Thursday, February 26, 2009

What is Twitter?

Here is a hsort video explainning what Twitter is...
If you are like (programmer, a bit more than 25, trying to get a lot of things done in 24 minutes) then we must have heard about Twitter, but found is USELESS. Honestly, what's the point of letting everyone know I'm having a coffee?
Well, here is a video explainning why Twitter is successfull:

I'll give it a try and see what comes us...

UPDATE: I don't like Twitter anylonger. I get mails daily!!! My next Twitter status will be: trying to remove Twitter account.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Talend Roadshow


Yesterday I went to the Talend Roadshow. 3 hours nicely spent and the it worthed the time and traffic jam. No money involved as it was free.
I liked a lot that it was a "hands on work" seminar and not a marketing presentation. Benjamin, the guy who presented the product (btw: the open source version), had a good IT background and this was handy.
So, they provided us with some laptops, a practice book (5 exercises) and the Talend User Manual. The nice think was that Benjamin actually showed us how to use the most important Talend component: tMap. It took my one full day (at work, so just between meetings and other stuff) to understand tMap and Talend and I was unsuccessful. why? too less time, too less tutorials on "how to start" using it. So, at that moment, I ended up using Kettle (from Spoon) just because another collegue has the knowledge already.
After the yesterday Talend Roadhow I must say that I like better Talend than Kettle because:
1. I can debug it (put a breakpoint on the java code)
2. with Traces enabled, I can see on real time the data being processed (really handy)

But, perhaps, if I went to a Kettle Readshow (nope, it doesn't exist) then Kettle would acquire more points also.

My conclusions about the Talend Roadshow:
1. it's free
2. the person presenting it (Benjamin) was one of the French founders (I think), so an IT person, no marketing boring presentation
3. all the IT questions got an answer
4. we actually had to work with the product
5. too bad there was not indepth intro about the facts/dimensions components; but I guess that's because the attendees should have already know DataMarts.

So, if you get the chance, GO CHECK IT OUT.

PS: I will try now to go my kettle jobs in Talend and see which is easier to implement/faster/better debugging.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

ways to use a drinking glass?

- drink water
- pee on it
- catch bugs inside
- water the plants
- stretch the dough
- to throw at somebody
- to cut yourself
- to measure
- to stretch a pair of panties to repair them
- to knock a peg in the wall
- to zoom in
- to throw up
- as a toy fetch for a dog
- to mix stuff inside
- to paint it
- give it as a present
- make "musical" sounds
- put a candle inside
- to put off a candle
- to protect a flower bulb from winter
- as small garbage container
- to juggle with it

And my ten minutes are up. other ideas?