Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Danskere i Toulouse
Efter en god dansk frokost en uges tid tillbage, blev jeg spurgt om ikke jeg kunne komme med et forslag til et website der kunne bruges til at dele lidt erfaringer med andre danskere der er bosat her i Toulouse, eller som planlalegger at komme hertil. Det er hermed gjort.For Google og andre interesserede foelger hermed et link der nok kun er sjovt hvis man er dansker og har noget med Toulouse at goere: Danskere i Toulouse
21:51 | Permalink | Comments (4)
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Le Danois 2.0 (new blog)
I've decided to focus on blogging about things I come across at work instead of writing a personal blog. If you're interested in enterprise architecture, J2EE, Java, Open Source and the tools used by small companies, you might want to head on over to Le Danois 2.0.Don't expect new posts in this blog, at least not for the time being.
21:57 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Let's go Web 2.0 for a day
PS: Create your own Web 2.0 logo here
Technorati tags: web20
09:10 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
US only web solutions
With the big wave of US only web solutions, the Europeans seem to have been left out of the loop and have basically become second rank web-citizens.
When a new web solution is in the makings, the authors plan a quick alpha version roll out that'll give feedback in regards to whether the product works as expected, before adding more features and get the funding needed for next rollout. If the product is a web based solution created by a US company, chances are that they'll limit their solution to US users in the first couple of roll outs. Localized services will demand US zip codes, money is $ and interface language is English.
The second, third and fourth rollout will contain bug fixes and extra features, but surprisingly internationalization never seems to be one of the prioritized features.What ever happened to the pretty story about the internet breaking down geographical and cultural barriers?
Many web solutions that launch as US-only solutions stay that way for the product lifetime. Although a few tech-hungry Europeans use the US solutions and accept that there are some features they cannot use, the products do not come close to seeing their true global internet potential.
Living in a country like France makes the effect even more obvious. As if it wasn't enough, the US solutions will never have their breakthrough on the French market if they do not add French as a choice of interface language.
How long has the Google Calendar existed? Did you know that users who have chosen French as the interface language do not even know that the product exists, since the link is not visible for them?
Cork'd is a great web solution. Use it to manage a list of wines you've tasted and manage your current collection. Share your experiences with friends and let everyone know where to get a good but cheap bottle of Bordeaux. Let me rephrase that: let your US friends know where to find a good but cheap Bordeaux in $. How can someone create a web solution for managing wine collections and recommendations without ensuring that it's usable for French users? Imagine the market potential!
I completely respect the fact that it is hard work to create a solution that can be localized for everyone, that has the major world languages for the interface and that enables the world's major currencies. I just have difficulties understanding why it seems to be such a low priority?
I know that the fact that the French still in this day and age demand French as the interface language make them somewhat exotic, but one cannot ignore the size of the French market when looking at Europe.
One thing is that the US creators of web solutions do not prioritize other markets, but how come Europeans are so slow at picking up!?
tags: europe, internationalization, globalization, internet
16:15 | Permalink | Comments (3)
Windows Live Writer review
Windows Live Writer is a desktop application for authoring weblog posts. Contrary to what one might expect, the Windows Live Writer application also work with non-Microsoft blog platforms, such as Blogger which I'm using.
Look and feel
First impressions is that the interface is nice and simple. During installation it read my stylesheet and created a local copy if my weblog template, so that I can get a true preview of my posts. Since it knows my stylesheet it can also give me an authoring view that lets me write my posts in a format that is exactly like it'll be once posted. It gives me a good idea of line length, etc. That's true WYSIWYG for ya.
Maps
The map feature is (sadly to say) once again a US only feature. Actually that is not one hundred percent true, since I did manage to insert an aerial photo of Toulouse. The closest zoom I could get to was however a general aerial view of Toulouse, which cannot be used for directions, and "road" view are not even available for my neck of the woods.
Images
Since you see the posts exactly as they will appear once posted, you can get a real impression of how your post's text will be aligned with the image. Cool stuff - or at least that's what I thought! It turns out that the image posting feature doesn't work for my blog platform of choice.
Update: I just tried the image upload towards Wordpress and there it works fine.
Plugins
The tool allows the creation of plugin which is a great move. I installed the Tag4Writer plugin which works great.
Conclusion
The Windows Live Writer is a very well done tool for blogging to blog platforms that are supported by the tool. The lack of image posting to Blogger does however disqualify it as a tool that bloggers such as myself would use. Too bad, since it seems very nice to use.
Tool download
Download the tool from the product weblog
tags: windowslivewriter, bloggertools, blogger
13:55 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Champagne at the town hall
The town of Toulouse is so kind as to invite us Danes and Swedes living in the pink city for champagne at the town hall once a year.
Technorati tags: toulouse
13:42 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Friday, May 26, 2006
No wonder bicycles are stolen in Toulouse
This morning I learned (to my big surprise) that bicycles aren't tagged in Toulouse. The police wouldn't get anything out of checking bicycles to see if they're stolen, since they have no way of identifying a bike.In Copehagen, where I'm from, bikes have registration numbers engraved. This way the police can check whether bikes are stolen by simply looking up the registration number in their registry.
I haven't yet bought a bike here in Toulouse since I've been warned about the high risks of having it stolen, but with the completely insane traffic we have nowadays, it is getting more and more attractive to purchase a bike.
PS: The organisation www.fubicycode.org
is trying to get bike tagging introduced in France.
Technorati tags: toulouse
12:56 | Permalink | Comments (8)
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Enjoying the spring
In Denmark the snow that fell in December is still not gone. In Toulouse I'm sitting on our terasse in t-shirt. Hehe...13:03 | Permalink | Comments (1)