Internet

14 Jan 2011 No Comments

How to blow 1.6 million EUR

The University of Smallville needs to build a new student centre. The centre will offer services to students such as programme enrolment and exam registration, and will provide a new auditorium, library, swimming pool, gym, etc.

On the 14th of September 2006 the University Board decides to initiate a project called MegaCentre for the new student centre, to which it allocates half a million EUR. The University has, among others, a Department of Architecture, a Department of Engineering and a Department of Facility Management. One might expect that the University Board would assign the management of MegaCentre to one of these Departments. On the contrary, however, the University Board assigns the management of MegaCentre to the Student Affairs Centre. The Student Affairs Centre forms a working group composed of a project leader, a project co-leader, a technical leader and two co-workers. Again, one might expect that someone from the Department of Architecture, Engineering or Facility Management would cover one of these roles. On the contrary, however, all members of the working group, except for the technical leader, belong to the Student Affairs Centre. The project leader and co-leader do not have specialist educations in architecture or engineering. The technical leader of the working group has an education in engineering but does not belong to the University. The working group spends more than one year and half a million EUR planning MegaCentre.

On the 13th of September 2007 the working group presents the plans for MegaCentre to the University Board. According to these plans, the construction of the building will be assigned to the external construction company Nonchalant, which guarantees the use of state-of-the-art construction techniques. Moreover, once the building comes into service, the maintenance will be assigned to the Department of Facility Management. The University Board accepts the plans and allocates an additional 0.9 million EUR to the project. Nonchalant spends more than one year on construction of the building, on completion of which it presents a bill of 1.1 million EUR.

On the 4th of February 2009 the building is inaugurated with due ceremony, after which it enters into service. Unfortunately, faults in the building’s design immediately become evident, with problems such as poor insulation, a leaky roof, an unreliable alarm system and poor handicap access, to name but a few. Both employees and students soon become frustrated. Again, one might expect that the working group of MegaCentre would demand Nonchalant to honour its contractual agreement, repair all faults and pay any necessary fines for damage caused. On the contrary, however, the working group simply allows the Department of Facility Management to deal with the faults as they see fit. The Department of Facility Management hires construction workers and assigns them to the repairs and alterations. The construction workers do what they can, but after one year many design issues remain unresolved. The head of the Department of Facility Management, who has an education in engineering, decides to perform a thorough evaluation of the building. On doing so, he discovers that the building is constructed with obsolete, rather than state-of-the-art techniques, and that these would not guarantee minimal safety in the event of a natural disaster. Finally, he concludes that it will in fact be necessary to reconstruct the building from scratch using appropriate techniques.

On the 29th of April 2010 the head of the Department of Facility Management presents the evaluation to the University Board. At this point the University Board finally acknowledges that severe action must be taken and sues Nonchalant for damages, excludes the Student Affairs Centre from the project, hands the management of MegaCentre to the Department of Facility Management and fires the employees responsible for public money wasted hitherto.

Do you find this story unbelievable? Well, now replace the name Smallville with Bergen, MegaCentre with EksternWeb and Nonchalant with Bouvet, and read it again here…

by Alessandro in Internet, Politics, Technology, Wishy-washiness Tags: bouvet, communication centre, eksternweb, fail, kommunikasjonsavdelingen, project management, software engineering, uib, universitetet i bergen, universitetsstyret, university board, university of bergen, uob, web design, web site

15 Mar 2007 No Comments

Ten years of home page

Some days ago, while a was hacking (that simply means “to devise or modify a computer program, usually skillfully”) the code of the theme I use on this site, and I started to think about how much time it passed since my first appearance on the Internet and how my web site evolved in such period.

I started connecting to Internet in 1995 with a U.S. Robotics 28.800bps modem, paid through the nose. My first nickname was Nemo – poor choice I know, but at that time it was possible to choose an unoriginal name.

I think I made my first home page in 1997. It was hosted in a web space offered together with the connectivity by my local provider. I used it to load some picture and to test the script that I was finding hither and thither on the network, like the windows bombing one that associated an infinite pop-up opening cycle to a button conveniently tagged “Don’t click”.

Even if moved several times to other free web hosting, the structure of my home page remained almast the same until 2000.

Nemo Home Page

Forward in time, it became evident the difficulty to continue to use the nickname chosen: Nemo was widely used and I almost didn’t have have the opportunity to register with this username to free services. So I decided to change the nickname, something that was very hard for me both because I was really attached to that name and because I wanted to choose something enough original. At the end I choose Aronnax, because I decided that like the first my nickname had to come from the book “Vingt mille lieues sous le mers” (20000 Leagues Under the Sea) by Jules Verne. Moreover, Aronnax starts with my initials AR, something that was binding it even more to me.

For this occasion I designed my new home page, giving it a more personal look and feel. Also the contents changed a bit, and I start to upload my first coding experiments made with GNU/Linux between university and spare time. For the graphics I took inspiration from the Apple time, that at that time was introducing MacOS X. That version of the home page lasted in 2002.

Aronnax Home Page

Also in 2002 decided to finally register the aronnax.it domain. The old home page was dismissed to make room to a news portal dedicated to GNU/Linux. That portal was based on a content management system developed by me and Graziano Liberati, and the newses were loaded directly by me. Despite the efforts after 3 years the portal was closed because the time to spend over it was too much, and the income too poor.

In 2003 I also registered the alessandrorossini.it were I loaded my first real personal web site, of a typical computer science student that starts to think about his future work. The look and feel changed from funny to serious: the main content – excluding the welcome page with my face that I used until this year – was the Curriculum Vitae. For the graphics, I choose the simplest way of downloading one of the templates available at the Open Source Web Design portal.

Alessandro Rossini's Web Site 1.0

The versions that went form 2005 to 2007 were not different in the contents, but renewed the graphics that became more attractive.

Alessandro Rossini's Web Site 2.0

The last is the version you are looking now. I switched to the powerful WordPress system and I will continue to add my blog. I also decided that the Italian and the English version of my web site will be completely separated, and the latter will be hosted to this freshly registered alessandrorossini.org domain.

At the end more then ten years passed since my first page, the technology grew a lot and I changed radically as men…am I becoming old? Help me!!!

by Alessandro in Internet

15 Mar 2007 2 Comments

Dieci anni di home page

Giorni fa, mentre mettevo mano al codice del tema che uso su questo sito, ho iniziato a riflettere su quanto tempo è passato dalla mia prima apparizione su Internet e come è evoluto il mio sito in tutto questo tempo.

Iniziai a connettermi ad Internet intorno al 1995 con un modem della U.S. Robotics da 28.800bps, pagato un occhio della testa. Lo pseudonimo con cui mi presentavo era Nemo, scelta piuttosto infelice lo so, ma a quei tempi Internet era ancora qualcosa di nicchia e mi potevo permettere questo nome poco originale.

Credo che realizzai la mia prima home page nel 1997. Era caricata su uno spazio web che mi veniva offerto come parte del servizio di connettività del provider locale. Ci caricavo qualche foto e ci sperimentavo quegli script che trovavo qua e là in rete, fra cui il temutissimo windows bombing che associava un ciclo infinito di apertura pop-up ad un tasto opportunamente etichettato “Don’t click”.

Pur avendo subito vari traslochi in altri spazi web gratuiti, la struttura della mia home page rimase piú o meno la stessa fino al 2000.

Nemo Home Page

Con l’avanzare del tempo poi, fu sempre piú evidente la difficoltà di continuare ad utilizzare lo pseudonimo scelto: Nemo era diventato sputtanatissimo e non avevo quasi mai la possibilità di registrarmi a servizi gratuiti con questa username. Decisi cosí di cambiare pseudonimo, cosa che mi costò tantissimo sia per il legame con il vecchio nome sia per l’indecisione su cosa potesse essere sufficientemente originale. Alla fine scelsi Aronnax, poiché decisi che come il primo anche il nuovo sarebbe dovuto essere tratto dal libro “20000 leghe sotto i mari” di Giulio Verne. Inoltre Aronnax inizia con le mie due iniziali AR, cosa che lo avvicina ancora di piú a me.

Con l’occasione ridisegnai la mia nuova home page, dandogli un tono ancora piú personale. Anche i contenuti cambiarono un po’, ed iniziai a caricare i primi esperimenti di codice sorgente che facevo con GNU/Linux tra università e tempo libero. Per la grafica presi ispirazione dal sito Apple che a quei tempi introduceva MacOS X. Questa versione della home page è durata fino al 2002.

Aronnax Home Page

Sempre durante il 2002 decisi finalmente di registrare il dominio aronnax.it. La vecchia home page fu abbandonata, per fare spazio ad un portale di informazione dedicato a GNU/Linux. Questo portale era basato su un gestore di contenuti scritto da me e Graziano Liberati, e le notizie erano curate interamente da me. Nonostante gli sforzi dopo esattamente tre anni il portale fu chiuso poiché il tempo da spendere era troppo, ed il ricavo troppo poco.

Nel 2003 registrai anche il dominio alessandrorossini.it sul quale caricai il mio primo vero sito personale, da tipico studente di informatica che già pensa al domani lavorativo. Il tono passava infatti da goliardico a serio: il contenuto principale del sito, escludendo la pagina di benvenuto con la mia faccia che ho portato avanti fino a quest’anno, era il Curriculum Vitae. Per la grafica scelsi la strada piú rapida di scaricare ed utilizzare una delle template disponibili sul portale Open Source Web Design.

Alessandro Rossini's Web Site 1.0

Le versioni successive che andarono dal 2005 al 2007 non erano differenti nei contenuti, ma rinnovavano un po’ la grafica che si faceva sempre piú accattivante.

Alessandro Rossini's Web Site 2.0

Il resto poi lo state vedendo da soli. Sono passato all’ottimo WordPress e continuerò a scrivere questo blog. L’unica aggiunta è stata la registrazione del sito alessandrorossini.org sul quale tengo la versione in lingua inglese del mio sito.

Ormai insomma sono passati piú di dieci anni dalla mia prima pagina, la tecnologia ha fatto cose impensabili ed io sono completamente cambiato come persona…starò mica diventando vecchio? Aiuto!!!

by Alessandro in Internet, Italiano

23 Feb 2007 No Comments

Welcome!

I had to wait my degree to install a blog, but finally I made it. Maybe you’re asking yourself: was it really necessary? Probably not, but it’s a way to give vent to my attitude of speak and my inner nature of columnist. And nowadays to have a blog is considered “cool”.

We are in the era of web 2.0, something that no one knows exactly what it is but that is on everyone’s lips. By now everybody that has a minimal know-how in informatics use services like weblog, photolog, social networks, social bookmarking, wiki, podcasting… considering that I don’t want to be the typical professional who never spend time for himself, I decided that I had to start to exploit these technologies.