Horizontal scrolling single page website done right

March 7th, 2014

Single page websites are quite a hot trend in web design, with vertical scrolling being the most popular (probably because of its ease of implementation). In this article I will summarize a strategy to implement a horizontal scrolling single page website for the purpose of achieving a certain usability goal. Too many times people implement a scrolling strategy just because “it looks cool”, or just because it’s the hot new trend, forgetting that a good design should be functional and aimed […]

My hardest debugging session just ended today

November 28th, 2013

The hardest debug situation of my life just ended. Celebrate! I was trying to make a USB audio adapter to work on an embedded device running OpenWRT, but Linux wasn’t recognizing the USB device. The device turned on, but wasn’t getting mapped to /dev. So I think, ok, I probably forgot the modules. I Installed the modules. Still no luck. Maybe I chose the wrong modules? I started trying different permutations of modules (with each try taking half an hour […]

Let them play! A parents’ guide to the video game culture

March 25th, 2013

Introduction “Can you turn it off?”, “Why don’t you go play outside?”, “Haven’t you played enough for today?”, “That’s it, time for bed”, “Can you please listen for a second?”. Sounds familiar? I’m writing this guide out of exasperation and frustration toward some episodes that I witnessed both personally when I was growing up and as an outsider looking at how some parents are handling the video game habits of their kids. I have always been so displeased with the deceiving and […]

Funniest Electronics Quiz

December 15th, 2012

This was my Thanksgiving take home quiz for my electronics class. My professor sure has a sense of humor.

Quick Ruby Review

December 10th, 2012

Getting ready for a technical interview involving Ruby? Check out this simple program that summarizes a few key features of Ruby.

Install wine 1.4 on Debian Squeeze the easy way

December 6th, 2012

So you need to update your wine version on Debian Squeeze. You can go ahead and compile from sources, or you can follow these simple instructions. Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list by adding the following: Mepis is a Linux distro based on the stable branch of Debian, but it comes with more updated binaries (wine included). Edit your /etc/apt/preferences file (or create it if it doesn’t exist): This will allow you to choose from which repository to install new packages. By default […]

Will it be possible for computers to one day understand language?

December 6th, 2012

Computers in the past 40 years have exponentially increased in power while their costs have steadily decreased. This access to low-cost powerful computers has given researchers all over the world the possibility to expand in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), a branch of computer science that aims at creating intelligent machines. The field of AI is divided in two groups, strong AI and weak AI. The former aims at creating artificial intelligence that matches or exceeds human intelligence and […]

RIM stock soars and here’s why you should sell them quickly

November 29th, 2012

I just came across this news that Goldman Sachs upgraded the shares of Research In Motion (the company behind Blackberry) with the justification that “they have a 30% chance that the phone will be a success”. Ok first of all Goldman Sachs has a reputation for creating the biggest financial bubbles in history. Second, has everybody forgot the Facebook IPO already? Goldman Sachs entered the Facebook deal, created a vibe effectively propping up the market price, then shortly after the […]

Install Linux Debian on the Samsung “Alex” Chromebook (x86, not ARM)

November 14th, 2012

Attention! This guide is obsolete and download links no longer work. I recommend to follow this guide instead (for installing Ubuntu). The page is still here for historical reference. Note: this guide only works for the Chromebooks that have a x86 processor (the Intel Atom). If your Chromebook has an ARM processor you might want to check this other guide: https://chromeos-cr48.blogspot.com/2012/10/arm-chrubuntu-1204-alpha-1-now.html After becoming a semi-finalist for the Google Apps Developer Challenge 2012 with my HTML5 Photo Viewer application I received from Google […]

How To Print with Sublime Text 2

November 7th, 2012

A few days ago I found that there is no way to print on Sublime Text 2. I was a little disappointed with this discovery, printing is such a basic feature that even Notepad offers. Why doesn’t Sublime Text 2 include it? Ok, besides saving trees, I hate to print stuff on paper myself, but sometimes you will be asked to print your code, either by a professor or someone else wanting to review your code. In the meanwhile I […]