Neil Grogan

Kubernetes and Nix Cluster

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

About this time last year, I purchased 3 mini computers with the aim of making a Kubernetes cluster. I followed an excellent youtube video: This homelab setup is my favorite one yet - Dreams of Autonomy (Github Repository) which described the machines to buy (Beelink EQ 13 Mini), how to upgrade the SSD and RAM, how to provision them with NixOS, setup K3S, and connect using kubectl to manage the cluster. You will also have to modify your router’s DHCP settings so you can give the cluster static IP addresses.

Picade

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Picade is an arcade machine you build yourself which uses a raspberry pi as the brains. It is available from Pimoroni.

20 Years of this Blog

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Today marks 20 years since I first blogged. I wanted to give a little context to that post.

Framework 13 AMD

Sat, 12 Oct 2024 22:52:53 +0100

I recently bought a Framework 13 laptop as a personal machine. If you are not aware - Framework makes build-it-yourself laptops. I wanted to review different parts of the process and give an overview of how it’s been from ordering to delivery.

HomeAssistant Yellow Review

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For Christmas as a gift to myself I bought a HomeAssistant Yellow. If you’re not familiar with HomeAssistant - it’s a one-stop-shop to control all your smart lights, plugs, sensors and anything else in your smart home. HomeAssistant is the software part and as it’s open source you can freely install it on any computer you have. In fact many people install HomeAssistant on a Raspberry Pi.

HomeAssistant Yellow is their own custom hardware with a built in chip for Zigbee (and now Threads) protocol, along with Bluetooth, WiFi and audio out. It takes a Raspberry Pi compute module 4 as its “brains”. This technically means it should - emphasis on should be upgradeable if a Raspberry Pi compute module 5 that is compatible with CM4 socket is produced.

Convert Bank Transactions XLS to CSV in Python

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve written previously on importing transactions to hledger/ledger from KBC bank in JavaScript and PTSB bank in Python. I took different approaches to each:

For KBC, you needed to log in and run Javascript which scrape the transaction table and download it formatted as CSV
For PTSB, the script automatted logging in, get the transaction table and save locally as CSV

Both approaches are valid - but suffer from the same issues: any change the bank makes to it website needs to be updated in the code. The KBC/JavaScript approach was a bit more robust in that it would just search for rows on a website and download as CSV.

Linux, Freesat and Saorview

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I recently replaced a rusty satellite dish and faulty LNB (it has been in use in the house I moved in to for 10+ years I’d guess) and decided to try install one myself. Here in Ireland, the two main broadcast methods of receiving TV are satellite (Freesat / Sky) and terrestrial aerial (Saorview).

An issue I have one larger sitting room TV and one small living room TV. I couldn’t get both to be Samsung (out of stock on smallest sizes - which seem to be going out of fashion). So both TVs had very different methods of switching between satellite and aerial connections. I’m not sure if it is a hardware limitation (they make switching tuners slow to hide this), a licensing issue (broadcasters pay to be on the Freesat EPG for example) or a software issue (seems least likely). The fact multiple TV brands (in my case Phillips/Samsung) make it this clunky - makes me think it’s a licensing issue. I wanted to solve this by using an external box and having one mental model for navigating broadcast TV.

Ubiquiti Unifi with Sonos on a separate VLAN

Fri, 22 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Update 2023: these instructions are out-of-date for the latest Unifi controller software versions. It's preserved here as written for those who still have older versions. This post uses a file called gateway.config.json and Unifi now say:

This article is not applicable to the UniFi Dream Machine models, because all configurations are already available in the UniFi Network user interface.

So I take that to mean use of this file is deprecated and it should be possible to do this via the administration webpage.

Ubuntu 20.04 Vagrant with Packer

Sat, 02 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ubuntu have recently released the new 20.04 LTS codenamed “Focal Fossa”. I’d also recently seen a tool that piqued my interest, Hashicorp Packer. Packer builds machine images that can be deployed to a cloud or as a virtual machine, or just even a plain disk image. You can even generate many images at once, really simplfying deployment. Very handy if you wanted to create virtual machines for a cluster for example, with a similar but slightly different configuration.

Ubiquiti Home Network

Sun, 10 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Over the summer, I upgraded my home network to Ubiquiti gear. Ubiquiti do business Wifi, all the way up to covering stadiums. I first heard about them from Troy Hunt and then again from Marco Arment on Accidental Tech Podcast. Ubiquiti are popular in prosumer space - for people serious about good Wifi.

So far it’s been an excellent experience and I’d highly recommend it. After setting it up (there is a few moving pieces) it has been running without any intervention from me. Being a professional product, it’s not just a home router (with inbuilt wifi), there is a few more pieces you need to buy:

Scraping Transaction Data from KBC Bank

Mon, 13 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In a previous post, I mentioned importing transactions using ledger/hledger and plain text accounting. As my former bank PTSB recently raised their fees, I decided to move to KBC. I was excited to see, as part of the open payments directive, they have a nice developer portal. I reached out to KBC’s dev team, but alas they are only accepting registered companies, who meet stringent criteria. They told me they hope to open it up soon to end users, I live in hope!

Using IPv6 with Docker Compose on Ubuntu Server

Fri, 08 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I recently started using PiHole to block ads on my home network. As the name suggests, you install it on a raspberry pi. I left it in situ for about a month, until I decided I wanted to swap out the pi, but keep PiHole.

The natural solution to this, is to use a docker container. Rather helpfully, there is a publicly available docker build of PiHole. Simple, right? Well my home network is also IPv6, thus the DNS on the raspberrypi should be also. The problem is, Docker has support for IPv6, but it’s not very straightforward with Docker Compose.

Learning Org Mode

Sun, 20 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Since hearing about org-mode on the web many years ago, I always meant to give it a spin. I only ever found ~~one~~ two problems:

Time - Life eh?
It's a mode of Emacs for which I'd also have to learn (again time)

So I recently set about solving both shortcomings, as painful as it was to dismiss all the effort I put in to my vim muscle memory over the years. The tough part usually is finding good documentation that is both easy to read and follow.

Favourite Podcasts

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last while I’ve been collecting wonderful podcast episodes from the hundreds of hours I’ve listened to. I’ve even workshopped some of my favourites with colleagues and friends (they all approve!). Luckily a neat service called HuffDuffer allows you to create a personalised feed from episodes spanning any podcast you see fit. All you need is a direct link to the MP3 or indeed any format audio file.

So here it is, my favourite episodes spanning many podcasts. Mostly I love good stories, with unexpected twists. I suppose you could simplify that to “Surprise and Delight”. Be prepared to be entertained, surprised and delighted…

Python 3 In-Memory Zip File

Sun, 14 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In Python, BytesIO is the way to store binary data in memory. Most examples you’ll see using zip files in memory is to store string data and indeed the most common example you’ll find online from the zipfile module is zipfile.writestr(file_name, "Text Data"). But what if you want to store binary data of a PDF or Excel Spreadsheet that’s also in memory? You could use zipfile.write() (designed to take binary data) but then you can’t specify a filename (since our in-memory file was never written to a location on disk). The reason for this is simple: for a web request or for a test case, you shouldn’t need to store any files on disk.

The year of self hosting

Wed, 03 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last month or so, I’ve come to embrace my home server setup and how powerful it can be. Here I have this small little Intel NUC Server, for which I promised myself I would do lots of cool and interesting things with.

The first thing I’ve hosted is Plex. I’ve used Docker Compose to bring up a Plex Docker container, with:

Filebot (to tag video files)
Beets (to tag audio files)
Transmission (to download files)
Webhook (receives incoming web requests)

The way it works is this:

Scraping Data from your Bank in Python

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

As part of my previous posts, I talked about ledger and plain text accounting. The only part missing is that you need a method to import transactions from your bank. For this I have been doing this by hand, bi-weekly. I would have to do the following:

Log in to online banking
Go to the transactions page
Select the date range for transactions I needed (double check last date of transaction in ledger at this point)
Download the Microsoft Excel format file that wasn’t in the proper format
Convert this Excel file into a CSV file that matched my import format (watch the dates, is it YYYY-MM-DD or DD/MM/YYYY?)
Finally import the CSV file into ledger
Check the balance matches between my online banking and ledger

Sounds like a lot of work right?

Slack Bots for Work

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In a previous post, I mentioned how I get notified of the restaurant menu via a Ruby script. Recently I’ve moved to a totally different product area and the main communication channel we use is Slack. Naturally enough, I ported the Ruby code I wrote, and it now posts the menu every day to our Slack channel.

This also got me thinking of what other information would be handy to have. I scouted around for ideas and came up with an obvious one: reminder of the bus times to and from the office. So here’s my bus times notification slack bot:

Run Command on SSH Login

Wed, 30 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Do you need to run a command on SSH login? There are a lot of solutions on the web for this, but most of them are very complex. I stumbled across this easy method of using the authorized_keys file, simply add command="ls -l" (replacing ls -l with something a bit more useful like tmux or screen) in front of the key fingerprint. This also means you can have different commands for different keys if you choose.

iOS Shells, Prompt vs. Mosh

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a big fan of the shell and the productivity it brings, you can have a text editor, command to run a server and more within easy reach. I use a shell at work, at home and on the go. On the go could be using my iPad or iPhone. One of the first SSH clients on iOS was iSSH, which I used many years ago. After this, Panic released a professional class application called Prompt. Prompt is what I’ve happily used for the last few years, but the 10 minute background process limit is a constant pain. Just a quick switch away for a few minutes, and you have to reconnect. That’s fine once or twice, but when it happens many times it seriously slows your productivity.

Plain Text Accounting

Mon, 10 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

For the last few years, I’ve always wanted to budget properly and see where my money was going. But like all habits that are good for you, looking after your finances takes time, care and attention. I started off by researching the market for budgeting software. A lot of the prepackged software out there was very US-centric, including Quicken, Microsoft Money and Mint.com. I eventually settled on and bought a license for You Need a Budget, because: it had a budgeting methodology, very good Euro support and was cross platform with Adobe Air. YNAB lasted me well for a few years, with its pretty graphs and ease of expense entry. I even liked their much pared-down companion iOS app at the time.

Newsfast MSc Project in UCD

Wed, 07 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As part of my masters degree in University College Dublin, we undertook a group project which focused on building a technology product. I’m very proud about how we ran the project, so I’d like to give an overview of it here! The product is a technology news application, which personalised your news feed based on your interests. I like to think of it as Facebook meets Techmeme meets your favourite RSS news feeds!

Automatic Newsletter Cleanup in Gmail

Fri, 19 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

If you haven’t tried Google Apps Script, I found a really nifty use for it: smart filtering for email. Wait, shouldn’t I just use Gmails’ built-in filters? As it turns out you can’t - my filter needs to act on email that matched that filter in the past. So in other words: a filter can only act on email it actually “filters”, which kinda makes sense! I’m a big fan of automation (and email is ripe for automation), as you can see from my post on meetings in Outlook.

iPad Pro Review

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

After some thought initially on a new laptop, I decided to spring for an iPad Pro 12.9". So far I am really glad I did, the computer comes with me everywhere. I bring it to work, to visit family, on trips and everywhere in between.

It’s the ultimate work computer in many ways, always with you, light enough and comfortable enough for real work™. The keyboard shortcuts in iOS have improved massively from iOS 8 to iOS 9 to the point of actually being useful and the split screen view is actually rather nice to use (I never “got” it on a Mac).

Remote: Office Not Required

Sun, 01 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I recently read Remote: Office Not Required by David Heinemeier-Hansson (who created Ruby on Rails) and Jason Fried (who co-founded 37 Signals with Heinemeier-Hansson). This book is really a case study in why the future of work will be remote, of which the book did convince me (but I would say, I already believed).

The book is really structured to convince those who do not believe in the premise of the title. It talks about many successful companies who have transformed themselves to work remotely fully and large corporations who save lots of money on office space (IBM, being one example).

Mechanical Keyboards

Fri, 15 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Early last year, I purchased two Code Keyboards (one for work and one for home). The Code Keyboards are designed by Jeff Atwood (who founded Stack Overflow). Mechanical keyboards are “old style” in that the switches are from an era where everything was mechanical, unlike today where everything is glass. So mechanical keyboards have ardent fans and people who don’t really care for them.

I did a lot of research before I purchased, talking to various people in work who are very knowledgeable about mechanical keyboards (The best community for advice, discussion and group buys is /r/mechanicalkeyboards on reddit.). The variety of hardware and opinions is positively mind melting. If you are doing your own research, you should definitely come across Cherry switches (a very established German brand). Switches are what sit between your key that you see (with the letter printed on top) and the electronic board that converts the key press to a signal the computer can understand.

Ulysses App

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I recently purchased Ulysses Mobile after a recommendation from Macstories. My first impression was how expensive it was priced and what really makes a premium writing application?

Needless to say, I’m not a huge writer. But I do have a real fondness for plain text (it will survive the apocalypse) and by extension, Markdown by John Gruber. The problem for Ulysses is this: there’s lots of really great Markdown applications for iOS, two of which I have written about: Editorial (my favourite) and Byword (not so keen on this app).

Roost Laptop Stand

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I backed the Roost laptop stand on Kickstarter, which already had a successful run in their first Kickstarter campaign. I’ve been delighted with the result so far, it lives up to the promises of being super light but yet durable and strong. Here’s a photo of it:

It came with a really nice case which holds the Roost underneath and has pockets for a portable keyboard (I use a Logitech K811) and mouse (I use a Logitech Marathon M705). It works great for a really comfortable and ergonomic desk wherever you may travel (or set up to work). Highly recommended!

Maintainable Software Book

Tue, 01 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I recently read O’Reilly Building Maintainable Software (Java Edition). It provides good insight as to what to look for to create maintainability in enterpise software systems.

10 suggestions the book provides:

Write shorter units
Write simpler units (measured in Cyclomatic Complexity)
Write code once only
Keep interfaces very small
Seperate code in to modules
Couple modules loosely
Keep modules evenly sized
Keep codebase small (and look for ways to right-size)
Automate development pipeline and your tests
Write clean code and refactor as you go

Overall I thought the book was very well laid out, easy to read and easy to understand. I’d recommend it to anyone new to software development, but most of the tips contained within the book should be very familiar to the seasoned developer.

Dashing Dashboards

Mon, 15 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

In the last year and a half, I set up a Ruby based Dashing dashboard for my team and others in our product area. Here’s what a sample Dashing dashboard looks like:

It’s been a huge success, but it was tough to gain traction along the way. Here I’ll summarise what I’ve learned (in no particular order):

Don’t do dashboards for managers, do them for teams
Use big text, have the minimum information as required
Use colours (preferably like the traffic light system) to focus attention
Link in all critical systems to daily work
Make it a one stop shop and faster then all other methods of getting this information
Reuse the work of others (steal with pride)
Don’t bother with graphs

Below I outline the reasons for each point:

Fill hours worked in SAP Netweaver Automatically

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Continuing the theme of automation, one of the most repetitive tasks if you work for a big company is timesheets. So I set out to rectify this by scripting it!

Start with you configuration, I named mine hours.ini:

[DEFAULT]
url = FILL_ME_IN
username = FILL_ME_IN
password = FILL_ME_IN

then we need the magic of Selenium to do the heavy lifting, so we install it:

$ pip3 install selenium

I called this script, unsurprisingly hours.py:

Automated 'Push' Restaurant menu

Sun, 10 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I love trying to automate the world, it just feels like magic some of the time! I also really enjoy information coming to me, instead of having to seek it. As we are still only in 2016, we have no world killing Artificial Intelligence (yet). So we have to start small, ease the first world problems! So I decided to make my workplaces’ restaurant menu come to me!

I decided to write it in Ruby and use push notifications, rather than email or SMS. It uses a web automation framework called Selenium, which is available in many languages, including Javascript, Python, Java and obviously Ruby!

Adventures with Docker

Sat, 02 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a huge fan of Docker ever since I started to use it, approximately a year after it was started. It’s one of those technologies where when you start to use it, you immediately know it’s going to be a sea change in how things are done in the industry. It’s definitely going to be more impactful then Virtual Machines.

We’ve used Docker to great effect where I work. We’re building a huge system called Ericsson Network Manager, which will manage the networks of the future. As such, it’s a hugely complex problem to compartmentalise parts of the product, to be able to just use the part that you work directly on.

Deliveries App

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Deliveries helps you track packages from major shopping (Amazon, Apple) as well as nearly every major package distribution company like DHL, UPS and FedEx. I’ve used the app for years and it’s really impressed me.

It can sync via iCloud or the Junecloud cloud service by the makers of the app, Junecloud (not confusing at all, hey!). It started on the Mac as a simple dashboard widget (for those of you who remember those, rarely used these days), but it’s since grown to have its own Mac app also. Considering many people will have a lot of packages coming from everywhere this Christmas, it’s definitely a really useful app to have!

Adventures with React

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I’d seen a post on Hacker News about a course for the React JavaScript Framework. I haven’t done much with JavaScript, apart from a course in work, which was focused on the language itself and jQuery. React is a front end framework, which allows you to build reusable components (and generate them with data.)

The only real experience I have is writing an application (using Node.js) for my MSc course which was an AJAX application for interacting with Amazon SimpleDB. It was fun to write and weird that I could use the same language from the front-end to the back-end.

Automatically Decline and Delete or Accept and Delete Outlook 2010 Meetings

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

You can follow the Microsoft TechNet guide to add VisualBasic code in Outlook rules.

You can just replace the code they give with this:

Sub AutoDeclineMeetings(oRequest As MeetingItem)

' If its not a meeting, we don't process
If oRequest.MessageClass <> "IPM.Schedule.Meeting.Request" Then
 Exit Sub
End If

' Get the appointment in the meeting
Dim oAppt As AppointmentItem
Set oAppt = oRequest.GetAssociatedAppointment(True)

' Send a decline response
Dim oResponse
 Set oResponse = oAppt.Respond(olMeetingDeclined, True)
 oResponse.Send

' Lastly, delete the message
oRequest.Delete
End Sub

Sub AutoAcceptMeetings(oRequest As MeetingItem)

' If its not a meeting, we don't process
If oRequest.MessageClass <> "IPM.Schedule.Meeting.Request" Then
 Exit Sub
End If

' Get the appointment in the meeting
Dim oAppt As AppointmentItem
Set oAppt = oRequest.GetAssociatedAppointment(True)

' Send an accept response
Dim oResponse
 Set oResponse = oAppt.Respond(olMeetingAccepted, True)
 oResponse.Send

' Lastly, (optionally) delete the message
'oRequest.Delete
End Sub

For anything else you may want to do with the meeting, check the Outlook Visual Basic Developer Docs.

Editorial App

Thu, 10 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Editorial is an iPhone and iPad plain text editor that’s great for markdown¹. It also has some nifty automation workflows, in which you can use Python scripts. These can search the web, scrape data, transform text and much more…

I pretty much wrote this blog post (and many more) in Editorial. It’s much better then the competition for markdown in particular. Byword is an obvious competitor, which I really can’t recommend (nothing inherently wrong with Byword, just doesn’t suit me). MacStories has an in -depth Editorial review, which is well worth a long read.

Go Bag(s)

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I follow Casey Liss’ blog and recently he had a great post about a technology “go pack”. Lifehacker has written about this over the years, and the Wirecutter has a great article I shared here on this very blog. Also Casey linked to a great post by Katie Floyd on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/KatieFloyd/status/630707145999314946

I finally took the hint / inspiration from all these posts, and I decided time was right to put together my own “go bag”. Here’s a picture of my tech go bag:

Services I pay for

Wed, 26 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In alphabetical order:

Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk - usually buy electronics here!
Apple’s App Store - I use iOS & Mac heavily, buy a lot of apps!
Dropbox - sync files across computers
Evernote - I store a lot of notes here.
Fastmail - My email, contacts, calendars
Hover - great place for domain names (like this one).
Lastpass - excellent password manager
Newsblur - Personalized RSS for news junkies
Pinboard - stores all my bookmarks (also archives the sites)
Trello - I’m planning a holiday via Trello

Some of these are referral links, I stand to get extra credit on these services if you use it.

Apple Watch Stand

Sun, 23 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1DiEegB_c

h/t; reddit

update: I tried this myself, but I’ve obviously no talent for these things:

Soulver App

Mon, 17 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My favourite text number crunching app on iOS bar none is Soulver. What makes it the best?

Fast to load
Simple user interface that gets out of the way
Contextual Keyboards (my favourite is the currency keyboard)
Can reuse calculations from previous lines (and name calculations).
iCloud sync

Soulver is great for when a spreadsheet is just to heavy. I use it a lot for it currency conversion, makes it easy to have multiple line items in different currencies (say GBP & USD) and get a total in one (EUR). Also for splitting the bills at a resturant, each line could be a food item (so if two desserts cost the same, you can see quickly and only add lines relevant for each participant).

Drafts App

Sun, 16 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My favourite text capture app on iOS bar none is Drafts by Agile Tortoise. What makes it the best?

No fluff, loads fast
Simple user interface that gets out of the way
Extensible actions (which you can add to from their directory)
iCloud sync

I’ve tried a lot of other apps like Byword (Not worth the money I think), Apples’ built-in Notes app, Textastic and so on. None felt as efficient or as flexible as Drafts. With Drafts, I can trust my text can be anywhere I need it to be.

De'Longhi Magnifica ESAM4200 Bean to Cup

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve had this DeLonghi machine for a year and a half now, and I possibly am slightly a little in love. It was the best rated coffee machine (at time of purchase) on Amazon and it doesn’t dissapoint. For the purpose, it’s wonderful:

Make great coffee fast, without a mess.

If you’re looking for more, I would have a look at the more expensive models. When I shopped around at the time, I read that the internals of this machine are just as good as the ones that DeLonghi sells that are twice as expensive. Mostly the price difference comes down to the “extraneous” features. Where this machine falls down is in a few areas:

Mac Mini Server

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I recently purchased a Mac Mini Server, for this site to run on. It’s hosted on my home broadband connection, but it’s just really for small time side-projects like this site. Also it’s a way to play around with Docker, VirtualBox, Node.js and all those other fun technologies I don’t get time for.

I don’t really plan to post links, but maybe I’ll review things or cover things I’ve bought.

All Music Radio

Thu, 09 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

On holidays in Lithuania recently I was eating in a restaurant and noticed the music was all in English. It’s not the first time I’ve noticed a non English speaking country playing all English songs in bars, restaurants and taxis. Rather what was unusual was the very few ads and the fact it was an American station.

I’m no fan of ads, and am a huge fan of audio in general - be it spoken word or music. I’m a Spotify subscriber, but I also get bored if my own playlists fairly quickly. Spotify Radio isn’t the solution and I can’t access Pandora easily outside the US. 181 fm has a huge choice of stations (although I need a Smiths/Cure type of station) and plays few ads. It takes a little time to try out feeds they have, and some songs are on heavy rotation like regular music radio but it’s a nice service. Give it a try

Going on Holidays? Check these Gadgets

Sat, 13 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a big Wirecutter fan and they don’t disappoint with this travel guide.

Math can help you outsmart the MTA

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I heard a behavioural economist on the radio this morning, he was talking about rising house prices in Dublin and the tricks the industry uses to get you to overpay. Turns out you can mitigate these tricks with a bit of knowledge, as this proves:

But now, with some simple math, you can fight back!

First, let’s see how the MTA tricks you out of your money earlier than you might want to release it to them.

Bell Curve is Wrong

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting study here: apparently performance of people in a company is never related to a bell curve, but is more like a ski slope. So the majority of people are carried by the few in terms of performance. What I really want to know is pay for these people like a ski slope? Cause I bet it ain’t.

iPhone 6 and Apple Watch

Wed, 10 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting announcements yesterday by Apple, finally releasing an iWatch. A lot of the talk on tech sites was reminiscent of the famous CMDR Taco (of Slashdot) line: “Less space then a nomad. Lame.”

I happened to own a Nomad shortly after that famous quote was made. So we can see, quoting Steve Jobs “[They] have no taste” is applicable to me! I just don’t get the watch yet. As a permanent contact wearer, I’m waiting for Google Glass in a contact lens! What I do predict however is: motor accidents due to Apple Watch updates and laws banning staring at the thing.

Full Stack Web Application with Node.js Tutorial

Mon, 31 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve followed this tutorial personally, not using Mongo as the database at first. It’s clear and to the point and provides just what you need to know to get started. Highly recommended.

CSThesis: Create Professional looking thesis

Fri, 10 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

As part of my undergradute thesis, I found a template (for LyX) to ease the pain of formatting a thesis in LaTeX. Making it look just right to me was very important. If your are writing a thesis, perhaps you feel the same way? If so, read on…

While doing my first undergraduate thesis in Computer Science, I found a template used for a Computer Science thesis in NUI Maynooth (a university in Ireland). What attracted me was simple: it was battle tested and easily customisable. That was 2011 and since then I’d pretty much forgotten about it.

Why GNU Grep is fast

Tue, 10 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Worth a read for those wishing to optimise programs that process a lot of data. It proves that less really is more…

Money quote:

The key to making programs fast is to make them do practically nothing.

Fish Shell for Ubuntu and OS X

Sun, 08 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

A great guide to get up to speed with Fish shell. What is Fish? It’s a shell written from the ground up to be more easily understandable the the traditional shells (bash, tcsh). I don’t know yet if I’ll switch (anything you can do in Fish can be made to work in Bash). It’s an interesting concept and I’ll try it for a while…

MSc in Computer Science at UCD

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve recently decided to further my education by applying for a Masters in Computer Science at University College Dublin. It’s very different from a traditional masters course in that it is very much focused on industry, the term the University uses is “Negotiated Learning”. It was a colleague of mine that introduced me to it, I was not even aware that there was what I would call ’non-strict masters’ (that is not a set-in-stone syllabus/research direction).

Quickly navigate your filesystem

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The article is a great tip for those who spend a good chunk of the working day on the command line. I made some adjustments to Bash completion code to get it to work on Mac OS X:

Original:

 \_completemarks() { local
curw=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}
 local wordlist=$(find
$MARKPATH -type l -printf "%f\n")
 COMPREPLY=($(compgen -W
'${wordlist[@]}' -- "$curw")) return 0 }

complete -F \_completemarks jump unmark

My modified version (tested on Mac OS X and Ubuntu):

Visit to CERN

Sat, 03 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I am currently in Switzerland on a business trip. In between work, I managed to get some time over the Swiss national holiday to visit the CERN. CERN is world famous for the invention of WWW and of course most recently, the almost certainty that the Higgs Boson (aka. “The God Particle”) - the particle that gives energy mass - exists.

The CERN tour is completely free and highly recommended. I visited the Atlas experiment with a colleague (who just so happened to have a Phd. in Physics) and questions were encouraged at every turn. What impressed me the most was the fact that there was no stupid questions. You can be a Phd weilding Physicist or a child and each question was handled the same by the staff. The guide (an active researcher at CERN) even expressed disappointment at the Higgs:

SSH Config Aliases

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

If your like me and you deal with a lot of servers for development or test and do it from a Unix machine, I’ve got a really handy tip: SSH hostname pattern matching.

Say I’ve got a SSH config file like this (at ~/.ssh/config ):

host s*
 HostName atrcu%h.example.com
 User example1
 Port 22
host b*
 HostName atrcx%h.example.com
 User example2
 Port 22
host ??*
 HostName atvts%h.example.com
 User example5
 Port 2205

The ssh man page explains this really well:

Custom Colourful Bash Prompt

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Bash, a command line shell is one of the most used pieces of software in my daily work. I like scripting repetitive actions to save a lot time (it brings me great joy!). One of the simplest and easiest customisations is to add a bit of colour to your otherwise boring bash prompt (otherwise known as $PS1):

[ngrogan@localhost:~]$

can be turned in to this:

The thing about Bash is the colour codes to achieve this can look archaic:

Document it Please

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Very good technical documentation skills are a must for any Software Engineer - to explain how a system works in detail forces you to think about the flaws present within the design. “Bad smells” of documentation often can be a sign of weaknesses on your product. Is this section too verbose or did we make it too complex for the customer? Should we explain ancillary parts of our system (either operating system components or other applications?) within our documentation besides the inherent risks (out-of-date documentation)?

Tor Talks

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

If you haven’t heard of Tor, it is alternative internet - one with privay in mind. I’ve recently started to watch a lot of technical talks online. The two main guys behind Tor are some of the best speakers I’ve seen. They describe in great detail how open source works and the myriad of open source projects around Tor in this talk:

and in an older talk they describe how countries have tried to censor Tor and how they have combatted some censorship (interesting for the technical measures deployed):

Stitcher is (audio) podcasts done right

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quick post about a great application I’ve seen mentioned by Cali Lewis: Stitcher. If your a talk radio fan like me, you’ll really appreciate this app! Ever since I switched from an iPhone 4 to a Galaxy S3 and stopped using Apple’s Podcast application it has been frustrating to keep up to date with podcasts.

I’ve used BeyondPod on Android (which I’ve praised before - excellent Google Reader integration). I then tried to search for a third party podcast application on the iPad that would synchronise with Google Reader. First there were none, then some (like Feedler and Instacast) but all have been bitterly disappointing with Google Reader integration. Instacast could import OPML (after a messy bundling of feeds in Google Reader) and Feedler could read the feeds (but not handle the video and audio contained within the feed item properly). To be honest I’d given up hope, I said to myself I’d chalk it up to fate and just buy a Nexus tablet when the iPad 2 was no longer serviceable. But - happily - I was wrong and had been looking in the wrong places…

First Experiences with an ARM Chromebook

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I recently bought a Samsung Chromebook (Wi-Fi, 11.6-Inch). I am fascinated by living tied to the web, indeed my honours computer science thesis deals with this in relation to mobile applications (and hybrid half-app/ half-website). Spurred on by the excellent reviews this Chromebook has gotten ("It’s $1,000 worth of design made with $100 worth of materials" - The Verge and “You simply won’t find a netbook this nice for that little money.” - Engadget).

Chrome vs. Internet Explorer Audience

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Lately both Google and Microsoft have been advertising their respective browsers on British Television (received in Ireland by the vast majority of the population). It’s interesting the different approach each company is taking.

Chrome ad:

To me the Chrome ad is very family oriented, stressing the utility of the web and the ease of reaching people and staying in touch. No surprise they didn’t feature Facebook, which is what the vast majority use to keep in touch.

Grab the Popcorn!

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Fresh from the “interesting but pointless facts” desk comes this little kernel (I apologise!) of truth:

In 2002, the British Film Institute depicted popcorn as “the most profitable substance on the planet, more than heroin, more than plutonium”. Typically, the popcorn we eat costs less to produce than the very container it comes in. - Foodie World

Further research indicates that isn’t quite true - antimatter is the most expensive substance in the world. But for a common, everyday item, it’s very expensive indeed. There’s a lot less risk in production then Heroin and a lot bigger market the Plutonium, for instance.

Tonsillectomy

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve recently undergone a tonsillectomy - the process of removing the lymph node tissue hanging idly at the back of your throat. I know I write mainly technology articles, but I thought a departure was warranted from the usual faire.

My main takeaway from having it done is twofold: it’s not as bad as you think and it’s as bad as you think. They seem like contradictory statements, so I’ll need to explain myself right? Okay.

The Linux Desktop has a place

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve seen an article by Miguel de Icaza, a great developer oft criticised for his love of Microsoft technologies on Linux. His latest piece is about his love for Mac OS X as a desktop and how he used to feel guilty about it (given his very impressive open source credentials).

I used to feel the same also. Android even as a platform more closely follows my ideals, yet I am exclusively an avid iOS user at this point. But as I’ve learned more, the importance of pragmatism is clear. I use my personal iOS devices for countless hours a day and I really just want them to work. I want them to work in the way they were designed to do: quickly check email, browse the web, make calls, check messages and so forth.

Review of Steve Jobs Biography

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I recently finished reading Steve Jobs, the biography by Walter Isaacson. I can’t add much more then the extensive coverage that it has recieved in the press to date. Instead I paraphrase really badly a friend of mine, Noel Hudson:

All that book thought me was dropping acid and treating people really badly works as a life strategy.

While that’s not entirely true it is a humourous look at the books tone. It has a grain of truth, Walter Issacson really focuses on the warts and all representation of Steve Jobs. He defines him very much in terms of how other people percieved him, whether that should have been the mainstay of the book is up for debate. Overall it’s a good book, what I liked most is the history lessons of the creation of the mac and how the Disney/Pixar relationship went down before the merger. I also felt Walter Issacson left it hanging at the end and that he knows much more that he can’t publish due to Apple’s corporate strategy being tied to Jobs so much (like the comment he made about cracking the UI for a TV).

What's in your dock?

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I recently read an article that posed the question “Does your dock reflect your priorities?” - which is an interesting question. Further breaking that idea down leads to:

What apps do I need the most?
What apps should be next (or be higher priority)?

iPhone dock

Phone app: pretty self explanatory
Safari: Still the best mobile browser I think (though if Google ever gets going on a proper Chrome browser for Android that may change)
Tweetbot: I like Twitter the most of the social networks and tweetbot is the Swiss army knife if twitter clients
Music (aka. iPod app) : I use my iPhone in my car and sometimes at work to listen to music

iPad dock

Safari: Safari on iPad is not as good as the iPhone version - it can be more full featured I think!
Mail app: E-mail on the iPad is one of the most popular uses, it’s got just the right amount of screen real-estate to do it justice
Photography folder: I don’t know why I mistook myself as being interested in photography, but here’s a folder I almost never use (bar camera app)
Music: I like it uses the screen real-estate better then the iPhone version and it’s much nicer to browse music on
Tweetbot: Tweetbot for iPad is the best Twitter client for iPad hands down (on the iPhone it’s more contested) and sync with Tweetmarker makes it much easier moving between iPhone and iPad versions.

Final thoughts

I guess I’ve learned I make pretty bad use of the dock on both devices. Evernote or Lastpass should probably be in the dock on either device - probably with a feed reader as a close run after that (Reeder or Mr. Reader). These apps feature on either home screen as you can see from the screenshots above. Food for thought I guess!

Programming is hard

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

A great essay on why programming is hard:

It’s harder than you think. Right now you’re probably underestimating the amount of frustration and discomfort you’re about to experience, without realizing that by doing so you’re creating all sorts of subtle barriers to obtaining a deep understanding of programming.

Language does matter

I find this part extremely true: my first language is Java. Every programming language I’ve tried since has been through comparing it to Java. I’ve had criticism of each different language based on my assumptions. Scripting languages being prone to bad coding because they are not strictly typed, having to do tedious work with languages that require memory management (my time is too valuable!).

Notepad++: A Great Windows Editor

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I spend a lot of my day in heavy development tools such as Eclipse¹, but often for editing simple XML I just want a quick tool to make fast changes. If I use the CLI (or Linux) it’ll be Vim, if I’m on Mac it’ll be Textmate but on Windows it’s Notepad++. I haven’t found an editor on Windows as clean as Notepad++ (if you use a tool professionally, you get to know it’s quirks pretty fast) for editing text of any kind.

Record your terminal session

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

As I’ve mentioned before¹, I regularly watch technology podcasts and I’ve had a subscription to sites like Lynda.com. Between those and Youtube, I’ve watched an awful lot of technology how-to videos and 90% of them are quite poor in terms of editing, sound and being coherent/properly scripted. Sometimes though it’s a joy to genuinely learn something new in a short, concise and to the point video.

This haktip is right up there with being among the best: short, concise, to the point and about a utility that will be super-useful to me. In work I’m in an agile software development team and I spend a lot of time on the command line. I like the command line, but many don’t (personal preference I guess). As part of being agile, we produce a lot of video demos to stakeholders. Increasingly though the demos we produce are just as useful for the team - you can’t be every team member at once and this provides huge visibility to the team of progress. Our software is a Unix product, but we develop on Windows - so Camtasia is usually used - which is fine for GUI demos. This handy utility will be great to demo CLI stuff we do.

Ikea in the TV Business?

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Ikea the TV Business? Who would have forseen the day. After looking at their video I must say I can see the reasons quite clearly: TV’s look awkward in almost everyones home. They don’t fit in our units, the cables are in awkward positions and you can never find the remote¹. I’m a fan of all things cheap and Ikea I must confess, so I’ll be watching this development with great interest!

The @ACR884 Tech Slot #005

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Our fifth slot on Athlone Community Radio. Aired the third Monday in March 2012 on ACR 88.4FM in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland.

Topics Covered:

iPad 3 Launch
Netflix vs. Lovefilm
Online TV: RTE Player, AERtv, 3Player, Filmon

In this episode Patrick and Neil discuss the most popular streaming video on the market and the launch of the iPad 3.

The @ACR884 Tech Slot #004

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Our fourth slot on Athlone Community Radio. Aired the third Monday in January 2012 on ACR 88.4FM in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland.

Topics Covered:

TuneIn Radio App
Path App
Twitter App
Facebook App

In this episode Patrick and Neil discuss the most popular apps on the market, across all major platforms.

Subscribe:

Download Link:

21st Feb 2012 - Tech Slot

The Best Cookbook

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve only recently started cooking meals from scratch and it’s a worthwhile experience! By my side is an awesome cookbook produced by the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS).

It’s generally all healthy food and every recipe indicates cost and portion size. It even has meals for one, meals for weaning babies, desserts, you name it! So what’s the cost of this fabulous book? I got it for free. They produce very limited quantities however, but it’s worth contacting MABS to see if you can get your hands on a copy.

Very Simple Java Twitter Bot (Twitter4J)

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Below is code for the start of a Twitter bot I am going to build in Java. It’s the most basic way of getting Oauth working (with any account, not just your developer account) and it shows your timeline and can update your status - that’s it for now. The neat thing is it uses Java’s awesome serialisation, so you only should have to authorise your twitter account once!

What you will need:

Twitter4j Libraries
Oauth Consumer and Secret Key off twitter
That is it!

What the code does:

Once only:

Irish SOPA Law: An Overview

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Is 4K the new 3D? - The Networked Society Blog

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’d love to own a 4K screen, the more lifelike the images the better it’ll be for movies. I’d imagine filesizes are 4x as large as HD also, which will be an issue that might kill off optical storage (and require better broadband). It’s a shame the author tried to compare it to 3D (which objectively is still a flop) but he mentions the issues in that technology (namely: field of vision).

Nuke support in UK hits record high

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

If only we had such sense here in Ireland, we can’t meet our commitments and it will hurt the economy in the long run not to go nuclear. The ESB has said “sometime in the 2030’s we will need to look at it” - why not look at it now? These projects take 10-15 years at least to implement properly.

What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Incredibly well-written article. Just shows the power of human misunderstanding and lack of clear judgement.

Why Are Android Smartphones Bigger Than the iPhone?

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

tl;dr It’s because LTE chipsets are very large and power hungry right now.

@ACR884 Tech Slot #003 – eReaders

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Our third slot on Athlone Community Radio. Aired the third Monday in January 2012 on ACR 88.4FM in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland.

Topics Covered:

Kindle
Sony eReader

In this episode Patrick and Neil discuss the main players in the eBook market, as well as what eBooks are and the advanatages and disadvantages.

Subscribe:

Your browser does not support the audio tag.

Download Link: TechnologySlot16-01-12

@ACR884 Tech Slot #001 - Phones

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The very first slot on Athlone Community Radio. Aired November 2011 on ACR 88.4FM in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland.

Topics Covered:

iPhone 4S
Samsung Galaxy S
Discussion of Windows Phone 7

Hosts: Patrick Russell & Neil Grogan

Subscribe:

Your browser does not support the audio tag.

Download Link: Episode 1 - ACR 88.4 Technology Show

@ACR884 Tech Slot #002 - Tablets

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

iPad
Motorola Xoom
HP Slate
Android tablet apps
iOs tablet apps

In this episode Patrick and Neil discuss the main players in the tablet market as well as Neils top Android and iOs tablet apps.

Subscribe:

Your browser does not support the audio tag.

Download Link: Technology Slot Dec 19 11

Don't get a Kindle

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The headline is misleading - I actually love my Kindle. I have read several books I otherwise would have not read. What I don’t get is why otherwise well-healed and technology literate folk dismiss the Kindle out-of-hand. The most common reason? It’s not dead-tree paper. You can’t hold it. You can’t feel it. Yet the biggest thing they dismiss is me. It’s personal. I have an eye condition which means I wear hard plastic contacts all day long - my eyes get very tired, very easily.

All About Platforms

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

If your passion is in technology, you often sigh with the marketing buzzwords used in sales. Cloud Computing doesn’t actually mean anything specific (or could mean a lot of things). It’s that a lot of things to a lot of people who makes it useful as a term, an ideology, a way of explaining why you-oh-so-need-to-do-this-now. Cloud computing for me is a platform description. I think of the myriad of hosting companies who offer a platform to build your service atop.

Hollywood Tech

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I always enjoy watching shows like CSI for the over-the-top depiction of current technology. They obviously have people in know, it’s not like the script writers of major shows cannot get someone to consult them on technology (or maybe they don’t - sometimes I do wonder).

The video below is about IRC (Internet Relay Chat). They are correct it’s primitive (it’s all text) and hackers do actually use it (groups like Anonymous), but you can’t track someone to their living room using just an IP address!! The montage about the boats trying to explain how IRC works is off-the-wall insane crazy. WHY?!?, alas:

Faster with Arch

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I have recently switched my main desktop over to Arch Linux. If you have never heard about Arch Linux, it is a “roll your own” Linux distribution. This basically means from start to finish, the whole process is custom. Whether your system has a Graphical User Interface (GUI) or sound is totally up to you.

I switched from Ubuntu Linux, which is very much built for new people to Linux. I have been using Ubuntu since it’s release in 2004 (as old as this blog incidentally). I have found it slowly moving away from my power user needs from the release of the KDE 4.0 desktop up to the recently introduced Unity desktop for Ubuntu. Don’t get me wrong I love the whizz-bang effects of the snazzier distributions (like Ubuntu) and have used it to show people the power of Linux (and how really groundbreaking Compiz effects were at the time, ~2005). It’s sad Compiz hasn’t got the kudos but since both Windows and OS X have copied from Compiz, some more usability has been gained.

Website Improvements

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t been posting much lately because I have been working hard to improve the experience of visiting this website. You may ask what does that mean? - well it is simple. I love going to websites that are uncluttered, provide useful information and are to the point. It’s also small things like having a really fast page load time. So here’s a flavour of some of what I have been working on lately…

Reflection on 9-11

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been 10 years since the anniversary of 9/11 and much of the world has changed a lot in that period. We’ve had full body scanners at airports, marshalls on flights, bombs hidden in toner cartridges and two wars. I reflected on this and remembered two really good articles I’ll share here on the topic. Hopefully we’ve changed for the better.

Yesterday I finally wrote something that’s been bothering me for about ten years: The fact that Al Qaeda can’t be as big and bad as it’s made out to be, because its whole design violates every rule of guerrilla organisation. It’s like a counter intelligence officer’s dream, the Al Qaeda plan to bring guerrillas from all over the world, introduce them to each other, and exchange funds, material and ideas.

Review of the Motorola Xoom Wifi

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I recently bought the wifi version of the Motorola Xoom. I did not get the 3G version to keep costs down (no second carrier subscription in addition to smartphone I own). Here’s my review, let it be noted I’ve been an iOS user since version 2 (iPhone 3G) and although I have used devices from Android 1.6 and up - I’ve never ’lived’ with them.

Motorola Xoom

Aesthetics & Design

First of all the design is very well executed. It looks and feels like a premium tablet should (should that be iPad competitor?). The ports are a clear winner and still are over any other tablet. I haven’t got the video dock yet, but I ampositiveit’ll be a great addition to my big HDTV. The only gripe really is that it doesn’t charge through usb, which I believe is because it has two batteries. It charges through supplied plug insanely fast! It lasts all day and then some with heavy use also. I haven’t left the thing alone long enough to test the standby time, but I am sure it’s good also. The 10.1" screen feels like the ‘right’ size for a tablet and I’ll besurprisedif more tablets don’t end up adopting a screen size closer to the Xoom’s. The heft is a bit much, I would like it to be a small bit lighter - but nearly all tablets with proper glass screens will be heavy.

Plantronics .655 USB Headset Review

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I got a Plantronics .655 USB Headset mainly for the ability to do VOIP well. Those of you who come here often know I reviewed Sennheiser HD595 before, which is a headset built for the quality of reproduction (I use that one for music).

There’s not much you can say about a VOIP headset, so I am going to keep this short! The Plantronics .655 USB isn’t the most comfortable headset and the usb connection seemed like a plus as I’d never owned a USB headset. The mic quality is a lot better with the USB connection (though I am guessing 90% is down to the fact it’s directional and pointed at your mouth), but the sound won’t be.

Tech Video Podcasts Worth Watching

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I try to listen to as many ~~podcasts~~ (netcasts?) as I can. They fall in to two categories: Irish radio and technology. Luckily, there is so much competition in this space it’s hard to pick the best - so quality is high!

Tech News Today (TNT) by the TWiT Network

Regular and fills you right up to the minute with the latest tech news. Can replace RSS of many blogs (HUGE time saver) since lively debate of tech topics is the order of the day.

The Paradox of Choice

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

From one of the best TED talks I’ve seen:

I love the story about the jeans. I feel like that every time I buy shoes. Scary.

Accidental Sea - When Humans Disappear

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve always wondered what would happen when we are gone - an inevitability judging by every known animal becoming extinct at some stage. Creepy but very interesting…

Software Engineering Job

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I had been applying for jobs since I started my last year in college and I am delighted to say even before I completed my final year, I have gained full time employment. I would say it is luck, but my family thinks it’s down to a lot of hard work and good grades! Either way, it’s a great feeling in probably the most competitive jobs market (for potential employees) in years.

Inter-railing around Europe

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

As you read this, I have already embarked on an inter-railing trip around Europe. Some of the cities in the itinerary:

Amsterdam
Cologne
Nürburgring (Rock Am Ring festival)
Prague
Bratislava

I’ll definitely post up some pictures when I get back. I planned this trip with a few classmates to coincide with the completion of our four year honours degree in Computer Science.

Final Year of Honours Degree, Complete

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

It has been a whirlwind four years, but this day marks the cessation of my full-time education for my honours degree. It is an overwhelming feeling of relief, joy, sadness and all of the emotions you feel when leaving an institution that has been a huge part of my life, if only for four short years.

The best part of my course has been without doubt, the friends for life I have made. I include everyone in my class in this, but some friends have been truly the best anyone could wish for. I dedicate this post to wishing all my classmates the very best in whatever they chose to do and hopefully we’ll all keep in touch!

Mobile Carrier Charges

Thu, 19 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This is an old box which contained a Nokia phone from a now defunct Esat Digifone. Irish Businessman Denis O’Brien started it and sold it to BT and made a fortune (and after got embroiled in a tribunal on accusations of impropriety). It is now called O2.I thought we got ripped off now with call charges now, how nostalgia can prove one wrong:

Waterfall

Sat, 14 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Took this picture while out walking my dogs. It was taken not far from Leixlip Louisa Bridge Railway Station, not far from Leixlip, Co. Kildare. It was taken with an iPhone 4 and edited in Instagram.

Cleaning your PS3's fans?

Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Below is a neat trick to clean out your Playstation 3’s fans if they become a bit noisy. Before I have used a can of compressed air, but this method is really neat and definitely lowered the fan sound emanating from my PS3.

<embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JhU4_Rm0GQU&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
</embed>

Thanks goes to my former classmate Alan Smith for alerting me to this, Thanks Al!

GeoCampus

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

For my final year project, I have done a web application on the concept of replacing traditional web applications. I picked an area I was deeply interested in, smart phones. I am an avid iPhone user and I have bought Android phones also, they are great devices I can’t imagine not having now that they are here. As part of my thesis I touched on the old way to develop apps, using Symbian C++ or J2ME and we’ve come a long, long way since then.

For those interested, I will publish copy of my thesis after November 2011. I won’t publish it here just yet, as the examiners have yet to pour over the contents and grade it.

Sennheiser HD595 Review

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

During last summer I purchased a set of Sennheiser HD595’s - a great product for Audiophiles. I have to say for someone who constantly listens to a lot of music - good headphones like these are a must. They are expensive for sure, but Sennheiser do seem to have a great durability and solid build quality. This is my first set of such high quality headphones, so bear that in mind - I can’t speak for other manufacturers in this space.

iPhone 4 Review

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I purchased the iPhone 4 shortly after its release in Summer 2010. I have obviously been so quick to review this device, the iPhone 5 is upon us! My philosophy for reviewing items is you have to live with them. Well boy have I lived with my iPhone 4! As I write this on it, I do marvel at how good the hardware is. I’ve dropped this extremely expensive device on occasions too numerous to count, so luckily it is designed well.

Thoughts on IPv6

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A multitude of websites have been reporting the impending doom of ipv4 exhaustion, which is going to happen soon. All the top level address’ will be gone, but the regional registries will still have stocks of address’ in to 2011. As a user of ipv6, I thought I could share sone thoughts/insights on the events ahead…

Below is a very good video which one of my favourite tech shows, Hak5 made with an IPv6 Consultant, Joe Klein.

Output Percentage of File (Bash code)

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote this script recently for a friend in a job who needed to output a certain percentage of a log file, but no more and no less. This was in Linux using bash, so I had a go at writing a solution, which you see below. Posting this up in case it’s useful to anyone else!

 # !/bin/sh # Public Domain, by Neil Grogan 2010 # Script
to output last 30% of file by lines

 OLDFILE=&quot;oldlog.txt&quot;
 NEWFILE="newlog.txt"
 PERCENT=0.7

 #Use wc to count lines
 LINES=$(wc -l $OLDFILE | awk '{ print $1}')

 #Linespercent = 2 decimal places, lines by percent, round to whole
 LINESPERCENT=$(echo "scale=2; $LINES*$PERCENT" | bc | xargs printf "%1.0f" )

 # Use tail to get last 30% and output, can use tail -s with sleep time to have it run on sched.
 tail -n $LINESPERCENT $OLDFILE >> $NEWFILE

Blogging like a H4x0r

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Apologies to those visiting my site recently because:

It hasn’t been updated recently
I have been changing hosts with it

Let me explain both of these! I have been searching for a good blogging engine ever since I have started blogging. I have yet to find the perfect one :) Some have come close in completeness (WordPress) or price and ease of use (blogger), but none has been all-encompassing. I messed around with a blogging engine called Jekyll about a year and a half ago, but I never ended up deploying it. I had my website most recently on Google Sites, and the ease of use was pretty good, but themes-wise it was pretty frustrating, also they force an ugly footer on all pages, yuck.

My Top Chrome Extensions

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Below I present some very useful extensions I use while using Google Chrome, in no particular order.

Adblock

Blocks ads just like Firefox extension and makes the web less junky to look at. You can whitelist good ads, and an argument could be had your harming websites revenue stream, but a lot of nasty tricks such as spyware, malware have used ads as a vector to spread. Not least the dishonesty some sites use in splitting up articles in to 10 pages to pump ad revenue.

KB SSL Enforcer

First Video Blog!

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Below is my first attempt at video blogging. If I get used to it it may be easier to explain my point of view or give reviews! I have liked hiding behind words up until this point, so this is a new venture with my iPhone 4.

YouTube Video

Please don’t be too harsh on me!
Location:Dublin, Ireland

iPad Evolution?

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Since Apple released an iPad there have been various competitors announced, so it got me thinking what would it take for me to buy one? I haven’t bought the first generation iPad because the lack of a camera on a device so obviously good for fullscreen video calls has baffled me. I guess they have to store up some ideas since they need a new hardware iteration every year, Apple’s revenue model depends on that vital hardware refresh cycle.

Alternative Interpretation of the Prodigy

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So I was listening to some music, thinking about the announcement today on Anglo Irish Bank that we have 32% national debt and my generation will be expected to pay that. Kind of depressing if you ask me, but no one does, ’cause the media has got that one all wrapped up. So I asked myself, is their anything new we can learn, while I was listening to the Prodigy classic� Breathe. So I came to the realisation there can’t be anything added, or can there?

Garmin Zumo 660 Motorcycle GPS

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been over a week since I received my Garmin Zumo 660 Motorcycle GPS unit. I thought I’d give it a run-down for potential buyers on my experience for the first week. Firstly I should mention, I’ve never owned another Garmin unit, and had two mobile GPS’ units before (one being Nokia N800 with Bluetooth external GPS and other Apple iPhone 3G). The reason I bring this up is that a lot of the reviews I’ve seen written compare it to it’s predecessor, Zumo 550, which obviously I can’t do.

BSc in Computing

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Wow… what a weird feeling, I have a degree under my belt. Three years, many friends and a lot of hard work later! The degree itself was based on my father’s business Grogan Burner Services, and trying to solve a real world problem of using Excel spreadsheets. We used Python, Google App Engine and a lot of Javascript to create a modern, sleek Customer Relationship Management system. All the code is open source, under GPLv3. Our thesis, including code is available below for those interested. We got top honours for the submission in ITB.

Haiku: Open Source BeOS clone

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I usually listen to podcasts on the excellent Twit.tv network and it goes without saying Floss Weekly is one of my favourites. A recent episode covered Haiku - an open source operating system based on the design of the old BeOS. What’s very interesting about BeOS is the design, an integrated all in one operating system - and the fact Apple almost purchased it. That’s amazing to me, literally in one fell swoop, if Apple had of offered the 200 million Be Systems wanted, there would be no NextStep into Apple and by extension - Steve Jobs. It’s especially poignant since Apple just surpassed Microsoft to become the second most valuable American company.

WebM promises Open Web Video

Sun, 30 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve written about my desire for open web video before, and now it looks as if it’s finally going to happen. Lead by Google’s acquisition of On2 technologies, the VP8 codec has been renamed as “WebM” and open sourced. Vorbis will be the audio. Matroska the container for the new format. An Open Source developer for x264 does a great teardown of the format vs. h.264 here. The patent minefield stateside is still not clear by any means, but with a strong backer like Google, it’s probably the best protection your going to get. Announcements, including links to nightlies, dev and beta channel browsers with WebM support are below:<

Honda Bros Motorcycle

Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I recently purchased - known as a cult motorbike - a Honda BROS (known in the US as a HawkGT). It is a 400cc V-Twin 1991 model, with 33BHP / 24.6Kw out of the factory. That put’s it under the legal limit for a learner motorcycle in the A category of license in Ireland. I’ve been progressing through bikes, slowly gaining confidence and experience. I posted about my Yamaha YQ50, My Yamaha YP125 (Majesty) and now it’s a Honda BROS’ turn!

A Bit of Bau

Mon, 03 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This is a 3rd Graphics project we presented as a group for Computer Science. I’d like to thank Mark and James, my team members, for all their hard work! The subject of Bauhaus was previously discussed in my graphical representation of a 3D chess set. The music is courtesy of Jamendo, and is free ;) Enjoy it the video!

Update: Also noticed Mark has a nice post on it also

Donating to Charity

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for a while, probably since 2006. (Almost) everyone that I know of donates to charity on a regular enough basis. I’m a college student so I don’t donate as much as I should. But it really annoys me how the “main” charities run a campaign of guilt and spend millions on it. I’ve donated money to all of these charities, the third world aid charities. All of them spend far too much on paying people commission and advertising. One that I can think of off hand is asking people who donated more than €250 to sign a form and send it back.

Computer Graphics: Bauhaus Chess Design

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

One of our projects this semester is to make a Bauhaus Chess set in a program called 3DS Max (created by Autodesk). 3DS Max is a modeling and animation tool built specifically for creating 3D representations and models. Being a lover of Open Source, when we we’re told although Blender was considered, it fell a bit short for some reason, so we had to use 3DS Max.

3DS Max is not bad to use, some of the tools are nice if your not an arty type (like me) and prefer more technical and structured things. Some of the effects (like glass and water) give a really nice effect to add to the model your designing. Also as part of the project we had to have an accompanying website, which you can view at bark4mark.com/bauhaus

Interview - Being a Woman in Computer Science

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

One topic that rarely gets coverage that I’ve seen is how women get along in male dominated environments, such as Computer Science. For me it has never mattered someone’s gender - I love using, tweaking and learning about computers and if you share that interest - the more, the better! It has been shown very young children are conditioned from a very young age by gender rules - shown by Prof. Robert Winston in Child of Our Time programme. So I’ve often wondered in a very skewed ratio of males to females (as generally there are more females than males in society) would affect a Woman’s choice of even considering Computer Science, since so few actually do. So I set about asking our class representative, Lauren Butler, her thoughts on Computers, doing Computer Science and being an authority figure in a male dominated class-room, my questions and her answers follow:

Technology New Years Resolutions

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Some people make new years resolutions about eating healthier, exercising more etc. I find that boring, who doesn’t want to be healthier? So I am making a list of technology resolutions:

Learn C in XCode on a Mac
Make an awesome CRM program for College degree (Python, Google App Engine)
Learn Vim and Emacs bindings, using them for code
Learn to use Git, possibly mercurial
Learn some Obj-C with Cocoa
Learn some C++ with Qt
Learn Python +Tcl /tk
Learn more about the design of Linux kernel and study some of it’s code
Do Sysadmin stuff on my server on Linode; like setting up Sendmail ,IRC Servers and other stuff
If I have time, investigate CakePHP, Django, maybe Ruby (on Rails?) and it’s ilk

That should keep me busy besides college and working! I didn’t include any security stuff, as we’re doing best practice for my honours degree next year. If anyone has any of their own, I’d love to see, or any resources to help me complete my list ^-^ Happy 2010!

Dogs chew things?

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Lesson learned: never leave a expensive. Take these pictures I shot after the dog attacked my motorcycle! I still love dogs as pets, they are man’s best friend and just like best friends they can screw up. The only thing I am most upset about now is the dog can’t pay for the repairs… Forgive and forget Fritzie? Thats a girl…

P.S. If anyone knows anyone thats in the seat repairing business, let me know! I can find almost any other part for my Yamaha YP125 other than a seat, grrrr

Best KDE/Linux?

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

via tuxradar.com For me it’s definitely Kubuntu, but I can see why they choose OpenSuSe. May I just mention the virtual machine builder system is awesome, pay attention Mr.Shuttleworth! Although PPA builds come a close second for useful online tools…

Why Should I Care What Color the Bikeshed Is?

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

“The really, really short answer is that you should not. The somewhat longer answer is that just because you are capable of building a bikeshed does not mean you should stop others from building one just because you do not like the color they plan to paint it. This is a metaphor indicating that you need not argue about every little feature just because you know enough to do so. Some people have commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is inversely proportional to the complexity of the change.”

Pulp Fiction theme

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

When I found this, I had to share it:

Cheesy Intel Ad

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Yamaha Majesty 400c Review

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I own a Majesty 125cc 2002. The video below is the updated (and more powerful) model:

(Some of the) New features:

2x the amount of space
Parking break (for hills! Think handbrake if your a car driver)
Liquid-cooled 400cc
ABS brakes
Dual Halogen Headlights
Larger rear lights
Csr-like oversize dials on dash

It looks good, good, good. I haven’t looked at price, but my last two bikes are Yamaha and I’ve had little trouble with them. I like the bigger bikes that have loads of built in storage (panniers look a bit unnatural) and a bike that’s confident in itself to not have to show off it’s braun but rather it’s brains with good safety and road handling ;)

Sony Subsidises Supercomputers for the US Military?

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Ars has a great article about how Sony through the Playstation 3’s awesome power (can’t you tell which of this generations consoles I own?) and subsidy (based on recoup of selling games and hardware - a model pioneered with the PS1)

With respect to cell processors, a single 1U server configured with two 3.2GHz cell processors can cost up to $8K while two Sony PS3s cost approximately $600. Though a single 3.2 GHz cell processor can deliver over 200 GFLOPS, whereas the Sony PS3 configuration delivers approximately 150 GFLOPS, the approximately tenfold cost difference per GFLOP makes the Sony PS3 the only viable technology for HPC applications.

Nuclear Power Debates... why not in Ireland?

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Some really informative stuff on Slashdot regarding nuclear power:

by david.given (6740)
France generates pretty much all of its electricity from nuclear, with reprocessing, using pressurised water reactors. Not only do they have a number of handy engineering benefits such as isolating the water loop through the reactor from the water loop through the turbines, but they also have a particularly useful safety feature in that they’re self-regulating — temperature goes up, power output goes down. France has an excellent safety record; I can find only one major incident, which was a coolant spill in 2008. They even do their own waste reprocessing into plutonium, which is then reused to generate more power. Unaccountably, terrorists don’t seem to have stolen any of it.

Is a Mac Pro overpriced?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Gizmodo seem to think so:

The $2,500 Mac Pro, desperately in need of a refresh, gives you a 2.66GHz Quad-Core Xeon (essentially an i7), 3GB of RAM (triple channel, but seriously?), 640GB hard drive (again, seriously?) and a nominal graphics card. Spend $800 more and you’ll get a another processor and 3GB more RAM.

The $2200, 27-inch iMac obviously includes a screen, plus you get a 2.8GHz Quad-Core (i7), 1TB drive, 4GB of RAM and a nominal graphics card.

3G Coverage in Ireland

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I recently used Twitter to post about my journey on public transport from Kilkenny to Dublin. For people outside of Ireland the total Journey distance was about 90 miles.

I used only my iPhone on the O2 network and close to 50% of the time it seemed like I had 3G. This was on a train moving at speed, and YouTube played very well with little to no stutter. It did drop to Edge the other half of the time, with about 30% of time I still got speeds web browsing was acceptable on. So in summary: 80% of the time it was possible to surf the web.

iPhone 3G Review

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I recently got an iPhone 3G and away from all that Apple mania; I thought I would give an honest review. This is framed in the mindset of all the past Nokia devices (which I have posted about here also) which I have owned.

Okay so where to start? Well I think a good place would be what I could have bought instead. Strange place for a review; but its good to see what is out there and what I was looking at beforehand.

Eircom Responds...

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Dear,
[My Name]

eircom has not agreed to block any Internet sites from being accessed by
end-users. As part of the settlement of the above proceedings, it was
agreed that eircom would not oppose an application by the Plaintiffs to
seek to have eircom block access to the Pirate Bay website. The Music
Industry will still have to establish, in the normal way that there is
an appropriate basis for the relief which they seek from the Court.
eircom is not supporting or consenting to the application. The
settlement makes no provision for any site other than the Pirate Bay
website.

Love letter to IRMA's Solicitor

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This post is a continuation on the previous one. IRMA is the Irish Music Rights Organisation which represents the big four record companies and their bottom line: never the artist. They have recently tried to regulate the Internet and have forced the biggest Irish ISP: Eircom; to use the three strikes rule and boot people off the Internet… No Judge, no Jury, no evidence of a crime.. Just an IP address and a sanction which you cannot contest.

This post is censored by IRMA

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I always hoped for better for Ireland; but it seems the thieving hand of “rights” organizations which pretend to represent the artist have struck gold. Being able to cajole and bribe the largest Irish Internet Service Provider (ISP) - Eircom; has worked only too well. Although Eircom has said it will only obey by having a court order - it has agreed never to oppose these - which makes it complicit in the act of censorship. My Letter to Our ISP, Eircom, IRMA, EFF:

Linux Desktop Environments?

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

What are Desktop Environments? Wikipedia defines it as:

In graphical computing, a desktop environment (DE) commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface …… A desktop environment typically consists of icons, windows, toolbars, folders, wallpapers, and desktop widgets. (See WIMP.)

I would add a file manager and browser to this list also! Let’s look at the two most popular consumer Operating Systems (in three variants) and their Desktop Environments:

Ubuntu in four years

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Last year was me celebrating four years of using the best operating system out there: Linux and the best distro Ubuntu. Ubuntu was my first foray in to Linux; and I haven’t left it since; although I have tried all the other major distros. I started with the first version of Ubuntu; Warthy Warthog:

Warthy had a text only installer and it took me quite a while to not only get used to the idea of this strange operating system; but the fear of leaving Windows-land where all that power usage knowledge would mean nothing. It meant nothing in terms of the registry and other superficial stuff; but the more I used Ubuntu and Linux the more I liked it. In fact in 2005 I ditched my XP installation altogether. I noticed there wasn’t an Irish Ubuntu users group; so I mailed one of the few people (around 5 I guess) that were around Mark Shuttleworth to set it up and get a website going. It was an ill-advised effort since I was too busy with examinations really to take it on; so I gave it up soon after. But it is still going today, people are still involved.

KDE 4.2 Beta 2

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I downloaded the Kubuntu packages of the new KDE 4.2 beta 2. For those of you who don’t know; KDE is the K Desktop Environment; which includes a window manager (KWin), common desktop applications, its own menu (Kickoff), browser (Konqueror), file manager (dolphin) etc. Basically it is the most popular desktop environment on Linux next to Gnome.

*KDE 4.2 Beta 2 with Kickoff Menu visible

**What is so special about KDE? **
The philosophy of KDE is the advanced configuration it allows through its Graphical User Interface (GUI), this is versus Gnome which chooses sane defaults and leaves configuration in hard to reach places and out-of-sight. This isn’t to say KDE doesn’t choose sane defaults; it does and is very user-friendly. KDE has always been the more Windows-like of the major desktop environments and this hasn’t really changed in KDE 4.X series. KDE is available in popular distributions of Linux such as Kubuntu, Mandriva, OpenSuse. The special part about 4.X series is that for the first time for any Linux desktop environment; it is fully cross-platform, easily installs and works on Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X.

KDE 4.2 Panel; with KOrganizer calendar open

Firefox and Opera lead the web video way

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I downloaded Firefox 3.1 beta 2 (after trialling other development snapshots over the last few months) to see Ogg Theora video support is coming on really well. Opera, as well as Mozilla has committed to including this royalty-free video codec for web use. This is really good news; as one Opera Developer said:

Something however is still not quite there about web video. The video solutions mentioned above are proprietary closed solutions that rely on plugins to display in a web page - what we need to make video a first-class web citizen is an easy, open solution to integrate video into web pages, and native support for video in browsers.

Profiling Firefox Extensions I have installed

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My Current Firefox Extensions: A-Z*
Adblock Plus; because ads are for people that don’t know how to avoid them! Not only do they stop your banwidth from being wasted; they make a ton of websites more usuable. It takes care of Flash Ads as well as static ones; using a filter that is constantly updated. So even if some of the webs more devious and sneaky advertisers try to circumvent it; AdBlock can have a fix to everyone online within hours. It is definately my favourite extension! I don’t block certain ads like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft (the ones with decent reputations) as that is how the people behind really good websites I frequent make a living. But for all the rest trying to do pop-ups and pop-unders; I am sorry your days are numbered! (Some people higly recommend flashblock but I haven’t had a need to use it with AdBlock Plus yet).

CustomizeGoogle adds neat tricks to Google services such as always using a secure connection to Gmail; links to other search engines, page histories, Favicons to search and streaming results pages. Comes in handy once in a while; but I don’t use it daily.

Research proves video games lack harm

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I am not a big gamer; I primarily love systems and how they work. I do own a PS3 (amazing hardware I might add) and I prefer FPS and generally devious natured video games (like the GTA franchise). Does that make me a bad person who wants to kill people? Of course not; nothing could be further from the truth. But some people stick their fingers in their ears and shout “LA LA LA Columbine LALALA Terrorists LALALA Violent Video Games!”. They say it is destructive to childrens young precious minds. The “Think of The Children” argument always disgusted me; its like shouting Fire in a packed room when their is no danger: it is false, just to garner attention and a sickening twisted version of the facts. Are violent video games harmful to kids? Probably; I wouldn’t advocate giving them access since they; just like movies are clearly rated for Adults. *

SSH Guide

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

**Note: This Guide was written for use by my Computer Science class

on Linux (and Mac OS X where noted). I haven’t used SSH on Windows; but hopefully someone can make sure this guide works also on Windows by noting differences). SSH comes with nearly all Linux distros and all Mac OS X releases.
**

OS Specific Colours: Linux - Mac OS X - Windows
**
**
**Download SSH For Windows
**

Web Multimedia Project 1

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

As part of Computer Science you do a couple of general modules which are general in nature about computing; but I think that just reflects the broad use of IT in every part of society today. As things go digital or are created digitally; understanding of this concept is vital; that is where Web Multimedia comes in. For my first project of this second year; I had to do a movie made of stills with custom sound effects. Restrictions on sources of images and sounds (very high percentage had to be self made). Here it is:

Gmail Video Chat

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I am an avid Gmail user through Google Apps. I use the calender, chat, code, sites, pages, docs the whole lot. One of my friends even jokes “You should just work at Google Marketing”. Yes I like most of Google’s products; but I am a products guy; I use whats good, cheap and fast (pick two). Google has the cheap down due to ad-revenue; for the moment anyways in the current financial turmoil.

Innovation Right Here - Dept. of Education is Wrong

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I usually get both of Ireland’s daily national papers to my email inbox every morning. I think it’s very important to catch up on the latest news; as I think you are more informed and have conversation pieces to talk to people (for those awkward silences where “Ye the weather is terrible” just won’t do). So I was highly informed when I read this piece: DCU head hits out at ‘out-of-date’ O’Keeffe.

Domo Arigato, Mr.Roboto

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Seriously: what an awesome song. Every Geek should love it! It’s got the famous line “My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain IBM”. If this is not in every Geeks top ten songs; then I resign! I even listen to it as I type this! Anyways enough sounding like a DJ who just got his Payola check off the RIAA; I’ll just post the free video so y’all can watch…. :

Hurling - Four in a row?

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

One cannot help but be amazed at Kilkenny; true masters of the Irish Gaelic Sport of hurling. I mean as my previous posts mention I have moved to Kilkenny; and rural South Kilkenny at that. They live and breath Hurling down here: it’s literally a way of life. That is why they are so good; no mystery here folks: its is literally bred into children in schools and everyone plays it. More people playing means even though Kilkenny is only around 100,000 people it still has a large amount of people to pick from and they get the best training which equals the best results.

Geek Thug - "I Had to Beat Up a Girl"

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I just read one of the most informative and insightful blog posts of my entire life. Half serious a guy takes a look back at when he had to beat up a Girl. Weird stuff!

Yes, you read that right, I had to beat up a girl … not a woman. She was asking for it and she deserved it.

I Had to Beat Up a Girl

Yamaha YQ Aerox - best moped ever?

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Well I think so! Got one there 2 months ago and forgot to write a blog post about it. I got a ‘01 model for a bargain price I believe; but this theory has yet to be tested (I’ll wait for a year to be up). As I mentioned before in previous posts my parent’s house is now in a remote location with no train/buses anywhere nearby. So transport was essential! At this time also there was a major crack down on learner drivers not being accompanied by a fully licensed driver (of two years). So by the time I’d saved the money for the car; got 10 lessons and convinced anyone I knew with over two years full driving experience to accompany me; even to work - was just to much hassle - hence the moped which has no such onerous requirements. In fact only one it does really have is that you can’t have passengers - I won’t be carrying anyone anyways - so I am not too bothered. Anyhoo take a look at the photos I took when I got it. I have done it up since then: new tyres, resprayed exhaust, full service; new mirrors; repaired exhaust; flushed out radiator and put in proper coolant just to name a few. So it sounds allot better and drives better than ever!

Wordpress 2.6

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Open Source star of the blogging world…

Summer - One Month On.....

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Well one month in Summer 2008! Summer has been okay so far; I’ve had nothing much to report hence lack of Tech posts. Sure the iPhone 3G looks good, Google/Yahoo/Microsoft spats interesting but after a while it become a bit circular and repetitive.

I’ve recently started working at the UK’s leading retailer for touring/car/bike and accessories; as well as a move to the south east of Ireland; that much further to the capital: Dublin. It’s Ireland’s smallest city and home to Ireland’s very first Parliament about 400 years ago: Kilkenny. It’s steeped in culture and it’s the only city in Ireland to rival Dublin’s culture, nightlife and restaurants and hold it’s own.

I've decided - I'm decidedly middle class

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I had a trip in to the faire capital city of Ireland today: Dublin. Okay I’ll get this out of the way: I had a Frappacino in Starbucks and I’m a student; so not too poor of a student ;)

But I saw the inside of Brown Thomas for the first time. I don’t shop for fashion at all: but what I found was the kind of vulgarity and fake-ness I’d expect of London or New York; not Dublin. To paraphrase Bono: “In America if you have your mansion on a hill people look up to you and think ‘I want to be like him and afford a house like that one day’; if you have the same mansion in Ireland people say ’look at the fucken eejit on the hill with that house; thinks he’s god or sumthen’” and that to me was always an endearing part of Irish culture; people around you being the great leveller if you thought you were the bomb. Inside BT (Brown Thomas) was all the names you’d expect; all the major names more at home in Paris, London or New York. I confronted my friend who was showing me round about my opinions (in my usual polite manner: just say it). To my surprise he agreed 110%. Yes he said: for the people who buy this stuff can tell who else is wearing it; and I think he meant that by this logic movers and shakers also wore all the brands to look the part. Soon after he told me he was also learning Golf because he knew it would be a great benefit for his future career: “All important people also play golf” he assured me.

Will Google Buy Skype?

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been all over the tech news world lately; apparently Google is muling over taking Skype off of Ebay’s hands. Ebay has already written down the value of Skype as a large loss on their purchase price of $2.6 billion in stock and cash. But would Skype’s G-branded future be any better?

I think it would be. Skype is a strong international brand for voice calls, instant messaging and video calls; but of course it competes directly with Google Talk. Skype as a company has made a lot of mistakes; but they actually produces some of the best technology for p2p VOIP out there in the marketplace. Skype is particularly strong in redundancy, cost of network operation (since it’s p2p every user carries’ each others traffic; most people have no idea of this fact) and routing around the most draconian network admins out their through their routers.

Letter to EU Commissioner on 95 Year Copyright Extension [Updated]

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I recently read a Slashdot article “EU Commissioner proposes 95 year copyright”. I am a staunch supporter of the European project; or at least the ideals it is based on to create a peaceful, demcratic union of countries with a common background and share similiar goals. Intrigued by the article I read it only to find out that a local man who used to represent my area was responsible. I had to write to him to ask how he lost his mind….

Why I think Amarok rocks....

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I just purchased an Amarok hoodie andt-shirt; and I couldn’t be happier supporting one of my favourite open source projects! What makes it so good? Have you ever heard of Amarok? Chances are if your an OS X or Windows user; you haven’t. All this is about to change! The amarok team are busy porting it from it’s UNIX underpinnings to Windows and OS X.

Whats to like about Amarok then?
also is cool phonetically: am a rock!

A few days with A Nokia N810

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I last discussed the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet in October; when details were only starting to filter out. It wasn’t expected for Nokia to introduce an upgrade to the N800 Internet Tablet (which I also reviewed here) so soon. I certainly don’t envy the position of a small team getting the hardware and software for a mini-computer right in such a short space of time. But needless to say the N810 feels right; in fact it feels more right than the N770 which I thought had the best design of all (be it functionality not so much style). The N810 has bags of style; in a flashy brand-new-car sort of way; it looks expensive and I believe Nokia plays to this in their pricing.

Apple Mac OS X: the most popular Desktop Unix?

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Apple does it again: explosive growth in the computer market, no doubt in part to its Macbook/Macbook Pro line of laptops. As Ars Technica points out:

As predicted last quarter, however, Apple broke its tie for third place with Gateway by shipping 1.33 million units and growing by a whopping 37.2 percent (double that of any other US vendor) from third quarter 2006 to claim 8.1 percent of the US market for the quarter. These numbers also continue the company’s trend of steadily gaining market share every two quarters for at least the past year.

Nokia N810 Tablet to hit the shops soon...

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Nokia have announced an upgrade to the N800 Internet tablet, called the N810. I suspect its called that because it is more of an incremental upgrade than a total visual refresh it was going from an Nokia 770 to N800. Here it is:

(Picture Courtesy: Internet Tablet Talk)

It sports a nice new hardware keyboard; inbuilt GPS (For satellite mapping) and OS 2008 (an upgrade to the operating system it runs). The N800 will also benefit from OS 2008, which will include GoogleTalk, Skype, Mozilla browser, among the usual such as its email client, media player, file manager, control panel, assorted games and an image/PDF viewer. The one feature it will emit is an inbuilt FM Radio, which was axed to make the N810 a smaller tablet. It still retains the best screen size for web browsing, bluetooth connectivity, and of course Wifi which is central to the tablets existance! No word on what easter eggs are included if any; on the N800 it was a radio and the N770 it was the microphone. Engadget has a great writeup on it, choc-a-bloc full of high resolution photos with size comparisons to Apples iPhone.

Linux and Patents: Just Patently Wrong

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

So I read the news Novell and Red Hat are being sued for patent infringement. This is all about multiple workspaces that can hold various graphical user elements, a Xerox Parc patent which dates to the early 1990’s. Xerox Palo Alto Research center invented the graphical user interface in the 1980’s, only to been, licensed and used by Steve Jobs in Mac OS Classic. Now IP Innovation, a submarine patent troll, who make no products and bought the patent want their payday. The logical step is to go after the biggest infringer to set a precedent for your patent, and then make your way to all the smaller companies who infringe. Well logically of course that would be Apple or Microsoft. Apple has already paid them a reported 20 million dollars, and well no-one knows what Microsoft has done, but this fish is smelly. From the Register Article:

Planning the Computer Build

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Planning to build a computer can be fun also. Researching parts, making sure they work well together (if they are on Manufacturers QVL). Making a list of all the parts you need is the beginning of the purchasing, assembly and then seeing your machine in action! Lots of guides online help with the planning stage; but nearly all are advice and tips. How do you know which is biased? Are the benchmarks relevant to what you are building your machine for? Probably not most of the time. If you’re not a hardcore gamer like myself, your machine can mid-range and cheaper than a pre-built solution, saving you money. I am using my machine as a long term investment: I plan to have it long into the future and just replace components. I think that could save me at least €3000 over ten years (two €1,500 machines every 5 years, not beyond possibility) if not more. I can also re-use perfectly good parts when my other machines have departed to that big waste recycling plant in the sky.

Computer Systems - Dismantling PC's is fun!

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I found a new pastime: dismantling pc’s. It my not sound like great fun, but its a challenge to do it right and make sure you don’t break your pc at the end of it all. Nothing feels of so much relief when you see the BIOS boot up again after ripping everything you can out and cramming it all back in. It stands to you in developing problem solving skills, which of course employers love. It is so much more visual than any theory, plus it is what the majority of people like: physical objects like Lego going together. I am writing this on a computer I stripped everything out of at the moment: a Dell 3100c, a Celeron D machine I bought in August of last year. Today I dismantled a very old Optiplex PIII, and the difference between the machines is marked, even though there are only a few years between them. I have included some photos below to show the inside internals:

Apple - Play Nice....

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Is the much beloved Apple the new Microsoft? First there was IBM, the big all crushing corporate machine that was humbled by the next big giant in the form of Microsoft, so it seems Apple’s turn is long overdue. The next few weeks are crucial to this crossroads in which Apple finds itself: It owes a HUGE amount to the BSD (an open source Unix clone) which is the foundation for not just OS X, but the iPhone and now the iPod Touch. Basically without the kernel that runs these fantastic devices, Apple would still be up shit creek without a paddle. Granted the iPod would have been a huge success probably still, but OS X’s core is the foundation for the real money making Apple will do over the next few years, a point that is not lost on Mr. Jobs as the company intelligently markets different segments to different markets of which I have first hand experience of: Go to the Apple site for education and they extol the brilliance of a Macbook and make they deal sweeter by throwing in an iPod Nano. But if you go to a link I was provided in a college advert; they bring to a page pointing out key areas a mac can make a difference. I picked Computer Science naturally, and the site extolled the virtues of Open Source, a Unix base and programming tools like Xcode.

Comp Sci - An Interview with Stanford's Undegraduate Professor

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This is the guy who runs Stanford University Undergraduate programme. He talks about the future of computer science:

Computer Science will evolve more than most other subjects as it expands into other areas, especially Biology and other areas people don’t normally associate with it
Industry ties with Colleges are going to be very important
Computer Science with Law is the next big area

Thanks to Robert Scoble for doing the interview.

Review of the Official Ubuntu Book, Second Edition (2007)

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The Ubuntu Book (2nd Edition) is a nicely put together book for dealing with the Linux operating system in a number of clearly laid out and well presented chapters. Chapters are as follows:

Introducing Ubuntu
Installing Ubuntu
Using Ubuntu on the Desktop
Advanced Usage and Managing Ubuntu
Ubuntu Server
Support / Typical Problems
Using Kubuntu
Ubuntu Community
Ubuntu-Related Projects
Using Edubuntu

This book is a very complete introduction and contains suprising elements related to finding out and joining the community of users - which you will not find in other Ubuntu Books (such as O’Reilly’s Ubuntu Hacks) which make it a unique and worthwhile addition to any Ubuntu users personal library. It is most helpful to new users to Ubuntu, which sections on installing and help with problems that could be faced. Having said that, it falls short on the amount of truly unique information that it contains - most of the books contents can be found on the web. What you are paying for is a well-laid out, well written account of the Ubuntu-sphere and all that goes along with it.

Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I have got a place in a 4 year Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Computing, or more commonly known as Computer Science (or comp sci as I am lazy and like to abbreviate). This means I might be blogging slightly less sometimes, but it should be a hell of a lot more interesting and I promise to keep my posts not too technical as I have up to this point.

I would like to thank you all for subscribing and I hope you’ll enjoy what is to come in the future!!

Microsoft settles with Eolas over Internet Explorer

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has settled with Eolas over a number of patents regarding browser plugins which chicago based Eolas filed patents for in 1998. A jury in Chicago then found Microsoft guilty of infringing on Eolas’ patents and was told to pay $521m US Dollars in ‘damages’. That ruling was overturned and a fresh trial ordered which was due to start very soon, but it seems Microsoft has decided to pay out:

Gutsy coming along, Update to Dell Windows Refund..

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I just tried Herd 5 of Gutsy Gibbon, a beta release which will be Ubuntu 07.10 released in October. Obviously it is still early stages and a lot of things aren’t working quite as they should, but it looks very promising. Here’s some new stuff which should hit the final release:

Compiz Fusion - Pretty Graphics that leave you in awe…
Bullet Proof X - Making sure you’ll never see a terminal prompt not of your own choosing, basically the graphics server should be ‘bulletproof’
Appearance Manager - Making it easier to change yourbuntu’s look and feel
Better Driver Support - More of those restricted drivers to make sure you can see your screen and use your wifi card
Simplified Codecs install - It will now be painless, install ubuntu-restrictedcodecs (or kubuntu-restricted codecs) and you can see Youtube in all its glory, play a dvd, watch that porno WMV file (just kidding but I think thats all WMV is used for) and other such niceties of the propreitry world we have to put up with
Firefox Codecs Plugin - Firefox will be hooked up to the package manager and prompt to install Flash/Java if you haven’t got it already, much the same way it prompts to get a codec when you throw a file at it that it cannot play in the movie player. The free software Gnash replacement for Flash will come as standard and can play Youtube Vids.
Dual Screen Glory - If your like me you have a nice and small portable laptop, but that screen just won’t do all of the time, thats why I personally have a 19" to plug my 13" MacBook into. With Gutsy I should be able to plug and play over DVI.

These are just some of the features that are being worked on for the final release. Probably not all of them on the list will get into Gutsy final, but lets hope they do! Gutsy+1 (slated for release April 2008) has been announced as “Hardy Hereon” and should be a long term release (5 years server and 3 years desktop updates and patches).

Dell refunds me for Windows!

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

As many of you know I am a Linux and Mac aficionado. For my Linux machines, all of them are Dell. I have been always pleased with Dells prices, how their machines work with Linux, their customer service and the fact they are made in Limerick, Ireland (I am from Ireland). I politely emailed Dell (well got up on my high horse), heres my first mail:

I would like a refund of Windows XP since I am installing Ubuntu Linux on the computer when I get it. When I turn on the computer I am going to decline the EULA, and I am within my rights to request this refund (as part of Irish consumer laws). This also applies in Britian, see here: ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6144782.stm )

Have you got viruses or spyware? Here's my tips!

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I come into contact everyday with people asking how to fix their machines due to the inevitable spyware and viruses found on a Windows machine. Lately I have been switching people to Ubuntu, and even getting them to buy machines to install it on (Dell). But I understand and have no zealotry for Linux when it comes to fixing peoples’ real world problems. I always mention Ubuntu as a matter of course, and also Macs. I follow up peoples Ubuntu installs with friendly emails explaining the free help open to them, but also as common (probably moreso) are my emailed tips to people guiding them how to fix there Windows XP computer. So I’ll list the steps here which are generic and should help anyone out their with such problems; this is not a miracle cure and I fix these problems on a case by case basis, so expect better perfromance, but not a new computer!!

Seven financial reasons not to use Windows

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I recently read a very insightful article on 7 factors every company should seriously consider about Microsoft Windows, here they are summarised:

Licensing Costs

Everyone in the IT industry today knows that proprietary operating systems and the applications that run on them will cost you a lot of money on licensing fees. According to a recent Forrester study, U.S. companies overall are expected to spend $100 billion on software maintenance in 2007.

HP to Follow Dell into Open Source? and Ubuntu Home Server

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

HP it seems is responding to Dell’s initiative to sell Ubuntu on their computers. With the Ubuntu Dells reportedly selling very well and Dell rolling out the program worldwide, this hasn’t escaped the notice of the world’s number one computer manufacturer - HP. This is speculation from blogs that has been going on for months since Dell started to offer Ubuntu. The Direct to Dell Blog states:

This recent post from Tom Dryer caught my eye a couple of days ago, and thought I’d comment on it here. If the rumors about HP offering Ubuntu are true, we’re glad to see other vendors join us in support of Ubuntu and open source. We welcome HP and other system vendors that want to join in this initiative.

Windows Vista Security - Better than Linux?

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

After reading a nice article written by Jeff Jones, a security researcher for Microsoft. He says he isn’t biased, saying he worked over 75% of his career outside Microsoft, using Slackware Linux, Unix, HP Unix etc. He claims Windows Vista has less security holes than popular versions of Linux, such as Ubuntu (he also compares Red Hat, Novell, Mac OS X). First let me say why his facts are distorted, and why he knows his facts are distorted. His facts do raise an issue of slow patching of vulnerabilities across the software Industry, but Linux performs the best consistently because anyone can audit the code. Here’s why his comparisons are uneven:

Threats to Democracy

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

After reading about Tom Cruise being banned from filming at certain German military sites because of his belief in Scientology, I was a bit outraged at first, despite my abhorrence of their beliefs, which I think are crazy and nonsensical.

Germany has barred the makers of a movie about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler from filming at German military sites because its star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, the Defence Ministry said on Monday. Cruise, also one of the film’s producers, is a member of the Church of Scientology which the German government does not recognise as a church. Berlin says it masquerades as a religion to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject.

Leopard - Worth the wait?

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

If you haven’t heard of Apple’s latest Operating system, have a look at Wikipedia Article on Mac OS X Leopard. Here are some of the features:

Time Machine: an automated backup utility which allows the user to restore files that have been deleted or replaced by another version of a file.
Front Row currently only available with the purchase of a new Mac, but will be included with Leopard. It has been reworked to closely resemble the interface used by the Apple TV.
Photo Booth, currently only available with the purchase of a new Mac, but will be included with Leopard.
Spaces: an implementation of “virtual desktops” (individually called “spaces”), allowing users to have multiple desktops per user and be able to place certain applications and windows in a desktop. Users can organize certain Spaces for certain applications (i.e., one for work-related tasks and one for entertainment) and switch between them. Exposé will work inside Spaces, allowing the user to see at a glance all desktops on one screen.[9])
Spotlight incorporates additional search capabilities such as Boolean operators, as well as the ability to search other computers (with permissions).
Redesigned Finder: a redesigned Finder based on iTunes 7.
New Desktop: a redesigned desktop, which is comprised of a redesigned 3-D dock which uses a new feature called Stacks, as well as a new menu-bar which adapts itself to the desktop so menu-bar text is easily readable.
Quick Look This allows documents to be viewed without actually opening them in an external application.
Universal access: significant improvements to applications including VoiceOver, along with increased support for Braille, closed captioning and a new text-to-speech engine.
Enhancements to Mail including the additions of RSS feeds, Stationery, Notes, and to-dos. To-dos use a system-wide service that is available to all applications.
Dashboard enhancements, including Webclip, a feature that allows users to turn a part of any web page into a live Dashboard widget, and Dashcode to help developers code widgets.[14]
iChat enhancements, including multiple logins, animated icons, and tabbed chats, similar to features present in Pidgin, Adium and the iChat plugin Chax; iChat Theater, allowing users to incorporate images from iPhoto, presentations from Keynote, and videos from QuickTime into chats; and Backdrops, which are similar to chroma keys, but use a real-time difference matte technique which does not require a green or blue screen. iChat will also implement desktop sharing, a feature previously available with Apple Remote Desktop.[15][16][17]
Enhancements to Parental controls include the ability to place restrictions on use of the Internet and to set parental controls from anywhere using remote setup.
iCal calendar sharing and group scheduling.
Leopard will also include the software assistant known as Boot Camp, which has been available as a beta release download for Mac OS X v10.4 from Apple’s website since April 5, 2006.This assists the installation of Windows XP or Windows Vista to a separate partition (or separate internal drive) on Intel-based Macs.
Menu Bar The new menu bar is now transparent and is no longer rounded like all previous Mac OS versions.
Safari 3.0 will be included.

While some seem to be not impressed by Leopard, it is by all accounts an OS upgrade, with every major application recieving attention. To me I am overjoyed the finder is getting a revamp, though I am not certain following iTunes layout is such a good idea. I think this is Steve Jobs (CEO. Apple Inc) idea to “switch” windows people since they already use iTunes, although I am not sure it is the right path. I choose Mac OS X because its unique, it has a fresh take on how a user interacts with a computer, moreso than Linux (which adopts tried and true in the case of Gnome and KDE), and certainly Windows which has only tweaked the look since Windows 95: its the same concept. The fanning out of dock icons, and grouping them won’t be used by the vast majority of users: its the same reason they don’t use “smart” folders: its a feature that has little in the way of wide appeal. I know the same can be said of the dashboard, and I personally will most likely end up buying and using fanning out and collections in Leopard, but my experience of novices is that they are afraid of the unknown.

HP Photosmart R927 Review

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I just bought a HP Photosmart R927, an 8 Megapixel camera from Hewlett-Packard. While I had seen and briefly used one before, I was excited again upon using my own one (as all tech people are [read: geeks]). First of all don’t confuse me as anyway into photography: I’m not and far from it. I had a criteria in mind when I purchased and this was it:

Must work under any OS (Windows [a given], Mac and Linux [latter two I only use])

Every camera I have come across mounts as a disc drive [think looking at files on a cd or your local computer], but there is also PTP or “Picture Transfer Protocol” in other words it doesn’t appear as picture files, rather PTP triggers your computer to open your camera in your photo application. I was unsure if this PTP would work under Mac or Linux, since I had only briefly seen it as an option in digiKam. It turns out on Mac there is Image Capture, and Ubuntu (My Linux distribution of choice) it automatically detects it and asks to import photos intoF-Spot.

Bill Gates lists Vista 'innovations'

Tue, 29 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Hard to believe really, Mr.Gates lists Windows Vista ‘innovations’. Now Apple has been shipping everything he mentions since 2005, and I have tried Vista, it doesn’t even surpass Apples’ attempt at the software (which should be his aim). Some things have been around for years, but it’s how well your software can do it is the key. Personally I wouldn’t tout features that another competitor does better, but thats just me. It seems irresponsible and unbelieveable the head of a public company can say and get away with this - not knowing the competition that is. I wouldn’t trust my money to anyone who does not keep up with the latest and greatest trends in the industry.

Dell Sells Ubuntu 7.04

Sat, 26 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Dell Computers has started selling Ubuntu Linux 7.04 on consumer machines in the United States. This can only be good news, as a supporter of Linux since late 2004/early 2005 I am fully behind this initiative to put Linux as a choice in front of people who buy computers. They are testing the market at the moment which explains why they are shipping stock drivers with the hardware, and no multimedia codecs (which is unfortunate, but understandable that this deal was done in 60 days). I think this is quite an achievement for Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu Founder), as they get to do the traditional Linux business model: you pay for support, and if you don’t need it, you don’t buy it. This could confuse some people in the shorter term, but long term its a winner: Dell does what it does best (Hardware) and Software is left to Ubuntu’s parent company Canonical. This is opposed to Microsoft getting Dell to provide support for both hardware and software, sometimes a messy business in which the consumer does not know which to turn to and can often be left out in the cold. I hope Dell extends this to Europe and 6the rest of the world soon, and makes a decent stab at promoting a free software desktop. Dell list advantages in one of their videos:

Update on RTE and the Creative Commons

Thu, 17 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Unbeknownst to me, with my quick thinking on the positive developments regarding CBS releasing democratic debates under a permissive license in the United States has caused quite a few Irish bloggers to echo my call on RTE’s stance on releasing the Irish Election 2007 debates. If you agree we should be allowed to download, remix and share the debates while giving RTE credit for production, please:

Sign the Petition!

Irish Elections and Creative Commons

Sun, 06 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This is the text of an email I sent to RTE. In America, CNN Television network is allowing the copying, remixing and free use of presidential debates as long as they are given credit, I believe RTE should follow its lead and extend to other programs:

First of all, sorry this isn’t to the right department, I couldn’t find the right one. The technical department which runs the website would make likely be able to deal with and respond to this issue.

Kerataconus and Me

Sun, 06 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Well this is not a technology related post, but I get asked about it alot and people have sketchy details about what it is (ie. they know my vision is messed up). Keratoconus (from Greek: kerato- horn, cornea; and konos cone), is a degenerative non-inflammatory disorder of the eye in which structural changes within the cornea cause it to thin and change to a more conical shape than its normal gradual curve. In plain English, light bends in a distorted way to make vision ghosted, blurry and less sharp. Glasses cannot fix this problem as they fix issues with your natural lense behind the cornea, as usually it has improper focus.

Ultimate Games Disc

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I got inspiration over this past Easter holidays, being bored, I gave Linux Gaming a shot. I am not much of a gamer myself and most websites aren’t very helpful or have too small a focus (only shoot-em-ups, or only certain Linux distros etc.). Inspired by the fine folks at OpenSourceMac.org and OpenSourceWindows.org, I announce my own project: Ultimate Games Disc. UGD is a project I think I can make very successful. My aims are as follows:

Apple / EMI Deal - Thank the EU?

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I heard the news one hour before it was announced: Apple and EMI are going Digital Rights Management (DRM) free, albeit at a slightly higher cost and quality. One of my pet hates is people who bash the European Union, often citing I will admit its not glowing charachteristics. These same people never admit the things Europe does right, which may well be this hopefully landslide affect against destroying DRM. To quote The Register:

My Top 10 Applications of 2007

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a few items I’d like to share with everyone as I find them extremely useful, hopefully you will too, thats if you have never used them! My Top 10 Apps of 2007 in descending order:

10. Spybot Search and Destroy

Always a must on spyware infested Windows XP installs I come across (Unfortunately all to often). It removes a lot of the bad stuff, and my most used feature is system startup section, as I can stop all that crud from loading and slowing everything to a crawl.

9. iTunes (OS X Version)

Mac iPod Video Tutorial

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I recorded a tutorial, showing people how to extract YouTube (and other flash based sites videos’) and get them onto your iPod. It was recorded on my Mac, so unfortunately its Mac specific, but really only iSquint program is, so if anyone can suggest a replacement on Windows or Linux, I will add it to the details of the video. I use Garageband for audio, iMovieHD to edit the video and audio and Copernicus to record my screen. I started by getting everything I needed ready (all the Firefox tabs etc.) and hit record in Copernicus. I imported that .mov into iMovieHD, and then proceeded to open Garageband, watch the video and talk myself through my own recording. I saved the voice part in Garageband, exported it and then imported it into iMovie. I checked to make sure the audio and video lined up perefectly (what I done on screen matched what I was saying) and then exported it as a .mov from iMovieHD. Then I uploaded the result to Youtube, which I think for a first try ain’t bad!! Watch it here:

Tor helps Privacy

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Tor, (or The Onion Router) is a service which connects people all over the world with one aim: privacy. Tor protects from traffic analysis, basically where you have been. Benn to you Banks website? Feel like buying something off Amazon or Ebay? Your behaviour online is by no means private, you hand over your numerical address, browser details, country, city, versions of which plugins you use, where you came from, just to name a few. You may have seen on sites something to the effect of “Welcome Google user!”, that website knows exactly what you typed to get to it. Tor routes your online activity through different computers, for example mine went through an educational institution in the US and an Internet Service Provider in the Netherlands.

Open Sourcing your CV

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Just like software. it can be really useful to open source other things in life, collaboration is nearly always a good thing. John Buckman, CEO of Magnatune Records knows this principle all too well. He gave a speech at a Red Hat conference a while back, and he talked about the importance of music artists sharing the “source”, i.e. basically sharing the method of how the produced the music in the first place. This allows easier mixing, and a higher chamnce your work could be featured on TV or in a film, and you get paid

UK Parliamentary debate "Copyright is not a pension fund"

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I found this doing a search for Domino Records DRM. I looked up some of my favourite artists to see if they were part of the “MAFIAA” that is the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), not surprisingly some were (70% of sold music worldwide is put out by this cartel). I got rather confused when a Franz Ferdinand album appeared on the list, when their debut album did not. Seems the record label did a deal with Sony for distribution. I found a piece of information quite old now (May 2006), but interesting anyway:

Updates and New look

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Just a note on the new look, hope you like it. I am very fortunate to be running Wordpress, the world’s best blogging tool (and it is open source). I looked up the fabulous theme site to go with it, and I came across this one and liked it very much. The last design was my own, but I had awful trouble implementing to look the same in all browsers (especially Internet Explorer, even the latest one, argh). I know the old one can be improved, so I am submitting to WP Themes directory, which I will update this post with the link. I love the new theme, it brings what I couldn’t to the old one: choosable colours and sameness across browsers. I’d like to thank Justin Winslow for that! Did I mention that the exact same colours are used in this theme? It brings a total different look though, the power of perception! So now you know these are the official DF’s colours!

Nokia N800 Review

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I have one of those new Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, as many of you know I was one of the first to buy its predecessor, the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. What do I think? Well I have put of writing this for 4 days, as I wanted to really test it out. Before I start, I should say I was part of the Nokia Developer Device program, and I got the Nokia N800 at a big discount, €300 off the €399 retail price in fact. Under headings below I will take about the N800, and compare it to the 770:

Vista is released; Ubuntu gets .exe!

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Well as I write this it is a few days after Vista’s launch, and it has yet to set the software market alight. But this is nothing new, it happend with XP. How do you convince people the latest and greatest is worth the money? Microsoft is in a tough position due to stiff competition - old, working, fully-compatible windows machines don’t disappear into thin air. There has been a lot more FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt)abput Vista already from the Free and Open Source camp. Some of the harsh critiscims will be justified, others probably not. Regardless this will not hurt Microsofts marketing whatsoever, the average user doesn’t share concerns over digital restriction/rights management - yet. Microsoft say it will be on 100m PC’s by years end. I don’t think it will be as fast as Microsoft would like, due to: 1) People wait for service packs. 2) People don’t upgrade PC’s as fast now. Most things people identify their computer with is increasingly online, a worrying trend if I were Microsoft, this creates platform independence for the average user, granted not the gamers, or other highly specialised software vendors.

My Plan to Digitise my past, for the future

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I am embarking on a journey I believe everyone should: digitise as much photo, video and documents you can. It serves as a record of your existance, a guide to people of what your life was like. Why? is the most obvious question you might ask. Well I will tell you what prompted me, which is the culmination of a lot of different things.

This brings me to the first reason: Television. I find shows fascinating where people discover their ancestors were orphans, incredibly wealthy or died from exhaustion in a mine. It really makes you think what makes you the person you are, so to speak. David Attenborough says (although I have paraphrased) that if people look back at his 100-150 hours of television, they will get a snapshot of what the glaciers, mountains, desert and animals were like in the latter half of the twentieth century, not a complete picture, but one nonetheless of what Earth was like at that time.

BBC to host Multi-OS Debate and My First Web Auction

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

BBC are putting together a Mac, Windows and Linux user, to debate the pros and cons of being a users for each operating system. While this in itself is good news (more airtime for alternatives), most of the comments are highly in favour of Linux, then Mac and lastly Windows. This is part of the BBC’s coverage of Windows Vista. My hope for the future is that Mac and Linux gain at least 10% each (20% total) over the next 5 years of the home desktop market, as this will push innovation forward, like AMD and Intel competition.

Get the facts, about "Get the Facts"

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quick blurb about some things Microsoft like to say: Don’t believe it, well at least not it all anyway. On the Irish “Get the Facts” page (on Windows Server vs. Linux), they make critical errors of judgement a person reasonably well versed in computing could deconstruct. First of all, Linux isn’t a server, its a kernel, like the Windows kernel. So comparing “Windows Server 2003” to “Linux” is misleading to say the least, and stupid to say the most. You could run any server software on Linux you wished, even Windows Server 2003 if Microsoft ported it! For the sake of argument, I think they are comparing themselves to Apache, which runs 60% of worldwide servers[1].

Engineering Drawing

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quick post on Google Sketch UP for Mac (also available for Windows), it is a very nice application. I drew my Engineering project (Leaving Certificate) on it, to see if it was easy enough for a novice (Read: Me) to mess around and get something functional out of it. Most people have heard of Computer Aided Design, but usually the applications are expensive to say the least. Not so with Google Sketchup, it is totally free and can import some of the most popular 3D drawing formats. It is easy to use, but difficult to master is how I would best describe this product. The video tutorials Google provides on their website is a huge help, and got me off to a good start. They represented what every tutorial should be: short, snappy and to the point. The User Interface should be designed a little better and be a little clearer, but for a free product, it does exactly what it says on the tin. So I got down to business, and I present my very first drawing in Google Sketchup:

New Widget for our RSS feed!

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to Dashcode, the tool for making dashboard widgets, there is now an RSS one for this site! Currently it only works on Mac OS X, but KDE 4 should support dashboard widgets (they are really just bits of javascript, css and html).

Video iPod and Freespire

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Well I guess you can call me a hardcore Apple Computer fan, I have a Macbook, an iPod Nano (1st Gen 4GB) and now a 80GB iPod Video! I bought i for a couple of reasons, namely price and storage. I had been put off before since I thought they were too bulky ( I know a couple of people who have older generation iPod Videos) after being with the Nano for over a year (its still chugging along gleefully). What can I say? I am impressed! Battery life is huge to me and well to be frank, its amazing. My first MP3 player was a Creative Nomad Jukebox II (circa 2002), which I still have. I know only one person who owned an MP3 player before me, and its nice to be there from the start, you appreciate the little details most people don´t, as they are new to mp3 players, so they expect it as standard. I now get all the latest tech podcasts, so I am very happy with that!

Free Domain name off AOL, too good to be true?

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

AOL, the longtime dialup king, who esperate to keep customers at its’ site who have switched to broadband, is offering free dot com and dot net domains. There are a few caches however, one must be in possession of a US mobile phone (cell) number. Luckily I have a cousin stateside willing to help out ;-) . I got to register NeilGrogan.com (My actual name) which I hadn’t bothered with before. AOL is the legal owner however, so has all the say legally to the name. At the minute it provides 100 2GB email accounts with the free domain, and if you visit the address online, it redirects to an AIM Pages profile of the owner (for all intents and purposes, it’s another social networking site). Its a good way to drum up interest in its online offerings, but they should be more flexible. If anyone is in any doubt, this is just an ‘alright’ kind of deal, AOL say they will give you the option to buy the name back in the future, but I won’t hold my breath.

Irish Blog Awards

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Well apparently I am a new kid on the block, according to the Irish Blog awards blog). Irish Blog Awards from what I can gather is a new event, hoping to happen in March 2007. They have an impressive list of backers, so I expect significant (although maybe minor) coverage in the media. Unfortunately they called it Duey Fensters, but I thank them for the link nonetheless! These are the categories that will be adjudicated on:

Nokia 6234 Video Test

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I recently got a hold of my Christmas present in advance, a new Nokia 6234 from Vodafone Ireland. I did a short video test, maybe this could be the start of my VideoBlogging career:

Well maybe not! But I do hope to have more videos on my blog! The video is of me describing my living quarters and about my laptop. I needed to be a bit closer to the phone as hearing me is difficult sometimes (not so in real life!), but basically I just point out what you see and explain the phone won’t sync address+calendar with my macbook :-( (My old phone did just that :-) ). I don’t really mind, bluetooth works a charm and I can exchange files between it. All I need now is a super 2GB mini memory card, for some quick music on the go!

Home made server...

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I managed after ages of trying hard, to get my NAT transverse to work :-) !! This means the computer sitting in my house should be reachable worldwide at dueyfinster.com. It’s login screen is from Ampache music center, a php+mysql solution to a large music catalogue such as mine. It means (for those who can login :-) ) that my whole collection is streamable, downloadable, rateable and generally all round goodness and what you’d expect from a top class open source media+web application! I am excited about this, as I have already tried it from a remote family members house. Unfortunately it does not work too well half way across the world in the US (speed is *really* slow I have been gleefully informed), but I am not too bothered, upgrades in speed will come with better broadband (which may be years, this is Ireland). I am trying to restrict peoples usage of it at the moment, as I really do not want a letter from my Internet Service Provider!

IEDR too stringent? Sorry about my email!

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

We all want to stop spam and phishing domains, it hurts the Internet and confidence in it. Their is a lot of debate on this issue, even from the registrars. But I believe, as I know there are probably many out their like me, that the Irish Domain Registry have taken this one step too far. One only has to look to Slashdot to see what the rest of the world thinks about our backwards, censorship-driven domain registry. My favourite rule they have about domains is perhaps the one which requires the least amount of bureaucracy:

Wiki goes live, downtime and Macbook Back!

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I have a Wiki for messing about! I haven’t found a purpose for it yet, but I’d like to have it all set up incase one day I turn out to need it (maybe for collaboration or something?). If you have any skill at themin' MediaWiki (the most popular wiki software, run but Wikipedia, no less) please, please get in touch! I would do it all myself, but my time is constrained at the moment, but I will eventually do it myself I suppose ;-)

Broken Macbook Update Part II

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Looks like Mactivate got it wrong, it wasn’t the heatsink, as referred to by my earlier post. Looks like I have seen good advice from the Web, never buy a first generation Apple product, until they work out the kinks! I guess Mactivate have been snowed under with heatsink problems, that they never bothered to check other parts of my Macbook, since it is such a common problem.They have ordered me a new “logic board” (I am guessing the PMU like I thought it was ;-) ). In other news Apple released a firmware update for those poor unfortunates that have been suffering Random Shutdown Syndrome (or RSS) for short :-D ). Hopefully I should have it back by this Tuesday (November 7th) plus a new heatsink and logic board…. fingers crossed anyway!

Macbook Issue Identified

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Turns out my prediction wasn’t quite correct, it was not the Power Management Unit (PMU), it was the heatsink. Mactivate have informed me they have one on order from Apple, so it will take a bit longer than I anticipated to get my Macbook back. I found this strange as I had not experienced random shutdowns like the ones that have been widely reported across the web. it was like I described in my earlier post, something to do with the battery not being able to charge. Then again, I am no expert on this and their is wide evidence (over 1600 people have identified heatsink as a problem in their Macbooks) that the heatsink is a definite issue. Sounds like good or bad I will have a lot more to say about Apple Computer in the future, thats why I have decided to add them as a category.

Internet Explorer thanks Firefox, sincerely?

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Reading my favourite tech news site: Slashdot ( /.), I see the Internet Explorer team have sent the Firefox Team a nice cake:

One comment I read said it all really:

Seems even the IE team knows that IE is dead.

As for the ex-lax, bugs, pubes in the cake of course none of that is true. Those things would only be possible if someone at Microsoft actually made the cake, and that’s not how MS does things. They knew they couldn’t make a good cake so they just went out and bought a cake from someone who already knew how to make one and then stuck their logo on it and called it theirs.

Blog Updates, Calendar Updates, broken Macbook

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Well first of all, there has been some blog updates, inspired no less by my Grandfather! He’s at a fragile old age, so he can’t read the screen all too well. This is not a problem however, as he sets all fonts to 16 and higher in Firefox (which is out of beta and into version 2.0!). That got me thinking, as I really struggled to read this page being marginally away from the screen, as I am a [Keratoconus][] sufferer. As a result, I have enlarged all fonts in my blog, in an effort to make them more readable… I encourage everyone to do the same, or at least follow the [web standards][] so that it can be properly auto resized by browsers.

Best Bush Satire, Ever.

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This Ladies and Gents, needs no introduction, for you all know George W. “Dubya” Bush. What you may not know is the Daily Show, which is a popular news satire show in the US. If you have time I recommend you have a look on YouTube for more videos…

Google buy YouTube, GTalk for everyone and Blogger Bliss

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t posted in a while :-( Ah well here it goes: Well we’ve all seen the news Google has bought YouTube for a reported 1.65 Billion US dollars, the deal was reportedly sealed at at Dennys in California (gotta admire that style and sophistication). I think its way overvalued Youtube, at 24m per employee! We all know it serves 100m videos a day, but it has been living off measly venture capital and hasn’t got a verifiable steady income stream, which I guess is where Google enter with Adwords….

Macbook Update, Fonero Haven, Commercial Darknet and College!

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I have ordered and I am expecting delivery of my brand new Apple MacBook (or BlackBook as some call it)! It will be a Black, 2Ghz Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM) MacBook, complete with a remote, Bluetooth 2 and Wifi functionality. Not mention cool applications such as iSight built in Camera, Front Row ( a media center) and Spotlight search technology. It cost me close to €2.000, so hopefully it will be worth it ;-)

Why I am getting an Apple MacBook

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I feel I need to confess why I am buying a MacBook, have I turned soft to my Open Source/Free Software ways? No, definately 100% NOT. I’ll explain why: I think Apple Computer has an incredible product in Mac OSx. For anyone who has not used it before, pop into a 3G store and ask to have a go. When someone releases a good a product as that, they deserve money, in my opinion. Under “the” free software license (GNU General Public License) it is permissable for anyone to charge for software licensed under it, as long as an offer of source code is given (for 3 years afterwards). Deep down I love Ubuntu, and I will install it as soon as possible when they release a version for the Intel powered Apple computers. In fact I will use my Laptop to showcase Ubuntu you had of told me November last year I’d spend well over €1,000 on an Apple Computer, I would have told you that I hated Apple, and would never consider it! What has changed my mind? I got a iPod Nano for Christmas ‘05 and thought it was great, but the Nano on its own still wouldn’t convince me to get a Mac.

Law and the Interweb

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I am writing this because, I regret to say, the stupidity of humanity. People nowadays define their own law on the Web and the Internet (don’t know the difference, you should), while disregarding real life. Maybe its a lack of understanding about technology or law, I don’t know. One things for sure, common sense can go a long way. Take for example this website on the Commitments, which prohibits linking from unauthorised sites! You see? I just broke the law right there, amazing dontcha think? The person who designed or put the statement up, is a total complete and utter idiot, and I don’t care if thats considered slander! Imagine if every site was to do this? Search engines would be just another litagation filled business, like so many other. With Lawyers reviewing every site to go into the database, Google would have a handful, maybe a 100 sites, instead of the usual billions it indexes.

New Design, Ranking, Gmail Hosted, OS 2006 Finale and YouOS

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Hope you like the new look Duey Finsters. Like Google style hoo-pah, we are still in “Beta” mode (or is it “Alpha”? Depends on who you ask!). I would be extremely grateful for people to report issues, with the folloxing browsers IE 5.5, 6 & 7, Opera 9, Firefox 1.5.X , Mozilla 1.X , Safari on all platforms Windows, Linux and Mac (BSD if you want!). Great news also in ranking, the site has gone from 8.5 millionth, to just under 4 million (#3,945,836 to be exact) in three and a half months! I am working on releasing the design to OSWD and in Wordpress theme format, for others to extend and enjoy (If you feel like helping out, contact me).

My Letter to U.S. Dept of Commerce, RE: The Future of the Internet

Mon, 03 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This is my letter to U.S. Dept. of Commerce, stating what I believe should happen to the Internet. Fell free to email your opinions to them directly: ** DNSTransition@ntia.doc.gov**. As a net citizen, get your voice heard on the most important public debate of our times! Dear Sir/Madam, I, as a citizen of Ireland and the EU, think with respect, the Internet should have a world governing body, fairly appointed by each country who has more than 30% of their respective populations online. For those under 30% they should get to have a sub-committee, to prioritise and promote the Internet in their countries. I think while although ICANN has generally not been a bad governing body, vast improvements can be made, such as not allowing pressure from companies to increase domain prices, when the cost of providing them has come down dramatically over the past few years. I do recognise, that the Internet was partially created with the help of U.S. government funding, but this comes from the people of America, who would want the Internet to be a force for change, like for example, the way it is helping Chinese dissidents.Also, as with all US government generated ideas, it is free from patent and copyright which applies worldwide, such as NASA images, for example. This should be true of the Internet also, as it is with GPS (which I use regularly, Thanks for that!). I am not a whole believer in the U.N. however, I think the Internet governing body should be free form all Government and International organisational pressures (but not those that seek to limit abuse, such as child pornography, obviously). I thank you for offering a public debate on this issue and I sincerely hope the outcome will be of benefit to everyone living on earth.

Questions, Hosting and IT 2006!

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I recently found a great documentary, about 9/11, entitled Loose Change 9/11][]. It is easily the most powerful about the event, much more so than Fahrenheit 9/11. In fact I would even argue, that if this documentary had of aired during the U.S. presedential election, I would have bet on a different result. Backed up by trusted resources such as the BBC which confirmed at least 8 of the 19 highjackers are alive and well. Filled with outrageous facts, it sets the scene for either a highly competent Bush regime that new what it was doing, or the worst domestic tragedy that happend under maladministration. Either way the American people have serious questions to ask, which I hope in time will get the aired in time. Maybe George W. is taking a leaf out of Charlie Haugheys book? That is that corruption can be a force for the good of the public, and my rich friends?

FON, New Job and Commuting!

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I regularly read other Irish blogs to see whats happening and whats the latest tech thing amongst others. It seems that may have come to fruition, with FON, a community wifi project, sending me out a free router!! I am exicted about this, as I hope to convince all my neighbours eventually to get it, and maybe who knows, I may even achieve the biggest fon hotspot, if I take my campaign estate wide, to neighbours all around! I want to “eat my own dog food” as they say, so I will wait until I have recieved and used my router before I recommend it to non-technical people. I have read of long delays on FON’s forums, so I expect iot should be here within two to three weeks, maybe a little longer. Also it comes with a european plug, not a Irish/British one, which is a bit of a disappointment that I will have to root out the screwdriver to make it fit!!!

Nuclear or Nothing?

Thu, 11 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

In Ireland we, like the rest of the world, have though questions to answer. Ireland being an island economy, is especially reliant on oil, none of which we produce. I was surprised earlier this week to hear one of George W. Bush’s top aides, saying that the U.S. needs to lose dependence on foreign oil and research alternatives. I was never more shocked, to hear Bush’s change of heart, from using improved technology, to one of his aides saying they need to use less oil. Part of me was angry, as he defiantly rejected Kyoto agreement, when the United States produces 25+% of all greenhouse gases.

Best Radio Podcasts

Tue, 02 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Even while podcasts are relatively new (well a couple of years - like blogs), Irish Radio Stations are surprisingly well in on the act. Even our incumbent state broadcaster, RTE, is podcasting en-masse on both RTE Radio 1 and RTE 2FM. To recieve podcasts, you need podcasting software, start by getting Juice Reciever(Formerly iPodder), available for Linux, BSD, MAC and Windows. I will start with my top 5 Irish Radio podcasts:

Spam, will it ever stop?

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Spam has become a fact of life nowadays, but is their anything we can do to stop it? The answers boils down to no, we can’t. If we make it illegal, the spamsters move abroad or go underground, as we have seen in the United States. People have been prosecuted, but again this does not deter people. Spamhaus have a novel idea, by trusting domains on reputation, based on spam reports. But this has one fatal flaw, it involves people reporting spam.

Google will organise your life

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Google have released a calendar, as part of their mission to “Organise the Worlds Information”. While it is what you expect from Google, the Calendar did not impress me a whole lot. It does have an intuitive interface, that is easy to use. It does integrate with Gmail, although the full extent has yet to be seen, as they fall short of mentioning it in Gmail at all, but I would expect this to change. I see great potential for users though, and where Google is heading. They will eventually integrate it with GoogleTalk and Gmail, producing a hybrid interface where you can organise a conference on GoogleTalk, schedule it on your calendar (which is syncronised with your PC and your workgroup server [therby informing fellow employees]), submit video of it to Google Video, write minutes with writely, email minutes with Gmail, that mail (with document and video) being attached to the meeting on the Calendar, which is in turn archived on your PC in Google Desktop and your Gmail Drive. While that is only one scenario, it is very possible. Google have already leaked information on their eagerness to hold the entire contents of ones’ hard drive on the internet.

Ekiga's Vorbis

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I am all for open standards, but they face huge problems. Not least is lack of intergration between them. Take SIP used by VOIP providers, such as OpenWengo. While OpenWengo is open source, and it is SIP, they are not helpful in informing you how to use other clients, or dial other OpenWengo users from other networks.

What I am really talking about is the need for an all-in-one communications program, that is multi-platform. Their is already open source code for: Google Talk (aka Jabber), MSN, AOL, ICQ, SIP, H.323, Yahoo! but why isn’t their an all-in-one client? Surely it would be easy to reimplement some code from other programs into Ekiga (SIP, H.323) , Kopete or Gaim (both Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, AOL and ICQ)? I know GoogleTalk is based on SIP, so why not SIP compatability? That is poor implementation which is fragmenting the Open Source community, how are we going to challenge MSN’s userbase with this sort of fragmentation? That said I like Google Talk and its way of doing things. Also it is rumoured GoogleTalk will be interoperable with AOL at protocol level, since Google owns 5% of AOL.

Europe's New Voice

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

As tech savvy readers will be aware, dot EU is the latest domain to go into public use. What is a domain? A domain is the name used for internet site like “dueyfinster.eu”. It has already sold over 1.25 million names already, this entering the third day of the public sale. Their have been bitter critics of how it has dealt out, with heated arguments over some domains such as Polo.eu, which was claimed by no less than 3 entities: Volkswagen, Ralph Lauren and Nestle. Volkswagen won out eventually, all because they got their application in first.

Bebo and Beyond..

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Do you say Baybo or Beebo? Do you have a clue what I am on about? Apparently 22 million of you out there will, welcome to Bebo.com the social network growing faster than ever! What is a social network? Apparently (by Google Definitions):

The personal or professional set of relationships between individuals. Social networks represent both a collection of ties between people and the strength of those ties. Often used as a measure of social “connectedness”, recognising social networks assists in determining how information moves throughout groups, and how trust can be established and fostered.

Mozilla's Millions

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Only now is it truly becoming clear, their is [serious money in Open Source][]/ With Mozilla reported to have made tens of millions of dollars. One blogger reported 70m was made by the corporation, with a Mozilla insider confirming thats a reasonable ballpark figure. Christopher Blizzard, board member of Mozilla, had this to say on his blog:

Blizzard added that an earnings figure of $72m (£41m) quoted on some blogs was incorrect. “I won’t comment on the dollar amount except to say that it’s [$72m] not correct, though not off by an order of magnitude. I also won’t comment on sources of that money, except to say that some of the assertions that I’ve seen in the comments are pretty far off, both in terms of numbers and sources,

Just Klik it!

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

One of the biggest complaints of Linux is that software doesn’t install to well, or is very difficult to install. “Dependency Hell” (When software relies on other bits of software to work), used to be quite commonplace. Ubuntu has cleaned a lot of dependency hell up, and a new program for installing software from the internet, is included in the new version, due to be released 1st June 2006.

That’s when I discovered a little gem called Klik for many Linux distributions. Simply lookup the piece of software you need, click on it and you have it! No need to install! It places the whole program on the desktop, so it is easily deletable and easily transferable. For example, if you have an office application, and your friend doesn’t, simply copy that file on desktop to your usb key or a cd, and copy to friends pc, done and dusted - Your friend has the whole application! This is an obvious feature bonus over current Windows version, XP.

Virtual Ubuntu

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

So you have heard of Ubuntu, maybe they have even shipped you a free disc or you have downloaded one? Like most users, even advanced PC users, they get nervous about installing Linux and afraid of what they might have to learn. Touted as the brighest star, Ubuntu really does outshine other Linuxes, with usability, features and great range of software. Now you can try Ubuntu on Windows.

Linux VS. Windows

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I use Linux, I also use Windows. I see the merits of the two, as they are different. Most people don’t see this distinction, that although the two OSes do many of the same functions, they remain lightyears apart. I have to admit I preach Linux to the hilt, I shouldn’t, but I do. I get skeptical Windows users who ask me what Linux does better, and I am stuck for an answer, as it does a lot of tasks better.

Gallery, Riots and Policy Change

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Well I can’t believe I only had one post in February! A lot has happened since then, with Danish cartoons, Dublin Riots and a few policy changes to the site. First of all the cartoons, I mean, whats all the fuss? Christianity is banned in Saudi Arabia and Muslims in the middle east just don’t get the idea of ‘free press’. No one should be allowed to immigrate to the western world, if they do not hold the core values which we hold, such as human rights, free of expression/press and other values. Should we worry about the middle east? Not at all, they’re behind the times, their loss. Why is it that movies which parody Christianity are so popular with Christians (like Monty Python)? We have evolved and can tolerate jokes and laugh at ourselves, many, but not all Muslims have not learned to do this, but they will, its called evolution, and sooner or later, it will hit the middle east. I am not defending the Cartoons, and I know Muslims do not produce images of Muhammad, and offense to this, I can understand. But they need to relax, maybe try some of the many drugs they like to export to us?

German Trip

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I recently travelled to Munich, Germany on a recent exchange (1st-9th Feb, 2006). Not knowing what to expect, I found a very different Germany from the text book one you read about (Bavarian Trad Dress, Beer-drinking, Pretzel Eating, Sausage loving etc!). Of course all of these elements were present, but I think a modern German society closely reflects American one, in a lot of ways. Germans are the largest group by ethnicity in United States, so maybe its just German culture prevalent in America?

Wiki, Awards and Wifi

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Well the last couple of weeks have been interesting! You will notice the website is now a wiki based on Wikipedias engine, metawiki. I had a load of problems with making the theme work with a wiki with loads of menus. I think I did well considering I only spent about 3 days doing it. The code still aint how I want it and some features were lost, such as rss and del.icio.us bookmarks. But pages are now easier than ever to navigate and comment on which brings more features.

New Year, Lets Review!

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Well another year has passed, so I thought I’d make a short recap of it, and tell you what I am looking forward to in 2006. The year was firmly in the hands of mother nature as we saw in both Pakistan, New Orleans/Gulf of Mexico and the Tsunami’s after effects. International consensus was reached at the G8 as London was being bombed - not by the IRA, but by their new enemies in the middle east. Iran esculated its pressure on the world by resuming its nuclear activities. George W. Bush took office in January, much to the distaste of the Daily Mirror in the UK, who scored their most famous headline, “How Could 59,054,087 People, Be So Dumb?”.

Million Dollars, Nice!

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

A student in England has almost reached his target of one million dollars, and he is only 21! He came up with the idea after jotting down ideas before he went to bed on how to become a millionaire before he went to university. Then he came up with the million-dollar idea, sell pixels at USD $1 a piece on his homepage, MillionDollarHomepage.com . This man is Alex Tew, hailed as an advertising genius by the many companies who are using his site to make Internet history.

Click Online

Fri, 23 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

In case you have never looked at it, Click Online is the flagship technology program for the BBC. It broadcasts on the Internet and can be viewed even on a 56k modem. I have been watching click online for over a year and a half now, I first saw it on BBC World, while holidaying in Portugal. It also broadcasts on BBC News 24 at 7am on a Sunday morning (I have never seen it at this time!). Although by its nature a technical program, it is very much aimed at the average PC user and so most things are explained fully.

Google Video

Fri, 23 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

What a fantastic service Google now offer with their Google Video platform. There are a couple of reasons why I like it, mainly because it is available to upload your videos on all platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac) and is available on Mozilla-based browsers (Firefox, Netscape), Opera and Internet Explorer.This is important in creating a better all round user experience. If only Yahoo! would follow Googles example and open up Launch Cast to other browsers besides an outdated version of Netscape and Internet Explorer.

Nokia 770 Internet Tablet

Fri, 23 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I got it! UPS delivered the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. What can I say? It is pure magic! The features are great, it includes:

Web Browser (Opera)
Flash Player version 6
Email Client
Internet Radio
News Reader
Media players, Image viewer
PDF viewer
File Manager
Search
Calculator
World Clock
Notes
Sketch
Games

It runs on Linux, making it totally extendable. It even has its own developer site at maemo.org, where applications can be downloaded. Hot on my list were Doom (the Game) and GAIM (Instant Messenger, uses Google Talk, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, etc). Unfortunately their is no Skype for Nokia 770 just yet, but hopefully it will be here soon. Nokia has promised an upgrade in 2006, that will include VOIP, such as skype.

Eurosceptics

Sat, 17 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The British Press annoys me so much, they way they constantly get it wrong across the board about the EU. I am a fond supporter of the EU for all its faults and cracks. But I love freedom of the press and like organisations who uphold basic journalistic standards, such as the BBC. This leads me onto the evil man behind it all, Rupert Murdoch owner of The Sun, BSkyB Television, The Times and other media outlets. It seems all he pushes is his agenda, whether it be the Bush Right-Christian agenda on Fox in the US or Eurosceptic view in his British interests.

The Future.....

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

While using instant messenger I had a brainwave, what will the tech landscape look like in the future? So here is What I think could happen: IBM will buy Sun MicroSystems and make a new opensource OS, it will be based on Ubuntu. Microsoft will purchase AOL and roll out its products on the Web, such as MS Office, it will have a slow start to Vista, but it will pick up through peoples eagerness to buy the latest hardware. Google will buy Opera, invest in Mozilla and consolidate Opera into Mozilla, it will also buy Adobe (for their PDF format), get its way to publish an online bookstore through Google Book Search. Yahoo will continue to buy extra companies to add to its list of a zillion services, such as Flickr and Del.icio.us.

In Sickness and in Health!

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I have a throat infection, so I get a week off!! I went to the doctor and I am on vibramycin antibiotics. I was coughing blood (not nearly as nasty as it sounds). Now I can get some relaxation in before Christmas!! I hope to do a guide to restricted formats on Ubuntu soon, especially W32 Codecs and how to get all the good formats it offers (Divx, MPEG1-4, Windows Media, Quicktime Media and RealMedia)

Wireless, New Design and Web Services

Sat, 10 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the new and improved Duey Finsters. As I mentioned before, I hope to receive a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet soon, so I will be checking the free wireless services offered by Eircom in Dublin and at McDonalds restaurants.

You may have noticed the new look and this revamped blog. You may also question where has Duey Finsters Web Services gone? It is still here, but me and Thomas Whelan, who run it, cannot decide on a name. Maybe you all could help us out? Since well over 97% of all the words in the dictionary are registered as dot coms, we have no clue what to call ourselves.

Duey Finster

Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Awake Mornin at nearly six am I am writing this at six am in my cousins home because I heard this is a good way to get a gmail invite!