I miss programming…

That is a fact.

This Semester i don’t have any programming or computing classes, so i miss programming… 

I’ve done small work in the past month preparing a new website / community that is now ready for primetime, but making things with Wordpress is a bit boring because you just don’t create, innovate or do anything new for that matter.

Like i said in the lines above, i’m now completely dedicated to developing my math and logic skills, but i want more. I want to be able to do something new and, hopefully, the “next big thing”! 

So today i’m starting a little Project that still does not have a name, but that is now the most important thing right now.

Its about photos, professional or not, high res or not. Facebook is a Social Network, Flickr is ugly and Google+, although it has nice photo gallery functions, it is still a bit closed (Why don’t you have a Symbian / Java or Blackberry App?)

I already have a little Experience with Photoload, a little website that allowed people to host its photos with a little social component. But it had a too advanced gallery for that time (HTML5 + CSS3 + Jquery… 3 years ago) :P

So today i’m pushing the bar ever further. Unlimited Space, completely public library, upload from any device imaginable, Desktop App, Web App, Clean Design and incredibly fast and simple user Interface. That is the next thing i’m proposing myself to do, and its going to be big! :) 

2 months ago  /  0 notes

Blackberry Messenger in a foreign country (an ideia)

After being sit in a little park in Spain thinking about why don’t i have wireless and therefore BBM gave me a little ideia how RIM could implement a system in colaboration with the mobile carriers worldwide so we all can send messages from BB to BB in roaming without any (exagerated) fees for Internet Roaming.

I think this is simple to implement and can be a big boost for RIM, like BBM was a few years ago when it came out.

When in a foreign country and with roaming activated and network down, the blackberry device would communicate with others with simple sms messages to a predefined number with information on the message to send, and the BBpin of the destination. That information would then be sent to the BBM servers and redirected to the destination device. A little example follows:

- “14BG66 ¤ this is the message that follow the strange symbol ¤ 16HK52”

The above message sent to a predefined number that is free of charge would send the message “this is the message that follow the stange symbol” to the BBpin “16HK52”. The first combination of numbers and letters in the string is just the BBPpin of the sender, so the receiver can identify who sent the message.

For sending that is totally fine, but what about receiving? Simple as well…

The blackberry, once again while in roaming when when no internet connection is available, would pre-read all received sms messages and search for patterns before showing the message to the device user. This is a fairly straightfoward and quick step to a computer.
If it finds a pattern with a BBpin (number of letters is enough) followed by a symbol and a string and then another symbol and the device BBpin, that means the information is formatted as a BBM message, and it will be shown to the user in the BB Messenger application. Other types of comparison is needed, like checking to see if the sender BBpin is in your contact list for improved security, etc… But all of those steps are simple and quick enough for a smartphone to do without any delay more than a very few milliseconds on showing the actual messages to the user, be it BBM or SMS messages.

Also, other types of verifications by the BBM servers and the device is needed before any of this can work. If you are interested, or you are RIM just keep reading please!

First of all, when the device enters roaming, it has to send a message that will be fowarded to the BBM servers telling them it has to receive messages through sms rather than network, its location, and other useful information that may be needed. A little example follows:

- when the phone enters in roaming mode and it has data services deactivated, it automatically sends a message to the carrier telling the device BBpin and the country code it is right now. That will allow the BBM servers to know where to send the message if the device is offline from the internet.

Also when sending any message, the BBM servers have to ping the device before sending anything at all (to BB fans, i mean ping in ‘network-ping’ way, not ‘attention-ping’!). The servers already do this every time (thats how you know your message was delivered or read), so it should not be much of a trouble. If the device is available from the internet, it sends the message the standard way, else it searches for a database of devices in foreign countries for the destination BBpin and if it finds it, it sends a sms to the coutry carrier so it can be delivered to the destination, else it does nothing and keeps trying from internet, like it already does!

This is how i think BBM can be push fowarded and be a success once again!
I aprecciate any comments on how to improve this and anything else. Do it here or via twitter (@paulotruta) or even by email!

Thanks and apologies for the long post ;)

3 months ago  /  0 notes

Haskell type signatures

“The type signature for `mcMedia2Tex’ lacks an accompanying binding”

This was the challenge i posted today on twitter. Shame on the people that didn’t replay because this one is very easy. I even put the #Haskell tag on the tweet but it was worthless!

The explanation to this problem is when you have a data type definition but no corresponding function definition. So no e-hug to anybody! :P

Meanwhile, i have a bigger challenge, correct this problem in the project i’m working on! Cheers ;)

4 months ago  /  0 notes

Pulseaudio rocks!

Did you know that, using the Pulseaudio abstraction layer in Linux, you can, for example, broadcast sound all over your house or even to the interwebz?
Pulseaudio is something powerfull, and as a Linux Power User i am, i knew i could complete something i was looking for to do a long time ago… Having my sound system connected to all my computers at the same time, wirelessly. And i did it with a little research!

Basically, if your distro is using Pulseaudio, just intall the “paprefs” and “pavucontrol” packages in order to explore all the possibilities!

5 months ago  /  2 notes

: () {  : | : & } ; :

We tell people we use Linux beacause it’s secure. Or because it’s free, because it’s customizable, because it’s free (the other meaning), because it has excellent community support…

But all of that is just marketing bullshit. We tell that to non-Linuxers because they wouldn’t understand the real reason. And when we say those false reasons enough, we might even start to believe them ourselves.

But deep underneath, the real reason remains.

We use Linux because it’s fun.

It’s fun the tinker with your system. It’s fun to change all the settings, break the system, then have to go fallback mode to repair it. It’s fun to have over a hundred distros to choose from. It’s fun to use the command line.

Let me say that again. It’s fun to use the command line.

No wonder non-Linuxers wouldn’t understand.

The point with Linux fans is we use Linux for its own sake. Sure, we like to get work done. Sure, we like to be secure from viruses. Sure, we like to save money!

But those are only the side effects. What we really like is playing with the system, poking around, and discovering fascinating facts about the software that lies underneath it.

We like to know how a computer works, and change how it works, when we want, how we want it.

6 months ago  /  0 notes