Best Books

This list includes books I’ve read this year, which weren’t necessarily released in 2007.

1. Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano
2. La Musica Sveglia il Tempo by Daniel Barenboim
3. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston

Best Albums

1. Lifeline by Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
2. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace by Foo Fighters
3. In Rainbows by Radiohead

Best Blogs

1. Swissmiss
2. uncov
3. Daring Fireball
4. Stacktrace.it
5. Music Milker ;)

Best Events

• Working on Wonsys full-time
• Being nominated for BusinessWeek’s Europe’s Young Entrepreneurs contest

But thanks to a suggestion from a friend, things changed recently: about three months ago I signed up on eMusic. Immediately thereafter, I signed up on Amie Street, too — which right now is my favourite source of new music.
The first couple of days I was hypnotized: obsessively downloading songs and looking for new artists to put in my library. And things didn’t change much in the next weeks: I’m still obsessively looking for new artists!
I can safely say thanks to those two websites I was able to fall in love with music again and the reason is there’s so much talent around, you just need to scout around a bit.

This newfound love for music, sparked an idea in my mind and in that of my partners: we should help spread the word on new talented artist, because there’s so much untapped potential on a website like Amie Street, so having someone help you find that potential could be of great use.

This is why we decided to create Music Milker, a blog where we post a new song every day.
We also choose an artist we love every week and make him/her the Artist of the week, giving away free MP3s if the artist’s fine with it.

We’re trying very hard to spread the word on this new wave of beautiful music.
So, if you’re in need of some new music to put on your MP3 player, go to Music Milker and tell me what you think about it.

I’ve just finished setting everything up — which is a shame, considering I’ll have to do it again when Leopard comes out in a couple of weeks — and my first impression is very good.
I’ve just realized how used to slowness I got with my old PowerBook G4 1GHz. Really, it feels like I was in slow motion for the past few months!

The main reason for getting a new computer was to speed up my development environment: Rails was running unbearably slow on my PB: at times it took seconds to refresh a page — bear in mind I’m talking about a local setup! — and you know, when you navigate through hundreds, if not thousands, of pages each day, you can really tell the difference.
With my new MBP, pages are loaded the instant I click on a link…which, ehm, is how it should be.

This marks my conversion to MacIntels and I expect to play with it a bit more in the coming days: I need to setup VMWare Fusion — thanks to Matteo and Simone for the early birthday present, it was really appreciated — and will definitely stress test it a bit.
There will also be some time to test out iLife ‘08 and, considering I hadn’t updated iLife in three years, I’m sure there will be lots of interesting new things.

BTW, I’m sorry for the lack of Mac porn, but I took the computer out of the box as soon as I got back at our office and unfortunately I didn’t have a camera at hands.

I’ve got a couple more posts to write, but right now is time to go to bed.
Talk to you later. :)

I decided to go with a MacBook Pro 15″ 2.2 GHz. I was unsure until the last second, but I thought the 2.4 GHz wasn’t worth the big premium: it’s almost as fast as the lower-end model and 128MB of VRAM are more than enough for my needs.
Plus, the Santa Rosa chip was a big leap ahead the previous generation, so I’m sure I won’t be able to tell the difference, anyway.

I was tempted to wait for Leopard to come out, but then my ol’ good PB G4 started falling apart and I had to get a new one as soon as possible.
It’s become incredibly slow, the whole system freezes when I connect an external monitor and today the Bluetooth module stopped working. Not bad, right?

Unfortunately, new MBP 15″ are taking a long time to ship and I suspect I won’t be getting mine before the end of next week.
I’ll let you know what I think about it as soon as I get it…I’m finally making the switch to MacIntel. ;)

The decision to change was taken after my old host — A Small Orange — moved my websites from one server — the one I’ve been on for the past two and a half years — to a new one.
The move was supposed to be flawless, instead it broke a lot of things: broken websites, messed up DNS entries, missing DBs and so on. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed, of course, but still not good enough for a company I greatly regarded.

I immediately opened a ticket to ask for help and while a couple of easy-to-fix issues were fixed, one more complex issue with PHP4 and my Wordpress install wasn’t fixed, stating it wasn’t an error on its part.
No problem, moved to PHP5. Unfortunately, PHP5 didn’t seem stable on its setup and I couldn’t get an answer from them about it.

A Small Orange had always served me well, indeed I used to recommend it to everyone who asked me for a good host — and probably will again.
Its customer service was absolutely top-notch: always a reply in less than 30 minutes even for low-priority tickets.
Unfortunately, during this debacle it took hours — at times 12 hours passed — from when I sent an email to when I received a reply –, even though tickets were marked as urgent: my company’s domain’s DNS was hosted with it and during the move all DNS entries, including the MX record, were reset, thus leaving us with no email for 24 hours!
You know, when you have a few websites down, wrong DNS entries and are not receiving emails, you might expect a quick reply, that’s what ticket’s statuses urgent and emergency are for.

Since customer support was the real reason for me to stay with ASO, I couldn’t stand to have this sub-par service.
All in all, it’s very good and quite frankly deserves the success it’s experiencing, unfortunately, though, it seems it’s having a few growing pains.
I might go back to A Small Orange in the future, but for now I’m very happy at MediaLayer: it’s got the best customer service I’ve ever experienced and lighting fast servers. Plus, it seems like it’s constantly looking for ways to make its service even better.
Sure, it’s not the cheapest, but it’s absolutely worth it if what you need is a fast, reliable and stable host, with amazing customer support on the side.

A few days ago, I was contacted by a reporter for BusinessWeek who let me know I’d just been picked, along with 15 other very smart — and young — European entrepreneurs, to be voted for the Europe’s Young Entrepreneurs 2007 contest.
I had to talk a bit about my ventures starting from 16bugs to what we’re doing now at Wonsys.

Sure enough I was and am ecstatic about it, and I’m really honoured to be included in that list.
In my humble opinion Italy doesn’t pay much attention to its young entrepreneurs, so I’m glad I’ve been nominated and I feel a bit like I’m representing all of the young Italians who are trying to make it big. I’m not sure if I’m the best person to do it, but I’ll try my best at it.

Now you can have a look at the slide show…and feel free to vote for me at the end… ;)

As previously stated on this very blog, I feel university is pretty much useless — and mind you I’m referring to my field: computer engineering, but it could be easily applied to most fields –, unless you’re in it just for the piece of paper, which is what most people are in for, and which could be deemed as the culprit for university’s dullness.

The more I keep going to classes and doing exams, the more I realize how this is not helping me a lot.
There are people around me who are saying me university helps you open your mind, it teaches you how to have a method, but I can’t see it. How can I be taught something by mediocre professors that hardly seem to know what’s going on in the real World? most of the time they seem to be teaching for the sake of it, simply because they have to do it.
I happened to have a couple of good professors and I could really tell the difference, but the rest, don’t even get me started.

I don’t feel the need for the piece of paper, mainly for one reason: I’d rather starve doing my own thing than make a living of off someone else’s creature.
It might be a bad thing for me, but I can’t see myself being employed somewhere. As I said, I’d prefer being self-employed/running my own company and earning X/2 rather than working in some company I’ve got no say over and earning X*2 plus some stock options on the side. I’d feel nullified.
I’m no 9/5 guy — I can even do 7am/2am if I truly believe in what I’m doing — so I can’t imagine being seated at a desk doing some work I don’t care about and having to report to some obnoxious VP, or whatever.

Probably the best reason to go to university — I’m always talking about my field of study — is for networking, but that’s not true for every single university outthere.
Sure, if you go to Stanford, you’ll easily meet some smart guys who will probably end up making it big. But if you go to an average university, it’s a bit harder, there might be smart guys — haven’t met that many, myself, maybe one? –, but probably most will end up working in some big corp, maybe even becoming VP of put-serious-sounding-department-name-with-not-much-real-responsibilty-though-here, but that’ll be it, not much more. You won’t meet the next Larry & Sergey.

There are a few things I’d like to do in university, but none related to my field. For example, I love religions, even though I’m an atheist myself, so I’d like to get a Theology degree in the future. And this is just an example.

In the end, if you’re a smart and resourceful person, there’s not much a Computer Science (or similar) degree can give you, it might even get in your way. Why? because it might teach you to have a closed mentality — which is exactly the opposite of what, in my humble opinion, getting into university should do.

Guess I’m a bit frustrated, ha? ;)

We all know CDs cost money, software often costs LOTS of money, DVDs aren’t certainly cheap and on and on. Yet, this isn’t a good excuse to illegally download this stuff from the Internet.

Many of the people I know who download music, software or movies from P2P networks usually say to me they’re doing it because CDs are so expensive and they should cost less money, and Photoshop costs a lot, so it’s OK if I download it, and is Windows really for sale?
I might as well agree with them, but this is not a good reason to steal.

If you like something so much you’d like to have it, you should go out and buy it.
Is 15 Euro really that much for your favorite band’s latest CD? probably yes, even though I don’t think so.
If you think it’s not worth it, then you shouldn’t even listen to it, you should listen to something else.
I love music, so I’m happy to buy CDs and support bands I like.

No one says you HAVE TO listen to famous artists, there are lots of great artists out there that will be happy to have you download their music for free, who cares if they aren’t famous! Just go to MySpace or Purevolume or the PMN and you’ll see what I mean.
The same goes for software: you don’t want to spend the money to get Photoshop — I’m using Photoshop as an example as I think it’s the most pirated piece of software after Windows –, then don’t use it!

I’d love to have Photoshop and Illustrator, but I think, ATM, it’s not worth it for me to spend that much to get them. So I’m doing just fine with Photoshop Elements and Inkscape.
I know they’re not the same, but it’s fine, because the former is cheaper and the latter is open-source. And if I really felt like I needed the real deal, I’d take out the wallet and get a license.

Adobe is no non-profit organization: they’re here for the money, they’ve got shareholders. Why should they give away their software for free? or even for less than what it’s worth?
They really provide great value for money, if you think of it. The thing is everyone thinks they need the latest version of Photoshop because it will make him/her the best photographer on earth. Or Illustrator because then he/she’ll make outstanding logos with it.
Truth told: most of them will be just fine on one of the lighter and cheaper/free alternatives.

And it’s just the same for music. Most musicians do that for a living. They already earn a lot of money, you say? Sure, but that’s not a point.
If you steal one million dollars from Bill Gates he won’t even notice it, but would it be right? nope! Bill Gates earned his money, so there’s nothing you can do about it.
If you like an artist you should either support it and buy his/her music, or forget about it because, in the end, you don’t really care that much about it.

There are some who think it’s not right to sell software, music and other intangible things, because they’re not real, they’re something which can be reproduced an unlimited number of times, so there’s no real value. IMHO, that’s bullshit!
Think of the amount of work and money that goes into making a great album such as Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon, or an amazing app such as Adobe’s Photoshop. Those are efforts which are worth every single cent asked to buy them.

Let’s see a quick example: I’d love to get a Prius, but I don’t have the 25k Euro I need to buy one, does this entitle me to go out and steal one?
Using the same logic I could say: “Well, I think is not worth that much. It should be something like 10k. So it’s ok if I steal one, because in the end, they’re stealing our money asking that much for a car.”
And don’t say each car costs a lot to build just because you can touch every single part of it. Engineers that write code cost money and if you want to touch something you can go touch them and their families.

Overall, I think P2P can be quite helpful, too, because it allows you to try before you buy. You can listen to an album and decide that you like it and buy it. Or try an app and end up buying it, too.
But that should be it: download, try, buy or delete it.

And probably I’m not the best person to talk about it, because in the end I’ve got a bit of spare money I can spend on CDs, books, or software. But as with the Prius example, lack of money is no real excuse.
If the author is fine with giving his/her product away, then you’re free to enjoy it, otherwise you should respect the author’s decision and either pay or find an alternative.

In the end, if you find something useful and decide you need it, you should bite the bullet and pay for it.
For example, I definitely don’t like Windows, and I think it’s not worth the money Microsoft asks for it, but I needed it, so I bought a license.
Then again, feel free to do what you think is fair. :D

P.S.
To remain on topic, this post made me laugh out loud… :)

P.P.S.
One thing software companies should do: provide more student discounts!

Today is a perfect example of this: how many people wrote about EMI and Apple’s recent announcement about DRM-free music on the iTMS? and how many of them did add anything interesting to the story?

I’ve read the same news in tens of blogs — and mind you I don’t follow that many — and most of them were just reporting it, barely quoting the announcement and linking to some online newspaper.
That’s what online newspapers are for. So if you can’t add your twist to an old story, please, just shut up!
If you’re the one breaking the news then kudos to you, otherwise, it just seems to me as a very serious case of diarrhea of the mouth…

I know I’d done this in the past. Writing about the latest Apple news, the latest web app, and just about anything everybody else was writing about.
And sure I was updating my blog daily, but for what purpose? a mere exercise of writing? carbon copying from Slashdot, NYTimes or whatever?

I’ve really come to a point where I post just every now and then — even though I’m currently trying to get more committed to this –, but at least I’m, hopefully, writing original content — or at worst pimping my own ventures. ;)

Am I the only one noticing this?

Get the HTML in place

First of all, you’ll have to write the HTML. I’ve used a very simple @ul@ list with some properly assigned IDs:

<ul id="usection1" class="tabbed-menu">
	<li id="lsection1"><a href="#"><span></span>Section1</a></li>
	<li id="lsection2"><a href="#"><span></span>Section2</a></li>
	<li id="lsection3"><a href="#"><span></span>Section3</a></li>
	<li id="lsection4"><a href="#"><span></span>Section4</a></li>
</ul>

Basically, each li has got it’s own ID. Plus, the ul should be given a different ID based on where on the site we are.
Are we in Section 1? give it ID usection1. Is it Section 2? use usection2. And so on…

Set the CSS on fire

We want to use different images for each item in the menu, plus they have to change when the mouse rolls over and the active item should be different from the rest.
So we need three images for each item. In my example images have the following size: 84×59. Also note, the images already include the white padding.

Let’s style the lis and ul:

ul.tabbed-menu {
	display: block;
	float: right; /* In case you want it on the right */
	width: 336px; /* Width of an item * # of items */
	height: 59px; /* Height of an item */
}

ul.tabbed-menu li {
	overflow: hidden; /* No bits of text should spill out of the li */
	display: block;
	float: left;
	position: relative; /* What's inside the li should be absolutely
                            positioned INSIDE the li */
	width: 84px; /* Width of the image */
	height: 59px; /* Height of the image */
}

Now make each item look different:

#lsection1 a span, #lsection2 a span, #lsection3 a span, #lsection4 a span {
	/* It should fill the LI */
	position: absolute;
	width: 100%;
	height: 100%;
	top: 0;
	left: 0;
}

/* Basic look */
#lsection1 a span {
	background: url("section1.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

#lsection2 a span {
	background: url("section2.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

#lsection3 a span {
	background: url("section3.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

#lsection4 a span {
	background: url("section4.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

/* When ul's id and li's id match, it means that li is the active one */
#usection1 #lsection1 a span {
	background: url("section1-active.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

#usection2 #lsection2 a span {
	background: url("section2-active.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

#usection3 #lsection3 a span {
	background: url("section3-active.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

#usection4 #lsection4 a span {
	background: url("section4-active.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

/* Here we set the mouseover effect */
#lsection1 a:hover span, #usection1 #lsection1 a:hover span {
	background: url("section1-hover.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

#lsection2 a:hover span, #usection2 #lsection2 a:hover span {
	background: url("section2-hover.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

#lsection3 a:hover span, #usection3 #lsection3 a:hover span {
	background: url("section3-hover.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

#lsection4 a:hover span, #usection4 #lsection4 a:hover span {
	background: url("section4-hover.gif") no-repeat top left;
}

That’s it. You can change the number of items simply by changing the width of the ul and by adding the proper code to the CSS.
Mind you, the order in which the different blocks of code are written in the CSS IS important.

If you find this tutorial useful, please Digg it!. :)