#“Android crashes WWDC. Love the song”
via intomobile.com
And as for the “iPhone 3G/3GS paperweight conversion kit”………
07 Jun 2010, 16:03
03 Jun 2010, 09:47
#“Ulster Bank now using Visa Debit Cards instead of Laser. Cheaper Ryanair?”
I just got my new ATM card in the post from Ulster Bank and it's no longer a Laser Card, it's Visa Debit. They claim it is accepted in more places globally. This seems reasonable since I have never seen Laser as an online payment method outside of Ireland.
One trick a lot of people have been using (the guys in Curious Wines told me about it) when buying Ryanair tickets is to use an Entropay Virtual Debit Card. Ryanair doesn't charge a fee if you use a debit card but they won't accept Visa. Entropay only made sense if you had managed to get a sub-10 ticket since their own fees would then exceed those of Ryanair.
So the question is, can we now use the Ulster Bank Visa Debit on Ryanair and avoid their card fees?
Damn, maybe not, the Ryanair site is saying the zero-fee thing is for Mastercard only and for a "limited time only".
29 May 2010, 12:28
#“Conor’s Patented Saturday Eurovision Filter”
I must have accidentally read a story from 2009 when I Googled the finalists of the Eurovision. So it's on in Oslo, not Greece? And we made the final?
Did any statues move?
To help fellow followers of the "it ain't ironic, it's just shite" school of thought. And also members of the "I'd rather die than re-live the 80s" sect, here is the ultimate Tweetdeck filter for tonight.
To help fellow followers of the "it ain't ironic, it's just shite" school of thought. And also members of the "I'd rather die than re-live the 80s" sect, here is the ultimate Tweetdeck filter for tonight.
"eurovision, song contest, judge, judging, score, vote, song, sing, singing, ireland, niamh, niamh kavanagh, johnny logan, linda martin, twink, marty whelan, Azerbaijan, Spain, Norway, Moldova, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Serbia, Belarus, Ireland, Greece, United Kingdom, Georgia, Turkey, Albania, Iceland, Ukraine, France, Romania, Russia, Armenia, Germany, Portugal, Israel, Denmark, oslo, norway, fjords, reindeer, vikings"
29 May 2010, 11:31
#“Tweetdeck Sports Filter Update”
If you want to have a sports-free weekend and summer on Twitter then the Tweetdeck global filter may come to the rescue.
This is the filter I am using at the moment. Feel free to suggest more in the comments.
tennis, wimbledon, gaa, hurling, hurl, world cup, soccer, football, game, score, result, man u, man utd, liverpool, utd, chelsea, rugby, golf, putt, tiger woods, real madrid, blackpool, wembley, the ref is, ah come on ref, odi, wicket, ball, WC2010
tennis, wimbledon, gaa, hurling, hurl, world cup, soccer, football, game, score, result, man u, man utd, liverpool, utd, chelsea, rugby, golf, putt, tiger woods, real madrid, blackpool, wembley, the ref is, ah come on ref, odi, wicket, ball, WC2010
I was going to add a eurovision filter temporarily for tonight but I just discovered we didn't make it to the final. Awwwwwwwwwwww. Whew.
26 May 2010, 21:57
#“Paid Apps Imminent for Android in Ireland?”
Oooh, I just noticed a change in the Android Marketplace. With my Vodafone Ireland SIM, I can now upgrade paid apps that I bought on my 3 UK SIM.
I also spotted a tweet earlier that Google Checkout now works here too.
Still can’t buy apps but I’m guessing we are very close.
Wahoo!
26 May 2010, 14:41
#“AdBlock on Chrome enabling insertion of invisible spam into Zoho CRM e-mail signatures”
I emailed a potential client yesterday who replied that she couldn’t read my email as it had crashed her email client. She also said that the email was huge.I had sent the email using Zoho CRM and when I checked it, it looked fine. Only a few lines long.So I sent myself a test message which also looked fine.
Then I did view-source on the message. Holy Crap. Hundreds of lines of HTML with ads inserted all over it. Now wonder her email crashed.
The bit that had me really worried was the I sent it from an Ubuntu machine which “shouldn’t” suffer from such exploits.
I went into Zoho and couldn’t see where it could have happened. Then I had the aha moment (no, not Morten) and checked my Signature setting. Damn it looked fine. Wait, try view-source again. All the bastard HTML there in all it’s glory.
I was able to reliably replicate the problem. Paste text signature in Zoho field, save, re-open, view-source, see spam.
I then tried it on Firefox. It didn’t have the problem. Weird.
Then Windows 7. Chrome - bad. Firefox - good. And in a shocker, IE8 - good.
WTF?
So I went over to a netbook which I booted up with a clean Ubuntu USB stick and installed Chrome. And all was well, no problem. WTF x2?
OK, so what is common amongst two machines but not a third, despite operating system differences? Aha, the browser extensions. Luckily I only have 3 installed so it was easy to test.
First I uninstalled AdBlock which I run mainly to block Flash ads since they cripple the CPU on netbooks and Ubuntu boxes.
Job done! Problem gone.
This is very very very serious. Something you install to block ads ends up causing the mailing of spam ads to your customers. Very very serious indeed.
I have reported it to Zoho in case they can block the problem at their end and ditto to the AdBlock people since it is more likely to be an exploit of them rather than dodgy behaviour. Here is a screen shot of some of what it was inserting:
25 May 2010, 13:32
#“Bloody Brilliant Move by PROfounders Capital - Open-Office Hours”
Announcing PROfounders Open-Office Hours. Any startup, no agenda, 30 mins, no VC screening, lets chat.
We have been thinking about this for a long time, but we need to thank Mike Butcher (http://bit.ly/a5dnKh) for the nudge. We are happy to announce PROfounders Capital Open-Office Hours.
As a first test, we have set aside three hours on Thursday June 10th and three hours on Thursday July 8th for Open-Office Hours. That will be a total of 24 slots for any startup company to come it. First come, first serve on signups.
We are using BookingBug for anyone to sign up for the thirty-minute slots.
Book here: http://uk.bookingbug.com/home/11306
The rules are very simple: startups only, 30 minute slots, and no agenda. We can talk about anything you want: fundraising, strategy, product, distribution, the weather, etc. However, we wont waste 10 minutes telling you about PROfounders (just read the website beforehand: www.profounderscapital.com).
This should be fun!
My kind of VC company.
I won't even bother go into the details of my last attempt to pop into an Irish VC to find out about their new Fund.
23 May 2010, 10:55
#“Want to see how the new Google VP8 video looks?”
- Grab a nightly build of the Chromium Browser
- Install it
- Sign-up for HTML5 testing on YouTube (thanks GammaGoblin!)
- Go watch the Prince of Persia Trailer here in that browser
- If you see HTML5 and WebM in the footer of the video (as above), then you are watching a video in your browser without Flash and without the patent-riddled H.264
- Click on 720p to get the best quality.
- I can’t see how to go full screen on it tho. Presumably that is coming soon.
- It’s all done using HTML5 and the VP8 codec that Google fully open-sourced last week
- Mightn’t mean much to you as a punter but as you can see, the quality is bloody good
- The lack of patents or single-vendor lock-in is why HTML, http and other web standards were able to thrive and enable new businesses
- The lack of a decent alternative to Flash as a delivery mechanism for video is why it thrived in the same period
- Let’s hope we see VP8 and the WebM project enabling a whole new generation of video products and businesses.
22 May 2010, 19:53
#“The most important scientific breakthrough in human history?”
via ted.com
It certainly feels like it to me.
How many newspapers ran with it as their headline and lead story?
The implications are staggering.
One of the messages they have encoded in the DNA is a quote from James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
"To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life"
And what did they cover this week on the most watched show on Irish television? An old actor, a washed up politician, a religious nutcase and a ridiculous pub band.
No wonder Joyce got the hell out of here.
22 May 2010, 11:35
#“I need help with my Tweetdeck Weekend Sports Filter”
I’m working on the best combination of words for a global filter in Tweetdeck to remove Tweets about stuff I don’t care about.
Of course, of most importance is the Weekend Sports filter.
I’ve started with:
- soccer
- football
- game
- score
- c’mon you
- liverpool
- utd
- chelsea
- man u
- rugby
- golf
- putt
- tiger woods
- various russian names
What else should I add in there to have a Sports-Free Twitter Weekend?
I’ve been saying for two years that Twitter applications need a powerful filter system. I even specced an App built on that concept. I’m stunned all the big players are dicking around with rubbish like Buzz integration rather than addressing a massive user need, noise removal.