tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30178018987861569172024-03-05T13:30:41.548-08:00Random StuffMouimouihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10058492310767557819noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017801898786156917.post-14704430839991294072013-10-18T01:23:00.000-07:002013-10-18T01:23:15.076-07:00How to check if you have any traffic fines (multado) in Spain!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Man this goes beyond any common sense but, well, I guess you need to be opened to different cultures and their different ways of handling common administrative tasks.<br />
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If you think you have managed to live in Spain all those years without ever receiving a road fine (in your letter box), <b>THINK AGAIN</b>, you might be up for a big surprise. At least a friend of mine was: a mere 640 euros of fines was waiting for him in there :(<br />
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It seems the Spanish administration won't bother sending you a letter. It's your duty to go to the following websites and check for any outstanding payments!<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" type="cite">
<a href="https://sede.dgt.gob.es/sede/faces/paginas/testra/testraIframe.xhtml?pagina=itablon.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://sede.dgt.gob.<wbr></wbr>es/sede/faces/paginas/testra/<wbr></wbr>testraIframe.xhtml?pagina=<wbr></wbr>itablon.html</a></blockquote>
Once there, type in your name and check for the results!<br />
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To be fair, once you know about this website you can actually register to receive email notifications, just check the links on the sides of the page.<br />
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Let me know in your comments how it went for you.<br />
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Mouimouihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10058492310767557819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017801898786156917.post-21643046511040426172012-12-24T03:08:00.001-08:002012-12-24T03:08:18.382-08:00Why We Can't Solve Big Problems | MIT Technology ReviewA great thought triggering article. I still believe we are in a phase of technology consolidation (mainly IT enablers to help solve complex problems - better collaboration, knowledge sharing, problem awareness, computation and simulation power) and major breakthroughs will show up soon.<br />
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<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/429690/why-we-cant-solve-big-problems/">Why We Can't Solve Big Problems | MIT Technology Review</a><br />
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Mouimouihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10058492310767557819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017801898786156917.post-33667723178343588092011-07-15T06:40:00.000-07:002011-07-15T06:40:34.620-07:00How to add visitor track bar with locationWell I've just gone through the search so I might as well post it here.<br />
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In essence you have:<br />
- <a href="http://feedjit.com/">feedjit</a>, my favourite one, I use on my <a href="http://compastic.blogspot.com/">Compastic!</a> blog, check it to see what it looks like. For blogger do not use the Add a Gadget one, I don't quite know what it is supposed to display but it is totally irrelevant. In fact installing is incredibly simple, just go to the website, register and it will take you to your blog for installation.<br />
- <a href="http://www.clustrmaps.com/">clustrMaps</a>, the one I use in this blog, displays on a map with support for various type of sites. Check it to see what it looks like. To add it to blogger, go to the design tab, add a Gadget and choose the HTML/Javascript one amongst the list of popular ones. Go to the clustrMaps website and get the code. Copy paste into your gadget content and add the title you like.<br />
- <a href="http://www.revolvermaps.com/?target=setup">revolver maps</a>, a great one too. To install get the code from the website and as for clustrMap, add the HTML/Javascript gadget and paste the code to your new widget. Check it out on my other blog Me, <a href="http://me-my-princesses-my-company.blogspot.com/">My Princesses and My Company</a>.Mouimouihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10058492310767557819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017801898786156917.post-35463428410681995712011-01-31T03:39:00.000-08:002011-02-02T01:05:59.357-08:00Real Random Stuff<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Well, it's time for some real random stuff. I don't know about you but I have the "unlucky" privilege of having my birthday in January, right after all the Christmas and New Year's shopping frenzy. Which means that there is generally less money and less ideas for your poor me.<br />
Well, this year was a rare treat.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Number one on the list is without doubt, the mauling cat, a designer pencil sharpener with a twist. Not for the faint hearted or the animal lovers (the cat's made of plastic BTW). Check the video below:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/87M5k86QK0A?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
My daughters (4 and 2 years old) love it. They sharpened about 10 pencils yesterday. Notice the cat tray underneath to collect the rubish. Brilliant int'it?<br />
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Otherwise on a much more political correct note, check the paper airplane a day calendar, photos below. It is fantastic. The guys behind it have come up with about 300 designs, only one airplane on week ends, crazy no? My brother in law has it in his office, says the colleagues wait for him every morning to fold the daily plane.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL-GI5XZlIB7gs8PYdPlnlhYRm-v_Y7mxExssBybBSaYRbl7eA4EZtnZOc9JIcBeI3QOoTHCG4dSfFAkhNhwy0OmJsMmVGqb3-jcLwzebMNtNGIDht4JHjZfPktLkVkDYBUOdFqstYtbxR/s1600/IMAG0118.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL-GI5XZlIB7gs8PYdPlnlhYRm-v_Y7mxExssBybBSaYRbl7eA4EZtnZOc9JIcBeI3QOoTHCG4dSfFAkhNhwy0OmJsMmVGqb3-jcLwzebMNtNGIDht4JHjZfPktLkVkDYBUOdFqstYtbxR/s320/IMAG0118.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
I got many more things for sure. But guess what I got my wife? Certainly one of the top selling products this year, the comfy coat blanket thing, to stay warm even when you watch telly! amazing what love can bring you to do. <br />
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Is that all you will say? Well sure I haven't mentioned that game that gives you an electric discharge if you're the last to press the button (talk about social games), or the granny with walking aid figurine that my mother in law got last year, or the impressionist pizza jigsaw. No I haven't. For good reasons.<br />
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Gee there is a market for gadgets these days!<br />
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</div>Mouimouihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10058492310767557819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017801898786156917.post-35135611562241372032011-01-29T09:49:00.000-08:002011-01-29T09:51:47.007-08:00Nebulos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I posted my Nebulos code to the google Visualisation Gallery. I attempted to make it a Facebook App but it never took off. You can find the App @ <a href="http://apps.facebook.com/graphit/">Graphit</a>. The App actually uses another Visualisation component, namely the famous 3D world cloud from Roy Tanck, the one that's on <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cumulus/">WordPress</a>.<br />
I am wondering if making some code open source, therefore "giving it" away has any potential to increase your application use & web page traffic.<br />
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Making your code open source has many advantages, one of which being possible extensive testing & improvements to your code on the long run. Self advertising as an application or as a developer is another one.<br />
So I modularised the initial javascript to fit with the Visu API (not much work in fact), created a Google project repository and svn'ed the <a href="http://code.google.com/p/nebulos/">code</a>. A quick Wiki page to provide for a User Guide. I added an Analytics tracker (Administer/Scroll down to Website Analytics) to see who's visiting. I completed the Visualisation submission form, got the "thank you we'll be in touch" from Google and voila!<br />
This is not my first Open Source Project, but it's the first time I submit a Visualisation item. I might go for the gadget too. Let's see how it goes.</div>Mouimouihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10058492310767557819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017801898786156917.post-48826210558484651352011-01-29T08:15:00.000-08:002011-01-29T09:52:25.247-08:00Crowd Funded<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I love all this crowd stuff. Well, within reasons. But I believe the Net is there to help us connect and interact for the better. Crowd something (formed, funded, voted, designed, ...) has been there for a while now, eg Wikipedia, and will expand big time in the future. In fact it is probably the future of working.<br />
I already talked about Quirky, which is what I call a crowd shaped (my own wordings) business. There are plenty of other forms of Crowding out there. One fascinating one is crowd funding, eg how to get seed funding from the crowds (your fans).<br />
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<a name='more'></a>First time I ever came across crowd funding was already a few years back. The company/website was <a href="http://www.sellaband.com/">Sell a Band</a> and the idea is to help finance bands to produce their (first) project (a CD, a single, whatever). By contributing you earn goodies or even part of the rights to the benefits made by the selling of the object of the project.<br />
I was fascinated. Projects like that have the potential of unleashing creativity, foster new initiatives and cut all the middle men's greeds.<br />
There is a side benefit to it, besides the easier access to financing: market study. Take another range of crowd funding websites such as <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/">Kick Starter</a> or <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/">Indiegogo</a>. You can submit any type of idea, such as an artistic project (film, painting, ...), a technology product (ever heard of the ipad nano watch that raised 1 million euros??? or diaspora, the open source facebook that raised several 100s of thousands?) or whatever project likely to be financed. With those websites you can't participate to a company's capital but you can contribute financially because you like the project's idea, eg a charitable cause, or in exchange of perks, eg a signed copy of my painting for 50$.<br />
If you are building a product, you should be interested in testing the concept, or at least finding out if it is viable before you go into heavy and costly developments.<br />
Such a platform can help you do so, albeit agreed it is a specific community not necessarily representative of your market.<br />
To start with you can test the concept with the perks you offer, eg provide a whole range of perks and see what are the popular ones.<br />
The websites also provide interaction tools such as a forum where people can provide opinions and suggest changes to your product.<br />
At the end of the day you will see if you have a popular idea by the level of attention and funding you will get. Even better you will money to start developing and promoting!<br />
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I am just about to start a project on indiegogo for an Earth Card product. The idea? Come and find out on indiegogo! I will post the link when I have completed the project form.<br />
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Stay tuned!<br />
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</div>Mouimouihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10058492310767557819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017801898786156917.post-74428209626724509092011-01-29T07:31:00.000-08:002011-01-29T09:53:57.159-08:00Quirky<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I have been playing a bit with <a href="http://www.quirky.com/">Quirky</a> lately. And I must say it is ADDICTIVE.<br />
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The idea is very simple, every week or so there are two open calls for ideas on Quirky.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The first call for idea is a free form call, propose whatever you believe is going to be a commercial hit, eg a talking magnet, a square ball, ... you get the idea.<br />
The second call has a theme, so you must follow the guidelines. Not quite sure why there is a theme (is it industry sponsored?) but that's the way it is.<br />
People submit their ideas for the whole duration of the call. Ideas are undisclosed during that time. <br />
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Once the call period is closed, the ideas go to the voting (the influence) stage for another week or so. All ideas are now submitted to the community for voting and commenting and you cannot edit your idea any more. A new call is started in parallel.<br />
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Who votes? all the quirky users, obviously you need to be registered.<br />
The trick? by voting, rating and commenting on the quirky's community's ideas, you can actually earn money. Yes, just by "influencing" people's ideas. I won't go into the details of the point/payment system. Check the <a href="http://www.quirky.com/?r=7ac310facbd832d0fb1b90a564a8f1c0">Quirky</a> website to find out more.<br />
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Once the vote period is over there seems to be an expert review (internal Quirky). From what I understand they are reviewing internally all the ideas, taking into account the votes of the community. The top 5 in popularity get into the full evaluation process, but they (Quirky) reserve the right to add an extra one that they deem of particular interest. These 5 + 1 (optional) are evaluated for market size, feasibility study, production cost, etc... The 1-2 winners go for development, production and sales. The idea is that it's the Quirky guys that will make it... and sell it on their web store.<br />
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The benefits are shared amongst the idea owner, the influencers and Quirky obviously. Some have made a living out of this system by the looks of their earnings, a bit like some make a living on Ebay, pretty cool no?<br />
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And me? well I did suggest a cool <a href="http://www.quirky.com/ideations/52312">idea</a> and tried to influence some. I didn't get many votes... but I am hopeful the Quirky guys will like it? ;-)) I'll keep you posted on it.<br />
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