Nikoport

Registering a .pt domain sucks big time — its expensive (20 euros, about 3 times more expensive then .com) and complicated. If you do not have a registered trademark or its not your enterprise name, then forget it - it is impossible. Of course if you are a public entity with such name, than you may have it, but i will just skip this rules part, because in a common case that all does not make any sense. Also, because of such rules you could not actually sell any domain, which from one side stop the cybersquatters but from the other side if FCCN would rule the internet, then everyone would go to amazon.on.sapo.pt and ebay.iol.pt at best. I always lived in the countries where domains are free to register, and i do not see any reason why in Portugal it should be any different. And no, i do not like the com.pt domains at all, though i know some people who has such domains and i did site for such domains, but why should someone need .com.pt, when .pt is still available ?

If you have a business or want to start on in Portugal, or you are thinking about starting any online community — start with registering a trademark (think time and money), and only after your have all the papers you may initiate the register process. The FCCN — the authority, responsible for the internet promised last year to open the registration on the 1st of May 2008.

A lot of people started pre-registering .pt domains paying some money to the clever internet providers. Of course when the time came, FCCN announced that they would delay the liberalization for an undefined period of time, which was not such a big surprise remembering the history of the .pt domains. I was one of those who while being close to register a couple of .pt domains decided to give it “some time”, or in other words to wait and see. Well, it was worth of not doing anything, and for sure i wont enter in any such scheme involving FCCN anymore.

I am angry on the stupid attitude of the FCCN, the liberalization of the .pt domains in Portugal would help the development of the internet, and by preventing the liberalization they only help those who have enough money and time to register a trade mark or found a firm, but in the big sense preventing portuguese internet from growing. I just think that this attitude is completely stupid.

In the recent news one thing that should be noted, is that Microsoft after announcing that they do not want to buy Yahoo anymore, and that does not correspond their interest at all have announced that they are looking into forming an alliance with Yahoo. Is it me or does anyone here the world famous microsoft “3E tactics” — embrace, extend and extinguish ?

My point of view is that we do not need less sharks (big enterprises), but much more of them — more big fishes in the business, means more real concurrence and better products and prices. If someone wants less options, than more merges is your area. I hope that they will fail, as well as the Google will fail to do any kind of merge with Yahoo - i may like or dislike them, being a client of Yahoo for more then 10 years, but i want them to continue to be an important player on the scene. This way the internet will only get better.

Randy Pausch is a well known professor at Carnegie Melon University, working on 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. This project is called Alice, and EA has already announced that they are helping with the creation of the third version of this project by giving the characters from their game “The Sims”.

Randy Pausch has pancreatic cancer and was given just a couple of months to live, and thats where he has shown a character by giving his “Last Lecture” to his students. In his last lecture he is talking about different subjects, but mostly about the time which is quite finite for all of us. I urge everyone to take a look at the videos on his page, they are quite emotional and inspiring, his “time management” lecture is an instant classic. You might disagree with some of the things that he is presenting, but it is quite a way of managing the time.

There has been a lot of things written about him, a number of television stations have made interviews and specials. He is quite an impressive person, he is doing all this public things at the moment as a way of leaving a message for his 3 kids. I feel that he is a very special person capable of inspiring those who are around him, and watching his videos leaves me quite an inspired for doing better things in this live

I have learned about him some time ago, and by now i have seen all the videos that i could find on the internet and i am waiting for his book, which should arrive next week.

To all the people from the VOD human resources and reporting departments — thank you so much for your efforts and patience — you were the greatest students i have ever had. I hope, that in the passed weeks you have learned something useful, that will improve your webdesign skills and will bring some speed enhancements into your work efforts.
I am grateful to you, that i had the opportunity to spread the word about the web standards beyond the Dreamweaver means, and that i feel that i didn’t waste my or your time.
Thank you once again.

I am not quite an “early adapter”, according to the scheme of Seth Godin - i belong to the “early majority” (guys who get not state of the art technology, but when it is already being used by some innovators).

Looking at the first versions of anything i see so many troubles because software/product was not being properly tested and was rushed out in order to comply with the promised release dates/dead lines. My idea of any product is that 1.01 or 1.02 are the best place to start. I won’t install Vista SP1 until i see that it is really compatible with existing software/drivers and there are no more data losses, as well as only now i am considering upgrading to Leopard, after 2 patches have been released.

I think it was at User Friendly that i have seen quite funny cartoon some 5 years ago, about star trek ship not being able to shoot because of the beta software installed. Pity can’t find it in archives. =O(

Using the first release makes you a beta tester, and if i need something to work properly without troubles - i have no luxury of using a beta product. When i have time( time, what is it ?), i may take a look at a beta version (i check out new versions of GIMP and Inkscape on regular basis, because i can easily fall back to the final release/stable one). Being excited about a product that can easy your daily life can take you into beta testing (1.0 included).

p.s. take a look at one of Seth Godin books, for example Purple Cow to understand what i am talking about.

p.p.s. Joomla has recently launched Joomla 1.5, after many month of testing and developing, and a couple of days later appeared 1.5.1, the same situation happened with Drupal 6.0 (6.1 was in 2 weeks here) which once again prove, that first version is always a beta version.

L. Pavarotti 1935-2007

Nessun dorma!… Tu pure, o Principessa,
Nella tua fredda stanza
Guardi le stelle
Che tremano d’amore e di speranza.
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
Il nome mio nessun saprà!
Solo quando la luce splenderà,
Sulla tua bocca lo dirò fremente!…
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
Che ti fa mia!…

Il nome suo nessun saprà…
E noi dovremo, ahimè, morir!…

Dilegua, o notte!… Tramontate, stelle!…
All’alba vincerò!

Al’alba vinceró …

Apple Inc has announced a few days ago that the newest OS X version, codenamed “Leopard” will not be shipped in June as it was announced earlier, but only in October, as they still need time to finalize and to perfect the software. They also cited the development of iPhone (integration with OS X ) as one of the reasons for delay, the other reason is the fact, that they do not wish to ship bugged software. This is fine for me, as i prefer to wait for a good software, instead of using something unfinished or completely crippled software.

The “near final” copy of the “Leopard” (or also known as a beta - features complete, but still with bugs) will be available in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Interesting fact, that Apple Inc has hinted a lot of times, that at the current available builds, a lot of functionalities are still missing, which will be shown only at the “right time”, so at the moment let us hope, that in June we will finally see, what is supposed to be a supreme operating system.

There is a one disappointing moment for me, since i was expecting to buy a MacBook Pro in time with a “Leopard” appearance, but since then i do not see any requirement in delaying this acquisition, i am thinking in advancing in the next 2-3 weeks.