Monthly Archives: January 2005

Mycroft Firefox Taggregator

Matt has created a bookmarklet for adding Technorati tags (via boingboing). And there is also a bookmarklet for searching Technorati tags. So I thought I might create a mycroft search engine plugin for Firefox and Mozilla that could search Technorati tags. However it seems that now, Mozilla only supports plugins that work with the GET method (those URLs with "?somename=somevalue&othername=othervalue" in them) and Technorati Tags page does not use this approach (see as an example the page for the tag “simple”). So I felt back to the really first aggregator of tags, Taggregator, whose pages do use the GET method: see for instance Taggregator page about tag “simple”.
In the process, I discovered that creating a Mycroft plugin is incredibly simple thanks to the generator.

So if you like, you may add Taggregator search engine plugin to your Mozilla, Firefox or Netscape7 browser.

Download them (scarichiamoli)

Creative Commons Italy is proposing a simple law: “everything that is funded with state funds must be public domain” (ciò che è finanziato con soldi pubblici deve essere di dominio pubblico). A Creative Commons licence would be better than public domain but I guess this is just a first step for igniting a nation-wide discussion … and anyway laws in Italy cannot be that simple, they must contains tons of words that you can’t understand (without a lawyer). ;-)
(via punto-informatico)

The web is more a social creation than a technical one.

The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect — to help people work together — and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner.
    —Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving The Web
(found at XFN: Introduction and Examples)

Windows crashes, crashes and crashes

zeusnews (in Italian) reports on a number of failures of billgates technologies in his “see the future. today” show(off).
The video is (kind of) available at microsfot site. But I was not able to see it. In general with my gnu/linux laptop I’m able to watch all the videos i wish notwithstanding the closeness of the format. Instead this time, after some efforts without success (there is the scary mms:// protocol), i realized that if they don’t want to make easy for me to see it, perfect, I’m not going to see it. Zeusnews also reports the fact Microsoft removed the video from the web for some time but had now put it there again.
Luckily enough, I was able to see the 1998 show with the usual windows crash (.mov file) that is always fun but it also makes me think that, despite being a worst software product, windows got a global monopoly on users’ computers.
Below, you can find the salient pieces related to (4) failures from the transcript of billgates failure-show:

Secunia: “use another product”

Secunia‘s report:
Some extremely critical vulnerabilities have been discovered in Internet Explorer, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system, conduct cross-site/zone scripting and bypass a security feature in Microsoft Windows XP SP2.
Solution: Use another product.
” (found via wikilab)
Seriously, if you are still using the most bugged browser of history, drop it and jump on the shiny Mozilla Firefox.
[This is the second anti-micro$oft post. In Italy we say “non c’e’ due senza tre” (there is no two without the three), so you know what next entry will be about ;-)]

For billgates, Free Culture advocates are Commies

From BoingBoing, I come to know that billgates consider people that believe in free culture as communists. Such a comparison is so deeply wrong, I’m almost speechless. Free culture and communism are 2 completely different topics.
“There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.”
Anyway I had a small glimpe of what americans on average think about communists (should I say “they don’t think”?) when I was there for some months. I guess billgates’strategy is simple: call them communists, have your media broadcast the idea and let televisions-truths-swallowers get the concept and burn the communists.
Making fun of this nonsense sentence, some people have created wallpapers, t-shirts and other gadgets with this “creative commies” propaganda. Check some of them on BoingBoing.
Continue reading

Almost one month without blogging

Phew! I just saw last entry was written Dec 17, 2004. Almost one month ago! Why have i not written during all these days? I don’t know. Maybe lack of motivation. Maybe just too many holidays. Maybe I was tired. I need to think more about it. Anyway I have many “drafts” (unpublished blog entries, often with just a sketched idea or just a have-to-blog-it link) so I’ll buffer out them today and tomorrow.