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iPod Video Convension Made Easy

August 31, 2006 By 3 Comments

Videora is a “personal video downloading program”, labelling itself as a BitTorrent RSS Reader, picking out the videos that YOU want to watch.

What they’ve also got is a fantastic and easy to use – and free – video converter. It comes in five different flavours, namely iPod video, TiVo, XBOX 360, PSP Video 9 and PMP format.

Tested it out last night and I’m pretty pleased with the results of the conversion, my iPod now boasting a new episode of Weeds for the morning, along with a copy of The Frames video for Revelate and a feature length copy of ‘The Dark‘.

Conversion for a 25 minute episode of Weeds originally at high resolution divx at 512kbps (video) and 128k(audio) at 320*240 resolution took about 10 minutes and zipped across to the iPod, with The Dark taking about 40 minutes to convert. Queue up all the videos you want, set the application to switch your machine off when its finished and away you go.

After going through trials of various other commercial apps I’m got to give this one the thumbs up.

Filed Under: Software, Technology

A Country Under Wi-Fi? Not us!

August 29, 2006 By 6 Comments

It would be great to see it in Ireland.

A haven for IT companies. A haven for foreign investment. A country under complete wi-fi access from Dublin Airport to the hills of Donegal, Malin Head to Mizen head blah blah blah.

Whatever.

At least in Singapore it looks like they have it right….

By the end of the year, it will be possible to roam almost anywhere in Singapore and get a wireless signal. As part of its Intelligent Nation 2015 program, the island nation will be able to boast of countrywide Wi-Fi coverage in a few months, the exec VP of WISP SingTel said in a recent interview. “At the end of the year, Singapore will be one mega hot spot,” he said. “They are breaking Singapore into three regions and looking at ways to maximize coverage.” The Intelligent Nation program, officially unveiled last year, seeks to make Singapore a global leader in communications technology in a decade.

Not only that but they’re looking at delivering broadband access to 90% of all residences. Let the Irish government take note!

News.com with the story….

Filed Under: Broadband

Some People Are Pure Stupid

August 28, 2006 By 1 Comment

During the week off, you find a few gems to bring back to the office… this is one of them. Lessons to be learned – do not mix a merry go round with a moped, and for the love of God if you do – DO NOT get into the damn thing as well.

Some people are just pure stupid….

Filed Under: Online Video

Pooling Irish Blog Stats

August 28, 2006 By 3 Comments

I like StatCounter, have been using them since the early college days and currently track a dozen or so sites and blogs with their free stats package. James Corbett (EirePreneur) is now looking for someone handy with a bit of scripting to aggregate stats from across all listed Irish blogs using StatCounter to track hits.

Sounds all very interesting and I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing the end result :)

Filed Under: Irish Blogs

Play.com Won’t Ship Posters?

August 25, 2006 By Leave a Comment

I like shopping with Play. Cheap and cheerful, speedy enough delivery and they offer a great returns/replacement service as well. I’ve had fun there in the last few weeks – namely three series of Black Books (with Bill Bailey, Dylan Moran), series one and two of Spaced and The Godfather trilogy (which I’ve enjoyed during my week off).

So I go to the site today and it looks like they’re offering posters and tshirts now as well. Low and behold – they don’t ship posters to Ireland!

Why??

Filed Under: eCommerce

Whats this? Techcrunch UK?

August 24, 2006 By 2 Comments

So the Techcrunch empire continues to expand and has moved into the UK market, courtesy of London-based entrepreneur and blogger Sam Sethi.

The blog, which launched today, will continue to focus on startups but from a UK perspective entirely. The design is a little different and the blog doesn’t carry the same heavyweight advertising as its US counterpart, but it will be interesting to see how it develops.

–
Update… bit of a slip there on my part…. ;)

Filed Under: Blogging

Microsoft’s M4d Sk1llz

August 24, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Came across this article online this morning. Seems that Microsoft are keen on helping parents understand “leet speak” in case their children get wrapped up in the evil internet or they want to make sure their child isn’t involved in hacking the planet or something.

The culture of leetspeak encourages new forms, and users award individual creativity. The result is a dynamic written language that eludes conformity or consistency.

We’ve all seen it, its as bad as those cryptic text messages you see ten year old kids sending each other but Microsoft (with the article published in their Child Safety section back in March) want to make sure that you’re aware of how your child might talk on the internet!

When you see a note on the kitchen table…. “M4m, g0|\|3 2 teh 5h0p 4 m1lk” you’ll know you’re in trouble….

Filed Under: Education

Blogging For The Big Bucks

August 23, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Those of you who are WordPress users and still have your dashboard intact may have picked up on this already, but if not, it’s well worth reading ‘Blogging For Dollars‘ on CNNMoney.com’s Business 2.0 magazine. The article itself takes a big look at Mike Arrington, the name behind TechCrunch, as well as peering in at other companies generating high ad revenue.

If you’ve got a coffee break coming up, or you’re just getting out the bed for some morning reading, give it a look.

Filed Under: Blogging

3D Desktop Prototype

August 22, 2006 By 4 Comments

Cheers Sean.

Filed Under: Software

On A Week Off

August 22, 2006 By Leave a Comment

So, I’m on a week off, on my second day into the week in fact. Left the office at 4pm on Friday to take my first break away from work since Christmas. Before that we didn’t take any time off either. Just feel like I should be there for the week doing something, hard to get out of the mindset.

But in saying that, its nice to get the time out! Series one and two of ‘Spaced‘ arrived yesterday so that should keep me occupied in the afternoons and I’m doing a theatre production all this week, starting tonight in fact, in Kilkenny. The show, Heart Shaped Vinyl, is an original comedy about five unrelated couples in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and present day, looking at how their relationships change over the years and how music impacts and dictates their lives. Twelve of us in the cast with the show in rehearsal for the last 5-6 weeks (5 individual weeks and one intensive group week). Fingers crossed and all that.

For anyone interested, tickets are €10 with the show 8pm nightly until Thursday of this week and it runs in Cleere’s Theatre in Kilkenny. Check DeviousTheatre.com or the Devious Theatre MySpace site for details.

Agus sin é!

Now… to recharge those batteries….

Filed Under: Mindless Talk
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