Heri

Bon je regarde cet article qui ramène de vieux souvenirs. Je regarde la liste, et je me rends compte que je les ais plus ou moins réussies (wohoo!!!)

Ce qui nous ramène en 2009: je n’avais pas fait l’exercice, et je ne sais pas trop si j’ai fait quelque chose de substantiel non plus. 2009 a donc plus l’air d’une année passée dans un trou noir.

J’ai donc décidé de faire une liste de projets majeurs à réaliser pour 2010:

• travailler sur mon “web application cheat sheet”, regroupant marketing + UI design + rails
• mettre en ligne un site cool de photos, probablement le projet le plus gros
• connaître ça, le qigong
• un petit grand voyage à Bahia, Salvador

• je ne sais pas encore comment, mais faire du parkour et de l’escalade
• de la calligraphie
• et quelques petits secrets que je ne pourrais écrire sur ce blogue!

• Program user interfaces with javascript
• Do user interfaces elements, and do an entire GUI
• Do a real C program
• Put a story on digg’s or reddit’s frontpage
• Build a SaaS service — or build a new kind of website that’s truly profitable, with no hacks
• Shoot videos — or to put it in other words, find awesome ideas to put on videos
• Use After Effects or Final Cut Studio
• Snowboarding
• Muay Thai
• Parkour
• Not being afraid to fail
• Not Tempted at all to act on how and what others expect you to do and behave
• Focus on simple things once (as in: get rid of everything apart from bare essentials)

Félicitations à l’équipe de Telomiova pour leur nouveau site. Au menu des changements:

• Une page d’accueil plus claire, plus facile à comprendre
• Un réseau social à telomiova.net pour les membres (enseignants, étudiants, participants, équipe). Le nombre de fonctionnalités est assez impressionnant (voir “site-wide activity”)
• Un portail qui aggrège les contenus, avec des pointeurs sur d’autres pages ou destinations

C’est un travail assez impressionnant (même si la première version était déjà très bonne) bravo à l’équipe, ils peuvent être fiers du résultat. Je pense que le site couvre 100% de leurs besoins et qu’ils peuvent mainteant se concentrer sur l’adoption du portail (et aussi sur le financement, parce que à ce niveau, je ne sais trop comment ça marche pour eux)

Pour ceux qui se demandent ce qu’est Telomiova, voir ici:

Le projet Telomiova consiste en un ensemble d’initiatives visant à favoriser l’accès aux nouvelles technologies et surtout accompagner l’intégration, la maîtrise et le développement des usages des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication pour l’Education (TICE) dans l’enseignement à Madagascar.

Yesterday was the peak, with Barack Hussein Obama elected for president of the USA. I thought it didn’t involve me, but finally it does.

See the video above. It empowers & inspires us to do new things. A little magic in the air. As if we were asleep previously and now is the time to wake up, brace up, and build things. For me, personally, it’s believing that I can also change and change things. And you?

Grand Corps Malade – Du Côté Chance

Je me rappelle avoir lu que les artistes nous rapprochaient de Dieu (ou des dieux). L’auteur de l’expression n’y mettait aucune signification religieuse; mais voulait dire ainsi que les meilleures oeuvres artistiques faisaient entrevoir un idéal perdu, ou une Vérité qui nous échappe que trop facilement dans la vie de tous les jours. Quelque part au fond de nous, quand on voit un chef d’oeuvre d’un artiste, on aperçoît ainsi dieu, à travers la quasi-perfection d’un trait, à travers des paroles dont on connaît d’avance la vérité, à travers l’élégance d’une expression.

Même si cette explication est complètement arbritraire, et d’une certaine façon futile, elle me vient en tête en écoutant Grand Corps Malade. Dans le clip vidéo par exemple, il y a une sincerité vraie, que l’on ne trouve nulle part ailleurs, ainsi que d’une voix qui touche. Des détracteurs diront que ce n’est pas de la musique, que ce n’est pas engagé, que c’est simpliste, que je suis bien impressionnable, que des fois il se répète, que c’est juste l’expression d’un temps et que ca va donc sûrement se démoder dans quelques années; ils ont peut-être raison, mais qu’empêche … vous comprendrez maintenant pourquoi j’écoute maintenant en boucle son album “Enfant de la Ville“.

Early June, I went to yulblog, a monthly event gathering Montrealers who blog. I usually don’t come to this kind of event, but since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d drop by.

yulblog takes place at La Quincaillerie, which is a great spot for this kind of event. They’ve got big tables — think tables for 15+ people, plus beer, and a young festive crowd.

I didn’t met many people. For those who know me, I’m not the kind of guy who will speak to everyone every minute; I’d rather have a long conversation with someone, be it a friend or someone new. One of those was with Alexandre Enkerli. He teaches at Concordia University, and is studying social software.

We had a long exchange; he argued that not that many people will use services like Twitter or other social services common tried by early adopters. In Twitter’s case, I argued that it has novelty uses, and I see very well most people use it as a communication medium in the years to come. Alexandre pointed out that Twitter has too many flaws to be massively adopted. I guess though we had the same thoughts; I foresaw that a new distributed, interoperable social software would come up; something that could be used by any so that they could own their own data but still participate and exchange with their contacts/friends. In more practical words, that means a software that could be installed like WordPress on a user’s server, where he/she would put their activity stream, photos, videos, blog posts, and profile info, and would automatically pull data from their friends, be it from their own servers or a big provider like Facebook.

I have no idea who will come up with this software, but I think that’s the way it should be; and I bet it would be achieved by dec. 2009.

Now, for the technical part, I’m still thinking things over. OAuth seems to be a laudable initiative, although I find the authentication dance between the 2 websites (the server provider and the consumer) completely ridiculous, on an user experience point of view. It’s confusing, way too technical, and screams nerd overload.

Ideally, a website should be able to automatically detect if a user is using a website that has interesting information, open up an overlay form asking if the user wants to use his profile from that website, go to this website, and finally clicks the confirmation box. And that should be all. 1 screen, 2 clicks and no more to authenticate and make the 2 websites “talk”.

I am also currently building a webapp that would even bring down the total of actions required to just 1. This is a special case, because even though the services are on different servers and locales, the ring of websites share the same codebase.

Malagasy Ltd is an emerging company which was labelled “startup business of the year” in the U.K. last year. 

They are selling produce from Madagascar, and specifically target products that can be reselled with a high markup, namely coffee, chocolate, and spices from Madagascar. These are bought locally, for a fair price, and then transformed and packaged in a local manufacture (say instead of doing it in an European factory).

Products are then sold in a health and fine food store.

I really like the approach taken by the business’s founders. This is not a NGO or a non-profit but a business which analyzed the value-chain and pinpointed key products that could be sold successfully in european markets. The marketing approach is great too, by telling the story of the Island. Of course, everything is done according to trade fair principles.

I wish they’d sell some in Canada. I know a few people who can help them make it an instant success.

Congratulations to the founders, namely Tsiry Wilkinson, Nel Kelsall

I have discovered just recently that there was also another Heri in Montréal, who happens to be also a guy from Madagascar.

See, I have just spent the whole 2007 year getting introduced as ‘Heri’ to everyone I met, and nothing else, and the bet was that I was the only one wearing that name here in Montreal and possibly in Québec. Having another guy named Heri doesn’t make sense anymore then to call me to just use the first name.

Oh well. Expect an update of the blog soon, as I might just get a new design too.

I lived for 7 straight years in Kenya, and this shaped most of my personality, my music tastes, my view of the world. I also learned how diversity can enrich a nation, but at the same time, each group keeping its own culture and characteristics.

In this sense, Nairobi with its diverse population coming from the Europe and North America, from South-East Asia, all over Africa, and of course the infinite diversity of Kenya ethnic group was a symbol, an oasis compared to the continent. When the Rwandeese genocide erupted, at the other side of the Great Lakes, people would thought that it would create instability in Kenya. Indeed, Kenya and its neighbors received its share of refugees, adding up to the contigent from Somalia, but stability and good life prevailed.

One of my “real” souvenir would be watching The Lion King with its “hakuna matata” motto; and I think it captures one part of the kenyan spirit.

The events that started in Kenya from 24th December are very sad, and the saddest thing here is that they were mostly started by a tiny group of politicians (I could count them on 2 hands). I know most kenyans don’t have any problems at all living with other ethnic groups. Politicians whose only sole envy (ego) is to be in power are ready to sacrifice the soul of their country just to get 4 more years.

This is is important because as history showed, they might just succeed (cf Zimbabwe)

Nevertheless I am confident in the turn of the events. This time, it will somehow get solved, as there is too much in stake. And more importantly, I believe in the Kenyan spirit. I saw just a few days ago about a documentary about a Canadian-Somalian-Kenya singer, named K’NAAN, who authenticity and generosity is inspiring.

Je vous souhaite beaucoup de santé, de succès et de prosperité

Pour 2008, j’ai beaucoup de projets, et j’espère trouver le temps pour en parler sur ce blog:

• Blitzmaker est un web app pour les gens qui travaillent sur le web,
• Montreal Tech Watch, encore et toujours,
• un projet sur des “social tasks”,
• un jeu persistant massif (MMO) – on verra si ce sera purement HTML+javascript, ou si je peux faire un client Flash,
• Blitzweekend, un camp pour créer des produits en 48 heures. Ce qui est intéressant, c’est le coté compétition entre équipes.

Avec d’autres montréalais, j’ai aussi 3 projets en cours:

• un gros projet pour créer un portail sur montréal, avec un annuaire, des cartes etc. rien d’extremmement innovatif, mais ca va prendre néanmoins beaucoup de travail
• j’ai aussi un projet sur les microformats. je ne sais pas si ca va marcher encore, mais on verra tres bientot (en mars) si ca “poigne”

Bien sûr, ce sont juste les projets web, ruby on rails, à Montréal… question de rester focusé sur un sujet.