El Buitre de Benissa

By Apuntes desde Benissa

This is simply a story that I've found this morning and that I've laughed about: a vulture keeps Benissa - a village in La Marina Alta busy. The mayor, local police, animal specialists etc have visited the vulture. Have a look at this article that describes how the vulture was fed with meat bought in the local supermarket. Afterwards they tried it again with somniferous meat which the vulture rejected as it already had a full stomach :-) Here is a list with more references including photos:

• Las Provincias: Un buitre se instala sobre una nave en Benissa y pasea por la N-332
  
• Las Provincias: Un buitre burla el dispositivo de captura de la policía en Benissa
  
• Blog Apuntes desde Benissa: Un buitre en Benissa
  
• Blog Apuntes desde Benissa: Espectacular fotografía del buitre leonado de Benissa
  
• Extraña aparición de un buitre leonado
  
• Blog Curioso Mundo: El Buitre
  
• yet another photo on Flickr
  

PS (8 Nov): Have just spotted that the vulture has been captured and brought to a place to recover: Adiós al buitre de Benissa. Seems to lead to a happy end. Here are more references including a video on YouTube:

• Blog: Adiós al buitre de Benissa
  
• Las Provincias: Un trozo de carne con sedantes ayuda a capturar al buitre de Benissa
  
• a video on YouTube
  
• some photos of the capture effort
  
• CBN: Gänsegeier endlich eingefangen
  
• CBN: Besuch beendet

Mobile WLAN Router / Hotspot

Just to add to the many entries below on mobile internet connection: one of my most recent gadgets is a Huawei E5 WLAN router. It looks like a mobile phone and it is basically a 3G mobile phone for your WLAN enabled devices. You simply need to get a SIM card. The advantage is that via that one single device multiple clients (various notebooks, iPad, iPod, ...) can connect to the internet. So you need only one SIM card and all family members can connect at the same time.

So far, the experience with with the E5 has been very good. The internal antenna seems to do a good job in acquiring 3G connections.

Mobile Internet via 3G Router and External Antenna

I've extended my mobile internet access infrastructure and added an external antenna in order to assert a 3G signal so that the Huawei E970 router (T-Mobile webnwalk Box IV) does not switch to GPRS. So far, the experience has been excellent: in contrast to the E970's internal antenna I've permanently a 3G signal (HSDPA) and thus a fast mobile internet connection. Still, the external antenna had to be directed properly; a first attempt (inappropriate direction) yielded only unstable results.

Here is an alternative for an internal 3G antenna that you can install close to your desktop.

Configuration Info for Mobile Internet Access in Spain

Surfing through the internet and looking for the option I've found this link which is very useful. Here is the replicated config table:

Operador	APN	Usuario	Clave
APN Movistar	movistar.es	movistar	movistar
APN Vodafone	ac.vodafone.es	vodafone	vodafone
APN Orange	internet	orange	orange
APN Yoigo	internet	[vacío]	[vacío]
APN Simyo	gprs-service.com	[vacío]	[vacío]
APN Jazztel	jazzinternet	[vacío]	[vacío]
APN Másmovil	internetmas	[vacío]	[vacío]
APN Pepephone	gprs.pepephone.com	[vacío]	[vacío]
APN Euskaltel	internet.euskaltel.mobi	CLIENTE	EUSKALTEL
APN Telecable	internet.telecable.es	telecable	telecable
APN Ono	internet.ono.com	[vacío]	[vacío]
APN R	internet.mundo-r.com	[vacío]	[vacío]
APN Carrefour	CARREFOURINTERNET	[vacío]	[vacío]

Here is simply another, less complete list.

Innovation

In a recent interview published in Computerworld, SAP's co-CEO Jim Snabe has given a good definition of innovation:

[...] people often confuse creativity with innovation. They think having great ideas is innovation. We believe having great ideas that don't impact business is not innovation -- they're just great ideas. And so the ability to bring great ideas to consumption is key [...]

Running Routes on Run.com

A few weeks back, while staying in New Orleans and looking for a suitable running route nearby my hotel, I've discovered the Run.com site which lists a lot of suggestions all over the world.

For New Orleans I've picked this route which evolved to be excellent given the warm weather, the humidity and the fact that I stayed really downtown (i.e. with no parks or green places nearby). Still, it takes you a little bit along the Mississippi and through some residential areas of the French Quarter.

I've added 2 routes myself:

• SAP-Hochholtz
• Benissa-Teulada

List of (mostly DB-related) Blogs

Here is a list of blogs that I find useful to consider if you are interested in DBMS developments:

• DBMS2 by Curt Monash - analyst's blog and as such a mix of technical and commercial analysis
• DBMS Musings by Daniel Abadi (assistant professor at Yale) - academically oriented blog but still tracking industry developments
• Database Column by folks around Vertica like M. Stonebraker, D. DeWitt et al. - mostly technical but partially promoting Vertica's products
• CACM blogs - wild mix of computer science topics
• 10x Software Development by Steve McConnell (author of Code Complete) - some good articles on software engineering; others mainly promote services of his consulting firm