I've been maintaing this website for more than 15 years.
Carlos Barahona Possolo for whom I posed for many paintings and stamps when I was younger is not only (imo) one of the best painters in the world but also one of my best and dearest friends.
The website serves as a refined showcase of his portfolio, thoughtfully designed (with Carlos) to emphasize elegance and ease of use. It beautifully presents his visually compelling artwork within a subtle, user-friendly interface that complements rather than competes with the content, allowing his work to take center stage.
Key Features and Technologies:
Responsive Design: Ensures optimal viewing on any device, from mobile phones to desktop computers, allowing users to seamlessly browse the Mythology, Melancholy, Eros and Portrait galleries.
Performance Optimization: Implemented best practices for fast loading times and smooth user interactions, ensuring a fluid browsing experience across all pages.
Content Management: Created a simple CMS backend based on Google Drive to provide easy content updates, enabling the Carlos to manage paintings availability without technical expertise.
Tech Stack: Built with the original web technologies, namely HTML5, CSS3, and Vanilla JavaScript, to ensure maintainability and scalability throughout the years.
Sakura Milk Tea
https://www.sakuramilktea.com
Mental health, self-care and overall wellness are crucial in today’s fast-paced world, and Sakura Milk Tea landing page was developed with the goal of creating a supportive, calming online space dedicated to these themes.
Sakura Milk Tea is a japanese focused mental health platform that provides direct online counseling and therapy services via web/phone communication. The website was crafted to combine soothing aesthetics with functionality, making it a haven for users seeking balance, mental well-being, and relaxation.
Key Features and Technologies:
Mindful Design: The site’s aesthetic and layout reflect a peaceful, nurturing environment, from calming color schemes to user-friendly navigation, encouraging an atmosphere of relaxation and comfort.
Engagement-Driven Features: Integrated features such as interactive blog posts, wellness tools, and calming visual elements to engage users and provide a comprehensive mental health resource.
Performance and Accessibility: Prioritized fast loading times, mobile responsiveness, and accessible design to ensure that users from all backgrounds can benefit from the site, regardless of device or ability.
Secure and Reliable: Leveraged best practices in data privacy and security to build a trustworthy platform, providing users with a safe, judgment-free space to explore mental health resources.
APP DEVELOPMENT
ONAMAZU 地震情報
Onamazu - Earthquake Information for Apple TV
Featured as Best New App by Apple in 2016 in Japan when the first Apple TV with an App Store was launched. It stayed in the top apps in its category and overall for quite some time. This marked a busy period in my life just after my eldest son was born and I decided to be a first mover in this platform.
The idea came when I was thinking what app I should do and started shaking because of an earthquake. I thought it was a great idea for an app to be launched in the Japanese vast domestic market. I created in a few days and published it in my wife's name for marketing purposes.
The Onamazu, is a creature in Japanese mythology and folktales, a gigantic catfish said to cause earthquakes and tremors. Living in the mud under the Japanese archipelago, everytime he thrashes about he causes violent earthquakes. Hence the name for the app.
Key Features and Technologies:
Responsive Design: Ensures optimal viewing on any device, from mobile phones to desktop computers, allowing users to seamlessly browse the Mythology, Melancholy, Eros and Portrait galleries.
Performance Optimization: Implemented best practices for fast loading times and smooth user interactions, ensuring a fluid browsing experience across all pages.
Content Management: Created a simple CMS backend based on Google Drive to provide easy content updates, enabling the Carlos to manage paintings availability without technical expertise.
Tech Stack: Built with the original web technologies, namely HTML5, CSS3, and Vanilla JavaScript, to ensure maintainability and scalability throughout the years.
コロナ・ダッシュボード
Korona - COVID-19 Dashboard for Apple TV
During 2020 I've developed a dashboard app for Apple TV.
It has a Choropleth Map of Japan, a Graph of the evolution of Total Covid Patients, and a Dashboard with KPI per Prefecture.
Unfortunatelly ended up being rejected and Apple advised me to publish the app through the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare as their own guidelines and rules regarding COVID-19 won’t allow it to be publish by an individual.
Key Features and Technologies:
Mindful Design: The site’s aesthetic and layout reflect a peaceful, nurturing environment, from calming color schemes to user-friendly navigation, encouraging an atmosphere of relaxation and comfort.
Engagement-Driven Features: Integrated features such as interactive blog posts, wellness tools, and calming visual elements to engage users and provide a comprehensive mental health resource.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Playbot (WIP)
Colorful (WIP)
Processing
- Clock
- Circle Packing
The Quick Brown Fox
L'Archer d'Amiens
Rise of the Archer
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DESIGN
Web Design, App Design, Logo Design, Illustrations and Awards
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
LOGOS:
Academia Descartes
D. Lourenco
LivroFalado
LAGE
Sakura Milk Tea
Lovely Night Owl
Francisco Goncalves
PC Building, Electronics, Robotics, Embedded Systems, IoT
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Sumobot
Minimal Arduino
Build Your Own PC
DIY NAS
Raspberry Pi
Maker your own Game Handheld (Arduboy based)
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Artificial Intelligence
Exploring My Learnings and Perspectives in the World of AI
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
It's incredible as some years ago I ended up deciding not to go Artificial Intelligence specialization during my Master's degree along with Computer Graphics, UI/UX and Game Development.
I would be a perfect fit if I wanted to continue route of opening/joining a Game Studio.
Instead I ended up going though a more practical route of Networking and Databases.
Honestly at the current state of the AI, I though it would go nowhere. Much have change since then.
In hindesight I regret not taking that route. I told this to one of my Professors from that area.
He quickly replied to me saying that what you learn are university is just the beginning nothing stops me from learning all by myself. He was right and that is what I've been doing since then.
AI for me started in 1994 when I read an article in a PCW (Personal Computer World) in how to make a chess engine in QBasic using something called Minimax.
Motorcycle Riding, Violin Playing, Music and Video Production, Gaming
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Blog
Making Of Fuwafuwa Nanbatto-san
Mar 21, 2024
Noble Numbat Wallpaper Competition
Mar 18, 2024
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Making Of Fuwafuwa Nanbatto-san
2024/03/21 08:07· João Amaral
I was exploring circle packing in Processing, ok what is circle packing may you ask?
Circle Packing
Circle packing is a geometric arrangement of circles within a given space, such that no two circles overlap and they often fill the space as efficiently as possible. This concept is used in various fields, including mathematics, computer science, and art. In mathematics, circle packing is studied for its connections to graph theory and optimization. In computer science, it’s used in algorithms for generating complex structures, such as meshes or layouts. In art, circle packing can be used to create visually appealing patterns and designs.
At the same time I decided to submit my Mount Fuji to the Noble Numbat Wallpaper Competition.
I thought I could make a neat mascot wallpaper myself using circle packing.
The light version. (daytime)
So I started by tracing manually to vectorize the numbat shape from the following Wikipedia image by Martin Pot.
Once I decided the shape and the shading for the back and front leg and other features I run the circle packing algorithm (using the release date 2024/04/25 as seed) for the numbat shape and the negative space. After I did a gradient using using Ubuntu official colors namely Ubuntu orange ⏺ (#E95420) and Canonical Light aubergine ⏺ (#77216F).
After showing several versions to my wife and some small adjustments later I decided it was finished. The light version at least.
The dark version. (night time)
Being sometimes a night owl myself I decided to create a dark version to use from 18:00 to 6:00. This version the soap bubbles because black holes and you can see the circle packing in the numbat too. There is a subtle small sharingan style ubuntu logo on the eye. This dark version greatly reduces the overall brightness of the screen, trust me for someone who has astigmatism this is very good to use at night in a darkroom.
I dog feed it and created an xml for the timed wallpaper. (you can get it below)
Naming.
After using Mount Fuji, something I captured from the natural beauty of Japan I decided to use a Japanese name on my human/artificial creation as a balancing act.
The official name scheme of an Ubuntu release is “Ubuntu X.YY” with X representing the year (minus 2000) and YY representing the month of eventual release within in that year. Since the actual release date is not known until it’s ready and humans tend to prefer names rather than numbers, a set of codenames are used by developers and testers during the buildup to a release.
The 24.04 LTS (Long Term Support) Version has the Noble (Adjective) Numbat (Animal) codename.
The Numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus) is an endangered marsupial from open woodlands in western Australia. It is also called the banded anteater, because it eats termites. In Japanese Numbat is Nanbatto.
In Japanese culture, the concept of “noble” is associated with qualities like honor, dignity, elegance (“iki”), and refinement, rather than royalty. Being noble involves embodying these traits in behavior and attitude, similar to the concept of “fuwafuwa,” which describes things as soft, fluffy, and gentle. Both ideas emphasize elegance and subtlety, conveying a sense of inner peace and harmony, like the softness of baby cheeks or the fluffy hair of an animal.
Code
Finally the code (xml) for the timed wallpaper.
Create the file Fuwafuwa_nanbatto_san_by_amaral.xml in /usr/share/backgrounds/ (you might need to use sudo)
After that add the following wallpaper entry to the file /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/noble-wallpapers.xml (you might need to use sudo again)
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<wallpaperdeleted="false"><name>Fuwafuwa nanbatto san (daytime/night time)</name><filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/Fuwafuwa_nanbatto_san_by_amaral.xml</filename><options>zoom</options></wallpaper>
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Noble Numbat Wallpaper Competition
2024/03/18 22:55· João Amaral
I have been using the operating system Ubuntu since its first version (in my first laptop, a Toshiba, in my university years) and have been a fan ever since.
This year marks my 20th year using Ubuntu so I wanted to start to give back to express my appreciation.
Drawing on my passions for photography and design, I’ve decided to try to contribute to the upcoming 24.04 LTS (Long-Term Support) release by participating in the wallpaper competition.
Yesterday the winners were announced and I got 1st place in the two categories I’m participating. (Mascot and Nature). So next version will include my three images.
Mount Fuji, Japan
Fuwafuwa Nanbatto-san (Light)
Fuwafuwa Nanbatto-san (Dark)
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Numbat.jpg
