The Otherside of Normal

For about a year now, I have been playing with OpenStack cloud platform off and on.  Always, just running it on my laptop or in some limited virtual environment.  But last week, my manager asked another colleague and I to deploy OpenStack at work on a few computer to play with some ideas.

It was so much fun to be finally be able to play with it on several machines.  Because our tests were very promising after a few days, we did have some hiccup due to our inexperience and faulty hardware. But now, we will be getting some new servers and blades to play with.

A buddy of mine recently asked me to setup a CentOS server for him.  Well, little does he know, he will be getting a server in a VM running in a small cloud deployment at my home. He is remote, and often uses my server, so since he won’t be seeing the actual machine, I will get him what he wants and ton of flexibility from doing a cloud.

I love OpenStack, but it is a bit of a pain and a usuable deployment needs a few machines.  I will be deploying CloudStack (from Apache) for my small cloud at home. Mostly due to its simplicity and management.  What I should say, it would be easier to deploy using the UShareSoft CloudStack distribution.

I have been using the String Framework on and off for a few years.  I heard about it back around 2005 or some time then.  I tried using it around 2006, but really didn’t have much use for it. But I stayed interested and would checking now and then to see the direction.

Fast forward a few years, now would be good, give or take a few months. I am working on Java applications for the cloud, and I get to play with Spring almost daily. The framework has matured so much, and so many new features have been added.  Not to mention the many new sub-projects that covers many of the other disciplines.

Like anything else, the more you use it, the better you understand it. And that either makes you like it more or like it less. Fortunately, for me, the more I use Spring, the more I like it. I have found it very easy to create RESTful applications and it is brain dead easy to add database persistence to your application. For those who use Roo, Grails, or Ruby on Rails, will know just how easy it is to follow convention and just have magic happens. Spring does some of that too.

Here are some people saying why they like spring. But if you want to learn a bit about Spring, you can start here.  I would like to do some Spring tutorial once I know the audience and their expectations. So if you don’t have time for reading or watching long videos  drop me an email and I will can start working on some short-to-the-point tutorials.  I have done some at work for my co-workers and they really like the format of focusing on getting a task done and showing how to do that with Spring.

It is not quite a “Passenger Bill Of Rights” yet, but I was very pleased to read in one of the Guyana online newspaper that the Tourism Ministry will be proposing a set of guidelines for Taxi operators.  The guidelines includes such things as not being rude to passengers. Who knew that was something taxi and minibus drivers had to be taught.

This effort is several decades too late, but I am glad to see that they are make progress. Another proposal by the Tourism Ministry is a blacklist for operators who don’t follow the rules.  As a potential tourist destination, the ministry needs to take several steps which to show visitors and transportation operators that safe and proper rules must be followed.

It wasn’t so long ago, that I had proposed to a friend of mine working at the Ministry of Tourism, that they have a passenger’s bill of right.  I have not traveled to all the States within the USA, but most of the ones I have visited, have  passenger bill of rights. It is posted at the back of the front seat so that passengers can easily see how they should be treated and what is expected of their driver.

Recently, I have suggested to said friend the the Tourism Ministry needs a way to measure the experience of visitors.  The goal of the idea was far bigger than that, or the one agency.  But the gist of it was that people should be able to say how a service or experience was.  This let’s you know what and where to improve if necessary, and can tell you the people who participated in an activity views it.

If Guyana wants to give visitors and the people living there the kind of quality of live they deserve, then it needs to include news ways of getting the pulse of the people. To see what they want and how best to make that happen.

Sometimes, not being able to do very simple, or what you think is simple, things can be very frustrating.  Making you want to pull your hair out or shake someone.  For example, you might want to pay your bill online or register for classes. But some silly policy gets in your way, and wonder why would anyone conceive of this process.

I have been witness to many a inefficient processes and procedures, and I usually vent by writing or telling someone else.  But, I had once used the first incarnation of Lorrev-dot-org as my place to vent and other to vent should they want to. I have been thinking lately of a new spin on that very old idea, a place to vent when you are frustrated by what would seem rather simply and straight forward things.

Quite recently, I was reading my FaceBook wall, and a friend was venting their frustration at having to take the same on documentation (proof of address, etc.) to the University of Guyana for the new semester registration.  The problem was, nothing has changed, they never said anything changed, yet they are going thought this process as if this is the first time they are registering.

The problem here is this, even if you know that is what you need every semester for registration. It just seems to be a waste of time on both the part of University of Guyana and the students, since should by now have a way to just bring up your information and ask you if anything change. If you say “no”, use that as current and move along.  But that is not what they do, and it just doesn’t seem like it should be. The solution doesn’t seem that complex to pull off at a university with Computer Science department.

I totally get wanting to vent if you have to go thought this or similar experiences. So I was thinking, again, yet another idea of a website where people can come put their grievances and other can pile on.  Adding comments, pictures, video, or whatever. The intent of the site won’t be like change.org. There are a few “let’s start a petition” or “let’s start a movement” type website. This won’t be anything like that, in my mind. It is just a place to complain on issues for which you have similar experiences or sympathy.

Why not use a site like FB? Saying that not everyone has a FB account, would be true, but not a valid enough reason. I like to think that the purpose of this site and what FB is in general are quite different.

May be I will have sometime to mock-up a simply site to see if it makes sense.  May be a I will use that for my ranting and vents instead of putting them here. My first entry would probably be buying food early in the day at a restaurant and felling like it was from the day before.

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I have been learning a number of different things lately, and getting a ton of ideas too.  I am taking several free-online-video-classes from several Universities at Udacity and Coursera.  One of my absolutely favorite courses at the moment is, “Interactive 3D Graphics” at Udacity.

I am a newbie to programming in the 3D graphics and rendering scene. But I have always had an interest in learning and even creating in this space.  Years ago I spend some time playing around with the 3D modeling application Blender and what was at the time Google SketchUp.  The wife and I even did some home designing for what one of our future home might look like in home design software.

These day however, I would like to really understand the technology and be able to use it later to better design or at least think how some of my ideas might be realized.  A very long time ago, I had this fantasy of designing a new city in Guyana. A brand new city, somewhere on higher grounds.  What would that look like? What would I put there?  Well, I don’t know all the answers yet, but I have some idea.

But recently, I have been thinking of an upgrade to Georgetown.  So one of my crazy ideas lately is to start a project and invite other to contribute on what an revamped Georgetown Guyana would look like.

Not just some imagined new city, but an imagined new Georgetown, keeping in place many of the landmarks and traditional building.  The city MUST look like Georgetown, but still not like the current Georgetown.  For example, Seabrook Market must be there, and so must the Court House, but the space in front of the market, that I want to be green, with benches, fountains, and possibly little or now motor vehicles (bigger than motorcycles). A new Georgetown that was modern, sophisticated, allowed for many public places with benches, fountains, sculptures, etc. It would be nice to have a boardwalk too.

I know I don’t have all the tools and even the know how, to pull off such a 3D project. But that would be awesome if it could be done with a few people.

Send Emails To: vblog—-at—-lorrev.org

Now that I have reactivated the blog, I really do intend to keep it going.  I had really slacked off there, and it wasn’t for a lack of material. No, simply laziness.  I love this form of sharing and I will be dedicated to updating it with cool stuff.

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