Yup! The company that employs me has a brand new website (and a brand new logo… at last). You can go take a look at http://www.sidlee.com.

I suggest you take a look at the SID LEE TV section (accessible from the right area). This section contains a lot of videos and photos that will give you an idea of the kind of interesting and entertaining zoo in which I work!

Long live to Sid!

I don’t know if you feel like me these days… The news we hear about the American economy are everything but reassuring. It just sounds like the American (and even worldwide) economy is falling into a downward spiral. When a federal government has to inject 700 G$ of public funds into the financial industry to make sure it does not collapse, it’s because thinks aren’t going so well. In fact, they are going a lot worse that what I expected. Indeed, I just read that the Chamber of Representatives did not even agree on Bush’s plan.

Specialist and economists from everywhere around the globe tell us that this is the worst financial crisis that the USA have to face since the Great Depression of the late ’20s. This does not sound very good to me. What about you? How in the world were these financial titans (the CEOs of the banks in trouble) able to destroy an economy like that in the span of a few months? How can big banking behemoths like Washington Mutual, Lehman Brothers, AIG and others can just disappear from the market, just like this?!?! Somebody tell me please…

Here in Quebec we do not really feel the effects of that crisis because our economy is going a lot better… for now. How long will it take before the storm its the TSX and make collateral damage to the local economy? The latter the better. But be sure that there will be some consequences at some point. I don’t know when but it will happen…

Now let’s just hope that the American financial crisis won’t drive the worldwide economy on its knees because God knows what will happen there. And if we remember how was the state of the world in the years following the Great Depression, we can confirm that nobody wants to go through this again. Our grandparents suffered too much!

I know I sound quite alarmist this afternoon, something which is not in my habit. But did you just take a few seconds to imagine how big is an amount of 700 G$?…

I’ve read about this little Windows-only freebie and gave it a try: Free PC Audit. You just have to download it and run the executable (no installation required). It scans your PC and give you a clean overview of the hardware you have, the software installed and the processes that are actually running one the machine. It does a similar job than SiSoft Sandra Pro, but with a price of 0$, it’s worth a try. Don’t you think?

Today, there are a lot of people who still believe that open source software is not reliable, poorly designed and programmed, etc. The reality is really different from these fictionnal assumptions. A lot of very impressive open-source software is available out there; Firefox, Openoffice, The Gimp, etc.

One of my favorites is actually named Truecrypt. This little (free) gem is a mandatory tool for every user who is concerned by security and privacy aspects related to his data. Truecrypt easily permits you to encrypt a portion of a drive or a full drive. This is very useful for people like me who carry their personal data on external USB drives or keys.And configuring the tool is quite easy too for users who have a little bit of knowledge about modern computing and OSes.

It’s definitely a must have!!! And it is available for Windows (2000/XP/Vista), Mac OSX and Linux!

And by the way, did I tell you that this piece of software is totally free hehehehe…

Sid Lee delivered a new funny website to its client SAQ. This website is about the “Foire des vins français” promotion at the SAQ that is valid from September 18th to October 15th 2008.

This website also refers to the “Espace Cocktail” website, another Sid Lee creation.

Please go take a look and give me your comments

For those nostalgic people out there who often ask me what I did with the posts of the previous version of cyberutopie.com, you’ll be happy to know that I reactivated the archives.

You can access the list of posts using the following URL: http://cyberutopie.com/archives/

The King is back in town! After an absence of 13 years, Patrick Roy is back with the team he should have never left: The Montreal Canadiens!

Patrick has been, and still is, my all time favorite professional hockey player. He has been my idol since he won his first Stanley Cup the evening of my 11th birthday! What a present that was! Since then, I have always admired this guy as a superb athlete with such an attitude. He was a winner, nothing less. He is the last one in the line of impressive players that have played for the Montreal Canadiens. A true superstar!!! And we have still to see the next player in this line…

So yesterday was that long awaited press conference. I was so happy to see Patrick put on a Habs jersey again after all these years, and knowing what it was like the last time we saw him with this jersey on. Bad souvenirs for a lot of fans including me. But now I am looking forward to the special evening that will be on November 22nd, 2008. I will be very proud of him when his #33 will be raised in the Centre Bell’s rafters.

Pat, welcome back in the family! You belong in the Habs family, there’s no doubt about this!!!

Here is a website that is really well-done and also very useful during this time of the year where, sadly, many regions are affected by quite powerful hurricanes.

It is a kind of mashup between Google Maps and data from NHC (National Hurricane Center). The result is visually very impressive and also easy to use.

Take a look at Stormpulse.

I am selling a very slighlty used Garmin Nuvi 360 device. It is in perfect condition and comes with all the original accessories.

It has Bluetooth support and speaks complete street names when giving directions.

For more information about the product, you can consult this page on the Garmin website.

I am selling it for 299$ CAD.

If you are interested, please contact me using this contact form.

PS: This product has been identified as the top pick by Quebec manazine “Protégez-vous” a few months ago.

I’ve just added an online chat widget in the right column of this website. This widget will give you the possibility to chat with me live while visiting cyberutopie.

The widget is provided by digsby, the multi-protocol instant messaging software that I use since a few months and that I find absolutely perfect for my needs. You should give it a try.