Og Maciel's Blog, page 4

Writing a Book: Check!

Growing up my dad used to tell me that there are three important milestones on a man���s life (though I feel that the same could be said about any gender): Plant a tree Have a child Write a book Through my life, I have planted quite a few trees, including a lemon and papaya tree I used to treat as my imaginary friends :)I have also had the highest honor to be the father to three amazing girls!

Software Quality Engineering: Tales From The Trenches

First of all, I have to say that I absolutely love being a Quality Engineer, something that I have been doing for a living for the last 11 years of my life! During these 11 years, I have had the pleasure (yes, pleasure!) of being tossed around, torn to pieces and thrown at a lot of scary and difficult situations in the world of software testing!Armed only with a strong desire to learn and excel at my profession, I have seen, heard and gone through a multitude of experiences, challenges, and opportunities.

The Gift

It was June 8th,1974 and on a warm evening in the territory of Amap��, now a state in the northern part of Brazil, a baby boy was born. Other than being a couple of months premature, the one thing that made this birth a bit more interesting than any premature birth was the fact that this baby had its hands and feet completely bent inwards, almost fused into his arms and legs.

Just What Is A Quality Engineer? Part 2

The last time I wrote about Quality Engineering, I mentioned that some of the reasons why people are not familiar with this term are, in no particular order: 'Quality' is usually something that is added as an after thought and doesn't really come into the picture, if ever, until the very end of the release process Nobody outside of a QA team really knows what they do. It has something to do with testing.

Just What Is A Quality Engineer? Part 1

Whenever I meet someone for the first time, after we get past the initial niceties typically involved when you meet someone for the first time, eventually the conversation shifts to work and what one does for a living. Inevitably I'm faced with what, at a first glance, may sound like a simple question and the conversation goes like this: New acquaintance: "What do you do at Red Hat?" Me: "I manage a team of quality engineers for a couple of different products.

On Reading and writing

This week I started reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King, a book that has been mentioned a few times by people I usually interview for my weekly podcast as something that is both inspiring and has had a major impact on their lives and careers. After the third or forth time someone mentioned I finally broke down and got myself a copy at the local bookstore.

Podcasts I've Been Listening To Lately

For someone who has run his own podcast for several years (albeit not generating a lot of content lately), it took me quite some time to actually start listening to podcasts myself. Ironic, I know, but I guess the main reason behind this was because I was always reading code at work and eventually, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't pay attention to what was being said! No matter how interesting the topic being discussed was or how engaging the hosts (or hosts) were, my brain would be so focused on reading code that everything else just turned into white noise.

End of Year - 2015

Another year has gone by and I guess it is time to review the things I set out to do and grade myself on how well (or poorly) I fared. Here are some of my goals for 2015:Read 70 Books Grade: PASSEven though I had a very, very busy year at work, with many releases of Red Hat Satellite 5 and Red Hat Satellite 6 shipped to our customers, I managed to surpass my goal of reading 70 books, finishing the year with a whopping 79 books read!

Books - September 2015

{.align-left}Read Selected Short Stories by Franz Kafka (review) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (review) A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby (review) Buddha, Vol. 1\: Kapilavastu by Osamu Tezuka (review) The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi (review) Reading Billy Budd and Other Stories by Herman Melville Gift Auto da Compadecida by Ariano Suassuma O Lustre by Clarice Lispector O Santo Inquerito by Dias Gomes Dona Sinha e o Filho Padre by Gilberto Freire A Moreninha by Joaquim Manuel de Macedo Todos os Nomes by Jose Saramago O Guarani by Jose de Alencar War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Contos Fluminenses by Machado de Assis Helena by Machado de Assis Quincas Borda by Machado de Assis Bufo & Spallanzani by Rubem Fonseca O Buraco na Parece by Rubem Fonseca Seize the Day by Saul Bellow As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Books - August 2015

{.align-left}This August 2015 I took a break from work and spent about 6 days enjoying some R&R down the North Carolina shore with my family. I managed to get through some of the books that were waiting for a long time for me to get to them, as well as try some new authors.Read The Sentinel by Arthur C. ClarkeI forgot where I read about how the short story "The Sentinel" was the inspiration for "2001: A Space Odyssey", but being that I have always considered the latter a great book and movie, I managed to grab a copy of the anthology "The Sentinel" just so that I could read the short story by the same name and see what else Arthur C.