Yannick's Corner

Presenting my first paper at a conference

Yannick Lefebvre — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:38:40 +0000

After writing a few white papers on Human Machine Interface technologies, I recently wrote a paper that I presented as part of the 27th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC). The event was being held in St. Paul, Minnesota, a town I had never visited. After travelling the world in my field for 11 years, and often going back to visit the same cities that I have seen before, it is a nice change to get to go to a new place. Here are some pictures that I took during my visit.

Another new browser on the scene

Yannick Lefebvre — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:39:14 +0000

After Firefox managed to create itself a nice niche amongst web browser, there is now a new kid on the block: Google Chrome. I think that it was inevitable to see Google release their own browser after seeing all of the great online applications that they have developed over the years.

I installed Chrome myself this afternoon and have been quite impressed with the fast page load times, the nice user interface thougths (my favorite so far is the bookmark toolbar that integrates itself to your start page and then disappears when you start navigating) and other little tidbits (loading messages appearing and disappearing in the corner of the browser, etc…).

Here is a quick snapshot so you can get an idea of what it looks like:

The ever-changing price of gas

Yannick Lefebvre — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:16:39 +0000

As I was driving on the Indianapolis highway after visiting a customer, I saw a big electronic sign for a gas station and saw the price change as I was looking at the sign. While I first thought that it was odd for the price of gas to change in the middle of the day, I soon realized that the price was changing back and forth between the price that you would pay with a credit card and a lower price if you paid cash. The difference was 4 or 5 cents a gallon if I remember correctly.

I guess it makes sense since credit card companies take a percentage of any sale charged to the card, but it still looks very strange at first and I don’t think I had even seen something like that before the prices went so high. Maybe they’ll start offering specials if we bring big barrels every time and buy in bulk Only time will tell.

Airlines make our life easier once again… not

Yannick Lefebvre — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:16:03 +0000

After a relatively calm travel summer, I started travelling again this week for a few days. As I was checking in through the self-service system in Montreal for US Airways, I was surprised not to be asked if I wanted to check any luggage. When I got to the counter, I was informed that this is because US Airways has a new policy where there is now a 15$ fee for the first piece of luggage you check in. Yes, you read that correctly. They are not charging you only for the second one or because your luggage is overweight. They are charging you for the very first piece of luggage that you want to check in!

Thankfully, my Elite status with the Star Alliance network waved these fees, but I can easily imagine how hectic it will get in the morning or at busy times when everyone is trying to get out on trips and have to stop to pay for this fee. Not only that, but a lot of people won’t want to pay the extra fee and will try to bring bigger and bigger items with them on the aircraft. From what I have seen in the six flights I took this week, this means more crowded overhead bins and people frustrated when there is no skycheck on some of the flights. If it does not fit on the plane, then they are stuck checking it.

US Airways is not the first airline doing this. I know that American started the festivities back in June, and now United and Continental joined, if not more airlines.

My next surprise came when they announced that beverages were no longer to be free on the plane. Not even water! So you need to pay 2$, cash only, if you want a regular drink, and 7$ for an alcoholic beverage. The lesson here is that you should now always bring something to drink on the plane. If we could at least bring our own water from home. But of course, as you know if you have traveled in the past two years, this is not allowed for security reasons. Therefore, you have no real choice but to put your money in someone’s pockets: the airline or the concession stands at the airport.

Personally, I wish they would just add 20$ to everyone’s airfare and just be done with it, let us check our luggage and give us something to drink on the darn plane. It would bring some order back into a situation that I feel will just get more and more chaotic.

Changed RSS Readers again

Yannick Lefebvre — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:59:40 +0000

Finding the best RSS Reader application for my needs has been an ongoing search for the last couple of years. After using the desktop client RSS Bandit, then moving to Bloglines, I have tried the Google Reader web-based application a few times without being convinced that it was right for me… until now. What partly prompted my change is the fact that I really don’t like the new Bloglines interface and am not sure how soon they are going to phase out the old one.

I just reloaded all of my feed addresses in the new Google Reader page and find that it’s interface has become very slick and to the point to show me all of the news feeds that I love to read. It’s always great to see all of the improvements that the folks at the Google Labs add to their apps. Check it out if you like to keep up with news from multiple sites.

The one feature that I find that is missing is the ability to sort news items by site when viewing them all. However, I have found the chronological sorting to be adequate.

My travels

Yannick Lefebvre — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:18:47 +0000

After keeping track of my travel on facebook for some time, I just decided to bring that information on my personal site. You will find a new map section that includes all of my travels around the world.

Busting some ghost butt!

Yannick Lefebvre — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:34:53 +0000

I have been a fan of Ghostbusters even since I saw the first movie on TV. I must have seen it over 30 times and it’s still one of my top favorites. I was overjoyed when I heard that they are soon going to be releasing a game based on a new storyline written by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis, the original writers and actors of the movies. I hope that they pull it off and make an interesting game out of this. Here is a sneak peak:

Long time no post

Yannick Lefebvre — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:10:18 +0000

My goodness, it has already been two months since my last post. A quick update to let you know that things are going well, just busy as usual. I recently took a week off work so that we would work on a home renovation project: redo the basement. We got rid of the old industrial carpet that was on the floor and put in some laminate floor. Andree also patched up the walls and did some painting with help from our friend Jean and Andree’s father Mario.

On the entertainment front, we managed to catch The Incredible Hulk on the big screen and really enjoyed it. I was hoping to write a little review for it but have not had a chance yet. It was extremely well written and Edward Norton is just perfect for the role. The action was good from beginning to end and it was extremely interesting to see Tony Stark show up at the end and mention that they are putting a team together.

After a bit of digging online, I saw that an Avengers movie is announced for 2011 with Captain America, Iron Man and Hulk. It’s far, but hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Star Wars comes back to the big screen through 3D animation

Yannick Lefebvre — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:25:57 +0000

I was taken by surprise yesterday when I stumbled upon the trailer for a new full-length feature Star Wars film that is set to come out in August. Completely done in computer animation, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, will be set between episodes 2 and 3 and will tell us more about the devastating Clone Wars. The movie will be followed by a regular TV series on the cartoon network this fall. I will go back to drooling now.

Iron Man Review

Yannick Lefebvre — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:22:04 +0000

A few weeks back, my wife and I just tried out a new babysitter and went out to enjoy the movies. Of course, we already had my sister and mother-in-law look after the kids after they were in bed, but this was the first time that it was someone outside the family. Through the scarce listings, we settled on Iron Man. While the preview looked very cheesy, we decided to give it a chance and were really not disappointed.

Check out my review of the movie.

Now that we have a new option for babysitting, we’ll be able to enjoy many of the other comic book movies that are coming out this summer (The Dark Knight, Hellboy II, Incredible Hulk).