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I had been expecting this for a VERY longtime. Cecilia Bartoli's official website is now up online, and presents her upcoming performances. Expect to see me fly to Zurich and London to attend some of her concerts / recitals this year. Anyways, I've only seen her perform 9 times so far ;) She's near Verbier, Switzerland (in Martigny) this upcoming sunday.
PS: too bad the site doesn't like Firefox yet (some HTML mismatch does happen...)
Well, I suppose all my talking on this blog about trying linux hasn't tired you yet? I tried another distribution over the weekend, very straightforward:
It's called Mepis. You just download a CD image from the net (20 min for me for a 650Mb file), burn it onto a CD (10 min), and reboot. Not only did it work immediately, logged me onto a nice graphical environment (KDE), but it showed up all partitions of the Windows XP laptop I was using. Cool: no need to log into Windows, no need for passwords! I had instant access to all my files.
Summary: this is a post about a nice linux distro you should try, not about snooping around other people's hard disks ;)
What happens when you have a subscription to a cable provider for TV that carries over 100 channels, to a high-speed ISP that carries over 80 channels, have a business that rents out over 6,000 movies ? Well, you never go to the movies again. Actually, I believe, that until tonight, I hadn't been to a movie theater in over 2 years. Reasons include the above, and also bringing up a young kid, and launching too many businesses at the same time. No time period.
Well, what a blast tonight: we went to see Ray, the bio of the magnificent Ray Charles, who passed away last year. The movie is incredible in many regards:
- real good biography of the artist, although it sheds a lot of new light on a womanizer, a drug addict, and a man haunted by his past (the drowning of his young brother). It stops in the mid 60s, with a quick scene in 1979. Although interesting in itself, it could have been any biography on screen: that of a playwrighter, sports professional, etc.
- the more interesting part for me was to see how by sheer will and opportunity, a gifted young man takes control of his life, and starts building a career for himself, eventually turning into a very successful business man. Yes, that's what I wrote: Ray Charles was as much a business man as an artist. And he did not need an MBA for that, just real godo common sense: in that respect, a very good example for aspiring entrepreneurs
- some cliché scenes, although I would argue, really well blended into the flow: difficulties for a crippled/handicapped person to push himself forward. Indeed no handicap should be considered as such, and we should all really extend a warm hand to our next of kin.
- finally, some really beautiful music (the one we all grew up with) from the man who contributed his talent to the world musical heritage.
After 2:30 hours, you feel you shared a large part of the life of Ray Charles. The actor playing his part, Jamie Foxx, WAS Ray Charles in the movie, with a most extraordinary act. No way he's not winning the Oscar tomorrow for BEST actor this year.
If you haven't seen this movie, give yourself a treat: go for it.
Update on 28.2.05: Yeah! Yeehaaa! Well, Jamie Foxx DID get the Oscar for beat male actor. Well Done. Also note the rather strange Chilean born director Alejandro Amenabar got the Oscar for best foreign picture (funny, he was born one year after me in Santiago, Chile)...
This is probably something you didn't know: Google has now a built-in calculator.
"To use Google's built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation you'd like done into the search box and hit the Enter key or click on the Google Search button. The calculator can solve math problems involving basic arithmetic, more complicated math, units of measure and conversions, and physical constants. "
Pretty cool huh ? For those folks out there using a real browser, such as Firefox, there is a little search box on the upper right of the browser. Calculations work in there too, which means you can always use it easily ;)
The Google help page lists more of these rather incredible search tips. the one I like next is the ability to retrieve information about a Fedex, UPS, etc. parcel, directly from your google search box... You can also try entering an address for a map, a stock ticker for updated news of the company, an airline number for latest flight info, and even information on who links to your site.
Check here who links to this blog (link:sepulveda.net and link:rodrigo.typepad.com).
Folks, just added a little RSS feed in the top right of this blog to show the latest 10 DVD titles we have entered in our catalogue at glowria. The list is very dynamic, as we source every day for more content: I believe we entered 49 new titles yesterday (meaning you can rent them from us right now). We now have over 6,000 titles (no adult movies, ie. X-rated...), and more than 200,000 copies, meaning we aim at giving the best availability per title around (well, at least availability that makes economical sense to everyone).
The RSS feed for the whole list is:
http://www.glowria.fr/glow2/viewNewTitlesFeed.do
If you want to give us a hand, and display this list of the 10 latest movies on your blog, you can add this little code to your blog:
<Strong>Latest DVDs in <a href="http://www.glowria.fr">glowria</a>'s catalogue</Strong><script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.quickrssfeeds.com/rss2js/rss2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.glowria.fr%2Fglow2%2FviewNewTitlesFeed.do&chan=no&num=10&desc=no&date=no"></script>
<noscript> <a href="http://www.quickrssfeeds.com/rss2js/rss2html.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.glowria.fr%2Fglow2%2FviewNewTitlesFeed.do&chan=no&num=10&desc=no&date=no">View RSS feed</a> </noscript>
Finally, if you want to add the skyscraper ad about glowria on your blog, here's the code:
<a href="http://www.glowria.fr"><img src="http://www.riscpartners.com/img/promo-glowria-1.2.gif" border="0"></a>
Thanks for your help! And we really hope you will enjoy the service.
It seems I get more comments on posts about nothing or on jokes, than on more thoughtful posts... So here goes another one of those good movies you can find online, available from this new address I have just discovered: POOXI.com.
(via myself)
Just saw this little app on the crazy 20/20 blog. Looks nice and fun: you just enter a thought on a webpage and it shows up on your blog ;)
Seems really like a nice company to work for... Get the clip here.
(via Anne)
Update on 25/3/05: we have just got a copy of one of their internal training videos. Stimulating.
(via Anne again)
Forget about Google Adsense or Amazon's affiliate program. It is tedious to make money with their service (although it works handsomly for a happy few). If you live in France, you should try a new service: it's called cash-back, and www.cashstore.fr is offering it.
How does it work ?
The girls (well it happens to be that way) at cashstore have negotiated special deals with up to 86 online shops in France (including all the major ones. I hear one of the largest online e-tailers is joining them real soon) in finder's fees or referral fees. They then share that with their customers: they keep part of the commission, and you get part of the commission as a discount. That means you can get up to 15% discount on existing prices at their 86 partners, and of course you can add them to other promotions.
You just need to buy through cashstore. Some of the deals they have are even exclusive. It's nice, they just give you money back.
I had lunch yesterday with Cashstore's founder & CEO, Catherine Barba, whom I had worked with many years ago at OMD, the media agency. She shared with me some of ther numbers, and I must say that they are rather impressive for such a young company.
She's also launching a special promotion program next week: you can win 5€ if any of your friends buys through cashstore. Give it a try yourself. Catherine announces it herself in this little clip...
Words sometimes mean nothing. In her case, they mean a lot. Please help support the campaign for the liberation of former Colombian Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt who sadly completed her 3rd year in captivity today. One hostage among more than 3,000 hostages in Colombia, who represent more than 50% of hostages in the world. Last november I posted about her 1,000 days in captivity, and also about 2 French journalists who have been freed since.
Ingrid is one symbol, representing all those in captivity for no reason than petty crime or political bargaining. I mentionned it the other day: a French journalist, Florence Aubenas, is now in her 50th day of captivity in Irak. Her interpreter, Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi, is there with her. An Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, is there as well (20 days already), and Versac mentionned a few others such as Fréd Nerac and Guy-André Kieffer.
To help, you can get this banner from Reporters sans Frontières:
