How do your corporate applications look like ?

Sources : Stuff That Happends via Fred Cavazza

Tags: 2008, apple, blog, ces, cleaver, Fun, google, humor, ia, im, kiss, lan, nomadcom.net, simple, simplicity, vision, wp, www

Searching the web, I found several online photo editors, and among there some which provide the possibility to upload your photos directly to your favorite site where you can share them.

It was not a surprise to discover that sites such Flickr and Facebook are the most integrated with these online photo editors, closely followed by Picasa and Photobucket. If all online photo editors propose basic editing tools such resize, crop, color balance, etc.. it's difficult to find one which propose all available options. Some tried to be as close as possible from Photoshop, proposing layer tools or distortion tool.

Fine tuning and precise corrections are difficult to obtain but at the opposite these tools, specially when you can edit an already published photo, give you the possibility to adjust your photos from any computer without having to purchase/install software on computers.

My 3 preferred ones are:

• Splashup (formerly Fausto) which is certainly the most complete one. Photoshop looks alike, so you feel comfortable with only if you have some knowledge about Adobe products. Loading a photo may be very slow from time to time (my ISP fault or are they victim of their success ?)

• PicNik which proposes an user friendly interface and does not require Photoshop knowledge. Advanced editing tools, touch-up tool, frames etc.. are only available with the Premium version which cost 25 USD/year. This editor seems to be the easiest and fastest editor available.
• Phixr is a simple one but fast and well integrated too with most usual image sharing sites but not providing preview of the photo you want to edit is a real problem if you do not have title on your photos.
• Some other solutions to may want to give a try : Cellsea, Pixer.us, Snipspot, Fotoflexer, Pikfix, Fanstudio, Online Phototool,  Flauntr, Fotocrib, etc..

  Soon, Adobe will also release an online version of its flagship software "Photoshop". Adobe Photoshop Senior Product Manager John Nack published on his blog earlier last month few lines about "Photoshop Express".

My 1st post about Flickr tools is here

Tags: 2007, A700, adobe, arc, blog, book, bt, ces, computer, computers, editor, facebook, fauxto, find, Flex, Flickr, fon, google, ia, ict, im, install, knowledge, lan, LED, nomadcom.net, online, online editor, phixr, photo, photo online editor, picnik, post, post processing, press, release, review, sco, search, share, sharing, simple, splashup, touch, user, web, wp, www, XP

Cory Doctorow wrote this Creative Commons-licensed fiction story for Radar Online magazine.

  Une version française est disponible ici

“Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.” –Cardinal Richelieu

“We don’t know enough about you.” –Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Greg landed at San Francisco International Airport at 8 p.m., but by the time he’d made it to the front of the customs line, it was after midnight. He’d emerged from first class, brown as a nut, unshaven, and loose-limbed after a month on the beach in Cabo (scuba diving three days a week, seducing French college girls the rest of the time). When he’d left the city a month before, he’d been a stoop-shouldered, potbellied wreck. Now he was a bronze god, drawing admiring glances from the stews at the front of the cabin.

Four hours later in the customs line, he’d slid from god back to man. His slight buzz had worn off, sweat ran down the crack of his ass, and his shoulders and neck were so tense his upper back felt like a tennis racket. The batteries on his iPod had long since died, leaving him with nothing to do except eavesdrop on the middle-age couple ahead of him.

“The marvels of modern technology,” said the woman, shrugging at a nearby sign: Immigration–Powered by Google.

“I thought that didn’t start until next month?” The man was alternately wearing and holding a large sombrero.

Googling at the border. Christ. Greg had vested out of Google six months before, cashing in his options and “taking some me time"–which turned out to be less rewarding than he’d expected. What he mostly did over the five months that followed was fix his friends’ PCs, watch daytime TV, and gain 10 pounds, which he blamed on being at home instead of in the Googleplex, with its well-appointed 24-hour gym.

He should have seen it coming, of course. The U.S. government had lavished $15 billion on a program to fingerprint and photograph visitors at the border, and hadn’t caught a single terrorist. Clearly, the public sector was not equipped to Do Search Right.

The DHS officer had bags under his eyes and squinted at his screen, prodding at his keyboard with sausage fingers. No wonder it was taking four hours to get out of the god damned airport.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2007, 24, access, account, air, airport, analysis, arc, arms, art, ATT, batteries, blog, book, brown, bt, camera, card, cars, ces, columbia, communication, computer, CTU, design, digital, dress, engine, explain, Festival, fiction, find, flash, free, Fun, google, google maps, History, HP, ia, ict, identify, im, International, internet, ipod, ITU, keyboard, King, lan, laptop, launch, law, LED, LG, light, live, map, MIT, money, network, nomadcom.net, nyt, officer, online, organize, pair, personal data, pet, photo, picture, police, politics, post, power, press, privacy, project, public, raw, release, science, sco, screen, scroogled, search, security, simple, social, soviet, storm, story, suspect, technology, term, terror, theme, touch, upgrade, USA, usage, user, violation, web, webcam, wifi, wonders, world, wp, www, XP, yahoo

76% of 1200 American consumers who participated to Digital Life America – Holiday 2007 Edition survey have included at least one digital lifestyle product on their wish list.

1. flat screen high definition TV set – 35% (men 37% – women 33%)
2. laptop (windows) – 20% (21% – 19%)
3. digital camera – 17% (16% – 18%)
4. desktop PC – 14% (13% – 15%)
5. GPS navigation unit for the car – 10% (11% – 10%)
6. cell phone – 10% (9% – 12%)
7. digital video camera – 9% (8% – 11%)
8. Nintendo Wii – 9% (8% – 9%)
9. Sony PS3 – 7%
10. Blu-ray or HD-DVD player – 6%

First Apple product (laptop) is on rank 11 (9 among women) buzz maker iPhone is 15. Survey participants clearly prefers laptop to desktop computers.

Unfortunately the survey doesn't reveal details about the type of cell phone ("simple" ones or smartphone) and I'm surprised to not ear anything about MP3 players nor PDA. Not trendy anymore or everybody already has one ?

What your wish list would be made of ?

source: Solutions Research Group. 

Tags: 2007, apple, arc, art, blog, camera, christmas, computer, computers, digital, digital life, im, iphone, lan, laptop, list, nomadcom.net, nyt, pda, phone, screen, search, simple, smartphone, sony, space, survey, trend, video, windows, wishlist, wp, www

The Gartner Group launched during the IT Security Summit, a book written by Richard Hunter (Gartner vice-president) entitled IT Risk: "Turning Business Threats into Competitive".

The Register published an article highlighting some of Hunter's statement. Extracts:

• IT systems have become so integral to businesses that their failure can have disastrous consequences for an organization.

• IT risk is too important to be left to IT departments
• IT risk is related to IT value. It would be short-sighted not to recognize either value or risk

The complete article in available on The Register site.

More interesting than the article itself are indeed the comments which clearly show how wide is the gap between the theory (or the analysis) and the reality.

Best of :

• So the Bean counters and all the people who have no clue about it should have control? BAD IDEA.
• …This is the reason why an I.T director needs to sit on the board. Not however just some one who did a MBA but barely knows how to turn on their PC.
• …much of the problem can be resolved with a bit of education and common sense – and some money of course
• Ignorance, from middle management to board level, of even simple issues relating to IT risks that can be seriously detrimental to the business as a whole.
• Management, up to board level, simply not listening to IT managers who DO know what they are talking about
• In my experience IT risk auditors are finance types who don't understand IT and thus cannot adequately assess the risk
• Yes, let's take away IT disaster management and network security from the people that have a clue.

All comments are here.

I recognize in most comments highly experienced, realistic and well grounded IT guys. About the, so called, IT Analysts… same consideration than for the Burton Group.

As expressed, common sense would be to have IT director on the board, and the management to wake up and become IT skilled.

What's your opinion ?

Tags: 2007, analysis, art, best of, blog, book, ces, ethernet, failure, fon, gap, gartner group, how to, im, IT risk, King, lan, launch, LED, light, list, Management, MIT, money, network, nomadcom.net, pet, press, risk, security, simple, the register, threat, uk, wp, www, XP

Adobe has released its latest version of Lightroom with embedded version of Camera Raw 4.2.

Among others, following RAW formats are now supported:

• Canon EOS 40D
• Fuji FinePix IS-1
• Olympus EVOLT E-510
• Panasonic DMC-FZ18
• Pentax K100D Super
• Sony Alpha 700

For these using computer with non-English operating system or Regional Settings there is a simple trick to make sure that Lightroom appears in English:

1. Open your Lightroom installation folder (e.g C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.2) in Windows Explorer.
2. Create a folder named e.g "Disable languages"
3. Open the Resources folder and move all unused language folders (e.g "fr", "de", "jp") into your newly created "Disable Languages"
4. Et Voilà!

Tags: 2007, A700, adobe, blog, camera, camera raw, ces, computer, DSLR, howto, im, install, lan, language, light, lightroom, nomadcom.net, olympus, photo, Photography, processing, raw, release, simple, sony, space, tax, uk, update, windows, wp, www, XP

At least one third of the population in developing countries has no access to safe drinking water. The lack of adequate water supply and sanitation facilities causes a serious health hazard and exposes many to the risk of water-borne diseases, This situation led to about 4 billion cases of diarrhoea each year, out of which 2.5 million cases end in death. Every day about 6000 children die of dehydration due to diarrhoea.

INDEX 2007 Award winner Solar Bottle created by italian designers Alberto Medo and Francisco Gomez Paz uses the SODIS (Solar Water Disinfection ) process, developed by the Department of Water and Sanitation at the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Research. SODIS principle works with the sun to allow UV-A radiation and increased temperature to destroy pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water.The Solar Bottle is made of slim PET, contains 4 liters of water and can be arranged back-to-back for carry. The handle allows balanced transport and is used as stand to provide optimal solar incidence.

Indeed, a less fashionable version of SODIS process using simple ordinary plastic bottles works well too but they are more difficult to carry and the surface exposed to sun radiations is lots smaller.

More about the Solar Bottle on InHabitat
More about SODIS on Eawag.

Sources: Inhabitat & Index

Tags: 2007, access, arc, art, award, awards, blog, ces, design, disinfection, drinking water, health, ia, im, ITU, King, lan, LED, nomadcom.net, pet, population, risk, safe, science, sco, search, simple, sms, sodis, solar bottle, space, sun, supply, swiss, water, wp, www, XP

Few years ago, it was Internet over Telephone network but the situation is shifting and we have now, with Internet broadband access, Telephone over the Internet.

With the so called "unify messaging system" all type of communication can reach your email inbox while travelling but in some situation, sending a fax (yes it still exists) while on the move may not be so easy than it seems and even very costly (money and time).  

This week, German company PamConsult launched a beta version of PamFax, a Skype Extra (add-ons), which makes possible faxing a document from any Internet broadband connected computer (with Skype software installed and activated).

The process is rather simple :

• Select the document to be sent
• Enter recipient(s) fax number
• Optionally, select a cover page
• Select notification methods : Skype Chat, SMS (0.26 USD) an/or email.
• Pay the fax using Sky Credits
• Optionally, preview it

PamFax comes with its own website where you can configure your default settings, consult logs and check current sending rates

There are 7 different, per page, rates which are currently the following:

• Most European countries and North America :0.23 USD
• 4 zones of selected countries from all over the Word with price tag between 0.40 and 1.38 USD
• Most African countries : 1.64 USD
• Rest of the World :  2.19 USD

  Check rates on Pamfax website

Technical requirments:

• Windows 2000 SP4, XP or Vista (32 or 64 bit)
• Internet Explorer 6 or better
• Latest Skype (min. Skype 3.0)
• Installed Skype Plugin Manager

During the beta phase, PamFax is only available to Skype users outside Canada and USA

Every user gets 1 test fax in zone 1 (0.23 USD) for free.

Download on PamFax website 

Tags: 2007, access, add on, api, blog, ces, communication, computer, europe, fax, free, ia, im, install, internet, ITU, lan, launch, LED, Mobile Communications, money, network, nomadcom.net, PamConsult, pamfax, phone, plugin, review, shift, simple, skype, skype extras, Skype Fax, sms, space, Telecommunications, Travel, USA, user, vista, web, website, windows, WinFax, world, wp, www, XP

ContentRobot has released earlier last week a WordPress plugin (requires WP 2.2.1) that would allow iPhone visitors to optimally view WordPress blogs. The iWPhone plugin comes with its own theme which will automatically reformats blog’s content for optimized viewing on Apple’s iPhone.

Feature List

• Formats your blog content for optimized viewing on the iPhone.
• Automatically detects the iPhone’s Safari browser and only displays the custom theme to iPhone visitors, other visitors get your standard theme.
• Simple iPhone-like theme with common interface elements that compliments the iPhone’s internal applications.
• Images larger then 300 pixels wide are automatically scaled down to fit the iPhone optimized width.

If you don't own an iPhone, you can review the reformated site using a small application called iPhoney but so far you need to have Mac OS X 10.4.7 (or later) and Safari installed on it as Windows version of iPhoney is not available yet.

Note: As I don't have a MAC nor an iPhone, feedback from iPhone owners about presentation my site would be highly appreciated

Sources: ContentRobot, MarketCircle, Fran6Art

Tags: 2007, apple, art, blog, ces, design, ia, im, install, iphone, iphoney, iWPhone, lan, LED, list, Mobile Communications, nomadcom.net, phone, plugin, press, release, review, simple, space, theme, windows, wordpress, wp, www

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Tags: CTU, Flickr, ict, im, Our World, picture, simple