Twitter!

Hi to all!

Clearly, I haven't been able to live up to my promises and update this blog regularly.
Hence, I think I have found a better to share some ideas or tips that I might have, namely twitter! With an Iphone, it is quite easy to post stuff, and for me it is less time-consuming to just point to a link than explaining everything again, above all since English is not my mother tongue.
In case someone wants to follow me, my twitter account is: lillumultipass

From now on, I will post mainly on my twitter account, unless I have something really meaningful to say and I need more than 140 characters ;-)

So, see you on Twitter!
Cheers!

EDIT: I really think that using Twitter is a great idea, because when I read something interesting, I can send a tweet immediately with a link to the article. It is clearly an easy and efficient way to share stuff, ideas...
I think I will add something like "Econ" or "MacOS" or "Iphone" at the beginning of the tweet so that the topic is easily recognizable.

How to create an Itunes account in the US (or anywhere else for that matter)

Hello!

wow, two posts in three days! I am on a roll ;-)
It will be a very quick one though since I am just back from seeing the latest Harry Potter, and it is a bit late. The movie was quite good, even though of course, many things were missing and the end was, IMHO, a bit rushed.

Well, I am not here to talk about Harry Potter, but about Itunes. Say you are French, you have an Iphone, and you want an app which is only present in the US App store, such as the Kindle app. Well, there is a solution: you can create an US Itunes account.
Basically, all you need to do is to switch to the US App store in Itunes and then buy a free app. You will be asked to create a new account which you will do.
When you arrive at the page requesting your billing address and credit card information, you need to so two things: first, you select no credit card and click on "none"; second, you use Fake Name Generator and create a "false" identity for yourself. That way, you are sure that the zip code you provide will match the state.
Then you are done and you just have to wait for the verification email. In my case, it was quite long, so be patient.

From now on, when in the Itunes store, you can switch between your accounts. When you have bought an app in a "foreign" appstore, I think it is better to be logged in your "foreign" account when you synchronize your iphone. Also, to be able to use the app you might have to authorized your computer with the foreign account as well: just click on "Store" -> "Authorize Computer".

Well, that's it for today!

Some news and a Kindle!

Hello!

once again, it's been a long time!
From now on, I will try to post some more regular updates, even if I don't have that many relevant things to say. However, I don't think the problem was that I lacked interesting subjects. No, I think that I was just lazy! I had been working so much to prepare for my exam since the beginning of the year that after the exam, I felt like doing nothing.
By the way, I am still waiting for the results and they won't be available 'til the 28th of July. I am rather optimistic, but we'll see...

Anyhow, it was kind of funny because a lot of people kept asking why I was studying yet again! Indeed, I already have a PhD and 2 master's degree, which might considered quite enough, and this is what most people I talked to also thought. The thing is, I think I really like to learn some new stuff! I don't conceive life without reading books and discovering new things. Well, of course, I didn't have to go through this certification to do that, I could simply have taken a book about finance and read it. True, but some of the topics I have studied, such as financial statement analysis, are rather important for my job, but as I don't really like them, I guess that without a final exam, I would never have had the courage to study them.

Well, on to some more geek stuff: I have finally made up my mind and I have ordered a kindle 2 from Amazon.com! I have always been an avid reader but I have always preferred reading "physical" books: I love the touch, the smell of books and having them in my library. However, there are some disadvantages too, such as the fact that it takes a lot of room, and it is heavy to carry when you travel.
So, what made me change my mind? Basically two things: the first is that I have seen that there is an integrated dictionary in the Kindle which would allow me to check the words I don't get. This is quite neat given that English is not my mother tongue and that there are many words I don't know, above all when I read fantasy or sci-fi novels. This has never really prevented me from understanding the whole meaning of a sentence, but I think that if I have a quick way to check for the words I don't know, I will enjoy my readings even more (and my vocabulary will improve greatly!). Second, as we say in the financial industry, buying a Kindle is a bet against the future variations of the US dollar: indeed, I don't think the dollar will go up in the long run (vs the Euro), quite the contrary actually. Hence, buying books directly from Amazon.com in USD will be much less expensive for me. For the moment, because of the large shipping costs, buying from Amazon.com is not that interesting.

Finally, I should add that someone outside of the US is not supposed to be able to buy Kindle books. However, there are workarounds, and here is one link explaining everything:


I haven't tried it yet since I haven't received my kindle, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I have already "bought" some free kindle books, and I have downloaded them thanks to Kindle for Iphone, which, by the way might be a third reason why I bought a Kindle: indeed, when you own both a Kindle and an Iphone (with Kindle app) the books can be synchronized between the 2 devices and for instance, when you read something on the Kindle, the iphone will also remember your position in the book! In any case, it means that even if I don't have my Kindle with me, I can keep reading (for short periods of time of course!) on my iphone: it is really like always having my library with me!

That's all folks!
For the next installment, I think I will talk about some iphone apps. Or maybe some interesting websites I have discovered...

Until then...

Over the air syncing of iphone calendars and contacts

Hi to all!

It's been a loooong time since my last post. It's not that I was lacking interesting things to say, quite the contrary, but my job is keeping me very busy! Also, I have started studying for a certification in finance, which also takes a lot of time.

I will try to catch up with this post. First, I got the new Macbook Air, and it is awesome. I don't think I need to post pictures since it hasn't change since the Rev. A.
I knew it was very thin, but I am still amazed by how thin it is! It is really incredible! I have had lighter laptops though (the Toshiba R500 for instance...), but nothing as thin.
But, enough with the MBA, and on to the topic I want to address today: syncing one's contacts and calendar between your iphone and your mac/PC.
I have found a wonderful tool that allow such syncing: www.nuevasync.com.
Here are some thorough explanations:

http://theilife.com/2008/09/29/nuevasync/


Basically, it allows you to sync your iphone contacts over the air with google contacts and calendars. That's the first step.
If you want to sync your calendar with iCal, you need to follow a second step:

http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99358#ical

Following this guide will permit two-way sync between google calendars and iCal.
Finally, if you want to sync google contacts with address book, here it is:

http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2008/05/mac-os-x-1053-sync-google-contacts.html

Hence, your calendars are synced between your iphone, iCal and Google calendar.
Likewise, your contacts are synchronized between google contacts, your iphone and Address book (although this last part does not seem to be working for the moment...)

Well, that's all for today. I would really like to post something about Quicksilver, arguably the best MacOS app IMO. At first sight, this looks like a simple launcher, but it is actually much much more than that! It is more like a remote control for you Mac! Here is a primer:

http://openmediaboston.org/node/276

'til next time!

Reciprocity?

I have just found this amusing quotation by Alice Thomas Ellis that I would like to share:

"There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters."

I don't know whether that's true, but it's funny!

Diary: Job: +1, Apartment: +1, Girlfriend: -1

Hello,

I don't know whether this is obvious or not, but I borrowed the idea for the title from a movie. Which one, that is the question!

The answer is: Bridget Jones, the Edge of Reason. I got to watch this movie again a few weeks ago, and at the end, Bridget ponders on what happened to her in the past year, and it goes something like this "boyfriend: 1, lesbian kiss: 1, got arrested: 1 ...". Well, I didn't have as many stunning experiences as Bridget Jones, since I neither got arrested nor had a gay/lesbian kiss, but still, this has been a busy year so far!
The latest thing being that I have found a new apartment in Paris, located not too far from my new job and in a nice place. This is very exciting! I am starting my new job tomorrow, and I am actually quite eager to start since it will certainly be intellectually satisfying; hence, I hope that my mind will be totally engrossed in what I will have to do, instead on delving into the past or having dark thoughts as I currently do.

It is weird: I don't have any brothers or sisters, so that I have always been used to being alone, and I seldom get bored, since I always have something to read or to do. Even when I am in a relationship, I don't mind being alone from times to times. However, without my ex-girlfriend, I feel more alone than I have ever been, and all the things I used to like doing when I was alone --like reading-- don't have the same appeal now that she's not around! This is kind of stupid because I certainly don't need her to enjoy a good book, but I guess that's what is implied when you say "she made the sun shine more brightly". I guess that's how I feel right now.
Well, it's only been a month, I hope it will get better as time goes on. Still, it is not easy when you know that the other person misses you almost as much as you miss her, and even though you have tried everything you could possibly do, she wouldn't change her mind. And well, yes, of course, the problem is that you still love her so much...

As to the movie Bridget Jones, well, it's quite funny at times, and I have enjoyed it, but it might convey the idea that one always deserves a second chance, whereas in life, things are not that simple...unfortunately. And of course, it has the usual "happy ending" where the two lovers finally end together against all odds.

Three windows apps: printkey, photoresize and evillyrics

Hi to all!

today, I want to talk about 3 free windows apps that I really like.

The first one is called Printkey and is a useful utility that allows for very easy screen captures of any size and shape. Captures can then be pasted into Word documents or saved as .jpg images for instance.

The second one, photoresize is useful for batch resize of pictures, something which is dear to my heart. Here, all is very simple: just change the number after "photoresize" to change the size of the final picture, and then drag&drop the folder with all your pictures over the photo resize, and press enter. Done!
For instance, Photoresize800 will resize your pictures to 800x600.

The last one, EvilLyrics, is only useful for those that use Itunes : it automatically imports lyrics as you listen to songs in iTunes.
I am still looking for something good to import artwork on Windows (with my iMac, I used a very cool widget, but there is nothing equivalent in Windows, AFAIK), but to no avail.

'Till next time!