English on Og Maciel's Journal

Using Python to Control Katello

Fri, 13 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I usually like to use python to script my day to day tests against Katello (you may have seen some of my previous posts about using the Katello CLI for the same purpose) and I figured I’d start showing some basic examples for anyone else out there who may be interested.

Assuming you have already installed and configured your Katello instance (learn how to do this here) with the default configurations, we now have a few options to proceed:

Populating a Katello instance using the CLI

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Lately I have been asked a lot about my previous script to automatically populate a Katello server instance with real data (hi reyc!) I wrote that a while back and though it still does contain some helpful commands, I figured it was about time I updated it. Well, it took me longer than I expected to find some time and clean it up, but I think I can now show you a brand new script which also includes the extra feature of downloading a manifest file directly from Red Hat's portal and importing it as part of the process.

Adventures in the Music Streaming World

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

These last couple of years have brought (along with some new wrinkles and occasional grey hairs) some interesting changes on how I manage and maintain my “digital belongings”. For a long while I used to worry about backing up and storing in a safe place all the files, photos, books, movies and music I’ve collected through the years. I have also managed to collect a variety of different external USB hard drives to keep up with this digital sprawl, where for each iteration the next device would increase in size and sometimes in speed compared to the current one. It got to a point where I got tired of the backup/restore game and found myself paying less and less attention to the things I had spent so much time maintaining.

Perks of being a polyglot

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I had one of those “once in a a lifetime” opportunities, thanks to my wife who dragged me to a presentation hosted by the University of North Carolina. The presentation by Dr. Eduardo Torres Cuevas, titled “Preserving Cuba’s Cultural Heritage in the 21st Century” attracted a small gathering, apparently mostly made up of UNC staff and students who are currently enrolled in one of their languages courses. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it, but being the supportive husband that I am, I signed off from work a bit earlier and together with our 2 kids we drove to the main campus.

Red Hat: 366 days later (and counting)

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Woke up to the following email this morning:

Dear Og Maciel,

Congratulations on your one-year anniversary with Red Hat! Thank you for your commitment and work over the past year. We hope that it has been everything you expected it to be and look forward to celebrating your future success with the company.

Time sure flies when you’re having too much fun! I can’t believe it’s been one whole year since I joined Red Hat as a Senior QA Engineer to work on their CloudForms project! So much has happened since then that it is a bit hard to remember all the new and exciting things I had the pleasure of being a part of! It is absolutely grate to be able to work on such a cool and challenging environment, and to experience first hand what open source and meritocracy really means!

Extending the default EC2 root partition: Follow up

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Just wanted to follow up on my previous post in regards to how to resize the root partition of an EC2 instance. Turns out that, once you’ve edited the root partition while in the launch panel, you can then perform the resize command right away, as soon as the instance is up and running and you have ssh’ed to it.

[root@ip-aa-bb-cc-dd ~]# resize2fs /dev/xvde1

This is definitely better than what I thought one had to do to get a bigger root partition.

Extending the default EC2 root partition for an instance

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Today I was playing with EC2, trying to launch a RHEL 6.3 instance so that I could then install the latest version of Katello and beat a bit on it… just for fun, you know? Using the EC2 Management Console web interface I used the “classical” wizard to select all the components I wanted for a m1.large instance, making sure to edit the default 7.5 GB root partition they give you so that I could have more space available to synchronize content… but when the instance finally came up I realized that my disk space was still showing the default value:

Tough Times

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

These last few days have been rough for my family due to a very unfortunate event. About 10 weeks ago my wife and I learned that she was pregnant, something that we both wanted very much since our last child was born in 2007. So for the last 10 weeks we have been taking all the necessary steps to prepare our daughters, our house and our work schedules to welcome another child into our family. We also decided that we would break the news very slowly at first, making sure to share the news with immediate family and close friends and planning to tell everyone else after we had our first ultrasound.

Error: uninitialized constant Heroku::API (NameError)

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Got stuck with this error on Fedora 17 while trying to get a project onto Heroku:

Error: uninitialized constant Heroku::API (NameError)

After some quick back and forth with the Heroku guys I finally got it fixed:

$ rvm uninstall 1.9.3 $ rvm reset $ sudo yum reinstall openssl openssl-devel $ rvm install 1.9.3 $ rvm use 1.9.3 —default $ heroku login

Hope this helps someone else :)

Pylyglot: Open Source Translation Search

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I wrote about Pylyglot, my translation searching tool that I use whenever I translate open source applications. Have not heard about Pylyglot? Read the About page for more info!

The reasons for the long hiatus are too many to enumerate, but suffice to say that the project is very much alive and I intend to keep updating the translations database as often as possible.

So, what’s new? For starters, there’s a new and fancy language selector that let’s you also search for a language as you type:

Script to populate a Katello instance with valid data

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Every now and then I need to populate a brand new Katello installation with some valid organizations, users and products to test certain areas… and after a while I developed a script which I find very handy that does just that and may be of use for someone else. If you also find it useful, feel free to fork it and contribute with your own tricks. :)

PyCarolinas 2012

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve seen the (yet unpublished draft) schedule and it looks great!

WHEN:

| | October 20-21, 2012

WHERE:

| | Kerr Hall | UNC School of Pharmacy | Chapel Hill, NC

Meet Some Of The Guys Behind The Katello Project

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Meet some of the guys behind the Katello project!

Life Update: July 15th, 2012

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I actually blogged or wrote much that wasn’t work related… so here’s a list, in no particular order, of what I have been doing these days for those who were wondering what had happened to me:

I have been asked to step into a new role at work, and for the last 2-3 months I have been acting as the team lead (no job title change yet). As such, my day to day routine has changed dramatically, and I now spend most of my time planning, organizing and building up our team.

Setting up Vim for Clojure development notes

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Started the process of getting jiggy with Clojure at work and didn’t like the idea of using Eclipse for my day to day work… so I started looking at how to make vim and clojure get along and came across a great post! Here are the distilled notes plus minor tweaks to get anyone out there trying to do the same thing going:

Download VimClojure (http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2501)
Download VimSlime (https://github.com/jpalardy/vim-slime)
Extract these files into your ~/.vim folder
Add the following lines to ~/.vimrc:
- " Settings for VimClojure
- let vimclojure#HighlightBuiltins = 1
- let vimclojure#ParenRainbow = 1
- " Send entire file to repl
- nmap <C-m> ggVG<C-c><C-c>
Start a repl session inside screen:
- screen -S clojure
- lein repl
Open a clojure file with vim and highlight the method you want to evaluate
Press ctrl + c twice
- For session name prompt, enter ‘clojure’ which is the name of the screen session
- For window name prompt, accept the default number displayed
The selected code should be evaluated in the screen session
Press ctrl + c, v to get prompt again

Now My Adopted State Has Chosen To Turn Its Back

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Now my adopted state has chosen to turn its back on its tradition of welcoming immigrants, and of tolerance and freedom to all its citizens, with a proposed amendment to the NC State Constitution no less, that hangs a great banner across the entrances to the state saying to a whole bunch of American citizens: You are not welcome here.

Bob Young

English My Red Hat Took Me And The Kids To The Nc

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

English: My Red Hat took me and the kids to the NC Museum of Art this last Sunday! It was perfect too as we got to see a lot of the exhibits and still managed to find time to eat at Lilly’s. Did you know that the entrance is free and the museum is sponsored by the State of North Carolina for our viewing and learning pleasure? Take that NYC and your extremely expensive entrance fees! :P

How to import WordPress XML files

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

… or, how I brought an old python code back from the dead!

Inspired by Kenneth Reitz's recent post and spurred by recent events, I decided to turn an old python code I wrote a while back into something that can be (hopefully) easier to get to than by sheer luck.

I’m talking about ChoppedPress, my script that let’s you split WordPress exported XML files into smaller files that can be easily imported into new WordPress installations. I’m sure that some of you have experienced the frustration of not being able to import this xml file due to size upload constraints on your host providers… One of my close friends who provides mostly support for WordPress gave me the idea a while back and that is how the script came about. Little did I know that other people have find it useful too, specially for migrating away from WordPress! As a matter of fact, I too used it when I moved to Tumblr, but that another story.

If You Hire People Just Because They Can Do A

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.

Simon Sinek

I consider myself very lucky for having gotten to a point in my professional career where I can chose where I want to work, a place where I can try to make a difference, and more than anything, a place where I believe in what I do! Thanks my good friend Joe Baltimore for sharing this video today, a great way to kick off the weekend! Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Home Office Taken With Instagram

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Home Office (Taken with instagram)

Alternatives to NY Times\' Book section

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The NY Times' restriction of 10 articles/month for non-subscribers, online viewers means I won't be reading their Books section anymore. It sort of became a good habit for me and something I look forward to on Sunday mornings: as I drink my coffee and enjoy some peace and quietness as the kids are still asleep, I enjoy catching up with the latest books and reviews. This weekend ritual usually ends with a trip down to the public library with the whole family. Both of my kids are already checking out more books and movies than my wife and I together.

Mad Props To The Pragmatic Programmers

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this morning I received the following email from The Pragmatic Programmers:

Dear Og Maciel,

This is just to let you know that Pragmatic Guide to Git (eBook) has recently been updated. You own an electronic version of this book, and so you’ll be able to download this latest version. We have also sent it to Amazon.com for delivery to your kindle.

Changes in This Release

Third printing: includes a few minor errata fixes.

You can get the update either by logging in to your Bookshelf Home Page, or (if you’re already logged in) by downloading it from here.

Sorry for the noise...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve just recently started migrating my blog to Tumblr, and in the process of importing my archives from WordPress I seem to have caused some issues with certain aggregators that are now picking up posts from 2007… Yesterday I also triggered a massive torrent on both Twitter and Facebook…

Please accept my apologies for the incovenience… more on the Tumblr migration to follow!

For Those \"Celebrating\" Columbus Day

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Depiction of Spanish atrocities in the New World

Depiction of Spanish atrocities in the New World, as recounted by Bartolomé de las Casas in *Narratio Regionum indicarum per Hispanos Quosdam devastatarum verissima*. [1]

Podcast: Pete Savage

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_78” align=“alignleft” width=“243” caption=“Pete Savage: Git In The Trenches”][/caption]

For those who follow my many different projects and enterprises, you probably already know that I have been hosting a podcast called Castálio Podcast, a bi-weekly show where I interview people from the Brazilian FOSS world and talk about their likes, dislikes and what events and factors shaped their lives!

When I asked my listeners if they would be interested in an episode in English with someone new and exciting, the answer was an overwhelming ‘Yes!’

Django DevKit Appliance 1.3.1

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I rebuilt the appliance to use the latest Django 1.3.1 release to deliver the security fixes found in the previous version. There are also several other updated packages included.

If you want to play with this appliance, feel free to download it in the following formats:

Django DevKit Raw Filesystem x86 (390 MB - SHA1: 3ae0ab73477be3308011735aac5b33908700a82d)
Django DevKit Raw Filesystem x86_64 (411 MB - SHA1: 3fb040a9b48b0dc248e5424271d4ea9274605530)
Django DevKit ISO x86 (517 MB - SHA1: 88d5f1065bf5646d7cd952e8ccac435a40176fef)
Django DevKit ISO x86_64 (537 MB - SHA1: cee9f5f584261d69baca09efeb58278d23cab410)

Speaking of Raw Filesystem images, here’s how I currently use it with QEMU. In my .bashrc file I have an alias that will boot them and redirect it’s internal ports 80 and 22 (apache and ssh) to my system’s port 8080 and 2222 respectively. I also forward port 3389 for Windows systems.

Sixth Annual Packt Open Source Awards

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

!Packt Publishing

The 2011 Open Source Awards was launched on the 1st week of August by Packt, inviting people to submit nominations for their favorite Open Source project. Now in its sixth year, the Awards continue in its aim of encouraging, supporting, recognizing and rewarding all Open Source projects.

The 2010 Open Source Award Winners included the Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award winner CMS Made Simple, Open Source JavaScript Libraries Award winner jQuery and Pimcore the winner of the Most Promising Open Source Project Award.

Lost in Translation

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

!Deformed Man Toilet]

!Strange Juice

Icons on menus for Openbox

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Openbox 3.5.0 was released yesterday, and with it several bugs got fixed and a few new features were added. Out of these features the one that I liked most was the ability to add icons to menus (and submenus as well)! Yeah, I know some other managers already do this but for someone who enjoys running Openbox because of its simplicity and keyboard binding limitless possibilities, I was sure glad to see some eye candy make its way to it.

Podcast: Aline Duarte Bessa - Accerciser

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_56” align=“alignleft” width=“199” caption=“Aline Duarte Bessa - Accerciser”] [/caption]

Another episode of my Castálio Podcast, this time with Aline Duarte Bessa, another Brazilian who is participating of the GNOME Women Outreach Program (GWOP). Even with a fever, cold e technical issues getting a working system to record this show, she was gracious to spend some of her free time and tell me about her current task of updating the developer’s documentation for Accerciser.

Castálio Podcast, or Three Times is a Charm

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The idea of doing a podcast is something that has tickled my [STRIKEOUT:curiosity] fancy for quite some time. As a matter of fact, I am already the survivor of 2 other mildly successful attempts, which sadly, died prematurely due to commitment issues from my partners and my inability to record and edit audio using Linux.

About 6 months ago the need to scratch this itch came back in full power, and thanks to the support of my friend Evandro Pastor, Castálio Podcast was born! Instead of getting together with a couple of friends and discussing about technology and current events, I wanted to do something a bit more different and avoid the typical routine by turning it into a talk show-like interview program. Every other week I’d invite someone from the Brazilian Free and Open Source world and have a chat about their childhood, upbringing, and the tv shows, movies, books and music that shaped them into who they are now. To quote my good friend Kurt, it would be “the equivalent to opening a friend’s MP3 collection and seeing what that person was like”! :)

Summer Cleaning

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

After debating for the last couple of months about re-organizing my two blogs into a more intuitive (perhaps logical even?) format, I finally took advantage of some down time over the weekend and made a few changes. From now on, www.ogmaciel.com will no longer be my blog written in English, but instead will serve as a “business card/window” into my world. My “English” blog is now hosted on en.ogmaciel.com and my “Brazilian Portuguese" blog lives on pt.ogmaciel.com.

Podcast: Igor Pires Soares - Fedora Project

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I had a chance to interview Igor Pires Soares from the Fedora Project and chat about how he got started with translations, participating on several organizing committees and his travels around the world! He talks about getting lost in Chile, learning English and Spanish, the role his university played on his career, his top 5 books, movies and his interest in music, including a very special moment during a U2 show in São Paulo. The interview is in Brazilian Portuguese, but anyone who can speak Portuguese or Spanish should be able to enjoy it!

GNOME Foundation IRC Meeting: June 15th, 2011

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Howdy fellow GNOMErs!

I’d like to invite you all to join us once again for another GNOME Foundation IRC Meeting!

When: Wednesday, June 15th, from 14:00 to 15:00 UTC (your local time) Where: irc.gnome.org, #foundation

Foundation IRC meetings are just that, meetings held on #foundation in irc.gimp.org to discuss current matters related to the GNOME Foundation. Any GNOME Foundation member or non member are welcome. As long as you contribute positively to the discussion you are welcome.

20 Years

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow marks the 20th year that I have been living in the United States. Not to use an old cliché, but it definitely feels like it wasn’t too long ago that I embarked on the greatest and most dramatic adventure of my life: at the young age of 16 (only a handful of weeks shy of my 17th birthday) I said goodbye to most of my friends back in the small town of Conceição da Barra, Brazil and got on a plane with my youngest sister bound to New York City.

Book Expo America 2011

Mon, 23 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Taking a day off tomorrow to fly to NYC with my oldest daughter so we can both attend this year’s Book Expo America (BEA) at the Javits Center. We’re both very excited about this chance of seeing so many books and the possibility of meeting some of the authors, such as Mo Willems! Unfortunately I’m going to miss meeting James Dashner as he’s scheduled to give out sample chapters of his upcoming book only on Wednesday.

Django DevKit Appliance 1.3

Sat, 21 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I pimped my Django Dev Kit Appliance, mostly because I have been really busy with work, projects and my kid’s end of the school year. Anyhow, I rebuilt the appliance to use the latest Django 1.3 release plus several other updated packages such as git and mercurial. I have also stopped building Amazon EC2 images and will from now on only provide ISOs and Raw Filesystem images.

GNOME Board of Directors Elections 2011

Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I can’t believe it’s been this long already, but it is time for yet another Board of Directors Election! Having had the opportunity to serve on the Board for these last 12 months, I want to encourage anyone who have the time and interest to improve the GNOME project to run for one of the seven spots on the Board of Directors! For more information on this, please read the official announcement here! A few important dates to keep in mind:

Last But Not Least

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

With all the blog posts, newsfeeds and social media channels abuzz with the latest and greatest releases these past 2 days I just wanted to take the time to add one more thank you note:

Thank You all developers, translators, document writers, graphic designers, bug trackers, release engineers and everyone else involved in working directly with the upstream projects and for making all of the moving pieces that compose a Linux distribution readily available for anyone to use! There are just too many to mention, but if you spent the last few months working your butt off on an upstream project, I salute you!

PackageKit Progress on Foresight

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

For a while Foresight Linux users had no graphical interface for managing their systems packages and/or updates, mainly because the development for the conary backend fell out of scope and our radar (this is a nicer way to say that we didn’t have someone to maintain it). But thanks to the work of zodman, jesse and others PackageKit is making its way back to our desktop.

[caption id=“attachment_1395” align=“aligncenter” width=“296” caption=“Available updates”][/caption]

GNOME 3.0, Banshee 2.0 and Foresight Linux

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

First off, congratulations to everyone involved in the release of GNOME 3.0! In the past, my contributions were mostly related to translating applications to Brazilian Portuguese, but my role on that front was very minimal this time and consisted of a handful of translations and several commits of the awesome work done by others. Most of my contributions for 3.0 are related to the work I do for the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, but I won’t bore you to tears!

Now That You've Found Love What Are You Gonna Do?

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Now that you have downloaded and installed the latest Foresight Linux 2.5 release, here are a couple of things you may want to do:

Update Your System: Since Foresight has a rolling release schedule, we already have updates for you, including and newer MPlayer with support for Blue-Ray!

Run sudo conary updateall
Install Chromium web browser: Try this pretty cool web browser made by Google. Got a gMail account? Take advantage of the bookmarks and password synchronization feature and have it all seamlessly integrated!

Foresight Linux 2.5.0!

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

At last, after a long hiatus, I can shout out for the whole world to hear: Foresight Linux 2.5.0 is out and about! This is our first official release in almost 2 years (2.1.1 was released May 15th, 2009!!!) and it is filled to the brim with the very latest stable applications out there!

A lot of work, sweat, and tears by a lot of different people went into getting this release out the door, and to all of you out there who stood by us through thick and thin, I thank you and salute you! Foresight Linux was the first Linux distribution to have a rolling release schedule and bring all the coolest new applications to your desktop! Expect to hear a lot from us from now on… Because your distro should be cool!

GNOME 3.0 Translations

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, are you feverishly working on the translation for the upcoming GNOME 3.0 release? Do you find yourself often wondering how a certain word was translated across the entire desktop applications? Well, I do and this is why I developed Pylyglot, a Django-driven localization tool that let’s you search for a word and see how it has been translated for a given language. The plan is to have fresh data straight from the GNOME git repositories every Monday for now, eventually switching to a more frequent update schedule.

Git In The Trenches

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Git In The Trenches, or GITT is a pretty cool project by my friend Peter Savage, “designed to be a book that focusses on teaching people to use Git by associating with scenarios that are experienced by a fictional company called Tamagoyaki Inc. Through reading about their day to day lives, the reader will learn not only how to use Git, but why version control systems are important and how to implement them within an organisation.”

Barrabin Barrabash: Penal Process

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Barrabin Barrabash, the Great, yearns for his freedom and digs deep into his magic tricks to scape prison, in another one of my translations from the original by Karlisson Bezerra.

Barrabin Barrabash: Abra Unix Cadabra

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Barrabin Barrabash, the great is once again up to no good with his tricks in yet another one of my translations of Karlisson Bezerra's original work. Enjoy it and have a wonderful weekend!

Moving WordPress Blog to Amazon's EC2

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

You probably remember reading about my issues with running my WordPress-based blog on Dreamhost's environment, and how frustrated I was with the experience of using their Private Server services. The short version is that I eventually migrated my blog back to their shared hosting environment, turned off most of the plugins and cried myself to sleep.

The very next day, after reading (and replying to) the comments I received, one in particular caught my eye: Amazon’s Free Usage Tier offering new customers the following EC2 services each month for one year:

Barrabin Barrabash: SQL Inception

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Remember my last post about the comic strip my friend Karlisson Bezerra created to explain how Creative Commons licenses work? Well, over this weekend I was talking to him and offered to translate one of my favorite strips to English (here’s the original in Brazilian Portuguese). I always get a kick out of this one and hope you’ll enjoy it too!

[caption id=“attachment_1329” align=“aligncenter” width=“600” caption=“Barrabin Barrabash: SQL Inception”][/caption]

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Creative Commons Licenses But Was Afraid To Ask

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A while back my friend Karlisson Bezerra, author of the Brazilian comic (all using open source tools such as Inkscape, etc) Nerdson, created a pretty nifty story explaining how to use the Creative Commons license. The original strip was written in Brazilian Portuguese but someone took the time to do a quick translation into English (as the translator is not a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, some things got lost in the translation, but the end result is still worth checking). So here is the finished work, enjoy it!

Book Review: Stories of Your Life: and Others

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

*Disclaimer: My book reviews are my own impressions from my daily readings and are by no means “sponsored” or “influenced” by any company, organization or individuals. I don’t even get money through any referral program, so rest assured that my review is not biased. If you do, however, want me to review a book for your company or organization, feel free to contact me via the comments section and we can work something out. :)*

Book Review: Emblem Divide

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

*Disclaimer: My book reviews are my own impressions from my daily readings and are by no means “sponsored” or “influenced” by any company, organization or individuals. I don’t even get money through any referral program, so rest assured that my review is not biased. If you do, however, want me to review a book for your company or organization, feel free to contact me via the comments section and we can work something out. :)*

Book Review: Mockingjay

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

*Disclaimer: My book reviews are my own impressions from my daily readings and are by no means “sponsored” or “influenced” by any company, organization or individuals. I don’t even get money through any referral program, so rest assured that my review is not biased. If you do, however, want me to review a book for your company or organization, feel free to contact me via the comments section and we can work something out. :)*

Book Review: Catching Fire

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

*Disclaimer: My book reviews are my own impressions from my daily readings and are by no means “sponsored” or “influenced” by any company, organization or individuals. I don’t even get money through any referral program, so rest assured that my review is not biased. If you do, however, want me to review a book for your company or organization, feel free to contact me via the comments section and we can work something out. :)*

Announcing Foresight Linux 2.5.0 ALPHA 1 GNOME Edition

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

After a very, very, very long time I can finally announce another Foresight Linux release! We have gone through a lot of changes and it took us a while to rebuild our developer/maintainer/user base, but here we are! The goal is to go back to having a rolling release schedule and keep bringing the latest and greatest mix of GNOME and applications!

[caption id=“attachment_1284” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Localized (Swedish) screenshot of Foresight Linux”][/caption]

Book Review: The Hunger Games

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

*Disclaimer: My book reviews are my own impressions from my daily readings and are by no means “sponsored” or “influenced” by any company, organization or individuals. I don’t even get money through any referral program, so rest assured that my review is not biased. If you do, however, want me to review a book for your company or organization, feel free to contact me via the comments section and we can work something out. :)*

Kindle

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Over the holidays I got a second-hand Kindle DX from my sister. As I have been doing some serious reading these last couple of years, an EBook reader was something that both excited and scared me at the same time. Let me explain.

Being able to carry several books, often pretty thick and heavy, in one simple and light device has its advantages. Add to that the massive number of free EBooks and regular plain text books available on web sites such as the Internet Archive, Open Library, Project Gutenberg, and all of a sudden we’re talking about having your own private and portable library on the go! Even Amazon.com has several classic books completely FREE of charge for those who have a Kindle!

BillReminder "Keep Their Heads Ringing" Released

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Just in time before the new year, it is with great pleasure that I announce the release of BillReminder “Keep Their Heads Ringing" 0.4.0 after a 27-month hiatus! During this period I tried many different approaches and techniques to both improve the user interface as well as the overall experience. Many of the “core” changes were performed only to satisfy my own curiosity and experimentation with other technologies out there, but overall you should have a good time playing with it.

Looking For a Graphic Designer

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The Foresight Linux team is looking for a good graphic designer to help them with a splash screen!

**Foresight Linux,**a desktop operating system featuring an intuitive user interface and a showcase of the latest desktop software" is now gearing for a major release with all the latest and greatest applications out there!

Would you like to see your art work distributed and displayed whenever someone boots Foresight Linux? If so, please drop me a line for more information!

31 Books, 13360 Pages and Counting

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

One of my New Year’s resolution for 2010 was the ambitious goal of reading one book for every week of the year! In other words, to read a total of 52 books for 2010! I knew that it would be very hard to complete this resolution without cheating and choosing thin books but I figured: “Aim for the moon, that way, even if you miss you’ll still be amongst the stars!”, right?

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Spent a good chunk of my free time reading all 9 (out of 10) parts of Lovelace and Babbage Vs The Organist this weekend! I don’t know where to begin to describe how incredibly awesome this comic is! The graphics, the clever writing and jokes, even the sometimes absurd plot twists all combine for delivering a fantastic, fun reading experience!

I highly recommend that you read at least a few episodes and allow yourself to wander around the many links and tidbits about Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Quasiamicable Pair, musical instruments, math and many other items in the notes section!

GNOME Foundation New Members: December 2010

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Just passing along the information sent by Andre Veri on behalf of the GNOME Membership Committee to announce our new members (in no particular order):

Zachary Goldberg (PyGi, Zhaan, Bug Filing, UPnP Hacking)
Sebastian Dröge (GStreamer, Debian packaging)
Sumana Harihareswara (Marketing, GNOME Journal, Empathy)
Jelle de Jong (Bugreporting, Debian packaging, Marketing, Testing)
Christer Edwards (Sysadmin Team)
Pablo Castellano (Buoh maintainer, Bug fixing and Triaging for Seahorse and JHbuild)
José Aliste (Gedit-plugins, Evince)
Daniël van Eeden (Dutch Translations and GUADEC 2010)
Francisco Diéguez Souto (Translation to Galician language, Coordination of Galician language)
Jeremy Perry (GNOME Shell design)

Thank you all for the splendid work, dedication and support you have shown and welcome to the GNOME Foundation! Please make sure to congratulate them next time you chat or see them!

Boston Summit 2010: Day 2

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I got back from the Boston Summit around 22:00 Sunday evening and by the time I arrived home from the airport I was too tired to write up a blog post. Then Monday morning came and after all the meetings, work and side projects, I decided to spend some quality time with my kids, as I had not seen them since Friday evening.

The second day was very busy and full of things to do and interesting discussions. So much so that I barely had time to do some of the things I had on my plate from the Friends of GNOME session on Saturday. It was worthy though, as the conversations in and out of the sessions were, in my humble opinion, the best part of it all! The level of camaradaries that takes place during these types of events is something that it is hard to explain. Where else could you get a bunch of strangers who share a single common goal (make GNOME kick ass!) and are very passionate about what they do to give up their weekend to discuss and plan the future of an open source project? My only regret was to have missed the Beer Summit, which from Jason's pictures, looked to have been pretty cool!

Boston Summit 2010: Day 1

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Finally sat down to write down about my first day attending the Boston Summit 2010 but Paul [1] and Jason[1,2,3] already beat me to it. From my perspective, it was really nice to finally meet face to face with some of my fellow Board members and make new friends!

I want to thank Novell for hosting us at their office for our Board meeting (there should be a picture of us posing in front of a Novell logo) and our gracious host. Also, everyone involved in organizing the Summit and making sure things worked smoothly!

Let Me Hear Your Voices

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This weekend I’ll be attending my first Boston Summit, courtesy of theGNOME Travel Committee! It will also be my very first time meeting my fellow members of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, which makes me very excited!

I wanted to ask you, readers of my blog, what kind of questions would you like me to ask on your behalf? Do you have any constructive comments or feedback for us? What are the areas you feel that we should invest more of our resources on and which ones should we spend less?

Ending Another Chapter

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Woke up this morning to find the following email in my inbox:

Renew membership of Og Maciel in Ubuntu Members

It’s been a while since I last thought about this membership so this email had me thinking for a bit. Ubuntu is where everything started for me, and even though I have not seen eye to eye with Canonical, I harbor no ill feelings toward the distribution itself.

So for the last 5 years I’ve been associated with the Ubuntu ecosystems and dedicated a large chunk of my time trying to get the distro properly translated into Brazilian Portuguese and doing a lot of advocating along the way. I even got to attend the very first UDS-MTV and meet some of those guys and gals I had spent so much time talking/working online. It was a bitter sweet moment and an eye opener, as I was able to see first hand the direction that the distribution was heading to. Not too long after that I started moving away from my involvement, resigning from several groups I had belonged to to a very minimum core associations.

Are You Planning a GNOME 3.0 Launch Party?

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In order to promote the GNOME 3.0 launch and spread the idea amongst the GNOME community members, I’m sharing the following message! Please translate it and share it with your friends and help us organize the biggest GNOME Launch ever!

Dear GNOME friends,

The GNOME.Asia committee is working on making a big launch party (whichÂ includes a 5 days hackfest) to celebrate, promote and work on the GNOMEÂ 3.0 release as part of our effort to promote GNOME in Asia. Potential venues are in India, Indonesia or Hong Kong.

Boston Summit 2010

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I’m also coming to the Boston Summit for the first time! I’m looking forward to hanging out with my fellow Board members, meeting some of them for the very first time. I’m also looking forward to attending the Snowy Hackfest and other sessions related to GNOME 3.0!

Think you can join us? Take a look at the GNOME Foundation blog for more.

Helping the Belarusian and Esperanto Translations

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to comments by booxter and Patrick Niedzielski, I have added support for 2 more languages to Pylyglot: Belarusian and Esperanto! So far I had been adding languages according to their translation percentage, starting from the top and slowly moving down the list, but it probably makes sense to add some of the languages that need a bit of help catching up with the other teams and provide them with a means to check their standardization. So I’m glad to welcome these two new “members” and kindly ask anyone who speaks either one of these languages to lend a helping hand with their translation by contacting their respective GNOME team coordinators:

Pylyglot, Now With More Translations

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

What a difference a day makes! Thanks to some feedback I got both here and in private, and thanks to a contributor with some extra free cycles at hand, Pylyglot got anotherÂ face liftÂ today.

So what’s new? There are now 245 total packages and 3,165,335 translations from yesterday’s 61 packages and 954,884 translations! You can also now link to a query using the resulting url from your searches using the format language=FOO&query=BAR, where FOO is the language’s ISO code and BAR is the term you’re searching.

Pylyglot, Now With More Languages

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Managed to update Pylyglot, my Django-based translations tool to include 22 new languages and the very latest GNOME 3.0 packages. Hope you guys find it useful!

Languages: 52
Packages: 61
Translations: 954,884

Pylyglot

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Been working on a pet project to help out with theÂ GNOME translations (as well as have a chance to learn more about Django) and the end product is now available at www.pylyglot.org. Basically, it is a database of all strings from all available GNOME packages parsed to (hopefully) help open source translators with their effort by providing suggestions based on existing translations.

But wait, there’s more! Since the entire collection of GNOME packages is available for your perusal, you can check how a certain word was translated across all packages and use this information to standardize the translation for the entire project.

Disgusted

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Disgusted

Running On Empty

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This post has been sitting in my Drafts folder for a while now, as I wasn’t sure when the right time would be to publish it. It is basically my personal reflection on the last 5 years I have worked doing translations for free and open source software (FOSS) and a few lessons I learned along the way. It is also a rant against those who took my labor for granted. Hopefully this quick summary will help you decide whether you want to continue reading the rest of the post or not.

Book Review: Python 3 Object Oriented Programming

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I can’t claim to have looked hard for a Python book on object oriented programming (OOP) but I was immediately attracted to the title of this book. Sure, you can find small tutorials here and there about some specific facet of OOP but I don’t recall ever reading something that covers designing public interfaces using abstraction, encapsulation, etc, etc with good and practical examples! If you have, please drop me a link in the comments. :)

Back from the Tropics

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I last posted anything new. That’s because I took some time off from work and headed down to my old stomping grounds… Brazil! It had been 5 years since I visited my friends and relatives and since I couldn’t make it to GUADEC and take my family on vacation at the same time, we hoped on a straight flight to Rio de Janeiro from Charlotte's international airport.

More Coffee Noise

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A while back I wrote about how I first got hooked on coffee and received some really good comments and suggestions for new coffees to try. I was immediately attracted to one coffee in particular: Zoka! Don’t ask me what it was but there was something about the name that tickled my fancy. So I sent their customer service department an email and asked if they would send me a few samples. The very next day I received a reply and the promisse that they would send me a couple of bags. Since I had also received 2 other bags of coffee from friends to try I figured I’d report here how the “coffee experiment” went.

GNOME Board of Directors: First Meeting

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Today I attended my very first GNOME Board of Directors meeting. Though I won’t be able to vote on issues until July 1st, it was great to witness how the process works and be able to ask questions and receive answers directly from current and former board members.

I must say that the entire meeting felt very streamlined and ran smoothly, partially because of people like Vincent, Brian, German and Paul who seem to be on top of everything and juggling several balls at the same time! Stormy must sleep very well at night knowing she can count on people of this caliber to steer the project.

Review: Django 1.2 E-Commerce

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

“Django 1.2 E-Commerce” starts with a very ambitious goal: design, develop and deploy a functional ecommerce web site for the fictional CranStore.com company. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

I started flipping through the usual introductory pages explaining what Django is and why use it for a project like this. It was all fairly brief which already led me to believe that knowledge of Django’s inner works and basic setup and configuration was required to follow along.

Week in Review: June 14th â€" June 18th, 2010

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_1154” align=“aligncenter” width=“278” caption=“Week in Review”][/caption]

Another busy week at work means a quiet week here…

Heck of a week and GNOME Foundation Board of Directors

137 issues resolved and counting!

One important piece of news is that I have beenÂ elected to theÂ GNOME Foundation Board of Directors together with other 6 members! Thank you all of you who voted for me! I intent to devote a bigger chunk of my time to be a proactive[…]

Heck of a week and GNOME Foundation Board of Directors

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been another crazy/hectic week for me at work, so blogging and pretty much all other activities had to take the back seat.

[caption id=“attachment_1116” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“137 issues resolved and counting!”][/caption]

One important piece of news is that I have been elected to the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors together with other 6 members! Thank you all of you who voted for me! I intent to devote a bigger chunk of my time to be a proactive, hands on and very vocal member of this group and will strive to blog about my experience as much as I can!

Week in Review: June 7th - June 11th, 2010

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Three more days until my birthday! Want to take a look at my wish list? ;)

It was a very busy week, so I didn’t spend the same amount of time writing as the previous weeks. Thank you for the kind wishes on my birthday! :)

Also, thank you Conzar, Aigars Mahinovs, Paulo Dias, Tassos Bassoukos and Rodney Dyer for the awesome tips related to playing World of Warcraft on Linux! :)

Playing World of Warcraft on Linux with Wine

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_1109” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“World of Warcraft”][/caption]

Yes, I’m still alive and kicking. Been really busy at work and haven’t had the time or energy to write anything here. I have however kept my New Year’s resolution of reading a book during lunch break every day! I’m currently reading 2 books at the same time (check what other books I have read and those I have still waiting on my queue in the front page of my blog):

Week in Review: May 31st â€" June 4th, 2010

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Three more days until my birthday! Want to take a look at my wish list? ;)

ï»¿ï»¿Hereâ€™s what happened this week:

Not Going to GUADEC 2010

After several weeks agonizing over how to afford a trip to attendÂ GUADEC 2010, I have finally arrived at the conclusion that I wonâ€™t be able to make it. Due to my current financial situation[…]

Emmaâ€™s Very Busy Week

Iâ€™m the proud father of two voracious young readers! From very early on I was able to instill into my daughters the pleasure of reading books. They also happen to be girly girls, so while most kids ask for toys and video games for their birthdays[…]

Emma\'s Very Busy Week

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I’m the proud father of two voracious young readers! From very early on I was able to instill into my daughters the pleasure of reading books. They also happen to be girly girls, so while most kids ask for toys and video games for their birthdays, mine ask for books and clothes/shoes!

During thirdÂ grade my oldest daughterÂ happened to pick up “Emma’s very busy week" by Heather Dakota from herÂ school’s library and just couldn’t put it down! I believe thatÂ throughout the entire third grade she must have borrowed this book atÂ least 6 times! As a young kid, I remember I could read some books that I really enjoyed over and over, enjoying it every single time as if I were reading it for the first time. She must have gotten this from me. :)

Not Going to GUADEC 2010

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_1161” align=“alignleft” width=“240” caption=“Sad Trombone”][/caption]

After several weeks agonizing over how to afford a trip to attend GUADEC 2010, I have finally arrived at the conclusion that I won’t be able to make it. Due to my current financial situation and obligations as a father of two, it would be unrealistic to hop on a plane and go to this event right now for me. Unfortunately none of the organizations I approached were able to offer me any type of financial support, understandable due to today’s economy issues.

Django 1.2 E-Commerce

Thu, 27 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_1094” align=“alignleft” width=“243” caption=“Django 1.2 E-Commerce”][/caption]

ï»¿ï»¿Just received my complimentary copy of the book “Django 1.2 E-Commerce" from Packt Publishing! From the book’s overview page:

Build all the components for an e-commerce store, from product catalog to shopping cart to checkout processor
Build a high quality e-commerce site quickly and start making money
All the examples in the book will run smoothly for all the versions of Django 1.x
Follow a tutorial format to build many components from scratch while leveraging the open-source community to enhance functionality

You can expect a book review by next week, but in the meantime, here’s a free chapter to whet your appetite, “Setting up Shop in 30 Minutes”!

For The Win!

Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Sunday I was lucky enough to have the chance of attending a book reading (well, a passage actually) by Cory Doctorow! The event took place at Flyleaf Books right here in Chapel Hill, a charming independent book store that will most definitely see me and my kids more often from now on (plus, they’re right next to Foster’s Market and Flying Burrito)!

Cory came across as a very humble, down to earth kind of guy and it didn’t take long for the crowed to feel right at home. He took the time to answer random questions while we waited for some of the late arrivals, and once the clock struck 13:00 he proceeded to read a passage from his new book, “For The Win”.

The Maze Runner

Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_1080” align=“alignleft” width=“152” caption=“The Maze Runner by James Dashner”][/caption]

This past March I started a new routine to my Sunday mornings: shortly after breakfast with the kids, I flip my laptop open and start reading the Books section of the NY Times online. I wanted to get the real deal, dead tree “version” of it for quite some time, but at USD$6 just for the Sunday paper I figured that reading it online would have to do it.

Book Review: Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging

Wed, 19 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_950” align=“alignleft” width=“243” caption=“Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging”][/caption]

During this last weekend I finally managed to reserve a couple of hours of “me time” to finish reading my complimentary copy of the book â€œDjango 1.1 Testing and Debuggingâ€? from Packt Publishing!

Once again I felt completely absorbed by the style chosen for this Packt Publishing book, as it makes use of a complete application to reinforce all of the topics covered. You start with a brief explanation of the benefits of testing your code and immediately start building a market research application from scratch.

Should you go to college straight out of high school?

Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“240” caption=“Should you go to college straight out of high school?”][/caption]

Over the weekend I came across an interesting article in the New York Times called “Plan B: Skip College”. According to the Department of Education, “no more than half of those who began a four-year bachelorâ€™s degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years.” Even more shocking, “fï»¿ï»¿or college students who ranked among the bottom quarter of their high school classes, the numbers are even more stark: 80 percent will probably never get a bachelorâ€™s degree or even a two-year associateâ€™s degree!”

Week in Review: May 10th - May 14th, 2010

Sat, 15 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

ï»¿ï»¿Hereâ€™s what happened this week:

Mother

Thank you Mom:

For being my very firstÂ true love!
For being strong enough, though only 24, when the doctors handed you on your birthday a tiny little boy with withÂ Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita, a rareÂ congenital disorder that is characterized by multipleÂ joint contracturesand can includeÂ muscle weakness andÂ fibrosis (WikipediaÂ article).[…]

New version of the Transifex Appliance

A newer version of theÂ Transifex Appliance has been released with all the latest, juicy bits! There are several new translations, features and fixes in place. Thereâ€™s also a couple of new image types for your download pleasure[…]

Say Hello To My New Little Friend

Thu, 13 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Had a great surprise when I arrived home from work last night! My good friends from MeeGo sent me a little something to help me with the translation work I have done for them.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“432” caption=“A gift from Meego”][/caption]

Since my in-laws were also at my house I decided to wait until they had left to properly enjoy opening it. A couple of agonizing hours later I finally shredded the box to pieces to reveal: a HP Mini N470!

New version of the Transifex Appliance

Wed, 12 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A newer version of the Transifex Appliance has been released with all the latest, juicy bits! There are several new translations, features and fixes in place. There’s also a couple of new image types for your download pleasure:

ï»¿x86 Installable CD/DVD
x86_64 Installable CD/DVD
x86 VMware (R) Virtual Appliance
x86_64 VMware (R) Virtual Appliance
x86 VMware (R) ESX Server Virtual Appliance
x86_64 VMware (R) ESX Server Virtual Appliance
x86 Amazon Machine Image (EC2) (DomU)
x86_64 Amazon Machine Image (EC2) (DomU)

Once you have it running, login to your appliance with the following credentials:

Mother

Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“432” caption=“My Mom and I”][/caption]

Thank you Mom:

For being my very first true love!
For being strong enough, though only 24, when the doctors handed you on your birthday a tiny little boy with withÂ Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita, a rareÂ congenital disorder that is characterized by multipleÂ joint contracturesand can includeÂ muscle weakness andÂ fibrosis (WikipediaÂ article).
For seeing hope where others saw despair!
For going against everyone and everything that told you to conform and give up on me!
For the many hours you spent travelling by bus with me on your lap so you could bring me to a specialist!
For choosing not to believe when they also told you there was no cure for me!
For the many times you’ve gone hungry so I could eat!
For being strong enough and hold back your tears when you heard me cry as you forced me to do physical therapy!
For teaching me to never feel sorry for myself!
For teaching me to never give up!
For teaching me to be strong!
For teaching me to dream!
For teaching me to laugh but also to cry!
For being there for me when things got tough!
For teaching me how to dance and swim!
For the many hours you spent making sure I did my homework and understood the subjects!
For helping me mend a broken heart during the teenage years!
For teaching me to respect all forms of life!
For teaching me to be open minded!
For teaching me to count my blessings!
For never letting me sit on my butt and acceptÂ mediocrity!
For being such a great mother-in-law to my wife!
For being an amazing grandmother to my kids!
For being such an inspirational person and a role model for our family!
For shaping my entire life and for bringing these tears of joy I have right now just to thing how blessed I am for having you as my mom!

Happy Mothers Day Mom!

Can a plugin help you improve your writing skills?

Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“413” caption=“After the Deadline”][/caption]

My good friend Vinny introduced me toÂ After the Deadline, aÂ nifty WordPress and Firefox plugin that promises to “ï»¿help you write better by adding spell, style, and grammar checking to web applications.”

As some of you know I have been on a writing rampage these last few weeks, and as in everything that I ever do, I try my best to write concise, clear and well written articles. For someone who didn’t start learning (i.e. reading, writing and speaking) the American English language until I was 17 years old, I feel that I’ve done a decent job here on my blog, but one can never be too careful.

The Road to GUADEC 2010

Wed, 05 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“350” caption=“GUADEC 2010”][/caption]

This past April 16th I had the pleasure of receiving the following email:

Congratulations, your submission Making easier for companies to give back to GNOME has been accepted for presentation at GUADEC which is being held from 2010-07-26 to 2010-07-30 at Den Haag.

I was ecstatic!!! Having had the opportunity to attend GUADEC 2009 at Las Palmas, Gran Canary last year,Â I was thrilled with the possibility of attending my second one and presenting my ideas on how to facilitate the collaboration between downstream and GNOME. There’s also the fact that this year the event will be held in the Netherlands, a country that I have always wanted to visit!

When the movie is better than the book

Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_1022” align=“alignleft” width=“264” caption=“Band of Brothers”][/caption]

Over this past weekend I found just enough time to finish reading Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose, a book about the story of the men ofÂ E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, U.S. Army infantry. Back in 2006 HBO had turned this book into a 10-episodes mini series which I avidly watched in one shot one day while visiting my friend Vinny in Massachusetts. He had a pretty nice home theater system hook up at his place and since there was nobody else around, we were able to watch it all with the volume turned way up.

What\'s new with Radio Tray?

Mon, 03 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

http://radiotray.sourceforge.net/

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“128” caption=“RadioTray”][/caption]

Radio Tray, your favorite light weight online radio streaming application, has gone under some more development churn since its last release. Namely, there is now a dbus interface to allow other applications to interact with it! So you write a “remote control” for Radio Tray and change the volume, change stations, extract metadata from the stream being played, etc. Here’s what’s currently supported:

listRadios()
getCurrentRadio()
playRadio(name)
turnOff()
volumeUp()
volumeDown()
getCurrentMetaData()

Fancy learning a bit about adding a dbus interface to your own application? Want to add new features to Radio Tray? A new “testdbus.py" script has been added to the repository to help you understand how things work and get you to hit the ground running! Just clone the repository and take a peek:

Week in Review: April 26th - 30th, 2010

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_963” align=“aligncenter” width=“279” caption=“Week in Review”][/caption] Hereâ€™s what happened this week:

Coffee, a personal history
- I first got hooked on drinking coffee back in the Spring of 1994 while attending a Microbiology class at Pace University. Our class started way too early for me and our professor (canâ€™t remember her name right now) was this tiny old lady […]
A Pig, an Elephant and a Yellow Dog
- From the â€œRead a Book to a Childâ€? department, Iâ€™d like to recommend two amazing books that will be a sure hit for any kid, even the one inside you! â€œWatch Me Throw the Ballâ€? An Elephant & Piggie Book by Mo Willems is a wonderful […]
RESTful Web Services, Beautiful Soup and Launchpad
- Last night I attended two short presentation by Leonard Richardson, author of the Oâ€™Reilly book RESTful Web Services and developer on Launchpad.net. Unfortunately it took me a while to find a parking spot […]
Splitting WordPress Export File with ChoppedPress
- Youâ€™re all probably tired of hearing me talking about my script to split the XML-like file that WordPress generates when you use the Export feature. Tonight I have finally added the final touches […]
A Hamster, a Lynx and The Princess Brideâ€¦ What???
- Got a couple of interesting bits for you today, starting with some really great news from the Hamster Project, a time tracking application. My friend Tom wrote about his recent work […]

RESTful Web Services, Beautiful Soup and Launchpad

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“160” caption=“Pumpkin Black Bean Soup by neon.mamacita”][/caption]

Last night I attended two short presentation by Leonard Richardson, author of the O’Reilly book RESTful Web Services and developer on Launchpad.net. Unfortunately it took me a while to find a parking spot near UNC’s Chapman Hall, so I missed 90% of the first one, titled “A Spotter’s Guide to RESTful Web Services”. Based on the number of questions that were asked at the end, it seemed to me that this is an area where there are way too many possible ways people can get lost attempting to implement it…

A Pig, an Elephant and a Yellow Dog

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

From the “Read a Book to a Child" department, I’d like to recommend two amazing books that will be a sure hit for any kid, even the one inside you!

[caption id=“attachment_969” align=“alignleft” width=“216” caption=“Watch me throw the ball by Mo Willems”][/caption]

“Watch Me Throw the Ball" An Elephant & Piggie Book by Mo Willems is a wonderful book! I simply love the way Mo Willems writes the dialogs between Gerald, the always cautious and pessimistic elephant and Piggie, an optimistic, lovable pig. This time Piggie wants to show Gerald how he can throw a ball and have fun at the same time, but Gerald is quick to tell him that to properly do that, one needs lots and lots of practice and hard work. Best if read out loud, there is no way your audience won’t fall in love with these two goofballs!

Coffee, a personal history

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_979” align=“alignleft” width=“240” caption=“Trader Joe’s”][/caption]

I first got hooked on drinking coffee back in the Spring of 1994 while attending a Microbiology class at Pace University. Our class started way too early for me and our professor (can’t remember her name right now) was this tiny old lady who barely raised her voice over the decibel level that dogs can hear. The class and subject were very interesting and by the end of the semester I felt very confident about my laboratory skills (and developed a phobia about anything that was not coated with some type of anti bacterial product).Â But it was extremely hard to stay awake listening to that monotonous voice that early… so coffee became my best friend and probably indirectly responsible for the good grade I received for that class!

Week in Review: April 18th - 23rd, 2010

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_963” align=“alignleft” width=“279” caption=“Week in Review”][/caption]

Hereâ€™s what happened this week:

Quotes to brighten your day
- Kind of ironic how my post titled â€œStop whining and improve your lifeâ€? attracted so much negativity in the comments area.
From the â€œUseful Django Tipâ€? Department: Reset The Admin Password
- This comes straight from the Useful Django Tip department: How do you reset the admin password for a Django project when youâ€™ve forgotten it?
Helping downstream translations swim upstream: Part 1
- Sometimes, contributing back to upstream open source projects is not as straight forward as one may think. â€œHelping downstream translations swim upstreamâ€? will be a new series of articles where I intend to explain the issues contributors may face when attempting to send translations back to upstream projects, and hopefully, devise a couple of possible solutions.
Help sponsor Mercurial development!
- Anyone who has ever added a project to BitBucket already knows what Mercurial is, but for those who have never heard about it…
Transifex adds new features, wins more hearts
- It has been a great Spring for Transifex.net, everyoneâ€™s favorite open source translation portal!
Book Preview: Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging
- What a great day to kick of the day! Just received my complimentary copy of the book â€œDjango 1.1 Testing and Debuggingâ€? from Packt Publishing!

Book Preview: Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_950” align=“alignleft” width=“243” caption=“Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging”][/caption]

What a great day to kick of the day! Just received my complimentary copy of the book “Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging" from Packt Publishing! From the book’s overview page:

Develop Django applications quickly with fewer bugs through effective use of automated testing and debugging tools.
Ensure your code is accurate and stable throughout development and production by using Django’s test framework.
Understand the working of code and its generated output with the help of debugging tools.
Packed with detailed working examples that illustrate the techniques and tools for debugging.

I think I know what I’m doing this weekend! :) There’s a FREE chapter you can download too to whet your appetite in case you’re interested.

Transifex adds new features, wins more hearts

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“400” caption=“Spring signs by cuellar”][/caption]

It has been a great Spring for Transifex.net, everyone’s favorite open source translation portal! Things felt a bit quiet since their latest release, but the Transifex guys were secretly working on some really nifty features!!! This Tuesday they lifted their shroud of secrecy to reveal to the world these yummy new features:

Team Discussion Board: Each translation team now has a discussion board. Get organized better and more efficiently. No need to setup separate mailing lists for each translation team! Just talk to each other from inside Transifex itself and get informed when new messages appear.

Helping downstream translations swim upstream: Part 1

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

*Sometimes, contributing back to upstream open source projects is not as straight forward as one may think. “Helping downstream translations swim upstream” will be a new series of articles where I intend to explain the issues contributors may face when attempting to send translations back to upstream projects, and hopefully, devise a couple of possible solutions.*

In the past few years we have seen an astonishing growth of companies that started using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) bits and pieces in their products. From netbooks, desktops, handheld and infotainment devices, televisions, and cellular phones, FOSS applications have become the founding blocks for several companies trying to leverage its power and stability.

From the \"Useful Django Tip\" Department: Reset The Admin Password

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This comes straight from the Useful Django Tip department: How do you reset the admin password for a Django project when you’ve forgotten it?

Bruce Kroeze suggested using Django’s shell to resolve this common issue and one of the comments his post received nailed it:

[omaciel@crutches souschef]$ python manage.py shell
Python 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Mar 22 2010, 10:30:12)
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

IPython 0.10 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
?Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
%quickref -> Quick reference.
helpÂ Â Â Â Â  -> Python's own help system.
object?Â Â  -> Details about 'object'. ?object also works, ?? prints more.

In [1]: from django.contrib.auth.models import User

In [2]: u = User.objects.get(username__exact="admin")

In [3]: u.set_password('whatever');

In [4]: u.save()

Thatâ€™s it!

Quotes to brighten your day

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“333” caption=“Cheer Up Honey Pie by Auntie P”][/caption]

Kind of ironic how my post titled “Stop whining and improve your life" attracted so much negativity in the comments area. It became very clear to me, however, that most were just too eager to make assumptions about my intention or probably wanted to vent a bit. Those who know me personally or have followed my blog for a while know that I don’t live in a fantasy world (though sometimes Chapel Hill can feel that way) filled with unicorn and cotton candy clouds. I’ll save myself the hassle and will just point the naysayers to what Vinny and Paul had to say.

Week in Review: April 12 - 16th, 2010

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what happened this week:

Radio Tray 0.5.1
- "It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of Radio Tray 0.5.1! I have been following the development of this tiny streaming media player from the very start and even cloned it so that I could play with it on BitBucket."
Stop whining and improve your life
- "During your day to day conversation with your friends and family members, do you find yourself talking about work or life in general in a negative manner?"
Learning Inkscape?
- "Lately I have found myself spending more and more time playing with Inkscape, the amazing open source vector graphic editor! The main reason being that my oldest daughter has shown interest in drawing and graphic design."
Command Line Tools with Python OptParse
- "It is not very uncommon for me to receive some code requests from friends looking for a little help to â€œmake something easierâ€?. Iâ€™m talking about those pesky day to day things that after a while makes you go: â€œIf I could only push a button and have it done!â€?"
From the â€œBetter Than Sliced Breadâ€? Department: Terminator
- "Basically, think about opening a single terminal (console) window and then splitting it down the middle (vertically) to get now two separate and independent terminalsâ€¦ and then splitting the left terminal horizontally, giving you now three terminalsâ€¦ and thenâ€¦ well, you probably get the drift by now."

From the \"Better Than Sliced Bread\" Department: Terminator

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“240” caption=“can i keep the bag? by jek in the box”][/caption]

From the “better than sliced bread” department, I bring you Terminator! No, not that terminator. This Terminator:

“Terminator is a program that allows users to set up flexible arrangements of GNOME terminals. It is aimed at those who normally arrange lots of terminals near each other, but don’t want to use a frame based window manager.”

Learning Inkscape?

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Lately I have found myself spending more and more time playing with Inkscape, the amazing open source vector graphic editor! The main reason being that my oldest daughter has shown interest in drawing and graphic design.Â Since we only run GNU/Linux at our house, I had to choose something that was open source and available for my distribution.

My last attempt at anything remotely close to “art” was way back when in the early 1990s when a friend gave me a copy of Paint Shop Pro. This is when it was still distributed by Jasc Software. Back then I was very proud of being able to create small and colorful geometric shapes and felt very at home with Paint Shop Pro. However, the day they decided to add new features and turned it into a Photoshop with all the floating windows and advanced plugins was the day I gave up on doing graphic design for good!

Stop whining and improve your life

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

During your day to day conversation with your friends and family members, do you find yourself talking about work or life in general in a negative manner?
Do you tell others that something or someone is preventing you from moving ahead and fulfilling your dreams?
Do you tend to hang out with people who share your (negative) opinion about work and life?
Can you keep a conversation with anyone without eventually dragging your audience into the “painful state” that your life is?

If you’ve managed to go through these questions and answered “no” to all of them, then congratulations for being such an optimistic person (or maybe all of your friends have left you?)! Now, if you’ve answered “yes” to any or several of these questions, then my friend… you’re a whiner!

Django Debug Toolbar

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I meant to write about the Django Debug Toolbar before but other things kept getting on the way. Basically, if you work with Django then you’ll appreciate this “configurable set of panels that display various debug information about the current request/response and when clicked, display more details about the panel’s content.”

[caption id=“attachment_875” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Django Debug Toobar”][/caption]

Imagine working on your application and being able to get a list of all of its settings, HTTP headers, display GET/POST/cookie/session variables, templates and context used and their template paths, SQL queries including time to execute and links to EXPLAIN each query, list of signals, their arguments and receivers,… want more? There is also the super nifty debugsqlshell command that outputs the sql statements that gets executed when you work with your models in the Python interactive shell.

Radio Tray 0.5.1

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of Radio Tray 0.5.1! I have been following the development of this tiny streaming media player from the very start and even cloned it so that I could play with it on BitBucket. After a while I approached the developer, Carlos Ribeiro, and asked him to take a look and all of the stuff I had done. I also suggested that he starts using Mercurial instead of Subversion to make easier for people to clone the code and submit patches in the near future.

Beer Heaven

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_866” align=“alignleft” width=“225” caption=“Beer Heaven”][/caption]

There is a place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. It is true! I have seen it with my own eyes! No, it is not Aspen, CO. It’s a little Russian liquor around the block from where my dad lives, with walls completely covered with… you guessed it, beer!

Armed with a plastic basket and the eagerness of a kid turned loose in a candy store, I worked my way through the aisles, jaw dropped to the floor and eyes fixated on the smorgasbord of colored bottles of different shapes and colors, trying to figure out the optimal battle plan.

Book Review: Django 1.0 Website Development

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_860” align=“alignleft” width=“300” caption=“Django 1.0 Website Development”][/caption]

Back when I purchased my ebook version of â€œPython Testing: Beginnerâ€™s Guideâ€œby Daniel Arbuckle, I also snagged a copy of “Django 1.0 Website Development" by Ayman Hourieh.

Once again, I have to tip my head to the folks at Packt Publishing for their decision of selling ebooks and not password protecting them, giving you complete control over your purchase!!! You can alsocopy text from it, which makes your life really easy when youâ€™re following along and want to copy some of the code being described!

Selenium and Sauce presentation

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Crayon Test by PauS

It was with great anticipation that I headed down to Duke University North Pavillion to listen to Frank Wierzbicki's, lead committer for Jython, presentation on Selenium and Sauce for this month’s TriZPUG meeting. Having used a few other tools to automate web application testing/QA, I felt that it was time to revisit Selenium and see if there was anything new worth checking.

I must say that the combination of Selenium and Sauce make up for a killer toolset for anyone who has to deal with supporting a web application across multiple platforms and browsers! Some of the features related to strictly writing Python code and driving testes from the command line had me salivating, but what really made a difference for me was Frank Wierzbicki himself!

Wish list: Distutils best practice guide

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“500” caption=“Prayers by Xerones”][/caption]

When it comes to distributing source code, specially python code, I really wish there was a concise and detailed best practice guide for using distutils! Don’t get me wrong, the documentation is pretty good and covers a lot of ground, but what I really want is a standard “template” if you will, that python developers can take and do some minimal modifications to customize it to their needs.

Appliances Updates

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Work has kept me really busy these days but I still managed to update the following appliances:

http://bit.ly/Transifex

Transifex (Devel):

transifex revision **1453 **(log)

http://bit.ly/DjangoDevKit

Django Developer Kit (Devel):

django 1.2 revision **12842 **(log)
mod_wsgi version 3.2

Just update your existing appliances to get these updates and feel free to drop me a line if you need anything or, better yet, want to land a hand. :)

Book Review: Python Testing: Beginner\'s Guide

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_813” align=“alignleft” width=“243” caption=“Python Testing: Beginner’s Guide”][/caption]

It is very rare to find a book that covers testing in the software world. Testing is something that authors will briefly mention on programming books and if you’re lucky you may even find a couple of lines of code related to the subject. So it was with great excitement that I purchasedÂ “Python Testing: Beginner’s Guide"by Daniel Arbuckle!.

LXDE and the Google Summer of Code

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_845” align=“alignleft” width=“300” caption=“LXDE in the Google Summer of Code”][/caption]

In case you missed it, the LXDE project is taking part of this year’s Google Summer of Code! I’m also very excited for the invitation to participate for the first time in the capacity of mentor!

"LXDE is an energy saving and extremely fast and performing desktop solution. It works well with computers on the low end of the performance spectrum such as new generation netbooks and other small mobile computers. LXDE is designed for cloud networks such as local freifunk clouds or the global Internet cloud. It can be built on top of various Linux distributions such as Ubuntu or Debian. It provides a fast desktop experience connecting easily with applications in the cloud and supports a wealth of programs, that can be installed with Linux systems locally. LXDE already supports many computer processor architectures including Intel, MIPS and ARM."

Radio Tray gives \"light listening\" a whole new meaning!

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The need to be thin!

I don’t consider myself a “power user” when it comes to how I listen to music in general, and most of the time I’ll use whatever media player is installed by default with my distribution. Only recently I started actively tagging and editing metadata about the songs I own, so you could safely say that if I can listen to music while I work, I’m a happy camper! Music has become an important part of my daily activities, whether at work, driving or at home. As a matter of fact, much like “Rob Gordon" played by John Cusack in “High Fidelity”, I can come up with a soundtrack for several different times of my life.

GNOME Developer Kit, now with less fat!

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: Thanks Alberto Ruiz for pointing out that VirtualBox can use .vmdk files, so the VMware image can be used for that purpose.

Thanks to the incredible work of `Zhang “Jesse” Sen <http://blog.zhangsen.org/>`__ and Vladimir Melo, a brand new release of the **GNOME Developer Kit** has been published! “What’s new”, you may ask? Everything, since all packages are built directly from git.gnome.org! :) But that alone is not what makes this release so cool, but the fact that the final image went through a dramatic “diet”, shedding a lot of its “weight” and going from a 1.4GB monster to less than 700MB of pure GNOME goodness!!!

Book Preview: Python Testing: Beginner\'s Guide

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_813” align=“alignleft” width=“243” caption=“Python Testing: Beginner’s Guide”][/caption]

I was looking for some material on proper python testing in order to improve my QA skills and after some “Googling” came across “Python Testing: Beginner’s Guide”. My first impulse was to hit Amazon and see if they had it and if I could buy an ebook version. Sadly, they only had the “dead tree” version, so I decided to check if the publisher, PackT Publishing, had an alternative.

Transifex \"Magneto\" Appliance 0.8 is out!

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Following the tradition of releasing simultaneously with the Transifex project, I’m pleased to present you the Transifex “Magneto” Appliance 0.8! There are just too many cool features to mention here… so I won’t! Just go ahead and read the release notes instead.

From Transifex v8.0 featutes

As far as the appliance goes, the most important thing to know is that I dropped MySQL and replaced it with Postgresql, so if you’re thinking of updating an existing deployment, you’ll have to backup your data and handle the restoration process. If you’re installing for the first time, choose from the following image types:

Transifex Upcoming Feature: Translation Review

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Just wanted to tease you guys out there about a new feature that the Transifex guys are working on these days: Translation Reviews! Have you ever wandered if your translations conform to the standard vocabulary that your team uses? Have you ever wanted someone to take a look at what you’ve done before sending in your final work for commit approval?

From Transifex v8.0 featutes

Now, mind you this is still very alpha code but that is probably a good thing since you can play with it and give your feedback on how to improve it. As always, you can get this in an easy to consume format by using the Transifex Appliance Developer edition… or you can join the Xfce translators who are already enjoying Transifex latest code! :)

Re: is Foresight Linux dead?

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

On his latest post titled “Foresight Linux is dead?”, Thilo Pfennigs rightly asks the question that many of the current Foresight Linux users may be asking themselves. With the current stable release dated as of May 2009 and no explicit roadmap stating when the next release will be published, is it really safe to say that Foresight Linux is indeed dead?

In order to properly answer this question, one must first take a look at what the year of 2009 reserved for this young distribution. Born out of Ken Vandine's desire to follow the GNOME project as close to the upstream source as possible and introduce all the latest and coolest applications out there to the desktop before anyone else, Foresight was for a while synonymous to bleeding edge Linux done right!

BillReminder: Still Kicking

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

If you still remember my pet project BillReminder and want to learn what’s going on with it, go check the project’s latest post!

[caption id=“attachment_58” align=“alignnone” width=“385” caption=“BillReminder with charting support”][/caption]

A huge thanks toÂ nosklo,Â Patryk, andÂ Toms for their help, and if you’re looking for a young python project to help out, please consider looking at BillReminder!

Emblem Divide coming to your web!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I was extremely thrilled to learn that my good friend Pete Savagedecided to publish his novel “Emblem Divide" online! I had the honor of getting a copy of his work last month and have enjoyed reading it a lot!

The novel will be available completely free of charge, no strings attached! To top it off, being the nice guy that he is, he’s also setting up a donation system to take advantage of the traffic that his web site will most like generate so that you can support a charity of your choice! More details on that will be available soon from his site, but feel free to recommend a charity to him directly via a comment.

Looking back on looking back

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Reading today’s post by Miguel about the 10 years anniversary of Ximian’s incorporation brought back memories of a time when I wasn’t as involved with open source… a time when I hated my job and would do anything to score a job with a Linux company. I had decided to attend a Microsoft boot camp in Massachusetts and since I was going to be around Boston, for some reason I decided to send Miguel an email asking him if he would mind meeting with me and maybe grabbing a cup of coffee. It was back in early 2005 (I blogged about it here) and I was such a huge fanboy of Miguel and all that he represented.

Using WordPress as a blog aggregator

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

One of the many things I maintain outside work is a blog aggregator (aka “planet”) for blogs about open source and technology from the Brazilian community. I try to invite new authors to this “planet” who have something interesting to share about their lives, regardless of what Linux distribution they use, gender, political views or religious beliefs. It is not as popular as some of the other Brazilian news sites, but I think it has a good number of subscribers.

Late Post-GUADEC\... Post?

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Ok, my apologies for not having written up a post on my trip to the Canary Islands and the whole experience of attending the Gran Canary Desktop Summit 2009! I think I can summarize it in one word: AWESOME! I can honestly say that I had a blast meeting a lot of the people that I only knew from irc conversations, emails and blog posts! A lot of the presentations were very interesting, some of them having that special je ne sais quoi that triggered an avalanche of new ideas for my existing projects!

Hack and Slash and lose your computer while you\'re at it!

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I was browsing through my favorite Linux magazine (it’s Linux Format by the way… I wonder if I mention it several times here on my blog if someone will send me a free subscription? What? A guy can dream, can’t he?) at a certain book store today when I came across a quick review of the game Ardentryst.

Ardentryst is an action/RPG sidescoller, focused not just on fighting, but on story, and character development. Strategy as well as reflexes will be needed to overcome the game. The game is set in another world. It is somewhat a cross between Donkey Kong Country, Mario, Castlevania and Kingdom Hearts. Ardentryst is focused on a fantasy world. The player is guided through a storyline which he or her must act in and play a major role in keeping peace and order in Ardentryst. It features two playable characters and a variety of weapons, items, armour, monsters, and beautiful level scenery and graphics.

Cute Git Tip

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“500” caption=“Happiness by Sabrina Campagna cc-by”][/caption]

I was hanging out in the lobby of the Catalina Park Appartments last week writing some code when I was approached by Diederik van der Boor (of KMess fame) who was also hacking away and had a question about Git.

Diederik: are you an expert on git by any chance?
Me: hardly, but what is the question?
Diederik: I just made a few changes to a single file and was wondering if it is possible to commit specific chunks?
Me: hmmmm… don’t think so but that would be really cool!!!

He went back to his chair and I immediately starting scouring the web for more information about this. Luckly, one of the very first hits I got back was Ryan Tomayko's post called “The Thing About Git”! I had barely read the entire article when I shouted to Diederik: “I think I found a solution! You better come over here and sit down!" What followed then were several minutes of more reading, sprinkled with a lot of drooling and happy exclamations from both of us!

Going to GUADEC

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to the amazing support from the GNOME Travel Committee, I will be attending my first GUADEC this year in Gran Canaria! I am very thankful for their commitment to accomodate my needs and I’ll try to make the most of it!

I’ll be arriving July 3rd around lunch time and will stay until the 11th, so there will be plenty of time to meet up and discuss. I’m mostly interested in localization, accessibility, and tests automation but am equaly interested in community building and the organization toward GNOME 3.0!

GeekDeck Issue 3 Published

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

GeekDeck has just released Issue 3, including;

What are you waiting for? Go read it now! :)

Three Dot Five

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Celebrating my 35th birthday today! A year older, a year (hopefully) wiser, and every day glad to have the life I have! Can’t wait to see what the next year will bring! :)

A Fistfull of News

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Been quite busy at work these days, as well as playing the host to my parents during the holidays. I did keep up with what was happening around the world, thanks to my G1 (I love this gadget!), and wanted to share a few nice nuggets.

First of all, the birth of Lotte, the online translation editor! This new feature will help the Transifex guys deliver a fatal 1,2 punch combination in the fight against bad translation tools and processes!

Transifex to provide translation platform for LXDE

Thu, 21 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_701” align=“aligncenter” width=“140” caption=“Transifex and LXDE”][/caption]

The LXDE project has announced that it will use the Transifex platform to allow their users to better manage their workflow, provide up to the minute data and statistics, and lower their administrative workload. The full announcement can be found here.

It was a real pleasure to work along side Martin Bagge, Mario Behling, Dimitris Glezos, Diego BÃºrigo ZacarÃ£o and Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams and get this partnership in place. Expect a lot of good things coming from both projects!

Smell the flowers

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I never really considered any of my photos to be anything out of the ordinary (excluding those I take of my kids, off course :)Â ), but the one below came out pretty decent if you ask me.

This was taken last Sunday at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in the best place to live in the world, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I’ve been using it as my computer’s desktop wallpaper. Every time I see it, it makes me realize how majestic Spring can be! If you liked it, download it here.

Check out GeekDeck Issue 2

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

GeekDeck has just released Issue 2, including;

Go on and take a peek at the articles and let us know what you think.

Friday at the office

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Just another Friday at work. “Wearing my colors” today.

New arrival in the kitchen seems to have been approved by everyone.

Now, repeat after me: TGIF!

Living La Vida Geek

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I was very pleased when my good friend Pete asked me to be a contributor to his new project, GeekDeck, “a new zine/blog thingy that (he is) hoping will wet your appetite for all things geek.” Pete and I have been friends for some time already and find his projects very stimulating and fun. Whoever hasn’t watched his old web show Prog8ox doesn’t missed out big time!

As Pete wanted to publish something fairly quick and gave us all a very tight schedule (he’s a slave driver I tell you), and we went into code release mode at work, I didn’t manage to write my article about GNU/Linux Appliances and Cloud Computing. Instead, I decided to start a regular column called “Cherry Picks of the Month”, where I intend to write about cool applications and write up a super mini review about them. Take a look at the first edition here and do send me any application you may want me to review or pimp. As long as I can get my hands on the source code (don’t give me packages, etc as I do not run any of the popular distros out there) I’ll take it for a whirl.

Life Is a Gift

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I just had to share this with everyone. Have a great weekend!

Life Is a Gift Today before you say an unkind word - Think of someone who can’t speak. Before you complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone who has nothing to eat. Before you complain about your husband or wife - Think of someone who’s crying out to GOD for a companion. Today before you complain about life - Think of someone who died too early on this earth. Before you complain about your children - Think of someone who desires children but they’re barren. Before you argue about your dirty house someone didn’t clean or sweep - Think of the people who are living in the streets. Before whining about the distance you drive Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet. And when you are tired and complain about your job - Think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job. But before you think of pointing the finger or condemning another - Remember that not one of us is without sin. And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down - Put a smile on your face and think: you’re alive and still around.

Hall of Fame

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Just nominated who I think should be “inducted” into the Ubuntu Hall of Fame:Â AndrÃ© Gondim from the Ubuntu Brazilian translations team!

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“192” caption=“AndrÃ© Gondim -Hall of Fame”][/caption]

Andre started contributing with translations quite some time ago, but for whatever reason stopped contributing for a while. One day, completely out of the blue, he approached me and asked me to lend him a hand to get started again… fast forward a few years later, and Andre is without a doubt the most active and interested translator for the entire Ubuntu Brazilian team! From a timid pupil he’s become someone who can inspire and a role model for anyone who wants to contribute with the translation of open source software. After “suffering” my pestering for so long, he is also very active with the translation of upstream GNOME and maybe, with some more pestering, he may join other projects as well.

TweetStats

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

My Twitter stats as per TweetStats:

Cloud:

Stats:

Your typical Friday afternoon chat

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

13:02:50 <devnet> DUDE 13:03:15 <devnet> got something cool to show you (video) when u get back 13:03:47 <OgMaciel> does it involve you, a bottle of baby oil and a chupacabra? 13:03:57 <devnet> naughty boy 13:04:00 <devnet> of course it DOES! 13:04:03 <devnet> :D

For all you naughty people out there, he was talking about this pretty cool video mash. Check them all out!

Another open source project 100% translated

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to the incredible work of Henrique P. Machado, Brazilian Portuguese speaking open source users will now be able to run LXDE completely translated! Yeah, another 100% Brazilian Portuguese translation available! I will spend the next few days making sure everything is following the same guidelines we’ve used for GNOME and Xfce, so if you speak the language and got time to review/send sugestions, your help will be appreciated. :)

So you want to sell open source

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to write about the concept of selling open source ideas and what are some of the required criteria for being successful in doing it for quite some time, and Stormy's comment on my last post sort of pushed me to it.

I use the word “sell” here not strictly in the sense of a financial transaction but also in the sense of getting your open source product to be adopted and have a better chance at standing out from the huge pool of available open source software. These last 3 years have showed me that what we today call “popular” open source software display a couple of distinct patterns, some of which seem to also be shared with other open source products that are distributed with some type of financial payback. So, without much further ado, here are some of my observations:

Your translations update

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Proud to have been a part of delivering the following upstream projects 100% translated to Brazilian Portuguese:

GNOME 2.26 UI: 100% translated.
Xfce 4.6 UI: 100% translated
Openbox: 100% translated

I also helped the GNOME Italian team with their commits.

Now, onto LXDE and some modules for Fedora.

If I had a dollar\...

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

… for everytime a heard a pediatrician say:

It is probably some virus;
There is something going around;
I’ll prescribe some amoxicillin…;
It will go away in 6 to 8 weeks;
I’ll ask my colleagues;
We’ve been seeing that in the office a lot… it is probably some type of infection or virus;

I’d be rich! Growing up in Brazil, there was never a time that my parents took me to a doctor that we didn’t come home knowing precisely what was affliciting me… and nothing that wasn’t cured by some type of shot and a day of rest.

Snowy Day

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Today we had snow in Chapel Hill for the first time since I moved from Northern New Jersey. I not a big fan of the white stuff since it used to mean cleaning up the car, drive to the slush, and get all wet. But my girls loved it, specially Yv who seized the opportunity to make snow angels.

It was also Kate's first snow and eventhough she's been coffing lately, we decided to bring her outside (wearing a heavy coat) to play for a while.

ROTFL

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_652” align=“alignnone” width=“650” caption=“So apparently like 12 of those 17 minutes were spent finding a top hat. If you do the math.”][/caption]

Meet Elephant Gerald and Piggie

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Got back home tonight to find our dining table covered by books that Yv got at the library today. This is something that happens quite often and it never stops amazing me just how much she loves to read! So even though it was almost 21:00 and I had just walked in from work, we set by the table and started reading some of her books.

[gallery link=“file”]

Elephant and Piggie books must be some of the most amazingly funny books to read to your kids! No matter how many times we read them, the stories never lose their power to make us laugh out loud. This works best if you act out the book and try to make funny voices. Fun for the entire family for sure! :)

Year of Translations?

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

What a great month for open source translators this has been! The latest news is the marriage of GNOME’s Damn Lies with Vertimus. You can think of it as statistics and work flow in one interface! From the announcement email:

You like Damned Lies and Vertimus, we too, so we have merged both! The new Damned Lies offers a new reviewing workflow. If you’re a translator, you can join one or many teams and reserve a module for translation. Once your work is ready, you can upload the PO file onhttp://l10n.gnome.org and then a reviewer of this team will review yourwork for approval. A committer is still required to eventually commit the file in the GNOME SVN. DL is able to send an email to your team mailing list to notify about important actions. The goal is to promote good translations and to help newcomers with advices so the team coordinator is able to assign new roles to the team members (as reviewer or committer).

Rosetta takes a great step toward supporting upstream translations

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Danilo Å egan, lead developer for the Rosetta translation tool sent an email to the Ubuntu translators list yesterday with some great news related to the policy of how upstream translations are managed:

Launchpad Translations has changed the translation precedence policy with the December release: now upstream (“packaged”) translations will be given more priority in specific cases. Yet, Launchpad Translations keeps the ability to override any specific upstream translation if so is desired. To illustrate when upstream translations have precedence, here’s an example: 1. GNOME Panel, message “_Open”, untranslated 2. Ubuntu GNOME Panel message for “_Open” is untranslated 3. Someone translates Ubuntu message in Launchpad to “_Foo” 4. Upstream translates “_Open” to “_Bar” 5. When new upstream translation arrives, Launchpad makes “_Bar” active over “_Foo” (making “_Foo” a suggestion) Example case where Launchpad translation takes precedence is: 1. GNOME Panel, message “_Open”, translated to “Foow” 2. Ubuntu GNOME Panel translation for “_Open” is imported and is now “Foow” 3. Someone fixes translation in Ubuntu to “_Foo” 4. Upstream changes translation for “_Open” to “Foo” 5. When new upstream translation arrives, Launchpad keeps “_Foo” active over upstream’s “Foo”

A few reasons why Rosetta should not be considered as a translation platform for existing open source projects

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I received an invitation to join the LXDE project, “an extremely faster, performing and energy saving desktop environment maintained by an international community of developers”, to collaborate and help organize their translation effort. As I have maintained the Brazilian Portuguese translation for Openbox, one of the components that make up LXDE, and am very much involved with the translation of GNOME, KDE, XFCE, and other modules, I felt very compelled to accept the invitation.

Call for help: defining date ranges for a gtk.Calendar

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve re-designed the dialog for adding or editing a bill for my pet project BillReminder and am now in need of help to improve the user interface a bit more before releasing another version. I figured someone out there may either have the answer or have more free time at their disposal than me. :)

Here’s what the dialog looks like right now:

The issue is related to the option of adding recurring bills, which a user can do by changing the Repeat field to something other than Once (i.e. Monthly, Weekly). This will enable the End Date field, a customized widget that uses a gtk.Calendar to allow the user to define how far into the future to automatically create instances of the bill being entered. I want to be able to define a start and end date for the catalog, so that the user doesn’t pick a date which is prior to the Due Date. In other words, if the due date is tomorrow, don’t allow the user to set the end date to yesterday. A couple of use cases that have to be taken into consideration are:

Day of Remembrance

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’d like to second Davyd’s post about the 10th Day of Remembrance. It pains me to know that even today with all the technological and intellectual progress we’ve made, there are people out there who just cannot accept and/or respect other people’s choices.

For those hiding behind a bible to defend their actions, maybe your god should teach you more tolerance…

Yeah, comments will be turned off. I don’t plan to spend my day fending off any comment that will tell me that their rights are more important that somebody else’s.

Get out and vote!

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

If you are elligible to vote for the election taking place in the United States of America, please excercise your right to vote. Go out and vote to your candidate OR to whomever you feel will do their best to represent your community’s best interest!

Also, if you live in California and meet the requirements to vote, please consider voting against Proposition 8!

Today marks the first time I participated in any presidential election ever in my life! It feels specially nice for me as this is also the first time I vote for the leader of my adopted country! I don’t expect that things will improve a whole lot in the next 4 years, regardless of who wins tonight. But I voted not thinking of the present but the future of our nation and what opportunities it will offer for the next generation. There will be sacrifices to be made but it will all be worth if we can deliver a better world to our kids!

Why QUALITY translations are important!

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Kudos for everyone involved with the translation of open source software out there, specially for those understand the different between QUANTITY and QUALITY! The following is for your enjoyment:

When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed. Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated”. (BBC News)

Get notifed about translation commit messages on IRC

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A few years back I created the irc channel #tradutores (translators in Brazilian Portuguese) on the Freenode server, a place where anyone involved with the translation process of open source software could hang out, chat, ask questions and share their experience with other fellow translators. A place with no association to a given project or distribution, where you could find people working for several groups such as GNOME, KDE, XFCE, Fedora, Foresight, Ubuntu, all sharing the same goal: improve the quality of open source translations for Brazilian Portuguese!

Using Dropbox with Openbox

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been a GNU/Linux user for quite some time now, but it wasn’t until 2 years ago that I became a fulltime user. Being a .NET and Oracle developer by day working for the Department of Education of NYC, I had a standard developer environment at my desk and nothing else. That means that I could not install anything else on my system, due to some extremelly archaic policies put in place by the employer (I couldn’t even search for information online and was told I should do it from home and bring the results to work the next day!!!), but that’s material for a different post.

Fearmongering, Nuclear agreements and a US\$700B pork barrel

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

With last night’s VP debate still fresh in my memory and the entire “rescue plan” that is about to rape us all, I went through all the comments that people have added to my latest posts and wanted to make a few comments.

First off, I was one of those who up until 5 years ago wanted nothing to do with politics… not only that, I was also happy with being a green card holder and saw no advantages in becoming a citizen. Let me just make something clear: I’ve lived here in the United States of America for way too long and have always considered it to be my adopted home! Even though I did not have a piece of paper that stated that I was a citizen, I have always felt like one as I have always been a law abiding citizen and care about the future of our nation. The “problem” was more of an annoyance, for my experience dealing with immigration offices had been less than stellar… at least that is how it was back when I lived in Northern New Jersey, where you were pretty much treated like a criminal the moment you got within a certain range from an Immigration, err… Department of Home Land Security office, but that is not the subject of this post.

As the bailout bill comes back to the House\...

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

… let your US Congressmen know your opinion. I just did!

Also, a couple of interesting bits in the news:

Get your pork right here!

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is disgusting! If you’re still one of those who think that the bailout plan is for the good of the entire nation with no hidden agendas, think again! Bundled in the bailout plan there are several ridiculous provisions that will cost you and me several billion dollars! Sure they’ve added a few sweetners to the deal, but why not then create a single, clean piece of legislation to deal with the major issue? Both Obama and MacCain approved this last night too… Disgusting!

My 5 a day

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Can’t see it? Click here and share!

If you\'re from North Carolina, USA\...

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

… please consider contacting our representatives and voice your opinion about the current economic situation and the upcoming issue to be voted by the senate.

Don’t live in North Carolina but want to contact your representative? Look them up! You may want to drop a line to both candidates running for the presidency as well. I did!

If things could be resolved by our children

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Something interesting happened today. As my wife and I talked about the economic bailout during dinner, we didn’t notice that Yv, my soon-to-be-seven-year-old was paying close attention to what we were saying. The following is a pretty close description of the dialogue that followed:

Yv: … where are they getting US$700?
Me: They’re taking the mine from us and every other family.
Yv: Have they asked you if it is ok to do it?
Me: Not really…
Yv: But that’s stealing! Can they be arrested?

At which point I had no answer to give her…

Amazing Inkscape videocasts

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I felt compelled to blog about this great site full of amazingly professional Inkscape screencasts!

Screencasters.Heathenx.org is an amazing blog that I have been following for a while and I highly recommend it for those who want to learn a trick or two or for anyone who wants to see a well done screencast!

A few updates

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

BillReminder has attracted a new enthusiast who has brought a lot of interesting ideas to the mailing list. The coolest part is that we both share a lot of ideas in common and I have already started to write some code to pave the way to more reporting and some true home accounting features. After spending some time changing the charting module from the hamster-applet project to do what I needed, I came to learn about a pretty cool project for graphing with Cairo and Python called CairoPlot!
Thank you to all of you guys who voted for my Ubuntu Brainstorm idea! As of right now it has received 120 total votes! If you haven’t voted yet, there’s still time. :)

GNOME 2.24

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Congratulations to all parties involved!!! As always, you can count on a 100% translated Brazilian Portuguese edition!

Ubuntu translations: let\'s make it work!

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Just created the following Ubuntu Brainstorm idea called “Translation workflow and collaboration with upstream”. It is based off the blueprint I created a while back in an attempt to improve the relationship between Ubuntu and upstream translation projects.

Everyone who knows me well knows how important translations are to me! How I strive to get people to always work with upstream and then let their work trickle down to distributions! Want to get me talking non stop? Ask me about translations! :)

3\... 2\... 1\... Say Cheese!

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

With the soon to be released GNOME version 2.24, you’ll find the new version for Cheese, a pretty slick application that “allows you to take photos, videos, and anything else you can think of with your webcam.” My kids and I have spent quite some time playing with the special effects, often combining a bunch of them to see who could come up with the silliest shot.

When Daniel asked me if he could use some of my shots to create a tour for the new release, it gave us one more reason to play with Cheese.

heh\... why not?

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Donâ€™t change your clothes, donâ€™t fix your hairâ€¦just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

When Dia saved my Day!

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Everyone who knows me online or is used to seeing me hanging out on several IRC channels or posting messages in my Twitter/Identi.ca accounts may have noticed my absense these last few weeks. Work, family and school have really kept me on my toes and my “social” life had to take the back seat.

I want to believe that I have done a decent job at juggling all the tasks I have been assigned, even if it means to do my school assignments while I eat lunch, as I did today! The assignment for my database design class consisted in turning some user requirements of a pretend dog trainning business into a real entity relational diagram. Due to some factors which are not relevant right now, I have been forced to use Microsoft Access and Visio for this class and I had to install Windows XP on my old laptop. The tools are very shiny and well integrated, as they try to be smart enough to predict what you’re trying to do. I’m sure that under different circunstances I could appreciate that whole “AI” process taking place, but today… it cost me the 1 hour I had set aside to turn the rough draft I created during lunch into the final product which needs to be handed in tomorrow.

BillReminder \"Royale with cheese\" released

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It is with extreme pleasure that I annound the release of BillReminder "Royale with cheese" version 0.3.2! This released was concentrated on fixing bugs, adding more translations, and getting some work done for future reporting features.

Straight from the NEWS file, here’s what you’ll find in this release:

Bugs:

Paid/Not Paid entries exist in File and Edit menus; Make them toggle/untoggle appropriately (Bug #13)
Issues with date and time locale? (Bug #12)
Ambiguity with Alerts and Alarms in preferences dialog (Bug #11)
Make category names a unique field. (Bug #1)
Newly added categories should be selected automatically (Bug #2)
Make setting an alarm really optional. (Bug #4)

Backend:

Another coffee flavor moment

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

From the same people that brought you Frank Sumatra, I present you Bean Martin!

Coffee flavor of the day

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today’s coffee flavor of the day at work: Frank Sumatra! :)

Have you hugged your favorite open source tool today?

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I have! I just recently got a hold of a US$30 Amazon gift certificate for participating of a 1-hour phone study. I could have used it and bought something for me, right? Instead, I decided to present it to Jacek Åšliwerski, the guy behind Open-Tran. There is not a day that I don’t use it for my translations, as I can use its awesome comparisson tools to QA my work!

How about you? Have you hugged your favorite open source tool today?

Lessons I learned as a translation guy

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This post is my 2 cents about Jad’s latest post trying to stir things up and attract more translators to the Ubuntu community! Having led the Brazilian team for a couple of years myself, I wanted to point out a couple of things Iâ€™ve learned along the way. Obviously advices are best taken when asked for, but here it goes anyway:

Beware that 300 volunteers working at the same time without a robust and clear way of knowing whoâ€™s doing what will make it impossible for your team to manage;
Also, with this many people contributing with single, hand picked strings is extremelly detrimental to the overal quality of the entire package, not to mention the entire suite;
I have always liked the idea of contributions being done upstream first, and then tricklying it down to distros and what not. It is my dream and goal to make sure that Ubuntu reverses this trend and start sending contributions upstream (translations). Check out my blueprint: https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/rosetta/+spec/translation-workflow-and-notification-system

Well, back to work I go. :)

News Update

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I last wrote anything, mostly due to a few new changes that happened these last 3 weeks or so. Here’s a small list of some of the things that I can remember right now:

My pet project BillReminder is now hosted in the GNOME SVN repository! It took me a while to get the right resources and free time to migrate everything, but I believe that it is now completed. The source code can be checked out from here and issues can be filed in Bugzilla. There’s also a new web site theme to go along with the changes, courtesy of my good friend ElyÃ©zer Mendes Rezende.
With the move to GNOME SVN I was (obviously) granted commit access… and due to some schedule changes for the two current committers for the Brazilian translation team, I have now been performing translations reviews and commits. It is great to finally be able to do this as I already have been doing this type of work for the XFCE team.
Speaking of the XFCE team, I have been on top of the Brazilian Portuguese translations and the next release (coming soon I’m told) will be 100% translated!
I started attending one single class at the University of North Carolina (here in Chapel Hill) and this Tuesday was my first day. The class, “Database Design”, is listed as a graduate level class but so far it’s been fairly easy to follow. As I already have a bacchelors in BioChemistry, I’m looking forward to taking some bioinformatics classes in the near future.
I’ve done some travelling these last 2 weeks. Two weekends ago we went to the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. It was the first time I went to the Carolina beaches since I moved here and it was a great experience! We took lots of pictures and spent 2 great days soaking up in the sun!

Pandora swag

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today I received a mysterious package in the mail. Turns out it was some swag from Pandora: a hat and some stickers.

You know what the best part was? Not the cool hat or stickers, but the letter that accompanied the items in the envelope. It was actually manually signed (i.e. not a print out) by Lucia Willow, Community Manager, and Tim Westergren, Founder. It is the kind of attention to details that makes a huge difference!

Recipe for a good translation team

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A while back I was asked by a member of a Ubuntu translation team (who shall remain anonymous) about how the Brazilian team’s workflow worked and how we managed to maintain our position among the top translated teams in Rosetta. What follows was my reply to this person. I hope it will prove to be useful to any other team out there who may be struggling with the same issues. I’m also interested to learn how other teams managed to keep their members involved and/or how others can benefit from their experience.

Talk to your kids about Linux

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Snagged from the original “Cautionary" strip.

[caption id=”" align=“alignnone” width=“665” caption=“Talk to your kids about Linux”][/caption]

Yv Scarlett Maciel: the first year

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_519” align=“alignnone” width=“300” caption=“Yv Scarlett Maciel: the first year”][/caption]

As I uploaded 10000 pictures into F-Spot tonight, I got lost in the memories of people, places and events that they brought back… everything starting with the birth of my first daughter Yv. I cherry picked a few pictures of her first year and created a set. It is amazing how time does fly… she’s going to be 7 at the end of the year!

Desktop screenshot for July

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A screenshot of my work laptop. The current setup has Openbox for tons of keyboard keybindings, PyPanel, Twitux, Glipper, Gajim and GNOME Xchat. Add Terminator with lots of panels, Epiphany and Rhythmbox (not in screenshot) and you got the applications I use every day.

UPDATE: Link to a larger screenshot.

Subscribe to feeds from projects hosted on Google Code

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

If you have a project hosted on Google Code (or follow the development of a project) and don’t want to create a Google Group so that you can receive notifications (email, rss) for repository or issue tracking commits, here’s a new feature that has been added:

http://code.google.com/feeds/p/PROJECT/svnchanges/basic
http://code.google.com/feeds/p/PROJECT/issueupdates/basic

For the first url, change PROJECT to the project name you want to follow.

Then, add the url to your favorite news reader.

UPDATE: Adding ?path=DIR was not working so I changed the url for project commits.

Registering a gconf schema via setup.py?

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I spent a good chunk of my evening trying to implement the automatic registration of a gconf schema file via a setup.py and… got nowhere. Seems that most people who wanted to do the same ended up running gconftool-2 directly as such:

GCONF_CONFIG_SOURCE=`gconftool-2 —get-default-source` gconftool-2 —makefile-install-rule /etc/gconf/schemas/*.schemas

Has anyone got any advice (patches wouldÂ be awesome) to go with my code?

And now\... tabs\... on tabs!!!

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

C’mon! What is up with the tabs fetish?

** My inkscape skills need a lot of love!*

Got milk?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

One of my favorite web services ever (Open-Tran.eu) announced today what I consider to be the best feature of 2008! PERIOD! What am I talking about? I’m talking about the possibilty of viewing the comparison of how a single string was translated across several projects! You have to experience it to understand how great this is! To quote Jacek Åšliwerski, the brain behind this:

I added new functionality to the service. Now you can compare the translations of phrases between the projects. Right now, the only way to see the comparison table is to enter an appropriate URL (or use the API). Here is an example URL:

Stormy weekend in Chapel Hill

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This 3-day weekend (it was the Independence Day here in the US this Friday) turned out to be a 3-day stay indoors weekend for us. Due to a hurricane (don’t remember the name now) that is fast approaching the East coast, we were rocked by severe thunderstorms every single night.

We had planned to watch the new Indiana Jones movie at the outdoor movie night in Southern Village but managed to get inside the car right before the wind kicked in and the sky was lit with lightning. By the time we got home, it looked pretty bad outside.

Not going to GUADEC

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Been kind of stormy down here in North Carolina since last night, with some pretty serious thunder storms causing havok around the area. Woke up today to see some trees snapped in half and a car buried under some big branches. With the electricity flickering all the time I thought it would be safe to turn off the PC and wait it out. After yet another stormy period today, I think it is safe to surf the web now.

My first blueprint for Ubuntu

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today I created a blueprint I intend to promote for Launchpad's Rosetta workflow. Titled “The process by which translation teams can better handle collaboration" (and its matching full specification), it is my intent to describe a mechanism by which translation teams can better administrate the contributions sent by Rosetta users, provide useful feedback and take a first step toward a better relationship with upstream projects.

I kindly invite those interested in the same topic to subscribe to the blueprint and add their feedback to the specification page, specially those who like me have their feet in both upstream and Rosetta worlds.

A DVCS model that embraces your model?

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My good friend Mario Ä?aniÄ‡ (pygi) wrote a very interesting article on what he calls a “broken on birth” attitude towards DVCS adoption in many open source groups. I was very intrigued as to how one would allow different developers use their own (i.e. favorite) DVCS to work on their project, and yet be able to pool everything together in order to release a given set? If you want to learn about his ideas, about GitoriousKDE or have some relevant feedback for him, drop him a line.

To post or not to post

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My latests posts have attracted a fair number of comments (thank every and each one of you for taking the time… really!), most of them in response to the issue at hand. Every now and then someone questions the validity of one of my chosen topics, claiming that it should be published on Planet X (my blog is syndicated on quite a few planets) because it doesn’t talk about technology. I understand that someone people may not enjoy reading every single topic that may be published (not only by me), for I am one of them… honest!

Where should your money go today?

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

$162 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Gasoline

New war

Relief for the American people

Education

For some reason I can’t seem to be able to check the last 2 boxes.

PS: For those who don’t care or don’t want to read about this, exercise your mouse/keyboard and skip this post.

United States of Censorship

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

it is amazing just how little real information gets its way to the American public these days. What we Americans call news must be the equivalent of a soap opera or comic stand up everywhere else in the world! The problem is so serious that for those who were born here and never left the country that you end up becoming utterly unaware of what else is going on around the world or, even worse in my oppinion, not knowing what kind of terrorism (our government calls it Foreign Policy) we are perpetrating outside of our borders.

The things you write when you have the stomach flu

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Been suffering from a nasty stomach flu since yesterday and, needless to say, it hasn’t been fun for me. Spent the entire day trying to get some rest but was too restless to fall asleep. I don’t know how many times I checked my email or browsed my rss feeds! Out of the many tabs I opened and closed in my browser, one remained open at all times: a link to a book called Essential SQLAlchemy!

Almost 200% new translations for BillReminder

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Amazing! There’s no other better way to describe the turn around for the translation progress of BillReminder after yesterday’s post/pledge! In less than 24 hours there were 8 new translations available bringing the total of available translations now to 17! Awesome! I want to thank every single person who took the time to lend me a hand!

During the course of merging the new stuff into the repository, I was a bit confused as far as the work flow for people who have their projects hosted on Launchpad but not necessarily host the source codein their bzr servers. I immediately fired an email to the Launchpad mailing list but decided to also post it here for anyone who may be interested in the subject.

Help me translate BillReminder

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I need your help to get BillReminder translated into as many different languages as possible! Up until now I have relied on a list of collaborators who know how to work with a message catalog template (i.e. pot file) and use it to generate a translated message file (i.e. po file). I’m aware that a lot of people probably don’t know what I’m talking about and/or may feel uneasy about working with text files and what not… so I decided to set BillReminder up for translation via Rosetta, which can be reached here.

Fresh material for all the professional Tweeters out there

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My friend devnet told me today as we got some coffee about what was possibly one of the very first micro bloggers in history… when he finally gave me the link to this guy’s site I laughed so hard I almost had coffee (my precioussss) coming out of my nose! With posts such as “Tidying some pencils”, “Standing in the middle of the room” and “Looking at a wall”, it was really hard not to laugh!

Brazil x Argentina online

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Unfortunately the match between Brazil and Argentina was not broadcasted here in the United States (well, at least not here where I live). Out of nowhere my dad calls me from NY to tell me he had just seen this guy plug the TV in his pub to the net to watch the game. I quickly wrote down the url to the site: http://www.justin.tv

The feed wasn’t the greatest (quality-wise) from the Peruvian TV, but for those who really wanted to watch the game it was bliss! After several minutes the feed was blocked (apparently due to some legal BS)… but someone quickly created a new feed and off we went! For those reading this post in time for the second half, the direct url is: http://www.justin.tv/christianc226

Dedicated to Nixternal

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I would like to dedicate this book to my good friend nixternal.Â :)

Getting older and keeping up with translations

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So today is my birthday and I’m now 34. It is also my mother’s birthday, and as she’s been having some health issues, I decided to surprise her and drive up to NJ/NY. For the first time the trip went really smooth and it only took me 8 1/2 hours to get here. The very first thing I did, and you’re going to laugh at this, was to buy some Chinese food! You will not believe how bad the Chinese food is in North Carolina (or maybe all the places I’ve tried suck?)! This seems to be a regular trend, as some people who I talked about this also told me that it is really hard to get good Chinese in Florida and Massachussetts.

Introducing PyLyglot

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

As everyone knows I’m very involved with the translation efforts of several upstream projects and try to keep up with what’s going on with every single one of them. Starting about 3 weeks ago I realized that I relied too much on statistical information that wasn’t always up to date and sometimes there would be a program that would get newer code (sometimes resulting in changes to the translation strings) and go unoticed. Since I was trying to get XFCE 100% translated, I decided to write up a simple python script to help me keep an eye on those packages… with every featured I added the script became more involved… and PyLyglot was born.

About Tweeters

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

[10:29:10 AM] Dude: there’s way too many “social” networks to keep track of nowadays [10:29:51 AM] Og Maciel: hehehe [10:30:01 AM] Og Maciel: I’ve been using Tweet these days [10:30:10 AM] Og Maciel: but not as aggressively as some people [10:30:22 AM] Dude: the one that says what you are doing every hour? [10:30:25 AM] Og Maciel: sheesh, they “tweet” for every &%^$&@ thing they do [10:30:32 AM] Dude: yeah… [10:30:34 AM] Og Maciel: every minute even [10:30:42 AM] Og Maciel: “taking a crap” [10:30:42 AM] Dude: people spend more time tweeting more than doing what they are tweeting about [10:30:51 AM] Og Maciel: “out of tp” [10:30:53 AM] Dude: “reaching for toilet paper” [10:30:59 AM] Dude: “toilet paper ripped” [10:31:04 AM] Dude: “reaching again” [10:31:07 AM] Og Maciel: “turd is too compact… blockage” [10:31:12 AM] Dude: rofl [10:31:17 AM] Og Maciel: :)

Let My Love Open the Door

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Dedicated to my wife…

"Let My Love Open The Door" Written by Pete Townshend

When people keep repeating That you’ll never fall in love When everybody keeps retreating But you can’t seem to get enough

Let my love open the door Let my love open the door Let my love open the door To your heart

When everything feels all over When everybody seems unkind I bring you a four leaf clover Take all the worry out of your mind

Wish List

Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

With my 34th birthday fast approaching I figured I’d publish my wish list in the off chance someone wants to buy me a gift? wink You’ll notice that a subscription to Linux Format magazine is ranked as my highest priority… double wink It just takes forever for me to get a hold of them here in the US via the book stores.

FineTune: the \"mix tape\" evolved

Sun, 25 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Give it a shot! pretty cool actually!

Still about music sites

Sat, 24 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I came across Global Pandora after checking out the anonymous tip left on my previous post. Apparently it is a site that explains how you can gain access to the services provided by Pandora in case you live outside the United States. I was not aware of this, but due to some legal mambo jambo, Pandora is only available in the US, which is a shame!

Since I do live in the United States, I didn’t try out the tip, but took the time to check out some of the other music sites listed on Global Pandora. The one the attracted my attention was AnywhereFM for its claim that you can upload your entire musical collection to their servers and listen to it from anywhere!

Online music recommendation systems

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t know how your work environment is, but where I work all the engineers spend their entire days with their headphones glued to their heads listening to music. Each one of us must own a couple of thousands music files (all legal copies, I can assure you) in our laptops, and since we all share our collections through the office, one could say that we have a pretty decent online selection of music for all genres and tastes. Still, there are times when you yearn for something new… what to do?

The new GNOME Display Manager (GDM)

Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I started today using the new GNOME Display Manager, aka GDM. This new version (under development) was initially written before the GNOME 2.22 release but never made it on time for that release.

Some of new features are:

Better fast-user-switching support (bug #343539 etc)
Enable a smarter people chooser in the greeter
Better ConsoleKit integration (seat awareness, coordination etc)
Facilitate creating a new blingier greeter
Dynamically configure displays
Allow session agents to run in the greeter session (gnome-power-manager etc)
Have the ability to only run a single greeter per seat (currently gdmflexiserver will start any number of them)
Use PolicyKit for reboot etc authorization/handling
Use a better configuration mechanism that is more compatible with a hypothetical systemwide D-Bus based GConf
Provide a D-Bus API so that agents like fast-user-switch applet can be written more easily and operate more efficiently
Fix all the horrible non-reentrant POSIX signal handling and various race conditions in the current code (bug #336549 etc)
Make it easier to do “hot desking” type things
Use a more modern design to simplify maintence and enhance flexibility (use of GObject etc)
Use a more robust, secure, and flexible IPC

… and many more. For a complete list, take a peak at their new design page.

Introducing Open-Tran.eu

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Everyone who works with the translation of free and open source software must know the web site Open-Tran.eu (if you don’t, I highly recommend it!), a translation repository online.

To quote Jacek, the brain behind the project:

Proprietary software vendors may (if they can afford it) use CAT or TM software in order to ensure the consistency of their applications' terminology. Unfortunately, there are many different software vendors who are not willing to share their knowledge (which includes translation memory databases) with the others. And this is where the open source software could prove to be better than the proprietary. It could, but is not. Although everybody has full access to the translations of many open source programs, this opportunity is hardly ever used. The knowledge of hundreds (if not thousands) of people translating applications into their native languages is not centralized and thus hardly available to the others. This is the reason why the translations of even the most popular programs are not consistent with each other, which discourages people from using them. I’d like the Open-Tran.eu service to fill this gap and to provide the translators with a useful tool, which may improve the quality of their translations and increase the consistency of terminology in the open source software.Â·

XFCE completely translated to Brazilian Portuguese

Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’m extremely proud to announce that the XFCE desktop environment, well known for being a lighter alternative to GNOME or KDE, is completely translated (upstream) to Brazilian Portuguese!

A total of over 80 different programs and components off the XFCE and Goodies repositories, with over 6000 strings, I believe that XFCE is the first complex desktop environment to be completely translated to Brazilian Portuguese! The core components had been 100% translated for about 1 week now, as can be see in the stats page, mas yesterday I finished my research and noticed that all the other components were also finished. Now I get to keep my eye on any changes that may happen until the 4.4.6 release takes place.

BillReminder featured on ProgBox

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My pet project BillReminder was featured in the third episode of ProgBox, kicking off the brand new section “Pimp My Project”! It was also featured as an exemple onÂ packaging software for Arch Linux (sorry, Brazilian Portuguese only) written by Hugo DÃ³ria.

So, watch the show, read the guide if you can, and use BillReminder! :)

BillReminder available for Ubuntu Hardy

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I finally have my pet project BillReminder packaged for Ubuntu Hardy and Debian, thanks to Diogo AutÃlio and Gabriel FalcÃ£o! The packages (*.deb) can be downloaded from the project’s downloads page, or for the lazy:

As always, constructive feedback, patchs, and sugestions can be provided via our support system.

Another priceless moment

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Laundry basket: US$15
Shower curtain: US$10
15 gallons of water: a few bucks

A makeshift swimming pool in a hot Spring day: priceless!

ShowMeDo

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today I subscribed to ShowMeDo, a web site dedicated to providing tutorials in the format of screencasts. The tutorials cover many programming topics with Python being the one that got me to get a paid subscription. I managed to watch a few episodes during my lunch break… and was blown away at how easy it is to follow the sessions!

Before anyone ask, I’m not getting paid for this plug… I know quite a few people who have shown interest in learning Python but didn’t know how to get started. If you follow a tutorial series, not only will you learn some valuable skills, but you’ll also have a working project to play with.

Daddy\'s girls

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve finally found time to upload some of my pictures and movies to Flickr and Youtube.

Videos:

Yv singing something she learned at school from her friends (with a butterfly painted to her face).
Kate babling away!

Pictures:

More pictures here!

Openbox 3.4.7.1

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Openbox just keeps getting better and better! The new support for XDG files is just what the doctor recommended. See the full changelog here.

Moving on

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I sent out an email to the members of the Ubuntu Brazilian Council (of which I’ve been a member for quite some time now) informing of my decision to step down. For the last few months I have been extremely busy at work as well as keeping up with the translations for GNOME, XFCE, Ubuntu and my pet project BillReminder. As if this wasn’t enough, Kate, my youngest child is now 14 months old and walking all over the apartment… and Yv is almost 7 already! :)

Flattered

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This last Thursday I was surprised by Johan Dahlin when he showed me the new feature he’s adding to Stoq: colored coded categories.

He said he was inspired by the same feature I added to BillReminder. Wow! I couldn’t help but feel very flattered with this… after all, Stoq is a great piece of software developed by a very clever crew!

Prelude to letting go?

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I meant to write this before but got really busy this past week. About 2 weeks ago I sent my oldest daughter Yv to spend her Spring break with my parents in New York. It was the very first time she went anywhere without my wife or me, and we were all very nervous about the whole thing.

I worked from home that day so I wouldn’t have to drive back from work and then to the airport. Yv was very excited and nervous at the same time, as she carefully packed her things into her school backpack. As I was trying to finish a couple of things before I finished my day I didn’t get caught up in the packaging process, but soon after lunch as we all set at the table it hit me: my daughter was leaving on a trip all by herself… and she’s only 6! Now, I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but those who do know me well know how attached I am to my kids. The remainder of the afternoon was spent explaining to her how the whole “flying-by-yourself” process worked and how she would have someone accompanying her during the flight.

What\'s the Big Idea?

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Starting this Thursday, April 3, 2008 I’ll be attending this year’s What’s the Big Idea?, a series of lectures given by UNC Chapel Hill scientists focusing on genetics, ethics and human health. For a mere 30 dollars I was able to register for all four lectures! The topics are very interesting and close to my personal interests in bioinformatics and gene therapy. Did you know I have a degree in biochemistry?

The series kicks off with a fairly interesting lecture: an introduction to stem cell research and genetic engineering. Then, for the next 3 weeks there will be lectures on gene and tissue engineering, genetic research and its medical applications, and the ethical, legal, and social implications of genetics/genomics research. I can’t hardly wait.

Migrating to Google Code Follow up \#1

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So I have finally migrated BillReminder to Google Code, thanks to the helping hand of a few gents from Google. I did expect a full, smooth migration process but, for better or worse, there are a lot of manual steps that you have to perform before you can have the same structure (well, not the same but something usefull) from SourceForge. I figured I’d mention here some of the things I had to do for those who may find themselves wanting to do the same thing.

Good news from the Epiphany front

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Very cool news from the land of the Epiphany web browser this morning. Their decision to go with WebKit plus the synchronization with GNOME’s release cycle should appeal to a lot of new developers and contributors! If we could finally get Firebug for Epiphany (this GSoC idea needs a mentor!!!) I could stop using two different browsers. :)

Moving to Dreamhost

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

For more than 4 years I had been a happy customer of phpwebhosting.com. That was until last year when my domain (shared) and the entire server went down for no apparent reason! My emails were completely ignored and to this day I don’t know what really happened.

This morning was the last straw for me. I have already signed a contract with dreamhost and will be migrating my two blogs in the next few days. So if you have a hard time getting through… hang on.

Switching from SourceForge to Google Code

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

For the last 2 weeks I have (unsuccesfully) tried to migrate BillReminder from SourceForge to Google Code project hosting. I have filled out the web form to register a new project on Google Code, but since this project already exists in SourceForge, I have to go through an extra step where a message should be sent to the project lead (which happens to be me) requesting approval for this migration. The problem is that I always get a 500 page when I click on the submit button!

BillReminder \"How Many is a Brazilian\" 0.3.1 Released

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is a minor release where a couple of bugs have been closed and some UI work was done to improve the workflow. It is worth to mention the new French translation, courtesy of Robert-AndrÃ© Mauchin, updated Dutch translation, courtesy of Daniel van Eeden, and some UI work done by Laudeci Oliveira.

Changelog:

#1906715 - New records can now be created by double-clicking a date in the main calendar. The due date for this new record will be set to the date selected upon double-clicking.
#1908445 - Fixed a bug that would cause recurring bills not to expand beyond the current year.
French translation added by Robert-AndrÃ© Mauchin
Dutch translation updated by Daniel van Eeden
Display categories by category name in ascending order in the categories dialog.
Display the colored tile for each category next to its name in the categories dropdown in the add/edit dialog.

Grab your tarball now!

Summer of Code 2008

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So I submitted my idea for GNOME’s Summer of Code this year… aaaaaand, it doesn’t seem to be very popular as it is currently categorized as “Underground Ideas”. :)

Titled “Enhance Damned Lies and integrate it with open-tran.eu”, it basically tries to lure someone with time to add a little bit of pizzaz to a site that I regularly use in order to proceed with my translations. Now, no offense intended but how can something like “Individual Workspace Wallpapers" be considered as "Rockstar Ideas" compared to the benefits of improving the work flow of those who deliver a GNOME Desktop completely translated every single release cycle? sigh

Limiting the number of rows displayed in a gtk.ComboBox

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Dear lazyweb, is there a way to limit the number of rows displayed by a gtk.ComboBox? I know one can set the set_wrap_width property to spread out the items into multiple columns, but that is just so ugly. :)

Wild Deuces and a Bitter Sweet Moment

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today is a very special moment for all of those who were involved with the release of yet another stable GNOME, version 2.22. It also marks the release for another stable Foresight Linux, version 2, keeping the tradition of always releasing together with GNOME! That is a lot of number 2s! :) I want to congratulate everyone who’s helped for the last 6 months, specially the Brazilian translation team that once again delivered a 100% translated GNOME desktop, and the Foresight guys for delivering a great combination of bleeding edge technologies (PulseAudio, PackageKit, Syslinux)!

Who do you work for?

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

BillReminder featured on Life Hacker

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Boy was I surprised when someone told me that BillReminder was a Featured Linux Download on LifeHacker! Wow!!! There were also articles on New Linux User and Productive Linux. Thank you all for taking the time to test it and recommend it too!

Some people have asked me if it is necessary to keep BillReminder running in order to get notifications, and the answer is: no. BillReminder has a daemon that runs in the background and will only poke you (with the baseball bat) if there’s something late or close to being late.

All of your Shuttle KPC are belong to us

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Following the trend of computer companies shipping GNU/Linux pre-installed hardware, Shuttle announced yesterday that they too will ship their XPC model with Foresight GNU/Linux! The official release note can be read here, as well as some provocative comments on the reason why they chose this “little known" distribution.

Having seen one of these boxes up and close already, it was fairly cool to see a system that just works out of the box. Since they have control over the hardware they ship, every single feature, including compiz just works!

BillReminder \"It Puts the Lotion in the Basket\" 0.3 released

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It is with a great pleasure that I announce the release of my pet project BillReminder! The road to 0.3 has been a very educational journey for me, and looking back when I first decided to port my original code written in C# to Python just so that I could learn more about Python, I can say that I have learned quite a bit. I have also met some fabulous people along the way, some of them very responsible for me keeping the project going. I can trully say that whenever I find the time to work on this project, I lose track of time. Whenever I feel insecure about my own skills (or when people make me feel that way) I take a look at what I have done so far… it may not be the best piece of software out there, but it is mine… written from scratch!

Waiting for Openbox 3.4.7\...

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

PulseAudio + Games and My Five Hundred

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Been using PulseAudio for several months now and was extremelly happy with the end result. The ability of controlling the volume for specific applications alone made it very worth the change. But there was one little issue that bothered me a lot: not being able to play my games with support for audio! Back when I started searching for a solution, I didn’t find anything that would resolve this issue and I eventually accepted that as a fact.

Ask and you shall receive

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So last night’s post brought me quite a few replies, and I thank you all for taking the time to give me the feedback. I hope to find some time and work on the preferences dialog for BillReminder soon!

On the other front, I received a nice little present from the Openbox guys: a way to inspect and honor files found in /etc/xdg/autostart by default when starting Openbox. Now, I cannot claim that this is a done deal but I’m keeping my fingers crossed! :)

Dialog remodeling and playing with wbar

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I have spent a total of 3 hours working on BillReminder these last 2 weeks! What can I say, sometimes you have to put your pet projects in the back burner while real life takes over. :/

One of the things that annoyed me was the old, cluttered preferences dialog. It was just too bulky and with too many things going on, specially with the ComboBox for selecting the prefered time for an alarm. It had entries for every hour in intervals of 30 minutes (i.e. 01:00, 01:30, 02:00, etc) for a huge, scroll off your screen list.

Long overdue post \#1

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Life has shifted to high gear these last 2 weeks and my time was mostly spent at work, with my kids, and working on a secret project I can’t talk about yet. In the meantime, lots have happened and I just wanted to mention the arrival of my N810 last week! It is shiny! It is cool! It is very useful! I want to thank the Maemo and Nokia guys for this opportunity and hope to deliver some good news about this device soon!

Openbox 3.4.6 and ObConf 2.0.3 released

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Read it all here. Hopefully your current GNU/Linux distribution has packaged them by now. Mine has (I did it myself)! :)

Ignorance is Strength

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Caskets at the reflecting pool by A-Wix

As I see our nation crumbling down before my eyes, the republican candidates to the presidency of the United States concentrated on spewing garbage about the war in Iraq and building a fence to protect us against illegal immigrants. I wish they would use their time more wisely talking about how to minimize the huge f*** up our current President has gotten us into.

Rumor has it\...

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

… that this (below) could be a Foresight Linux based distribution flavored with Openbox and friends. Interested in the idea? You know where to find me…

Oh yeah\...

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

While I was busy at work, Openbox 3.4.5 was released! As always, I’ve packaged it for Foresight Linux (the 2-devel branch) and you can get it using conary or PackageKit.

I also took the time last night to pimp PyPanel with a few patches and bump Nitrogen to 1.2 (not shown in the screenshot).

Speaking of Nitrogen, I looked around for an easy and straight forward way to change the desktop wallpaper in a non-GNOME environment and was amazed at how GNOME-centric they all were. Some hacks involved issuing gconf2 commands… :/ Anyone know of a pythonic, non-GNOME-centric way of doing this? Maybe using python-xlib?

The Biggest Loser

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Just watched the Republican debate on TV and was perplexed by the “quality” of “answers” that were given by the candidates… well, all except one failed to get my serious attention: Ron Paul. Just as Dennis Kucinich would have been my candidate of choice for the democrats, I must say that Ron Paul has left a very good impression in me. While the other candidates (and even the panel moderators) busied themselves by ridiculing him, he gave answers! Straight answers! Like it or not answers!

Newer packages of BillReminder for Gutsy

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Some people reported dependency errors when using one of the two .deb packages I announced today. Turns out it was due to python-sqlite2 and python-image… Our own Luiz Armesto has whipped up a newer package that can be downloaded here, now with all the right dependencies. Thanks to Diogo Autilio and Alex Bevilacqua again for sending me his packages as well (see comments)!

UPDATE: Just as I was about to submit this post, Diogo sent me a newer package with updates up to this second! Wow!

BillReminder keep on rocking

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

BillReminder now has inline searching and colored categories for (hopefully) easier sorting and some bling. :) A few more issues have been closed as well, bringing us closer and closer to a code freeze.

Also, thanks to Diogo Autilio and Alex Bevilacqua we now have BillReminder packaged for Ubuntu Gutsy! Please take them (there are 2 *.debs available) for a spin and relate any bugs or feature requests here.

Top Percentile

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

GNOME Bugzilla stats are out and what a nice surprise to see my name in the top 250 bug reporters and top 100 patch submitters from 2007. If could only have SVN access now…

BillReminder goes to Hollywood

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Not really… but I did create this small webcast to show it off so people know what I’m talking about. :) I hope to attract more contributors to the project with my “production”…

If the resolution is too crappy you may want to see the original file (approx. 6MB).

Oh!!! Before I forget, check out the spiffy Screenshots page! Thanks Luiz and VinÃƒÂcius for your hard work!

UPDATE: Fixed the URL for original file.

About gtk.SpinButton, my time widget and quick patches

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today I fixed issue 1864094 “Time widget for individual alarms are too long”. I ended up creating a brand new widget with gtk.SpinButtons instead of gtk.ComboBoxes, since we determined that it would be useful for a different dialog. This took me a bit longer than I expected because I insisted that the hours should be zero padded (i.e. display 01, 02 and not 1, 2, etc). After spending some time on this I finally gave him and asked Johan Dahlin if it was possible, to which I received a negative answer. I proceeded to code my widget only to receive the news several minutes later that a patch had already been created and is now awaiting for someone to review. Is this awesome or what?

No Bugs Left Behind and Rumors

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today I started a No Bugs Left Behind campaign to air out any kinks out of BillReminder. Though I was very busy at work, I managed to file a couple of issues with several of them being resolved by Luiz before the end of the day! I had some positive feedback from people who tried the Mandriva package and even a *.deb too. Hope to fix some other pending issues over the weekend.

BillReminder has a new house!

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My pet project BillReminder has gone through several iterations of new code these last few days, mainly thanks to the work done by Luiz Armesto. All this commotion made me finally move the project’s home page, then hosted by SourceForge, to one of my domains. This has given me more flexibility and control over the overall design and look and feel of it.

Speaking of look and feel, I have received some spiffy artwork (namely, the header) from VinÃƒÂcius Amaral who was fairly excited about the project. So much so that he is now in charge of this facet of the project. :)

End of 2007 and new beginnings

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It’s was the end of the year and my head has been spinning with ideas! The important thing is to know how to take advantage of this and try to turn them into reality. That’s why I’m planning on using online systems like Remember The Milk(RTM) to help me get more organized. Since I check my gMail at least a good 50 times a day, and RTM integrates well with it, I won’t have any excuses if I forget something now.

Triple Threat

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Just in time for the holidays:

Openbox goodness!

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Finally caught up with my rss feeds and found out about some new sexyness coming up in Openbox. You’ll need to get Openbox(git) and Obconf(git) from their respective git repositories as well as this theme.

If you’re running Foresight and want to try this (since it is still in development, I didn’t bother to submit it to a repo yet), let me know and I’ll get you the changeset.

Boring day

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a rather boring day for me… The funny thing is that it started out very promising, with many ideas going through my mind. Managed to create a rather simple “About” dialog for Foresight.

If I get the time I’ll finish it and commit it to the fl:1-devel repository.

\"The weather outside is frightfull\...

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

… but here in North Carolina is so delightfull!"

Want yet another reason to move to North Carolina? Here’s one… better yet, FIVE:

It was 81 F this afternoon! Awesome! :)

By the way, Flickr is sporting a newer upload interface… spiffy!

GNOME Foundation update

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’d like to extend my (unofficial) congratulations to the new GNOME Foundation Board of Directors! (unofficial results) Nice to see Luis' charisma showing in the results! :) The new board can definitely count with my support!

I also want to thank all of those who voted for me! I feel very privileged that you guys believed in me and I can only hope to be able to continue pushing for my ideas and ideals. :)

Dennis Kucinich

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

“one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Dennis Kucinich! ’nough said!

Update: A lot of people believed the quote above belonged to Mr. Kucinich, but that was me. Thanks Dan for the heads up on my formatting mistake. :)

The Online Desktop Question

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’m glad Bryan Clark poked the candidates running for the GNOME Board about the Online Desktop question. The best part was that he took the time to sift through all the answers and derive a nice chart of what he understood from the answers and what he felt needed some further explanation. So, to answer his call…

When I said

I believe that it is not up to the Board to decide on the implementation or even which tools/languages to use, but serve as a facilitator and guiding light to make sure that the project stays on track and focused…

Ideas

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I was really glad to see David Bolter's post today about transparency in community decisions! Olav and I had been talking about this (see comments section), related to blog aggregation requests, and it is nice to see that someone else also agrees. Some people may complain about having to create a user account (assuming we’re using bugzilla, for instance) to request that his blog be aggregated to the planet, but this would provide some sort of “receipt” and serve as a means to get a process going. Obviously, it is also necessary some kind of control so that tickets don’t just sit there and collect dust. :)

Clarification

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

It seems that my post didn’t quite express what I really meant and some people (Olav Vitters has asked me to mention his name instead of making it generic) have even decided no to vote for me because of it. Wow… For instance, my good friend Luis quoted me on his last post and based on what he wrote one would think I’m telling people to shut up and just vote. This is not what I meant at all and I can only blame myself for not making it clear. So, just to clarify things, there are better ways to express your opinion and calling someone “a psychotic failure, obstructive and destructive” is not the correct and civil way. Does it make it any less valid if expressed “forcefully”? No. But look at it any way you want, there is no excuse. period!

Let us not lose our cool

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

About today’s outburst, I have the following to say: The GNOME Foundation has established a democratic process by which its members and directions can be chosen. If a process or person has not delivered that which was agreed upon or expected (due to a role), that is the price one pays for democracy. Please, let us not lose out cool and take advantage of the system to do what is right for the Foundation. By all means, voice your opinion… but let us all keep our cool.

Now that all the turkey is gone\...

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This last week has been but a blur to me due to the holidays (Thanksgiving here in the US) and my house being full of relatives who came to visit from upstate New York. With the exception of a patch I sent (and committed by Jonh, thanks!) to bugzilla, my time was spent doing the following:

Following and answering the questions that were asked for those running for the GNOME Board of Directors (I’m one of them). As someone pointed out, I believe I’m the only United States citizen running. If you care about the GNOME Project and its future direction, I highly recommend that you read these threads: 1,2,3.
Found some time to play with my N800 again! Vagalume rules and I can’t wait to get my hands on the new version for Canola!
Cleaning up my closet. I will have at least a good 50 computer books I’ll be donating by the end of the week, all less than 1 year old and in excellent conditions.
Enjoying the weather (until 3 days ago, when the temperature dropped noticeably) in North Carolina. I can never get enough of the North Carolina Botanical Garden here in Chapel Hill.

Running for the GNOME Board of Directors

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

So yesterday I finally managed to find some time to send in my application to run for the GNOME Board of Directors.Ã‚Â Now back to your regular program…

Weekend Update

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of updates before heading out to the weekend:

Been working hard together with FÃƒÂ¡bio Nogueira on the XFCE translations before the eminent 4.4.2 release. Things are looking really good!

Tonight I was feeling a bit adventurous and took the pre-alpha Foresight 2.0 KDE Edition and installed it at home. Like I said, I was really feeling adventurous and installed the x86_64 bit version too, and so far everything looks good! Amarok feels really good right now! :) The whole idea is to allow me to work on Brazilian Portuguese translations for KDE and be able to see my work in use.

For the little kid in you

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

… or for the “real” kids, three fun educational games that are guaranteed to be a big hit!

GCompris (highly recommended for younger kids!)
Super Tux Kart
Tux Type 2 (highly recommended for younger kids!)

BE WARNED: Once your kids play these, there’s a great possibility that you won’t be able to use your computer for many hours! :)

Back from FossCamp

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

For those who noticed my sudden disappearance from the web late last week, I was attending FossCamp in Boston as a Foresight Linux representative as well as representing my own interests in the localization arena. Unfortunately Ken could not make it and I was left with the daunting task of talking to people about conary.

My flight was pretty peaceful with a quick stop in NYC where I met up with my older sister. After grabbing a bite to eat and a couple of cold ones, we boarded the plane to Boston where we arrived shortly after 17:00. The weather was pretty nasty with the temperature dropping to the low 40s as we checked in the hotel.

It\'s the big pumpking Charlie Brown!

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Quick series of small family related news. If you’re looking for tech stuff, skip this post. :)

Before flying to FossCamp, we carved a couple of small pumpkins in preparation for Halloween. This will be baby Kate’s first Halloween and it was also the first time I carved a pumpkin. Yv was very pleased with the final result, specially when we turned off the lights and lit some candles.

PackageKit and gnome-packagekit 0.1.0 release!

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

PackageKit is DBUS packaging abstraction layer that makes use of a cross-distro, cross-architecture API to manage your system’s packages. In other words, it is a way for updating and administering software on a GNU/Linux system without worrying about the distro or underlying package management system.

Having gone from concept to release in inly 6 weeks of intensive collaborative work, version 0.1.0 already sports backends for conary, yum, apt, box, and alpm as well as comprehensive documentation and some translations (Vladimir Melo and I managed to get the Brazilian Portuguese translation done just in time!).

Thank you Raphael Higino Silva

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

It is with a heavy heart that I announce the tragic news of the death of Raphael Higino Silva. For those who don’t know who he is, suffice to say that he had been a very active member of the GNOME Brazilian translation team for some time now! It is weird for me to refer to him in the past tense…

The news came to me via an email that was sent to the Brazilian mailing list just a few minutes ago by a close friend of the family. Though I have never met him in person, I considered him as a good friend and he will be missed!

Call me \"first prize winner\" please

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Over the weekend we had a Fall Festival in our neighborhood, with tons of food, drinks, and games for the kids. We stayed for about 2 hours and just as I was about to leave, Yv (my oldest daughter) decided she wanted to paint a pumpkin before heading back home. So we stayed a bit longer and that is when the DJ (yes, there was a DJ as well) announced there would be a pumpkin painting contest for the kids. All the kids were very excited and Yv decided to participate too. We waited and waited for the DJ to collect all the entries but he started some other games and we thought that this was going to take too long… So I again convince the girls to leave and as we get close to the car, we hear the DJ calling all the contestants. Needless to say we ran back to where all the pumpkins were and placed Yv’s along with them.

Python Magazine

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

As pointed out by Jonathan Carter, the first issue of Python Magazine has been published and can be freely downloaded. I took a fairly quick glimpse at the articles and was very pleased with the amount of (sample) code included! I would definitely pay for its subscription and have added it to my (short) list of things I’d like to have (but cannot afford to at the moment). My other item in this list? A subscription to the awesome Linux Format magazine! :)

Exposing yourself via Web 2.0

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting how it is relatively easy to follow what someone is reading, listening, going/seeing, all via RSS. If you have a Mugshot account and their client installed, then it is even easier to follow this information. I’ve learned of different bands/music thanks to these feeds. I only use a couple of these “social networking” sites, so you could only imagine how much more information is available out there.

GNOME 2.20 is here!

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

GNOME 2.20 just came out of the oven and is as crispy as you’d expect it to be after a couple of months of development! This is the second release I take part of (not as a developer but as a translator), and want to take the opportunity to thank all of those who participated in this effort!

I want to specially thank (and give a shout out to) the entire GNOME i18n team! It is no easy task to go through (literally) thousands and thousands of lines of messages, trying to translate them so not to lose the true meaning of the sentence as well as make it clear and easy to understand.

Sync BillReminder with GNOME clock

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

In an attempt to integrate BillReminder to the GNOME clock, I set out to learn about the evolution-python lib. After messing around for a bit, it became obvious to me that every event added to the generic .evolution/tasks/local/system/calendar.ics file gets automatically synched with GNOME clock. The thing is, I want to create my own separate calendar file, so to not get it mixed with the generic one. The code below does just that, but… it doesn’t show up in GNOME clock!

MySQL issue when upgrading to WordPress 2.2.3

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Thought this may be helpful to someone else who also uses WordPress. Shortly after upgrading to the latest version, I found the following warning message sprinkled all over the administrative interface:

[Can't open file: 'wp_comments.MYI'. (errno: 145)]

A quick search pointed me to the solution:

mysql> repair table wp_comments;

How many are there in a Brazilian?

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

For the second release cycle in a row, I’m pleased to announce that GNOME will be 100%* available in Brazilian Portuguese! This feat shows again how the collaborative effort between the Ubuntu and GNOME Brazilian translation teams! Since all translations were submitted and aproved by the GNOME commiters (thank you Leonardo, Raphel and Jonh!) first, every GNU/Linux distribution will be able to take advantage of effort! If this doesn’t represent the true meaning of cooperation and collaborative work, I don’t know what else does!

Integrated GNOME clock

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

So today Ken Vandine was showing off the integration of intlclock with his GNOME clock applet:

I clicked on my clock to find out, to my surprise, that all of my tasks on Tasks and appointments in Zimbra were nicely integrated with it!

| It would be really nice to integrate BillReminder with it too… :)

The road to GNOME 2.20

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

When I started my GNOME trip, we were on mile 2.16 and the GNOME Brazil crew was in the process of tackling a 26% deficit with the translation process. Together with the Brazilian Ubuntu translation team, we plowed through bugzilla, leaving no empty (or fuzzy) string left to tell stories, and reaching mile 2.18 at 100% translated! :)

Several months later and the road trip continued, with new pieces added to the puzzle, and some great effort by our committers down the stretch. The crew worked even better this time, like a fine oiled machine! We can already see mile 2.20 in the horizon… and there is no doubt that we’ll make it with plenty of gas left in the tank!

Rise to the challenge!

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

For anyone who has read my previous post and know me… or know and read my blog, I’d like to ask for a personal favor. Every day I see people taking the time to submit news bits to sites like Digg, Slashdot, etc, about several different topics, varying from how to do stuff on your computer to the daily Hollywood gossip. What I ask is the following:

Write something, no matter how big or small, about what I wrote on my previous post about this video. Submit to Digg, Slashdot, and any other news site out there! Ask your friends to blog about it! Raise hell!

Slavery is still well and alive in small town Brazil!

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I have just watched this video about the never ending conflict between Brazilian indigenous natives and the white farmers from small town Brazil. This is the kind of stuff that is well known by the entire country, but avoided by most for fear of retaliation!

Like pretty much anywhere in the Americas, the Brazilian indigenous population was almost completely massacred and enslaved by the the white settlers during the colonial times. The few who survived torture, humiliation, and sub-human living conditions, were shamelessly confined to live with no assistance and left to slowly vanish from human history. As a friend noted, even today in the 21st century, the Brazilian natives are treated worse than animals and are still forced to live under harsh circumstances.

Blog Day 2007

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

| |BlogDay2007

I have just received the news from Walter Cruz that he chose the Brazilian Portuguese version of my blog as one of his favorites for this year’s Blog Day 2007! I was very pleased and honored for being selected by such a great guy! ;)

So I’ll join in the fun and will announce a couple of my favorite Brazilian blogs. Just a little display that Brazilians have much more to offer than Carnaval, beautifull women, and soccer players:

For those who remember the golden days of videogames

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve never posted a YouTube video in any of my posts, but this one had a whole bunch of us at work laughing our arses off! So here’s for those who like me, spent several hours playing Super Mario Bros.

Weather Wallpaper using Imperial Units

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I heard/read from someone about this cool application that would fetch weather information and convert it into a wallpaper that got refreshed every so often. This program is called Weather-Wallpaper!

Since we like cool and simple applications, we quickly packaged it for Foresight Linux but realized that the weather information being displayed was using the metric system. Now, without starting stupid arguments about the fact that the United States uses the imperial system, I took upon myself to add that feature to the still young code.

Look Ma!

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

My good friend JosÃƒÂ© Vitor sent me snapshot today:

Recognize anyone ohhh, say on the lower left hand corner? :) Something tells me I became the poster boy for Mugshot! :)

New XFCE Hat

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’m very excited to announce that I have taken the role of committer for the Brazilian XFCE Team! I bring to the table my background as a translator for the GNOME team for the last 9-10 months, as well as my background as a translator and former leader of the Brazilian Ubuntu Translation Team (and some minor contributions with the Brazilian KDE Team).

I want to take the opportunity to properly thank Adriano Winter Bess for kindly stepping down as the pt_BR translations maintainer, and allowing me to take this role. I’m sure I have a pretty big “shoe to fill” and I can only hope to do a job as great as he has in the past!

Foresight Notification Theme

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

foresight-notification-theme

Originally uploaded by kenvandine

This one goes to Jonh Wendell who made the suggestion last night! Critical level notifications will have a red band on the left; Normal will sport the light green you see on this screenshot, and Low will have a light tan color.

Do I feel lucky?

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Over the weekend my next door neighbor managed to damage the passenger side door of my Honda when he parked too close to my car… That wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that it was the second car he’s damaged in the last month… also mine! Now, he’s an older professor from UNC who has been very nice and polite ever since we moved to Chapel Hill, and I let it slide the first FIVE times he scratched/dented my Pacifica… but enough is enough! Since I have leased these 2 cars, I don’t want to have to pay for the damage when the lease expires!

The Name Game

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to comment on Tristan Rhodes's latest post before but didn’t get a chance. Last time I checked he had received 56 comments on his suggestion to “unify” the Ubuntu name (and by unify he means to avoid the proliferation of several different distribution versions, that distinguish themselves based only on the window manager installed by default).

I must tell you that I have to agree with him, mainly because I feel that the many [U|X|Ku|n]buntu out there could be very confusing to an end user who’s decided to check out GNU/Linux for the first time. I believe that having an unified name, Ubuntu, would simplify things a whole lot when telling people what to download:

The Name Game 2: The Rematch

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

My last post brought in a few interesting replies, the great majority of them showing support (somewhat) to the idea of unifying the Ubuntu name. While I let the caffeine surge do the talking toward the end of the post, I should have added the following statement to completely close my argument:

I’m not suggesting that we stop manufacturing/shipping/distributing the other “flavors” of Ubuntu in the form of CDs and downloads. All I’m saying is that instead of having the names Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, etc in their covers, we name them all Ubuntu Desktop! The title would also contain, directly below the main title, the type of window manager installed by default. The end user would then see Ubuntu Desktop: KDE Edition, for instance. The advantage(?) of this approach is that we’ll keep the same brand across the many variants.

Lunch break

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Lunch time here at BarCampRDU, and the food selection was AWESOME! We had a great variety of Mediterranean food and it reminded me a lot of the food we have at the Mediterranean Deli in Chapel Hill! Good opportunity to chit-chat and goof off, specially if you happen to sit next to devnet!

More BarCampRDU

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The second session titled “Building online communities”, or something like that, drew in a considerable group of people who were mostly interested in the social aspect of it. It was fairly interesting how the problem people were complaning about could be moderated by something like the Ubuntu Code of Conducthttps://launchpad.net/codeofconduct! Great session and Luishttp://tieguy.org/ had a great analogy as for how a community should work like a well thrown party! :)

GNOME, Foresight, and Two Smocking Barrels

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Or something like that!Ã‚Â My buddy Ken Vandine will be this year at the GNOME booth at OSCON. If you’re around, stop by to say hi, learn more about GNOME, Foresight, and get some swag, like the GNOME LiveCDs! ;)

By the way, did you notice Foresight’s new flashy logo?

(apparently Flickr didn’t like the transparent background?)

How to make a dad proud?

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Start them young! :)

GNOME Foundation Member

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I was extremely pleased to see my application for the GNOME Foundation approved. I have spent the last 9 months working very closely with the localization teams, making sure all work being done by the Ubuntu Brazilian team is submitted upstream first for all GNOME packages! I’ve also been very vocal about a unified Brazilian localization team, completely distro independent.

I want to thank all of those who put in a good word for me. Your support is greatly appreciated! And thanks to all of those who opened up your minds to the fact that no matter what distro you use, we all use the same GNOME, KDE, etc.

Nokia N800 Update and Tip \#1

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Today was announce the much antecipated release of the Internet Tablet OS 2007 edition, which “includes Skype client support, AdobeÃ‚Â® FlashÃ‚Â® 9 browser plug-in, improvements in online use times and single memory card support up to 8 GB. Also delightful new pre-installed content is available.”

Instructions on how to perform the update can be found here, but lemme save you some time and give you a quick solution. First off, download the flasher-3.0 and the upgrade file (for my N800 it is the RX-34_2007SE_4.2007.26-8_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin file).

Say hello to my little friend!

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Say hello to my little friend NTrunko, my Nokia N800 tablet! It arrived yesterday at my housee, thanks to a good friend and the good folks at Nokia and Maemo!

I’ve spent a good chunk of last night playing with it and am COMPLETELY amazed with the quality and potential it has to offer! This post, for instance, is being written using Maemo WordPy.

I even connected home via ssh! :)

GUADEC Paper Accepted

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I was pleasantly surprised to see the following message in my inbox:

Hi, (apologies for the delay in sending this acceptance mail) Your lightning talk has been accepted for the Lightning Talk session at GUADEC 2006, in Birmingham UK. Ã‚Â If you have not already registered for GUADEC, you should register now at http://guadec.org/registration. We look forward to seeing you at GUADEC! Ross Burton GUADEC Papers Committee

A couple of friends had motivated me to submit my talk and I was so looking forward to finally meet them face to face.Ã‚Â But alas, the announcement came a few weeks too late as I have already made a commitment at work during this period, as well as scheduled my vacation.Ã‚Â To top it off, I haven’t received my American passport yet and without it I cannot leave the country!

Elvis seen playing with BillReminder

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Just an update on the development for BillReminder. Real life and work took a good hold of me these last 2 months and I had not been able to stick to my personal roadmap… that is, until last week. The programming itch attacked me again, and the result was several commits along the week, completly stripping BillReminder of its Glade “skin” and re-writing a lot of the code.

Learn to use the GIMP in 10 easy FREE videos

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Shameless plug ahead:

If you speak Portuguese and want to learn how to use the GIMP like the pros, I strongly recommend you check out my good friend AntÃƒÂ´nio “LedStyle” ClÃƒÂ¡udio's new project! “LedStyle” and I have worked together before doing podcasts for the Brazilian Ubuntu Planet, and my respect and admiration for him has never stopped growing!Ã‚Â I downloaded the first video (out of 10, plus all the exercise material freely available) and was very impressed by his didactic skills!

Another post about a generic Gtk.TreeView

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I figured, why not whip up a quick sample code to show off the genericlist I just published? So I chose the Tasks application, written in C/C++, as my target. A few minutes later, my “port” was born:

Bigger picture here.

The application to the left is the one I whipped up… the one to the right is the real deal! Obviously I didn’t bother writing up the code to actually store information, and this exercise was meant to be like the penguins in the movie “The Wild"… to look cute and cuddly. :)

Generic Gtk.TreeView Generator

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Quite a few people have asked me to publish my attempt at simplifying the process of creating and using a Gtk.TreeView (see this post). The truth is that life has been a bit hectic these last 5-6 weeks and I didn’t get to do any more development on it. But I think it is still very usefull, even if only as a learning aid. The code will be published to a few repositories very soon, but in the meantime, you can copy it inline right here (read the rest of this post). I’m also including a sample class that makes use of this generic class.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

My daughter Yv had submitted a drawing about a month ago to a contest sponsored by a local magazine called Carolina Parent. The contest, “TV-Turnoff Week”, urged kids to unplug from their televisions and spend some more time outdoors!

Yesterday my wife showed me the drawings that were selected, and unfortunately Yv’s was not among them. With tearful eyes, I was able to follow the avalanche of emotions going through her mind… Obviously, frustration and disappointment are not new emotions to me, but seeing it happening to someone still so innocent and unexperienced made me think really hard. Is it possible that after banging your head on the wall so many times have taught us to “camufflage” our emotions so people can’t see how fragile we are?

Installing PyPanel on Ubuntu

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

A while back I had written up a post (Brazilian Portuguese only) explaining how I managed to get PyPanel running on my old Ubuntu Feisty Herd 3 installation. The reason for the write up was to explain about how I circunvented two issues that came up during the process of getting PyPanel to actually run. Anyhow, ever since I started writing up about OpenBox, more and more people tried to use PyPanel and seem to have gotten bitten by the same problems. So, without much further ado, here is what I did:

Openbox 3.4.2 and ObConf 2.0.1 released

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

As the title says, Openbox 3.4.2 and ObConf 2.0.1 were just released. Due to some confusion from some people I’ve talked to, this new version is not yet available for Ubuntu or Debian via the repositories (i.e. apt-get, aptitude, or synaptic).

For those running Ubuntu Feisty or Debian Etch, download the .deb files from the downloads page. You’ll also find packages for Slackware and Arch Linux. If you are however running Foresight Linux:

And for those travelling\...

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

… keep yourself entertained and informed with the new editions of the magazines Full Circle (Ubuntu) and PCLinuxOS Magazine.

My own F.A.Q.

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

It is 04:18 EST and instead of being in bed, I’m in front of the computer. Due to a major sore throat, I’ve been struggling to sleep since 22:00 of last night… and so far the sore throat has shown no sign of retreat. Tired of laying awake in bed, I figured I’d do something else…

Since it is my birthday today, and I’m still sleep deprived, I came up with the “great idea” of writing my own F.A.Q.! hehehe For those questions I have been asked one too many times. :)

Keeping organized with Tasks and Dates

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

After talking to a few other guys about Openbox and what other applications one can use to get the best experience from a blazing fast windows manager, I remembered the other two programs I use to keep myself organized, both at home and at work: Dates and Tasks.

Tasks is basically a ToDo list that allows me to easily and quickly keep track of my weekly tasks, prioritizing each item as I see fit. It doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles and I believe that is one of the reasons I chose it. If I were to make a few suggestions, I’d add tooltips to each item, as well as the ability to launch a web page if items have an URL assigned to it.

Openbox 3.4 Released!

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

It is finally here!!! Openbox 3.4 was just released, together with a fresh version of ObConf 2.0!!! I believe this is the first time I’ve avidly followed the development and release of an application, and I’m very proud of the work the entire Openbox Crew has put together! Read the official announcement here.

Packages and source code can be found here. If you’re running Foresight Linux, you can get the new versions by running:

New kids on the block

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Well, not those kids anyway… :) I just packaged a couple of new applications today to see if I could augment my Openbox experience. Well, one of them was more out of curiosity. ;)

The first one was Nitrogen, “a background browser and setter for X windows.” It is fairly light with a very clean interface. Sure I can set my wallpaper via the command line, but the preview thumbnails are very helpful! :) Speaking to Dave, lead developer for the project, I learned about a couple of new features (already checked in SVN) for the next release! Make sure to pester him with your suggestions via his contact information found in the web site.

Foresight Linux 1.3 released!

Thu, 31 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Congratulations to the entire Foresight Linux team for releasing their version 1.3, timed to be released with GNOME 2.18.2!!!

Some of the new features are:

GNOME: This is the third Foresight Linux release with GNOME 2.18 (after 2.18.0 & 2.18.1), and contains minor fixes and improvements.

Desktop Search: With Beagle 0.2.17 and tweaked for Foresight Linux, we continue to improve the ability to search your computer.

Web browsing: We have upgraded Epiphany web browser to version 2.18.2.

Openbox 3.3.995 preview released

Wed, 30 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

For those following along with the preview releases of Openbox, version 3.3.995 was released earlier today. Changelog information can be found here. Once again, packages are available for Ubuntu Feisty, Debian Etch, Arch Linux, Slackware, and Foresight.

Geany

Tue, 29 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I started using the text editor and IDE Geany for the first time, and I was pleasantly surprised with it! Obviously, there’s a pretty big number of text editors out there that with the “right” number of enabled would turn an ordinary editor to a super-on-steroids IDE, but I felt Geany to be a very light and fast option, with a couple of nice features already enabled by default.

World of Padman

Sat, 26 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I was reading Digg this morning when I came across a post talking about the 8 best games for Linux. I was immediately attracted to a picture of the game World of Padman, which at first glance seemed to be a game for children, but don’t let it fool you.

The first thing I did was watch this video. That is when I noticed that it looked a lot like a cartoon-ish version of Quake, but with funny characters. The “weapons” are not as violent as those in Quake, but even after I saw the weapon that uses water ballons for amunition, I’m still not sure if I want to let my daughter Yv play it yet.

America or America?

Thu, 24 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

First of all I want to thank every and each one of you who took the time to drop me a line about my recent citizenship. I was honestly very touched by your kind words and am looking forward to the upcoming ellection when I will be able to exercise my voting rights for the first time!

I just took some time off from work to respond to a few comments left on my blog about my use of the word America as a synonim for the country United States of America. First off, I mean no disrespect to anyone from the continent America. For better or worse, even when I was a young child in Brazil, I had always understood that America stood for The United States. No one has called Brazil, for instance, anything else but Brazil (unless you want to take a trip back in history, when it was named first as an island, and then as a “piece of land”). Taking a quick peek at Wikipedia I noticed that, though the term America is used to define the continent, it has also been used in many songs, videos, poems, etc in the same manner I used.

Openbox 3.4 in the horizon

Thu, 24 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I was extremely pleased/amazed when I read the change log with the modifications, new features, and bugs fixed in the up and coming new version for Openbox! The list is too big to mention here, but take my word for it: it is amazing!

You can already get packages for Ubuntu Feisty, Debian, Arch Linux, and Slackware. If you’re running Foresight Linux and want to try (unofficial for now) it, drop me a line.

American Citizen

Wed, 23 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’m very proud to announce that today I have become a citizen of the United States! About 16 years ago my parents left or sold everything they owned and came to America with the intention of giving my sisters and I a better life. Their journey began like some many other immigrant’s in NYC. With only a few thousand dollars in their pockets and a very basic knowledge of English, my parents immediately embraced the American way of life. When my younger sister and I arrived one month later, they were both proudly waiting for us at the airport, talking and acting as though they had been living in New Jersey all their lives. Many were the places and sights they showed us with an almost endless pride and joy!

Educational GCompris Live CD

Tue, 15 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Shortly after receiving a comment on my other blog (Brazilian Portuguese only) from Armando Silva about an educational Live CD, my curiosity got the best of me and I just had to check it out.

The first thing I did was point my browser to the Brazilian GCompris site and I was imediately impressed by their stated objectives of promoting the translation and documentation of education software in Brazil

A few more paragraphs later I found out that Armando Silva himself was responsible for this Live CD, based on Knoppix with components from Kanotix e Sidux.Ã‚Â The CD is filled with educational applications, such as:

Taking GCompris for a spin

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I managed to package GCompris 8.3 BETA 3-2 and successfuly run it at home. Packaging it was a bit tricky due to a couple of bugs I encountered along the way, but luckly bdoin was around #gcompris to confirm/deny my assumptions.

The main reason for me doing this was so that Yv, my oldest, could spend some time in front of the computer doing something educational. I was extremelly surprised with the amount of different games available and the very broad range of levels included. Gcompris comes bundled with games for all ages and it is guaranted to score big with the kids, including the big kid in you! :)

Pimlico

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I packaged the applications Dates, Tasks and Contacts for Foresight Linux. As soon as Sync is released, the entire Pimlico suite will be complete!

Herding Cats in Brazil

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

If anyone wants to watch the live stream of Jono’s presentation in Brazil, just point your favorite browser here. This is the direct link to the stream, but if for whatever reason you end up watching somebody else’s, try one of the other feeds from here. Clicking play will launch your default media player, and clicking on the links in the second column will attempt to open it in your browser.

Maybe Jono will perform his famous dance??? :)

Simplifying gtk.TreeView?

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

One of these days I was working on a new graphical interface for a new application in python, when I noticed something familiar. Every time I need to add a gtk.TreeView widget to one of my programs, I end up re-writing the same code, over and over again and again… so I thought:

"Why not create my own kit/widget and stop rehashing code?"

Since I had a pretty uneventfull Saturday, I ended up creating GenericList, my own abstraction of a generic grk.TreeView.

Texto Livre for All

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

When I first heard of the project Texto Livre, the very first thing that went through my mind was how to use it to improve (and even speed up) the documentation process for the Brazilian GNOME and Ubuntu projects!

Texto Livre is a support group with the objective of offering linguistic support for the documentation of open source software, as well as introduce university-level students to to open source as a tool for research

One year went by\...

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

… and today, chatting online with André Noel, I remembered that I was at Linux World Expo in Boston, MA representing Ubuntu! I had my “15 seconds of fame” when I was interviewed by the guys from Lulu.tv.

Those were 3 great days that I’ll never forget…

Watching the wheels go \'round and \'round

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This is going to be a very emotional post for me… Emotional for a good reason, but with a “dash” of nostalgia. Ever since we released Ubuntu Edgy I made the decision of giving the leadership for the Brazilian Translation Team to someone else… not because I had lost interest in this task, but because after over 1 year in this position, it is the right and just decision to let someone else get the same opportunity. During these 18 months I have participared in the team, I had the priviledge to watch a great number of people grow… people who started out as volunteers, just like me, became members, and best of all, became personal friends.

Going to FISL?

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Hey Jonh, Jono, Lucas et all. While you’re visiting Brazil during FISL, look for the Ubuntu Brazilian Team. it should be easy to spot them… just look for the loudest and craziest guys around!

Too bad I can’t make it this year…

BillReminder \"7 Different Types of Smoke\" 0.1 Released

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Release soon, release often they say, right? Well, here it is then!

Today I released version “7 Different Types of Smoke” (beta) 0.1 of my pet project BillReminder. Born out my need for a simple and light home accounting desktop application, BillReminder became my favorite hobbie and main learning entrance into the python world for me!

Though still in beta, this version includes an attempt at a smart database layer (built on top of sqlite) which should allow the application to expand its capabilities of saving different types of data. It also has a simple notification system that will remind you every day of your outstanding bills, independent if you’re running the application or not. Also noteworthy is the availability of translations in Swedish (thanks Daniel) and Brazilian Portuguese by yours truly.

I want my MTV

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Having just seen Lucas Rocha's screencast where he creates a simple python plugin for the Hildon Desktop, I just cannot wait to get my hands on a N800. But it is kind of pricey for my very limited budget right now (or for the next several months for that matter. I wonder what a translator could do to get one of those nice discounts I read about in the web? ;)

BillReminder on TV?

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Karl Lattimer pointed out that there is now a comercial for BillReminder (may not be safe for work due to violent scenes). ;)

GUADEC 2007

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

After being harassed by Mario Danic for several days to submit a paper to this year’s GUADEC, I caved in and did it. I had problems completing my registration but was rescued in the last minute by Thomas Wood!

If my paper gets selecte, my talk will be titled “Where the streets have no name: Getting more done with different localizations teams!”, and it will be based on my personal experience in coordinating the joint effort by the Brazilian GNOME and Ubuntu Localization teams during our race toward a 100% GNOME 2.18 Desktop in Brazilian Portuguese.

GNOME 2.18 DEsktop: 100% translated to Brazilian Portuguese!

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

We did it!

/me does Dora, the Explorer's dance!

GNOME 2.18 Desktop Applications are now completely translated to Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to the colaborative work between the Ubuntu and GNOME Brazilian teams! Now, the Ubuntu team will be working hard to make sure that everything is in sync so that Ubuntu Feisty Fawn will have a default look and feel in our language as well!

GNOME Desktop 2.18: Almost 100% localized to Brazilian Portuguese

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Been working hard with the GNOME Brazilian team to finish up the translation effort in time for 2.18. With the release date just around the corner, it is almost time to reap what we have sown:

Language Team Documentation (% User Interface (% translated) translated)

Arabic 0% (130/8/23855) 99% (36988/0/3)

British English 32% (7912/0/16081) 99% (36988/0/3)

French 74% (17962/128/5903) 99% (36988/0/3)

Portuguese 0% (0/0/23993) 99% (36988/0/3)

Swedish 67% (16198/146/7649) 99% (36988/0/3)

poEdit and translate-toolkit packaged in Foresight

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Just finished packaging poEdit and the translate-toolkit for Foresight. I usually do my translations using Vim, but ultimately use these two tools to “fine tune” them before submiting them to bugzilla.

Speaking of translations, I cannot wait to see the new GNOME with 100% desktop translations in portuguese (Brazilian), thanks to a partnership between the Brazilian GNOME and Ubuntu translation teams! ;)

Epiphany is the Bee\'s Knees

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I just have to agree with Foresight's decision to ship the Epiphany web browser as their default browser! DonÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t get me wrong, I like Firefox and some of the very nifty extensions make some of my tasks a breeze (Firebug rules!), but Epiphany IS GNOME’s default web broswer!

I say, take it for a spin and you’ll see how pleasant your experience will be!

Thematographer

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I took advantage of an unexpected break I had over the weekend to create my own application to change the theme for OpenBox. Sure, I know there’s OBConf, but I wanted to write my own in python.

Without further ado, I present version 0.1 of Thematographer for OpenBox!

Even with the dependency on Glade, I find it to be very light and it will detect default themes installed, as well as themes installed on $HOME/.themes.

zzzzZZZZ\...

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’m back home, together with my wife and daughters. The two days spent in the hospital helped them (wife and baby) to recharge a bit their energies, and gave me some time to spend with my older daughter.

Many were the comments and emails I received during this period, all congratulating us and wishing us well. I even received a phone call from Brazil (thanks a million Kurt Kraut)! In the name of my (now slightly bigger) family I thank each and everyone of you for the kind words!

Baby on Board

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

My parents wanted to know how my wife’s pregnancy was progressing…

Our doctors have told us that our second daughter will be born on Valentines Day (February 14th for those who don’t live in the US). But what is science compared to my mother’s sixth sense who, after having just seen this photo sent to her via cellphone, boldly stated: she’ll be born by tomorrow! ;)

Launchpad has a new face-lift

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I really liked the new “face-lift” given to Launchpad (still in beta)…

Something tells me we’ll see it being used by many companies in the near future as their management tool for… well, pretty much everything?!?!?

ENFP

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

My good friend SuperToadman pointed me to this online Myer-Briggs Test For Programmers today and I was amazed at how accurate the results came out!!! The test came very, very close to describe how I see myself. Come to think of it, I can see how this shaped my decisions in life.

Anyhow, here’s some more background on ENFP “personalities”… Anyone who knows me personally agree/disagree with it?

Gnome, Ubuntu, and Samba

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag, so I might as well talk a bit about it. ;)

Last November I sent out an email to pretty much every major Brazilian localization team (including Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Mozilla, OpenOffice, and the Linux Documentation Project), inviting them to a meeting to discuss how we can all benefit from our individual work. Many replies later, we decided to hold 2 sessions on the 18Th so to accommodate everyone’s schedules. The log for the 2 sessions (sorry, Portuguese only) were posted and everyone had a chance to chime in.

Portable VLC

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

My good friend Otavio enjoying his Portable VLC! ;)

New Years Reolutions

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Taken from What the Duck.

Real resolutions soon! ;)

This day in history

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Today we remember what happened on December 7, 1941: The attack on Pearl Harbor! This marked the beginning of several more atrocity acts against humanity!

As always, here’s my attempt to keep certain historical facts from being forgotten!

True Colors

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

What are your true colors???

* Logo created by `Danilo Cesar <http://wiki.ubuntubrasil.org/DaniloCesar>`__ under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license.

A Plea for Jorge Castro

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I was extremely sad to find out over the weekend that the always lovable Jorge Castro has decided to take a back seat in the Gnu/Linux world. I had a chance to meet him over the UDS-MTV and was very impressed by his genuine interest and willingness to “make the world a better place.” (c) It is very unfortunate that we have so many people out there who rather spill poison than use their energy to be constructive!

First impression of the OLPC OS

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Shortly after reading the note about a VMWare image of the operating system for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), my curiosity got the best of me and I promptly started downloading it into my laptop (roughly 180 MB) and waited for my lunch break to give it a spin.

..image:: http://static.flickr.com/104/309721351_0013360a38.jpg :target: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25563799@N00/309721351/

The bootup process was very quick, even running on VMWare, and within a few seconds I was staring at the desktop.

Network Manager Tip

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The very first thing I do with a new laptop installation of Gnu/Linux is to install Network Manager (sudo aptitude install network-manager-gnome). Eventhough I have met people who have claimed to hate it to death, I still consider it to be the best invention since the invention of sliced bread!

However, something very peculiar happens if you install it after you’ve already used your laptop to access a.. uhh… access point: the little Network Manager applet won’t detect the wireless device!

Secret Santa Made Easy

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This X-Mas will be the first time I’ll have to travel to be with my parents. I have always lived close to them, but now that I’ve moved to North Carolina, we have members of the family spread across the East Coast.

One thing we started doing these last 5 years was to shift from a everyone-buys-everyone-a-gift kind of X-Mas (very expensive if you have a lot of relatives), to a buy-something-simple-but-not-more-than-X-amount. This has cut down our expenses a whole lot, and we were able to really enjoy the holiday for what it is, and not the commercial behemoth that has become.

APTonCD 0.1 beta Released!

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

What is it?

APTonCD is a tool with a graphical interface which allows you to create one or more CDs or DVDs (you choose the type of media) with all of the packages you’ve downloaded via APT-GET or APTITUDE, creating a removable repository that you can use on other computers. APTonCD will also allow you to automatically create media with all of your .deb packages located in one especific repository, so that you can install them into your computers without the need for an internet conection.

\"Caving\" In

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I finally caved in and gave beryl a try. After being literally bombarded with screenshots and videos os people doing some pretty cool stuff on their computers, I figured: “I have a pretty good system here… why not add some bling to it?”

I followed my friend Hamacker's recipe (in portuguese, but there’s a good tutorial here in english) and was running beryl in no time! I must have spent at least 1 hour just tweaking all the possible configurations allowed! That is when I saw my friend LedStyle's recipe for installing FlightGear, the open source flight simulator. Though the instructions are also in portuguese, there’s a initial push to re-write all the existing games recipes found on Ubuntu Games to other languages, specially english.

Six Years

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday was my 6th wedding anniversary… Elizabeth and I lived together for almost 2 years first… to get to know each other… to experience what married life would be like before actually doing it. After only 3 months I just knew she was the one and I was destined to spend the rest of my life with her… grow old with her… The problem was that I didn’t make enough to support the both of us… so we lived together, sharing a 3 bedroom apartment with some folks…

One last ping from New Jersey

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The apartment is completely “packed” and what for the last 2 years had been my home has been reduced to a monotonous pile of small boxes.Ã‚Â My internet is also down and I’m only able to post this last post due to a generous neighbor and his open wireless access.Ã‚Â Tomorrow I’m loading the truck and will drive down to my new place early Friday morning.Ã‚Â I confess I feel a bit emotional about leaving behind the friends, places, and things that shaped my life for the last 16 years…Ã‚Â But the future looks very promising and I can’t wait for the day (which I’m sure will come very soon) I can finally go back to enjoying life and all the good things it has to offer us!

Googlism

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

My younger sister showed me this site: Googlism.Ã‚Â You type in your name, for instance, and using Google, it returns things that have been associated with it in the net.Ã‚Â Here are some results I got with a few terms:

Og:

og is gonna remember to watch idol tonite at 9 og is now impractical because it is so large og is a complete face detection and recognition system for linux using of the shelf components og is also antibacterial for a wide range of general infections og is combined with blood ph and ag og is clean and the drinks never seem watered down og is an adhesive open gear lubricant manufactured from high molecular weight synthetic base og is the answer og is nothing short of legendary og is a bit of a babe ye

I\'m in a NC state of mind

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Arrived at Chapel Hill, NC early this morning and drove around the Duke West Campus to find out where I have to be tomorrow for my interview. The flight was great and the wi-fi hotspot at the airport (JFK) allowed me to get things done while waiting for my flight.

Tried to subscribe to the University of North Carolina Linux User Group (UNCLUG) to see if we could get together or something but had my request rejected for not using a @unc.edu email address.Ã‚Â Soooo… anyone from UNCLUG interested in getting together?

A little bit of light in the tunnel

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

First off I need to thank you all who contacted me, either directly or via this blog, with your kind words of encouragement and advice!Ã‚Â I really mean it!

Through all the confusion and difficulties my family and I have undergone these last 2 weeks, I’m happy to announce that a little bit of light has crept through the darkness of the tunnel.Ã‚Â Yesterday I was interviewed for a programmer position within a company not too far from where I live.Ã‚Â For good or bad, everyone I spoke to had already gotten a glimpse of my online persona through my blog, and the entire interview was a series of very friendly and exciting conversations about open source, linux, apache, php, subversion, etc, etc.Ã‚Â I want to believe that it went well for I have been invited for a follow-up interview some time next week.Ã‚Â The opportunity has great potential for my career as I’m trying to do more open source related work!

NYC Claims Another Victim!

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This is it folks, I’m quitting the rat race! After working my butt off for the last 2 years as a contractor, I got tired of the long commutes to/from work/home, missing my daughter grow into this almost five-year-old beautiful girl, not having enough time or energy to properly enjoy time with my family, and always being worried if my contract would be renewed. About 2 weeks ago I was informed my project had gotten canceled and with it, my position. The news came to my via an email, late at night without much explanation.

Going to the United Nations

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I had the opportunity to represent Ubuntu linux at a symposium held at the United Nations, organized by UNITAR. Together with another representative from Novel, I was invited to demonstrate our operating system and answer any question that may come up during the event.

Together with my new friend Nathan Eckenrode whom I met approximately 3 weeks ago (he was one of those who answered my post about getting a free Ubuntu book. We had lunch one day close to my ex-job), we arrived at the UN around 9:30. It was a pretty “weird” day, with a very fine mist covering everything and everyone walking in New York city. We immediately put on our identification badges and went straight to meeting room #8. The event was set up as a “round tableÃ¢â‚¬Â? discussion, and right away I could see Richard Stallman and Danese Cooper sitting across the room.

Top Contributor/Translator

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Wow!!!Ã‚Â I’m absolutely excited to see my name as one of the top contributors and translators for Ubuntu!Ã‚Â Believe me, I am not vain at all, but this caught me off guard!

Top Contributors:

Top Translators:

Glad to see 2 more brazilians made the “list”, my good friend AndrÃƒÂ© Noel and Tadeu Rocha!

Dude, Where\'s my TabletPC?

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

It has been a while since I last wrote about my TabletPC.Ã‚Â About 2-3 weeks ago I managed to install Edgy Knot 1 on it and everything was a-OK!Ã‚Â That’s when the rug was pulled from under me and I was kindly asked to return my precious.Ã‚Â Turns out my friend, who lent me the Tablet, had no authority to do so, and asked me to return it.Ã‚Â I confess, I was sad to see it go get a make over and become someone else’s new toy…

Live \[Broad\|Pod\]casting with Linux

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I was wondering if anyone out there would have a “recipe” for doing live broadcasting (and podcasting) using only open source applications?Ã‚Â The goal is to replace our record-from-Skype-conversation-with-Audacity-and-convert-to-ogg “process” and eventually have sort of a “live” program where people could listen to a weekly talk and/or download the podcast as well.

After the storm, comes the calm

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

My post about the bombing of Nagasaki yesterday seems to have caused quite the stir. As in any of my posts, the text contained within these pages are solely my own thoughts and oppinions. I have received quite a few comments yesterday, most disagreeing with my point of view, a few very personal, but that was expected. After the 30th comment came in this morning, I decided to lock it since I felt it had fulfilled its purpose beyond my expectations.

Customized Ubuntu Dapper Drake Live CD 1,2,3

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This article was inspired by another article from my good friend Alex Rocha, who has just taken the plunge into the blogging world, pointing out a document showing how one can create their own customized Live CD with Ubuntu Dapper Drake.Ã‚Â The document is a detailed step by step which could help you create a Live CD with all your favorite programas, including all the multimedia codecs, flash, and java for a complete “out-of-the-box” experience, specially if you’re trying to convince your aunt or grandparents to migrate from Windows 98.Ã‚Â But in order to complete such feat, it is necessary to roll up your sleves and get jiggy with the command line, which could be a bit “scary” for those who haven’t yet experience the true power that Linux has to offer.Ã‚Â That’s when I came across a reference to a graphical nterface that pretty much does the same thing for you!Ã‚Â I took a quick peek at the instructions, shockfull of pictures, and I can say that now anyone can create their own Live CD!Ã‚Â I haven’t tried it yet but would love to hear from those who manage to give it a whirl before I get a chabce. Enjoy it!

The real terrorists always get away

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Today, 60 years ago:

Bocks Car
Fat Man
21 kilotons of Plutonium
Nagasaki
40000+ civilians pulverized to death!

The terrorists got away, and today we can see the airplane “proudly” displayed in an american museum.

September 11th, 2001:

2,976+ people have died!
Afganistan and Irak invaded!
More than 3000 soldiers have died after the “end of the war”!
More civilians die every day!

The terrorists once again got away!

I used to think you could not judge a nation based on the decision of its government. But a nation that openly supports this type of behavior has no excuse!

Learning through a straw

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday while waiting for my wife at the doctor’s office, I managed to take a peek at an older issue of the American Scientist.Ã‚Â Ever since I graduated from Pace University with my BS in Biochemistry, I rarely read anything too scientific and tend to browse more computer related magazines.Ã‚Â Anyhow, the very first article, “Gauss’s Day of Reckoning" by Brian Hayes caught my attention:

In the 1780s a provincial German schoolmaster gave his class the tedious assignment of summing the first 100 integers. The teacher’s aim was to keep the kids quiet for half an hour, but one young pupil almost immediately produced an answer: 1 + 2 + 3 + … + 98 + 99 + 100 = 5,050. The smart aleck was Carl Friedrich Gauss, who would go on to join the short list of candidates for greatest mathematician ever. Gauss was not a calculating prodigy who added up all those numbers in his head. He had a deeper insight: If you “fold” the series of numbers in the middle and add them in pairsÃ¢â‚¬â€?1 + 100, 2 + 99, 3 + 98, and so onÃ¢â‚¬â€?all the pairs sum to 101. There are 50 such pairs, and so the grand total is simply 50Ãƒâ€“101. The more general formula, for a list of consecutive numbers from 1 through n, is n(n + 1)/2.

My Daily WTF

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been extremelly busy at work since my boss resigned about 3 weeks ago.Ã‚Â To worsen the situation, some other developer has also left, leaving me as the new maintainer for his “legacy” application.Ã‚Â The so called “program” is entirely written in Java, acting as a “wrapper” for Oracle and Sybase procedural code, written in PL/SQL and T-SQL respectively.

It turns out that every quarter this application gets modified to satisfy the new “business rules” that are “engineered” by the major stakeholders in order to satisfy their needs.Ã‚Â After several iterations and undocumented modifications done to the program, the beast has turn into a major, stinking “onion”, full of layer upon layer of patches.

Ubuntu Hacks

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I still have a few copies of Ubuntu Hacks left from the batch I received from O’Reilly.Ã‚Â If you live around New York City and don’t mind driving/walking/biking to Fort Lee, NJ (right across the George Washington Bridge), I could give it to you.Ã‚Â The plan was to give them together with the new Dapper CDs, but unfortunately mine are taking longer to arrive.

Anyhow, we could meet at the local StarBucks store and chit-chat while getting caffeinated.Ã‚Â :)

Getting Jiggy With Translations

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This past weekend the Ubuntu Brazilian Portuguese Translators and the Brazilian Documentation Team put together a 3-day boot camp for translators and new volunteers. The online classes were held every evening at #ubuntu-br-tradutores, and covered all the steps and methods involved in the process of translating Ubuntu to Brazilian Portuguese, as well as showing people how they can participate in the community.. The very last session, taught by CÃƒÂ¡ssio Martini (and me in the back stage), was performed with live demos and participation of the “students” in real time. I can say, without false modesty, that it was a great way to close the event! I wrote this article (originally in portuguese) approximately 30 minutes prior to the session started, so to serve as a guideline that people could follow online. It is assumed that the reader has already subscrived to our mailing list, criated a GnuPG key, signed the Code of Conduct, and also registered for a free “account” with the Launchpad system. All of these topics were (extremelly well) covered in the first 2 sessions by my friend Alex Rocha. We urge all volunteers interested in joining our team to read this document, which gives a brief introduction about the different systems we currently use, as well as some great tips for when translating packages.

Translations Best Practice

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Whenever we work on the Brazilian Portuguese translations for Ubuntu Linux through the Rosetta system, we come across some strings that are pretty straight forward to translate, such as “The book is on the table”. hehehe But… not all strings are as obvious and require some further investigation. Our team has compiled a document (pt_BR) which not only explains how Launchpad and Rosetta work, but also has a section dedicated to some of the “hairy” strings we’ve come across.

The Amazing Race

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The race is on to get Ubuntu Linux completely translated into other languages.Ã‚Â We, the Brazilian Portuguese Team, are currently in 5th “place”.

Inspired by the Ubuntu Classroom, I have taken the iniciative to create 3 “classroom” sessions in portuguese (pt_BR) to be hosted starting today at the #ubuntu-br-tradutores channel @ Freenode.Ã‚Â More information can be found in my announcement (in portuguese), including links to documentation on how to use IRC. :)

The topics covered in the 3 sessions will be:

Whose Blog Is It Anyway?

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

It seems that for some reason beyond my understanding, one of my latest posts (“Back to School”) keeps showing up as a new post every so often in services such as Bloglines.Ã‚Â Mind you that ONLY this one post seems to be showing this “symptom.“Ã‚Â I was actually informed that it keeps getting “refreshed” every 30 minutes.

The reason why I’m writing about this is because I have received complaints from 3 different sources, citing how extremelly annoying it is to see my ‘gotchi showing up in their news reader dujour.Ã‚Â Someone even mentioned that the mere site of it made his stomach turn!Ã‚Â Hehe…Ã‚Â Now, I’m not too vain and won’t take it personal.Ã‚Â But one of the comments I received “kindly” asked me to remove myself from Planet Ubuntu!

Back To School

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Feeling a bit rusty with your linux skills? Are you a new Ubuntu linux user and feel overwelmed with packaging managers, gpg keys, and IRC lingo? Well, the solution is right around the corner. The folks at New User Network have launched the Ubuntu Classroom, a project aimed at delivering good, live didatic material to all users, new and “seasoned.”

Some classes have already been scheduled for the month of August and there are some open slots for instructors. Though I can assume all classes will be administered in english, I’m sure they wouldn’t oppose the idea of having some slots for classes in other languages. So, if you feel like helping out and need more information (and to view an up to date schedule), check out their page.

Is it progress?

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

It has been roughly a week since I learned about the “new” repository created by Canonical to distribute certain proprietary packages.Ã‚Â I’m refering to the dapper-commercialrepository, which supposedly contains packages such as skype, realplayer 10, w32codecs, and opera.Ã‚Â I say supposedly because I haven’t tried yet.Ã‚Â Since I manually downloaded and installed the .deb files for my w32codecs and other needs, I didn’t feel the need to add the repository to my list.Ã‚Â Come to think of it, it was only after reading my good friend Thomaz Leite's blog (pt_BR) entry that I remember about it.Ã‚Â I did manage to take a quick peak at the repository from work but only saw opera and real player packages…

Using Ruby Within Visual Studio.NET 2005

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

To all my friends who use Windows for their daily tasks (usually at work) and enjoy tinkering with Ruby, now there’s a way to write, edit, and debug your Ruby code within Visual Studio .NET 2005. Note that I’m not refering to Ruby.NET, an implementation being developed by Dr. Wayne Kelly and Prof. John Gough of the Queensland University of Technology. This tip was sent my way by my friend Gerrard Lindsay, a Microsoft consultant for the East Region of the United States.The first step would be to install the version of Ruby for Windows. Download the installer and simply double-click it. WARNING:: I noticed that the installer modified my PATH environmental variable, pretty much wiping it clean and adding the location for the Ruby compiler. Therefore, make a back-up of its content before proceeding with the installation.Once the installation is completed, you can pretty much hit the ground running and start coding using any old text editor. If you do not have a copy of Visual Studio .NET 2005 installed, and don’t quite enjoy coding using Notepad (who would?), try Notepad2, which is not only free but has Ruby syntax support built-in! Now, to add suport for editing and debugging Ruby code in Visual Studio .NET 2005, download the add-in Sapphire In Steel and follow the installation instructions. Take the time to also download the free book (PDF) and source code to follow along. The best part is that you can work in your Ruby code, without any modifications, no matter which plataform you’re working on. Add a dash of SVN and you’ll be set! UPDATE:Ã‚Â I mistakenly stated that the Ruby.NET implementation has been done by the Mono guys, but it was actually done by Dr. Wayne Kelly and Prof. John Gough of the Queensland University of TechnologyÃ‚Â Ã‚Â I apologize for the confusion.

Recipe: Enemy Territory

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

First of all, I want to thank all the kind comments on my previous post. :) To show my appreciation, here is something for those days when you can hardly think straight…

Enemy Territory

Utensils:

You should have a Nvidia or ATI card and driverÃ¢â‚¬Â¦
and libgtk1.2: sudo apt-get install libgtk1.2

Ingredients:

Download the game from your favorite gaming site orÃ¢â‚¬Â¦

wget -c http://ftp.games.skynet.be/pub/wolfenstein/et-linux-2.60.x86.run
Apply any patch you can find in the same site orÃ¢â‚¬Â¦

Paterfamilias

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This is very off topic but I couldn’t resit.Ã‚Â My wife and I have been blessed for the second time, and are officially expecting out second child!Ã‚Â We received confirmation yesterday from my wife’s doctor that she is in her very forst week of pregancy!Ã‚Â Little Yv (my daughter) is extremelly exicted about the prospect of having a little baby to play with.Ã‚Â In fact, her reaction was the best thing it could have happened to us!

Between Meetings Note

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Work has caught up to me and I have been flooded with small projects here and there at work! I have received a great deal of feedback on how to Ubuntunize my TabletPC and will be reporting on my progress as soon as I get some time to breath.

In the meantime, while I away for yet another meeting, I just want to thank Sven Herzberg for writing about HRE 2.1.0 (Website). I am very much looking forward to playing with it very soon!

Rotating the screen for a TabletPC

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This was a very busy Sunday, with a lot of soccer on tv (or how we call it outside the U.S., football), a lot of beer, and B-B-Q, like a good brazilian should.Ã‚Â ;)Ã‚Â In between a lot of meat, beer, checking translations, participating on a podcast, and an unexpected visit from my in-laws, I somehow managed to “play” with my TabletPC and rotate the screen.Ã‚Â The tip came via a comment on my previous post, and involves the addition of a simple line in the xorg.conf file:Option Ã¢â‚¬Å"RandRRotationÃ¢â‚¬Â?

Sharing music via Avahi

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

What can I say, it was a busy weekend…Ã‚Â ;)Ã‚Â Prior to following my friend Otavio’s advice (pt_BR only) on how to properly share my private music library at home with the many devices I own, I sadly used to copy the many gigabytes of *.oggs across the network…Ã‚Â Since I didn’t want to clog up my TabletPC, I decided to give avahi a try.

"Avahi is a system which facilitates service discovery on a local network. This means that you can plug your laptop or computer into a network and instantly be able to view other people who you can chat with, find printers to print to or find files being shared."Ã‚Â Avahi.org

Recipe: Ubuntu Dapper Media

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

With the release of Ubuntu Dapper, many were the new users who initiated the linux world without any knowledge of how to configure their systems for a complete nirvana experience. Sure the default instalation takes care of supplying the majority of tools and applications a “normal” home user would need “out of the box”, but there are certain technologies which, due to some licensing issues (mostly related to distribution, etc), are not installed automatically.It is with thys type of end user that I present here my recipe. The steps below were performed as soon as I finished the default installation, using the command line. Obviously, the Synaptic Package Manager can also be used for a graphical experience.For a faster and simpler browsing experience, I recommend the installation of the Epiphany web browser:

TabletPC photo frenzy

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

As promissed, here are some pictures of my TabletPC running Ubuntu Dapper.Ã‚Â I have managed to use the graphical keyboard (from the Assistive Technology Support submenu) in order to “type” using the stylus pen, but it was “weird” having to “cherry pick” the letters. ;)Ã‚Â Needless to say, I have removed it from the startup. I have installedÃ‚Â Nvidia’s driver and everything is just peachy… haven’t figured out how to rotate the display yet though.

Early Christmas?

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I didn’t know the new version of Monodevelop with built-in graphical designer was already available in Dapper!?!?Ã‚Â Christmas has come earlier than I expected!Ã‚Â ;)Ã‚Â Thank you (everyone involved in it)!

TabletPC 98% Ubuntunonized

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

So yesterday I finally managed to get a hold of another HP TC1100 and bring it with me to the MySQL Meetup last night. There were many interesting things during our first ever “show & tell” session, which shall get mentioned on a later post, but all I really wanted to do was to install Ubuntu onto the TabletPC and try to get everything working.

The new and extremelly easy to follow 5-step installation process was readly approved by all, and in approximately 15 minutes I had a complete system, minus support for the stylus pen… yet. ;) I can proudly say that the built-in wireless card worked like a charm though!

Version 3.2

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Today I complete yet another life cycle, version 3.2! Some bugs have been fixed and the “application” seems to be a bit more robust. New bugs I’m sure will be discovered (and hopefully reported too), and even a “fork” seems to be stabilizing in the shape of my (almost) 5-year-old daughter! ;)

This last year marked my de facto entry into the open source world! Together with other people, we founded Planeta Ubuntu Brasil, a blog aggregator completely designed for brazilian portuguese speaking users, and helped place the Ubuntu Brasil community on the map! I was also named the administrator for the Ubuntu Brazilian Portuguese Translators, a “position” I am extremelly proud to maintain! I made many friends, some just as passionate as me, but also got involved in a few tribulations of my own due to some administrative decisions… but I am certain that nobody can honestly doubt my enthusiasm, dedication, and passion for the community. I have many plans and adventures planned for this new life cycle, which hopefully I’ll be able to relate any success or failures this dreamer may come across!

Ubuntu on a HP TC1100 TabletPC

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Today I managed to get some free time from work (I had to run this process that usually takes 55 minutes to complete) and decided to pop the CD for the new version of Ubuntu Linux, codenamed Dapper Drake, into a friend’s TabletPC (HP model TC1100).

I honestly didn’t really know what to expect but was gladly surprised to see the welcoming site of Gnome’s splash screen, followed by the soothing startup sound.Ã‚Â Though I didn’t have much time to “play” with it, everything was apparently working fine… well, except for the stylus.Ã‚Â I also didn’t get a chance to test the wireless card.

Ubuntu Brazilian Portuguese Translators F.C.

Wed, 31 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Finally!!! After so many months of working hard on the brazilian portuguese translations, we can now celebrate and enjoy the new Ubuntu release, my first release as part of the Ubuntu family! The work itself is enormous and yet delicate at the same time. There were many people who showed interest in lending us a helping hamd, but during the long winding road, it was a smaller group that emerged from the ashes! I strongly believe that we have all grown a great deal, as we learned more from each other and were able to form some very solid relationships! I am extremely honored to have worked with such a vibrant group and I thank you from the very bottom of my heart, for all of your hard work, patience, and for understanding how serious the job isTo all of the volunteers who never, ever gave up on this task, thank you for sticking with us and know this: Your hard work is very appreciated and I’m sure you’ll collect the fruits of your labour in the very near future! Some of you managed to stand out and have been added to the team, which should indicate that every little bit counts!To the official members, thank you all for maintaining our standards and for your continuous support our cause! Now, more than ever, it is important that you act as the role model for all the future translators yet to come! To all of the brazilian Ubuntu users out there, who every single day help us elevate the status of our community: Next time you walk past one of the translators, don’t forget to thank him/her… and since most translators lead a very quiet life and won’t be seen in the crazy night life of Brazil (except for Meyer, who is considered by many the King of Rio), and to celebrate the fact that the World Cup of soccer is right around the corner, I am proud to present… Ubuntu Brazilian Portuguese Translators F.C. Keeper:

Keysigning Party

Tue, 30 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

David Harding is organizing a keysigning party for this June 14th, right after the LUG/IP meeting.Ã‚Â I’m not sure I’ll be able to attend it, but I’ll definitely try my best!Ã‚Â I do have some friends in the Princenton area and could use this chance to meet them over coffÃ‚Â coffee coff.Ã‚Â :)

On a different note, this blog is now syndicated at GnuJersey.org.Ã‚Â I just love the Ubuntu and RHCE badges next to my posts!Ã‚Â ;)

About Time!

Sat, 27 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

So it seems that Macrobe will be releasing Flash Player 9 for Linux some time early in 2007.Ã‚Â It is about time!

Picasa Ripple Effects

Fri, 26 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Today’s Google’s announcement of a Linux supported version of their Picasa product sent some ripple efects through the Open Source community pond… This article shows some interisting different ways people reacted to it, from the “holy cow, this is so cool Batman!” to the “… but they’re using Wine for this?” comments.

I particularly went through a roller coaster of emotions myself, going through several different “stages” as wave after wave of the news came up in my RSS Reader. Deep down I wish it had been a complete port… Not too sure why, but I have this unexplained need for native applications running on my computers, even if someone can prove to me that any permance issues are negligent. But at the end of the roller coaster “ride”, I started to wonder if this wouldn’t be a means to bring in (i.e. pseudo-port) other new applications over to linux faster? And when you consider the great variety of Open Source applications out there, would people for instance stop using the Gimp is one day Macrobe (Macromedia+Adobe) were to create a Wined version of Photoshop???

Fear and Loathing In Brazil

Thu, 25 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This last May 17th there was a controversial article published by the brazilian news magazine Veja (http://vejaonline.abril.com.br) on how the adoption of Open Source alternatives by the Brazilian goverment led to a major decline in technological advances as well as increased the overall spending on technical support.Ã‚Â Though a very brief piece in the magazine, Mr. “Duda” Teixeira’s article’s message was loud and clear to the average brazilian reader:Ã‚Â Open source is a major mistake!Ã‚Â Citing several (source not published) studies to back up his statements, he goes on to point fingers at the current governemt’s attitude for adopting Open Source as being “anti-Microsoft” and completely deprived of logical reasoning.

No more Linux World in Boston

Wed, 24 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I just received an email stating what I thought would be inevitable:Ã‚Â Linux World Expo & Conference will no longer be held in Boston!Ã‚Â Add to that the fact that it hasn’t been held in NYC for the last 2 years, this could mean the end of my long streak of participation at the event! :/

Year after year the event took on a more business-like approach, and colorfull couches and hang out areas were slowly converted to formal meeting lounges and the geeks were no longer the majority in attendance.Ã‚Â Instead, a whole new “harvest” of business people took over and you could just feel that unless you had something to sell, people wouldn’t spent too much time with you.

Smogarsboard

Mon, 22 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Time Travel:Ã‚Â I received a good number of replies to my hypothetical question of which figure from the past you would be interested in meeting (in case you could travel back in time).Ã‚Â Some of the answers were fairly interesting and it made me wish I had increased the hypothetical question to include more options… ;)Ã‚Â Anyhow, here’s a short list of all the names:

Franquin
Kenji Miyazawa
Siddartha
Einstein
Da Vinci
Victor Hugo
Asimov
Alan Turing
Daniel Balavoine
Tolkien
Gandhi
Osamu Tezuka
Plato
Socrate
Galileo
Buddha
Hitler
the first man
Bertrand Russel
Pope John Paul II

Hey Matt, I liked your choices too!Ã‚Â As a matter of fact, I did see the movie and was bombarded with DaVinci, Opus Dai, Holy Grail documentaries all weekend long, but I actually really like talking about the subject.Ã‚Â If you’re ever in the New York City vincinity, I’d love to pick YOUR brain!Ã‚Â :)

The 2 people you meet in Heaven

Sun, 21 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Hipothetically speaking, if I were giving the opportunity to travel back in time and meet 2 people, anyone, from the past, I wouldn’t hesitate to say:

Jesus
Leonardo Da Vinci

in that order.Ã‚Â Can you imagine what it would be like to be able to “pick their brains”???Ã‚Â What about you?

Sign of Times?

Wed, 17 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

So yesterday I found out that Sun will (finally) get on the Open Source wagon…Ã‚Â I’ll refrain from commenting on why I think they (Sun) have made this choice…Ã‚Â What I really want to know is:Ã‚Â When will Madobe (Macromedia+Adobe) wake up and smell the coffee???

BillReminder Update

Mon, 15 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Due to the proximity to the release date for Dapper Drake, Ubuntu Linux’s latest version scheduled to be released this June first, I have completely stopped working on my pet project, BillReminder. The translation effort to bring Open Source goodness to the Brazilian masses has a higher priority in my agenda, but the coding itch is still there!

BillReminder is completely written in C#/Mono and makes use of the newly incorporated Windows.Forms namespace for all its UI needs. The new version of Mono and MonoDevelop should offer a great deal of new functionality and an improved WinForms support!

Epiphany Update

Mon, 15 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Ever since I wrote my last post about the state of Epiphany as the default web browser for Gnome, I completely switched from Firefox to it!Ã‚Â Cold turkey!Ã‚Â I must tell you, there are certain things which can be annoying at times…Ã‚Â But the sheer speed I have gained while performing my web surfing “duties” is more than enough justification as to why I will keep using it for now.Ã‚Â Thanks to some great comments I received, I am now subscribed to their mailing list and have solved some of my initial issues by installing the epiphany-extensions package.Ã‚Â I still find the default behavior of newly created tabs (which will always open your home page) annoying but the truth is I haven’t completely immersed myself yet and explored other venues for information.Ã‚Â I definitely see something here that has a lot of potential!Ã‚Â The volume of discussion in the mailing list has been completely null for these last 14 days or so…Ã‚Â I think I will add Epiphany to my “evangelization” topics next time I talk to my friends…

Rio de Janeiro Open Sourced

Fri, 12 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

A new legislation (http://www.softwarelivre.org/news/6524 in pt_BR) has been approved in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by which the entire local goverment institutions will have to give priority to Open Source solutions!Ã‚Â Hopefully the rest of the nation will follow soon and make better use of all that money currently being spent on licenses and what not…Ã‚Â How about putting an end to poverty and illiteracy in one of the largest countries in the world???

Call to arms!

Sat, 06 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using Firefox for what seems to be a long time now… As a matter of fact, I don’t really remember the last time I had to use IE! Even when I have to use someone else’s computer, the first thing I do is plug my USB key and fire up the portable version of Firefox! I really like the theming capability as well as the great plethora of plugins and extensions available… But somehow I am extremelly attracted to the simplicity of Epiphany! For starters, it seems much “lighter” than Firefox… Maybe it is because it doesn’t offer all the things I mentioned above, but I wonder if it would make much difference if it, for instance, supported something simple like theming…?

Before the storm\...

Fri, 05 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Before I go into a major rant attack against Macromedia (or whatever they’re called these days) for not doing a better job at providing open source-friendly versions of their software, I’d like to ask my fellow Linux users the following:

Is there a way of running ShockWaveÃ‚Â under Linux without the aid of emulators???

I wish people would be more considerate (or do a better job at researching alternatives out there) and use open standards when providing their services to users via the web!

We\'re all dying!

Tue, 02 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

So says my good friend Gerrard with his new catchy tune!Ã‚Â He never ceases to amaze me with his multi talents!

On a different note, tomorrow I’ll be attending the Northern NJ MySQL Group meeting at the Panera Bread in Paramus.Ã‚Â Got lots of books to distribute from O’Reilly and Apress too!Ã‚Â Should be lots of fun!

Work has kept me really busy these last 2-3 weeks…Ã‚Â Too bad it is not new development…Ã‚Â Going over thousands of Java, PL/SQL, and T-SQL spagethi code looking for some obscure logic is not what I call fun…Ã‚Â Got a few phone calls from headhunters but nothing I’d be interested in doing…

Frequently Heard Questions

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

… at technology expositions/fairs I’ve been to this year, mostly as an Ubuntu advocate:

Cool, free stuff!Ã‚Â I want one… errr… what is it?
Will this let me use the internet?
FREE???Ã‚Â What do you mean Linux is FREE???
C’mon now… what is the catch?
Why should I use Ubuntu Linux?
What is in it for you?

and my favorite one so far:

Jeff Waugh does a hell of a Badger dance!

Went to the Trenton Computer Festival this Saturday to advocate about Ubuntu Linux and Open Source in general.Ã‚Â Drove for 2 hours in the rain and ended up arriving 30 minutes late…Ã‚Â Turns out not a lot of people had arrived yet, which gave me time to set up.Ã‚Â Luckly my new friend Bryan showed up before we arrived and grabbed us a table.Ã‚Â Tarik spotted another table and we swiftly brought it over to our side…Ã‚Â Roberto unpacked the CDs, books, and tons of flyers he had printed the night before, and quickly set them out on the tables, next to the 3 laptops we had brought.Ã‚Â Tarik even built a nice pyramid made of CD cases…

Got Books

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The amazing guys at Wiley Books (and more especifically Kit and Colleen!) simply rock! I got to meet Kit at the Linux World Conference this year, and after talking for a while about Ubuntu and the new books coming out on the subject, I asked him if his organization offered any type of sponsorship in the form of giving out books. Kit was more than eager to offer me his sponsorship, and one email and a few days later, he put me directly in contact with Colleen who pretty much told me to order anything from their catalogues.

A whole lotta hacking (in the tropics)!

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

If anyone is planning on attending this year’s 7º Fórum Internacional Software Livre, or FISL for short, try to get a hold of Mário Meyer and Cia. at the Ubuntu Brazil booth! Tell him I have asked him to show you a good time while you’re in Brazil, and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll be speaking “fluent” portuguese in no time! ;) Too bad I can’t make it… That what you get for being a .NET consultant I guess…

Another Show

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This April 22-23 I will be once again “on the road” to represent Ubuntu Linux at this year’s Trenton Computer Festival.Ã‚Â Having just got back from Linux World Expo in Boston, this shouldn’t be too intimidating for me.Ã‚Â I must confess, it was pretty intimidating to face literally hundreds of people and provide them with satisfactory answers.Ã‚Â I feel a bit more “seasoned” now and should be able to feel more confortable now.

Linux World Expo 2006 - Day 3

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The third and last day at the exposition was without a doubt the best day of them all! There were times when I was completely surrounded by people who just wanted to chit-chat… but there were many chances to just walk around, talk to people, take a few extra pictures and not worry about leaving my helper alone in the booth.Ã‚Â Some of the highlights in my oppinion were:

Look Ma! I\'m on TV!!!

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Well, sort of…Ã‚Â I was “interviewed” by Lulu TV on the first day of Linux World Expo.Ã‚Â Kind of funny to see someone else’s film of you bahbling about something… hehehe…Ã‚Â Too bad I didn’t have a microfone in me.

Linux World Expo 2006 - Day 2

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Pretty easy day today compared to yesterday’s “feeding frenzy”! The other guy who is supposed to help me out these last 2 days didn’t show up until after 12 noon! Ended up taking a cab to the exposition center… about $20 later and some really crazy talk from the cab driver! Scary stuff as he went off on a dialogue with himself… Couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the cab!

LWE 2006 - Day 1

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Pheeeew!Ã‚Â What an amazing day I had today!Ã‚Â Got up really early and after grabbing a quick breakfast, drove down to South Boston to the Linux World Expo at the “new convention center” as it is called around here.Ã‚Â Together with my buddy Vinny, we quickly set things up and got it all started by playing some Swing music… the Fedora guys appreciated it!Ã‚Â ;)Ã‚Â Shortly after people started to come in… at first as a slow trickle with a handfull of people stopping by to thank us (in behalf of the Ubuntu community) for the great work we’ve done and to grab a free copy of the 600 CDs I brought in with me… and then, as a stream ravaging stream!Ã‚Â Holy cow!!!Ã‚Â We were completely surrounded by great people who wanted to tell us how much they liked the distribution!Ã‚Â We had a guy from BitDefender tell us how we were “responsible” for him ending a 6 year “relationship” with FreeBSD in favor of Ubuntu… or this really nice guy from Novell who proclaimed his love for our distro, even though he had access to Suse and Novell’s own flavor of Linux!Ã‚Â Around 1 pm we had already given out most of the CDs and were down to the last box of 50!Ã‚Â Mako who happened to be talking to people about his upcoming book “The Official Ubuntu Book”, suggested we started charging $1 per CD so to make them last a little longer…Ã‚Â in less than 40 minutes those were gone too!

Some early pictures

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Didn’t get around to take a lot of pictures due to the craziness from yesterday.Ã‚Â Here are a couple I managed to take early on…

and another one of our booth:

The other guy who’s supposed to lend me a hand hasn’t shown up yet and could be lost somewhere between NY and MA…Ã‚Â This could turn out to be a reaaaally long day for me…

Arrived

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Took me 3 1/2 hours to drive from Jersey to Boston…Ã‚Â Arrived around 1:30pm at the nearby Ramada Inn.Ã‚Â Dropped off my luggage at my roon (which has a terrible smell of moth balls!!!) and immediately took a cab down to South Boston.Ã‚Â My cab driver got lost so it took us 45 minutes to get there!Ã‚Â Grabbed my badge and walked around.Ã‚Â Inside, pure chaos as a lot of the organizers tried to get their stuff ready for tomorrow.

Boston Bound

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow I’ll be travelling once again to Boston, this time to represent Ubuntu Linux at this year’s Linux World Expo.Ã‚Â The event, held in Boston this week, will mark the first time Ubuntu Linux showcases their product and also my “premier” as an active member of an Open Source organization.Ã‚Â I’ll be hanging out among the hackers I read about every day online and to be quite frank, it is very intimidating…Ã‚Â Hopefully I’ll be able to represent what Ubuntu Linux is all about and still manage to have fun!

BillReminder in the Wild!

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

It has been approximately 2 weeks now that I started hosting my pet project BillReminder on SourceForge.Ã‚Â I’m very excited for living up one of my goals for the year: starting my own open source project.Ã‚Â The goal is to force myself to port my programming skills over to Linux, now that Mono is definitely an emerging force in the Linux community!Ã‚Â I have managed to get some people interested in contributing, both with code and art/web design.

Achtung, Baby!

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Been away from this blog for quite some time now. Obviously, a great deal of events have taken place, and I intend to talk about most of them, eventually…

The one thing that I’m most proud of however, is my most recent achievement: my Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification! This was one of my most coveted plans for the year and I’m extremelly excited and relieved for achieving this milestone! I worked hard for 2 straight weeks trying my best to grasp all of the new (to me, for I’m a software guy) hardware related subjects that were expected to be in the exam.

Uncle Ubuntu Wants You!

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This year’s Linux World Expo & Conference held in Boston, MA will take place this April 3 - 6, 2006.Ã‚Â I have volunteered to organize the Ubuntu booth and am looking for Linux and/or Open Source enthusiasts from the area (NJ/NY/MA) to help me “man” the booth.Ã‚Â If you’re genuinely interested and can afford to pay for your own expenses, please contact me by commenting here…

WinForms on Mono

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Been spending some time converting my pet application BillReminder (written in C# using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET) so that it can run on Linux… but this time, without the Gtk# libraries for all the graphical rendering! Since I’m currently running Mono version 1.1.3 that comes bundled with Ubuntu Dapper, I can tap on to the new features including the port of the System.Windows.Forms namespace!!!

I must confess, the conversion process has been very minimal, and the only thing I have to pick on is the native look of the widgets… I’m not sure if I’m missing some other package, but the quality, or lack of, of all widgets needs some serious work… But is ok… Just the fact that I can write code that has the potential of being executed in several other plataforms is exactly what I’ve been looking for all along! Sure I can do that with some other languages (python, java and Tc come to mind), but that fact is that the job market has been divided between Java and .NETÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ And the ability to execute code in multiple platforms without much loss is something that could influence any employer when they have to choose between candidates who have that experience and those who don’t!

Is Less Better? - Take 2

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been following with extreme interest (and caution) the discussion that has been developing about the many metamorphosis the Gnome desktop has undergone for sake of “simplicity.”

Now, I have always been outspoken about the subject of application usability.Ã‚Â I have had a few discussions about some of the changes done to the newer version of Galeon, where certain features were removed for the sake of “moms and dads” users…Ã‚Â One day you’re happily using a program that you feel confortable with and attends your every need… and then, after an “upgrade” you find out (the hard way) that some features are completely “missing” from action.Ã‚Â In truth they are not removed but not accessible anymore from a GUI… but what about back compatibility?Ã‚Â I understand the intentions are good but simplifying is not always the best solution!Ã‚Â If applications such as xine and xorg (during manual configuration) allows the user to choose the level of functionality they want to be exposed to, why not then use the same system?Ã‚Â Simplify it (or dummify it) if that’s what it takes to make it more user friendly, but at least give people the choice of selecting their level of interaction.

Still pulsing

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Gandalf, my Pentium 4 that has seen more OSes than any other computer I’ve ever had, had apparently commited suicide this last weekend.Ã‚Â Everything led me to believe it was an OD of electricity, as my building has experienced some un-explained power surges these last few weeks.Ã‚Â Even though both Gandlaf and Houdini were plugged to a power surge protector, Gandalf stopped emmiting any signals and by Monday evening was pronounced dead… or so I thought.

What\'s on your reading list?

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

if someone were to take a peek at the books I’ve been reading lately, he/she/it could assume the following:

I like to read about history;
I’m trying to learn to program in Python (was influenced by lucasds);
I keep some reference material for those moments when Google is not enough;

Prioritizing Ubuntu

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Continuing with my new year’s resolution of working harder at the translation and bug triage of Ubuntu Linux, I have finally removed Windows XP from one of my PCs (the only one then running something other than Linux) and installed Dapper Drake. …and as the saying goes, “a picture is worth 1,000 words,” you can see below how I have prioritized Ubuntu in my professional life:

Ubuntu Dapper (x86) running on a Pentium 4 (lower left side);
Ubuntu Breezy (x86_64) running on an AMD 64 (lower right side);
Ubuntu Breezy (x86) running on my Laptop (IBM X40) (table top to the left);
Coffee mug (the biggie size me version) with Ubuntu logo (Thanks Toadman!).

The system works!

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

In less than 36 hours the following events took place:

2006-01-15 20:01 UTC - I submitted a report about bug 327124 to the Gnome Bugzilla;
2006-01-17 16:01 UTC - Received confirmation;
2006-01-17 16:41 UTC - Problem solved;
2006-01-17 16:43 UTC - Patch applied to CVS HEAD;
2006-01-18 12:20 UTC - Updated version available through update-notifier.

My screenshot was picked up by Jeff Waugh! Rock on Ubunteiros!

Using FlickrUploadr in Ubuntu

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Every time I need to add an image to one of my posts, I use a very simple tool to upload it to my Flickr account first. Once the image is uploaded, all there is left to do is write the post and paste the corresponding URL from the Flickr site for every image you want to publish together with your article. Even though most tools out there used to perform this task were written for the Windows plataform, I know of a few that were written for the Linux community, such as F-Spot and FlickrUploadr. F-Spot is a great tool but somehow a bit too “heavy” for this very simple procedure. FlickUploadr on the other hand just feels right.

Learn to code in Python in 10 minutes

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Short and quick 10-minutes tutorial about basic Python programming syntax that should get you going with this popular programming language!

What is your Perfect Major?

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| | You scored as **Engineering**. You |
| | should be an Engineering major! |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Biology | +----+ |
| | | 100% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Engineering | +----+ |
| | | 100% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Chemistry | +----+ |
| | | 92% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Psychology | +----+ |
| | | 92% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Theater | +----+ |
| | | 92% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Linguistics | +----+ |
| | | 83% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Philosophy | +----+ |
| | | 83% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Sociology | +----+ |
| | | 83% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Journalism | +----+ |
| | | 75% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Anthropology | +----+ |
| | | 75% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | English | +----+ |
| | | 58% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Mathematics | +----+ |
| | | 50% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Art | +----+ |
| | | 50% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | | Dance | +----+ |
| | | 17% |
| | | |
| | | | +----+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | +--------------------------+-------- |
| | ------------------+----------------- |
| | ---------+ |
| | |
| | `What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE |
| | RATE |
| | ME!!<3) <http://quizfarm.com/test.ph |
| | p?q_id=119158>`__ |
| | created with |
| | `QuizFarm.com <http://quizfarm.com>` |
| | __ |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+

AJAX Translator

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

For the volunteers working in the translation of Ubuntu Linux from English to a different language, here is a great tool based on AJAX: AJAX Translator

To use it, simply select the language that you want to translate from in the upper textbox and the language that you want to translate to in the lower textbox made, and what the “magic” unfold! The translation happens dynamicaly as you type! Though a bit too literal, I find it to be of great help.

Glade XML Build_interface: assertion failed

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Spent a good 2 nights trying to figure out what the following error meant:

glade_xml_build_interface: assertion `wid != NULL’ failed

The error was genetated when I tried to compile a small C#Ã‚Â program I wrote using Glade for the UI.Ã‚Â As a good netizen, I googled for the meaning of this but just couldn’t get usefull info…Ã‚Â until now!Ã‚Â Apparently, the error results from setting up the Glade.XML object and not using the same exact name for your forms/windows as you gave them in your .glade file.Ã‚Â For instance, the code:

Firefox 2 Release Schedule

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

2006/02/10 : Alpha 1
2006/03/10 : Alpha 2 (feature complete)
2006/04/07 : Beta 1 (string complete, feature frozen)
2006/05/05 : Beta 2 (string frozen)
2006/05/26 : Release Candidate 1
2006/06/07 : Release Candidate 2
2006/06/19 : Release Candidate 3
2006/06/27 : Firefox 2

For more info, check here.

Performancing for Firefox

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The other day I was bragging about the new plugin for Firefox 1.5, Performancing. In a nut shell, it allows you to compose and edit blog posts inside your Firefox tabs. It pretty much supports all the major blog protocols out there and it has a neat interface. Since I use my Portable Firefox 1.5 a lot, this little gem works just perfect for me on the go!

I\'m Superman!

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

'Cause all the “cool” guys are doing it… =)

Your results: You are Superman

+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| +--------------------------+-------- | You are mild-mannered, good, |
| ------------------+----------------- | strong and you love to help others. |
| ---------+ | |image1| |
| | Superman | ------- | |
| ------- | 95% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | Spider-Man | ------- | |
| ------- | 75% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | Green Lantern | ------- | |
| ------- | 60% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | Supergirl | ------- | |
| ------- | 60% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | Robin | ------- | |
| ------- | 50% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | Batman | ------- | |
| ------- | 50% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | Wonder Woman | ------- | |
| ------- | 45% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | Hulk | ------- | |
| ------- | 45% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | The Flash | ------- | |
| ------- | 40% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | Catwoman | ------- | |
| ------- | 35% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |
| | Iron Man | ------- | |
| ------- | 15% | |
| | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| +--------------------------+-------- | |
| ------------------+----------------- | |
| ---------+ | |

+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+

Click here to take the “Which Superhero are you?” quiz…

September 11th Conspiracy

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

No, I am not a conspiracy lunatic! I’ll refrain from posting what my true feelings are about the subject… Instead, I’ll point to an interesting video that has been circulating the net today. I’ll leave it up to you to make your own conclusions. Once again, as in every time I come across things like this, I can’t help but feel really, extremelly sad…

Can you hear the crickets?

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Well, so far nobody who read this blog (contrary to the portuguese version) has signed up for the Ubuntu Sweepstakes 2005! My other blog seems to be fairing much better though and 3 people have officially signed up! Maybe I’ve been spending way too much time handling the Ubuntu translation and such, and not getting enough exposure among the english-speaking folks?

On an unrelated note, I just learned a new way for feeling relaxed all day long! ;)

Ubuntu Sweepstake 2005

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

In order to celebrate the holidays and the success of the Brazilian Ubuntu community, I have decided to sponsor the Ubuntu Sweepstakes 2005!!!

Rules:

First of all, register yourself at the Launchpad site and sign the code of conduct.
Then, send me an email with the subject “Ubuntu Sweepstake 2005” with your complete name and your actual Karma points. For those who already have an account at Launchpad, send me your actual Karma points.
Just to clarify: Submit your actual Karma points at the date you submit your email! All entries will be checked religiously! ;)
Start translating the programs listed to be released together with Ubuntu Dapper Drake! Or, start submiting bug reports!!! The complete list can be seen here!
Anyone may participate, independently of which distro you use or what team you cheer for! But do it quick!!! The sooner the better!
All participants and their respective Karma points will be published here for tracking purposes!
The sweepstake closes at December 25th at 12 noon (UTC)!
The winner will be whoever accumulates more Karma points (minimum of 3,000) from the day of submission!

Prize: The winner will receive completely free of charge a copy of “Beginning Ubuntu Linux: From Novice to Professional”, to be published very soon by A-Press!

News from down under

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

No, I’m not in Australia but the other down under… South America! hehehe Am headed toward the last couple of days of my vacation in Brazil. Last time I stepped on Brazilian soil I was almost 17 and had barely travelled outside of my (then) home state of Espirito Santo. Now, 14 years later, I came back to re-visit old friends and relatives. Though things have dramatically changed and a great deal of my friends have moved out, I have managed to enjoy my stay so far. Haven’t really spent much time in front of the PC or browsed much (mainly due to the very shaddy internet connection) so I believe to be completely out of tune with what is going on. I noticed that my home PC seems to be down since I just can’t seem to be able to connect to it via ssh. It would be ok wasn’t for the fact that my other blog (written in portuguese) is hosted there and I can not revive it without human intervention.

For Posterity

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: I am definitely not a show off and am only posting this here so I can always look back and remember the responsibility I have voluntarily accepted upon me: To be an Ubuntu Member!

Here is the report of todays Community Council Meeting

General Items
Bhuvan suggested that the RSS feed of the wiki RecentChanges page should be advertized more. This is going to happen.
The options for reducing the stress on the CC meetings by (partially) delegating membership approvals have been discussed. There was general consensus that Option C of the plans of Mark Shuttleworth is the best way forward. This will be implemented as soon as possible.
LoCo Teams
The Japanese locoteam introduced itself, Jun Kobayashi and Hiroyuki Ikezoe reported their plans and their achievements. The main achievement is a localized version of the Ubuntu CD. Their good work will be merged with Ubuntu to make Ubuntu rock Japan.
New Community Members
After months of waiting and not being able to attend the meetings, Jonathan Jesse and Robert Stoffers have joined the Ubuntu community. Their work for the documentation team has been absolutely teriffic.
Og Maciel has been advocating Ubuntu and translating into Brazilian Portuguese; he also created planeta Ubuntu brasil. He has been welcomed aboard the Ubuntu ship.
Ryan Lortie is upstream developer for gnome-applets and will be an Ubuntu developer soon, Ryan now also is Ubuntu member.
Hubert FiguiÃƒÂ¨re has done good work for digital photography in Ubuntu and has joined the members.
Jonathan Carter is deploying Ubuntu on schools in ZA and is part of the Edubuntu team. He is now also part of the ever growing list of members.
Two members of the Japanese team, Jun Kobayashi and Hiroyuki Ikezoe have done great work on Japanese localization and promotion. They now also joined the ubuntu members family

The next community council meeting will be on Nov. 22 at 22:00 UTC

Dennis K. - Linux for human beings: http://www.ubuntulinux.org - Linux voor normale mensen: http://www.ubuntulinux.nl

Free Visual Studio.NET 2005 Express

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

That’s right! Microsoft has announced that the newly released Visual Studio.NET 2005 Express edition will be available for download from their website, completely FREE of charge! What are you waiting for? :)

Hope to be able to announce the release of Project Mono 2.0 very soon as well!

Ubunto Member!!!

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Just like a teenager who’s about to get his driver’s license for the first time, I was as nervous as one can be early this morning (14:00 UTC), while attending my first Ubuntu Council meeting. One of the subjects to be discussed was my possible membership to the Ubuntu Members Team. Topic after topic were brought up and dealt with… and as the minutes passed on by, I could barely remain calm… I was afraid I’d choke during my presentation and not say anything useful, but then… a huge calm came over me… and I spoke! With passion! With conviction!

Ubuntu Membership

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow will be a very important to me! At exactly 14:00 UTC I’ll be presented to the Ubuntu Community Council for approval to become part of the Ubuntu Member Team! I have spent quite some time helping out the Brazilian Ubuntu community these last 2 months and I think I’m ready for the next level of involvement!

The meeting will take place via IRC and I can barely wait to see what comes out of this!

Announcing PhPlanet

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

It is with an enormous pleasure that I come to announce the birth of PhPlanet, the first (if I’m not mistaken) 100% Open Source blog agregator written by a Brazilian for Brazilians! Using the Planet program as source of inspiration, PhPlanet already shows many new features such as:

Web based administration:

Add feeds (authors)
Approve feeds enrolled for the site
Modify authors’ information
Add, remove and/or edit Hackergotchis
Feeds (RSS and Atom)
Archiving of all posts for later retrieval (MySQL)
Registration of new feeds
Sending of posts via email (optional)…

Follow up on MySQL Meetup

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

This is a couple of days late, but worth to mention anyhow. This last Wednesday I was invited to attend the monthly Northern NJ MySQL Meetup meeting. It took place at the local Panera Bread in Paramus and I had to drive like a lunatic through traffic, afraid I was going to be late for it. Turns out traffic wasn’t as bad and I managed to arrive 30 minutes earlier.

I was able to spot 2 guys from the group almost that instantenously (they were the only 2 guys sitting in the corner with a laptop ;P ) and immediately introduced myself. With every passing minute the group grew larger and larger, and we had a pretty decent crowed (as far as Meetup meetings go) by the time the meeting started. From the very start I felt a pretty strong bond with the group, maybe because it was made up of people with very different backgrounds and skills. Maybe was the very electric atmosphere with all the ideas being tossed around. But let me take a step back so that I can provide some more details…

Northern NJ MySQL Meetup

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

When: Wednesday, November 2, 2005, 8:00 PM

Where: Panera Bread 165 Rt 4 West Paramus Place Paramus, NJ 07652 201-368-0752

What: We’ll be doing a small MySQL 5 installfest! Bring in your laptop, desktop, hell… bring in your server rack too!

Join and reserve a spot here.

Pheeww

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to Clint, I now have a good list of advice for raising my child! Since you’ve been filling up Planet Debian with you “literary work” these days, have you considered possibly a new career?

Flickr Tool for Linux

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Browsing Flickr the other day for pictures tagged with the word “Linux”, I came across the screenshot of a tool for uploading pictures to your Flickr account from your desktop.

Now, I know F-Spot can do that too but this one seemed to be so simple! I haven’t had a chance to test it yet, so… head on down to the developer’s web site and check out how to download and install it!

Translating Linux

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

In the attempt to attract more people to the organized effort of translating a large number of Open Source applications from English to other languages, here’s a small HOWTO. Hope to be able to inspire more people to join in.

First, register (FREE) yourself here: LaunchPad, “a collection of services for projects in the open source universe. You can register your project, and then collaborate with the open source community on translations, bug tracking and code.”

Planet Ubuntu Brasil Manifesto

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Regras de utilizaÃƒÂ§ÃƒÂ£o

CapÃƒÂtulo I - Para os leitores

Art.1Ã‚Âº - Para o acesso e leitura do Planeta Ubuntu Brasil, os leitores devem estar de acordo com todas as regras expostas neste documento.

Art.2Ã‚Âº - O leitor deve fazer um uso diligente das instruÃƒÂ§ÃƒÂµes, procedimentos e comandos oferecidos no Planeta Ubuntu Brasil. Os efeitos dessas informaÃƒÂ§ÃƒÂµes, bem como seu uso e eventuais danos nÃƒÂ£o sÃƒÂ£o de responsabilidade dos autores do Planeta Ubuntu Brasil.

Setting up a Planet

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

No, this is not a post about the creation of the universe and such. Planet “is a flexible feed aggregator. It downloads news feeds published by web sites and aggregates their content together into a single combined feed, latest news first." In other words, it is one of the best ideas since the sliced bread was invented. I have come to rely heavily on planets to get my daily dose of tech news (as you can see from the blogs I have listed here)… Planet Gnome, Planet Debian, Planet Ubuntu… there seems to be a planet for almost anything you can think of. Instead of subscribing to individual blogs, you can read through a whole bunch of different ones that share (most of the time) one common interest.

Your momma knows better

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Clint Adams… What should we do when our children decide that they don’t want to go to school or eat their fibers? Call the police as well? Tsk, tsk… Don’t you know your momma always knows better?

Name meaning Meme

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

You are idealistic and intelligent and very much an all or nothing person.Tending to experience constant change in life security is found in your real and abiding values. With great organisational ability, industry and creative prowess you love to build tangible results and are especially gifted at transforming lost causes. Your intelligence is marked with keen perception and analytical ability. A secure home life and relationship are important for you.

On Parallel Peer Programming

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Reading Scott James Remnant’s latest post on what he calls “Parallel Peer Programming” got me wondering if the same approach could work for the small project I’ve been secretly working on.

Scott fired up 3 separate screem sessions to which his co-worker Gustavo Niemeyer synced to. From that point one, they could see what each other was doing “live” in their respective terminals/laptops. Scott would write test cases in one terminal (to which Gustavo could now “watch”), Gustavo would then write the code in the second terminal to make sure it would pass the test, and use the third terminal to test it.

Ubuntu Breezy Badger

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

'nough said!

Ubuntu Breezy Sexyness

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Managed to install Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) on my laptop last night! Very impressive, including the fact that I didn’t have to manually download the driver and firmware for my ipw2200 wifi card!!! And just take a look at the ultra sexy notification message on the upper right hand corner of the screen!!! After adding more repositories to my source.list, I proceeded to install Banshee and Gajim! F-Spot will be joining them next!

Translating Ubuntu Breezy

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Early this week I decided to lure more people into participating more with the task of translating Ubuntu Breezy’s packages to the Portuguese (Brazilian) language. A quick email to our distribution BrazilianLoCo list with promises of eternal gratitude from $DEITY was able to attract a few replies and by Tuesday (or was it Monday???) night I met up with a few people at #ubuntu-br (Freenode) who were willing to spend some time doing the job.

Packaging for Debian Linux

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Complying with my decision to learn how to package software for Debian-based distros, I spent some (unfortunately very little) time this weekend going over this tutorial on packaging for Debian. Almost everything worked as per the instructions, minus some minor changes I had to perform in order to end up with a working .deb file. The experience was very rewarding and I have already started to plan more “real world” practice trials to get the hang of it!

Visual Studio 2005 Launch

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Got my reservation for Dec. 1st… Should be very interesting! Not to mention they’ll be giving out FREE copies of it too to all attendees! =)

Installing Debian by Edd Dumbill

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Edd Dumbill’s article on how to install Debian is worth to check… and for a quick recipe-like instruction, check out (shameless plug) my article “Installing Debian For The Faint Of Heart.”

Stephan Hermann\'s influence

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

… or, how I finally got off my butt and became more involved with the open source community.

It was not long ago, during one of my recent rants about open source not always being open to non-contributors, that I first heard of Stephan Hermann. He had written something that really clicked with my way of thinking, and shortly after exchanging some emails/posts replies I was convinced that it was about time I got more involved with the community. I didn’t want to be one of those individuals who talk a lot but doesn’t do anything about it. It was thanks to Stephan that I finally joined the Ubuntu Brazilian (Portuguese) Translation Team in Launchpad and started translating documents and applications for the upcoming release of Ubuntu. Granted I couldn’t spent much time every day on it, neither could I hang out in #ubuntu for my company blocks all ports, I still managed to squeeze a few minutes here and there… and it was a great feeling knowing that my work will benefit hundreds of Portuguese speaking people to use Ubuntu in their native language! And every time I couldn’t work on it, I wished I had more free time to contribute more!

Geek\'s Supermarket?

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Is Less Better?

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been following a very interesting discussion that has taken place these last few days on Planet Debian about application usability and how much information exposed to a user is too much. In one end you have Axel Beckert (with some commentary support by Wouter) talking about how some of the new changes made to the Galeon web browser have actually “crippled it” for the more “advanced” user. On the other side of the “rink” is Erich Schubert, who believes that most users are not interested in seeing every possible configuration option a web browser has to offer.

Boom Baby!

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Am now officially part of the Ubuntu Brazilian Portuguese Translators!!! And it only took me a few days of bothering the team administrator on #ubuntu-br and some 281 translations too… ;)

Ticket to Ride

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

For the third time in my life I got a traffic ticket this past Friday. Now, I know I was wrong and parked under a sign that clearly stated no one was allowed to park on that side of the street until 6pm (it was 5:30pm when I pulled up to pick up my daughter from school). But $60 for parking on an empty side street, without blocking any garages, fire hydrants, or important land mark??? Really, how many StarBucks’ White Chocolate Mochas can you get for $60? I promptly pulled out my checkbook, wrote a check for it, and mailed it this Sunday. It should prevent me from taking stupid chances again for a while…

Free Visual Basic 2005 Book

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Thought I’d share with my fellow programmers my latest finding: Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers. You can download the entire book (approx. 15MB) on individual chapters in PDF format. Now, if Microsoft would only release the bloody thing already! ;) If anyone know of a similar book for C#, please post back.

Helping out Ubuntu

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Over the weekend I finally took the first step towards my resolution to take a more active role in helping out the open source community. As of last Friday, I joined the hordes of developers and open source enthusiasts who signed up for Ubuntu’s LaunchPad project and offered to help with the ongoing process of translating applications and documents from English to Portuguese (Brazil). I spoke with the organizer for this specific translation effort and was told to submit suggestions to some of the sections still pending.

Firefox 1.0.7 Upgrade for Ubuntu Linux

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday a lot of people hanging out on #ubuntu @ FREENODE were complaining of Firefox crashes in Ubuntu Linux after upgrading to the latest 1.0.7 version. This will only happen if you’ve enabled Ubuntu Backports in your apt-get setup. Luckly, Cyphase took the time to write up a small HowTo that will help you fix this minor glitch. For the console-afficionado out there just execute:

sudo apt-get remove firefox firefox-gnome-support mozilla-firefox mozilla-firefox-gnome-support sudo apt-get install mozilla-firefox mozilla-firefox-gnome-support

KPL: Kid\'s Programming Language

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

KPL, or Kid’s Programming Language

is modeled on the simplicity and readability of BASIC, but it is a structured rather than linear programming language. KPL lets kids see eye-catching and immediate results from their programs, while teaching them fundamental concepts like variables, data types, loops, decision structures, methods and functions. KPL’s data types include integers, decimals, strings, booleans, arrays, and user-defined structures.

Visual Studio users will feel right at home with KPL’s IDE as it will, as the web page smartly states, “graduate” young coders to the more professional interfaces. One thing that it did catch my eye was its C# and VB.NET code generation from the KPL source.

Scratching One\'s Itch

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

On his latest post about Linux usability, St. Hermann replies to Andres Solomon’s comment about the typical Linux developer’s mentality and how users choose their favorite distros.

It has been shown (through blogs, mailing lists, etc) before that the typical Linux developer (here I’m mostly refering to application developers/maintainers) will often feel irritated if someone doesn’t follow the proper protocols for giving him feedback… Let me say this again so not to leave any doubts: Some user finds some application/code appealing to their need and wants to provide the author/maintainer some feedback, in order to improve said application/code… and the author/maintainer gets offended by it! All because someone who, chances are, is not very computer savyy and doesn’t know how to “properly” file a bug. This is the equivalent of a mechanic feeling offended when someone pulls up to their shop with a broken car but who cannot explain all the mechanisms involved in the ignition system! “No, I won’t fix your car because you don’t know how to explain the problem in a way I can understand!”

Linux Sex Positions

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Hehehe… Too funny not to post here! Be warned that this link will contain graphic scenes of wild penguins doing all sorts of Kama Sutra-like positions, such as:

Patching the Kernel
Backend Arch
Mounting the Hard Disk
Embedding the Stack
Partitioning the Drive

and your favorite:

Piercing the Firewall

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

A big thanks goes to my friend SuperToadman for blogging about Steve Jobs’ commencement address to Stanford’s Class of 2005 graduates delivered on this past June 12, 2005. It talks among several things about loving what you do… About being able to look back on your life and “connect the dots…” To make every day of your life count!!! Needless to say I completely agree with what he said and am desperately looking for a way to follow what my heart urges me to do!

Surface

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I caught a huge break (my daughter fell asleep much earlier than usual) and was able to watch some of the Giants x Saints game, as well as catch the first episode of the new tv show Surface. Though I’m not too much into tv shows and only selectively watch a few shows (Scrubs, Seinfeld and Frasier re-runs, Futurama, Whose Line Is It? Fresh Prince, among others), the preview teasers for Surface had me salivating with anticipation. I know, the plot itself is nothing new and has definitely been done before… but somehow it still managed to get me excited.

Once upon a time

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a picture of yours truly at age ~10-11 (I’m the guy in the middle). My younger sister (the one wearing green) decided to “baptize” her doll and convinced our mom to “throw a party”… and that’s what she got!!! I was the “priest” and the “couple” to the left were the “godparents.” We had lots of real food and drinks… everything decorated too!!!

Man, how great were those days! Not a single worry on my mind and lots of playing time!

Thanks Mr. President

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to our President visiting NYC for that U.N. meeting “thing,” it only took me one extra hour to make it to work! Since our company’s policy doesn’t allow us to “make up” for lost time by staying late or coming in earlier, his visit just cost me 1 hour off my salary!

For Geeks Only

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

King of the Hill

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

365 Days of Captivity

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I completed my first year of work at this NYC departmental agency… That’s 365 days of 2-3 hours commute… approximately $11 parking, $10.50 tolls daily… 365 days having to buy this watered down, taste-like-piss liquid they insist in calling coffee… 365 days of being constantly reminded (directly and indirectly) that I don’t belong here and am “just a consultant” with no rights or say in anything… and worse of all, 365 days of getting home very tired and not being able to enjoy the few hours I have (from around 7pm to 10pm) with my young daughter and wife!

Gtk\# Hacking

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Spent my lunch break doing (finally) some Gtk# / Mono hacking today. I basically started porting a Window program I’ve been tinkering with to remind me of my bills. So far it’s been a lot of fun! Hope to be able to find more time and even spend some time on IRC to pick up a few tricks.

Belgian Beers Rule!

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

'nough said!

When Geeks Attack!

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

About 2 weekends ago I had the privilege of meeting up with my good friend Supertoadman at a diner! He had come down to my neck of the woods to visit his “special friend” and managed to take some time off to hang out. We mostly talked about our last camping trip and, as expected, about computers! He ended up picking up the tab, which made me wish I had order the filet mignon! ;)

Open Source Planets: Members Only?

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I meant to post this early this weekend but had too many things happening simultaneously and didn’t get a chance. I’m an avid reader of several Open Source blogging “planets” and religiously read them every day in order to keep up with new developments or just to pick up a few things here and there. I’d say that most of the time I really enjoy the posts that get published but every now and then come across a few posts which I find inclined to post a reply.

The need for speed

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Imagine yourself off on a bus going on a business trip at some far away place. This being a far away place, you eventually fall into a very heavy sleep and loose track of time and direction. Several hours later (or maybe even days?) you are awaken by someone who, speaking a different dialect seems to be telling you that the bus has reached its destination. Still a bit groggy from the sleep you shrug off this incident, grab your bag and step out of the bus and… To your surprise, you realize that the bus station seems somewhat odd and different from what you had expected… and when paying closer attention you also notice that every thing, people, stores signs, even trees, look different. Approaching a booth that you can only assume to be the information booth (judging from the big neon question mark hanging from the ceiling right above it), you calmly ask the attendant which train will take you to your next destination. The lady, always with the dry smile on her lips, promptly replies:

Night at the Opera

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, following the announcement that the folks behind the Opera web browser were giving away registration keys (the FREE part is implied) in celebration of their 10th anniversary, I too took the time to download a Linux version to see what the big deal was.

Opera is yet another web browser that is freely available for several different operating systems (Linux and Windows included) with a small caviat: The un-registered version has a toolbar-like banner displaying adds while you browse. I never really gave it a chance and completely gave up on it… maybe the banner had something to do with it… You see, I don’t mind paying for software that I like! I have actually bought packaged Slackware and Red Hat CDs after the fact that I had been using them for quite some time… It was my way of thanking all the developers behind their respective distributions for all their time and effort. I have also paid for my dad’s Zone Alarm Pro! But I am very happy with Mozilla Firefox and figured it made no sense to buy something for something else at the time.

Music Ownership

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

While telling a co-worker how I managed to listen to my private *.ogg music files, I was asked if my music collection was “legal?” Having never spent much attention or time trying to understand what the music industry’s peeve with music swappers, I started to think out loud what the answer should be to his question. The logic I used was as follows:

All of my current music files were originally encoded from my own, store-bought CDs… I have pretty much gotten away with keeping the real CDs at home because [lengthy explanation followed here]… and decided to keep a digitized copy stored in one of my many external hard drives. Following the fact that I legally own my CDs, I can only assume that the answer to your question is:Yes, my current music collection ISlegal!!!

Installing iWhax Linux on VMWare 5

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

My good friend from `The Land of the Rum <http://www.ogmaciel.com/?p=166>`__ has spent the last 4-5 days attempting to install iWhax Linux onto him Windows XP laptop via VMWare 5. If I remember correctly, there weren’t a lot of usefull information “out there” in the web and the few posts we (I also did some googling on the side for him) came across were either inacurate or not very newbie friendly. I remember that I borrowed his laptop this last Friday and tried some of the “recipes” but the automated installation script (don’t remember the exact location in the iWhax menu) failed miserably every single attempt.

Comic Buddy\# Reborn?

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Been talking to someone from work quite extensive about Linux, Mono and C# these last 4 days. So much in fact that I looked back at my old pet project, Comic Buddy#. This had been a VB6 application I had written several years ago to allow me to browse all/any Calvin and Hobbes or Garfield comic strip that were (back then) freely available online. These comics, together with many others are still housed and fiercely maintained by a group (the company name and web site url left out on purpose) that has recently changed their policies concerning the viewing of said strips.

Office Space

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Legend:

Ship’s Captain - The V.P. for a certain local organization. Slave Master - Works for the Ship’s Captain. Has the ability to send shivers down the spines of most slaves and turn her Pacers into docile puppies. Pacer - Works for the Slave Master, mostly by pretending to control the Slaves and licking the Slave Master’s feet with their bifurcated tongues. Slaves - Bottom dwellers at said “ship.” Spend their days avoiding the “ship’s staff” and minding other Slaves’ business. Rowing (both hands) - Equivalent of doing some type of work. Rowing (one hand)- Doing less work while using other hand for other business; usually talking on the cell phone. Galleys - Outside of your work area. Chatting - Talking about non-work related subjects. Land of the Rum - A place in the Caribbean sea. Slashing - Type of work that would insult the brain of an amoeba… oh wait… Amoebas don’t even have brains… Amoeba - Our ship’s DBAs.

O.G.: Observation Guardian

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Just because I’m a geek and the guys at p.d.o. are doing it… ;)

The Chicken and the Egg

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

During one of those lucid moments of spontaneous philosophical discussions I have with my wife while driving to work, I came up with the following question:

Assuming you follow Christianity’s point of view about the creation of the world and human kind, you most likely know that God gave life to Adam and Eve, Earth’s first inhabitants. They proceeded to follow his advice of propagating the race and gave birth to 3 kids (I believe they were all of masculine gender). Now there were a total of 5 inhabitants. How do you then explain the process by which the entire planet became populated when there were no other, how can I put this without being politically incorrect, available females to complement the procreative process?

Ammendment to shopping spree

Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I forgot to add 2 other items purchased during said shopping spree:

The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow: I wanted to buy their album ever since I heard 2 of their songs in the soundtrack CD for “Garden State”. Good listening!

Bluegrass Today: I confess… I’m addicted to bluegrass music!!! There, you’re happy???

Linux 14th Birthday

Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow will be the 14th anniversary of the birth of Linux!

You got the medicine that can cure my disease

Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

After the first shock-wave caused by the announcement of Google Talk and the lack of a client for non-Microsoft operating systems, I’m glad to inform that you’ll be able to join in the fun using some of the other supported open source clients. Since I use Gaim for all my instant messenger needs, here's the info on how to set it up.

Shopping Spree

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Right before I succumbed to some major infection and spend most of my Sunday and Monday in bed in agonizing pain and fever, I managed to buy a few things:

Band of Brothers (DVD set) - Finally managed to buy it! Back in February while attending Linux World in Boston, I watched the first 7 1/2 episodes at Supertoadman’s house. About 3 weeks ago I mustered enough courage to cough up the $100+ for the set only to forget to pick it up at the register. The last 3 episodes are very good and I was saddened when I finished episode 10…

Snubbed by Google Sidebar

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Google announced today their new tool Sidebar, “a panel on your desktop which provides convenient, one-glance access to all sorts of personalized information." It looks nice but I won’t be able to try it out since they didn’t bother to create a Linux version! You’d think that at least Google would have considered the open source community. This really blows but I’ll survive.

Down in the dumps

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Once again, I see my chance of relocating to Chapel Hill, NC crumble down at the last second… This time around the prospect was much better than the previous one: same compensation as I have now at a fast-paced software development company. I even had all the required skills! What really ticks me is that after the initial phone blitz from the recruiter he just left me hanging for 3 days… until I emailed him to pretty much say “throw me a friggin’ bone here!” Turns out, he replied, that I didn’t have enough experience working for a software development company. Never mind they develop software for pharmaceutical companies and that I have a B.S. in Biochemistry and over 7 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical field!!! Had I not emailed him I’d still be waiting for an answer…

Feedster Registered

Wed, 17 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Title says it all.

No Need to Click Here - I’m just claiming my feed at Feedster

Hockey Advocate

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Now that all those clowns from the NHL have come to terms with their differences and a new hockey season has been confirmed for this Fall, I can officially announce the creation of my brand new blog: Hockey Advocate! This is the realization of a long-term dreamof mine for I’m a complete hockey fanatic and always wanted to have a web site dedicated to the sport. Being I die-hard New Jersey Devils fan, chances are most of my posts will be related to their affairs but I’ll try to live up to the blog’s title and add comments about “the other teams.” ;) I still need to add a few extra things to the page (such as statistical information, etc) and some custom made art items. Can someone create a nice banner for the site? I’ll more than gladly advertise the author’s page.

Pictorial Weekend

Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

..image:: http://photos21.flickr.com/34092814_74214baa58_o.jpg

..image:: http://photos23.flickr.com/34092817_7c242579d6_o.jpg

..image:: http://photos23.flickr.com/34092816_a5da1dbcb8_o.jpg

..image:: http://photos21.flickr.com/34092815_2542e0962f_o.jpg

..image:: http://photos21.flickr.com/34092814_74214baa58_o.jpg

..image:: http://photos23.flickr.com/34092817_7c242579d6_o.jpg

..image:: http://photos23.flickr.com/34092816_a5da1dbcb8_o.jpg

..image:: http://photos21.flickr.com/34092815_2542e0962f_o.jpg

Amazing Wallpapers

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Absolutely amazing wall papers at VladStudio Companion. My 20.1’ Sony monitor now looks more like an art piece than anything. I highly recomend it! Check out my current desktop below:

0wn3d???

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Today Firefox gave me a major scare when, instead of logging me to my website so I could write a post, it took me to http://meta.wikipedia.org!!! WTF??? I then fired up IE and tried it with success! I fugured something was up with Firefox but decided to do some more detective work. I successfully logged to my web host’s control panel and checked the internet stats for the last few days… Boy, was I shocked when I saw this:

How To Speak Australian

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

[Australian outback background music plays]

[Announcer] How to speak Australian…

[Husband and wife are seen doing their laundry… doing their food shopping… cleaning / dusting their house… cooking and feeding their kid… all shown in fast motion]

[pause]

[Announcer] Day off!

It occured to me while replying to a friend’s post that we New Jersey(ians)/Yorker(ers) seem to live by a different drum beat! Lately I’ve been hearing stories of people doing a lot of fun stuff and/or taking the time to read… or just nap… or just watch their toes nail grow! Meanwhile, it’s the rat race for us over here!

Idiot Of The Year Award\...

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

… goes to 18-year-old Scott Harper of Armonk, N.Y., who “plunged from the upper deck at Yankee Stadium onto the screen behind home plate during Tuesday night’s game between New York and the Chicago White Sox, then was taken to a hospital for observation.” (ESPN)

Apparently, this “super gifted” individual wanted to see if the net would hold his weight.

Xml Performance Checklist

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Straight from Microsoft’s Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability: Improving XML Performance:

Design Considerations

Check

Description

Choose the appropriate XML class for the job.

Consider validating large documents.

Process large documents in chunks, if possible.

Use streaming interfaces.

Consider hard-coded transformations.

Consider element and attribute name lengths.

Consider sharing the XmlNameTable.

Parsing XML

Check

Description

Use XmlTextReader to parse large XML documents.

Use XmlValidatingReader for validation.

Consider combining XmlReader and XmlDocument.

Back From The Dead

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Nice to see my close friend Toadman back to the blogosphere! And what a comeback it has been! Apparently he’s been busy jotting down all of the dirty secrets he’d been keeping from me all these days! Welcome back dude!

Gentoo GUI Installer

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

From the Gentoo documentation page:

“The Gentoo Installer project aims to create an widely extensible install engine that allows for a diverse set of attended and un-attended install options. All functionality will exist in the backend, exposed through a stable API. Planned front ends include text, gtk2, fully automated, and web-based interfaces.”

I’m a somewhat “seasoned” Gentoo Linux user and have performed the installation (and post installation maintenance, etc) process several times on a few different plataforms. Eventhough the documentation pages do a great job at explaining the steps involved in installing and running Gentoo, I can see how someone with little experience in Linux (specially the command line) would run away from this distro. The installation is painfull and it takes a loooong time. Granted you’ll end up utilizing all the resources your machine has to offer when the smoke clears, but most users won’t really notice any difference. This graphical installer should attract more users and one won’t have to print out (or have a separate console with Lynx browsing the documentation pages) the massive installation manual. I really hope the die-hard command line lover, orthodox Gentoo users will support this new project!

Remembering Hiroshima

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Source: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/images/historical/hiroshima.jpg

I can’t believe I forgot to blog about one of the biggest act of cowardice in human history: This past Saturday, August 6th 2005 marked 60 years since the US dropped an atomic bomb (codenamed Little Boy) over Hiroshima! In a matter of seconds, complete generations were literally wiped off the face of the Earth and the Empire of Japan brought down to their knees had no other choice but surrender during WWII. Apparently, real footage and pictures of Hiroshima after the blast had been censured in the US for many decades and we haven’t really learned or heard the true effects that this act had on the entire nation. Maybe if people had heard the true stories of people literally melting down due to the extensive heat (and probably atomic radiation) they had been exposed and the subsequent after effects and mutation-related diseases and birth defects that most likely evolved later on, we would have made August 6th a day of mourning and remembrance of the day the human race decided to open Pandora’s Box!

View From Work

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Took this picture the day before my surgery. Laptop running Ubuntu Linux allows me to browse with more freedom…

Weekend Update

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

After enjoying several days of free wi-fi hotspots pretty much every where I went, my mom’s neighbor finally turned the WEP on and I spent a un-wired Friday afternoon. Took the time to do some reading and watched some tv. Went home Saturday morning and found out my main computer’s power supply had gone kaput… Luckly there is a computer supply store literally around the block and $40 later I was back on business. Ended up picking up a new Western Digital 200GB hard drive and replacing the one I had (It had started giving me I/O error messages and made installing Ubuntu virtually impossible for me). I promptly installed Ubuntu Hoary and am now happily using all of the features this AMD64 has to offer!

Lazy Summer Day

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Spent a uneventful and quiet day with my dad. Played a bit of tennis in the park and had BBQ for lunch. Got an email from a friend who got free wi-fi while on the beach in Atlantic City. Bastard! :) I’m still a bit sore but managed to catch some quality Zs last night. My younger sister is in town so it should be a fun weekend.

From The Frying Pan Into The Fire

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Literally! Spent an agonizing sleep-less night after my surgery yesterday. My keloids were removed with a CO2 laser and whatever if left of my earlobes feel as if I had deep fried them in boiling sulfuric acid! Drinking an extremely cold Cappuccino Blast from Donkey Donuts helped a bit but later in the evening it was a mix of 2 extra stregth Tylenols + 1 Motrin that helped ease the pain. Got up early today (since I couldn’t really sleep, unable to shift from the only position I could be) and what a day it is! My weather applet on my laptop says it is 86 F right now. And the weather man says it will go up to the mid 90s! As funny as this may sound, I bet it is much, much nicer at work right now!

Waiting For The Butcher

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Am here at my dad’s awaiting the time for my surgery (scheduled for later today at 2pm) and doing some surfing, thanks to some kind neighbor and his/her open hot spot. ;) Brought (my dad) my old Lynksis router so he can have some piece of mind against the kiddies. Will hopefully switch to our own wi-fi soon…

Time Off

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Having spent the last week doing some actual work and preparing for a presentation at work, I’m now taking some time off so I can take care of myself. Tomorrow I will undergo a small procedure to remove some growth from my earlobes (called keloids, due to the piercing of my ears during my teens) and will spend the rest of the week at home, trying to get back in shape. This whole thing really sucks and many aspects. Being a contractor (who have been taking advantage by my agency due to my lack of experience working as a contractor) I don’t really have (paid) vacation or sick days. Now that I’m being forced to take this so called “vacation” I will not be able to take a real one later on the year. Not that my employer wouldn’t let me take some time off before the end of the year, but because it would cost me dearly not getting paid for 2 weeks. I will also be in pain for most of this week so forget about doing anything “fun.” Since the procedure uses a CO2 laser to remove the keloids, it will feel like a 3rd degree burn with all the skin oozing and sticky mess that comes with it. I will also be limited to sleeping on my back only, which could cause some major discomfort. Oh well, enough whining for now…

Taking Drivel For A Spin

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Just taking Drivel for a spin! So far it seems to work. Just make sure to choose MovableType as your journal type and use http://%5Byour.blog.goes.here%5D/xmlrpc.php as the url.

Guns, Germs, & Metal

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Though this is not a review for the book and tv show with the same title, it is about some of the topics portraid in both: The colonization of our planet and how our socio-economic make-up came to be as influenced by “guns, germs, and metal.” I had thought of writing about it before and have been procrastinating it for quite some time. I believe the reason behind this delay was because I wasn’t confident I’d be able to properly express my ideas in writing without making it sound boring or without proper foundation. Though my confidence in my writing skills haven’t really changed, I strongly feel that someone should say something about it.

Brand New Engine

Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Have spent the last 3-4 days re-designing Wicked Reader. I completely got rid of the RSS.NET backend and wrote a brand new one from scratch. RSS.NET is a great library to get you started and may even be just what the doctor ordered depending on your project. However, I found myself tweaking it and completely taking it apart in order to get what I needed. Last Friday, frustrated of doing so many modifications and spending quite some time writing code to conform with the library, I decided enough was enough. Today, WickedReader.NET (a dll) took its first mature steps. I’ve already done all the modifications to the application itself and have ported everything over to use the new dll. As far as the application itself, I’ve added an About form and finally added the Remove feed option. So far, nobody’s offered to help out… but then again, it is not like I’ve been advertising about it either… ;)

VMWare and World of Warcraft: Rematch

Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Here I am on my second attempt at installing World of Warcraft into my virtual Windows XP computer (through VMWare) on a Gentoo Linux. So far I have been able to bypass the first obstacle I had encountered on my first attempt and things seem to be moving along… Will post future developments later…

Update: The installation borked on CD 4 of install… Back to doing some more research… WoW 2 x 1 Me.

Search Engines As World Nations

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Funny write up comparing the 3 most used web search engines to world countries:

[snip]

Microsoft is Germany. They did some pretty evil things a while back but you don’t remember the details, you just know that you really hate them…

[snip]

Yahoo is Japan. It had an economic crisis that almost destroyed it and it plays too nice with all of the other evil empires, supporting the most evil endeavors…

Wicked Reader 0.4

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Forgot to post a screenie for my last changes to WickedReader: Buttons to refresh, add, and remove (this one yet to be added mainly due to lazyness from my part) feeds, and a Sage-like html rendering of all posts for a given feed or individual posts. I have done so many changes to the underlying “engine” (RSS.NET) that I’ve decided to re-write it from scratch. Have spent these last 2 days elbow deep into the new code. I could definitely use some help, specially with the data parsing… Any volunteers?

Le Tour de Nat

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Very amusing play-by-play recount of Nat Friedman's adventorous attempt to travel from his hometown of Boston to the very tip of Cape Cod by bike! The reason: Insanity could be a great part of it, but apparently he just wants to prove someone wrong. Apparently Nat has to make it back to Boston for a party later the same evening. Updated every so often with pictures, videos, and witty comments. A must!

VMWare and World of Warcraft

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

My first attempt to install and play World of Warcraft on a virtual Windows XP pc (through VMWare) running atop Gentoo Linux has hit its first obstacle. Haven’t really done any research but it seems to me that accessing the CD-ROM at the “raw” level is the culprit. More to follow.

Virtual Windows XP

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Here is what’s kept me up late these last 3 nights: Installing Gentoo Linux onto Houdini (AMD 64 3400+ 1GB RAM) and getting Windows XP to run under VMWare. This may be a bit unorthodox but I wanted to have access to some Windows-only applications (such as Visual Studio 2003) without having to keep an extra computer at home with the sole purpose of running Windows. I wonder if I can install and play WoW under this scenario without much of a performance loss???

Windowless Existence

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

When you spend most of your time “locked up” in a cubicle maze (as I do) day in, day out, this may not be too funny! ;)

Link

Getting Better

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Some more coding today gave me this:

The New Kid On The Block

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Been spending some quality hacking time these last few days, basically re-writting my tentative Rss reader application. The first 2 iterations relied on the Rss.NET code library but after hitting some major obstacles I sort of “left it by the side of the road” while I re-grouped my ideas. Last week I finally gathered enough ideas to go back to “production.” I decided to hack away at the Rss.NET library and turn it into a smaller, lean, and meaner piece of code. With that said, I have spent every precious little free time I get working on the new version. At first I thought I’d call it RssReader.NET but am now toying with the new name of WickedReader… Suggestions are welcome!

Generation Linux

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

After “Generation X” and the one after that, I present you “Generation Linux”!!!

SuperToadman

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

My most sincerey wishes of a Happy Birthday to my great friend SuperToadman! May your balls never shrink and your limbs never go limp! ;)

Conspiracy Theory

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

More interesting comments on the London bombing and how politicians are seizing the moment to run their personal agendas…

Do people really believe that the goal of the terrorists is to destroy our freedom? Or that they hate our way of life? (E.g, Tony BlairÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s remarks). IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢d be interested to know the origin of this themeÃ¢â‚¬â€?at some point, the cold war anti-Soviet rhetoric was somehow adapted to the war on terror.

Miss TechTV? Not Me!!!

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Read some nostalgic posts about the now defunt tv show The Screen Savers. It made it sound like it was a great show! PUAH! TSS was an interesting show back in the pre-Sarah-and-Kevin-and-hottie-girls-wearing-mini-skirts era! During the last 2-3 seasons of its existence they completely lost its charm, switching from a simple show that was actually helpfull to the computer illiterate or novice, to a super commercialized show. Almost all of their reviews and segments involved some type of commercial application and some of the new members showed complete ignorance of the material they were supposedly covering. It was very rare when they did any significant Open Source or Linux coverage, and even then Kevin Rose (so called Dark Tipper) seemed to be following some type of recipe. To those of you still crying about the show being sacked: GET OVER IT!

The Violent Cycle

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Dom Lachowicz's post about this morning's London terrorism acts touched upon a very delicate subject: how other countries perceive the United States. I agree with almost every one of his sacarsm-filled bulletted reasons why “they” hate “us” but in the end I think his emotions got the best of him:

"Try walking a mile in their shoes. If I were in a Saudi’s shoes, I might want to blow shit up. I’d imagine that most people would feel the same."

Awkward Places To Run Into Your Job Interviewer

Wed, 06 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Another gem from Piled Higher and Deeper comic! It reminded me of my last job interview… Right before I was interviewed by “the boss” I asked to use the restroom. “Sure,” he said. “I also need to go.” So there we were standing side by side making small talk… Now THAT was awkward!

Screenie

Tue, 05 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Spent some time hacking my new app during the holidays… Also did some tweaking on my laptop… Figured I’d show a screenie here… So, without further ado…

Easy Day

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

It was a pretty easy day today. Made the best out of my new freedom by listening to Radio Paradise all day along. Also did some serious hacking on my new, upcoming application… Life is good! Looking forward to doing some more hacking over the weekend and BBQ’ing. Will also try to rack up some more levels with my WoW character.

Freed At Last!

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

FREE NON-PROXY WIFI ACCESS AT WORK, thanks to my buddy kaegis!!! Woot!!!

Honest or Stupid?

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Today I went for a job interview for a company about 35 miles West of where I live. The interview was scheduled for 10am and I was to meet the recruiter outside the building 15 minutes before the scheduled 2 hour ordeal. It took me about 30 minutes to get there and for the next 15 minutes the sales rep gave me a pep talk about the company and position.

Snippet Compiler

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I often find myself creating a new .NET project every time I want to try some simple piece of code, which is not only overkill sometimes but also counter productive if you need to sift thorugh the different folders for an specific piece of code… Even when you find it you end up having to create yet another project to test it out. While discussing with a friend about a very annoying Xml Serialization error I was getting at work, I was pointed to Snippet Compiler and a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders! This application is awsome for it basically allows you to run snippets (what else?) of .NET code without ever creating projects and solutions! It has some other features such as intellisense, etc, but the ability of just being able to test things quickly is in my oppinion the best feature! Get yours today!

Epiphany

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

One other reason why I haven’t been blogging much these days is because I’ve been focusing every little bit of free time I have reading up on business and economics. This must be a shock for those who have known me for a while. I had never, ever in my 31 years of age cared about either subject. My perspective about money was that of something that was too hard to get and keep! I remember that my plans for my future after college would be to become this kick ass scientist and eventually offer the results of my research up to the general public FREE of charge! Don’t get me wrong, I still would like to offer any/all fruits of my labor “for the good of society”, but… Life after college wasn’t very kind to me and I never became the successfull and famous scientist I wanted to be… and I got married. Having spent the last 7+ years working my butt off, day in day out just so that I could afford a roof over my head and live a decent life, I’m more than ready to get out of this rat race! Last week I came across a very interesting article titled something more or less like “How to become a millionaire.” All my life I have avoided these types of articles/shows/books/younameit mainly because I always expected it to be some kind of scam. This time around something made me take the time to read it… I guess it was my disappointment after checking the lottery results and not getting any of the 6 numbers… Who knows??? All I know is that a light went off in me and all of a sudden I felt like learning more about MONEY! My dad will be very proud of me since it only took me 31 years to finally take to heart what he’s been hammering in my head all these years. From that article (which I can’t seem to remember the name or url) I moved on to a book called “Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter… I just could not put it down!!! Another 1,000 light bulbs went off in me and I immediately went out and bought more books!!! I also started doing things that I had never done before, such as watch the market and some specific stocks. Now, don’t assume that I’m this naive guy who believes everything he reads or hears poeple talk about making money, for I am not. What these books HAVE done to me is make me pay more attention to what’s going on around me and not take money or economics for granted any more. Thanks to that initial article and "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" I no longer tune people out when house buying and mortages become the subject during social gatherings. For one thing, I feel that I have been depriving myself from learning a very interesting subject, one which has the potential of not only enriching my mind but also giving me the bonus possibility of hopefully improving my financial situation. I have been reborn as a capitalist!

Holding My Breath

Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Well, it’s been a while since I wrote anything here (or any where for that matter). Besides being busy with my daughter being sick all last week, there was a major reason for my absence: Last Friday I was phone interviewed for a job at `Microsoft <http://www.microsoft.com>`__ and afraid I’d jinx myself by telling anyone, I refrained from blogging. I’d say the interview went very well but in the end I don’t think I had everything the position required. Namely, my lack of ASP.NET programming experience might have influenced their decision and could explain why I haven’t heard back from them. Friday was the second phase of the interview process, which started approximately one week before that with a questionnaire via an email. I was very shocked when I first received their email asking me if I’d be interested in applying for a position at their Mac division in Redmond, WA. I filled out the questionnaire but wasn’t expecting anything out of it. So you can probably imagine my surprise when they emailed me back asking me when would be an appropriate time for a phone interview! Since they were looking for a Senior level ASP.NET position I’m very sure I’m out of the game already. But it is good to know that my resume circulated someone’s desk at the biggest software company in the world!

College Diplomacy

Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Hehehe… Great strip from phdcomics.com. Reminded me of my college years!

It Was A Fix

Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

You are Windows 95. You look better than your older brother, but your communication skills are still lacking. You start well, but often zone out. Which OS are You?

Someone will pay for this! =)

Nothing Fanny About Ubuntu

Thu, 09 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Parody to the Ubuntu Linux logo. Not safe for the office viewing!

An Older But Sexier Fart!

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

So it is that time of the year again… The day when you take the time to ponder about your life, your past decisions… where you’re headed… It’s hard to believe but I’m 31 now! It’s been a pretty interesting 31 years so far, with its shares of good and bad times. Looking forward to many more yet to come!!! Happy birthday to me!!!

Get Your Beer Straight

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been known to drink “socially” a few beers here and there but I must confess that I don’t really know much about the subject. I often rely on my taste buds OR how warm the weather is and how cold the beer is. But alas! I have just found this great site which will tell you all about pretty much any beer out there along with usefull reviews and definitions. So if you don’t know the difference between a Schwarzbier, a Pilsener, and a Stout, then your problems are now over.

Pulp Fiction In 30 Seconds

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Want to see Pulp Fiction compressed to 30 seconds??? Re-enacted by bunnies??? Check it out!

Sarge Is Out

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Congratulations to all Debian developers/contributors out there! Version 3.1 (codenamed Sarge) has just been releasedwith 3+ years worth of development, sweat, tears and hard work going into the process!

Cuba + Linux = Cuba Libre

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I completely missed this little nugget:

"Cuba will gradually switch to the open-source Linux operating system for its state computers, eliminating its exclusive use of Microsoft Windows, the government daily Juventud Rebelde reported"

If they succeed with this migration Cuba will become (I believe) the first nation to completely go Open Source! Maybe Brazil will be next???

Good Debian Server Setup HOWTO

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year OSNews published my article titled "Installing Debian Linux For The Faint Of Heart." Today I came across another article dealing with the same subject. Now, I know people have hammered these types of articles to death in the net but this one sounded worth the risk of mentioning. For one thing, it covers hardening your bare-bones Debian server which, IMHO should be worth looking at no matter what.

More Material For My Thesis

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

My previous post talked about how our lives are getting registered in the internet, free for everyone and anyone to see. Today I learned about this site which has only strengthened my “thesis.”

"is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard."

Some of these so called postcards are the scariest things I’ve seen online in quite some time… Rather disturbing…

Cyber Archeologists Will Google Dig

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Having read this yesterday on how Google has become such a major presence in our life style, today’s article in the NY Times showed me yet another facet to living in the 21st century. I can only imagine future archeologists performing “cyber-digs” in order to study civilizations from our time. Why travel to Egypt if you can uncover everything there is to know about the pyramids from the confort of your house using Google search and maps???

Picasa 2: Cool UI

Tue, 31 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I needed to do some image editing the other day and didn’t feel like installing anything “big and complicated” like Photoshop or PSP. Google’s Picasa software came to mind and I quickly downloaded it on my laptop. I misy tell you that I’m very impressed with user interface. Not as much with the features (which by the way are just enough for your daily crop-resize-remove red eye needs) but the looks of it! It has this Mac OS X-ish feel to it and it just plainly looks cool! I want my next application to look like that… very sexy and pleasing to the eyes… I find myself leaving it running so I can look at it from time to time! Hehehe I also like the fact that it automatically detects any new picture I save to my computer and makes an entry for it in the application. For those who don’t spend as much time in front of a computer as I do, this should be the ideal situation for when you plug in a digital camera to a pc. No matter how or when a new picture is stored into your computer, you can always see it in Picasa.

The Little Penguin Wine

Tue, 31 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Almost forgot… The other day I went to the public booze market and saw this little fellow:

Didn’t have a chance to taste it but if it is as good as some of the other Australian wines I’ve had and robust like Linux, then it should be great! =)

There And Back Again

Tue, 31 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

After driving approximately 1,014 miles over this Memorial Day weekend, I’m finally back home from Chapel Hill. Had a blast visiting my sister together with my wife and daughter. My older sister and uncle also tagged along to supposedly help out with the driving. Went to sleep at 1am on Thursday and got up at 4am!!! Managed to get there by 3pm and was completely overwhelmed by a feeling of peace. It felt like I was on a different planet all together. A planet where everybody slowed down to smell the flowers!!! There was so much nature and so little visible technology that I didn’t mind being cut out from the rest of the world for those 3 days. I woke up early every day and tried to make the best out of it. Besides relaxing and watching my daughter acting so happy all the time, I also managed to go to an open market (where I bought the best, juiciest peaches I have ever eaten in my life) Saturday morning and visit the Sarah P. Duke Gardens! One word: AWSOME!!! I had never seen such a beatiful place in my life either! Sunday we barbecued and big time pigged out while watching to some cool country music and drowning ourselves with some Belgina beer!

Wallpapers For Wide Screen

Tue, 31 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

http://mritche.net/wallpaper/widescreen/

Of Whidbey, Orcas, and Hawaii

Wed, 25 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

With the upcoming release of Whidbey (Visual Studio 2005) scheduled for some time this Summer, Microsoft has already been busy working on the next 2 versions: Orca and Hawaii. "Microsoft officials said that while Whidbey will help developers target the upcoming Longhorn operating system, Orcas will be the version of the tool set that will enable developers to ride what the company calls the Longhorn wave and tap the new features of the operating system. Hawaii will come shortly after Orcas to provide even more Longhorn-specific functionality and more." (eWeek.com)

Living In A Movie

Mon, 23 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Kinda scary when you can relate your job to a movie:

BOB SLYDELL Y’see, what we’re trying to do here, we’re just trying to get a feel for how people spend their day. So, if you would, would you just walk us through a typical day for you? PETER Yeah. BOB SLYDELL Great. PETER Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. I use the side door, that way Lumbergh can’t see me. Uh, and after that, I just sorta space out for about an hour. BOB PORTER Space out? PETER Yeah. I just stare at my desk but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. I’d probably, say, in a given week, I probably do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work.

My Google

Fri, 20 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Saw this today… Google has added a portal-like (www.google.com/ig) page. Seems very simplistic yet contains just enough info… Will set it as my home page from now on.

About To Get Rough

Thu, 19 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Today all consultants working for my current employer received the email below (contents changed to protect the innocents):

As the old-timers among you know, I periodically ask the IT consultants the gross annual or hourly pay you receive from your respective consultant firm. This information helps us determine the salary range and level of equity among the consultants of each work type/skill set; check that the consultant firm margins are somewhat reasonable, etc. Please return e-mail (to me only) the following info:

Portable Firefox 1.0.4 Released

Thu, 19 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Get your fresh copy of Portable Firefox 1.0.4 here. Indispensable for any “geek on the go.”

StarWars \"Last Supper\"

Wed, 18 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

It's A Wireless World After All

Mon, 16 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Incredible! Here I am waiting outside my wife’s doctor’s office, bored out of my mind when I decide to check if anyone had left me an open Wi-Fi AP. Much to my surprise, I found 8 completely available and am bored no more! =)

What Does It Mean???

Mon, 16 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

What does it mean when your direct supervisor keeps asking you to do some of his tasks and you know for a fact there’s no promotion involved? I guess my biggest “beef” is the type of stuff he asks me to write about:

What is .NET and what advantages does it offer?
What are the advantages of using Microsoft Visual Source Safe (VSS)?
What are the requirements for working on the code library we just purchased and have no documentation on???
What is ADO.NET and how can we use it?

This wouldn’t bother me as much but I was told (by my recruiter) I was joining a team of talented .NET developers when I took this job!!!

Where Do We Get These People?

Mon, 16 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

While typing my last post I was interrupted by a so-called “.Net Developer who just earned his PMP.” He’s been “featured” here before for asking “very intelligent questions.” =) This time he told me he had just bundled some application and given to a DBA to run it when they received an error message: Oracle[blah blah blah].dll not found!!!

"So this program you wrote is trying to connect to an Oracle database?", I asked. “Yes”. “And what technology are you using to connect?” “Huh???” “Are you using ODP.NET?” “HUH???” “Are you using Oracle Data Provider for .NET?” “Yes.” “Does the client also have it OR have you included it with your application?” “HUH???”

Watch Star Wars III with Microsoft

Sun, 15 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Received this email today:

Register for Microsoft’s private viewing of Star Wars Episode III

Date: May 20, 2005 Time: 2pm (check-in starts @1:00pm Ã¢â‚¬â€œ no earlybirds!) location: Loews Theatres at the Loop in Methuen 90 Pleasant Valley St., Methuen MA, 01844 , 978-738-8942

RSVP Today! Call 1-877-MSEVENT (673-8368) using Event Code: 1032275606

This is a special invitation-only event. Space is Limited.

Non-Transferable. One ticket per person

(Registration list will be matched to invitation list)

Dragging My Carcass

Fri, 13 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Been really busy attending the Project Management class these last 3 days. It’s been very interesting but there’s a lot of material and concepts to absorb. The end product of this is that I get home completely drained and just pass out! Been “running” off of a million cups of coffee and caffeinated snacks… Still haven’t had a chance to play with Perforce and have 4 new books awaiting for me at home. Hope to be able to do some hacking over the weekend since my new toy/hobby application (RssReader.NET) has been neglected for some time now… Damn it!!! Class started…

Away From My Desk

Wed, 11 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Starting today I will be stuck attending some training class for work. These “classes” start at 9am and end at 4:30pm, all through Friday! Hopefully I’ll get a chance to grab a cup of coffee in the next 5 minutes. Managed to update this blog to WordPress 1.5.1. Since this was a bux-fixing release, don’t expect to find anything changed here.

As a side note, am looking forward to some WoW playing time with Vinny tonight! Go, Ghost Force, Go!

Primavera Project Management Class

Wed, 11 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I was told to attend “a class” at work starting today. To be honest, I wasn’t very thrilled about the idea but since I didn’t think I had a choice, I prepared myself to spend some long, boring hours at the “class room.” Well, it turns out that besides learning to use a project management tool called Primavera, we are also learning what it takes to professionaly managed a project (from the IT perspective). I am actually completely awake and really enjoying the experience of “playing” the software manager for a ficticious company. I’d say this is the closest I have ever gotten to learning how to properly manage something. It has got to be also the first time I didn’t fall asleep during any type of training I’ve been to in a long time! By this Friday I should be in good shape to add this as a new skill under my belt and my resume.

Trying Out Perforce

Wed, 11 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Tonight I want to take a quick break from playing WoW and install Perforce SCM System at home:

The Perforce SCM System features comprehensive software configuration management capabilities built around a scalable client/server architecture. Requiring only TCP/IP, developers can access the Perforce Server through a variety of Perforce clients (GUIs for several platforms, Web, or Command-Line). Perforce can be deployed quickly and easily, and requires minimal administration, even for large or distributed sites.

A Hazy Shade Of Freedom

Tue, 10 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

After battling for a few days with a certain free (as in non-proxy-ed) wifi AP, I experienced approximately 5 minutes of unlimited freedom right after lunch. My friend Kelvin and I had spent a good chunk of our morning trying to figure out why the connection was dropping all the time but to no avail. I did some “googling” around and saw that some people have been complaining about the same problem but for me this only happens at this certain AP. At home the connection is rock solid! I got the suspicion that the problem is that the AP is now using WEP authentication but some other type (maybe Cisco’s LEAP?) that keeps fluctuating the WEP keys. That could explain why I sometimes get the connection and then it just drops! Anyhow, for 5 minutes today I experienced sheer joy when I was able to get a signal and listen to my favorite internet radio station… I need to spend some more time trying to figure out the solution to this mystery.

15 things you can do with RSS

Sun, 08 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I didn’t know you could do all of these with rss!!! Wow!!! Read the original post here.

Get the news as it happens from multiple news sources: An RSS feed reader is an aggregator of numerous feeds from news sources (and nearly every major paper and TV news network has RSS feeds today). But now there are even feeds that aggregate other feeds. The new RSSmix.com lets you combine all the news source RSS feeds into one single feed so you get news as it happens.

State of RssReaderNET

Fri, 06 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

RssReaderNET - v0.0.2

Originally uploaded by omaciel.

Haven’t received any offers of help with my RssReader.NET application… but it’s not like I was expecting offers anyhow. :) Yesterday and today I spent some time making some changes to the UI as well adding some new functionality. UI changes include:

Removed ComboBox control - Users will have to add new feeds via an interface.
Switched ListView control for a TreeView control - Will allow for expansion/collapsing of feeds and increase visibility of available posts.
Added a few buttons - These will disappear and are being used for testing purpose only.

New functionality include:

Sloganizer

Wed, 04 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Get yours here.

Close Call

Tue, 03 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Not in a blogging mood today… Got home last night at 9:30pm(!!!) and checked my messages: 1 new message! An old girl-friend crying and mumbbling about her sister (also an old good friend) having an accident… broken up telephone number to call back (she must have called from a cell phone… had to rewind message 2 times… Call number and a guy answers… After introductions (“Hi, I’m an old friend of such and such…”) learn that the sister had apparently “thrown herself out the window of her second floor apartment.” Find out which hospital she is and try to call… “Vising hours are over!” Shortly after a friend of the girl calls me and tells me a bit more info… Terrible accident due to alcohol… Fell off the fire exit ladder… broke 3rd vertebrae… just had surgery… removed a rib and used to to replace vertebrae(????)… Today I didn’t go to work and went early to the hospital. Spent 3 1/2 hours with my friend, trying to cheer her up and just plainly keep her company. Later in the morning an aunt showed up and stayed untill I left.

Reviewing The Reviewers: HG2G

Mon, 02 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I just had to get this off my chest! I have read a few “reviews” for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and am very annoyed by what everyone is saying. I’d say that 5% of these so called reviews say that nobody should see it due to its deviations from the original book, how they Hollywood-ed the plot by adding a romance, yadda, yadda… And I kept thinking: “So what the movie is not a transcription from book??? Does it have its own merits??? " Having read the book once and not yet seen the movie, I could care less if they made a few “tweaks” here and there. Can someone really envision a movie that would do justice to the book??? Unless they turned it into an animated feature (e.g. The Incredibles, Toy Story, etc) there is no way, no matter how much FX you use, that the movie would be just like the book! When I watched the “Lord of the Rings" trilogy I noticed how many things they left out from the books because there was just no possible way to replicate it in a movie! They even changed some of the things that happened to Aragorn but even with all of these things, I truelly enjoyed the movies!

RssReader.NET

Mon, 02 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Been spending some time using the RSS.NET library ("RSS.NET is an open-source .NET class library for RSS feeds. It provides a reusable object model for parsing and writing RSS feeds. It is fully compatible with RSS versions 0.90, 0.91, 0.92, and 2.0.1, implementing all constructs." and decided to create my own Rss reader. It still has a long way to go but it is in a semi-usefull state. I know there’s a million rss readers out there but if anyone is interested in working on this with me just drop me a line.

Beware of Crabs When Fishing

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Last night I decided to work on my plan of racking up World of Warcraft hours in order to beef up my character but since my friend Vinny was busy with his own quests, I decided to try my newly learned skill: fishing! As stupid as this may sound, I never thought that fishing in a game could be so… relaxing! I switched my character’s sword for a fishing pole and spent a good 15 minutes casting the line and watching the bobber. There was nobody around and I completely lost track of time… Soon enough I had 4 mackerels in my bag. That’s when I noticed some “clipping” sounds and my vital signal decreasing: a couple of crab-looking creatures came from behind me and started attacking me! It took me several seconds to realize what had just happened and even then my brain was still in fishing mode. I attempted to fend the creatures off with the fishing pole (I completely forgot to switch back to my sword) but ended up minced to pieces. The good thing was that I was able to return to the same spot, kill the evil creatures and am planning on using my also new skill of cooking to eat my mackerels! I wonder if they’ll spoil and start to smell???

Too Mathematical

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Your brain: 60% interpersonal, 60% visual, 100% verbal, and 180% mathematical!

Congratulations on being 400% smart! Actually, on my test, everyone is. The above score breaks down what kind of thinking you most enjoy doing. A score above 100% means you use that kind of thinking more than average, and a score below 100% means you use it less. It says nothing about how good you are at any one, just how interested you are in each, relatively. A substantial difference in scores between two people means, conclusively, that they are different kinds of thinkers. Matching Summary: Each of us has different tastes. Still, I offer the following advice, which I think is obvious:

Using Audioscrobbler

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Read some posts of people talking about Audioscrobbler today and decided to see what the noise was all about.

Audioscrobbler builds a profile of your musical taste using a plugin for your media player (Winamp, iTunes, XMMS, foobar2000, etc..). Plugins send the name of every song you play to the Audioscrobbler server, which updates your musical profile with the new song. Every person with a plugin has their own page on this site which shows their listening statistics. The system automatically matches you to people with a similar music taste, and generates personalised recommendations.

Game Night