Web site celebration

We went out yesterday to celebrate the launch of the new web site. God times where had by all. It feels nice to actually have the new site up and running.

Check it out: www.knowledge-values.com

log4j configuration or a tale of setting conversion pattern parameters

I was given the task of configuring log4j for a Java project. I assumed it would be a 15 minute task but it turned out to be way more complicated than I initially thought. The reason you might ask: poor documentation. Basically I needed the output to be in a certain format which meant setting the conversion pattern parameters to match the format.

The problem was that I couldn't find out what the parameters meant. After lots of googling I resulted to trial and error to set up the parameters. Funnily enough the top hits when googling where people in my position trying to figure out what the parameters meant.

But I refused to give up and finally today I found it:

Class PatternLayout

I tried finding tutorials and the like and I am sure that many people like me have scoured documents such as "Short introduction to log4j" to no avail.

Angry rant about integration into Dutch society: Fighting the belastingsdienst or a tale of horrible usability

It has now almost been a year since I first tried to do "aangifte" by the belastingdienst (The Dutch tax authority). I still have not managed to successfully submit an application even though I have tried twice.

Belasting power!

Apparently doing your taxes is subject to abject mystery and intricate complex procedures; so much so that the natives have tax lawyers do it for them.

Being Swedish I first tried myself to do the taxes using the software available at the belastingdienst web site. I was surprised that there was a Macintosh version and English liner notes. I thought all went fine and as per instruction I waited the stated 3 months for an answer. Three months passed with no reply and I began calling. It turned out that the form I submitted was not the form you were supposed to send in.

People moving to the Netherlands are supposed fill in the m-formulier for the first year they work in the country. The m-formulier has to be requested and takes 6 weeks to be delivered (8 weeks in my case). So I called a couple of times to inquire of where it was or if it even had been sent (they didn't know since the delivery is not tracked). Once the form came I realised that it was a 100 page form in Dutch (Please note that I am not critical of it being in Dutch since that is the official language of the country). So funnily enough once you moved here and settled you can do your taxes in English but when you need to fill out the m-formulier (m as in migrant) you are faced with 100 pages of juridical Dutch mumbo-jumbo).

Somewhat frightened by this pile of passive sentences and semantic complexity I caved in and had a tax lawyer do my taxes instead. So I waited another 3 months and called again as to inquire of the status of my "aangifte". It turned out that the tax attorney sent the wrong form. This time it was the t-formulier that had been sent instead of the m-formulier.

So I was back where I started and I called to ask if there was someone or some service that I could use to get help to fill out the form. Initially the response was "Ja, klaar" and I proceeded to book an appointment only to find out that I had to travel 2,5 hours to the south of the country for the only foreign tax office in the country. I was perlexed how it can be possible that in a country of 20 million which relies heavily on immigrant labour there is only one tax office situated on the German/Belgian border to handle their applications.

Firstly, throughout the whole process there is absolutely no feedback. Every time you fill something in you have to wait three months to figure out if it was the right thing or if there is yet another form eagerly awaiting to be filled out.

Secondly, how come the m-formulier is in juridical mumbo jumbo language whilst the standard tax application has English liner notes. Is it just me or is English liner notes more important for immigrants than people who have settled in the country and learned the language?

Thirdly, don't the belastingdienst already know what I earn? After all they are the ones taking a cut off my wages every month? So why do I need to supply them with the same information again?

How does usability come into the picture:
– Provide users with adequate feedback. If I fill out a form to subscribe to a news letter I most certainly don't have to wait 3 months to be able to call and find out if my applications was correct and received.

Certified Usability Analyst

As of today I am a HFI Certified Usability Analyst. Add that to the NTII staatsexamen and I have a good start to one of those classical walls of diplomas you see in American doctors offices on TV. Now I am off to get some recognition.

As a step in being more Web 2.0 i have joined both LinkedIn and HFI Connect. Quite interesting sites from a UX perspective.

Ik heb een fiets...

As I’m writing this I am on the way back from Eindhoven. I just passed through Utrecht. A lot of stuff has happened over the last weeks: Anna came to visit and got a job at Sygnific/KLM, I realized that the Holloways “is heel goed”, found out what the Dutch mystery spice is, went to a Dutch wedding, started looking for health insurance, went to the beach, bought a bike and started taking Dutch classes last week.

Johan and Jonas at the beach

Maartje getting married in Leiden

It turned out that the Dutch mystery spice is something called Koriander. It tastes like soap and few people actually like it but yet it is in almost every salad. It is not the spice typically found in Indian dishes.

I could live here - a tyical dutch house

Finding an apartment turned out to be a nightmare. I have scoured the city and looked at quite a number of dwellings, ranging from crack house to hip cool bachelor pad. Today I got confirmation that I got an apartment in a really nice area. One of the hardest parts was figuring out which areas were suitable and which best to avoid. Like every major city, Amsterdam has some areas where you really don’t want to live.

Tax in this county is comparable to Sweden. I think that tax is generally a good thing as long as you are guaranteed food, housing and health care if Fortuna should decide to turn a cold shoulder. But on one of these factors the Netherlands differs very much from us: same tax, but no health care. So after being left with some 70 percent of your salary you have to buy additional insurance for doctor visits and the like. That means that you need to cough up another 90 € just for basic care. A Socialistic country? I think not.

Dutch lessons at Vrije Universiteit

Dutch is dubious, it is very hard and at the same time it is a quite simple language. Since words and sentences quite often resemble German and Swedish you start out by thinking that it’s going to be a piece of cake. Then after a few futile attempts to speak you realize that written Dutch and spoken Dutch have very little to do with one another. In spoken Dutch whole sentences can be concatenated into a long gibberish word and pieces of words fall out for no apparent reason. There are a number of small words, such as “er and “maar” that change meaning depending on context and quite often these small words alone carry no meaning.

Let’s give a little example of concatenation:

“Is het” is spoken like [iset]

“Dat wat het” is spoken like [dat waset]

Another example featuring meaningless dutch words:

Er – a small meaningless word

Er wonen 15 miljoen mensen in Nederland. – Introductory er

Ik woon in Amsterdam. Ik woon er al 10 jaar – Place er

Programming is going well and I am currently exploring the world of jsf, beans and javascript. I just ordered a book on Spring and I hope start adopting it soon. Thanks to the good folks at University of Lund I have a very poor understanding of UML (they chose to use their own standard) and I will start taking UML classes next week.

I will start with a series of updates on Dutch usability. Swedes will be amazed…

Ik heb een fiets gekocht, een het is heel goed!

Deep Fry Country

Today I almost bought a bike, I even went to look at it, but it was 26 inch and therefore to small. So I'll keep watchin marktplaats.nl for something suitable for tall people.

Johan enjoying his gehaktballen

I and Johan went to IKEA last Friday, after a long walk from Bijlmer to Bullewijk we had "Köttbullar och lingonsylt" i.e. Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam, or as the dutch say "gehaktballen met vossenbesjam". Taking advantage of the country's lax alcohol laws we drank Spendrups Gold. Drinking beer at IKEA felt quite wierd.

Unfortunately the Dutch like their food fried and subsequently served the dish with french fries instead of just potatoes (I am sure the deep fried Mars bars served at the chippies in UK would have been a hit here, if they arn't already). It was still worth the trek but I couldn't help feeling that some potatoes would have made the dish so much better.

On saturday we went to Club Rascal at Club Eight. I had a massive headache but still managed to play some table tennis before I took I cab home.

Dutch spice

Over my two weeks in my new country I've noticed that some meals are so horrible that eating them is impossible. The food tastes like it's been out in the sun or like something fried in butter way past it's best before date. Some of my Swedish collegues have noticed this to. The question is what is it that makes the food taste so horrible?

The taste is hard to describe, it's neither sour nor sweet. "Härsket" is my best shot.

I'll post more on the subject when I have tracked down the cause.