Older blog entries for jvic (starting at number 27)

Java is now the most popular language on Sourceforge projects.

1. Java (16772 projects)
2. C++ (16754 projects)
3. C (15956 projects)

Andrew says we should make a point release of Java-Gnome in a week or so, so everybody: if you've got stuff to commit, please do it within a week ;)

Here's a new planet you should watch on your agregator: Planet Autopackage! Yay!

I already knew about Tango, but now just found out about Oxygen, which apparently is an "arm" of the Appeal project.

Apparently there are some nice similarities between Tango and Oxygen... both apply this outline to icons, and they seem to use almost the same color palette (Oxygen's palette has a few more colors). A very Firefox-ish thing. One interesting thing in Oxygen is that they have a "normal" color palette, and a "vibrant" color palette. Maybe that's an interesting concept.

Oh well, i just hope these folks shake hands and would create a unified (in one way or another) icon set for the free desktop.

The folks that organized CONISLI are going through a financial situation. The company that was helping make it happen decided, few days before the event, that they wouldn't do it anymore.

So some folks took the responsability of making it happen, pay the bill. You can buy t-shirts and bags to help them. They need to sell 300 t-shirts and 100 bags to raise R$7.000.

I just for back from CONISLI 2005. The event could've been a little bit more organized, but it was nice, it was fun definitely.

It was also my first time in São Paulo. What can i say? What a messy huge town, if you wanna know. Everything's too big, too distant, and too gray. But it was cool anyway.

Oh!, oh!, i bought an Elliott Smith album!! Yaaay. It's just impossible to find anything by Elliott here in Salvador; so i couldn't waste the opportunity of buying it in Sampa. Also bought 2 albums by the Teenage Fanclub. Now, i just don't want to talk about how much it costed $$$ me... (ouch)

Let's talk about Free Java

I've got an invitation to give a talk about Free Java in a uni here, and i was taking a look at the slides i presented at the beginning of this year, at the II Festival -- it's great to literally see how Classpath improved since then.

(Please don't take this as trolling!)

So, today i was making some quick images for a presentation, when i decided i wanted to draw some circles in one of them. As the nice Gimp user i am, i thought "ok, that's a job for Inkscape...", and then i suddenly realise there's no Inkscape installed on that machine. "Hm, let me download it... hmmm... nopes, no internet connection".

"So, Gimp's all i got. I know Gimp can make circles. But how is it? I remember it's something with the selection tool... hmmmm...", i take some chances filling a selection and all that, but i just can't remember what goes next... and then i just gave up, made some ugly circles with a pen.

The point of that story is: i used to turn my back on the people who complained "hey, Gimp doesn't have a shape drawing tool!", replying that "That's Inkscape's job", and sending them a link to the Gimp tutorial... but... ermm... really, why, oh why can't Gimp have a basic shape drawing tool?

I'm not talking about full drawing support (that's for Inkscape), but just some tool which will automatically do the "select-fill-shrink-cut" steps so the user don't need to memorize it. That'd be very handy.

PS: I don't know if i'll file a bug about that because i know probably 2,000 people already did that, so...

Found this excelent article about the big media in Brazil; a must-read for anyone that cares.

I had previously expressed my feelings about the big media in Brazil, specifically concerning Free Software, and the Veja magazine.

But now that we're going through this huge political crisis, the subject has been on my mind like it never had. I hate conspiracy theories, but there hasn't been a day ever since the crisis started that i haven't wondered if this isn't a "big media game" to break down our current government.

They won't admit it, but fact is, the big media hates our president (Lula), and that article just goes to show they'd do everything to take him out.

The article is an analysis of how the Veja magazine (one of biggest here) treats social movements (Free Software anyone?), often with lies, made-up facts, even racism; and how they quickly change subjects to suit their political visions. If there's bad news about their "enemies", they'll bash it till the end. If there's bad news about their allies, they talk about sex, life, nature -- any smalltalk to "distract" the mass of readers from the problem.

The article also shows how the media in Brazil is extremely monopolized. In other words, you're always seeing the same opinions about a subject because all those magazines and newspapers you read, they all belong to the same few companies. They control what you see. Muppets.

And there's much more, read that article.

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Sergio Amadeu leaves the government

Talking about the crisis and Veja, now it's official: Sérgio Amadeu has left the government. A very sad happening for FOSS in Brazil.

After the crisis begun, changes in the government made the FOSS campaign fragile. Up to the point Sergio Amadeu felt there was no point anymore in trying to go further with this cause in this government, i believe.

Oh, what does that have to do with Veja? Well, one of the main anti-FOSS guy in the government is the new minister Hélio Costa. Talk about FOSS and he'll say "no" and do all he can (and he has the power) to stop it. But what does that have to do with Veja? Guess what... the guy used to work for Veja! Small world, indeed. Now, enough of conspiracy...

I've just got the new Los Hermanos album, "4". Now there is no doubt, they really are the best rock/indie band in the world currently (in my not so humble opinion).

This album once again goes a new, bold, unexpected, direction. It opens with the song "Dois Barcos", which is definitely their most elaborated song ever. A work of art. Every instrument, every note, sounds like it was very carefully thought and put in its place... everything in its right place. The lyrics uses a trick of writing senteces in a "backward" fashion (like our national anthem does), which just makes it sound even more complex and interesting. Just put on your headphones and listen to this song, it'll make you shiver.

You'll get some latin music in "Paquetá", and rough 70's in "Os Pássaros" -- amazing songs by Amarante! The hit "O Vento" will make you feel like dancing on your own all night along, sticking in your head for days, even though the song doesn't even have a chorus. (By the way, is it just me or there is a little bit of Legião Urbana in this song?)

What else? There's a beautiful bossa nova in "Sapato Novo", great indie rock in "Condicional", melancholy in "Pois É"... yes, this album has it all. Great great music folks!

BTW, i went to their concert last weekend. Was great except for the fact my cell phone got robbed... anyways.

Yup, doing some GridBag code can be so much fun. Thank god we've got JGoodies, and now Matisse.