Tweets of the month

Waiting for Christ-mas
20 Dec

Back on track. Thanks to Jo and Rialva ;)
16 Dec

After a paperwork detour, back to writing
16 Dec

Amazing tool for PDF hacking based on the iText library: http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/
15 Dec

"You lost today, kid. But that doesn't mean you have to like it." -- IJ3
13 Dec

Outline changes are mostly done. Now I'll resume writing.
10 Dec

Listening to Indiana Jones soundtrack
7 Dec

"Adventure is out there" - just don't be afraid to face it in the eye
6 Dec

"Adventure is out there!" -- Thanks Joana for reminding me of joy everyday
6 Dec

Just attended César Pimentel's PhD defense presentation. Good presentation! Good luck for the rest of the evaluation!
6 Dec

Back to writing
3 Dec

In this whole WikiLeaks business I see mostly useless gossip. In the middle of so much noise is there anything worth revealing?
2 Dec

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Lucy Pevensie: Aslan, will we ever meet with you in our world?
Aslan: You shall.
Lucy Pevensie: How?
Aslan: Because there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.

How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon

Astrid: [punches Hiccup] That's for kidnapping me.
[Kisses Hiccup]
Astrid: That's for everything else.

PDF Hacking

Adobe Reader X is the latest and very improved version of Acrobat's PDF Reader. The most significant changes for me were in the browser integration with Firefox. It is so much better now. The user interface is also leaner.

For me, the PDF Reading choice is settled, but for small PDF adjustments, like joining files or rotating pages, Adobe Acrobat is an expensive option.

If you are comfortable with the command prompt, there is a free and powerful option: PDF Toolkit. It is based on the iText library explained in the Manning book iText in Action.

To install pdftk, go to the web page and download the package for your operating system. For Windows, download the zip file and unzip it to C:\Program Files\pdftk.

Next, go to Start Menu, right-click on Computer, select Properties, and choose "Advanced system settings" from the left sidebar. Next press "Environment variables" button.
Create an environment variable called PDFTK_HOME and set it to pdftk folder path.
Next, add %PDFTK_HOME%\bin to the PATH variable. You can now open new command prompts and type the following command to read the help: pdftk -h

Here are a few useful examples (there are more described in the help output):

:: To concatenate xpto.pdf and xpty.pdf and output result to xpt.pdf
C:\Users\Me> pdftk xpto.pdf xpty.pdf cat output xpt.pdf

:: To rotate xpt.pdf from page 1 to end 90 degrees counter-clockwise and output to xpt-rotated.pdf
C:\Users\Me> pdftk xpt.pdf cat 1-endL output xpt-rotated.pdf

The page rotation setting can cause pdftk to rotate pages and documents. Each option sets the page rotation as follows (in degrees):
N: 0, E: 90, S: 180, W: 270, L: -90, R: +90, D: +180.
L, R, and D make relative adjustments to a page’s rotation.

How to reset Picasa?

Picasa is very nice program by Google to manage photo collections. However, sometimes it is useful to "reset" Picasa to factory settings, especially when you move lots of files around.

*** WARNING *** This procedure will destroy your Picasa settings and your albums.

The first thing to do is to delete the Picasa database and albums.
Exit Picasa and go to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\ (in Windows Vista or 7) or to %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\application data\google\ (in Windows XP) an delete the Picasa folders.

After this, there is still metadata in ".picasa.ini" or "Picasa.ini" files in the image folders.

Open Windows Explorer, choose "Tools" -> "Folder Options" in the menu, go to the "View" tab, and select the "Show hidden files and folders" option.
Search for *picasa.ini files, check if only the right files were found, and then delete them.

This will completely reset Picasa so you can start fresh!

--

References: Google support thread 1, thread 2

Using delicious to map the internet

I've been using Delicious since 2008, and it has become a very important part of my "work dispatch engine".

Delicious is a web site where you keep a collection of your favorite bookmarks. The good thing about it, is that it is a Folksnomy. This means that you type words (known as tags) to classify the page's contents. Later, when you need to find your pages, you can search them using the tags.

For example, let's say I want to bookmark the following page on delicious:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jws19/index.html

I click the bookmark option on the Firefox add-on, and I would type the following words: IBM article 2010 java web service

Later, when I want to search my bookmarked IBM articles, I just go to my page and type the tag words:
http://www.delicious.com/mflpar/IBM+article

Delicious is also very useful to find out what other people are bookmarking. It is much more well informed than a typical Google query.
Before I finish this post, I just want to add some tips for choosing your tags wisely:

• Don't glue words, separate them for more flexibility (e.g. type web service instead of webservice)
• Use the word in the singular instead of plural (or the other way around, just be consistent)
• Use the root word (e.g. name, instead of naming) whenever possible

Enjoy! :)

at, on, in

This is one of the recurring doubts I have when writing in English...
Hope this helps! :)

--

Prepositions of Time: at, on, and in

We use at to designate specific times.

• The train is due at 12:15 p.m.

We use on to designate days and dates.

• My brother is coming on Monday.
• We're having a party on the Fourth of July.

We use in for nonspecific times during a day, a month, a season, or a year.

• She likes to jog in the morning.
• It's too cold in winter to run outside.
• He started the job in 1971.
• He's going to quit in August.

Prepositions of Place: at, on, and in

We use at for specific addresses.

• Grammar English lives at 55 Boretz Road in Durham.

We use on to designate names of streets, avenues, etc.

• Her house is on Boretz Road.

And we use in for the names of land-areas (towns, counties, states, countries, and continents).

• She lives in Durham.
• Durham is in Windham County.
• Windham County is in Connecticut.

Source: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/prepositions.htm

Tweets of the month

Working on the paper
30 Nov

Isto hoje está um tempo de Boston! Frio! :)
26 Nov

Adobe Reader X for Windows is much better. I especially like the better Firefox integration.
26 Nov

Writing
22 Nov

Almost finished reading related work papers...
17 Nov

Haiti, 10 months later, lest we forget... http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/11/haiti_ten_months_later.html
4 Nov

MIT OpenCourseWare
RT @MIT_Spectrum: Small leaks make the world’s water distribution systems notoriously inefficient. Sarma has a solution. http://ow.ly/33iZr
2 Nov

Founded on a Rock

Founded on a Rock by Louis de Wohl

The story of the Catholic Church written by a catholic author.
You don't have to be catholic, you just have to love history! :)

Recommended.

The Social Network

The Social Network

Sean Parker: We lived in farms, then we lived in cities, and now we're gonna live on the internet!

Francesco

Francesco

A movie about Saint Francis. I have mixed feelings about this movie, so I don't recommend it.

Haiti, 10 months later

Dedicated to a dear Friend, doing missionary work in Haiti. We pray for her.

Boston.com photo collection (and credits)

Tweets of the month

Back to development work
28 Oct

Yesterday, another one bit the dust! :)
20 Oct

Anyone interested in a part-time RFID product development job?
18 Oct

Tooth tuning :)
15 Oct

Rain, thunder, and lightning at IST
8 Oct

The only republic really worth celebrating started in 1974-75. Even with all its problems, as long as there is true Freedom there is hope!
5 Oct

Reading student's thesis
4 Oct

Saint Joan - The Girl Soldier

Saint Joan - The Girl Soldier by Louis De Wohl

A very well written account of the story of Saint Joan of Arc, the medieval savior of France. Recommended.

Internet Language

2l8 = too late
4 = for
4get = forget
afaik = as far as I know
afk = away from keyboard
asap = as soon as possible
atm = at the moment
ayf = all your fault
b4 = before
b4n = bye for now
bbiab = be back in a bit
bbl = be back later
bf = boyfriend
bq = beyond question
brb = be right back
btw = by the way
btdt = been there, done that
byp = beg your pardon
cu = see you/ cracking up
cul = see you/ catch you later
cya = see ya
faq= frequently asked questions
focl = falling off chair laughing
gf = girlfriend
gfc = going for coffee
gmab = give me a break
gmta= great minds think alike
hand= have a nice day
idk = i don't know
ikwum= i know what you mean
jam = just a minute
jas= just a second
jic= just in case
l8r = later
lb(g)r = little boys (girls) room (bathroom break)
myob = mind your own business
lol = laughing out loud
m8 = mate
mlnw = make love not war
ne1 = anyone
nm = nevermind
np = no problem
nrn = no reply necessary
omg = oh my god
p? = pardon?
ppl = people
soy = shame on you
sup = what's up
tia = thanks in advance
thx = thanks
ttyl = talk to you later
ubb = urgent bathroom break
w8 = wait
wbs = write back soon
w8n = waiting
wb = welcome back
wn? = what now? / what next?
xoxo = hugs and kisses
y = why

Calibre

When I presented my suggestions for the Kindle, I forgot to mention the software that makes the e-book experience much more satisfying and avoids vendor lock-in: Calibre. It is a kind of iTunes for e-books.



If you have an e-book reader, I highly recommend using Calibre for managing your books. I recommend it even if you don't! :)

Groovy regular expression operators

The Java regular expression (regex) typical invocation sequence is:

     Pattern p = Pattern.compile("a*b");
     Matcher m = p.matcher("aaaaab");
     boolean b = m.matches();

A matches method is defined by the Pattern class as a convenience for when a regular expression is used just once. This method compiles an expression and matches an input sequence against it in a single invocation. The statement

    boolean b = Pattern.matches("a*b", "aaaaab");

Groovy is a promising new language for the Java platform that includes the following regular expressions operators that greatly simplify the use of java.util.regex:

~ creates a Pattern from String

=~ creates a Matcher, and in a boolean context, it is "true" if it has at least one match, "false" otherwise.

==~ tests if String matches the pattern

Kindle DX suggestions

I love the Kindle DX and I think it is a fantastic device.

My suggestions to make it even better:

1 - Provide an option to configure the screen saver. I find it very annoying to find different writers everytime I open the device. There are some of them that I really don't like and would like to remove them. The screen could just go blank and it would be fine for me.

2 - Provide a way to connect the kindle to the PC wirelessly, using the WLAN. It would be so much more convenient than having to use the USB cable.

3 - Provide a touch-sensitive edge to the screen, to make page turning more intuitive, but keep the button anyway, it's OK :)

4 - Recognize image file formats (JPG, PNG, GIF) and allow a photo album interface. For instance, one folder of photos could be recognized as a photo album with a nice interface.

5 - Provide an MP3 player with more options.

Tweets of the month

Rediscovering 1980s and 1990s Madredeus
29 Sep

The problem with Cloud Computing is that, sometimes, it rains! :) http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/22/google.lost.sunrise.florida/
23 Sep

#joke Qual é o pão preferido dos Engenheiros? Naturalmente, é o pão Integral ;-)
22 Sep

The Pope visits the UK. Watch it live: http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/The-Visit-Live/Live-Webcast
17 Sep

The Fall is beginning to show itself... so long Summer!
16 Sep

Algum MEICano interessado num estágio remunerado em instituto de investigação? #emprego
14 Sep

American tax break announced http://ingehygd.blogspot.com/2010/09/breaking-news-tax-break-amazing.html
7 Sep

That Hideous Strength

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

For the first time in many years she tasted the word king itself with all linked associations of battle, marriage, priesthood, mercy and power.

You do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but have lost love because you never tried obedience.

Equality before the law, equality of incomes - that is very well. Equality guards life; it doesn't make it. It is medicine, not food.

The cardinal difficulty in collaboration between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men are doing a bit of work, one will say to the other, "Put this bowl inside the bigger bowl which you'll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard." The female for this is, "Put that in the other one in there." And then if you ask them, "in where?" they say, "in there, of course."

The final book in C.S. Lewis's Cosmic (or Space) trilogy. 'Hideous' is interesting but not an easy read, mainly because it is too long and lacks pace.

What happened to studying?

Keith O’Brien / Jul 2, 2010 - Boston Globe

They come with polished resumes and perfect SAT scores. Their grades are often impeccable. Some elite universities will deny thousands of high school seniors with 4.0 grade point averages in search of an elusive quality that one provost called “intellectual vitality.” The perception is that today’s over-achieving, college-driven kids have it — whatever it is. They’re not just groomed; they’re ready. There’s just one problem.

Once on campus, the students aren’t studying.

It is a fundamental part of college education: the idea that young people don’t just learn from lectures, but on their own, holed up in the library with books and, perhaps, a trusty yellow highlighter. But new research, conducted by two California economics professors, shows that over the past five decades, the number of hours that the average college student studies each week has been steadily dropping. According to time-use surveys analyzed by professors Philip Babcock, at the University of California Santa Barbara, and Mindy Marks, at the University of California Riverside, the average student at a four-year college in 1961 studied about 24 hours a week. Today’s average student hits the books for just 14 hours.

The decline, Babcock and Marks found, infects students of all demographics. No matter the student’s major, gender, or race, no matter the size of the school or the quality of the

SAT scores of the people enrolled there, the results are the same: Students of all ability levels are studying less.

“It’s not just limited to bad schools,” Babcock said. “We’re seeing it at liberal arts colleges, doctoral research colleges, masters colleges. Every different type, every different size. It’s just across the spectrum. It’s very robust. This is just a huge change in every category.”

The research, accepted to be published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, has already sparked discussions in faculty lounges and classrooms across the country. Some question whether college students ever could have studied 24 hours a week — roughly three and a half hours a night. But even if you dispute the historical decline, there is still plenty of reason for concern over the state of 21st-century study practices. In survey after survey since 2000, college and high school students are alarmingly candid that they are simply not studying very much at all. Some longtime professors have noted the trend, which rarely gets mentioned by college admissions officials when prospective students visit campus.

But when it comes to “why,” the answers are less clear. The easy culprits — the allure of the Internet (Facebook!), the advent of new technologies (dude, what’s a card catalog?), and the changing demographics of college campuses — don’t appear to be driving the change, Babcock and Marks found. What might be causing it, they suggest, is the growing power of students and professors’ unwillingness to challenge them.

Whatever the reason, one thing is clear: The central bargain of a college education — that students have fairly light classloads because they’re independent enough to be learning outside the classroom — can no longer be taken for granted. And some institutions of higher learning have yet to grapple with, or even accept, the possibility that something dramatic has happened.

Studying has long been considered a key part of a college student’s growth, both as a means to an end — a deeper understanding of the subject matter — and as a valuable habit in its own right. A person who can self-motivate to learn, academics argue, is not only more likely to be a productive worker, but more fulfilled citizen. As a result, universities for decades have stated — sometimes officially — that for every hour students spend in class each week they are expected to be studying for two hours on their own.

“So if students are taking a full load of 15 credit hours, they should be studying for 30 hours,” said Jillian Kinzie, the associate director of the National Survey of Student Engagement, a nonprofit at Indiana University. “Clearly, that’s not happening.”

One problem is that they’re arriving in college with increasingly troubled study habits. According to survey data gathered by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, or CIRP, the largest and longest-running study of higher education in the United States, incoming college freshmen have reported declining study habits for at least two decades. By 2009, nearly two-thirds of them failed to study even six hours a week while seniors in high school — a figure that has risen steadily since 1987.

Once they get to college, the figure improves, but there are many students today who appear to be doing very little whatsoever. In one CIRP survey subset last year, analyzing predominantly private institutions considered to be mid-level or high-achieving colleges, some 32 percent of college freshmen somehow managed to study less than six hours a week — not even an hour a day. Seniors studied only slightly more, with nearly 28 percent studying less than six hours a week. And other surveys of today’s students report similarly alarming results. The National Survey of Student Engagement found in 2009 that 62 percent of college students studied 15 hours a week or less — even as they took home primarily As and Bs on their report cards.

“Are students just that much more efficient that more than 60 percent of students study less than 15 hours a week and still earn As and Bs?” Kinzie asked. “Or are we really preparing students for the world of work if they’re able to get by spending that many hours studying and preparing for class?”

Critics say it’s misleading to measure today’s students by the number of hours they spend studying. Students live very different lives than they once did. They are more likely to hold down jobs while attending classes.

John Bravman, vice provost for undergraduate education at Stanford University, said that what he worries about these days is not that students are lazy, but that they are too busy — busier than previous generations of Stanford students.

“Much busier,” Bravman said, describing the “on-demand” world that students work in today. “I was a student here from ’75 to ’79. I was reasonably engaged in things. But I had so much free time compared to students today. They do so many things — it’s amazing.”

According to the skeptics of the findings, there is one other notable change: Today’s students are working with more efficient tools when they do finally sit down to study. They don’t have to bang out a term paper on a typewriter; nor do they need to wander the stacks at the library for hours, tracking down some dusty tome.

“A student doesn’t need to retype a paper three times before handing it in,” said Heather Rowan-Kenyon, an assistant professor of higher education at Boston College. “And a student today can sit on their bed and go to the library, instead of going to the library and going to the card catalog.”

That’s true, Babcock and Marks agree. But according to their research, the greatest decline in student studying took place before computers swept through colleges: Between 1961 and 1981, study times fell from 24.4 to 16.8 hours per week (and then, ultimately, to 14). Nor do they believe student employment or changing demographics to be the root cause. While they acknowledge that students are working more and campuses attract students who wouldn’t have bothered attending college a generation ago, the researchers point out that study times are dropping for everyone regardless of employment or personal characteristics.

“It’s pretty shocking,” said Marks, who is concerned about the trend.

Hours spent studying is not the end goal of an education, of course, nor the only way to determine if someone is learning or will land a job after college. Marks herself points out that employers don’t generally care about the content of job applicants’ classes; they’re more interested in whether an applicant graduated, was able to meet deadlines, and work within a bureaucracy.

But one sign that studying still has value is that students themselves are concerned about it. In a 2008 survey of more than 160,000 undergraduates enrolled in the University of California system, students were asked to list what interferes most with their academic success. Some blamed family responsibilities, some blamed jobs. The second most common obstacle to success, according to the students, was that they were depressed, stressed, or upset. And then came the number one reason, agreed upon by 33 percent of students, who said they struggled with one particular problem “frequently” or “all the time”: They simply did not know how to sit down and study.

So what now? Given Babcock and Marks’s findings, what should universities be doing to improve study habits? It’s an answer that depends, first, on understanding why students are studying so little these days. And on this point, there is little agreement.

One theory, offered by Babcock and Marks, suggests that the cause, or at least one of them, is a breakdown in the professor-student relationship. Instead of a dynamic where a professor sets standards and students try to meet them, the more common scenario these days, they suggest, is one in which both sides hope to do as little as possible.

“No one really has an incentive to make a demanding class,” Marks said. “To make a tough assignment, you have to write it, grade it. Kids come into office hours and want help on it. If you make it too hard, they complain. Other than the sheer love for knowledge and the desire to pass it on to the next generation, there is no incentive in the system to encourage effort.”

The problem dates back to the 1960s, said Murray Sperber, a visiting professor in the graduate school of education at the University of California Berkeley. Sperber, at the time, was a graduate student at Berkeley and was part of an upstart movement pushing for students to rate their professors. The idea, Sperber said, was to give students a chance to express their opinions about their classes — a noble thought, but one that has backfired, according to many professors. Course evaluations have created a sort of “nonaggression pact,” Sperber said, where professors — especially ones seeking tenure — go easy on the homework and students, in turn, give glowing course evaluations.

In response to these concerns over course evaluations — and the state of collegiate studying in general — some universities are making changes. Some administrators in recent years have been putting less weight on course evaluations when making tenure decisions. Professors are being told to give explicit tasks to students. Just telling them to read these days is often considered “too generic, too general of a request,” said Kinzie. And many professors today are using Internet-based systems, like Blackboard, where students are required to log on and write about the assigned reading for all of their classmates to see.

Dan Bernstein, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Kansas University, said such assignments can help ensure that students are reading and will come prepared for class. But as the Babcock/Marks survey shows, universities aren’t coming close to meeting their own expectations for what should be happening on campus. “That,” said Bernstein, “is one of our dirty little secrets.”

It’s possible that college administrators simply don’t know what’s happening — or rather, not happening — in their dormitories, libraries, and classrooms. The decline in study hours, according to the new research, has happened gradually over decades. Perhaps, some professors argue, colleges simply don’t know the extent of the problem — and perhaps a discussion of the new research will lead to positive changes. But there is also a more troubling reason why the study habits of today’s students remain a discussion held in private, or not at all.

“If we let it be known that they’re not doing their part, that they’re not the students of yore, that makes everybody uncomfortable,” said Bernstein, a professor of psychology who’s been teaching for 35 years. “Our constituents — our stakeholders, as they call them — would be unhappy. They like to prefer that we’re doing our jobs well.”

Freelance writer Keith O’Brien, winner of the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism, is a former staff writer for the Globe. E-mail him at keith@keithob.com.

Tweets of the month

Support RT We're working on restoring your tweet counts and user lists. Thanks for being patient! #lists #tweetcount
19 Aug

Sparrows' nest 2.0 :-)
19 Aug

Tweets of the month

A deadline is a line you cross dead-tired... and missing the people you love the most...
25 Jul

RT @joanappardal "Stressed is just desserts spelled backwards!"
22 Jul

Pente 4
22 Jul


(European) First Aid manual http://www.efam.be/
16 Jul


Graphviz is very nice tool
13 Jul

Kaiten sushi fan
4 Jul

Is there a general way to code to avoid concurrency problems?

(...) Brian Goetz pointed it out to me. (...) The technique is to never write any multi-threading or synchronizing code, except in specialist classes which handle all the issues under the covers.

Ideally, you use what has already been developed by the experts out there: use ConcurrentHashMap rather than HashMap as your default Map; use a BlockingQueue to pass things between threads without having to think about synchronization to share the data; GC is dirt cheap now for short-lived objects so don't think twice about copying out data to a temporary object for manipulation or iterating; and so on.

(...) Inevitably you will have to write some classes yourself that handle concurrency issues. (...) You should isolate that concurrency managing code into separate dedicated classes and, most importantly, spend a lot of time getting those classes right and reusable because concurrency is hard, even for the experts.

--Jack Shirazi

http://www.javaperformancetuning.com

A good paper

A really good paper is one that sparks new ideas in the reader's mind about his own work

Joana Paulo Pardal

Tweets of the month

Quem joga para não perder raramente ganha quarta-feira, 30 de Junho de 2010 15:06:12

Google adds OCR for PDF and images http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-adds-ocr-for-pdf-files-and.html quarta-feira, 23 de Junho de 2010 16:43:20

Use Google services from the command line http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/06/use-google-services-from-command-line.html quarta-feira, 23 de Junho de 2010 16:42:59

Goodbye José Saramago sexta-feira, 18 de Junho de 2010 18:03:26

Encouraging to see so many people studying hard at Civil building. Good luck for the exams! quarta-feira, 16 de Junho de 2010 13:40:56

Moved to new office segunda-feira, 14 de Junho de 2010 17:15:43

Back from IWRT workshop and a couple of days rest in beautiful Madeira Island sábado, 12 de Junho de 2010 18:18:15

Today at 13h on room F2 at IST Alameda, a special Enterprise Systems Integration (SEI) lecture about RFID segunda-feira, 7 de Junho de 2010 11:16:17

Robin Hood

Robin Hood

Marion Loxley: I thought you'd left.
Robin Longstride: The fields are planted.
Marion Loxley: How did you find the seed?
Robin Longstride: If you have to ask, it's not a gift.
Marion Loxley: Thank you.

Well crafted movie but with so much historic nonsense that you have to "turn off your brain" to watch it. History (re)writing has its limits.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Tamina: Such a noble prince leaping to assist the fallen beauty.
Prince Dastan: Who said you are a beauty?
Tamina: There must be a reason why you can't take your eyes of me.

Tweets of the month

"I'm gonna fight to get it back again!" - Sometimes something small can be enormous. Such are the mysteries of the human heart. segunda-feira, 31 de Maio de 2010 16:49:52

Happy to see Lady Doctor Bug back in business! :-) sábado, 29 de Maio de 2010 12:36:59

Revising data analysis scripts quinta-feira, 27 de Maio de 2010 10:52:08

@mpanao Força! quinta-feira, 27 de Maio de 2010 10:51:41 in reply to mpanao

How to stop multitasking http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/05/how-and-why-to-stop-multitaski.html quarta-feira, 26 de Maio de 2010 13:37:17

Very good ssh software, free for non-commercial use: http://www.bitvise.com/winsshd segunda-feira, 24 de Maio de 2010 09:36:18

Just played with Joana... Nice! Now, back to work! sexta-feira, 21 de Maio de 2010 20:07:10

Today you can play Pacman on Google! Even better, if you insert 2 "coins" you can also play with Ms. Pacman sexta-feira, 21 de Maio de 2010 20:00:44

Back to the paper, with new tools at hand quinta-feira, 20 de Maio de 2010 16:19:07

GNU Plotting quarta-feira, 19 de Maio de 2010 15:25:51

Computing statistics for test runs using Apache Commons Math segunda-feira, 17 de Maio de 2010 14:07:35

Sticking to the facts to clear a writer's block. Indeed "the truth will set you free". terça-feira, 4 de Maio de 2010 13:26:17

# PauloGaspar7 Who owes who in Europe: RT @JMF1957: Quem deve dinheiro a quem: um interessante gráfico do New York Times: http://is.gd/bRUWk segunda-feira, 3 de Maio de 2010 10:49:00 via TweetDeck Retweeted by you and 1 other

Working in Taguspark segunda-feira, 3 de Maio de 2010 10:35:32

GNU Plotting

gnuplot homepage

On advice from several friends, I've decided to learn gnuplot to produce graphics for my work.

Demos

Windows installation:

1 - Download Windows package (e.g. gp440win32.zip)

2 - Unzip to a folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\gnuplot)

3 - Define environment variables:
3.1 - (optional) GNUPLOT_HOME = C:\Program Files\gnuplot
Add %GNUPLOT_HOME%\binary to your PATH environment variable
3.2 - GNUPLOT_LIB=
3.3 - (fonts for PNG output) GDFONTPATH=%windir%\FONTS
3.3 - (fonts for PNG output) GNUPLOT_FONTPATH=%windir%\FONTS

4 - Open a new console window and type gnuplot.exe or wgnuplot.exe.

(see README.Windows for more information)

Reasons for bad performance in distributed systems

Another great figure from DynaTrace, this time by Alois Reitbauer. It summarizes the possible reasons for bad performance in distributed applications.

Reasons for bad performance

The following figure by Andreas Grabner from DynaTrace is an excellent summary of the possible reasons for bad performance in computer programs.

Europe's web of debt

Who owes who in Europe?

Credits: NY Times

The world's most amazing hotel swimming pools

Yahoo posted a list of the
world's most amazing hotel swimming pools.

My favorite? The one at Hotel Caruso Belvedere.

Tweets of the month

Entering the final development stretch for ToughSTEP quinta-feira, 29 de Abril de 2010 14:59:14

Submitted camera-ready papers. Thanks to everybody involved! quinta-feira, 29 de Abril de 2010 00:18:25

Preparing the final version of 2 papers terça-feira, 27 de Abril de 2010 15:15:11

Finalizing Master's proposals for next year sexta-feira, 23 de Abril de 2010 14:11:50

@pedrocustodio Godspeed Pedro! :-) quinta-feira, 22 de Abril de 2010 13:37:06 in reply to pedrocustodio

Updated my personal web page http://web.ist.utl.pt/~miguel.pardal/ terça-feira, 20 de Abril de 2010 15:42:52

Using Twitter as a quick sharing service domingo, 18 de Abril de 2010 16:56:10

Attending #shiftconf sábado, 17 de Abril de 2010 17:09:48

# tiagomluis MLcomp - Website for Comparing Machine Learning Algorithms http://bit.ly/3vvxMx quinta-feira, 15 de Abril de 2010 15:52:07 Retweeted by you

Back to work. Clearing out distractions. quinta-feira, 15 de Abril de 2010 14:22:23

IoT@IST Vou fazer uma introdução ao RFID esta quarta às 16:00 no IST (sala F2) no âmbito de uma cadeira do Doutoramento. A sessão é aberta! terça-feira, 13 de Abril de 2010 00:06:04

IoT@IST (Internet of Things no IST): Queres estudar como o RFID + Internet = próxima revolução informática? Entra em contacto comigo. terça-feira, 13 de Abril de 2010 00:01:24

IoT@IST (Internet of Things at ISTécnico): Want to study how RFID meets the Internet and sparks the next IT revolution? Come talk with me! segunda-feira, 12 de Abril de 2010 23:58:11

My heartfelt condolences to the families of the crash victims and to the Polish people domingo, 11 de Abril de 2010 10:58:54

Trying "block" schedule approach. sexta-feira, 9 de Abril de 2010 09:43:46

Extending Flight Web Service for performance testing quinta-feira, 8 de Abril de 2010 14:07:44

Dear friends, Happy Easter! Don't forget to celebrate the next 50 days! segunda-feira, 5 de Abril de 2010 17:10:25

Java regular expressions testbed

Regular expressions are one of the most useful programming tools, particularly for text processing. Java has a nice implementation, stored in the java.util.regex package.

The following page by David Matuszek contains a Java Applet to test regular expressions. I use it a lot and recommend it!

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~matuszek/General/RegexTester/regex-tester.html

Have fun!

Maria

Maria by Gen Verde

An amazing musical about Mary, mother of Jesus.
Highly recommended!

Privacy policy for the social web

Let me make a point first: "Anything you post on the Internet is out of your control. Forever." This includes anything you search on Google, you post on Facebook, etc. Even if you use privacy settings, or even if you control the Web Server (which you usually don't), someone who reads your data can copy and share it, without your knowledge or consent.

However, there is great benefit in having a presence on the Web. You can let people know more about you and your work.

Just be aware that it is a public presence. So, don't say anything that you would not say in a public place for anyone to hear, for example, in a plaza or in national television.

My current social web policy is the following. I'm using:
- Email as a messaging service;
- Skype as a quick messaging service (sometimes with voice too);
- my personal web page as a "live" business card and CV;
- Facebook as a "live" address book;
- LinkedIn as a "live" business address book;
- Twitter as a quick sharing service;
- Blogger as a sharing service.

So, now you know what to expect from me online. See you around in a "plaza" somewhere ;-)

The ashes of humility

The ashes are out of the earth and into the air. And now we have to wait. Patiently. With the humility to acknowledge that are things greater than us.

Photo from Boston.com's Big Picture

Flash of Genius

Flash of Genius by John Seabrook

This book collects stories about invention and entrepreneurship. All of them are interesting and skillfully written.

Java tools I had never used

...until recently.

javap - The Java Class File Disassembler - Converts class files back to java source code.

JConsole - monitoring tool that uses the extensive instrumentation of the Java Virtual Machine to provide information about the performance and resource consumption of applications running

IoT@IST MScs 2010

IoT@IST (Internet of Things at Instituto Superior Técnico)

Want to study how RFID meets the Internet and sparks the next IT revolution? Come talk to me! MSc proposals deadline is April 23rd.

I will do a presentation about RFID this Wednesday, 16:00, IST (room F2). It is part of a course in my Doctoral program and it is also a good chance to get started into this exciting research topic. See you there!

Tweets of the month

Writing Master thesis proposals for next year. If you're interested in working in RFID and the Internet of Things, send me a message! segunda-feira, 29 de Março de 2010 14:51:54

Learning Groovy, unlearning Java :-) quarta-feira, 24 de Março de 2010 14:35:25

Off to meetings with Master students segunda-feira, 22 de Março de 2010 14:31:30

Worried quinta-feira, 18 de Março de 2010 11:52:47

Once again back in writer mode. This task switching thing is hard. I wonder how computers cope with it 1000 times a second ;-) terça-feira, 16 de Março de 2010 14:08:43

@joanappardal It was worth it! quinta-feira, 11 de Março de 2010 10:59:08 in reply to joanappardal

Good morning! Let's get to work! quinta-feira, 11 de Março de 2010 08:47:24

Paper is finished. Back to dev mode. quarta-feira, 10 de Março de 2010 16:41:56 via Echofon

Listening to Carminho... What a voice! quarta-feira, 10 de Março de 2010 13:13:58 via Echofon

Proofreading a paper quarta-feira, 10 de Março de 2010 11:37:42 via Echofon

It feels so good to have sunshine in Lisbon after all the rain in the past few days. terça-feira, 9 de Março de 2010 17:00:13 via Echofon

Projecto Encruzilhadas http://emprego-projectoencruzilhada.ning.com terça-feira, 9 de Março de 2010 13:33:54

New dolphins http://sparrowflights.blogspot.com/2010/03/from-now-on.html segunda-feira, 8 de Março de 2010 20:19:29

Meeting's over. There will be another one next week. segunda-feira, 8 de Março de 2010 18:00:48

Meeting with MSc students at Sala de Dúvidas do DEI. You can stop by if you're interested in research about the Internet of Things segunda-feira, 8 de Março de 2010 14:56:57

Automating Tomcat testing sexta-feira, 5 de Março de 2010 14:14:11

@joanappardal Loved the wonderful pizza lunch - Da Beppi - on wheels! quarta-feira, 3 de Março de 2010 15:02:18

After a writing break, back to developer mode, working on the STEP framework terça-feira, 2 de Março de 2010 13:48:19

My developer workbench

A very dear friend is having a hard time getting back into 'developer shape', so I decided to blog about how I organize my developer work files:

/dev
This is where I keep the current projects I am working on.
It is important to me to keep this folder as clean as possible.
If I have a project that is inactive, I just create a ZIP archive and delete it.

/dev/examples
This is where I keep code examples, historically called the 'grrreat tests' :-) (Miguel and João, you know why)
The idea is to keep small projects, each with a single purpose. It is the best way to test libraries before using them in larger projects.
I get snippets from here all the time. If you don't know, snippets are fragments of code that can be copy-pasted and easily reused.

/devlib
This is a collection of libraries. You can save a lot of time reusing existing code and learning from it.
The collection is organized in 3 sections: dist, doc, and source; for binaries, documentation, and source code, respectively.
I keep multiple versions of libraries, each in a separate subfolder, because sometimes it is useful to compare changes, using a tool like WinMerge.

If you only take away one thing, remember that single-purpose code examples are the way to write quality code, fast!

Feel free to share comments about your development practices. I'm always looking for ways to improve!

From now on...

... there two new "dolphins" in the "ocean" ;-)

Tweets of the month

# Just read a very good paper about statistically rigorous performance evaluation http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1297105.1297033 quinta-feira, 25 de Fevereiro de 2010 18:59:07

# pedrocustodio The Contemporary Portugal Database -> http://www.pordata.pt #data #statistics #portugal terça-feira, 23 de Fevereiro de 2010 10:17:23 Retweeted by you and 3 others

Humbled by the great disaster in Madeira island segunda-feira, 22 de Fevereiro de 2010 09:57:17

What a viewtyful day domingo, 21 de Fevereiro de 2010 09:32:28

Greek Tragedy http://sparrowflights.blogspot.com/2010/02/greek-tragedy.html quarta-feira, 17 de Fevereiro de 2010 13:52:15

# andrerib I love working just before or on holidays. The calm is just so incredibly productive. segunda-feira, 15 de Fevereiro de 2010 12:12:29 via HootSuite Retweeted by you and 1 other

Problemas graves no mundo do trabalho dos nossos dias http://voosdopardal.blogspot.com/2010/02/problemas-graves-no-trabalho-entrevista.html quarta-feira, 10 de Fevereiro de 2010 13:58:29

Just registered for SHiFT 2010 http://2010.shift.pt/ sexta-feira, 5 de Fevereiro de 2010 13:59:08

"Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past, You must fight just to keep them alive!" -- Survivor, Eye of the Tiger quarta-feira, 3 de Fevereiro de 2010 10:34:14

Something to inspire... http://sparrowflights.blogspot.com/2010/02/sagres.html terça-feira, 2 de Fevereiro de 2010 09:30:48

Madeira

So much destruction after the heavy rains and floods in Madeira island...

More photos

May God help the people of Madeira in this dark hour, and may all of us do what we can to help.

Viewtyful

LG GC-900 Viewty Smart

Greek Tragedy

What is the solution? One possibility is to recognize that the current euro zone might not make sense. This is not a decision that anyone will take this week, but it may well be the fast-approaching reality.

Full article: Wall Street Journal by Simon Johnson and Peter Boone

Recommended by Ed Schuster.

LG GC900 Viewty phone

More information: http://www.lg.com/uk/mobile-phones/all-lg-phones/LG-touch-screen-phones-GC900.jsp

iTable

With the iPad coming soon, I got to thinking what would be the best computer input device for engineering work. The answer I found was: all of them!

What I would really like to have is an iTable - a full-size drawing board - where you could input using pen, keyboard, mouse, touch, all together.

It is a huge technical challenge, but it would be really, really nice!

Image credits: http://www.tecniart.org

Because you loved me

Because You Loved Me
Songwriters: Diana Warren

For all those times you stood by me
For all the truth that you made me see
For all the joy you brought to my life
For all the wrong that you made right

For every dream you made come true
For all the love I found in you
I'll be forever thankful, baby

You're the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You're the one who saw me through
Through it all

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me

Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'cause you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me, ooh, baby

You gave me wings and made me fly
You touched my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith, you gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach

You stood by me and I stood tall
I had your love, I had it all
I'm grateful for each day you gave me

Maybe, I don't know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because
I was loved by you

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me

Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'cause you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me

You were always there for me, the tender wind that carried me
The light in the dark shining your love into my life
You've been my inspiration through the lies you were the truth
My world is a better place because of you

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me

Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'cause you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me

Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'cause you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me

I'm everything I am
Because you loved me


http://www.elyrics.net/read/c/celine-dion-lyrics/because-you-loved-me-lyrics.html


--
Dedicated to 2 very important persons in my life.

The Little Prince

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.
What is essential is invisible to the eye."

The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog

[Naveen and Tiana are cooking dinner]
Prince Naveen: [mincing vegetables] I'm not really used to doing this. I mean, most of the time I had servants do everything for me: dress my clothes, brush my teeth, even help me get out of bed!
Princess Tiana: [stirring broth] Aw, you poor baby.
Prince Naveen: Yes, they did everything for me, until the day my parents cut me off, and that's when I realized... I don't know how to do anything.

Invictus

Invictus

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/invictus/

Avatar

Avatar

Dr. Grace Augustine: [to Jake, just before he connects to his Avatar] Just relax and let your mind go blank. That shouldn't be too hard for you.

Up In The Air

Up In The Air

Ryan Bingham: Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it's *because* they sat there that they were able to do it.

Keep your dreams alive

Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past, You must fight just to keep them alive!

Survivor, Eye of the Tiger

Sagres

Where the earth ends and the sea begins

Camões

Martinhal, Point, and Ingrina beach; Sagres, Portugal.

Tweets of the month

# Writing a report about a course I took last year. I sure learned a lot! quinta-feira, 28 de Janeiro de 2010 15:57:09

Nice paper about Maxwell's Equations http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/LaTeX/Examples/Maxwell%27s%20Equations.pdf quarta-feira, 27 de Janeiro de 2010 19:14:44

Upgraded to Thunderbird 3: no "bumps"; much better user experience segunda-feira, 25 de Janeiro de 2010 12:38:49

Preparing a new server package for the STEP Framework quinta-feira, 21 de Janeiro de 2010 10:56:02

@joanappardal You can tweet to kill time ;-) quinta-feira, 21 de Janeiro de 2010 10:52:55 in reply to joanappardal

# mpanao Sozinhos podemos chegar mais rápido, mas juntos vamos mais longe. quarta-feira, 13 de Janeiro de 2010 00:45:19 Retweeted by you

@sergiompinto Sempre chegaste a ler o GTD? Ajuda quando se têm muitas requisições ao mesmo tempo... Um abraço! quinta-feira, 14 de Janeiro de 2010 14:34:40 in reply to sergiompinto

At work in a very rainy day terça-feira, 12 de Janeiro de 2010 10:09:01

MiKTeX is much friendlier now that it includes TeXworks sexta-feira, 8 de Janeiro de 2010 15:58:46

Hard at work. Finishing paper reviews. quarta-feira, 6 de Janeiro de 2010 13:40:23

@nfma Nuno, keep up the good work, and all the best! quarta-feira, 6 de Janeiro de 2010 13:34:20 in reply to nfma

Back to work. Just planned the work ahead until the end of February. segunda-feira, 4 de Janeiro de 2010 17:24:28

Haiti Quake

A terrible quake has hit Haiti. My prayers go to all the victims. May God relieve their suffering, and give strength and courage to all who are there to help them.

You can help with funds to Caritas (portuguese site).

It's a wonderful life

It's a wonderful life

George Bailey: You know what the three most exciting sounds in the world are?
Uncle Billy: Breakfast is served, lunch is served, dinner...
George: No, no, no, no! Anchor chains, plane motors, and train whistles!

Perelandra

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

Could you prevent the Original Sin if you had the chance? Eden revisited, in the unmistakable style of C.S. Lewis.

Not a sci-fi gem (the sci part is weak), but a very good and thought provoking book.

Homoiconicity

A programming language has the homoiconicity property when the primary representation of the programs is also a data structure in a primitive type of the language itself. It makes it easier to metaprogram.

Of course, LISP s-expressions (symbolic expressions) come to mind...

(function arg1 arg2 ...)

I knew there had to be an advantage in all those parenthesis ;-)