The Stars, Like Dust

Unity Disaster

2011-11-17T15:01:00.000-08:00

So,
I have been a fan of Ubuntu for the past 6 years. The free software world owes much to their effort to bring order and quality to the fragmented Linux desktop.
BUT
I must admit that Unity is terrible.
I have used it extensively for a month, trying to adapt to its new approach.
Having mastered all shortcuts and concepts, I compared my productivity to gnome 2 working sessions... and there was no match. I open tens of windows while developing, and - with Unity - would spend most of my time trying to get to the right windows instead of coding....

Furthermore the sensation of being "caged" is overwhelming. I moved to Linux just for the kick I got from being able to choose to do things the way which fit best to my needs. This Unity tends to limit.

It reminded me of the long effort I endured when I installed Windows Vista ( the only one in my team) and endured 6 months before throwing it out of the window. Same thoughts... "But why?" "It sucks" "It's useless" "What I had before was better".

Now I have switched to Xubuntu, it does its job honestly...it's fast, and my productivity is back on track.

I am not against innovation, but I have a feeling that Unity ( and Gnome 3 which I equally dislike) is just a step back.

Give us Gnome 2 back!!!

Motorola Milestone - Tethering con ubuntu

2010-01-20T05:39:00.000-08:00

Con grande meraviglia ho scoperto che il mio nuovissimo Motorola Milestone (aka Droid) non permette il tethering ( cioè di connettere il proprio PC/Laptop al cellulare per navigare su internet)

Attraverso l'applicazione "Proxoid" presente sul Marketplace Android, e seguendo questa semplice guida sono riuscito a far funzionare il tutto sul mio PC Ubuntu in pochi minuti.

Riepilogo in italiano i passi da seguire:

Collegare via usb il Droid al PC
con lsusb|grep Mototola verificare il vendor ID e il product ID (la parte sx prima dei : è il vendor e la parte dx dopo i : è il product
Creare il file /etc/udev/rules.d/11-android.rules
Modificarne il contenuto in base al vendor ID e product ID identificati
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="XXXX", ATTRS{idProduct} =="YYYY", MODE="0666", OWNER="NOMEUTENTE"
salvare il file
riavviare udev ( con karmic : sudo service udev reload )
scaricare l'sdk di android da google ( io ho provato con la 2.1)
unzippare l'sdk
abilitare il debug applicazioni sul vostro milestone ( impostazioni->applicazioni->sviluppo->Debug Usb)
avviare proxoid
spostarsi nella cartella tools dell sdk di android sul vostro PC e lanciare
```
sudo ./adb forward tcp:8080 tcp:8080
```
impostare il vostro browser affinchè navighi su internet attraverso un proxy ( ovviamente localhost:8080 ( cioè la porta indicata con il comando adb).
Navigate!

Quickly - My Impressions

2010-01-19T14:14:00.000-08:00

I started using Quickly yesterday on my Karmic Koala workstation.

Was I impressed !?

My objective was to create a small prototype app for a contact center agent.

The app needs to interface a fast scan device, acquire the tif image, crop it, ocr parts of it, insert into db, verify integrity, zip, notify,etc...

I never ever used pyhton before nor gtk.

It took me 2 days to build the full app ( not the prototype !)....

so my impressions are:

really fast to learn
it is fun !
RAD in Linux....

Last time I used RAD development for a desktop app, dates back to VB 6 and C#.

I couldn't believe that RAD on linux could be faster, especially cause you have a plethora of modules available...

I need to scan.... there you go

I need to ocr .... there you go

I need to zip .... there you go

I need to notify via dbus... there you go

I need to play an audio file ... there you go.

Truly amazing.

Italian Digital Spaghetti House

2010-01-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

I was reading on Wired Italia latest issue an article about Gioco Digitale a startup in the newly legalized online digital gambling italian infrastructure.

Amazingly enough the author says that Italy is leading the way in this field, even France is learning from us.....wait a second.....

A few weeks ago I went to the police station nearby my house. I had my cell phone stolen, so I wanted to declare the theft ,etcc... Guess what ? Tons of photocopied modules to fill out by hand, no PC at the main counter, the officer had one in the back, old and useless.

I went back a week later, I needed to apply for ID papers for my children. Again the process was totally manual. I have 5 kids, it took us 30 min. to fill out all the forms, the officer had about a 10 min hand work too. Now..... And of course she forgot to fill some things, so they called us and we had to go back there another day ( wasting precious time)..

I was appaled by the fact that a police station ( a fairly recent one, it was built in the past 10 years I reckon), had no IT infrastructure. No database, no forms, no nothing!

I remeber that 7 years ago ( yes we were in the Internet era already) I went to the Carabinieri to declare the theft of my motorbike.... well I remember that the officer had to call the motorizzazione ( an agency that deals with car info and registration) to gather some info on the bike. Of course, no network link there, we had to call.... but the funny part is that he told me:"Do you have a 50 cent coin?". Yeah, why ? Cause, we have to use the public phone in the hallway ! I couldn't believe, we walked there, he used my coin, he called the motorizzazione, and couldn't even get the info we needed.

Tell me why Italy is so far ahead on gambling and so backwards on useful services to the citizens ? Why ? Beacuse gambling = taxes.Profitable taxes.....

A year in the open

2010-01-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

16 months....
since I left Windows ( fed up and woed by windows Vista) and started using ubuntu @ work and t then on my laptop.
Today I would never,ever go back.
For a number of reasons : matter of principle, cost, stability,but especially what concerns most of us at work... increased productivity.
I am CEO and senior programmer of a small IT dev and consulting company. So I am not exactly the average PC user. OK. GNU/Linux requires some understanding. But what I think is priceless of GNU/Linux and the OSS world in general, is that you learn, and learn and learn and learn. and have fun learning. 16 months, and everyday single day felt like Christmas day... full of presents and surprises, that's quite something considering I've been in the business for 15 years. The joy of being amazed by something new, bold, and intelligent every day. I must say, an inspiration for my work!

OSS is FUN, thank you all.
On the shoulders of giants....

Children and Internet

2010-01-10T09:02:00.001-08:00

Being father of 5 kids, I am quite sensible to the issue of the internet and safe browsing.

While there are very interesting tools out there ( see KidZui ), and I really like their effort, I feel that content rating should be open and available to everyone , users and developers, so that high quality kid safe services would likely develop on their own.
What about creating a platform for content rating management that would give everyone the ability to access content rating, to rate content, to integrate/mashup service through APIs in a social-oriented way ?

Any ideas + feedback is welcome.

Search Engine Credibility

2009-08-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

I've been comparing search results between Google and Bing.
I was curious after reading an article on Slashdot (http://search.slashdot.org/story/09/08/06/1334225/Bing-Search-Tainted-By-Pro-Microsoft-Results).
I ran a few tests... and am very depressed!

try searching
"windows security vulnerabilities"
or
"google security flaws"
on both engines.

You will notice that thay are biased ( more on the MS side though!).
Really disappointing.

Utilizzo di Juggernaut con EXTJS

2009-07-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

In un progetto di sviluppo centralino basato su callWeaver/Asterisk, sto creando una AgentBar utilizzando AIR 1.51 come RIA.

Attualmente il progetto è composto da diversi componenti rigorosamenti Open Source che vanno a completare l'intera architettura.

Posto del codice che ho dovuto adattare, in quanto l'applicativo AIR utilizza la libreria ExtJs ( ancora la versione 2.3.2) e Juggernaut ( che si basa su prototype).

Il backend utilizza Adhearsion ( e quindi ruby ).... guardatevelo che merita!

Sto ancora lavorando a livello di "prototipo" e quindi il tutto è sicuramente migliorabile.

Vi rimando al progetto wrapper ExJs-Juggernaut su googlecode.

Aha! Mac and Linux Collateral Ad.

2008-05-16T02:02:00.001-07:00

Rome .Fiumicino airport May 14th.....

Chi ben comincia è a metà dell'opera!

2008-04-08T06:29:00.001-07:00

Prima uscita su un blog... ammetto di provare un po' di vergogna, lavoro nel mondo dell'informatica dai tempi di Visual Basic 4 ( indovinate quindi da quanto ), e , permettete un po' di presunzione, so cos'è un blog da mooolto tempo prima che se ne iniziasse a parlare in Italia. Eppure mai avevo avuto il tempo/la voglia di scrivere qualcosa...

Bene oggi inizio.

Che dire ? Sono un amante della programmazione, in tutti i suoi aspetti,. Mi piace tantissimo sperimentare sempre cose nuove e non amo fermarmi su di una tecnologia per troppo tempo.
Considerate che nell'ultimo anno e mezzo ho lavorato sui seguenti progetti:

4 siti PHP/MYSQL su piattaforma LAMP
Un sistema CMS/DB-driven in JSP/Spring/Hibernate/DWR/Dojo ( di cui potete apprezzare il front-end www.regione.lombardia.it)
Sempre per lo stesso sistema ho messo in piedi ed integrato un server WMS con GeoServer( lato server) e Open Layers ( lato client)
2 applicativi CRM per contact center integrando ExtJS(lato client) con Castle MonoRail (lato server) su C# piattaforma MS.
3 applicativi CRM integrando un mio framework AJAX (ammetto non all'altezza di ExtJS) basato su PrototypeJS
Un gestionale in Ruby on Rails con ExtJS come engine client
Un applicativo di Geo Marketing Online basato totalmente sulle api GoogleMaps e su GoogleGear. Anche qui ho usato PrototypeJS e Scriptaculous come engine client. Un vero gioiellino.

Sicuramente sto dimenticando dell'altro...
Insomma mi piace proprio smanettare e scoprire cose nuove.