Trinbago Techie

I didn't plan to watch the budget presentation but I did. Normally I just wait for the budget documents to hit the website afterwards. I listened from start to finish and paid attention to comments on the youtube livestream I was watching. My overall impression? I wanted to see new ideas and innovation. I wanted to see a focus on technology. The comments on the livestream let me know that there is plenty bias and persons are towing their party's line. I hold no allegiance to any political party and I am ready to criticise and commend both sides. I am ready to work with anyone that wants good for Trinidad and Tobago. Since I started voting, I have voted for 3 different political parties. The tech related things that stood out to me from the budget are digital developer hub, national e-identity platform, tax breaks for tech startups and digital wallets. The opposition has pointed out that the Ministry of Digital Transformation has no website. I am waiting patiently for their webs

It has been raining plentiful this morning. I got wet in the rain going for doubles. As the rain pounds on the roof, I am asking myself, what would I do with a million dollars? If I had a million dollars to spend my main aim would be to make good use and improve my life and the life of others. It takes money to make money so I would want to invest. Of course I would want to save for a rainy day. A portion of money will go to charities. It feels good to give back and it is the right and good thing to do. Pay it forward. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Charities that help poor families with food and shelter. Charities that take care of the environment. Charities that save animals. I would want to make the world a better place for us and future generations. A portion of money will go towards home improvement. The house needs plastering on the outside. The area under the shed needs paving. A washer and dryer on the inside. A nice cupboard area to keep the kitchen neat. T

I was chilling in my room's AC hiding from the blazing sun outside and thinking what could be my next blog post. Then it occurred to me to write something about my work life. My very first job was at Computers and Controls in Port of Spain. I had just finished secondary school and I didn't have concrete university plans. My Math teacher helped me get that job. It didn't last more than a few days. I did not fit in. I couldn't socialise. I felt like a misfit. I cried. I was a young, dumb, broke high school kid as the song goes. I was book smart but not street smart. That is lesson number one. You need street smarts to survive in this world. The education system needs to do more to prepare us for the real world. During university I worked part time conducting phone surveys. This was shift work from 6 pm to 10 pm on weekdays and 8am to 4pm on weekends. The challenge here was that I had an accent. Then the cold nights waiting for the bus to return to campus housing. This job

So I decided to purchase a .tt domain name. In the past I would have gone the way of Godaddy because it was cheaper (for 2nd level domain name), more convenient and offered DNS management. There was a time when online credit card payments was not accepted by TTNIC . TTNIC manages the .tt cctld (country code top level domain). TTNIC is a register. Read up more about the internet domain name system if you want to learn more about this. At the heart of what they do is point your domain name to your specified nameservers that manages your DNS records. They only manage nameserver records in their zone so you will have to obtain DNS management outside of them. Cloudflare seems to be popular for this and they offer a free tier. I found serverspace.io and their free tier and I chose this. For now I am hosting a landing page on my domain name and using firebase hosting. For this I am using A records pointing to firebase's hosting ip addresses. One of the main reasons I chose a .tt domain na

I was browsing youtube and came across a newsclip about the launch of the Huawei IdeaHub rollout to select schools in Trinidad and Tobago. My interest was piqued and I quickly contacted the local agency that handles Huawei's public relations. I asked for any press release they had. I was going to learn as much as I can, ask questions and write this blog post. I am a big supporter for tech in education. What is the IdeaHub? It is an interactive electronic whiteboard with video conferencing capability. According to the IdeaHub website, innovative intelligent writing recognition automatically identifies words, figures, and flowcharts. The board will allow students to connect and share their screen. There are third party software designed for interactive whiteboards where you can perform quizzes for example. The board can be used for online classes if the teacher is willing to work from school rather than home. But soon enough we would be returning to school in classrooms and these boa

So many memories. So many good memories. Where to start? What to write about? It's 317 am on a Wednesday morning and I am thinking about doubles for breakfast this morning. I remember the doubles man that sold outside San Fernando ASJA primary. You could even buy a singles. I remember the doubles from the cafeteria in St. Mary's College. That up north doubles was different. The bara was more yellow and more fluffy. Back to San Fernando. A big part of my younger years was spent in San Fernando at my uncle's place. They owned a chicken depot. I remember eating bread, butter and tea for many breakfast. I remember the chinese parlour next door where I would go to buy the Kiss bread. Madame Lee would total my purchase using pen and paper. I remember watching Madonna music videos on the tube TV in the living room. I remember the empty streets and silence the day the Strike Squad played USA. All we needed was a draw to go to Italy and everyone was inside and glued to their TVs. I

Often when people ask for career advice, I recommend doing things that they are passionate about. Plenty money is nice but doing what you love is nicer. I have seen arguments against this advice in articles. There can be arguments for and against anything. But nothing has changed my mind or stopped me from giving this advice. I am 41 and choosing what I am passionate about has served me well. My passion is technology. I knew I wanted to pursue my career in technology since the age of 14 in form 2 at St. Mary's College. I skipped form 3 and it was at the end of form 2 that I had to choose subjects for forms 4 to 5 (CXC and GCSE). I did Computer Science at O Levels and Computing at A Levels. Then my BSc in Computer Science at Morehouse College. This was all at a time when computing and technology was emerging. I am passionate about technology because I recognise the power of tech to make the world a better place. To make our lives easier and better. This passion means I put my best f