First of, Mexico City is huge. There is no way to see everything so you must pick and choose. Also, note that distances are big and if you go in “normal days” traffic will be a pain. Using the subway system is a good idea.

Safety, Mexico City is pretty safe but you need to keep in mind that as foreigners you get extra attention. To be safe, never have too much cash with you nor all your debit/credit cards. Try not to wear fancy stuff, specially in the downtown area or while using the subway. In the subway keep your bags close to you. Always use “sitio” taxis, get them from your hotel or ask a cop where to find them.

Food and water can be a problem for foreigners. The rule of thumb is never drink tap water, instead drink bottled water. My friends have never had trouble with ice, but if you want to be extra extra careful just decline it. Eating in the street can be dangerous, only eat street food where it looks clean, specially inside a plaza not next to cars or in subway entrances.

Unlike most cities Mexico City is a conglomerate of many cities that end up “merging” thru growth. There is one main downtown, but every “delegacion” has it’s own downtown.

Trip recommendation: do not try to go to different areas in one day, as it will be difficult. Try to stay on the same area and see as much as you can. I tried to organize this by areas.

For the gay traveler – I was surprised to see how open the city is now but I would still recommend a bit of caution. The Zona Rosa is the gay area where there are more liberties. If you want to stay close to this area I highly recommend staying at the Sheraton Maria Isabel, which is conveniently across the american embassy.  There are tons of places to go, and trend places change really fast. For where to go, I would recommend checking out some gay guides such as this  http://mexicocity.gaycities.com/

Downtown – Zocalo (plaza), Palacio de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Palace), Catedral (Cathedral), Templo Mayor (archeological site)

For a full list/description –

Centro de Coyacan – this is my favorite center, its full of culture and people socializing. Its also full of culture, including Frida Kahlo’s museum. I personally like going at night to eat some of the great street food they have.

San Angel (must go on Saturday morning) – I love San Angel downtown. Its full of arts. I personally love going for breakfast at Sacks (healthy mexican food) and then walk around. Also, once you are done there you can go to Diego Rivera’s museum that is very close (short taxi ride). In front of Diego Rivera’s house you should have a meal at San Angel Inn, one of the best traditional Mexican restaurants (note, only on weekends you can go without a suit).

Xochimilco – also called the Mexican Venice and a UNSESCO world heritage site is a fun place to. You rent a trajinera (boat) and tour around the inner rivers. Just be mindful that is a bit far from downtown (south of Mexico City) so plan ahead.

Polanco – this is the old business district and now you will its mostly find super high end stores and some of the best restaurants in Mexico. See the restaurant recommendations for more info.

History Day

Museo de Antropologia e Historia – this is the most important history museum you can go to. You will find everything from our prehispanic history to the spanish independence. This is a must go and should take at least half a day.

Castillo de Chapultepec – this is used to be the old president palace. It is beautiful and has great views of the city. To get thru it you need to go to the Chapultepec park, which is the largest public park in Mexico City. It’s a pretty cool trip, but can be overwhelming due to the amount of people.

Restaurants

Mexican food can be very cheap, like going to a market and trying out a quesadilla or tacos. There are hundreds of little restaurants that you can try food from. My recommendation is, try different things during the day to experience the mexican food and splash some money on dinners.

If you go to a good restaurant make sure to try to drink some Mexican wine (you will not get it in the US). You will be surprised how good it is. Some recommended brands are: Casa Madero, LA Cetto (nebiolo), Monte Xanic, Maria Tinto and many more.

Around the City

VIPS – this is a very affordable place to have lunch and its all over the city. You are guaranteed a healthy, clean and quick meal. I personally love the Caldo Tlalpeño (chicken broth, rice, chicken and avocado) and the chicken tostadas.

Los Arcos – if you like sea food, you have to try this place. It has traditional mexican food from the coast. Try ordering a huachingango a la talla (sea bass), its delicious!

Polanco Area – $$$ Reservation required

Pujol  – if there is only one restaurant you have to go here, hands down. This master piece restaurant is the only restaurant on in Mexico to make it to the San Pellegrino top 50 restaurants of the world. The restaurant sole focus is on the food and on service. Enrique Olvera has taken traditional mexican food and pushed it to the new modernist cuisine. It’s an experience.

Jaso – this restaurant managed by a two married chefs (Jared & Sonia) serves fantastic modern cuisne. You wont find mexican food here, but its definitely an amazing restaurant.

Café O – great restaurant to have a good breakfast with organic produce.

Dulce Patria – amazing mexican food with a modern style. Highly recommended.

Izote – another great mexican food restaurant. This one is more classic food, but with very high quality.

There are many other very good restaurants in Polanco, but you can talk to your hotel and see what’s good.

South

San Angel Inn – As mentioned its one of the best traditional mexican restaurants.

Sacks – great restaurant

Paxia – modern mexican food with very good quality. There is two locations, one in San Angel and another in Santa Fe.

Downtown restaurants (Zocalo) – reservation required

El Cardenal – This is probably my favorite restaurant in the zocalo. You will find specialty foods such as escamoles (ant eggs) that you wont find anywhere else (note, there is other foods )

El Danubio  – El Danubio. Its one of the oldest restaurants in mexico and you will find all traditional foods. I personally like El Cardenal better.

Close to Mexico City

Teotihuacan  – the most famous archeological site in Mexico, this sacred place hosts the two largest pyramids in Mexico. I highly recommend going there. It is a day trip from Mexico City.

South of Mexico City

Cuernavaca – I love Cuernavaca, the ever lasting spring city. You can make Cuernavaca your hub for a 2 or 3 days and try to go to the places below. Cuernavaca has a lot of history for Mexico, for example here is where Hernan Cortes rules and where Maximilian (Mexico’s only emperor) had his house. You should visit: Palacio de Cortes, Jardin Borda and the Brady Museum. I recommend having breakfast at the Mañanitas restaurant and lunch-dinner at the Madrigal.

Tepoztlan – this is my favorite town. It has some magic to it that I cant explain. You should definitively walk around the town, get in the market and try some quesadillas. And if you are fit, climb the mountain to find a small pyramid and views of the whole valley.

Grutas de Cacahuamilpa – This magestic caves park is amazing. Its hundreds of kilometers of underground caves.

Taxco – the silver town, is very unique in Mexico. This town has a strict aesthetics policy and its pretty amazing. If you want art, jewelry or anything you can imagine made of silver you will find it here.

I hope this guide helps you find some cool places to visit and eat

So what is mole? The word mole comes from the Nahuatl word “mulli” which means concoction, stew or sauce. The sauce is rich and smooth, with; chilli peppers, a variety of roasted nuts, fruits (including tomatoes), garlic, and spices. It can be served in hundred different ways. The first mole was made in Puebla around the 1680s but today can be found in all regions of Mexico. Mole usually comes in a paste and broth is added to make the sauce. For this recipe the idea was to make the paste.

Even though the pictures have comments of “I” all over. My friend Adri helped me out with copping, stirring and pulverizing. Thanks Adri!

	The list of ingredients are huge and I could not find everything so I had to improvise. The major changes were with the chillis where I only used Ancho, Guajillo and California. Also my plantain was not ripe so used a bit of banana instead. I also exchanged the bread for a tortilla and used natural peanut butter instead of peanuts.
I started with the broth by heating up water with onions, celery and carrots. NO salt. Once it came to a boil I added the chicken and reduced the heat. I cooked it for 45min until the broth was clear.
	I made a big mistake at this point. I should have cut open the chillis, de-veined them and stored the seeds on the side. Instead I roasted them entirely. After roasting them I put them for 30 min in hot water. Then I de-veined them with care (not to take the flesh out) and threw away the seeds.I then blended the chillis with half a cup of water and passed them thru a sieve to get rid of the pulp. It was really cool to see that the paste that was left. It looked like dark chocolate.I then needed to use new chillis to get the seeds of which were roasted and then put in the chilli blend.
I roasted the onions, almonds, and cinnamon with no oil.I also roasted the sesame seeds and then pulverized them.
	Then I added a bit of oil and fried the tortilla and the banana.I blended the nuts, banana, cinnamon, onions and tortilla with a cup of broth until smooth.With the left over, I oil fried the tomatoes until all the moisture (most) was gone. Then I blended the tomatoes and put them aside.
Here are all the first mixes:* blended and strained chillies & seeds* blended fried tomatoes* blended tortilla, nuts, banana and onions * pulverized toasted sesame seeds * Oaxaca chocolate
	Now that I had all the mixes it was time to start the frying.Adding two table spoons of lard I put the chilli blend and cooked it until the blend was dry.Once is as dry I added the tomato blend and continued to dry it. Next, I added all the ingredients except the chocolate. I noted that it was a bit chunky (previous to last pic) so I decided to reblend it to make it very smooth. While I was blending the the mixture I added chocolate to my taste.The sauce went back to the pan to continue to fry and dry. It was amazing to see the color transformation as it was pretty light but as it got thicker it started turning dark.Once it was a paste I took it of the fire and put it aside.
To serve, I took some of the paste and mixed it with broth. I added salt to taste.I placed the chicken and then covered it with the delicious mole sauce. Sprinkled with some sesame seeds, serve with Mexican rice, and corn tortillas.Enjoy! I know I did.

Here is how we implemented it (we did not include rotation nor inertia), by no means this is the perfect solution but it worked for us:

1. Install the Silverlight Toolkit

2. Add the reference dll to your project

3. Add the reference to your page class xml

xmlns:toolkit=”clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit”

4. Add the GestureListener and Transformation to your photo (not you have to create the methods for those events)

<Image HorizontalAlignment=”Left” Name=”photo” Stretch=”Uniform” VerticalAlignment=”Top” Source=”MyPhoto.png”>
<Image.RenderTransform>
<CompositeTransform x:Name=”ImageTransformation” ScaleX=”1″ ScaleY=”1″ />
</Image.RenderTransform>
<toolkit:GestureService.GestureListener>
<toolkit:GestureListener PinchStarted=”GestureListener_PinchStarted” PinchDelta=”OnPinchDelta” DragDelta=”Image_DragDelta” Tap=”photo_Tap”/>
</toolkit:GestureService.GestureListener>
</Image>

5. Declare a global private Point center and a double initialScale variables

6. On pinch start method

private void GestureListener_PinchStarted(object sender, PinchStartedGestureEventArgs e)
{
// store the initial rotation angle and scaling
initialScale = ImageTransformation.ScaleX;
// calculate the center for the zooming
Point firstTouch = e.GetPosition(photo, 0);
Point secondTouch = e.GetPosition(photo, 1);

center = new Point(firstTouch.X + (secondTouch.X – firstTouch.X) / 2.0,
firstTouch.Y + (secondTouch.Y – firstTouch.Y) / 2.0);

7.

private void OnPinchDelta(object sender, PinchGestureEventArgs e)
{
// if its less that the original  size or more than 4x then don’t apply
if (initialScale * e.DistanceRatio > 4 || (initialScale != 1 && e.DistanceRatio == 1) || initialScale * e.DistanceRatio < 1)
return;

// if its original size then center it back
if (e.DistanceRatio <= 1.08)
{
ImageTransformation.CenterY = 0;
ImageTransformation.CenterY = 0;
ImageTransformation.TranslateX = 0;
ImageTransformation.TranslateY = 0;
}

ImageTransformation.CenterX = center.X;
ImageTransformation.CenterY = center.Y;

// update the rotation and scaling
if (this.Orientation == PageOrientation.Landscape)
{

// when in landscape we need to zoom faster, if not it looks choppy
ImageTransformation.ScaleX = initialScale * (1+(e.DistanceRatio-1)*2);
}
else
{
ImageTransformation.ScaleX = initialScale * e.DistanceRatio;
}
ImageTransformation.ScaleY = ImageTransformation.ScaleX;
}

 

8. Implement drag

private void Image_DragDelta(object sender, DragDeltaGestureEventArgs e)
{
// if is not touch enabled or the scale is different than 1 then don’t allow moving
if (ImageTransformation.ScaleX <= 1.1)
return;
double centerX = ImageTransformation.CenterX;
double centerY = ImageTransformation.CenterY;
double translateX = ImageTransformation.TranslateX;
double translateY = ImageTransformation.TranslateY;
double scale = ImageTransformation.ScaleX;
double width = photo.ActualWidth;
double height = photo.ActualHeight;

// verify limits to not allow the image to get out of area

if (centerX – scale * centerX + translateX + e.HorizontalChange < 0 &&
centerX + scale * (width – centerX) + translateX + e.HorizontalChange > width)
{
ImageTransformation.TranslateX += e.HorizontalChange;
}

if (centerY – scale * centerY + translateY + e.VerticalChange < 0 &&
centerY + scale * (height – centerY) + translateY + e.VerticalChange > height)
{
ImageTransformation.TranslateY += e.VerticalChange;
}

return;
}

9. Test! each app is different make sure it behaves as you want

We hope this helps

Step 1. Know what are the list of hotels you could get, and be comfortable with that. To know that you should go to biddingfortravel.net and go to your city or country.

Step 2:Then click the “HOTEL LIST” forum, which should be the first on the page. Notice what are the hotels of 4* on the different areas. Also make sure to notice the different areas that do NOT have 4* hotels, this is very important.

Step 3. Go back to the city forum and see how much people are paying for the hotels and what areas. Start by bidding a bit lower than that.

Step 3. If your bid is accepted you are done.

Step 4. If your bid is not accepted you need to change your parameters for the query. Add a city area that does not have a 4* hotel and add 5-10dlls to your bid.

Step 5. If your bid is accepted you are done.

Step 6. If your bid is accepted repeat Step 4.

You are done, happy bidding!

Fast forward a couple of years later to today and we can buy a 1TB drive for less than 100dlls, blank blu-rays, huge flash memory, etc. But do you need all that space? Probably not, and its not that you cant fill it, the problem is that its just in your computer. It’s stuck in one single place.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a Windows Home Server (WHS) and started centralizing all my documents and media. This little gadget currently has 1.7TB and I have about 700GB left. I can add more hard drive disk if I want to up to 8TB, enough I would say for at least a year. The WHS made me realize something big, if all my data is centralized, then why do I need space on my computers? And the answer is I don’t. I have a 650GB IMac which the only hard drive space used is the one that the OS and programs use. The laptop is the same thing. My WHS lets me access my documents seamlessly in my home network but also from anywhere in the world, because my WHS is connected to the internet.

I accept that my WHS is a geeky thing and most people wont ever buy one of those (even though I recommend them). But a couple of days a go I bought a HP Mini for a friend, and it only has 32GB of hard drive. At first I was shocked, why so little? But then I realized why get more hard drive when you can store everything online and access it anywhere. My friend doesn;t have to shell 500dls out of her pocket to get the same features I have. She can do it now for free (or some pay services) in what we now call the “cloud”. There are many services such as Amazon S3 and with Microsoft Sykdrive (free!). And the best thing, she does not have to worry about anything. Her files will be there forever and she could share them out to anyone she wants!

As time goes by, I believe this type of services will be used more and more. And eventually the need of a big hard drive will go away. Making a 32GB solid state drive the ideal for any computer, giving it more performance and battery boost.

I can’t wait to see what the future has in storage for us.

You also need to be aware that this walks a fine line with “legality” so HP and MS does not really have an official support for this. And I personally do not support you breaking the law, take this as it is.

My scenario:

1. Backup my owned dvd to WHS
2. Stream/access directly to TV and Computers

My setup/requirements:

1. I have an xbox and a ps3 connected hard wire to my WHS and the TV. I need the media sharing to be direct to console, without going to another computer (WHS->Player not WHS->WMC->Player).

2. I have all my computers on wireless connection

3. I want to do this in the shortest time possible, hard disk space is not an issue for me

Here are the steps to do it:

1. Enable Twonky media sharing on WHS

2. Take your dvd and create a 1 VOB file (DVDShrink works like a charm)

3. Put the contents on the Video folder. You will have 1VOB file and several info files. I do it with the following format:

Videos\<movie name>\

4. For PS3, search media servers. Once it finds the twonky server the easiest way to browse is by Album (aka Folders)

5. For WMC add the  path to the Movies in the Settings menu. Access movies by opening the Movies option. To make things sweeter, you can install My Movies in WHS and enjoy all the art and movie info on your Media Center.

Extra things good to know:

1. Transcoding (re-encoding dvds) take hours and it’s just not fun. Playing with the settings such as codecs and bit rates is painful. Don’t waste your time on this unless you don’t have disk space.

2. If you bought dvds they are most likely protected and its not legal to remove the protection but you can find how to do it with a simple Live Search.

3. VOB files are just MPEG2 wrappers, if you rename them they work BUT windows media player and media center have a limit of 2 GBs, so if your VOB file is bigger you cannot fast-forward, rewind, pause, So don’t do it.

4. XBOX does not support VOBs. I was not able to get this running on XBOX (I’m still trying). So if you have both consoles go for the PS3 first.

Thanks it! I hope it helps you reduce time. Believe me there is no way easier to do it.

General – B-: This whs (windows home server) lets you centralize everything in your home and make it accessible from the outside world. My goal was to have all my scenarios working without adding any other software, just out of box components. The biggest issue was that it is not as straight forward as they advertise.  They assume you know a lot of things like how to access streams, account management (same name, password), etc. It took me 2 weeks to figure out the dvd to tv, when it was straight forward (dont use xbox but ps3). In general there are two things I believe should be spent to make adoption better: one time-one place configuration and scenario based documentation.

Unboxing – B- : I was so happy to see the little box showing all the cool things that you can do with the server. I rushed to open it, just to be disappointed. First there was no greeting or congratulation for buying such a good product (make me feel good for spending 500dls). Second there is no documentation except a lame poster that shows you some basic things: connect to power, connect to router, how to add new hard drives, install software on client . I do not like documentation in general but I was expecting a bit more of guidance.  I did not know what to do once I turn on the server and install the software in the computer. My questions seem not to have any answer: what do I backup? what are the best practices for backup? how do I share my media? I think every product should have some basic documentation  talk you thru the basic scenarios and create you an expectation.

First Boot– B+: The first part of setting it up was easy, and straight forward: Add hard drive, connect to power, connect to network, turn on, install client software. My only complaint is that there were so many updates it took me an hour to start playing with it! The HP 2.5 software was released couple of months ago, why wasn’t it on the box!

Configuring – B-: Configuring was easy if you knew what you needed to do. HP or MS should create something I call one time-one place configuration. That is, walk users thru the whole process by hand, once they are done they don’t have to worry about it any more. Power users, can skip it if they want and do changes by themselves. Also some scenario based documentation should be provided. For example “I want to do daily backups” or “I want to watch my home dvds on my xbox” etc

Video convertor – B-: This is something that HP should have double thought about. Why have a streamer and a transcoder? Why not add a live transcoder-streamer such as tversity?  My as a user I do not want to have two copies of the movie!

Streaming and Remote access A-: Confusion, there are 3 ways of sharing media on WHS, but no one tells you what is the difference. Letting the user know which to use for each scenario would be very helpful. The setup was easy if you knew what you are looking for. It took me like 5 minutes to configure the whole thing and now I can access my computer from work and stream to my xbox (video, music and pics)! This is just AWESOME. The only issue here was that it took me more time to find out how to access the stream content than configure. I wanted to see it thru the xbox, but I had no idea how. It took me 10 minutes to find a blog about it. Again, my complaint is more about taking the customer by the hand and have clear documentation.

For DVDs check my next post to read get more details.

College hires are more high maintenance than most think. By now you are probably saying, “What are you talking about? My college hire just goes and do things without overhead”. The problem is that we always tend to think that technical stuff is the overhead, but there is a whole other world to consider. Kids now grow doing more than one thing at the time. They want challenges that will make them feel important. They believe they can take over the world. And that is important to recognize and accept. Keeping a college hire happy is a LOT of work.

I have also noticed that they tend to think their college way of doing things is THE way. And usually that doesn’t work very well. There will always be good new ideas in those thoughts, but you have to be on the lookout to make sure he or she does not fail helping achieve the team goals. I made that mistake with an intern once and I regret not being more on top of him to make sure he did not stride off path too much. I believe its important to keep a good eye on them on the first couple of months to make sure they get the teams methodology right. This includes things from technical things, process, and team interaction. Also you need to LISTEN to them, for they will get frustrated (and will stop being honest with you) if you are not open to new ideas.

Second is that they tend to get frustrated with “slow” development. In order to illustrate this let’s take a student that spends a month to get a school project up and running (would be pretty big). They barely slept, ate pizza every day and did not realize there is a sunrise and dawn outside their Linux packed lab. Then, they come to a company like Microsoft where it takes three years to release software like Office or Windows. Now they are in shock, why? Because it’s like asking a racing car to slam break and go at 20 miles per hour. They feel nothing ever happens, that everybody is a slacker and that it’s a waste of time.

In my opinion they are half right. I say half because I do think there are people cycles that go unused for long periods of time but they don’t realize that to make such big and complex software you need to slow down at some periods. It’s really important that if you get a new hire on these periods that you find a good challenge for them, because if not you will lose them. If you are lucky enough of being in a fast development cycle (like web products) then you don’t have to worry about that, they will busy enough.

One more thing to consider is that everything is black and white for them. I have heard things like “C is the best language to program”, “X tool is useless”, “Linux is the best OS”, etc. The problem with this thinking is that either something is good or bad. And that is almost never the case. It all DEPENDS. Students are used to think of things this way, and it’s very important to make them understand that that is not the case. Thinking that things are black or white can lead to dangerous things, such as they spending precious time rewriting tools (instead of refactoring them), creating bad vibes in the team, they leaving your team, etc.

Last, new hires want challenges that matter. New generations want to make sure they are making a difference. If you do give them the project that no one wants, it might work the first time, but they will quickly lose patience and they will leave the team as soon as they can. Make sure that if you do give them a project no one wants that they understand why is it valuable. Don’t let your new hire get bored, for boredom is the worst thing you can do to them. Also make sure they know you genuinely care about their career, and I do mean genuinely, because they can read you better than you think.

To conclude having college hires is exciting and rejuvenating (even though they might make you feel old). They are valuable assets to the teams and should be cherished. But as with any new born plant, they need constant care and grooming. Make sure you do spend the time with them, they will be grateful to you and you will see the positive impact.

let’s take for example one of my personal activities that I did wrong and is causing more effort. I decided to buy some Chinese stock called HMIN a few months back on the advice of a friend. This took a 5 minute effort on looking at some info about the company and I decided to buy it. Within 2 weeks the stock was up 30% within a month it was -30%. Now its -50%, so what the hell happened there? Well I decided to do the easy thing and go the "easy" wrong way. I did not spend time to analyze the stock, clearly understand the market, and so on. If I had spend more time (effort) into analyzing this company a little better I would have seen that this was not a good investment, for the Chinese market was totally ballooned and it was doomed to fall down. Now I have to do a lot of more effort (mostly psychologically) to keep up with this stock.

So I ask you dear reader, how many things you do that look easier or you know its the wrong thing and decide to do it anyway despite the fact you know it will cost more later?

I’ve been told by my friends that I’m an optimizer freak and I agree with them. I was in vacations last week to Mexico and it really made me anxious that I new faster ways to go thru streets or that service in restaurants is slow. This made me think a lot because we are so used to doing things fast, in the optimal way that we don’t take time to enjoy life. There are no shortcuts to living (well there are but I don’t recommend them). Sometimes we need to slow down and enjoy.