Questions, Hosting and IT 2006!

I recently found a great documentary, about 9/11, entitled “Loose Change 9/11“. It is easily the most powerful about the event, much more so than Fahrenheit 9/11. In fact I would even argue, that if this documentary had of aired during the U.S. presedential election, I would have bet on a different result. Backed up by trusted resources such as the BBC which confirmed at least 8 of the 19 highjackers are alive and well. Filled with outrageous facts, it sets the scene for either a highly competent Bush regime that new what it was doing, or the worst domestic tragedy that happend under maladministration. Either way the American people have serious questions to ask, which I hope in time will get the aired in time. Maybe George W. is taking a leaf out of Charlie Haugheys book? That is that corruption can be a force for the good of the public, and my rich friends?

Also I would like to unreservadly apologise that this site has been down for so long. The thing is my ex-hosting provider, which I won’t even honour with a link, was an incompentent mess. I have now moved to an Irish company, Hosting365.ie, which gives me freephone support all for a little extra money. Also their premises is in Dublin, which means I can call in at any time and I get the protection of Irish Law (even though we know its a mess [e.g. Mr.A child abuser being set free], I still think we have an alright civil liberties protection, even though I know nothing about law, so I am most likely misguided, anyhoo!) of course not without paying the 21% VAT, which needs to be lowered might I add.

This isn’t my usual tech babble I know, but I’ll end this post with the news that I am BETA testing the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet Edition 2006 [maemo.org]. It rocks so hard, I can’t even begin to say…… First of theirs GoogleTalk built in, with support for SIP (might be from Gizmo). Notwithstanding that, their are cool native applications such as MaemoPad Plus [Sketch/Notes] and MaemoMapper [GPS+ Google Maps]. Somehow they have squeezed more battery life out of this gadget, and now you can create a swap on the memory card, meaning its, I’d say (pure speculation, obviously) 80% more efficient. Warning to people who actually use the 770 for important stuff, don’t upgrade until Nokia has released it, as it is very buggy, with applications crashing [somewhat] alot. Wait until all of us in the know, report those pesky bugs! But a real geek can see through the flaws and see the Nokia 770 for what it is, a truly cool Internet tool.

FON, New Job and Commuting!

I regularly read other Irish blogs to see whats happening and whats the latest tech thing amongst others. It seems that may have come to fruition, with FON, a community wifi project, sending me out a free router!! I am exicted about this, as I hope to convince all my neighbours eventually to get it, and maybe who knows, I may even achieve the biggest fon hotspot, if I take my campaign estate wide, to neighbours all around! I want to “eat my own dog food” as they say, so I will wait until I have recieved and used my router before I recommend it to non-technical people. I have read of long delays on FON’s forums, so I expect iot should be here within two to three weeks, maybe a little longer. Also it comes with a european plug, not a Irish/British one, which is a bit of a disappointment that I will have to root out the screwdriver to make it fit!!!

Also, I was recently employed by the Irish National Lottery contractors, GTECH Ireland Operations, part of GTECH Corporation (who trade as GTK on New York Stock Exchange). It was voted one of the fifty best places to work last year. I am very exicited at the prospect, as I will gain many insights on the life of working. They own a number of franchise lotterys around the world, including the United Kingdom, Portugal and Spain.

I also, as part of my new job, join the Dublin commute. Iarnrod Eireann, while after coming on in recent years is a fine company, I still believe it has a long way to go. The lack of a cheap, clean and friendly transport system does hurt Dublin in terms of tourism and business, of that I have no doubt. I was recently in Rome, which you get 75 minutes unlimited travel on the bus, plus one metro journey, all for, get this, €1! Yes you read that correctly €1! Why can’t we do this? I think we can, but we need an integrated transport system first. How come after all these years you still cannot get a ticket for Bus, Train and Luas in one? Thats what baffles me the most, and it could make a huge difference, one ticket!