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The not so surprising news from CSI

Written by Radoslav Dejanović, on 01-04-2009 01:53

Favoured : 199

Published in : , English language

(just a note: this is not an April Fool's Day joke)

Croatian Standards Institute (HZN) is in spotlight again. After the long battle for adoption of ODF standard in Croatia and what was probably the most intense news coverage ever of that institution, CSI went to hibernation, quite literally. Today, the Business.hr magazine poked the sleeping institution with a disturbing story and a strong critique of Mr. Dragutin Funda, Director General of CSI.

There's a lot written in that article in Business.hr magazine, issue 373. I am going to quote most interesting parts and follow them with my more or less accurate English translation (so you can check it with a professional translator).

“Dok vlade nekih zemalja tek sada, prisiljene krizom, razmišljaju o uvođenju četverodnevnog radnog tjedna, Dragutin Funda, ravnatelj Hrvatskog zavoda za norme (HZN), već dulje radi samo po tri dana. Čak dva dana u tjednu, i to obično ponedjeljkom i petkom, ravnatelj institucije izuzetno važne za ulazak Hrvatske u EU uopće ne dolazi na posao, već putuje u Visoku poslovnu školu Minerva u Dugopolju. U Minervi je Funda dekan, direktor i, po svemu sudeći, suvlasnik, a na paralelni ga posao vozi njegov službeni vozač iz Zavoda.”

“While foreign governments these days are, due to the crisis, starting to think of cutting work week to just four days, Dragutin Funda, head of Croatian Standards Institute (CSI) for some time now is working just three days per week. Two days a week, usually on Monday and Friday he is traveling to Minerva Business College in Dugopolje. He is a dean there, director, and possibly even a co-owner; his official driver from CSI is driving him to his parallel job.”

“Isto tako, umjesto da štiti intelektualno vlasništvo i ISO norme, Funda je prepisao službenu ISO brošuru 'Potrošači i norme' i u feljtoniziranu je obliku objavio u časopisu Suvremena trgovina te potpisao vlastitim prezimenom.”

“Instead of protecting intellectual property and ISO standards, Funda took official ISO brochure 'Customers and standards(??)', and in modified version published it in Suvremena trgovina (Modern Trade) magazine, signed by himself.”

“'Nije nam jasno kako nitko iz vlasti ne vidi što se događa u Zavodu. Prihvaćanje normi nužnih za proces europskih integracija još uvijek ne kasni samo zato što jer se mi iznimno trudimo. Međutim, cijeli se sustav raspada i uskoro taj tempo više nećemo moći pratiti', upozoravaju djelatnici Zavoda, koji inzistiraju na anonimnosti.”

“'We cannot understand how the government can't see what is going on in CSI. Acceptance of standards important for our integration into European Union is still on track just because we have put extra effort in it. However, whole system is breaking down and very soon we will not be able to keep up that pace', anonymous CSI employees have warned.”

Now, watch this:

“Saznali smo i da se Funda otvoreno upleo u odlučivanje o jednoj normi koja se tiče Microsofta, koji je pak bio sponzor Fundine knjige 'Sustavi obrazovanja kvalitetom u obrazovnim institucijama'”.

“We have been told that Funda openly intervened in decision making process regarding certain standard that was of interest to Microsoft, who in turn happened to be the sponsor of Funda's book (the name of that book is hard for me to translate meaningfully, sorry).”

Probably connected with this:

Zavod je sada pod ingerencijom Ministarstva gospodarstva, a donedavno je bio pod Ministarstvom znanosti, u kojem Funda navodno ima snažnog zaštitnika, koji ga je i doveo za ravnatelja.”

“CSI is now under the authority of Ministry of Economy; previously it had been under authority of Ministry of Science, where it is rumored that Funda has powerful protector, who pushed him to the position of CSI Director General.”

And, there's a little bit more:

“Sada tvrtka Combis u okviru 3.5 milijuna kuna vrijednog projekta informatizacije HZN-a uvodi Microsoftov softver, što je napravljeno bez analize hoće li odgovarati specifičnim potrebama normizacije.”

“Now Combis (an IT company) is implementing Microsoft technology as a part of informatisation project worth 3.5mil.kn. (about 500.000€) that has been started without analysing first whether that technology would be able to adapt to CSI business processes.”

The icing on the cake:

“Nadalje, djelatnici HZN-a navode da ravnatelj ne odlazi na generalne skupštine međunarodnih tijela za normizaciju, pa sumnjaju da ne govori strane jezike (zbog čega je navodno doktorirao u Novom Sadu), te izbjegava susrete sa strancima.”

“CSI employees state that Director General does not travel to meetings of international standardization bodies, therefore they presume that he doesn't speak any foreign language; he is avoiding meeting with foreign visitors as well.”

I know what you're thinking. But yes, it is possible in Croatia. And the other thing that just flew trough your mind as completely impossible – is possible. We will be hearing more of this.

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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 01 April 2009 )

Document Freedom Day 2009.

Written by Radoslav Dejanović, on 26-03-2009 00:32

Favoured : 164

Published in : , Croatian language

Iskoristio sam prigodu Dana Slobode Dokumenta (slažem se, zaista nespretan prijevod, ima li tko bolju ideju?) da još jednom naglasim problematiku ugovora Vlade i Microsofta, ali ovaj put sa naglaskom na stvari koje su ostale na neki način skrivene, a koje dodaju značajne sume već ionako visokoj cijeni ugovora.

Ponajprije tu mislim na dvije stvari:

- licenca državu ne oslobađa nužnosti kupnje OEM Windowsa na svakom računalu kojeg nabave, što znači da se osim 2400kn koliko iznosi trogodišnja licenca za računalo treba dodati i 700kn troška OEM Windowsa jer nije moguće kupiti računalo bez njih, niti licenca dozvoljava korištenje na računalu koje na sebi već nema Windowse;

- nisu pokrivene licence za pristup bazi podataka (MS SQL server), a bilo kakva ozbiljna e-government aplikacija koristi upravo baze podataka - ergo, 3/4 radnih mjesta treba dokupiti licencu za spajanje sa bazom podataka, jer ista nije pokrivena ugovorom!

Slijedi slide show kojeg sam pripremio za prezentaciju novinarima. Uočit ćete određenu "zaokruženost" brojeva. To je učinjeno namjerno, kako bi matematika koju pričam bila što je moguće jasnija. Stvarne cijene su bliske zaokruženima. Cilj prezentacije bio je ukazati na neke stvari vezane uz ugovor, a na koje nije obraćeno dovoljno pažnje, i naravno - kako korištenjem otvorenih standarda i slobodnog softvera država može novce zadržati u svom džepu. Ako sam negdje pogriješio, molim da me u komentaru ovog teksta ispravite ili ostavite svoje mišljenje.

Ovaj zadnji slide tiče se komentara na izvjesnom forumu izvjesnog domaćeg časopisa koji ima izvjesni stav prema slobodnom softveru.

Netko se upitao kako je moguće u samo 1000kn po radnom mjestu napraviti i migraciju i edukaciju korisnika? Odgovor je u zakonu velikih brojeva. 1000kn po korisniku jest optimistična varijanta, i tu se treba poklopiti dobra volja svih uključenih i malo strategije (primjerice, educiranje državnih IT službenika za samostalnu migraciju uz pomoć odgovarajuće "kuharice" umjesto angažiranja vanjskog izvođača drastično smanjuje cijenu migracije). Pesimistična varijanta je 2000kn po radnom mjestu. Idealan broj negdje je između. No, kako god okrenemo, matematika je jasna - riječ je o milijunima dlakavih životinjica koje bi domaća IT industrija vrlo rado razmjenila za migraciju i edukaciju! Zaista, napravio sam i štih probu - nazvao sam jednu firmu koja se bavi i edukacijom i pitao da li bi 30.000 korisnika educirali o Linuxu i OpenOffice-u za (malo sam bio škrt) 20 milijuna kuna. Odgovor je bio - potvrdan.

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Last Updated ( Thursday, 26 March 2009 )

A picture of me

Written by Radoslav Dejanović, on 21-03-2009 00:27

Favoured : 181

Published in : , English language

Few weeks ago I was asked by editor of monitor.hr to provide a picture of me to be included in my columns. So I decided to go for a caricature instead. This is the result of work done by one of the world most famous caricaturists Nik Titanik who isn't as globally famous as he could be just because the evil world empires dislike caricaturists of Slavic origins, why of course!

P.S. I'd like to seize the opportunity to mention another world famous Croatian cartoonist - Dubravko Mataković. He once even stepped into the U.S. market, just to be squashed by evil cartoonist sindicates that too were terrified of the ninja powers of Slavic artists.

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Last Updated ( Saturday, 21 March 2009 )

Bresser Digital LCD 40-1600x microscope review

Written by Radoslav Dejanović, on 27-02-2009 00:07

Favoured : 228

Published in : , English language

There's a nice toy out on the market that has great potential for a budding young scientist. A microscope with an LCD screen and price that shouldn't burn a hole in your pocket, yet powerful enough to allow for some semi-professional use as well. If you don't let the marketing department fool you, that is.

Bresser Digital LCD is a really nice piece of hardware. Built as sturdy piece of hardware and weighing in 1.5kg, it is not your ordinary plastic toy. What you get for about 200€ is a microscope, hard carrying case (to get the microscope out on the field where there's no electricity to power it), some already prepared slides to look at, shrimp hatchery to get your specimens and some microscope cutlery (toy grade, but usable), and there's even a handy tweezer microtome, to slice your specimens (fingers?), some glass slides and covers. You get no dies, but you get a bottle of gum media to fix your specimen on a glass slide.

Considering the price and the fact that you can actually do something useful with that stuff, this is a rich setup.

Let's focus on the microscope.

First of all, forget about the magnification range printed on the box. It doesn't compute. This microscope is an optical microscope with three revolving lenses: 4x, 10x and 40x combined with fixed 10x optical magnification for the camera, giving real magnification range of 40x, 100x and 400x. The enormous "up to 1600x" magnification is obtained by using digital magnification of the camera, but the results are, quite frankly, unusable. Even at low digital magnification the image is blurry, and at the highest setting you get a fuzzy cloud of colored shapes. That forces out magnificent magnification as advertised on the box and leaves you with still impressive up to 400x magnification. Or not?

We will review images later, let's examine the microscope further. The head of the microscope is a 3.5" LCD display. There's no option to mount an eyepiece or anything else for that matter. Don't be disappointed, it is the toy microscope we're reviewing, not a professional apparatus. The display itself is big enough for some serious viewing, although the whole setup is a little bit flaky. The buttons are hard to push and operating them temporarily distorts the image on the screen.

At higher magnifications the force needed to push the buttons shakes the microscope stage, causing movements of any loose object on it. The built in camera has 2 megapixel resolution, allowing snapshots in resolutions from 640x480 up to 2048x1536. You can even capture video at 320x240.

There's a trick using video capture mode to get the best focus. Since the microscope has to resample camera output to match the native 320x240 resolution of the LCD, the still image will always be somewhat blurry. To get the best focus, even if you're intended to make still photos, switch to video mode to get native 320x240 resolution which will produce sharper image on the display and let you find the best focus much more easily. Once you're satisfied with the placement and the focus of your specimen, switch back to picture mode and take a snapshot.

It will be saved in microscope's internal memory of 128MB; if that is not enough for you, there's a slot for SD card as well. The microscope will accept SD cards of up to 1GB. While you can preview/manipulate pictures and videos on the microscope, it is much easier to do so on a computer. You can connect microscope to your computer with USB cable and transfer files as if it is just another storage device. You can't use your PC to control the microscope, only to send and receive images and videos. The format for images is JPG, and videos are in 3GP format.

The camera is in range of consumer webcams, in fact that probably is just a consumer grade webcam crammed into the microscope case. It's got automatic white balance, which is good for a play, but not quite good if you're trying to get some unusual contrast. On the other hand, there are some built-in effects you can apply on the picture, such as black and white (useful), negative (good) and sepia (wtf).

Another very nice feature of the microscope is the ability to take snapshots at predetermined intervals, so you can watch a plant grow or a yeast on its way to conquer the world.

The stage is of impressively good quality for the price. It is very simple, but precise mechanical stage with Nonius scale, very easy to work with. Underneath the stage is one of two LED lights and a revolver with color filters. I have tried using them, but haven't really noticed the advertised ability to increase contrast in stained specimens. They're good if you like to watch your slides in multicolor, but don't expect much. The lighting system is simple, but good enough for this toy. There are two lights, one used to watch glass slides, and the other used to shed some light on 3D object you can put on the stage, giving you vastly more things to look at. There's a dimmer on the side of the microscope stand with marks ranging from 1 (low light) to 8 (brightest) . I have found out that the best lighting is between 6 and 7, depending on what you're looking at.

Last to describe is the microscope base. It's got two minor issues. The base itself isn't quite balanced and my microscope slightly tends to rock. I have solved that by simply placing piece of paper under one leg.

The focus knob is Ok for that price range, but it lacks fine focus, which would be handy, but on the second thought, for such a cheap microscope that focus knob is very good if you handle it very gently.

Now, on to the picture quality. Here I have some pictures made with this microscope: a prepared slide, and an 3D object – an EPROM. Those chips have handy windows, allowing us to peer inside and UV light to erase them. (no, really! You can really erase such chip by placing it under UV lamp or leaving it out on a sunny day). Also, note that there are full size images too. Displayed images are scaled to LCD size: 320x240.

aliens40s.jpg

First picture is taken at 40x magnification. It is of remarkably superb quality for such a cheap toy. Native resolution of the image is 640x480. (full size image)

aliens40m.jpg

Second picture is the same, but with different resolution: 1520x1120. Effects of resampling are clearly visible.

(full size image)

aliens40l.jpg

Third picture is again the same, this time in full resolution: 2048x1536. This is the highest setting, also the sharpest. All subsequent images are taken at this setting.

(full size image)

aliens100.jpg

This picture is the same slide, taken at 100x magnification. The image is still sharp and really good. (full size image)

aliens400.jpg

This picture is taken at 400x magnification. You can see that this is too much for the optics, as the image is noticeably more blurry, but still useful. It seems that the maximum magnification optics could handle with good performance is about 200x. Which is still really impressive for such a toy.

(full size image)

blood100.jpg

Can this microscope be used for biology? Judge for yourself - this is a blood smear (remember microtome?) of Gallus Domestica taken at 100x magnification.

(full size image)

blood400.jpg

The same smear at 400x magnification.

(full size image)

eprom40.jpg

This image is EPROM at 40x magnification. Nice, quite sharp, clear picture with good color representation. Notice the depth of field issue.

(full size image)

eprom100.jpg

This image is EPROM at 100x magnification. Although the manufacturer claims that you can't use more than 40x magnification for viewing 3D objects, this picture is taken with higher magnification. The image is dark and somewhat blurry, but that can be rectified by using external light source.

(full size image)

eprom100b.jpg

And there it is, 100x magnification with some blue LED light (from a cheap cigarette lighter).

(full size image)

The final verdict for Bresser LCD microscope is that it is an opportunity you shouldn't miss. Of course, you have to forget advertised digital zoom, it's useless. And you have to keep in mind that this microscope is barely more than a toy. But, what a toy! It isn't just for a junior to play biologist, this microscope can be used to do many useful things: checking your pets for parasites, checking the microorganisms in the soil, making interesting YouTube videos...

In a hands of an apt amateur, it's got unbeatable price/performance ratio and can be replacement for more expensive equipment.

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Last Updated ( Friday, 27 February 2009 )

Kontrola Interneta u Gradskom poglavarstvu

Written by Radoslav Dejanović, on 03-02-2009 01:42

Favoured : 218

Published in : , Croatian language

Odzvonilo je surfanju internetom u zagrebačkoj gradskoj upravi! - grmi sa stranica web portala Milan Bandić. I obećava kako će djelatnici moći koristiti samo stranice namjenjene obavljanju posla. Nikakav Facebook, nikakva pornografija, karikature Nika Titanika, gluposti i dangubice. Ima da se radi!

A onda se sjetim svojeg službovanja u istom tom poglavarstvu, pod istim tim Milanom Bandićem. Bio je to prvi valjda ikad učinjeni pokušaj da Poglavarstvo oformi jedinstvenu službu za informatiku, i moram reći kako je pokušaj polučio zavidnim uspjehom. Ostvarilo se, na samom kraju XX. stoljeća, nekoliko neobičnih uspjeha - služba za informatiku oformljena je iz postojećih kadrova razbacanih po službama, podjeljeni su poslovi, stvoren je help desk, centralizirana nabava i servisiranje računala i od stolarije napravljena sasvim profesionalna (minus protupožarna zaštita) sistemska soba. Sve to unutar pola godine (tko ne radi u javnom sektoru ne zna koliko je pola godine zapravo kratak vremenski rok), i svakako ne bez zasluge upravo gore navedenog Milana Bandića, koji nam je dao punu podršku i otvorene ruke, ovlasti i odgovornost. Rezultat priče bio je informacijski sustav Grada kojem je u to vrijeme mogao konkurirati samo sustav grada Splita.

I te davne 2000. godine, Grad je imao upravo ovo o čemu Milan Bandić priča danas - kontrolu pristupa nepoćudnim sadržajima svim djelatnicima uprave. Dobitnička kombinacija, naravno - squid i squidguard, sa redovitim osvježavanjem popisa nepoćudnih web sadržaja. Iskorišten je jedan stariji ali sasvim dostatan server, prenamjena je trajala par dana, korišteni su isključivo unutrašnji resursi, a ukupni trošak sustava - nula kuna!

Sustav je bio namješten tako da djelatnici nisu mogli zaobići korištenje servisa, a dali smo si i truda složiti pomalo provokativnu, svakako neortodoksnu stranicu na koju bi sustav usmjerio korisnika koji bi slučajno ili "slučajno" zalutao na "one" stranice: veliki znak stop, iznutra ispunjen (pristojnim) isječcima sa nepoćudnih stranica, a ispod toga tekst:

STOP PORN

Ako trebate pristupiti stranici , isprintajte ovo i odnesite u Help Desk, a mi ćemo vam isprintati stranicu.

Rezultat primjene novog sustava bilo je smanjenje količine prometa za otprilike dvije trećine u prvih tjedan ili dva, nakon čega se graf iskorištenosti veze počeo normalizirati. Sustav je radio i više nego dobro, jer su pritužbe na "sporost Interneta" naglo splasnule. Jednom ili dva puta je netko zaista došao sa isprintanom Stop porn stranicom i bio uslužen pristupom do željenog sadržaja, a tek jednom su zdravstvenjaci trebali odblokiranje cijelog jednog domaćeg sitea koji se bavio gay problematikom, jer je isti završio u filteru nepoćudnog sadržaja.

Ovo o čemu Bandić danas priča - imao je još 2000. godine. I to ne na papiru, već u sasvim konkretnoj funkciji. Očito je u nekom trenutku servis ugašen, no razloge ne bih znao; ipak, sklon sam pomisliti kako je iznutra vršen tihi pritisak da se servis ukloni, a pipe do kraja otvore, ma ima se tog Interneta, nemojmo biti škrti...

Kada je servis ugašen - ne znam, jer nisam bio tamo. Milan Bandić imao je svoju legendarnu slalom vožnju, nakon čega je gradonačelnicom postala Vlasta Pavić sa kojom sam imao jedan razgovor ugodni sa elementima histeričnog monologa, nakon čega sam napustio Poglavarstvo i okrenuo se privatnom biznisu. Nedugo nakon toga, cjelokupni napredak informatike Grada Zagreba je (hotimično?) zaustavljen, i danas smo tu gdje jesmo - sa lijepim pogledom u leđa Splitu, Varaždinu, Rijeci i svim onim sitnim općinama koje svojim građanima nude besplatni bežični Internet.

P.S. uštede koje smo ostvarili Gradu prije smjene na vrhu također su priča za sebe, ali iz cijele te priče izašao sam pametniji za saznanje da riječ "ušteda" može imati različita značenja, a bome i različit predznak.