Exhibición impúdica

Esta semana me han dado varias pastillas de Egolín en forma de cosas agradables sobre mi que alguien le ha dicho a otra persona. Y, con toda la inmodestia, las transcribo

• Tu padre mola. Se lo ha dicho a G. un compañero de cole, supongo que sorprendido de que un adulto recuerde que tiene piernas y las use para hacer carreras por el parque.
  
• Xavier's assistance on this issue was most appreciated, en relación a una actuación de bombero en un cliente.
• Xavier a fait un excellent travail en décrivant les étapes du project (...) Xavier est un excellent professionnel.

Y como, a pesar de un buen principio, no ha sido una semana brillante en todos los frentes, ¡no me ha ido mal enterarme!

Actualización: aunque esta me la han dicho directamente, también ha sido una deliciosa pastilla de Egolín: Una de las primeras personas a las que acudo cuando tengo problemas de código y me quedo bloqueado. Y una de las más desinteresadas y resolutivas. Gracias.

Tweets my friends like

Twitter lets you mark as favorites the tweets you like. Some people doesn't care about this, but others do add stars to tweets that are fun, enlightening, or both. I wanted to be aware of what my twitter friends mark as favorite, and after no obvious google hit, Yahoo! Pipes came again to the rescue.


The pipe creates a feed with the tweets that some one's contacts have marked as a favorite. Keep in mind that it only works for the up to 36 contacts that are shown in a user's page, since I did not want to get into the authentication issues required to get a full list of contacts. If you want, you can add additional users, that don't need to be your contacts.

Customize it with your accounts and grab it at http://pipes.yahoo.com/xverges/friendsfavs.

Credits: Microformat-scrapping the page is the only way I that found to get access to a list of contacts without authentication. I used Duane Cato's Microformats contacts extractor as a starting point, and just copied how he uses http://microformatique.com/optimus/ to grab the info that twitter kindly puts in hCards.

PAPItastimumoadeuunpato

La C. ha fet el millor ús del Dymo que s'ha fet mai!

ABCs of z/OS System Programming

One of the side effects of my recent research has been to learn that the famous ABCs of System Programming redbooks have been updated and have gone from 5 volumes to... 11!!

I've been browsing Volume 6: Security on z/OS, RACF, and LDAP. Kerberos and PKI. Cryptography and EIM. and it has been quite useful (though, in fact, it did not point me where I needed to go). Not all the volumes have been published as today. The pages for all the volumes list them all.

• Link to volume 1.
• Link to a search that should list all that have been published.

Certificate-based logon to zOS

DCAS (zOS Communications Server's Digital Certificate Access Server) has come to my rescue. From the docs:

The DCAS can be used by providers of logon and single sign-on services where access to z/OS-based applications is needed. The DCAS is a TCP/IP server that enables clients to connect over the network and obtain a passticket and z/OS user ID from RACF.

Clients that connect to DCAS must use the SSL protocol (DCAS supports SSL Version 3). Client authentication is performed.

Clients can request a user ID and passticket for an application. The client sends an x.509 certificate. DCAS converts the x.509 certificate to a valid user ID, which is returned. The x.509 certificate must have been mapped to a valid user ID in RACF

It's the second time in a few months that DCAS is the solution to the problem that I'm working on; unfortunately, I had forgotten about the first time, so it has taken my a while to get rescued. Not a complete waste of time: if learned a few things about PKI and RACF.

The first time it was about a service to generate passtickets (strings that can be used as passwords for a short while). Despite my recommendation, the customer's choice was to not use DCAS and code it from scratch; go figure.

Now it is about authenticating to RACF from a application that uses a smartcard reader. I'm looking forward to code the smartcard-based RACF logon, since working with smartcards has been in my wish list for very long.

And since google and DCAS don't seem to be big friends, I'm posting this.

Kyrgyzstan existe

Intercambio de mails con un amigo al que he visto sólo una noche en los últimos 15 años. Está en viaje de negocios:

Pue si hijo si, no hay nada mas triste que en Kyrgyzstan y con jet lag...

Kyrgyzstan??!! Kirguistán, Kirguizistán o República Kirguisa??!! De la wikipedia, algunos datos no especialmente relevantes:

• 5 millones de habitantes
• la "Suiza de Asia central", no por el chocolate, los bancos o los relojes, sino por no tener mar y porque un 80% de su territorio es montañoso
• aunque ilegal, aun se practica el rapto de novias. En un principio, en un país donde eran habituales los matrimonios pactados, el novio procedía a un rapto consesuado con la novia con la que quería casarse si no podía pagar el precio del mismo o la familia de ella se oponía a la boda. Por otra parte, algunos de estos raptos ya no son consensuados, sino que se tratan de raptos reales.
  
• un amor de clima: el lago Issyk-Kul (el segundo lago de montaña más grande del mundo, tras el Titicaca) tiene gran amplitud térmica, con un mes frío, enero, con medias inferiores a -25ºC, y un mes cálido, julio, con medias superiores a los 45ºC.

Si su bandera no es la más chula del mundo, seguro que está en la final. Los cuarenta rayos de sol representan las cuarenta tribus que se unieron para luchar contra Genghis Khan. La parte central es lo que se ve dentro de una yurta cuando sale el sol.
Y, diga lo que diga el pobre Jose, en flickr he visto cosas que me hacen tenerle envidia.

Jurta - Kyrgyzstan, originally uploaded by zsoolt.

Som àngels!

Visca el majara que ha enganxat unes ales de cartulina a la parada d'autobús i ens ha fet riure abans d'anar a l'escola!

Aprendre

Aquest matí he plorat de content i li he enviat això al meu fill

Estimat G,

avui he trobat una cosa que vaig escriure fa uns anys, després de llegir una carta teva al Papà Noel. Potser tu ho recordes, però jo no ho recordava, i m'ha encantat trobar-ho. Explica-li a la mamà que segur que també li agradarà.

Després de la teva llista de joguines deies una cosa semblant a,

però el millor regal seria que em contestesis a aquestes preguntes

• Tens ajudants? [s][n]
• Quants? [_][_][_][_][_]
• Dones els regals als nens d'aqui i els d'Australia al mateix temps?
  

Voler aprendre és el que ens fa llestos. Que mai et marxin aquestes ganes de saber més!

Got no desk :-(

Got no desk :-(, originally uploaded by -Xv.

My very own ibm desk is gone... No place to hang C's drawings, to keep my pencils (I really just care about the one that was a present from C.), the books I'm reading... I'll also miss sitting by my former team mates after so many years...

But I really cannot complain: I'm working very often from home now, so it makes little business sense to have a dedicated empty desk at the office.