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Bruno, long time ago

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Thu, 09 Dec 2004 Thunderbird 1.0 released!

Get Thunderbird Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0, the email client, was released yesterday, one month after its cousin, Firefox.

It is not sure it could have the same success (Firefox was downloaded more than 9,000,000 in four weeks), but at least it could help some people sick of Microsoft's Outlook Express to switch to a more secure (and more powerful!) product.

Reading Thunderbird's web site, you will understand that Thunderbird is probably one of the most complete email clients (especially when compared to Bill's favorite virus/worm spreader):

Safe and Secure
Thunderbird provides enterprise and government grade security features such as S/MIME, digital signing, message encryption, support for certificates and security devices.

Packed with Features
Thunderbird gives you IMAP/POP support, a built-in RSS reader, support for HTML mail, powerful quick search, saved search folders, advanced message filtering, message grouping, labels, return receipts, smart address book LDAP address completion, import tools, and the ability to manage multiple e-mail and newsgroup accounts.

Unlimited Features
Thunderbird lets you add additional features as you need them through extensions. Extensions are a powerful tool to help you build a mail client that meets your specific needs.

Still not interested? Just try it, and let me know what you think!


[/news/net] | permanent link | Google this

Tue, 09 Nov 2004 Firefox 1.0 released!

Get Firefox Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is out!

The Preview Release having being downloaded 8 million times, we could expect some interesting numbers with the long awaited final version!

The 6 years old Internet Explorer could have some trouble: Not only new flaws are discovered nearly every day (yesterday's one), but also M$ decided to stop the developments on the standalone version.

If you never tried a real browser, you should really have a look on this one... It's time to switch!


[/news/net] | permanent link | Google this

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 Office famous words...

Mathieu: Tu le lui a dit?
Pierre: Non, je lui parle plus.

Mathieu: Did you tell him?
Pierre: No, I don't speak to him any more.

[/fun/office] | permanent link | Google this

Wed, 06 Oct 2004 Meetings famous words...

Candidate: "They made a very new real-time Java Virtual Machine.
Pierre: "Very interesting! How did they do it?"
Candidate: "They mainly developped a new garbage-collector: It releases only unused objects."
Pierre: Sorry, I have a meeting, I have to go.

Candidat: "Ils ont réellement fait une nouvelle Machine Virtuelle Java temps réel.
Pierre: "Super! Et comment ont-ils fait?"
Candidat: "Ils ont développé leur propre garbage-collector: En fait, il ne libère que les objets non utilisés."
Pierre: "Désolé, mais j'ai un meeting. Je dois y aller."

[/fun/office] | permanent link | Google this

Fri, 24 Sep 2004 Not too old after all (thanks to petals around the rose!)

Forty one years old today...

But I am still able to solve the very nice Petals Around the Rose puzzle in around 30 seconds... hehehe :-)

Not so old after all!

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this

Wed, 22 Sep 2004 France: How to have your two phone lines on one device...

As I already received some tens of questions in my office about it, here is what I did when I came back to France with my two available phone lines (France Telecom, my regular phone, and Free, the internet one).

My view was that it was not acceptable to have two phones devices just because I got two phone numbers. For instance, if I am already busy on phone, there is no way to answer a second incoming call, and I want this second call to give the caller a busy signal.
Also, I wanted to be be able to choose the outgoing line depending on my own reasons (price, destination, etc...), but again with the same phone device.

One answer could be:
Just Google a little by yourself (this is what I did a few days after I understood the issue), or have a visit to National Communication web site, and search for their Line Selector.

I hope you this could help some freebox users :)

[/technical] | permanent link | Google this

Tue, 21 Sep 2004 Meetings famous words...

Olivier (Network): "About the connection, everything is fine... But it does not work..."
Olivier (Réseau): "C'est OK pour la connexion... Mais ca marche pas..."

[/fun/office] | permanent link | Google this

Wed, 18 Aug 2004 Colère du mois: Excellent accueil à la FNAC

La FNAC m'a vraiment déçu le week-end dernier. En allant acheter une nouvelle lampe pour mon vidéoprojecteur (Hitachi PJ-TX10), le rayon vidéo m'a renvoyé au service après-vente.

Soit, pourquoi pas.

Mais voila: Le jeune homme qui nous a reçu avait l'air surpris par ma demande, et son supérieur, un homme d'une cinquantaine d'années, m'annonce, d'un air hautain:

Pas de probleme, vous n'avez qu'à déposer un acompte de 400 Euros pour commander cette lampe.

Ooops! Je lui fais part de ma surprise (c'est plus du tiers du prix du projecteur lui-même!), mais il a une nouvelle réponse de spécialiste pour un pauvre idiot de client comme moi:

Mon Brave Monsieur, ça va vous coûter dans les 5,000 (ND br: Francs, c'est à dire 760 Euros), ce n'est pas une lampe de salon. Allez donc voir chez Hitachi si vous trouvez mieux...

Imparable!! Sachant qu'il n'avait même pas daigné chercher le moindre prix (il a simplement regardé le modèle de mon appareil), j'ai préféré abandonner... J'avais spécialement apprécié au passage le "Mon Brave Monsieur" ;-)

Ca se passait a la FNAC les Halles, Paris, il y a 4 jours.

Ah, j'oubliais: Je viens de commander la fameuse lampe (modèle DT 00611) sur le net, pour 270 Euros... J'en aurai donc à peu près trois pour le prix d'une!!

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this

Sat, 17 Jul 2004 Bobby Fischer was found... And I missed him

Bobby Fischer Apparently, Bobby Fischer (world chess champion in 1972) was caught in Narita Airport, while he wanted to flight to Philipines with no valid passport.
There are chances that he could be extradited to the United States, mainly for political reasons.

As he is my All Times favourite player, the most disappointing point for me is that he apparently frequented the Tokyo Chess Club (member of the JCA - Japan Chess Association), where I used to play a couple of years ago!!

Fischer's own web site (in Japan) has just been updated with a phone number for people wishing to help him in the current case (+81 3 3735 3675). This is... the number of the Club where I played...

If you wonder who is this guy, have a look on Wikipedia's Bobby Fischer entry.


[/news/world] | permanent link | Google this

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 Phuket Sailing trip pictures

After two months, I eventually took some time to release pictures of our last trip to phuket.

The most interesting during this trip was that Li was not sick at all for her first sailing experience. On contrary, she really did like it! Next step could be to learn how to sail alone? ;-)

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this

Wed, 30 Jun 2004 IE flaw, again and again...

I wonder how long many companies will still consider IE as a standard, despite its long history of critical flaws.

The latest flaws discovered should make anybody aware of the dangers of using this old browser, but even security teams are silent... Imagine that even over a secured connexion, your keystrokes could be recorded when you connect to your bank!

But nobody is going to put his balls on the table for a fight against corporate standards, I guess. Even (with knowledge!) IT teams go on buiding IE-only sites (the easy, lazy, and dangerous way).

[/news/net] | permanent link | Google this

Sat, 19 Jun 2004 Microsoft does not accept free speech

Microsoft is going to sue Sergio Amadeu, President of the Brazilian government's National Institute of Information Technology for defamation.
Apparently, M$ does not appreciate Amadeu's opinion about their business practises:

"drug-dealer practice" for offering the operational system Windows to some governments and city administration for digital inclusion programs. "This is a trojan horse, a form of securing critical mass to continue constraining the country".

M$ considers in the document that this is "an excess in freedom of speech and freedom of thought" (Ooops!). Just remember Bill Gate's speaking in 1998 to make your opinion about the facts:

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Original document on lessig.org, and funniest comments on slashdot, as usually!

raoult.com hacked! This web site was just hacked. This article was not written by me (just in case ;-)

[/news/linux] | permanent link | Google this

Sun, 16 May 2004 One hundred years loan in Japan

Now, Japanese can buy a home, and get their children pay for it!

Interesting.

And what will say your children's child, when he/she will receive two of these nice gifts from his/her grandparents?

This looks crazy, but this is not really new: In France, government is using this system (spending now and let next generations manage the deficit) for quite a long time, unfortunately.

Or even better: They found a better system: You pay now for something that you will never get back. The retirement system is the best example as my generation is paying full rate with absolutely no hope of getting any decent retirement allowance later). This exactly means that I am paying for a house that I don't get.

Not bad, is it?

[/news/world] | permanent link | Google this

Mon, 26 Apr 2004 Li is going to sail eventually

We are going again to Thailand, and Li will sail for the first time. We will go with Jock and his yacht, Fi-Tuen, as I already know them.

As usual, Li was going to disturb these holidays, as she managed to find a temporary job for this month (April). So I am just going first there tonight, to arrange the sailing charter conditions with Jock, and she will take the plane this friday, a couple of hours after she finishes her job...

I simply hope she will love this new experience (she never sailed, as said previously), and especially that she will not be sick on board. This could force me to change the next holidays destinations!

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this

Tue, 23 Mar 2004 Magouilleur is not fair play

A new Google bomb was targeting our President.

Just a few hours ago, it was sill working: By searching "magouilleur" (some kind of cheater in French) on Google the #1 result was the French President's web site .

Maybe because this news appeared on first TV channel site in France, TF1, this bombing just disappeared one hour ago from the search engine, both from US and French versions.
Did we get a new magouille there, where some people did ask Google to suppress these links?

Hehehe...

[/fun/net] | permanent link | Google this

Sat, 13 Mar 2004 Welcome to Paris, Li

Li was walking near La Madeleine this wednesday, when a guy on a motorbike robbed her bag. She was so surprised that she did not react at all: She just did not believe this could happen (this is a big change compared to Tokyo famous security!).
She managed to cancel quickly her credit card, and to file a complaint at the police station. As she did not have my phone number, she had to wait for me outside half of the day :-(

The next day she told the story to her french school (a Japanese one), and the other two students answered that they had exactly the same problem! The robbers are apparently looking for Asian women in touristic areas of Paris (Opera, la Madeleine, etc...), as they generally have a lot of cash.

We did not loose a lot this time, and fortunately no important papers. We will just need to change our door lock, which is not cheap at all (from 400 to 800 Euros, depending on the companies).

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this

Sat, 13 Mar 2004 Internet up again

My internet is up again, after one month and a half of outage (!!). Free support service is simply crazy: Not only they did nothing for one month (despite my weekly calls), but they also tell you a different explanation every time you call them.
And try to guess what? Today this high-tech company is asking me to send them a regular mail to get some money back! Just incredible.

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 Windows source leaked

Bill has trouble: Windows NT and W2K source code are available on the internet!

As Microsoft always pretended that closed source is better for security, I wonder what they think about this leak. Will we see hundreds of new worms/viruses appear in the next weeks? This could be funny anyway ;-)

[/news/net] | permanent link | Google this

Fri, 06 Feb 2004 Silence is gold

News.com has a funny story about Apple selling silent songs (for 99 cents, as other songs)!

They have many versions of silence, by various authors. The most funny is the last part of the article:

John Cage created a 4'33" silent song in 1952 (it was even played by the BBC Symphony orchestra this year!), and won a copyright in 2002, as Mike Batt created also a silent song.

Batt's defence ("Mine is a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds.") did not work apparently!

[/fun/net] | permanent link | Google this

Tue, 03 Feb 2004 Wikipedia is now 200,000 articles!!

Less than one year later, the free wikipedia encyclopedia doubled its number of articles, to reach 200,000 entries!

This number is for the English version. The next languages in terms of number of entries are German (around 49,000 entries), Japanese (~29,000), and French (~26,000).

All latest statistics are available here. They decided

N'oubliez pas une chose: Vos connaissances groupées valent beaucoup que celles d'un Larousse! Qu'attendez-vous pour publier?

FYI, on their 200,000 celebration page , the last message is currently: Well, we're getting slashdotted now. Of course, this should happen!

[/news/net] | permanent link | Google this

Tue, 27 Jan 2004 Elevage en panne - part II

I am lucky: Somebody called me on friday, asking for Monsieur Grant.

It appears that my mobile number was previously that guy's. I got Monsieur Grant number, and called him. I got his father after a few tries, and explained him the situation. His answer was quite funny (imagine a strong contryside speaking):

"Ah oui... Quand il y a un problème, je me fais appeler chez moi, mais si je ne réponds pas, c'est renvoyé vers le portable. Je vais essayer de supprimer ça, mais c'est très compliqué, alors je ne sais pas si je pourrai le faire rapidement. Peut-être fin de semaine prochaine?"

"Hum... I see... When there is a problem, there is a phone call to my home, but if I don't answer, the call is forwarded to the mobile phone. I will try to change this, but it is very complicated, it will take time. Maybe end of next week?"

Apparently he still did not do it, as I was called this week-end during the night ;-)

Come on, Monsieur Grant! Read the f... phone documentation, or call France Telecom, or ask a friend to help you, but do it!

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this

Mon, 19 Jan 2004 Internet up, blaster, etc...

Eventually internet is up today: The problem was linked to the freebox ethernet port (it does not work at all).

Following free support advice (and after five phone calls costing me at least 50 €!), I decided to try the USB port - on an XP machine, as they don't have other drivers :-(

I first spent more than half an hour to reactivate the only dual-boot machine I have, and to remember my password ;-)
Then I installed the driver, and tried to connect: It worked! Hummm... Only two minutes in fact: I got quickly a message telling me that Windows was rebooting, what I did with no choice at all! The same message (and result) came again soon. I understood later that I was infected by the Blaster Worm. That one took only a few minutes to infect this Exccceeelllent operating system (I really like the word operating when this is Microsoft related).

It was a chance in fact: I just tried to reboot Linux, with the same USB connection. Surprise: No problem, no driver needed (the CDCEther module loaded without help and managed the connection), and of course no more virus/worm!

I am just waiting for a new freebox, so I can use the ethernet port, and my wireless airport station (Currently, the laptop linux box acts as firewall/NAT box, and the airport, which links my dual-processor as well as my wife's iBook is just a bridge).

By the way, it is a good occasion (and reason!) to erase my last end-of-century-system partition isn't it?

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 Still no ADSL at home...

My provider, free is still not able to setup my ADSL connection, after one week of trouble.

Well, one week does not change a lot, after a two months delay, but it is surprising to see these so-called broadband links (only 2 Mbps in France, and more often 512 Kbps!) being so difficult to setup: Everything here is paper based, hot-line is inexistant, and, AFAIK, it does not work (at least for me!) :-(

I would not like to joke about french customers, who are really happy with their 2 Mbps Super Broadband service, but they should have a look around, to understand that other countries offer 13 times this speed for the same price!

But, more than the speed, my concern is on the setup procedure. Have a look on the Japan one, as explained in the previous link:

Another factor worth noting concerns the set-up procedure.
There is no taking an afternoon off work and waiting around for an engineer to do something mysterious with your phone socket.
[...]
Connect the ADSL modem to your computer, run the supplied software (Windows, Mac or Linux) and that is it.

To finish, have a look on this ADSL study in the world. You will be surprised.

Hum... No comment.

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 Elevage en panne

I am not lucky with my phone lines. In Tokyo, my home line was subject to many FAX calls, especially in middle of the night, and it just happened a few days ago that my french mobile phone is the target of a farmer who has some kind of automatic alerts.

Here is the message I received, every five minutes for more than two hours:

Ici l'élevage de Monsieur Grant. Le bâtiment est en panne. Intervenir d'urgence. Acquitter après le bip sonore. Merci.

Here the breeding of Mr Grant. The building is out of service. Intervene urgently. Discharge after the beep. Thank you.

I tried to find who is this Monsieur Grant, without any success :-(
I hope he will notice that the number is wrong, before all his animals die!

[/diary] | permanent link | Google this