Business, games, music and writing

I've updated the Customers page of the website. If you'd like to get on this expanding list, contact me. See contact details. Some of the companies don't want their names and logos shown, for whatever reasons. In those cases, I just mention the location and number of participants. As you can see, I've trained over two hundred people this year and I'm only starting. Theoretical maximum would be about 3000 trainees a year, but 500 makes a good target for next year. Per trainer, of course.

The two-week trip brought with it six new companies to my network of contacts. And remember, this was just one city in the world. I started with Tampere, because it was like going home. Just the selling part was new and difficult enough for me and I didn't need any other confusion from the language or travelling arrangements or who knows what. Tampere was a safe choice and with this success I can open my eyes to the rest of the world.

Selling to Finland will still be the easiest choice, but using English opens the world so much. I even sometimes dream of doing business and the trainings in German. And I know that if I even dream about something, there is at least a slight chance of it becoming reality down the line. I'm not counting my chickens yet, but there are many eggs hatching...

---

I finally finished going through all the comments for the Chapter Symptoms of my upcoming book about code inspections. The word count went from the initial 9.000 to about 14.000, an increase of over 55%! If that happens to the rest of the chapters, the book will be more like a monument than something you'd keep on a shelf.

With one finished chapter and clear plan for the whole book, it might be time to start looking for a publisher. Having an agreement could also give me much needed discipline, focus and a goal.

---

I had the goal of getting published in a magazine this year and this dream is becoming reality. I won't go into the details until I see black on white, but some of you readers will be pleasantly surprised, I hope. BETTER keep your eyes open, SOFTWARE professionals!

---

"Beyond Good and Evil" is the game I'm currently tackling with my Playstation 2. No wonder it received good reviews when it came out, the game is addictive and the gameplay is enjoyable. I never buy the latest games, because I don't have the time to play too much anyway and I shouldn't buy anything to play 'right now'. My 'right now' will be more than likely 'next year if not later'. So I buy classic games with low prices only and then I don't need to stress about when I have time to play. If I don't find the time, maybe the game wasn't good enough, but it isn't a big loss either.

---

My friend Julien ordered a bunch of board games for me. More on those later.

---

I received my new iPod Shuffle on Thursday. It is small and weighs next to nothing. It works just like the old Shuffle and was terribly simple to take into use. It fits my profile and needs perfectly. MisPod makes walking in the crowds of Bochum an lifting experience. With just the right music, it is like walking on air. You don't hear the crowd, you hear what you want to. All the music is yours, but it keeps surprising you with the randomness and wideness of selection. In my case I fill the 240 songs randomly from a library of exactly 5124 songs. I'll never get the same combination of songs twice. There are about 250 different artists in the library, so chances are that some artists appear more than once, if I were to listen through all the songs on MisPod, which would take about 12 hours.

---

Suomennos: Suomen reissusta olisi vielä paljonkin kerrottavaa, mutta bisnespuolella matkaan voi olla erittäin tyytyväinen. Kuusi uutta yritystä sai esimakua Tick-the-Code-katselmoinnista ja seuraava matka on jo työn alla. Seuraavassa vaiheessa fokus siirtyy jo Tampereen ulkopuolelle, kenties Suomenkin. Kanadan matka pitäisi saada järjestettyä, siskoni lähtee oppilasvaihtoon vuoden vaihteessa.

Kirjani ensimmäinen luku "Oireita" on nyt korjattu. Jäljellä on vielä yksi läpikäynti ja muutaman idean aukikirjoittaminen. Kommenttien tarkistaminen ja tekstin korjaaminen kasvatti sanamäärää noin puolella, mikä on tässä vaiheessa ihan hyvä juttu. Sanoja on lopussa paljon helpompi pudottaa pois kuin keksiä äkkiä uusia ajatuksia lisää.

MisPod on mahtava vekotin. Applen uusi, toisen sukupolven iPod Shuffle on juuri sellainen soitin, jota kaipaan. Yksinkertainen, pieni, mutta tilava ja helposti mukana kulkeva.