Yay, a new Firefox version is out, with many, exciting features:

1. Private browsing mode now works as it should, as Chrome was doing back in 2008
2. There is a new download manager

Personally, I hate the new download manager, it's mixed in the Library, with browsing history, bookmarks: I hate it. What to do?A me il nuovo download manager, mischiato con la libreria dei preferiti la cronologia, non piace per niente. Come facciamo?

Easy, I found the solution here:

1. Open a new tab.
2. Type about:config, then press Enter.
3. Paste the following into the search field: browser.download.useToolkitUI
4. Under the Value field, right-click false and then click Toggle. That should set the Value to "true."
5. Restart Firefox.

Short story: when the GameCube mic is connected to the Wii and you try to run unsupported games, they will hang at startup.

Long story: when some years ago I went in Japan for the first time, I bought a Wii and a lot of GameCube games, as they were sold for just 100 yen cadauno (around 80 cents at the time)

I also bought 伝説のクイズ王決定戦 （Densetsu no Quiz Ouketteisen - The legend of the quiz tournament of champions), a quiz with voice recognition where you have to say the right answer, in Japanese and without a list of "possible" answers.

Ok, I never played it, but the box is nice to keep on my shelf... and then there was the very useful mic included in the box

The games that use the mic are:

• Mario Party 6
• Mario Party 7
• Odama (a "ninja" themed pinball created by the designer who created the only Dreamcast game that uses the mic)
• Karaoke Revolution

In the beginning, I only owned GameCube games: Wii games were "too new" and were starting from 2000 yen - $15, so I preferred to save money and buy 20 games for the same price - I didn't even have Wii Sports, as in Japan it's not bundled with the console.

When I came back to my country, to play PAL games I installed the WiiKey.

The problem is that the Japanese Wii works ONLY in Japanese.

Yes, if you take a copy of the Italian Wii Sports DVD and you run it on a Japanese Wii (using a modchip, because there is regional lock), everything will still be in Japanese!!! (unless a game does not contains the files required for Japanese language)

So, when on Waninkoko blog I read about his new Region Changer, I immediately using for changing the region to PAL.

What a dumb decision! It was an untested beta (Marcan defined it as semibrick) and I got an half-working Wii tthat would hang when the keyboard would open because the Italian dictionary wasn't installed, and had double channels for weather, news, and so on...

A mess!

In the end, using AnyRegion Changer I fixed the problem, but I never managed to run any of my  GameCube games anymore.

I tried everything, loaders, dozens of different MIOS, but ALL my GameCube games were hanging at boot: strange....

I tried using a GameCube SD adapter to load them using the old SD Loader: nothing

I tried the new DIOS MIOS, for loading games from USB: nothing, no game started

Yesterday I told myself: "enough, there is no way to make them work", and, while I was disconnecting controllers and memory cards, including the mic (that's actually using the memory card interface). Just when I unplugged it, BOOM, the game started!

I tried my games: all were working now!!!

Moral: when the GameCube mic is conntect to the Wii (at least to mine) and you try to run a game that doesn't use it, it will hang at the booting logo.

Yay, now I can play Donkey Konga!

Yesterday in my country was holiday, so I turned on my Wii to play and BOOM, I got a black screen saying "system error - repairing"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! WHY??? NOOOOOOO!!!!

I go into panic for a dozen of minutes: I accidentally removed BootMii with the latest Homebrew Channel update and I can't enter into recovery mode, then, searching on the net (I was about to buy a SaveMii...), I discovered that it was an april's fool joke of the Preloader (now called Priiloader, this joke has been removed)

Yay!, What fun...

After that I remembered that someone in 2009 had the same problem...

Look how cool is this "interactive" song:

Brightly - Preflight Nerves

While the music video is shown on the background, the lyrics are shown on the foreground, citating existing tweets.

It's brilliant.

Recently I installed Windows XP SP0 (the first edition, from year 2001).

I was shocked to see how it's evolved, without our acknowledgement. For example, the Wi-fi doesn't natively work, as my bluetooth mouse: the setup says it wants XP SP3 to continue.

So, I had no other choice to use it only with the keyboard.

Well, just do a Windows Update to fix the problem, right?

You would like it! It says that you need to update to XP SP3 to use it!

I browse the menu with the keyboard and after ten minutes and hundreds of TAB key presses, I can download XP SP3 from the Internet (try to browse the net without a mouse: it's not that easy).

I install it:

Oops! If you want to install XP SP3 you need XP SP1! Let's download it from here. The setup doesn't work, it can't download the update package!

I continue to search for a valid download and finally I find the network install package on the Microsoft website, but when I click download:

It's time to upgrade your browser! Internet Explorer 6 is outdated, you need the 8. I bet that, if I download it, it will say that I need XP SP2, so I start to search between my CDs if I still have an update that Microsoft mailed me when people still had 56k modems:

Luckily I found it! Now I can install XP SP2, then XP SP3, then the bluetooth mouse driver, then the hundreds of new updates... when I will be done?

I said that I hated the new Windows 8 and Windows Phone interface, but now I am getting used to it, and I am liking it, I even installed a themed launcher on my HTC Android.

Launcher8 it's great, free and it perfectly merges with Android, its live wallpapers and widgets, I find it much more intuitive. It already has themed icons and you can customize in every way:

Just a while after the tsunami disaster in Japan in year 2011, we saw the photos of the destruction with "before and after" comparison. Now, Google went in the "forbidden" radiation zone and put on Street View the pictures of the destruction.

It's terrifying, look.

Nothing is left, what was an elementary school, now is rubbles. Street View let you go to see the inside.

The outside, the entrance, the kitchen, the classrooms on the first floor...

And also other cities, that were far from the coast, are empty, due to radiations...

Exactly as happened with Google Reader, two years ago, during a "spring cleaning", Google killed its Notebook.

Also in that occasion it was a shock for me: I wrote hundreds of notes on it and I got addicted on it. Find, suddenly, all my notes "imported" in a single, huge, useless word file made me very angry!

Then I found Springpad and I got my replacement...

Guess what? Now they are pushing it again, but with a different name!

Yay! That's great!

Well, I can't trust them anymore, maybe I get used to it and use it daily to jot my notes and then, BOOM, it gets wiped again during a "spring cleaning" 

This is my PSP: it's literally covered in dust, it has been months, if not years that I don't turn it on.

I don't see a worthy game from years... the last that I remember it's Echochrome, that's from FOUR years ago.

Meanwhile "scene" sites are slowly disappearing, with their guides and discussions.

Do you have a PSP? Do you know any games worthy of playing? Come on my forum to discuss it!

I shot this photo a week before the official release of Assassin's Creed 3: you could preorder it the digital gold edition for just 130 euro ($170). What a bargain!! On Amazon you could preorder the boxed version for just $60 (now now $30), and you can lend it to friends, sell it, keep it on the shelf to gather dust, etc...

You might say "hey, that special $170 digital download gave the PS Vita version for free"

But on Amazon the PS Vita version was $40 , if you bought both the boxed edition you would still saved a lot of money, even if you splurged on the exclusive Assassin's Creed III Encyclopedia Edition, that includes a 384 pages hardcover book and a 208 pages graphic novel.

I believe that a digital download MUST be MUCH CHEAPER than the retail edition!

Let's go back to the Amazon Bluray edition that now you can get for $30. Remove the markup that Amazon is doing on it, marketing, distribution, printing, prepress, etc... how much money is Ubisoft getting? I would be surprised if they get more than $8.

Why, why, why, the digital download, must be sold at the same price level, if it doesn't have any upfront to the seller?