Although spring isn’t still in full swing there’s a sort of feeling in the air, a feeling of change, I can tell it by looking at people and not just by the weather. With all the bad news from all around the world a big laugh is what is needed to stay up with the mood and I had a definitely big laugh on Monday when I had the chance to attend to Zelig Circus, the most followed comic TV show in Italy, thanks to the staff of Il Sole.
We had a small booth inside the tent’s show and we took care of distributing leaflets of the charity association to the 1800 people who were lucky enough to get a ticket for the show. I can say it’s an impressive sensation when all those people clap their hands together while laughing at the jokes performed by the Zelig’s demential characters, it’s very different from the small screen experience.
I wasn’t allowed to take pictures during the recordings, but I took some before and after. The first two you see here are TV captures depicting the stage with the presenters Claudio Bisio and Vanessa Incontrada at the beginning of the show and the energetic Papy Ultras (Pino Campagna), one of my favorites!
I hope to be able to repeat the experience, in the meantime I spotted some interesting discounts in the PocketLand special offers, so I think I’ll make some software shopping for my Pocket PC in the next days before the discounts expire. I just asked the activation of a discount code for EcPc to give the chance to anyone interested to add even my software to their Easter shopping cart. The code is 19570032670125A, it expires after 1st April and is automatically applied if you reach the special offers page.

        

Update: I had the luck to actually repeat the Zelig Circus experience. It was even better than the first one since I attended the last recording of the season, a very special one. Here in the forum I posted a complete photographic report, with comments in Italian!

I was uncertain until the end about going or not to the Cebit 2005, then I decided to not leave since that wasn’t the kind of journey I could just wake up and go as I did with the 3GSM in Cannes. The long travel to Hannover did require some careful planning, especially for the accommodation, something I didn’t in time. No problems, it will be for the next year and fortunately I’ve been able to read many excellent reports from the event, although that can’t substitute the feeling of being right there.
The VGA version of EcPc is at a good point, I completed all the new Hires graphics and I’m putting a Beta together right now. I’ll post a preview in the forum once ready.
Do you know the Handango Champion Awards? They’re the annual awards by Handango honoring the best in their mobile software catalogue. The deadline is Thursday, March 24th, so I’d like to invite you to vote EcPc by clicking here and following these directions: select Windows Mobile Pocket PC in the first question about the operating system, then on the second page select the Best Application for Life category, write Euro Coins Pocket Collector in the application name field, Albegor Entertainment as developer, 81123 as Product ID, leave your e-mail address and your brief motivation if you want.
You can read more about the awards and the winners of the last year clicking here.
This week I presented a project to the Alessandro Volta Center for Scientific Culture and during the discussion I had with one of their engineers, Matteo Baracani, I was pleased of the compliments for the all the work I did until now and the awards EcPc granted me, something which probably exceeds the value of the degree I did not get (yet), the infamous Italian “piece of paper” for friends.
Well, I ended the discussion with a joke and told him that if I ever had 1 Euro for each compliment I got now I would be like… and he told “Bill Gates”!
We laughed, but the true is that it was a bitter laugh for me. It’s curious how people always think about Mr. Gates when it comes to talking about software and money. I don’t need the money he has to make up for a decent life, although I do recognize some of it is needed to bring to completion good ideas, so I hope they’ll evaluate positively my project so that I can start working seriously on it. It could turn into my most important project for this year.
In the meantime if you want you can vote for EcPc in the Handango Champion Awards, thanks!

I don’t know if you noticed it, but now I’ve got a 5 cents Euro coin from Monaco in my personal collection.
I found it by chance the last summer and I think this remains the best way to find what you’re searching for because it’s so easy to think Lady Luck kissed you for an instant.
Collecting satisfactions aside, I dedicated only a few of my time to play the marketing guy after the release of the new version of EcPc since I’m working hard on the VGA version since I’m going to bring it to the Cebit 2005 in a few days. I can only say that the coins looks even better than the real ones with so much pixels available now!
However in the meantime I’ve managed to propose an interesting exclusive discount only for the subscribers of PPCThoughts.
I became a subscriber some months ago because I wanted to support what actually is my favorite website which keeps me updated every day of this crazy mobile world, so I wanted to give something back to that community by offering to paying subscribers a 50% discount on the regular price of EcPc. Consider this another privilege of being a PPCThoughts subscriber.
I’m adding a few new translations to EcPc, they are Hungarian, Greek and Dutch, but I’ll wait to get at least a consistent part of the translation before adding them to the current list. The Spanish one could benefit from some help from a native language speaker, so you’ll be welcome if you can as soon as possible, thanks.