avoid ryanairs credit card fees

Mr. O'Leary will love me for this but I just booked a flight and saved paying the 5euro each way/per person charge for using my credit card. It is simple and here is how:

1. Head over to entropay.com and sign up. Create a virtural card and leave it at that for the moment.
2. Start booking your Ryanair flight.
3. Don't add any extra's or bags, just pay for the flight and the web check in fee of 5euro each way/per person.
4. When you get to the payment screen, select Visa Electron and watch as the total doesn't increase!
5. Head back over to EntroPay and load your card with the required amount, down to the cent. You will be charged a loading fee, but I will talk about that below*
6. Copy the details of your new virtural card and paste them into the Ryanair website where they ask you for your Visa Electron Card (I used my own address).
7. Click Pay!
8. Once the flight is confirmed go back to the main Ryanair homepage and click manage your booking using Option 3. You can then choose to add more bags or extras. You can use your main Credit Card now as it won't be charged the 5euro handling fee!

*EntroPay charge a fee of 4.95% to load the card. Booking your flight without bags etc will cut down the EntroPay charge as it is a percentage of the amount you are loading. You can pay for the bags with your normal credit card without any fees once the flight is booked.

Please note, this method is only beneficial if the cost of the flight and online check-in is under 202euro per person (404euro for two people etc..), mine was 77.32euro. I believe my maths is sound. Here is what I just paid for my flight using EntroPay:

I know it is only a 6.17euro saving, but because it is Ryanair it is even more sweeter!

On a side note, it has been a long time since a post here, but there have been many over on tumblr! I am also in a position to talk once again about the Amazing Teaching Council of Ireland.... but that's another post!

somas album

I got an email from Soma a few weeks ago, but i'm only getting around to listening to it now.

Three of my friends, Mezer, Eric and Walshy are in the Band and unfortunately I have only been to one of their gigs so far. I've been listening to their songs all evening, and they're not so bad!

< Begin Press Release >
Soma’s album, “The Somatic LP” is now available to buy for just €5 at the following outlets:

• Music Zone, Carrigaline, Co Cork
• Plugged Records, Washington Street, Cork
• Tower Records, 6-8 Wicklow St, Dublin
• For digital download at downloadmusic.ie/soma
• From the locker/boot of any of the band members!

There are 11 songs on the album cites influences from The Smashing Pumpkins, The Foo Fighters, Ash, Death Cab for Cutie, Jessica Alba and My Bloody Valentine.

The album was recorded from Nov 08 to Feb 09 in various locations in Cork. The album was mastered in April 09 by Richard Dowling in Limerick who as previously worked with such greats as S Club 7, Rachel Stevens, Steps and Busted. (He has also worked with some unknowns such as David Bowie, The Foo Fighters, The Undertones, Jools Holland and Interpol…ahem!)

Try before you buy, you can listen to the songs at: myspace.com/somamusiccork
< /end >

There was a load of free copies to people who knew them, but apparently I don't get one (something about not trusting me...)
Anyway, if you were wondering who is who on the album cover:

• Mezer would be the same as Cindy in the lower left
• Eric is the same as Marcia
• Walshy is where Bobby is
• And lets not forget Dave who is in the same spot as Greg

Head over to their website anyway and have a listen to a few songs!

cork lan sponsorship

Any Cork or National based companies out there interested in sponsoring Cork LAN?

Sponsorship can range from:

• Name of the event - include your company name in the event name.
  
• Competition sponsorship - "The your company challenge!"
• Food Sponsorship - "Today’s meal is brought to you by your company!"
  
• Area for your company at your event - show demo's, answer questions, get your product out there.
  
• T-Shirt sponsorship - Logo of your company on the event’s T-Shirt. We are still looking for Staff T-Shirts, or we can sell CorkLAN ones with your logo on it.
• Banners Placement - Put up banners of your company around the room during the event.
  
• WebSite Placement - Your company logo/banner on the Cork LAN website.
  

Sponsorship can range from one or many of these! We are very interest in competition sponsorship as it is easy to donate prizes, and everyone loves winning stuff!

So if you are interested in even donating a spot prize anything in value from €10 up, please contact us on events@corklan.com and we can organise something!

Thanks and please pass this onto anyone you might know who is willing to help out a new type of event in Cork!

cork lan

With just about two weeks to go, I suppose it is time I mentioned Cork LAN.

Another boring Saturday?

So what is there to do on your average Saturday Night? Go to the Pub, go to the cinema, go to a club or go drinking in a field. That pretty much sums up for your average Cork person. Now here is an option to do something else, something different, and the only reason it is going to fail is because people in Cork don’t like the idea of not going out and including one of more of the above mentioned activities.

Cork LAN is a Local Area Network Party, held for the first time in Cork. We are unaware of any big publicly available LAN parties available in Cork before, so we are gonna claim that this is the first! (Feel free to let us know, and then explain why we weren’t told about it!)

What is it?
A Local Area Network party or LAN party is where a group of people come to one place and hook up their all their computers together and play games and the like. This has also spread over to the gaming consoles with the new network ready machines and online play. A LAN party is a chance for all these people to get together and play games, hang out and have fun.

When?
In two weeks, on Saturday the 11th of October there will be such a party happening in the Cork International Airport Hotel. Doors open early at 10am, but show up whenever you want on the Saturday. We will be kicked out of the room the following morning at 10 making it a 24 hour event!

Open to all!
This is not just for die hard gamers either. We will have Wii’s and Rockband and Guitar Hero too for the casual gamer!

Why not give it a try?
So the main things to take from this post are if you’re into hanging out, playing games, have a free evening and want something different to do, come along and bring a telly, Xbox and a few games! It doesn’t take that much to pack them into the car, we have do it many many times! Bring a group, it's always more fun with friends!

Check out the website for more information and register your interest to get €5 off!
http://www.CorkLAN.com/

our next chief

I've decided to run my own poll to see what the feeling out there is for the Next Chief Scout of Scouting Ireland.

Who do you think will get it or should get it?


Note: Options in alphabetical order, this has nothing to do with Scouting Ireland and the results of the poll do not reflect the views of it's members and so on, blah blah blah......

luxury self catering

This is my entry into the competition to win a €1175 luxury self catering weekend. All I have to do is write this post, mention Luxury Self Catering, link to their website and link to a friend who might be interested. Done, done and done!

I was thinking their criteria for this comptition is quite strange and then as I was pasting in the links it hit me. This is brilliant marketing. This is Search Engine Optimization like none before.

You will get blogs from across the blogosphere linking on that one term and not only that, to their friends website, ensuring the Googlebot won't just pick up the post as an advertisement post. I'm sure Glengarriff Lodge won't be at the bottom of Page 4 of Google search results for luxury self catering as it is now!

I still hope I win! 1175 is a very odd number too!!

quick survey

Some of my classmates doing the Masters in Business Information Systems with me are doing a project and need some market research. Can you help out with this quick survey?

Hi All,

We're a group of MBSBIS Postgraduates and are developing a commercial product as part of our studies.

The product is greeting cards with a recordable device where you can record your own personal message - 10-12 secs long.

We need feedback from you all in order to have these cards available for Valentine's Day so could you please fill out our "REALLY" short survey using the link below.

Link

Thanking you in advance.

free stuff: old el paso

Hurry!! Get your Free Old El Paso Fiesta Fun Pack here: GreatNightOutIn.ie

Ireland Only!


via links for everyone.

weewar

Anyone up for a Wee War?

This is a online, round based strategy game. Each game can be played with everyone having to move within 5 minutes or 3 days. There can be up to 6 people in a game! Quite interesting concept and addictive!

Head over to the website and if you need an invitation, I can send you one. Just leave a comment or send me a message!

Then you can play a game with me or add me to one of yours!

My user name: ablaze

my 24 hours

With a shift change at work, my plan for getting up the mountain in the afternoon was interrupted. Instead I managed to take a load of pictures around the village and at work!

Take a look here and leave a comment on which one I should submit to the group!

www.flickr.com

personal dna

I am a Generous Leader, apparently!

Not your typical way of answering questions. Be warned, at 11 pages, it is a long survey/quiz!

Give it a try!

flickr day

This Saturday is 24 Hours of Flickr. What happens around the world in one day? Life.

To celebrate this global community, we invite you to join us in "24 Hours of Flickr" – a day-long global photo project. On May 5, 2007, grab your camera and whatever else you need, and chronicle your day in pictures. The group's photos will be featured at Flickr events around the world this summer and in a companion book, which will contain a selection of photographs chosen from the group (more about this soon!).

So get your camera, charge the battery's, clear the memory and get snapping on Saturday. Then Join the 24 Hours of Flickr group and upload!

This is similar to Ray D'Arcys project for the book "Us". I'll update you with how I get on. I'm working Saturday so I don't think I'll get any photos on the mountain skiing, but I might head up as a foot passenger for a few snaps after work...

UPDATE: If you have a photo that is selected to get in the book, they will send you a free copy!

vote cork

Click Here to Vote for Cork!

Roscommon seem to currently be in the top spot. But the other place that we should aim for is #9, St. Stephens Green which is the most landed on spot!!

Spread the word, tell the entire county, and vote every day!! Vote Cork!

firefox

Comon... this year 55% of people here on my blog are using Internet Explorer. Only 36% use Firefox. Get those numbers higher!

Watch it on YouTube

GetFirefox.com

twitter round 2

I'm going to give Twitter another go! (It's the new Buzz word...)

What am I doing?

Last time I checked: (no updates right now)

Add me as your Twitter Friend: twitter.com/darran

need help

Ok Guys! Irish Blog Awards are here, and Team Geared Up are nominated.
I need 20 seconds of your time. Please follow these instructions:

1. Go to http://www.awards.ie/vote/
2. Enter your name etc.
3. Scroll Down for ‘Best Group Blog‘ select “Team Geared Up”.
4. Scroll Down for ‘Best Designed Blog‘ select “Team Geared Up”.
5. Scroll Down for ‘Best Sports & Recreation Blog‘ select “Team Geared Up”.
6. Check the ‘I have checked my nominations’ tickbox
7. Click Submit

Thank you!

kandersteg webcam

** Promote * Promote * Promote ;-) **

With the new webcam up and running showing us the International Scout Centre in Kandersteg (and their lack of snow), I was able to update the code for the gadget I created, so you can once again personalise your Google homepage with a handy gadget and your favourite content from the web i.e. my webcam gadget and the KISC Webcam!

Tell your family and friends ;-)

year in review

Here is something you can all try. I got this idea from a Blog I'm reading the simple life honey about someone who is also in Whistler! You take the first sentence from the first post for each month of the year. It gives you a summary of 2006! Maybe next year I might be more creative at the start of each month! Strange to look back at the year! Good times, good times!!

January: So its the start of a New Year and this is usually the time I make 1 very achievable goal for my self!

February: Conor... the optician... or whatever.... you work with glasses...

March: I'm looking forward to The West Wing tonight.

April: That is what the penalty points website looked like up until Sunday, the day before the new points came into affect, and the same they the government started advertising on TV and Radio.

May: This guy bet his girlfriend that any old website could get 2million hits.

June: I came across this website that generates a graph of any website by reading the html on the page, and then makes a a graph to represent what it finds!

July: Ciara Crowley & John O'Mahony

August: I have added 5 more!

September: I have visited 11 countries (4%)... i better get moving!

October: Taidy arrived home today and was so tired he fell asleep in Conors.

November: I have arrived in Canada!

December: I got my left wisdom teeth out yesterday.

twitter

I signed up to Twitter yesterday. Basically it's:

A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question:
What are you doing?

You can answer this question and keep everyone who is a friend up to date with what you are doing at once. Sign up and let me know what you are doing, or check out what I'm currently doing: twitter.com/darran

There is a nice little bit of code as well that I added to my blog that tells you what I'm currently doing.

driving with one eye

Ok, I know i don't have much to be doing with myself, and i could be coming up with far better things than this, but my brain is working overtime on stupid things.

Next time your driving, try and close one eye. It becomes really hard to do! I can only assume it is because you loose your depth perception. Open the eye again and it becomes a lot easier!

Funny that....