vincent bidaux  freelance web and application design

Summer photo Op. for Le Numero / 118 218. Shoot during the filming of TV Billboards for 118 218, by French director Maurice Barthelemy. Actors Soren Prevot and Pascal Vincent. Photos are being used for side online/offline communication, prints, swags and more.

• Watch the final billboards on 118 218 Dailymotion page

A website on wheels due to Sebastien Atoch from www.quadbyte.net and a design by Claire Burelli, both from Montreal, CA. I only did the integration, you know, the CSS with some xhtml bits in template files.

• Check the site here : ecologieurbaine.net

Ok this is not an extensive list, this is just my friends and I suggestions for nice and good restaurants in Paris. We think you can have great time in these. Call the restaurants and make reservations as much as possible.

1. Le Bistrot du Peintre – XIth district – typical parisian bistrot, moderate prices, not so far from Bastille.
2. Racine – not a lot of room, not so cheap but not that bad, a-ma-zing dishes, you HAVE TO try the porc lard, ask for it. Also the pork cheek is a revelation.
3. Polidor is a suggestion from Kevin W.
4. Le Train Bleu – amazing high ceiling old decoration classy restaurant of the Gare de Lyon train station. They serve their veal speciality for 30 years. don’t miss super chocolate generous Profiterolles au chocolat. Not so moderate price but not that mush though
5. Le timbre – Kevin W. suggestion, his favorite restaurant
6. Chartier – cheap, kind of – super experience of typical parisian brasserie where the rudeness of the waiters is part of the experience as they are some sort of shareholders of the restaurant. Don’t be afraid of queing up outside, you have to. Good and simple food. Never tried porc feet? It’s the place to give it a shot. On the Grands Boulevards not so far from Republique
7. Les Itinéraires – 34 euros menu, very nice
8. La biche au bois – Pretty not expensive very good game food
9. Les marcheurs de la planete – bastille (salade/cheese/coldcuts/wine), affordable depending on wine
10. Les Galopins – Bastille district
11. La fee verte – The green fairy, Bastille District
12. Café des anges - super afordable
13. Cyclo – Bastille district, vietnamese yummy
14. Nakagawa – great japanese restaurant, XXth district

I hope this is going to lead you to a great parisian culinary experience. Please tell me afterwards.

Follow me on twitter @vinchubang.

So I’ve been looking for a way to install Jolicloud on my macbook  but it’s not supported… Couldn’t either find a way to make it work with VMWare. But I did find a way to make it work with VirtualBox, hided in a comment thread.. as it works fine I thought I could republish it here.

Original post : http://www.jolicloud.com/blog/2009/06/26/introducing-the-jolicloud-alpha-2-release/

Tutorial author : http://hthetiot.blogspot.com/

1. Run the command to create a bootable VDI image (without quotes): “VBoxManage convertfromraw jolicloud-robby-alpha2-live.img jolicloud-robby-alpha2-live.vdi”
2. Run the command to create a new empty VDI image where to install the image with 4GB space: “VBoxManage createhd -filename jolicloud-robby.vdi -size 4000″
   Note: you can use -register option at the end of this command or register this VDI file from the VirtualBox later.
3. Create a new VM using the jolicloud-robby-alpha2-live.vdi (use the existing vdi option)
4. Attach the jolicloud-robby.vdi as a Primary Slave
5. Start the VM (boot)
6. Install

And I’m adding a last step to the list : Once the installation finished, close the VM and edit it, remove the primary Master (the vdi file) and set the 4GB primary slave partition to primary master, launch the VM again, and voilà!

Links :

• Virtual Box
• Jolicloud

EDIT August 11th 2009

Thanks all for feedback. I now run Jolicloud on a Lenovo s10 and share experience on Twitter. Follow @vinchubang to keep track of it. I do think that Jolicloud is making a point. I’ve been looking for such a simple system for ages.  My goal was to fing a simple system for my mother to use : she’s 70 and never used a modern computer and Internet. She’s going to love it, OSX has been a litle too complex for her.

What makes Jolicloud a good OS :

• Easy install (for an Alpha)
• Easy update
• The appstore-like application panel in the Cloud area (bye bye the ‘packet’ idea and crazy words like ‘Synaptic’)
• Easy update (no really!)

I remember when OpenID has been announced I was thrilled because I’ve been waiting for such a service for a long time. So many services, sites, forums to subscribe to, blogs to comment on, and often discouraged to create a new user account for just a one-time contribution. Most of people ended up creating the exact same account on dozens of websites: same login, same password, which is a terrible breach of security.

So I thought it would be great, and it would be easy to use and understand. It took some long months, even years, for the service to become popular and for platforms, CMS and framework to propose its implementation. Today, it’s almost everywhere. But in most cases, it’s not easy to use, because of bad practices that come with it.

Best example of bad practice

Very often found : a single field asking you to log in with OpenID.

The previous example comes from http://paris2009.drupalcon.org . It’s a Drupal website, and you’re ending up with this situation when you just activate the OpenID module on a Drupal website. It’s going to work for users who already know more than a bit about OpenID, but not for new users. Even if you click on the “What’s OpenID” link you’re not going to be told what you’re supposed to type in the field. Morevover, if you finally get what to type, you’ll be ask just after to create a full new account, yes, with a login, a password and various informations the site requires. Ok for the informations, but what’s for the login and password? Of course your account appears to be linked with your OpenID, but I really don’t see the point here. Mostly useless.

So what is a good practice for OpenID?

Check below how StackOverflow propose you to log in using OpenID:

That’s it, just click on one of the services you belong to, and you’ll be loogged into the site with a new account. Nothing to fill, nothing to tell. Click it. One told me that StackOverflow is known for this kind of OpenID good practice, so don’t hesitate, copy them! You want OpenID on your site? Do it the right way and propose these services buttons. If you don’t, don’t bother implement the single field, I bet that almost no one is going to use it.

A bit more about UI, User experience and openID

Notice how StackOverflow don’t propose you to create and account without using OpenID. They made their choice: no user account beside OpenID. Usually, when you try to login into a site, you’re getting prompted to enter your login/password or to create an account. Then if you decide to create one, you’re proposed to do it within the site’s user system, and a link invites you to log with OpenID. So in the best case scenario you’re two or three clics away to start registering. Why so much? OpenID option should be there right away, and even if it’s not the only way to login, it should be proposed alongside of the normal registering form, not in a different page. Remember that we don’t want interactions. We want to minimise our interaction. (citation got from a tweet of Leisa Reitchelt at UxLondon 06/09)

• Paris2009.drupalcon.org
• stackoverflow
• drupal
• opendID on wikipedia
• List of OpenID provider

Theere is also a usefull IRC channel called #drupal-design on the freenode.net IRC server. Last but not least, people from Acquia just created a dedicated area for Drupal themers and designers.

There’s also a twitter account to follow and a flickr group to post contributions.

Discount-marine.com is about to unveil its new website. It’s based on Drupal now, I am glad to have had the chance to redesign it. Here is some of the designed views.

This was written in a comment of a reddit item here.

Internet Meme Timeline
Spawned: 4chan
Developed: 4chan
Murdered: 4chan
Revived: Reddit
Complained about: Reddit
Noticed: Digg
Matured: Reddit
Subpage frontpaged: Digg
Made annoying: Reddit
Promptly dismissed: Somethingawful
Front Paged: Digg
Blood squeezed from the stone: www.icanhazphilosoraptor.com
Implemented into unfunny headline: Fark
Made into painful flash video: YTMND
Unfunny headline turned into meme: Fark
Automatically downmodded/buried: Reddit and Digg
Showed up at one point but no one cares because they’re too busy Twittering about their recent bowel movement: Stumbleupon
Stolen and used for profit: Ebaumsworld
Extensive advice about how meme can improve your blog: Delicio.us
Revived and considered mildly entertaining: Somethingawful
LOLcats noticed: Yahoo
Mentioned in magazine under the “we’re hip with the kids” section: Time, Newsweek, etc.
Forgotten: Everyone except Somethingawful
Revived months later to piss off everyone: 4chan

• Meme : definition on Wikipedia
• The source of the post on Reddit
• Reddit.com
• 4chan.com
• Digg.com
• Stumbleupon
• Somethingawful
• Ebaumsworld.com
• Drew Curtis’s Fark
• You’re the man now dog

(You may ask yourself sometimes where all the internet crap you’re being forwarded to comes from… Good chances it comes from one of the sites listed above.)

DarQroom is a very exciting project I worked for from September 2008 untill now. It’s a inpired website for photographers who want to get the most out of their photos presentation. It’s going to be VERY soon an open Beta, so you should stay tuned on www.darqroom.com and subscribe to it. This website can store an unlimited amount of your photos, including your tiffs and raws! You’ll also get elegant flash galeries (Pole Nord Studio flash developer colleague Morgan Legal has been involved in it).

Original artistic direction has been made by french agency Uzik. I’ve been designing screens since. Here is a selection of my work :

(featured pictures from my Flickr Album : Olympia + Heretik + le cabaret des filles des joies de Juliette Dragon)

OWS is my favorite partner for web development. They are in Paris, France, and they’re some strong experts in Drupal CMS. AND they have a new logo