Inside View

Sleeping commute

UNDERWAY -- Two people slept in the aisle of the Clonmel-Dublin inter-city bus today. I board this bus once a week at 0630 in Kilkenny with people who are sleeping standing up. I've seen people sitting in the aisles before but today marks the first time I've made the 122-minute journey to Dublin with someone sleeping at my feet.

Carole Coleman does Dubya

RTE's Carole Coleman generated more mainstream coverage for the RTE brand than anything in recent history. She hounded President Bush on air the same way Sky presenters pummel MPs during live shots. She asked pointed questions on the minds of many in Ireland--most rather familiar to regular broadsheet readers. Her interview with President Bush for Prime Time was deemed by some to be pushy and impolite. Others thought she asked the same old same old.

Shelley Powers on the Art of Conversation

BURNINGBIRD -- Shelley Powers closes down comments on one of her discussion threads because "there is little true and genuine respect in this thread, especially to me, as demonstrated by gentlemen ... coming into it and using it as they wish."

Avoid dialer traps

ESAT BT -- One of the things I received in the Post was a broadband installation kit from Esat BT. Too bad the materials do not include tips you need to know in order to avoid scams online. I've got a short list of tactics worth considering by those who plan to plug into an always-on Internet connection.

Internet Hard Drive

ZAWODNY -- While Jeremy Zawodny was doing the maths on his newly-found free e-mail storage spacce, I found out that I can put two year's worth of power surfing inside a single GMail account which effectively converts that free space to an online library. I can use other places--like my Yahoo Mail Plus account--to hold PDFs, white papers, read me files, Palm memos, for a virtual office filing cabinet. In this year alone, I've started using a Web 2.0 technology--nearly 5 GB of e-mail storage and most of it is free.

NOTCON must-reads

PLASTICBAG -- Tom Coates took good notes from NOTCON 2004 and his stuff deserves a closer reading.

Mash-ups with RSS

SUPERNOVA -- As Michael Sippey points out, "We need to wake up to the fact that RSS does not equal blogs. If we keep talking about RSS as the equivalent of blogging, then of course we'll be stuck in the same old boring conversations about adoption curves, audience size and whether Jane or Joe blogger will ever be able to have an ad- or subscription-supported business model."

Critical browser problem

MICROSOFT -- If you use Internet Explorer, you should see if either of these files are on your computer:

• Kk32.dll
• Surf.dat

. If so, your browser could be compromised. You might have become infected by merely visiting a Web site. The tactic is not new. Earlier this month, several technical discussion lists were mentioning how several servers were compromised at Interland, leading to the current wave of problems.

Syndicated email

KILKENNY -- I think e-mail sucks productivity so I have relegated it behind RSS, SMS and IM. That's the order in which I open my daily workdesk: (1) fire up my newsreader, (2) open my Nokia Communicator to inbox, (3) click on Yahoo Messenger. After a quick pass through 100 different news sources, I let MyYahoo tell me what's at the top of my inbox. This may not be an acceptable style for many people. I will figure out a way to teach productive usage in each of these media so my communications students can be part of the first wave that questions the use of e-mail as a business practise. They need to know how to syndicate their own newsfeeds, work with aggregates, populate Wikis, and converse in electronic work groups.

Feedburner

FEEDBURNER -- I'm looking at my RSS feed through Feedburner and wonder how all the information offered on the feed's use can possibly be free.

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