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Monday, September 29, 2008

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/

Friday, September 26, 2008

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 !

Thursday, September 25, 2008

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

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

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


Tuesday, September 23, 2008

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:

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

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.

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A terrace in Belgium



Do you guess where it was ?
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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.

Monday, September 8, 2008

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).




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Cher Guevara




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

Thursday, September 4, 2008

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)

Surfer