Passwords at Safe with eWallet 5.0

eWalletTell me the truth.. where are you storing passwords to access sites, read email or log on to your PC?

In a simple text file or even on a paper note? 😉

Well, in that case it’s useless hoping nothing bad will ever happen because it will happen!

It’s not good news but it’s statistic data: identity theft is a growing threat and the source of never ending hassles even before we could even notice it. 😥

I did this sort of inattention too, then I understood and I began using a software to safely store my passwords and other personal data. It was fundamental for me that such software run on both the desktop and PDA and I choose eWallet by Iliumsoft since it seemed the best solution.

It actually changed everything. Now my data is always safe and at hand when I travel with my PDA: it’s all a matter of habits!

Now that they released version 5.0 they added a lot of improvements both to the graphics and the synchronization capabilities between the PC and the PDA, so it’s very easy to use.

Send Murphy’s Law to the hell and trash the paper notes with the passwords!

It’s a weak system for your security, much more than not keeping updated the antivirus or the operative system.

Before trashing them be sure to add the data to your favorite electronic wallet! 😉

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Flavio Oreglio in Como for Il Sole

Could something ever exist better than doing charity while having fun? 🙂

I don’t think so, especially in these times, but it’s exactly what will happen on sunday evening if you’ll come to the Teatro Sociale in Como where Flavio Oreglio, the great cathartic poet from Zelig, will perform in a musical show whose profits will go to Il Sole, the local Onlus working on distance adoptions and international cooperation projects.

Their project Reborning Flowers, aimed to give psychological support to child victims of rape in Addis Abeba in Ethiopia, is having a difficult time due to the critical situation in the area and I think Flavio will talk about it during the show. Another reason to contribute to such a delicate project while spending a special evening, not only different.

Tickets go from 25 to 10 Euros.

Mrs. Olivia Piro, Il Sole’s president, yesterday evening told me she’s dreaming of a theater at full… let’s help her making the dream come true! 😉

Oreglio al Teatro Sociale

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Mens Sana In Corpore Sano at the Palestra 100

Palestra100Romans had a pretty deep knowledge about the search for harmony between mind and body to keep ourselves in shape and feeling active and lively. So why don’t try listening to our wise ancestors? 😉

I was really missing this kind of harmony, but since I tried going to the gym to put back in shape my back, aching due to long hours spent working with the PC, I finally understood the true meaning of that phrase.

Recently it has been thanks to the Palestra 100 that I realized how much a pleasant environment can help physical training.

The three months I spent at the gym before leaving for the Vespatour have been really invaluable to engage in such an intensive and often tiring journey.

Because of this I’d like to thank the people who made pleasant the experience at the gym. From Angelo Sguazzero, the director, a former hundred meter runner and athletic trainer in some Serie A Italian football teams, who with his interest for psychology applied to physical training really surprised me about things very few trainers even take into consideration.

Also thanks to his daughter Silvia, a former dance champion, and to Elisa I learned to do stretching by breathing correctly, a thing that has now become a good early morning habit. Not to speak about the other trainers and the fantastic SPA (Salus per aquam) area, a real relax paradise. If the hydromassage, the sauna and the turkish bath are not enough, there are Veronica e Tania, two massagers able to make your back melt! :mrgreen:

It’s not the cheapest gym in Como at all, but it’s really worth it in my opinion.

These aren’t words written for convenience or hidden purposes, it’s actually an appreciation for a place where I find myself at ease, so I’ll be happy if this post will be useful in promoting the gym.

I sent them one of the only two postcards (the other one ismore personal) I wrote and sent during the Vespatour to thank them for making me understand what actually means Mens sana in corpore sano. 🙂

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The Ions of the Marmore Falls

When I told to my friend Lydia I was planning a journey around Italy on my Vespa, she recommended me to visit the Marmore Falls.

So, on the way to Rome, starting from Melezzole di Montecchio in Umbria, I decided to spend the afternoon at the falls.

I reached the area a few minutes before they released the water, since they stop it at regular times to power up the nearby hydroelectric plant, and I stared at the impressive increasing flux of water while a rainbow took shape at the bottom of the first 90 meters long fall. 😀

The air around the falls was crisp and fresh. There was such a feeling of wellness that I totally forgot the bad cold I got during the previous days.

They say there are negative ions in these areas due to the water falling onto the rocks and that the ions help cleaning the air by making bad particles precipitate.

When I read that modern air cleaners/ionizers works with this principle, I ordered one and after a couple of months in my bedroom I can say it really made a difference.

Now I installed the machine in my office and I attached to it the second picture you can see here.

I feel better just by looking at it, and the air feels much better in a place where I’m now spending a lot of time.

Thanks to Lydia for the tip about the Marmore Falls! 🙂

Marmore FallsMarmore FallsMarmore Falls

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Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

20 centI was really curious to see it!

I’m talking about the famous sculpture by Umberto Boccioni represented on the italian 20 cents Euro coins, whose bronze reproduction is now exposed at Palazzo Reale in Milan in an exhibition curated by Laura Mattioli Rossi focused on the sculptural work of the futurist artist.

I managed to see all the artworks represented on the italian Euro coins, most of them this summer during the Vespatour: Castel del Monte near Bari on the 1 cent coins, the Mole Antonelliana in Turin on the 2 cents, the Colosseum on the 5 cents, the Birth of Venus in Florence on the 10 cents, the Marcus Aurelius’s equestrian statue in Rome on the 50 cents, while I “met”, so to say, the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo and Dante more than once during the tuscan part of the journey.

We have so many artworks in Italy and in my opinion they made the best choices for the coins designs. 🙂

The sculpture by Boccioni is really fascinating, starting from its name. It shows such a dynamism and fusion between the human body and the surrounding air, really unique to say the least!

Even the comment by the curator I listened through the audioguide was good.

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End of The Year Thought 2006

ConanMaking a sum of a whole year?

365 days I lived more dangerously than ever? 😯

Well, a lot of things happened: the turning point on the project now called i-muse thanks to the two guys I put on alert with a simple SMS on last New Year’s Day, the hard work on the Net-Taylor innovation project for the Sartoria Orefice, the Vespatour, the summer solo-tour on my Vespa around Italy that opened my eyes on the beauties of our country, some books that made me change – not because they’re miraculous, but because I read them while I was ready to change -, the suffering for a love affair…

All of this while I was still working as a waiter in a local pub whose owner had the kindness to kick me out after an apocalyptic night, with no appeal and as I was the last one who got working there. A rudeness I did forgive but not forgot, since it has been a work which gave me much more than it may appear to whoever looks at it with the eyes of the right-minded. 🙄

All in all a lot of things that made me grow up. And the more I think about where I am now, the more I’m sure that nothing could have happened if I hadn’t been involved in the project of the Sartoria Orefice, where I found people so kind to confront and work with on an delicate innovation project which is now considered as a case study, a project that made me grow up both professionally and humanly.

As always, it’s a combination of positive factors producing excellence, while a negative one is enough to unleash Murphy’s law! 😉

Even the last year I wrote an End of the Year Thought 2005, but I didn’t published it, a sign of a not too happy period. I do it now on the new blog since I saved it in my notes. I invite you to read it because it’s still current, unfortunately.

I wish you a happy 2007, the year of the pig! 😀

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The Coming of i-muse

Do you know what a purple cow is?

It’s a marketing concept invented by Seth Godin to represent a remarkable product.

Remarkable in the sense that it’s so attractive in its market sector to become a commercial success. We think we have a purple cow, and now that we registered the trademark we can reveal what it’s all about: i-muse is not only a PDA guide for museums and art exhibitions, an innovative tool for the visitor well beyond traditional audioguides, but most of all is the entrepreneurial project by three young guys from Como who believed to be able to create something important starting from scratch! 🙂

The logo is self-explanatory, born from a flash of genius by Luca and generated by Guido’s hint, the people to whom at the beginning of 2006 I proposed working on what was then an idea without a true form.

I got the idea while I was using an audioguide during my visit to the Joan Mirò’s exhibition in 2004 in Como. Back then I was developing software for PDAs, I knew their potentialities, and then I asked myself: why not making a guide running on PDA? 💡

In 2005, thanks to the voucher for technology innovation issued by Regione Lombardia, I committed a due diligence study to the Centro Volta, which is actually located in Villa Olmo where Mirò’s exhibition took place. From that point it took me some time to realize how I had to go on: I had to find the right people, people with the skills I was missing.

I talked to Guido, a marketing expert, an old friend I didn’t see for a long time, and to Luca, a great graphics artist with an experience in the videogames industry.

Thanks to them since the beginning of 2006 things went on at the right pace. We explored different paths, analyzed all the components of the project and finalized the application design. Slow but well since we were doing something else for a living.

After the award at the Startcup 2006 there has been the acceleration: the cash prize ( it’s better starting with a little, but a minimum is absolutely necessary 😉 ) and most of all the office inside the incubator at the Politecnico.

We also reached the finals of the ObiettivoICT contest, whose benefits will come the next year.

2007 is the year of the pig as the Chinese friends of Ciren told me.

Does that mean it will bring abundance even for us, in every sense? :mrgreen:

We hope so, in the meantime in the category i-muse you can find all the posts related to the project, a category I’ll keep alive and well while the work on the project continues.

i-muse

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The Delicious Cioccolardini

It’s incredible but even Google doesn’t know it!

If you search for the word cioccolardini, the result, at least until now, is that it suggests searching for cioccolatini (chocolates). However, the Cioccolardini do exist!

I discovered them last summer during the Vespatour, my solo-journey around Italy riding a Vespa, while I was visiting lard shops in Colonnata, a little tuscan town at the center of the quarry caves area, renowned for its delicious lard, maturated inside tubs made of a particular variety of marble.

In one of the lard shops a kind tuscan sir let me taste some lard and while I was concerned about the fact that I couldn’t take away some of it, since I couldn’t properly preserve it until I got home, I noticed the chocolates. They’re made with fondant chocolate, honey, hazel paste and that touch of lard making them a real treat. 😮

So delicious that I ate a whole box just before leaving Colonnata while I was seating near my Vespa in the small town square.

I promised myself to order some of them for relatives and friends, so what could be the best time than Christmas to share a bit of sweetness in a season that seems to have lost its magic, that of the present given for the pleasure to give and not for convenience, habit or profit?

I ordered so many boxes to be able to make happy my dearest friends, using for some of them a Christmas card of Il Sole on which I wrote an aphorism accurately chosen for the receiver. The result has been great! 😀

I think the people at La Marmifera, the lard shop where I discovered the Cioccolardini, will be glad for the free promotion, they earned it.

Hurrah for the Cioccolardini even Google didn’t know! 😉

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We’ve Been Incubated!

Ok, it’s a bad expression which can give cause for never ending witty remarks, but for the three of us, me, Luca and Guido, recently awarded at the Startcup 2006, the regional contest for startup creation, the meaning is pretty clear: other than the cash prize by the Chamber of Commerce of Como, our real target was the incubation! 🙂

We’re now hosted (incubated!) in the startup accelerator of the Polo Regionale di Como of the Politecnico di Milano.

We finally have an office, at the third floor of the building in Piazzale Gerbetto, where we can continue working on the project we started powered only by enthusiasm and hard work, aiming since the beginning to a result of excellence.

The office is fully operative by now from a technical point of view, while we still have a lot to do for what concerns furnishings, especially after we’ve seen how the girls of Ciren and Urbano Creativo, neo-incubated at the second floor, set up their office.

We really need a female touch for that! :mrgreen:

Professor Negrini, who gave us the award at the Startcup, told us this was his office before he moved to the Politecnico’s building in Via Anzani. Really a privilege considering how much I think highly of him.

During the introductory meeting of the new startups he used a very motivating expression: “Now you’re entrepreneurs!” he told us.

Personally I do rely a lot on the network of competences that can be established among the ten startups now incubated in Como and it’s actually a pleasure being able to discuss and relate with other companies operating in the same sector. From these relations new interesting opportunities can be generated.

After the pizza-dinner with Luca and Guido to celebrate our first meeting in the office, as you can see in the pic, and the usual tea break at 17 ò clock with MetalC’s staff at the third floor, we can say that being incubated is not a bad thing at all! 😛

Piazzale GerbettoGuido Luca Davide

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What the Hell is This?

Albegor's Blog

If you got here on the blog for the first time thanks to the flier I gave out during these days it means it worked! 💡

It made curious whoever noticed it to get him on the Internet and have a look at what it was really about.

The graphics of the flier is the result of the suggestions by some friends and it ties up the three elements composing my logo with the arguments of the blog: a stylized hand inspired by the painting of the Creation by Michelangelo visible on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel represents my passion for creativity in all its forms, the arrow has the shape of the Lake of Como since I like writing about arguments related to my town, and the disc has a series of abbreviations the informatics technology is full of and which often make the users’ life a mess instead of simplifying it. For this reason the names of the Donald Duck’s nephews, Qui, Quo and Qua, put some irony about the technology paradox. 😉

Finally I can leave the obsolete structure of the old blog and start using the new one thanks to the WordPress platform, powerful and flexible at the same time.

Thanks to the Gengo plug-in for example, I can write posts both in italian and english and the the user automatically view them according to his browser’s language setting. You can read the posts in the other language by clicking on the link on the right panel listing the most recent posts.

Not to mention the organization of the numerous post in categories, six for now: Como, Euro coins, Mobile, Net-Taylor, Personal, Software and Vespatour 2006, or even the possibility to browse the whole archive containing 240 posts, month by month, up to the first one I wrote on july 16, 2003, or searching for a specific word inside the whole blog.

Last but not least is the chance to leave comments. Finally you can keep in check my bad tongue whenever I really go over the line! 😳

Or simply you can have your say about an argument of interest to you. Discussion is the salt of communication, even if we’re all a bit stunned by too much TV, mobile phones or even the Internet itself. 😉

There’s still some work to be done to complete the graphics of the theme and new pages to add, but it’s a bit like moving into a new home after all: a thing at a time it’s even funnier.

Thanks for your visit! I hope you’ll get back because you like the blog contents and not only the container, WordPress, which is really useful and makes the blog user friendly.

To do that you could keep in mind the address – but it’s proven, it doesn’t work well -, or you can subscribe to the updates notification service. You can also use the RSS feed and I’ll wrote more about this soon.

I’ve already got about ten sparkling post drafts to publish in the next days… Brrr…let’s shudder together!*

*A quote from Marina Massironi, an italian comedian. 😛

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