Dandandin.net

Today at the MWC in Barcelona was officially announced Windows 8. It will be available for x86 processors in 32 and 64 bits flavors and also for ARM processors.

You can download the consumer preview from here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download there is a program that will download the version you need.

Otherwise, you can just download the iso from here http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso and then install with this serial number:

DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J

Compared with the developer preview, you can notice that the start button is missing, but the appstore is working, and all the apps are available for free for a limited period. There are also some small improvements, and it looks faster than Windows 7.

After the installation, I bet that you want to disable Metro, the new graphical interface: here is how to do, I wonder if this hack still works.

Due to the inclusion of Hyper-V, if you want to run Windows 8 in VirtualBox you need to follow some directives, otherwise the installation won't be completed.

Set your screen resolution higher than 1024x768, otherwise you can't open any app.

Android, due to its openness, it's rapidly spreading, and every month new Android-based handsets are released.

But, to sell more units, manufacturers are making low-end devices for a cheaper price, maybe too chep to have a decent experience. What to take in account to choose a device that won't disappoint us? Here is my experience:

T-Mobile G1

• Release date: October 2008 - the first Android-based mobile
• CPU: 528 Mhz - just the minimum, not fast, not too slow.
• RAM: 192 MB - it's impossible to have more than two apps opened at the same time. Open the browser and the home will close. Close the browser and you have to wait 5 seconds to load the home. Open contacts and wait other 5 seconds. Extremely frustrating. With cyanogenmod it's possible to add some cache, but it does not make a miracle...
• Internal memory: 256 MB - but just 50MB can be used. The browser takes 15 MB, Google Maps takes 10, Gmail 5, just install THREE apps from the Market and you've got full memory!
• User experience: awful - slow and unresponsive, a little better with cyanogenmod and various hacks

T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide

• Release date: June 2010
• CPU: 600 Mhz - Whoa, much better than the G1! This is next-gen, with integrated GPU. You can really feel the difference!
• RAM: 512 MB - Yay!!! You can open dozens of apps, and you'll never run out of memory! Just a few minutes and my G1 is forgotten in a drawer.
• Internal memory: 512 MB - but just 150MB can be used... you have to hack the system and repartition if you want to install more than 20 apps.
• User experience: much better! Maybe a little slow in some cases, but it's ok.

HP Touchpad

• Release date: June 2011 - the first webOS-based tablet (+ Android 4 in dual boot)
• CPU: Dual core 1.2 Ghz - wow!!! Extremely fast!!!
• RAM: 1 GB - If with 512 MB was impossible to run out of memory, think what you can do with the double!
• Internal memory: 3 GB! You can install hundreds of apps!
• User experience: Awesome!

So, from my experience, those are the minimum requirements to have a decent experience:

• CPU: 600 Mhz - does not matter THAT much, it's better to have more RAM - once the app it's loaded, it's fast
• RAM: at least 320 MB
• Internal memory: at least 256 MB accessible to the user

If one of this requirement is not met, I can guarantee you that you will be disappointed from your Android mobile. (unless you use the phone just to make calls and send text - but you can just use a dumbphone for that)

All Apple fan-sites are publishing that there is in the works new connector for the iPhone, slimmer and with new useful features like Thunderbolt.

Reading this story makes me wonder: what is the point to use a special connector instead of using the micro usb, (which can also bring HDMI signals, with MHL) that it's a standard, it's cheaper, it's used by the rest of the world, and it's required to use in the European community??

Option A: in this way they can sell for 20 bucks the data cable (real price: $1)

Option B: in this way they can sell for 30 bucks the plastic dock with no electronic parts inside and which still requires the $20 data cable to work (probably the beautiful box it's more expensive to make than the dock)

Option C: in this way they can make millions with the "made per iPhone" certified accessories, like radios and so on

Option D: in this way they can make millions selling another adapter to who already owns the dock connector accessories

Option E: all the other options

On this italian blog, today I come aware of a pearl of wisdom on the Italian ministry of education website.

Probably the Florence university researcher that wrote the article did not know English (well, on that course - biotech - the mandatory English exam it's just of the European level A2: Elementary English - can communicate in simple and routine tasks) so he translated using Google Translatore.

In this way, the title "From sheep to pecorino cheese", become "From sheep to doggy style" 

This is the original text from the Ministry website:

The project represents the implementation of a study at the local level already achieved by an individual dairy producers and confer, is developed through the use of components for the detection and recording of events, apply a methodology that uses hardware and software between their integrated.
Each collection rounds is uniquely identified through the development of a communication protocol based on GPS technology, with the possibility of recognition of the coolant tank manufacturers, tank truck and tank at the dairy.

This is the text in italian, automatically translated: (edits in bold)

The project represents the implementation of a study at the local level already achieved by an individual dairy producers and confer, is developed through the use of components for the detection and recording of events, applied a methodology that uses hardware and software between their integrated.
Each collection rounds is uniquely identified through the development of a communication protocol based on GPS technology, with the possibility of recognition of the coolant tank manufacturers, tank trucks and tank at the dairy.

There is a reason if I translate Dandandin.net by myself... yes, maybe it is not 100% accurate; maybe sometimes I write nonsense, sometimes it's tiring to translate my long posts, but at least I won't write nonsense like that.

Are you one of those that, having got a new iPad, are eager to see the screen with heavy scratches, scuffs or even get it broken?

Thanks to the new Mattel Apptivity toys, your dream can become true! (video in the link)

Those toys have contact points on the back, to interact with some games, so by placing an Hot Wheels car on the screen it will be posible to drive it, or slice fruits in Fruit Ninja, or eat om-nom candies in Cut the Rope; or crush your opponents in a Wrestling match by hitting the screen with the bundled figure.

Letting play a kid with a toy car on a 600 bucks screen looks like an AWESOME idea, I wonder why nobody ever thought about it 

The new Dropbox beta for Android and for Win/Mac/Linux automatically imports photos and videos in an online "Camera Import" folder, for backup. It's so neat to get wirelessly on your computer the pictures just shot on your mobile device.

Moreover, for who tries the beta, the available space will be increased up to 5 GB, gradually uploading this amount of pictures. We could make the account grow slowly, or we can just use this trickò:

1. Register to Dropbox using this link. (You'll start with a 2.25 GB account instead of a 2 GB one)
2. Download the latest Dropbox beta, you'll get 500MB extra bonus
3. Install the beta on Windows (I did not try on other OS)
4. Find 5GB of videos on your computer
5. Copy the videos on the DCIM/Camera folder of your mobile or SD card
6. Connect the mobile phone or the sd card via usb
7. From the autorun menu in Windows choose: Import with dropbox
8. Wait until the import is finished
9. When is finished, right click on the tray icon (the blue box) and select "pause syncing"
10. Delete the videos from Dropbox/Camera Uploads
11. Right click on the tray icon and select "resume syncing"
12. Done!

For some reason, the Ice Cream Sandwich emulator does not show the new softkeys that will replace the home back and menu hard keys on new Android handsets. How to enable it?

Just go to the AVD Manager (the program that manages the emulator virtual images), select the Android 4 image, then add the property "Hardware Back/Home keys" and set it to "no"

And this is the final result:

I just found this video made about one month ago from a japanese guy that analyzes every seismic activity with magnitudo greater than 3 in Japan for the year 2011.

Here it is:

It looks unbelievable to see that last year, only in Japan there were almost a thousand of seismic events with magnitudo greater than 5 and almost twenty thousand for the ones over 3.

I have a website using the concrete5 CMS, and I discovered that it does not work with Google's mod_pagespeed for Apache.

After installing it, it's not possible to add new pages, you'll get an error 404.

To disable it only for concrete5 websites, just write this in the .htaccess file:

<IfModule pagespeed_module>
ModPagespeed off
</IfModule>

In my opinion, the problem it's in the trim_urls filter, so you could just try to disable that.