Crise da bolsa afecta maiores empresas de IT

Não é novidade para ninguém. Eu sei.

Mas nem toda a gente tem a noção exacta do medo que esta crise esta a criar nos americanos. Na Yahoo – por exemplo – já houve despedimentos. Os receios vão desde o simples perder dinheiro para as universidade dos miúdos por causa das acções, passando pelo medo da ruptura em bens essenciais como gás, comida e gasolina até ao medo de um ataque eminente devido a aparente fragilidade dos EUA perante esta crise. Certo é que, mesmo não sendo analisa, o perigo de uma possível reacção em domino é enorme. Fica o gráfico das acções das empresas de informática mais representativas (segundo a minha opinião, claro) no dia em que as acções da IBM baixaram dos 100 USD.

Bem vou exprimentar o IBM Lotus Notes para Mac OS. Se correr bem vou tentar meter a w3 a correr no mac. Já agora já testaram o software da greenhouse? Se conseguirem avisem, eu já testei em 3 browsers (firefox, ie e chrome) e não consegui.

Howto: Change folder icon in Leopard

Copy the icon you want to use (PNG), browse to the folder you want to change the icon.

Now select it and press command + I. Now select the folder and press command + V to paste the icon.

From Ubuntu/Windows to Mac OS-X Leopard

I just got my first brand new MacBook and, as one would expect, some problems emerged by leaving my usual OS combo (Ubuntu/Windows) for Mac OS X Leopard. I’m still undecided whether to install Ubuntu or use VMWare Fusion to use Linux. As for Microsoft Windows as long as I don’t need to use .NET I don’t think I’ll install it. Not even with the free licenses Microsoft provides University of Minho students.

First I had to decide what to install:

• Firefox
• del.icio.us UNSAFE add-on for Firefox
• Portuguese Dictionary add-on for Firefox
• Pidgin Adium
• Nero Toast Titanium
• Office
• Photoshop
• TextMate
• Ruby on Rails
• Java SDK
• Netbeans
• Glassfish
• GHC
• Erlang
• MacTex
• oXygen
• BookPedia
• DB2 (will IBM make it available for mac anytime soon?)

The question you are probably asking is why Firefox instead of Safari!? Because the damn unsafe add-on for del.icio.us is just that: del.icio.us! I just can’t live without it. Maybe if the guys over there worked the basics of security we could say that it’s both excellent and safe! And don’t say there’s a add-on for Safari as well. I’ll only accept it if the add-on is as good as the one provided by Yahoo.

Now we go for the fun part. The problems and solving them. Your attention please, this is only fun for me when I do it on my computer so it won’t be pleasure if you ask me to fix your computer! Joana this one is for you, I know how your mind thinks.. Almost as badly as mine. Oh well, we are related aren’t we? :\ Please release those crazy Christmas photos to the world! :X

I’ll start with a small OS free tip and then go for the Q/A part. If you are Portuguese like myself you just hate all the results that google gives you from .br domains. Most of the results are overrated and most of the times you just wish that they weren’t there. If this is the case just do your normal search in google but write -br in the end. Just test this, go to google and type governo brasileiro -br. It works ;)

1. How do I get my mouse to behave like a normal one by removing this dreadful acceleration?
   

   Easy. Check Rúben’s blog @ http://blog.0×82.com/2007/12/mac-os-and-usb-mouse.html

2. What’s wrong with the encoding on TextEdit? The automatic descovery does not work and even when I specifically tell him to use this encoding it won’t work. The Where is ISO 8859-15 dilemma.

   Still don’t know. Anyone? If you want to test the bug just do this (from here):

   $ echo é > ~/a.txt
   $ cat ~/a.txt
   é
   Open a.txt with TextEdit and get:
   È

   Cracked it! At least I have a partial fix for Migrating documents from Ubuntu to Mac OS X Leopard:

   cmd + space terminal enter

   {go to the directory where the file is}

   bash$ iconv -f ISO-8859-15 -t UTF-8 {filename} > UTF8-{filename}

   For me it was:

   bash$ iconv -f ISO-8859-15 -t UTF-8 Pam.tex > UTF8-Pam.tex

   And yes PAM is as in Pluggable Authentication Modules. So I have a latex work on that :P

3. Where is type-a-name application? It’s not on the dock.

   Just press cmd + space and type what you are looking for. This is called spotlight. Either this or open Finder and go to applications.

4. Why doesn’t it show my dashboard when I go to the left/whatever corner?

   Have you even configured your mac? Common.. Click the apple on the top left corner and go to System Preferences. Exposé and Spaces. And now that you are there take a look around and configure all the other things that you neglected.

5. This computer is always underlining the words in red. (when the spelling is right :P If not you are a dumbass for asking this!)

   Just press cmd + mouse and change the language. Thanks Nuno Veloso from Apple Tech Team for this tip.

6. How can I see the right mouse button menu?

   crtl + mouseclick

7. PageUp/PageDown!?
   

   fn+ up
   fn + down

If after this you still feel like reading about Mac OS for rookies – like myself – you can check this section in Arun Gupta’s Blog or check this extensive list of Keyboard Shortcuts. Have fun!

Now let’s get back to work, something almost impossible when your doing a report on LaTeX and the encodings are never right.

One final touch: ctrl + alt + cmd + 8. Merry Christmas! :)

Is Windows Vista the new ME?

Microsoft has given all the IT students at my university free licenses to almost all the software common developers use. So I have been using Windows Vista right from it’s release with satisfactory results.

Well it seems not everyone is getting the same results. I am tired of reading about companies that migrate back to XP for lack of some functionality, that companies deny to make drivers for Vista when they already have for XP, etc. Will SP1 fix all this and make Vista a better choice? For Microsoft sake it better be.

Let us see. Apple (and Mac-OS) are on the peak of their popularity yet and Linux platforms like Ubuntu give a easy to use operative system where you can do everything you normally do in Windows (and a bit more if your a coder) with a slight difference, it’s free. Many of you are unaware of this fact but when you buy a new laptop 120€ go straight to Microsoft. That about 10% of the value of your laptop. Why pay for it when you can have it for free?

Right now the Portuguese Parliament is discussing the adoption of open-source software in the public companies. The mentality is changed and personally I don’t believe Microsoft would survive a new Windows ME, there’s simply no contingency plan like they had back then. I know that Microsoft has some advantages, people are used to it, they don’t know they are paying for it, laptop manufacturers enforce Windows as mandatory, PC games are for Windows only, etc. But things have changed and I don’t know how much more time can Microsoft live of the past. If they don’t give users a a new way to interact with a computer, if they don’t trill the crowd with a new Windows, a genuine breakthrough, then it’s a one way street to nowhere.

I know a new service pack won’t change Vista as much as it is necessary to satisfy consumers. But if it succeeds it will provide Microsoft the time to rethink their strategy. If they continue to bet on the same they did 10 years ago, they will fail. And then, they will fall.

DB2 Express C for Mac

I attended a conference by Vítor Rodrigues on DB2 pureXML approach on University of Minho last Wednesday. I was quite please to see that DB2 Express C was available for free and that, as far as I’m concerned, all features where available. You might not know this but most of my colleagues use Mac, so the main downfall for the presentation was the fact that no Mac version was available. Well, according to Antonio Cangiano that about to change. IBM is working on some beta version of DB2 for Mac, and it’s not just the client. It’s the whole thing. You can check for details here.

Another thing worthy of mention, the post Cangiano made about Haskell. It’s called Haskell Eye for the Ruby Guy and, in a certain way, represents that topic introduced here some days ago. Definitely worth the time you will spend reading it.

The ever growing software complexity requires the power of high level abstractions and the functional paradigm which helps us adopt a more declarative programming style where the side effects are marginalized.

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech

It’s been a while since the last time I watched this video. Watching it helped me see how obstacles can be useful to achieve what you expect from life. I can relate to Jobs little tail in many aspects and just feel thrilled that he pulled it off.

In our daily life, all factors seem to force us to settle. Everyday we hear people saying, judging, that we shouldn’t look for so much. Settle for a decent paid job, settle for a decent wife. But you will never excel if you are not doing what you enjoy. That isn’t simply what you are.

The higher you get, the higher the fall right?

Wrong! There’s no thrill in the ride if we can’t get to all the high places. Falling is just another part of life, deal with it. Learn with it! Do not, under any circumstances, live by it.