Philipp Höhn

For years have I been resisting the temptation of joining twitter and Facebook. Yesterday, at 4:30 pm I made the final step and registered at twitter.com after I had joined Facebook a couple of month ago to stay in touch with people I met here in Sweden. But why did I register with twitter? I’m not sure. Mainly because I wanted to see what all the fuzz is about. If there was something like a key moment, it was the once again annoying feed management on Facebook. Everyday you’re spammed with invitations to browser games, highscores and people loosing animals in some weird games. Over all this spam it’s hard to keep track of the things you want to know from Facebook. Do people post interesting status updates, pictures or events, has person x replied to something you posted in a wall-to-wall conversation? You know, the kind of information you use a social network for. In an attempt to filter the more from the less important posts I installed TweetDeck. It worked quite well but it seemed kind of oversized with just a Facebook account. I googled to find a way to use studivz (“the German Facebook”) but didn’t succeed. Apparently, there’s not yet a good way of doing that. Looking for a solution I somehow ended up on twitter.com browsing through some friends’ tweets. “Just try it,” I thought and got myself an account. I kept browsing and figured, this might be a good way to re-organize my feeds. So I “followed” some people and put my account into TweetDeck. After one day there’s not much I can say. I’ll have to wait and see if I end up actually using twitter and TweetDeck. Still, my first impression is absolutely positive. I now have all the information coming from Facebook filtered and organized and it looks like I even improved the way I’m accessing some of the feeds from other sources.

For those of you who are on twitter, feel free to tell me about your accounts as I’m still looking for some interesting people to follow . And by the way, here’s my account. You can follow the link or just get the latest tweets from the right side of this website.

Tags: Facebook, internet, TweetDeck, twitter

Last week I went on an awesome trip through Swedish and Finish Lapland. It is easy to say that this was one of the best trips of my life. Together with two Chinese students I visited Santa Claus’ home at the border of the Arctic Circle in Rovaniemi, Finland, the Ice Hotel near Kiruna, and the wonderful nature of the Abisko national park.

In the evening of the 1st of January 2010 we started our 500 km journey to Rovaniemi using a rented car. After we left a major snow storm behind us we had a nice and easy ride through the Scandinavian winter and arrived in Rovaniemi at about 4 am. We rested in the car for some hours and got up again quite early to buy some warm tee and warm up at a gas station. Even though it did help to rest for some hours, I can’t advise anyone to sleep in a car at -26° C unless you have perfect cloth which we obviously didn’t have. At about 10 am we arrived at the Santa Claus village outside of Rovaniemi. Santa’s home turned out to be a bunch of houses designed to attract children and impoverish parents; what a surprise! Luckily I’m neither so I managed to visit the different attractions without spending an unreasonable amount of money. While I successfully ignored attractions like “meet Santa and pay 25€ for one photo with him” I enjoyed my time at Santa’s post office and the museum. Apparently he gets about 32000 letters per day at Christmas time. They are sorted by language and then given an automated reply. From this office, where the staff is female, mostly blond and wears a funny red elf-hat you can also send Christmas cards to your family. The postcards get a Santa postmark and can be chosen to arrive either in the next couple of days or just in time for the upcoming Christmas 2010. I liked that idea and send one to my little sister. In the museum you could find several rooms explaining the history of Santa Claus with all his different names and looks. Together with the image of Santa the decoration, habits and probably the idea of Christmas vary from country to country. For next Christmas I’m thinking about writing the big red guy a postcard suggesting to switch to GNU/Linux (picture 2).

After a short walk in the city centre of Rovaniemi we started our journey to Kiruna. 340 km later we arrived in the centre of a small city covered in at least 30 cm of snow. Being located on a hillside with a church on top Kiruna isn’t a place to get lost. Still, to get to our home for the next two nights we were happy to find some locals. We asked two seniors for the local vandrarhem (youth hostel) and ended up with them sitting in the back of the car discussing where to go. While we first talked to them in English they had their discussion in Swedish and were apparently very happy about me understanding them and trying to talk to them in their mother tongue. With these two women on board we found our way in no time and were once again astonished by the helpfulness of Swedish people. In the same evening we gave back the rented car and enjoyed a short walk through the city.

The next morning started at 9 am. A small bus picked us up and took us to a cabin next to a frozen lake. A very committed and pleasant man, who turned out to be the boss of the small company organizing this day trip, distributed proper cloth and introduced us to our means of transportation for our trip to the Ice Hotel. In groups of two (luckily we were an odd number of people and I happened to be the only one without a partner and this way got drove all the way instead of “only” half of it) we used snow mobiles to drive over frozen lakes, hills and through woods. We enjoyed an unbelievably beautiful winter scenery and arrived at the Ice Hotel at 11:30 am. The Ice Hotel is a huge building entirely made of snow and ice. Well, snow and a mixture of snow and ice they call “snice”. For the twentieth time now a different version of this hotel has been build every year. Inside, every room is unique. People from all around the world send in sketches and the year’s best are build. Every room has its own idea, its own shape and lightening. Walking through a building entirely made of snow and ice is absolutely fascinating. Everything seems volatile and yet surprisingly stable. Next to the Ice Hotel they even built a church which appears to be one of Sweden’s most popular locations for weddings. At 2pm we started the snow mobiles again and went back. This time our guide allowed us to drive a little faster. I ended up driving 100 km/h and had a big smile on my face. I now agree with someone I met in Umeå who told me that driving a snow mobile is one of the best things you can do in your life

Having arrived at the cabin next to the frozen lake again, we sat down around a small fire and enjoyed our lunch. We had reindeer meat, potatoes, lingonberries and tee. It was the perfect ending to an unforgettable trip. If you should ever get the chance to go to Kiruna and see the Ice Hotel, do it. If you have enough time for a day trip you will never forget, book it here.

At 9:31 am on the 4th of January we took the train to Abisko. Abisko is a tiny village 100 km from Kiruna. We were told it had only 84 inhabitants. Considering the number of houses we saw, that could actually be true. Abisko is well-known all over Sweden. It is famous for its national park with mountains, a huge lake, small rivers and a lot of small ways to hike, do cross-country skiing, climbing and many other things. After we arrived and found the local supermarket our little group split up for the rest of our time in Abisko and everyone ended up in a new group. For me the day went on with a small hiking tour through the woods together with a Chinese guy I had met in Kiruna and now run into again. We walked past (and of course across ) a frozen river and just some way through the woods that seemed convenient. Soon it got dark and we were very happy to have a flash light. A little cold but fascinated and happy we returned to the local vandrarhem at 4:30 pm. Back there I shared a room with five exchange students from Malmö. Luckily we got along pretty well and had a great time together. Actually, I can hardly remember a time I laughed that much in two days!

The day ended with a Swedish sauna. The landlord asked us – a group of nine people – to only bring soap and handed us towels to sit on. While we all were surprised to bring soap into the sauna, we were soon given an explanation. Our landlord told us about his philosophy of saving water and preventing the body from sweating during the day by having your shower in the evening in the sauna. Enjoying this way of warming up again after a cold day, I decided to repeat this procedure at the end of the next day.

The 5th of January was the unquestionable highlight of my Lapland tour. At 9 am a group of 17 people met outside the hostel and walked to the nearby dog camp. We prepared ten one-person sleighs and 40 dogs to create a time worth remembering. With – who might have guessed – four dogs per sledge we went on a two hours tour through the mountain area. Assisting the dogs when going uphill and trying not fall of the sledge when going downhill or doing turns we were quite exhausted after a couple of minutes. After every quarter of the way we exchanged our sledges for a place on a snow mobile’s trailer that has been taking the other half of the group for a fun ride. After these two hours all of us were thrilled about this trip. One of my room mates called this dog sledging tour one of the best things he has ever done in his life. I’m willing to agree with him. Driving fast on a snow mobile was a lot of fun, but actually doing some work yourself, together with the joy of working with living creatures – with 40 dogs (!) – is something I will never forget. But still, the day wasn’t over yet!

After a short break, a cross-country skiing tour and the obligatory two sauna hours, we went on another very special trip. At about 10 pm we walked down to the lake and kept starring at the sky. Our position so far up north, the cold and clear air offered us the opportunity of seeing one of nature’s finest spectacles: the northern lights. Since I came to Sweden in August, I always hoped to see the northern lights. It was the 5th of January that I finally saw them and it was worth waiting! I was lucky enough to find people who spent hundreds of euros for a camera to get the perfect shot. Because it was them who put all that money and effort into getting these amazing pictures I am of course not going to publish them. Anyway, thanks a lot guys. I am very happy to have them in my private photo album

On the 6th we went on our way back home. It took us almost 11 hours to get back to Umeå by train. For me that was a time to think about this amazing tour through Swedish and Finish Lapland. In my mind I relived the whole tour again: the Christmas post card, snow mobile driving, the Ice Hotel, dog sledging, the northern lights and a great time I had with people from all over the world. Now, there’s only one major tour left on my “to do in Sweden” list: visiting Stockholm.

Tags: Abisko, dog sledging, Ice Hotel, Kiruna, Rovaniemi, Santa Claus, snow mobile, Umeå

Hi everyone,

today I would like to briefly introduce you to a new technology reviewing website that has just been launched yesterday, on the 2nd of November. It is called technobuffalo.com and features mostly user generated content along with some high quality youtube videos of a handful of professional editors. The main idea is to give everyone the opportunity to blog about anything technology related. By posting your reviews, previews, comments or whatever you think the world needs, on technobuffalo.com people browsing the site will happen to stumble across your articles very easily (at least, that is what the website’s creators hope for) and tell you, what they think of it. Through the facebook-like social network of this website users are encouraged to discuss and evaluate each other’s content and thereby achieve good quality content along with decent page viewing statistics. To post to your own customizable blog you just need to register with technobufallo and start editing your very own content.

As mentioned before, this website was just launched yesterday. Now, how did I know of that? Back in April when I was waiting for my 13″ aluminium macbook to be delivered (and believe me, that took a loooooong time!) I was browsing youtube looking for some nice videos about my first apple product (being a passionate linux user this felt like the ultimate level of shame…). I stumbled upon Jon4Lakers youtube channel who made videos of himself unboxing the macbook, reviewing it after one day, one week, two weeks and a lot more cool things you need to see when you are shacking with anticipation Although this Jon Rettinger obviously was an apple enthusiast and therefore presented the products reviewed in a certain light, he still found some decent ways of describing and evaluating new products. Since then I’ve been subscribed to his channel and watched most of his videos. As time went by his videos became more professional (new camera, switched from bedroom to writing desk, better lights, a generally improved presentation) and started to cover new kinds of hardware and software. Some months later he started to have some other guys (e.g. Lasse Pulkinnen – watch the lumberjack review!) posting to his channel which somehow showed that there is a big potential of users being interested in this kind of tech reviewing (they now have more than 50.000 subscribers). Today you can find videos about the newest smart phones, a really great comparison of the XB0×360 and the PS3, coverage of interesting prototypes like the new Vaio X, reviews of Windows 7, a report about one of those great problems with the Dell customer’s service and, of course, just about anything apple related.

Despite the fact that a big part of the content on technobuffalo.com (until now) is produced by mac users, there already is a great variety of content. While I’m still missing some linux coverage I think that this project might be having a great future as it offers a unique combination of a facebook-like social network with user-generated tech-blogs. Let’s see where that goes! By the way, they also offer some very nice giveaways

Thanks for reading.

Tags: internet, technology

On the weekend of the 2nd to the 4th of October I went on a trip to the Laponian Mountains. Umeå University’s International Office together with IKSU frilufts had organized this trip for about 50 international students to give us the opportunity of getting to know the wonderful Swedish mountains before the winter sets in. For 1000 SEK (about 100 €) we were offered a three days trip to Borgafjäll, a small village in Swedish Lapland. The price included the 2x 320 km bus tour, the tents, some utilities like camping stoves, a hiking tour in the mountains and the support of the IKSU frilufts guides.

Our trip started on Friday at about 4 pm. We met in front of the IKSU building (European’s largest sports centre), got into the bus and had a nice 320 km trip to Borgafjäll through the Swedish countryside. In the bus we had the chance to get to know our fellow international students and enjoyed the 2006 Bond movie Casino Royal (again, with subtitles). At about 9 pm the bus stopped some hundred meters up a mountain. We took our luggage, turned on our torches and started walking into the forrest. After 20 minutes we arrived at our base camp. Some of the guides had come hear by car and had already build up most of the tents. Everything we had to do was to find ourselves a tent in groups of three people and enjoy a nice evening around the camp fire. To get warm the frilufts crew encouraged us to take part in some Swedish and Norwegian folk dances which were actually quite funny. Later on, after some time of sitting – or rather walking – around the camp fire trying to warm up most of us went to “bed”.

At 7 am we met again around the camp fire and had our breakfast. Again, the frilufts crew and a member of the International Office had already prepared the fire so we just had to get up and enjoy the nice morning in the middle of a forest. As I found out, I wasn’t the only one who had difficulties finding sleep. Quite a few of us only managed to sleep for a few hours, if at all. Having camped before I didn’t expect any problems finding sleep. But yet, the rather cold climate of Lapland with a temperature of -5° C during the night managed to put my former camping experience into a new perspective . Still, some cold feet were nothing that a hot tee and a breakfast couldn’t deal with.

After the breakfast we divided into groups of nine including one guide each. Warmly clothed we started our way up the nearby mountains on a wonderful sunny day. Starting inside a forest we reached wide spaces of snow and almost no vegetation after less than an hour. With the peaks of two mountains on our left hand side, wide snowy spaces in front of us as well as on our right hand side, we were all enjoying the impressive scenery of Swedish nature. Meter by meter we reached even further into the mountain scenery of Borgafjäll and enjoyed the view over the woods and the beautiful Borgasjön (the lake named after the small village – or did the lake give the name to the village?).

As time went by we reached a wonderful plateau being framed by different mountainsides, covered with snow and crossed by small streams. On one end of this plateau our guide surprised us with a small cabin giving us the chance for a little break. Heading inside and taking of our back packs our guide whispered something that made us all come out again. Between two mountains a group of seven or eight reindeer crossed the plateau. Having noticed our presence they first stopped and starred into our direction. Being more than a hundred meters away we apparently didn’t scare them too much as they soon moved along calmly and quietly. Hardly understanding the luck we’ve had meeting these animals on our hiking trip, we all enjoyed this great moment with big smiles on our faces.

After a break inside the cabin we decided to move on. Together with the other groups that had arrived at the cabin we decided to divide into two big groups for either the way home or the way up to the peak of one of the mountains. I was in the group trying to get up to the peak. After a few hundred meters we found out about the difference between an easygoing walk in the mountains and the attempt of actually standing on top of one of them. As we were going up the weather seemed to change. Clouds had started to conceal the peaks of the mountains. Hoping to find a clear sky above these clouds we were proven wrong as time went by. On a small plateau the guides decided to turn around and head back to our base camp. Having hoped for a nice view from the top of the mountain it was obvious that this decision was right. On this second plateau you could hardly see anything but your nearest surroundings. Still, on our way down we had a great view over the first plateau and later on over the valley.

Between two and three hours later we arrived at our base camp and had a happy night sitting around the fire and talking about our great hiking trip. This night many of us finally found some sleep. More or less awake we spent our Sunday morning cleaning the base camp and enjoying our last hours in Lapland with some games. Mostly, each game was about moving and getting warm as on Sunday we woke up to a snow-covered and cold base camp. At about 1 pm we got into the bus again and headed towards Umeå. As it seems to be the standard in Sweden we were asked to fill out feed back forms for IKSU frilufts to evaluate and improve their services. As far as it concerns me, there wasn’t much to improve. The guides and the International Office both did a great job and obviously enjoyed what they were doing. They were eager to help and provided us with a great weekend of hiking and camping in the mountains of Lapland.

For those of you who would like to see some more pictures I have taken during the trip, feel free to contact me as there is a whole gallery waiting for you. Also if you have any questions about the trip or things you would like to point out, I’m always happy to receive your responses either via one of the ways mentioned in the about section or just by leaving a comment.

Tags: Borgafjäll, IKSU, Umeå