Friday, January 25, 2008

Top 5 Videoclips

Gonçalo Viana got this meme type of thing going on were you are supposed to list your 5 favourite video clips, and since it was an open invitation I decided to take him on. Kinda. I made a point of choosing only one clip by artist (or else this would have been a NIN only party) ,also I had to love the song itself and finally they should be listed in no special order.

And the winners are:

Tool - AEnema


Einstürzende Neubauten - Sabrina


Nine Inch Nails - Closer


Recoil - Strange Hours


Queens of The Stone Age - Go With The Flow

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

O Meo é maior que o teu (1).

A boa noticia é que, após quatro meses, já tenho TV e Net e Telefone. Mais propriamente adquiri o serviço Meo, o triple play da moda. Obrigado á CML e a PT por terem unido esforços e tirado o prédio onde moro da idade das trevas.

A oferta prometia, até porque as medições indicam que disponho dos 16 Mb de ligação, que seria o valor recomendado, mas na verdade apresenta algumas falhas. Nem todas elas relacionadas com o débito de rede. Não nos devemos esquecer que se trata de um produto algo novo no mercado e talvez daqui a uns tempos a qualidade melhore. Só podemos esperar.

Decidi fazer a minha própria critica ao produto uma vez que parece quase impossivel encontrar informação isenta e com algum espirito critico sobre o Meo, a menos que contem com um post ocasional de um empregado do Sapo, ou aquele flog do "omeumeo" que parece ter sido inventado pelo mesmo tipo do segredo vodafone, porque me parece algo..hummm fake. As minhas desculpas se de facto houver um blogger anónimo que avisa a "malta" para problemas com a facturação.

Para dourar a pilula incluo também alguns comentários sobre a qualidade do "networking stack" do Leopard porque dizem que um mal nunca vem só ;o)

- A oferta de canais disponiveis no serviço 30+10 (penso que é o base) é virtualmente igual aos de todos os outros operadores no mercado. Incluido no pacote vem, no entanto, um canal em HD sem qualquer programação de interesse mas que ainda assim vale a pena ver pela qualidade da imagem. Isto, claro, se tiverem uma TV com capacidade para tal.

- A qualidade do router é simpatica. Aparentemente o Leopard é que não gosta muito do wireless porque quando abro o Mail e o Safari em simultâneo, regra geral, perco a ligação. E a imagem da TV. Aborrecidito no minimo.

Pior mesmo é que qualquer site que eu tenha tentado visitar aquando do erro deixa de ficar acessivél, pois mesmo após reabrir o Safari, ou abrir um browser diferente, ou mesmo re-iniciar a maquina (old habits) continuo a receber uma página de "Resolution Successful"...Nota mental: Redefinir o conceito de "Success".

Para resolver a situação é preciso fazer uma limpeza ao cache do felino mais tosco da familia. Já agora, e antes que perguntem.... dscacheutil -flushcache

- Por defeito, ou seja, quando o técnico instalador sai da casa do cliente, a rede wireless faz broadcast do SSID apesar de contar apenas com WEP como medida de segurança. Para alterar estes "pormenores" basta abrir um browser, depois de autenticado na rede, e ir a http:\\home .Ou então http://ip-do-router/xslt?PAGE=J46&THISPAGE=J01&NEXTPAGE=J46 se gostarem de ver mais opções no menu. :o)


- A box com o disco rigido é barulhenta até quando está em stand-by o que me parece estranho, mas segundo o suporte técnico é assim mesmo. A segunda box já não é tão barulhenta, mas também não tem um disco lá dentro, não é?

- A funcionalidade de agendar a gravação de conteudos é desaproveitada porque, como se sabe, raramente a programação dos canais é mantida, pelo que o mais normal será perderem uns minutos do programa. De resto é algo inovador. Se bem que parece que me lembro de em tempos ter havido uns leitores de vhs que também faziam isso.

- A possibilidade de ver os incorrigiveis directa e gratuitamente na TV. Adorei! Parabéns! Se a resolução pudesse ser um pouco melhor ficava perfeito.

- O Video On Demand, apesar de me parecer uma boa ideia ainda não experimentei. Mas gostei de ver a possibilidade de alugar conteudos para adulto. Poderá evitar alguns constrangimentos aos mais timidos... ou "torrent impaired".

Adicionalmente, o Meo oferece um filme por mês para atrair os clientes a este serviço tipo videoclube. Mas, para já, a oferta pareceu-me fraca. Será uma questão de mentalidade, mas não vou experimentar um serviço (mesmo gratuito) se a oferta não me apela minimamente. Quem pensou esta estratégia de marketing espera, certamente, apelar á palavra mais querida do português médio (Grátis) não receando uma certa conotação com a má qualidade do conteudo disponibilizado.

Quanto a limitações técnicas incompreensiveis, até agora, só encontrei duas:
- Desbloquear conteudos para adultos de forma definitiva. Não dá.
Se estiverem a ver o Family Guy e a Megan (Ils son fous ces americains) decidir ter sexo na orelha para preservar a virgindade até ao casamento vão ter de imaginar a cena... a menos que tenham o comando á mão e se lembrem do código de desbloqueio. E mesmo que procedam ao desbloqueio, mas mudem de canal, terão de passar pelo mesmo noutra ocasião em que desejem ver conteudos igualmente chocantes.



Ah... se meter sangue e tripas por todo o lado não há problema. Sexo é que não. Mas isso são contas de outro rosario...

- Durante a gravação de um programa, a segunda box tem de estar sintonizada no canal que está a ser gravado. Esquisito. A box principal deveria poder tratar disso sozinha, não? Será o Windows CE a fazer essa gestão?
Mas giro mesmo é ver a mensagem de aviso que o software apresenta. Lamentavélmente não tenho um screen shot á mão, mas assim que tiver faço o update a este post. Se lerem o aviso ficam mais confusos do que se não o lerem e carregarem na opção que permite continuar a ver o canal...

Tirando isso, e como diriam os Garotos Podres, tudo bem.

1-Ok, este deve ser o pior titulo de um post de todos os tempos. Mas hei, fica como uma homenagem á MyBrand (aqueles do Allgarve e do logo da EDP que diziam ter sido roubado de algum lado) que fizeram aqui um optimo trabalho.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Forget OLPC. OSPC is more like it!

Need help explaining your children why there is a server in the house?



This will help.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

What else?




Thanks mom!!

Friday, December 21, 2007

Krav Maga

At the last Prt.sc dinner I was talking about how cool Krav Maga was and how I thought everyone should learn it when I realized that only Andreia knew what the hell I was talking about.


Well, Krav Maga is a personal defense system which originated from Israeli self defense technics and was developed by Imi Lichtenfeld during World War II. The name in hebrew means Combat (Krav) Contact (Maga) which pretty much sums up what's it's objective is... Close, or contact, combat.

Despite it's origin, or maybe because of it, this method now serves as combat training for major armed forces (the SEALS are a notable example) as well as police forces around the world.

If you're in Portugal, you can go to the Portuguese Krav Maga Federation site, or follow this blog to know more about this self defense technique and were you can learn it (by the way, I highly recommend you trying to catch a Paulo Pereira's class). If you're not, and most *my* visitors tend not to be, well try googling for your local Federation or start here.

Here is a little demo Richard Douieb gave at Bercy's International Martial Arts Festival in 2003. Enjoy.


P.S : kudos go out to eduardo, who at 8, is the best student I ever had.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Yet another Mail.app bug

I don't like to repeat myself too much, but it seems that Leopards Mail.app fails at math.




Unless of course 4294967294 is the new zero.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Wanna buy Microsoft for 1 Million Dollars?

Yes you can! And you know you want to!

But be sure to read this first.

Friday, December 07, 2007

News of the world

What an exciting week this has been!

We started of with a native Mono release for OS X, which you can read more about at Miguel's blog.

Then it was Netbeans 6, which is IMHO the best IDE for Ruby and Rails development and it's yours for free. Here.

And today we can rejoice at the launch of Rails 2.0.

Hurray for us!

On a side-note, I just wanted to share with you a conversation I had with a mono hacker regarding the look of Mono on Mac OS X, even if in a somewhat twisted way for better reading :

Me > People are complaining it doesn't look "native".
She > Well, there are two answers for that:
Novell is currently concentrating on making Mono on the Mac a stable development platform. The System.Windows.Forms layer has support for theming and we could accept contributions for a Quartz theme that uses the HIToolbox APIs. Or, in a shorter version, we accept patches.

And then she said goodbye with the funniest tagline I've heard this week :"nothing like a linux forum to complain about how a windows technology looks on a mac"

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Leopard Tech Talks

Last monday we've had the first Leopard Tech Talk in Lisbon, but much to my regret I didn't made it.

That's not at all unexpected since I'm having so many "shitty work days (tm)" but what's surprising me the most is that even with such a loyal and committed Mac fan base here, I haven't read a single post or e-mail about it.

Did anyone go? What was it like?

Friday, November 30, 2007

f*ck it!

NIN's remix site is up.

Downloading 15+ years of remixes a registration away!

Thursday, November 29, 2007

5 Favorite Movies? Hum... You bet!

I've been seeing a couple of bloggers posting about their favourite movies of all time, and I felt like doing my own "best of" list. The principle is easy: name your 5 favorite films of all time, say something about them and if possible link to their official site or something.
I've also added a couple more rules: Wait until every other blogger in the world have done their own list; Try not to judge their intellect on how bad their choices generally where.

So, having said this, here it goes but in no special order:

* Animatrix
The whole series. All 9 episodes. Loved them and I honestly think it was the best thing coming out from the matrix.


* Fight Club
Pure genious. The book is great, but Edward Norton and Brad Pitt together are better. Let anarchy rule!


* Ghost In The Shell
This one actually changed my life. Very seminal. And the artwork is so inspiring.


*American History X
Again Edward Norton with a great role as a repenting skinhead. Both entertaining and touching. The scene that shows Edward's character grinning as he gets arrested after murdering a man is so scary it definitely makes up for the predictable finale.


* Natural Born Killers
This is how a legend is born. Although Tarantino didn't direct this film, it was is big success as he was the writer. Best Soundtrack ever, courtesy of Mr. Reznor.


* Trainspotting
Here I must concede that the movie lacks in comparison to the book. Still a great movie with a message that changed my mind about what I wanted out of life.
"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television". Check, check, check and... check.


* Deconstructing Harry
Definitely one of Master Allen's masterworks. If you don't laugh trough it, you may be brain-dead and not realize it.


*Brother
Takeshi Kitano, or Beat Kitano as he referes to himself writes, plays and is the meanest yakuza in the world. Ever.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

A movie with substance

Every so often I get to see a film that touches me.

It happened recently with shortbus which made me laugh hysterically and this weekend again with Control, a film by the photographer Anton Corbijn.

Corbijn's previous experience with a camera was best known as a music video clip director, with some great bands like Depeche Mode and Red Hot Chili Peppers (Give it away know!) unless that is, you happened to catch his short film "Some YoYo Stuff", about one of Reznor's favorite artists, Captain Beefheart.

I could go on and on about how much Joy Division meant for me or how I and Glen Matlock both got expelled from would-be great bands for dancing to a different beat, but that ain't too much to the point.

The film in it self is heart touching as it tries to properly tell the story of Ian Curtis' Division rise and early demise, and as it would be expected from Corbijn's previous body of work, how the photography is amazing. That isn't my point either.

My point is this: If you have a heart go see this movie and feel it being touched from a distance by a genius.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

out on safari and back again

And some people still ask me why I like Firefox better... You know, 75% of my visitors use Firefox. So should the rest of you.


Thursday, November 15, 2007

prémios codebits (edit III)


Prémio mais votado pelo publico
sapo frogger - Pedro Cardoso
(com as minhas desculpas pelo erro.)

Prémio Ideias
bookworms - Pedro Sousa

Prémio Remix
sapo boavida - Luis Rei e Samuel Martins

Prémio Geek
Bruno Pedro


ei esta malta é (quase) toda do Prt.Sc !!!!!

Parabéns a todos!

...e o resto já não ouvi. Já só tinha ouvidos para os Wraygunn !

Half backed apple

Ok, so the portuguese version of Apple Store is up, some might say not a minute too soon, but not me.

I mean, either Apple entered the Web 2.0 bandwagon of "release soon, release often" or someone should get their ass kicked. What the hell is up with this 3 language web page?

Do you speek Spanporglish? I didn't bother looking any further. That was quite enough for me.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

An ice cream that creamed a car

This is a somewhat old story that I've read some time ago. It came up today in a conversation I was having with some co-screenies.

I had to do some googling, but was able to find a good enough recount of the story. Read it here.

toad codebits day 1 - random thoughts

Well, in and out of the first day of Sapo Codebits, or Toad, and a few thoughts sprung to mind.

I'm gonna do this the old school way of dividing in a The Good, The Bad, The Ugly sort of way, so..

The Good :
- Getting to know fellas like Diogo, Luis, the segway dude, Samuel and the lovely Mono Hacker, and meeting up with "the" PHP Man , the Python Evangelist Extraordinaire, Franc and the hacker behind some of the funniest storys I've heard and of course, the geekiest guy I know Cafonso
- Mike Culver's Presentation. That was what I was there for.

The Bad :
- The Wireless bandwidth available.
- The food.
- Did I mention the low bandwidth (well, the codebits page is kind of remeniscent of a heyday of 16k modems, but come on!!)

The Ugly :
- PT's Pulso app.
I mean, the app/system in itself looks great and seems to be a wonderful piece of enterprisey software, but PT taking advantage of Open Source Software to build a great product and then selling it? What are they giving back to the community? Bug-fixes? Is that enough for such a big company? Shouldn't we expect a little more? Ok, this is just one more reason why I don't like PT, Sapo or any of the PTM companies.

Final verdict:
- If you were there, probably you had fun. If you weren't ,don't feel too bad. It's a well over hyped event.

I'll be back tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be able to catch up again with some of the folks I've met today and be able to see some more presentations.

toad codebits day 1

Well, it seems that I made the cut after all, but I only managed to get here some 30 minutes ago.

Not all is lost, I still managed to catch Mike Culver talk about Amazon WebServices, namely S3 and the amazing EC2. As soon as I'm able I'll post an update about the talk itself and my first impressions.

Stay tuned.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Toad CodeBits

We're just 10 days away from Toad CodeBits.



This promises to be the biggest gathering of 'tuga* code monkeys this year and I'm looking forward to being there. Although, come to think of it, I don't know if I'll actually make it. The thing is, it seems that you have to both register for the event and then make some sort of announcement and hope that you make the final cut.

That last bit seems to be a problem for me, 'cause I really don't like Sapo (the company, the search engine, the portal, the....) at all. But since I have to admit that I would really like to be there, here it goes....

If I manage to get in, I'm looking forward to hearing Mike Culver from Amazon, Marco Gonçalves (on the BSDs) and hu... wraygunn


* 'tuga is slang for Portuguese.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Abertura Facil

Afinal não sou o unico a ter um problema com embalagens de "abertura facil".