Here I am writing on the train which goes from Trieste to Udine. It has been a long time since my last post. In September 2007 I started commuting daily and I did not have many occasions to write a quick post. I had time, as the time it takes to cover my home-office distance is about 2 hours/journey. I did not have the opportunity, though. We may see it as a lack of technology. But yesterday I got my brand new HTC Shift (x9500) and now I’m enjoying some decent-to-almost-fast typing on the go. I will make a full review in a week or two. For the time being I can tell you that this nice piece of equipment is value for the money (especially if you bought it very cheap in eBay like I did!).
Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon: how to set an application (e.g. gDesklets) to run at startup
Published December 13, 2007 computer 0 CommentsI’ve been trying to run gDesklets at startup for months. Everybody used to say that it was just a matter of creating a new item under “Sessions”. Well, it was not working for me.
It was not a critical issue, so I let it go. But from time to time I went back googling around for a solution. Finally I found it in a post 10-month old from Ubuntuforums.org. The problem was not in the application but in the permission settings of the folder /home/[your user name]/.config/autostart. I did not have any write permission on that folder, therefore there was not way to set and save new items under “Sessions”.
If you have the same problem, click on the following link.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=359686&highlight=startup+chown+permissions
Some time ago a wrote a post concerning the installation of Google Desktop .deb on a x64 system using the -force architecture command.
Let’s say want now to get rid of it. How do you do that? You won’t find that package listed in Synaptic, so you will have to do it using the terminal, as you did for the installation. The tricky thing is that the dpkg -r command asks for the package name, not the file name used during the installation. So here is what you have to type in:
sudo dpkg -r google-desktop-linux
In case you wonder how a Google Partnerpage looks like…
Published September 9, 2007 computer 0 Comments
So few weeks ago I subscribed to the free Google Apps service which enhanced my website with a number of new features. Some of them are important - like my new email address @andreamorgante.com (you can have up to a hundred of them), some others are just cool. I mean, isn’t that cool to have your own personalized iGoogle start page? It’s easier to set-up than to write about it. Have a look at the picture here attached to figure it out yourself. Sometimes I still wonder how all this is possible free of charge! Of course it’s just cool but pretty useless for me to have a kind of “corporate page” (and you could build an intranet in seconds) as I’m the only user in my domain, but think of young entrepreneurs with tight IT budgets: a service like this gives them all the internet/intranet tools they need in few hours and free of charge (20 bucks/year if you count the domain name registration fee etc.). There are cheaper and more efficient ways of doing things out there: let’s go and find out!
It’s now six months since Serena and I last visited Paris. This picture gives an idea of how I remember it. Espressionists used to paint using not the actual color but the closest one to their feelings. Well, I think that over-saturated pictures can deliver a similar result.
Apple gave birth to its own dictionary - the iDictionary of iMarketing - just putting an “i” in front of common words. A standard phone becomes a must-have phone if it’s an iPhone. I know guys - even smart ones! - who would buy iCrap if white and marketed by Apple (in the old days I would have used “manufactured by” but unfortunately this is not anymore the case). Google did just the same exact thing. They created the gDictionary and finally the Gphone! Ok, nobody saw it, except some lucky Venture Capitalists but everything point at it. I will not talk about the obvious features of a Gphone (for sure it will be smart but not that cool because it will not be Apple white and it’s not of course i-named) or the fact that it will be powered by a light linux OS, but I will concentrate on the pricing. There are rumors that it might cost 100 bucks, which would be an extremely aggressive pricing. The 100 bucks range is getting more and more interesting as every company as to fight on both the rich western market and the promising emerging countries.
I found two interesting articles which I advise you to read. They talk about the Gphone and its marketing strategy. Made by HTC - most likely the most experienced smartphone and PDA manufacturer in the world -, the Gphone might both destroy the 100 dollars laptop strategy for the emerging countries and force high end phones to be sold at a lower price.
Nokia Vs Apple: The Empire Strikes Back
Published August 29, 2007 computer , finance 1 CommentTags: linkedin
I’m not going to talk about the pros and cons of Apple iPhone (well, maybe I’ll do, but just a little).
Everybody is talking about it. Everybody with a little knowledge of what pdas can deliver knows that iPhone is the sexiest device on Earth, but not the smartest. Tech forums often compare Nokia n95 to Apple iPhone and the result always is: n95 is the real new thing, but Apple masters marketing and design magic and it’s definitely the trend setter.
All this said, I prefer to look at it in a different way. I see Apple’s move as a smart way to keep growing when the mp3-phone-player tsunami is coming to clean away their nice niche. I don’t think we will have to wait long to see the washing machines on the market capable of playing mp3 and YouTube videos. It’s clear tha the iPod - Apple’s cash cow - cannot be milked forever. So they had to move forward. They had to do it quick: that’s why iPhones have this little hitch with the battery duration (it drains faster than a Rum bottle at a party of exchange students) and they lack of a very little thing for a third-generation phone: a third-generation communication system (i.e. umts)! It will come, sooner or later. But still it’s not there and this is very disappointing.
Anyhow, timing, design and marketing of the iPhone were just great. The idea to grab “only” 1% of the global market looked also great, at least it kept happy the investors. But, this time Apple is not dwelling in his own niche. Apple is trying to steal it from other players like Nokia, Motorola and Samsung. I work for a finnish company, so I must admit that I like Nokia products. What I like the most is the ability of Nokia to adapt to the ever changing market. Nokia is now selling 6 out of 10 phones sold worldwide. It’s competing on every segment, manufacturing phones for the rich western countries and for the emerging markets as well (which are extremely important: Motorola is said to have lost the 2nd place to Samsung due to its inability to compete on the emerging markets).
So the question is: will Nokia let Apple eat out the richest and most profitable segment?
A first hint of future Nokia strategy appeared already in February: “the iPhone will stimulate the market“. The idea is that Apple, with its marketing power, will change people’s mind and show the benefit of multipurpose phones. After all the iPhone is no big deal. It’s just a computer with Unix-like software running on a Samsung processor. It should not be difficult to replicate it and offer it at cheaper prices. It could also be a nice way to penetrate the US market where Nokia is not very strong.
Today the big news (even though it was partly revealed at the beginning of the month): Nokia will go on Internet! Apple biggest success was to get extremely high returns from the supply contract signed with AT&T in the US and the new contracts signed or about to be signed with European operators. Nokia will start doing a similar trick, but this time offering directly a number of services (gathered in a single portal called Ovi - gate in Finnish) specifically designed for their phones but accessible also from the regular PCs. After a couple of acquisitions, Nokia is now ready to start-up its own iTunes, but with some interesting differences: in my opinion the most important one is that mp3 will be delivered directly to the phone - no need of PC software to download from the website and upload to the device as for the iPhone. Nokia wants also to fire-up a new social network, they will make available the nGage concept for all the new n-Series phones and will extend the free-maps service to all new models with built-in or bluetooth GPS receiver.
All this will happen in the fourth quarter of 2007, right before Xmas. They also presented a bunch of new models with 8GB flash disk and better design (even though Apple’s one remains unrivaled) and they showed a kind of exact copy of the iPhone which will be available beginning of 2008. The phone is so close to the iPhone that it really looked more like a message to Apple like “hey! Is this all you can do?”.
So, Nokia is fighting back, in the way Apple would do. Who will be the winner? And, will Samsung and Motorola sit and wait the end of the game? One thing we can take for granted: Apple is not anymore alone trying to milk a rich niche of consumers.
I registered andreamorgante.com at Aruba.it website. I’ve been using Aruba as service provider for more than 3 years and I cannot complain, even though there are a lot of things to improve. In the very beginning I used to run my own CMS (Mambo) on a Aruba linux server. It was too time consuming and anyhow the result was not comparable with awesome services like WordPress. So last year I moved to WordPress and I kept andreamorgante.com as a simple redirect to morghi76.wordpress.com. Some time ago this domain mapping thing appeared among the options in the dashboard and immediately thought it sounded just great. The domain mapping would have allowed me to replace the morghi76.wordpress with andreamorgante, making the website links looking as the one I used to run my own CMS. I had to go for it! And I went for it! Here is how I did it:
- I changed the subscription to Aruba.it services to domain registering and DNS managing only, which actually is the cheapest among those they offer
- I tried to change the name servers (NS) from Aruba to WordPress ones but the feature - even if listed - it’s not available from Aruba admin panel. In other words, it’s there, you see it, but you can’t use it. It does not make any sense to me, but it’s the way it goes if you register your domain at Aruba.it. I had then to turn to the helpdesk. They changed the parameters (you’ll find them in wordpress admin page, so I will not post them here) in 12 hours
- I waited that the change propagated in the network. Every DNS-related website says it takes 24/48 hours usually, but you can check if the change took effect checking your domain at DNSstuff or DNScheck
- After 72 hours, I kept getting the error message in WordPress anytime I tried to map the domain. So this time I turned to WordPress helpdesk
- WordPress helpdesk was even faster: they fixed it in few hours. I was finally ready to start the domain mapping procedure
- It really takes few minutes: if your DNS settings are correct and your domain is pointing at wordpress NS you will be asked for 10 credits and after that you’re done!
Extra feature: why not having your domain-related email too? WordPress allows you to use Google Apps service in conjunction with theirs. Anyhow, for the time being only the MX webmail is supported. Few clics and you can setup a number of email accounts for your domain for free. That’s at least what I did
More and more linux in computers for consumers: Asus eeePC
Published August 23, 2007 computer , moleskine 0 CommentsIt’s not a breaking news anymore that Asus is going to distribute his brand new little toy - eeePC - starting from this September. The eeePC is a subnotebook, among the cheapest ones in its segment. It’s cheaper than the “smartphone companion” Palm Foleo, the Microsoft-driven nanobook and far cheaper than the UMPCs. It’s slightly more expensive than the “laptop for children” notebooks, but it will be offered worldwide as its design will appeal both the rich western countries looking for a light companion to fill the gap between smartphones and notebooks and the developing countries looking for an inexpensive solution to solve the digital divide issue. Starting at 199$, it’s going to shake the market as many of us will find out that to perform a number of common activities (email, web, photos etc.) a 199$ computer is more than enough. That’s of course possible thanks to a well featured linux OS, designed to fit the purpose. Actually I have already read bad news concerning price increases which would add 100$ to the final price, but let’s wait for the official figures from Asus, who’s planning to sell 500.000 worldwide next year! In the meantime, it’s nice to notice that Linux is getting more and more popular also in the consumer segment: Dell is widening its selection of products featuring Ubuntu as standard OS, Lenovo will sell laptops with Suse and HP will deliver hundreds of computers with Ubuntu for an Indian University. As Bob Dylan used to sing “times are a’changing”.
Era da molti anni che non giocavo a Monopoli. Ricordavo per lo più solo quei particolari che sono entrati a far parte della cultura popolare. Chi non conosce espressioni come “andare in prigione senza passare dal via” o luoghi come “Parco della Vittoria”?
E’ stato un po’ come giocarci per la prima volta, eppure - sarà forse perchè ho perso due volte di fila? - qualcosa non mi ha convinto. Passi il ruolo della prigione, attualissimo, che ti permette di riposarti per tre turni lasciando agli altri furbetti del quartierino l’onere di scannarsi sul tabellone per poi ritrovarti all’uscita più ricco di prima. Anzi, sarebbero da lodare gli ideatori del Monopoli per aver saputo anticipare i tempi, immaginando che nell’Italia del ventunesimo secolo la prigione sarebbe diventata un catalizzatore di fama e successo, un momento di riflessione in cui perdere qualche chilo di troppo e rivedere le proprie strategie, un trampolino di lancio per la carriera dello spettacolo, il giro di boa che trasforma la vita grigia del banchiere nello sfavillante mondo delle serate in discoteca, ambiente che ci ha già regalato soddisfazioni presidenziali. No, non è il ruolo della prigione ma quello della banca a rivelare l’età ormai avanzata del Monopoli: la banca, infatti, garantisce per il giocatore e copre in toto i suoi debiti in caso di default. Inoltre, ripropone all’asta i terreni oggetto del fallimento senza fissare una base d’asta minima. E vogliamo parlare della tassa patrimoniale a quota fissa (sempre 10000 lire indipendentemente dal reddito) o degli interessi sull’ipoteca (10% sempre e comunque, senza relazione con il numero di turni di gioco trascorsi tra accensione ed estinzione)? Pura utopia! Magari le banche di oggi fossero queste - ma lo sono mai state? Oggi le banche prestano soldi ad imprenditori con le pezze al culo e per riprenderli distribuiscono obbligazioni spazzatura della stessa azienda che hanno contribuito ad indebitare vendendole ai loro correntisti. Oggi le banche offrono mutui ad alto rischio che poi vengono cartolarizzati, rivenduti sul mercato e con due o tre passaggi finiscono nei portafogli dei gestori di fondi pensione. Oggi le banche non coprirebbero mai una perdita, non perderebbero mai i soldi di un’ipoteca. Già… Magari le banche fossero quelle del Monopoli.
