back to home.... winXP tablet edition

When I bougth my used Travel mate C300, I had a lot of troubles due to a Windows update problem. My computer is a second hand one, so I decided to format and restore my system.

Unfortunately, my PC didn't came with the restore cd (it's not an Acer fault at all!) and I didn't find it on the web. After some tries, actually a lot of tries, I decided to migrate to Linux. The idea came thanks to Google. My first results from my enquire about Linux and C300 was some success cases! I downloaded the Ubuntu 6.10 and installed it. My experience was great, specially after the version 7.06 which almost all features come out-of-the-box, even my pen and my wireless connection.

But some problems persisted. I wasn't able to connect to my Pocket Pc properly. Each try was a new headache, with lots of duplicated registers. Another really heavy issue was the absence of an useful handwriting recognition system. I'd found a lot of softwares and tutorials and forums, but the fact is: there is no such system for Linux.

My final balance is that Linux is a great solution, since all you need is offered out-of-the-box. The closed solution offered by Ubuntu is wonderful, and if l didn't have a tablet PC with a Pocket Pc, I'm sure I would keep using Linux.

Maybe for the next generation of Ubuntu release, we can find, like on Windows vista, a ready to use tablet PC system, with all features that someone who spend more money to buy a laptop with touch screen would like to find. I'll be looking for some way to achieve it.

For now, l 'm using Windows again, thanks to Duke, who gave me the opportunity to download my restore cds. Thank you again Duke!

Just do it....

Last weekend we spent all day working for new temporary company, Conair. We had worked hard for two day to guarantee our participation on a fair called APAS - Supermarket Sao Paulo's Association. This is a very specific fair, which buyers from all the state came to check what's new.

A lot of things happened, but almost all the problems was derived from our initial situation. Three bosses, few time and not enough empowerment to take some decisions. We started with just one week, a lot of things badly defined and no allowance to decide how to spend the money. So, we played a confusing game like treasure hunt, where our target was guess who was responsible for what, what was done and what was forgotten somewhere.

And, as we say in Portuguese, just few problems is not a problem ; ), we was inside a test week on our university.

Result of all of that?! We did some tests, lost other ones, but we've done a really nice work for our stand! We fond everything! Security, cleaner, decoration and we solve all issues arrived during the stand build. Simple and brilliant! : )

Now, our last target is guarantee everybody's payments on the right date... Is it hard?! Not for us!!!!

My company, your company, our company...

After some days from my arrive here in Brazil, I received a proposal to work together with a friend from Poli Junior. She is the Poli Junior and CAM founder, she worked with the creation of Zumble and now she is the manager of Conair's operation on Brazil.

So, there are lots of potential over her invitation. The first idea was introduce us (I and Carol) in a project related to quality of life. We was assigned as a work force, to do what is necessary to run some groups and start to get some money. At the same time, we was responsible to coordinate the tasks to develop a company able to be a big one! But, our introduction wasn't done properly, and now we're waiting for a resolution for the conflict created during our start.

On the other hand, she offered us an opportunity to work on the management of her company's participation on the APAS fair. It is the biggest event for supermarkets suppliers and representatives. We're going to work for one month, at least, and after the fair we'll take care of the follow up of contacts done during the event.

It is a lot of work, plenty of challenges and, I'm sure, it's a good opportunity to learn and get more experience.

For my engineer side, I'm keep talking with a friend who is working hard with deep eletrical engineering. I asked him some help to find a easy implementation for my telecommunications' knowledge. He is good and I'm sure he'll propose something interesting.

Now, my statement is: Do first, discuss results later. It's obvious, but hard for someone so anxious like me. Quoting Nuno Cobra: "To do!"

Career

Recently I've been suffering of a very common problem: difficult to take some decision, or, even better, difficulty to understand what I want for my career. But, after lots of tries, thousands of hours thinking about this subject and some books later, I have some good ideas! : )

I've already written it, but I'd like to repeat. I like to work over problems solution. I know it because I see almost everything like a problem to be solved. It can be a problem, and actually I'm working on it. : ) But, I see it can be a good start point.

After that, I thought some time about an IT career, because I love technology and always be fascinated with software development. But I realize I like software development because it's a form to train my solve-problem skill without any real trouble. It's easy! I just need to create some usually worthless problem, look at the internet for possible solutions, learn how to use them and, finally, to spend a lot of time programming and implementing that solution. It's really cool for me, but the very point is: I like to learn and solve problems.

So, if I like IT and software development, why don't follow that career?! Because I'm a quite sick and tired of spend time in front a computer while things happens. I've worked with that and I know it's just a small peace inside the project. Depends on how your behaviour is, you can do a good job and never be recognized. And you can be away from people for a long time - and I really want to work with people now!

So, I've been looking for other options. Something that is interesting for me and I think I can do a good job. You know, "where your vocation cross the world needs, there lies your passion". I believe my vocations are to learn and solve problems. I like IT and technology, maybe it's the reason I choose to do Telecommunication engineering. And, after some time working for Poli Junior, I discover I like to work with people.

So, my today's idea is: why not to be a Project Manager?! It sounds good. I've worked in a couple of projects and I liked it! I know, almost all of them didn't get an excellent result, but I liked that solve-problem situations, where you need to deal with lots of people to get resources to achieve a solution for your customer. And each past error is now some experience for me. I've been involved in a lot of situations and flaw sometimes, did good things in other and, in the end, I learned about both of them.

It's interesting that Carol and Bruno are involved with Ganen Producoes project to bring a theatre play to Indaiatuba. I'm helping Carol with the definition of the project and it's really exciting. At the same time, I'm reading a book about project management. Not about tools, but about human issues that differentiate the good and the bad project manager. And the more I read the more I want to work with that.

But I really know I don't have all the characteristics to do be a project manager yet. So I want to spend my trainee time working in situations where I can develop that attitude and knowledge to see if I'm suitable to work with that in the next years.

I just need to discover the stone's way...

New year, new targets

Well, the New Year finally arrived!!!

And, with the new year, old responsibilities... you know, that new-year-promises stuff!! : )

But I can't just take some piece of paper and start to write a lot of promises or task or even more complex SMART objectives, like we learned at the CME course. No. Now I have a more general framework based on Steven Covey's ideas and books. It look like self help in the very beginning, but I'm sure it's not. Why?! Easy... because it's very hard to implement... no quick-fix, as he says.

And I'm finally finishing my personal mission statement. I had done a very good version, but I wasn't feeling comfortable with that. The pieces didn't look like connected. So, today I couple of hours in front of it and I tried to understand what was the problem. The texts was very good and, actually I didn't change anything, but it was very long and disconnected!

Finally I understood! I didn't have enough information to prioritize what's more important than other. So, I just write how it's working today and what my ideal prioritization list. But it's still very long! I want a one A5 page statement or less. I intend to invest more time this week.

I hope my next post will include my pocket version mission statement. : )

Well, to remember the old times, a quote:

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."