Alexander’s Blog – The Making of LetMeGo

“I don’t forget the old year” is the literal translation of a Spanish-language song commonly played at this time of the year. (The) lyrics express what a grateful farmer or farmhand has to say about the ending year. It goes something like this:

“Yo no olvido el año viejo,
Porque me ha dejado cosas muy buenas!
Me dejo una chiva, una burra negra,
Una yegua blanca y una buena suegra.”

(Translation):

“I don’t forget the old year,
Because it gave me with great things!
It gave me a goat, a black donkey,
A white horse, and a good mother-in-law.”

I am also thankful for this year. I am happier than I have ever been. Here is why:

I am happy because the United States of America elected a president, proving that any paradigm can be changed. I wanted Obama to be elected president since 2006, and my wishes became a reality. As many others, I cried out in happiness on election day.

I am kind of happy because we are in a recession. Of course, I wish for no one to experience any hardship, but recessions are inevitable and it is important to see the positive side of them. Recessions are the result of mistakes made by society and economics. Mistakes are also part of our learning process. Somebody once said “If you don’t make mistakes, you are not taking enough risks.” Somebody else said “Being ready to be wrong is a requirement for innovation”. As such, I find this recession an opportunity for learning and for innovation and I am happy to be living in a society where we like to push the envelope.

I am very happy because Tania, my wife and lover, has put more passion than ever in everything she is doing. Among many other things, she was able to secure, through donations from good people, a trip to Kenya to shot a documentary next month. She loves film and she always wanted to see Africa. She is fulfilling two of her most important life dreams.

I am happy because my sister Katia moved to Mexico to stay close to her boyfriend. Living in a new country is a life-changing experience that everybody should try to do once in their lives. My mom misses her, but my mom is also very happy with her boyfriend. It is the first holiday season that my mom, my sister, and my nieces aren’t together. This may be sad for now, but it will make for an awesome Christmas next year. I am also happy because I have not had a place to stay in Mexico, a country I haven’t been able to explore yet.

I am happy because my sister Alicia, a fighter, a lover, a justice seeker, and a brain, won a scholarship to Harvard this year. I am happy because my brother Luigi, overcame many visa and budget issues, and was able to stay close to his sweetheart and is now becoming a teacher. I am happy because both of them are here, sharing this holiday season with me in the Big Apple.

I am happy because my friends William and Liliana, also overcame visa issues, earned great jobs here in New York doing what each one of them loves to do.

I am happy because Leo, the best business partner I have ever had, keeps showing the commitment, consistency, and organization required to get very far in life. I hope now that I can live up to his expectations! His passion challenges me and that makes me very happy.

I am happy because Voice123 is doing great. Juan, Steven, and the rest of the Voice123 team are working full steam ahead with very exciting plans for the company. They did a great job in 2008. So great, that Voice123 has been able to cope with the recession without a single scratch.

I am happy because Gigi and her team over at Torrenegra Internet Solutions did much better in 2008 than I had expected. I am even happier when I remember that Gigi is the youngest business manager I have ever trusted with such great responsibilities.

I am happy because my main hobby, traveling, I received an overdose of this year. In January, I explored Patagonia with my old friend Andres. In June, I discovered Hawaii while shooting pictures at the wedding of our best friends Liliana and Maurizio. And finally, in November, I fulfilled my dream of experiencing China first hand.

I am happy because I have been able to work, and work very hard, with the best web development team I have ever seen. Henry, Maestro, German, and Lucho are the best at what they do. But not only that, they are great people, they have great hearts, and they are believers of change and innovation.

I am happy because LetMeGo, a project that I dreamed of more many years, is becoming an awesome reality.

I am happy because I am in good health.

I could happily die tomorrow knowing that my friends and family are so great, that their energy and passion would be more than enough not only for one, but for many lives to come. I also know that there is no letter ‘I’ in the word ‘team’, but I feel like the luckiest man alive, to be head of the best team in the world, the Torrenegra Labs.

To all of you, from the heart, I THANK YOU!

It was originally planned to take him three weeks, but in practice it only took him two weeks. What was it? The wireframes and HTML of the Marrley Scope. Thanks a lot Maestro! The Marrley scope is in charge of allowing travelers to book a lodging. It has many cool features that, as many others, you will be able to experience in a few months.

What is the rest of the team doing?

Henry is close to finishing the alpha version of the Mozarrt Scope, which is in charge of the exchange of messages among the users of LetMeGo.

German is also close to completing the alpha version of Arrmstrong. This scope will allow us to properly organize the destinations that LetMeGo will feature.

Lucho is half way through the Sinatrra Scope. This is the most complex and feature-rich scope, as it is in charge of allowing lodging staff members to update their listings in LetMeGo. There is a lot, and I really mean a lot, of AJAX in here.

Omar started working on the Kubrrick Scope a few weeks ago and it will take him a few more months to complete it. This is one of the secret scopes that contain features that we don’t want to make public just yet.

Maestro will now invest a few weeks creating a new concept for the overall look and feel of LetMeGo. Although we already have a look and feel, we want to continue exploring until we are 100% happy with the results.

I just finished documenting the use cases and user interfaces of the Rrose and Charrly scopes. Rrose (named in honor of Axl Rose) is, yet again, one of those secret scopes. Charrly (named in honor of Charly Garcia) will allow us to send email campaigns to our future users. I am now documenting the Osbourrne Scope, which is going to be our affiliate and referral program.

Felices Fiestas!

Alexander Torrenegra

I follow the blog of Web In Travel. A few days ago they posted an infomercial (masking it as an interview) promoting Amadeus. Amadeus is a veteran company known for its GDS system.

Amadeus is “trying hard” to evolve its business model and technology so that it keeps up with recent innovation. Unfortunately, for them (and fortunately for us), they seem to be… hmmmm… confused in terms of Web 2.0. Would you like to see proof? Look at their hilarious definition of “community based”: “[our] solution is a community-based model, which means that airlines can share the cost of the technology investment, greatly decreasing what an individual airline would pay for a unique IT platform or developing their own in-house system.”

Granted, their solution may not even use the Internet, but since when did partnering with another company to hire a vendor became a “community effort”!? It seems to me that Amadeus, being a technology company, is pushing the definition of community a little too far.

I wonder if they consider “Web 2.0″ using Firefox 2.0 or something.

Alexander Torrenegra

P.S. I did not study with a major in business, so maybe, this is how “community effort” is taught these days. I may be wrong. If so, please let me know!

Hi!

The details of LetMeGo.com, its business model, and its Merrcury Engine are a secret we are not sharing just yet, but today I am sharing some stats of our project with you. I am not sure if they are useful or not, but they are definitely cool.

Use cases documented

• 128 use cases so far (15 white level use cases)
• 160 use cases (total) estimated for beta

User interfaces documented

• 707 interfaces so far
• 1000 estimated for beta

Test cases recorded (most of them recorded via Selenium)

• 42 test cases so far
• 600 test cases estimated for beta

Unit tests coded

• 194 “passes” so far
• 480 “passes” estimated for beta

Man hours invested in documenting, designing, and coding the Merrcury Engine:

• 12,000 hours so far
• 21,000 hours estimated for beta

Just for fun, I created the graph below. It is a visualization of the requirements of the Merrcury Engine. It renders the pages and links in our wiki where we document the use cases and user interfaces. Each node is a use case or user interface. Each orange line is a link to a use case, while each black line is a link to a user interface. The version of the graph that we are publishing here is small, on purpose, so that you can’t read the names of the use cases or the user interfaces. The original size of the graph is around 25k x 20k pixels. It was rendered using the radial method of Graphviz.

Alexander Torrenegra

P.S. In case you are wondering, we use Rrápido as our developing methodology.