On our last trip to Japan, we decided to take our dog, Mimi, along to meet the rest of the family. We moved to Finland from the United States so we knew that travelling with pets involves a lot of paperwork. Avoiding a lengthy quarantine for Mimi coming to Finland required the signature and stamp from a man in a windowless office next to San Francisco Airport with a poster that said, and I’m not making this up, “1,000 reasons to say No.” We knew there was some paperwork so shortly after arriving in Finland, started to research what it would take to get little Mimi through customs without a hitch. I’m glad we did because, next to buying a home and getting married, this was one of the more stressful things I’ve ever done.

First stop was the Japanese Animal Quarantine Service (AQS) website where we learned that you need (besides teaching your dog how to email) several shots and certification that your dog is free of rabies. To prove your dog is free of rabies, you need to give them a rabies vaccination then take a blood test and send it off to get tested. In Finland, this is done by Evira. For some reason this test needs to be done at least six months before your departure. Thankfully we read all this in time but only just. For those wondering why we stuck around Helsinki until Christmas Eve, that six month window was the reason.

Over the next six months, I traded at least twenty emails with the Animal Quarantine Service. We went back and forth on the specifics of their requirements, what shots, when, by whom, etc, etc, etc. Paperwork went back and forth, each time I had to scan various documents and send them via email because it’s such a pain to find a fax machine these days. In Japan, the signature is still important so the facsimile is paramount.

As the date of our arrival to Narita drew closer, AQS helpfully sent an email reminding me what paperwork was required. They also asked for my flight details. I had been back and forth quite a bit with the folks at Section One so I think I replied to them on a first name basis that we were arriving on a Finnair flight and gave them my flight number.

Panic ensued when AQS replied the next day that since Finnair comes into Terminal Two that we’d have to get clearance from Section Two. I was rattled because it concerned me that the relations built up over the past six months now meant nothing and I’d be starting with a fresh file so to speak. At least the paperwork transferred over cleanly and luckily, one phone call later, things were back on track. I was still nervous though. Our trip to Japan was for 10 days. The standard quarantine period is 90-days. If we got off the plane and our paperwork was for some reason out of order, I was resigned to getting back on the plane to take Mimi back to Finland.

We were entering a tricky window where we had to have a shot for echinococcus, which was good for 30 days, and a final health inspection. We got the shot and then made a date to go back again for a health inspection which had to be done within a 24 hour window of our arrival. We were also required to get this inspection validated by an “official veterinarian” which our private vet and I struggled to interpret. Eventually the vet gave us the number of the City of Helsinki vet, an All-Creatures-Great-and-Small kind of man when we met him

Because we were leaving on Christmas Eve, and the city pretty much shuts down, we got a reprieve from AQS to get the health check done on the 22nd. It’s a good thing too because when I emailed AQS with the City Vet’s signature, they told me I needed his official seal too. Then, while we were visiting with the him the next day for his seal, we got a call on my wife’s cell from Japan that the City Vet is not official enough, that either the State or Federal Vet is needed and that we needed their stamps as well.

This is not a a knock on the folks at AQS but it was getting a bit ridiculous. Their site is very vague and there is not enough definition around what actually makes a Vet “official.” Only after a phone conversation were we sent a document listing the 30-odd people in the entire country that are official enough to authorize a dog to travel unhindered to Japan.

All these shots, tests, stamps, and signatures. When you think of it, it’s more paperwork than you need for a child. Just wave a passport and you’re good to go. Just to be safe, I made appointments with both the Southern Finland regional Vet and the Finnish National Vet who happened to be in Helsinki that day. It was a blizzard on the 23rd but, GPS in hand, I made these two appointments and got our stamps.

We arrived in Japan after a 10 hour direct flight from Helsinki. No problems in customs, we had all the stamps and seals we needed. In Japan, usually over Summer vacation, the train lines all hold Stamp Rallies in which they give kids a booklet with a box for each station’s stamp. The kids then can travel the lines with their friends and collect the stamps from each station. Presenting not one but three official stamps I felt like I deserved some sort of award.

Each stamp and signature were compared carefully with master reference list so they could be sure that we had everything right. We came bearing the news that all the stamps in Finland were going to change in a few weeks so that, of course, threw the office into disarray. Anyone thinking of using the images above for counterfeiting, sorry to spoil your plans.

So it can be done. It’s a pain but, like anything, it gets easier each time you do it. We’ve got a rabies vaccine and test validation that will last us for another year or so and all we need is another echinococcus shot and we know where to go for our official stamps. It was totally worth it. Mimi had a blast in Japan.

Mimi

Mike Manos has joined Nokia as VP of Service Operations and has been tasked to build the cloud infrastructure for our Ovi services. The New York Times calls him a “data-center celebrity” and reading his blog certainly shows the knowledge and experience he brings to the table. His initial post gives a hint of his methodology which I really like.

I recently spent a good part of a weekend putting together deck furniture for my home.   It was good quality stuff, it had the required parts and hardware and not unlike other do-it-yourself furniture it had directions that left a lot to be desired. In many ways its like IT Infrastructure or running any IT shop.   You have all the tools, you have all the raw components, but how you put it all together is where the real magic happens, and the directions are usually just as vague on how to do it.

One of the common themes across all steps of the deck furniture pieces was a common refrain, ‘Do Not Tighten Bolts”.   The purpose was to get all of the components together, even if a bit loose, to ensure you had the right shape, all components were in the right place, and then and only then do you tighten the bolts.

If you really want to know the secret to putting together solutions at scale, remember the “Do Not Tighten Bolts” methodology.   Assemble to raw components, ensure you have the right shape and that all components are in the right place, and then “Tighten it down.”   This can be and is an iterative process.   Keep working to get that right shape.  Keep working to find the right component configuration.  Tighten bolts.    As I built my first deck chair, there was significant amounts of trial and error.  The second deck chair however was seamless, even with the same cruddy directions.   Once you learn to ‘Not Tighten’ technique the assembly process is quick and provides you with great learnings.

- from Do Not Tighten Bolts

Welcome Mike! I look forward to working with you.

After looking at the video below, which shows off the signature Apple User Interface, it’s very clear to me what Apple is doing here. The iPad is not a computer, it’s not a replacement for your netbook, notebook, or desktop. The iPad is a $500 entry into book publisher’s most lucrative category, the coffee table book.

Pay particular attention to the UI gestures that drive the photo album app. Forget those old photo albums you have lying around. We’ve all gone digital anyway and it was always awkward to hand a visiting relative a laptop to look at photos of their grand-kids. Projecting them onto the TV, despite the good intentions, always felt like the 21st century equivalent of the dreaded carousel projector slideshows that neighbors used to inflict on each other to back in the Sixties.

Early media tech media coverage panned it and I don’t blame them, the iPad is no replacement for your computer. This device, as the iPod before it, was not designed for the techie. The iPad is not a computer, it is an animated book, an upgrade to the static kind. The iPad is going after the coffee table, photo album, scrapbooking markets all rolled into one. It’s appeal is to those that like to curate and display. It’s a glass showcase for your memories which are, more often than not these days, in digital format.

And it plays games.

- video from engadget.com

More pretty infographics via Focus.com’s 2009 State of the Internet report. What is it about the internets up here in the Nordics. Norway, Sweden, Finland are the top three for internet penetration (I believe that’s number of households). In terms of speed Finland is quite a bit shy of Japan and Korea but still pulls in at a respectful 22 mbps average broadband speed with Sweden next at 18.2.

See also: Finland has 3rd fasted internet

With a Nokia N95 and a Lego Mindstorm NXT kit you too can have robots solve your Rubik’s cube. The folks at ARMflix have programmed an old N95 to take a photo and analyze the pattern on a Rubik’s cube and have it sent over to the Mindstorm rig to run through the moves required to solve the puzzle.

Pretty cool guys! Check out the video below.

– via Ubergizmo

For those of you who read this blog through a reader, I took care of few things on the blog this weekend to clean things up a bit.

1. My recommended software for the E71 has proven very popular but that is only one of the three phones that I use on a regular basis and there’s lots of good software to recommend for those too. On the top tab I have added two news ones, Software for your N97 and Software for your N900.
2. I replaced the hosted lifestream from MyBlogLog with a self-hosted lifestream provided by the excellent WordPress plugin, WP Lifestream
3. I added a SoundCloud dropbox widget to my sidebar. Feel free to use it to send me any tracks you want to share. I’m always looking for new music.
4. I created a mobile template of my site for those coming to my site via a mobile phone. The template is easily created using the WordPress Mobile Pack which comes bundled with analytics for your mobile traffic from PercentMobile. You can see what their reports look like on percentmobile.com.
5. I re-activated my Blogroll page. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I this day of metacuration, it’s useful to share your influences.

I had a chance to see Avatar this evening and was blown away at what James Cameron has done to evolve the art of motion capture. Anyone who has seen the film would agree that the bar has been moved higher in capturing not only the physical motions but also the full range of emotional power of the actors and overlaying it  seamlessly onto the animated characters.

The clip below how a whole suite of new technology came together to create what they call, Performance Capture.

The dating site okcupid.com published a fascinating study of their member profile pictures to validate and debunk what makes for an attractive profile picture, one that generates conversation and interest which is important if you’re on a dating site.

Some of the findings:

• Smile for the camera if you’re a girl. Guys do better if they look away, be the man of mystery.
• Despite what most think, the self-posed MySpace shot is the single most effective photo for women. The poor quality of the cellphone in mirror more than made up for my the sense of intimacy.
• Ab shots (”headless horsemen”) for men are successful in youth but fall off quickly as you get older when I suspect it gets kinda creepy in an ex-con way.
• Cleavage shots for women are always a hit and actually do more for older women than young.

This is a dating site and they measured effectiveness on number of conversations. People are looking for love here so they are going to emphasize certain things about them. Furthermore, there is no correlation to what is in their photo and what they write on their profile. I would love to see a similar study done on profile pics on a regular social networking site such as facebook or twitter.

What does your profile pic say about you?

I’ve been playing around with a service based here in Berlin called SoundCloud. It’s geared towards DJs who want to distribute their mixes making it drop-dead easy to upload typically large files and embed them across the web in widgets. The closest thing I would compare it to is the flickr badge for photos or YouTube embed for videos.

What’s nice about SoundCloud for the professional DJ is that plays on the widget and also back on the profile page are collected for reporting back on the artist’s SoundCloud home page so the DJ can see where their tracks are getting the best, er, traction.

It’s also a great service for someone like me who would just from time to time to shine a light on my favorite live music sets. Here’s a set from the April, 1999 run Phil Lesh did with Trey and Page from Phish at the Warfield in San Francisco. And see that little widget over in the sidebar to the right? Yeah, I listen to a lot of music so if you have a mix you think I might enjoy, use the Dropbox to push it my way.

Enjoy.

Scarlet > Fire > The Eleven by Ian Kennedy

The terror and chaos that is Haiti following the devastating earthquake is hard to imagine. 50,000 dead, millions are homeless.  It’s now 10 days later and the threat of disease is descending upon the survivors who are literally fighting for their lives. The shocking photo above comes from a series of dramatic photos posted by Anderson Cooper who is covering the story for CNN.

There are a number of ways to contribute and thankfully the donations are pouring in including over $10 million raised in just a few days by text messages (UPDATE: now more than $25 million) . I just contributed my bit over at Shelterbox thanks to a pointer by a classmate from college.

Every little bit helps people. We’re making a difference.