Short Post-SHiFT Note [en]

[fr] SHiFT est terminé. Blogtalk commence.

SHiFT was really nice. Interesting things, writer’s overflow, but not writing. Check out Suw‘s notes on Strange Attractor: talks by Dannie Jost, Stowe Boyd, Martin Röll, Kevin Cheng, Euan Semple.

Suw’s talk was great, I’ve finally understood what ORG is about — and a bit worried about the situation in Switzerland.

Kudos to the SHiFT team for being so proactive in asking us for feedback during the closing party. Conference organisers everywhere, geek girls would like girly-shaped T-shirts, please! (Reaction to men-shaped T-shirts, however cool: oh, good, another one to sleep in.)

Many things not mentioned. My apologies.

I’m in Vienna now, with a cold, for Blogtalk reloaded. Looking forward to talking with John Breslin tomorrow, and hoping to get a chance to catch danah and Matt too.

Laurent Haug Talks About coComment at SHiFT Conference [en]

Here I am in Lisbon, Portugal, trying to finish packing before my plane takes off. I was here for two days to attend the SHiFT conference. Before I leave, however, I’d like to mention the great talk Laurent gave about the lessons learned from the launch of coComment last February. It was very instructive (I was surprised to learn things about that period that I didn’t know!) and inspiring.

Laurent Haug and coComment logo at SHiFT.
photo by Mark Wubben

I’m not certain, but I think that a video recording of all talks made at SHiFT will be put online (they were recorded, in any case), and I’ll let you know when that happens. For the moment, check out Laurent’s slides and notes on his blog.

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Initially posted on the coComment blog.

Using coComment's Social Network [en]

John Cass tells us how coComment is making him discover people. Here’s what he says:

As I write comments on various blogs and track those conversations I start to come across the same people on different blogs. The value of CoComment in part is in helping me to quickly identify those people who share many of my interests. CoComment really is a social network that you can use to find people who share your same demographics and psychographics. In fact I’d suggest instead of calling social networks, demographic search engines, call them psychographic search engines.

What about you? Have you had a look at your coComment community? Has coComment encouraged you to get to know bloggers who participate in the same conversations as you better?

At coComment, we make a distinction between:

  • your neighbours, who comment on the same subjects as you;
  • your favourites, people you have explicitly chosen;
  • your subscribers: those who have marked you as a favourite.

Do these distinctions seem relevant to you? Do you use them? We’d like to hear from you.

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Initially posted on the coComment blog.

Ongoing: SHiFT [en]

[fr] SHiFT a commencé. Plein de choses que je devrais bloguer, mais... Voilà.

SHiFT has started, and I’m feeling very guilty about not blogging and photographing everything. Oh well.

Of note for me this morning, two talks: Lilia on personal blogging meeting work blogging and Laurent on the lessons learned during his adventure with coComment.

Scattered Lisbon Travel Notes [en]

[fr] Quelques notes en vrac au sujet de Lisbonne. Résumé: ça se passe très bien.

This post will be updated on-the-go. Come back.

  • Big city. Really big. Jorge, my kind host, says 3 mio inhabitants. If my memory is correct, that’s roughly three times as big as Zürich, the largest Swiss city, and a half of Switzerland’s total population. I had no clue. IIRC Pune had 3 mio inhabitants when I lived there.
  • Praça do Principe Real: very nice and calm square. Lots of benches to sit down, and even tables!
  • Stairs. More stairs. Hills! Lausanne doesn’t even come close.
  • Red and green lampposts.
  • People queue for the bus, “UK-style”.
  • Beggars, some maimed. I’ve seen lots of beggars in India of course, but maybe they just came in as a bundle with the rest of the culture shock, which is why I never had the feeling I had been particularly stricken by the amount of people begging. Here, I am. People sleeping on doorsteps.
  • Hot. Summer-hot. “Where’s the shade” and “can’t we just live naked” kind of hot.
  • Colourful. Day and night.
  • Two classes of kindergarten kids. One with yellow hats, the other with blue hats.
  • Mad drivers. Not the Indian kind. You can’t just jump in the middle of the road and expect them to swerve around you or slow down. You can’t start walking on pedestrian crossings like in Switzerland, secure in the knowledge that you have right of way. I regularly find myself hoping that the driver headed right for me doesn’t consider me expendable.
  • Healthy helpings in restaurants for the moment.
  • Nice supper last night at the Granja Velha, Rua dos Douradores 200 (Baixa).
  • Nice “nouvelle cuisine” style lunch at Porco Preto, just off Praça das Flores. Complete with warm cheese and strawberry jam.
  • My next digital camera will have integrated GPS-based geotagging.
  • Mir. de S. Catarina has a nice view. Unfortunately it seems to be the haunt of a bunch of guys who try to strike up conversations with tourists. I realised that I’m pretty good at playing deaf, or at pretending that I don’t understand English (or French, for that matter). I just tell myself I only understand Hindi 🙂
  • Seriously thinking about not over-doing it, hence this little expedition back to my “couch” before I head out again at the end of the afternoon. It’s too hot outside, and I also need to take a break from new things, or I’ll overdose. I’m also here to relax, and I think I’ll enjoy it more if I don’t spend my whole time walking through the town and playing tourist.
  • More photos on Flickr.
  • The flight of stairs to my host’s appartment just keeps getting longer and longer each time I go up.
  • Weird magic locks (turn three times to the left, once to the right, jiggle the key, do a little dance and the door will open). Well, not quite, but it did take me 10 minutes and a phone call to get in.
  • Lots of francophone tourists.

In Lisbon! [en]

[fr] Bien arrivée à Lisbonne.

Safely arrived in Lisbon. CouchSurfing rules. Photos on Flickr.

Lisbon by Night 02 Lisbon by Night 04
Lisbon by Night 11
Lisbon by Night 20 Lisbon by Night 17
Lisbon by Night 41 Lisbon by Night 37

A l'étranger jusqu'au 4 [fr]

[en] Off for Shift and Blogtalk. Be back on the 4th. Catch me by e-mail or SMS if you need to communicate.

Comme prévu, je serai absente jusqu’au 4 (conférences Shift à Lisbonne puis BlogTalk à Vienne).

Pour me joindre durant ce temps, e-mail et SMS sont les moyens les plus appropriés.

Petite anecdote dans le genre “j’y crois pas”: train Lausanne-Genève, 9h du matin. J’ai enlevé mes tongs et je me suis roulée en boule sur le fauteuil pour vaguement faire la sieste. Le contrôleur vient gentiment m’expliquer que je ne peux pas mettre mes pieds (même tout roses et fraîchement douchés) sur la banquette sans utiliser un papier de protection. Il est sympa, il a amené une serviette en papier et la dispose sur le siège au bon endroit.

Par contre, mon sac de voyage qui a traîné sur des sols plus que douteurs, il n’a pas besoin de papier de protection, lui. J’ai fini le voyage les pieds de retour dans mes tongs.

Integration Page Updated [en]

Here we are! The page explaining how to integrate coComment into your blog has just been updated. You’ll see some changes in the javascript integration code — but not to worry, the old code still works.

Let me take this occasion to clarify again what this whole “integration” thing is about. When coComment captures comments left on blogs, it needs to catch all sorts of information: blog name and URL, comment author’s name, comment content, etc. Clicking on the bookmarklet or using the extension tells coComment to do that.

When coComment is integrated into a blog, two things happen:

  • the different variables coComment needs are given to it directly
  • coComment is given the power to catch the comments.

Consequence: if you integrate coComment into your blog, coComment will have the correct data (blog and post names, etc.) and will know to capture the comments made on it, be they by coComment users or other people.

If you don’t integrate coComment into your blog, then we still try and catch the comments (if a coComment user requests it by posting in the thread or simply choosing to track it) with the coCo-crawler. This is, however, a less precise way of capturing comments for the moment.

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Initially posted on the coComment blog.

Two Updated Plugins For WordPress [en]

WordPress users, this is for you! Two useful plugins for coComment have been updated:

  • coComment Enhancer by David has gone up to version 1.2.3b, with bug fixes as well as French and German translations.
    This plugin will integrate coComment into your blog. This means that it will ensure that coComment gets accurate data (post name, blog name, post url, etc.) independantly of the way you set up your template.

    It is definitely the easiest way to make your blog friendly for coComment if you’re using WordPress, and it ensures that coComment gets the right data even if you change your template.
  • Show coComments by Pablo has now been bumped up to 0.2 stable release after some bugfixes.
    This sidebar widget allows you to easily display your comments or conversations on your WordPress blog. It also works as a normal plugin if you don’t have a widget-enabled theme.

Thanks a bunch to David and Pablo for taking our feedback into account and updating their plugins. If you don’t use WordPress, all is not lost: check out our Integration page for instructions about integrating coComment into your blog (the little imps tell me it might very well be updated soon, so keep an eye on it). To display your latest comments on your blog, use a blog box which you can customize to your liking.

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Initially posted on the coComment blog.

Difficultés à comprendre le fisc vaudois? [fr]

[en] This is part of a printout from my tax declaration, or whatever you call that in English.

Déclaration d'impôts

Maintenant, vous savez pourquoi!