Trinbago Techie

The latest Stack Overflow survey results  is out. I wish we had a similar survey for Trinidad and Tobago and the region. It is useful to get a sense of what developers are wanting, what they are using, the challenges and so much more. Software developers form a large group of the tech ecosystem. The hardware is useless without the developers. Quality systems and processes take skillful developers. I looked through the survey results and these are my quick takeaways - Many persons are choosing coding as a career path - Perl language has lost its popularity in the developer space to other languages. This has been for some time. But Perl developers are highly paid and in demand. So you can make some money by learning an older language. - Trinidad and Tobago had a measely 20 persons complete the survey. This is unacceptable. - 53.06% of respondents started coding between 11 - 17 years of age. This fits with my idea that coding should be mandatory in Secondary school. - 91% of all responden

It is not easy to write a blog post and say I suffer from mental illness. It feels like this is something I should keep to myself. There is certain amounts of stigmatisation. From my experience workplaces in Trinidad need to be more open to hiring mentally ill persons. Persons should not be afraid to say that they are mentally ill and would require certain allowances like work from home, time off for monthly clinic visits, paid sabaticals and enclosed cubicles for example. In general we need better allowances for the differently abled in Trinidad and Tobago. The disability grant that the differently abled get is not enough to get by. It assumes that you have a place to stay or you are living with your parents. At the very least the government should be making incremental increases. Also special provisions can be made for dental work, wheel chairs, other equipment and other needs. TATT for example has a great subsidy program of $600 towards the purchase of a smart phone for the differen

I was scrolling through Facebook and came across a post stating that according to a leaked memo we will see eSIM launched by Digicel tomorrow https://www.facebook.com/622328941183335/posts/ eSIM is a chip embedded in your mobile phone rather than a physical removable plastic piece that we currently use in Trinidad. The US version of the iPhone 14 only supports eSIMs and locals are used to ordering their iPhones from the US. Hopefully this spurs on bmobile to quickly follow. A search on Digicel's website lead me to this article that gives official information such as "eSIMs will officially launch on 25th November, 2022." Check to see if your phone is supported and decide if you want to switch https://support-tt.digicelgroup.com/hc/en-us/articles/9950628857485-Digicel-eSIM

Illustration I created called "ARTificial Intelligence". Brain has AI in it. Nail has AI in it. Shows a hammer hitting a nail on the head to make my point. Brain is in head. Entry in this contest .

I started this blog post in my head on my way to the doubles man this morning. Twitter was trending on Twitter late into the night and this morning. Oh the irony. I was kept awake by the tweets and I went to sleep at about 2am. Many were left to wonder if this was going to be the end of Twitter. Twitter was bought by Elon Musk and some investors. Elon brings his style of control and his ideas. He promotes free speech and has been controversial in words and actions. Twitter has lost advertising revenue, cut staff and experimented with the verification badge, among other things. Elon is one of the richest persons in the world and has had much success with his companies Tesla and Space X. Not everyone likes Elon. I have mixed feelings about Elon. I like that he speaks his mind, that he is open to challenges and that he is not afraid to experiment. On the other hand, I find that he should handle the employees at Twitter with care and that he should be open to criticism. I want him to succe

What is telemedicine? Telemedicine is the use of electronic information and communications technologies to provide and support health care when distance separates the participants.  ¹ That is, clinical services – doctor-patient consultations – are delivered remotely. What are some of the benefits of telemedicine? Greater accessibility to health care Flexibility for the patient and health worker on managing the patient Less of a financial burden on the patient who does not have to travel to the health facility; it also saves time for the patient Can help improve patient compliance with health plan as the health worker can more easily follow up on adherence to treatment and share health information Patient data collection and management. What sort of technologies are involved in providing telemedicine? Mainly ICTs, for example: computer equipment – inclusive of PCs, tablets and lap tops; smart phones; telemedicine kits; television; teleconference software/platforms/apps; data storage app

The idea behind a paperless Trinidad (for me as a citizen and tech blogger) is that paper transactions be replaced with electronic transactions, receipts and documents. For example if I purchase from a supermarket, the receipt can be sent to my smartphone. Other examples are etextbooks and epapers. Google "paperless society" to see articles on this and the benefits of this. These are the questions I have How much paper waste is generated annually in Trinidad and Tobago? A waste characterisation study (CBCL Waste Characterization Study, 2010) conducted in 2010 reported that approximately 700,000 tonnes of solid waste were recorded reaching the landfill sites in Trinidad during the same year. Tobago recorded approximately 17,228 tonnes deposited at the Studley Park landfill site. The data on Trinidad shows that organics, plastics, paper and glass dominate the waste type distribution of the samples analysed. 84% of the items were considered as recyclable and could be diverted fr