As the work on the forum is progressing nicely I’ve taken some time to update the Magazine Reviews section with a nice article about Ecpc appeared on the October issue of the French magazine Palmtops.
I’ve also added a new question to the FAQ page and most importantly I’ve built a table in the Wishlist page to show the current status of the translations of Ecpc in the various European languages, as long as the names of the kind people taking care of them.
Would you like to join them translating Ecpc in the language of your home country?

Yesterday has been a very pleasant day since I attended to the Windows Revolutions event in Milan, in which Microsoft’s staff, in a very informal and friendly atmosphere, presented to a public of developers some very interesting features of Longhorn, the future successor of Windows XP, Yukon, the successor of SQL Server and Whidbey, the next version of Visual Studio .NET.
At the end of the presentation Microsoft has been kind enough to bring the attendees to the nearby theater Arcadia for the showing of the movie Matrix Revolutions.
I don’t want to write anything about the movie, especially how it ends, but I can say this THX Certified theater makes up for an incredible audiovisual experience, in particular for this kind of movies.
Thanks to Microsoft then, who always treats his developers very well. Let’s hope they’ll organize similar events in the future, but more focused on mobile devices.
Now let’s back to work since I’ve got the forum to open, among other things…

I saved this update for some time waiting for the most appropriate moment to post it, and here is it, hoping it can bring a bit of distraction in such a delicate moment in which all Italy is keeping tight around the 19 young victims in Nasiriya.
This shot comes from the award winning film Life is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni I’ve re-watched on DVD some weeks ago. Being a truly work of genius with so many details making up for a great film about the love for life, I spotted this curious scene in which Guido (Roberto Benigni) is trying to help his friend Ferruccio (Sergio Bini Bustric) to get in touch with Mrs. Guicciardini (Lidia Alfonsi), so that she can publish Ferruccio’s poetry works. They had a little trouble in that right moment, but thanks to Guido, Ferruccio will quickly grasp this great opportunity.
Well, if you have the luck of having a friend like him you can bet you’ll be published everywhere!
But for anyone else the Internet is an invaluable resource to reach the same objective nowadays.
The real problem comes after publishing something, as I’m experiencing at first hand, because even if your work is good it’s so easy to pass unnoticed in the frenetic traffic flow of the super-information highway.
I briefly addressed the question in my tutorial about Pocket PC development since there’s no doubt it’s a serious question for any independent developer.
A wonderful film, by the way.

Oh, and if you have the DVD you shouldn’t miss the interview of Benigni, in particular when he answers to the question about how ideas are born and he says it would take much more space on the DVD to fully explain it!

This is a very bad day for Italy, especially for the families of our soldiers involved in the kamikaze attack to the Carabinieri’s headquarters in Nasiriya, Iraq, as you can read here on CNN.
However the show must go on, as they say with a bit of cynicism, and I’ve got two important updates for the visitors of my website: first of all I’ve updated the Reviews page with the nice backstage pictures of my interview at Netc@fé and also the pictures of the Mobile Fun Awards.
Then #GameProg-Ita, which currently has some server problems, announced the results of the Best Tutorial Contest.
You can find my tutorial about Pocket PC development at this page, along with the comments of the jury. Aside from the result of the contest I hope this will be an useful resource for the very small Italian game development community and I’ll promise to translate my tutorial in English and publish it here on my website as soon as possible.
Although I loved to read the comments from Marco Trivellato of Milestone and from the other jurors, the results clearly rewarded the submissions much more technical than mine but, after all, it was the Best Tutorial Contest, not the Best Paper Contest!
Congratulations to the winner, Federico “NinjaCross” Coletto!

As you can see in the Download&Buy page Ecpc version 1.2 is now available also from the German e-shop Pocketland.de, an important reference point for German speaking Europeans.
Collecting translations is not as easy as collecting Euro coins, but as you can read on Mipcdebolsillo, a nice website managed by Julio Meneses, it seems I’ve found someone who can help translating Ecpc into Spanish language. Also, thanks to the announcement of the new release appeared here on Aximsite, Wannahave, a moderator of the forum, will be kind enough to translate Ecpc into Dutch.
Very good then, but the translation in French is very high priority now since it has been delayed for too long, unfortunately!
I think this release is mature enough for some serious reviews, so I’ll be actively searching for interested reviewers. Wannahave for example is already planning to make a review for Aximsite.

Ecpc version 1.2 has just been released and you can check out the list of the nice improvements in the Updates page!
To understand that this is a big release you’ve just to take a look at the new features, which also include the complete translation in German!

I’ve also made minor updates to some pages of the website and uploaded my updated collection files in the Swapping page, so check them out. I wanted to open the new Forum at the same time of the announcement of the new release, but I’ve still a lot of work to properly configure and customize it, so I’ll announce its opening in a few days.
Meanwhile you can enjoy the new release!

As promised the videos of my interview at Netc@fé are now online in a special section of the Reviews page. I tried to compress them as much as possible, but without wasting their quality, so that you can also admire Maria in all her beauty!
Now I can concentrate on the last few steps before the release of the new version 1.2 of Ecpc, a big release since it introduces some new important features like the Compare&Swap mode and of course the full German translation.
Is there something better than to release the new version just after winning an award and after a nice TV interview?
Oh, a friend had a very funny answer to this question, but it wouldn’t be too polite to report it here!

So, why was the last Friday so special for me? Well, because it was my first time on TV!
I still can’t believe it! After winning the award I’ve been invited by the regional TV channel Telelombardia, at Netc@fé, their weekly talk-show about new technologies run by Gabriele Di Matteo with the help of the beautiful Greek Maria Remi and Bettina.
I had the opportunity to not only show the award, but also to talk about Ecpc, the program that made me win it, to show some Euro coins of my collection and talk a bit about me.
What a week! The flue didn’t allowed me to enjoy it at its fullest, but the flue is going away while the award and the TV attendance will certainly stay!
I’m waiting 23:00 (GMT+1) to be able to record the TV talk-show so that I can put the video of my interview on my website in the next days.
I even took some nice backstage photos with Maria and Bettina, but more details later.
Meanwhile, to celebrate this, I’ve opened the About page in which you can read some more personal details about me and my programming experience, as well as seeing my Business Card made by a friend, a talented graphics artist, which includes the new logo you can now see on the top left.