NEWS: the first blog of Bill Gates :-)

[Via vowe]

It seems that Bill Gates opened his first blog ;-)
And guess where? On Blogger :-) I'm wondering how long this one will stay open....

BLOG: less posts the last time

You perhaps remarked that I posted less than before my holidays. I'm re-designing completely my website and this takes a little time, as you can imagine ;-) I invested some time in finding a better usability and look&feel, also coherent with my weblog.
The new version will be based on the following template (usage of css):

NEWS: Google Dance

A Google Dance happened yesterday (June 23). Two consequences:

an overall increase of my Page Ranks (weblog: PR5, website: PR4, weblog archive from May: PR6 ;-)

the definitive confirmation that my migration strategy was ok

BLOG: 100th post :-)

I realized that my recent post concerning Sauce Reader was my hundredth article since the opening of my blog on March 1st, 2004. My first post on March 1, 2004 was about IT outsourcing.

MUSIC: On heavy rotation

Since some days, I'm watching and listenning to a great DVD-live called Lovers live from Sade. This live performance was filmed in September 2001 in California. The DVD contains 22 songs (!), about 2 hours of very sweet, sexy and groovy music! And the band is really excellent!

TOOLS: Sauce Reader

I already published two articles about Sauce Reader on Mai 24 and Mai 14. Synop released on last Friday a new version:

Sauce Reader v1.5 (beta)

I'm using intensively Sauce Reader since more than a month and I would like to summarize my impression:

What's Cool

Great user interface

Very good usability

Since this version: performance, stability and a quite good memory foot-print

Free for personal use, reasonnable price for commercial use ($25US per license)

Customization of keyboard shortcuts

Great desktop alert

Support of proxy, great feature to stay tuned at work

Last but not least, very active development team, professional alpha- and beta-phase

Room for improvement

I'm still not totally convinced by the "posting" module because of the way the HMTL decoration is integrated in (specially the "P" and "BR" tags). I still prefer to use the very simple Blogger web interface...

Conclusion
All in all, I think that Sauce Reader is the best aggregator at this moment. The last developments of this tool (three releases now) give me a very convincing impression of the Synop's capability and user orientation.

PS: Laurent also posted some comments about this new release.

PRIVATE: how can you know you are getting older ;-)

[Adapted and via Loic - in French]

I'm 32 years old and sometimes, I already feel that I'm getting older. Some ways to find out if it is the case for yourself (it just works if you are more or less in the same age as I):

A lot of students who will enter the University this year are born in 1985 (!)

They've never sung "We are the World, we are the children" or "Sunday bloody Sunday"

They've never heard something about "Raider", they just know "Twix"

They've never played with an Atari or a Commodore64

They've perhaps never played at PacMan

They've never seen a 5 1/4 floppy

They don't really understand what's a LP

They don't know how to watch TV without a remote control

They cannot image that somebody could watch a black-and-white TV

They think that James Bond was always played by Pierce Brosman

They think that Mickael Jackson was always white

They don't know J.R.

Etc.

So, let's just think about the fact that THESE guys will enter the University this year and that THEY are young now.
Other symptoms that you/we are getting older:

You understand the text above and you said at a minimum two times "my God"

You make sometimes some sport, perhaps two or three times yearly, and you tell everybody that you are making sport

The young people and the children are using "Mister/Madam" when they are talking with you

When you finished to read this blog, you decided to send it to some friends and you are convinced they will love it.

Keep cool, the only "good news" is that we are ALL getting older, even the young students who are reading this blog and are now laughing ;-)

NEWS: geographical representation of Google's queries

Let's have a look at this cool geographical representation (small Quicktime movie) of the relative number of queries to the Google's web site. Extract of the Google's explanation:

Coolest stop on the tour - A three-dimensional rotating image of the world on permanent display on a large flat panel monitor in the office of the engineer who created it. What makes it special is the toggle switch that allows you to view points of light representing real time searches rising from the surface of the globe toward space, color coded by language. Toggle and you can see traffic patterns for the entire Internet. Worth a trip to the second floor.

TOOLS: spider simulator

You can test here how the spiders see your web site:

Spider simulator

NEWS: summary of the last 10 days

So, let me summarize 10 days offline ;-)

Spam definitely sucks, more than two thirds of my emails were spams...

SUN opens its employees' weblogs.

The French soccer team beat the English one (2:1) thanks to Zinedine Zidane :-)

Record low European elections turnout (about 45%)...

Ray Charles died, one central part of the Soul Music is gone.

BLOG: I'm back - holidays (already) over

Wow, after exactly 10 days offline (umh, a record for me ;-), I'm back home and in some hours, in my office. Incredible, for some hours, I was here, on the beach:

BLOG: out of office - holidays :-)

Dear friends, I'm out for the next 10 days :-)
Next post on 15th June. Have a good time!

NEWS: 6th birthday of BetaNews, re-launch

BetaNews is celebrating its 6th birthday, it was launched on 1st of June 1998! This birthday is linked with the launch of a new web design, very cool to my mind. I really like this site for its huge and uptodate information and articles delivery.

Interesting to compare the current design and the one of 1998 :-)

Remember - Lest we forget

Today, 6 of June, it is the 60th anniversary of the D-Day, the beginning of the Allied invasion, the so-called Operation Overlord, the beginning of the end. The last time, we were quite overwhelmed by information concerning the World War II and the D-Day. On one hand, thanks to this anniversary, we re-activate our thoughts concerning this period of our history. And that's surely a good point. On the other hand, we see that we are loosing, with the time, all the direct witnesses of the World War II and their testimony.

I don't like Mr. Bush, I don't like some actions the US did in the last time BUT, with a lot of emotion, I would like to thank so deeply our American, English and Canadian friends, who fought for us, for France, for the World, for Liberty. A lot of them died or were injuried. A lot of them were volunteers. We are all indebted for their sacrifice. And we have all a duty of memory, do not forget to explain this to your children, including the Holocaust. My God, it was so...I don't find the words... I am sorry for some of the pictures below but, that's our history, our reality, guys.

Lest we forget that....
...more than 55 million people died during these 6 years. Fifty-five million peole... It's about the current population of France today, annihilated in 6 years.



Lest we forget that...
...about 6 million Jews were systematically murdered, 1.5 million of these were children. This represents 2/3rds of the European Jews and about 1/3rd of the worldwide Jewish community at this time. 6 million people, it's about the current population of Austria or Switzerland, annihilated in 6 years, 1.5 million children. My God, 1.5 million...





Lest we forget that...
...Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed with atomic weapons. 100'000 people were killed immediatly in Hiroshima, 74'000 victims and 75'000 injured in Nagasaki.

BLOG: feed validator....

Two days ago, I put the "Atom valid" logo away from my blog because I became an error while trying to validate my own atom.xml. I first couldn't manage to find the problem and, after a discussion with Laurent, it was clear that I had a "strange character" in two posts I made with w.bloggar, which I was testing for a while.

Actually, it seems that I inserted these "strange characters" by making a copy/paste. I must say that I am really pissed of by this kind of application's behaviour: this copy/paste HAS TO copy only the pure text, without taking any other characters....

NEWS: Interview with Evan Williams

[Via Holger]

Steve Gillmor interviewed Evan Williams on 20th of Mai, the conversation is transcripted in this eWeek's article.
They pincipally talked about the new version of Blogger. Some interesting points:

• definition of profile linked with a user


• new tags in the templating language, eg IF statements


• posting content through emails


• Google's sign-on strategy across Gmail, Blogger and Google


• the utilization of redirection for the comments (which are stored by Blogger): they are redirecting to avoid a Page Ranking propagation from the very good blogger.com's PR and to avoid spam on comments


• RSS and atom ecology

BLOG: search function on the right side

[Via Loïc]

Good idea from Loïc (this is not just working with Textpad)! I've added a Google Free Site Search on the right side of the blog.
You can find the needed information to do that here. Again, a good point for Google ;-)

BLOG: Google dance

Hey, again a Google Dance since yesterday evening! I'm very interested in observing the evolution of my different PR's during this Dance because of the migration of my web-hosting provider. And the way I choose to "force" the search engines' migration.

The results are still moving a lot! Let's see tomorrow :-)

BUSINESS: Corporate Entrepreneurship (14) - Jim Collins' thoughts part VI b

The two components of the vision framework

Core Ideology = Core Values + Core Purpose

Core Values are the organization‘s essential and enduring tenets – a small set of timeless guiding principles that require no external justification; they have intrinsic value and importance for those inside the organization.

Core Purpose is the organization‘s fundamental reason for being. An effective purpose reflects the importance people attach tothe company‘s work – it taps their idealistic motivations – and gets at the deeper reasons for an organization‘s existence beyond just making money.

Envisioned Future = BHAG* + Vivid Descriptions

* BHAG (pronounced bee-hag) = Big Hairy Audacious Goal

BHAG is a 10-to-30-year objective – like a big mountain to climb – that serves as a unifying focal point of effort, galvanizing people and creating team spirit. It is crisp, compelling and easy to understand.

Vivid Description (of what it will be like when the organization achieves the BHAG) Vivid Description is a vibrant, engaging, and specific description of what will be like to achieve the BHAG. Think of it as translating the vision from words into pictures, of creating an image that people can carry around in their heads.

Defining a good BHAG

Five criteria of a good BHAG

1. Are set with understanding, not bravado.


2. Fit squarely in the three circles of the Hedgehog Concept.


3. Have a long time frame – 10 to 30 years.


4. Are clear, compelling and easy to crasp.


5. Directly reflect your core values and core purpose

What are your Base Camp

Core ValuesEnduring tenets – guiding principles – to adhere to no matter what mountain to climb. These never change.

Core PurposeThe underlying “why” you climb mountains at all.

BHAGThe specific mountain you are currently trying to climb.

StrategyThe route you intend to take and the general methods you intend to use to reach the top of the that specific mountain.

Base CampsIntermediate objectives to the top of the mountain. If you have a ten-to-thirty-year BHAG, these would be three-to-five-year intermediate goals on the way up to the mountain.

TacticsSpecific methods for climbing the sections of rock and ice that confront you right now. These would be analogous to detailed annual plans for getting things done this year on the way to the five-year-goal.