As you probably can see from the site, I’ve done some major changes in the look’n'feel.

The previous site visuals where from 2004 (I think), so it was a proper time to do something for it. I’ve been designing Nomadig.com again and again with half a year interval, but finally my design struck me as decent enough to go live.

The new design has removed a lot of bells and whistles around the content itself, and also modernised the look’n'feel quite a bit. The old site was built in several phases that were not connected to each other, resulting a bit different kind of items to various sections. This should be now fixed.

I’ve also removed a lot of advertisements that didn’t bring any value. Only Google ads are served from now on. The sidebar got a box shaped ad, as they seem to be getting a lot of image ads. I do hope that the ads do not interfere too much with reading the site — they need to interfere that much that someone ends up reading them, seeing some value in clicking and thus generating a bit of income to keep up the site.

There are a lot more changes under the hood. I upgraded to the latest WordPress and removed most of my custom stuff to the Nomadig.com theme.

The old site had three different content management systems. Besides WordPress, there was my own page editor for content pages and then one image gallery for photo section. Remember, that the site has existed a long before WordPress had pages outside blog. Now all pages are under WordPress. Some configuration was needed to get journal in its old location. I also installed a set of new plugins to get better archive display, and to handle some CMS style features.

Most of the URLs have now changed due to the radical reorganisation. I’ve written .htaccess file that handles most them, such as images, gallery photos and some other items. Further, I wrote a simple PHP script that handles the content page redirects. All redirects give “moved permanently” HTTP status code to inform search engines to update their databases.

As always with site updates, if you see something not working properly, add a comment or send me an email.

I’ve been forced to move out from my current hosting company (OnSmart) as they are moving out of business.

They first lost one domain for me (kept the money, though) and then had radio silence for a couple of weeks — until today they informed that they are swiftly going out of business. I had reacted a few days earlier and moved to HostMonster.com.

The site moving was surprisingly painless. I made a tarball of the files and dumped the databases, unpacked the files to the new location, and recreated the databases from the dumps. A few configuration file needed changing and then everything works ok. Or at least it looks like that. If you notice any glitches, please inform me.

Fortunately, nomadig.com is not registered through OnSmart. Better keep my domains and hosts in two different vendors.

I bought a new Nokia N95 on Friday and took it into use today. The first impressions are very positive, everything works flawlessly and the phone has everything I need.

The most impressing part of the phone was transferring all kinds of stuff from my old phone to the new one. I’ve done this earlier with not too good results, but now it worked almost as in movies.

I made a full backup of my old phone using Nokia PC Toolkit and then installed the backup to my new phone; got my messages, contacts and images in place.

There were a couple of minor glitches. First, I tried to do the sync from phone to phone, but it didn’t copy SMS (note to Nokia: get this fixed) — it copied the address book and the backup installation copied it again, so I had all contacts twice. This resulted me removing 300+ contacts manually. Not that bad as it sounds, you can delete a contact quite fast.

The second glitch was that the well-copied messages lost their connection to the address book. The phone shows the number of the sender in all old messages. Please fix this, too, in the next sync versions.

All in all, Nokia has made remarkably improvements in the phones and syncing processes.

The centrally located Hua Hin Shopping Mall looks good on the map, but the feeling evaporates as you step inside. The whole place is filled with small stalls that sell all kinds of rags and other junk. Everything is catered; babies, toddlers, teens, males, females and so forth. Without any specific order.

The clerks (or shop owners, I don’t know) don’t speak that much of English, so be prepared to wave hands, show stuff and use calculator. The stuff is relatively cheap, but the experience is horrible.

There is a bigger grocery store at the other end of the complex, and it would be worth visiting — but Tesco Lotus a couple of kilometers south is much better alternative.

Hua Hin Shopping Mall, Phetchakasem Road, Hua Hin, Thailand

If you happen to be in Helsinki for the Eurovision Song Contest and are in need of some advice how to get the best of Helsinki, do not despair.

Check out these places, reviewed and found good by yours truly.

Shopping
Academic Bookstore, Diesel, Iittala, Ivana Helsinki, Maranello, Nanso, Nina’s, Stockmann, Union Design, Zio

Having a cup of coffee
Café Ekberg, Café Esplanadi, Café Strindberg, Café Succes, JohtoCafe, Wayne’s Coffee

Eating
Bar Tapasta, Chez Dominique, Coloroda Mts., Demo, G.W. Sundmans, Havis, Ichiban, La Cocina, La Famiglia, Mecca, Postres, Santa Fe, Sasso, Zetor

Drinking
Ahjo, Ateljee Bar, Belge

The frequent readers remember that Nomadig.com has got its own share own spam comments. I used to handle the issue with Kitten’s Spaminator, but recently the sheer number of spam messages forced me to consider new alternatives.

I had read about Akismet now and then, but never had enough energy to give it a try. Then I installed it for a company that I’ve supplied blog, and the results were excellent. It went through the moderation queue and cleaned it up, and then continued sweeping the incoming comments.

I installed Akismet to Nomadig just before our trip to Thailand. After my return, I checked the status and there were over 3,000 comment spams in the Akismet spam queue. Everyone of those would have generated an email to me with Spaminator, so there were considerably less work to do for me.

The current count for the last 15 days (that’s how long Akismet keeps spam messages in the DB) is 4032 comments. I’ve had to check only a handful of spam comments that have slipped through Akismet.

Last weekend I finally had some free time, and visited Helsinki city centre with my family.

The annual christmas fair had been opened in the Esplanadi Park, and we found surprisingly many gifts from the small stalls… There were toys, candles, crafts, foods and all kinds of stuff.

This year, they have changed the orange tents to wooden mini-huts that look that much better. The earlier version was a sorry sight, looking more like a refugee camp than a Christmas fair.

If you happen to be around Helsinki this season, go to Esplanadi to check the stalls.

I’ve been fortunate to design and implement the backoffice system for the Nokian Tyres’ winter campaign, www.trustthenatives.com (also .fi, .no, .ru and .se).

The campaign has sites in five languages, all served by the same infrastructure. The language is decided by the domain name, and the site addresses stay the same from language to language — text and some images change.

Having a single shared implementation saves a lot of time and effort in multilingual sites. The content comes from many different directions, so organising everything through one control panel is a must.