I like to drive.

I like the sun, I like to pester the cloud, yes that cloud, silly.

I like Apples.

I’m looking for hackers.

Keep you posted.

Julio Teruya, a coworker at HTU, has been working on a software project at UPC. His work consisted precisely in developing a software product for applying the Herrmman model in a series of tests. The results are based in series of questions. The product graphs the results and also produces a more detailed report. The outcome was a nice piece of software. At HTU we do believe technology needs to address real world problems. I did use it. Here are my results for the Learning Styles test and I hope you find it useful when interacting with me. Of course I encourage you to use it and test yourself. It’ll be free for limited time.

Thanks to:

• My philosophy teacher, Mr. Oliva, who brought reality and realism to actual meaning in my life.
• To Mr. Ruben Yong, Dean of UPC’s Engineering EPE programs, who told me I am not for engineering, indeed, I am a different animal.
• To my UPC Math teacher, Elias Soto, who paved the way for me to re-engage with Math.
• My lovely and wonderful friends who always support and encourage me. I, by no means, just act accordingly.
• The customers who didn’t bought our products, so we didn’t lose focus on our goal.
• To the people who grows anger and sadness inside themselves, they have taught me the value of mental health.
• To my classmates that have taught me I shouldn’t take myself too serious!
• To the people who trust on me with no hesitation. They are confident that I can achieve my goals. I just honor that.
• To the people who I make hard for them to deal with me. I take it as a challenge for myself to improve.
• To my current Math teachers who have proven I work great on abstract level. I’m tempted to explore more on that side. Still struggling with details.
• To the wonderful HTU team, they are the best in town.
• To my faculty teachers and people for his vision, advice and field expertise. I feel I belong here.
• To my programming teacher, Alfredo Paz, who introduced me to Haskell and the emphasis on the joy and art of programming.
• To the SoundTrends team for making Looptastic! Finally I can make some real noise!
• To women, for living inspiration.
• To Claudia, for everything.

Todo es azul.

It works this way:

no-computer.org is what I call “my B-side act”. It was born as a vehicle to express my inner self in no verbal form.

The name is a funny contradiction that has it’s origin on the after job hours I turn off the computer and disconnect completely from world (read Internet) and do anything else but work. Ironnically, as the tools for producing this venture are the computers themselves and some other electronics I was, in fact, in a situation where I “reject” computers but have to use them for my expression act. It’s a funny contradiction as I happen to be myself: a walking contradiction.

At this stage it basically translates art to the web in a traditional fashion. Next releases should be able to let you interpret and experience the acts in a very personal way. I have pretty nice plans for this.

Even it has been live since apr 30, I did choose today for announcing it because it’s a great day and it’s also Pablo’s birthday! I hope you enjoy it, it has been done with plenty of love :)

Working with computers, software in particular, for almost 12 years have brought interesting views regarding life. For the past 3 years I’ve progressively improved the human being am I, and also the improvement process. The other day I was heading to the uni and I’ve just noted that some practices of my profession can also be applied to my personal improvement. So, here I’m sharing some of them. Hope you find them useful.

1. Spot your bugs and kill ‘em. While it’s important to want to improve yourself. It’s more relevant to the fact of real improvement that you spot your personal “bugs”. This is a crucial part of it all. Once you are aware of you personal “bugs” you’ll be able to take action on them. So, when you do, just kill them and don’t let stink until you are not able to manage it at all and all your “code” taints and breaks.
2. Let process run on the background. Life has a limitation, which is time. Time is a scarce resource. You must be aware of it, really. While we might want to do many different things life presents to us, is not really responsible to engage on all. However, we can hack this. Here technology is our ally. There are many different ways to be able to do some things in the background while on the foreground you focus on what really matters to you at the time.
3. Outsource services that are not key for you. Delegation and distributed architecture come to mind. Professions and specialization are an evolution of humanity. Please take advantage of it. You don’t need to know or do  everything. Karen Sthepenson’s connectivism axiom is illustrative:  ‘I store my knowledge in my friends’.
4. Focus on what matters. This is somehow like the unix tradition of doing one thing and doing it well. Identify what makes you unique, special and relevant on your ecosystem. What value you can offer to others, and work on that direction. Hard work pays.
5. Release early and release often. Once you have spot bugs and managed to fix them, release a new version of yourself!. Tell the world by showing an improved version of yourself. Make this incremental and iterative, just like a software development framework. For instance I currently run a 3.1 version of myself. Just released a point version last week :)

However, for what it takes the most amazing thing I’m grateful for is to be able to go further on building the foundations on most areas on my life. When I started my business I had the goal of just building a strong foundation, so it could hold and sustain the things we build on top, just like a building. It was not the same situation on personal affairs as of 2006. I’ve been misleading and lying myself thinking that I’m fine that way, which honestly I weren’t.

By the end of 2008 I have to say with no fear that I have a clear path, goals and achievements to be proud of. Every day commitment and small goals have played a key role here. When I started to develop on my life I began setting big amazing goals and expectations, which I still hold. But as time goes and things weren’t working as I wanted to sometimes I got a lot stressed by the idea that I’m trashing out the whole goal and my expectations, thus my future. Life is savvy and also teaches you ways for change and keep moving on. I recalled a friend of mine who was close to alcoholic circles and he told me that they commit just to be sobber the next day, and do it every day. Finally they achieve to control their disease. So, I said: let’s try it out! By the upcoming days I split my big goals on small chunks of pretty easy goals. Say, get 4-5/5 right answers on uni lab tests, get the project done on time, make the girl comfortable with me and just that. Application and achievements were so amazing that I also gained more confidence. Not to say that one can scale this and someday you end-up achieving one of your big goals. It also has to do with the law of attraction, on which you can find plenty literature online, small goals bring easiness on achievements, and they attract more. By now I can get anything I want, word.

Properly splitting time and separating activities also worked fine. I no longer work past 7pm, nor weekends on business projects. I dedicate that time to me, to my others interests and to develop myself as a human bean. This has proven to be more effective than trying to mix things like day job and studies for instance. The most wonderful thing I’ve gained from doing that is to discover that I can go much further on areas that I’ve let stagnate and I have potential to develop on.

Finally I had the chance to discover more about people I do admire and respect by close interaction with them. I’m always curious and interested on meeting people but, as Amaya describes cats, I’m also that complicated. Despite that, this year I had the chance to discover and learn more of my friends and relatives, also meet new interesting people, they are my balance between isolation and socialization.

2k9 will be the year of the first tangible results on what I’ve been building and working on. I’m so excited about that and yes, this also posses for me a time on which achieving many of the milestones and some of my big goals is getting closer. Expectations and goals are still big, process demands daily commitment on small chunks. I hope you can also have such year and be of help by sharing my experience here.

through the stars

through the shiny lights

sweetness

tenderness

stars collide

finding you,

in the dark

and all I did

is smile,

acting like normal

credits: eka bar, the girl, and you.

Finalmente acepte y empece a trabajar precisamente el 1ro de enero del año siguiente. El entorno de la BVL era más tranquilo, no tenían grandes servidores ni cosas sofisticadas; sin embargo tenian algunos elementos que eran bastante interesantes para mi, y creo que claves en mi desarrollo: el proyecto era relativamente nuevo asi que había algunas cosas por construir, había un esquema de telecomunicaciones con los distintos agentes de bolsa a través de un sistema ATM usando el protocolo x25 (antecesor del modelo OSI, TCP) -también conocido como MEGANET en TdP-, el ambiente era tranquilo, teniamos acceso a Internet y el grupo era bastante ameno.

En este lugar es donde logre desarrollar un conocimiento de buen nivel sobre el sistema operativo OpenVMS, a punto que recibia constantes consultas de los nuevos operadores que ingresaban a GMD y de algunos desarrolladores. Mis inicios fueron en el turno de la noche, donde básicamente se procesaba información e imprimia reportes para el día siguiente, ejecutaban respaldos y se aprovechaba parte del tiempo para dormir. Recuerdo que mi primera noche me recoste sobre el sofá que mis compañeros me recomendaron y no desperte hasta las 7am, todavía no me adaptaba; de hecho antes de eso no acostumbraba a desvelarme.
En algún momento pase al turno de la tarde donde tenia que interactuar con usuarios, vestir formal (cosa que jamas me incomodo, salvo cuando me “sugirieron” que use el cabello más corto -obviamente me rebele!-), y sobretodo conocer en persona a los CVL$algo, osea los usuarios, de entre los cuales había algunas guapas chicas; cosa que felizmente parece ser una constante.

Con el pasar del tiempo logré automatizar algunos procesos en los servidores, escribi cientos de programas en DCL, y en algún punto practicamente tenia todo el tiempo libre consecuencia de eso. Logré configurar el stack TCP/IP (ya que esos equipos solo funcionaban en red con el protocolo DECNET), ejecutar y navegar en Mosaic desde el entorno Motif de los servidores Alpha para ingresar a Internet y los servicios en los que ya era ávido usuario (confesión). Descubri todo el mundo detrás de OpenVMS, las conferencias DEC, los grupos de usenet, de los que aprendi, además de incrementar mi interés en conocer el tema en más bajo nivel.

Ocurrio en algún momento que llevamos un curso de Unix, del que ya había oido porque un usuario del chat de Yahoo! lograba hacer cosas que otros no y me dijo que sabia Unix y que debería aprender puesto que todo ese chat estaba sobre Unix. Rápidamente busque en Altavista o Yahoo! y aprendi qué era este Unix.

Luego de la primera clase estuve más seguro de que si queria aprender esto. Lamentablemente desde mi sitio no tenia forma de acceder al servidor en la red de GMD que estaba en el otro edificio. No contento con esa limitación empece a investigar en Internet hasta que encontre la luz: Linux, un sistemas imilar a Unix que se podía ejecutar en una PC. Los siguientes pasos fueron reciclar unos discos duros de 500MB, reducir el espacio usado por Windows 95 en la PC (Pentium 33Mhz, 16MB RAM) que tenia asignado, descargar durante 1 mes -debido a que reiniciaban el equipo y la descarga FTP no tenia “resume”- una distribución de Linux (creo que RedHat 5.x), y tratar de instalar y configurarla, cosa que logré luego de algunos días.

Cierto día buscando información di con la página del Proyecto GNU y leí su manifesto, e inmediatamente coincidi con el mismo. Esto me animó bastante a conocer, usar y promover esto que ahora sabía que se llamaba software libre. Posteriormente supe que habían distribuciones y encontre a mi subsiguiente amor: el Proyecto Debian. Luego de leer su contrato social, manifesto y las directrices, en donde percibi claramente que cualquiera podría contribuir a éste, levante la mano y dije: yo también. Hasta antes de eso no había sentido tan cercano el hecho de que, además de usar algo, también podía hacer cosas para hacerlo mejor y que beneficie a otros como efecto secundario. Esto claramente fue amor a primera vista, de los cuales uno nunca se separa.

Reemplace el RedHat por Debian, que por ese tiempo era complicado de instalar; lo instale en la PC de mi casa, que había adquirido recientemente, y decidi enlistarme en el grupo de traducción como punto inicial de mi contribución.

De las anécdotas de ese tiempo recuerdo una cuando el nuevo jefe de sistemas, ex marino, ingreso al centro de cómputo para mostrarlo a una visita y empezo a describir las actividades y equipos que teniamos. Al señalar mi PC, ejecutando GNOME 1.x, con una terminal ejecutando top y alguna otra cosa, dijo: desde aquí monitoreamos todo. Tuve dos sensaciones, la primera la obvia (no tenia idea de lo que estaba pasando allí -ya que yo mismo me autorice a instalarlo-) y la segunda fue un poco de ego que me decia: exacto, tengo el control de todo esto (cosa que tampoco estaba lejos de ser cierto).

En algún momento, años después cuando ya había salido de GMD, fui a ayudar a mi amigo Oscar con un tema de backups y para sorpresa mía se trataba de uno de los programas que hice tiempo atrás. Finalmente llegaron a usarlo (Oscar era reacio porque no quería olvidarse las órdenes y sus parámetros) y replicarlo en otros proyectos, fue bastante halagador :)