If you want the whole world to know what you’re currently up to or who you are but don’t want to spend hours building your Wordpress or Blogger account, try Tumblr.
Read a nice article on Tumblr on LifeHacker.
This is the result after I spent 10 minutes creating my own tumblelog.
At last, I will be attending a major web development event. I’m going to spend a week at the User Experience 2006 Conference organized by the Nielsen Norman Group (5 - 11 November, London, UK). Out of the 29 full-day tutorials available, I took 4 of them:
I don’t really know what to expect from this training, but from what I’ve seen on web experts’ blogs, it’s a very useful experience, not only because you learn a lot from people who know their subject, but also because you can become part of a network of people who have the same questions, fears and ideas about the web.
I’m going there with 4 of my colleagues, with different backgrounds and experience in web development and web content management. We’re not attending the same sessions, but the idea was to share what we would learn in each of our sessions and start to create a real community of web experts within our organization.
International organizations such as the UN are not known to be very reactive at changes about the web, but I guess it’s partly because people who give directions, plan a web presence strategy or make key decisions don’t really know what to expect from these changes and how they can/will affect the organization. As web designers, content managers, information architects, etc., it’s our role to help educate these people, and I’m sure participating in these conferences and sharing this new knowledge with our colleagues is the first step of this education process.
Has anyone participated in previous editions of the User Experience Conference? What’s the reputation of the speakers? Let me know.
By the way, I just finished another book, in French this time: “Au bord du monde: les mémoires du juge de Pinochet“. A must-read for all those who want to know more about what happened during the Pinochet era in Chile. The author is the judge who arrested and prosecuted Augusto Pinochet, who was head of the military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990.
Here’s the summary:
“Juan Guzman est issu d’une des familles les plus anciennes du Chili. Son père était un écrivain diplomate, ami de Borges, de Neruda et de Saint-John Perse. Enfant, Juan parle de longues heures avec la poétesse chilienne Gabriela Mistral, prix Nobel de littérature. Se rêvant romancier, il débarque à Paris, de chambres de bonne en petits emplois, avide de rencontres littéraires. Tourmenté, Juan Guzman passe plusieurs années à chercher un but à sa vie, traversant une crise métaphysique. ” J’étais un égaré “, confie-t-il. C’est en devenant juge qu’il trouve la paix. Nommé par Allende, alors que sa famille est marquée à droite, il débute sa carrière dans le Chili reculé des marais et des querelles de mineurs. Il s’impose comme un homme modéré, sensible à la détresse humaine. Après le coup d’Etat, il s’accommode de la dictature. Pinochet le nommera ainsi à la cour d’appel de Santiago, l’assemblée judiciaire la plus prestigieuse du Chili, pensant y placer un pion docile.
Le destin choisit pourtant Juan Guzman pour instruire les premières plaintes des familles de disparus, après le retour de la démocratie. Patiemment, obstinément, le juge tire le fil de ” l’affaire Pinochet “, embrasant tout un pays.”
Over the last months, I’ve discovered and started to use new tools available from Google. As for many Google users, it all started with the basic search engine, available through local domain names (I use google.ch). Some of the free Google tools Google that I currently use are:
For a complete list, see: Google Help.
I’ve become a sort of Google-addict, in the way that I’m really happy with the tools they provide and use them almost everyday. But isn’t this going to put me into trouble? I mean, it’s an addiction, and addictions are dangerous, right?
Seriously, I guess while some people are happily using all these tools Google is providing, some others think: “watch out, Google is slowly but surely storing all your private information on their servers.” I’m not a techie, just a lambda user, so I don’t really know how much information Google has about me. I don’t know if it’s interesting to them either, but the questions people are starting to ask around keep me thinking about it.
And then, a few days ago, I went to a book shop and I found this book: “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture“, by John Battelle. I’ve started to read, because I’m really curious about this Google-mania. Let’s see if I can find some answers to my many questions.
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