DISQUS

Congrats Paul - have a good one. Time to run that marathon before you're 30 and really end the 20's with a blast. ;)

Congrats Paul and Fiona! Enjoy parenthood - perhaps you can offer tips to the community as you progress along the path of youngling raising. :)

Forgive my lateness Paul, had I seen this earlier I would have responded pronto. Fantastic news guys!! And what a way to start the new year!! You and Fiona will make great parents and role models for the youngin. I am truly thrilled for the both of ye. Whatever words can capture in terms of well wishing, I offer to you both. It's definitely a girl BTW; you can see her posing for the camera. Guys are way too camera shy at that age. ;-)

G'way outta that, I've seen you strutting around singing Justin Timberlake to yourself. Don't even get me started on your Fergie impression. ;)

It's been there a while; not too sure how long though but it's definitely part of Tiger. Great feature though if for no other reason than stopping you from clicking on a file that hasn't yet finished downloading.

That's a good musing Paul; something that asks a real question. However, I would guess, and only guess, that the targeted advertisers aim to keep products and brands in your mind even if they are no use to you. Since you maintain certain personal attributes such as camera enthusiast, etc you are likely to belong to a collective of others with such interests or become the focal point for questions on such material and from the advertiser's perspective, referrals. So while you rightly point out that the ads will not appeal to you, there is a chance that the products, if good enough, will play on your conscious recollection and resurface as a recommendation to others or somebody starting out in one of the categories that you have been placed within by the advertisers. Then again perhaps I am totally wrong, I have been known to be so. :)

Happy Birthday ya old codger! ;) Hope you have a good one!

Ya scurvy dawg, Watson! Now lower the jib, we're landing in da harbour for a fathom of ale in the tavern - loaded to the gunnels we'll be. Yaarrghh! ;)

I think it goes deeper than lack of a game plan Paul. There were times in that match and also the one against Namibia when the Irish players were completely disorientated. Even Stringer, a man whom I would trust to catch my first born, was throwing balls forward and trying to catch with hard hands. There was constant panic and disbelief in the team; losing a ball from the back of the scrum, like what happened to Isaac Boss late in the second half, sent shivers down my spine. The look in the eyes of O'Gara, O'Driscoll and O'Connell said it all - they didn't know what was happening never mind why they were fighting to come from behind in a game that should have been a given. These problems are not coaching related IMHO, there's something wrong but it's not leadership. No manager can make players drop balls or create as many stupid knock-ons as we have seen in recent times. Bad game plans, bad intelligence of other teams and similar, yes, these are leadership problems. The ability to catch a ball and throw it backwards, that's something very different.

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

Fiend!

I'm still upset that you bought one but at least I know that my goldfish is safe from your T&C ;) Were you contacted by anyone prior to the reference in the Times? As you say the details of "breaking" the iPhone are everywhere, seems strange that they'd want to name people. Still though cheap advertising for your site for a while. ;)

Thankfully enough zarro - been a busy bee for the last few years of savings. :)

That's pretty much the way it works alright. Sadly enough it kind of has to work that way - as Joe Soap on the street needs to know/be able to find out if there is any finance outstanding on your car if you're selling it. It's not just dealerships. I ran a credit clearance check on my last purchase by calling the lender that I was informed was dealing with it and they gave me confirmation over the phone that there was no outstanding credit due. Without the ability to find this out you get landed for the balance on the loan if you're not told and the seller does a runner. I am a bit surprise that they we're privy to your repayments but I would guess that they simply found out the duration of your loan and amount outstanding then worked this out again rather than AIB passing it on. But then again it is a credit record thing and your ability to pay X per month is important to a financial institution when summing you up for a nice little box to categorise you. :)

Rave on brother! :) You've got it right there, some of those acts you mention will be carried with me to the grave also. Like you say, it's the music of our generation even if not the underground tunes of little known artists. Maybe we're consumers of the commercial product but it's good. There's no shortage of adrenalin provided by a good mix of Faithless or the latter day Binary Finary. It would be funny all the same to see the future of our generation on the porch with dance music shaking the neighbourhood. :D

Fore sure on the SLA, but surely 3rd parties are only used for bulk mailing? Perhaps I am wrong but I would have thought that the data protection and privacy would be a concern moreso from the recipient's (customer or whatever) side? I always check that little box to say no 3rd party sharing of details, I thought that would cover bulk mailers too?

Do I read this right Paul, that Postful will have access to view both your out-going mail and your incoming mail? If so I think we just found the stumbling block for companies in terms of privacy and data protection?

I agree, it's refreshing to see an alternative list with the promise of more thought having gone into it. Sadly having quickly leafed through the list (purely for research purposes ;) ) I fear that the promise may have been a pretense. The top slots are dominated by females who have either starred in the "L Word" or have been widely acknowledged to be bisexual at some time or another or have starred in lesbian-styled roles. As you say you kinda have to ignore that to an extent given the context. However, if the schedule was even slightly biased to the weighting of classic and timeless beauty then one has to question the positioning of Ellen DeGeneres above contenders such as Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman, not that I'm a great fan of either. Subjectivity, eye of the beholder and all that there are a few that I would have included in that list who don't even get a mention. Perhaps there'll never truly be a list that isn't somewhat biased to the choosing parties...

That's the current government of Ireland for you Paul. If you're young they really don't care because let's face it someday you'll be older and then young-facing policies won't appeal to you so why bother? Personally I'm sick of it and won't be voting this year as I've lost faith in the Irish democracy to get things done. :(

I can see how you decided not to go with Aperture then. :)

I got 79% and the comment that I was a little less likely to think things through before doing them - I debated with myself for ages before even taking the test never mind the answers! :-) Pinch of salt me thinks...

You're right, the comment spammers (all manual too!) floating around John's site are damn annoying. All the same, you have to tip your hat to John. He knows how to get ranked and he knows how to keep people coming back. I just wish I was taking the kind of cash that John is from blogging. :(

Welcome to the cabaret. The symptoms you describe are referred to as Maclash, the result of obtaining a Mac. :) On a more serious note, you've hit the nail on the head with respect to getting more done. For years, even as a Windows user, I ran dual-boot with SuSE so that whenever I could I'd nip into Linux and get a buzz out of what I was doing. Plus I had the wonderful excuse of saying that I was ensuring I was writing POSIX compliant C code. ;) These days the offering of parallels is doing the same in reverse for Mac users, it's a case of having to check something on Windows instead of doing something on Windows (outside of J2ME anyway). I really need to find a way upgrade my G4 though before I can start to experience that joy. Then my only worry will be running low on battery power or as I affectionately call it "Apple juice". :)

The cheek of you Gaughan! West Brit I am not. Born in the principality of Wales I may have been but certainly not a Brit! Trust a Mayo man not to appreciate the greatness of a game that is somewhat removed from barbarianism... ;)

Hi Paul, I guess that I'm one of the few Irish people that you've met whom you didn't know used to play cricket. I played for many years in Waterford until various reasons, mostly insurance and lack of grounds caused the whole thing to fall on its backside. Tis a great game though and sadly within Ireland and the UK there aren't really any alternatives to Sky if you want to catch a few overs. :( A more affordable way is to make friends with a Sky Sports subscriber who likes cricket, sadly I don't subscribe to the Sports channels myself otherwise you'd be welcome with a few bottles of beer under your arm.

I have to say Paul that I completely agree with your sentiments. I remember my first touch on JSP development and how shocked I was regarding it's complexity compared to server-side jscript on IIS that I had used most recently before that. The whole snobby attitude towards development is in need of a facelift. I remember about 8 years ago being laughed out of it when I suggested that HTML apps would take over within 10 years. The reason I saw it happening was simplicity of development and deployment. Sadly though the snobbs of development sank their teeth into it and put heavyweight processes and containers in place again, stiffling the ease of development. Complexity of design and deployment should never be confused with app scalability and robustness, one does not mean the other!