the langer's ball

Got a nice email from Michael from The Langer's Ball (maybe a play on langball?). They are a 2-piece Irish Group that has been performing in and around the Twin Cities in the U.S.

I had a quick look at their website and they have The Langer's Blog! No RSS feed tho, so I wouldn't classify it as a real blog. In my eyes a blog has to have a RSS feed!

They do a nice trad version of Galway Girl, which you can listen to here:




So all this has brought doubt into my mind at the title of my own blog: A Langers Blog.

Should there be an apostrophe in my title?! I wondered about this before, but just decided to leave it out. So should I have one?

• A Langers Blog
• A Langer's Blog
• A Langers' Blog

twitter stuff

Some interesting things happening with twitter and other services for it in the last few weeks!

Last week I had a problem, As I was a new UCC Student I didn't know where exactly I was supposed to go for one of my exams. I put to the question out on Twitter, and within an hour or so I've got 2 replies! They didn't see my question thru Twitter, but on my Facebook status! So there you go. Twitter solves problems!



Another cool tool is Twitterfone. Call a local number, say your tweet and a few minutes later it's updated your status! Haven't used it much yet, as no disposable (or any) income to me making phone calls just to update twitter, but in the future I'm sure I will!



Tweetshots, as you can see from the two images above takes someones tweet and turns it into a image and they even give you the option to publish it to your Tumblr or embed it into a post!

And finally, search twitter has gotten way better with Summize. This is a real time search of the twitter, that actually tell you when there is new results and you should reload!

Follow me @darran

sabbatical

A sabbatical (from Greek sabbatikos) is a prolonged hiatus, typically 2 months plus, in the career of an individual taken in order to fulfill some goal.

via Wikipedia

It's been about a half a month already since you last heard from me (no news with that last post either... yet!), and another 3 weeks till my exams are over. Fingers crossed, I'll have somehow achieved a Masters Degree!!

Till then, or whenever I get back here, you can see the odd funny video, image, link, song over on my Tumblr page: darran.tumblr.com

Slán!

D.

20 pixels

So this is the story:
1. I got this Private Message yesterday from one of the Moderators (name removed) on the Scouting Ireland Chat Forum:

Hey Ablaze

Sorry to inform you that your signature can only have 1 image in it at a time. Can you please change it at your earliest convenience.

Thank you

<--->
Mod Squad

Here is the signature they were talking about.

My usual signature is the ABLAZE that changes each letter on a new page load, and because of the Jamboree I added a countdown timer to the Big Day. (It's going to be great... apparently!)
2. So I replied:

Hi <--->,
From the Site rules:

Quote:
# Maximum image width: 400 pixels
# Maximum image height: 200 pixels

Note: The maximum image file size, width and height are determined from the combined number of images in the signature.

The two images in my signature are 420 x 134. I know that it is 20 pixels too wide, but after a bit of looking at a few of the other members signatures, I thought that wouldn't be a problem. Plus 20 pixels is a very small size.

Let me know if you still have a problem.

Yours in Scouting,
Darran.

3. I got this reply back later back (including a misspelling of my name):

Hi Darren

Thanks for the correction, I must admit I didnt look into before I pm'd you, we are currently asking all members to correct their sigs if they are not within the limits so if you could please make it so it fits within the rules.

Thanks

4. They admit they didn't even know the rules until I looked them up! They were asking me to correct my signature without knowing what to correct it to! So I replied again:

You really want me to change it because it is 20 pixels too wide?
20 pixels is this wide:

YiS,
Darran.

5. And I got this:

Darran

Rules are rules im afraid, I know it may only look tiny but if you wouldnt mind.

Thanks
<--->

6. At this point I'm getting kinda annoyed. This was never mentioned before, and it was not as easy as just resizing the images, I couldn't! I sent this off:

Hi <--->,

I actually would mind. I cannot change the image as both pictures are generated on page load on another website. The countdown timer wouldn't work otherwise.

I kinda like it. In just over 4 months it will be gone!

Darran.

7. I got this reply today:

Ablaze

Your signature is in breach of forum rules, I have spoken to other moderators regarding this issue and we have all agreed that your signature should be changed to comply with Site Rules. Please see below quotes from the site rules regarding signatures and moderators decisions. If you do not comply with these rules the Admin team can change your signature so it does comply. If you have any issues with this you can contact any of the Mod Squad or Admin Team.

Quote:
2) Images, Links and Signatures
[[Text from Site rules already quoted above]]

Thanks again
<--->
Mod Squad

I am kinda pissed now, this moderator reminds me far too much of Meitheal Staff.
They already know my name, as they have called me by it before.
They also know I know the site rules, I have quoted them already for their benefit (which they admitted they didn't look at before they questioned me)

So now I've just decided to make a new signature. 400 by 200 pixels! Hope they are Happy.


Maybe that's how you've found this website? Am I over-reacting? Why not leave a comment?

travel thoughts

Here are some thought and observations from my recent trip to Sweden:
Ryanair:

• It is impossible to hear announcements on board. They always seem to have 4 stewards working, usually 2 native English speakers and 2 non-native. The non-native English speakers will do all the talking into the PA system making it nearly impossible to understand their thick eastern European or Russian (I'm certain it was Russian, he looked like he was with the KGB!)
• If you dress up like a pilot you get free food. Wear a white shirt with epaulets and a ID badge. Sit either in the 1st row or the emergency exits in the middle. Introduce yourself as you board the plane. Always say your new. Then when it comes time for the food trolley to come around, order something to drink and eat and offer to pay with not enough money. They guy I was sitting next to ordered a cappuccino (€2.95) and a slice of pizza (€4) and offered to pay with a fiver. He got his meal for free! Altho he did spill the cappuccino all over his shirt and had to go change! :-)
• They love flight change emails. These are emails they send to inform you that they will be leaving 30 minutes earlier than when you booked the flight. I've received seven so far (I got another one this morning), I even got one an hour before boarding my flight! I wonder when it will stop.
  

Dublin Airport:

• The Secret Door. When flying out to Dublin on a domestic flight to somewhere in the Republic of Ireland, there is another door to security you can go through. This will cut at least 5 minutes or 10 at busy times queuing up to go through security. It is just to the left of the main queue, manned by one person who will check your boarding card. Handy to know!

MAXroam:

• Texts aren't cheap. It was my first outing with my MAXroam sim. I put a message on my Irish mobile number, if people needed me, try me on my MAXroam number. The thing was everyone knew I was going away, no one needed to ring me! I do communicate a lot through texts on the other hand. On my Vodafone sim it was €0.29 to send a text, and it was €0.08 more expensive to send it on my MAXroam sim.
  
• Saying all this I could have saved about €0.04/min to receive or anything from €0.09-0.20/min to make a call.
• It didn't work out too well for me in Sweden. The Vodafone Group are over there making sure they keep costs down for their users. I'm sure in another country the pros would outweigh the cons. I really need to find a dual sim phone for trips!

10000bc review

Another friend has found himself blogging lately, kinda. Conor has guest posters (Ian and Taidy so far) doing a few reviews over on ConorDeeJayPeeSee.KOOM!

I really liked Ian's review of 10,000 BC:

So anyway one of the pikeys kill a CG mammoth by accident and wins the turd in a jar and all his other pikey buddies hug him in a, way too merry for it to be straight, fashion.

Next step Conor, install LouderVoice!

south park

Ya gotta love South Park. They are taking digital distribution to the next level. They have their entire catalogue of episodes going back 12 seasons available to watch online on their South Park Studio website (and none of this outside the US Region crap either!).

I just watched their latest episode, Canada on Strike. The Canadians want some of that Internet Money, similar situation to the writers strike, so Cartman and co make a video that becomes a huge internet hit. When they go to collect their millions of "theoretical dollars" from the hit, they meet a load of other internet memes; numa numa and tron guy as well as the Star Wars kid!

What I didn't know was the song Butters put online was already up there! See the videos below:

oldest blog in the world

I was looking at my new blog roll on the right and noticed the last blog to be updated was Donncha's Holy Shmoly! 38 Years ago, in 1970!

Does this make it the oldest blog in the world? Or that blogger isn't picking up the date correctly?!

roll call

I've finally gotten around to putting a Blog Roll/Bloglines/Reading List on my side bar. Not many people on it at the moment, but I'm not going to just add all the 230 odd feeds I've subscribed to.

As they are updated and I deem them interesting enough to share (and admit to reading) I'll add them. It's quite easy with Google Reader, I just add the feed to a new folder and by magic, it gets updated on my blog!

I've started with those people I know have put me on their blog roll and will add the rest as they are updated. If you want your blog on the list, chances are I'm already reading your blog and I'll add it when you update, or if you can't wait, send me an email or comment.

google suggests... fail

On searching for "I can't speak French so I let the funky music do the talking" on Google I get a nice Did you mean: suggestion.

I did think the lyrics were "so I let" not "to I get" so I clicked on to see what the results would be.

Fail. They found none!

You would think they would check to see if there was any result before posting a suggestion, making me look like I was wrong!

saint patrick's day

It's Today! Why?

The date of the feast is occasionally moved by church authorities when March 17th falls during Holy Week. This year Holy week starts on the 16th of March, thus the feast be celebrated today on the 15th. Next time March 17th falls during Holy Week is in 2160.

So now you know! Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

In other news, I've been here for 3 years now! There will be cake.

free student hosting

Digiweb are offering free hosting and domain name to 3rd Level Students in Ireland.

Show off your creative side with your very own website, create a design portfolio, publish your online photo gallery, develop your own web projects or simply set up your own personalised email address with our great website offer.

Website hosting for 1 year - €48.38
Domain name .com/.net/.org - €8.45
Total Free: €56.83

Sign up here: digiweb.ie/studentoffer

I'm still waiting for my account details to come in. Also make sure you read the terms and conditions!

irish jamboree sign and logo

In true Irish fashion, news came in today of the Jamboree Sign was unveiled on site in Punchestown. The fact this news is over 2 weeks old doesn't bother me, there is something in the photo that annoys me even more!

As you can see from the photo, there is our amazing Camp Chief Christy (where is my kneckerchief) McCann and the new sign.

So now anyone attending any event in Punchestown will see that Jamboree 2008 is coming to Punchestown in August 2008.

Our new National Emblem isn't on this sign, which is a shame. So it will cost even more money to take down that sign and replace it with the correct logo.

1st Draft of the Logo

2nd Draft of the Logo

3rd (and apparently final) Draft of the Logo

With it completely over booked, not enough staff to do all the jobs, and the international guests coming to experience an Irish Jamboree separated from the Irish ones with their own programme, the word on the street is that it's going to be great... apparently...

UPDATE: As Des points out, it's nothing compared to the Jamborora One!

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!!

future posts

Finally Blogger has gotten off their asses and introduced Scheduled Posts!

I can now set a time in the future I wish my post to be published and when that time comes, it will go live!

Yes, I know WordPress has had this feature a long time, but now the Blogger platform has secured I stay here a little while longer!

P.S. I should be in the Pub when this is Published!

irishman wins world race

Update: Its Official, see below..Irishman, Damian Foxall and his French team mate Jean-Pierre Dick will sail into Barcelona tonight in the Paprec-Virbac 2 winning the 1st ever Barcelona World Race.

The Barcelona World Race is a new two-handed, non-stop round the world yacht race starting on the 11th November, 2007 [and to be held every four years]. For the first time, this race will see the world's best professional sailors from both solo and fully crewed disciplines coming together to compete against each other in teams of two.

I've been following them since late November, when they were battling for 3rd position. It was great to get an update every day via RSS about accidents, masts breaking, teams dropping out, challenges for 1st position! They have held the lead for a while now, with Hugo Boss nipping at their tails, but tonight they will complete the race by returning to Barcelona, winning the competition.
One thing I must say is that the media attention over the entire race has been poor. Only once I heard an update on the news about how they were getting on, and this was a quite news day over Christmas. This is a shame considering there is an Irishman winning this race! I'm sure there will be loads of press today and tomorrow about our new Hero, now the hard work is over!

UPDATE: Its official:

Updated : 11/2/2008 21:02 GMT

Jean Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall have crossed the finish line at 20h 49.49
GMT in the port of Barcelona and officially are the winners of the first edition of the Barcelona World Race. The ecstatic duo are clearly over the moon, jumping up and down in celebration of an incredible feat - 92 days 8hours 49minutes and 49seconds having covered 28,329 miles non-stop around the world.

the game

RULE 1: You are playing The Game.
RULE 2: Whenever you think about The Game, you lose.
RULE 3: Loss must be announced.

The objective of The Game is to forget that it exists.

P.S. I lost.

stumbed

Funny Signs - Stumbling
Originally uploaded by luckybuttons76

I've been Stumbled apparently? So I just want to say welcome to all you stumblers out there. I hope you did hurt yourselves!! (Get it?!) And if that wasn't a good enough excuse to hit the button again, I guess you want to stay and have a look around. It's not much, my Life, the Universe and Everything. It's your basic blog! Enjoy :-)

heath

Uncyclopedia is an encyclopedia full of misinformation and utter lies. Or as they say, puts the "psych!" in "encyclopedia". Even they draw the line somewhere!

On the subject of Heath Ledger, there was rumors of him getting the Oscar nod for playing the Joker in the Dark Knight. That would add him to a list of 1 other dead person who received an Oscar! From Wikipedia:

To prepare for the role he lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's posture, voice and psychology. While he initially found it difficult, Ledger was eventually able to generate a voice which did not sound like Jack Nicholson's take on the character in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film. He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker's thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance.

blog quicker

So lets try something. More posts, more often, but shorter.

Tonight I've made two more RTÉ Twitter bots, RTÉ Irish and World News.

Follow them here:

• RTÉ News: Ireland
• RTÉ News: World

I've also returned to Twitter.

asshole

Another Year, another trip to Clon, another year where nobody knows the right/correct/any rules of asshole. So I have decided I'd do some research.

Asshole is a card game first introduced by Seb. It is usually played once a year, at New Years and has been played for the last 6 years! Over those years the game has transformed into a hybrid of the original and a game of switch. I want to find the original rules we used so in 12 months time, we can have another argument about them. At least I'll have something that represents the original ones!

First stop, wikipedia. It has a page on the game. Its not so bad, the layout is a bit hard to read, it is an article about the game, not how to play it. So the search continued.

Google provided me with a load of pages with different variations of the game, all hard to read and understand. I tried to read through a few of them, they all mostly had the idea, but each was boring and didn't sound like I was getting the complete game. I then remembered one of the words from the original game and threw that into the search query: Waterfall!

I found the complete, concise and easiest to read rules of Asshole. These guys seem to have mastered the game after perfecting it after many attempts. It covers everything from the general rules & special cards to players rank & terms used! It is the closest thing I've found online to match the original game and it looks like it is fun to play too!

• Rules for playing Asshole - 87C Style

I'll be printing out a copy of this for next year.

2007

Its that time of the year, the end of it. And like last year, here is the wrap up!

Its been a excellent year here, I've moved to a new domain, masking the fact I'm using Blogger, I've written a total of 95 posts which produced a total of 84 comments!

For those statisticians out there, here is a break down of whats been happening here on the site:

Total for 2007:

• 10,222 - Page Loads
• 7,522 - Unique Visitors
• 6,253 - First Time Visitors
  
• 1,269 - Returning Visitors
  

On average, each day:

• 28 - Page Loads
  
• 21 - Unique Visitors
  
• 17 - First Time Visitors
  
• 3 - Returning Visitors

Top 5 posts this year:

1. RTÉ Edits Wikipedia
2. Bebo Badge
3. Global Heating
4. Kandersteg Webcam
5. Emigrating to Canada

Traffic Sources:

• 56.63% - Search Engines
• 32.84% - Referring Sites
• 10.53% - Direct Traffic

Top Countries:

• 29.35% - Ireland
• 19.16% - United States
• 15.20% - United Kingdom
• 6.23% - Canada
• 4.71% - Sweden
• 25.35% - Other (96 including: Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Brazil, etc..)
  

Top Cities:

• Dublin
• Cork
• London
• Växjö
• Vancouver

Top Browsers:

• 54.85% - Internet Explorer
• 38.01% - Firefox
• 4.32% - Safari
• 2.82% - Other (Mozilla, Opera, Netscape, Camino, etc..)

Top Operating Systems:

• 89.79% - Windows
• 8.20% - Macintosh
• 2.01% - Other (Linux, Playstation 3, etc..)

Total Feed Subscribes: 41

Hope you all had a fantastic 2007 and looking forward to 2008! (100 years of Scouting in Ireland!!) That's it for me for this year, off to Clon, just like old times! Thanks to everyone again for reading, commenting, subscribing and supporting me :-)

Darran.

happy birthday baby jesus

Wishing you all the merriest of Christmases! This is my Christmas card to everyone I know. It saves paper and the environment! Go me! Plus I only have to write this once and saves loads of time on writing cards and emails and stuff. I also get to wish everyone who reads this blog and I don't know a merry Christmas!

IsItChristmas.com is currently showing me a "IS EA" for some reason. Hopefully it will turn into a "YES" in the morning!!

If you don't celebrate Christmas and prefer to refer to this time of the year as holidays or Festivus or whatever, I could say stop leaching off Jesus' Birthday, but then that wouldn't be very nice, after all it is Christmas!


Click Play to watch the True Story of Santa!

year in review

Like last year, you take the first sentence from the first post for each month of the year. It gives you a summary of 2007!

January: So I put off this post for a while.

Febuary: I'm going to do a month by month review of my posts on the Team Geared Up Blog here on my blog... *

March: What I've been up to lately: A bit of house keeping, replacing Gurr with Grrr!

April: A new month, some new changed to the blog!

May: This Saturday is 24 Hours of Flickr.

June: Following up on the RSS in Plain English video, Common Craft have created a video explaining wikis!

July: Ever wonder what you might look like as a Simpsons chatater?

August: Mid-July Blogger rolled out a new feature: You can now specify a URL to which Blogger will redirect your feed's traffic!

September: Last week my Aunt received this letter from BSkyB or Sky about Sky+.

October: My RTÉ post got a lot of reaction.

November: Now that Hallowe'en is finished for the year, it has given everyone the all clear to start to talk about the C word.

December: I finally got around to scanning in the newspaper article from the Sunday Tribune about my post on RTÉ editing Wikipedia.

* Not going to use them as the first post each month, coz then this would be a page of links and boring!

google earth update

Google have updated their imagery on Google Earth. This includes more updated images of Carrigaline. This time the photos were taken in April this year.

This is the old imagery from Google Maps. You can see the green space where Dunnes Store will go, and work is started on Lidl.

Then bang! On Google Earth, the new Dunnes and Lidl can be seen as well as a new roundabout! Barry Collins Car park has gotten a face lift too!

If you want to check out the differences, look quick because it won't be long until the update Google Maps!

flickr goodies

Today Flickr released two new things!

First is their new Uploadr application. Nice design and finally allowing you to edit titles and descriptions before you upload!

The second new feature (for pro accounts only) is Stats (finally)!

Be enthralled by graphs and chats!
Learn which of your photos are popular today, this week, or over all time
Discover where your visitors are coming from
See how they found you
Thrill at a helpful breakdown of your photos.

Apparently it takes a little while to dig up the numbers for my account, so I have to check back tomorrow and things should be ready then!

tumblr

I've been trying out a TumbleLog for the last week or so and I like it. What are they:

To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.

It is basically any video, image or link I find amusing and want to share with the world. I'm not going to writing a post here about every silly video or funny picture I see, because then this blog would loose its perception of high quality and top class I've tricked you all into thinking it has!

So if you want cheap laughs and to see what I've been finding interesting online, you can check out my full rss enabled tumble log! Simply titled Darran.

http://darran.tumblr.com/

winter pinkie

Cork Scout Conor aka God has started his weeks training at Kandersteg to become a Pinkie!

He is the first Irish winter short term staff in a long time, and the first Cork short term staff since Summer 2003!

We won't hold the fact he is from Fermoy against him. He is on the other hand keeping us up-to-date with his goings on via a Blog. So far he has been pretty good, with updates from Dublin airport and even after the first nights training!

Forgive the cringe worthy colours used and just subscribe via RSS.

• http://winterpinkie2008.blogspot.com/

in the paper

I finally got around to scanning in the newspaper article from the Sunday Tribune about my post on RTÉ editing Wikipedia.

Article from the Sunday Tribune 9th September 2007
SundayTribune Web Version

In other news, you can get to my photos by going here: photos.langersblog.com :-)

blogs in plain english

Another excellent Common Craft video. This time it's Blogs in Plain English!!



Click Play to watch!

my delusional outlet

Found this comic via Nelson's weblog, I liked the analogy!

[Blogs] provide their frustrated creator with the delusional outlet of being a published author, sort of like how the prison warden lets the psychotic inmate scribble "poetry" on the cell wall so he doesn't beat his bunkmate with a toilet seat.

I've also found a way to subscribe to Dilbert and others via RSS! Check out Tapestry Comics! No more emails for me.

On the subject of Dilbert, Boo-urns to Scott Adams for stopping his full RSS feed. Pitty about him, not making as much advertising as he hoped, how about putting ads in his feed?! One way not to win over your readers is to stop your full RSS content feed. I can't believe he is actually crying blogging less because:

Readership of The Dilbert Blog is growing rapidly, but at about the same rate people figure out how to use RSS feeds to get the content without the ads. So there’s no longer a correlation between how hard I work and the ad income I earn. It topped out at “trivial,” even while the audience grew to substantial.

Grow up! Give us full RSS ya cry baby!

stickers djpc vectors

Worst Title Ever! This is just a quick update.

1. If you want a "Far Too Much Bertie" Sticker just email FarTooMuchBertie@gmail.com and Kevin will send you on one!

via Donncha.

2. My friend Conor has a website that I think deserves a mention. I thought I did this before, but after a search it turns out I only mentioned Conor a few times and not his site. Sorry!

The site got a face lift and I must say is looking rather nice! Then again, I was never a fan of the old version! So here for you Conor is a Love Link!

http://www.conordjpc.com/

3. I also found this great tool online (can't remember where tho) and I've been playing with for the last few days and think it's great.. Vector Magic!

It converts any image into a Vector. Very clever and useful if you work with logos or anything!

year of the iphone

Todays Science Week Ireland Question:

In your opinion what was the best invention in 2007?

Answer: iPhone.

What Apple are doing to phones now what they did to mp3 players in 2001.

Back then there were mp3 players on the market, but they were for the technical savvy user. Apple succeeded to simplify the device, make it stupid-proof and available for the mass market. Now everyone can use any mp3 player and there is a market awash with choice.

Fast forward to 2007 and they are doing the exact same with phones! Simplified, pretty, stupid proof and everyone wants one. There are smart phones out there that do the same as the iPhone (except the multi-touch interface) and more!

In a few years the iPhone you know now will be as old and useless as a 1st Gen iPod!

the internet

Todays Science Week Ireland Question:

Which invention has helped you most with your working life?

Firstly, I'm a student and I don't work more than I have to. For the invention that helps me the most, I would have to say The Internet. It helps me out in so many, uncountable ways. Hey look! You are even using it now too!

Visualization of the various routes through a portion of the Internet.

I bet that loads of people today will be coming up with loads of inventions that they say has helped them with their working life. Maybe. But what about the Internet? They have to write their blog post and publish it on the Internet!

Lets face it, the Internet is the best invention ever. End.

jamboree video

With a break to this weeks Science Week Ireland posts, I just have a video to show you.

Yesterday I saw a short film about Scouting Ireland and the Irish Scout Jamboree next summer. It went down really well at the AGM with the parents (it could of been about 2 or 3 minutes shorter tho!) I got the DVD last night and *cough* VOB2MPG *cough* Google Video *cough* and found it online! :-D [too big for YouTube]



Click Play to watch. If you look close enough you can see Robin!

ultimate gadget: n95

Todays Science Week Ireland Question:

What’s the next gadget that you want to buy?

It has to be the Nokia N95. It is Nokia's flagship smart phone that as so many thing including:

• Integrated GPS navigation
• Installed Maps application covering over 100 countries.
• 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics
• 2 megapixels more than my current camera.
• Multimedia player
• MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, M4A and Realplayer.
  
• WLAN Wi-Fi
• That's right, surf the Internet over WiFi!

So what about price. You can get it on Vodafone Ready to Go for €599 with €80 call credit, so really only €519. What if you were going to buy all these other devices individually?

• For the quad band, 3g smart phone with all the bells and whistles this one has like bluetooth and wireless Internet access, you will be paying about €250 at least and that is a low guess.
• A 5 megapixel point and shoot camera with the Carl Zeiss optics will be about €200.
• As for the multimedia player, the phone supports up to a 2GB microSD card, and you get a 1GB one with Vodafone. A 1GB iPod shuffle will knock you €79 and that doesn't even include video playback or the FM radio Nokia squeezed in there!
• Then there is the GPS navigation. The crown jewel in the phone! A stand alone version of this would be about €300, and this phone isn't like those stand alone ones, you can install whatever software you want! If you don't like the mapping system they use, get another one! You can't do that with your tom tom's what whatever!

So to add all that up; €250 (phone) + €200 (camera) €79 (basic mp3 player) + €300 (GPS) = €829

You get all this in one device for €519. So that is the device I would want to buy next!

Then again, you could always just wait for the next big thing from Nokia, but won't there be something after that too?

free energy

Todays Science Week Ireland Question:

What invention do you want to see most in the future?

Free Energy.

As a student, I love stuff for free, and I'm guessing it's not just students like free things. Altho I'm sure other people won't just take thing that are free, just because they are free like us students.

Moving back on topic, I would like to see a lot more free energy in the future. I want to see everything from mobile phones to cars to cities powered by free energy. No longer relying on burning fossil fuel, polluting the planet or invading countries to meet our growing energy needs.

By free energy I don't mind what form it is in, it could be just making use of renewable sources and actually coming up with something that works and appeals to the mass market or there is the other crazy way of going about getting free energy. You may of heard about Steorn?

Steorn are a Dublin based company that hit the media with their announcement of a free energy technology. Long story short, in 2006 they couldn't demonstrate the technology. In December they announced that they have a jury who will validate their claim. This summer they were supposed to give a demonstration but canceled due to "technical difficulties". They results of the jury will be announced by the end of the year, but I'm not going to hold my breath!

There is a Free energy suppression conspiracy theory!

Advanced technology which would allow us to better meet our energy needs exists today but is being suppressed by special interest groups to whom the status quo is advantageous.

Even tho I love my fair share of conspiracy theories, I hope this is not true. Some day we will have to address the issue of energy production, where we get it from and how we use it and hopefully we will have an invention what will produce free energy that we can all carry around with us or have in our homes!

all hail vhs

Its Science Week Ireland this week and they have a little blog post competition (tip of the hat to Damien)! Each day has a different question and todays one is:

What was the favourite invention from your childhood?

After thinking long and hard all day I came up with what I think is the best invention from my childhood. It has to be VHS, cassettes and the player! (That's Video Home System or just videos to some of you!)

Altho after doing a bit of research for this post, it turns out VHS was invented 6 years before I was born in 1976. But then again I don't think VHS players were readily available till the mid-80's as the Betamax/VHS war was only just about over when I was born in '82.

I can still remember two films that we were allowed rent, and we rented them many times. First was Santa Claus: The Movie and the other was Zig and Zag's: Nothing to do with Toast! We didn't mind one bit that we saw them before and could probably could recite the entire movie from heart, but back then there wasn't many children's films out.

We probably got to see these once in a blue moon because we didn't have a VHS player. We either had to rent one from the video store or borrow one but I didn't mind, I got to see Zig and Zag 3 times in a row!!

Later on, I think that VHS had a huge impact on the way we spent out time and our habits. A trip to the video store was nearly a weekly occurrence (with the amount of TV channels we had, you could count on one hand) and we got to bring the big screen into our home and watch films that we were not able to see in the cinema.

The best thing about VHS has to be the possibility to record TV. No longer were we slaves to the program schedulers! We were liberated and free to go about and live our own lives and watch TV as we pleased! Even to this day you can get a VHS player to record your favourite programs!!

Long Live VHS!



Zig and Zag!

free microsoft software

Microsoft are allowing you to download Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition for free!

All you have to do is head over to ImagineCup.com and sign up for the competition. You are supposed to be a student (which they don't check...) and there is no pressure to enter the competition! Sign up, download and enjoy! All legit!

The visual studio bundle includes:

Microsoft Visual Basic 2005
Microsoft Visual C# 2005
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005
Microsoft Visual J# 2005
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications
Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005
Microsoft Web Application Projects 2005
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005

You can also download these other full versions too!! For Free!

• Visual SourceSafe 2005
• SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition
• Expression Web

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.

page rank four

My Blog has moved up the ranks to PageRank 4/10!

I only just noticed when I saw a badge that people are putting on their websites to show that they are a PageRank victim after Google dropped a load of sites rank recently.

This is great news considering I went from 3 to 0 earlier this year when I moved domain. This is my highest rank yet :-)

let it begin

Now that Hallowe'en is finished for the year, it has given everyone the all clear to start to talk about the C word. I'm going to get ahead of the crowd and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year now!

I also decorated my site... i tried so hard to get the snow flakes to fall, but in the end went for a ribbon just wishing my visitors a Happy Christmas!

Let the merriness and jolliness begin... I'm sure it will be over before we know it :-) Only 53 more days to go!

learner drivers

A recap of the last few days:

Thursday
New rules are introduced for learner drivers, changing the system we currently have. The major chance would be that all second provisional license holders will now need to be accompanied for a full licensed driver from midnight Monday.
Excellent a shake up in the way things are done! About time!

Friday
The Gardaí say they would not be using their discretion on a case-by-case basis in relation to provisional drivers and would enforce the law as normal.
Our Minister for transport Mr. Dempsey also said on the news that the new laws will come into force as announced and went against the Gardaí by stating they will take a 'common sense' approach for 'two or three months' in relation to the short period in which some drivers will have to make new arrangements.
I'm getting mixed signals!

Saturday
Opposition politicians call for the minister to defer the introduction for six months saying that the government is out of touch with the conditions of ordinary people and the number of people who will be discommoded.
The opposition doing what they do!

Sunday
Minister Mr. Dempsey announced he was deferring the introduction of the accompanied driver provision until 30 June 2008. This gives the 122,000 people on their second provisional license plenty of time to apply for and sit their test, because they would now have it on demand.
Good for him, listening to the people!

Monday
The Driving Instructors Register say that they don't believe it is possible for all the drivers on their second provisional to pass the test before the end of June. This is might be because there is a failure rate of about 50%, the surge in applications in the last few days and the fact it isn't just second provisional license holders applying for the test.
Maybe the Minister and the Driving Instructors should of had a meeting?!

Tuesday
With the new rules/law in place, I guess it is business as usual...

For your Information:
Number of people on provisional licenses are as follows:
1st - 209, 253
2nd - 121,871
3rd - 31,792
4th - 25,076
5th or subsequent - 37,233
That's 94,101 who are gone past the 2nd provisional license stage!

Sources: rte.ie/news & rsa.ie

free tripit tshirt

I got an email today from Tripit!

Since words cannot express our full gratitude for all your support and feedback, we're offering the early beta testers of TripIt a free TripIt T-Shirt...sure to be a collector's item.

Yay me!

students today

Saw this on Ricks Blog. It is quite interesting!

A Vision of Students Today

free stuff: old el paso

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

Ireland Only!


via links for everyone.

blog action day post

So here is my Blog Action Day post. As I am a lazy man and nearly totally forgot about signing up for this a good while ago this post will be quick. Plus I less than 30 minutes to publish it before it is no longer the 15th of October!

A quick Google search for easiest way to save the world which came up with a nice article from the Guardian with 50 easy ways to make a difference. Here are some of the ones I liked:

• Let them carry you off in a biodegradable cardboard coffin, saving trees.
• Buy chocolates from proper chocolate stores, so they are not individually wrapped.
• Only flush toilets if really needed; follow the Australian maxim: "If it's yellow that's mellow, if it's brown flush it down."
• Avoid air travel; it produces three times more carbon dioxide per passenger than rail.
• Bring a mug to the office instead of using polystyrene cups.
• Cancel that expensive gym membership and walk to work instead.

The air travel one of course makes sense, but why can I get from Cork to Dublin, Return for €20 on Ryanair, yet the train will cost me €67. As for the buses, if you want to solve the fact everyone drives everywhere, here is an idea; only charge everyone €1 per trip. I can't remember where I heard it, but it is a great idea! We are all very price sensitive when it comes to travel!

Oh and the chocolates in a proper shop is brilliant! I suggest Rogers Chocolates if you are in Canada :-D

The article dates back to 2002, before there was scientific consensus that global warming has begun, is very likely caused by man, and will be unstoppable for centuries. Great! Lets all look forward to the next 50 years!

rte post

My RTÉ post got a lot of reaction. This was mainly thanks to links from Damien and Tom. I also noticed that a few of the papers then picked up on the story!

The Sunday Tribune:

The edits were first spotted by 24-year-old blogger Darran Crowley from Cork, who highlighted them on his blog.

Link

There was also stories apparently from Irish Times or Examiner and the Daily Mail who did not give me any credit!

On a side note, as you have noticed, this blog has taken a bit of a break, I started my Masters Degree in UCC (in Business Information Systems) which is taking up a good bit of time! I will try to continue to update more often. I also stopped contribution to Team Geared Up Blog :-(

twitter bots

I've been busy the last few weeks creating some RTÉ twitter bots. They provide an individual twitter channel for all the RTÉ news feeds.

• RTÉ News
  
• RTÉ Business
  
• RTÉ Entertainment
  
• RTÉ Sport
  
• RTÉ GAA
  
• RTÉ Racing
  
• RTÉ Rugby
  
• RTÉ Soccer
  

I also got a Nob Nation Twitter feed going to update you with the latest sketches and direct links to the MP3's to listen to! twitter.com/NobNation

I was actually surprised that all the names had not been taken and I even managed to get twitter.com/rte! I was inspired by the excellent BBC breaknews bot and other feed bots from menti.net.

What other names/feeds need to be twitter'ized!?

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

rte edits wikipedia

I've caught our National Broadcaster, RTÉ editing numerous Wikipedia articles. These include rival radio station FM104 and TodayFM's Gift Grub.

Some of the worst edits include changing FM104's article from:

FM104 is aimed mainly at 16-35 year olds, broadcasting mainly popular music and rock music. The station's flagship programme is the award-winning Strawberry Alarm Clock

to

FM104 is aimed mainly at 16-17 year olds, broadcasting mainly popular music and rock music. The station's flagship programme is the Strawberry Alarm Clock,

I'm pretty sure FM104 does not aim themselves at a 2 year age range, and there is no denying that the Strawberry Alarm Clock has won awards. Why does RTÉ think otherwise? Surely they shouldn't edit Wikipedia if they don't have any knowledge on the article in question!

Other Edits to Gift Grub mainly involve removing half the article or parts of it. They also added the following piece... very bias towards RTÉ.

In December 2006, Gift Grub received a heavy blow when impressionist Oliver Callan left Today FM in a row over his alleged rights to material on the Gift Grub 7 album. His departure left the comedy slot without more than 20 of its most popular characters including Enda Kenny, RTE Newsreader Bryan 'Dobbo' Dobson, intrepid reporter Plastic Sheeting (based on RTE's Southern Correspondent Paschal Sheehy), Dave Fanning, Damien Dempsey, George W Bush, Derek Mooney, Pat Kenny, Marian Finucane and many others.

Callan's claims are the subject of threatened legal action and he even went on RTE's Liveline programme to air his grievances, which generated much press coverage and dinted Gift Grub's album sales. Oliver Callan has since set up a rival comedy slot on RTE Radio called Nob Nation, which now has a much bigger audience than Gift Grub due to it being carried on both RTE Radio One and on 2FM.

I've found all this using the WikiScanner. See more of RTÉ's Edits here, including a request to create a Jenny Huston article!

Any response RTÉ? I know you have read my blog before!

sky+

Last week my Aunt received this letter from BSkyB or Sky about Sky+. The offer she received gave her a Sky+ box for €69 with a saving of €80.

Pretty good deal, I wanted in on it too!

The background: She is a customer for about 2 years, has a 2 mix package and Multi-room. On the other hand we are customers for over 5 years, have a 6 mix package and had Movies and Sports for 2 years. We have never once received any offer off Sky like this.

I phoned up and enquired to see if I could get this Sky+ Box, and eventually, after 3 phone calls lasting about 30 minutes each (they hung up on me once) I found out that because we did not get a letter we could not get the offer. They prefer to give their newer customers or customers on smaller packages better (or any) offers.

We have to pay the full €149 to get a Sky+ Box. Since then, I have dropped our packages down to 4 mixes (after considering cancelling it all together). It's a shame SCTV Digital (that website was bloody hard to find!) has such shite service, after all it has taken 2 years to begin rolling out the promised digital!

world scout jamboree site

While I am waiting for some photos from the World Scout Jamboree to be sent to me, I have been messing with Google Maps. I noticed that Google have yet again updated their imagery for the UK and now included detailed images of Hylands Park where the Jamboree was held.

As everyone who was on the Jamboree knows, the Jamboree Map was constantly being used as reference, as a site with about 40,000 scouts on it is quite big!

I marked out roughly where every sub camp and hub was, just like the map, but on a Google Map! The result:


View Larger Map

First impressions have been quite good from anyone who was there! There will hopefully be photos to come, I didn't use my Camera once, but Miri promised to send over a CD.

skypes downtime

On Thursday Skype went down. The cause? Microsoft!!

The disruption was initiated by a massive restart of our user’s computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine software update.

Could Microsoft take down other services across the world with the power of mass restarting and simultaneous logging on?

more subscribers

Mid-July Blogger rolled out a new feature:
You can now specify a URL to which Blogger will redirect your feed's traffic!

This means that I was able to redirect all my feed traffic to my Feedbuner Feed and I've been given a true picture of the number of actual subscribers!

It is nice to see my subscribers jump from about 10 to 25!!

jamboreeing

This week I'm off to Jiingijamborii, the Swedish national Jamboree and their dry run for the next World Jamboree in 2011! I'll be helping out on the Information Stands and giving tours! I'm their native English speaker! So not sure about connections and blog posts while I'm there. If there is any wireless Access to be found I will be updating Twitter! I had added the New Twitter Badge to my side bar for those of you who just visit the website and have no idea what a Twitter is!



I'm then flying from there to London on the 24th of July for the World Scout Jamboree. I'm a KISC Bitch there. Again if I do have access, I will Twitter some Updates! Oh! I may also have a UK Sim :-) so I could cheaply update Twitter via txt!

But I'm sure there will be posts on both these topics in future!

Take it easy and Enjoy the Summer or whatever this time of year is supposed to be called. Talk to ya in August!

sweden

I've been here in Sweden almost 3 weeks now. I'm having a great time!

My first impression of Sweden looking from the plane is that it is very green and full of forests! It puts Ireland to shame considering were billed as the emerald isle. Still tho there is a vast amount of open space and unpopulated areas. You can see when I put Ireland on a map next to Sweden. It is quite a big place!

The Swedish people like one thing as far as I can see and that is the Eurovision! They sing songs from previous years and are surprised when I am unfamiliar with what they are singing. Yet they couldn't recall last years Irish Entry, but i doubt many Irish people could. (It was Brian Kennedy - Every Song Is A Cry For Love for those of you about to fire off a Google Search) I even experienced a SwedishSingStar night!

Their licence plates on their cars are a load of TLA's. (All you business students will know what i mean!) So that keeps me amused also seeing POO on a car is quite amusing... I wonder if they paid extra for that?

In Sweden (the land of the mid-night sun) they celebrate Mid-Summers. You know, the longest day of the year. I headed up north to Rättvik where We celebrated the longest day by Decorating the May-Pole and then Dancing around it singing songs like some kinda cult. I was assured that it wasn't a cult afterwards, as it was traditional Swedish custom. They are a funny nation. Photos on Flickr!

I also went on a visit to Stockholm. Stayed at the Backpackers Inn (twitter review) and met up with Lovisa for a mini reunion! We saw the changing of the guards (12noon Saturdays and Wednesdays and 13:00 on Sundays!) as well seeing Old town which was really old. The Treasury and the City Hall. Again, Photos on Flickr!

One of the most interesting places was the Vasa Museum:

The Vasa is the world’s only surviving 17th-century ship and one of the foremost tourist sights in the world.

I didn't get to Skansen due to the weather. It was really shite, really Irish. There was a break in the weather for a few hours the first evening, and the city looked quite nice and amazing in the sun! So more of an excuse to go back and visit.

I also succeeded in my mission to visit and IKEA! Not to bad for my first visit IKEA (Yes, you have to type it as tho you were shouting it each time.... IKEA!!!!) being a Swedish IKEA!



So far the only down side to the trip is the weather. Global warming is really kicking me in the ass since it dealt me a lovely and snowy winter! There has been only a small few days I can say were Summer days; wake up and it is warm and sunny and stays that way till night. Instead it has been like the successful Scottish pop band of the 80's, 90's and noughties, Wet Wet Wet.

Overall it has been great! :-D

things i dont like

At the moment I would like to take my anger out with the following:

Facebook - It won't let me import my (feedburner) feed to my notes! It says:

Import Failed
We couldn't find a feed using the URL you provided.

Also what is the deal with signing out if I leave to use the bathroom... It can't seem or want to remember passwords. On saying that... way better than Bebo! And it updates with my Twitter! :-)

Blogger - I have a feeling the problem above is related to Blogger giving out terrible feeds. But it is the posting that is giving me a pain in the head. Insert images was all messed up, not giving links to original images, yet on mouseover the curser changes to a hand, confusing everyone! Example: My post on Comics. They also decide to re-arrange the post with unnecessary fields in the HTML... *sigh*

I'm converting to Wordpress the minute I get my new laptop! Or maybe google will buy wordpress and do away with blogger?
Also no future posting. Come on!

Eh... at the moment that is all... besides iTunes, but that is a losing battle.

history of my blog

History of my Blog
Originally uploaded by Mr Darran

True Story! But who can blame us... Twitter is still the buzz word!

http://twitter.com/darran