Forums are very popular software. However, by internet standards, they are a very old technology. Such software are popular because of their ease of use and ease of installation, but they do not serve well the communities using them. In some of the other articles in this section, I give hints as to why forums are more often than not ill-adapted to the site's objectives.

Instead of a traditional forum software, I suggest building web sites around 3 main content types:

1. Wiki: the end result of the collaborative effort of the community.

Since the launch of http://overshoot.tv/ in 2008, I have been using and promoting more and more the Blog + Wiki + Issue tracker community web site concept.

This section and the articles below is to explain a bit more this concept, and why community/activist/development web sites ought to consider adopting it.

J'essaye depuis plusieurs mois de préparer le livre de Bon Papa Lemaire afin de le publier sur le net.

Une connaissance m'a fait un test scan d'une page, mais on avait choisit le mauvais format, donc mes essais d'OCR (reconnaissance optique de characatères) n'ont pas été fructueux.

To extract the audio from an .avi video file, use the command:

Make sure that the program oggenc is installed. I didn't know which package this program was, so I searched and found this nifty tool for Ubuntu: apt-file

Install it and update its internal database:

Then using this tool to search for oggenc told me I could find it in the vorbis-tools package:

$ apt-file search oggenc


As some of you may know, I am trying to scan a whole book written by my grandfather, as I plan to publish it on the internet. It is a very inspiring book which could change our society.

So, first thing first, I need to scan the whole book and use an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software as a first step to put it into HTML form.

This is the main documentation wiki for Ubuntu OCR.

I only had a test scan in .pdf format to test with, so I followed the instructions to use GIMP to transform it into a TIFF (.tif) file.

I mentioned earlier that after my last trip to Hong Kong and the aviary in HK Park, a silly manipulation mistake caused me to lose my most prized pictures, close up shots of exotic birds.

Il y a eu un très gros tremblement de terre il y a quelques minutes. Comme d'habitude dans ces conditions là, le site internet de la météo nationale qui publie les informations officielles sur les tremblements de terre est submergé de requêtes et est difficile d'accès.

J'étais assis à mon bureau, donc j'ai senti la première vague de secousses assez moyenne. Cho venait juste de finir son cours et était debout, et ne s'était apperçue de rien au début, mais a commencé à crier lorsque les gros chocs ont commencés. Le bâtiment entier tremblait.

C'est bien sûr avec beaucoup d'émotions que je regarde, en différé, la retransmition de la célébration du vingtième anniversaire de la chute du mur de Berlin.

En 1989, je suis allé à Berlin pour un long week end. Le mur est tombé le Jeudi soir. J'ai appris la nouvelle le vendredi; samedi j'étais en route pour Berlin, arrivé le Dimanche au petit matin.

C'était une semaine un peu folle, un voyage fait sur un coup de coeur. Je m'associe de tout coeur et en pensée au bonheur des Allemands, alors que je suis moi même, aujourd'hui, au pied du Mur de Bamboo.

It seems I am more and more often responsible for migrating a web site from one host to another. Here is very general outline of the things the person I am working for needs to know.

Choosing a host

Personally, I like to use the services of companies who have ethical and caring practices. Unfortunately, I have not yet found my "ideal" hosting company, one that completely shares my values and combined with a complete technical offering at a reasonable (although not necessarily the cheapest) price.

Honk Kong is an exiting, legendary city, known for its extravagant skyscrapers surrounding the bay of HK island.

HK is the subject of many breathtaking photography. A friend even sent me the link to a day time view of Hong Kong turning into night time. Wait for the two images to load and then slowly move your mouse from the top to the bottom of the picture. Nice.