Archive for March, 2007
Tweets on 2007-03-31
Posted on March 31, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Wossey improved. Gervais funny as ever and John Travolta not bad. FFed throught Gareth Gates and Macy Grey. Wedding Belles good. QOTSA rules #
- Read that O’Leary to be a judge on X Factor. Gutted to find out it was Dermot and not Michael. Now that could have been a great programme! #
- The Read/WriteWeb article on Irish webapps made it to the front page of Digg! Hazzah. #
- Do my blog readers love/hate/not_bovvered about the summary tweets which appear every day over on conoroneill.com? #
- Check out http://aft.donutsoft.net/ for sending tweets from phone using your free webtexts. < 1cent! Ireland only. Way cool. Tested. Work #
- Ach flaw in cunning plan! Twitter number is UK based and Webtexts only go to national numbers. Damn. So close. #
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Tweets on 2007-03-30
Posted on March 30, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Should be a good day. OpenCoffee followed by a meeting about Coworking #
- Top Irish Web Apps including LouderVoice profiled over at Read/WriteWeb! http://tinyurl.com/2662aa #
- Another super OpenCoffee with a bunch of new faces and a person from Corporate Finance. This is the mix I had hoped for. #
- Badger on The Apprentice after-programme. “You have to do more than step up to the plate, you have to eat too”. Someone tell her, would you? #
- Are local newspapers and magazines the last remaining publications to use the word “swanky” when trying to big something up? #
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Tweets on 2007-03-29
Posted on March 29, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Up and at them (done in the voice of Rainier Wolfcastle). Slow start to day. One call, tons of specs. #
- AnthonyC having non-stop pop-up blocking on FF and IE7 for GMail. Anyone know why? #
- Baby’s first solid food not rice but Jelly Bear from her big sister. Grin on face says it all. #
- LazyTwit asks if any of our active LouderVoice Beta Testers use Movable Type? If not, any Movable Type users want to be a Beta Tester?
#
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Tweets on 2007-03-28
Posted on March 28, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Worked until 1.30am, now my brain is mush. What can I do? Read a backlog of 20 must-read PDFs? #
- Doing the upgrade from WPMU1.0 to 1.1.1 plus our customisations. Delicate stuff. I should have been a brain surgeon. #
- Looking into Google Apps for your domain. Apart from yesterdays glitch, interested in existing user feedback. Also any news on JotSpot? #
- Any way to get your Google Calendar reminders via GTalk? Seems like an obvious integration. #
- @eirepreneur - I don’t want gtalks for every mail, just the event reminders. Oh and why isn’t Gmaps integrated into location field? #
- On a Google rant now. Why no to-dos in GCal? Playing with “Remember The Milk” integration. Works but kinda obvious hole in the offering. #
- well that took longer than I thought but new WPMU and theme up and running. Hurrah. Dinner time. #
- Google Docs n Spreadsheets growing on me. Tried Zoho for a few mins but didn’t like the default setup on planner #
- Arrgh, I finally upgraded http://tinyurl.com/29jexo to WPMU 1.1.1 today and Donncha just announced v1.2. Long night. #
- Google custom home page not that bad. Have RTM, GCal, GMail and twitter widgets all on one page #
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Two children have TB in that creche
Posted on March 28, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Health, Ireland.
In a more litigious country, the HSE would now find itself on the end of a class action suit due to the non-administration of the BCG to children in the Cork region. The only region in the country that does not do it.
The HSE now have a moral duty to to provide the BCG to every single person born in this region who was never given it. Or maybe it would be cheaper to fill the Cappagh and Blanchardstown again. 1950’s here we come.
UPDATE 1; Just to clarify - 5 tested positive for the antibody and three of those were due to BCG.
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Tweets on 2007-03-27
Posted on March 27, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- John Allsopp just release microformats book http://tinyurl.com/2b6mbg. Looks excellent but 4-6 week delivery on amazon.co.uk? #
- Interested to know how any Wordpress users have Rich Text Editor turned on? We need it turned off to stop the RTE converting div’s to p’s #
- Google = Global. Google Blog = Valley. “Simply text your flight number to 466453″. Hmm, wonder if that works in Cork Ireland……… #
- @imeallach - I know the technical angles on the editor (I’ve hacked it). I’m more interested in actual usage. Who enables/disables? #
- I’m a huge WP fanboy but the Six Apart products are all far superior at preserving user markup in posts. And Windows Live Spaces? Arggghh. #
- Roos says that Martin Carey in Bandon sells rabbit. Excellent. Never gutted one but should be fun. Lovely meat. Ah pretty bunnies. #
- @PaulWalsh - We want to know what editor our potential customers use on WP. If many have RTE turned off then we have no issue. PollDaddy? #
- Anyone doing Supernova in June or Innovate in May? Both look good. #
- Wordpress Rich Text Editor usage poll on LouderVoice blog. http://tinyurl.com/2uk3qj #
- I sooo wish Google would release JotSpot. Using Docs n Spreadsheets to do some mini-specs. Prefer Wiki. Socialtext impressed yesterday. #
- Julian suggests a combined streaky bacon and rabbit come-back. He may be on to something. Martin gave ratatouille recipe. The 70’s are hot! #
- @PaulMWatson - I believe there are several places around Ireland rightly looking at replicating the it@cork idea. #
- Harsh, but anyone driving fast in peasoup fog in Kildare today without lights got what was coming to them. I pity their poor victims. #
- Wife and kids love The Killers. Until now they’ve done nothing for me but goddammit they’re growing on me. Gotta love that last.fm #
- @damienmulley - Blogger Code of Conduct my ass. I have manners, others don’t, you can’t regulate for that. One for emailers too? And SMSers? #
- 3-year old announced she wanted heelies. Got her the old Fisher Price roller-blades with stabilisers out of attic. One happy child. #
- @mattverso - not forgetting Twitter! We could use up 130 chars in each tweet with the appropriate code of conduct byline. #
- No binary of PyLucene for Fedora Core 6. Used to love building from source. Now it’s just a PITA. #
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Rashers
Posted on March 27, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cooking, Food.
At what point in the 1980’s/1990’s did back bacon take over from streaky bacon? I assume it was all the low-fat food nazis who caused it to happen. Go to Tesco Wilton now and in an entire row of bacon, you may see one crappy pack of “pale streaky rashers” on special offer. Oh and pancetta of course, which is tooooooootally different.
I always look forward to bacon in US hotels when I travel because they still understand the art of the streaky rasher. Ultra thin and cooked till crisp. At the other extreme here we have these monster thick slices of bland minimal-fat back rashers which do nothing for me and are like chewing through a piece of rope.
Catherine grabbed a few packs of streaky in Martin Carey’s on Saturday. Only €2.50 for a big pack. I put em in a large pan with oil on Sunday morning and cooked them slow for over half an hour. What we were left with was fabulous crunchy bacon that made the ultimate BLT. Throughout the day, as we passed the cooker, each of us would grab a rasher or two. Perfect snack food.
Anyone with me to start a campaign to “Bring Streaky Back!”?
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Tweets on 2007-03-26
Posted on March 26, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Brutal nights sleep with the sore elbow. Allegedly slept with arm in air for part of the night! Quiet night on twittersphere. #
- Great way to do Twitter Technorati claim via Mr Messina http://tinyurl.com/2aqbtm. Pity T’rati bombed out 4 times before working. #
- Health Board does it again. After “Sibín O’Neill”, then having TWO children called “Sibéal” they now name Catherine “Mrs Grainne Sheehy” #
- @fergusb - WIll there be a red carpet in Cannes? Madoona? I’d be very surprised if you didn’t find a Shoarama down a side-street #
- When did Calacanis start using MP4s for his podcasts? 185MB transfer to Nokia N70 via USB fails regularly and doesn’t play anyway. MP3 pleas #
- Argh. Spent most of day trying to get to bottom of email issue on loudervoice to discover 5 mins ago that it is a DNS problem. #
- Slaps hand. Non-creatives should not “have a quick look” at an icon problem for four hours. As you can see, a very productive day for me. #
- @tommorris - Started programming aged 14 in 1982 on a ZX Spectrum. Pretty much stopped in college (Electronics). Always done a bit since. #
- @tommorris - even when I shouldn’t be programming. Never do anything big any more but like to do the odd script for efficiency. #
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Tweets on 2007-03-25
Posted on March 25, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Just watched the departed. Superb. Which Hong Kong movie was it based on? Infernal Affairs? #
- @tomraftery - Hope babba is recovering well. Kids and hospitals always scary. Shout if you need anything. #
- Hmm, none of my kids like “Happy Feet”. First half an hour comes across as subtle as a sledgehammer. I also rate “tap” down near “mime”. #
- Fair weather gardener. Set foot out there for the first time this year. Weeded the raised bed and replaced rotten wood on shed. Need a nap #
- Oh never got that nobile twitter app working on N70. Complains about incorrect credentials. Pity. Looks good. #
- I ruined a lovely chicken in white wine, olive and caper sauce by burning the f**ker cos I was pulling weeds. Speedy tomato n garlic instead #
- Drive Manchester to Nordschleife and then last 7 seconds on Nurburgring before crashing. Clip of the month! http://tinyurl.com/328ssv #
- Oh dear, first episode of new series of Jonathan Ross rubbish. Harry Potter, Thandie Neton and some boxer. Yawn. FFed through it all. #
- Elbow paralysed after weeding. So much for Udo’s oil cure. Voltarol and Sauvignon Blanc seems to be helping. Another great “House”. Bed #
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Review of The Departed
Posted on March 25, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon.
Great acting, great story, Scorcese is back, even it it is a remake
Rated as /5 on Mar 25 2007 by Conor O’Neill
After the dire Streets of New York, I didn’t have high hopes for The Departed but I loved every minute of this movie from start to finish.
This despite the fact that both Damon and DiCaprio usually annoy the hell out of me. However they both delivered the goods, as did Mark Wahlberg who was fantastic, Martin Sheen who was good and Alec Baldwin who I’m always happy to watch whispering. Add to this Jack Nicholson in his best part in years and you have one hell of a cast.
Basic story is that you have two cops trying to bust open the Irish mafia in Boston. One is on the task force but is actually a mafia mole, the other is undercover and gets into Nicholson’s gang. The tension throughout comes from the “will they get found out” on both sides.
Towards the end it gets very gory but this does add to the story and there are a few real surprises.
If you’re looking for a good solid thriller/drama with a bit of blood, this’ll do the trick
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Tweets on 2007-03-24
Posted on March 24, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Bed 12.30, up 6.30am, 5 kids need feeding. Sorted. Now for Sossie Saturday and then off to do ShareIT in UCC. #
- Tried to brush 7-year-old’s hair. “noooo, I let my pillow decide my hairstyle”. Smartass. #
- @TomRaftery - 1 x bouncy castle. 1000 x sweets, crisps and crap usually does the trick for our gang. Or Chuckies! #
- Jenny gave great presentation on communications at ShareIT. Me up next. #
- @damienmulley - well done on ShareIT. I had a great time. Sorry I had to bail early. My poor back too. Will put up PPT tomorrow #
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Tweets on 2007-03-23
Posted on March 23, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Hafta do a PPT for ShareIT tomorrow in UCC. If you haven’t signed up to attend, do! http://tinyurl.com/3dtknc #
- Hmm, the Planet Feedreader with some regexes may do the trick for my cunning plan and not require Yahoo Pipes. Fun for later #
- @PaulMWatson - SIngle biggest gripe about Flickr is lack of “private URL” you can send to non-members to view family pics. Real drawback. #
- @damienmulley - I shall sey zis only wance. #
- Blummin Skype+Paypal - why do they want a new Credit Card from me? They already have one. Used Gizmo instead. $3.70 for 20 mins to UK mobile #
- @PaulMWatson - I watched half an episode last weekend and despite my best efforts enjoyed every second. #
- Phew presentation for ShareIT done. Supposed to be an hour, I’ll just have to talk reallllly sllllowly. Attendee profile will be interesting #
- It’s 4.45, it’s friday, it must be curry time. Damn, used up all my tikka paste, need to make some more. #
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Tweets on 2007-03-22
Posted on March 22, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Oisín aged 5. “We should keep having more kids until we have enough to buy a limo”. A limo to school would be awesome I must admit. #
- Holy Crap - firebomb attack on cop station in Bandon! Previous most exciting event there was when Fionn puked in the waiting area. 1 injured #
- Anyone ever get Palm Tungsten T working with Nokia N70 via bluetooth to get 3G data connectivity? Non stop probs. 6230 worked fine. #
- Mark Pilgrim moving to Google! Now that half the world’s Python gurus work there, any chance of Python Blogger libraries lads? #
- @damienmulley name and shame the non-paying awards sponsor. Does that leave you out of pocket? I’m sure Irish bloggers will help out. #
- @eirepreneur As the message gets out around the greater Limerick area of the value of Open Coffee, the numbers will definitely swell #
- Sittin’ Pretty by The Datsuns - 3 minutes of pseudo-Heavy Metal perfection. Ooh ooh, anyone done a last.fm to twitter mashup? #
- “You idiots! These are not them! You’ve captured their stunt doubles!” Love it when your kids enjoy the same stupid movies as you. #
- Hurrah, Vista laptop being replaced so it looks like it was a hardware problem. Will be a mobile warrior again soon. #
- Via tommorris. New browser for Palm http://www.wapuniverse.com/. Works on TT! But still have N70 data problem
# - Dell Latitude D420. Tiny 12.1″ job but core duo so quite fast. First Dell laptop that has really impressed me. Will dual boot Ubuntu soon! #
- Not much work happening tonight as I have Studio 60 and Heroes. Looooove the Japanese guys in Heroes. Doctoro Spocko. #
- @elana - getting Studio 60 and Heroes on Channel 6. And I said I’d never watch a TV3 clone. Actually have lots of good US stuff. #
- OK, done for the night. latest code deployed. Should start seeing LouderVoice reviews peeking out from the odd blog here and there. #
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Review of The Side Door Restaurant
Posted on March 22, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon.
Solid middle of the road fare. Big portions and good value.
The Side Door Restaurant
Drumalee Cross, Cootehill Road Cavan Ireland
This restaurant is part of the Orchard pub in Cavan. It is always busy and serves bog standard globo-food like wings, burgers, salads etc.
In the past it has been very hit and miss but we had a fine meal there last week. Nothing special but nothing wrong either.
Simple feta and sundried tomato salad was good with a decent dressing. Too large tho. Wife’s deep fried brie a bit tasteless but ok.
Mains were a reasonable stuffed chicken breast with ok veg and spuds for me and generic pasta dish for Catherine. They offered her chips or potato with that…….
Good bottle of house Italian red plus two other drinks and we were out the door in less than an hour for slightly over €80.
You could do a lot worse. +353 (0)49 433 1819
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No excuses now - Make BCG mandatory in Cork
Posted on March 22, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Health, Kids.
For some completely bizarre reason, each regional health board can decide whether to give babies a BCG shot or not as standard. Cork (all of Munster?) is the only region not to.
Catherine has just pointed me to a story in The Irish Examiner about a woman with TB who worked in two creches in Cork. They are now going to have to test every child in both of those locations for infection.
Other than saving a few quid in the short term, is there any medical reason not to provide it? How would you feel if your kid got TB because some paper pusher in the health service decided Cork people don’t need protecting? Maybe they’d like us all to return to the days of Seán Ó Riordáin living in a shed in the garden writing poetry? “Mar is poll im cheann gach smaoineamh……and the TB ain’t so hot either mum”.
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Car Sharing in Cork City
Posted on March 22, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork, Motor Cars.
Got an email from Cork GreenMap telling me about a new feasibility study that Cork City Council are doing in the area of Car Sharing.
Cork City Council is considering the feasibility of the setting up of a car-sharing service – also called “car club” in the UK – in Cork City:
http://www.corkcorp.ie/ourservices/roads/carsharing.shtml
What is car-sharing?
Car-sharing in urban areas is a cost-effective alternative to owning your own car. It allows people access to a car when they need it, from a place near their home or workplace. The car can be used for short trips lasting as little as an hour or booked for a few days. You only pay for the hours you keep the car and the distance you drive. NB: the term “car-sharing” is also used to designate the sharing of a ride.Who can be members of a car-sharing club?
Members of a car club can be both individuals who don’t need a car on a daily basis and companies/organisations looking for mobility solutions to tackle parking, traffic or car-pooling issues on their site in Cork City.What are the advantages of car-sharing?
The advantages of car-sharing are numerous:
- Affordable: just pay for the time the car is in use and the distance driven
- Reserved parking: cars are conveniently located in reserved places close to where you live or work
- Flexible: book a car for as little as an hour, on-line or calling a booking centre
- Easy to use: after registration you just book it, jump in the car and drive away
- Planet-friendly: car-sharing globally reduces parking pressure and car use, helping to combat pollution and climate change
Tell us what you think!
A feasibility study is being carried out on behalf of Cork City Council and a public consultation stage is now on track to assess the potential market of such a service as well as to define the best locations of a car club in the city centre.
If a car-sharing scheme is of any interest for you please take part in our on-line survey:
http://www.zoomerang.com/recipient/survey-intro.zgi?p=WEB2267Q9ECZ6EClick on the following link for leaflets about the car-sharing project as well as a tool to calculate your car costs:
http://www.corkcorp.ie/ourservices/roads/carsharing.shtml
Also don’t hesitate to get in touch with Traffic Division to get more information or to give your opinion:
Noel Tummon, Traffic Division, Cork City Council
VHI Buildings, 70 South Mall, Cork
Tel: 021 492 4452
E-mail: traffic@corkcity.ie
Looks like Cork is turning into the San Fran of Ireland in more ways than one! I hope this idea takes off.
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Tweets on 2007-03-21
Posted on March 21, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Well Yahoo Pipes has fried my brain so it’s bed-time. #
- Lots of offers to do our CSS+XHTML work. Hurrah. Blogger publishing working (but messy). Figured out regexes in Yahoo pipes too. #
- Casio returned watch for fourth time rather than replacing it. Different fix this time. I wonder how long it’ll last before screwing up? #
- Off to Farran to talk to a dev. Back around lunch-time. #
- Not convinced by phonics/fonics. 5-year old just did his ABCs as Ah Buh Cuh Duh Eh Fuh Guh. Red Book with black dots worked for me. #
- Finally! Ballincollig/Watergrasshill/Carrigtwohill dual-carriageways up to 120kph and Old Chapel down to 50kph. Key is “appropriate speed”. #
- Watching classic Curb “I’m surprised Hitler didn’t just kill all the toupee people”. Spoken like a true fellow slaphead. #
- W00t, just spotted this via Alex King. http://www.tinytwitter.com/ Twitter app for mobile phone. No more bazillion SMSes. Checking now. #
- For N70, jad file no good. Open in notepad to get URL of jar. Or directly this: http://tinyurl.com/37hgoy #
- Feedburner now enabled on web2ireland. Back to another session with Yahoo Pipes. #
- The Yahoo Pipes discussion board seems to have no facility to subscribe to a thread via RSS or otherwise. Cmon it’s 2007 already. #
- No CDATA or markup allowed in pipes regexes due to bug. Damn, there goes that cunning plan until they fix it. May have to write real code! #
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Review of The Old Post Inn
Posted on March 21, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon.
Considered by many to be one of the best restaurants in Ulster. Correctly.
The Old Post Inn
Cloverhill Cavan Ireland
We threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my mother-in-law in The Old Post last weekend. We had eaten there several years ago when it was good but not awesome. All reports recently have said that it is now in the awesome category.
We had a private function room with over twenty people and they did a great job all night on service and getting everyone’s food out at the same time.
The fixed four-course menu had tons of seasonal ingredients and lots that I would happily eat. The waitress came to take my order and I couldn’t remember the exact name of my starter so I said “the little bird to start” “then the sorbet”. She wondered if I’d be “going with bambi for the main course”. Ye know, she was right.
The food was wonderful and avoided those tarry intense sauces that are often served with game and overwhelm it. Beautifully cooked, great flavours and top class meat.
The house wines were all excellent and the desserts were spot on.
Since it changed hands, it looks like they no longer have a web-site which is odd. They have a bunch of B&B rooms which we want to try out at some stage.
To get to it, exit off the Cavan bypass at Butlersbridge and follow the signs for the restaurant itself. If you are anywhere in the area, it is worth the detour.
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Tweets on 2007-03-20
Posted on March 20, 2007, by , under Tweets.
- Finally caught up on sleep and RSS feeds. Today is all about testing, tweaking and deploying updates. And two restaurant reviews. #
- Mail from person looking to move from NY to Cork. Anyone know the suss with Social Worker jobs down here? Qualifications? Openings? #
- Looks like we now work with blogger (using old API on new Blogger) but formatting horrendous. Time to tweak not tweet. #
- From AOL - http://ficlets.com/. “A ficlet is a short story that enables you to collaborate with the world”. Lots of microformats too! #
- Bloody Blogger. Templates are a horror. Even Zeldman’s “Son of Moto” has display: block just to mess up side by side images. Grrr. #
- Kids off school today. In donkey-work mode as concentration impossible. Defrosted some of my October 06 Carrot and Coriander soup. Yum. #
- Home made steak sambos for dinner. I should sell em they are that good. #
- US Office is superb. “New York New York, so good they named it twice. Its second name is Manhattan”. Steve Carrell is fabulous in it. #
- Finally sitting down to dig into Yahoo Pipes with a practical purpose. #
- Still having some issues with Twitter tools on Wordpress but loving them anyway. daily digest is the business! #
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Social Worker jobs in Cork?
Posted on March 20, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork, Ireland.
I just got a mail from someone thinking about re-locating from New York to Cork City. She asked what the job situation was like in Social Working. Any of my readers have knowledge in this area? Are there many jobs to be had? With who? In what areas? What qualifications do you need? Any equivalence given to foreign qualifications? Any pointers or useful sites they should check out? Thanks.
