Thursday August 02, 2007

IT in Panama

It has been 3 years since I returned from a year long student internship in Panama. I was working on the premises of the former US military base "Fort Clayton", which was converted into a technology park "Ciudad del Saber".

In my feeling in spite of a booming economy Panama was technology desert at that time (2003-2004). Unlike in many other developing countries, technical studies in Panama were not very popular. The few IT companies that existed tended to spend money on expensive software of dubious relevance from brand name giants such as Microsoft or Oracle than to pay their engineers a decent salary. Bigger IT projects were conducted by 100% foreign companies.

Things seems to changing now. There is a growing interest in Open Source and Java, local technology firms start looking for developers. Arististides Villareal, the author of the biggest blog on Sun Java technologies in Spanish started a JUG and is putting together a Java conference in December. There is a good chance I will attend it and get opportunity to reassess my views.

Unwanted reptile intruders can be a problem in an office surrounded by tropical rain forest. A proven workaround: keep some garlic next to your feet, it worked for me!

See more pictures of mine from Panama at http://tomslot.fotopic.net

Tuesday January 09, 2007

Breaking up with Apple

I purchased iWork 05 and I was not able to use it a year later on my new Intel-based MB Pro. I paid for upgrading OS X just to be able to use Java 5. Yet I was easy to forgive, satisfied and full of enthusiasm for their technology.

It wasn't until the MacWorld keynote (2 hours ago), in particular the info on partnership with Cingular that I realized how evil those guys were.

Wake up, those folks seem to be dreaming to lock us all up with their own stuff using patents, exclusive licenses and proprietary data formats, they do open software and standards only when necessary!

PS1. This post is emotional rather than factual, I may change my mind in a couple of hours

PS2. I am looking for good materials on using Linux as a primary OS on MB Pro

Update (answering the comments)

• The thing that bothers me the most in the alliance with a single cellular operator is that I would not be able to change SIM card when abroad, paying the roaming fees is out of question for me
• I was not accurate saying I was not able to use iWork '05 on Intel Mac. I was just so disappointed with the performance and stability of other apps written for PPC and running on Rosetta, that I did not bother to try iWork (I believe it could behave better as Apple product). For example MPlayer would crash the OS completely every time when run, only disconnecting power supply and removing the battery could bring it back to life..

Tuesday January 10, 2006

MWSF 2006 I am anxiously looking forward to read the transcript from Steve's presentation and learn what I am going to waste my savings for this year. I don't really like Apple, I'm just vulnerable to their marketing.. Posted by tomslot ( Jan 10 2006, 03:44:32 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [1]