After visualizing dozens of site cows in the blogosphere, I decided to get my own too! Here it is, andrefaca.com’s cow:

Didn’t get yours yet? Go to cowparade.com and start painting yours!

Thinking about coming to Portugal for vacation? That’s great to know! I compiled some phrases that will help you enjoy your stay here, while having some fun too.
Here they are:

Sweet Greetings

“You’ve put on weight”
“Engordaste pá!”

“Weren’t you arrested yet?”
“Então, ainda não foste preso?”

General chit-chat

“Would you stop spitting on me while you’re talking?”
“Pára de mandar gafanhotos para cima de mim!”

“Reality and you don’t get on, do they?”
“Tu e a realidade não se dão muito bem, não é?”

“You’ve got a face that would blow off manhole covers”
“Tens uma cara que até faz as tampas de esgoto saltarem.”

“Are you drunk?”
“Estás com os copos?”

“You’re a complete moron.”
“Ganda maluco!”

“You get on my nerves.”
“Tu irritas-me.”

“As a child, was your cradle rocked too close to the wall?”
“Quando eras puto, encostaram-te o berço à parede?”

“Idiot, Foul, Cretin, Imbecile”
“Idiota, parvo, cretino, imbecil”

Helping others

“What did your last slave die of?”
“O teu último escravo morreu de quê?”

“I’d help you, but I don’t like you.”
“Eu até te ajudava, mas não gosto de ti.”

“Do it yourself.”
“Faz tu.”

“Stop bothering me.”
“Pára de me chatear.”

Dealing with parents of children

“My God your children are ugly!”
“Meu Deus, as suas crianças são feias!”

“Your children are very attractive. Are they adopted?”
“As suas crianças são muito bonitas. São adoptadas?”

“How much for the little girl?”
“Quanto quer pela menina?”

Eating out

“How many of your customers have died?”
“Quantos clientes vossos morreram?”

“This restaurant isn’t as good as McDonald’s.”
“Este restaurante não é tão bom como o McDonald’s.”

“Did these fish die of radiation sickness?”
“Estes peixes morreram por causa de radiação?”

“For dessert, what would you suggest to get the taste of the main course out of my mouth?”
“Para sobremesa, o que me recomenda para tirar o gosto do prato principal da minha boca?”

Tem algo a declarar? (Do you have something to declare?)

“I like Spain better.”
“Prefiro Espanha.”

“Yes, I’m hungry.”
“Sim, tenho fome.”

“Only my genius.”
“Só o meu génio.”

“Long live Salazar.”
“Viva o Salazar.”

Note: Original concept by “Conrad Leviston“. It has been slightly modified to fit into Portugal’s culture.

Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disorder that can lead to many conditions due to the fact that it affects the absorption of nutrients that our body naturally needs. If you’d like to learn more about Celiac Disease, please click here to read my article explaining it.

Nearly all celiacs have trouble digesting Lactose. They can be thus considered Lactose Intolerant. But what brings this additional disorder in? Simple: the damaged villi (finger-like or hair-like projections in the small intestin).

When you have Celiac Disease, your villi will get atrophic, making your system unable to break down the Lactose Molecules.

When this happens, you’ll become temporarily (we hope) Lactose Intolerant.
Some (if not most) people are able to reintroduce lactose into their diets after a few months of being Gluten-Free.

The time it takes for the villi to normalize and to be able to break down Lactose greatly varies from individual to individual, so it’s really difficult to say how much time your system will take to recover if you are a Celiac. It can take a few months (never less then 6 months), and it can take up to 2 years in other cases. Your doctor will be the only one able to provide you with a correct estimate for this to happen, with regular intestine biopsies and/or blood tests.

So my ultimate advice for you; if you have Lactose Intolerance and Celiac Disease is to avoid Lactose at all costs during the first months of recovery. Then, after getting permission from your doctor: reintroduce Lactose to your diet. But do it gradually, so you do not get any problems from doing it.

Many web hosts spend at least 2% of their time removing spam tickets. That is, tickets that are created via email messages.
The problem on the side of these companies is, they must have their email addresses publicly available; and even if they choose not to, their clients’ domains’ WHOIS output will always show an email address belonging to the organization, such as dns@company.com or billing@company.com.

Since Kayako eSupport is one of the most popular HelpDesk software available for website hosting companies, I decided to use it as an example for this mini-tutorial. Of course this method can be applied to more helpdesk software, it’s just a matter of configuring things correctly and using IMAP to check for new tickets instead of using Email Piping, which unfortunately is what most webmasters tend to use. So let’s start:

The first thing you should do if you are using Email Piping is to delete your forwarders and replace them with real POP3/IMAP mailboxes.
EG: Usually webmasters only create an email forwarder piping the email to /public_html/esupport-folder/admin/pop3pipe.php

All those valiases have to be removed permanently. Then create the email addresses as POP3/IMAP mailboxes.
Once you’ve done so, log into your Kayako eSupport Administration Area as an administrator and click on “Settings”.

Then, click on the Email icon. If you already had your email addresses configured in Kayako, they should be listed on this page with “PIPE” listed as “Method”.
On every account configured, you must do the following modifications:

1. Click on the “Edit” icon just on the right side of the configuration summary (just before the Delete icon)
2. Once the full configuration page for the selected email address opens, modify the “Method” variable to “PHP IMAP Functions”.
3. Add your “Host” and email username and password. This of course must match the credentials you have selected when you created your email account. As for the email host, I strongly recommend you to use “localhost” if your mail server is being hosted on the same machine as Kayako. This will bypass the need to resolve the mail server address, significantly decreasing the server load if you have a busy helpdesk.
4. Click on “Update” and do this for all your email addresses.

Once this part is completed, we should go to cPanel (if you’re using cPanel, that is) and enable BoxTrapper for all the email addresses you are using on your Helpdesk. It’s recommended to change the verification messages as well, so they look like they are coming from a Helpdesk. An example verification message would be:

“Thank you for contacting us. Our company is now using an Anti-Spam system in order to prevent spam on our helpdesk. As such we require our users to verify that they intended to send the message. This will only be required one time. Once you verify, your email address will be added to our company’s whitelist and you will no longer have to verify on future email messages sent to us.”

Of course this is just an example, and not a very elaborated one. Use your creativity for that
Most of the users will understand this. Just make sure you emphasize that you added the spam protection in order to reduce server load and also to reduce time removing all those daily spam digests you are receiving. Also, I would add that being a company, you must of course write press releases every now and then, and when this is done your email addresses will be listed on thousands of websites, making them easy-to-pick email addresses for SpamBots. Again, use your creativity and common sense to explain this to your clients.

The next and final step is to add a Cron Job so Kayako checks your mailboxes every 5 minutes. (of course this can be adjusted to your needs - just change the cron job if needed):
*/5 * * * * /path/to/php /FULL/PATH/TO/ESUPPORT/admin/pop3functions.php 2>&1 > /dev/null

For example, if you are using cPanel, the cronjob would be something like this:
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php /home/yourusername/public_html/PATH/TO/ESUPPORT/admin/pop3functions.php 2>&1 > /dev/null

Of course this depends on the system you are being hosted on, so if you’re not sure what to add there just point your system administrator to this tutorial and he’ll do it for you.

That should be all there’s to it. You should be now Spam-Protected.

All celiacs like me start to wonder if they can eat this or that everyday. I was CRAVING for a Snickers bar. And I really mean it, it was pretty much like the pregnant’s wishes (lol). Snickers has been with me all my life, it’s my favorite chocolate bar.

So I started my research on that before I bought any.(thank god I educated myself on not buying anything that is gluten free anymore - if there’s just 1 small doubt, I just leave the item on the shelf. Much better then getting sick for 2 days!)

My surprise: Snickers is Gluten-Free! And I bought 3 of them just after I read that 2 are already gone and no I don’t feel anything. So it’s on my safe list.
By the way, Mars is also safe!

ATTENTION: Only the “Classic” Snickers is Gluten-Free. Don’t buy the other ones (Cruncher, Almond). The Almond one WAS gluten-free. As per its manufacturer, gluten has been added to it. So if you used to eat it and started to feel sick, you’ve just got your answer