/categories/english/Recent content in English on madd0's tech blogHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usThu, 30 Jan 2020 17:28:29 +0000/2020/01/30/7-zip-compression-levels-in-azure-devops-archive-files-task/Thu, 30 Jan 2020 17:28:29 +0000/2020/01/30/7-zip-compression-levels-in-azure-devops-archive-files-task/In an attempt to make my artifacts smaller, I recently chose to use 7-Zip compression, or archiveType: 7z, in an Archive Files task of an Azure DevOps YAML pipeline. 7-Zip provides 5 compression levels: 1 (fastest), 3 (fast), 5 (normal), 7 (maximum) and 9 (ultra), as well as option 0, which doesn’t compress anything. I like YAML pipelines, because they live in my repo and I can use templates. However, the online editing experience is not particularly great./2016/09/06/miss-peregrines-home-for-peculiar-children/Tue, 06 Sep 2016 17:12:00 +0000/2016/09/06/miss-peregrines-home-for-peculiar-children/About a month ago I saw the trailer for Tim Burton’s upcoming movie Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and it immediately caught my attention. It turns out it’s originally a book, so I went over to Amazon, downloaded the first few pages and ended up buying the whole thing. It’s exactly the kind of fantastic universe I like to immerse myself into. The Kindle version that I bought included three novels actually: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and its two sequels, Hollow City and Library of Souls./2015/08/12/words-and-ideas-can-change-the-world/Wed, 12 Aug 2015 10:36:12 +0000/2015/08/12/words-and-ideas-can-change-the-world/– Robin Williams as John Keating in Dead Poets Society/2013/07/19/americans-and-multilingualism/Fri, 19 Jul 2013 08:37:15 +0000/2013/07/19/americans-and-multilingualism/Modern Americans often assume that multilingualism should be discouraged, because it is supposed to hinder child language acquisition and immigrant assimilation. — Jared Diamond, The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? And to think that these people effectively rule the world…/2013/01/02/a-distributed-system/Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:12:16 +0000/2013/01/02/a-distributed-system/A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn’t even know existed can render your own computer unusable. — Leslie Lamport/2012/02/02/accessing-windows-azure-diagnostics-logs-with-linqpad/Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:41:04 +0000/2012/02/02/accessing-windows-azure-diagnostics-logs-with-linqpad/If you are using Windows Azure Diagnostics with the DiagnosticMonitorTraceListener you will most likely have a table in your storage account called WADLogsTable with a ton of data in it. It can be a bit overwhelming. A colleague and I wanted to get two simple pieces of information: an event’s date and the corresponding message. Furthermore, we only wanted events that had happened today. Here’s what we came up with using LINQPad and the Azure Storage Driver./2012/01/09/linqpad-driver-for-azure-table-storage/Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:01:22 +0000/2012/01/09/linqpad-driver-for-azure-table-storage/I promise, this is the last you will see on this subject today (from my part, anyway). It’s for those who were not online yesterday and/or are in a different time zone and/or didn’t see my post from yesterday and/or don’t speak French. Azure Storage Explorer I’ve been working quite a bit with Windows Azure lately and particularly with Table Storage. I used to use SQL Server Mangement Studio to work with SQL Server and I found Azure Storage Explorer (screenshot on the left), which is actually pretty good for working with all three storage options: queues, tables and blobs./2011/03/03/partially-colored-textblock/Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:19:19 +0000/2011/03/03/partially-colored-textblock/I stumbled upon an interesting question on StackOverflow where someone is using a series of TextBlocks in a StackPanel to show them side by side and would like part of the displayed text to be coloured with one colour and the rest with another. There has got to be a thousand ways to do this, but it got me thinking of how I would do it, and especially, how to do it quickly because I have a job besides StackOverflow Here’s my take on the problem./2010/06/14/whatrsquos-in-a-name/Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:13:33 +0000/2010/06/14/whatrsquos-in-a-name/What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. — Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) This morning I learnt through Engadget that what was known until now as Project Natal is now called Kinect for Xbox 360, as revealed just before E3 by none other than a 76-person cast of Cirque du Soleil. I had two reactions: Why wasn’t I invited?/2010/05/05/keyboard-shortcuts-for-visual-studio-2010/Wed, 05 May 2010 06:01:15 +0000/2010/05/05/keyboard-shortcuts-for-visual-studio-2010/For those of you who really appreciate the time gained by not moving your hand away from your keyboard and towards the mouse, Microsoft released 4 keybinding reference cards (cheet sheets if you will) for Visual Studio 2010 in the form of high-quality PDFs. In these foldable cards you’ll find the default keyboard shortcuts for: Visual Basic .NET Visual C++ Visual C# Visual F# Available on MSDN Downloads. Comments: montana - May 5, 2010/2010/04/30/on-jobsrsquos-thoughts-on-flash/Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:36:42 +0000/2010/04/30/on-jobsrsquos-thoughts-on-flash/Yesterday, our favourite black turtleneck-wearing guru published a short essay detailing his Thoughts on Flash, where he details why Adobe’s Flash will never by supported on his iPhones and iPads. Recommended reading, definitively! It’s just hilarious. I obviously have to admit that the iPhone, new Macs, etc. have sent Jobs soaring through the stratosphere. Unfortunately, I’m afraid his brain is now lacking oxygen… Take a look at some of Jobs’s points:/2009/10/30/air-tweets/Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:33:46 +0000/2009/10/30/air-tweets/It has been suggested that I’m addicted to Twitter. This is, of course, nonsense, as evidenced by my stats ;) If I were addicted to Twitter, however, Lufthansa’s MySkyStatus is the Twitter/Facebook app I’d be really looking forward to use. Actually, who am I kidding? The only reason I haven’t actually used it is because I have no plans to get on a plane anytime soon. So, what’s it all about?/2009/10/11/finding-an-asterisk-in-excel/Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:32:14 +0000/2009/10/11/finding-an-asterisk-in-excel/I was sitting at my desk when, suddenly, someone came in the office and asked the weirdest question: We’re working on Excel and there’s a column with order number that end with a star and we’d like to remove it. Does anyone know how? Obviously, we all immediately responded in choir: Why, Ctrl+H (or Edit > Replace) and you replace character ‘*’ with nothing! Except that, obviously, it didn’t work./2009/08/12/and-the-prize-for-best-writing-goes-tohellip/Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:22:37 +0000/2009/08/12/and-the-prize-for-best-writing-goes-tohellip/…Adobe! For this magnificent dialog box in its ubiquitous Adobe Reader. The best part is that I couldn’t even open the PDF I wanted to open, and I’ll never know why :P Comments: Beedoo - Aug 3, 2009 I have the same :) It occurs when you open a pdf file through IE on Windows 7 ? If yes, try to download it and open it :) Patrice Lamarche - Aug 3, 2009/2009/07/31/the-quick-brown-fox-jumps-over-the-lazy-dog/Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:15:53 +0000/2009/07/31/the-quick-brown-fox-jumps-over-the-lazy-dog/This famous phrase has been used for a long time by typesetters, typographers and other professionals that need to use all 26 letters of the English alphabet. Today, courtesy of YouTube, I give you the illustrated version: [Via Rocketboom]/2009/03/22/azure-labs-commandlets-on-windows-x64/Sun, 22 Mar 2009 09:37:06 +0000/2009/03/22/azure-labs-commandlets-on-windows-x64/I was doing the Hands on Labs from the Azure SDK the other day and one of them involves a task list that a very handy PowerShell commandlet is supposed to fill. The problem? Registering commandlets... Add-PSSnapin : No Windows PowerShell Snap-ins are available for version 1. At C:UsersMadd0DocumentsAzureServicesKit-FebLabsAdvancedSQLDataServicesAssetsSDSSetup.ps1:17 char:13 + Add-pssnapin <<<< AzureServicesManagement Now, why wouldn’t there be any snap-ins available for version 1? I can see the dll sitting there and I can only assume that Microsoft released code that works./2009/03/20/what-do-you-know-about-it/Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:55:02 +0000/2009/03/20/what-do-you-know-about-it/Pierre sent me a DM to let me know that I appear for a second or so in this Microsoft video: I’m guessing that many of you won’t watch it until the end, so I’m just going to copy the part that caught my attention the most: I bet you didn’t know this 42% of global IT employment… relies on Microsoft technologies. Wow! Finally, as a side note to myself: do not accept interviews late at night, especially if you hadn’t slept much the nights before ;)/2009/03/10/if-my-kids-turn-out-like-thishellip/Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:48:03 +0000/2009/03/10/if-my-kids-turn-out-like-thishellip/[youtube As funny and cute as this little girl talking about Visual Studio 2008 might be, I’d be really, really scared if my kids turned out like this :P (that is, assuming anyone would actually dare have kids with me in the first place). Oh, and did she actually test the WPF designer and XAML Intellisense? All the rest, I pretty much agree, but I’m really looking forward to better WPF and XAML support in VS 2010 ;)/2009/01/09/history-of-the-internet/Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:09:52 +0000/2009/01/09/history-of-the-internet/Very nice video created by Melih Bilgil as part of his diploma project PICOL illustrating the history of the Internet from 1957 to 1990. He uses the icons of his design to represent every element of the story. That and a well written voice over, make for a very interesting, easy to understand video. I’m actually considering asking my teachers to play this as an introduction to our web development classes./2008/12/11/tasks-and-text-messaging-come-to-gmail/Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:08:44 +0000/2008/12/11/tasks-and-text-messaging-come-to-gmail/Anina from 360°Fashion seemed to go a bit off-topic this week at Le Web when she asked one of the Google executives when we could expect to see task or “to do” lists in Gmail. Well, by what I can only hope is coincidence, it would seem that she wasn’t that off-topic after all. Today Gmail Labs is launching task lists and text messaging within Gmail. With a keyboard shortcut to create tasks from mail (Ctrl+T) this is exactly what I needed./2008/12/01/the-simpsons-visit-the-mapple-store/Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:19:55 +0000/2008/12/01/the-simpsons-visit-the-mapple-store/In the latest Simpsons episode, the family visits the new Mapple Store at the mall. I don’t know how long the video will stay online, but it’s just great! I had never visited an Apple Store before my trip to London at the beginning of the month, but I found it was really fun; it felt like visiting the HQ of the Church of Scientology for some reason :P Anyway, enjoy the fist few minutes of perfect Simpsons sarcasm./2008/11/27/ldquothe-art-amp-science-of-cssrdquo-free-download-through-twitter/Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:13:25 +0000/2008/11/27/ldquothe-art-amp-science-of-cssrdquo-free-download-through-twitter/Sitepoint is giving away its book The Art & Science of CSS during a two-week “Twitaway” (5 days left as of the writing of this post). The book looks pretty interesting from what I browsed when I got it a few minutes ago, so I actually recommend it at least as a quick reference for some pretty useful CSS techniques. What do you have to do to get it? This is where it gets interesting:/2008/11/26/your-avatars-on-the-new-xbox-experience/Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:30:27 +0000/2008/11/26/your-avatars-on-the-new-xbox-experience/I was really looking forward to it because I wasn’t fan of the “blades” at all, so I obviously logged on to Xbox LIVE last Wednesday to download the New Xbox Experience (NXE). One of the new features of the NXE is the creation of avatars, which I was kind of forced to test even though I really, really needed to sleep. Avatars are not something new; we already had Miis on the Wii for example./2008/11/18/jerry-yang-to-leave-yahoo/Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:43:08 +0000/2008/11/18/jerry-yang-to-leave-yahoo/Yahoo! co-founder and Microsoft hero*, Jerry Yang is standing down from his position as CEO of one of the Internet’s biggest portals. I know I have a résumé some around here… jobs@yahoo.com, you said? And the subject line? :P * Microsoft offered $33/share a few months ago and Yang refused to sell. Today Yahoo! shares are so close to $10 that it’s hard not to cry (or quit). Photo jdlasica/2008/11/06/opening-twhirl-links-in-google-chrome/Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:41:03 +0000/2008/11/06/opening-twhirl-links-in-google-chrome/In spite of its bugs, I’ve been using Google Chrome as my main browser for a while now; mainly because it is generally fast and because it allows me to kill Flash whenever it bugs (often) without having to kill the whole browser. I also use Windows Vista because I like it and it doesn’t feel slower than XP even on my computer. Finally, I use twhirl to follow my Twitter friends./2008/11/05/one-of-the-best-translation-failures-ever/Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:43:41 +0000/2008/11/05/one-of-the-best-translation-failures-ever/This one comes straight from Wales, through the BBC. It looks like an innocent street sign, and it is, in English. The problem is that in Wales all street signs must also be displayed in the local language and for that you need a translator. Unfortunately, when consulted for this sign, the translator was out of his office and his automatic reply was used as the actual translation. This is (more or less) what the sign actually says:/2008/10/14/perfectly-dumb/Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:34:19 +0000/2008/10/14/perfectly-dumb/Some typos are just beautiful! The highlighted text would read “Perfectly dumb” or maybe even “Perfectly stupid” in English. I’ll just say: Perfect!/2008/10/09/new-xbox-360-dashboard-coming-nov-19/Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:43:48 +0000/2008/10/09/new-xbox-360-dashboard-coming-nov-19/We’ve been waiting for it impatiently—or at least I have. It was initially rumored for October, but Microsoft officially announced yesterday at TGS 2008 that the new Xbox 360 Dashboard will be rolling out on November 19. It will be available in 26 countries and localized in 19 languages. As you can see from the screenshot above (and more in this Joystiq gallery), not only are we getting a completely different user interface, but the experience will change too as this new version focuses strongly on bringing you and your friends closer to the Xbox by introducing avatars and allowing more interaction among friends./2008/09/01/im-almost-famous/Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:57:08 +0000/2008/09/01/im-almost-famous/A few weeks ago, I was followed around by a cameraman for a piece for France 24 (a French TV station). I knew that it would be broadcast on TV, their web site and on YouTube sometime during the summer and they told me that they’d let me know. But that’s not how things work nowadays… Last Sunday, a regular Sunday morning, I woke up at around 1 p.m. and opened my computer./2008/05/31/accessing-sysinternals-tools-has-never-been-easiser/Sat, 31 May 2008 06:46:40 +0000/2008/05/31/accessing-sysinternals-tools-has-never-been-easiser/Do you know the Sysinternals tools? You probably do if you’re an IT pro or a developer. For those who don’t, it’s a series of free utilities written by Mark Russinovich that are essential to manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications. I even need one of the Sysinternals tools for my classes: ZoomIt allows you to zoom and draw on the screen. Microsoft acquired Sysinternals some time ago and since then the tools have been available, always for free of course, from the TechNet website./2008/04/19/all-your-email-is-not-for-you/Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:14:38 +0000/2008/04/19/all-your-email-is-not-for-you/That’s right! Not everything that reaches your inbox is actually for you and, therefore, it doesn’t deserve your full, and especially not your immediate, attention. So, what is all this mail doing in your inbox in the first place? There are different types of e-mails: there’s the e-mail that someone sent you expecting action and/or a reply from you; there’s the e-mail that you receive because someone wants to keep you in the loop either by sending you the e-mail directly (i./2008/04/07/deadline/Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:30:20 +0000/2008/04/07/deadline/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.)/2008/03/14/typewriter-soon-to-be-usb/Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:11:16 +0000/2008/03/14/typewriter-soon-to-be-usb/A while ago I bought a typewriter (the one in the picture) with the intention of one day being able to connect it to the computer using a USB cable. Sure, a typewriter will make for a noisy keyboard, but who cares? :P I’m obviously not the first one to do it, but again, who cares? So, the first step was buying the typewriter. Thanks to eBay that’s done. And, if you look carefully, you’ll notice that the keyboard’s layout is almost like my Swiss French layout that I like so much./2008/03/11/great-people-meet-at-la-sorbonne/Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:51:38 +0000/2008/03/11/great-people-meet-at-la-sorbonne/A few weeks ago I posted the pictures of the Imagine Cup conference that took place in Paris and during which I had the opportunity to interview Bill Gates. An event like that was of course filmed and now the videos are also available for online viewing and for download from the web site of Microsoft France. There are six videos: French (well, French and Costa Rican :P) finalists from 2007 (French) Bernard Charlès, CEO Dassault Systèmes (French) Ora Ito, Designer (French) Andrew Herbert, Microsoft Research Cambridge (English) Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman (English) Q&A with Bill Gates (you can see me here again) (English) Click on “Voir …” to view the video online or “Télécharger” to download./2008/02/29/thank-you-for-visiting-come-back-soon/Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:21:36 +0000/2008/02/29/thank-you-for-visiting-come-back-soon/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…/2008/02/05/does-this-thing-have-a-manual/Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:30:28 +0000/2008/02/05/does-this-thing-have-a-manual/Well, I didn’t think an escalator needed one, but the numbers seem to say different: For those who can’t read the poor quality text, it says “Last year: 1,024 injuries”. The number drew my attention for two reasons: What are the probabilities of the number of injuries on escalators being a power of 2? How can there be almost 3 injuries per day on something as trivial as an escalator? (that’s an interrobang, in case you’re wondering) Sure, the escalators on the London tube can be impressive:/2008/01/30/photos-with-billg/Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:45:14 +0000/2008/01/30/photos-with-billg/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: G-IT Photos by Séverin Ferrand Photos by Stéphane Rangaya Photos by Emmanuel de Taillac Photos by Maxime Gaillard Photos by Stéphane Rangaya Photos by Johanna Piou/2007/12/30/bionic-monkeytalk-at-ted/Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:30:02 +0000/2007/12/30/bionic-monkeytalk-at-ted/OK, maybe the title doesn’t mean much, but I couldn’t think of anything better. So how about you just watch the videos? I was barely finished with last week’s TED post when I stumbled upon the first of this week’s recommendations. I know I said that TED videos were only 18 minutes long, but I guess when you’re Jane Goodall you’re inherently expected to need a little more: As inspiring as Mrs./2007/12/25/the-devil-wears-prada-to-the-next-live-meeting/Tue, 25 Dec 2007 20:36:27 +0000/2007/12/25/the-devil-wears-prada-to-the-next-live-meeting/For a long time I’ve followed the same routing on Christmas day: Wake up, unwrap presents, have breakfast, watch a movie, visit relatives. Of course, over time, things have changed slightly. Most notably, the time I wake up, that fact most presents are actually opened the night before, breakfast became brunch and most of my relatives now live a 14-hour flight away. Movie time didn’t change, though, and today’s was The Devil Wears Prada./2007/12/04/xbox-360-plays-divx-and-xvid/Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:24:45 +0000/2007/12/04/xbox-360-plays-divx-and-xvid/Finally! With today’s update, the Xbox 360 is now able to read DivX and XviD files (which you naturally acquired legally). As soon as I heard about this, I of course turned on the beast and downloaded the necessary files (you need the new Xbox software and the codecs, which are downloaded separately). It all works almost perfectly on my setup, which is a TVersity server streaming to the Dashboard on a PIII 500 MHz, 128 MB RAM./2007/12/02/british-army-uses-xbox-360-controllers-for-uavs/Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:12:00 +0000/2007/12/02/british-army-uses-xbox-360-controllers-for-uavs/I come from a country which has no army—as a matter of fact, yesterday we celebrated 59 army-less years—and although I’m against the violence that having an army usually implies, I have to admit that I admire military institutions. After all, many modern advances are unfortunately the result of research which at first was intended for war and I won’t deny that a couple of months of martial discipline wouldn’t be so bad for many of today’s youths./2007/10/07/define-quotseamlessquot/Sun, 07 Oct 2007 08:27:06 +0000/2007/10/07/define-quotseamlessquot/(Disclaimer: although I’m all for constructive criticism most of the time, this is clearly nothing more than a rant, which by the way, does not even deserve translating.) Lets start with a dictionary definition of the word seamless: adjective. perfectly consistent and coherent Now lets take a look at a quote from the website of a product I decided to work with while writing my book on WPF (highlight mine):/2007/09/11/countdown-to-wpf/Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:36:53 +0000/2007/09/11/countdown-to-wpf/Back in January 2006, when Microsoft was preparing to release the .NET Framework 2.0 and, with it, the Windows Presentation Foundation, countdowns seemed to pop up everywhere: Dazzling Graphics: Top Ten UI Development Breakthroughs In Windows Presentation Foundation/2007/08/25/surprise-bag-august-25/Sat, 25 Aug 2007 18:50:56 +0000/2007/08/25/surprise-bag-august-25/This is the first in an irregular series of posts where I bring you nice surprises I’ve found while browsing the Internet. I found today’s surprises in my RSS aggregator just waiting to be shared with the rest of the world*. Both of today’s surprises come from totally different sources, but they do have one thing in common: innovation. Both concern technology that is not yet available, but that’s totally awesome./2007/08/18/music-in-seoul/Sat, 18 Aug 2007 07:34:41 +0000/2007/08/18/music-in-seoul/There was one thing I loved about Seoul and it’s that, wherever you were, if there was a little green near you, there was music to be heard. Gyongbokgung was not an exception. Indeed, I actually got to see the artists behind the music and one of them was glad to perform before the camera:/2007/08/13/imagine-cup-2007-results/Mon, 13 Aug 2007 02:47:53 +0000/2007/08/13/imagine-cup-2007-results/This post is long due, but I guess since it doesn’t concern me I wasn’t in a hurry. No, I’m just kidding. Of course, the most exciting moment of every competition is the announcement of the winners, so here they are, in case you are not interested in the official press release: Software Design First place: Thailand — Team 3KC Returns/Project LiveBook! Prachaya Phaisanwiphatpong, Vasan Chienmaneetaweesin, Jatupon Sukkasem, Pathompol Saeng-Uraiporn Second place: Korea — Team En#605/Project Finger Code Lim Chan-kyu, Min Kyoung-hoon, Lim Byoung-su, Jeong Ji-hyeon Third place: Jamaica — Team ICAD/Project CADI Imran Allie, Conroy Smith, Ayson Baxter, Damion Mitchell Embedded Development/2007/08/07/sleepless-in-seoul/Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:44:34 +0000/2007/08/07/sleepless-in-seoul/Things moved so fast (or I was too slow) to write about the start of the 24-hour competition that took place from 14h GMT+9 on Monday 6th to 14h GMT+9 on Tuesday 7th. The competition involved students from practically all categories, including mine: Interface Design. Here are a couple of pictures I uploaded to Flick before starting: The cubicles of all 6 Interface Design contestants. This is our booth, before the competition started./2007/08/04/shaken-not-stirred/Sat, 04 Aug 2007 19:17:25 +0000/2007/08/04/shaken-not-stirred/I’m in a plane heading to Seoul right now to participate in the finals of Imagine Cup 2007 and this will be the first of, hopefully, many posts covering the event. A couple of remarks: since I am a contestant and not a journalist, I will not have a lot of time for writing, so for a while all posts will be only in English (the text will be available on all three feeds, though); and since Internet access will apparently be difficult to come by with, I will probably be posting by batches when I get the chance to go online./2007/07/31/the-road-to-seoul-powered-by-virtual-earth/Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:50:01 +0000/2007/07/31/the-road-to-seoul-powered-by-virtual-earth/An interesting idea by the Imagine Cup team: map the locations of all teams on their way to Seoul this weekend for the Imagine Cup finals. It would have been even better if they had asked us to actually locate ourselves on the map, because I’m sure nowhere near the south of France right now. So, idea for next time: a mash-up using plazes and Virtual Earth, now that would have been cool…/2007/07/30/visual-studio-2008-where-did-intellisense-go/Mon, 30 Jul 2007 02:26:24 +0000/2007/07/30/visual-studio-2008-where-did-intellisense-go/Of course Intellisense is still there in Visual Studio 2008. If anything, it’s undergone several nice improvements. For example, it has happened to me thousands of times and I bet it has happened to you too: you are writing code, the Intellisense window pops up. You appreciate that it’s there because you like how it helps you write code faster, but at that precise moment you’d really wish it would get out of the way so you could see the code that’s underneath./2007/07/23/nothing-on-tv-switch-to-channel-8/Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:38:52 +0000/2007/07/23/nothing-on-tv-switch-to-channel-8/I don’t know when this went online because I’ve been mostly disconnected lately, with the moving and all, so I haven’t been able to keep up with the blogosphere, but still I would like to present you a new Microsoft site. First, do you know about Channel 9 and Channel 10? Channel 9 was one of Microsoft’s first initiatives to open up to the general public. Today it’s a website where developers, IT pros and other geeks can learn everything about past, present and future Microsoft technologies via videos, forums, blogs, etc./2007/07/15/you-cannot-always-be-that-optimistic/Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:58:29 +0000/2007/07/15/you-cannot-always-be-that-optimistic/I’m talking about optimistic concurrency of course. As I’ve said before, my blog now runs on a new engine. To make a long story short, I lost my old blog, I wanted to play with the newest Microsoft technologies, so I picked up the engine my friend Patrice is working on that uses ASP.NET, C# 3.0 and LINQ (and a sprinkle of ASP.NET AJAX here and there). And it’s great! What’s more, I now have material for blogging./2007/07/02/my-blog-beta/Mon, 02 Jul 2007 11:02:01 +0000/2007/07/02/my-blog-beta/When I announced my new blog last night, I forgot to mention something: I should have added the word “Beta” somewhere near the logo, because this site is far from being complete. And I’m not talking about content, because we all know that a blog is never complete when it comes to content (unless it’s closed), I’m talking about code! No, this is not a “Web 2.0” web site, it’s just that the engine I’m working on to host this hasn’t been finished./2007/07/01/back-online/Sun, 01 Jul 2007 11:02:00 +0000/2007/07/01/back-online/So, I don’t really know when this will be true because it will depend on the time the new IP address replicates through DNS, but still, I’m back online! So, my previous host lost most of my data. I will slowly restore/rewrite as much as I can. For now, enjoy the new look and new engine, of which I will probably be writing in the following weeks as I develop it further with my friend Patrice./2007/05/09/yoursquore-invited/Wed, 09 May 2007 13:09:55 +0000/2007/05/09/yoursquore-invited/I’ve got plenty of invites for Joost and, this will sound weird, I don’t have enough friends to give them to. So, since Joost is encouraging me to give them away however I want, the first 999 people to request one, will get it. Use the comments. Here you have their promotion video: Joost is a way to watch TV on the Internet. Their software is pretty good, unfortunately their content is not./2007/04/18/why-is-google-better-than-live-search/Wed, 18 Apr 2007 04:23:54 +0000/2007/04/18/why-is-google-better-than-live-search/One word: relevance. I was looking for information on WPF/e (now Silverlight) today and, without thinking twice, I went to Google to find it. However, after seeing how good the results were for this Microsoft technology, I thought I go take a look at the Redmond-giant’s own search engine and see how it performed. Disappointing, to say the least. Take a look at the results (I’m shrinking them to put them side by side, but you can click to see them better):/2007/03/07/how-many-countries-can-you-name-in-10-minutes/Wed, 07 Mar 2007 21:59:04 +0000/2007/03/07/how-many-countries-can-you-name-in-10-minutes/I got to 81 while teaching (yes, I know I shouldn’t play in class…) I might have guessed more if I had been doing only that and if it were more flexible with spelling (”The Bahamas” is not the same as “Bahamas” for example). How many can you do?/2007/03/02/my-windows-vista-is-finally-complete/Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:59:58 +0000/2007/03/02/my-windows-vista-is-finally-complete/As you probably read before in my blog, I’ve had a crippled version of Windows Vista since I installed it. Microsoft calls it the “N” version. Well, as of yesterday, my Windows is complete! Microsoft is pushing the Nsku Media Restore Pack for Vista x86 (KB925749) through Windows Update. A “recommended” update described as: Media Restore Pack (MRP) and Format Restore Pack (FRP) are non-discoverable, regulated releases required to satisfy consent decree agreements for Windows sale in certain markets./2007/03/02/timersquos-up/Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:59:15 +0000/2007/03/02/timersquos-up/It has happened, my Office Professional 2007 trial has expired… And entering a new Trial key did not extend my trial period for another 60 days :( If only I could get my hands on one of the at least two keys I legally have the right to (one from MSDN and one from helping out during the TechDays.) I do have to congratulate Microsoft on the way they are managing licensing with Office 2007, though./2007/02/28/ive-been-tagged-prologue/Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:59:37 +0000/2007/02/28/ive-been-tagged-prologue/Since Patrice tagged me, I guess it’s my geek duty to share 5 things people don’t know about me with whatever stranger stumbles upon my blog (and the few regular readers.) I’ll need a moment to think though, because if there are aspects of my life that are not public it’s probably because I like them that way. There’s a trip to China coming up soon (Saturday), so I’ll have some time to think then./2007/02/28/crossing-oceans-part-ii-the-return/Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:34:17 +0000/2007/02/28/crossing-oceans-part-ii-the-return/So, here I am, preparing to go back to Paris. And, by preparing, I mean I’m already at the airport in San José where they do offer free WiFi (unlike Barajas). There was lots of work to do last week: a full schedule of meetings last Monday and Tuesday and after that, a less-full schedule of family to meet until today, as well as a passport to make. I’ll be talking about the passport later this week (or in a couple of weeks, we’ll see) in order to put the “tech” back in my blog./2007/02/28/crossing-oceans-part-i/Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:33:09 +0000/2007/02/28/crossing-oceans-part-i/Oops, I forgot to post this when arriving at Costa Rica. I’ll post now, and you can read everything about me leaving in the next entry ;) I am sitting on the floor in Barajas airport in Madrid right now. It’s 09:24 local time and the airport is as empty as they get. This entry will not be posted right away though. I have no intention (or the means) to pay 5€ for 30 minutes of wireless Internet access (I’ll talk about this again later./2007/02/04/your-help-is-needed-to-find-jim-gray/Sun, 04 Feb 2007 16:34:27 +0000/2007/02/04/your-help-is-needed-to-find-jim-gray/I know I have a tendency to abuse exclamation marks, but this time it is really important. On Sunday, January 28th, 2007, Jim Gray, a renowned computer scientist was reported missing at sea. As of Thursday, Feb. 1st, the US Coast Guard has called off the search, having found no trace of the boat or any of its emergency equipment. Follow the story here. Through the generous efforts of his friends, family, various communities and agencies, detailed satellite imagery has been made available for his last known whereabouts./2007/02/03/mozy-is-now-available-for-vista/Sat, 03 Feb 2007 19:09:19 +0000/2007/02/03/mozy-is-now-available-for-vista/One of my greatest fears when I made the move to Vista was that Mozy, the service I use for my online backups, wasn’t supported yet. Since my Windows XP had stopped working properly I still installed Vista and crossed my fingers. Since Vista was launched a couple of days ago, I have visited the Mozy site almost every day hoping to see a version that supports Vista, and last night, finally, I was able to download a Vista-compatible version of Mozy./2006/11/13/interesting-google-search-results/Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:08:54 +0000/2006/11/13/interesting-google-search-results/Have fun:/2006/11/10/wow-what-a-day/Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:51:21 +0000/2006/11/10/wow-what-a-day/In the good sense of course… Today was a great day! It was a day of discovery, of rediscovery, of new things in general. So, what’s all the excitement about?, you might wonder. Well, let’s see, more or less in order: I might be onto a gig in Malaysia, how cool is that? I was one of the winners of the Trick-or-Treat category in MAKE’s Halloween contest! I get the latest issue of MAKE magazine./2006/11/06/i-have-finally-resumed-work-on-amazoop/Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:51:28 +0000/2006/11/06/i-have-finally-resumed-work-on-amazoop/So, most of my readers are not concerned by this post, but I’m still writing it for the occasional surfer coming from search engines and forums. I have resumed work on my open-source project amazOOP. I just committed about 12000 lines of alpha code to SVN so that you can see what the code is starting to look like. Major changes: PHP 5: I know most of the Web hasn’t migrated to PHP 5, but I have./2006/11/04/best-browser-out-there/Sat, 04 Nov 2006 13:51:09 +0000/2006/11/04/best-browser-out-there/So, if you’re reading this blog you have probably already downloaded and installed the latest version of Internet Explorer and/or Firefox and arbitrarily taken sides in the raging Browser Wars. Well, if you need/want to verify that you’ve made the right choice take a look at the results of Long Zheng’s fairest and most definite browser comparison. Comments: Colan Kotpersky - Nov 4, 2008 Whats up with best browser, browsers are becoming unimportant, its the content and the applications that counts in my opinion and neither Fox or IE or Other Browser people are thinking about this./2006/01/13/the-international-language-of-gestures/Fri, 13 Jan 2006 07:52:09 +0000/2006/01/13/the-international-language-of-gestures/We take most of the gestures we make every day for granted: nodding means “yes”, shaking your head means “no”, a thumb up means “OK”, etc. But are they universal? Will people from other regions, countries, cultures understand what you mean when making these gestures? The answer is no. A while back, I wrote a post about counting with your fingers, commenting another post by Alex Barnett. Based on the comments received by Alex’s post you can already conclude that people around the world use their fingers in different ways to represent numbers./2005/10/25/finally-an-incentive/Tue, 25 Oct 2005 17:32:54 +0000/2005/10/25/finally-an-incentive/Finally, after who-knows-how-many years (2-3?) of developing and using amazOOP, I got a real incentive to keep working on it: my fist Amazon cheque!!! It’s from Amazon.de, which ironically was the last affiliate programme I subscribed to, but who cares… I just hope the other Amazons will follow the German example soon ;)