Banned from Boards.ie

Whoops!

I was banned from the 'Motors' section of boards.ie yesterday. I now feel totally ... normal. It seems that getting banned from boards.ie is something which happens to nearly everyone at least once, and usually for the same reason - saying the wrong thing falling foul of a troll who happens to be a friend of the Moderator in question.

Let's go back to beginning. A couple of months ago I was looking everywhere for the telephone number of a Saab mechanic. I had found it on boards.ie once upon a time, so I went looking for it again and couldn't find it. Eventually, under a ton of papers, I found the scrap of paper with the number! Yipee!

Having spent the entire afternoon searching for it, I duly logged on to boards and posted the number ( I knew that a lot of other people had been looking for it too ) In the meantime I had been talking to the mechanic and he had no problem with this, and besides, boards had the wrong number still on their website. Within minutes a moderator had blanked out the correct number in my post.

I also got a P.M. accusing me of "spamming". Wow! Several messages went back and forth but it got really silly. I moved on, though not without noticing that 'spamming' is okay if you are an 'alright' person according to the moderators. Indeed in the Motors section right now we have a trader advertising his cars openly in the 'Motors' section. Anyone else would be told to read the rules:

"* No advertising - if you have something to sell then use adverts.ie, not here! Items put up for sale will result in the advert being removed and the user getting banned." - K.Bannon ( moderator )

I then noticed a thread about a garage whom I'd taken to court for damaging my car. I duly posted a synopsis of their 'customer services'. The same K.Bannon swiftly removed my post. When I asked him why, he suggested that my facts - based post could give rise to 'libel' and that it was irrelevant to the original post in the thread ( like the 10 responses about the same garage which were alternately plugging it / a car they had for sale, but none of which were removed ). I questioned why my post wasn't simply edited instead of entirely deleted. I got no answer to that.

A quick read back through the thread determined that a lot of the posters were friendly with the garage in question, and the moderator. The moderator simply wanted an excuse to delete my post. I am careful in how I write, and it is unlikely that my post was actionable, but that obviously wasn't the point.

All was fine ( sort of ) until KBannon decided to follow me around the threads, still obviously in a bit of a huff. This latterly arose in a thread about drink - driving. A bit of flaming, if you will. Basically the boys couldn't handle my views ( that the current drink - drive laws largely don't work in rural Ireland ) and instead began intentionally misrepresenting me as a drink - driver.

He also posted this helpful remark, which I congratulated him on, though pointing out that it was a bit childish coming from a moderator.

KBannon: "If you or anyone else finds it difficult to understand then maybe they are better off not drinking or smoking in order to preserve the few brain cells they have!"

- KBannon ( Forum Rules ) "* No personal attacks on other members"



Anan1 29/10/2009 12:38p.m. ( moderator who banned me )

Quoting me:

Reality check again! = allowing people one drink usually leads them to have more. Obvious!

Reply: "Not to me, i'm afraid."

... a little further along the thread:

Anan1 30/10/2009 14:50p.m.

"I'm not averse to a rake of pints myself, ... I had about a 1/2 bottle of wine in a friends house over a period of an hour or so, set off for home in the car"

Fascinating. In one post this moderator disagrees with me that allowing people to drink a little leads on to drinking more, then admits drinking half a bottle of wine and getting into his car. I rest my case.

I think it is a pity that Boards has gone the way it has, as it's a site which I used to admire greatly - until I began using it, that is. As a patriot I would like to see something Irish continue to do well. At some point, however, quality has to enter the frame. This means that moderators should be grown up enough to accept that some people might have views contrary to their own. I got banned for pointing out that 'drummerboy08' was talking "verbal diahorrea", which he was. Despite me repeatedly correcting him, he continued to suggest that I drink - drive. Me getting a bit annoyed at my character being intentionally slurred is apparently more serious than libel.

Libel? - yes, I found several examples. Like the 'public' part of 'public forum' the moderators at boards.ie also need to learn the definition of Libel. I know it, and aim to help them in this regard. Watch this space.

As for the 'Community Manager' Darragh Doyle, he simply posts excuses: http://johnmryan.com/technology/boards-ie-are-the-moderators-fair/

One of these days someone is going to take boards.ie to court, and excuses like "the moderators aren't paid" and "they can't notice everything" won't wash. The moderators are very alert on boards, it's just that they clearly watch the wrong things for the wrong reasons ( and don't understand what libel is ).

Regarding the obvious contempt for the posting public, they'd do well to remember all of the great websites of the past. Remember how X Y and Z once ruled the internet ... and now elicit the response "Who are they?". Life is traditionally short online. Boards don't understand it, and their community manager seems to think that if you say something positive often enough, it becomes true.

UPDATE! - My ban has increased from 1 week to a month!

Yes indeed. I sent a mildly derisory p.m. to the fool who banned me, and he obviously dropped his bag of doritos, fell over the mess that no doubt accompanies spending all day in front of the keyboard, and hit that button! Crestfallen I am! He's really teaching me! ( imagine whipping noises and screams )

Oh well, nothing for it but to entertain myself in a new game I've developed. It's called "Battle of the titans", and it's about finding the dimmest moderator on Boards.ie. Here's what I found so far.


Unkel ( regarding Hyundai Sonata car ) "The yanks love them. Wobbly boats that sit 4 400 pounders in comfort and never breaks down"

( I can't find anything mentioned in the Rules about racism, to be fair )

Hellrazer ( in reply to question "what other stuff are you selling Hellrazer?" ) "Well put it this way there's 220k. of stock "...

Rules: * No advertising - if you have something to sell then use adverts.ie, not here! Items put up for sale will result in the advert being removed and the user getting banned.

Eoin: "Exactly. now can everyone unbunch their panties and keep on topic"

(LOL!)

KBannon: "Posts that encourage driver to break the law e.g. telling people to make false motor tax declarations may result in either an infraction or banning. Similar punishment will be awarded to those who seek such advice"

...

Unkel: "doing 200 km/h on an empty motorway in good weather conditions is not necessarily dangerous" ( Thanked by kbannon, Anan1 )

Rules:　Well according to the other moderator, this is a banning offence - encouraging others to break the law!

Stark ( re above ) "Comparing doing 175km/hr on Donegeal roads to 200km/hr on an empty motorway? Apples and oranges. He shouldn't be relying on his own conceptions of what's "fast" when passing down sentence."

Rules: See previous

Unkel: "As the title says I don't obey the speed limit on empty motorways"

Rules: ... once again ...

This is the bit I like the most, out of all of their rules, but it's flouted so often - mainly by the moderators - that blogger.com would probably suffer a seizure if I posted all of the examples:

"Comment on the post not the poster.
Responding to someone's point with personal attacks, regardless of how "witty" you think they are, is not big or clever. It just comes across, at best, as being an ass and at worst a bully with a small doodah (we mean “mind” of course)."

I'm glad that they agree with me so, as this is why I got banned in the first place - I responded to the moderators and favoured posters doing exactly what this rule states should not be done. I agree with boards.ie that these moderators / posters are bullies with small doodah's.

Derision from Heroes and some good advice

Would that be my site or the lime green you put around everything?

Oh dear.

It looks like my post on 'Decisionsforheroes' a few months back didn't go down too well, judging by all of the Tweets out there and indeed how so many people have little else to do. As could be expected in Ireland, it got personal pretty quickly. I am a great believer in free speech, and critiques. Attacking people, on the other hand, is immature.

There seemed to be a lot of bitching going on about my site after that post, but all I can say is "thank you" for the increase in traffic to my site. Any time, lads. Of course it might have been more constructive to ask me what my views were, and rubbish them if the idea was brilliant and I was missing something. Nope. Instead comments directed at myself.

According to 'Bohoe' I was sore 'looser'. Now Bohoe, I didn't 'loose' anything. Best of luck with your English studies though. It quickly became apparent to me that most of the Judges in the competition I mentioned knew each other, and in some cases the winning entrant. If I wanted to be personal about things, I could have mentioned that in my original post.

The best advice of all came from Alan O'Rourke. Like all the other friends of the winning entrant, who had a little groupie hug over me, he suggested that my website was terrible. He then seemed surprised when I emailed him to ask what he didn't like. He eventually concluded that he didn't know.

As a great believer in one good turn deserving another, I'll critique his site in return. It's actually very good, bar the most important page of all - the homepage. I've added a few notes about the basics of design:


Admittedly my own site needs some polishing, but to be honest most of those who derided it either a) don't have a website, or b) have a website that looks dynamic and innovative in a highly generic way, or as above missed the basics. Regarding my own homepage, I've followed one rule, and that is that colours in the centre draw the eye in and not out:


Other than the silly personal remarks, I will concede that the overall look of my site needs improving. I don't however, see the point in becoming a web programmer if people can not look at the site without shades. Swings and roundabouts, I'd say. Best to start off with the basics and get it right, even if it takes longer ( personally I'm in it for the long haul )

Oh no! Just as I was about to move on I notice this, from Conor O'Neill! :There was only one thing to do ( since he wouldn't reply to any of my emails ) and that was to go and check out his consumer ratings website and see if the content was more radical than the concept.

Conor O'Neill's site:

It's nice actually, albeit very reminiscent of Ebay and the mild colour banditry around the edges once more. The only thing is, the boxes are a bit big really, aren't they? Why the fear of white around the edges? This is like Ebay for the visually impaired!

Incidentally, apart from posting personal remarks and bad comments about my site which he can't / won't back up, our Conor was also one of the judges on the I.Q. Prize competition which got them all so upset in the first place. Apart from referring to some of the entrants as 'lunatics', further down the blog we find some more of Conor's wisdom:


Pardon me for pointing this out, but in any meaningful sense "Anyone can enter" (but) "... is vital" seem like a pretty obvious contradiction. Bearing this in mind, maybe he just thought that he saw errors on my site ;)

Basically, what I've discovered is a nasty clique who can't take criticism. The future looks bright? Hehe ... maybe in a very 'Irish' way. As for my own site, it got good reviews from someone who runs a Tech. site ranked at 4,000th. in the World, amongst others. That'll do me fine for the moment, but of course there's always work to do. Just to put that in perspective, Boards.ie is hovering around 5,000th. at the moment.

Oh, and the fact that BBC featured my designwork to expert praise is another thing. I could go on and on, but I've been there and done it in terms of design. Nothing to prove, you see. Regarding the personal campaign in a teacup spoon I'd suggest that if those who spend all day on twitter posting innane comments actually do some work, they might reach their goal of being the best in their respective fields. I won't hold my breath though.

Bluescreen hell and hope ( Google O.S. )

My computer got attacked by something lately - I'm not sure what really, but it involved a lot of blue screens and 'STOP 0x0000007B' messages. Entirely peeved, I decided to format my hard drive, having backed up everything beforehand, which I do on a regular basis anyway ( the machine got progressively slower over time, and I sensed the worst - backing up is good advice which can not be repeated too often )

I then embarked on a reinstallation nightmare. Windows setup was giving me various bluescreens. Having confirmed the disk were not surface - damaged or dirty, it took forever to get to the root cause of the problem - well, sort of get to the root of it. Having strained the grey matter I remembered unistalling Pinnacle products before the roof fell in. I answered 'yes' to 'remove all files' even if they were shared. Either it's a coincidence, or that stuffed my machine.

Having re-written the bootsector, performed LLF on the drive, and run various variations of FDISK and so on, I discovered why windows wouldn't reinstall. I was using an OEM Windows XP home disk, trying to use the XP Professional Uprgrade, and the thing was hanging. There was only one thing for it: a slipstream disk. Thankfully I had another machine connected to the net, and found the instructions without any trouble.

Basically a slipstream disk copies over the files which an OEM disk lacks. I was able, by following the instructions carefully, to combine the XP pro with Home, and throw in SP-2 for good measure - all on the one disk. I can't remember how many times I've had to go to these lengths over Windows. It took almost a week to get my computer up and running again, and my patience was at nil for a finish. It looks like the days of paying a wad for an O.S. have - praise to the Lord - finally come to an end though.

Within the next few months, Google O.S. will be making an appearance. From what I can gather, firstly on Notebooks / Netbooks / PDA's, but later on we'll be getting it on all forms of computer. About time, and hats off to Google yet again. It's much more than an O.S. though, it's more of a way of life. Not a new way of life, but rather one we live already but which MS is still too dumb to recognise.

For example, video player? - what video player?! Google are betting on us not needing a video player fundamental to the O.S., because most people watch streamed video online. Beautifully logical. Get ready for a super - Linux. I can't wait! No matter if it starts off wobbly ( there's no evidence it will, based on the excellent Chrome ) but besides, there's plenty of room for getting it wrong at the start. If Google do their worst, the Beta will be no worse than the final product of MS with all the patches, sellotape and plastic ties that help it barely chug and fart along. Oh, and it won't cost the laughable €392 I was quoted when XP came out. No, it will be FREE!

The future suddenly looks a lot brighter!

ClickandPay.com / NetObjects - which is worse?

Well, back in July I decided to purchase some software from NetObjects. They were in discounting form and I had money - never a good combination. The last time I bought from them - 2008 - I simply did a Bank Transfer from me to them with no problems - invoice was emailed to me, and despite not great communication otherwise ( none in fact ) the product arrived within a few weeks. As it came from Germany I was a little bit peeved ( the Germans are pretty fast ) but a few weeks was okay. Just about.

It's a slightly different story this time. On the 27th. of July I went on their site to make my purchase. When it came to 'Checkout' time there was no sign of 'Bank Transfer' ( which is still advertised on their site ) but rather 'ClickandBuy'. I had no choice but to opt for it. Unbecknownst to me, I was signing up for a whole different service ( more about 'service' later ) which had nothing to do with NetObjects. To make matters worse, clickandbuy are moneygrabbing bastards by all accounts. Thanks NetObjects.

Following a long process of looking at blank 'help' pages on ClickandBuy.com, I finally managed to discover that my payment is just sitting there, doing nothing. I then went on Google to check out 'ClickandBuy'. By all accounts it's a "service" ( London - based ) which lies somewhere between a virus and a 419 scam.

I'm thoroughly disgusted at NetObjects for seeing their customers as a cynical opportunity, and more than disgusted that 'ClickandBuy' have my account details thanks to NetObjects. So much for trust. Take a look at the links below and decide if these are the sort of shisters who you'd be happy giving your details to! Oh, and I've gone completely off NetObjects too. I no longer want anything to do with a company that dupes customers like that: a half - decent company should not take advantage of customers.

I've demanded a full refund and will be in touch with my Bank about ClickandBuy.

http://www.ripoffreport.com/ClickandBuy/Internet-Services/ClickandBuy-clickandbuy-scam-7C4PM.htm

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081113045549AAvAN3G

Windows 98, MMX and driver problems ... ahh, the good old days!

I recently dug out an old Dell laptop, namely because Windows XP 'compatibiltiy mode' doesn't work with quite a number of my really old games, Like Destruction Derby 2 ( 1996 ). The problem is rarely graphics: quite a number of games will run, but with no sound. Things have moved on a bit from 'MIDI' 'WAV' and 'AWE32' ... not to mention 'Roland'! In other words, I stretched 'backward compatibility' to breaking point.

The old Dell in question is a 1997 Latitude XPi CD ... that's right, it has a CD-ROM drive, maw! It also has something I really like ... a floppy drive! Out came the 2 gb. drive and in went my 100 gb. Fine but runs a bit hot. Specs otherwise are: 64 mb. RAM ( + 16 onboard ) Pentium 166 MMX processor, Neomagic graphics ... and ESS sound.

The sound is proving to be a bit of a problem though. The Dell website, surprisingly, has nearly every driver still on it for this machine ... except the correct sound driver. I set up the machine with Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000 Professional on a dual - boot system. No sound in either case. It turns out that the driver on both disks is slightly different from the Dell driver, and dell no longer have the file available ... ESS1887 to be precise.

I have to say I'm impressed with the catalogue of files available via the Dell support website though. I was less impressed with Microsoft. I try to like Microsoft. I watch videos of Microsoft's history on Youtube and get a warm feeling all over. Then something happens and I just go back to hating them! This was to be one such time.

True to form, Windows 98SE wouldn't shut down. Then I remembered the 'shutdown assistant', a little patch for this pretty major flaw which was issued by Microsoft. Did I find it on Microsoft's website? - no way! Now that REALLY annoys me. To put it simply, Dell don't have a driver I want. No problem, that's tough ( but as already mentioned they still have a lot of files - 12 years on ).

In the case of Microsoft, here they made a complete balls of something. That's different. If they make a balls of something, the patch ( shutdown ) should be available for as long as it's likely that someone will need it. If they don't want to provide it, they should quit stopping others from providing it. Microsoft are incredibly protectionist. Even the old Windows 3.11 disks are not legally available for download. It's stupid. Who is going to make a fortune from Windows 3.11? Might it usurp Windows 7?

I eventually got the download so that I could shut down Windows 98SE from a person who, presumably, was 'illegally' hosting it. My God, how I really do hate Microsoft! Whatever about Windows 3.11, which is of course their property, not making a fix available for something bought is purely contemptible. I must get my linux user manual out again ... and get to like it.

All in all, I'm enjoying my little step back in time. Like many who get misty - eyed about computing of long ago however, I had forgotten how frustrating searching for drivers can be ... and making floppy disk bootdisks!

Adverts.ie - I'd buy something if I could

I've been looking out for a Blackberry Storm for quite some time now ... or at least since Vodafone released it last year with a 12 month contract and €109 price ( it's free in the U.K. / better contract terms ) Needless to say, at the time I wasn't interested under these 'terms'. Vodafone do what they like, and the 'Telecommunications' "watchdog" in Ireland has nothing to do with phone charges!

I was perusing Adverts.ie when I came across a nice example at a reasonable price. Tried to log in to Adverts.ie and discovered that I could not. I then entered the details of another account ( set up in frustration some time ago as a test, resulting from the same 'You do not have permission' error ) but again, no go.

On this second attempt I was redirected to sister site 'Boards.ie' where - guess what - I was told that I did "not have permission" to post a reply to the advertisement. For the third time in a week, I gave up. I like Boards.ie / Adverts.ie but they are not much use if users can not log in. Is it me? - well, I don't think so. I log on to at least 6 forums and never have a problem with 'enabling cookies' or anything else - it just logs me in instead of hopping from site to site with the same error message.

Copyright insanity

Today I logged on to Youtube to check a video that I had added to my favourites list. To my utter amazement, I got a red bar at the top of the screen telling me that due to copyright issues I needed to sod off, basically. At first I thought that my account had been suspended, but on further examination no, it seems to be yet another "highly unusual" youtube-ism.

This can mean either of two things: 1/ it's a new bug in 2.0 channels, or 2/ they're serious. I certainly hope it's the former. For quite a while I've felt that Youtube have been bowing to the more insane elements of the copyright brigade. Insane copyright enforcement as we know it began with Walt Disney.

One does not have to look very far to find evidence. Yes, the suits at Walt Disney are very active indeed, engaging in such petty behaviour as threatening legal action against preschool creches. Only a couple of years ago a local creche was threatened over showing a Walt Disney video to under - 5's. I also recall in the recent past a school's Christmas play revolving around 'Snow white and the seven dwarfs' ( man, is that politically correct?! ) having to be abandoned due to the same copyright jackboot approach.

Now I can well understand what copyright is all about, and God knows, Ireland is a copyright theft zone at the best of times. There are people, regardless of how much money they have, who will never pay for something if they can help it. We live in a culture where - and it has to be said the internet has not helped - intellectual property is seen as being there for the taking. The most startling example is probably Music.



I remember when the big debate was about putting a levy on blank Cassette tapes ( technically speaking, recording from the radio is illegal ). In fact our own U2 were among the biggest promoters of this levy idea. The arguement, however, is twofold. For far too long the music industry has been ripping people off, and the oft - wheeled out example of the needy artist in justifying this is a bogus one ( the music industry takes them for a ride too, regardless )

The simple fact of the matter is that Copyright, to my mind anyway, is to stop people who can afford something from stealing it. It should not be for protecting markets to a greater than fair financial end, nor should it be about keeping poorer people who can not afford something ignorant. Both instances are called 'Greed' not 'Copyright'.

Youtube have, over the past number of months, been actively disabling sound on the most grainey rubbish - quality recordings due to copyright. It makes no sense. If they had any sense they would get together properly with all concerned, and put out a 30 minute quality preview of something which is 90 minutes, as per 'journeymanpictures' ( great channel ). This would whet people's appetite and make them feel like buying it. What seems to have happened is that Youtube and the movie / music industry are at the point of mild flirting at best.

Another daft idea is that of "algorithmically demoting" videos which contain profanity. The only problem for youtube is that these videos are consistently at the top of the most viewed / favourited / commented, and making a most viewed video not most viewed is profoundly dishonest. It either is or isn't. The youtube partner progam is practically impossible to join, as everything is a copyright infringement in youtube's ultra - vague 'rulebook'. Last but not least, they are promoting some truly rubbish videos from some of those who do succeed in becoming partners, like a girl showing eveyone her apartment.

As we all know - though I wonder if youtube have been told - things move fast in the tech. industry. Apple twigged it and came up with 'itunes'. This latest youtube annoyance is one of many ( see my previous post ). If they don't get their act together and come up with something workable soon, they will drown. Youtube has already been around for 4 years - a very long time in the internet context. That should mean that they have another 18 - 24 months left, if the rise and fall of the vast majority of previous ventures is anything to go by.

In short, common sense has to prevail. Preventative measures never work, but working with people and giving them options at a FAIR price does. I often wonder if, in two years time, I will be sitting here (no doubt a little more grey) and watching a new youtube type service from Asia or India, after the original youtube had tied itself in knots and lost all credibility. It is already three quarters there.

IQPrize winner: Decisions for what?

Alas the time has come and gone ... as per my previous post I didn't win the €10k. prize in this competition run by a Dublin I.T. consultancy firm. The whole idea, just to re-cap, was that someone would forward an idea which would "kick start the economy".

The winning idea, 'Decisions for Heroes', amounts to glorified Excel. It has innovations, but no one thing that I can see which is truly outstanding ( other than the fact that it's a noble thing to do - probably not lost on the founder when entering the competition ) Even the name is a rip - off of 'Help for Heroes', a British charity founded in 2007.

Of the other 8 shortlisted 'ideas' we had 'Our Writers Bloc'. This idea cuts out the middleman in online publishing: the writer publishes via this site, and readers pay to read it. Only one problem: IDG launched exactly the same thing a couple of years ago ( blurb.com).

Myhotel.ie was apparently an amazing way to book hotels, but no detail was given so I will have to fall back on the default position of assuming it's more of the same. The other entries comprised of stockmarket investing online, mental games for the mentally challenged, paperless bills filing service, and 'Plink'.

The idea behind Plink is a bit confusing, but it does sound exciting. It has to do with mashups, and garnering information to link to, for example, a photograph taken ( pertaining to the subject ). Sounds very interesting, but would probably cost a fortune to develop, not to mention the possibility of legal action from Plink.com - a social networking site parked since 2006. It always pays to check these things!

In a nutshell, as I said before judges in some of these competitions set out with a rough idea of what they want before anyone even enters. I also suspect that this competition had more to do with personalities and gloss than real ideas. I didn't think that I had the best idea - I didn't think I would win either to be honest - but I would have fancied my chances against a data entry product which relies on the goodwill of users to build a database!

I was keen on the idea of some feedback on my site - www.deadpc.net - from the people who ran the competition, but now I'm not so keen. I got an email telling me to register by the 24th. if I wanted 15 minutes of opinion. As an added bonus, the founder of 'Decisions for Heroes' will also be on hand to give advice. I feel that taking advice from someone who can't think of an original name is beneath me.

YouTube changing the rules ... again

Youtube has come a long way since 2005, and is now facing that mid - life crises which recently hit Facebook: reinventing itself, namely. Money. In the case of Facebook they got a serious rap on the knuckles for wanting to hold on to commercially valuable personal information pertaining to users, and backed down. In the case of Youtube, it's more in - your - face, or perhaps, in you 'interface'.

These new 2.0 'Beta' channels are crap. Hopefully the delay in implementing them is a reflection of some serious second - thoughts on the part of Youtube ... I really hope so. Lots of people have lots of different complaints, but as someone who is not heavy into the 'Director' end of Youtube I have to say there's one really annoying aspect to the whole thing which jumps out straight away.

Once upon a time, you hit on a user and see that they have nothing but favourites. No problem. With these new 'Beta' channels being forced on everyone, we now have the latest 'favourite' being given the same prominence as someone having uploaded a video of their own. You see video first, favourite second as opposed to favourite first and video second. This dilutes the creativity of getting off your ass and making a video.

I accept that youtube has to make money: no such thing as a free lunch and all of that. What I don't understand is why they seemingly don't understand phased development. Roll things out gradually, get a consensus, and mould it into a commercially viable system rather than using the sledgehammer approach. While Youtube has to make money, they also need to keep an eye on the fact that without users, there's no advertising revenue - in other words, money.

This is not the first Youtube weirdness cloudburst. I recently put together a 16 minute video. I thought it would be fine to upload, because I had taken a look and saw videos up to 30 minutes on there. Not so. Under the "Grandfather rule" Youtubers who joined before a certain date can upload long videos, but more recent Youtubers can't for copyright infringement reasons. Therefore all older Youtube users do not abuse copyright, and new ones do. Makes sense ... on second thoughts, no it doesn't.

It strikes me that Youtube, in the middle of it's arrogance, would do well to remember it's a fad. It will pass. In the late 1990's, Napster ruled the world. Ask most kids now what Napster is, and they'll probably shrug and say something like "an online retailer of nappies?" Remember that, youtube!

IQPrize shortlist announced - I'm not on it!

Well, the shortlist for the 'IQPrize' ( an Irish internet company promoting innovative start ups with €10,000 prize money ) has recently been announced. My site didn't make the cut. I didn't start out my site to win it, and I won't be reviewing my options or anything in light of my 'failure'.

I always knew it was going to be an uphill struggle to qualify for the shortlist anyway. 8 entrants out of 249 were chosen - the original "approximately 10" number was downgraded to 8, though they go on to say that the shortlist could have been filled "4 or 5 times over". Makes you wonder why they chose 8 then!

I have a theory about these things. Years ago I did a film course. It was great fun, though I also met some of the most immature people ever on it. I took it seriously though, and went out and bought a professional camera - off RTE, the national Broadcaster, no less. The next thing was to find someone to collaborate with and make a film.

I soon discovered that everyone wanted to make a pop music video, get "really really famous" and "make loads of money". The responses invariably were "your ideas are boring, I'm not interested", put nicely. No one would work with me. The ideas weren't boring at all, but the processes they involved were. But guess what? - that's creativity! Regardless of whether you act, paint, design web pages or make films, it's 90% boring 'behind the scenes' work, 10% fun and glamour.

I had a notion that these IQPrize people were out with a predetermined mindset. I was right. The 8 shortlisted entries contain 3 which I would consider worthy, and one which is really excellent. The rest are either generic - sounding, and / or would cost a fortune to set up. Only one entrant has seemingly gone to the trouble of creating a functioning website, with a few pages. My website already has over 200 pages - I'd consider that a type of 'innovation' in itself.

I never expected to win the competition, but I did think that I had a good shot at making the shortlist. My computers museum is the first in Ireland, a pretty sad reflection of our supposed 'lead' in the World of technology for the past couple of decades. The term 'innovative' to me means creating the enviornment for others to go on and satisfy their interests ( I'm thinking youth ) thereby creating great things, as much as anything. Just because my site does not wear lycra knickers does not mean it is no good, to be blunt!

All in all, it was a good experience to actually have to sit down and define what I am doing, and what way I want to grow my vintage computers website. Strangely, out of those 249 entrants I was one of only 2 people to enter online! Does that make sense? - an I.T. company looking for I.T. ideas and two people apply via the internet?

Here's to keeping 'rockin' and 'rollin' with my site. It may not be sexy enough for these guys, but it'll be around next year, and the year after that.

IQ Prize

It's been a hectic couple of weeks. I happened to hear about a competition being run by iqcontent, an Irish web company, and decided to enter. The lure? - 10,000 euro prize for the best internet startup idea. Entering involved answering about 7 key questions and putting together a 5 page business plan. Though the competition is now closed, I get the impression that it might by an annual event. The site is: http://www.iqprize.ie

This is just what we need in Ireland right now. If I see one more bad re-hash of Carzone.ie or cbg.ie I will go mad - sites offering to sell your second hand car. How many have sold so far this year? 9? Though 10k. for 5 pages sounds easy ( and in a way is ) nothing can add or subtract from one thing: the core idea and the drive to do something with it.

As you might have guessed, I entered. I entered my site, the namesake of this blog, www.deadpc.net. I have no idea if I will win or not, but no matter. I love what I do and it was good to get my brain into gear, even if the syncromesh slipped here and there! Seriously, sitting down with a list of 7 points and writing something that makes sense over a maximum of 5 pages is not that easy.

I also put together a PowerPoint presentation, just in case I manage to get shortlisted. I'd forgotten how much fun and how powerful PowerPoint actually is. It's one of the most fun and rewarding programs out there in my opinion, yet it gets litte press. Maybe it needs to commit homocide on Excel and Access or something in a bid to raise it's profile.

Well, that's that. Brain excercise for a change, rediscovering PowerPoint after years, and now all that remains is to wait.

Internet Exporer 8 - total rubbish

I must be one of the few people left in the World who writes a heading like that. To normal people it is abbreviated to 'IE8', but there you go. Whatever to call it, I am far from impressed. This latest incarnation of Explorer has left me completely dumbfounded.

I downloaded IE8 a couple of weeks ago, and for one reason mainly: it's current. I have a longstanding fear of anything Microsoft not being bang 'up to the minute' for security vunerability reasons. Download went fine, and so did installation.

The problems began when I started using it. It will not start up without crashing once, and man, it truly crawls when it does decide to work. Microsoft have added one signifigant new feature too: when selecting something from the drop - down list of visited web addresses, you accidentally delete it off the list.

This seems to happen readily with everything except - strangely - Microsoft's own Hotmail. It's like MS took a good look at IE and went "so what can we do to improve it? - I know, let's disimprove it!". Explorer 7 was ( mostly ) fine, but this is a landfill incarnation of the browser.

I find myself using Firefox more and more these days, and suddenly Google Chrome - which I have to admit I liked already - is beginning to look a whole lot better. From my experience of the whole 'MSN Live' thing, I think Microsoft have given up altogether.

Never - ending innane websites

Okay, my website ( www.deadpc.net ) is never going to rival Ebay or YouTube, I accept that. There are, however, two things I can honestly say. Firstly, I take my website very seriously, and secondly, I work very hard at it. In other words, I do my best.

It seemed, in the run - up to the dot com bust of 2000, that every Tom Dick and Harry ( and Harriet ) was on the internet. I'm thinking of the plethora of truly vomit - inducing 'personal pages' in particular. You know the ones: "Hi I'm Jim and this is my beautiful wife, my 2.2 children and oh, this is my Ford Focus".

For some reason an awful lot of people seemed to think that the World was interested in their sad lives to the point of seeing pictures of an ordinary man, an ordinary woman, and countless pictures of ordinary cars and houses along with the occassional resume, just in case employers might have nothing to do but surf for lost ordinary people on the web.

Thank God for Facebook et al, for they have vacuumed most of these idiots off the main cyberspace. If you want pornographic boredom, you now know where to go and Facebook serves it well. Thank God for so much less of these 'Sites' that always began with "thanks for dropping by" ( the corniest line since "Do you come here often?" ) and "check back soon for updates" ( always accompanied by: 'last updated 12th. March 1998' or something like that ).

Now that the Web has died and has come back, the Irish experience would dictate that it is in danger of becoming a hoare again. Worried about mumps? - no problem. Just visit mumps.ie. We now have websites for events, websites for developments of new houses, websites for every kind of crazy non - reason you could shake a stick at. Are these the new 'personal page' rubbish of the future? - I think so.

What will happen when mumps become less sexy, when the developments of badly built and hard to sell houses are falling apart because the economy is in the toilet? What, more specifically, will happen to the joke websites? It seems everyone is registering names, regardless of how long or obscure and putting up largely pathetic - looking 'websites'.

I can only hope that Google develop their search - engine to cope with this. Otherwise, the web will be full of deadwood in a few years' time. I guess in a way the success of the web has come home to roost - and not for the first time. Victim of it's own success, and all that.

Sterling Dollar and Euro parity?

I recently tried to upgrade NetObjects Fusion - the web design software - from version 10 to 11. All went smoothly, I went to all the trouble of filling out my details on their online order form, thinking that at $109 it was reasonable value. It was reasonable, until I discovered that my order updated itself to display 109 euro. Hang on a minute! $109 is 86 euro at the time of writing. NetObjects want me to pay 23 euro more for no particular reason? ... I don't think so. I think I will pass on the upgrade at this point in time.

They are not the only ones at it: enter Pinnacle, who not only tried to do the very same thing ( Sterling in their case - yes same numbers, different currency ), but also seem to have a dumb terminal in charge of customer service. Yes, I emailed them asking, basically, "wtf" in a nice way. I have since gotten about 4 emails from them telling me how to complete my order, but none actually addressing my query.

One would think that the World was booming and there was no recession. Certainly the above companies do not seem very eager to sell. I'll be holding on to my money for now ... widget ability and editing in HD respectively are not that important to me right now. I just like to keep all my software up to date. I'd rather give that 23 euro to my local animal sanctuary than NetObjects / Pinnacle though. Paying extra for no reason is not a reason. I am surprised that they get away with it - they shouldn't.

The other day I was thinking about the beginnings of mainstream computing ... brought on no doubt by my 'rediscovery' of such classic games as SWIV - 3D, Carmageddon, DOOM and Quake. My work on the Website necessitated the dusting off of these games. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it :-)

We have now had computers in the mainstream for what, 20 years? Still, in all of that time, one word sticks out a mile: "incompatibility". Take for example a recent one: RSS feeds. Six or seven different standards. One group goes working on it, part of the group reckons it has the goods on the technology, so what do they do? - yes, fragment.

Often times greed is behind lack of compatibility / standards everywhere. How many true standards are there in computing? - not many. Perhaps the web itself, at the core level, but before long you realise that that too is riddled with glitches as soon as you pass the basics.

My work this past 6 months or so on my various websites has always been like taking a sledgehammer to square pegs, trying to fit them into round holes. Many things have been promised with the advent of Web 2.0. I will need some convincing for all of the above reasons.

Bloatware - will it ever end?!

I'm sitting here trying to install Nero Express disc - burning software, which came with my LG CD / DVD Multiwriter. First off, I have to install 'SecureDisc viewer' before I can do anything. I hate installing stuff just to do with one program, but hey, it's German and they do these things. I'm trying to avoid installing a huge suite, all I want to do is record CD's / DVD's. What it installed last time was huge! Is anything simple any more?

I just finished installing Pinnacle Studio 8, which comes on 2 CD's. It's 2004 vintage, and takes up all of about 386 mb. on the hard drive. It does everything well. A couple of years later I invested in Pinnacle Studio 9, then 10 ... I haven't bothered with 11 or the recently released 12. The reasons are simple. They are approximately 10 times bigger than Studio 8. Somehow Pinnacle managed to go from 400 meg to 4 gigabytes in a few years, with about 30% greater functionality, give or take.

In other words, it's got 10 times bigger but not 10 times better, or 10 times more functional. As I am reistalling everything ( my computer needed a clean 'sweep' of the drive ) every disc I pick up sends a shiver down my spine. Office 2003? Massive. What do I want to do? - write letters. I use it for nothing else. Why does it take 100's of megabytes to do what ran on a mid 1980's 8088 machine?

The more I look at all this bloated stuff, the more I am liking shareware. I plan to investigate it further, because I don't want my Hard drive crammed with programs designed so that I only ever use 5% of what they offer.

The continuing scandal that 'Ebay' has become

Back in October last year I purchased two items from an Ebay 'Power Seller' in the U.K. I duly sent off payment a few days later. In Ireland PayPal - an Ebay 'service' - falsely advertise that a debit card can be used on their accounts. Not so. If you don't have a credit card, no PayPal. Kind of makes you wonder "why bother with PayPal at all?"! For this reason I had to pay the old fashioned way - by post.

After a couple of weeks the seller opened an 'unpaid item' dispute. Following my assurance that the payment was sent, about a week further on I got suspicious. I decided to check with the post office ( I sent it registered ) and sure enough, I discover that it was delivered but no one was home to sign for it! The seller then goes "oh well, I was on holidays. It's not my problem".

Sensing that I was not happy, she then left two unpaid strikes on my account. I eventually got these removed. In the meantime this odd seller went and collected my payment and sent it back to me, unopened. I left her negative feedback, but ebay promptly removed it. Doesn't say much for Ebay does it?

Ebay was a great resource, but they've gone 'Hollywood' and will, I have no doubt, trip over their success. Remember a time when everything was 'go on Amazon'? Then Ebay got really big. People are just as likely to try Ebay as Amazon for books etc. now. I would not be the first one to say this, but Ebay are doing a shake - down of smaller buyers and sellers.

Along with the banning of 99p 'Buy it now' listings on the U.K. site, the change to feedback rules for sellers ( who can no longer leave negative feedback ) and the obvious contempt for smaller buyers will backfire.

Ebay should see themselves as having a duty to warn other buyers of someone who messed me about like this woman did by allowing negative feedback to stand. Clearly the only thing that's in their hearts is money.

In the future Ebay will become less and less relevant: Power - seller junkstores and high priced 'Buy it now' sellers will become the norm. And guess what? - that's the death of everything which made Ebay special. My exprience has been stomach - churning.

In fact it is a small step away from Ebay being complicit in fraudulent activity. They can wave goodbye to my custom. I have about 87 transactions completed in 2 years on it ( 100% positive feedback ). What Ebay are too dumb to notice is the value of the items I purchased: in almost every case, high.

Hurry up Google, and set up a better service!

Not so Cuil at all ...

I remembered listening to the radio one morning many months ago ... semi - conscious. I heard something that woke me up in hurry though: Cuil had apparently got more hits than Google! As they say, 'wtf?'!

I can only assume that this referenced the novelty factor, and I can also only assume that this lasted for about 90 seconds. Feeling adventurous as I have lately ( what with trying Google chrome and all that ) I decided to give Cuil, as we say in Ireland, " a lash " ( em, try it out ).

Such rubbish! My own website showed up as "account suspended"! Okay, there was a billing error and my site - www.deadpc.net - was offline for all of 6 days. That was about two months ago. Google returned the same result - up until about 7 weeks ago. Cuil has still not twigged that it is back!

My knowledge of Cuil is patchy, but it seems that they are ramping up the 'massive database' aspect of the thing. Well, the bottom line is that it doesn't work. According to Cuil, or at least during the short while I spent on it - I don't exist. That's funny, because Google returns about 20 results, the first one being a lesbo feminist giving out about me.

I like the excitement of something new and quirky, but I don't like the excitement of stuff that is new and quirky and doesn't work. What a flop!

Dell: Job losses in 2009

It happens every year, around this time ( or at least it has for the past few years ). Yes, Dell have announced - oh sorry, they haven't - that they are pulling out of Ireland. Actually the 'Wall Street Journal' set the ball rolling late last year, when they stated that Dell would wind up it's Irish operation in 2009.

Since then the Irish media / politicians / workers have been asking loads of questions but getting no answers. As for the politicians, some of our finest ( ie: not very fine ) even went to the trouble of going to Texas recently to talk to Dell. Whether they managed to fit in some pre - Christmas shopping or not can not be confirmed at this time.

Dell just keep saying the same thing publicly: "We constantly review our operations ( blah blah blah )". The latest interesting take on this non - episode episode is that 'senoir business figures' have come together in Limerick - the territory in which the main ( threatened / not threatened? ) plant is situated, and devised a plan for 'local outsourcing' to save the 2,000 jobs at stake ( or not at stake? ).

Now I am no whizz on outsourcing, but I fail to see how the nice peeps of Limerick in Ireland can compete with Warsaw - or Bangalore. In fact Dell have been telling us how much they love us for the past 2 years while they build a gi - normous plant in Poland. All that construction was just a coincidence! After all, Limerick is the "Jewel of our European Operations", according to Dell.

Who knows what's going on, or how this will pan out in the long run. One can only look to the past few years, and what has happened then. A lot of innuendo comes from Dell, the IDA ( Industrial Development Authority ) get involved, and the whole threat goes away. And it usually happens around Christmas. Let's hope that if the IDA strike another sweet deal that they will not tell us all "the terms are none of your business" like they did the last time.

No one screws quite like Dell!