Of an Alternative to...

'Please as we have no more credit, find a free equivalent to this software as we won't pay licences anymore ?

'Please find this tool running under Linux as we have this IT team using only Linux from now ?

'What can I use instead of MS Office at home ?

We, IT Lovers, are facing these questions daily...I discovered today , (thanks to lifehacker) , an excellent and just starting fantastic website :

AlternativeTo

Despite the system (win,MacOs,Linux... and even online !) you will find there a solution for any replacement. Not only software, but also solution or application (I've done a test to replace Facebook and Twitter !!!)

The top : this is a 2.0 view website : we can all improve it for better results !

I'll now keep it in my bookmarks just in the same tab that filehippo.com ! Will you ?

My only suggestion : please do this website multilanguage ;-)

Of Google Dashboard

I discovered today that Google has a good dasboard :Apps Status Dashboard

This allows anybody to have a clear view on Google Applications health... But some Google tools are missing , very important for me : Blogger !

Ok : there is for a status on Blogger service, but a way less clear !

Please, Mr Google, can you please add Blogger to the above dashboard ?

Risque de virus du au débat sur la loi HADOPI

Actuellement le débat sur la loi HADOPI fait couler beaucoup de bruit, ici en France et sur le web.

En resumé (désolé pour les puristes), un accès internet pourra être coupé pendant un an , en cas de téléchargement illégal...y compris (et surtout ?) pour les particuliers.

Je ne veux pas discuter ici Je ne reviendrai pas ici sur cette loi (*), mais sur une conséquence inatendue.

J'ai connais plusieurs boites aux lettres (yahoo,gmail, ...) qui recoivent un email :

Your internet access is going to get suspended

The Internet Service Provider Consorcium was made to protect the rights of software authors, artists.
We conduct regular wiretapping on our networks, to monitor criminal acts.

We are aware of your illegal activities on the internet wich were originating from

You can check the report of your activities in the past 6 month that we have attached. We strongly advise you to stop your activities regarding the illegal downloading of copyrighted material of your internet access will be suspended.

Sincerely
ICS Monitoring Team

Quand j'ouvre l'email on me confirme qu'une liste de mes téléchargements illégaux est jointe ! Et bien sur c'est un virus !

Alors restons vigilants : n'ouvrons pas ces emails et encore moins les documents attachés !!

(*) Juste une question : si je suis chez un FAI et que j'utilise une boite aux lettres Yahoo ou Gmail, recevrais-je les emails d'avertissement avant coupure ?

My own Eeexperience !

I had to attempt a meeting on 'cloud computing' ( a wonderful state of the art day from 01 Infomatique) (*). I decided to take notes on my new net book : the eeePC 900 , running Xandros system (linux).

I have been very positively surprise by the battery power : 3 hours long ! Here are the settings I configured :
- no wifi : Fn+F2
- no sound : Fn+F7
- decrease light : Fn+F3
- I did not used webcam of course !

Despite the chair were big , and very comfortable, the Netbook was on my knees... I have been very positively surprise by the heat from the boo tom of the computer : I've been able to work without suffering from hight temperature on my legs.

PS :did I mention it was running Xandros (linux) system (not MS Windows power consumer...), did I ? Yes, I did ;-)

I've been dispointed by the keyboard : may be because my fingers are to big, I mistyped very often some keys on the AZERTY keyboard... Specially with the key fn+End , they keys combination Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and past...

Is this netbook one answer (among other...) to green coimputing ?

(*) I was there in order to get the more information as possible for my publication 'cloud computing and web 2.0' for my one year training at IMI...

Of not having emails

I'm reading this blog : ZenHabits and today discovered an interesting discussion about not using emails (Read article) !

I guess that with three professional email addresses , two personnal , one job hunting address and one junkspam address, I couldn't spend more than a week without reading mails !

More over, in the company I'm working at the moment, we're facing a huge problem of corrupted attachments inside MS Exchange 2003 server...

The Management Board requested me to be fully dedicated on this issue now as email is a key tool for daily work...

So , No , I think we could not leave emails today. What about you ?

Of opensource in daily work...

Once again , open source tool helped me.

I had to merge huge existing pdf files, without spending a money .

I discovered (thanks to Framasoft pingu !) the amazing free tool :

PDF Split And Merge Basic

Why use expensive Adobe tools, as this one is free and works perfectly !

On your side, are you using an pen source tool to replace expensive software ?

Of program size increase...

I think that some basic programs/tools will be definitly replaced by open source ones because of their size : like 2007/2008 19 to 26 M in one year for quicktime ! What about Acrobat Reader 9 : 25.4 Mb !...

We all need these great tools for what they're doing the best : multimedia/reader... Who cares about all improvement ?

Here's what I'm using : VLC (13.8) and FoxIt reader (2.56 Mo) ! They're only so simple without any extra ! Thy're doing their job, and doing it well...

The buzz is all about tiny computers called netbook with tiny ram disk space. These tools would be also my favs if I could have one of these.

Are you still using these sisk space killers ?

Of risky Win XP SP3...

To avoid anoyance with Win XP:

A little warning about auto-update your computer with Windows XP SP3... as one of my friend had to remove it ! It seems in some case this update makes computer to permanently reboot.

So except if you are working on a test platform, may I suggest to urgently wait before autoinstalling it .

If you're facing some problems, it is simple as a program to remove it !...back to reliable SP2.

Now to be honest , I installed it at work on a new fresh install without any problem since days... but was a virtual computer !

PS : please no comment about MAc or Linux here ;-)

Of long term backup...

Last week-end I was lucky enough to have a conference from a forest admin here in france and he pointed a curious fact : to manage our forest we have readable and valuable information (on papers, sometime only painted !) around 200 years old... but we are unabled to read data only 15 years old, since computers are used to manage this forest !

We , IT guys, are all aware of the backups necessity. The best practice of keeping backups in safe area, in at least two location and to try full restore from time to time. OK with that ?

Who tried to restore data only 5 years old ? then 15 years old or more ??

Some cloud solutions appearing now (Amazon S3) ; other SAN with fiber chanel ; they are only answering the technological question of today...what about in the future ?


... but in some years , how will we recover data from there ? Once software and systems will be updated... Should we all keep a paper version of every file ?

How do you plan to manage long term backups ?

Of remembering password after vacation

As IT expert you have a backup of your data, you have checked all systems with last security patches and upddated your antivirus program. You have stopped all modifications on application and or system since a week or two...

Did you save a list of your daily used passwords and keys ?

You may have given some of admin passwords to the team in charge of the support during your vacation. But if not ?

I already see comments like 'no, never write down any password, never !" I did not ask you to create an spreadsheet with all your password, and leave it under your keyboard (I saw that today from a supposed high lebel user ) But keep the paper version at home for example then delete the file.

My better choice : I've only one to remind the database key one of my keepass programm ! I've writen it inside my mobile phone contacts. I can now go on vacation ! I have a backup of this database file on my computer @ home... without keepass installed on it.

PS : another good tip for your users : ask them to change their passwords once back from vacation, not just before going to sea side for three weeks !!!...

What is your paswword policy , to keeep them in mind during vacation ?

Of the 'Google excuse" for intrusive calls

Today, I've been called by an IT company for a job opportunity. The woman said they found me by entering 'CV' (french word for resume) in Google search engine.

Hey, I am in the Google for my eResume ! Or am I such a gurru to have a good page rank on this eResume. After a quick double check on my own computer, I saw she was obviously lying. This has been confirmed as soon as she mentionned my last job in 2003 !

Today Google is intrusive, we all know it. However is it starting to be an excuse for people with no answer to a basic question : how do you know me ? Ok, google is an entry point for most of Internet search today, but think please, think by yourself : how a french IT could be better known , or better noted that all the companies who are paying Google because they're sailing books about career search, hiring companies...

Did you already faced the "Google excuse" ?
More important : how do you track your old resume versions left on the web ?

PS : I will of course send here my eResume page

Of justification versus outsourcing support...

Recently, I have been surprised during an interview :

"please describe in few words why your physical presence is needed for the affiliate, if the headquarter can do the support remotely ?"

My answer was based obviously first on the fact that this French affiliate needs a french speaking support available on daytime in France. Moreover, I thought about response time for support, quality of feed back to end users, local management toward French providers of internet and wan, localisation of trainings , localisation of micro project; I'm also the best ears that IT Team in Headquarter could have to get feed back on application they're deploying over affiliate.. At the end , in conterpart, I suggested that I am also the best link to convince end users in this affiliate to apply group policies (at least in terms of IT)

This question was in fact to test my english level both in technical and professional speaking...
The answers were more than ok on both level : english level (ok, my spoken english may be better than my written English) and quality of answers in term of company needs point of view.

But this question is reflecting the most common question about ROI, outsourcing and all these kind of questions that a IT Manager (or even IT Director or CEO !) have daily in mind these years, I'm sure.

So what do you think ? How would you defend your local presence versus outsourcing ? In order to convince the managment that you (or even your complete team !) need to be physically here ?

Or may be , would you help headquarter to hire you (or your team !) to do remote support on this affiliate you so well anderstand and know ?

Of the good usage of support contract... from the Provider !

Today has started as a black Tuesday. As I entered the office 'Hey we have no more mails and can't connect ! Can you have a look ?' - says my boss.

The main Exchange server is down : powered off ! After restarting , I check all loags and (thanks to Nagios tracelog) I can see the outage time : 22:04 (10 PM) so it is not a human intervention in Paris. I so check with HQ in another European country : no they did noting even as test... So I check MSWindows event viewer : not any clear info. Pressed by management , I decide to leave it running.. for three hours !

@ 12:30 - lunch time !! key time in France ;-) - another crash ! I decide then to call HP with our support contract ! And then bingo : less than 1 minute to have ticket open, less than 10 minute for a call back of a technician !! He decided to ask me only two things , without going back to the begining and then decide to ship us new power parts !!! The contract was a four hours supports, but only 1:45 hours parts are in our office. Only 15 minutes to change them. And powered back the server is now live !!

Conclusion : it is a good think to have a support contract ! It is better to have a good provider linked to it. Thanks HP France!

Of Disaster Recovery Plan

IT life is funny. Years ago, like some of us in IT ;-), had been involved in Y2K plan !! Remember this noise about Y2K ??

Last week, I just finished our IT Disaster recovery and our headquarter (in another country) postponed it for one year, saying we're not a key element in the company, like HQ and Production and Research Lab are in its own country.

As our country here in France is in the top three of the company revenue among affiliates, it's sounds strange.


I have heard today at a seminar, an interesting idea (*) : Disaster Recovery Plan has to be seen as a company project.

Apparently they (the HQ) didn't saw this project as a company one... But did they do the same for all affiliates ? How did they evaluate the loss of France production or France selling for days or weeks on the global company revenue and health ?

Feel free to explain how you forced managers to go forward on disaster plans ?


(*) PS : other ideas from this seminar :
1 -recheck every year you plans as company life is changing, prices are moving, people and solutions are changing ;
2 - do a lot of internal and external communication about it;
3 - better a realiable plan that a theoricaly perfect plan
4 - check and update inside contacts as often as needed

Of surprise when teaching IT to the young kids in the 21st century

I do love « IT » even in my personal life. So far that I did accept to teach my oldest boy (10 years old) class on a Saturday.

I was ready for a 386 computer for twelve kids , a crappy MS Dos and children only ready to play with it…as we dealy hear that public schools are so poor. I was so wrong.

They had a Dell Computer for two kids and all of them networked to a laser printer ! So 12 computers whith flat panel screen running the very last MS Windows XP.

Then I discovered that children had to follow a very strict program : being able to correct a poem , colorize it , and then print it. Teacher was only there for spelling correction ! They were working with the very last Open Office writer !

I was thinking of the billions that companies’re still paying for MS Word to write simple letters…

Then I saw most of the kids jumping, once poem printed -without any help- on the fantastic Google Earth tool and sharing all together they summer vacation localization… still without any help ;-)

Here are the future generations : how’ll they fit in companies where internet access is prohibited and MS Word is still a standard tool for daily work ?

PS last night I had to help a father with a 12 years old girl blogging ! That achieved me !!...

Of new year personnal IT resolutions

Happy New Year and Best wishes to all readers for this new Year 2008 .

Here are my IT resolutions for 2k8 : It's around two months since I didn't post and will try to do it better this year. Then , as you can see, I'll try to only post in English to improve my writen english level...

and finally I'll probably completely switch all my online work to Zoho. I tested it for several applications last year and I'm convinced it's nice work there. See How many application they already have online , it's amazing to me :
I'm already using wiki for maintaining a website rules (shared with owner) of wourse writer (for last Christmas lists...) and will probably move there all my Google Docs.

PS
I'll also probably give to end user the first Ubuntu computer... as MS Windows is too big on it ! I'll install the 7.10 release and will come back for installation issues and end user feed-back...

De la vulgarisation à bon escient

J'ai lu ce week-end avec intérêt cette revue grand public parlant de Linux. J'y ai apprécié dans l'ordre : l'enthousiasme, la clarté des explications pour les néophytes, le dossier comparant les différentes « distributions ».

Les articles m'ont donné quelques nouveaux arguments pour convaincre d'éventuels sceptiques…

Pour les puristes qui critiqueront certainement le manque de profondeur des articles, il y a même deux pages 'Pour en savoir plus' regroupant une liste de différents éditeurs, à différents niveaux, des publications concernant Linux. Du simplissime « Linux : je me lance » de Micro Application aux bibles officielles de O'reilly « le système Linux-5° édition » en passant par l'incontournable « Pour les nuls »

Ce magazine Trimestriel n°18 est daté Octobre-Novembre-Décembre 2007… Précipitez vous chez votre libraire !

PS : Ce billet est un avis personnel qui n'engage que moi. Ce post n'est pas une publicité déguisée : je ne touche absolument RIEN de l' éditeur lafont.

Des nouveautés inutilement sur médiatisées...

A propos de la sortie d'Ubuntu version 7.10 (que je vais m'empresser de tester dans un environnment virtuel !) qui intègre la vision 3d du bureau lors de l'installation (*) par défaut je m'étonne que cela soit l'atout majeur relevé par la 'presse spécialisée'

Alors qu'avec une simple interface 2d type ms windows xp les utilisateurs sont parfois perdus dès que plus que deux ou trois fenêtres sont ouvertes ; de même peu d'utilisateurs ouvrent plus d'une feuille excel ou plus d'un texte Word ou plus d'un email sans être un peu perdu.

Pareille avec le tableur 3d qui était apparu dans le temps (... dans le monde DOS... préhistoire !) j'avais noté que Multiplan et Excel avait été plus apprécié des utilisateurs...Mais quelques SSII et autres organismes de formation (!) nous avaient assuré que c'était le seul avenir possible des tableurs !

Question : qui se souvient du nom de ce tableur ?... pas moi !

Action : téléchargez, au moins pour essayer !

(*)Les effets du bureau sont déjà disponibles dans la version 7.04 d'Ubuntu, mais ils ne sont pas activés par défaut.

De l’informatique sans la réflexion…

… où comment les hasards de l'actualité sur un portail font réfléchir !

Voici le portail vu en début de semaine qui m'a un peu choqué par son manque de retenue ! On y voit se côtoyer le pire de ce que peut engendrer le fanatisme, le pire du star système et du show business… et le pire de la façon de disparaitre pour un humain !

Allons messieurs et mesdames les webmaster, et éditorialistes de sites, un peu de réflexion nous aurait éviter cela. Le Web ne devrait pas servir, comme la télévision, à diffuser tout et n'importe quoi sans aucun control ni aucune réflexion.

Un portail d'une telle audience, devrait prendre conscience de son role de diffuseur d'information.

Sans aller bien sur jusqu'à censurer l'information, ne pourrait-on pas poser des avertissements et trier un peu l'information en continue ? Le web 2 et ses possibilités d'adaptation du contenu au lecteur devrait pouvoir éviter ce genre de bévue ? non ?

De la nécessaire purge ...de fichiers !

Afin de gagner rapidement de la place sur vos disques serveurs et personnels, faire la chasse aux fichiers Video est un moyen rapide !

Pour mémoire : *.avi, *.wmv, *.mpg4, ... sont tous des fichiers volumineux comparés aux tableaux et textes.

Aujourd'hui, avec l'accroissement du haut débit chez le particulier et de l'accès permanent aux emails en entreprise, les fichiers vidéos ont plusieurs sources possibles :
- vidéos blagues par email - rarement droles, mais toujours trops grosses
- vidéos de Youtube et consorts
- vidéos amateur de tel portable...

Puis un petit defrag du disque (system ou \mes documents) améliorera encore le gain de place

Que pensez-vous : des gains de bande passante, d'espace disque , de taille de boite mail seraient surement économisés par une éducation des utilisateurs ?