Author Archive

Posted on January 2, 2009 - by John

Stolen

If you are going to steal from a blog - try not to ping them back about it, that’s like the thief telling you where he has left your  stolen content, is it not?

My post on 19 Great Wordpress Plugins - A List, has appeared word for word on 3-4 different websites (example - http://www.dynamicsynonyms.com/blog/19-great-seo-wordpress-plugins/), what can you do about this? Nothing it seems.

I’ll take it in good humour and say yes, I’m so popular people are stealing my posts!

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Posted on December 20, 2008 - by John

RIP Majel Barrett Roddenberry

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the widow of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, has died. She was 76. Roddenberry, an actress who appeared in numerous “Star Trek” TV shows and movies, died Thursday of leukemia at her home in Bel-Air, Calif., her representative said.

At Roddenberry’s side were family friends and her only son, Eugene Roddenberry Jr. Gene Roddenberry died in 1991.

Her romance with Roddenberry earned her the title “The First Lady of Star Trek.” A fixture in the “Star Trek” franchise, her roles included Nurse Christine Chapel in the original “Star Trek,” Lwaxana Troi in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and the voice of the USS Enterprise computer in almost every spin-off of the 1966 cult series. She recently reprised the voice role in the upcoming “Star Trek” film directed by J.J. Abrams.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081218/ap_en_ce/obit_ majel_roddenberry_2

Posted on December 14, 2008 - by John

Recession sob!

The more people talk about recession in Ireland the more we all panic, and that is of course a natural reaction. Of course we are all going to panic, is our money safe?, is our job?

In my clique (going to use that word more often) we have already had one friend loose a job, I suspect however that many companies are being proactive in letting allot of staff go. Everyone has been predicting this and that, a few things have been said and now companies are crapping themselves.

They sit in their board rooms and discuss ‘company X has let 150 staff go we better do the same’, ‘good idea’ says board member A, ‘but lets not affect our company bonus!’ ‘Don’t talk bull shite’ Bill says board member B, ‘of course not’,’ i’ve promised my wife new boobs this year!.’

Vodafone have announced that they are letting 150 staff go, due to a down turn in the profits per person (or some business phrase like that). If things are so bad, why did they recently buy a land-line company? Why did they expand into the home and broadband section, surely they need MORE and not less staff?

Ireland has pulled it’s self out of worse situations in the past, so lets try to enjoy the Christmas, and worry later. Lets put all this recession shiite under the bed. Suppose that’s easy to say if you have not yet been affected…

And kind of unrelated to recession banter, but I want to end on a different note for this post.

Denny - You know the pork company, who usually looks forward to Christmas sales, was worried for a while about the recent fiasco in the poke market, but we are safe now (apparently). I loved that they opened a stall (you know the type of ones you see on the street when you’ve been on a piss and fancy a munch) on Grafton street yesterday for hungry shoppers giving out free pork products. Genius! And I have to say there was a big queue, Irish people love their Oink Oinks!

Posted on December 12, 2008 - by John

Oh Christmas Tree…!

I’m always called upon to put up the Christmas Tree in my family’s house. I’m told this is because, I have a knack for it, but I strongly suspect it’s because nobody else in my family wants to spend an afternoon separating tangled Christmas decorations, bits of broken sliver balls, and of course the completely knotted Christmas lights.

I don’t mind, its once a year, and for me its the start of the ‘Chirsmassie feeling’.

It looked a bit bare this year, so I trotted along with the mammy (who as usual complained the dog was stinking up the car and should be in the back seat at the very least, and not on my lap - the Guards seem to agree…hmmmm) to the local co-op and picked up a few  silver decorations and some lights. And can I just say how anyone can justify paying 80  euro for Christmas lights is beyond me!  In the end the tree did look pretty good, got some new lights up there and all. Even stuck a flashing light up the top  of the tree near the star, for low-flying aircraft.

Remember when your packing the streets of Limerick and Dublin (my areas) over the coming days - it’s all for one day, and for me one of the main points of Christmas are family getting together.

Posted on December 12, 2008 - by John

Irish Dancing Monkeys

Posted on December 5, 2008 - by John

No Apple Products? Lisa Simpson can relate!

Posted on December 5, 2008 - by John

WordPress 2.7 Screenshot

There is a huge GUI change coming in the next release of Wordpress, it’s called Version 2.7. Here is a screenshot, pretty eh?

Posted on December 3, 2008 - by John

Watch TV on the iPhone

Posted on December 3, 2008 - by John

If you get mobile Broadband what will you miss?

With the current structure of broadband in Ireland, you may well need to use mobile broadband.If you subscribe to the mobile service, be prepared to wait a few years for a reliable fast service.

The truth - at the end of the day is mobile broadband is currently actually the old dial up service cleverly disguised behind a fancy white dongle with failed promises of fast speeds.

By the way  - you do remember the squawking SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh while connecting to the net, that sound that was (and is) dial up, you should remember it - its all Ireland had for an age (and still does have in the country)

Words like HSDPA and 3G are thrown around the place when you get this fancy mobile broadband but for most of the time and in a majority of cases, you will get very slow speeds, particularly at peek times.

Here is some of the evidence.

First they have Damien pissed off - National Dialup Tender - 2 year wait before some will get shit Internet

Three Broadband is awful - there is 377 pages of proof on boards.ie

Broadband slow on O2, there’s a number of threads here on O2’s own support site, it could be something to do with the fact that they are selling cheap broadband to students, meaning too many people trying to get on the O2 network bringing the whole thing to a halt.

Until they sort things out get DSL (if you can), and only expect basic webpages and basic e-mail with mobile broadband.

Posted on December 1, 2008 - by John

The truth about the Late Late Show revealed by grandad?

The blogging Grandad is just funny —> Find out the truth about the Late Late Toy Show - I’m still laughing.

Because this is such a short post, I would like to jump on the band waggon and say I trust Tommy

Posted on November 28, 2008 - by John

Less Networking More Loving

Got seven minutes to spare? An interesting little video, sees Stewart Kershaw bring his ‘on the go’ social networking device (aka his phone) to a standstill by not using his Blackberry for a week, I wonder how many people, there’s one high profile Irish Blogger ’star’ I can think of, could do without social networking/phone for a week? Myself included there!

Ooooopss…Here is a  link to the video, I can’t seem to post it here.

Posted on November 27, 2008 - by John

VIDEO: Let’s Fly Ryanair

This video is doing the Internet rounds, its a hit apparently, can’t think why.

Posted on November 26, 2008 - by John

3 mobile Ireland gets preferred tenderer for national broadband Scheme

A very unusual choice indeed, particularly considering the 56 complaint comments on this page of my site.

Hutchison Whampoa subsidiary 3 Ireland has been named the preferred tenderer for the government contract to complete the rollout of broadband in Ireland - siliconrepublic.com

Posted on November 15, 2008 - by John

James Kirk has had a makeover!