Nico Durand's blog

Extract email addresses from any text

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:31:00 +0000

I adapted a Javascript to easily extract email addresses from a blurb of text. There is a quick way to do it!
Simply paste the text in this window and click out. Email addresses will display in the bottom box.
Note that nothing is sent to the server, so your emails are safe (as long as your connection is safe of course).
http://nicolasdurand.com/extractemailaddresses.htm

Clean up Outlook 2010 and gmail via IMAP

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:51:00 +0000

I use Outlook 2010 to access my gmail.

One of the problem is that the .pst file grows so fast. I just found one of the culprit: Sent Messages!

In order to clean it up, I did the following:

Create a label (a folder in Outlook) called "Sent Messages"
In Outlook, open [Google mail]/Sent Mail
Move all emails (or just the large ones, or the old ones) to the folder "Sent Messages". This will move them but not remove the cached copy from your computer (in the .pst file)
Through the gmail web interface, rename the label "Sent Messages" to e.g. "Sent Messages22"
In Outlook, right-click on your mailbox (the top folder in the hierarchy) and select "Update Folder list". This will remove the local cached copy of all messages in "Sent Messages"
Through the gmail web interface, rename back the label "Sent Messages22" to "Sent Messages". Note that you can use this technique for any folder that uses up too much space. To find out which folders are the largest, right click on the mailbox, go to "Data File Properties", then click on the button "Folder Size". If Outlook was a finished product, you should then be able to sort be size but now you just need to browse to find out which ones are large. You can then rename them all on the web interface (just click on the label), update the folder list, rename them back to their original names and compress the outlook data file.

It is pretty unsettling that in 2011, there is no easier way to do it, but deleting your Outlook .pst file will make you lose all kinds of information, such as email groups, part of your address book, your email accounts, etc. (I tried...).

Note: if you try to move messages via the web interface, note that it will move the whole conversation, not just the message, like in Outlook!

If you have any other idea or comment, feel free!

iPhone location tracking - My locations

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:43:00 +0000

This is a little scary, but kind of fun (the iPhone only tracks and records the cell tower location and not my exact location). Read the whole story on http://rt.com/usa/news/iphone-tracks-every-movement/

Remove restrictions from pdf files

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:12:00 +0000

For some reason, A-PDF Password Security did not remove some of the restrictions on my files. I tried A-PDF Restrictions Remover and with one right-click, it removed the annoying "Secured" that prevented me from highlighting my files! Extremely useful!

Replace text in pdf files

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Tue, 04 May 2010 11:20:00 +0000

I just tried today A-PDF Text Replace, and it is really fantastic: you just drag drop files into the software, tell it what to replace by what and voilà, everything is beautifully replaced! A must if you must deal with pdf files often. If they are password protected, you'll need to unprotect them with A-PDF Password Security first.

Great pdf tools

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:10:00 +0000

Some of the pdf files I bought for school were password protected, which prevented me from editing them, even in the slightest manner, like highlighting. I used A-PDF Password Security to remove the restrictions and now I can edit them and highlight them!

There is a free version (which adds a watermark). Download it from
http://www.a-pdf.com/security/password.htm

Washington DC - Ithaca, NY. Return.

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:21:00 +0000

I just got back from the Net Impact conference in Ithaca, NY, at 8am today instead of 1am. So why is that?

The Georgetown Net Impact chapter chartered a bus from Ithaca to come pick us up at Georgetown and bring us there. A fairly smart idea, because it avoided the cost of having the driver sleep over.

But the problems started about 1 mile away from the school, when the driver, following his GPS, started taking really small roads, to end in a dead end. I felt really bad that the Swiss guy had to guide an American driver in his country, his GPS and his bus, but it seemed like the better solution at the time. We didn't experience any other mishap, except of course for the fact that we stopped at a McDonald's and not an Outback, but it could have been worse.

The way back was more adventurous; we left Ithaca around 7pm to drive back. After around 3 hours of optimist hope we would end the night in our own beds, a really strong plastic-like smell invaded the bus. We notified the driver, who didn't seem to annoyed and kept driving. Not for long, as the engine started heating up, since this smell was the cooling fluid, who emptied through a defect hose onto the engine and the other belts. The engine was not cooled anymore... We waited (alongside a highway) for half an hour in a foggy drizzle, while the engine was cooling down. We boarded the bus again and tried to get out of the highway, but the whole bus, including all lights, shut down after 500m. We started waiting in the dark, figuring out what to do, while the amazingly efficient police had secured the area with flares. We waited for about an hour for a mechanics to come and confirm that a repair was not possible. In the meantime, another bus had left Ithaca to rescue us.

We chartered some taxis to come pick us up and bring us to the closest hotel, which was kind enough to let us colonize their lobby. A strange sight: 40 business students in a hotel lobby, between 1 and 3am... Some sleeping, some working on assignments, but most not really knowing what they were doing...

The other bus arrived and we left, full of hope, for Washington DC, and the real "adventure" started. First, with a glacial wind coming from the ventilation system. I thought for a while that the driver wanted to freeze us to death so that we don't tell our story. After some "iterations" (=trial and mostly errors), he decided that the best was to completely shut down ventilation. This left some free space for the odors of the toilet to spread into the bus, which was a whole new experience in itself. But I only understood the full dimension of the horror we were living when I went into it (no other choice, believe me) and saw the "stuff" (I'll leave up to your imagination what "stuff" you can find at the bottom of a no-flush toilet) was actually being sprinkled up because of some draft.

I've traveled on hundreds of buses, for more than 25,000 km in the developing world and have never seen such disasters. As I have been saying, the US is a country of extremes.

If you want a memorable bus ride, go to Ithaca, New York... ;)

P.S: It is worth noting here the calm and positive attitude of all MSB and GW MBA students, but especially the dedication, professionalism and efficiency that Katrina and Leslie, who were in charge of the bus, as well as Neel and Robin showed in handling this delicate situation.

Capitalism: A Love Story

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:31:00 +0000

I just came back from "Capitalism: A Love Story", by Michael Moore. A must see!

Following the same "interview" style as an in SIKO, he made me aware of the following pieces of information:

Pilot's salaries

Apparently, airline pilots in the USA make around $20,000 a year. In Switzerland, they (used to) make the same amount, but per month.

Life insurance on employees

Many employers (see the list) bought life insurance on their employees' heads. So, when an employee dies, the company would collect money (in the millions). It seems a little problematic that someone can choose to get money when someone dies, without even telling the person. This could be defined as a "conflict of interest"... or even an incentive, for a company, to have some of their employees die!

The most surprising is that health insurers haven't thought about it yet.

For profit kids detention unit

Refers to the case where 2 Luzerne County, Pennsylvania judges received money for giving outrageously long sentences to 6500 children, who were sent to a for-profit detention center. The owners of the prison made tens of millions as well.

We can discuss about the utility of the death sentence. But since it exists in America, USE IT for these guys!!

Mortgage abuse

Apparently, banks and the like aggressively approached home owners, encouraging them to "refinance" their homes: get cash against the warranty of their homes. Many did, and either spent the money, or lost on the stock market. When the real estate crashed, the banks increased the interest rate and asked for more money (to cover for the potential value loss), and those who couldn't pay had to leave their home.

Financial Coup d'Etat

This is probably the masterpiece of the movie, where Michael Moore actually suggests that the banks and the politicians organized a gigantic Financial Coup d'Etat:

Deregulate mortgage laws
Let people borrow more than they can
Cash in good loan interests and huge bonuses
Let everything collapse (2 months before the elections)
Banks can "buy", or recover, a huge number of properties for dirty cheap
Use public money ($700 billion) to refinance the banks, who are on the verge of bankruptcy (but the bankers - the people - still have their bonuses!)
Pay out large bonuses again

This is not the whole movie. Some are my opinions and not (only) Michael's. Go see the movie!

DVD A la rencontre du 3ème type

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:05:00 +0000

J'ai acheté dernièrement le DVD "A LA RENCONTRE DU 3EME TYPE" sur https://www.fluidity.ch/en/shop/article/unisex-dvd-dvd-alarencontredu3emetype/c71/5735-11248.html

Franchement, un peu décevant. Payer 20.- plus 10.-de frais d'envoi = 30.- pour un DVD de 20 minutes, plein de dialogues et peu de vraie glisse, ça commence à devenir de l'arnaque.

L'affaire UBS telle qu'elle AURAIT dû être gérée

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:44:00 +0000

On commence ces jours, plus de deux semaines après la décision commune du Conseil Fédéral, la Finma (dirigée par un ex-UBS) et de l'UBS, à entendre des suggestions qui pourraient laisser entendre que des plaintes soient portées, en Suisse, contre ceux de l'UBS qui ont généré ce scandale.

C'est quand même assez incroyable de se dire que le Conseil Fédéral (CF) peut prendre une décision aussi grave (la levée du secret bancaire), qui viole une des spécificité fondamentale du droit suisse (si l'on trahit le secret bancaire, c'est la prison!) sans autre explication que "c'est pour sauver l'UBS et des jobs".

Si vraiment cette levée était nécessaire, le CF aurait dû dire "nous sommes dans un cas d'extrême urgence. Nous devons déroger aux règles tout à fait exceptionnellement, les coupables seront punis". Il me semble que la dernière partie du message manque singulièrement: nous devons préserver l'image de la Suisse dans le monde. Nous sommes peut-être un "paradis fiscal", mais notre pays n'encourage pas activement les super-riches d'autres nations à frauder leur fisc pour économiser de l'argent aux dépends de leurs co-contribuables.

Si l'on assortit pas cette décision d'une chasse aux coupables, qui peut raisonnablement penser que ce sera la dernière fois? Et comment savoir qui, au sein de l'UBS, était un "méchant" et pas? Il y a toutes les chances que votre gestionnaire à la succursale de Carouge n'a rien à voir avec ces fraudes.

L'UBS avait une équipe de plus de 200 personnes, armées de processus ultra-rodés pour convaincre les clients américains de frauder leur fisc. Outre l'extrême bêtise de ce procédé (qui peut raisonnablement penser que l'on s'attaque aux USA comme ça…), ces pratiques ont affaiblit la place financière suisse d'une manière jamais atteinte. Et pour quelle raison? A cause de vautours arrogants qui ont cru qu'ils étaient plus forts que les autres.

Il est temps de remettre l'église au milieu du village et de proclamer haut et fort que nous faisons ce que nous voulons chez nous (le secret bancaire), mais que nous n'allons pas démunir les autres nations, en tout cas pas activement. Tant qu'il y aura Monaco, le Liechtenstein, l'île de Man, le Panama, etc, je ne vois aucune raison à abandonner le secret bancaire.

Il me semble aussi que le Conseil Fédéral devrait tout mettre en place pour punir ceux qui l'ont contraint à baisser sa culotte et ridiculiser la Suisse dans le monde. C'est une question de survie, d'image de la Suisse à l'étranger et d'affirmation des valeurs que nous chérissons telles que l'honnêteté et la justice.

Nokia E71 Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 09:16:00 +0000

So, I finally, after a long study, bought the Nokia E71.

What was important for me was (in order of importance):
- phone
- sync with Outlook
- email
- GPS
- photo and video recording

After reading such amazing reviews, I was convinced I was getting the best phone in the world. Well, it's good, but has significant room for improvement. Here is a list of the first things that worked and did not work.

Works

WiFi - amazingly smoothly. Easy to enable or disable.
browse the web
battery life seems infinite
screen is good
sync with Oulook, including uploading maps onto the E71 (although it's not really straightforward).
keyboard is really nice for its size
a touchpad would be nice, but the keyboard does just fine
Input: it smartly understands when it's entering numbers; it displays password letters for one second before hiding them (not everywhere, though)
It's soooo much faster than my previous HTC with Windows Mobile! :)

Can be improved (badly)
In general, I am lacking shortcuts from one application to another, or to important functions (to me, but well, I am not so special). I had to read the manual almost from end to end, which is highly unnatural...

the email programme is bad. Just bad. I'm using gmail IMAP, and (too) many unnatural menus need to be navigated to see my folders. It will not download email bodies automatically, which means that I need to wait for many seconds after I clicked on an email. It takes AGES to synchronize with the server, even on WiFi. Features are cumbersome and limited. But it kind of works. I just tried GMail (get it from http://m.google.com) - much better!
When you are on one of your contacts, you can not display its position on the GPS maps. You need to go to the maps, go to "Options > Search > Addresses >
Options > Select from Contacts" (no kidding...) and finally you can see this address. Why you can not just type "Kennedy" in the search bar and it will propose all Kennedy avenues, but also all Kennedy's you have in your contacts is a mystery.
Also, re. the maps, it is highly un-intuitive to get to display a route. See p. 76 of http://nds1.nokia.com/phones/files/guides/Nokia_E71-1_UG_en.pdf for more details.
Google maps is MUCH more intuitive, but you can not upload maps (and have hence a bigger traffic)
The radio can only be heard through the headset. Not on the integrated loudspeaker, which is quite good, by the way. Why is there a limitation like that? Mystery.
Zooming when browsing is unnecessarily complicated (but needed on small screens).
For some reason, it asks me too often what connection to use, even when I am on WiFi.
If you go on Nokia Switzerland, the E71 is not listed everywhere, so I needed to go to nokia.co.uk to get some software. It was in English, which is much better than the crappy translation that is on my E71 (in French), but I'm afraid that some things will not work as smoothly as they should.
I hate the translation on the phone. For example, it says "Effectué" (which means "done, in the sense of made" for "Done". They should have used Fini or Terminé instead. Everything is like that.
The audio jack is not the standard one. I'll have to buy an adapter, or worse, buy another bluetooth headset.
For some reason, it copied my music on the phone memory instead of the card memory (which is much larger)
Bluetooth did not work, but it might be my computer.
Zooming in and out use litterally (at least...) 3 different sets of key (Function/backspace for GPS, */# in web browser and 0/5 in photo viewer). The most unnatural one is the 0/5 in photo viewer (the keys are not even on top of each other). Why not Shift-scroll or */# like elsewhere?

Summary: in general, a really good phone with room for LOTS of software improvements.

If you have solutions for any of the issues listed above, I would be most grateful to hear about them... :)

Mais à quoi bon avons-nous une loi (et un bureau) sur l'égalité

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 20:34:00 +0000

Quand on lit que la directrice du "Bureau de l'égalité entre hommes et femmes" dit qu'il faut écouter son "bon sens" et donc donner le nom de la mère à l'enfant, on a des vraies raisons de s'inquiéter de la manière dont on dépense nos impôts et de la raison d'être de ce bureau. Si c'est pour défendre les femmes (qui en ont encore bien besoin dans la vie pratique), soit. Mais alors ne parlons pas d'égalité.

"On est sûr de qui est la mère, mais pas le père", poursuit la commère. Non mais vraiment, soit elle n'a aucune idée de la condition du père non marié en Suisse, soit c'est une féministe extrémiste extrêmement dangereuse et il faut l'interdire de séjour en Suisse.

Mais Madame, savez-vous ce que ça représente pour un père de reconnaître son enfant? Ca représente, entre autres, en cas de séparation, de payer 17% de son salaire à la mère pendant les 25 années qui suivent la naissance. On estime le coût d'élever un enfant à 1 million de francs à Genève. En reconnaissant un enfant, on signe un papier qui va nous coûter 500'000 francs sur les 25 prochaines années. Il faudrait être complètement fou ou encore plus bête que vous pour faire ça, si l'on est pas sûr que c'est son enfant.

Egalité entre hommes et femmes, cela signifie qu'il faut enlever toute mention à "homme", "femme", "mari", "épouse", etc. de toutes les loi. Des exceptions pouvant être faites pour des cas très précis dérivant des différences physiques (maternité et violences physiques) mais c'est vraiment tout. Une fois que l'enfant est né, allaitement et convalescence de la mère à part, c'est fini: l'homme est la femmes sont vraiment égaux.

Family Tree Maker 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:46:00 +0000

I just bought Family Tree Maker (FTM) 2009, after using previous versions for 10 years, and this is the biggest disappointment:
- no more easy copy and paste of trees
- no interactive descendants trees
- slow to start (20 seconds on my fast PC)
- crashed both at GED import AND export...
- does not import accents (éèà...) the same way as FTM 2005. You need to import it, export it to GED and re-import it. How lousy is that? It really shows that the engine is not solid.

Oh, and did I mention that you can not download the software, or even version updates? You need to have it shipped, with additional costs, of course... Not really acceptable in 2008!

On top of that, for people who manage large trees (the one I manage has 190'000+ people):
- it's slow as hell. I just ran a find&replace. It has been running for 2.5 hours and is not over (which is why I am still up at 1am... :() [Well, actually, it crashed as well (after 2.5 hours wait...)]
- export is dead slow as well (and it crashes after 30 minutes work...)
- it takes up more than 1 GB before I did anything

There is one plus: the one-page individual view, that you can customize and add the fields that matter to you (for me, the occupation).

Bottom line:
If you're not in a hurry and want to manage a small family file, never will import a GED file, it might be ok. But well, for this purpose, get a free software, like PAF, or do it online!

Addition on Dec. 22: After 10 days and 3 reminders waiting for their customer service to come back to me, I think I will copy the changes I made on the previous version of the tree on FTM 2005! :(

Anyone interested in buying a CD with license of FTM 2009 for half price? :)

Nom de famille d'enfants de parents non-mariés

noreply@blogger.com (Nicolas Durand) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 22:49:00 +0000

Voilà un sujet qui mérite d'ouvrir son blog...

"Le Conseil fédéral avive la querelle du nom de famille en rejetant le matronyme", Le Temps du 13 décembre 2008 (pas 1908...), http://www.letemps.ch/template/suisse.asp?page=5&article=246125

"Le gouvernement [...] juge contraire à l'égalité la préférence donnée au nom de la mère en cas de désaccord des parents sur le nom des enfants."

"Dans ce cas, le Conseil fédéral propose que la décision revienne à une instance judiciaire, sans fixer aucune règle de fond. Le tribunal pourra tenter une conciliation, y compris en proposant que le nom soit tiré au sort. "

Mais alors, il faudra qu'un fois pour toute on décide si les femmes et les hommes sont égaux (ou égales...) et Suisse ou pas. Ca fait maintenant 27 ans, depuis 1981 (selon http://www.comfem.ch/pdf/f_3_1_recht.pdf) que cette égalité est inscrite dans la Constitution, juste après le respect de la dignité humaine. On pourrait penser que c'est important.

Mais non, 27 ans après, une génération après, il y a encore quantité de lois non seulement aberrantes, mais en plus qui violent ce principe de plein fouet sans aucune vraie raison, et EN PLUS, le Parlement d'AUJOURD'HUI veut CONTINUER d'ajouter des lois sexistes. Mais on croit vraiment rêver. On a vraiment l'impression d'être la plus grande république bananière de l'égalité des genres. Heureusement, le gouvernement a réagi à temps. On a peut-être passé juste à côté d'une autre humiliation, comme les Genevois l'ont subie, lorsque le gouvernement a fait passer une loi alors qu'il n'en avait pas le droit.

Mesdames et Messieurs les Parlementaires, reprenez votre copie et faites-nous des lois qui respectent la Constitution et le bon sens, s'il-vous-plaît! Pour moi, "égalité des sexes" signifie qu'il faut enlever toute mention à "homme", "femme", "mari", "épouse", etc. de toutes les loi. Des exceptions pouvant être faites pour des cas très précis dérivant des différences physiques (maternité et violences physiques) mais c'est vraiment tout.

D'ailleurs, je ne comprends même pas comment, en 2008, on a pu arriver à une proposition de loi pareille. C'est EXACTEMENT la même chose que si l'on avait dit "si l'un des conjoints est noir, l'enfant prendra le nom de l'autre". Aberrant, mais si on veut parler de non-discrimination selon le sexe, la religion ou la race, il me semble qu'il est temps d'agir...

Et quand vous aurez réglé la question du nom de famille, je vous serai gré de vous attaquer à l'armée, au congé parental (2 jours, c'est un peu ric-rac...), au droit du père non-marié (aujourd'hui, la mère a à peu près tous les droits et le père juste celui de payer), etc.

A force de trop vouloir protéger les femmes au niveau juridique, elles seront perdantes dans le monde réel (salaires, positions élevées, etc.), ça semble évident. Il n'y a qu'à se tourner vers les pays nordiques pour le réaliser.

Finalement, il me semble important de considérer le bien de l'enfant: si les parents n'arrivent pas à se mettre d'accord sur son nom et doivent faire recours à un juge, l'enfant ne part pas forcément dans les meilleures dispositions pour la vie, et devrait faire l'objet d'une tutelle "light", c'est-à-dire que quelqu'un devrait s'assurer régulièrement qu'il est dans de bonnes mains.