Archive for May, 2006

With such a title I should be ready for some flak. But this is just what announces a Neilsen Netratings survey commissioned by the Independent on Sunday.

There, you will learn that the United Kingdom is fast becoming the best market for Internet pornography thanks to a phenomenal growth touching – Yes ! – women as well as men. The Relate analysis says that 40% of couples seeking mariage counseling cite Internet Pron as a significant issue and Phillip Hodson, from the honourable British Association for Counselling and Pyschotherapy, told to the Independent that where men were lazy in foreplay, they became lazy in… sex.

Nothing tells me that this trend should be limited to British people, so I expect other English-speaking people, like the Americans, to appear in a future similar study. Then, you should also expect the latin lovers from France or Italy and other Mediteranean countries to be recognized as attracted to virtual sex and Internet pornography. Just wait a littel more.

The world biggest indexation site for BitTorrent contents, ThePirateBay.org, would consider itself totally immune from actions from copyright holders associations (like the American RIAA and MPAA) because of its geographical location in Sweeden. As a matter of fact, in this Scandinavian country indexing contents (showing where to find them and not providing them by yourself) seems to be fully exempt from risk of being accused of data pirate activity. There were years that the owners of this web site were even having fun at the menacing, and often barely legal, letters they received from many people and companies.

Today, in the morning, the Swedish police raided the place and the server host of ThePirateBay.org and seized all computers. The web site is no longer accessible while police is investigating whether or not they contain objectionable or illegal data (illegal according to the Swedish law). For now, nobody is really sure of the outcome, even the police did not want to take any position, and some local lawyers think that ThePirateBay.org should come out clean.

The answer is an obvious YES after the recent Comscore Networks report. It appears that after nine consecutive months of progress, Google is now reaching 50% of all searches on the Internet. The competition is far behind.

Early on, the priority of a serious blogger becomes to confirm factually the number and the origin of the visits to her web site (usually, this is the first step to optimize the paying advertisment). In order to fulfill this goal, several management packages may be found. I tested several of them (with WordPress, even if most of them are working with nearly any other web site solution).

Google analytics

Supposed to be fast becoming the market leader (due to the size of its sponsor), Google Analytics has the major inconvenience of not being officially started yet and to be available only if and when you are invited.

I could not yet be invited (having a working gmail invitational email address seems to be a good trigger here). So, I could not test it yet.

This missing information is now available in a separate post/article about Google Analytics.

Alexa

The less well known search engine also provides services for web site owners, like visits statistics. The constraints on the site design are very small but they quickly admit that they are only really interested in big web sites (those appearing in the top 100,000).

Since roumazeilles.net is only around 700 or 800,000, I am still wanting some more.

Performancing metrics

Performancing is a company providing a wealth of services to web site owners (even more specifically for bloggers).

In the midst of the paying offer, there is a service providing free stats for any kind of wbe site (or for a family of web sites). The home page of the stats package looks approximately like the following:

roumazeilles.net stats (click to enlarge)

The major interest comes from the large amount of collected data and that you can have a look at the top 5 or at the totoal data for each presentation set (for example, you can check ALL the words used in search engines to reach your web site – very handy).

Internal statistics (Webalyzer v2.01)

This is the one I use for the longest time. Webalyzer is very detailed and ripe with well-presented data and graphs. But it is starting to show its age and lacking a few recent developments (like advertisment management). As it needs to be installed directly on the Apache server of your hosting provider, you either have it in the hosting package or you don’t. But it is so simple that many providers include it as a standard.

www.spamanti.net statistics (click to enlarge)

Internal statistics (plug-in CG-Referer)

To be commented later.

While the American Congress saw earlier this month a video seemingly proving that extreme muslim militants used modified American video games to recruit kids and teenagers in the fight against the great American Satan (Reuters news), it appears that this was a kind of hoax.

As a matter of fact, we just learned that the 10-minute video was simply a funny prank (not even with clear political motives) from a 25-year old Dutch gamer (Wired news). Some little audio and video cut-and-paste allowed him to produce a small video ‘just for fun’. But – apparently – some either decided to fully exploit it or did not even understand what they had found. Whatever the exact explanation, those who are ready to fight extreme fundamentalist muslim terrorism by all means do not benefit from this blunder.

[YR: Edited to add links to sources]

That is what can be infered from a Reuters UK news article.

After other firms (like Nikon, most prominently) who have already left this dwindling market, Canon would be considering it. At least, there is some lack of precision since the news bit has been modified by the authors after first publication. What was very affirmative is now only “considered”.

Anyway, it is clear that Canon has to consider very seriously the fact that film cameras are no longer selling reasonably well (everybody wants a digital camera, and only that – whatever the price). It has been said repetitively that Canon is no longer manufacturing but just selling the stocks despite the lack of communication on this issue.

A few images I shot in the streets of Paris during the 2005 Halloween celebration organized by an association of shop keepers in the Guy Moquet quarter. The costumes were quite interesting and the acting was very lively.

Click on the thumbnails below to open the larger image.

Real fun! If you know who the actors are, please, leave a comment below. I’d like to thank them and send printed copies if they like.

As many camera makers now, Pentax is reaching for technology that provides the promise of blur-free images. While Canon and Nikon aimed at stabilized lenses for their SLR cameras, Pentax chose an approach more similar to what Konica Minolta initiated with a mobile CCD sensor that is moved slightly by magnetic forces according to information provided by a motion sensor included in the body of the new K100D camera.

This is interesting because all the lenses are instantaneously stabilized (by the body). On the opposite, Canon and Nikon lens approach brings a magic kind of feeling: When you look into the eye piece, the image does not move while your unsteady hand trembles. But, please, notice that Pentax is bringing this to a camera that is targeting to low end segment of the D-SLR market.

The other important features of the Pentax K100D seem to be:

• An 11 point AutoFocus promises very good performance
• A 2.5″ LCD monitor seems to become the de facto standard today
• 6 million pixel image
• AA standard batteries (end to the war of camera battery standards?)

Or so says the LeapFish webs ite which specializes in price evaluation of web domain names. If somebody wants to buy my web site for this price, I am ready to sell. But I am still waiting for the first offer.

Worth noting, my other great web site SpamAnti.net, would be valued at $31,974. Even better. I would have to hide this from the French Internal Revenue Service (le fisc).

Akismet did it again. They upgraded slightly their excellent SPAM-fighting tool.

It is currently protecting my web site against SPAM in the comments and trackbacks. I wouldn’t do without it. Highly recommended.

«The alchemy of desire» is a surprising book. Its author, Tarun J. Tejpal, is know in India as an essay writer and an investigative journalist participating fully to the political life of his country. But his first novel is a total success.

I had heard an interview of the author in les Matins de France Culture (on France Culture, the French culture-oriented public radio) where the journalists seemed to be simply in love with the book. So, I bought it. And I was not disappointed. A very vivid writing with a permanent profusion in front of the reader’s eye and her other senses. At the end of a love story that seemed to be promissed to be eternal, the hero not only goes through his life again, but also crosses the recent history of India. Far from being a mere exotic journey to India, it is a vision for the inside bringing bright flowers of unqiue characters.

A short quote (in French until I find the original text):

Il n’y a pas de doute : dans le sexe, les hommes stationnent au camp de base. Ils peuvent jouir des nombreux plaisirs de la moyenne montagne, mais les sommets vertigineux leur sont refusĂ©s. Il leur manque le souffle, l’imagination, l’abandon, l’anatomie. Leur tĂąche consiste Ă  prĂ©parer les vrais grimpeurs : les femmes, artistes des hautes cimes. Ces chamois capables de sauter d’arĂȘte en arĂȘte, de sommet en sommet, jusqu’Ă  la vastitude de l’Ă©ternitĂ©.

Depuis des millĂ©naires, les hommes luttent contre cette certitude. Ils connaissent l’existence des altitudes inaccessibles. Il n’est pas facile d’ĂȘtre infĂ©rieur.

Il n’est pas facile pour un sanglier de vivre parmi les gazelles.

Flesh, blood and desire are quite present in this writing, but they do not cede to the quality of writing and are mostly a guide of characters through the humanity. All senses are activated by the words on the paper.

Additional note: The ornythologist in the reader will appreciate how much knowledgeable Tarun J. Tejpal is when it comes to birds. They are everywhere in the book. Bulbuls, a coucal, owls or various passerines are also real secondary characters of this work.

This is not everyday that Internet adopts a new TLD or Top Level Domain. We were quite well used to the more common .com, .net, .org, .fr and other similar national suffixes. Now, here comes .mobi targetting use by the mobile operators (mostly in telephony) a little like we had received .tv some time ago.

You are now welcome to buy your own domain name in this space. But I guess that if you only have a mobile phone in your pocket, there is no need for running.

An article from the Raw Story titled “US military, intelligence officials raise concern about possible preparations for Iran strike” seems to be complementing my previous paper about a future nuclear war in Iran.

What is interesting is not that military is preparing the war (they are asked to prepare all kinds of options with plans, organization and tests) but that it seems that preparations have gone as far as allowing the organization of advanced support inside Iran. This is the usual spy job but, seen in the context of the ever-pressing effort of the US administration on the UN during all this Spring, the mind starts to put things in place and we begin to see that this could well be a real intent.

In August 2003, American armed forces found in Iraqi more than 30 military planes buried in the sand of the desert (no doubt to protect them aginst the attacks of the American forces during the second Gulf War). The Aerospaceweb.org web site presents us photos of the extraction.

This is sufficiently weird and funny that I wanted you to have a look at the image of the work. Apparently, the American spies were quite happy with it since the buried planes were from a very recent technology (and Russians would not really appreciate it).

It is always difficult to find the right GNU/Linux distribution for a specific need (There are so many of them around the Internet!). This is why I wish to show you a web site where you’re supposed to answer a few simple questions to be directed to the best possible distribution for your Linux needs.

This is not because we are on the web that we are not interested in reading newspapers. On the contrary, reading a web site like Roumazeilles.net proves that you may be quite interested, first, in reading.

I collected a few web sites where you can get some professional publications that invite you to join their readership for free.

• French-oriented publications
• Scientific Computing World for computers applied to science (international version)
• Europa Science Ltd. is a magazine publisher specialising in European scientific, technical and medical markets, with five titles currently published
• Electronic Design News
• Reed Business Information is North America’s largest business-to-business information provider, covering 23 market sectors with more than 100 market-leading publications and 75 Websites.
• TradePub: FREE Trade Magazine Subscriptions & Technical Document.
• French-speaking electronic Press

Bonne lecture !

Tired of running around to cancel spammers messages since I setup the feature of comments on this site, I decided to reinforce the filtering policy and to setup an automated filter. For that purpose, since I use WordPress, I chose Akismet whose operation is very efficient. The vast majority of the SPAM is simply detected. Some (those where Akismet is not certain) end up in the moderation queue – I must give my own advice. Recommended to fellow bloggers.