Why I've decided to use GNU/Linux

Since now four months, I use Kubuntu on my laptop. I'm totally fond of my new OS. Installation was fast and easy. The GUI is very user-friendly and I've quickly forgotten Windows XP. What is good with this distribution is the possibility of customizing each element of the interface very easily . I've downloaded and installed icons pack for my tasks bar and change order and names of the K Menu's elements. In the contrary of Windows there is no .exe files and no need to download weird softwares on websites. To install new packages, go in your Adept Install Manager (a library of all the Debian packages available) and click on install. The package find automatically its right place on your computer and appear in the previous category in your menu - as games, multimedia, internet or what you want.

Of course, problems are possible but help forums are very active and I think each problem can find its solution on Internet. My main problems (read DVDs, use my webcam) will be soon solve.

I don't think I will change of OS until a long time :)

How wiki can prevent you from losing friends

Last year, me and four of my classmates had to make a thesis together. We didn't have much time to see each other and only a few month to write 30 pages, prepare an oral presentation and a Powerpoint presentation. Everybody had to write something and put it together with the work of others. The question was : which web tools could we use to be more efficient ?

We began to send us emails which is of course the classical way of working together. But mails aren't the simplest way to work on the content. I think they're useful to organize material problems such as fixing a meeting time, saying what your problems are or explaining your point of view on the subject. But it isn't easy to work with attached files because you can't see exactly how your work is progressing.

Then, as we haven't find a day for a meeting since two weeks, we decided to meet us on MSN. The meeting was good and efficient. In our situation, I think it was a good way to write instead of speak. The group had some difficulties to speak calmly and our meetings seemed more as a big chaos than something else. With MSN, we only wrote what was important for our subject and
make real progress in our report.


The problem at this time was that nobody knew exactly who had written what and what still needed to be done. We decided to create a collaborative document on Google docs and put on it each part of our work. The puzzle was reconstituted. Each member could write something, make changes they wanted, give their opinion. Google docs is a kind of simple wiki. But, instead of Metawiki for example, the structur of the pages looks more like the "My Documents" folder in Windows, with a lot of files inside that you can link. In Metawiki, the wiki seems to me more like a real website, that you can customize (with a little css knowledge) and a tags structur which can be very useful if you've a lot of pages. They're more than 80 wiki browsers on the Net, so don't hesitate to try some of them!

Geek culture

I'm so fond of people who can live for their passion, don't ask themselves to many questions and keep their mind in the same direction, to the goal of their life. I've always been very interesting by this kind of passionate people : artists who spend their time drawing alone, passionated business men who found successful or completely crazy companies, and, of course, geeks.

Geeks and hackers are just a passionate community cause of their capacity to forget the world around them, the survey boundaries (except drink coffee and bier ;), the real social life and concentrate them on their passions : computers, games, programming and all.

That's why I've decided to work on geek culture during this year, for my master report. I haven't found a lot of books on it (except the excellent one of Pekka Himanen, Linus Torvalds and Manuel Castells about The Hacker Ethic) but I've already a lot of ideas to begin to work.

Twitter

I use Twitter but my friends aren't. So I haven't seen all the possibilities of this new web application even if I'm very exciting about it. It's a very special kind of social network. I don't think it's a real social network but it's a good complement to keep in touch with his friends.

When you're a member of the Twitter website, you have a page profile on which you can (and HAVE TO) say what you're doing right now. But a lot of people don't use it only to say this kind of thing. Channels and online newspapers have discovered new functions of Twitter, who seemed to be not so interesting on first view. They inform us in real time, in a very few words. With Twitter, we have the quintessence of information about your friends and the world.

I don't use Twitter on the Twitter website but on my Facebook profile. When Facebook has allowed everyone to create new applications for them, Twitter has proposed a little application that you can put on your profile page to show to your friends what you're doing. It's a very simple way for me to say something about me to my friends and to show that I think to them.

Professionally, it can be a very useful idea. Propose in real time new ideas to coworkers, show on which projects you're working, explain what you're thinking about news or other informations and of course see what are doing your coworkers can be a good way to make work more efficient.

All you need is crow

Crowdsourcing is one of the most interesting possibility on the web to make great things together. If Wikipedia is the first site who comes in mind when we think about crowdsourcing, it's a mistake because Wikipedia isn't a profit company. There are many more websites who are founded on the sharing of people's knowledge and work. Crowdsourcing, as outsourcing (when production is delocalized in countries as China or India) is a business.



Threadless is a very famous tee-shirts webstore where tee-shirts are made by users. First, you have to create a great design for your tee-shirt. Then, propose it to others members of the site. If your tee-shirt is selected by other users, you can be a part of the Threadless store. Most rated people win the contest, his tee-shirt is saled and he wins 2,000$ cash. The french site LaFraise has been founded on the same model.


Crowdsourcing is a business model who can be very dangerous for more traditional companies. Unpaid or low-paid amateurs create content for a company and sometimes are paid back. An other interest of crowdsourcing for companies is to pre-evaluate the success of a product and to be more innovative as the others. The japan store Muji, for example, uses people's creativity on his website. When more than 300 customers command a product online, it goes into production.


An other example of crowdsourced webcompany is Istockphoto. On this site you can buy packs of pictures taken by users with very few money (1$ for 56 pictures). For many buyers, amateur quality pictures (which can be very professional) is enough. Small prices are a good claim.

10 rules to make a good blog

1. Don't speak too much about you. Be personal but not selfish.
Just as Unlitredechips.

2. Don't speak about everything. Choose a subject field.
Just as Etienne Mineur about print.

3. Post regularly.
Just as Pierre Assouline.

4. Use web ressources...
Just as Techcrunch.

5. ...But create your own content.
Just as Parti Mou.

6. Be creative.
Just as Penelope JoliCoeur.

7. Adapt design to content.
Just as the drawer Boulet.

8. Don't write too much.
Just as Le dernier kilomètre.

9. Avoid languages mistakes.
Just not as Yo le bogoss on skyblog.

10. Have blogger friends. Let coms.
Without adds or injuries.