Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda Schulz

Marc Andreesen on launching startups

Just discovered the existence of this stealth startup via Russ. Whatever they do, and whatever the rumors around them, I thought I'd share what they write in their about us page. Impressive wisdom.

We have been around the start-up block enough times to have a very clear idea of what kind of company we want to build. Here are some of the things we believe in:

    * Run fast, fly low, and be cheap

    * Promote from within--quickly

    * Keep everyone informed, both on the good news and the bad news

    * Organize based on a cell structure for both technical and non-technical functions
          o 3-5 person teams
          o Flat organization

    * Be transparent
          o Review projects every 2 weeks

    * Reward innovation, ingenuity, and hard work
          o Meritocracy
          o Evaluate and reward managers based on development of people
          o Top down reassignments of high achievers

    * Build a team with potential, drive, curiosity, intelligence and ambition
          o Don't have to have experience or a track record
          o We want people to build experience and track records with us

    * Train people
          o Everyone teaches
          o Honest, frequent feedback
          o Weekly 1:1, staff, and all hands meetings
          o Written career development plans

Mandriva buys up Lycoris assets

Heavy weak in the open source space! Mandriva is buying up Lycoris assets, with it seems a particular focus on its really easy-to-use desktop. The linux distro market is really concentrating into what 4-5 big players ? Red Hat, Mandriva, Suse Novell, Ubuntu... and a few live CD distros that we've already talked about.

Read the press release here, and an analysis here.

Jacques, is this why you were trying to reach me all this week ? Promise, I'll return the call ASAP ;)

Fedora Core 4 (linux) available.

Cool: my Ubuntu 5.04 box needed a new upgrade. Remember I'm also running Mandriva 10.2 on another one (sometimes I feel like a complete nerd.). From their site:

Fedora Core 4 is now available from Red Hat and at distinguished mirror sites near you, and is also available in the torrent. Fedora Core is available for x86-64, i386, and ppc/ppc64. Please file bugs via Bugzilla, Product Fedora Core, Version 4, so that they are noticed and appropriately classified. Discuss this release on fedora-list.

OSNews has an early review. Redhat Magazine has a lenghty description.

Get a free digital video editing tool

I'm told that this product from AVID is easy to use and free. The link is here:
http://avid.com/freedv/freeDVDownload.asp. They even have a free tutorial online.

A commercial alternative is also Sony's Vegas 6 product.

What do you use ? (Mac guys, I already know you use iLife!)

(via freevlog.com - it seems that they need to update their tutorial with a simpler service that I've already mentionned too many times)

Audio feeds had iPodder; now video feeds have Fireant

I was complaining 2 months ago that there was no version available for the PC of FireAnt (only Mac version then). Well that is over, a PC version is available.

Don't know the program ? Check this video here.

FireANT is the first software application that comes complete RSS subscription, Video Search, built-in BitTorrent, and the ability to sync media onto the iPod and Sony PSP.

Oh yeah... and its free!

If you ask me, after text (blogs), audio (podcasts), video is next (vlogging or video nanoplushing...).
There's a tutorial on how to make video blogging at freevlog.org.

ps: iPodder is here.

Mixing Space Invaders with Rubik's cube

I wrote about the artist behind the Space Invaders' attacks around the world. Jason points to this page as well. Pretty cool.

Above, another pix of mine shot in Paris the other night (hence, very dark ;) I got another shot in daylight, I'll update it shortly.

Uploading lots of videos... on DailyMotion

Folks, I've been uploading many many pictures to DailyMotion. You can see the last 8 on the right frame of this blog. If you want to watch thme quickly, just move your mouse over a picture: the movie will start. Otherwise click on any picture to launch a larger version.

If you want to keep track of any movie I upload, just add the following RSS feed to your reader:
http://www.dailymotion.com/rss/rsepulveda

If you want to know how I do it ?
- I take the movies with my small Sony P-150;
- I copy them to my Sony laptop just by transfering the 512Mb memory card
- I transcode the MPEG-2 file to a .avi using a DiVX 5.x codec (using DrDivx.com): I reduce the size of the picture to about 10% of its original size [optional step]
- I upload the .avi file to DailyMotion. Ite gets transcoded there to other formats (quicktime for the larger version, and flash for the videoroll).

Easy right ?

There shouldn't be any conference without a back channel

A couple of months ago, Loic hosted the "LesBlogs" conference in Paris. When the wifi was up ( ;), we had a great back channel with a rather average Java app, that was projected behind the screen. We all had lots of fun commenting live the posts: even Jason Calacanis started chatting with us while on the panel (was it boring otherwise ?)

At another event in Boulogne earlier this year, we had about 10 bloggers sitting on the front row on computers provided by the event organizer. Posts were projected behind the speakers as well. Great interactivity in the room.

At other events, Joi Ito usually uses his #joiito channel on IRC, but it might be slightly geeky for most people.

This week in Zaragoza, there was no back channel in the conference. Luckily there was some wifi in the auditorium. A few of us (Jeff, Julio, Loic, myself...) started using Skype in multi-user chat as a back channel. Jeff calls it the backskypnel...

Event organizers: for any conference in the future, make sure that you have gone through the following checklist for us, bloggers:

- enough power plugs for laptops
- enough wifi APs, and enough bandwidth
- a good sound system
- a projected back channel

KiSS Technology (Denmark) is releasing some very cool devices

I started seeing KiSS Technology boxes in Paris about last year. This company from Denmark (I thought at first it was just another brand from Taiwan) is releasing very interesting boxes. Check for instance their recent DP-558 device. It's :
- a DVD player (about every format out there, except of course DiVX 6.x that was released this week, but you should expect a firmware upgrade from them: yes! all devices are upgradable)
- a DVR (digital video recorder) with a 80 or 200Mb hard disk to record everything you like on TV.

Now what's special about them:
- well, the boxes have built-in Ethernet adaptors to plug them into your broadband router; services offered include games, weather channels (produced by another company called TinyStocks). Of course you can also connect it with a wireless card...
- what I really like though is that you can control your box (ie. program it) by connecting with any web enabled device to an electronic program guide (EPG). That includes your mobile phone!
- and you can play around by exchanging information between the box and your PC or Mac. Linux is not supported although the community has already made software for linux ;)

From their press release this month:

KiSS DP-558 hard disk recorder now offers
        programming and recording via the cell phone

KiSS Technology launches a remote programming and recording feature for its hard disk recorder via and the cell phone and the Internet. The DP-558 hard disk recorder which offers the world’s first connected EPG (Electronic Program Guide) can now be programmed to record from the user’s cell phone or PC. At the same time KiSS expands launches a DP-558 with 200 GB hard drive. 

KiSS Technology’s DP-558 which is the world’s first DVD-player and hard disk recorder with Internet-serviced Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) can now be remote controlled via a cell phone or the Internet using a PC. The user can access from for example the PC at work and programme recordings via the Internet. Furthermore, the solution has been expanded and now KiSS has developed a solution where the user can carry out the same features via the cell phone.

               

Anyone of you already has one of these boxes ? My only concern is that for instance the DP-558 is like 8 month old. Shouldn't I be waiting for the new box to come out ?

glowria releases a RSS feed generator

Folks, we've been working heavily on improving the 'product' of glowria, ie. our site, its content and experience.

First, we've just added an RSS feed generator: you can generate your own RSS feed with the information you are really interested in. That might be the DVD you have at home, the ones you've seen, the ones that will ship next, the new DVDs in our catalogue, etc. You can even choose the content you want in the feed: picture, actors, directors, synopisis... Pretty cool, to be absolutely up to date with our service.

Second, we've added an HTML generator for the RSS feed. That means that you just cut & paste the code we've generated for you and add it to your site or blog. The content will automatically adjust to what's happening at glowria every day. A great way to keep your blog fresh and dynamic. Check one example on my blog to the right (scroll down a bit).

Third, we've introduced film rankings: we've had our members rank our movies for the past 12 months. That means that we have now over 35,000 rankings & comments in our database for our more than 6,200 titles (remember glowria numbers never include adult movies, just in case you were tempted to compare our titles with competition). Hence we now display the average ranking of any movie as rated by our subscribers. You can now even give a mark to a movie without leaving a comment. This should become in the future as reliable as rankings on other major e-commerce sites.

Fourth, we've also expanded the information about all movies. You now have access to all the audio information (Dolby, 5.1, etc.) and subtitle information that we did not carry in the past. Not a big deal, but our members have been asking for it for a while, so there it is!

Fifth, we've also added upcoming DVDs as well. You can now add an upcoming DVD to your rental wishlist. It will be shipped to you as soon as it becomes available, and the date is shown to you. We keep up with our commitment to bring to our subs the largest and most available catalogue on the French market.

Plus a lot of other stuff to make our site more dynamic, better corporate information, a new offer for company employee councils (comités d'entreprise), FAQ, online invoices, an interface to change your credit card number, self-care tools, etc.

Coming up: expect a major increase in titles available in the catalogue, in availability per title, and a number of cool functions on the site. Oh... did I tell you we are now the online DVD rental channel on France's #1 ISP, Wanadoo ?