I met Hugh MacLeod at LeWeb ‘08 this week and he was kind enough (yeah, I know he was there for that, but thanks anyway) to draw something on my business card:
As Hugh predicted, I am twittering this, too ;)
I chose to remove my contact info to avoid spam, but it’s not like it’s hard to actually contact me. Follow me on Twitter or hit one of the links on the right.
The site was down for about 12 hours today due to hard disk failure on the server.
Unfortunately, the previous version of the blog does not run on the new server configuration (that’ll teach me to go live with beta code), so as an emergency measure, I had to bring out a new version of the code I was working on a few months ago. The only problem is that, if this version were complete, it would’ve gone online a long time ago.
All this, of course, had to happen on the weekend that I am helping a very good friend to move to another city, which will prevent me from working on the site. So, please be patient over the next few days, while I work out the final bugs of this new and improved (behind the scenes improvements mostly) version of my blog.
Photo credit: DeeKnow
I made this as a "gift" for a colleague. I actually like it, so I'm keeping it as my desktop background for a couple of days and I share it with the world.
(Click on the image for a larger version. Other formats available on request.)
You cannot be a blogger and not have to go through this at least once a year. Of course, it's up to you to decide how you react, whether it's worth your time or not, whether the person who tagged you deserves a response...
Yes. That's right. I've been tagged with one of the myriads of blog memes going around. So, without further ado, here's ten things everybody already know about me:
Now, tradition has it that I must not break the chain. The thing is, I'm not very good at this, so I will not tag 7 people as expected... If you feel inclined to reveal personal information about yourself, though, consider yourself tagged, and don't hesitate to link back here.
Photo tonbut
Just before New Year's I created a Twitter account. Mostly out of curiosity, after all:
"What's the point of living, without curiosity?"
(That's from House, M.D. isn't it the best quote ever?) I also wanted to make sure nobody would hijack my nickname, but that's secondary...
Anyway, I started "tweeting," as it's called, on December 29 2007 and, man, is this addictive!
For those of you who don't know what Twitter is, I'll try to summarize it in one (made up) word: micro-blogging. The idea is to answer the question "What are you doing?" in no more characters than an SMS can hold (i.e. 140). If my explanation is not clear enough, take a look at the video Twitter in Plain English.
So, why am I talking about Twitter today? Well, because I'm talking on Twitter more and more lately (exponentially more since December if you believe my stats). I'm trying to use Twitter with micro-blogging in mind, as a complement to this blog. My tweets, as the short messages are called, even have an RSS feed.
My editorial line for this blog has always been clear (although not always followed):
Blogging about pretty much anything—but mostly Tech—in English, Français y Español
I intend to keep blogging and to keep following that line. On Twitter you'll find something more in the lines of:
Talking about pretty much anything—including Tech—in English, Français y Español
Although it's mostly French and English, since that's what my followers speak.
I really like the micro-blogging concept because I find that I don't always have enough to say about something that actually deserves a post here. Take my last tweet (as of this writing) as an example:
My favorite apps from my Utils folder: PureText http://tinyurl.com/38ra9p and Texter http://tinyurl.com/2xwg7v
Quick, simple, still tech, but as much as I enjoy writing, I wouldn't have opened Windows Live Writer and written a tri-lingual post for that.
So, if you want to share more of my wisdom, or just want to know more of "What am I doing?" click on the birdie to follow me on Twitter, or use the RSS feed I linked above if you don't want to go through the hassle of creating an account. Don't forget to come back here regularly, though, after all, Wisdom is sometimes too long for Twitter...
The more I read product labels, the more I have trouble understanding what goes through the minds of the people that write them.
Take this bottle of beer for example. I think we can agree that the bottle was bought because it contains beer. Beer is described on Wikipedia as: "the world's oldest and most popular alcoholic beverage. (...) It is produced by the fermentation of sugars derived from starch-based material — the most common being malted barley; however, wheat, corn, and rice are also widely used (...)." Is it really necessary then to specify on the bottle that it contains malted barley ("contient du malte d'orge")?
I know it says there's "beers" (yes, I'm the one adding the quotes) that do not contain malt, but this is more an exception than the rule.
OK, let's say I'm just a nitpicker. In that case, if we have to specify what's obvious, how is it obvious that a... ...yes, let's say it's a woman's silhouette, fat and holding her back is a pregnant woman? And the fact that she's crossed out, what does that mean? Not recommended? Forbidden?
Well, you'll excuse this off-topic post, written during a rugby match that wasn't that good. I was bored...
I regularly check my blog's stats, more for fun and curiosity than for anything else. I like to check who my knowledge (in a very broad sense of the word) might be going to.
This is a map of recent geographic distribution of my visitors that was very pleasant to see by the way:
Obviously, many of the countries that are green only provided one or two visitors, but still, it's nice to see...
As I said on the title of this post: thank you for visiting, I hope you enjoy and come back soon ;)
I'm reading Free Culture (which I recommend) by Lawrence Lessig and found a quote I really liked. I would've liked to share it on Twitter, but it was too long.
It's not really by Lessig, it's actually Thomas Jefferson:
"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."
I like to think it is in that state of mind that I teach, I blog, I talk, ...
Have a nice weekend :)
I'm trying out version 1.0 (finally) of Flock - The Social Web Browser.
If it works (and it seems to be OK for now...) this should appear fine on my blog. If it does, I might adopt Flock for a while.
I don't care much for the "Blog Editor" (on which I'm writing this), but the other "social networking" features, like following Facebook and Twitter, seem OK. I'll let you know how it goes.
Thanks to linux traveler for the tweet that let me know that version 1.0 was finally out ;)
As usual these days, there were all sorts of cameras present at yesterday's activity. This is great because I of course couldn't take my own pictures. Here's a selection of pictures that I have received:
Yep, that's me, to his left first and then to his right.
And here are links I've received/found with pictures of the event. I'll be editing these as I find/get new ones:
