SAP Mentors...On Twitter? Yes Sir!

Do you know about SAP Mentors? You should...I'm one myself -:)

Wanna know what we are up to? Follow us on SAP Mentors on Twitter.

Also you could check this nice list and follow all the guys/gals that didn't made it to my previous list...Otherwise they're going to go mad on me -:(

It's hard to keep everyone happy -:)

Greetings,

Blag.

Who you should be following on Twitter...

Twitter is a great service, no doubt about it...But sometimes is hard to choose who to follow and who not.

That's why I' want to drop a little list of interesting people...

@Blag --> Alvaro Tejada Galindo (That's me of course). Senior ABAP Consultant, Scripting Languages Geek, SAP Mentor, Blogger, Programming books author and Punk. I don't need no introduction -;)

@dahowlett --> Dennis Howlett. Full time blogger on innovation for professional accountants. This talks straight to the face, no jokes...Just the awful truth.

@monkchips --> James Governor. Co-founder of RedMonk, something like a firehose - tech and everything else in 140 char bursts. This is your reference for everything IT related.

@_why --> Why the Lucky Stiff. The ill-conceived freelance prof. If you're related to Ruby, Camping or Shoes...He's your guy -;)

@jonerp --> Jon Reed. Jon Reed of JonERP.com is an SAP Mentor who blogs and podcasts on SAP skills trends. No one knows more about SAP that this guy...Ok...Maybe SAP CEO's...

@TechCrunch --> Michael Arrington. Making The World A More Ajaxy Place. Come on...You know you love TechCruch!

@ChuckFacts --> Chuck Norris Facts. You better follow him...You're life depends on it...

@ryanstewart --> Ryan Stewart. I obsess over Rich Internet Applications and work at Adobe as a Platform Evangelist. Are you on RIA? Follow this guy then!

@Scobleizer --> Robert Scoble. Tech geek blogger @ http://scobleizer.com. I don't this guy, but all my friends follow him...He must be good stuff...

@Veronica --> Veronica Belmont. Host of Tekzilla on Revision3 and Qore on PSN. Also, a geek. She's a geek girl...What else can you ask for?

@timoreilly --> Tim O'Reilly. Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media. If you don't know Tim...You shouldn't be on the web...

@jwales --> Jimbo Wales. You know, the Wikipedia and Wikia guy. Believe or not...I got a picture with this guy!!!

Please keep in mind, that not only because you start following them, they're going to follow you back...If you think that, you really need to read this...

Do you follow me on Twitter? Coz I'm not following you...

P.S: To all my dear and beloved Geek friends (Yes...SAP Mentors and SCN related), if you're not on my list, it's not because you're not interesting to follow...It's because this is a short list...And wanted to put the most representative guys/gals that I'm following...If I'm on the list...It's because this is my blog and I can do what I want here...Don't like it...Do your own list on your own blogs!

P.S.S: I'm joking of course -;)

P.S.S.S: Thanks to my good friend @luislanz --> Luis Felipe Lanz. NetWeaver Visual Composer Expert at SAP AG. This is a direct link to all the people I'm following...

Who's Blag following.

Greetings,

Blag.

Tale of an SAP addict...

Doctor: Please come in.
Patient: Thank you.
Doctor: What's your name?
Patient: atejadag.
Doctor: That's your name?
Patient: Yes. It's my user name.
Doctor: Ok. Where do you live?
Patient: SE38.
Doctor: SE38?
Patient: Yes. That's where I spend most of my time.
Doctor: Ok. What places have you visited?
Patient: Oh. Last week I was at SE37...SE80...SmartForms and ST22... :-)
Doctor: Did you just lay down your head to the left and smile?
Patient: No. I just smiled.
Doctor: Ok, never mind. Do you have any kids?
Patient: Sure. I got two.
Doctor: Great. What are their names?
Patient: R/3 and NetWeaver. NetWeaver is the younger.
Doctor: Ok. Those are very unusual names.
Patient: I'm a very unusual guy.
Doctor: Yeah...I can tell.
Patient: ...
Doctor: I know why you are here...But can you tell me why you are here?
Patient: Sure. I suffer from short dumps.
Doctor: You're what?
Patient: My sy-subrc are always more than zero.
Doctor: Ok. I just hear enough. You really need my help. Please come back next week.
Patient: Ok, thank you very much. /NEX
Doctor: And now...What you're supposed to do?
Patient: I'm trying to end this session.../NEX...But it doesn't work...You may need to call your Basis guys.
Doctor: ...Don't worry, I'm going to do it...

Greetings,

Blag.

Enterprise Geeks?

Some of my good friends and SCN colleagues and SAP Mentor colleagues Craig Cmehil, Dan McWeeney, Ed Herrmann, Rich Heilman and Thomas Jung, had join their forces to create a new web space called Enterprise Geeks.
So what do they offer?

* A blog
* Podcasts
* eGeek Tv
* Proyects
* Publications

Can you ask for more? I don't think so -;) I personally meet these guys...And I can tell you...They're really good stuff...Best among the best...No kidding -;)

Photo took without permission...Come on...They're my friends...I don't think they're going to care -;)

Greetings,

Blag.

Make your migration steps...Not a pain...

Ok...Usually I don't talk about software or services that I haven't actually test...But this time, I'm going to make an small exception.

Panaya offers a great tool to make you migration steps not a pain...How do they do that? Easy...

You:

1. Paste an ABAP report (Certified by SAP) into your SAP system.
2. Run the report to extract your custom code and usages statistics into a file.
3. Upload the file over a secure HTTPS connection to Panaya

Panaya:

* Analyzes your custom code and usage files.
* Maps all objects and their dependencies.
* Runs your code on ERP 6.0
* Lists problems, their solutions, and tests.

That means, no manual testing from your side...No "I need to test millions of ABAP programs"...Let Panaya do it for you -:)

Wanna learn more? Go here.

So...You might be thinking...Why I'm doing free publicity for this guys? Easy...Because they also offer this...

ABAP Ninja

A free based online service that helps you to find out the best Enhancement Points for your custom developments. Also, they participate at TechEd Las Vegas 2008...Where I saw ABAP Ninja in action.

Greetings,

Blag.

My New Year's resolutions (For 2009)...

We're almost at the end of 2008...It has been a great year for me.

* My daughter Kiara born on April.
* I attended SAP TechEd Las Vegas on September.
* Published the following books:
- El Arte de Programar SAP NetWeaver
- El pequeño libro del Performance
- El Arte de Programar Flex
- The Art of Programming Flex.
* Move to a new company called BizPartner.

So, for this new year...I got some resolutions...

* Start all the needed paperwork for applied to a Canadia Resident Visa.
* Learn Rails...Yeah...I said this every year -:(
* Publish the following book:
- The Art of Programming Ruby
- The Art of Programming for Kids
- The Art of Programming SAP NetWeaver
- The Art of Programming Java
* Learn Python...Same thing as Rails -:(
* Finish my ABAPIF Engine
* Attend TechEd Phoenix 2009
* Give my daughter the best 1 years old party ever!
* Loss weight...I need to loose at least 8 more kilos...
* Get the Latin American people more involved on SCN

As you can see...It's going to be a busy year for me -:) Specially because I always got new projects coming to my head every single day LOL

Greetings,

Blag.

Blag's T-Shirts

I just released a new store for selling Geek T-Shirts and related stuff.
You can found it on Blag's T-Shirts.
Here's a small sample -;)





Greetings,

Blag.

Do you follow me on Twitter? Coz I'm not following you...

I have using Twitter for a long time...And I can't deny that I totally love the service (Even with the whales)...

But there's something that I still don't get...Why people try so hard to be the Promo Queens? Sometimes I see profiles following thousands of people and being followed by another thousand of people...I really don't see a point on this...

Guy Kawasaki posted on his blog a nice essay called How to Use Twitter as a Twool, while I like it, I don't follow his idea of using Twitter as a marketing tool. Why? Simple answer...I use Twitter to keep in touch with my friends or to know people who share my interests...Why on earth would I follow someone who doesn't nothing related to my own interests?


You can see that 368 individuals follow me, but I only follow 235...There are 133 individual that I don't follow...

I simply don't want my Twitter flooding with Tweets that I don't want to read or are in any way interesting to me...

Pretty sure, I'm going to loose some followers after this post...I don't care...I just my Twitter to be plain and simple -;)

Greetings,

Blag.

Flex alternative IDEs...

Because of my last post Looking for the perfect Ruby IDE, Frank Koehntopp The Gadget guy ask me about Flex IDEs...

It amazing that even when Flex Builder it's a great tool, there are only a couple of open source projects handling Flex development.

First try was FLEXible an IDE made with Flex...What can I say? It's still Alpha and I could do anything with it...Just get error messages...


Second try was FlexBean a NetBeans plug-in...Very nice...But it lacks of code completion...Anyway...It's a nice option.


Last try was Flash Develop, which need some external configuration but has code completion...I have read it's widely used...So far, the best alternative IDE...



I can't say that I would want to see other Flex IDEs...Because Flex Builder is just great...But I hope that the Open Source Community can came out with some better alternative Flex IDEs...

Greetings,

Blag.

Looking for the perfect Ruby IDE

I consider myself a Ruby fan...That's why I'm always looking for news and of course...IDE's.

My first approach was FreeRide, a Ruby based IDE. What I love about this IDE it it's simplicity...While some people are getting used to fancy RAD tools, I like to keep things as simple as possible...FreeRide offers this.


Second try was Ruby in Steel, which is free in it's personal edition. I have never been a huge fan of Visual Studio even when I got some C# skills...Despise that, I decide to give this IDE a try...Installation was quick and smooth...However, as I already had Ruby installed on my laptop, I decided to skip it from the installation for later configuration...Sad surprise when I pointed to my Ruby installation folder...Ruby in Steel didn't accept it...According to the message, I needed Ruby to be installed on Program Files folder, while I have it under Programacion folder. Bad thing, as I got no plans on uninstalling my current configuration...


My last attempt was NetBeans 6.5 which is currently bundling Ruby/Rails, Groovy/Grails, C/C++, Java/JavaME/JavaFX and PHP (I wonder why left out Python and Perl)...This was a real pleasant surprise...NetBeans had done an excellent job...I really love the IDE and sure love the Ruby support which is run under JRuby...I could installed all my beloved gems and start working...Highly recommended -:)


Now...I know what you're thinking..."Hey Blag...Haven't you tried Eclipse?" Sure I did, but doesn't think it was necessary to put it here...I use Eclipse for my Flex development and wanted to keep it that way...

Also...There are a plethora of IDE's out there...But those three we're the most important to me...Which are yours?

Greetings,

Blag.