Author Archives: Didier

NEWS: some statistics about spam

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A recent study of MessageLabs concerning the evolution of spam was published here. It gives some interesting statistics about spam during the first semester 2004:

  • 5.0 billion emails scanned (anti-spam service), thereof 3.2 billion identified as spam, i.e. 63.5%. In comparison, during the same period in 2002, the quote represented 1.5%, in 2003 37.9%.
  • 5.6 billion emails scanned (anti-virus service), thereof 468 million containing virus, i.e. 8.3%. In comparison, during the same period in 2002, the quote represented 0.3%, in 2003 0.5%.
  • MessageLabs intercepted about 1.5 million phising emails (emails containing URLs to fraudulent websites) during the same period.

    • TOOLS: evaluation phase conclusion of SauceReader

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    Since Mai 14, 2004, I’m using intensively Sauce Reader from Synop as feed-reader and I would like to summarize my impression, as an "evaluation phase conclusion" (for my other posts, have a look here, here and here) :

    What’s Cool

  • Great user interface: clean, intuitive Outlook 2003 style user interface

  • Sauce Reader toolbar available in Internet Explorer

  • Very good usability

  • Since this version: performance, stability and a quite good memory foot-print

  • Customization of keyboard shortcuts

  • Great desktop alert when new feed items arrive

  • Feed discovery and one-click subscription to RSS and Atom feeds

  • Pop-up blocking, complete default browser support

  • Integrated weblogging environment with full posting functionality (including image uploading)

  • Great full-text search functionality (within archived items)

  • Support for content in any language or character encoding

  • Automatic application updates

  • Support of proxy, great feature to stay tuned at work

  • Free for personal use, reasonnable price for commercial use ($25US per license)

  • Last but not least, very active development team, professional alpha- and beta-phase

    • Room for improvement

  • I’m still not totally convinced by the “posting” module. The development team improved a lot the possibilities, stability and performance. But I still prefer to use the very simple Blogger web interface. Perhaps out of habit? Let’s see.

    • Conclusion

    All in all, I still think that Sauce Reader is the best aggregator at this moment (on Microsoft platform). The last developments of this tool (five releases now!) give me a very convincing impression of the Synop’s capability and user orientation.

    PS1: have a look at the reviews of Robert Scoble and of Laurent.

    PS2: my review was linked by Synop on their product homepage ;-)

    NEWS: celebration of laziness in France…

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    [Via Loic]

    A French Employee’s Work Celebrates the Sloth Ethic



    This article     will improve again France’s image abroad.

    “Corinne Maier, the author of “Bonjour Paresse,” a sort of slacker manifesto whose title translates as “Hello Laziness,” has become a countercultural heroine almost overnight by encouraging the country’s workers to adopt her strategy of “active disengagement” – calculated loafing – to escape the horrors of disinterested endeavor.”

    “But she works just 20 hours a week writing dry economic reports at the state electric utility, Électricité de France, for which she is paid about $2,000 a month”

    “Her employer of 12 years was not amused. Irritated that she identified herself as an Électricité de France employee on the back cover of her book, company officials wrote her a stern letter accusing her of inattention at meetings, leaving work early and “spreading gangrene from within,” just as her book advocates. They demanded that she appear for a disciplinary hearing, though the original Aug. 17 date has been pushed back to September. That’s because Ms. Maier is going on vacation.”

    I’m again completely shocked by the growing abyss between this kind of lazy people and the rest of the world.

    I was this week with some Romanian colleagues and i was totally impressed by their willingness to develop themselves, their company and their country. I mentionned this example to them, to explain that they are *not* the only ones who have to fight against bureaucracy and laziness. They laughed a lot…and that’s perhaps the only positive point about this story.

    I hate having to pay taxes for this person, her boss and her company. and I do not want to know how many state employees are working in this way…