IT Really Matters

It has been some time on my mind now that i would like to write something about myself.

My name is Jarmo Pertman and i am in my mid-twenties. I have been working about 2.5 years on writing automated (web) user interface tests with Ruby using RSpec and Watir. I’ve also contributed some of the changes to RSpec [1] and Watir [1][2] itself. Since i started doing the tests i’ve had many different ideas how to make it even more simpler and nice. Some of these ideas i have already implemented at my workplace too, but since we have quite many tests (actually when using RSpec, then you write specifications - specs) already created, it’s becoming little bit hard to change them all and tell everyone else to change theirs also. Nevertheless i’m going to do some short series on my blog about writing user interface specs and having fun doing them so that you would have a better starting position than me. That’s all about me i think :-)

So, what about Estonia? Estonia is the country i live in. Have you ever heard of it? You probably have in some episode of “Simpsons” or some other comedy show. There they tend to refer to Estonia as some poorly developed country. I would say that Estonia is quite sophisticated IT-wise.

Okay, there are of course some companies which are just trying too hard. For example, i’m writing this post offline. I just don’t have Internet connection at my apartment… yet. I moved 3 days ago to this new place. Of course i contacted my ISP 2 weeks and 1 week before moving and they registered my request through the phone to relocate Internet connection also. One day before moving i contacted them again to make sure that we’re on the same page and oh what a wonderful surprise - they didn’t have any relocation requests made by me in their system at all. Of course i had to make a new one. They say that it might take a week before they will make the change. And here i am - without any connectivity. What a joy :-) You should try to live in a city without Internet connection for a while. It’s not soooo bad after all.

Anyway, when talking about Estonia then there’s IT everywhere (mostly in capital, Tallinn, though). There are a lot of (free) WiFi connections (of course not near of my apartment:P). Actually, the whole country is covered by wireless Internet (CDMA technology is used). The whole country is planned to cover with 100 Mbit/s connectivity by the year of 2015. You can do almost every daily operation with your mobile phone. Of course everyone has their own mobile phone, some even 2 of them or 3 (with different numbers). I can pay money to my friend with my mobile phone, i can pay for my car parking with my mobile phone, i can even log into my internet bank account and sign the payments with my mobile phone using PKI mechanism. We have here internet bank, which has gotten pretty good awards by “Global Finance”. Since we also have usage of ID card (also uses PKI) quite high these days then there is also a possibility to elect over the Internet. What else? We still have to drive a car and do it ourselves and buy the food from (super)market and sleep on the bed.

But i still think that in Estonia IT really matters!