Monday, April 30, 2007

As the Software World Turns, Part 1: Engineers In, Programmers Out

And I thought "software engineer" was just better sounding than "programmer".

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Old man Ham

In my college days, one of my classmates was a full 6 years older than the rest of the class. We use to jokingly address him as 'old man'.

It was amusing then but kinda uncanny now that I'm 30.

My metabolism is slower, I'm getting fat (no doubt from all the 'eat-all-you-can' buffets), I have white hair and I think I am starting to see a bald spot.

I had lunch today with Patrick. He asked me about future plans like whether I'm interested to put up a business or if I plan to migrate to anywhere someday. Thinking about it now I probably sounded like an irresponsible happy go lucky shmuck with answers like 'I don't know', 'I haven't thought about it' and 'I'm just taking my time .. enjoying life/work'.

There was a time, a long, long time ago when the family lived in a very cramped apartment. My Dad was overseas and money, the lack of it, was a problem. I remember a time when my younger brother and I once stared at chocolate cupcakes that we knew we liked but couldn't muster the courage to ask money for. It was a stressful time for my parents and we the children felt it.

I just feel blessed today that I don't have to ask money for a chocolate cup cake anymore :-)

Yes, I know, I will need to answer those life questions ... eventually ....

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Parakey is looking for Employee #3

I like how this "wanted" ad is worded. It's straight to the point. It tells you what the company is about, who's behind it, why you should consider joining, the qualifications you need and how to get in touch with them.

I liked it even better because it did not contain the typical "job wanted ad" jargon about graduating from a four year course with a bachelor's degree in "whatever" :-)

I don't quite qualify, though, because I don't think half the word on that ad is "bullshit" (read the part about Skepticism) though I would agree that they'd get a lot of responses if they started it off with that word in bold :-)

Accessing the Database using Javascript

The common routine with ajax based web applications is for javascript to make the ajax request to the server and on the server we write a page with a function in our favorite server side language be it PHP or ASP that performs the request and returns a response.

Well, IBM released a javascript API that lets developers use javascript to update the database of their web applications directly. It still needs a server side gateway to process the requests, nevertheless, it's an interesting concept.

What are the Pros and Cons ? Will the time come where all logic will be in the front end using javascript and we'll have no need for such server side languages like PHP, ASP or even TCL on Aolserver ?

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Wind Power for cell sites

I was at Malapascua last year and the generator the article was referring to at the cell site was quite audible. Too bad I'm not going back this year :-) I would have loved to get a shot of those wind turbines.