Finally, the first, ehm, object, is ready to be sold on eBay - because of my next future moving from Grotta1 ("Cave1", the apt where I live) to Grotta2 ("Cave2", the huuuge apt where I will move in a few weeks). A pocket-size little object: a full complete modular italian-style modern kitchen. Here (via eBay.it, description is in Italian).

The fact is that a new home requires a new kitchen. At least, this is my partner's rule. So, I have to sell my actual one at the unbelievable low discounted price of 1,995 € (that is approx $2,200 USD). Now, why should I buy your kitchen, you will ask, instead of going to a shop and buy and brand new one? Simple.

• wifi connection. You can surf the internet from the horn display;
• Skype. The cooking area is connected via Skype, you can call via VoIP while you cook your favourite dish;
• The big wood spoon is compatible with your Wii console. This way you can substitute your traditional remote controller with the spoon, while you cook;
• Dishwasher has an integrated 3G smartphone (US readers: you will get 3G in 4/5 years, if you live in a big town area and if you have no mountains that act as a barrier). Only issue: WinMobile is the OS (if it crashes, just restart the device).

That's it. If you are interested, the giusecKitchen is on eBay.it, under the cucine componibili category (modular kitchens). If, instead, you are already kitchen-equipped, then stay tuned. A new collection of wonderful objects for geek will be soon added to eBay.

Posted by giusec in About giusec at 9:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Starting to pack, uploaded by giusec.

Posted by giusec in About giusec at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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I have just installed a brand new Wifi net, to test my superfast 54Mbps 802.11g D-Link AccessPoint (and related desktop and laptop adapters). Now I am finally ready to move to the new house (code name: Grotta 2.0, Cave 2.0; I will write more about the moving later this month).

And I am so excited that I need to write more about Wifi and HotSpots. A list of Free Wifi HotSpots in Milan? Why not. Let's start.

• Bitage Free Wifi. Bitage is the first to bring this service to Italy. You just need to register and give your mobile number in order to connect to Bitage hotspots. All locations are in Milan, with the exception of a couple of restaurants in Rome.
  
• Free Wifi restaurant and cafe list, via MilanoTonight. Very accurate and updated.
• Free Hotspot directory, via FreeHotspot.com.

Note. My new superfast HotSpot is protected and not free. But if you ask or if you are my guest...

Posted by giusec in Milano, mon amour, Web & Tecnology at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Frozen Austin (Texas) - Car, uploaded by giusec.

Posted by giusec in News & Analysis at 3:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (30)

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Question. Is there any mobile version of giusec's blog? Answer. Noo. Author is too lazy. You know. But here are a couple of services to make a mobile version out of your MT or Wordpress or whatever blog.

Just go to the following web sites, enter your blog's URL and the game is over. You will get a text-only, light version of your blog, ready to be dowloaded on your mobile/PDA/smartphone.

• Google's mobilizer service [link]
• Mobile leap [link]
• IYHY.com [link]
• Skweezer [link]

So, as an example, here is the giusec's blog mobile version generated with Google service (no images option).

If, instead, you really want to make your blog mobile-friendly in few minutes (well, this is what the author states) just click on this link and follow's Mike Davidson's suggestions.

Posted by giusec in Blogging at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2825)

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After one month break, I am ready to start again with my business traveling. This time, trip will be short: two full days in Munich, Germany. Back to Milan on friday night.

Also, a friend of mine is looking for candidates for the position below. Industry is Telecom. Location Milan, North Italy.

We are looking for an Account Manager, age max 32-35 y.o.; we accept candidates with little or no sales experience. Technical backgrond has to be strong in IP-networks, UMTS networks (radio and core), possibily with working experience in International vendors or System Integration companies.

If you are interested, please drop me an email (English mandatory). And good luck. 

Posted by giusec in Management & Recruiting at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1434)

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introducing the new iPhone (from MacRumors.com), uploaded by giusec.

Posted by giusec in Web & Tecnology at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Here we go, finally. In less than one hour, Steve Jobs will start his keynote at MacWorld 2007. These are the blogs providing speech and entire event live coverage.

• MacRumors.com
• UNEASYsilence
• Engadget
• The MacObserver.com
  
• MacScoop.com

And all others. Italians: let's not forget "our" Luca!

Update: the iPhone has just been presented! For first pics, see here.

Posted by giusec in Web & Tecnology at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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How a good day starts, uploaded by giusec.

First, Firefox 2.0. Great. Few seconds and puf! Installed. Second, IE 7. Well, still installing. In fact:

1. The (automatic upgrade) first installation crashes. No way to recover.
   
2. So I decide to go with a manual installation; I open my Firefox (IE no longer works) and I start;
   
3. I have to go through a WGA Plugin installation, first;
   
4. Then through a "Genuine Windows Validation";
5. Follows a generation of the validation code;
6. Once I validate my system, I start the download;
7. I install IE for the second time (and it validates the system again).

It's now 15 minutes installing core components. Let's see. How a good day starts.

• Update: after 45 min still crashes. I will switch back to the old version. If I will be able to find it.
• 2nd Update. It's 4pm and I'm still struggling with the damned IE7. 
• 3rd update. It's 5pm now. I found a great turnaround to switch back to a standalone version of IE6. Thanks to tech-recipes.
  

Posted by giusec in Web & Tecnology at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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1. This is not an extensive list. This is a list of contacts and companies gathered during my 10 years marketing exec career. I've been working with some of these companies; I have been contacted and interviewed by some others;
2. Give your contribution; again, fix data if it's wrong; if I am missing something, please let me know via comments or email;
3. I am not listing here companies like Michael Page, Mercury Urval, Praxi or Sintex that do recruiting but not head hunting;
   
4. There are many other ways to get in contact with companies which do head hunting and exec recruiting. One is LinkedIn. You may already know how LinkedIn works and you probably have already a LinkedIn account. If you don't, you may want to create one and read the latest post from Guy Kavasaki about how to use it at the best.
5. I am not covering here MBA exec recruiting. There are many other resources for MBA graduates, but I will cover this topic in a later post.
   

Finally, here is the list of Italian head hunters. All sites are in English, if not specifically written. Enjoy and...good luck!

• Egon Zehnder, link
• Ergon Executives, link [Italian]
  
• Spencer & Stuart, link
  
• Russel Reynolds Associates, link
  
• Eric Salmon & Partners, link
  
• AT Kerney Executive Search, link
  
• Neusearch, link
  
• KPMG People Advisory Service, link
  
• Key2People, link
  
• Hudson Highland, link and link
  
• Korn Ferry International, link
  
• Ray & Berndtson, link
  
• Alexander Mann Italia, link
  
• D&G The Amrop Hever Group, link and link
  
• Omnia, link [in Italian]
• Arethusa, link [Italian] and link
  
• Cegos Search, link [Italian] [1]
  
• Right Management, link and link [Italian] [2]
  

[1] not just executive; [2] they mainly do assesments, not exec research.

Posted by giusec in Management & Recruiting at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (157)

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Web-Trend-Map, uploaded by giusec.

InformationArchitects publish the Internet Predictions for 2007. Exec summary:

1. Apple keeps its iPod monopoly and increases its OS 5% market share to 5.1%
2. Google scores against Microsoft and Yahoo due to its massive marketing data advantage
3. Blogs bloom, and prepare for the 2008 election
4. Social networks become a place where members make money
5. Newspapers open up
6. Big ad investments start streaming in
7. New Internet focused ad agencies open up
8. Viruses and spam become an even bigger hassle
9. Yet Digital ID initiates a major change that makes the web more reliable, user and investor friendly
10. All in all 2007 is a preparation for the big infolution in 2008 

The full post is here, via IA.

Posted by giusec in Blogging, Web & Tecnology at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Following latest Guy Kavasaky's post about LinkedIn, my SDA Bocconi MBA is useless. From Guy's post:

The average number of LinkedIn connections for people who work at Google is forty-seven.
The average number for Harvard Business School grads is fifty-eight, so you could skip the MBA, work at Google, and probably get most of the connections you need. Later, you can hire Harvard MBAs to prepare your income taxes.
People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.

So, if you are still in process to take a decision about doing an MBA - and where: don't do it. Just sign into LinkedIn (it's free!) and get hired by Google.

Posted by giusec in MBA stuff at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Norway revises all GDP (Gross Domestic Product) figures back to the 70s, to adapt its financials to some int'l recommendations. As a results, the level of GDP has risen 0.8 per cent on average (!).

The Norwegian National Accounts has been revised back to 1970. As a result, the level of GDP at current prices has risen 0.8 per cent on average. The year-to-year growth rates of GDP at constant prices have also been revised. The main reason for revising the time series has been to adapt to international recommendations for the treatment of financial intermediation services and value added taxes (VAT). For the most recent years, other items have also been recalculated.

I am sure that Mr Berlusconi and his former Finance Minister Mr. Tremonti, supporters of the so called Creative Finance, would have been glad to add this to their portfolio of great reforms.

Here the full press note, from Statistic Norway.

Posted by giusec in Finance and Economics, News & Analysis at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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I love what Cathleen Johnson from Edelman writes on her blog. Because it simply represents my life.

(...) I could get used to this [staying home], I think. But then I look around and realize that travel is mandatory for me. Not just because it's what I do for a living, but because it's what shapes my life and allows me to be happy being home. I love being home because it's filled with the places I have been. The things, the art, the pictures, the books I read, the stories I tell to my friends and family -- so much of it is about traveling and experiencing other places. (...) When I head out again this week I'll have a new appreciation for the fact that all of my travels build my life, but home is where I have the chance to savor it.

This is the last week I will be at home, after the Christmas break. Then travels will start back again. Business will bring me to Germany and North Italy. And new travels will come.

Posted by giusec in My 2 cents, Vagabonding at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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As I wrote on my previous post on del.icio.us, I will now explain how to automate the link posting. Better, we will see how to post daily del.icio.us links to your Movable Type (or Wordpress) blog. Following this procedure, del.icio.us bookmarks will automatically show up on your Movable Type blog, once every 24 hours. Good examples of the output are: Micropersuasion (Steve Rubel), Macchianera, my blog.

First of all, open your account on del.ioc.us. Once you are in, start with the process.

1. Go to del.icio.us/settings/[your_username]/daily where your_username is the login name used to enter to del.icio.us services. In my case, as an example: del.icio.us/settings/giusec/daily;
2. start to fill the empty fields (see following points);
3. job_name: This can be whatever you like, just give it a name. Important: this is not the post title. It's just a name. I called my first one "giusec Links";
4. out_name: your MT login.
5. out_pass: your MT password.
6. out_url: this is the absolute URL of mt-xmlrpc.cgi script and will depend on the software you use. For MT users is usually http://[blogname]/mt-xmlrpc.cgi. In my case, http://giusec.net/blog-mt/mt-xmlrpc.cgi. For Wordpress it should be something like: http://[blogname]/xmlrpc.php (I am not a WP expert, sorry);
   
7. out_time:  is the time you'd like the links to be posted every 24 hours. The value should be between 0 and 23, based on GMT. For Central European Users (like me; I live in Milan): GMT = CET+1. I have this set to 2 GMT, so my post will be generated at 3am;
8. out_blog_id: Should be 1, if you have only one MT blog. Otherwise log into your MT control panel, click on the entries icon and look at the URL. My URL is: http://giusec.net/blog-mt/mt.cgi?__mode=list_entries&blog_id=2. Well, blog_id is = 2;
9. out_cat_id: this one is optional, if you want to categorize your automatic posts. You should be able to find the ID by logging into MT control panel and clicking the Categories icon.  Put your mouse over the Category you want to choose and look at the URL. You will get something like: http://giusec.net/blog-mt/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=category&blog_id=2&id=8. Well, the blog_id is 2 and the Category_id is 8.

Now you can Submit your Query and simply wait for the automatic post (of course you are supposed to add some links to your del.icio.us list in the next 24 hours). Sleep well.

References:

• Lifehacker
  
• Commoncraft
• How now, brownpau 

Posted by giusec in Blogging, Movable Type at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

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• Frank Barnako's Media blog
  (tags: blog internet marketing technology web business finance media)
• LorenzoC : web, tech e altri farfugli
  (tags: blog)
• Sergio Maistrello Blog
  (tags: blog giornalismo)
• AIGA - Symbol signs
  (tags: symbols signs)
• Thumblicious: see the sites - viewing popular
  (tags: del.icio.us Blogging aggregator web)
• Dr. Metablog: "Geographical Dyslexia," or "Directional Disability," or, People Who Lose Their Way
  (tags: orientation directional giusec)

Posted by giusec in Blogging at 3:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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First. The long list of bookmarks and tags published on the previous post has been generated automatically from del.icio.us; I will explain how to automate it for your blog in a later post.

Said that, let's talk about del.icio.us. Everybody knows (or should know) what del.icio.us is. From the site about:

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website - the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.

In few words, you can store your links and favourites (bookmarking), online; they are accessible from everywhere; they can be shared with other del.icio.us users (that's why social). If you want to see giusec's del.icio.us page just go here. If you want to add giusec's bookmarks to your del.icio.us network, just click here. Finally, you can use giusec's del.icio.us links on the right column to review my bookmarks or to add my blog to your network at any time.

If you are a Firefox user (you are, right? you are?) you can add del.icio.us icons to your browser toolbar, simply downloading and installing the useful del.icio.us plugin for Firefox.

Posted by giusec in About giusec, Blogging at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

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• mitchell's blog
  (tags: blog firefox mozilla open-source)
• How to Post Daily Del.icio.us Links to Your Movable Type Blog
  (tags: del.icio.us movabletype howto blog Blogging bookmarks)
• ShotCode.com
  (tags: mobile shotcode phone technology internet marketing)
• LiveMarks
  displays new links as they are added to del.icio.us
  (tags: del.icio.us bookmarks aggregator list)
• Blogniscient
  (tags: Blogs blogosphere blog aggregator technology news)
• Blog Usability: Top Ten Design Mistakes in Weblogs (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
  (tags: usability blog design WebDesign blogging web marketing)
• Del.icio.us daily blog posting
  (tags: del.icio.us blog blogging howto tips)
• How to back up del.icio.us bookmarks on your blog - Lifehacker
  (tags: del.icio.us tips bookmarks blogging howto)
• Absolutely Del.icio.us Tools Collection
  (tags: del.icio.us tools web2.0 web list aggregator)
• Gary Mintchell's Feed Forward
  (tags: blog software automation)
• Frank Barnako's Media blog
  (tags: blog internet marketing technology web business finance media)
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
  (tags: google spreadsheet documents docs)
• del.icio.us Bookmarks | Firefox Add-ons
  (tags: firefox del.icio.us extension internet)
• How to Change the World: The Entrepreneur's New Year's Resolution: "I Will Fix My Pitch"
  (tags: business marketing plans VC startup howto)
• Web 2.0 Magazine: Top 100 Web 2.0 Sites
  (tags: Web2.0 list links web reference internet technology)
• Hack Attack: A guide for switching to a Mac - Lifehacker
  (tags: mac Apple switch)
• links for 2007-01-01 ► Macchianera
  (tags: blog del.icio.us tips blogging)

Posted by giusec in Blogging at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

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This is not the first time I write about urban (or metro or place or local or hyperlocal) blogs. I did many times already on my Italian blog (we have, in fact, many examples of local blogs in Italy; you can find a - not exhaustive - list here, via Axell. Unfortunately, all of them are in Italian).

There are two brand new local blogs aggregators now live: Placeblogger and Outside.in. David Weinberger explains shortly and clearly the difference.

Lisa Williams' PlaceBlogger launched today. It aggregates blogs that are about the places where the bloggers live. Unlike Steve Johnson's Outside.in, it is hand-assembled and it focuses on bloggers writing about where they live; Outside.in maintains a list of placebloggers but it also aggregates posts about places no matter the location of the people who wrote them. That gives PlaceBlogger a certain intimacy and the potential to seed local communities of bloggers, while Outside.in is better site if you're trying to find everything said about a location. It also means that, especially at the outset, Outside.in has more stuff, while PlaceBlogger feels a bit sparsely populated (...)

I've just registered (you have to do it manually) giusec's blog with both sites. Are you aware about other placebloggers (not necessarily US-based) aggregators?

Posted by giusec in Blogging at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Here is something that I just posted on my Italian blog: The 2006 Companies to Incazz For. This is a clear (clear?) paraphrase of the Fortune 200x Companies to Work For list. Where the word "incazz" comes from italian "Incazzarsi" or "to be fed up with" (I am always trying to be politically correct, here). So, basically, you can vote for the worst Italian company in 2006: the one with the worst customer care, the one with the worst products, services, and so on.

Two years ago the winner was RAI (italian public TV channels) and Telecom Italia (first home phone provider). Let's see who will be the 2006 winner.

Here below is the badge, via Squidoo.

PS. The entire story is here, on my Italian blog.

Posted by giusec in News & Analysis at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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