The senseless thoughts of an open source advocate
I finally have my pet project BillReminder packaged for Ubuntu Hardy and Debian, thanks to Diogo Autílio and Gabriel Falcão! 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.
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.
I highly recommend it!
Openbox just keeps getting better and better! The new support for XDG files is just what the doctor recommended. See the full changelog here.
Yesterday’s news about the Suse Appliance Program had me grinning all morning long… and I just had to forward what my co-worker wrote:
Billy Marshall, CEO, rPath (2006): The Standard OS is Virtually Gone
Nat Friedman, CTO, Novell (2008): The Standalone OS is Dead
Indeed, we’re flattered.
Yes, indeed!
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! 
Just as I had stepped down from leading the Brazilian translation team before in order to give someone else a chance to guide the group, I once again believe it is time to let the “new blood” do their thing.
Looking back when I first started in the community in 2005, I can say that it was lots of fun being able to pave the way to the newer generation of free and open source software users in Brazil. It makes me feel extra proud when I remember that I’ve accomplished things without actually living in Brazil during all these years. Sure there were many bumps along the way, and unfortunately some friendships were tarnished due to different opinions but I firmly believe I did the best to keep the community’s best interest. I did what leaders are supposed to do: make decisions… and I have no regrets!
Does that mean I won’t be involved with the Ubuntu community? Absolutely not! Through the years my interest has expanded beyond Ubuntu and today I am involved in many different communities, distros e projects. I will still be very much involved with the Ubuntu guys and am looking forward to the newer crop of administrators and leaders for the Brazilian community!
I’m proud to announce the release of the Windmill Appliance! Built with the technology provided by rPath, it is currently available as a downloadable installable ISO as well as a VMWare image for you pleasure.
Now, just what is the windmill appliance for, you may ask? Glad you did… Windmill is an Open Source AJAX Web UI Testing framework. For the last couple of months I have relied heavily on this software to properly test the web UI of one of our products, and the results have been quite pleasant. Moreover, the interaction that I have developed with the core developers (I’m always lurking on #windmill at Freenode) has proved to be extremely beneficial from my point of view.
The fact that I can get the windmill software packaged and deployed, ready for use in literally minutes using Conary and rBuilder allows me to provide quick feedback to the developers who, I must say, have been very accomodating to my pestering. This appliance is my way to thank them for their hard work, and also as means to help out other fellow developers in need of an efficient way to test their project’s web ui.
It was designed to work as a headless (i.e. simplistic and minimal) appliance where you can remotely conduct your tests. A Vnc server is automatically started on port 5901 for you, as well as SSH so you can get things rolling really quickly. You just start it up somewhere in your network (or even several of them in a cluster) and fire your tests at will leaving your system intact.
Please feel free to ask me either here or on #windmill about the appliance as well as how you too can customize it for your own needs.
UPDATE: The user for the VMWare appliance is root with a blank password. Change it quick!
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!
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.
Eventually we drove her to the airport… and the closer I got to it, the heavier my heart felt. We stayed with her at the boarding gate until she finally boarded the plane… and even as the airplane took off, we were all there (baby Kate, Elizabeth and I) watching it…
Funny how in less than 10 years my life completely changed and how it is now affected by my two daughters. Needless to say, the trip was uneventfull and Yv had a blast with my folks in New York. But could this experience be just a preview to what is awaiting for me when they one day go off their own way? I’m definitely not prepared for that.
