Tag Archive for 'Technology'

What are the chances?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 27/8/2007
in Technology
. 1 Comment

What are the chances of getting this into Pixenate Walter?

via TechCrunch

David Boschmans RIP

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 16/8/2007
in Technology
. 2 Comments


Microsoft David2, originally uploaded by PeterForret.

I heard this morning that my friend David Boschmans died suddenly and unexpectedly last week.

David was the Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Belgium. He was 32.

I met David first in Switzerland last year and he invited me to come to Brussels to talk to the Microsoft team there.

The last time I saw David was earlier this year at ReMix07.

David was very bright, engaging and passionate about his job. He is a big loss to all who knew him

My deepest condolences to his wife Veerle, his 2 year old daughter Fien and everyone else who knew him.

You wait for ages then along come three!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 13/8/2007
in Telecoms, apple and mobile
. 7 Comments

iPhone

I have read a lot about how great the iPhone is but I hadn’t seen any until last Friday; and then I saw three!

I was at a lunch in Cork with Britt Blaser and Sean O’Mahoney (amongst others). Both had iPhones.

I had a chance to try the phone out for myself and see just why people rave about it. It is spectacular.

Later that day I met Patrick Collison. Patrick also had an iPhone.

He was meeting Damien and myself. During the meeting he had to leave us briefly to collect someone. He left his iPhone for us to play with. It really is an incredible phone (although Patrick, after about 25 minutes the sound deteriorates on calls to the speaking clock in Hong Kong ;-) ).

There is no question but that Apple have re-defined the mobile phone.

Summer book recommendations II

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 7/8/2007
in Open Source and Technology
. 6 Comments

Back at the end of June I posted about three books I had bought to read on my holidays. The three books were:

  1. David Weinberger’s Everything Is Miscellaneous
  2. Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur and
  3. Don Tapscott’s Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

In my naivety I brought another couple of books along as well, just in case I managed to finish the three above! I’d obviously forgotten what it is like to be on a beach holiday with young kids. You have to be watching them the whole time, if not playing with them, and after the beach you are wrecked. Bottom line, I didn’t get nearly as much reading done as I had hoped.

In fact of the three books above, I only managed to read Wikinomics. I have started Everything is Miscellaneous (and it looks to be really good too) but having briefly skimmed Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur, I decided it wasn’t worthwhile reading. On the upside, the Cult of the Amateur proved to be a fantastic book for killing mosquitoes - the weight of a hardback and the flexibility of a softback.

As for Wikinomics, I can’t recommend it highly enough. For me, it is the business book of 2007. It is a fascinating walk through incredible changes which are happening as a result of the new openness in the web today. Some examples from the book include:

  • MIT’s OpenCourseWare project, whereby anyone can access the university’s entire curriculum online, free
  • how Procter and Gamble CEO AG Lafley has stated that Proctor and Gamble aims to source 50% of its innovations externally by 2010 and
  • how IBM spends about $100m annually on Linux development but that it gets about $500m worth of development from that investment

If you haven’t read it, go out and get it now. Seriously. Do.

Could Microsoft tackle piracy through Open Source?

Published
by
FrankP
on 25/7/2007
in Microsoft, Open Source and Technology
. 12 Comments

Tom’s on holidays, I’ll be your host for today. My name’s Frank P, you might remember me from such blogs as “BifSniff.com”,” FestivalShirts.net/blog” and “Aonach.com/chatter”.

Updated due to lateness of the hour when posting originally ;)

Well, despite being on holidays, Tom is not completely cut off from things technical - when I was talking to him today he had heard about the huge piracy bust in China today.

It seems Microsoft are chuffed with themselves for their part in the busting of two pirate software groups in China… the piracy groups were “in possession of illegal software with an “estimated retail value” of close to $500 million.”

“This case represents a milestone in the fight against software piracy—governments, law enforcement agencies and private companies working together with customers and software resellers to break up a massive international counterfeiting ring,” said Microsoft senior VP Brad Smith in a statement.

Lovely, says Tom, but if Microsoft really want to have done with people pirating their software Operating System they should just open source it.

Tom reckons battling piracy on a case by case basis like this is much like the little Dutch Boy sticking his finger in the dam - except in this case while the Dutch Boy celebrates, the dam is destined to burst in any case…

Open sourcing the software OS would indeed make pirating the software it redundant - if it’s freely available for a cost of zero, who’s going to go to the trouble of pirating it?

This is not the first time Tom has brought up the possible benefits to open sourcing for Microsoft.

Unfortunately, here’s where this post stops… this isn’t really my area of expertise, and Tom doesn’t have proper internet access going at the moment… this story really bugged him though, and while we were chatting about it, I said I’d get something up on his behalf - however I don’t know enough about the area to make a meaningful contribution.

I’m sure Tom will revisit on his return… but in the meantime, it’s over to you - what do you reckon? Should MS look at Open Sourcing their software OS? What would the benefits be? How would affect profits? How would any negative impact on profits be offset?

I look forward to being educated :)

Telephone hell with Dell…

Published
by
FrankP
on 18/7/2007
in Technology and customer service
. 23 Comments

Tom’s on holidays, I’ll be your host for today. My name’s Frank P, you might remember me from such blogs as “BifSniff.com”,” FestivalShirts.net/blog” and “Aonach.com/chatter”.

If you fancy being bounced around in telephone hell for a little while, try and call up the Irish Dell Outlet Store about the possibility of purchasing a machine on the UK outlet Store…

First you go through the usual press 1,2 or 3 etc… you’ll get through to teleperson one who will half listen to you and put you through to ’someone who can help’… teleperson two will then half listen to you in a very bored manner and explain that you are through to the wrong person and if you want to buy a refurb machine you need to speak to someone in the Outlet Store. After you explain that you were through to the Outlet Store originally, you will be put through to teleperson three who turns out to be from the UK Outlet Store. He will listen to your question and explain that if you’re in Ireland you need to call the Irish Outlet Store - this is the UK Outlet store. He will patch you through to where you started, and after pressing the appropriate numbers you will be through to teleperson four - an Irish lady who talks to you as if you are stupid, stupid, stupid. At this point you will be bored and frustrated and, because of the day that’s in it, somewhat amused. The Irish lady will explain that there are two sites. One for the UK, and one for Ireland. No, of course you can’t purchase a machine from the UK Outlet store, that’s for people in the UK. There are no words to describe the patronising manner in which she will explain this to you.

If you’re in the mood, you can pretend to be as stupid as she believes you to be and keep her on the line for at least as long as you were in telephone hell for.

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