Ken McGuire

Author: Ken McGuire

  • Blogs 13 – Podcasts 12

    Picked up a press release earlier this morning on the findings of a recent EIAA survey, with some new interesting facts about internet usage in Europe.

    • 17% increase in time spent online across Europe
    • European super internet users revealed with 24% spending over 16 hours a week online
    • France tops Euro league spending 13 hours per week online
    • 29% of Europeans download music at least once a month
    • 10% of Europeans have made telephone calls over the web

    Whats more interesting is the figures relating to blogging and podcasting…

    Blogging is also becoming increasingly popular with 13% regularly contributing to online blogging sites while 12% are downloading podcasts at least once a month. Even very new technologies such as Voice over IP (VoIP) are proving popular with consumers with 10% of Europeans are already using the internet to make telephone calls

    Given that in the EU there are approx 460,270,935 (thats a good guess), that means there are 59,835,221 people (again, approx figure) that blog regularly throughout Europe!

    Where is everyone hiding??? Visit the EIAA website or read the article in full.

  • Skype 2 – I See You!

    Skype, who was only recently acquired by eBay, announced today it is adding high-resolution picture phone features to its free telephone replacement service.

    Version 2.0 of the Skype software aims to make it easier for customers to sign up and use its phone-over-Internet services, which are free on computers and offer low per-minute charges when calling conventional phones.

    I’ve been back using Skype myself recently, trying out their conference call features which, even on Eircom’s low u/s, works pretty good. The video function will no doubt finally bring about a use for those web cams so many people have knocking about their computer desks gathering dust.

    In addition, Six Apart, one of the top makers of Web blog software based in San Francisco, has agreed to embed links to Skype as an option for millions of users of Six Apart’s Typepad blog service, the two companies said.

    The beta version of Skype 2.0 is now available, keeping in mind that its still beta, but their is a “shiny” new version on the way 😀

  • DeviantART Integration

    Finally… finally (!!) managed to start getting some of my photography through here to my blog through the DeviantART pasties function.

    One of the perks of being a beta tester for DeviantART is the use of the extra user functions, one of which allows you to thumbnail certain elements of your gallery and export them for integration on your own webpage, or anywhere else for that matter. So if you look down the left of the page you’ll find five of my most recent efforts.

    At least now its a start. I’ll be looking at integrating both DA Pasties and images from my Flickr account to the blog, the latter of which has just recently been created.

  • Google reader… eh?

    Ever heard of Google Reader?

    If not, you’re missing yet another one of Google’s beta releases as an online RSS aggregator. Anyone familiar with using gMail will be at great ease in using it as it carries some of the same functions – starred entries, all the usual search facilities etc.

    Not only that, but they’ve lobbed in keyboard shortcuts, active on the website – pretty quirky function.

    The real benefit for managing your feeds is that you can import them (and export them) from any OPML file (i mentioned OPML in this previous post). Adding a feed it a breeze, click ‘Add Feed’, enter the URL, preview and subscribe – nice and tidy.

    If you’re away from your copy of Firefox or your desktop, its yet another handy tool to have on the road making sure you don’t miss any posts!

  • Microsoft Downgrading Spyware?

    You might not know the name of Claria as a corporation or business in the US but for anyone who has ever had problems with adware/spyware, you will surely be familiar with names like ‘PrecisionTime’, ‘Weatherscope’ and any of the Gator products that you “have” to install in order to get your favourite freeware to work….

    Anyway, we (we being Event Ireland) share our building with another Irish company, EMG Control Systems, who use a good number of PCs in their line of work, one of which houses a lot of important day-to-day items, one which must also be connected to the ‘net at all times.

    So joy would have it this morning when it turned out that the machine was riddled with spyware, actually riddled to the stage where there are files everywhere and anywhere that simply don’t belong, running applications that do no good, causing all kinds of user discomforts.

    Queue Microsoft AntiSpyware (still Beta as far as I know) which picks up the same 19/20 spyware changes every time, after it insists that it has cleaned them, removed them, deleted them, and rebooted…. yet they always come back! So it was no surprise to me that I read this only after I had gone through the emergency repair of Windows 2000 as the hard drive would no longer boot due to certain spyware activity…

    Less than a week after published reports of acquisition talks between Microsoft Corp. and the Redwood City, Calif.-based distributor of the controversial Gator ad-serving software, security researchers have discovered that Microsoft has quietly downgraded its Claria detections.

    Anti-spyware activist Eric L. Howes, who serves as a consultant to Sunbelt Software, discovered the default changes during a recent test that included four Claria applications: Dashbar, Gator, PrecisionTime and Weatherscope.

    So Microsoft fancies itself buying out a company who knowingly serves up ads and “free” ad-based software which quietly gathers statistics on all your goings on, and then plays down the spyware threat in their own software, that was originally designed to wipe out the activity of the company that they’re buying….?

    Oh please….

  • What is Creative Imagination?

    So when it comes down to my blog, one question that has been asked of me is “why the title?”.

    Surely, everyone has a little bit of a creative imagination? Wild stories? Design abilities? Something that makes you tick…?

    Well, for anyone who is interested, please regard this quote from the man with all the brains…. Einstein himself.

    The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.

    Food for thought….

  • BitTorrent Says No To Hollywood

    Bram Cohen is saying “NO” to Hollywood. And by “NO” I mean an agreement has been reached between the seven major Hollywood studios and Cohen, the creator of popular P2P utility BitTorrent, to prevent popular Hollywood movies appearing on the Torrent search list.

    The agreement represents the latest effort by the entertainment industry to discourage illegal internet downloads. It also demonstrates Cohen’s sensitivity toward Hollywood’s piracy problems, making him potentially more attractive to studios for future deals related to movie downloads.

    Cohen revealed that back in September his company had raised US$8.75 million in venture funding to develop commercial distribution tools for media companies.

    The BitTorrent technology pioneered by Cohen – used by an estimated 45 million people – assembles digital movies and other computer files from separate bits (hence the name) of data downloaded from other computer users across the internet. Its decentralized nature makes downloading more efficient but also frustrates the entertainment industry’s efforts to find and identify movie pirates.

  • Winter sickness?

    The joys of winter sickness…

    Hot during the night..

    Cold during the day…

    Can’t breathe….

    Constant sniffing, sneezing, coughing…

    You just know December is around the corner!

  • Thought For The Day

    More indepth reading and programming at 2:30am makes for a great night I tell you! But it has its rewards when you get it right.

    Reading back over some notes and bundled material, I came across this little quote, never having seen it or heard it before, and so I present my thought for the day…. stolen from someone else, of course 😉

    Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results

    If thats the case, I think I broke the insanity barrier safely last night. Frustration is the number one single cause of programmer blindness! Get around that frustration, you’re rockin!

    Cheers to Kerry Watson for that….

  • And Writely So

    Word processing, preparing documents etc. was, and is, something you do on your PC, from the comfort of your own computer. You’ve got everything around you, your copy of Word or Works – whatever tickles your fancy.

    This site was brought to my attention this morning, having launched privately back in August of this year. The reason is came to my attention is that they just announced support for the OpenOffice format. I’m big on OpenSource software and all the things ‘it’ can do for the greater good.

    Writely is a web word processor that provides simple and secure document collaboration and publishing on the web using only the browser.

    What exactly does Writely do?

    • Upload Word documents, HTML or text (or create documents from scratch).
    • Use our simple WSIWYG editor to format your documents, spell-check them, etc.
    • Invite others to share your documents (by e-mail address).
    • Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
    • View your documents’ complete revision history and roll back to any version.
    • Publish documents online to the world, or to just who you choose.
    • Download documents to your desktop as Word, HTML or zip.
    • Post your documents to your blog.

    It’s best feature has to be the collaboration factor, which is done in almost realtime. You can share any documents that you like with your friends, you are sent a notice online when someone is editing one of your documents and the changes are reflected every few seconds in front of your eyes.

    While its in beta, its free. There is a 500k limit per document which is pretty good, and you’re allowed up to 2mb per embedded image, outside of the document size.

    Anyway, if you’re interested, it doesn’t hurt to click and visit Writely!

  • Old Technology Dies Hard

    I consider 3.5″ Floppy Drives old technology. The disks for them are majorly small in capacity, they are suspect irrepairable damage if you leave them in the drive too long, or accidentally snap the top off them, or leave them sitting on your speakers…..

    They have been replaced over the years by flash drives, usb memory sticks, portable hard drives, firewire drives – hell, even your iPod and other MP3 players can store whatever data you need.

    I’ve been building computers for myself and friends over the past 2 years and never once added a floppy drive to a machine. I order laptops for people regularly, never one adding a floppy drive. I’ve got a drive installed on a machine at home for the past 4 years and can proudly say that its never been used, and never will.

    So I find myself in disgust yesterday that I was forced into buying a portable floppy drive in order to get a license for an application. Sure, you pay loads of money to get the cds, and you pay out more money to get the support. But when you want to move the application to a new machine, you have to send the license to floppy disk using a special license-moving facility, and the disk acts as a key to install your new application.

    Of course when your new machine doesn’t have a floppy drive, your fancy expensive application has nowhere to go and nowhere around it.

    Considering the last company I worked for has drawers and drawers and drawers of floppy disks archiving their material I guess it can’t be written off just yet!

  • No more blurry photos!

    Reading this article on Wired News, it has been revealed that a Ph.D. student in the US has modified a 16MP camera, fitting it with a number of micro lenses allowing users to take photographs, and refocus them at a later date using software he wrote.

    Many a time have I myself, and millions of others like me, fallen victim to an out-of-focus shot, or slight camera shake resulting in a ruined image – but now, no more!

    From the article…

    “We just think it’ll lead to better cameras that make it easier to take pictures that are in focus and look good,” said Ng’s adviser, Stanford computer science professor Pat Hanrahan.

    For all you photo heads out there, and anyone with a 16mp camera…. read on!

  • TiVo to go please!

    Apple and TiVo are teaming up in the US!

    Well…. sort of.

    TiVo Inc. is expanding its video recording service so users will be able to transfer recorded TV shows onto Apple Computer’s iPods, according to an Associated Press report. By adding support for the MPEG-4 video format, TiVo hopes to capitalise on the immense popularity of Apple iPods.

    TiVo automatically finds and digitally records up to 300 hours of programming you want—your favorite show, every Coppola movie, home improvement programs, Dora cartoons, whatever you choose—all while you’re out living life. Plus, pause, rewind and slo-mo live TV.

    Two downsides to this?

    No TiVo in Ireland…. and no video iPod for Ken! Though I’m working on the latter…

  • Whois Ajax?

    Reading through some posts over at TechCrunch this morning and came across this addition – AjaxWhois.

    It seems there are more Ajax tools popping up all over the place, but I gotta say, I like this one. I’m a regular ‘whois’ user at whois.org, and I’m pretty impressed with the Ajax offering, in particular with speed of information retrieval.

    You simply enter your domain name (no need to click any buttons) and it searches on the fly, returning your results if the domain is available or not. If it is taken, you are given the option to perform a ‘whois’ with instant results, or alternatively backorder the domain for when it becomes available.

    I gotta say… thats one useful tool to have!

  • Making A Name For Yourself

    Doing my lunchtime drive through blogs that I subscribe to, I came across this interesting article on MacManX.com which raises the issue of handles (internet nicknames / alter ego’s) vs real names.

    I’ve got to agree, handles are a pain, you’ve no idea who you’re dealing with – sure, it gives you that anonymous factor but where do you distinguish the handle from the person behind it.

    Anyway, go check it out, take a look, worth the read and the insight!

  • Blogging Set For Cork Conference

    Update : You can pick up a podcast interview with Robert Scoble, conducted by Tom Raftery, by clicking here.

    Reading a copy of this month’s ComputerScope magazine (and Technology Ireland magazine)… normally sits on the desk, does the rounds of the office, and then comes back to me so I can read my own copy… but this little article is of interest, to myself anyway – and to anyone reading this blog you should find it similar!

    It goes..

    THE opening address at the it@cork annual conference, on Wednesday 30 November in the Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork, will be given by Robert Scoble, techinal evangelist at Microsoft USA and one of the world’s best known bloggers.

    Scoble, who will talk about ‘Blogging for Business’, has been widely credited with helping to create a slightly more positive perception of Microsoft, particularly amongst software developers who make up a large part of his audience. In addition to his opening address, he will discuss emerging trends in software at a technical forum in the afternoon and is due to attend an inaugural bloggers’ dinner in the evening. According to it@cork, the conference is now shaping up to be the largest ever gathering of Irish bloggers.

    Speaking before the event, Scoble said that corporate blogging is changing how companies talk with their customers.

    Do it wrong and you could end up with negative PR..

    Do it right and you’ll have happier employees, better products, and more informed customers. It’ll be interesting to learn about the blogging that’s happening in Ireland and I’ll bring some of the top tips I’ve learnt working for Microsoft

    The conference is divided into sessions on governance, standards and certification, looking backwards to the future, and growing Irish technology business. The speakers include author and management guru Charles Handy, Paul O’Callaghan (CIO at Pepsico), Michael Brophy (CEO of Certificiation Europe), Mike Stephenson (Computer Associates), Joe Gantley (Cork Airport Authority) and Dr Jim Mountjoy, founder of Euristix and a co-founder of Baltimore Technologies.

    Anyone interested, head over to itcork.ie…

    Pricing: Full conference fee is €275 for it@cork members, €375 for non-members. You can also attend the afternoon technical forum on a stand-alone basis for €125.

  • Riya : Next Best Thing?

    Google are out shopping again so it seems and rumours are abound that they’ve just purchased Riya, a tech startup in the US specialising in facial recognition software. When one company spends $40,000,000 on another very small company, it has to raise a few eyebrows. It raised mine, and for those of you who don’t know what Riya is, here’s the lowdown.

    I first took an interest in this line of software through a project in Waterford IT last year which involved adding facial profiling to a dating website (getting a match to someone of your tastes based on their facial features as opposed to their own attributes), but this is pretty clever material.

    Our face recognition technology automatically tags people in photos so you can search for just the photo you want. In your album. In your friend’s album. On the web.

    Sounds like magic stuff, certainly gives it a similar sound to Flickr based on the whole tagging element – but here’s where it gets interesting.

    Riya users train the software, which requires a downloadable Windows client, by identifying, or tagging, individuals in their photos.

    As Riya learns who’s in your pictures, it begins to auto-tag the snaps itself, quickly scanning the rest of your photos and identifying each person it recognizes. Riya also uses text recognition to read street signs and other text in photos.

    Not only that, but it can decipher genders, locations (based on street signs), family connections and more.

    Photos can and will be made either public or private. My only worry about this type of service is the information thats available. If Riya recognises other people’s tags and not just your own, then we got ourselves an invasion of privacy to a global level. You wouldn’t need to ask for names any longer, just take someone’s photo, upload it, and *presto* – Riya tells you who they are and if the person next to them in the photo is a relation or not…

    Nevertheless, its miles off, it’s still alpha – but Google can see its certain potential – can you?

  • Base : A Second Look

    Earlier in the week, possibly only yesterday (time has no meaning any more!) I posted that Google Base had launched. Upon delving into the depths of base and exploring existing content as well as my own little profile page it occurred to me that this could get pretty big.

    Perhaps, a little too big. Fair enough, content can exist for the 31 days, but if every Google user submitted one article alone you’ve got a wave of information to sift through to get something worthwhile.

    In an interesting article I read this morning at ZDNet, I would like to just highlight the following which I completely agree with.

    Google could in fact be building the world’s largest database of structured shite.

    Well worth a read for those of you interested in Google Base. Click here for the article…

  • OPML Irish Directory

    I’ve been tinkering around with OPMLManager.com on suggestion from James Corbett of the Eirepreneur blog and have decided to make my contribution to the Open Irish Directory by managing a node on Irish Film.

    So now you’ll think

    • What the hell is OPML?
    • What is the Open Irish Directory
    • What the hell is a node?

    So here goes!

      OPMLOPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines. Originally developed by Radio UserLand as a native file format for an outliner application, it has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators.

      The OPML specification defines an outline as a hierarchical, ordered list of arbitrary elements. The specification is fairly open which makes it suitable for many types of list data.

      OPMLManager.com

      OPML Manager is simply brilliant. As in simple and brilliant. The simplicity is deceptive because its a very powerful enabler. Not only is it a web-based, AJAX enabled OPML editor but, crucially, it’s an OPML host. That means that anyone can now contribute a node to an open directory project like indiePodder or the Open Irish Directory

      Open Irish Directory

      OID is a directory of all things Irish, and open in the sense that anyone can contribute to it. Think of it as a catalog of links, hierarchical, with individuals managing the nodes (sub categories of links) and their content (the actual links). Check it out.

    Anyway… go check it out!

  • 13 Reasons To Switch To Firefox

    Get Firefox Now!While out doing the browse on the tea break, this little ditty surfaced. Nice take on the whole Kill Bill theme… but moreso, it provides 13 reasons to switch to Firefox In summary….

    1. You’ll only see porn when you want to.
    2. Your kids will only see porn when they want to
    3. Your computer won’t spend its free time telling the world about Viagra soft tabs.
    4. Mozilla doesn’t inflate prices and use the money to vaccinate children in Africa.
    5. If we knew web designers would hurl themselves off it, we wouldn’t have put the Golden Gate bridge so close to San Francisco.
    6. Keep squinting and your eyes will get stuck like that, stupid
    7. It will make Bill Gates soooooooooo mad.
    8. Mozilla has never made a talking paperclip.
    9. Ritalin is fun, but A.D.D. is not.
    10. It’s like switching from dating a 14-year-old to dating an 18-year-old.
    11. Reduce your weekly family & friends tech support load to 8 hours.
    12. More effective than throwing pies.
    13. Because the Department of Justice Lacks Balls.

    For the matching descriptions and explanations, which are worth a read in themselves, check out Kill Bill’s Browser