:: Seven Pounds (Sete Vidas) ::

English:

Such a GREAT movie! Amazing performance by all the actors and actresses, but mainly Will Smith and Rosario Dawson.

The story catches your attention since the beginning; it is sometimes tense, and right after that it gets soft, even funny. My wife began to cry by the middle of the movie.

I would like to talk a bit more about it, but I think I would spoil it for those who haven't watched it yet, like... "telling the story". Watch it, I bet you won't regret.

We watched it on last Sunday and my wife said that movie goes to her "watch again" list.

Português:

Um baita filme! Excelente atuação de todos os atores e atrizes, mas principalmente do Will Smith e da Rosario Dawson.

A historia cativa a atenção desde o início; às vezes é tensa pra logo depois ficar leve, até mesmo engraçada. Minha esposa começou a chorar lá pela metade do filme.

Eu até gostaria de falar mais do filme, mas acho que acabaria "entregando o ouro", tirando a surpresa daqueles que ainda não o assistiram. Assitam, aposto que não vão se arrepender.

Assistimos o filme domingo passado e minha esposa disse que ele vai pra lista "assistir de novo" dela.

:: amsn-r11155 ::

Eita, eita! Vida de packager, ou metido a packager, não é fácil hehehehe. Se algum dia alguém me perguntar se eu já fiz serviço voluntário, vou mandar vir olhar aqui no meu blog e nos Changelogs do repositório do Bluewhite64 ehehehee

Ao que interessa... um usuário pediu auxílio no #Bluewhite64-br (irc.freenode.net) porque não estava conseguindo rodar o amsn-0.97.2. Ele havia baixado o pacote direto do nosso repositório, mas faltavam algumas bibliotecas (libraries, ou "libs" para os íntimos). Dei as dicas de quais pacotes baixar e instalar (era bastante óbvio). Porém faltava a tal "tls-1.5". Dei uma vasculhada no repositório e realmente, o cara que fez upload do amsn não foi tão legal a ponto de mandar a tal lib.

Então resolvi caçar a dita cuja e dar jeito no serviço. Baixei a "tls-1.6", compilei, empacotei e fiz upload. Mas claro, burraldinho, o amsn não iria funcionar, visto que ele precisava da versão 1.5. Então baixei o amsn-0.97.2, compilei ele também e mandei um novo pacote. Beleza, funciona!

Porém resolvi testar o suporte a webcam (lembram dos posts anteriores?). OK, funcionar funciona, porém a imagem fica mais escura que aquelas que eu mostrei nas screenshots via kopete (kde-4.2.2). Então conversei com algumas pessoas do #amsn e eles me disseram que esse tipo de "problema" estaria sendo solucionado na nova versão, que ainda não é "stable", mas que eu poderia baixar do SVN e testar. Beleza! Baixei e comecei a catar as dependências. Putz... não é um KDE4 da vida, mas já deu um trabalhinho.

Beleza, compilei tudo, daí compilei o amsn, empacotei toda a tranquera, instalei.... e testei a webcam no amsn do svn (release 11155). Resultado? Imagem escura ainda. Putz! Conversei com os caras do #amsn, que me disseram que então estava faltando eu instalar a libv4l. Realmente, eu não prestei atenção quando o script de configuração do amsn me aviso que o suporte a libv4l estava desabilitado. Então hoje catei a tal biblioteca e instalei. Daí recompilei o amsn. Mais tarde eu testo e dou um retorno (pra galera do #amsn, aqui no blog e no forum do BW64) sobre o resultado.

Por enquanto... era isso ;)

:: Australia ::

Here I am, talking about another movie. This time, Australia. Such a very good movie. OK, the story is a bit predictable, but that doesn't spoil the fun. First note: I thought the movie was about 2 hours long, when it is about 2h45min. That made me and my wife go to sleep quite later than we are used too *LOL*

Very good acting by Hugh Jackman, David Venham and the little boy, Brandon Walters. I point out to the boy, more specially. He is the one telling the story. I don't know if it is because I am not from an English speaking country, but I really enjoyed his accent. hmmm what? Nicole Kidman? Yes, her work on this movie is good indeed. But, in my opinion, nothing THAT wonderful. Perhaps if she wasn't that much retouched (plastic surgery? bottox?)

Oh yes, the movie made my wife cry *grin*. Really good movie, great landscapes, great photography.

I liked it too because it talks about racism, mainly how these things were dealt with in Australia, back in the 1940s. It is quite repulsive that black and "halfcast" people were treated like that.

So, psychicist, one more "review" done ;)

And remember, pay attention to the boy! :D

:: Webcams on Linux - Part 2 ::

OK, dokey! As promissed, here goes my test with that D-Link DSB C-110: It's working! It's working! (Anakin voice)

The ugly face...



On my desktop I am running Bluewhite64-12.2, kernel 2.6.28.7 and KDE-4.2.2 (my packages). The webcam I have already described *LOL*.

Here goes the output of dmesg and lsusb:

dmesg

• usb 6-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
• usb 6-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
• usb 6-2: SN9C10[12] PC Camera Controller detected (vid:pid 0x0C45:0x600D)
• usb 6-2: PAS106B image sensor detected
• usb 6-2: Initialization succeeded
• usb 6-2: V4L2 device registered as /dev/video0
• usb 6-2: Optional device control through 'sysfs' interface disabled
• usb 6-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0c45, idProduct=600d
• usb 6-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=1, SerialNumber=0
• usb 6-2: Product: USB camera

lsusb

• Bus 006 Device 004: ID 0c45:600d Microdia TwinkleCam USB camera

So... I did my good deeds for today, haven't I, dougsland? :P

Good night to you all.

:: VirtualBox 2.2.0 ::

Hey... how outdated was I? Today I was talking to psychicist on #bluewhite64 and the talk came to "virtualization". Then I thought "hmmm I should check VirtualBox site just to see if they have any news". And indeed they had. Version 2.2.0 was released one week ago :)

Well, I started the download and at the same time I told my Windows XP VM to get some rest. I then installed the new VBox and fire up that same VM. Holy Yoda! This time Windows XP booted much faster! Plus, I could install the vboxadditions remotely (something that gave me some headache last time), rebooted the system (very fast) and there it is, running again.

Congratulations to the VBox team!

I will let you guys know if I find anything more (be it good or bad)

:: Webcams on Linux - Part 1 ::

dougsland sent a message on the tchelinux mailing list asking us to report on webcams which would not be working on Linux.

Well, so far I have two webcams at my disposal. One on my netbook (which I never used, but tried) and the one my father gave us (remember that old howto? It's been a long time since I tried to use the later, but I do remember the image was some what terrible. So, after reading his "scream for report" I decided to give them (both the webcams) another try.

Good news is the webcam on my netbook (Positivo Mobo 1050) looks to be working perfectly. I just activated it and used kopete to test it. Bellow is a "nice" screenshot of the result:

*** the ugly face is not the webcam's fault :P

Ah, sure, I am running Slackware on my netbook (slackware-current), kernel 2.6.29.1 and KDE-4.2.2. The webcam is a BisonCam NB Pro (by means of dmesg).

EDIT: dougsland asked me to add dmesg and lsusb output, so this post might be more useful for other people ;)

dmesg:

• usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7
• usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=5986, idProduct=0203
• usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=1, SerialNumber=0
• usb 1-5: Product: BisonCam, NB Pro
• usb 1-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
• uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device BisonCam, NB Pro (5986:0203)
• input: BisonCam, NB Pro as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-5/1-5:1.0/input/input11
• uvcvideo: UVC non compliance - GET_MIN/MAX(PROBE) incorrectly supported. Enabling workaround.

lsusb:

• Bus 001 Device 008: ID 5986:0203 Acer, Inc

dougsland (and others who might be interested), later I will try my D-Link webcam on my Bluewhite64 and see what I get.

So... wait for the next repot ;)

:: The Spirit ::

OK...

My oh my... how to begin this?

Anyway, two nights ago my wife was too sleepy to watch a nice movie with me, so I put my earphones on, pluged it to the netbook and fired up "The Spirit". At first I thought the beginning of the movie was just something to "throw me off the rails"... to... hmmmmm ... try and cheat me. I wasn't allowing myself to believe the movie was that bad.

And not, the movie is not that bad. It simply SUCKS!

Holy Yoda! How come Frank Miller is that out of his mind? If that's all he can do about comics movies, I just hope he quits NOW.

EDITED:

I wasn't going to post much about this movie, but since psychicist complained about my review... then there it goes.

Have I already sad the movie sucks? Anyway, it astonishes me that good actors/actresses accepted to work on something as bad as this. OK, not everyone will prime for a VERY GOOD movie. Sometime you will end up working on something of lower quality but.... THIS LOW??? Samuel Lee Jackson, who is a great actor (at least I so qualify him), worked on something like that? Damn!

OK, I admit I never read a Spirit comics, so I can't say anything about movie quality compared to comics quality; if it was a good adaptation or not. But I can say the movie is a tremendous trash. Let's take Spider Man as an example. Yes, it is not a very good example when you want to talk about GOOD MOVIES. However, as I said to psychicist on IRC, I consider a movie that entertains to be a good one. If it does more than that... then the "grade" goes higher. The "Spider Man trend" at least entertains me. So... I consider the movies to be AT LEAST good. Yes, I know all those 3 Spider Man movies have flaws, etc, etc. But The Spirit gets to be even worse then those. Do you get the spirit? *ROTFL* (forgive the pun)

For me, the best scenes of the movie are when Eva Mendes is shown almost naked (OK, the character was to be that way, unfortunately the camera doesn't show that much) and when Paz Vega shows up for the first time, dancing in front of The Spirit.

Ah, I said "when she shows up for the first time".... forgive me if I am saying some bullshit here. Like... if she doesn't show anymore. The truth it is I couldn't stand the movie, I quit watching it about its middle. I was even getting sleepy because of that crap :(


Now I write again (remember this post was edited): OVER AND OUT

:: Governo do RS + Microsoft - Part 2::

Hmmmm que interessante... um passarinho me disse que corre na boca miúda (ou seria graúda?) que o atual Presidente da PROCERGS teria uma empresa que, entre outras coisas, vende produtos da Micro$oft. Hmmmmm não acham isso um tanto... INTERESSANTE?

Caso isso realmente seja verdade... seria isso pura coincidência com o lance do governo do RS ter feito parceria com a M$? Não seria isso um tanto conveniente?

É pessoal, está na hora da gente "botar a boca no trombone". Não sei se adianta mandar email para os jornais do RS, mas... não custa tentar né.

Let's move!

:: KDE-4.2.2 is there :P ::

Yup, just a quick post to let you all know that I uploaded the KDE-4.2.2 binary packages to Bluewhite64's repository.

Have fun with it and please let me know if you find anything wrong.

May the Force be with you!

:: KDE-4.2.2 is here ::

OOOOOOK dokey! KDE-4.2.2 was released today, and today I compiled and packed the binaries for Bluewhite64-12.2. I should have done that before, but I was a little busy with other stuffs.

I will test it a bit more tonight, then I will upload to BW64's repository. The great news so far (I haven't tested it, just loaded it, tried one or two applications) is that it compiled much faster than previous versions: 90min 2.220sec

I remember KDE-4.1.2 taking more than 130min. GO KDE! hehehehe

Well, that's it for now.

:: Governo do RS + Microsoft ::

Alert! Alert! Alert! Senhoras e senhores, dêem uma lida nesta notícia.

Pois bem, a primeira pergunta que eu levanto sobre este assunto é: quanto o governo do Rio Grande do Sul terá de desembolsar nessa brincadeira? Não estou falando de mão de obra, estou falando de dinheiro que será ENTREGUE para a Micro$oft.

Não sou jurista nem nada do gênero mas, caso realmente o governo tenha de desembolsar uma graninha, isso não requeriria LICITAÇÃO?

Sinceramente essa história não me cheira bem. O governo (acessores, etc) da Yeda cogitou o uso de Software Livre? Sinceramente, eu não quero ver meu dinheiro (impostos, lembram?) sendo dado de mão beijado pra Microsoft.

Nada contra pagar por um software. Mas, se há softwares de qualidade similar (senão superior) por preço mais baixo e principalmente LIVRE (não estou falando de ser gratuito, estou falando de se poder saber exatamente o que o software faz), então porque ficar a mercê de software proprietário, onde só a M$ sabe o que a "belezura" está fazendo?

Vamos abrir o olho hein. Quem puder, passe a mensagem adiante. O governo da Yeda já tem várias "fontes de fedor" (lembram das gravações telefônicas?). Não vamos deixar que empesteiem o Estado todo.