Big big news in a little little bundle.

Mar 22, 2013 |

Well its crazy isn’t it? The past year has been absolutely brilliant for me. When the bells rang out for the New Year on January 1st 2012 I decided that that year was going to bring me something more than 2011 or 2010. It certainly didn’t disappoint. In January of last year I sent my parents off on a holiday to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, I finally proposed to my now wife Emma, we organized our wedding for new years eve of last year and now another thing has slotted into place for us.

Of course, I can’t forget that in October I also trained with my new guide dog Nama. He has given me a freedom and independence that I really missed since Freddie retired back in 2010.

However, that’s not why I’m writing today. Now, I’m writing to tell you on this blog before it is posted to any other social media that Emma is pregnant and in September, all going well, we will have our first child. We had the first scan today and everything seems to be going very well.

We have told three people outside our parents before today and I should take this opportunity to thank these three people for not letting the cat out of the bag. It was very important to us that we be allowed to spread the fantastic news when the time was right.

It’s been hard keeping this to myself. I’ve wanted to shout it from the roof tops since I found out in January.

I love children. Of course, I am very aware of the challenge ahead but I can’t wait for it. However, regardless how happy I am, I’m more happy for Emma. She was born to have children. Anyone who knows her will agree with me that she is a natural. She seems to know what they are thinking before they have even thought it. I can’t wait for her to be a mother because I know she’s going to be an amazing one.

So there you have it. Isn’t it funny? Ten years ago when I started DigitalDarragh.com the last thing that I ever thought would happen is that I’d become a daddy. It’s not something that I’ve warmed to overnight either. It’s something that I’ve only known I wanted in the past two or three years! Even then, and even now, I’m absolutely terrified. Will I be good enough? Will I be able to financially provide for a child? Will I be able to give her or him everything a sighted father would be able to provide? I know that last one might seem stupid to a lot of you but all of these questions and a lot more are racing through my head. I am worried by the questions but this worry is overshadowed by the delight I feel at the prospect of having a son or daughter with Emma.

Get the first album from Eitleán

Mar 14, 2013 | ,

As many of you know, for over a year now I have been playing music with a few great friends. Our band is called Eitleán. Watch out for us. With the news I am going to tell you today we are launching a major campaign to increase our exposure in the Traditional Irish music scene.

I am absolutely delighted to tell you that on Saturday we release our very first album. This has been in the works for a year now! We took our time getting it ready because as we recorded new tracks our style evolved. We wanted this to be very evident on our first release.

The album is called The Devil Set. It got its name because of the last track. Because it gets quite fast, Trudy, our accordion player nicknamed it The Devil Set. The name has stuck and it suits the informal nature of the band quite well.

The CD will be in shops next week for just €10.00 but if you want to grab a copy online, you can download it from the Eitlean website for just €8.00.

This weekend, we are welcoming people home in Dublin airport on Saturday and Sunday morning and on Sunday afternoon we jet off to Paris to perform twice before returning home on Tuesday evening.

Oh. One more thing. If your quick, and you like or share the Eitleán Facebook page before Saturday you’ll be in with a chance of winning a free copy of the album.

A small DNS experiment.

Mar 8, 2013 | , , ,

I was board for a minute and I thought to myself; wouldn’t it be cool to have DNS records that were required for administrators hidden from the rest of the company? OF course, it is an add on to the not so useful security through obscurity policy that a lot of companies develop but it would be an interesting exercise none the less. So, I thought to myself, hey active directory is integrated with DNS so maybe if I set permissions on a test zone to limit access I’d be able to verify my theory that DNS addresses could be hidden to users based on their group membership.

So this is what I tried:

  1. Create a zone in DNS.
  2. Create a record in that zone.
  3. Set permissions on that zone and the record so that a test user didn’t have access to it.
  4. block inheritance so that permissions provided to the parent zone wouldn’t be propagated to my new test zone.
  5. Open up a command prompt with the credentials of the test user so that only the authorizations provided to that test user is provided.
  6. Run nslookup
  7. Use the server you want to query. Type

    server 123.123.123.56

    replacing the IP with the IP of your DNS server.

  8. Look up the address to your new A record located within your test zone.

    blah.blah.local

That’s about it. I proved to myself that when your client looks up an address from DNS it doesn’t pass any security credentials. Or more accurately, the server side doesn’t respect any credentials that may or may not be passed to it. The permissions are set on the records to delegate permissions on an administrative level.

Creating a table of countries.

Feb 27, 2013 | , , ,

This is actually really easy but now that i’ve done it, I thought you might want a copy. So. Here goes. Just create your countries table, create a row for id and name, modify the below script to match your details and away you go.
This script to generate a countries table is written for SQL 2008.

USE [YourDatabaseName]
GO

INSERT INTO [dbo].[countriesTable]
([CountryName])

VALUES
(‘Afghanistan’),
(‘Albania’),
(‘Algeria’),
(‘American Samoa’),
(‘Andorra’),
(‘Angola’),
(‘Anguilla’),
(‘Antarctica’),
(‘Antigua and Barbuda’),
(‘Argentina’),
(‘Armenia’),
(‘Armenia’),
(‘Aruba’),
(‘Australia’),
(‘Austria’),
(‘Azerbaijan’),
(‘Azerbaijan’),
(‘Bahamas’),
(‘Bahrain’),
(‘Bangladesh’),
(‘Barbados’),
(‘Belarus’),
(‘Belgium’),
(‘Belize’),
(‘Benin’),
(‘Bermuda’),
(‘Bhutan’),
(‘Bolivia’),
(‘Bosnia and Herzegovina’),
(‘Botswana’),
(‘Bouvet Island’),
(‘Brazil’),
(‘British Indian Ocean Territory’),
(‘Brunei Darussalam’),
(‘Bulgaria’),
(‘Burkina Faso’),
(‘Burundi’),
(‘Cambodia’),
(‘Cameroon’),
(‘Canada’),
(‘Cape Verde’),
(‘Cayman Islands’),
(‘Central African Republic’),
(‘Chad’),
(‘Chile’),
(‘China’),
(‘Christmas Island’),
(‘Cocos KeelingIslands’),
(‘Colombia’),
(‘Comoros’),
(‘Congo’),
(‘Cook Islands’),
(‘Costa Rica’),
(‘Croatia’),
(‘Cuba’),
(‘Cyprus’),
(‘Czech Republic’),
(‘Denmark’),
(‘Djibouti’),
(‘Dominica’),
(‘Dominican Republic’),
(‘Easter Island’),
(‘Ecuador’),
(‘Egypt’),
(‘El Salvador’),
(‘Equatorial Guinea’),
(‘Eritrea’),
(‘Estonia’),
(‘Ethiopia’),
(‘Falkland Islands Malvinas,’),
(‘Faroe Islands’),
(‘Fiji’),
(‘Finland’),
(‘France’),
(‘French Guiana’),
(‘French Polynesia’),
(‘French Southern Territories’),
(‘Gabon’),
(‘Gambia’),
(‘Georgia’),
(‘Germany’),
(‘Ghana’),
(‘Gibraltar’),
(‘Greece’),
(‘Greenland’),
(‘Grenada’),
(‘Guadeloupe’),
(‘Guam’),
(‘Guatemala’),
(‘Guinea’),
(‘Guinea-bissau’),
(‘Guyana’),
(‘Haiti’),
(‘Heard Island and Mcdonald Islands’),
(‘Honduras’),
(‘Hong Kong’),
(‘Hungary’),
(‘Iceland’),
(‘India’),
(‘Indonesia’),
(‘Indonesia’),
(‘Iran’),
(‘Iraq’),
(‘Ireland’),
(‘Israel’),
(‘Italy’),
(‘Jamaica’),
(‘Japan’),
(‘Jordan’),
(‘Kazakhstan’),
(‘Kazakhstan’),
(‘Kenya’),
(‘Kiribati’),
(‘Korea’),
(‘Kosovo’),
(‘Kuwait’),
(‘Kyrgyzstan’),
(‘Laos’),
(‘Latvia’),
(‘Lebanon’),
(‘Lesotho’),
(‘Liberia’),
(‘Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’),
(‘Liechtenstein’),
(‘Lithuania’),
(‘Luxembourg’),
(‘Macau’),
(‘Macedonia’),
(‘Madagascar’),
(‘Malawi’),
(‘Malaysia’),
(‘Maldives’),
(‘Mali’),
(‘Malta’),
(‘Marshall Islands’),
(‘Martinique’),
(‘Mauritania’),
(‘Mauritius’),
(‘Mayotte’),
(‘Mexico’),
(‘Micronesia’),
(‘Moldova’),
(‘Monaco’),
(‘Mongolia’),
(‘Montenegro’),
(‘Montserrat’),
(‘Morocco’),
(‘Mozambique’),
(‘Myanmar’),
(‘Namibia’),
(‘Nauru’),
(‘Nepal’),
(‘Netherlands’),
(‘Netherlands Antilles’),
(‘New Caledonia’),
(‘New Zealand’),
(‘Nicaragua’),
(‘Niger’),
(‘Nigeria’),
(‘Niue’),
(‘Norfolk Island’),
(‘Northern Mariana Islands’),
(‘Norway’),
(‘Oman’),
(‘Pakistan’),
(‘Palau’),
(‘Palestinian Territory’),
(‘Panama’),
(‘Papua New Guinea’),
(‘Paraguay’),
(‘Peru’),
(‘Philippines’),
(‘Pitcairn’),
(‘Poland’),
(‘Portugal’),
(‘Puerto Rico’),
(‘Qatar’),
(‘Reunion’),
(‘Romania’),
(‘Russia’),
(‘Rwanda’),
(‘Saint Helena’),
(‘Saint Kitts and Nevis’),
(‘Saint Lucia’),
(‘Saint Pierre and Miquelon’),
(‘Saint Vincent and The Grenadines’),
(‘Samoa’),
(‘San Marino’),
(‘Sao Tome and Principe’),
(‘Saudi Arabia’),
(‘Senegal’),
(‘Serbia and Montenegro’),
(‘Seychelles’),
(‘Sierra Leone’),
(‘Singapore’),
(‘Slovakia’),
(‘Slovenia’),
(‘Solomon Islands’),
(‘Somalia’),
(‘South Africa’),
(‘South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands’),
(‘Spain’),
(‘Sri Lanka’),
(‘Sudan’),
(‘Suriname’),
(‘Svalbard and Jan Mayen’),
(‘Swaziland’),
(‘Sweden’),
(‘Switzerland’),
(‘Syria’),
(‘Taiwan’),
(‘Tajikistan’),
(‘Tanzania’),
(‘Thailand’),
(‘Timor-leste’),
(‘Togo’),
(‘Tokelau’),
(‘Tonga’),
(‘Trinidad and Tobago’),
(‘Tunisia’),
(‘Turkey’),
(‘Turkey’),
(‘Turkmenistan’),
(‘Turks and Caicos Islands’),
(‘Tuvalu’),
(‘Uganda’),
(‘Ukraine’),
(‘United Arab Emirates’),
(‘United Kingdom’),
(‘United States’),
(‘United States Minor Outlying Islands’),
(‘Uruguay’),
(‘Uzbekistan’),
(‘Vanuatu’),
(‘Vatican City’),
(‘Venezuela’),
(‘Vietnam’),
(‘Virgin Islands’),
(‘Wallis and Futuna’),
(‘Western Sahara’),
(‘Yemen’),
(‘Zambia’),
(‘Zimbabwe’)
GO

One quick note: when creating your table, I suggest that you make the ID column an integer and under identity you set it to increment. That way, you won’t need to worry about generating ID’s while adding the countries. Why bother!

bring on the summary of summaries!

Feb 14, 2013 |

I suppose it’s really time for an update isn’t it. In fact, to be fair to you, it’s really past time. Are there any of you reading this thing anymore? I wouldn’t blame you for forgetting about the place. It’s been getting a bit neglected lately.

So, first things first. I’m a married man. I’m really sorry to do this to you all but on new year’s eve, I tied the Knott. Actually, that’s not really true. I didn’t tie it. She did. It’s been really hard typing with these shackles. ?

After the wedding, as is quite normal, we went on honeymoon for a few weeks. Because of the weather over here we thought a warmer temperature would be nice so we took ourselves off to Thailand. If you’re ever thinking of going somewhere a little different then I highly recommend there. I know I should write a blog post about our honeymoon but I haven’t a clue where to start. Maybe I can talk Emma into helping me sort out all the cluttered memories at some stage. It would certainly be a shame not to blog about it.

Let me start off by telling you a little about the wedding. It of course goes without saying that Emma was absolutely angelic and she looked stunning. But of course, you already know that don’t you! There was no sign of any stress from either of us coming up to the wedding so when the day came we easily enjoyed it. However, I really shouldn’t wined her up so much. Sometimes she actually believes me! I’ll say no more after that. I’ll leave it to your imagination. ?

The morning of the wedding was quite busy. My best man Nicky along with his girlfriend Jenny stayed with me in my parents’ house the night before and we had a few things to do before getting to the church. Showering, ordering breakfasts, having a hot towel shave for the first time. Myself, my father and Nicky did that. Jenny went to the hair dressers. In case any of you are feeling funny.

I wasn’t nervous at all on the morning of the wedding. However, sitting in the car on the way to the church with my father and Nicky was when it hit me. Some of the weirdest possibilities went through my head. What if she didn’t turn up? What if the car breaks down? Will I be late? Will guests arrive? I need to pee. Funny actually, I forgot about needing to pee for about two hours after that.

We got to the church and I was a little surprised at the amount of people from our families that were there. Of course, I knew that that many people would show up but I just didn’t expect them all to say hello within the first five minutes. I knew what my responsibilities were. I along with Nicky went to the door of the church to greet people as they went in while all the time secretly in my head wishing for Emma to hurry the hell up.

Suddenly a hurried whisper reached me that she was approaching the church so we hurried up to the alter so as we’d be in the right positions for when she arrived. Again, the weirdest things went through my head. I was thinking that the musicians need to be starting now, the brides made and page boy needed to walk nice and slow and I was hoping desperately that Emma wouldn’t start before the musicians started the wedding march so that what the musicians had planned would go off without a hitch. So many things that had absolutely no importance what so ever flooded my mind and then suddenly they all stopped when the bridal march started and it hit me like a hammer to the stomach. Oh crap. This is it. Not that I wasn’t absolutely certain. That’s not what I mean. But it was a sudden realization that from March when I got down on one knee in the muck in Wicklow all the planning led to this minute. From the time I decided to propose a long time ago until then I had always known that Emma was going to be my wife and we’d be very happy together but the one thing I kind of forgot to consider was the wedding part that marked the start of the whole thing. To say I was nervous would be like saying that the sun is a little warm. My legs felt like jelly. My hands were shaking and my nose was itchy! No. having an itchy nose had absolutely nothing to do with my nerves but it took my mind off them for a second because the age old battle of wills raged in my brain. Scratch nose or don’t scratch nose. That is the question. If I scratch, all the people in the church will see me. Ah no. Their all looking at Emma. They’ll never notice. But what about the damn photographers! They’ll see! And they’ll probably get a picture of it too! Slimy little feckers. All of these silly thoughts sprinted through my cerebellum for the two or three minutes it took Emma to walk down the aisle toward me. Then they all vanished as her father shook my hand and removed her vale. At that stage all I could do was smile, lead her by the arm to our seats and thank god the waiting was over.

The mass went smoothly enough. Of course there were the usual mishaps; the best mad. I mean man, was handed the rings by the flower boy. I mean page boy but he dropped them. Then the priest handed mine to me and yeah, you guessed it, I dropped it too. It made everyone laugh though. All I could do at the time was smile, turn and mumble uups to the people nearest me. People laughed about that one thing for hours during the reception.

After the mass we had a lot of pictures taken by the photographers. It seemed like we stood in various places and in various poses for hours. In the church, outside the church, at the hotel for the reception, outside the hotel, pretending to cut the cake, pretending to carry Emma and more that I’ve blocked from my mind. Those damn photographers drove me crazy! I’m sure they’ve done a great job and I would highly recommend them but I absolutely hate getting photographs taken so the entire time of getting pictures taken was like living in hell for a few years. That might seem dramatic but it’s true.

After the pictures were taken we got to relax and mingle with the crowd a bit. That was probably the first time we had to say a proper hello to people. It was nice to spend a few minutes with as many people as we could thanking them for being there. It is a thing that I used to think was done out of manors or tradition but I must say, for Emma and myself, we were really delighted that every single person came. There were no thank you’s said just for the sake of saying them.

Of course next came the meal. I won’t go into that too much. Basically, it was absolutely lovely. We couldn’t praise the Boyne valley hotel enough. They were nothing less than absolutely amazing. Please do consider them if you’re in Drogheda and your organizing an event. Now, one thing I will talk about briefly is the speeches. As any of you who know Nicky will agree, He’s a brilliant speaker. He can talk for hours to anyone. It’s a brilliant talent to have and he uses it well. He certainly used it well during our wedding anyway! He introduced everyone flawlessly and kept the guests laughing throughout the entire thing. Speeches can become long winded and boring but I would hope that our guests didn’t think that of ours. I was going to tell you about all the mistakes people made during speeches but it would have been a very long list. Instead, I’ll just say that the only person not to make a mistake and the most natural speaker of all was actually Emma. I say that with a little bit of surprise I will admit but it’s only because it was Emma who was the only one that really didn’t want to say anything. She agreed to stand up when we decided to give some small gifts out to parents, grandparents, the best man, the brides made, the flower girl and the page boy. The way she went around and personally thanked each one was very nice and natural. Keeping in mind that Nicky entertained us very well, I think Emma did herself very proud. The best line of the night has to be from the brides made when she got up and said very clearly; “Holy crackers. I’m a bit drunk” before launching into her speech.

We’re looking forward to getting the pictures from the photographer of course but the thing I’m really looking forward to is getting the DVD from the company who supplied us with a video booth. People who came to the wedding were able to step outside the main reception room and leave a video message for us. As the night went on and the drink flowed the messages seem to have got a lot more entertaining. There are even one or two videos that will feature me. Although, I’m a little bit afraid of them.

Of course there was some really nice music throughout the day. Two really good friends of mine Trudy and Andrew performed during the mass, the Willing fools played during the reception and two more very good friends Malachi and Noreen played at different times during the day as well. Other musicians came but didn’t play all that much of course but it was brilliant that they were there. As you’d expect, I couldn’t just sit around and listen to that much good music without joining in from time to time but I was warned by my mother not to go missing too much so I kept my participation to a minimum. Well, ok, to tell you the truth, I kept it to a minimum until about 3AM in the morning when we went to the residents bar. Then I didn’t stop until 8:30AM that morning.

The day after went by so fast that I hardly remember it. We took stuff back from the hotel, went to see my parents, left Emma’s mother back to the bus, got some food very generously offered by my mother and then got about three hours sleep before traveling to the airport very early on Wednesday morning to leave for our honeymoon.

Come back again shortly for the first post about the honeymoon. It’s something I really need to write about sooner rather than later.

Since coming back we’ve both being doing great. Life has returned to normal which is really nice. The first thing I did when returning home was collect Nama, my guide dog. It’s really brilliant to have him back again. I actually missed him when I was away.

Nama is really settling in well. Of course, being away from me for three weeks set him back a little bit but he’s back to the stage in his development that he was at before Christmas so it can only get better from here. He’s anticipating where we need to go and he knows when it’s time to relax. Now that the weather is slowly getting a little better, during the days that are nice and mild we go for a nice long walk around Dublin city centre. We start by letting him relieve himself in Stephens green then we do a lap or two of the park. We cut in and out of various pathways to vary the route a little and then we exit the green and depending on our mood we either take a route that is nice and active or quiet. Now that Nama is getting accustomed to these variations in our routine and he knows that there’s no hurry to reach a particular destination I find that he’s really starting to relax when we’re out for a pleasurable walk. It’s nice because when he relaxes I can play with him while walking. This playing can be as simple as reaching over with my right hand and tipping his ear. Or dropping the handle and trying to grab his tail. It won’t put him off his stride but it focuses his attention back on me and he knows that we’re in a good mood and work can be fun. Nama is a dog that really loves to use his teeth so after a few tips of his ear he tries to play using his mouth. This is when things can get really entertaining for him. We slow right down and he pushes right into me. Nama is not a sensitive dog at all but the change in his mood after these short play sessions can be quite obvious. He really loves the interaction.

Life like dominos.

Feb 5, 2013 |

It has really struck me lately how much the timeline of events has a profound impact on life.  I know. That sounds absolutely stupid so let me explain.

For example: Do I go left or right today.  I’ll go left.  Two hours later you hear that there’s been a crash on the road to the right and you would have been in the middle of it.

I know these things are absolutely obvious but for some reason over the past four days my life has been like a line of dominos.  Things falling in or out of place like there was a real master plan behind them. If things that happened in the past day or two had happened about two months ago, my life would have profoundly changed direction.  Maybe for the better, maybe not! Who knows!

I’m currently on a cliff facing the wrong direction with my head covered in a big thick hood. Things will happen very soon that are going to plunge me off that cliff backward.

I can’t say what they are. Their both personal and professional.  There’s no point speculating, your guesses will be wrong.

If it was not for the very specific sequence of events and the time they took place that led me to this situation today I would be overwhelmingly afraid.  It is the strange way that fate has conspired to bring me to this moment that has assured me without any shadow of a doubt that although I’m falling without a safety net, the landing will be as smooth as it can be.

I’m not a religious person.  I have major reservations when it comes to the belief in a god however; it really brings the old saying to mind “God moves in mysterious ways”.

I’m not in a particularly contemplative mood and I could hardly say that I’ve had any kind of sudden realization. It just seems strange that the cards fell in this order.  At certain times, I didn’t think that I wanted this order, but I’m more than happy with it now.

A draft introduction to Android accessibility with Talkback.

Jan 24, 2013 | , ,

This is by far one of my weaker podcasts but it’s late! Give me a break! I just wanted to set up the equipment and get the ball roling. Please leave me your comments, suggestions, questions and ideas. I will definitly cover more about this platform over the next few days.

My thanks to users of this platform for answering my many questions. Please visit The blind geek zone for a very interesting podcast by Mike Arrigo. He does a much better job than I have done introducing the platform.

Listen to the first introduction to Android and talkback.

Again, sorry if I sound tired and half a sleep. I’ll provide a better introduction shortly.

A sad day but an inspirational story.

Jan 24, 2013 |

If you are in any way active online you will have come across the story of Alice Pyne. Her story got coverage about two years ago. The fifteen year old girl with cancer with a wish list. A few experiences the child wanted to have before she died from cancer. It got global coverage and thanks to this exposure almost all of her wishes were answered. At the time the doctors gave her a very short time to live but she hung on in there for two years. I remember, at the time I asked my youngest sister Céataí to read her blog because I had hoped it would put some of the trials and tribulations in her life into some kind of perspective.

I read this morning that on the 12th of January she passed away.

I just wanted to mention her life, and passing on my blog to take a moment to remember the people out there who have been killed by cancer. We all have friends and family who have lost people to this. I’ll get to the posts that you have been asking for about the wedding, the honeymoon and all that kind of thing. But before I do, take a second, put things into perspective, remember that in the scheme of things we have it bloody good. Have some pride in what you are doing and what you have done. It might sound like a line from a tacky card but it’s not all that bad. I hate it when my mother says it to me. Especially when I’m really annoyed about something but it’s true. It can always be worse. Poor Alice, a child who didn’t give up should be an example to us all.

Her website is here.