Life's simple, why change it?

It has been a while since we had a good ole riot. Ah yes, you know that recession is in town when you have a riot of movie proportions, hitting the streets in Ireland. Apparently there was a riot in Mullingar today, involving about 200 people. As of yet there has been no reasons for the riot but the Gardaí did manage to make one arrest - well done lads, that's a 0.5% hit rate. source: Breaking News

Reading yesterday's FT I spotted just how out of touch I was with recent events in the world of the internet. A brand new search engine, hyped as a possible competitor to Google, has emerged. Written as Cuil but pronounced "cool" it straightaway fails on the potential of having somebody say "have you cooled them yet?" without making it sound like an extract from a mafia conversation.

So, I've been a bit negative in general about the iPhone. I've been steadfast with respect to my opinion that the product merges two products that just should not be composed, when one is an essential communications device. Last week I had an e-mail from some cousins in Australia (big hello to Beth and the gang) talking about the iPhone and wondering if I had any opinions on it; I decided that it was time that I tried it out rather than just ranting on about it. So I borrowed an iPhone that was badly hacked by some unknown person, re-installed the original 1.1.4 firmware and listened to what the good people at ziphone.org had to say. ;) I told myself that through thick and thin I would stick with the device for 1 week, with an open mind, and see how things went as a user of the device. Here is my diary, Shane & Paul await with bated breath :):

Day 1: Paper clips, straightened out are a great way of installing your sim card if you don't know where the special poker for releasing the sim tray went to. I charged up the phone from flat, takes ages by the way, and began my iPhone existence, fully charged at 1830h. First impressions, hmm, of course I love the interface, that's why I have an iPod Touch, it's spectacular. However, upon standing up to leave my computer and transfer my phone to my pocket as normal, stop! This sucker ain't going to sit well in my jeans front pocket unlike my beloved Nokia 6233! I'm not wearing combats today either so, it's the back pocket of my jeans if I don't want to carry it and I better remember to remove it before I sit down, less I break the device. Already the iPhone is changing my life! Got my first text message too, ah ain't that cute, it displays it like a chat conversation and tracks linked replies so you can trace back through what was said. I like that, perhaps there's hope for this device to win me after all.

Day 2: On my way to Cork for the weekend and a friend's birthday. Is it wrong that I didn't want to be seen with an iPhone and tried to hide it for most of the time I was there? I felt like the emperor’s tailor had been around and the iPhone was analogous to something that shouldn't be on display. Anyway, the iPhone works in Cork so I can confirm that it does indeed roam in other republics. ;) At the party, where I was dressed as a Jamaican, the iPhone's camera was pretty impressive. Nice big screen, the narrow aperture surprisingly left in plenty of light and the quality of the pictures wasn't at all bad. Nice one! However, the good was quickly countered with the bad. Showing the phone to an interested party, the web browser was accidentally launched by a careless thumb twitch and off it went to connect to my GPRS provider without confirmation prompt. Anyone using a prepay sim in Ireland without some odd data agreement will understand when I say OUCH!! Anyway live and learn. My battery is now half dead having taken about 12 photos and accepted very few calls or SMS messages. Also Shane called me to ask for somebody's number and when forwarding it on to him I noted that there was no send business card option or use number detail in text message option and I had to remember the number to retype it in a new SMS - that's not exactly making my life easier. I'm a techie and a gizmo nerd, I can't be expected to remember multiple digits for short spaces of time - I have a device to do that for me?

Day 3: Having enjoyed 48 hours of trying to remember people's phone numbers to call them since the iPhone won't read my sim contacts I decided it was time to do something about that problem. You'd think it would be easy and that Apple would have shipped some plugin for Address Book that helped you to sync via Bluetooth or otherwise but no, nadda. So, I went searching, and kudos to the good people at MacMedia and their product Phone Director which is actually responsible for my sanity still being intact. Phone Director allowed me to export my 6233 contacts via Bluetooth and into vcard format so that I could import into my Mac Address Book. That was the easy part, the 3 hours I spent thereafter removing the duplicates from my Address Book and merging contact details, etc that were stored on the phone and from my e-mail life was not so enjoyable. However, I guess it makes life more tidy, as long as I continue to use the iPhone of course, otherwise all that data will be lost on another phone format. Setting my alarm tonight for work tomorrow (I always use my phone as my alarm clock): why oh why can I not just set the alarm? Why do I have to create an alarm, set options and then finally set the time in order to wake myself up? By the time I've configured the alarm it's time for the dawn chorus! 

Day 4: Battery needs recharging; it's not flat but it's in that worrying zone of little charge left. Stats on usage since last full charge are 4 hours 20 minutes of usage, 2 days 12 hours of standby and very little of that involved anything other than a few calls, SMS messages and a few photos. Since my iPhone had been broken out of jail, I was able to visit the independent application providers and see what was available (via WiFi of course). Downloaded some freebies, Towers of Hanoi game, and More Cowbell which is reason enough to buy an iPhone. Towers of Hanoi is a classic that goes up as far as 8/9 rings (can't remember but cleared them all anyway) and More Cowbell is a picture of a cowbell that when the screen is tapped makes a noise like a cowbell. Rock on! Listening to some current chart song on the radio in the car and said to Siân, "this sounds like an old 80's song, I'm sure of it", she wasn't convinced, "no, I know it, I think it was Bronski Beat or something". Got back home, connect to WiFi, launch YouTube app, search Bronski Beat, found it - it was Smalltown Boy. I really like that the iPhone has a built in speaker (kind of essential I guess for a phone) but there are times when I wish my iPod Touch had such a facility. However, I am a little concerned that I'm remembering Jimmy Sommerville tracks from my subconscious. Amazingly enough I still haven't used the iPhone as a media player, is that because I was off for the weekend and didn't want to drain my battery because the iPhone doesn't come with a mains charger? Subconsciously, the answer is probably yes. However, after charging it today I put some music and videos on the device so I could experience it as a media device too.

Day 5: Damn this phone really sucks in terms of picking up a signal! There's enough metal on the back to act like an aerial bigger than 10 standard Nokia's but for some reason I have almost zero signal in parts of the house that I have almost full signal on my Nokia. Went to Dublin today for a meeting and had to drive up in the car. Great, an opportunity to test out how the iPhone works with my Bluetooth car kit (made by Nokia). So I activate Bluetooth on the phone and pair with the car kit - great, that was easy, away we go. At the meeting had to turn the phone into silent mode and for the first time ever on a phone I was impressed by a mechanical switch that performs a digital action of silencing the device, with a comforting visual display and short vibration to let you know it is in silent mode. Now that's good design, rather than searching through menus or even the quickest of shortcuts to the profile menu on your Nokia. One switch - off! Driving home that evening, I thought it was weird that I hadn't gotten any calls at all in the car; I pulled into my driveway and checked the phone - 2 missed calls! Seemingly, even though I had paired the device with my car kit, it hadn't actually connected to it that coupled with the noise of the radio meant that I had missed the phone ringing while driving home. More money spent calling back those numbers, oh well!

Day 6: Sitting in work today, the iPhone on my desk and a moment of drifting thought about something I was working on, I notice how I am drawn to the polished beauty of the iPhone. That silver, bevelled edge, that dark, black front giving the impression of almost infinite depth within the device - one could find oneself lost in the captivating design of this slab of electronics. A text message popped in: it was only then when I heard the loud chime from the phone did I realise that I could not set different volume levels for each tone on the phone like I have been doing for years with my various Nokia phones. Simple little things but they all add up in terms of getting along with a device and having it become unobtrusive in my life. Had to charge my battery again today, didn't use the media player very much during the week as for some reason I only listened to music when I was working on my laptop this week and the context didn't present itself. So, in short another charge for just basic phone usage.

Day 7: Lasting impression? Yes, it has left a lasting impression on me. Notably a financial one too from accidental GPRS connections on a prepaid sim and missed calls by failure to connect properly with my car kit (it does connect properly now though but unlike my Nokia I have to manually force it to pair each time I get into the car). I miss the simple expected things like different volume levels for ring tone and message tone. I love the SMS application but it really bugs me that it doesn't show when I've gone over 160 characters or how many messages I'm actually sending in a multi-part SMS. I really don't like the way that when you end a received call, the device goes back to standby and doesn't give you a chance to close the phone app. I love the interface, it's truly a work of art. I like that it forced me to organise my contacts properly, even though it was painful to do. However, there are so many things about the phone that just don't do what I have come to expect a mobile to do in recent years and the form factor is just a little too big. Granted it's a wonderful device to use for e-mail and the web but when playtime is over and it has to go back into your pocket, there's the problem, people don't spend all day using the device. That has always been one of my biggest gripes with mobile technology: the mobile phone needs to be small for convenience but small means unusable for anything other than being a phone/text device, anything bigger is an inconvenience. Dilema! So, while I won't be rushing out to buy an iPhone just yet I find myself in the unusual position of not yet wanting to remove my sim from it. Oh dear! Have I been so captivated by some aspects of the device, subliminally brainwashed by its classic good looks? Am I an iPhone user?

I'm rarely enthused by the actions of those who "hack" software and hardware together that never had previous meetings but this is different. The MSI Wind (aka an Advent sub notebook) has a very nice 10" screen and is now capable of running Mac OSX Leopard, albeit with a few hacks that are not for the feint hearted. The upside though is that the hardware is cheap and a really good OS is cheap too and you can have your very own MacBook Air comparative that's lightweight and runs Leopard. It's cool and I want to build one now! Too bad I decided to stop comforting myself with electronic purchases after my spur of the moment notebook purchase from Dell two months ago. :( Read More...

Imagine you were doing up your living room, or maybe your kitchen. Yes, let's say your kitchen, and you want a new granite worktop, new presses, new tiles, new appliances and sure why not make a snap decision to get yourself a handcrafted table and chairs! Right, your budget, granite worktops don't come cheap but all in all you'd probably get what you wanted for under Eur 30K. Or maybe you don't want to redecorate but want to snap up a small investment property now that the market is dropping, you might get something decent outside of Dublin for about Eur 200K. Now with those kind of figures in mind and what you would get for them, try to conceive exactly how the redecorating of Bertie's office cost about Eur 220K for 3 weeks work not including security or any other fancy stuff. What's worse is that the OPW defended the cost. WTF!! This is as bad as CJ's island. The government of this country is having a laugh at the public and rubbing their noses in anything that they have to do to make a few bob! I am so sick of this country; I'm completely fed up of the corrupt self-obsessed attitude of our political representatives who bathe themselves in ass's milk while the rest of us dodge acid rain. You pack of ignorant, pontificating, own nest feathering, corrupt, misguided, and stupid w*nkers - F**k the lot of ye!

Well it would appear that we are in recession after all the staving off that we tried. Difficult times are certainly ahead and this is a time for much questioning and reflection upon how our country has been managed over the last number of years of unprecedented growth and great times. Unlike the early 80's when recession last hit in a big way, emigration is not an option for so many people who are buried up to their necks in debt; debt that has been accrued due to living in an economy that has skyrocketed out of control due to a saturated housing market, massive increases in the cost of living even in terms of things like local government managed waste management services. These people cannot just leave their debt behind. We have also seen a ridiculous pour of finances into questionable social welfare cases. I don't care what anyone thinks of this statement but the facts and truth are that there are plenty of people milking the social welfare service, living in free accommodation, in receipt of benefits and sometimes even linked to crime who are never investigated for welfare fraud nor do the government even care about it. We have just come out of outrageous pay deals in the public service whereby a massive drain on the states finances has been delivered with so-called benchmarking; some of the senior civil servants in this country are earning multiples of what hard working CEO's are, who dedicated all their time to building a business and not just climbing a ladder.

From the late 90's up until now, Ireland went through a very good period of growth. Growth that was largely due to the global upturn and not any doing of the government. Instead of dealing with that growth and shaping up the economy for change and new jobs that would future-proof the employment market, the government instead squandered public finances on providing tax breaks to developers and property investors to build a surplus of cheap and nasty, disposable, apartment blocks. Of course I don't have to point out the stupidity of pouring money into an unsustainable industry in hope that it might just keep providing even though land and demand is running out. No other sustainable investment was made in our jobs market but yet so many of the Irish people thought that this was progress. For years I have been saying the opposite.

Interest rates are rising, especially now that Germany has got back on its feet again, the European Central Bank certainly won't be keeping Ireland's interests at heart. Nobody knows at the moment exactly how hard this recession will hit but what is certain is that those heads at the centre of the building boom and those in the public sector will not be affected by it in the slightest due to incalculable recent profits in construction and guaranteed pay deals and job safety in the public service. Who will suffer? Well that's simple it's the people responsible for creating the good times and not surfing on them, the lowly private sector workers who will be facing layoffs, business shutdown and a great manner of other horrible things. They will suffer, threatened with house repossession and forced, prolonged unemployment until such time that the private sector again starts to make money and give the economy a boost. Our country's government has failed us miserably. It failed to see the obvious future picture and instead poured money into an unsustainable jobs market hoping that nothing would ever change. Now due to the cost of living and the labour force wage expectations as a result of that we have killed off competitive manufacturing and many of the jobs that made us strong in past decades. Nouveau riche Ireland has lined its pockets with the empty promises and mismanagement of Irish government and now we stand to fall to earth with a very large bump. The elections aren't far away folks; just remember who it was that squandered all this money and turned a time of unprecedented growth and prosperity into a recession for all to enjoy without ever considering the rainy day!

Via Damien Mulley: Two members of Young Fine Gael were spotted impersonating Gerry Adams and Mary Lou McDonald outside Leinster House. Trying to create a satire and using completely inappropriate, inaccurate and irrelevant references to convince people as to the reasoning behind Sinn Féin's stance on the Lisbon Treaty.  Wow! Totally wow! I hope that YFG are very proud of themselves for this. No longer are they just attacking the people with questions about why they should vote yes, they have now gone and turned a completely non-party issue into a major anti-party stunt. Such behaviour belongs in the world of professional satire not within the bounds of independent political decision making. I thought that Fianna Fáil's ignorant and dogmatic attitude on this was bad but this stunt is simply immature and groundless, and exactly the type of activity that is losing more and more support for the yes vote but more worrying is that it is further clouding any possible comprehension of the treaty by those who still don't know the factual meaning of it. There's so much playing of the man in this game that I don't think that there's even a ball on the pitch!

Seriously, you'll never have heard it explained this way before. It's even more chilling than reading it.

After yesterday's poll results were announced, with respect to the opinion of voters on the Lisbon Treaty, the "no" vote has almost doubled since the last opinion poll. Am I surprised? Well frankly no, I'm not. It's like I have said to many people on numerous occasions in the past. Those swinging towards a "no" vote are doing so because of educating themselves by reading the treaty and/or supporting literature that has come from independent sources. God knows with the support for Sinn Féin in this country that it's certainly not because of their efforts. However, since the last opinion poll literature has been sent to homes, information has been made available on the web and people who are actually interested in what the treaty means have gone to the trouble of creating brief summaries of main points for those who don't have the time to read fully. The net result of this information burst is a massive swing towards a "no" vote whereas previously people were happy to tow the party line and vote whatever way they were being encouraged to do so. While I am happy to see that with the advent of clear information to people who generally have no exposure to such material has allowed them to reassess their opinions it does sadden me that should this treaty be rejected in the vote, it will no doubt be brought back for vote again just like the Nice Treaty; yet again undermining our democratic principles. Plenty of political parties had a dig at the government over that fiasco and I really hope they remember their reasons should the same thing emerge again, irrespective of their unilateral support on the issue currently. source: Irish Times

Appearing in today's Times' letters page: