Blogged on April 11, 2008 at 16:42
I know, I know… I had plans to blog more, had ideas on what to blog, had the right tools for the task, etc… The only thing I was and currently am missing is: TIME! ;(
I’ve been meaning to write about a lot of stuff that happened during this last month. Among other things, I got my shiny new Macbook Pro. The whole order/shipping process deserves a blog post of its own so I’ll keep you curious. Since I got it, my workflow is starting to “feel” better. There’s one huge downside though: having a laptop, gives me the ability to easily waste time anywhere I am! I’ve been finding myself playing games or reading feeds/news at even later hours… On the other hand, having the ability to run VMware Fusion presented me with a whole new world of possibilities like running linux testing servers on my machine, windows (Vista runs more smoothly than XP on VMware IMHO), etc… And I can even run MyEclipse on top of all this without even “feeling it” (4GB RAM surely help :p). Ok, enough of that…
In the mean time, Wordpress 2.5 came out and I upgraded! Didn’t think it’d go all that smoothly (especially after reading this post a while back - which I commented there as well!).
OK, bottom line: I will blog about the laptop like I promised; I will blog about my impressions on VMware Fusion and even WP2.5 (not so sure about this… nothing new to add to what others have said already!). I feel bad that it’s been over a month since I blogged and I *need* blogging… It helps with my… errr… “well-being”!
In other news, I started running/jogging! =) yay And no, I do not like running all that much! And no, I’m not running with anyone else! So why am I running you ask… Well… I need the physical activity, and I want to become healthier! (not that I’ve been having problems on that particular, thank God!). Got some Nike Shox Arraw, even bought the Nike+iPod kit… even though I don’t have an iPod nano! I’m hoping Apple releases the software needed for it for the iPhone in June… pleeaasseeee!! I just don’t feel like spending $ on a nano when I already have an iPod Video 80Gb and an iPhone! I’m willing to buy a 1st gen White Nano though… If anyone wants to get rid of it at a decent price, I’m willing to help you with that! :p
For frequent news on what’s going on with me, Twitter is the way to go! haha I’m finishing this post while waiting to board from Detroit to Newark after my original flight got delayed+cancelled 5 hours ago, and I’ve been twittering like a maniac about all of this! For those who thought of it as spam, I’m sorry. I bet you can find some interesting stuff just by listening to me yapper a whole lot! :p
Well, that’s enough for now. I have a few more thought out posts to make in the near future. Maybe all this time in airports is helpful to make you do stuff that you postpone all the time… More on that later! ;)
Blogged on November 14, 2007 at 00:36
Well, it’s been almost a month since I posted the last time and a lot of things have happened.
The Conference
The last two weeks were hectic. I was involved in a conference with leaders from all over the world, and we had to get some materials ready for it, including a DVD set with 6 sessions that we taped earlier and had to be edited and put on a DVD for release during the conference. The last session was recorded a week prior to the conference, and all the things that needed to get done had just pile up and still had to be done in time! So, like you can imagine, lots of hours of work and… very little sleep.
OS X 10.5 Leopard
During the conference my dad was here. I decided to get him Leopard (and iWork 08, so he can dump MS Office… over the course of (some) time!). I did a “Archive Install” and all went very smooth. His Powerbook G4 1.5Ghz seems snappier than with Tiger and I taught him the goodness of Quick Look and Spaces (although he seemed to enjoy Web Clips a lot more ;)). From my quick experience with it, it felt like there are things that can either be customized or I might need to “hack” them… But I can’t wait to get it… for Quick Look!!!!! :D
Twitterific 3.0
Inline ads seem to be one of the few new features. And I say that because I’m not a big enthusiast of direct messages (although I find them useful) and I hate the way the way they get loaded every time I open program. But I’ve been enjoying the ads a lot… They’ve proven very useful and informative! :) This is the way to go with ads (kudos to the guys of The Deck for the selective approach to advertisement!), although I think they should stay inline… even after a new one comes up! (never thought I’d say this!)
Firefox 3.0b1 (RC3)
I installed Firefox 3.0b1 RC3 yesterday and I love it! I have been using Safari for most of my stuff because Firefox is just taking WAYY too much memory… :( But 3.0 seems lighter and feels snappier.
I sincerely hope Mozilla proves Steve Jobs wrong… (for those not aware, Jobs had a sad moment - the only one in my opinion - when he showed a graph of web browsers with market share split between IE and Firefox, 75% and 24% respectively, and he announced his desire for Safari: take over Firefox’s share… not even touching IE’s share!!! Bad move Steven!)
Work - Next weeks
I’ll developing the look & feel for a e-portfolio solution we’re developing here. It’s based on uPortal (scary if you ask me!) and I’ve never worked with it!! Apparently it’s all XML/XSLT… which will be all new to me! I’ll keep reporting on this because I bet I’ll learn stuff that can be interesting for most of you! ;)
I’ll also be doing at least one design for a friend of mine that is getting married next year, and wants to have a “blog type” website with directions and info on where the wedding will be and stuff. Great idea, huh? ;) I’m glad to help.. :D
Twitter & Facebook
Not being very active here in the blog doesn’t mean I’ve been offline! NO! I’ve been pretty active on Facebook and Twitter! Interesting how I’ve been ever so active on Facebook after the huge discussion I saw around some blogs on how Facebook is backed by the CIA and is data mining for them… Is that supposed to scare me? I don’t care what the CIA knows about me! :)
iPhone… 1.1.2
Even though I had my 1.1.1 jailbroken with some third-party apps, I never used them all that much too justify not updating to 1.1.2! I made myself a promise that every time a new official firmware came out, I’d update to it even if it broke my third party apps. An interesting thing is that, when I upgraded my jailbroke 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 I did a “Restore” and not an upgrade (I hate OS upgrades as well!). When I jailbroke 1.1.1 and reinstalled some of the apps I had before, I had all my setting there… even the level I was on on the “Lights Off” game I had installed and the preferences and accounts on Colloquy and Apollo IM! Question: is the backup feature on the iPhone a VERY GOOD and thorough one, or are the third party apps installed somewhere where iTunes doesn’t access when “formatting” for Restore (because on Restore it clears all my songs and videos even… until it syncs again, of course!)??? Interesting huh?
I still need to figure out what REAL features this update gives me. As of now, some little glitches with MobileMail seem to be fixed and the Ringtone classification is a lot better! I hope MobileSafari is more stable………………. :rolleyes:
Funny how I keep jailbreaking my iPhone, and updating the firmware and never had any problem… Lucky me, I guess!
Google Android and the Stock Market
I’ve been following the stock market in some way, mainly because… the iPhone makes it so easy to do so! :p But I had strong beliefs that the high rise of Google’s stocks was a result of the hyped gPhone, which some expected to be an iPhone competitor of sorts…
Google’s stocks rose above $740, close to over $300 in the last 6 months and it felt… “bubblish” IMHO! And when Google Android was announced and investors realized it was not a physical-iPhone-alternative, or a device that could make sense of Google’s interest on the 700Mhz frequency auction, the stocks plunged, with GOOG down by over $120, and even bringing down AAPL (Apple) along the way!! Of course that mini-crash was also influenced by the rise of the oil prices… but I think it was also a result of the bubble effect on the gPhone expectations…
The most interesting fact is that Google’s shares are on the rise again today… They closed at $660.55 (+$28.48) and the AAPL closed at $169.96 (+$16.20). I’m very confused with the market today… REALLY! I think the market is crazy and Google’s stocks are soooo volatile! I give up on thinking I should get money and start investing… although that would have given me at least $300 per share on Google and over $100 on Apple, had I money back when I thought it would have been good to buy them! </rambling>
Coming Next
I urge those who have any kind of interest on my sayings/rambling to get on Twitter and follow me! Twitter as proven to be a great social utility because it can function as both an instant message system, a broadcast and a micro-blogging platform. Long Live Twitter! :) Or you can get Facebook… ;)
I had some stuff I wanted to blog on some weeks ago… but they’re old now! And since I was “out” for the last 2 weeks, I need to get back on track before I can start writing on a constant pace. Keep checking back folks! :)
Blogged on September 18, 2007 at 18:23
Well… To avoid having a whole month go by without updates, I’ll try to summarize the main reasons why this happened:
- Switched ISPs (Clix > Meo) and that left me sometime without internet.
- When I had internet again, I had to pack stuff… (read on)
- On September, 6th I officially moved to the US: Porto > Frankfurt > Chicago > Des Moines on plane and Des Moines > Ames by car. Yes, I now officially live in Ames, Iowa, US. (check the Google Maps links ;))
- I couldn’t bring my PC tower (my hand-picked one… FOR SALE as of now… contact me for details!), so besides my work computer (Apple iMac G5) I’m somewhat offline.
- I’m not in the US with a work visa as I’m not getting my paycheck from here. I’ll be in training and will do some work, but I’ll be paid from Portugal. This situation my change in the future depending on… might happen. (updates on this later on, along with details of my current… errr… “job description”)
- I won’t buy my next computer, a Macbook Pro, until OS X Leopard comes out… And I hope no rumors of MBP updates come out by then… or I might just have to wait!! :/
- To ease my wait until then, I will buy an Apple iPhone… There, I’ve said it! :)
- I will now try to update this a LOT more often (3 times a week is my personal minimum goal average).
- Even though I haven’t been updating here, I have been trying to keep my Twitter somewhat updated… And oh, I did upload some pictures of where I’m staying to my Flickr! :)
- Thank for reading this. I know it’s personal stuff, but after all that’s what makes blogging such a social part of life. :)
PS: Yes, I always wanted to make a “10-item-list” blog post… ;)
PS2: I’m getting the iPhone tomorrow :D YEY (had it sent on next day shipping! ;))
PS3: I just (09/23 2am) edited this post to get the links working again… Safari 3 beta is acting very weird with the wordpress editor… And FF had some issues aswell… Edited on Camino 1.5.1 with no problems ;) (I’m loving it so far… If I can only get some of my FF extensions here… ;))
Blogged on August 11, 2007 at 17:40
Bem… Já passaram dias de mais desde o meu último post. Tal facto deve-se a ter sido uma semana um tanto ou quanto… estranha. Apesar de ter estado online 90% do meu dia enquanto acordado (nop, ainda não consigo estar online durante o sono… - os outros 10% são as refeições :p), ter lido os meus feeds todos (consegui “limpar” o meu Reader :)), ter lido e respondido a emails, ter lido artigos de interesse e de relevância para leitores do meu blog, etc… acabei por ter tanto que não fiz muito.
Estou neste momento a acabar um design para um site dum clan (daqueles que jogam jogos de computador online, e ficam num programita a falar uns com os outros, discutindo tácticas e ajudando-se mutuamente com o objectivo de eliminar a equipa concorrente… sim esses mesmo!) que mo pediu… Não vou lucrar, mas como é algo que até me deu algum prazer e como estava numa crise de criatividade, acabei por aceitar o desafio. Originalmente só queriam personalizar um template existente, mas acabei por refazer tudo. Com isso, deparo-me com as frustrações típicas de pessoal “esquisito” como eu: o raio do CMS não gera código direito, cospe tabelas para tudo e mais alguma coisa e é tudo menos “standard compliant”. Um gajo sofre… Mas pronto, vou acabar isto entre hoje e amanhã e não se fala mais nisso. E quando estiver pronto partilho para conhecimento geral e crítica… constructiva, visto não ser a minha área de design… hmmm… nem tenho formação nenhuma de design! :p (NOTA: Já agora, quem tiver interesse em desenvolver um CMS específicamente para gaming websites entre em contacto comigo que eu estou a fim duma aventura do género, mas não tenho conhecimentos suficientes por minha conta… :)).
“In other news”, estou a desenvolver o branding para a minha igreja. O logotipo e branding actual também tinha sido desenvolvido por mim mas já está dated e a precisar dum belo dum restyling. Ainda estou em “early sketches” e quando tiver mais dados, partilho. :) (Estou a pensar usar Wordpress para gerir todo o futuro website… Não sei se mais alguém já o fez, a nível corporate mas acho que o WP é capaz de dar conta do recado, com a utilização de alguns plugins sempre q necessário…)
Quanto ao mais estou a tentar esboçar um outro post com links que tenho lido recentemente em vários temas, e que me parecem relevantes. (all-geek-related-stuff)
Outras novidades de alguma relevância a nível pessoal seguir-se-ão muito brevemente. Stay tuned! :)
PS: Descobri uma banda que me deixou completamente fascinado. Trata-se dos Euphoria, um duo canadiano que envolve a sonoridade acústica, nomeadamente de guitarras, com efeitos e ritmos electrónicos… Muito na onda dum Lounge/Chillout. Podem ouvir uns previews do melhor álbum deles aqui, dar uma olhada no myspace, ou passar pelo Last.FM e procurar por artistas similares. Boas audições!
PS2: Não resisti ontem à noite e comprei mesmo o álbum no dancetracksdigital.com. O problema foi que tentei fazer o download delas com o DownThemAll! do Firefox. Resultado: não consegui e ainda fiz expirar os links que têm protecção contra cópias por IPs diferentes (os links são disponibilizados durante um dia, mas apenas para 1 IP… Se o IP mudar, têm de se requerer novos links…). Depois de alguns mails, recebi a resposta há minutos e reactivaram-me os links. Eu tinha procurado e não havia nenhuma indicação contra “Download Managers” de terceiros apesar de eles terem um deles. Já os avisei, e espero que tomem medidas. Foi a minha primeira vez no site, e situações destas não costumam deixar boa impressão… De resto, o que me fez comprar lá foi ser o mesmo preço que na iTunes Store ($9.99 o álbum… em € fica ainda um bocado menos) e ser DRM-Free e MP3 a 320kbps. =D
Hey! I‘m Levi Figueira, an ‘82 portuguese tech enthusiast a.k.a geek! My interests range from design, photography, multimedia, production and music to linux, networking and development! *Personal tastes are subject to change without prior notice* :p Enjoy! =)
