Martine Pagé

She blinded me with science

On her blog today, Steph is wondering « Am I really a computer scientist »? Well, dear, the big computer lab I saw last night in your tiny place at the top of a Montreal tower looked like a scientific experiment to me: two laptops (G4 and Dell Pentium) with cable connection, tons of windows open on each screen, a Web cam which allowed me to say hi to Karl and watch him work with Olivier in Japan (Steph is the only person I know who manages to look good on a Web cam picture), your vast itune library (Neil Finn, excellent choice!), messaging and e-mail applications everywhere, ghosted alternate desktops on the G4, dark and mysterious UNIX based commands which you typed at the speed of light… If it is not science, it might just be witchcraft!

Keep talking to these little girls you meet on your newspaper route. You might inspire a few interesting careers. Who knows, I might have studied computer science if I had met you when I was a kid.

I totally rock at testing

With the excuse of a television appearance last Saturday (as a technology reporter), I spent some money on a cool little gadget that the music lovers among you might be interested in. It’s called the irock! and it does the same thing as the iTrip but you can use it with other music readers than the iPod. In simple language, it’s a little FM transmitter which you plug into the headphone jack of a computer, cd or MP3 player, to broadcast your music collection over the radio of your choice.

I first tried it with B.’s minidisc player. We got decent sound when we tried to listen to the music from his minidisc to his regular wall-mounted boombox, though we did get a certain amount of interference, no matter the frequency used. The sound quality was much worse when we tried to broadcast music over the amp and receiver from B.’s main stereo system. The levels were very low and there was a lot of interference, even when we put the irock! right next to the receiver.

Results were a bit better at my place. I had little interference broadcasting from a Nomad Jukebox to my little boombox. Same with my bedroom clock radio. I got the best results when I connected the irock! to the Nomad Jukebox and broadcasted music over a car radio. There was no interference on the road between Montreal and Quebec and you couldn’t tell between the music coming from cds playing from the radio or the music sent via the irock!.

I paid 55$ (CA) at CompuSmart for the irock!. A good investment? Well, since I tested it for a television show, I get to send the iRock back if I want to, so I’m giving myself a few days to consider keeping it or not. I don’t use the Nomad Jukebox very much and I can always purchase the proper wire if I want to plug it into a stereo system. Forget about buying this gadget if you need to broadcast from a distance. The irock! really needs to be right next to the radio to broadcast properly. It would stop working if we moved it a couple of feet away from the radio.The best use for this gadget is broadcasting over a car radio, and since I don’t own a car… I do rent cars often though and sometimes the cars I get only have radio or cassette players, so the irock! might come in handy. To keep or not to keep? Ah, the dilemmas of a technology reviewer!

Faudrait Voir

L’hebdomadaire qu�b�cois Voir lance sur son nouveau site Web un syst�me d’ench�res et de pointage qui permet de gagner des billets de spectacles. Pour chacun des commentaires laiss�s sur le site Web par les visiteurs, des points (appel�s ici jetons) sont accord�s selon la qualit� du commentaire en question. Ces jetons peuvent ensuite �tre utilis�s pour participer � des ench�res qui permettent de gagner des billets pour aller voir une pi�ce de th��tre, un concert, un film, etc.

J’imagine que Voir esp�re ainsi attirer plus de lecteurs sur son site et encourager une plus grande participation de leur part. L’id�e n’est pas mauvaise, mais l’hebdomadaire r�ussira-t-il � s’attirer la client�le qui plaira � ses publicitaires (vs les coureurs de concours qui feraient n’importe quoi pour gagner quelque chose)? Est-ce que la perspective de gagner un billet motivera les gens � laisser plus de commentaires et est-ce une bonne motivation pour laisser un commentaire? Et qui juge de la qualit� du propos et selon quels crit�res?

Imaginons un tel syst�me pour les blogues/carnets. Vous laissez des commentaires sur mon site. Je les accepte ou non, puis je leur accorde une valeur selon un syst�me de pointage. Avec ces points, vous pouvez jouer aux ench�res pour gagner des prix. (Gagner quoi? Je ne sais pas moi, un tour de ville en scooter ou un d�ner cuisin� par B.) Supposons que la valeur des prix soit int�ressante; je me retrouverais donc avec de nouveaux visiteurs, pas n�cessairement attir�s par le contenu que j’offre mais qui se sentiraient tout � coup motiv�s � m’�crire des commentaires. Arriverais-je � fid�liser ces gens? Leurs visites se confineraient-elles � une seule section? Et surtout, la qualit� de mon carnet s’en trouverait-elle v�ritablement augment�e?

Et si �a augmentait ma valeur aux BlogShares?

De toutes mani�res, � voir la fa�on dont il fait du blogsquatting (voir commentaires pour ce billet), c’est certain que ce serait le Capitaine qui gagnerait toutes les ench�res!