December 2007 Archives
It seems that Yahoo is going to make an effort to comply with standards for their webmail service, which is excellent news.
Of course in typical "we know better" fashion it sounds like Google is ignoring standards yet again. Of course they still hide the source IPs as well ...
If you just send plain text email then none of this will probably matter that much to you, but once you get into HTML email it's a totally different story ....
Full story here. Picked it up here
Of course in typical "we know better" fashion it sounds like Google is ignoring standards yet again. Of course they still hide the source IPs as well ...
If you just send plain text email then none of this will probably matter that much to you, but once you get into HTML email it's a totally different story ....
Full story here. Picked it up here
My sister's boyfriend gave her an iBook G4 for Christmas. The spec isn't bad and I've been updating it and installing a few bits and pieces for her today.
Since she's a fulltime student she needed some form of word processing package, so I opted for NeoOffice, which is a Mac port of OpenOffice. I also installed Firefox and Acrobat Reader.
As far as I know she only uses MSN, so Adium would be overkill.
What other software would people recommend for a student? Ideally it should be free or open source, but if it's a really worthwhile addition I don't mind forking out for a license.
I can't think of anything offhand...
Grandad's latest post got me giggling today. Probably not a wise thing to do, as the glass of Bordeaux was dangerously close to my laptop, but the less said about that the better!
It seems like Grandad was cold called by Talk Talk. I almost feel left out, as they never cold call me. I get to be annoyed by people trying to sell me advertising for publications that nobody seems to read instead. Maybe I can swap?
Of course it takes a lot of neck to make cold calls all day. I for one wouldn't be able to do it.
When I was in Spain in the late 90s one of the female groups that was getting a lot of airplay at the time was Ella Baila Sola. I got to see them in concert (for free) in Madrid during the summer of 1997.
For some odd reason one of their songs has been in my head for the last couple of days, but I couldn't remember the lyrics or the group's name. Trying to work out who it was and what they were called was a bit of a challenge!
The lyrics helped me to improve my Spanish at the time. I think my girlfriend at the time had given me a tape of one of their albums, but that was probably stolen along with all my other tapes a few years later (long boring story!)
Most years at Christmas I get a chance to read books that I normally wouldn't get round to reading.
This year is no different, though my choice of reading has proved to be rather disturbing.
Over the last few days I've been working my way through "Bad Men", which tells the story of some of the Bush administration's victims of torture being held in Cuba.
Some of the stories are truly horrendous and if you made a film of them we probably wouldn't think the plot was plausible. Unfortunately it's all based on fact!
This year is no different, though my choice of reading has proved to be rather disturbing.
Over the last few days I've been working my way through "Bad Men", which tells the story of some of the Bush administration's victims of torture being held in Cuba.
Some of the stories are truly horrendous and if you made a film of them we probably wouldn't think the plot was plausible. Unfortunately it's all based on fact!
One of the hot topics at the moment is the exhaustion of ip4 space.
While this may not sound very exciting to "normal" people the impact it could have on you might be quite painful. If ISPs have to pay a heavy premium for more IP space as their networks expand, then the end users may be forced to pay a premium.
Jay Daley, Nominet's CTO, has an interesting post on the Nominet blog about the possible creation of a market in IPv4 space. It's an interesting read and it will be interesting to see how things pan out in the coming 12 - 36 months.
Of course if more ISPs were to start actively using ipv6 then none of this would really matter... I wouldn't hold my breath though, as so much consumer equipment in active use at present isn't compatible
While this may not sound very exciting to "normal" people the impact it could have on you might be quite painful. If ISPs have to pay a heavy premium for more IP space as their networks expand, then the end users may be forced to pay a premium.
Jay Daley, Nominet's CTO, has an interesting post on the Nominet blog about the possible creation of a market in IPv4 space. It's an interesting read and it will be interesting to see how things pan out in the coming 12 - 36 months.
Of course if more ISPs were to start actively using ipv6 then none of this would really matter... I wouldn't hold my breath though, as so much consumer equipment in active use at present isn't compatible
By this time tomorrow I'll probably be feeling like that pooch looks!
In the morning I'm heading down to Ennis, in the west of Ireland, to collect my grandfather to bring him to Cork, in the south of Ireland, for Christmas. I'm currently based about an hour or so from Dublin, so it will probably take about five or six hours driving not counting the stops etc.,
Most of the gifts I bought for family members were delivered to Cork, so the only job I'll have is wrapping them. Of course I've also got a few things here to take with me. Hopefully I won't forget anything essential, like the novels I promised I'd lend my mother!
This year is probably the last year that we'll be spending in my mother's current abode, as she's moving into her new house early in the New Year...
Of course most people do that obligatory "I won't be online much" post around now. That probably won't be the case with me!
My MacBook Pro will be coming with me and I've every intention of making good use of it over the next few days.
It's also the first Christmas in 4 years that I won't be really working. Over the past year we've expanded our staff quite a bit, so there will be other people to "hold down the fort" instead of me!
In the morning I'm heading down to Ennis, in the west of Ireland, to collect my grandfather to bring him to Cork, in the south of Ireland, for Christmas. I'm currently based about an hour or so from Dublin, so it will probably take about five or six hours driving not counting the stops etc.,
Most of the gifts I bought for family members were delivered to Cork, so the only job I'll have is wrapping them. Of course I've also got a few things here to take with me. Hopefully I won't forget anything essential, like the novels I promised I'd lend my mother!
This year is probably the last year that we'll be spending in my mother's current abode, as she's moving into her new house early in the New Year...
Of course most people do that obligatory "I won't be online much" post around now. That probably won't be the case with me!
My MacBook Pro will be coming with me and I've every intention of making good use of it over the next few days.
It's also the first Christmas in 4 years that I won't be really working. Over the past year we've expanded our staff quite a bit, so there will be other people to "hold down the fort" instead of me!
Online DVD rentals site ScreenClick
went live on the tradedoubler affiliate network earlier today.
I've had mixed experiences with ScreenClick, but I joined up as it fits nicely with a few of the sites I run
Their main competitor in the Irish market seems to be MovieStar.ie
Unfortunately moviestar.ie don't seem to like replying to emails, so the query I sent them on August 10th was read (I got a read receipt) but I never got a reply! (This seems to be a common issue with Irish companies!!!)
I've had mixed experiences with ScreenClick
Their main competitor in the Irish market seems to be MovieStar.ie
Unfortunately moviestar.ie don't seem to like replying to emails, so the query I sent them on August 10th was read (I got a read receipt) but I never got a reply! (This seems to be a common issue with Irish companies!!!)
Over the past few evenings I've been working on a new site / project. Since the backend software allows me to "easily" add new fields to the database I did. Of course I didn't test the link submission form after the last update / addition, so it broke.
Moral of the story - testing things saves time.
If I'd taken an extra 30 seconds to make sure that the update was working it would have saved me time in the long run.
Of course working on something when you're suffering from lack of sleep might not help ....
Or is that just a feeble excuse?
Moral of the story - testing things saves time.
If I'd taken an extra 30 seconds to make sure that the update was working it would have saved me time in the long run.
Of course working on something when you're suffering from lack of sleep might not help ....
Or is that just a feeble excuse?
It's that time of year again...
Over the next few days you can expect your inbox to be bombarded with tasteful, tasteless, tacky and slick Christmas greetings.
I've had a few already, but so far there's been no sign of Gaddo's traditional Christmas card (he's infamous for them!)
Dancing elves seem to be popular this year..
And of course there's always the retouching of websites to give them that seasonal flavour...
James from Forbairt Media redid the Irish Webmaster logo to give it a gentle Christmas feel
Of course others have done more and less ... There's a discussion over on the site about what people have been doing
Over the next few days you can expect your inbox to be bombarded with tasteful, tasteless, tacky and slick Christmas greetings.
I've had a few already, but so far there's been no sign of Gaddo's traditional Christmas card (he's infamous for them!)
Dancing elves seem to be popular this year..
And of course there's always the retouching of websites to give them that seasonal flavour...
James from Forbairt Media redid the Irish Webmaster logo to give it a gentle Christmas feel
Of course others have done more and less ... There's a discussion over on the site about what people have been doing
I mentioned MailPlane for Mac OS X some time back.
The software was in beta at the time, so licenses were free - as long as you could get an invite.
According to an email I got this morning the honeymoon will end come December 31st.
If you want to grab a copy at the reduced price you have until the 31st
The software was in beta at the time, so licenses were free - as long as you could get an invite.
According to an email I got this morning the honeymoon will end come December 31st.
If you want to grab a copy at the reduced price you have until the 31st
For a number of reasons I had to look at the SalesOnline.ie site today. I would have thought they'd have got round to fixing its basic brokenness, but I was wrong.
If you try to view that site in any browser you will suffer.
Why?
Basic HTML code hasn't been used.
How hard can it be to specify which version of (X)HTML you're using?
If the "designer" had even picked up a book on HTML for beginners they'd have learnt about the basic elements of a properly formatted SGML document using HTML markup.
To save repetition the concept is simple. If you open a "tag", which is a bit of code to describe how something should be rendered on the screen by your browser, then you should close it. In XHTML that "should" becomes "must".
Any (x)html document will have a number of elements:
HEAD - the top of the document. This can tell you what the document is about and how to treat it ie. is it html 4.* or xhtml 1.*. You can also include lots of other "meta" information
BODY - the main body of the text
Salesonline's site tries to break all these standards.
Neither the "header" nor the "body" tag is closed, so the browser has no way of knowing where the page ends.
They force you to load their video on their main page each and every time you visit - not exactly sane usage of multimedia
And yet they claim to be using "best in class technology". You'd think they'd be able to setup a proper website!
If you try to view that site in any browser you will suffer.
Why?
Basic HTML code hasn't been used.
How hard can it be to specify which version of (X)HTML you're using?
If the "designer" had even picked up a book on HTML for beginners they'd have learnt about the basic elements of a properly formatted SGML document using HTML markup.
To save repetition the concept is simple. If you open a "tag", which is a bit of code to describe how something should be rendered on the screen by your browser, then you should close it. In XHTML that "should" becomes "must".
Any (x)html document will have a number of elements:
HEAD - the top of the document. This can tell you what the document is about and how to treat it ie. is it html 4.* or xhtml 1.*. You can also include lots of other "meta" information
BODY - the main body of the text
Salesonline's site tries to break all these standards.
Neither the "header" nor the "body" tag is closed, so the browser has no way of knowing where the page ends.
They force you to load their video on their main page each and every time you visit - not exactly sane usage of multimedia
And yet they claim to be using "best in class technology". You'd think they'd be able to setup a proper website!
In the runup to the Golden Spiders earlier this year I noticed several complaints about their mailing lists.
Both Peter and Mary Rose complained of having issues getting off the list despite several attempts.
Now it transpires that Mary Rose has not only reported the issue to the data privacy commissioner, but that the commissioner has ruled in her favour and Golden Spiders / Business and Finance will be forced to pay €500 to the charity of her choice.
Good!
If only more people took the time to report abusive emailings like this maybe Irish business would learn how to use email properly
Both Peter and Mary Rose complained of having issues getting off the list despite several attempts.
Now it transpires that Mary Rose has not only reported the issue to the data privacy commissioner, but that the commissioner has ruled in her favour and Golden Spiders / Business and Finance will be forced to pay €500 to the charity of her choice.
Good!
If only more people took the time to report abusive emailings like this maybe Irish business would learn how to use email properly
Has anyone come across any multi-region Blu Ray or HD DVD players? Or, failing that, some way to render them multi-region?
I really don't feel like buying two HD players just to be able to play two regions!
I really don't feel like buying two HD players just to be able to play two regions!
Ebay is packed with really odd items on sale and reasons for selling them
One of the girls in the office came across this one (I have no idea how!)
The item itself isn't that interesting, but the story is!
One of the girls in the office came across this one (I have no idea how!)
The item itself isn't that interesting, but the story is!
I've been subscribed to some of the Irish Computer Society's newsletters for some time, though I am not a member.
Some weeks ago they sent out a newsletter without a subject line, which would have struck me as slightly odd, but when it came from ICS it struck me as incompetent. I contacted them about it, naturally, however they obviously still haven't learnt how to send out emails!
After getting back from the office I opened my personal mail to find another "helpful" email from them without a subject line and to add insult to injury the entire content of the email is a graphic!!
Accessibility where are you?
Usability level zero
Well done!
Newsletters and announcements sent via email are possibly the only direct contact people might have with an organisation. Getting the basics right is essential
Some weeks ago they sent out a newsletter without a subject line, which would have struck me as slightly odd, but when it came from ICS it struck me as incompetent. I contacted them about it, naturally, however they obviously still haven't learnt how to send out emails!
After getting back from the office I opened my personal mail to find another "helpful" email from them without a subject line and to add insult to injury the entire content of the email is a graphic!!
Accessibility where are you?
Usability level zero
Well done!
Newsletters and announcements sent via email are possibly the only direct contact people might have with an organisation. Getting the basics right is essential
What is acceptable on a business blog?
Should you mention your competitors?
Is it ok to post funny videos?
Should you keep it serious?
I read quite a few business blogs and some of them manage to strike a nice balance, however others seem to overstep the line at times. While it's nice to "hear" the author's voice, is there a limit?
Just some vague ramblings on a Friday before anyone starts asking !
Should you mention your competitors?
Is it ok to post funny videos?
Should you keep it serious?
I read quite a few business blogs and some of them manage to strike a nice balance, however others seem to overstep the line at times. While it's nice to "hear" the author's voice, is there a limit?
Just some vague ramblings on a Friday before anyone starts asking !
INEX, which is the Irish neutral exchange, increased its bandwidth capacity in advance of yesterday's budget, but the spike in traffic may have been greater than some of the ISPs were expecting.
Have a look at this week's traffic graph:
Seemingly some of the ISPs connections into the exchange were maxed out during the peak!
Have a look at this week's traffic graph:
Seemingly some of the ISPs connections into the exchange were maxed out during the peak!
AIB finally upgraded our company account to use their new system which supports "real" Java and my choice of browser (Firefox).
It seems they have been migrating companies across to the new system over the last few months.
We now all have a little calculator sized "doda" called a "digipass" which basically generates a lot of random numbers.
Downsides
It seems they have been migrating companies across to the new system over the last few months.
We now all have a little calculator sized "doda" called a "digipass" which basically generates a lot of random numbers.
Downsides
- I had to change my password's format again!
- Passwords aren't case sensitive - huh?
- You have to have your digipass with you in order to login
- the digipass is battery powered - I'm betting that the batteries will die on payday
- It supports Firefox
- It uses Java as opposed to the Microsoft Virtual Machine which has been defunct for years
- It should be cross-platform (see above)
- Did I mention that it should be cross-platform?
I've had an account on LinkedIn for a couple of years. I'm not too sure who introduced me to the site, but I really should thank them!
Unlike FaceBook, LinkedIn doesn't try to amuse you with ghouls, vampires, poker or other distractions. It does, however, work very well as a networking tool.
I used to connect to just about anyone who asked, however in the last few months I've come to see greater value in my network connections and I've started to revisit that. Other people who I've spoken to have nuked large numbers of their earlier connections for the same reason.
The value of LinkedIn lies in the concept of trust and recommendation. I can't recommend someone unless I feel they deserve it and I won't connect to random people unless I actually know them or want to know them.
If you want to connect to me please feel free to, but unless I know you I'd appreciate a note explaining why you want to connect.
Unlike FaceBook, LinkedIn doesn't try to amuse you with ghouls, vampires, poker or other distractions. It does, however, work very well as a networking tool.
I used to connect to just about anyone who asked, however in the last few months I've come to see greater value in my network connections and I've started to revisit that. Other people who I've spoken to have nuked large numbers of their earlier connections for the same reason.
The value of LinkedIn lies in the concept of trust and recommendation. I can't recommend someone unless I feel they deserve it and I won't connect to random people unless I actually know them or want to know them.
If you want to connect to me please feel free to, but unless I know you I'd appreciate a note explaining why you want to connect.
A few months ago I started a blog about Movable Type 4 (if anyone wants to help let me know!) where I've been posting tips, tricks and my experiences with the blogging platform.
Back in August I was contacted by a technical journalist from the States who writes for some publications in Japan, as he wanted to interview me about Movable Type.
I'd all but forgotten about that interview, as I hadn't heard anything since, but I got an email from Bart (the journalist) today to let me know that the article had finally been published. There is a version online, although it's missing a paragraph, which I'll provide here:
So I've now been quoted in a Japanese magazine!
Back in August I was contacted by a technical journalist from the States who writes for some publications in Japan, as he wanted to interview me about Movable Type.
I'd all but forgotten about that interview, as I hadn't heard anything since, but I got an email from Bart (the journalist) today to let me know that the article had finally been published. There is a version online, although it's missing a paragraph, which I'll provide here:
Indeed, the typical Movable Type non-corporate customer is still a power user. Such is the case for Irish blogger Michele Neylon, whose blog on Movable Type 4 (www.movabletype4.eu ) is one of about 15 blogs Neylon maintains. Neylon himself recently returned to Movable Type after using WordPress for the past three years and encountering scaling problems. "If you want to keep a personal blog, there's no problem. But when dealing with multiple blogs and large amounts of traffic, WordPress wouldn't hack it."
So I've now been quoted in a Japanese magazine!
