Tweets of the month

I've been invited to Google Plus! ansonalex.com/technology/how… Nice!
30 Jun

Dieta Real: "Tomar o pequeno almoço como um Rei, o almoço como um Príncipe, e o jantar como um Mendigo"
28 Jun

Thanks to my dear @joanappardal and her typesetting tips, the paper is looking much better now! No more loose paragraphs!
27 Jun

Back to work. Adjusting the "camera" for a paper camera-ready version that is due today :)
27 Jun

Inbox zero!
20 Jun

"Nothing changes, until you do." 4.bp.blogspot.com/-E6vyDZvnERM/T…
17 Jun

Algum Informático está interessado em desenvolvimento Unix e SQL? Pode ser recém licenciado ou ter até 2 anos de experiência #emprego
16 Jun

Tonight we saw the Lunar Eclipse and the International Space Station blazing the sky #eclipse #iss
16 Jun

Pentecost really happened today, a little later than usual, but full of Grace as always
14 Jun

Today I'm working at Taguspark. It had been a while...
9 Jun

MIT's 150th Birthday (and 10th Reunion) photos flickr.com/photos/thechiz…
8 Jun

Mãos à obra, Portugal!
6 Jun

As eleições estão à porta. É muito importante votar! E bem! :) Para evitar problemas técnicos consultar: http://www.portaldoeleitor.pt/
3 Jun

Should I translate 'key escrow' by 'caução de chave' or by 'depósito de chave'?
2 Jun

Checking a technical detail in the EPCIS standard specification
2 Jun

A osga dos livros... :/

Click and focus

With an innovative camera due out later this year from a company called Lytro, photographers will have one less excuse for having missed that perfect shot.

Lytro's camera produces files where a user can click on an area to bring it into focus.

Source: NYTimes.com

Programming in a post-Basic world

For years, the lingua franca for desktop computers was the Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a.k.a. BASIC. Essentially every PC had it, and just about anyone could learn to program with it, even in a rudimentary way.

Those days are gone -- Microsoft stopped including Basic with its operating system after Windows 95, a corporate spokesperson confirms. Consequently, today's desktop computers have no built-in general-purpose programming language to entice the curious.

What now?

Source: Computerworld

Multi-Cultural-ism

Source: DisOriention book

IBM's new future: Quantum computing - Computerworld

IBM is marking its 100th anniversary by celebrating its record in technology innovation. It created dynamic RAM, the disk drive and the magnetic strips used on credit cards, among many other inventions. It is one of the most inventive companies in the world.

But the computing industry is moving to a new future as disruptive and as radical as the era that began with the introduction of silicon chips, and that future is quantum computing. These are systems that use the behavior of subatomic particles to conduct calculations now performed with transistors on a chip.

This future may be anywhere from 10 to 20 or more years away. But if the potential of quantum computing is fully realized, it may trigger a development rush in chip and hardware design reminiscent of what Silicon Valley experienced decades ago.

Source: Computerworld

New tools to help objects to communicate via the Net

Increasingly, the things people use on a daily basis can be connected to the Internet. Norwegian researchers are working to ensure that the Internet of Things operates as efficiently as possible.

A group of Norwegian researchers have been addressing this issue. In the research project Infrastructure for Integrated Services (ISIS) they have created a platform for developing and distributing applications for the Internet of Things. The platform encompasses a programming tool for developers, called Arctis and the website ISIS Store for downloading applications.

Source: The Research Council of Norway

Progressiv-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Taking Email Etiquette to the Next Level

When working with others in the office, most know it is better to approach a colleague who is relaxed and drinking a cup of coffee versus a frazzled co-worker buried under a pile of paperwork.

Unfortunately, email doesn’t offer users the same social cues – until now.

Georgia Tech Assistant Professor of Computing Eric Gilbert has developed software called courteous.ly, a service that shows current user email loads in real-time.

“I think we’re really good at the etiquette part when we have the cues that allow us to be polite,” said Gilbert, a faculty member in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing. “Courteous.ly helps manage expectations and lets people choose to send mail when it’s best for you.”

Available for download, courteous.ly currently works with Google-based email, such as Gmail, which is used by 160 million people worldwide. Roughly 3 million businesses also use Google-hosted mail. Signing up for courteous.ly is as easy as entering your email address and verifying a few links.

Source: Georgia Tech via ACM Tech News

Hedon-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Federations and confederations

A federation is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central (federal) government. In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states is typically constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision of the central government.

A confederation is an association of sovereign member states that, by treaty, have delegated certain of their competences (or powers) to common institutions, in order to coordinate their policies in a number of areas, without constituting a new state on top of the member states. Under international law a confederation respects the sovereignty of its members and its constituting treaty can only be changed by unanimous agreement.

By definition the difference between a confederation and a federation is that the many memberships of the member states in a confederation are voluntary, while the membership in a federation is not. A confederation is most likely to feature these differences over a federation:
(1) No real direct powers: many confederal decisions are externalised by member-state legislation.
(2) Decisions on day-to-day matters are not taken by simple majority but by special majorities or even by consensus or unanimity (veto for every member).
(3) Changes of the constitution, usually a treaty, require unanimity.

Reference: Federation, Confederation

Microsoft Research virtualizes idle desktops to save power

Microsoft Research virtualizes idle desktops to save power: "Finding that people do not use 'stand-by' and 'hibernate' when going away from their PCs, for fear of disrupting running network connections and background computations, Microsoft Research India has developed power-saving technology that virtualizes enterprise desktops to a backend server before putting the desktops to sleep."

Source: Network world via ACM Tech News

Exploding-platform

Several in the Internet of Things community are using Twitter for communicating information from sensors. This is an important development that perhaps is overlooked by many.

Edmund W. Schuster blog post about Exploding-platform Strategies - Apple, Google, Amazon.com, Facebook & Twitter

Energy-efficient programming

A University of Washington project sees a role for programmers to reduce the energy appetite of the ones and zeroes in the code itself. Researchers have created a system, called EnerJ, that reduces energy consumption in simulations by up to 50 percent, and has the potential to cut energy by as much as 90 percent.

Source: Code green: Energy-efficient programming to curb computers’ power use

Thinking Clearly about Performance

Improving the performance of complex software is difficult, but understanding some fundamental principles can make it easier.

Source: Thinking Clearly about Performance via ACM Queue

Relativ-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Change account ordering in Thunderbird

To change the order of Thunderbird email accounts in the left panel proceed as follows:

1 - Open Thunderbird. Make note of current ordering of accounts. Close Thunderbird.

2 - Explore C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\
(%USERNAME% will be automatically replaced by the current user's name by Windows Explorer)

3 - Edit prefs.js, find the following line:
user_pref("mail.accountmanager.accounts", "account1,account2,account3");
The comma separated list dictactes the account order.
Change the order to your liking.

4 - Restart Thunderbird and check results.

Source: Lego's Land blog post