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Tag Archive for 'ireland'

Gapminder.org’s incredible data visualisation

Published

Tom Raftery

on 15/12/2006

in Technology

. 2 Comments

One of the revelations for me of the Le Web 3 conference was hearing Prof. Hans Rosling’s presentation.

Everyone I spoke to mentioned his talk as being the highpoint of the event.

I checked out Gapminder.org, the site he mentioned where you can access all the data he presented and it is incredible. The interactive charts there are astounding.

Here is a screenshot of Ireland’s health versus its wealth from 1960 to 2003. Notice how Ireland’s health fails to improve from 1994 onwards despite significant growth in wealth.

The two countries at the top of the healthcare leagues (as measured here by % childcare survival to age 5) are Sweden and Singapore.

An early, less polished version of the presentation Prof Rosling gave at Le Web (the one he gave at the TED conference) is available here.

E-tailer recommendations

Published

Tom Raftery

on 2/11/2006

in Technology

. 4 Comments

In a follow-on to my post on External Storage options, I’m also wondering if anyone could recommend a good (good = reliable and cheap) e-tailer where i could source the sotrage solution i decide on (and any other electronic ~~toys~~ goods I want to buy).

Obviously, the e-tailer should have no problem shipping to Ireland!

OPML autodiscovery

Published

Tom Raftery

on 25/10/2006

in RSS, Web 2.0 and opml

. 16 Comments

OPML is a file format which is used to save lists of RSS feeds. Very handy, for instance, for copying your list of RSS feeds from one feed reader to another. I uploaded a list of my RSS subscriptions to an OPML file on this server so the Grazr plugin in the sidebar on the right can display them similar to a blogroll.

James Corbett, Ireland’s OPML ambassador, recently advised me to add autodiscovery of OPML to this site. Adding OPML is as simple as adding the following line to the head section of the site’s code:

<link rel="outline" type="text/xml+opml" href="http://tomrafteryit.net/Subscriptions.opml" />

Why would you want to add OPML autodiscovery to your page code? Frankly, apart from making finding your OPML file easier, I’m not entirely sure!

There’s a Firefox plugin, which lights up a blue icon in the Status bar when you browse to a site which has added the autodiscover code allowing you to view the site owners subscriptions.

There’s a bit of work involved in the management of OPML files. I’m always updating the RSS feeds in my reader adding new feeds and deleting old ones so any OPML file I upload is almost immediately out of date. If there were some way I could have my RSS reader synch with the remote OPML file, that would reduce a lot of the overhead.

Then again, I don’t want to publish all my RSS subscriptions (some are client sensitive) so I’d need some way of synching a subset of my feeds to my OPML file to ensure that the OPML file I’m publishing is an accurate reflection of my current reading.

Iranian telecoms regulator should hire Irish broadband suppression expertise

Published

Tom Raftery

on 18/10/2006

in Broadband and Technology

. 0 Comments

However bad things are in Ireland in relation to our broadband speeds - things are even worse in Iran. According to the Guardian, the government there has ordered all ISPs to limit Internet speeds to 128kb. This is in an effort to:

make it more difficult to download foreign music, films and television programmes, which the authorities blame for undermining Islamic culture among the younger generation. It will also impede efforts by political opposition groups to organise by uploading information on to the net.

Iran also has some of the most stringent filters blocking Internet sites into the country - almost as bad as China’s infamous Great Firewall of China.

Having said that, I know several people in Ireland who’d love if they could get speeds of 128kb ‘cos they are stuck with 44kb dialup.

If Iran is really serious about reducing the speeds of access for its citizens, I suggest they hire in the expertise of Ireland’s Minister for Broadband Suppression and Ireland’s Telecom’s Regulator Isolde Goggin who have successfully managed to keep Ireland at the bottom of the international broadband leagues for years now

Noel Dempsey - Ireland’s minister for broadband suppression

Published

Tom Raftery

on 26/9/2006

in Broadband

. 1 Comment

This is the face in incompetence in Ireland. This is the face of Ireland’s Minister for broadband suppression.

Ireland's minister for broadband suppression

This is the face of the minister of communications in Ireland who has presided over Ireland’s languishing:

14th in the EU15 for broadband penetration. Thatâ€™s the same place we were in 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 etc. etc.

Congratulations minister. Under-achievers everywhere bow down before you in awe.

[Update] - Just came across this great site about the minister.

ComReg - the Telecoms Poodle

Published

Tom Raftery

on 27/8/2006

in Technology and Telecoms

. 2 Comments

ComReg is the Irish telecoms poodle as opposed to the Irish Telecoms regulator which is what they claim to be! This is the organisation which has presided over Ireland being one of the most expensive countries in Europe for broadband and consequently Ireland having one of the lowest rates of uptake for broadband in Europe.

As a regulator, ComReg is worse than useless because they do nothing to help the rollout of broadband and thus are part of the problem.

So when you get the telecoms regulator rolling over every time Eircom says “boo!” you know you have a telecoms poodle not a regulator.