Some weeks ago I’ve had the chance to work together with Patrice and Cédric on making the local.ch mobile website more iPhone friendly. This one afternoon project was lots of fun. For this techtalk I decided to share with my co-workers this experience and what I’ve learnt from it.

So here you can find the presentation online (the links are clicable there)

Yoan commented it making some interesting points and asking about some folders I had there.
Rather than commenting another 50 lines, I thought I’d share on my blog some hints about how I process my stuff.

I admit the GTD title was a bit provocative. If GTD experts would hear how I process my things they would yell at me.

1. I’m not a strict GTD addict. I personally believe that everyone has to adapt those techniques to himself. I don’t believe in ONE way that works for anybody. I took the freedom of changing any GTD rules that doesn’t apply to me.
2. My way of precessing is in constant evolution. You learn about yourself more and more and adapt things to it. The way I work isn’t necessarily the way I’m going to do it 6 months. The hardest part isn’t to know how you work, but how to modify your acts to be more efficient.

About how i work
I need to be stressed or feel exited to work efficiently. I actually need to be constantly interrupted (passively) while working. My Gmail, Twitter, IRC and Skype channels are there to stress me and remind me there is something else waiting for me. It’s my personal mess I need to have. I manage not to respond to those tools while working and concentrated on something. It’s as if I was fully focused on my work but still notice what’s happening behind. I even noticed sometimes where I could answer to a chat while thinking about the problem I was working on. This works for me because those interruptions are passive. I choose when I want to answer which is not always the case when you are interrupted by someone speaking to you or when the bell of the door is ringing.

About my folders

• I collect things the whole day to my inbox and I go through it at least every evening and empty it completely so that the next day I start with an inbox 0.
• Actions are the things that need an input from me.
• Process are the things that I only need to consume, like articles to read, presentations / video to see, podcasts to listen.
• Defer is my “waiting for” (actually I should name it waiting for…). I put stuff there, that I have to wait from someone else before doing something myself. It’s separated so that I know, when I get something I was waiting for, I can go to this folder.
• Current are the project folders I constantly work on. It’s sort of a continuous action folder.
• Important files (which I actually have renamed common files) are thing I would really often need to look for in the archive folder. It’s like starred archives that I can find quickly this way. Most of them are only aliases to files in archives.

Todo list and email
Another thing I don’t do like GTD addicts is that I have many inboxes (3 in fact). I reproduced the same architecture with my mailbox and with my todo list. My todo list (RememberTheMilk) is actually my central point. I start there and get the resources form my Email GTD and my Files GTD.

Conclusion
So that’s it for my personal mess. As I said, this is a constant process but it works for me right now, until the next improvement!

More links about personal GTD

• Patrice Neff’s introduction to GTD and how he achieves it with DEVONthink Pro
• An article with 7 steps to start using GTD
• Sandy, a virtual secretary that takes care of thing you have to remember for you

After a while on the macs forum I’ve found a way to resolve this.
Here are the steps I used to rollback the usb drivers to mac osx version 10.4.9:

1. Download the soft Pacifist from here :
   http://www.charlessoft.com
2. Dowload Applejack software from here :
   http://applejack.sourceforge.net
3. Download the Mac osx 10.4.9 Update from here (intel in my case) :

   http://search.info.apple.com/?q=Mac+OS+X+10.4.9+Combo+Update&type=kbdload&search=Search&lr=lang_en&search=Go

4. Install Applejack
5. Install Pacifist
6. Run Pacifist
   Mount the 10.4.9 combi disk image and drag the .pkg file to the Pacifist window
7. Open the folder /System/Library/Extensions in pacifist and select the files IOUSBFamily.kext and IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext
   Click install and reboot
8. Unplug all your usb devices
9. When the computer started, reboot again and hold down keys “command” and “S” during reboot
10. When the command prompt shows up, type applejack
11. Then select the cleanup cache files by hitting “3″
12. Select the clean up swapfiles by entering “5″
13. Hit “r” to reboot your computer
14. Replug your usb devices and “voilà” ! That worked for me

When osx version 10.4.11 came out, I updated again without any problem. It seems the problem has been solved. So this might only be usefull in case you expecially want to stay with 10.4.10 mac osx version and have this problem.

via Apple support forum

Here is the code:

javascript: (function(){ d=document; te=getSelection()+''; t=encodeURIComponent(te); u=encodeURIComponent(d.location.href); ti=encodeURIComponent(d.title); w=open('http://del.icio.us/new/CHANGEME?v=4&jump=close&url='+u+'&extended='+t+'&title='+ti,'delicious','location=no,status=yes,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,width=800,height=850,modal=yes,dependent=yes'); setTimeout('w.focus()',1000) })();

To adapt it for your use, just drag and drop this link: “Add to del.icio.us” to your toolbar and replace “CHANGEME” by your delicious username. Simple but useful

Update : Added a trick to close the window automatically after submitting (found on Hugo’s Blog)

Here’s a preview of some things I want to change in the next weeks:

• Separate my techno (in English) and my perso notes (in French) into 2 blogs again (see rss feeds at the bottom) (EDIT: Done √)
• Move my ‘about me’ pages to a section of this blog
• Add some of information through the services I use on the web : Twitter, Plazes, Last.fm and of course, del.icio.us !
• Fix all the things that don’t work yet and many other small tweeks
• EDIT : validate the HTML and CSS !

Here is the PDF version [7.9Mo]

If you want to follow :
the links I find about geolocalization on delicious
all the links I find on delicious (username: lejoe)
where I am on plazes
pictures I take on flickr
what I do on twitter
what events I attend
what I listen to on last.fm
where I work on Xing or Linked In (doesn’t change that often, and I’m happy about it )
all the rest on facebook!

… feel free to add me to your network!

You can listen to almost any song that comes to your mind and for free! This is a big revolution because until now, no web service got such agreements from the music majors.

I won’t go deeper about the details on how they obtained this. If you want to know more you should read this article and this one [FR].

What I want to talk about is my impression after testing this service.

Actually, I was quite disappointed. Even really really disappointed! Even though this tool has a powerful advantage, it doesn’t use it as well as it could. Here are some remarks on it’s interface:

no advanced search
It’s quite annoying not to be able to precise if you are looking for an artist, a track or an album… try yourself, it’s quite painful.

no way to view the ratings you gave to tracks
Once you entered a mark there is no distinction between your’s and every one’s. And it seems that you can even give ratings several times to the same track (at least, it’s the impression I got)

votes aren’t significant
If you sort the song by ratings you can usually get the most popular ones out of the others. This is not the case here because the ratings aren’t related to number of votes (at least I guess so). If one guy rated a song 5 stars, it is placed more as popular than a song that has an average of 4.5 but has been rated 1′000 times!

repetition of songs in smart playlists
When you listen to smart playlists, the system sometimes feeds you with the same track twice in a very short period of time.

no extra information about songs
You can’t get much more information than the track name, artist name, and album name. I often use date and track number to sort my music but it isn’t available here. Even the music genre isn’t accessible on each interface (when you listen to a track)

no way to get a popup player
I couldn’t get a player out of the page. If you want to listen to music in background, You have to let a whole page opened.

way behind last.fm ’s features!
Finally, this platform is way behind iLike, pandora or last.fm’s features. For example linking the similar artists is very useful when you want to listen to music form the same genre. And I haven’t spoken yet about events, gigs, lists of tracks you recently listened to…

Conclusion
In the end this is still an improvement because you can listen to entire tracks. But the points I mentioned make me say that this platform is not the big revolution that some are announcing. At least not yet but it’s a good step.

Edit : Sice I wrote this article, a lot has happened:
Finaly, Deezer didn’t get all the rights for the music yet [FR]
A firefox plugin to download music on deezer has come out !

Barcamps are unconferences to bring people together to share their knowledge.

Usual conferences:

• participation fees are quite expensive
• sessions with presentations planned long time before the D-day
• speakers “teach” the audience for 45 minutes and then there are 5 minutes for questions

Barcamps (unconferences):

• every one is free to come and there is no fee!
• every one can submit a subject and present it. The planning will be made the same day according to the people will.
• presentations are usually quite short (just to introduce the subject). The emphasize is put on the discussion fallowing. Sessions usually turn into a debate and sharing of knowledge between the participants.

The idea is that no-one is expert (knowing everything) and that all of us can learn something from the others.

What are we going to talk about ?

In so-called barcamps the discussions are usually around web stuff, web development, new technologies, and so on…
Although, since the barcamps idea rose, many other unconferences came up like WineCamp, BlogCamp, MobileDevCamp, EduCamp, TravelCamp, PodCamp…

When and where ?

September 29, 2007 (Saturday), 9h30 – 17h00
In Lausanne, Switzerland on the EPFL campus.

How to register ?

Simply go on the wiki page of the event and edit it!
Put there your name and any subject you might want to submit.

See ya there !

Voici un petit plus que peu d’autres agrégateurs proposent: les statistiques de lecture. Cela fait un peu gadget pour geek mais en fait, on se prend vite au jeux. C’est très intéressant de jeter un oeil sur ses habitudes de lecture.

Je viens de dépasser aujourd’hui les 5000 articles lus par mois ! Faut que je soigne!

J’ai rattrapé le retard accumulé sur certains flux, ce qui explique cette montée soudaine ces derniers jours.

Sans commentaire!

Et google reader me dit que c’est les dimanche que je pends le plus le temps pour lire mes flux. Normal! dimanche jour de repos, place a la détente et quoi de plus relaxant que de lire ses flux !

Ce qui est intéressant:

• Voir en live le résultat du produit sur soi (chose que l’on peut faire dans un magasin traditionnel mais rarement online)
• Le positionnement automatique des lunettes sur la photo même avec une tête de travers.
• La possibilité d’envoyer son album à ses amis pour qu’ils donnent leur avis. Il peuvent donner une note a chaque monture.

Ce qui pourrait être amélioré:

• Il manque une possibilité d’intégrer son album à son site / blog.
• Le lien avec l’achat du produit (peut-être non voulu par l’auteur).
• La possibilité pour les votant de vous sponsoriser dans l’achat du produit qu’ils préfèrent.

Conclusion:

Le représentation du produit sur soi et l’une des 3 grandes problématiques encore non résolues par l’e-commerce (avec la représentation spatiale et la texture/toucher). Cet essai de solution me semble très réussi et je suis certain que l’on va encore voir émerger des choses très intéressantes avec la 3D.

Même si le projet n’est pour l’instant pas axé sur l’argent, il me semble qu’avec quelques améliorations, on tient là une idée marketing du tonnerre. Vous imaginez un site qui vous permet de mettre sur votre blog des photos de vous avec les dernières baskets de Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Puma… et de laisser vos lecteurs choisir ce que vous devriez acheter? Et si en plus les gens ont la possibilité de vous sponsoriser une partie de l’achat, vous avez tout à y gagner!

Seul 5 villes disposent de ce service pour l’instant: New York, San Francisco, Dever, Las Vegas et Miami.

Le résultat est assez impressionnant même s’il est loin d’être parfait. On peut donc y voir des photos des rues à 360° et naviguer dans chacunes des rues au moyens de liens affichés sur les photos. Le plus réussi est la vue 360° à la “QuicktimeVR” mais reste limité à un seul axe de rotation. La qualité des photos et surtout les raccord entre elles sont quand à eux très approximatifs.

Google n’est pas le premier à essayer de représenter cet angle de vue plus visuel qu’une carte du ciel. Par exemple, en Suisse, le portail de l’immobilier Homegate permet de voir des photos des rues pour les logements situés a Zürich. Photos qui, soit dit en passant, sont fournies à Homegate par Endoxon… qui a été racheté par Google il n’y a pas si longtemps. Comme le monde est petit ! Google aurait-il bénéficié de l’expérience d’Endoxon dans le domaine ?

Un autre projet Suisse, Seemyroad, propose de voir des vidéos des rues de certains villes. Par exemple, à Zürich il est possible de faire tout un tour de ville en restant devant son ordinateur.

Ces différents projets ne sont de loin pas optimaux mais ce qui est intéressant c’est la volonté de représenter notre monde un peu plus fidèlement et sous un angle qui nous est plus commun. Cela avance dans le bon sens, je vous le dis !

Je connais encore beaucoup de sociétés qui n’auraient jamais laissé publier un tel délire pour protéger l’image de marque de la maison (oulala mais que vont penser nos clients). Cette façon de penser est révolue !

Qui n’aurait pas envie de travailler dans cette boite après avoir vu cette vidéo ? Ce que ce clip communique c’est la bonne ambiance qui règne dans ces bureau. Cela a l’avantage de séduire les futurs clients (car une bonne ambiance favorise la bonne marche d’un projet) mais aussi les nouveaux talents qui voudraient devenir des collaborateurs (qui se disent que c’est fun de travailler avec cette équipe).

Aux oubliettes les anciennes méthodes de communiquer sur l’entreprise! Utilisez le web, ouvrez un blog, racontez ce que vous faites, mettez en ligne vos délires, faites nous découvrir votre univers!

via swissmiss

(désolé pour les 5 secondes de pub… pas moyen de les enlever)

Le super site de recherches suisse, local.ch inaugure enfin une API pour fournir des services à ses utilisateurs.

Pour l’instant il est seulement possible de jouer avec les villes de Suisse mais d’autres fonctionnalités sont à venir.
Je me réjouis de voir ça car il serait dommage de priver ses utilisateurs d’autant de données.

Technologies & articles

• Web Services sur w3Schools
• SOAP sur w3Schools
• WSDL sur w3Schools
• REST
• JSON-RPC
• SOAP, XML-RPC et REST : différences et intérêts (JDN)
• REST (JDN)
• Créer des services Web avec SOAP et PHP (JDN)

Bibliothèques de services

• XMethods (SOAP)
• Programmable Web (Apis & Mashups)

Outils de programmation

• 12 resources pour ruby
• kSoap (SOAP avec J2ME)
• JavaScript SOAP Client (SOAP avec javascript)
• NuSOAP (SOAP avec PHP)
• REST avec Netbeans
• Applescript sur mac OSX (SOAP et XML-RPC sur mac)

APIs

• Yahoo
• Google
• Live (Microsoft)

Webservices

• Viamichelin (SOAP)
• tel.search.ch (REST)
• Map24 (SOAP)
• Audio Scrobbler
• Twitter (REST)
• Jaiku (REST / XMP-RPC)
• Youtube (REST – XMP-RPC)
• Flickr (REST / SOAP / XML-RPC)
• Del.icio.us (REST)
• Ebay (SOAP / REST) -> wsdl
• Amazon (REST / SOAP) -> wsdl
• Local.ch (REST)