Douala-Paris-Bangkok-Rabat 2.0

Recette de Jus frais : Pomme - Kiwi

2011-01-16T01:20:00.004Z

Et une recette de plus! Pour un total de 4DH (environ 40 centimes d'euros)

Deux pommes
Deux Kiwis
Une orange (pour rajouter du liquide)

Centrifugez, dégustez

Recette de jus frais

2011-01-13T20:53:00.004Z

Recette simple pour faire un bon jus maison

3 oranges bien juteuses (3DH)
2 bananes (1.5DH)
1 citron
1 demi carotte

Passer le tout à la centrifugeuse et ajouter

1 cuillère a café d'eau de rose

A déguster à deux

Looking for my next trip

2008-05-30T07:54:00.003Z

I've been in Thailand for 10 days or so and franckly I didn't even have time to go to Bangkok.

But trust me this is about to change.

I dont have that much time left but here are the two cities I plan to visit.

First, Ayuttaya. I know, I know, shame on me for not going there sooner.
The city is just 1h away from my campus and its one of the most famous city in Thailand history.

It was the capitale of the Kingdom of Siam before one king decided to move it to Bangkok.

It mainly about temples, beautiful landscapes and elephant ride.

I keep you posted on that one.

The second trip is going to be AWESOME. Mark my words!

I'm heading to Koh Tao.

I wanted to describe Koh Tao, but that is actually a terrible idea.

U'll just see the pictures..and then we'll talk about it.

But if u happen to have been in Koh Tao, please feel free to share any tip you might have..

Ok folks that's all. I'll come back when I have some pictures.

Fly High

2008-05-23T21:28:00.005Z

Hi everyone

Posting from bangkok, yeah i'm back

I dont have that much though since i'm working on my bloody research study.

But I felt like it was the appropriate time to drop some picture of my flight from paris to bangkok via Abu Dhabi.

I took Etihad, and trust me, this company rocks. I'll come back to that in another post.

Here are just few pictures I took from the sky and at the airport

Enjoy!

Back (yet again)

2008-05-10T15:30:00.002Z

After many months of black out I'm back
I was in paris or 5months and I've been pretty busy.
Living in paris is an experience by itself which may deserve a new blog.

But I'll be back in Asia in a week. So I'm back in business.

I'll keep u posted

Linkin Park Live in Bangkok

2007-11-18T14:47:00.000Z

Last week-end (I know I'm late) I went to see the concert of Linkin Park in Bangkok.

I must admit that I was surprised when I first heard that Linkin Park was coming to Bangkok. I was like "Why would they come here?" lol

Anyway, they did come. And even best was the ticket price to go to the concert.

For a place in the last category - meaning quite far away from the stage- I paid 600 bahts (or 13€).

This is 4 to 6 times less than what I would have paid in Paris.

I went with a lof of friends, French, German, Iranian and Thai. Yeah it's still united color of Benetton here.

So we went to the concert which was supposed to start at 5PM. The time was quite unusual and that should have brought our attention.

We arrive at the Impact Arena (a complex of buildings designed to host all kinds of conferences, fairs etc) at 4:30PM and it turned out that they were many guest bands playing before the actual apparition of Linkin Park at... 9PM!!

This could have been bearable if the guest bands were not playing some kind of Hardcore rock mainly made of horrible growls and wierd noises. Needless to say that it was incredibly painful for my ears.

Apparently there is one thai band named Ebola (yeah, just like the virus) which is very popular in Thailand. Id (not sure of the orthography), the thai friend was a great fan of them. Good for him.

While waiting, we went to some other buildings to find some foods. We ended up in one of these very common food center where you can find all kind of food, japanese, vietnamese, of course thai and western food. It was one of my worst experience in a Food center but I want dig that subject.

9PM found us in the middle of a huge crowd, made of normal people and less normal (meaning fanatic) people dressed in black and stuff.

Of course the concert started late, at 9h30PM.

Despite being quite far from the scene, I was seeing quite clearly what was happening on stage, and the 3 giant screens were there to help from times to times.

Speaking of the live prestation, it was HUGE, AWESOME, WONDERFUL and I can keep going like that for another page lol.

really, I was impressed by the quality of the show. The way the sets of lights were playing, the audio quality were outstanding.

I have the feeling that Linkin Park did come with their technical team, cause Thai people didnt really accustom me to that kind of quality (no offense, just a fact).

Linkin Park delivered a impressive performance too. I dont know how the singer manages to scream that much but I swear that If I try to do the same, I will lose my voice in less than half an hour.

I think that is one of the reason why the concert was that short. A mere 1h20, it was short but intense.

The audience was delighted during all the show, people were jumping around, singing half of the time. Of course, we had a fair share of more than just tipsy people.

It wasn't surprising, the were selling tons of beer outside, and the smallest format was a glass of...1 liter of beer.

I took very few pictures of the show, it was quite dark (it was an open air show), and I was quite far.

Overall, it was a great, enjoyable evening.

I'm still hesitant about going to the concert of Muse at the end of this month.
What do you think?

Pictures of Bangkok: Touristic places

2007-11-15T09:40:00.000Z

I've made a post with pictures of normal Bangkok streets with cabs, buildings, ad banner and all those stuffs you have no idea how they look like until you come to visit Bangkok.

However, Bangkok as you know is also a very touristic city with a lot of beautiful temples and some interesting market.

These are the places I want to show here.

I created an online Album on my Picasa Gallery

I'm gonna add more and more pictures on this album.

Hopefully the embedded slideshow below will be updated automatically.

Feel free to comment and to visit my Picasa pictures gallery.

Thai Cuisine: Sweet and Sour Chicken

2007-11-09T03:22:00.000Z

It's been a long time since the last time I blogged about food.

I know that you, readers, miss that so I'm gonna blog about it more often and I already have a bunch of food pictures.

Today dish is the quite famous and classic Sweet and Sour Chicken (can be Pork too).

Thai cuisine has a lot of dishes which mix sweet and salted. It's a little bit bizarre when You first try it but eventually you quickly get used to that.

So here are two pictures of this dish.

Of course, you eat this one with Rice (as usual).

Monitor Lezard spotted in AIT

2007-11-08T14:03:00.000Z

AIT is a very green campus. To describe it best I would say that it's a bunch of buildings erected on the middle of a forest.

We are surrounded by trees, natural gardens and all kinds of insects that come with such an environment.

We even have a Lake (partly artificial but it still does the job) with a food booth nearby so that one can eat sitting just near the lake.

This welcoming environment leads to a very rich fauna and flora.

One day, I was going for lunch when I spotted this big monitor lizard near the lake.
It is one of the biggest lizard I've ever seen (actually IT IS the biggest).

you can see by yourself on the pictures below.

As usual, feel free to comment.

Hole in The Wall Initiative.

2007-11-01T10:59:00.000Z

Normally I focus more on the travel/backpacking/Lifestyle subjects.
But from time to time I talk about other subjects.

Today I want to talk about one interesting initiative. The Hole-in-the-Wall initiative is basically trying to bring computer access to the poor children.

In the meantime, the aim is to help children to acquire new knowledge just by playing on computers without any external supervision.

What is interesting is that the computer is basically embedded in a wall and there is absolutely no restriction to the access.

The idea is that children will naturally learn, driven by their curiosity.

It's quite a counter-intuitive idea and the first time I heard about it I was thinking :" Whats the point".

The essay, which came as a part of my assignment in my ICT (Information and communication technologies) course, is exploring that initiative in the context of e-learning.

Feel free to read it (click on this link for a full screen version) and comment.

You can download the full version as a PDF or as a Word document.

The document is under the creative common licensing, which means that you can reused it as long as you explicitly mention the author (that would be me). If you can also link to this blog, its even better :)

Trip to see the "Pygmées" (Kribi, Cameroon)

2007-11-01T09:33:00.000Z

This is the last post on the Kribi part of my journey in Cameroon.

I've already uploaded a fair number of pictures.

So I'll try to select just the most interesting ones. Of course, if you want to see the complete set of pictures, you just have to click on any of the pictures.

Me, getting on the dugout ("pirogue" in French")

Mum was very reluctant to get in that dugout. Initially, she wanted to wait for us in the car.

In a attempt to reassure us (I assume), the dugout driver told us:

Dont Worry, the boat is very solid (I guess he means we should not rely on the appearance of the boat).

Then he added something that makes us all feel more comfortable:
It's safer than the Titanic!

Dude, what A RELIEF. Good thing he didnt say "as safe as the Titanic.

This guy should have been a shrink.

There is no engine so some people have to make the dugout keep going, isnt it?

Some people use cars, some other dugout canoes.

The dugout parked at the "dock" (sort of).

Somehow, this is the "road" we took.

One Pygmée house.

Probably the Pygmee version of a Duplex.

A place where people gather together.

Frankly, there is not that much to see in that "Village"

Except posing with the so-called Chef weapons.

Even Mum was in.

The beds. No comment

The Pygmée people. They are distinguishable by their small height, usually between 140 and 160 centimeters.

This is one of the first (and maybe) only thing I remember from the early classes of the primary school in Cameroon.

Oki. we took a lot of pictures. What do expect?

Ok that's enough folks. More pictures are available after the jump (on the last pic).

Again, feel free to leave comment.

Song of the day: Ayo

2007-10-28T05:28:00.000Z

Ayo has been with Corinne Bailey Rae, one of my favorite artists lately.

I've been blogging quite a lot today.

So I will go straight to the point.

The album is a masterpiece (nothing less) and its title is "Joyful".

If you want additional information, just click here

The 1st song is the famous single "Down on my knees".

Just press play, i dont know what more to say, its just breathtaking.

The second song just happened to be chose by iTunes which decided to start playin it exactly when I was typing this sentence.

It's "Watchin You", a soft, sweet love song.

So enjoy.

Edit: Ok fellows, since I like you, I decided that you deserve a little gift, so here it is.

No info on this one, just press play and when the song finishes and that you open your eyes, well just leave a comment ok?

More pictures from Kribi and the neighbourhood

2007-10-28T04:53:00.001Z

Dude, I've seen more solid bridges in my life (not sure I've seen scarier ones though)

The waterfalls. Not that impressing hein?

Well people use them to wash their clothes.

And do fish too.

Which is kinda of stupid cause the fish is clearly too young.

Ok, it looks more interesting from this angle.

It's amazing what you can do with a close-up. Now it (almost) looks impressive.

My Bro walkin on the Water...well sort of.

I guess we can say that he's in harmony with the nature.

The last one. I like this one.

That's all folks...for now.

That's one hell of a catch up (thx bro for the pics)

The next post will be on the trip we made to see the "Pygmées".

So if you want to see more pictures or you want to know who are the "Pygmées"? well, stay tuned.

It's coming soon. Meanwhile, feel free to comment (note that if you dont want to sign in yo can always leave an anonymous comment).
If you want to know who are

Pictures of Kribi beaches (Cameroon)

2007-10-28T04:00:00.000Z

Ok, if you are just about pictures, then this post is for you (unlike the following post lol).

Since I wasn't the one uploading the photo, I can't embed the slideshow like I have started to lately. So it's gonna be a bunch of (selected pictures).

If you wanna see the whole album (with A LOT of pictures) then just hit any of the following pictures.

A close look to the sea, the water is not as crystal clear as it is in Ko Samet but it's still a beautiful view.

One of the hotel we visited in our quest for affordable prices.

The view from our bedrooms (which were 1 meter behind at the ground - and only- floor).

2 meters farther, just near the beach.

The bedrooms where we stayed.

The restaurant of the Hotel. The food is many times better than the building look.

I love this view at the dawn.

My Bro

Me

My Bro & Me

We were playing a really stupid game. So funny

Me again (sorry to bother you with me lol)

The Water flow is quite powerful, I left with some bruises (cause of the stupid game :) )

How cool is life sometimes?

Of course Hell is on Earth, but the Paradise is here too.

We were going to see the (little) waterfalls.

Trip to Cameroon: Kribi and its beaches

2007-10-28T01:56:00.000Z

Ok, I have to admit that I could have done it before.

But the thing is that since I left the charger of my digital camera in Paris when I went to Cameroon, I basically don't have pics of my own, so I have to wait until my bro upload them online to display them.

I have already a couple of posts on my trip to cameroon, including one on Cameroonian Food (damn I miss it).

But we didn't visit just the capital and the countryside.

Although we had to cancel the trip to the North where we wanted to go to visit the natural park of Waza, we managed to go to a coast city named Kribi.

Well to sum up, you take a car from Douala (or from Yaoundé), you follow the direction "Kribi" (it's not really indicated so you better go with someone who knows the way) and 2 hours later, there you are.

The next step is to find a hotel. And damn that is the hardest part of the movie.

We wanted an hotel just in the front of the beach.

If you happen to want that too, be ready to choke when you check the prices.

You wont find anything below 25000 FCFA (37€!!) and at this price you will get a barely decent bedroom (and when I say decent, I'm kind).

For something satisfactory you hit 32000 FCFA(almost 50€!!) ouch!

Ok, some people might not understand why I was surprised but one have to know that it's 1/4 to 1/3 of the salaries of government employees.

What struck me was the difference with the prices in Thailand and Cambodia (and even Laos although I've never visit a coast city in Laos).

When I went to Sihanouk Ville (Cambodia), we where in a nice hotel which was 5 min away from the beach (not in the front of the beach but just behind). I wont say it was top-notch but it was a nice one, with a silent AC and TV (with gazillions of channels).

And for that we paid US12$ (or was it $10?), less than 9€!

When we went to Siem Reap (Angkor, Cambodia), one of the most touristic city in southeast Asia (if not the most touritic) we slept in a very nice guesthouse with a wonderful swimming pool and a enjoyable decoration with a lot of wood and bamboo.

For that we paid US$34 for two nights (makes 17$/night for people who dont get along that well with maths). Granted, we bargained a lot, but that's the rule.

Noted it down if you don't know yet, "In Cambodia, U ALWAYS BARGAIN, about EVERYTHING"

So, yeah I found the prices to be, to say the least, surprising.

This is the part of the movie where having the right contacts proved to be handy.

Mum managed to find us two rooms in a company-employees-only hotel which, for this reason is WAY cheaper.

Ok, the rooms were just OK (actually on par with the hotels we visited before, but without the smell we found in one of them), but we paid "just" 15000FCA (22€).

I still find it expensive but it was the best we could find if we wanted to be just in front of the beach.

The stay was very nice (except for the sleep, the beds were not so great).

The food was awesome but awfully expensive. Kribi is supposed to be a fishing city and it is actually.

But for some mysterious reasons, the fish here is actually noticeably more expensive.

I wont complain because the food was delicious, just want to let you know that you better show up with 10000FCFA (15€) per meal if you want a 3courses meal and if you are alone. If you are more than 2 people(and if you dont eat like my bro and me) you might start to tap into the economy of scale.

We stayed there during slightly less than 48 hours.

It was a very enjoyable trip, and we had a great deal of fun (and some funky stories too, but its Cameroon right).

I wanted to include the pictures in this post but since this post is already quite long I think. I'll make another post (u know the one u just read above lol).

Click the blue "comment" link below this post to leave comments.

Song of the Day: Talib Kweli

2007-10-22T23:39:00.000Z

A couple of months back I discovered an artist named Talib Kweli. It wasnt a discovery per se since I already vaguely knew him and listen to one (or maybe two) of his songs.

During my last "raid" on the music folder of a friend, which was a great raid during which I get over 40GB of music, his albums made it up onto my HDD.
So I gave the last one a try. The title is "Ear Drum". And I must say, this is one of this gem you wish you had discovered before.

Talib Kweli is a polically engaged hip-hop singer with songs with lyrics that actually SAY something.

As usual, if you wanna know more about his life and work, just href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talib_kweli">click here.

So here is a sample of the last album "Eardrum" released this year (2007).

The title is "Give 'em Hell" and its one of my favorites.

You can find the lyrics here (click only after u click on play lol).

I would like to quote this part

"Trying to get to God but ended up doing the work of Satin

Religion create the vision

Make the Muslim hate the Christian

Make the Christian hate the Jew

Make the rules of faith

That you condition to and to you gotta follow

And God forbid you go to Hell

But if you ever walked through any ghetto then you know it well"

The second song is from the previous album "The Beautiful Struggle (2004)".
I dig the title of this album, it's a very good and accurate description of Life down here.

The song, With Marie J blige in featuring, is "I try", I really like the beat on this one, but of course the lyrics are great too, so Press Play

I know the post is already long but I couldn't resist my will to add a sample of the lyrics

"Yo, the things I'm seein' on the news is insane

A stock broker shoot his kid and throw himself in front of a train

A mother leave her baby home for two weeks all by himself

Three years old, eatin' ketchup and mustard, cryin for help

Tryin' to bring your struggle to life

The label want a song about a bubbly life

I have trouble tryin' to write some shit

To BANG in the club through the night

When people suffer tonight

Lord knows I try"

The complete song lyrics are available here.

So what you think?

Electric Wires In Bangkok: An Horror

2007-10-22T22:57:00.000Z

Since I'm on the topic of Bangkok city, I feel the need to speak about what makes this city's streets simply UGLY most of the time: The electri wires everywhere!

For a reason yet to be discovered, you dont have one wire, or a set of wires neatly joined together, but rather a hard to describe jumble pack of uneven wires.

It really uncomfortable to have one of those wires loosely hanging at few centimeters of you when you are taking one of these ~~bloody~~ bridges you are force to take when you want to cross a road (but I'll blog about it later).
You don't really feel secure, trust me.

Since a picture worth thousands words, I let you have a look.

Leave your comment by clicking on the blue hyperlink showing "n comments" (n being the number of comments currently on the post lol).

Pictures of Bangkok

2007-10-18T15:11:00.000Z

When people take pictures, they tend to take pictures of the most beautiful spots.

If you are in Bangkok for just a couple of weeks, it makes sense to focus on the Wat Po, the Royal Palace and other touristic attractions.

But I think that to really know how Bangkok looks like, you need to go beyond that.

That's why I've started to take casual pictures of BKK streets, to show a more "connected to reality" view of BKK streets.

So I've opened an album on Picasa which name is "Pictures of Bangkok" (how original is it? :D )

This is just the beginning, more pictures are to come.

So stay tunes

Pictures from Ko Samet

2007-10-09T22:22:00.002Z

And now let get in the heart of the matter.

First the beach, the sand is soft, feels like a comfortable mattress.

The water is crystal clear, I was simply amazed.

We went from Ao thian to Ao Wai and, WAOH, the beach was even more beautiful and there was absolutely nobody. So basically we had the entire beach for us.

Say it was great is not enough. I was playing like a little children.

Since I'm a good guy (!) I had a (quick) thought for my friends in Europe which are in the middle of the autumn. And then I jump in the sea :D (yeah life is unfair what were you thinking).

Feel free to watch the slideshow embedded below or click on it to go to the album.

There are not that many pictures, sorry I was too busy actually enjoying the sea,sun (damn where was the sex? lol) to take a lot of pictures.

Feel free to comment as usual ;)

Trip to Ko samet (Thailand)

2007-10-09T20:44:00.000Z

I blog about this quite some time after the trip but I was a little bit busy working on re-creating a software ecosystem for blogging.

Ko Samet is an island 3h hours away from Bangkok.

The bus ticket is 178 bahts (roughly 4€) one-way.

The bus leaves you in Ban Phe. From there you take a boat to cross the sea.

The cruise last roughly half an hour.

The boat ticket is around 100-150 depending on which Ao (meaning Bay) you are going to.

The boat left us at the northern part of the island (we arrived late so there was no other option).

We had to take a taxi to get to Ao Thian which is the southest part of the island.

we were looking for a beach as remote as possible to avoid the crowd. And Ao Thian looks like a very good yet affordable spot.

The taxi doesnt come to cheap (keep in mind it's an island). We shared the taxi with two other people who were not going as far as we were but it helped keep the price reasonnable, understand 300 bahts (for 2).

Ko Samet is, as a whole, a national park. I don't know what exactly they mean by that but I do know that it reduced the content of my wallet by 400 bahts EACH (9€) just to get on the island.

The "trip" to get to Ao Thian is quite long especially since the roads are the worst I've EVER seen in Thailand (and also the worst I've ever seen in the world).

This explains why all the taxis are Toyota pick-up. And since you sit at the back of the cab you better be free of any back aches whatsoever (at least when you get in the cab)

For the accommodation we choose a nice hotel just in front of the beach. We went for the VIP room (yeah I know life is cool sometimes) with a very nice bathroom, AC and TV (pretty much worthless unless you speak Thai)

That will set you up for 1200 bahts (28€).

I dont remember the name of the hotel, it was Coconut something.

We ate at the hotel restaurant. The food was GREAT and of course quite expensive (remember its an island!). But I must admit the prices are fairly decent.

Overall getting to Ko Samet is quite easy, the trip worth it and for the pictures check the next post.

For 2days, I would suggest to budget around 3000 bahts (roughly 65€) if you are looking for something in the mid-range.

Song of the day: Raul Midon

2007-10-09T08:44:00.000Z

Raul Midon is one of my last discoveries over the last two months.

Let me put it in a simple way: The man is a genius.

He plays guitar incredibly well and his has a beautiful voice.

Did I mention he is blind? More on him and his life after the jump

The song title is "Sunshine" and for me it is the best song of the album with "If you're gonna leave" (which will be embedded in another post later :) )

I saw him for the first time on "Taratata" a french TV emission on music.

I was amazed by his performance. So, although I dont like to embed videos (yeah not everyone has a broaband, high-speed connection) I think this one worth the trouble.

So just press play and enjoy

So, any comment?

A market on the train rails

2007-10-09T08:25:00.000Z

Yesterday I was browsing and happened to pay a visit to the blog of my friend Max and I find these amazing videos.

Basically it's a market set up on the way of a train. Well words are not enough so here are the two videos.

Now a question: How crazy is that?
Feel free to leave a comment

Thanks Max for this one.

Song of the day: Corinne Bailey Rae

2007-10-05T21:30:00.000Z

It's been a long time without any song so I know you miss it.

Today let me introduce the wonderful http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

I embed two songs which are among my favorites. Needless to say that the whole album is a gem.

It's for this kind of album that I bought my Shure 210 (will blog on them soon btw).

Listen to that album is just a wonderful musical experience. This is what i'm talkin about when I say real music

Ok enough talking, here is the first song: My choux pastry Heart

The second one is "Till it happens to u". A beautiful song too (and I mean it)

Let me know what u think in the comments

Funny thing in Thailand

2007-10-05T18:31:00.000Z

While browsing, I stumbbled across this funny pic:

Yeah, I told you, life in thailand is full of funny surprise.

The Original post is here.

MAC Lover

2007-10-05T16:40:00.000Z

Needless to say that since I have a MAC, like most of the switcher, I'm in love with MAC OS 10.4.9 (named Tiger).

No more bugs, blue screen of death (you know the blue screen you get when WinXP totally screw up). After weeks of use, it's just what an OS (operating system) is supposed to be.

Actually I came up with a slogan for MAC: "MAC, it just WORKS".

Another thing, are the ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) times I have when I'm talking with my friends and that they complain about Vista or about some viruses on theirs PCs.

Guess what I tell them then, yeah u have it right "Get a MAC" lol.

I also happened to see one or two weird .exe trying to install themselves on my MAC, I couldn't be more amused.

Guys, dont u get it, they are virtually no virus on MAC so stop trying lol.

Ok, I gotta stopped, I think that my friends can't take it anymore. Here is my 2 cents to them: "Try it and we'll talk about it after that ok?"

I can't let you without a small pic:

This is what I call real MAC love, what u think?

Back with a MAC

2007-10-05T16:14:00.000Z

Hi back everyone

The blog has been in a sleeping mode lately.

Sorry about that I was busy then lazy lol.

And the browser compatibility issue didn't help that much.

Anyway the thing is: I'm back. Better than ever, with a sweet sweet new laptop.

Basically it was the laptop I was dreaming of namely The MacBook Pro 15'4 aka MBP

Ok, enough word, this is what I'm talkin about

If u wanna know more about the "beast" well, just click on the link below

The MBP on Apple

And for more pictures, help yourself

The MBP pictures gallery

Song of the day: Tkien Jah Fakoly "Plus rien ne m'étonne"

2007-08-08T10:36:00.000Z

This is my favorite song at the moment.

It's from Tiken Jah Fakoly, one of the most popular african artist.

His music is a mix of reggae and african music and he speaks about the sufferings of people in Africa and about the corrupted governments too.

You can read this (short) article about him on Wikipedia

The song of the day is entitled "Plus rien ne m'étonne" which can be translated roughly into "Nothing surprise me anymore"

Click on the Play button and Enjoy

Life is not always easy in Cameroon

2007-08-08T10:24:00.000Z

Somehow, during my trip in Cameroon, I couldnt help but notice the similiraties between Cameroon and Cambodia.

Both countries have some beautiful landscapes, some modern cities but also many places where misery is the best word to describe how people live.

Here are some pics took on the fly.

No comment..

Pictures of Cameroonian Food

2007-08-08T10:08:00.000Z

Oki, you know I'm into pictures of Food from everywhere.

So, of course, I have some pictures of the good food of cameroon.

I will put the name of the dish (I will use the Cameroonian name and a phonetic orthograph, cuz frankly I have no idea how some name are supposed to be written)

"Ndomba" poulet/Chicken "Ndomba". You have no idea how good this is until you try.

"Sangha". It might not look that attractive, but its one of my favorite dish in cameroon and it's delicious.

I was eatin that all the time. Mum can you bring some when you come in Thailand?

(My bro holdin)The "Top". The national beverage, exist in different "flavors" (read colors, since the main difference between them is the colorant they put inside).

Click on the picture to really size how the "top" bottle looks like

Pictures From Cameroon

2007-08-08T09:57:00.000Z

Yeah I told you its all about pictures.

Here are few more

Beautiful view, isnt it? Just so you know that Cameroon is not only about dirty streets but do have some beautiful landscapes too.

But the roads dont always have to be nice, do they?

My bro took the picture with this armed military guy, after what he gave him "his beer" (understand 1000FCFA, 1.5€ roughly) this is how it goes on in Cameroon.

Back From Cameroon

2007-08-08T09:49:00.000Z

Hi back.

I'm back from Cameroon, where I spent almost 3weeks.
It was part of my "Travel-like-hell-these-holidays" thing.

My digital camera was out of batt and, as the clever guy I am, I managed to forget the charger.

So all the pics have been taken by Christine's camera (The gf of my bro).

I might write a couple of posts on Cameroon and the life over there. But for now, it's all about pictures.

What? One have to put the luggages somewhere right?

My bro and the market in the background

Seriously it looks very much like the Russian Market in Pnom Penh.

Dla streets near the market.

Pictures From Angkor - Part 2

2007-06-26T14:11:00.000Z

Hi back,
I'm still in Paris. I told you the transition wasn't easy.

I had to get used to the ridiculously expensive prices for pretty much everything.

So I've found a job so that I can afford to spend 450 bahts (10euros) for a not so good meal.

Anyway the topic of the post is "Pictures from Angkor Wat" so here is a sample of the pictures I took during my second trip to Angkor. The whole album is available here

Trip to cambodia 2: Angkor Temples

And for those who just wanna see a sample, check below

From Trip to cambo...

Trip to cambodia 2: Sihanouk Ville - Pictures

2007-06-06T03:42:00.000Z

Here are some pics o of that part of the trip.

And this is the link to the whole album (there are not that many pics however)

Trip to cambodia 2: Sihanouk Ville

Just click on the last pic to open the album.

Trip to Cambodia: Sihanouk Ville

2007-06-06T03:04:00.000Z

The first part of our trip started in Cambodia.
Well, actually it started in Bangkok but we quickly left Bkk to go to Phnom Penh.

For several reasons among which was time we took the plane.

The cheapest company to fly from Bangkok to Phnom Penh (PP) is Air Asia, which is incidently the best low-cost company in southeast asia (for the prices I mean).

I have a philippino friend who lives in PP who tipped me on some useful details and send me a driver to pick us at the airport.

There is only one flight a day with Air Asia and it's at 7am so you better up quite early in the morning

Couple of hours later we took the bus to Sihanouk Ville, a city on the gulf of thailand with some beautiful beaches.

Oh btw choose the Mekong Express bus company, it's $2 more expensive for an overall "woopping" $6/person.

This trip is 3hours and for some yet-to-find reasons they have this b****y karaoke which is d**m loud. But if you have some in-ear headphones you will be fine (just like I was).

For the ghesthouses, on the Ocheutal beaches side, count $10-13 for a double room with AC (air conditioning) in a decent ghesthouse.
And do choose Ocheutal beaches, its the best side with a good standing.

If you want pics, its in the next post

Back for real this time

2007-06-06T02:47:00.000Z

I've been away for quite a while.

I will cut it short. The 2weeks journey in Cambodia and in Laos is over. It was wonderful, I will dig the most interesting point in the coming posts.

I'm back in Paris for a month or so.

There is a topic I didn't think about before coming back on which I think it worth blogging. Its the adaptation needed when you come back to France after a long stay in Thailand.
Note that I say France and Thailand but it can be generalised to West Europe and Southeast Asia.

Thats all for the come-back thing.
Lets move to the most interesting part: the journey. See the next post

Journey in Cambodia (again)

2007-05-19T19:29:00.000Z

Hi back,

It's been a long time. I didnt have the time to blog before leaving to Cambodia.

This is my second trip to Cambodia but this time it was more interesting since I visited more cities including sihanouk ville and Phnom Penh (see the previous post for the complete plan).

I dont have that much time (yeah I know I keep saying that but its true). I'm just doing a quick pit stop in Bkk before moving forward tomorrow.

This is just to post some photos I've taken during this amazing trip.

The photos are still uploading so I think I will post few of them on the next post.

To access all m pictures, again you have http://picasaweb.google.com/tntresor or my photobucket account http://s179.photobucket.com/albums/w314/tntresor/

.

Here are some pictures taken in Angkor. Enjoy!

My Holidays plan in SE Asia

2007-05-03T07:11:00.000Z

I'm about to get into the Final exams period. It's gonna be A LOT of work.

but after the rain comes the sunshine and in my case the sunshine has the colors of holydays.

I already have a plan for the 3 weeks (roughly) I'm gonna spend in the region.

I have a friend coming from France and we gonna hit the road together.

So, we will start by Cambodia. Direct flight to Pnom Penh (PP) which will be used as our base camp. From there we'll probably visit two or three interesting cities that are not more than 5hours away by bus.

Of course Sihanouk ville is on the radar.

I have a phillipino friend who's living in PP for quite a while so we have shelter and he will tip us on the hot spots.

It's gonna be fun.

Next step is thailand.I havent really visit the country because I didnt have time.

Starting from Bkk we will head North to Chiang Mai and eventually Chiang Rai.

There are a lot of things to see in these two cities so we will probably spend around 4 days in the region.
Sukhotai is in the way so we may make a stop there in our way to Chiang Mai

From Chiang Rai we will either fly or take the bus to Laos.

The first stop will be Louang Phrabang. I have been told that it's a wonderful place, so will check by myself.

Then we will go to Ventiane, the capitale. Plan to stay there a couple of days.

Finally we will make our way back to Thailand.

Udon Thani is the first stop. But we wont stay there for long.

Though the end part of our trip is unclear, I think we will take a flight straight to the South.

And who says South in Thailand says BEAUTIFUL BEATCHES.

I still cannot make up my mind between Ko Lanta (for French people: Yeah the island of the reality TV show "Koh Lanta") and Ko Samui.

If you have any tip please let me know.

Well writing that trip plan cheers me up.

Sounds a lot of fun. Cant wait to be there.

But for now, lets take one thing at a time and start by the exams part.

I will find the time to blog somehow (or not).

Oh btw, if you have any remark, tip or comment on the schedule, please let me know.

Weather in Thailand (BKK) during April

2007-05-02T07:25:00.000Z

Well I like to blog on the weather here.

Usually I compare it with the weather in Europe and more specifically in France.

Normally I enjoy being there bacause the weather is usually better than in Europe.

But since one week, well lets say that its not so enjoyeable.

It's raining most of the time. Sometimes it's really impressive.

Last time we were going to a italian restaurant 20min far from AIT. Its was raining so hard that we couldnt see a damn thing 3 meters away.

The cab driver was a woman, and she was so worried she was driving incredibly slow.

Not only was that a little bit boring, but it was also dangerous since she was breaking abruptly quite few times.

We also had an incredibly violent. A LOT of trees in the campus did fall. It was impressive to witness it. Trees were cut in half by thunder and stuffs, power was also cut several times.

The good side is the temperatures drop. There are pretty nice, somewhere around 22 to 28 maximum.

Therefore I make less use of AC (air conditioner) which is also good for the environement.

I'm a lil bit worried about the rain because my holydays are coming very fast, and I dont want to backpack under the rain.

Speaking of my holydays I have quite a lovely plan. But lets save it for the coming post, shall we?

Come back again

2007-05-02T07:20:00.000Z

Hi back!

I've been quite absent for the last two weeks.

But I was so busy with work, couldnt find a single minute to blog.

Things are still going crazy.

I'm sleeping 3-4hours a day and work for 20-24 hours in a row.

However this w-e my body just decided that it couldn't take it anymore, so basicaly I took three days off. Mainly sleeping and chatting, try to keep social network connections lively.

I don't know how I will do that, but I'm planning to blog more, do some translations for Techcrunch FR, and write a lil bit.

Thats all for my coming-back post.

More interesting post are to come.

Song of the Day: Robin Thicke

2007-04-12T20:08:00.000Z

A quick post to post a song of one of my favourite artist currently, Robin thicke.

This is not the first time I post one of his songs. If you have missed it, I suggested you to read (and listen) this entry.

The song of the day is "2 the sky". A wonderful song.

So as usual, just prees play and enjoy.

And feel free to leave your comment on the song.

Knowledge sourcing: Daimler-Benz (case study)

2007-04-12T13:27:00.000Z

I've been working for two weeks like mad.

One of the subject I've been working on a case study related to knowledge sourcing in Daimler-Benz.

The presentation was for the Management of Innovation class.

The case describes how the R&D departement was organised as in 1997.

It is a very interesting case bacause as a multinational company, the R&T department is quite big

We can see how Daimler-Benz have adressed the common issues regarding the management of innovation and knowledge sourcing in a technology driven industries.

The second part on the management of international R&T sites is also very interesting.

The mechanisms set up to make sure that they monitor the latest information on all the automobile related technologies and that the knowledge acquired flows within the company.

The presentation is visible below. As a presentation, it realises its full potential with the comments of those who have made it.

But since the actual presentation was not recorded, you will just have the raw data, though well structured.

I want to thanks Somchai who was my partner on this presentation.

He will present our work to his boss in his company. Apparently the lessons we learned are very likely to help him at his work and even lead to the implementation of some new ideas. I'm very glad to see that the result of our work has an outcome applicable to real company.

Feel free to leave a comment

Pictures from Angkor

2007-04-11T09:20:00.000Z

Angkor Wat, the main attraction. It's somptuous. It was 6 AM when the picture was taken.

The right aisle of Angkor Wat

Just Me, inside Angkor wat main temple

The Library. Just beautiful AND amazing.

These are just few pictures I've taken during this trip.

I've taken around 150 pics, Foly has taken around 220 pics. You can add Moly's and Rebecca pictures as well.

You can call us pictures freaks. We dont care, the trip was just so amazing!

Of course I've created one web album dedicated to that trip.
Just click here to get a bigger sample of the pictures. And watch them as a slideshow, especially for the sunrise.

Enjoy!

More to come soon on Banttambang.

Trip to Cambodia: Part I

2007-04-10T14:17:00.000Z

I just came back from this amazing trip in Cambodia.

I dont have the time to blog about it in details so I've decided to divide this story in many parts, here is the first one.

I went first to Siem Reap which is the closest to the Angkor sites.

Siem Reap is quite a touristic city. Which means that the city life revolves around the tourism.

This fact has some importance on the way people behave as well as on the prices of goods and foods.

First thing, you have to find where to stay. We stayed at the "Popular guest house" which is actually quite popular, at least among backpackers.

The price of the rooms is very fair. A bedroom for two (two beds) with ceiling fan will cost you 8$. We pay $9 because we were three. Thats just $3 each.

The next thing you need to do is to decide by which mean you will go to Angkor. You have the choice between renting a bike (DIY method), take a tuk-tuk (usually for the day), take a taxi (virtually nobody do that) or rent a car.

For the tuk-tuk the price range is $5 to $10 each depending on how many you are.

Then you can go to discover the city. Just walk around and you will see a LOT of open-air mini shops. They are trying to sell you everything you might expect them to sell.

Bottom line: NEVER PAY THE PRICE GIVEN. You bargain, the harder the better.

The more items you take, the lower the price/unit is. For example, we get altogether 6 T-shirts for $1 each instead of the original $3 "price".

The funny thing is that they ALL trying to sell you EXACTLY the same things.

There are 8 or 10 books, and everyone is trying to sell those (there are actually photocopies but with the cover which really looks like the real books one). Same thing for the T-shirts. It's amazing really!

One thing which is not so amazing but which is nevertheless surprising the first time is that a fair percentage of sellers do speak french.

It was at first quite disturbing since we, french-speaking people, usually switch to french when we dont want others (especialy sellers) to understand whatever we say.

I wanted to speak of the food, but I'll dedicated a post on the food in Cambodia.

On part II, I will speak but essentially show you the pictures of the Angkor site itself.

Post from Angkor (Cambodia)

2007-04-07T16:43:00.000Z

I'm currently in the city of Siam Reap, the closest city before Angkor.

I've been visiting the temples all day long. And I must say that it's just one of the most amazing experience ever.

You have to take at look by yourself. Its just beautiful.

But if you cant, I've got an incredible number of pictures that I'll post in few days (as soon as I get back actually).

We wake up at 5AM to be on the site before the sunrise to see it from there.

And I must tell you that from there, you get one of the most incredible view you can imagine.

I dont know if the pictures will show how great it is.

several cities were built in the area, so you have a bunch of temples, with some differences in the architecture.

You have NO IDEA of how beautiful it is, evry single wall is sculpted minuteously.
I cant even imagine how much time they devoted on building those temples.

Anyway, I'm gonn blog about it later. I didnt came here to stay in a cyber-cafe :-)

Cant wait to post the pics.

More to come soon...

Things get crazy in AIT

2007-04-04T08:17:00.000Z

I haven't write anything for around a week now.

One can wonder why?

There is a simple explanation which can be wrapped in one word: WORK!!!

I've already detailed what am doing in Thailand in this post.

I'm taking 7 courses actually, 6 as credits and one as an auditor (which actually doesnt make any difference from the workload point of view).

It was fine at the beginning, the workload was balnced, well spread over the weeks.

And then came the mid-term exams. The workload was heavy, but I was thinking that this was a one time thing.

I did have the chance to completely rest for one week.

And then things start to get crazy.

Everything arrived at the same time, assignments, presentations, reports, projects,etc.

I dont know, maybe all the Prof realized that there are just 6/8 weeks left.

But basically, now I have at least 2 presentations AND one report every week.

Each presentation means at least 15 hours of work and actually 20+ hours if you aiming at an "A" grade.

Not to mention the workload that a report implies.

I have at least 2 group meetings almost every day.

My schedule is so crazy, that I actually have to schedule my sleeping hours. And i'm scheduling those for the coming 2/3days.

Over the past days, I've hardly been able to manage to squeeze 5/6 hours of sleep which are most of the time divide in two "sleeping sessions" (thats how I call them now).

The rest of the time is totally devoted to work (and when I can, eat).

Now, I carry my laptop everywhere everytime and my closest friends are Excel,Word and PowerPoint coming from Office 2007 (which is a big improvement compare to previous versions).

I need to blog about the Cultural Show which took place last week-end and in which I was involved. It's the biggest event in AIT and I did play a major role. But I will blog about it later.

Last thing. My body actually did shutdown and reboot yesterday.

I was supposed to have a 2 hours sleep session between 6PM and 8PM.

So I went to bed, and next thing I know I opened my eyes and it was 1AM.

Some may say that the fact that I had 7hours of sleep over the last 72 hours payed a role. They may get a point.

So in a strategic move, I decided to grab 4 more hours of sleep.

It need to be confirmed, but I think it was a smart move. I wake up rested and fresh at 5AM.

I need to do some catch up obviously, but I'm fresh so I'm more efficient.

the next sleep session is planned for tomorrow 5AM (10PM GMT).

I'll come back as soon as I can

Store your complete MP3 library for FREE

2007-03-28T02:36:00.000Z

As you may have notice I keep looking for useful web 2.0 services.

I'm mainly interested by easy-to-use, nice and last but not least, FREE services.

I think that this one will interest some of you.

You may have experienced the total loss of your 10+GB of Music during one your HD formatting. (BTW needless to say how Windows sucks!)

Or maybe you want to listen to your music at work (headphones in your ears all the time may not look very appealing to your boss though)

In both cases, let me introduce MP3Tunes.

Their service is quite simple to understand: "Store all your music library and listen to it from everywhere"

So, what are the features of the service and how does it work?

First you sign-up (damn easy) and you download their software (they call it "The Locker")

Then you run the software, tell it where to look for your music and just click on the "Sync" button.

It started to upload your music on theirs servers. That's it.

Now you can log in your account from everywhere (with a Web access obviously) and then listen to your music within the browser with the embedded player.

There are some additional features that are compelling.

If, while browsing, you come across a music you like, you can pass the url (you do need to have a file which has is specific URL) to your locker and it would load the song in your library.
Once done you can listen to it anytime you want.

They actually give you a list of websites where you can easily find Music ;-)

For example, they team up with Sideload where you can get a lot of free music and loaded it to your "Locker" but also embed the track in your blog (just like RadioBlogClub).

They second thing which is really cool is that the Sync orks both ways.

That measn that all the music you've find on the web is Sync down to your PC music library.
Ok, there is nothing revolutionary since thanks to the Donkey you can download everything you need. But I like the simplicity of the process.

You find a nice song, add it to your locker and you dont have to think about it. Everything is done automatically.

There are some limitations of course.
First, you cant load files bigger than 10MB (actually you can but you need to upgrade to the Premium account which is not free).

It's not a constraining limitation for most of your library except of course if you have some Classical (that's 1.5GB I wont synchronised :-( ).

Another limitation is that, to access to your library from a mobile device you will need a Premium account.

But seriously, who will want to do that. I mean I have a 20GB mp3 player (Archos GMini 402) and a 2GB SD Card in my phone.

Why on earth will use a GPRS/3G connection for which I would be charged to listen to music?

When you sign in, you may wait 2 or 3 days to get the unlimited storage, but once it set up, everything just go nice and smooth.

So if you decide to give it a try, let me know about your impressions

Hard to catch up all the news!

2007-03-27T22:52:00.000Z

I've been pretty busy lately. A lot of assignment, projects and presentations.

Oh BTW, you may wanna try Office 2007. This new version really rocks. I wouldnt had believe that I would have to say that one day to a microsoft software but, Congratulations.

But I'm digressing. The problem is that I've been away of my Netvibes for 3/4 days and I have to cope with this 300 news waiting for me>

Even when you skip those which are not so interesting around 50 remains.

The problem here is the connection speed. It takes ages to open a simple page.

Even if you learn to be patient (in general, you have to learn to be patient AND cool in Thailand, otherwise you dont last long), it's still quite irritating from times to times.

Some interesting news:

Techcrunch talks about jajah here, they reached their 2 millions users.
For the french audience, I'm translating the post in french for TechcrunchFR, it will be posted as soon as Ouriel will come back from his holydays.
I'm glad for them. It is said that they focused on Quality. It a very smart decision.

But they need to address the same issues in the southeast asia region as well.

Cause i'm starting to think about have a glance at the competition.

You can find my posts on Jajah et other VOIP here.
If you read the comments on techcrunch article you will notice that i'm not the only one who start to complain.

If you want a comparison of VOIP, check this article

Going back to my netvibes page. Wish me good luck

THE picture of Bangkok

2007-03-27T22:29:00.000Z

Ok, the title can be misleading. But I really think that this picture can symbolize Bangkok.

Because is an inextricable mix of ultra-modernity and kind of traditionnal, old lifestyle.

You will find this modern building, a brand new subway, a crazy networks of roads and freeways, and as you can see, these nice,neat, clean subway stations (invaded by Advertising of course)

And side by side with the aforementioned building, you will see this kind of old building with funny colors.

And along the road, all these small shops, and the vans that you, litteraly, catch on fly.

I really like this mix.

As I often tell to my friends, Bangkok is this perfect mix of Paris and Douala.

Definitely the place where I want to be.

P.S: The girl on the ad is definitely hot.

Bangkok Skytrain

2007-03-27T21:50:00.000Z

Here are some pics of the Skytrain of Bangkok. The name here is BTS

As you may guess by the name, it's an overhead brand new subway

The stations are large, almost too big, clean.

As I've already said in a previous post, the temperatures inside are kind of crazy.

It's OK during the afternoon, because the outside world is hot as hell.

but when the outside temperature start to fall with the sun, you find yourself starting to freeze.

The BTS is kind of expensive (for the thai standard).

Unlike Paris sub, here they still have the concept of zone (like in the RER).

And of course, you have 2 stations in zone 1, 1 in zone 2, 2or3 in zone 3 and the rest (about 12) in zone 4and 5.

Needless to say, the system is designed to make you pay the max. The prices range from 20 to 40 bahts (based on my personal experience).

Also, there is no way you don't pay the ticket. There are police agent at every stations and every gates.

So basically, you DO pay the ticket.

In all cases, the BTS is a must have in a city like Bangkok where the traffic jams are nightmarish.

I'll write about the circulation in Bangkok in a coming post.

One kind of Thai Mangos

2007-03-25T20:45:00.000Z

This is how one kind of the thai mangos looks like.

It's totally
different from what we see in Africa where the inside is yellow.

You are supposed to eat that with the red sausage you can see on the pictures.

The sausage is made of sugar, shrimps and fish sauce. It's kind of salted though.

It's actually good, but I prefer eat the mango alone.

This kind of mango tastes a little bit like guava.

Oh this reminds me that I should show you how guavas look like here.

But this is another story.

Today was a good day

2007-03-24T19:40:00.000Z

Today was a good day (actually yesterday but it doesnt matter).

I went to a very nice restaurant in Bangkok.

The name of the restaurant is "Once upon a time".

Very nice place, delightful atmosphere, very good food.

The adress is 32 soi 17 Pethburi Road, Pratunam.

I took some photos but with a friend digital camera so I'll post them as soon as I get them.

I dont have enough time to blog on this now (its 3:30 AM).But I will later on blog on that with pictures of courses.

Another thing that makes this day cool is that it was one of my closest friend birthday.

I know we kind of lose contact, but you know that you've got a special place in my life.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you.

And to celebrate, this song is dedicated to you.

Bill Withers, "Just the two of Us", a great classic.

So click play and enjoy.

Song of The Day: 2 Pac

2007-03-22T22:01:00.000Z

People who listen to rap know that when we talk about rap, there's no other starting point than Tupac Shakur, the greatest rapper of all time (sorry Biggie).

It has been a while since I didnt take the time to listen to one of his album.

So I just had this tought minutes ago, "what the heck, I'm gonna drop two of his songs on my blog".

And that's what I'm doing right now

It's hard to decide which ones of his several great songs, I think I should avoid the most famous ones and make you discover the two faces of 2 Pac angel vs Devil.

So here comes the first one.

As usual, I'll start with the groovy one.

"You wonda why we call you bitch" from CD2 of the Album All Eyez On Me released in 1996.
One of the best album ever, and the first double-disc rap album ever. Dont restrain yourself just because of the title, there is a real (true BTW) story behind.

The second one is of course the calm one.

I love this song. It cheers me up when I feel blue.

The title is "Live goes on" and it pretty much speaks by itself. It's from the same album but on CD1.

And because I cant hold it, this is the bonus song.

Title is "Unconditional Love" which is just... Actually just press play.

We do miss Tupac as he was far above the current level of today rappers.

To find more about him, here is a nice article on his life.

Avoid International Roaming...

2007-03-21T09:41:00.000Z

Unless you are insanely rich (or using a company telephone).

I've foolishly called France a couple of times using my french SIM card.

You may wanna know before you do that,that you will be charge 2.6 euros /minute if you call from Thailand.

I wish somebody has told me that before I placed this 20 min call.

It was for a good cause (saying Happy birthday), but I would have make it slightly shorter.

So now you know how much it costs to place a call from Thailand to France using a french SIM card.

BTW my mobile provider is Bouygtel.

Jajah Mobile and its shortcomings

2007-03-21T09:02:00.000Z

I've already blog about Jajah.

Two days after my first post on Jajah, they send me a mail to tell me that they appreciate my post.

They also respond to one of my wish which was, being able to download Jajah mobile application for a Windows Mobile 2003 device.
This is what I'll talk about.

So, my request was actually to be provided with a way to use jajah when I'm not at home.

Their answer was actually the best one: Jajah mobile A web based form accessible with a simple browser.

So I jumped to the URL they gave me, log in and start using this system.

Needless to say that I was delighted to find all my profile informations and contacts on this mobile-specific website.

I bookmarked it, so I was able to place an international call for as low as 3cts (euros) within 2 clicks. And that's just great!

But they are some shortcomings.

First, I definitely think that Jajah need to really work on the quality of the communication. This stands for every calls no matter what mean was used to initiate the call.

I don't say that the quality is bad, but it's sure not constant enough.

Some calls do have a great voice quality, but some others are not so great.

The biggest disappointement I have is the fact that most of the times, it takes 2 or 3 attempts to get an actual communication.
Too often the first attempt fails because one end doesnt ear the other one.

If this is Ok when I call a europe landline number (around 3cts/min), it's almost intolerable when I'm calling a mobile in Africa ( 18cts thrown away for each attempt).

When I just want to pass an information, which typically will last 2 min, spending 1.5 euros, 70% for nothing is just not an option.

So Jajah if you read this, fix it. And you will enjoy happy customers who will spend more money using your system.

Secondly, they have a problem which is mobile specific.

When you initiate the call with the browser, you are using the GPRS connection which cannot be carry on along with a call.

So what happen too many times, at least here in Thailand, is that when Jajah will call you, they will fall in your voicemail because the GPRS connection is still active.

It's funny because they problem is due to the fact that Jajah is actually too fast.

So I suggest that they implement a kind of short timed delay before placing the call.

Overall Jajah mobile is an interesting service, especially in Thailand, where the prices are the same for mobile and landline calls (that's a topic I'll cover later).

But they are still some issues that needed to be adressed, rather sooner than later.

Weather News (Bangkok vs Paris)

2007-03-21T08:30:00.000Z

My friends keep telling about the weather in Paris.

They did have snow on Monday, Rain on Tuesday, and of course a very cold weather on top op that.

The funny thing is that they were starting bragging one week ago about the nnice weather they had.

Since some have expressed some "concerns" about the weather here in Bangkok, let me dissipate your worries.

You do have a very nice weather here.

Temperatures has been lower since 2/3 days, so we do have a nice 26/28 during the day.

Today was slightly hotter though, we have something around 28/30 degrees celsius.

Yesterday was the first day that I spent entirely without air conditionning in my room.

The main advantage is the silence. The AC in our rooms are quite old systems so they tend to make some noise.

Nothing unbearable, but I do think that it affects somehow the quality of my sleep.

So to all the people living in West Europe, if the weather over there makes you feel depressed, you may want to come and spend some time here.

Football match and cultural differences

2007-03-20T17:33:00.000Z

So today I did have my first football game.

We are running a kinda mini-olympic games in AIT.

I'm the international team, and unfortunately most of the other teams are country-based.

So we were just practicing.

It was probably the most frustrating football practice I've ever had in my life.

To best describe it, I think that I can say that they were playin LIKE they have no will to win or score whatsoever.

I emphasise the "like", because they do want to score and win, it's just that they dont do anything that may let you think that they do.

It's kind of hard to describe.

For example, people do a lot of short, not precise passes when they are in the defense zone.
And in the middle field, they tend to kick the ball away in a doomed attempt to pass it, even more unprecisely to the strickers.

The thing here is that you are not supposed to do any kind of NEGATIVE CRITICS or actually the slightest NEGATIVE REMARK.

And when I say negative, it means everything that is not clearly positive.

It isn't specific to any specific country culture, since almost all the southeast and south asian countries were represented in the field. So I guess it's a commonly shared cultural trait in the region.

Trust me, it was kind of hard to deal with these cultural difference.

Eventually, you say to yourself that it's just a game, no matter what it looks like right?

I'm well aware that any kind of words, that are perceived as negative ( I insist on the "perception" part) can caused unexpected behavior.

The most annoying part(at least for me) is that, if you don't pay a close attention, you probably wont realize it.

You will just notice that the person you are speaking to has changed his/her mood, and sometimes you won't understand why.

I will probably face these kind of situations many times in the future.

I'll let you know how I do.

Joke on different cultures around the world

2007-03-18T15:50:00.000Z

Ok. I got this one from one of my very good friend Asif who is from Bangladesh.

So disclaimer:"It's a JOKE" with smewhat is a caricature.
So here is the joke:

Check this out

TRADITIONAL ECONOMICS
You have two cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your herd multiplies and the economy grows.

You retire on the income.

INDIAN ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

You worship them.

PAKISTAN ECONOMICS

You don't have any cows.

You claim that the Indian cows belong to you.

You ask the US for financial aid, China for military aid,

British for technology, French for submarines, Switzerland

for loans, Russia for drugs and Japan for equipment.

You buy the cows with all this and claim exploitation by the world.

AMERICAN ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.

You profess surprise when the cow drops dead. You put the blame on some nation with
cows and naturally that nation will be a danger to mankind.

You wage a war to save the world and grab the cows.

FRENCH ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

You go on strike because you want three cows.

GERMAN ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

You reengineer them so that they live for 100 years,eat once a month and milk
themselves.

BRITISH ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

They are both mad cows.

ITALIAN ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

You don't know where they are.

You break for lunch.

SWISS ECONOMICS

You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you.

You charge others for storing them.

JAPANESE ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

You redesign them so that they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary

cow and produce twenty times the milk.

You then create cute cartoon cow images called Cowkimon and

market them worldwide.

RUSSIAN ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

You count them and learn you have five cows.

You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.

You count them again and learn you have 17 cows.

You give up counting and open another bottle of vodka.

CHINESE ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

You have 300 people milking them.

You claim full employment, high bovine productivity
and arrest anyone reporting the actual numbers.

BANGLADESH ECONOMICS

You have two cows.

You don't know economy.

You choose one of them as the Prime Minister of the country
and the other as the Leader of the Opposition

Send Free SMS from your cell phone

2007-03-14T09:05:00.000Z

So I wrote about sending SMS for free here.

Nothing new is this post, I just want to remind you that since it's a web based form which requires no software you can use it on your cell phone.

So you need a data plan, a browser ( Opera mini is the way to go without any doubt) and the adress www.gizmosms.com and you are set to go.

Given the prices of data plan and the amount of data required to send a SMS via gizmo, send an sms would cost you less than 1 cent.

That's a service I'm gonna use heavily when I'll be back in France.

There is a downside though to the use with your mobile, you have to input the phone number digits manually, something I'm not use to do at all since I use the phonebook.

But I do have a PocketPc phone running on Windows Mobile 2003 so I will use copy-paste.

However most of you will have to do the input by yourself. Sorry, nothing is perfect in life :-)

The Subway "Ticket"

2007-03-14T09:04:00.000Z

Here is a snapshot of the "ticket" used to take the subway in Bangkok.

It is as you can see a black coin. It's using RFID technology which is pretty nice.
You keep it with you during the trip and it's collected at the exit gates.

It's funny to see how common it's used here when French transportation companies are just beginning to introduce RFID technology for customers.

So whicn one the most developed country?

P.S: For people more comfortable with french here is a quick wikipedia introduction on RFID.

Send unlimited SMS for free

2007-03-14T08:22:00.000Z

Thanks to my friend Maxime for this tip.

So we can send SMS for free using GizmoSMS which is a service provided by Gizmo an SIP-based alternative to Skype which allows you to place ToIP (Telephony over IP) calls without any software. You just initiate the call from your browser.

Unlike Jajah you still need an headset since the voice stream still goes through you personal internet connection.

According to Maxime the calls are cheaper than Skype. I'll check it by myself later.

I od have a concern on the quality though. Since they don't use P2P I'm wondering how they ensure the quality of calls.

Anyway my focus is on their free SMS service which works in several countries.

Unfortunately it doesn't work in Thailand so you can't use it to send me SMS.

But it works in France and in several others western countries, so it's a great way for me to send SMS for birthday or whatever events when I don't need an answer.

By the way if you do want to call me just copy and paste this in your browser :

http://gizmocall.com/0066811001201

A good article on Prostitution in Bangkok

2007-03-14T07:17:00.000Z

I don't have time to write about everything I can regarding life in Thailand in general and in bangkok area in particular.

That where the super blog of Maxim comes to be quite handy. So I gonna link quite often to the interesting posts he write.

The last article he wrote yesterday is on the prostitution problem in Bangkok. I didn't really visit bangkok at night so I didn't see it by myself.
I'll probably write about that when I will have more personal experience (ok dont get me wrong, I mean when I will see it in the streets by myself, not actually experienced it).

So here is the article, feel free to leave comments.

The silliest question about my trip (so far)

2007-03-12T19:36:00.000Z

I do get some let say "curious" comments about my stay in Thailand.

It has started since I started telling to people that I'm gonna stay 18 months in Thailand.

Generally people seem to think that the World is made of Europe and North America and maybe China (lot of people are talking about China on the news so there must be something there). You may include the Maghreb (well since a lot of these people have "invaded" France we do notice them - Courtesy of my friends Nicolas Sarkozy and Philippe de villiers).

But that's pretty much all. The rest is some kind of exotic places, some kind of parallel world where you may spend a couple of weeks in holydays, take a picture of beautiful landscapes and go back to the World (see paragraph above for the definition of the World) saying how lucky the people who live over there are lucky to have such a beautiful country.

So, I do get some not so smart questions, but I've got a winner here.

So I have this old acquaintance right? Its been 7years since we lost each other of sight. So we came across on one of these social network.
And when I told him, he came out with this silly question
"For what on earth did you go to thailand for? You dont like your life anymore?"

What am I supposed to understand?
That one has to be really fed up with his life to live France for thailand?
The guy has no idea of what Thailand looks like , nor whats life like here but still he assumed that moving here should be some kind of desperate act.

So people I know that 90% of what you think you know about Asia (to be general) is made of cliche, it's not a big deal I was just like you a couple of months before.

But please, think a little bit before asking stupid questions.

That being said I will gently answer all your questions.

song of the Day: Muse Day, pure Rock

2007-03-11T18:21:00.000Z

The first song of today is a punchy song. you may wanna check your volume before clicking on play.

Today we have "Citizen Erased" extracted from "Origin of Symmetry" the 2001 Muse album. So enjoy!

The second is way more cool. "Sing for absolution" from "Absolution".
Like we say, after the storm, the calm. Just press Play

Life in AIT : 108 Shop

2007-03-11T18:09:00.000Z

The one-O-eight shop is a shop you come to know the first day you arrive in AIT. And basically you will go more often to 108 than to class if you do have long night like me.

The 108 shop is one of the four shops with have on the campus but it is unique. It's opened 24/7 including public holydays.

This is a shop I wish I had back in Paris. It's really handy. Especially since I dont have (yet) a fridge, anytime in the day or night I can go and pick up a fresh bottle of water.

Sad thing is that aside of water they mainly sell chips, and awfully tasting over-chimical industrial cakes. And the cookies are just eatable.
They also sell newspaper and magazine. Unfortunately I'm not that fluent in Thai (understand I barely know 20words).

Various others things are also available like shower gel, shampoo, dippers.

Oh BTW they do have cornetto ice creams, price is 20 bahts (less than 0.5 euro). YEah I can feel some becoming jealous.

Well, that's life. ;-)

A normal Day in AIT

2007-03-10T22:30:00.000Z

So as you may know now AIT stands for Asian Institute of Technology. It's the most internationalised university in Thailand and probably in the whole southeast region

People keep asking me what a day here looks like. So here is a little description of the daily routine.

So basically I wake up 20min before my first class of the day (that range from 8h30 AM to 4hPM). I'm still not used to the thai very early wake up which is something like 6AM.

I grab a bite in the school cafeteria before entering the class. Class lasts from 1h to 3hrs. Its most of the time interesting. But I do have some problems with one of the prof, I mean with his accent. Indian do have a very good english, but You may have hard times listening to what they are saying.

Teachers are WAY MORE CLOSER to students than in France. One of the teachers often offers the breakfast to all the students. Really cool!

I take my lunch at the cafeteria. There is one cafeteria in every school, plus the big cafeteria with several stands. A normal lunch is between 30 and 50 bahts (60cts to 1.10 euros) for a complete meal.

I Go to class in the afternoon if I have one, otherwise I take a nap, go to the library or play basket or badmington(but not before 6PM, did I not mention the weather here.

For the dinner, depending on the people I have dinner with I go to Khun Sue who hold a very decent restaurant, the Viet ( vietnamese food), or to Thamasssat.

Thamassat hold a market on Monday and Thursday. There are plenty of small stands with food as well as shop stands. You can buy perfume, clothes, shoes, watches etc. Otherwise we once every 2 weeks (on average) we go to a steak house. Steak house means a lot of steaks and french fries, basically its western food oriented , I mean of course the local version of western food. Its pretty good too.

It will be around 70 bahts for khun sue including drinks (water or juices), 50 bahts for the viet and around 150bahts (roughly 3.5 baths) for the steak house.

What you do in the night is really up to you. I do spend some time talking on msn with France, Canada, thailand. Blog as much as I can. Eventually I go to sleep.

That's a regular day for a MSc student in AIT, Thailand..

Any question?

Song of the day: Robin Thicke

2007-03-08T15:25:00.000Z

This song is just great. If your have decent headphones, may I suggest you wear it to listen to the fabulous job he has done with the sound.
The name of the song is "Teach u a lesson". Click play to listen.

The album is as great as this song. It's a MUST HAVE. The name is "Evolution of Robin Thicke"

I can't resist. So I'm dropping a second song untitled "Lost witout u".

What else to say. Nothing but "Listen".

PS: Don't forget to drop your comments.

Bangkok Subways

2007-03-08T14:45:00.000Z

Some pictures of the subway in Bangkok.

They are brand new (which means just few years old). There are 2 lines of subways and one aerien line which name is Skytrain.

There is one thing I still don't get. Why do the put the AC so cold inside. I swear to God it's freezin inside. I mean you come from outside where the temperature is about 34/36 degrees and you get into the wagon and it's like 12/14. And of course you wear a simple T-shirt.

There are wasting so much energy while making the 10 station trip very discomfortable.

Otherwise, the subway is really cool, the stations are incredibly huge most of the time, 2 or 3 times wider than the parisian subway stations. I still don't see why but still the stations looks great.

I took the pictures with the crappy camera embedded in my phon but I'll come up with better quality pics.

More to come soon

Funny things to see

2007-03-08T13:14:00.000Z

Well during my excursion to science park (somewhere between AIT and Bankgkok) in my quest for the St Graal, understand contact lenses that are wearable by me, I happened to bumped into the funny baby elephant that you can see on the picture.

People didn't look surprise at all. So I assume that there is nothing extraordinary for them.

Let me know what you think.

Crazy temperatures (part II)

2007-03-07T11:19:00.000Z

I know I've just posted about that but right after my post I went to Future Park (a huge Mall) in my everlasting quest for contact lenses that fit me well (I will talk about that in a coming post).

I miss word to describe how it was outside. I think that hell can't be hotter.

And for the oven experience previously describe, I said 1.5 well I was wrong, make it 2.5 to get a better idea. From now on I'll make I'm always in an ACed room in the afternoon.

Hot...Did you say hot?

2007-03-07T07:28:00.000Z

Well, we're entering the summer here. It's funny when I think that we are just entering.

Temperatures here could, at best, be described as crazy.

Just saying that it's hot is far from being enought to express what we feel here.

I think that to get an idea you shoudl try this.

Turn on your oven and ajust it to the level 1.5 (around 45 degrees). Let the oven heat up for about 15 min. Then open it and put your arm inside.

Well now you know what it feels like here when we are under the direct sunrays. Except of course that it's the WHOLE BODY which is being litteraly burned.

I spent the last 48hours without my bike which means that I had to walk to move across the campus. In concrete terms I spent 3 times more time outside that I usually do.

I do have the funny impression that I'm being "cooked" when I'm outside. It's actually funny when I sit in my room with AC on like now. Back outside it's not that funny.

Oh, and if you want figure I would say between 34 and 36 degrees. But temperature felt under direct sunlight should be around 38/40.

And for those who remember summer 2003 in France, well, let say that it was just a joke compare to here.

So, still wanna stop by?

More info on the Magha Puja Day

2007-03-05T16:50:00.000Z

My friend Maxim has written a very comprehensive article on this special buddhist day.

So if you are interested and want to have more details on it, just click here.

Thanks Maxim.

Song of the day

2007-03-05T03:12:00.000Z

The song of the day is a Toni Braxton song from the album "Secrets".

The song is "How Could an Angel...
It's just beautiful, so click play and enjoy.

Today is also the birthday of a special friend.

So Happy Birthday to you (You know who you are)

See, this year I didn't forget :-)

Good Luck for your exam as well. I know you gonna be fine.

Makha Bucha Day

2007-03-05T02:57:00.000Z

Today is a public day off because it's the Makha bucha day.

I tried to know what was the reason of it. But unfortunately the thai friend with who I talked yesterday has a not so good english ( I mean it's really bad ). So I barely get what He was trying to explain.

But from what I get it's a buddhist holy days (there are actually 3days, from saturday to Monday).

The campus is totally empty, it's really funny and wierd and the same time. I've never seen it like that before.

The bad thing, for me at least, is that banks are closed and I don't have a penny left since saturday.
I was planning to go to HSBC in Bkk to retrieve some money from their ATM in order to avoid the insane fee they charge if I retrieve at another ATM just because my bank account is in France.

I guess not everything is globalised.

Add my blog to your Netvibes page

2007-03-03T22:52:00.000Z

Logically I've decided to provide you with the possibility to easily add my blog feed to your Netvibes pages.

So just click on the button below

The button will be present permanently on the sidebar.

If you don't use Netvibes, don't forget that you always can suscribe to this blog's feed by clicking on orange icon on the adress bar (available for every Firefox and Opera versions and Internet Explorer 7 only).

Netvibes Feed (FR)

2007-03-03T22:38:00.000Z

I've added a new widget in the right of the blog.

It's my list of the (french) feeds related to computers on Netvibes.

You can add it to your netvibes personal pages.

For those who don't know what's Netvibes, let's say that it's a online RSS feed reader or a news aggregator. More informations in french here (sorry there is no decent english version available on wikipedia).

If you don't already have a news aggregator like Google reader, you may wanna try netvibes which is really cool because it's highly customisable.

First cinema in Thailand : The prices

2007-03-02T19:07:00.000Z

So I went today to the cinema for the first time.
I'll tell you what it's look like as well as include some things you may want to know if you ever have to go to the cinema in Thailand.

First, in Thailand there is only one company who have all the multiplexes which name is Major. You have to check for each movie if english is available either for subtitles or as a VO. The one I saw was a Thai movie and english subtitles were available.

Second things to do is buy your ticket. The price is higher during the week-end (actually from thursday to Sunday lol) and we payed 120 bahts which is more or less 2.60 euros.

But there is some kind of class system. Apparently there are "Opera Places" which look like a two places sofa with two nice little tables at each end where you can put your drinks on. Price is 500 bahts then (11euros). There are also "Royal places" but I didn't see what they look like. But apparently it sounds like places in a balcony. That would be a 1000bahts for each. You really have to want to impress that girl ;-)

Oh BTW great difference compare to France, when you buy your place, you also choose it. Those who have tried this system for planes now what I'm talking about.

In concrete terms that means that you don't have to queue and get squizzed at the gate of the room. You can gently get in when you want and be sure that your place is free. Neat!

Though other french people don't agree with me I thing that ticket price are a little bit high for the thai standard. I mean I can eat some decent meal at the cafeteria for 30 bahts. So the cinema is 4 times higher than the price of a meal. The equivalent in France would be a price tag of 15-18 euros for a ticket.

Yet this the price that I pay for my unlimited access card in France. I will raise the issue when I chat with thai friends to get their point of view on that. Maybe I'm wrong somewhere.

I'll let you know soon...

Overview of Social Music

2007-03-01T04:25:00.000Z

Some of my friends tell me that my posts are too long.
Personnaly I think that it depends on how much free time you have.
Anyway there are many things I want to blog about but I just dont have enough time to do so.

Therefore when I will stumble upon some good articles, I will do a short post with a link to the original article.

Let's start with social music. Social music is basicaly all the services that allow you to listen, share and sometimes store music you like.

Techcrunch has post a comprehensive review on the subject.

I have translated this article for Techcrunch France, so click here for the french version.

My favorite one is Pandora, a service where you enter any artist or song name and it automatically generates a radio with similar music. It's a great way to discover music you don't know in the genre you like.
You can create as many radio as you want and even mix them.

You have you personal page where you can display your favorite artist and/or songs.
Of course you can share your radio with your friends. Its a classic for any social network.

RadioBlogClub is also very interesting because you can embed a song in your blog and I think it's a nice feature that I use on this blog. You may wanna try it.

All this website are designed so that you can listen to good music everywhere you can access internet.

More to come soon on this subject.

P.S: If you can't wait my post on it go check mp3tunes.

Blogs from AIT Friends

2007-02-28T06:58:00.000Z

Have discovered some of my AIT fellows blogs.

The two first ones are held by Maxime.
He's doing his MBA at the School of Management (just for the record).

One is about his life in thailand. If you want more information on life in thailand, that's definitely a blog you may want to visit. Just click on the link http://www.maxasia.net/

The second one is focused on new technologies, web design as well as some web 2.0 posts.

He's doing quite an amazing job in web design. Well this blog is as interesting as the first one, but don't trust me on word, go and check yourself. The browsing on his blog is somewhat unusual though, to move from a post to the next one, you have to hit the "Next" button which is hardly noticeable at the bottom of the page. Max can you do something about it?

The last one is actually on small article on the differences between IT (Information Technology), ICT (Information and Communication Technology) which is my field of study BTW and ILT (Information Learning Technology).
The explanation is basic to make it easy to understand to anyone. If you are not familiar with these notions, this is a good place to start.

Oh BTW, the author is Phulbari who is a Nepalese ICT student.

Studying in a Real International School

2007-02-28T04:20:00.000Z

As you may know I'm doing a Msc at AIT.
The really cool thing with AIt is that it's a real multicultural environment.

It's not so common actually to find a school which is so focused on attracting international students.
Until now the overwhelming majority of students come from Asian countries, especially south Asia as well as, of course, Southeast Asia.
I knew very little (I dont want to say nothing) about Asia. So it's pretty exciting to have this opportunity to learn so many things from different countries.

Of course I'm just talking with individuals so the best I can get is a rough idea of theirs cultures and habits. But still it's very interesting. I'm gonna blog about each country I will get a chance to know (even roughly).

When it comes to school matters, well, let's say that compare to France, it's black and white.

I'm taking 3 courses in the School of management, which are actually courses for the MBA program.

Two of them are really great. Many of the students have already some experience. Average is 4/5 years and this makes the classes very interesting.
It's totally different from France, people here are hard-working and motivate.

I think that when you are paying 20000$ (which is also the tuition fees of my Msc) you want to do the best use of your money. Even if some are on a Scholarship, they are really aware of the price of their studies as well as the uniqueness of this opportunity. Some did even take a bank loan to pay for their studies.

I'm really glad to have left behind the French School of Management atmosphere of laziness and I-dont-care-the-class-sucks-anyway.

Add on top of that the variety of culture and mindsets, and you come up with a very fertile mix.

When you have a case study to do, people come with many different ways of looking at problems and it's pretty cool actually to discuss and share these different points of view.

I do have the feeling to actually learn things. I mean useful things that I think would help me in my future jobs. It makes a big difference both in the way I work and in the way I think.

I didn't mention the quality of the professors who are damn good. Again they come from Finland, Germany, India, Nepal etc. They are really into open discussion, interactive class and close interaction with students. It's really awesome.

I don't think I'll be able to go back to a standard Engineering or Management School in France (except maybe for an MBA).

Oh! Also I'm starting to think that having to pay for studies do have some advantages related to the implication and commitment of the students.

Things are starting to get ugly here

2007-02-25T14:59:00.000Z

I've been quite busy lately. I have a lot of work to do with these 7courses going on.

Meanwhile temperatures are getting crazy here. I ahd a shock on Friday, when I went outside. I was litterally burning.

Temperatures were about 36/38 degrees. If you have never experienced that kind of temperatures, you probably don't know what I'm talking about.

I've been told that it gonna be even hotter in the coming weeks. So if you have no news of me for several weeks, start worrying.

Good mews is that I'm to move to a category 4 dormitory. This simply means that I'm gonna have Aid conditionning (AC) in my future room. I'm so happy. I would have died otherwise if I had to past the next 3months without AC.

You might think it's joke, but when the weather get that hot, you think slower, evry thing is more difficult to do. Even motivation is harder to find. The only thing you want to do is drink something and eventually go to sleep.

However, the timing is pretty bad since the mid-term are in one week. So I need to work. I've been totally inefficient the last 3days.

I have to wait one week before moving in my new dorm. So, next week I think I'm gonna do an extensive use of the library which is on the contrary overcooled. Sometimes it's even a freezing place. They need to adjust that AC. But still I prefer cold than heat.

I'll let you know how things are going on here in the coming day.

Want HD videos? Go and check Zudeo

2007-02-19T18:11:00.000Z

We all have some good times watching some funny videos on Youtube.

But at one point, for me at least, I'm kind of tired to have these low-quality videos. It's the other side of the coin of these user generated content.

So when it comes to movies or series, I, like almost everyone who is not insanely rich, use my favorite P2P networks.

Ok, the post is not on how to download new movies or the latest desperate housewives episode.

Some of you might be interested on staying on the legal side. In France you have some Video On Demand websites, but their offers are all limited. Very few allow you to actually download the movie and watch it without any kind of restrictions. Stupid DRM.

That's why Zudeo is great. Zudeo is the legal alternative brought up by the founders of Azureus (a Java-based BitTorrent client which I used to use. It was pretty cool and the interface was nice).

In order to differentiate themselves from their less-legal counterparts, they came out with a unique selling point: HD (high definition) Videos.

Of course the company has a lot of coverage. Here is the coverage of Techcrunch(en).

I've visited the website, there are some pretty cool content. The content is made of a lot of trailers and animated short films. There are also many music clips.

Because of the poor internet connection I have here I couldn’t do any download test. But based on the performance of the Torrent network, it should be quite fast.

The service apparently has some success, as you can see here. For the French version click here (I gave a hand to Ouriel for the translation).

For those of you, who have already tested the service, feel free to let a comment to share your opinion.

Happy chinese New Year

2007-02-19T00:47:00.000Z

Yesterday was the chinese new year.

So happy chinese new year.

We do have a lot of new year here. So it's a lot of fun.

The thai new year is on April. So you gonna hear "Happy new Year" again.

It's really fun, because they celebrate their new year exactly like we, western people do. Except that I've already celebrate it, so it was a little bit strange.

It's really hard to describe how I was feeling. I was celebrating but in the main time it was hard to totally get in the spirit I mean for real.

Anyway I'll let you know for the Thai New Year.

More to come soon.

Web Album for Food and Drinks

2007-02-18T20:03:00.000Z

I have put all the food-and-drink related pictures on a web album.

I think it's more simple to gather them all in the same place.

So to discover Thai food, just click on the picture below.

By the way, this picture is a picture of a very special food. It's a stick made of something vaguely related to banana.

Food and Drinks

Some of french friends love it. But I couldn't eat more than just half of the stick.

The consistency is quite special too. Hard to describe. The easiest way for you to know what it tastes like is to come in Thailand.

Oh BTW, the paper in my hand, it's a 100 bahts note
More to come soon

Fried Rice with Pineapple Chicken

2007-02-18T19:04:00.000Z

So this dish is quite common. It's fried rice with chicken cooked in a pineapple and cashewnuts.

As you may have noticed Thai food often mix sugar and salt. It is quite good most of the time.

Especially for people like me who like cashewnuts.

Asian way of drinking beer

2007-02-16T20:39:00.000Z

I don't really care since I don't drink beer.
But most of asian people do put ice in the beers.

I already can hear some of friends screaming "Sacrilege".

But that just the way things are going on here.

Few things on Vietnamese lifestyle and culture

2007-02-16T20:11:00.000Z

As you know I participate to the vietnamese New Year celebration.

It was a good opportunity to talk with Viet people about their culture. I'll try to list them here:

They are very welcoming. This is just an impression, and it can be biased because it was New Year celebration and that at that time people are happy and more opened. But that was my first impression. According to one guy I chatted with, it's in their culture to be cool people. I guess that once you get rid of this "tourist" banner on your forehead, they are probably charming people.

Vietnamese elections seem to be kind of funny. Apparently there are no official candidates. When people go to vote, they wrote the name of the person they want to see as the president. I still cannot believe it. There must be a trick somewhere. Apparently, in order to prevent people to run a campaign, election date are not fixed. So at anytime, elections can be called. I guess there is probably a short delay before the call and the elction day. I'm gonna ask again because this sounds so wierd that I'm afraid I didn't get it right

There are many religious in Vietnam (buddhism, catolicism, etc.) But no matter what is one's religion everyone pray the god of the house. One different for each house. In every kitchen, there is a small statue placed just below the roof. And everyone pray that god. Moreover, one time per year, there is a big ceremony which takes place in each house. People gathered in the kitchen to pray and after celebrate.

Vietnamese people drink. And when I say they drink, I mean they DRINK. They drink beer like I drink water. and I can tell you, because of the heat I drink a LOT of water.

These are just a small fraction of the empty bottles. In 2 hours, I've seen myself being granted with 4 bottles of beer. And it would have been even more if I had actually drink them.

These are just the first glance I had at vietnamese lifestyle. I can't wait to go to vietnam. I hope I'll have the opportunity to do so. If I do, of course I'll blog about that.
So stay tuned, more to come soon.

Happy Vietnamese New Year

2007-02-16T18:08:00.000Z

So today is the vietnamese New year. I didn't know that. but thanks to my friend Sherif I had the chance to attend to the celebration which was taking place on the campus. There are about 200 vietnamese students on the campus, but almost 2/3 have left to celebrate at home.

Nevertheless the celebration was great. They were so welcoming! It's amazing. I mean even for a New Year party. We came after the dinner so I didn't had the chance to eat with them. But I sure did experience their warmful welcome which started with a glass of beer. 2 min later another guy came with one bottle of beer for everyone. 3mins later, same thing. It's amazing the number of toast we had.

I don't drink beer but I didn't want to say NO, it could have been misinterprated. So I faked drinking a little bit and then discretly put the glass under my seat.

I took some pictures. You can see the whole album here. Or just click on the picture.

Vietnamese New Year 2007

Thai Music is not so great

2007-02-14T11:58:00.000Z

I'm not I have had the chance to listen traditional thai music. Most of the thai music I've heard was mainly music for young people. Understand music that has been influenced by western culture. I don't know whether this might the reason or not but one thing is for sure. Thai music is awful!

I do think that one has to be careful when judging a culture he barely knows. But here many of these songs were actually thai version of american songs. And even when it wasn't, it sounds similar.

I'm very eclectic when it comes to music, I mean really. I listen to every kind except the hard-whatever genre (even though there are exceptions). So I don't think it comes from me.

It is seriously painful to hear and when we go outside AIT to have dinner, the only thing that bothers me is music.

I would like to have a chance to listen to real thai music, I feel like I'm gonna enjoy it. Because these thai western-like songs are insanely bad.

As soon as I get a good thai song, I'll post it here. Until that time I let you listen this very good song. From Ben Harper again : Power of Gospel.

Oh BTW, feel free to let comments on any post about anything you like. Especially what do you think of the food pictures below?

Fried Noodles with Chicken

2007-02-14T11:19:00.000Z

Here is another thai dish. Fried noodles with chicken and leaves. Noodles are sometimes fried with an egg or two.

I'm not sure everyone will like this dish. Even for me it depends of the mood of the day. The first two times I liked it, the third I ended up finding it a little bit sickening. And you don't want to eat the stems of the leaves, trust me.

Of course, more food pictures to come soon...

Thai Food : Chicken with cashewnuts

2007-02-14T10:58:00.000Z

You can't visit a country without testing the local food. And since I'm here for 18 months, It was mandatory to get used to the food.

Food turned out to be pretty good. I had no problem to get used to it even during the first days.

But for those of you you haven't yet the chance to visit Thailand I'm gonna post some pictures of Thai food.

The first one is this one. A classic dish: Chicken with cashewnuts and leaves. 35bahts +7 bahts for the rice (42 bahts for all).
For less than 1 euro, this is what you get in a decent restaurant.

So want to visit thailand now?

United Colors of AIT

2007-02-07T17:27:00.000Z

Want to know what I mean by multi cultural environment in AIT?

So have a look at the Web albums of pictures I took during the "Caribean Party"

I've selected the most interesting pictures.

Caribean soiree

Click on the pictures to see the whole album.

Thai dinner

2007-02-07T11:47:00.000Z

Yesterday was a good day. Yesterday I had my first dinner with Thai people exclusively. It's a major step. But to understand why it's such a big deal I have to explain a little bit more how things are going down here.

There is a truly multi cultural international environment here, with mainly people from South and Southeast asia. Thai people represent probably less than half of the students. Many people arrive here without marks. So, as a natural human trend, a newcomer will hang out with his fellow citizens when he arrives. The problem is that it becomes a habit. This results in that most students spend 95% of their free time with their fellow citizens.

During the classes you have an pretty impressive cultural mixing, but outside, putting aside group works, very little mix.

Have been there for 3 weeks and until now (actually Yesterday) spent all my free time with French speaking people. I started getting acquainted with some Thai people though.

So yesterday after a 2 hours long chatting, I ended up being invited to dinner by my 3 new friends. We went outside AIT campus, to Thamassat (5 min away by car).

We went to a restaurant where I would never go with French people. You know these little nice restaurants that you have to know to go to. The menus were written only in Thai anyway so you have to come with some Thai people.

The food was very good, we ate a little bit of everything, a grilled fish, steamed seafood, grilled vegetables, a seafood soup, an omelete with something-i-dont-remember and of course rice. I had the chance to see how thai people eat, and it's quite different from the occidental way. They eat a little bit of everything in the same time. The only thing that is left apart is the dessert.

We discussed of our different cultures. It was quite an interesting conversation. I'm gathering enough material to make a first post on the Thai culture. I want it to be consistent and avoid all the cliché. I'm gonna blog about it soon.

The minor detail you might want to know is that the only place you find a knife is a kitchen. And this is an assumption since I have not seen a single knife until now. And while everything is made taking into account that fact, sometimes you find yourself briefly looking for a knife.

Next time I'll take pictures of the food so that you, dear reader, get an idea of what does Thai food look like?

Ben Harper's song

2007-02-05T20:10:00.000Z

This is a song I love. No matter what kind of music you like, you gonna enjoy listening this one. The title is "Morning Yearning" from the album "Both Sides Of the gun"

Just click on the play button to listen to the song.

More to come soon ...

WTF am I doing in Thailand anyway?

2007-02-05T18:15:00.000Z

Some of you still don't know what I am doing here. So this small post will try to answer this
question.

So basically I'm doing a Master of Science in Information and Communications Technologies (in short Msc in ICT)
This is part of my Engineering studies at Telecom INT. What's interesting is that at the end I will obtain
two diplomas , the Msc from AIT and the Diploma of Engineer from INT.
that means that if I have to look for a job outside France I won't have to go through the painful process of
explaining the French system.

So I have 6 courses. I was supposed to take 4 like every body, but I asked for 5 and due to some
confusing administrative process, I end up with 6 courses.
Just for fun here is the list of the 6 courses:

ICT Project Design : We learn how to manage a "real" project with all its important aspects
Telecommunications Networks. The title is explicit. The only reason why I registered for this course is that it was required
Advanced Topics on Internet : Basically everything about protocols on Internet
Management of Innovation : really an interesting course with a lot of interaction. Very instructive one also.
Technology Strategy: Where I see the interaction between Technology and the elaboration of a company strategy
Management of Information Systems: The course is interesting. It really closed to what a IT consultant do in real life.

Sadly, the teacher isn't so good. I guess I need to get used to his accent
And last but not least, I attend to the Financial Management class. This course is just fantastic, partially because
I'm interested by the topic and partially because the professor is simply great. Smart, dynamic, funny and still demanding.

All together I have 23 hours of class (instead of 14). I wanted to make sure that I won't get bored.
With that schedule, this is not likely to be the case.

That's all folks!

The red Fanta

2007-02-03T15:47:00.000Z

I told you it was coming. Here it is, the red Fanta.

For those of you who wonder what does it taste like I would say that it's not so far from the "diabolo grenadine". A more accurate comparison would be "TOP Grenadine" but you have to know what's "TOP grenadine" which is quite a popular beverage in Cameroon.

I will try to look for a Yellow Fanta. If I do, I guess I'll take a picture with the Green, Red and Yellow Fanta and will put the Cameroonian Flag right in front of it. (If you have no clue of what I'm talking about, click here).

More on Food and Drink to come soon.

Some Widgets on my blog

2007-02-03T13:47:00.000Z

I've just added some widget to my blog just below the list of labels.

I've added a counter so that everyone can know how many visits have had (starting now).

I have also add a LinkedIn link so that you can access my LinkedIn profile in just one click.

I'm gonna make a little post on LinkedIn soon.

I'm also tryin a new service named plugoo that is supposed to let you guys talk with me on messenger just by typing your text in the little window below.

Lets see if it works.

Skype vs Jajah

2007-02-02T21:07:00.000Z

Everyone knows Skype. It's the most popular VoIP (Voice over IP) software for making calls all around the world.

Skype was not the first software of VoIP, actually it's quite young regarding the history of VoIP. I remember trying to place my first call in 1999 using a soft I don't even remember the name (was it Soft2phone). Back then, I was in Douala using a now obsolete 56K connection, the one with the regular phone line+ modem. The quality was awful. That's probably why the concept didn't take off.

Skype was a huge success because it brings normal phone quality at incredible low prices. And comunications between two PCs were free. But PC to PC calls need some kind of synchronisation because the two people have to be in front of a computer with headphones and stay there as long as the communcation last.

But when I arrived here, I found that Skype doesn't fit to my need. Mainly because Skype is prohibited on the campus network. It's mainly because of the bandwith usage. You might not be aware of thaht but Skype use quite a lot of your bandwith even you are not placing any call. If you want to know more on how it works and what are the principles strengths and weaknesses click on this link to Wikipedia (french version here)

So I looked for an alternative, and decided to give a try to Jajah, a service I discovered several weeks ago thanks to fellows at techcrunch
(french version available here).

Jajah is almost perfect for me. First I don't have a micro and I don't want to buy one. This is how it works:

You sign-in and enter your phone numbers (mobile, home, work)
You enter the phone number you wanna call
You wait. 5 second later, your phone ring, you pick up and get connected with your friend.

Can't be simpler. You see the main advantages : no need for a headset, no need for your correspondant to be a user of the service and most important YOU BOTH USE YOUR REGULAR PHONE. That means that once the call has been initiated you don't need to stay in front of your PC.

You gonna laugh when I tell you that Jajah is cheaper than Skype. But it's simply true. And when I say cheaper, I mean it. Call between France and USA/Canada are for example free (if you dont use mobiles; folks don't ask too much)whereas skype charges you 1.7 cts/min.

French people are gonna say that they've already have free calls for europe and north america with Free/Neuf etc. But don't forget that this also works at Work since there's no software to download. It also works with mobile but it's more expensive (nothing to do with what you will be chaged by your regular mobile service provider though).

For me here in Thailand, things are even better. Calls between my cell and home lines in france have a ridiculous 3,5cents/min toll. Compare to the 30cts AIS ( my mobile service provider MSP in short) charges me for every single SMS sent to France and you see what I mean.

But the best part is almost unbelievable. I've discovered that if my correspondant is also a registered Jajah user calls are simply FREE between our home lines. Yeah, you read well it's FREE.

Thailande for some strange reasons is one of the countries in Group A, France is group B so calls between Jajah users is free on home/work lines. It works with basicly every european and north america countries

So if you wanna call me just sigh me, add me to your contact. My user name is tntresor [at] yahoo.fr and leave a comment anywhere on my blog to get my phone numbers.

Funny Fanta

2007-02-01T23:01:00.000Z

It,s somehow hard to believe but what you are looking at is a fanta, a green fanta.

These guys are funny. Tomorrow I'll introduce the red fanta.

I know I'm supposed to write a post on food&drink. I'll try to find the time.

as always, more to come soon

Social Network : Quick overview

2007-02-01T15:20:00.000Z

As you may be aware, there are a lot of social network opening everyday. The most popular worldwide are MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook. Back in France, Skyblog and Hi5 are also quite successfull.

But they are many others, actually a new Web 2.0 site pop up almost every day. I'm starting to wonder why there are so many existing social network and why new ones keep heaping.

If you want to keep up to date on Web 2.0 news, you may wanna check www.techcrunch.com which is one of the most famous blog worldwide ( actually the 5th most popular) and is held by Michael Arrington . There is a French version, equally popular (3rd french blog to be precise) www.techcrunch.fr held by Ouriel Ohayon.
From time to time I'm doing english to french translations for them.

I'll post as well about the companies I find the more interesting for me and for people both France and in thailand. To be honest, Thailand isn't even close to see a silicon-like valley blooming anytime soon. But still there might be some good news for us who live here.

There are some social networks I think you should definitively be in.

MySpace is very popular in US and UK. If you have a lot of friends there, you definitly have to sign in.

If you are opened to others cultures you can try Hi5, it's full of people coming from very every countries. BTW my hi5 profile is available at tntresor.hi5.com.

You also have LinkedIn. It's clearly a Work/business-oriented social network. I think it's a powerful tool though it's not the magic wand that is gonna get you
a job or an internship. I actually opened an account more than 1 year ago, but I didn't really keep it up to date. But I'm currently working on it. I'll soon blog about that.

Many others sites provide a social networking feature in top of other features, like Flickr where you can store your photos, or YouTube (no need to present).oriented
More on this topic to come soon.

One more thing, have you ever notice the orange icon on the right of the address bar. It's the RSS icon (those who use Internet Explorer 6.0 aka IE 6 and older wont see this icon, in this case I suggest that you update to IE 7). Just click on the icon to add my blog to your RSS feeds.

If you don't know what is a RSS feed click here or here for the french version.
For those of you who don't want the details, let's just say that you
will receive any update of
the blog without having to come over. It's very useful, especially since who can keep on tracking many other websites and blogs.

If you have any troubles or questions, just leave a comment and I'll answer ASAP.

Birman Smokes

2007-01-30T21:22:00.000Z

Here in Thailand we have some very strict laws on drugs. Any kind of drugs is strictly forbidden.
And when I say strictly , I mean strictly, in the asian way.
Not that drugs like cannabis are not available, but it is not easy to find it and most of the time apparently dealers are the first to denounce you to the local authorities. And thrust me you don't wanna spend some time in thai prisons. Especially as a "farang".

It's not in the thai culture to smoke. You'll barely see people smoking cigarettes in the street.
On the campus, the only people I've seen smoking are outcomers ( "farang").

Apparently things are slightly different in Birmany which name is now Myanmar.
I'll probably gonna pay a visit in this country so you will soon have more insight of this country.
But friends of mine made a trip few month ago in myanmar and came back with many pictures.
I've just pick up this picture of an old woman smoking birman homemade cigarettes. I assumed its cigarette but in fact I'm not sure.

Old birman woman smoking

Click on the picture to go to the 4 pictures album. You'll get a chance to see the size of the smoke. It's simply astonishing.

I was wondering whether my dear friend Sarkozy will allow these smokes on the french soil. What do you think?