Think different

Gradual engagement

2007-01-30T21:05:00.000-08:00

Do you know what "Gradual engagement means" ? This is a simple way to imrpove user interfaces by hiding part of the content.

For instance, Yahoo! uses this tip on the homepage. When you click on "More Yahoo! Services", you will see a menu coming from the left part of the page, with new options.

As I find this method particularly efficient, I decided to use it on my own site for english-speaking users. When you click "Don't speak french" on the top-right corner, you will see a block coming down to show you what content is available in english.

This is a tricky way to be sure that english-speaking visitors are not going to run away from my site because it's in french :)

Interview with Lucie

2007-01-30T16:21:00.000-08:00

Here is an interview about me, where I speak about the company I created this year.

Thanks to Lucie who asked the good questions ;)

Fresh ideas for the english class

2007-01-29T08:16:00.000-08:00

Hi Bob ! We decided to ask people in the class if they had ideas to improve your course. Here is the result, a small video :

Check out my english Portfolio

2007-01-18T16:22:00.000-08:00

Already 10 websites in my portfolio, so I decided to make an english version of it. You can find it on my site. If you want to learn more about me, my CV is also available.

If you're interested in online business and communication, have a look at eLifeStrategy : a wiki that can help you to reveal the power of your e-products by following our strategy program.

KISS developing

2006-12-29T18:53:00.000-08:00

Do you know what does KISS means ? It stands for "Keep it Simple, Stupid". This is the best way to create a simple website : using simple technologies, in a more efficient way.

You can find a good explanation on Wikipedia :

KISS principle is a colloquial name for the empirical principle that simplicity is an essential asset and goal in systems and (industrial) processes. It is popular in software and engineering in general. The term KISS is an acronym, possibly corresponding in origin to the phrase "keep it simple, stupid".

And a very good analysis on Digital Web Magazine.

As far as I know, programming whith this principle in mind is the best way to create easy softwares and websites. It makes it more efficient for users… but also for people working on it. We know that it's difficult for a team to work on a e-product. If every member has the same philosophy, the project will be easier to manage.

How to learn english with e-learning

2006-11-22T01:04:00.000-08:00

The most important thing I've learned in this class is how to take part of an e-learning programm. Speaking in a microphone, with a webcam is not easy for everyone. Technical problems need patience to be resolved.

The other thing is probably the fact that people get motivate when they share the same experience with technologies. For instance, when we created our english blog, it was a great experience for the group, not only for individuals.

Last but not least, I've learned how to be multi-tasks. When working in a e-learning classe : you have to be multitasks.

BlogoText : a blog engine using no database

2006-11-15T06:18:00.000-08:00

This week, I released the first version of my blog engline : BlogoText. This tool is free and allows you to create your own blog without the use of any database.

BlogoText is based on flat files to store your articles and comments. Its is very simple to use especially for beginners.

This software is available in french and english. You can download it on BlogoText website.

Here is an article in english about BlogoText.

HTTPS is a secure protocol

2006-11-08T03:46:00.000-08:00

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfert Protocol. With the "S", it stands for a secure protocol. This is the contraction of HTTP+SSL. This protocol can be read by any browser, and allows you to access your bank accounts online, with a secure connection.

Building an online project would be a good idea

2006-11-08T03:36:00.000-08:00

A project that can be interesting to make more progress would be to create a website to share our knowledge. For instance, we could publish a sort of magazine about e-learning, the way we learn english and how we manage to make it efficient. Each member of our class could be involved with a particular function such as writer or moderator.

First this site could be helpful for people who need to create an e-learning solution. And it can show the world that this kind of learning actually works and can be applied to any school.

Really Simple Syndication is not THAT simple for users

2006-10-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It's a way to get the last news from a website, whithout visiting it. What's new ? You can extract the content ant only the content.
Technically, it's part of the XML project, which separates the content from its physical appearance.

The RSS feed logo

With Netvibes, or another feed agregator, you can put your RSS feeds together, in order to have everything you need in one place.
On my website, I have an RSS feed, which groups my last posts.

If you use Firefox, you'll notice that this browser displays the feed just next to the URL adress (on the right). This is a simple way to show people that they can read tou, even if they don't want to visit your website.

Criminal activies online

2006-10-25T02:53:00.000-07:00

Cybercrime is used to describe criminal activity where computers or networks are a tool, a target, or a place of criminal activity.

Spamming is for instance considered as a cybercrime. Copyright crimes is when you share files on peer-to-peer networks.

You Tube, the future of online video sharing ?

2006-10-25T02:23:00.000-07:00

YouTube is an online service that allows you to share videos. You can upload, view, and share video clips.
The site was founded in February 2005 by three employees of PayPal (Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim) a company owned by Google. The creators made a preview of the site in May 2005, and six months later, YouTube made its official debut.

The growth of YouTube from the beginning

As Wikipedia noticed, YouTube is one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web. Its success is due to the free sservice that it offers. No charge to send your video online, even if the storage for this type of content is known to be expansive.

As you know, YouTube is mostly used to share copyrighted material, which is normally prohibited. This is the way I use it : finding pop music videos, or TV shows I missed.

The future use of This type of sharing site is probably a hudge online store that delivers every video content. There won't be any limitation : movies, TV shows, music videos, even personnal videos should be available online. Majors currently can't find an arrangement to propose this type of service. We have a good example of what it could look like : iTunes Store.

on iTunes you can already buy movies or TV Shows, what is the interest if you can have them for free ?

Identity theft: : possible if they cross files

2006-10-24T23:47:00.000-07:00

The main risk of identity stolen is when people who own your files can cross it whith others.

If a compagny keeps your informations for itself, it's quite safe. But if marketing people want to enlarge their data base or having more information about you, they could be tempted to pay for new files... and cross them with the one they have.

In France, this is forbidden by the law of 1970 "Informatique et libertés", in USA you have to check yourself about the use of your identity online.

Developing websites is the best way to learn english on Internet

2006-10-20T02:27:00.000-07:00

Even if a lot of sites propose to learn english online, I believe that the best way to learn english is to learn Internet languages, such as HTML or PHP.
Actually, every single word on thoses languages are in english. Because, they have been written by amercian persons (like Tim Berners Lee who invented HTML).

PHP is a language which uses english to descibe functions

For instance, HTML markup "head" is used to define the top of your page. On the other hand, in order to learn a dynamic language such as PHP, you need to understand english. Even if the official PHP website is translated in several countries, the main site delivers more information.

If you want to learn good praticies in Web developement, you have to read a lot of english. First, to validate your code, you have to visit the W3C site, which is the World Wide Web Consortium, and there's no equivalent in french.

If you are interested by web usability, or information architecture, then you'll notice that experts are mainly american. Useit.com seems to be one of the most popular source for usability concerns.

The 3 main assets of this method :

• You don't only learn one language but more.
• You learn professionnal english, that you can use with specialists.
• You practice your english without thinking about it, just because you create something with it !

2006-10-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

Generosity as a model of the Web, with reciprocity

Generosity is such a model for Internet sharing sites. For instance, Peer to Peer networks are based on this quality, because anyone can get the any file without having to pay anything. It’s almost true, actually you have to share your own files to be able to get some from other people. This is what we can call “reciprocity generosity”.
Another example is "Yahoo! Answers". On this site, your can ask any question you want, users are going to find answers.

Discipline on Internet is self-discipline

Discipline is a quality we find in forums or online communities. Every single user has to respect rules to post comments. If you don’t follow those rules, you can be rejected from the community. For example, if you decide to leave a message on Liberation.fr, there is a strong control before your message is published. Which means that people read your post before validating it.

Patience is about to disappear

Patience was maybe the most useful quality you needed before high speed bandwidth connexion. You spent more time to wait until the page was charged than reading the content. Nowadays, it’s faster for text or audio content, but you still have to wait to be able to watch any video on Internet. On YouTube, you still need to wait in order to see the content.

Finding something needs perseverance

Perseverance takes place when you decide to find something. Most of the time, searching is quite easy : we got tools that are very powerful such as search engines (Google, Yahoo! etc.). But finding the text you need is way more complicated. In search engines, you get a lot of noise in your results, this is the information you don’t need.

Of course, specialists think about how the perfect search engine sould be. Jakob Nielsen, considered as the "king of Web usability" believes that search englines should be "visible and simple".

Insight is a quality you need to work on Internet. Why ? Because the Web is so wide that it’s really difficult to limit yourself to a special field. If we take a closer look to all the jobs you can do with Internet, this is huge : webmaster, e-journalist, advertiser, technician, etc.

Comprehension is also the way you filter your information

Comprehension is necessary because of the great amount of content available on the Web. When you get different sources of information, you need to filter them in order to build your own summary. This is what I call comprehension : being able to summ-up a lot of views, to mix them and to creatate your own point of view.
For instance, if you search something about web developpement, you'll find the best (such as A List Apart) but also the worst (like Frontpage). What makes the difference between them ? The fist respects standards and web accessibility, on the other hand, Front Page produces a dirty code, wich is not compatible with every browsers.

2006-10-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

Podcasting offers a new way of providing audio contents

The official logo of Podcast, designed by Apple Computer in California.

A podcast is an audio file which provides any kind of content. Once you downloaded it, the file can be played on any computer or mobile device. The difference with online radio content is that this is not a streamed file. In other words, you can listen to it when you want and where you want, you don't have to follow a schedule, you can now create your own.

You can find Podcasts from the iTunes Store. When you suscribe to a Podcast, it is automatically downloaded to your iPod.

The term belongs to Apple Computer, the famous brand that invented the iPod. As we learn on this site, on October 16, 2003 the company decided to add Podcasting in their music software : iTunes.

Video sharing explodes with Web 2.0

Even if I don't like the term "Web 2.0" (which I think is just a marketing joke to define the normal evolution of Internet), last news shows us that video sharing is developing very fast nowadays.

First, on online adds, we notice the use of video content instead of static banners.

Then, as we saw on INA's site, the institute is giving us the ability to search for old TV contents. This shows the will to extend historical content not only for texts but also for multimedia.

The last big thing is probably YouTube, the biggest site for video sharing (by the way, they recently launched a special site for adult contents : PornoTube). The site has been bought by Google for or $1.65 billion in stock.

As a matter of fact, the explosion of video files on the Web is yet possible because of bandwidth speed increasing regularly.

Web neutrality is necessary for online trade

As we learn on this page, the Web neutrality is the idea that the companies that own the broadband pipes should not be allowed to reduce competitors broadband speed or to increase their own.
For instance, a company that offers online services and that own the pipes would be tempted to get faster than its competitors.
On the one hand, large broadband players say they have spent a lot of money to build the network, so they have the right to be compensated. But on the other hand, content providers who don't own the pipes, say that this is unfair, that broadband players should get their money back in another way.

Vinton Cerf

Here, we are talking about Internet's traditional openness. As Vinton Cerf (one of the internet founder) says, there is a risk for start-ups that innovate, if they are limited with their speed, they won't be able to grow. This is a serious issue for innovation.
I believe that Web neutrality is necessary to preserve fair rules. As international trade has to follow WTO, Internet companies sould follow some rules to have the same chance to grow.
Any kind of gate-keeper should be considered as a tax, that the GATT (General Agreement on Taxes and Trade) took years to remove.
Another solution would be to forbid companies that own the pipes to provide contents or services on the Internet. In other words, their role sould be restricted, in order to avoid a skewed market.
As far as I know, Internet was created with a stress on equality, it shouldn't change.

DRM about to reduce Internet freedom

A very famous poster, used by associations against DRM on music files.

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. This is a piece of code inserted in video, audio or text files which can lock this file in order to protect the author's rights. The code is made of several algorithms, only hackers can get into these codes to remove the DRM. It affects recordings and video because if you did not purchase the file legally, then you won't be allowed to read it. So we face a strange problem : a great amout of protected files are available for download, but you can't do anything with them !
To my mind, the most affected population is most of the time legitimate purchasers, because they are restricted in their use of the content they bought. Let's say you bought a music file on iTunes Store, you won't be able to play it on more than 3 computers. On the other hand, if you don't buy it but download it in MP3 (which doesn't contain any DRM) from à Peer to Peer network, then you would be free to use your file wherever you want. Isn't it unfair ?

Social Networks reveals the end of mass medias

Social networks are websites where you can have your profile and meet new friends. If many people have the same interest, they can easily join a community an be part of a social network.
The main example of a social network is mySpace, this site is very popular in the United States and starts to have the same great succes across Europe.

The potential of these networks is huge for marketing professionals, because each community or group of friends represents a target with its own specificity. You can take part of different networks, depending on your taste, job or occupation. With your profile, advertisers are able to know a lot about your personality. If they cross several files of memebrs, they'll probably be able to make you match with a specific target.
That is already what Google does with their e-mail service : GMail. Robots are reading your messages in order to place contextual ads on your page.

Globally, we can predict that social networks are going to represent the end of mass medias as a model of communication.