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August 30 Mallu MagalhãesI was watching the usually dreadful Brazilian TV and bumped into this new singer. Her name is Mallu Magalhães and she does not have an album to sell yet, but you can check her out on MySpace.
She has songs both in English and Portuguese and she is a-do-ra-ble.
August 29 McCain Picks Palin as Vice-PresidentJohn McCain choosing Sarah Palin as vice-president candidate to demonstrate the GOP respects women is like George Bush saying he is more of an environmentalist than Al Gore on the 2000 campaign because he likes to trim brush with a chainsaw.
I know there is no limit for "stupid" but this type of move always surprises me (because it typically works).
August 28 One For NaraNara, this one is for you and Oscar. This is one franchise I could open and operate just for fun
It would be for cats only. I would hand wash dogs.
August 24 Fixing Audio Tone on Windows VistaSince I wrote an entry a couple of days ago scrutinizing Apple, I decided to share my monthly routine with Windows Vista. Apparently a lot of people have their own grievances, and mine is that Vista messes up with my audio card and speaker configuration *every time* I install a new patch.
On every second Tuesday of every month (if I'm lucky) Windows Update/Vista replace my sound card driver by a less sophisticated version. My speakers go from a 5.1 configuration to a 2 speaker configuration and the sound card hardware tone is reset to zero gain bass and zero gain treble.
With a debugger attached and log files I understand how. Why is beyond me.
Here is what I have to do to get my configuration back:
- Open control panel
- Click on 'System and Maintenance' - Click on 'System' - Click on 'device manager' (on the left pane) - Click continue on the user access control pop-up - Expand the 'Sound, Video and Game Controllers' node - Select my SB Audigy card, right click and select 'Properties' from the floating menu - Click on the 'Driver' tab - Click on 'update driver' - When the wizard opens, click 'Browse my computer for driver software' (detail: that is not what we will do) - Select 'Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer' The first time I did this I had to find the right driver. Vista told me the right driver was was not compatible, but I know better. Now it shows the right driver on a list and I can pick it from there.
- I pick the right driver (which I found despite all warnings against using it) and click next - When asked, reboot the computer. After the computer finishes rebooting, log in and open control panel. The do the following:
- Click on 'Hardware and Sound' - Click on 'Manage Audio Devices' - Select 'Speakers' from the list and click 'Configure' - Walk through the 4 step wizard to configure speakers on a 5.1 configuration Now, this enables you to fix the tone of the speakers that were lost during this ordeal. You should already have the control panel open showing 'Hardware and Sound' options, so all you have to do now is:
- Click on 'Manage Audio Devices' - Select speakers again, but this time click on 'Properties' - Select the 'Tone' tab and adjust the tone using the sliders. - Click 'Ok' You're done! At least until next patch Tuesday.
Other lovely features Vista has:
- It replaces my desktop background by a sample picture *every* time I switch from normal to presentation mode and back on my laptop
- It loses the Internet Explorer window position when I clean the cache (cookies, temp files, etc)
- My scanner (Canon Lide80) only works if I loging as administrator
- ...
My list of complaints about Vista is not nearly as long as it was with XP and don't get me started with Windows Me. I don't think there is anything too bad about Vista and in certain areas it is a way better operating system than anything else I ever used (including half dozen Linux distributions, Apple crapware and several flavors of Unix and IBM Mainframe OSes). But we (Microsoft) are doing this for 15 years and those small defects should never show up again, even if the underlying system completely changes. The lack of insitutional memory for code defects annoys the heck out of me.
August 23 My First YouTube Embedded VideoGeisers work with water vapor, which I think is not the cause here. If you have any idea how the hidraulics of this one works, please leave a comment. As a side note, I think curiosity is not always appropriate - pay attention and you will see the driver of the pickup truck being washed out. August 19 A Quick Look At AppleOne of the great arguments among geeks is why Apple produces better end to end experiences than Microsoft. Apple fans say they have better taste and are better engineers; Microsoft fans say the Windows eco-system is huge and very diverse (hence complicated), allowing partners to make money.
Apple recently entered the application platform realm, as well as asserted its dominance on digital media. I think it is fair to see how they are doing by browsing news articles. A quick inspection of Techmeme alone gives me the following:
- A bug on the iPhone prevents third party applications from running. The fix will come *next month*.
- Ipods are catching fire. Apple will replace them is they start smoking, but not before that.
- Their upgrades don't work for certain software combinations and the iPhones stop making calls.
- Their partners screw it up and they suck controlling their distribution channels. See Vodafone taking thousands of dollars from their customers.
- They have to give away their web services because of poor quality.
- They have a bit of trouble with security (no certificate warning if you use Safari).
I could go on with the iPhone activation debacle, the price outrage with the iPhone, the allegedly the less-than-ethical options business, delays delivering their software and, of course, the fact they bundle and push their software like the next spyware vendor. They are also being sued in Europe and having a lot of fun with that.
The most amazing part of it all is that while I understand linux developers claiming freedom should win, Apple is not democratic at all (please join glassdoor to read reviews) and does not play well with others.
They have a few good products (at least one great product), and I understand why people pay premium for their stuff. But techies should know better than kissing their butt. And I don't think they will do very well as a dominant platform.
August 17 I Loved NorwayI am back in Redmond after a long but good trip and a surprise, thanks to the time zones. I left Oslo 9am of Saturday and my connection left Amsterdam around 2pm. I arrived in Seattle at 2:30pm of the same day (Saturday) after flying for 12 hours. I was expecting to lose half of my weekend but it didn't happen.
If you have a chance, and lots of money, you should consider Oslo as a vacation destination. It is only a 90 minute flight from Amsterdam and totally worth the trip, especially if you like walking. The buildings are awesome to look at, as well as very practical. The food, if you can afford it, is amazing. And the people very friendly, welcoming and educated. Everyone I talked to spoke good to perfect English - better than mine usually.
Ah, I discovered what goes very well with moose... fiber.
Oslo has lots of restaurants like this one, with tables right on the sidewalk.
This is an upper scale neighborhood, but the delta to downtown is minimal.
Those sculptures are from the Vigeland Park. There are hundreds os sculptures there, most of naked people of all ages in emotional scenes. Struggle was the most prevalent feeling I could observe, but fatherly love and friendship were also present. I imagine in the US this park would require a 'R' rating (pictures below were picked to avoid controversy).
August 13 And The Impression is GoneI walked downtown Oslo yesterday and the impression it is similar to Curitiba is gone. The urban elements such as public spaces, public transport, blending of private and public spaces are similar, but the building fronts are quite different. Another difference is the lack of unnecessary luxury on stores and shopping malls. The indoor stores remind me of how stores were in Brazil when I was a child - the products are good, but style costs are kept under check. No marble or other shiny things.
The population is very diverse, with a strong Middle Eastern component. I also found that some of the groups I could not point the origin are African. The city is smallish as, locals tell me, most of Scandinavia. Despite the size and weather (it is raining, the signs of snow are everywhere), there are people mingling everywhere. I miss that.
The effort to conserve energy is very apparent everywhere. Many stores have double rotating doors to retain heat and it is common to see public spaces between buildings covered to form an indoors shopping space.
Now is time to work. I was not scheduled to present anything this time around, but one of our development managers asked me to replace him, so I will. Wish me luck.
Ah, I forgot. Yesterday I had Moose for dinner.
 Writing From OsloI arrived at my hotel a couple of hours ago, after flying over Greenland and a stop in Amsterdam. Greenland looks like a vast amount of nothing from the air, just endless mountains covered by snow. I am sure the south region is great, but the place I flew over was a cold desert. I also flew over Newfoundland, Canada, and the impression is worse. A barren nothing. Landing in Amsterdam was a bit of a shock. It was a sum of surprises: first to realize the little white spots sprinkled all over the water below are ice floats; then noticing the unbelievable congestion of ships approaching the ports. There are so many of them, coming so fast, that the whole thing looks like a slower pace version of the holding pattern for airplanes. Another shock was to realize Amsterdam is surrounded by water. I know, I know, The Netherlands are famous for it, but it is a very different feeling when you see it by yourself. There is water everywhere - hundreds of channels and the soil looks saturated everywhere. Every inch of arable soil I could see was cultivated, had a factory, house or a mix of farm, factory and wind farm. The feeling is claustrophobic from the air. The immigration was so easy that was incredible. The officer looked at my passport, asked if it was a new one, I said yes, and he said "First stamp!" and stamped it. He was pretty happy to be the first :) For whatever bizarre reason I thought the population would be more homogeneous. I saw folks here that I cannot start guessing their origin. Oslo looks like Curitiba (Brazil) with crappier weather and much more expensive. There are lots of underground stores and all of them have places to clean snow off shoes. I'm leaving the hotel right now to see a bit more. I saw pictures of a park and a museum that looked very interesting. On my way from the airport I took a train that was so fast and quiet that everyone in my group (one Indian, three Americans and one Brazilian) was so impressed that we all commented on the same thing at the same time. The downside? Thirty dollars to ride from the airport to downtown - the same fare a taxi would charge, but we had to walk to the hotel and carry lugagge. August 10 Back From San FranciscoLast week I traveled to San Francisco to meet with the Powerset folks. Microsoft acquired their company recently and I was supposed to give them an overview about our backend. There is nothing to lift one's spirit like trying to explain several hundreds of thousands of lines of code in thirty minutes.
I left 6 am, arrived nine-something and took the subway (BART) to downtown. I just love San Francisco and the public transport system. I returned the day after and took the subway back to the airport six in the afternoon, the peak hour, and it was awesome. Walking downtown before and after the meetings was great as well - seeing people going to bars, eating, walking at 11pm is just amazing.
The Powerset technology is quite impressive and if you use Wikipedia you should try it out. Please make sure to type questions in English, not "keywordese". They work ok with keywords, but shine with English questions. Technology aside, the acquisition would be a good one based on the people alone. I hope it works out, because the potential is tremendous.
Next Tuesday I'll be off again, this time to Europe. I will be visiting another company we acquired and the schedule will as tight, if not tighter. I hope I can keep focused.
By the way, I just heard Russia has an acrobat whose name is Nastia Liukin. It sounds way too much like "nasty looking" for me to let it pass. Here is the link for her wiki page through Powerset: http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Nastia_Liukin?query=nastia+liukin
August 04 FirstsAs I get older I find harder and harder to find something different to do for the first time. Of course there are "extreme" things that I have not done yet, for instance jumping off a plane. I did bungee jump from a building (45 meters, 150 ft) and came pretty close to the asphalt, but that is not the type of things I am referring to. I mean little mundane things like trying Tom Ka soup for the first time and being surprised by the completely foreign taste of it.
Last Saturday I did one of those things. I laid down on a park lawn and took a nap. Back in Brazil I used to drive around the block before entering the building garage, to make sure no one was waiting to rob me. I would open the gate using a remote, drive in, and engage reverse in case someone try to walk in (so I could run over them if necessary). It took four years after I moved to the US before I was able to simply walk to my car and open the door without scouting the area. Taking a nap on a park was definitively something different. |
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