About me

Hi, I'm Celso. If you're smart you'll figure out how old I am. I was born in Lisbon, Portugal, a city I only started to appreciate after leaving it. I spend my days getting my own company, 7syntax, off the ground and we're currently pretty busy building a "meta mobile network", Handivi.

I'm into simple stuff really. I enjoy riding on my Honda CB 750 motorcycle, sushi (California rolls actually), music (60% rock, 13% funk, 16% jazz, 8% electronica, the remaining 3% covering everything else) and hanging out with my friends. If you're a conversation starter, feel free to ask me about cinema, technology, specific places or distant "memoires". I have the occasional bad hair day but other than that I'm quite approachable. Speaking of hair, some of it is turning gray which kind of sucks.

At the time I'm writing this, all my tennis shoes are 8 years old and they're pretty damn comfortable too. Some years ago I had a dog and she chewed out a small piece of the inside on a pair but I still keep them. I don't keep pets any more, but I do have a few plants.

I believe in keeping things honest even if it's misinterpreted. I also believe that one person is all it takes to make a difference but a single person cannot change the world. I'm a fan of Kiva.org and what they're doing. I'm a hopeful guy I guess and sometimes I wear flare jeans.

I don't like to part ways so I end up saying "see you in a minute" or "see you later" a lot even if I know that the chances of crossing paths again with that person are extremely slim. Honestly I can't remember the last time I said goodbye to someone.

I prefer the Fall and Winter to the Spring and Summer. I lived in London for 6 months and had an absolutely brilliant time there. Sometimes I think of going back. I've also been to Barcelona, Brussels, Amsterdam and Swansea which was the coolest thing because I couldn't make immediate sense of anything. Someday I'll visit Japan and travel across Europe on my motorcycle.

I used to play the bass in a few rock bands. My first was an Ibanez, can't remember the model but I remember it cost me 150 Euros. It sounded like utter crap but it really didn't matter. Later on I got an SR and took off the frets out of the former hence getting me a fretless bass. That didn't make it sound a bit better. Sold the SR and bought the best bass I ever got my hands on: a sunburst Ernie Ball Sterling. Sold it later on and went back to Ibanez, this time around a 5-string ATK. Sold it too and never got another bass.

I love computers, specially the little, tiny ones we keep in our pockets and leave on the night stand. Given a choice, I prefer a mobile device instead of a laptop but then again that depends on the mobile and on the laptop. One thing is true: I just can't think of not being mobile. All my desktops are shut down. I have a Mac and two PCs. I also have a Linux laptop, a Nokia 770 and an Apple iPod Touch. I use it as an internet tablet, a replacement for the 770.

Career-wise, I've been developing software professionally for 10 years now. I joined a 3-year full-time computer course when I was 15 and on my first programming exam I got 18 out of 20. It was a program written for an IBM AS/400 machine at the company where we interned for the duration of the course, 3 months into the course. I must have been good at it because a few months later they asked me to help them debug their programs. I never managed to enrol in college and sometimes I regret it. I plan on doing it any year now but I won't be getting a CS degree. Sociology perhaps, probably economics. I'll do it for kicks and not to jump into a different career path though. I've done grunt work, lead teams and projects. I've worked at start-ups, within huge, international companies and spent a year doing consultancy for the government. I've tried starting a couple of companies before: one in game distribution and the other was a network of cybercaffes. The first sunk immediately, the second one I left but I hear they're still in business. Many lessons have been learned.

Get in touch

There are several ways of getting in touch with me. Below you can find other sites and services I use, feel free to contact me on any of them. If everything else fails, I can be reached via email at cpinto@yimports.com.