Revisiting Ruby on Rails

While perusing digg.com today, I came across this interesting web page on Ruby on Rails tutorials. I had been following the developments of Ruby for awhile now but this page actually provided something useful: a set of tutorial links.

I was certainly intrigued by the flavor and depth of the list of help and tutorial sites. One link was especially useful and it includes an interactive tutorial: TryRuby!. Very nice...

Digging deeper, I found a really interesting video (it almost impressed me and that's no mean feat!): Creating a Weblog in 15 mins.

Conclusion: Going to invest some more time in a deeper understanding of Ruby on Rails.

Job Hunting Madness

So during my convalescence, I realized that it was definitely time to start exploring new job opportunities. There are many reasons for this decisions but primarily because I realized that my current job is not going anywhere and has little or zero growth potential.

I have had contacts with some of the major players in the IT world but with no luck for the moment.

However this is where I have fallen into a catch-22 type situation. Why? As it would seem that the IT/IS industry is much more interested in looking for young cheap staff (and I suppose more dynamic)! But what happened to the need for experienced professionals to be give guidance and strength to those IT projects...

My search continues, I have my CV and search engines posted on most of the major online job sites (monster, stepstone, ...)

Electro-Luminescent Technology or Printed Segmented Electroluminescence

I was recently reading some tech and sci-fi blogs when I came across this post aboutPixel Watches from O.D.M. The interesting thing with these watches is that they use electro-luminescent technology instead of standard LED displays or other. This technology is actually quite interesting it is more commonly known as Printed Segmented Electroluminescence or pSEL.

pSEL, according to WikiPedia, is a new technology (developed by UK company Pelikon) that builds on the phenomenon of electroluminescence and has uses in creating flexible displays and interface technologies. The technology essentially uses a printing method to encapture phosphorous materials that have different capacitive, insulation and conducting layers to create iconic and segmented lit areas. The company boasts that the displays are cheaper to produce, lightweight, brighter and can provide touch based input. Here is a demo from YouTube:

Can Playing the Wii Help You Exercise Correctly

While reading my RSS feeds today, I ran across this article: Personal trainer turns to the Wii | Crave : The gadget blog.

Interestingly enough, it discuss how a personal trainer in Glasgow (UK for you non-geography types) has devised a fitness program using the Wii. I am assuming that this is achieved through an extensive physical use of the controller. That means getting off the couch and jumping around with the Wii mote in hand.

Well people, I am trying to do that exactly (althought this week will be hard as my son ran off with the Wii for his vacation). I have been diligently playing Wii Sports doing both the Training and Practice activities and some events like tennis, bowling and boxing.

To be fair my Wii Training Age has varied anywhere between 28 (achieved 2 days ago) versus 50 (that one was done about 4 days ago). The problem is that for some of the sports I have not quite gotten the nack of them.

Going to keep on practicing... Cause this is finally a fitness program I can live with! ;-)

Is Internet invading all in France...

Ok, so the title is kind of lame for one of my first rants on this blog. Its all about how much the Internet is becoming a daily tool for every tom, dick & harry here in France.

This all started when we went to purchase a new stove top for the kitchen. The unit was purchased from the biggest home appliance chain :- Darty. This is a store that has in the last couple of years complete adopted the Internet as an extension/tool for their physical commercial presence and IMHO are doing it quite successfully. Their site not only provides online purchasing but also can tell you in which store near your location has the item you are interested in. They have even become one of the newest kids on the bloc for providing triple-play DSL services. More recently they have moved to provide a customer interface.

During the purchase, the sales rep gave us an Internet account pamphlet. The card inside the pamphlet provides you with a client account number and a temporary password (which you then need to change). The card basically ties your purchasing and support information to a web profile that you create. Giving you the facility to track your purchasing history, on-going deliveries and customer care issues.