven't found that button yet, so I suppose I'll have to make a choice sooner or later. Until I do, more job offers are welcome.

I finished writing a CV (right now it's in Danish, English translation is on the way). See it here.

Looking for New Adventures

It's been a wonderful easter, where I didn't get any of the programming projects done, that I had hoped I'd get done.
But no worries... My employement situation had an interesting shift today which means that I now will have a lot of free time to blog, program my personal pet projects and write a good CV.

This also means that in a while I might be tempted by interesting job-offers. Here's a short list of some of the things I'm looking for in a company:

• Interesting work! This is by far the most important bullet. I love to do research and explore cutting edge technologies. But I might want to avoid those "maintain this old-fashioned asp based finance system" jobs.
• Innovation, Innovation, Innovation! I have a lot of creativity and I want to use it. I want to be in a company that has room for my ideas, and that isn't so big that it's forgotten how to be innovative.
• ISV. Independent software vendor sounds really good to me.. I don't feel like making those big consultancy bucks anyway. It's nice to work on a product suite where you have a lot of co-influence on the shape of the product, instead of a lot of small projects with angry customers barking at you all the time. But of course, if the right offer appears I might consider it anyway.
  
• And of course: friendly colleagues, good atmosphere, right salary, benefits, education, etc. is also very(!) important.
  

Feel free to contact me with interesting offers.
I'll post a CV, when I have one ready (havn't used it for the last 6½ years, so it probably needs a small update).

Back from Budapest

After spending a nice relaxing week in Budapest, seeing the sights and enjoying the spa's, I'm back in full force. One working day left, and then a loooong eastern which will be an excellent time to blog and code a bit more than what has been usual for the last couple of weeks.
I hope to get somewhere with the Poker Bot tournament, work on the DPLL group-assignment I'm in and perhaps also play around a bit with BDD's. For those who don't know what a BDD is, I'll post about it later. Until then, check out these really cool demo's at Configit Software, an ITU startup that uses BDD's in real life!

Off topic: A Murphy's day

Yesterday I really found out how Murphy must have felt when he formulated his law.
The day as such started out fine. I was planning to go to an afternoon meeting in Stockholm, flying there and back on the same day - nothing to it, I've done it often before.
The meeting was scheduled for 14:00 so my plane, scheduled to arrive at 12:35 in Arlanda should be fine. But then the problems started...

1. First our plane was delayed for half an hour - no reason given. We rebooked our planned meeting in Stockholm to 16:00.
2. At 13:oo we were informed that the flight was cancelled due to a container that had gotten stuck in the cargo room, leaving a dent in the plane. We were automatically rebooked to another plane, expected to leave 13:20.
   
3. Apperently Copenhagen airports computer system has difficulty dealing with such a massive change - it broke down and delayed the boarding of the new plane quite a lot.
4. At 14:00 The plane was boarded and ready to leave, but now a fine layer of snow had settled on the wings (it was a blizzard) and we needed to wait to be deiced.
5. 14:20 deicing was completed, but we were now informed that only one runway was open to takeoffs and landings and we'd have to wait in line to take off
6. 15:15 Take Off! however after take-off something felt kinda weird. It turned out that snow had gotten stuck in the door to the front landing gear and they couldn't close it. The purser announced that we probably had to land again. After a while they succeded in closing it though and we could speed up and head towards Stockholm Arlanda. At this time we had realized that there was no way we could make our meeting in Stockholm, but on the other hand we couldn't get off the plane.
   
7. 16:30 we landed in Arlanda. Went immediatly to the transit center to get rebooked to the next flight home. After 50 min. waiting in line we got rebooked.
8. Rebooked to plane that was scheduled to leave 16:30, but which was boarding at the time we were rebooked, at 17:20.
9. At 17:40 the we were boarded at the plane home, but the Captain comes on the intercom to tell us that Copenhagen airport is shut down, and our current timeslot is in 2,5 hours. However to not loose that slot we have to stay in the plane ready to leave.
10. Around 20:00 the plane take's off towards Copenhagen
11. At 21:00 we're making our approach to CPH airport, when we're informed that they once again have shut down the only runway due to the blizzard. We have to circle around for another half hour.
12. 21:35 On the ground. Unfortunatly is there still a computer breakdown in CPH so they havn't recorded our landing, meaning that they havn't sent any ground crew to the gate - so we have to wait for the door to be opened.
13. 21:55 We're finally in the arrival area of the airport only to find a kilometer long line to the taxi's and no taxi's arriving (the blizzard has closed down the roads). Trains are delayed 1h+
14. 22:35 I get on the first train bound for Copenhagen central station. This is usually a 10 min. train ride, but due to weather, missing train crew and problems with the train signals we're delayed. We spend quite a lot of time waiting just outside the central station without getting out.
15. 00:35 We finally arrive at the central train station. However I soon realize there's no way to get home from there. All other trains and busses are cancelled, no taxi's to be seen and lots of other people stranded in the same situation. I finally decide to go the office and wait for better times
16. 02:30 I finally manage to hijack a taxi (by pure luck) that dares to make it's way north. Half an hour later I get home (having to walk part of the way due to heavy snow).

Geez...I just hate days like that.

1. 
   

AI Efficient Programming

Today I started on a new course on ITU, entitled AI Artificial Programming. I've often before played a little around with various ML mechanisms, Neural Networks, m.m. but never studied AI in a structured mannor.. So far the course looks very promising.
I bought a couple of books for the course that both seem really good:

• Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2nd Edition), Russel & Norvig
  
• AI Application Programming, Jones

As soon as I find my feet in this course I'll post some of the silly AI thingies I'm destined to make :-)