March 16, 2010
Having a kid is lots of fun, but also the most time consuming task one can have. Lately house chores were starting to create a backlog, since obviously kid would come first 
That said, the family decided it was time to get some help, and we rushed to buy a Robot Vacuum Cleaner in order to get an “extra hand”. Some of you might say it was an impulse buy, and you are probably right… but the truth is: it is already paying off.
I bought the Roomba 555, which can only be found in Europe but is equivalent to the 560 model. I bought this model instead of the cheaper 520 model because I wanted the possibility to schedule the Roomba to operate while we are off at work.
After an initial overnight battery charge we were set to give the Roomba chore: while me and my wife where handling meals (our’s and daughter’s) the Roomba was set out to vacuum the other rooms.
I must say that expectations weren’t either very high nor low… I knew it wouldn’t clean all spots but I did expect it to clean well those it could reach. My furniture disposition was slightly changed in order to make sure the Roomba didn’t miss as many spots (basically made room for the Roomba to reach every corner by displacing furniture a few centimeters).
The results were pretty good, although not as powerful as a common vacuum cleaner the Roomba was able to pickup all the dust in the floor (both wooden and tile floors which included rugs in both environments).
So far my only disappointment with the Roomba is that it fills up too quickly. Fortunately its quite easy to remove the dirt from the Roomba (same can’t be said of the hairs that get stuck in the brushes of the Roomba), and since there is no bag it is an economic task to clear the contents of the bin often.
Overall I think it is a great investment in your personal/family time.
February 18, 2010
Today was a very important day, as I finally defended my Phd Thesis under the title “Resource Optimizations in Broadcast enabled Networks”.
I was probably a bit nervous as the defense was about the start, as shown in the above picture. The defense started with a 30 min delay, as one my jury member was held in traffic. But in 2h30m time I would be out of the room with boosting confidence levels, as I had finally successfully completed one my most important milestones.
Today I concluded a path, which started 5 years ago when I accepted the challenge of my supervisor to conduct research in an area that was then not very clear if it would become the next hit or flop in Telecom. Today we have very successful IPTV services and operators that cover several technologies (which include broadcast) under a single service platform.
I don’t think my research work in the area is done, far from that, I still believe much needs to be done and changed in the Telecom industry in order to survive in this century without becoming a fossil. But I leave all my new ideas to projects to come
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February 1, 2010
Although the weather wasn’t the most pleasing, I decided to get back to my MTB weekend rides. Today (as a warmup ride) my brother and I took an all road ride to Praia da Barra, that is approximately 15km away from Aveiro.
Since I haven’t done any exercise since summer, my legs are very sore (can’t wait for tomorrow, when they will feel completely numb). But hopefully I will be back in shape in no time, in order to start doing more appealing tracks offroad.
An interesting side effect of these bike rides is that I’m taking a GPS with me that enables me to log the track. This information is very useful for the OpenStreetMap Project that requires your GPS logs to build a free geographic data repository (resembling Google Maps and Bing Maps). I’ve already contributed to the project in the summer, mapping some streets in Aveiro, but lots of places are still missing information.
My challenge is for you to take your GPS along with you next time you go out and upload back your tracks into OpenStreetMap.
December 14, 2009
I recently got a new Macbook Pro, which means I also moved to Snow Leopard (not that I couldn’t have stayed with Leopard).
I keep a Time Machine backup, and could have used it to move all my files to the new system. But since I had to many things installed which I don’t use anymore, I decided to move just my personal settings to the new system.
This constituted a great opportunity to list the applications I consider essential:
- 1 Password
- Adium
- Flip4Mac
- git
- Growl
- Handbrake
- KisMAC
- Freemind
- MacPorts
- NetNewsWire
- Office 2008
- Papers
- Perian
- Seashore
- Skype
- Telephone
- VLC
- VMWare Fusion
- Wireshark
- XCode
And had to leave GPGMail out (no snow leopard version currently available)
The question now is: What am I missing ?
November 20, 2009
Here I am, back in Berlin.
This has suddenly become my second city, since this year I’ve spent more time in Berlin then in Faro, Portugal…
I’m back in Fokus for the final meeting of project C-Cast. And as I prepare to leave, I know that I’ll be back in the beginning of next year for the project Workshop were we will be doing demos of the work done.
Unfortunately I’ve never took some days off to properly explore the city, one of these trips I must bring my family with me and show them around this great city.
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