Highlander di Alluminio

Coca di fianco al mio MBP. Una mano agitata di troppo (e’ la mia natura, non ci posso fare niente). Una superficie di alluminio e plastica metallizzata… ricoperta interamente di friccicante coca. Spegnimento istantaneo automatico (ancora non so perche’, ma dalla velocita’ e l’immediatezza assumo sia presente un sensore water-proof). 1299 pound che salutano con la manina, insieme ad una quantita’ infinita di dati dal valore inestimabile. Iastemme di tutti i tipi. Richiesta di aiuto (prima in Italiano, poi in Inglese). 3 disperati che tentano di asciugare per salvare il salvabile. ...

June 17, 2008 Â· 1 min Â· 146 words

A new, even bigger City

After a year and a couple of months I’m going to leave Symbian Software Ltd. (London). It has been a very good experience as my first job in [en:UK]: a way to grow mainly, first as a [en:Man], then as a [en:Software Engineer]… and then professionally in general. A lot of interesting, inspiring, intelligent people (and a lot of NOT), that showed me “their way”: I took where it was worth it, not where it wasn’t… and left where I was able to. ...

June 15, 2008 Â· 2 min Â· 370 words

Nokia should Learn, not Teach

From Slashdot: Nokia Urges Linux Developers To Be Cool With DRM [superglaze](mailto:superglaze@hotmail.com) writes in to note that according to Nokia's software chief, its plans for open source include getting developers to [accept things like DRM, commercial IP rights, and SIM locks](http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2008/gb20080612_288518.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_global+business). > «[[Ari] Jaaksi](http://jaaksi.blogspot.com/) admitted that concepts like these "go against the open-source philosophy," but said they were necessary components of the current mobile industry. "Why do we need closed vehicles? We do," he said. "Some of these things harm the industry but they're here [as things stand]. These are touchy, emotional issues, but this dialogue is very much needed. As an industry, we plan to use open-source technologies, but we are not yet ready to play by the rules; but this needs to work the other way round too."» So, Nokia wants to EAT using the knowledge and the software that the Open Source Community created… and, at the same time, change it’s culture and impose concepts that are COMPLETELY against the Open Source “philosophy” itself. Interesting… Instead of learning of the quality of what the Open Source community is capable of doing using a development model built around “equality and quality”, they want to teach/impose? And to who? To the Trolltech employee? They are free to do so… but this does not mean that the rest of the Community will change its mind. QT? There is KDE that has a foundation to protect it PLUS there is always the Fork option ;-) . Think about XFree86 and X.org: nowdays they lost all the users… because of the stupid decision of changing the license. ...

June 15, 2008 Â· 2 min Â· 303 words

Google I/O 2008 - Keynote

Title: Keynote for Google I/O 2008: Client, Connectivity, and the Cloud. Abstract: Featuring Vic Gundotra, Allen Hurff (MySpace), Steve Horowitz, Kevin Gibbs, Mark Lucovsky, Bruce Johnson, David Glazer, Nat Brown (iLike). I’m at minute 23 and it looks very very interesting and relevant (for every developer in any field). So, sit tight, grab a coke/beer/cigarette/juice/whatever-you-like and… listen carefully.

June 9, 2008 Â· 1 min Â· 58 words

Firefox 3 Download Day 2008

Come on guys, Join the Download Day of the BEST Web Browser ever made. ;)

June 2, 2008 Â· 1 min Â· 15 words

A Fox in Boundary Row, London

I was on my way to the office (yes, on Sunday: I have stuff to do ;) ), when I see something that doesn’t look correct or “in the right place”. A Fox in the middle of Boundary Row!!! [![](http://lh6.ggpht.com/detronizator/SDCgpPE2BfE/AAAAAAAAA80/DRR4vtnWpwQ/s160-c/AFoxInBoundaryRowO_o.jpg)](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/AFoxInBoundaryRowO_o)[A Fox in Boundary Row O_o](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/AFoxInBoundaryRowO_o) I don’t know, probably was bringing to my desk Firefox 3 RC1 ;) Yes yes, I know: Firefox is not a [en:Fox], but a Red Panda!!!.

May 18, 2008 Â· 1 min Â· 71 words

Debian on my NSLU2: The Revenge of the Swirl

After some playing with Unslung on my Linksys NSLU2, I realize it was a “very limited solution” for our needs. We need to share 4 (sometimes 5) NTFS (or others) volumes, where everyone of them is 500GB: this is too much even for the modified firmware of Unslung, unable to read the full directory trees (and the contained files) of my massive movie’s collection. [![](http://lh6.ggpht.com/detronizator/SC9F6fE2BaE/AAAAAAAAA8I/oz-Ujfnmj9g/s160-c/TheDebianNSLU2SReign.jpg)](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/TheDebianNSLU2SReign)[The Debian/NSLU2's Reign](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/TheDebianNSLU2SReign) So, I came back to the Debian/NSLU2 solution. This time, with all the intention to make it work. It’s quite pointless to report here all the things I did to make it work in the way I want/need. I’ll just write down the most important bits: ...

May 17, 2008 Â· 2 min Â· 296 words

Unslung on my NSLU2

Motivated by my friend KM here (sorry, Italian link), I decided to buy a Linksys NSLU2, a Micro-[en:NAS] based on [en:Linux]. Linksys (owned by Cisco) released since day one the source code of the tuned Linux Kernel, instantly allowing the Open Source community to hack this device in a million of ways. My requirements are very simple: I need to share something like 6 external HD using either Samba or FTP+HTTP. I first tried to use the “out-of-the-box” NSLU2 with the latest firmware, but it’s unable to manage more than 2 disks (on an HUB, it just see the first HDD attached). I then decided to use Debian/NSLU2, a very rich distribution for [en:ARM] that is just amazing. The only problem? It seems too much for an hardware like NSLU2, plus, after a normal apt-get dist-upgrade something related with [en:SELinux] and vsftpd happened and I didn’t managed to put it all back to work. I should have disabled selinux passing the parameter selinux = 0 to the Kernel at boot time but… there is no “easily modifiable” [en:Bootloader] to pass parameters to the kernel at boot time (at least, as far as I know). I suppose that I should modify the kernel, recompile and then re-flash it. Too much for something I want to finish in max 2 days. And the NSLU2 is slow. Very slow. It took something like 12 hours to make the full installation of Debian and flash re-flash the firmware. Besides, for what I need to do, it’s not worth it to do all this. ...

May 11, 2008 Â· 2 min Â· 357 words

Training Path #6 - 28 Apr 2008

2.2 miles ~= 3.54 kms This time I was running with Luca: we pushed a bit the speed… but we practically died at the end of Blackfriars Bridge: still good, but next time I need to slow down to last more. Wish me good luck. I will run on the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge on July ;)

April 29, 2008 Â· 1 min Â· 58 words

Training Path #5

2.05 miles ~= 3.3 kms Today I took it a bit easy: John was with me and he has a problem with his knee, so we decided to do only 2 miles to start. Very beautiful day: looks like full summer, with a very strong sun smiling to us. We passed through a big festival/party/something in South Bank: a lot of people enjoying ice creams, watching shows and other stuff for kids. I tried to google for it, but I didn’t manage to know what’s going on up there.

April 26, 2008 Â· 1 min Â· 89 words