31 August, 2006

Mac Pro On The Way!

Apple Mac Pro
Yes! Last night was the last straw. Four laptop freezes in the course of a few hours was what it took for me to get up and say "NO MORE!" We finally ordered our Mac Pro. It should be arriving by Sept. 13 so you know what I will be doing that weekend! :)

Configuration:
-1GB of RAM (getting more later, but not through Apple -I hear it's best to get Apple memory elsewhere, I will let you know where as soon as I get it).
-Two 2GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
-160GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s drive (got enough extra storage, so I didn't see the need for more than this... for now).

One thing is real: Steve Adey

Steve Adey is an amazingly talented artist based out of Scotland whom you probably haven't heard of before because he's spent most of his adult life recording other people's music. All Things Real was his shot at doing his own work, with the support of some of the artists he's worked with in the past. And one thing is real... All Things Real is bound to strike a chord with those looking for soothing, calm music to enjoy, perhaps while reading a good book, sitting back in a rainy Saturday afternoon.

In his solo debut, where he most of the music and words, Adey touches heaven at times with tracks where his voice reverberates, surrounded by the atmospheres the music creates. The perfect track in here is "Mississippi", one that reminded me of The Blue Nile when I first heard it (thanks, I must say, to Last.FM radio). However, throughout most of the album his voice has a timbre that reminds of Bocelli a bit more, though not as strong.

'Nuf said: get your copy of "All Things Real". And if the price in Amazon strikes you as high (you may get lucky with a used copy, though), download it from iTunes for $10.

New Law Provides Improved Diabetes Services In Utah Schools

We need more states to do this kind of thing. I have a friend that goes to college here. When he was in High School up by the Florida Panhandle, he had some serious trouble getting the type of flexibility from his school that he needed as a diabetic. They even had issues excusing him so that he could go test himself. That should not be allowed to happen.

From the American Diabetes Association E-Newsletter:
Thanks to Senate Bill 8 enacted during the 2006 legislative session, students with diabetes in Utah schools are now permitted to carry glucagon in school and non-medical school personnel may volunteer to be trained to administer glucagon in the case of a severe hypoglycemic reaction (low blood glucose). Senate Bill 8 directs a public school to train school personnel who volunteer to be trained to administer glucagon in the event of an emergency, and it also permits a student to possess and/or self-administer diabetes medication, when requested by the student's health care provider and parents.

"Diabetes does not disappear during the school day. It is a 24 hour-a-day issue," says Mary Murray, MD, Pediatric Endocrinologist, Primary Childrens Medical Center. Children are in an unsafe environment if hypoglycemia cannot be treated according to best practices.

Read the whole story.

30 August, 2006

How to Crash Internet Explorer

Use at your own risk of getting kicked in the butt if anyone you do this to finds out about it. If they don't you will have done them a favor if they switch to Firefox. ;)

Tropical Storm? How about Tropical Breeze?

Today, after a media frenzy that even led some to board up, Ernesto is passing through the Florida peninsula leaving a good amount of rain but nothing comparable to what they told us to expect.

A few weekends ago we experienced some pretty nasty weather in Central Florida. I had a chance to shoot this video of it: notice the nasty rain, the thunders/lightings and the wind... and this was not even a tropical storm.

Ernesto (in Orlando, at least) was nothing compared to the video: the palm trees barely moved and it felt like another typical (though long) Florida afternoon shower.


(if you can't see this video, visit this page)

Ernesto no habla Ingles...

Mientras el Huracan John azota las costas de Mexico, Ernesto "no spik inglish". La Tormenta Tropical perdio fuerza luego de tocar tierra y ahora es Depresion Tropical. Menos mal... no me quejo.

Lo "interesante" es ver el nivel de paranoia que se ha generado, resultado de la combinacion de la reaccion del gobierno (creo que el tema de Katrina esta muy fresco en esta administracion) y los medios de comunicacion asustando a la gente. El Weather Channel, la verdad es que parece otro CNN ultimamente, pero solo hablando de clima. Donde vamos a parar?

Best Search Engine Marketing Books

I've just set up a little so-called Amazon aStore with the best Search Engine Marketing books, in my experience. It contains books that deal with paid advertising as well as search engine optimization, to to help you accomplish the best results with organic and paid search engine listings.

Hope you find it useful!

Danny Sullivan Leaving Search Engine Watch

Pretty big deal in the Search Engine Marketing world. This guy has been at the forefront of news and updates in this niche for the past ten years. I had a chance to meet him at the December 2004 Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago. He was pretty much the heart and soul of these conferences. Hopefully they will go on, but for sure they will not be the same thing.

29 August, 2006

Stateless left me speechless

Stateless: The Bloodstream EP
I feel so ignorant... It took me over a year since this EP was released to find out about this Leeds-based band called Stateless. About a week ago, I ran into this DJ Shadow song in iTunes that featured a singer called Chris James. I had no clue who he was. He ended up being the singer of Stateless.

They have got to be the best kept secret in all of music, in the past few years. With a sound blending beats a-la-DJ Shadow (whom they are touring with) with a straight up rock sound (not unlike Radiohead -or Muse, if you prefer) and with a touch of ambient much in the same vein as M83, I find myself speechless, without a song to pick as my favorite among the four contained in their EP. The entire production is solid and original at the same time.

I can't wait for more of their good work to be released. If you want to check out their music, visit their MySpace page at: http://myspace.com/statelessonline.

News and Resources for T.S. Ernesto



So, don't let the menacing images make you afraid... It's "JUST" a tropical storm. Granted that it's pretty massive (remember Frances?). So the worst danger is that of flooding. You are not going to be dragged by the winds of this one, but DON'T DRIVE: your car could get stuck where you least imagine.

A little while ago, we learned that Full Sail will be closing tomorrow too. It's probably best that way. Pretty much all schools in the area will be closing too. Also (I know, it's sad for space fans), as the outer bands of the tropical storm hit South Florida, good ole Space Shuttle Atlantis was hunkering down, so we won't be seeing it fly for a bit.

In the meantime, the most useful resource for being informed during our lovely bad Florida Weather continues to be the National Hurricane Center. Along with it, there's a couple of "amateur" sites that are worth checking out:
-The discussions in Storm2K.org are pretty active.
-Central Florida Hurricane Center tends to be pretty useful, with posts mostly coming from weather hobbyists.
-Then, there's the local News Sites for Central Florida: WFTV and WESH.

As a last resource, shelters are a good option during dangerous weather. Stay tuned to local media outlets and the Orange County web site for more details about open shelters.

28 August, 2006

Full Sail stormtrooper

Full Sail stormtrooper
Full Sail stormtrooper
Originally uploaded by Manny Hernandez.
Yep! I saw one. I saw the real thing: a stormtrooper walking the aisles of Full Sail last week.

I said: "Hi! Can I take a picture of you?" and it posed for me. Here's the picture I took.

Ernesto on Track for Florida

T.S. Ernesto on Track for FloridaHere we go again... It doesn't seem that Ernesto is going to be too bad, but nevertheless it's the first named hurricane of the season, so it does bring bad memories like Dennis, Charley, Frances and Ivan.

In any case, here are some unusual hurricane resources for you to stay informed.

Toda Mafalda

Toda MafaldaQuien no adora a Mafalda? Quien no tiene unas cuantas tiras de Mafalda que ha pegado en algun corcho en alguna oficina o algun cuarto en su vida? Comence un nuevo blog sobre este adorable personaje. Se llama Toda Mafalda (como el libro). Espero que lo visiten y compartan ahi sus anecdotas y tiras favoritas...

Venezuela in 1956

It's not like I miss anything. After all, the footage in this 24+ minute long documentary is from WAY before I was born. Still, it's kind of interesting to see things as they were then compared to today (in general, I don't mean just in Venezuela). How the oil company executive in the movie talks about "the most modern hotel I've ever seen", etc. :)

The movie tells the story of an American oil company executive who relocates with his family to Venezuela. He worked for Creole (a part of the former Standard Oil). It's also interesting, considering the date on it (1956), because if it were not for when it was shot, I'd almost say it's like it was made for a videoblog!

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did:

Do What You Want

A little while back, I posted a pretty fun and original video showing a band (OK Go) doing an insane choreography on treadmills.

Today I learned there's more videos by them around. Enjoy this other one: I like the camera moves and frankly, I like the voice of this singer more than the bald guy! :)



(If you like the video above, there's yet another one here.)

27 August, 2006

Logitech MX Revolution: throw your mouse away!

Logitech MX Revolution mouse, image courtesy of Amazon.com
In the best style of Engadget, I decided to share my comments about the new Logitech MX Revolution mouse, which I had the chance to take for a spin this past week.

I never imagined I could get excited about a mouse. Actually, I haven't felt this excited about a mouse since I got my first optical mouse (not having to periodically clean that mouse ball meant a lot!) The truth is that from the moment I took the MX Revolution out of the box I knew I had something way more special than a conventional mouse in my hands. Now, after a few days of continuous use, I know that feeling was true. So, what makes it so special?

A cordless mouse may not sound as much, but if you consider that this mouse is rechargeable too, that may score a few more points with you, since you have to just leave it charging overnight as you see a need for it and there's no more need to worry about batteries! (plus less waste too).

If cordless and rechargeable are not features that rank high with you, how about ergonomy? The MX Revolution fits your hand like a glove. It has a side wheel perfectly positioned to help you navigate through applications (substituting the need for the Alt-Tab hotkey) right by your right thumb. Also nearby you find two convenient slim buttons allowing you to navigate back and forth through your browser's history. Not too far, you have a nice "search" button you can program (like all buttons and wheels in the mouse) to speed up your web searches through Yahoo! or Google.

Not satisfied yet? Here's the big one! Scrolling like you've NEVER seen before. As fast as you've dreamed of being able to scroll up and down lengthy documents. Just click on the scroll wheel on top of the mouse and the typical step-by-step movement of the wheel makes room for what feels like a wheel with NO friction. Slide the wheel fast enough and you get to the bottom of your documents in a split second (I mean it!)

So, am I excited about this mouse? You bet! The $100 price tag is more than justified: this is no average mouse. The MX Revolution is a computer performance booster dressed in mouse outfit!

Google Advertising Tools: Cashing in with Adsense, Adwords, and the Google APIs by Harold Davis

Though not groundbreaking, a comprehensive and current reference on marketing your site through Google
Harold Davis (who happens to be as much of an expert in digital photography as he is with Google Advertising) has not necessarily broken new ground with his "Google Advertising Tools" book. Yet, he's managed to put together a volume that summarizes effectively the basics of SEO and how to structure your site to maximize return on investment as a lead into Google Advertising at large.

Starting with Google AdSense (placing Google Ads in your site), he works his way into AdWords (buying pay-per-click keyword-based ads) to wrap the book up with a detail discussion about the APIs offered by Google if developing tools to maximize your overall use of Google's interface and options is up your alley.

If you are new to the field of SEO, this is a nice introduction. If you are experienced with the ins and outs of pay-per-click campaigns or optimizing your site for Search Engines to crawl through it, you are still bound to find a few new useful elements. In any case, I highly recommend it as a comprehensive and current reference on marketing your site through Google.

Pee & Poo: Are You Ready to Die?

Plush Pee&Poo duo, courtesy of PeeAndPoo.com
I was surfing the blogosphere casually (sorry, I had to say "blogosphere") and I ran into a post by someone who claimed that he was ready to die. Needless to say I felt curious.... so I followed the link in his post to find that there's a product line called Pee&Poo (it's Swedish, I believe).

The two characters are rather cute, but it's hard to not remember what they stand for. Anyway, ladies and gentleman: Pee and Poo, let's give them a hand... or not! :S

Orlando: The Angry City

You heard that Mickey? We're angry here in Orlando. I don't know what about, but we're really upset.

There's almost no traffic, compared to most cities I've lived in (except if you go to the area of the parks and International Drive on a weekend), but still it's supposed to be one of the places with the most road rage incidents.

There's Mickey Mouse and plenty of attractions to keep you happy, yet people apparently have more high blood pressure per capita than in any other city.

There's one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, but people are pissed off...

I don't get it. I mean, this is no Honolulu, Cancun or a Swiss city, but... the Angry City? Give me a break! When I hear that, I get upset!!!! :)

Captain Tecate


Captain Tecate hiding...
Originally uploaded by Manny Hernandez.
This was Mat, hiding behind the lime in a bottle of Tecate last Friday, during the goodbye get-together for our friend Ben.

26 August, 2006

Oviedo Aquatic Facility: inexpensive and fun


We went to Oviedo Aquatics this morning, trying to avoid getting caught up by the rain in the beach. We were super-impressed with the quality of the services, the cleanliness of the facilities and how much fun we had for so little money! Santiago had a blast and so did we, considering the place is perfectly set up for kids to enjoy themselves. Highly recommendable!

24 August, 2006

Save Pluto!

"I can't believe the news today. Oh, I can't close my eyes And make it go away."

Yes, it's a U2 song, but it seems to fit pretty well today's news about Pluto's demise as one of our long "known" nine planets in our Solar System. When I found out, I was like: "No longer a planet? GET OUT! That is so weird." I mean, forget for a second about the embarrassment of the tiny lonely now-so-called "dwarf planet" during today's session of the International Astronomical Union while he got demoted.

Is anyone thinking about the identity crisis and depression poor old Pluto (Disney's Pluto, that is) will undergo from this point on? I mean... If you were wondering why he didn't talk, now he will have a good reason to just bark and not articulate a word again if he ever was planning on talking before. After all, he was named after the planet... errr, dwarf planet, I meant.

So I propose a campaign. I say we SAVE PLUTO! Don't let it be embarrassed this way. Write to your local astronomer's group and let's all mobilize to preserve the status of our beloved freezing, distant... brother Pluto. The editorial in the SF Chronicle last week didn't accomplish it: we can.

P.S. If you think this is a joke to everyone, I suggest you check out the site of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet. You'll be surprised...

As much as I can't honestly say I will loose sleep over the news, I admit it's kinda of weird that the Solar System as we knew it as children will no longer have nine planets.

Canadian Guy

This guy goes to school at Full Sail, with Camila.

His video is pretty funny:

23 August, 2006

What is a Content Strategist?

Some of you may have noticed I recently "renamed" my blog (the title bar, at least) to read "Content Strategist & Web Product Manager - Manny Hernandez". Besides being a mouthful, I guessed some may be scratching their heads wondering what is a content strategist (assuming that the definition of a web product manager makes a little more sense), so here's what it means.

A content strategist is someone who has fun with words and content at large beyond comprehension. In general, it's someone who enjoys rearranging words, video and audio bits and the stories they tell, to better answer the questions and needs of those who are searching for them. It borrows from the disciplines of Search Engine Optimization and Content Management at large (because content on the web needs to be found easily by search engines, to be accessible to users). Last, it takes on elements of usability and it requires an almost obsessive level of attention to detail.

So, you put it all together and you got yourself a content strategist. Typically it would be someone serving a customer's needs for effective, targeted content that allows visitors to a web site to "get it" easily. In this blog, I have a blast applying the same concepts to share bits and pieces of my life and the things I run into or read about that I feel may be of interest to others. Then, I let Search Engine algorithms do their magic (via a combination of topic relevance and popularity of the posts I write), and I sit back and wait for the results... to come back the next day and do it all over again.

If you ever need assistance with crafting content that will help attract qualified traffic to your web site and hopefully turn those visitors into customers or advocates of your product/service, let me know.

22 August, 2006

Santiago sings "Crazy"

For all you Gnarls Barkley fans out there, this is the NEW version of the super-hit "Crazy", sung (with passion) by my son. Enjoy!

21 August, 2006

Blogger upgrade under way... finally!

Since I was not able to sleep (Santiago woke up and I couldn't get my Z-Z-Z-s back) I sat down at the computer and just learned about a significant Blogger upgrade currently on the way. Among the fun things in it are the support of tags (labels, they call them -it only took, what... 4 years?), some nifty drag-and-drop template editing tools (the good ole "hardcore" way to change things on it using HTML shows up as "Coming Soon" -scary!) and a very nice way to display/collapse archived posts on the sidebar.

Here's a link to a Blogger beta blog I started for fun, so you can see how some of the changes look. I still haven't migrated this blog, in case you're wondering. They are still not taking care of users that have team blogs: my case with a couple of my blogs, including the relatively inactive "La Alpargata Naufraga" (are we going to revive this, guys?).

Missing (for now, at least): new exiting templates by the CSS gurus that offered the second generation of templates a while back.

Watch You Tube on your iPod

Haven't used it (don't own a video iPod, unfortunately), but I thought I'd share it with my iPod Video friends: a YouTube video converter for the iPod.

20 August, 2006

Alvarez Guedes


Es cuestion de un rato. No pasa mucho tiempo antes de que un grupo de cubanos (o hijos de cubanos) empiecen a recordar los chistes de Alvarez Guedes. Yo, personalmente, creci escuchando Alvarez Guedes en todas las reuniones familiares, como un rito que se volvio parte de mi vida.

Llegue a poder recitar muchos de sus "clasicos" de memoria, como "El Guanajo" (Volumen 4), "DoƱa Flora" (Volumen 7), "El Guiro" (Volumen 3), "El Soldado Martinez" (Volumen 6), "El Buho" (Volumen 8) o "Azucar" (Volumen 12).

Hoy, un visitante del blog me preguntaba por alguna tienda seria en Internet que vendiera los CDs del comediante cubano. Me complace informarles que Amazon.com tiene toda su coleccion: los que escucharon hace 15-20 aƱos, asi como los mas recientes, de los cuales no tengo ni idea. Enjoy! ƑO!!

19 August, 2006

Walk for Diabetes with Manny Hernandez

This coming November 4 (Saturday), I will be participating in the Orlando Walk for Diabetes. As you know, I am a Type I Diabetic and my dad was Type II. Diabetes has touched our family in more ways than one, and every 21 seconds someone else is diagnosed with it.

So I invite you to sponsor me or walk with me. Whether you can only come by that day, donate $5 or $500 or do it all, anything you do counts. I truly believe that together we can make a difference in the fight to beat diabetes!

Fort De Soto: The best beach in the US


Momento Kodak
Originally uploaded by Manny Hernandez.
Fort De Soto is a National Park and is considered by Dr. Beach to be the #1 beach in the U.S. I don't know if it is, but it is a lot of fun. It has a shallow beach (you can see it in this photo, in the background) and when the water rises, a little pool is formed (in the foreground, here) where the little ones can play safely. There's no strong waves and the sand is very soft and white.

Bookmarks are del.icio.us!

I don't know why it took me so long, but I finally created my del.icio.us account. What is del.icio.us? Besides lots of nice foods in life, this is one of those so-called Web 2.0 web sites (one of the largest ones, actually) that serves as a big collection of favorite sites: yours and everyone else's. If it sounds a lot like Yahoo!'s My Web BETA, it's because it is. :)

I've had My Web set up for a while now, and having loved it (my friends Luis and Christian got me into it) I figured I'd give del.icio.us a shot. So, in the spirit of new buttons and stuff for the blog, I also added a "del.icio.us" link below all posts, so that any del.icio.us users that come by may conveniently submit any posts they find here to their bookmarks. Thanks to Techwrap's guide on how to add del.icio.us! (this blogger had also figured out a way to add buttons to digg posts, but I hadn't stumbled upon his post until after I posted my tip).

17 August, 2006

Another nice Music Discovery Service

My fellow blogger Jandro sent me a link to MusicLens, yet another fascinating music discovery service that complements Last.FM, Pandora and the others we've talked about here in the past. Try it out: I am sure you will enjoy it...

How to add a "digg this story" button (or link) to your posts in blogger

Being a fan of Blogger and Digg alike, I wanted to allow the readers of my blog to digg any of the posts I made that they dugg. Thanks to the guidelines provided in the Digg Blog, I was able to get going. All I required besides it was a basic understanding of the Blogger tags. Here's what you need to do to replicate what I did:

-Go go the Dashboard and click on Settings for the blog you want to add a Digg button to.
-Select the Template tab.
-Scroll down until you find the tag. A little below it, you will find the section corresponding to the post footer.
-Depending on the template you have, the structure of your footer may vary slightly, but regardless, include a link with the following structure between the timestamp permalink and the comments link:

<a href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=<$BlogItemPermalinkUrl$>
&title=<$BlogItemTitle$>" target="_blank">DIGG THIS STORY</a>


-If you want a button saying anything "fancy", like "digg this story" or "digg this", download the icon pack also conveniently offered by the Digg Blog to save yourself some work.
-Upload the icon of your choice to a space in a server and substitute the "DIGG THIS STORY" text for this code to display the image:

<img src="http://YOUR_SERVER_ADDRESS/ICON_FILENAME.gif" border="0" align="bottom" title="digg this story">

-Preview your changes, to make sure things are in the right place and they look the way you want them to.
-Save the Template Changes and either post something or republish the Index file, so that you can see your updated blog template with a nice-looking "digg this story" button (or link).

Happy digging!

La vaina va o no va?

Declaro que estoy vuelto un ocho con el tema del Conde del Guacharo! El guavineo que tuvo con Carolina no lucio muy convincente, pero pareciera que el tipo sigue dispuesto a darle la pelea a Chavez. No se que decir... en este video suyo que colocaron en YouTube, correspondiente a un programa en Globovision donde salio hace poco menos de un mes suena super-basico. Yo se que eso es lo que "nuestro pueblo" entiende y quiere, pero acaso es lo mejor para Venezuela?

15 August, 2006

Dragonforce: the fastest speed metal band in the planet

(Photo taken by Samantha Tanner)

I had an opportunity to see Dragonforce live, last night at the HOB in Orlando. As much as I had found their eighties-like speed metal epic sound a bit repetitive in this album, they put on a very impressive live show: the singer knew how to handle the crowd like few and showed an impressive range, the keyboard player was downright out of mind (as in funny-out of his mind) and the bass player was extremely talented as was the drummer. But the most unbelievabe performances consistently came from the two guitarists (founder Herman Li and Sam Totman) who soloed, played in a duo and effortlessly ran and jumped all over the stage like what they were playing was nothing.

The sound in "Inhuman Rampage", their most recent album, comes across as a very accelerated version of the legendary power metal bands from the eighties and their on-stage presence confirms it. Definitely, the fastest band I've heard or seen play ever: they are a very interesting band to keep on the lookout for in coming times.

For a video of the band playing "Through the Fire and Flames", check out Google Video.

Carolina Perpetuo le cae a "piedras" al Conde


Excelente paliza verbal la que le propino Carolina Perpetuo al Conde del Guacharo.

En efecto, el lanzamiento de la candidatura del tipo no fue sino puro blof, pura publicidad...

Balurdo!

(gracias por el link, Joel!!)

14 August, 2006

Once again, one screwed up Health System

How much more screwed up can this health system be? You may think, "It can get worse!" and I guess you're right... Why I ask? Although my bloog glucose values have been doing pretty well, I was scheduled to meet a diabetes educator tomorrow, to help me better manage my diabetes, etc. and they were adamant about having me call my insurance company (whose name I shall not post in here for the time being), to make sure I was clear on any payments I could be obligated to. Now I am happy I called them. I found out that the place I was going to go to was considered "out of network", and combining my deductible (that I learned about today, by the way) and the fact taht the insurance company paid for only 60% all eligible expenses (whatever that means) of out-of-network diabetes education sessions, my out-of-pocket costs could add up to as much as $1,000. How's that for a cost to be educated on how to be lead a healthier life as a diabetic? Tuition in some community colleges can be less!!

It is too ironic, considering the importance of diabetes education, that insurance companies are not more open to it and do away with this concept of "in" or "out of network". After all, after the diabetics themselves, they'd be among the ones that stand to benefit the most of educated diabetics: a diabetic that knows what's good/bad for him/her is a diabetic who is likely to make better decisions and therefore, a diabetic that will more likely become less of a burden on the health system at large...

But I guess that's too much to ask for, isn't it? Common sense doesn't normally prevail in the face of short term earnings.

Creativity in Education

This guy (Ken Robinson, author of "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative") is funny and very effective in analyzing for the audience at TED 2006 (in Monterey, CA) the shortcomings of education in terms of creativity.

He says:
"If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original... " He's SO right!

Volver - trailer de la nueva pelicula de Pedro Almodovar

Dos aƱos luego de "La Mala Educacion" (The Bad Education), Pedro Almodovar vuelve con una de sus famosas 'chicas', la hermosa Penelope Cruz en su nueva pelicula "Volver". En los Estados Unidos abre el viernes 3 de Noviembre. Entre tanto pueden disfrutar del trailer de la pelicula ganadora de la Palma de Oro de Cannes por Mejor Puesta en Escena (Screenplay) y Mejor Actriz (Penelope Cruz) y leer el comentario del New York Times sobre la pelicula.

08 August, 2006

The Sysadmin Song

Please take a moment to show some love to your system administrators by singing along "The Sysadmin Song". Enjoy!

Music: The Best of 2006 (to date)

It's past the first half of 2006 and it looks nothing like 2005 looked. Not as many interesting new artists (that I've heard of, at least), but great new releases have come out by legends like David Gilmour and Paul Simon and more established artists such as Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Check out my Best of 2006 (to date).

07 August, 2006

Mac Pro: The Fastest Mac ever has been announced


Finally, the wait is over!! Steve Jobs spoke at WWDC. The new Mac OS X "Leopard" is now available and the Mac Pro has been unleashed. Geez! I sound like an Apple prophet: if only my friend Mike Harper heard me! :D

Here's the plan. Most likely, We'll be making the purchase tomorrow. It will be online, because we want to tailor the system to get it to meet our needs, but not going crazy with it but rather cutting out a thing or two to be able to put in the most money possible into memory (one of the most expensive things to get for a Mac these days, I am told). In the end, the system we're shooting for (with a total of 2GB) will come out at about $2,100 -to be financed for a bit. Considering we'll finally be able to get the juice we've been looking forward, combining all the nice features of the Max OS X with the ability to run Windows-only applications (Autocad, MS Project and our whole bunch of other Windows versions of apps we've purchased over the past few years). Not bad, I'd say... I haven't been this excited about getting a computer in a very long time!

St. Elsewhere, by Gnarls Barkley

Among the best albums in 2006
2006 has been a crazy year for music (no pun intended). As opposed to 2005, when there was tons of new music to sample from, 2006 has been characterized mostly by mainstream and already established artists coming back and releasing their first album in X many years. One of the most notable exceptions to this trend has been the debut album of Gnarls Barkley.

If you feel the album sounds like Outkast going out for drinks with Gorillaz with a touch of soul and a tad of extra funk, it may be because at its core, "St. Elsewhere" is the combination of the music of Danger Mouse and the words of Cee-Lo (the man of the thousand aliases). The product is a contagious album where "Crazy" has barely been the lead track to flood the airwaves of America. Along with the work of MF Doom, without a doubt this is where some of the most interesting fusion hip-hop can be heard these days.

04 August, 2006

Los rockeros


Los rockeros
Originally uploaded by Manny Hernandez.
Rock & Roll, baby... Aqui nos ven al Morocho Luis Emiro y a mi, showing off la camara embedded que viene en su nueva Mac de la oficina. La verdad es que estoy super-emocionado con el tema de la Apple. Esta proxima semana, en WWDC deberian estarse anunciando por fin las nuevas maquinas desktop Apple con procesadores Intel. El plan es comprar una de esas.

03 August, 2006

Treadmill Dancing: An original Music Video concept

02 August, 2006

La Felicidad


IMG_0472
Originally uploaded by iamrafa.
El Morocho nos tomo esta foto cuando pasamos por su casa recientemente, al regresar Andreina y Santi de Venezuela. Creo que quedamos cheveres en la foto, y nos vemos (como estabamos) muy felices.

En estos dias me tope en Wired con un articulo que hablaba sobre tips para ser feliz. Me llamo la atencion, asi que lo lei. La verdad es que articulos sobre el tema abundan, pero me llamo la atencion como hacia enfasis en "las pequennas cosas". Algo parecido salio tambien en el capitulo final de la cuarta temporada de Six Feet Under (no se si lo sabian, pero estamos super-adictos con esta serie... lastima que se termina con la quinta temporada, la cual apenas empezamos a ver anoche).

En el capitulo final de la temporada 4, David "se despierta" en medio de la noche y se encuentra a su padre (quien ya ha muerto) fumandose un cigarrillo en el balcon (este tipo de encuentros son "normales" en la serie, donde el padre "visita" a sus hijos despues de muerto, como una especie de consciencia que los acompanna y los aconseja mas alla de la muerte). David recien se recupera de un ataque del que fue victima. Un tipo lo asalto y lo tuvo a punta de pistola por toda la ciudad durante un dia entero. Finalmente lo consiguio la policia y David puede cerrar ese lazo, al ir a ver al tipo y decirle lo que ha estado pasando y los sentimientos de disgusto que le produce... pero piensa que no le sirvio de nada ese momento de catarsis.

El padre le dice que si no se da cuenta de la leccion, que la tiene en frente de sus ojos. Y David no la ve. Hasta que el padre le dice en voz baja: "Estas vivo. Esa es la leccion!" David le dice que no es posible que sea tan sencillo... y el padre termina el capitulo susurrando "Que tal si lo es? Que tal?"

One man's spam is another's art

This is amazing. This guy has developed software algorithms that analyze the contents of spam e-mails to generate fractal-looking images he calls Spam Plants.

01 August, 2006

Happy Birthday, Viejo!

Si estuviera vivo, hoy hubiera cumplido 78 annos mi viejo... Hace ya mas de 1 anno que se nos fue, y aun lo tenemos tan presente como si no hubiera pasado ni un dia.

En esta foto lo ven el dia de sus 75 annos (2003), cuando le regalamos su gorra de los Medias Rojas, su equipo favorito de siempre, y una pelota autografiada por Barry Bonds. Que buena vaina... nunca llego a ver a su equipo ganar, porque la Serie Mundial donde los Media Rojas ganaron no la pudo ver porque estaba en Puerto Rico en esos dias y no tuvo acceso a las transmisiones. Supongo que en el cielo estara viendo jugar pelota al "Bambino" mismo.

Te queremos, viejo!

Cuba after Fidel... what's the US to do?

Castro... Castro... almost 50 years later and still around! Having a Cuban-born mother, I grew up listening to stories about Castro, communist Cuba and the Cuban exile almost every day (Alvarez Guedes tapes, anybody?). One of my uncles even was a political prisoner of the regime after turning his back on them, once he realized they were not what he thought they were. All my family left everything behind to go to other places back in the 60s.

So, it is odd to see this happening (this, meaning that he finally could be out of there some day soon), but I guess all things must come to an end. However, even with him out, his brother Raul is no better. For decades he's been "numero 2" and I don't know that Castro's departure or death would change things in Cuba.

So, what's the US do? That's an interesting question because there's so many different agendas on the topic. The Cuban exile in Miami is so fragmented on what to do, that it's a bit sad, becuse you'd imagine that there would be union surrounding such a critica thing... but there isn't. In some ways it reminds me of the parody about the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

In the end, one thing is what the US should do and another one is what the US will do. I think the US will not get involved in the process, beyond having some degree of diplomatic or verbal involvement. There are far too many critical things going on elsewhere in the world, and Castro is not one of the "hot" ones...

Does Raul have the support to keep Cuba as a communist country?
I think it will be up to the Cuban people, mostly up to the ones IN the island than the ones in exile. I don't mean to say that to bash those in exile, but rather to say that if those in the island WANT to get rid of Raul, they will find a way to make it happen. Granted that Castro has probably beat the record for longest-lasting dictator in power, so... the prospects may not be too shiny.

I barely remember comments from childhood: people saying that Raul is not as intelligent as Fidel is (intelligent, I said -not good). So how things turn from this point on may be partly down to the nitty gritty details, including Raul's age. I remember another similarly old leader becoming President before in Latin America. It was Rafael Caldera in Venezuela. One of his last "memorable" actions while in power was to pardon Hugo Chavez (he was a political prisoner at the time, due to the deaths during the coup d'etat he was responsible for)... the rest is history. So, let's just hope the future of the Cubans left in the island is not as crazy.