The End Of Software

I'm Aikido 4º Kyu now!

Category: Just Blogging

Last Updated on Saturday, 15 December 2012 13:10

4to-hyu Totally off-topic. The number is 4.

Yesterday, I had and approved my exam for 4th kyu, at our dojo Misogi Aikikai (http://www.misogiaikido.com.ar/).

The exam covered:

Shomenuchi Nikkyo (Omote & Ura)
Yokomenuchi Shihonage
Tsuki Iriminage
Ushiro Ryotekubitori Sankyo (Omote & Ura)
Ushiro Ryokatatori Kotegaeshi
Shomenuchi Yonkyo
Suwari Waza - Shomenuchi Ikkyo
Suwari Waza - Katatori Nikkyo (Omote & Ura)
Suwari Waza - Katatori Sankyo
Suwari Waza - Ushiro Ukemi, Shoko Ukemi (thank you, Walter ;-)), and Mae Ukemi

Many thanks to Sensei Daniel Fernandez, Fukushidoin Walter Mondarelli, Shodan Marcos Texeira, Shodan Alejandro Cabrera, and the rest of Aikidoka friends for their ongoing encouragement, and daily patience.

I'm very happy to reach the 4º Kyu! Now on my way to 3º Kyu. The Journey is the Destination.

PD: Special mention to Leandro Gutierrez, who helped me to prepare the exam! All be there in your 4º exam!

Voyager 1, where no man has gone before

Category: Just Blogging

Last Updated on Wednesday, 05 December 2012 01:16

33 years ago, Nasa launched a spacecraft "Voyager 1" with the primary mission of visiting celestial bodies. After it completed the primary objective, it's followed a path to reach interstellar space, which is the space between stars.

Voyager 1 has already reached a place where no human device has gone before... but it's flying and the edge of the solar system is still far way

... and it's still discovering new science horizons.

PD: Check the farthest Earth photo, Pale Blue Dot, inspired by Carl Sagan.

300px-Voyager

Yes, the little blue dot.

On ZX Spectrum's Birthday

Category: Lost & Found

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 12:59

"More than five million copies of the various ZX Spectrum computers were sold"

I had one of them. It's was legendary. My first development (summer) project: A Tetris Clone, hacked all the way in Z-80 assembler, filling the whole 48k.

ZXSpectrum48k

Source: ZX Spectrum's chief designers reunited 30 years on.

Jootstrap and Joomla 3.0

Category: HTML5, and more stuff

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 12:59

Today I'm amazed! We've discovered Joomla 3.0, reading "A First Look at the Mobile-Ready Joomla 3.0" !!!

My surprise is doubled since we've been working in the same subject!!!

In March, we've published Jootstrap. We've merged Joomla 2.5, Bootstrap, and Gantry as Template Framework.

As Bootstrap is based on JQuery, we've also been working to purge Joomla of the mootools native libraries (pls, check JClean JS plugin); and work with a 100% JQuery Joomla.

To show you a demo, you can visit: jbootstrap.prieco.com

Also, as a proof of concept, we tested it with JomSocial. It's a social networking component for Joomla, which mainly works with JQuery. And it works almost right out of the box on Jootstrap (calendars are not working, since they are based on mootools). Check it here!

If you want to review and fork Jootstrap, please join us: https://github.com/anibalsanchez/jbootstrap

Our Jootstrap's screenshots:

From a tradesman

Category: Shaking Enterprises

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 12:59

Recovered from Hacker News for Product Development: How lessons from a tradesman can help out a techie

Measure Twice, Cut Once.
It’s harder to paint it once it’s up.
Always keep your project and your workspace clean.
Always use the right tool for the job (also don’t be cheap with your tools).
If all else fails, get a bigger hammer.

Just a checklist

Category: Standards

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 12:59

atul ted2012 Following the previous topic, Atul Gawande has presented the subject at TED2012. Let's wait for the video!

"There are simple solutions to address increasingly high complexity. But, if we believe it’s only technology that handles complexity, we’ll go adrift. Even the tech needs to fit to the people we’re trying to help."

Atul Gawande, TED 2012

A Checklist for "How can I forget X?"

Category: Standards

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 12:59

Sometimes It's difficult to introduce the need of a checklist. At the end, it's a simple list of steps.

The greatest sin is the question: How can I forget X?

So, the real mistake is when we fail to recognize that we use to forget a step in any procedure.

I've read this very inspirational article The Checklist, by Atul Gawande about the need of checklists in medicine. Some excerpts:

An investigation revealed that nothing mechanical had gone wrong. The crash had been due to “pilot error,” the report said. Substantially more complex than previous aircraft, the new plane required the pilot to attend to the four engines, a retractable landing gear, new wing flaps, electric trim tabs that needed adjustment to maintain control at different airspeeds, and constant-speed propellers whose pitch had to be regulated with hydraulic controls, among other features. While doing all this, Hill had forgotten to release a new locking mechanism on the elevator and rudder controls. The Boeing model was deemed, as a newspaper put it, “too much airplane for one man to fly.” The Army Air Corps declared Douglas’s smaller design the winner. Boeing nearly went bankrupt.

Still, the Army purchased a few aircraft from Boeing as test planes, and some insiders remained convinced that the aircraft was flyable. So a group of test pilots got together and considered what to do.

They could have required Model 299 pilots to undergo more training. But it was hard to imagine having more experience and expertise than Major Hill, who had been the U.S. Army Air Corps’ chief of flight testing. Instead, they came up with an ingeniously simple approach: they created a pilot’s checklist ...

Medicine today has entered its B-17 phase. Substantial parts of what hospitals do—most notably, intensive care—are now too complex for clinicians to carry them out reliably from memory alone. I.C.U. life support has become too much medicine for one person to fly.

On a sheet of plain paper, he plotted out the steps to take in order to avoid infections when putting a line in. Doctors are supposed to
(1) wash their hands with soap,
(2) clean the patient’s skin with chlorhexidine antiseptic,
(3) put sterile drapes over the entire patient,
(4) wear a sterile mask, hat, gown, and gloves, and
(5) put a sterile dressing over the catheter site once the line is in.Check, check, check, check, check.

In December, 2006, the Keystone Initiative published its findings ... The typical I.C.U.—including the ones at Sinai-Grace Hospital—cut its quarterly infection rate to zero.

IT-ization of consumers

Category: Shaking Enterprises

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 12:59

IT-ization of consumers As a follow-up of my previous post, about how we are adopting consumer-level products in an entrepreneur environment; we have a mirror trend to adopt the same personal device along the corporate IT policy.

At the end, it's same device. If we think about it from an efficiency point of view, we just need the same access policy, and we have all users/employees connected under one policy.

There are several benefits. Users are not going to try "another ways" to circumvent IT policy. They are accepted under a formal guideline.

By setting official policies on the use of mobile phones in the workplace, you can gain control over the devices with encryption, PIN requirements, and the option to remotely wipe data in case of a lost phone. Try to ban them, and you risk circumvention and security risks.

Intel adopted this trend, and ended up with 15,000 mobile devices hooked up to its e-mail system; nearly two-thirds of them were owned by employees. This was a big win for end users, for the budget, and for efficiency.

Source: ArsTechnica -The single best change your IT department could make—what is it?