Interesante reflexión y tan obvia que muchos de nosotros la ignoramos.

Leyendo el blog de Didac Lee, encontré este post (dialogo) que habla sobre el poco tiempo que tenemos y del cual nos quejamos. En el fondo es que no tenemos claro nuestras prioridades y no sabemos delegar.

Os invito a leerlo: ¿Te falta tiempo? ¿o es que no tienes claras tus prioridades?

Defeat Parkinson's Law!

Esto es en cierta forma “normal”, considerando como normal cualquier comportamiento pensado o no por un ser humano. La Ley de Parkinson explica este comportamiento “normal”.

Las tres leyes fundamentales de Parkinson son:
1º. “El trabajo crece hasta llenar el tiempo de que se dispone para su realización”.
2º. “Los gastos aumentan hasta cubrir todos los ingresos”.
3º. “El tiempo dedicado a cualquier tema de la agenda es inversamente proporcional a su importancia”.

Estas tres leyes, al igual que otras que Parkinson formuló, como la ley de la dilación o el arte de perder el tiempo y la ley de la ocupación de los espacios vacíos: por mucho espacio que haya en una oficina siempre hará falta, son leyes extraídas de la experiencia cotidiana, mediante las cuales, al tiempo que se describe o pone de manifiesto una determinada realidad, se denuncia la falta de eficiencia del trabajo administrativo. [De Wikipedia]

Por otro lado, para los que conocen el PMBOK (Project Management body of Knowledge),

La Ley de Parkinson también sirve como referencia a la hora de valorar/estimar esfuerzos en las tareas de un proyecto, interpretádola y llevándola a PM significa que si le asignamos a un recurso una cantidad de tiempo para realizar un cierto trabajo, terminará utilizando todo el tiempo del que dispone, independientemente de si necesitaba o no todo ese tiempo para realizarlo.

Hay que tenerlo muy presente.

Adeu!.

Yes, I could get a XO-1 and am very impressed by the quality Ultra mobile PC (UMPC).

XO-1 is well thought out in every way:

• Is secure, the Bitfrost approach gives a holistic security, from delivery of PC, first boot, authentication for childs, etc.
• Is usable, with Sugar all software applications (aka Activities) does easy to learn.
• Is mobile, has mesh wireless support, is no necessary get internet because its mobile ad-hoc networking is used to allow many machines to share Internet access from one connection. It has low-power consumption.
• Is Freee/Open Source device, inclusive the Firmware/Bios is FOS, except the WIFI driver for mesh purposes.

The specs of my XO-1 are:

• CPU: 433 MHz AMD Geode LX-700 at 0.8 watts, with integrated graphics controller
• Display dual-mode 19.1 cm/7.5″ diagonal TFT LCD 1200×900 (200 dpi).
• 256 MB of Dual (DDR266) 133 MHz DRAM.
• 1024 kB (1 MB) flash ROM with open-source Open Firmware.
• 1024 MB of SLC NAND flash memory.
• Operating system: Fedora-based (Linux)
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g /s wireless LAN, 3 USB 2.0 ports and MMC/SD card slot
• Input: Keyboard (water proof), Touchpad, Microphone, built-in video Camera (640×480; 30 FPS)
• Weight: LiFeP battery: 1.45 kg [3.2 pounds]; NiMH battery: 1.58 kg [3.5 pounds]

There are some things that should improve, for example:

• There is not a Video-out port
• Sound card is of poor quality
• The touch-pad has a pointer jumper, this is a bug reported

Whatever, the XO-1’s are fine for the purposes they were designed, for the childs and learning.

I hope to continue my research and soon I will post other comment about of XO-1 overclocking and hacking.

Ah, the booting of my XO-1 took 80 seconds aprox. You can see it in this video:

Regards!

En el año 2001, en un foro encontré un post bastante divertido, se trataba de la Evolución de un Programador y cómo éste evolucionaba también el clásico programa llamado Hola Mundo.

Para los no informáticos, Hola Mundo es el primer programa que realiza cualquier informático que inicia en esta profesión.

Con la Evolución de un Programador podéis ver quienes son los mejores programadores.

En fin, os dejo con la evolución del Hola Mundo, espero que algunos Managers, Comerciales no se ofendan.

Task is to write a program that prints “Hello World” on the
screen…make sure you see the last few attempts (Dilbert).

High School/Jr.High
==================

10 PRINT “HELLO WORLD”
20 END

First year in College
====================
program Hello(input, output)
begin
writeln(’Hello World’)
end.

Senior year in College
=====================
(defun hello
(print
(cons ‘Hello (list ‘World))))

New professional
===============
#include

void main(void)
{
char *message[] = {”Hello “, “World”};
int i;

for(i = 0; i < 2; ++i)
printf(”%s”, message[i]);
printf(”\n”);
}

Seasoned professional
====================
#include
#include

class string
{
private:
int size;
char *ptr;

public:
string() : size(0), ptr(new char(”)) {}

string(const string &s) : size(s.size)
{
ptr = new char[size + 1];
strcpy(ptr, s.ptr);
}

~string()
{
delete [] ptr;
}

friend ostream &operator <<(ostream &, const string &);

string &operator=(const char *);
};

ostream &operator<<(ostream &stream, const string &s)
{
return(stream << s.ptr);
}

string &string::operator=(const char *chrs)
{
if (this != &chrs)
{
delete [] ptr;
size = strlen(chrs);
ptr = new char[size + 1];
strcpy(ptr, chrs);
}
return(*this);
}

int main()
{
string str;

str = “Hello World”;
cout << str << endl;

return(0);
}

Master Programmer )
================
[
uuid(2573F8F4-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820)
]

library LHello
{
// bring in the master library
importlib(”actimp.tlb”);
importlib(”actexp.tlb”);

// bring in my interfaces
#include “pshlo.idl”

[
uuid(2573F8F5-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820)
]
cotype THello
{
interface IHello;
interface IPersistFile;
};
};

[
exe,
uuid(2573F890-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820)
]
module CHelloLib
{
// some code related header files
importheader();
importheader( );
importheader();
importheader(”pshlo.h”);
importheader(”shlo.hxx”);
importheader(”mycls.hxx”);

// needed typelibs
importlib(”actimp.tlb”);
importlib(”actexp.tlb”);
importlib(”thlo.tlb”);

[
uuid(2573F891-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820),
aggregatable
]
coclass CHello
{
cotype THello;
};
};

#include “ipfix.hxx”

extern HANDLE hEvent;

class CHello : public CHelloBase
{
public:
IPFIX(CLSID_CHello);

CHello(IUnknown *pUnk);
~CHello();

HRESULT __stdcall PrintSz(LPWSTR pwszString);

private:
static int cObjRef;
};

#include
#include
#include
#include
#include “thlo.h”
#include “pshlo.h”
#include “shlo.hxx”
#include “mycls.hxx”

int CHello::cObjRef = 0;

CHello::CHello(IUnknown *pUnk) : CHelloBase(pUnk)
{
cObjRef++;
return;
}

HRESULT __stdcall CHello::PrintSz(LPWSTR pwszString)
{
printf(”%ws\n”, pwszString);
return(ResultFromScode(S_OK));
}

CHello::~CHello(void)
{
// when the object count goes to zero, stop the server
cObjRef–;
if( cObjRef == 0 )
PulseEvent(hEvent);

return;
}

#include
#include
#include “pshlo.h”
#include “shlo.hxx”
#include “mycls.hxx”

HANDLE hEvent;

int _cdecl main( int argc, char * argv[])
{
ULONG ulRef;
DWORD dwRegistration;
CHelloCF *pCF = new CHelloCF();

hEvent = CreateEvent(NULL, FALSE, FALSE, NULL);

// Initialize the OLE libraries
CoInitializeEx(NULL, COINIT_MULTITHREADED);
CoRegisterClassObject(CLSID_CHello, pCF, CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER,
REGCLS_MULTIPLEUSE, &dwRegistration);

// wait on an event to stop
WaitForSingleObject(hEvent, INFINITE);

// revoke and release the class object
CoRevokeClassObject(dwRegistration);
ulRef = pCF-Release();

// Tell OLE we are going away.
CoUninitialize();

return(0);
}

extern CLSID CLSID_CHello;
extern UUID LIBID_CHelloLib;

CLSID CLSID_CHello = { /* 2573F891-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820 */
0×2573F891,
0xCFEE,
0×101A,
{ 0×9A, 0×9F, 0×00, 0xAA, 0×00, 0×34, 0×28, 0×20 }
};

UUID LIBID_CHelloLib = { /* 2573F890-CFEE-101A-9A9F-00AA00342820 */
0×2573F890,
0xCFEE,
0×101A,
{ 0×9A, 0×9F, 0×00, 0xAA, 0×00, 0×34, 0×28, 0×20 }
};

#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include “pshlo.h”
#include “shlo.hxx”
#include “clsid.h”

int _cdecl main( int argc, char * argv[])
{
HRESULT hRslt;
IHello *pHello;
ULONG ulCnt;
IMoniker * pmk;
WCHAR wcsT[_MAX_PATH];
WCHAR wcsPath[2 * _MAX_PATH];

// get object path
wcsPath[0] = ”;
wcsT[0] = ”;
if( argc 1) {
mbstowcs(wcsPath, argv[1], strlen(argv[1]) + 1);
wcsupr(wcsPath);
}
else {
fprintf(stderr, “Object path must be specified\n”);
return(1);
}

// get print string
if(argc 2)
mbstowcs(wcsT, argv[2], strlen(argv[2]) + 1);
else
wcscpy(wcsT, L”Hello World”);

printf(”Linking to object %ws\n”, wcsPath);
printf(”Text String %ws\n”, wcsT);

// Initialize the OLE libraries
hRslt = CoInitializeEx(NULL, COINIT_MULTITHREADED);
if(SUCCEEDED(hRslt)) {
hRslt = CreateFileMoniker(wcsPath, &pmk);
if(SUCCEEDED(hRslt)
hRslt = BindMoniker(pmk, 0, IID_IHello, (void **)&pHello);
if(SUCCEEDED(hRslt)) {
// print a string out
pHello- PrintSz(wcsT);

Sleep(2000);
ulCnt = pHello- Release();
}
else
printf(”Failure to connect, status: %lx”, hRslt);
// Tell OLE we are going away.
CoUninitialize();
}

return(0);
}

Apprentice Hacker
==================
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
$msg=”Hello, world.\n”;
if ($#ARGV = 0) {
while(defined($arg=shift(@ARGV))) {
$outfilename = $arg;
open(FILE, ” ” . $outfilename) || die “Can’t write $arg: $!\n”;
print (FILE $msg);
close(FILE) || die “Can’t close $arg: $!\n”;
}
} else {
print ($msg);
}
1;

Experienced Hacker
==================
#include
#define S “Hello, World\n”
main(){exit(printf(S) == strlen(S) ? 0 : 1);}

Seasoned Hacker
==================
% cc -o a.out ~/src/misc/hw/hw.c
% a.out

Guru Hacker
==================
% cat
Hello, world.
^^D

New Manager
==================
10 PRINT “HELLO WORLD”
20 END

Middle Manager
==================
mail -s “Hello, world.” bob@b12
Bob, could you please write me a program that prints “Hello,
world.”?
I need it by tomorrow.
^^D

Senior Manager
==================
% zmail jim
I need a “Hello, world.” program by this afternoon.

Chief Executive
==================
% letter
letter: Command not found.
% mail
To: ^^X ^^F ^^C
% help mail
help: Command not found.
% damn!
!: Event unrecognized
% logout

[From: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/199712/msg00322.html]

Os animáis a realizar un port a otra plataforma o lenguaje de programación?. Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, eh??

By Wikipedia:

The Protestant work ethic, sometimes called the Puritan work ethic, is a Calvinist value emphasizing the necessity of constant labor in a person’s calling as a sign of personal salvation. Protestants beginning with Martin Luther had reconceptualised work as a duty in the world for the benefit of the individual and society as a whole. The Catholic idea of good works was transformed into an obligation to work diligently as a sign of grace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

Six years ago I read the “The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of Information Age” book, by Pekka Himanen (this book is a collaborative work between Pekka Himanen, Linus Torvalds and Manuel Castells -philosopher, hacker and sociologist, respectively) and understood that Hacker Ethic is a new is a new morality that defies the Protestant work ethic, outlined nearly a century ago Max Weber in “The protrestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism” articuled.

Now, Pekka Himanen articulates how hackers represent a new, opposing spirit for the information age. Underlying hackers’ technical creations are the hacker values that produced them and that challenge us all.

The Hacker Ethic values promote passionate and freely rhythmed work; the belief that individuals can create great things by joining forces in imaginative ways; and the need to maintain our existing ethical ideals, such as privacy and equality, in our new, increasingly technologized society

If you want to read this book, you could googlear …

An Wikipedia definition is:

Holism (from ὅλος holos, a Greek word meaning all, entire, total) is the idea that all the properties of a given system (biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave.

In other words, Holism is a property of any System. But what is Systems? Wikipedia says:

System is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole.

Then, Holism could be used as an approach to understand the reality or abstraction. No?. Yes!.

A map-printed is a system, in this case it represents a specific geography/location (reality). Its elements or parts are: paths, orientation, size/scale, blocks, streets, traffic signs, etc.
Commonly, this map-printed is called model.

A PC is other example of system. In Software Engineering a Database Server is a set of elements as PC-server, DDBB engine, tables, rows, columns, metadata, data, constrains, etc. A representation of the Database Server could be a Entity-Relation model.

The Global warming Problem is other kind of System and it is possible to get a model too . It is a complex problem because is a big-System with many element and unknow relationships beetwen its parts. There is not enough paper for drawing this model.

Well, Holism is an approach that help us to interpret a System.

Here a table that summarize all that a bit more clearly.

http://marikaya.wordpress.com/2007/04/03/holism-versus-reductionism

Regards!

Después de la iniciativa de Nicholas Negroponte con su OLPC, PC Portátil para niños de 100 USD para fines educacionales, los fabricantes de Portátiles han visto una interesante oportunidad de negocio; hacer portátiles low-cost. Asustek, que fabrica portátiles para HP, Dell y Apple, además de su marca Asus, ha lanzado la propia hace algunos meses llamado Asus EeePC a sólo 249 USD, luego otros fabricantes han sacado sus propios modelos por ejemplo el Intel Classmate PC, VIA NanoBook y el PackardBell EasyNote XS, éstos dos últimos basados en el mismo chipset.

La intención de Nicholas Negroponte con la Fundación OLPC era dar acceso a recursos informáticos a los niños para fines educacionales de los paises pobres y para ello solicitó a la taiwanesa Quanta la fabricación de un portátil muy barato, accesible, usable, seguro y que consuma pocos recursos. Estos portátiles OLPC tienen procesador AMD y Linux.
Pero lo que ha despertado esta iniciativa en el sector tecnológico es que los fabricantes miren a los portátiles low-cost como una oportunidad de negocio.

En fin, estamos viendo una cambio en el mercado donde los fabricantes, en lugar de incrementar las capacidades de los portátiles y evitar reducir los precios, estan reduciendo precios manteniendo las características de los portátiles para un tipo de usuario; el usuario profesional.
La rápida focalización en esta oportunidad de negocio hace pensar que los fabricantes están pendientes de los gustos de los usuarios, eso es bueno, siempre nos han dado “gato por liebre”. Por ejemplo, recuerden incorporar cámaras fotográficas a los teléfonos celulares.

Creo que es muy evidente los usuarios profesionales también deseaban un portátil low-cost con las mismas prestaciones que ofrece el OLPC de Nicholas Negroponte, Intel, Asustek, VIA y Packard Bell lo han creído así. Para contrarrestar a estos nuevos competidores, aunque OLPC no persigue fines comerciales, la fundación OLPC lanzó un programa muy oportuno; “Give One Get One”, que permitía comprar dos OLPC, regalar uno de ellos a un país pobre.

Es tiempo del PC Low-cost?, Qué hay de la seguridad, de la Usabilidad y Accesabilidad que existe en OLPC?, dichas características también estarán en estos nuevos modelos de portátiles?. Pue sí, cada fabricante a su manera.

Estos portátiles tienen soluciones bien pensadas para mitigar los problemas intrínsecos de la portabilidad, por ejemplo:

OLPC aplica un modelo de seguridad llamada BitFrost, garantiza la seguridad, accesabilidad y la usabilidad, se basa en principios clásicos como “Open Security” y “Unobtrusive Security” (aka The principle of Psycological Acceptability). También, OLPC se nutre de una serie de aplicaciones para educación, herramientas ofimática y juegos fáciles de usar. Otra interesante funcionalidad es que permite establecer redes inalámbricas de forma segura con otros OLPC cercanos, es lo que OLPC llama wireless mesh networking. Otra punto interesante es el poco consumo de energia y la manivela para cargar la bateria del portátil.

En cambio, Asus EeePC, VIA NanoBook y PackardBell EasyNote XS están pensandos para usuarios profesionales, no para niños. Sin embargo han sabido mantener las características de portabilidad y rapidez que interesa a los usuarios móviles, y sin perder la facilidad de uso ni subir los precios.

En el caso de Asus EeePC, éste portátil viene con una variante del Xandros OS (Linux) muy fácil de usar, además dotado de las herramientas que un usuario típico puede necesitar.

Aquí se ve la importancia de Linux y las aplicaciones libres, usables y seguras que contribuyen a construir soluciones portables como el de los UMPC.

Ahora qué sigue?, para cuándo un teléfono móvil de bajo coste y/o open source, con aplicaciones fáciles de usar?, ahora con Google Android (sistema Operativo y SDK para desarrollar aplicaciones para teléfonos móviles) el sector también se está moviendo.

Saludos!

[1] One Laptop per Child (OLPC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1

[2] BitFrost: System security on OLPC (Unobtrusive security principle)
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bitfrost

[3] El portátil de 100 dólares, un sueño que atrae a empresas
http://www.lavanguardia.es/lv24h/20070525/51353696700.html

[4] Linux Debian on Packard Bell EasyNote XS
http://data.plaintext.cc/nanobook

[5] Intel Classmate PC, official page
http://www.classmatepc.com

[6] Intel Classmate PC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classmate_PC

[7] Asus Eee PC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

[8] VIA NanoBook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NanoBook

[9] GPhone de código abierto para Android
http://tecmoviles.com/gphone-de-codigo-abierto-para-android

Jerome Saltzer and Michael Schroeder in “The Protection of Information in Computer Systems”:

“[...] Psychological acceptability: It is essential that the human interface be designed for ease of use, so that users routinely and automatically apply the protection mechanisms correctly. Also, to the extent that the user’s mental image of his protection goals matches the mechanisms he must use, mistakes will be minimized. If he must translate his image of his protection needs into a radically different specification language, he will make errors. [..]“

Any question?

In the Report to the President on Cyber Security: A Crisis of Prioritization (February 2005) was published the cyber security priorities, theses were:

1. Authentication Technologies
2. Secure Fundamental Protocols
3. Secure software Engineering and Software Assurance
4. Holistic System Security
5. Monitoring and Detection
6. Mitigation and Recovery Methodologies
7. Cyber Forensics: Catching Criminals and Deterring Criminals activities
8. Modeling and Testbeds for New Technologies
9. Metrics, Benchmarks, and Best Practices … and
10. Non-Technology Issues than can Compromise Cyber security

Well, everything sounds known, but what does Holistic System Security mean?.
The report answers perfectly and explains why it is a priority:

4. Holistic System Security

Effective security in a complex, many-layered, global infrastructure such as the Internet and its nodes requires more than the security of its component parts. Establishing sound methods for authentication, secure protocols for basic Web operations, and improved software engineering will undoubtedly become
part of an evolving solution to this problem. But most importantly, researchers must recognize from the outset that an end-to-end architectural approach to the security of the whole necessarily transcends the security of the individual parts.For example, customers assume that their online banking transactions, based on secure socket layer (SSL), are indeed secure. But by spoofing the associated underlying protocols or end-user software, a malicious party can make a user’s transaction appear secured by SSL while allowing the theft of confidential data. It is also possible to compromise the security of the end computing systems, obtaining the data even though it was secure in transit.

Software usability itself is a legitimate and important research topic in cyber security. Incorrectly used software or hostile or confusing user interfaces can lead to user frustration and unauthorized workarounds that can compromise even the most robust security schemes. Research is also needed on how to make large and complex systems, where components can interact in unexpected ways, secure as a whole. Ultimately, fundamental research should address the development of entirely new, holistic security architectures including hardware, operating systems, networks, and applications. Research subtopics include:

• Building secure systems from trusted and untrusted components, and integrating new systems with legacy components
• Proactively reducing vulnerabilities
• Securing a system that is co-operated and/or co-owned by an adversary
• Comprehensively addressing the growing problem of insider threats
• Modeling and analyzing emergent failures in complex systems
• Human factors engineering, such as interfaces that promote security and user awareness of its importance
• Supporting privacy in conjunction with improved security

I think this approach (holism) is obvious, but is not for technical or developers of Software. The usability is very importan, This says that incorrectly used software or confusing UI can lead to user frustration and security controls misused.

I would like to highlight these words:

• Holism Security: include software/applications, s.o., hardware, networks … and the people (end-user)
• Software Usability: human factors engineering, such as interfaces that promote security and user awareness of its importance.

Yes, it is my first post and i hope that it will not be last one. So far I published my thoughts in Spanish and in a static web page, and it was boring.. now, i should be more funny for reaching a wider audience.

Well, here are going to publish some thoughts such as Quality, Systems Thinking, Holism, Trust, Security, Usability and different things without relation.. apparently.

Regards!