FCHouse

Vista Released, service pack will follow immediately!

Posted by Carlo - 31/01/07 at 10:01:11 am

Thanks to Frank for sending me this “Spectacular” link:

Microsoft already planning Vista service pack

I’ve started laughing like a mental, thinking about this superb marketing Microsoft is using. Come on, Vista has just touched the shelves of the european stores, and it needs some patches already? Frank pointed me on a short passage of the zdnet article:

We expect Windows Vista SP1 to be a standard service pack that will include security updates and hot fixes…

But wasn’t Windows Vista one of the Most Secure OS? And do they have to patch the security already? If Windows2003 was 600MB and the SP1 was 380MB, I really don’t wanna know how huge the SP1 for Vista will be!

By The Way: Yes, I laugh like a mental also because I have OSX, I clearly admit it!

Another short notice: yesterday the TV launched a new ADS where everyone is staring to some faboulous scenarios, and everyone, after few seconds of silence, tell: “WOW!”. I was sick at three quarter of the ad, but when the last man was a geek on a laptop, and the Microsoft Vista logo pop up, I started laughing like mad! Yes, Microsoft is making me laughing… when I do not cry for the blue screens!

HA HA HA!!!!

That’s why I don’t read paper magazines any longer!

Posted by Carlo - 29/01/07 at 01:01:55 pm

Today I was eating my lunch, and having only a copy of WIRED magazine near, I start reading it, as I usually read the RSS feeds from their server.

Page 1 to 8: Adverts, then the Table of Contents (with some more ADS in the middle) and then pages and pages of… adverts! Now, I understand that printingout a colour magazine can be quite expencive, but there are limits that shouldn’t be surpassed. These limits are those that defines a Magazine from a adverts leaflet.

WIRED has surpassed this limits, becoming a collection of advertisings, and sometimes you are bothered by a “quarter of page” article. Well, this post will be longer than a lot of the articles I’ve seen on the copy of January.

Now, I think that without ads, life for the editors would be really hard (impossible, ok, impossible), but one thing is to have a Magazine with some ads in it, the reality is quite different: an entire magazine of ads with some articles, here and there. Personally I would never try to show my product in a magazine like that one, because my ads would be lost in the sea…

I’ve discovered that the Non OGM foods are eaten by the 0.2% of the US population, that there are interesting things in our body and… And I shut it closed, because I was really bored by the tons of ads.

Do you still read the paper version of Wired or other things like that?

Blue Screens happen, even on Parallels!

Posted by Carlo - 29/01/07 at 12:01:12 pm

Yesterday while I was writing some documentation on the source code of the Data Persistency library I’m working on, for the first time I had the bad feeling that Windows, running freely on your PC as running “parallelized”, will never change.

A “BAD_POOL_CALLER” has frozen my development virtual machine, even if (fortunately) there were no loss of data.

Windows, after a good reboot, was as good as new, even if I had to wait for a complete dump of the memory. I strongly suggest you never to shut down the PC when a Blue Screen appears: maybe I was unlucky, but the only time I did, Windows was dead! :(

I should really start moving away from .Net and C#, but there are good things in it. I evaluated Java, but in these days I’m so snowed under thousands of things to do that I prefere to end what I’ve started, more than rebuilding everything from scratch. One day I will start analyzing Java in depth (well, it won’t be this big deal… C# is VERY similar to Java)  in order to be able to get rid of all the virtual machines, using my small White Jewel macBook natively at 100%!

…by the way… I have no idea why Windows got so angry to throw that Blue Screen for a Bad Pool Caller… nevermind!

Barcamp London 2: Present!

Posted by Carlo - 28/01/07 at 02:01:07 am

Well, despite some problems in finding free places, I have finally managed to have my pass for the Barcamp London 2! I’m already working an a short presentation to give to everyone who will be interested.

I will try to talk about .Net and Database Persistency, bringing some specific examples of “middlePersistency“, a part of the framework I’m working on. Now I have a specific date (17th and 18th of February) within which I have to finish both some documentation, the presentation (keynote will help) and being ready to release the source code. I will publish everything during those dates, in order to allow everyone to take the presentation and the code.

If everyone who will koin the barcamp is interested in the topic, let me know!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention one important thing… This is one of the few presentations I’ve made in English so far; it is a little scary, but I’m really excited, more than scared. I hope everything will work fine.

…and suddenly came the winter!

Posted by Carlo - 24/01/07 at 10:01:04 am

This morning we woke up in a strange silence. The voices from outside the curtains were like dim light of candles. Outside the curtains the world was white, soft and snowy.
Three days ago the minimum temperature of the night was 13 degrees, today suddenly came the winter, with its frosty limbs and its unique white cover.

I have to admit that I felt like a baby this morning. The train was in delay… who cares! I would have got late at work… who cares! It would be cold… who cares! The world was white and so was I.
Well, I don’t mind the road problems any longer, I don’t mind if there are delays, I don’t mind if the snow will melt with the first ray of light…
Have a Nice Day, all of you!

A strong Londoner accent?

Posted by Carlo - 19/01/07 at 12:01:47 pm

Today, speaking with a man, I was told that I have a strange accent, because some of my words have a strong Londoner accent. I was quite surprised from in hearing this, but I can’t deny that I felt myself quite… proud.
I have always been very chameleonic with my accent. If I go in Rome, after some days I spoke like the Roman do, if I go in Naples I get some “napoletano” too… I’ve always been able to get different accents, but I am suprise to be able to do it also in a language that is not my mother tongue. (Do you think that asking [uo’?] instead of What? has some influence on it? :D )
Five years ago, while I was working for Wartsila (a Finnish corporation) I had a meeting in London, where another man asked me if I were Swedish or Norwegian. I asked him if I were tall (no), with blonde hair (no), pale eyes (no) and with a cold demeanor (no) [Sorry for the generalization, nordic guys!]. He answered me that I didn’t have none of those characteristic, but that my accent was clearly nordic. Well, I laughed about it, because working in Finland had left some nordic-english accent.
I know there’s nothing to be proud of, but I like the idea that my spoken English does not suffer of an Italian accent is quite good. My written English is not as good as I would it to be, but I’m doing my small steps.
Communication is very important and I think that being able to communicate effectively at every level is the best presentation card you can give about yourself.
Continuous Improvement Process, as always!

Books and Emotions: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Posted by Carlo - 15/01/07 at 02:01:02 pm

There are books that, when read, are able to give you emotions. These books are those you will remember, those you will keep in your heart. In these days, full of too many thoughts, too many things to do, decisions to take, I am enjoying some time reading, cleaning my mind. I reading, for the second time, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book of the saga. Probably this is my favorite.

When I read it I feel myself in Hogwarts, near the characters, cleaning my mind from every thought and relaxing.

At the moment I am reading about Dolores Humbridge, probably the most important character in the book. I am deeply angry with her. Do I feel stupid or childish? No, I don’t think so, because this book is so well written, the characters so carefully managed that you can feel the injustices as if they were done on yourself.

Did you read the book? Did you ever get caught in the pages until it’s too late to keep your eyes open?

I do. I would never stop reading.

The first time I read this book was more than one year ago, so a lot of details have flown out of my mind. Sometimes I feel some passages familiar, without being able to remember how they will end. Some other times I can get what will happen next, and in some cases I feel fury deep inside me, knowing that there will be things that will happen. There has been few books that have remained so deep into myself, giving me so many feelings. I love these books, because it means that they are more than simply books, more than simple words on paper; they are something alive, that dance with your soul.

The Lord of the Rings, The Foundation Trilogy and some others. Did you ever read something that gave you such emotions?

Reading a book is Always an impressive action: it’s much more than a simple Television experience and much more than the Digital Experience through the net. People should read more, because reading helps the development of the imagination, open the mind and makes your brain work a little bit!

Barcamp London 2: dates has been released!

Posted by Carlo - 10/01/07 at 01:01:13 pm

Barcamp London 2 has been announced on the 17th and 18th of February!

directly from the barcamp wiki:

What is BarCampLondon2? Think of it as a way to get the tech/geek community together in London at the end of the summer. What will happen during the event? Only one thing is certain: It’s up to you to decide. The most important thing you should take away from the event? Relationships with other geeks!

Definitely an interesting appointment, one not to miss! Check out the Wiki for more information and updates!

Apple website going black… something new for Leopard?

Posted by Carlo - 09/01/07 at 08:01:49 pm

Some weeks ago I read somewhere that Leopard would have replaced Aqua with a new layout, maybe black.

Today, after the release of the iPhone (and the Apple TV and the name change, from Apple Computer inc. to Apple inc.) the Apple website has been moved to a black background. This let me think that something is changing, that probably Leopard will really have a new layout!

There a lot of news regarding Apple in these days, and since my move to the MacBook I am much more interested in them. I am not very used to Aqua, and moving out wouldn’t be a long awaited change, but I’m really interested in touching the new “possible” Cupertino solution!

The iPhone is no longer a rumor: it’s a Reality!

Posted by Carlo - 09/01/07 at 07:01:05 pm

During the Macworld keynote, Steve Jobs has just shown the world the iPhone!

The operating System will be OSX (WOW)! 3.5″ touch screen, 2MPixel cam… not bad! It seems that Apple has produced another GREAT toy!

Check it out! (Thanks to Engadget for the pictures)

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Carlo Nicora is at home in London.