tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91156446058333841382024-03-13T21:16:17.380+01:00X de XavierUnos y ceros. A veces, en el orden adecuado.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-21206307662772790282009-11-13T16:10:00.007+01:002009-11-13T17:27:47.092+01:00ChangesChanges, changes, changes... Please, do not tell my mum about them, because she would be very upset with me!<div><br /></div><div>Last July I took a <b>two years leave from IBM</b>. In a very smart move (in my opinion), IBM is paying me a third of my salary during a period that is forecasted to be of low business. I am allowed to work (and I need to!), but, obviously, I cannot work for IBM's competitors. They are investing this money to get a re-energized employee or, if the employee doesn't go back, to have him leave without having to lay him off, saving quite a bit of money.</div><div><br /></div><div>I plan to take advantage of this by doing lots of learning and following some long time interests that I was performing on top of my formal role of at IBM: <b>dealing/trying to make sense of organizations and teaching</b>. </div><div><br /></div><div>So what have I being doing during this months? Besides lots of reading and learning, <a href="http://www.ganyet.com/lifestream">Ganyet</a>, <a href="http://www.vortexvisual.com/?page_id=2">Banzy</a> and I toyed with the idea of working together in super-secret super-cool project, but, after a few weeks, I did not find a way to fit my skills into their needs; it is a pity, because world domination is in their road map.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I left university, I should have made a project to become officially an engineer. I then joined IBM, and I was not disciplined enough to spend my free time finishing the project that I just started before joining. Almost 20 years later, I'm fixing that. And I'm very excited about it, because my project is about the software that should help to <b>build a community around </b><a href="http://www.1x1microcredit.org/"><b>1x1microcredit.org</b></a>, a peer-to-peer micro-lending website that will offers people the possibility to lend money at low interest rates to poor people so that they can escape poverty, just like <a href="http://www.kiva.org/">kiva.org</a>. PHP aside, I feel very lucky for being able to work in a project that is technically cool and has an even cooler goal.</div>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-17432009706251968372009-09-16T06:27:00.002+01:002009-09-16T06:34:27.793+01:00Smarter Work: Why Social Networks Matter<a href="http://sachachua.com/wp/2009/09/15/brainstorming-around-smart-work/">Sacha Chua rocks, as usual</a><br /><br /><div style="width:425px;text-align:left" id="__ss_2004030"><a style="font:14px Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;display:block;margin:12px 0 3px 0;text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/sachac/smarter-work-why-social-networks-matter" title="Smarter Work: Why Social Networks Matter">Smarter Work: Why Social Networks Matter</a><object style="margin:0px" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=20090915-smartwork-090915222031-phpapp01&stripped_title=smarter-work-why-social-networks-matter"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=20090915-smartwork-090915222031-phpapp01&stripped_title=smarter-work-why-social-networks-matter" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="font-size:11px;font-family:tahoma,arial;height:26px;padding-top:2px;">View more <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/">documents</a> from <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/sachac">Sacha Chua</a>.</div></div>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-42380732407717356282008-11-25T13:57:00.007+01:002008-11-25T15:01:59.067+01:00Tweets my friends like<a href="http://twitter.com/home">Twitter</a> 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, <a href="http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/">Yahoo! Pipes</a> came <a href="http://xdexavier.blogspot.com/2007/12/tag-decorated-feeds.html">again</a> to the rescue.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_T679aggANRU/SSv7PoRMxAI/AAAAAAAAAKw/7XdxbhXprco/s1600-h/twitterFavorites.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 398px; height: 312px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_T679aggANRU/SSv7PoRMxAI/AAAAAAAAAKw/7XdxbhXprco/s400/twitterFavorites.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272584034693465090" border="0" /></a><br />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.<br /><br />Customize it with your accounts and grab it at <a href="http://pipes.yahoo.com/xverges/friendsfavs">http://pipes.yahoo.com/xverges/friendsfavs</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Credits:</span> <a href="http://microformats.org/">Microformat</a>-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 <a href="http://pipes.yahoo.com/duanecato/microformat_extract">Microformats contacts extractor</a> as a starting point, and just copied how he uses <a href="http://microformatique.com/optimus/">http://microformatique.com/optimus/</a> to grab the info that twitter kindly puts in <a href="http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard">hCard</a>s.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-58303891730042521362007-12-14T14:46:00.000+01:002007-12-15T10:13:21.962+01:00Social Note Taking<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.ripplerap.com/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://www.ripplerap.com/images/ripplerap_logo.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I just played a bit with <a href="http://www.ripplerap.com/">Ripplerap</a>, a tool to take and share notes during conferences<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>. Brilliant. If downloading and unziping is too much for you to get an impression, take a look at <a href="http://philwhitehouse.blogspot.com/2007/11/introducing-ripplerap.html">Phil Whitehouse's ripplerap-is-about-to-be-born post</a>.<br /><br />It is in its infancy, and there are several things that need some ironing, but I believe that its simplicity gives it a huge potential. Good news for us compulsive note takers and/or conference-life-blogging addicts.<br /><br />And I must confess that I did not see much of a point in one of Ripplerap bulding blocks, <a href="http://jaybyjayfresh.com/2007/09/24/tiddlychatter-decentralized-collaboration/">TiddlyChatter</a>...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update:</span> It is a funny coincidence that the very same day that I played with Ripplerap for the first time, fellow IBMer <a href="http://sachachua.com/">Sacha Chua</a> - <span style="font-style: italic;">tech evangelist, storyteller, geek</span> - <a href="http://www.theorangechair.com/blog/2007/12/14/tips-for-conference-bloggers/">made me aware</a> of <a href="http://www.lunchoverip.com/conferencebloggers.html">this collecton of tips for conference bloggers</a>.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-38368943973390846502007-02-09T10:55:00.000+01:002007-02-09T11:01:57.290+01:00Rethink ourselvesMe-too post about a popular and highly rated video: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE">Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us</a> (4:30 minutes). I loved it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update:</span><br />Bonus links: A <a href="http://justaddwater.dk/2007/02/08/web-20-video-complete-transcript/">transcript</a> and <a href="http://mojiti.com/kan/2024/3313">the video on Mojity</a>, a cool video+comments mashup.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-15752099272921550102006-12-11T14:40:00.001+01:002006-12-11T15:25:55.424+01:00Del JazzSí a Tagzania passant pel FlickrBuscant-me un concert baratet al <a href="http://www.tallerdemusics.com/web/04-club/con_club_cat.htm">JazzSí</a>, ensopego amb <a href="http://www.tagzania.com/">Tagzania</a> o <span style="font-style: italic;">Tagging the planet</span>: tags, llocs i mapes. Bona idea.<br /><br />Sembla què ara hi ha quatre gats que ho fan servir, i la cosa perd gràcia (em precipito cap a aquesta conclusió en veure que no hi ha res etiquetat aprop de casa meva). I si té molts usuaris, funcionarà? O hi haurà massa soroll? Em caldrà veure on és la casa de la teva tieta Conxita?<br /><br />El concepte és molt similar al de wikimapia.org (e.g. <a href="http://www.wikimapia.org/#y=41400000&x=2170000&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;z=11&l=0&m=a&tag=bar">bars a barcelona?</a> en falten alguns...).<br /><br />El <a href="http://www.tagzania.com/blog/news">blog dels tagzans</a> (<span style="font-style: italic;">Conspiring for world domination from the Basque Country. Tagging the planet to set up our targets</span>) és xulo. I em fa guardar-me la url dels <a href="http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/">fd's flickr toys</a> (no, no cal flickr-ejar per fer-ne servir alguns).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/luistxo/315660158/in/pool-97704879@N00"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://static.flickr.com/100/315660158_901c584b00_d.jpg" alt="" border="0" width="420" /></a>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-5433343381861036062006-12-06T11:55:00.000+01:002006-12-06T14:05:52.301+01:00dW chats: Grady Booch on the latest Rational tools releaseAnother developerWorks chat that looks very interesting: <a href="http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/chat/booch.html">Grady Booch answers your questions about this week's Rational tools release</a>. On Thursday December 7th, at <a href="http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=12&day=7&amp;amp;amp;year=2006&hour=16&min=30&sec=0&p1=179">4:30 pm his time or 10:30 pm my time</a>.<br /><br />I did not learn about this <a href="http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/gradybooch?entry=empowering_the_a_in_soa">from Booch's blog itself</a>, but from a comment by <a href="http://www.rodenas.org/blog/">Ferran Rodenas</a> to a <a href="http://kellypuffs.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/rational-software-delivery-platform-v70-released/#comments">post in Kelly Drahzal's blog</a>. The interesting bit about this is that Ferran works for "la Caixa", a very important ibm client, and it is a very good thing for me and some team mates to be able to read his posts and keep track of his blogroll. Or explore <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/frodenas">his linkedin profile</a> and our common connections. The openess that blogs and social software have brought rocks!-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com2