My view of the USA / A minha visão dos EUA

After living 100 days in a medium sized town in the USA and visiting a big city (the size of a Big Apple ;-), I had a chance to form some opinions. Here they are.

Land of business

In America, everything is a business. Be sure that where there is a need, there is a business.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Good Ramadan, etc

America is a melting pot of different cultures from all over the world. Instead of trying to make "all the different, all the same", in the US there is a more pragmatic approach: "have a good X", where X stands for the religious holiday of your choosing. Now, let's make business selling you stuff for it!

L=XL

Large in USA equals Extra Large in Europe.

This is true for almost everything, like people, television sets and food.

cal x 2

Calories times two.

Not only is the food larger, it also has more calories (though not the double). However, the labeling is standard for all products and therefore is easier to read and understand. Now, if only you could resist those burgers with bacon and cheese and those huge muffin deserts with cream, chocolate and peanuts on top...

Car-based living

No car, no life, at least not a very healthy one. One example, if you don't have a car, you have a hard time buying fresh produce. You also have little chance to exercise. Everything is further away than you feel comfortable walking, especially in the cold.

1 dollar plus tax

Taxes are not hidden away. Actually, they "jump" at your wallet in every purchase. This means people are very aware of how much they spend on taxes. For this reason, it's almost always an issue on political campaigns and people demand more from their government.

It's the law

In general you feel there is more trust in people, for instance, stores let you walk in and out with stuff more freely. However, if you break the set rules, you will pay for it. It's not just an ethical issue; it's the law, and the way it is enforced. Sure, the system is not perfect, but it works most of the times. People know it and behave accordingly.

Can-do attitude

People are more relaxed and more open to new ideas. There is less formalism in professional relationships. People work very hard and are also very practical. Their "can-do" attitude is stimulating.

College is an opportunity: seize it!

Students have a clear notion of the value of college education (tuitions are very expensive), so they try to make the best of it. Before classes everybody reads-ahead so in class you get to discuss the interesting aspects of a subject, not the obvious ones. Also, students have many tasks at the same time and they learn to organize their work by themselves.

There are frequent talks between colleagues and it’s easier to collaborate and be more open to outside input. This also works as an informal evaluation, complementary to the formal processes.

Self-made men (and women)

Life in America is like a board game, where you can get rich from your work, turning your ideas into products, and products into money. The continental scale of the market and the quality of infrastructures makes it possible. However, to play the game properly, you have to know your duties as well as your rights, and be prepared to work! A lot!

/ This post is bilingual: English (U.S.) and Portuguese (Portugal) /

Depois de viver 100 dias numa cidade media dos EUA e de visitar uma grande cidade (do tamanho de uma Grande Maçã), tive oportunidade de formar algumas opiniões. Aqui estão elas.

Terra do negócio

Na América, tudo é negócio. Podem ter a certeza de que onde existe uma necessidade, existe um negócio.

Bom Natal, Feliz Hanukkah, Bom Ramadão, etc

Na América existe uma grande mistura de diferentes culturas de todo o mundo. Em vez de tentar fazer "todos diferentes, todos iguais", nos Estados Unidos adopta-se uma abordagem mais pragmática: "feliz X", onde X é uma festa religiosa à escolha. Agora, vamos fazer negócio a vender coisas para a festa!

L=XL

O tamanho grande dos EUA é igual ao extra-grande da Europa.

Isto é verdade para quase tudo, como as pessoas, ecrãs de televisão e comida.

cal x 2

Calorias vezes dois.

Não só a comida é maior, mas também tem mais calorias (apesar de não serem o dobro). No entanto, as etiquetas das embalagens são normalizadas para todos os produtos e portanto a informação alimentar é mais fácil de ler e compreender. Agora, se ao menos fosse fácil resistir aos hamburgers com bacon e queijo e aos queques gigantes com natas, chocolate e amendoins por cima...

Vida baseada no carro

Sem carro não há vida, ou pelo menos não há vida saudável. Por exemplo, se não se tiver carro, é difícil comprar produtos frescos. Não existem também muitas oportunidades para fazer exercício. Tudo é longe demais para ir bem a pé, especialmente no tempo frio.

1 dólar mais impostos

Os impostos não são escondidos. Na verdade, eles "atacam" a nossa carteira em cada compra. Isto significa que as pessoas têm muita consciência de quanto gastam em impostos. Por este motivo, os impostos são sempre um tópico de discussão nas campanhas políticas e as pessoas exigem mais do seu governo.

É a lei

Em geral sente-se que existe mais confiança nas pessoas, por exemplo, as lojas não chateiam quando se entra e sai com outros sacos e mochilas. No entanto, se se quebrarem as regras, paga-se por isso. Não é apenas um dilema ético, é a lei e a forma como é aplicada na prática. É certo que o sistema não é perfeito, mas funciona na maior parte dos casos. As pessoas sabem-no e comportam-se tendo isso presente.

Atitude de conseguir fazer

As pessoas são mais descontraídas e mais abertas a novas ideias. Existe menos formalismo nas relações profissionais. As pessoas trabalham muito e são normalmente muito práticas. A sua atitude de "conseguir fazer" (can-do) é entusiasmante.

A Universidade é uma oportunidade: aproveita-a!

Os estudantes têm uma noção clara do valor da educação universitária (as propinas são "a doer"), por isso tentam aproveitá-la o melhor que podem. Antes das aulas toda a gente lê o livro em adiantado, para que nas aulas se possam discutir os aspectos interessantes de uma matéria e não os óbvios. Também, os estudantes têm muitas tarefas ao mesmo tempo e aprendem a organizar o seu trabalho por si próprios.

Existem apresentações frequentes aos colegas e é mais fácil colaborar e acolher opiniões externas. Assim existe mais avaliação informal, complementar aos processos formais.

Homens (e mulheres) que se fazem a si mesmos

A vida na América é como um jogo de tabuleiro, onde se pode enriquecer a partir do trabalho, transformando ideias em produtos, e os produtos em dinheiro. A escala continental do mercado e a qualidade das infraestruturas torna-o possível. No entanto, para jogar o jogo como deve de ser, é necessário conhecer os deveres tão bem como os direitos, e estar preparado para trabalhar! Muito!

NBE55 videos

"A picture is worth a thousand words"
I guess this also applies to software tools :-)

Netbeans.org has some very interesting videos on NBE55.

NBE55

NBE55 is my acronym for Netbeans 5.5 Enterprise

I've been testing this IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for Java and BPEL development and so far I can say I'm positively impressed.

You can see the Netbeans team has invested great effort in improving their product. They have been able to survive Eclipse's offensive and now things are simpler and make more sense. I particularly liked the Ant integration. Everything is done with Ant and can be customized.

CFP - Call For Papers

Recently I collected links on journals and scientific conferences, in particular, about distributed systems, information systems and software engineering.

The index is available at:
http://mega.ist.utl.pt/~mflpar/cfp/

Please check journal or conference web page for up-to-date and accurate information.
Feel free to send corrections or suggestions.

WS-Map

The Web Services survey from my MSc thesis has been converted into a web site. I think it is a useful resource for people interested in Enterprise Applications with Web Services technology. The references are accurate as of July 2006, but will be updated in the near future.

The site address is the following:
http://mega.ist.utl.pt/~mflpar/ws-map

Bookmarks update

Hi,

Today I finished an update of my collection of web bookmarks / favorites.
You can check them out at: http://mega.ist.utl.pt/~mflpar/MFLP/links.html

I created 5 bookmark categories:
- useful pages
- news
- science & technology
- software
- fun & games

I was starting to have too many links for one page. This way I think things got more organized.

How do you store yours?

Organizing scientific research files

Until now, most of my scientific papers were written in a background context, like my MSc thesis or a course. So, all the conference and paper related files were stored in a subdirectory of the broader subject.

Now, I want to advance to a more research-centered approach to my work, so I need to organize my files in a more structured way for this purpose.

After some thinking and experimenting, the outline of the directory structure I’m using is the following:

/Research

-/ Conferences
-- disapproved.doc (list of disapproved conferences, for their questionable scientific merits)
--/
--- agenda.doc (list of incoming conferences for the year, including all relevant dates, including, sorted by submission deadline)
---/ (ex. IEEE ICWS)
---- url.txt (web address of conference web page)
---- desc.txt (conference name and topic keywords)
---- … (other conference related files: forms, rules of submission, templates etc.)

-/ Journals
… (similar to conferences)

-/ Researchers
--/ me (my research)
---/ presentations
----/
---- …
---/ publications
----/
---- … (my papers)
--/ other
---/ ,
---- …

I hope this way I can more easily store my files, helping me to work in a more practical approach, similar to what happened in the final stages of my MSc. If I target specific publications, I can use the conference’s deadlines as Occam’s razors for my work – keep it simple, keep it focused, reach results!

Let’s see if it works ;-)

Starting LaTeX

I wrote my MSc thesis in Microsoft Word, and took great advantage of Word’s easy to use features, especially the Outline view, that allowed me to hierarchically structure my document and to view it at a glance, during the writing process. However, the handling of references – a core aspect of scientific writing – was cumbersome, to say the least.

So, I decided to try the most used tool for writing scientific papers: LaTeX. Actually, LaTeX is one extension to the basic language TeX. Whereas TeX specifies basic text and math expressions formatting, LaTeX adds capabilities to structure documents, with indexes. Also, there is BibTeX to handle references. There any many library packages for TeX. In fact, its extensibility is one of its key features. You can find lots of information about these widely used tools on the Internet. However, beware; they are not in the same difficulty level as Word, because they require the use of the command prompt.

There is a myriad TeX variants, for different platforms. The most complete I found out for Windows is MiKTeX. The main command line tools are latex and pdflatex. The latter one produces output directly in PDF format.

I still haven’t actually written any full document, just a couple of tests, but I plan to do so in my future papers.

Best regards!

Setting up a minimally furnished house

If you don't find a furnished house, or it's too expensive, you'll have to go shopping.

For this, be sure to check Walmart, Target, Wegmans, or other big stores. They have most of the things you need, at a convenient price. For complementary things, check the $1 stores, because they have lots of cheap stuff with minimum or average quality.

Having a car is also a pratical requirement.

So, here is a shopping list:

Bathroom:
- bath towel
- hand towel
- rug

Kitchen:
- knifes, forks and spoons
- cooking utensils
- cuttlery set (cooking knifes)
- dish set
- drinking glasses

Bedroom:
- airbed
- bedding set (sheets, bed cover)
- pillows
- clothing hangers
- support table

Living & dining room:
- table and chairs
- table towel

For the initial cleaning, don't forget:
- kitchen cleaner
- bathroom cleaner
- odor remover (especially if former tenant had pets)
- aromas

For laundry:
- collect quarters ($0.25 coins)
- washing detergent
- softner
- laundry basket

This is the minimum, and goes for around $500. You'll probably end up buying more stuff. However, keep in mind that you'll be leaving and that you won't be able to take most of the stuff back home.

Remember: live and learn!

Going to America (for three months)

Hi,

After the MSc, my next adventure has been moving to the United States of America for three months and working in an American University.

From my experience so far, here are some tips:

#1 bring credit & atm cards. The trip budget will be around $10000, including travel expenses.

#2 bring cash (at least $2000) - useful for living expenses in first days, and to pay the first month rent and security deposit, if required by the landlord

#3 check your appliances power adapters - the wall sockets are different, and so is the voltage (110 Volts instead of 220 Volts in Continental Europe) - most of laptops transformers support both voltages, so you'll just need the socket adapters. You can find them at the US airports

#4 book at least 5 days in hotel, to search for an apartment to rent

#5 also rent a car. Even if you like walking (like I do), you'll soon find out that the car is indispensable to doing most things in the US, and that includes looking for a house

#6 get a mobile phone. There are great options, like Tracfone or Mojo Mobile, that are cheap, and easy to set up over the phone. Having your own phone number will also be very useful.

#7 get a city map. A good one will have all the street names in it and street name index. It's very useful to look around for houses for rent - you'll probably find interesting places that don't appear on internet listings...

#8 when talking to landlords, be sure to state that you'll be staying for short term, and if you want furnished or unfurnished apartment. These conditions will probably increase your rent value, but you are better knowing it in advance

#9 before deciding on a particular house, ask at the university around about security in the area. Prefer to spend more to be in a safer neighborhood

If you follow these tips, and are a little lucky (or have good guardian angels ;-), you'll settle in the american town of your choosing in about a week.

Next, you'll have to go shopping...

We have master!

:-) Finally!

We have thesis!

:-)

Using JabRef to keep track of references

Hi,

I've just finished the references section on my thesis. It was tiresome!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had my references sorted in directories, in alphabetical order. However, to build the references section in the thesis, I had to check which references were actually used. Not easy to do when you're using Microsoft Word. I developed a couple of macros for Ultra-Edit http://www.ultraedit.com to extract the references list - values within squared brackets - from the text. Then I sorted and removed duplicates from the result.

To produce the listing I used JabRef http://jabref.sourceforge.net/ an excellent free tool that uses the BibTex format, from LaTeX. Even though I was using Microsoft Word it still proved very useful. I did the references section using the custom export option, for results just like I wanted them.

I absolutely recommend using JabRef, it is excellent! Especially if you're starting your thesis now or still have a long way to go. Believe me, it will spare you a full working week (and a boring one, I can add).

Evaluation and Conclusions

I've finished writing the Evaluation and Conclusion chapters of my thesis. I wrote them in parallel because they were very interrelated. I started outlining the chapters from the ideia register document, collected over the course of the work. It made it much easier not to forget anything at this late stage.

For the Evaluation, I identified the most relevant results. In my thesis, almost all results were qualitative and not quantitative. Still, it was very useful to include summary tables to capture the overall results in a quick, visual way.

For the Conclusion, I wrote three subsections: Contributions, Future Work and Final Comment.

In Contributions, I identified the contributions from each chapter of the thesis in bullet points, adding some comments. I summarized using short sentences like "A is better than B at something because of this and that". I ended with a main contributions list with just three items, that I considered the "juice" of the work, i.e., what people would most likely find useful.

In Future Work I wrote down the new work ideas and opportunities. It was a fun subsection to write, because you realize how your work opened up new improvement paths to explore.

To finalize, in the Final Comment subsection, I gave my personal opinion about the subject. It was the time and place to "make the strike on goal" (in soccer terms) or to "take the ball to the basket" (if you prefer basketball).

The hardest work of thesis is finished. Now I'll wait for additional comments from my advisor and I'll finish the references section.

More about the 'refs' on my next post. Bye!

Writing wrap-up

This last month i've finalized the thesis prototype and started writing the dissertation. It's a challenge condensing years of work in a 100 page document. You have to do a sort of 'movie directing', writing not everything you learned, but the most relevant things you learned, in a build-up, meaningful, sequence.

So far i've written 4 complete chapters, including Introduction, Context, Service Platform, and Security. The remaining chapters are Case Study, Evaluation and Conclusion. They are the most challenging, let's hope I can write them well (and fast - my deadline is now overstretched...).

Wish me luck and work.

Yours truly,

Full time Engineer ;-)

Still busy, after all these months...

Just a brief MSc status update post.

I've been working 'full throttle' on my MSc prototype, envolving a Notary, a Buyer and a Seller (sounds a little like a Narnia style title, doesn't it?). There is still much work to be done, but things are beginning to (finally) converge.

Like me and my colleagues massou and jpsn in LEIC used to say: "I see the light at the end of the tunnel... Let's hope it's not a train..." ;-)

Since my last post, I've been trying and testing different Web Services Security implementations. It's a long story, but I've switched from Dot Net to Axis2, then from Axis2 to Sun's JWSDP 2 with XWSS package. You'l be able to read the full review when my thesis is published.

All the best!

Most useful book on web services security (so far)

The most useful book on Web Services Security that I've read so far is:

Web Service Security - Scenarios, Patterns, and Implementation Guidance for Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0

It takes a patterns-based approach to security, with architecture, design and implementation patterns. As you could expected from a Microsoft book, all the implementation details are for Dot Net's WSE 3.0.

My quick Knowledge Work System

Recently, a dear friend of mine was having troubles starting off her PhD. It happens to the best people, as you surely know.

I gave a look at my informal knowledge working system and decided to present it to her, hoping to help her get off the working slump. Now I am going to post it here, on my blog. Please give a look at it and tell me what you think. The main design goal was simplicity - keep it simple! Computers are supposed to help, not get in the way of work...!


    
QuicKWS – A quick working Knowledge Working System

This document describes QuicKWS that enables the knowledge work necessary for working on PhD or similar thesis. The necessary tools are a Windows computer, Microsoft Office and CVS. You can use LaTeX as well, because it’s a standard tool for scientific work. The file store is organized in two zones, as follows:

ZONE 1 – EXPLORATION WORK (alias Dress Casual)

/Ideas

    /Calendar – write your working schedule and dead-lines


    /Logs – files for registering activities, ideas, etc. No concerns on formatting. Just place /dump your info here. Never delete anything from this, just add. After one week or one month, just extract the most useful contents to deliverables or to summary logs


ZONE 2 – DELIVERABLES (alias Dress Formal)

/Thesis


    /Subjects – place here documents written by you, with adequate source referencing


    /Chapters – same as subjects, but to be used later on, while filling up material for the thesis’s chapters


    /References – file store for all references used in the work


        /A


        ...

        /Z
            /Zorro D. Jackson P., 2005
            notes.doc – my notes on this reference
            paper.pdf / html / … - actual paper
            paper.bib – bibtex file describing the paper – for LaTeX users
            or the next two files for non-latex users:
            url.txt – text file whose contents are the reference URL
            desc.txt – short text description of contents (abstract)


/ThesisCVS – CVS repository for all files contained in /Thesis (but not /Ideas)

Web Services Security

In this post i'll talk a little about Web Services Security, that has been the subject of version 2.0 of my master's thesis.

Recently I did a survey to find out what is the best web services security development environment. I tried to be specific about the WS (Web Services) standards support. I knew that Microsoft was ahead of the competition - IBM, Sun, Oracle - I just didn't know it was so far ahead!

Microsoft's Web Services Enhancements 3.0 (WSE 3) just surprised me by the sheer quality of the work. Also, I had a chance to read a "patterns & pratices" e-book on the subject, and I was very pleased with what I read.

Now I plan to use this environment to develop the prototype for the business case I'm addressing in my thesis: buying and selling real estate.

So, despite being what you can call a "Java guy", I have to give credit to Microsoft for developing a superior development environment.

Note: I still haven't actually used the environment, so I can't tell you yet if it is stable. But I can bet a service pack release may be just around the corner. That's always a sure bet in any complex software ;-)!

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog!

I'm sure this same phrase has been written times and times before... but today it is needed once again :-)

In this first post, I would like to clear out a little issue: why 'mflpar'? What does it mean?

Actually it was the user login that was provided for me back in 1995 when I entered 'Instituto Superior Técnico', in Lisbon, Portugal, to study Computer Science. With time this user name got stuck on me, over many hard nights on projects and other works, and because it's not very popular, I kind of adopted these six letters for almost all my digital identities. So... that's it! Sorry if you expected something more... exciting.

What will be subject of this blog? You probably guessed by now... I'm a computer geek, so the main subject will be computer science. More specifically, I will share ideas and experiences on my teaching and research, hoping to spark discussions on interesting topics. I'll try to convey the messages with sprinkles of lighthearted humour, so prepare yourselves! Stick around, and enjoy the flights of the Sparrow*!!!

* That's me ;-) Sparrow is Pardal in English, and Pardal is my family name.