On Friday I was a bit nervous and excited. I really neither did know what I was going to find there (I have no experience in such events), nor had any idea to propose. I just went to see and, maybe, help with my developer abilities and support the team I were to collaborate with, but I didn’t know where I had got into.

Despite that, the first thing I saw were many ex faculty mates and people I already knew. I met guys from Agile Canarias (a local Agile group). I also saw the organization members Juanjo (Altavista Ventures), Elena and Ángel (Coworking Nomad), Carlos y Samuel (FEULL) working really hard to make the event to reach such an excellent level (everything was awesome!). And also, during the reception, I bumped into a fantastic catering which advanced the amazing weekend coming…

Finally I enrolled a team developing a project called SpeakApps and we ended up on the 2nd place!

2nd place! hurray!

I learned a lot. My takeaways:

• There still is a big knowledge gap between geek and non-geek guys. “Computer guy” is no longer a profession because every user will end up being a “computer person” sooner or later. The computer-related professions have specialized and diversified.
• People is nice. Sometimes I’m a bit mistrustful and now becoming more opened and receptive to others.
• Everybody has strong and weak points. We all can help in some way, and we must also allow being helped.
• I was in a group trying to figure out a simple solution within 48h of, at first lance, a hard problem and we make it! I’m able to reach creative and fast solutions. I’m “lean” and didn’t know it. I can be an entrepreneur. This was the most revealing lesson.

When the event ended something had changed for me. I was transformed: I felt more energized and motivated than ever. And I still do.

I even had the (subtle) sensation that now I feel more self-confident, and that I was radiating it. In consequence, other people seemed to take me more seriously and to trust me either: so people interacts with you depending on what you project on them, and this is the result of your mental interior state.

The only bad thing: Startup Weekend is over. Now let’s wait for the next one.

Among the things I’ve recently had to deal with, is the ODBC connections and Mac (yes, I own a Mac for some time now ). And I’ve finally found an easy way to create ODBC connections using unixODBC as I do in Linux. I’m surprised, because it works incredibly well:

First thing to do is installing unixODBC for Mac OS X. Personally, I think the simplest way to do it is using Homebrew, that fantastic open source package tool which makes Ruby to call my attention (disclaimer: I’m a zealot pythonista! ). It’s an example of a good work very well done (however, using Homebrew is not mandatory, there are other projects long ago: Fink and MacPorts).

Install unixODBC with Homebrew:
brew install unixodbc

Once installed, it’s time to compile the PostgreSQL ODBC driver (not available in Homebrew yet, unfortunately, so we’ll do it by hand):

1. Download the ODBC driver source code. Pick a recent one and uncompress it in a directory of your choice, then open a terminal and ‘cd’ into it.
2. Compile it following the typical command sequence:
   

   ./configure
   make
   make install

If everything went ok, you should have the PostgreSQL drivers installed as 2 library files located at /usr/local/lib/psqlodbcw.la and /usr/local/lib/psqlodbcw.so

And that’s all. Now we have to define an ODBC driver entry for PortgreSQL in the file /usr/local/etc/odbcinst.ini in a similar fashion to this one:

[PostgreSQL Unicode]
Description     = PostgreSQL ODBC driver (Unicode version)
Driver          = psqlodbcw.so
Debug           = 0
CommLog         = 1
UsageCount      = 1

Add this entry to the odbcinst.ini file and we are done. Now we can define our DSNs and start using ODBC!

To do so, create if not exists the file .odbc.ini in your $HOME directory and add the desired DSN, like this one:

[ib3db]
Driver      = PostgreSQL Unicode
ServerName  = localhost
Port        = 5432
Database    = ib3db
Username    = iberouser
Password    = mypass1234
Protocol    = 9.1.6
Debug       = 1

This define a User DSN named ib3db (with its user and password). Now to test it, just type:
isql -v ib3db
And it should work.

Remote connection

The previous DSN example was created for a local postgreSQL database. If we wanted to connect to a remote one, there are many configurations, but for me the easiest and safe one is to create an SSH tunnel:
ssh -C -N -L 60000:localhost:5432 user@remotehost.com
This will map our local port 60000 to the remote port 5432 at the remotehost.com machine (we’ll obviously need to update the Port = 5432 line in the previous example with Port = 60000). The command will keep running. To shutdown the tunnel, just kill the ssh command pressing CTRL-C.

You can also use extra flags, like -C (above) to compress the data transmitted to the tunnel (recommended for slow -e.g. modem- lines, but not for faster ones), and also use -N (do not execute anything remotely) so a remote ssh window is not opened, for example.

This little post is not for talking about what I’m currently doing (I doubt there is someone interested in knowing it, but if there is any, please wait for a later post in which I will comment), but to give thanks.

Thanks to a friend who forwarded me this video, and thanks also to the people (a group in which I include myself!) I know they exist and which trust a new system, a better world is still possible. This is one of these people (audio is in Spanish, and no subtitles, sorry ):

Thank you anew. I received this little dose of coherence and common sense in January, but it was so inspiring I still haven’t stopped I’m not alone; you are not alone; we are not alone.

I’m gradual and inexorably reaching one of those crossroad dilemmas and I seriously have to reconsider my life and where I am heading to. Yes, I also collect bad wines.

I needn’t pass through a terrible experience to know it. I’m simply not very (to say the less) satisfied with my life (and yes, I know many people are feeling the same, but this does not mitigates this feeling). I really feel like lost. My mind says something is broken here.

At my age, I feel that people surrounding me (including those supposedly closer to me) don’t respect me; I feel continuously questioned (and almost sabotaged) in every, including the pettier, aspect or decision I try to take on my own life. And it ends up being frustrating, exhausting and, at my age, hard (it’s almost like going back to my childhood). I wonder myself what is my mistake, because it’s clear that part (if not all) the problem lies on my side.

But that hasn’t been the hardest part: the toughest one is seeing how those few people who do accept, endorse, encourages and enlighten me, or just I felt some affinity are not among us (passed away) or have moved really far away.

This has been a somewhat sad end of year, with that feeling of any past time was better.
Anyway, I don’t give up. It’s time to open that bottle of wine, now that it’s still good:

Visual Studio 2010 worked fine at the beginning, but one day, suddenly, breakpoints stopped working. A yellow exclamation mark symbol was shown over them and placing the mouse cursor over such symbols showed the message “Breakpoint won’t be hit”.

Searching on the internet for this problem I found out it was a common one in almost every version of Visual Studio, specially in 2008 and 2010. Most common causes for this error are:

• The project was compiled in Release mode, not in Debug one
• Debug symbols are not found (or wrong path)
• Incremental Debug linking option is not enabled
• Not having installed the latest service packs and patches (some of them address this problem)
• Corrupted installation: Reinstalling the application, restoring default configuration or even deleting Registry Keys and Local App configuration stored in the Windows User profile folders might fix this case

The fact was none of the above worked for me, but found out that if I started Visual Studio with a different user account everything worked like a charm. After opening two projects (each generated with a different user) and compared differences on the .vproj XML files I found these extra lines added to the “faulty” one:

<importgroup Label="PropertySheets" Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|Win32'">
    <import Project="$(UserRootDir)\Microsoft.Cpp.$(Platform).user.props" Condition="exists('$(UserRootDir)\Microsoft.Cpp.$(Platform).user.props')" Label="LocalAppDataPlatform" />
  </importgroup>

Removing these lines from the .vproj file and recompiling made the breakpoints to work again! The case was these lines referenced User configurations that didn’t appear in my VS configuration panels or couldn’t change (some of them were grayed). These XML lines contain a conditional inclusion and the path is $(UserRootDir)\MicrosoftCpp.$(Platform). It happened that path was C:\Users\Boriel\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0, which was not the Visual Studio configuration Folder. Deleting it fixed the issue (it’s regenerated the next time Visual Studio IDE is started).

To avoid even more troubles I not only removed that folder, but also the local configuration stored in my profile (C:\Users\Boriel\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0) and related registry keys (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VSCommon\10.0). Afterwards I restarted the IDE and a splashscreen warning told me the application was being prepared to be used for the first time. And the problem was gone.

The problem is the following: get a product magic square, that is, a 3×3 square whose product for numbers in every row, column or diagonal gives the same (unknown) amount . All numbers are unrepeated positive integers. It’s known that the number in the center cell is 15.

My approach was to assign each cell a variable name:

An ant starts walking from vertex #1 and changes it direction at random on each vertex (might even turn back from the same edge it came from). Vertex #7 and #8 are poisoned. If the ant happens to walk into one of them it will die. The challenge consist in find out the probabilities of the ant dying or not and in which vertex (#7 or #8) when it does.

This program uses the previous one (which already defines a Graph class) to make a simple statistical simulation of the problem and give you an answer of what to expect. Obviously, the result by itself is not the entire solution: you also have to give a theoretical demonstration of such result

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
# vim:ts=4:et:sw=4:

from random import choice
from grafo import Graph, Vertex

class Point(Vertex):
    '''A vertex which can have a poison trap
    '''
    def __init__(self, *args):
        Vertex.__init__(self, *args)
        self.poisoned = False

    def __str__(self):
        tmp = '*' if self.poisoned else ''
        return '< ' + tmp + str(self.i) + '>'


class Cube(Graph):
    ''' A Graph derived class in which each vertex (Point) 
    may contain a poison trap or not
    '''
    def add(self, node, *nodelist):
        vertex = Point(node, *nodelist)
        self.vList[node] = vertex

    def run(self, N):
        """ Puts an ant on vertex #1 and let it run for N 
        random steps. Stops when the ant enters a poisoned
        vertex or it has run N steps. Returns ant's last position.
        """
        i = 0
        pos = 1 # Initial ant position
        while i < N:
            i += 1
            pos = choice(self.vList[pos].nodeList)
            if self.vList[pos].venenoso:
                break

        return pos


if __name__ == '__main__':
    G = Cube()
    G.add(1, 2, 4, 5)
    G.add(2, 1, 3, 6)
    G.add(3, 2, 4, 7)
    G.add(4, 1, 3, 8)
    G.add(5, 1, 6, 8)
    G.add(6, 2, 5, 7)
    G.add(7, 3, 6, 8)
    G.add(8, 4, 5, 7)

    G.vList[7].poisoned = True
    G.vList[8].poisoned = True

    # Carry out simple statistics
    stats = [0, 0, 0] # Counters

    for i in xrange(1000000): # Total number of experiments (runs)
        pos = G.run(100) # make the ant to run 100 steps
        if pos > 6: # Map 0..6 => 0, 7 => 1, 8 => 2
            pos -= 6 # 7 = 1, 8 = 2
        else:
            pos = 0

        stats[pos] += 1 # Increase corresponding counter

    tot = sum(stats) # Total #number of experiments (must be the same number as above)
    print stats # Absolute Frequencies
    print [100 * float(x) / tot for x in stats] # Relative frequencies (percentage)

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
# vim:ts=4:et:sw=4

class Vertex(object):
    def __init__(self, node, *nodeList):
        self.i = node
        self.nodeList = list(nodeList)

    def __hash__(self):
        return self.i

    def reaches(self, vertex):
        ''' Can receive an integer or a Vertex
        '''
        if isinstance(vertex, int):
            return vertex in self.nodeList

        return self.reaches(vertex.i)

    def __str__(self):
        return '< ' + str(self.i) + '>'

    def __repr__(self):
        return self.__str__()


class Graph(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.vList = {}

    def add(self, node, *nodeList):
        vertex = Vertex(node, *nodeList)
        self.vList[node] = vertex

    def hamiltonian(self, current = None, pending = None, destiny = None):
        ''' Returns a list of nodes which represent
        a hamiltonian path, or None if not found
        ''' 
        if pending is None:
            pending = self.vList.values()

        result = None

        if current is None:
            for current in pending:
                result = self.hamiltonian(current, [x for x in pending if x is not current], current)
                if result is not None:
                    break
        else:
            if pending == []: 
                if current.reaches(destiny):
                    return [current]
                else:
                    return None

            for x in [self.vList[v] for v in current.nodeList]:
                if x in pending:
                    result = self.hamiltonian(x, [y for y in pending if y is not x], destiny)
                    if result is not None:
                        result = [current] + result
                        break    

        return result

if __name__ == '__main__':
    G = Graph() 
    G.add(1, 2, 8, 11)
    G.add(2, 1, 6, 9)
    G.add(3, 6, 7, 9, 10)
    G.add(4, 5, 7, 10)
    G.add(5, 4, 8, 11)
    G.add(6, 2, 3, 8)
    G.add(7, 3, 4, 8)
    G.add(8, 1, 6, 7, 5)
    G.add(9, 2, 3, 11)
    G.add(10, 3, 4, 11)
    G.add(11, 1, 9, 10, 5)
    print G.hamiltonian()

I was born in the late 70′s. I grew up in the 80 which marked my adolescence (e.g. the ZX Spectrum, but also pop music and many other iconic things of that time). I consider myself a geek and I love new technologies. But, on one hand, I hate consumerism and being always on the cutting edge gadgets (especially if they are expensive). On the other one, if I had money and space I would create my own collection of microcomputers and other vintage machines (which could be consider another form of consumerism).

When cell phones came out (I remember seeing them as objects of luxury to mid-90), seemed more of a snobbery than a necessity. Two years later I had my first phone (a brick nowadays, or let’s say a vintage mobile). After a year, although rates were expensive, the cell phone became almost a necessity. I already knew the Internet. Also, there was no ADSL then, we used modems, but I understood its importance and the revolution that internet would bring to us.

My initial reluctance and skepticism was transformed into understanding and subsequent acceptance of new technologies and new trends. However, I hate being always on fashion. I just hope that some significant part of the flock to move in a direction to follow it myself later. I do not like to be left behind, just, let’s say, an average.

Back to the topic, this is what I have observed with what I call 1.0 people, including some colleagues:

• They use email to send a short and often urgent message (which could be via SMS, twitter or any other nowadays mobile application
• Many of the important things they do are done on paper (signatures, letters and documents).
• To send a document, use the fax
• When having an appointment, they’re not accurate, “See you in the Park” (where in the park?)
• They can’t see the usefulness of social networks. Instead, they still think social networks are just for gossiping about irrelevant, superficial stuff (and what happened to Egypt?)
• They don’t use forums. Everything is done on mailing lists with loooong endless thread.

This list could be endless but I think with this chunk makes the concept clear. Younger people nowadays seem to have assimilated new technologies better. For the veterans, I’ve seen there are three groups: those who has adapted fairly well, those who cannot (usually elder people who also don’t have much interest), and finally those who simply resist to change (“I’ve always done this way and I will continue doing so”). It’s my bet those ones will be the more to be hard hit.

Not surprisingly, some related terms have already appeared (slightly exaggerated) that seek to establish the dividing line: Native digital (those who were born with this technology already) and digital immigrants for more greater than have to adapt. Personally I think this division is simplistic: many digital natives are not well versed in technology (or math or language or many other things) and there are older people have adapted perfectly (Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds are examples of perfectly adapted non digital natives surely you and I know, but it is likely that you also know someone else near to you).

It’s about attitude, not ability or age.

Bueno, tras un mes ajetreado, vuelvo a las andadas. En el post anterior dejé caer que no estaba seguro de mi decisión en el ámbito laboral (ya vi cosas que no me gustaron desde el primer día); no estaba muy convencido, pero como me he considerado siempre una persona insegura, pensé que se debía a eso. Sin embargo mi intuición no se equivocó. Evidentemente fue un error, del que afortunadamente salí bien parado, y de paso aprendí y vi las cosas más claras (hay momentos en la vida que te iluminan).

• Aprendí, por ejemplo, que hay gente que no tiene mucha interacción contigo (y en la que no reparas demasiado) y que luego descubres que le importas; y que hay otra que te dice y te repite que es amiga tuya y que luego no lo es tanto.
• Descubrí que buscar el trabajo de mis sueños es como perseguir El Dorado. Muchos colegas que conozco sacrifican todo por unas condiciones laborales pésimas en busca de un sueño laboral (un trabajo de investigación bien pagado y de prestigio) que nunca llegará (este tipo de sacrificios sólo lo entiendo cuando eres emprendedor, porque te sacrificas para tí mismo y no para otros). El trabajo de tus sueños es aquel en el que los compañeros y el ambiente laboral es agradable y no te daña psicológicamente. Si además es un trabajo apasionante, pues es un bonus.
• También me di cuenta que todos tenemos una proyección mental de los demás, una imagen de cómo creemos que es y cómo esperamos que reaccione. Del mismo modo que yo la tengo con los demás, los demás la tienen de mí. Una persona sabia tiene esto en cuenta ya que a veces las personas pueden o quieren cambiar. Intentar romper esa imagen es difícil (en algunos casos imposible), de manera que cuando no actúas de la forma esperada pueden percibir tu reacción como distorsionada. También da igual a veces lo que hagas o digas, porque esas personas ya han oído o concluido lo que esperan de tí: la gente está cómoda con esa imagen que tiene (de tí) y esperan que sigas igual.
• Muchas personas se quejan de “lo mal que está todo”, o de “qué mal lo hacen otros” para a continuación repetir y cometer ciegamente los mismos errores; a veces es difícil reconocer que se es parte del problema.

Bueno, ya basta de tanta dosis de Boriel-Confucio. Mejor tomárselo con humor y seguir mirando hacia adelante (en mi caso, hacia atrás), porque ahora, viéndolo desde la lejanía, descubro que no sólo estoy mucho mejor (estoy pasando un buen momento), sino que hubiera sido a largo plazo un error gravísimo seguir donde estaba. A veces nos aferramos a las cosas, a las ilusiones (esa imagen, esa proyección de cómo nos gustaría que fueran las cosas) en vez de aceptar cómo son en realidad.

Así que ahora, a por nuevos proyectos (que eso nunca me falta). Algunos aparecerán por aquí.