Nikoport

Portuguese Government has their official blog now. It is called “A Nossa Opinhão” (in transl. our opinion), which is quite a serious name for a blog. =O) No politic opinions will be ever published on my blog, so do please not make any interpretation about my personal opinion. The fact, that the Portuguese government has finally started reaching out to the internet, is a very important pass into the future.

Just like the vast majority of the bloggers at the moment, the Portuguese government blog is based on Wordpress, but their blog implementation is quite an interesting subject for an investigation - first of all is the question, which version of Wordpress is it running, is it the infamous 2.11 with all the bugs and back doors inside ? Secondly, Andreas Viklund should not be very happy about his theme been used for the portuguese government blog, but no credits were left on their page, the only thing that points out to him is the commentary, which was probably forgotten at the footer of the blog’s page.Well, i think that he should know about this fact right at this moment, as i have left a commentary on his page =O) Third is the accesibility of the page is quite frankly forgotten - it is quite clear, that the text is being inserted into the blog, directly from the Word - by copy and paste, otherwise such nasty things like this:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: Verdana">

or having code like that:

<o:p></o:p>


A very interesting aspect is a design of the site, as right now it has no archives and has no menu what so ever, but with the time it should have them, or at least i hope, that the site “designer” will include them on the main page. The title of the blog is all caps “A NOSSA OPINHÃO”, which stays for screaming, but may be it is the idea of this blog… to scream at the readers, which are uncapable to comment on any of the subjects. This is a good idea, since there would be way too many comments not on the subject from all the scam of the net and from the opposite parties as well =O)

Anyway i just want to congratulate António Costa, the portuguese minister of internal affairs, with a creation of a this blog, with advancing and pushing the others into the digital age, as it is extremely important. Good luck with the exploring and facing the reaction of the net. =O)

CeBIT is still the greatest computer trade show in the world. I have been there for a couple of years, and i loved each and every minute of it, with a lot of people everywhere, a lot of confusion, but at the same time - a spirit of sharing the technological achievements and sharing the experience. It is a place, where you can learn the people from the informatics industry from all around the world, where you can see whats new in the world of technology will be available on the market tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

A lot of things were written about the future of the CeBIT, since in the past couple of years the number of the publishers and visitors has been decreased significantly. CeBIT has faced exactly the same problem as a lot of computer shows have faced in the past years - growing cost of the representation for the firms trying to appear there, and a growing price of the tickets, which makes quite expensive - and hence impossible for a lot of companies to send their teams to the show. One very big trade show which has faced exactly the same problem is E3 game show, a lot of big companies have announced last year, that this year they are going to ignore or make a very small presence at the E3 trade show, in favor of publishing their press releases on the net. After that announcements, the organization has decided of changing the format of the show from “open for everyone” to “invitation-only”. They are just optimizing the costs, for concentrating on the essential - the media, who will be invited for publishing the information for the rest of us, grunts. =)

I think that in the next couple of years, the CeBIT will face the same problem and will change their format, concentrating more on the specialists and not on everyone. The words like “Members of the media, retail, development and financial communities” will become the key for describing the attendees.

I believe that in the era of internet and computer technologies all of these shows have their fate decided; but i guess, i am going to miss the spirit of 90s and 200x’s at the CeBIT, which was a quite a fantastic feeling, of being able to talk directly to a lot of firms presenting their products and developers, who knew exactly what software was supposed to do, even if in a lot of cases some firms where sending just marketing personal.

update on 20th of march 2007:
In this PC World article, it was written, that CeBIT 2007 in the first 3 days has got more visitors then at the 2006 edition, but still i attribute this rise to the fact that a lot of stuff was written about CeBIT, and that even a negative marketing still can bring the positive results. Having above 200.000 visitors may be a result for short period of time, cause as long as firms like Apple do not plan to announce products, like iPhone, at CeBIT - there is not much space for growing. Not many firms would wait until CeBIT or any other trade show to present a new product, since the concurrence is always pushing to advance, it is a good option though to play with a technology that was announced before, like if Apple Inc would participate at CeBIT, a lot of people would be more then excited to take a look at the iPhone or a new iPod.
The words, that CeBIT is going to grow are spoken at the same time when it was announced that CeBIT 2008 will run only for seven days (instead of usual 8), and that it is just one of the step of the CeBIT reorganization. For me, it is clear signal, that CeBIT is not having a lot of successes, and that in the next couple of years they need to review the trade show format in order to survive the technological progress.

No one is be surprised by the number of meta compilations available on the blogs all around the internet. What makes me worry is that the percentage of the information in relation to the meta spam is getting lower with every day. A friend of mine from Austria told me that he wont be surprise if one day a lot of those meta engines will disappear one day like dot com bubble has disappeared at the end of the last century. He is quite right, since all meta information providers do not have a real value behind them, besides being a servants, and we have a very big and a powerful one - Google, who already occupies this space.

I was just thinking, that in order to gain hundreds or thousands of users, spammers just create a new list of already existing css menus or html templates and put it somewhere on the digg or somewhere else. Then hundreds of users will “discover” it visiting and digging and dotting and whatever you prefer. It is quite disappointing, that the most bloggers in such way turn them self into spammers, or may be the truth is that they are not bloggers, but just meta spammers. I can not imagine someone working creating pages having time to check out 70 or 80 templates, and doing that in depth. This is absolutely unreasonable, because the time it takes to check out the code of the xhtml template tells me that in order to “process” them all one will need a couple of weeks, when already “behind the corner”, at the same blogs there are hundreds more templates and css technics and so on.

So, we arrive to the main question, how could someone check out 70-80 templates and post them each and every 3-4 days, my answer is - impossible, it is just a way of surfing through the pages of people, who create real content, and then collect it and put into a blog post, showing everyone, who deep and good your knowledges are. When i check blogs of really creative people, i see one or two good technical posts per month, cause it is difficult to discover something worth disclosure, but hey, meta spammers do 15 posts a month with one or two thousands references.

I guess i have reached the state of completely ignoring such posts and such posters (spammers). For me, meta posts are as good as dead, as they have no real information.

Today i have had a nice meeting with the people from eChiron, a portuguese software firm where i have worked before. It was just an hour of meeting and talking to old eChirons, as we were called by the direction of the firm, and i guess i have missed them a lot in the passed months, since leaving the eChiron. I guess that i am not the only one, with my experience there, who even after leaving the firm feels some kind of a connection to it. In a contrary to the many other software firms, being at eChiron feels like being in a private firm where people know and talk to each other, which is a good and important feeling for me. Of course i have left eChiron, not because i was not satisfied with them, but because i felt, that professionally i needed to switch the firm in order to achieve better results.

eChiron is a small private portuguese software and managed services firm, which derives itself from the university study group. The eChiron has enjoyed a lot of success since its creation and now it is one of the top 100 portuguese software and managed services firms. I was privileged to work at eChiron for 1.5 years, during which i have learned a lot of great people, and a lot of the have become my good friends, and i maintain the connection with a lot them even after exiting eChiron. I think one of the best things about eChiron, is the environment and the relations between between the co-workers, even if in the past couple of years there have been a lot of critic of eChiron’s relations.

I have worked for 1.5 years for eChiron during which i was responsible for creating and maintaining websites like BMW, IPPAR, CM-Seixal between others. I have also had a very good experience and learned a lot of Oracle database at eChiron, developing a lot of applications in Oracles PL-SQL language and some in Microsoft SQL Server. One of the things that eChiron has started to change in the past months was .NET implementations, which were not too much at the time when i was working there.

The things that i think that eChiron is missing are good web marketing (they had a good professional once, but then fired her stupidly), good designer (same situation, had one very good, but not extended her contract as a cost optimization scheme) and a professional web design.

In the next couple of days, i am looking into finally getting a MacBook Pro (MA610LL), my very first Mac. Through my life i have owned quite a number of computers, (and still have) but never had owned any Apple hardware, so i decided that now it is the right time to make this move, as i really need a notebook, and i do not see myself using a pc-based one.

So after long months of thoughts i think i am ready getting one of those beauties, the one in the middle of the line (MA610LL), with 2GB or ram, and 256MB of video - anything less is not to be considered seriously. As for processor speed, i think one can be really satisfied with a Intel’s Core Duo 2, at any clock speed available. I do not wish something too big to be transported, that’s why 15” is more then enough for me, i would even consider ultra-portable (something like 13” or 12”) if there would be one from the Apple. With that hardware i count for a good couple of years, which this notebook MacBook will serve me well. =O)

I am excited to start working on Os X, since i have no big Os X experience, but at the same time, i have had quite some time working with the NEXTStep at the university, and i have always referred to that experience even while submitting my CV in the “windows world”, i think that the most of the people have not had any idea about what it is … =O) hehe

Yesterday, the Web Caravela has sailed away for its first trip - which will take a year long. It means that yesterday, at 16:21 local time (GMT), the Neugebauer Lda was finally created as a small society in Portugal and that starting from today i am dedicating the fast majority of my professional time this project.

I have expected “Neugebauer Lda” to be created during 2007, but actually i was counting more on the last quarter of the year, but hey, i am more then happy that it is actually happened in january. Three years ago, i was wishing to start it, but i had no conditions, so the timeframe was set for the firm to be created in the next three years, so i am actually still on the schedule =O)

During first 6 month, Web Caravela will dedicate most part of the time to web design, and then hopefully in the second part of the July i am going to start implementing some of the “web-things” i am looking for a lot of time to do. I always wished to dedicate myself to GUI design and implementation as my main occupation, so my dream has come true, and i am more then happy about it. =O)

Full sail ahead, Web Caravela!

Being just a few days into 2007 i feel this new year is a kind of a turning point in a lot of the things for me - there are so many new projects that i am going to dedicate myself. As usual, most probably, i am not going to implement everything that i dream of (there are way too many dreams), and no doubt, that i will not have the time that i wish to relax and spend more time with my family and my friends, but i will certainly have some professional success (even if it will be so small, that i would be almost ashamed to talk about it), and i will have more quality and quantity time with my family and friends. =O)

I am going to publish a new research this month and in February i am going to make a new version of the portwatch, to see the progress and if something is changing in the quality of websites of local municipalities. Certainly, I am also going to make much more projects directly for internet and will be able to put my name on my work, not like in the past. No doubt, that the liberty that i am going to have this year, will allow me to spend more time near my loved ones.

This is going to be a great year… =O)