Wednesday, June 16, 2010

World Cup 2010

Taking a glance at the big screen watching the beautiful game. It immediately catches my attention the now great -in every sense- variety of teams from all parts of the world.

Not that they did not participate before, but certainly all countries have greatly improved their games and it is fascinating to watch the different styles against each other. The predominance of European and South-American teams of years gone, along with their results predictions, has been nicely replaced with wonder and amazement at what the newer emerging countries can do when providing and facing such a variety of styles.

The results are somehow unpredictable: control vs. speed vs. height vs. force vs. precision vs. time vs. effort vs. technique vs. individualism vs. rehearsal …

I've been fortunate enough to have worked in companies that allow diversity, and most of those even encourage it. While it is difficult to manage such a variety of ideas, work styles, business background culture and so on; the truth is that the results are way better than if the teams were composed of similarly minded individuals.

In fact, the best products of collective minds: be it cars, NGOs, computers, movies, policies, et cetera; are those crafted by a team: the more diversified, the better the results.

Diversity at play. It is, in fact, a beautiful game.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Easy days, busy days

All is well, work flows nicely, another day of accomplishments, successes, deadlines met, budgets not exceeded, evenings with loved ones... life's good.

And then, Bam! Something goes wrong: which means long work hours, weekends become nonexistent, mind is busy all the time, lack of proper sleep contributes to the frustration, stress and extra pressure to solve the issues.

I love it. Really.
Another lesson learned, the day to day tasks will become easier after this experience; and all in all, it is just part of the roller-coaster ride, if there were no ups, there would not be any downs. No rush, no calm; no heat, no cold; ...wavelengthed life...

So, no time for much reading or editing. Gotta get back to whatever it was I was doing before this 10 minutes respite.
See you later when the storm disappears and clear skies help the recently watered flowers bloom.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Computer efficiency and lifespan

Turns out the best way to make cars more efficient has nothing to do with fuel burning effectiveness or engine power: rather, eliminating all the extra weight components such as bumpers, air bags, reinforced frame, belts, power brakes, etc. would make it better if we could simply find the way to prevent cars from crashing.

In a similar fashion, computers carry a lot of extra “weight” we shouldn’t need in the first place: antivirus, firewalls, backup software, USB, VGA, Ethernet ports; anti-theft slots and frames, fans, etcetera.
For some of those physical components, there are chips, services and/or programs that need to work every time to make such mechanisms work.
The extra services, programs and packages that run all the time in order to “secure” our systems make them work harder, and therefore take up valuable resources that would make our tasks simpler, and computers work faster and last longer were they not so hugely utilized.

Although we are moving towards more efficient processors, more secure Operating Systems and applications, and better detection and prevention from malign physical threats and those from the Web, there is still a long way to go on these regards.

Then, what can we do then to make our systems last longer while making them perform better?
+ Acquire computers with the latest electronics technologies. Saving a couple hundred up front buying a discounted older or less capable system will only cause more expenditure through time (let alone the headaches).
+ The latest OSs are way more efficient than their older siblings, and newer packages are not only ‘faster’ but also better designed and protected against data loss and malware. Acquire/upgrade as soon as your budget allows.
+ Lightweight Internet Security Suites, online backup packages, hosted email and similar services make a huge difference in resources utilization. Choose the ones that perform better without over-bloating your systems.
+ Avoid installing programs that do nothing for you, whether they are “free” or paid for, if there is no real need to have them, do not even download them.

Basically, think about what you carry in your car on a daily basis. It is only the essentials for your day to day chores, right?
If what you really need is a van or a truck, then the same analogy applies to computers.