Back to the laboratory

Hy lads!!

It´s good to be back at daily routine. My car broke last week and as a consecuence of this unlucky event I could´n come to the laboratory since. I was given my car back last friday, and today is my first day back to routine.

SIMULTANEOUS LOCALIZATION AND MAPPING

SLAM. God bless Sebastian Thrun.

An amazing guy.

Graduation Ceremony

My Graduation took place yesterday 19 July 2007. In Spain you can have a Graduation ceremony without having your degree yet. In this ceremoy we receive the class graduation photo. It´s common that lawyers or doctors show this photo in his office. In my case it will be a memory from the past that will remind me of the great effort that I had to do to get my Computer Sciece Engineering degree. Now I'm a step closer to my dreams.

The photo above shows me with my parents. Without their support this moment wouldn't have been posible so I'm absolutely grateful. Also I would like to mention the rest of my family and the things that I´ve left behind during this long travel.

Future is becoming present

I don´t refer to our society or the level of technology we are reaching, I'm just talking about me. In less than 6 months time I'll get my Computer Science Engineering degree and, lucky me, I´m receiving all kind of job offers. Ones come from the University where I have the posibility to get a grant to complete my Ph.D. level or just work as a developer in a multimedia teaching tools project. Other posibilities come from private companies. As I have excellent qualifications I won't have any problem to enter a big company and build a career over the years.

Of course is good to have this bunch of choices but it also makes it difficult to make a decision. Anyway future is becoming present and sooner than what I think I will have taken a decision (and my fate will be written, jeje).

While this moment comes I'll keep working hard.

See you.

Growing up

Converting file encoding in Linux

If you usually use both Windows and Linux, you might have experienced the disappointing fact that files created on Linux don't show properly in Windows and vice versa. This is caused by the different file encodings that each operating system usually work with.

You can overcome this problem in Windows using a software called notepad++, an open software powerful replacement for the tiny notepad. This software lets you change the encoding of a file, and automatically detects the actual encoding of the file you are opening.

In linux things are usually more complicated yet more powerful. There is a command that you have to execute in a system console that lets you convert file encoding:

> iconv -f [in encoding] -t [out encoding] [in filename]

This command do not write a new file, instead it writes the converted characters to the console, so in order to create a new file with the desired encoding you have to redirect the output:


> iconv -f [in encoding] -t [out encoding] [in filename] > [out filename]

Here you are an actual example:

> iconv -f iso88591 -t utf8 in.tex > out.tex

This will convert the file in.tex from iso88591 encoding to utf8, a more suitable encoding for Linux.

I hope this has been useful for you.

Don't forget Steorn

I'm writing this in order to remember you the existence of this Irish company called Steorn. The claim to have discovered a new technology able to produce free energy, free in the sense tha you don't have to introduce any kind of source to the system to get the energy.

If this were actually true, the world would experience the most important change since probably the discovery of the fire. It's not a joke, but it seem very improbable that this is going to work.

You might visit steorn web page now and then to be informed, I consider this a good idea.

See you.

UPS I FEEL IT AGAIN!!!!

Lucky me? Not that much, not really. It's a shame, but I know what I tell. Anyway I'll let it come in.

What´s Up???

More than two months have gone by since my last post. During this period I´ve left my seven years long job at Telefónica , I´ve finished all the courses I needed to get my Computer Science degree (I haven´t finished my final year project, but I will soon), I´ve began to study french, and many other things.

Actually, I don´t write this post with any especial purpose in mind, it´s just to let you know that I´m alive, and that live is allways interesting to be lived, if you don´t agree with me, just ask me, and I´ll show how much a live can change in very little time.

Last but not least, today I´ve been playing arround with my lego NXT. I´ve built a line follower, a very common type of robot that is the same to robot building as it is the "hello world" program to programming. I´ll post some pictures and a video over the next week (I hope I will).

Well I think thas´t all.

Read me soon :).