$297 for over $3000 Worth of Windows Mobile Software?!?
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Software on July 8, 2006
Would such an offer be too good to be true?
Oh no, it’s real actually, since the sentence is the slogan of the 2006 Best of Everything Software Package, a package containing the latest versions of winners and finalists from the Best Software Awards 2005, the annual contest organized by the american Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine.
As I previously wrote, EcPc QVGA was a finalist in the 2005 edition of the contest, so it has been included into the package together with 130 of the very best applications and games available for Windows Mobile devices.
I’m satisfied to see my software listed among other great Pocket PC applications and I’ve been even more glad to read the comment by one of the judges, Jack Cook, Senior Editor of Mobility Today, when they announced the finalists. Below you can see a scan of the certificate they sent me. 🙂
For the details of the offer please go to the official website, there’s even a Value Calculator, an Excel precompiled file, to help you determine if the total of the software you’d like to buy exceeds the package price. Very useful addition in my opinion.
They also put together a Best of Everything Smartphone Software Package, selling for $139, which includes over $600 worth of software only for Windows Mobile-based Smartphones. If you have a bunch of Windows Mobile software in your wishlist I’d suggest you to browse the contents of those packages, since the probability to find most of them inside them is high.
There’s also the The Best of Everything Demo CD which is part of the main package and contains the demo versions of the software. It’s free to 2 year subscribers, but you can order it separately for 15$.
Being a developer I agreed to make my software available free of charge to other developers whose products have been included into the package and who choose the same option to share their software. I consider a nice opportunity being able to share software among developers, a sort of digital fair play. Not all of them agreed to this opportunity, but most did, so another thumbs up for the makers of the package. 😉
Speaking about latest versions, I’ll probably release version 1.6 of EcPc before I’ll leave for holidays on august, so that you can upgrade from version 1.5, which is in the package. At the same time we’re building the new EcPc website. It looks great but it will take some time to complete.
The Riddle of the Tailor and the Software Developer
Posted by Albegor in Como, Net-Tailor, Software on June 19, 2006
Whatever could a tailor and a software developer have in common?
I couldn’t answer that until few months ago, when I started working on a technology innovation project commissioned by a prestigious tailor shop in Cernobbio, Sartoria Orefice, under the scientific coordination of the Centro Volta research center. I wrote a bit about this project in the past updates and now that we’re getting closer to its completion, I have been allowed to write more about it.
Sartoria Orefice is one of the few small enterprises in this high quality market sector, renowned for excellence not only in Italy but also in many countries of the world, so much so that a lot of customers come to Cernobbio from abroad to ask Mr. Lino and his son Cleto, who now runs the business, to create the perfect suit for them.
Back to the initial riddle, I am convinced the most appropriate answer consists in one simple word: Elegance! 🙂
Consider the hard work the tailor, guided only by his experience, make every day with such simple tools as needle and thread. Compare it now with the work I did during the last months with tools only apparently more complicated such as bits and bytes to create a hardware and software system which will make Orefice’s work much more efficient and profitable.
Especially the software part was made to measure, as they say, and the end result is as elegant as a finely handcrafted suit. 😉
They’ll be able to expand their business with this system, in fact the reason they invested in it in the first place is because they strongly believe in its potential.
I was happy to find such great people to work with: Cleto, Lino, their kind staff and Matteo from the Centro Volta. By working side to side with them I had the pleasure to learn some of the secrets of a craftsmanship as old as the hills, and fine-tuned by 5 generations of tailors. This year they’re celebrating 150 years since the first Orefice started the business in 1856.
This project gave me the chance to gain experience in a number of fields, from the development of custom software to the latest videosurvelliance and videoconferencing IP-based hardware, Sony’s products in particular, but, above all, gave me the opportunity to learn to deal with people in the best way, understanding their needs and turning a problem into an efficient working solution.
I’d love to apply this kind of approach to another small localcompany . The staff at the Centro Volta is ready to enroll me again, should someone request their direct assistance in a technology innovation project, maybe along the lines of the IComo initiative.
You could contact me directly if you prefer, while if you need a high quality Made-in-Italy suit now you know who call. 😉
With their new system Cleto and his father will be able to assist you all the way from the choice of the fabric to the finest details of your suit, even if you live on the other side of the globe.
Recently I came across a significant quote by Einstein which inspired me the initial riddle:
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Love Your Cat, Hate Its Litter
This is weird… take a deep breath because this is really weird! 🙂
Do you have a cat? Does he live in your house? If so you can’t but love it as you created a special relationship with him since it entered your home and actually took possession of it. 😉
So do I with my cat Willy and if you too have a cat then we have a little problem in common: the litter!
You have to take care of it, keeping it clean, regularly refilling it with new sand and disposing of your pet’s waste since it can’t do that by himself.
And here comes the solution: it’s named Litter Kwitter and it’s meant to gradually train your cat to use the toilet!
Well, I told you this was pretty weird… as weird as a genial solution to a common problem that no one has thought of yet can be.
The idea of the Litter Kwitter came to the australian entrepreneur Jo Lapidge by watching the movie with Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro, Meet the Parents. In the movie you can see the superb performance of the cat, Mr. Jinks, using De Niro’s toilet.
So Jo designed a system to train a pet to do the same. There are three steps to follow to make him getting used to climb onto the toilet pan, putting the claws in the right position, keeping steady and quietly performing his intimate business.
The three stages are well explained on the Litter Kwitter official website and in the DVD included with the package.
I purchased it since I was amazed by this idea and the advantages resulting from a successful training: no more litter and a bit more hygiene at home!
Cats are smart, you know that very well if you live with one, or even more than one, but they are also creatures of habit, so you should proceed very carefully with this method if you want to obtain a positive result.
Willy is doing well, he’s still at the red stage, almost ready to go to the amber one, and with patience and the right encouragement I think he’ll be fully trained within a few weeks.
Thanks to Jo for her invention then, now I wonder if she’ll come out with a new method to train cats to flush the water toilet also! 
Love your cat, they’re so special.
Il Sole and The White Night in Como
Il Sole, the sun in english. They couldn’t choose a better and more appropriate name for the dynamic ONLUS (Organization Non Lucrative for Social Affairs), recently become NGO (Non-Governmental Organization), dealing with distance adoptions and international cooperation projects, born in Como in 1997 from the initiative of Mrs. Olivia Piro.
Someone says the name is the most important thing for a person, so it is for Il Sole and the people involved in it as volunteers, since this name fully reflects the energy they have in the will to help children in distant countries such as India, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.
They’re always busy, but never forget to praise their achievements, so last week they had a small party to inaugurate the new offices in Como, their operative headquarters, twice as big as the previous one, but most of all located in a quieter area and lit by the sunlight most of the day, making it more pleasant for the volunteers to do their work. They also recently got a brand new Toyota Jeep from the Fondazione Comasca to be used in their operations in Burkina.
Now they’re preparing for a series of events organized for the incoming Notte Bianca di Como on june 10.
They’ll take the whole Piazza De Gasperi near the lake and the Funicolare station and will entertain the public all night long. Even four comedians from the popular Zelig italian TV show will perform on the stage. For one long night it will become the Piazza del Sole!
Can’t wait for it, even if there will be a lot of work to do as a volunteer! 🙂
At this time there are two initiatives if you want to support them: the annual lottery which will last until July 24 and the 5×1000 donation on the income declaration. You can get more information by visiting the website of Il Sole.
Touristech 2006 and Veronafil
Two intense days made the weekend fly more swiftly than usual. On friday I attended the Touristech event in Villa Erba and I spent most of saturday in Verona at the Veronafil philately and numismatics fair.
Touristech is the first event organized by Wireless dedicated to new technologies and digital innovation at the service of the cultural entertainment and hospitality services for tourists. For this meeting they couldn’t choose a better location than the beautiful Villa Visconti, located in the Villa Erba park in Cernobbio. It has been a long time since I had the chance to walk in that park, although I’m often in Cernobbio, and I hadn’t remembered how pleasant and relaxing it is. In fact it was the first time I wasn’t tired when I went home after a day full of conference presentations instead of what usually happens after similar events organized in Milan.
One of the moderators didn’t forget to mention they shot some sequences of the Ocean Twelve Hollywood movie there. After all the benefits of the presence of George Clooney in his villa in Laglio seem to be much more valuable than the works by Luchino Visconti…
The presentations were all interesting, especially for the fact that the subject matter is the basis of a software project I’m working on together with the group of people I assembled at the beginning of this year. People make the difference in everything and this project is shaping up thanks to them . 🙂
I met Paolo Conti, a journalist of Il Sole 24 Ore, the brilliant moderator of the recent Mobile Force & Office Forum 2006 and we had the chance to talk about the project.
After a morning of presentations by representatives of the major players of the tourism market in Italy, such as Touring Club among the others, the event closed with a series case histories of mobile technology applied to outdoor journeys, such as the PDA guide they’re experimenting with at the Villa Reale Park of Monza and the PDA guide currently in use at the Swiss National Park.
Then I spent saturday among the numerous small stands of coins and stamp collectors setup in one of the huge exhibition halls of Verona Fiere. Should I mention this had something to do with the work behind the PC version of EcPc? 😉
My focus were Euro coins of course, and I had the chance to meet some users from the LaMoneta.it Italian forum, but unexpectedly I came back home with a surprise as much as precious: I managed to get the Green Vespa, the only Vespa model ever made for the famous Kinder surprise toys series!
I got to know of this particular toy since I read the book Vroom with a view by Peter Moore and I’ll certainly have another chance to write more about that. 😉
IComo: Patents and Intellectual Property Rights
Posted by Albegor in Como, Net-Tailor, Software on May 14, 2006
Patents and intellectual property rights were the subject matter of the seminar organized by the research center Centro Volta related to the IComo: la fabbrica delle idee initiative, a project aimed to promote technology innovation among the local small and medium enterprises.
The meeting took place in Villa Olmo, the place chosen for the current exhibition devoted to Magritte, and consisted of a series of presentations by company managers and professional consultants involved in the delicate matter of tutelating intellectual property rights and exploiting the benefits and the added value of patents.
The current tendency is to consider a patent not only as a good tool of legal protection for a company’s idea or processing method, but also as an internal asset to make business with, a way of thinking americans already well know and effectively use. Testimonials of this were the managers of big companies such as ABB and Fiat with its CRF (Fiat Research Center).
From the conference clearly emerged that evaluating the convenience and opportunity of registering a patent is a delicate matter and requires the support of experts needed to perform a series of studies and researches in order to be able to produce a strong patent, which may be used as an effective protection tool especially for the local small enterprises constantly facing the counterfeiting phenomenon of a global market.
The innovation technology project I’m currently involved in, under the direct coordination of the Centro Volta, is evaluating these issues and after this seminar I’m even more convinced in the way of registering a patent to tutelate the work we’re doing and then make business with, if possible.
Registering a patent instead of maintaining an industrial secret inside a company has both advantages and disadvantages. With a patent your idea becomes public, but you tutelate yourself for the number of years you’re going to do business with. On the opposite think about the Coca-Cola formula for example. They say they didn’t patent it, so it still remains an industrial secret.
Software is an even more delicate matter if inserted in the patent issue, but that was not discussed in the meeting. The EU Commission is still debating about software patents and since they’re considered a big obstacle to innovation, especially by small developers, I suggest you to read about the NoSoftwarePatents campaign.
The conference ended with a funny and smart presentation by a lawyer who gave the audience some significant examples of the way of working in our country compared to the US. They seem to be different planets in this particular matter, not only by the numbers involved. 😉
René Magritte in Como: L’Empire des Lumières
Le basier, La saveur des larmes and L’empire des lumières.
These are the three paintings by René Magritte which impressed me the most during the visit to the exhibition now taking place in Como. An exhibition that is getting a lot of positive comments both from the critics and from the public and will probably reach and then exceed the number of visitors of the two exhibitions devoted to Picasso (77,000 visitors) and Mirò (70,000) which have taken place in the same rooms of the awesome Villa Olmo in the last two years.
I really liked it and I recommend that you visit the MagritteComo website to get the right directions to come in Como and visit the exhibition. It will last until july16th.
I spent two hours admiring all of the 80 creations of the Belgian Genius and I felt relaxed and enriched when I exited the Villa. I used the word Genius since he refused the title of “artist”, preferring the title “thinking man”, since he considered himself as someone who communicated thoughts through painting just as others did using music or writing.
Villa Olmo and its park on the lake is the perfect place to host such surrealist pieces of art. Inside the Villa they used the Dilumo, which stands for Dispositivi luminosi mobili” (mobile lightning devices). They’re light metal structures covered with the black sheet used in theatrical sets. Every piece is illuminated by optical fibers. That’s the only light in the exhibition and contributes a lot to the mysterious atmosphere you can feel along the route.
I read some interesting things about the life of Magritte and in particular I recall that he enjoyed inviting groups of friends to show them the latest paintings and play the “title game” to choose the title for them. 🙂
Too bad audioguides you can use along the exhibition only covered 22 of the 80 pieces. Probably I won’t miss the chance to visit it a second time, maybe accompanied by a real guide! 😉
In my opinion, mobile technology could be very useful in this kind of events and in fact it’s the subject matter of a project I’ve been working on since last year. More news about it soon.
Top Talent Award 2006
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Software on April 26, 2006
“How did you get to know about the Top Talent Award, Mr. Orlando?”
That was the first question an talian voice asked me when I got a call from Austria’s ICNM a few weeks ago. I didn’t remember exactly where I read about it, but it was certainly in the news of a website. The italian manager told me they were having difficulties spreading the word about the contest in Italy, so any help or suggestion would have been welcome.
It’s a marketing job I think, and that might not be a trivial task, even if you put it in the hands of a professional.
However, in the case of my country I also see a certain lack of interest in these kind of events, maybe because of a lack of competitivity by university students or maybe because we’re too busy complaining about the state of the ICT work market to be able to put our creative brains to work and try to make something interesting to compete with other european students… who knows…
In fact from a total of 411 submitted projects there were only 18 participants from Italy. None of them has been selected in any category or even mentioned in the printed publication they sent me, but what surprised me the most has been the quality and the number of submissions from Eastern Europe countries. Talk about lack of competitivity there!
I entered the contest submitting EcPc, including a beta of the PC version. They didn’t have a Pocket PC to test the software, so I had to send them my Axim X3 and when they returned it I risked to loose it because some smartass tried to stole it at the post office in Como, really!
The final selections of the jury in the mobile contents category are good projects, but personally I don’t find anything special in soccer related management software or in Wi-Fi mapping utilities. That’s my opinion of course, the jury evaluated the projects using a number of different criteria.
It’s a good contests overall, it’s not free, but the organization is much better than most of our similar competitions, so I encourage you to participate if you’ve an idea in your brain… and you have the strength to make it real of course! 😉
You should definitely watch the video recording of the award ceremony they made on march 4th at the “Museumsquartier” in Vienna. It was amazing to watch and hear the thrilled winners commenting prize and projects mostly speaking in a not so perfect English. You can almost feel their excitement! 🙂
Congratulations to the winners then, most of them presented interesting projects.
And as Mr. Peter A. Bruck wrote in the introduction of the publication, this contest helps to separate excellence from the huge volume of trash in a digital world full of contents! 🙂
Mobile Force & Office Forum 2006
On april 4th I attended the spring edition of the Wireless forums, a mix of business meetings and conferences organized by the Wireless magazine at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Milan.
I followed most of the presentations of the section Mobile Force & Office Forum since automating a mobile workforce is related to one of my software projects. As a whole, the presentations were interesting and the moderator, Paolo Conti, was a brilliant guy, but the public was not as numerous as the one attending the Wlan Business Forum, a parallel series of conferences focused on broadband, Wi-Fi and Wi-Max technologies.
In particular I found interesting the Psion Teklogix Mobile Show, actually one hour of live show with funny performances by the Psion Teklogix’s technical staff showing the latest barcode and RFID technologies while tracking a shipment from the order to the delivery destination. The scenography they set up was defenitely mobile! 😉
Also interesting was the interview with Funambol’s CEO: he spoke about the company’s history, how they found financial support in the US and he talked about the SyncML opensource software.
In the exhibition area I had the pleasure to talk with the staff of Softwork since I’m currently exploring RFID technology applied to mobile devices.
Also I had the chance to get my hands on the new Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone at the Dangaard’s booth, the Qtek 8500, alias HTC Star Trek… very nice design! 🙂
Working in Silence Against The Information Overloading
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Net-Tailor, Software on March 30, 2006
A few months passed since the last blog post, time I actually spent working in silence, trying to reach the mental state in which I’d been able to defeat the so-called information overloading, that can easily affect workers in the ICT sector (and not only us).
As I say to friends when ask me why I don’t keep the blog updated, it’s not easy at all thinking of something interesting to write. 😉
Now I’m still busy working on the innovation project committed by a local company and coordinated by the Centro Volta. It’s going well and I’d like to write more about it, but I’ll do it only if I’ll get the necessary permissions.
Since the beginning of the year I’ve also started working on the software project for which I committed a due diligence study to the Centro Volta last year. I had the luck to find the right people with the right competences for this project and we’re doing well I’d say, a confirmation of the fact that the people always make the difference.
More details about this project as soon as we’ll start testing the prototype with the public. 🙂
The last year ended, and the new one began, with a present from Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine. Their Board of Experts voted Euro Coins Pocket Collector QVGA to be among the best in the category Miscellaneous Utilities in the magazine’s fifth annual Best Software Awards.
As a finalist I joined their 2006 Best of Everything Marketing Program which will grant my software some more visibility. Another award that makes me proud of the work I did and talking about this I can anticipate that in a couple of weeks I’ll start building a new site entirely focused on Ecpc.
Later then and don’t get caught by the frenziness of modern life! 😉