There are a few steps to follow:

• Download latest version of tomcat -> Apache Tomcat Homepage
• Extract it and rename the folder to “Tomcat”
• Now move it to /Library folder with this command (after “cd”ing to the folder before the unzipped one, apache version may changes)
  • mv apache-tomcat-6.0.26 /Library/Tomcat
• Get a script to simplify tomcat starting and stopping

• Put it in a file named “tomcat” and move it to /usr/bin (“chmod +x tomcat” before run it)
• Now set the system variable “JAVA_HOME” to “/Library/Java/Home” using $ENV preference panel (Simple)
• Now use tomcat “tomcat start” and stop it with “tomcat stop”

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Steve Jobs

source: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Vista was (and will be for a few time) a forward step about security, but we’ve to say it was a back step about speed related to Windows Xp.

Microsoft with the new 7 will search for a new desktop experience providing better speeds for the main ui increasing productivity in every task.

Gaming first of all! :)…

Visit the link below to know more about new 7’s features..

Link:

• Microsoft Blog Source

Link:

• NVIDIA Becomes A Nintendo WorldWide Third Party Tools Provider With PhysX SDK For Wii

Reading NVIDIA Provides Physics Technology For PLAYSTATION®3 I’ve just thinked about ported PC Games from PS3… And ATI Users… like me (for now :) )…

Is it just the begin of the end for Workstation Ati Graphic Cards?

Link:

• http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1237287245570.html

One of the most important magazine about technology and everything around is arrived in Italy… and it comes with an associated site.

Links:

• Wired.it
• Wired.it News

Link:

• http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/19/san-francisco-city-hall-gets-its-own-electric-vehicle-charging-s/  

Link

• Official Site (Italiano)
• Official Site (English)

Link:

• http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090123-falling-satellites.html
  

Link:

• http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/23jan_darkside.htm

Link:

• http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/15jan_marsmethane.htm

I’m using it for an exam… and i’ve to say it’s very powerful… with a few commands you can do very complex calculations… And when there is hard work to do here Nvidia comes… with his CUDA… Mathematica will never be the same :D (it seems a spot for NVIDIA!)

Source:

• http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1227010734073.html

Not a planet for humans for sure (hoping a smaller and hotter planet near the central sun will be a life source!)… but it’s a great discover…

Source:

• http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/13nov_fomalhaut.htm

Source:

• http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/12/cray-supercomputer-is-worlds-fastest-that-were-allowed-to-kno/

"We are now on the correct trajectory for eventual insertion into orbit around Mercury, and all of our instruments returned data as planned."

by MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon

Link:

• http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/07oct_firstresults.htm

Link:

• http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/image_of_day_081002.html

Link:

• http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/01oct_mercuryflyby2.htm

Basic rules to follow to do a great work with Physx API by Monier Maher during NVISION08

High Performance Computing by David B. Kirk

Interesting Screenshots

CUDA large applications!!

Folding@Home Power!!

A simple C parallel Code

More Power… Less consumes!!

Innovation by NVIDIA!!

This would be the first important thing a developer must follow! :) 

Link:

• The Art of Physx
• High Performance Computing by David B. Kirk

177.98 has a know issue related to digital vibrance at 100% when you start Windows Xp.

A workaround to fix this one is to Use Rivatuner..

Selecting your monitor… Click on the second Customize button…

Now select Desktop and overlay color scheme…

And now adjust your settings and click on “Apply this color schemes at Windows Startup”

Done. :)

While Ginevra is full of protons shootings (without results since now… )… In another part of the Universe a Scream of Black Hole’s Birth has been Detected and “A spectacular nearby star explosion observed in 1843 is now thought to be a previously unknown type of explosion that leaves stars intact.”

A great idea to use sea water to get more cold to Google’s Units… Protecting our World

Link:

• US patents & trademark office link
• Source: (Italian) 

News:

• Installing the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) — A new and more powerful main camera that bests its predecessors by seeing in both ultraviolet and near infrared as well as visible light. Hubble would be able to see 90 times more objects than it did at launch in April 1990.
• Replacing six Rate Sensor Units (RSU) — The gyroscopes help keep Hubble pointed precisely at distant stars and galaxies for hours at a time. Hubble can technically limp by on two or even one gyroscope, but the fresh exchange ensures that the science keeps flowing.
• Replacing six Nickel Hydrogen Batteries — The suitcase -sized batteries get swapped out for the first time in 16 years, giving Hubble an extra lease on life for the next 5 to 10 years. The batteries keep Hubble humming during the night portion of its orbit.
• Adding the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) — This instrument uses the ultraviolet range to find out the temperature, density, chemical composition and velocity of intergalactic gas and galaxies, with ten times the sensitivity of current Hubble instruments.
• Repairing the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrometer (STIS) — A two-sided instrument that uniquely scans across all light wavelengths of objects such as planets, comets, stars and galaxies. Spacewalkers will replace a failed power converter to restore one side of the damaged device.
• Replacing the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) — One of three optical sensors that help Hubble lock onto targets with a system of mirrors and lenses. The old FGS returns home after being removed from Hubble during an earlier servicing mission.
• Fixing the Advance Camera for Surveys (ACS) — A highly efficient survey tool with a wide field of view that became damaged. Astronauts hope to repair some of its capabilities since it failed last year.
• Adding new Thermal Insulation — The multilayer insulation on Hubble has become torn and broken by the harsh environment of space. The new thermal blankets protect the damaged insulation and helps maintain a steady temperature for Hubble.

Links:

• Source (space.com)

Chrome Comix

There are nothing to say… just read this comix :)

• http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/#

And download it here:

• http://www.google.com/chrome

Screenshots:

Link:

• http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/21/intel-demos-a-wireless-power-broadcasting-system-villagers-terr/

]]> http://gianvito.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/wireless-power-broadcasting-system/feed/ 10 gianvito 8-21-08-intelwireles http://gianvito.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/corei7-could-be-very-interesting-as-motherboards-will-support-it/ http://gianvito.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/corei7-could-be-very-interesting-as-motherboards-will-support-it/#comments Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:35:06 +0000 gianvito http://gianvito.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/corei7-could-be-very-interesting-as-motherboards-will-support-it/ ]]> “provide support for up to six graphics cards, 24GB of DDR3-1333 RAM (or 6GB of DDR3-1900/2000 using overclocked 2GB DIMMs)”

Link:

• http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/27/gigabyte-shows-off-robust-core-i7-prototype-motherboard/

“To explore the violent and unpredictable gamma ray universe”

Link:

• http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/26aug_firstlight.htm

• Do you had (and i think have now… if you hadn’t fix that) problems with nvidia drivers?
• Do you have a new graphic card (from nvidia (8,9,GT200 series))?
• 2d performance are so poor?
• Especially, gtk performance are poor?

Try to modify your xorg options like this:

Textually:

Option “NvAGP” “0″
Option “NoLogo” “True”
Option “AllowGLXWithComposite” “1″
Option “AddARGBVisuals” “True”
Option “AddARGBGLXVisuals” “True”
Option “Coolbits” “1″
Option “TripleBuffer” “1″
Option “AllowIndirectPixmaps” “1″
Option “AccelMethod” “XAA”
Option “XAANoOffscreenPixmaps” “true”
Option “DRI” “true”
Option “PixmapCacheSize” “2500000″
Option “AllowSHMPixmaps” “0″
Option “OnDemandVBlankInterrupts” “true”
Option “RenderAccel” “True”

and these are results i had from a previous post:

I hope this will help you to solve some performance problems…

]]> http://gianvito.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/its-so-useful-for-me-and-i-wish-for-you-too-it-earns-a-new-post/feed/ 44 gianvito nvidiawind xorgsettings2 image http://gianvito.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/spacecom-21-august-interesting-links/ http://gianvito.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/spacecom-21-august-interesting-links/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:16:32 +0000 gianvito http://gianvito.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/spacecom-21-august-interesting-links/ ]]> “Next we can say dark matter doesn’t exist, it’s just that the total solar output of the stars is not sufficient to light up all the matter in the universe. :)”

(Comment) invisible_ghost wrote:

Links:

• Space ‘Ropes’ Hang Together by Threads

• Middleweight Black Holes Nearly Ruled Out

• http://gianvito.wordpress.com/gtk-engines-benchmarks/

Link:

• http://ldn.linuxfoundation.org/how-participate-linux-community

Source: http://www.hwupgrade.it/news/software/una-guida-per-contribuire-allo-sviluppo-del-kernel-linux_26208.html

Links:

• Science@Nasa —->  http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/19aug_lws.htm

Finally I’ve downloaded Warmonger and i’ve tried it.

Screenshots:

Benchmarks:

• Athlon64 @ 2.4 Ghz
• 2 gb Ram
• Nvidia Geforce 9600 gt
• 177.83 Nvidia Driver
• Physx 8.08.01 Driver

Physx Disabled (using Fraps)

Physx Enabled (Using Fraps)

More than 4 times faster! :)

Visit the link to download new software for your NVIDIA Geforce 8/9/GT200 Series

Links:

• Force Within —–>  http://www.nvidia.com/content/forcewithin/us/download.asp

Links:

• Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks August 12
• Study: All Planets Are Born in Killer Environments
• Milky Way’s Dark Matter Clumpier Than Thought
• Dark Energy Signs Seen in Giant Clusters and Voids

Update: On August 12 NVIDIA will release official physx and graphic drivers

Links:

• Nvidia website —–> www.nvidia.com
• Physx Drivers —–> http://en.expreview.com/img/software/0808/PhysX_8.07.18_SystemSoftware.exe
• Supported games —-> http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html
• Folding@Home project —–> http://folding.stanford.edu/
• guru3d forum post —–> http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=269514

We’ve to say Nvidia IS the leader in graphic hardware. Especially for innovations.

After Nvidia bought Ageia Physx… Engineers wanted to use this technology on their graphic cards.

In fact a GPU is faster than a CPU in some kind of calculation… cause CPU was born to be a general purpouse calculator and it has to manage different aspects to respect compatibility on every system and with every program (but it’s not the only reason).

So when we use GPU to calculate the physic we give out from main processor that work (making it better)… and we can concentrate to give more realism to a project (like a game).

GPU (as processor) is used also in Folding@Home software… Where we process very complex calculation through Graphic Units to give an hand to the medicine.

All is faster… In the latest time where we’ve only support for GTX cards and 9800 gtx… and statistics says Folding@Home begins to be a real weapon against diseases as consequence of a greater success related to the use of graphics cards (and PS3 CPU) to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related misfunction (Folding@Home goal).

Directly from Folding@Home website:

” ABSTRACT. Commercial graphics processors (GPUs) have high compute capacity at very low cost, which makes them attractive for general purpose scientic computing. In this poster we show how graphics processors can be used for N-body simulations to obtain large improvements in performance over current generation CPUs. We have developed a highly optimized algorithm for performing the O(N^2) force calculations that constitute the major part of stellar and molecular dynamics simulations. In the calculations, we achieve sustained performance of nearly 100 GFlops on an ATI X1900XTX. The performance on GPUs 25x an Intel Pentium4, and 2x specialized hardware such as GRAPE-6A, but at a fraction of the cost. Furthermore, the wide availability of GPUs has signicant implications for cluster computing and distributed computing efforts like Folding@Home. “

So i downloaded them from the link above… and i’ve tried to get it working (on a 9600 gt) (nothing more simple).

Here is a list (taken from the link above) of physx supported games:

I’ve to download 3d mark to see real differences (nophysx – physx) but my actual dialup connection doesn’t allow me to do it.

If you’ve some interesting links where we can find benchmarks and other… just comment it :)

However here some interesting links i read in these days (all from space.com):

Water Ice on Mars confirmed

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/080731-phoenix-update.html

How the First Stars Were Born

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080731-first-stars.html

European Team Discovers New Alien World

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080724-new-exoplanet.html

Explosive Star Doesn’t Fit the Mold

http://www.space.com/080724-supernova-abnormal.html

Secret of Colorful Auroras Revealed

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080724-themis-aurora-mystery.html

Links:

• Ati HomePage
• Ati Linux Driver (x86) Page
• Ati 8.5 drivers release notes

WorkAround to (A little watermark on the right lower corner —> “Ati – Testing use only”)

Open a terminal and:

• sudo nano /eti/ati/signature
• delete UNSIGNED
• copy and paste this string into /etc/ati/signature
• Reboot

scienze.nasa.gov

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/08may_marvels.htm

Stranglehold – Official Site for The Only Authentic John Woo Video Game Experience.

Pacman Description

Tupac (rapper) R.I.P.

(click on the numbers on the right to change pages)

I’ve just updated compiz fusion (git) in the repo… You can install it from there adding this and then:

sudo pacman -S compiz-fusion-git

by “https://addons.mozilla.org/it/firefox/addon/748″

(click on the numbers on the right to change pages)

by “http://www.space.com”

Update 8/04/2008

• Added some links

Links:

• Naked-eye Gamma Ray Burst
• Smallest Black Hole found
• Galaxy Evolution seen in action
• Space Radiation too deadly for mars missions
• Venus and Mars: Surprising Similarities Found
• Io Creates Spots on Jupiter
• Five Volcanic Episodes On Mars Identified by Scientists
• First Solar-Powered Satellite Still Flying at 50
• The Vanishing Rings of Saturn
• Evidence for Ocean Found at Saturn’s Moon Titan
• Oldest-Known Asteroids in Solar System Identified
• Seeds of Life Found Near Saturn
• The Mother of All Meteor Storms
• Star Theory Gets New Spin
• Massive Star Mystery: Do They Explode?

“Non ho mai visto tanta vecchiaia in un solo uomo!!”

From WikiPedia

Thanks to the Telescope which has his name… we can give a look to things which will never be seen without it.

Links:

• Edwin Hubble
• Hubble Telescope
• Hubble Main Page
• Hubble Pictures (Wallpapers)
• Hubble Multimedia

Let’s see how to install it on ArchLinux…

Update 10/04/2008

• Gnome 2.22 in [extra]
• Gnome 2.22.1 released

(click on the numbers on the right to change pages)

Today we’ll talking about a great software written by Chris Laurel.

CELESTIA

(click on the numbers on the right to change pages)

” There are many things that are broken, non existent or flat out ugly, and we are well aware of that. Some things also work rather well. The purpose of this release is to inspire folks to stand up and help us finish Amarok 2.0.”

From Amarok Main Site (21/01/2008)

Waiting for the next great release of this wonderful music player. We’re going to see how to install version 1.4.8 and configure postgresql to manage collections.

(See how to install it and configure it clicking on the right “pages”)

Here is the link of the article (from www.tomshw.it):

Tomshw