I don’t normally post on subjects that everybody post but this year I’m writing a post about Christmas.

Not being a religious person, for me Christmas represents a time where people try to be nicer and where I can calmly be with my family enjoying the holidays. Because of this, I love Christmas!
You see, being Portuguese, Christmas also means we all get together today, on Christmas eve, and enjoy a big dinner where turkey (hmmmm turkey!), lamb (haaaa lammmb!) and codfish (ohhhhh codfiiiishhh!), all are present. Of course, we also abuse sweet desserts and later open presents.

Note: My father tells me that many years ago, presents were given at the Epiphany (January 6) but eventually we adopted the American(?) tradition of giving presents on the midnight of December 24 (and I prefer it this way ). Curiously Spanish people still give presents on January 6 but my fellow Igalians told me things are also changing in there.

So, I wish you feel as fortunate as I feel this night to be able to spend it with the people I love most.
Merry Christmas, and if you don’t celebrate it, happy holidays!

By professionalism I mean the things that should define a professional, mainly: professional spirit, methods and ethic.

A while ago my fridge stopped working, no more cold beers, warm yogurt, etc.
After confirming that it wasn’t a settings problem (I set it to maximum cold and still things would be warm) I contacted my landlord to check how we could fix it. I must mention my landlord is the kindest landlord I could ever asked for and promptly told me to contact someone to fix it and that he would pay whatever the cost was. Fortunately I remembered that maybe the guarantee hadn’t still expire and that we could have it fixed with no cost at all for him. So, he searched for the guarantee document, I contacted the manufacturer (Balay, owned by the Bosch Group) and within 3 days we had the fridge fixed.

Now this post is not to prove that guarantee works but rather to tell you that to my surprise, one week ago I received a letter from Balay appologizing for the inconvenience and that they always reach for their clients’ satisfaction, bla bla bla. I was about to do a western origami ball and put it on the non-organic thrash bag (as it sounded like an advertisement letter) when I read in the last paragraphs  that we would benefit from a guarantee extension of 2 more years starting form the day the fridge got fixed.

In a world where most big companies seem to have forgotten about clients’ satisfaction (stupidly, because I think satisfied clients mean money) and put the profit before everything else, I was really happy that Balay, or the Bosch Group, play different.
If one day I am going to buy any fridge, guess which brand I’ll be looking for? This is how you get clients.

Great news for the Python community in Portugal.

Last week I took knowledge that Nuno Mariz, a Portuguese Pythonista, created the Portuguese Python User Group!
I quickly joined it and send my regards to Nuno for the idea and action.

So far we, proud Portuguese Pythonistas, have a Django powered web page with only a blog, contacts and a planet (and a Google group as well) but it seems there’s gonna be more.
About the planet, give it a look and add it to your RSS feeds. All posts I’ve seen so far are in English, so, you don’t need to know Portuguese to follow us.

Good job Nuno! Let’s spread the Way Of The Python!

So tomorrow after lunch I’m heading down to Vigo to attend a conference by Richard Stallman, yes, that one.

It will be the second time I see a presentation given by him. The first one was in Badajoz, back in 2007 at OSWC.
He’s not by far the better or most enthusiastic speaker I watched in our Open Source world but it’s nice to attend his talk, specially if it’s your first time.
If you’re attending and haven’t been into this small world of FOSS, I hope he inspires you to come in, the door’s always open. If you’ve been living in it for a while, then I hope he remembers you its basis and makes you proud to be part of something (still) so ahead of our times.

An important thing to mention is that Igalia had rented a bus that will get people from A Coruña, Pontevedra and Santiago de Compostela there. The bus is prioritized for employees but not restricted to. It’s available for anyone who asks up to go and obviously limited to its number of seats. Yup, Igalia is just great and I’m proud to be a part of it.

A while ago Last.fm announced that the poor humans living outside cool countries like the USA, the UK and Germany would need to pay a 3 EUR monthly subscription.
They are so kind and understanding that even provide us, poor bastards living in the wrong countries, with 30 free songs!

I *was* a big fan of Last.fm since I joined it in 2007. Now, I’d like to say goodbye to it for as long as they don’t go back on this decision (actually, since their announcement I never turned on my Last.fm clients).

I decided to do this not because I’m a cheap bastard or would starve if I spent the damned 3 EUR on the service but rather because I feel they’re decision goes against the community that helped/did build their service and also because I know that 3 EUR for me might be nothing but for a guy in another country might be a significant amount of money.

Good bye Last.fm, good times we spent together.

BTW, go explore Jamendo and let me know what you think. Also, check if Spotify works for you.