Alain Fontaine’s Jabberbox

WTF?

I’ve had a couple of Google Docs spreadsheets using references to other sheets with the help of the ImportRange() function. This has been working well for the last 10 weeks or so. Now, all of a sudden, I get the dreaded #REF error in my cells using the ImportRange() function.

Googling for the error shows at least a number similar to Luxembourg’s population of people having had the same issue time over time, for months. Apparently, there are some work-arounds, like re-creating the formula, opening and closing the spreadsheets a couple of times, adding a “space” character to the formula, copying it to another cell and then back to its original location… just to be sure of the effect of all of these tips&tricks, I also kicked my heels three times, turned around twice, smoked a waterpipe and prayed to the Great Gods of Google, and after sacrifying a chicken, it started to work again! Woohoo !

Seriously – I want to use this for business, and not for being able to say how cool and cloud-based I am while doing Voodoo to get basic stuff working. I’d take one piece of Exel, please, thank you !

Hi all,

It’s been some time that I haven’t posted anything new on my blog. Today I got a call from a long-time-not-seen friend (he’ll recognize himself!) who found me through my blog (and not FaceBook, ha!), and he also invited me to post some stuff more frequently. Funnily, I just got ZEND’s latest newsletter announcing their new kid on the block, ZEND Studio 8, which integrates with VMWare virtual development servers :

Run your PHP applications on a virtual server while creating and debugging them on your developer workstation! With Zend Studio 8.0 Beta 2, you can deploy applications directly into VMware Workstation virtual machines. Debug applications from inside a VM using Zend Studio and build real virtualization into your development processes.
http://www.zend.com/en/products/studio/vmware-workstation-deployment

Well, FINALLY! I was wondering why it took so long for someone, especially Zend, to offer an integrated solution. For our development needs at atHome as well as at VAlain , we’ve been using virtualized development and staging environments for months, and it has made a big difference from the first day, even if there was no direct and seamless integration, but rather a homebrewed solution.

I am very keen on trying this as soon as possible, and I’ll keep you posted with some expert, real-life insight.

After reading many posts from people having the same sluggishness problems as I had on my iPhone 3G with the latest 4.0 and 4.0.1 software updates, I did the following to get my iPhone back to an acceptable level of performance and responsiveness :

• Make sure you have a complete, recent backup of your iPhone
• RESET your iPhone to factory defaults from within iTunes – let it go through the whole procedure without interruption
• Perform a hardware RESET your iPhone after the factory reset, holding the top button and the “home” button together for at least 10 seconds
• After the hardware reset, perform a RESTORE of your backup
• Next, go to Settings->General->Home button preferences, then Spotlight, to deactivate the Spotlight indexing for those items that you only rarely search on. This frees up some performance and memory

After having performed all of the above steps, my 3G is again behaving reasonably fast – pretty much the same as on the 3.1.x software !

<rant mode>

Today was the official launch of Apple’s iPad in Luxembourg. The atHome group of companies, for which I work as head of IT, needed 3 iPads for internal needs, so I drove off to Apple’s main premium reseller Lineheart in Leudelange to get them.

Unfortunately, my mission to give Apple and Lineheart some money, and make the luxembourgish government earn some VAT, came to an abrupt halt when the otherwise friendly sales guy told me “Sorry, today it’s just one device per customer!“.

I explained that this was for atHome group and that they could even write three different invoices on three of the seven companies’ names that atHome Group operates, but to no avail.

WTF!? How business unfriendly is this? It ruined my day because I drove way too many kilometers to their place just to find out that even business customers get treated as everyone else.

It’s noteworthy to say that a couple of months ago, REA Group spent hundred thousands with Apple to equip the whole Australian businesses with hundreds of MacBooks, iPhones, and now also a couple of iPads. Unfortunately, even this is not good enough for us to be able to buy three iPads over here.

Finally, this only confirms my decision of not using Apple as a business IT provider or partner in Luxembourg. They just don’t seem to be up to what I expect.

Now I’m off to find the nearest Apple store in France that will be generous enough to allow me to spend some money with them.

</rant mode>

For easter, I thought I would get myself the new Lotus Eggxige …

(continue reading…)

After many months of thinking and watching the market, and of course trying to figure out why I’d really need (want!) a netbook, I’ve decided to go for one… I’m about to drive to the shop and get myself an Acer Aspire One D250, because it’s cheap and offers the features I’m looking for. As soon as I have it, I’ll install Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook remix (UNR), because I don’t want Windows 7 bloatware on that kind of hardware. Stay tuned for an extensive write-up of my experience in the next two days!

UPDATE : 29/12/2009 at 00:28

We just got back from the shops and from watching one of the best movies I’ve seen in the last few years: AVATAR. Greatly stunning, a must-see ! Back to the netbook: after checking out the D250′s keyboard, I decided it sucked big time, and got myself the ASUS eeePC 1008HA instead. I’m currently installing Ubuntu Netbook Release onto it…

Since a couple of days, we are using MailFoundry as our anti-spam solution on the valain.com domain of my web design company VAlain SA. The service is currently kindly provided by my old friend Joaquim Homrighausen’s company Webbplatsen in Sweden. The results are truly impressive! Even though we have installed MailScanner and SpamAssassin on our mail server, and tuned it as far as we could (know), I personally still got around 30 to 40 spam E-mails a day. Since we use this new service, I receive one to two spams a week. Truly great!

The NAS device market has showed some good news for the SOHO and small business users over the last few months. While affordable and feature-rich NAS devices have been around for a pretty long time, it’s not until recently that the major players have added (or are planning to add in the next weeks) iSCSI support to their devices. I consider iSCSI support extremely useful as it allows you to build entreprise-like storage for a fraction of the cost that you’d need to spend with going the fibrechannel route. Having done some research, here’s what I’ve found on the Internet.

(continue reading…)

The famous Lotus name could return to Formula One racing next season if UK Formula Three team Litespeed have their entry for the 2010 championship accepted by the FIA next week.

via The Official Formula 1 Website.

Intel Faces $1.3B Fine In Europe

via Slashdot | Intel Faces $1.3B Fine In Europe.

“European antitrust regulators, who have been aggressively pursuing what they see as anticompetitive practices among technology companies, could impose their largest fine ever in a market-dominance case against Intel. The commission began investigating Intel in 2000 after Advanced Micro Devices, its arch-rival, filed a complaint. In two sets of charges, in 2007 and 2008, the commission accused Intel of abusing its dominant position in chips by giving large rebates to computer makers, by paying computer makers to delay or cancel product lines, and by offering chips for server computers at prices below actual cost. Some legal experts speculate that Intel’s fine could reach about a billion euros, or $1.3B. ‘I’d be surprised if the fine isn’t as high or higher than in the Microsoft case,’ said an antitrust and competition lawyer in London. In 2004 Microsoft paid a fine of €497M, or $663M at current exchange rates, after being accused of abusing its dominance; the EU imposed another $1.3B fine in Feb. 2008.”

Now this is a lot of money. Then again, will this really hurt a multi-billion corporation like Intel, or do they accept the fact that this is the price to pay every couple of years and just go on with their business as before ?

As the EU is apparently in need of money, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a couple more of these news in the next weeks and months.