wikis in plain english

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



Click Play to Watch!

emigrating to canada

November 1st
Moved to Canada. I am so excited. It's so beautiful here. The scenery is great, the trees are so tall. Can't hardly wait to see them with snow covering them.

November 5th
Canada. It is the most beautiful place on earth. The leaves have turned all colours and shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the beautiful countryside and saw some deer. They are so graceful. Certainly they are the most wonderful animals on earth. This must be paradise. I love it here.

November 211th
Deer season starts soon. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill such a gorgeous creature. Hope it snows soon. I love it here.

December 2nd
It snowed last night. Woke up to find everything blanketed with white. It looks like a postcard. We went outside and cleaned the snow off the steps and shovelled the driveway. We had a snowball fight (I won). When the snow plow came by, we had to shovel the driveway again. What a beautiful place. I love Canada.

December 12th
More snow last night. The snow plow did his trick again to the driveway. I love it here.

December 19th
More snow last night. Couldn't get out of the driveway to get to work. It's beautiful here but I'm exhausted from shovelling. That fucking snow plow.

December 22th
More of that white shit fell last night. I've got blisters on my hands and a sore back from shovelling. I think the snow plow hides around the corner until I'm done shovelling the driveway. That freakin idiot!

December 25th
Merry freakin Christmas! More freakin snow! If I ever get my hands on the freakin idiot who drives the snow plow I swear I'll kill the idiot. Don't know why they don't use more salt on the roads to melt the freaking ice.

December 27th
More freakin white shit last night. Been inside for three days now except for shovelling out the driveway after that snow plow goes through every time. Can't go anywhere, the car's stuck in a mountain of white crap and it's so freaking cold. The weatherman says to expect another 25 centimetres of snow again tonight. Do you know how many shovels full of snow 25 centimetres is?

December 28th
That freakin weatherman was wrong. We got 75 centimetres of snow this time. At this rate it won't melt before summer. The snow plow got stuck up in the road and that idiot came to my door and asked to borrow my shovel. After I told him that I had already broken six shovels shovelling out all the snow he had pushed into my driveway, I darn near broke my last one over his freaking head.

January 4th
Finally got out of the house today. Went to the store to get food and on my way back a damned deer ran in front of the car. Did about $3,000 damage to the car. Those freaking beasts should be killed. They are everywhere. Wish the hunters had exterminated them all last November.

May 3rd
Took the car to the garage in town. Would you believe the thing is rusted out from all that salt they put all over the roads?

May 29th
I am going back to Ireland. I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would ever want to live in such a God forsaken place as Canada!

towel day

Don't forget today is Towel Day!

It is the Tip of the hat to Douglas Adams Day! I must get thru the rest of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy over the summer.

Today is also the first Universal Day of the Jedi.

Some online suggestions have including dressing as a Jedi to work and attacking colleagues with Force FX Lightsabers; or stating "May the Force be with you" to everyone one passes by.

Anyone going to dress like a Jedi with a Towel? Now that would be confusing...

result

Last week I posted a little test about Google's Adsense Program Policy about encouraging clicks. It mustn't of violated any policies because I haven't heard anything from Google (yet).

The real test was to see if talking about your ad's or encouraging click would result in any actual clicks. With about 300 page views I got 0 clicks in the last 7 days.

Maybe my ads are placed in the wrong area of the site or blend in too well!

I was just curious anyway... Now I know!

-END-

cormac harrington

A hello and welcome to the world to my new cousin Cormac David Harrington.

Cormac, you'll be looking at this when your all grown up after Googling your name. The time stamp is a day before your Birthday because I'm in Canada! I can see into the future!

UPDATE: First Photo!

idea

"What are you doing?"
Yup, that's Twitter.

Bebo also asks the same question, and Facebook wants your status. Google also has a Daily Me Gadget you can easily make for your iGoogle page.

However the only one I update is Twitter. Bebo is stuck on "twitter.com/darran" and Facebook gets that same status every week or so!

Why isn't there a service/website that you can sign up to that will update everything all at once. Everyone then can just see your status on which ever service they prefer!

Now that is an Idea!

P.S. My little test going well... update this Sunday.
P.P.S. I'm thinking of picking the "Closed sign"as my Flickr Photo for the 5th of May.
P.P.P.S. You can get to this blog by just typing in langersblog.com :-)

mr tayto

I'm sure this is all over the news and everyone knows about it at home. I heard about this a couple of weeks ago, there have been a few "Vote for Mister Tayto" election posters up. I just found their party political broadcast!

Press Play.

UPDATE: I just found this one too:

a little test

Google's Adsense Program Policy about encouraging clicks states:

Encouraging clicks

In order to ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, publishers may not request that users click the ads on their sites or rely on deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. Publishers participating in the AdSense program:

• May not encourage users to click the Google ads by using phrases such as "click the ads," "support us," "visit these links," or other similar language
• May not direct user attention to the ads via arrows or other graphical gimmicks
• May not place misleading images alongside individual ads
• May not promote sites displaying ads through unsolicited mass emails or unwanted advertisements on third-party websites
• May not compensate users for viewing ads or performing searches, or promise compensation to a third party for such behavior
• May not place misleading labels above Google ad units - for instance, ads may be labeled "Sponsored Links" but not "Favorite Sites"

Does talking about your ad's violate the policy?

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!

team geared up - april

4th - Gear: Drybike Weathershield

6th - Bounce-Ometer: Shows The Laws Of Physics On Jiggly Bits

9th - Rescue: Girl Airlifted after Fall in Connemara

10th - Snow Surfing with a Solar-Powered Robot

18th - Gmaps Pedometer

23rd - Whistler Blackcomb: Peak to Peak Gondola

ssia

5 years down, and now it's d-day...

My SSIA Matures Today!!!

Yay me!

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!

rss in plain english

I found a great video to explain RSS and that that big orange button does in Plain English!

Click Play to Watch.

bank of ireland

I'm just sitting here, waiting and watching the clock. I'm waiting for 1am to come around.

I need to contact my Bank. Bank of Ireland in Carrigaline. The problem with being here in Canada is that to get in touch with any business at home requires you to stay up until the wee hours of the morning.

I just checked out the Bank of Ireland Website and it turns out my branch isn't open until 10am (2am Canada time)! Just brilliant! Banks in Ireland are really a joke. How come they manage to stay stuck in the stone age. This is 2007. Take this for example:

Earlier this year I wanted to change my billing address to Canada so I could buy stuff on-line and get it sent to my billing address here in Canada. Like buying iPods or other things off websites. My branch told me that I had to submit this request in writing. An email wouldn't do. A fax wouldn't do. I had to write the request in a letter and post it. Taking the 2 weeks for it to get to Ireland and another 2 weeks to process it, I felt it wasn't worth it. Especially since I'll only be changing it back about now.

Another example: My friends are with AIB. They offer their on-line customers the ability to transfer funds to an international account, so they could send themselves money over the web, no worries. Bank of Ireland on the other hand... "Sorry, we don't do things like that on-line". The request has to be written and posted into the branch. They can then transfer the amount once they confirm that it is you making the request (this process made harder considerably as I'm about 7,000Km away). Repeat as necessary for each transaction.

Why is the Irish banking sector so power happy and feel they can do what they want? They have banking 365, but all their operators seem to like referring me to my branch to answer questions. So going back to the opening times; they are open 36 out of 168 hours a week (21% of the week)! Opening at 10am gives all their employees a lovely lie-in and they can avoid the rush-hour traffic. Then closing at 4pm must really cut into their drinking time down the pub, after all they don't have to be back at work until 10am the next morning!

When I get home I'll be considering moving my SSIA money to anywhere else but there! Not a happy camper here.

Thankfully I have my new addiction to Desktop Tower Defence to keep me company for the next hour thanks to Ambrand... ya bastard!

start of telus

It is the start of the Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival here in Whistler. This comic was in the Question this week, and it sums up the feeling of nearly everyone here. We did get 22cm on Saturday tho!

This is also my first Post via Flickr...

scouting ireland news feed

I think I've gone mad with feeds...

The Scouting Ireland Website is great. There is loads of information on it for all sections and the chat forum is a great source for news and information that can't be found anywhere else on the website.

Unfortunately it's still shite. There is no RSS feed for the news page or any page for that fact! So those of us looking for updates have to guess when they post something new and then go to the website to check it out!

It got me thinking, is there a service or website that can take a page on the Internet and update me, via a feed, when there is some new news. After a bit of searching I found FeedYes.com

So I have created a feed for the news section of the Scouting Ireland website! If you want to keep up to date with the news, add this feed to your reader!

Feed: Scouting Ireland News

turning canadian

You know you’re turning ‘Canadian’ when...

• You understand the phrase "Could you pass me a serviette, I just dropped my poutine, on the chesterfield."
• You eat chocolate bars, not candy bars.
• You drink Pop, not Soda.
• You know that a Mickey and 2-4's mean, "party at the camp, eh!!!"
• You know that a pike is a type of fish, not part of a highway.
• You drive on a highway, not a freeway.
• You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.
• You know that Casey and Finnegan were not part of a Celtic musical group.
• You get excited whenever an American television show mentions Canada.
• You brag to Americans that: Shania Twain, Jim Carrey, Celine Dion, Michael J. Fox, John Candy, William Shatner, Tom Green, Matthew Perry, Mike Myers, Neve Campbell, Pamela Anderson Lee & many more are Canadians.
• You know that the CEO of American Airlines is a Canadian.
• You design your Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
• You know that the last letter of the English alphabet is always pronounced "Zed".
• Your local newspaper covers national news on 2 pages, but requires 6 pages for hockey.
• You know that the four seasons mean: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road work.
• You know that when it's 25 °F (-4°C) outside, it's a warm day.
• You understand the Labatt Blue commercials.
• You know how to pronounce and spell "Saskatchewan".
• You perk up when you hear the theme song from 'Hockey Night in Canada'.
• You are in grade 12, not the 12th grade.
• "Eh?" is a very important part of your vocabulary, and is more polite than, "Huh?"
• You say "aboot" instead of "about"
• Your Beer Case handles Are Big Enough To Fit Your Mitts
• You froze your tongue to something metal and survived to tell about it.
• You know that we don't all live in igloos and ride polar bears to work

via the SWAP E-Bulletin 2 April 2007

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