What a mess with programs

It gets difficult, or impossible, after a system cleaning up, to put all the programs back. Every time we reinstall the Operative System is the same. A little for the OS, and weeks for the programs, at least in my case. From audio and video codecs to watch the films, to the programs for working. Video and Mother Board drivers, MS Office 2003, restoring the mail and contacts data, ActiveSync for the PDA, Firefox, the Firefox bookmarks, Picassa, Google Desktop Search, Java SDK, Flash plugins, QuickTime, WinAmp, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foobar2000, MSN Messenger, BitTorrent, eMule, Guitar Pro, Skype, and very important, the updates for Windows. Sure that if I take a look in my pc the list will grow more.

It's incredible, but if our computer got broken, we will never be able to put it back exactly as we had it previously, unless we use some backup method. I decline using full backup methods in my system because it requires a lot of memory and, because I keep my system up to date, a backup will be valid only for two weeks. But installing the programs is the less of our problems. The worst is to reconfigure the applications.

Firefox, in my case, require reinstalling plug-ins, extensions, configuring each extension, and reorganizing the buttons. In outlook I have to organize emails accounts and the folders. In the system, user accounts, net configurations, wallpaper (not essential, but it's cool). And here it is where all programs fail. You can configure them but they are no that easy to make a backup of the configuration. So for our applications list, the amount of work is multiplied.

No operative system, at the moment, offers solutions to this problem. There are programs that help us to make a backup. There are for Firefox and Thunderbird. Outlook can make its own backup copies of mails and contacts, but not the email accounts. So we have a backup program for each we have installed.

In the end I understand why people are so lazy to clean up and reinstall the system. It's better to not have to reconfigure anything. ^_^U

McJunk Food?

A delicious question. McDonalds, Burguer King, Pizza Hut, Telepizza, Kentuky Fried Chicken, Sloopy Joe’s (seville speciality Pizza Taco) I love them. Tasty food at good price. I go every month several time to them. And for me, the can be anything but junk. :-P

Reciently McDonalds has pushed a new line of products, McSalads. I guess that it is to reduce the critics they receive, like in the documental film SuperSizeME. This way, McDonalds wants to show that is possible to do a "healthy" dieat.

It's strange how McDonalds is overcontroled. I would like to see these kind of tests in the bars and restaurants from our cities, hahahaha it makes me laught, it wouldn't happen. If you ask them to give you a sheet describing the nutrition analisis of their dishes the will laught at you. In the other hand, McDonalds has to offer that information, or at least in USA were the author of the documental was surprised because there were a lot of restaurants without that sheet.

And he said, eating junk food is bad. Of course, we know that diets must be variated, so it's not recommended to eat always steak. If you take sweets the risk of detal problems rises. ¿Does someone tell you that sweets are bad? If you only take sweets you die, don't you? Or what about the icecreamers, they only give away icecreams, if you eat to much you get ill and of course, you can live eating only icecreams, right?

From my part, I still go to McDonalds, and I have become a fan of salads. There's no meal in which I don't take one. I love it. Olives oil, salt, and vinegar, great. It's cheap and delicious. Since I eat meals with salad, the hamburgers taste better. Curious, isn't it? Hehehehe.

Junk Food News

I'm trying but I find it hard

I don't have enough free time to do as many things as I want to. I write a lot of things, most of them in Spanish, but I'm too lazy to translate everything. After finishing the writing I prefer to go out, read a book or watch a film. Translating everything is a pain, it takes some time to write a post and it will be doubled or more if I have to translate it properly. So forgive me for not posting as much as in the Spanish blog. (You can try to learn Spanish)

This past weekend I watched Fantastic Four (F4) and I think it was funny, not a good film but enjoyable. Jessica Alba in her role was great, I think she is the best thing in the film, but I'm not impartial, I'm in love with her. I want to marry her, in my dreams of course, anyway don't tell my girlfriend she would get angry. XDD

We have come to be happy, at least me

We have come to be happy, at least me

"Always look on the bright side of life"

It amazes me how many people develop an infinite skill to be unhappy. They make efforts to be the best grumbler, and they are given off negative energy, to call it something. Energy that, in Ghostbusters 2, reach a state of river of evil under the big apple. I'm not talking about people how has real problems, I refer to those how are always looking an excuse to be angry against the world.

In example, almost every morning, driving to my job, there is a traffic jam. I look at the other cars and I see the tension in their faces. We will arrive late at job, as usual. Then, why, in this irremediable situation, they are tooting with car horn or shouting at people. The line is not going to move any faster, and doing so the only thing that you are going to obtain will be become old with a bad health because of the stress. I relax myself and listen to music, so the time in the line pass fast with my favourites bands. It is a moment in which I enjoy heavy metal "at the volume it must be listened", and I arrive to my job without any negative emotion in my body.

¿And what about those who goes to cinema? It seems that the whole world has develop a critic sense for art. They go inside the cinema and rather than enjoying "the magic of the movies" the spend all the time analysing the film just to tell later how bad it was and how much they have disliked it, although they already knew that before. I go inside, and relax to enjoy the film for I have gone to the cinema. I don't see a Steven Seagal expecting Sense and Sensitive.

After them, we have the parents (not the mine) that are always looking for something to be bitter about what their sons (old enough to drink alcohol, and go to jail) do. The decide to be annoyed because their grown up children goes out with their own friends, because they are late one minute of the returning hour, or because they eat in another place, in brief, because they have a life. Every time they can, they remember to their sons how upset and preoccupied they are because of what they do, and how bad and selfish they are because they go out in weekends. Their parents suffering, not knowing where they have gone and with whom, there are a lot of dangers in the night, they can't sleep until they are back at home, so they wait awake until they come, but not later than 2 o'clock we are not up to be all the night waiting. What a bad sons!!!

Finally, and a little bit apart from the rest because they are quite different, there are those who are always saying that they have some kind of curse. Everything is destiny's fault to keep their hands tighten up. Their lives are shit. Since they wake up until they go to bed everything goes bad. And when a day that could be the best day in the life of anyone, they don't enjoy because it's just the calm before the storm that is always spoiling their lives.

¿Whose life is "perfect"? Not mine. I try, as the song says, to look the bright side of life, despite there is a lot of people keep trying to look only the worst.

Sense of state

I think that something that we can learn from Metal Gear Solid 3 is that history must not be judge for what has been told to us because, normally, we see very little of what really happened.

Sometimes governments do what they do because that is what has to be done. Despite it means a sacrifice that will never known and implies being despised, the cause, the mission, the end, is more important. I am against to what Jorge W. Bush has done, but it's clear that he pursues a goal that is far from what he says. Money, or maybe other thing. How many diplomatic conversations and secret agreements there are; sure that a few. But how many of these things are revealed to the public. Seeing a president of a democratic nation acting like that is unusual in the times we live.

A government can't govern to and for the public opinion, or at least it mustn't. It should govern for the interest of the society that it represents. But, in this new world, we are losing it. Only statistics, the points that they go up or down on a survey, are important. Now, what they do and the motivations, are in second place, only matter the things that raise their position or at least don't harm it.

Inconstant

Probably this blog will be one of the things that I have made in my life to which I have been dedicated with the most constancy and perseverance. Everyone who knows me, have seen how inconstant I am, just the oposite as the heat in the summer.

As quick I start something, as quick I don't finish it. In example the international version of this blog, wonderful idea at first, now is a ballast for fast posting and not premeditated. However I will not let me give up.

Despite this tendency of mine, and many others, don't look to other places, those who are free of sin throw the first stone, I have made a great improvement. Now I can overcome myself, a little. Even though, as precaution, I try to purpose the things to make them as sonner as possible, before I become forced to fight agains my nature to avoid things like the one that happened to me with Star Trek TNG. I have been owning it for several months and I have watched only the first half of the season.

11-S The Day When Everything Changed

The other day, I had a strange vision after watching a film and telling me "how I like real life based films!". To me, a history with some truth behind increases my interest even if it is less good than others. It's interesting to know that someone really existed, who had that personality, etc. And suddenly it cross my mind, as they make films about intrigue policies and other pass events, JFK, Vietnam, The Cuban Missile Crisis, Nixon, ¿there will be a film about 11-S in ten yeas? Sure, but, Who will play Jorge Bush Jr.? And Donald Rumsfeld? How they will be portrayed?

They could make many different versions. "Jorge Bush, the traitor who fools America" or "Saint Jorge Bush" or simply "JBJ". The could make the film "The judgement of an assassin" about the trail of Sadam Hussein or the film "The Truth has a price" about the news-reporters killed by an USA tank.

No doubt that such a strange war like this will have as many films as filmmakers want to. ¿Who will start shooting? ¿They will have evidences or everything will be tapped in dishonour like the things about JFK?

Typing without looking the keyboard

If I take a look around, at my job, and make it carefully, I can realize that are few who look the keys while they type. It's something common in programmers because we were born with a keyboard under our arm. ¿How many of you look constantly the keys for typing?

Not having to look the keyboard should be something basic to learn for those who usually use the computer. Looking the keys, it is like having to look at the shift every time we change gear in the car, it would distract us of what we are doing.

To make things easier there are several programs to help us with this task, but I don't feel like to look for them, so use Google if you're interested. ;-)

You don't need to spend a lot of time to learn, just with a little everyday the improvement is spectacular.

The Aviator

-We don't care about money here, Mr. Hughes
-That's because you have it.

There are some actors that have some characteristics that when you see them they look always the same, Leonard DiCaprio is one of them. In my opinion, he fits well in the roles he plays and in this Martin Scorsese's film like never before. This time, I haven't saw Leonard on the screen, I have saw his character, the millioner Howard Hughes.

The history is well told. A man quite insane who could make films in the big way, aquire TWA flight company, and built the first Hercules (Military Transport Plane)

The two women of his life, Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner, by Cate Blanchett and Kate Beckinsale, are great. Each with her own special way to irradiate energy to the film. Furthermore, I feel some kind of devotion for this sort of things on films. Seing the acting of a real person and not a fiction character help me to wonder who he/she was.

It's funny to see Ian Holm, Professor Fitz, without thinking on Bilbo Baggins.

As usual, now I want to see the film in the original language, english.

How can I write about so many things.

I write posts in advance, so I can polish them before publishing. At any given time, if we take a look, I have lots of drafts waiting to become a post, really, at this moment 50. Some are just ideas, sketches not yet developed, but most of them are quite finished. I write so much that, sometimes, I think I’m going to dry up but then another idea comes to my head.

I can go crazy one day and publish all the drafts in a day.

Plug-in your videogame pad into the PC.

On PC, mouse and keyboard are used for almost everything, and even to play videogames. But there are many games that its control is not completely satisfying with these devices and the use of a gamepad is imperative.

This thing about pads is something personal, like the car, everyone has his own preferences, mine are: the DualShock PlayStation (PSX) gamepad. Since I used them I have wanted to plug one to my PC. It was long ago. PC gamepads were expensive and the one for PSX were much cheaper, better and with more buttons. Outstanding. I always thought that there should be a way to plug one of those to my PC, and, in fact, there was a way.

In emulatronia, a Spanish web about emulators, I found an article that explains how to build an adaptor. I was excited. With the help of Maese, we built our own homemade PSX to PC adaptor. It was a great labour, simple on paper, but for an awkward on soldering like me, quite complicated. It was entertaining funny and the invention worked.

Luckily, now we can purchase these adaptors in specialized shops and at good prices. The one we built started to fail a couple of years later (problems powering the pad) so I bought one. It’s not the best but works well. It’s plugged to the USB port and there’s no need to install any special drivers on Windows XP.

A morning doing nothing

Today I have wakened up not desiring to work, and luckily the work has accompanied. It's 14:30, in a while I will leave this place and I have not done anything. Well, I have watched if a couple of things were ready, I have been out to breakfast with my co-workers, and I have been waiting something to do. While I was waiting, with a pleasant wind coming thru the window, I have spent the morning listening to Evergrey, three discs, and after it, a random of all the Mp3s that I have here. I have organized my notes from the subject I'm studying because this evening I have class, and because finally we have Internet again I'm posting.

Now I'm going to the McDonalds to take a McSalad before the classes.

Someone imagine a Spanish superhero

"I mean a real one, not a parody".

I have always been disconnected from the world of comic, I know the heroes, Spiderman, X-Men, Spawn, Iron Man, Hulk, Fantastic 4, The Punisher, but not the things that happened around or the new releases.

I'm serious, do you imagine a Spanish superhero? I don't.

¿Do they exist? If I think on Spanish superheroes some names came to my head like Captain Seville or Super Lopez. I think that in my mind those kinds of superheroes are the reference to a Spanish superhero so whenever I try to think on a "real" superhero, the best thing that came to my head is Captain Vallecas, the heroe of laughing.

I wonder how someone like Spiderman would be in Seville. From where would he hang? Imagine, Giralda's Tower. It's not so unlikely. Furthermore, here, more than pursuing killers and that type of scum, he would have to become a social assistant. What the point of a man like him in Spain.

May Spain doesn't need super fools to save him. It may be something too vulgar so local artist think that they are above guys in tights and wearing underwear like superman. May the view we have from us be the reason to not exist a real Spanish superhero.

It seems that we don't like the super heroes stuff, but the specialized shops sell its comics by thousands.

BlackSheep Productions

Some sing, some dance, some write. Some do something, and some other do nothing.

I have liked Troops so much that I'm making subtitles for the DVD version I found some weeks ago. Lots of Spanish people who don't understand a word of English will be pleased, I hope so. Probably, if I'm good with the program, I will make a DVD menu too. Till then, you can watch the short film at TheForce.net by downloading the video

This people now are working in a series named IMPS The Relenteless. It has been released recently, on May. Enjoy these products from fans.

IMPS The Relentless

Iron Maiden – The Dance of Death

Your face says a lot of you

I have found a curious page in which an automatic system analyzes your face from a picture you send and make conclusions about your intelligence and personality. Interesting. You only have to go here:

FaceAnalyzer

Why I can't adopt a good posture

I don't refer to Kamasutra's.

I know that a good posture is the key to avoid chronic lesions. As programmer, I have to take special care when using the computer, so many hours sitting down, typing, could end with my health.

I'm conscious how a good posture can reduce the fatigue that being sitting down that much can make. But I can't avoid it, sometimes I sit to the front, to the back, leaned, to one side, just I miss faced down, but I will get sick.

It has been this way since school. The only thing that was over the back of the chair was my head. Even then I was aware of these things, so, when I realizes, I sit again well. It last no longer before I returned to the starting position. I can shun it.

I try to have an eye on me to avoid this bad habit, but it's very difficult. It seems that I keep doing this, mistreating my body and not getting up from the chair.

The job

-How is going the tests, Ikaru?
-Well, yesterday everything worked perfect. But today there's one thing that doesn't work and there are new test documentations.
-Then you have completed the tests?
(What part of what I have just said you didn't understand?) –Of course I haven't finished yet.

I "love" my job. Because I'm earning money and it makes things less heavy otherwise I would commit "suicide" or at least eating a lot of ice-cream whenever I came back home and close myself in a room and moving the head and saying "Ikaru is good, Ikaru is good...". Frankly, it doesn't enthusiasm me much, may it be because the mix of "I'm not made for this" and "don't leave me alone before the risk, I'm rookie and the system is too complex".

I'm programming in ancient language, COBOL. When you try to test something, no matter how simple, is a show. Murphy's Law is not enough to describe the probability of failure in the system. If something doesn't work could be the consequence of many circumstances, and of course unknown by this programmer I am. Although there are people who can give me a hand, they are all in another floor, yes, my working group is in a different place of me. Almost everything is resolved thru email. It's so impersonal, computers dehumanisation. I arrive, sit down, switch on PC, work, breakfast, work, return home.

Nothing, nothing, you give me my check at the end of the month and I happy.

Wolverine – The Storm Inside