John Ryan’s Blog

I saw this on the news recently, here is a clip from youtube.

 

Wordpress 2.5 is about to be released shortly, and in a correctly cautions fashion – wordpress has released a beta version for public testing before the final version is released. In an unusual move MT – Movable Type has added a little fuel to the blogging platform fight, by passing a few remarks. Personally, I think companies who try to market themselves by saying their better than their competitors are generally not, or there is a compromise involved.

Anyway Wordpress 2.5 has some exciting features, the much criticised admin interface which previously sported an outdated look has a completely new design, I thought I would love this, however having tried out the beta, I am a little cautious, and will wait for the final release before forming an opinion. The layout is much simpler with many of the options complied into an easy to use manner, this means beginners are not bombarded by all the options, but they are all still there. The dashboard is also customizable, something I have not really fooled about with.

Interestingly this version includes a galleries section, which is a very nice and useful touch to the wordpress platform, the interface for uploading these is very pretty. I also notice that you are supposed to be able to install plugins from the admin panel, which does not seem to be in the version I downloaded, so I can’t test that, but it would be one of the best timesavers.

For the comments section - there is a little bubble that tells you if there is a number of comments waiting for approval, which saves you clicking on the link, as you can see how many comments there are.

The frontend design is the same, I was hoping for a more modern default template, but I would imagine that this will come in future versions. For now, the backend has been re-mastered and it’s all looking very promising.

I would strongly recommend if people plan on upgrading to wait for the final release unless they know what there doing, and to also check plugin compatibility first.

If you listen to a local radio station, or use a community resource, such as GAA or even a Credit Union, you will most lightly find that they all have a website of some description. Most of these websites present you with a terrible design, featuring little content made using web 0.01 templates; others have an amazing design with bells and whistles and loads of those annoying flash animations, with little actual updated content.

I often wonder why these organisations, such as my own local radio station do not simply launch a blog instead. Being able to add posts when necessary as well as maintaining an archive of information, so that people have easy access to updated information is much more what the internet is about these days; the time of stagnant websites that sit untouched and unloved like a 40 year old virgin are long gone.

Blogs can be ‘DIY professional’ – if there is such a thing, with endless designs for the front end and many capabilities in the back end, the expansions are endless. Galleries, podcasts, pages of information, archives, tagging, search engine friendly, its all there waiting for these organisations to take advantage, so why don’t they?

It’s a question I don’t have an answer to – but what I do know is that some organisations have adopted blogs for their organisations, one of my personal favourite and possibly one of the biggest success for Limerick based organisations is the Limerick Animal Welfare Blog, which is not only regularly updated but also features many images and even the odd video. You can get a real insight into what a well run and worth while organisation this is.

I can’t find many such blogs, and maybe my head is in the sand – so make me feel foolish and comment if you know any good community blogs.

I got my iPhone a few months ago, long before it was released here and the UK, it was and I suppose, still is, a must have device. It’s something I use every day – so I do get value for it, checking my e-mail as well as calls and of course my iPod. But this can be done by a lot of devices for much less money – without buying into the whole iTunes encrypted music issue and at 3g speeds, something the iPhone does not currently offer. But then – that’s me, I love these hype technologies.

To get to the point, today at lunch time I was nipping out for a snack when I noticed a young girl yapping away on her iPhone, turned to the corner and there was a middle aged man tapping away at the iPhone screen, on my way back to the office I noticed a woman yapping to her friends on her iPhone.

AHHHHHHHH!!!

It felt a bit surreal, everyone had one, it seemed as thought I had jumped ship from having what everyone wanted and I had, to being one of the many, who owns an iPhone. The days of people stopping me in the street and asking where I got my iPhone and how it works - is over.

Do I still want it? Yea of course, but it takes a bit from the novelty of having ‘a must have’ phone that previously was not available in the shops of Ireland. I have been looking on expansys.ie, who offers some pretty cool touch screen - windows based phones. But windows mobile is such a pile of rubbish compared to the cool stylings of the iPhone interface.

I’m interested to see what happens when 2.0 version of the iPhone software is released in June, will it really pull BlackBerry customers over to Apple? Probably not, but it will be very interesting to watch, and of course fool around with the new applications.

In the name of the Fada premiered on RTE TWO yesterday (well premiered may be a bit of an overstatement its not a bloody film). Finally an attempt at brining some interest to the Irish Language to Ireland’s bebo generation. I have to say I loved the show, it follows Des Bishop as he tries to learn Irish with the idea that he will do a gig in Irish at the end of the 11 months learning process. In order to do this he moves to Connemara’s Gaeltacht area.

Its pretty funny and very enjoyable from what I have seen, although at times, I do feel a little insulted at his jibes of the Irish language, but its all in the name of the ‘craic’. What makes it more interesting is that as he arrived in Ireland in his teens, having lived in NYC previously, he did not lean Irish in school so its a new process to him, and a somewhat rediscovery of what it means to be Irish, he also investigates why so many Irish second level students resist learning Irish so much, inferring that the Irish curriculum
may be to blame.

A show to watch out for. You can watch it online also on RTE Live.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but you can get tired with blogging at times. I am writing this on the train to Dublin, internet - curtsy of O2 Broadband, its holding up – maybe better than me. Irish Rail have been blowing some smoke lately about their new trains, while this one is very clean and new, it seems there has been no effort to work on the actual rail lines, as its bumpier than a teenagers face. That said, I usually drive, or take the bus if I have to, the train is so expensive, its not really worth it.

You have the usual passengers on this train, most notably is the Britney (yes I’ve named her) the girl who whats you to know how great she is, even though we are about 6 seats away the whole carriage knows she is a student, works weekends, has an order with amazon for college books, which she decided to have posted to her aunts house in Meath – even though she lives in Dublin – ‘ she was just was not thinking that day’ - apparently, she was also at a court case recently, not sure why, but apparently the judge warned her not to discuss this in public, when she meets a guy on a night out she does not give him her number but rather her brothers phone number, because when she tries to make up a fake phone number, she always ends up giving out the real number… She must be talking to a ghost however, I cant hear what the other person is saying, I can only assume her friend is speaking in a normal tone.

I’ve just been interrupted to ask if I want coffee- this is new, and not happened on any of my previous Limerick- Dublin trips – a nice touch - I assume its not included in the 45 euro ticket price.

One other thing, there is a woman singing a song, like to one you hear old people singing in those older type pubs where they play ‘45′ and drink sherry. She has stopped now, perhaps to sip her ‘coffee’. I spoke too soon, she is now singing again, but not alone this time - a gentleman has joined her to sing you ‘you will never defeat the IRA’ and ‘Billy don’t be a hero - come back to me’. I can only assume she is intoxicated, and hope she will soon drift off. One plus though it has stopped Britney from yapping her hole off.

We are now at Thurlas,and I love that the automated voice guy said it in Irish first.