Marcelo Toledo

McDonald’s POS system are pretty simple, they have in their database all products, numbers, sides, with all possible configurations. When you start asking, the gentleman or lady in the cashier start hitting the right spot for what you ask in a touchscreen lcd monitor, whenever they choose something with multiple choice, a sub list appears, for example, when they hit number one, they have to choose the drink you want, and it can be sprite, coke, guaraná, juice, whatever, pretty simple and easy.

Some times I like to ask their top sunday with caramel and since it’s pretty big I like to balance it with extra caramel, the only problem is that the system is not configured with extra caramel, only chocolate and strawberry, but they do have caramel.

Guess what? Every time since the last few years they get stuck with this, either the product comes with the wrong flavor and they need to throw it in the trash or the cashier screams to the other side of the store:

“This extra chocolate is caramel!”

Said that, I have two questions:

1. How complicated is for someone to add this variable to the system?
2. We have around 600 stores in the country, how come no one realized this yet?

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If you can understand portuguese, there is this new podcast TickTack about technology, it still in beta, but it’s worth it.

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“Lately it’s hard to avoid the buzz about netbooks — the small, cheap laptop systems that were popularized by the Asus Eee PC. Mandriva is providing the innovative operating system for the upcoming GDium netbook system, produced by Emtec. The first GDium will be a netbook with a 10″, 1024×600 resolution display and a battery life of four hours, weighing in at 1.1kg. The innovative G-Key system stores the Mandriva operating system and all the user data on a USB key — nothing is permanently stored inside the GDium. You can use your own desktop and data by plugging the G-Key into any GDium.”

From: http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/19/1750243&from=rss

It’s really sad for me to read this, Mandriva few years ago changed it’s name from Mandrake after buying the leader in Brazil, Conectiva, a company that made an impossible mission in an environment with deep complexities, showing strenght, leadership, innovation and positive will.

Mandriva is doing totally the opposite, clearly lost, nobody really knows what it’s doing and not even them when I read news like this, it should be working hard to do what they proposed, Linux. There are so many points to be improved that could make their market share increase, how it’s possible to see RedHat, OpenSuse far away and they doing nothing about it?

They have been still for a long time now and when you think they will do something innovative to shake the market, they present an OEM machine from Taiwan/China/Whatever and expect what? To be another Sun? valinux?

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Businesses should hold off on investing in WiMAX until the technology is more widely deployed across the United States and until vendors produce more dual-mode cellular/WiMAX handsets, says a new report from Gartner Research.

Overall, Gartner projects that while WiMAX networks in the United States will start operating commercially over the next two years, WiMAX itself will remain a “niche technology” that will best serve emerging or rural markets that don’t already have access to broadband services. One of the big factors that WiMAX has going against it, says Gartner, is that WiMAX networks won’t be able to provide nationwide coverage for quite some time, as Sprint and its Clearwire partners will only begin launching commercial WiMAX services for the first time this September. Thus, says Gartner analyst Phillip Redman, businesses will have to wait until coverage extends to many more cities than the ones that will be covered by the end of the year.

Additionally, Redman says that enterprises that want both WiMAX data and cellular voice capabilities will have to wait at least a couple of years until more dual-mode handsets are produced. Since WiMAX is starting out as a data-only service, Redman says that unless businesses want to rely on VoIP for their mobile voice needs, they should look elsewhere until WiMAX devices are upgraded to include cellular coverage.

“In competitive markets, WiMAX is going to have a very tough row since it’s starting from scratch,” he says. “But WiMAX still has great opportunities in different markets. I think it makes sense in developing markets and developing economies that don’t have broadband comp from wireline carriers.”

Sprint currently plans to offer its first commercial WiMAX services in September in Baltimore, with launches in Washington, D.C., and Chicago scheduled for later in the fourth quarter. The company says other major metropolitan areas shouldn’t expect WiMAX to come to their cities until at least next year.

From: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/071808-wimax.html?fsrc=rss-wireless

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“Jaiku is now a part of Google. For more details about Jaiku and Google, see the Q&A about the acquisition.

Jaiku’s main goal is to bring people closer together by enabling them to share their activity streams. An activity stream is a log of everyday things as they happen: your status messages, recommendations, events you’re attending, photos you’ve taken - anything you post directly to Jaiku or add using Web feeds. We offer a way to connect with the people you care about by sharing your activities with them on the Web, IM, and SMS - as well as through a slew of cool third-party applications built by other developers using our API.”

Anyways, it’s a micro blogging tool I’ve been trying lately, it’s still closed and I have a few invites, if anyone is interested, mail me.

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