“You’ve got Mail!”

Cuando AOL (America On Line) alla a fines de los 80, le puso a su sistema de correo electronico una voz de chabon que decia “You’ve got Mail!” cada vez que llegaba un nuevo mensaje, poco se imaginaba Ginebra de que diez años mas tarde hasta los gorriones tendrian direccion de e-mail. Continue reading

Microsoft losing its focus?

You knew Microsoft Reporting Services, Microsoft Excel Services, Microsoft Services for UNIX, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, and of course, the Service Packs.

Well, let me introduce you Microsoft Catering Services (aka Service Pack for human beings, or the Microsoft Stomach Update Services):

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Bola de nieve

Parece mentira, que en un pais como Suiza, la gente sea tan torpe sobre la nieve; bueno, si uno lo analiza detenidamente, no es tan raro. No nacimos para caminar sobre hielo, basicamente, y el hielo no es tampoco la mejor superficie para caminar o conducir un auto. Y la nieve, en ultima instancia, es hielo. Continue reading

About Operating Systems and Networks

“The true operating system is the net itself”

This phrase, common marketing argument in the late nineties, made me remind that in the eighties, Sun Microsystems’ founder, Scott McNealy, used the slogan “The Network is the Computer” to describe his vision:

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Source: http://www.csg.is.titech.ac.jp/~mich/photos/visitsun/13/full/13004.jpg

But, can we safely mix both concepts? Continue reading

Hardware Polymorphism

Since data and instructions are stored in RAM in pretty much the same way, a priori the CPU cannot distinguish each other, but by the cycle in which the binary chunk is fetched from memory. In the case of instructions, it then needs to decode the operation codes into instructions, with the added problem that if the operation is performed on data that is not implied by the operation code, the results are wrong or even catastrophic.

The question is: would it be useful if in hardware, each cell of data would carry its own type designation? I will discuss here the pros and cons of this approach, in respect to hardware and software architectures. Continue reading

pequeños lugares donde todos se conocen

steven paul jobs nacio el 24 de febrero de 1955 en san francisco, california, de un doctor en ciencias politicas sirio (abdulfattah “john” jandali) y de una maestra de escuela (joanne carole schieble) que, no pudiendo o no queriendo tenerlo en su regazo, lo entregaron en adopcion a paul y clara jobs, abogados de la ciudad de mountain view, en el condado de santa clara, california. Continue reading