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Scumbag Culture - Part 2 "When integration is actually exclusion despite what the letter of the law says." Towards the end of 2009 I published the first of a planned series of articles on the tide of scumbag culture that is...

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Facebook overtakes Google (Stateside) New figures from Hitwise reveal national domination for Facebook. For the week ending March 13, Facebook grabbed 7.07 percent of all U.S. web traffic, barely beating Google at 7.03 percent. This...

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This is what the SAR Helicopter means to the Southeast Kayaker rescued off Wexford coast Tuesday, 30 March 2010 17:37 A man who was reported missing while kayaking off the coast of Co Wexford has been rescued by helicopter this evening. The...

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Hero Problem on Meteor Network For some time now, anyone with their ears open will have heard of the "lock out" problem that is supposedly attributed to a 2G/3G handover issue on Meteor Ireland's network for all users of the HTC Hero....

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It's Like Blogging a Dead Horse Regular readers (ahem, cough) will no doubt notice that my rate of updates has been somewhat stifled in recent times; I don't blog like I used to anymore. So, what's happened? Has everything in the...

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If somebody wrongs you, thank them…

Posted by jbwan | Posted in Life in General | Posted on 21-06-2007

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… no actually that’s not right. If somebody wrongs you then you make a complaint and it should be dealt with, especially if they are a professional services company. Sadly this doesn’t appear to be the case for Damien Mulley. Damien’s baggage was lost recently on a flight and he made his complaint to the handling company and naturally, like most of us these days, he blogged his dissatisfaction which he was entirely justified in doing. Now it seems that Damien has had his e-mail details signed up to a number of “dating” sites some of which where allegedly subscribed to from an IP address belonging to the baggage handling company. Suspicious? I know I would be and Damien certainly is. Faeces may well hit the rotary device when this one comes to a head. Best of luck to Damien in his pursuit of justice. source: Damien Mulley

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links for 2007-06-20

Posted by jbwan | Posted in del.icio.us Links | Posted on 20-06-2007

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Review of Route 66 GPS – Chicago 8000

Posted by jbwan | Posted in Technology | Posted on 18-06-2007

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Route 66 GPS – Chicago 8000

I recently purchased a Route 66 GPS system for my car. I bought the Chicago 8000 model simply because it looked the best value and doubled up as a portable unit. This was my first touch with GPS devices and overall I have to say that I’m not disappointed.

The unit itself is designed much like any other GPS that I’ve seen for cars but it’s pretty slimline and is nicely finished. It boasts a rather nice 4.3 inch screen that is easy to see even in relatively exposed conditions. Like most TFTs it does suffer when strong, direct sunlight is aimed at it but overall it does is best. All controls are on-screen so there are no chunky buttons to detract from the devices clean look, plus it makes it pretty simple to use. Route finding happens quickly enough although my one qualm would be the initial time taken to find a satelite can be a little on the lengthy side at times (e.g. more than 25 seconds).The 8000 charges via USB which most folk will immediately will think is great until you learn that there is no way to mains charge it (or at least out of the box anyhow). It comes with a car adapter too which is pretty handy because you can use that to charge your other USB devices. :) Mains charging can be realised by purchasing a plug unit that accepts car charger connections – you’ll see them from time to time in electrical stores.The 8000 came preloaded with maps for the entire of Europe with many countries claiming near 100% coverage of main routes. It’s using Navtech map data from the last quarter of 2005 – don’t confuse this with roads that were built before this time, it doesn’t mean they were mapped at the time. One such omission is the outer ring road in Waterford that was completed mid 2005. I haven’t been on any really long journeys with the 8000 yet but so far it hasn’t led me astray. :) The device also has a built-in MP3 player if you really want. However, you can’t use it at the same time that you are navigating and you don’t have much room left on the 2GB SD card after you have loaded the maps of Europe, to store your MP3 collection. All in all though, as a GPS for the first timer, it’s a good little unit. I purchased my 8000 from Komplett and received the 2GB card as standard, I have seen other sellers listing it with cards of a lesser capacity so look around before buying!

Rated 4/5 on Jun 16 2007 by Jonathan Brazil
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Greena Fail

Posted by jbwan | Posted in Politics | Posted on 13-06-2007

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Yesterday an agreement was finally reached between the Green Party and Fianna Fail regarding the establishment of a new government. Some good things have been outlined such as increased spending on education that hopefully won’t just go into teacher’s pockets, the department of the environment will be merged with another department with a focus on climate change issues, and Dáil approval for US military flights to land at Shannon (whatever difference that will make). On the down side there’s no talk of abolishing stupid and illegal taxes such as VRT which should be on the Green Party agenda if they want to introduce a carbon tax. No, wait, hang-on… What’s that? Oh my mistake they’ve gotten their carbon tax included in the 5-year draft plan also. Well done lads, further increasing the tax burden on ordinary decent Irish folk. I wonder that now they are in government will they push for small engined cars for ministers, etc? C’mon lads let’s be consistent now. Yes, this truly will be an interesting 5 years ahead with a government that is the most bipolar in, well in living history. Expect high inflation, more taxes, no reform of existing taxes, a shortfall in employment around the 4-year mark and a generally more unhappy Irish public. Also remember however that the Greens are a very small minority in this government. source: Irish Times

Note: Irish Times article may require login

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Robot Parking

Posted by jbwan | Posted in Life in General, Technology | Posted on 11-06-2007

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Strange as it may sound, the idea of a robot parking your car is not all that bizarre. The basic idea is that you put your car onto a platform that moves horizontally and vertically around a multistorey carpark. The result is no more ignorant folk who like to bash their doors against yours when getting into their cars and increased car park security as there should never be anybody allowed into the area. It’s mad but I like it and what’s more is that this could soon be coming to Dublin. source: The Register

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Recreating last Summer

Posted by jbwan | Posted in Photography | Posted on 11-06-2007

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Recreating last Summer

Originally uploaded by jbwan.


Shot a photo almost identical to this one last year but the poor lily flower was covered in small flies. This year however, Rose Nymphe is shown in true splendour having opened for the first time on Sunday morning.

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Damselfly III

Posted by jbwan | Posted in Photography | Posted on 11-06-2007

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Damselfly III

Originally uploaded by jbwan.


Wandering around my garden again with a tripod and a zoom lens, what must the neighbours think? :)

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Another Day, Nothing Changes…

Posted by jbwan | Posted in Life in General, Politics | Posted on 08-06-2007

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So, here we are Summer in Ireland after a general election. Voting for change, shaking up the cabinet, so on so forth. Well none of it has happened, it’s the same old Ireland and the more I think about it the more I want to move to Provence and enjoy life with a community that still holds traditional values. Now that Fianna Fail are back at the helm and the election is over we’re starting to see the cracks opening publicly, in the press. I’ve been saying for ages, along with many others, that inflation was getting dangerous and now we hear that inflation is rising. Wow! There was no such thought in Bertie’s mind previously when he agreed to nurses demands prior to the election – me wonders… We also hear that controversial lands in Dublin may be set for rezoning. Well we wouldn’t have wanted to upset the D4 residents before an election now, would we? Stock markets are falling, interest rates are still climbing and the ordinary Irishman in the private sector is suddenly not that comfortable any more. Meanwhile five days of talks with the Green Party have still failed to produce a government with Fianna Fail. I wonder who’s failing to agree there? Remember, people of Ireland, this was your choice…

Note: Links used above are from the Irish Times 08-07-2007 and may require login to view the content

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Hey Eircom!

Posted by jbwan | Posted in Technology | Posted on 06-06-2007

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Tip of the hat to Damien Mulley for finding this interesting snippet. Looks like decent, hard working folk in Lithuania are to be rewarded with 1Gb fibre connections straight to their doors. Yes, rather than laying age-old copper lines and maintaining them, the country’s Telecoms have decided to go with a proper option. Eircom heads, take note… source: GigaOM

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WordPress Permalinks

Posted by jbwan | Posted in TSSG, Technology | Posted on 02-06-2007

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If like me you’ve run into the wonders of WordPress permalinks previously and hit brick walls such as 404 and 403 HTTP errors when you change from the default ?p=ID to the pretty /blog/2007/07/12/entry, then this post is for you and the many other people who have asked me this question previously. :) Not sure why considering the fact that I use MovableType as my blogging software but anyway!

Changing your permalink structure from the WordPress default to the pretty, year/month/day/entry-id or similar custom structure can cause problems for some people depending on the setup of their hosting infrastructure. [..]

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