#“How Dead is Buzz? This dead.” I'm "following" 202 people on Buzz. Of course following would mean that I logon more than once a week. Look closely at that screenshot. One person, one, is actually posting on Buzz. Every single other post there is automatically pulled from Twitter, Friendfeed, Flickr etc etc. No matter how far back I scroll, it's the same. Kill it. Start again. Hire some people who actually understand people, not code. »
#“Huawei dongle with external antenna is in da house” Quick update on my outdoor broadband antenna story. I ordered a Huawei E176 broadband dongle on eBay from Hong Kong and a connector from Solwise in the UK two weeks ago. Connector arrived last week. Huawei just arrived. It means I should be able to get very solid HSDPA/HSUPA using the outdoor antenna. Will test as soon as it stops raining (June). »
#“Die, Black UIs, Die Die Die” I mentioned this on Twitter over the past two days. I absolutely hate black-heavy user-interfaces on anything. It was prompted by my trial of the soon-to-be-released Ubuntu 10.04. All previous versions of Ubuntu had a colour scheme even more offensive than black: pooh brown. It's the first thing I change whenever I install it. I was really happy to see the purple boot screen on this new version of Ubuntu but that turned to horror when it finally loaded and everything else was black. »
#“Imagine if Bill was still alive. And living in Ireland.” Imagine how he'd deal with our snakes and weasels. Bill Hicks = Jesus 2.0 and we only sussed it after he died. »
#“A stench of evil, starting at the top” In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. »
#“Streaming video to kids in car. The Video.” Really pleased with how well this is working with the N770 tablets and Mediatomb running on EEbuntu. Now going to try Android, iPhone and N95-8GB a streaming clients. Have already got it working with Windows Media Player. Less success on the Linux video players without hacking. If someone knows how to lock the N770 screen without causing the video to pause and creating a catch-22, let me know. »
#“Twitter Hates its Irish Users” Twitter's first foray into the world of advertising involves them relentlessly badgering anyone in Ireland who has an 087 number with this ad front and centre at the top of their timeline. The _only_ way to remove this eyesore is to delete your mobile number from your settings or via a bookmarklet! (thanks to those lovely people who gave me those tips) If this is the subtle non-intrusive advertising that Ev Williams and Biz Stone are going to roll out to all their users, gawd help us all. »
#“Screw Ideas Part II. It’s still all about execution” West Cork Tourism began its campaign at the beginning of 2009 to raise funds to get a service back on the Cork Swansea route and a co-op was formed with some 300 members who each contributed 10,000 towards the cost of purchasing a boat. via irishtimes.com These people are legends. Even if it isn't a success, to get this far with the project in the middle of a recession is incredibly inspiring. »
#“The Three Es - Execution, Execution and Execution” The report backs the introduction of bonus CAO points for maths in the Leaving Cert in order to boost student interest. It also proposes major investment in upgrading broadband capability. And it backs changes to the bankruptcy laws. via irishtimes.com I'll hold detailed commentary until I read the report. The IT story has no ideas in it that anyone working in tech couldn't have come up with over a latte in Starbucks. »
#“Update on Mobile Broadband External Antenna” Our house is surrounded by small hills so, despite being only 2km from the cop station base-station, even voice calls are a constant pain. SMS arrival time can be measured in hours depending on where we are in the house. There is a one-bar GPRS data signal sometimes using an E270 broadband dongle. After the floods took out Eircom but not Vodafone and O2, I realised that I could get HSDPA on O2 by sticking the dongle on a bamboo cane and sticking the bamboo cane in a tree fern. »