PRESTO

THIS THURSDAY ON OUR WEEKLY AGING & TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE CALL

Topic: Multi- Company Collaboration to INCREASE awareness in the Aging & Technology Industry

Time: EVERY THURSDAY 2pm EST/1pm CST/12n MST/11am PST
Meeting Room: www.dimdim.com Join Meeting Room: grandcare

1. Announcements
2. Highlighted Caller
3. TOPIC: The senior market is exploding, and changing. One of the biggest challenges senior-focused businesses face is gaining awareness for their products and services. Beyond traditional advertising and public relations campaigns, and even past online and social media initiatives, how might these companies collaborate to drive awareness and mutually-beneficial results?
4. Next week: Happy Thanksgiving!! Thursday December 3rd, Barbara Friesner from AgeWise Living speaks.

Secondo Dirk Hofschire, vice presidente delle analisi di mercato per Fidelity, le condizioni del credito per le piccole aziende dovranno migliorare se gli Stati Uniti vogliono assistere ad una ripresa dell’economia.

La situazione inoltre resta grave nel mercato immobiliare commerciale, le cui attivita’ di prestito rappresentano la preoccupazione maggiore degli istituti attivi nella concessione di quei tipi di credito.

Le societa’ di maggiori dimensioni hanno avuto successo nelle loro operazioni di aumento di risorse di capitale tramite l’emissione di titoli nel mercato del debito, ma alle entita’ piu’ piccole, che fanno affidamento soprattutto sulle banche regionali, non e’ andata cosi’ bene e devono ancora fare i conti con “condizioni restrittive del credito”.

Di parere completamente opposto e’ Jeffrey Saut, Managing Director di Raymond James, per il quale le speculazioni secondo cui l’economia americana sia giunta “alla fine di un’era” sono esagerate e la ripresa e’ destinata a continuare imperterrita.

Fonte:

http://www.wallstreetitalia.com/articolo.asp?art_id=817530

In my last post, I talked a bit about how deltarpm’s delta algorithm actually works, especially in relation to binary files.

Today, I want to look at one of the real-world problems that has a large effect on the size of some of our deltas.

Background

Our problem stems from how RPM deals with multiple arches. All binary files in an RPM are labeled with a “color”, that is, the architecture the RPM is built for. When two different arches of the same package are installed and binary files conflict, the binary files whose color matches the system color are the ones that are kept.

For example, let’s imagine that you install samba-common.x86_64 on an x86_64 Fedora installation. You then install samba-common.i686 because some program requires 32-bit libnetapi.so. This isn’t a problem because the 64-bit version of libnetapi.so is in /usr/lib64 while the 32-bit version is in /usr/lib.

But there’s no such thing as /usr/bin64, so what about the files installed into /usr/bin by samba-common? Because our system “color” is x86_64, the 32-bit /usr/bin executables from samba-common.i686 never actually get installed. If you run the file command on /usr/bin/pdbedit, it will tell you that it’s a 64-bit binary.

The Problem

While this is (generally) what you want on your system, it leaves us in a bit of a pickle for deltarpms. One of the requirements of a deltarpm is that it must build back perfectly into the original rpm.

Let’s imagine that we are now wanting to upgrade to a newer version of samba-common.i686 with the only change being a minor typo being fixed in the documentation. (Why you would want to upgrade for that is beyond the scope of this article.)

At first glance, this is an excellent place for a deltarpm. A small change in the documentation should result in a very small deltarpm. But when we try to apply our deltarpm to the currently installed samba-common.i686, we run into a major problem:

The currently installed 64-bit /usr/bin/pdbedit doesn’t match the 32-bit /usr/bin/pdbedit we need for our new rpm.

Bam! The delta fails, and yum-presto proceeds to download the full 14MB samba-common.i686 package.

The Solution

We became aware of this problem a few years back when 32-bit packages were common in 64-bit installs (this was back in the day when OpenOffice.org was still 32-bit only). We ended up pushing a patch into deltarpm that forces all colored executables not installed into multilib directories to be included in the deltarpm. This way, we never use the locally installed executables and the whole color problem disappears.

The Tradeoff

But this leaves us with another problem. We end up losing all delta savings on any binaries in /usr/bin. For samba-common, that’s 27MB (uncompressed) of binaries that we have to redownload every time we get an update.

Which is exactly the problem that deltarpm is supposed to solve.

Broken bicycle credit: unwanted & undesired … just let it rot by notsogoodphotography on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

Uh oh, let me find out North Carolina in the building. No wait… I did find out. What the f*** am I talkin about? Anyway, Presto dropped this Gem off, and I think ya’ll should take a listen. Son even has a video for the song. Uh oh, everybody betta step they game up. Check it out, leave a comment to let him know what you think.

Listen & Download @ zShare or UserShare

Hit Presto on Myspace

Easily my favourite out of the seven shorts featured over the last week, what is it they say? Save the best till last! Burn-E is a short that was released with the DVD version of Wall-E and interlinks with scenes from the actual film. Any fan of Wall-E, or rather animation or any of the Pixar shorts featured this week will love this.

]]> http://matthewceo.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/pixar-week-day-6-presto/ Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:04:15 +0000 matthewceo http://matthewceo.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/pixar-week-day-6-presto/

The man that needs no introduction; Presto.

So KUCI has a blog that you where you can download mp3s and read staff reviews.

No stranger to the game, Presto has been producing and DJing for almost 20 years. He describes his sound as “hip hop with a soul backdrop and jazz edge.” It is almost too easy to guess his influences: DJ Primo, Pete Rock, Jay Dee, Tribe–yet, he brings to the (turn)table a definitive edge.

Although State of Art was released June 2008, hip hop heads continue to sleep on Presto. Why? Because the digital age has led to saturation of wanna-be artists/producers now that hip hop has imploded the music industry and American culture. His album does justice to the hip hop luminaries before him and his collaborations on “State of the Art” with such influential hip hop greats such as Large Professor, CL Smooth, and Sadat X is an indication that hip hop, even with its explosion in the mainstream, is still capable of producing quality music.

His sound is jazzy, soulful, organic, old-school with refreshing enough to keep it contemporary. The layered instrumentation of jazzy keys, echoing horns, easy-going drum composition, and the inclusion of sleigh bells in a meticulous, yet subtle synthesis of samples shows his skill as a producer.

And so the age old question still remains: what is hip hop? Is it flashy videos, blatant misogyny, violence and brutality, or reinforcing materialistic values? To avoid sounding like a diatribe, the answer remains ambivalent.

One consolation is that Presto takes us back to the fundamental sounds of the early 90’s. Sampling jazz and soul music using a keyboard rather than an MPC gives the production a sense of intimacy and live instrumentation.

Blu still doesn’t disappoint. A favorite in the underground scene, his consciousness and ability to illustrate day-to-day vignettes demonstrates how the resurgence of West Coast hip hop deviated away from gangsta rap and into an art form used to contextualize his environment. His flow displays his excellent storytelling skills about how he emerged from being a eager amateur to internet/underground success. Blu balances his cockiness while still maintaining his cool against the jazzscape background.

His album does justice to the hip hop luminaries before him and his collaboration on his album “State of the Art” with such influential hip hop greats such as large professor, CL Smooth, and Sadat X is an indication that hip hop, even with its explosion in the mainstream, is still capable of producing quality music.

You can buy from iTunes or download it here

Estou aqui para falar mais uma vez de como a música não tem limites. E dessa vez estamos novamente falando de escala global. Entenda YouTube, aquele sitezinho que transforma completos zé-manés em estrelas e subcelebridades instantaneamente.

Se qualquer um pode ser alguém importante no YouTube, imaginava-se o que poderia acontecer se o ‘poder’ caísse nas mão certas. E isso não demorou à acontecer, não! Estou falando de nada mais, nada menos que…

U2

Definitivamente, Bono e cia sabem acertar em cheio quando se trata de público, shows e projeção internacional. A banda sempre foi famosa pelas grandes turnês e palcos faraônicos.Mas a nova turnê, a 360º Tour, desafia os limites do Showbizz e leva os presentes à outro nível de interação e entretenimento. Um dos motivos é a Estação Espacial, também conhecida como “A Garra”.

A Garra durante o show

A Garra é uma estrutura de 50 metros de altura, que é literalmente o ponto alto do espetáculo (desculpem por essa). É o centro de todas as ações da banda. O Palco suporta um telão flexível e passarelas giratórias, que ligam o palco principal com uma passarela. O sonho de consumo de toda super-turnê. Só faltava uma coisa para completar: Transmitir isso ao mundo. Pelo YouTube.  Assim o U2 faz história novamente, levando o show de domingo, que aconteceu no estádio Rose Bowl em Pasadena, Califórnia, para o mundo todo por meio do site (via Webcast), um fato inédito e marcante.

 E tudo foi muito simples. Era acessar a página no YouTube, e já se via a marca da banda e o que iria acontecer em letras garrafais, além de links diretos para o site oficial. Além de tudo isso, espaço aberto para comentários e posts via Twitter. Parece simples, mas não é qualquer um que consegue tamanho sucesso logo de cara.

 Apesar dos números ainda serem incertos, pelo menos muitos milhões de pessoas assistiram à apresentação em Pasadena como planejado. E acima de tudo, esses milhões também viram uma mensagem globalizada de igualdade e denúncia (a banda adotou a causa de Aung San Suu Kyi, líder revolucionária que vive em prisão domiciliar em Burma).

E ainda haviam palpites de bilhões. Se pararmos para pensar, para uma banda como o U2, não é assim tão absurdo. Só seria mais uma marca para eles, que além serem uma das maiores bandas de Rock que o mundo já viu, enxergam o mundo sem divisões, e não poupam esforços para atingir todos os cantos dele.

Retransmissão do show: http://www.youtube.com/u2#p/u

Da série “O Poder da música”: 
Parte 1

Parte 2

Yay! I have the full version now! This is such a cute pixar short – diddums!!! And all he wanted was a carrot…cute. A very cheeky bunny! Anyway! Enjoy the short! It is one of my favourites, second only to the bird one. But this is definately my second fav.

Darsh

Bom, como de cotume, estou aqui outra vez, para falar sobre possíveis shows que acontecerão no Brasil em alguns mese ou mais. E quando a gente acha que acabou e que os boatos esfriaram, cameça tudo de novo.

Mas antes, um pequeno (é pouquinho) resumo:

Talvez o que possa ser a piada do ano aconteceu: Dia 07 de Novembro terá dois festivais em São Paulo, o Planeta Terra no Playcenter (quebrando a cara do autor) e o Maquinária no Jockey Club.
Line -up
Planeta terra:
Macaco Bong, Móveis Coloniais de Acaju, Maximo Park, Primal Scream, Sonic Youth, Iggy & The Stooges, Etienne de Crecy, EX!, Copacabana Club, Patrick Wolf, Metronomy, Ting Tings, N.A.S.A., Anthony Rother.

Maquinária Festival 2009:
Dia 7: Faith no More, Jane’s Addiction, Deftones, Sepultura e Nação Zumbi.
Dia 8: Evanescence, Panic! At the Disco, Dir en grey, Duff McKagan’s Loaded  (o Duff do Gun’s n Roses e do Velvet Revolver) e Danko Jones.

Obs: Nomes importantes (ou com alguma significância) em Negrito. 

Enfim, depois disso tudo, depois de criar uma rivalidade cega e desnecessária, a T4F anuncia o AC/DC, e os dois festivais desaparecem das notícias.

Agora, que estamos chegando ao fim do ano, o show do AC/DC é em pouco mais de um mês. Eis então que sergem novos boatos de mais pesos pesados.Aí vai:

O Metallica pode tocar no Morumbi dia 31 de Janeiro de 2010, com pelo menos mais 2 ou 3 datas pelo Brasil. Também circula (com tom mais certo) que a abertura do show será do Avenged Sevenfold.
O U2 vai tocar no Brasil em Março, e a  informação é quase certa. A banda já deixou claro que fará uma perna da turnê 360º na América do Sul, e  tudo já estaria certo para uma apresentação no Morumbi. Outras datas estariam em negociação.
O Coldplay vai tocar dia 28 de Fevereiro no Rio, e dia 2 de Março em São Paulo, e ponto final. A pré-venda será entre os dias 31 de Outubro e 6 de Novembro pela Ticketmaster. (sentiu um frio na espinha agora?)
Você que não vai no AC/DC e pretende ir no Coldplay, prepare-se. Eu já vi esse filme, e posso adiantar o que talvez aconteça:
–> O site vai parar de funcionar antes da meia-noite.

–> Só por um milagre o call center (4004-2060) vai te atender.

–> O telefone da Ticketmaster (2846-6000) é atendido por uma secretária eletrônica, e por mais opções que você tente, não vai conseguir falar com ninguém lá.

Não se preocupe! Apesar de ter acontecido isso com alguns shows recentemente, espero que a pré-venda e a antecedência das vendas evite o pandemônio que foi a venda do AC/DC. Mas falando de Ticketmaster, temos que esperar o mínimo deles.

Mais em breve, (assim que eu souber, é claro!) aqui no Presto!.

Apesar da aparência estranha e assimétrica, as Harp Guitars se apoiam primeiramente em um conceito. O nome ‘Harp’ (harpa) não é dado pela semelhança com a Harpa clássica (que é apoiada no chão, e funciona apenas com cordas soltas), mas sim pelo presença de qualquer corda (sem trastes) além do corpo do instrumento.

Assim, é possível combinar execuções no violão (ou guitarra) com as cordas soltas.

A Harp Guitar é um instrumento que possuí as origens um pouco obscuras. É dito que data de aproximadamente 2 séculos atrás, porém o termo harp guitar data de 1913 apenas. Muitas controvérsias e histórias rondam este instrumento criado na Europa.

Existe também a Harp Guitar elétrica! 

 Uma Burner Harp Guitar. Cheia de captadores e saídas de áudio (5 no total) e controles totalmente estranhos ao mundo da guitarra.

É estranho, mas é interessante, e existem artisitas que se especializaram nesse instrumento.

Realmente, a música não tem limites
Em breve mais bizarrices aqui no Presto!

This is the last session at the 2009 SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. The presenter is Dean Halstead (Twitter.com/DeanHalstead), a Collaboration Architect at Microsoft.

[Update] A version of Dean’s presentation has been found here.

Objectives

• Understand how to leverage solutions and approaches that are being used throughout Government (Gov 2.0) to improve social networking and address common challenges in your organization or company.
• Pillars of Transparency
  • Accountability
  • Participation
  • Transparency

Gov 2.0

• As you deal with web 2.0 type content and new media in your org, you may need an information policy applied to the content such as Sarbanes-Oxley or Freedom of Information Act, etc.
• Recovery.Gov is built on SharePoint
  • Shows an overview video and information on Best Practices on how to implement 2007.
  • Talks quickly about a No-Code solution for clicking on video links and have the video appear in a DVWP that was built using SharePoint Designer. When the presenter said this, I looked up and saw a URL parameter, ID=5. Thus, the DVWP was just filtering on the list that has the YouTube script that was probably copied directly from YouTube’s embed code section.
• Contextual Social Networking
  • A trend towards social networking fatigue. Too much personal information along with new enterprise social tools and information.
  • With contextual social networking, the system can automatically tell the user that others are working on something similar as you upload a document or name a document with certain tags.
• Gov 2.0 Common Feature Challenges
  • Internal/Extgernal integration
  • Internal micro-blogging (Twitter / Facebook)
  • Social Network Analysis
  • Geospatial integration
  • Data, data, data, podcasting, and communities.
• Gov 2.0 Kit
  • Enhanced version is being released on Codeplex today! First time audience clapped.
    
  • Enhanced MySite for Microsoft SharePoint™ RC1 - October 22, 2009. 
  • Easy to install tools. They are MSI installs and activated features.
  • Demo of the Gov 2.0 kit
    • My Peeps
      • An internal, behind the firewall twitter.
      • To follow and monitor people
      • There is a little T and F icon to allow you to update your status internally and externally to the public Twitter and Facebook accounts.
      • Auditing is built into the kit. On the My Peeps dashboard, the little T and F icons show up next to each tweet, so that others know where else it was posted to
      • When you follow someone, it is a request and requires approval by the followed person.
      • The current solution does not have spelling or grammar check.
    • My Home
      • Is a Facebook like profile page.
      • It has Updates to see actions such as “John Posted notes.doc on Shared Documents”.
    • Twitter webpart
      • Pulls personal feeds into the SharePoint portal.
  • ICE
    • A Codeplex project that is a Silverlight control that can be embedded in SharePoint.
    • It shows not only people, but object relationships in a link map. Very cool!
  • Jackbe Mashup tools.
    • Helps to make data transparent and thread it throughout the org.
    • Presto by Jackbe is a mashup tool. A data modeler or expert business decision maker can create a model and combine information from SharePoint and CRM (etc).
    • End users can then take those data models and drop them into SharePoint pages as Webparts.
    • The Mashup Webparts can even communicate with each other using web part connections.

Gov 2.0 Common Policy Challenges

• PII (Personally Identifiable Information)
  • How do you find PII and secure it?
    • Use FAST search and Concept Search to find data and automatically turn it into a PII document which is secured differently and can even be RMS (Rights Management Server) and digitally protected. It allows you to put rights onto the document and encrypt it. Permissions to open the document must be given.
    • The organization will be able manually or automatically categorize (based on Policy rules) to discover the data and delete it or protect it.
• Endorsement of Information
  • Community Moderated
  • Organizational Moderation (Twitter, Facebook, and Public site)
    • Having a moderator is a drain on the orginizations
    • Apps for America (a context put on by Gov 2.0 Summit) finalist had a community based moderation solution.
  • Public Affairs Workflow for release (Blogs, Wikis, Documents, etc)
• Culture Wars
  • Conflict Areas
    • Old Guard vs. Generation Y and 2.0
    • Sign-to-Noise, definition of “Real Work”, Privacy, and Control Corporate Messaging
  • Impact
    • Social Networking initiatives being stifled
    • Low Adoption/Classes, Slowed Idea Generation, Lower Employee Satisfaction, Institutional Knowledge Bleed
• Other challenges
  • Information Spillage
  • Security Concerns
  • Trusted and Authoritative Source
  • Identity Management
  • Governance
  • Accessibility (Section 508/WCAG)
  • On-premise hosting
  • Silos of Information
  • Integration and Interoperability
• Resources
  • A list of links and online examples can be found on my post entitled Gov 2.0 Resources from Microsoft.

     

  As solutions and best practices are rolled out in Recovery.gov, these solutions will spread to other Government agencies. I personally think that social network tools will greatly improve the knowledge transfer within the enterprise and government.

We bought the Presto FlipSide to replace a faux pro waffler made by the blender company who shares its name with Fred W’s Glee Club. That one cost twice the price and lasted a mere three years before going to pieces. It was “Pro” in name only.

Presto took a simpler and possibly more durable approach: Add a second hinge to a traditional counter top Belgian waffle maker so it can flip 180 degrees and let gravity work its special magic. The entire weight of the baking platform is supported by the counter top, not by a pair of screws driven into failure-prone plastic.

When I unpacked the iron and set it on the counter, I noticed that the upper grid “floated” slightly when the grids were resting at the left side of the hinge. It might just be a mass-production variance but it was cause for concern because the iron has to close tightly for proper baking. When I flipped them to the right, the grids closed firmly, so the left side became the filling side and the right, the baking side. Do the same when yours arrives.

The nonstick grids are deep enough to fall into, with dimpled tapered studs that assist in releasing the baked waffle. The baking surface is surrounded by a fairly generous overflow rim. At 1350 watts, it bakes hotter than the 1200 watt pro-look model. The Presto lacks a darkness control but you can compensate by adjusting the baking time. What’s important is the initial temperature when the batter hits the grids, and if you turn a darkness control too low, the grids are too cool to “fry” the outside. What you end up with is a textured pancake, not a real waffle.

The battery-powered timer is a nice feature but not really a necessity if your kitchen, like mine, has plenty of timers (the stove, the kitchen scale, the microwave oven).

The waffles come out about an inch and then some in height with a crisp, crackly exterior and a cloud-fluffy interior. We make our waffles from biscuit-and-baking mix but use the professional technique of separating the eggs and beating the egg whites before folding them into the batter. Baking time is 3 minutes for a waffle that would cost you at least a 10-spot plus tax and a tip on a hotel room service menu.

Time will tell if the Presto FlipSide, at half the price, is twice the waffle iron for the money. Updates as they happen. Stay tuned!

 Eu prometi outra banda canadense, não prometi?

Presto Recomenda…

Priestess

O Priestess é uma banda de Hard/Stoner Rock de Montreal, Canadá, formada em 2003. É formada por Mikey Heppner (vocal/guitarra), Mike Dyball (baixo), Vince Nudo (vocal/bateria), and Dan Watchorn (vocal/guitarra).

Os caras lançaram o primeiro disco Hello Master em 2005, do próprio bolso (ca-tching!) e  apesar de ser o único álbum deles, já tocaram com pesos (alguns muito) pesados do Rock, como Black Label Society, Megadeth, Mastodon, Black Stone Cherry, entre outros. Músicas da banda estão presentes no Guitar Hero (“Lay Down”) e Need for Speed Carbon (“I am the night, Color me black”).

A premissa do Priestess é um híbrido entre o hard rock dos anos 70, e o rock pesado dos anos 80 (vulgo “Hair-Metal”), com pitadas de rock de arena e é claro, Stoner Rock! (Prometo um post sobre isso)

Curte só o som:

 Alice in Chains – Black Gives Way to Blue

Já se passaram 14 anos desde o último disco do Alice in Chains, mas nunca é tarde para recomeçar, já diria o sábio. E se existe uma palavra que descreve a nova fase da banda de Jerry Cantrell, ela é de fato Recomeçar.

A banda, que já estava inativa desde desde 1995, perdeu o (excelente) vocalista Lane Staley em 2001, em consequência de uma overdose em seu apartamento. Só foi encontrado dias depois do incidente. As prováveis chances de retorno ali se acabaram imediatamente. O choque da morte de Lane encerrou o Alice in Chains. Mas, show após show, depois de diferentes vocalistas, William DuVall participa de uma mini turnê no Japão, e em 2007 é anunciado como novo vocalista, para surpresa de todos.

Por que toda essa história? É simples. Black Gives way to Blue é uma síntese desse período e do retorno do Alice, uma época pós-Lane Staley, difícil de ser superada. E isso não é segredo ao ouvirmos as novas músicas. Muito peso e riffs que falam por si só na maioria das canções. E, como bom disco do Alice in Chains, existem as exceções, como a própria Black Gives way to Blue, que teve a participação de Elton John nos pianos. Isso aí, pianos.

A banda não foge de suas origens grunge, e tanto as letras como as melodias são carregadas de emoção. Raiva, angústia, dor, enfim, o que entrona o universo Alice in Chains está presente neste álbum em boas doses. Um dos grandes discos do ano, sem dúvida.

Obs fundamental: Jerry está em grande forma, definitivamente. Para quem não criava há 14 anos, os Riffs são de 1ª linha.