Lake palace hotel

The multi faces of India... Luxurious hotel...

Ready to sleep

Still in the train. Very exiting experience thanks to vidya and sudhir.

Udaypur

On the train for Udaypur, 700 kms from Dehli. Sleeper 2nd class no AC.

Mysore

We went for a tour in Mysore at 170 kms from Bangalore. The trip costs 300 rupees in a non-AC bus with the Greenline travels, 32 Hotel Suprabhatha Building Shesadri Road, Anandarao circle, Bangalore 560 009. Tels: 98450 47994, 2238 0104, 2237 1266. AC is not required! We visited different places listed below. Do not be offended by the discrimination between Indians and foreigners for the prices to attractions! I bought some bangles (the first set was 100 rupees and then I bought them for 25!) and a beautiful nylon sari (for 600 rupees)… Pictures to come…

Visited places:

- Mysore palace, the palace of the Wadyar family – 16^th century - was amazing especially the Durbar Hall where the maharajas welcomed the Indian population and the Kalyana Mantapa (marriage pavilion) with murals on the Dasara ceremony and stained glass ceiling with peacocks. There are paintings of a famous Indian painter called Raja Raviverma. The Dasara ceremony is about the celebration of the victory of good over evil. Dolls are worshiped during that festival.

- Chamundeswari temple – 12^th century - a South Indian style temple – very 35 meters high.

- St. Philomena’s church – a medieval architecture church.

- Brindavan gardens – Gardens with water fountains, color, light and music. Fountain spectacles seem to be very popular in India! IIITB had also a fountain with lights and music.

- Lalithmahal Palace – an amazing hotel I saw on TV . There is also a 5-star hotel in the Brindavan gardens.

Iphone and tata car

The iphone lauched in Indian this week for 35,000 rupees (around $900 US).

Tata is trying to launch the cheapest car in the world for $2000.

Autorikcha and other transportations

There are more than 30 different types of transportation means in India. Autorikcha, tonga and cyclerikcha, cars, motobikes are some examples… We went to a mall in Bangalore called Center… Was like Macys in New York City… To go home we spent 30 minutes bargaining and trying to have the driver use the meter instead of giving us a random (western/tourist) price… We eventually made it by asking a policeman to help us! :-(

Visit of companies

I visited some of the famous IT companies in Electronic City and Whitefield in Bangalore. I will not list the companies here such that I do not release some information that should be kept confidential. I was more impressed by Whitefield than Electronic City. In Whitefield it looks like you are in the US. Lots of security before entering one of these companies – no laptop, no camera, no cell phone with camera… Lots of ideas coming from these companies who are trying the bridge the gap between the educational system offering and their needs. Lots of new private schools that are very expensive and also not as competitive as the established universities and institutes – education is becoming a business…

ICGSE conference

The ICGSE conference (International Conference on Global Software Engineering – http://www.icgse.org/) took place at the IIITB (International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore, http://www.iiitb.ac.in/) in the Electronic City Area of Bangalore. We were just one street away from Infosys, Siemens, Wipro… all the famous IT companies…

Conference was quiet interesting – not a big crowd but nice and dedicated people. The countries that were represented were: Ireland (high), India (medium), Germany (high), US (low)… France is absent from the GSD research field! Lots of people are using students for studies but there is a need of looking more at the industry practices.

Got some references that I need to study further… The talks I preferred were on the use of Scrum in a distributed setting and the experience report from Siemens on a project involving students in Brazil, the US and Italy. The keynotes were also well chosen with a talk from the president of CSC (K. Subrahmaniam) on the differences between software development and manufacturing, innovation in India (Deependra Moitra) and virtual collaborations (Thomas A. Finholt). One of the talks I would have loved to hear about is the one of the possible use of Wonderland (the virtual world from Sun) in GSD – the speaker was not present.

The conference reception introduced us to the traditional dance in India. The interest was that the dancers mixed traditional Indian prayana with some modern moves.

Our GSD talk was at the end of the conference in the Education track. The talk was very well appreciated – with a thumb up from some people and congratulations from Indian and Irish researchers. What we are doing with my colleagues is both doing GSD and studying it. That is the plus! When doing the GSD project I really feel like a project manager…

I am in Bangalore - Bengaluru

Bangalore is in the Karnataka region. Lots of people in Bangalore speak neither English nor Hindi. Another important aspect of Bangalore is that traffic is very dense – so to do 20 kms one may need 2 hours. The climate is nice all year long from 15 to 28 degrees… with monsoon from June to September. It is well known for cakes :-)

Bangalore

I did not manage to update this blog when in Senegal. Let's try from India... Just arrived in Bangalore the Sillicon Valley of India... It will be interesting to discover this side of the software development industry...

Senegal

Already one week in senegal... The best experience ever... I waited years to do something in africa and I hope that it is the beginning of something amazing!

New trip

On my way to senegal... There were trips in between but nothing as exotic... De nouvelles aventures commencent...

Home

So good to be home. Home sweet homme... My next conference is in march during the spring break. I will have some time to enjoy New York in between

Wsts 2008

Workshop on Teaching Software Testing in Melbourne, Florida.

In transit again

In transit again for 5 hours at the Amsterdam airport...

Back to France

I am back to France for until Wednesday... It is very grey... I need to post some pictures from France...

Virtual life

Someone told me... Soon, you will garden in Second Life. To talk to you we will have to write on your facebook wall, and to see you, we will have to see the pics or videos on your micro-blog... NO YOU ARE NOT RIGHT YOU!!!...

End of the trip

This is the end of the trip... I am at the Hong Kong airport for 12 hours... Working on a paper due on Friday... I would prefer to enjoy and simply think... So many new ideas came after that trip...

I just read an article in Fortune about the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation... They will give away $100 billion dollars in their lifetime... Melinda seems to be leading Bill to be a philanthropist... Nice story about a couple - where each one complements the other...

I also read the story of Amy Biehl. For some unknown reason I ended up on the story of her short life on the Web...

When I watched the movie about Daniel Pearl and now read about the story of Amy Biehl, what strikes me is that their families, instead of showing hate, want to understand the reason of the death of their love ones and create associations to 'make sure' these tragedies will never happen again... What kind of courage and heart does this take?

Why did I read all this now? I do not know... Are there really coincidences?

I am late in updating my blog but will make it up in the next days...

Tour in Vietnam - 1/12

I joined the Mekong river tour from Ho Chi Minh City... one-day tour... Lots of bus... Boat ride... Coconut candies... Discovery of the villages of the fishermen... But too touristy!!!

Dinner with the RUPP students and faculty - 1/9

We had dinner in a typical Khmer seafood restaurant... Khmer food was amazing... I ate frogs... Not surprising because I am French!!!

And Des made a record that night!!! and I also drank an Angkor beer, amazing!!!!

Eclipse and WeBWorK session at RUPP - 1/9

I always want to bring Eclipse with me wherever I go!!!

And WeBWorK also... Do not want to make it jealous!!!

Session at ITC - 1/8

We presented our 3-year collaboration to the I4 students of the Institute of Technology of Cambodia... The fourth year will be even better with an amazing setting proposed by my colleague...

Furthermore our paper on: Working Across Borders: Overcoming Culturally-Based Technology Challenges in Student Global Software Development just got accepted at the CSEET 2008 conference with amazing reviews and each reviewer will champion the paper.

I really think that the global software development research we are doing is very innovative but we still did not make it to the greatest conferences!!!

Session with the professors at RUPP - 1/8

I felt so welcome at RUPP... Professors were very nice and interested in sharing what they are doing, their difficulties and hearing from our experience... We discussed how we teach software engineering and programming in the US, and compare it with Cambodia. So many questions to ask them... to understand their context and how we could collaborate to improve their teaching concerns... They emphasize theory, more than practice... They have large classes... Computer Science enrollment is so down in the US but not in Asia!!!

Vietnamese food

Looking forward some good Vietnamese food in New York! Is it because I was in the tourist area that Vietnamese food tasted so bad...

Back in Ho Chi Minh City

Hungry for Pho

Neak Loeung

Took the bac in Neak Loeung on the way to Vietnam. It made me think about the landscape in my favorite movie The Lover...

I love that story...

Religion

Different religions in Cambodia including budhism, christianism and islam (chams)

Leaving phnom penh

Last pictures taken from my hotel room on Sisowath quai... Wake up every day around 6:30 am...

Chinese funerals

Lots of Chinese influence in Cambodia

Mobile phone

Advertising...

Khmer surin

We met at Khmer Surin with Sophal and ate the traditional Cambodian food called Amok... It was the first time he ate it...

Amok

Thief

Thieves are not appreciated in Cambodia. Today I witnessed a thief being held by people and handcuffed naked at a pole!!!

Today

Today was a working day... Planning the global software development project going from one coffee shop to the next one...

Blogging

is time consuming :-(

Paragon hotel

Going now to Paragon hotel in Phnom Penh to join my colleague... $20 a night...

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g293940-d641345-Reviews-Paragon_Hotel-Phnom_Penh.html

Address:

N° 219B, Sisowath
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Email: info_paragonhotel@yahoo.com

Phone: (855) 023 222 607

The hotel and surroundings...

Cell phones

One of the amazing businesses I discovered today is linked with the cell phone business... In Phnom Penh "everybody" has a cell phone (probably not true for the country side of Cambodia but 87% of the population is anyway covered by cell phone - this is due to the numerous cell phone booths around the country). Cambodian people have funny cell phone rings. There are improvised shops in the markets where people can get the latest Cambodian song as the ring of their cell phone... They can also get cell phone games and videos on their cell phones... Entrepreneurship varies by countries... I found that amazing!

Travels

When I travel I like to live among the local people... learn what is their everyday life... understand their daily routine... their context... their difficulties... what makes them happy also... I try not to be noticed to much... I often take work with me but it is not an habit... I have WeBWorK, Wikis, Blogs, Second Life and Eclipse with me this time... But it is fun to show these technologies to students here...

Sophal

Another amazing story...

Sophal (mysophal@gmail.com) was a student at RUPP last year. He works for a company called Mapring (http://www.mapring.com) and uses with WebSphere Data Interchange. He attended a lecture I gave on Eclipse. I asked the students who attended that lecture to try out an online programming assessment system called WeBWorK. With some colleagues we designed problems in Java, Python and SML. See here... When back in New York I checked on who did it the WeBWorK problems and noticed that there was a student who did all the problems right with only 1 or 2 attempts!!!

I contacted him to ask him to assist me with WeBWorK and since then he is the leader in inputting problems in WeBWorK. This is not easy work as each problem is written in a mixture of Perl, LaTeX and HTML...

I cannot thank him enough... Today was the first time I met him personally face-to-face...

My tailor

Here is a picture of my tailor... I know her for 8 years but do never remember her first name... She does not speak English or French but she always manages to sew wonderful dresses for me... We have interpreters but body language and drawing are often enough... The problems is that I do no have enough occasions to wear the wonderful dresses she does for me...

Chat with Kosal

Bo Kosal is an amazing teacher of English and French that I met last year. He is fluent in both languages.
He lives in Prey Veng. He teaches students who are between 15 and 19 years old. He has a passion for technology. He knows all the little software that make the life of the cyber-cafe Internet users easier. Bo Kosal's blog is at http://sharesource.blogspot.com.

We had a nice chat about what is useful for the Cambodian education - Computers, Internet and English. He liked the videos of the presentation at RUPP, and will translate some of the In Plain English videos of Commons Craft in Khmer using http://www.dotsub.com (a great Web site that permits to add subtitles to videos).

When we talk about free Internet-based software, are they also free for the people of developing countries who do not have Internet access at home but need to go to the cyber cafe? The price of the Internet ($0.5/hour) is a luxury for lots of people. How many people in Cambodia are leaving with less than $1 a day???

Lots of plans with Bo Kosal...

Toul Toung Poung or Russian Market

I went to the Russian Market... What can I buy? I have more than 50 kramas (scraves) of all the imaginable colors, tonnes of Tintin in Cambodia or Khmer alphabet tee shirts, silver and wood jewellery boxes, Apsaras and Javayarma statues, silk bags...

RUPP

Some pictures of RUPP...

Typical classroom at RUPP...

Des organized the lectures. THANK YOU.

Sokharith (who was my students twice at ITC and Pace University) is professor at RUPP...

Second Life at RUPP

Not quiet there yet...

The day began with a workshop on 'Emerging Collaborative Technologies for Teaching' for the students in the Master of Education Technology at RUPP. We (one colleague and her husband) started with a questionnaire and talked with the 13 students. Most of them are teachers in the provinces of Cambodia. They spend their week-ends in Phnom Penh to study. The fact is that they teach students of 15 to 20 years old in schools that do not have computers and do not have Internet. Lots of them do not have emails. I know the Cambodian context but I came for a presentation on Google Docs, Blogs, Wikis and Second Life and how they can be applied to teaching. RUPP has no Internet connection either. I showed videos of social networking, Google docs, Blogs, Wikis and Second Life (all downloaded on my laptop). The In Plain English videos of Commons Craft are wonderful!

I believe that it is not because these students do not have the technology available that they cannot know what exists out there. Like one of their professors would say: "It gives them hope!!!".

Students were delighted. They liked being involved and the videos... They will never forget that there is a "Second Life"...

The material that was presented as well as the conclusions of the questionnaire are available at:
http://pacerupp2008.wikispaces.com/

Is Angkor Wat in Second Life? and when will RUPP be in Second Life?

First day in Phnom Penh

Staying with my friend Des and his wife Casou, in their house in front of the Royal University of Phnom Penh RUPP http://rupp.edu.kh. No hot water but the best stay in all Phnom Penh.

Their house is above their Cyber Cafe and company called Cambodia One Click Communications COCC. The company does web sites, hosting, training and development.

It is pretty cool in Phnom Penh. 25 degrees...

Visited the professors of the Institute of Technology of Cambodia ITC http://itc.edu.kh to plan our project of global software development. I taught at ITC in 1999-2000 and started the Computer Science Department. Phnom Penh and ITC evolved a lot in the last years... Much more tourism now... More developed...

Still jetlaged and feeling very sleepy but I have to prepare my presentation for tomorrow at RUPP...

Yes, my blackberry does not work (no wifi) to update this micro-blog arghhhhhh....

In the bus (resent from 1/3/2007)

At the border between Vietnam and Cambodia in Moc Bai. It is so easy and safe now to go from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh. The road is very good and it takes 6 hours. The Cambodian immigration building is very nice. Lots of loud Cambodian music in the bus. Casinos at the Cambodian border side. The landscape changes dramatically once we cross the border. Directly we can see the traditional piloti houses and it is much more rural. Phnom Penh during rush hours is terrible. Directly moto doub are harassing me to give me a ride...

Found a bus

To Phnom Penh for $10 with
Sinh cafe
248 de tham st
district 1
848 837 6833
info@sinhcafevn.com
http://www.sincafevn.com

HCM streets...

Ho chi minh city

I arrive at my hotel
Hong Hoa Hotel
District 1
185 28 Pham Ngu Lao St
Tel. 848 836 1915
http://www.honghoavn.com
Email. hotel@ honghoavn.com
18 $ a night AC Hot water
BUT NO VIEW

Hong Kong airport

In transit in Hong Kong airport for 8 hours in the United Airlines lounge... Got upgraded to Business class... What a pleasure!

Frankfurt airport

In transit...

The beginning

It begins at the airport in Luxembourg... 50 kms from Metzeresche...