Life in Prague
Wednesday Jun 11, 2008
The best open source company in the Czech Republic
The best open source company in the Czech Republic
Sun Microsystem Czech was voted by the community as the best open source company in the Czech Republic
for continuous support of NetBeans (as the official nomination says).
Congratulation, this award goes to everyone who helped to promote open source technologies in Czech Republic!
Posted at 10:48PM Jun 11, 2008 by Pavel Suk in Prague Engineering Center |
Monday Mar 03, 2008
Book Review: The Psychology of Harry Potter
Book Review: The Psychology of Harry Potter
Edited by Neil Mulholland, PhD
What Kind of School Is Hogwarts?
Nicely organized book starts with analysis of Hogwarts school. Lack of curiosity (except Harry and Hermione), memorizing at the expense of problem solving and creativity, intergroup conflicts; is that a school that any responsible parent would send kids to? Well, it seems that parents with magically-powered kids have no other choice. However, despite of all what was said, school at Hogwarts remains attractive, at least for us, muggles, since it represents high standard of morale, like a lighthouse in the ocean of today's instability.
And how about me? Do I support his free exploration of the world or do I rather pave the road for him? How much is the experience shareable? Does everyone must go through same mistakes?
Tons of questions in my mind flying around, exactly what I love, when reading inspiring books.
Conflicts @ Hogwarts
How easy is to create a competitive atmosphere? Is it a slippery slope
to a continuous conflict? Can competition help to motivate people? The
believe is that light competition is good, but think twice. Especially
if you're a manager. Competition and cooperation in the same time
within the same team is unlikely. So what do you support, what kind of
behavior do you provoke?Will Harry be OK?
That's actually interesting and thoughtful chapter too. Harry's
orphaned childhood is not the kind you'd like to live, though his
values remains intact by the derogation from his uncle. On the other
hand, his difficulty to start dating is worrisome, psychologists say.
Admired by his fanclub, hated later on, not able to keep long term
engagement. Well, I'm on Harry's side in this case, he's an introvert, so what.
Is the Book Readable by Non-Psychologits?
Yes. These essays, although written by different authors, are quite
readable. Cooked in very informal language, with flavors of magix
language, you can eat them all at once or pick what most interests you.
Nice extension to J.K. Rowling's bestselling saga for adult Muggles
that like to think about the life. Posted at 10:18PM Mar 03, 2008 by Pavel Suk in Books | Comments[2]
Monday Feb 18, 2008
Tomato Soup and Books at Amsterdam Airport
Tomato Soup and Books at Amsterdam Airport
Schiphol airport in Amsterdam is my favorite airport.
I always go for a bowl of tomato soup there, it's so delicious. Very
tasty, deliberately spiced. I also spend some money for books. They
have good collection of bestsellers, not only fiction, but also science
and mind inspiring books. So what did I buy this time?
- The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
- Watching the English by Kate Fox
Posted at 07:26AM Feb 18, 2008 by Pavel Suk in Books | Comments[3]
Monday Feb 04, 2008
The Artwork of Antonin Manto-Mrnka
The Artwork of Antonin Manto-Mrnka
I
was
honored to visit the Studio
Manto with Diann Olden. We went there during the weekend and spent
almost 3 hours talking to the artist, admiring his glasswork.
Admittedly, IT IS SOMETHING! Pictures are more than
words, but reality is better than any picture. We made even
our own glass dishes, I'm an artist now 
Quite exciting Saturday and I hope Diann enjoyed that also.
Posted at 06:48PM Feb 04, 2008 by Pavel Suk in Personal | Comments[1]
Sunday Feb 03, 2008
Students from EPFL in Prague
Students from EPFL in Prague
Sun, with its roots in Standford University is very
open to students. We hosted students from the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) this Thursday.It's a prestigious university, part of École polytechnique fédérale (EPF), where the father of modern science Albert Einstein studied. I'm sure that at least one of these students that I talked to will become as famous as Albert and - of course - they will remember the most influential moment in their life, the visit to Sun Microsystems.
How did it go?
We did a couple presentation to them. I started with an overview of the company, Lukas Rovensky followed by talking about Open Solaris. Rouman, the superstar as always, entertained folks with NetBeans 6.0. His demo and presentation generated heated discussion, especially about developing modules for NetBeans. There was interest to develop a Latex module for NetBeans, so we'll see.Martin Grebac finished the whole program with a Glassfish demo and last but not least students went to the Usability Lab and Software Lab, where they saw how we test our software.
Kudos to all people who participated in this event, including Dal mas Sylviane and Lenka Kasparova who prepared the whole event.
Posted at 03:47PM Feb 03, 2008 by Pavel Suk in Prague Engineering Center |
Wednesday Jan 30, 2008
Quick Folders - My Favorite Thunderbird Add-On
Quick Folders - My Favorite Thunderbird Add-On
Dealing with hundreds of e-mails has never been easy. I know people
that just delete all e-mails that can't be processed in the first run;
there are others that keep loooong history of all e-mail conversations,
just in case. Admittedly, I'm close to the second group. Not only did I develop quite complex folder structure in my Thunderbird, but I also keep some of the very first messages I got here. Just in case.
As long as you remember your folder structure and the message can be clearly filed, you're fine. Once the folder list exceeds the size of the window (and your memory), you're in trouble. And here comes the help: QuickFolders - Thunderbird Add-On
Similar to Favorite Folders in Thunderbird 2.x, you can choose folders that you mostly work with. The only difference, well, the most interesting and time saving difference is in user interface. Your bookmarked folders are shown in a toolbar, you can easily drop the mail to the folder there, you can quickly switch to the folder or rearrange the order of bookmarks in the toolbar.
Mamma Mia, it stopped working!
Horrible things happen in the life, even your favorite program can stop
working. Little did I know that I'm so addicted, until I lost all my
settings. "Never mind", I said, "I had too many items there anyway". I
recreated the list, happy, so happy again. Until I restarted my
Thunderbird. No bookmark! How disappointing.There is always a solution
Looking into advanced settings and <profile>/prefs.js file, I
found that the QuickFolder setting is indeed written there, so there
must be another problem. I switched the Error Console on and saw errors when the add ons was calling loadFolderView function. Quick googling gave me a hint, so I commented out the body of ensureNormalFolderView in
<your_profile>\extensions\quickfolders@curious.be\chrome\content\quickfolders.js
and everything started to work fine:
ensureNormalFolderView: function() {
/*** Commented out
if(loadFolderView != undefined) {
//default folder view to "All folders", so we can select it
loadFolderView(0);
}
***/
} ,
Later in the day, I realized that there is much easy way to fix the problem: just upgrade to latest version of Thunderbird (2.0 and higher).
So I can finally get back to my lovely e-mails.
Posted at 12:12AM Jan 30, 2008 by Pavel Suk in Open Source |
Monday Jan 21, 2008
Handshaking or Bowing?
Handshaking or Bowing?
While reading Chinese Business Etiquette I started to think about cultural differences much more than before. Take Handshaking as an example. Very natural for Western culture, but might be viewed almost as an attack by some other cultures. "Why should a person touch someone else's dirty hand?" is not only a rhetorical question, I bet you experienced a sticky feeling after a handshake a couple times in your life. So why do we do that? Just to show that you don't have a weapon in your hands? Come on!
Bowing
Bowing, on the other hand, is nicely clean, while you still show the respect and openness (boy, it would be so easy to hurt you, while bowing). So is that a universal solution for the whole planet? Not really, as bowing is only supposed to be done to God in Islam or Judaism, not to people.Kissing
Kissing is the most controversial of greetings from all I know. Although I've seen it done in many French movies, I bet if someone did it in business (outside France), he would be dragged out of the office very quickly. Well, perhaps only Woody Allan could do it without punishment.So what to do if you're caught in a situation when you need to greet people in a multicultural environment? You might echo what other people do, just avoid complicated combinations, like handshaking and deep bowing at the same time. Who is going to clean all these cracked heads after that?
Well, imagine bowing and kissing at the same time, you'd have to be a Heron or Rowan.
Posted at 05:03PM Jan 21, 2008 by Pavel Suk in Global Engineering | Comments[6]
Thursday Jan 17, 2008
Book Review: Chinese Business Etiquette by Scott Seligman
Book Review: Chinese Business Etiquette by Scott Seligman
No doubt, there are differences between US/Western and Chinese culture, one would have to be completely blind to ignore it. The question is how to overcome it, how to play the game, how to understand reasons for different behavior.
Scott D. Seligman, using his 2 decades of experience in China, is quite insightful while definitely not boring. His vivid style, full of examples guides you through a crash course in dealing with your Chinese counterparts.
Can you "lose face"?
Surprisingly, it's not just about business, it's also a fascinating book that uncovers different kinds of human motivation. Money doesn't have to be the primary engine, there is also an inner pride, position in society or - face. 'Face' that you can lose or gain.Imagine a typical situation, in which you disagree with your business partner. Scott's guidebook suggests using indirect methods, such as assigned negotiators, instead of confronting others directly. It helps the manager or the most responsible person on the other side to save face.
That phenomenon is illustrated on a rather extreme case from a personal life.
A girl, who wanted to break up with her US boyfriend preferred to deliver that message via her close friend, to save face of her fiancée in direct confrontation.
I bet he would have been more happy to hear it from her, but that's not the Chinese way.
Are U LinkedIn?
In the light of booming Web2.0 technologies, it's interesting to read
about Chinese society that's based so much on an informal network. The
system of multi-directional relationships reminds me of a corporate
culture, largely extended though. There is also a dark side of that,
like in old socialist Czechoslovakia, you really need to have
these connections even to do little things. Recommend Book Index: 5 from 5 stars
Admittedly, I can't compare the book with the reality, since I have
very little experience in that area. Sin-Yaw and a couple of people
from his
team that I work with might not be the best sample of a typical Chinese
person, but I found the book very helpful even in these little
interactions.I can surely recommend it to all people that like to understand different culture. Readable almost as a thriller, but you can also dive into a chapter that most interests you, if you don't have enough time.
Posted at 07:39PM Jan 17, 2008 by Pavel Suk in Books | Comments[2]