Igor Weblog

Darfur, Sudan and 3 Points

2009-10-11T22:54:00.005-04:00

Today I saw a documentary about the social problems of Darfur, Sudan, really touching stuff, basketball superstar (Tracy McGrady) goes to the region and tries to understand the situation there to later compromise to help.

Darfur is a place due war is in a "humanitarian emergency" state, whatever that means it doesn't sounds like a "safe" or "happy" place.

I dunno, these kind of things make you think a little bit about how awesome your life is comparing yourself with other people. Even myself, I grew up in the hood of a 3rd world country, certainly a whole different situation than living in Miami (a lot!).

Tracy starts talking (before going to Darfur) about how hard is the life in the hood where he grew up (Florida), just to find out a very different (and harder) reality.

See the movie on Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/3-points (too bad on Hulu for international readers).

Youtube user page of the Darfur Dream Team: http://www.youtube.com/user/darfurdreamteam

3 Points stands for: Peace, Protection, Punishment / what the people of Darfur want.

Just a reminder: "It's just a ride"

2009-09-17T22:30:00.003-04:00

The World is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round, and it has thrills and chills and is very brightly colored, and it's very loud. And it's fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they've begun to question, 'Is this real, or is this just a ride?', and other people have remembered, and they've come back to us and they say 'Hey, don't worry. Don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.' and we KILL THOSE PEOPLE.

"Shut him up! We have alot invested in this ride! SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account, and my family. This just has to be real."

It's just a ride.

But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that. You ever noticed that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because ... It's just a ride.

And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear wants you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead see all of us as one.

Here's what we can do to change the world right now, to a better ride:

Take all that money we spent on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding, clothing, and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and WE CAN EXPLORE SPACE, TOGETHER, BOTH INNER AND OUTER, forever ... in peace.

-- Bill Hicks (1961 - 1994)

Generate your ctags and cscope db files in one script

2009-08-18T00:24:00.002-04:00

I found myself generating the ctags db and the cscope db all the time, so I created a script to generate both in one single command... because I'm lazy ;):

"Cash For Clunkers" gov best idea ever!

2009-08-04T14:33:00.006-04:00

For those of you that don't know yet, "Cash For Clunkers" is the most successful "economic help" program that the government has ever run!.

One more prof that if you give money to the people they *will* spend it, and more in the US, you don't have to be a smart guy to know that, instead of giving huge bailouts to GM do more of this type of initiatives, "Cash For Clunkers" is so awesome that ran out of money in just a couple of days!

The way it works (the program is likely to continue, obviously), is let say you own an old car (<1995) that does certain MPG (spend a lot of gas, basically american cars), in these economic times, you might not buy a new car, since, you know, it would hard to pay; but the government is running this program that will trade your old car for a 3,500USD - 4,500USD credit that way you can get the car you want at a more affordable price, and at the same time helping the economy, creating jobs (the industry need to produce more cars, the dealership to hire more salespeople), the environment (spend less gas), and you.

So this looks like a great deal right? hell yeah!, my brother had a car, bought it for 700USD, but the blue book says it value was 1,000USD, insurance for that type of car is expensive (bad car more accidents), also the car had a V8 engine thats like 50USD a week just on gas. So let say he goes and buy a Toyota Yaris with the CARS program, the Yaris starts on 12,205USD let say its 15,000USD after the dealer steal you some money ;) 11,500USD, even with the worse credit ever my brother would have to pay like 150USD a month for that car, and its more fuel efficient a Yaris today can live with 50 bucks a month on gas (I do that with my Scion TC), insurance is cheaper on that car, and the environment is happy and my bro has a new car :) that actually works! and has like -170,000 miles :D.

The program was supposed to run from July 1st to November 1st, but was delayed until July 24th, guess what? the program is out of funds already!!!, this is huge!, a billion of dollars just in days!

Ford and GM are the happiest kids of the month.

Now some politicians are skeptical with this program... is your obligation to send those people to STFU!

And BTW, my brother was in a accident 2 months ago (he is fine), and his car was totaled :(, the insurance company gave him not even a buck he ended trading the car for the towing ride, and guess what he doesn't have a car :(, and if you know Florida, you can't do nothing without a car.

If you wanna know more about the program go to www.cars.gov the program is likely to get more money.

Classy Firefox

2009-07-12T22:16:00.002-04:00

Classy Firefox
Originally uploaded by igorgue

Firefox has been seriously sucking on Linux since 2.0... :(, sad thing lets move to Chrome!

Hashes and Dicts in Python and Ruby

2009-07-11T11:50:00.005-04:00

*dicts or hashes are passed by reference in Python and Ruby*

That's it!

Python example:

Output:

[{'a': 1}, {'a': 1}, {'a': 1}, {'a': 1}]

Ruby example:

Output:

[{"a"=>1}, {"a"=>1}, {"a"=>1}, {"a"=>1}]

Terminator... I'll be back!

2009-07-09T19:45:00.004-04:00

[LOLing with Terminator (my favorite terminal emulator)]

You can get and build terminator from here: https://launchpad.net/terminator/+download

Interweb != World

2009-07-04T02:17:00.002-04:00

"CNN We are the poor people; we don't have internet access nor speak English"

I like to have neutral positions on all the things in life, and more in politics, but some people attitudes are just plain wrong... *the internet is not the world* people!, and this apply to the current events in both Iran and Honduras.

So when I see Twitter users with the green icon I think: Well that's cool, you're supporting some people in Twitter that have issues with their government; but please don't look at this as a whole. Because its impossible and not logical to think of it as a majority.

Removed ads, People actually read this, WTH is going on?

2009-07-02T15:41:00.005-04:00

Removing ads:

A quickie, now I'll try to sell myself as a developer instead of trying to make money from my content with ads, its a nice strategy (duh!)...

People read:

I'm realizing that I have 200+ users reading my feed, so if I blog more is better, I'll keep you guys informed from now on...

We suck:

I like politics, news and all the things that happens in the world, 2009 is a pretty sucky year... really if you think about it, *nothing* good had happened in 2009.

Make stuff to do things:

Right now I'm working in a super cool and awesome secret project, involves Python and the interwebs.

Things I'm learning you might like: Twisted, RabbitMQ, Erlang, CouchDB, BeepBeep (just today).

Things I read you might like: StackOverflow, Hacker news.

This blog post was sponsored by... I_DIDN"T_EVEN_POST_ANY_LINK.com LOL

Geek Achievements: 1337 @ Gmail

2009-04-28T22:28:00.002-04:00

1337
Originally uploaded by igorgue

I don't have anything to say... just 1337 @ Gmail!!!

My Dell Mini 9

2009-04-16T22:54:00.001-04:00

My Mini 1
Originally uploaded by igorgue

This is my new toy :)

Graffiti DrupalCamp Centroamerica

2009-04-16T14:47:00.003-04:00

Graffiti DrupalCamp Centroamerica 6
Originally uploaded by xamanu

Some Drupal love at my alma mater go to Drupalcamp Centroamerica (http://www.drupal-centroamerica.org/)

2009-04-15T11:05:00.001-04:00

Testing sms to bloggr posting

Running | Installing Jaiku in Your Box

2009-03-14T00:37:00.003-04:00

Today Jaiku was open sourced by Google, to my surprise it runs on Django 1.0 :), using the also awesome appengine_django project to run Django 1.0 in Google App Engine.

As right now, it doesn't work out of the box, I'll explain how to run it (thanks for the help in the development list):

1. Install python-profiler: sudo apt-get install python-profiler
2. Go to .google_appengine: cd .google_appengine
3. Apply this patch:

The original discussion here: http://groups.google.com/group/jaikuengine-discuss/browse_thread/thread/368c64cd3aba6970

You Know, They're Actually Friends

2009-02-26T23:05:00.002-05:00

All in this world is about pacts and conspiracy... so big company's fanboys take this!:

Getting | Not Getting New Laptop

2009-02-24T00:35:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was a bad day for my laptop (pic!) is about to die, the fan is dead, and I don't know how to repair it, and send it to fix it will cost a lot of money. Even though the fan was dead for about 6 months or so, still I had no problem but now, its like a pain to work with since it just shut down after a quite amount of time. I'm afraid someday it will just die in a fire (literately).

So I'll get a new laptop (has to be a laptop since I don't have a desk or space to put a desktop system), I was thinking, what I'll get this time, a nice one or a powerful one, I think I'll get both a nice and powerful, but here is the thing, which one?

Mac is not an option: since, you know, I wanna actually run an OS that I actually like, and that's Linux and Linux sucks in macs *period*. Don't get me wrong, the hardware is pretty cool and the OS is certainly better than Windows, but I'm a Linux user.

The Envy: HP Voodoo Envy 133 looks amazing! just pure gold!, better than any notebook out there (even Macs), but the specs are pretty outdated!, and I bet I can't get better performance than my laptop with it.

Right performance & specs _nice_ looking: Dells (XSP and Studio 15) I actually like their specs, but I don't like their style, ppl! learn from Apple squared and thin == sexy! anyway, after the Envy 133 Dells laptops are just better looking than anything out there right now IMHO.

Screw look&feel, get a Thinkpad!: thinkpads have the best hardware overall, but they are ugly! very ugly!, made for marketing people (ugly!).

The other option is just wait, but that's the boring option and I want to stimulate the economy soon :)

My Python Gear

2009-02-04T20:28:00.001-05:00

Python gear
Originally uploaded by igorgue

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.

Desktop Screenshot | Domo-kun is Back

2009-01-31T14:01:00.003-05:00

Engavillados.com | Diagramas Notificaciones

2009-01-30T00:27:00.004-05:00

Las notificaciones juegan un papel muy importante en Engavillados.com, aqui les muestro como trabajan en 2 escenarios:

Modo Notificacion de Evento:

Modo, "charla" con engavillados.com:

Engavillados.com | Roadmap

2009-01-29T23:43:00.005-05:00

Bueno hace unas semanas Engavillados.com se lanzo el sitio pero como una incógnita, bueno la idea es la siguiente:

El problema:

Los sitios locales de entretenimiento en Nicaragua son muy malos, no tienen ninguna característica social, están básicamente en el pasado, no hay ningún tipo de innovación mas que un contenido algo bueno, y sobre todo están enfocados en sus patrocinadores en lugar que sus usuarios.

Esto en nuestra opinión esta mal, y es lo que intentamos reparar.

La solución:

Go HyperLocal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_news#Hyperlocal)!, llegar a lo ridículamente local, cubrir todo, lo insignificante es importante, dado que es importante para algunas personas.

Se intenta ser el mejor sitio de entretenimiento local para Nicaragua, básicamente, llegar a donde estés, para que puedas saber que hacer, cuando hacerlo, y para que hacerlo.

Ser interactivo!, usar SMS como una forma de comunicación con el website, inspirado en sitios como dodgeball.com para crear una red social fuera de nuestra interfaz web.

Cubrir todo!, noticias, eventos, lugares, ofertas de restaurantes, ofertas de bebidas en bares, fiestas en discos, fiestas caseras, conciertos, eventos culturales, menús de restaurantes, horarios de televisión, películas... etc etc etc... todo esto integrado al sistema de notificaciones que te permitirá estar en el sitio, sin estarlo :).

Ser abiertos!, nosotros adoramos la cultura libre, por lo tanto, el contenido del sitio sera abierto para todo publico, si tienes un evento que quieres promocionar, el sitio es tu servicio, si tienes una radio nueva, el sitio te permite publicar tu programación, tienes una pequeña función de cine en tu barrio? el sitio te permite publicarla también :), y todo esta registrado. Fuiste a un evento y quieres subir fotos del mismo? súbelas a engavillados.com.

Somos sociales!, comentarios en todos lados, RSS en todos lados, tags en las fotos.

Somos acomodados!, no queremos que te registres al sitio, para que? si puedes usar tu cuenta de Facebook o de Gmail, Yahoo, la URL de tu blog personal, actualmente no se necesita crear nuevos sistemas de usuarios, podemos usar los que ya tienes, todo esto de una manera segura.

Bueno, pero esto tomará siglos en desarrollar?

Ehhh... realmente no, siempre y cuando tengas las mejores tecnologías a la mano, y sabes que? la mayoría son gratuitas!

Entonces, para cuando el site?

Mañana!, :), naa, este es el "Roadmap":

Beta Publico: Marzo 2009 - Sitio totalmente funcional, la idea es tener todas las características del sitio completo, pero pueden haber errores.
Version 1.0: Abril 2009 - Sitio probado en el beta
Version 2.0: Junio 2009 - Sitio completo pero con las mejoras sugeridas por los usuarios

UPDATE!: Beta ahora es Marzo :)

Engavillados.com | Diagrama del Login

2009-01-29T23:38:00.003-05:00

Este es el modelo que usaremos en engavillados.com para registrar y autenticar a nuestros usuarios:

RE: Infrastructure for Modern Web Sites

2009-01-29T10:25:00.003-05:00

My response to: http://randomfoo.net/2009/01/28/infrastructure-for-modern-web-sites

"Framework Design Guidelines" (http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/category/26...) states: "Simple things should be easy, complex things should be possible" (the book uses "scenarios"), these, IMHO are complex things, they are possible some easy some not, but they can be done.

In the end how many websites need all these ponies? 1, 2? maybe in your website you'll need 3 of all the ponies, I rather make the all the simple scenarios easier than adding more complex stuff to the framework.

Writing Template Tags in Django

2009-01-29T03:35:00.006-05:00

Template tags are very useful, if you like your Django template language to use your customized syntax.

To write a template tag you need to do a couple things:

Make a Python package named "templatetags" inside your app:

| |~events/
| | |~templatetags/
| | | |-__init__.py
| | | `-events.py
| | |-__init__.py
| | |-admin.py
| | |-manager.py
| | |-middleware.py
| | |-models.py
| | `-views.py

In your template you need to load your custom template tags too:

{% load events %}

And that's it, your events.py file is loaded into your template, but, you need to write some templatetags.

First, think about your template tag, what is it going to be? a filter? or a block alike? (anymore types?), I'll choose the "block alike" since its harder to implement :).

We are going to be able to do:

{% get_event_metadata event.pk as metadatas %}

That will create a "context" "variable" from a pk... here are my models:

I avoided posting the whole source code, since its not relevant.

Now, lets create our template tags, in our events/templatetags/events.py file:

One thing to notice is that when you call the template tag from the template all the events.py gets is a string, and the only way to get the value from that "string" (or variable in this case, is to get it from the context, using template.Variable and the context var, or context.get("varname").attr.

VIM and Django

2009-01-27T23:49:00.008-05:00

Today, I'll share some files with you, my precious VIM config files and extra plugins, and some tips on how to use them.

My .vimrc, you need to put this one on $HOME/.vimrc (you can actually use another location for it, but that's the default):

This is my script to launch GVIM on a Django environment, so it will create a tags file and load the settings.py file too (also set the GVIM window geometry ;)):

I put it into $HOME/bin/djp so to run it I just call:

$ djp .

Unpack my .vim directory to your $HOME to get a lot of plugins, like the NERDtree, NERDcomments, SnippetsEMU, some syntax files and colors, yes lots of colors :):

http://files.getdropbox.com/u/421955/vimconfigs.tar.gz

I'll try to update this vimconfigs.zip file on my Dropbox account regularly.

Some tips in my configs:

Press F3 for opening and closing NERDtree

Press F4 for opening the scope editor (probably that's the name of that thing)

CTRL + N cool autocompletions

UPDATED: CTRL + X then O to open OmniCompletion :)

Engavillados.com

2009-01-21T00:07:00.003-05:00