Monthly archive: April 2008

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:

• Rate Your Music
  'international metadata database where musical albums, EPs, singles, videos and bootlegs (collectively referred to as "releases") are added, rated, and reviewed by users.'
• Collins Lexibase online dictionary
  'free online dictionay service which provides you access to a variety of electronic dictionaries based on authoritative content such as Collins dictionaries, for English definitions, translations in French, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Chinese'
• SlideShare
  'SlideShare is the best way to share your presentations with the world. Let your ideas reach a broad audience. Share publicly or privately. Add audio to create a webinar.'

Google Docs lets you link a spreadsheet to a web form. Entries via the web form (by yourself or anyone else that you have sent the link to) update the spreadsheet automatically.

I use it as a food diary: I enter the food and quantity eaten in the form (via any desktop browser, my mobile or my iPod Touch), and the data is entered automatically into a spreadsheet where formulas look up the calories for the type of food, multiply them by the quantity eaten, group them by date and create a chart and a Google Gadget.

The chart is contained in the spreadsheet and can be published to obtain a snippet of HTML code that you can embed in any web page (see the example below charting the calories I have had during the last seven days).

The chart updates automatically within the spreadsheet. However, if you want the data in the chart that is embedded in your web page to update, you need to republish the one in the spreadsheet. Moreover, if you modify the data range, chart type or settings in the spreadsheet, republishing the chart is not enough, you will also need to replace the code in your web page.

The gadget can also be embedded into your iGoogle homepage, in which case it updates without the need to republish the chart in the spreadsheet.

There are still a few issues that either are not available or I have not figured out, but on the whole this method can already be very powerful and extremely simple to set up.

Yes, I know I said I was going to stop tracking my calorie intake. But I started putting on weight, and this pushed me to find the simpler solution described above, that lets me enter data only once and visualise remaining daily allowance and trends instantly.

1. If you let iTunes manage your music library, adding 'Disc Number' information will add the disc number at the beginning of the file names, so that they can be ordered sequentially by disc in the directory.
2. The Hawaiian alphabet only has twelve letters and a glottal stop.
3. Georgian has got its own alphabet called Mkhedruli
4. Each Cremosa ChupaChups lollipop has 28 kilocalories – but according to the manufacturer's website, 33 calories in Australia or New Zealand. Mistake or different recipe?
5. Giorgio Moroder produced a 70s disco version of the Battlestar Galactica theme from the original series.
6. Not only there are two semifinals at this year's Eurovision Song Contest, but the countries were split for the draw into groups based on voting history and geographical location.
7. Danny deVito is married to Rhea Perlman (Carla in Cheers).

Un paio di tappi per le orecchie, per favore
A pair of ear plugs, please
Literally: 'A pair of corks/stoppers/plugs for the ears, for favour'.

There used to be a time when I was counting how many sleeps until the Eurovision Song Contest.

My interest has been fading ever since when I went to to see the live show in Athens in 2006. It's not that I was disappointed, far from it, it is an excitement that I might want to experience again in the future. However, the whole anticipation and build-up to the final, starting sometimes even months in advance with the results of national selections? Well, I am afraid I am sort of missing the point now, and I regret it somehow.

Last year I was right at the beginning of a definite swerving of my musical taste towards indie rock, and I pretty much ignored the contest.

This year I was about to dip my toes in the glittering world of wind machines and mid-song costume changes, when disheartened reports from several fronts informed me that the quality of the songs had never been so bad. It puts you off a bit doesn't it?

Because of this, when a friend suggested going to the UK Eurovision Preview Party tonight, I did my best to decline, claiming I'm broke (but it's only 10 pounds), and tired (but it starts early), and I'd only enjoy it with a whole bunch of friends (but they were all going too), and then possibly if Dr B. came along too (and he did buy a ticket, but only once he saw the video for the Icelandic entry and was told they were performing on the night).

So in the end I am going. And I am sure it is going to be excellent fun.

Oggi vado al lavoro a piedi
Today I am walking to work
Literally: 'Today (I) go to work at feet'.

Today is Walk To Work Day.

Yesterday I pledged to walk at least thirty minutes to work, but then I figured out that I could go the whole way in about two hours.

So I am setting off now, equipped with:

1. mobile phone to update Twitter on the way;
2. iPod nano with Nike + to track my speed;
3. gps to tag photos taken on the way (and avoid getting lost);
4. ShoZu to upload to Flickr the photos taken on the way.

Although burdened with all this technology it will take me more like four hours to walk the 10k from home to work.

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:

• Restore shell folder icons – Neowin Forums
  How to restore shell folder icons in Vista. Including content of the various desktop.ini files needed for each folder.
• A List Apart: Articles: Quick CSS Mockups with Photoshop
  Tips on slicing and exporting to present website mockups that are quick yet standars compliant.
• Web 3.0 Will Be About Reducing the Noise—And Twhirl Isn’t Helping
  'I need less data, not more data. I need to know what is important, and I don’t have time to sift through thousands of Tweets and Friendfeed messages and blog posts and emails and IMs a day to find the five things that I really need to know.'
• Excel Tutorials
  Very clear and accessible, from the basics to advanced topics, including VBA functions I'm looking into at the moment
• CutePDF – Create PDF for free, Free PDF Utilities, Edit PDF easily.
  Use the Print menu to create a PDF from a web page (handy for confirmation screens to take with you when travelling, for instance – just keep the PDF on your mobile or Gmail for reference instead of printing it).

Ho dormito sul divano
I have slept on the sofa
Literally: '(I) have slept on-the sofa'.

On average two nights a week I sleep on a sofa that is two feet shorter than I am, lulled by the sound of the TV via wireless headphones.

I'll accept it is odd, but most times when that happens, like this morning, I wake up pretty much rested and ready to start the day, so I am unfortunately not particularly motivated to break this habit.

Sorry, what was that? Obesity linked to lack of sleep because

'UK scientists found sleep deprivation led to hormonal changes which told the body to eat sugary or starchy food to provide an energy boost.'

Mug of Horlicks, hot bath and lights out at ten tonight then.

Last Friday, when I read on Techmeme that the Encyclopaedia Britannica is giving out free one-year subscriptions to publishers, including bloggers, I contacted them straight away motivating my application, and did not think much of it.

Imagine my surprise when later that very day I received an email containing instructions on how to activate my free subscription.

As my readers, now you too have access to full articles on whatever I decide you should learn more about. The articles on individual topics are good if we are talking established, historical facts from the past, a bit less when dealing with very recent topics. For instance, the 998 words on Madonna on Britannica do not mention her forthcoming album Hard Candy, a scattering of which can be found everywhere on the web since yesterday.

However, Britannica puts together Topic Clusters, which are:

'…collections of links to Encyclopaedia Britannica content related to current events. Topic Clusters provide quick access to material online writers may want to use in their reporting and commentary on issues of the day.'

If the link to Madonna above does not work for you, please leave a comment to let me know.

I have recently had a chance to look into Open Calais for work purposes. Open Calais is a Reuters-backed web service that returns semantic metadata in RDF format from text it is given.

So when I heard someone had developed a Calais WordPress plugin that suggests tags for your posts based on Open Calais, I thought I'd give it a go.

And what better time to do so than what has become my regular early Saturday morning rendez-vous with stuff I pick up while I make my way through the web during the week and want to play with.

As I am writing this, at the bottom of the WordPress 'Write Post' page there is a 'Get tags' button under a 'Calais Auto Tagger' section.

If I click on the button now [clicks on button] I get a 'Suggestions: web service, Reuters, RDF' followed by a 'Add these tags' button.

If I click on that button now [clicks on button] the suggested tag is added to the 'Tags' section for this post, and I can add more manually if needed.

I would probably have to throw more data to this to test it fully, but hey, if you are into this kind of stuff this is way cool. There is also a version that tags old content.

Dr B. aspetta un bambino
Dr B. is expecting a baby
Literally: 'Dr B waits-for a child'.

Dr B ordered a new computer and is this morning impatiently waiting for the stork to deliver his new baby. I expect him to spend most of the weekend playing with it.

In the meantime, I shall be installing an additional 500GB internal drive into my machine.

One of these days our computers are going to conspire against us and take over the flat, and we'll have to sleep on the landing.

I still have not got a clue why my RSS feed stopped updating when I upgraded to WordPress 2.5.

However, while investigating I found that the URL for the feed somehow had changed, so I added a couple of lines to the .htaccess file to redirect it.

I also noticed that there was a new version of the FeedBurner FeedSmith WordPress plugin, but somehow the plugins management page in WordPress did not show it, so I upgraded it manually.

I am not happy with the solution but hey, it will do for now. Time to go to work now.

I recently saw an ad somewhere that said:

"Tesco prices. Waitrose quality. Ocado delivery."

After staying last weekend in Manchester with friends who spend a little more than I do on food – and tasting the difference it makes, I thought I'd give it a go.

Tonight Ocado delivered – groceries and promises.

1. Ocado matches Tesco prices on 3,500 products
2. With Ocado you do not have to face the lovely customers of our local Tesco and their Croydon facelifts.
3. Ocado has a better selection of organic produce than our local Tesco (which in turn has a breathtaking choice of cider – does that tell you anything about our neighbourhood?)
4. And, before y'all complain about delivery vans destroying the environment, please note that you can easily pick a delivery slot that already has one or more vans in your area, as they are marked in green on the website when you order – a win-win situation for the planet and for Ocado.
5. And, speaking of the Ocado website: what a pleasure, clearly designed with the customer in mind. Simple and intuitive, yet rich in functionality and choice – and I know a thing or two about ease of use.
6. The email confirming the order came in the form of a calendar appointment. One click, and it was in my diary. Another, and a meeting request was sent to Dr B. to inform him of the delivery.
7. There's an option to receive a text message reminder. Mine informed me of the name of the driver, registration of the van and that I have no missing items.
8. The groceries came in colour-coordinated plastic bags: green for freezer, purple for cupboard and red for fridge.
9. Next time around, the driver can pick up the old bags (hopefully to be reused/recycled).
10. And, last but by no means not least, my groceries were delivered by a courteous and smiling Simon Pegg lookalike. I think Simon Pegg is hot. I can go to bed happy now.

I have lately adopted a very responsible attitude towards backing up the files on my main computer at home.

Every Saturday an automatic backup kicks in. I configured it to be an incremental backup of all my image files (I would be devastated if I lost any of the pictures I have been taking during the last ten years or so).

The automatic backup asks me to label and insert a disc (I use 4.7GB DVDs). And then another. And another yet. Over the weeks I have collected a fair amount of discs that need to be labelled and stored if you ever need to restore any of the files.

Trouble is, 1. it's a pain, and 2. if the flat was to be damaged (fire, flood, magnetic wipeout) so do the backup discs.

I looked around for online backup systems and I chose to use Amazon's impressive S3 system together with JungleDisk (a simple interface that lets you both see your storage as a network drive for ad-hoc manual backups, and set up regular automatic backups if you wish to do so). You only pay Amazon for the storage and data transfer you use every month, and JungleDisk is a one-off 20USD to install on how many machine you need, and comes with unlimited upgrades.

I have started backing up all my pictures – around 15GB, it is going to take some time to upload them all. Once that is done, I will probably stop backing up on DVD but am thinking of setting up a just-in-case additional backup on a local network drive.

Knock on wood, I have so far never had to face the nightmare of losing data because of failing supports. Better not to push my luck too far though.

Ognuno ha quello che si merita
You get what you deserve
Literally: 'Everyone has what that for-oneself deserves'.

Normally I react to Berlusconi winning general elections with sadness and indignation.

Last night, as I learnt that millions of Italians had decided to give him another go at steering the country, all I could hope for is that electors knew what they were doing, and I wish that the new government can quickly find political balance and pull Italy out of stagnation.

I emigrated and am doing just fine, but those I have left behind deserve something better, and at this stage it does not matter too much from which side of the political spectrum change is initiated.

Good luck, mates.

Ho messo su quattro libbre in una settimana
I have put on four pounds in one week
Literally: '(I) have put on four pounds in one week'.

Three and a half weeks ago I decided to stop counting calories and to stop weighing myself every day.

I have put on five pounds during the first two and a half weeks, and another four during the last seven days.

One look at the mirror confirmed that sadly it was not muscle mass gain.

It's no big deal but I cannot afford to put on any more weight, so the old food diary is out again – but I'll still only weigh myself once a week.

Joy.

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:

• MySong: Automatic Accompaniment for Vocal Melodies
  Microsoft project application that automatically chooses chords to accompany a vocal melody, allowing a user with no musical training to rapidly create accompanied music. Results on this page, pretty impressive.
• JungleDisk – Reliable online storage powered by Amazon S3
  'Jungle Disk is an application that lets you store files and backup data securely to Amazon.com's S3 ™ Storage Service [...] no minimum and no maximum amount of data you can store. You pay only for the actual amount of storage you are using.'
• WhoCallsMe?
  'user supplied database of phone numbers of [...] companies that don't leave messages, disconnect once you answer, ignore the Do-Not-Call List regulations, and simply interrupt your day.' (I used it to trace missed calls from an 0845 number).
• 5 Ways to Find More Friends on Twitter – ReadWriteWeb
  Twubble (people your friends follow), Twitter Local (tweets near a postcode), TwitterWho (tweets matching email addresses), Twits Like Me (tweets that share your interests), TwitDir (the top 100 followed, followers, favouriters, updaters).
• Free Online Course Materials | MIT OpenCourseWare
  'OCW is a free publication of course materials used at MIT. Get lecture notes, problem sets, labs and more. Watch lecture videos and demonstrations. Study a wide variety of subjects.'

Fai la cosa giusta
Do the right thing
Literally: 'Do the thing right'.

Today Italians are voting to elect a new government for the 62nd time in 63 years. Make up your mind, dudes!

I sent my vote to the Italian consulate in London this week. I may have left the country in disgust, but I still hope that one day it is going to turn into a beautiful modern former Catholic country with a fantastic lifestyle (Spain, I am looking at you).

But if you live in Italy and cannot believe that your vote is going to count because nothing is ever going to change and all the candidates are delinquents anyway, well you have my deepest sympathy and respect.

Saluti da Manchester
Greetings from Manchester
Literally: 'Greetings from Manchester'.

Well, I say Manchester but really it's lovely suburban Altrincham, which I think I've just realised is in Cheshire.

Walked around, looked at mansions, went to a pub, played a Robots-themed board game with our friends' child.

Having a rest now, dinner will be ready soon. It feels wonderfully pleasant to be relaxed, such an unusual and therefore cherished state of mind.

Whenever I travel I always make sure I have enough stuff to do late at night or very early in the morning when everybody sleeps. I usually take my laptop and get some work done. Sometimes I even read a book – crazy, I know.

I am now at Dr B.'s parents only with an iPod Touch, the gift of Wi-Fi and the last seven days of BBC telly, courtesy of the iPlayer. The video is beautifully encoded and optimised for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and being able to browse and pick stuff I've missed is thrilling.

I fear the number of books I read in a year – already a pathetic single digit – is going to go even further down.

And now please excuse me while I finish watching Pulling.

Non riesco a dormire
I can't sleep
Literally: 'Not (I) succeed at to-sleep'.

Don't know why, really.

I'm pretty sure that watching the season finale of Torchwood S02 is not going to help, but I can't wait another day to find out how it all ends.

I hear it's very sad.

Ho rotto il sito
I have broken the website
Literally: (I) have broken the site

Since I upgraded to WordPress 2.5, new posts do not appear in the RSS feed. True, there have been only three posts, of which two were automatic lists of bookmars, and one was just a dummy post to test the feed. But still.

If you know what I need to do, please shout. I don't think I have the will and the patience to find out.

…because a kind soul has alerted me that this here RSS feed thingy has given up its soul.

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:

• HOWTO: iPhone Webclip Icons
  Webclip Icons are the new favicons
• Gmail Shortcuts (printable cheatsheet)
  From c to /, all Gmail shortcuts on a handy printable cheatsheet.