Review: 2006 – A Year Gone By

Posted by diarmy on Dec 31, 2006 in Assorted, Featured Articles, Politics, Tech, Weekenders | 0 Comments

As I write this, my final entry for the year of 2006 in the Gregorian Calendar, I sit at home in Kerry at 04:30 on the last day of this 12 month period in time. A year of many events, however skewed in my brain’s timeline it may appear.

The year started off with my continuing academic duties at University in Galway. At the end of a long and hard-fought battle with laziness, I managed to pull off my greatest feat to date, passing my college exams with a respectable honors degree in the science of business information systems. While it was an achievement in every regard, I did keep myself in check until the 11th hour, when a stunning exam re-sit was hard won on the battlefields of that damp August evening. While I look back fondly at my time spent learning amongst the learned, I do look forward to not having to do it again.

THE USA
2006 was a year of many global and political fables. The Iraq war continued in its non-sensical fashion spearheaded by the lame-duck presidency of the United States in true republican spirit – no surrender. Culminating in the execution of Saddam Hussein only yesterday, and his burial today, the Iraq story continues to fold out much like ready-made icing from the propaganda machine that is controlled by the Murdoch boys. Of course, America got its own régime change this year too, with the Democratic party taking control of the Senate and House of Representatives in the Mid-Term elections – proving that the electorate are annoyed at the Republican party, and that however much they huff and puff, Governor Bush will remain in power for another 12 months. Gerald Ford also passed away, while the nation slowly came to terms with the slaughtering it received from Sacha Baron-Coen as Borat.

IRELAND
We grew again. In what must now be a global record, Ireland’s economy continued to flourish this year, thanks to a sensible and passive government which stimulates the economic mindset and doesn’t cling on to the butter-vouchers of decade’s past. Our dear leader, Mr. Ahern, also found out this year that no matter what he does, there’ll always be someone out to ruin him – and failing in that stead, as he became the true ‘Man of the People’. Another veteran of Irish politics and economics, Mr. Charles J. Haughey, was finally laid to rest in 2006, after losing a battle with his health. Having met him and his family many years ago, I find it hard to find completely against the man who in essence lit the touch-paper that sparked our Celtic Tiger to life.

In its continuing battle to restore faith in its values, Fine Gael and Labour devised a coalition to offer ‘a real alternative’ to the Irish electorate, only to find that at the end of the year, a coalition between Fianna Fáil and Labour seemed more populous than the former twinning with the doomed following of Enda Kenny.

Ireland fell among thieves also this year, and so-called ‘gang-land’ killings hit the media circuit like Paul Reynolds’ Christmas wishes for years gone by were being granted, as he saw more and more airtime on the national broadcaster than ever before. Speaking of them, RTÉ got a much-needed makeover also in the second half of 2006, dragging the out-of-touch station kicking and screaming into the 1990s.

Also hot on the list of goodies this 2006 was the revolution that saw Smart Telecom die off at the hands of the newly-run Eircom conglomerate which maintained a vigourous stranglehold on the Irish broadband and fixed-line market, shunning the vibrant and feasible rural areas in favour of saturated city markets already bored with the virtues of an always-on connection to the technological coal-face that is the Internet.

Keeping with the theme of vibrant strangleholds and the media, the carnage on our roads became the political hot potato of 2006, as a staggering number of young and old, male and female, suffered at the feet of the poor roads, bad weather and failures in regulation of the car-market here. The silent calls from the part of society working to prevent suicide here fell on deaf ears, as the figures of those who took their own lives was almost 4 times that of those killed on the roads – perhaps due to our ludicrous affliliation with political correctness, and a glitzy story on our television sets.

Staying with current affairs, the plight of the town of Daingean Uí Chúis also took centre stage this year, as it recieved massive coverage on national media, while the streets of the town fall further into disrepair, the tourist saturation dries up and the alcohol and social problems of the peninsula went un-noticed as business-men rallied around the topic of least importance – a prize I firmly place upon those involved in 2006.

TECHNOLOGY
This past 365 days were littered with further advances in technology. As the world-leader in hype and hysteria launched into a deal with Intel, Apple Computer released its machines upon the masses, powered by the new generation of micro-processors. While this seemed like a bad idea at the time, the growth in market share for Apple is staggering, and more on this will follow in a few days as its venerable Chief Executive takes centre stage at MacWorld 2007 to put the world out of its misery and deliver a proper iTunes Mobile phone (prediction ‘iCell’).

Microsoft, that most loathed of companies in technology by this writer, also (finally) unveiled its latest notch in the bedpost of Windows NT, the system developed as ‘New Technology’ in 1994. Windows Vista became the 5th incarnation of Windows XP, and while it seemed like a lovely glossy upgrade, the sad fact of its pointlessness leads me to conclude that it will not be the must-have upgrade of 2007, much less beyond 2008. Microsoft also entered the portable media market with its self-professed ‘iPod Killer’ called Zune. The Zune is a re-packaged creation from Toshiba (the GigaBeat) which saw little success when released over 2 years ago. The Zune is already burning its fingers as it attempts to strangle iPod sales in the US, while Zune’s are almost completely unheard of in this part of the world.

Outside of the two major players in the software business, Google purchased the YouTube video sharing site, which was only started in April of this year. Google has since done nothing visible to the site, which remains the most visited website in the world at the moment. Bebo, the interactive community ‘for kids’ maintained a strong following throughout the year, however the on-slaught of 12-year-old kids joining the service seems to have nailed the Bebo coffin shut on its devoted late-teen, early 20s clientele.

In my personal life, I made the transition to a 100% operation on the Apple Macintosh platform, finally ending my 10-year usage of the Windows operating system. I’m glad to report that my PowerBook G4 is still operational and well matched to my daily routine. I now find that life without the Apple Mac OS X platform is not really complete, and have indulged in the true ecosystem of the Mac. I also added a PowerMac G4 to my computer collection, while my beloved Inspiron 4150 remains in my possession, as a relic from my past glory, and a reminder of how much more possibility I have been introduced to since being given the gift of Mac.

OVERALL
The year has been a quick one in earnest. I finished college, got a growed-up job and joined the rat race wherein I will make my eventual mark and retreat a rich man in a few years time. I travelled to Wales and Germany in 2006, as well as many trips to Connemara and Dublin. The World Cup apparently happened during the summer, not that I watched it much, but apparently Italy won – undeservedly. 2006 is also the year I purchased my very first car, and have since copper-fastened my belief in the beauty, style, comfort and joy of owning a Renault motor car. My 2002 1.8 Laguna Sport is my favourite toy, seconded only to the PowerBook.

As I look forward to seeing off the year and returning to my adopted city, I do not fear the future, nor regret the past – but welcome what is to come and wave at what has gone.

diarmy

An Internet-Free Weekend!

Posted by diarmy on Apr 18, 2006 in Politics, Tech, Weekenders | 0 Comments

Easter is one of the annual festivals for which I usually head back to the West of Kerry to visit my family. This year was no different, except for the certain apparent slowing-down of what I’ve come to be comfortable with in my fast-paced life. The internet cannot be denied by many including myself as a necessary life-enhancing element. As a nation, the Irish are a nation of talkers and thinkers, and not exactly movers and shakers. But in many respects, we are some of the most chat-friendly people when it comes to online communications. Every day, more and more people invest in computers and digital technology that enables us to communicate more freely with one another. 20 years ago in Ireland, if you rang up your friend, you’d never contemplate asking them “Where are you?” because you knew full well they were at their home or office because that’s where their phone was. Today, almost all people on this island aged between 14 and 60 have a mobile phone or some form of personal communication device. As a nation, Ireland has a high international ranking for use of text messaging and multi-media messaging. We love to chat, but also love the ad-hoc nature of communication. Chatting by text not only allows a certain level of anonymity but also allows us to privately converse with people throughout the island.

A complement to the text-a-holics in Ireland is the concept of internet meeting places. Bebo is one such phenomenon, with Faceparty and other sites rapidly racking up thousands of Irish young members who use the internet to find friends and more. MaybeFriends.com is an Irish-based example, however for personal experience, it’s completely lacking in design and connectivity.

As I entered the valley leading into Dingle (Daingean Uí Chúis) town, and turned off toward my now second-home, I went immediately to check my Bebo and to maybe read the day’s news from Google. But alas, my land-line connection was dead. Having changed from the unavoidable ‘eircon’ many years ago, and now a proud BT customer, we were again at the mercy of the company that symbolises corporate corruption and abuse of power in Ireland. When told that a ‘representative’ of that horrid company wouldn’t be available to repair my home phone line until Wednesday the 19th of April (because ‘eircon’ workers take the day after a bank holiday off as-well) I was left without a connection to both the local telephone exchange and the subsequent all-powerful internet.

Having a BlackBerry, I wasn’t completely lost in communication. My emails steadily flowed into my handset every 15 minutes, but as I discovered this long weekend, what good is email without internet. Sure, BlackBerries have WAP and GPRS, but Irish networks are so slow that it’s easier almost to not bother.

So, lost in the confusion, without a way to check bus timetables (Aertel is a joke and no-one seems to have the ability to answer phones in Bus Éireann) or do anything I’ve come to regard as normal in my daily plodding, I was left defenceless to the world.

But the sad fact is, even if my phone line wasn’t dead, I’d still only have dial-up internet – which usually means 30kbps from my ancient local exchange. Ventry, a popular tourist destination in which my local exchange lives on the side of a hill, still has not been unbundled and allowed to be connected to broadband networks. A full three years after Ballaghaderreen and two whole years since Dingle (Daingean Uí Chúis) got broadband, Ventry, a village less than 4 miles away cannot get broadband commercially. And it’s not as if people wouldn’t pay for it, it’s back to the old adage of ‘business-comes-first’ with the bastards in Eircom. They really don’t give a shit about the average consumer. I’m not one for floral language on DDN, but Eircom are a thundering shower of cunts. When frustrated to the point of explosion from speaking to a lovely guy named Padhraic from BT with whom I agreed with that it was not BT’s fault, I decided to give the cunts at Eircom a ring. When I eventually got through the world’s most annoying and patronising telephone answer system, I was connected with some utter bitch who really could do with a severe firing. After passing my details onto her she rudely said I was no longer an eircom customer (I wish!) and that BT would have to get onto them. She said “I’d have no information on your account” after acknowledging that I was who I said I was.

So where does it end with Eircom? Babcock and Brown have launched a take-over bid for the company, but would that allow them to over-haul the company and fire most of the staff, unbundle all the local loops and exchanges, upgrade the antiquated telephone network and change the face of the worst company in Ireland? I’m a disgruntled NTL customer but what are my options? If I want to get broadband from BT, I have to first get the shower of wankers in Eircom to re-connect my land line at a cost of over €100 and then switch over to BT and still pay line rental, even though the line is lying idle now for over 9 months with no-one paying for it. It just doesn’t make sense. In a country where we’re only 19 miles from Great Britain in parts, who have broadband penetration all over the place and speeds of up to 28Mbps in parts, when will Ireland join the Internet revolution and continue to connect with one another? Because at this stage, young people (i.e. THE FUTURE GENERATION) are getting rightly pissed off with the cat-fucking-about by Eircom and their sponsorship of everything from football to weather and their insanely-priced products and complete inability to treat ordinary tax-paying citizens with respect and dignity. If it doesn’t stop soon there’ll be nothing of Eircom left as more and more people switch. Which is a shame because had the cunts got a decent management style and business model and maybe some sort of code of ethics, then it could beat off every competitor in the market with a big stick.

And no, it’s not the government’s fault – it’s the cunts who bought it.

diarmy (agression ended)

P.S. take a gawk at my homage to eircon page: diarmy.net/eircon

Weekend Report

Posted by diarmy on Aug 2, 2005 in Weekenders | 0 Comments

Well, given the raw attack on my conscience regarding last week’s report, I guess I’d better err on the side of caution tonight!

This weekend was the August Bank Holiday weekend in the Republic of Ireland (so you can’t give out to me for a late blog, considering Monday’s included in the weekend!!). With this Bank Holiday came a drove of people to the tiny fishing port of Dingle. Most came for the drink, some came for the atmosphere, and some still came in search of trouble.

Binge-drinking-culture aside, Ireland witnessed an unprecedented act of Democracy this week with the announcement of IRA decommissioning and disbandment in order to pursue its goals through democratic and political means. May I say that I am delighted with this prospect and truly hope the IRA can deliver on its promise. I also hope, that the pessimism of Unionist Northern Ireland will be proven wrong and un-founded in the coming weeks and months.

This week also saw Hewlett Packard announce it would stop selling its branded-version of the Apple iPod from next season. One wonders is a rat to be smelled in the offices of HP as it shoots all of its feet!?

I’m still reading Wil Wheaton’s book, “Just a Geek”, and it’s really really good. (Bare in mind I have no patience for reading books!). It’s so good, I’m going to leave the link to buy it at the bottom of this page.

diarmy

Amazon.co.uk – Wil Wheaton “Just a Geek”

Weekend Update

Posted by diarmy on Jul 17, 2005 in Assorted, Featured Articles, Politics, Tech, Weekenders | 0 Comments

Ok so I’m neglecting the Weekend Updates a bit. But hey, it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to! (Crude joke!)

So anyway what’s happened this week?? Well the further cry for control of muslim and islamic fundamentalism is ongoing with very strong fingers being pointed. At the risk of causing upset, I’ll keep my views to myself on this one.

In my own life nothing too earth-shattering is happening. As you may have read already (go you!) I was in Galway on Saturday on the quest for a place to lay my hat for the year. The city is still looking as amazing as the day I left it to endure some Capital Punishment (get it?!? no?? ok, I’ll stop now).

Anyway, the trail of comments is starting to water down a bit so how’s about some comments!!! (If you don’t know how to comment, click on the title of an entry and add your comments at the bottom!)

Stay Plugged In You Guys!

diarmy

Weekend Update

Posted by diarmy on Jun 27, 2005 in Weekenders | 0 Comments

In a typical diarmy-style move, I forgot to blog the weekend report. But to be honest, nothing happened really that moved me enough to think that it was worth documenting.

diarmy

Weekend Update

Posted by diarmy on Jun 20, 2005 in Weekenders | 0 Comments

This week was another such week filled with European scepticism. With the French and British governments engaging in hefty tete-a-tete meetings, An Taoiseach was more blunt than I’ve ever seen!

Things are quiet at this, most westerly and remote part of Ireland and Europe. Broadband is poking its lovely head out of places in the WiFi world which has finally come to Dingle.

It’s been a quiet week too on diarmydotnet. Not much happening, although the BlackBerry is suffering from a few knocks as it’s lugged on the many hundreds of taxi-journies that I end up doing daily. I like it though. I’d also at this point like to highlight the brilliance of the Renault Mégane. So many people knock them, but for me, not only are they bold, stylish, safe, sexy and seductively two-faced, they’re a hell of a lot of fun to drive on the winding face of West Kerry!

I’ve also had a chance to look at the code for diarmydotnet and translating to Irish will cause some, ah, minor problems. Sure I’ll give it a shot anyway!

Oh one thing is, I ordered 2 t-shirts from the wonderful O’Reilly “ThinkGeek” website. All went well, and items were dispatched speedily. However, I was faced with a bill totalling more than the purchased value, for the cost of VAT at the point of import. More will be revealed about this as I get to the bottom of why I had to pay this.

Slán (Goodbye in Gaelic)

diarmy