What’s Your Personality Type?


You Are An ENTP


The Visionary

You are charming, outgoing, friendly. You make a good first impression.
You possess good negotiating skills and can convince anyone of anything.
Happy to be the center of attention, you love to tell stories and show off.
You’re very clever, but not disciplined enough to do well in structured environments.

In love, you see everything as a grand adventure. You enjoy taking risks for love.
And if things don’t work out, you’re usually not too much worse for the wear!

You would make a great entrepreneur, marketing executive, or actor.

At work, you need a lot of freedom to pursue your own path and vision.
How you see yourself: Analytical, creative, and peaceful

When other people don’t get you, they see you as: Detached, wishy-washy, and superficial

I knew that already…

Top Movies of My Life (so far)

Looks like people really enjoy talking about movies.

Lets leverage that with a blog meme and learn from each other which new movies people suggest us to watch. This is my unordered list.


Antonia

This is the best. Very feminist, dense, funny sometimes and beautiful. I wish I could have this DVD at home, but can’t find it on stores. It is an Oscar winner too.

Contact

I really like how Carl Sagan articulated the relationship between science, faith, religion and believes in this story. Its a very well done movie, and I am looking forward to read the book.

Festen

This is the first Dogme 95 movie I saw, and also the best. I remember how everything was refreshing: the technique, the acid story, language. All.

In the end of the movie, people in the theater started clapping. This is rare. Only for rare movies like this.

Crna macka, beli macor

A.k.a “Black Cat, White Cat”, is the best comedy I ever saw. I should see more movies by Emir Kusturica, but every time his movies feature in a film festival in São Paulo, I can’t manage the long lines.

Cidade de Deus

From Brazil, based in true facts, very violent, very well done and very beautiful too. The actors are completely unknown and poor boys and girls that were trained to play, and did a really great job on this movie. Nominated for 4 Oscars plus another 48 wins & 22 nominations. Don’t miss it.

Lola Rennt

Outstanding movie. Refreshing in shape, style, music, and on its story with a bit of metaphysics.

The Butterfly Effect

I really doubt somebody would put this movie in a top list. I like the metaphor this movie provides about reencarnation and spiritual learning and forgiving. I have to admit I watched it a little bit high.

The Matrix

I’m talking about the first movie plus a few elements from the 2 others to close the context and atmosphere. Not the whole series.

For me this movie is very philosophical and is a metaphor about our addictions, illusions and a real higher life that we need to find inside ourselves. This and the Butterfly Effect are somehow related movies in this matter.

Is just great how successful this movie was in establishing a style, a sort of new way of doing fantasy movies and on popularizing philosophical subjects.

The Last Temptation of Christ

Although I believe the actual life of Jesus was quite different from this story, The Last Temptation of Christ is the one that gets closer. Specially his search for a bigger true and how the story puts Jesus as a plain real man — and not a god —, with conflicts and agonies.

Xanadu

I saw it for the 9th time on TV at 3AM, after returning from a party, and finally time has come to recognize it as a very beautiful movie.

Electric Light Orchestra‘s soundtrack is wonderful and remarkable. The movie is light, full of love, and people involved in its creation were just having a lot of fun. A jewel from the 80’s that is still being sold as DVDs with high prices in stores.

Fantasia and Fantasia 2000

The idea is simple: get pieces of audio beauty and add some visual beauty on top of them. You can do no wrong. I prefer the more abstract or surreal chapters, but I don’t skip the other parts every time I watch these movies again and again.

Copying Beethoven

From all great classical composers movies, this is the best.

Despite the small romantic affair, problems with family etc, I like the focus of this movie on the intense emotional and spiritual relation of the composer with its music, where the inspiration comes from and its transforming power in human kind.

Amadeus

An incredibly entertaining movie about Mozart’s life which was the big Oscar winner of 1985, amassing best movie, best actor for Murray Abraham amongst other prizes. The Mozart character in the movie is very close to what is known about the actual real person.

Hero and House of Flying Daggers

Two movies from Yimou Zhang. The first is more philosophical and the other more romantic. Both have great landscapes, nice stories and excellent Kung-Fu/dance scenes.

Happiness

An excellent alternative american film. Very acid.

Love Actually

I think this is the best romance movie you can get.


If you join the meme, please remember to use trackbacks to get linked all around and leverage the blogsphere mesh.

Check also a list of top latin american movies.

Top Latin American Movies

A friend from Australia asked me for a list of some great Brazilian and LA movies. This is what I’m sending her.


  • Cidade de Deus
    Brazil. Probably one of the best movies I ever saw. Very violent and based on real facts. Don’t miss it.
  • El Abrazo Partido
    Argentina. Beautiful. Simple and beautiful. The music matches perfectly all parts of the story. I saw it again this week, and it is still great.
  • Nueve Reinas
    Argentina. Very funny, and maybe one of the first of the new movie age from this country.
  • Central do Brasil
    Brazil. Outstanding drama that unfortunately lost Best Foreign Language Film in Oscar 1999 for Benigni’s La Vita è Bella. Central do Brasil deserved that prize.
  • O Xangô de Baker Street
    Brazil. Sherlock Holmes comes to Brazil to solve a case and gets enchanted by brazilian drinks, food and women, and almost loses its focus. This movie is useful for foreigners, and is good too.
  • Whisky
    Uruguay. Sad but very well done drama. In the end you won’t be sure if you hate it or love it.
  • Abril Despedaçado
    Brazil. The tough life of poor people in northeast of Brazil.
  • Machuca
    Chile. Social classes conflicts by the eyes of a child.
    • O Auto da Compadecida
      Brazil. A funny movie that is a summary of a TV series. Adventures of two guys fighting for survival in the most bizarre ways. It is an adaptation of a very important brazilian play from the 70’s that shows many social and folk aspects of our country’s culture. The soundtrack is wonderful, by Sa Grama, a group focused on a very special type of brazilian folk lyric music. Non-brazilians may find difficult to understand the beauty of this movie, but give it a try.
    • El Hijo de la Novia
      Argentina. A very beautiful drama.
    • Kamchatka
      Argentina. Dictatorship and revolution being seen by the eyes of a child.
    • Diários de Motocicleta
      Brazil, Argentina. The Che Guevara movie.
    • Pequeno Dicionário Amoroso
      Brazil. A romantic story, from A to Z.
    • Amores Perros
      Mexico. Just watch it.
    • O Quatrilho
      Brazil. A well done drama about italian imigrants in southern Brazil. This movie could be shorter. Lost Best Foreign Language Film in Oscar 1996 for dutch’s Antonia. Indeed Antonia is a far better movie.
    • Pantaleón y las Visitadoras
      Not really great but just to put Peru in this map. Its a cute movie.


    I am not an expert, and I’m probably missing a few movies. And hope to see more suggestion in the comments below.

    San Francisco Linux World Day 2

    Second day started with Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian presentation. He made it light talking about Lenovo Thinkpads will ship with SUSE Linux, mixed [open and closed] source challenge for enterprises, how is easy to make security with their AppArmor, the role of virtualization on reducing power consumption in data centers.

    He put Linux application availability and development in customers and ISVs as his top priority, saying the community must figure out a way to make all Linux distributions to merge some way, or to leverage standards as LSB, otherwise the Linux application market will be very fragmented and weak. Well, I can’t agree more with the idea, but completely disagree in the level of implementing it he is thinking about. Each distribution has its own set of GUI icons, packages organization, configuration files, etc. This is what make all distros different and LSB, FreeDesktop.org etc can’t cover all.

    In the new Linux mobile market we are doing the same mistakes. Windriver, Access (the new Palm Source), Trolltech, Motorola, and others were presenting their Linux or OSS platforms and IDEs for mobile. All different, some focused on Linux Kernel, other focused on higher level APIs, etc. This is fragmentation. From an ecosystem perspective, all of them together don’t represent a single force as Symbian or Windows Mobile.

    Hope to see a better future in this space.

    I asked Ron what is Novell position regarding OpenDocument Format.

    He said Novell officially supports and wants ODF to be THE standard for documents, but OOXML support in OpenOffice.org is one of the steps required to achieve that.

    San Francisco Linux World Day 1

    1999 was the year I went to a Linux World & Expo event (blog notes in portuguese) for the first time, in Raleigh, NC. The small capital was chosen probably because of the strong Red Hat presence in that region.

    A lot of things have changed since then. Red Hat doesn’t have a booth this year, but got a lift in partners as HP. Novell/SUSE has the biggest presence — all green enforcing the SUSE brand more than Novell — in a giant booth full of partners.

    San Francisco MOMA, taken from Yerba Buena Center for the ArtsThis year event has merged with Next Generation Data Centers (NGDC) conference associating Linux much more to an infrastructure tool than to a cybercultural revolution.

    This is another thing that changed. All that glamour LWE event had in the past, as a generic real meeting point for Open Source activists that knew each other only through mailing lists, has been moved to technosocial events as FISL in Brazil.

    If you want to discuss Open Source politics, social impact, cultural shift, Creative Commons, law, etc with geeks, go to FISL. If you just want to see practical IT solutions mostly delivered by marketing and sales folks, go to LWE.

    The keynote speakers were Amazon.com and eBay and their speech was about Grid, Virtualization, NGDC and web services. We know these companies use Linux sometimes, but the presentations’ focus was way out of this.

    Keynote auditorium

    Most interesting things I’ve seen today:

    • GlusterFS. A highly configurable user-space distributed filesystem that achieves extremely high throughput, ideal for HPC clusters. Oil companies are starting to use it because a centralized NAS as NetApp can’t serve their thousands of HPC compute nodes efficiently. I enjoyed seeing some AFS characteristics as single mount point, and distributed high performance as GPFS together with some parts of FUSE. Oh, and it is Open Source. Z Research, the company behind GlusterFS, makes money selling services and has Anandu Babu, a former GNU Hurd developer, as their CTO.
    • Cluster IP. Mentioned by IBMer Alan Robertson, head of the Linux-HA project, in a conversation we had in the IBM party later. It is a technique to balance a workload without LVS or any kind of external entity. Each server on the cluster have same IP and MAC address and they agree about an affinity with each client. Pretty cool.

    Ubuntu booth


    Other things:

    By the way, all computers in the registration area and used by event staff, plus most laptops used in booths and for presentations were running other operating systems. Linux on the desktop is getting more inexpressive everyday.

    Folks as Jack Aboutboul, from Fedora, recognized me because of some Planets I participate. Thanks blogosphere.

    How to Get Attacked

    I noticed Oded’s blog was attacked which makes me remember some things:

    I was once invited to analyze a Linux machine that was invaded. I ended up writing an article about it to the brazilian Linux Magazine.

    The problem with the machine was a VERY weak root passw0rd. We could also find the tools they used to break that machine, cause they have installed them there to attack other machines.

    We could see a file containing about 18000 user+password combinations, a modified SSH client and a script that runs it all based on an IP range. We saw also IRC bots and other stuff.

    In the case of that machine, the attack was silent. They just wanted to use the machine to attack other machines. Pretty stupid.

    Its easy to learn about this attacks. Just connect to the Internet a machine with a plain Linux installation and “passw0rd” as the root’s password, wait 1 or 2 weeks and your machine will be attacked. One way to verify the crackers are already in is to reinstall the netstat command (because they’ll modify your previous one) and see if there is some connection to IRC ports (around 6667).

    If you investigate this IRC bot you’ll able to connect the IRC server, find the chat room, and actually talk to the cracker. I did this once and was not very funny.

    More information in Attacks to GRC.com by Steve Gibson.

    Viagem de Inovação aos EUA

    Andei postando sobre algumas coisas que tenho visto aqui nos EUA, mas não contei o que de fato vim fazer aqui.

    A IBM tem um grupo chamado International Technical Support Organization que produz livros técnicos chamados Red Books. Trata-se de livros gratuitos que podem ser lidos ou baixados do site do ITSO. Pode-se também comprar cópias impressas que geralmente damos para clientes. Os autores são voluntários do mundo todo, geralmente funcionários da IBM, mas também clientes, parceiros ou qualquer pessoa que se qualificar na entrevista feita para a chamada do livro na lista do ITSO. O livro é geralmente escrito em Austin, Texas (há também outras localidades) durante algumas semanas de imersão. Todas as despesas de viagem são pagas pela IBM, tem se a oportunidade de trabalhar com pessoas de diversas partes do mundo, e fazer mais turismo que só o superficial.

    Alguns livros interessantes que o ITSO produziu:

    Bem, vim participar de um livro menos técnico que a média do ITSO. Conta como a IBM criou um programa interno de inovação onde qualquer funcionário pode criar, divulgar e hospedar na Intranet algum software que aumente a produtividade dos funcionários. Qualquer coisa. Desde simples plugins para o Firefox, Lotus Sametime, uma ferramenta de blog corporativo interno, ferramenta de criação de wikis internos, uma aplicação para sincronizar mídia interna com dispositivos móveis, etc.

    Dentro da IBM chamamos essas coisas de inovações e são tratadas como beta, para beta testers ou early adopters.

    Ao longo do tempo elas vão amadurecendo, viram um serviço padrão da Intranet, e as vezes acabam até virando produtos que a IBM vende. Foi exatamente o caso do Lotus Connections, um produto para ser usado numa Intranet e que tem serviços como diretório de funcionários, departamentos e suas linhas gerencias, blogs, tagging tipo del.icio.us, entre outras coisas. O Lotus Connections reune exatamente o que funcionários da IBM andaram usando e refinando ao longo dos últimos anos, e posso dizer que é o que temos de mais útil na nossa Intranet.

    O modelo desse programa de inovação livre é muito parecido com o universo Open Source. As tais “inovações” podem ser comparadas a um software GPL que alguém fez e publicou no Freshmeant.net, este comparável ao portal na Intranet que indexa todas as inovações, mede sua vitalidade, fornece notícias e links para acesso ou download.

    Conversei com muitas pessoas que estão em altos cargos globais, entre eles a CIO global da IBM, e é interessante ver como pensam e as informações que tem acesso. As vezes pensamos que eles estão longe do mundo real mas surpreendentemente tem muito mais noção das coisas do que um gerente de nível mais baixo.

    As pessoas que criaram esse processo de aceitação e publicação de inovações dentro da IBM tem a sensação que inventaram a roda porque é de fato muito bem sucedido e todos conhecem. Mas na verdade funciona igualzinho a comunidade Open Source. Há um quê de liberdade, de esforço por um bem maior, de comunidade. Copiaram sem saber que copiaram.

    A grande inovação está mesmo no fato de que trouxeram a dinâmica da comunidade Open Source na Internet para dentro de uma empresa, para gerar valor de produtividade interna.

    O livro conta mais detalhes. Aguardem a publicação.

    My New Cellphone

    Its a Nokia E61i.

    The Nokia E Series smartphones are currently the most advanced in the market. Some may say iPhone but there is no more than great usability and fancy-ness on it.

    These are a few characteristics I like in E61i:

    1. QWERTY keyboard. I’m tired of loosing stylus pens and even use them to point things.
    2. WiFi with power save features. This is unique and as far as I know only Nokia and now the iPhone have it. E61i can also connect to Cisco WiFi networks with LEAP authentication, as used by my company. At work, at home and everywhere it finds a WiFi network I stay connected all the time with a sort of smart roaming, without running out of batteries.
    3. A wide screen and great web features as integrated feed reader and full XHTML browser based on KDE’s Konqueror that perfectly render very well all pages I need.
    4. Integrated Java support so I can install a practical mobile Google Maps application amongst others.
    5. Media features as MP3, MPEG-4’s AAC, MPEG-4 video (low profile DivX/Xvid) and MP4 container support.
    6. 2 megapixel camera for pictures and video.
    7. Can syncronize PIM data with anything that supports the SyncML Open Standard, for example the ScheduleWorld.com service.
    8. Has Text To Speech capabilities, so everytime somebody calls me, the phone actually speaks his or her name as it is written in the contacts database. There are options to install and use different voices and language accents.
    9. Has voice recognition capabilities, so I can press a button in the wireless bluetooth phones to make the phone as for a name, I speak it and it recognizes by how it is written in the contacts database. I did not have to record each contact’s name as previous phone models. Nokia E61i actually recognizes what I speak.
    10. And, to keep me hacking, the most important: integrated VoIP support through the SIP standard.

    This last point deserves an explanation. To use VoIP you usually have to install a softphone in your computer and be close to it to make calls. Well, this phone kind of has a standards compliant softphone already installed in the OS. Together with great WiFi support, I can carry my work extension and other SIP accounts with me all the time, to make cheap international calls and also receive free calls.

    This is all very geeky and I love it.

    In further articles I’ll explain how to configure advanced features I’ve been using in my new Nokia E61i, a very portable computer.

    MacBooks at IBM


    I spend the first week of this trip to US in IBM Somers campus, a set of buildings where most of the company’s head quarters are located.

    I went to many meetings with people in the CIO organization, IBM Academy of Technology and others, and surprisingly many high level people have MacBooks as their primary laptops. No Thinkpads, no Windows. I also noticed there is an internal Mac@IBM community with an Intranet home page, forums etc.

    Although, for historical reasons, our official platform for desktops and laptops is still Windows, current IBM strategy for this matter is something like “hey, use whatever platform, browser, office suite, etc you want, because we are heading towards an Open Standards way”. This is called [cultural] diversity.

    This is good, I like it, and this is the spirit that our internal Linux deployment relies on. Compared to Mac, Linux has a bigger community of users, more fully supported internal applications, and more internal developers. But I can say that Macs are more popular amongst VIPs.

    The basic minimal software kit for IBM employees is Lotus Notes for workgroup, Sametime for instant messaging, a standard compliant browser as Firefox, and maybe some office suite. Well, Firefox runs everywhere, Sametime is 100% Java, Lotus Notes 8 is based on Java Eclipse and integrates an office suite compatible with OpenDocument Format (OK, is actually OpenOffice.org 2 embeded in Lotus Notes). So the kit runs everywhere, including Windows, Mac, Linux and many mobile platforms (which are also internally encouraged to be used for supermobile workers). Many employees only use this minimal set of tools.

    A few more interesting words about Sametime: its being integrated with our global voice infrastructure through VoIP standards as SIP, so you can call any extension in the world using the IP network. You also carry your extension with you wherever you go. The instant messaging tool is the right place for it because it is already very well integrated with our enterprise directory. So we search people, find and chat (by typing) or talk.

    Yes, for historical reasons we also use many products based on proprietary technologies. At the time they were chosen Open Standards were not something in the global agenda yet. Or they implement some sort of needed disruptive technology that didn’t have a viable standards-based equivalent. This is the case for the Siebel CRM used by the sales force. Completely proprietary but unique and fulfills our business features.

    Although disruptive and proprietary use to walk together in the ICT front, IBM as a technology consumer has been putting Open Standards in its complex equation of what things to buy and use. This may be easy for a small company, but is a huge step for a big enterprise as IBM. And is, in my opinion, an example to be followed.

    Joomla! or Drupal ?

    I went to this Buffalo Billiards bar in Austin, TX with some friends.

    Right in the next table there was some folks playing billiard and wearing t-shirts written Joomla! Day 2007. I asked one of them:

    • “OK, so which one is better? Joomla! or Drupal ?”
    • “You can choose whatever you want, they are both good.” — he said in the same millisecond.
    • “So both are good ?”
    • “Yes, both are very good.”

    Two minutes later he came back and said:

    • “I am the wrong person to ask, because I’m Joomla!’s project manager.”

    Later I did some research and I found that Austin was hosting the Joomla! Day 2007 in the next day.

    For whom doesn’t know, Drupal and Joomla! are both web content managers, a type of software that helps you build general purpose (or also specific) web sites. You should be mad, or have a very good reason, to start a website without the help of this kind of software.

    Amongst these content managers, I have only used for my own blog WordPress.org which is simpler, more blog-oriented and very popular.

    Between Drupal and Joomla! — more advanced ones — I can only say that Joomla! has a better name, nicer and more colorful logo and a project manager well tunned with the open mind wing of the Open Source movement.

    Microsoft Silverlight

    When we think all standards, tools and frameworks for web on the client was already invented and now its time to spread its use, Microsoft comes with a “new” thing: Silverlight.

    Silverlight logoSilverlight has same functionality of Adobe Flash. You install it on your desktop system and it works as a browser plugin. Silverlight leverages proprietary .NET, thus it is proprietary too.

    When it says cross platform, read Windows and Mac only.

    Development tools are Microsoft only.

    My advise is to stay away from Microsoft Silverlight or any Mono reimplementation as Moonlight (as noted by Roberto Teixeira in comments). It will lock you in into proprietary technologies.

    These are some alternatives (name in bold) for such an impressive interactive web functionality:

    • JavaFX [home] should be considered as a trully open standards alternative. Altough it is as new as Silverlight, JavaFX leverages all mature Java ecossystem.
    • SVG+JavaScript. A true and mature W3C standard for advanced 2D graphics presented as a XML dialect embedable in web pages. With the addition of DOM capabilities of well known JavaScript, SVG can have provide advanced animations. Drawbacks here are lack of user friendly graphical development and animation tools. SVG does not provide multimedia, but this type of content can be used leveraging the regular media player (and its browser plugins) the user has installed on its system.
    • Althought YouTube and other great online video services use Flash to deliver multimedia content, Flash is generally known as evil for web applications. But if you need such a fat client for web, Flash is more cross platform, cross browser and widely used than Silverlight.
    • Plain AJAX can also deliver high impact interactiveness. Its capabilities are similar to SVG above.

    As happened with Real versus Microsoft media formats, and Java versus .NET, it is expected that when Silverlight gets more popular, the Flash plugin will be removed from default Windows installations (forcing users to explicitly install it), considered as non-strategic (or a competitor) for Microsoft.

    Font Technologies on Windows and Mac

    Since I started to write the Linux Font HOWTO I am interested in this subject. Personally I believe that good fonts and good renderer are the top contributors to an elegant and comfortable desktop.

    Joel Spolsky wrote an insightful article comparing font rendering approaches of Microsoft and Apple.

    And he refered another article by GRC explaining subpixel rendering.

    By the way, GRC made history describing how Distributed Denial of Service works.

    The Web and the Internet :: A Web e a Internet

    • The Internet is the collection of cables, routers, protocols, servers, IT services and data you can access with a browser or some other networked application.
    • While the Web is a mesh of human relations where knowledge and experiences are being trade.
    • Web 2.0 is the Web that uses the Internet in a more optimized way.

    • A Internet é o emaranhado de cabos, servidores, roteadores, protocolos, dados e serviços de TI que se pode acessar com um browser ou outro programa de rede.
    • Já a Web é a malha de relações humanas onde se troca conhecimento e experiências.
    • A Web 2.0 é a Web que usa a Internet de forma mais otimizada.

    Platforms

    In an internal account planning meeting:

    • “So what about to offer another architecture option for their SAP with Linux on Intel/AMD ?” — I said.
    • “No no. A customer of this size can’t have such a critical application in Intel/AMD platform. System P [with AIX] is more reliable.”

    Then I had to explain that Intel/AMD is not a platform. Is an architecture.

    Linux on Intel/AMD is a platform. Windows on Intel/AMD is another platform. And the last one is probably the one he doesn’t trust for such a critical application. You can trust on the first option, man !

    Current Intel/AMD servers are very reliable. Have excellent chipsets, support advanced virtualization, are as fast as hell, and together with Linux are as reliable as any other UNIX server. By the way, Linux is UNIX, in case you didn’t notice.

    SAP is trying to drive customers IT budget to their pockets, instead to the infrastructure guys pockets (as IBM). They are advising customers to switch to cheaper architectures (as Intel and AMD) so they have more money to spend with SAP. This is an opportunity for Linux.

    If a company is making changes to their IT infrastructure, is hard to find a good reason to not switch UNIX servers to Linux on cheaper architectures. (By the way, total cost of ownership for Linux on System Z can be even cheaper for big datacenters.)

    Main reasons for customers to insist on UNIX are legacy applications, culture, and a damn good UNIX sales force.

    Sun uses ODF

    Sun logoI spent the day in an Office Open XML conference in Brasília with many colleagues from companies in the industry, including Red Hat, Novell, 4Linux, ODF Alliance, IBM and Sun Microsystems.

    For Sun, I was able to confirm they have ODF as their standard format for all documents, globally. OK, this was pretty much expected, but its exciting to hear it as an official statement from a Sun executive.

    Investing on Sun Microsystems

    I met a friend that works on an investment bank and provides advisory to his customers about companies that are good to invest now.

    He has Sun Microsystems on his short list.

    He didn’t make any organic research about this company. He only analyzed the behavior of their graph.

    Anyway, I told him Sun Microsystems is a company that I would not invest nowadays. They were very innovative in the past, but their future, in my opinion, is uncertain.

    Novell uses ODF

    Novell logoYesterday, in a meeting on the beutifull Novell office in São Paulo, I was able to confirm that ODF is their document standard. Globally, for all Linux and Windows users. If they need to exchange documents with customers, they send in PDF.

    I supose Red Hat, a 100% Linux company, is also in this direction. I just didn’t have the chance to confirm this with the folks I know in Red Hat. But I’m pretty sure its the same. By the way, Red Hat, together with IBM and Sun, is member of our local ODF Alliance Chapter Brazil.

    Install Java on Fedora, Red Hat, SUSE with RPM

    Just to make more generic and to simplify Liquidat’s good howto about this topic, here is a better way to install Sun, IBM or BEA Java/JVM/JDK on any modern Linux RPM-based distribution as Fedora 7, Red Hat 5, SUSE, Mandriva, etc:

    1. On the JPackage non-free repository, look for the package named java-VERSION-PROVIDER-*nosrc.rpm and download it. For this example, I used IBM JVM. Procedure is the same for Sun’s or BEA’s.
    2. Check the package information with the RPM command as shown bellow:
      bash# rpm -qpi java*nosrc.rpm
      Name        : java-1.5.0-ibm               Relocations: (not relocatable)
      Version     : 1.5.0.2.3                         Vendor: JPackage Project
      Release     : 3jpp                          Build Date: Tue 15 Aug 2006
      Install Date: (not installed)               Build Host: tortoise.toronto.redhat.com
      Group       : Development/Interpreters      Source RPM: (none)
      Size        : 395165271                        License: IBM Binary Code License
      Signature   : (none)
      Packager    : Thomas Fitzsimmons
      URL         : http://ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/linux/download.html
      Summary     : IBM Java Runtime Environment
      Description :
      This package contains the IBM Java Runtime Environment.
    3. We visited the URL above to find IBM’s JVM binary for Linux. Chose the 1.5 SDK in tgz format and copied all this way:
      bash# cd /directory/where/binary-SDK/was/downloaded
      bash# cp ibm-java2-sdk-50-linux-i386.tgz /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES
      bash# cp ibm-java2-javacomm-50-linux-i386.tgz /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES

      In SUSE, copy to /usr/src/rpm/SOURCES.

    4. And built the final installable packages this way:
      bash# cd /directory/where/nosrc.rpm/was/downloaded
      bash# rpmbuild –-rebuild java*nosrc.rpm
    5. When finished, all final packages are under /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/. Install them all this way:
      bash# cd /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i*86
      bash# rpm -Uvh java*rpm

      and the JVM is installed.

    (All but step 5 may be done as a regular user instead of root, but explanations would be longer and more complex)

    Later, you may also want to install the javaws package to have Java Web Start integrated on your browser.

    By the way, JPackage Project has standarized how Java software should be packaged on Linux. And they are doing it with RPM (but the concepts may be ported to other packaging systems). It is such a great and well done standard that all RPM-based distributions such as Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE, Mandriva, etc are using it for their own Java works. It all starts with a package named jpackage-utils, probably already installed on your fresh system.

    You may find many Java software as JBoss, Apache Geronimo, Ant, Eclipse, etc packaged in JPackage web site.

    Welcome Planet Fedora Readers

    My blog feed was included in one more of these planet-like web sites.

    Welcome Planet Fedora readers.

    I was already being read by Pandemonium and Planeta GNU/Linux Brasil readers.

    I guess 90% of high quality readers and comments I get come from these community planets. OK, I have some very popular posts with 470+ comments but they are terrible.

    For new readers, I blog a lot about Linux, Open Standards, Open Source, ODF, business related to all this stuff together with SOA, Web 2.0, and all those buzwords. At work I was asked to start blogging, to keep a connection with the community. So I can say to blog is officialy part of my job.

    I also enjoy writing about travels, food, metaphysics, music, politics, and this is the place I store my published articles and presentations I use to deliver in events. Most of that in portuguese, but many technical stuff are in english.

    Welcome all.

    Fedora Post-installation Configurations

    Inspired by an old post by Rui Moura, I’ll maintain here the plain commands needed to setup a freshly installed Fedora or Red Hat system, to include essential softwares they don’t ship by default due to legal issues.

    These instructions are currently optimized for Fedora 14, 15 and 16, but most of it should work on any other Fedora and modern Red Hat Enterprise Linux too. Good suggestions provided as comments bellow will be added to this guide.

    Index

    1. Permissions Setup
    2. Keeping System Updated
    3. Repositories Setup
    4. Activate Hardware Acceleration on NVidia and Intel GPUs
    5. Install Adobe Flash Player Globally
    6. Install Google Chrome or Chromium Browser
    7. Access LAN Hosts by Name Without a DNS Server (Bonjour, Zeroconf)
    8. Dramatically Improve Fonts
    9. Install Web Standard Fonts
    10. MP3 Support
    11. Amarok: The best audio player for Linux
    12. Enable Any DVD Player Software to Play DVDs from All Regions
    13. General DVD and DivX/Xvid/MP4/H.264 Movie Player
    14. General Digital Video Authoring and Editing tools
    15. Command Line DVD Copy & Decrypting Tool
    16. Enabling GMail as System’s Default Mail Relay (so you get sysadmin e-mails from your machine)
    17. Access Windows NTFS Partitions From Linux
    18. Configure text console in high resolution and smaller fonts

    Terms highlighted in red should be changed to match your system.

    Permissions Setup

    This step will allow you to issue some administrative commands without having to be all the time logged in as root — the system administrator.

    bash# echo 'your_plain_loginname_here ALL=(ALL) ALL' >> /etc/sudoers

    Note that this is the only command throughout this guide that shows a root prompt (bash#). All other commands are indicated to be run as a regular non-root user (indicated by bash$).

    After configuring sudo, every time you execute an administrative command with its help, a password is requested. This is your password (the regular user’s password), not the root password.

    Keeping System Updated

    Install the following packages so updates will come faster:

    bash$ sudo yum -y install yum-presto yum-plugin-fastestmirror

    You can also get e-mail notifications about system updates:

    bash$ sudo yum -y install yum-cron
    bash$ sudo chkconfig yum-cron on

    Then make sure your /etc/sysconfig/yum-cron file has the following lines:

    CHECK_ONLY=yes
    MAILTO=YOUR-EMAIL@address-com

    You will get one e-mail every day with a list of updates available. E-mail delivery will only work if you configure your system for that.
    After all the steps below and from time to time, update all software installed on your system with the following command:

    bash$ sudo yum update

    Repositories Setup

    RPM Fusion is a repository of many essential multimedia and general purpose software for Fedora and Red Hat systems. It is a good idea to have it configured so you can easily install players for DVDs, MP3s amongst other useful things.

    bash$ sudo rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

    Activate Hardware Acceleration on NVidia and Intel GPUs

    bash$ sudo yum -y install vdpau-video-freeworld libva-freeworld libva-utils vdpauinfo libva libvdpau kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia

    Install Adobe Flash Player Globally

    bash$ sudo rpm -Uvh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
    bash$ sudo yum -y install flash-plugin --exclude=AdobeReader\*

    On 64bit systems (x86_64) use this:

    bash$ sudo rpm -Uvh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
    bash$ sudo yum -y install flash-plugin nspluginwrapper.x86_64 nspluginwrapper.i686 alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686 libcurl.i686 --exclude=AdobeReader\*
    bash$ mkdir -p ~/.mozila/plugins; ln -s /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so ~/.mozila/plugins

    Restart your browser to activate the plugin. For reference: Flash Player for Linux home page.

    Install Google Chrome or Chromium Browser

    There are 2 ways to install Chrome or Chromium:

    • Chrome is packaged by Google, has less frequent update cycles, includes Flash and H.264 support.
      bash$ sudo wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/google.repo http://avi.alkalay.net/articlefiles/2011/01/google.repo
      bash$ yum -y install google-chrome-beta

      You can also find Picasa on the same repo but is 32 bit only and not on the latest versions.

    • Chromium is the open-source-only part of Chrome, it is more well packaged by the Fedora community, is more well integrated into the desktop, has more frequent update cycles but doesn’t include Flash (that can be added separately). All the rest is the same and I prefer Chromium.
      bash$ sudo wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-chromium-stable.repo http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/spot/chromium-stable/fedora-chromium-stable.repo
      bash$ sudo yum -y install chromium

    Access LAN Hosts by Name Without a DNS Server

    You can access servers and machines on you LAN by name, instead of using their long IP address using the Zeroconf standard (implemented as Avahi in Linux). This is so useful and works out of the box in Ubuntu. The setup in Fedora is easy too, but not automatic.

    bash$ sudo yum -y install avahi-tools nss-mdns

    Now, instead of accessing local hosts by their IP, you can use the .local domain appended to their names. Just like this:

    bash$ ssh 10.0.0.5 # stop using the IP address of dbserver
    bash$ ssh dbserver.local # start using its hostname

    Evnetually this will only work if you correctly configure or disable packet filtering (firewalling). To disable:

    bash$ sudo service iptables stop
    bash$ sudo service ip6tables stop
    bash$ sudo chkconfig --del iptables  # disable even for next reboots
    bash$ sudo chkconfig --del ip6tables # disable even for next reboots

    Tip grabbed from Fedora Project wiki.

    Dramatically Improve Fonts

    bash$ sudo yum install freetype-freeworld

    Logoff and login again your graphical environment to this update take effect.

    To understand why you need this update read this section on the Linux Font HOWTO.

    The freetype-freeworld package uses a technique described in this bug report.

    Install Web Standard Fonts

    These packages include popular fonts as Arial, Times New Roman, Tahoma, Verdana, as well as new Windows Vista and MS Office 2007 fonts. Learn more.

    bash$ sudo rpm -Uvh \
    http://avi.alkalay.net/software/webcore-fonts/webcore-fonts-3.0-1.noarch.rpm \
    http://avi.alkalay.net/software/webcore-fonts/webcore-fonts-vista-3.0-1.noarch.rpm

    Then, configure your desktop as described in the Linux Font HOWTO, for KDE or Gnome.

    MP3 Support

    For Gnome and GStreamer:

    bash$ sudo yum -y install gstreamer-plugins-ugly libmad libid3tag id3v2


    For KDE:

    bash$ sudo yum -y install kdemultimedia-extras-nonfree id3v2

    Amarok: The best audio player for Linux

    bash$ sudo yum -y install amarok-extras-nonfree

    Enable Any DVD Player Software to Play DVDs from All Regions

    bash$ sudo wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/atrpms.repo http://avi.alkalay.net/articlefiles/2011/01/atrpms.repo
    bash$ sudo rpm --import http://packages.atrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms
    bash$ sudo yum --enablerepo=atrpms -y install libdvdcss

    General DVD and DivX/Xvid/MP4/H.264 Movie Player

    bash$ sudo yum -y install gnome-mplayer

    General Digital Video Authoring and Editing tools

    bash$ sudo yum -y install mencoder mkvtoolnix mkvtoolnix-gui ffmpeg avidemux subtitleripper

    Command Line DVD Copy & Decrypting Tool

    bash$ sudo yum -y install vobcopy

    Now, thanks to libdvdcss installed above, you can use vobcopy to clone DVD while removing their protections like this:

    bash$ sudo mount /dev/dvd /mnt
    bash$ cd /some/directory
    bash$ vobcopy -m /mnt

    Enabling GMail as System’s Default Mail Relay (so you get sysadmin e-mails from your machine)

    See an updated post about it, ready for Fedora 20.

    Access Windows NTFS Partitions From Linux

    bash$ sudo yum -y install ntfs-config

    Then run the ntfs-config-root graphical tool and configure your partitions to be writable and mountable.

    bash$ sudo /usr/sbin/ntfs-config-root

    An example of my system:
    NTFS config tool screenshot
    After you configure the tool and quit, your NTFS partitions will be mounted in the specified place. In my case /media/Windows and /media/Work.

    Configure text console in high resolution and smaller fonts

    This tip is for the text console.

    bash$ sudo echo 'SYSFONT="lat0-08"' >> /etc/sysconfig/i18n  # set a ISO-8859-15 font
    bash$ sudo echo 'fbset 1024x768-60' >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local    # set console resolution to 1024x768 @ 60Hz

    These settings will take effect after a reboot, but you can test them before rebooting executing the following commands:

    bash$ sudo setfont lat0-08
    bash$ sudo fbset 1024x768-60

    Note that you can set different resolutions than 1024×768 if you have a video card and monitor that will accept it. A full list of modes can be listed with the command:

    bash$ grep "mode " /etc/fb.modes

    The Blog Icons

    This is a collection of high quality vectorial icons to represent common ideas and actions of the blogosphere.

    They were based on the SVG work from FeedIcons.com. The base button is the same, but mathematically simplified on the XML level. New buttons were added based on other popular icons found on the web or created by myself. Also some redesign was made for new shapes to make the icons look better when exported to smaller image sizes.

    By the way, I am not a designer nor an artist. I just know how to use SVG-creation tools as Inkscape or make good XML. Or I just have a blog demanding for these icons. So I’m sure people can contribute better color mixings an outlines. Let me know and lets integrate your ideas into this project in the right way.

    Please share alike this icons. They have a Creative Commons license. I appreciate if you can link to my blog when using them.

    Icons for Feed and OPML

    Feed IconThese icons where the base for this work, specially the feed icon as found in its website. They were probably created with proprietary tools such as Adobe Illustrator and then exported to open formats such as SVG or PNG. The original OPML icon can be found at opmlicons.com

    OPML IconThe versions here are visually identical to the original ones, but mathematically simplified. They are now being maintained in an open format — SVG — here, and are a better option because of its open source code and formats, and distribution.

    Icons for Trackback and Share

    Trackback and Pingback IconThese icons can be found sometimes in the blogosphere. I don’t know who designed them but they are a good representation of the Trackback and Pingback ideas.

    The Share icon is not my preferred but for now it is just a copy of what can be found around.

    Share IconColors and shapes are identical and based on the feed icon button. I never saw these icons in a size bigger than 16×16 pixels. Now, in a scalable format, they can be rendered at any size you want.

    Permalink IconThese are original creations and come in several options. I am still not sure which one is the best. You can also suggest other shapes.

    As you can see, I am using this icon to identify that each section on this post has a permalink.

    Other Icons

    Comment Icon Edit Icon Cancel Icon Tag Icon Download Icon Clock Icon

    Other original icons: Comments, Edit, Cancel, Tag, Download, Upload and Clock (to represent date and time). I’m open to suggestions for better shapes.

    Challenges for Icon Sizes

    The original design of these icons (from feedicons.com) looks wonderful on sizes bigger than 22 pixels, but most people will use them on small sizes as 16×16. So this package delivers also shape design that look better on small sizes as 22×22, 16×16, etc. I am using these sizes all around my blog as you can see.

    Converting the SVG Files into Images

    In the Blog Icons ZIP file you will find the XML:SVG source code for all icons. Additionally you will get all icons in PNG (preferred), GIF and JPG formats, in common sizes from 10×10 to 128×128 pixels. If you want a specific size, you can import the source SVG file in some graphical tool as Inkscape (on Linux), or CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator, etc and export them into any format and size you want.

    Or use the Makefile like this (on Linux you will need Inkscape and ImageMagick installed):

    Make all default sizes of all icons, in PNG, GIF and JPG:

    bash$ make all

    Make Feed icon in GIF format, at 40×40 pixel size:

    bash$ make SIZE=40 feed.gif

    Make all icons, all formats at 40×40 pixel sizes:

    bash$ make SIZE=40

    ODF Alliance in Brazil

    Yesterday was announced the ODF Alliance Chapter Brasil, being the fourth country to create this initiative, after US, India and Poland.

    The founder members are the Brazilian offices of IBM, Red Hat and Sun. Jomar Silva, the director, told me this:

    My understanding is that the Brazilian [ODF Alliance] operation has the mission to execute the work proposed by the ODF Alliance in our country. We are partners and fight together the same battle, exchanging experiences (and this is a very important point) so lessons learned with migration and adoption of ODF in other countries (governments and companies) may be used here.

    Many software support today reading and writing of documents in the OpenDocument format, being OpenOffice.org the most popular. The user gains freedom of choice, becomes able of negotiation, and can choose for the best price-benefit performance. This user-suppliers dynamics works as a fuel for innovation.

    ODF, being based on open standards as XML, plus having a free license, plus to be already and ISO standard (two steps ahead of OOXML, proprietary competitor by Microsoft), is a mark in IT’s history, when for the first time the user is truly the independent owner of his documents. This is simply a very powerful idea.

    The Brazilian chapter of the ODF Alliance will focus, in its first days, to setup its web site — probably at www.br.odfaliance.org —, and to define policies to accept new members as companies, institutions, user groups and communities.