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!

After the Google Notebook shutdown, I was forced to find an alternative that would work well on my phone.

I found Catch Notes (which was previously known as Snaptic and before that as 3Banana) but has the annoying habit of disconnecting the session each time it is used on another computer: bad, I need to access it from 3 computers, and therefore is very irritating to type the password every now and then.

So I tried Evernote, but has two intolerable flaws:

• You need to pay $45 a year if you want to access the notes without being connected to the Internet
• The application for Android is huge, not optimized, and although it supports App2SD, uses a lot of space: I do not have enough of it to install it

During a conference, I noticed that the relator used Springpad to take notes. When I came back home, I was curious about it, so I joined the service.

At first I did not like it at all, everything seemed so counter-intuitive... then I installed the application on my phone, I started to get the hang of, and I must say I was extremely pleased!

Ok, how to transfer years of Google Notebook notes to Springpad? Doing it manually is extremely boring ...

By using the converter! (Evernote Version)

In a few minutes will migrate all the notes, although the Japanese characters will be replaced by question marks... it's a pity, so I had to review all the imported notes...

This TorrentFreak article explains how Megaupload knew that it was mostly used for illegal purposes.

And this PDF instead tells the ups and downs of the founder of Megaupload. Bankruptcy, insider trading, fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, trafficking in stolen credit cards, mistaken identity, corruption, hacking NASA and Pentagon systems and much more.

In light of these facts, even if it sometimes was an "useful" website, in the end they deserved this ending...

Ps:

it seems that a site called Megaupload is still accessible at 109.236.83.66, but I do not have the absolute certainty that it is real; I think it's just a fake trying to make money with adverts

Using my rDNS tool you can see that this address belongs to a WorldStream customer, based in the Netherlands

While I was searching some tips about web design, I found this japanese designer.

He shows how you can let your browser draw Doraemon using SVG and HTML5

Here it is:

And this is the code behind:

<div>
<svg height="300px" width="400px">
<circle cx="200" cy="150" r="100" fill="#000000"></circle>
<circle cx="200" cy="150" r="98" fill="#5ccff0"></circle>
<circle cx="200" cy="168" r="80" fill="#ffffff"></circle>
<circle cx="180" cy="90" r="20" fill="#000000"></circle>
<circle cx="220" cy="90" r="20" fill="#000000"></circle>
<circle cx="180" cy="90" r="19" fill="#FFFFFF"></circle>
<circle cx="220" cy="90" r="19" fill="#FFFFFF"></circle>
<circle cx="190" cy="92" r="5" fill="#000000"></circle>
<circle cx="210" cy="92" r="5" fill="#000000"></circle>
<circle cx="200" cy="110" r="14" fill="#000000"></circle>
<circle cx="200" cy="110" r="13" fill="#ff0000"></circle>
<circle cx="200" cy="182" r="58" fill="#ff0000"></circle>
<rect x="140" y="124" width="120" height="58" fill="#ffffff"></rect>
<rect x="199" y="124" width="1" height="58" fill="#000000"></rect>
<rect x="210" y="130" width="40" height="1" fill="#000000"></rect>
<rect x="152" y="130" width="40" height="1" fill="#000000"></rect>
<rect x="210" y="150" width="50" height="1" fill="#000000"></rect>
<rect x="142" y="150" width="50" height="1" fill="#000000"></rect>
<rect x="210" y="170" width="60" height="1" fill="#000000"></rect>
<rect x="132" y="170" width="60" height="1" fill="#000000"></rect>
</svg>
</div>

The explanation: first he creates a new layer (<div> ...</ div>), then puts in a tag that tells the browser to interprete the following instructions as an svg design (<svg> ...</ svg> ). Inside the svg tag he has specified the height and width of the drawing, and then there are the instructions for drawing circles and rectangles to make the face, eyes, whiskers, etc., and here it seems pretty obvious: rect is for rectangles, circle is for cirles, xy the relative position, width, height, is width and height (want to draw a linge? Set the height to 1 pixel) and fill designates a color to fill, in 8bit RGB hexadecimal.

The main advantages of using this technique instead of placing an image are two:

1. takes up much less space and so is faster to load
2. you can enlarge the image indefinitely without losing quality or making it look pixelated

Although now my usage of Firefox is in sharp decline, thanks to the thousands of extensions available, there is always a moment when it becomes necessary.

These ones are the most useful, in my opinion:

Generic:

• Clean and close - Allows you to delete completed downloads and close the Downloads window with a single click
• Deng Google Bookmarks - Inserts a bookmark menu to access Google Bookmarks. Definitely useful if you use more than one computer and don't like Firefox Sync
• DownThemAll - The best download manager for Firefox!
• Lazarus - A must! In the event that the browser crashes or the web page has a timeout error while you're filling out a form, you can open it and fill it again with one click! Cool!
• IE Tab - Allows you to open the page with one click using Internet Explorer. The original link does not work anymore in the latest Firefox (5 versions in the last year!), There are several clones, one is an adware, but the best one is IE Tab 2
• Rikaichan - A great extension that allows us to know the meaning and the reading of Japanese words unknown to us (Also install the dictionaries - You need to know the hiragana)
• Super Start - A start page inspired by Google Chrome

For advanced users avanzati:

• Aging Tabs - Change the color of the less used tabs, it is very nice, too bad it does not work in the latest versions of Firefox...
• Ghostery - Blocks tracking scripts
• Gmail Manager - If you have many, too many gmail accounts, by using this extension you can manage them all without too many worries
• Greasemonkey - Allows you to change the behavior / appearance of some websites by downloading the appropriate script from userscripts.org
• NoScript - Blocks all the javascripts except those authorized by you, for added security - Use only if you are paranoid - many sites will not function as well as before
• Springpad - For adding notes to any page - terribly useful and productive
• WiseStamp - For adding a custom signature to Gmail emails

For web designers:

• Colorzilla - For seeing the color of any object on the page
• FireFTP - One of the best FTP client I've ever tried! The integration with Firefox is great!
• Firebug - All-in-one tool for development
• Measureit - For measuring the elements of a page in pixels, is more useful than you can think
• Screenshot Pimp - To make a screenshot of an entire page, even the parts that aren't visible. WARNING - It's a very invasive adware - install only when necessary and then immediately remove

Skin:

• Qute - A very balanced skin that adapts to each operating system. Too bad that is no longer compatible with new versions of Firefox ...

Have you ever wanted to know which URL belongs to an ip address? For example, what is the URL of the Google public DNS service, 8.8.8.8?

To overcome to this problem I wrote a program to do the reverse DNS lookup (rDNS), of a given IP address, here it is:

For example, looking 8.8.8.8, you get google-public-dns-a.google.com

When I go to China, I always buy a prepaid sim card with an Internet subscription. The card is free, although almost every seller will attempt to scam you by telling that now costs 20 euros (do not buy it from them out of desperation, on those pre-activated, you can not enable internet subscriptions with immediate effect but only after a month!! Go in 10-20 different stores until you find an honest seller, or the best way is to go to a China Mobile official store, but be careful to the fake ones), and with 5 euros per month you can get a 500 megabytes package, that with GPRS, it's enough for everyone. (Western phones won't support Chinese 3G - you are left with 2G)

There is also a way to spend less, but you have to use a wap proxy to access the web - a nightmare - don't save money on this

Once purchased the sim, your Western phone won't be preconfigured for internet access, so here it is:

China Mobile Web:
apn: cmnet

yes, just put cmnet as APN and voila, you can access the internet! You don't have to configure the WAP, because it only works on Chinese sites.

Then you can also configure the MMS, if you have Chinese friends and you plan to receive them:

China Mobile mms:
apn: cmwap
proxy: 10.0.0.172
mmsc: http://mmsc.monternet.com
mms proxy: 010.000.000.172
apn type: mms

Sometimes we find ourselves using computers where we can not install programs, like a public computer, such as school or library, or computer in the workplace.

But, sometimes happens that I want to convert an audio or video file at work, but I can not install a converter... how can I do?

Mediaconverter.org is an online service that allows you to upload audio/video files and convert them.

It's free (freemium), and is very convenient. Of course, for the most demanding users who wants to convert large high-definition is not really suitable, but is perfect for small uses.

Breaking news, Firefox 9 is out!
There are huge improvements, as the... uh.... ehm.... er... well, if it has a new number there's certainly something new!
Maybe for the end of the year they can manage to release Firefox 15.

As you might guessed it from my writing style or something else, I am Italian, so I guess it would be nice to tell some stories that might be not known outside the country.

One year ago Amazon started to operate in Italy.

They started with a viral campaign in Rome and Milan with a box with amazon logo (no name on it) and the slogan "it's not the usual box". Well, now you might not understand it, but we have a way to say "dare un pacco" (give a box) that means "to cheat sb". (ex: "that seller gave me a box!" might also mean "that seller cheated me!"). So this has caught the attention, because no name on the advertisement, just the "amazon smile" and the slogan that could also be understood as "it's not the usual scam"

Just a couple of billboards and the media talked all over of it. For free. Brilliant.

They added the whole ISBN catalog to their website, carrying preorders for books not on stock: probably it is the only company in Italy that will charge the credit card only at shipping time, instead of order time. If the book is out of stock, you just order it, you will be charged only when they ship it. Awesome, right?

Some publisher did not like this idea and complained:

We are a publisher of poetry and stories. We sell our books exclusively on our ecommerce. It's not possible to find our book anywhere else. But from today we are on Amazon.it. How Amazon could sell our books without our permission? [...] It's unfair!

Actually, if I were a publisher, I would be extremely excited to have my books listed for free on a mainstream catalog instead of an obscure ecommerce!

Of course Amazon just removed their books from the store, and that publisher was even happy about that!

I would like to say thank you to Amazon to remove us from their marketplace, understanding our problem. This is a good signal. [...]

I wonder how they can be happy about this, I took hours to find this story again on Google (I read it months ago), due to the obscurity of this publisher...

What I find revolutionary about this company is how they care about the customer. For example at work my computer was infected by a virus, and it had a strange redirect on the amazon login page: it became in English suddenly, asking SSN and ATM PIN number. After I contacted the customer service, not only they immediately understood the problem, but they called me on my mobile phone (calling a mobile phone in Italy is ridiculously expensive), forcing me to change the password.

Another day I added my friend address to send a gift when I was abroad, they called me again to make sure I'm not a scammer! How many ecommerce websites would do that??

Another way to advertise themselves is that they applied a 30% discount to the whole Italian books ISBN catalog. Awesome idea!

Was the government happy that a foreign company invested millions to build an huge warehouse (probably the bigger in the country) and hiring hundreds of people in a period of economic crisis?

No, of course! A new law, dubbed "anti-amazon law" was created, forbidding to retailers to apply a discount bigger than 15% on books!

Even the publisher itself can't discount their own books, they can do at most 25%, for at most 30 days, at selected locations.

Weird! That is a crazy way to limit the culture in a period where the people has to save money.

Who will buy remainders and unsold stock at just 15% of discount???

I guess I have to say farewell to that old, unsold books, sold at just 1€ (90% discount) in supermarkets...