Secret resources

I'm too tired to write a tutorial, but I have some secret resources I want to share with you:
this, this one and this beautiful service too.

Feed43: build an RSS feed from plain HTML

When you need to provide an RSS feed to a web-site you aren't able to edit (i.e. you are nor the admin, nor one of the maintainers of this web-site), well, if this is your case, the service I'm going to describe is the solution you were looking for.

Feed43 is a pretty useful service: it satisfied my demands without the need for me to know nor the XML schema of the RSS standard, nor any other particular notion.

It lets define a parsing schema of an HTML page by using a simple wizard. After I entered the site for creating a feed, I suddenly switched to "Advanced mode" and I found this advanced mode being both powerful and simple to understand.
Just a thing may be a bit obscure: hot to use the "{%}" or "{*}" template tags.
I personally used just "{%}" and then, after looking at the assigned numbers in the "Clipped data" text-area, I provided "{%1}" or "{%2}" to, respectively, the "Item title template" and "Item content template".

But, you know, the better way to understand how it works is to try yourself...

This service really fitted my needs, allowing me to build a feed up in less than 10 minutes.

Make two different Firefox versions cohabit in the same Ubuntu installation

Few days ago I was founding quite disappointing the performance of my Firefox web browser under my Ubuntu distro. In addition, the installed Firefox version won't be updated until Gutsy (or until a security update will be published). (this is a policy I sincerely don't understand: why I can have the always up to date software in Windows and not in Ubuntu? Mah!)

BTW, I came to a solution: installing from the binaries provided by the Mozilla foundation would be enough... Nearly enough: I also didn't want to loose my current Firefox installation, nor I wanted to loose all the plugins and the extensions I had already installed and configured.
So I turned to this solution: install the new version (downloaded from here) side by side with the "old" one, letting them share the same settings folder.

1. Download Firefox
2. Move "firefox-2.0.0.5.tar.gz" to your home directory
   
3. Extract it (tar xf firefox-2.0.0.5.tar.gz)
   

That's all: from your home folder run firefox/firefox or type ./firefox from the "firefox" folder or place an icon on your desktop.

From now on the two versions of Firefox will share preferences, settings and extensions (all the settings and the extensions are located into your /home/$USERNAME/.mozilla/firefox folder).

Let me know if that works.

(Coming soon: the same way for... Thunderbird!)

Indexed

Amazing, wonderful... fearful; a deep insight of the real life: Indexed.

SOAP and WSDL mistakes using .NET: the missing input

Sometimes in your WSDL are present web service inputs whose minOccur and maxOccur attributes are not specified.
I found the .NET framework assumes an element defined that way is optional.
Let me better explain: if you don't specify a value for such an element (you usually provides or not this value when you are invoking the web service proxy, generated by using wsdl.exe) the .NET runtime skips inserting that element in the SOAP request.
Now, if the destination web service requires the element... BIG-MISTAKKO: I spend 10 hours debugging such a troublesome behavior... Grrrrr!

Solution 1: always provide minOccur and maxOccur attributes or use required="true"
Solution 2: always provide non-empty and consistent values for every web service input

In my case Solution 2 worked pretty well (actually it was the only one suitable because I didn't have the possibility of modifying the web service).

Feeling the "Black Era"

Listen to this group, "Black Era". Their sound both relax me when I'm nervous and wakes me up when I need to.

Here's their Bio (You noticed it? They are Italian!).
Here's their Last.fm profile.

Least but not last: most of their music is free!

De censura

Quoto, ri-quoto e ancora una volta quoto.
Faccio inoltre mio l'appello: "Non facciamoci fregare"

P.S. "De censura"o "De censurae"?

The professional Ubuntu (first part)

Ubuntu Studio is an unofficial flavor of Ubuntu, based on Gnome and few other apps, all available through the official Ubuntu repositories.
I will not discuss on how installing Ubuntu Studio in details (see UbuntuStudio.org or/and this wiki for more infos on this topic), but I will tell you one thing: this distro best embodies my concept of "modularity". They took the very few of the Ubuntu core (the "main module") and built up around it a consistent distro, made itself of other modules (that are known, in the Ubuntu language, as "meta-packages").
Ubuntu Studio is made up of 4 meta-packages:

• Graphics, featuring Gimp, Inkscape, Agave, CinePaint, Scribus and so on
• Audio, featuring Audacity, Jack, Ardour, Muse and others
• Video, a metapackage that contains Cinepaint, Kino, Stopmotion and others
• Audio plugins, containing the most useful plugins for the apps of the Audio meta-package

When I came to install Ubuntu Studio on my laptop I found very interesting to choose at install-time which of those sets of apps will be installed: the installer did all of the hard work on his own, by taking all the .deb packages from the installation CD.
So, this is the first goal of modularization that has been obtained : simple and powerful 20-minutes installations that lets your system in a consistent and immediately productive state.

Also, Ubuntu Studio does so by targeting a precise and unique target of users: the creative professionals.
I want modularity... just give me all AND ONLY the packages I need for my work!

<< Link to the Intro | Link to the second article >> [COMING SOOOOON...]

The professional Ubuntu (Intro)

When I came the first time to UbuntuStudio.org I promised myself the next time I'll be upgrading my Ubuntu I will install this professional flavour of the "human distro".
So, when the Feisty Fawn was born I decided to move from classical Ubuntu to Ubuntu Studio.
Currently the first screenshot (click to see the full size version) you see on the left is the result of some customizations.


Some lines back I highlighted the word "professional"; I did so to focus your attention on an aspect of Ubuntu that is often guiltily omitted: Ubuntu lacks an "I-don't-know-what" that will make it truly professional.
I know, I know, Ubuntu has several "pro-level" apps, offers a highly usable and friendly desktop, is becoming more mature every day, is already a competitive alternative to MS Windows, but I think it really misses a "behavior" that puts it on the same level as Mac OS X is.
No, I'm not jocking, I really do mean that with some adjustments Ubuntu could be a competitive alternative even for those people that every day need a stable, simple, homogeneous and "serious" working environment (talking about you, OS X).

The point in this post is that we can't wait to Ubuntu to become this way, so we can go two different ways:

1. Help Ubuntu change and become more professional (I absolutely do not mean to make it more OS X like): Launchpad is supposed to be the center of the community, so manifest there your requests for a better Ubuntu and help developers with bugs (the least you can do is help who provides you such a good system with such a little expense (zero, nada, nothing, zéro, null, nil, nothing ...))
2. Try to customize yourself Ubuntu or any derivative distro, like I did and like we are going to explore in this post

Notice the two preceding points are complimentary: I really encourage you to follow both of them!

Before we develop the central topic of the post I want you to acknowledge the human distro to be a heavy modular one: Linux is modular to a near-to-the-maximum extent and Synaptic and the system of packages and meta-packages that constitute Ubuntu is a perfect and user-friendly complement to this modularity.

We were speaking of "professionalism", why turning to "being modular"?
Because I think the two things are strictly correlated when it comes to operating systems.
So I'll explain how to achieve professionalism through being modular.

Link to the first article >>

Servizio anche nel disservizio (2)

Seen at Plaxo.com...
(look at that lovely smart cow...)

(click to see full-size)

The power(s) of Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a wonderful tool that you can't miss if you must manage and monetize one or more web-sites.

It's so full of interesting and useful features that I'm finding new ones every day.
E.g., this way for a awesome result:
1. Login to Google Analytics
2. Select the web-site you want to analyze
3. Select "Content" from the left menu
4. Now select "Site Overlay" from the newly displayed list
5. Check the scores of your links and contents by watching at the little blue-and-white colored bars

Servizio anche nel disservizio

Credo che questo sia un perfetto esempio di come fornire una chiara ed esplicativa pagina di informazione di servizio anche a clienti eventualmente non troppo addentro ai dettagli informatici.

Chiara, semplice, nessun "panico", domande e risposte, un filo di umorismo.
Se volete vederla magari fate in tempo a visitare chl.it, altrimenti credo dovrete accontentarvi del mio screenshot.

Intel Core Duo optimizations and CK patches for Ubuntu Feisty

If you are, like me, a performance-hungry guy, well, today I have very good news for you.
I found a repository that provides optimized Linux kernel builds for Ubuntu Feisty.
Provided optimizations are the following:

1. CK patches (read more at this link)
   
2. Kernel compiled with Intel Core Duo optimizations

This work is provided by Giuseppe, an Italian blogger you can found at http://www.iuculano.it.
Check Giuseppe's post to read more details; the author of the blog is Italian (like me!), so expect to read these details in Italian... But, even if you don't understand Italian, well this is the sequence of steps to add Giuseppe's repositories to your list and for installing the patched kernel:

wget http://ubuntu.iuculano.it/AE3BE9AA.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

After that, add this repositories to your sources.list:
deb http://ubuntu.iuculano.it feisty all
deb-src http://ubuntu.iuculano.it feisty all

Finally:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install linux-686-ck linux-headers-686-ck
or
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install linux-core2-ck linux-headers-core2-ck
(depending on your CPU)

Note that even if the kernel is labeled "*-core2-*" it works fine in my Core Duo "first generation", so it sure suits well both Core Duo and Core 2 Duo CPU families.

I tried myself the so-optimized kernel and I found that it provides actual noticeable performance increment only for those applications CPU-intensive (e.g. GIMP, video editing and audio conversations). It also seems that my desktop is more responsive, but I didn't take any test to verify an eventual performance gain for the X server.
I warn you: don't expect sparks and a performance boost from every application of your system (especially from IO-intensive applications... )!

At the bottom of the Giuseppe's post is also provided a tip to increase the responsiveness of the X server:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -plow x11-common
and answer -10 when it asks for the X server "nice" value.
This is a tip that works with every kernel (it affects the X server, not the kernel) and could probably increase your desktop responsiveness, but I didn't try it, so I can't tell you more.

(If you wanna know more about CK (Con Kolivas) kernel patches: ck.wikia.com)

The crazy MS07-040 .NET patch

It seems that a recently released Microsoft update for the .NET framework it's acting pretty crazy...
Some users reported very annoying problems due to the installation of this patch: hard-disc trashing, machine performances going down, CPU at 100% for a long while and .NET instability.

Involved technologies are .NET framework 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0.

My advice is to avoid (when suitable) the installation of the patch.
It's more secure to wait until the patch got patched (!).

More detailed infos at this link.


(via Slashdot: "Microsoft .NET Patch May Make PCs Go Haywire")

The incredible Plaxo(.com)

Are you looking for a (FREE) central place where aggregate all of your various contact lists, mail address books, calendars and so on?
Well, you've found it: Plaxo.com is a service I have been trying from a couple of weeks.
It has been launched from a certain amount of time (they are rockin' around from 2002) and some weeks ago they came out with a completely redesigned interface ("Plaxo 3", still in beta for now).

They let you aggregate and organize contacts and calendars from MSN/Hotmail, Outlook (Express), Mac OS X, Google Calendar, AOL/AIM, Yahoo!, LinkedIn and others.

I'm using it to store and manage the following stuff:
1. Google Calendar
2. My Mozilla Thunderbird contacts, which I synchronize with Plaxo by installing an awesome plug-in in Thunderbird
3. My MSN contacts (note that I don't actually have a Hotmail account, but a Passport.NET one...)

Since I'm sure my contacts and calendars can grow at every moment of the day (since I use many ways to contact people, above all for work reasons), now I am also sure that Plaxo will always provide to me a central place where all of these informations will be consistent and accessible every-where (this last one is my concept of "informations portability", kindly provided by Big-Mama Internet).

Since using it or seeing it used by someone else is the best way to get familiar with it, there a video illustrating how it works.

Finally, the best thing about Plaxo is that they are improving everyday the new interface and adding new features: first of all performances are getting better everyday; after that, the past week I tried to import my MSN contacts (Remember? My Passport.NET account...) and, well, that day it didn't work for me, so I wrote a "request-for-features" asking if they were to implement importing my MSN Messenger only contacts without passing through a "real" Hotmail account.
Amazingly they answered me within hours and it wasn't a machine-compiled mail! They said there were some features they're considering to implement.
Today, after just 1-2 weeks I contacted those guys, I successfully imported my MSN Messenger contacts!

So, I definitively love Plaxo.

YouTube Doubler

YouTube Doubler shows side-by-side two videos you selected among the (zillion-) ones hosted by youtube.
Check this to see it in action.

Giornata nata storta

Oggi sono di umor "nivuro", come direbbe il buon vecchio commissario Montalbano (e qui, sul "vecchio", ci scappa macari un colpo di revorbaro, che il commissario si scanta nu poco a sentirsi chiamare così); devo ringraziare per questo il sistema universitario italiano. Sarebbe anche ora che qualcuno si decidesse a cambiare le cose... seriamente intendo.
Comunque credo ci sia a chi va peggio.
P.S. per chi si fosse chiesto come mai sto postando poco: ESAMI...