Tranquilli.org

After 65 million years they’re back!

Dinosaurs once again roam the earth in a spectacular theatrical arena show, Walking with Dinosaurs, based on the award-winning BBC Television Series.

Internationally renowned designers have worked with scientists to create 15 life-size dinosaurs, including the terror of the ancient terrain, Tyrannosaurus-rex! (official website)

taken on Fri, 5 Mar 2010 22:39:17pm (CET) - Futurshow Station, Casalecchio di Reno (BO)
Click image to Play Video

Check out the full set of photos from this event

mini-itx fanless home server and nas storage

In the process of upgrading my home network, I’ve just picked

- a new NAS, Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, with 1.5TB+1.5TB disks in x-raid configuration (netgear’s raid1 with dynamic exapansion); this is replacing my older Maxtor Shared Storage II

- a fanless CPU/Motherboard, Intel D510MO with Intel’s next-gen Pine Trail Atom processor, as my (always-on) mini-itx linux home server; it replaced an old (unstable) VIA C7+Jetway mobo

ReadyNAS Duo storage server

I use the ReadyNAS Duo to provide redundant/scalable storage to CIFS/AFP and NFS clients, for local/remote backups (rsync for Unix , Time Machine for Apple clients) and media streaming as well. Videos, music and pictures can be streamed to any uPnP/DLNA client on local net (an EVA2000 internet set-top box connected to the TV,  the iPhone…  a future Squeezebox) or iTunes clients (through FireFly straming server).

mini-itx case

The Home Server

The linux based home server will do its work as usual:

- development/testbed server, rsynced to a production VPS in the cloud, for personal hobby/projects
- Asterisk PBX for my voip phones
- OpenVPN endpoint for remote access to the home lan
- SSL tunneling for some home devices (e.g.. imap/ssl access from voip phone)
- mysql server
- monitoring (I’m going to try Zenoss) and usage statistics (mrtg, webalizer)

Kronplatz vacation, Jan.2010

taken on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:37:30am (CET) in Cornolatino, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 34 mm @ f/7.1 @ 1/500th @ 200 ISO ; metering: Auto, Multi-segment, +2/3 EV ]
[ location: 46 deg 44' 47.40" N, 11 deg 58' 12.00" E, 2099 m a.s.l. ]

Olang (BZ), Italy - Jan.2010

taken on Sat, 9 Jan 2010 8:50:04am (CET) in Voldaora di Sopra, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 200 mm @ f/2.8 @ 1/250th @ 200 ISO ; metering: Auto, Multi-segment, +2/3 EV ]
[ location: 46 deg 45' 18.00" N, 12 deg 0' 25.80" E, 1354 m a.s.l. ]

Olang/Valdaora (BZ), Italy

taken on Thu, 7 Jan 2010 18:37:06pm (CET) in Sorafurcia, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 200 mm @ f/2.8 @ 1/250th @ 2500 ISO ; metering: Manual, Multi-segment ]
[ location: 46 deg 44' 46.80" N, 12 deg 0' 37.20" E, 1166 m a.s.l. ]

Olang/Valdaora (BZ), Italy

taken on Thu, 7 Jan 2010 18:15:26pm (CET) in Sorafurcia, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 80 mm @ f/2.8 @ 1/320th @ 3200 ISO ; metering: Manual, Multi-segment ]
[ location: 46 deg 44' 46.80" N, 12 deg 0' 37.80" E, 1171 m a.s.l. ]

Bologna, Italy - Dec 18 2009: snow is starting to fall

taken on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:18:18pm (CET)
[ NIKON D300; 30 mm @ f/1.4 @ 1/40th @ 3200 ISO ; metering: Auto, Multi-segment, -2/3 EV ]

Dec 02 2009 UPDATE: this is now freely available on the App Store
Dec 04 2009 UPDATE: It’s 4th on the top free applications for the travel category (Italian App Store)
Dec 17 2009 UPDATE: updated version (1.1) now available (includes georeferenced webcams and Last.fm events)

Main application screen

Lately I spent some time learning how to write iPhone applications.
Having been an avid C programmer for so many years it wasn’t difficult to start writing code in Objective-C (a powerful yet simple OOP language based on C);
a good book and the standard Apple docs that come with the SDK did the rest for the Cocoa touch API and the iPhone SDK in general

Finally, a couple of hours ago I managed to submit a first application to the App Store; nothing original but it still can handle maps, gps data, tables and scroll views, images, graphical transitions, REST API calls and results parsing for different webservices (yr.no weather data, geonames, flickr, panoramio, bing, yahoo search, google maps, upcoming.org) mostly through asynchronous network calls. Almost 7K lines of code.

taken on Sun, 1 Nov 2009 16:08:03pm (CET) in Madonna del Pino, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 55 mm @ f/2.8 @ 1/250th @ 800 ISO ; metering: Auto, Multi-segment, -1/3 EV ]
[ location: 44 deg 16' 42.60 N, 12 deg 20' 11.40 E, 9 m a.s.l. ]

Check out the full set of photos from this place

Check out the full set of photos from these places

taken on Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:11:02pm (CEST) in Casa Campo, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 300 mm @ f/7.1 @ 1/320th @ 200 ISO ; metering: Auto, Multi-segment ]
[ location: 44 deg 39' 28.80" N, 12 deg 11' 22.20" E, 8 m a.s.l. ]

Check out the full set of photos from the Comacchio lagoon

taken on Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:28:32pm (CEST)
[ NIKON D300; 55 mm @ f/9.0 @ 1/200th @ 200 ISO ; metering: Auto, Multi-segment, -1/3 EV ]

Ferrara Balloons Festival is one of the largest festivals of hot air ballooning in Europe, with numerous teams from Italy and other parts of the world bringing their traditional or uniquely shaped aircraft.

The festival also features concerts, shows, entertainment and a grand Village of the Air with numerous attractions, shops and food outlets.

Check out the full set of photos from this event

taken on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:17:43pm (CEST) in Borgo Malpasso, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 70 mm @ f/4.5 @ 1/640th @ 200 ISO ; metering: Manual, Multi-segment ]
[ location: 44 deg 51' 4.20" N, 11 deg 37' 19.80" E, 0 m a.s.l. ]

Ferrara Balloons Festival is one of the largest festivals of hot air ballooning in Europe, with numerous teams from Italy and other parts of the world bringing their traditional or uniquely shaped aircraft.

The festival also features concerts, shows, entertainment and a grand Village of the Air with numerous attractions, shops and food outlets

Check out the (currently incomplete) set of photos from this event

taken on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:30:08pm (CEST) in Borgo Malpasso, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 17 mm @ f/4.5 @ 1/640th @ 200 ISO ; metering: Auto, Multi-segment ]
[ location: 44 deg 51' 4.80" N, 11 deg 37' 22.80" E, 0 m a.s.l. ]

Until a few decades the so called "Casoni" were lodges for the lagoon folk in their long stays for work in the lagoon.

Check out the full set of photos from these places

taken on Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:24:39pm (CEST) in Casone Caldirolo, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 55 mm @ f/4.0 @ 1/320th @ 200 ISO ; metering: Auto, Multi-segment, +1/3 EV ]
[ location: 44 deg 38' 40.20" N, 12 deg 10' 6.00" E, 7 m a.s.l. ]

Bologna

taken on Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:12:35pm (CEST) in Bologna, Italy
[ NIKON D300; 17 mm @ f/2.8 @ 1/3200th @ 200 ISO ; metering: Auto, Multi-segment ]
[ location: 44 deg 29' 37.80" N, 11 deg 20' 37.20" E, 85 m a.s.l. ]