Aaron Donohoe

This post has been a draft for quite some time, but for the past number of weeks I’ve been trying to sort my priorities. I’ve been racking my brain about what I really want to pursue as a career path, whether I want to enrole into college of go headlong into the working world - in the not so distant future I’ll be out of the cushie nest and let loose into the real world! By no means am I prepared. I’ve yet to decide on a course which would suit me and that I would suit, and I’m teetering about the college I’m wanting to attend - I’m leaning towards DCU though.

I’ve been considering a course in Enterprise Computing, I don’t know exactly why, but that stuck out in the prospectus and I think that I’d be interested in such a course as it covers what I’m interested in - Computers, & Business. Plus it’s a stone’s throw away, and DCU and my school are linked by the Access programme - meaning they work in conjunction with one another to encourage students to go onwards to 3rd Level Education. We used to frequent the campus causing terror during many visits to DCU - they even had to put up with us during the ComputeTY course (which I came runner-up in!)

My main focus presently is catching up for any slacking done last year, I must admit I didn’t slack that much (not as much as others) is mainly recapping on some missed notes and refreshing my myself with anything I forgot over the summer. So far I’m only behind in French - possibly my worst subject until recently when I migrated to Ordinary Level, which is a refreshing relief!

I know I’ve been rambling on for ages about how I wanted to get into Engineering, but to be honest, I think I’d be better suited to an I.T. job for better career prospects and job satisfaction. Although tinkering around with engines and the likes is a hobby, I don’t think it’s a very promising career to be honest - for the initial investment of time, energy and money you get little from it. Where as doing an I.T. course won’t be as strenuous.

On another note, I’ve revived my dead laptop at last. After putting 3 laptops worth of parts into it, it’s become more of a Dr. Frankenstein creation - DELL Latitude D600 case and innerds, with 1GB RAM from simular DELL laptop, Processor from same laptop, and HDD & OS License from my former Inspiron. I’m running XP SP2 without a problem, was going to attempt Vista…but didn’t want to buy a license when I had a spare XP lying around. Still it’s only used for Browsing, Wordprocessing and Emails - will be rarely used by me. I just got it up and running for my sister who needs more internet access for projects and assignments in school…so I don’t have to forfeit my PC anymore

Well it appears that every blogger and his dog will be writing and reviewing the latest addition to the Google monopoly - Google Chrome which is the latest browser boasts to offer a no frills, back to basics experience feature the most commonly used Apps. So here is my opinion on the whole thing:

1. Interface - the style and layout of the whole thing really appeals to me. It shows that a lot of thought and consideration has been pushed towards a more refined user. Everything is out of your line of sight, which is good as it reduces distractions and allows you to focus soly on the content in which you are viewing. The only down sight to this, is having to place the tabs in the impromptu place of the top of the browser - they’re the only part which I think were an afterthought.
2. Usability - I found it to be like Firefox mainly. Easy to navigate, and configure - it also does imports all your bookmarks, your history, and passwords from Firefox. The only thing that in my opinion will make it the underdog to Firefox will be the plugins - my Firefox is laden with essential plugins, such as Twitterfox, some cool one that if I type in ‘flickr’ it automatically directs me to ‘www.flickr.com’ same as ‘google’, ‘ebay’, etc. I don’t think many developers will take to this, which means I don’t think I’ll take to it if I can’t have my array of plugins!
3. Features - like every browser out there it is feature packed. Google Chrome has some great features though, such as a splash page with Tabs featuring your most visited websites (very cool!), and widgets for recently added bookmarks and recently closed tabs. Also another great feature is incognito mode, which enables you to open a link without it going onto your browsing history (for those ‘inappropriate’ sites!).
4. Reliability - I have a few tests to test whether a browser can withstand the heat of my abuse. So I direct it to websites which set Firefox off in spasms and to be fair it held up well. No tantrums, no haste, it just got on with it - which is reassuring!

Whilst downloading the latest instalment from the Mozilla family in the form of Firefox 3.0 (yes I’m only downloading it now!) I came across Firefox As Gaeilge which I thought was pretty cool - I don’t know why, but Irish is never on a list of preferred languages for software installations.

I honestly can’t think of anyone who could use this version of Firefox though - a lot of friends and family can speak some Irish…but none would want to surf the net As Gaeilge… :drunk:

I’d just like to express my gratitude to everyone who’s emailed, texted, phoned, sent eCards etc… and wished me Happy Birthday. Kept it a quiet one this year - just family. Didn’t throw a party, or go out boozing…as I’ve finally gotten my hands on the new PC and wanted to set it up, and obviously play with it - I know I have geeky tendencies!

It’s better than expected - Vista I mean. I’ve heard reports that it’s full of bugs, sluggish, and has a confusing interface. But I find it contrary to fact. It’s pretty fast - except when restarting after an update, I’ve found it faster then my XP system and laptop - although it’s true colours will shine when I load it full of Music, Photos and of course the software - Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc…

I know I’m only getting hyped over a new pc, but feck it - it’s my birthday and I’ll blog about what I want to!

Suppose you’ve already heard (I’m always behind on these developments…), but there has been a ‘break through’ with OS (apparently!). Google OS, or gOS as it is formally known is an ‘An alternative operating system for the masses’ combining popular Google Applications and Ubuntu into one package - oh and it’s Free!

And I must say so myself, it looks pretty nifty from the screenshot:

Of course it has the Ubuntu look to it, with just some Google Apps added to it. But it looks perfect for the inexperienced PC users, as it has access points on the desktop to lead to the widely used online services and applications - from the favicons I can make out: gMail, Meebo, Google News, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogger, Skype and a few others.

One good thing it has going for it, is it’s plug and play interface. It is already configured to work with your iPod, and already had applications you’d expect of any OS, such as Word Processors, Web ,Email, and IM Clients, and Video and Movie media applications.

Although I’ve since learned this has nothing to do with Google or Linux! It’s an independant operation that was undertaken by a small(ish) team of developers who are doing their best to merge both Linux and Google Apps into one package.

You can download gOS here - or, there are already pre-loaded PC’s and Motherboards available to buy. For more info, clicky here.

The new DELL has finally arrived, I settled for the Inspiron 531 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+, 2048MB Dual Channel RAM , 320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst cache, 128MB ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro graphics card, 16x DVD +/- RW Drive, and 19″ DELL Widescreen monitor (yes I just copied and pasted from the website… )

The only thing, is DELL in their moment of wisdom never sent the Keyboard and Mouse we ordered as an additional purchase (even though it was supposed to come with one) - not a big deal, I’ve tons of them here at home.

EDIT: The sent it out

Appologies, I was having some internet woes recently with some connectivity issues and some other technical jargin. Seems to be all sorted now - I can resume the wreckoning…or something like that
While I was living in the stone age (that seemed like an eternity) I got to thinking - what would life be like without the internet?

Now I know not everyone has internet access, but I’d say most people in the developed world would have some form access to the internet. Leading me to think of how worse off the world would be without it!

Think of it, we wouldn’t have as many references, long term friendships either found online or else through other means would be formed or maintained, the economy would be worse as many businesses rely on the internet as another form of income (through online orders etc…) and not forgetting people who own businesses on the internet itself.

Without the net we’d have no internet ’something from nothing’ success stories such as Google, Flickr, eBay, and other online tycoons! Computers would be redundant, really only being able to be used for Word Processing as many games have online platforms, meaning Microsoft wouldn’t make many sales, and many things we use in our daily lives such as Mobile Phones, Cameras, and other electrical items would all have mere basic functions. We’d be reliant on Snail Mail and 1 hour photo development instead of emailing a few digital snaps in seconds on the web!

Should you want to talk you your friends, you’d have to either ring or meet in person. And if it’s long distances (other sides of the country…or continent!) then it could get expensive!

I’m not whinging, some aspects of the world would be better without the internet! Such as I’m certain ‘happy-slapping’ wouldn’t exist as neither would YouTube, People would have more free time, and people’s attention span would greatly increase by not being glued (like myself) to the PC screen - my attention span is that of an excitable spanial pup (known fact!).

I just thought I’d share that moment of thought. More than likely none of it makes any sense, I was just typing not really thinking about what I’ve been saying (or typing!). So for those not arsed in reading it through, it’s just about how simple life would be without the internet.

This blog has seemingly turned into my rants and me -vs- the world combats! But in my defence I usually have something worthwhile to bitch about, such as today:

For the past three days, my internet has been patchy, not enabling me to blog, maintain my sites nor pay for recent purchases on eBay. And before I go into a ‘big one’ it’s no fault over at my end - but for the past three days Irish Broadband has been ‘experiencing’ connection faults in my area;

Funny that, as it happens quite frequently, so Irish Broadband mustn’t have the adequete hardware and equipment for the job in question - which leads me to reconsider my contract.

When I signed up nearly three years ago, there was no minimum contract. But they then introduced a 6 month contract agreement to sucker people into having to pay them around €120 for shite internet for 6 months - it happened to my uncle; he ordered it thinking it was great and good value. A week later when he returned it they kept charging his account for 6 months. I know it was the contract he signed (verbally), but could they not have the goodwill and gesture to stop billing people when they find out how crap their services are!

So I’m really considering my contract, I’m entitled to leave at anytime as I’m with them longer than six months. But I don’t want to be left ‘internetless’ for 2 weeks waiting for NTL, BT, or Eircom to connect me.

It’s a dilema I don’t really want to encounter. I want rid of Irish Broadband, but I need internet access…I went two weeks without internet access and it was the longest stretch of evenings in my life! As we’ve grown dependant (most people) on the internet in our daily lives.

So what’s all this about? Well I’ve to recall back to December 2006, when a Meteor rep, called to my 86 year old Grandmother’s front-door, doing the usual sales rep shite and somehow got my granny to invite him in.

So basically, he intimidated her into signing up for a Bill contract - she didn’t really have a clue to what she was signing upto, she just wanted him out of the house to be frank…and if you’ve ever had these at your house you’d know how difficult that is!

BUT, Meteor didn’t follow correct procedure in signing her up! The ported her O2 number over, to Meteor, then told her they’d sent her on a Sim Pack and a new mobile phone - which she has yet to recieve despite being billed every recurring month!

But, here’s the flaw. The number was and alwats has been in my name and my number. So, by rights, Meteor had no real authority to port the number over without my consent. She had already told them that fact, and they said they’d sort it - doesn’t look sorted to me!

Back to today, I was in 02 trying to get her number sorted out, under the impression that they had only roped her into signing up for Pre-pay. After many phonecalls is appears they got her to signup for Bill - even the staff at 02 were sickened by the way that Meteor were taking advantage of vulnerable old folk and knowing that most if not all, haven’t a clue about mobile phones - she can just about dial out and string up a text (not bad for 86! ).

So I wondered around to the Meteor store, trying to enquire futher on the situation, and the plank hadn’t a clue. He looked blankly at me and asked me twice to repeat the story! I eventually got him to look up the account and confirm it was Bill, but he wouldn’t let me know no more (by rights). He began bullshitting, saying I had to fax this person and that person, write letters saying she wanted the account terminated - but he couldn’t get it into his head that is was void in the first place as the number belongs to me!

So I returned to 02, let them know the story, they told me to contact Meteor - on my grannies behalf and to cancel the account, demand the money back which they were taking without her knowing, or else go to Reg Tel (threaten them with that first I was told! )

So I’m not a happy bunny today, I’m sure most of you would be pissed off if Meteor did the same to. I’m sure they have done it to other ’silver citizens’, as they’re going door-to-door in my granny’s area which has a lot of ‘old folk’ living there.

I was selected to review a new beta search engine, recently available on the market known as Tiger Tom Search Engine.

I’ve spent the past 15 or so minutes, playing around with this, establishing it’s limits, features, and basically going through it with a fine tooth comb.

I must say I’m impressed, I haven’t encountered any errors as of yet, the design is well layed out (could do with futher development, but it’s fine for now), but what really draws me to it, is the related search which configures for every search, and also has a widget on the home page with the most popular searches made.

It was a little slow compared to the ‘big cheeses’, but that was stated before you search. It could simply be the fact its still under development. But other than that, it has exactly what you want from a search engine, and the related searches are a nice bonus!

Try out a search for ‘madringo’ on it - tigertom.org.uk