Manuel's techy world and web analytics views

2011-09-14T11:08:00.003+02:00

A great outdoor campaign for this digital camera: "SEE IT IN MORE DETAIL."

so, what about the COOKIE and the new EU regulation, again?

2011-07-12T12:34:00.000+02:00

One page tagged, 6 Web Analytics tools configured... one table comparing results

2011-06-21T16:38:00.000+02:00

So, tagging is tagging, right? If i tag a page with multiple tags i expect the Analytics reports to be in-line, and if not that at least the delta between trends over time.. (every WA solution has its own crediting algorithm and therefore it's natural to get different numbers). The question i've always been asked is "how much difference there is between vendor A and vendor B?"...

"it's really impossible to predict" has always been my answer.

this graph's pourpose is to proove this sentence. Highest figures vendor today it's not going to be the one with highest figures tomorrow....

Now the question is: why are tagging numbers so damn different each other even for the same single page?

Let's compare: will surfing with cookie be faster or slower in our day to day?

2011-06-06T17:44:00.001+02:00

Cookie Opt-out: a smarter way to go!

2011-06-01T10:20:00.002+02:00

a pic is worth a thousend words!

2011-05-25T13:20:00.004+02:00

2011-04-20T08:09:00.003+02:00

A castell is a human tower built traditionally in festivals at many locations within Catalonia. At these festivals, several colles castelleres or teams often succeed in building and dismantling a tower's structure. On November 16, 2010, castells were declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

In Catalan the word castell means castle.
A castell is considered a success when stages of its assembling and disassembling, can be done in complete succession. The assembly is complete once all castellers have climbed into their designated places, and the enxaneta climbs into place at the top and raises one hand with four fingers erect, in a gesture said to symbolize the stripes of the Catalan flag. The enxaneta then climbs down the other side of the castell, after which the remaining levels of castellers descend in highest-to-lowest order until all have reached safety.
Aside from the people who climb to form the upper parts of the tower, others are needed to form the pinya, or bottom base of the castell, to sustain its weight. Members of the pinya (most often men) also act as a 'safety net' if the tower structure collapses, cushioning the fall of people from the upper levels. The castell is built in two phases. First, the pinya the base of the tower is formed. People forming higher levels of the tower move to a position from which they can easily get to their place in the tower. This is done slowly and carefully and as subsequent base levels are completed the castellers in the pinya determine if their base is solid enough for construction to continue. Then, when the signal to proceed is given, bands begin to play the traditional Toc de Castells music as a hush comes over spectators of the event. The upper layers of the tower are built as quickly as possible in order to put minimal strain on the lower castellers, who bear most of the weight of the castell. The disassembly of the castell, done amidst the cheering of the crowd, is often the most treacherous stage of the event.
There is a form of the Castell, generally referred to as 'rising', in which each successive layer is added from the bottom by lifting the castell into the air, stage by stage. It is held that this form takes even more skill and strength and a great deal of practice. Four levels complete have been observed and five attempted, but it is said that the record is six or perhaps seven.

Castellers:

aixecador ("riser"): The person who helps lock together the dosos so providing a stable platform for the enxaneta who stands astride the aixecador. Almost always a child.
cap de colla ("band leader"): The head of each team, who decides which castells the team is ready to attempt and directs the construction of the castells from the ground. The cap de colla is always accompanied by a number of assistants and advisers.
cap de pinya one of the band leaders's assistants who takes particular responsibility for the allocation of places in the pinya, ensuring even force is applied to the base of the castell. The cap de pinya will allocate first, second and third hands, first and second dice, laterals etc. depending on the size of the castell.
dosos ("the twos"): The level sustaining and locked together by the aixecador and surmounted by the enxenata. Generally kids.
enxaneta ("rider") : The topmost casteller, a child.
pom de dalt ("top bunch"): The top three levels of the castell: dosos, aixecador, and enxaneta.

Here is a video i shoot in Barcelona where a group of Uni students were practicing their Castell skills.

Long way to go before they reach the top (litterally):

Your PS3 over-heats? here is how to fix it!

2011-04-11T20:22:00.000+02:00

Your PS3, like mine, over-heats? here is how to fix it! :-) (note: you MUST FOLLOW THE instructions very carefully!)

Go get some butter-flavored Pam. It HAS to be Pam. It also HAS to be butter-flavored. After you've been running the LittleBigPlanet DLC screen (it wont work with any other game) for exactly 2 hours and 7 minutes, go ahead and spray your PS3 with the Pam. Place two pieces of bread on the PS3, put two slices of cheese on them, and then quickly search the DLC for a level called "The Waffle Room". You must complete it in 10 minutes, or else you must start over. Take a polaroid photograph of the results screen and put it in the sandwich. You now have a polaroid sandwich. Mail this to Kevin Butler, Sony's VP of the cold, hard truth. He will send you mail the following day which will be in your mailbox. Open the one marked "Triangle", shred the one marked "Square", burn the one marked "Circle", and put the one marked "X" in your back left pocket. IT MUST BE YOUR BACK LEFT POCKET! The "Triangle" will contain directions to the nearest manhole and a map through the sewers. If you follow the instructions exactly, you'll end up at Sony HQ. Climb up the ladder and then go through the seventh door on the left. Take the mail out and give it to the guard. If you reach for anything but your back left pocket he WILL kill you.

When given, he'll lead you to the Grand Master's Room, where you'll receive a free XBOX 360 as an apology that you were convinced to buy a PS3.

Great Lego Stop Motion

2011-04-08T09:01:00.000+02:00

Ah from studio shelter on Vimeo.

The History of... Web Browsers

2011-04-05T08:54:00.002+02:00

Here is a nice infographic that i've just found here... it's interesting to see how Opera doesn't grow nor shrink over time... will it be like in Highlander movie? "There can be only one!" ??? :-)

Eames Lounge Chair Manufacturing in the Vitra Atelier

2011-03-29T09:08:00.001+02:00

We have visited the Vitra Campus at the end of 2010 while being in Basel for New Year's evening and it was worth the journey. Really worth it!

But now that i've found this video I think it's even better. Watch the video. Do they look like in a factory? Do you notice their pace? do you hear the silence? it's like being in a church, isn't it? Well believe it or not, this is the way it is: the video was shoot in the Vitra Atelier (where visitors can walk in) and this is the way they work: calm, relaxed, concentrated... it's like a ritual for them. And the most amazing thing: the two people in the video are the same two people that we have seen there! They are not actors, of course, but it seems that they are the only two people doing this (so they are very well specialized!).

INFORMARE E' UN DOVERE...

2011-03-22T07:09:00.000+01:00

Di solito non scrivo in italiano, nè tantomeno ho mai parlato di politica su questo mio blog. Ora più che mai io debba apride una parentesi che per ritengo molto importante.

Ai referendum del 12 giugno per dire "NO" devi segnare SI.

Vuoi eliminare il ricorso all'energia nucleare? SI.
Vuoi cancellare la privatizzazione dell'acqua? SI.
Vuoi sbarazzarti del legittimo impedimento? SI.

Il referendum passa SOLO SE si raggiunge il quorum (50% +1 degli aventi diritto). In altre parole occorre che vadano a votare circa 25 milioni di italiani. Per questo dobbiamo informare, da subito. Ti invito a copiare e incollare questo messaggio nella tua bacheca di Facebook, puoi farlo velocemente cliccando il tasti "share" qui sotto, oppure copiare ed incollare sul tuo blog, oppure tutte le cose insieme!

Viral Videos

2011-03-08T14:24:00.013+01:00

"A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites and email. Viral videos often contain humorous content and include televised comedy sketches, such as The Lonely Island's Lazy Sunday and Dick in a Box, amateur video clips like Star Wars Kid the Numa Numa videos, The Evolution of Dance, Chocolate Rain on YouTube; and web-only productions such as I Got a Crush... on Obama. Some eyewitness events have also been caught on video and have "gone viral" such as the Battle at Kruger. Humor is often a characteristic of viral videos, but not a defining one. A viral video is any video that's passed electronically, from person to person, regardless of its content.With the proliferation of camera phones, many videos are being shot by amateurs on these devices. The availability of inexpensive video editing and publishing tools allows video shot on mobile phones to be edited and distributed virally, by email or website, and between phones by Bluetooth or MMS. These consumer-shot videos are typically non-commercial, intended for viewing by friends or family." (source: Wikipedia).

But how do yuu make the perfect viral video? Someone tried to figure it out when Smartwater asked to create a new ad campaign and apparently they have decided to take the most successfull viral videos out there, mix the ingredients together, shake it very well and create this (admittedly funny!) commercial, starring Jenny Aniston:

So, for those who have missed the points, here are in sequence the guest stars of this Jenny Aniston "video that tursn into a virus":

The Lip Sync Kid

Any video with nice looking puppies. One of the best is:

Puppy vs. Cat

Talking Parrot Einstein

Evian Roller Babies

Giant Double Rainbow

Hit in the n...s!

Nintendo 3DS and the useless/useful 3D view

2011-03-08T11:49:00.006+01:00

I was reading this article on Gizmodo and had an epiphany: third dimension "revolution" is or it's not comparable to the color vs B&W revolution in visual arts?
If we consider gaming part of visual art, i think it is. But i don't think 3D is such a big deal as it stands for movies and photography.
But thinking about gaming industry and as a gamer, i think it will provide much more involvment (as if it was required!) when playing a game and if really used well it could potentially even add much more gameplay (think about Ecochrome played in 3D!). But the problem is that i recogn today the usage of 3d in gaming is comparable to the usage of 3d in movies: it's a useless eye-candy that soon we'll get tired of. What do i mean with "more gameplay"? check this video and figure out yourselves! :-) When last year they have announced Nintendo 3DS i was hoping that it would be ike this:

the amazing thing of the above game it that it simply uses head tracking technology (using the DS front cam) to locate user's head and therefore render the 3d scene accordingly...like watching a landscape from a window where the window is the actual screen. It's just like the "head tracking" prototype that Johnny Chung Lee developed a couple of years ago using a wii sensor bar:

Furthermore, look at what it can be done with the sole use of a Gyroscope, without any head tracking front-facing camera:

Bottom line is: the technology is out there. We just need to hope someone brings it all together and mass-produces it. A portable device with front camera and GPS. Wait a minute... that's the iPhone4!! And that's the Ninendo 3DS, too (even with 3D screen switched off!). So, dear APP developers, why don't you do yourself a favor and start creating REAL 3d applications???

Are We Obsessed with Facebook?

2011-02-23T17:46:00.004+01:00

SUSHI PARCO - MILANO - EVITATE GENTE, EVITATE

2010-12-10T22:24:00.000+01:00

Siamo stati loro clienti per anni nel piccolo take away di piazza Cavour che ora non è piu' di loro proprietà e dopo mesi di "astinenza", circa un mese fa ci siamo rivolti al locale di Corso Magenta per un delivery trovandoci bene. Presi dall'entusiasmo la settimana successiva abbiamo ripetuto l'ordinazione e il pesce non era buono come la volta precedente. Abbiamo pensato fosse una casualità e, volendo rimanere ancora clienti, due settimane fa abbiamo ritentato. Purtroppo questa volta parte del pesce era vecchio, infatti alcuni roll avevano un sapore "strano". L'indomani ho tentato di mandare la seguente mail al loro indirizzo:

Oggetto: per vostra conoscenza

"Spett. parco sushi, ieri sera abbiamo ordinato del cibo delivery presso il vostro ristorante e purtroppo la qualità del pesce mangiato era decisamente scadente. Ci rincresce notare che anziché fidelizzare il cliente che ritorna mantenendo sempre alta la qualità del prodotto, c’è invece la tendenza a rifilargli i tagli di pesce
più vecchi. Nel primo ordine (15 giorni fa) il cibo era eccellente; nel secondo (settimana scorsa) già si notavano le prime pecche; il pesce di questa sera era al limite del disgustoso. Visto il costo non popolare del vostro servizio è pretesa una qualità maggiore. Confidiamo si sia trattato di un disguido, ma ovviamente se la cosa si dovesse ripetere non solo non ci rivolgeremo più a voi, ma nemmeno potremo continuare a farvi buona pubblicità. Grazie per l’attenzione, buona serata."

Essendomi la mail tornata indietro due volte, ed avendo loro una pagina su FaceBook, ho postato la lettera così com'era specificando che gli stavo scrivendo sul loro muro perchè la loro casella di posta dava problemi... siamo partiti per Madrid e siamo stati male per un paio di giorni (per ovvie ragioni evitiamo di descrivere nel dettaglo i sintomi).

Tornati da Madrid scopro che il post sulla pagina di FB era stato cancellato, ma che nessuno mi aveva contattato. Oggi mando una nuova mail per avere chiarimenti sulla questione e questa sera ricevo una telefonata dal ristorante (non so se fosse il proprietario o chi per lui). Rispondo al telefono e dall'altra parte mi trovo una persona che con molta arroganza mi fa notare che il post su FB lo aveva cancellato perchè "gli faceva cattiva pubblicità" e che lui mi aveva chiamato e io non avevo risposto... quindi voleva sapere perchè gli avevo scritto nuovamente.... io ho tentato di spiegare che in orario di lavoro sì può essere impegnati in maniera inderogabile e ho cercato di fargli notare che non aveva tentato di richiamarmi in nessun altro momento, lui mi ha subito interrotto dicendomi di non interromperlo (!!) (ho anche pensato parlasse con un collega nel locale prima di capire che si stava rivolgendo a me!) e incalzando mi hadetto che: se non eravamo stati all'ospedale, non era nulla di grave.

Complimenti!

Se si mangia MERDA non si finisce certo all'ospedale, ma lamentarsi è legittimo. Evidentemente per loro è normale servire del pesce di bassa qualità e si aspettano che nessuno si lamenti.

Tengo a precisare che la mail che abbiamo mandato non era per ottenere un rimborso o una cena gratis, ma (pensando ad un disguido, che ingenui che siamo noi) semplicemente per fargli notare che AVEVANO USATO DEL PESCE VECCHIO.La telefonata si è conclusa in malo modo: l'indisponenza del gestore ha fatto degenerare la conversazione.

Ovviamente noi non torneremo a mangiare da loro, sia perché la qualità non vale il prezzo ma soprattutto perché a fronte di una lamentela anziché offrire una rassicurazione ci hanno aggredito come se fossimo noi ad aver sbagliato.

Alla luce di quanto è accaduto avremmo dovuto rivolgerci direttamente ai nas piuttosto che a loro.

"Zombie" Cookies: perfect example of a badly used technology

2010-08-03T09:36:00.001+02:00

I've recently found this news on Wired about a USA lawsuit against some major USA websites that seems to use Flash cookies to re-set browser's cookies (the standard cookies we are all familiar with). I think the name "zombie" cookies gives a very good idea about the practice.

My 2 cents is that re-setting browser's cookie using flash cookies goes against an explicit intention that the user manifested when deleting the browser's cookie and therefore this technical ability should simply not be used.

Having the technology to do something doesn't automatically mean you have to use it..

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/zombie-cookies-lawsuit/

Giants Syndrome: iPhone-Pad owners new desease

2010-07-31T15:34:00.000+02:00

I've been using my iPhone for the past 4 months coming from a full qwerty phone (first the treo, then a motorola Q) and the change to a virtual keyboard has been a small trauma for me. Not being able to "feel" the keys feedback when you press them is a strange feeling, but i also realize that the biggest change with the feedback-less keyboard is when youn search for a letter.. With real keyboard we do relay on our Touch sense to find keys even without looking (aka as text while driving, txt while walling, etc).It took me 4 months to get used to the iPhone virtual keyboard, but finally I made myself comfortable, also with a savvy use of the auto-correction features.

Then suddenly I bought the iPad, and I realized that now when I use my iPhone I suffer of what I've defined "the giant syndrome".

When I type a txt message or an email with my iPhone (especially in vertical mode) I feel my hands are HUGE compared to the tiny keys. Look at my thumb!!! It covers almost a quarter of the screen!!!! I feel like I'm. Giant now! Have you experienced the same syndrome when using the iPhone after a day usage of the iPad? I did...

Location:Via Padova,Milano,Italia

what a coincidence!!!

2010-07-21T01:44:00.001+02:00

I was surfing on an italian well-known publisher website the other day and i came across something that dragged my attention: there was a video preview of the Nintendo 3DS. So i've started watching and i've noticed something funny: on the same webpage, there was an AD (what a news you might say!). The funny thing was that it was the AD for the new Citroen DS3.

Ok the name is just similar but it's not the same (but can confuse: 3DS, DS3.. which is the car and which the portable console?!?) then i've also realized that the COLORS are the same too....

WHAT A COINCIDENCE... (yes, i'm a believer!)

Madrid

2010-07-13T16:22:00.002+02:00

So, just in time to be back from down-under and here i am again, flying to Madrid for a 2 days trip. Happens that Spain have just won the World Cup. Happens that it's the first time they win the World Cup. And it happens also that Spanish people likes a lot to celebrate. And it happens that even if the big celebrations were on Sunday night, also on Monday the celebrations continue. And happens that after work yesterday i've been took out by my collegue/friend Javier to a beer place. And it happens that in that place there is still a small group of four people still celebrating from the night before. And it happens they start singing out loud. And it happens that they involve my mate Javier in the celebration. Yes, it happens. Fun happens, if u seek for it! :-)

Afterall it's winter, why do i complain about the chill?

2010-06-30T08:16:00.003+02:00

Yes, while in Milan it's getting hotter every day, here the temperature it's all but hot... Monday evening the wind was so strong that (hard to believe) i couldn't even walk straight! I've just managed to book a bicycle for the weekend in Sydney, so i'll save some money on taxis. I just hope it won't rain.

Bycicle "Race"

2010-06-27T08:42:00.001+02:00

I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

When i left the hotel i was going to visit the Tim Burton Exhibition, but then i've realized it's also open on thursday night. So I've hired a bike instead, for the whole day (i needed something to keep me busy as much as possible so that i recover from the jet-lag). I took a long ride for more then 30 Km. At first i wanted to ride west towards the ocean but I've realized the bike line was parallel to a very trafficked road so i went back East. Turned out that was the best decision, as this way i had the chance to ride by the Yerra river, walk through the Botanic Gardens, then south through Albert Park again.... when i was @ St. Kilda beach i felt like Forrest Gump and I've simply kept riding... only the fact that i was starving stopped me! After a good meal @Donovans (T-Bone, my favourite) I went back to return the bike. Now i can't walk anymore. I need some rest. :-)

Melbourne

2010-06-26T23:06:00.001+02:00

So i made it to Melbourne. Flight had a slight delay but I've made it. Spent the entire saturday walking around (mainly to keep me awake). Walked from 7am until 2pm: Southbank, then back to the Yerra river, then towards and through Albert park until I've reached St Kilda Pier and beach, where i couln't walk on the pier as i was too cold because of the wind. On the way back i took a tram to Southbank and crashed for a couple of hours. I didn't realize how much did i walk until i've summarized the path on Google Earth: more than 10k (excluding the rest of the day/evening).

Today is Tim Burton's Exhibit turn, @ the ACMI. I hope the line is not as long as it was yesterday. Will try to be there early.

The weather is not very good, it's chilly and there are lots of showers. Hope today will be sunny.

Singapore layover of 30 seconds...

2010-06-25T06:00:00.001+02:00

So the delay due the French strike made us land in Singapore with 3 hours delay. The good thing was that due bad weather conditions there was an air traffic conjestion so also my connecting flight was delayed and u manage to litteraly catch it... I hope my luggage made it too, can't even think about being in Melbourne without luggage... I'm writing this on the plane to Mwlbourne and it's 6 hours left to my destination.

Tip if you fly Singapore Airline: make sure you taste their hummus sandwitch: it's simply delicious!!! :-P

Singapore Airlines strikes back!

2010-06-24T14:34:00.002+02:00

It seems that the French strike didn't stop mighty Singapore airlines and they have made it through the unfriendly french skies :-) now thy have just landed in Milan to collect us few refugees that survives a complementary lunch that I would not even reccomend to my worst enemy. Time to board... I just look forward their new economy seats to relax a bit.

Taxi, Highway, Airport, cash exchange, check-in... and wait, wait, wait!

2010-06-24T01:18:00.002+02:00

That's life I guess... Did everything perfectly on tine, went throuh police control smoothly with no waiting and once at the gate found out that the flight has been delayed apparently due to France strike... But I'm in Italy and the flight arrives from Barcelona... Oh well I guess that overnight Barcelona became part of france then!

Luck helps and courtesy of One Wolrd alliance there is a nice catch up station to juice up a little my IPhone :-)

Now something is wrong... Now the flight has 2 hours delay :-(

blogger posts gets mobile now

2010-06-24T00:11:00.002+02:00

I've just installed iblogger app for the iPhone so I'm going to test it in the next few days while I'm on the road... User interface so far seems nice, I hope the functionality Is as well :-)

You can't post pictures on Blogger yet (sigh!) but a nice one is for sure the option to add a link to a google map shofing your location:

Mobile Blogging from here.

who made it? illuminex made it, here is their page.

A quick trip down-under

2010-06-23T14:58:00.002+02:00

Check-in done, tomorrow morning i'm flying to Australia after two years. Looking forward for this business trip. I'll try also to keep this blog updated so that you can follow me in this short quick adventure.

Check-out the special page i've created for this. Where??? look up there, see that Tab with the title "Australia 2010"? that's it, click on it... and enjoy the reading!

Newspaper 2.0

2010-06-23T14:41:00.000+02:00

Just a year ago I wouldn't imagine the future of print to be so close. Am i talking about the iPad? noooooo, that's way too old... this is the real new technology to read newspapers! (Curtesy of Failblog.org)

Google Latitude

2010-06-03T11:52:00.001+02:00

I'm going to try Google Latitude on my mobile phone. So this means that the location displayed in the right end-side of this blog (labeled WITWIM - "Where In The World Is Manuel") will show city level information of where I am in the moment this page is loaded. Bye Bye privacy!

Why am i doing this? because so you know where I am and therefore if happens i'm in town let's catch up!

Mobile Logger - log where you ride/go

2010-05-12T12:51:00.002+02:00

Well, i think this is the ultimate app i've been looking for. I'm a fan of data minig and a fan of geo-localization. This free App for the iPhone is my ideal time-killing app then.any information can be found on its author website here. On the website homepage you'll also find a map:

It shows global unique loggers and in realtime shows the latest location where data has been sent from. This screenshot was taken 10 seconds later i enabled the "upload while logging" option and it demonstrate it really works! Now why do i use this? because it tracks werever i go and allows me to log my route, and make nice calculation on averege speed, it detects and geo-tags all the information and therefore i can visualize those into a map.

You can even email yourself the log's raw data for further analysis. If only i was a good progremmer i would make a nice visualization tool with a timeline and multiple journeys logs so that it would suggest the averege quickest route to work, or the quitest one (as it logs also decibel noise!) or the one that allows you faster speeds.... what a geek i am! :-)

LaCie Little Disk

2010-04-26T08:56:00.013+02:00

Yesterday i was window-shopping and i've bumped into this cute little thing. I couldn't resist and i had to buy one. It's a 30 GB external USB 2.0 hard-drive. Still I couldn't make up my mind: is it a large USB key or a tiny hard-drive? :-) Well, one or the other, it's a great storage device for such a small size. it's just very close to the size of a zippo lighter (or, if you are not familiar with Zippos at all, it's a mare 5x4x1.5 cm box (with the usb cover add 1.5 cm to it's hight: 6.5x4x1.5).

Is it worth it? in italy it retails for around 40 Euros, not cheap considering you can now get 1T external drives for 100 Euros and less, and portable 2.5 inches ones costing around 100 Euros will give you now 500GB very easily. But this is a USB key (at least this is where LaCie puts it in their website) and with that product range an averege 8GB key is on sale for about 25 Euros. So 30GB for 40 Euros is not such a bad deal.

Installation is very easy and it also comes with an installazion wizard that guides you with formatting it for Win only usage or mixed WIN/MAC/NUX systems. I've choose the latter and once formatted it left me with a true available space of more than 29.7GB. Not bad at all.

Now I can say I'm an happy owner of the LaCie little disk!

Where do you go?

2010-04-15T09:56:00.004+02:00

http://www.wheredoyougo.net/ is a nice tool that you can youse in conjunction with your foursquare account. What? you don't know yet what http://foursquare.com/ is??? you better go and do your homework because people believe it's TNBT (the next big thing) and i tend to agree... So check it out and then come back to continue-reading this post later.

Done? ok... so now that you have your 4sq account and that you started checking in, you can appreciate better what weredoyougo is about. Here is a map i've generated with it: it represents an heatmap of Milan with my checkins overlayed to it. When you give your login to wheregoyougo it will fatch your public checkings (the ones that appear in your 4sq profile page) and use geo-location to overlay their number on the map of the selected area. Pretty cool isn't it? :-)

You can also adjust the size of the map... why? because you can take a screenshot of it and share a link to it to use on your blog or even directly tweet it.I prefer updating it from time to time and upload it manually, but it's just a personal taste. If you were to share it, wheredoyougo creates for you an hotlink (mine is this_one)...

so now that you know what it does... have fun!

UPDATE: here is the "heatmap overlay" generated today after few days using foursquare....

... and once you overlay with its backgorund map created on http://www.wheredoyougo.net/ using Google Maps API, shows up like this:

I like it.... so i'll keep updating it! :-)

...more on Bit.ly post

2010-04-06T10:51:00.005+02:00

Following up on last week's post about bit.ly not checking for click-fraud and as i've recieved some comment about the "proof-less" post, here is a screenshot i took this morning. It's clear (and i hope you'll trust me on this one!) that it's impossible that this single link recieved more than five-thousend-and-nine-hundred clicks.

In fact those 5919 clicks were all generated by a simple perl-script that i wrote and run locally from my own laptop. it doesn't even handle cookies (so those 5919 clicks are all from the same cookie, all from the same IP address - at least within the same user-session - and all from the same user-agent). It would very easy to identify this clicks as fraudolent ones... but they don't bother.

All i'm saing here: they don't check for click-fraud practices, so in case you are planning to run advertising on social media and would like to measure campaign effectiveness with the url shorteners stats, keep in mind those data won't be 100% froud-proof.

so, what's this and why is it interesting?

2010-04-01T17:16:00.007+02:00

So this is called QR code. Here is the official denso-wave website dedicated to the QR code (as they have invented it, it's the best place to get its specs from http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/index-e.html).

Maybe you begun to see some of those around recently, maybe in an Outdoor advertising or on a bottle of wine. What is it exactly? is like a barcode, with the difference that is a multi-purpose customizable barcode that can also be "linked to the web". The small blak dots contain a unique code that can be translated into a plain text message, a phone number, a website adress, you name it.

What's interesting about it? A lot of different things, really! First thing: user can get more information about the Advertisment with his own mobile phone. Imagine you are walking by a building and you see an ad of a special offer for a summer holiday and you think "wow that's interesting, i want to know more"... typically you would have to pencil down the website adress (or type it in his mobile device) and then start your browser to open the web page. now with the appropriate software you'll simply scan the QR codeand the device will do the rest. Easy. But is that all? not really.

On the other hand there is an advertiser (and/or the agency). How do they know how many people "converted" from a billbord ad? usually they use a separate web page address like www.brand.com/promo or www.brand.com/1234 to distinguish users that went to the site from the billboard add or from other sources... but users are lazy and not always they type the right address... QR code is the bridge that helps measure off-line / online conversion. When you land on the site once snapped the QR code, the landing page knows that you came from this code, therefore the advertiser knows how effective was the billboard campaign in engaging users with the brand to ask for more infomation. The real question is: why would users use the qr-code? just as a short-cut?

How many users do actually know about this technology? Only time will tell... but if advertisers link the usage of the qr code with a promotion (get higher discount if you use the qr code) or with a premium service (use the qr code to get information faster, or better or you name it) maybe it will be successfull... and users (or should i say now "consumers"?) will be happy... and so will be advertisers and agencies as this way they will measure offline effectiveness! :-)

Some people asked me what generator i used. Google is always the best resource to start from, try with "QR code genearator" as keywords.... in case you are so lazy, here is a couple of links for you: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ and http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/

Have fun!

bit.ly tool and click-fraud detection missing

2010-03-29T13:17:00.015+02:00

For the few people that yet don't know it, here is the short explenation about what is http://bit.ly and why i believe it is useful. If you are familiar with Twitter you might also be aware that you can't always fit into 140 chars a meaningful sentence AND a link to an external page (for example this article page url itself is already more than 70 chars long, leaving you with only half of the possibilities to write something smart around it!). Therefore some smart person came up with the idea of the URL shorteners tools, that allows us to convert long URLs links into something much shorter (e.g from this http://manuelmontanari.blogspot.com/2010/03/you-must-be-joking.html into this http://bit.ly/bBSK44). Wikipedia provides some more information on this topic here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_shortening
http://bit.ly/ is just one of them, there are also others like http://tinyurl.com/ or http://is.gd/ and even Google has its own one http://goo.gl/
But why use bit.ly? as Brian Clifton pointed out in his presentation @ Was in Milan last week: because we all need to know and track what happens out there. How do we know how many people clicked on the links we post on Twitter? That's easy, but how do we know how many click on the link once it get's re-twitted? how do we know how many people click on the link that was pasted into a blog post?

Bit.ly offers a nice quick way to track the clicks on your link. Just add a "+" sign at the end of the actual shortened link. For example instead of pasting the shortned URL bit.ly/bBSK44 in the browser address bar, use this one: http://bit.ly/bBSK44+. This shows some nice stats on the number of clicks this link got since its creation, referrals sites and geographical location (country). This would be great, but there are two major problems i've been able to spot so far:

1 - everyone will see your links stats. So in case you are super-concerned about other people understanding how popular your links are, you better watch out. Anyone can copy and paste the bit.ly url you have created and add a + at its end to watch its stats.

2 - bit.ly does not apply any sort of click-fraud detection algorithm. I didn't find any literature on this topic that confirms / denies this statement, however i've done a small test myself and it seems they don't filter at all. What does this mean? it simply means that every single click the shortened URL gets will be counted as being legitimate. This also means that whoever looks at the link stats won't be sure those are real true valid fake-proof numbers.
"Hey, but i'm not that silly, I don't want to fake my own data.. I would be just stupid!" Yes i agree, but because you can fake your own links traffic, this also means everyone can do the same. With his own links and even yours. Here is what i've been able to do with mine in just 5 mins of sending fake traffic (with a bit of perl scripting knowladge).

Why? just beacuse. I'm not saying it's good (this is really bad, indeed) but just be aware this could happen.

I really appreciate the increase of desire to get traffic data. Web Analytics usage has increased a lot in the past years, thanks to increase of awarness of the technical capabilities, thatn's to free tools and thanks to evangelists like Avinash, Eric T Peterson, Brian Clifton and many more....
But how many people question the QUALITY of the reported data? We evolved from the no-data era to the data-tsunami era.. we need to keep in mind that all the data we can get access to needs to be verified, otherwise we could take very badly infored decisions.

you must be joking!!!

2010-03-24T17:02:00.005+01:00

So i was invited to an online survey and because i'm a diligent internet user, I decided to spend some time filling the questionnaire... after a first part with about 20 questions on general use of the computer, they asked me if i agreed to move to the second part of the survey. Once agreed they took me to another server (i believe they sent the responses to the first questions in the meantime) and suddenly the instruction read something like "To download and run the program please click on the button below.... " WHAT??!?! why do i need to download and install an .EXE file to fill a questionnaire?!?!? they must be joking! :-(

As a professional i find this really disappointing. Whoever thinks that internet should be used in such a bad manner should be banned from the list of internet professionals. Sorry guys, whoever you are, but i really mean it. This bad usage of the internet will make our medium (therefore all of us) look bad to users. They need to gain trust in our medium, and we should do all we can to be transparent with them, so that they will be more likely to trust our profesionalism. If someone does something malicious on the web it effects the web's whole reputation. Maybe the EXE file is armless, but did you really need to install an EXE file for asking some questions? i don't think so.

R.A.I.P.E.R.U.N.A.N.O.T.T.E.

2010-03-24T16:33:00.002+01:00

This is for my italian co-citizens that would like to step-up for one night event against TV censors. Let's all meet and watch together Raiperunanotte.

Happy Birthday to me!

2010-03-11T21:36:00.001+01:00

I was born in 1974, March 12.... so happy Birthday to me! :-)

Don't be Evil... (NOT??)

2010-03-09T12:44:00.005+01:00

A great infographic video on Google.. maybe it's a bit exagerated on the tones, but gives a sense on how big they are....

My first video as director! :-)

2010-03-08T12:39:00.005+01:00

I'm so proud of my first video-creature! MY girlfriend and I helped our friend Isa with the making (Isa is starring in the short). It's in italian. The shooting took 1 hour and the editing about 5. We also had to re-shoot some small audio tracks that in the initial shoot were very noisy. I hope you like it and rate it 5 stars! :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrhAtuCzThk

Is Bigger Always Better?

2010-03-03T16:13:00.003+01:00

I've decided, instead of writing hundreds of words about the theory, i'll just paste here a couple of graphs.

Here is the first one:

Which days of the above week is better? The bigger one is the 4th, that's the best one! (2.4 Million pages)

And how about Unique Browsers (Cookeis)? here we go:

Which days of the above week is better? The bigger one is the 4th (again), that's the best one! (670K Unique Browsers)... But if bigger is better, how about page frequency?

4/2/10 - pages per Unique = 3.58

2/2/10 - pages per Unique = 10.11

Yes, defenetly bigger is better, but for which metric? it depends on what the websites judges important.

Dear Support...(ACME company!)

2010-02-23T12:58:00.025+01:00

OFFICIAL ESCALATION PROCESS (e-mail):
[me] dear support, today i've tried to login to my laptop and it tells me that my username / password is not correct. Could you please help me? Please reply to this mail address as I can't access my laptop nor webmail as the password seems to be expired..
15 minutes later....
[support] A new ticket has been created with the following details:
Ticket No : XXXXXX
Requester : me
Category : Infrastructure Services
Type : Services
Item : Email Submit - Services
Short Description : username / password is not correct
25 minutes later....
[support] Updated Ticket Status:
Ticket Number XXXXXX has been ASSIGNED TO YYYYYYYYYY - team A
10 minutes later....
[support] Updated Ticket Status:
Ticket Number XXXXXX is now WORK IN PROGRESS by ZZZZZZZZZZZZ - team A
5 minutes later....
[support] Updated Ticket Status:
Ticket Number XXXXXX has been RE-ASSIGNED To Team B
22 hours later....
[support] Updated Ticket Status:
Ticket Number XXXXXX has been ASSIGNED TO YYYYYYYYYY - Team B
3 hours later....
[support] Updated Ticket Status:
Ticket Number XXXXXX is now WORK IN PROGRESS by YYYYYYYYYY - Team B
20 minutes later, my phone rings:
[support] "Hello "me" this is YYYYYYYYYYY from the support team B, i'm working on your ticket and i need you to read me what you currently see on your screen"
[me] i read the usuall windows message "The username or password is incorrect" that shows when the username or password is incorrect and a "ok" button underneeth. I guess that the reason is that the password expired or similar, as i'm SURE i'm using the right login / password
[support] what login are you using?
[me] XYZXYZXYZ, password XYZXYZYXZYXYZ the usual one
[support] mmmm.... (silence)
[me] listen this is getting really urgent as i can't even check my emails and because the mobile phone gives the same problem (incorrect password) it means the password is exprired and you simply need to reset it....
[support] can you please send me a screenshot of your screen?
[me] ...?!?!?! are you serious? if i can't login how can i take a screenshot? (laughing) i can send you a picture of it if you really feel you need one!
[support] Yes please
10 minutes later, i sent them this picture (guess which finger is that!):

5 minutes later....
[support] Ticket Number XXXXXX which you submitted has been RESOLVED.
Please see the Solution listed below. Your password has been re-set. Your new password is "ZYXZYXZYX"...
Done. Total time: 26 hours and 40 minutes (rounded)

UN-OFFICIAL ESCALATION PROCESS (messenger):
[me] Hey dude, could you please reset my password? it expired this morning and i need to check my emails
[dude] hey friend, yes, give me 5 mins and i'll be right back
2 minutes later....
[dude] ok so what was your password?
[me] XYZXYZYYZXYZ
25 seconds later....
[dude] ok i've re-set it...
[me] great! let me try it...
Done. Total time: 145 seconds (not rounded)...

Then people wonders why they don't like to use the official escalation process....

Lego Stats and Facts

2009-11-25T11:24:00.006+01:00

I've always been a Lego fan, since when my grandmother gave me my first lego back in 1979 (this one!)

Then i grew up, and as a teenager there is no way you'd admit to anyone that you still like lego (right?!?) and i "forgot" about Lego for a very long time. Until i turned 27ish... then the latent kid-side turned on suddenly, thanks to the RIS 1.0 (that gave me the perfect excuse to buy a Lego set: i had to have it as you could build robotics inventions and program those with a computer!).. and so this is how i got back into my child-hood and started to collect Legos as i used to in the '80s.
But how big is Lego? how popular is it? I've been searching some interesting stats and facts and here is the most affascinating ones i've discovered.

LEGO stats:

400.000.000.000 - There have been 400 billion LEGO elements made in the 50 years of the brick (since 1958).
4.000.000.000 - Four billion mini-figures have been made since 1978. - this means that every 100 lego bricks created, 1 is a mini-fig!
915,103,765 - Six eight-stud Lego bricks of the same colour can be put together in 915,103,765 ways, and just three bricks of the same colour offer 1,560 combinations. The figure of 102,981,500 is often given for six pieces, but it is incorrect. The number 102,981,504 (four more than that figure) is the number of six-piece towers (of a height of six).
306,000,000 - The LEGO Group is the world's largest tire producer, with an annual production of 306 millions.
62 - There are enough LEGO bricks in the world for each human to own 62.
32 - "Legot" (or "leegot"), plural form of "lego" (or "leego") is also used as a Finnish slang term for human teeth (32), because of the rectangular shape of the teeth.
7 - LEGO sets sell somewhere in the world every second.
7 - It takes about 7 seconds in the mould for a LEGO element to cool from 232 degrees celcius.
5 - End to end, the number of LEGO bricks sold in a year would go around the word 5 times.

New dress for this blog

2009-11-24T14:32:00.005+01:00

So, I finally decided today to change a little bit this blog's dress to refresh its look a little bit. Now I'm fine with it as it seems much cleaner and less "flashy" :-)

Afterall we all judge books by their cover, don't we?

Interesting to note how in two years Blogger didn't update much the toold that can be added to the page.. but i have to admit that this interface is dummy-proof, so works very well unless you really want to start customizing thigs around a lot.

Maybe i will change the color scheme in the next few days, but given that time is always my enemy, i guess this is how the blog will look like for a very long time.

If you travel a lot...

2009-11-23T17:12:00.008+01:00

.. you can't miss the opportunity to get yourself a fully working mouse that is also small enough to easily fit in your desktop case without making it look oddly shaped....

So far until yesterday i thought the only solution was to use a mini-mouse, but i've always found myself very unconfortable with those tiny devices, and changing the mouse while travelling and while working @ my desk is not a nice option either (as i'm lazy and i can't be bothered getting used to one or the other too often)....

Anyway, my old mouse finally broke last week, and i've speent some time looking for the best compromise between size (i like to feel the mouse in my hand when i use it) and portability (i don't want it to fill the entire laptop-case internal pocket)... then today I came across the latest Microsoft Arc Mouse. It's basically a foldable full-sized mouse. Looks great and, even if it's morern derigned, it's also very confy to use! :-)

I had an HP wireless mouse and it's a pity this new one doesn't work with the same wireless usb dongle, but, hey...

you can't always get what you want

Live from Madrid

2009-11-15T20:34:00.013+01:00

Here I am... after 2 hours flight and few kids screaming in the seats behind me i've finally landed and reached the hotel. Didn't take any picture yet, mainly because i have been very busy playing with my new toy, the Sony ebook reader - pocket version (AKA as PRS 300.. )

The reason i choose this version instead of the touch version is mainly because i want to be able to read a book and the touch in my opinion has a big problem when it comes to this aspect: the screen is way too glossy... which is a bit disappointing for an e-Reader where it all should end up with a nice, confortable reading session.

I've been using this e-Reader for a month now and I have to say that it was defenetly worth the price i've paid for it (180 pounds @Harrods, London). Feature-wise this reader doesn't have anything: no memory card reader, no search feature, no nothing. But it does it's job really well: you can read under almost any light conditions (except the dark, as it doens't have any backlight) and it's really pocket size, as it fits in my internal jacket pocket easily even in it's pouch.

Compatibility-wise i've managed to use PDF standard file mainly and it does offer 3 zoom levels (but the 1st level is almost impossible to read and i always use it at the 2nd zoom level). i've also used to read MS word document (.doc format, not the .docx version) and it works smoothly. So far it only crashed once but hard reset got it back to work.

By the way: wondering what am i reading now? I'm currently finishing the first 3 books of the Asimov's Foundation trilogy... and i'm enjoying each page of it!

i'm back

2009-11-13T17:00:00.001+01:00

After 2 years of "lazyness" i'm back (mainly because i've faced soome problems maintaining the domain manuelmontanari(dot)com). So i'm here, hoping to have time to update this blog. Welcome back Manuel! :-)

Nielsen//NetRatings - Scott Ross talks about Video Tagging

2007-07-31T11:42:00.001+02:00

In this interview gave to beet.tv Scott Ross talks about Nielsen//NetRatings Video Tagging and how to track properly the long tail with more depth. He describes both top-down and bottom-up approaches, and explains how VideoCensus works.

Please translate this for me!

2007-06-04T12:22:00.003+02:00

I've decided, from now on, to write my posts in English. This due the recent comments i've got.

1 - Google translator italian/english sounds very very bad.

2 - While my english is not so good, it is much better then google's

3 - writing in english allows me to add more translating tools in the side bar (coming soon!)

So, while i apologize with my italian friends, i'm sure that all others will appreciete the effort!