Monthly Archive for August, 2006

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GoDaddy for Domains

Published on Wednesday, August 9, 2006 in Personal and Web. 0 Comments

I don’t usually write about services that I use and often see people ranting about things rather than helping you and saying this is a good service. So, today I had a great experience with a US based company called GoDaddy. I needed to register three domain names, a variation on the same domain (with and without hyphens) and also wanted to be able to do what is now called private registration. This consists of using alias information for the whois record that without going for a more commercial explanation allows me to hide email and address information from the spammers that be!

Well, although I found that there a few extra pages in the registration process than I would have liked to see the process was fairly straight forward and easy to understand what was on offer. The final summary page with the ability to remove unwanted services that may have slipped in must be done with AJAX because it was very simple to use (without the page refreshing).
I then got an email about my domain name registration, another about the private registration service and a third from GoDaddy (himself ;) )

Next step: logging in and checking the DNS data about the domain name. This is where I got an error message: no account like that could be found ! I tried copying it again as blank spaces sometimes slip in and are considered part of the account number. No, no luck.

Well I’m in France so I thought since I can call the US for free let’s give them a call. After choosing ‘domain name support’ I was asked to key in my account number. This time I got a message saying that the account number had not been recognised ! Anyway the call carried on and I was told it would be about 4 minutes wait. I thought just enough time to make a cup of tea. Anyway just over a minute later I got a GoDaddy support person welcoming me ! Good job and I hadn’t left to make the cup of tea, but a nice surprise.
I explained the issue and he asked me if I was sure about the password and to be honest I wasn’t actually.

I don’t know how you create your passwords. Hopefully you don’t use your children’s names or pets names or your own. The number of times when I set up computers for people and I ask them what password they want to use and they’ll say “Err what about: Fred?” And I say “And what about something a bit longer and with some numbers ?”

Anyway when you try to get clever you can end up forgetting the password like I had done. Also wasting time for the GoDaddy Support guys (and maybe girls ?!). Hey I just spoke to Daniel but there may be women other than the pretty ones wearing T-Shirts on the home page LOL !

Anyway the support guy was kind, helpful and even asked me if I could help me with anything else. Well you may think that is normal but over here in France it is just not normal. You’re often lucky if you get a smile in the supermarket. When my mother in England asked for 1000 tea bags at the local Asda supermarket, the person actually took her to the area in the supermarket and then got some guy to fetch a box to put them in. Here in France they’d say “Go down there it’s after the cereals”, don’t even dream about them showing you, let alone helping you out.

So anyway it was refreshing and a nice experience, on top of the fact that I was the one that created the problem in the first place.

And to top it all I got a great deal. Three domains privately registered for 21.60 dollars. A special offer since I would have paid $26.95 for the domain names plus $26.97 for the private registrations (since I bought three this amount was dropped) normally/separately. You’ll have to check if the deal is still on, I don’t know how long it will last !

Now that I have reset the password courtesy of Daniel the support guy I have also been able to login so all is well that ends well. There are a lot of options and functions… Wow !

ClickDensity, your usability gauge

Published on Monday, August 7, 2006 in Design, Tech and Trend. 0 Comments

If you’re interested in usability issues you really should check out ClickDensity‘s web sites and try the demo. As you can see below they provide an extremely useful and easy to understand system that will help you figure out many usability issues that arise with you web site. It’s a great way to measure the site is being understood that way you expected :

ClickDensity's Usability Tool

Single 1 – Married 0

Published on Monday, August 7, 2006 in Film, Personal, Society, Thoughts and Trend. 0 Comments

A fascinating article at the New York Times covers the trend that being single is gaining on being married. The article called “Facing Middle Age With No Degree, and No Wife” that spans four pages discusses the factors that have changed the demographics in the US; it used to be that men in their mid 40s were nearly all married.
The article tries to point to education as a key factor that leads men to be loosing their ‘must have’ allure for women. Women no longer need to rely upon men like they did in previous generations. This extract clarifies that idea however :

“It is a mistake to think of this as just happening to the underclass at the bottom,” said Christopher Jencks, a professor of sociology at Harvard. “It is also happening to people with high school diplomas or even some college. That is the group that has been most affected by the decline in real wages in the last 30 years.”

The new freedom that past generations of women have fought for, is often destabilising for both women and men. Education and upbringing is not always in sync with this equality and can lead to the rejection of the other. Women are far less inclined to sit, smile and be docile like was expected of them in previous generations. Men however faced with this new feminine touch sometimes prefer a single life, without the hassle of fighting for a place in the couple. Coping and adapting to their new freedom can be hard for both men and women. As the New York Times article explains women are often interested in a man that can offer better financial prospects :

“Men don’t marry because women like myself don’t need to rely on them,” said Shenia Rudolph, 42, a divorced mother from the Bronx.

This isn’t about disgruntled divorcees from previous generations that have given up on the idea of finding someone else, it’s a whole new ball game with each player trying to find a place for themselves. Finding a place for yourself in society is also a factor that leads to both men and women putting their careers first and the search for the significant other comes after.
In the comedy “The Devil wears Prada” Glen Close is portrayed as the Thatcher type woman that is as hard as nails, while sneak peaks at her family life try to strip the iron lady image to show a more fragile reality (a bit too simplistic though). On the other hand her assistant rises gloriously to ‘her’ challenge only to find that she has lost her soul in the process (again the film is ‘nice’ but the script here was also far too easy).
“Imagine Me and You” ia an English film with Piper Perabo that I really enjoyed. It compares to a Richard Curtis film (4 Weddings…) but I felt it was more ‘real’ and sensitive while trying to touch on the difficulties couples face today…

Back in real life though, where everything isn’t always perfect, it’s nice to be around normal people. I’m talking about normal people here, as opposed to men or women that can’t communicate properly and blow their tops as soon as life isn’t going exactly the way they want. Where everyone around them gets the wrong end of the stick when they’re feeling down, or they’ve had a bad day, or they just woke up, or you don’t agree with them, or… hey, you get the picture; every other day basically ! My advice when faced with this type, cut them loose and enjoy your life !

Men that don’t change and adapt to this ‘new deal’ are likely to drive women away, just like women that take the equality game too far will drive the men away. It’s completely hypocritical to, on the one hand, sing the benefits of gallantry, expect a man to do all the DIY chores, while also expecting him to do the washing up and cooking in the name of the equality of sexes. It works both ways, women should start looking at doing more DIY in the house if they are really honest about the equality between men and women. In a recent relationship I was told that it was normal for me to do cooking, washing-up and cleaning but that putting a picture up on the wall was a man’s job, it was DIY !

“Changing women’s expectations about what married life should be like has put more tension into these relationships,” Mr. Jencks said. “Men who have graduated from college have been more responsive and ready to accommodate those changes than those who haven’t.”

A good friend of mine’s wife recently explained to me that she couldn’t understand why couples put so much pressure on each another. The “high expectations they put on each other just weighs the couple down and makes them resentful of one another when they are unfulfilled. The couple and the relationship need to breathe and too much pressure is suffocating.”

Lebanon, a video letter

Published on Monday, August 7, 2006 in News, Politics and Society. 0 Comments

A simple and touching video letter about the need to stop the fighting in Lebanon :

Save Lebanon

You can view it here Save Lebanon (QuickTime format)

Biometric passport cracked

Published on Monday, August 7, 2006 in Design, Society, Tech and Travel. 0 Comments

An article in the Guardian getting their source from Wired.com recounts how Lukas Grunwald, a German security consultant has been able to copy the data from biometric passports using 200 dollar equipment. Although the cloned data cannot apparently be modified, the so called unbreakable RFID tag technology seems less secure than expected.
The technology behind the “UK’s £415m scheme to load passports with information such as fingerprints, facial scans and iris patterns” doesn’t really seem too reassuring.
Gus Hosein from the London School of Economics and Privacy International, a U.K.-based group that opposes the use of RFID chips in passports:

“Is this what the best and the brightest of the world could come up with? Or is this what happens when you do policy laundering and you get a bunch of bureaucrats making decisions about technologies they don’t understand?”

The wired.com article goes into detail about how the data can be copied, but it is currently unlikely that the data could be tampered with. Grunwald demonstrated that since the machines used to read the biometric passports read one tag at a time it is possible to place another and trick the system into reading that one. Physical inspection would most likely uncover the trick though.
The article also refers to other security companies that have demonstrated that it is possible to read data regardless of the metal mesh system supposed to protect the chip from being read by anyone around the carrier. This is far more scary since it means a passport carrier in a crowd could be pinpointed or trigger a remote system placed near there by terrorists.

The main issue of the current system used, like those used in corporate and hotel security systems, is the lack of encryption of the data which enables brute force dictionary attacks in far too many cases. It seems absurd that goverment officials can sit back and scorn at such proof of flaws in the current system. The attitude of yes but even if they can do that there is still a physical check just seems irresponsable. The whole idea was to create a system that didn’t allow illegal cloning of the data stored on it. Now that has been cracked we have one last line of defense left! Wow that leaves me completely reassured…!

Kidnapped, previewed via NetFlix

Published on Monday, August 7, 2006 in Advertising, Trend, TV and Video. 0 Comments

The new series called Kidnapped is being shipped on DVD to Netflix customers nearly six weeks prior to its launch date on NBC. Certain Netflix customers received yesterday a DVD with the first episodes of NBC’s Studio 60 and Kidnapped. The target audience of Netflix is without doubt an interesting audience to tap, “demographic rich” audience.
This is a trend setter of course, a bold and interesting move from NBC as well as being an interesting venture for Netflix.
In this article at MSNBC there is very insightful remark, NOT! :

This is either genius (will create buzz!) or stupid (who will watch on the actual premiere night?).

When you’re talking about trends it seems a good idea to give your opinion rather than stating the obvious and sounding like a football commentator. The idea is to create buzz. What the journalist doesn’t really seem to get here is that the buzz is about a tv show with a whole season of episodes. There is also a substantial gap between the availability of the DVD and the show’s premiere ! This is something that may play against them since people seeing a preview might have gotten tired of waiting. It is common for people to see pilot episodes and vote for them in the US while it is pretty uncommon in Europe. However I remember having seen the pilot of the series ‘Bones’ well before the show started running and it wet my appetite for the then upcoming series.

I just watched Kidnapped and if the pilot is anything to go by then the show will be fantastic. While watching it I realised that more and more TV shows are playing on the whole sequel system that has been around in Films for a while. This pilot of Kidnapped was fast paced, with some great actors, nicely written script that gets you on the edge of your seat (or settee). I certainly can’t wait to see the series when it starts near the end of September. To answer the journalist I’ll be talking about it with friends and telling them how they should tune in and watch it on September 20th but I doubt I’ll be watching the pilot again; result NBC has got me, free of charge, to do some PR work for them. I suppose it’s you scratch my back…

The Hacking NetFlix blog has an interesting post on this subject :

“We’re trying to create a viral community of evangelist fans for the shows so that they can create word of mouth,” says John Miller, chief marketing officer of NBC Universal’s TV group. “We took the shows that we thought were the most film- and theatrical-oriented.”

The move may well be to stop iTunes from getting 82% of downloading videos. NBC is trying to build buzz by exploiting the trend of people watching TV shows on DVD !

Is it a plane, a bird, a telephone, no it’s a door key

Published on Sunday, August 6, 2006 in Design, Tech and Trend. 1 Comment

Well looking at the myKey 2300 you would maybe think that it was a telephone, but the clue is that it’s missing a door. The MyKey 2300 is an RFID lock that requires a RFID card and shazam your door opens on it’s own. They have even thought of adding a keypad that slides open should you have lost your card.
Loose something me ? Never ! :)

My Key Knob RFID styleMy Key Chain RFID style

There is even the possibility to press a battery up against the door knob, should the AA batteries it runs off die on you. I doubt I’ll ever have one of these but it does seem to have been nicely thought through !

Check the MyKey 2300 web site out

Je me demande à quoi sert ce bouton ?

Published on Friday, August 4, 2006 in Français, News, Software, Translation and Writing. 0 Comments

Mon premier article en français n’est pas de moi. Il s’agit de la traduction d’un article très intéressant en français, écrit par Mike West ! Mike évoque tout l’intérêt d’utiliser le logiciel Subversion pour gérer le contrôle des versions de fichiers dans la gestion d’un projet avec workflow. Il a été publié par le prestigieux magazine A List Apart ce qui montre l’intérêt de l’article. C’était un plaisir de travailler avec Mike qui s’intéresse à la traduction. Nous avons conversé plusieurs fois sur le choix des mots afin de restituer le mieux possible ‘sa pensée’ dans la traduction.
J’en profite pour remercier François Blanc Patin et Hélène Wokowski. Hélène a passé du temps avec moi pour proposer des tournures différentes de phrases, tout en restant aussi fidèle que possible au texte d’origine.

Allez donc voir ce texte que je vous saurai gré de lire…

No smoking

Published on Friday, August 4, 2006 in Personal, Satire, Society and Trend. 0 Comments

Last Saturday during a dinner with friends we started talking about the latest ‘Enjeux, Les Echos’ magazine. One of the articles covers the trend in the US whereby certain companies are refusing to hire people that smoke. There are also companies that are doing all they can to get workers to participate in sports activities.
Anyway, the subject of smoking… Aaah, I love that one…

Before going any further I must admit, I am not only against smoking, but I do everything I can to stop people from smoking in my presence. This behaviour in France, where smoking is kind of a tradition is often considered selfish.
Yes, believe it or not, smokers in France 9 times out of 10 get away with making people who don’t want to participate in secondary smoking look as if they are the bad guys. A ‘je ne sais quoi’ of “you are depriving me of the freedom to smoke where I want”, even if it means getting you to smoke their cigarettes, like it or not.

The well known “Well I don’t complain when you…”, “You’ve got bad habits that I put up with…”, “There are 5 of us that smoke and only 2 of you that don’t…” often come up in the conversation.
Responding when the debate starts off at such a low level and off the point is pretty useless…

If you’re really lucky you’ll be with people that previously smoked, secretly enjoying being able to breathe in the smoke of others ! So when you complain about the smoking they feel a bit like dear in the headlights, wondering whether people will realise their secret about enjoying secondary smoking, playing on the “it’s their right to smoke” supporting act !

It’s true in France there are an enormous amount of people that smoke and my impression is that far more girls and women smoke than boys and men. A friend who is a teacher in Ireland, on holiday over here in France last year was telling me how the kids that he brought over to France on exchange actually came back shocked by how many young kids where smoking.

In France people often quote the sentence “La liberté des uns s’arrête là où commence celle des autres” : Your freedom ends where the other person’s freedom begins. I also use the concept, this simplistic though it may be, to understand different situations. Smoking never seems to get past it though. Smoke doesn’t just stop in a bubble that surrounds the smoker; it’s free to ride like the wind, wherever it wants…

Smoking is less of a solitary habit, often it’s group induced.
People share their smoke with those around them. If you’re in the restaurant and feel like enjoying the subtleties of the food you are eating (smokers’ taste buds are dead to these subtleties), you can be sure at least one table will have a smoker that is willing to share his smoke with you. Age isn’t a problem either, they’ll share their smoke with you even if your first teeth haven’t appeared !

Smoking isn’t just bad for us humans though, one of best friends recently asked me to have a look at a computer that died on him. After taking it to bits we found out that the previous owner had both not cleaned it and smoked. The combination of dust and smoke had created a near solid component in certain areas that had rendered most heat reduction systems like fans and the copper radiators completely useless. Resulting in the death of the poor computer…

It can get worse though; you can actually have a smoker close by that will provide the whole house with a fragrance that will remain for years to come…

But whether you’re in France or coming to France, don’t abide by the rules that the smokers are helplessly trying to keep intact. Blow on the cinders of change so that the heat is on the smokers to change. Don’t let selfish habits make you feel you’re the one that should give in. At the end of the day, it’s your life and health that are at risk…

Outlook refusing to start Word

Published on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 in Personal, Software and Tech. 0 Comments

Well this morning I was set to write to Mike to say that it was a pleasure working on the translation of his great article at ‘A List Apart’ and Word refused to start :

Microsoft Word is set to be your e-mail editor. However, Word is unavailable, not installed, or is not the same version as Outlook. The Outlook e-mail editor will be used instead.

Google provided me with some links to Microsoft support and suggested re-installing Office ! Then I realised that a) Suse is just such a nicer experience all round, b) Microsoft often seems to take the long road to all solutions and c) my memory is getting bad since I had already come across this issue.

So I changed my Google query slightly and found my joy ?!
It’s weird since I had also just downloaded and installed Nero 7 to try it out and after the thing crashed on me multiple times and left me with a half burned backup DVD (i.e. useless), I uninstalled it !

So when you get the above message you can either re-install Word as suggested by MS or just run this line of code in DOS :

Start > Run > Open (and type in the field the following code) : Regsvr32.exe %Windir%\System32\Ole32.dll

which saved me maybe an hour or more of uninstalling and reinstalling Office !