Si pudimos con el tomate a 18 pesos

En Agosto de 2012 los Argentinos nos vimos obligados a valorar la moneda extranjera de otro modo. Y sin quererlo, también aprendimos a valorar la nuestra de otro modo. Para principios de 2013 algunos medios hablaban de hasta 15 tipos de cambios diferentes. Aparecieron el dólar Blue, Ahorro,

Turista, Bolsa, Liqui, Ladrillo y hasta el Celeste. Y con cada tipo de cambio apareció una manera distinta de valorar la moneda nacional. Una discusión distinta entre compradores y vendedores. Una ponderación más completa de todas las cuestiones que hacían al valor de una transacción.

Esta mañana mientras la Argentina vuelve hacia un mercado desregulado de las divisas muchos Argentinos no van a salir desesperados a buscar dólares. Muchos aprendimos que nosotros somos los responsables de las famosas corridas cambiarias. Entendimos que no vamos a pagar más por aquellos dólares que no necesitemos. Entendimos que si pudimos vivir sin ellos, y viajar sin ellos y hasta comprar "el iPhone" sin ellos, podremos seguir haciéndolo.

Quizás porque miro el vaso medio lleno, es que rescato el aprendizaje que nos dejaron las restricciones. Entendimos que valorar no es sobrevalorar. El precio del dólar está mucho más allá que en el numerito de una pizarra en el microcentro de la city porteña o en el valor que canta a viva voz un "arbolito."

El precio del dólar no es un designio divino, cómo no lo es el precio de la leche o el pan. Si un producto no tiene demanda y hay alguien que quiere venderlo, entonces el precio baja. El principio de la oferta y la demanda en su origen siempre ha sido justo. Por eso, si pudimos contra el tomate a 18 pesos, también podremos con un dólar más caro por que ahora sabemos valorarlo.

Viveza Criolla

Argentineans are known for what we call the viveza criolla. Viveza could be translated as cleverness. And criollo was used in the colonial times to describe a person who was a direct descendant from Spaniards born in Argentinean soil. So, viveza criolla is used to described the Argentinean way of being clever. The inventions of the floating ball pen and the fingertip identification system are said to be products of this attribute. As a child, I heard it in one of my mom’s pieces of everyday wisdom. When she’d see us heading towards the long corridor that connected our rooms at home, she’d give us pieces of our scattered stuff in the kitchen and say: “Save on trips. Take this with you.”

Viveza criolla came in handy when Pablo and I went on our first U.S. vacation together. I had been here for work several times so it was my turn to plan for the trip. We were going to visit San Francisco and then drive south through the west coast to Los Angeles. We even got lucky enough to get tickets for a Madonna concert in one of our three days in Los Angeles.

Since it was Pablo’s first time attending one of her shows we didn’t want to miss anything. One of the things I love about the U.S. is how everything seems to work like clockwork, and the whole trip had been great in that sense. Everyone here respected the rules, dates and times. So I figured that since we were staying close to the stadium leaving one hour in advance would be enough. We were not acquainted with the city so we let the GPS take us there. It was the time when GPSs didn’t know about traffic conditions so it took us via the shorter time path, which turned out to be the path everyone was taking.

The two lanes of the road heading to the stadium main entrance were jammed full of traffic. After 45 minutes we had only moved half a mile. As we were approaching an intersection, the viveza criolla in me kicked in and put this question in my mind, “Is it possible that this is the only road to the stadium?” I overrode the GPS directions, looked at the map and turned left at the intersection. A couple of blocks ahead we found a parallel road. We took it and it was empty to our surprise. No one was there. We drove all the way down that road until we were a block away from the stadium where we even found a free parking spot!

After the excitement of the concert I thought about how this tendency to follow the rules can keep American society from evolving when rules are followed blindly. We would have been late to the concert. In fact, many people continued arriving way after the opening act was over and Madonna was already on the stage.

There is no folly in following the rules. But strictly following the rules without applying common sense can be a problem. Failing to understand that rules are bounded by the time and situation of their creation is a mistake. Can you imagine African Americans still riding in the back of buses, or that after 14 years together Pablo and I would not have been able to marry?

I’d like to think that the U.S. court justices had a stroke of viveza criolla when they saw that this was a mistake and ruled in favor of marriage equality. For centuries American society was blindly following the same two-lane road that denied the diversity of relationships and the right to marry. They took the turn to find a faster road to social justice. They understood that they had to ensure diversity in the application of human rights. They knew it was their job to be always alert to change rules for the better, to validate them against common sense and the wisdom of the times. This is the essence of our viveza criolla and we Argentineans know that the secret ingredient is diversity.

Absent Adults

Langston Hughes’ Salvation and Floyd Dell’s We’re Poor essays have a main common theme about two boys coming of age, but there is a secondary and maybe not as easy-to-spot theme: the consequences of adults underestimating children.

Langston is a boy who believes in Jesus the way many kids believe in Santa Claus. He has listened to many grown ups telling stories about how Jesus saved them. His aunt starts speaking about a special meeting for children that is going to be held before her church’s revival ends “to bring the young lambs to the fold.” His aunt has even given him many examples of what he is going to experience when Jesus comes into his life: “you [see] a light, and something [happens] to you inside!” And he believes her because “old people . . . ought to know.”

Floyd is a happy boy who does not feel anything is missing from his perfect life. His parents are always home. He always has potato soup which is his favorite meal. And when the Sunday-school superintendent makes a speech about hard times and children not having enough to eat, he is able to help with an envelope with coins and a bag of potatoes. But everything changes when Christmas gets closer. His parents do not seem to want to talk about it. He starts thinking about the reasons for his parents ignoring the subject completely. And finally the anxiety of this situation makes him to confront them by asking “This is Christmas Eve, isn’t it?”

Langston goes to church on that special night and sits on the mourners’ bench with other children. When the preacher finishes his sermon the whole congregation starts calling the children to the altar to meet Jesus. Langston waits for Jesus to come and take him but nothing happens. None of the clues his aunt has told him to wait for show. And when he realizes that it’s getting late and every one is waiting for him, he stands up and runs to the altar to be saved. But he knows that he is doing this for all the wrong reasons. Later that night when alone in bed he thinks that Jesus has not come to help him. And he regrets having lied and deceived everybody. He even believes that there is no Jesus at all.

After Floyd asks his Christmas Eve question, his parents look away. His mother is noticeably distressed and leaves the room. His father puts on a joking face and explains he does not know if it is Christmas because he has not been reading the papers. He also leaves the room and Floyd, like Langston, goes to his room and is left alone with his thoughts. That is when he realizes that they are poor! This is the reason why his mother did not want him to put his name on the envelope. This is why the envelope only had pennies. And the reason why his father is always home is because his has no job. He also wrongly concludes that because he is now a poor boy he is not allowed to want anything or to have anything, not even hope.

It is not a coincidence that the turning point in these stories is when both boys are left alone to their own thoughts in the dark of their rooms. In Langston´s story his aunt fails in explaining what his journey into spirituality will be. And in telling him that she is trying to put into words what it was like for her. Letting Jesus come into his life is more of a private experience in which he is not supposed to actually see Jesus but understand that this very concept will help him to explain faith as an adult and share it with the church community. In Floyd´s story his parents underestimate the ability of the kid to perceive all the hints about their situation. It could be said that they do this to try to shield him from a painful situation, but not explaining what is actually going on has a worse effect.

Both kids arrive at conclusions of their own based on what they think it means to be saved by Jesus or what it means to be a poor kid. These two notions are perfectly natural for anyone entering adulthood but they are rendered more painful because the adults do not support them with the truth along the way. Entering adulthood should be a journey to share with other adults who should treat you like one. At home my mother was like this but my father was more like Floyd’s father. The only decision I was left alone with as a child was to choose what method I preferred. I chose my mother’s.

The Power of Images

I believe in the power of images that allow you to picture your own future and that spark wishes strong enough to shape your own reality. I remember as a child arriving in Buenos Aires to spend a few days during summer school break. It was a beautiful summer night and my father was driving the car to enter the city through Avenida Leandro N. Alem, where the emblematic IBM building has been located since 1983. I cannot say how old I was, but I was just tall enough to fit on my knees in the back of the car, with my arms on the back of the seat to look through the rear window. Every time we would visit a new city I would assume this position because I was able to watch the sky, count the street lights and stare at big tall buildings.

This was the setting for one of my earliest and most vivid memories. While we were slowly passing the IBM building I looked up and got caught by its impressive architecture. How was such a building even possible?! A few stories from its base the structure got thinner. It was as if a giant had squeezed that section of the building. How could all the floors above that section be supported by such a thin structure?! How could the elevators pass through it?! When my gaze reached the top sign everything made sense. Only a company like IBM could have its offices in such a building. And while I was looking at that image I thought to myself, “Someday, I will work here.” It was the power of that image that forged a big part of my life.

I was just a kid from Cinco Saltos, a small town of 15,000 in the Argentinean Patagonia. It was a farmer’s town and the only other industry besides growing apples, pears, peaches and grapes was a chemical company. This company was so important to the economy of Cinco Saltos that the only high school where chemical technicians were trained in the region was right in our town. All you could hope for was to get good grades and start working there as soon as you finished high school. When I got out of primary school I decided to go there even though it meant more mathematics, physics and chemistry, and one more year than in any of the other high schools. But I did it because I thought that a technical high school would better prepare me for a science and technology career.

By the end of high school, I had decided to pursue an engineering major, and in college, I specialized in Business Management Decision Support Systems. I discovered that I liked to communicate complex information technology concepts in simple ways so every organization could understand, implement and benefit from them. This mix of a nerd with communication skills turned out to be a highly sought after combination, so as a senior, I was offered an internship at IBM, where I started my professional career as an IT Specialist.

In the end, all my career choices aligned to make that image of myself working at IBM a reality. It was the power of that image that took me back to the same building that had impressed me as kid. Other images like this one have made lasting impressions along my life. For example, when I saw an human rights activist giving a speech that moved me, I knew that I wanted to be able to step on a stage to speak and inspire people. Or when I saw a successful business executive in a movie stepping in and out of planes to travel around the world, I knew that I wanted to have a job that would allowed me to travel like that.

This is why I believe in the power of images. Because images can inspire all your personal and professional accomplishments. Images can give you strength and hope when you have depleted your own. And ultimately images like these brought me to try and inspire you with the story of a kid who, impressed by the image of a curious building, turned a wish into a reality.

El pensamiento Facebook del día - La puteada futbolera

A veces veo posts que me incitan a comentar y me freno para no arrancar una polémica. Mi cabeza va para otro lado por la secuencia de pensamientos que me producen, y sin ese contexto pueden interpretarse como ataques personales. Decidí tomarlos por separado y compartir una reflexión con uds. en esta sección que he decido llamar: "El pensamiento Facebook del día."

Hoy: La puteada futbolera

Este fin de semana vi aparecer en mi newsfeed varios improperios debido al resultado de la final de la bendita Copa América. Por un lado me pregunto por qué no podemos expresar nuestra tristeza, frustración e ilusión rota sin recurrir oooootra vez a frases llenas de odio, prejuicio y discriminación contra todo un pueblo. Y por el otro me pregunto si los adultos que lo hacen son realmente conscientes de la repercusión de esa actitud en un niño. Esta vez tuve la oportunidad de vivirlo en primera persona. Fui testigo de cómo el mensaje peyorativo y discriminante de un adulto contra todo un pueblo se trasladaba directamente hasta las palabras de un niño que en otros términos imitó la actitud del adulto para expresar su frustración con el resultado de la final. Por eso otra vez les saco la roja a los grandes y repito que presten más atención a lo que hacen más que a lo que enseñan.

Esos ojitos están mirando y muy a su pesar ven lo que hacen con más atención que lo que enseñan.

Por suerte, también vi de los otros que apelaron a mensajes conciliadores, críticos y llenos de sorna y picardía, que cumplen con el mismo objetivo catártico que los primeros y nos enseñan que la puteada futbolera también puede ser inteligente.

El pensamiento Facebook del día - Prejuicios y Apedorramiento

A veces veo posts que me incitan a comentar y me freno para no arrancar una polémica. Mi cabeza va para otro lado por la secuencia de pensamientos que me producen, y sin ese contexto pueden interpretarse como ataques personales. Decidí tomarlos por separado y compartir una reflexión con uds. en esta sección que he decido llamar: "El pensamiento Facebook del día."

Hoy vi dos.

1. Es increíble como usamos comentarios discriminatorios, homofóbicos, misóginos, recistas y demás sin medir el poder de nuestras palabras en un comentario o frase cotidianos que lo único que hace es sumar nuestro granito de odio diario. "Hacés comentarios de minita" Cuántas veces lo hemos escuchado y en cuánto escenario. Sin embargo no reparamos en lo peligroso y triste de su efecto. Son frases como estas las que contaminan a nuestros niños llenándolos de prejuicios, incapacitándolos de un juicio sano y una apertura a la diversidad que enriquece nuestras vidas. Y a nosotros, los adultos, nos muestra débiles de mente para mantenernos fuertes ante la repetición constante de estos pequeños y cotidianos crímenes de odio que un día terminan con un tiroteo en una escuela.

2. Cuando Vicente López y Planes, y Blas Parera compusieron nuestro himno lo hicieron pensando en que su letra y música debían resistir el paso del tiempo y convertirse en el medio por el cuál se transportaría parte de la historia de la esencia Argentina. Escuchar un "OOOOOO, oooooo, oooooo, ooo, O" de la hinchada Argentina no me produce emoción, me da bronca, porque cantar el himno ante extranjeros es la oportunidad de contar esa historia por la que debemos enorgullecernos y en cambio parecemos una horda despojada del lenguaje.

Hassle free cloud: Four considerations when selecting your cloud provider

When choosing cloud providers, we usually pay attention to things like whether the provider has adopted open standards such as OpenStack, whether their cloud computing hybrid approach is dynamic, and whether they have integrated platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) offerings.

What we often overlook is the importance of the aspects and features that these providers offer regarding maintenance, administration and troubleshooting. Here are four topics for consideration when you make this leap to the cloud.

Remote updating of layered applications

Once you have deployed a remote component from the cloud service, keeping it updated is critical for the efficient operation of the service. The ability to remotely update this component is something that you might not think of, until you have to keep up with hundreds of components spread across your environment. Don’t wait until it gets critical and causes you a lot of pain and effort to maintain.

Remote administration of layered applications

Have you ever needed to stop or start a task, but you find that you can’t? This is frustrating and makes you want to pull your hair out. The analogy that I use here is when I am watching television and my children have moved the remote. I want to change the channel but I have to get up to do this. It is not impossible to change the channel (or, for our purposes, to start an application) but it is more difficult than necessary. Having remote administration is like the TV remote; it allows you to easily stop or start the application without a lot of hassle.

Sending problem determination information

This may never happen to you, but I have had software fail on me. SHOCKER! And when that has happened, I’ve had to send problem determination (PD) information to the support team in order to resolve the issue.

When you’re first getting started, you might not be familiar with where the PD data is located on the system. Having the ability to collect this data and send it to the support team with one click would be amazing, especially since you might be frustrated that the application has encountered a problem. In fact, many would say this feature should be a core functionality.

Streamlining the onboarding process

So you have reached the moment where you begin climbing into the cloud, but nobody has given you a ladder. No one has told you how to prepare your team in order to stay there and avoid pitfalls.

We propose something simple but powerful, like an onboarding wizard. This tool would allow you gauge how ready you and your team are by inspecting your strategies in areas such as:

• Change management
• Backup and restore disaster recovery
• Internet phasing aspect of your environment security
• Capacity planning 

By following a simple checklist, the onboarding wizard would advise you before you take any chances, reducing the risk and making your ride into the cloud a smooth one.
We hope you find these four tips interesting and relevant to your IT shop and that they will help you to chose the best cloud service provider for your infrastructure as a service (IaaS) needs. We see a future where all IT organizations will implement some sort of cloud solution. Hybrid cloud plays a big role in that future, and you'll need to consider many different factors to adopt it widely and wisely.
What are some of your concerns about the future of cloud? Get involved by joining the conversation under the comments section and tweeting using the hashtag #HassleFreeCloud. Please also follow us on Twitter @swallacertp and @mRcSqZd for more hassle free cloud news.

Mi experiencia con un iPhone 6 y Claro Argentina

Ya han pasado un par de días desde que recibí mi último juguete electrónico y quería compartir contigo, amigo lector, la frustrante experiencia de ser el dueño de un iPhone 6 en la red de Claro Argentina.
Para hacerlo decidí capturar un par de pantallas de mi viejo iPhone 5 y compararlas con las de mi flamante iPhone 6.
Este post además de resultar una experiencia catártica es también un servicio a la comunidad para que si tienes los mismos problemas puedas usarlo como referencia cuándo te comuniques con alguno de los "especialistas" de atención al cliente.
Primero empecemos por determinar que ambos teléfonos tienen la misma versión de iOS y usé para las pruebas el mismo nano SIM con el mismo número de celular.

iPhone 5 - iOS 8.1.2

iPhone 6 - iOS 8.1.2

Configuración y registro en la red de Claro Argentina

El primer inconveniente es que cada vez que conecto el iPhone 6 a iTunes recibo el mensaje de que hay una actualización de la configuración de mi proveedor de telefonía celular. Acepto que haga esta actualización porque se trata de un procedimiento común cuando un teléfono desbloqueado de fábrica se conecta por primera vez a una nueva red de telefonía celular. En esta actualización baja un archivo que contiene entre otra cosas el acceso a la casilla de mensajes, la configuración de los mensajes de texto SMS/MMS y demás. iTunes confirma que la actualización se realizó con éxito pero cuando voy a la pantalla de información (About) de cada teléfono hay una diferencia que llama la atención. Ambos dispositivos tienen archivos de configuración con distinto nombre. En el iPhone 5 se llama "CLARO Argentina 18.0" y en el iPhone 6 "Carrier 18.0", esto constituye la primer diferencia y la evidencia de que algo raro sucede.

iPhone 5 - Carrier: CLARO Argentina 18.0

iPhone 5 - Carrier: Carrier 18.0

iMessage

Siguiendo con el paralelo iMessage, el Whatsapp de Apple, permite que uno se pueda comunicar con aquellos que conocen tu número de celular. Adicionalmente también se pueden usar dirección de correo electrónico asociadas a tu Apple ID, pero eso es otra historia. Para que ello ocurra el teléfono envía unos mensajes invisibles para activar el servicio y asociar tu número de celular para el envío y recepción. Esos mensajes no llegan y el servicio queda activado a medias impidiendo que todo aquel que conozca tu número de celular pueda comunicarse contigo usando iMessage. Probablemente esto se deba a que la mensajería SMS no está correctamente activada, ver punto anterior. Por otro lado Claro Argentina no intercepta estos mensajes que podríamos definir como "mensajes de sistema" y los cobra como mensajes internacionales fuera de mi plan.

iPhone 5 - Puedo (tilde) recibir y enviar iMessages desde mi número de celular

iPhone 6 - No puedo (sin tilde) recibir y no aparece como opción para enviar iMessages con mi número de celular

Facetime

Para Facetime ocurre lo mismo que con con iMessage, ver punto anterior. Aquellos usuarios de iPhone que quieren comunicarse contigo usando una videoconferencia pueden hacerlo a través de Facetime y sólo necesitan saber tu número de celular.

iPhone 5 - Puedo (tilde) recibir y enviar llamadas de Facetime desde mi número de celular

iPhone 6 - No puedo (sin tilde) recibir y no aparece como opción para iniciar llamadas de Facetime con mi número de celular

Visual Voicemail

Y por último, el Visual Voicemail tampoco funciona. Ésta es una de las funciones más interesantes de estos equipos y que permite escuchar los mensajes de voz a través de una interface gráfica en pantalla sin perder el tiempo escuchando un IVR que nos recita opciones numéricas para hacerlo. Las imagenes para este caso son autoexplicativas.

iPhone 5 - Visual Voicemail funcionando

iPhone 6 - Visual Voicemail con problemas

Debo reconocer que Claro Argentina me atendió perfectamente y luego de varias personas di con dos representantes que, por teléfono y por Twitter, confirmaron que el Visual Voicemail no funciona en los iPhone 6 y que no tienen un tiempo estimado de resolución porque el iPhone NO SE COMERCIALIZA EN LA ARGENTINA.
Cabe aclarar que NINGUNA OPERADORA ARGENTINA COMERCIALIZA el iPhone hay más de 500.000 iPhones en el país y esta situación la que permite que otros que no son los indicados, comercialicen estos equipos perjudicando a las operadoras y a los usuarios por igual.

Espero que este post les sea de utilidad y por favor compartan sus experiencias en los comentarios.