Lero Lero com Blah Blah Blah

Yeah! One more reason for loving Canada!

As some of you may know, I’m studying the English Language in Vancouver, Canada (Business English and Proficiency). Today, while working on a project for a client in Brazil, I was looking for a way to hear the CBC (I usually hear it on the way for the college on my Generic Ipod).

After accessing their website and going through the regular way, I was unable to hear the radio streaming with mplayer. Googling cbc + linux, I found this article, Adopting Ubuntu… good reading, but not what I wanted. So I googled again for listen+cbc+linux

This time, I found “my precious“: some informations about streaming + cbc + linux/*NIX. But (and there’s always a but) as they are testing the CBC streaming under Ogg Vorbis format, they only let two options to choose for: CBC Radio One, and CBC Radio Two. If you want CBC+Ogg, that’s all you can have. It just works!

On the other hand, you can access the “All url streams page” and see a lot of streaming options (tons of cities and 16 or 32 kbps options). I don’t know why, mplayer neither vlc weren’t able to open it… Totem and Gxine did the trick. Was only a matter of runing the command followed by the streaming url, or going in File, Open Streaming… (or something like this) and pasting the url there.

I would like to let here my sincerely congratulations to the CBC.ca staff for making their content available, using open formats and remembering the *NIX crew. Thank you!

PS: I am learning the English language! Feel free to correct any word or sentence you find here by putting it on the comments. Believe me: you will help a lot! Thank you!

Based on Luis de Bethencourt’s post, here goes another factoid…

 12345679 * 8 = 98765432

cool!

Tá afim de aprender e trabalhar numa empresa bacana e ainda ganhar uma bolsa para ajudar a pagar a faculdade?

Perfil do Estagiário.

• Conhecimentos de Hardware ( Não precisa de ser profundo)
• Conhecimentos de Linux
• Conhecimentos de S. O Windows ( Instalação, resolução de problemas , drivers etc..)
• Perseverança e vontade de aprender.

Beneficios .

• Bolsa de R$. 800,00, Disponibilidade de tempo integral
• Alimentação na Fábrica ( Refeitório).
• Vale transporte.
• Possibilidade de inclusão em treinamento e cursos
• Possibilidade de integração no quadro de funcionários efetivos.

Site da empresa: http://www.megaware.ind.br

Para aplicar para a vaga, envie seu curriculum para:
mauricio(ponto)capeleiro(arroubaz)megaware(ponto)ind(ponto)br
e boa sorte!!

Obs: Não, a megaware AINDA não oferece computadores com o Ubuntu… Eu disse ainda, não disse

Yes, I know. It has been a long time since I last posted. A little more then two weeks. So here goes some updates about what’s going on. Explanation about the title goes below…

12/01 Moved from Hamilton, ON to Vancouver, BC, Canada - Wow! Lovely city! Fortunately I only had a few rainy days, and more then 5 open sky days. This is very unusual here. Everybody said: Vancouver??!?! Don’t forget your umbrella (which I did!), Vancouver is a rainy city!

If you don’t know, I’m here to improve my English language skills… So far so good. I got into a very high level at the English School (VanWest College) and also choose for a Business English Course, which is very challenging!! I already made some good friends from all over the world (Mexico, Korea, Japan, Switzerland, Quebec, Taiwan, Germany and so on)

I never had a lot of opportunities to talk and live in an English only environment. I did have (and like) to read a lot of technical texts in English for work (or pleasure?), but talking, hearing and writing (want to help me? check on the end of this article!) are quite new skills to play with.

Tuesday 29th Jan around 12:00 AM (western time) my fiance will arrive here, also to study English. Until this date, here is almost perfect. After, will be definitely perfect!!
The reason of the title is because I have to choose a Hockey team. I already have a hat from the Canadiens Hockey (Go Habs!!)… and here, the main hockey team is the Canucks… So from now on, those will be my hockey teams. One from the East and the other one from West. That’s it! Perfect
If you are in Vancouver or nearby, let me know… Ubuntu Hardy Heron is coming, and for sure I’ll try to motivate our Ubuntu Vancouver Fellows to make a party! We can hang out like I did with our Ubuntu Toronto good fellows!

PS: I am learning the English language! Feel free to correct any word or sentence you find here and put it on the comments. Believe: you will help me a lot! Thank you!

EDIT: Thank you, Lazlo, for the English corrections!

A mineirinha se preparou toda para ir a um baile na cidade do interior.

Chegando lá, um caipira suarento e banguela, pede pra dançar com ela; para não arrumar confusão, ela aceita. Mas o rapaz suava tanto que ela já não estava suportando mais! A moça foi se afastando, e disse: - Você sua, hein! Ele puxou-a, lascou um beijo e respondeu:

- Também vô sê seu, minha princesa!

É amigos, não é só os revendedores “desautorizados” de viagara e outros bigingangas que fazem SPAM. Empresas de grande porte como as Americanas, Kalunga e até butecos como o Graças a Deus, aqui em Belo Horizonte também fazem.

Considerando que SPAM é uma propaganda que é enviada pro seu email sem a sua autorização e quando você tenta descadastrar você não consegue. eles fazem sim SPAM.

A Kalunga ainda tem uma desculpa. Como ela é perto da minha casa, fazia compras lá regularmente e cai na besteira de cadastrar meu email. Agora não consigo descadastrar pelo site…

A Americanas provavelmente tem meu email de compras que eu já fiz (eu posso até ter autorizado o envio de promoções), mas já cliquei no link pra decadastrar umas 10 vezes… e segunda a mensagem, isso demora 7 dias… só pode ser brincadeira.

O buteco Graças a Deus lá de Belo Horizonte é o famoso SPAMMER mesmo. Nunca dei meu email pra eles, só fui lá uma vez e odiei. Uma fila enorme, mesmo com o buteco vazio (pra atrair o povo…) e o dono do lugar, rapaz de fala fina e trejeitos femininos, deixava os amiguinhas dele passar na frente… fui embora na hora e levei comigo umas 10 pessoas que queriam comemorar o aniversário lá. E pra piorar, no email que eles mandam, simplesmente não há opção de descadastrar. Mandei um email solicitando, mas nunca obtive resposta. Mandei 1 email falando que eu tinha uma empresa e queria fechar o lugar pra comemorar… Não tive resposta também… Além de SPAMMERS, eles são bobos.

Se você tem um caso de empresa SPAMMER, compartilhe com a gente. E nunca esqueça de marcar como SPAM no seu GMAIL, quem sabe agente convece o google pela maioria e TODOS os emails dessas empresas viram SPAM perante ao google…

First off all: it was incredibly easy to get the visa. 1 week. That’s all it took from the moment I started the process on Canada’s Embassy, in São Paulo, Brazil, and the moment I had it on my passport. I suspected that the invitation letter I had from my Canadian relatives helped but i don’t think so…

Today I just received the news that Clarice’s (my girlfriend) visa was conceded too. And guess what: even without an invitation letter it took less time then mine. 4 days! Unbelievable! My guess is there’s an opensource system taking care of this part, Ubuntu, OpenVisa (not Vista!) or something Congratulations, Canada’s Government. Good work!

Different from USA, all the process was done by a company in Belo Horizonte so, no need to travel from Belo Horizonte to São Paulo and being forced to answer paranoid and weird questions. And believe-me, I’ve heard about humiliating questions and situations that USA embassy forced tourist and students to pass by… Well, I really don’t like USA (and all those which agrees with war and thinks they’re doing the right thing!). Anyway…

Of course, this isn’t the only reason that makes me feel in love with Canada. The people are lovely. Everybody in a good mood everyday. Tim Horton’s Cinnamon Roll (Glazed) with a small hot chocolate on the hard cold out there is a piece of heaven. Snow is so cool!! Everything is so beautiful and clean… I had made a great deal, and already had met interesting people.

Saturday I’ll be heading to Quebéc (Chambly, to be more exact). My relatives are telling me that if I thought that here was cold and full of snow I’ll freak out there. Its more then 1 m of snow, and counting… In January I’ll come back to Hamilton and in 12th I’ll fly to Vancouver.

As Kim said on our Ubuntu meeting last saturday 15th in Toronto, I’ll know Canada better then many Canadians
So, if you are planning to do some tourism or want to learn the English language, I really think you should considerate comeing spend your money in Canada. Leave USA for the americans!

If you want, check out my photo gallery or direcly into my Canada’s Photos. You can also chek out a few “artistic” photos (don’t expect too much) that I’m taking with my new baby (a Canon EOS Rebel XTi with 18-55mm EF lens).

If you are in Vancouver, Montreal or even nearby Hamilton, let me know!!

Bye!

ATTENTION: I am learning the english language. So feel free to correct any word or sentence you find here and put it on the comments. It will help me a lot and i can buy you a beer, one day :)! Thank you!

EDIT: Thanks Laszlo Pandy for the English language corrections. I’ll buy you a beer as soon as we meet!

For sure we a have a very active and nice community here in Canada. They all were very receptive, friendly and fun! We had good times! Who wasn’t there, missed all this
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Now I’m looking forward to meet with the Vanlug guys, in January or later (Maybe a Hardy Heron Release Party?). Hope to see you there!

Yesterday I just picked up my new batteries bought directly from Toshiba Canada. It was so cheap that I ordered two of them.

It was a great deal! The total amount, including taxes and shipping (free!) was 57,00 Canadian dollars. With the battery that came with my laptop (a Satellite A100 0fh model), after 1 year, i only got near 1h 20m of battery life, with wireless and sound. With the new batteries, I can now go up to 3h!

Last week I played around with Intel’s powertop tool and realized that i could improve my system to use less power and have more autonomy. I started disabling bluetooth, cupsys (as i don’t use the printer services all the time), disabling the boot splash (so the system boot up more quickly) and finally, the tifm_7xx1 and tifm_core, which enables my Texas Instuments 5-1 Card reader (On the linux box, only SD cards work) by putting them into the modules blacklist.

There’s couple of other options Intel’s powerop told me to do like usbcore.autosuspend=1 on kernel boot arguments, run iwpriv eth1 set_power 5 for the wireless card, run “echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs” i found here some explanations about all that.

But i’m not doing it yet… by the way, Intel’s powertop is an interesting piece of software!

What about you guys? As we are on an “energy save year”, what tips and tricks do you have to save your laptop battery? Share with us!

Attention: I am learning the english language. So feel free to correct any word or sentence you find here and put it on the comments. It will help me a lot! Thank you!

EDIT: Corections made by Stuart Langridge and already applied. Thank you!!

É isso mesmo! 1 semana sem fumar, and counting…

E não é porque aqui é frio e dá preguiça de ir lá fora fumar ou porque aqui cigarro é caro. É porque eu não quero mesmo. E não vou usar remédio, chiclete de nicotina, adesivo o escambau à 4.

Tá tudo dentro da cachola. Eu mando em mim, e não vai ser nenhum palito branco soltador de fumaça que irá me subjulgar. Sou mais forte que isso. Além do quê, quem fuma cigarro é burro. E eu não ou burro (eu acho…)

E se você, fumante, está lendo estas palavras, deveria tomar vergonha na cara e fazer o mesmo! A hora é agora. Jogue fora o seu maço de cigarro e junte-se a mim :) 

Já sinto uma melhora sensível no paladar, na respiração e no olfato… Também não devo estar fedendo a cigarro como eu provavelmente fedia. Provavelmente porque fumante não sente o próprio fedor. Sim, não é cheiro de cigarro, é fedor mesmo.

Uma das táticas que estou usando é associar o fedor do cigarro com algo mto ruim… nem queira saber… Quando alguém passa fumando perto de mim, me dá até ansia de vômito!