Teknovis

I was going mad today trying to select a non-contiguous range in Microsoft Excel until I came across this tip:

Any range can be non-contiguous. All you do is, as you are selecting cells with the mouse, hold the Control key down. You will be able to select as many disjoint blocks of cells on one sheet as you like. All Excel ranges can only be on one sheet, so your non-contiguous blocks cannot be on separate sheets, and cannot span sheets.

It is taken from Excel’s Non-Contiguous Ranges.

Tags: Microsoft

I came across three interesting settings for my tabs in Firefox today:

• In previous versions new tabs were always added to the right hand side of the tab bar. I found this very useful, because if I read my tabs from left to right it was a sort of First-In, First-Out queue. However, I could not understand why the new tab location seemed to be a bit random in the latest version :| After some searching I found Why to embrace Firefox 3.6’s new-tab ethos, which explains the logic bethind the new tab location :o After reading this I decided to try it for a while longer, and at least I now know how to change this behaviour if I change my mind!
• You can enable a very nice graphical tab switcher as described in Enable Visual Tab Switcher in Firefox 3.6.
• You can enable thumbnail previews of tabs in Windows 7 as described in Unlock thumbnail previews for Firefox 3.6 on Windows 7.

Enjoy!

Tags: Firefox, Windows 7

During the weekend I read about Intune Networks and the Exemplar Network in Ireland’s next big thing – Govt commits extra €5m to Exemplar Network. It appears to be a very positive development, and I am delighted to see that it has such strong links to fourth level research.

The video Digital 21 – The Exemplar Network is worth looking at also. Unfortunately, I cannot embed it here :( It is funny to hear Eamon Ryan describe it as open source, and then realise that he does not actually know what that means :D

Tags: Exemplar Network, Intune Networks

As always, I am delighted to read about the Irish Government investing in third and fourth level education. I am a product of the education system, so I am very familiar with how important this is to the Irish economy.

Today’s announcement is that the Government will invest 296€ million over the next six years. For more details see Govt commits €296m to third level research. (The article appears to confuse third level and fourth level.)

This certainly is great news, but part of it deeply concerns me:

The money will be spent funding buildings and also directly on individual research projects.

The article then continues:

Overall the funding announced comprises €260m to be spent on infrastructure and almost €100m to spend directly on research projects.

I really hope that I am wrong, but this looks like a construction industry investment rather than a research investment! The Government (through NAMA) already owns more property in this country than anybody else. A lot of this property is commercial, and it is currently unused. This really makes me wonder who is the Government trying to support by creating more buildings!

It really is depressing, especially since this is not the first time that this has happened. For example, I wrote about this in Irish Government Research Investment. I have many friends currently involved in research in the Dublin Universities. There certainly is a shortage of money. However, I do not think that any of them would prioritise buildings above more people or equipment!

As an aside, I wonder how much of the previous 300€ million is being included in today’s announcement.

Tags: Ireland

I have experienced customised ring back tones a few times this year. This is where the mobile phone owner can select the ringtone, usually a popular song, that a caller hears while waiting for the mobile phone owner to answer. In my limited experience I thought it was amusing, but I would not go so far as wanting to use one.

Now Jinny has taken this a step further by enabling the mobile phone owner to select the advertisements that the caller will hear while waiting for the mobile phone to be answered! For more information about this read New Mobile Advertising Solution – Ring Back Tone Advertising – Stimulates Customer Interest in Jinny.

I can understand why this idea is appealing to both the mobile phone owner and to the operator. Indeed, it is actually a very good idea. However, as a caller I think this would drive me mad, or at least discourage me from calling somebody if I knew I had to listen to advertisements first!

I am not the only person thinking this according to Jinny Software unveils ringback tone advertising and The ‘Why Would You Want That?’ Award goes to….. The latter article is very critical! I guess that it is easy to know that Jinny (or its parent company) is not a member of the TM Forum!

Tags: Jinny, TM Forum

I read some interesting facts regarding the globally increasing demand for storage:

• Walmart adds a billion rows per minute to its database.
• YouTube contains as much data as all commercial television networks broadcast in a year.
• The Large Hadron Collider can generate terrabytes of data per second.

These facts are from a speech given by Jim Held, who is the Director of Terra-Scale computing in Intel.

Tags: Intel, Walmart, YouTube

A 24 hour flight powered exclusively using solar power – cool! See Solar-powered plane lands safely after 26-hour flight and Solar plane completes 24-hour flight.

Currently, the only gains that have been made in reducing the carbon costs of flight have been by increasing engine performance. I did read about an attempt involving Virgin Atlantic to mix aviation fuel with a small amount of bio-fuel, but I do not think that this ever went beyond the trial stage.

I wonder if this is the future of aviation!

Tags: Virgin

A while ago a friend told me about a company called SimpleGeo that develops a geodata infrastructure. It is a bit difficult to understand exactly what it does, but the blog is interesting, and the founders’ biographies are also worth a look.

The infrastructure itself appears to run on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Tags: Amazon, SimpleGeo

It is interesting to see that The Times is going to start charging readers for accessing its content online (see The Times charging for online content).

I wonder if it will succeed, because The Irish Times tried this before, and then abandoned it.

Tags: The Irish Times

Today is the first day of lower mobile phone roaming charges within the EU. See EU roaming charges fall further for more details.

This news is great for consumers, especially considering that it is now coming into holiday season. It is also good news for Policy and Charging Control solution providers :D