epot's blog
Have not blogged for ages
Saturday 01/27/07 22:13:02
I am still alive. I am very busy. And things will not calm down soon: I have to finish my thesis. Nearly all my other projects are paused. Although writing entries are not time consuming, I am not sure I'll be able to update my blog with (imho) interesting news, projects and software.
Dhrupad concert (announcement)
Saturday 01/13/07 14:48:31
In the context of the Bozar Festival India, my father-in-law (Philippe Falisse) will give a dhrupad concert with the Gundecha Brothers on Wednesday 17th of January 2007 at 20:00. The concert will take place at the Planetarium of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (access plan). :-)
Links to some interesting documents
Wednesday 01/10/07 21:49:27
Some interesting links for today (didn't had time to read everything, that's why I'm storing them here):
- Java boutique has a in-depth review of NetBeans 5.5
- Java Practises has a small tip about implementing toString in Java
- A new (very important ;-) ) feature of Java 6: the splash-screen functionality. Another interesting thing is that Java DB (Derby) is integrated by default.
- About databases, David Coldrick's Weblog hosts an interesting discussion about H2 -vs- Derby databases
- The Java Plug-in Framework Project
- Besides Design Patterns, OpenSubsystems released the Open Patterns, a repository of common application functionality patterns ...
Some links about companies:
- Ed Sim has two articles about the relationships an entrepreneur should have in general and with his/her venture capitalist
- Union Square Ventures has a note about founders and management
- Finally, it's good to look at Alexandre's notes about operating a company. His ideas are more likely like mine.
And, finally, two lighter websites:
- Food for thought, a blog with recipes and links to other recipes. Yummy!
- Pixelgirl website with kind-of "web 2.0" icons/desktop images.
Personal storage is the future
Thursday 01/04/07 21:48:04
While everyone (interested in this topic) is looking at internet applications, using and abusing of buzzwords like "Web 2.0", "mashup" or "Ajax", I think the next wave of cool software applications will be related to personal, local storage and organisation of documents.
Of course, you have > 2Gb of storage in most free e-mail services. Of course, you have broadband access at home, at work and nearly everywhere you go. Of course, you can watch movies on the web. Of course, you can share photos on the web. Of course, you can download songs and books on the web. Etc.
But you need personal, local storage to keep all this data (photos, videos, music, even MS-Office documents are becoming bigger and bigger). Some companies (like BeInSync, FilesAnywhere or Nomadisk (*)) are trying to sell you "hyper-cool" (emphasis is not mine) remote storage solutions. These solutions are good for a small amount of data or for personal usage, not for companies with IP concerns or companies/individuals with privacy concerns (data not encrypted during transfer or left in the host computer hard disk / cache, e.g.).
In this respect, Bill Burnham wrote a somehow interesting blog entry, the storage explosion (based on a Tom's hardware article). After bringing to mind the "scarcity and abundance" theory of IT development, he noticed the computer storage capacity increased 5907 times in 15 years (more than CPU perfs or network bandwith, if such a comparison can be done) while storage costs dropped by more that 99%! After a short review of current and (near) future hard/flash disks specifications, the obvious question is: "What Happens In A World Awash With Storage?". The forecast is obviously "very interesting implications for both software and internet related businesses".
Some applications are already taking advantage of this storage-flooding ... Look, for example, at all the GNU/Linux OS + applications you can use from a simple Flash disk: Knoppix, Flash Linux, Slax, Ubuntu, ... It even works with embedded systems and Windows! Other applications are ready to crawl and let you search your hard disks for documents: Beagle, Google Desktop, Spotlight, ... Some companies are starting selling kind of virtualization packages based on the increasing amount of space on a USB drive : see MojoPac, for an example on Windows or simply portable apps (without OS). Etc. Where your imagination will stop you?
Since it costs nothing, doesn't hurt and a lot of people did it before me, here is my prediction for 2007 (in the IT world): the advent of personal storage solutions. What's yours?
* btw. Nomadisk is just packaging free software in a proprietary package. They provide some sources upon request but I wonder if they comply with the other open source licenses since they don't provide the modified source code. Or their application is so trivial that any software engineer can write the same software, without even modifying the original components?
P.S.: Ok, now, let's concentrate on my Ph.D. dissertation ...
Some news about Jadoo
Tuesday 01/02/07 04:13:56
Here are some news about the Jadoo blog engine ...
- I updated the CSS file (2ko) and corrected some mistakes; now, all HTML/CSS tags are correctly used.
- I updated the main script in order to link to Technocrati for all tags
- I also updated the footer (= the side bar in the published page); it now includes the Technocrati search box
- I added the blogroll. It's not showing links in random order like many other blog engines. But do we need that feature?
Some tasks still need to be done:
- Recover all my previous posts and add them here (it will be in PHP since everything is still in the DB on this website)
- To show previous posts, I am still wondering how it could be done. I want it to be fast and simple for the engine (no DB, remember?). And I want it to be simple and easy to navigate for the reader.
- Correct the RSS file (1ko) by adding the content in it and see why it doesn't seem to work in most RSS feeds readers
- Think about how people can send comments. For the moment, readers can't send comments. It's a feature, not a bug. And it's also like that in some other blog engines (like oddmuse but it uses "comment pages"). The vast majority of blog engines do include a comment tool. Do
Iyou need it?
Although I didn't do an in-depth (Merise/UML) analysis of what a blog engine should do and how it should do it (programmatically), I can say a blog is a really easy to write, at least its most common tasks like publishing posts. Nearly everything else is static text added (could be dynamically updated with PHP if you want) and a CSS style sheet. That's why Jadoo can even work with non-PHP hosting plans. And you have a backup of all your posts, you don't need to worry about dumping a database, etc. :-)
Any further comment and/or advice are welcome (by e-mail).
Happy holidays and new year 2007!
Thursday 12/28/06 01:40:26
It's a bit late to wish you a merry Christmas (if you celebrate this event). But it's still time to wish you a happy new year 2007. :-) And now, a little video-clip/remake from Boymongoose (some background about India needed).
You like Indian self-satire? Here is Welcome to the Laddu shop (after 50 Cent "Candy shop") and Curry n Spice girl (after Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl") (a lot of background about India needed). OK now, back to real work ...
Easy backup @ ULg
Thursday 12/28/06 00:12:54
While reading the GnomeFr planet, I found this nice article to save documents on my university backup system (written by Steve Frécinaux).
Wonderful concert of Shahid Parvez @ Bozar
Friday 12/21/06 23:05:27
This evening, we attended a wonderful concert of Shahid Parvez at Bozar. He plays the sitar and was accompanied by tabla and tanpura. As usual, it's better to hear a live concert rather than a CD. I was also delighted by the games played between the tabla player and Shahid Parvez :-D No photos since I didn't dare to disturb the performance.
A day in front of DeCyder
Wednesday 12/19/06 20:49:03
The whole day, I was busy working with DeCyder, a software to analyse spots of proteins in 2D gels. I hope I won't dream of small red/yellow/green dots tonight:
The software use a 3D representation of the spot. If we change this view too fast (either by moving it or by quickly browsing through spots), the graphic diplay freezes and we fall back to an ugly VGA mode (screenshot below). Since the morning, the computer crashed 7 times! I reduced the screen resolution to 1024x768pixels in 24bits colours and it seems to work correctly now. :-)
Nice Christmas celebration in Leuven
Sunday 12/17/06 23:49:45
On Saturday, we participated in the ISAL Christmas party. I did a 15 minutes presentation on Belgium for our Indian friends, Shreyas did a mime game (with some very funny participations) and Alam came dressed up like Santa Claus :-)
Some photos are available on the ISAL photo album.
© (GNU FDL) Jean-Etienne Poirrier, 2005- 2006
