A Cloud Grows in Sao Paulo

I'm preparing for the Cloud Computing World Forum in Sao Paulo, Brazil next week. Amazon was only known for books when last I was in Sao Paulo, and the only clouds I cared about were those about to release a deluge.

From everything I've read, watched, and listened to over the last several years, Brazil has become the economic powerhouse I suspected it would be during my last visit in 2004. Folks had encourage me to invest in Brazil in some manner back then, as I was travelling there almost annually at that point. I didn't know quite how to start, and so it never did quite come together. Well, with some encouragement from Jon Karlen at Flybridge Capital Partners, I return.

We Must Improve Our Collective Humanity

I pray that everyone affected by the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, finds peace or at least solace. While lives have been lost, those of us who remain behind must persevere to improve the our collective humanity. The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado struck me such that I made the decision to terminate a comic book adaptation project currently in development for Kindle publication.

As an artist, I respect every other artist's right to put his or her art into the world in the manner and medium he or she best sees fit. Each artist must make the decision and accept the responsibility, where it's due, for the work put out. Like the latest Batman trilogy, the my original work, B. E. A. N. Police, (which was to be adapted) is quite dark in content and atmosphere.

Of course, millions of people consume fictional violent media and do not emulate their violent acts in real life. However, a lot about humanity in the United States has changed in the last twenty years and not for a net improvement. I feel like we lost our innocence, or what was left of it, after 2001.

I made the decision that the artistic value to be gained by the adaptation would not significantly improve the humanity of its surrounding society, regardless of whether that readership be 50,000, 5,000 or five.

We improve humanity (I believe) by first improving ourselves, in part, through words and deed. This in turn impacts how we treat our fellow human beings. Our mistake is we think we can or should always do it alone.

What We're Working On at Zumbi Mobile Solutions

iOS Development:

iOS is all the rage, but not for nothing. I've developed in Microsoft .NET as well as tried my hand at Android OS, and I must say that Objective C, while different from (even) C# and Java, it's easier to ramp up learning curve-wise once the general syntax differences are understood. The caveat (of course) is that one has had some Object Oriented Programming (OOP) experience. Still, interesting challenges abound designing a proof-of-concept app for a catering company.

Kindle Publishing:

With the feedback from our first foray into Kindle Publishing, we are in discussions to publish a sophomore title for the 2012 holiday season.

Remote Technical Support:

For the longest time, in my experience, customer support seemed a two-ring arena: enterprise and consumer support. The latter ring appears to be morphing into two. The first ring remains the traditional paradigm of a technical experts helping a not-necessarily trained or experienced end-users on consumer products (e.g. mobile devices). The second ring leans toward fan-based product support (or technical sales support, for you business majors), where the end user had a history or expertise and affinity with a particular brand or product sector as does the individual providing the support. 

There are opportunities for both support providers and consumers. Providers have opportunities to create niche value propositions, and consumers have a wider menu of support packages to choose from.

Have You Lost Your Edge?

Today's church sermon revolved around the Bible scripture found in 2 Kings 6:1-7. This is where the prophet Elisha recovers a servant's axe head from the water by tossing a stick where it descended.

The pastor shifted to illustrating the axe head as a metaphor for our passion or skill-set. More importantly, not being able to succeed without sharpening ones axe head. The problem, he went on, was what happens when one has lost his axe head, or edge. Here are somethings to ask yourself if or when that happens:

1. Where did your edge fall?

2. When did your edge begin to get dull?

3. What are you going to do to get your edge back?

There Are Cat People and There Are Computer People

Once upon a time if someone had told me, so and so has eight cats, I would have reacted like, o_O (e.g. think Mr. Spock's raised-eyebrow expression on Star Trek).

Looking around my home office just now, I've counted one desktop computer, one net-book, three laptops, and four mobile devices. That's almost like having nine cats, except three of the aforementioned computers and mobile device are dead. o_O, big time.

Your e-Year in Review

Your e-mail "sent" folder.

Freedom Is The Elbow Not Bending Outward

That's a Buddhist quote I read in a magazine a decade ago, although I don't remember who it's attributed to. I was reminded of it when I came across a Christian scripture I had highlighted.

"All things are lawful for me, but all things are expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not." - 1 Corinthians 10 (KJV).

I found the latter easier to explain to others than the former.