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).

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: ** [email protected]**. 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.

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?

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!!!

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.