Hello readers!

Its been a long time since I have posted and I know many of you are mad (if that’s not the case then please dont break my heart by telling me ) at me while many are glad. 😉

Well moving on, those of you have been to TMO recently will know what I mean by FunkyOther Halves.

And those of you who don’t, sit tight!

Well FunkyOtherHalf.com is a project/company/bedroom company (I prefer to call it bedroom company, due to obvious reasons 😉 ) started by Dirk!

Yes thats right, Dirk the guy we saw at MWC with a Magical Qwerty OH! This one:

Well turns out Dirk is much more awesome than we thought! Not only does he come up with great lines He also has great stuff:

Chameleon OtherHalf

It runs on pure magic and awesomeness!\

Chameleon OtherHalf from dirkvl on Vimeo.

The Qwerty OtherHalf

“Made in the bedroom, just like you”

Dirk was kind enough to answer a few questions for us!

1) Tell us a little bit about yourself?

My name is Dirk. My love for open-source started with the N900 and N9. After I got my Jolla, I got really active in the community. After the extreme demand for -but lack of developing of- the Qwerty OtherHalf, I started to dive into electronics. The production of 75 keyboards is nearly coming to an end and this is the next project!

2) In which country are you based?

I live in Delft, Holland. All products are made with love in my bedroom. (my god that sounds professional)

3) Are you running FunkyOH all alone or do you have a team?

Al by my self! Although I have had a lot of help in the past from the guys at TMO.

4) How secure is your website? This is a big concern, since it seems you are using WordPress.

Yes, the front of the website is. My hosting company, WordPress frontend, web-shop and payment system were all patched against Heartbleed within hours it was discovered. It should be alright, but this is of course of primary concern these days!

(Munim Says: Also he is using PayPal and come on we all trust paypal!)

5) You haven’t specified any shipping details?

I shall put some info on the site very soon. But for now: I ship worldwide and all the products that are online (and don’t have ‘pre-order’ in the name) are ready to go and will be shipped the same or next day! Pre-orders are for OH’s that are not printed yet, but on one hand gives me the chance to boost my capacity and on the other hand insures these people to be the very first ones to get one once they are printed. It is like a subscription where you get another color in the mail every other week.

6) Why don’t you engrave custom text for buyers too? That will increase your sales.

Making custom OtherHalves is on the planning! However, my focus is more on the community in developing new OH’s and helping with 3D CAD designing.

7) Tell us about the material and printer you are using?

The printer I use is a LeapFrog. It is designed by other students from Delft. I print with both PLA and ABS, the most commonly used materials for 3D printing. Every OH is printed on high quality and takes about 1.5h to complete. After that it is finished by hand to make sure the quality is up to snuff.

8) Can we expect something great in future from FunkyOH?

You can expect lots of Funky stuff! The more covers that are sold, the more I can increase my capacity and have spare time for developing really crazy funky stuff! This will range from single colors that are in the store now, to more elaborate things in the future. If you -or someone else- have a great or ridiculous idea, let me know and maybe I will make it. You can even enter the weekly challenge on my site to win free OH’s by submitting your ridiculous idea!

9) Are you planing on giving your website a more professional look? (Yes i was rude enough to ask that :p)

Thanks for the compliment. I am an engineer and as such not a graphical designer. I’d rather focus on developing products than Photoshopping, but if someone wants to help me he/she is very welcome.

10) How can we, the JollaUsers team, guarantee our readers that FunkyOH is legit? Can you get us some testimonials?

I developed and built the Qwerty OtherHalf and was invited by Jolla to showcase this at MWC 2014. If they think I am legit, and you think Jolla is legit, well you do the math!

He kinda owned me at the last one! Didn’t he?Anyways, for me this is like a dream come true!

Because Jolla needs to focus on Sailfish and making it awesome-er

and someone from the community needed to stand up for tohs!

He has also promised to release many other colours very soon but he needs your help! Our Help!

So head on to FunkyOtherHalf and support him!

Till then, as Dirk puts it,

Stay Funky.

PS- Dont look at the bottom of his site, she minds! 😉