Disqus - Latest Comments for Paul Watson

Re: Scoble’s Achilles heel is video

Paul Watson — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:26:20 -0000

Absolutely agree.

Re: Google takes down Miro image

Paul Watson — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 01:00:12 -0000

The Miro family should realise the extra awareness having Google feature his work on their homepage brings. Plenty of us neophytes who have no idea who Miro was until we saw it on Google and went looking.

And for free, no exhibit costs, no advertising costs. Very shortsighted and petty of the Miro family IMO.

Re: Touring Ireland

Paul Watson — Wed, 03 May 2006 06:11:39 -0000

We aren't going further North than Dublin. So co. Mayo is out. Draw a line from Galway across to Dublin. Everything underneath that is OK.

Re: Irish English

Paul Watson — Wed, 03 May 2006 07:00:11 -0000

Aight, you're deadly right. Wicked on the bling I say.

But these chaps try to write proper English, and fail. They'se don'ts use Ali-lingo loik. Thas cool, if'n you wanna be like The G, then be like Ali and use it wicked deadly. Don't be half arsed about it.

Re: Touring Ireland

Paul Watson — Wed, 03 May 2006 11:15:39 -0000

Especially when the local Irish tell me drunk students from the area
love to climb up there to piss on the stone and then have a laugh when
tourists kiss it...

Re: Commenting in Ruby

Paul Watson — Wed, 10 May 2006 03:24:58 -0000

In normal code I agree, line comments work better. But in this case, and often enough, I had 15 lines of code I wanted to exclude to check something.

Block comments are useful during development.

Re: A dirty Ruby

Paul Watson — Thu, 11 May 2006 03:17:36 -0000

Thank you for those two comments Farrel. The last one is especially interesting. I'll give the to_a trick a try.

Re: A dirty Ruby

Paul Watson — Thu, 11 May 2006 06:54:08 -0000

How fantastic. I took the above code and cut it down to just this:

if soapResponse.getNewTagsSinceResult.respond_to? "tag"
&nbsp;&nbsp;for tag_current in Array(soapResponse.getNewTagsSinceResult.tag)
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;tag = Tag.find_by_sync_id(tag_current.id) || Tag.new
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;tag.name = tag_current.name
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;tag.sync_id = tag_current.id
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;tag.save
&nbsp;&nbsp;end
end

Thanks Farrel.

Re: FeedHenry needs you

Paul Watson — Wed, 17 May 2006 04:51:43 -0000

hehe thanks Derek. We need a perm. though.

Re: User replacable hard-drive for MacBook

Paul Watson — Fri, 19 May 2006 04:09:57 -0000

Thanks for the feedback Ross. Damned IE can't handle columns properly.

Re: JavaScript function queue

Paul Watson — Fri, 19 May 2006 12:58:46 -0000

Thanks Derek. It could be part of the solution I think.

Re: JavaScript function queue

Paul Watson — Mon, 22 May 2006 08:48:08 -0000

Thanks for the code Shog and that is excellent news about scriptaculous, thanks Rowan.

Re: POTD #001

Paul Watson — Fri, 26 May 2006 04:41:58 -0000

Mainly because I know how difficult the conditions are to shoot in. Low light, movement, restricted shooting angles and so on. And in this case he got a good level of sharpness in a fantastic moment. The lighting coming up from underneath with the cone of smoke and the look of concentration on the guitarists face and his body position.

Re: Bikefam

Paul Watson — Tue, 30 May 2006 17:45:17 -0000

Thankfully our offices have showers otherwise I wouldn't cycle into work as sitting there at your desk all sweaty is not pleasant. Even during the wettest, coldest day here you end up sweating on a ride.

Re: No space

Paul Watson — Wed, 31 May 2006 15:00:57 -0000

Thanks for the info, Kenny. None of these considerations are helping the user though, just us developers which is the wrong, but common, way.

Re: Random Ruby Password Magic

Paul Watson — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 15:07:38 -0000

Nice improvement, thanks Farrel.

Re: Pay attention

Paul Watson — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 06:01:46 -0000

Good question chelseagirl and certainly privacy is is a big issue with this service.

First of all Attention Trust is not a corporate or even really a service themselves. They provide the format, standards and development of ideas which other services (companies, organisations and individuals) can implement. AT was started by some leading thinkers on the net too like Steve Gillmor and Clay Shirky. I trust these guys. Their main service at this point is vetting of service providers. So my attention stream is being stored with Root which has been checked out by Attention Trust. Root agree to abide by the principles of AT.

I could become a service provider and have my attention stream stored with me. You could too. AT would vet us.

One of the principles is that you own and control your data. Root are not allowed to sell my data on without my consent.

It is about trust and you have to choose carefully. The same as storing photos on Flickr or email in GMail. You make a call, a choice.

I'll get back to you on the usefulness of the service in awhile. It is a big topic and I'd like to do a post on it.

Re: it@cork Web 2.0 Conference wrap-up

Paul Watson — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:41:47 -0000

Thanks for the correction Tom.

Re: Soccer

Paul Watson — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:47:55 -0000

'cause it is confusing. And you owe the Irish. So change it :P

Re: Soccer

Paul Watson — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:48:35 -0000

The alternative would be to get the States to rename American Football (not bloody likely.) I won't even suggest you try and tell the Irish to rename Gaelic Football...

Re: Underworld Evolution

Paul Watson — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 10:44:09 -0000

Does it have more Kate Beckinsale in-tight-leather? Seriously. I know it sounds shallow but I was expecting a bit of a Trinity (from the Matrix) thing going on with Kate in Underworld. From the trailers the first Underworld does seem to feature more of her.

Re: Life 101 #001

Paul Watson — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:14:25 -0000

Its just the way it is, Shog. Life will be easier if you come to accept it.

;)

Re: Root Worms

Paul Watson — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:00:44 -0000

Ah excellent, thanks Tony. I've added a bunch of them into my blacklist now and I guess in a few days they will be filtered out from the counts.

Re: Root Worms

Paul Watson — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 14:50:21 -0000

I absolutely agree, Ed. While I appreciate Tony's help and work I also would rather filter the display than the recorder. Also when I got home I had to manually re-enter all the blacklisted domains into my laptops instance of Firefox. Some kind of online blacklist store that syncs across devices would be helpful.

Re: Funny florists

Paul Watson — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 12:37:53 -0000

Dude, what *are* you smoking? :-D

Proteas are lovely flowers, unique to South Africa. Pretty expensive normally and R150 (US$20) is a decent price.

I'll tell them to put in that Buy Now link ;)

Re: Ubuntu Switch

Paul Watson — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 06:57:54 -0000

IITQ, sorry about that. Akismet marked your comments as SPAM originally. I have enabled them.

Thanks for the info on Linux, I'll check it all out.

Re: Ubuntu Switch

Paul Watson — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 07:13:05 -0000

Thanks Chris. Brian was saying the X series is good too. I am just waiting for it to upgrade to the Core Duo chips first.

Re: Looking for a digicam

Paul Watson — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 08:55:58 -0000

Any idea how pocketable the R-D1 is? The NV7 OPS is 106 X 62.3 X 20.9mm while the RD-1 is 142 x 89 x 40 mm which doesn't seem bad.

Re: Feeds for forums

Paul Watson — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 09:57:30 -0000

Good points James and I am happy to read Grazr Corp is tackling them. We are working on similar temporal live subscriptions in FeedHenry. It is a challenge though as it is easy to annoy users with "intelligent" systems that get relevance and attention wrong.

Re: Looking for a digicam

Paul Watson — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 07:17:10 -0000

test

Re: Go Portugal!

Paul Watson — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 15:45:17 -0000

Yeah, nice one France. Still, not a sealed game yet!

Re: Go Portugal!

Paul Watson — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 16:13:25 -0000

Hey! I did call them crisps for a change.

Re: Multiline Search And Replace

Paul Watson — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 05:59:07 -0000

I don't use the designer view in Expression (or any tool.) I've never liked them for just the reason you specify as well as code-rewriting.

Re: Munich

Paul Watson — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 09:11:04 -0000

And Daniel Craig as Steve, the South African, does a good job too I thought. Probably the first accurate South African accent I have heard in a major movie.

Re: Remove array item

Paul Watson — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 04:19:02 -0000

hhmm didn't know about Array.filter. Seems quite nice, though I wonder about performance?

And I reckon it could be used, just use this = this.filter(func);.

Re: Gliffy

Paul Watson — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:04:50 -0000

Visio has a save to JPG option which is easier than screenshots but it isn't live like using the Gliffy JPG URL. Plus at any time someone can get the JPG without having to open up Visio and Save As. So if I am not around to make the JPG.

Re: Remove array item

Paul Watson — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:21:02 -0000

Ah yeah, damn, invalid assignment. Hmmmm... So it can be used outside of a prototype extension but not inside. Grr.

Maybe you could do this.clear and then this.push(this.filter blah blah

Re: To digg

Paul Watson — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 05:20:17 -0000

Sure but my bigger point is that Digg has created a new type of action but has exclusively coined the term. Nobody else can use the term digg to denote the action even if their service is exactly the same.

Also there is enough difference between delicious et. al. and normal browser bookmarking that bookmarking isn't sufficient.

Re: Remove array item

Paul Watson — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 13:46:05 -0000

And if it doesn't have it, prototype it :)

Re: To digg

Paul Watson — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:18:18 -0000

eMark ;)

Re: To digg

Paul Watson — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:43:46 -0000

You guys are getting hung up on my digg example. Think bigger, think of a site you like and the action it does and think how it would grand if that action had a label that broke free of that one site.

Re: To digg

Paul Watson — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 10:18:05 -0000

Yeah now imagine that some site had come along right in the begining called Commenting.com. We'd all have to "watson" on blogs instead of commenting.

Break the terms free of the sites I say. Like email.

Re: To digg

Paul Watson — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 10:51:45 -0000

That was quite a watson you just wrote, Shog. ;)

Frankly I can't stand digg. Such a juvenile site. And I don't much like the term either. It is just one that the people I am trying to bitch slap into changing will like.

It isn't just one word either. It is a way of doing all new things, of not claiming exclusivity to an action's term. For the betterment of man and all that.

Re: To digg

Paul Watson — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:53:26 -0000

Thanks for a good example, Derek. To Blog. Even though there is a site called blogger we have manaed to make blog a generic, data-silo independant term. On TypePad, you blog, on WordPress, you blog, on Vox, you blog, etc.

That is what I want.

Re: To digg

Paul Watson — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 05:28:06 -0000

It was but it survived blogger which is a good thing.

Re: Vox invite

Paul Watson — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 16:32:41 -0000

On its way to you, Erik. :)

Re: jQuery and GreaseMonkey

Paul Watson — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:37:41 -0000

I tried that out Blair and it didn't work. Is there a special trick to getting it to work?

Good idea on the XPI though, I'll give that a bash and save the servers.

Re: Spot on, Jot

Paul Watson — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 14:19:28 -0000

True, that isn;t a great screenshot but it doesn't appear like that in use. What wiki system do you use?

Re: Getting the SVN revision number in Ruby

Paul Watson — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 02:33:13 -0000

That is very cool, thanks Anatol.

Re: A first podcast

Paul Watson — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 12:28:21 -0000

hehe, yeah, apparently I say Ireland like a real Irish yoke. Never had a strong Saffa accent to start with to be honest.

And give it a whirl David, be cool to hear your voice.

Re: New arrival

Paul Watson — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 12:23:10 -0000

Yeah, technically my order is going through on Monday so we will have time to change it if something good comes out of WWDC. Still, if they do announce changes it might take a month or two to actually filter down to our hands.

Re: Action tags

Paul Watson — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 12:34:49 -0000

Brilliant, thanks Justin. Now other sites need to embrace and extend on that.

Re: On buying WinZip

Paul Watson — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 04:12:12 -0000

It is still the best zip tool on Windows. I've tried WinRAR and didn't like it much, same with 7Zip and IZarc.

Re: On buying WinZip

Paul Watson — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 04:19:08 -0000

Also my purchase was a lot to do with paying for 10 years of use. Even if from today I never use WinZip again I'll be happy to have bought it.

Re: On buying WinZip

Paul Watson — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:25:20 -0000

I can't stand 7Zip. It borks up far too often.

Also, and you guys are great at missing the point :P, I am just glad I finally paid for 10 years of reliable usage.

Re: Quintura

Paul Watson — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 04:22:08 -0000

Ah no, it isn't a desktop search tool. Good idea though, I'd like to see something like Quintura for my desktop files.

Re: POTD 060817

Paul Watson — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:46:23 -0000

No, thank you for taking such a great photo, Harald.

Re: Return *

Paul Watson — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 06:50:59 -0000

Absolutely right Andrew. That is why I said "in moderation." Got to know when to break your own rules.

Re: Key/value tags

Paul Watson — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 12:18:21 -0000

Not soon mate, it is useful and still being adopted.

Re: Amazon EC2

Paul Watson — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 11:02:12 -0000

Thanks John, you put it more clearly than I do. Most hosters rely on the fact that most of their users don't use their capacity.

Re: Rails gem files

Paul Watson — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 12:38:39 -0000

It isn't required by the Rails 1.1.6 gem install.

Re: Canon’s 400D Digital SLR Camera

Paul Watson — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:54:12 -0000

Good point Ian. Dim viewfinders are the bane of cheap SLRs.

Re: Xen and Amazon EC2

Paul Watson — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 11:03:28 -0000

Thanks Glen, fixed. Good luck with the computational problem.

Re: Canon’s 400D Digital SLR Camera

Paul Watson — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 03:52:49 -0000

I think the feel of a camera in your hands and the confidence it gives you is a very important factor, Mick. You can have the fastest and most feature laden camera but if it doesn't inspire confidence you'll find it a chore to use.

So if Nikons feel better to you then go for the D80. I'd still go for the D80 even with the 400D features.

Re: Canon’s 400D Digital SLR Camera

Paul Watson — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 17:07:50 -0000

Not anytime soon, Sean. Check out this Luminous Landscape EOS 400D article for a bit on the potential 30D update timing.

Re: Flexibility

Paul Watson — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:24:50 -0000

Oh that is a whole nother story indeed, IITQ.

Re: Colour your updates

Paul Watson — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:13:15 -0000

GreatNews is a good one too but I must say that Newzie has the edge in UI. As you point out though it is very much in beta. It crashes on me regulalry too.

Re: Dapper to the rescue

Paul Watson — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 15:48:44 -0000

Thanks Jon, I have fixed it now. That is one small niggle I have with Dapper. Shorter URLs would be nice.

Re: Internet Explorer on Mac OSX

Paul Watson — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 03:13:09 -0000

I'd say a good deal of money. Though a bit hassly with power cords, warranties and support. But still, much cheaper.

Re: MacBook Pro Diaries #002: Spotlight, Terminals and Photoshop

Paul Watson — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 03:17:42 -0000

Thanks Mike but I am not sure I want to spend $300 on Aperture just to have a good thumbnailer and preview system. If it were cheaper or could fully replace Photoshop then I'd snap it up. Maybe in version 2.

And no, I have no idea how to do that Jon. Please tell me :)

Re: MacBook Pro Diaries #003: Hash

Paul Watson — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 04:20:18 -0000

LOL Brian.

And yeah, it isn't marked on the keyboard at all Shog<sup><small>9 from outer space</small></sup>. I didn't presume to try the Windows combination though once I realised it was shift+3 I started presuming more ;)

Re: MacBook Pro Diaries #003: Hash

Paul Watson — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 11:13:21 -0000

And in music # represents a sharp. Confusing when Microsoft chose C# (as in sharp, not hash or pound) as a name.

Re: RailsConf Europe 2006: JavaScript debug and test

Paul Watson — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 04:56:54 -0000

Go ahead Jesper, glad you can make use of it. And I'll be taking as many notes as I can on Friday.

Re: Zune Zune Zune

Paul Watson — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:30:08 -0000

Nice comment from your sisters on the Zune. It might work but it will take more than one or two in a group to get it going. They aren't cheap and getting a bunch of friends to buy a $300 buck device to share songs is a tall order.

And I was just ribbing you about your bias ;) You could... ummm... use it as a file transfer device (30gig with WiFi?)

As for the three shippies I will try. Plane lands in Dublin at 18:30 that night and then have to drive down to the deise boy.

Re: RailsConf Europe 2006: A wrap

Paul Watson — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 09:53:36 -0000

Thanks Dan!

Re: AA USB

Paul Watson — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 09:35:58 -0000

No idea Ross but to part of the point of these is the charging bit fits inside the battery and doesn't require an external bit that you can loose. Any wallplug will be bigger than the battery.

Re: MacBook Pro Diaries #006: Restarting conflicts

Paul Watson — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:16:34 -0000

Yes all of that is explained in the dialog. Windows is much the same though, app installs don't need restarts. Just something Mac users, of which I am now one, cannot gloat about :)

Re: MacBook Pro Diaries #006: Restarting conflicts

Paul Watson — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 06:02:33 -0000

Indeed. Just installed TortoiseSVN and it asked to restart Windows. Just to get itself installed into the shell.

Re: Javascript code coverage MIA

Paul Watson — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 04:19:06 -0000

How does JavaScript having closures preclude it from code coverage analysis? Ruby has closures and it has some decent code coverage tools.

AFAIK most CC tools inject traces into the code and then run the tests, so computing what gets run and what does not.

Re: Looking for a digicam

Paul Watson — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 04:21:09 -0000

I hadn't thought of the R-D1 but you are right, it is a good option. Thanks Chris. A pity it costs a mint though.

Re: Literally Ruby

Paul Watson — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 12:10:48 -0000

Yup, JavaScript does it too (I think.) Going into the histories of what language pinched what feature from what language is crazy though.

Re: Google’s next trick

Paul Watson — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 12:13:01 -0000

Fantastic, you are dead right James. I just checked the Goodies page again and there is a tag drop down. Not sure when they put that in.

Re: One a Day

Paul Watson — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 15:25:43 -0000

I feel it :D

Re: Bertie came

Paul Watson — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 10:47:05 -0000

hehe, you culchie you ;)

One of the WIT dignitaries was leaning into Bertie's car yesterday. I remember seeing the car starting to inch forward, door still open and dignitary still attached. One of Bertie's minders had to push the dignitary away who then took a step back with his arms outspread, the door slammed shut and the car roared off. Pretty weird.

Re: One a Day

Paul Watson — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 16:37:29 -0000

hehe indeed Brian. I want to try that when I have enough shots.

Re: Canon’s 400D Digital SLR Camera

Paul Watson — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 04:18:42 -0000

Jon, I certainly do. Reviews of the 400D are good but nothing unexpected.

Re: Fearless and the Barley

Paul Watson — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 11:21:40 -0000

asd

Re: TextDrive brings Joyent to my life

Paul Watson — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:00:13 -0000

Yes, completely happy with them, Ross.

Re: Vista licensing

Paul Watson — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:55:10 -0000

We developers, resellers, IT departments at big companies and so on must do the shouting before it gets anywhere near your mother. I don't want your mother complaining, I want it sorted before it gets to her.

Re: Rails and foreign databases

Paul Watson — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 16:22:42 -0000

Same server in this case with the same connection details. There is a way to use remote databases and different connection settings on a table by table basis but I haven't tried that yet.

Re: Google Reader gets better

Paul Watson — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 06:40:07 -0000

Argh! They seem to have removed the functionality.

Re: Renewing Flickr

Paul Watson — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 08:13:27 -0000

Thanks Gary but in their FAQ they explicitly say that ringing the bank and asking for the code is not allowed. Apparently banks are not allowed to give out credit card statement details over the phone.

Maybe Irish banks are relaxed on this though, I will give it a try.

Re: Movie: Renaissance

Paul Watson — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:49:45 -0000

I got it at the local DVD store, an XTravision. It was in the foreign film section.

Re: Feed comment

Paul Watson — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:58:55 -0000

Cool, I'll give you a buzz when it is working Shog and you can leave rude comments and see how the spam system copes ;)

Thanks Aidan. Not a Drupal user but I'll give it a go for prototyping this.

Re: Top Gear is back

Paul Watson — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:35:23 -0000

OK, so no James in a Veyron but that crash was pretty damned intense. At least we saw it was a tyre blow out and not the Hamster having a conniption.

Pretty funny how they linked the fastest ever Britian (unofficial) with a story on paving a road in 24 hours...

Re: Ruby, regex and match

Paul Watson — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:05:51 -0000

hehe, I doubt it. Not many able to use it in their day jobs like I though.

Re: Ruby, regex and match

Paul Watson — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:57:10 -0000

I sure am IITQ

Re: Yahoo! acquires Flickr, again!

Paul Watson — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:16:29 -0000

LOL

Why not tube spaces... Y!TubeSpaces.... subliminal messaging there.

Re: Yahoo! acquires Flickr, again!

Paul Watson — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 10:36:21 -0000

That is exactly what I was fearing, Matt. That once merged login problems stop being Flickr's problem and become Yahoo!s who are less responsive and friendly.

I had to phone Yahoo! in the States from South Africa to get an email exchange going. This was a year or so ago.

Re: Getting Joosted

Paul Watson — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 02:38:08 -0000

Chris, send me an email at joost@paulmwatson.com and when I get some invites I'll send it out.

Re: Getting GTalk working through Adium

Paul Watson — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:17:39 -0000

Sorry about that Shog, I'm trying to get an option in WordPress working and it has the side-affect of summarising the feed. It should be fixed soon :)

Re: The South African Braai

Paul Watson — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 05:27:05 -0000

You don't have boerewors, Jon. Or sun. Or good beer. That is what makes the Saffa braai.

Re: Technorati watchlists need work

Paul Watson — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 12:07:16 -0000

Thanks Dorion, that is an improvement. Now if we could just wrap that functionality into the Watchlist UI.

Re: eNom vs. RegisterFly

Paul Watson — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:28:42 -0000

Thanks DP, I have moved to enom.

Re: Disk Inventory X

Paul Watson — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:45:19 -0000

hehe thanks Andrew.

Re: Ireland is just not cricket

Paul Watson — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:07:22 -0000

Don't worry Gary, I'll punish that West Brit severely with several hours of cricket down at the Uluru ;)

(If any pub here will show cricket it should be the Uluru, being Aussie and all. Thanks for the reminder)

Re: Ireland is just not cricket

Paul Watson — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 04:01:54 -0000

Oh, the idea is lovely, Ross, but like you I have a job that can't take a months leave right now.

Re: A night with a Wii

Paul Watson — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:33:09 -0000

I personally wouldn't buy it, Brian. It is a blast but I'd get sick of it fast.

Maybe get it if you are a good trader of games. Then you can play it, get sick of it and trade it for something else.

Re: 37 Willy Wonkas

Paul Watson — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 04:02:20 -0000

Sure I understand the beta thing but Golden Tickets are a way of generating interest and hype.

Re: Google for Domains

Paul Watson — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 04:15:29 -0000

No invite needed Farhan. Just go to http://google.com/a

Re: Wallet loosening Macs

Paul Watson — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 05:01:36 -0000

AFAIK it is not legal to run OS X on a PC. Plus the guide I read made it out to be a bit of a hack.

Re: Twitter’s not for twits

Paul Watson — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 04:29:31 -0000

It is not for when you are deep in a programming task. Twitter respects your IMs status so if you are away or busy you won't get the cafe murmur. But when you are surfing the web or replying to emails it is handy to tap into what a group of people you respect or work with are thinking, saying and doing.

And James, go right ahead, thanks.

Re: Filtering the Twitter cafe murmur with FeedRinse

Paul Watson — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 12:20:07 -0000

hehe, I sure can Shog. The idea though is that for those times I have Twitter off I can come back to an RSS feed at the end of the day and note any Tweets aimed at me that I missed.

Re: Corank comes close

Paul Watson — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 18:13:42 -0000

Thanks for the reply RBA. Looking forward to that development in coRank.

Re: Web-developer job

Paul Watson — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 05:59:28 -0000

The feed reader is just one aspect of the project. We have much bigger plans than that.

As for AI, bah, hamsters do a better job. We'd rather use mobs :)

And sure, we can work out a Guinness payment scheme. The essence for Guinness is made here in Waterford, down by the river Suir.

Re: Web-developer job

Paul Watson — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 06:00:12 -0000

Oh, and Scoble took himself down :)

Re: Web-developer job

Paul Watson — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:46:35 -0000

They don't need to know server-side but it will be even better if they did. We use Rails and Java at the moment but PHP or ASP.NET knowledge will still be fine as it can be transfered.

Re: Easy backup

Paul Watson — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 08:36:30 -0000

Sorry, should have mentioned they emailed a few people the location of the beta Mac client. They mentioned it was "limited" so I am not sure I should be making it public.

Re: Web-developer job

Paul Watson — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:17:10 -0000

Nial, please do. Thanks dH.

Re: The Twiterati

Paul Watson — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:28:18 -0000

That is a fascinating idea, James. As you roam your active Twitter sphere changes.

That could work geographically and webographically (as in as you are visiting certain sites your Twittersphere morphs.)

Re: First time users

Paul Watson — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 17:58:10 -0000

Thanks for the link Shog, good stuff.

Re: @username on Twitter

Paul Watson — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:41:24 -0000

Crikey, Twitter stole the idea!

Thanks Shog, that is interesting. Now, go be a twit would you please, I'd love to know what you ate for breakfast.

Re: @username on Twitter

Paul Watson — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 05:54:36 -0000

Shog is one in a million lauranen :)

Re: Where I work

Paul Watson — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 14:31:51 -0000

Actually, we are hiring, Kenny. You'd be very welcome :)

Go for it Rowan and link back.

Re: MySpace vs. The Internet

Paul Watson — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:04:57 -0000

I don't want practices like this to continue. If MySpace can't get away with it then no other social sites will dare. Plus PhotoBucket is a good service and helps the internet at large even if neither of us specifically use it.

Re: Photography on a Mac

Paul Watson — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:57:46 -0000

I don't think it is a particularly well designed app. Slow and full of unneeded features. I actually haven't used it since I switched to OS X so I'll give it a try again, thanks for the reminder.

Re: International sport

Paul Watson — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:19:42 -0000

Thanks Jim. Just one of those days really, we came out firing and you didn't. Another day and you would have beaten us.

Re: Sticky Windows and pricing

Paul Watson — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:34:19 -0000

hehe, I did buy Photoshop. The $15 rule applies to utilities.

I didn't much like Aperture all in all. It does too much when all I wanted was a viewer. It is great for picturedesks and professionals who will make a long term investment in all things Aperture but not for the rest of us who want our files to live in the cloud and not be tied to one app.

Re: Photography on a Mac

Paul Watson — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:09:55 -0000

Thanks mica. I just tried xee and it caches already viewed files nicely but it doesn't preload. So trying to flick through a directory of images is dead slow the first time. It also has no thumbnail view which is pretty useful.

Re: Photography on a Mac

Paul Watson — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:50:00 -0000

True but iPhoto doesn't handle my photo library size. It abstracts but doesn't do a very good job of it on large datasets.

If iPhoto cached better it would be a usable tool even for me. But it doesn't.

Re: Image concatenation and favicons

Paul Watson — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 04:19:17 -0000

No, not just one.

The interface lists many other websites and we want to show the favicon of each of those websites next to the title.

There can be up to 300 on one page though and that makes for a slow load time for the page as it makes 300 image requests. If I could route it through our server as a few single concactenated favicon images it would be better.

Re: Image concatenation and favicons

Paul Watson — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:39:45 -0000

Blimey, I sleep for one night and I come back to find you talking to yourself.

Plenty of good points in there, Shog. It gets even more complicated because some favicons aren't 16x16. Salon's (http://salon.com/favicon.ico) is 32x32 and you do get better. Thankfully the interface is geared to only display 16x6, so we can scale it on the server.

Also this is for a feed reader interface and most people don't change their subscriptions too wildly.

Still, thinking about it more, I'm not sure there is a sweet spot and even if there was I'm not sure it would make it easy for the client-side CSS to display it correctly. You'd end up with a dynamically generated CSS file with 300 entries.

hmmm.

I think going back and changing the original problem is best. Displaying 300 favicons is stupid. At most 10-20 will be displayed on a screen at once with the rest hidden by foldering or scrolling mechanisms. They can load when needed, not on page load.

hmmm. Might work.

(16x16 annoyances they are.)

Re: RSS at YouTube

Paul Watson — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:41:59 -0000

Thanks Rowan. Any idea why they don't just use the standard autodiscovery meta tags?

Re: Quitting Twitter

Paul Watson — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 15:20:48 -0000

Did you just interrupt my inner monologue?

Re: First thoughts on Silverlight

Paul Watson — Thu, 03 May 2007 14:48:46 -0000

My shock isn't so much with MS hyping Silverlight but all the usually smart devs out there lapping it up.

Re: David doesn’t blog

Paul Watson — Tue, 08 May 2007 04:40:17 -0000

You have a valid point Shog but my point is that not everyone uses a blog as a soapbox nor do they want to ever be paid for their blog ramblings. I subscribe to family blogs, blogs of friends who want to keep in touch and pure photoblogs.

Not saying I don't soapbox, I obviously do :)

Re: Google Analytics refresh

Paul Watson — Wed, 09 May 2007 04:31:11 -0000

Looks pretty decent, thanks Chris.

Re: Got OPML?

Paul Watson — Thu, 10 May 2007 10:02:30 -0000

Woah, thanks guys, I am getting a flood of OPML files here. Much appreciated.

Re: RailsConf Europe 2006: Search with Rails

Paul Watson — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:09:37 -0000

It isn't my plugin, sebastien, but rather from the commentor before you.

Re: HDTV, first take

Paul Watson — Thu, 31 May 2007 11:10:51 -0000

Thanks James, you said what I was going to say. I looked at the 32", 37" and 40" models and while the 40" is very impressive it would be unwatchable in my living room as the room just isn't big enough. 32" is about right, 37" would probably be too big too.

So figure out which room the TV is going in, choose the right size for that and then you can look at price/quality differences.

After that I'd say go for quality over quantity. 40 inches of fuzz is far worse than 30 inches of clarity.

Re: WWDC 2007

Paul Watson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:08:10 -0000

Good point Steve. Though any serious iPhone developer is going to want to get at least a Mac OS beneath them and not Windows.

Re: Safari on Windows in Parallels on Mac OS X

Paul Watson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:48:34 -0000

I use Firefox on Mac OS X and am happy with it. Used Firefox when I was a Windows user too. Safari is a decent browser but as a web-developer I need what Firefox provides.

Re: Safari on Windows in Parallels on Mac OS X

Paul Watson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:49:27 -0000

I just wanted to try it Andrew :)

Re: S3Fox

Paul Watson — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:16:42 -0000

Did you have any buckets already created? If not then you can create one through S3Fox.

Re: Nokia N95 - The browser

Paul Watson — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 04:23:17 -0000

It isn't Safari but it uses the Webkit engine so renders pretty similar to Safari. The N73 can be upgraded to Symbian 60 Series 3 as far as I know which has the same browser as the N95.

Re: iPhone: In Hand

Paul Watson — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:57:39 -0000

Not sure. O2 is tipped for the UK but an O2 source of mine says that doesn't mean O2 Ireland will get the same deal. Hopefully O2 Ireland get it though.

Re: Things to do before you die: #098

Paul Watson — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:07:14 -0000

You didn't read the whole post obviously, I did mention how good you Aussies are at sport.

And don't take it so seriously, it's all just a game. :)

Re: Firefox marketshare

Paul Watson — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:18:50 -0000

Good point Asa. Firefox gets all the limelight but we musn't forget the Mozilla base.

Re: Pownce invites

Paul Watson — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 05:38:25 -0000

Thanks Justin, tried to invite you but found you have already made it into the system.

I'd love a GrandCentral invite but I live in Ireland and GC is a Stateside service only AFAIK.

Re: Postful licks your envelopes for you

Paul Watson — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 05:47:51 -0000

Well if I were a company using Postful I'd insist on an SLA and T&Cs and Privacy agreements etc. etc.

The same as any mail company has today. Many large companies use 3rd parties for their mailing needs.

Postful doesn't currently do incoming email, just your outgoing.

Re: Postful licks your envelopes for you

Paul Watson — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 06:35:26 -0000

I don't know what the law says about 3rd party vs. contracting out internal services. I'd assume there is a difference as many firms outsource their accounting work which is definitely sensitive data.

Also I'm not sure how the law sees API systems. With Postful I'd use their API to automate various letters I have to send to my customers.

The "share with 3rd party" check-box in my view is separate to this. That would be PayPal selling/sharing my email to a 3rd party that doesn't provide a core service to PayPal. But if PayPal were to use Postful I wouldn't see that as being part of the "don't share with 3rd party" agreement.

Naturally Postful has to be reliable and responsible and I'd hope their printing and enveloping system is automated and not some Indian slave worker stuffing envelopes and reading my love letters to Paris.

Re: On dance music

Paul Watson — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:07:17 -0000

You mean you didn't hear it thumping out of my headphones all day, Niall?

Re: Apple sticks to it

Paul Watson — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:23:23 -0000

Thanks for the clarification John.

Re: Texting while bored at the disco

Paul Watson — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:20:22 -0000

My pleasure Maria :)

Re: The Motion Picture

Paul Watson — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:44:55 -0000

Well, movies are all about opinion and I love TMP. The 10 minute music interludes are fantastic. I love it when directors cut in weird and brave moments in blockbluster movies.

Re: Photography on a Mac

Paul Watson — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:49:11 -0000

Aperture is not just too expensive it is also a long-term nightmare that I don't want to invest in. If it cost $5 I wouldn't buy it.

I don't take 100s of photos a day, my collection is from several years of taking digital photos. I mostly shoot on weekends and yes, then I'll take a few hundred in two or so days. Not a lot really, many DSLR owners will be doing the same.

Re: AIB and your personal information

Paul Watson — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:22:56 -0000

I'm buying a small sail boat Paul and need something that can tow and handle slip ways. Also I am part of the ACSE sailing crew and we are always fussing around for a car to tow her. Then there is the whole Africa Trip in the next few years and Fi and I need to get more familiar with a 4x4 and a RAV4 is a reasonable way to start (it won't be a RAV4 going through Africa obviously :) )

It won't be our daily car. Fi has a Focus for the daily commute while the RAV4 will be used for proper means, not just as a Chelsea Tractor.

Also, funnily enough the RAV4 is only a few mpg less efficient than my outgoing Ford Fiesta. You'd think it would be much worse but as we are all learning, size and appearances are not the way to judge a car when it comes to efficiency.

Re: AIB and your personal information

Paul Watson — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 06:39:16 -0000

Good points Jonathan. I still feel AIB should have contacted me first. If I refuse to divulge the information to the dealership through AIB then the dealership can refuse to do the deal. It should be a joint process.

Speaking of which, I wonder how much you have left owing on that Z3 ;)

Re: Canon EOS 40D

Paul Watson — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 06:23:59 -0000

An EOS 40D will help my cough ;)

Re: iPhone on O2 Ireland

Paul Watson — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:28:50 -0000

R Shannon, I just got it working with my O2 Ireland card; http://paulmwatson.com/journal/2007/08/21/makin...

Re: iPhone SMS woes

Paul Watson — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:00:10 -0000

It runs a version of OS X.

Re: Making calls with an iPhone

Paul Watson — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:26:57 -0000

My iPhone wasn't activated. iActivator will jailbreak it (make the files writeable) and it will activate the phone.

Re: iPhone and journalists

Paul Watson — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 08:53:45 -0000

No one before the Irish Times, no. I think the story was done because of the news that O2 UK had made the deal and that Ireland wouldn't be getting it this year.

And I'll find a way to get your goldfish, some fine print or loophole.

Re: Google Maps embedded

Paul Watson — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:31:09 -0000

About 40 minutes. Nice, easy drive really, 100kph all the way. At least I don't have the Waterford bridge to deal with :)

Re: Ireland called and found wanting

Paul Watson — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:37:01 -0000

Good points guys. I do think a simple, strong game plan would have given the boys focus and a natural leader would emerge. The hard hands would grow in confidence and soften, the forward balls would start going back. With no plan though you, on the field, begin to wonder what the point is catching and running.

Re: Lesser subscriptions

Paul Watson — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 08:57:01 -0000

Oh dear, seems he forgot to renew his domain on time. There is a Google cache here: http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:seOZ8LCrXs...

Re: How not to promote RSS

Paul Watson — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:24:58 -0000

But 37Signals doesn't sell their app. on the basis that it does HTML, CSS, Ajax etc. They sell it on usability and as a tool for the job.

TLAs are for us developers to use in the background to deliver functionality tot he user. Not to put on the apps. box.

Re: Google Analytics on AIR

Paul Watson — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 03:06:58 -0000

Sorry Ramesh, I don't have any to give.

Re: Shiver me blogs!

Paul Watson — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:32:54 -0000

Well Neill, some days Irish sounds pretty piratey to me, boy. Yer man, yer wan, yer dag, up the deise!

Re: Off to Galway

Paul Watson — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:45:46 -0000

Thanks for the tips Jim, I'll add them in :)

Re: Friendster begets MySpace begets Facebook begets Perfspot

Paul Watson — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:37:32 -0000

They sure will, Chris. I spent a weekend a few weeks ago building a facebook app to see how it worked. Pretty simple really, don't sweat it. Just keep the integration light.

Re: The teenage problem

Paul Watson — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 07:02:02 -0000

hehe, thanks dad. You did a great job in fairness. Lot better than any of the parents my friends had.

Re: Star Wars, The Order

Paul Watson — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 07:21:46 -0000

I think many of us Star Wars fans are biased. We hold on to child-hood memories, and standards, that when applied, in adulthood, to the original three movies makes for an unfair situation. Rose coloured glasses and all that.

A friend here in Ireland had never seen Star Wars before last year. She then went and watched them all and loved the whole series. Though she said the original three were a bit old and corny :)

And anyway. I rather liked the three new movies. They aren't great but they fit into the story well and are entertaining. Jar Jar is annoying though.

Re: Friendster begets MySpace begets Facebook begets Perfspot

Paul Watson — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 07:27:23 -0000

I have to say Chris that I am staying well away from FBML and FBJS.

Re: Photography on a Mac

Paul Watson — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 07:06:29 -0000

Thanks Matt, I'll give that a try

Re: Star Wars, The Order

Paul Watson — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 13:08:55 -0000

hehe, I don't think anyone could accuse Star Wars of featuring good acting. Mark Hamill was awful!

Re: iPhone SMS woes

Paul Watson — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 06:31:35 -0000

Thanks "The Chap", that is an alternative solution. The problem is you loose any customisation you have made to your iPhone with that technique.

Re: Dilbert on newspapers

Paul Watson — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 07:27:16 -0000

Thanks Miguel, interesting reading.

Re: Leopard coming, 300 improvements

Paul Watson — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:28:45 -0000

Thanks Emmet, I'll give it a go.

Re: Name your price for Radiohead

Paul Watson — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:12:12 -0000

I paid €10, Paul. Thought it was a fair price, just one cent more than what I pay on iTunes.

Re: Go Bokke

Paul Watson — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:26:59 -0000

What does it mean then cor?

Re: Springboks win the Rugby World Cup 2007

Paul Watson — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:16:12 -0000

Quite right, though Tait made the break and set it all up.

Re: Apple vs. Dell

Paul Watson — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:14:24 -0000

At work we can't, they only approve the Dell Precision 390. So the Apple is the winner and using educational discounts and, as we buy more, further discounts it will be even cheaper.

We've had cheap Dells at work before and they've simply not been good. Some have survived a good long while and given good service but others haven't and I'm not that keen on relying on cheap Dells anymore when you have work to do.

Re: A pocketable Canon

Paul Watson — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:18:39 -0000

haha, "12 Ways To Rock Her World And Make You God Like And You Can Still Drink Beer Every Day And Keep Those Pecs" or something daft.

It was in a "design showcase" list, CSS Beauty or one of those.

And I'll get a lot more chances to enjoy a pocket cam than a game console :)

Re: O2 Broadband; Day 1

Paul Watson — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 05:30:22 -0000

It is the huawei e220. No lock ups so far.

Re: 28 Years Later

Paul Watson — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:27:31 -0000

LOL thanks Martin, it wasn't doing that earlier but they must have noticed the incoming links (my multi-million page view blog and all. ;) )

Thanks Chris.

Re: 28 Years Later

Paul Watson — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 06:01:57 -0000

Thanks Kenny.

Long Way Down is starting this coming Sunday for us, I'll be watching.

Re: Paying for digital

Paul Watson — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 07:16:54 -0000

Like, that really hurt, falksdj. Schwaa!

Re: Websense goes for FeedBurner

Paul Watson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:34:14 -0000

No, I've got IT to look into it John. They will contact WIT and sort it out. Our project depends on it, these feeds aren't just our personal dalliances.

Re: Take a tumble

Paul Watson — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:51:03 -0000

Thanks but no, no comments on tumblr yet. They are implementing
comments soon. I tried disqus but it didn't work sadly.

Re: Targeted advertising, someone explain

Paul Watson — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:17:30 -0000

Good point Jon though from what I can tell most of my "brand awareness" comes not from direct adverts but from sponsorships and reviews of a brand's products e.g. dpreview reviews of Canon.

Some brands do a lot of, too much, brand advertising and end up just giving me a negative view of them.

I hardly ever see Apple adverts but I am very aware of their products through word of mouth, reviews etc. How can Apple take advantage of "targeted" advertising when I want everything they make? ;)

Re: Targeted advertising, someone explain

Paul Watson — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:19:32 -0000

Interesting, Chris. I see most of the adverts when I surf, I just find them completely misdirected.

As for wise, yes we are but not in a "we are smarter" way, just that we are more aware of how the system works and through experience what not to pay attention too.

Does your sister ever buy anything from those ads?

Re: Drop.io, simple file sharing

Paul Watson — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:09:27 -0000

Damn, fellat.io is gone. Adag.io is gone too.

Re: File bug in Leopard

Paul Watson — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:05:48 -0000

Thanks Jason, I didn't realise I had been at risk from this bug all this time.

BTW I option-drag a lot. When I move files off of my camera memory card I don't want them left behind.

Re: Why I am buying Leopard

Paul Watson — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:33:21 -0000

I tried that for awhile Ciaran but the problem is that restoring from internet storage is still too slow. 70gb takes a good few hours just to download and no recovery software really supports it (e.g. to make a bootable restore disk.)

Re: Leopard Spots: Spaces

Paul Watson — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:07:23 -0000

I have used virtual desktops on other operating systems and never found them to be as well implemented as one would hope. The Ubuntu one is nice but clumsy in use I find.

BTW Mac OS X isn't built on Linux, it came from Mach and FreeBSD through Darwin. It is Unix conformant.

Re: Why I am buying Leopard

Paul Watson — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:35:09 -0000

Oh, that 70gb doesn't include my photos, that is several hundred gig by now :)

Re: Rekindling eBooks

Paul Watson — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:38:05 -0000

Yup, instant gratification. It is why the internet was invented.

As for notes in margins, I never do it and flipping through forty pages makes for an effective fan but not much else.

Re: A feature I do miss in the iPhone

Paul Watson — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 04:47:00 -0000

No, there is no copy-and-paste functionality on the iPhone at all. Strange but true.

Though I haven't really missed it. I think when 3rd party apps start proliferating on the iPhone that it will become a missing feature.

Re: Rekindling eBooks

Paul Watson — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:12:15 -0000

I suspect not. I haven't read a technical book cover-to-cover since 1997. I have used a few technical books since then as references but I find Google and the interwebs to be a lot quicker and better.

Re: Leopard Spots: Download progress

Paul Watson — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:55:07 -0000

To answer your specific example; no. Sadly, you have to unzip the archive in your mail app and then load the unzipped file into your music player. None of the Mac mail apps I have used inspect the contents of a zip and provide extra functionality.

There is a built-in unzipper though in Mac OS X. Works well enough. And there does seem to be a common understanding amongst Mac OS X apps to use common formats for zipping/archiving. I haven't yet had the "Ah shit, it is a RAR file, now I have to download RAR." moment on Mac OS X. Though of course if someone sent me a RAR, I'd have to download RAR.

Re: Why not be truly open

Paul Watson — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:41:33 -0000

Give it a few years and the limitations will hit even the most clueless user.

We have already seen it with the steady herd migration from one social network to another. Friendster begets MySpace begets Facebook begets PlanetNine.

It will also be a problem when Facebook makes a mistake and abuses the privacy of 50 million people with one developer upload. Boom.

Control your own social network and no 3rd party can abuse you.

Re: iDontLike

Paul Watson — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:16:15 -0000

That is my evening celebrity impersonation job, Jonathan. It doesn't mean I enjoy the damned music ;)

Re: Extending RSS and MicroFormats

Paul Watson — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:59:37 -0000

I'm not sure powerful XML tools is a strong argument for XML grammars, especially in this case which isn't a consumer production play. I've used a few XML tools and they are not for the layman. The market still seems to center around purpose built applications which can then emit structured data.

And for the kinds of companies wanting to use product meta-data in RSS the source would be a database and server-side application. Amazon and co. wouldn't change to XML tools just to get extra elements in an RSS feed and they wouldn't do it to get MicroFormats either. But the RSS producer should be easily configurable to insert the MicroFormat (and even extra RSS elements) from the product database.

The benefit of the MicroFormat is to the end-user who doesn't need updated tools to gain the benefit of the extra data. In Google Reader it would just be HTML and to a machine it would be easily parsable data.

Re: Making calls with an iPhone

Paul Watson — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 18:13:02 -0000

there won't be an Irish iPhone before Christmas. Latest rumours say mid 2008.

Re: A feature I do miss in the iPhone

Paul Watson — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:31:13 -0000

Thanks Trevor. It does not always recognise numbers though. Most friends don't type phone numbers in a format that the iPhone picks-up. With Nokia phones it displays all numbers and you can choose which is a phone number.

Re: Back to Windows

Paul Watson — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:03:28 -0000

Ordered it from Komplett and they say Monday.... so it could be Tuesday/Wednesday.

Re: Commenting in Ruby

Paul Watson — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:28:13 -0000

Does that work in RHTML/ERB files though Los Angeles Electricians?

Re: iPhone SMS woes

Paul Watson — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 06:02:08 -0000

I was running 1.0.2 at the time this happened Tantrik, seemed to work fine.

Re: Strange creatures on Ardmore beach

Paul Watson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:13:40 -0000

LMAO Ross. Remember all those hours we got through playing that game? Still one of my favourites. The music in it was mad.

Re: I nearly did it

Paul Watson — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:10:40 -0000

Ah yeah, "fully spec-ed" it is insane. I actually think €1699 for the base spec is a decent price and that the base spec is decent. The SSD is too expensive though, not worth it. Another reason perhaps to wait awhile, SSD prices will come down.

Re: Ubiquitous wireless on your MacBook Air through your iPhone

Paul Watson — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:02:00 -0000

Thanks Jason, I'll give it a go and see how well it works.

If we can wrap that up in a "Click here to use your iPhone connection" app on Mac OS X then it would be deadly.

Re: Ubiquitous wireless on your MacBook Air through your iPhone

Paul Watson — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:09:32 -0000

Actually, it would be better if the setup-app was on the iPhone and then any WiFi capable computer would just see it (obviously with security and such.)

Re: The only good thing about Bugzilla

Paul Watson — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:23:55 -0000

We will have to agree to disagree, Max. I've tried 3.0 Bugzilla and it is an improvement but still painful. Trac suits me better.

Re: find :first vs. find :all in ActiveResource

Paul Watson — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:59:39 -0000

hehe, the naming does remind me of Microsoft circa the '90s. And Rails doesn't have a good reason why they call it Active*, they just do.

Re: Why I am buying Leopard

Paul Watson — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:59:59 -0000

I just used rm, Harry. In the long run it didn't help though. Deleting the file and re-doing the setup worked for a few hours and then the old error came back. I had to re-partition the drive and do a fresh install. That worked for a few weeks until the drive really died and I had it replaced.

Re: Google Reader’s waterfall feature

Paul Watson — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:26:22 -0000

It is part of a larger discussion taking place in the RSSsphere. A buggy Google Reader just highlights the problems of being a slave to unread counts.

Google Reader shouldn't change (just fix the bug) but it would be nice if it allowed me to specify which feeds I want to see unread counts on and which to just let slide by on the river of news.

Re: The 16gb iPhone, why?

Paul Watson — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:46:26 -0000

I've tried watching video on the iPhone and it is nice for 5 minute clips but anything longer is not my cup of tea. Glad someone can handle it though.

I still think it needs to be more along the lines of the iTouch size update (32gb now) or one of the classic iPods at 60/80gb. That is a size I can make proper use of.

Re: Sounding out iPhone 1.1.3

Paul Watson — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:41:55 -0000

Not sure I want to pay that AT&T subscription Niall!

Re: Audi design

Paul Watson — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:54:34 -0000

Design is personal and personally I don't like where Audi design has gone. So it has gone off the rails, for me. (This is a personal opinion blog.)

Re: Aggregating application interactions

Paul Watson — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:16:55 -0000

Sadly not, Shog. Feed readers are still very much only "title, link and description" aware. Some understand enclosures but any other elements in the item are pretty much ignored.

Re: Live on Yahoo!

Paul Watson — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:17:12 -0000

It came with the house :)

Re: Do you Dopplr?

Paul Watson — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:37:04 -0000

Thanks Simon

Re: Solarwind trees

Paul Watson — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:17:27 -0000

Sure but the vine configuration shows just one side of a house to light and wind and there is overlap too. Wind may pass through a tree configuration better too and there would always be a side facing the sun.

As for the hokey aspect, I agree but the vine config looks pretty hokey too :)

Re: CreativeCamp clashing with Rugby

Paul Watson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:19:59 -0000

5pm, Cormac.

Re: Microsoft announces the Zune Phone App Store, Apple reality distortion field implodes

Paul Watson — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:23:26 -0000

I wouldn't go that far, Jazz. I am glad the iPhone runs the software it does. The SDK is very nice and the dev tools are excellent even in beta form. The only blocker is the App Store. It is a business decision and one that Apple is free to make. I just wish they had made a more open system.

Re: Hacked

Paul Watson — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:49:02 -0000

Woah, would you look at that. Thanks colin :)

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4 returns tonight

Paul Watson — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:46:00 -0000

Yup, it aired on the 4th of April in the States. We aren't far behind :)

Re: Thinkpad vents some Air

Paul Watson — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:08:11 -0000

If by fanboy you mean I believe Mac laptops are the best then yes, I am and they are :)

Fitting in an envelope was a silly gimmick by Apple. The truth of the MacBook Air is its form factor, weight and good performance (better than a Thinkpad.)

Re: Thinkpad vents some Air

Paul Watson — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:12:03 -0000

LOL, that was a hilarious movie. MacLovin, I like it!

Re: New Offices for FeedHenry

Paul Watson — Fri, 02 May 2008 07:11:59 -0000

hehe. He is in the Linus Torvalds room with James Mernin and myself. Jason will join us in there soon and a new guy for Jame's team. So he won't be alone for long.

Re: What is the DataPortability group going to deliver? - Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

Paul Watson — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:09:42 -0000

"circular conversations" is exactly my big worry about it. Well said Paul.

Re: 2008/06/16/feedly/

Paul Watson — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:24:55 -0000

I gave it a test and it works quite nicely. However, be warned. When you uninstall it it leaves a bunch of subscriptions in your Google Reader account. I now have half a thousand unread items from feeds I did not subscribe to. I assume Feedly synchronized and inserted a bunch of subscriptions.

Re: boxee blog » 68% of Lifehacker readers say xbmc & boxee are the best

Paul Watson — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:37:39 -0000

Testament to Boxee that I had no clue it was based on xbmc. I tried xbmc out once and thought it was solid but obviously a geeks solution to a geeks problem. On the other hand my non-tech girlfriend loves Boxee and everyone I've shown it to gets it. I think a lot of the xmbc votes were tips-of-the-hat from people who actually use Boxee ;)

Re: Import Gmail Contacts using Ruby on Rails

Paul Watson — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:32:48 -0000

Thanks for the info, it really helped.

Re: Huh? Someone wants my king Evil spot?

Paul Watson — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:14:37 -0000

It is daft. All I can add is we will be down supporting the lads in Cork.

Re: One thing I hope dies in 2007

Paul Watson — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 05:18:40 -0000

British humour soars to much greater heights than this.

Re: The Intel video I should have linked to more prominently

Paul Watson — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:06:38 -0000

I still preferred reading the NYTimes article. Of the two videos Scoble's is better but I treat both as Additional Information once having read an article.

Re: Dave Winer says I sound like a monkey

Paul Watson — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 06:28:09 -0000

I estimate we've lost half a billion dollars just waffling about this. I'll plot it on a graph sometime.

Re: Why YouTube is going long-form

Paul Watson — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:25:02 -0000

Does long-form video show higher conversion rates than short-form video? We've had both for long enough now to do some kind of comparison, surely?

And surely BrightKite wouldn't be advertising on the short-form skateboard video. A skateboard company would be advertising on that video.

To be honest I push any video longer than 5 minutes off of my laptop screen and onto my living room television screen. Long-form video gets interrupted when you are in "laptop, work" mode and you end up not getting engaged.

Re: Web2Ireland Blog coverage

Paul Watson — Tue, 02 May 2006 11:50:47 -0000

Thanks for the links. Any idea when the presentations will be available for download? Quite a few here in TSSG who couldn't make the event who want to see them.

Re: Vodafone to launch open source community portal called Betavine

Paul Watson — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:20:17 -0000

I've linked to this on doingtherightthing.com: http://dotherightthing.com/entries/130

Interesting idea and I hope it works.

Re: Life after the bubble – Sunday Tribune – Damien Mulley

Paul Watson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 07:31:41 -0000

Well said. Working in the TSSG I see a lot of EI funding. It pays for my project but there are other ideas out there that are good but can't get the funding due to bureaucracy.

Re: Irish Widget Developers….

Paul Watson — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 11:54:58 -0000

Bah! 2007 is the year of RSS... no wait... 2007 is the year of vertical search... no wait, the year of browser VOIP?

2007 is basically the year of [insert your technology here].

As for widgets, we are working on some here at the TSSG.

I think they have benefit but to be honest 2007 is going to be the year that the success of widgets will reveal the flaws of widgets (e.g. the slow-down the MyBlogLog widget experienced.)

Not everything has to be a widget, seriously guys.

Re: Irish at 3GSM World Congress – Barcelona

Paul Watson — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 08:49:43 -0000

FeedHenry (EI funded RSS project at the TSSG) is also at 3GSM. We are in Hall 1, Stand D34 with Oracle.

Re: Irish OpenCoffee Club – entrepreneur/startup meetups

Paul Watson — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:33:59 -0000

I honestly cannot think of a coffee shop in Waterford city that has WiFi. I'll keep an eye out though.

Re: Completed Irish Web2.0 Research Projects

Paul Watson — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:34:02 -0000

Thanks for the post and link guys. "Commercial exploitation" is about right and if you attend the event our FeedHenry presentation should shed some light.

Re: Facebook developers – who’s doing what ?

Paul Watson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:41:08 -0000

I voted for the first option however the app isn't limited to Facebook but will work across OpenSocial, Facebook etc.

Re: Zignals – Irish based – web2.0 styled stock-trading site launches

Paul Watson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:35:23 -0000

Slight typo in the first line with the URL and name; Zignals, not Zingals.

Re: Time for api.gov.ie?

Paul Watson — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:42:40 -0000

The UK public data list is growing but it is still an onerous task for developers with multiple formats (Excel, XML, CSV), methods (HTTP, FTP) and licenses (including manual registration systems.)

I like your idea of "api.gov.ie" though. You could see that idea spreading; api.gov.uk, api.gov.za etc.

Another way is for Enterprise Ireland to start educating its fund beneficiaries on common APIs and formats. I'd love to see a "common formats and APIs" conference for Irish technology startups.

Re: NewBay Launches World’s First Aggregated Mobile Social Networking Solution

Paul Watson — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:38:14 -0000

Thanks for the link. I am impressed a telco would go for an aggregated system rather than trying to reinvent a social network. Nice work Newbay.

Re: CrunchBase and Web2Ireland

Paul Watson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:19:36 -0000

A bit late to mention it but did Web2Ireland try out TradeVibes (http://www.tradevibes.com/) before settling on CrunchBase? I find TradeVibes information to be better in most areas and the site is more usable. Still, CrunchBase is a useful resource.

Re: RateMyArea launches

Paul Watson — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:45:55 -0000

Great looking site and really easy to use. Nice job guys.

Re: RateMyArea launches

Paul Watson — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:51:23 -0000

Ah, an iPhone version, now I am sold. Looking up places from my laptop is nice but having the same service in my pocket is genuinely useful. The site looks even better on the iPhone. Now if only the iPhone provided GPS location data through Mobile Safari.

Re: Dear Web Applications: Where Are My Files?

Paul Watson — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:09:53 -0000

> it needs to have more features, not fewer

I agree with everything else you have said but disagree with that statement. More features do not equal better. Apple knows this, Google knows this and more software companies are cottoning on that more is not better.

Re: Dear Web Applications: Where Are My Files?

Paul Watson — Sun, 18 May 2008 14:28:59 -0000

@Breck You can download your email in GMail through the POP3 feature.

I agree that Apple knows how hide complexity. But even so if you compare feature count of say Microsoft Office with Apple's iWork I am pretty sure Office would win. However I find iWork to be a better product. It does have a lot of features and it does layer them well in the UI but it does have less features.

For my purposes though Google Docs is even better and it definitely has far fewer features than Office or iWork.

Feature count doesn't take into account suitability to the user. You can't throw the same features at every user and say it is good for the user.

All other things being equal more features equals better but not all things are equal. There are constraints to play feature count against; UI, download speed/size, responsiveness, security etc. Add a feature and you impact on other aspects of software. There is a limit to how much the UI can layer and hide complexity.

This applies to everything in life, not just software. I'm glad my commuter car doesn't have the water cannon feature of a fire-truck. Adding that feature to my Ford Fiesta wouldn't make it better.

Re: When I Enter the Office, the Imperial March Plays

Paul Watson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:03:00 -0000

That’s great. I’d have Song 2 by Blur play on my entry.

And you should still shoot for the pony. Don’t let reality get in the way of your dreams man.

Re: Cloud storage: the real opportunity

Paul Watson — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:20:41 -0000

Agreed but an important consideration to me is that it doesn't all live at fluidinfo.com.

Re: Kaleidoscope: 10 takes on FluidDB

Paul Watson — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:23:47 -0000

I'm still digging through FluidDB info. so forgive anything obvious I may say; the more I read about it the more this needs to be baked into every URL on the web. This first step has to append fluidinfo.com in front of every URL (fluidinfo.com/amazon.com/isbn1919191/rating/5) to bootstrap the idea but eventually I want to be able to just add rating/5 to amazon.com/isbn1919191 without centralising on fluidinfo.com.

This would be a huge challenge to search though. Partly why fluidinfo.com is centralised?

Re: Blog Wars: The Genius Playlist | Round 2, Battle 1

Paul Watson — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:10:30 -0000

No ways, Nialler9 totally had that. Culture of Me was grand and all but Nialler9 FTW!