Hyper Curious

Microsoft their new OpenXML format for documents (the very same one that did not become ISO standard), and users all over the net spawn more and more documents in it.

Recently, one of the customers we’re working with now at FRONT sent us such document, and guess what… OpenOffice out of the box couldn’t read it. I’m saying couldn’t, because there is already a solution from Novell, with very nice guide to installation to be found at SigmundVoid

Thanks, you saved my day…

Happy Programmers Day to all geeks and nerds around the world.

According to Wikipedia

Programmer’s day is a ‘holiday’ on the 256th day of the year celebrated mostly by computer programmers (reason: 256 = 2 to the power of 8 = the number of values representable in a byte of data).

Traditions include drinking, behaving silly, coding silly programs, mini computer games, playing with old computers, etc. That, of course, includes the condition that the developer who chooses to celebrate, needs to have done decent coding on all the other days and had tried the best not to behave silly on the other days. For those programmers who are used to the ‘celebrations’ in their every day lives, this ‘holiday’ becomes unjustified!

Programmer’s day usually falls on September 13th; on leap years, it is September 12th.

Now let’s go and do something silly…

For a first time in my life I took part in “speed” coding contest. The purpose of Rails Rumble was to create (and deploy) website in just 48h. Almost 150 teams of one to four people each did their best to create something amusing, beautiful or practical.

I would like to credit organizers for keeping everything working so well and being so helpful and responsive during the competition. Thanks guys.

I joined forces with 3 other friends to form Gdynia-Belfast team. We:

• Piotr Macuk
• Eamonn Murphy
• Bogdan Baraszkiewicz
• Michał Wronka (Me)

worked fearlessly, transcending cultural and language barriers on Joglog , online log for runners and joggers. Lots of good design and code, moments of anger at slow servers, but generally good fun, cooperation and new experience (online project collaboration in particular).

I was also invited to be part of xFRONT team. Unfortunately self.clone failed me this time, and I couldn’t start with them, maybe next time. With few more member issues, David was left alone on battle field, but as a serious developer pulled through and created Mowawi. Great job David, you made it against all odds.

There was one more nice tone in the competition, other Polish team Świerszcze. They pulled out Startup Tycoon . Interesting idea for a game, give it a try. Behind it names well known in Polish Rails community, keep it up guys.

Bottom line, it was great fun, well worth doing. I hope to try again next year… better prepared :)

This week, an interesting way to look at tools of everyday work…

Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid. Humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.

Albert Einstein

Just got back to work after 10 days off (including weekends). After whole week of clouds and rain it’s sunny again. Irony?

Only one things rings in my mind now… And yeah, I’d rather be somewhere else than work.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

Albert Einstein

I first heard today’s quote in the movie ‘Coach Carter’. It brings across very powerful message, but when this quote was delivered by one of the actors I sat there with mouth wide open, feeling almost enlightened.

The quote is by mistake attributed to Nelson Mandela, supposedly given during one of his speeches, but according to few sources online it was created by Marianne Williamson. And with that in mind, I present it to you:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask oursleves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our prescence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

Lack of decisiveness may have serious negative consequences on your life. I personally suffered from its ill effect many times already.

But how to fight it? How to make the step without hesitation? Just remember following quote, it should do the trick.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

Teddy Roosevelt

FFII foundation organised petition to prevent OOXML (Office OpenXML) from becoming ISO DIS 29500 standard. Reasons they state are as follows:

1. There is already a standard ISO26300 named Open Document Format (ODF): a dual standard adds costs, uncertainty and confusion to industry, government and citizens;
2. There is no provable implementation of the OOXML specification: Microsoft Office 2007 produces a special version of OOXML, not a file format which complies with the OOXML specification;
3. There is information missing from the specification document, for example how to do a autoSpaceLikeWord95 or useWord97LineBreakRules;
4. More than 10% of the examples mentioned in the proposed standard do not validate as XML;
5. There is no guarantee that anybody can write software that fully or partially implements the OOXML specification without being liable to patent lawsuits or patent license fees by Microsoft;
6. This format conflicts with existing ISO standards, such as ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and times), ISO 639 (Codes for the Representation of Names and Languages) or ISO/IEC 10118-3 (cryptographic hash);
7. There is a bug in the spreadsheet file format which forbids any date before the year 1900: such bugs affect the OOXML specification as well as software applications like Microsoft Excel 2000, XP, 2003 and 2007.
8. This standard proposal was not created by bringing together the experience and expertise of all interested parties (such as the producers, sellers, buyers, users and regulators), but by Microsoft alone.

Please consider signing petition at: http://www.noooxml.org/petition

(original source: Linux.pl)

Whilst doing cleanup in my link database, I stumbled upon long forgotten article, that did so much for me in the past. Long story short, I read it again and felt all the sensation just like before. It provided me with new insights I did not notice the last time and rekindled fire within.

Ladies, and Gentlemen, one of my personal favourites, Hack Yourself

Reading many lines of various texts on a daily basis, we all occasionally stumble upon a quote or a sentence that resonates strongly within us. Whether it’s a very profound and old, or casually plain, it sometimes looks as if days, or even weeks, run to the sound of it.

Whether we found it by accident, or bumped into it for some unknown reason is not a point here. What matters is that if it has the power to drive us, we should cherish it, remember it and hold on to it as much as we can.

The following quote came to me when I really needed it. To act as a reminder, as a guide…

Excellence is an art won by training and habitation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.

- Aristotle

Long awaited conference finally came to Belfast on Saturday, 30th June. It was a splendid event, and many thanks to Matt Keenan from OpCode Solutions for organising it.

I wanted to attend conference and every single talk so much, that I overslept and made it only at lunch break time. The good thing is that I was welcomed by tables full of delicious pizza, to serve as my breakfast. Coincidence? I don’t think so!

In the meantime I run into my friend David, met a few interesting people and got into good mood for incoming talks.

Afternoon session of talks was held in two rooms, so you had to choose what to attend. Most of decisions were dead easy, and I ended up attending:

• Selecting free software for e-consultation by David Newman
• Marketing on a Shoe String by Denise Fay
• Easy VPNs with OpenVPN by Thomas Pedoussaut
• Something about Internet Marketing by Alastair McDermott

After official part we moved to Bar12 for refreshing drinks, then to replenish our hungry bodies at Moghul, then split into more groups and started heading home. With one more pit stop, I’ve finally hit my bed at 2am.

Bottom line, I had great time, learned a lot, met great people (you know who I mean :)) and once again noticed world is rather small place.

Looking forward to BarCamp Galway in September.

Yes, I’ve finally done it. After pondering for a while whether I really want to blog, how it will look like, what blogging engine to use, how to configure the server and so on, I made the necessary steps and made it go live.

Still, it took another few weeks from setting blog and domain to posting my first article. It’s really amazing how your mind tends to procrastinate, when you’re not clear on something. No idea what should first post be about – you procrastinate, not sure how to start Vim articles series – you procrastinate.

But there is a cure, one that helped me today. It simply says ‘do it now’. You may do it poorly, it may not be polished, state-of-the-art, but just do it right away. As soon as you decide that, it’s as if something in your mind clicked and all doubt dissolves in a blink of an eye.

It took a while to learn it, but one article helped me tremendously. Thank you Steve Pavlina.

And to all my current and future readers – Welcome :)