FB_init

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Translating the Emerging Conversation into Portuguese

I read a lot from folks in what is called the emerging conversation. Being a dual citizen (Canadian and Brazilian), having lived in two different hemispheres for some time now, I can't help but "think with my two heads" and establish bridges between them.
Let me begin with one aspect of the emerging conversation: the charismatic tone.
I know that Brian McLaren is NOT the leader of the emerging conversation. (More on leaders after) But I can see his crush on the charismatic principles (nothing against it. More on it later...) I can read between the lines that there is a certain cross-polination between a charismatic discourse and the emerging conversation. And missional discourse, whatever that is.
- The conservative evangelicals are often depicted as those who apply logic and reason to faith. The charismatics put an emphasis on experience.
- There's a big discussion about science against faith as if they were contradicting sides.
- Conservative evangelicals are portrayed as those who interpret the Bible with reason. All revelation is (with)in the Bible. Charismatics will push this a bit further, assuming direct revelation from God to the person.
- Many conservative evangelicals and mainline protestants have a structured liturgy. Charistmatic services tend to be more spontaneous.
- The charismatic movement happens accross the board. So they are one step ahead of problems of inter-denominational dialog/cooperation. (Well, charismatics may not be addressing the issue altogether...)
- Charismatics have a relatively recent history. It's easier for them not to include symbols and not to refer to the historical bagage of the established denominations. (At which cost?)
- Conservative evangelicals may be more easily associated with the white Anglo-saxon. Charismatics may be more easily associated with multi-cultural groups (mainly from the Southern hemisphere).
- Let me try to pose this as a sincere and polite question: could it be that the charismatic movement will gain even more traction in the US now with an economic crisis, when the Americans will get poorer?


Other topics for the future: leadership

I Like to Hear the Truth

I like to hear the truth. I have come to appreciate certain people who are skilled at speaking truth. Plain truth. Truth that sounds like truth. Truth that rings a bell. When I think about these names, however, I don't remember pastors. I remember my High School Philosophy, History and Literature teachers. Mainly my History teachers. And some writers.
I'm reading a very good book titled "Economics for everyone : a short guide to the economics of capitalism" by Jim Stanford (see entry at the Ottawa Public Library, or at Amazon). It is simple, plain truth being told. And I like it.

Um dia eu falarei em Espanhol

Fui ajeitar o computador de uma família colombiana aqui em Ottawa. Desde que os conheci conversei em Espanhol com eles. Ou assim pensava eu. Apesar tropeçar bastante, achei que meu Espanhol não estava tão ruim assim. No final da conversa, a esposa perguntou para o marido:
- Mas ele está falando "Brasileiro" ou Espanhol?

A pergunta da esposa me fará pensar duas vezes antes de responder a alguém se 'sei falar Espanhol'. Não sei exatamente como alguém tendo o Espanhol como língua materna me entende. De qualquer forma achava que conseguia falar melhor do que falo.

O marido (um advogado) respondeu:
- Ele está falando Espanhol. Quando não sabe a palavra, fala em Português. Como as raízes das palavras são parecidas, a gente acaba entendendo.

Na verdade o processo é mais complicado. Primeiro, se sei a palavra exata em Espanhol, falo. Caso contrário, vem a dúvida. O processo do tira-teima é complicado: o pensamento viaja primeiro pela zona do Francês. Se a palavra francesa é parecida com a Portugesa, falo na versão Portuguesa, com as modificações comuns do Espanhol. Se a palavra francesa não vem à mente, procura a versão italiana. Como meu dicionário mental italiano é pequeno, esse caso ocorre raramente. Mas de vez em quando ajuda. Se nem a palavra francesa nem italiana vêm à mente, penso melhor na palavra em Português, e vejo se 'tem cara de Latim'. Se tem 'cara de Latim', falo em Português. Se não tem cara de Latim... falo em Inglês.
Outro problema com o Espanhol é que é um tanto perto do Português para mim. É diferente do Francês. Quando falo Francês eu mudo o switch e falo uma língua completamente diferente do Português.
Na verdade, minha cabeça parece um macarrão lingüístico com Português, Inglês e Francês misturados. Me lembro de vez em quando do meu clínico geral ("médico de família" faz sentido em Português? Já não sei se traduzo do Inglês ou invento termos). Meu médico se chama Valdemar Martinho. Todos os chamam de 'Martino' aqui, porque ninguém sabe pronunciar o "nh"... Buenas, o Dr. Martinho trabalha em Francês, mas atende a muitos Portugueses. Comigo conversa em Português. Ao mostrar um problema de pele, ele disse em bom Português Canadiano:
- Bem, isso foi um problema que developou por causa do chofage.

Finalmente, não sei se tenho esperanças de aprender bem o Espanhol. Não sei quem teria paciência de me ouvir.

Friday, December 26, 2008

My daily SharePoint frustration - XVII

Problem: The data of a list wasn't exported when I saved the list as a template with content.

Context: I created a list using a Feature with schema.xml and manifests for list instance and list template. My custom fields were not showing up in the list settings under columns. And data wasn't exported.

Cause: I had my fields set as read-only in schema.xml (Fields/Field elements).

Solution: I removed the attribute and it worked. I had set them to read-only for performance in the first place. I don't think it makes much of a difference anyways.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Jesus é a resposta (mas qual é a pergunta?)

Gosto de ver como as crianças são sensíveis e espertas. Lêem rapidamente os contextos. Me lembro de visitar uma igreja com minha filha de 5 anos. No 'minuto infantil' havia um certo pastor convidado. Ele meio que se impunha com sua presença. Mesmo sem interagir diretamente com minha filha, essa sentiu medo com a atitude do sujeito e começou a chorar. Eu entendi porque chorava.
Isto me lembra a seguinte piada:
Diz que num desses 'minutos infantis', o pastor-zão (daqueles cheios de confiança, de boa-vontade, e de sinceridade) conversa com as crianças lá na frente. Tentando soar familiar, mas sendo obviamente artificial, pergunta:

- Crianças, o que é o que é: é pequenininho, pega nozes e castanhas no Outono, e tem um rabo peludo?

Silêncio constrangedor...

Então diz a criança:

- Pastor, parece muito com um esquilo, mas tenho certeza que a resposta certa é Jesus.

--

Nada como espiritualizar tudo e subverter a realidade. As crianças aprendem rápido.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Zune is bad. Spread the word

My Zune player keeps rebooting all the time. The battery is full. Bad software. Bad hardware. Don't buy Zune.

Version 3.1 (50)
Bootloader 435

(the latest)

Thursday, December 18, 2008

My daily Microsoft frustration - V



When you need help the most, it fails on you.

My daily SharePoint frustration - XVI

Problem: Browser displays "403 forbidden" in SharePoint with Forms authentication. (again! See frustration number XV)

Context: nothing out of the ordinary... Just working with some custom authentication providers as usual.

Cause: unknown.

Solution (?): Windows update plus reboot.

see also this discussion thread.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

PowerShell and SharePoint: Feature localization

I needed to find out how many SharePoint Features are not localized in the solution.
So I created a PowerShell script that searches for feature.xml and other manifest files. Then it checks for Description or Title without the $ character (localized Descriptions and Titles begin with $Resources: )

Here it is:

$Dir = get-childitem c:\VivaOMengo -recurse -Include feature.xml
$SDir = $Dir | Select-String -CaseSensitive -Pattern "Description=""" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Description=""\$" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Description="""""
$Dir | Select-String -Pattern "Description=""" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Description=""\$" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Description=""""" > c:\VivaOMengo\nonlocfeatDesc.txt
Write-Host 'Feature.xml files containing non-loc Description: ' $SDir.count

$SDirT = $Dir | Select-String -CaseSensitive -Pattern "Title=""" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Title=""\$" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Title="""""
$Dir | Select-String -Pattern "Title=""" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Title=""\$" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Title=""""" > c:\VivaOMengo\nonlocfeatTitle.txt
Write-Host 'Feature.xml files containing non-loc Title: ' $SDirT.count

$DirM = get-childitem D:\projects\main_1\src\Channel\portal -recurse -Include *.xml
$DirM = $DirM | where { $_ -match "WSPBuild" } | where { $_ -notMatch "feature.xml" }

$SDirM = $DirM | Select-String -CaseSensitive -Pattern "Description=""" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Description=""\$" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Description="""""
$DirM | Select-String -Pattern "Description=""" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Description=""\$" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Description=""""" > c:\VivaOMengo\nonlocmaniDesc.txt
Write-Host 'Other manifest files containing non-loc Description: ' $SDirM.count

$SDirTM = $DirM | Select-String -CaseSensitive -Pattern "Title=""" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Title=""\$" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Title="""""
$DirM | Select-String -Pattern "Title=""" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Title=""\$" | Select-String -NotMatch -Pattern "Title=""""" > c:\VivaOMengo\nonlocmaniTitle.txt
Write-Host 'Other manifest files containing non-loc Title: ' $SDirTM.count

Sunday, December 07, 2008

My daily SharePoint frustration - XV

Problem: Browser displays "403 forbidden" in SharePoint with Forms authentication.

Context: Trying to get extended site to display the right page for forms authentications.

Cause: IIS (7.0) thought that the anonymous user did not have access to the web site, so it was not redirecting (or displaying) the internal page (the custom page with form authentication) for login.

Composite problem: Trying to enable anonymous access to 'the entire web site' was hidden in Advanced Permissions. That's because the Default Zone in Central Admin for the NTLM site (the base site of the extended Forms one) did not have Anonymous enabled.

Solution: I went to the Default zone in Central Admin, enabled anonymous (temporarily) for the base web site). Then I was able to enable anonymous access to the entire web site in Advanced Permissions (in the base site).

(For the record: anonymous authentication in IIS for the extended site had the identity of the app pool and not IUSR (win server 2008) and also ASP.NET impersonation enabled)

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Real world software engineering - XI

"It's the documentation, stupid."
In my Real World Software Engineering Methodology (RWSEM), developers realise that software specification is an important document. This software documentation is there to protect everyone and to increase the quality of the end software. This software specification should be a document that is binding, useful, and meaningful. It should not be obsolete mid development nor at the support phase. It should be binding during these phases.
I don't know why this is so unpopular. Perhaps the idea is too simple. We need fashion methodologies in the companie's web site and in RFPs, that in practice translate into the well-known terrible Chaos-Waterfall.