I decided to install it using Virtual Box on my MacBook, in order to avoid to use a real hardware; it looks like VBox has already support for the new operating system, so the creation of the new virtual machine was done in a blink of the eye.

The installation was not harder, just longer: pretty similar to the Windows 7 one, it asks where to install and a few questions about language etc. In around 30 minutes the system was ready to go.

At the User creation step, the system asked to create an account online, and at the end the new Mango interface came on my screen. The first impression is weird: the new OS is anything but the Windows we’re used to; the start screen is colorful, alive, as the one in the Windows phones.

No more icons, but tiles; each tile can be small or big and might contain some live data. The screen has some shortcuts that might be hard to find in the beginning, looks easy to use after you get used: right click (or two-fingers click on the Mac) opens a menu, that changes based on the app; moving the mouse to the bottom left edge shows a link to the start menu; on top left we have a link to the last used app; both right side edges open the settings sidebar. Also, when moving the mouse to one of the lower/upper left edges and sliding it up/down opens the list of all open apps.

The apps are definitely thought for touch screen devices, but can be easily used with the mouse; there is no more concept of filesystem, at least for the User (in fact there are the same directories we’re used to), but each app shows its own files. One example is the Photos app: it might show your local pictures (user wouldn’t know, but are the pictures under c:\Users\username\Pictures), as well as the ones you have online, included SkyDrive, Flickr and Facebook. I tried to connect the account to Facebook and it just worked, even though a bit later there was a weird error message and pics did not update anymore.

Also the Mail app is easy to setup: with Gmail nothing special to configure, just username/password. Once the mail is configured, the tile in the start page shows the new incoming messages: nice and useful.

The browser installed is Internet Explorer 10: again, it looks like a tablet app, showing the website fullscreen and allowing to change tab only with a right click (remember the app menu?). I’ve also seen a few issues on some websites, but with IE I’m not surprised.

There is also a Camera app – hope I won’t see people going around taking pictures with a 15″ laptop – which did not work: I expected to see it opening my webcam, but it didn’t. Pity.

Everything else is easy to use, as in mobile devices: all the new apps have their own tile, there is a market, settings are easier to.understand – though not as many as the current Windows. For the nostalgic, the standard desktop is also available. Well, yes, clicking on the Desktop tile shows a very standard desktop, which misses only the Start button.

This desktop is also used for standard applications: I tried to install Funambol OneMediaHub and the standard installation window, on the desktop, appeared. The installation creates a tile on th start screen, but when you run the app you are redirected again to the desktop menu. All the apps need to be changed accordingly, in order to match the new OS layout, but it’s still possible to run current applications.

One aspect that is always present in the new apps is the Share function: you can easily share anything and the new installed applications can add their own to that menu, as it happens for example with Android phones.

The OS looks really innovative, compared to what we’ve seen in the past years on the desktops (Linux and Mac included) and the idea of having the same user interface on phones, tablets and computers sounds nice; however, right now on a desktop is not the easiest UI to use. Also, not-technical people would probably find very hard to understand the new interface, after years of Start-Applications. By the time the final version will be out, however, everything is possible: the new Nokia phones with Windows are super nice, so people might get used to Mango. Another had point is for people like me: I’m not sure how handful is a single-fullscreen-app system is when you’re developing software.

By the way, this Windows is promising: Microsoft is really taking out something different, while everyone else is more or less copying the iOS interface. We just need to wait a few months to see what else they will be able to give us.

Facebook falls directly in these three categories (although the news in there are mostly random status updates from your friends), so everyone was looking for the day when this app would be released; and the day has finally come. There have been rumors for months about it: today’s announcement looked like another, a sort of “yes it’s coming soon” announcement, since the AppStore was still showing the old version 3.5 for iPhone only. However, after a few minutes, the store got finally updated: the app is around 10MB big – not so long to download it even with my superslow connection – and the very first impression is very good.

Created using HTML5, Facebook for iPad allows you to do everything you could not do before using the iPhone version (which also looks ugly on the tablet, if I can say): the main screen shows you the News Feed with the new sections as in the website and a right column for the chat; the bar on top gives you quick access to Friends requests, Messages and the so-loved Notifications; additionally, a new button is used to open a left column which looks very similar to the one you have on the website, with your Favorites, Pages, Groups and Apps.

Browsing Facebook with the new app is way faster than the website, although you don’t have all the features: you can for example share with your Friends Lists, but you are not able to edit them (e.g. I can’t add someone to Close Friends or Restricted). According to the official page of Facebook you are also able to run your apps, but right now I do not see any except Friends and Photos.

Browsing photos is very nice: you’ll see something similar to the galleries you are used to on the iPad and you’ll see high resolution pictures that you can easily comment. Notifications are also there and looks to use push – but we’d need iOS 5 to really appreciate them. One thing I am not sure I like is the way notifications are handled: when you click on the icon on top, a list of notifications appears – so far so good; however, clicking on one of them shows the post in the right column instead of opening it in full screen; I noticed even that if the left column is open, the right one doesn’t shop up correctly.

Considering this is the very first version, I’d globally say I like it, at least as a first impression; of course, there are more things they can do to make it really great – and they could probably have everything ready, with all the time they had to release it – but it’s a good start. Now, let’s just wait Google’s reply: hope they won’t forget the tablet world so long. The social network war goes on.

The big day came after months of rumors: anyone was forecasting different things, from the voice recognition to the new camera, from low end devices to a full integration with Facebook; what almost everyone was sure of, however, was that Steve Jobs Tim Cook would have shown to the World the new iPhone 5. Now, the device is called iPhone 4S, and it’s still better than the previous one; I agree that calling it “5″ would have been too much for what they introduced new, but I also believe that many people are disappointed; most of them just because of the name, unfortunately.

The device is definitely a great one: its voice recognition (named Siri) looks amazing from the demo (well, my 1995 Nokia’s seemed great as well from demos, so should see it in action) – although it won’t be available in Italian for a while – the camera is impressive with an f/2.4 aperture and a set of software/hardware enhancements that would make it one of the best on the phone-market, the CPU has been upgraded.

So, what? This time the word innovation was definitely not on the plate; the new iOS is improved a lot - taking lot of features from Android, yes, but this is part of the game – but you don’t need a new device to run it; I was quite impressed when they started to talk about a new greeting card service: come on, we’re talking about amazing features and you propose me a 25-year-old idea? Totally disappointed this time, Apple. I always preferred Android, but it’s good to see new features coming out, since the more Apple innovates, the more competitors create great devices to win the war.

But what do we have now? This interesting comparition table from Talk Android shows a comparision with the device I currently own – a Samsung Galaxy SII – with the new iPhone 4S: there’s really nothing particulary amazing in the new device. The voice recognition is amazing, but Android’s is great too and supports even more languages; also I do not think it’s a feature most of the people would really use in real life: a wonderful support for people who can’t easily use the phone otherwise, but would everyone else just going around arguing with their device? The same I can say about the camera: yes, specs are impressive, but the quality of my phone is impressive as well. And Apple-fans’ usual comment is: “this device came out X months later, that’s why it is (almost - they can’t admit it) better than the iPhone”; what’s your comment now? This came out half a year later, what does it have to scare Samsung, which is ready to release their next model too?

I’ve already seen lot of disappointed comments about this last announcement; if you love Apple and do not have an iPhone, this is definitely a great device and it’s worth buying; if you have an iPhone 4, I believe the only reason to upgrade is to throw away money (in that case, I can give you my PayPal account); for everyone else, take a chance to look at the Google Episode event next week, where Samsung and Google promise great announcements. Hoping they won’t disappoint us as well.

This morning I posted something on my Timeline, using the mobile client first, then the computer and at last even a complaining post on Twitter: none of those appeared in the profile. However, clicking on View Activity I could see, edit and featuring all of those. I then noticed that the date was October 1st - correct – but… hey, just below those 3 posts there was a Today with the post I actually wrote yesterday.

Having worked argued with timezones quite for long, I’ve immediatly thought it could be the case: my computer is set on the Italian timezone, 9 hours ahead of Facebook’s in California; I tried to change it to the Pacific one - back in time, September 30th! – restarted the browser and bang, here are my posts stories.

Yep, it looks like Timeline doesn’t show anything in the future and, for Facebook, October 1st was the future: was my Timeline an alternative one, as a consequence of time paradox?

It was a long time Facebook did not introduce any new feature on its platform and the new Google+ certainly gave a speed-up to their usually slow development cycle. Although they say all the changes were already planned – and probably most of them really were – I think they were much inspired by the new Big G’s creature: it is now easier to share with the people you want, even if not as easy as with Circles, to follow people without being friends and even translate posts - only from pages and only if you have the Translation app installed - as you can do with a popular extension on Google+.

The biggest change, however, it’s their new Timeline: if you are a developer you can test it out already, but only other developers can see it once you publish. I’ve been using it for a few days and I must say it is the best innovation they introduced on the social network since I started using it in 2007: right now your profile has become a diary of your present and past events, giving everyone a better idea about you.

You can add photos and life events any time on your Timeline: the day you got a diploma, when you get married, there is even a “lost a loved one” option; you can add single pictures in the Timeline, but no albums – a limitation from my point of view, since it would be nice to add a bunch of pictures back in the past; but, most important, you can check all the posts – now called stories – you wrote since you joined the site. And here it comes the dark side of the moon.

Although it was indeed possible to check previous posts, by clicking on the Older Posts button on someone’s Wall again and again, it is now incredibly easier to do it: you have a list of years on the right, you can simply click on them and immediatly see the most important stories – according to Facebook’s ideas – for that year; the more you go to the past, the less posts you see, but you can always click on a link to see more and more stories.

The real problem here is the privacy then: if you can survive your jealous girlfriend, looking at the messages you wrote to your previous one before you met, you might find uncomfortable that everyone could watch out what you were doing years ago. Yes, you can always decide who can see what, but changing all your previous posts is a long task and most of the people are still not even used to change the privacy for new stories, keeping posting publicly without probably know they’re doing so.

I was also wondering about one other aspect: what would people do if Facebook would start asking money for using the service? There have been a lot of hoaxes about it, of course all fake – side note: do not believe a post saying such thing, since Facebook will tell you directly about any of their changes - and it is something that probably will never happen, but if it will be the case, would people be able to leave the site and jump on another social network? Once you have all your life’s pictures saved up there, would a few dollars per year - $1 per user would means over $500M for Facebook every 12 months! - make you abandon it all and start over again?

Isn’t our life too much connected to the social network? Or are we still able to decide on our own?

I like how the Google team is adding features and talking to the users.

More info on: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/08/making-most-of-improvements-to-1-button.html

5 Days of War

During the Olympic Games opening day, someone was busy watching something definetly less nice than the amazing show in China: it’s in that day, in fact, that Russia entered Georgia space and a war started between the two. Someone says Georgia begun the fights and Russia was just defending people living in the separatist region of South Ossetia; others believe the opposite: it’s the giant Russia the one who started everything, while Georgian soldiers were just doing their best to avoid an invasion. There have been quite a lot of talks about that and I’m not going to say more: I just don’t know what exactly happened those days, but I definetly know people who really had awful time.

5 Days of War - named 5 Days of August in Georgia – is a movie about that August; there are words that the movie was financed mostly by the Georgian government and watching at the result you might believe to them. I had plans to go to Georgia that August, but then I decided to move the trip a bit later; however, I was there during the shooting of the movie. In fact, the only thing I’ve seen – and partecipated to, although I can’t see myself in the crowd – was the scene of the president talking to people in front of Parliament in the end of that 5-days war.

There was a prime in Tbilisi in early June, 2011; then, I suddently saw a few days ago my friend’s status on Facebook, saying her friend almost cried when she saw 5 Days of August. The movie came back to my mind, although I read and heard not very good things about it, and I decided to finally look for the DVD and to finally buy it.

The movie

I read posts somewhere on the internet of people congratulating the camera crew for the work and I must agree: in the beginning of the movie we’re in Iraq, where the American reporter Thomas Anders (Ruper Friend) is saved by a Georgian contingent after his car has been attacked. The scene is really well done, with camera following soldiers and people and making you feel the fights.

One year later Thomas Andres is going to Georgia, where there are voices about a possible conflict in the separatist zones; when he arrives to Tbilisi, the movie turns into a sort of commercial about Georgia: I don’t personally think this is bad, since in every movie we see an initial scene with wonderful landscapes or skylines of American cities; however, it might seem too much if you see it.

It’s during a wedding party not far from the buffer zone – on the border of South Ossetia – that the fights begins: it’s the night of August 8 and Thomas Rupert is at the restaurant with his cameraman Sebastian Ganz (Richard Coyle); there’s a typical festival for the marriage of one Georgian couple, with (amazing, as in real) dancers that reminded me of the nice country, when an air strike ruin everything: many people at the restaurant gets killed, with huge explosions in real American-style.

With the help of Tatia (the beautiful Emmanuelle Chriqui), a Georgian girl sister of the bride, the reporters move towards Tskhinvali, the capital ot South Ossetia, to document what’s happening. During their trip they film how bad Russian soldiers behave with civilians – a group of Cossacks even execute without any real reason an old woman in front of the whole village; as in every real-American-style movie, they are captured, they are able to hide the memory card with everything they reported, they are going to be tortured to reveal where they hide it and at last they are saved by Georgian soldiers who arrive at the last second. Typical; of course, many other things happen, but it’s all the same stuff, until they are somehow able to send out their report.

Again, everything is shot in a beautiful way, even though explosions and kills look multiplicated by a 1,000,000 factor; many weird things happen: for example, at some point Tatia, just because her father is kinda pro-Ossetian, prefers to leave him with Russian soldiers instead of bringing him with her and the Americans; also, Russian planes are shooting everything that comes in front of them, not caring if a building is full of civilians or not. Now, this might have been really happened, but it still feels quite exaggerated in the movie.

Crowd gathered in front of Parliament during the shooting

The scene I partecipated to is in the end of the movie: the Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili (Andy García) is talking to the people gathered in front of the Parliament, where some members of EU arrived to support the end of the ostilities; I think Andy García did a great job, since knowing a bit about Saakashvili I really imagine him saying exactly the same things in the same way. Just between the end of the movie and the begin of credits, you might see some Georgian people showing photos of their loved ones who were killed during the war.

That’s all: a poor story, nice views of a beautiful country, bad Russians, outstanding explosions and a good filming.

If you’ve never been to Georgia, you might like the movie because of camera crew’s good job; however, you won’t really get that much from the movie itself. But if you’ve been to Georgia and – as most of the people who did – you fell in love with that tiny country in the middle of the World, you’d feel strange to think that all those happened just 3 years ago in places you’ve visited maybe even more than once; and where you’ve probably felt safer than the city you live in.