Ada Lovelace Day 2010

Today is the Ada Lovelace Day – a day to celebrate women in technology and science.

Although I am not much into dividing people into groups based on gender, race, religion, etc, it is a very noticeable fact that there simply are too few women in technology. I noticed it since I first developed an interest for computers, I continued to notice it during the university (hey, in the first year there were maybe 10 girls out of 100 students!) and it is a regular fact in every job that I had. Usually, I was one of the few female programmers, sometimes the only one.

I would like to bring attention to one of my heroes from the BSD community: Dru Lavigne.

Dru is an authority in the BSD world. She is a network and systems administrator, IT instructor and technical writer. She has written several books on BSD, the most famous one, BSD Hacks I happen to own, and has been my reference for most things BSD. I’ve read it cover to cover several times during my early years when I was learning FreeBSD.

Dru writes regulary on her technical blog A Year in the Life of a BSD Guru

Ditching Subversion

Version control systems are important. No argue about that. At places where i used to work (and am currently working) i had the pleasure to meet three systems: cvs, perforce and subversion. All three have one important thing in common – they all suck. Well, some suck less than others (like subversion).

For my pet projects i decided to try these new kids on the block (read distributed version controls). I narrowed down to two: git and mercurial. I went for mercurial. Why? Well, first because it is written in Python and i have a thing for Python. I just love it. Second because bitbucket looks just nicer and cooler than github. And third … well, I think this guide by Joel Spolsky explains it much much better than i could do. Enjoy and be persuaded

Discovering Twitter

I just finished reading a little book by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstei, The Twitter Book. It is aimed at Twitter newbies (such as myself) and it does a nice job explaining the power of Twitter and all its various usages for personal and business needs. It didn’t took me long to finish it as well, as it is written in the spirit of Twitter – short and to the point. It takes you from a Twitter ignorant to a pro in no time

But why would one want to know about Twitter anyway? Hmmm, tough one. To be honest, i didn’t see much value in Twitter either, when i first created an account. I actually didn’t use it much at all – I wasn’t sure why i needed yet another communication channel to tell the world about what I’m doing, thinking, eating. I have a blog, like everyone else, right? And I’m not posting much on it. I have an account on Facebook like everyone else, right? But i am not using it much apart from playing Texas Hold’em occasionally. So what is different with Twitter that would make me tweet regularly each week, or day, or even more times per day? And who would care about it anyway?

First, the tweets are short messages that must obey the 140 character limit. So you don’t have to engage more than a minute (unlike when you are posting on a blog) to get your thought across. And when you start following smart and witty people, it is actually very amusing reading their tweets. It is like peeking into their minds. And that gives you motivation to tweet back. And in a matter of no time it becomes great fun!

I admit, i am a Twitter newbie but i am starting to be really hooked. And not just thanks to the book

Back for a while

I haven’t posted something meaningful here for ages!

Anyway, i changed the theme of the blog and finally updated a small part of it – the Illustrations section. Hopefully, I am not going to stop here for another year or two

Chi non muore si rivede…

It is so nice to find an old friend again! It really makes your day.

Moving

So this is it.

My last stuff has been packed, the apartment has been cleaned and all that is left is to hand out the keys to the owner and wait for Sunday to arrive.
I am going to Denmark and will stay there for the next 5 months and although I have been planning it for a year now, it sure feels like it has arrived too soon. But it also brings that excitement and anticipation of the unknown that somehow spices up my otherwise pretty ordinary days. I haven’t felt like this in a long time, to be honest. Which says a lot of what kind of life I’ve lead since I decided that maybe this whole computer business is something I might like … you know … sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ bytecode.

Logic fun

Ok, here’s one for you

You have two badly-woven ropes with fluctuating widths, but which you know take one hour each to burn completely. But because of their fluctuating widths, thicker parts take longer to burn, so half of each rope may take longer or shorter than 30 minutes to burn. Using these two ropes, how can you time 45 minutes?

I am sold

Yay! Ooohh! Waw! I doubt i will go out or away from my desk ever again … Yesterday my new shiny Macbook Pro just arrived and i haven’t left it since … omg, is this thing sexy or what?

New home

It has been a while since i last checked in here and there has been some problems with my host server.
Now that i changed servers things will hopefully run smoother …

Expect the old content to be back online in a few days.

it’s been 10 days since my last …

… cigarette! w00t!
On the other hand – passing from one addiction to another – i’ve just finished a two-day marathon watching Lost series.. i soooo can’t get enough of it. Damned be the day when i saw the first episode ))