Interesting links #2

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.

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Interesting links #1

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.

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Google thinks that every site may harm my computer

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

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

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!

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Chrome is not killing any browser

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 ;-)

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Today big thing: Google Chrome

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.

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

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.

1. Leopard vs Vista: are we attracting trolls, or just wannabe switcher? Nobody left a comment, so we will never know.
2. 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!
3. 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.
4. CSS edit under Windows: a lot of people are searching for that, maybe at macRabbit somebody should take note and start writing a porting.
5. utvv e-mule: I think I know who made this query. I’m glad to see that someone finds our articles useful.
6. 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.

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GMail labs adds (pretty useless) function to GMail

I just looked at the new GMail-labs settings, hoping to find the next-big-thing for my web based mail account.

I admit it, I was a bit curious about the feature developed in the 20% free time that Google left to its employees, and I was expecting to find something great.

Seems that this time the 20% free time had been a little wasted since none of the experimental feature did worth a try. Here is the list of the feature users should test (with my opinions):

• Quick Links if it’s bookmarkable and does worth a bookmark it’s yet on my favorites.
• Superstars please stop them or GMail will become a Christmas tree.
• Pictures in chat and Muzzle is there anyone using web-chat? Crazy!
• Fixed width font why should I loose the right layout of the mail?
• Custom keyboard shortcuts and Mouse gestures maybe it’s not so useless, but I don’t think a AJAX application is the right place for shortcut.
• Signature tweaks wow, we can sign a message before the quoted text :-(
• Random signature maybe it’s cool, but do we need it?
• Custom date formats it must be a system setting not an application setting!
• Old Snakey ladies and gentlemen Google-OS is here, and you can also play games on it!
• Email Addict hitting the X that closes the tab is too easy?
• Hide Unread Counts why?

If you choose to become a useless-function tester remember that big-G could remove what you’re testing without saying nothing to you. The function will just disappear.

p.s.

If you’re looking for a real big thing, have a look at the new version of Windows Live Writer

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Brand new Google icon, trouble coming?

Today while I was doing a Google search I noticed that something strange was going on, but at first I didn't realized what looked unusual.

Some search after, looking at my tabs I discovered what my eyes noticed what was changed: instead of the capital G the favicon of Google is now a little blue g.

Probably at Mountain View they are tired to be called the big G and decided to change their nickname in the most subliminal and easiest way they can go on: just changing they brand.

Do you like this new icon? I hope that the big G is coming back, the little g doesn't represent Google in my mind and makes too confusing to look at my tabs.

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Safari is a virus, Google says

Technorati Tags: Safari, Google

The next person who says that viruses for OSX don't exist I'll tell him that Google (not the evil empire) thinks he has one installed on his mac.

Enjoy this screenshot!

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