Inside View

Global Reach Local Experience

ROCG EUROPE filled the Clonmel campus of Tipperary Institute with a rousing information session that attracted three TDs (one a junior minister), 28 business suits and 15 nametags to an evening presentation linking South Tipperary to a full-screen video conference with management consultants in the States. Unlike other events I've witnessed, this session offered a two-way flow of information from Ireland to international consultants in other countries. James Corbett would have been gob-smacked.

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Bonus Link from Eirepreneur: "What's a Minipreneur?"

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What is wrong with free internet access?

COLM MURPHY gets a page in Computerscope to rant against open wifi access. I don't see the problem with running a low power wifi node from your router that allows guests a free internet connection. I haven't read of any worm that wirelessly attacks a router and compromises file integrity. I never heard members of the Irish Honeypot project criticise Eircom when all its wifi nodes were free and open to all comers. So I am beginning to believe that pronouncements against free wifi access in public spaces are disinformation. My node in Cashel is wide open to anyone transiting the Golden Road. Enjoy. But don't expect to see the wireless connectivity that serves up data between rooms in my house.

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Image of the Rock of Cashel, shown here in approximately the same dimensions that it appears through my sitting room window.

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Personal Hydrogen Generator

INNOVATIVE HYDROGEN SOLUTIONS in Canada has a machine no bigger than my DVD player that apparently eliminates almost all emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles. The company says it is developing a version of the machine that will be one-eighth the size of the current prototype and that should be ready by next year. It is small enough to sit in the boot of my car although the next generation should slip under the bonnet. It could make the Kyoto protocol obsolete. It's branded as the H2N-Gen and it contains a small reservoir of distilled water and other chemicals such as potassium hydroxide. A current is run from the car battery through the liquid. This process of electrolysis creates hydrogen and oxygen gases which are then fed into the engine's intake manifold where they mix with the gasoline vapours.

P910i comments

MY SE P910i deserves a few comments after a month's use. I converted to using the SonyEricsson phone because my third level students were slagging me for carrying around the Nokia 9500 paperweight (which I force them to use when posting mail-to-blog from seminars). Here are a few things worth noting about the newest addition to my gadget bag.

Video on an iPod

WHILE SITTING in the canteen at Tippeary Institute, I got to see colour video running on an iPod. It's a Linux hack and Niall O'Brien has figured it out. What's next? Writing a very basic DIY guide to the process. Tweaking the frame rate and resyncing the sound track to make the content run smoother.

Primetime Irish Immigration

I HAVE FIRST-HAND experience with the no-man's land that exists between the Aer Lingus doorway and the baggage claim area at Dublin Airpot. That zone is a black hole that represents some of the highest level of inhospitality in Ireland. If you're in that place, you don't exist. That's the same point made during RTE's Primetime tonight. Moreover, it's a place that only those who have survived inside it can speak about it. There's no transparency, no access to legal aid, no phone contact, and as Primetime revealed--no medical attention for obvious emergencies.

Flickr Hacked?

MY FLICKR photostrip was serving up some guy singing shortly after 2100 GMT today and it was a little startling. It might have been just a little burp because clicking on the singer went nowhere and shortly thereafter, no images appeared in the photostrip. It's a little unnerving seeing unwanted imagery from such a big photo sharing system. I'll write it down to mangled code, not to malicious activity. Noted.

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I have a legacy Flickr account at www.flickr.com/photos/19994833@N00/ and sometimes it behaves like email.

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Morning Jog Without Morning Blog

MORNINGS NOW INCLUDE three mile jogs instead of three posts to my blogs and I have to say that I'm getting more out of each day because of that change in routine. I'm helped by the lack of broadband in our rental house in Ballyclerihan and by online coaching at 43 Things. I'm curious to see whether I can impose a 43Things structure on first year Media Writing students and watch them increase their productivity.

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Tippmedia is the Flickr tag for my first year writing students.
Topgold is my 43Things user name.
Image of morning pasture shot with Fuji S602Z on a Tipperary morning.

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Placeopedia

PERHAPS ALL IRISHBLOGS should mark themselves in Placeopedia, a simple site where you can connect Wikipedia articles with places, and then drive around the database either to browse, or syndicate the whole lot. It looks like lots of people are connecting places they know with their corresponding Wikipedia articles. Once that's done, syndicated data from Placeopedia can be used as a general geographic lookup table for Wikipedia.

If you can't reach the site, know that "Placeopedia is currently down due to Sheer Weight of Traffic. We're moving it to a bigger server and it'll be back online soon".

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Visit Cashel, home of IrishEyes.

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Cat with a Broken Tail

UPDATED MONTHS LATER: Jack the cat with the broken tail made a full recovery after we did nothing for him besides take him to the vet who stroked his back and sent him back to our home. Jack is fine.

UPDATE: The vet says the cat's tail is broken. Jack (the cat) says he'll be grand. "Give us some more of that Pomeranian's soft food. Meow." More on my Yahoo! blog.

CARING FOR STRAY ANIMALS brings with it the challenges of sorting out maladies. We've gone from an arthritic dog with a debilitating heart condition to an overly socialable cat who has apparently been turfed out of places he's explored without invitation. We have Jack because he simply wandered in and took over the dog food months ago so we kept him. He has a routine that involves sleeping during the day (see picture of him with his bear), climbing twenty feet up into a tree, vaulting seven foot tall wooden fences and strolling alongside the adopted Pomeranian during morning walks. He returned this morning a little worse for the wear and has broken his tail. Someone probably slammed a door on him.