Web review

“Ops, we did it again”.

It seems that Googlebombing is still working, even if Google announced stronger filters to avoid it.
Many italian bloggers decided to link “merda” (the italian word to say “shit”) to the official italian tourism portal (Italia.it), after they knew that this modest government site costed 42 millions of Euros.
So, if you are Googling for “merda” from Google Italia today, you’ll get Italia.it as the very first search result: nuts to SEO experts

I don’t know if tomorrow it will be the same (and if this result is worldwide), so here’s a screenshot for the history
Another very funny element is the sponsorized link on the right (”… that we’re not”), featuring RItaliaCamp, the antagonist and no-profit site, born to re-think Italia.it in a social, collaborative and useful way.

Versione Italiana dell’articolo

Google Calendar has (finally!) reactivated SMS notifications for Italian cellular operators.
You’ve just to go to Settings -> Notifications and enter your mobile phone number, to receive the verification code (it has to be entered on the same page to activate notifications).

Thank you Google!

PS: and about other countries? Are there other nations where SMS notification were deactivated?

I’m not used to shout and accuse companies, but tonight I discovered something that I didn’t like about Microsoft.
After a lot of delivery problems for Hotmail users (I manage some sites that sends e-mail notifications to registered people… of course it isn’t absolutely not spam), I contacted the support for webmasters: I had several discussions with Microsoft employees, trying to find a solution. Finally, they told me:

… “Many legitimate mailers and marketers have qualified and joined this “white listing” program to improve mail deliverability and decrease email from being filtered to the Junk E-mail Folder. Sender Score is a third party program, administered by Return Path. Sender Score (www.senderscorecertified.com) is the only White Listing service to which we subscribe.”

So I went to Sender Score website to subscribe to the program. They say that “90 days of mailing activity is required for each IP submitted for accreditation“. Ok, it’s normal… but a few of rows below I see the registration steps:

1. Read and agree to the Sender Score Certified Email Standards
2. Read and agree to the terms and conditions of the Participating Sender Agreement
3. Complete a short self-assessment form
4. Pay an application fee

… a “fee”? To legitimate my e-mails? This is strange… ok, but how much? Let’s see pricing:

So they’re asking webmasters (also for non-profit organization!) to pay at least 400$ only to be “sure” that their e-mail will go directly into Hotmail customers’ inboxes. In other words… if you pay, they can “turn a blind eye”.

I don’t know how do you call it, but as everybody knows… here, in Italy, we are very conscious of what is “Mafia”.
Does Hotmail asks web sites to pay a “pizzo”?

After less than 10 days after my order, today I received my FON Router
I spoke about the FON network some days ago on this blog, highlighting their interesting offer: 5 Euros (or 5 USD) for this nice Wi-fi router, and the possibility to get access to the worldwide FON network, to have free Wi-fi internet everywhere.

My Fonera is now running, you can see my active Hot Spot welcome screen on maps.fon.com, entering this address:
via Vittorio Veneto, Bordighera, Italy

Here there are some pictures of the box that I took with my cellular phone this morning… look at the “Hotspot sticker” ;)

The FON Website launched an interesting promotion, for the first purchase of any user: they’re sending “La Fonera“, a little Wi-fi Router, for 5$ or 5€ (shipping cost is 8$ for USA and 10€ for Europe).

“La Fonera” is a FON router and it allows to join the FON network; it connects to your existing modem or router, with an ethernet cable, and it gives two Wifi streams: the first one is private, for personal navigation, the second is shared, available for any other FON user that is close to you (you can adjust the available bandwidth for the two streams).

FON users can use others’ Wifi spots everywhere, without paying anything (for example when you’re on holiday with your notebook). Access is restricted throught a personal login/password, so FON can inform authorities in the case of abuses.
Users can navigate a World map to discover where’s the nearest FON Wifi spot (you can also download a part of the map to your GPS device).

Joining the FON network is the key to get free internet access everywhere.

If you’re not interested in mobile internet you can also choose to give Wifi to others, and to get paid from FON (they will share with you money they get from FON users that, on the contrary, don’t give out Wifi, but they pay for using it throught others’ FON spots).

http://www.fon.com

Just a little curiosity: today I opened www.google.it in Opera browser mobile version, on my Nokia 6680, and I noticed that its logo was divided in 4 different parts, and with “Italia” rendered as text:

The old version was a single image, with the text “Italia” embedded:

This change seems to be also in other international Google website.

The old version is visible, for example, in one of the cached pages by Archive.org.
Bandwidth optimization?

This news is nearly unbelievable, but it’s true: most european Nokia phones (like 6630, 6680, N70, N90…) can be updated with home PCs, using the simple USB cable shipped with the device.

The procedure is widely spreading on the net, translated in many languages, and it includes instructions to download the softwares that Nokia Points use to “flash” phones (”Phoenix Service”, “DieGo”, and cable drivers) and the right firmware to update the different models.

This operation is unable to “unlock” the restrictions that many operators include into phones, to prohibit users to use SIMs of others, but it allows users to update their phones software without bringing it to official retailers, and/or to modify the interface languages of the phones.

I want to highlight that this is a dangerous operation that can make your phone stop working, so use it at your own risk! In addiction, it involves the use of some software that cannot legally be used without a Nokia authorization.

More informations can be found in many forums, like www.serie60.it, www.nokioteca.net (in italian), www.forummobiles.com (french) …

After my indignation for the IP filtering procedure operated by italian government, for online betting sites, I write about a news that is quickly spreading on the Net: it was sufficient a few days to discover that IPs were not blocked for real, for italian users; it simply seems that DNS servers were “sabotated”, to transfer italian people to 217.175.53.72, that answers with “NOTICE – THIS SITE IS NOT REACHABLE” etc etc…

It’s sufficient an IP Whois of one of blocked addresses, for example the famous 888.com, throught a not-italian whois server to get the real IP address and there will be no problem to enter in the blocked site.

The decision to use a so light filter, to prevent italian users from enter to online casino sites is really strange, but I think we can explain it with the fact that government knows that it’s sufficient to create a little impediment to descorage accesses for the majority of  and to move the interests to that ones that offers an immediate access (that ones that are parts of the monopoly of the state or that ones that acquired a license to operate also in Italy).
We’ll see how this situation will evolve.

I decided to start today with the english version of my blog. The italian version was started in January 2006, and I’m happy that visits are increasing, so I want to try opening to international people

This will be simply the translated version. I hope to find enough time to translate also the articles of the past two months…

I hope people will excuse me for my errors in english, but I speak it only because I learned it at school… happy reading!

Since today (the law is in technical activation) italian users cannot reach more than 500 websites from their PCs. We’re talking about online betting and virtual casino sites. The law, from the italian ministry of Economy is well explained in this article (in italian). IPs of that sites are filtered by italian government.

Italian users that try to connect themselves, for example, to the famous 888.com online casino, will see this screen:

(click to enlarge)

I want to highlight my deep indignation for a law that gives the start to a dangerous way of censuring the Web and that puts Italy on a level of cultural freedom similar to China, where Internet is heavily censored by authorities. I’m astonished because, right now, nobody has started a petition to ask for an immediate deletion of this decision, and I want to catch this occasion to declare my availability for organizing it on raneri.it pages… make me know with comments if you’re interested.

By now, I want to inform everybody about the possibility to reach anyway the blocked site, with connections throught a foreign proxy. I think that it’s unquestionable that a simple visit to an internet site could be a crime and, furthermore, nearly every locked site gives the possibility to play with their services in “demo” mode, without betting real money. So if we want to visit these sites, avoiding blocks, there’s anything of illegal or immoral, of course. These are the methods:

• Throught any public foreign proxy server: wherever, on the Internet, it’s possible to find lists of proxies, available for everybody, for example http://www.publicproxyservers.com/ presents several pages of proxies. Setting a proxy in Internet Explorer is easy: Tools > Internet options > “Connections” sheet >”Settings” button > activate “Use a proxy server …” > Paste the address of one of that proxy serversand the relative port. Same operation is possible in other browsers, with similar commands. If the first proxy you’ll try will not work, don’t discorauge you: a lot of proxy change address frequently, so try others until you’ll find one that works, and maybe it’s good and fast;
• With Google: The function “translate web pages” of the famous search engine can be used in a… improper way to take advantage of it as a “quick” proxy. Just go to:
  http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=it|it&u=www.TheAddressYouCantAccess
  to “tunnel” the request of the page throught Google servers, and to get the blocked page;
• With special softwares, to automatically modify connection settings, everytime, to pass throught “free nodes” of the net, and to eventually crypt it to avoid interceptions. For these solutions I give you a link to the interesting page by Freerk, a german guy that simply says that he doesn’t agree with ideas of two neo-nazi sites that was blocked for German users, but at the same time that he finds unacceptable that the government can decide what citizens can or cannot see. Just think that him got angry about 2 sites (that are, in addiction, morally condemnables), what italian people must say about 500+ blocks?