Inside View

Dublin Bike Commuting May Top Paris

DUBLIN'S SUCCESSFUL BIKE scheme has resulted in 4.8% of people cycling to work. In Paris, 5.3% of workers hit their bikes. But the Dublin Bike Scheme is possibly Europe's most ambitiously expanding capital city bicycle rental scheme. Capital city cycling is stronger in London, where 9.1% cycle. Helsinki comes in at 10%, Berlin at 17.2%, Amsterdam at 45.6% and Copenhagen, where 45.6% of people cycle to work. The numbers come from Eurobarometer 2009. The bikes at left are chained to a fence inside Trinity College, Dublin.

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One Million Irish Without Landlines

MORE THAN A QUARTER of Irish people are now without a fixed-line telephone in their homes, reflecting the almost universal penetration of mobile phone culture, according to the Irish ComReg (the Commission for Communications Regulation). The survey showed 71 per cent of respondents had a fixed line, compared to 96 per cent who owned a mobile. The survey, of more than 1,000 people aged between 15 and 74, also found that some 80 per cent of people had a laptop or personal computer in their homes. Nearly half (46 per cent) use DSL as their main means of connection with the internet. TV ownership was almost universal, with 98 per cent of respondents confirming they owned a TV set of some variety.

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Comreg Report 10/62 on Consumer Survey (862 kb PDF)

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My Audioboo Wishlist

I USE AUDIOBOO as my primary method of adding sound clips to my weblog and I walked into part of my ghost estate to make a 12-minute clip to outline some features I think Mark Rock and crew should consider with their superb service. As I explain in my Audioboo, I would like to enable all of my first year students with Audioboo so they have a fast and efficient way of sharing social audio in a third level creative multimedia degree programme at Tipperary Institute. After two decades of teaching adult learners to write, I know it's often easier to turn on a dictation device and ramble away because many students can verbalise faster than they can put words down on paper. Audioboo makes easy work of capturing those rambling thoughts, thus making it easier for me to specify a higher frequency of written work.

 

Wishlistboo

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audio

Limerick OpenCoffee Proves Constructivism Works

AS YOUTUBE PROVES, Ovi Maps knows the fastest way to get to Limerick OpenCoffee. The August meeting proved that the Limerick group has achieved a rather sophisticated way of networking with a soft touch. As a third level educator interested in constructivism, Limerick OpenCoffee remains a set piece in the theory. You don't have to be an academic to appreciate how disparate pieces can bind closely together. That's happening on the first Thursday of every month in the Absolute Hotel, Sir Harry's Mall, Limerick, Ireland. Next month, we should have stickers or buttons.

 

Opencoffeeboo

 

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Direct link to http://www.insideview.ie/files/opencoffeeboo.mp3 and to the 2:38 video

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Chris Gulker's Last Picture Show

I HAVE A GOOGLE ALERT set up for Chris Gulker and got a fright when Google told me about his "last picture show." Not knowing what I was going to see, I read a bit of gallows humour as Chris discussed the upcoming photo exhibition in Cafe Zoe, featuring many of his own shots. As an international journalist, Chris has shot and syndicated more images than anyone I know in Ireland. His love of photography almost resulted in me buying a black and white camera since his B&W work is superb. I hope some of it hangs in Cafe Zoe for at least three months--longer than the time Chris expects to live.

 

Aungierboo and More

THE IRISH SUMMER SEASON closed for me within two weeks of passing Milk and Honey in Aungier Street, down the street from the annual e-learning week at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Unknown to me, several people would pick up on the demonstration I ran about Audioboo, the simplest way a college lecturer can effectively produce a podcast. I snapped a shot of the sandwich board outside one of Darragh Doyle's haunts (at left) then found myself inside at a time when Darragh was hard at work around the corner. Two months later, I realise I should start cross-publishing some of my memorable Audioboo moments, so I've hyperlinked some related things onto my Inside View weblog. From the kinds of follow-on questions that I'm getting about my short Audioboo, I realise I didn't cover enough details concerning the simple workflow because people want to know how to leverage the content, how to archive their own work and how to attract more than 100 people to each audio post. I'm saving all those answers for a Social Media module that I teach in Tipperary Institute but I'll share thoughts with Limerick OpenCoffee on Thursday if anyone there wants the inside view on Audioboo.

 

Aungierboo

 

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Direct link to my five-minute Aungierboo

 

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Historic Time for iPhone Market Share

USING YEAR-ON-YEAR unit sales data (actual units shipped to resellers), several analysts have documented an historic moment for the iPhone operating system. Specifically, the iPhone is holding steady with 14 per cent market share, when looking at year-on-year comparisons. These kind of data points are much more meaningful than quarter-to-quarter sales numbers because they neutralise data spikes due to product launches or holiday sales. Importantly, this market share analysis is based upon sales shipments, not upon advertising impressions or customer satisfaction surveys.

Blind Faith in the Dig-Out Ahead

IRELAND'S GREAT JOBS HOPE is a Hail Mary pass down the field of State investment. As postulated by Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Ireland's seven-year investment plan would create 270,000 jobs. No econometric analysis accompanied this optimistic projection. I call it optimistic because in previous interviews with RTE News, both the IDA and Enterprise Ireland offered projections significantly lower than the Taoiseach's. On 2 March 2010, the IDA promised to create 62,000 jobs from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by 2014 and claimed that another 43,000 indirect jobs would flow from that same FDI. That means 105,000 total jobs. Then on 26 July, the IDA came up with another target, saying they could create 166,000 total jobs in Ireland over a seven-year period. Theses are big numbers and with EUR 1.2 billion being spent to create 270,000 jobs, the straight mathematics says each job will cost less than EUR 5000. At that price, I doubt Ireland will be getting next-generation employment.

August Sunday News

THE RED CROSS STORY keeps raising its head in national broadsheets. It's one of several stories that recur this week, along with speculation about what went wrong in the Irish property market, how the government is going to impose equitable austerity, and what Wikileaks has done for journalism.

Today's news updates come from the southern face of the Rock of Cashel, so there's some ambient wind noise that sets the mood.

 

Sunday Papers 1 August 2010