Inside View

My Personal iTunes Hell

MORE THAN ANY other piece of software, iTunes is most likely to suck down 100 percent of my CPU and grind my work to a halt.

Yes, fanbois, iTunes sucks more of my W7 2.8 Ghz 8 GB RAM processor than the much-maligned Flash. And because I need my processor to work, not just run my laptop's fans as space heaters, I have taken charge of iTunes and started to aggressively figure out ways to minimise its use. This is a challenge for me because I've used iTunes as far back as I can remember with an iPod that I got for Christmas 2003 and with a dozen devices in between. Repeated syncs, multiple iTunes accounts, and disparate forms of digital media have often confused iTunes to the point where more than 500 tracks are unfound whenever I sync. The tracks are in the folder iTunes uses to keep my earbuds happy but iTunes cannot figure out the tracks.

And worse, iTunes won't recognise my iPod Touch so I couldn't upgrade it to iOS 5 until I did a few things below the break.

So Happy for Reliable Sync

WHEN I INADVERTENTLY erased more than 1000 contacts from my mobile phone I was really glad to know Goosync would quickly restore them.

I had previously erased contacts from my phone and I've also used Goosyn to populate new handsets before. It's just so reassuring to know everything works. During the same time, Blackberry users were getting totally cut out from Messenger and iOS 5 was reducing some friends' handsets to blank screens. I had better success.

I've started culling my phone contacts because a lot of bloat has crept into the contacts database since my first SyncML experiment with a Motorola phone in 2004, with Nokia Contacts in 2005, with Zyb in 2009 and with R7 in 2010. Google thinks I have 618 duplicates and I agree. It's time to start trimming so I can squeze my phone contacts into 10MB or less. They currently occupy 27MB of space on my Xperia Arc.

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mobile

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.

Xperia Pocket Document Scanner

I SCAN DOCUMENTS every day and use my Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc to deliver the results in one-tap elegance.

The under-appreciated camera optics on the Xperia Arc incorporate some of the best technology from Sony's range of devices. The low aperture rating of the camera mean I can assuredly snap hand-printed notes without flash filling them. This means sharp edges on characters and a better result when Evernote uses its OCR to produce indexed files of my work. Drawn work looks nicer when it's snapped and shared to a Flickr group.

In my day job as a multimedia lecturer, I often put my phone at a lone desk and ask students to snap and annotate work they have prepared for the class. During the first few weeks of the term, this meant a small queue forming towards the front of the room as each student tapped and saved their images. Then I started circulating the camera through the seated classroom, asking students to annotate their work with their name and Twitter nics. In one easy pass, I had an attendance roster and samples of practical work--all recorded in a relevant Evernote folder. Five weeks into the academic year, I noticed the documents were being scanned and uploaded faster than the 30 minutes it normally took. That's because several additional Xperia handsets were in pockets and purses, along with Evernote and Skitch on the handsets. We share public Evernote folders and that allows students to directly upload their work.

Start-ups in the Sunday Papers

YOU CAN COUNT on the Sunday Business Post to profile start-up success stories, especially those with an Irish origin.

Dick O'Brien delivers a story about John and Patrick Collison in their new payments processing venture called Stripe. The start-up offers merchants an alternative method of handling payments online, without the hassle of opening a merchant account in a bank. Stripe takes 2.9 per cent of every transaction and levies a 30 cent fee for every sale. Payment processing firms are expensive to run, so the Collisons will need to raise more venture capital once tens of thousands of customers are signed up for the programme.

News about Tyres and Start-ups

There's more news below the break, with much of it coming from the 15/16 FT Weekend, the best issue since the summer break.

A Eulogy for Steve Jobs. Oh Wow. Oh Wow. Oh Wow.

 

 

MONA SIMPSON DELIVERED a moving eulogy to her brother Steve Jobs on 16 October 2011 at the Memorial Church of Stanford University. The eulogy shared intimate thoughts about Steve the genius in a style that would have made him proud to be her brother. In Mona Simpson's words:

Who Isn't Connected?

BACK IN 2003, when out walking around the sunny southeast of Ireland, I'd try to figure out who was living in places served by a sagging phone line.

An old telephone line would tell me a lot about the potential for internet access in a structure. As it turned out, the resident in the building at left couldn't get stable dial-up access to the internet. He wanted ISDN as a freelance writer because of the drop-offs he got across standard phone lines. At the same time in late 2003, the Information Society Commission concluded that specific portions of Irish society remained offline. They figured 78% of all women with home duties did not access the internet. I doubt that high a figure remain clear of Facebook today. Pensioners, specifically 90% of all retired people were not online in 2003. Of all employed sectors, 85% of all workers in agriculture, forestry or fishing did not have a connection to the internet. And 73% of unemployed were offline too--something that you would not find today with the strong interest in flicking through online advertisements and on uploading CVs to jobs sites.

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Previously -- "Late internet adopters", October 30, 2003, on Irish Typepad.

cyberculture

Pocket Link Kills My Nokia E7

ONCE A MONTH, I discover my micro-USB charging cable will not snap into my Nokia E7 and I have a minor panic.

The panic is caused by pocket lint that burrows into the small slot where the micro-USB tongue should fit. With lint in the way, I cannot recharge the phone. This is more of a problem than getting the phone's glass scratched by keys in my pocket. I have several solutions. I could clean all paper from my pockets prior to washing my pants. That's not going to happen--why have a washing machine if you have to do any work? The easier solution for me is to carry a small needle in one of my cable bags. Then all I have to do is squint, tap and remove the irritating pocket lint. Sorted!

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mobile

Good Luck Áine Lawlor

I STARTED LISTENING to RTÉ presenter Áine Lawlor shortly after arriving in Ireland. She is temporarily leaving Morning Ireland after being diagnosed with cancer.

Áine closed her Friday morning show by saying, "That’s all from me for a while as I'm taking a break for medical treatment. Thanks to all of you who have listened over the past 16 years." Cancer treatments take their toll, meaning Áine won't be able to get up at 4:30 every morning to present the news to hundreds of thousands of listeners. However, she plans to  continue her One to One series of interviews on RTÉ television and to also continue her work on a documentary about the Irish presidency.

The Limiting Factor of Creative Disruption

HALFWAY THROUGH AN HOUR-LONG chat with Wisconsin visitors in LIT-Thurles, I glanced at my Moleskine (it's part of the shot at left) and started thinking about the massive economic headwinds facing the small business sector around the world.

I speak from the coal face of creative disruption. I know that my approach to academics is politely known as "creative disruption". My methods focus on getting things done, timely crit sessions, and public sharing of original work. I think these kinds of tactics represent essential core skills for successful start-ups.

Every new start-up that we nurture inside our academic institution will face far greater challenges than when I tried my hand with three Irish start-ups in the benign 90s and the easy-going first years of the 21st century. Having said that, if a company survives five years today, it will be extremely strong and resilient. And when Ireland finally gets back on its feet, the best of today's start-ups will grow even faster. But there's a problem realising a solution that covers more than a small section of today's unemployed in Ireland.