It shows how the Web has enabled a brand-new class of business models, and thus become such a Wonder Land of free, high-quality applications and services.

I really loved reading the book. And I got positively impressed even by a speech Anderson recently delivered in Milan, about the disruptive effect of the Internet over so many brick-and-mortar businesses.

So what the hell crossed his mind when he recently wrote and published an article titled The Web is Dead?…

Ok: he wanted to remark the rising power of the Apps, which is undoubtedly a fact. Granted: as editor in chief at Wired, he needs to push the magazine sales even by purposely triggering some buzz and squabble.

But I believe that statement is far too much.

A lot of reasons have already been pointed out by critics across the Web.

In a nutshell, my own can be described as follows:

- yes, the Apps are a big success for their ability to drive dedicated experiences, ideal for handling specific tasks… so no wonder that many companies and organizations are betting on them to attract customers into their own walled gardens, out of the Web…

- but the Web is alive and in very good shape indeed, because it gives its best just where the Apps struggle: universal compatibility. Today I can handle most of my online activities on nearly every devices… regardless of their operating system (and even by borrowing someone else’s laptop for a few minutes or getting in a cyber cafe)… AS LONG AS THEY HAVE A WEB BROWSER.

Although I consider myself a techno-fan, and I use to act as a first adopter with most consumer technologies, this time I’m sticking with my 3-years-old Nokia E71.

I guess we can call it a smartphone, even though its screen is non-touch… and quite small on current standards. In fact the following points still make it a very good companion:

- comfortable QWERTY keyboard (say what you want, touch-screen-addicted readers, but I bet I can text faster than you!)

- still up-to-date hardware equipment, including wi-fi, 3G, bluetooth and GPS

- embedded Mail-for-Exchange client

- availability of free applications for those features most of us use the most: Gmail, Google Maps, Ovi Maps, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, Nimbuzz (a multi-service chat client)…

Not enough? You’re right.

The final, critical ingredient is Joikuspot. This smart program connects to the Internet in 3G and shares that connection via wi-fi, turning the E71 (and many other phones) into a wi-fi hotspot in a snap.

Only recently added in some smartphones natively, this feature is usually defined “wi-fi tethering”.

Think about the possibilities. I mainly enjoy the latest apps on my iPod Touch and download new content from everywhere on my e-book reader… but one could even surf the Internet with two notebooks at the same time from a beach…

Just get a 3G flat data tariff before!

Let me explain why. During a couple of business trips I’ve been reading Inside Steve’s Brain, a smart book about a guy who definitely knows how to make a difference: Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs. I already knew how troubled Apple Inc was in the late 1990s, when Jobs took its role back after many years out of the company. Thanks to that book, I discovered some serious similarities between today’s Blockbuster and 15 years ago’s Apple Inc. For instance:

- Apple had a huge set of different products and versions, without anything close to a precise focus or strategy -> Blockbuster has started losing money from its hundreds of shops, and now is acting as a confused late follower in those adjacent markets responsible for its crisis (from online rentals to automated kiosks)

- Jobs immediately identified Apple’s brand as the most valuable asset to start a relaunch from -> Blockbuster’s blue and yellow logo is still synonym of “cinema” across most of the Western countries

Not enough? Sure, it’s hard for everyone to be compared with the cool and innovative Apple we all know. But let’s go back to 1997, when Apple’s logo had rainbow stripes and the Power Macintosh had the appearance you can see here on the left.

Yes, a different era. But Jobs started his unbelievable series of best seller products with the iMac (here on the right) one year later only.
Big step forward, uh?

Blockbuster could start a new course as well, leveraging one of its supposed weaknesses: the shops. I believe an effective recipe should be based on the so-called “Internet of the Things”.

Movies are not common products. Hollywood’s “dream factory” is not just a claim.

One could enter a Blockbuster store, be recognized by a Rfid loyalty card without pulling it out of the wallet… and get amazed by HD trailers, profiled offers and recommendations… with every movie ready to be downloaded on a digital memory in a snap.

A whole new approach, capable of suddenly shifting the company image from the 1980s to 2010 and beyond. Who said customers always want to stay home while choosing a movie? They could be eager to go out, if the shops were able to amuse and entertain them!

Therefore, tech innovations usually run that stage when they’re ready to turn into mass-market wonders.

As far as I remember, a brick-&-mortar content distributor such as Blockbuster has broadcast a Super Bowl ad only once. Well, this year Vizio has shown how its latest TVs can bring both premium video content and web services to the living room. Through the Internet. In a snap.

The rules of the game are definitely changing.

I’d rather love finding out ways in which consumer oriented technology can help developing a cleaner world, by making what the Internet can do best: eliminate barriers.

Here you go with A Real Tree. Just a few taps on your iPhone screen, and for $0.99 a real tree will be planted on your behalf in a developing country facing deforestation. Then the application will give you a real-time (estimated) glimpse on how your tree is doing. Check it out!

By applying all of this to consumer electronics, I think Apple’s iPhone has determined the most relevant market trend across 2009, being much more than the excellent niche product someone had initially considered it. While touch screens and widgets/applications have swiftly become a must for everyone out there, I’m asking myself: who’s going to play a similar role in 2010?

My bet is on ebook readers.

On the way to explaining this statement, let’s make one step back. Gartner, a market research firm, believes every technologies go through a hype cycle before gaining a widespread diffusion: after a peak of inflated expectations, there’s a “trough of disillusionment” before the technology reaches the “slope of enlightment”.

In Gartner’s 2009 Hype Cycle Report, issued in July 2009, ebook readers were placed at the maximum level of expectations, just before the disillusionment phase.

Six months later, I believe this phase could be almost over. Using the chart below as an instruction manual, ebook readers are in my opinion where competition increases and second generation products reach the market.

Time (the horizontal axis) is running so fast that ebook readers could be climbing the scope in six months, when Gartner’s next report is expected to be issued.

This technology has the potential to eventually change the way we’ve been reading for centuries. The Internet is already doing it for news and every other short/medium length text. Ebook readers could finish the job.

The huge retailer Amazon, originally born just as a bookshop, is leading the ebook readers market not by accident with its Kindle, whose DX version has gained worldwide 3G coverage just today (the more popular Kindle 2 already had it).

Moreover, the potentially most brilliant competitor happens to be the Nook from Barnes & Noble, a US-based bookseller. The Nook is still young but adds a small LCD touch screen for navigation and is powered by Android operating system, which could support interesting features like (back to the 2009 must-haves) widgets.

This means one thing: content eventually rules over features.

No matter what Sony or others are going to launch in technical terms. A seamless access to books and magazines is definitely the key aspect.

While BBC iPlayer is increasingly available on multiple devices in the UK, though not yet in form of mobile network enabled iPhone/Android app, Hulu and its minor competitors appear essentially stuck in the PC world.

Yes, one could connect its computer to the TV screen. Of course it’s not the same thing. I wish I could just receive a feed like the one below onto a widget-enabled STB, press OK on the remote control and play the latest Heroes episode seamlessly…

In 1995 Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen, two researchers at Harvard Business School, felt the need to invent a new term for defining the most radical of those markets’ innovations: disruptive technology.

Of course change isn’t loved by everyone. As Wikipedia states: “Disruptive technologies are particularly threatening to the leaders of an existing market, because they are competition coming from an unexpected direction”. The risk for incumbent companies is that of the proverbial boiling frog: they often can’t guess the right moment to switch to the new technology, until it’s too late.

Now, which is the market heading to the next disruptive change?

My bet is on TV, where some old-fashioned broadcasters seem very unlikely to keep their leadership over the next decade. Yes, of course they’re moving some content to the cloud and granting some sort of on-demand access to their customers. But real competition can reveal tough to deal with… especially whether it comes from copyright owners, suddenly able to speak directly to their viewers.

Nonetheless, I believe a couple of interesting alternatives have a good chance to gradually increase competition.

1. Napster Music Store

I’ve got a special bond with the Napster brand: it wasn’t only the first peer-to-peer service I bumped into years ago, but also the main topic of my graduation thesis. Everyone probably agrees that it changed forever the way we mean music…

A few months ago, Napster has been relaunched as a legal music store backed by Best Buy. I couldn’t resist: I had to check it out!

Well, for just $5 per month I’ve got not only five DRM-free legal downloads… but also unlimited listening of every song from the catalogue! It’s like merging a traditional store (say Amazon) into the concept of online radio services such as Last.fm or Pandora. Respect to those, Napster has much progress to do in terms of recommendation engine, but grants its users far deeper control: you can select songs or entire albums, put them in a playlist and just listen with no limits.

It’s easy to reckon that the “listening” part comes almost for free (or at $0.05, say), since most songs cost $0.99 on traditional stores.

2. DoubleTwist

I believe part of Apple’s success in the digital music market comes from iTunes, which most iPod users wouldn’t ever replace (well, not even if they could…). Of course iTunes works with its own Music Store only, is based on DRMs and doesn’t manage any devices but the iPods.

Well, now imagine a comparable software which relies on the DRM-free Amazon music store and allows synchronization with nearly every device.

Currently available for Macs only, this all-devices-welcome player (definition borrowed from a Gizmodo article containing also a short video) appears led to a promising evolution.

As Rick Falkvinge points out, that was possible thanks to a substantial monopoly over information. Mr Falkvinge, founder and leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, reckons that power has always been consequence of an information advantage. Of course new technologies, such as printing press, threatened those advantages and were thus hardly fought… until the United Kingdom, on May 4th 1557, took a different approach and created a monopoly called copyright.

It’s interesting to find similar reactions across history with the subsequent big innovations: TV and radio have always been monopolies until relatively recent times. And even in wealthy countries like Italy, member of the G8 but ranked only 65th in the 2008 Freedom of the Press chart, they’ve just turned into controlled systems with very poor competition.

Of course there’s a notable exception: everybody can be user of unlimited information and even editor of original content through the Internet. No revolution has ever had the potential of the world-wide-web. And the effects are already starting to become clear in the most advanced and free countries.

Yes, the surprising election of Mr Falkvinge to the European Parliament is a very good example, but not the greatest…

Reading advice: Yes We Did! An inside look at how social media built the Obama brand.

The movie is indeed based on a true story: Erin Brockovic, a formerly unemployed single mother of three children working in a law firm, found out evidence that PG&E had been dumping (over a few years) 370 million gallons of cancer-causing chemicals into a series of ponds located in Hinkley, CA. The civil class-action managed by Erin brought to the largest settlement of its kind in the history of the United States: PG&E was requested to compensate the plaintiffs for $333 million! Further details about the trial are available here.

What I want to point out here is that perhaps something has changed, or at least history has been a good teacher… since today the same PG&E is one of the champions in the US race towards clean energy production.

Based on an agreement signed one year ago with two subsidiaries of OptiSolar and SunPower, PG&E will soon manage one of the world’s largest photovoltaic farm, for a total of 800 Mw. The farm will be located in San Luis Obispo County, about 100 miles north of Santa Barbara, CA.

What does 800 Mw practically mean? Well, that number is just a nominal figure, which should approximately indicate the solar panels “peak power” (the production achieved in ideal conditions). The efficiency of a solar installation is often indicated by measuring its total daily production in terms of equivalent peak hours. PG&E forecasts a production of 1.65 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy annually, which would be a daily average of 4520 megawatt-hours… like if the plant worked for about 5 hours and half per day at its peak power. Definitely not bad! About 240,000 residential homes can be completely served with this amount of energy, without any emission into the atmosphere.

Nobody’s so naive to believe PG&E has not considered its return on such an investment. But this is probably the best news at all! Making photovoltaic energy remunerative even before it reaches the grid parity, through proper incentives, is essential if we want to start right now building a cleaner future for our planet.

The main contribution I picked out from the book is the importance of being “focused and consistent”, in order to cover a niche and develop a loyal group of readers. This sounds fair.

Thus I’m going to make technology and sustainability the basic mood all my posts will be written around. Which is far from a small niche, I know… but fits very well my current wide area of interest.

Moreover, the links between information technology and the long awaited clean energy revolution might be more relevant than expected. This is something I believe since I read another book, several years ago: The Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin.

In 2008, about 24% of netbooks was shipped with a Linux operating system. But that percentage is expected to plunge to a poor 4% this year, according to the market research company IDC. One could imagine that a revolutionary new OS has entered the market and caused such a change! Completely wrong: the netbook market is currently led by the 8-years-old Windows XP.

Why?

Win XP is neither more complete nor faster than Linux, especially on these low-power devices.

The point is that users look for compatibility with the constantly growing number of electronic devices they own: mp3 players, portable hard drives, smartphones… and of course with a series of well-known software products they’re already used to…

I’m a loyal user of Linux Ubuntu, which I installed on a couple of computers including my Dell Mini (some tips about it here). But I’ve never felt indifferent with the issues described above: I wish I could have on my netbook at least iTunes, Slingbox Player and a full compatibility with every external memory. Anyway, I didn’t consider Win XP as an option.

Then I bumped into this article from Uneasy Silence, describing a simple method to install Apple OS X “Leopard” on the little guy. Of course I spent a few hours surfing the web about this, so I found out that different methods have been built and are very well explained by the smart guys at the Dell Mini forum. This post from Gizmodo has been an interesting reading too.

Well… I couldn’t resist from tryin’ it out. And it worked!

I’ve been testing this solution for a few days now. Needless to say, having some of the Apple incomparable experience on my netbook has been amazing. But on a deeper analysis… I believe it’s just not worth it.

Let’s highlight three main reasons.

1) A netbook is primarily meant for surfing the web. While Ubuntu’s Firefox let me scroll every page just smoothly, by sliding the touchpad edge with my right finger, I couldn’t replicate the same behavior on Mac OS (nor, least of all, have the famous two-finger Mac experience: that’s not supported by the Dell hardware).

2) Yes, I could successfully install Slingbox Player and iTunes on the hackintoshed Dell Mini. But the latter couldn’t manage my Win-formatted iPod Nano.

3) Ethernet was not recognized on Leopard, which wasn’t so bad at first, because the wi-fi connection worked perfectly instead. Then I went out for a week-end and I realized that this somehow affected every chance to make my HSPA dongle work.

Therefore, I peacefully switched back to the latest Ubuntu Netbook Remix version.

Now I know that I would immediately buy an Apple Netbook. But I also learned why in Cupertino they’re so obsessed by selling the Mac OS with their own hardware only: full control of the user experience, resulting in an unchallenged cutting-edge product line.

While during winter I’m especially focused on the short distances, because that’s where I gain my highest scores, now I’m having the chance to experience a distance training for three months. That’s still the situation I enjoy the most: long strokes, full awareness of your body and control over your energies…

Besides swimming for miles and miles, I’m going to watch this fantastic Alessia Filippi’s performance regularly, as a source of tips and inspiration.

Needless to say, though she’s a woman, Alessia swims the 800 freestyle in about two minutes less than me! But let’s assume I’ve got wider improvement margins… 

My irreplaceable coach Enrico will surely lead me across these next three months, but meanwhile I couldn’t resist to snoop around for some training programs online. Here’s the core part of the most interesting I’ve found so far:

- 10×100, descending 1-8 from 75% effort to 90% effort, recover/easy swim on 9 and 10;

- 1×800, negative split second 400;

- 6×100, descending 1-4 from 75% effort to 90% effort, recover/easy swim on 5 and 6;

- 1×400, negative split second 200.

The complete workout is available here, together with other challenging ones you can find through this engine (my settings: Masters Level 3, Distance Freestyle).

The truth is that “If” has always been inspiring to me, since my uncle gave it to me in a nice wood frame when I was a kid. That frame is still in my bedroom, so I can read it as I get up.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

People who works in technology would be a better-than-average lover, because more focused on pleasing the partner and far less selfish. Great and distinctive features, folks, especially for men!

The explanation of this result might be easy to find, if you consider the supposed methodical nature of tech-minded individuals. More naughty interpreters could think about the manual skills gained by hours of console playing…

Either way, even though I’m not the classical geek person but rather a marketing professional with a deep passion for technology, I must admit a certain sense of identification and amusement.

My girlfriend lately belongs to this latter category, even thanks to an amazing on-line platform which is definitely contributing to her commitment: Nikeplus.

The Nikeplus concept is basically the following: you keep track of how many miles you run, through a smart (and unexpectedly cheap) iPod Nano accessory, then you upload those information on a web cloud via iTunes. What makes Nikeplus unique is the compelling and attractive way it presents and manages your data, building a community of runners who challenge each other and share their passion for sport and healthy lifestyle.

My master swimming season is still in its topic period, which is even longer this year because of the European Championship in Spain. But I must confess a strong temptation to get my running shoes out of the closet, sooner or later. Maybe this time I wouldn’t miss the fascinating target of running the NYC Marathon, thanks to this kind of on-line training too…

Unfortunately such a scenario is not completely unrealistic, despite every effort to switch towards clean energy sources and sustainable lifestyles. In fact this change will possibly decrease future emissions, but the carbon dioxide we’ve already produced will keep warming the Earth for centuries (and it’s doing it faster than expected).

That’s why science might eventually be our last resource.

Let’s go back to June 15th 1991, when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted with such a violence that the ejected gas penetrated into the stratosphere. Besides killing hundreds of people in one of the world’s most populous areas, this cataclysmic eruption allowed scientists and engineers to establish a huge and unexpected tryout: Pinatubo injected about 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it reacted with water and formed a layer of particles, able to absorb part of the sunlight.

This caused a relevant cooling effect over the entire planet.

Well, a human-driven injection of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere is possible, and would cost less than many other methods for stopping the global warming. This is what Paul Crutzen, winner of a Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on the ozone hole, has proposed since an article he published in 2006.

Here’s the definition of Mr. Crutzen’s area of interest: Stratospheric and tropospheric chemistry, and their role in the biogeochemical cycles and climate. So let’s say he definitely appears qualified. I just hope these guys are going to be very careful, since the possible collateral effects of releasing SO2 into the stratosphere include the enlargement of the existing ozone hole over the South Pole (see the picture beside) and even the origination of a second hole above the North Pole.

Back to the Hollywood movies I mentioned before… what I hope above all, in case the human race will face such a threatening situation, is that we’ll fight all together just like usually imagined by those talented filmmakers…

The process is quite simple and doesn’t require any additional hardware or software, but it can reveal very powerful by allowing multiple use cases.

I’m wondering for instance if someone could use a VPN connection, set on the PC, to make a (wi-fi enabled) set-top-box access video rental services with geographical restrictions.

Any other idea?

Nevertheless, even if your device doesn’t belong the the “supported sources” category, you’ll still be able to stream its video flow through a Slingbox. You’ll only miss the chance to remotely control it via a virtual remote control… which can represent a significant limitation!

Before giving up with an italian MySky HD receiver, I made some googling and visited a few forums. It worked.

Here’s a simple recipe in two steps…

1) After installing Slingbox Player on your computer, locate the folder which contains the included files for IR configuration. It should be:

C:\Program Files\Slingmedia\SlingPlayer\SBAV\ in Windows;
/Applications/SlingPlayer/Contents/Slingbox Setup Assistant/Contents/Resources/SBAV/ on a Mac.

2) Then search the Internet for a binary file built-up for your device, copy it into the folder above and insert the code included within the filename (e.g. 2012 for MySky HD) into the Slingplayer wizard when asked. The MySky HD file is available right here, within a large directory that will make you reach many others.

That’s it. Just warn any people you share the TV set with, because now you’re able to switch channel from everywhere in the world!

Of course my arms have remained steady. But today I’d rather be in front of a modern and technological dashboard like the following, with much more comfort and safety.

Though, I could still feel that kind of old-fashioned taste… because I would be driving the beautiful silver bullet below!

Powered by a hybrid (bio-diesel + electric) engine and provided with a photovoltaic rooftop, this amazing vehicle should be ready in form of prototype by next summer and available for purchase a short time later. Its creator, Canadian designer Alexandre Verdier, has recently stated: “I wanted to build a car that’s low impact and makes the most out of nature”.

Well done, Alexandre! Once you’ve stopped and turned your Verdier into the mobile house below, you’ll definitely enjoy the environment you’ve contributed to protect.

More details and pictures can be found here, or by googling Verdier.

A fully equipped Verdier will cost the crazy amount of $129,000, but a more affordable $69,000 version should be in pipeline too. While wondering about a time in which I’ll be able to purchase and intensively use such a vehicle, I can’t wait for the first time I’ll sight one of them outside!

I’m talking about three years ago only. And I clearly remember that I picked out ImTOO Mpeg Encoder as my preferred software for clips conversion. Yes, I know: it’s unacceptable for an average user to deal with this kind of geek stuff. And it wasn’t so convenient for me either.

Of course most of today’s devices, including mobile phones, are far more flexible in playing various formats and resolutions. But you’re still required to make at least some syncing. Meanwhile, a few on-line services promise to do even better: your favourite videos are brought into a cloud, ready to be delivered onto your devices in the most suitable format.

Reeplay.it belongs to this latter category. Once you’ve selected a video from the Internet (through a bookmarklet or a small application), you’ll be able to download or view it by many different devices: mobile phone, iPod, Wii, PlayStation… and of course personal computer, as a common podcast.

A social aspect couldn’t be missing. So you’re allowed to create and share playlists and single videos with your friends.

The service works pretty well with most of the on-line video portals, including YouTube and the amazing aggregator Blinkx. Check it out!

That might appear trivial. But the huge investments he’s planning on renewable energies are quite tangible instead.

By the way, settled to write a post about this topic, I searched the web for an Earth Day logo. And I found dozens of different ones! Of course this might mean nothing. Or maybe it’s a signal of how fragmented the world’s commitment against global warming still is.

Unfortunately my feeling is not based on this isolated episode only. Yes, every day I read about new amazing projects, like (in the last couple of days only) an entirely solar-powered city in Florida or the first low-cost small electric car. But I also see that most of the bad behaviors which took us to the current situation are unchanged.

The Italian government is planning to build several new incinerators, through a procedure which adds insult to injury: they’re partly financed with those funds (CIP6) which should support the investments in clean energy!

The citizens’ health is completely ignored. Look at the following picture. Based on recent data from the World Health Organization, it clearly shows the decrease in life expectancy within Western Europe caused by air pollution.

People who live in Northern Italy like me, or in other industrial areas of Europe, are shortening their own life by 36 months on average. But who lives in the large red coloured areas can’t consider himself lucky either.

Less fascinating than the map of solar irradiation I showed in a recent post, isn’t it?

The real question is: what are we waiting for? Which other signal should Mother Earth send us before we stop killing her and ourselves?

Happy Earth Day…

What follows is instead a series of subsequent improvements I gradually brought in. Though they’re not a must-have, they actually helped me obtain the best from my netbook.

1) Following an advice from the Ubuntu Mini blog, I installed Medibuntu: a repository of packages which allows quite important multimedia operations, from mpeg encoding to Skype calls. I also installed the unfailing VLC Media Player. Of course you know that getting a new program in Ubuntu is as easy as going to Programs -> Add/Remove, looking for it and clicking Install… right? 

2) Since Netbook Remix hides the topbar of maximized windows, I found very useful to set up a few keyboard shortcuts. Ubuntu makes it really easy, through a tool you can find in System -> Preferences. My convenient choices have been: Alt-Z to maximize the selected window, Alt-X to unmaximize and Alt-C to close.

3) A few settings, suggested by an Ubuntu Mini article again, have allowed me to customize Firefox. Their purpose is keeping in consideration the limited screen size and CPU speed of a netbook. Just for this reason, I preferred not to install most of the mentioned add-ons.

4) One more technical touch up: since the Dell Mini comes with a SSD memory, I wanted to lenghten its life by disabling the Tracker from loading at start-up (just uncheck it from the list you find in System -> Preferences -> Sessions) and stop content indexing on my netbook (step-by-step guide here).

5) Last but not least, something more recreational. These guys at System 76 offer free Ubuntu stickers if you send them a self addressed stamped envelope! Their achievement is just allowing people to show their pride for being powered by Ubuntu. Enjoy!

A few months later, though it’s been surpassed by more performant and same-priced netbooks, my small Dell is still an outstanding device for me: some supposed limits, like the 8Gb only built-in memory, turn into valuable features when you notice (for instance) how silent this computer is.

To be honest, I somehow influenced the way this present has been picked out. I thought it brings two significant benefits respect to some similar products: embedded Bluetooth 2.0, and Linux Ubuntu operating system. I knew Dell had involved Canonical for the second point, so I expected my Dell Mini to come with the just-released Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Instead, when I switched it on for the first time, I saw something similar to this screenshot.

Yes, pretty nice. But strongly managed by Dell, starting from the strictly selected updates; and based on Ubuntu 8.04, which misses the very good Connection Manager released within the 8.10 Intrepid Ibex. I resisted for one week, because worried about warranty issues, then I decided to pimp my Dell Mini.

The open-source community provided good support as usual, but I especially leveraged the advices from a very good blog named Ubuntu Mini. Here’s the few steps I followed.

1) First, I downloaded the latest Ubuntu release from the official site, and I created a live USB key. It was Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex in my case, but at the moment I’m writing Ubuntu 9.04 is about to be released.

2) Installation on the Dell Mini was quite easy, thanks to an excellent wizard. The only tricky part is perhaps the partition management, whose settings should depend even on the way you’re going to use your netbook. You can find here a very detailed step-by-step guide, which includes an important advice to fixing a common sound problem with the Dell Mini.

3) Ubuntu Linux is an amazing operating system, but I think the Netbook Remix makes it even more enjoyable, particularly on a 9 inches screen. Installing the Netbook Remix over Ubuntu 9.04 promises to be as easy as typing sudo apt-get install ubuntu-netbook-remix, but for its 8.10 version I needed a couple of additional expedients from this guide.

Here’s how my Dell Mini desktop appeared at the end of this whole process, which I could perform in about one hour.

These were the must-have steps to get a Netbook-Remix-powered Dell Mini. In my experience, it’s really worth it. One example? The already mentioned built-in Connection Manager, besides easily managing wireline and wi-fi connections, allowed me to plug-&-play multiple devices: HSDPA dongles from different manufacturers, shared connection from a Windows Mobile smartphone…

The next part of this article (post 2 of 2) will include a few optional settings and tools for further improving your installation and subsequent experience.

I’ve been an early adopter of personal tools like iGoogle and Google Reader, but I never stuck to the social aspect of it: Digg, Delicious and so forth…

Well, today I eventually found a nice and different way to share selected content from my favorite on-line sources. You can enjoy my selection in the News page of my site, and find out how to do the same within your own Wordpress blog right here…

1) First of all, of course you need to regularly browse the content Google Reader aggregates for you. I also take for granted that you’ll progressively increase the number of feeds you get content from. Anyway, every time you find something interesting and relevant for your audience, just click on either the Share or Share with note link at the bottom of the article.

Your picks will be shown in your Wordpress page, as soon as you’ll have completed the following two steps.

2) Now, look at the URL in your web browser. Google Reader identifies you by a unique ID, inserted between user%2F and %2F, like in the picture below.

3) Final step. Download the Google Reader Shared tool from Wordpress Extend and install it into your blog (by unzipping the file and copying the resulting folder into the wp-content/plugins folder of your web server). Activate it from your Wordpress back-end, then go to Settings -> Rec. Reading and insert your Google Reader ID into the proper field.

That’s it. Now you can choose whether to show your selected content within a page, by writing the word recreading between two square parenthesis in your editor, or to use the dedicated widget you’ll find in Appearance -> Widgets. Further options allow to influence the aspect of your outcome, including some CSS editing for the most advanced users.

Happy publishing!

Of course the big players had large stands and released powerful features. But a back-to-the-basics mood spread out from many presentations. Moreover, maybe party to the current recession, much more interest than expected has developed around the Open ipTV association, whose aim is developing end-to-end specifications for ipTV, based upon existing technologies and open standards, for either managed or unmanaged networks.

Let’s say it: most of the current ipTV deployments really fit the definition of Cable TV in Telco’s clothes. They support everything with huge investments, but still don’t know which business they really want to be in. Thus the adoption of standard technologies might be a winning strategy: not only for cost reduction, but even in order to deliver new services and get the market response in a very short time. Basically, a perpetual beta approach.

Would this drive us to eventually enjoy the Internet potential within a television box, like the oncoming ipTV technology has promised years ago?

Of course I don’t have this answer. I just believe that indirect competition is highlighting the urgency of a route change. I’m especially referring to those services which rely on the open Internet, delivering quality content through an outstanding experience: the multi-platform BBC iPlayer is the european best-practice by now, while devices like Roku and TiVo make the US video-rental offers handier every day.

Of course Joomla is not a ready-to-use tool (like, let’s say, Wordpress for blogging), but needs to be customized for the kind of site you’re going to deliver. The open-source community never leaves you alone in this, starting from the thousands of extensions available and fully supported on the official Joomla.org site. There’s plenty of features for almost any purpose, including even the launch of a full e-commerce solution.

What I’m going to do here is simply listing the few extensions I strongly suggest, regardless of which is your Joomla-based project.

- Xmap: a very effective component, which builds and keeps updated both an HTML and an XML site map, useful for your visitors and necessary for search engines friendliness.

- J15html: it allows to create basic modules containing the html code you wrote or pasted in. Essential for publishing every tool or badge from external sites in the blink of an eye.

- JX Wysiwyg: an advanced what-you-see-is-what-you-get publishing tool, which actually gives you more options respect to the built-in Tiny MCE editor.

- Flickr Slideshow: whether you want to show a few simple images or a large photoalbum from Flickr, this smart component makes it simple and generates attractive layouts.

- YV Comment: yes, this is not exactly a must-have for every site. But today comments are often allowed even in environments quite different from blogs. Alternatively, a good option for comments might be also Disqus, a complete platform which is easy to embed within Joomla through a dedicated extension.

Every software product I mentioned is distributed for free under the GPL license. You can search and download it from the Joomla Extensions web site, which also provides an outstanding support through its community.

Among his records, I think the sum of these two really shows this rider’s greatness: youngest World Champion ever (in 1990, at his debut) and rider with the longest time between the first and last GP won in his career (for a total of 29 victories and 99 podiums in 282 GP).

Loris has been World Champion three times, and they could have been at least a couple more. So yes, he’s definitely a great champion with an amazing career. But there’s much more underneath: he’s often met both triumph and defeats, learning to “treat these two impostors just the same” (a little quote from Rudyard Kipling), thus here’s the main reason I’m his fan for: I think Loris is a great person.

His bravery and obstinacy have always been inspirational for me. And the informality he proved when we met is as noteworthy: it was June 2000 and I had built my first web site as a tribute to him, with plenty of information and updates about his career. A friend of his, responsible for the Capirex Fan Club, noticed the site and invited me to join them at the Mugello circuit for the Italian GP. Well, the first thing Loris said was “congratulations for the amazing job you’ve done for me”! A couple of hours later, he won one of the most spectacular Italian GP ever, after an amazing battle with Max Biaggi and Valentino Rossi.

Next week Loris will start his 20th championship, in the shining environment of the Qatar night-time GP.

The latest motorbike Suzuki has developed, following Capirossi’s requirements, has shown massive improvements. Hope he’s gonna play a main role, dragging his #65 motorbike to the first positions once again. Go Loris, go!!

Decades of studies have allowed the definition of detailed maps, whose visual result I find as fascinating as interesting. They report the yearly sum of electricity generated by each single KWp (KiloWatt-peak) in every area: an amount that can even double if you move from Central Europe to Southern Italy or Spain.

I’m publishing a map of the whole Europe, but many local maps are available here and some googling will definitely cover any other world area.

Solar irradiation is an essential parameter indeed: on equal terms, it could even halve the break-even period of your investment. But many other parameters are relevant, starting from compelling public incentives. This explains why Germany, even though its territory appears quite sad in the map above, has rapidly become one of the world main hosts and producers of photovoltaic systems.

Ernst & Young has developed a research named Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index, whose aim is just giving a whole picture of the renewable energy market. Many interesting details, including the ambitious targets set by the world’s main countries, are reported in this excellent article published in 2007. More recent and really complete data can be found in the EPIA (European Photovoltaic Industry Association) latest Solar Generation Report, developed in collaboration with Greenpeace.

Are we actually going to build a clean planet for our children? Recent developments, like soaring oil prices and President Obama’s ambitious plans, give us hope.

I really love these funny original testimonials, even because I had the chance to work on them with my friend Nicolas a few years ago…

Voiced respectively by Jim Belushi and James Woods, Ray the guinea pig and Carl the rabbit observe life from their pet shop window, just in front of a shining Blockbuster videostore.

Conceived and computer-generated by the talented guys at Tippett Studios, Carl and Ray have soared at the acme of their TV stars career in 2002, when one of their funniest commercial was broadcasted during the Super Bowl.

Here follows a selection of their performances…

On the other side of the coin, Wordpress can be less supportive when you look for advanced features and settings.

I initially couldn’t view the true html code of my posts, and the built-in editor used to cut tags like <br/>. So I installed the plugin TinyMCE Advanced Editor, which gave me more flexibility and control. But I still couldn’t have a custom space between paragraphs…

Unsatisfied with some work-around solutions found out on the web, I started trying with my (improvable) CSS skills and I eventually succeeded.

Well, let’s go straight to the point. You just need to put the following lines into your Wordpress theme style.css file:

p{
padding-bottom:7px;
}

This simple instruction puts a padding of 7 pixels every time you close a paragraph with the tag </p> (which is exactly what happens when you press the enter button in the visual view). Of course 7 pixels has been my choice, but you can alter this value until satisfied.

Hope this can help!

My favorite character is the man who, after four minutes waiting for the preceding car to be parked, simply gets off his car and literally pulls the woman out, in order to park her car himself. Perhaps this can be considered a rude behavior, but it’s so funny if you wonder about his growing anger during the waiting time…

Moreover, the young chick who gets dragged by the gasoline nozzle is simply great. Enjoy!

Meanwhile I’m translating and publishing, with their original date and time, a few selected posts from my old Italian blog.

And of course I’m working on the blog appearance, delivering a good number of updates to the original Blue Uzor Wordpress theme: every suggestion is very welcome!

They’re an injection of confidence and bravery, because life is too shaky for wasting time in hesitancy.

A recent Forbes article clearly shows us the effectiveness of the long-term perspective.

I eventually found out a two-step method I’m quite satisfied with.

1. Microsoft Outlook to Google Calendar. Developers have released some interesting software products for this kind of synchronization, including the very good SyncMyCal. Then BigG itself launched Google Calendar Sync, which is completely free and includes traditionally-premium features like scheduled periodic syncs. Whatever your choice, be careful not to use more than one of them at a time, or you’ll get duplicated events and other trouble.

2. Google Calendar to mobile phone. This step has an unquestioned winner: GooSync, a shareware software with support for almost every cellphone. It works pretty well and offers good support. The interesting part is that calendar features are fully included in the free version, so you’ll need to purchase the premium one only if you’re interested in syncing contacts and tasks. And for contacts sync I’d rather suggest products such as Zyb.

Just one final advice: before running one of these programs on your mobile phone, verify your operator tariffs for mobile data!

Joining us is totally free and depends on two requirements:

- having a LinkedIn profile
- mentioning “swimming” within it

Membership allows you to show the “swimmer inside” logo on your profile and to interact with the other members through dedicated LinkedIn tools.

Do you want to apply? Just click here.

Once stricly linked to the physical theatre, today movies are distributed through dozens of media and devices, allowing many different use cases. Everything started in the 80s with a successful company named Blockbuster: couch, pop-corns and VHS cassettes have been the ingredients of a great concept.

Then DVDs, promptly decrypted by the norvegian student Jon Johansen, have represented the first sparkle of a massive revolution: digital support, unlimited copies with no quality loss…

Today broadcasters and ISPs deliver digital content onto our televisions in real time, new formats like mpeg4 and DivX have disclosed commercial opportunities and also set up a fertile ground for piracy, video content can be easily watched through the Internet Protocol with many different devices… while high definition and home-theatre systems turn our living rooms into an amazing environment.

At least the Hollywood Studios, perhaps adviced by the discographic disastrous experience, have exploited rather than fought this revolution. So Steve Jobs’ latest announcement is what we’ve been waiting for: besides songs, iTunes is going to sell thousands of movies. What’s next?

Yes, he already was a fast guy.

But the confidence he’s showing in this season, well… is more than unexpected! Casey Stoner is dominating the championship, driving crazy one of the best riders of all times: does anybody recognize that #46 motorbike?

The newest Ducati Desmosedici is a lightning and perfectly fits this young rider, just while Loris Capirossi, used to be the greatest interpreter of this amazing crabby motorbike, strives to obtain feeling with its 2007 version. Consequence of the large use of electronical equipments in these 800cc engines?

Anyway, Ducati still beats the shit out of the japanese huge producers!

The aim of my speech, titled like this post and based on my experience with Bulldog Broadband in the UK, was showing how user-centered design can effectively lead an ipTV interface development, in order to bring some of the Internet potential into the television box.

The starting point is necessarily the Internet. A medium? A technology? Every definition would be reductive. Instead, let’s give a look at the scratch Tim Berners-Lee conceived the hypertext with. It’s displayed at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View and appears so ingenious in its (relative) simplicity.

Doesn’t it look somehow like Doc Brown’s flux capacitor chart, the one he draws in 1955 after clashing against the toilet? Unforgettable! :-D  But let’s remain focused…

The Internet has changed our lives because it allows users to personalize, interact, build relationships. Everybody is the main character in the world-wide-web, because can build up his personal way of collecting, managing and enjoying unlimited content and amazing tools.

On the other hand, television is the typical passive medium. In front of the small screen we’re all spectators, ads viewers, recipients of a programme schedule that somebody else has defined for all of us.

The great advantage of traditional TV? Being prompt, immediate, outrageously easy-to-use. The real challenge for ipTV? Delivering the unlimited Internet potential onto the TV screen, without losing that easiness. Interactivity would be eventually available for everyone!

Consider the basic customer, threatened by these computers that send information through the entire world. Then give him a remote control. He’ll suddenly feel confident, and will gradually get ready to discover new amazing possibilities, as long as you provide them through a great user-experience.

Very soon he’ll play a movie whenever he wants, check the weather forecasts, share photographs and thoughts… And he’ll build his own TV schedule, as easily as I manage my iGoogle personal page.

Meanwhile, the real Loris has taught a driving lesson during the latest Motegi GP, winning a race completely run under last year track record. Go Capirex!!

Then he renews the contract with Ducati, confirming himself as the red-bike leader for the upcoming season.

Hope he’ll finally have a performing bike on every circuit. And please, don’t make his teammate trying to kill him again while he’s leading the championship in the middle of the season…

Having him World Champion with an italian bike would be amazing!

Hollywood Studios have probably learnt the lesson from what happened to the recording industry. They don’t want to let piracy threaten their opulent revenues. Why forcing a series-addicted customer to postpone an appointment, or (worse) to purchase a TiVo which puts advertising revenues in danger? Introducing new chances to watch content is probably a more effective solution.

The upcoming moves in this sector will be interesting to observe. Meanwhile, we already have a winner: the end-user, of course!