IRCSET Symposium 2009

IRCSET Symposium 2009: Watch video highlights from the keynote speakers at the IRCSET Symposium 2009 at siliconrepublic.

AMD, Asian packager license Irish micro-cooler

AMD, Asian packager license Irish micro-cooler: Researchers at the Stokes Institute in the University of Limerick have announced two licensing agreements that could see 'micro-cooler' technology used in computers (EETimes), read full article here.

InterTradeIreland Munster Regional Seedcorn Winners Announced

Munster Regional Seedcorn Winners Announced

Cork Company, Ferfics and Cauwill Technologies from Limerick are the Munster Regional Winners for Best High Growth Company and Best Emerging Company respectively and are now guaranteed to walk away from InterTradeIreland’s Seedcorn Competition with at least €25,000 each (InterTradeIreland). Read the full story here.

Secret Knock Detecting Door Lock

Unlok your door with a secret knock. More information at http://grathio.com/2009/11/secret-knock-detecting-door-lock.html.

Skiing Robot

Check out this skiing robot:



More videos at http://singularityhub.com/2009/10/21/skiing-robot-not-very-useful-but-totally-fun-to-watch/

Final Thoughts on 23 Things

Final Thoughts: Each of the technologies have their uses the trick is in finding how to apply them, but not to get caught up using them because they are available. There is little point in using them unless they either make work more efficient, or add significant value to customers. I have to wonder what percentage of our customers uses each of these technologies unless they are required to do so.
Likes: I have to say for the most part I like it all. I enjoyed the freedom of informal writing through blogging, it was one unexpected outcome.
Dislikes: I have to say my only dislike about the tasks was having to register for each service. I have so many logins and passwords now that I can't keep track, and I'm not writing them down! Some day OpenID will proliferate through the internet and we will only require on login to rule them all.
Enjoyable: Honestly it was all enjoyable if given a chance. Some of it felt like work but once the outcome was achieved it was good to blog about it.
Irrelevant: I'm not going to say that I found some of it irrelevant, as I said earlier the technologies all have their place. I initially found that I might have little use for Delicious but that may change and I also have little reason to create a wiki but I certainly appreciate all those who do contribute to wikis so the rest can read them and extract information.
Well those are my thoughts on the 23 Things, I promise I won't stop blogging.

Google Wave

Check out this video on Google Wave, well worth a watch. Maybe we could include it in 23 Things next year?

Many hours playing this one as a kid

I spent may a long day playing this game. Don't let those robots get you!

Google Maps

Google maps are an excellent tool. I have it on my phone and it's invaluable for planning trips. I would also suggest taking a look at Google Earth, especially Westport as it's in full 3D. Google earth is good for dropping place markers for places you visite. I especially like revisiting places I've been skiing and looking down the slops and measuring the distances we travelled skiing in a day. Not much else to say but I could spend al day exploring Google Earth.

Widgets/Gadgets

Earlier on in the 23 things I added some Gadgets to my blog. On the right hand side is my video bar showing MITs OpenCourseWare, and at the bottom of the page is my SHOUTcast radio gadget. The gadgets are easy to use but can consume time.

Personalised Home Pages

As I blog I'm looking at my personalised homepage. I'm using iGoogle and it's mostly full of news rss feeds. Some feeds include Ireland: BreakingNews.ie, Twitter following ChaChing.ie (you should really look up this site), RTE Business, Top Stories, RTE News, Silicon Republic and a test feed for work. Other gadgets include date and time, calendar, wether and of course the blogger gadget that I'm typing this blog post in. Overall a very useful tool.

Google Docs

I'm just going to make another short blog about Google docs, if you haven't checked out the templates then have a look. When creating a new document click on new from template and you can search for the desired template.

Thing 19

Nearly There and this one could potentially consume loads of my time as there was so much going on at that website. I saw BBC player but that won't be available in Ireland due to broadcast restrictions but a good similar one for the Irish audience is the RTE player at http://www.rte.ie/player/, great for catching up on the current affairs and primetime specials :-). Other than a few that are really well know and most people use them regularly I found one that I have used in the past and will use again hopefully in web development that is Yahoo YUI. Any one that uses the coop noticeboard will see the fruits of the Yahoo YUI when selecting dates for the notices. One for my wish list is to learn about jQuery, I'll make time some day.

Zoho

I had a look at the zoho screenshots tour and I am impressed. The thing that caught my attention is the latex equation editor and I like the interface. If they added to the suite with spreadsheet, calendar and meeting facilities it would be worth signing up for and a real competitor to online office suites.

Google Docs

I've been using Google docs on a startup collaborative project. It was a great idea to use it as a shared space where we could all contribute ideas without continuously circulating e-mails. This worked out really well as the project members are all geographically dispersed and it also allows us strict document control. Another positive is the documents are accessible to all those with permissions whatever the location.

Instant Messaging and Skype

Instant messaging is something I have used since starting College in the late 90s. My main reason for using it was to keep in contact with class mates during the summer months (usually when checking exam results :-/ stress) while using dial up, as broadband penetration was low in rural Ireland at that time and also mobiles were only becoming popular and call prices were high. My use of IM since that time has been sporadic and depends on who I need to contact where they are and what time zone they are in. It's quick and easy, I use skype to IM. Back in 1998 ICQ was popular but IM still remains despite new competing technologies such as Facebook. I really like what UCD use IM for, very good idea. Again I've been a skype user since the beginning and it is such a excellent tool. It's cross platform which means I use it on Linux and it's available for the iphone which is very handy if on a wifi network.

Blog Layout Update

I've been a busy blogger over the last week and so I've updated my blog layout to retain the last fifteen posts on the home page. I've also included vote buttons so you can tell me if you think the post was interesting, funny or want more of the same type of post.

Facebook

As a member of face book already I only took a quick look at bebo of myspace. I've seen various bebo pages in the past and it really doesn't appeal to me. When I joined Facebook I was really surprised to see how quick it found people I knew. It is also such a sign of the times when private industry is using it as a networking tool in preparation for recruitment. There are organisations and events that may be joined as a fan. This morning I joined the CISCO Networking Academy to keep up to date with some training that I am pursuing. In this respect I think university departments could set up profiles as an organisation and encourage students to become fans in order to keep in contact and update them on important events.

Links

By the way you'll notice that some of the links in the last few posts are not active. You'll be able to copy and paste them. The reason is I'm using the iGoogle Blogger Gadget which I find so quick to publish posts.

Podcasts

I am also a fan of podcasts. Some podcasts I download are Clubland Podcast, Discovery Channel, Harvard Business, Ian Dempsey breakfast show, Judge Jules, Ministry of Sound, Science weekly, and Ted talks. If only there was more time in the day to listen to all of this. There are more and in this discovery exercise I found one that may be useful to the careers service: http://www.podcastdirectory.com/format/Careers. Happy Listening.

youtube

Youtube is one of those sites I could happily explore all day, but I didn't. It's one I've been using for some time and a great way of sharing information. I posted a youtube video on my blog earlier and instructions on how to embed them. Also notice in my video bar the MIT OpenCourseWare video feed which I could watch all day. Other universities have their dedicated youtube channels such as Berkley to promote and deliver lectures which is an excellent idea.

Wiki

I can't say I've created a wiki for this exercise but I do use them alot for information. In most cases The information is up to the readers interpretation and I wouldn't use it as reference material but that?s just my opinion. I generally use them for technical information such as when I was trying to get a TV card working with linux, I referred to the V4L wiki at http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page.

LibraryThing

I signed up for LibraryThing and will admit that I wasn't too enthusiastic until I started searching for books. I only added a few but it really gets you thinking about what you've read, in my case all technical or technical related. It's also really interesting to see if anyone else has the same books listed. I found 2 books that only have 1 member. Interestingly the books I added were all hard back bar one. For anyone that knows me and looks at my list the book dated 1982, I didn't read it till about 4 years later when I typed all the programs from it into the commodore 64.

Google BOOKS

Google books and patents are an excellent resource for writing. I've been using both for a long time now and found it useful to scan through books quickly to check for relevant content and do key word searchs prior to borrowing books from the library. They are also great to check for referenceing information when writing.

Ebooks, ebook readers and eAudiobooks

I visited he eBooks collection at the UL Library, and checked out Dawsonera. This is a great resource. Alot of the books I'm interested in only have a five minute preview which leaves it as a good resource in planning which books are worth making the trip to the library for :-)