Darragh Ó Héiligh blog and accessibility guides

I’m not particularly in the mood to blog today however to get my mind off things, I decided to write a reasonably short one for a few minutes.

Did you know yesterday was the first day of summer?  Judging by last year’s summer in Ireland that seemed to rain on us for the entire season, I’m not very optimistic about this years.  However, the past two days have been kind of sunny so hay, you never know!  We might be in luck yet!

Hay, did you know that internal doors should have “Feathered edges” to limit the gap required between the door and the door frame? A feathered edge means that the edge of the door at the latch and the hinge is not dead straight.  There’s a slight slope on the inside corner that meats the frame.  Sounds kind of logical when you think of it really. As you close the door, the corner comes very close to the frame.  If there’s no curve on that side of the door, it will rub off!  The alternative of course is to decrease the overall size of the door so although the side is completely straight it won’t rub off the frame as its closing.  There’s another reason as well that I can describe but I can’t remember the technical name for it.  Oh.  It’s called hinge skew.  It’s hard to describe it however, if you go to push a door closed with your finger and as it’s getting close to the frame it starts to resist just very slightly, it’s because the hinge isn’t recessed properly and again, there’s no feathered edge on the hinge side. 

As I’ve said before, it’s amazing what you learn as you go along.

I was told that I should not mention anything related to x or that could be considered in any way derogatory toward x on my blog.  I hate censorship of free speech or ideas.  Don’t you?  Really sums up my feelings toward x.  Censorship of ideas or openness resulting in lack of ability to expand or grow.  Sounds like Windows!  Only joking.  Or am I?

I have only a few weeks left in Stream.
God, that one sentence fills me with terror and delight.

I’ve had four years of very mixed experiences in this company.  I’ve had days when I absolutely love my job but more days when I’ve absolutely hated it.

I could write a ten page post on why I hate Stream and it’s restrictive policies but I’m not going to come down to that level.  Besides, words really could not express how much I hate working here so I’m not going to bother.  One thing tat I will admit is I think one of the reasons why things seem to be so bad is because I am so frustrated at not been given the opportunity to reach my full potential.  Some of this restriction is caused by restrictive policies but some is due to the de-motivation these restrictive policies have generated.  In a nutshell, if your told no you can’t do something often enough, you just don’t bother asking anything any more.  I know my current manager sees this and at times I try to do more but it comes right back to the usual old stuff.  We ask for something to make it easier or more productive to do our job and IT say no because it doesn’t fitting with some IT policy.

I’m beyond nervous about this new job.  There are questions crashing around my mind.  Will the software be accessible?  Are they using a version of Lotus notes greater than V7 with accessibility support?  Will I be able to use the remote desktop to provide support?  Are they going to mind me installing Jaws onto main servers? Are they going to be friendly?  Is my dog going to be ok there?  What is the commute going to be like?  Am I going to be able to tolerate the staggered shift hours? What kind of IT policies do they have?  And, inevitably what is going to frustrate me about the new company?

You could certainly argue, well, Darragh, if you are already wondering about what is going to frustrate you aren’t you just being negative and looking for problems before they even exist?  Yes.  You’re absolutely right.  I would attempt to argue that I’m being a realist.  There’s no job that’s perfect but are all jobs going to be as petty, back stabbing, manipulative, two faced and just generally horrible as this one? 

Two years ago, I was about to leave.  Things were getting on my nerves.  I stayed because Emma joined the company so it was a bit better.  In August, I was promoted to the Novell team so again; I stayed even though I was beyond frustrated and de-motivated for most of last year.  Now though, even the challenge and entertainment I get from working with Linux" has vanished.  Truthfully?  I love working with Linux".  It’s a real pity that this place drives me so crazy.

Sorry.  I said I wasn’t going to launch into a rant.

In summary, I’ll shortly be saying my good by’s to Stream.  I’ve learned a lot in this company over the last four years.  I really do appreciate that at least.

To Lerena and Yergon, the two who interviewed me and who are now no longer in the company and in fact aren’t even reading this blog, thanks to you too!  I will always remember that interview.  I thought it was terrible but for some reason, after 8PM that night, Lerena called me back to offer me the job!

I'm studying Windows 2003 server tonight. During my travels, I found a site on Microsoft.com that comprehensively lists the differences between 2003 server standard and enterprise.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/evaluate/features/compare.mspx

We reached another milestone this morning.  After over two months of talking to BT almost every day, the confusion surrounding our telephone line has now been cleared and the technical difficulties resolved.

The Incompetence of some of the BT staff would really make you seriously question the intelligent of their managers.  Maybe it’s because Stream are a specialist services outsource provider and therefore need to specialize more in the provision of top class customer service but if someone in Stream promises a call back, they do so knowing that they are expected to fulfill that promise.  In the past, we’ve taken on contracts that didn’t allow for the customer service ethic that Stream want to instill in people but ordinarily, Setting expectations and living up to those is the main rule in communicating effectively with a customer.

Originally, BT disconnected the line at the old address.  When we received the keys to the new house, we asked them to relocate the connection.  This should have been a very standard request.  A few hours later and we were told that our request had been carried out.  No connection was established though at the new address.  The number that we carried over to the new address still rang though and according to BT, the broadband had also been connected within a few days.  After a month of calling every day, they finally admitted that the line was connected at the old address and broadband had been rerouted there as well.  This after specifically telling me that it was impossible to get the addresses mixed up in their very reliable computer system.  In fact, someone even had the stupidity to tell me that computers never lie!  Oh, I laughed at that one for ages.  Unsurprisingly, he didn’t really like my response that computers don’t lie, it’s the stupid people who enter the information incorrectly that causes the problem.

Well, soon after that, they finally said they had things sorted out.  At this stage, I was still calling them every day to get an update.  From experience, I know what BT are like so I was taking no chances.  You might think that calling them every day was a bit over the top but you need to understand that the people answering the phone are trained to deal with very straight forward customer service issues.  If something gets too complicated, they either escalate it to someone who’s over worked and under paid, or they just leave it there hoping the problem will go away.  I am saying this with experience.  I’ve managed a team of people like that before.

Anyway, the next mess up was that they some how connected the broadband to the line before they actually established the connection!  Now, obviously this is a physical impossibility from my understanding of a phone exchange but anyway, that’s what they said.  It was probably a software configuration thing.  With this broadband connection live on the line without a line actually existing, a line couldn’t be connected.  It was a real catch twenty two!  Before we could get the line connected, the broadband had to be disconnected.  That took around ten working days.

A really nice woman from the relocations department called me the week before St. Patrick’s day to assure me that she was working on the issue.  She sounded very nice and genuine but although she gave me her direct dial, she was very rarely available to take calls.  She seemed to get the ball moving a bit faster though.  She contacted Eircom, the provider of the physical telephone line and got the line connection established. 

It didn’t end there though.  The connection was up and running but still, there was no dial tone in the house and the number wasn’t ringing! 

Next, they got an engineer to call to the house.  He arrived last Friday afternoon but only called me when he was outside the house.  Obviously then, he couldn’t get in so he couldn’t check the line!

I got back onto BT yet again and made sure they reiterated to Eircom that if their going to send someone around, they need to give me notice before hand to give me time to be there.   Yesterday, I was called at half eight in the morning by an engineer standing outside the door again.  Fortunately, this time, he understood that Eircom didn’t let me know that he was calling around so he rescheduled for this morning. 

As luck would have it, he came this morning after a bit of a delay.  The first thing he told me was that the previous owner, Nicky Hanlon, was actually one of the original phone line installers in the town and therefore did all the related work in the house him self.  It was obvious from the way he said it that he knew that corners would have been cut. 

Sure enough, he traced the line from the outside and found where it enters the house.  After some messing around with cables, he got a dial tone. 

So, it looks like there’s an internal break in one of the wires in the house.  It’s not as bad as it sounds.  It just means that I’ll need to get some phone wire routed around.  It’s just another job that is going to take time and cost money.  As you can imagine, it’s therefore a job that I could have done without!

Oh, did I mention that that the entry point into the house is in the master bedroom tucked in at the side of a big built in press?  Nicky Nicky Nicky!  What were you thinking of when you did that!  It’s not the worst thing that could happen but it’s just a pain in the ass.

Oh, to explain in some more detail for anyone outside Ireland.  BT is a service provider.  They can offer this service by renting the Eircom Lines that are basically flooded across the entire country.  Or anywhere that has a house.  So, if you have a service issue, you need to talk to BT.  If BT consider it to be a physical line issue, they escalate it to the line provider namely, Eircom.

Google’s services seem to have been down this morning and from around 4PM yesterday.  On the BT connection that my server lives on, I couldn’t ping or traceroute google.com or gmail.com.  I originally thought it was something that had gone wrong with the server that was causing the problem but after an hour or two of messing around I gave up.  I posted a question to the Irish Linux" Users Group this morning and almost straight away I got three responses telling me that it was likely that I was experiencing problems due to a larger Google connectivity issue that was affecting some people.  BT did the daily IP address change about a half an hour ago and since then all has worked fine again.

Very Very strange.  I hope that doesn’t happen again.  I’ve had three months of flawless up time on that server and I don’t want to have to even look at it for another three months.  It’s exactly what a server should be.  A forgotten computer tucked away out of sight.

Ok, that’s a terrible post title but still, I had to start it off some way.  Over at http://dcnightout.com/?p=137 you’ll find a very interesting face off between Jaws on Windows, Out-spoken on the Mac and Orca in the Gnome window manager in Linux".

I listened to most of it but I got sick of waiting for things to happen when they were demonstrating out-spoken on the Mac so I didn’t listen to everything.  What is obvious is that in some places, Jaws is a bit more intuitive but more importantly, Orca is more choice orientated and will provide greater flex ability in the long run. 

Have a listen for your self.  It really shows you how much the industry is progressing.  A few years ago, we couldn’t have had a demonstration of this type.  It is only possible due to the continuing growth of the projects on Linux" and OSX.

I was thinking this morning; quite a few people read this blog.  Some of you lurk in the shadows without commenting or emailing me or without even giving me a hint of feedback.  Some of you email or call me privately to talk about posts that interest you.  Others comment and make this a pleasure to write and the odd few just talk about it quietly, questioning the motives behind such a public display.

Some of your comments are great.  I’m not going to mention names but one person who read the site about a week ago bluntly told me it was boring!  When I asked her why, she said it was too technical!  Hmmm.  You come to a website called digitalDarragh.com and you don’t expect it to be technical?  There’s something funny about that.  It gave me a laugh anyway.  I know about four friends who read it to keep up with what I’m doing.  I don’t email as much as I probably should so posts about the house and things I’m doing from week to week are for some reason interesting.  God knows why.  Taking down doors and writing about my dogs weird personality is far from interesting to me! But hay.  I’ll not knock it.  I’m glad their reading.  A few others just read it because their nosy and they’ve nothing else to do.  Again, why not!  I read blogs for the same reason.

Someone asked me though in an email yesterday, why do I do it.  What’s the motivation behind writing a blog.  Why tell the world that last weekend I spent all my time working in the house or last night, I installed service pack one for windows Vista.  Who cares or more to the point.  Why do I think people want to know.

It’s a really good question and it’s not one that can be answered easily.  Originally, I started blogging because a woman I use to work with Cat, got me interested in it.  I enjoy writing so the words easily came to my fingers.  The only thing I can write about with any kind of proficiency is what is happening to me at that moment in time.  Don’t ask me to write fiction or even real life events.  I’ll probably have no interest and that will be reflected in what you’ll read.  Technology and my day to day events are something I can speak about so why not just let it out there.

I suppose, when you really boil it down, a blog for me is a form of advertising.  It advertises that I have a keen interest in Technology and when ever possible, I take the time to learn about new software or hardware.  Of course, there’s more to Darragh than just the digital side and from writing about things that I encounter from time to time, I’m showing a bit of my personality as well.

The other side of it though is when I blog about something, it is there in the archives for ever.  I’ve looked back at blog posts that are over three years old and instantly, I’m taken back to the mood I was in at the time and even the worries or expectations that were on my mind.  Unlike a private diary, Friends and even perfect strangers have commented on these posts and their input is equally as enjoyable.

Taking a simple example of my post a while back talking about comment spam, a random visitor to the site emailed me with his equally positive experiences with akismet.  It is very rewarding to write a post and receive a response with someone else’s perspective.

On the technical side of things, Blogs are a great source of information on almost any topic you can think of.  It’s amazing what people write about.  I’ve found great step by step guides that have been written by people who have documented solutions to problems they’ve overcome.  I’ve only done that a few times but in some small way, I hope a post or two on this blog will help even one person.  I suppose it’s a way of trying to give something back to people. 

Using the example of the post where I describe installing Linux" onto a pen drive, this has received quite a lot of posts.  Most of which have been as a direct result of people searching for a solution via a search engine such as Google.  I’ve had a lot of emails with questions specific to this task so I hope that it’s been a help to people.

When I started with Linux" years ago, I posted hundreds of questions on dozens of mailing lists.  I got help from strangers all over the world whose only motivation for assisting me was to help me learn about a system that they were enthusiastic about.  On this blog, some of my posts are written with this same aim.

So there you have it.  A very long winded but hopefully informative explanation as to why I bother to write blog posts most days. 

I installed service pack one for Windows vista tonight.  All went without any problems.  Jaws didn’t start automatically after the reboot but that’s only a minor issue.  So far, I don’t see any major differences in fact, there’s been nothing at all to justify upgrading.  It will be interesting to see if there are any performance boosts.  Doubtful but I’ll live in hope.

I’m working on two new websites at the moment. Not for myself.  One for a musician and one for a photographer.  The musician’s website is much easier.  As a musician myself, I can better understand what is needed but I’ve not really got an idea what will be expected from a photographers point of view.  I know what he’s asked for but what he wants is very simple.  Often, people ask for the simple things because they don’t know what’s possible.  It’s one of my jobs as their developer to give them ideas to get their mind thinking of different functionality the site can offer to them and their perspective customers.  It’s usually one of the easier parts to the process but when you have no real experience with the industry you’re developing for it’s difficult to get an insight.

I’ll hopefully get away from the design and usability stage and into the nice coding stuff in a few days.  I’ll have a few mock ups to post either on the blog or somewhere else for people to give me their ideas. 

We’ve the house two months today.  That’s two long, tiring, frustrating and busy months.  I really hope we get in there by the fourteenth of April.  The list of things that need to be done still is very clear so as long as no one else lets us down and we don’t have any more bad luck we’ll be fine. 

My hands are cut, scratched, brewzed, tired and sore from everything this weekend.  From sanding the stain and lacquer off the windowsills yesterday the tips of my fingers are practically raw.  As a result, it feels really weird when typing.

Still though, it’s all worth it.  I’m enjoying the challenge.

I’m looking forward to going back to work tomorrow for a break!  My hands arms and legs are wrecked! From all the lifting, hammering, unscrewing, sawing and chiselling!  We’ve done a huge amount of work this weekend.  Today, a friend came over to help me remove the last of the door frames and the skirting from two of the rooms.  He also had an electric saw similar to a jigsaw so we cut up the scrap wood in a matter of an hour!  Emma’s going to have a hard job removing the nails from them on Friday when I’m at work so we can bring them to the recycle centre but it’s all worth it.

Aside from a bit more demolition today, we didn’t get much more done.  The last of the demolition is done though I think.  Now we just need to get the repair work done before fitting the new door frames and skirting boards.  By repair work I mean smooth off the walls and patch up wholes that had been created in the past for hanging pictures and shelves.  After all that’s done, we can start putting base coats onto the walls.

That’s the weekend over finally.  Back to work tomorrow.  One thing about all the work we did this weekend, it took my mind off problems at work for a change. 

Happy Easter to you all.  I hope you’ve had a good one. 

It’s been a long day here.  We’ve been working on the house all day again today.  This morning, we painted two of the ceilings and a few of the corners where the roller won’t be able to get in to.  Emma also got the knack of pulling out those stupid raw plugs that seem to be encased in the walls.  She got about fourteen out of one wall!  I’m not the best at painting with a roller for obvious reasons but while Emma was using the roller on the ceilings, I did the parts at the sides and corners that are generally impossible to reach.  It was a good combination.  We had both done reasonably quickly.

After that, I set about removing the architrave from the door frames while Emma removed the nails from the wood that I pried off the walls.  That took a good few hours.  We were in the house until after half seven tonight.  We’ve got it all done though.  All that needs to be done now is we need to remove a few of the door frames so it’s just a matter of coming with the new doors and frames so the people fitting them don’t need to spend time pulling anything down.  Any time we’re saving them is money we’re saving and that’s always a good thing.

We’re both shattered now so I’m just writing this before falling into bed to sleep for at least a year.  Or until around 9AM tomorrow morning before getting up and starting the whole thing all over again.  Tomorrow, we’ve some more work to do.  A friend is coming over to help with the door frames as it helps if you have someone around who’s handy with wood work etc. 

It’s funny.  My father’s a carpenter.  Since an early age I’ve been around wood and I’ve spent a few years on and off during holidays etc working in his factory.  It’s surprising the small things you pick up.  Something simple like removing screws with dodgy heads or even things like the best or most logical way of lifting doors.   I’m learning a lot while working on the house but there are things that come back to me that are a bit surprising.

You know, now that we're really finding ways of saving time and money etc, it really feels like things in the house are going much better.  I really want to have more control over what the plasteror and other workers are doing.  The more control, the better the result in this type of situation I think.

It's unlikely that any of you read blogs over a weekend but anyway.  Here goes.

I’m tired!  We spent from 10AM until 6 right through working on the house today.  It doesn’t really sound like a long time but it’s all manual labour type stuff so it has a tendency to be very tiring.  We removed a lot of rubbish.  Mainly wood that had been stripped out of the house over the last two months.  The kitchen, the skirting boards and other architrave, bits of door frames, an old cabinet that was probably older than the house it’s self and other scraps of wood that were used for the work that is being carried out at the moment.  It took two car loads to bring it all to the recycling centre.  The first lode was heavy, but the second had all the press doors from the kitchen as well as some work tops as well so it was incredibly heavy!  I was actually worried that the car suspension may have found it a bit more difficult than it could handle but we got there and back in one piece.  #Aside from removing all the wood from the house, we removed the upstairs doors.  Actually, come to think of it, why oh why would anyone paint the hinge of a door frame.  It’s just absolutely crazy.  When you paint a hinge, you paint the screws holding it to the door frame.  That makes it almost impossible to get the damn things off!  You first need to use the screw driver with a hammer to remove the paint and make the screw driver actually fit into the screw then you need to hope that the damn thing actually turns!  One door was unsalvageable.  I just could not get the paint off the screws.  It was just caked on.  So, instead, I used a chisel to break the wood away from around the hinge then I used a really long screw driver to pry the hinge away from the frame.  Another door was just as stubborn.  We removed the screws out of the frame but the door didn’t fall.  Usually, when you take the screws out, as you’d expect, there’s nothing holding the door onto the frame any more so it just pulls away.  There was so much paint on one of the doors it actually took a good while to get the hinge off the wall!  Really, when I say it was caked on, I’m not exaggerating.  I think they were trying to fill up the decline in the door caused by the hinge!  At least their off now.  It’s one more thing done. 

Oh, I got to take my frustration out on some really old wall mounted shelves.  These things were screwed in, nailed in and by the look of things; they were actually glued to the frame as well!  The only thing that could be done was get a hammer to it.  They were in so well that when I actually started to take them down, the shelves came off really easily but because of the size of the nails into the solid walls I had to chip away at the wood around them to let the nail bar get a grip. 

After all that and taking down the supports for the old heavy curtain brackets, I halved everything using a very old and crappy hand saw so it’s all sorted for bringing to the recycling centre again next week. 

What we’re finding is, yes, a jumbo bin can be organized to bring all this rubbish away but for that to happen, the rubbish will mount up in the front of the house, access will be very restricted because people need to walk over all the rubbish to get in to work and at the end of it all, it will be at least a day’s work getting everything into the bin and organized for collection.  As it is at the moment, we are managing all the waste and bringing it away our selves.  Its costing two euro each time we go to the recycling centre.  Including the cost of disposing of the old carpets and the old suite of furniture, we’ll probably reach a figure of about a hundred and fifty euro for waste disposal.  That’s much better than three hundred for a skip and more money for work men who can’t get the job done quick enough because their stepping over rubble. 

You really do learn a lot when you undertake a project like this.  This is only modernizing and renovating the interior of an existing house.  Just think of the mayhem that you’d be hearing about if this was a new build!  @God, I hope I never do that! 

Just one more thought.  Tomorrow, we're getting up early again Welll, early for a weekend anyway.  We'll be putting on a first coat of white paint on some of the walls.  It will show up a lot of the repair work that we'll need to do to the plaster.  That way, when the plasteror comes in, he'll know exactly what he'll have to do.  After that, it'll require a second base coat before actually putting the color on.  Aside from painting, there's not a hell of a lot more that can be done tomorrow.  I'll probably try to do a bit of cleaning before we start painting.  I'd like to have the place clear again when the plummer comes in later in the week.

Forget the technology stuff just for a moment.  I went to the Cinema tonight.  I had been hoping to see a film that had starred a lot of Irish cast called In Bruges.  When we got there though, it was sold out.  Instead, we went to one called Meet the Spartans.  Believe me.  Never ever go to that film.  Granted, there were some parts of it funny but generally it was beyond terrible.  Firstly, it was very visual so I couldn’t understand it, secondly, it was just stupid with no kind of sense to it at all and finally, it was a piss take out of gay people.  That can be funny at times depending on my mood but this really wasn’t the good kind of piss take.  It was American humour imposed onto a really bad film with absolutely no plot!  Interestingly, there were some voices I recognised in it!  Why someone would lower themselves to be seen in such crap I really don’t know.  Unless they were absolutely desperate.

So, I’m home now, I’ve a really busy day at the house planned tomorrow so I’m just going to go to bed.  Oh. And it’s cold outside too! Blah!

Oh, one more thing.  It being good Friday in Ireland, all the pubs are closed.  Alcohol cannot be served.  That's probably why the cinema was absolutely packed tonight! It's amazing!  People actually do have an alternative source of entertainment!  there's life after drink! Sorry.  I'm being sarcastic. 

You know, we’re a country of rebellious trouble makers!  I listened to something a few weeks ago that spoke about how the Irish are prone to doing the exact opposite of what their told because we’re almost programmed that way at this stage.  For over seven hundred years, we were ruled and tortured by the English.  We couldn’t practice our own religion, Irish culture was outlawed and peoples writing and even beliefs were censored.  It became a defense mechanism of sorts to rebel against what was expected.  People found unique ways of expressing their individuality and culture and some people were very public in their subtle fight against their oppressors.  One way people fought without violence was by encouraging Irish language and Music by entertaining others.  One such performer whose name is lost to me at the moment was actually the last piper in Drogheda.  He was hung in 1904 at the Tonsil. Would you believe I’m the first native piper in Drogheda since him?  He was hanged by the black in tangs from what I’ve been told.  I’d heard about that for years but I was told in more detail about it by a man from the pipers club a few months ago.

I’m not writing to talk about the English or Irish history or anything related to politics. I’m writing about Good Friday. Today is one of two days in the year where all pubs are closed.  It’s also the one day when I want alcohol!  I blame the Irish in me.  We’re just made to rebel.

Oh the program I watched was on RTE television. It was about the revival and continued encouraged growth of the Irish language.  It was only four or five people talking but they all had great points and it was very interesting listening to their very different arguments.

Sometimes I find technical support really entertaining!  I'm taking calls today because I felt like it this morning.  I don't need to ordinarily unless we're really short staffed but I'm in a helpfull mood today.

This fella just called asking me two questions.

1.  What is the second DVD needed for? Genuine enough I suppose.  It's used for installing source packages in OpenSuSE 10.3.  Well, specifically, not only source packages but packages used for the development or server side of things.  Most consumer packages are located on the first DVD so as to ensure users don't unnecessarily need to change DVD during the installation.

2.  Where do you change the photo that is shown on the log in screen in the latest version of OpenSuSE.  Fortunately, he was using Gnome but he was using the really flashy search centered menu that openSuSE have created.  I always use the traditional Gnome menu so to answer his question I had to enable this.  He found it very funny though.  He was a nice bloke and although the call only lasted about five or so minutes, it was entertaining!  It's nice when you get friendly people.

I hope I get a few really technical questions today.  I want a bit of a challenge.

I've to go activate his product now.  The new registration and activation process is slightly complicated.  It's not something we'd ordinarily do but he was a nice bloke so I'll do it for him.

As someone I know said lately, you'll catch more bees with honey.  It's true I suppose. 

I was in Eamon Dorans last night.  It’s a pub in Temple bar.  The last time I was there it was noisy, crowded and just generally horrible!  Last night, I anticipated the same however I was asked to go so I didn’t want to say no.  To my surprise though, it was fine!  At the start actually, there was hardly anyone there!  In saying that, we got there by about 9PM so, much earlier than I’d usually go out.   I actually enjoyed my self!  The only problem was the price of drink!   A small long neck bottle of Bulmers was €5.10! I had two of those very quickly as their small and far too easy to drink so I decided to switch to Guinness instead.  It was €5.20 but at least I got a pint for that price instead of just over half a pint in a bottle!  Unbelievable prices!  Emma commented that “Now I understand why she didn’t go out or drink much in Dublin.  It just costs too much!” I can definitely see her point!  Absolutely amazing! Really, there’s over pricing and then there’s just blatant robbery! A friend of mine from college use to say that he’d easily spend Eighty pounds, i.e, Irish punts in a night out in Dublin.  I could never understand it.  One punt was probably around the same as seventy cent is now.  So, the punt was much stronger and more valuable than the Euro. That just gives you an idea how much he must have spent on alcohol!  And he probably didn’t even drink that much!  When you factor in the price of a taxi etc it all mounts up very quickly! I’m glad we bought in Drogheda!

That’s all for the moment.  I need to get to more technical things in a few minutes.  I’ve some Ubuntu problems.  Oh, if your looking for a bit of a laugh, visit www.overheardindublin.com It can be very funny.

This is really interesting.

Google says that today, the 20th of March is the first day of spring. I was reliably told that it was the first of February!  Now people, please tell me! Once and for all! What is the first day of spring? I just have to know!  This question was even posed at a barbeque that I was at on St. Patrick’s day.  It’s not only me who’s not sure!  It seems to be different for each country?  Weird!

This post from Head Rambles is the most accurate thing I've seen in a long time.

Well done.

http://www.headrambles.com/2008/03/20/pc-is-a-computer/

Poor Freddie’s had a hard time of it over the last two weeks but he’s finally almost backing to him self. Oh, Freddie, for anyone googling this or something is my guidedog.

Two weeks ago, one Saturday, we were up in the house.  Emma put her hands on the dog to give him a rub but he let a really painful yelp out and backed away.  Originally, I thought he’d hurt him self or something but when they were down stairs, the same thing happened again.  It was quickly obvious that his hips were very sore so I immediately contacted the vet. 

Thirty minutes later we had an appointment and were sitting in the waiting room waiting to be seen.  Only an hour after the original yelp he’d been examined and he’d received a pain reliever. I was provisionally informed that as a result of the examination, the vet quickly determined that the dog was in pain as a result of inflammation due to arthritis in his hips.  An anti-inflammatory along with a food supplement was prescribed which he will now need to take for the duration of his life.  I made an appointment to return on the Wednesday to have the dog x-rayed and returned back to my parents house to ensure he was left in a place where he could be kept very immobile for as long as possible.

Fortunately, my mother relented and agreed to take care of him for one week.  This meant that for the worst part of his recovery, he was in surroundings that were comfortable and familiar to him.  That is something that plays a big role in the well being of a guide dog.  Certainly it does with Freddie.  If he’s in surroundings that he doesn’t know and I’m not around for a long period of time he begins to get a bit depressed.

The next week, the Guide dog mobility instructor for my area in Irish Guide dogs found a temporary home for my dog from Wednesday the 12th to Friday the 14th.  Fortunately though, my sister, who had been minding Freddie for the two days previous actually requested that he, be allowed stay with her for the remainder of the week!   I explained this to Irish guide dogs with my apologies for inconveniencing them when I thought I had no one to take him.

On Friday, I picked him up and have had him since then. 

It’s very obvious that at the moment he’s doing great.  He doesn’t seem to be feeling any pain at all! He’s even gone for a bit of a run there at lunch time!  It’s a relief to see!  Hopefully he’ll have at least another few years in him yet before he has to stop working.

My real reason for writing this though was to thank people who helped me out over the last two weeks.

My mother and sister obviously for taking such fantastic care of him.  They are always very firm with him but at the same time, he has a great time around them.
Emma, for well, everything.  I had to rely on her to do a lot over the last two weeks.  My sister is in a very remote part of the town that’s not exactly easy to walk to!
And of course, Abby, Sabrina and Nicky who allowed me to ask lodes of questions and get the incite of other guide dog owners.

Finally, thanks to Irish guide dogs for giving me this fantastic beast that seems to know what I want before I do.  Over the past two weeks they’ve been supportive, helpful, professional, informative and patient.

I’m back working my dog again today.  I haven’t even a clue where my cane is and I really don’t care!  It’s a relief walking with my smelly hairy guide at my side again.  Using a cane for two weeks and getting the freedom of a dog back again is like taking led weights from your feet.

With each new job comes a new obsession.  Well, I never really obsessed about Sybase 365 but certainly Symantec and Novell have been two major obsessions.  When I worked in Symantec a life time ago, Virus removal, firewall configuration and PC security was a real big thing!  I even took time out to test and review alternative antivirus and security applications.  The job back then was horrible Answering thirty or more customer queries, getting very little thanks, on horrible money and although I knew I could do much more, the opportunity really wasn't there to allow it.  One thing I did work on though was a knowledge base.  Written from the ground up in ASP, the application in the early days was very simple.  But, even with its simplicity, it was an incredibly useful tool.  After most calls, each engineer would either write a document or send off a canned response including a link to a document in the Symantec knowledge base. 

Each Email was like this:

Dear name,

Further to our earlier conversation, I am writing with a link to the Symantec Knowledgebase article titled (insert title here); this contains instructions to a solution that will solve your described issue.

The URL is:

http://this-url.com/blah.

Please do not hesitate to call our support department again if you require additional assistance.

Yours sincerely

(You’re Name)

The site I created allowed the user to either select a knowledge base article from a list or input the title and URL of an article manually.  Each user had an account so the email was personalized with their name and email address. 

It essentially meant that if an email was sent, the engineer didn't have to type any more than the customers name and email address.  Simply clicking on "Send Email, "Existing Document" and then the document title would prompt the engineer for the customer’s details and fill out the message as if it had been typed by hand by the engineer! 

I later added reporting functionality to this so management could track outbound email activity and usage.

So, basically, what I'm saying is I really tried to get into everything in the team and did what I could at the time to increase its efficiency.

In Sybase, 365, I actually expanded on this application so it divided engineers into teams and roles.  So, Sybase 365 would see different documents to Novell and Nikon.  Mentors or technical leads had more access to higher level features like editing documents and administering accounts.  Management had all these features as well as reporting functions that gave a detailed overview of what the application was used for.  Later, it became a real knowledge and idea sharing tool when I added a notice board and forum that was cross team enabled. 

Unfortunately though, because of a new I-T policy, the application had to be taken down.   I'd love to look at it again though because there was a hell of a lot of functionality in it. 

Getting back to the story though, After Symantec, I moved to Novell. Here, I implemented the knowledge base again but not on the same scale as it was used in Symantec.  My main goal in Novell was to really help to increase the knowledge of everyone on the team.  I was only still an engineer at this stage but I had been interested in Linux" for years and I was thrilled at the opportunity of actually making a living with it.  I set up new learning processes and facilities called study groups.  These were small groups of three or four people discussing cases that hadn't been solved by individuals in the team yet.  They were great for increasing the communication on the team and when new versions were released they provided a great medium for directed discussion.

After Novell though, I was promoted to the role of technical lead on the Sybase 365 team.  This contract was only starting so I was there right from the start.  I'd a lot to learn here.  My manager at the time gave me a lot of room to do a lot of the management tasks as well as the technical stuff however that was actually one of the reasons I didn't really like that team.  I learned very quickly that I didn't like management roles yet and preferred instead to concentrate on the technical side.  Still, I tried to throw my self into the tasks at hand.  The team operated twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year.  That meant that a lot of out of hours work needed to be done.  At times I worked from 11PM to 8AM, other times I had a Blackberry with me to take escalations and other times I just looked in on occasion to make sure everything was going ok.  I wasn't particularly interested in the technology however I did take an interest in the team and the success of the contract.

After working with Sybase for over two years, I got transferred to the Novell team in the same technical lead capacity. 

You more or less know what I've been doing in Novell.  I've reintroduced the study group sessions, I've set up my own server at home running OpenSuSE 10.3 and I've tried to participate as much as time allows in the OpenSuSE communities.

For that reason, now that I'm likely moving to a new job, I am going to start to dive into different technology again.  This time, I'm learning about Windows server and server environments from a Microsoft angle.  It shouldn't be difficult.  I've learned a lot from OpenSuSE and the way Linux" does things so considering a lot of what Windows does is point and click, I don't see it being a huge problem.  I installed Windows 2003 before at home but I found that for what I wanted to do, one server PC just wasn't enough. 

ON my Linux" Server, I run a mail, web, ftp, imap, pop3, Ssh and SMTP server.  It takes about 3.5 GB of space after collecting a huge amount of mail for over three months.  Windows 2003 server requires about that much just for the base installation.  If I was to set up a server for mail, web, FTP and remote access I'd probably need more than one machine!

So, I'm off to research.  First thing I'd like to do is find an Irish user group for Windows 2003.  Something like the community at http://www.linux.ie/  would be very nice.  For a newbie, bouncing questions to a group of people is often the best way to learn.

We'll see how the cards fall in the next few weeks.  For now, to start the ball rolling, I'm setting up a new tag called Windows.  Everything I'm doing on the windows side of things will go in here.  So, enjoy.  Or don't.  If the windows side of things doesn't interest you at all, I'll see you soon.  I'll not leave Linux" behind.  I'll keep my Linux" server up and running and I'll stay involved with the gnome accessibility community but I'll probably not do much with the OpenSuSE side of things.  It just takes up too much time. 

I found a really cool keyboard shortcut while messing around for a few minutes.  Press Windows key pluss X to start the mobility centre.  Here, in Windows Vista, you can change laptop specific settings like screen brightness, processor and performance utilization, sound and presentation settings amung other things all with the aim of extending system battery life.   I'm very impressed. 

Out of curiosity and some bordum this evening, I decided to figure out how to get the TV card that comes with the HP Pavilian DV8396EA laptop to work with Windows Vista.  When this was shipped, Vista hadn't been released yet so it came with XP.  Since then, I've installed Vista Ultomit and most of the drivers necessary for the machine to behave normaly. The only driver I haven't spent time on was the TV tuner card.  It didn't look like there was a driver available for it that would work under Windows Vista.

I did some looking around and found that they still included this card in the DV9022EA laptop that came with Windows Vista 32BIT so I used the download page for this notebook to get the driver.  Believe me, it wasn't as easy as it sounds.  The address to that page is:  http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-51319-1&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3263330&os=2093&lang=en  Once that was done, I needed QuickPlay, an application made for these Media Notebooks by HP.  This is included with the OEM (Origional Equipment Manufacturor) installation of Windows XP but as I've installed my own version of Vista, I cant get access to it from any HP source.  I got my hands on it eventually though.

To my frustration, everything works as it should however the QuickPlay application seems to freeze very regularly.  I think I need to look for an update on the HP website.   I'll get around to that the next time I'm bord and looking for something to mess with.

Next though, I'm going to try setting this card up with Linux".  Specifically, with Ubuntu 7.10. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if it was much easier than in Vista.

So the big news is now officially out there.

On Monday morning, Fujitsu-siemens called me to arrange a technical test over the phone.  That day, at 3PM, they called me and I answered all their questions.  On Wednesday morning, I met them for an interview at their head office in Dublin 2.  By Wednesday afternoon, they’d offered me a job.

I’m not really going to go into too many specifics.  Any one who knows me and who wants more can email me but in a nutshell, the job is both client and server based.  It is providing support to TD’s and other elected representatives in the Irish government.  On the server side, they monitor server activity and recover from outages.

The only down side is there are shifts involved.  9AM to 5PM is standard however the office stays open until 7PM Monday, Thursday and Friday and until 10PM on Tuesday and Wednesday.  This could cause a problem.  I’m really not sure if I want to start a job with shift work involved. I’ve done it before and it’s really not nice.

In saying that, there’s exposure to server environments there so would I be stupid to say no?

I’m really not sure.

You know, one thing that I really hate at the moment is the Anglicization of St. Patrick’s day.  It’s bad enough that we pronounce and spell Pádraig the English way when we’re talking about it but come on! This is the only day of the year that is celebrating our patron saint!  Ok, I’m not a religious person but that’s got nothing to do with this.  When I celebrate this day, I’m celebrating Irish culture.  I’m going to play a lot of music, I’m going to make an effort to speak Irish and I’m just going to generally take pride in the fact that I am from a fantastic country that has more history and individualism than most others.  I think we have a lot to be proud of here. Let’s not anglicize it just because it sounds cool or modern.  Please please don’t talk to me about Paddy’s day.  His name wasn’t paddy.  It was Pádraig. Even if you want to use Patrick!  It’s still better than Paddy!

It all sounds very trivial but Christ it’s something that really gets on my nerves.

So, please make an effort this year.  When saying Happy St. Patrick’s Day, instead use a bit of Irish.  Even if your unfortunate enough not to be from Ireland.  Recognize and celebrate it properly.
“Beannachtai Na Féile Pádraig”

Oh, and have a pint or two as well. That’s just as important.

Oh! My! God!

Could it be?

I'm so happy but so cautious!

I've just been given news that I cant release yet.

Instead of jumping at the chance I was reserved and said no, I want more!

I hope I've not just blown it.

We'll see though.

It's either going to make or break the deel.

Oh Crap!  I'm nervous and thrilled at the same time.

It's a funny feeling.

I've had a feedburner account for a while now but I haven't really done anything with it. 

I decided today though that I was going to leverage it's power and change my RSS to it.  I hope my existing RSS file is still updated however I cant be sure just at the moment.

To subscribe to feedburner and receive updates when a new post is added, point your RSS reader at http://feeds.feedburner.com/digitaldarragh

If your using Internet explorer 7, just put this into your address bar, press enter or click go and add it to your RSS list.

Finally!  Akismet now works!  It wouldn't do what it was suppose to before because of the sites trust level.  For security, I won't write the solution here however comment and I'll send it to you privately.

I'm not gone to the dogs after all!  I've not lost it!  Remember my post earlier where I swore that there was a wall in the office that had seemed to just vanish between Friday and this morning?  I thought I was completely loosing it but no, I just overheard two people talking about it there a moment ago.  I was right.  There was a left turn on Friday but now there's not.  Pity, that wall was a great land mark.  It told me when I was coming to the end of that row of desks!  Now it's gone so I have to resort to following the wall again.  Stupid changing office.

It’s not all been doom and gloom.  I’ve kept things going as normal.  Well, as normal as it usually is.  I don’t think I’ve ever been confused as being normal. 

On Thursday, I dragged my self down to Carlo to meet Nicky and his girlfriend Louise.  It was my first time meeting her and seeing them both together and let’s say I’m pleasantly surprised.  Better than usual Nicky, better than usual.  Sorry, I’m only messing.  Honestly, the two of them get on great.  It’s fantastic to see them both so happy.  Although, really folks, do you really need to broadcast your undying love to your entire contact list on MSN with those really corny status messages?  No, don’t worry; I’m not going to publicize them here.  I’m not that bad.  Yet.  All I’ll say is: We! We! We!  Private joke.  Sorry.

As usual, the music down there was excellent.  It was great to hear and indeed play with people that I hadn’t seen in quite a while.  Nicky sang Raglan road.  I’ve not heard him sing that in at least a few years.  That fella’s got one hell of a powerful voice.  It’s not surprising at all that he’s won countless competitions with his version of that song. 

First of all, for the bad news:  My Dog has hip arthritis and he’s been in a lot of pain for just over a week now.  Fortunately, things seem to be getting a bit better for him since yesterday but his hips are still quite painful.

When I took him to the vet, the news was grim.  Slow down, give him plenty of breaks, let him take it easier, decrease his weight etc.  Now, from my perspective this means, the dog is going to become increasingly unable to work as his condition escalates.  Hip Displasia seems to be a common issue with this bread of dog and looking back, I have to admit it was something that was on the cards right from when I got him first.  Within a short time, he had experienced a lot of hip problems due to a possible slipped disk.  He spent quite a lot of time off work for the first year.    Things have got a lot better though to the extent that he’s not really had any problems at all with that since.  I’d actually almost forgotten about it. 

The thing that I think threw me most was the realization that hay, my dog is actually not going to eventually retire because he doesn’t want to work any more, he’s always going to be a big playful idiot that loves to work and loves the thrill and challenge of commuting every day.  He’s just going to have to stop because he can’t handle it any more.  Leaving him at home last week although only for the day while I went to work was very difficult.  He really wanted to come with me!  He had his head beside the door before I even had a chance to open it but it just wouldn’t have been possible to work him with that kind of discomfort.  He’d have been completely unable to get on and off busses and trains etc.  It was kind of a sign of what’s to come really.

At the moment, he’s going to be off for at least another two weeks.  They will need to do another assessment on him to see if the anti-inflamitories and the supplement have reduced the surrounding tissue damage before he can be allowed to return to normal work.  So, worst case sinario is that he will be off work for longer until he fully heals.

It’s actually really surprising and frustrating to try to find someone who can take care of him for me while I’m at work.  For years, people have spoken to me about wanting to take him when he retires.  I’ve explained at each conversation that the person / people who take him will need to be able to assure Irish Guidedogs that they can give him almost full time attention / care.  This is needed for a number of reasons but the most obvious is that they are so use to human companionship that it would cause them a lot of stress to be suddenly left alone. Plus, there’s the added recognition that they’ve actually spent most of their lives working.  It is nice to give them a home where they can spend their remaining years in an environment where they are very happy.  Anyway, the point is that all these people who wanted to take him when he retires cant actually even take him for a few days while he tries to recover.  If they can’t take him for a few days how do they expect to be able to take him for at least five or six years?  I would love to have Freddie retire in a home that is close to Drogheda so I can keep in touch with him but it’s looking less and less likely that this will be possible.

My sister though, fair play to her, Naoimh has taken him for me today and will do so again tomorrow.  I’m telling you, it’s a huge relief knowing that he’s got somewhere to go for at least these two days.  Hopefully on Wednesday I’ll have something a bit more permanent for him to stay until he’s ready to come back to work.

There are a few other things around poor Freddie as well but that’s the shortened version of it.  Hopefully he’ll be back to work soon so I can stop using this horrible Cain!

Oh, that leads me onto the conclusion of this blog post.  We moved offices from Eastpointe to Santry on Wednesday last week.  As luck would have it, the one time I don’t have my dog is the time I really need him.  This place is like an obstacle course!  There are chairs, boxes, crates, lockers, and other junk all over the place!  I only got to grips with the layout of this much bigger building last Friday when everyone had gone home.  This morning I came in only to find that they’ve changed a part of it!  I’m telling you!  It’s different!  John, my manager says it’s the same but I know there was a partition up last week that’s gone now.  It’s unbelievably frustrating!  It doesn’t make a huge difference but I wish they’d stick to the layout they had!  Maybe I’m loosing it!

One thing I will say about the Cain, it can make it a bit more rewarding when you finally get to grips with a route independently.   A dog does so much for you when trying to find routes to places but with a Cain you’re completely on your own.  It is much more difficult, especially when your not use to using it again however I got some satisfaction getting to grips with this place last week without my trusty guide for a change. 

Finally, thanks to everyone who emailed me privately over the last week asking about Freddie and offering their help.  It was very appreciated.

I was given some bad news during the weekend.  I'm in limbo at the moment though as I haven't been able to contact anyone who would know more about it than me today.  So, blogging services are temporarily suspended.  Sorry.  I'm not in the mood.  I'll hopefully know more tomorrow.

Akismet is not working for me.  I've registered, got an activation key, configured the blog to use it and still nothing!  Very frustrating.  I hat twenty spam comments last night.  Twenty!  I've not got time to remove them all yet today so their just going to have to stay where they are for the moment.b

I was really happy to see that the GPodder application works exceptionally well with Orca tonight.  I was just looking around for something to mess with, kind of hoping to find a calender application when I came across GPodder.  It's a pod catcher that works with the Gnome graphical desktop in Linux".  I'm using gnome 7.10 here so the only command I needed to issue from the console was apt-get install gpodder.  I could of course have installed it using the gnome app installer however I rather using the console as I'm faster in it than navigating the graphical desktop for things like system administration.

Just thought I'd share that brief bit of news with you. 

Have a good weekend.  I'm still in Dublin at the moment.  The weather is very bad around here at the moment so I decided not to go up to Drogheda straight after work.  I'll probably go up in the morning when the wind has died down a bit.  Anyone else hate walking in the wind?  I get completely disorientated!  Not as much any more thanks to the dog but I remember walking with the cane use to be horrible!  Enough ranting from me.  Have a good one.