Under The Wire

Cannot connect to iTunes Store: THE SOLUTION

2012-01-17T10:51:00.005+01:00

Sometimes you cannot install/update apps anymore and you get the error "Cannot connect to iTunes Store". There's a very simple solution for to this annoying problem.

Go to Settings > General > Restrictions.

Enable restrictions. Wait 5 seconds. Disable restrictions.

It should now work!

If this doesn't work those are other things you should try.

Alternative #1

Reset your network settings

Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings

and then restart your device.

Alternative #2

Go to Settings > Wifi > {YourWiFiNetwork}

Press on the blue arrow and choose Forget this Network

Restart your device and retry.

Alternative #3

Uninstall and then reinstall iBooks.

Alternative #4

Make sure date and time are correct.

Go to Settings > General > Date & Time.

If the option exists, turn off Set Automatically.

Verify the time zone and time are correct. If not, adjust them.

If everything was correct and the option exists, turn on Set Automatically.

Alternative #5

If your device is jailbroken delete the file /private/var/mobile/Library/Caches/com.apple.mobile.installation.plist

And then restart your device.

How to browse a Page/Website that No Longer Exists or Unavailable by Google Cache

2010-04-21T23:45:00.001+02:00

Some time our preferred websites are unavailable or are closed and we can’t access to their important information, but not all is lost: we can use the cache of Google!!

In fact, Google caches the most used pages in order to speed the searches and this cache remains many week in the servers.

There are many different ways to view the cached pages, but I report the most useful:

1. If you have the exact link of the page in the website, you can open this link and click on “Access a cached copy of …” .

Alternately you can add “cache:” before the link (Ex: cache:www.linkstreaming.com/streaming-flash-forward‏.html)

2. If you don’t have the exact link in the website, you can do a Google Search like this: “nameOfSite nameOfContents”. So, Google will search in our website a page with the contents those we need. The result will be a page like this:

Now you can open the result clicking on “Cached”.

Finally, if you use Firefox there is a extension ErrorZilla to view the Google’s cached version of every pages but, personally, I prefer the others two methods.

All comments are welcome.

Bye.

Pwn2Own: game over for Apple

2010-03-25T00:12:00.000+01:00

As usual Apple was crushed in the Pwn2Own, a computer security contest.

This year Cupertino didn't had to suffer long before getting powned: it took the attackers just 5 minutes to defeat iPhone OS defenses and Mac OS X lasted even less, the attacker was able to gain access to a remote shell in under 1 minute.

In both the case the attack exploited Safari flaws. That's why I use Chrome to browse the internet on Mac OS X and why I'd like to see this this countdown stop as soon as possible.

Of course the attackers already came to the competition with the exploit ready to run, but it is a fact that the Apple's device and computer resulted the most vulnerable.

To know the latest updates follow the news live on twitter: https://twitter.com/#search?q=%23pwn2own

Download video from MegaVideo and MagaUpload without limits by jDownloader

2010-03-21T13:09:00.001+01:00

Today I talk, again, about MegaVideo and MegaUpload. In my previous posts I told about how to watch MegaVideo without 72 minute limit, but often I’m not connect to Internet (e.g. long travel by train or by airplane) and I download video.

Without a Premium Account download video from MegaVideo is not easy and you have find the MegaUpload’s link of video, but often this link is not available.

Recently, a friend told me about jDownloader. JDownloader is a small java application, therefore runnable on Windows, Mac and Linux, very useful. In fact, JDownloader can download file from MegaVideo and MegaUpload automatically without limits and without that you have insert manually the captcha.

How to use JDownloader:

Install and open jDownloader.
Find the MegaVideo or MegaUpload’s link of video that you wont download.
Right click on link, click on “Copy link address” .

Automatically the link is imported in program:

4. Click on play to start to download the file.

The powerful of this application is that you can add many files and it automatically downloads they.

In particular, if you want download file from MegaUpload, the program automatically detects the captcha. So, you can add all files that you want and go out, when you return at home all files will be downloaded.

The program has many other features: management of pause and of resume of downloads, management of premium account,….In other you can use it with many other host sites.

Thanks to the creator of this program and thanks to the power of Java ;-).

Bye

Live coverage of Apple Keynote 2010

2010-01-27T19:07:00.001+01:00

Click here to get live coverage of the event!

January 27th, Apple Keynote 2010 live on Under the Wire!!!

2010-01-24T15:29:00.002+01:00

Apple is preparing a event in San Francisco on January 27th at 10 AM Pacific Time(GMT-8).

Last rumors talk about iPhone OS 4.0 and iLife 2010, but all are attending the "latest creation". Probably, this last creation will be iSlate, the long-rumored Tablet.

Under the Wire going to commentate live on all event and in particular Steve Jobs keynote.

Click here to get live coverage of the event!

How to fix the "The application Finder can't be opened (-10810)" error

2010-01-04T12:34:00.003+01:00

Snow Leopard has brought an annoying bug. Sometimes, when dealing with external hard drives or USB sticks, Finder crashes and does not automatically reopen. Trying to click on the Finder icon in the Dock does not help at all! It just causes a laconic message box that says: "The application Finder can't be opened (-10810)". Unless you want to logout and login back (or restart), the solution is simple but a little bit for the techie:

Open up the Terminal application (use Spotlight if you cannot find it)
Type: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder &
Press enter and... You're done! You can close the Terminal

Waiting for a fix in 10.6.3... I hope this helps. Bye!

Download all the music you want without file sharing applications

2009-12-06T19:14:00.001+01:00

Have a look at New Album Releases, you will find new albums as soon as they are released.

You don't have to install any software to download the files that are hosted on servers of different services.

They even have a RSS feed, so you can be sure you won't miss any new album.

I can't figure out how they offer such a service without being shut down by the RIAA in a couple of days, but it seems that they found quibble and they are actually DCMA compliant providing just links and not hosting anything.

Thanks to Pensieri Cannibali for the links that introduced me to this site.

Facebook Lite: new Facebook’s interface

2009-10-21T00:43:00.001+02:00

Today talk about new Facebook version: Facebook Lite.

Starting from Facebook Mobile experience, the developers are projecting new easier interface. New version is very simple and clear, there aren’t unnecessary bars and it is very fast to load also by slow connections.

In fact, this version is thinking in order to new users from developing country and to mobile devices (iPhone, Smartphone,…) that use slow connections.

However, this new version has all necessary functions:

Post videos and photos
Show videos and photos
Write comments
Like feature
Management profile info and friends
Wall
…

This version is only a test interface, but probably it is a preview of next Facebook graphic.

Bye

Windows 7 launch party pack: unboxing

2009-10-15T13:44:00.001+02:00

Today Windows 7 house party kit is arrived to my home.

Here's what it includes:

One poster with the Windows 7 desktop design
One deck of playing cards with Windows 7 desktop design
One puzzle with Windows 7 desktop design
One table top centerpiece
One package of Windows 7 napkins
Ten tote bags with Windows 7 desktop design

And the most important thing: two DVDs, one with 32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition and one with 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition.

And now some photo:

and a video:

bye

Easy Screen Sharing by Skype

2009-10-04T20:36:00.001+02:00

The last version of Skype (4.1) hides a new interesting feature: the screen sharing.

Normally when I’m working in a team or talking with friends by pc I want show them images or all my screen and the fastest solution was a screenshot, but many time only one isn’t sufficient (Did you try to help a friend to use a program?). Up to now there aren’t a easy alternative and you have to install a remote assistant software. Now with last version of Skype screen sharing is easy and images are good quality. Skype transmits screen like a video call and both people of call can share their screen.

If you want share your screen with a friends then:

Open Skype
Click on Share->Share Your Screen
You can choose if share all screen or only a selected area

Clicking on “Share selection”, a black box appears on screen and you can move and resize it until you are satisfy.

Then you can click on “Start screen sharing ”. However you can switch to full screen sharing by “Select fullscreen” button.

When you want finish screen sharing click on “Stop screen sharing” or close the video-call by red button.

Bye sys.

Mac OS X glitch: Renaming a file

2009-09-24T23:29:00.005+02:00

Since I switched to Mac OS X my machine is giving me lot of opportunities to demystify the it just works Apple motto.

I already talked about that in my previous post, but few minutes ago I experienced another glitch: something as simple as renaming a file is causing trouble to the Finder that get confused on where place the textfield where to enter the new filename.

A similar glitch happens also with Xcode, it has sometimes troubles matching the cursor position on the screen with the actual cursor position in the file.

Please Cupertino, fix it!

Memories of a switcher

2009-09-23T07:44:00.005+02:00

It is about a month I switched to Mac and it is time to write down some thoughts about the new environment.

Let's start about the hardware: I own now a 13'' Mac Book Pro, the one with 4GB of RAM. If you want to know more about the hardware specifications go to the Apple Store. It has much more horsepower than my 4 years laptop, but not having to deal with a lot of really computational intensive tasks I am not noticing a too big difference.

The only thing in witch it is really better is the bfattery life. I still have to perform some serious tests, but I can go to university without the charger and when I am back home I still have a lot of battery life remaining.

The last thing I have to say about the hardware is that I am loving its design, but I still have to figure out if it would be better with some cool customization like this one.

On the software side I have always been a Windows guy, but thanks to the fact that the most of the time I am at the PC I am using a browser or reading a pdf I am not suffering to much the change of operating system.

Now I am using Mac OS X Snow Leopard for every task I have to do, except for a ssh connection to a university pc to do some stuffs on a Linux machine.

I hate virtual machines and dual boot, so it is the only solution viable to me.

Mac OS X is a UNIX, but you don't have to use the (hated) terminal every two seconds. You just have to learn the new keyboard shortcuts and that's it.

I am sorry, but now it's time to show you that I am not under the reality distortion field. In the last days I had to face some weird issues that come out to remember me that I was right when I said that the it just works motto was good just for advertising.

I had to brutally reboot my system after I discovered it unable to eject a usb memory stick. Not actually a great task.

I also had to face an iTunes error that prevented me to synchronize my iPod Touch. Not a big deal, but it didn't just work.

To conclude this post I have to confess you the reason of this switch: it was a bargain, with the EUR USD change rate over 1.4, a university discount and the back to school promotion.

Megavideo UNLIMITED: how bypass 72 minutes time limit by Firefox plug-in

2009-09-19T20:21:00.002+02:00

Hi, today I talk again about Megavideo and how bypass its time limit. If you didn’t read my other posts about Megavideo these are the links:Post1, Post2, Post3.

In the last post I advised to use www.megastriming.tk, but recently often there are technical problems.

Actually the best solution for is the use of the Firefox plu-in illimitux. The new version (3.1) of plug-in support more of 20 platforms among which Megavideo, Veoh and Megaupload, the best streaming sites.

In fact, illimitux bypasses Megavideo time limit, moreover is possible parallel downloads from Megaupload without speed limitation and without premium account and is possible watch Veoh files without official player. This plug-is is very easy to use because when it auto-detects supported platform show a box where user can remove all limitations.

This is a short video tutorial of plug-in:

Getting Started with illimitux 2 from Illimitux on Vimeo.

Enjoy the movie.

Bye.

PS. any comments are welcome.

Aardvark: ask a question and get the answer

2009-09-12T20:12:00.004+02:00

I found a really cool service where you can ask a question and get the answer from who said to be expert in that topic. It works a way better than its competitor like Yahoo Answer.

It really works well and with the integration with a instant messaging program it's really easy to get your questions answered.

If you want to check it out join Aardvark following this link

Interesting links #4

2009-09-10T17:58:00.005+02:00

Let start again with a post of Joanna Rutkowska about (the lack of) security foundations of Mac OS X. As usual you will get plenty of Mac users denying that signing applications could be useful, but we know their reality is distorted. As a new Apple user I would really like to have a way to trust application I am installing.

Is General Public License always good? Read this article and you will know about some case where it dramatically fails.

A response to Free Software Foundation FUD.

Haiku team comments about OSCon. Seems they are doing a great job.

I am not posting here the link to the last Steve Jobs keynote because it actually was not so interesting. The only cool thing they presented are the genius playlists, but who needs it when he has Pandora?

Interesting Links #3

2009-07-21T18:51:00.001+02:00

An interview to Joanna Rutkowska. As usual a worth reading.

An hack to have a browser in Windows7. User friendliness is no more here while Opera is still not downloaded by everyone but who already knows it.

If you need to perform a lot of boring operations on finite fields or on elliptic curves, I think you should give a look at this script. I wrote it and helped me a lot.

Read this post and write what do you think in a comment. I still have to make up my mind about it.

Interesting links #2

2009-07-14T03:39:00.001+02:00

Google I/O 2009 - The Myth of the Genius Programmer: definitely a worth watching to understand what programming actually is.

10 Privacy Settings for Facebook: I don’t know if it is fair to write in the same sentence both Facebook and Privacy, however have a read and adjust your settings.

"0wnz0red": Programmers who hack their own bodies don't need exercise and never get sick: A new short story from one of science fiction's bright young stars. By Cory Doctorow

Inside Gazelle, Microsoft Research's "browser OS": for sure it will not bury Internet Explorer in the near future. But it is still interesting, really interesting.

Windows 7 is nearly RTM but there is still the need to additional software to Mount ISO images, and make PDF.

If you missed the links we suggested in the past check it out.

Interesting links #1

2009-07-11T00:15:00.001+02:00

Google's Microsoft Moment: Google announced its Chrome OS, are they becoming evil (In the case they are not already evil)? Chrome (The browser) its great, I’m waiting to see how the Chrome OS will look like, even if I am not a Linux supporter.

Inside C# 4.0: dynamic typing, optional parameters, covariance and contravariance: how to make the language messy, with some syntax sugar and some useful properties (Respectively).

Office 2010: The Movie: I used to hate every single office software suite. Now I have a reason to prefer LaTeX even to Office 2010, without even having to try it. Microsoft, can you please hire an actual marketing division?

Object Oriented Design: sit watch and learn the principle and the patterns before actually writing the code. It helps a lot.

WiiTouch, a low cost talking paper

2009-06-20T11:57:00.001+02:00

Enjoy this video and see what students are able to do with a Wii Mote, a piece of paper, some homemade infrared pens and a PC.

Unfortunately so far there is only an Italian version of the video, but I think that looking at the images you will understand how WiiTouch works.

Windows 7 RC impressions

2009-05-02T14:43:00.001+02:00

How I announced in this post, Windows 7 will be released publicly next 5 May (for now, only MSDN and TechNet subscribers can download it).

This version expired after 13 month, June 2010, and you will can download it until July 2009 from this site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx.

Next week I’ll try it, but for now I recommend to read this post of www.engadget.com.

How to enable the graphical boot Plymouth on Fedora 10

2009-04-21T22:43:00.001+02:00

Hi guys,
few days ago I wrote a little guide to help people install VMware Tools on your brand new Fedora 10 installed through VMware Fusion (actually the same instructions are valid for VMware Player and VMware Workstation too) and now I am here again to report some other tips.

At the moment I am still configuring my Fedora-box to fit my habits and I am obviously tweaking the user interface too.

Booting your Fedora-box you surely saw an ugly blue/light-blue/white scrolling bar, in order to see the graphical boot you need to edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst (actually a symbolic link to /boot/grub/grub.conf) adding the right configuration that fits your video card and your screen resolution.

Let's start, open a Terminal window, elevate your permission with the su command and type gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst. Modify this chunk of the configuration file adding the text in bold (actually you need to add the same text to every boot entry):

title Fedora (2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10.x86_64)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10.x86_64 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet vga=792
initrd /initrd-2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10.x86_64.img

With vga=792 you’re saying that the screen resolution is 1024x768 and colors are 24-bit deep (to find the right VESA mode take a look at this page).

Enjoy the graphical boot.
See you

Megavideo Unlimited: Free premium account

2009-04-17T19:46:00.001+02:00

The last m-atteo’s post on Megavideo showed you some tricks to view more than the usual 74 minutes on Megavideo.

Surfing on the web I found a really interesting service that allows you to get rid of the 74 minutes limitation and enjoy the full length videos.

It just requires you to past a link to the video you want to see and will redirect you to a new page with the unlimited movie. A way better than have to disconnect you form the internet in order to get a new IP address or mess up with your browser cache.

Another tools it may help you is the Illimitux Firefox plug-in.

If you want to have a better quality (I think you should want to see something better than what Megavideo usually shows you) you just have to copy the video URL and change megavideo.com with stagex.eu. For example if you like to view “Push” in hi-quality you have to change this link http://www.megavideo.com/?v=SAVASILH to this http://www.stagex.eu/?v=SAVASILH

Install Fedora 10 through VMware Fusion 2.0

2009-04-17T19:17:00.005+02:00

Hi guys, lots of time passed since I posted on this blog so, here I come.

Just like my friends matteo, tciddanniw and wisher I have lots of stuff to do including university courses’ projects. In order to develop some of them I need to run Linux and as you probably know I am a Mac OS X user so, having only a single notebook, I need to run some virtual machines in order to accomplish my tasks (I don’t consider dual-boot - or worse triple-boot - as a solution, just like my friend wisher).

This time I’m going to use Fedora 10 so, let’s start. First of all, what we need?

Mac OS X 10.5;
VMware Fusion 2.0.4 (this version corrects a pretty serious security issue);
Fedora 10.

In contrast with Ubuntu, VMware Fusion doesn’t have a predefined profile for Fedora so you have to choose one; I chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 64-bit (because I’m using Fedora 10 x86-64, choose the profile according to the architecture you chose to use). Now you can modify the profile of the virtual machine as you like (I assigned 2 virtual cores, reserved 512 MB of RAM and created an incremental SCSI hard disk of 64 GB).

Now you can boot the virtual machine and install the operating system just like you would do if you’re dealing with a real machine; the installation is straightforward and I don’t think you need my directions. When the installation is completed I recommend you to fully update the operating system (if you are installing Fedora 10 right now you need patience due to the pretty high amount of updates available).

The installation of the VMware Tools is the most tricky part, anyway it is still simple. First of all you need some packages to build VMware Tools so, open a Terminal windows, elevate your permission with the su command and then type:

yum install gcc make kernel-devel

I advise you not to close the Terminal window, you will need it in a few seconds. Select Install VMware Tools from Virtual Machine menu, a mounted DVD should appear on your desktop, double-click on it to enter and then copy the archive containing VMware Tools (if you're using VMware Fusion 2.0.4 the archive name is VMwareTools-7.9.3-159196.tar.gz) on a local folder such as ~/Downloads. Unpack VMware Tools (either using the Terminal or the Graphical User Interface) and get to the resulting folder using the Terminal window you used before (which should be an elevated Terminal). To install VMware Tools you need to type:

./vmware-install.pl

answer yes to all questions except for the one that talls: “The configuration file /etc/X11/xorg.conf can not be found. Do you want to create a new one? (yes/no) [yes]” here you have to answer no because Fedora 10 doesn't use the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to store X's configuration.

When the installation finished you only have to restart the virtual machine and enjoy your virtualized operating system.

Integrate a CUDA kernel in your projects

2009-04-15T19:33:00.001+02:00

Recently I told you how to setup a Virtual Machine with VirtualBox running openSUSE (Yeah, this time I spelled it right).

As I wrote on the previous post all the mess was due to a project with nVidia CUDA, porting some data intensive tasks on the GPU.

Working on an existing project I had some troubles integrating the new code with the existing sources editing the makefile.

To build your executable with a CUDA kernel you have to do this:

Compile CUDA sources with nvcc (You have to install CUDA toolkit to have it), generating an object file.
Be sure that when you include functions headers from your C project into the CUDA sources you state that what you are importing is C code. To do that use extern “C” {#incude “whateverYouWant.h”} and it will be fine.
$ nvcc --compiler-options -fno-strict-aliasing -I. -I/opt/cuda/NVIDIA_CUDA_SDK/common/inc -I/opt/cuda/include -o objectCUDA.o -c SOURCE.cu
Compile the project C code with gcc, producing the object files, as you do usually.
Link all together, using gcc. Be sure that you link all the required libraries.
gcc -o EXECUTABLE object1.o object2.o objectCUDA.o -L/opt/cuda/lib -lcudart -L/opt/cuda/NVIDIA_CUDA_SDK/lib -lcutil

With this tips you should be able to edit easily your project makefile and have all the things working.

openSUSE 11 on VirtualBox

2009-04-10T22:53:00.001+02:00

Hi, dear Under The Wire readers, if there is still anyone after our long, really long silence.

I’m sorry to tell you that we have been and we still are really busy for our University stuffs, damn PoliMi. We also got a life, and this is the real reason we are not posting anymore… unfortunately for you when we had to choose what to do in our spare time blogging like nerds wasn’t the coolest thing we should have done, so the blog was quite abandoned to itself.

After this really interesting introduction about our life (I know you care about us) let’s go ~~Bardo~~ (If you don’t understand this don’t worry) back to the real topic of this post, even if it is quite boring… I have to write somewhere some notes on how I set up this f***king virtual machine, just to remember what I have to do to make all the things work in a reasonable way. Of course I also share these notes hoping that will be useful.

Let’s start form the beginning, for our course of High Performance Processors and Systems (HPPS for its friends) I have to develop a CUDA application starting form an existing pthreaded (Damn PoliMi, again) algorithm.

Since I don’t even consider dual boot nor switching to Linux as my primary operating system and I don’t have any second PC to use only for UNIX development I had to install all the stuffs on a Virtual Machine.

I choose VirtualBox just because it is free and it comes from Sun (Seems they crippled my mind with Java). It works quite well, but you have to download the latest version. With the previous version I experienced really annoying problems with networking. A single download was able to take forever, hogging the CPU of my poor computer, even trying to make my Facebooking harder (Playing with VirtualBox process priority fixed my facebooking, but wasn’t helpful for the networking of my virtual machine, so install the latest version and you will be fine).

Create a virtual machine. Basically you have to choose how much RAM and disk space you want to waste. As usual, the more the merrier.

Next step is to download and install openSUSE 11 (I know it is not considered the best distro, but nVidia supports it). Take the live cd and go on. I an not here to teach you how to install a Linux distro, however I think that there is no need to tell you what to do. Just mount the cd and follow the instruction. Trust me, it’s easy.

When you have you openSUSE installed (You managed to install it, isn’t it?) we can enjoy and have some fun installing VirtualBox additions. First of all you need to download gcc, make (openSUSE should be really user oriented if it lacks these tools) but also kernel-source. If you are lucky it’s enough, otherwise you also have to update your kernel, to have the same version of kernel and sources (Oh, maybe openSUSE is not that good).

When you have downloaded and installed these tools mount VirtualBoxAdditions fake cd rom and install it with the shell script included. After a while and a reboot you should have it all up an working. But don’t worry, the fun isn’t over.

To avoid strange and really annoying problems you need another little fix. Open control center, look for screensaver and disable both screensaver and lock screen, unless you want to have a really cool black screen every time you forgot your virtual machine in the background for ten minutes.

Now all is behaving quite well (I still have to fight with makefiles, but this is another story and is too of topic even for this post).

See you, when I will blog again.

Windows 7 Release Candidate: how and when download it!!

2009-03-18T19:23:00.003+01:00

By now is official Windows 7 will be released between last week of April and second week of May!!

Many sites (http://www.engadget.com, http://www.hwupgrade.it/, http://blogs.msdn.com,…) report these weeks, but for now there isn’t a fixed day because Microsoft doesn’t want repeat the errors of first public beta and it is preparing a more efficient download system.

How will it can download? Microsoft didn’t decided if RC version will be downloadable for all, but for now it’s sure that tester which submitted a number minimum of feedback will can download new version.

Windows 7 RC will stop to work 1 September, only one month after first beta. The reason of this choice is that Microsoft received good feedback and thinks that RC fixed bug of first beta. It might be thought that Microsoft wants anticipate Windows 7 launch at January 2009.

The some changes between Beta and RC are reported on this page: Some Changes Since Beta for the RC.

Bye.

Windows 7 and Antivirus: what is the best?

2009-03-17T18:16:00.001+01:00

After two months from Windows 7 beta release, also some important Antivirus software house update their products.

Actually, the antivirus that run on Windows 7 are:

Kaspersky Lab was first software house to update its product. Kaspersky Antivirus is release as beta, but is stable and full compatible with Windows 7. This beta is free and includes a firewall, a anti-spam filter and other features of KAV 2009.

Symantec, recently, updated Norton Antivirus. This is a free Beta, but I don’t like it because is very unpleasant to use.

AVG updated their software but only professional versions and you have to pay to use.

McAfee is updating their antivirus, but the actual beta has many problems.

Avast and Antivir are, probably, most used free antivirus and fortunately they work without problems on Windows 7.

Personally, I recommend to use KAV until is free and then switch to Avast.

On How to Geek you can find tests of some of these antivirus.

If you want recommend other antivirus write a comment with your motivations.

Bye.

Megavideo Unlimited: Download videos from Megavideo(Update2009)

2009-02-28T00:07:00.002+01:00

[UPDATE: 19 April 2009] Check this new post to read the latest Megavideo tricks.

[UPDATE: 19 September 2009] Check this new post to read the latest Megavideo tricks.

I already told about Megavideo and how bypass time limit, but today I want talk about how download from Megavideo.

Before talk about download video, a small summarize about Megavideo. Megavideo is a web site which contain many films, series, cartoons,… on streaming, but recently Megavideo added a time limit. After 72 minutes of video, all video are stopped and this screen appears on page:

Many time is useful download video because of different reasons: to bypass time limit, to watch video on a mobile device(IPod, IPhone, PDA, …), to watch video on the road, to download film or series by very fast connection (of university or of the place to work) without P2P programs (Adunanza, uTorrent…), that normally don’t work because of proxy, …

To download video from Megavideo there are many way:

Firefox offline mode
RealPlayer mode
Safari mode

Firefox offline mode:

Open video from Megavideo
When video starts, click on pause button
When all video is buffered turn Firefox off-line (File->Work offline)

This methods is very easy, but some time don’t work and it don’t save the file of video. If you want save file you must go to offline cache folder of Firefox (if you use Windows 7 or Vista C:\Users\NAMEUSER\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles), copy the video file, normally biggest file, paste and rename file “video.flv”.

RealPlayer mode:

New RealPlayer release (11) have a interesting feature: during installation the program add a plug-in to browser that allows to download video that are on a page of a website. This feature is usable on Megavideo, too.

Install RealPlayer
Open video from Megavideo
When video starts, click on pause button
right–click –> Download this video to RealPlayer
save file

This methods is easy and fast but have some problem with slow connections which exceed 72 minutes limit.

Safari mode:

Safari allows to see more information about navigation, in particular is possible to see which file are loaded into a page. Is possible use this features to download file from Megavieo.

Open video from Megavideo
When video starts, click on pause button
Window –> Activity (Crtl+Alt+A)
Find biggest file of Megavideo page and double click on it
Save file like “nome.flv”

This method as previous solution is very easy and fast but some time have problem with slow connections.

If you know other methods, write it into a comment.

Bye

Gmail secret features: how use them.

2009-02-27T00:10:00.001+01:00

Recently, Google update Gmail, but many features are hide and many people don’t know them.
Before to active secret features, it’s necessary set as default language English (US):

Settings-> General –> Language-> Gmail display language: English(US)
Save Changes

Well, now it’s possible enable new Gmail features: a new tab “Lab” is appeared in setting page:

This tab contains many interesting demo features, but they are stable and not cause problem. There are many features, but I want appear 4 of this:

Offline mode
Navbar drag and drop
Multiple Inboxes
Google Docs gadget

Offline mode is very useful feature which permits to use Gmail and view mail without Internet connection. When this feature is enable, Offline0.2 button appears on top of page: you can active offline mode clicking on it. First time that you use offline mode, a plug-in will be downloaded and installed.

Navbar drag and drop feature is useful to personalize Gmail page, in fact, when this feature is active, allows you to reorder the items in your navbar using drag and drop. When your page satisfies you, disable features.

Multiple Inboxes feature allows to view more list of mail at the same time. It’s possible define rules to automatically choice what view in any box. Normally, I use Gmail to view many mailboxes, but most important of these is visualized in a separated box in top of page.

Google Docs gadget features shows a box with all your Google Docs. This features is most useful for those that use many time Google doc.

There are many other features that normally I don’t use, but any person has different needs. If you want use other features, write a comment to this post.

Bye.

One month of Windows 7 test

2009-02-09T14:54:00.001+01:00

It’s already passed a month from when I installed Windows 7 on my EeePc 1000H, today I want summarize my experience. Before I want remember other posts wrote from me about this argument:

Other interesting posts are wrote by Sirus, tctd and wisher:

Well, now I can start my summarize.

Windows 7 is a good surprise, first of all, because also if now is only a beta it is very stable and, second, the differences with Vista apparently are not many, but in really performances and user experience are very increase.

The network management is easer and faster of Vista, also user experience is better because the new very useful taskbar. The likeness with Vista help all Vista user to switch without problem. New battery management increases the work-time and the advance users will value new firewall that can define some interesting rules.

Very good new auto-setup driver device: I tried to connect a old HP printer and Windows searched and found all necessary drivers. I tried also to connect my Nokia N95 and after some minutes Windows found drivers and asked to me if I wanted install also Nokia Pc Suite.

The beta that I’m trying is Ultimate version and it have many interesting tools, but probably they there aren’t in other version. Some of these tools are: PowerShell 2.0, Snipping Tools, Sticky Notes.

I didn’t have security problem, but if you want install a Antivirus, I recommend Kavspersky Antivirus (KAV). Also it is a beta of new version, old version isn’t Windows 7 compatibility, but is very secure and stable(This is link to download). This beta don’t have time limit.

However, Windows 7 is a BETA and as any others beta it has some problem. Many time these problems are caused by drivers or programs wrote for Vista, but not completely compatibility with Windows 7. Some times, old programs that not work in user space, but in kernel space, generate crashes (BSoD) or usability problems.

Also some drivers can generate problems. For example, original Asus VGA driver has problems with slow resolution and HP driver (auto installed when I connected my printer :) ), has problem, some time, with booklet layout. The first time that I used the printer it print until finish paper.

For now, only one part of expectations are respected from Windows 7: a better tools integration (ex. Virtual driver and PdfPrinter) could have be useful.

I’ll continue to try Windows 7 until August and maybe also then time bomb : ).

Google thinks that every site may harm my computer

2009-01-31T16:02:00.001+01:00

Few minutes ago I was searching something on the web, and suddenly Google results are a list of page with the advice that every single site may harm my pc.

Seems that someone* trying to update the servers at Google did some mistakes while he was live-patching the memory of the whole Google infrastructure. Please fix that as soon as possible!

To get it work in the while they fix this problem you should use Scroogle, a Google proxy.

*Thank you for the easiest exam of the history of our university

Windows 7: battery management

2009-01-24T00:56:00.003+01:00

Many people, and also I, attended Windows 7 because Microsoft promised very good usability also with netbook. In my opinion, a lot of user expectations are realized by last public beta of Windows 7, but THIS IS ONLY A BETA VERSION and many work will do before the final version.

I’m trying Windows 7 on my EeePc 1000H and a good surprise of new OS is the battery management. Before of Windows 7 I used Windows Xp on my netbook and the best work-time was 5h and 5 min. With the new OS, it increases to 6h and 51 min.

These times (on Xp and on Windows 7) are obtained by this setting:

Minimal brightness
Wireless off
Bluetooth off
10 minutes after start
Windows setting: power saver

The power saver setting disables Aero, if you enable it the time is not very different: 5h and 50 min.

Naturally this times decrease with a intensive work, however, they are very interesting: in fact the normal activity on this kind of pc is read or write a text file. One supplementary battery’s hour is very useful specially on travel when is not possible recharge the battery.

Read also other posts that talk about Windows 7.

Bye.

Emule/Adunanza Problem: firewall configuration on Windows7

2009-01-22T19:01:00.005+01:00

Hi, many people in this days are trying Windows 7 and many have some problem with Emule (Adunanza) or others file-sharing programs.

This problem, actually, is only a wrong firewall configuration. In fact, when Windows creates automatically the settings, it creates only outbound rules.

I recommend to create manual rules follow this method:

start –> write “firewall” in search bar –> open first program in list
Click on “Inbound Rules”(on left) and then on “New Rule…”(on right)
Select “Port” –> next
Select “TCP” and insert TCP port of Emule –> next. Default port is 4662, but I recommend to use different port, for example 4668.
Select “Allow the connection” –> next
Select “Domain”, “Private”, “Public” –> next
Insert the name of new rule (ex. Emule TCP in) –> click finish
Repeat operations 2. and 3.
Select UDP and insert UDP port of Emule –> next. Default port is 4672, but I recommend to use different port, for example 4678.
Repeat operations 5. 6. 7.
Click on “Outbound Rules”(on left) and then on “New Rule…”(on right)
Repeat operation from 2. to 10.

Now Windows firewall is set and now you can use Emule, but first I recommend to check the connection setting of emule:

Open Emule
Options –> Connection
Insert TCP port and UDP port used on the rules
Ok

This method can be used also with other file sharing program like uTorrent, WinMX, DC++, Kazaa. If you want help or if you want give a piece of advice, give a comment.

Bye.

Taskbar versus Dock, are they really the same thing?!

2009-01-22T17:02:00.002+01:00

Today I won’t write anything about my experience using Windows 7 Beta 1 on my MacBook cause it goes to well and there are no problems to report.

Today I’m posting a link to a wonderful article I read in which the author talk about Windows’s taskbar, Windows 7’s “superbar” and Mac OS X’s dock. I couldn’t be that much clear to expose the exact same idea and to prove that the brand new Windows 7’s “superbar” isn’t a copy of Mac OS X’s dock.

Paradigms lost: The Windows 7 Taskbar versus the OS X Dock

See you!

Megavideo UNLIMITED: how bypass 72 minutes time limit

2009-01-21T00:37:00.008+01:00

[UPDATE: 19 April 2009] Check this new post to read the latest Megavideo tricks.

[UPDATE: 19 September 2009] Check this new post to read the latest Megavideo tricks.

Today I talk about a fantastic video streaming site: Megavideo.

Megavideo, for all people that unknown it, is a site similar to YouTube, but here is possible find series (Dr. House, Desperate Housewives, Heroes, Dexter, …), movies, cartoon…

Megavideo, however, have a problem: recently it introduce a time limit. You can watch videos for 72 minutes, but then you must attend 52 minutes before watch other videos.

Fortunately, there are two methods to bypass this limit.

Change your IP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ip), if you use Firefox (it’s very similar also with other browser):

File –> Tools –> Clear private data (or Ctrl+Shift+Canc)
Select this box:

Switch off your modem or router (this is a brutal method, but it is rapid)
Wait one minute
Switch on your modem

This method is very rapid, but some time is not possible because you can’t switch off your modem (you download big file from other programs :) ) or because you have a static IP given by your provider ( Fasteweb ). Fortunately, there is another method.

2. Work offline:

Open your video and click on pause.
Wait that ALL video is loaded
File –> Work offline
Watch your video
File –> Work offline
Select another video

Now you can see all videos without time limit.

This is a video-help:

Good vision.

Bye.

-----------------------------------

Update: se also how download videos from Megavideo

EeePC T91 and T101H. Netbook with touch: a must have

2009-01-20T13:02:00.001+01:00

It looks like a Mac clone but has much more to offer. For example a touch-screen or a little display that makes it easier to keep always with you. It is surely more comfortable to keep than a 17’’ monolith with half a day battery life.

Unfortunately so far I can only show you a video found on youtube… I’d really like to do myself a video showing you me playing with that toy, but actually I am not an owner of the new eeePc.

Going a little more technical I found some good points and some things that are going to turn my thumbs down, but I think are fixable :-)

The good:

It is touch-screen.
It is little, so I can take it always with me. Both the T91 and the T101H will fit comfortably on everyone bag.

The bad:

It ships with Windows XP, but I am sure that we will see soon a Windows 7 version. I think they can’t ship with a beta operating system.
It will released later this year. I want it NOW.
There are no details on the price. I hope it will be affordable.

My rating (so far): BUY. These tablets seem really good products and if I would be able to get them now I would surely have made my order yet.

More info here.

How to get free Windows Live Messenger emoticons

2009-01-19T23:07:00.001+01:00

Today a cousin of mine asked me where to download Windows Live Messenger emoticons. Since I don’t like to have a Christmas tree on my desktop every time I start a conversation with someone I try to avoid using a lot of emoticons, so I had to do some research in order to tell him where to find what he were looking for, without having troubles visiting an unsafe site.

If used with moderation (It’s easy after all) an emoticon is really able to add meaning and fun to simple words, so why don’t keep full advantage of that and use the best emoticon on the web?

I think that the best choice is to steal emoticons from your contacts, adding the one you like when you see it appearing in a conversation. It’s easy, quick and leads to a common emoticon meaning.

However if you can’t wait for your friends and you want to have some links full of emoticons I listed below the sites that my cousin liked more.

Live Gallery

Emoticon pack from Microsoft (Hosted by Softpedia)

Bitvertiser

Add emoticons

Messenger freak

All you have to do is to download the image you like (Click on it with the right button of the mouse and choose to save it)
select Tools form the menu that appears when you press ALT on your keyboard
choose emoticons from the menu
click on create
find the image you downloaded at the beginning
Don’t forget to choose an uncommon world (A good choice should be adding a character like * or \ at the beginning of the world) to associate with the emoticon. That is going to help you having a clean conversation, avoiding the insertion of inappropriate emoticon, just because you typed a world.
Choose a name for the emoticon. Here you can add whatever you like

If you like to see your favorite site about Windows Live Messenger emoticons added to the list you just have to write a comment to this post.

Windows 7 and Apple’s Boot Camp drivers

2009-01-17T15:05:00.001+01:00

In my last post I talked about my experience natively installing the brand new Windows 7 Beta 1 32-bit on my MacBook and I promised I’d talk about Apple’s Boot Camp drivers installation in a later post.

So, here we are. Few minutes ago I inserted my Mac OS X 10.5 DVD into the DVD-RW drive and started the installation. The installation lasted only few minutes (less than it usually lasts on Windows Vista I think) and after the reboot the operating system works perfectly. The installation of these drivers allow me to change the screen brightness, audio volume (audio which now works correctly) using function keys and enable the full functionalities of the touchpad.

Apple Software Update also retrieved some updates and then asked me to install QuickTime, iTunes and Bonjour (I know wisher is going to hate me since I answered yes to that question). I’m impressed from the speed of installation of QuickTime and iTunes, in the past they were a pain.

My MacBook with Windows 7 Beta 1 32-bit works now perfectly and I’m pretty happy about the actual operating system. I’ll make some other posts if I encounter problems or particular situations.

See you!

Seems that Linux is not good for education

2009-01-17T09:50:00.001+01:00

Before you start reading please, note that this post could be a little ironic.

After this premise, let’s starts with the facts, we have a video contribute, thanks to Geeks are Sexy

The poor girl, like the other girl in the girlfriend test, could not get things working. You should agree with me that this is a very important point, if the user is not able to do something their pc are going to be just expensive piece of waste.

That story obviously got reactions form the Linux world, but basically the conclusion is always the same: geeks are telling you Linux is easy to work with, noobs trust them and try Linux and a few days later they ask for a Windows operating system, the only they are able to deal with.

That’s why this year will not be the year of Linux.

Developers, developers, developers: lessons learned in Software Engineering

2009-01-16T23:40:00.001+01:00

For my Software Engineering 2 class I had to work on a distributed software engineering project. It was quite a failure, and now I’m telling why just to make you know what not to do when developing something.

First of all, don’t make the same mistake I did. If your professor is the best and your classmates are good this is not meaning that also people form other university you will have to work with are as good as them. Remember this, is important.

Tools

Oh my God, I’m yet talking about tools. First of all, if someone invented a modern, fully supported and working flawless language why are we forced to use something that is both old and ignored by almost everyone who is not living in Zurich?

I don’t think that the fact that such a language was developed by the professor that is organizing the course in one of the other university is a valuable answer.

When I was told to use that language I first thought “Oh no, I want Java”. Then I resigned myself and I hoped that at least the environment should have been good. It was a mistake, a damn mistake. But I spent too sweet words on that in a previous post.

Lesson number one: without the right tools (Read Java or .Net with a truly supported language) your project is going to fail. No chance of success is left to your luck. Keep this in mind.

Teams

Distributed development implies communication. I thought that is was clear to everybody, but someone from far far away thinks that knowing only its own language could have been useful on a worldwide project. Sounds crazy, isn’t it?

When I managed to get group-mates knowing English (It was quite hard) the next big issues were meetings. Why aren’t you attending meetings? Why are you not doing what we decided in that fucking meetings? You were so lucky that I could not fire you.

Lesson number two: choose carefully group-mates and be sure to be able to fire them and replace with someone that actually works.

Decisions

When it is about taking decision nothing is sucking more than democracy. Do I have to tell that the same guys that were attending meeting in their own way when had to decide something always raised their hands for the worst solution?

Lesson number three: make sure that you are the designer and other are only coders. This is the only way to make them suck a bit less.

Is it clear now what happens when you try to distribute software engineering? No matters if you are using a old-fashioned software development methodology or you are going Agile. If you aren’t following my suggestion you will have to learn by yourself the lessons, sentencing your project to death. And I’m sure you would like to do everything but that. Otherwise you will only get an EPIC FAIL.

If you want the names of some of the characters of this tragedy ask in the comments. If I think that is worth something telling you I will tell you.

After all I am graded (And that is why I’m publishing this post now and not weeks ago when I wrote it ) and I don’t want to have contact any more with the others.

Windows 7 natively installed on my Mac

2009-01-16T10:17:00.002+01:00

Since the first day Microsoft publicly released Windows 7 Beta 1 I've started playing with the new operating system.

Although I was convinced to try the 64-bit version I downloaded both Windows 7 Beta 1 32-bit and 64-bit. First of all I created a virtual machine hosted by VMware Fusion (which is my favorite virtualizer for Mac OS X) with two 2.0 GHz virtual cores, 1 GB of main memory and 64 GB of hard drive.

I was truly amazed due to performances which were better than what I experienced with the same virtual machine equipped with Windows Vista SP1 32-bit. After the installation of VMware Tools the configuration was completed. Unfortunately the use of a virtual machine prevents me to try some useful improvements to Aero (my Intel GMA 950 isn't sufficient in a virtual environment) and to completely try some interesting new feature such as HomeGroup.

I had come to the decision to uninstall the useless native Windows XP SP3 installation (sorry tciddaniw we can't play GP4 together any more) and to substitute it with a native Windows 7 Beta 1 installation. Following Apple's guidelines I erased and created a free partition with Boot Camp Assistant and after the insertion of Windows 7 Beta 1 64-bit DVD my Mac restarted. And here we are with the first problem... this isn't the first version of Windows 64-bit I tried to install on my Mac, I tried Windows Vista 64-bit too and it works well (although my Mac doesn't support Windows 64-bit according to Apple). So, which is the problem? The problem is none other then EFI. Windows Vista SP1 64-bit and consequently Windows 7 Beta 1 64-bit introduces full support to UEFI (un update of EFI 1.1 used by Macs) so my Mac stoped asking me which boot method I prefer, UEFI or BIOS (which capabilities are emulated by EFI on Macs); as expected the keyboard wasn't working (this is a problem I already encountered few times) so the installation couldn't precede.

I didn't have the time to play around and to find a solution to this problem so I inserted Windows 7 Beta 32-bit DVD (which doesn't support UEFI) and stated a new installation that worked fine. Windows 7 Beta 1 32-bit was installed in 23 minutes. During the first configuration before making the login my WiFi network was found and both standard sharing and HomeGroup sharing were configured in an instant. Few seconds after the first login Windows Update informed me that 2 new updates were available and in addition 1 updated driver was found (the wired-network card device driver).

The configuration of the operating system is as always simple (I think I know Windows very well) but the Control Panel is always that much "big", only Windows Search permits me to find what I want in an instant; I think it needs a deep revision (I like Mac OS X's System Preferences pane). Talking about new features, I liked playing with the brand new taskbar, which is indeed similar to the dock - I have to admit it - but it introduces an interesting method to switch between applications and windows (surelly applications need to be modified in other to take advantage of this new way to operate - for example, Internet Explorer 8 Beta permits to switch between tabs even from the taskbar, Firefox 3.1 Beta doesn't). Moreover I found useful both Aero Peek and the gestures to manage windows' dimensions and pinning (I love them). I downloaded the Live Suite to try the integration between Live Messenger and jump lists; it's already good but a found a glitch with Flip3D integration, my Live Messenger pictures is shown in Flip3D even if Live Messenger window is closed, that's a bug that needs to be corrected (why can I switch to an window that doesn't exist?). The renewed management of widgets, ops... gadgets, is interesting; no more sidebar (I'm happy) and an invisible grid to ping gadgets, I miss it on my Dashboard on Mac OS X.

So, I've come to a conclusion. I like Windows and I think about Windows Vista as an improvements over Windows XP so Windows 7 is indeed another step further. Windows 7 is faster, simpler and more beautiful than its predecessors, I think I'll it a lot and come back to Windows after using Mac OS X won't be a problem after all. Next step, installing Boot Camp driver to make keyboard and touchpad more usable and to enable BT (I like my new BT full-size mouse).

See you!

How to: print to Pdf on Windows 7

2009-01-16T03:08:00.001+01:00

Many time, print a document on pdf format is very useful. There are many program that convert document on pdf, but I prefer to use a PDFprinter.

A PDFprinter is a virtual printer that instead prints to paper, prints on a file in pdf format. A PDFprinter is very easy to use because it's like a normal printer: you click on file menu and than click on print, when you must select the printer select the PDFprinter. Another good motivation to use a PDFprinter (in my opinion the best benefit) is that you can use PDFprinter with all original formats and all programs.

In the years, I tried many PDFprinters and I chose CutePDF because is free, easy but with useful options. CutePDF works perfectly also on Windows 7, another good reason to use it. You must install only those two file (1, 2) and after few minutes you can save on PDF all files that you want. In the preference of printers (can you see from all programs), is possible set pdf quality and other normal options of a normal printer.

If you have same other PDFprinter with more options or other features write a comment and I’ll test it on Windows 7.

When the OS war turn into a religious war

2009-01-14T22:17:00.001+01:00

The release of Windows 7 should have woke up something in the Linux talibans who are starting turning the nerdish operating system war in a religious war.

In their opinion Linux and free software are the only way. That isn’t necessarily bad, while they are playing with their pc. The bad things is that they are fudding, and that are also considering ethical spreading incorrect facts, just to hit Microsoft (but I don’t think they are hurting so much since their market share is just a little more than the 1%) .

What is really sad is seeing a part (I hope that this is a little part) of a community live and work not to become better but to fight the enemy. Please try to read this post by Stephen Chapman and work on the points he highlighted.

When the work is done you can bash whatever you want, I promise I won’t come back annoying you. However you might agree that complaining with Miguel de Icaza just because he is actually doing the work for you is not a much clever behavior.

Where are Apple guys in this fight? Without them is just half the fun. The iReligion is more fun than the Linux religion, and also the iUser are more used to the battles. At least they have a reality distortion field.

Is Linux really better than Windows 7?

2009-01-13T22:33:00.001+01:00

Looking at the referrals to Mac vs. PC I found this post on why Linux (what version?!?!) is far superior to Windows 7.

I write this response just to show why what a Linux fan boy says is not to be trusted. I am not meaning that Linux is crappy or that it is not working, just that the reasons that the average Linux user will use to convince you are wrong, terribly wrong.

Power Shell vs. *nix shell: I don’t really think that shell is the real tool for an administrator, even if I have to admit that in some cases it is more powerful than a graphical tool. However this is not the point. Power shell is a object-oriented shell and this is enough to declare it the winner in the shell’s battle. I am sorry if you like do black magic to deal with strings but a character based shell is old, nothing else.

Windows setup vs. Linux package manager: the idea of the package manager is surely cleaner but when did you saw a Windows user become mad because of some wrong dependencies? In Windows setups takes care to provide the required things to do the job, so there is no real advantage using a package manager. And all the application you mentioned are available also on Windows without a very little effort. Can you say the same about professional applications?

Crash on a virtual machine: wow that’s cool. A crash of a beta operating system on a virtual machine (that in the past made mess with every OS had to run). It is definitely a reason to install Linux.

The aquarium: I am still thinking what is its use. Or is it simply useless? And My eyes saw both Vista and Seven run on a exec, is it too powerful?

WGA: it is a commercial product, don’t you want to be a pirate, right? If you don’t want to pay get free software, but not cry if WGA stops you using something you pirated.

UAC: are you running as root on you Linux-box or are you using something like su or sudo?

The register: you said you are cleaning your register, isn’t that doing more harm than the good things you would get?

Mount ISO image on Windows 7

2009-01-13T16:10:00.005+01:00

In this days I’m trying Windows 7 (read other posts) on my EeePc and mount a ISO image is fundamental on a pc without DVD-driver.

Normally I used Virtual CloneDriver, but it causes some problems. Virtual Clone CD work on Windows 7, but after that you sleep or hibernate pc, you can’t navigate on your folder. For example if you wont open a file from a program and file isn’t in the default folder, when you try to change folder the window becomes pearl grey and is impossible select any files.

After Virtual CloneDriver, I tried Daemon Tool. It’s possible install this program correctly, but when you mount a ISO image windows crashes (BSoD).

Now I’m trying PowerISO and, for now, I’m having any problem.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATE: I tried other tools linked in comment, and this is the result:

Pismo File Mount: it isn't a true virtual driver, but open ISO image like folder. However, it's a nice program and works on Windows 7, but it mount only ISO image (and not all).

Magic Disc: it is a free program and read most diffused DVD image format(ISO, NGR,...). Personally, I had some problem of stability after that I installed it, probably because of incompatibility with some programs.

For now, I still prefer PowerISO, it is only freeware program, but it mont many formats and it's only program full conpatibility with Windows 7. If you have some problems or use other programs, write a comment or contact me. Technorati Tags: Windows 7,mount ISO image,Windows 7 BSoD,Windows 7 Blue Screen,Windows 7 crash,Virtual CloneDriver,Daemon tool,PowerISO,Windows 7 problems

Why love new Windows 7: Taskbar (SuperBar)

2009-01-12T19:19:00.002+01:00

I start this sequence of posts talking about new taskbar.

Probably it is most publicized news of Windows 7, but certainly it’s first thing that any users love when try it.

This is new taskbar:

The new look is very nice and also very functional: with old task bar, roll around that users open many programs and many windows (in this time I have 5 program each with 4-5 windows) and find quickly a window is not easy, but new taskbar change it.

Find a windows it very easy and very fast: all windows are grouped by program file and when go on icon, taskbar shows a preview of window.

Other important feature is the frequent opening list: if you do right-click on a icon of taskbar, it shows the list of more opening file from that program. For example, if I do right-click on Window Explorer icon, taskbar shows more opening folder.

The taskbar revision modifies also (finally) the tray bar: now it’s possible customize it with few click. If you click on arrow and then on customize, you can select behavior icons:

show icon and notifications
hide icon and notifications
only show notifications

In tray bar, we can try also new network icon: now when you click on network icon, taskbar shows directly available wireless connections.

On right of clock, there is a new button that show a preview of desktop if you pass over it or show desktop if you click it.

Finally a useful option, specially for small monitor, is the possibility to chose small icon:

right-click on empty point
click on proprieties
select “use small icon”

This is the result:

If you have other features of new taskbar comment this post.

In the next post, I show other interesting news of Windows 7 and also first bugs.

Bye.

Technorati Tags: Windws 7,news,taskbar,superbar,trybar,preview,customize trybar,network icon,desktop icon

Why love new Windows 7

2009-01-11T12:16:00.001+01:00

I’m trying Windows 7 on my EeePc and in the next posts I’m going to show more useful news that certainly users will love.

In the post I’m going to show also some bugs of this beta.

If I make you curious, while you wait next posts, you read our old posts and subscribe to feeds.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,bugs,news,Eeepc

First Windows 7 impressions

2009-01-10T17:50:00.002+01:00

Windows 7 beta and the serials are out! Here you can find the first impressions (and the first crash!) of the new operating system.

Install Windows 7 by USB Pen Driver

2009-01-09T18:36:00.001+01:00

This method is perfect to install it on pc without DVD driver

Hi,

today will be possible download Windows 7 from this link: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/.

I and many other people in the world are trying this new OS also in pc without DVD driver such as new netbook (Eeepc, AspireOne, MSI,… ).

A possible method to install Windows 7 on this pc is use a USB pen Driver.

Requirements:

USB pen driver (min. 4GB)
Windows 7 ISO image (from here)

How do:

Format USB pen driver: Computer –> Right-click on USB pen driver-> Select NTFS –> Start
Mount ISO image by a virtual driver tool (I use this)
Open command line as administrator: Start-> Write cmd –> Right-click on cmd icon –> Select “run as administrator”
Write this commands (press enter after any commands):

diskpart
list volume
select volume X (X is number of your USB pen driver)
active
exit
H: (H is letter of your virtual driver)
cd boot
bootsect /nt60 X: (X is number of your USB pen driver)

Copy all file from ISO image to your USB Pen Driver
Insert USB Pen Driver on your netbook
Restart netbook and go to BIOS setting (F2 for Eeepc, F12 for AspireOne)
Select as first driver your USB pen driver and save&exit

Now you can start installation on your like if you use a normal DVD.

Goodbye and good Windows 7.

For suggestions write a comment.

Technorati Tag: Windows 7,Eeepc,AspireOne,Instalation by USB

Windows 7 beta out at 12:00 PST

2009-01-09T12:39:00.001+01:00

Hi everybody waiting for the Windows 7 beta release to non MSND or Technet subscribers. Last rumors are telling that the download will be available form the noon at Redmond.

That means that Windows 7 users form United States have to have a late lunch, users form Europe have to eat their dinner quickly and users form the east have to wake up if they want to be one of the 2.5 Millions testers.

What to do to get the key and the ISO?

Simply go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/ and follow the link that will appear.

To help you I am providing a useful time converter, to be sure to check at the right time.

While you are waiting for the download time why don’t you read our other posts?

A truly innovative laptop!

2009-01-09T11:21:00.004+01:00

MSI has just introduced a new laptop computer called X-Slim X320. Its design its tremendously similar to the MacBook Air, look at the picture taken by SlashGear! And the slogan is (I'm not joking) "Innovation with style"! But looking deeply many differences arise:

no glass / multitouch / no-button trackpad
no aluminum, no unibody
MSI is slightly thicker
MSI features a higher resolution display
MSI features only a Intel X-Slim Merom processor
MSI is cheaper

As you can seem these two computers are quite different "inside" even though the design is nearly identical.

Dear Windows XP user, change your mind or stay stunned

2009-01-02T15:19:00.001+01:00

This morning I found this Ed Bott post about the reason an XP user is not going to like Windows 7, as he is not liking Windows Vista.

He points out that the XP users are seeing user interface changes only in the sake of change. Of course they are not thinking to change their mind and I don’t think that such thing will be even possible knowing how closed is the mind of the Vista haters.

I’d like to see them try to use the system forgetting how they where working on Windows XP. I am sure it is not too difficult, I know it will produce a gain in the usability of the system. But they consider themselves power user, while actually they are only half-a-step away form a lamer in the ranking of the most useless people in technology. (Sorry, my dear lamer if I used you in this comparison but you are actually the right person for that)

I am not telling you that someone used to something at the beginning won’t be disappointed by a change of perspective, but why such people are using a PC when they once learned how to use a pencil and a piece of paper? Please go back using this old way of working, trust me, is better for everyone and nobody will hurt (And also the internet will be a better place).

However in his brilliant post Ed Bott has a clue also for who is still missing the old-fashioned, crappy and unfriendly way of working. They can ~~degrade~~ customize their system and get whatever they want, even if it doesn’t makes any sense.

The sad thing is that the only operating system a XP user can stand to use is Windows XP. No chance to change, they are used to it and trying to tell them to do thing in a different way (No matter if easier or more powerful) is something like killing them. Since XP users are proving such a closed mind I can’t tell them to get a Mac nor to become a Linux user. So bad news are not only for Microsoft, but also for the other software house and even for the open source community.

P.S.

Have a nice 2009

Microsoft Zune reinvents the Millennium Bug

2009-01-01T22:45:00.002+01:00

There are many people that strongly believe that the Zune is a valid substitute for the iPod; unfortunately some of its defects are convincing me that Microsoft clearly isn't putting much energy into its product. After cracking screens and a seriously injured customer it is now time for a "new Millenium Bug": every single Zune on earth has frozen because of a bug in the way the Zune handles leap years. Luckly this time no one was injured! But I still can't stop thinking about what the next bug will be.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2008-12-24T10:25:00.003+01:00

Hi all, Matteo, sirus, tcid, and wisher would like to thank all our visitors and wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Bye

Are virus going towards Facebook? Welcome to the black death, 2.0

2008-12-05T23:24:00.001+01:00

Nowadays computer systems with a good set-up (I’m saying a good set-up, not a relationship with UNIX) are going to be less and less virus prone. In my opinion today only a stupid cold download some files from its favorite peer to peer network, don’t recognize that the porn he wanted can’t be stored in an executable file. Since he is such a stupid that would underperform even in the Linux Girl-test, he is going to type the administrator password and make something that will make him gain a place in the hall of fame of stupidity.

A quick look at the previous paragraph may reveal a really high stupid/(number of words) rate.

A clever reader and a fucking annoying virus writer may have noticed that on Facebook the rate stupidity/(Things done) is too high to be computed. But this is not the most important factor. Facebook is a network and it is easy to send your friends an invitation. This mean a really quick spreading of whatever you are showing your friends (Never heard of the snowball effect?).

Wait! We have people acting in a stupid way and stupid things passing form a user to another, very very quickly. Now imagine to have something malicious that is passing form a friend to another: welcome to the black death, 2.0.

With this premise this was only a matter of time before something bad was coming out. This example is still relying on users stupidity (Once again), but considering the amount of data stored on the social network and the ease of access for user authorized application (Don’t trust everything, it’s a matter of life and death) making something dangerous, able to get information and even to spread to your contacts. Is that enough?

To my friend that are reading this post (but also to the others). Send me something bad and you will be no more a friend of mine, not only on Facebook but also in real life! I told you, be careful on what you are doing, or be sure you can hide yourself in a safe place, without writing on Facebook where you are.

P.S.

A couple of my readers should enjoy the picture I used in this post. Please give me a feedback on that (And obviously also on the whole post).

iPhone OS surpasses Windows Mobile

2008-12-04T20:58:00.006+01:00

MacDailyNews has posted an article comparing current market share and year-per-year growth of the most used mobile operating systems.

Current marketshare
Symbian 63%
RIM at 16%
iPhone OS 13%
Windows Mobile at 11%

Year-per-year growth
iPhone OS +328%
RIM at +83%
Windows Mobile at -3%
Symbian -12%

As you can see the growth of the iPhone OS marketshare is impressive: I guess it's time to recall Steve Ballmer's predictions about the success of iPhone!

Mr. President and the Zune

2008-12-03T01:41:00.001+01:00

Unfortunately we have to trust what Neal Santos of City Paper is telling us, but why not to trust him? Actually he said he saw Barak Obama (Yes the elected president of the United States).

Do you still have any doubt on what is the best music player?

:-)

The Simpsons Mock Apple!

2008-12-01T17:25:00.003+01:00

If you're a tech guy and you like The Simpsons, you will certainly love this video!

Is Linux passing the girlfriend test? No, thanks to Free Software Foundation

2008-11-30T21:41:00.001+01:00

Guys at TechRadar UK made a girlfriend of one of them playing with Linux, in their girlfriend test.

They told some simple tasks to the girl and looked how she was accomplishing the “challenge” using Linux.

This test aim is to demonstrate that Linux is noob-proof when it is about to deal with basic tasks:

Bookmark a website in Firefox: is it the same thing that doing it in every operating system with Firefox.
Write and print a letter in OpenOffice.org: same as the previous. It is still not demonstrating anything but the availability of common software for Linux and Windows.
Rip a CD: different system, same behavior of the GUI that let the girl do what se wanted. But are you sure she won’t have any troubles?
Send an instant message: here things are getting quite harder. The girl wanted to use Windows Live Messenger and had to use Pidign. She can nearly the same things after some trials. It is not Linux fault but the experience is losing some of its initial appeal.
Create a pie chart in OpenOffice.org: other OpenOffice stuff, same consideration I made on the second task.
Put the ripped CD on to her iPod: thank you Apple, thank you Free Software Foundation for the choice of OGG. The poor girl is not smiling anymore.
Photoshop her head on to my body: she found GIMP and get it to work. At least the girl should receive a standing ovation since she managed to deal with the unusual interface. She is not a regular noob. Definitely.
Watch a video on YouTube: my dear package manager, having flash installed is a thing that users want to do in a click or two. I know flash is evil, but the web is heavily relying on it. And using the web is more interesting than having a pure 100% free system.
Make a phone call using Skype: problems are coming out. And in this case I can’t tell you this is not a Linux fault. An 'audio playback problem' needs to be fixed before noobs are going to consider using Linux.

A noob that has to deal only with browsing on nearly pure HTML/CSS sites that has to do some office work with OpenOffice could consider using Linux.

If the user wants to do more multimedia related stuff the situation is getting terribly worst. Maybe you are wondering about the responsible for this fall of Linux perceived usability

I’m pointing my finger against the Free Software Foundation that is trying to prevent anything not open being installed in the system. In my opinion this is a really bad choice.

The girl would have a better opinion of Linux if she could have out of the box working MP3, Flash and Skype support. Losing users in the name of an ideal is not a clever choice in my opinion. Maybe it is the right choice from the moral perspective. But an ideal without users is not going anywhere.

Just my 2 cents, as usual.

Give power your Firefox SearchBar

2008-11-30T14:59:00.001+01:00

Many people use Firefox but few know how improve the search bar.

There are may add-ons to search but only two are really useful:

Add to Search Bar: adds a function in context menu that enables to include any site in the list of search engines. Right click on search box of site that you want add and then click on “Add to search bar…”. No sweat!
ContextSearch: permits to search selected words directly from context menu.

One other trick very useful for open search directly in new tab is that:

write “about:config” in address bar and press enter
click ok on the alert page
write “browser.search.openintab” in filter box
change value from false to true by double click
restart Firefox

The last trick that I want advise permits to search in address bar by different search engines. Normally, when you write a word in address bar Firefox uses “I’m feeling lucky” of Google, but it’s possible to use all search engines of the our list and to do it we must put before the word a keyword. This trick works only if the keyword is associated with a search engines.

For add a keyword:

Click “manage search engines” in search bar menu
Select a search engines and click on change keyword
Insert the keyword that you want use. Foe example I use “–g” for Google, “-w” for Wikipedia and “-y” for YouTube

If you want change the default behavior and set the normal Google search, you do this:

write “about:config” in address bar and press enter
click ok on the alert page
write “keyword.URL” in filter box
double click on line and insert “http://www.google.com/search?q=”
restart Firefox

Microsoft thinks to WEB 3.0

2008-11-29T13:41:00.004+01:00

All know what is WEB 2.0, but Microsoft already thinks to WEB 3.0.

Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web culture communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs and tags. Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information, but they want do a high-interaction user-to-website and user-to-user.

In the future this high-interaction will be not only user-to-user but also user-to-machine and machine-to-machine: WEB 3.0. Microsoft is studying how use internet technologies for communicate between machine: we'll can buy metro ticket or restaurant by our phone, but also control our house thermostat. All this is only the first step of the innovation that WEB 3.0 wants introduce in our lives.

In WEB 3.0 era, all is interconnect, we'll not open refrigerator to see what buy for lunch, but refrigerator will give us shopping list or send it directly to supermarket.

To support WEB 3.0 our phone and other common used devices will became "intelligent".

Maybe someday, while I'll have breakfast, I'll talk about my coffee pot :) .

Apple admits that OSX needs antivirus

2008-11-28T20:46:00.001+01:00

Really bad news for the Apple maniacs that their beloved company is recommending to use antivirus. Yes you read right. At Cupertino are suggesting you to install an antivirus software on your Mac.

Even if in the commercial the subtle Mac was laughing at the poor PC that was ill.

Even if Mac OSX is a UNIX. I am a UNIX hater, I never hid that, and I’d like to know what the people that are theorizing the UNIX safety by design are going to say. I think it would be something fun.

Even if nobody cares to write a virus for a niche of the market. I think that that niche proved to be so dumb that will welcome any malware in his system. If Steve Jobs fooled you once why a good social engineer can’t make your machine working for him?

This is the official announcement. It is Apple.com, so I think that you are taking your credit card and doing an online order of the software suggested.

With the Apple fanatics desperate for that revelation and the users of other operating systems laughing so loud that they can’t read anymore why should I go on with this post?

Thanks to Feliciano for his post.

Make Firefox 3 look exactly like Safari

2008-11-26T12:37:00.007+01:00

Many people dislike Safari and switch to Firefox; I recently decided to try it and I started using it regularly. There are many features that only Firefox offers but there's one thing I particularly dislike of Firefox: the interface. Safari is truly well-designed: the GUI is uncluttered, simple and nice looking. How to make Firefox 3 look like exactly like Safari? These are the steps you have to take:

Install the "Combine Stop-Reload Buttons" extension (currently at version 0.3); it merges the stop and reload buttons
Install the "Fission" extension (currently at version 1.0); it provides a Safari-like progress bar, which shows behind the URL
Install "Quartz PDF Plugin" to give Firefox 3 the ability to view PDFs
Install the "Inquisitor" extension... it's so cool!
Open a blank page and type about:config , press enter, click on "I'll be careful, I promise" and edit "browser.tabs.tabMaxWidth" to "200" and "browser.tabs.tabMinWidth" to "150"; this will change the tab width to make it more like Safari.

The result is almost pixel perfect! ...Enjoy!

Make presentation with LaTeX using Beamer and the Dubino theme

2008-11-22T18:13:00.001+01:00

Today I had a look at LaTeX as a tool for doing presentations.

I’m trying to abandon all the clerkish office automation suite. For my documents I’m happily using LaTeX, but sometimes I have to make presentations of my works and the only program I was able to work with were Microsoft PowerPoint or OpenOffice Impress.

The geek I have inside wanted to do everything with LaTeX, so today I spent a couple of hours “learning” how to use the beamer package (Thanks to Swanz for the suggestion).

The operation you have to do to have it fully functional (Ina Windows environment, if you use other operating systems this is not the post that will tell you what to do in details) are the following:

Install MikTex and Texnicenter
Add the beamer package to MikTex (Using the MikTex Browse package tool). On my PC I had to install the following packages: beamer, pdftex-def, pgf, xcolor, ifxetex and translator. I don’t know what the package I mentioned are actually doing, but I can tell you that to make it work I needed to install it.
Half of the work is done. Now we have to write the actual presentation. I’m not teaching you how to do that, you can Google to it. Sorry for this joke, is since I had this link that I was looking for a reason to use it :-)

Since the standard beamer templates are everything but satisfactory I also hacked what I found to have something enjoyable. To have the wonderful Dubino theme you have to:

Downlaod it from my skydrive.
Copy it to this folder C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.6\tex\latex\beamer\themes\theme
run texhash (In Vista you have to do that in a Run-As-Administrator console)
Congratulations, you have done it!

P.S.

If you are not understanding what I wanted to do don’t worry.

This post was more a note to remind me what to do than a real tutorial. If you don’t like this post, I’m sorry, but after all this is my blog and I can write what I want, isn’t it?

EtherPad. The only way to write shared documents

2008-11-21T21:47:00.001+01:00

Forget about Google Docs and other online tools that promises to help you editing collectively your shared documents but doesn’t have a way to see the modification to the document in real time. Such applications are the past in collaboration tools: with EtherPad we have a really cool web-application to write plaintext with your friends seeing what others are doing live.

Here my 2 cents:

Why does EtherPad rocks?

You can see the modifications live. Do I have to add something more?

Try it and fall in love with its clean interface that provides nothing more than a shared Notepad. And does it well!

You can chat with your friends to talk about what are you writing and really collaborate on what you are doing.

What is still to be done?

Support for other document formats than plain-text should be great. Unfortunately the world is not only about simple text.

Also a way to store files on my disk would be appreciated. Or are you thinking in the Google-ish way that all my documents are belonging to you and only to you?

Please try to get a 100% availability :-D. This service is really cool but if I can’t talk with your servers is quite useless.

Thanks to Oscar for the link!

Please Google, give me back the old Gmail theme!!!

2008-11-19T22:49:00.001+01:00

Few minutes ago I logged into my Gmail account and I found a theme change.

I was not liking the switch form the capital G to the small g in the Google logo, and I am still not liking it.

I think that the new theme is ugly and even the “classic theme” is not as good as the new one. Thanks god they provided the Older version option to stay with the Gmail we are used to.

Please Google, don’t change logos and themes with new uglier ones!

And the worst IDE ever is … Eiffel Studio!

2008-11-14T23:46:00.001+01:00

I hope that you are a reader of Under The Wire and that you didn’t find this page looking for a solution to a problem with Eiffel Studio. Don’t waste more time on it, if it doesn’t work it won’t work whatever you search and whatever you are going to do. I’m sorry but the only advice I can give you is to not start a lost battle.

The only solution is to get a real language, with a real library and of course a real IDE.

If you like the Eiffel Studio icon (that actually is the only good thing of the whole project) save it somewhere and then trash everything else. Trust me, this is the only good idea!

Maybe you are thinking that all this hate (Yes, I hate it!) is quite excessive. I have my reason and after you read a couple of that you should only agree with me and join the Eiffel-Haters.

Here is a tragic list of the problem I had. The order is random, but it is impossible to tell what came first and what came then since once you solve a problem it will come back.

It auto-completes only what it wants and after you compile it. Not exactly what I was expecting. Sorry, I am a CTRL+SPACE addict.
It can’t understand that two files are actually the same file. What a stupid compiler (I don’t know it the stupidity is actually in the compiler on in another piece of software, however there is something that fails).
The library of Eiffel are so limited that they choose to introduce .Net support. It should have been a good idea. If only the debugger worked with .Net code. Please Ballmer delete the page written by Bertrand Mayer on the holy MSDN. It doesn’t worth the bytes on the server.
The user community is … hey there is anyone using it? It seems there aren’t and I’m not going to blame them. I just wonder why someone that is not completely crazy should decide to use this crapware. (Before you ask me, I am forced to use it. What a sad destiny).
Documentation? If you call the man pages documentation you may also consider good the Eiffel documentation. I am used to JavaDoc and MSDN and I can’t go back without being brainwashed!
Pre-compilation is a mystery. Why does it sometimes mess so up that the only thing to do is to take an axe and eradicate the all pre-compile folder. (Be sure to delete only what is in the EIFGENs, or you are going to break everything).
It is consuming my .Net. I know that this is only a word, but this is a horrible word. I don’t want you to touch my .Net. Is it clear?
It is open source and the community is not doing anything to pick the project to a decent working status. There must be a reason.
The native compiler generates C code. That means the need for another compiler and tons of new problem, just to make impossible working with this IDE.

What should I do? No, Vi is not an option. Nor killing everyone at ISE.

The only people that should be happy about this total failure are guys working at Xilinx ISE and EDK the two crapware for hardware design in VHDL. At least they work, poorly but sometimes works. This makes hardware's guys big losers, and they lost also the worst IDE award!

Eiffel: What programming should NOT be.

p.s.

Please stop the monkey that are randomly hitting the keyboard and choose to stop this terrible project. An Eclipse plug-in will be enough. And maybe it will also work!

p.p.s.

If I will need a contract on my programs I will rather call a lawyer. Surely I’m not going to use Eiffel!

Make your Firefox address bar better

2008-11-14T22:31:00.001+01:00

The best thing of Google Chrome is its address bar that has both the classic address bar role and the search bar role.

To have the same behavior on Firefox you have to remove the search bar. After that you can type your searches in the address bar. Unfortunately the default behavior is to show the useless “I’m feeling lucky” Google response, to get a full response you have to do the following steps:

type about:config on the address bar and tell Firefox that you aren’t going to make a mess.
search for the keyword.URL entry. Once you found replace the default string with this one http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=

Android threatened by huge security hole

2008-11-10T17:16:00.002+01:00

If you're worry about your iPhone's security you should relax at the idea of a much more flawed operating system: Android.

This is what happens on a Android device: "basically anything you type into your keyboard is also being run in a hidden console with root permissions."

Windows 7 multi-touch: does it "just work"?

2008-10-29T23:29:00.005+01:00

Funny movie showing Windows 7 and its multi-touch capabilities.

Have fun :-)

Do you want videos from MTV?

2008-10-29T22:53:00.001+01:00

Go to www.mtvmusic.com and enjoy the best videos transmitted by MTV.

Sorry for this flash post, but I’m watching videos :-D

Apple getting bigger than Microsoft

2008-10-29T15:47:00.005+01:00

ZDNet publishes a really interesting article comparing Apple and Microsoft from a economical point of view: is Apple becoming as big as Microsoft?

Take a look at the data:

Microsoft

Revenue: $15.1 billion | Net profits: $4.3 billion | Cash & cash equivalents: $20.7 billion

Apple

Revenue: $11.7 billion | Net profits: $2.4 billion | Cash: $25.5 billion

Is the good old fight back again?

Will Apple ever catch up?

Have a first look at Windows 7

2008-10-28T17:04:00.001+01:00

Live form PDC, the embargo is over and first screenshots of Windows 7 are you. Check this sites:

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/

http://www.neowin.net/news/live/08/10/28/introducing-the-windows-7-ui

http://www.flickr.com/photos/longzheng

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=575

http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/Microsoft_taking_Office_to_the_browser.html

http://content.zdnet.com/2346-12354_22-244222-36.html

(More links coming as PDC goes on)

Are you ready for PDC?

2008-10-25T18:31:00.001+02:00

I hope you are knowing that next week Microsoft is presenting new things at PDC. The main thing that will be presented is Windows 7, and this is the real reason you should follow what will happen in Los Angeles.

To follow it live the right links are:

Check their sites out and you can discover what is the next big thing form Redmond.

Instinct wins

2008-10-18T10:13:00.001+02:00

Imagine the infamous “I am a Mac” advertisement with the products in place of the silly Apple’s actors. Imagine a fight on features instead than on myths.

If you are able to imagine this it means that your reality distortion field is weak today, so you may also know who is going to win and who is going to lose.

Samsung made a clever series of advertisement for its Instinct. Have a look and tell me what are you wanting right now.

Sorry Tcid, next time you have to let me play more with your iPhone… while playing I wasn’t looking at defects of the iPhone. And don’t forget to install some extra games and take a stronger battery or a longer power cord. I and Swanz can’t stand too many hours of boredom while we are at lessons.

Thanks to FolBlog for the post about this ads.

A must read: The UNIX haters handbook

2008-10-09T00:25:00.001+02:00

To celebrate a university course where I should learn to do Linux system programming in C I’d like to tell the world what really UNIX is.

I’m not going to write down anything, someone did it years ago but since UNIX is old, terribly old, I don’t think someone is going to experience something better than the hell is described in the book. :-D

The good thing of the book is that has also some bad words for C programming language, so I didn’t had to look for another book telling how crappy is C. By the way I don’t mean that if you want search you are going to find nothing. Just try and tell me what you found.

If you are a UNIX fan and you think that what is written in the book isn’t true you just have to add a comment.

If you are a UNIX fan that wants to help me even if I’m a bad boy you should tell me a small (I mean really small) Linux distribution to run in a virtual machine. Your help would be really appreciated.

Why all of us should have a laptop?

2008-10-06T21:25:00.001+02:00

Today just a link, but I think you should spend few minutes to look at it. I’d never thought that a laptop could ever have been so useful!

http://www.ixibo.com/index.php/2008/10/04/why-all-of-us-should-have-a-laptop/

Are you still thinking that laptops aren’t useful?

[ITA]: Guida wifi Politecnico di Milano per iPhone

2008-10-06T18:06:00.002+02:00

Sorry, this post is in Italian...

Per tutti quelli che vogliono collegarsi alla rete wifi del Politecnico di Milano con il proprio iPhone o iPod Touch: finalmente è arrivata la guida!

Scaricatela qui!!

myRadio 0.1 is out: get it now!

2008-10-04T14:42:00.001+02:00

Some days ago I posted the announcement of the myRadio development. Now the program finally reached a good level of functionality (At least it works on my machine) and I packed it the first jar of the project.

Even if it is far away form perfection, especially in the user interface, I think that you should give it a chance and report the feature you want, the bugs you find (I hope you aren’t going to find too much bugs) or other suggestion to the sourceforge tracker of myRadio.

With myRadio you can enjoy creating your favorite radio, mashing-up the radio program you like with the podcast item downloaded by myRadio. I’m doing it and I can assure you that, using last.fm or a shuffled library for the soundtrack, you’re going to forget what a old-style radio is.

Worried about your privacy?

2008-10-03T22:31:00.004+02:00

I've just found this video and I've found it astonishing.

It does not depict a real situation but a possible one: most of your data is digitalized... what if the wrong people get their hands on them?

Computer History: 1994 – Netscape

2008-10-02T22:17:00.001+02:00

Happened in 1994:

Apple releases the first Macintosh computers to use the new PowerPC Microprocessors.
Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, is found dead in Seattle, Washington
Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix.
Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first Black president.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army announces a "complete cessation of military operations."

In 1994 was also released the first version of Netscape, since Google Chrome revamped world interest on browser war I’m going to dedicate the first episode of Computer History to it, one of the main characters of the original browser war.

Before the .com bubble, the first browser war, and the web as we know it

After Netscape died his code was taken by Mozilla Foundation to develop Firefox, but this is another story, you are going to know more when we are writing one of the next computer history stories.

Do you want a LLOOGG invitation? Ask us

2008-09-27T11:49:00.001+02:00

Hi everybody, for a while we weren’t having fresh invitations to test new services. In the last days I got five invites for LLOOGG.

If you are asking yourself what the hell is that double lettered service I think that I couldn’t have found a better way to describe it than the way its authors did: your web2.0 tail -f access.log.

Nothing simpler than a page where you can find live who’s reading your pages, what pages and where did he come from. Looking at your visitors coming to your last post minutes after you wrote it could be a pretty thing.

Although the main aspect of lloogg is that allows you to see what’s going on live on your pages it provides you simple charts of records of past days visits. By sure it is not as detailed as Google Analytics, but do you really need all that data for a personal blog?

More useful the data about Top referrers (Come on, link us! :-D) Top search (Sometimes it could be funny) Top pages (Don’t you want to know what is your most read post?) and of course Browser war.

If you want an invite as usual, post a comment. And be quick since I have only 5 invites to share!

Tired of Windows podcast catcher? I’m developing myRadio!

2008-09-26T13:07:00.001+02:00

I think I gave a chance to every existing Windows podcast catcher without finding something that really worked as I desired. Here is my experience with the main programs and why does them suck:

iTunes for Windows is probably the best example of bloatware. It eats resources just to play some music. Since I don’t have any iThing I have no need to have it installed.

Juice was messing up with user rights making it unusable. Also the broken links at their official page made me feeling like if I was in front of the corpse of the project.

Doppler had some exception coming out at every start, and also other bugs. Not answering my question surely didn’t make me wait for a new release, neither to give help finding and fixing the problem.

After these (really bad) experience I decided to open NetBeans and write (in Java, so my software is also cross platform) one podcatcher form scratch. After all I’m a developer!

Maybe I may have to wait to have some spare time to design the coolest user interface in the world, but so far I’m needing a programs that works without hassles. I can think about making it eye-candy tomorrow, now I want to grab some podcast to make myRadio (Sounds like a good name, isn’t it?).

If you want to learn more, have a look at the code or just compile (Did I mentioned the program is open-source?) and run the pre-alpha version I’m developing go to the myRadio sourceforge page. So far it is working even if lacks some functions I’m going to add as soon as possible, and I think it is the most important thing right now.

Don’t forget to ask for features and signal bugs. I promise that as soon as I have some spare time to dedicate to the project I’m going to answer.

To receive fresh news subscribe to Under The Wire feed or to the project feed.

Microsoft ads made on Macs

2008-09-19T23:01:00.005+02:00

Have you seen the Microsoft ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld?

Whether you liked them or not, they're gone now: the campaign has been cancelled after negative feedback from all over the world.

But Microsoft is trying a new campaign inspired by "I'm a PC" sentence.

The ads are certainly better but... they've been made on Mac.

This is what LuisDS, a Flickr user, has found out.

Look for yourself...!

The real story beyond iPod invention

2008-09-09T14:17:00.001+02:00

Are you thinking that I’m writing an article explaining how Steve Jobs in a dream revealed himself how to design the most famous tech gadget? Actually you are a little wrong, it wasn’t a dream nor was Steve Jobs the brilliant inventor that first thought about the device as we know it.

Surfing on the web I found this really interesting site where Kane Kramer explains what he designed (not in California) 20 years before Apple iPod. Am I the only one that is finding more that one or two similarity between this concept and the Apple product? I feel like if I am in front of a couple of brothers!

The Apple fan you have inside is saying that Apple introduced the iTunes Music Store, that was really original. Sorry for that Mr. Kramer was presenting the music shop of the future in only few years after Apple’s foundation!

The only thing that Mr. Kramer was missing was the Internet. Without it such a business was simply unaffordable.

If you are not trusting what I’m saying just ask Kane Kramer, Burst.com or Apple.

Chrome is not killing any browser

2008-09-03T11:33:00.001+02:00

Although there is someone claiming to have switched yet I think that Chrome is not going to kill other browsers, simply because even if you can find tons of hype-generated articles you are not looking at a mass switching. Considering that blogsphere is writing about Chrome but just downloaded it to have a sample ride must made you think: so far we have still IE6 with a 25% share. Common (non-geek) users may find interesting the download link on Google’s homepage, actually my brother noticed it the first time he Googled something, but they are not going to download it.

Cutting off non-geeks that are not switching to Google I’m going to tell you why geeks aren’t switching although they have copy of Chrome in their systems and tired it for a while:

No extension yet, try to search for “Google Chrome AdBlock”, seems that in the last days this is the only question on the web. Seriously do you think that Google would be happy to give out a browser with the capability to hide ads and to kill their revenue?
Geeks are paranoid, Google wants our data. How can the two attitudes live together? It seems that chrome is part of the Google’s plan to conquer the world.
I know you didn’t clicked on the link on the want in the previous point, but I also know you should have done unless you have carefully read the terms of use.
Chrome is cool but there is nothing that requires Chrome to work properly. Why change browser to fix something that is not broken?
It based on something that was designed with security in mind, and this is the result.
Ok it is fast, but my navigation style is “check feed reader”, “open interesting articles in a tab”, “read what I opened before”. I don’t think I could appreciate speed differences since tab loading happens in bacground.
Process isolation is a good idea, but looking at Vista reliability index Opera crashed four time since June. I’m not saying that it is a useless feature, but so far I can live without it.
Chrome isn’t integrated with other Google services.
It is Windows only. Doesn’t look strange that the perfect operating system for who wants to be an early adopter is Windows?

If you are looking for interesting articles about Chrome look at the links of this sentence ;-)

Today big thing: Google Chrome

2008-09-01T23:44:00.001+02:00

Hi everybody, this week started with a big thing form Mountain View. After the iPhone and its troubles, the flop of Cuil, the Olympic Games and the release of Photosynth and IE8 beta 2 it is Google turn to come out with something new: a web browser.

Maybe some of you are thinking that a web browser isn’t really something new, and you are perfectly right unless the new browser adds some new capability. Google promises a browser for web-application, something that sounds to me like the Google OS that Google can’t develop. Does it seems a good idea? I don’t think so, why should I have (and maintain) both a regular OS and this web-app OS? Why should I give to Google more data than the personal information has yet?

Going on reading articles that invaded my RSS reader (OMG, you’re all talking about Chrome) I’m not so impressed, I have still in mind the two days Cuil fever… we all know how it finished

Looking at Chrome features I’m not finding the big thing that such noise made me expect for:

Stability: one tab, one process, as in IE8.
Speed: it uses webkit, so at least I can be as fast with Konqueror or Safari (But is better if you don’t use something designed with security in mind). Maybe the new JavaScript Engine is good, but also other browser are enhancing their interpreters.
Search: Am I the only one that associates that with privacy danger?
User experience: I think to have yet seen what they’re promising.
Security: wow a blacklist system pushed by Google, I hope that Chinese government is not thinking to use it.

Will it last as a revolution or is Chrome going to be a failure?

[UPDATE 9-2-2008] To download Chrome just open the Google homepage and follow the link. Soon my review.

e-Mule is free software, you don’t have to pay for it!

2008-08-30T15:00:00.001+02:00

Hi, I’m writing this post since yesterday a friend of mine asked why he had to call a phone number in order to have something like an eMule activation code. Of course since eMule is free software you don’t have to pay for it, nor it requires an activation. You are seeing the request of such code because you downloaded a modified version of the software form an unofficial ad fraudulent site.

The only thing you have to do after having downloaded a fake setup is trash the installer and download the right one from the official site. Next time double check what you are clicking on the Google page and do everything but clicking on sponsored links.

The last thing I want to share with you, my dear newbie, is the super-secret Google function to retrieve music. I hope you are going to find it useful.

To get a copy of a modified version of eMule just follow the simple steps I’m describing below:

Point your browser to the root of all evil
Query Google for eMule, download eMule, or something similar (making the query ad more nooby as possible is a homework left to the reader)
Follow the first sponsored link.
Congratulation you are just going to download a modified eMule installer.

p.s.

I first read of the special eMule version by this post of Napolux. After reading the post I was waiting for a friend coming with the question: I had to wait for four days, not bad :-(

More evidences of Apple troubles

2008-08-28T14:27:00.001+02:00

Earlier this week I wrote a post saying that Apple products just worked. I don’t know what happened to my RSS but seems that the heresy is spreading faster and faster: maybe I just subscribed the right blogs, but you can’t hide the evidence of the problems.

In the last days I found other interesting articles and blog post that I’m going to share with you.

You can read an article by the New York Times titled Apple Imperfect: maybe Mr. David Pogue is on vacation, or maybe he is preparing a new fun video of what Windows 7 copied form Mac OS X. The fact is that he is too busy to check what his mates are publishing.

I’m sorry for Steve Jobs: yesterday he had to think to some little things a bit more important than Pouge’s silence: iPhone Ad has been banned (I’m still waiting the ban of the get a mac campaign, but this is another story), the mobile device is experiencing security hole and last but not least App store showed the world what does censorship means. I think it is a good score, isn’t it?

At the beginning of this post I mentioned about bloggers complaining: here we have one unlucky user. I guess that in the next days I’m going to find other sad posts.

Please Steve, turn on again the reality distortion field, I’m missing it.

Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 is available

2008-08-27T21:37:00.001+02:00

I’m just downloading the new beta form the official site. You can read on the official blog what has been changed or come back in few days to find my first review.

p.s.

Don’t worry for my navigation, my main browser is Opera, so even if the beta is too beta I don’t mind :-D

Playing with Photosynth

2008-08-27T17:44:00.001+02:00

Last week Microsoft Labs released Photosynth, a cool application that enables you to make synth from your photos.

I gave it a try using photo I made while I was having a bike trip just to have fun climbing a mountain and taking some shoots to the other side of the valley in order to test the application. You can see the result of my synth here. I hope you will appreciate that I take photos from several points and that I tried to embrace the whole valley with my shots.

The result it is quite good, all the pictures were matched in the right way and the final effect is cool. The only thing I would change is the way pictures are showed: I can’t stand the fact that the picture I’m looking at is highlighted making evident that the synth is a collage of photos. I think that building the synth as a 3d scene without referring to the photo the it is made of would be a way better.

So far Photosynth is still a geek game, but I think that changing little things it would be the next big thing in photography ;-)

p.s.

I am still waiting for someone I know to post on youtube a video made with his helmet camera. I know I promised to send him some photo I’m making. Actually I am still waiting for photography gods to send me the inspiration for a good shot, so I don’t have any photo to show you :-(

It just worked

2008-08-25T19:12:00.001+02:00

In the past there was a company that had the it just works mantra. Now they are getting bigger and should at least change the tense of their motto as I did in the title of this post.

Our readers (and also at least on of my co-authors) should remember when I unveiled what someone wanted to keep secret. Now it seems that other bloggers decided to tell the world their problems.

But this is not the worst thing for the company that has to pay actors to have someone lining out of their shops to make some photos just to tell the world that there is actually somebody interested in what they’re doing.

Once reality come out also the reality-distortion-filed seems to need some fix: on the Internet the heresy is spreading.

What do you think? Are blogger suddenly become victims of collective madness? Or do you feel like somebody who wake up after a nightmare where you were forced to think different?

How to entertain millions of people

2008-08-16T23:45:00.002+02:00

Microsoft always knows how to entertain millions of people... with a Blue Screen of Death! More pictures here.

Photo of the Week #04

2008-08-05T13:49:00.005+02:00

Fantastic shot by ms4jah.

Why Cuil is not cool

2008-07-30T16:06:00.001+02:00

Hi, maybe you heard of a new search engine that promises to take over Google. No, I’m not talking about Live Search. This post will tell you why Cuil sucks, at least for the search I made to test it.

The most important thing that made me angry is that searching for Under The Wire there isn’t any link to this blog. We are at fourth position both in Google and in Live Search, why don’t Cuil link us? After this post I think that our blog will be banned, but so far it doesn’t seems to be a huge loss.

Being serious for a while I’m going to explain other reason that made me say that Cuil isn’t cool. Maybe the fact that we aren’t linked isn’t really good reason, so I’ll show you other Cuil features that only seems to work.

The layout of the result page, with pictures and a more fashionable style, is eye-catching but it can’t help if you can’t find what you were looking for. And trust me, you are not going to find anything useful.

The “tabs” could be a great way to filter search results, but in a lot of the queries I did there was no filtering suggestion. On the other hand when it shows something you’re only few clicks apart form the failure of your search: you won’t find nothing, even if you try to filter Cuil's results.

Also the “explore by category” feature seems to return random results… And I think that this isn’t very useful if we’re talking about a search engine.

Another thing that would help is the typo check and the suggestion to correct the misspelled word. Without this feature nobody will ever being able to find something useful. Maybe I couldn’t find nothing just because I made typing errors, but since nobody told me that I misspelled a word how can I recognize and correct the error?

The only thing I appreciate of Cuil is their privacy page. Looking at what they are saying it’s hard to think that Cuil’s creator were working for Google ;-) This really caught my attention and I think this is the only reason I will give another chance to Cuil. I hope that in the while somebody will tune the algorithms in order to give more effective results. Also a link to this blog for every search made would be a cool thing, but I don’t want to ask too much.

Does Cuil link to your blog? Have Cuil ever returned a useful link while you was searching something with it? Feel free to share your opinion about Cuil in the comments to this post.

How do we make money blogging?

2008-07-26T10:34:00.001+02:00

Should we try this new method?

Thanks to Napolux and GapingVoid

Microsoft tells us to become pirates!

2008-07-24T15:38:00.001+02:00

No, I’m not joking. I’m just watching the banners of the new Microsoft advertising campaign.

I hope that at Redmond nobody is thinking that the only way to have Vista installed on more computers is allowing users to crack it. I think that this isn’t the clue of this banner, but I’m sure that not telling that being a pirate is still cool would have been a better choice.

I’m not a pirate, and I think that Vista is good, so for me the Earth isn’t flat anymore! I’m also writing about new Vista’s banner, so maybe at Microsoft someone wanted us to talk about this banner just to get some viral marketing effect. Am I right?

Thanks to Thomas Hawk

Top 6 (and more) search on Google that linked our blog

2008-07-19T23:58:00.000+02:00

Before starting writing a new real post I’d like to share what our reader that comes form Google were searching in the last month.

Leopard vs Vista: are we attracting trolls, or just wannabe switcher? Nobody left a comment, so we will never know.
FIFA 2008/FIFA 2008 free: sit down, take a deep breath and listen my words. We are NOT a damn video-game site. The mistake I did was this post. The mistake are doing Google searchers is looking for FIFA 2008: stop playing video-games and have a life!
Live Mesh invitation/Live Mesh invite: I knew this should be one of the most searched entry, geeks are always looking for an invitation to something. Unfortunately I got only few invites and I can’t send invitation to readers were asking for. On the other side we’ve collected some mail address, if I was a spammer I’d pass half my days writing post about invitation and the other half sending chain mails. You're lucky I'm not a spammer, although somebody says I am.
CSS edit under Windows: a lot of people are searching for that, maybe at macRabbit somebody should take note and start writing a porting.
utvv e-mule: I think I know who made this query. I’m glad to see that someone finds our articles useful.
Leopard on a pc: please, stop searching for that… I don't want to be kidnapped by Apple's lawyers.

After the top six (Who said that I must write a top 10 or a top five? I wanted to write a top six!) I'm going to tell you the best queries. Are you ready to laugh?

Somebody was looking for information about how to fix a wire. Actually I think we never wrote a post about this, but you're a very lucky person: since sirus is an electrician we have the right person you're looking for. Just write a comment and we will send sirus at your home to fix all the wires you need. Maybe sirus can help also the guy who wants to wire macbook air to time capsule.

But the real genius is another searcher, somebody that I'd like to meet. His query was an easy-to-give-out Windows Seven invitation. Slow down, our marketing office is at work and when we are going to share invitation of the next windows release you're the first person we're serving. I'm going to invite you also before tcid, I promise that. Just leave your name -and a mail address- on the comments to this rant.

Another friend of us was asking Google if can we use cds on macbook. Well, you shouldn't use cds because they're old.

I think that when someone tells you ask Google he is not meaning that there is somebody called Google you can talk to. So if you write I want my capital G icon back for ie7, you're not talking to Mr Google. And just in case you're thinking to ask Santa Claus, neither he does exists.

Thanks to who was searching for Leopard sucks, you know the truth, but I can't understand what you were looking for. Are you a troll?

Can somebody tell me what is the link between sirus and iPhone? I think I'm missing something. I'd also like to know what was searching who typed whisher and iphone. Thanks god the first link is my old page on WinAddict, so the poor guy found a great post to read.

Just to grab some visit I'm now going to write some dull phrases picking words form this list. I'll let you know what kind of queries will came out this month.

fat albert hole: what girls learn on the mormon beefcacke calendar is a bite of seattle. Red bull flugtag and hot lap dance club. I must stop here before I get crazy.

See you.

We are still alive

2008-07-12T12:21:00.001+02:00

I’d like to tell our reader that we didn’t run away with the ad-sense cash, we just have to pass a lot of exam and prepare the defense of our thesis. Actually we have still to finish our thesis, but this is a little detail… I have to write code, write documentation and write presentation, poor my fingers and poor my keyboard. My mind is gone, but I still hope I can do it!

Before coming back to my thesis I suggest you to post a comment on what you’d like to read on utvv. If we survive, after the holidays, we will come back with our fantastic posts.

Stay hungry, stay foolish and stay tuned ;-)

Under The Wire

Cannot connect to iTunes Store: THE SOLUTION

How to browse a Page/Website that No Longer Exists or Unavailable by Google Cache

Pwn2Own: game over for Apple

Download video from MegaVideo and MagaUpload without limits by jDownloader

Live coverage of Apple Keynote 2010

Click here to get live coverage of the event!

January 27th, Apple Keynote 2010 live on Under the Wire!!!

How to fix the "The application Finder can't be opened (-10810)" error

Download all the music you want without file sharing applications

Facebook Lite: new Facebook’s interface

Windows 7 launch party pack: unboxing

Easy Screen Sharing by Skype

Mac OS X glitch: Renaming a file

Memories of a switcher

Megavideo UNLIMITED: how bypass 72 minutes time limit by Firefox plug-in

Aardvark: ask a question and get the answer

Interesting links #4

Interesting Links #3

Interesting links #2

Interesting links #1

WiiTouch, a low cost talking paper

Windows 7 RC impressions

How to enable the graphical boot Plymouth on Fedora 10

Megavideo Unlimited: Free premium account

Install Fedora 10 through VMware Fusion 2.0

Integrate a CUDA kernel in your projects

openSUSE 11 on VirtualBox

Windows 7 Release Candidate: how and when download it!!

Windows 7 and Antivirus: what is the best?

Kaspersky Antivirus 8 beta

Norton Symantec 360 v3 beta

AVG anti-virus professional

McAfee Total Protection

Avast

Antivir

Megavideo Unlimited: Download videos from Megavideo(Update2009)

Gmail secret features: how use them.

One month of Windows 7 test

Google thinks that every site may harm my computer

Windows 7: battery management

Emule/Adunanza Problem: firewall configuration on Windows7

Taskbar versus Dock, are they really the same thing?!

Megavideo UNLIMITED: how bypass 72 minutes time limit

EeePC T91 and T101H. Netbook with touch: a must have

How to get free Windows Live Messenger emoticons

Windows 7 and Apple’s Boot Camp drivers

Seems that Linux is not good for education

Developers, developers, developers: lessons learned in Software Engineering

Windows 7 natively installed on my Mac

How to: print to Pdf on Windows 7

When the OS war turn into a religious war

Is Linux really better than Windows 7?

Mount ISO image on Windows 7

Why love new Windows 7: Taskbar (SuperBar)

Why love new Windows 7

First Windows 7 impressions

Install Windows 7 by USB Pen Driver

Requirements:

How do:

Windows 7 beta out at 12:00 PST

A truly innovative laptop!

Dear Windows XP user, change your mind or stay stunned

Microsoft Zune reinvents the Millennium Bug

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Are virus going towards Facebook? Welcome to the black death, 2.0

iPhone OS surpasses Windows Mobile

Mr. President and the Zune

The Simpsons Mock Apple!

Is Linux passing the girlfriend test? No, thanks to Free Software Foundation

Give power your Firefox SearchBar

Microsoft thinks to WEB 3.0

Apple admits that OSX needs antivirus

Make Firefox 3 look exactly like Safari

Make presentation with LaTeX using Beamer and the Dubino theme

EtherPad. The only way to write shared documents

Please Google, give me back the old Gmail theme!!!

And the worst IDE ever is … Eiffel Studio!

Make your Firefox address bar better

Android threatened by huge security hole