And watching all these matches really makes me think “a football” team works just like a web development team.

If we strip off the context, then at the end of it we get exactly the same thing. A team playing their best for a simple objective. Put the ball in a goal

For a start a football team:

11 players all specialised in their own speciality (goal, keeper, striker, wing, defender). & Coach a trainer, manager, all playing with one objective: Win as many matches as possible ..etc.

A web development team works in the same way.

Many players (systems, expert, developper), the project manager would be the coach, manager, trainer. All playing with one objective. Put the website online.

These all have their similarities. We need to select the best specialist for the task which we are doing. We need to train them. We need the developpers to run the sprints as fast and as well as possible. The coach is there to bring support to the team., and make money (satisfied customers or supports on the other).

There are a huge amount of similarities between these 2 fields (catering, building, police, hospitals), but at the same time this can be said for almost any other job. It is just simple management really.

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/05/upgrade-here.html

Microsoft and google have been thinking for a long time. And this shows the Microsoft strategy as well as Google’s.

The success of microsoft in the 90s and noughties, is highly based on they software.

You get yourself a computer and a few servers, and we will provide you with good software. If you cannot get yourself the hardware.. then they cannot be blamed.

This has allowed very successfull decades of good Microsoft software.

But now everyone has a computer, and access to a fast internet connection, the issue now to not have to worry about those old servers any more.

Let them handle the hardware “in the clouds”, we don’t need them anymore. And that seems to be the way Microsoft and Google we be heading.

Which they created with google sites: http://sites.google.com

I was at first very impressed, although I have know about this website for a long time, I hadn’t had the occasion to actually test it, with a live site.

Google websites are as always very well done, and documented, and easy to use. But at the heart of the website, there really wasn’t much to the site. It was in fact just an advanced online editor. And by using online editor, it would probably be pretty quick to reproduce an alternative to this site.

It was also very limited in what it was allowing users to do, there seemed to be no way of adding javascript, a different web statistics tool, or any type of dyna;ics.

But the simplisity of it was impressive, but this showed that there was most probably place for an alternative and a more advanced tool once again.

I the same way as I could see the charts.google.com tool, really interesting and a fun basis for a more advanced statitics tool for developers.

The 3rd website, which could also have made progress is definitly googlemaps, since the API, requires so much tweeking to get anything to work, but once again, I am sure that this team is actually already working on making progress on this.

And I never really seemed to remember what were the real 7 wonders, so thanks I thought I would have a quick check at my facts, and I was very surprised to discover on my first search that the eurostars was concidered one of them.

That is of course since many different lists exist.

And this was the list of the American society of civil engineering. The original being refered to nowdays as the 7 wonders of antic world. Other interestings lists include the 7 wonders of midle ages of of the modern world.

Here are a few interesting lists anyway:

7 wonders of ancient world:

• Great Pyramid of Giza
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Statue of Zeus at Olympia
• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
• Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
• Colossus of Rhodes
• Lighthouse of Alexandria

One interesting one is definitly the Colossus of Rhodes, since I have also been very interested in the sea recently. And I would be very interested I like the idea of boats having to go under a statue to go in a Port.

Here is a list of 7 wonders of the American society of Civil Engineers:

Interesting to see read about the CN Tower and the Panama chanel, although this list will most likely be the first to be outdated, since most of these buildings have since already been shadowed by others such as the incredible Burj Khalifa.

But the following list would seem to be the list which most people would remember, since it includes the great wall of china, Machu Pichu, the Pyramids and the Colosseum.

I still find it facinating how peoples ideas can transform in some great projects. And therefore create great positive things.

I had a great idea.
I was going to build a url shortener website, and add statistic tools to it.

This seemed to be a dead easy thing to do, and I am sure, with my technical skill and knowledge to build a better one than all those which exist online.

What is the point in a url shortener site:
1) shorten urls to make them easier to “tweat” or text
2) log information from the users who visit your site: location, browser, page on which they clicked
3) many other things like this link suggests:
http://www.friedbeef.com/top-5-url-shorteners-and-how-they-help-you/

I will start by choosing a cool web name:

such as:
sho.rt, qui.ck or smi.le

But as I surfed the web, and looked at what was already out there, I discovered those which already existed:

These are the ones I found:

The leader:
http://bit.ly
http://j.mp

Google’s:

http://goo.gl

Other:
http://is.gd
http://sn.im

http://go.to/
http://start.at/
http://i.am/

But this one alerted me that it was maybe not such a good idea after all, since it can lead to too many spammers using the tool:

http://tr.im

I still think it could be an fun to create something better, and the competition doesn’t seem that high.
But it may just take a bit more time.
I also think this could be the perfect project to test out my shinny new dedicated server.

I will still keep the idea at the back of my mind, but maybe not for this weekend.

Anyway, another interresting aspect of these websites is the use of exotic top level domain (tld) of  countries to create interresting urls such as:

.ly for lybia
.gl for greenland
.im for mariana islands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains

The last interresting point will have been the actually domain name hunting:

I was pretty surprised to see how many tld ovh.com now had on offer.

I still have to found out how to get the .ck for qui.ck for the cook islands.

I was sorry to found out that the .le did not existe yet, since this could have been used for very interrestin names.

I will definitly keep this in mind if I ever get to set up an interresting website on day.

I have been in Paris for less than 24h. I have spent most of my time here trying to get a clean internet connection, and spent nearly 150€ trying to do just that.

I have just bought myself a new 20 minutes internet fix for 2.5€

I have a couple of things I need to do before starting my new job on monday: Read and learn my mission brief documents, and then prepare for the mission. Then fix a couple of small bugs, in order to finalise my previous job. This requires a quick internet connect, download a 1.5Gb archive, deploy it, set up a copy of the site in order to test the changes, fix 2 or 3 small things, recreate an archive and send it to the client or put it on the ftp space.

If I had been on a clean internet connection this could have taken me less than an hour, but in travelling conditions this can be an exhausting job. And I could have spent a few hours doing other usefull thing on other projects.

How did I manage to spend 150€

- mobile phone number: 15€
- cybercafé to get a hotel room: 3€
- hotel room with wifi: 85€
- recharge mobile: 10 €
- wifi option in hotel: 15€
- 3€ another card to get password of wifi

Although I have free internet with “neuf” and “free.fr”, since I have the logins and passwords, and there is free internet all over Paris, in parcs, train stations, mcDonalds, starbucks … etc. The wifi option of my hotel is in fact a partnership with orange, and this means that you need to buy small doses of 20 min or so and charge up gradually. I thought I would just buy 15euros yesterday, and I wouldn’t have to think about it again, and could happilly get a lot of my buisness done yesterday.

But since I didn’t write down the login and password. I had the bad surprise this morning, to realise that I needed an internet connection to get my password back. And this means that I had to go and try and hunt down the other free alternatives to get my password back. But to my suprise the station and mcDonalds wifi did not work as easily as expected and after over an hour looking, and my frustration growing to a true adicts level, of I need my internet now. I bought myself another 20 min dose, just to get my password. And this really felt like getting a short fix.And I think I really got to understand the parallele between drug adiction and internet adiction one bit more.

It felt at this point that “orange”, and the mini doses was only truely destined to true internet adicts, and that only people with this true adictive feeling would go and get a 20min fix for 3€, or 1h for 5€ like I did this morning.

Finding a solution to give internet access to all, like the other companies do, could be a solution to solving this internet adiction. But the internet adiction probably a much more complexe thing that just helping those in need. Since this internet adiction will just grow. People who break their computer, or find themself in remote aeres, with electricity shortage, most likely experience similar feelings of frustration.
And giving the dose to the people in need feels is only a short term solution. If someone was a drug adict, the solution wouldn’t be to give them their drug, it is far more complexe.
I beleive this is exeptional for me, I have an important issue I need to solve by tomorrow.
So this is exeptional, I think in my case, and beleive I can more or less cure myself. But I am sure not everyone has the same self control.

Looking at all the homeless people in Paris this morning really made me think.
All these people, probably just had a similar frustration point at some point at least when they lost their home or job. And at some point they lost control, and could not or would not ask for help. Either because they couldn’t or out of pride. And the longer they stay in this situation and the more difficult it is for them to solve they problem.

They probably all need to learn how to manage they money, or whatever has cost them so much. When you lose control of things, you tend to just spend money in a rediculous way, like I did this morning or this weekend, in a way that no one can really afford. And you will always have a company out there who is willing to help you, and take everything they can away from you in a legal way, but for a rediculous amount of money, just like “orange” has been doing it with me today.

I can see now, how information control could probably solve this. People tend to just not know how to count. They are overtaken but problems which they did not manage to predict. Everyone how has lost control has most likely fallen in this situation.

If we had a tool which could tell us, what is going to happen next, and which type of dangerous situation we are falling into (drugs, internet, television, gambling, food alcohol addiction), mesure this type of adiction or danger. And everyone woud have a grade of self control or loss of control for every dangerous situation. Then this could most likely instantly solve all these problems.

And this is the second time this year, I go and see an exhibition about him. After the CCCB in January, this time it is at the Museum del historia de Barcelona, next to the town hall.

I was already very impressed by the previous one. Cerda and the Exiemple. Which really showed, how he created the famously square looking town which everyone can know. Which really helps you understand Barcelona. Which shows you how it works, how people move in it. How it grows, how people interract. Statics about the best blocks to live in. The most dense, the most mixed. Comparison with many other grided towns. I came out of the previous exhibition very impressed by the analysis of the town. The ghost underground stations. And this gave me a true new vision of Barcelona.

But I was suprised to learn much more once again in this exhibition.

This exhibition was much less focused on todays Barcelona. But really focused on Cerda himself, his time, the motives behind creating this town, the 1850s to 1890s. A true understanding, not on todays Barcelona, but more on how a few good men. Engineer, Mayor and the people in power, but to totally transform a town. Go against the authority of the military and decide to cut open and reshape an entire town.

The original plans to create the “Road Princesse”, which cuts the Barrio Gotic in 2. Was a true revelation for me.

How could a few good men, change, plan, convince, enginneer, a plan which would knock out half the town. This is probably very similar to what Haussman must have done in Paris.

But for me I think it ment much more. Maybe it is the time in my life, the fact the my brother is a town planner, and that I am an enginner with little power, and doing projects with little impact.

But I do feel that there always needs to be some people who need to get in there and convince to do the great changes which are necessary. And that if you have the right arguments, that you know that you are right then you need to convince.

I was very impressed by the atmosphere created in this exhibition. Because it really showed the time in which the decisions were taken. That even nearly 200 years ago, before electricity, before trains, before cinema, and a huge amount of other things which feel which are part of todays world and our own history, which hasn’t happend yet for them, the first world war, before bombs, tv, cars. Some people really knew what was necessary, some politician could still really make impressive decisions and change and reshape not only the distant future in which we now are. But they very near future in which they lived, their present.

When you look at that huge pannoramic photo of the town in 1860, the maps, the old pictures animated in the film. You could really see the way the town must have looked, and felt like to live in, not today like in the previous exhibition but in those days. With the walls surounding the town, with the life expectancy stats, the air they must have been breathing.

Well done to them, and I hope I get to do something usefull in my life time, like all the people who worked on this managed to do.

I will never look at the center of Barcelona in the same way again.

Well one important thing for the people here is the Catalan thing…

I have to say when I first arrived in Barcelona, I had no idea that people here talked Catalan. I had heard of the language, but couldn’t have said where it was spoken. It could have been spoken in Greece, South America or Estonia for all I knew (and cared). I must have been told though many times during my spanish lessons. People who had been here must have told me, that “Spanish” is in fact Castillan. I had even been to Barcelona without realizing that people actually talked another language than spanish. I guess it just never ticked.

The plain idea of people talking another language than spanish in spain was therefore a bit of a surprise.

It was simple arithemetics for me: France = French, England = English, Germany = German, Spain = Spanish.

But I was wrong, spain is in fact a multi language country a bit like Switzerland, with multiple languages. Which makes everything here, just slightly more complicated.

So here I was in Spain. Hoping to freshen up my language skills a little, since one of my prime objective here was really to get pretty fluent in another language.

I was initially really happy. That is such an opportunity for me. Not only can I learn 1, but 2 languages, during my stay here. I will become not trilingual but quadrilingual.

Well 4 months later, and my frustration really starts kicking in, since I still cannot communicate in spanish very well. So let alone Catalan. I have learnt to my expense that the learning curve, is in fact really pretty steep.

I have to say my spanish is getting better, and I do feel like I understand a lot more. I have gone from nearly nothing to a reasonable understanding level. And do hope to become pretty fluent in the next few months if I keep working hard on it.

But learning spanish is already pretty hard work by itself. So how about the Catalan. I have been here for 4 month and have hardly had time to learn the local language.

It seems here that in Barcelona, over 80% of the people have Catalan as they mother tongue. And as long as you stick to Spanish, you will never really be fully accepted. Simple things really, you can’t read the sign posts, you can’t read a menu, news papers, when people here talk between each other. Which means that it is always that little bit more difficult to get yourself understood, and to understand what is going on around you.

Spanish in Barcelona is a bit like talking English in a none English speaking country. It will be the language people use for work, but by no means the local language. It is already an effort for most people to talk Spanish, so let alone English or French.

So this is my own experience about this. But what does it really show about the Catalan situation in general. Well from my foreign point of view, it feels like it is much more difficult to adapt in this area than a Spanish talking Area such as Madrid. And that therefore a much less welcoming area to foreigners. And the more foreign people move in, the more the Catalan people seem to use the Catalan language to protect themself against ‘us’, the none Catalan talking people.

Is it very much the ‘us’ thing. Those who talk it, and those who don’t.

Spanish people, will learn it pretty quickly, so will be more easily accepted, than those who first need to learn Spanish, and then Catalan.

It is just an extra step to make, in order to be accepted here.

Of course, you don’t really need Catalan to live here. If the people here, have an interest in you or in a skill you have, they will adapt to you. It is probably a similar thing in all places in the world. In order to be part of a group, you need them to need you, or else you need to be able to communicate easily with them and they will easily find a use in you. It is the first thing really, if you make that effort, then they may try and do the same with you. And if you talk they language, then they will need you to communicate with the others, since they wont be able to talk the other languages.

And this really shows the importance of language in all conflicts around the world. And of all conflicts in general. The ones who can communicate with the one in power will then become the middle man, and will be the one which everyone needs.

This got me researching a little and I found interresting facts about languages:

By far the most spoken would be chinese mandari, although I thought it was english [1].

For French, though it really depends on how you count the number of people who can talk the language. Since a lot more people use French as they working language than as they mother tongue [2].

Catalan is spolen by over 11 million, which is more than Swidish, and nearly as much as Greek, and is placed 75th in the list of most spoken native mother tongue according to [3]

All this is pretty interresting and new to me. There are many other things which come into account when arriving in a country, and trying to adapt. And much more to the Catalan issue and politics than the language. But as far as I am concerned, and for now I will just have to put my head down, and study as much as I can, and as quickly as I can, and as many languages as I can. And maybe if others did the same then this would change a lot in the way people see things, and communicate.

http://daxey.net/blog/phenomene-facebook-soyez-vigilants#cpreview

And this is the translation of the page:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdaxey.net%2Fblog%2Fphenomene-facebook-soyez-vigilants%3Fcommented%3D1%23c000031&hl=fr&ie=UTF8&sl=fr&tl=en

This is my anaylsis:

Je voudrais juste revenir sur quelque point …

Le système de contagion virale :

-         L’utilisation des informations des emails, et du carnet d’adresse des comptes msn, et gmail, n’est autorisé que pour le parrainage de contact que l’on souhaite. L’utilisation frauduleuse d’un base de donnée de mots de passe de compte email, serait considéré comme criminel dans de nombreux pays. Ceci conduirait inévitablement à la fermeture, ou du moins au ralentissement de la progression d’adaptation de facebook dans de nombreux pays. Facebook, n’a donc aucun intérêt, à utiliser des pratique de ‘fishing’, qui est l’utilisation des mots de passe de site qui ne lui appartient pas.

-         Il y a déjà de très nombreux site qui cherche à concurrencer facebook comme tu l’expliques. Facebook n’a donc pas interet à utiliser de méthode illégale.

-         Le système viral a conduit à l’adaptation rapide du site par de très nombreux utilisateurs. Ceci est effectivement le point qui crée le buz (à la manière d’un scoop) et qui s’attenura une fois la contamination (communication du site) aura été faite et que la majeur partie de la cible des utilisateurs (15-35 ansutiliserons) le site.

La simplicité du site :

-         Il y a très peu de fonction utile, et le site n’est au final qu’un carnet d’adresse dynamique, qui se met à jour automatiquement, avec de très nombreuse application inutile mais divertissante qui s’attache à l’idée de base du site.

-         Ceci permet de garder contact avec les personnes que l’on rencontre au fur et à mesure que notre vie avance, et de ne plus perdre contact, contrairement au ancien réseaux de rencontre, qui n’ont qu’un potentiel de retrouver d’ancien amis. Celui-ci à dans l’esprit de les conserver.

-         Le site est également très simple à adopter, car simple à utiliser (à la manière de google) lorsque l’on arrive sur le site, il ne faut que 5 min, pour comprendre le fonctionnement.

-         Le coté internationnal, contrairement a « copain d’avant » ou « friendsreunited », qui était les précurseur des réseaux sociaux grand public. Ou myspace qui se restreint malheureusement aux artistes ou créateur.

-         Lorsque l’on rencontre quelqu’un, on ne donne plus un numéro de téléphone, ou un email, mais un simple nom permet de retrouver la personne. On est alors libre de partager les données que l’on souhaite (à la maniére d’un blog), et de revoir ou non les personnes que l’on ne connais pas très bien. C’est une approche douce à un site de rencontre.

Potentiel d’évolution du site :

-         L’esprit open sources et la simplicité de développement des extensions est également révolutionnaire. Aucune autre API, pour un réseaux sociale n’est aussi simple a utiliser. Et on n’est, malheureusement pour ton analyse, qu’au début de la migration de très nombreuse application utile sur facebook.

-         En gros tout ce qui est possible sur le net, presque toutes les applications windows/linux peuvent potentiellement être migrés en quelques jours sur facebook, tellement l’api est simple d’utilisation.

-         L’équipe de développement est également très dynamique, et apporte de nombreuses innovations régulière sur le cœur du système, qui reste très simple.

-         Ceci permet de présager que facebook, n’est pas prêt de disparaître, et va continuer, non seuelement à évoluer mais progresser dans son adaptation.

Enfin, je dis ça… je dis rien… :o)

I have bought a flat in Paris recently. This is quite an acheivement for me, 27 years old and now my own landlord. After a long time trying to study, doing a lot of jobs which did not pay much, but in the objective of doing a proper job, I have found stability and a regular salary which means a bank is willing to lend me enough to buy my own little home.

Small of course, 30 square meters, this is like acheiving a status which makes me more or less independent from my parents financially. This also means that I can invite people to stay and help people in need.
But this also means that I need to pay a laon ever month, and makes me pretty dependent to m y job. I was thinking of renting my living room out to help me out a little with the loan.

An aquatence from home who, has been struggling a little more than me to find a place has been staying in my living room from time to time, since he has found a job teaching in a town very near to were my flat is, and he lives over 2 hours away by car. I offered for him to stay to stay a little longger in exchange for a bit of rent. But he now wishes to stay for 9 months, while paying a very little amount. This has put me off a little. This means that my little heaven in which I can invite people to stay will be taken by someone full time.

I have found it difficult to say no. But cannot really accept for him to stay more than a couple of months really.

Now what can I do. I guess we will just have to wait and see. I am sure it won’t be too bad. We have had a few people staying in our homes before never really went wrong. I may not even be here that long, but it may be a good thing for him. And if it can help me out financially.

That is my saying, “give what you can while you can”. “Any thing you do not give will be lost in the end”. I have lived in very small places in the past, and accessing luxury, and large living spaces can wait a little longger, for me I guess. Nother is like helpping others in need.

I have been complaining of feeling lonely since I have moved in. I miss, my cat and my ex-girlfriend on a daily basis.