marching on, originally uploaded by alexdecarvalho.

Placeholder for Thanksgiving post

28 November 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Silicon Valley Tweetup - Michael Brito, originally uploaded by b_d_solis.

This is a test to show how this works

29 September 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

What's going on?, originally uploaded by alexdecarvalho.

You brought joy to those you touched. You had an irresistible charm born of innocent mischief. You saw yourself as more human than cat, and made your presence felt despite not speaking much. You participated in everything and your curiosity knew no bounds. You were a peacemaker and a soother. You ruled the house and you welcomed all into your sphere. You feared naught. You lived to eat and you ate everything -- we understood this as a show of affection, of belonging, of participating in the daily family rituals. You lived a full life, and you gave more than you took.

So long, my steadfast companion. You are my friend and I miss you much.

The Best Thing in the World

What's the best thing in the world?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Love, when, so, you're loved again.
What's the best thing in the world?
--Something out of it, I think.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

15 May 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Miami-Montage-Charred, originally uploaded by alexdecarvalho.

Blog post

07 July 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

We held our second MobileMonday Miami event last week!

Thanks to those who participated and thanks to Myk Willis, CEO and Founder of Myxer, who gave an awesome presentation of this fast-growing  mobile startup. Mobile Monday Miami co-organizer and co-founder Jeffrey Sass (pictured) graciously hosted the event at Myxer's offices in Deerfield Beach.

MobileMonday is a global community fostering cooperation and business development through networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends in the mobile industry. We're excited to create a mobile community in Miami and look forward to its continued growth. If you're into mobile, you're invited to attend and participate in our free events.

The next one will be on June 9th, 2008 at Nokia's offices by the Miami Airport. If you're interested in attending, please RSVP on the Facebook event page, or just get in touch with me.

17 May 2008 in Mobile & Wireless | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

surrender
originally uploaded by alexdecarvalho.

I'm giving back my Mac today.

The contract unequivocally requires property to be returned and so it is that I'm giving the Mac back at some point today. Mind you, about six months ago I'd never used a Mac before and the almost prohibitive price had always kept me at bay. I was the proverbial die-hard PC guy. So when I was offered the Mac -- after I'd burned through one and a half of my own personal PCs at work -- I gladly accepted it out of sheer curiosity.

In the six months since I've had this Mac, I've turned on my PC exactly two times; and both times, it was to try out PC-only software. Suffice it to say the MacBook Pro is sublime. What's not to like? Once you get past the stuff that works differently, you won't imagine how you ever worked on anything else. I think this applies to more than the creative professions: the Mac has not really improved my photography workflow. Rather, I feel like my productivity's been boosted across the board. Maybe it's the more logical OS and UI (and I prefer Tiger to Leopard). Maybe it's because it crashes much less frequently. Maybe it's because you can have close to a gazillion tabs open of Firefox and a bunch of other stuff running at the same time and everything still works. Maybe it's the 3 hour battery life. And maybe it's also "Spaces". The combination of these things and more made it a pleasure to open up the Mac in the morning.

As a quick sidenote, I've often heard it said that Mac would convert most PC users if they gave 30-day trials.

Besides the obvious reluctance of going back to a Vista machine (ie, "Once you go Mac, you can't go back", etc.), I'm now also faced with the time-consuming hassle involved in setting up a workflow that had been perfected on the Mac. Some of it relates to the time it takes to find and install the right extensions for Firefox. Part of it has to do with giving up software that exists only for Mac, like the excellent Skitch. And the other part has to do with software that I had bought and installed, like OmniFocus, and will be unable to use until I get another Mac.

So when will I get another Mac? As soon as I can ... and utimately, a brand new Mac trumps a depreciated one.

"... you've left me with nothing but I have worked with less.” -Ani Difranco.

Update: My PC laptop won't start for some reason, I'll have to get that fixed now and maybe reinstall Vista. I'll lose a bunch of nice software I had installed, though.

Update 2: I got a new MacBook, which is performing better than the MacBook Pro I was using. Maybe it's the clean install. I had considered getting a 20" iMac -- they're amazing -- but I really do need something mobile. The MacBook is even more convenient to carry around than the MacBook Pro.

Note: It's worth clarifying that I'm not associated with Apple or any distributor. Also, I realize in the relative scheme of things, there are many worse things ...

13 May 2008 in Miscellaneous Stuff | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)