Google Test Automation Conference 2010

Oh, good news also! I've been invited to attend the 5th Anual Google Test Automation Conference. During this conference we will be discussing cutting edge challenges in test automation, and evaluate potential solutions. Testing in software development is very important, yet not executed properly in most companies. I'm very happy I get the chance to attend, as this conference has the particularity that you can't buy an entry ticket: you have to apply for the attendance and be selected among other people. The conference will take place in Hyderabad, India in the end of October. I'm very excited about this conference, as it's a unique opportunity to meet some of the brightest engineers in the area, and it's also a good opportunity to extend my professional network.

Will keep you updated about all this!

With the pirate hat!

The sunday was spent... resting from my outing the previous day and then I had lunch in front of the football match. Later on the day, Ming Hwee and myself went out to the "World Trade Center" of Mexico, where we had dinner at this revolving restaurant at the top of the tower. The food was average, and it was extra hot (the AC was down). And I got a bit sick with all these eternal rotation of the floor. Not so exciting weekend right? But it was still a good one, meeting with friends after a long time is the best thing ever

Now, this weekend was a bit better! After the hard week with long hours, I woke up quite late on Saturday (13:30! but I was awaken by a work phone call) and went to see the Spain-Paraguay match in front of some nice steak. I only saw the second time of the match, and was cheered by the whole waitress team haha (I'm quite a regular there, it's the only decent restaurant near my hotel). After the match, I decided to go visit the Chapultepec forest castle,  but I guess my walk to get there and discovering the gardens took me too long, as I reached too late to get in (the castle is actually in top of a hill, and is now converted in a museum, but it closes at 4pm...). So I just went to a nearby mall, saw a movie (can't remember the name of the movie actually, I jumped in the first movie that was showing and it was nothing exceptional), and had dinner around. Nothing much

Sunday was much better, as I had booked a day trip with the hotel to Taxco (see the link for a detailed description of the place), with a stop over in Cuernavaca. To make things short, if you don't want to read the whole wikipedia page, Taxco is located 170km south Mexico, in the middle of the mountains. It has been developed around the silver mine industry, and is well know around the world (well, not that known, as I didn't have idea of it before coming here) for the silver industry. Apparently celebrities go all the way to this lost country to have some custom made jewelery.

Apart from that, we saw some cathedrals, churches and castles. Quite nice places, I really enjoyed the atmosphere of Taxco. I'll leave you with the photos, they will speak better than me concerning the magnificence of the place

Nothing planned next weekend, will keep you posted!

Every time I arrive at a new big city I need to make a walk around, in order for me to get a glimpse of the life in the city, the people, the architecture: the spirit of the life. I didn't have the chance to so such thing yet in Mexico city, mostly because I didn't have the opportunity to do it: first weekend was spend with Varun and Ming Hwee in Santa Fe mall and the nascar race, second weekend was spent in Xochimilco and the Teotihuacan pyramids. As Varun left Mexico this morning to go back to Singapore, and Ming Hwee has left the city to enjoy some time in Cancun (he is getting a diving certification), I decided to do my walk today!

The "only" problem is that I had no clue at all where I should go and how to move around in the city (no map!, and no 3g access to get access to Google maps in my phone). I decided to start in the Zócalo, or Plaza de la Constitución, located in the middle of the Centro Histórico of Mexico city. It's one of the biggest squares of the world (for the sake of comparison, this square is 57600 m2, and Lyon's biggest square, Place Bellecour, is a bit bigger, 62400m2). Nowadays a huge screen is installed for Mexicans to see the world cup, so I just visited the Metropolitan Cathedral and walked around, as there were interesting people to observe (some person relieving stress with some herbs, some people dancing in the streets in antique costumes, and a lot of flee markets). Once I view everything in the square, I found a tourism office that gave a small map of the area, so I headed south as there seemed to be some point of interest. Then I headed back north to view the Bellas artes building and walk around the small park.

I stopped to eat something in an Italian restaurant, where I had some Parma ham with cheese and a salad with peach, chicken and nuts, with some sangria and red wine. The food was good, but the portions where way too big for me. Left half of both portions!

After the big lunch I continued walking along the "Paseo de la reforma", as this road is full of very nice architectures and statues and other cultural stuff to see. It even goes through the Chapultepec forest (that I'll pay a visit in the following weekends).

I actually knew roughly the way, remembering where the cab drove me in the morning. After exiting the forest, I saw the "Auditorio Nacional", and from there I was not really sure of the way, but I somehow found my way back to the hotel.

The complete itinerary I actually did today:

View Mexico City walking tour in a larger map

What to say about this walk? Well, it was longer than I expected (Google maps says that my itinerary was 10km worth), and it definitely was a good outing. Contrary to what everyone said to me I didn't feel in danger at any point (although I recognize I would not try to do the walk by night, especially the forest part), and it gave me a good overview of the city (even if it's a very small portion of it). Mexico is like a swarm: a LOT of people around, the streets are crowded (careful with your belongings!) and it's very noisy. But I kind of enjoyed the walk: the architecture is interesting, the flee markets are full of interesting stuff (I'll need to come back there for some shopping), and it's full of different colors, smells, people.

Photos done during the walk:

The day started early: the tour guide went to pick us up at 830am sharp. We went around the city to get the other tour members, and started the tour by a quick stop at the Square of the Three Cultures. Behind this very nice name is just a square with very small pyramids rests, a church surrounded by some buildings. Nothing much to see, and we didn't actually get the chance to walk in.

We then headed for the Teotihucan pyramids, located east of Mexico, a 50km ride. During the ride we saw all the slums and I was shocked by the number of them, all at mere meters of the highway. Mexico is the largest city of the world, with more than 28million souls living there.

Before heading for the pyramids, we did a stop in a shop / distillery, where they explained us from where the tequila comes from and other usages of the plant itself (see the pictures in the picasa album). We spent some time there to taste the local tequila and buy some souvenirs (I bough a small statue made out of some black volcanic stone). I tried a very special tequila, that has a worm inside the bottle. The persons who finishes the bottle will have to eat the worm, hence granting him 7 years of good luck.

After the shop time, we went to visit the pyramids, where we were given 2h time to go up and down the two different pyramids and walk in the Avenue of the Deads. No need to say that under the heavy sun the ascension was tiring, but definitely worth it. The view was astonishing and the breeze at the top was sooo nice The only thing that went to spoil a bit the experience was the crowd of people trying to sell you cheap stuff at all cost. Kind of reminded me Bangkok and the hard core sellers there.

After the pyramids and a good lunch in a restaurant nearby (we managed to get a glimpse of the world cup match Germany-Australia, 4-0!) we went back to Mexico for our last stop: the Shrine of Guadalupe, the largest Latin American tribute to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The church was amazingly big, and there were a total of 6 f them in the site.

Nice journey, nice tour, but tiring!

Check the photos:

Today Varun, Min Hwee and myself have gone to Xochimilco. Located in the south of Mexico city (~30min cab ride), this maze of canals was originally a lake. The Aztec (or Mayas, I don't remember what the boat driver told me), back at their time, started to put soil and sand in the lake to gain land to cultivate. During the dry seasons they would plant trees in those artificial islands in order to avoid the sand to go away. Over the time, the lake was not really discernible, and only remains the 184km worth of canals that we can visit today. The site is actually considered as a World Heritage site by UNESCO, and families and friends go there during the weekends for relaxing time.

In our case, we reached there around noon, and rented a whole boat for the 3 of us (around 600 pesos in total) for approximately 2h. Funny thing about the place: you basically go through the canals, and all along the way you will have the merchants and other people (like music bands) that will offer their service, hook to your boat and such. We just ordered some corn along the way as we were a bit hungry. We also stopped in one of the gardens to see the flowers. Nothing exceptional, but nice flowers!

Very relaxing time indeed, and I loved the colors of the boats.

Oh, some story our boat rider told me along the way. I asked him why there were some trees with very creepy tolls hooked to them. Apparently, far away in the canals there is a 70 year old guy who hangs these tolls in the trees of his island. He says that they look at him while he is planting the flowers and such, and that he believes they actually move their eyes to him.

You will find the pictures in the Picasa album

Mostly not because of work, as it has gone smoothly, no major problems, just doing some hand over of procedures, attending some meetings and trying to get my emails (my mobility card is not working, but it's getting solved) and such things.

The hard part has been to get used to life in Mexico, with the jet lag hitting me. Why hard? Well, the city itself is very different of what I'm used in Singapore or back in Europe: very dirty, chaotic, polluted. Plus I don't really feel safe in the place. I mean, I'm sure it's not as unsafe as everyone pictures it, but I do not feel comfortable walking around alone (although at least I can speak Spanish!).

Also, one of the hardest things is that I'm really missing my life in Singapore. I mean, more than the life and place, it's the people there that I miss.

These trips that get you out of your comfort zone make you realize how important are some persons and things in your life, that you take for acquainted and therefore cannot see how precious they are to you.But even if it is indeed hard, it's something that will make the come back even sweeter.

Anyway, this weekend was quite calm. Saturday we went to the Santa Fe shopping mall, shopped around and finished by watching "Sex and the City 2" movie. Sunday we went to a Nascar race in the circuit of Mexico. I have to admit that the Nascar race was not as exiting as I expected: I mean, it's just powerful cars racing in a circular track. Nothing much except when an accident occurs. But it was still a good outing, spending time with my colleagues, and getting to know them more than the office environment (although I also got hard burned haha).

Oh, also: food here is quite different than what we are used in Singapore. I feel it's more fattening, and I'll need to be careful with what I eat in the future. I also tried some exotic local food: some worms with guacamole and tortillas. A bit crunchy but not bad!

Pictures of the Nascar race:

Stay tuned for the next blog entries!

During the whole month this was not the only time we celebrated my birthday, I had 2 surprise celebrations with chocolate cakes (miam!) and of course I could open my family's presents and cards, that made my week of course. I wish I could spend more time with them but my life has sent me here.
I'll update the post with some pictures when I've time to upload them!

Firstly, I've changed my iPhone 3GS for a Google Nexus One. Many of coworkers and friends were very surprised I made the change. The main reasons of the changes are:

• I'm strongly against Apple's policy towards their products: they close everything (hardware and software).
• I hate the use of iTunes. It's simply a horribly designed software that we are forced to use to do whatever we want with the phone. It's only available for Mac and Windows (Linux.. hello?), and it's hyper buggy. After a formatting of your pc you will need to re-upload all the music and such, and sometimes it just does evil things (the latest one before selling the iPhone was to erase from my phone AND iTunes some of my apps, including paid ones. Of course, re-finding them and re-downloading them solved the issue, but come-on...
• As a Computer and Software Engineer, I find it horrible and impossible in my case to develop software for their phone. Firstly, you need a Mac (hard for those owning a PC...). Secondly you need to pay ~90US$ to be able to submit your application to them in order to make it through the AppStore. Lastly but most importantly, you need to get through their obscure and totalistic system to get your app approval. Basically it takes months for your app to get to the AppStore, if it makes the way there. They censor so many programs (last on the story of censorship... Apple removes Wi-Fi Finders from AppStore) that it's hard to make the effort to develop software for them.
• The iPhone has become a "popular mass gadget" and there are so many people that have one in Singapore it just feels wrong to own one!

All this made me look for another phone. Immediately I turned my head to Android based phones. As you may know, Android is an open source phone OS developed by Google. The number of phones embedding Android are increasing exponentially, to the point that Apple is scared and is filling patent lawsuits to some vendors. My selection was narrowed down to two models, the Droid, by Motorola, and The Nexus One, by Google. They are both great phones, but I decided to buy the Nexus one mostly because although the hardware is a bit less powerful, it gets rid of the keyboard and has a great skin. Plus you can engrave two lines in the back of the phone (mine is: "Work Hard. Play Harder").

The main benefits of the Android Phones, and of the Nexus One:

• Its open-source. The code is there, you can modify it and load your own version of the OS into your phone.
• You can create your own programs and make them available to anyone. For free.
• The programming language used is Java, the SDK is really well done, and you can develop in any OS. Yes, even in MAC OSX. You also don't need to learn a new language, Java is widely usen and has made it's proof.
• The Android Market is full of amazing applications and games. As there is no restriction over the submission of applications, competition among applications is important. This makes the authors of applications be creative and create good applications.
• The resolution of the phone is amazing compared to the iPhone.
• You can really customize the phone to big extents (iPhone users, do you have "live" wallpapers? oups sorry, you cannot even put wallpapers in your phone.
• The different layers of the architecture of Android is just amazing. It allows to work between applications in a seamless way.
• It weights less as the storage media is a micro-SD card. This also means you can copy files to your phone straight away through the card. How about the iPhone? oh, yeah, can't.

Anyway, this is turning to be a troll, I will not continue the debate. Just to say that I'm really happy with the phone and that i'll be developing some apps for fun whenever I've some time.

Oh, also to add up to the geek moment I had this weekend I added two widgets to the side bar:

• the first one will sync the blog with my twitter account and will show my latest tweet. For those who don't know twitter, it's a website where you can share short messages (up to 100 words). These messages can be public or private, so you can follow some persons (they need to approve it) or friends to keep in touch. I use it as a "status" message, it just shows what I've in mind at that point of time.
• the second one is a small map that shows my location with Google Latitude. I don't know though if I'll keep it, I'm just giving it a try. The location is updated automatically by my phone, so you will know where I'm at any time, even when I'm travelling

Nothing much, keep in touch ppl!

The weekend was quite nice, although he might think I tried to make him drink too much

He arrived Friday 12 around 9-ish. The bus trip seemed to go quite well, as t was this kind of luxury-but-still-cheap buses that do the link between KL and Singapore several times a day. Besides the trouble to find each other (first I was waiting at one bus station, but the bus driver decided to go straight to the departure bus station due to some delay, then once at the other bus station it was over-crowded by people trying to get out of Singapore), we went to New Asia Bar (bar in the 74th floor of the Swisshotel building, breath taking night view of Singapore) and had several drinks. Seemed more happening than usual, even if it was full of expats. as we both had busy week, we went back home around 1am and took a cab back home.
Saturday was spent visiting the city (ChinaTown, BoatKey, Clarque Quay and the huge Margaritas in Cafe Iguana, Raffles, small boat trip up to the esplanade,) and the CNY night was spent out in the city. For the last part Izzy joined us (very good friend of mine, always interesting conversations and event when I meet her): bottle of wine in the Wine connection near Double O, then we went to Stereolab, as she had managed to put herself and 2 guests in the VIP list. Interesting night spent dancing on good vibes and some (too many?) jugs of Vodka something. Dennis (my sis's bf) left around 4am, Izzy and I stayed a bit longer and enjoyed some drinks at her place. Later, I went back home and had a good shower.

Once home (noon Sun), I accidentally woke up Dennis (sleeping in my room), so  we decided to continue the visit and chillout in Sentosa, the artificial beach of Singapore. Not such good choice: once in VivoCity, where we have to take the monorail to reach the island, we found out that it was the opening day of the Casino over there, hence the 2-3h queue to get there. In order to avoid the queue, we decided to get a cab to there, even if it was 2 times more expensive than the monorail tickets (time is money anyway right?). Finally in the island, we settle down near Cafe del Mar, where Izzy joined us after a while. Before leaving we had some drinks in one of the beach bars over there, as we couldnt resist the good music.

After managing to get out of the island (yet another queue), we had some food in Food Republic, Vivocity, before leaving for the night safari.

Night Safari was ok, although not as exiting for me as the previous times (I've to reckon that after doing it several times it has lost a bit of the magic). Once finished, we took the bus back home and went to bed early, for the first time of the weekend.

Monday was spent walking around the city too: all the way from Somerset to the Botanic Garden (in order to see Orchard road). It was my first time to the botanic garden, and was surprised how nice it was; very calm, the plants are very beautiful and colorful, and the Orchid garden was amazing. Spotted a very promising restaurant where I will prob invite some girl at some point. The "Cool house" was very nice also, kind of amazing that they manage to create such a micro-climat inside the garden (must cost a fortune...).

After the botanic garden, we headed home to get a well deserved shower and prepare for the night outing: a friend of mine, Vani, invited us to her flat among other friends to have some drinks and watch a movie.

The night went well, even if the movie was quite weird. It was nice to meet her again after so long time (I meet her randomly in a friend's farewell party, but have been meeting her several times since then).

The day after we didn't do much, we went to Bugis, the fountain of wealth in Suntec city. We headed to the bus station later only to find out that his bus had been cancelled and he had to take the one 2h later. After some drinks (coffee and thé, no more alcohol for the weekend! ), he left Singapore. Hopefully with good memories!

I'm sorry, there will be no photos: I've either lost or forgotten my compact camera in my last Europe trip. Anyway, the camera was all broken and the photos were all blur, so I guess I'll buy one soon I'll update this post if I manage to get Dennis's pics somehow :p