The flipside, as always, is that these methods could be used for more nefarious purposes. For example a store could provide free Wi-Fi but block access to competitors or price comparison sites. Worst they could let you access these sites but change the content of the page to increase their competitors’ prices or stocks. This shows once again the importance of making SSL more ubiquitous on the web.

Currently Siri proxies are a bit of a hack. I really hope that Apple will officially support them soon and I can’t wait to see how businesses, public services and home automation nuts will use them.

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   But enough congratulations. I noticed something else with Gmail. When I joined in July 2005, the service's main selling point was the huge amount of storage it offered. More than 2GB! And counting as they say on the homepage where they shows a real-time counter of the ever-increasing disk quota allowed to users.

   There has been many speculations on how that quota has been computed over the years. It reached 7GB in Fall 2008. But then at the beginning of 2009 the rate of this growth suddenly dropped by a factor of ten. And we are now, three years later, at 7.6GB. How come? I mean 7.6GB is plenty of space so I am not complaining but with the bandwidth of our Internet connections always increasing and the file of our digital media always growing, for how long will that 7.6GB feel so huge. The maximum attachment size currently is 25MB. My DSLR camera makes bigger files than that!

   So I am wondering if Google is not resting on its laurels here. I am only using about 20% of my Gmail quota so I don't think I would switch to a new service tomorrow even if they offered unlimited disk space. But what if that service also integrated a Dropbox-like feature to backup your files in the cloud. You could share by email big files because they would upload in the background. Wouldn't that be great?

   I guess my conclusion is: stay on your toes Gmail team! Because I really want Gmail to stay the best email service out there. And thanks for everything that you have done so far.

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   After starting Wireshark on my router, I went through most applications on my iPhone, logging in, accessing my profile and my account details. The good news is that all the banking apps that I tried are connecting over SSL. But many of the more casual apps are not. Ironically the first app that I found transmitting my login and password in plain text was the Squarespace app! And apparently it's not alone amongst the blogging apps since Tumblr is doing the same. Sincerely it depresses me that in this day and age, developers still spend so much effort designing design such cool apps and services and yet do not care about their security.

   One might say that these are just passwords to your blog. No big deal. But everybody knows that most people use the same password on every sites. And it's not just passwords. The LinkedIn app transfers your whole profile in the clear. Name, e-mail address, resume, almost everything you need for identity theft or to figure out the answer to the security question for the web sites where you did not use the same password as the others.

   That's a good opportunity to remind everyone of two fundamental security rules. One, use a different password on every web site. Tools like LastPass make it very easy. Two, never connect to unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Everybody can capture everyone else's data on these networks.

   Finally if none of this is news to you, please take the time to explain it to your less tech-savvy friends and relatives.

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   The camera is very simple to use. There is only one setting on the camera (sunny or cloudy) so you have to forget about exposure, focus and all that, and just take pictures. It is completely the opposite of how I approached photography. When I bought my first digital camera, I spent a lot of time learning all the camera settings and understanding their impact on the resulting picture. That is the way I go about things but it is also a distraction from the most important thing: taking pictures. With the Spinner 360°, you only have to think about taking pictures. You think about the location, the subject and the framing, that's it.

   Speaking of pictures, the results are brilliant. Of course it is hit or miss process. It is hard to picture what the result of a 360° shot will look like. Not to mention all the little details going around you (literally) when you take the picture. That is why I usually take several photographs in each place. Typically a 36 exposures roll of film will get you about 7 360° exposures.

   The only drawbacks are the costs. First there is the cost of the camera, about 125 €. The camera seems solid but it is mostly plastic and there is not much to it. So you are definitely paying for the trendiness of the Lomography brand. Then there is the cost of film and development. That actually is cheaper than I expected. However most photo labs will not be able to properly scan the developed film due to it's odd format. It means you will need your own flatbed scanner with a backlight unit. I bought the Epson Perfection V600 and I am very happy with it but it is another 240 €.

   In conclusion I recommend the Spinner 360° because I am really having fun with it. Maybe the novelty will pass but I feel like I have already got my money's worth with this camera. If you've always wanted to experiment with film photography without taking it seriously, you will love it.

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• Select automatically the current date, time, time zone.
• Choose your default printer (e.g. home or office).
• Mitigate WiFi network spoofing (instead of remembering SSIDs, your computer should really remember SSIDs at a given location).
• Find your lost/stolen laptop.
• Switch to local news, weather, sport, search etc. in one click.

   Some of these features are already available using certain operating systems or software utilities but they usually rely on some guesswork based on your network address etc. Why not use a real GPS, or even better, both! We still have a long way to go. Your ideas are welcome in the comments (but then don't sue me if somehow still your idea).

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   The tool has all the features you want. You can choose the period when you want to travel (by month or season). You can set a maximum ticket price or flight time. You can choose direct flights only. You can zoom in on the map to get more destinations in a particular region. And you can even choose the destination by weather condition (from freezing to boiling hot).

   Of course your results may vary and KAYAK Explore cannot take into account all the promotions, discounts and so on. But it will definitely help you if you want to get the best value on the plane ticket for your next holidays.

   Just for fun, go to the site, choose your city and slowly reduce the maximum budget for your flight. Most of the long distance destination will progressively disappear but not all of them. Those are the farthest destinations that you can go to for a decent price. You may be surprised! For example you can currently get a plane ticket from Paris to Tokyo for less than $600.

   As always I hope you will find this tip useful and feel free to share your tips in the comments.

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Google Search

   It's the most obvious. If you google "things to do in Istanbul", "Istanbul sightseeing", "Istanbul must-dos" or "best of Istanbul", you will quickly get a pretty good idea of the most famous tourist attractions in the city and the liveliest neighborhoods. I usually make a list of these results on my iPhone with some kind of star rating.

GPS

   I use an iPhone app named MotionX GPS. It is great because it allows me to cache maps so that I can actually use the GPS while I am off-line abroad. I save the location not only of the top attractions but also of my hotel. Think about it, in a country where you do not speak the language, having the ability to check that your cab from the airport is going in the general direction of your hotel is very comforting. Some people find the use of a GPS constraining. I actually think it is liberating. You can improvise your itinerary, going from one sight to the next using the GPS to link the dots. Of course you can miss a lot of the atmosphere of the place if you spend all your time looking at your phone. But if you have some sense of direction, there is a middle ground which will probably get you some memorable, serendipitous sights because you were not worried to get lost. Now I even enjoy getting lost!

Guide Book

   I have to admit that I still buy a guide book. Most of the time it is just to get a good paper map as a backup of my phone's GPS (more precisely to my phone's battery when using the GPS). That's why I pay special attention to the level of details in the street names (are most streets named or only the main streets?). Public transportation is also very important (subway stations, bus stops etc.). Finally make sure that the maps have a scale to get an idea of distances.

Flickr

   Now let's focus more on the photography side. Many photographers tag or even geotag their pictures on the net. Flickr is a great resource to find pictures of the places you are going to visit. I often use it as an inspiration. I also use it to get an idea of what the monuments really look like, what are their surroundings and when is the best time of day to photograph it. I also check this site for the sunrise, sunset and moon phase.

Google Earth

   When I see a really great picture on Flickr, I try to deconstruct it: to find out at what time the photo was taken and where from. That's where Google Earth is particularly useful. Let's take for example this picture of the Blue Mosque by Oberazzi.

   The Mosque is wonderfully framed. I was really curious to know where that picture was taken from. So I fired up Google Earth and after a little bit of virtual flying around, I figured it out: the picture was probably taken from the rooftop of the Seven Hills hotel. Nice tip Google Earth!

   I hope by now I have convinced you that Internet has a wealth of tools to offer to plan your next photography trip. Enjoy your next trip and feel free to leave more tips in the comments.

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   The good news is that my iPad is fine. But a terrible thought crossed my mind: did Apple just scammed me? I remembered clearly having seen the iPad stand up using the Smart Cover during Steve Jobs presentation. I checked Apple's website and it clearly states, "Just lean iPad against the Smart Cover for a sturdy upright stand."

   So what gives? I was ready to storm the Apple Store when I decided to have another quick look at the Smart Cover demo video. That is when it hit me: I was folding the Smart Cover the wrong way. The exterior of the cover (in polyurethane or leather) has to be in the inside once the cover is folded. This way the cover can't unfold so easily and the interior of the cover also has more grip so the cover will not slide if put on a smooth surface.

   This makes a big difference so I hope this information will help other people not to make the same mistake.

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   However one feature that Dropbox is currently missing is a way to send files to Dropbox by email. Most iOS apps allow you to save files and attach them to an email. So if these attachments could end up automatically in Dropbox, wouldn't it be great? So let's do it.

   My first step was to create a dedicated Gmail account. A separate email account is not strictly required but it makes things easier and it's free, so why not do it. In Gmail, you need to enable POP and then configure Mail to fetch the emails in that account. For detailed instructions, go there. Note that you can choose if you want to delete emails once they are downloaded. I chose to just archive them as a backup. Also I chose a long, random Gmail address to avoid getting spam to soon. I will never use that address for anything else so it will be interesting to see how long it will take spammers to find it.

   I am not a big fan of Mail on the Mac but in that case it's perfect for two reasons. One I have a Mac Mini running 24/7 at home (it's my media center) so it can process the mails immediately. The other nice feature of Mail is that you can create rules in Mail that include AppleScript actions. Apple is kind enough to provide some examples of these rules in the folder /Library/Scripts/Mail Scripts/Rule Actions. You can download my new rule here. Open the script with the AppleScript Editor. It is pretty self explanatory. You can easily customize the location of your Dropbox folder etc. Then click on the 'Compile' button. If everything looks in order, save it in the folder /Library/Scripts/Mail Scripts/Rule Actions as a .scpt file.

   The last step is to create the rule in Mail and voila!

   I hope you will find this hack useful. Please share your comments and improvements.

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   This Sunday I finally decided to tackle a question that was on my mind for a long time: what are the most central stations of Paris Métro? But to answer that question we first need to define centrality.

In graph theory and network analysis, there are several measures of centrality. The simplest one is called degree centrality. In the case of the Métro, the degree centrality of a station would be the number of lines coming in and out of the station. It is easy to look at a Métro map and figure out where many lines intersect.

Station	Lines
Châtelet	5
République	5
Montparnasse - Bienvenüe	4
Nation	4
Saint-Lazare	4

   This is a good start but the degree only tells us if a station gives access to many lines. A station could be on the outskirts of the city and still have many lines running through it. So we need a better measure of centrality. Ideally the best measure would indicate how close a station is from all the others. In network theory, a popular metric is called closeness. It takes into account not only the average distance between a node and all the others but also the degree centrality of the station. So we know what we want to compute. Now all we need is some input data (a graph of the Métro) and a piece of software that can compute closeness.

   After some googling, I found just what I needed on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis_software. The article lists a bunch of network analysis software. I tried a few of them before I found Financial Network Analyzer (FNA). It is a new project so it still lacks a nice GUI but hey, who needs GUI anyway? Also it is written in Java and open source which means I can run it on my Mac and I can tweak the code if needed.

   Now we need some data to put into FNA. So I wrote some Perl to scrap the RATP web site and create a graph file of the Métro netwrok. The file is available to download in GML, GraphML and FNA commands formats. I did a few sanity checks and the files look correct. Feel free to download them and reuse them in any way. If you do anything cool with them or if you find any mistake, please let me know.

   So now that we have everything we need, let's jump to the results. The result file is available in CSV format. But here are the top stations:

Station	Closeness
Châtelet	7.52
Madelaine	7.53
Pyramides	7.58
Opéra	7.74
Concorde	7.89
Gare de Lyon	7.95
Saint-Lazare	8.01
Hôtel de Ville	8.04
Les Halles	8.19
Chaussée d'Antin - Lafayette	8.24

   A few remarks. First of all, good news: the results seem logical. Châtelet is clearly the biggest, best connected and most central station of Paris. But Les Halles, which is very close to Châtelet, has less lines running through (i.e. a lesser degree centrality) so it has a lower closeness score. The fact that Madeleine and Pyramides are in second and third position is more of a surprise. They are not really big stations but they are very centrally located and well connected. So it makes sens. Another interesting fact is that all the top stations are on the Right Bank.

   This was an interesting exercise and I got the answer I was looking for. However this is not exactly a scientific study and there is a lot of room for improvement. For example I did not take into account the actual distance between the stations (for that we would need a weighted graph). Also I did not take into account the time required for connections. Connections should have a weight too. I will leave that as an exercise for the reader.

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