Le alternative: (1) Genova o (2) Bologna

(1)    Firenze – Genova – Alessandria – Torino – Frejus – Lione

(2)    Firenze – Bologna – Piacenza – Alessandria – Frejus – Lione

La seconda è un po’ più lunga (di una dozzina di km) ma permette di evitare Genova e una trafila infinita di gallerie.

mezzo:

Polo 6N (3a serie) del 1996 – 1.9 L Diesel,  4 cilindri (47 kW; 63 cavalli)

Pedaggi:

*Tunnel Italia-Francia

Per raggiungere Lione si passa dal traforo del Frejus in Piemonte: 13 km di galleria con il limite di 70 km/h. Le tariffe sono un po’ un furto: 35.1 € per la corsa semplice e 43.7 € per andata e ritorno da farsi nell’arco di 7 gg; per i più assidui ci sono 10 corse per 109.3 € che valgono 2 anni (11 € la corsa).

tempo impiegato:

partenza FI: 11.30 – arrivo LY: 19.15 = totale 7 h 45

soste: 10′ + 30′ + 5′ = 45 min –> totale senza soste 7h

distanza:

tot. 715 km

costo totale del viaggio:

pedaggi (71.3) + gasolio (35) = 106 Euro

]]> http://karmaps.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/tragitto-firenze-lyon/feed/ 0 karmaps polo http://karmaps.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/macbook-pro-15-2006-2009/ http://karmaps.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/macbook-pro-15-2006-2009/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:04:35 +0000 karmaps http://karmaps.wordpress.com/?p=28 ]]>

my 2006 MacBook Pro

Many of those who bought MacBook Pros in 2006 – when Apple made the switch to Intel processors – noticed a series of issues with these machines. The built quality wasn’t even close to that of their predecessors, the PowerBooks; the amount of heat dissipated from the processors area (top and bottom case near the lcd hinge) was bothersome.

The late 2006 series – featuring new Core 2 Duo processors, wireless n-enabled wifi – seemed to be more mature and of better built quality.

By the time I could afford a MBP the late 2006 series had just came out. It took me a while to decide whether to buy the newly released MBP or rather the previous one for cheaper in the refurbished section of the apple online store.

Why I decided to go with the old series (MacBook Pro Core Duo 2.0 GHz):

1. Many applications (Photoshop, Office,..), even months after the launch of intel based macs, were still running with rosetta, so the intel processor would be used to translate instructions given for another processor’s architecture (PowerPC), vanishing the outstanding speed of the intel processors. Would I have noticed a difference in say launching and using Photoshop with a CD or a C2D? Nop!
2. The lower price of the old CD MBP would allow me to get a 3 years international coverage with Apple – my budget was 2000 CA$ (1700 the MBP + 300 the apple care). I was paying big bucks for a laptop I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have to deal with expensive repairs: it was worth every penny.

Problems I had with my 2006 MBP:

The superdrive of was defective, it kept giving errors when burning cds or dvds… I had it changed once, and only a few months later the same errors reappeared so I brought the baby not only to get the superdrive fixed, but also to get it checked for a heating issue. When touching the top case near the airport antenna (bottom of the display) you could feel an unbearable heat, same with holding the machine on your lap, it would start burning!

As a result they replaced the superdrive and the logic board. The machine seemed to be working well …. except for the superdrive,… again! I eventually gave up burning cds or dvds but I was pissed, I had a 2,000 $ machine that had had the superdrive changed twice and still I wasn’t able to burn media… What a piece of crap…. I called the Apple Care number in Italy, told my story and complained with resentment, claiming a new MBP.

The guy was nice but wouldn’t let me have a replacement and suggested me to get the superdrive replaced AGAIN. Ok, I did that, fine! But after a couple of weeks my hard drive broke and I could only stare at the grey screen with a folder and a question mark.

Getting a machine replacement:

After several calls (calling Apple Care costs like 15 cents/min in Italy!) and a lot of complaints I got a replacement. I sent back my machine and after a couple weeks I received a brand new MBP 15″: I went from a 80 gb to a 250 gb hard drive, from a 2.0 CD to a 2.4 C2D processor, from a small to a large and multitouch trackpad and so on. The only dud was the glossy screen with the black frame around which I found ugly and not as clean and classy as the former macbook pro or the powerbooks.

The nice thing was that the new machine has a one-year warranty and the possibility to activate an apple care plan. Given my previous experience I was motivated to get one.

Problems I had with my 2009 unibody MBP:

Ironically a few months after I had the new machine I notice a screen blinking. I do a quick search online and find out it is a well known issue with the first series (late 2008) of unibody MBP probably due to the nvidia graphic chip…. Basically the screen blinks randomly, it is not constant, it can be fine for hours then happen once then not happen again for a while then happen several times… It blinks regardless of using the slow 9400M or the faster (dedicated) 9600M GT.  I think putting 2 graphic units in one machine was pretty stupid of Apple: you have to restart the machine in order to switch from one to the other. As if the common user changes settings all the time according to what he’s doing…

What a hassle! What I have learned is that a 3 protection plan is worth the money, you never know. And hey, nowadays is the customers that do quality control for Apple so better not take the risk!

Disappointment:

Apple’s reputation for attention to design, choice of materials, and cleaness of operating system has lost some shine. The sale surge of products these past years, mostly due to the ipod popularity and the iTunes music store (along with the fall of the Microsoft empire), brought about some arguable decisions among with a decrease in quality. Of course overall today’s products are rockets compare to those of a few years ago and have fantastic new features, but…. Take for example the screens: unless you pay a premium when buying a 15 or 17 inch MBP to get a matte (antiglare) screen, you have to stick with a glossy one; if you’re buying a 13 inch apple laptop or even an iMac you have no matte choice at all. I hate the glossy screens, I know the crowd loves them for their flashy look, but light reflex and false reproduction of colors make the matte unbeatable and much preferable. Apple must have made this move to make more money and make its products more appealing to the masses but they did realize some customers weren’t happy at all to go glossy. I can’t think of buying an iMac, which is a terrific machine, with a glossy screen… and imagine reading an ebook on the glossy screen of an iPad,…. what a pity!

Really really straightforward!

just go to the skype download page (here)

1. Look for the Ubuntu logo and hit “Feisty Fawn” to start downloading
2. Once the download is finished you’ll find the skype-debian_1.4.0.99-1_i386.deb (that’s how it’s currently called, it may change name) on your desktop or wherever your download files go.

   

3. Open the downloaded package, then the Package Installer will do the rest.

Once again the proof of how goods are overtaxed in Brazil, resulting in super high prices that keep people from buying things they need/like and making them pay their bills through installment plans with skyrocketing interest rates.

*Source: Brazilian Newspaper “Folha de São Paulo”, May 23rd 07 [Brasil continua a ter iPod mais caro do mundo].

Due to licensing constraints Pandora can no longer allow access to most listeners located outside of the US. Here’s what comes up accessing the Pandora web site from Brazil. Apparently only the US, the UK and Canada still have this service available to public.

That’s really too bad because Pandora is/was a great way to listen to music you wouldn’t listen to otherwise and it does follow your tastes to a certain extent.

Reportedly the music majors have put pressure in order to stop broadcasting in those countries where there still are no agreements on copyright licences. In the US there’s a law that regulates copyright on the internet and other digital platforms, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Pandora made agreements in the UK and is working in the same direction with other countries.

Now the Pandora web site is being restricted to listeners verifying the user IP address. Workarounds like configuiring the browser to access through a proxy that’s located in the US, or through sites that allow anonymous surfing are probably not worth the effort.

Farewell Pandora!

I find Last.fm (the social music revolution) a good alternative.

[Some geeky work-arounds for accessing Pandora from outside the US are described here]

1.42 GHz G4 Mac Mini (512MB)

OS X is getting a bit slow at times, that’s why I thought of giving it a try with Linux installing both OS X Tiger and Yellow Dog.

There are several Linux distributions available for those Macs made before Apple transitioned to Intel processors (i.e. PowerPC Macs with G3 G4 and G5 processors). Linux distributions I’ve considered were Ubuntu, Gentoo, Mandriva and openSUSE. I ended up downloading Yellow Dog Linux 5.0.1 code-named Phoenix (from the TerraSoft website). This distro is free and its iso has 3.6 GB, I chose it because it’s the only one that’s made just for the PowerPC architecture and it seems to have a good support today and for the years to come].

Linux Distribution:

Yellow Dog 5

The Yellow Dog 5 is a Fedora Core, RPM-based distribution.
Download the .iso file (from the TerraSoft website) and burn it onto a dvd.

If you are interested in the matter take a look at the TerraSoft site and here or here (in italian ->here).

How to install YDL and OSX (if you want to dual-boot Mac OS and Linux)

Step 1 – Back up your HD

Step 2 – Partition the Mac Mini HD [get out the gray Mac OS X Install Disc 1]

With Mac OS X running, insert the OS X Install Disc 1 that came with the Mac Mini. Run the installer from the disc and, when prompted, hit “restart”. The Mac Mini will reboot and load the OS X installer from the disc.
With the installer running, open on the “Installer” menu in the top left of the screen. Choose “Open Disk Utility”. From here we tell Disk Utility how we want to partition the hard disk. I have divided the 80 Gigs hard drive (real size is 74.5 GB) into 4 partitions:

3 volumes I have marked as “Free Space” (their filesystem – Format – will be specified during the Linux installation)

• one of 2 GB for Linux-SWAP
• one of 14 GB for Linux-ROOT [ext3]
• one of 8.5 GB for shared FAT32 filesystem (for sharing files between OSX and YDL)

1 volume of 50 GB I have marked as “OS X” with the format “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”, which is the Mac OS X filesystem, HFS+.

Once done setting up the volumes as desired, click Partition on the lower right, and quit Disk Utility.

You’re ready to install OS X onto the partition you just created (the 50 GB one in my case).

Now OS X is installed, you only need to insert the YDL DVD and restart the system and make it so it will boot from the dvd-drive (I think I pressed C, I can’t remember). The Yellow Dog installation menu will appear and you will be guided to choose how to manage the Free Space partitions you have previously created.

Once you have both OSs installed, when turning on the Mac Mini, instead of rebooting directly into Mac OS X as before, it will now load a bootstrap from which you can hit the letter “L” to boot Linux, or “X” to boot Mac OS X. By default (not hitting any key) it will boot the Yellow Dog Linux.

First impressions:

Yellow Dog is cool, but I prefere OSX

After a few hours of Yellow Dog I had not figured out how to fix the sound (I had no sound!!!). There are some tweaks you really need to look after and it can take ages to find out. Things can be slow on OSX but they are hassle-free for the regular user. My suggestion is: Keep OSX as main system, install Yellow Dog if you are curious but don’t expect it to satisfy your regular needs (sound!!!).

[I dropped the YDL partition almost a year later and took its space back for a fresh install of OSX Tiger, feels good!]

The show was definitely worth the wait in line for the ticket. Marisa Monte has a great voice and lots of talented people play in her band. She is awesome.

The first app I wanted to install was Skype and here I describe how I did it hoping it comes handy to other beginners like me.

Installing Skype through Repository:

1. Go to: System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager



You will be asked for your system password, then a Synaptic Package Manager window will come up.
This window shows the so called repositories which control the installation process and get the application packets from the Internet into the OS.

2. From the Synaptic Pagake Manager window click Settings>Repositories.
3. From the new window Software Sources select the Third Party tab and click Add.



4. Paste the following into the APT Line field:

deb http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/debian/ stable non-free

then click OK and OK again until you get back to the Synaptic Package Manager.

5. Click Reload to refresh the repositories
6. Search and Mark for installation the packet Skype, click on apply and keep going until the application is completely installed
7. If all went right you will find Skype from the menu Applications>Internet

That’s all!

My experience with Ubuntu so far:

1. Downloading and burning a cd with the OS is easy to do as it is well explained in the Ubuntu web site
2. Kind of funny having to run the suggested error check prior to intallation
3. The partition of the hard drive while installing the OS requires some research! number of partitions, size, filesystem …
4. The installation of the OS is quite fast, it only takes 15-20 minutes
5. For an OS that’s free, the graphic user interface is quite impressive
6. A number of useful applications is installed together with the OS
7. Installing additional applications isn’t as intuitive as it can be with mac or windows can be done in different ways. Some apps can be installed easily through the Add/Remove Applications. Other apps can be installed through the repositories in Synaptic or through command line in Terminal.
8. The desktop switch feature is pretty cool and saves time
9. Not surprisingly the machine – 2 GHz Pentium IV w/ 512 MB of RAM – is performing much better than when running win xp