Long time no see - and fire fighters at work in Gothenburg storm

Hello y'all..

This blog has been pretty dormant lately. I can't faulter anyone but myself for that. It's been a lot of work for a while. And I guess that we'll continue. 

However I thought I check back in here for a brief moment and share a few shots taken this sunday when we had a pretty mean storm here in Gothenburg. This time its a few fire fighters securing some canvas on a building site. 

A bit of this and that - Wishing for a cold winter...

Have you ever approached a corner of a house, wind and rain in your face, and when you turned the corner you still had the wind and rain in your face? You kept your head down a plowed through the showers down the block just to have the same thing happen again on the next corner? Well, welcome to Gothenburg. One of the cities in the world where you'll have the pleasure of making a complete 360 degrees turn and have the wind and the rain in your face the whole time! Now isn't that something to brag about to the grand kids..

Today the weather clearly plays a "don't you dare venture outside.." game with us, so I thought I share a couple of pictures of how I like the winter to be, spiced up with a few thoughts on the coming months.

First of all, I do wish for a cold winter, in terms of ice cream. A few hours ago Google's Andriod Team along with Samsung announced Android 4.0, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich, as well as their new and stunning Galaxy Nexus Phone. This will probably be my next phone when it's coming to my hood in Novemberish.. You can see more for yourself on the link below. 

Engadget offers a hands on video of Galaxy Nexus. 

So, you got the phone, it's cold outside, your on a walk with the wife and friends. Feeling hungry? Well, you whip out some android magic from your pocket and make a search on google for "A great restaurant experience"...

If I had anything to say about the search engine listnings at Google the number one hit on that search would be "Dinner 22" in Gothenburg. We went there last saturday and man what a treat. From the moment we entered to the moment we left we felt cared for. Not in a posh, "you can have anything you want but'll cost you a lot" way, but rather in a "Hey, nice to see you, have a great evning" way.

The ambience in the restaurant was great, not to silent, not to loud. There were a few people loitering in the bar, while most people headed straight for the tables. The food was really great, and no one raised an eyebrow when we started to modify the menu by adding stuff from other dishes to the ones we wanted. 

When leaving we all praised the staff, and I think my last comment to them captures our experience. "It's not that hard to find a place with great food, it's so much harder to find a place with great food and great staff". 

One additional perk is that it's close to everything, Mässan, Stadsteatern, Lorensbergsteatern and Scandinavium are all close at hand. 

Oh, and almost forgot.. To round things up here's how I like my last few months of the year:

Marriage proposal over Gothenburg - We all hums "love is in the air.."

Someone's had a great idea today. I do hope that he:

1. Made sure she was outside to see it. 
2. Got the right answer. 

If someone knows Michaela or her, hopefully, "soon to be" then drop me a line. 

Steve Jobs - A few thoughts..

If you make a search in Google for "Steve Jobs" you end up with roughly 103 000 000 hits, Bill Gates gets 54 000 000. 


I'm not an Apple fan, not an iPhone fan boy, I carry an Andriod myself, and I like to "own my phone rather than be owned by my phone". Nevertheless there is something with Steve Jobs that has made an impact on me. I guess building an empire like that takes a special kind of person. Over the years there has been some harsh words both from Jobs, and about him. 

In my mind there's however no doubt that Steve Jobs was a pure genius. Somewhere along the line he probably read Taleb's Black Swan and realised that he hade come up with one or two black swans of his own. And.. Ay there's the rub... If understanding what a customer wants, before the customer knows isn't great, then what is? Or, to quote Jobs himself:


"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
-- BusinessWeek, May 25 1998


So, I hereby join the long line of people paying tribute to Steve Jobs. 


And... I've heard people say this before.. And I'm pretty sure it's not an actual Apple Ad.. But I'll put the picture here nevertheless..

He most certainly has one now..

Another "Bad weather nice view"

20 days gone by - Fingers less numb

As you might have read I was out taking some night shots a couple of weeks back. My fingers are less numb now, so I took a second glance at the raw-files and developed a few more shots. I guess it was a pretty good start of this years "photos in the darker hours" season..

No sight looks great..

Autumn's here, and offers lovely photo opportunities

Published - Photo by Wahlby on real paper.

Fotosidan is one of Swedens largest communities for people interested in photography. Besides the website fotosidan.se they also publish the magazine "Fotosidan Magasin" with an edition of 23 000 and 6 numbers a year. 

A part from articles related to photography, members of fotosidan can also upload photos in hope of being selected for publication in said magazine. Today when I checked my page, there was a little notification that said that my photo had been selected for publication. 

One of the themes this time was sports so I applied with a picture from Gothia Cup this summer. You'll find the picture below, as well as on the webpage of Fotosidan Magasin. 

Well, as I often say. A miniscule step for mankind, quite a leap for me...

"Root" - or how to make your warrenty void..

Hi there.

I guess some of you heard about the following quote:


""I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943"


Today it seems certain that this was never said by the IBM exec. However, something similar must have been mentioned when HTC dreamed up their HTC Desire. I guess it went something like this: 

HTC Dude 1: "Hey guys, we need to allocate space for apps, you know.. apps... apps.. that people will download from Android Market?"


Other HTC dude: "Apps.. apps.. Nahhh, overrated. They get everything they need with our own interface HTC Sense. Just chip in so that they have 50 mb's or so left.."


Well, today we can see that the world seems a bit more app-centric. Thus, for the last few hours I've made sure to make my warrenty void by rooting my Desire. 


In simple terms it is a way of gainging control over the phone so that one can use not only HTC's own version of Android, but rather download versions developed by geeks all over the world. 


So.... Rooting done, it was easy and I recommend anyone with a HTC Desire to do it, if you don't care about warrenty. 

Furthermore, when done, make sure to try the Oxygen Rom (2.2.2). Works like a charm. 

Reflections on travel. An office with a view.

I guess one always make choices.

Why opt for airport coaches, stressfull boarding,in flight hassle and then train to the city of Sthlm when one can travel silent and enviromental friendly? I'm heading for the company HQ up in Stockholm while doing some reading on upcoming workshops.

I do really love the view from the window of this "office" rather than a stale sandwich and a peep hole at 30000 feet.

Cold numb fingers. Tripods essential.

Had a great evening thursday, which came back an kicked me from behind on friday with a nice cold and a blitzering headache. 

Me and my friend Robert Boström decided to dig out our tripods and let the shutter times move over one second. We got into the car and drove around town trying to find a few nice spots that we can use during the following darker months. 

First we ended up at Ramberget for some panoramic shots of the city, then we moved down below Göta Älvbron to get closer to river. Finally we headed over to Gothenburgs other major bridge, Älvsborgsbron, for some shots of cars in motion. 

Not to surprisingly the two "winning" shots of our road trip was made by Robert. You should really head over to his page on fotosidan to view them. Furthermore I recommend a visit to his corner of cyberspace as well, over att BoströmPhotography

Finally I guess I'll also share a few glimpses of my "thursday through the lens". 

Summer's gone. Work on web page quadruples?

So, is this it? 


Summer's gone? 


Well today I sat down and tried to add some stuff to my "experimentish nobody reads it anyways" web page. I guess that's a sure sign the autumn is pretty much knocking on the door. Well call me stuborn but I ain't opening that door for a week or two, it is firmly locked for now.


Summer or autumn alike, the page is actually a nice way to learn about the web stuff without risking to loose to much brand value. Loss of brand value in this case meaning being viewed as a bigger n00b than usual... 


So today I set up an RSS feed for the blog, at least I think I've done it... And I also managed, i.e. ticked the right boxes, to add a dedicated twitter button on the main page pointing to my twitter page. 

Not to bore potential readers to much with the tech stuff though I'll leave you with a couple of photos from this summer that I'll hope will make you either think back to this one or longing for the next one.


As always the pics are zoomable by a click, just to enhance my flaws..

Food Inspiration, Guide Rouge listing no where in sight..

According to celebrity chefs, my favourite being Anthony Bourdain, inspiration is supposed to be an important factor when trying out ones amateurish creations in the kitchen. I guess I should share some of my inspiration from this evenings battle in the kitchen. Below you find the view from our kitchen, and well.. I guess that counts for pretty good inspiration... 

And before you come to see it for yourself, let me make a confession. Yes they are crops, i.e. there are some other houses around and what you see is the most center of our view... But hey, I don't follow the recipe when cooking either...

Old school coming home...

Contemporary Gluttony leaving..

New photo blog by swedish newspaper SvD

Swedish newspaper svd.se has decided to open up a Photo Blog with posts by their photographers. First set of photos was posted from Afghanistan by Yvonne Åsell. The people over at fotosidan.se has a discussion going about the hipstamaticish tint on the photos, I don't mind the effects though since SvD has produced some really nice hi-res sets from afghanistan before..

MvhDW

Old school Google. Scribble in caves next?

If you were born in 90's pay attention. This little card can supply endless wisdom..

Twitter

Another step into the unknown of social networking was taken yesterday. A twitter account was activated and yours truely can now be followed @Wahlby.

 

Persian food.

Preparations for an evening among friends. What a great way to start the weekend.

Kulturfestivalen a.k.a Göteborgskalaset.

The Kulturkalaset here in Gothenburg offers plenty of photo moments. I went there yesterday along with the wife 'n friends and I'd just thought I share a few of the photos here. 

More from Paris

Well, as seen from my earlier post below I focused on the people of Paris rather than the common sights when I was there. However I guess one can't be in the french capital without taking a few photos of their rather stunning buildings.. So here are a few..