Inside View from Ireland

Distance education under fire

THE IRISH HIGHER Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC) approved Hibernia College's online teacher training and immediately kicked off a public outcry from traditional colleges of education. The firestorm of libelous rumours has not deterred 192 applicants from enrolling in the Hibernia programme. If my experience with HETAC and the Distance Education and Training Council are any guide, those on the Hibernia programme will complete a syllabus leading to industry-level proficiencies. And if they earn the teaching certification without meeting industry standards, HETAC will revoke accreditation."

Annecy preparing for 28th festival

KILKENNY -- There are more people in Kilkenny who have attended Annecy's animation festival than in any other Irish city of its size. That's because the animators from Cartoon Saloon have attended the festival since their college days.

I would like to attend this year, for part of the 7-12 June running of Annecy 2004. The promotional material arrived through my letter box last week.

Note to FastBuzz

KILKENNY -- Scrapings from FastBuzz will never be as the leading edge unless they're tailored to grab content from leading edge bloggers like Lawrence Lessig¹ and bloggers who won't make their A-List². Lessig is now a guest columnist at Wired. When he spoke in Ireland several years ago, people were impressed by his expertise as a thinker on copyright and Internet politics. I need him in my in-box and wish that was possible through FastBuzz. Noting that it's not, I'm going to select an e-mail update script and promote the tool to bloggers who I like to read via e-mail snippets.

---

¹ Professor Lawrence Lessig visited Dublin two years ago and now hosts Presidential candidates on his blog.
² The only way I am going to get edgy bloggers like Burkie as e-mail updates is to run something like Radio UserLand's news aggregator in the background and have it mail me its harvest at regular intervals. In the past, that meant enduring 100k mail bombs.
Sent mail2blog using Nokia Communicator O2 Typepad service from The Kilkenny Rivercourt Hotel.
x_ref1256

Loving Wired

WIRED -- Don't you just love Wired magazine for its content, its covers and its connect-the-dots ethos? Could a multimedia student go an academic term without reading an issue? Not in my books. This month, they would miss coverage of "Linus Torvalds, leader of the free world."¹ In the 11.11 issue, it's Linus on the cover, the new BMW 5 series just inside the cover (best ad, says Bernie), Danny O'Brien² gets the first article, local politician John McGuinness³ gets one of his favourite themes rewarmed, and your rights as an owner of new media get explained.

Wired consistently explains themes related to property rights, both IP and consumer perspectives. They deliver the message in a balanced way, alongside technology you need to open your mind to a wealth of new media experiences. For those who want to improve their appreciation of culture and technology--read Wired. For those hoping to achieve distinction in an undergraduate multimedia degree, read to comment on Wired's monthly themes.

---

¹Danny O'Brien writes about the first network to encourage file-sharing in "Something Completely Different."
²Wired gives 12 pages, plus its cover, over to Open Source in the November 2003 issue, including Gary Rivlin's story abot "Leader of the Free World." We could all learn from the demeanor of Linus Torvalds.
³John McGuinness banged his drum concerning safe food handling and proper waste disposal last summer. Jennifer Weaver continues the meme in "Household Germ Warfare" but even after two years of polite requests, you cannot buy a copy of Wired magazine in a Kilkenny news agent.("What's that, now? Would that be a DIY magazine? Then it's with the carpentry magazines just below the gardening magazines.")
Sent mail2blog from The Ground Floor in Kilkenny, Ireland.
x_ref125

When snags are plus points

TYPEPAD -- I think some form of TypePad server maintenance occurs just before sunrise in Ireland. That's remarkable, considering it's the only complaint I have about the TypePad system. I occasionally get this error message from the Postfix program when posting mail2blog during Irish dawn:

Command died with status 255:>br>"/usr/local/typepad/app/tools/mt-inbox".
Command output: 500 Internal Server Error at /usr/local/typepad/app/lib/MT/Inbox/Handler.pm line 495

So I will fire up Opera on the Communicator and see if I posted anything in the last hour.

---

x_ref1256tp

It is an on-demand world

DOUBLE-TRUCK ADS FROM IBM tell readers of glossy magazines that "it's an on demand world."¹ When people read that phrase alongside the trusted IBM logo, they sit up and believe it.

When did it happen? Who pushed the "on" button in on demand? Actually, the answer is in the backpacks of students earning multimedia degrees in Ireland.

Lidl in Kilkenny

KILKENNY -- During the last two years as a home owner in Kilkenny, I have listened to local merchants moan about the damaging effects of low-cost stores in the city. Those moaners help keep Lidl, the German retail giant, outside of the city limits. But last week, the county council gave planning permission for a 1661 square metre store on a two-acre site near the Loughboy Shopping Centre. This is good value for shoppers looking for ways to control their weekly grocery bills. Competition and variety help all around.

---

Sean Keane -- "Lidl gets green light" in The Kilkenny People, 7 Nov 03
x_ref19

Speakeasy style of digital trendbooks

NTK -- My Media Studies students are assembling a trendbook that contains snippets of interesting data on CD and digital artefacts from their geek drawers. Initial nominated content includes a lot of MP3 files. If I follow the stream of nominations, I will end up building an electronic collection that mirrors favs ripped from playlists. It reminds me of the first time I saw a German BBS operator copying software on 5¼ diskettes for posting to friends in Japan. In the 1980s, Deutsche Post was a broadband service provider. Post it and your megs arrived faster and in better condition than through the Telekom dialup.

On their own, students have figured out how to mask music inside Photoshop images, Word documents and Zip archives. All the service provider can do is constrain space.

Space just got cheaper. USB memory keys dangle from necks like 50 cent diamonds. Irish newspapers tout computers with 100GB drives, more than enough to store the music favourites of an average student. A terabyte on its own costs EUR 900 from Irish suppliers. IBM says its TB storage drives will ring in at EUR 500 next Christmas.

According to Danny O'Brien¹, "by 2008, you will be able to store every piece of music ever recorded, and more, for $1000." That's a terrible thought for the RIAA, because that kind of easy collection and replication means the music industry will have to fight "the free distribution of its entire crown jewels, contained in a single, easily replicable item: an item that as soon as any of your friends score a copy, you will potentially never have to buy a back-catalogue song again."

If the proposed TOC for the digital trendbook is any guide, the party has started.

---

¹Danny O'Brien -- "PC storage surge could send music sector off key" in Wired on Friday, 7 Nov 03
x_ref128

Why spend millions on superficial hearings

KILKENNY -- John McGuinness, Kilkenny's most outspoken politician, has faced down the cost effectiveness of the Irish tribunal system and he is convinced they do not offer value for money. Since coming to Ireland in 1996, I have seen tribunals as cash cows for barristers. McGuinness, the vice chairman of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, knows they are "costing a fortune and bringing the legal system into disrepute." He said it appeared very few people would be brought before the courts, "assuming they will still be alive when the tribunals finally report." Giving way to the Irish mindset of exposing suspicious machinations to the tribunal process means setting up a financial timebomb. No one really knows the real costs of extensive legal processes. I would rather the money went to hip replacements and social support systems. The barristers get enough already.

---

Colm Keena -- "TD says end financial timebomb tribunals" in The Irish Times, 8 Nov 03
x_ref19

Upgrading Communicator

KILKENNY -- People who have drawers of digital artifacts normally have some PDA or organiser tool stashed away with their cables, connectors and flat batteries. That's the conclusion I drew yesterday when interviewing several distinguished speakers at the Excellence Ireland conference in Tipperary Institute.

I started thinking what I was going to do with my Nokia Communicator when it reached the end of its useful life. That day will come, after months of vibration, moisture and hard use. I don't want to face a long pause before I reconnect. I know my upgrade path intersects a Bluetooth phone and a Wi-Fi capability. I'm thinking about marrying a SonyEricsson P800 to a Sony Clie PEG-UX50. Buying those two costs as much as purchasing a laptop. And using those two devices together doesn't give me mobile upload capability from my Fuji S602Z camera, meaning I'm not truly leveraging my personal equipment.

Nonethless, I like the functionality of the PEG-UX50:

• It talks Palm OS 5.2 which means ALL of my handheld materials migrate perfectly.
• Sony calls it a "personal entertainment communicator" but it does more than play MPEG4 video and MP3 tracks.
• It has integrated 802.11b and built-in Bluetooth. Because it's Sony, it should seamlessly connect to a Sony phone.
• I can use its on-board 310,000 pixel camera, but that's stepping down by a factor of 10 from my preferred camera.
• Its 480x320 TFT swivel screen display would be useful for desktop revision with students.
• Perhaps I can source the equipment as a piece of multimedia gear for the courses I teach.

---

Sent mail2blog by Nokia Communicator O2 TypePad service.
x_ref153 x_ref125mw