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Californication.

My California trip ended up in Los Angeles.

I was happy to reconnect with two friends who live too far from me. The joy of seeing Rhea and Andrew again made my trip beautiful. The time I spent with them was rich, fun and full of happiness.

Road Runners

In May 2010, I drove from Point Arena, Ca. to San Francisco. 

The drive on route 1 was beautiful. We were driving a rental car (Ford Mustang 2010 Convertible). Point Arena is north of San Francisco. Nothing much to see there, except the Lighthouse (the highest one in the US).

While Ralph was driving back to SF I did this short film. I hope you enjoy it.

Antennagate.

Mediocre people think that because they do a mediocre job, that everyone else does too.
On Friday, Steve Jobs was forced to take the stage and speak about what he rightly called “the Antennagate”.

During the iPhone 4 press conference Steve explained that Apple rigorously tests new products before putting them on the market. To defend the product further, a tour was organized to show journalist the facility that Apple built to test the iPhone 4.

Digg v4: A Step into the Future?

Kevin Rose returns to Digg.
Digg’s founder, now the new CEO, announced a month ago a new version of Digg.

Last week, I was luckily invited by Kevin to try out the new site.
 Digg’s redesign makes it more like a social network like Facebook or Twitter. Digg now makes it easier to follow people, to friend, while sharing is the new core feature.

Apple Store Paris Opera: Curtain Pulled Back.

It is Open.
Apple open the doors of its parisian mother ship store in Paris. While Apple fans started to line up around 2:00 AM, the morning rain prevented the crowd to really enjoy the opening.
The magnificent french architecture of the building was preserve by Apple. The new store features a 110 foot wide storefront. The huge metal and glass doors, arched windows and ornate wrought-iron balcony railings have been carefully restored.

Apple Store, Opera: Opening Soon.

Apple’s future Parisian store, still under construction, shows this morning a new look.

While on my way to work, I passed by the construction site. Workers were covering the front of the building with the Apple Logo and the inscription:

Apple Store, Opéra
Prochainement

Book: Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

Delivering Happiness A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose written by Tony Hsieh.

If you are an entrepreneur or thinking of becoming an entrepreneur this book is for you.
It is a narrative about Tony Hsieh’s experience in fine-tuning a workforce to insure a company’s success.
He explains how his process in turning problems around in order to built a billion dollar company.

How to Block Facebook Apps From Posting on your Wall.

On Sunday, a friend complained about all the annoying Facebook apps posting on his wall.

Farmville, Mobwars, Pillow Fight, I’m sure you can name other ones that you find aggressive, annoying since these notifications take over your wall and your news feed, which might be more important to you.
Some might find these apps amusing but most friends including myself think that these applications get quite annoying and take-up to much space. 

They have become an equivalent annoyance as spam is in your email inbox.

There is a solution so you can block these apps from your profile and also from the news feed....

The Secret of Happiness.

Writing a blog to share some of my experiences and knowledge is not always easy. I challenge myself by choosing to writing in English (my mother language is French). Since two and half years, I have learned a lot and have progressed a lot in my writing (I hope). Thanks to Ralph.

Writing for me in general is a challenge and then added my self imposed rule of doing it in English makes it harder for me than finding an actual subject to write about.
My curiosity and my constant desire for learning gives me many reasons to share. The number of friends who pose daily questions also aides me in finding subjects to write about on this blog.

iPhone OS 4: Sneak Peek into the Future.

The launch of the iPhone OS 4 for developers was announced by Apple last week (Summer 2010 for the iPhone users).
iPhone OS 4 counts 100 new features that we were all expected since iPhone OS 1. 

Apple iPad Has Arrived.

The Apple iPad is officially for sale in America. France has to wait until the end of April (no official date or pre-order date has been announced).
Yesterday Apple aficionados lined up in front of every US Apple Store to get the new “promised” and anticipated “tech-tool”. People started lining-up at midnight -the scenes in my opinion was a little ridiculous since you could buy one later in the day without the wait in most stores.

Ralph Brancaccio Manhole Cover Printing

via www.youtube.com

Artist Ralph Brancaccio video of his manhole cover printing project. Film made for his Paris 2010 exhibition.

Google LatLong: Navigate your way through user photos in Street View

After Microsoft Bing Maps Beta (a Silverlight application) released last week, Google is improving Google Maps by using users photo in street view. 

Google Buzz: Why another Social Network?

Google launched Buzz last week: Buzz is an update/photo/video sharing service. Buzz is integrated in your Gmail and allows you to go beyond status messages. With Buzz you can start conversations about the things you find interesting.
Whatever that means, it seems that it is another way to share yours ideas with family/friends/strangers. You have the choice to go public or to stay private.
The force of Google is the integration of Buzz into Gmail. In no time, Google was able to take this product from zero users to millions. Buzz can be if successful, a real competitor for twitter or facebook.

Identity Theft.

During the past couple of weeks, my iMac 24’ was acting strangely: applications were freezing or quitting unexpectedly. Last week, it became more serious when the finder blocked many times throughout the day. I ran Disk Utilities and got this wonderful message: This drive has a hardware problem that can't be repaired. Back up as much of the data as possible and replace the disk. See an authorized Apple dealer for more information.
Basically telling me that major problems were looming.
My iMac is less than a year old (April ’09), fortunately I got the Apple Care plan when I purchased it. So it was not a financial concern.

Skribit Launches.

Every author has experienced a dry spell making it difficult to produce new work.
As an active blogger sometimes finding new topics to write about is difficult.
In april 2008, I found a new method to assist with inspiration: Skribit.

At the time Skribit was described as a free, customizable, user-generated content suggestion application for blogs to help bloggers gain reader insight. It enables readers guide bloggers to know what interests them.

Hypermotard 1100EVO SP

In August 2007, I had a dream. To make a dream come true, you need luck or someone to encourage it through. I’ve got both. I’m lucky to share my life with someone I love and who loves me to ensure ALL my dreams come true.
In October 2007, I got the chance to start flying with a new motorcycle: a Ducati Hypermotard 1100S and since I have not stop.
Last week big news came out! Ducati released its new 2010 model now called Hypermoard 1100 EVO and EVO SP.

HNY MMX.

My primary business goal for 2009 was “Survival”.
2009 was a year of challenges. The first few months were problematic because starting in October 2008 orders dropped. This loss continued until March. Then we started to see the signal turning from red to orange and then finally green.
The second part of the year was challenging because when the orders started to come back in, I had to reorganized (YET AGAIN) my staff.

Paris Apple Store Opening

It seems that all “Parisiens” woke up early this morning to join a line to get into the first Apple Store opened in France.
I could feel the growing excitement of the huge crowd which started in front of the new store and continue to the street and into the Louvre Garden.
I heard that the first Apple customer arrived at 4:00 this morning.

How to link an external content to your facebook profile?

There is different ways to link External content to your facebook profile. By entering the link (URL) into the “What’s on your mind bar” in your news feed or profile page in the sidebar. You can also enter the URL from an external site into the box on the right sidebar, and click "Post".
To do this first copy the URL from your browser and paste it into the correct bar. There is a different way to automatically do it without copying the URL and switching to your facebook page. You can bookmark “Share on Facebook” directly into your favorite browser.

Apple Store Paris : November 7th?

We all know that Apple keeps a tight lid on its store openings and product launches.
Their policy of secrecy creates a buzz, keeps us wondering and it increases the suspense. We are never disappointed. 

Ducati Hypermotard: Open Dry Clutch.

Those of you who have been following me online these past few years might know that I own a Ducati Hypermotard 1100S.
I love riding my "Hyper". It is fun to ride, fast very comfortable.
Its light weight makes it easy to ride in city traffic. I do not find anything I dislike like about the bike in its performance or design.
The "hyper" has a dry-clutch multiplate with hydraulic control.

The Attack Against Twitter and Facebook show their Vulnerability

Twitter vs Facebook. One of my last post was trying to explain the similitude and the differences between the two.
On thursday august 6th, the two famous Social Networks were attacked, which left Twitter down for a few hours and it slowed down Facebook. The aggression was described by Biz Stone (Twitter’s cofounder) as “massively coordinated”. (http://blog.twitter.com).

How to: Import Video into Final Cut from a Sony HDR-TG1.

I got my Sony HDR-TG1 camcorder back from the repairman. Sony finally fixed it perfectly, and free of charge, but only after giving me such a hard time.
I appreciate the gest but I think we should not have to always fight to get due service.

Importing video into final cut from a Sony HDR-TG1 (TG3) is much easier than what you would think.

I am using Final Cut Express (FCE). The process is the same with Final Cut Pro.