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Man! It’s been a while since I last posted on this blog… Lots of changes happened at the end of last year and beginning of this one. Hope to have time later to create a post with that.

I was reading an article about HTML and XHTML and wondered whether or not developers who prefer dynamic or loosely typed programming languages also prefer HTML versus XHTML, since XHTML is stricter than HTML.

I know we can’t compare apples with oranges, but this thought just make me think that I like strongly typed programming languages and appreciate XHTML more than HTML. So maybe those who like dynamically or loosely typed programming languages prefer HTML over XHTML.

In the end it probably doesn’t matter since we know we should use whatever is best suited for the task at hand (and not use the hammer for everything). Perhaps someone already researched or created a study about this and I haven’t seen it, you know, there are tons of useless studies out there, hehe.

This week I noticed that the Starbucks near my house changed the design and names of the list of items they sell, and the prices also changed. At first it gave me the impression that the prices had gone down a bit, but after seeing the prices on purchases I made on previous days, I clearly saw that they actually increased the prices on everything.

Good trick. I wonder who they paid for the Christmas-like design that gives the impression that everything’s cheaper when in fact everything costs more now. They’re now prepared for the coldest season of the year when people consume more coffee (I think) so, at least I’m sure Starbucks won’t go out of business. Right?

I read an article that came in the September issue of the Harvard Business Review named “How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity” containing a sentence that I’m not sure if Ed Catmull, the author, was the one who said it or not, but I really think it’s true.

If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up; if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something that works.

I agree that it’s not about good ideas but about the people, talented people. Be sure to surround yourself with them.

I just finished hearing episode 27 of the No Agenda podcast and the stuff about China is pretty interesting. Worth a look.

Some months ago I read a magazine that I would rather call Software Newbie due to the basic nature of its articles, it comes with some translated articles from some other sources but anyways I don’t recommend it much.

What was interesting, but not surprising, was the survey that they made last year on their website which gives some numbers related to salaries in the IT sector in México.

I’ll mention briefly few of the figures that were interesting to me. Depending on the type of job, the job functions that are better paid than “Development” are: Quality, Security, Consultant, Sales, Project Management, Architecture, and Directors (managers, I believe) at the top.

Salaries are also subject to age and degree of studies. This is obvious, right?

By programming language I’ll just mention that the best paid are those who do Cobol. In the Platform arena, the ones at the top are Mainframe, Unix and AS/400. Around databases the two at the top are DB2 and Informix as second place.

The last interesting figure is the one by certification. If you have a Project Management Institute certification then you’re at the top, then come IBM WebSphere, Security, SAP and IBM DB2.

Some time ago I read Andrew McAfee’s article “The Ties that Find” where he cites a really good article created in 1973 by Mark S. Granovetter called “The Strength of Weak Ties“. I didn’t have the chance at that time to read the article but, some weeks ago I decided to read it and I have to say that now I understand more clearly the real impact that the current social software makes in all aspects of our day to day activities, and more importantly for us knowledge workers who depend on finding the right people at the right time to be able to solve whatever the problem we’re faced with.

Definitely a good read; and by the looks of it, seems that there are a few other interesting papers in there, hope to have time later to check them out.

Here’s some interesting stuff I’ve been hearing and reading lately, mostly heard on the Daily Source Code, tech5 and No Agenda podcasts which I really like.

First thing that [doesn’t] surprises me is that Microsoft won, again, a first place. This time because of Windows Vista being the Most Disappointing Product of 2007, I must say… Well deserved guys!
Did you notice how many Microsoft and Apple products are on the list?

Looks like HP paid Staples $100 million dollars to not sell inexpensive third-party ink cartridges. As John C Dvorak said, how many they’re doing from just ink? (FYI: a considerable portion of the company’s profits come from ink.) Ink definitely is overpriced. This makes me think about another company that pays to make its bad operating system be installed instead of Linux, although it isn’t working too well, right?

Another interesting tidbit is that the Intel Viiv initiative is officially dead. Hmm, I never heard about it before, could that be the cause?

And a non techy thing is that the U.S. actually “outsources” (sort of) the army (Blackwater) and jails (for example, this one) where by the way, people are put in prison even when they shouldn’t be there, but since these private companies may charge the government per “capita” then you know what that means, right? Go check the interesting commentary of it on the No Agenda podcast episodes 3 and 4.
Weird use of taxes.

It was funny, and a coincidence, that after I finished updating something in my del.icio.us bookmarks I saw a blog post on Search400.com mentioning that del.icio.us is a good place to check for information regarding the AS/400 and iSeries, but that they didn’t find anything tagged with “System i”. Well, I guess Mark didn’t try the “System_i” tag which is the one I use but, regularly, I use it in conjunction with the iSeries tag.

If you try the POWER, POWER6, and alike tags you may find more interesting stuff.

Thanks to an internal blog post that Andy created I saw the existence of the Freecycle Network which is “a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns” and the goal is to promote waste reduction. It provides an “electronic forum to “recycle” unwanted items. One person’s trash can truly be another’s treasure!”

I have to say that it is an excellent idea, we should be giving things away that are dangerous as trash in landfills, or just reduce the waste sent (and placed) there.

Found the groups that exist in México but I think the number of members is pretty low, the same applies almost to every other country. The group for Guadalajara is actually a Yahoo! Group. I encourage you to join your local group to help save the planet at least one step at a time.

Luis has just shared with us a very enlightening video that you must see. Head on over to his blog post to see it.

Oh, and go here if you want to know a bit more about the speech.

Enjoy!