Intranet [en]

Writing web pages for an intranet is nice: if they show up OK in your browser, you know that they will behave the same on all the company’s computers.
Orange is giving me a good chance to mess about with CSS – and now that I look at the stylesheet I use here, I see there is a lot of work to be done.

I also want to slightly redesign (haven’t I been saying that for ages?) and clean up all my files.

My “helper” at work made me discover EditPlus, which is, I must admit, an improvement on Notepad. Even if it was just for the coloured tags and the multi-file replace.
So I’m hunting around to see if there is anything better, and also looking for a good free FTP client.

Suggestions, anyone?

Sérénade [en]

Le travail chez Orange est très chouette – mais il y en a beaucoup. Je devrais normalement avoir trois personnes pour m’aider (l’une d’elles est déjà  en place, et fait vraiment bien avancer le schmilblick).

Mes examens de français approchent à  grands pas, et avant eux, les deux séminaires qu’il me reste à  faire.

Quant au chat, il insiste. Après avoir chanté une sérénade aux chattes de la “dame au balcon” – à  dix heures du soir bien entendu, pour qu’il puisse la tirer du lit – il a encore récidivé cet après-midi après que j’ai péniblement obtenu du concierge la mutilation du buisson coupable (coupable de permettre à  Bagha de pénétrer en territoire interdit).
Tout ceci s’est donc accompagné d’un téléphone peu agréable qui contenait menaces de tribunal et suggestion d’abandonner mon chat à  la SPA. Ah oui, et ce serait aussi un bonne idée que je déménage. Heureusement que la dame de la gérance n’avait pas l’air de prendre toutes ces plaintes trop au tragique: “non, mais vous inquiétez pas pour ça…”

Orange Work [en]

Work at Orange is exciting, but tiring. There is too much work for one person (coding something like 400 Powerpoint slides in HTML) so I have an assistant, and should get two more on Wednesday.
Only thing, they don’t know HTML yet, so I’ll have to teach them some basics before they can really help me.

More and more, I’m realising how much I have learnt about web designing and publishing. I also tend to forget how little the “common mortal” knows on the subject. Hanging out with the “web designers” community on the Net doesn’t help!

Kitty Kitty [en]

If you want the news, you’re going to have it.

Bagha has been going balcony-climbing quite regularly – or so it seems.
Thursday ten p.m., he even did a bit of singing up there. Unfortunately it woke the lady up. She was quite irrate. I guess I would have been too.
Friday morning, phone call. Summary: if things don’t get better, she will file a lawsuit against me. She recommends that I get rid of my cat or move somewhere else.

Guess what state I was in.

The woman at the flat rental agency was nice, told me not to worry, and that I could go ahead and cut off the branch that helps Bagha get on the dear lady’s balcony.
This afternoon, I had a rather tense conversation with the caretaker, who was unwilling to let me mess around with his bushes as he hadn’t received any clearance from the authorities above.

With all the stress and tiredness of this first week of work, I ended up bursting into tears, and he ended up finally cutting the branches off.
I don’t approve of using tears to get results – but I must say they changed the situation dramatically.

So I let Bagha out after 48 hours of confinement.

And when I came home a couple of hours later, he was up on the damn balcony again. There was an alternate route.

Intelligence Emotionnelle [en]

L’intelligence émotionnelle par Daniel Goleman.
Critiques sur epinions.com (anglais) – autres liens à  ce sujet

Je me méfie beaucoup des best-sellers américains, surtout lorsqu’ils sont garnis d’une couverture qui fait “psychologie à  deux sous”. Ne vous laissez pas berner, cet ouvrage est bien plus profond que sa couverture!
Goleman explique en quoi notre aptitude à  gérer notre vie émotionnelle et nos relations avec autrui joue un rôle bien plus important en ce qui concerne notre “réussite” dans la vie (sociale, professionelle, affective, santé…) que les capacités dites “intellectuelles” que l’on mesure et développe à  l’école.

J’ai compris beaucoup de choses intéressantes sur moi-même en lisant ce livre, et je suis loin d’être une novice en ce qui concerne l’introspection et l’auto-analyse psychologique… ; )

Emotional Intelligence [en]

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.

Reviews on epinions.com – related links

I’m often suspicious of american best-sellers, especially in the domain of psychology. Don’t let yourself be fooled like I almost was: this book is far from shallow.
It explains how and why skills in the emotional realm play a far more important role in our lives than pure intellect (be it in school, at work, with family, or dealing with illness) – even though the development of these skills is not coached in any way, and left to chance.
I understood quite a few things about myself while reading this book – and I’m not thick when it comes to introspection and psychological analysis : )

New Phone [en]

Today I recieved my brand new Nokia 6210 in the post.
Thank you Orange!

Apart from that, there were complaints about my cat – behind my back, again. I’m really really tired of that kind of stuff.

Délation [en]

Ça commence à  bien faire!
Je croise ma concierge en rentrant, qui me dit qu’au moins trois personnes se sont encore plaintes de mon chat. Parce qu’il se promène dans les couloirs de l’immeuble. Parce qu’il rentre par les fenêtres ouvertes. Parce qu’il miaule derrière les portes.
Mais qu’ils me le disent à  moi, bon sang! D’autant plus que probablement, ce sont surtout des vieilles dames qui se plaignent pour le plaisir de se plaindre.

Passons.

TV Cereal [en]

Talking of my TV viewings in India (on the newly created DALnet channel #waferbaby), I remembered a few dreadful typos we came upon in the Asian Age TV program (the newspaper Somak said was so dreadful that one day he would see on the front cover “Gandhi shot dead!”).

  • Water Rates (not “Rats”)
  • Walker, Taxes Ranger (not “Texas”)
  • The worlds widest police chases (not “wildest”)

Do you have any fun typos for us?