New article about Shoal

I've written another article: this time about project Shoal. Juan Pedro Danculovic helped me out with it. Thanks to him.

Google Charts API

Another great toy from Mountain View, CA!. Google Charts API has born.
I like to call it Code As A Service (CAAS). Just a HTTP invocation with a few parameters are need to render beautiful charts.

http://chart.apis.google.com
/chart?cht=p3&chd=s:hW&chs=250x100&chl=Firefox|IE

Linux 2.6.24

New features of the kernel

IE8 announced, what a joke!

People are raging about the spectacular announce of IE8. I'm not an MS hater, but come on ! IE is the worst piece of software to come out of Redmond.

PostgreSQL partitioned index tip

Did you know PostgreSQL can make use of a partitioned index? That is an index with a WHERE clause. For example:
CREATE INDEX bigidx1 ON TABLE bigtable1 WHERE bigfield1 < 10000

That effectively creates a better index than a whole column index. The planner can check the WHERE clause of the SELECT and choose a smaller index. Smaller means faster :)

Use with caution and ALWAYS benchmark the new indexes. This type of index is truly useful when you have a good part of the column data (say 70%) with a unique value and the rest with a very disperse value set. And the table is very big, obviously.

Hope it helps.

Great tips for bloggers

Thanks Jon Mountjoy for your great advice on blogging! This is a must read for every blogger.

Who needs PhotoShop? Not me!

For those in need of a free replacement of PhotoShop, check out The Gimp. This is a free alternative, as powerful as PS and extremely flexible.

Tidy up your HTML pages

Usually you have to submit clean HTML for technical articles in sites such as java.net. Writing clean HTML is very difficult and error prone. Thanks God, HTMLTidy exists.
Just run it over your pages and look at the warnings. Perphaps you want something more automated? Run it with file override to create a complaint HTML.

The greatest book about writing style ever

William Strunk wrote the bset compilation of writing tips. As a foreign language author I can only say THANKS.
If you are writing in English, such as articles or documentation, be sure to read at least once a month!

Paypal para argentinos

Me agrada comentarles que el servicio de Paypal "Withdraw to you credit card" funciona perfectamente para tarjeta argentinas.
Paypal nos permite enviar dinero a nuestra tarjeta de credito, en la forma de un descuento. Es decir en el resumen de cuenta nos aparece -U$D 200,00 por ejemplo.
Paypal se lleva 5 dolares por cada envio, lo cual me parece justo.

Esper:The power of events at your fingertip

Events are everywhere, in massive amounts , containing information you never imagined and in real time. But can you handle them all?
You are not alone, Esper allows you to process streams of events. A continous flow of events you can query and detect patterns.
The patterns are the real power of Esper, you can make use of sequencial and time patterns.

For example: If after the ocurrence of a Stock with more than 5 dollars, arrives a new Stock with less than 4 dollars, notify me!

Esper only notifies you, and leaves the rest to you.

Patrick Lightbody comments about my book

Thanks Patrick!

Javalobby interview

The guys at javalobby asked me a few questions.

A great article about consultancy

http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html