Bumpf

Architects of Ireland

Be warned.   Some of us potential clients have an eye for design.  It is becoming clear from your websites that many of you have some serious shortcomings in the visual department - or else your trying to make us all blind.

Take this for example - the text is horribly unreadable;  it's too small and far too feint. 2H pencil may be good on tracing paper but it makes for terrible web content.

These are guilty of it too.

In fact poor readability of text is rampant and unforgivable among those working in "creative" professions.  The biggest shortcomings apart from non-intuitive navigation - text that's way too small and grey text on white.  Pass me my glasses please.

Fix it please.  Don't get me wrong architects, I like your buildings but your websites are putting me off consulting you on our house.

Hacked

Last night my other half logged on find the nerdy name of our wireless network had been supplanted by a more vulgar moniker.  We were hacked.  The damage appears to be confined to a network name change and I managed to rectify the situation reasonably promptly.

I had suspected recently that someone was piggy-backing on our broadband as the activity lights on the router were going blinkity-blink when all browsing had stopped in the house.  My procrastination left us exposed to this sort of attack but whoever did it, you're still a pillock.

Tips: don't procrastinate; if you need it,  get help securing your network; at a minimum, disable the broadcast of your network name; apply encryption. 

The Digital Hub...

... that is our kitchen. Right now there are two competing, global IT corporations running out of our kitchen [and a third one powering this post]. There are three digital cameras, four phones, three laptops, two competing operating systems, three different suites of office applications and an empty pizza box.

And tonight I'll be in London. What a crazy, small world.

Unwound, unwired

Ahhh.

It's Sunday morning, I've been up since 7:30 when I did some yoga in the gentle heat of the morning sun.  I've had some hot water and lemon, then a shower.  Back then to the bedroom for some techie stuff and now, thanks to my latest toy, a wireless router, I'm bringing you this blog post live from the garden.

Chilling on a Sunday morning with a laptop and lavender.  Ahhh, that's nice.

Got the Broadband Blues

Boo hoo. I'm sans broadband at the moment so I'm considerably less than the less than prolific that I usually am. I'll do my best to keep posting - I need find a more efficient way of doing this than paper to text to web.

Hopefully Eircom will get a move on so I can get plugged in again.

How do like your laptop, sir?

Well done, apparently!

This sauted laptop arrived in today to our Helpdesk team.  The user left the unit on their cooker, which was switched off.  Unfortunately someone else switched the cooker on without noticing the laptop.

We thought it might be funny to send the laptop to the repair company, telling them that the Enter key doesn't work.

Blackberry

They've been around for a while now but Blackberry from Research in Motion (RIM) has just come in to my sphere of technological existence.  The Blackberry is a bit like a beefed up mobile phone but with more emphasis on data communication. It's basically email in your pocket.

The device looks like a large mobile phone but with a proper QWERTY keyboard rather than just 10 or so numbers.  If you're the kind of business user that carries a laptop around but find that you're only using an email application like Outlook then Blackberry could very well be the thing for you.

I'll be looking at and hopefully working with them a bit more in the next few weeks but for now there's a nice flash demo of one of the devices here.

Sony Bites Back?

Sony are to take on Apple in an attempt to regain their portable music crown.  I think Apple better watch out.
I would generally hold both Apple and Sony in the same, high regard but Apple drop the ball from time to time.  It hasn't had a huge impact on their sales or profits but launching iPod with less than a 12 hour battery life was a bad idea.  It's a portable music player; it really should have had more power.  It's water under the bridge now but Sony won't  miss that kind of detail when they launch their offering.

The question is has the iPod established enough brand loyalty for Apple to allow it to survive a counter-attack from Sony? It has often been said that Apple customers are hugely loyal but while that is certainly true of  Mac users, will it apply to iPod owners?

This is where the Mac Mini comes in.  A tiny, near-silent, stylish machine without a monitor, keyboard or mouse: they are going all- out to get into users' homes as the replacement or second computer.  Apple does have a history of transient glory but if they succeed in capitalising on the iPod success and win over  existing PC owners and new PC buyers, then I can see Apple's current success lasting a little longer.    In fact I'm quite certain that this is what their plan is.  I hope they succeed.

Incidentally, Tom's Hardware gave a favourable review of the Mac Mini. For those of you not familiar with the site, it carries out independent reviews of new PC hardware.  The reviews are generally for Windows-based gamers so a positive review for the Mac Mini on this site is no bad thing.

I wouldn't try this on Dial-Up

I'm just back from a house-warming party and I've decided to post something.  Why? Because I can!  Ahh, the beauty of broadband.  There is no way I'd boot up at this hour to post on a hissity-hissiy-k'pingggg connection.  I've had a really busy weekend so far and I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to post tomorrow.   I'm going to the boat- show tomorrow with my brother and later on, when my girlfriend returns, I am planning an earnest session of tea and TV on our new couch.  At this point I'd like to apologise to our learned and bearded  network adminstrator at work, who I am sure will point out on Monday that, once again, I have  mentioned everyone else but him: you've finally made it!  Welcome to the Big Time kiddo !!

If you don't hear from me in the next few days you may assume that I have been engulfed by the large duvet, which is now quietly calling me away from the keyboard. Good Night.

P.S.  which in this case, incredible though it may seem,  stands for a Post in Sobriety

Clear Skies! There's nothing there at all!

There's no weather! None! The weather over Ireland has taken a day off.  Whatever are we to do?  What are we to wear?  What are we to say?Never mind the environmental issues, conversation as we know it may have changed forever!  Let's hope the weather improves tomorrow? Let's hope that there is weather tomorrow!