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		<title>Samsung E700 finally working</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/lOQZdBzpOs0/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2010/01/11/385/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:08:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[display]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e700]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[phone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[repair]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[samsung]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spare]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=385</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Oh my! This cell phone is driving me crazy!
In the past years I started a kind of war to make it work again: the flex got broken and I tried everything i could&#8230;
I ended up buying a new fully featured display board: with time passing, the price has become quite cheap and mounting the spare, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Oh my! This cell phone is driving me crazy!<br />
In the past years I started a kind of war to make it work again: the flex got <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2006/10/09/33/">broken</a> and I tried <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/10/28/368/">everything i could</a>&#8230;<br />
I ended up buying a new fully featured display board: with time passing, the price has become quite cheap and mounting the spare, was a 5 minutes job.<br />
Here&#8217;s a sample picture.<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/spare_displayE700.jpg"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/spare_displayE700-256x300.jpg" alt="Spare display E700" title="Spare display E700" width="256" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-386" /></a></p>
<p>So with less than 15 Euro and 5 minutes job,  I&#8217;m using the cell phone again!!!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/repairedE700.jpg"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/repairedE700-300x171.jpg" alt="E700 with new display" title="E700 with new display" width="300" height="171" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-388" /></a></p>
<p>Update: &#8230;but it&#8217;s not over yet! After some days the display started working like at 16 colors (instead of 65k). I&#8217;ll keep posting updates!</p>
<h3>Related posts</h3>
<ul class="related_post">
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/10/28/368/" title="Samsung E700 final repair: flex switch failed! ">Samsung E700 final repair: flex switch failed!  (0)</a></li>
</ul>
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		<title>Samsung E700 final repair: flex switch failed!</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/Jd6TibmTDzY/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/10/28/368/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:31:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Circuits and soldering]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tecnology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[broken]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[display]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e700]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poor man's]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[repair]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[samsung]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[samsung flex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[solder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[switch flex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[unsolder]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=368</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hey, it was back in 2006, when I first posted about my Samsung E700 poor man&#8217;s repairing.
Back then I was able to make the poor phone flex work for another couple of months.
Now here&#8217;s a new curious story: how I tried the flex switch.
When you need most your mobile phone

I was riding my bike back [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hey, it was back in 2006, when I first posted about my <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2006/10/09/33/">Samsung E700 poor man&#8217;s repairing</a>.<br />
Back then I was able to make the poor phone flex work for another couple of months.</p>
<p>Now here&#8217;s a new curious story: how I tried the flex switch.</p>
<p><strong>When you need most your mobile phone</strong><br />
<br />
I was riding my bike back home with my good old Motorola C650 when I dropped it without knowing that.<br />
It turned out it was smashed by some vehicle some time later and a man doing jogging found it.<br />
<br />
Crazy enough he tried to use it, but nothing was showing up on the display.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Hey, what the hack is this story about? That&#8217;s insanely out of topic!!</em>
</p></blockquote>
<p>Yes, I know, but if you want the real thing, you&#8217;ll have to read thru this&#8230;<br />
So: finally the wise man put my SIM back in his phone and called the &#8220;home&#8221; contact.<br />
Yep, I definitely answered. I wasn&#8217;t even aware I had lost the phone! Anyways to cut it out my phone came back into my hands! Thanx Marco!!! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
I guess it wasn&#8217;t much of a gain, keeping a not working mobile! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>I was really happy because I got back my 15EUR worth of calls on my SIM and the phone, though broken, seemed still usable.<br />
After a cose look, it seemed the display was broken, so i thought: just try to place a call just to be sure a display switch will do the trick.<br />
Nope, the phone does not place nor receive calls: I don&#8217;t think that a new display is a good idea!</p>
<p>But&#8230;. <strong>BUT!</strong> Hey, I got that nice E700 back in my closet, waiting for an extreme repair!!!</p>
<p><strong>The real thing</strong><br />
I decided it was time to get my E700 back to work, so i ordered a new E700 flex (without displays) and I tried to unsolder the main display and to solder it back on the new flex.</p>
<p><strong>Failure</strong><br />
Yep, I failed!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/10/28/368/e700flex/" rel="attachment wp-att-378"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/e700flex-300x121.jpg" alt="E700 dismantled flex" title="E700 dismantled flex" width="300" height="121" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-378" /></a></p>
<p>First of all the external display: it is just stitched on the board. I don&#8217;t know you, but i&#8217;ve seen tens of electronic caluclators and the always have this absurd way of stitching the display or the solar cells: that&#8217;s the same on the external display.<br />
The bad thing is that you&#8217;ll never get your stitched contacts back! They just get disintegrated <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt=':-(' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>No problem, the main thing is the internal display, or i&#8217;ll never be able to use my phone again.<br />
Well the display has a nice soldered couple of contacts for power, so with wathever solder you have, you&#8217;ll be able to detach that.<br />
The real problem is when you try to unsolder the data contacts: impossible, you risk to end up with a cut out piece of plastic.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/10/28/368/e700displays/" rel="attachment wp-att-377"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/e700displays-300x275.jpg" alt="E700 displays" title="E700 displays" width="300" height="275" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-377" /></a></p>
<p>Well I wanted to try anyways, so I started soldering everything and found a decent status to test: nothing. Pure black (except for the white backlight leds).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/10/28/368/e700flexpowered/" rel="attachment wp-att-379"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/e700flexpowered-300x156.jpg" alt="E700 Flex Repair Powered" title="E700 Flex Repair Powered" width="300" height="156" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-379" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong><br />
First: don&#8217;t even think of doing that if you don&#8217;t have the right tools</p>
<p>Second: even if you have the right tools be aware that anything could go wrong (expecially with the stitched external display). For the internal display here&#8217;s what may go wrong (in order of probability):<br />
- wrong unsoldering: contacts broken<br />
- wrong soldering: solder may damage your phone<br />
- defective flex: you might to the thing perfect, but something&#8217;s not working</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/10/28/368/e700brokenflex/" rel="attachment wp-att-376"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/e700brokenflex-300x151.jpg" alt="E700 broken flex" title="E700 broken flex" width="300" height="151" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-376" /></a></p>
<p>Third: you could just simply buy a complete display spare for less than 15EUR and just connect it (after having read my <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2006/10/09/33/">guide</a> on dismounting the phone <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' />  )</p>
<p>Happy bidding! Can&#8217;t wait to try my spare&#8230; <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<h3>Related posts</h3>
<ul class="related_post">
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2010/01/11/385/" title="Samsung E700 finally working">Samsung E700 finally working (0)</a></li>
</ul>
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		<title>Clone your Ubuntu server 8.04 LTS disk</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/0Fcjkhrqw1o/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/10/06/362/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:27:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[disk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[linux]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[server clone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ubuntu]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=362</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It always happens: your HD fills up and you have to move everything to a new, bigger one.
Well, yes there are clone tools, but sometime you just want the damn thing and of course you don&#8217;t need to install software or  find that special CDROM or DVD-R with what-was-that-program-name? &#8230;.  
Moreover if you [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It always happens: your HD fills up and you have to move everything to a new, bigger one.<br />
Well, yes there are clone tools, but sometime you just want the damn thing and of course you don&#8217;t need to install software or  find that special CDROM or DVD-R with what-was-that-program-name? &#8230;. <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Moreover if you have a virtual machine you want to clone, you probably wouldn&#8217;t need a 12GB disk for everything, so you start minimal with a 1GB disk for little apps and you want to use the basic setup for all your VMs, keeping vmware-tools and stuff like that.</p>
<p>I know everybody who has done that once in his/her life, knows the procedure, but sometimes you forget a command and thigs just blow up!</p>
<p>So here is a list of commands &#8211; for my own convenience &#8211; everybody may use.</p>
<p>1. If you are cloning to a new machine, you may want to have your sshd get a new key pair, so just run</p>
<p><code>rm /etc/ssh/ssh_host_*<br />
dpkg-reconfigure -plow openssh-server<br />
</code></p>
<p>2. Then change hostname, check DNS, hosts, etc</p>
<p><code>pico -w /etc/hostname<br />
...<br />
pico -w /etc/resolv.conf<br />
...<br />
pico -w /etc/hosts<br />
...<br />
/etc/init.d/hostname.sh<br />
</code></p>
<p>Also check for your fstab for wrong mounts (or add new if you plan to add a separate partition) and change the static ip if using one<br />
<code><br />
pico -w /etc/fstab<br />
...<br />
pico -w /etc/network/interfaces<br />
</code><br />
&#8230;but if you do those, be sure you check software configs like Apache and stuff like that, before asking &#8220;why that doesn&#8217;t work anymore?&#8221;</p>
<p>3. Now setup the new disk (you have properly installed as secondary)<br />
<code><br />
fdisk /dev/sdb<br />
</code><br />
And create your partitions (don&#8217;t forget to add the bootable flag)</p>
<p>Here we&#8217;re assuming there are only a primary and a swap partition.</p>
<p>4. Setup filesystems<br />
<code>mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb1<br />
mkswap /dev/sdb5<br />
</code></p>
<p>5. Copy everything<br />
<code>mkdir /mnt/second<br />
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/second/<br />
cp -ax / /mnt/second/.<br />
</code></p>
<p>6. Now set up GRUB and fstab<br />
<code><br />
blkid /dev/sdb1<br />
cd /mnt/second/boot/<br />
cd grub/<br />
pico -w menu.lst<br />
<insert the UUID of the primary partition><br />
blkid /dev/sdb5<br />
pico -w /etc/fstab<br />
<insert the UUID of primary partition and swap partition></code></p>
<p>7. Next init the grub setup<br />
<code>grub-install --recheck /dev/sdb<br />
umount /mnt/second<br />
</code><br />
&#8230;just to be sure the device.map is updated</p>
<p>8. If you need to configure anything, just run<br />
<code>mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/second/<br />
mount -t proc none /mnt/second/proc<br />
mount -o bind dev /mnt/second/dev<br />
chroot /mnt/second<br />
</code></p>
<p>9. Ensure the new device map is ok (this is the command after chroot, but you don&#8217;t need to chroot to edit device.map)<br />
<code>pico -w /boot/grub/device.map<br />
"(hd0)   /dev/sda"<br />
shutdown -h now<br />
</code></p>
<p>10. Now let&#8217;s do the trick with the Grub console:</p>
<ul>
<li>Boot</li>
<li>Press ESC at the Grub prompt</li>
<li>Press c to enter console</li>
</ul>
<p>Then write<br />
<code><br />
root (hd0,0)<br />
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1<br />
setup (hd1)<br />
</code></p>
<p>11. Now shutdown and swtich the hard drives: yes, I know this sounds strange, but I always get &#8220;Grub Hard Disk Error&#8221;, so just do it <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>12. Boot again and enter Grub console again, then:<br />
<code>root (hd0,0)<br />
find /boot/grub/stage1<br />
setup (hd0)<br />
</code></p>
<p>13. Now you may shutdown and remove the old hard drive and you&#8217;re done</p>
<p>14. If you use this HD in a different VM, be sure either to set the correct MAC address as the original (not recommended) or make Ubuntu use the new MAC address as eth0. Just<br />
<code>pico -w /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules<br />
</code><br />
And search and change <em>eth1</em> to <em>eth0</em><br />
Usually it&#8217;s the last line</p>
<p>16. Don&#8217;t forget to check for changed things like<br />
/etc/resolv.conf<br />
/etc/mailname (postfix)<br />
/etc/postfix/main.cf</p>
<p>17. Ubuntu 8.04 seems to hang on the resume device: to speed up the thing you&#8217;ll have to<br />
<code>blkid /dev/sdb5<br />
pico -w /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume<br />
</code><br />
insert the correct UUID of your swap and then rebuild initramfs<br />
<code>update-initramfs -u<br />
</code></p>
<p>18. End<br />
<h3>Related posts</h3>
<ul class="related_post">
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/" title="Get Presto&#8230; not so &#8216;presto&#8217;.">Get Presto&#8230; not so &#8216;presto&#8217;. (0)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2008/11/27/107/" title="VMware tools for Ubuntu made simple">VMware tools for Ubuntu made simple (0)</a></li>
</ul>
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		<title>Kodak Zi6 first impressions</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/i_RhpIPbQqs/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/06/30/344/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:22:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[clip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[handy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kodak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shoot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[test]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[test run]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[video]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Zi6]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=344</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve done a couple of tests on this ultra portable video camera, and I&#8217;d like to report them here.
First of all I was right in my previous post: the video is not high quality in poor lighting conditions.
The clips are quite fluid at 60fps, but there&#8217;s a lot of noise.
On the other hand, there&#8217;s a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve done a couple of tests on this ultra portable video camera, and I&#8217;d like to report them here.</p>
<p>First of all I was right in my <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/06/21/303/">previous post</a>: the video is not high quality in poor lighting conditions.<br />
The clips are quite fluid at 60fps, but there&#8217;s a lot of noise.<br />
On the other hand, there&#8217;s a big jump in quality, when being outdoor in the sunshine: noise becomes very little and one may appreciate the 720p 60fps on a big screen (I tested the Zi6 <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2008/02/14/68/">on my 37&#8221; Samsung</a>).<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vlcsnap-Zi6-1.png"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vlcsnap-Zi6-1-150x150.png" alt="Zi6 snapshot 1" title="Zi6 snapshot 1" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-347" /></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vlcsnap-Zi6-2.png"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vlcsnap-Zi6-2-150x150.png" alt="Zi6 snapshot 2" title="Zi6 snapshot 2" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-348" /></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vlcsnap-Zi6-3.png"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vlcsnap-Zi6-3-150x150.png" alt="Zi6 snapshot 3" title="Zi6 snapshot 3" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-346" /></a><br />
One thing that left me helpless is that my T5600 notebook can&#8217;t handle correctly the 60fps stream: VLC just shows a couple of still images every 2-3 seconds. All fine if you connect the Zi6 directly to the TV set.</p>
<p>I also wanted to use the macro switch on the lenses and it turned out that you have to be really close to stay on focus: so I just took a picture on a still object. It was something like 2cm close.<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Zi6_9025.jpg"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Zi6_9025-150x150.jpg" alt="Zi6 macro image" title="Zi6 macro image" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-345" /></a><br />
It takes nice 2048&#215;1536 (3Mpixel) images, but the sensor has still the same noise problems of the video function (it seems like it interpolates, as the picture is not very sharp)</p>
<p>My conclusion is that this is a very nice gadget, because has HD and 60fps, it&#8217;s really handy and portable, so that you can bring the Zi6 with you all the time and be ready to shot in a couple of seconds from extracting to being operational: you&#8217;ll never loose a face expression or a sudden event.<br />
On the contrary, the Zi6 cannot be used as a professional video camera because of the noise and the poor quality in low light conditions, does not shows important information, like remaining recording time and space on the display and does not have advanced settings like shutter and color (white balance) adjustments and zoom lenses (only fixed focus).</p>
<p>Anyway, the price around 100-150 euros puts the Zi6 in a mid-low end user level and so, perfect for a pocket video camera!<br />
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		<title>Apple App Store restrictions</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/IpQD6rDsGe4/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/06/28/339/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:04:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[developement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iphone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terms]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=339</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A couple of weeks ago i had this nice idea of making an iPhone app that could run DHTML in a self contained form, comparable to a standalone app (with local storage).
Now it turns out Apple does not allow apps to run external (unapproved) code, as happened to the soon to be released C64 emulator [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A couple of weeks ago i had <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/05/28/288/">this nice idea</a> of making an iPhone app that could run DHTML in a self contained form, comparable to a standalone app (with local storage).</p>
<p>Now it turns out Apple does not allow apps to run external (unapproved) code, as happened to the soon to be released C64 emulator (which includes a BASIC intrpreter).</p>
<p>Here is the excerpt from the iPhone SDK Agreement:</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple&#8217;s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Well, now the remaining options are that either this hypotetical app becomes a tool to build unmodifiable apps to be submitted to Apple like the cited NimbleKit by VolnaTech, or  it must claim that the app would only store actual websites that would be anyway be available thru Safari (online only).</p>
<p>I guess something could be done. But this is only an hypothesis <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
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<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2008/08/28/70/" title="Apple MOVs with codec m2v1 unreadable under Windows">Apple MOVs with codec m2v1 unreadable under Windows (73)</a></li>
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		<title>Not the winning, but the taking part… and win!</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/Wx_W9Dsn1o8/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/06/26/324/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:54:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[competition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dreamhost]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gadget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google gadgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prize]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=324</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last month I came across the crazy DreamHost API contest and decided to give a try with my Google Gadget for DH API.
Well, to be honest, at the moment of submitting (very close to the deadline), there were just a dozen API tools and a part from the buzzing iPhone &#038; Co. apps, nothing really [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Last month I came across the crazy <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/05/20/284/">DreamHost API contest</a> and decided to give a try with my Google Gadget for DH API.<br />
Well, to be honest, at the moment of submitting (very close to the deadline), there were just a dozen API tools and a part from the buzzing iPhone &#038; Co. apps, nothing really extraordinary (though very useful).</p>
<p>The day after the deadline, i was quite surprised to see a dozen more apps, with nice and rocking features, so I just stopped hoping of a reward for my gadget.</p>
<p>Now it turns out that the DH guys were so impressed with the efforts everybody put into this competition, that decided to give a $100 DreamHost credit to every participant!<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/credit.png"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/credit-300x43.png" alt="DreamHost $100 Credit" title="DreamHost $100 Credit" width="300" height="43" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-334" border="0" /></a><br />
Notice the <em>Account Service Credits</em> payment method, revealing the source of the $100 <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>So, even if $100 credit is not a grand-prize, I have to admit I&#8217;m very impressed by this move: thank you to the DH guys! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
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		<title>Storytelling rewards</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/RJR4xmBkWOw/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/06/21/303/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:30:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=303</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This winter Kodak released a nice idea called Kodak SnowStories.
They wanted to celebrate snow, while promoting their brand (and products), asking for stories from all around the world.
Well, since i had already created my story on the snow, I decided to put it in a better form, select a couple of pictures and post everything [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This winter Kodak released a nice idea called <a href="http://snowstories.kodak.com/">Kodak SnowStories</a>.<br />
They wanted to celebrate snow, while promoting their brand (and products), asking for stories from all around the world.</p>
<p>Well, since i had already created my <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/13/139/">story on the snow</a>, I decided to put it in a better form, select a couple of pictures and post everything in the SnowStories website, along with a link to my YouTube video (see my <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/13/139/">post</a>).</p>
<p>Well, it turned out that I eventually won the 2nd prize for the March competition: a Kodak Zi6 pocket video camera!<br />
I now have a better way to record my videos!</p>
<p>The Zi6 only arrived last friday, so no more snow stories for the moment.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/KodakZi6-300x225.jpg" alt="KodakZi6" title="KodakZi6" width="300" height="225" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-306" /><br />
This little device is everything but complicated: </p>
<ul>
<li>2 buttons: record/playback mode and play on the right, stop or delete on the left</li>
<li>a mini-joystick for changing mode (still, vga, HD, HD@60) and zooming or forward/rewind and vol up/down when in playback mode</li>
<li>a macro vs landscape switch</li>
<li>an SDHC card slot</li>
<li>and of course the power switch</li>
</ul>
<p>It starts in less than a couple of seconds and it comes with a soft pouch and a wrist lace: you can keep it in your pocket, ready for every situation.<br />
You also get a couple of rechargeable AA 1200mAh batteries and a mini AA and AAA charger.<br />
Fully featured for the TV set too: an HD component output and a composite+audio cables&#8230; no need to buy anything else, though a big SDHC is recommended <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/KodakZi6_front-300x234.jpg" alt="KodakZi6 Front side" title="KodakZi6 Front side" width="300" height="234" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-318" />A nice trick is the retractable USB connector, so that you don&#8217;t need an SD card reader nor a cable to connect the Zi6 to the nearest computer: just push the front button (a reflecting button useful for self recording!).<br />
Of course the full set of accessories will save you some battery charge vs some more pocket space used, but you can just buy one of those direct SD to USB readers for a couple of bucks (China-made of course! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':P' class='wp-smiley' />  ).</p>
<p>The direct USB connection will show up in your computer with two removable disk partitions: one for the videos, another for the windows software (yes, only windows, but at least you won&#8217;t need drivers for copying the videos). And yes the 128MB internal space will become unavailable when the SD is inserted, though will be sufficient for a couple of minutes video at most.</p>
<p>The resolution is 720p (half-hd) and there is no focus nor zoom (it&#8217;s a fixed set of lenses), but a nice option is to capture 720p@60fps, which gives an extremely smooth video (H.264 format, .MOV files).</p>
<p>The setup is flash-fast. Only three options: date, sounds on/off (for poweron/off and recording start/stop), output mode (NTSC, PAL).</p>
<p>The only downside is that there is a lot of noise in dark conditions (and there&#8217;s no night light), so I guess it&#8217;s not good at all for professional use, but it will become very useful when nice smooth recording is needed for a smaller format (capture in HD and post-produce SD videos).</p>
<p>Another little note is that you can&#8217;t see the remaining space nor recording time left (only battery level), but you should be able to record almost two hours with HD definition on a 4GB card, plenty of clips for an HD gadget!</p>
<p>After all, not that bad for a snowman story <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>P.S. The SnowStories website has locked the contents right after the end of the competition (don&#8217;t know why), anyway I guess I&#8217;ll start writing some stories from time to time, just in case&#8230; <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
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<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2006/10/09/33/" title="Poor man&#8217;s repairing a Samsung E700 mobile phone">Poor man&#8217;s repairing a Samsung E700 mobile phone (18)</a></li>
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		<title>Develop iPhone Apps faster?</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/y6OQFMFhsxo/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/05/28/288/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2009 20:44:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sociology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tecnology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=288</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I really don&#8217;t understand if Apple and iPhone is all about being trendy and trashing your money (for the customer) and becoming popular and rich with iBeer and iFart (for the developer), or actually doing something useful (well, there must be something useful that gets you rich   )
Anyway, it turned out that if [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I really don&#8217;t understand if Apple and iPhone is all about being trendy and trashing your money (for the customer) and becoming popular and rich with iBeer and iFart (for the developer), or actually doing something useful (well, there must be something useful that gets you rich <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' />  )</p>
<p>Anyway, it turned out that if you can&#8217;t write in Objective-C (and here please allow me to be a bad boy: if you really can&#8217;t, i would suggest you go doing something different than a programmer), you may now write iPhone Apps with HTML and Javascript, for a mere $99 using this <a href="http://www.nimblekit.com/">NimbleKit</a> by VolnaTech.</p>
<p>The whole story feels like it doesn&#8217;t fit at all to me! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt=':(' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
Having just noticed that you may write DHTML fully featured apps using <a href="http://weblog.openlaszlo.org/archives/2007/07/our-first-iphone-app/">OpenLaszlo</a> or some DHTML libraries/toolkits, it just p*ss me off to see that if you want to make money, you must buy this $99 tookit (seems to me a kind of a bluff). </p>
<p>Hey, I mean no offense to the VolnaTech guys: they&#8217;ve been very smart and very hard programmers to make this possible. And I see nothing wrong in making money from your hard working, especially if we&#8217;re talking about the iPhone App Store (you can make thousands from iBeer!).</p>
<p>But please, let me explain these simple facts:</p>
<ul>
<li>iPhone does not support Flash (among the thousand other missing features), and this is ok, cause Flash may be so nasty with CPU, battery and users, that it&#8217;s not a very bad idea. But this make one think: why that? Something to do with the fact that you will buy Apps?</li>
<li>
to develop something for the iPhone you <strong>must</strong> pass thru a Mac, thru a <strong>$100 fee</strong> and thru the Apple approval (yes, we&#8217;re good guys and do not want to jailbreak). Seen the above doubt?</li>
<li>iPhone Safari has a native support for DHTML</li>
</ul>
<p>Now, the only really missing thing for making a DHTML app on iPhone is the offline mode (with the local data storage): otherwise one may just make a 320&#215;240 web page with almost anything possible in it and the result will be exactly the same app as a real one.<br />
Well, given that i don&#8217;t know if a DHTML Safari app can handle multi-touch (sure there is a way), of course I don&#8217;t know a way to interface the GPS and the Webcam with a web-page (but who knows&#8230; maybe there&#8217;s a way)</p>
<p>Well, I do not have a Mac (so don&#8217;t have XCode and the iPhone SDK), but my idea is: make a simple iPhone App <strong>FOR FREE</strong> (and even if it&#8217;s not for free, jesus, not for $99, but $7.99!).<br />
Make this App in this way:</p>
<ul>
<li>a builtin webpage server</li>
<li>one Safari frame</li>
<li>a virtual XML storage</li>
<li>something like a JavaScript API for interfacing iPhone hardware</li>
</ul>
<p>
This will make it possible to:</p>
<ul>
<li>write a DHTML application</li>
<li>add an XML file for keeping data of that (read-writes will be done on the local storage someway)</li>
<li>wrap it in a special XML/ZIP/manifest/wathever</li>
<li>deliver it to our DiPhone (DHTML-iPhone) App for offline execution and local storage</li>
</ul>
<p>Easy eh? <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' />  &#8230;and almost free too!</p>
<p>Now i guess Steve is not paying me for this&#8230; (well, maybe he read my <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/05/08/256/">previous idea</a>)</p>
<p><em>P.S.<br />
Ok, for the moment you might just try to make an online DHTML app (without GPS, webcam and local storage) and I belive it will work great <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
</em><br />
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<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2006/10/09/33/" title="Poor man&#8217;s repairing a Samsung E700 mobile phone">Poor man&#8217;s repairing a Samsung E700 mobile phone (18)</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2006/08/10/30/" title="Complotti senza Mortadelle">Complotti senza Mortadelle (2)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2006/05/22/17/" title="DirectX dopate">DirectX dopate (1)</a></li>
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		<title>DreamHost API contest: DH PS Charts</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/0kpAm_tYpVI/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/05/20/284/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2009 19:35:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[API]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contest]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[google gadgets]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=284</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[DreamHost guys started this nice API developers&#8217; contest with crazy cash prizes.
The goal is to develope an App that uses the DreamHost Panel APIs.
I decided to create a Google Gadget that retreives your Private Servers stats and charts the data.
It&#8217;s not the best chart that i&#8217;ve ever seen, but it&#8217;s quite sleek and functional.
Here&#8217;s an [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>DreamHost guys started this nice <a href="http://blog.dreamhost.com/2009/04/09/big-boy-time/">API developers&#8217; contest</a> with crazy cash prizes.<br />
The goal is to develope an App that uses the DreamHost Panel APIs.<br />
I decided to create a Google Gadget that retreives your Private Servers stats and charts the data.<br />
It&#8217;s not the best chart that i&#8217;ve ever seen, but it&#8217;s quite sleek and functional.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s an example<br />
<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3545/3549110434_34f68f2409.jpg?v=0"><br />
<br />
<script src="http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/111847852952011179828/dhchartplugin.xml&amp;up_dhuser=apitest%40dreamhost.com&amp;up_dhkey=6SHU5P2HLDAYECUM&amp;up_chwidth=280&amp;up_chheight=150&amp;up_showtext=1&amp;up_showdhlogo=0&amp;up_backgroundcol=EEEEEE&amp;up_loadcol=444444&amp;up_memusedcol=2222DD&amp;up_memsizecol=66FF66&amp;up_rebootcol=FF6699&amp;synd=open&amp;w=300&amp;h=300&amp;title=DreamHost+Charts&amp;border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&amp;output=js"></script></p>
<p>If you would like to add it to your page, you may use the direct XML here:<br />
<a href="http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/111847852952011179828/dhchartplugin.xml">http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/111847852952011179828/dhchartplugin.xml</a><br />
<!-- http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/112674612464133129269/dhchartplugin.xml --></p>
<p>Or use the Google Gadgets page: <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/111847852952011179828/dhchartplugin.xml">Add to my iGoogle</a></p>
<p>And I hope I can place in the top 5 <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
<h3>Related posts</h3>
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</ul>
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		<title>Apple patents make me wander</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/DExyJgTGwK4/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/05/08/256/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2009 17:58:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sociology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tecnology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[download]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fonera]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hotspot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[idea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iTunes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kiosk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[patent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wifi]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=256</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Today David pointed my attention on an article appeared this morning (well, for italians it&#8217;s last night   ) on the AppleInsider about new ideas (patents) about electronic media distribution kiosks.
It&#8217;s not a new idea: some appeared even 10 years ago and nowadays internet kiosks with an USB port are quite common (not counting [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Today David pointed my attention on an article appeared this morning (well, for italians it&#8217;s last night <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':P' class='wp-smiley' />  ) on the AppleInsider about new ideas (patents) about <a href="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/05/07/apple_proposes_itunes_kiosks_for_movie_downloads_on_the_go.html">electronic media distribution kiosks</a>.<br />
It&#8217;s not a new idea: some appeared even 10 years ago and nowadays internet kiosks with an USB port are quite common (not counting other kind of kiosks, like info points, picture printers, etc)</p>
<p>Briefly (go and read the full article, if you like), it&#8217;s a patent proposal addressing common problems of kiosks, applied on the media distribution (iTunes based).<br />
I won&#8217;t go into the details of the patent (they have great ideas for sure), but it seems there&#8217;s too much effort for very little coming out of that. Let me explain&#8230;</p>
<p>First, kiosks never made it in the real world (if you need internet, you bring your netbook, BlackBerry <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' />  or wathever it&#8217;s your mobile device), second if you planned to take a plane, it sounds quite unusual to put a movie on your player the minute before flying (hey, you planned that! It&#8217;s not a bus or the subway: get your media ready player while you&#8217;re filling your 24-hour bag <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' />  )</p>
<p>Second I don&#8217;t see why you need to access iTunes, but not to your mail. The opposite may be true: you access the (paying) airport WiFi for your mail and&#8230; <em>&#8220;hey, what about this new song in iTunes&#8221;</em></p>
<p>So my mind kind of wanders and think: why pay thousands for a patent on kiosks, when you just need to re-program a common hot spot to get the thing done.</p>
<h2>Project <em>fonTunes</em></h2>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/05/08/256/fontunes/" rel="attachment wp-att-267"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/fontunes.jpg" alt="FonTunes Logo" title="FonTunes Logo" width="169" height="65" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-267" border="0" /></a><br />
copyright Mindsuburbian 2009 <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<ul>
<li>Get a Fonera 2 for making hotspots</li>
<li>Connect an HD to the Fonera 2</li>
<li>Hack/reprogram the Fonera 2 for adding/editing functionalities</li>
<li>Write a new app with the developer kit that downloads movies and songs to the HD</li>
<li>Set up an authentication method so that you can encrypt the connection on the fly (for passwords and credit card info)</li>
<li>Let the non-paying users go only to &#8220;fonTunes&#8221; for free</li>
<li>Let the paying users go both to &#8220;fonTunes&#8221; and the internet</li>
</ul>
<p>Steve, if you read this: I may sell my idea for the price of a couple of patents <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
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<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2008/11/03/105/" title="My Dream Laptop?">My Dream Laptop? (0)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2008/10/21/97/" title="Some JPG files cannot be open (JPEG8BIM and Adobe on Mac)">Some JPG files cannot be open (JPEG8BIM and Adobe on Mac) (1)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2008/08/28/70/" title="Apple MOVs with codec m2v1 unreadable under Windows">Apple MOVs with codec m2v1 unreadable under Windows (73)</a></li>
</ul>
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		<title>Ning getting on track for OpenSocial</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/8UvVPjxlZho/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/05/07/247/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 May 2009 17:37:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Programming]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=247</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I would like to add an update on my previous post about the shame on Ning.
Ning yesterday announced they are close to release Ning Apps: that is an interface to OpenSocial Apps for the hard to please Ning network-owners.
That is a very nice idea, which is exactly in line on what they announced when they [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I would like to add an update on my previous post about the <a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/04/15/221/">shame on Ning</a>.</p>
<p>Ning yesterday announced they are close to release <a href="http://developer.ning.com/profiles/blogs/an-update-on-ning-apps">Ning Apps</a>: that is an interface to OpenSocial Apps for the <em>hard to please</em> Ning network-owners.</p>
<p>That is a very nice idea, which is exactly in line on what they announced when they disabled REST APIs in favour of OpenSocial.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, even if this is a great piece of news, I have to admit that, after a brief check they did not very much for the developer him/herself! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt=':(' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<ul>
<li>They made it possible to install OpenSocial pre-made apps like a charm</li>
<li>There is a new <a href="http://developer.ning.com/notes/Ning_Apps_Documentation">documentation page</a> with a comprehensive and detailed example stack</li>
<li>Now there&#8217;s even a Ning specific method, to call general Ning variables (readonly)</li>
</ul>
<p>Yes, they&#8217;re making a nice job implementing more OpenSocial features as possible, but well no, there is still no way to access all the Ning data (i.e. profiles data, custom answers) or any way to edit them.</p>
<p>The only &#8220;write&#8221; funcions are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Write profile activities</li>
<li>Send a message to another member</li>
<li>Saving app-restricted persistent data</li>
</ul>
<p>Something like a relief for Ning developers, but not that much after all.<br />
You might be very enthusiastic if you&#8217;re getting all this for free, but I bet the paying network-owners are not that impressed after all <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':-P' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<h3>Related posts</h3>
<ul class="related_post">
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/04/15/221/" title="Ning + OpenSocial = OpenShame">Ning + OpenSocial = OpenShame (3)</a></li>
</ul>
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		<title>Ning + OpenSocial = OpenShame</title>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:32:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sociology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tecnology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[communication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[opensocial]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[social network]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=221</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Updated 2009-07-16: read below
Well, it seems recently i&#8217;m not very amused by the tools and sites i find online.
No, it&#8217;s not me  
This time it happened with Ning. We have a network (no commercials, for now) and would like to add a very little tiny banner. Easy, eh?
Well, not so fast: the banner have [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Updated 2009-07-16: read below</strong></p>
<p>Well, it seems recently i&#8217;m not very amused by the tools and sites i find online.<br />
No, it&#8217;s not me <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>This time it happened with Ning. We have a network (no commercials, for now) and would like to add a very little tiny banner. Easy, eh?<br />
Well, not so fast: the banner have to be shown only if the user is logged in and if he/she answered a multiple choice question with a definite answer (the other answers will lead to no banner or a generic one). This is because the user will be eligible to a <strong>free</strong> subscription and services on another website.<br />
Yep, we&#8217;re not giving free beer to anyone <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':-P' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
So, that is a requirement for the partner site to give us the service: we filter the users, we get the service. No filter, no service!</p>
<p>First thing I thought: eham&#8230; Ning? I&#8217;m not very confident, but I know they&#8217;re smart guys and made two (wow!) APIs.</p>
<ol>
<li>REST and XML APIs</li>
<li>OpenSocial APIs</li>
</ol>
<p>Now, in March they <strong>completely disabled</strong> REST APIs and WebDav features because they want to concentrate on OpenSocial: <a href="http://blog.ning.com/2008/10/the-ning-platform-a-few-updates.html">Ning platform updates</a>. So option #1 is no more.</p>
<p>The OpenSocial APIs are really a nice idea: you write an app/widget and it works all over the OpenSocial-compatible socialnetwork platforms! Great! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
Well, not so fast!</p>
<p>First, Ning didn&#8217;t implement a lot of features, just the <a href="http://developer.ning.com/notes/OpenSocial_APIs_Supported_by_Ning">minimum</a>.<br />
Second, even with the whole of the APIs, there is <strong>no way</strong> to recover user data of the custom questions (yes, the custom answers <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' />  ) and moreover, there is no API to automatically recover the whole user base (in case one would like to export the data periodically as a feed and/or use it for an external app).</p>
<p>Ah, and forget to put OpenSocial apps on your home page (it&#8217;s not permitted)</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;They want to concentrate on OpenSocial&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>?!?!?  <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_mad.gif' alt=':-x' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>The only way to recover user data is to download a CSV file from the admin panel: yes manually!</p>
<p>So I decided I had to <em>hack</em> this <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':-P' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>The only way to do that automatically is to use the cURL library to simulate the click of a real admin, but unfortunately the admin panel is so sophisticated, that it&#8217;s not just a matter of retrieving the login webpage and the export page.</p>
<p>The admin panel seems to work like this: since the extraction of the data could take much time, there is an AJAX procedure polling the server and the polling is the way the server dedicates time to this action (so if you do not poll, you don&#8217;t get the extraction). When the extraction is done, one may download the CSV file from a specified link.</p>
<p>Jee, i had to sniff the communications to get the protocol right! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt=':-(' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Here is the request sent by the AJAX function on the admin browser:<br />
<code>POST /main/bulk/exportMemberData?xn_out=json HTTP/1.1<br />
Host: www.example.cpm<br />
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; it; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8<br />
Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*<br />
Accept-Language: it,en-us;q=0.7,en;q=0.3<br />
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate<br />
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7<br />
Keep-Alive: 300<br />
Connection: keep-alive<br />
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8<br />
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest<br />
Referer: http://www.example.com/main/membership/listMembers<br />
Content-Length: 51<br />
Cookie: xn_visitor=a111111-111-111-1111-11111111111; __utma=11111110.2111111111111111110.1111111111.1111111111.1111111111.1; __utmb=111111111.1.10.1111111111; __utmc=11111111; __utmz=11111111.11111111111.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); xn_id_example=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*QAA*4ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAv-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*qDaE_; xn_shared=GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*QAA*4AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAeAAA*rA0NniIQ__<br />
Pragma: no-cache<br />
Cache-Control: no-cache</p>
<p>counter=2&#038;xg_token=81111111111111111111111111111110</code></p>
<p>Well, I can&#8217;t post the reply because it&#8217;s gzipped, but the content is:<br />
<code>({"contentChanged":50,"contentRemaining":1})</code></p>
<p>So basically, one shoud call the same URL (www.example.com/main/bulk/exportMemberData?xn_out=json) in POST mode, with an increasing counter number and it receives the above reply every time. It&#8217;s time to stop when the <em>contentRemaining</em> variable is zero (0).</p>
<p>After that, you just open the url www.example.com/main/membership/downloadMemberData with a cURL call and you get the updated file.</p>
<p>So, summarizing:</p>
<ol>
<li>Setup cURL</li>
<li>Call www.example.com/main/bulk/exportMemberData?xn_out=json with POST data counter=0&#038;xg_token=81111111111111111111111111111110</li>
<li>Examine the reply and if contentRemaining is != 0, increase counter and recall the #2</li>
<li>Repeat #2 and #3 until contentRemaining==0</li>
<li>Call www.example.com/main/membership/downloadMemberData and save the CSV to file</li>
</ol>
<p>Be aware that:</p>
<ul>
<li>if you do not run the extraction procedure, the file can be downloaded, but it will be obsolete</li>
<li>the extraction takes quite a long time, even with a relatively small number of users</li>
<li>the procedure refuses to update if you call it too frequently (it will return <em>contentRemaining</em>:0 even if some data is changed (I tried changing my profile)</li>
</ul>
<p>Of course all the above operations must be done offsite with a script or an executable (you can&#8217;t do that on the network webpage itself with Javascript for example), so who does not have a different host to run the scripts on, well, its f*cked.</p>
<p>After that, you may use a Javascript on your Ning nework to get the current userid from the <em>ning.CurrentProfile['id']</em> variable and pass it to your script via AJAX, JQuery or simply as a parameter of an iframe src url.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s an example:<br />
<code>&lt;iframe id="myframe" style="display: block;" scrolling="auto" width="150" height="200" frameborder="0" name="myframe">&lt;/iframe><br />
&lt;script type="text/javascript"><br />
document.getElementById('myframe').src = "http://external.example.com/banner.php?r="+ning.CurrentProfile['id'];<br />
&lt;/script></code></p>
<p>Hope this helps some desperate network owner and: thanx Ning&#8230;</p>
<p>P.S. This hack is given as is and it&#8217;s not guaranteed it will work forever.</p>
<hr />
<p><b>Update 2009-07-16</b><br />
As requested I&#8217;m uploading the PHP functions to operate as suggested above.<br />
Happy downloading <a href='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ningcsv.zip'>ningcsv</a>.<br />
Please note that no guarantee is given for this file.<br />
The original piece of code is actually copyright by the firm i work for, but i prefer not to mention it for privacy metters (in case you would like to sue that! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':-P' class='wp-smiley' />  ).<br />
<h3>Related posts</h3>
<ul class="related_post">
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/05/07/247/" title="Ning getting on track for OpenSocial">Ning getting on track for OpenSocial (0)</a></li>
</ul>
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		<title>Get Presto… not so ‘presto’.</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/7zDs2IZUmow/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jumpstart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lightweight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[linux]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[os]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presto]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=186</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Read this in Italian
Well, Presto is a lightweight OS.
This because it is based on a minimalist Linux distro, made by Xandros with a couple of tricks, like an App Store and an easy install.
The story is not even new: see Puppy Linux (the most famous) and a lot more&#8230;
The (not very) new thing is that [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="#presto_not_italian">Read this in Italian</a></p>
<p>Well, Presto is a lightweight OS.<br />
This because it is based on a minimalist Linux distro, made by Xandros with a couple of tricks, like an App Store and an easy install.<br />
The story is not even new: see Puppy Linux (the most famous) and a lot more&#8230;</p>
<p>The (not very) new thing is that it installs directly into your Windows partition as a standard software and it modifies your C:\boot.ini to start as a second OS (Windows will start as default after 30 seconds timeout).<br />
So it jumpstarts your PC with Linux in seconds (yes, for Windows you&#8217;ll have to reboot).</p>
<p>Here is what a classic boot.ini will become:<br />
<code><br />
[boot loader]<br />
timeout=30<br />
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS<br />
[operating systems]<br />
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect<br />
C:\grldr.mbr="Xandros Presto"<br />
</code></p>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/snapshot7/" rel="attachment wp-att-196"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/snapshot7-150x150.png" alt="Presto Snapshot 7" title="Presto Snapshot 7" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-196" align="left" /></a><br />
The other nice thing is that Xandros has acquired the old Lindows/Linspire CNR service and integrated it into its distro, making it just another package manager (with its unique motto <em>One Click Install</em>), with purchasing functionalities (yes, there you&#8217;ll find both free and pay software).</p>
<p>A plus is that it auto mounts the Windows partitions and you may read and write them without any problems.<br />
(You also get a full user partition, so that you may have separate files from Presto/Linux and Windows)</p>
<p>The thing is, it&#8217;s so minimalist that even the basic functionalities may result a little bit odd.</p>
<p>First note: it launches in 15 seconds from the OS selection. Quite remarkable on my P4 1Gb RAM. Unfortunately it&#8217;s exactly the same as my Windows XP fresh install (well, yes, Windows takes a little bit more space, it takes a lot of time to keep drivers and updates up to date, costs a lot more and it gets slower and slower when you install more and more software)</p>
<p>Second note: there is a left lanuchbar which is way too big on my 1024&#215;768 monitor, so that even the Presto home page gets horizontal scrollbars.<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/snapshot2/" rel="attachment wp-att-191"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/snapshot2-150x150.png" alt="Presto Snapshot 2" title="Presto Snapshot 2" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-191" /></a></p>
<p>Third: yes, the launchbar is nice, but it&#8217;s not a fully featured application toolbar. You only have the bottom space for the resident programs and a link to open windows. And no, you can&#8217;t reduce apps to icons.<br />
Even the old dear Alt-Tab works, but it doesn&#8217;t highlight the application thumbnail: it just shows the window borderline and displays the currently selected app name&#8230;. mmmh not very useful (is that skype?). You&#8217;ll have to get used.<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/snapshot3/" rel="attachment wp-att-192"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/snapshot3-150x150.png" alt="Presto Snapshot 3" title="Presto Snapshot 3" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-192" /></a></p>
<p>Fourth: ok, now let&#8217;s rock with one click installs! Go to the app store and&#8230; yes it&#8217;s a web page <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
Ok, i want this screen capture nice GPL software because it&#8217;s just 160kB.<br />
But no! You have another 73MB of dependencies <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt=':(' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/snapshot8/" rel="attachment wp-att-187"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/snapshot8-150x150.png" alt="Presto Snapshot 8" title="Presto Snapshot 8" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-187" /></a></p>
<p>Yes I know, I know: you can&#8217;t have a 15 seconds-to-go OS and 160kB apps all in one shot <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':-P' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Conclusion: well, the idea is nice and very interesting, but I&#8217;ll wait for the next release&#8230;</p>
<p><a name="presto_not_italian" onClick="document.getElementById('div_presto_not_italian').style.display='block';">Clic per Italiano</a></p>
<div id="div_presto_not_italian" style="display:none;">
<p>Dunque, Presto è un OS superleggero.<br />
E&#8217; così perché è basato su una distribuzione Linux minimalista, fatta da Xandros con inclusi un paio di trucchetti, come l&#8217;App Store e<br />
l&#8217;installazione facilitata.</p>
<p>La cosa non è nemmeno una grossa novità: vedi per esempio Puppy Linux (il più famoso) e tanti altri&#8230;</p>
<p>La cosa nuova (non poi così tanto) è che si installa direttamente sulla partizione di Windows come un normale software e modifica<br />
semplicemente il file C:\boot.ini per partire come OS secondario (Windows parte automaticamente dopo 30 secondi)<br />
In questo modo permette di avviare il PC con Linux in pochi secondi (sì, per Windows devi riavviare).</p>
<p>Ecco come diventerà un boot.ini classico:<br />
<code><br />
[boot loader]<br />
timeout=30<br />
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS<br />
[operating systems]<br />
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect<br />
C:\grldr.mbr="Xandros Presto"<br />
</code></p>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/snapshot7/" rel="attachment wp-att-196"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/snapshot7-150x150.png" alt="Presto Snapshot 7" title="Presto Snapshot 7" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-196" align="left" /></a><br />
L&#8217;altra cosa carina è che Xandros ha acquisito il servizio CNR del vecchio Lindows/Linspire e l&#8217;ha integrato in questa distro,<br />
creando uno dei tanti package manager (con in più lo speciale motto <em>One Click Install</em>), con tanto di<br />
funzioni di acquisto elettronico (sì, ci sono sia software free che a pagamento).</p>
<p>Una buona cosa è che monta automaticamente le partizioni Windows, così che si possano leggere e scrivere senza problemi.<br />
(C&#8217;è anche una partizione utente da poter essere usata per salvare i file Presto/Linux separatamente da Windows)</p>
<p>Il fatto è che è così minimalista, che anche le funzioni base sembrano un po&#8217; tarpate.</p>
<p>Prima nota: parte in 15 secondi dalla schermata di selezione OS.<br />
Non male sul mio P4 con 1Gb di RAM. Sfortunatamente è proprio lo stesso tempo che impiega Windows XP appena installato.<br />
(beh, sì, Windows occupa un po&#8217; di più, ci vuole parecchio tempo per tenere i driver aggiornati,<br />
costa un bel po&#8217; di più e si rallenta sempre di più, man mano che ci si installa del software)</p>
<p>Seconda nota: c&#8217;è una barra di avvio sulla sinistra che è un po&#8217; troppo grande per il mio monitor da 1024&#215;768,<br />
così grande che anche la home page di Presto ha le barre di scorrimento orizzontali.<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/snapshot2/" rel="attachment wp-att-191"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/snapshot2-150x150.png" alt="Presto Snapshot 2" title="Presto Snapshot 2" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-191" /></a></p>
<p>Terzo: sì, la barra di avvio è bella, ma non è una barra delle applicazioni completa.<br />
C&#8217;è solo lo spazio inferiore per i programmi residenti in memoria ed un link all&#8217;elenco delle finestre aperte.<br />
E no, non si possono ridurre le applicazioni ad icona.<br />
Anche il vecchio Alt-Tab funziona, ma non evidenzia l&#8217;icona dell&#8217;applicazione selezionata:<br />
mostra solo il bordo della finestra selezionata e il nome dell&#8217;applicazione&#8230;.<br />
mmmh non proprio utilissima (è skype quello?). Bisognerà abituarcisi.<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/snapshot3/" rel="attachment wp-att-192"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/snapshot3-150x150.png" alt="Presto Snapshot 3" title="Presto Snapshot 3" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-192" /></a></p>
<p>Quarto: ok, adesso spassiamocela con le installazioni in un clic!<br />
Andiamo nell&#8217;App store e&#8230; sì, è una pagina web <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
Ok, voglio questo software di screen capture GPL perché è soli 160kB.<br />
Ma no! Ci sono altri 73MB di dipendenze <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt=':(' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/23/186/snapshot8/" rel="attachment wp-att-187"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/snapshot8-150x150.png" alt="Presto Snapshot 8" title="Presto Snapshot 8" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-187" /></a></p>
<p>Sì lo so, lo so: non puoi avere un OS pronto in 15 secondi e applicazioni da 160kB tutto insieme <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':-P' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Conclusione: beh, l&#8217;idea è carina ed interessante, ma credo che aspetterò la prossima release&#8230;
</p></div>
<h3>Related posts</h3>
<ul class="related_post">
<li><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/10/06/362/" title="Clone your Ubuntu server 8.04 LTS disk">Clone your Ubuntu server 8.04 LTS disk (0)</a></li>
</ul>
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		<title>Banzai: how to cut iced food</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mindsuburbia/~3/cSyZrOeu96M/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/18/159/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:34:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Sociology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cibo congelato]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cut]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[food]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ghiacciato]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tagliare]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mindsuburbia.net/?p=159</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Read this in Italian
This is not a joke.
I know you have that wanderful piece of meat, or that huge lasagne ready dish, or you just have a nice wife who likes to cook for you and/or prepare the food and put it in a big pan in the freezer, because she doesn&#8217;t have time to [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="#icedfood_italian">Read this in Italian</a></p>
<p>This is not a joke.<br />
I know you have that wanderful piece of meat, or that huge lasagne ready dish, or you just have a nice wife who likes to cook for you and/or prepare the food and put it in a big pan in the freezer, because she doesn&#8217;t have time to prepare it on the fly (lasagne is a difficoult one).</p>
<p>So you will end up with that delicious dish in the freezer, but you can&#8217;t eat a whole lasagne pan: 4 days in a row? <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
After some time, you&#8217;ll starve for that, and finding no other mouth watering food in your fridge, you&#8217;ll really want a way to cut that dish in two or four pieces (no you&#8217;re not so smart to cut it before icing it, i bet you can&#8217;t do that with a lasagne pan: it&#8217;s very difficoult <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':P' class='wp-smiley' />  )</p>
<p>So this is a fast banzai guide to cut iced food. Why <em>banzai</em>?! Ehehehe <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' />  &#8230;keep on reading!</p>
<p>First: use disposable pans for your food. They can be reused, if treated properly and they don&#8217;t take up too much space. And most important: your food will be more easly take off the container!</p>
<p>So, take your pan and be prepared to get your fingers iced. If you would like not to get your fingers stick to the ice, you may put the pan in the ordinary fridge and wait some time for it to melt a little bit.<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/18/159/ice_step1/" rel="attachment wp-att-169"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ice_step1-150x150.jpg" alt="Ice cutting: step 1" title="Ice cutting: step 1" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-169" /></a><br />
<strong>Warning</strong>: even if you put your unused part in the freezer, this is not reccomended if you&#8217;re not eating the whole pan in a couple of weeks. You know: germs proliferate easily.<br />
And never leave this kind of food outside the fridge, ever!</p>
<p>Now, take the big ice block free and etch it with a big and sharp knife both sides. Be sure the incision is deep enough, or it won&#8217;t break<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/18/159/ice_step2/" rel="attachment wp-att-170"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ice_step2-150x150.jpg" alt="Ice cutting: step2" title="Ice cutting: step2" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-170" /></a></p>
<p>Next put something below it, in the center of incision.</p>
<p>Now scream with all your breath: <em>BANZAI</em> (in the mean time of this difficoult task, you will have to hold the ice in one end and hit it in the other)<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/18/159/ice_step3banzai/" rel="attachment wp-att-168"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ice_step3banzai-150x150.jpg" alt="Ice cutting: step 3 - banzai!" title="Ice cutting: step 3 - banzai!" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-168" /></a></p>
<p>Tada! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Put the part you would like to eat in the fridge and wait for melting (or put it right in the microwave if you&#8217;re hungry) and the rest back in the pan and back in the freezer.</p>
<p>Done!</p>
<p><a name="icedfood_italian" onClick="document.getElementById('div_icefood_italian').style.display='block';">Clic per Italiano</a></p>
<div id="div_icefood_italian" style="display:none;">
<h1>Banzai: come tagliare del cibo surgelato</h1>
<p>Questo non è uno scherzo!<br />
Sono sicuro che anche tu hai in freezer quel magnifico piatto di carne o quell&#8217;enorme lasagna pronta da cuocere, o semplicemente la hai una mogliettina che non ha il tempo di preparare i piatti al volo, a cui piace cucinare dei bei pranzetti, oppure prepararli prima per metterli in freezer (le lasagne sono uno piuttosto lungo da preparare).</p>
<p>Quindi finisce che hai quel delizioso piatto pronto in freezer, ma non puoi mangiarti l&#8217;intera scodella: lasagne per 4 giorni di fila!! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /><br />
Dopo qualche tempo morirai dalla voglia e siccome non trovi nient&#8217;altro che ti faccia venire l&#8217;acquolina così, né in frigo né in freezer, cerchi un modo efficace per tagliare la lasagna in 4 pezzi e cucinare solo il pezzo che serve a te (non sei così furbo da tagliare le lasagne prima: scommetto che non ci riesci con le lasagne fresche&#8230; è piuttosto difficile <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':P' class='wp-smiley' />  ).</p>
<p>Dunque questa è una veloce guida banzai per tagliare cibo surgelato. Perché <em>banzai</em>?! Ehehehe <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' />  &#8230;continua a leggere!</p>
<p>Prima di tutto: utilizza vaschette usa e getta. Possono essere riutilizzate, se trattate opportunamente e non occupano troppo spazio. E, cosa molto importante: è più facile estrarne il cibo congelato!</p>
<p>Quindi, prendi la tua vaschetta e preparati a ghiacciarti le dita. Se hai paura di appiccicarti al ghiaccio, puoi lasciare per un po&#8217; la vaschetta nel frigorifero, così che si sciolga un po&#8217;.<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/18/159/ice_step1/" rel="attachment wp-att-169"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ice_step1-150x150.jpg" alt="Ice cutting: step 1" title="Ice cutting: step 1" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-169" /></a><br />
<strong>Attenzione</strong>: anche se rimetti la parte inutilizzata in freezer, non è raccomandabile aspettare troppo a mangiarla. Purtroppo i batteri proliferano facilmente.<br />
E non lasciare mai questo genere di cibo fuori dal frigo, mai!</p>
<p>Ora, libera il blocco di ghiaccio ed incidilo con un grosso coltello affilato, da entrambe i lati. Assicurati che l&#8217;incisione sia sufficientemente profonda, altrimenti no si romperà.<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/18/159/ice_step2/" rel="attachment wp-att-170"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ice_step2-150x150.jpg" alt="Ice cutting: step2" title="Ice cutting: step2" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-170" /></a></p>
<p>Adesso mettici sotto qualcosa, al centro dell&#8217;incisione.</p>
<p>Ora devi urlare con tutto il fiato che hai in corpo: <em>BANZAI</em> (mentre compi questa difficilissima operazione, dovrai mantenere fermo il ghiacciolo da un lato e colpirlo dall&#8217;altra estremità)<br />
<a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/18/159/ice_step3banzai/" rel="attachment wp-att-168"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ice_step3banzai-150x150.jpg" alt="Ice cutting: step 3 - banzai!" title="Ice cutting: step 3 - banzai!" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-168" /></a></p>
<p>Tada! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Metti il pezzo che vuoi mangiare in frigo ed attendi che si sciolga (o piazzalo direttamente nel microonde, se proprio hai fame) ed il resto di nuovo nelfreezer.</p>
<p>Fatto!
</p></div>
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		<title>Nuova Polo Siepe!</title>
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		<comments>http://www.mindsuburbia.net/2009/03/14/148/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:48:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>MindSuburbian</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Metti una siepe che è cresciuta in altezza per 2 anni.
Metti che non hai il giardiniere, né il camioncino per i rami.
Soluzione?
Beh, per prima cosa devi dotarti di un attrezzo taglia rami (il taglia siepi non ce la fa con dei rami grossi).
Per portare via i resti, usa la nuova Polo Siepe: con le ultime [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Metti una siepe che è cresciuta in altezza per 2 anni.<br />
Metti che non hai il giardiniere, né il camioncino per i rami.</p>
<p>Soluzione?<br />
Beh, per prima cosa devi dotarti di un attrezzo taglia rami (il taglia siepi non ce la fa con dei rami grossi).</p>
<p>Per portare via i resti, usa la nuova Polo Siepe: con le ultime tecnologie porta rami, il risultato è assicurato! <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':-D' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/polo_siepe1.jpg"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/polo_siepe1-150x150.jpg" alt="Polo Siepe 1" title="Polo Siepe 1" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-152" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/polo_siepe2.jpg"><img src="http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/polo_siepe2-150x150.jpg" alt="Polo Siepe 2" title="Polo Siepe 2" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-151" /></a></p>
<p>Sì, sto scherzando: abbiamo semplicemente montato il porta pacchi e fissato un piano di legno con le corde.<br />
Notare che anche il baule è pieno zeppo!</p>
<p>Un paio di viaggi alla piattaforma ecologica ed il gioco è fatto <img src='http://www.mindsuburbia.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
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