To take advantage of the potential of Google's Search engine, it's important to know some of its basic tricks

• Keywords: Quality of the responses depends on the quality of the words chosen. For example, "computer" does not give the same results as "PC".
• Typing words in lowercase give you every opportunity not to miss any important reference.
• Quotation marks (" ") make sure that the search engine takes into account all the words.
• Signs "+" and "-" add constraints to your search.
  For example, you can search for documents on George Lucas who only speak of Star Wars (george lucas + star wars) or on the contrary who do not speak of the film (george lucas star wars)
• Wildcards: Google accepts the use of a wildcard (*) for the location of a missing word in a phrase.
• The tilde (~) allows Google to display not only a word but also its synonyms, in a broad sense, that is to say, beyond the true grammatical synonyms, related terms.

More searching options:

• "site: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". Returned results will be only from the selected site.
• "author: xxxxx xxxxxx". Identifies latest articles published by the author in question.
• "insubject: xxxxx" Results show the articles on related requested subjet.
• "location: xxxxx" Displays information bearing to the specified eyes.
• "source: xxxxxx" Results extracted from any source.
• "allintitle: xxxxxx" Results show the articles where all searched keywords are available in the title

The search bar includes also a calculator. Type the calculation directly in your search bar and press enter to have the result displayed.

More about Google seach engine: Google Help

Tags: 2007, account, arc, art, blog, card, computer, engine, example, google, how to, ia, im, lan, location, nomadcom.net, press, search, term, tips, train, tricks, wp, www

Since, mid-2006 mobile phones with a built-in 3 MP camera and optical zoon are available on the market and already represent an alternative to low end digital camera. More than 70 models are available today with a 3 to 5 MP resolution. One of the first phone with a "real camera" was the famous one Nokia N93 and its Carl Zeiss Optics.

Samsung is now putting even more pressure on camera makers with the soon release (first on European market) of its G800. A 5 MP digital camera with 3x optical zoom into mobile phone… or is it the opposite? 

The specifications are rather attractive:

• Quad bands (900 / 1800 / 1900 / 2100  )
• Data network HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
• 2.4 inches TFT display with 256K colors
• Size 101x52x19mm for 129 gr (25% lighter than the Nokia N93)
• Standby 220 hours, talk time 3.5 hours.
• Memory 160 MB + MicroSD slot
• Document views (Office, PPT, PDF,)
• Email (POP3, IMAP), SMS, MMS,
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB 2.0, PCSync, OutlookSync, etc..
• FM Receiver, Java embedded, MP3, etc..

and indeed the built-in camera:

• 5 Mio Pixel
• 2592х1944 pixels
• autofocus
• video recording mode: MPEG4, 3GPP, H.263, H.264
• xenon flash
• 3x optical zoom /4x digital
• 4 shot modes
• 4 quality settings
• brightness adjustment

 All other specs are here

The big plus is definitively the 3x optical zoom which makes the difference with other 5 MP phones.  The resolution race continues as Samsung (them again) Electro-Mechanics announced on November 15th that 8 MP camera phones may be available by next summer following the successful development of a 10.5 x 11.5 x 9.4mm 8 megapixel CMOS censor.

Will camera makers develop new "point and shoot" camera with built-in phones  and multimedia facilities such MP3 player and FM receiver ?

I'm impatient to have one "box" less to carry when traveling…

What will you drop first ? your camera or your phone ?

Tags: 2007, 5 MP, 8 MP, api, ATT, blog, camera, ces, connectivity, development, digital, europe, flash, fon, gap, ia, im, lan, light, map, megapixels, memory, mobile, mobile phone, models, network, nokia, nomadcom.net, PDF, phone, phones, photo, point and shoot, press, release, resolution, samsung, sms, sun, Travel, uk, usb, video, wp, www

As part of the various and numerous initiatives taking place in Thailand this year, a multimedia event names "Thailand: 9 Days in the Kingdom" marking the 80th birthday of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej on 5 December has now been revealed to public.

‘Thailand: 9 Days in the Kingdom’ project invited in January 2007, 55 of the world’s leading photographers for a photo shoot throughout Thailand over a nine-day period. Result of captured images shows different facets of Thailand: its peoples, traditions, landscapes and cityscapes, commerce and industry.

‘Thailand: 9 Days in the Kingdom’ is now completed and released to public in three parts:

• A wonderful 304 pages large-format pictorial book which portrays Thailand today (50 USD).
• A multimedia exhibition of photographs taken during the shoot held at CentralWorld Event Gallery.
• Two documentary films on the project.

‘Thailand: 9 Days in the Kingdom’ includes seven photos-essays made by some of world famous photographers on various themes:

• reverence for the King (Anuchai Secharunputong, Thailand)
• the ongoing events in the south (Abbas, France; Charoon Thongnual, Thailand)
• Thai boxing (Greg Gorman, USA)
• the harvesting of birds’ nests (Éric Valli, France)
• the care and treatment of AIDS patients by a Catholic priest (James Nachtwey, USA)
• and the country’s colourful cabaret scene (Greg Gorman, USA)
• aerial views of Thailand (Yann Arthus-Bertrand).

In short, if pass by Bangkok before the 5th of December, don't miss the exhibition. For the others, if you like Thailand, the book and its DVD is a must have (available in English and French).

More : 9 days in the Kingdom, A glimpse of the exhibition

Tags: 2007, 9 days in Thailand, art, Bangkok, Bhumibol Adulyadej, blog, book, event, exhibition, Flickr, HP, ia, ict, im, industry, King, lan, launch, LED, nomadcom.net, photo, photographers, Photography, project, public, release, Thailand, Thailand: 9 days in the Kingdom, theme, upa, USA, world, wp, www

As previously announced on this site, Adobe released earlier this week, Lightroom 1.3 as well as Camera Raw 4.3.

At the same time Adobe Labs offers a public prerelease of its Software Development Kit (SDK) Lightroom 1.3 export. This kit allow developers to enable communication with Lightroom 1.3 and 3rd party tools, web sites and devices. More plugins will certainly available soon on Lightroom Exchange site.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.3 Export SDK comes with two very useful plugins: 

• FTP Export
• Flickr Upload.

Once dowloaded and uncompressed, plugin modules have to be installed on your computer on locations where Lightroom can find and load them.

• Windows XP: ..\Documents and Users\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules
• Mac OS: ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules
• Windows Vista:..\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules

I just quickly tried the Flickr upload module and found it easy to use and indeed very convenient as it avoids to export files on a local folder and then upload them using Flickr Uploader page or tools.

Something tells me that these plugins will become very popular  

Tags: 2007, adobe, art, blog, camera, camera raw, ces, communication, computer, development, event, export, find, Flickr, im, install, lan, LED, light, lightroom, location, nomadcom.net, pda, photo, plugin, press, public, quickly, raw, release, sdk, user, vista, web, windows, windows vista, wp, www, XP

I found the article below on "The Register" site and asked myself the following question: 

If connecting to Internet using an open and unsecured wifi access point is considered as a crime, why authorities do not apply the same principle to other services (mainly electricity and water) we often use without any formal agreement of the owner ?

 " More than half of computer users have illegally stolen Wi-Fi connections, according to The Times – but only 11 alleged offenders have been arrested in the UK, as the police seem to think those deploying Wi-Fi should be more careful about securing their connections.

The data was collected from a "Have Your Say" survey on the website of security-specialist Sophos: apparently 54 per cent of the 560 people who responded admitted nicking bandwidth from insecure Wi-Fi routers.

This might say more about Sophos customers than the general population, and extrapolating the results to every computer user in the country is probably a crime against statistics: so that's exactly what The Times has done.

…

Anyone caught stealing a Wi-Fi connection can be fined up to a grand, even if it's left unsecured, so make sure you ask nicely next time you're looking to log on, and if the person next to you has never stolen a Wi-Fi connection then we have to assume that you have. "

What is your opinion about accessing open wifi ? Do you think it is a crime ?

Source: The Register

Tags: 2007, access, agreement, art, blog, ces, computer, connection, connections, crime, customer, electricity, enforcement, free, ia, im, internet, internet access, King, lan, law, list, MIT, nomadcom.net, police, population, security, services, statistics, survey, the register, thief, thieves, uk, user, water, web, website, what is, wifi, wireless, wp, www

Adobe has just released the latest versions of Lightroom and Camera Raw.

Lightroom 1.3 comes with the following improvements:

   

New file formats supported in the 1.3 release are:

• Canon 1Ds Mark III
• Canon PowerShot G9
• Nikon D3
• Nikon D300
• Olympus E-3
• Olympus SP-560 UZ
• Panasonic DMC-L10

Following issues have been correct:

• Performance issue on writing XMP metadata
• Printing with the native resolution option enabled no longer sets the wrong dimension for portrait oriented images
• Bayer demosaic and luminance noise reductions algorithms
• Canon & Fuji compressed Raw formats supported.

New enhancements:   

• The import dialog now offers the option to render 1:1 previews   
• Export dialog layout has been enhanced
• Lightroom Preview Export SDK is available for developers to create and distribute Export Plug-ins.

This update also brings OS X 10.5.x compatibility with Apple’s new Leopard OS.

Windows version is here
Mac OS version is here

Camera Raw 4.3 has also been released.

Windows version update is here
Mac OS version is here
 

Tags: 2007, adobe, apple, blog, camera, camera raw, editor, ia, im, lan, LED, LG, light, lightroom, nikon, nomadcom.net, olympus, pda, photo, Photography, post processing, power, press, raw, release, resolution, review, update, upgrade, windows, wp, www, XP

China Mobile, the World largest mobile phone service provider with its 350 millions customers (mainly in China!) has completed the installation and testing of their 3 mobile phone base stations installed on Mt-Everest slopes.

The 3 solar-powered stations installed respectively at 5200, 5820 and 6500 meters above sea level, were transported by porters and yaks and built in a harsh environment where oxygen level is only 38 percent of what it would be on ground. They will make possible for climbers and those who will be 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay route to establish and receive calls along the entire Mount Everest climbing route, including its 8'848m. peak.

After the completion of these ultimate test, China mobile workers immediately started to pack all equipments away for the winter. The station will be reinstalled next summer before 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Tags: 2007, 2008, art, blog, customer, everest, gsm, himalaya, ia, im, install, lan, LED, mobile, Mobile Communications, mobile phone, nomadcom.net, olympics, phone, power, tibet, world, wp, www

Hilarious, "you have to trust me on this"!

Try to imagine CTU's agent, Jack Bauer (24H) saving the world, using hi-tech solutions of the moment…in 1994.

http://5.content.collegehumor.com/d1/ch6/9/4/collegehumor.728e46a9be4b8772dafbec9427e36dad.flv

A Collegehumor production. Great job! 

Tags: 1994, 2007, 24, 24H, air, blog, collegehumor, CTU, humor, ia, im, jack bauer, lan, nomadcom.net, space, unaired pilot, video, world, wp, www

8th of November: World Usability Day "Make life easy" 

Swiss UPA, the Swiss chapter of the Usability Professional Association proposes to ease access to free public wireless networks using a specific sign ((o)) that would help users to detect easy to use wireless networks. 

Today, before getting online using a wireless device, users have first to find an user-friendly wireless access point and then try to connect to it.

The user has to detect which wireless networks are available from his location and check if they are public and free of charge. Often wireless network names do not inform the visitor if the access to the network is free or not. The wireless access point might not be protected but once connected users are redirected to a page where they will be invited to purchase access rights.

Swiss UPS also highlight the fact that once connected to a free and public wireless network, it is not uncommon to reach an authentication page before getting access to the Internet. This procedure has 2 main disadvantage:

• Some authentication pages cannot be completed when using a Smartphone or a PDA.
• Some services such email, Instant Messaging, VoIP, etc… do not require the use of a browser and users cannot pass easily through this authentication method.

To make users' life easier, Swiss UPS proposes to include at the beginning of the SSID (Service Set Identifier which broadcasts the name of the wireless network) of public and free wireless networks the  following distinctive sign:  ((0))

Usage of the sign ((o)) is free and open to all individuals, collectivities and organizations which operate a WiFi network respecting  Swiss UPA usability charter.

More about Swiss UPA (in German), UPA International (English) and about World Usability Day

Source: Canard WiFi 

Tags: 2007, access, art, blog, ces, ergonomic, find, free, ia, im, International, internet, IT World, lan, light, location, network, nomadcom.net, online, pda, phone, public, services, smartphone, swiss, swiss upa, Telecommunications, upa, USA, usability, usage, user, wifi, wireless, world, wp, www

The night will be short but Nomadcom.net is know running on the latest version of WordPress.

The installation was straight forward and one of the new WP feature which automatically check if an update of installed plugins is available is definitively quite an improvement.

I got slight problems when during activation of Automattic's Widget plugin (not needed anymore… RTFMF !) and, as usual, with the Tags' cloud.

There are however some minor issues with incompatible plugins but updates should be available shortly.

WordPress version 2.3.1 is available here 

Tags: 2007, ATT, blog, im, install, lan, LED, light, nomadcom.net, pda, plugin, press, problems, update, upgrade, wordpress, wp, www