Network computer

Asus EEE-PC better then Mac Air?

Finally I managed to buy a Asus EEE PC 700  this week. I would thanks a lot Next Store and its kindly clerks, which I will prefer in future to Mediaword :)
If you are at Milan and you plan to buy it, Next Store is a good choice.

There are a lot of sites and articles around the net about the EEE-PC, because it is a very new article in the IT consumer world.

The EEE PC is the First  full featured PC sold at 300 euros. The Register tries also to compare it with the Mac Air, and we'll see why this is not a so crazy idea.
In these days in Italy was launched an overpriced version (320 euros) with Windows XP preinstalled. We are waiting also the more powerful version (EEEPC 900) at 400 euros. Anyway, what do the product is the 300 euro price: powerful and richer model at an higher price are no so stunning as the EEE PC 700.

Introduction: the hardware

The Asus EEE PC come with 3-usb 2.0 ports, and one SD Card reader. It is expandable a lot, considering it has the same usb ports of my Lenovo Thinkpad R60.  It has no DVD reader, but it is very small and tight. The  battery charger is similar to that of a GSM phone, and it sounds great because of its reduced weight.
The screen is tiny, but very very bright, so it can work if you are not too much greedy as me.

Even if the keyboard is too small, and the fan is noisy, for the rest EEEPC looks well.
With an external monitor&keyboard attached,  your trouble are reduced, at least at home.
You can compare it to a Mac Mini, sold at 600 euros, which has a similar but powerful hardware: so having half the ram for the EEEPC is not a surprise.
But the EEEPC 701 is easy to expand, and on Internet some guys managed to install 2Gb of RAM.
And it is not shipped by deafult with windows but with a linux operating system... another big news, isn't it?

Games
I code every day. So in my spare time, at home, I have two priorities: my girlfriends, and games.
And EEE-PC come with some funny games like Frozen Bubble, so it is definitively a very good machine.

 Vodafone & EEE-PC

In Italy, Telecom Italia sells a branded version of EEE-PC, with its USB connect key. If you have a Vodafone Connect Key, I have found an italian article to try to connect it. I will do some tests, and then translate it in English if it is worth of it.

The Software...

The operating system is a commercial version of Linux. Anyway it is well packaged, and it is reasonable fast. The File Manager does not start in a snap, but it could be worst.

...the ideas

Because ObjectsRoot.com is  heavly focused on software development, I am searching a set of article to how build a small cluster of EEE-PC, for doing small distributed computing. The cluster should be easy to set up, with no installation of new operating system, and should have decent performance.
I will report  my experiments in the next month.

Hacking it [Update on 11 june 2008]

Ubuntu has relased a specilized version of ubuntu linux

Conclusion: Why it is great

All these stuff fit in about 300 euros, and there is no decent PDA  at this price...even a good Nokia GSM phone is difficult to find for a such price. The EEE-PC weights less then 1 Kg, and it is very easy to carry on. The webcam is good if you have sufficient light to give it, and you can record at 44.1 khz your voice.
Skype comes preinstalled, giving you a lot of freedom with its VoiceOverIP technology.

Python Search Engine

The Valueteam PDFGenerator

Per un importante cliente, abbiamo sviluppato una applicazione chiamata PDFGenerator, che è stata pacchettizzata come un vero e proprio prodotto.
Vediamo come è stato possibile...

Postgres performance tuning

After a bit of work, I have managed to optimize the performance of my Postgresql Server.

I have spent a saturday morning digging around postgresql, using the fantastic komodo editor, and I am happy with the final solution.

I followed  some suggestion on power PostgreSQL site, and now my postgres is blazing fast. For small needs, tuning postgres is easy as working with MySql.
And with postgres you get for free Transaction and PL/SQL without the need to do extra configuration or tuning or your database.

The major trick is extending  the shared_buffer,  and tuning the max_connections, trying to reducing it to the minimum

For tuning max_connections, remember, for instance,  10 max connections can be able to serve about 100 concurrent "real" users; this metric is not valid for robot like wget robot or similia, which generate much more traffic.

Anyway is not difficult to get a fast PostgreSQL installation "out of the box", and the resulting database is very robust.

Apple as hardware only company

In the last year, "Apple Computer" has changed a bit its focus.

First of all, Apple has erased the  word "computer" in the company name.

Then,  has shifted its focus on new products like the iPhone.

iPhone is a GSM telephone, and so it is quite different product for a computer company.

I see a very huge and strong alliance within these players:

• Apple (hardware part)
• Disney (via the Pixar,Steve Jobs can ask some movies to Disney :)
  
• Google/YouTube (media and "network computer" part) 
• Sony: HD Video consumer/DVD standards and so on
  

Apple software part is true strong, but it will be difficult to hunt competitors if the company is busy building new hardware.

It'd be better to focus only on one thing.
MacOSX is a very innovative product, but its developement had become slower in the last nine months.

Leopard is not so innovative, and it is similar to Vista: a lot of GUI fetures, but little on the surface.
And last, Lepoard is still quite slow and sub-optimized, for being a full MacOSX release.

Dynamic languages troubles

I have read http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/chandler-failure and I think it is very danger way of exposing concepts.

In the article pointed out, the quite dead Chandler project is compared to the multi-billion Eclipse project. And then a too easy analysis is done against dynamic languages, where Java is the absolute winner.

I will try to fix some of the things said there, and to add also my two cents here :)

Shopping in the IT

Oracle buys BEA and Sun buys MySql.

In reply,Migrosoft is hungry and is watching Yahoo :-)

Let's play a bit with these ideas :)

Why Open Source is important?

Hi readers,
with the beggining of 2008, ObjectsRoot.com will change a bit its face.

!Update on 10th of January!

First of all, all Italian article will be moved to the new "vamp" site, thinked as a news site.

Objectsroot will focus on IT Business and it will host only english content: IT article will remain here, at least for a while.

Portfolio

ObjectsRoot.com is offering its services to some cusomers right now.

iPhone success is hard

iPhone is a very nice project, well designed and manufactered, but the market addressed is
an hard bet for Apple.
Big players are already on the ground: Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and Sony for instance.

So it is difficult to play in such market, and some analysts said  "the touch screen was not successful for GSM/phone products".

The launch of "iPod touch" addressed this fear in my own opinion, because the design of the iPhone is very cool, and you can try to at least have it survive ipod-izing it.

Last and more important factor, the iPhone is locked by one carrier in U.S., and the same will happen in U.K.

This is a very greedy move; big player like Nokia are trying to unbundle their product form the carrier, selling phones which can use multiple wireless network (wi-fi, skype, gsm/edge/umts).

Google is doing the same, from the software perspective using the Android project.

So Apple is always smart, but in the portable phone market you must be also price-affordable, fast in releasing new models, and open for working with other competitor.

All things Steve Jobs is not very good at the present time.

Update: At April 2008, Telecom Italy will carry on UMTS iPhones in Italy. I will write an article on them, to understand if the product is a bit less locked.

Software Trends1

Software trends is a new set of small article I will write. In this small pices I will sketch out the trends of the Software Industry related to web developmenet. Let's give a look at the October 2006

Wrost Shell provider of The net

Yes this is a negative-advertise (sometimes called flame). I get disappointed by "The Super Dimension Fortres" after about 3 years of use.