How I Watched the F1 Race Today

To watch the opening race of the 2012 F1 season, I had to set up a VPN connection to a server in Italy (for Rai’s live TV feed), and a virtual machine running another VPN connection to the UK (for BBC Radio’s audio commentary). The VPN service only costs $10 a month, but I’ll pay 4 times that to get a proper legal direct feed, if anyone will sell it to me.

Comics artist Giraud died at 73. The above post is Kichka’s obituary (drawn, and in French).

Michel Kichka

C’est en 1966 au collège, que je découvre Pilote. Jusque là j’étais un fervent de Spirou qui m’offrait des rendez-vous hebdomadaires avec Gaston, Spirou et Fantasio, Lucky Luke, Johan et Pirlouit, Jerry Spring, Gil Jourdan, Boule et Bill et compagnie. Pilote m’offrit Blueberry, Astérix, les Dingodossiers, le grand Duduche, puis Reiser, Brétécher, Mandryka et compagnie. Autant dire que je baignais dans l’âge d’or de la BD franco-belge. Plus tard, au lycée je découvris l’Echo des Savanes puis Métal Hurlant.
Moi qui était dingue de western, j’ai suivi Blueberry dans toutes ses aventures. Au scénario épique de Charlier venait s’ajouter le dessin réaliste et virtuose de Giraud, du jamais vu pour mes jeunes yeux de futur dessinateur. Même si je ne me destinais plutôt au dessin d’humour, Giraud était à lui seul une école et un maître. Je recopiais des cases, essayant de comprendre comment fonctionne une composition, ce que sont…

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Backing up iPhoto images to an external destination using Carbon Copy Cloner

When I started using iPhoto, I didn’t realize my images are all enclosed inside a single package file. This is annoying because I’m used to having all my photos on a network share for easy access from PCs and other devices.

It turns out directly accessing images from iPhoto in the finder isn’t too difficult – you just need to “Show Package Contents” on the iPhoto library file, and navigate to the “Master” folder. However regularly backing up those images is a little more tricky.

If you’ve ever wanted to back up just the images from inside your iPhoto library to an external drive, a network share etc, then this is how you do it with the excellent Carbon Copy Cloner:

  1. In CCC’s main window, select “Choose a folder” from the source drop down. A folder navigation window will open.
  2. Ignore it for now and open a general finder window – navigate to your iPhoto library file location (usually under Pictures in your user account folder), and right-click on the iPhoto Library file and select on “Show Package Contents” from the pop-up menu.
    Show Package Contents

  3. Now drag the “Masters” folder directly into CCC’s folder navigation window. That’s it – just select your destination and click on clone.
    Drag the masters folder into CCC

How France’s Free will reinvent mobile

I’m a huge fan of how France’s “Free” has been revolutionizing the french telecommunication market in the past decade. An article I wrote about them was published on Ynet back in 2006. Now they’re also getting into mobile.

Gigaom

Updated: Xavier Niel, the maverick founder of Iliad, the company behind Free.fr broadband service, is about to redefine the mobile landscape, perhaps as early as tomorrow, when he launches the much-talked about Free Mobile. In doing so, he will redefine what the idea of a carrier in the 21st century is, thanks to a radical new approach. Utilizing a blend of Wi-Fi, HSPA+ 3G, femtocells and its all-fiber backbone, Free will offer unlimited voice, texting and data over the mobile networks; just bring your own iPhone(s aapl). But before I get into the details of his new company, let me back up and tell you about Iliad and Free.fr.

Set it Free.fr

In Dec. 2007, while attending Le Web in Paris, I snuck out to visit Niel, the man behind Iliad, a Paris-based phone service that owned many entities including its most well-known offering: Free.fr, a broadband service…

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