Under The Wire

Facebook Lite: new Facebook’s interface

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:43:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:44:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:36:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:29:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:44:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:21:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:12:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:58:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:51:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:39:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:15:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:57:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Sat, 02 May 2009 12:43:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (sirus) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:43:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:46:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (sirus) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:17:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:33:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:53:00 +0000

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!!

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:23:00 +0000

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?

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:16:00 +0000

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)

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:07:00 +0000

[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.

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:10:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:54:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (mario) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:02:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Matteo) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 23:56:00 +0000

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.

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Bye.

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