Francisco Costa Blog

2010 with a Tin Foil Hat

Francisco Costa — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 11:27:23 PST

Joaquin Phoenix in the movie Signs

Today I realize that 2009 is ending!!! WoooW

I started to think about what happen this year that add some impact on me. Well, a lot of good things happened but the truth is that 2009 was a meh year.

I spent most of my time thinking and working on what may happen in 2010, so at the end of the year I feel like I’m awaking to reality!
I do have some great expectations to 2010 and today while sincroWEBing the Christmas stream I found this piece of art that express my feeling…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Scott Dunbar One Man Band Singing Tin Foil Hat

may 2010 be with you

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Codebits 2009

Francisco Costa — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:33:24 PST

The next days I will be at Codebits.
I’ve been there in 2007 and the experience of participating in a programming marathon contest was great!

This year the purpose is a bit different since I’m more interested in networking and observing some tech-trends and the competitions ideas (I’m still wandering about what projects should I apply or submit), but the expectations are higher than never.
Now let’s pack the stuff and get the ticket train with 20% discount (Sapo keeps to surprise me with this small sugar details)

PS.: I’ve just realised now that Codebits favicon is pretty the same than the one I choose for this blog.

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Why should designers think big

Francisco Costa — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:30:29 PDT

What is design all about? The beauty of things? The simplicity?

Tim Brown gives some examples why should designers think big on their projects. I think this kind of thinking can make a difference in the evolution of technology and societies and we have to believe that taking the chance is more important than failing! If we believe so, why not thinking at a bigger picture?

Click here to view the embedded video.

We need more creativity in the world and everybody has some. That’s all the motivation we need to live our lives thinking on changing the world for the better!

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keep on going

Francisco Costa — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:42:55 PDT

a new number… playing on! =)

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My first Gadgets

Francisco Costa — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:03:26 PDT

Recently I’ve been sharing with friends some memories about when we were young and the toys that made us salivate! Those were the times!
For now I only remember this ones, I will add more in the future.

3D View Master

Casio Color CSF-7950

Nintendo Game Boy

Sony Walkman

Turbo Tommy

What about you? What were your favorite gadgets when you were a kid?

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Why I Love Linux

Francisco Costa — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:10:13 PDT

Linux

Legally free to copy, modify, share and redistribute.
The more you share the more you receive.

Windows

Do not lend or make illegal copies of this software.
The more you take the more you lose.

Faça o Download do Microsoft Windows XP SP3 Oficial Já está disponível a versão oficial do Microsoft Windows XP...

Post-It Story

Francisco Costa — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:13:39 PDT

If Post-it is a revolutionary product, you can use them to be creative and innovative in other fields.
But in the last years I’ve heard a few stories from different teachers, friends or even conference speakers, how post-it was originally created. I started to believe that everyone started to add a personal taste to the story just like a urban myth, but I think this is the true one:

Most people love them. But Post-it® Notes were not a planned product.
No one got the idea and then stayed up nights to invent it. A man named Spencer Silver was working in the 3M research laboratories in 1970 trying to find a strong adhesive. Silver developed a new adhesive, but it was even weaker than what 3M already manufactured. It stuck to objects, but could easily be lifted off. It was super weak instead of super strong.
No one knew what to do with the stuff, but Silver didn’t discard it. Then one Sunday four years later, another 3M scientist named Arthur Fry was singing in the church’s choir. He used markers to keep his place in the hymnal, but they kept falling out of the book. Remembering Silver’s adhesive, Fry used some to coat his markers. Success! With the weak adhesive, the markers stayed in place, yet lifted off without damaging the pages. 3M began distributing Post-it ® Notes nationwide in 1980 — ten years after Silver developed the super weak adhesive. Today they are one of the most popular office products available.

Just be creative

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Social Web Survey

Francisco Costa — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:38:43 PDT

This is a small survey for my Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Technology Master Degree @ University of Porto.

So if you have 30seconds to answer this Social Web Survey I would appreciate.
I promise to post the results in a few weeks.

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FriendFeed – my #1 source of information

Francisco Costa — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:16:29 PDT

This may be a controversial article, and many people may disagree with me, but this reflects my opinion on why FriendFeed is the ultimate tool for keeping me updated on the Internet.

FriendFeed Logo

My experience with FriendFeed started a long time ago, but only in the last couple months I’ve been using it extremely. The main reason of this is because of their redesign. Yes, this new design (with some minor new functionalities) made me fall in love with the application. You can get a better feeling of it at VentureBeat: FriendFeed’s redesign combines publishing and IM better than Facebook or Twitter.

Twitter vs FriendFeed

I have to say that I’m a huge fan of Twitter and that’s why I don’t blog more often. But Twitter has become a bit of a problem to me. I like to follow people that I think that are relevant to my interests, but I also like to follow back people who think my tweets are interesting. I could well follow about 50 different individuals to keep me updated about web stuff, but when I passed the 150 followers my stream become unreadable and full of non-interesting information. I could use some Twitter client to organize all those people into groups, but I’m a huge fan of open-source and most of those apps are built under Adobe Air.

Where does FriendFeed fills in?

FriendFeed has some unique characteristics that solved my problems. On FriendFeed you can add all you social profiles, so when you follow someone you don’t subscribe only to his Twitter account but you can also see their YouTube favorite videos or Flickr photos. You can also sort your contacts in different groups and you don’t need to refresh your browser for updates. You even don’t need to click on external links to watch videos or photos. Another big advantage is that you can comment others content and consequently do a better track of conversations. You are not limited to 140 characters and you can integrate your account with all others social networks such us delicious or Facebook. FriendFeed also has some other really sensible and useful features such as lists (a specific list of friends or people you subscribe to). You can get it all at the help page.
With FriendFeed you get all the juice with occasional chat.

The verdict

In the last month I used FriendFeed has the main source of information and I increased my followers on Twitter. These are some of the main reasons I prefer FriendFeed. If you haven’t tried spend a few moments on it and don’t forget to subscribe to my accounts.
Friendfeed
Twitter

What’s your opinion about this?

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Cloudviews

Francisco Costa — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:05:30 PDT

Last week I’ve attend to Cloudviews 2009 – Cloud Computing Conference at ISEP in Oporto.
It was with surprise that I realize this conference would take place in my town because most of the international events happen in Lisbon. Maybe because the team at Cloudviews is somehow related with ISEP.
The mains theme of the conference was “To Cloud or not to Cloud” and all the speakers tried their best to answer this question.

In general I think the conference was well organized but I was hopping to see more people attending it. Some of the speakers were from well known companies in the IT industry like Salesforce, IBM, Amazon or even OpenID and got surprise when I realize this was a free conference with free lunch (very nice btw) and snacks

I just subscribed the Cloud Computing Daily Views and I want to congratulate the team for their dedication and talent. Hope to see you in the next year!

And quoting Gerrit Huizenga “The era of cloud computing is just beginning”.

Mudei-me para a nuvem Achei por bem em dar o salto!?!? de um servidor...