Your quick guide to this page:
TL;DR
I was born in Arcos de Valdevez and at the moment I live in Braga. Both places are in northern Portugal, in case that matters. I completed a 5 years degree in Psychology at University of Minho and, throughout my life, I have always been engaged into learning something. More recently I have been focusing on sofware development, mainly using Python and C#. I am married, and happy to be the father of a beautiful and very smart little girl.
Work
After leaving university, I got my first job in a different field, working for about 2 years as a computer teacher at a local Futurekids franchisee, with students ranging from 3 to 83 years old. I teached some basic things, like how to use a mouse and a keyboard, and also some more advanced topics, such as word processing, spreadsheets, image editing and website building. It was very exciting to get into some of the nicely done curricula they had, and to have the opportunity to design some new teaching units. In the last year that I worked there, I designed a set of courses, either for teenagers or adults, covering the use of opensource software, like Audacity, GIMP, Inkscape and OpenOffice.org (an ancestor of LibreOffice).
Then I was hired by a very young start-up company, Lojamac.com, later renamed as Promais.com, which was an Apple Authorized Retailer investing in both physical and online commerce (e-commerce was still not that common by that time). I fully embraced that experience, learning a lot during the process, and making an effort to help the company grow its market presence and achieve the highest consumer satisfaction possible. It was the beginning of a long journey that would go on for 11 amazing years.
Since I had been been studying many topics on computer science and software development on my own for some time, I then decided to take a gap year between jobs in order to finally get some formal training in computer programming. It was a great opportunity to fill some earlier learning gaps and get even more curious about stuff.
Currently, I work as a developer at Slim Business Solutions, a company specialized in enterprise applications. It is an ongoing opportunity to acquire many new skills and to improve existing ones, within a very friendly and collaborative team. Some of the main projects I have been involved in are related to payroll and human resources management.
Literature
I have written a couple of short stories, all of them in an experimental style, and also some poetry (always in Portuguese). You can find most of my literary work published as e-books at the usual places (iBooks store for Apple devices, Amazon store for Kindle devices, Kobo, Scribd, or even the device-independent distributor Smashwords.com).
In 1999, I received the Teixeira de Queirós Literary Award for my fiction book titled Ode a Um Poeta Naturalista. In 2002, Manual de Trigonometria Aplicada (also a short fiction book, not a Maths handbook as the title would imply) won the “Ecos da Memória” Literary Contest. Three years later, As Confissões de Dulce was awarded with the 2nd prize of “D. Sancho I” National Short Story Contest.
Concerning poetry, I published É preciso calar o monólogo. Over the years, I have also collaborated occasionally with some publications, such as the Portuguese magazines Terra de Val de Vez (Nr.18, 2007) and Nanozine (Nr. 5, 2012), the Galician digital magazines Andar21.net and Palavra Comum, the Brazilian portal Alma de Poeta and the anthology Entre o Sono e o Sonho - Vol. IV (Chiado Editora, 2013).
Music
I play trombone in a concert band, the best of its kind around the corner, if you ask me (but I’m suspect to talk about it, so…). It’s no doubt the best way to experience music from the latest few centuries up until the current age, covering a lot of different genres.
A long time ago, I have also been at a church choir, where I used to sing and play trombone, do simple musical arrangements for a few instruments we used at special occasions and coordinate the rehearsals for those pieces.
Having said that, I am not, by no means, a professional musician, just someone who enjoys music.
Media and publishing
Between 1999 and 2001, I was one of the founders and a member of the editorial staff at a local newspaper (Jornal de Gondoriz). During those years, I have been responsible for the online edition and other websites promoted by that periodical (JG Arquivo and Gondoriz Online).
From 2003 to 2008, I was in charge of the Edições ArcosOnline project, which was related to digital publishing and free online distribution of literary works by lusophone authors (from Portugal, Galiza and Brazil). That project aimed mainly at helping young or less known authors whose works deserved more recognition from the public. A notable exception to that editorial guideline was the release of a new edition of the novel O Salústio Nogueira, a masterpiece by Teixeira de Queirós (1948-1919) that had been missing for some decades from libraries and bookstores.
Blogging and activism
Between 2006 and 2014, I have collaborated with posts about Apple and technology in some blogs, like Mac News, Pro+News, MacNotícias, Mac Portugal, iClub.pt, DZone and Pplware.
In 2012, I founded Braga Ciclável, a blog that aims to promote sustainable mobility and the use of bicycle as a means of transportation in the city of Braga, that has been awarded in 2013 by FPCUB with the National Prize for Bicycle Mobility. The project gained a significant community support and has originated since then a non-profit organization that primarily aims at getting better infrastructure for everyday cycling in the city of Braga.
Finally, in 2018, I started this humble blog that has no title and no big expectations. ;)
