March 2008 Archives

I missed the Late Late interview with Patrick and John Collison. The interview can be watched on Youtube.

I first met Patrick 3 years ago when he entered our robocode competition here at Tipperary Institute. I then met him last August at open coffee and it was clear that they were doing something pretty elegant with smalltalk and addressing an issue affecting Ebay power sellers.

The Late Late interview failed to capture the commitment drive and vision that the guy have. You don't wake up one morning and become a millionaire, you have to have the vision and the energy to make it happen.

Part 1

Part 2

An article on silicon republic points out that Irelands lack of rural broadband is keeping us below 20% penetration. I spent most of 2005 to 2007 working on my comnunity's behalf to get broadband for our area. My experience points to the fact that rural broadband is badly funded and being mismanaged by the Dept of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

The key stumbling block with the group broadband scheme was the simple fact that payments were made on the number of users connected regardless of location. So if you provided broaband for a town you received the same grant as those who attempted to bring broadband to isolated rural communities. There is considerable expense involved in bringing broadband to a rural area due to the number of links and APs required to propagate a wireless signal to remote locations. Yet the Dept did not want to consider this. Instead the accountants decided that a nice easy way was to count the number of subscribers only i.e. treat it like a water scheme.

Previous Article : Its a Group Broadband Scheme not A Group Water Scheme

A very polite manager from Three customer services rang me at the weekend to explain that they charge for email and even though their terms and conditions don't reflect this, they mean to continue charging.

He requested my assistance on this matter and was hoping I would help them in rewriting their terms and conditions so that IT WOULD BE CLEAR THAT EMAIL IS NOT INCLUDED UNDER THEIR 100 MB BROADBAND package.

This request seemed a bit strange as I would be capitulating and helping Three to charge customers for a service which they shouldn't be charged for (based on their very vague and non descript terms and conditions)

I am also getting wound up about this at the moment as Three have a radio ad on Today fm where a customer gushes about the fact that she can check her emails as she has three mobile broadband for her mobile phone. Well that customer better check her bill very carefully.

I took some advice from comments left on the previous article and contacted the national consumer agency. They recommended that I send a registered letter to their customer service requesting the terms and conditions in writing from them, They are also recommending the small claims court.

I am not sure what if any effect the small claims court would have on this, if a ruling was made in favour is it legally binding for all customers? If you have some experience of this please email me at lnoonan_blog at yahoo.ie

I have resurrected my ambition to back irish music using the DADGAD tuning. I recently bought Pierre Bensusan's book The Guitar Book and I am rereading Sarah McQuaid's DADGAD book.

Pierre's book is a work of love and is evident from reading it. It focuses on tablature rather than chords.

Sarah's book covers chords but is too text oriented and confusing, I do not doubt Sarah's expertise but I do not have enough music theory to firmly grasp what she is explaining.

The best introduction and explanation of chords to use for backing Irish music is FREE and is written by Hans Speek, the DADGAD part of his website explains and provides examples of chords to use to back music in different keys.

Update

I decided to derive the chords as suggested by Hans and draw the chord diagrams for the various notes. This was time consuming but worth while. Where possible I progressed the chords up the fret board. Where that wasn't possible I used the 4 low sounding strings for the first few notes and the high sounding strings for the notes further up the scales.

Practising chord scales does actually help as I put the theory to the test last night. Keeping up with the speed of the reels and jigs was the tricky part.

Hans approach does work well and has given me some ideas on interesting chord progressions for tunes.

I had my sixth telephone conversation wtih Three customer services (never the same person twice) today regarding the issue that they charge me for email eventhough I pay for a 100MB broadband package for my mobile phone. (This was filed with Comreg on 28/2/08 and logged with three as a formal complaint)

Their position is:
1 - They will not make available online the exact terms and conditions of their Mobile broadband 100 product.

2- They charge for email regardless even though they have sold me a mobile broadband package and refuse to define what ports mobilebroadband uses.

3 - They have listed on their website the charges for email therefore they are entitiled to charge me eventhough I have a broadband package. They refuse to recognise or acknowledge the fact that I have purchased 100MB data download per month when calculating email billing (which uses the internet protocol IMAP)

Comreg have been contacted and the case has been escalated Three now have 7 working days to resolve this. But they told be today they wouldn't.

Any one any ideas?

A former employee of CPW pointed me to a link on the talktalk website which lists most of the Carphone Warehouse stores and their phone numbers. I am placing a copy on my site as its good to talk and customers should be able to dial the store direct rather than through the central switchboard

Carphone Warehouse
Kilmartin N6 Centre
Athlone, Co. West Meath
Phone: 0906 447606

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 6, Quayside Shopping Ctr
Quay St, Sligo
Phone: 071 9153422

Carphone Warehouse
Deerpark Retail Park
Killarney
Phone: 064 27661

Carphone Warehouse
19 The Square
Tralee
Phone: 066 7125523

Carphone Warehouse
33 O'Connell St
Ennis
Phone: 065 6843096

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 55, Galway Shopping Ctr
Headford Road
Phone: 091 561575

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 206B, Eyre Square Shopping Ctr
Eyre Square
Phone: 091 561711

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 14, Parkway Shopping Ctr
Limerick
Phone: 061 318802

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 6, Arthur's Quay Shopping Ctr
Limerick
Phone: 061 401133

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 14,Crescent Shopping Ctr
Dooradoyle, Limerick
Phone: 061 210293

Carphone Warehouse
43 Gladstone St
Clonmel
Phone: 052 72940

Carphone Warehouse
13 Barronstrnad Rd
Waterford
Phone: 051 870640

Carphone Warehouse
79 Patrick St.
Cork
Phone: 021 4270663

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 23D, wilton Shopping Ctr
Cork
Phone: 021 4348566

Carphone Warehouse
119 Patrick St
Cork
Phone: 021 4274375

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 6, Ballincollig Shopping Ctr
Cork
Phone: 021 4208105

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 36, Blackpool Shopping Ctr
Cork
Phone: 021 4270663

Carphone Warehouse
17 North Main St
Wexford
Phone: 053 9152722

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 3 Coffee House Lane
Market Cross Shopping Ctr
Phone: 056 7760143

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 34, Morisson Outlet Village
Rathdowney, Co. Laois
Phone: 0505 48282

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 23, Hanover Court
Kennedy Ave, Carlow
Phone: 059 9133300

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 9, Town Centre
Naas
Phone: 045 871087

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 23 Manor Mills Shopping Ctr
Maynooth
Phone: 01 5052040

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 8A, Mullingar Shopping Ctr
Harbour Place
Phone: 044 35464

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 6, Kennedy Rd
Navan
Phone: 046 9023002

Carphone Warehouse
Unit G9, Scotch Hall Shopping Ctr
Drogheda
Phone: 041 9809240

Carphone Warehouse
9 Clanbrassil St
Dundalk
Phone: 042 9333847

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 32, Letterkenny Shopping ctr
Letterkenny
Phone: 074 9129696

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 1B, Ashbourne Town Ctr
Ashbourne
Phone: 01 8357040

Carphone Warehouse
8 North Earl St
Dublin 1
Phone: 01 8148508

Carphone Warehouse
2 Henry St
Dublin 1
Phone: 01 8783470

Carphone Warehouse
30 Grafton St
Dublin
Phone: 01 6705265

Carphone Warehouse
Unit C9, St Stephen's Green Shopping Ctr
Dublin
Phone: 01 4757612

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 3, Clarehall Shopping Ctr
Malahide Rd.
Phone: 01 8771030

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 53, Northside Shopping Ctr
Oscar Traynor Rd.
Phone: 01 8775032

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 35, Omni Shopping Ctr
Santry
Phone: 01 8832003

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 213, Blanchardstown Shopping Ctr
Blanchardstown
Phone: 01 8227944

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 25, Liffey Valley Shopping Ctr
Coldcut rd, Clondalkin
Phone: 01 6234600

Carphone Warehouse
2 Rock Hill
Blackrock
Phone: 01 2782929

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 104, Dun Laoghaire Shopping Ctr
Dun Loaghaire
Phone: 01 2303901

Carphone Warehouse
290 Lower Rathmines Rd
Rathmines
Phone: 01 4970121

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 256, The Square Shopping Ctr
Tallaght
Phone: 01 4627955

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 7, Ashleaf Shopping Ctr
Crumlin
Phone: 01 4952311

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 23, Monaghan Shopping Ctr
Monaghan
Phone: 047 72717

Carphone Warehouse
Main Street
Buncrana
Phone: 074 9363881

Carphone Warehouse
The Diamond
Carandonagh
Phone: 074 9373957

Carphone Warehouse
The Jetland Centre
Ennis Rd, Limerick
Phone: 061 457839

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 4+5, High Street
Dungarvin
Phone: 058 24385

Carphone Warehouse
37 Shop Street
Galway
Phone: 091 566791

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 22
N2 Axis Retail Park
Longford
Phone: 043 36002

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 2
Edward St.
Newbridge
Phone: 045 450502

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 243
Blanchardstown SC
Dublin 15
Phone: 01 8234895

Carphone Warehouse
Unit 2
The Mall
Tullamore
Phone: 057 9327460

I am starting to recover from the very successful event hosted in Tipperary Institute. We had 14 third levels, 10 second level schools taking part in Robocode and SchoolBots respectively. 6 teams took part in XNA. It was nice to meet and chat to Martha who was representing Microsoft at the event and assisting with the judging process.

The results were as follows.

Robocode 08
1st - Griffith College Dublin
2nd - Galway Mayo Institute of Technology

SchoolBots 08
1st - Cashel Community School
2nd - Gort Community School

XNA SPACE INVADERS CHALLENGE
1st - Finn Krewer - Gort Community School

A big thank you to all our sponsors.

TV3 were there recording the XNA SPACE INVADERS challenge, footage below

An irish biodiesel firm that supplies biodiesel to several county councils is to establish a biodiesel plant in Thurles according to yesterdays edition of the Irish Examiner (Mon 10th Mar 08). Ecoola already have several fleet contracts and given the high price of oil should continue to do well.

A colleague of mine is the proud owner of a Toyota Prius. I am very impressed with the car. It is very roomy, the total width of the back seats is wider than that of a Ford CMax 5 seater MPV. The passenger experience is a joy, very quiet, very comfortable. Under new motor tax legislation it only costs 100 Euros to tax. Motorway MPG is somewhere between 47 and 49 MPG according to some car websites. The car brings together both technology and environmental considerations. When driving you can see on the display where the power is coming from, in slow traffic the car runs on battery and with out any effort switches to petrol when the speed picks up. When running on petrol you can see the battery being charged. Boot capacity is good too, considering the batteries etc that the car requires.

I can see myself in the future driving one of these or something similar.

A good friend of mine has started subscribing to my blog, so I better write some new content. My articles have been pretty sporadic lately due to robocode and schoolbots. The prizes and trophies have arrived so it is just a matter of organising the conference centre, 250 name badges and 40 teams. Roll on Thursday !