Moving to the new server – update

Posted on 22/02/2009 by admin

I managed to install and configure both the 2.7.1 version of WordPress and the Squible 2.0 template (the first version is the official template of the blog you’re reading); unfortunately the content migration has been a huge failure.

I’ve tried the following with no results:

Content export from WP 2.01 and import into WP 2.7.1
RSS export from WP 2.0.1 and import into WP 2.7.1
RSS export from Feedburner and import into WP 2.7.1
XML export from MySQL and import into WP 2.7.1
Database export from MySQL (hotmc.com server) and import into MySQL (lineagialla.com server)

And, sincerely, this is enough for me and for the time I can dedicate to System Administration tasks.

So I decided to switch to a super-technological ultra-geek solution: copy and paste the whole content adding the original time/date data and placing the right tags on each post. This been said I’ll also evaluate the possibility (and the costs) of using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to paste the whole blog archive (starting from 2002 or so, and written in Italian).

This might be translated into false updates of the RSS feed, hope this won’t be a mess for you.

Test driving the iLiad

Posted on 14/11/2008 by admin

I appreciated the marketing initiatives of the Simplicissimus patron Antonio Tombolini since when I first met them during the “Pesto al blogger” promo. Antonio is now in the eBook business (too, I’d add) and his company is the Italian distributor for the iRex iLiad ebook reader; and again they came up with a cool marketing idea: taking one iLiad and have it travel through Italy from one blogger to the other.That’s how some weeks ago I received a box with the iLiad that travelled for more then 6 months from blogger to blogger (and sign of this travel were visible both externally and internally the device ) and tested it for a whole week (it also happened to pass to my friend Massimo Pettiti, Innovation Director at 3 Italy).The main reason I subscribed to the test was that I am really interested in this type of technology and wanted to touch it before spending money.

Fast forward to the end, before my personal considerations, am I going to buy it? In one word: no.Here below the four main aspects I consider relevant:

Screen technology: the iLiad uses the eInk technology for displays and boys it really rocks! The reading experience (and the images too) was far better then any other digital display (LCDs/LEDs based or portable devices such as the iPhone/iPod Touch) I ever owned. It was really like reading paper: the more the light the better the experience. YES.
Haptic interface: even if the iLiad weights more or less as a normal paper book I had serious problems in managing it in every position but being sitted with the device (preferably) in both my hands: reading while in bed was almost impossible since my hand covered part of the screen and every time I had to turn the page I had to change position. All the navigation buttons are placed on the left and are quite difficult to be understood (even if the affordance of the “turn page bar” is really good). NO.
User interface: page selection is a pain in the arse; the icons meaning is mostly obscure and no alternative text appears to help; I really disliked everything about it. NO NO.
Battery life: I received it with half the battery, used it daily, passed to Massimo for one week and sent it to the next blogger without recharging. Cool! YES.

The iLiad is a great reader; it’s plenty with connections (comes with wi-fi on board) and expansions (two different MM card slots) capabilities. But unfortunately the overall experience is too low on user interaction and the paper-book still wins.

New map tool for real estate listings

Posted on 07/08/2008 by admin

While the Microsoft database Utility rebuilds, AGAIN!, my entourage database (and yes, I know I’ll have to delete the file and have it recreated from the Exchange server, but I’m always optimistics with computers) I decided to finally find some time to write something on this now seldom updated blog (and my feeds stats are here to prove this).

After a couple of weeks of implementation and tuning (where we learned that messy Javascript code performs better then the state-of-the-art) we finally released to the public the beta version of the Gabetti map search (a demo video lays on my Flickr page) for real estate listings (those of Gabetti obviously – at the moment).

Nothing so new (apart from the fact that – as far as I know – the ONLY other similar tool in Italy is MAIOM – which we tried back in 2006 to explore the potential of geomapping tools potential for the real estate market): satellite view, small geocoded houses, balloons with overview of the house, AJAX, panning, etc.But I really find useful, and haven’t find in any other site apart Coldwell Banker’s (which works only in Firefox, on my Mac), is the usage of Point Of Interests (POI): we started from the hypothesis that price, square meters, number of rooms are important DETAILS not something you use when deciding to buy or not to buy (I find VERY interesting the usage of POI tha has been done in Walkscore) When I bought my home I had two main objectives: i. find it in a pleasant neighborhood and ii. near to all the services that make life more comfortable (supermarkets, cinemas, restaurants, kinder-gardens, etc.) and a satellite view enhanced with POIs makes this task extremely straightforward.We’re still in BETA and are plenty with enhancements to code and deliver (better user experience, better feedback, capability to search for streets and not only for cities, price/sqm filtering capabilities just to cite a few) but are really curious in evaluate how will the tool perform on our web users and how will our RE agents perceive it.