Archive for September, 2008

24 Sep 2008

Y2K tested

Tags: , ,
Posted in Work | 1 Comment

Although i’ve been offline (well, not working online) for the past two days, i’ve still been thinking of this blog and here’s a picture i took of a server from presumably 1999 or before as it features a ‘Y2K tested’ sticker. I stumbled upon this whilst walking around the college.

Y2K tested

Rather hilarious looking back on it and you wonder what Y2K testers actually did… just turn the system clock to the year 2000 and then back again? :mrgreen:

Here are some interesting articles i found (still online) regarding the Y2K ‘bug’.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=42938

http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/g0707/43g07/43g07.asp&guid=

24 Sep 2008

Broadband Down!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Work | 3 Comments

It’s just not been a good week or so for me online. Firstly, i was reduced to worse than dial up speeds last week. For the past 48 hours, i’ve been without broadband at home full stop.

I can’t find any press releases or news on this, which highlights just what a shambles of an organization eircom are (they’re responsible for all our lines)… but apparently there was a bulletin on a local radio station about it.

Someone dug up fibre optic cables nearby and knocked out the town’s connection and surrounding area (whatever way the exchange is set up).

That’s pretty idiotic… the technology is there to detect cables yet i’m willing to put money on it the guys who were digging tried to save some time and just dug and crossed their fingers they didn’t hit anything important.

Being without lotto machines, bank machines, broadband etc… i can make do with – so can other people… but when it comes to business, they’re losing out big time and it’s all (probably) the fault of one idiot who tried to cut corners.

Should be investigated, culprit should be sacked or disciplined and eircom should issue an apology. None of that will happen though.

Anyway, things will be back to normal from today on…

21 Sep 2008

art of organizing

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Work | Leave a comment

I wouldn’t consider myself an organized person. I think this folder on my desktop sums up my organizational skills;

Now on one hand, that IS being organized as i’m reducing clutter on my desktop, but on the other hand, the irony is there for all to see…

A lot of junk gets thrown in there as you can see from the folder stats :smile:

Generally it’s full of text files or logos/graphics work from sites i’ve sold on in the past. There’s also so undeveloped ‘bones’ of ideas in there and the remains of some installs and plugins etc…

Anyway, for college, i just have the one folder to cover 6 modules. I just shove everything in there :mrgreen: It works, to an extent, much like my ‘unsorted’ desktop folder. But yesterday i splashed out and bought another folder, which is divided in to 12 compartments, so it’s basically a mini filing cabinet.

So what that means is that i’m still only carrying around one folder, but it’s several mini folders within folders. I’ll see the benefit of that on a daily basis – theoretically i should be able to pull out notes 6 times quicker than i have been up to now :twisted: But the real benefit will be seen come exam time when i have a few free hours.

If i see a folder full of crap from all sorts of subjects i’ll most likely stay away from it as it would be too much work trying to sort it all out. But if i have a nicely organized folder, i might just spend a bit of extra time going through some of the notes.

Folder

That’s the sort of difference €6 can make. The only reason i HAVEN’T gotten a folder like this up until now is because i haven’t seen one in any of the shops i’m in regularly. So i went around town and deliberately set out to find this folder. Whilst i was there i also bought two boxes of paper clips, a pencil that looks like a pen and has a rubber on top (i hate traditional pencils) and a pocket sized ‘black book’ so i can carry it around with me and jot down useful stuff people say or i say to myself.

In a bid to show that you can turn anything in to creativity online, i decided i’d join a full box of paperclips together and make the word ‘digg‘ and then submit it to digg. Totally and utterly pointless and stupid, but it’s purely an experimental ‘stunt’ to hopefully show how you can turn literally anything in to online success. All it takes is a bit of mad creativity ;-) I’ll let you guys know how many ‘diggs’ it gets at a later date and you may not be laughing then ;-)

20 Sep 2008

Blockbuster Movie Previews

Posted in Work | 1 Comment

Although i’m not doing a multimedia course, i would love to be able to design professional and edit videos professionally. It’s an invaluable skill and as business grows more and more online, the need for professional videos and graphics work will only increase.

I’ve been looking at some videos for inspiration;

YouTube Preview Image YouTube Preview Image YouTube Preview Image YouTube Preview Image

All of those have been created using adobe After Effects. Mixed with Premier Pro, i have the technology, but not the experience or know how. I’m willing to work on that though…

Also, how useful could this effect come in? :smile:

YouTube Preview Image

Going completely over the top with a blockbuster style introduction for home made videos would be hilarious and i’ll *try* to do just that for a college project, along with some special effects :-)

19 Sep 2008

Pimping out Firefox

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Work | 3 Comments

I’ve been using Firefox since it came out in late 2004. One of the major plus points of Firefox is that you can install plugins or add ons, much like you can with WordPress.

For me, the gmail notifier plugin in Firefox was probably the sole reason why i stuck with it. To this day, the gmail notifier (imo) is probably the greatest online plugin/add on of all time. Whenever i get an email, a message will pop up instantly on my screen alerting me i’ve got mail – no matter what i’m doing.

As far as i know, Firefox now comes built in with that option, but there are LOADS of other useful and not so useful add ons and even themes like that which can make a huge difference to your daily browsing.

At the minute, i currently have 28 different extensions installed and 20 plugins. So basically, my Firefox version at home is pimped out to the max. Here’s how it looks at present (click to view full size);

Pimped Out Firefox

As you can see, it doesn’t look all that cluttered considering i’ve got almost 30 different tools going on in the background :mrgreen:

With a single click, i can whip out a measuring tape, live edit css or html, switch to IE, fill out a form automatically, pull up whois address or server info, see what time it is in ‘x’ country, add a site to a social bookmarking profile, download a video etc…

That’s the beauty of Firefox and that’s why we love it… Internet Explorer simply can’t do that. Google Chrome can’t do that (yet). The reason i’m talking about Firefox and add ons is due to the fact i’ve only recently discovered you can kit out Firefox Portable as you would at home and carry it about on a memory stick.

That opens up a whole new world to me at college. I can now get *some* of the frills i have at home. I do have quite a bit of free time during college. 10 hours minimum in breaks to be exact, so an average of at least 2 hours per day. Having a pimped out Firefox on my memory stick is much more satisfying than a standard version of FF or IE… it might encourage me to do some sort of work or if not, at least it’ll save me loads of time.

Page 2 of 71234567