gustavo de paula ribeiro

Video

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 07:59:07 -0400

PayPal, MasterCard, Visa & PostFinance... all learning the hard way

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:03:10 -0400

PayPal, MasterCard, Visa & PostFinance... all learning the hard way

"There is more to life than increasing its speed"

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:34:51 -0300

“There is more to life than increasing its speed”

- Gandhi

Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:57:00 -0300

Yes, I have a Mac and, until now, I have never programmed on it. What a shame!

This last weekend I decided to play a little with Xcode, and boy it is fun. For people who, like me, is beginning now, I recommend this great book:

Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X

With it, I’m already building my first apps for both Mac OS X and iPhone.

It’s a lot different from building GTK/python apps, but the documentation is great, and Xcode and the Interface Builder really make our lives easier.

Go give it a try!

Quinoa, arborio rice, cheese, spinach, tomato, onion, garlic,...

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 22:13:00 -0300

Quinoa, arborio rice, cheese, spinach, tomato, onion, garlic, pepper, chives and olive oil

One Thing Well: A Poor Man's Notational Velocity

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:33:09 -0300

One Thing Well: A Poor Man's Notational Velocity:

I’m a heavy user of Notational Velocity on the Mac, and Simplenote on the iPhone, but I’m yet to find a note-taker for Linux that matches up.

So, with Notational Velocity set to save notes as text files in a folder that syncs up with Dropbox, I chucked the following function in my shell…

Call Phones from Gmail

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:00:05 -0300

Google launched today a service to let us, users, call any landline or mobile phones from within Gmail. Calls to the US and Canada will be free at least until the end of this year, but the rates for the rest of the world are really, really interesting.

Taking for example Brazil, the country I happen to live in, I’m going to pay $0.02, or approximately R$ 0,035 per minute to call São Paulo (landline phones). In comparison, using Skype I’d pay R$ 0.072 for the same minute. Yes, I know!

The only catch: although Google say they are rolling this feature only for US customers, it seems that anyone that sets their Gmail account to English is able / is going to be able to use this feature. If you can’t use it now, just wait until the change propagates to all the US Gmail servers.

PS: if you didn’t hear, Google launched an official plugin for Gmail Voice and Video for Linux a few days ago that enables Linux users to have access to this feature.

minimalmac: I forked the excellent (open source!) Notational...

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:34:00 -0300

minimalmac:

I forked the excellent (open source!) Notational Velocity app, and hacked in a third pane that shows you the note you’re viewing as rendered by Markdown.

I just did a search while working on something else and was aghast at discovering I had not linked to this before. It really is a simple as the blockquote above. For those of us who write (or increasingly, live) in Markdown, being able to see your markup rendered in real time is a godsend. Seriously, go and get it. If you need to focus and not see two versions of what you are writing, simply slide the Markdown pane out of the way. It’s what I use and it’s really, really great.

Edit: here you have a pre-compiled version (2.0b3).

Minimalist apps

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:24:16 -0300

Thanks to reddit, I discovered today a very interesting way to talk to my friends on different IM networks: Minbif.

It basically creates a local irc server that acts as a bridge to IM networks like ICQ, MSN, Jabber (GTalk included) and others.

Now I can stay in touch with my friends using my preferred command line irc client, irss :).

"Anonymity is a dangerous thing and governments will demand an end to it."

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:55:00 -0300

“Anonymity is a dangerous thing and governments will demand an end to it.”

- Really, Eric S chmidt? Really? C’mon!

"We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time that we have, and to do..."

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:19:58 -0300

“We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time that we have, and to do something that is meaningful and satisfying… I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards.”

- WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange

Photo

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:02:59 -0300

(via mnmal)

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:12:28 -0300

(via mnmal)

Ninite for your non-tech savvy friends

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:56:00 -0300

Tired of setting up computers? Or to go to google to find a link for an app that you want a friend of yours to install?

Today I learned about Ninite, a site where you can select programs from a considerably big list and get them bundled on a single installer. And it even automagically selects 32 or 64bits versions of the programs based on the OS you are using.

Great, isn’t it?

Demorei alguns bons segundos para entender a primeira...

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:54:00 -0300

Demorei alguns bons segundos para entender a primeira frase…

Brazil as an example

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:03:00 -0300

People that know me know that I don’t have high hopes regarding Brazil. And I have close to zero hope when it comes down to politics. But, from time to time, there are positive surprises.

And I’m surprised by a proposal of an update to our copyright law. It’s the fist law I see in the world that talks about protections for the end user against DRM abuse.

There are mechanisms to impose an end to DRM when the copyright is no longer valid, and it penalizes (with fees) anyone who tries to prevent fair use. Are you taking notes, US?

The idea, as Ars Techica said, citing Michael Geist, a Canadian law professor, is that “… the Brazilian proposals recognizes what the Supreme Court of Canada stated several years ago, over-protection is just as harmful as under-protection.”

Source: Ars Techica

Backup, stupid

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:53:00 -0300

We all know we need to backup our data, right? Ok. So, do you?

I’ve lost a lot of important data in recent years. From each hard disk failure and/or human error (translation, stupidity of mine), I started using some tricks to prevent future damage. I have a stable server that handles part of my files and documents with a RAID 1 setup (yes, I know, RAID != backup), a GMail account for which I upload my most important documents, and a Dropbox account that mirrors text files and documents.

Of course, that’s not enough. I forget to make security copies of my important files on my Dropbox folder and to e-mail them to my GMail account kind of often. The truth is: backup that depends on human interaction tends to fail.

But, c’mon, I use a Mac. Why am I not using Time Machine? So, for this, I now have a Time Capsule:

This thing, besides from being gorgeous, comes with a 2TB server grade hard drive (there are versions with 1TB) and also is a Wireless N router. Isn’t it beautiful?

I know this isn’t going to stop me from losing files, but I’m sure it will be more difficult to me to make mistakes :).

The Egg

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:21:28 -0300

By: Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. You wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

"All the world’s a stage"

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:25:20 -0300

“All the world’s a stage”

- Shakespeare

"知らぬが仏"

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 23:28:07 -0300

“知らぬが仏”

- Literally: Not knowing is Buddha.