Aqualibi

Today we went to Aqualibi so we could walk in swimsuit all day even if it's freezing outside !

My solution to "can't find the server at www.google.com."

Recently I had a problem on my home computers. We couldn't connect to www.google.com anymore. A ping didn't work, a nslookup didn't work, a tracert didn't work. All other sites were ok.

I searched the Internet (using google.be ;-)) and many people had the same problem. It seems to be a strange DNS problem.

For those people, here is a temporary solution. Edit your Windows Hosts file (in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc) and add this line at the end:

216.239.59.147 www.google.com

This way you tell your computer directly where to find Google.com. Note this solution will no longer work if Google.com changes its IP Address.

After that I could again read my gmail, my Google Calendar, my Google Notebook and Blogger.

Strange problem...

I would like to know the real issue behind it.

Mountain Bike in Kasterlee/Herentals

Today we did some mountain bike in Kasterlee/Herentals on the Montain Bike Routes of the Bloso.

Season's Greetings

I could not blog for several days because I couldn't connect to www.google.com due to very stange dns problems. Whatever, I would like to wish you the best for this end of the year.

I hope your holydays are filled with happiness and good cheer !

Very soon I will send you my Best Wishes with my Best Shots 2008.

Roxorloops

I have seen that guy (Roxorloops) at Devoxx. What he does is amazing !

Druivenveldrit 2008

From 20081214 Druivenveldrit

From 20081214 Druivenveldrit

From 20081214 Druivenveldrit

Links :

• Druivenveldrit 2008 - official website
• Druivenveldrit 2008 - my pictures
  
• Druivenveldrit 2007 on YouTuve
  
• Druivenvelrdrit 2007 - on my blog
• Druivenvelrdrit 2007 - my pictures
  

IBM shows Technology Leadership at Devoxx

Last week (Dec 8-12 2008),
there was Devoxx
(formely known as JavaPolis)
in the Metropolis in Antwerp.

The fair usually welcomes 2000
developers for technical conferences
on Java, PHP, JavaFX, Scala,
Ruby on Rails...

IBM invests on this event
and this year Robin Mulkers
proposed to demonstrate IBM's
technology leadership with a
real use case of one of the
hottest technologies: RFID.

The project was exlained
in the keynote
(see some photos here below)



Furthermore, it's a usefull use case for the
Devoxx Organization : All participants
receivedan RFID badge. Those badges
were tracked so that one could
for example see which
sessions were the most popular. Or
participants could leave their name
at the booths by letting the hostess
scan their badge to participate
to games or request for more information.

At IBM, we call this innovation that matters !



PS : Devoxx is one of the best
events that I know. The organization
is really great. You have free WiFi, you
can take drinks directly from
the fridge, speackers are accessible,
topics are cool...
Everything is in place to have a great
Developer experience !

Cirque Bouglione

Dimanche 7 décembre,
nous étions invités par IBM
au Cirque Bouglione pour
la Saint-Nicolas.

N'hésitez plus, allez-y.
Je vous le recommande :
Le spectacle est vraiment bon.

Drawing Mind Maps using Rational Software Modeler

In the past I had already
designed goal trees using UML.

Today I have developed
several diagrams for one
of my customers :
goal trees, project lists,
opportunities, initiatives,
execution strategies....

I have put it all in one huge diagram,
that I have called a mind map.

So I have effectively
been developing
a mind map
using a UML Modeling tool.

I can't show you because
it's confidential but
I find it quiet interesting
and I will do it more and more.

You can try it at home...

Testing Ubuntu

This weekend I took some time to have a look at Ubuntu. I find Windows Vista is very slow and I wanted to know how Linux would run on my machine (Acer Aspire 5315, Intel Celeron 1.7 Ghz).

I downloaded a CDRom from Ubuntu's website. You can boot from that CDRom and run Linux without making any changes to your machine.

Directly, I was convinced by the performance : Linux is much more reactive. When applications are slow, the OS isn't and that makes all the difference.

There are however some things that make me realize it would cost me time if I would completely switch to Ubuntu :

• My wireless didn't work. I should locate the windows driver and install it on Ubuntu.
• My Graphical palette didn't work. Linux doesn't seem to understand how it works
  
• I could not read my MP3 immediately. I should install a special codec over the Internet but as my wireless didn't work...
• How to synch with Windows based phone like my Samsung SGH I600 ?
  

So I guess I will have to go for dual boot. Unfortunately I'm short on disk space... So I'll need to buy some storage first.

Paris : Ambiance de Noël

Natalia

This Sunday (Nov 30, 2008) we were at the Lotto Arena in Antwerp for the last concert of Natalia's Glamorous Tour.

It's the 4th time I see Natalia in concert. The first time was ok. The second time I was disappointed. The third time was ok but I still found she was shouting instead of singing.

This time was ... exceptional :

1. She was singing and not shouting: real emotions could flow instead of a mass of decibels.

2. There was a real dance floor : Natalia and the dancers provided a superior experience.

3. There were nice surprises like singing Prince and the appearance of Stam van Samang.


So it was an excellent concert this time !!

Trahison

From jfdeclercq's Pictures Blog

La loi de pareto peut-elle changer votre vie ?

Vous y croyez- vous ?

I love Techno and Gandhi

Last week I bought a CD and a book.

The CD is "I Love Techno 2008" : 7.5 / 10 because some parts are a bit boring.

The Book is the new Jacques Attali : Gandhi ou L'Eveil des humiliés. I have not started reading it yet.

Succès et Ratés

Fernando Arabal : "L'artiste, c'est celui qui rate"

Dans le sens : l'Artiste est celui qui ose prendre le risque de ne pas réussir, celui qui ne vise pas toujours à réussir, celui qui s'expose le plus en mettant en jeu sa propre image.

Raymond Devos : "Un succès c'est un bide auquel on a échappé"

Give a bike - Donner un vélo

I'm looking for an association that would take my old bike and give him a second life (send second hand bikes to poor countries).

Here is what I have found so far in Belgium http://www.quefaire.be/annonces/A-r-un-velo-583304_1405.shtml

If you know such an association, let me know.

Nice Mashup

What a mashup can do for you ?

See this French mashup in Paris it shows you were there are parties, concerts, exposition, theaters tonight in Paris. See

http://www.parisetudiant.com/agenda/sortir-a-paris-bon-plan.php?


Cool !

Comment interpréter les textes des Informaticiens ?

Certains spécialistes informatiques (peut-être moi-même) devraient y penser de temps en temps : notre language est très particulier et peut-être un peu opaque.

J'ai trouvé ici un bon article qui illustre cela :

http://urba-si.blogspot.com/2008/03/vue-mtier-et-vue-technique.html

Cique du Soleil : Quidam

Yesterday we were in Brussels to see the Cirque du Soleil : Quidam.

It's the 3rd time I go to a show of the Cirque du Soleil. This time we had places on the first row and it was really a great experience.

Dessins Tom

Ce matin Tom a fait trois beaux dessins avec la palette graphique.

Nokia Experience 2008

It was now the turn of Nokia to invite us to a party this Tuesday Nov 4th 2008 : Xperience 08



The party was in Noxx, which is a nice place to party. We had already been in Noxx for a Tiesto Concert.



There was a concert foreseen of The Glimmers. I fact they were the DJs. I would have prefered they play their own music as their Mix for Xperience 08 was very "conventional". Hopefully there was another salon where we could dance on a music in the Noxx style. I guess it was with Noxx's DJs.

Another way to read the newspaper on the web : readmetro.com

After the FSI reader of Playmobil, I see today - thanks to a Twit of Jean-François Ruiz - that Metro (the free newspaper) also found a good solution to let people read their newspaper online.

Not a bad system. So simple...

Check an example here : http://www.readmetro.com/show/fr/Paris/20081103/1/16/


Too bad : the Belgian edition is not available on this format.

Gmail Mobile 2.0

I just installed Gmail Mobile v2.0 on my mobile phone.

Promenade à Tervueren

Yesterday afternoon we went for a walk in the beautiful parc of Tervueren.

ePaper is coming

The big ePaper / eReader market battle is about to start. See how much companies are developing products for this potential huge  market :

• Samsung
• Fujitsu
• Hanlin
• iRex Technologies (Philips)
  
• Sony
• HP
• Amazon with the Kindle
• Hitachi
• LG (Philips)
  
• Nemoptic
• Sharp
• NEC
• Unidym - nanotube-based color active matrix electrophoretic display (EPD)
• Plastic Logic
• KDDI
• Liquavista

What is ePaper ? Watch it on BBC : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7671528.stm

Camion de Pompiers

Commentaire de Thomas : "Je connais deux sortes de camion de pompiers: le pompe tonne et le camion avec la grande échelle. Ici j'ai dessiné le pompe tonne"

From jfdeclercq's Pictures Blog

Le dessinateur : Thomas

From jfdeclercq's Pictures Blog

Youpie Yée

What makes China happy ? Youpie Yee !

See here : http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=atP_VnQL3Gc

Blagues de saison

"Aujourd'hui, il vaut mieux avoir les bourses en action que des actions en bourse".


"Vendez vos actions en bourse et achetez un chien : Il n'y a plus que ça qui rapporte" (Laurent Ruquier)

Month by month or 1 by 1

Yesterday I spent some time improving my start page. You can now browse my published articles month by month and one by one. See some details here : http://www.lowas.be/index.php?pagename=BrowseNews

SOA Services Granularity

When discussing about SOA a very common question goes about the granularity of services.

I have always applied two principles to decide for myself if a service has the right granularity :


1. Does it make sense ?

If a Business User of this service reads the service specification, he should be able to understand it. This requires to have servcice specifications in natural language.

2. Is it Human ?

Services are ways to request for information. My basic belief is that it should be possible for a normal human being to process that information. I like to think about services in terms of web pages : how would it look like if it was a web page ? (That's probably because I'm a fan of the Semantic Web vision). The rationale is that if the service provides something that is not human (thousands of records) there is room for service re-factoring (by using an iterator for instance).

A service that would dump all your emails at once on your screen in one page would be useless. What you want is a service to browse emails titles 20 by 20 and the possibility to open an email by selecting it. In addition you want a search function. Paging, Summaries and Searching are examples of human services.

TOGAF Certification Course Completed this week

This week I completed a TOGAF 8.1 Certifcation course. This means that I should be TOGAF Certified in the coming days. This is the second Certification I pass this year after the ITIL Certification (Thank you IBM!). TOGAF is about Entreprise Architecture and it's a fascinating topic. I'll blog about the highlights of this TOGAF course soon.

Foot sur la plage de De Haan, ce 28 septembre 2008

J'ai uploadé sur Youtube une vidéo d'une partie de foot filmée sur la plage de De Haan ce 28 septembre 2008. Je joue avec avec Thomas et Jonas (rencontré sur place).

Fortis...

J'essaye de ne pas dire de bétises sur le cas Fortis mais je n'ai pas su me retenir de commenter le post suivant sur le blog "Je suis Belge mais je me soigne":

http://francoisquinqua.blog.lemonde.fr/2008/09/29/fortis-et-puis-maintenant-dexia/

Reading Playmobil books on the Web with the FSI-Viewer

I just received an Information Letter from PlayMobil where they propose me to have a look at a book about Egypt : "Découvre l'Egypte".

This book is rendered using a technology that I have seen for the second time and that I find very interesting : FSI-Viewer.

Those guys found a way to put flyers in a browser. It's much better than the traditional pdf (which is never in Landscape and always in Portrait, obliging you to scroll).

Have a look here : http://download.playmobil.com/public/eCS/Store/befr/egypt_booklet/index.html

I like it !

Portal or RIAs ?

Two days ago, with a colleague, we had an interesting discussion around the future of Entreprise Portals.

Today in a SOA, Services are consumed by consumers like Fat Clients (Lotus Notes for instance) or Thin Clients (via a Portal).

The arrival of Web2.0 technologies like Rich Internet Applications (RIA) like Google Calendar, Google Docs ect will puzzle this architecture.

At IBM we already have two examples with Project Zero and Websphere Business Spaces. A Portal product is than no more necessary for consuming and exposing services in a browser.

What becomes than the role of a Portal in the SOA ? Probably it becomes a provisionning and security platform for RIAs and Mashups. At the security level, it means offering an Identity and Access Management platform. At the provisionning level it becomes a place where you can search for a mashup, configure it and use it immediately.

To show you an example of what a website/portal can become with RIAs, you can compare my server side "Portal" http://www.jfdeclercq.com/ with a "RIA Portal" version of it : http://www.netvibes.com/jfdeclercq

If you start using Netvibes you will understand how you can mix content on your own page using Widgets. Those widgets contain their own application logic (Gmail, Google Notes, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook....). Netvibes doesn't own the widget's code like a traditional Websphere Portal would.

Therefore the future of Traditional Portals like Websphere Portal is to provision those kind of Widgets in a secure way.

Chuck Norris, c'est plus fort que toi

Vous savez pas tout ce que Chuck Norris sait faire ?

Allez voir ici : http://www.lowas.be/index.php?pagename=ChuckNorris

Photos of the Pecha Kucha Brussels Vol 5

The quality of my pictures isn't good but it's just to remind some of the bla bla...

The Picasa Album is here : Pecha Kucha Brussels Vol 5

Vlerick Event : How Social are you ?

Last week we (Mireille and I) went to the Vlerick Marketing Alumni Event : How Social are you ?

The evening was about a marketing approach on the Social Networks and Online Communities.

Robin Wauters started with an Introduction on Social Networks. I didn't learn much on that introduction (maybe I know already too much) except that the groups that exist on different networks like Facebook are a target for Marketeers.

So creating or using social networks is now the objective of good marketeers. Pieter Goiris (CEO Boondoggle) showed us how the Heineken Music site to illustrate how brands try to engage in a give & take relationship with online communities. By the way this website is a wonderful Mashup (Stoemp) ! Web2.0 is also about involving the users to make the content. It's the case of Sensoa, a Flemish website where people can ask all questions about Sex.

Luc Colson of 4C Consulting explained us that in a Social Network, three kind of people are very interesting for the Marketeer : the people with most connections within a group (Let's call them "Leaders"), the people linking independant groups to each other ("Connectors") and people on the path between the two profiles ("Relays"). The "Leaders" would allow to influence the group. If the Leader has an excellent experience with your brand, others will know it. "Connectors" allow to transfer the brand experience from communities to communities. "Relays" are a way to accelerate the transfer from Community to Community (they connect the Leaders to the Connectors). Those concepts are for instance exploited in the Telecom sector to enforce operator loyalty and reduce the risk of churn.

Steven Van Belleghem (Insites Consulting) gave me the best impression. He explained that Marketeers have to understand how the new technologies can impact the way branding works. Marketeers have an important challenge to learn surfing on the web2.0 advertsing wave led by FaceBook, Google... There is a change of paradigm going on. Before the Marketing equation was the following :

Advertising ... Brand ... Sales

Today the chain is the following :

Brand ... Advertising ... Conversations.

The goal of the marketeer is to land in the conversation zone. Consumers need to talk about the product, advertsing is not enough anymore...This session gave me a better idea on how marketeers think about Web2.0. I see it as a great way to discuss with people and a great technology at the same time. I see the promise of the semantic web. They see segments, focus groups, communities, conversations, advertising...

Note 1 : For the Vlerick Alumni people, that kind of event is the best rather than just have a beer, let's also have some content.

Note 2 : From web experts websites, I'm not always impressed : 1) I hate the Boondoggle's website (try searching Heineken in it...), and 2) how is it possible to have an URL like http://www.4cconsulting.com/Templates/home.aspx?id=32&langType=1033 when you know the following principle : "Good URLs never Change"

Listening to The Lounge Box

If you like the Lounge music that you hear in the Fashion Stores of Brussels or Antwerp (joke), why not give it a try with this CD : The Lounge Box

From In JF mind today

It's a very nice box. You have 5 CDs of relaxing music. Very Nice.

I want the new IRex DR1000

When I posted "Will I buy an ePaper reader or not yet ?", I commented I didn't want because there was no A4 and search function.

But recently IRex has released the DR1000SW. I think I'm going to buy it !

Have a look here:

• http://www.ebookreaders.nl/
• https://www.irexshop.com/

Samsung Omnia Night

On Sept 11th 2008, we attended the Samsung Omnia night.

The party was not as good as the last one but there was more content : the presentation of the new Samsung Omnia.

The Samsung Omnia is a great MulltiMedia device (Music, Video, 5 MegaPixel Camera, GPS, MS Office Integration, Push Email...).

It also has a touchscreen like the iPhone. If I had to choose between the iPhone and the Omnia, I think I would choose the Omnia because it's more compact and Windows Mobile 6 would allow me to install more custom applications.

However I still have a phone with a keyboard (Samsung SGH I600) and I'm not convinced about the Touch screen yet.

A terrace in Belgium

Do you guess where it was ?

Watching the Champion's League tonight

Yesterday when watching the Champion's league, I found very funny that when eventually the best french players are performant, they score against a French club. Malouda and Anelka have killed... Bordeaux.

I have seen Elephants in Antwerp

This is the Elephant Parade. There must be a pink one somewhere but I haven't seen it (yet).

Cher Guevara

You can see Cher Guevara if you drink a coffee at CaffeNation in Antwerp.

De Gordel

This weekend we did De Gordel, a bicycle tour around Brussels.

Our goal wasn't political but rather sportive. We did 120 Km. The tour of 100 Km makes in reality 106Km. As we left and went home by bike we did another 7Km. Also, I had a flat tire in Meise and the assistance truck brought us back to Wemmel, it added 7Km to the trip.

The organization of the Gordel is excellent. If you have a mechanical problem, a truck brings you to a repair centre. The people of VAB repaired my bike, I had nothing to do do except pay the inner tube.

The weather was horrible in the morning : rain, rain and rain. Only in the afternoon after more than 60 Km it stopped and we could enjoy the tour a bit more.

The parcours is not very difficult. I expected more climbs. In fact, the most difficult part is between Zaventem and Overijse (Vossem, Duisburg) and that was the last part for us. Or was it the most difficult because it was the last ? Perception is reality...

De Gordel was our main bicycle objective this year and we are quiet happy we did it ! We will do it again.




PS : Is it politically correct to blog about De Gordel in English when you are a native Walloon and and live in Flanders ?

According to all known laws of aviation...

According to all known laws of aviation there is no way a bee should be able to fly: A bees’ wings are too short and their bodies too fat.

Bees, of course, fly anyway,

because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible...

(Bee Movie)

Obama : How to seduce America using sales techniques ?

How to seduce people so they vote for you : address their concerns.

Obama addresses several key concerns of 2008 :

“I do want three things,” “I want to end
the war. I want to get everybody a health care system that is sensible
and common sense and saves money. And the energy policy. But, if I had
to just choose one thing, that would be it.”

And I believe indeed Americans are concerned by those

• war
• health
• energy

If you add that he wants to decrease taxes for the middle class, I believe you have enough broad subjects that can gather many votes.


So to be successful, just address your client's pain points. A well known sales technique applied at a large scale.

Good job, Mr Obama...

ScribeFire

If you blog often I recommend you to have a look at ScribeFire. It's an excellent FireFox Plugin which helps to write or edit your posts. It allows to include Videos, Links, images in a easy way. It also supports multi-blogs.

Druivenfeesten in Overijse

This week is the week of the DruivenFeetsen in Overijse.

Up to now we mainly took the opportunity to go to 2 concerts:

• Last Saturday was rather dance with 3 concerts in a row : Katerine (Shut your Mouth), Sylver (Why Worry?) and 2 Fabiola.
• Yesterday it was Belle Perez (El Mundo Bailando).

See you soon there maybe ?

Insignifiant

Comment peux-t'on être ambitieux si on compend que à l'échelle de l'Univers, l'Humanité est insignifiante ?

Comment peux-t'on penser que le bien ou le mal que l'on fait a du sens ?

Comment peux-t'on penser que notre travail mérite autant d'importance ?

Pourquoi doit on conserver notre planete alors qu'elle disparaitra avec le soleil dans quelques milliards d'années ?

Pourquoi écrire ces lignes qui sont destinées à disparaître de toutes facons.

L'énergie de cet Univers doit vraiment avoir envie d'exister...

Internet Radio

Lately I have hesitated to buy a new kind of device : an Internet Radio. It connects on your WiFi router and plays thousands of radios streams that you can catch on the web.

Today I just plug my portable PC into my HiFi system using a mini-jack, but I find the quality is not so good. Therefore I have been looking for better options. Here are some products I find interesting :

• Logitech Squeeze Box Classic
  
• 2 small WiFi radios seen on PixMania
  
• The Philips WACS7500 is a revolutionnary HiFi system based on WiFi for playing music everywhere in your house using wireless technologies
• The Sony NAS_C5E
  

I have visited several shops (Padeg, TDH... ) in Brussels, LLN and Overijse to try to see those products in real but they have not yet arrived in the shops. So for now, the only option seems to be to buy online. We probably need to wait until Christmass.


For the moment, my favorite Internet Radios are :

• RGRFM - Non Stop Rythm and dance
  
• Hard Salsa
  

For a list of more than 1000 free radios on the web, you can have alook at Shoutcast (http://www.shoutcast.com/).

Quick CV

I don't know if you have ever had a look at my long CV but it's quiet a long one. I have read in a article (in Bizz I believe) that a good CV should be at the most 3 pages. Therefore I have tried to rewrite my CV in a much shorter format . I have organized it along 5 aspects of my work that I like and that I want to continue to develop during my career:

• Strategic Thinking
• Leadership
• Management & Team Work
• Creative Solution Design
• Marketing & Sales

The result is here : Quick CV and I have published in PDF and MS Word formats also here

I have been Itilized

I have successfully passed my ITIL V3 Foundations Certification !

ITIL is a framework which allows IT Managers to standardize the IT processes which aim at satisfying the demand of their system's customers and/or end-users.

In order to meet customer's needs, ITIL organises the lifecycle of IT Services which are delivered by IT.

The IT department can supply several types of "services", for instance :

• Applications (SAP, CRM, Document Management)
• Purchasing of IT material (PCs, printers...)
• Help Desk, Call Center
  
• Internet Services (Home Banking system for a bank for instance)
• Hardware Installation
• Printing
• ...

ITIL gives guidelines on how to organize the professional delivery of those "IT services".

ITIL V3' service life cycle defines 5 "steps":

• Service Strategy : it defines which services the IT department should provide
  
• Service Design : it defines what the delivered services are and how they are realized
  
• Service Transition : it determines how a designed service is put into production
  
• Service Operation : it describes how services have to be run in production (according to their specifications and their Service Level Agreements)
• Continual Improvement : a set of processes to improve the life cycle realization

Cycling in Limburg and Kempen Last Weekend

Last Weekend we did quiet some cycling in Flanders.

On saturday we did the "Limburgse Rivierenland" tour in Halen. It was supposed to be 52 Km. We did 63 and we even did a shortcut at the end.

On sunday we went to Herentals and we followed what is called the "EcoCyclo". There the KM were correct and it was 46 Km. We started from Herenthout and we used the following "KnoopPunten " :

Herenthout - 45 - 46 - 47 - 9 - 10 - 8 - 15 (Let op: we rijden niet volledig tot aan 15. Neem een kijkje aan de watermolen. Het is een waardevol monument. Daarna keer je terug naar 8.) - 19 - 18 - 14 - Hidrodoe - Van Hidrodoe rijd je terug naar de knooppuntenroute. Sla echter niet af naar links richting knooppunt 14, maar blijf rechtdoor rijden. Volg de pijltjes richting Centrum. - 12 - 60 - 62 - 65 - 66 - 43 - 44 - 45

If you search Biking Roads in Belgium I stongly recommend you this website http://www.fietsroute.org/.

Mise à jour du site de Paul Leroy

Le site Internet pour Paul Leroy se trouve sous mon nom de domaine. Nous y travaillons de temps en temps en buvant un bonne bière. Nous l'avons mis à jour cette semaine:

• Il y a un nouveau menu pour faciliter la navigation.
  
• Paul a également mis des nouveaux tableaux en ligne sur PicasaWeb.

Allez jetter un coup d'oeil : http://pleroy.lowas.be/


Made with Slideshow Embed Tool

Quel est le con qui a changé skynet ?

Moi j'aimais bien skynet pour la météo facile a trouver et facile a lire pour les prévisions à dix jours. Il y avait une colonne bleue à gauche avec toutes les possibilités skynet dont la météo. C'était facile et efficace.

Evidement il y a quelqu'un qui a trouvé que c'était mieux de changer. Essayez maintenant d'aller sur http://www.skynet.be/ et trouvez-moi la météo. Bonne chance !

Comme dirait l'autre : "Si je connaissais le con qu'a fait sauter le pont..."

Thinking ; Am I a Rain Maker ?

Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines rainmaker as “a person (such as a partner in a law firm) who brings in new business or whose influence can initiate progress or ensure success.” In short, a rainmaker is someone that makes things happen – someone who initiates action that ultimately brings in new business and revenue.

Rainmakers take a “big picture” view of their customers business. Rather than focus on specific IT projects, they look at the overall state of the client’s industry, company and LOB. Some characteristics of a rainmaker include the following: pro-active, results-oriented, patient, driven, conscientious, good listener, active listener, empathetic, sympathetic, curious, knowledgeable, engaged, confident, incisive, inquiring, flexible, visionary, creative, positive, optimistic, and collaborative.

4 Recent Music CDs

If you want the artists you like to continue to produce, you have to support them. Here are the 4 latest CDs I have bought :

• Mix Mania 2008 Vol 3
• Milk Inc - Forever
• Tiesto - In search of sunrise 7 (Asia)
• Dany Brillant - Best Of

Make Clouds with Wordle

Something I found by accident yesterday : Wordle.

Wordle draws a tag cloud for you from a text or rss feed.

I let it run on my CV and here is the result :



Than I run it on my delicious tags :



I like it.

Party @ the Pool

Yesterday we had fun at the Party @ the pool.

Using Google Maps to prepare my bike tours

I use Google Maps to prepare my biking tours.

You start by adding your starting-point than you plan your itineray by clicking on "Add destination".

See an example here of the bike tour I just did tonight.

I like the Yahoo! Widgets

You have different Widgets systems that you can use on your desktop : Vista Gadgets, Google Deskbar... My preferred one is the Yahoo! Widgets.

Have a look here (or click on the image):



The widgets I use are ImageView, Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! Mail Checker, Gmail Monitor, Digital Clock and Calendar.

I can be a blonde too

Today I took pictures without the SD card in my Camera...

Result : no picture taken.

Je ne suis pas à l'Euro

Et Trezeguet et Cisse non plus...

Voir ici sur dailymotion

Euro 2008 : What is your favorite team ?

As for the last World Cup, Mireille and I make our best guesses for the Euro 2008.

We both selected 3 teams that we think can win :

• Mireille : Italy, Spain, Portugal
• J-F : France, Germany, Turkey

List of all mountain bike routes in Belgium

Maybe it can sound weird to you but it has been a long time I have been searching for that information and now I eventually find it : a good list of existing mountain bike routes in Belgium.

You can find it here :
http://www.mountainbike.be/algemeen/routes.php

StumbleUpon : Sorry to all my contacts

Yesterday I sent an invitation to join StumbleUpon to all my Yahoo! contacts. It was not my intention, it was a mistake from me.

I want to apologize for having spammed you !

Nevertheless some of you (about 10) have joined StumbleUpon, I'm very grateful for the trust.

StumbleUpon is really a cool system and if you actually use it we can exchange what we find cool or interestig on the web.

So, once again sorry for the spam...

Why are we here ? What matters in life ?

On the right colomn of my "In JF mind today" blog, You'll find a question I want you to respond in a poll :

What matters in life ?

Why are we here ?

Take 20 seconds to answer. Closing of the poll at the end of the year...

Will I buy one ePaper reader or not yet ?

What do you think if you have a look at this video of the ePaper version of Les Echos ?

I think it's just great. If you add that you can use the Iliad as a Notepad (you can write also!), that you can upload PDF documents like reports, Presentations... It makes of it a great business tool.

I'm really hesitating : Should I buy it ? There is an interesting package with l'Equipe for this summer.

SOA stays a top business priority in 2008

According to an IBM survey SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is still in the radar of the majority of customers:

• 73 percent of customers indicated their CEO understands the business value of SOA; more than half say their IT staff is meeting once per month or more with business managers they support.
• 45 percent of customers indicated they spent between 10 percent and 29 percent of their 2007 IT budgets on SOA.

Read the complete article on CNN Money's website

Vibstars - le Web2.0 Belge

Hier je suis tombé sur le blog de Christophe Lefevre. Il s'y trouve un article sur le métier de blogueur. Mon regard s'est porté sur la colonne de droite (toujours la colonne de droite) et j'y ai trouvé un badge qui m'était inconnu. C'est un badge de vibstars.

Vibstars

Vibstars se définit comme une plateforme de SocialBuzzing. Ma perception est que Vibstars prend le meilleur du social bookmarking, du buzz à la Digg ou Scoopeo et du micro-blogging à la Twitter. Intéressant même si je ne vois pas encore comment l'utiliser concrètement. Je pense qu'il me faudrait plus d'amis dans mon réseau. C'est plus intéressant que Twitter car on peut lancer des conversations autours de sujets qui pointent clairement sur un URL. On peut aussi voter, cela fait émerger les dicussions les plus populaires.

Mon profil est ici : http://vibstars.com/wall/316-jean-francois-declercq. Vous avez tout de suite une idée du nombre de membres...

Blogasty

Continuant ma découverte des développements de Bleebot, j'ai également découvert Blogasty. Blogasty est un digg-like dédié aux blogs. Cela permet de re-poster un article de votre blog vers la communeauté Blogasty. Les autres membres peuvent voter pour votre billet et si celui-ci est populaire il arrive en Home Page. Voir A propos de Blogasty.

Du Web2.0 belge

Blogasty et Vibstars sont deux plateformes Web2.0 dans le plus pur style et par ce billet je voudrais féliciter leurs createurs. Et en plus, c'est du Belge...

Google doesn't find himself

There is something I find weird on Google's site.

I often use Google Maps. If I type http://www.google.be/maps/, than Google returns a 404 error page because the page doesn't exist. The correct page is http://www.google.be/maps without the '/'.

But wait a minute, if I search for anything in Google, it seems to know what I mean : "Did you mean ?" But apparently not in the case of an hazardeous Google Maps URL on their own site...

They could maybe reroute the 404 page to "I'm feeling lucky" with the url as parameter ?

N'essayes pas de faire le bien

Hemingway a écrit à Dos Passos :

Au nom du ciel, n'essayes pas de faire le bien. Continue à montrer les choses telles qu'elles sont. Si tu réussis à les montrer telles qu'elles sont réellement, tu feras le bien. Si tu essayes de faire du bien, tu ne feras pas le moindre bien, pas plus que tu ne montreras ce qui est bien.

Extrait de Odeur du temps - Jean d'Ormesson.


A méditer pour les experts comme moi... Ou se trouve notre valeur ajoutée en terme de conseils aux clients ?

David Vendetta

I already told you I like DJ Tiesto. Here is another good "DJ" : David Vendetta.

Bravo to the Netherlands

I have been involved in several activities with professionals from the Netherlands those last 3 months.

1. I was recently working with a great IBM colleague - a IBM Websphere Portlet Factory specialist- in a POC. And I have worked with other excellent Dutch during my carreer. Dutch colleagues tend to ask a lot of annoying questions but if you are honnest, you know they are the right questions.
   
2. The majority of my IT Architect Master Programme courses (Operational Modeling, Philips Design, Personal Improvement, Business Architecture, Creative Thinking...) were given by Ducth professors and thanks to them I have gained a lot of respect for their country. I can feel there is some leadership and vision on business questions.
   
3. One of the technologies I'm watching is ePaper. The best eReader is Ducth : the Iliad has been developed by a spin-off of Philips : iRex Technologies.

I also know that the Ducth Economy is a very strong one : At this moment the Netherlands is the 16th largest economy of the world (See Wikipedia).

And finally if I add today's EURO2008's match against against Italy (3-0) ! I'm very close to dress in Orange. But not yet, don't worry.

Critical Thinking

I was doing my daily blog reading when I landed on Slideshare. On the right column there is a list on the most downloaded slide sets. I was attracted by a presentation on Critical Thinking. This is the conclusion :

Why bother with Critical Thinking ?

"We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't yet been invented, in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet"

Web Presence

The website of Carmelo Zaccone gave me the idea of making a list of all the sites I use on the web. I ordered them by preference in three categories : Social Networks, Blogs & sites and Instant Messaging.

My list counts more than 20 addresses. I use the top 10 on a very regular basis. You can see the result here : Social Neworks.

Technorati Quick Claim

Sorry for this entry. It's just a claim for this blog in Technorati :

Technorati Profile

EUROFERIA 2008

Yesterday night we had a drink at Euroferia 2008. A very pleasant Andalusian atmosphere that I recommend you if you don't know what to do this weekend.

Creating the best context for creativity

After a course I followed given by MoTiv (http://www.motiv.tudelft.nl/) by Ton Meijknecht and Hans van Drongelen for IBM, I would like to share some concepts and reflexions on Creativity.

The creative class
The work of Richard Florida and his book 'The rise of the creative class' (note I haven't read it yet) aimed at demonstrating that a new class has emerged in today's society. "The creative class is a group of people that social scientist Dr. Richard Florida, a professor and head of the Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, believes are a key driving force for economic development of post-industrial cities in the USA." (See Wikipedia)
The people of the creative class have special demands against their work environment : soft control, more independence, personal growth and development, freedom to shape the content of their own work, control of their schedules (flexibility), expression of their identities through work, able to trade job security for own autonomy.
The creative class is also looking for another kind of lifestyle : individuality, self-statement, acceptance of difference, desire for rich multi-dimensional experience, pack every second - at work or leisure- full of creative stimuli and a morphing conception of time - (mixture of work and play).
The creative class asks questions about what really matters in life.

The thesis of Mr Florida is that the creative class is the main driver of economic growth.

Do I belong to the creative class ?
I have the feeling I belong to the creative class : I think I have the above characteristics.
Another argument that makes me think I'm a member of the creative class is that I feel the tension that would exist between members of the creative class and the corporations. A tension starts to emerge between large corporation and the creative class. Their motivations are not compatible anymore. However the corporations need the creative class for their innovations. The result is a war for talent and a lot of talent retention programmes. But it doesn't prevent that creative people step out of the companies and create a new startup or even make management buy-outs.
In one of my previous posts (Allergic to Superficiality ), I was criticized by some anonymous comment and today I understand why. The person who criticized me is certainly not someone of the Creative class. It's someone who is a Coporation's soldier and who has a lot of respect for the traditional way large companies can sometimes operate. He is attracted by the dark side of the organization's power game and has respect for people who are able to climb the matrix to the top by stepping on the other's dead bodies.

Who is creative ?
Everybody can be creative. Being creative requires however some conditions : you need some talent and this talent needs to be put in the right context. Talent has three different levels : skills, mastering and tolerance. We are used to identify our skills and define how well we master them (beginner, advanced, expert, master...).

How to be even more creative ? By knowing why.
In addition to skills and mastering, tolerance is required for the most creative ones.
Firstly, If you are not able to make use of the diversity of our world by being more tolerant, you will be less creative.
Secondly, tolerance also means compassion and the possibility to solve problems for others.
This tolerance aspect also touches the deepest motivations of our creativity. Why do we want to be creative ? What drives us to create solutions ? Why did Einstein want to find out new rules like the relativity rule ?

Creativity and Spirituality
It seems that a fundamental drive (some beliefs, some spirituality) is a necessary condition for superior creativity and innovation, meaning that you will be most creative if you align your entrepreneurship with your own spirituality.
I can link this to one of my previous posts around Happiness defined by Axel Khan : All creatures on this earth will be happy if they can express their true nature. "Connais-toi toi même"... You can only be a superior creator in the fields that match your true nature.

Being creative, just as being happy requires freedom. Freedom allows to move in order to be the right man at the right place at the right moment. This is why creative people want to be independent and travel the world : they don't want to be blocked in their vision of how they can improve what matters to them. They don't want to miss the chance to maximize the impact of their creativity.

Cycling around the Veerse Meer (Netherlands)

This weekend (May 31st 2008) we did quiet some biking. On saturday we did 50 Km in the region of Terneuzen.

The Westerschelde between Terneuzen and Hoofdplaat





The nature around Terneuzen



On Sunday, we did the tour of the Veerse Meer, starting from Veere (70 Km).

The Veerse Meer


Veere




The windmill of Veere

MyBlogLog is exactly what I expect as website

I had been a while since I had visited my MyBlogLog account. I'm quiet impressed by the improvements : you can now link all your web accounts into MyBlogLog and it makes a kind of summary. Excellent.

It continues to be a question for me: why maintain a website while all of the programming that I do (php, mySQL, Wiki...) is now available for free (Yahoo! Pipes, Mashing up my content in Netvibes or MyBlogLog...) ?

Don't you think this MyBlogLog page ressembles my start page ?

I must really like mySQL and php to keep my own developments...

New : Read what I read

You may have noticed a new green column on my start page. It aims at showing you which articles I found interesting in my daily Netvibes reading.



Technically it's again a Yahoo! Pipe (see the pipe here). They are just too easy to use.



I should re-publish a new picture on how I make my website because it has changed a lot these last months.

Kroll sur le site de Telemoustique

J'adore Kroll.

Je viens d'acheter un de ses derniers albums: Au pays des oranges bleues - P. Kroll - Petits dessins


Sur le site de telemoustique, on peut voir ses dessins qui sont publiés dans le magazine.

Google faced to the fishermen's problem

Google faces a lot of attacks from publishers to pay money for their supposedly non-authorized reuse of information.

There is a intellectual honesty that needs to be re-established around this "copyright" question.

When a company publishes something, it's means to give (or sell) it to the public. Can the public reuse that information once they access it ? Yes : they can at least talk about it. Now : what's the difference if Google takes it and talks about it on the web by indexing it and making it searchable ? If this information is not meant to be reused for free than why is it published and exposed without any serious protection ?

This makes me think about the fishermen's crisis in France. The fishermen's real problem is not the oil price : it's the fact that their real cost of fish is not reflected in their prices. They sell at loss.

Similarly if publishers have to claim money to Google it's because they just dumped their content on the web instead of finding ways to get something out of it from the start.

Claiming money to Google shows the weakness of those companies' business models which are outdated.


Links :

• Copiepresse réclame jusqu'à 49 millions d'euros à Google - Data News
• Report: Belgian publishers demand up to $77 million from Google | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Coup de Chapeau a Yannick Noah

Alors là, Coup de chapeau a Yannick Noah qui n'a même pas essayé d'être politiquement correct sur RTL alors qu'il était interrogé sur l'arrestation de son fils...


Brèves d'Afrique - afrik.com :

Yannick Noah n’en veut pas à Joakim
Réagissant sur RTL à l’arrestation en Floride (Etats-Unis) de son fils Joakim, qui possédait de la drogue et buvait sur la voie publique, Yannick Noah a raconté comment il a rassuré son fils. « Je lui ai dit que ce n’était pas grave, a indiqué l’ancien champion de tennis. De ne rien changer. Juste d’essayer ne pas se faire choper la prochaine fois. Je lui ai dit, regarde moi chéri : ça fait vingt ans que je fais le con mais je reste populaire parce que les gens pensent que je suis un mec bien. Essaie de faire la même chose. » (Mercredi 28 Mai - 11:40)

Bon, je ne dirais pas la même chose à mon fils, mais au moins il n'a pas caché ce qu'il pense. J'adore. Chapeau Bas.

Thomas fait du mini-golf

Oostende voor Anker

This weekend we went to Oostende for "Oostende voor Anker".

You can have a look at some pictures here : 20080524TallShipsOstende.