Linux distributions explained
RT @thibauld Linux distributions explainedWhile cleaning my disk, I found a presentation about Linux distributions and the challenges they are facing which I did about 2 years ago. It is pretty unique since I gave this presentation only once during a 1 day training session I gave to Canonical OEM sales team. This presentation is particularly interesting as it graphically explains what is the work of Linux distributions and their challenges. Being an Open Source enthusiast and former Mandriva (Mandrakesoft) employee, this is a subject I know pretty well so I thought I'd share it with you. Hope you'll find it useful!
Entrepreneurs Club Paris – EM Lyon, 8 avril 2009
RT @thibauld Entrepreneurs Club Paris – EM Lyon, 8 avril 2009On April 8, 2009, my friend Arnaud and I organized an entrepreneurs meeting at the Bedford hôtel in Paris. This event is organized to help new companies ventured by EM Lyon alumni get some visibility (for our english friends, EM Lyon Management School is Lyon's business school). I though I would share with you the pitch (in french sorry!) of the 5 companies which were presented:
La Compagnie du Bain (by Denis Virot): La Compagnie du Bain est l'inventeur du vêtement de Bain isotherme seconde peau et propose des solutions de prêt-à-porter pour une entrée facile dans l'eau, confortable et conviviale.
Yoolink Pro (by Sébastien Blanc): YoolinkPro est une nouvelle façon de gérer et de capitaliser sur l'information et les connaissances en entreprise. C'est une nouvelle génération d'Intranet qui permet de diffuser l'actualité au sein des équipes, de construire une base de connaissance pérenne et unique et de capitaliser sur l'expertise de ses collaborateurs.
New Boutique Hostel (by Laurent Nissan): la première « auberge de jeunesse » haut de gamme à Paris. L’ambition de New Boutique Hostel est de créer la première chaîne de boutique hostels à Paris autour d’un concept neuf, sur un marché de l’hébergement économique pour jeunes en net déficit d’offres.
Insiteo (by Pierre Varrod): INSITEO develops an indoor GPS system. Avec INSITEO, le GPS pénètre les grands bâtiments: 3 milliards de voyageurs aériens stressés seront enfin guidés jusqu'à leur porte d'embarquement, les visiteurs du Louvre trouveront la Joconde...
Toofoot (by Gilles Wagnon): Toofoot est la première communauté du football amateur. Toofoot est la plate-forme qui se cache derrière Monfoot de francefootball.fr.
Web application implementation: a bad example
RT @thibauld Web application implementation: a bad exampleI recently went to a website which is a perfect example of what *not* to do if you want your web app to feel fast and responsive from a user perspective, especially when it is the first this user comes to your site! Indeed, the first time you go to a website, your web browser will have to download everything: html code, css stylesheets, javascript files, images... and it takes time so you'd better limit the number of files to download if you want the user first experience with your web app to be user friendly.
This is clearly not what moblin solution zone is doing! When you first go to moblin solution zone, you have to wait 25 seconds (!!) before anything displays on your web browser... and what is funny is that there is finally not much to see 
If you fire up your brave little firebug and take a look at what is happening behind the scene, you quickly realize that your web browser has to make 40 (fourty) requests before displaying the full page!
Even though each request is relatively small, at the end you wait 25 seconds only to see this:
In conclusion, if you want your users to have a good experience when they first visit your website, you'd better minimize the number of requests needed by grouping js files, css files and using CSS sprites. CSS sprites are a technique which consists in grouping all images like icons into 1 unique image and then use css to only display the image needed. This is really important for the user first visit to your web app since when he comes back, his web browser will have cached a lot of the needed static files which will vastly improve the response time! Provided you set your apache default_expire setting correctly of course...