[en] AdMob now serves AdSense
I was checking my AdMob account this morning and I noticed a new option: Enable AdSense. 
This option allows AdMob users to not just publish ads from the AdMob network, but also from Google's AdSense network. After a bit of searching the web for a bit I found that this feature has been announced a while ago on Google Mobile Ads Blog. The feature was supposed to be rolled out gradually.
[en]Android fragmentation
There has been a lot of talk lately in the Android community about the fragmentation of the ecosystem, what people should and shouldn't do, who is to blame. And many people have come quite quickly to point at this and that trying to convince everyone they've found the real cause for device fragmentation. In this post I will try to argue that the biggest cause for Android's ecosystem fragmentation is Android itself through its huge market share capture in so little time and that no one has done anything wrong, it was inevitable and can be dealt with.
[en] A more (Mac like) usable Ubuntu
Last week I was playing with the Compiz settings in my Ubuntu 10.04 and I stumbled upon some nice usability settings I didn't knew I could set. So after spending some minutes setting up everything I ended up with something very similar to how Expose works on the Mac OS X.
[ro] Redesign pentru automatele de bilete de tramvai Arad
În recenta mea vizită în Arad am observat că în multe stații de tramvai sunt prezente automate pentru achiziționarea biletelor. Am fost foarte fericit să văd automatele și să număr rapid pe degete avantajele pe care le aduc:
[en] New old things
Since I've been back home I've discovered (and redescovered) lots of things. One of those things is a paper I wrote on Star Trek last year. I think I tried to post it on my blog some other time, but anywho, I've uploaded it to slideshare so you can find it at: http://www.slideshare.net/manuelciosici/short-introduction-into-the-star-trek-universe-2745359
[en] Using php on your Ubuntu to get the TED talks
Intro
Anyone who knows me a little knows I'm a big fan of the presentations on TED.com. I watch them, adore them, I learn from them and I try to imitate the techniques of good speakers there. My Google Reader is subscribed to the RSS feed of ted.com and I download almost every presentation from their site almost as soon as they appear. But wouldn't it be nice if the episodes came strainght to my computer? Of course it would, and there are some programs that can help with that, but this article isn't about them. This article is about going all geeky and having a custom solution. Let's start!
[en] The things I hate about fronter
I keep having problems when I try to use my school's Virtual Learning System based on fronter, so I thought instead of getting pissed off all the time I might just write all my non likes in here. Maybe, a very distant maybe, some fronter developer stumbles upon them and decides they're worthy to take into consideration. So here I go:
- HTML Frames? Come on! Where am I? In the 90s?
- No "Remember my username and password" option? Why? You think I want to waste my fingers inputting my credentials? I have important things to type, like chat.
- Where's the unified search? Ok, I'll live without that. Where's the file search? None?! What do you think I'm doing in my spare time? Indexing my teachers' presentation documents and required reading?
- Can I haz calendar export for my calendar? No? Thank you, I loooove having to remember everything.
- News news news.... where's Google Reader? Shit, your RSS feeds don't work there, actually they don't work anywhere.
- Ok, I had this message from my teacher on the classroom wall, but that was a while ago. Where's the archive? No archive? Great, I'll just have to copy-paste everything all the time and keep my own archive.
- Class cancelled. Where's the warning email? No email.
Ahaaa... I have to go to school to find out or keep logging in all the time. - I forgot the date for the school party. Need to go to the news archive. Which is.... in wonderland. I wonder if Alice is on Facebook, maybe she can help....?!
- Browsing through the file archive .... shit, it's 7 pm already? Thank you fronter for making me wait for you to reload the page every time I click a folder on the explorer tab on the left!
- Java? Why do you require Java? You're not using it for anything? Let's all require things. I require some common sense from someone selling a VLE for $$, I want that VLE to work.
- Social social social... is dead. Fronter, why do you make it hard to socialize with other students in the school? Why can't I browse classes to find the girl from last Friday's party?
- I am having a presentation next week. Fronter can you help me send a message to the common student room? What do you mean you can't? There's no common student room? We shouldn't communicate with people out of our class, why? Fronter, don't you tell me to shut up, how'bout I shut up this Firefox tab. See ya', ain't gonna miss ya'!
Stay tuned. There will be more to come (unfortunately). In the meantime, what problems do you have with fronter?
[en] Ubuntu 9.10
The new version of Ubuntu was released a bit over a week ago. I've been running it since
Ubuntu 9.04 Beta first impressions
UPDATE:
Today was the second day of using that Ubuntu machine and when the class was over and I tried to shut down the computer I noticed a new window that requires confirmation before shutting down the computer. The window is timed so if no action is take the computer shuts down a minute later, also the window is similar to the one OS X uses before shutting down. I believe this is a nice usability improvement since I accidentaly shut down my computer a few time when I was hasty.
Another new thing for 9.04 is that Ctrl + Alt + Backspace has been deactivated.
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Today I upgraded my school computer to Ubuntu 9.04 Beta 64 bit. Let's see a list of changes
- New boot image. - I don't like it, I liked the old 8.10 progress bar more, it seemed more stylish
- . I would habe liked it if they integrated usplash in 9.04.
- Gnome 2.26 - Nothing bad to comment, seems a little more orange than the predecesor. Bad criticism? I would have liked to be able to take a Nautilus tab from one window and drag it to another.
- Brasero - new version, knows how to edit case covers.
- ext4 support - I couldn't test this one since the system is installed on ReiserFS, but I barely wait to have the opportunity
- New notification system - I like it a lot and works quite well (see image)
- Looks like quite a few 64bit bugs have been fixed.
- Looks like Flash doesn't work after upgrade.
- Terminalul has a new font that I like.
That's all for a quick, first view. For those of you who try to keep up with Ubuntu's code names, 9.04 is called Jaunty Jackalope.UPDATE:
Astăzi a fost a doua zi de utilizat calculatorul cu Ubuntu, iar când s-a terminat ora și am încercat să sting computerul am observat o fereastră nouă care cere confirmare pentru stingere. Fereastra este temporizată, așa că dacă utilizatorul nu face nimic, după un minut calculatorul se va stinge, fereastra este similară cu cea pe care o folosește OS X înainte de a se stinge. Cred că fereastra este un mare plus de uzabilitate, mai ales că am stins calculatorul accidental de vreo două ori din cauză că mă grăbeam și nu eram foarte atent.
Încă un lucru nou pentru 9.04 este că a fost dezactivată combinația Ctrl + Alt + Backspace.
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Am actualizat astăzi calculatorul de la școală la Ubuntu 9.04 Beta 64 bit. Hai să vedem o listă de schimbări:
- Imagine de boot nouă. - Mie nu îmi place, îmi plăcea mai mult bara de progres din 8.10, parcă avea mai mult
- stil. Mi-ar fi plăcut dacă ar fi integrat în 9.04 și usplash ca să fie mai lină bara de progres.
- Gnome 2.26 - Nimic de comentat, place, parcă e ceva mai portocaliu ca precedentul. De cârcotit? Mi-ar fi plăcut să pot scoate dintr-o fereastră Nautilus taburile și să le pun într-alta.
- Brasero - versiune nouă, știe să editeze și coperți, numai de bine.
- Suport ext4 - ăsta n-am avut cum să-l testez având în vedere că sistemul e instalat pe ReiserFS, dar abia aștept să am ocazia
- Sistem nou de notificare - îmi place foarte mult merge destul de bine (vezi imaginea)
- Se pare că s-a reparat destul de multe buguri ale versiunii de 64 de biți.
- Se pare că flash nu funcționează după upgrade.
- Terminalul are un font nou care îmi place.
Cam atât pentru primele impresii. Pentru cei care încearcă să țină pasul și cu numele versiunilor de Ubuntu, 9.04 are numele de cod Jaunty Jackalope.
Details on Eliberatica 2009 are up
Lucian Savluc shared (through his blog) some details about this year's Eiberatica conference. Probably the best piece of news is the lower attendence price. I hope I'll get to attend Eliberatica this year.Lucian Savluc a împărtășit (prin blogul lui) niște detalii despre conferința Eliberatica de anul acesta. Probabil cea mai bună veste este prețul de participare mai mic. Sper să merg și eu anul acesta la Eliberatica.