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Tatins aux magrets de canard fumés

Posted: December 29th, 2008, 11:46am CET by jerome

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Un délice…

Via, via Amuses bouche

Les étapes précédentes:
Dad

Posted: December 22nd, 2008, 10:51pm CET by jerome

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Jean
Born on december 11th
You can reach him at jean@chevillat.ch (until further notice I am his personal digital manager)

To celebrate this event I bought a new camera,… and I am now looking for ressources on photography (even “101″)! Any link is welcome…
Running 2.7

Posted: December 19th, 2008, 5:58pm CET by jerome

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This blog is running version 2.7 of Wordpress now… upgrade was amazingly easy like always.
Technorati is alive ?

Posted: December 5th, 2008, 9:16am CET by jerome

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Some Upgrades to Technorati.com
Today we’ve made some significant enhancements to Technorati.com [...]

No shit ? They are still working on Technorati ???

Seriously… this post to test the newly installed Wordpress 2.7-RC 1 (yeah I know just a release candidate)… new admin interface is awesome! might be a bit disturbing for those that have not followed what is going on there :-)
Coffee addiction

Posted: November 28th, 2008, 9:20am CET by jerome

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QR Code in CSI

Posted: November 21st, 2008, 8:41am CET by jerome

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I love it when some new technology appears in tv shows. Is not that a good sign ?

It has happend to Telepresence in 24 as well, and since I work for Cisco I spotted a few shows that use our IP phone (part of our Unified Communication product line)…

Via The Mobile Tagging blog
The Internet of Things… almost there

Posted: October 14th, 2008, 1:35pm CEST by jerome

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Press release: Atmel, Cisco and the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) Collaborate to Support a Future Where Any Device Can Be Connected to the Internet

Atmel® Corporation, Cisco and the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) today announced the availability of uIPv6, one of the world’s smallest open-source, IPv6-ready protocol stack, which could enable every device, no matter how limited by power or memory to have an Internet Protocol address.

Why do I blog this ? Well… Cisco’s office in Rolle has been heavily involved in that with two co-workers working on that project. Cool stuff…

On a side note, I am currently reading this: The Internet of Things
Cloud computing is crap but not for Washington DC

Posted: October 14th, 2008, 1:29pm CEST by jerome

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ReadWriteWeb: Google Apps Unseats Incumbent Microsoft Office in Washington, DC (via mfavez on twitter)

[...] Vivek Kundra, Chief Technology Officer for the District of Columbia, has decided to switch the District’s 38,000 employees from the installed Microsoft Office suite to the Web-based Google suite [...]

This news comes only a few weeks after Richard Stallman (GNU founder) warned about Cloud Computing… Guardian: Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman:

One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control, it’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.

Well an US government agency is using US company infrastructure… so far so good.

Should “cloud computing” becomes trendy, and it will, I wonder how non-gov companies are going to address that privacy issue and I wonder if Washington state would have done the same choice if Google was not an US company ?
1.5 Million G1-Android Pre-Sold

Posted: October 14th, 2008, 9:26am CEST by jerome

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1.5 Million G1 Mobile Phones Pre-Sold:

The G1 won’t officially be available until October 22. [...] Reports are in that up to 1.5 million G1 devices have been pre-sold and you can bet that more will be coming in.

With that, Motorola is building a 350-persons Android team and Nokia is also around (though they have to take care of Symbian as well)…

It is going to be interesting… an open-source OS with an appealing development environment,… time to investigate further this Android thing!

Read also: 11 ways Android will kick the iPhone’s ass
Mobile web app vs native app, an example

Posted: October 8th, 2008, 5:17pm CEST by jerome

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Mobile web app vs. native app

Twitterific is one of the well known application in the app store for Twitter on iPhone. I installed it and used it for a while until I recently found out about Hahlo, a web based mobile client for Twitter. Awesome!! When using both you do not see which one is web based!
2nd Mobile Monday Switzerland: Mobile payment

Posted: October 7th, 2008, 11:04am CEST by jerome

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I attended last night the 2nd Mobile Monday Switzerland hosted at EPFL. Topic was about Mobile Payment. More than fifty persons (out of 70 “subscribers” to Momo Swiss) were attending this session which is less than in other part of the world but not so bad for a 2nd edition in Switzerland. Mainly business oriented crowd, not much students (I saw only one) despite the fact that it was at EPFL.

Slides should be available but here are a few remarks (mainly useful for myself :-)
- Prof. Yves Pigneur presented examples of successful mobile paiement (in Japan of course) and failure (in Switzerland with Postfinance of course… :-).
- Simon Cavill, CTO of Mi-Pay. Mi-Pay provides “an innovative range of products and services that enable consumers around the world to undertake safe and secure financial transactions from their mobile phones”. Based in UK they work essentially in Africa. They do take into account that on developped country not everyone has a computer at home, but almost every one has access to a mobile. The crowd is split into 3 parts: those who have a mobile in their pocket, those who do not, and those who share it! Money is the airtime! Airtime is used in transaction.
- CTO of Vipera introduced their solution, even though it supports multi-channels, they focus on rich-client which provides the best user experience.
- Dennis Flad from Credit Suisse preenting the Swiss Mobile Payment Initiative. Consortium includes Swisscom, Telekurs, Visa, CS,… Goal is to replace low-value cash transaction. He presented, with a live demo, a mobile paiement solution that uses existing infrastructure together with a NFC system that works with both credit card and mobile device. Neat but I found very disapointing that with all the actors involved they can not come up with a better solution that would be deployed earlier than 2010, 2011.
- Missed the presentation from HP
Remarks
I guess it would be nice to respect the schedule as some people might be on a tight schedule (we started more than half an hour late) and the networking part (after) could be improved as it is an important part of such event. Would have been nice maybe also to start with someone going through an overview of the topic for those not fluent in mobile paiement.
(those are remarks to improve the event and not to criticize ;-)

What exactly is mobile payment ? Is it about micro-payment ? about paying with your mobile ? about paying in a nomadic situation ? from yesterday night it was not clear… maybe a bit of all of them.

Where is WiFi network in the picture ? mobile operator often pops up but what can WiFi provider do for mobile payment (knowing that 1 billion wifi enabled device are expected to be on the market in 2012)

More information and resources
mobilemonday.ch (I have been the owner of this domain name for at least 3 years,… and released it last year I believe :-)
janondrus.com
A blog about mobile payment: mobilepayment.typepad.com (in french)
Mobile web app vs. native app

Posted: October 3rd, 2008, 9:04am CEST by jerome

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From Wapreview: Mobile Browser Based Applications

Two requirements need to be met before browser based technologies are capable being a general replacement for applications:
1. They need to be functional offline. The ability to edit a document can’t depend on the availability of a network signal.
2. There needs to be access to core phone features like the phone book, calendar, camera and location.

Those requirements are also valid when you are considering developing a mobile application and you are hesitating between developing a mobile web application or a native application. To which I would add two other points…
3. Needs of updating the application. Mobile web app are much more easily updatable. It takes much more time on a native application.
4. Portability on any device. When well done, a mobile web application can be accessible from the begining to almost any mobile device. Ain’t true for native app obviously.

To sum up… things to think about when developping a mobile web app. vs. a native app:

1. Offline feature.
2. Accessing core feature of the phone.
3. Ease of update.
4. Portability on any device

I’ll end with a quote from Cameron Moll on Twitter:

…and the more I’m convinced well-done mobile web apps pretty much negate the need for iPhone installed apps that do the same.
4 things I do not like about my iPhone

Posted: October 3rd, 2008, 9:00am CEST by jerome

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Image courtesy of “blonde inside”… made me laugh, but seriously here are things I do not really understand…

1) No real bluetooth connection (seriously I need my cable to synch it with my laptop ???).
2) Can not use it as a modem with my laptop (how do I connect my laptop to internet in the train ?).
3) No multi-tasking (can not run an app like Trailguru while running and listening music at the same time ?)
4) Closed environment, see The dark side of Apple’s app store (at least they removed the NDA).
5) The buzz.

I have not yet investigated deeply but there has to be some hacks for some of those problems but why not built-in ?

Having said that there are a lot of things I do like about the iPhone (I will talk about those later, it is easier to criticize ;-) and with the futur Androïd/HTC/T-mobile phone coming on the market, the competition will become quite interesting.
Picking a SSID and Network Magic

Posted: October 3rd, 2008, 8:03am CEST by jerome

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I bought a new wireless router at home. working for Cisco I bought a Linksys one of course. At some point I had to choose a SSID name for my wireless network. I used my cell phone number as the SSID, thinking that if someone wants to connect he can call me and I will give out the password…
At the same time I installed Network Magic a networking tool provided by Pure Network (bought by Cisco a few months back)
Apple app store sucks (bis)

Posted: October 2nd, 2008, 9:36pm CEST by jerome

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Russell Beattie: The iPhone Crapp Store?

From the descriptions of most of them [read: applications], I’d say there’s a ton of unmitigated crud flowing into the App Store right now. You don’t read about it because the iPhone is all shiny and new, but with all those apps arriving daily the quality has to be really varied. Really, really varied. And with a few of the App developers making BANK to the tun of a quarter million in like two months, it’s just going to get worse. The sort of press those successes generate may not be good for Apple at all in the long run, as it appears the land-rush is on, and the scammers, spammers and other dregs of online society are closing in fast and I have serious doubts if the iTunes Store is really made to keep up.

+10. Exactly what I thought… to which I would add two things:
- On the down side,… from what I have seen, a good number of the app could also be done as mobile web application and not stand alone application. It would not require the developer to pay the SDK license and more importantly, when done it right, they would reach then all smartphone (ie. mobile phone with a recent/decent browser) and not only the iPhone.
- On the bright side,… I like the way my iPhone tells me when an app needs to be updated. This is made easy by the fact that it is centralized (and closed) but I guess it would be possible to integrate this feature on others platforms.
Indoor positioning

Posted: September 25th, 2008, 11:38am CEST by jerome

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Nokia creates Indoor Positioning:

Nokia’s keeping mum about exactly how the technology works, for now, but has said it’s based on wireless networks. The firm’s also said that the technology still needs a scalable solution to make it work and admitted that mapping the guts of each building “is quite a challenge”.

Based on wireless networks ? so you mean something like the Cisco Location Appliance but integrated on the device ? I would be curious to see how it works but it probably makes intensive used of the wireless network infrastructure…
I tried Insqribe

Posted: September 8th, 2008, 11:37am CEST by jerome

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Took some time this morning to give a shot to Insqribe, a webapp that allows you to manage your QR Code.
- Create 10 codes for free… then you will have to pay I guess;
- Create campaign and codes within a campaign;
- For every code you get statistics on how many times it has been shot per day/week/month (and export those in csv format);
- You can create codes that are leading to a web page, allowing document download (song, video,…) or displaying some information in plain text;
- In three cases the code generated is an URL that points to a server which in turn is going to redirect you to the target destination;
- When the code generated is a link, your are redirected to the link (well obvious mmh?);
- When the code generated is a document, it is uploaded on Insqribe website and you are redirected to this document when scanning the code. Would be nice maybe to access an intermediate page that give you some information about this document like size and type, would give the end user the choice to cancel the download (especially useful given the current data rate);
- When the code generated is “plain text”, you are redirected to a web page on Insrqibe website that displays the text you have entered when generating the code;
The service seems to be using Qode (from NeoMedia) service (probably though an API). When shooting a code the browser is first redirected to a qode.com address and then to Insqribe service (2 redirections then).
(UPDATE: no they are not, see comment below, my bad!)

It seems they are going to introduce some social network features… looking forward to it!

By the way… 2d codes on iPhone sucks! I have not found a good reader yet. None of them seems to be “scanning” in real time the code. They all requires to “manually” take a picture and it renders the whole process much less appealing.

Via 2d-code.co.uk
iPhone screenshot

Posted: September 8th, 2008, 10:50am CEST by jerome

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I wanted to add a screenshot of my iPhone to my previous post. I thought I could find an app that would do the job for me, but it turns out that the solution is even easier as it is a built-in feature (from firmware 2.0 appartently):

All you have to do to take a screenshot is hold the home button and the power button at the same time, you can find the screenshot placed under your Photos application.

Via
iPhone feedbacks (cont’d)

Posted: September 8th, 2008, 10:06am CEST by jerome

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So I finally had to use it because of a problem with my N95. I will fix it that but in the meantime I started using the iPhone as a phone… here are some feedbacks (pros and cons):
- Synchronisation is not automatic and it needs cable. Once I overcame my problem with iTunes not recognizing my iPhone on my laptop I needed to set up the synchronisation between the device and my agenda/contact (hosted on Outlook). It worked but unfortunately it requires me to plug the device on my laptop and launch the synch manually. The setup with my N95 was just perfect, the synchronisation was done over Bluetooth and scheduled every hour. No need to think about and this how it should be imho.
- SMS, it still takes me more time to write SMS than on my N95 but I love the way SMS are displayed, as a discussion (some application from Nokia Labs, “Conversation”, allowed me to do that but it was installed by default)
- Browsing the web… is awesome! It definitively validates the use of web tablet. iPhone’s browser can handle any webpage but it is much more user friendly to use iPhone (or more generally mobile) adapted website!
- Always connected device. Everything is done to use a maximum of datas online, no wonder the operators like the iPhone. The mapping application for instance will not let me download a set of them locally on my phone as far as I know. Meaning that when travelling abroad I will be forced to use datas network! Nokia Maps lets me upload the datas from my computer.
- The app store is neat,… but I have not found one killing application… too much buzz there!
More later…
First weeks with an iPhone

Posted: September 4th, 2008, 3:00pm CEST by jerome

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I did it. Few weeks back I bought the iPhone 3G… I had to find out what this is all about and I have to admit that this is quite a nice device (and it comes from a Nokia fan :-).

I am still using my Nokia N95 as my main phone for three main reasons:
- I have not yet found the time to synch my agenda/contacts with Outlook (for some reason my iPhone is not recognised by iTunes on my laptop)
- Lack of connectivity while traveling. I use my laptop in the train to work and I like to be connected at the same time (through Bluetooth with my N95 as a 3G modem). I am not quite sure but my understanding is that I will not be able to do that with the iPhone.
- Battery life sucks… we have heard lot of complaints about Nokia’s battery, but the iPhone one is worse than any other one
There are more and more iPhone/mobile dedicated website which makes the browsing experience on a mobile device really pleasant. Being able to browse normal website is nice (especially with the zoom in-out feature) but not perfect.

To complete the iPhone experience I should try to use it as my main phone and actually use all the phone features… will come back once this is done :-)

Related: What I’ve Missed About the S60 Experience
Location-Based vs. Context-Aware

Posted: August 25th, 2008, 11:53am CEST by jerome

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(note to self)

Mobhappy: Location-Based vs. Context-Aware

Location is just a part of the context of each individual user

In some cases, such as mapping, there isn’t a great need for context-awareness instead of location, but in many LBS instances, being sensitive to context is much more important than simply location

Musings of a mobile marketer: Location Based Services - are they all missing the point?

I can’t help thinking that many of the LBS initiatives are missing the point

Twitter has no location API, yet it’s actually very effective for letting me connect with people who are local to me (and to organise meeting up via tweet-outs such as ‘I’m in Soho this afternoon, anyone want to hook up for coffee) as well as helping me have relationships with friends and colleagues further away. There are no maps involved. No location look-ups.
SpotMe

Posted: July 31st, 2008, 11:29am CEST by jerome

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fr.techcrunch: SpotMe va enfin nous permettre de mettre nos badges de conférence à la poubelle

I can’t believe someone has not yet developed a similar service that uses the existing device. I already have a mobile phone in my pocket, why should I carry another device ?

SpotMe
Twitter as an input for your service

Posted: July 30th, 2008, 10:34am CEST by jerome

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Dopplr recently launched a new version called “Copenhagen” and amongst the new features there is this possibility to insert new trip to Dopplr directly via Twitter (and also by SMS or email). All you need to do is reply to Dopplr with the trip information (eg. “A trip to Helsinki on May 19 to May 23″). Mixin is also using Twitter to feed your social agenda. Problem is that every service requires to fit a given format (for Twitter: “mention a placename and two dates, including the month both times”) that 1) you have to remember, 2) is most likely not compatible with other service. Next step would be to feed those services with natural language…

Also it is interesting to see that Twitter is becoming the “de facto” status aggregator as it is used to feed other services (it is a bit surprising as well given the lack of reliability of this tool that keeps on crashing).
Blog4Mobile

Posted: July 28th, 2008, 8:32am CEST by jerome

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Using the feed of a blog to generate a mobile friendly version of it is something we have tried when at Kaywa, and I still do believe one can make something nice of it. For various reasons we failed imho but wish all the best to Blog4Mobile :-)… good point to start with they plan to share revenue (and they provide access statistics):

After the beta phase, Blog4Mobile.com will start the central marketing of all mobile blogs. Each user gets up to 70% of the advertising incomes, generated via his mobile blog. Blog4Mobile.com is not only for free, you can even cash in by blogging!

Here is some widgets they propose:

Via 2Dcode.co.uk
Festival guides

Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 9:05am CEST by jerome

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Remember the mobile guide for Paleo festival ? I found out that the same app exists for few other festivals in Switzerland. Neat. I found this out through my beloved carrier portal. Talking about it… a Google search field has appeared on top of the the main page… looks like they are “opening” their mobile web to the external world.
The mobile web is growing

Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 8:31am CEST by jerome

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From the montly AdMob Mobile Metric Report (PDF here):

Traffic from the 473 publishers grew 104% from July 2007 to June 2008. This indicates that the mobile web more than doubled in 12 months ending in June 2008.
My Mobile Web (2): mobile.rsr.ch

Posted: July 21st, 2008, 10:55pm CEST by jerome

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I am going through my mobile bookmarks. First step: my “swiss” folder, or to put it another way: making good use of the mobile web without using useless and expensive services from Swisscom Mobile and its “Vodafone” Portal.

I found it only very recently about the mobile website of the swiss radio. Really neat! It has some iPhone look and feel, it is clean and does a good job at informing on a concise manner… what else asking ?
It even provides some show to be downloaded as MP3 (depends on the connection and make sure you have a good data plan if you are on your carrier network).

URL: mobile.rsr.ch or via the QR Code below

Swiss mobile web in the mobile web serie.
Thursday night @ Montreux

Posted: July 18th, 2008, 6:34pm CEST by jerome

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There was also yesterday night a Techcrunch meetup in Zürich.
I would have probably gone there otherwise but what those pictures maybe do not say is that I have no regrets or whatsoever… :-))
Smaller is better

Posted: July 14th, 2008, 10:14am CEST by jerome

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New York Times: On a Small Screen, Just the Salient Stuff

[...] Visiting Web sites that have been redesigned for the iPhone is often a quicker and more pleasing experience than it is on those increasingly cinema-style desktop displays [...]

[...] By stripping down the Web site interface to the most basic functions, site designers can focus the user’s attention and offer relevant information without distractions. [...]

“By having fewer items to scan for on a small display, users can find what they want more quickly and can be more confident that they have made the right choice,” [...] “If you just put the juicy stuff up there it works better.”

With mobile browser getting the same capacity and features than a desktop one, I was really starting to wonder what was the need of dedicated mobile version. Main reasons are price, bandwidth, and usability. While price and bandwidth remain good reason for now I though that usability was going to fade away with the iPhone but it is the other way around. It is reinforcing the need of dedicated mobile version. Too bad it targets the iPhone only…
Le Matin ne gère pas son espace numérique

Posted: July 14th, 2008, 8:53am CEST by jerome

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Typique des médias traditionnels. Sentant le vent tourner les médias dits “traditionnels” investissent dans internet, souvent avec du retard mais en plus sans stratégie. Créer une communauté numérique autour d’un quotidien c’est très bien c’est louable, mais il faut alors se donner les moyens de le faire bien! Je suis prêt à parier que l’ensemble de la communauté numérique n’est modéré/geré que par une seule personne à 10% de son temps ou éventuellement même le département IT à temps perdu…
Paleo Mobile Guide

Posted: July 8th, 2008, 10:05am CEST by jerome

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Paleo Music Festival just released a mobile guide with full of informations (programm, news, infos, maps,…). The guide is a standalone application in Symbian done by Minick wich had done the guide for the Euro 2008 if I am not mistaken.
More screenshots on my Flickr.
Via Paleo blog
Upgrades

Posted: June 23rd, 2008, 12:24am CEST by jerome

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The blog software has been upgraded and it is now running Wordpress 2.5.1. Once again the upgrade went without any problem. Was a good time to change very slightly the theme to remove all references to “categories”. Choosing a categoy is often a problem for me so I decided to get rid of it and deal only with tags…

I have also upgraded Firfox on one computer @work… quite promising! It seems managing memory much better…
The future of newspaper…

Posted: June 22nd, 2008, 10:43pm CEST by jerome

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… is bright ;-) Picture taken from a recent trip to Venizia
Location-based services ?

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 10:54am CEST by jerome

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Remember how Google built up its cell ID->lat-long databases? They used the existing infrastructure and their software already spread on user devices to build it and now they can provide location features on devices that do not have a GPS receiver. Earlier this week a blog post on official Google mobile blog confirmed that. I found out via Tom that there is a similar “Open Source” initiative called: OpenCellID which tries to build up a “cell id database” with downloadable client. Getting the user location seems to become easier every day and it is interesting to see that GPS is not the only solution to retrieve a position and there are open solutions but the real question remains “what is all good that for ?”

We have been talking about Location-Based Services for quite a long time and there does not seem to be yet a killing application even though Devices have built-in GPS (like my Nokia N95) or Location API (like Androïd). It’s the “big thing” we are still waiting for and maybe the problem is that we are not “nomad” enough, just too “local” as pointed by the New York Times based on a field study:

“Individuals display significant regularity, because they return to a few highly frequented locations, such as home or work”

Via (#) and (#)
Create your avatar with “Befunky”

Posted: June 4th, 2008, 9:48am CEST by jerome

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Via fr.techcrunch, create your avatar with befunky… it took me less than 5 minutes to do that:

Ok not perfect and probably one can do much better with Photoshop (assuming you have the knowledge which I do not) but it is kinda cool nevertheless…