Ok, now I hate Twitter a bit less…
It always happens like this: technology evolves, newer computer tools become more and more widespread and I am forced to change idea or conform my opinions to the present time rather than keeping them tied down to the past. I hated (Windows) Vista, now I use Vista (waiting to upgrade to Win7), I hated Twitter… And I still hate Twitter, in very truth, but I can’t help acknowledging its usefulness beyond the foolish use made by dickheads thinking with their smartphone instead of their brain.
So long Interfree, and thanks for all the fish!
I am used to bring along my “historical” Internet accounts even if they are actually useless, because for me one of the most important things is “retrocompatibility” and support of all the e-mail addresses opened in the past in the unlikely case someone would decide to contact me there. So I have learned with much disappointment the news about the change of Interfree’s free services into professional paid products, a transition that will take place from today and that will have the practical effect of disabling the mailbox and the web space offered at no cost to users thus far.
Giant purple blocks invade the world of Google Maps
I think that finding a visual flaw in an extremely popular service like Google Maps doesn’t happen frequently, but detecting something weird in a photographic view a few meters away from where you live must be even more rare. And yet it’s exactly what happened to me a few months ago, and the problem is still there today: the view of a street hereabout is simply bugged, with a giant purple block hiding the sight at one of the roadway sides - all along the street.
When Punto Informatico loses its pillars…
This clearly is a shock period for me, because after the bad, bad event of the dead hard disk I also have to deal with the leaving (already of public domain since) of De Andreis brothers from the lead of Punto Informatico, that is the news site I daily write some nonsense for and what’s more being paid for the service 
The site has changed ownership since October 2008 going from De Andreis Editore to Edizioni Master, but at least for a while things have been the same as usual - ie every day there was a mail from Paolo (De Andreis) to wait for me with the indication of things to do inside.
Why The Fool blocks Google Safe-Browsing
The Fool is an Italian start-up founded by Matteo Flora, a security consultant known for having helped Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset to put together the data required to bring a 500 million euros lawsuit against Google and YouTube in July 2008. On the blog of FoolDNS, the main product offered by The Fool, the company has recently explained the reasons why Google Safe-Browsing is part of the service blacklist hence it is blocked for users and companies which use it.
Finally the upgrade to Firefox 3(.5.2)
Good things need time, I wrote in July 2008. For the upgrade of my Firefox installation to the last version available it took more than a year, hence instead of release 3.0 now I have a shiny Firefox 3.5.2 on the screen, no remorse for the switch, some little lack of intimacy with the minimal behavioural differences of the browser UI and so much relief for the end of an installation, test and refining operation that stole me an entire weekend and this past Monday morning.
The Interplanetary Internet lands on the International Space Station
During the first week of July, the Interplanetary Internet conceived by Vint Cerf (formerly co-creator of the TCP/IP protocol at the foundations of “terrestrial” Internet) and by NASA engineers earned what should be its first permanent node in the outer space. During the second of a long series of tests to verify the reliability of the Delay-Tolerant Networking (also known as Disruption-Tolerant Networking) protocol, the software needed for its functioning was transferred aboard the International Space Station orbiting at 350 kilometers above the Earth.
Browser war: Firefox wins, IE loses, Chrome has finally a plan
Maybe the bolt from the blue of the Chrome launch didn’t brought an awful market share figure to the newcomer, but the convulsions and the undoubted evolutive acceleration set off by the release of the made-in-Google browser are reverberating with increasing strength on the new war to control the access port to the worldwide network. Currently numbers are still on Mozilla’s and its red panda side, but in future things will become more complicated when Google will have played one of its best cards to turn Chrome from an oddity for few into a conquering force for the mainstream market.
Rule number one: never trust the cloud computing
It was August 27 of 2007 (my birthday) when columnist John C. Dvorak warned against the dangers of things such as “cloud computing”, “software as service”, “Web 3.0″ and the many abbreviations that in these years are trying to catch the attention of the public and sell as new what is the most old fashioned computing architecture ever existed.
“Hello World” for the interplanetary Internet
Space, final network frontier: the Disruption-Tolerant Networking protocol (DTN, previously known as Delay Tolerant Networking) has sent out its first wails the last weeks when the NASA engineers have tested the first interplanetary-class network communication. It’s an historic step that opens novel opportunities to communicate in space, remote-control probes and eventually to liaise with the future human outposts in the Solar System.
Browser war, Firefox at 20%. Google Chrome what?
After more than two months since the Chrome launch, the made-by-Google browser that should have revolutionized the whole market and the Internet perception itself among the users, the nowadays scenario is very much different from what the events anticipated then. Not only Chrome hasn’t been able to take a significant amount of netizens, but even its undoubted performance leadership will soon be called into question by the new releases from the competitors.
LLOOGG, the essential web access stats
Among the offers of free on-line tools for analyzing web traffic one can find anything. There are services capable of giving an embarrassing amount of data and statistics, but who already has a good quality collector on the server of his host maybe could like to use something less verbose, focused more on the (nearly) real-time representation of basic information on the site visitors activities. Something like LLOOGG.
Google Chrome starts the Third Great Browser War
With the characteristic effect of a bolt from the blue, at the beginning of this week Mountain View has released the beta version of its browser, Google Chrome, joining the super-competitive market of software interfaces toward the possibilities of net economy and information society. Everybody talk about it, everybody express their own thoughts on the matter, but still no one has had the heart to define the event with its due name: Chrome, there’s no much to do about that, marks the beginning of a new browser war in a time in which the said browsers are the main framework of business and access to digital heritage of interconnected mankind.
AN Hosting - one month later
Far from wanting to autocelebrate myself for my first month on-line presence, I pin here some notes regarding the choice of the hosting plan that let Sir Arthur’s Den dirty the Web from the capable American servers of AN Hosting, in the hope that they can be useful for who are in search for their home on-line or simply for information about the quality of services offered by the web hosting companies.
Vint Cerf works on the interplanetary Internet
The co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, the digital alphabet used in communications among devices connected to the Net, is persuaded to be able to make a revised version of the same standard work in space between the planets of the Solar System, and maybe even beyond. Vinton “Vint” Cerf, who nowadays is vice-president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, works far-back on the extension of network communications beyond the Earth atmosphere.
Upgrade to Firefox 3? Sure, but quietly
Gone by the mass hysteria of the launch period of new version of the Mozilla browser, the world record of the 8 millions of downloads in a single day (8,002,530, to be accurate) and the growing number of the above said downloads that stands still to camp as a trophy on the Spread Firefox homepage, I think it would be perhaps useful to calm down and reason on why maybe it’s the case, for who makes use of the web not only because it’s “cool” and chic, to wait and ponder before enthusiastically embracing the third main release of the red panda browser.
Google Maps and the temporary job agencies
In the unlimited panoply of web appliances Google is administering is offering to his users, Google Maps is the one that traditionally I’ve never found very much useful. Since I’ve moved to Bologna, however, I’ve got the opportunity to value it much more, by using it, other than for the search for shops, services and more, as a street map with dynamic contents for collecting the progresses in my job hunting.
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