Blog | Hugues Valentin

[Geek] FlingSolver toutes les solutions de Fling iPhone/Android

English Version below

Bonjour à tous,

Apparu il y a quelques jours dans AppGratis, Fling pour iPhone et Android est un excellent jeu de réflexion que je vous conseille si vous voulez faire travailler vos neurones.

Et comme j’aime pas trop me prendre les neurones, j’ai créé une petit javascript qui résout tous les problèmes de Fling et trouve toutes les solutions. (cette phrase bien répétitive, c’est pour le SEO).

Pour résoudre tous les niveaux, il vous suffit de placer vos boules sur la grille ci-dessous et de cliquer sur solve.

En revanche, je vous préviens, cela retire tout le fun de ce jeu…

Hi,

To solve any Fling iPhone/Android problem, just enter the pattern below and click solve. It will solve your Fling level and gives you the steps to achieve it. Just a warning, it will completely remove the fun out of the game!

[dciframe]http://huguesval.com/flingsolver/index.html,350,450,0,no,border:0px solid blue;align:left;margin-left:130px;[/dciframe]

Si vous voulez télécharger le fichier :

PS : Désolé pour la iframe, c’est le seul moyen que j’ai trouvé…

[Master Thesis] Will Microsoft be able to disrupt Windows before one of its competitors does?

Hi all,

For the past two and a half years I’ve been studying at EDHEC Business School in France, while working at Microsoft. Although I’ve been studying Corporate Finance there, I had the chance to do my Master Thesis on whatever field I wanted and I chose something around strategy.

Working at Microsoft during the launch of Windows 8, I saw the expectations of the employees and of the outer world and I just couldn’t choose any other subject than the future of Windows!

As a matter of fact, I’ve started really late to work on the thesis so I had to urge the writing. It only took me 4 days + 1 day of review to complete it. This means that it is not a good thesis (but sufficient for me to pass) and it’s definitely not as good as I wanted it to be but still, I thought it might help others to publish it on the Internet.

So, what is this thesis about?

Well, it begins with the empirical observation that the way people consume their digital life has changed a lot these past ten years and even more since the touch revolution started with the iPhone. Thus, even if Windows still remains the one and only operating system being sold on PCs keeping its margins, market share and even market size, it misses (before Windows 8) the most important thing: this is not anymore how people want to consume their digital life, or at least, it is not anymore the only way to do so.

Actually, Windows suffers from one of its strength – its universality: it has been designed both for productivity and entertainment, for homes and enterprises. For years it has been the universal way to discover the new era of information technology. Having a product used for every need and everybody was the essence of Microsoft and Windows.

With new ways to consume information that the industry has known these past few years with the emergence of smartphones and tablets, Microsoft has lost the drift and was not up to date to compete in this era, until Windows 8.

But is it sufficient? Will Microsoft need to disrupt Windows to adapt to new markets?

And.. What’s my answer?

After 60 pages of really interesting stuff about the strategic backwardness of Windows, its history, the industry trends it had to answer with Windows 8, and the next years strategy, I eventually give my answer:

We can conclude that no, Microsoft will not be able to disrupt Windows before one of its competitors does. Windows will stay on the foundations it has built for 20 years. But this doesn’t mean Windows will not be successful. Windows has tremendous strengths (enterprise penetration, vertical offer across consumer needs, …) that it can leverage to address every screen and device from top to bottom with one solution. This can really be appealing for consumers and enterprises to have the same software and solution across every device. The link between all of these devices is the Cloud that allows data to be stored on every connected device. With the Cloud, you externalize the matter of storage and data and Microsoft has been a precursor on these technologies and has one of the best solutions (it is so good that Apple is using a part of it for one of its cloud services).

Microsoft might not be able to disrupt Windows, but it can definitely integrate some disruptive innovations into it. On longer terms, Microsoft can count on its power of Research & Development to innovate on the global trend that new technologies era brings: externalization. People are evolving toward externalization of the information, their skills and memory to store them virtually. To interact with data, the suggested ways are pointing device or finger, which are not efficient enough and we are moving toward Natural User Interfaces (NUI) to interact with digital. Microsoft has a great card to play with Windows on this matter and regain a competitive advantage and not being substituted by new usages or devices.

You’re not bored enough? You can read it entirely here :

Top image source

Thanks

Plateau des Bolovens – Laos en vidéo

Bonjour à tous,

Je reviens d’un petit voyage de deux mois en Asie du Sud-Est avec mon sac à dos. Thaïlande, Laos, Myanmar, que des pays merveilleux.

Au Laos, j’ai loué une moto pendant 5 jours pour faire le tour du Plateau des Bolovens, situé au sud du Laos à 1500 mètres d’altitude, réputé pour ses cascades et ses plantations de café. Mais la partie Est est également un vestige de la piste Ho Chi Minh et l’on y trouve encore tous les jours des mines anti personnelles n’ayant pas explosé qui datent de la guerre du Vietnam.

Bref, c’est un endroit merveilleux, que j’ai filmé en me baladant en moto.

Malheureusement, mon appareil photo, un Lumix FX01, qui fût l’un des meilleurs de sa génération date de 2006… soit la pré-histoire. Du coup, la qualité des photos et vidéos est vraiment déplorable. C’est dommage, mais ça fait toujours un petit film sympathique que je vous invite à regarder.

Bon visionage.

[Zagreb] #3 : The End & Why Pinterest is awesome

Hi there,

It’s been two weeks now that I’ve started to use Pinterest, as part of my New Media Marketing class that I’ve applied to at ZSEM, in Zagreb. Now is time to briefly describe what I liked and disliked in this Social Newwork and how I think it can be part of a company communication or for personal use.

How did I use Pinterest?

My first impression (which still is what I think) is that Pinterest is really a Twitter-like for photos except that you don’t express « what’s going on right now » but « what’s the mood right now » and you don’t have to say it in 140 characters but with a beautiful photo.

I’ve been on Twitter since 2008 (follow me) and for the most part I just read what people that I follow are talking about. I usually don’t post much. With Pinterest, I can do the same thing but with visual emotion looking a great photos. I haven’t post so much on Pinterest these past few days but I’ve enjoyed sighting at beautiful photos.

Ok, that was the me-myself-and-I part of the post, thanks for the ones reading it until here and let’s talk about what’s great on Pinterest and who should use it.

Pinterest, yes, but for who?

Like on Twitter, there’re two ways of using Pinterest:

to state on your life
to promote your work (or company)

While the first usage on Twitter is boring as hell, expressing your thoughts with a picture is way more interesting and emotional. Let’s study the famous: TGIF (Thanks god it’s Friday) thing. On Twitter, it’s so boring having hundreds of « TGIF hihi LOL 😀 😀 sooo cool » while it’s can be expressed with creativity on Pinterest. Sources : @hey_AM_RICKY for Twitter and Silverbox Creative for Pinterest

For companies, the difference is even greater. There are plenty of companies where Twitter isn’t interesting while Pinterest can reveal extremely useful. I’m talking about companies (or freelance) using creativity for a living: Photographs, designers or even bloggers, but also companies that need pictures to express their assets: real estate companies for instance.

And as a matter of fact, Pinterest has already proved its power for accelerating sales. There are plenty of studies showing that Pinterest users follow more brands than Facebook Users or that Pinterest spurs twice as much sales than Facebook.

That’s all for the moment, but feel free to follow me on Pinterest to start sharing things together.

I’ve made a 1-slide presentation about Pinterest that you can download here:

Zagreb: this is the end

I also sign here my last post around my New Media Marketing class at ZSEM. I really want to thank the lecturer for her tremendous work making this class really interesting with many impressive guest lecturers. I’ve learnt a lot.

Thank you for reading me,

Posting more soon ! (I’ve an exciting project I’ll be talking soon)

[Zagreb] #2 : Starting to use Pinterest

Hi There,

As I said it earlier, I’m studying New Media Marketing at the ZSEM of Zagreb for 3 weeks. As part of this class I must write my experience when trying a new social network. As I already have a blog, a Facebook, Google+ and Twitter account (and many other « social tools » like del.icio.us, …) I had to choose something new.

And if there is one Social network that buzzes around for months now, it is Pinterest. So… Let’s Follow me on Pinterest!

But, wait… what is Pinterest and why choose this Social Network? I’ll try to answer that now.

What Is Pinterest?

Basically, Pinterest comes from the fact that today, we, internet users, receive to much information (from newspapers, Social Networks, Youtube) and it’s hard finding the ones that are really interesting for you and you must read a bit of a title or description to understand what this is all about. The main goal of Pinterest is to manage these pieces of info by displaying them with IMAGES (which are much more easier/faster to analyze that text or audio) on « boards« .

Therefore, pieces of info are presented differently and with new ways of making a content interesting (image rather than text). Pinterest, as Twitter, is Public and all what you share can be seen by everyone.

But, if you’d like more info about what is Pinterest, I recommend these links (french and english)

How to use Pinterest?

Well, a lot of documentation has been made all around the web, and I’ll give some links but basically, here are the main how-to:

Post VISUAL content, easy to understand

Well, this is quite basic for a « photo-board » website, but it’s worth repeating it. You need to select and post only beautiful pictures (linking to your content) that are understandable in a blink of an eye.

Create your own Boards with very explicit titles

Before starting to post some pictures, create boards with titles very explicit about what you’re going to upload and share.

Start following people that you’re interested in (and not influencial pinners)

Go on some of the generic Boards and scroll through content. When you find something interesting, like, and then follow the author. Influencial pinners might post too much things for a beginner.

Go on and have fun !

More info in this video, or here, and here, ou ici

How Powerful is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a very young startup (it was created in 2010) but drives more than 15 million unique visitors each month and has more than 12 million users (which is a faster growth than facebook or Twitter). Again, an image is worth a thousand words, here is the main info on Pinterest:

Source: InternetMarketingInc.com

So let’s follow me on Pinterest and where ideas 🙂 !

Thanks !