ralovely

A few thoughts

I lost… Fare & Square

A FAILing industry

There are many kinds of FAIL. Some might even be quite funny (when you’re not the one failing, of course).
But there is one fail that bothers me right now, a whole industry failing: the Home Entertainment Industry.

I’m fond of US fictions, TV or movies. But I live in France. So from Day 1, I bought most of my DVDs in the US. There was DVDExpress.com, and then Amazon. It gave me the 3-6 months my early adopter ego required.
I remember the 1st season of 24. I had the DVD box set 6 months before it was even aired in France. Nobody even knew the show, I was already addicted. How cooler can you be ?

Now, it’s a whole different story. The cool guys are the ones downloading the show, 20 mn after it was aired, for free, making me “the dumb ass paying his DVDs, only to get them 6 months after every one”.

So, I, who has been buying hundreds of DVD for years, who could afford to buy new ones, will now start to download illegally.

I call that a massive FAIL.

There are several reasons to this failure. Mainly due to the Studios.
In a nutshell, they still don’t know they have to adapt much faster.

First, they think they can pull the buy your video collection one more time with the Blu Ray, as they did with the DVD. So they throw little bones (iTMS, Amazon unbox…) to keep the tech-saavy guys calm, while they sell over priced Blu Rays to the others (not to mention those poor bastards who bet on the HD-DVD).

Then there is the “world problem”.
Yes people, you have consumers outside the US borders. Please, explain how comes it takes 6 month for a movie to cross an ocean ?! You might want to start to think global.

Last, there lack the technology. Studios (still them) don’t want to entrust a Microsoft, nor an Apple, with there movies.
They fear they will loose the control. So they try their own method, and fail. Not everybody is a Steve Jobs,  not every body can come up with a decennial plan to rule the world of medias and succeed.

So, here is a shot:

 

• Make movie premieres worldwide.
• Thus, making DVD/Blu Ray simultaneous (while you’re at it, drop DVD/Blu Ray zoning).
• Make downloadable versions of movies, over an ITunes/Unbox/Whatever-non-microsoft, platform independant,
  with the ability to store, organize our own collection. 
• Stop winning with your copyrights and everything: no one will ever pity you.

 

New Wordpress Is Great

The previous post was the first since Wordpress 2.5 upgrade.

It’s really cool. The work on the admin part is huge.
I particularly love the shift-return to make a new <p />, the embedded tag management, and all the DHTML nifty effects.

Cool !

We Want PHP!

Google App Engine will be big.
Lots of people are talking about it. There was this thing about HuddleChat, the rip-off of 37’s CampFire…
But beyond all that, it doesn’t take much foresight to guess it’s gonna be big.

They said it at launch, it will be language independant, but for now it’s Python only.

Here is a petition to make it PHP wise : I Want PHP.

Yes, we love PHP, and we say it loud !

Getting apache2 to serve eRuby files on MacOSX 10.5

Like many web developer, I heard of Ruby via Rails.
Rails make wonders. That’s true.
But it fits a really particular type of development. Application-oriented developments.
So Rails is not really for me (yet), but what of Ruby ?
Digging a little, reading about a lot, using prototype (rubyesque JS library), Ruby seems a really good choice for web dev.
So I decided to give it a try.
Being on MacOSX 10.5, I needed an install.
Browsing google helps a lot, but resources are a little sparse.
One more won’t hurt !

Source is mainly maymay.net
(if you’re interested in Rails, hivelogic.com is the place)

I will try to be a little less verbose than maymay, though.

You’ll need:

• MacOSX 10.5
• XCode 3.0 (you can find it on your MacOSX install CD, or online at developer.apple.com)
• root user enabled (with Directory Utility)

Steps are :

1. Install eruby
2. Alter Apache Conf

Where maymay advise to install MacPort to get eruby, I got it directly at the source: modruby.

Create a working dir where you please, download, expand, configure, make, make install, clean your mess :


ralovely$ mkdir ~/Desktop/wrkdir/
ralovely$ cd ~/Desktop/wrkdir/
ralovely$ curl -O http://www.modruby.org/archive/eruby-1.0.5.tar.gz
ralovely$ tar -xzf eruby-1.0.5.tar.gz
ralovely$ cd eruby-1.0.5/
ralovely$ ./configure.rb
ralovely$ make
ralovely$ sudo make install
ralovely$ sudo ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/eruby /usr/local/bin/eruby


That’s it you have a working eruby. You can check with:
ralovely$ eruby –version

or:

ralovely$ echo 'Hello world! The time is now <%= Time.now %>.' > test.rhtml
ralovely$ eruby test.html

You should see a Hello World with current date and time.

now you can clean a little:


ralovely$ cd ../../
ralovely$ rm -R ./wrkdir/


Now to step 2: mod apache2 conf file.
maymay’s mod is based on a Tiger Mac. Leopard comes with apache2, and the mod is a little different.
First, we link our freshly installed eruby to the web server CGI directory

ralovely$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/eruby /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/eruby

Last, edit your httpd.conf file with your favorite editor (mine is pico)
but not without a little backup before:

ralovely$ cd /etc/apache2/
ralovely$ sudo cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.BAK
ralovely$ sudo pico httpd.conf


In there:
First, we allow symlink for CGI :
change:


<Directory “/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables”>
AllowOverride None
Options None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

To:

<Directory “/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables”>
AllowOverride None
Options FollowSymLinks
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>


then, look for the <IfModule mime_module> block and add

AddHandler rubypage .erb .rhtml
Action rubypage /cgi-bin/eruby

Save and exit. (ctrl-X then Y on Pico).

Reload your apache:

ralovely$ sudo apachectl graceful

You should now be able to serve .rhtml or .erb files on your MacOSX 10.5

MacOSX Server version should not be very different. I’ll test later.

Obviously bigger

I like how the new proto theme for Firefox Mac makes the back button much bigger than the Forward one.
Obvioulsy the Back button is used so many times more…
Certainly nothing new here.
But the point is this :
There are so many things we don’t question any more…
Always challenge established concepts !

- Why did you do it like this ?
- Eh… We always did it like this ?…

Dot Fruux

I’ve always been a little frustrated with .Mac.
I already have most of the services they provide, and paying for the ones I miss make it really expensive.
Like many, I didn’t wait for apple to get an email adress,
I have my own dedicated server, with a (this) blog, a self-cooked photo gallery for friends and family,
I carry an 8GB usb thumb in my pocket all the time,
and I have a VPN network between.
So, there goes the needs for Imap Email, Web Hosting, Web Gallery and iDisk.
Groups seems like a nice feature, but (a) I don’t have that many friends; (b) seems like a good one to develop myself if I needed it.
That leaves me with : Sync.
I have a few macs, and keeping in sync has always required some organization skills I miss.
Of course, there is the notMac Challenge but let’s face it, it doesn’t have a great momentum.

HERE COMES fruux !
A German initiative to solve this problem… and others.

One of the creators defines it as social and sync.
You can sync your Mac Adress Book (OK, but what else ?), and it will be able to keep your contacts up to date, provided your contacts also use it.
More info on that feature here.

It’s still in Beta (beta like in not ready to ship, not like in google’s beta) so it lacks most of the features, but it surely is promising.
I’m curently beta testing. It does one thing for now : syncing. But it does it well, nicely via a prefPane, and that’s all I’m asking - for now.

That’s a good news !

Simple ? Make it simpler.

I love my new microwave oven.
You just can’t make any simpler.
2 rotating knobs. That’s all !
One for power setting, the other for timing.
Nothing else, not even a start button.
And that’s the beauty. Once you set the timer, it goes off by itself, 1 second later.

The same goes for every thnig designed.
Be it a graphic design, a web design, an industrial design…
You made a simple product, almost an archetype.
Find that extra button you can get rid of.

That’s a lot of NO

NO external drive,
NO FireWire,
NO Ethernet,
NO PC Card.

That’s the price of AIR.
(That and $1799…)

That’s a lot of NOs comapred to what we’re used to, compared to what we expect (plenty of yes and more).
BUT (that’s one big but !) as any Apple product : wait to hold one in your hands before you judge,
AND try to let go old dying concept once in a while. You might even enjoy it.

To sum up: NO, NO, NO, NO, BUT, AND !

(Note: still, it lacks a 3G modem to fully embrace mobility. It will come soon)

No more excuses

What was a tedious concept is now an easy-to-configure device

We said it again and again and again:
BACK UP YOUR DATA !
How can you justify loosing 4 years of photo in a snap ?…
Photos of Xmas, photos of the kid’s bday, photos of the other kid’s graduation…
I, for myself, couldn’t live with that (or should I say without…).

Apple made this easy for you:
Introducing Time Capsule.

No more excuses.
Run.

The Problem With Social Networks (As If There Was Only One…)

The Problem With Social Networks:

Multiple personalities.

All of us - as human beings - have many aspects. We come in many flavors. That’s what makes human interactions so complex and interesting.
There is a Working-You, a Family-You, a Friendly-You…
More than that, for each one of these You there are different versions.
At work, you don’t behave the same with your boss’s boss and with your co-worker in the next cubicle.
With family, there is the yearly great-great-aunt’s family reunion, and the Sunday’s garden Hot Dog party with your 3 brothers and their wives and kids.
It goes the same with friends.
Then there are the places. If you’re in the street, in a theatre, in a cosy restaurant, or at home, you won’t be exactly the same.
All this is for a regular quiet life.
It gets trickier when there’s your wife’s You and that cute little blond girl you met at work’s You…

Topics of conversation, vocabulary, plain behaviour, won’t be the same.

This guy I work with (or more precisely, I work in the same company as he), sends me an invite to be friend on Facebook.
Two choices : trying not to be rude, accepting the invite OR being consistent, refusing the invite : WE ARE NOT FRIENDS.
(I’m not talking about the networking use of Facebook - interesting thought by Seth Godin here though).
Or
This great conversations I have with my WOW guild isn’t of any interest for my wife. Worse, the more I talk about it, the more she resent it.
Or
This project I want to discuss only with my close family doesn’t concern any of my friends, even less my so called-facebook-friends.

There are a few initiative in this direction. HonestyBox is a great Facebook App, it brings something really missing.
YOu can send a message anonymously. At last, you can be something else than just polite or nice.

There are also private social networks or VIP-only social networks.
ModelsHotel is one of them. As Michael Arrington said: If You’re Not A Model, Don’t Bother Reading This.

So where is the solution ?
You can have as many social account as personalities. This can become hard to track…
You can try and set a really complex permission/privacy panel on the one and only network you choose (if it has this kind of option, today, I don’t know any that has).
Clearly these are not real options.

That leaves room for innovation…

[update 2008-02-27]: Seth Godin said it with his words (yes, they are better than mines. He is the marketing guru. Not me…).

Why you wanna make great products

The other day I remembered I wanted to buy an album.
I usually use one of two sites : Amazon and Fnac.com (La Fnac is a big french store chain).
“Great” I think to myself, “I have a few minutes, let’s pop Safari up”.
And then came THE CHOICE.
The fragment of second where you decide who you’re gonna buy your CD from (Yes! I still buy CDs : online music sucks).

Almost instantly, I chose Amazon.
It was so fast, I was surprised myself ? I wondered “How did I make this decision, so quickly ?”.
During these few milliseconds, Amazon site appeared in my head.
Those clear orange buttons, this clear white page, those big thumbnails…
Reliability, fast service, not too many spams, not too many “special offers”….

A blink of an eye. That’s all you have to make your sales pitch.
That’s why.

I Lied

A long time ago (a few posts ago), full of energy and courage and faith, I wrote on this very blog that I would make it bi-lingual, writing in both French an English.
Well, guess what (without looking at the title)…
Yes: I Lied !

Reasons :
The reason I lied : At that time, I didn’t knew I was (so technically I wasn’t really lying).
The reason I won’t write in both languages:

• I’m lazy
• I firmly beleive that you should learn English if you don’t already know it (and thus don’t understant my advice, so…)
• Je pense sincèrement que vous devriez apprendre l’anglais si vous ne le parlez pas encore
• The topics I write about are mostly English related
• I’m as bad in French as I am in English, but this way, I have a good excuse

And yes, it’s a Happy Thought, because it’s alway a good feeling when you come clean…

Mr Anybody’s Computer

Let me introduce you to the Anybodys.
Mr and Mrs Anybody are just that : anybody.
They live in a random so-called modern country, have a decent monthly revenue but not more, and they pass through life influenced mostly by media and assimilated.
(And they are not to be confused with my mother).

Of course, Mr. Anybody has a computer (unfortunately, it’s a Windows machine, but he’s wondering what’s all that noise coming from Cupertino…).
Actually, it’s his third one, in some ways, he is a technology-aware guy.
He has an internet connection (probably a brand new DSL, finally taking the plunge), he manages mails and surfs a little. His son recently bought him a digital camera. He thinks it’s a wonder.
His computer is slowly but surely becoming the center piece of his life. He will soon watch his movies with it, he already has ten mp3 albums (five encoded with his son, to learn; two of them bought online; and three he doesn’t even know how they got there), and he manage his pictures with great care, because he knows how valuable pictures are. He knows that in a few years, pictures will be the only memories he will have left of his daughter’s wedding day.

Of course, Mr. Anybody never does any backup of all this because the industrial consortium that sold him his hardware/software never cared to explain that computers were still in a testing phase - for the last 20 years - and had every chances to crash any minute, thus wasting 5 years of his precious memories. Too bad.

So:
If you are Mr Anybody, run to a hardware store, buy a spare hard drive and copy everything from your computer on it.
If you are Mr Anybody’s little geeky nephew (more on you later), make him do it.
If you’re part of the industrial consortium that sold him his machine: shame on you - you’re a jerk / Bravo for that wonderful scam.

In the presence of greatness

A few weeks ago, I was posting about the Best Animation Company in the world, and mainly the people who make it what it is.
And last week-end, I went to see Prince performing the last show of 21 Nights in London.
I’ll pass on the already great experience he was offering to European people : 21 shows over two months and a half, most of them followed by a two-hours after-show performance. More than most of the fans of any artist would dare dreaming of.
I’ll also pass on the fact that more than 400 000 people attended the shows, or that he was offering his last Album for free at the entrance…
The whole Sha-Bang for 31£ (62 with the after-show ticket).

So, if I pass on these pretty remarkable stuff, what will I post about ?…
What about a recipe ?

Well…

Take a young Genius in the late ’70s, who played multiple music instruments way before 10, signed his first deal with WB at 17 (and that’s much more to say than today’s deals…), wrote dozens of hits, etc…
Add 30 years of successful experience : 30 albums or so, as many tours (each including hours of rehearsals, performance and after shows).
Mix with a few other well-known-geniuses : a dash of Miles Davis, a few drops of Ron Wood, a frosted Larry Graham, a tasty Lenny Kravitz, and a full Maceo Parker. If you have some George Clinton in your kitchen, pour some.
Shake everything with an incredibly tight band.
Spread over a large loyal-fan-base.

What do you get ?

Quintessence of greatness of Funky Music.
Nothing less.

If you had been nice, I’d have gave you a taste…
But we all know you are not…

The Best In The World

The other day, I used the term “The best in the world”, but it felt different.
When you think about it, we tend to over exaggerate our words, using superlatives and all : Greatest, Truly Gorgeous, the most Amazing….
How many times did you say “You gotta see this guys work, he’s the best in the world…” ?
But how many times did you actually mean it ?.. Yep, none.
But the other day, it felt different. I said it, and it sounded… real.
I was talking about Pixar™.
These guys, many of them, are the bests in the world.
In almost every movie-related activities, you can’t find anyone better.
That’s an abyssal thought.
They don’t make mistake. Right now, they can’t fail.
I just went to see Ratatouille, their last film.
It’s flawless. Perfect.
And not just the 3D animation, but the characters, the story, the rhythm, the casting.
Even if you’re ego-less, somewhere, deep inside, it must feel good to know you’re The Best (no, not you reading that louzy blog, the guys at Pixar™… :p ).

One TLD to rule them all…

(TLD : Top-Domain Level as in .com, .fr or .org)
If you have to buy a domain name in the future, don’t waste any time wondering, you want a .com.
First, when was the last time you typed http:// ?
Yep, that long…
Then, try and get rid of the www..
If you spend just a few minutes a day browsing, you hardly type these anymore.
Some wrote about it, and even started a movement.
So we came from http://www.apple.com to apple.com.
Now, strip the .com off. Yes, still works…
The reason is that, by hitting enter (or ctrl-enter depending on your browser), if you didn’t provide a TLD, it will append .com for you.
.com, not .fr or .org…

Of course, if you’re an advanced user, you can configure that behaviour, but honestly, who will ?
So, how long before we actually forget about TLD altogether ?
Most people are already using Google as an adress bar, mostly out of lazyness if you ask me.
How long before we drop the TLD system anyway. I would by the minute.
I find it harder to remember the TLD than the address in the first place; companies buy every domain available since day one; even if TLD system multiply the available number of domain names, if two sites are in conflict over a name (ie.: one in .com, the other in .net), both are penalised anyway.

Honestly, how convenient would it be to only have ti remember/type apple, or ralovely ?
I already do (thanks to my favorite browser), and I love it.

p.s.: The Enter key (without ctrl) in FireFox will take you to the Google top response (I’Feeling Lucky™). You can try it with Nasa for example.

Going the distance

I was at Sly and The Family Stone show in Paris L’Olympia the day before yesterday.
There is so much to say…
First, for frenchies only: I was next to Louis Rego during the show, just behind Sidney, and I went by Jacky Beroyer, Philippe Maneuvre and Romane Boringer…
Apparently, for once, I was at The Place To Be™.
Let’s get back to the main interest (I’m so not interested in People),
Sly has a weird history: for long I even thought he was dead (as I thought of Bill Wither…). You know : the very talented composer, the great voice, who died young over drugs, or in a tragic car accident. Only plausible explanation for not hearing about him anymore.
In fact, he “just” went rogue (with drugs though) for 30 years. And when he comes back, let me tell you: it’s not pretty.
He looks like a crippled old man, seems completely high, comes on stage for the 5th song, leave after two, comes back after one, leaves again…
Couldn’t be less of a professional.
The band is cool, even very cool, considering the pressure of having to play with such a crazy guy, but not enough to satisfy a very frustrated mob.

But, even then, when Sly is on stage… Something happens. He still has his voice, and the talent flows in his veins (along with other illicit products…).
The show was pretty expensive (55 €), 70 mn long and 30 (top) with Sly on stage. But that was enough to feel happy.
Of course, I would have prefered a 2h30 set, hearing each and every one of his monster songs… but I still have his “Family Affair” tune in the head - the live one now…

Oh, and what the heck… since you’ve been nice, here is a present.
Enjoy!

(Sorry, I did a pretty lousy job recording - I guess I wasn’t expecting much… - but it’s good enough!)

So, in conclusion, it’s hard to see idols fade away.
But even then, there’s a reason if they are idols in the first place: they’re so talented…
We’ve been ill-educated: I’ve seen Ray Charles rocking the stage at past 70, playing Piano with his feet; I’ve seen JB funkin’ the stage at past 70, there was Barry White, Nina Simone, there is Marta High (she was opening for Sly. Wow!), Lyn Collins and so many other…
Every one was/is as good if not better than in their prime.
Sly is not. What a loss.

Showing Off

Last week, I went to see Prince show in Montreux, at the Jazz Festival.
A 2h30 show, followed by a 40 mn AfterParty (yes a little short, but soooo good).
Nothing special to say about that, just showing off.
I can’t wait to get my hands on the CDs.
(also, during the wait in the Stravinsky Auditorium, I heard the new album over the PA. I don’t like it.)

Second Thoughts

Since my post The best of both world a few things happened.
First, time went by… A lot of it.
Also, I read 2.5 books on Ruby and Rails.
But then I stopped.
The fact is, I can’t practice enough.
Web development is still a “hobby+” and I can only devote so much time to it. But further than that, every ongoing project I work on is in PHP, and every future project require skills I haven’t developed yet in Ruby (but I have in PHP).
So I figured: Ruby already taught me a lot, regarding a certain way of coding/thinking, and OOP (I’m a much more efficient coder in PHP now I read about Ruby).
But it doesn’t really bring me a whole new skill/knowledge: from a user point of view, a page developed in Ruby and one developed in PHP look very much the same.
So I wondered what programming language would bring me that…
…hmmmmm I wonder…
The answer was obvious (even though not really a language) : Flash.
ActionScript is share the same bases as JavaScript, I can start small, with element embedded in classic HTML, and it really brings a whole new world to my reach.
Next to it is Flex, and next AIR (was Apollo).
And so I began. I have the books (yes, I like to learn in books…), started 2 of them, and practice (not enough though).
So see you soon, with my first realizations…

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