When you login, you have 4 options:
- You can login with “AIM”, which means you can use your AOL email OR you AIM login and password
- You can login with “MSN” and enter the email address and password associated with your MSN/Hotmail account.
- You can login with Yahoo and provide your Yahoo ID and password
- You can login with Google using you Google/Gmail email address and password

So how does that make Swapper so much better? Come on, you know us… we just want to make it easier and safer for you guys! Here’s why:

1/ Better privacy: all your communications are protected with your own email or IM account. As a result, nobody can access the private messages and media files you sent and received within Swapper. Nobody. Not even the Wambo staff, since we do not store user account information.

2/ No need to create an account: we know you guys want privacy, but we also know how annoying it is to go through a long registration process. This is the reason why we do not ask you to create a Swapper login and password. By using your existing email or IM account information, you can start using Swapper right away! And this way, you don’t risk forgetting your login or password.

3/ And… you have the option to automatically import your address book! This way, whenever you want to send a media file to your friends, you do not have to look for all email addresses and enter them one by one!

Now, what happens if you don’t have an AOL/Yahoo/Google/MSN account? Well, your situation is not that desperate . Just click on “New User?” in the login window and we’ll guide you through this step by step.

It’s that easy! So now that you know everything, tell your friends~~~!@@@!@

Please note that since we made several important changes in the software, you should first uninstall any previous version of Swapper before installing 1.0.6. Thank you.

This week end I spent some time in the North bay, in a place called Bolinas (Marin). Bolinas is a really small town with a big personality. Pretty laid back — the perfect setting to go get some fresh air and dip our toes into the cold Pacific ocean. And the drive back to the south bay was a breeze… which is unusual!

Should we put up with it? Maybe. But the thing is, it gets worse every day. A few months ago we were all enthusiastic to go have lunch. Here’s what we sounded like:
Xavier: where do you guys wanna go?
Guillaume: I don’t know, thai?
Anne-Laure: Sure!
Arnaud: OK, sound good.
Xavier: Let’s go!

But now it’s more like this:
Xavier: so where do you guys want to go? I don’t care. You choose…
Anne-Laure: Saint John’s?
Guillaume: Oh noooo!! I tired of eating at St John’s. What about Una Mas… It’s right there!
Anne-Laure: no way, it tastes terrible! Please, everything but Una Mas… I put my veto on it.
Arnaud: McDonald’s?
Guillaume: Fast food again?
Xavier: Why not Carl’s Junior, it’s better than McDonald’s
Guillaume: We were there yesterday…
Anne-Laure: I’m fine with it, I’ll take a low-carb burger.
Arnaud: OK, let’s go to Carl’s Junior.
… Xavier, Arnaud, Guillaume and Anne-Laure, walking towards Carl’s Juniors, heads down….

So… time to change offices or time to bring a lunchpack at the office?

AL

Arnaud and Xavier are both very fond of New York city, although Xavier made it clear that he wouldn’t want to live there. Too big… too crowded… too overwhelming. Arnaud, who spent quite some time in Florida during and after college, would really enjoy a house there, maybe in Boca Raton, and, if possible, not too far from the beach (of course!).

Xavier, on the other hand, prefers California, and more specifically the San Jose area. (good for him, cause that’s where he currently lives!)

Guillaume, the “Parisian” of the team, would like to live in… New Orleans! And if he could live in the French Quarter, he probably would. I totally agree with him: what’s better than listening to live jazz music while sipping on a Hurricane?

When it came to me, well… my answer was: San Francisco. Without a doubt. Yes, it is foggy in July; yes, it can be cold and windy in the summer; yes, there are a few sketchy places… BUT it is eccentric, it has a lot of character, and it has a good nightlife. To me, this is the most amazing city in this country.

We talked about other places, of course:
Colorado: very cool for me since I ski, too “central” for others (everybody here wants to live by the sea…).
Boston: why not? Irish pubs, delicious Italian food in the famous “North End” and lobster: sounds good.
Hawaii: absolutely, if we change careers or devote our time to surfing until the rest of our life.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been to all the beautiful places of the United States, and I don’t think we plan to relocate Wambo anytime soon. So, let’s stop dreaming now and let’s enjoy our little Sunnyvale.

Last few weeks have been busy as ever. We are working on additional media sharing features which should allow Swapper users to very easily post their favorite media files on their personal Swapper profile pages. It looks like a fairly small task - but to make it consistent and easy to use with the current Swapper software we have to make a few changes to both the software client and the profile page themselves. i.e. it’s “hard work”

Alas, we should be launching these soon. Maybe another 4 to 8 days!

On Saturday night, there was a street party in Belden Place, the “little French quarter” of San Francisco. It was packed! People began jamming the bars at 5pm and the party soon spread out to other places on Bush and California streets. Many French expats gathered at Cafe Bastille, Cafe Claude and Cafe de la Presse, but surprisingly the crowd was mainly comprised of American people! Believe me or not, but for the whole night I heard a lot more “Happy Bastille Day” (in English) than “Joyeux 14 juillet” (in French).

Well, when you think about it, it’s not that surprising. In San Francisco, every kind of foreign festival is always a good excuse to go out and party. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve had Chinese New Year in February, St Patrick’s day (Irish) in March, Beer Fest (German) in April, Cinco de Mayo (Mexican) in May and, as you know, Bastille Day last weekend… And you know what? Whatever the event is, wherever it comes from, it’s always a good opportunity to go out and enjoy a beer with your coworkers.

AL

So I decided to go to Lake Tahoe, the perfect place to rest, breathe some fresh air and hike. However, now I am wondering if it was a smart choice. Not because I don’t like Lake Tahoe (I absolutely love it!), but because a wildfire recently devastated the forest and destroyed more than 100 houses and barns!! So I guess I’ll try to hike away from the flames…

As for Arnaud, Guillaume and Xavier, they plan to… sleep in. As you know, they just had a bad flu, and they’ve been working the whole time even though they kept coughing, sneezing (and complaining… just kidding guys!). So everybody will come back rested on Thursday and I promise I’ll post some nice pictures of Tahoe on our “Team Wambo profile”. Happy 4th of July!

AL

Partager ses photos et vidéos avec Swapper by PCAstuces
(”Share your photos and videos with Swapper”).

Test Swapper: compresser / partager ses fichiers multimédias by Manuel N. from Generation-NT
(”Testing Swapper: compress and share your media files”).

The PCAstuces article on Swapper is a practical guide to using Swapper for sending a large amount of photos and personal videos. After clearly stating the problem (”Alors que la course au mega-pixels fait rage dans le monde de la photo numérique, comment partager les énormes photos et mini-vidéos de mariage, de naissance ou de vacances ?” - “While the MegaPixel wars are raging in the world of digital photography, how do we share the huge photos and mini-videos of our weddings , child birth or vacation”), the article then focuses on providing a step-by-step guide to sending 100+photos/videos.

The Generation-NT write-up is a little more technical, while covering the business aspects of Wambo and briefly outlining a practical example. What’s interesting about both articles is that they focus on the compression aspects of Swapper’s technology, and the ease of use. Generation-NT goes as far as listing the photo and video formats which are supported by Swapper for compression.

There is a nice photo of the three founders we took a few months ago. The journalist did an amazing job of digging in to find out what Wambo and Swapper were about, and the results is quite frankly amazingly positive. We also liked PCAstuces calling Swapper a “must-have” (”logiciel indispensable”). We think so too!

THANKS TO PCASTUCES AND GENERATION-NT!

Well, except Miss Anne-Laure of course, who has a superior immune system, and the remote Wambo’ers, who were safe far away from the 530 Lakeside.

So yeah, the flu hit Arnaud, Guillaume and I. On our way to coffee this AM, after a long long night for Arnaud/Guillaume, I told them that I wasn’t able to sleep till 5AM or so, then sweating in my bed like a horse. “Me too”, said Arnaud. “Same here”, said Guillaume.

My doctor taught me something — as you grow older, flu symptoms tend to be less dramatic (no big increase in body temperature, no sore throat problems like for younger children). I was sort of surprised, but checking the wikipedia soon thereafter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza), it did seem to confirm that elderly people don’t respond to flu as strongly, therefore sometimes ending up with pneumonia.

"Influenza, commonly known as flu, is an infectious disease of birds and mammals caused by a RNA virus of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses). In humans, common symptoms of influenza infection are fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, and weakness and fatigue.[1] In more serious cases, influenza causes pneumonia, which can be fatal, particularly in young children and the elderly."

As far as Arnaud, Guillaume and I are concerned (we’re still in our very early 30’s…), I guess we’ll just drink lots of water and take Vitamin C.