So it is this time of year again Halloween is in the air and all kids get even more excited then for Christmas presents.

My daughter got a Halloween Parade in her school. Everyone dressed up and went to Stillorgan shopping centre today, sang some songs and gave donations to India immersion fund. I wish somebody would celebrate Halloween when I was small (^^)… So much fun and chocolate (did I told you I am chocoholic?)

Here is some photos

Sorry, haven’t been writing for some time. However I have been busy, busy, busy with different works.

Irish Java Technology Conference is coming here soon. I am not myself a big fan of Java. When I started coding in Java about 7 years ago, I was getting completely insane with NullPointer exceptions. At that time there wasn’t enough documentation and Java was new and buggy. I keep thinking about it that way, thought it probably has gone much better now. I still think that Java is too slow, but you know - it can be used on different platforms so nobody cares.

However if you are Java fanatic, don’t miss the great IJTC event on the January 7th and 8th. Click HERE for more information.

Just noted down few events I would love to attend

OpenHouse Dublin - explore your city’s archicehture from the 16th to the 19th of October

Oktoberfest 2008 - A FREE event for all, experience traditional German fun, food and entertainment (9th-19th October)

Eirtaku meet - Eirtaku forum meeting (everything about Japan, Japanese language, animes, manga etc.), tomorrow (18:30 near spire)

Open Coffee - tomorrow, 10:30 in NYG (informal event for web / business people)

Pet Expo 2008 - in RDS 17th - 19th October

Samhain Halloween Parade - Visit Marlay Park in your Halloween costume for an afternoon of Children’s Monster Movies followed by a parade of costumes through the woods and finished off with a fireworks display! (25th October)

Horrorthorn is the Annual Horror Film Festival, which takes place from the 23rd to the 27th of October at the IFI.

The Future Internet - 29th Oct at Digital Hub

Dublinr - Flickr finest Dublin gallery (5th-9th November)

National Women’s Enterprise Day - Mullingar Hotel, Mullingar, all day conference 26th November

I feel a bit lonely today. My mom went back to Latvia yesterday.

She was hoping to find job in Ireland, but unemployment rate is just too high and it was quite impossible. She lived with us for about 2 months and I kinda got used to it. Now house feels empty and I can’t really go and talk with someone whenever I want.

I hope she finds something in Latvia, though unemployment is high there as well… I hope for the best!

Once upon a time I was a tester… and I loved it. However the time came when I had nothing to do and was reading books and playing online (every tester has free time like that just before next product version delivery). So then I made quite a nice list of the things I found fun. Today I just accidentally found them and decided to share with you. Have some laugh!

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Important Note: Most of the quotes below is from some books and internet resources. None of them are mine! And for those without author you might suspect that it is Pradeep Soundararajan

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“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” –Thomas Edison

Perhaps we should reframe the stock phrase “No user would ever do that” to, as James Bach says, “No user I can think of, who I like, would do that on purpose‚ and if he did, I’d hope that the system wouldn’t let him.”

“Testers don’t like to break things; they like to dispel the illusion that things work”

“Feature sets are like an onion because they tend to have many layers.”

“Tester job is to upset people.”

“Hate product before production but love it after”

“Two is not equal to three, not even for large values of two.”

“The best testers are often not very good at self-promotion”

“QA is still a challenge, still generally left to the end, and the staff is treated as second-class citizens”. — Rajesh Mathur

“The most engaging stories about testing I have heard have been stories about hunting a “white whale” sort of problem in an ocean of complexity.” — James Bach

“User’s bill of rights:
1. The user is always right. If there is a problem with the use of the system, the system is the problem, not the user.
2. The user has the right to easily install and uninstall software and hardware systems without negative consequences
3. The user has the right to a system that performs exactly as promised.
4. Th user has the right to easy-to-use instructions (user guides, online or contextual help, error messages) for understanding and utilizing a system to achieve desired goals and recover efficiently and gracefully from problem situations.
5. The user has the right to be in control of the system and to be able to get the system to respond to a request for attention.
6. The user has the right to a system that provides clear, understandable and accurate information regarding the task it is performing and the progress toward completion.
7. The user has the right to be clearly informed about all system requirements for successfully using software or hardware.
8. The user has right to know the limits of system’s capabilities.
9. The user has the right to communicate with the technology provider and receive a thoughtful and helpful response when raising concerns.
10. The user should be the master of software and hardware technolgy, not vica versa. Products should be natural and intuitive to use.”

In ancient China there was a family of healers, one of whom was known throughout the land and employed by the Emperor.
The healer was asked by the Emperor which of his family was the best healer. He replied,
“I tend to the sick and dying with drastic and dramatic treatments, and on occasion someone is cured; my name is known by the Emperor.”
“My elder brother cures sickness when it just begins to take root; he is known only in our village.”
“My eldest brother is able to sense the spirit of sickness and stop it taking form. His name is unknown outside our home.”

James Bach:
“I used to think that the role of testing is to find problems.
Today, I think the role of testing is to bring vital information to light in support of the grand mission of creating great products and running the business. That includes finding problems, assessing quality, analyzing risk, and in any other way helping the team to understand what’s going on.”

So on Saturday evening I decided to go to the Irish Web Awards (IWA). It was in Radisson SAS and the guy who wrote directions “near Dublin castle” made me quite mad. All the roads around that Radisson is one way so it took us half hour to find where it was and where to stop.

My second worry was about the clothes (women always worry about clothes too much). After Inspired IT Awards I was a bit worried going to another awards in only jeans. Well, my worries passed away as I saw those 5 guys with the red wigs standing in the front entry.

Even knowing that it is Ireland, I thought we might be late. Yeah, we didn’t get free drinks for 1,5 hour, but only 0,5 hour free. Crowd was amazing and of course there was only like 1/5 women. I found a good way to meet people. I came to person and said like “Hi, I think I know you from Twitter, you said you will come”. And then they say like “yes” or “no” and we keep talking.

Award ceremony should have started at 9pm, but people were too busy with free drinks so it actually started later. Rick O’Shea was the person who grow beard to make give awards in IWA. And he made ceremony so funny that people didn’t even care who was nominated and who won, they just kept yelling, applauding and giving out comments. It was most fun event I have been in Ireland.

There was 22 awards in total (including Grand Prix) and you can review them HERE. I’m too lazy to comment for all of them, however I want to mention quite a few which made impression on me in some kind of way.

First award was Best Online Publication and it was won by Irish Times. They didn’t came to IWA so Rick made a funny comment that he doesn’t care if that award ends in someones closet by the end of the evening.

Best Radio website award went to Phantom FM. And I really, really love this radio so cheers for them.

Best Podcaster was Playlist Mix. I really wanted Mumcentric to win you know. At least them I knew…

Best Technology Site. Silicon Republic won this one and they was shortlisted for two categories. Suits them well.

Best New Web Application/Service was won by Pool Daddy. One of friends of mine works there so cheers for them!

Best Goverment Website gave me complete laugh. The first page design with deer and name Aras Kids made it a great joke for rest of the evening.

Well… and then it came to Best Council Website and presentation disappeared. Windows started with some “low battery” error and public went insane with cheers. Rick asked some from the red wigs to come in front and make a dance. He did it pretty well, I’m sure there is a lot of photos everywhere now.

Best eCommerce / Services Website was won by Spicendipity. I often see girl owning it in IBW so I’m glad about her.

Best Practise was won by Pix.ie and Most Beautiful Website was won by Twitterfone. No news here.

And our companies website AgileTech actually was short-listed for Most Acessible Website. But award was given to Kanchi.

The Best Forum website and Grand Prix went to boards.ie
There was actually two people in the room who never opened it. I secretly actually wanted IBW forum to win. But from other side I wanted to see CuLT in live as he is developer for boards.ie and anime forums.

So that’s about it. Photos should be in Flickr, Pix.ie (I couldn’t find in Pix.ie) and Twitter. Just search for IWA08. I didn’t took my camera unfortunately as it was full with photos from ZOO (I went there in the same day). However I took few pictures with the cheapest Vodofone phone in Ireland. If you can stand them, you can look at them:

Yesterday Inspired IT Awards took place in the Mansion House. Our company was invited as we got short-listed for “SME Project of the Year Award”. Venue was completely terrific with star-light on ceilings, colorful lights all over place and professional staff. We got complimentary wine and amazing food.

Thought we didn’t win award, I’m happy to be short-listed. Inspired IT Award 2008 went to AIB for Olympus programme.

Here is some pictures:

Would you want to note your business for award and get some publicity? Do you know what awards are available there and which ones you can apply for?

As a year comes to the end there is more and more awards coming around the corner. Even this week there is to of them - Inspired IT Awards and Irish Web Awards.

If you didn’t had time to apply for those there is still few left and you can try others next year.

So here is small list for me and you just to note down awards in IT and business in Ireland. If you know some more - that’s great, add it as comment! I would love to extend my list to keep track of them!

IT Awards

• Net Visionary Awards powered by Irish Internet Association
• Irish Web Awards sponsored by Movie Star
• Inspired IT Awards sponsored by companies like Dell, SAS, HP etc.
• Golden Spider Awards sponsored by Eircom, Arekibo and Business and Finance journal
• Digital Media Awards sponsored by Ashville Media Awards
• ICT Excellence Awards sponsored by lenovo

Business Awards

• SFA Small firms business Awards (it is now open)
• Business Achievers Awards sponsored by Ulster Bank (it is now open)
• Women Mean Business Awards sponsored by DCEB (once per year in summer)
• DCEB Female Entrepreneur Awards sponsored by DCEB as well (it is now open)
• Irish Women in Business Conference has few awards organised by people in Irish Women in Business Forum

I’m all exited over tomorrows Inspired IT Awards Gala Dinner 2008. It is very official black tie evening till late at night. I really hope I will get some award and I’m happy that we got short-listed. I went shopping today and bought the best coat in my life. I haven’t been shopping for ages as I’m always so busy with business stuff. Awards was a good excuse to buy something.

Wish me luck tomorrow and I will post some photos of evening later.

When I first entered “Start your own business” course provided by Enterprise Board, I was surprised about the person lecturing. She was marketing specialist for over 10 years, but she told us that she went through psychology course to understand marketing better. I was wandering - why would I need that in marketing?

Over the course I noticed a lot of psychological things around her. For example, she always wore something that made her to come out in crowd - mini red skirts, red shoes with high heels. She was always friendly and positive and challenging in a most of lectures. I learned a lot and let me share few of those things.

Today I received call at the door and received free candies, popcorn and sticker from Qo2 radio. The Principle of Reciprocity in business. This principle basically defines the human need and tendency to want to give something back when something is received. In this case they gave you sweets and (constant reminder) sticker for you to listen to the radio. Both guys who gave me that were so positive that it made me smile and laugh with them. So would I try to switch on Qo2 radio after this - probably, if I had a radio.

So in business people often give something maybe not so expensive to others, because they know - you will feel obligated to give them something back. Especially they love to give some constant reminders - stickers, small funny candy box you don’t want to throw out or very well thought-through advertisement paper.

It’s funny if you search for reciprocity in Google, you get a lot of bible stuff coming out. So people knew the principle even in ancient times.

Two other principles which even I sometimes use is reverse psychology and “good and bad cop”. People often think that Reverse psychology don’t work on adults and it is childish act that normal people won’t do. Well, they do. Very often you say reverse things to clients to get the right thing coming up. You lead them the way you want and make them believe that they came up with solution. Does it sound very tricky? It is business and you have to fight for the things you want.

“Good and bad cop” is thing that I often do with my husband. If some client doesn’t like me, I ask my husband to call him and be a “good cop”. And vice versa.

Those few tricks aren’t very much advertised to people. Because if they knew them, they won’t fall for them. But they fall anyway.