a vida não é só isto!

this may be an incomplete statement, so bear with me on this one.

as it can be seen in the frontpage for the rt2x00 wireless driver project, our driver has been added to the kernel back in January 2008, with the 2.6.24 release.

I've been part of the project since 2004, contributing with typo fixes, minor code corrections and mostly with administrativia.

don't get me wrong, I can code in several languages, Pascal being the one where I'm most proficient and VBScript / asp classic, by force of my day job.

C is kinda scary most of the time, specially when you must mess with the crappy Windows API's.

I can edit, copy & paste code, fixing stuff here and there, but I'm unable so far to create a large C project from scratch.

that being said, you must now be getting where the post title affirmation came from... moving on...

in the last 8 months or so, I've been doing mostly code, implementing some of the strangest solutions to problems that I could come up with. I even wrote a whole client-server API to help me cope with project needs.

but now I see that my idea of the need for an API wasn't so bad after all. it did help me a lot on understanding that using some degree of standardization with my transactions, it could be well extended to fit even other needs.

more, it was so well 'designed' that it now has it's own versioning scheme as well as provisions were made for preventing obsolete versions to continue work.

but enough of this, this is classified stuff and I already talked way too much about it.

this project has been fun to do for a variety of reasons: first, it was my design from scratch second, it was made for work, so others could benefit from it third, the end result (facilitate use) justifies the time spent fourth, it was made on company time, for the company's exclusive use

but alas, my heart is all about open source.

unfortunately, there are very little job opportunities for IT admins/developers, working with open source solutions here in Portugal. and the job market currently sucks, so actually it's not at all the time to go and be stupid.

so, for me at this point open source won't put money in my pockets for the next few years which is a big bummer.

all of my personal and private projects so far are incomplete, and that is valid even for stuff that doesn't include software.

it's all of the hardware, bicycle improvements, house repairs, tons of other stuff.

let's just say that for some crap, I've got the attention span of a 5 year old, and I'm almost 40 years after that

so, having read this, can you say I'm a developer?

EDIT

the whole point of this post was that, although I did write some software related things (which qualifies me as a developer), I rarely finish stuff.

therefore I'm half way through being a true developer, one that actually finishes stuff, thus getting the whole job done.

some time ago someone brought to my attention the growing availability of the new so-called cloud services.

I found that statement funny (to say the least), because both of us were GMail users for quite a while. I went on explaining that GMail is in fact a cloud application with all the intended features, high-availability, ease of use, no scaling issues and above all, it's free!

but his question was another, it meant on how we can easily create a web application and deploy it for free, and not caring wether the server will cope with high usage. I then went off for a while and tried to find some more information.

Amazon has the EC2 service (Elastic Cloud 2), but you pay for the service and for the used bandwidth. since that was not the intended stuff, I went on.

Google has the AppEngine, a free for low usage service (quota based), in which you have an API to access a wide range of features provided by the service, which also include database access. for me the only 'problem' it poses is that ir requires that you write your application in either Python or Java, languages that I personally don't master at all.

but all these services, however great, leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth, should we really depend that much on other providers? well, the answer is really: yes and no!

the server that hosts this website cost about 30€ per year, while the Google solution would be free. alas, I have other stuff in here, besides the blogs, which I couldn't have with Google. but what I can do is create an application that has bits in the cloud, like the Wolfire guys use for the main website.

getting back to this post title, should we rely on cloud services or do they really seem as couldy as they do to me?

your feedback is appreciated

vendor lock-in in not a phrase you usually associate with Google, right?

well, you're half-right, half-wrong... let me explain in a moment, bear with me.

(btw, this will be a though post to write, as you know, English is not my native tongue)

while you get some courage to read the rest of this post, here's an exercise for you, get me an email account from say... Gmail web support team.

Google has built a very big company around a simple idea, first create a search service that started to crawl the Internet, gathering info, while providing it a free service to all. then, after a lot of data has been collected, they started to monetise the search results, along with text ads.

but seriously, what's running behind all this technology? it's no secret, Google runs on Linux, but not any Linux, it's their own interpretation of what a Linux distribution should be. to be fair and honest they modify the kernel and other components to suit their own needs. they have scalability issues, shared load and some other related stuff, when you run what is now called a "cloud service computing".

that in it self is not really bad, hundreds of companies allready modify GPL'd stuff all the time, problem is when the changes aren't given back to the community, that is called along other things a GPL violation.

while Google doesn't do exactly that per-se, it does some very strange mumbo jumbo.

now make a quick introspection, imagine life without Google and its services, I'll give you ten minutes...

see how hard life would be?

you got used to have a faster better email service with GMail then you have with hotmail or yahoo, so you got hooked.

you got used to read, process and share all your documents with Google Docs, so you got hooked.

you search for anything with Google, Bing or Yahoo, but somehow, it sucks less with Google, so you got hooked.

so you are essentially hooked with Google. while not really a lock-in, you are tied-in to a range of services, that while free, makes you depend on them for almost everything. and they keep expanding to other areas, like the so-hyped Nexus One.

and to finish Cylon style, remember this: They Have a Plan!

p.s. and I bet you couldn't find any email contact from the gmail web support team, I guess there isn't any since it is all run by little green elfs...

it is not very often that I do speak about some issues that I do not fully understand, but I'm really confident that I'll be able to convey my message.

it has come to my attention that lately, most if not all games for consoles have that thing called "the achievements".

it all comes down to some sort of "bragging rights" or as say here in Portugal "mine is bigger then yours".

why should I care to beat all available achievements in a game, seriously, aren't there any more fun things to do in a game? the storyline in no longer an interesting factor?

it really beats me!

comments are welcome

airplane ticket: ckeck,
hotel voucher: check,
LinuxTag 2009 ticket: check,

looking forward to meet the community

i've been avoiding writing about the latest installment of the desktop operating system made by those guys from Redmond. some say that it is preety, others say it's the best thing ever, others even say that this is the most revolutionary thing they have ever seen!

me? well, i've tested it twice now, the first time in a celeron 2.6ghz/512Mb machine, and the conclusion is obvious, it's rubbish! while formerly the machine worked rather well, it now crawls on the floor, with all the ram used by the operation system, and unresponsive is the best adjective one could use. you've guessed it right, i've reverted to the old version of the desktop operating system.

the second test was made at home, using a pentium4 2.4ghz/HT + 2Gb ram. the results didn't vary that much, although the extra ram makes it perform way lot better then before.

two simple conclusions for now, either wait for the bugfix release (they call it a service pack, who knows why?) or if you really want something preeeeeety, get a MAC.

update! there is hope, just read this: “It’s Windows Vista without the bloat!“

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