The Virtualbox post

Mainly to myself, my repository of tips and tricks of running Virtualbox under Linux. Feel free to use at your own risk.

Configuration location

/home/$USER/.config/VirtualBox

Connected USB devices not showing up in the usb filter
Check, and add your user to vboxusers group

sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers $USER

Running Guest OS with different date time than Host OS
This is really useful to run old software with time limitations without messing up with the Host OS date/time settings.

It’s easy to specify a time offset from the Host OS in microseconds. 

First get the vm name

VBoxManage list vms

Secondly apply the desired offset (example -1 year clock).

VBoxManage modifyvm "name in vm list" --biossystemtimeoffset -31536000000

(1y = 365d * 24h * 60m * 60s * 1000m)

Letter to Lawrence II

Hi Lawrence,

700 days have elapsed since you were born, so now you are a very happy (and big!) 20 month baby. And boy… you warped the space time continuum to a incredibly fast pace.

It’s such a big joy to see you move around and discover the world. And you do move, explore and interact a lot. One must always keep a close eye on you, because you like to touch everything and climb stuff…  the cherry on top of the cake, is that at night time usually you are so tired that you fall asleep in minutes.

You are starting to talk, you know the normal stuff “mamã, papá, sim, não, água, papa”, but also some really cute things: usually when something is done you say loud and clear “Já tá”, another personal favorite is when you pursuit the house cat with a great smile on the face and say “Piiii, Piiii, Piiiiiiiii” (it’s a hard life for the cat…).

You still smile a lot (you practically born smiling…), and with your smile you make many people smile also, some that I actually never saw smile before you. Please don’t ever loose that inner happiness, it’s awesome.

In these months I have learned many things about life with you kid, children are really the best thing in the world because they change adults to a better version, more calm, more optimistic, with more inner strength.

You know, my biggest wish is just to be remembered as a good father.

I love you,
Marco Gonçalves

Moving around in Lisbon

So, here you are in beautiful Lisbon! Now there are so many places to visit, sights to be seen, monuments, restaurants, bars… how to get around to all these places?

First rule, very important to be an happy tourist, AVOID taxis like the plague. They exist in two color schemes: green/black or beige color, but they have only one goal, to rip off tourists and non locals.

A good alternative is Uber, the cars are new, the drivers polite, and most important you will know beforehand the price range of your trip so you will NOT be ripped-off.

Use this link to get €5 off your first ride


But unless you are wealthy, or lazy, or american, you don’t need/want to go by car to everywhere. So I invite you to also use the Lisbon subway network, it’s cheaper, eco friendly, and one of the best ways to move around in Lisbon specially at the rush hour (but sometimes a bit crowded though).

It’s called Metropolitano de Lisboa, or simply “Metro” and they do have an english version of the website, where you can find the network diagram (yes there is a station at the airport), ticketing and price information, and so on. The trains start running at 06:00am and stop at 01:00am. The stations are clean, safe, and the trains well maintained.

About the ticketing and pricing, it can be a bit tricky (even for locals) as you can mix subway, bus and trains, several time frames, and rechargeable tickets… my advice is to always keep the ticket during and after the journey as quite probably you can recharge it for other trips.

Cycling in Lisbon. The bad news is that we have lots of hills, not so good roads, nor cycling culture. The good news is that for most of the year the weather is perfect, there are more and more bicycle paths and more people cycle. It can be a perfect mean of transportation for short distances, or for a leisure ride by the river.

In some places of the city, you will find the city municipality shared bicycle stations, called Gira. They do have e-bicycles that assist you in the climbs, and the equipment is quite new. But the stations are not in touristic spots, and please beware this is almost a government funded scam, you see the daily pass, and think, cool for 10 euros one gets a bicycle for a whole day, right? WRONG, it gives you the possibility of using the service in that day. In practice it means for 10 euros you can do multiple trips of 45 minutes maximum time. If you make a 46 minute trip they charge plus 2 euros. And after 90 minute they charge more 2 euros for each 45 minute additional time. For example:

Let’s say you get a bicycle in the middle of town, go downtown (there are no stations to return the bicycle and stop your trip), then by the river (also no stations by the river), then go by the river to Belém for the monuments (again no stations there), take some pictures eat the pastries, and get back to the middle town and finally park/deliver the bicycle at a station.

It can easily take 5 hours, the total cost will be 10 euros for the “daily pass”, plus 12 euros for the extra time, for a total of 22 euros.

So if you enjoy ciclyng, maybe better off to rent a bike in a rental agency, or trough the bike peer to peer Spinlister.

A very cool alternative to cycling is the eCooltra electric scooter sharing service. You install an App (there is always an App…), take a picture of your drivers license, pick a nearby scooter, and go.

The cost is 0.24 cents per minute, but you can get the first 30 minutes for free with this code: jbvsg

The scooters are 100% electric and 0% emissions, and so easy to ride (low center of gravity, no vibrations), in my opinion a bit under-powered but it will take you where you want to go, in my book it beats any public transportation by a mile. The best thing is that you don’t need to find a specific station to park, just leave it (at least reasonably parked) when you finish your trip and carry on with your life.

With all the cheap and convenient means of transportations, don’t forget to walk, it’s the best way to fully enjoy the streets, the city stairways and charming alleys, so bring your best walking shoes.

And just one more thing, this is Lisbon, it’s not Bangkok nor Mumbai, don’t make yourself look like a dumb fool, and just don’t go around in a Tuk-tuk. It’s stupid, nobody likes them (maybe except for the Tuk-tuk owner, maybe), they bother people, they bother other vehicles on the roads, they can be quite expensive “for a tour” that would be much nicer to walk… Please just don’t do it.

39

Steady the timeline advances.

Moved to beautiful Lisbon, met awesome people, great music everywhere (Ajuda, Viana do Castelo, Cristo Rei, and of course Armazém 16). Jumped out of an airplane, did a bit of surfing, and beach relaxing. Keeping up a young spirit, and feeling human again.

The business front is holding on great, and with a bit luck and hard work there is only one direction, a bigger boat 🙂

Sure some problems and bad situations presented, one that is a big mean dragon that must be confronted (again), brace and just hope for the best. Anyway, it’s time to step up the strikethrough pace of the bucket list items.

The most important lesson this year is life is good, time is precious.

Go go go.