donal's blog

Facebook becoming a walled garden?

2011-11-12T17:53:00.000Z

Back in July 2008, Facebook added the ability to take content you published elsewhere on the Internet and make it available to your friends on Facebook. I really liked this design and made use of it despite the flakiness of Facebook's implementation.

Yesterday, Facebook informed users that they were killing this feature on 22 November 2011.

Websites killing off features is nothing new but I'm disappointed for a number of reasons...

Lack of notice
Just 11 days notice that the feature is going away... Companies tend to favour informing users a minimum of 30 days before making changes that affected them. On the plus side, Facebook have been known to "disappear" features within any notice at all so this actually an improvement!
Increased effort required
This is a feature that many companies and organisations use for posting content in one location and making it appear in other locations on the website. This saves people a huge amount of time because they don't have to write the content and then sign into multiple sites to make the content appear there.
Longer term implications
One of the suggested motivations for this is that Facebook want publishers and consumers to spend the majority of their time on the site. The more time they spend on the site, the more they are worth. I really don't want Facebook (or any other provider) to become the only place information is available. Locking users into a particular website never ends well...

I wonder if notes will completely die as a feature for Facebook... Two of the main use cases for the notes feature are blog postings that are imported from outside Facebook and status updates that are too long.

Will be interesting to see where this goes...

Updated layout

2011-11-12T17:01:00.001Z

Just made some changes to the layout of my blog thanks to some new features provided by Blogger...

Main changes are:

Cleaner layout for users
New mobile-optimised layout
Removal of stale links and broken content

Really like the new features and the much improved tools for bloggers. The writing and editing environment is much better than what existed before.

ComReg Notifies UPC of a Finding of Non-Compliance with respect to Notification of Proposed Changes to Contract Terms and Conditions

2011-02-06T00:00:00.019Z

So looks like UPC have been found not complying with
Regulation 17(4) and Regulation 17(5) of the Universal Service Regulations. The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) have notified them of this non-compliance this week so we have to wait and see what happens...

It is unclear from ComReg's notification if it was the price increases on 04 Jan 2011 or the changes to terms and conditions that have resulted in UPC's non-compliance. It's worth noting that the media have been reporting that it is related to the price increases but there is evidence that UPC have been changing their T&Cs on their website without notifying customers for some time too. :/

The regulations in question are:

An undertaking referred to in paragraph (1) or a provider of electronic communications services referred to in paragraph (3) shall, not less than one month prior to the date of implementation of any proposed modification, notify its subscribers to that service —

of the proposed modification in the conditions of the contract for that service, and
their right to withdraw without penalty from such contract if they do not accept the modification.

A subscriber referred to in paragraph (4) may withdraw from his or her contract with the undertaking or provider, without penalty if he or she does not accept a proposed modification referred to in paragraph (4).

S.I. No. 308/2003 — European Communities (Electronic Communications Networks and Services)(Universal Service and Users' Rights) Regulations 2003

The above legislation is a result of Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council:

Article 20 in the directive states:

Member States shall ensure that subscribers have a right to withdraw from their contract without penalty upon notice of modification to the contractual conditions proposed by the undertakings providing electronic communications net works and/or services. Subscribers shall be given adequate notice, not shorter than one month, of any such modification, and shall be informed at the same time of their right to withdraw, without penalty, from their contract if they do not accept the new conditions. Member States shall ensure that national regulatory authorities are able to specify the format of such notifications.

Press coverage

IrishTimes.com - UPC in breach of code over price hikes
ENN.ie - In The Papers 2 February
Telegeography.com - UPC rapped for breaking code of conduct over price increase

Want to export all your facebook data? you now can...

2010-11-10T12:50:00.000Z

1. Click on account in the bar above.
2. Click on "Account settings" (or just go to https://register.facebook.com/editaccount.php)
3. look for the "Download your information" section.
4. click on "learn more"
5. click on "Download"
6. wait for the email from Facebook.
7. download the zip file with your data.
8. PROFIT!!

Note: you can't download information by other people (including their email addresses). There are some workarounds but personally, I'm not that fussed about this limitation. Getting *my* data out of facebook is much more important.

Thanks facebook! Took you a while but this makes me a little happier. :)

original blog entry: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=434691727130

boot note: I was originally going to post this as a facebook status update but the length was too long (720 characters vs the 420 character limit). so now it's on my blog which will propagate to facebook... =)

Camaderry, Glendalough, Co. Wicklow (reverse)

2010-06-20T23:59:00.039+01:00

Date: 20 June 2010
Description: Described as a moderate walk in the Lonely Planet guide, I found this tougher at the start than I had expected (about the same intensity as the steep section of Lough Bray). After some messing around at the start (we failed to locate the gravel path Gary had mentioned and end up scrambling up the river bed), we finally hit the ridge and took the shortest path up (straight up!). We found a forest road that brought us up to 350-400m approx and then followed a grass path up to 500m approx (nice stroll). The final climb to the first peak (677m) was strenuous but not too bad. Following the saddle over to the 698m peak was straighforward. Heading over to the reservoir was also fine. The guidebook indicated that finding the path through the heather was a game of luck and our findings agree (even from the top of Camaderry we saw no visible paths down towards the streams). Instead, we headed over to the reservoir perimeter road and then followed the stream back down to the bridge and onto the miner's village. At the miner's village, the local park service had set up a "Falcon Watch" session where visitors could use binoculars or telescopes to look at Peregrine falcon chicks and their parents. They only do this once a year so do check our their website. After chatting with the staff for a few minutes, we made our way park to the car park through the trees (trying to raise a signal (unsuccesfully) on our mobiles so we could contact our driver!).

View Walking route: Camaderry, Glendalough, Co. Wicklow (reverse) in a larger map

dublin man attacks cork's use of language...

2009-11-27T15:07:00.004Z

Had to laugh when I saw this in the Irish Times (link) yesterday:

Madam, – A moderate levy, imposed each time the word “like” is used redundantly, would surely resuscitate the Celtic Tiger. – Yours, etc,

The levy would be impossible to implement in Cork, like...

Snow Patrol / Ticketmaster screw up pre-sale

2009-08-19T09:32:00.004+01:00

So I got roped into trying to help folk here buy pre-sale tickets for snow patrol this morning... the issue? The link in the email they sent didn't work...

here's the link they sent:

http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/click/1934040-103838/zaph%0A+od.uk.vvhp.net/v-v/36df2d5ea6eba5242b7de32917-1934040

here's what they meant to send:

http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/click/1934040-103838/zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/v-v/36df2d5ea6eba5242b7de32917-1934040

It looks like the link got mangled by the software they use to create the mailouts for the fanclub. %0A equates to a CR and the + to a space.

Of course, ticketmaster are frustrating fans further because none of the Irish dates are available this morning... From the looks of the 2 dates visible in the system, they got the start date of the pre-sale wrong (20 Aug and not 19 Aug). Got to wonder why we pay them so much when they can't get stuff like this right...

UPDATE @ 12:35: Looks like ticketmaster resolved the pre-sale issues this morning fans can now buy tickets for Dublin, Killarney and Castelbar.

Internet privacy

2009-04-21T23:04:00.002+01:00

There was a question on RTÉ's Questions and Answers programme this week regarding facebook and privacy on the Internet.

The responses from the panel were not well informed - they confused the issue between privacy afforded to users of a service by the service provider and the issue of keeping your data private from the general public.

The two issues are totally different and need to be addressed separately...

How service providers can use the information you upload to their service is very important.

We're all familiar with the tick boxes on marketing boxes letting you opt in or out of the ability for them to use your data to pass on to partners and 3rd parties (the majority of companies require you to opt out - default is opt in).

Many online service providers use data from their users to improve the service and I personally do not have an issue with them doing this as long as they are transparent about how they are using it.

With regards closing an account, it is reasonable for users to expect that all data is removed from the service within a specific time frame.
Providing personal identifiable information (aka PII) online.

PII and who can access it online is very different to the above. Many of the social networking sites (Facebook, Bebo, Myspace) allow you to set the level of privacy you would like for your account.

Most services allow you to tweak security in a granular manner. For example, Facebook by default will make your profile public to everyone on Facebook (and a subset of it to search engines). However, you can restrict this to just your friends (or even a particular subset of friends). This allows you to share your phone number with your best friend but let your classmates see your photos.

How granular you can set permissions varies from service to service and users often have to make trade offs when it comes to privacy. e.g. You must decide to share your status updates with all your friends or just a subset. There is no way to share some with everyone and others will only your best friend. Few users default to "total privacy" so data leaks are common.

My approach to privacy on the Internet is to only provide my data to companies I trust to protect it and use it responsibly. For keeping in touch with friends, I have a Facebook account with various levels of privacy set. By default no-one can see any details about me until I've added them as a friend. Even then, depending on how well I know the person I will limit the data they have access to. Old school friends I haven't seen in 20 years get very data (status updates, ability to message me). Close friends get full access to most my data.

My rule? If you would share the data with the person in real life (IRL), then sharing it with them online is acceptable. If not, then set the relevant privacy option.

One thing I haven't touched on here is security. Security plays a part for both the service provider and your friends. If the service provider has poor security processes, attackers may retrieve data from the service which they do not have permission to access. If you friends are lax with security (weak passwords, unlocked screens), people you do not know may access their account and access your information.

If you live in Ireland, you can check it the piece on their new RTÉ player (around the 33:45 mark). Alternatively you can watch it using the old method (requires Realplayer).

Irish have lowest interest in Science & Technology among European youths

2008-12-18T11:48:00.005Z

A report from the European Commission in October indicates that Irish youth have the lowest interest in Science & Technology news compared to other Europeans...

The level of interest in science and technology news was the highest in Portugal and Greece – with 86% and 85%, respectively, of respondents who said these topics appealed to them. These two countries showed the smallest difference between the level of interest in science and technology news compared to news items about culture and entertainment. Interest in the former, on the other hand, was the lowest in Ireland and the Netherlands – with only a slim majority of respondents showing interest in these scientific topics (53% and 54%, respectively).

Full link: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_239_sum_en.pdf

Consumer Alert: Companies hiding price rises in Monday's VAT rise...

2008-11-28T18:34:00.008Z

I just noticed that the company behind the M4 toll are misleading consumers with their 01 December 2008 price increases...

From the http://www.eurolink-m4.ie/ website:
Due to the increase in the rate of VAT, from 21% to 21.5%, effective from 1st December, as announced by the Government on Budget Day 14th of October, our prices will rise from the 1st December.

If you then check the prices you'll find that the price of a car increases from €2.70 to €2.80 (an increase of over 3.7%)! However, they aren't increasing the rates for all vehicles... bad form!

UPDATE-1: some background available over at boards.ie. still doesn't justify the 10c increase though...

delta: an airline needing direction?

2008-11-09T23:21:00.002Z

Most people you talk to will say that Delta suck big time... They're late, they charge for alcoholic beverages, their inflight entertainment is so-so and their staff are rude...

My experience to date has hardly been smooth sailing but they aren't all bad...

on the plus side...

delta have cheap flights! Yes... I've done a couple of roundabout routes using delta (mostly DUB->PDX->SFO->DUB via ATL) and I've found the flights to be cheap considering the # of hops and the fact it includes transatlantic legs. I'm talking 500-700 euro for a 5 leg trip. I've seen return flights to the east coasy come in at a higher rate than that...

Their staff are generally pretty good. I've witnessed great team spirit and camaraderie by the flight attendants on Delta flights... On the flight from DUB->ATL this morning, the attendants looking after my section referred to each other as sister and went out of their way to make their customers welcome (they kept me extremely well supplied with peanuts!). At the gate in ATL (once i found the right one), the GA changed my seat no questions asked (10A FTW on a full flight)... He was friendly and was a great example of customer service.

They are part of the Sky Team alliance and since I'm a Flying Blue member, I get miles... Should be Gold by end of the year on my current trend of travel...

on the negative side...

Some of their staff are rude. A small minority in my opinion... They tend to be the front-line customer support folk who deal with the tired, annoyed flyers who have had flights delayed or cancelled.

Their aircraft tend to be old... The DUB-ATL route tends to have the really old 80s overhead projection systems or slightly newer large-screen LCD monitors with 2-3 movies on the flight. The flight I took this morning had technical issues for 4-5 rows towards the rear of the plane (overhead reading lights turned on and off randomly, nearest video screen wasn't working). The ATL-PDX leg I'm about to get on had to have a aircraft change as the original plane had a technical issue (EDIT: the technical issue appears to be that it won't get to ATL for another couple of hours!). Delta haven't been investing in their fleet and it's starting to show... It hasn't got to the point where safety is an issue, but if they continue on this course it could be...

They've cancelled a flight on me and re-routed me halfway across the USA. Was supposed to take a direct flight from SFO -> ATL but got re-routed via NYC. A 5-hour flight turned into a whole day of airports, planes and lost luggage. :(

Their investment in technology seems to mirror their investment in the fleet. The lack of in-flight on-demand entertainment is a pity. The fact their can't even get the displays in ATL to show the right gate number is a completely absurd though... Seriously... how can you expect passengers to show up at the right gate when 90+% of the screen is the airport are indicating the wrong gate (in the wrong terminal)?

Here's what flightstats.com happened on the gate change front...
Nov 09 5:00 PM
Airline (DL) Gate Adjustment
* Departure Gate Changed From B31 To E8
* Arrival Gate Changed From D7 To D3

Nov 09 5:46 PM
Airline (DL) Gate Adjustment
* Departure Gate Changed From E8 To E27

Despite this, Delta's automated flight checker device was still giving out the E08 gate at 18:01 EST.

Summary: Delta have really cheap fares (no wonder they're going bust!) so if you can live with a few delays, cancellations and outdated technology, save a few hundred bucks and use them...

Hard Working Class Heroes '08

2008-08-26T10:58:00.004+01:00

Hard Working Class Heroes '08 is on 12-14 September and competes with the Fringe festival. What's more, ticket prices are up some 100% since 2006. A weekend ticket through ticketmaster.ie is €44.98. According to nialler.com (currently down), the weekend ticket price in 2006 was just €22.50 (if bought directly from the festival folk). Single-day tickets have also seen a similar increase.

In 2006, "80 plus bands from Ireland with six acts from Canada largely represent the indie / indie rock genre with a very small amount of artists classed as other genres such as electronica (not a gritty Irish hip hop act in sight)...".

In 2008, the approach to band selection hasn't changed much and I would argue that you're comparing like-with-like. Yes - they have added some additional elements like a photo exhibition, but this hardly justifies the large increase.

Ticket prices are rising dramatically and it just doesn't make sense... MCD and Aiken claim that the live event industry is going strong but if prices continue to climb, you're going to price the ordinary fan out of the market... I already know a number of people who have skipped concerts due to tickets being in the €100+ range!

In the early 2000s you could see 3-4 gigs for the price you will know pay for one. Inflation does need to be taken into account but when you see shows not selling out and the ticket price increasing so much (even compared to other european countries), you have to wonder how long it will be until the likes of U2, R.E.M., Radiohead, Springsteen are playing to half-full venues (50% full; paying twice as much still yields the same gross figure).

In summary, the promoters need to buck the trend of rising prices and grow the pie. At the moment they are looking at the bottom line and making profits by rising prices. It can't last...

new Facebook design

2008-07-30T08:16:00.005+01:00

so Facebook have launched a redesigned interface for their site. Seems to have uncluttered some stuff and first impressions are good!

The nicest feature I see is that you can now link your external blogs, photo galleries, etc to your activity stream. This is a killer feature and means that you can use multiple providers but have one central source for all your friends...

now to see if it works! :)

update @ 15:26:
this feature doesn't appear to be working right now. I've logged a bug with Facebook and monitor. If it does pick up the new postings it will be a very nice feature!

update @ 15:33:
this actually isn't a new feature but appears to be around for some time. Unfortunately, I can't get this blog added but i was able to add my youtube profile. :)

update @ 18:25 (06 aug 2008):
seeing if facebook have fixed the issue on their end.

Ian Whitty & the Exchange - Bewleys Café Theatre, Dublin - 04 May 2008

2008-05-19T20:50:00.002+01:00

just finished uploading a video from Ian's gig in early May.

Enjoy!

this post is about sinéad

2008-05-03T00:38:00.005+01:00

sinéad likes to spell her name with a capital 'S'.
sinéad can beat me at mario kart wii (but only on the luigi circuit).
sinéad will defend cork with much gusto.
sinéad will...

* the stream of conciousness ends here because sinéad battered me. :P

Off day for Ferrari...

2008-03-16T06:13:00.005Z

F1 is back with a bang... and the changes for the 2008 season have had a dramatic affect on today's Australian GP...

Just 7 cars finished the race which saw plenty of driver mistakes. Both Ferrari drivers had bad days with both Massa and Raikkonen making mistakes which saw them in the gravel pit. Indeed, Massa's demise was probably related to the collision which put Coulthard out on lap 26. Raikkonen missed breaking zones, spun his Ferrari while trying to take Timo Glock.

The pundit's conclusion on the Massa / Coulthard collision is that Coulthard should have left Massa more room... I disagree! Coulthard was quite right to keep his position and Massa probably overcooked it just a tiny bit. He definitely didn't deserve to be taken out as he was having a good race.

Timo Glock's spectacular spin on lap 44 robbed Kovalainen of 2nd place but resulted in Raikkonen, Kovalainen and Alonso being line astern after the 3rd safety car. This resulted in some good overtaking... Kovalainen on Raikkonen and then Alonso on both of them (pretty much in the same corner) before Raikkonen retired with engine trouble.. Kovalainen almost took 4th at the end after overtaking Alonso in the last corner before slowing on the pit straight (he recovered to take 5th behind Alonso).

Hamilton was driver of the day, encountering no issues and looking supreme at the front... Kubica did great in qualifying but failed to live up to expectations in the race (retiring late on).

All in all, the new changes have changed the focus back to driver skill and it will be interesting to see who shines this season... I suspect Ferrari will struggle a little in the next couple of the races as they adjust to having fewer driver aids (my impression was that they invested more than anyone else in this area in previous seasons).

looking forward to the next race in a week's time...

How much news actually gets reported?

2008-03-15T17:02:00.003Z

I happened to be flying through New York's JFK airport last sunday and got delayed over an hour on landing and again on departure. The pilot of our flight mentioned that there was some sort of security incident but there was no mention on the JFK website or in any of the main news sites... We could see a LOT plane in a secluded area of the airport surrounded by a bunch of police / security vehicles and it looked pretty serious...

It turns out, the flight had the Polish Prime Minister (Donald Tusk) on it and someone had phoned in a bomb alert for the flight (it turned out to be a hoax).

the only websites to report this news (which delayed 100+ flights) appear to be polish websites (and 2 of the new york papers)... very little mention of it in the mainstream news...

http://www.poland.pl/news/article,Polish_PM_opens_visit_to_the_United_States,id,318420.htm
http://www.polskieradio.pl/thenews/human-interest/?id=77632
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03102008/news/regionalnews/polish_pm_in_jfk_scare_101264.htm
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/03/10/2008-03-10_terrorist_threat_for_jfkbound_polish_air-2.html

i want a pair of these gloves...

2008-01-03T20:14:00.000Z

yep - one step closer to minority report style interaction with your PC...

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03/wiimote-re-purposed-for-glove-based-multi-touch-system/

i want one... :)

top 10 of 2007

2008-01-01T19:10:00.001Z

in no particular order, these are my top 11 events of 2007 (couldn't choose 10!)...

eating sushi in a real japanese restaurant in downtown tokyo (january)
google ski trip to the italian alps (january)
Weekend in Ballydavid, Co. Kerry for Siobhán Begley's art exhibition (may)
Seeing R.E.M. at the olympia twice in one week even if they exclaimed "THIS IS NOT A SHOW" (july)
kayaking near sigulda in latvia (september)
Sligo hiking / clean-up weekend with folk from Google (october)
Lewis Hamilton almost winning the F1 championship (october).
Seeing The Frames at the Grand Opera House, Belfast (october)
Seeing Ryan Adams in Munich (november)
Handing off my first huge project as a project manager more or less on time (november / december)
going to the christmas market in munich with berny (december)

hopefully 2008 will be a much longer list... :)

Glendalough - 28 October 2007

2007-11-01T19:05:00.000Z

Last sunday, Rafael (a colleague from Google) and myself went hiking in Glendalough (following the white route up along the ridge and then back along the valley to the visitor centre).

We were fortunate to find a gap in the rain over the weekend - it was lashing rain and extremely windy at 3am and more rain showers arrived towards the end of the hike at 2pm (kudos to www.met.ie having rain radar on their website and to O2/Vodafone for coverage in the area). We warned a few hikers setting out later than us that heavy rain was on the way (particularly 2 folk who didn't look particularly well kitted out) and I'm guessing they got rather wet on top of the ridge.

Overall - has a great time on the hike and it was really good to get out and about early on a sunday (loads of people had a similar idea).

Report by DCC on "Successful Apartment Living"

2007-10-27T21:14:00.000+01:00

I just had a read of an interesting report by DCC on Apartment Living - they served nearly 200 schemes across the Dublin area and looked at a number of items regarding management of the schemes.

The 2 areas that interested me were the fire standards of apartment schemes and noise complaints. Fire standards for apartments are extremely low with poor signage and equipment. Noise is a large percentage of complaint to management companies but only 6 (yes 6!!) complaints were made to DCC in relation to apartment complex noise.

The full report (which includes the checklist they used) is available here:
http://www.dublincity.ie/Images/Apartment%20Living%20Part%202%20Oct%2007_tcm35-57039.pdf

The checklist might be useful for folk renting/buying apartments so do check it out - page 116.

Latvia & Estonia

2007-09-14T10:18:00.000+01:00

On the last leg of our journey around latvia and estonia (a 5hour bus trip from tallinn to riga).

Has been an interesting 10 days - wandering arounds Riga's old town and the beach resort of Jurmala; cycling and canoeing in Sigulda; relaxing in the Georg Ots spa hotel in Kuressaare; and finally wandering around the old town of Tallinn.

We've seen the presidents of Finland and Estonia as well as the Northern Ireland football team while enjoying some great weather along the way.

More updates when I'm back in Dublin along with photos and videos... :)

summery weather

2007-05-21T16:37:00.000+01:00

Great weather in Dublin right now... Leaving the house this morning I had to wind down the window in the car is was that warm... and that was at 10am! The weekend was nice too - bright until well after 9pm these days. Great views of the moon too with the clear skies over Dublin...

... and now I'm stuck in the office only able to peer out the window and dream of holidays in the sun...

still - got this great picture (left) to remind me of New Zealand last year. :)

REM performing at Olympia Theatre Dublin

2007-03-31T23:44:00.000+01:00

as sinéad puts it "i got tickets, up yours!"... haha

The last time REM played in Ireland was back in 1999 iirc - in Landsdowne Road. I fell out with a guy I went to school with over that gig - we were meant to go and get tickets together and he went off and bought the tickets without talking to me. I never went to the concert...

so now that they've announced 5 nights in the Olympia, I'm delighted. It will be a preview of new material which is being recorded this spring. I love the intimacy of the Olympia so this will be a real treat... We've got tickets for sunday and thursday night.

see you there...

dan le sac VS scroobius pip

2007-03-31T23:09:00.000+01:00

heard this on phantomFM tonight while driving home from the cinema... genius...

Al-Qaeda plot to bring down UK internet

2007-03-12T00:52:00.000Z

c/o www.timesonline.co.uk

I happened to notice this article in the sunday times when i was getting off the train today. I had expected it to be easy to find online but it took about 10mins of searching... The reaction on the times website seems to be "so what!". so what? do folk realise just how much society relies on the internet these days?

The article is scarce of real facts but I would be surprised if the location they mention would have been the only target. Anyone with any knowledge of networks would realise that there are easier targets than one of the world's main internet hubs. More and more telecommunication companies are pushing data and voice over the same physical medium so both voice and data could be affected by such an attack.

This worries me a little... A simultaneous attack on key network infrastructure in a handful of countries could result in killing communications for a larger percentage of the world. This has a knock-on effect for national security and many businesses.

how do you function without internet and telephony services? do you have a plan to get in touch with your family and friends?

Snippets from the papers

2007-03-10T16:26:00.000Z

Incandescent light bulbs are to be phased out over the next 2 years as part of an EU initiative to reduce CO₂ emissions. This is abosultely brilliant and should result in cheaper prices and availability for CFL light bulbs. We replaced all the bulbs in our house last year at a cost of about €90 - that's not cheap and will drop considerably with competition.

Kevin Barry has an interesting article in today's Irish Examiner. He recently visited the northwest and comments about how the current economic situation in ireland is having an effect on areas outside the Pale. he writes "the shimmering prosperity of the capital verges fades very quickly" and "once you get to longford and beyond, it can seem like you're back in 1987". This is a worrying sign if you take into account that house prices are falling in certain areas of dublin, a number of multi-nationals have reduced their footstep in ireland and that interest rates and inflation are set to increase in the coming months.

Evening Echo (07 March 2007): Cork nightclub "Liquid Lounge" are hoping to pilot a scheme which will see them contribute €5 towards the cost of a taxi home. The initiative will provide a safer environment for the club's clientèle. This is a great idea (I wonder if it was inspired by the Carlsberg ad) and should be rolled out on a wider basis.

Evening Echo (07 March 2007): The city council in Cork are exploring a car sharing scheme which could be allow members to use cars on a pay-as-you-go basis. I'm not convinced that this will happen as a previous attempt in Dublin failed when the insurers backing the project pulled out. It's also likely to be targeted by criminals if the design is not well though out.

Evening Echo (07 March 2007): Cillian Murphy stars in a new seven-minute internet film which tells the story of 3 soldiers trying to avoid capture by enemy troops in a war-torn city. Despite the Evening Echo calling it the "The Silent Cry" it's actually called "The Silent City". You can watch it over at YouTube.com.

Evening Echo (07 March 2007): Freakscene celebrated it's 13th anniversary on wednesday and is the longest-running branded club night in Ireland. If you have checked it out yet, you really should. An institution for indie kids in Cork!

Evening Echo (07 March 2007): Tributes to Siobhán Holland pour into bebo page. This is a tragic story but what drew my interest to the story is that it raises the question as to what happens to your website accounts when you die. I use passwordsafe to keep track of all my accounts (over 125 right now). My current thoughts are that my next-of-kin should have access to the file should I die but I'm sure others would prefer that the service provider delete their account.

Evening Echo (07 March 2007): 60% of calls to Childline get no reply. The ISPCC's annual report was released this week and has statistics for the Childline service. According to the article they only received 11,000 hits in a year!! That has to be wrong... unique visitors maybe... even so - that's extemely low!

Evening Echo (07 March 2007): Dave Hannigan's article "Please, spare me Shannon" sums up my experiences of flying since 9/11. Airports seem to make up additional rules as it suits them and don't actually do thorough checks in most cases. I personally have no problem with the additional security restrictions as long as they are actually effective. But when you have security staff being completely anal for no reason it becomes a joke. My recent experience of a LHR official denying folk from queueing for the transfer area because they had more than one bag despite current rules allowing you to have a suitcase and a laptop bag is not unique. What annoys me even more is seeing unmanned x-ray machines and metal detectors when the security queue is a mile long.

that's it for now...

mobile computing...

2007-03-09T18:39:00.000Z

I've been itching to try it out for a while and report on the current status of mobile computing possibilities in Ireland.

Back in October of last year I went to New Zealand for 3 weeks and had hoped to create entries on my blog using my mobile phone or blackberry (i had both with me). Unfortunately my plans were dashed on arrival when I found both my phones could use very few of the data services available. There was also a bug in the blackberry Google Mail client I was testing at the time which meant i could read email but not send any.

fast-forward to March 2007... I'm on a fast train to Cork and this seems like a perfect time to test out tethering my blackberry to my laptop. I had attempted to get it working a few weeks back with no joy but this time I had strong signal and the availability of an EDGE-enabled mast.

After hooking up my blackberry to the laptop, starting the blackberry device manager and dialing into the o2 network i'm connected! First time, no messing, it just worked!

Firefox is opened and I head for www.google.com to check I can actually connect to the internet. I get redirected to www.google.ie and everything seems good if not a little sluggish. Next I try to connect to my gmail acount and the login page is reasonably fast for the type of connection. I log in but it fails to load due to my connection speed. A few refreshes later and I'm in but things are awful slow.

I connect to redbrick over ssh and get in but again latency is poor but usable. As a result i fire up WinMTR to check what the latency and packet loss are like...

the results are interesting:


|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                      WinMTR statistics                                   |
|                       Host              -   %  | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
|                              62.40.41.2 -   24 |  520 |  396 |  711 | 5822 | 32536 | 24094 |
|                          213.191.233.98 -   24 |  520 |  398 |  621 | 5938 | 32476 | 23994 |
|                          213.191.233.34 -   24 |  520 |  396 |  551 | 5888 | 32356 | 23884 |
|              bla-rtr-01-fa0-0.net.o2.ie -   24 |  520 |  398 |  570 | 5817 | 32326 | 23764 |
|               wil-rtr-01-s4-0.net.o2.ie -   24 |  520 |  399 |  500 | 5819 | 32257 | 23624 |
|             atm1-0-2.cr103.cwt.esat.net -   24 |  520 |  397 |  601 | 5819 | 32157 | 23513 |
|              vlan500.rt501.cwt.esat.net -   23 |  520 |  402 |  601 | 5886 | 32047 | 23383 |
|               vlan51.rt001.cwt.esat.net -   23 |  520 |  402 |  671 | 5905 | 31946 | 23123 |
|                ge0-0.br001.cwt.esat.net -   24 |  520 |  398 |  551 | 5863 | 32036 | 23033 |
|       hyperion-gige6-1.cwt.core.hea.net -   23 |  520 |  401 |  711 | 5854 | 31956 | 22943 |
|                 gige5-1-ar1-cwt.hea.net -   24 |  520 |  399 |  691 | 5875 | 31936 | 22792 |
|         blanch-sr1-po1.services.hea.net -   23 |  520 |  404 |  631 | 5916 | 31836 | 22702 |
|                       cyclops.heanet.ie -   24 |  517 |  397 |  661 | 5948 | 31686 | 23974 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
   WinMTR - 0.8. Copyleft @2000-2002 Vasile Laurentiu Stanimir  ( stanimir@cr.nivis.com )

From analysing the mtr output in realtime it becomes obvious that any hickup in connectivity to the base station results in the lots of timeouts. Fortunately it looks like TCP connections timeout and just retry so ssh connections stay alive. nice!

So summing up... Based on the past hour or so I found that it's actually easier to use my blackberry with it's limited screen size to read and reply to email then to connect directly to sites using my laptop-blackberry solution. The gmail blackberry client works amazingly well in this high packet loss, high latency environment which shows you can mitigate the issues with network access by writing good software. I also see possibilities in being able to work offline and then bursting your updates when you have decent network connectivity. For example: i didn't need to be online while i wrote this entry, only when i click sumbit and upload my data to the server. I can see some of the older protocols such as telnet (ssh these days), pop3, imap and rss pulls be redployed for users on these types of networks.

In summary, I have to say that mobile computing is no-where near viable in it's current state. I had hoped to be able to catch up on some emails on the journey to cork but this is nigh on impossible using web 2.0 websites. I did manage to post to my blog though! :)

Update (10mar2007):

I'm at my destination in Cork and sitting in front of a glowing fire watching the italy vs wales rugby match. No EDGE connectivity here so I'm limited to GPRS which is providing 25.7 kbps down and 15.3 kbps up (about the equivalent of using a poor dial-up connection) as indicated in the speedtest image below...

Latency looked really good for a few seconds (about 210ms to www.hea.net) but then jumped to over 5000ms a number of times. Next exactly stable or reliable!

Still, if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere and need to get online it proves you can do it. You must deploy a certain amount of patience though...

NTL's crazy routing...

2007-03-04T03:17:00.000Z

so i've finally managed to get access to blogspot.com subdomains again (thanks to a ssh tunnel to a server on another network)!

what follows is speculation based on the various reports on the internet (boards.ie; blogger's help group)...

so it appears sometime in the past week (28feb / 01 mar), a change in NTL's routing policy has resulted in packets destined for blogspot IP space to be routed rather strangely (via various networks which are now owned by virgin)...


|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                      WinMTR statistics                                   |
|                       Host              -   %  | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
|                               [removed] -    0 |   57 |   57 |    0 |   29 |  110 |   10 |
|                   [removed].ntlworld.ie -    0 |   57 |   57 |   10 |   27 |   60 |   40 |
|                           213.46.165.49 -    0 |   57 |   57 |   10 |   26 |   91 |   30 |
|            dbln-bb-a-ae1-0.inet.ntl.com -    0 |   57 |   57 |   20 |   39 |  160 |   70 |
|          ren-bb-b-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com -    0 |   57 |   57 |   20 |   41 |  120 |   50 |
|          man-bb-a-so-010-0.inet.ntl.com -    0 |   57 |   57 |   20 |   46 |   90 |   81 |
|          man-bb-b-ge-000-0.inet.ntl.com -    0 |   57 |   57 |   20 |   43 |   91 |   41 |
|          bir-bb-a-so-000-0.inet.ntl.com -    0 |   57 |   57 |   20 |   42 |  120 |   30 |
|             florence-pos20.inet.ntl.com -    0 |   57 |   57 |   20 |   38 |   90 |   80 |
|               brad-wit-pos.telewest.net -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   52 |  201 |   70 |
|                         194.117.136.214 -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   60 |  231 |   50 |
|                         194.117.136.209 -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   52 |  190 |   30 |
|            kno-kno-cas-pos.telewest.net -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   49 |  311 |   30 |
|     pc-62-30-249-14-ha.blueyonder.co.uk -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   56 |  220 |   30 |
|      pc-62-31-0-204-nm.blueyonder.co.uk -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   46 |  110 |   40 |
|     pc-62-30-249-46-ha.blueyonder.co.uk -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   54 |  251 |   40 |
|                         194.117.136.162 -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   52 |  150 |   30 |
|                         194.117.148.251 -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   49 |  120 |   40 |
|                           72.14.238.255 -    0 |   57 |   57 |   30 |   45 |  120 |   30 |
|                           72.14.236.216 -    2 |   57 |   56 |  100 |  121 |  160 |  110 |
|                           66.249.94.235 -    0 |   56 |   56 |  120 |  138 |  190 |  140 |
|                           72.14.238.138 -    0 |   56 |   56 |  130 |  156 |  220 |  160 |
|                            72.14.239.23 -    0 |   56 |   56 |  130 |  156 |  231 |  180 |
|                          216.239.43.186 -    0 |   56 |   56 |  140 |  159 |  210 |  160 |
|                   ed-in-f191.google.com -    0 |   56 |   56 |  130 |  156 |  230 |  160 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
  WinMTR - 0.8. Copyleft @2000-2002 Vasile Laurentiu Stanimir  ( stanimir@cr.nivis.com )

connections to ed-in-f191.google.com (aka *.blogspot.com) are killed instantly and no data is returned. to me this suggests that there could be something happening at the server end too.

from the various blog posts and forum postings no-one has convinced NTL to fix it yet so most folk are still without blogspot for the time-being. :(

I've done my bit by emailing the customer support folk in NTL. hopefully they'll read it before replying with "have you tried rebooting your PC". :P

I've also dropped the blogger support team an email to see if they've spotted anything odd their end (though there are a number of threads in the blogger help forum about the issue).

fighting spam

2007-01-03T14:56:00.000Z

so i came across an interesting spam issue this week over on the frames' website.

We have a really simple stats tool that works out who spends the most time on the message board (based on # of posts) - some people really do no work at all! on monday (01 Jan) I noticed that the top 7 or 8 or had spam type names (vigra@online, etc) which tweaked my interest.

so after a bit of investigation, i found that one particular url had made it into a spammer's attack vector list - getting hit multiple times in one day (over 1600 spam replies to the thread). my initial inclination was to block the IPs previously used (no joy! these spammers are no doubt using open proxies / infected machines).

next step was to implement some sort of lookup on the IPs posting - i checked a random sampling of the IPs against email blacklist and lo-and-behold they were mostly listed on email blacklists too. bingo - check IPs against blacklists before accepting the post.

so now all attempts to post to the frames' message board require the user's IP to be checked against the following BLs:


  'sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org',     //www.spamhaus.org
  'bl.spamcop.net',           //www.spamcop.net
  'no-more-funn.moensted.dk', //no-more-funn.moensted.dk
  'list.dsbl.org'             //www.dsbl.org

we've also implemented our own ip blacklist for sin binning consistent abusers of the board (cease and desists to their network admins usually does the trick though!)

here's the link to the code we're using: http://www.frozenminds.com/spamblacklist.html
here's the link to the thread that was getting spammed: http://www.theframes.ie/v4/comm/msgboard/view/42874/

Blog updates and more music...

2006-12-08T20:05:00.000Z

So I've been trying to get my picasa albums displayed in the sidebar for a while now... as yes - i finally have it working... more later...

so this week I've been a little idle but I've made up for it by spend^H^H^H^H^Hwasting my time on social networking websites.

I've finally given in and joined myspace because some people find that it's uptime is so much better than other messaging providers that use standard-based messaging systems like SMTP (email). I have 11 friends already which isn't half bad for being 20hrs-old myspace-virgin. ;)

One thing that bugged me about blogger for a while was that you couldn't easily add content to the sidebar from other sites... since i last checked though Blogger have lauched a better page layout editor (myspace sucks in this field too btw) which is pretty easy to use.

Thanks to the folk on the blogger discussion list at work (yes - working at Google does have it's advantages) I have managed to add my picasaweb albums to my sidebar and they'll be automagically updated whenever i add new albums. sweeet! :)

Here's the link if you want to do the same: blogger beta widget for PicasaWeb

Finally - I've started using lastFM. I had investigated using it before but never really got around to adding the plugins to my audio players / putting music on my laptop. However before we went to New Zealand I added a ton of music to my laptop so it's actually working out quite well... I've also added my recently-listened-to list to the sidebar.

End of the holidays

2006-10-30T13:04:00.000Z

So after 3 or so weeks on the road we're back sitting in LHR waiting for our Aer Lingus flight to Dublin.

It's amazing how much you can cram into 3 weeks as well as clocking up ~ 40000km of air travel and ~ 3000km of driving (new Zealand is deceivingly large).

Thoughts right now:

- flying east for 24hrs is grand if you have two naps en-route (no jet lag at all)
- LHR must be warmest airport ever - it always seems to be ~ 30 degrees inside
- can someone please come up with a air security standard that makes sense.
- it is Monday. my body says it's Tuesday.
- did the clocks change yesterday? i think we missed it.
- Boots do excellent meal deals if you're ever going through LHR (£3.30 for any sandwich, drink and snack).
- airports need showers.
- new zealand is so cheap to live in.
- wifi hot spots are good

right - time to go and board the flight. photos will follow as soon as i'm home... :)

New Zealand - Day 10

2006-10-18T08:20:00.000+01:00

So we've been here for just over a week and having loads of fun... so far we've walked a fair bit, snowboarded, skied, bathed in thermal pools and gone swimming/snorkeling with seals.

So since I last wrote, we spent 1 more day in Christchurch before heading to the mountains to get some late season snowboarding in. sinéad gave up on the snowboarding after the first day and found she was much better on skis! The last day we were up the mountains, the weather closed in and it snowed like crazy... was amazing and slightly scary trying to get down the mountain on a 30 seater bus (think the worst irish dirt road covered in snow with a 30 degree incline). fun!

Yesterday saw us drop Oisín's 4x4 back to Christchurch and pick up our rental car. We drove up to Hanmer Springs and tried out the thermal springs - they were wonderful. pools of 38-41 degree pools filled with various minerals (we didn't particularly like the smell of the sulphur pools).

Today, we drove up to Kaikoura and booked into a brand new hostel called 'The Lazy Shag'. It's a nice place to stay with ensuite rooms and good facilties... great kitchen and helpful staff. They got us a great deal on the seal swimming which we did this afternoon. The seal swimming was great fun - started off from the beach and swam out to a rocky island where the seals were sunbathing... they weren't very inclined to check us out in the water but we still got some great views of them up close. really worth doing.

Tomorrow sees us head further north towards picton and nelson (not sure how far we'll get). Hoping to go sea kayaking near the Abel Tasman National Park in the next few days.

Things we've noticed so far:
- Kiwis eat very early in the evening. good luck trying to get dinner after 8.30pm
- The weather can change within a few minutes (from sunshine to snow storms to wind)
- The wind influences the weather big time here (nothwesterlys bring warm weather; southwesterlys tend to bring much colder days)
- So far the vegetarian options have been mostly egg based served with fries - they like they meat and fish here!
- Kiwis are real friendly
- Food is very cheap but soup is dear!!
- it's a 340ms hop to dublin from new zealand (for a internet packet; about 24hrs for a human!)

New Zealand - Day 2

2006-10-09T23:58:00.000+01:00

Arrived just over 24hrs ago and loving it already...

The flight over was long and tiring but the kindness of the crew and the inflight entertainment kept us going. Sinead was feeling pretty sick after the first leg but the crew were really nice (thanks Andy!) and did everything they could to make her more confortable (gave us exit row seats with extra leg room & bottled water).

Yesterday, we met up with Sinead's brother at the airport and went for some coffee to pass the time until our room at the YMCA was ready. Our room at the YMCA is really nice - ensuite bathroom, double bed, {tea,coffee,hot chocolate} making facilties and a balcony with great views of the botanic park and the mountains.

After that we went for a stroll into the city centre to get our bearings. Headed back to the YMCA for a nap (we both konked out for 2hours!) before going for dinner with Oisín and his girlfriend Justine - great food and lovely drinks at the restaurant.

Then it was back to the hostel to watch an episode of Spooks and ctch up on some much needed sleep. Woke about 5am due to the joys of jetlag but managed to get another hour or two after that... :)

This morning it was breakfast and some war driving to get online and find out who won the F1 at the weekend (Alonso won; Schumacher's engine blew; yes!) as well as catching up on some email (though my blackberry is working here).

Heading off to check out some local attractions now... later!

p.s. been trying out some of the mobile options for blogging and sending email... not much luck so far but will keep trying... WAPs seem available in most large towns/cities so it shouldn't be too bad (and hey... i'm on holiday!) :P

New Zealand bound

2006-10-06T22:36:00.000+01:00

So am about to embark on a 3week trip to New Zealand. Less than 12 hours until my flight leaves Dublin. Can't wait...

Our flights takes us via LHR, LAX and AKL and we will eventually arrive in Christchurch late Sunday evening Irish time (about 9am monday new zealand time). We're flying Aer Lingus (sans Ryanair-styling) to London and then Air New Zealand the rest of the way. Hopefully Ryanair haven't taken over by thr time we get back!!

I fly Aer Lingus a lot so I'm used to the no thrills but respectful service at this stage (perfect for short trips). I haven't flown with Air New Zealand before but by all accounts they seem to fairly ok. They have an on-demand entertainment system which will hopefully keep me entertained for the longhaul flights (2 x 12hrs i believe). I have my laptop filled to the brim of CD music if it doesn't work out though... :)

I'm going to miss every bit of this weekend's sports action including the international football and the penultimate race of the F1 calendar. Hopefully I can find a replay/highlights once I arrive or resort to a torrent or something...

So checklist...

tickets... yes.
ipod... yes.
taxi booked? yes.
passport? crap... where did i put it...

;)

Winter effect

2006-07-02T22:55:00.000+01:00

I took this photo at the intersection of Walkinstown Avenue and Long Mile Road - I forgot to turn off the flash on my FinePix F460 and got this very wintry effect - I really like it. My field of vision was perfectly fine at the junction. :)

cycling / motoring

2006-04-25T03:04:00.000+01:00

following on from dublin bus rant, i want to point out that I really really want to be environmentally friendly when i have to travel. If I could rely on dublin bus I'ld use it as a primary or secondary mode of transport.

saying that, i've got into a bad habit of driving to work and there's absolutely no need for me to do so...

As a result (and due to the weather improving), I'm going to get back on my bicycle and cycle to and from work as much as possible. it's good exercise, it avoids the traffic big time and it's quicker!

they've just but a new cycle/bus lane all the way along the long mile road / drimnagh road / crumlin road too. sweet!

Dublin Bus - part 23

2006-04-25T02:59:00.000+01:00

I've no idea what part # of my adventures with dublin bus this is but isn't getting to the end. ;)

As you may or may not know, I vowed to dublin bus sometime last year that they should improve their service or force another customer into a car (doing the complete opposite of what they should be doing).

Anyway - today, forgetting that things in this wonderful country never change, decided to get the bus into barrow street. So i wander over to the 77/77A/50 stop near my house and it's gone... nothing left of it at all. not unusual - this is dublin bus... ;)

a few more people turn up and about 15-20mins later a bus finally shows but fails to stop. hmm... again this isn't overly unusual. though the bus was half empty which indicates either a really bad driver or something amiss.

anyway - the crew of 4 at the now non-existant bus stop wait patiently for the 2nd bus (cuurently on the other side of the infamous walkinstown roundabout). this bus also passes us all by and the driver makes some indication that he isn't stopping... really odd...

so having been left in this stranded state on many an occasion before i grab the number of dublin bus from the stop across the road and ring them. at the same time our crew of 4 make their way to the next nearest bus stop some 5-10mins away. finally i get through to the ringsend garage and am told the following...

"the gardai requested the bus stop to be removed. we put up a temporary solution but that has also been removed at the request of the gardai. no buses will stopping at that point any more. i calmly explained (this is a lie - i was furious - but anyway) that if they had any cop on they would have left a sign so people wouldn't spend 20-30mins of their lives waiting at a stop that didn't exist and which buses weren't going to stop at... i insisted they put a sign in place by the afternoon to save fellow customers such annoyance. i hang up...

another bus appears on the horizon. joy! i'll make it to work on time. bus draws nearer... yep - it's the infamous "out of service" route...

i give in. i've had enough... i walk to the local atm, grab money and grab a cab at the local rank. life is too short...

[update: 10.55am]
i get a call from some guy in dublin bus - probably following up to the voicemail i left earlier. nice guy! he explains about the bus stop and why it was removed (all valid reasons) and is very apologetic about the situation and that they should have done more. he said a temporary solution would be in place by the afternoon and there should well have been an inspector at the stop to ensure buses stopped - drivers had been told to stop but hadn't.

so to sum up dublin bus - plenty of nice people working there. couldn't run a public transport service if they tried...

slug1 is alive...

2006-04-22T03:00:00.000+01:00

I've been meaning to play with linux a lot more than I actually have in the past 2-3 years. One of the main reasons was that I didn't want to have the huge overhead of leaving a noisy machine that sucked lots of energy running somewhere in my house all the time.

A colleague of mine is building a new robot based on the Linksys NSLU (a network storage device that can be made to run linux). I got him to buy me one at the same time.

Anyway - got the thing on wednesday and only really got to play with it tonight. Was really easy to flash the thing and now i have a 133Mhz linux machine with 32mb ram and a 64mb usb key stuck into the back of it. it's like the early '90s all over again!

here's some technical details.

root@slug1:/etc/network# uname -a
Linux slug1 2.6.12.2 #1 Tue Sep 27 20:21:18 CDT 2005 armv5teb unknown

root@slug1:/etc/network# cat /proc/cpuinfo
Processor       : XScale-IXP42x Family rev 1 (v5b)
BogoMIPS        : 131.48
Features        : swp half thumb fastmult edsp
CPU implementer : 0x69
CPU architecture: 5TE
CPU variant     : 0x0
CPU part        : 0x41f
CPU revision    : 1
Cache type      : undefined 5
Cache clean     : undefined 5
Cache lockdown  : undefined 5
Cache format    : Harvard
I size          : 32768
I assoc         : 32
I line length   : 32
I sets          : 32
D size          : 32768
D assoc         : 32
D line length   : 32
D sets          : 32

Hardware        : Linksys NSLU2
Revision        : 0000
Serial          : 0000000000000000


root@slug1:/etc/network# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:        30660 kB
MemFree:         21772 kB
Buffers:             0 kB
Cached:           4128 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:           3712 kB
Inactive:         1564 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:        30660 kB
LowFree:         21772 kB
SwapTotal:           0 kB
SwapFree:            0 kB
Dirty:               0 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
Mapped:           2384 kB
Slab:             1916 kB
CommitLimit:     15328 kB
Committed_AS:     3736 kB
PageTables:        128 kB
VmallocTotal:   991232 kB
VmallocUsed:     16760 kB
VmallocChunk:   974328 kB

root@slug1:~# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1                 6.4M      5.8M    564.0k  91% /initrd
/dev/sda1                60.4M     12.3M     45.0M  21% /
tmpfs                    15.0M     28.0k     14.9M   0% /media/ram

you can check out the linux project over at http://www.nslu2-linux.org/

Other Voices : Series 4

2006-01-26T00:26:00.000Z

So I just watched the first episode of the new series of other voices and I'm really pleased about the direction the programme is going...

When RTE axed 'no disco' in April 2003, there was much anger among the music fans and musicians of Irleand. Nearly 3 years later and I think it's safe to say that Irish music programming is enjoying somewhat of a comeback.

Other Voices started off as a very rough vision and this season seems have got the mix just right. The show has the buzz of 'no disco' along with excellent musicians and an understanding of what fans want: the RTÉ site is a far improvement on previous years; shows are available online to watch; the opinion pieces insightful and inline with popular belief.

other programmes that have drawn a good following:

pop4 has gone down a huge hit with the younger generation of music fans that can still understand the irish language but also a attract an older audience who enjoy the interviews which usually involve a lot of "sea, sea" by the artists. ;)

ATL TV is based on a mix of the successful radio shows that have been ebbing from BBC Northern Ireland over the years with a few twists as a nod to the visual format. Presented by Donna Legge and David 'Rigsy' O' Reilly the show has featured many up and coming bands from both sides of the border and is a must see for many.

The Last Broadcast (no website available) is along the same line's as Donal Dineen's 'Headphones' show on TodayFM and is an enjoyable programme to watch.

One of the the things all these shows have in come (bar The Last Broadcast and pop4), is the amount of additional material available online. This seems to be a growing trend and I hope RTÉ and BBC will continue to develop their content in this way in the coming years.

Being able to catch up on the latest episode of a programme cos you've been on holidays for two weeks (or even watch it from your hotel room on the other side of the world) is something I really hope happens in the future...

Writing valid/standard code

2006-01-22T15:03:00.000Z

One of my pet interests is in writing standardized code... Today I came across http://www.prestigeproperties.ie/ and was horrified to find that people were still creating websites this bad for their business.

I maintain a few websites and I try to keep them validated to at least one HTML / XTML standard. But as far as I know, having valid HTL/XHTML/CSS is fairly low on most webmasters priorities...

and here's some quick stats on websites i visit often...

BAND SITES
http://www.theframes.ie/ (passed)
http://www.mundy.ie/ (passed)
http://www.markgeary.com/ (passed)
http://www.micchristopher.co.uk/ (passed)

http://www.turn.ie/ (9 errors)
http://www.paddycasey.com/ (3 errors)
http://www.roadrecs.com/ (56 errors)
http://www.u2.com/ (23 errors)
http://www.mikescottwaterboys.com/ (15 errors)
http://www.irishmusiccentral.com/ (207 errors)
http://www.bellx1.com/ (17 errors)
http://www.ash-official.com/ (7 errors)
http://www.damienrice.com/ (11 errors)
http://www.damiendempsey.com/ (10 errors)
http://www.davidkitt.com/ (14 errors)
http://www.gemmahayes.com/ (18 errors)
http://www.ninahynes.com/ (9 errors)
http://www.redneckmanifesto.com/ (88 errors)
http://www.theprayerboat.com/ (50 errors)
http://users.bigpond.net.au/ten_speed_racer/ (11 errors)
http://www.snowpatrol.net/ (7 errors)
http://www.petecourtney.com/ (3 errors)
http://www.mainline.moonfruit.com/ (15 errors)
http://www.jerry-fish.com/ (7 errors)
http://www.martinfinke.com/ (23 errors)
http://www.colmquearney.com/ (13 errors)
http://www.fredtheband.com/ (16 errors)
http://www.interference.ie/ (6 errors)
http://www.myspace.com/papercupsongs (284 errors)

so as you can bands don't seem to be too interested in valid HTML... ;)

so i though i'd check some sites that fans visit on a regular basis:

http://www.hotpress.com/ (104 errors)
http://www.nme.com/ (1 error)
http://www.myspace.com/ (62 errors)
http://loginnet.passport.com/ (aka hotmail) (2 errors)
https://www.orkut.com/ (22 errors)
http://www.sms.ac/HomePage/Default.aspx (90 errors)

and finally i checked some high-profile news/government sites:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ (37 errors)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/ (79 errors)
http://www.rte.ie/ (213 errors)
http://www.rte.ie/news/ (170 errors)
http://www.theonion.co.uk/ (1 error)
http://www.cnn.com/ (68 errors)
http://www.oasis.gov.ie/ (1 error)

i was actually surprised some of these failed - i would have expected the BBC site to be fairly valid. i have a feeling some of the sites deliver different content based on the browser / agent used - still...

so some sites that did validate:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/
http://www.direct.gov.uk/Homepage/fs/en

out of the 3 major search engines, I was completely shocked to find that MSN were the only ones to have valid HTML/XHTML. Microsoft and particularly many of their products usually have a habit of producing the most hideous code... This to see they making an effort some of the time...

http://search.msn.com/ - valid XHTML 1.0 Strict

To finish off this post, I'm just going to say that writing code that validates to the web standards is really worthwhile and as someone who has the ability to be quite vocal about websites and products, I do jump up and down a bit when people ask my opinion about their website and i find out it doesn't validate, or only works in 2 browsers. At work, I spend some of my spare time reading code reviews and often comment on the lack of following good practice guidelines for HTML/XHTML/CSS/Javascript.

I won't claim to be an expert when it comes to every aspect of the Web but I do know what's good practice and know a few people who are quite expert in particular areas. So shouts out to Kevin Cannon (p@redbrick.dcu.ie) [Javacript, CSS], Colm Mac Carthaigh (colmmacc@redbrick.dcu.ie) [Apache], and a few others whose names don't come to mind right now who are always happy to answer questions on their particular field of knowledge - I've learnt a lot guys. :)

Orkut

2006-01-20T00:17:00.000Z

about six months ago i decided to check out some more google products - one of them being 'orkut'...

orkut is an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends. it's a pretty groovy experience and i'm recently been using it quite a bit...

When I originally tried it out, I invited a few people but they didn't sign up for whatever reason and i didn't find it much use - a case of being donal 'no friends'! ;)

I've been playing around in the past week and found that lots of irish people i know have accounts - so i have added them as friends. once i found one person i knew, i found more people that they also knew and added. i now have ~ 10 people who have accepted my request to add them.

Other things I like - you can specify communities so i've signed up for communities such as Redbrick, Pixies, The Frames, Josh Ritter and more... and created a few too for Mic Christopher, Mundy and a few other Irish bands...

anyway - feel free to check it out if you have a gmail account... :)

Dentist

2006-01-09T11:48:00.000Z

So I've just got my first ever filling... not too bad so far - left side of my face is still pretty numb. I think i got a double dose of anaesthetic which meant i didn't feel a thing (though i did feel a bit like lisa simpson wearing her "braces" at one point! :)

Anyway - just wanted to point out the good service that the Dental Hospital provide... They've nice modern facilties and it's all done very professionally. It's cheap too! So far my appointments have been first thing monday and last thing friday which is very convenient i must say...

trinity graduation

2005-12-17T22:23:00.000Z

so i was in trinity for graduation yesterday (sinéad was graduating, not me!). boy, was it boring! i know these things can be naturally boring but trinity do know how to suck the fun out of what should be a joyous occasion. so yeh - if you like listening to latin for an hour or so trinity graduations are the place to go. if not, avoid!

being a manager...

2005-12-06T23:52:00.000Z

first off - i'm not a manager, don't really have a desire to be a manager in the traditional sense managers conjure up and don't have many managerial skills (imo).

However, more and more I'm having to manage people, projects and tasks.

Cokane mentined this website a few months back and I listened to a few of the podcasts in the following weeks:

http://www.manager-tools.com/

Some of the stuff mentioned I won't ever use, but a lot of the things mentioned I agreed with and I find I use the methods in my day-to-day work already. So it's nice to know that I'm doing some things right. ;)

now to check out some of the newer podcasts on the site - the coaching one seems interesting.

xargs vs awk

2005-12-06T16:09:00.000Z

so i tend to do this a lot:

[command to grab output] | awk '{print $1}' | xargs

to get a list of space seperated items. this is fine but something always niggles at me that i should just do this with awk. ;)

so i found i can do this:

[command to grab output] | awk '{printf $1" "

this is fine but it doesn't add a new line at the end.

so i can do this:

[command to grab output] | awk '{printf $1" "} END {print ""}'

so i have what i want... but now xargs is still shorter!

is there a simpler solution?

my love of flying!

2005-12-05T00:12:00.000Z

so I just booked another flight today so I can get back to dublin in time for a dentist appointment and the christmas party. I see far too much of dublin airport in this job!

Anyway - on my last trip back to dublin I was running a little late! It probably didn't help that i was sitting in a pub drinking beer with less than 2 hours before the flight took off (8.45 != 8.15 it seems!). thankfully the city had good public transport so I could still make.

quick dash back to the hotel to pick up my bag. hit the train station. where does one buy tickets? lots of ticket dispensing machines but none seem to do the right tickets! anyway - find a helper dude and get a ticket. grand - 1.25 hrs left to make the flight. get to the platform and a train arrives. nice! the train is wedged and there's no chance of getting on it. damn!

wait another 7 mins and another train arrives. no people on this one so i'm on my way. arrive at the airport's train station and suddenly realise there's 4-5 terminals, of which i have no idea which one i should be heading for. i go in a general direction (avoiding making a decision) and find a sign with a list of airlines. aer lingus - terminal 2 i think it was. time to get a shuttle. thankfully these were short shuttles and they ran every minute. hit the desk - 45 mins before the flight is due to depart. people still at desk. sorted!

well almost! first i have to get my check-in baggage screened by some security folk. grand stuff. bag goes through - security people get edgy. just great... so they trawl through my bag and finally decide that the battery pack for the labeller i have with me needs to be tested. girl arrives and takes some samples from with a cotton bud and i have to wait while she goes off to test whatever they've wiped off the battery pack (probably dust). 5 mins later and i'm given the all clear.

i check-in and the girl goes "you're boarding at gate X at 19.25 - oh wait - you better head straight there!" (it being 19.45!). so i head straight to the passport/security area and hit queues! passport check is fine. security involves queueing for 5mins and then i get to go through... until security get interested in my hand luggage too! "do you own a leatherman, sir?". *sigh*

so yeh - it turns out i forgot to through my leatherman into my checkin luggage. damn! am i going to lose it to security? not if i can help it!

so i plead to the security guy and he suggests that i might be able to pick it up on my next trip through the airport. further trips to this location are envisaged but i'd prefer not to loose it. i ask if i can check in my bag and leatherman. after some checking this seems to be possible and after filling out some forms i head to the gate with a security dude. check in my bag and i'm ready to board. sweet!

that's the only time i've a) been that late for a flight and b) had issues with security. hopefully it'll be the last time. :)

Starting afresh...

2005-12-05T00:02:00.000Z

so the last time i started this blog it was to test out how useful it would be for bands to use. As usual i found it quicker to write some quick scripts to do what i want then conform to a particular product (getting other products to work with an existing template is always hard!).

Anyway - let's see if i can keep this one current!