Protecting your income from redundancy

Redundancy Protection is the new buzz word from the financial services industry brought out to help protect our future income incase we loose our jobs!

Now in this current climate this may be not a bad thing (for once from those guys) this kind of financial package is well worth it. Ok I do have a vested interest in that my Internet Development company in Ireland developed the site it is still well worth it. Because at the moment with so many people loosing their jobs this is becoming critical as with modern living people are max'd out on their savings and living on the edge with bulging debt all thanks to the financial institutions pushing us to borrow more and more.

If some one looses there job tomorrow they may be lucky and have some savings to tied them over till they find a new job, but in this market now the length of time it takes can exceed 6 months and at a lower rate of pay. In the meantime the living costs have not gone away. At least this will make things that bit easier to get by. The maximum cover they will pay out is €2,000 per month but for a normal sized family, that will atleast cover the monthly grocery expenses and general running costs of the home.

As they say on the site Redundancy Protection, it does it exactly what it says on the tin!!!



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Nokia Smart Phone Users Beware - Charged for calls and texts to 00491773628803

€2,784,000 or more per month disappearing from Nokia Smartphone users pockets? Check your bills to see if these numbers come up:

• 00491773628803

• 00491771787772

If they are you could be charged a lot of money... more one this here, on "

Nokia Smart Phone Users Beware - Charged for calls and texts to 00491773628803

Happy New Year and Blog Update

Ok have not been really active as of late but a new years resolution is to be more so. I hope to do atleast one post per week on this and possibly two. I have also launched my new blog mainly is mainly for Internet related events that will effect its future and growth. It will be from the stand point from me and my company Future Business an Internet development and services company based in Dublin. It can be found here The Past, Present, and Future of the Internet!

I have moved a few of the posts that were here to the new one as a start and will give a brief synopsis of each one in here as a Link back to the new one. SoI hope you guys like it and welcome any comments thoughts or help with it. anyone helps will also get a link and full credit in the blog roll.!

Once again Happy New Year and lets make 2009 a brilliant one, and don't forget that the Doomsayers on the global economy will come true if all of us run scared and don't buy goods. Prove them wrong and keep on spending (and saving!!!)

The best Italian Meal intown

Ok, I don't normally do this but my client Dan in La Caverna has been chasing me for ages to come down and have a dinner there. The only reason I did not was my old excuse of TIME. My god though I wish I found the time to go there before now because the food was just amazing. Not going to review the food cause I can't describe it well enough but for my mind this was the very best Italian restaurant I have been to in Dublin in a long time and the wine list complemented to food perfectly.

If you also want a treat then the Chocolate Brownie is something that once you have tasted you would drive through hordes of the most terrible creatures to get to.... Actually I am doing a homer right now thinking of them. So if you find yourself anywhere near Temple Bar forget fast food, over priced bar food or way over priced pretentious fancy restaurants and head down to La Caverna you will have beautiful food at great prices and in a lovely atmosphere... Dan make sure there is a Brownie for me tomorrow!!!!

Flood in the Dodder River

A tree broke near the river with all the rain we have been having over the last few months and then got stuck by the bridge which formed a natural damn. If you see in the background behind the Dropping Well pub there is a nice lake.... well that was the car park. Don't think I will be going to the Well tonight!

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Petrol Service Stations been misleading in their pricing

Over the years the price of Oil/GAS/diesel/Petrol has fluctuated greatly and when it was in the .50-.70cents per litre people did not complain nor notice much. But the pricing in the stations was never shown as .50 or .60 but more like 050.9 9 with the 9 been very small.

Now when I go to fill up my tank what used to be every 2 weeks, it is now almost every week. The price is €1.42.9. What the hell is the extra .9 Why can't they be honest and say its €1.43. Instead they know that when we drive up to the station we only see in the very big sign €1.42 and the .9 is small and we do not notice it or register the extra almost extra cent per litre. With over petrol stations in Ireland and the average of 18,000 litres of petrol and diesel per week that equals an additional hidden revenue of €9,199,008 (average of 18,000 litres x 52 x 1,092 stations). Hell place this money directly into research in our universities per year and we may see some results.

An excellent site for pricing across Ireland is Pumps.ie

Some previous posts on this topic:
The Price of Oil going to cause the next Global Recession
Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2

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Global Warming | Alternative Energy | recession | Oil
Stumble It!

Ask Michio Kaku. Is Quantum Real or Imaginary

Michio Kaku: Theoretical Physicist, Bestselling Author, Popularizer of Science: "Ask Michio Kaku"

Just in the process of finishing Michio's amazing book Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos but I have a few problems with it. Not with what he is saying or how he is saying it but more the community in general. Like giving absolutes like nothing travels faster than the speed of light.. now in general relativity that is correct, but when we go to the infantesimally small in the quantum world or for that matter to dark matter and dark energy which make up about 22% and 74% respectively and we know almost nearly nothing of either of these states can we truly say with absolute certainty that NOTHING TRAVELS FASTER THAN LIGHT.

When we know (kind of) that during the inflationary period of the creation of the universe that something must have travelled faster than light to create the size of the current universe.. if not we remodel a theory to fit the hypothesise that nothing travels faster than light.

Now I know that maybe I am being a simpleton here and I would imagine I am missing something key here but....

Another thing that I always wondered when it came to the Quantum world was the theory of observation that made things real or pop into existence (ok another gross simplification here). In essence again electrons defy our traditional world view (of the very large) in how they orbit around each other and their friends. Its like a frantic drunken drug induced dance, rather than the majestic almost preordained ballet of how the moons orbit the planets, planets orbit the star, solar systems orbit each other within the galaxy etc and etc.

Here again I see the electron (again I could and more than likely are wrong because of my gross misunderstanding of the field) as been something else (when mathematically positioned it is within an area of probabilities that it is by the window just beside the bit of dust I meant to clean away) so it is in now a nice static fixed location. But in the Quantum world they say it isn't because before I observed it, it could have been elsewhere. It was only because I saw this (figuratively speaking of course) that it was and is really there.

I think our view of the world with things in static position and when we assume that they are mathematically is wrong (again I add my lack of knowledge here could make this whole post a waste of my and your time and I am missing something because of it). I will hopefully over the next few days create an animation to show the following:
My little electron is sitting my the mote of dust happily static and in its fixed position (relativity speaking).
I take a step back and now the mote of dust and the electron are sitting in position on the window sill.
I take another step back and the window sill is sitting statically in my wall of my house fixed solidly in the ground.
Take another step back (and have to go above my house here but go with me on this) my house is sitting statically on the ground (no earth quake zone here thank whatever) immovable, fixed not moving... but hold on it is cause I am hovering fixed above my house and the house is moving with the rotation of the earth, infact so am I but now at a slightly different speed, I move further up and out and I see now that my house and the earth are moving at quite a speed within its non fixed position within time and space, the further out I move the more the electron that was sitting happily dancing in its location beside the mote of dust was always moving, but infact that bit more because when it is taken within its own position within time and space and the position of the observer is taken within their own everything is moving and nothing is fixed >:¬}.

So when Heisenberg came up with the uncertainty principle, that when trying to locate the position of a particle in a small region of space the momentum of the particle makes it almost impossible to precisely locate its position. Should not we also take into consideration the position of the observer and the actual position of the space we are trying to observe at the time, in order to attempt to precisely locate its position. But because we do not know the exact position of the universe and extrapolating that our own position within it how can we ever work out when taking all the other forces into account that can influence a particle its exact position. Can we not be happy with an approximation.. god my head hurts! >:¬}

Either way back to Michio Kaku's book Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos, read it, its brilliant and written in such away that even I can grasp the sniff of what he is saying, but it gives you a real true understanding on how small we really are and how wonderful the universe really is. It has everything a great book needs to have, excitement, knowledge, passion, romance, thrills (ok maybe not traditional romance but.... >:¬} buy it, borrow it steal it.. but what you must do is read it!

If Michio actually reads this post I only really said buy it!


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Vista - Very Instable System To Avoid! And Why I hate Sony And Microsoft

vista - Very Instable System To Avoid! & DESTROY MY SONY VGN-TZ21MN with Genuine Windows Vista® Business - LIVE ON THE INTERNET!

I was excited, very excited, I was getting my new beautiful laptop with

"Genuine Windows Vista® Business"

after Sony took three months to try and fix the last Blue Screen of death one I thought that this would be heaven. Now I know I work in the IT environment and I should have known better and looking back at myself I am wondering why I did not rip out Vista put in dual boot FreeBSd, and XP pro but I was excited I got my new baby (sorry love I do love you but it is a beautiful laptop).

I am ready, I turn it on, knowing full well that it will take a while to get everything installed running but what the hell its worth it. After one week I am frustrated, the camera stops working, I have taken off Office 2007 demo and installed my registered copy of 2003 (Still use OpenOffice.org but hell), it refuses now to run Office 2003. But during one of the boots Windows runs off grabs some more software for office and vista and hides it some where. (still can't find it all - more later). So I had to uninstall Office 2007 and almost all of its components (not too sure on some apps if they are office related or not) then reinstall Office 2003. Yeah it works now, except every time I start any ap in the family it asks me to accept license..... Its a real pain.

Ok if you are anything like me you are a blogger and social networker and have loads of friends all over the world on ICQ, SKYPE, MSN etc Now when I have these listed in my start up Windows Vista takes 19 minutes 34 seconds to complete its boot before I can start using it! Let me say that again 19 minutes!!!!!!. My Sinclar Spectrum ZX 80 was a dream compared to this. Oh the camera still didn't work at this stage. So I remove all of these from start up and it now boots up like a cheetah....ok I lie like a hobbled cheetah with its legs tied to a post, it now takes 9 minutes 48 seconds to boot. oohh Camera still doesn't work.

Then I thought I will wait till SP1 comes out and pass judgement maybe just maybe it will fix my problems, it did the Camera works and they gave me back an additional 32 seconds of my life. Yeaahhhhh.

Ok now why blame Sony for this after all they built a beautiful machine the hardware I have to say is excellent battery is amazing, screen faultless look beautiful. They shipped it with Vista for gods sake, then to make matters worse they only ship this with 1 gig of ram (for vista its the minimum requirement). Now we all know when Microsoft gives guidelines on their systems or delivery dates we double it and then triple it just for safety sake, so why did not Sony do the same, why not at the very least put a minimum of 2 gigs, at least it would start faster and close faster and not throw up the circular little icon on the screen when you type a word in notepad. Oh I ment to tell you the shut down procedure is over 10 minutes. Back to Sony Rant, the ship it with a peice of crap operating system then to really rub it in they only give ! gig of ram. But I blame myself I should have checked this, I should have read more docs, I think my brain bypassed the bit where it said that the maximum memory the Sony can take is a massive 2 gigs!!! So by SP2 this will be on its knees begging me to put it out of its misery.


But what next I hear the lonely voice reading this cry, well if I do not notice a major improvement by the end of June 2008 after a full 6 months of usage I am going to (bank balance depending) DESTROY MY SONY VGN-TZ21MN with Genuine Windows Vista® Business - Live onthe Internet here!

I would also recommend that no one buys a new laptop with Vista Business if it only comes with 1 gig of ram, it is a complete waste of time and money.

So if I am going to destroy my laptop I am going to be looking for creative ways, so does any oe have some cool suggestions?

Vaio : VGN-TZ21MN/N : Ireland


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Arthur C. Clarke, Dies at 90

It is a sad day for all science fiction fans, that earlier today Arthur C. Clarke, the worlds best Science Fiction Writer and futurologist died at the age of 90.

Rohan de Silva, an aide to Mr. Clarke, said the author died after experiencing breathing problems, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Clarke had post-polio syndrome for the last two decades and used a wheelchair.

I will pay homage to the man in later posts, but many sci-fi writers today stood on the giant shoulders of his, without him the genre would be not much more then pulp space opera rather than hard core sci-fi.

King of New York!

I Am the KING of NEW YORK!



Ok Which City will get my Gogzilla Treatment next? Paris, Miami, Rio, Venice Rome....

Websites and what are they for?

Over the years that I have been both a user and as someone making their living from the Internet, I have in seen many great, fabulous and innovative changes but in many ways the basic principle have remained the same.

It has never ceased to amaze me that there are so many websites out there that have spent a huge amount of time an money making themselves look cutting edge, beautiful, got the latest go faster stripe, but they have forgotten the fundamentals, the whole reason for their site in the first place. For people to come, purchase, read, inform, communicate or entertain themselves.

Content is king! Without good content people will not stay, without good content they will not buy, or interact positively with your site.

Ok, you have got some great content, so what is next, then its the structure of the site that is and has and should always be of equal importance. There is zero point investing time and money writing, gathering content, if your visitors can't find or read your site. The simplest and most effective sites on the internet are the ones that are not over designed, do not have the go faster flash stripes. The site owners believe that getting around the site, getting to the information and the call to action is the most important part of the whole site. Once the solid structure is in place then it is an easy thing to give the site a new "lick of paint" at a later stage.

But there has been so many site owners that have been bowled over on how they site looks by the designers, they have forgotten that once it gets into the big bad internet world that what they site looks like at presentation will NOT look like this in the real world. There are so many variables to consider in developing a site from a design point of view but there is still one simple basic principle (actually two): Form & Function!

Form & Function
This is where Form is How the site looks and Function, how the visitor gets around the site. With too much design in the Form, to many gadgets, flash, applets, Web 2.0 etc this limits the ability at present for the search engines and the visitors to find and view/interact with your site. The very FIRST thing any site owner or potential site owner should consider when they are developing their site is who are the target market for their site. It is amazing the amount of times that this has been forgotten. They hand this over to their technical or marketing department or to the kid in the back office who is "good with computers". No offense to any of these, I am considered by some to be a Techie (but probably not by my own techies in Future Business) I also studied Marketing, and most of my friends call me when they have computer problems (Hi Jim). But I also have 11 years of web 1.0 years (some of web 2.0) experience. I know that every one comes to the table with an agenda. The techie (depending on which flavour, Unix, Microsoft, Mac etc) will have their own point of view (left up to most unix heads we would still be surfing the net by command line only... plain txt for non techies hmm (actually not a bad idea sometimes get away from mouse strain thats for sure)), the marketing guys, well its Design design design in most cases. There is a huge .com graveyard full of Marketing led sites that died because no one could use the site, either getting around or did not have the right plugins or heaven forbid "I spend a fortune on these pictures so I want them BIG". Looking at your target market will tell you how to design your site. I have seen sites aimed at the blind riddled with flash. I am sorry but the blind can't read your site, but the can listen to it. Flash though is impossible for the text to speech plug ins to inturpet, so are image site maps without txt guidelines.

I am not railing against all the fancy flashy gadgets, there is a place for these, sites aimed at showing off high tech, design, gaming etc. These sites will be visited by many who will have the computers spec'd up to utilise these elements (but just remember that the search engines will not be able to spider them effectively.

Now that you have discovered the Form of your site, next is the Function. How are your visitors going to get around your site, for that matter and in some ways of equal importance is how are the search engines going to get around your site. If you remember to make your site Function as simple and as structured as possible then your site visitor will never get lost, and will be able to get to the information that they are looking for in as little as three to four clicks. The harder you make it for them to get to the information, then the faster is the likelihood that they will go elsewhere. Forget about trying to bombard them with all the other products and services that you sell. If the visitor wants to know they will look. They just want to get to the one they are looking for. Make it simple for them. Once they have found it then you can show them related products/services but do it only then. The major advantage of making the Function (navigation structure) of your site simple is it also lets the Search engine spiders or bots trawl through your site and its content with ease. They will then follow all your lovely links to your wonderful target structured content back to their respective warrens and make this information easily available to future prospective clients through the search engine results.

There are plenty of other elements to Search Engine Marketing and optimisation (Optimization for the US readers) but getting the fundamentals right makes the job of and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) expert that much bit easier. If you are lucky you may not even have to worry too much about this element of promoting your site.

Back to Content now. You have decided that you want the latest news on your site, and everyone is talking about Blogs as brilliant for visitors, hell through in a forum, chat room and a bulletin board as well on the site, might as well go the whole way right? WRONG!

If you go to the site and see the latest news was written in 2005 this doesn't paint a good picture to the visitor, the very same thing goes for the blog. I have seen so many sites with Blogs in them and the boss thought it was a brilliant idea and posted up loads of comments for the first week or so, then it drifted to every other week, then once a month and so on. Chat rooms, well they have been empty, forums with one or two posts, or even worse customers coming in asking questions and going unanswered, then the come back frustrated and post something nasty (seen this many times). If you are going to get involved with some of these elements of a site to build your online community then make sure some one within your organisation is responsible for its upkeep. Otherwise do not start them. If you really want a forum on your site ask first your clients and visitors would they use it, and remember that atleast 80% of the positive responses will come down to less then 20% of them actually doing so.

Once the Function of your site is decided, you may discover that you will have to tweak your form, but if you follow the check list below in that order then you should not have to worry to much as a lot of the information will become obvious.

Final site check list:

1. CONTENT
2. TARGET MARKET
   
3. FORM
4. FUNCTION
5. Then check back to your FORM
   

I hope that this helps you and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to email me or leave a comment.