Train ride in Cambodia

Thu, 23 May 2013 01:15:00 +0200

I was in Cambodia in 2004, and took a train from Phnom Penh to Battambang (about 280 kms). At first I didn’t understand why people kept fighting to be able to put their hammock, attaching them through the train wall’s holes.

I later understood…

Before the train departure (a few hours late, come on that's Cambodia…) a guy asked me to push my legs away to put this big oil tank full of crap, I did and expected him to move it away later. He never did.

The bench me and my friend used was terrible, a wood bench without anything to soften your ass, and I could feel any of the rails imperfections while the train moved. I stood up to go to the restroom (restroom: a hole in the floor in the last car, with a nice panoramic view on the rails), and when I came back someone was sit at my place. The bench for 2 people became for 3 as the other person never left.

The train sometimes was going so slow you could walk by, but you’d never do it as land mines were very close, and you wouldn’t want to step on any of them. It was the reason the train was going slow, not to blow up any with the train shakes.

The ride took 18 hours, I then understood why people fought for using their hammock.

You can view more photos of my trip on my flickr set, please note I was using film I developed myself with my trusty Leica M6.

Note: I posted this article on medium and thought it'd be nice to have it archived here.

How to repair your dead DELL 30" 3008 WFP

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Short story

Buy a single 3 euros diode (or a few...)
Read this article to disassemble your screen
Change the defective diode using a soldering gun
Still not working? Buy a new power board

Long story

I bought myself a 30" DELL 3008 WFP screen in 2008 (for 1,600 euros). I was super happy at the time, and it even took me a few days to get used to so much space on my desktop. I had decided about that purchase after reading articles mentionning how faster you were with a bigger desktop, and what the heck being on a computer all day long is my job.

Sadly, after a few years of good use, the screen went pitch black. I called DELL and they said they don't repair screens, but were happy about selling me a new one, at full price... I insisted but no repair, no help for fixing it, no contacts for help. I went to the AppleStore and bought a Thunderbolt display, done.

I kept my broken DELL on a side knowing one day I would fix it. Man I'm happy I did. Reading online (see my DELL bookmarks), I found this article showing you how to disassemble it, and fixing it with a single 3 euros diode. Please note I have no specific soldering skills but borrowed a soldering gun from a friend and I actually managed to replace the diode just fine.

The screen worked... for a few minutes :) I tried replacing with a new diode again, tested the diode with multimeters but decided to spend more time and money on a complete new power board on a shady looking website but I actually received the power board 2 weeks later, from Hong Kong.

Replaced the board (was fast, as I disassembled my screen twice already), and tada it just worked. Hopefully I'll use this a few more years. Yes, I know I shouldn't just connect an Apple TV to this.

Oh and screw you DELL, I won't buy from you again.

Capistrano deployment and rainbows support

Sun, 12 May 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Deploying using Capistrano and rainbows is almost trouble free, include the following in your deploy.rb:

require 'capistrano-unicorn'
set :unicorn_bin, "rainbows"

Make sure your Gemfile includes gem 'capistrano-unicorn', and you have to make sure you created a settings file in config/unicorn/production.rb (yes, a unicorn directory).

Mine includes using EventMachine, as I want an async stack for using sinatra-sse.

Rainbows! do
  use :EventMachine
  worker_connections 1024
end
worker_processes 5

app_directory = '/www/app'

working_directory "#{app_directory}/current"

listen "unix:#{app_directory}/shared/unicorn.sock", :backlog => 2048

timeout 600

preload_app true

pid "#{app_directory}/shared/pids/unicorn.pid"

stderr_path "#{app_directory}/shared/log/unicorn.stderr.log"
stdout_path "#{app_directory}/shared/log/unicorn.stdout.log"

if GC.respond_to?(:copy_on_write_friendly=)
  GC.copy_on_write_friendly = true
end

before_fork do |server, worker|
  old_pid = "#{app_directory}/shared/pids/unicorn.pid.oldbin"
  if File.exists?(old_pid) && server.pid != old_pid
    begin
      Process.kill("QUIT", File.read(old_pid).to_i)
    rescue Errno::ENOENT, Errno::ESRCH
      # someone else did our job for us
    end
  end
  # the following is recomended for Rails + "preload_app true"
  # as there's no need for the master process to hold a connection
  if defined?(ActiveRecord::Base)
    ActiveRecord::Base.connection.disconnect!
  end
end

after_fork do |server, worker|
  # see http://petelacey.tumblr.com/post/3073967460/on-forking-application-servers-and-memcached-in-rails
  ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection if defined?(ActiveRecord::Base)
end

Moved to Jekyll

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Like all the popular kids in the block, I moved this website to Jekyll. I ran my main blog with Wordpress for years (after a short stop by home made code, then mephisto, and Typo), I've now bundled all my little websites to a single one. My other photography website is running heritage, a rails backend I'm working on to host photo websites, allowing photographers to sell prints online.

Looking at my archive page, I can see how little I'm blogging anyway (facebook seems to have replaced my destination for what I write). I removed comments, and you can send me mails directly or use social networks (aka Daring Fireball style).

Tools I'm using for this:

jQuery
Bootstrap
Jekyll
Font Awesome
Pygments
Google Fonts (free alternative to TypeKit, sorry Ryan)
A few hours of work

Something you notice with static files is how fast your website is. I've always pushed for cache everywhere and static files, and it feels nice to go back to it.

I've built websites since 1995, but something I find amazing the recent years is how efficient I've become building new projects and website. Thanks to Github and all the code available out there.

I've joined PrePlay

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:15:24 +0100

I am now working as a Senior API developer for PrePlay, a NYC based company about mobile and tablet games related to enhance your experience while watching sports on TV. I've own a TV only a few years of my life (that was a while ago, I've given it to neighbors when I understood I wasn't using it), so it's kind of funny to be joining such a company. I will be working in their Paris office (next to Gare de l'Est). Yes, the Engineer team is French! The upcoming year is pretty exciting: happy new year for 2013!

The last full-time job I had was at Causes, which I've quit in June 2011. It was one of my best job experience, I just can't summarize it in a single blog post but it changed the way I see working with other people, and it would now be difficult for me to work with negative people. The Engineers at Causes are super positive, and super skilled. Thank you guys, and if you want to learn as much as I did you can apply there.

Since then:

I've traveled about 16,000kms in India on a Royal Enfield (2 trips of about 4 months each) and brought many pictures (more on my flickr: set1, set2).
I've released a Facebook client iPhone application named Liker, but didn't yet give it the love it should get. Updates coming later.
I've updated my photography website www.fabienpenso.com and just got featured on the official Leica Blog. Thanks Leica!
My Facebook photography page Penso Photography got over 4,500 likes, my Twitter account past 4,600 followers.
My Push application is doing good, pushing close to 400,000 pushes every single day of the year.

New iPhone application coming soon

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 22:23:13 +0200

I don't post here much the last months, I tend to post a few links on penso.info (tumblr powered) or communicate through my twitter account @fabienpenso. I've been working for a few months on a new Facebook iPhone app. It's not ready yet and still needs some love, but the current state of the app is going super well. You might want to look at the teaser I've put at http://lets.f4ce.it (love the link), and put your email if you wanna know first about it.

If you're a blogger, run an iPhone related website let me know, I could have you playing with it early.

Path2 : new iPhone application

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:08:08 +0100

While none of my friend were actually using the first version of Path (being fully honest, a few but rarely and I wasn't using it anyway), I now see lots more activity since they released Path2.

The old app was focused on 50 friends max, and photo sharing. Once when visiting their office and seeing if they were interested about my profile I told them it'd be more "bally" to even limit to 10, but not counting family members. This way people could actually add as many people as they wanted, but the baseline would have more impact (Note: In case you wonder they told me they had nothing for me, either because Dave Morin - CEO of Path - is super good friend with Joe Green - CEO of Causes - which I was leaving, or either because I suck).

I guess that didn't work too well as they pivoted a bit to be a full featured facebook like sharing (locations, photos, music, status, and even when you go to sleep). I now see way more activity than before, and more friends joining (but that's because I'm a geek with geek friends, you might actually see none). The iPhone application is really slick, and some people starting coping their UI (objective-c or even CSS based).

The feeling I have is there is still room left for improvement on mobile iPhone applications, even on busy segments like social networks. It's funny to see Facebook hasn't been that good on mobile (seeing how long it took for an iPad application - I heard some people refused to work on it unless they could ditch three20 from the app), Path2 seems way slicker and not as busy. Thinking about it the way I use the Facebook mobile app on the iPhone is exactly the features giving by Path, no more - no chat, etc. Using Path2 I remember how I should remove features from mobile apps, focusing on what matters the most.

So when is someone releasing a Facebook Path2 like application, as slick? This way at least I can use it with my friends.

Arrivée à Delhi

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:55:51 +0200

Tout le jeu en arrivant à Delhi est de ne pas se faire arnaquer pour arriver à votre hotel. Et pour l'hotel, après quelques recherches et conseils d'amis avisés, j'ai décidé d'aller au Vivek Hotel. 650 roupies / jour.

En sortant de l'aéroport international, à 50 mètres devant la sortie, vous trouverez un guichet de "prepaid taxi", petit cube blanc de 3 mètres sur 3. Le temps de ces 50 mètres vous serez demandé une 10aine de fois 'prepaid prepaid' par des chauffeurs, ignorez-les.

Dites au guichet où vous allez (Vivek Hotel, Pahar Ganj, Main Bazaar Road), j'ai payé 390 roupies. Vous donnez un billet de 500 roupies (vous venez de changer un billet de 50 euros dans le bureau de change Thomas Cook à l'intérieur de l'aéroport), et là le gars vous rend… 100 roupies! S'imaginant qu'il va en gagner 10 au passage… Tapotez sur le billet il comprendra, vous sors un billet de 20 roupies genre il a pas de monnaie, (et vous non plus), attendez un peu et hop magie, il trouve 10 roupies à vous rendre. N'oubliez pas les deux feuillets qu'il doit vous donner (un pour vous, un pour le chauffeur).

Là les chauffeurs vont vous approcher, ne donnez pas le feuillet chauffeur avant destination, le jeu du chauffeur c'est d'avoir ce feuillet le plus tôt possible, le votre de lui donner uniquement une fois devant l'hotel. Assurez-vous avant de monter dans le taxi qu'il sait où aller, ils diront toujours 'ok ok' mais en fait ils ne savent rien. En général les questions qu'on vous pose sont "when is your last time in India", répondez "last week", et "first time in Vivek Hotel?", répondez "third time". En effet on tachera de vous dissuader d'aller dans cet hotel en vous disant qu'il a brulé il y a 3 jours, etc, mais n'en croyez pas un mot.

En route!

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:57:22 +0200

I will now try my Leica M9 in India, you can follow my work and experience on the way here or on my photography website: Leica M9 India (and my flickr).

Wedding Photographer Paris

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:00:12 +0200

David Bacher, a friend of mine, has been shooting weddings for a few years now. If you're looking for an engagement photographer in Paris he might be able to help you, he's American. He even has a blog if you want to follow his work.