Inside View from Ireland

Ever-Shrinking Airline Seats

I AM GETTING WIDER but the seats I get on airlines seem to be getting narrower. Fortunately, there's an app for that.

I use Seat Guru to help avoid the most cramped spaces aboard flights. And I try to check into trans-Atlantic or trans-continental flights five or more hours prior to takeoff to see if my pre-booked seats can be moved to places on the aircraft where I get more shoulder room. I've discovered that it's the shoulder room that gives me greater comfort, not the width of my seat cushion.

Most of the travel magazines publish their league tables of seat comfort by measuring "pitch" which is the front-to-rear space between rows. Pitch is defined as the distance between any given point on a seat to the identical point on the seat in the next row forward or to the rear. Side-to-side space is generally measured by the width of the seat cushion but that doesn't consider the width of the armrest or the attachment points of the seats to the floor of the aircraft. These are points raised by George Hook on "The Right Hook" during drivetime in Ireland today.

George Hook and Airline Seats

Green Glow Train

I CARRIED BOTH A Vodafone high speed USBG modem and an O2 Mifi dongle aboard Irish Rail today for decent speeds in Kilkenny, Carlow and Kildare.

I consistenly got faster than two megabits per second donload service from both of them for most of a suburban rail journey through patches of countryside where I was blacked out several years ago. That's progress in my book. The O2 dongle produced stronger uplink service while the Vodafone signal sometimes delivered twice the download speed of the Huawei Mifi dongle. I like both of these little devices but get longer laptop serivce when using the separate Mifi dongle.

I'm curious to prove that Irish Rail's free wifi runs faster than the Vodafone high-speed stick in my pocket. The Vodafone stick has won the speed test three times on the Dublin-Thurles run this month.

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Shot and sent mail2blog by my Nokia E7 phone.

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The Little Warning from O2

A FEW YEARS AGO I spent a few days in London and got charged EUR 248 for using my mobile phone. Every day I was in London, the fee averaged out to more than $300 a day. This year, O2 spotted my data use after EUR 64 and cut me off. That didn't happen when I visited the States--as the O2 bill shows I failed to shut off data roaming.

Better Than Free Wifi on Irish Rail

AS MUCH AS I appreciate Irish Rail's free wifi service on the mainline Cork-Dublin trains that I use several times a month, I think the generous placement of power points is more welcome.

I carry four mobile technology devices and need to use them hard when in Dublin on assignments. It's handy to know that I can plug them in under main train tables. I also plug into mains power points that are nestled near the back of many carriages too. I often leave my bag unattended and plugged into the Premier Class carriage sidewall. A small power strip inside my bag recharges two or three devices simultaneously. One of the devices is a Huawei Mifi dongle that I run open to all comers via O2-Ireland 3G service. In my experience, O2 is faster than the Fleet Connect wifi service aboard the Cork-Dublin train. I've used the O2-3G connection to run an Online Meeting Room while underway at 60 mph. The O2 connection seems more resilient than the free wifi aboard the train. Moreover, I cannot use my Kindle to download content via the Irish Rail connection because the dumb Kindle won't navigate to the default sign-in screen on the train.

Streets of Info in My Pocket

PART OF THE #PAINTINGTOUR uses Google Street View, a part of Google Latitude that I've been using more frequently now that I have a phone with a decent graphic processor and ample screenscape (the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc).

Street View is one of those mesmerising taps you can make on a touchscreen and find yourself immersed for hours. I use Street View and Google Places a lot and plan to reserve brilliant places on holidays with the Zagat app too. Google bought Zagat, the restaurant review service. Zagat's reviews of NYC restaurants has always been a winner for me. The pithy four line reviews represent the end product of some practical exercises I am running for first year students of Media Writing. The Zagat Android app costs 6.99 euro, proving that writing well pays. Connecting Zagat to my pocket maps is a win all around.

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Sent mail2blog using O2 3.5G service in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland.

Goldbach Sommerfest

SOME DAY I WILL VISIT Vienna and see things like the Goldbach Sommerfest. It's my namesake, after all.

There's a video below the break that shows the Goldbach Austria Mediapparat treating spectators to a castle illumination at Palais Kinsky. The evening inside the palace included futuristic projections, the musical live performances of Violetta Parisini and Stefan Obermaier. DJ Mosaken provided more entertainment for nearly 500 guests attending. They were observing a successful first half year of Goldbach Austria and the new launch of Goldbach Interactive.

Maxroam Notes from a Fixer

I JUST WALKED members of our Oregon family to their departure point with lingering thoughts of what I'd do better as a fixer.

We're a connected-aware family (three three tallest ones at left) and that means toggling to an airplane mode with our data when we're roaming. I wish I had been able to give the Oregon crew an old handset with a Maxroam SIM in it while they traveled to and from the States. As a fixer, I know that the time spent inside an airport terminal is very much like a passenger who has not been given leave to land. Some kind of voice connection is invaluable in times like that and I don't want to oversee another family arrival without the throwaway handset being carried into the different airport terminals.

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Secret of Longer Legs

WE INCREASED THE DURATION of our travel segments by one simple trick--getting a comfortable car seat for the back seater talker.

Its key features are its wrap-around heat supports and foam inserts for flailing arms. The seat cushion looks like it has been engineered by a lumbar support expert. Our three year old likes the semi-independence that comes with having a seat belt that she can snap shut. And dad the driver is happy with the simple solid Isofix action between the seat's hardware and the car itself. It's little analogue things that really count.

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Sent from my Nokia E7 while sitting beside our three year old at 70 mph on Ireland's M8 headed to Dublin.

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My First Shot for Flickr

I VIVIDLY REMEMBER standing upstream from the mill in Kells during the Kilkenny Arts Festival and snapping the shot at left. That was the first phot that I sent to Flickr, now seven years and thousands of Flickr images ago. Back then, anybody could wade into Flickr and socialise with Caterina and Stewart in their start-up. Both of those founders have moved on to other ventures and most of the early community spirit has faded. I still like Flickr, especially the handheld functionality. I snap and send most of my images now from my Nokia handset. Many of my Foursquare check-ins come with a photo too and they automatically push up to Flickr. I've started a set of Foursquare venues to give viewers some sort of context in the strange shots I take. More than anything else, Flickr is part of my lifestream. I like using it for that and hope I can focus on producing a small coffee table book of my most-viewed images some day soon.

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I am both Irisheyes and Topgold on Flickr.

lifestream

Overdue for an Amish Summer

WE AVOIDED WITHERING humidty this summer because we haven't returned to my family home for more than a year.

And because we're missing the summer months, we're also giving up foot-long corn and over-sized tomatoes, fresh soft pretzels, Stehman's potato chips and generous smorgasbords. But more than the food, we're giving up conversations that I should be having with my mom, with friends in their Amish buggies, my cousins and friends who are planning a big high school reunion. I'd like to walk around the corn fields where I trained as a cross-country runner before the next one is paved over as another building project. I'd also like to visit an aunt and an uncle because I've some unanswered questions about growing up in Lancaster for an oral history project that remains on my back burner.

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When we visit the home town, we'll spend a few nights in deluxe Lancaster accommodation.

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