Last Monday I finally arrived at A Coruña coming from the always great FOSDEM!

Those were 3 intense days where I had the chance to taste some of the finest beers in the world, attend great conferences and meet really nice people.

This year I had the chance to walk in the city and see and feel its magic. I also found the best restaurant I could eat atlast year, this time really in Brussels (last year we went to Gent), I am talking about Amadeus. You DO NOT want to miss this great place if you go to Brussels, Gent or Antwerp. The thing with this restaurant is: you eat a giant piece of ribs with a tasteful sauce that you like so much you feel it should be forbidden and… if your belly can afford to have it, ask for another round already included in the price. And the price, ridiculous, only about 15 €! I paid ~18 € if you with the drink.

This was also a good opportunity to meet Igalians I only knew from Igalia planet and talk more with those I knew before. I was great to share good times with you guys! Apart from my colleagues, I could also meet open source ninjas like Lucas Rocha from EOG.

Hope we can repeat the thrill next year folks!

Yesterday I started the first sessions of Linux Training in Lisbon.

I’ll be teaching this course together with my friend Paulo Cabido for the R&D Center of University of Évora. We’ll be teaching this course to high-school teachers and this constitutes one of the first Linux Academies organized by the Portuguese Ministery of Education.

Hopefully this will represent a more widespread usage of Linux in the Portuguese high-schools as the intentions are to make a viral spread of knowledge — the teachers that are attending these training sessions will themselves give teach other professors and recursivity keeps on…

We Portuguese people are always (just a little) behind the modern Europe.
If you are from a country like the US or the UK, you’re probably used to identify yourself just with your driving license or so, but in Portugal we like PAPER and BUREAUCRACY, so, we have/had a card for pretty much every record the government has of you. For example, I always used to carry with me in my wallet my:
1) ID Card (proofs I am a Portuguese citizen);
2) Driving license;
3) National health card (proofs I am registered in the national health system);
4) Elector card (proofs I can vote and tells people in which town I can do that);
5) “Contributor’s” card (proofs I am registered in the financial system or something like that)
…apart from these I carry also cards for bank account, University and others…! And I never got my social security one (although I am registered in it, of course) or else it would be #6! If I sit with my wallet in my back pocket I get 1 feet taller!

Plus, the old ID card was not the card you might be thinking of (if you’re not Portuguese)… it was a paper card with a plastic cover, see the image bellow:

It had two squares: one for your fingerprint and another for your photo and it was huge!

It had one advantage that is now lost though: if you happen to be falling off a cliff, you could quickly take out your Portuguese ID card, fold it in a hang-glider and escape form death to live a happy life!

But now (well, not so long ago) we got what we call the “Cartão de Cidadão” — Citizen’s Card. It replaces a bunch of them (1, 3, 5 and the missing 6 and eventually will replace the #4)! Yes, what a relief! Today I went to pick mine and I am happy about it! I am no longer ashamed when I show my ID to, for example a Spanish person.

Here’s the card’s design (no, that’s obviously not me in the picture) :

So, to pick my card a lady at the what we call “Civil Register” had me identified using a fingerprint scanner connected to her Windows powered computer. She told me:
“If you like this computer business and stuff, you can buy a card reader and go to this website… then click here… and you can edit your data in your card like your mailing address, etc.”
and I thought: “hmm, will it work in my Linux box?”

Another step towards modern Europe!

I had the pleasure to meet Jono Bacon in the open source event aLANtejo last year! Quite a cool guy and a metal lover!

He’s created a solo project – Severed Fifth – a while ago to explore the new way of distributing music and I’ve been following his updates on it.

Today, he released his debut album Denied By Reign which I am gonna listen to right away.

Get your copy here and let your hears enjoy free metal!!

I just can’t get tired of Dilbert!