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Especially since Skype out is more expensive than my current voip provider, they have the money for it and interoperate with the POTS.

Which is even more true in France since most ISPs include unlimited national and international calls in their basic 30€ ADSL plans.

I think it's the X25 network that will be unplugged.
It's a lot of years there is no Minitel (the terminal) in use in France: Most terminals were built in the 80' or at the latest in the 90'. There was an emulator for PC on Internet mostly for for B2B users.
The sad thing is that France still uses pay per use on Internet even on Broadband. There are some websites that provide content only if the user agrees to pay a premium on it's Telco operator bill. And the is an opt-out option so many users are scared when they are told they "made Minitel" when in fact they didn't. A link in French (sorry, but it's just to prove my point) http://assistance.orange.fr/des-connexions-minitel-sur-votre-facture-3217.php

London and Paris need to learn of this idea of free WiFi.

WIFI in Paris has boomed because of the proliferation of ADSL services like Free, Orange, N9uf/SFR, Darty, Alice, etc that all include a box that does ADSL, WIFI, telephone & TV. It is now rare to find someone who has ADSL without having an associated WIFI hotspot even when they do not use the WIFI. As all these boxes come configured with WPA PSK, finding open hotspots has gotten extremely rare as it takes someone who knows what they are doing & is willing to share their ADSL line.

London also needs to understand the idea of running their subway all night.

Paris needs the same lesson, but it won't come until they have automated the train drivers out of existance due to the labor unions blocking any progress on this point. Maybe my kids will be able to go out to a nightclub & get home before 6AM, but I've tired of running around Paris in the middle of the night looking for a taxi or walking home...

Comparing Apples and Oranges ?

The partners have built a system that uses green light to transmit 100 megabits a second over a distance of 300 metres, which is the speed telecom companies hope to offer their customers five to ten years from now, and 50 times as fast as a typical adsl broadband connection.

Scite is another decent Scintilla based editor; one of many, but straight from the horse, as it were.

Also, XnView can be less irritating than Irfanview, depending on your mindset. On older systems, tracking down a copy of the now defunct Slowview is the way to go.

I would recommend XnView in the same vein. I prefer it's interface to IrfanView, it's non-bloated freeware and available on a lot of platforms, it can read every image format under the sun including camera raw files, etc.

I would recommend XnView in the same vein. I prefer it's interface to IrfanView, it's non-bloated freeware and available on a lot of platforms, it can read every image format under the sun including camera raw files, etc.

In the Harrison Ford movie Air Force One, the security people had a laptop which scanned fingerprints on its screen: http://perso.orange.fr/fingerchip/biometrics/movie s_1997.htm I had a laugh about it at the time ... oh well.

Broadband is somewhat cheaper in Holland than it is here, but rest assured that it won't be cheaper than the same in the US.

Well, KPN says that they offer (at least from what this non-Dutch-speaker can pick out with the aid of Babelfish) 1.5Mb down/256Kb up for EUR 15.00/month for the first year and EUR 25.00/month after that, 3Mb down/512Kb up for EUR 20.00/EUR 30.00, 6Mb down/768 Kb up for EUR 40.00/EUR 50.00. The "packages" (Internet + TV + telephone) at those speeds go for EUR 44.90/month and EUR 52.90/month - unless I'm missing something, they don't have a 6Mb up/768 Kb down package.

Here in Amurrica, at least in California, AT&T says that they offer 768Kb down/128Kb up for USD 14.99/month, "up to" 3MB down/"up to" 512Kb down for USD 24.99/month, and "up to" 6MB down/"up to" 768Kb down for USD 34.99/month. They have an Internet + TV + long-distance (you have to get your local phone service from them to get DSL) bundle for USD 99.98/month - as the Internet part is "Internet Pro", and "Pro" for their "just DSL" offers is the 3MB down/512Kb up service, I assume that's what you get for the DSL with the bundle.

I don't know whether "up to" means that they're just being more cautious in what they state than KPN, or if KPN really does offer guarantees that AT&T doesn't. I don't see anything in the AT&T material I saw about the rate going up after the first year.

On the other hand, perhaps the Dutch and Belgians should move to France. Orange appears to offer 1Mb down/??? up for EUR 24.90/month, up to 8 Mb down/800 Kb up for EUR 29.90/month, and up to 18 Mb down/800Kb up for EUR 34.90/month - and, unless I'm misreading (which this non-French-speaker might be doing), that includes TV. It also appears that they offer an Internet+TV+telephone bundle, with an Mb down/800 Kb up, for EUR 34.90/month, with a 1-year commitment (it sounds as if the "a la carte" requires no commitment).

I didn't see anything on KPN, AT&T, or Orange about a traffic limit.

Broadband is somewhat cheaper in Holland than it is here, but rest assured that it won't be cheaper than the same in the US.

Well, KPN says that they offer (at least from what this non-Dutch-speaker can pick out with the aid of Babelfish) 1.5Mb down/256Kb up for EUR 15.00/month for the first year and EUR 25.00/month after that, 3Mb down/512Kb up for EUR 20.00/EUR 30.00, 6Mb down/768 Kb up for EUR 40.00/EUR 50.00. The "packages" (Internet + TV + telephone) at those speeds go for EUR 44.90/month and EUR 52.90/month - unless I'm missing something, they don't have a 6Mb up/768 Kb down package.

Here in Amurrica, at least in California, AT&T says that they offer 768Kb down/128Kb up for USD 14.99/month, "up to" 3MB down/"up to" 512Kb down for USD 24.99/month, and "up to" 6MB down/"up to" 768Kb down for USD 34.99/month. They have an Internet + TV + long-distance (you have to get your local phone service from them to get DSL) bundle for USD 99.98/month - as the Internet part is "Internet Pro", and "Pro" for their "just DSL" offers is the 3MB down/512Kb up service, I assume that's what you get for the DSL with the bundle.

I don't know whether "up to" means that they're just being more cautious in what they state than KPN, or if KPN really does offer guarantees that AT&T doesn't. I don't see anything in the AT&T material I saw about the rate going up after the first year.

On the other hand, perhaps the Dutch and Belgians should move to France. Orange appears to offer 1Mb down/??? up for EUR 24.90/month, up to 8 Mb down/800 Kb up for EUR 29.90/month, and up to 18 Mb down/800Kb up for EUR 34.90/month - and, unless I'm misreading (which this non-French-speaker might be doing), that includes TV. It also appears that they offer an Internet+TV+telephone bundle, with an Mb down/800 Kb up, for EUR 34.90/month, with a 1-year commitment (it sounds as if the "a la carte" requires no commitment).

I didn't see anything on KPN, AT&T, or Orange about a traffic limit.

(My previous post had bad links. Sorry.)

http://www.cnw.mk.ua/weapons/airforce/razv/sr71/im age/sr71ff.jpg

http://perso.orange.fr/romain.g/sr71-1.jpg

This is somehow a better solution than filling a bag with helium? Or even, simply painting a bag black

http://perso.orange.fr/ballonsolaire/en-index.htm

There are solar heated hot air balloons...

e.g.
http://perso.orange.fr/ballonsolaire/en-index.htm

Actually, EXIF information is pretty much just camera settings, dates, geotagging, and the like. IPTC is the standard used by newspapers, news agencies, and more. This information can be embedded onto many images, jpeg, tiff, etc. This allows captions, locations, credits, bylines, and more. You can use any of the following software http://www.iptc.org/photometadata/softwaresupportl ist1.php that is officially sanctioned by IPTC standard. My favorite is Picasa for adding captions, because you can simply use the arrow keys to go through images, and then just type a caption whenever you see fit. However there are better applications that allow you to batch edit all IPTC data. A good free app is XnView http://perso.orange.fr/pierre.g/xnview/endownloadw in32.html , although there are others out there. However, nothing is a good substitute for dating and naming images properly. For organizational purposes, make a naming scheme for yourself that works. Date folders in a YYYY-MM-DD format with perhaps a description after that, but be careful not to use people's names on the folder because a search for that person will come up with folders of stuff instead of just the pictures that you want. A better solution is to type people's names that are in the picture into the keywords part of the IPTC data. For naming files, use the same dating scheme, and then simply add the photographer's initials, a category, or whatever else you see fit. hope this helps

Xnview is cross-platform and is virtually equivalent to Irfanview, at least on Windows. (There have been some comments around the net to the effect that the Linux version lacks a few features present on the Windows version.) It is free as in beer, but not free as in speech.

Binary .rpm's are available (presumably for Fedora) here. I found a useful thread on installing Xnview on Ubuntu here.

CANNES, France -- 3GSM Congress -- There's a big problem with connecting public wireless LAN access points to GSM/GPRS cellular networks, according to SIM card vendor SchulmbergerSema. 802.11b hotspots provide hackers with an easy way to grab user information from the wide-area network itself, the company tells Unstrung.

The heart of the problem is that when the GSM standard was being defined back in the late 80s, no one imagined that a hacker could set up his own wireless network to gain access to an operator's network and the user data therein. Therefore, GSM networks only authenticate the details held on the SIM card in a user's device before starting a session on the network. The user's device doesn't check the credentials of the network it is attempting to access.

This was fine before the advent of wireless LAN. But now for a minimal outlay anyone can own a wireless network.

At the same time, vendors and operators are starting to use SIM card-based authentication front-end systems for public wireless LAN networks, which allow them to link the user back to the home location register (HLR) database on the GSM network and thus manage and bill a subscriber on the WLAN network in the same way as they would on the wide-area network.

This all adds up to networks that could be vulnerable to hacker attacks, according to Schlumberger.

Hackers can set up "rogue" hotspots that users will access in the belief they are on the genuine public wireless LAN network. Once users are on the fake network, it is easy for the hacker to access data held on the device via the 802.11 connection (see WLAN: The Four S's and this paper for more on the insecurity of wireless LAN). Hackers can then break into the SIM software on the user's device and get the codes held there. They can then use that information to fool the GSM authentication system and thus gain access to the network.

Schlumberger say that this won't be a problem once UMTS networks are available, because the 3G standard ensures what's known as "mutual authentication" -- the network authenticates a user device, and the device confirms that it is actually on a valid network before the session can proceed.

However, for public wireless LAN implementations that will connect to backend systems on GSM and GPRS networks, Schlumberger has developed a SIM card-based system (surprise!) that enables mutual authentication between the device and networks that are accessed via the gateway of public wireless LAN hotspots. The mutual authentication takes place via algorithms on the card itself rather than in SIM card software on the device.

Schlumberger is showing a system at the 3GSM congress that uses a separate smartcard and reader plugged into a WLAN-enabled laptop. However, the firm says that the smartcard and radio could be integrated into one PCMCIA card, much in the way that Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK - message board) has done.

Orange France is currently testing Schlumberger's security system. Schlumberger expects that operators will start to roll it out before the end of this year.

-- Dan Jones, Senior Editor, Unstrung
http://www.unstrung.com