Teknovis

A friend of mine who works in UCD was trying to use the RTE Player on her laptop this week. (Yes, it was work related :o ) She had mixed results!

She could view the RTE Player web page, and any of the video content, using her wired connection in one building. However, she could only view the RTE Player web page, but not any of the video content, using her wireless connection in another building. The video panel would time out after playing the advertisement. That was annoying!

I did a quick search on the Internet, and the only related information that I could find was New RTE player also blocked?. However, this thread seems to be full of inaccuracies, as I normally find on Boards.ie :( In particular, the following statement appears to be incorrect:

The new RTE Player opens a direct connection to the RTE Server on tcp port 1935

fmsv1.rte.ie:1935

I can view the RTE Player video content perfectly from my current location, and I know that I am not allowed to access TCP Port 1935. I also am behind a proxy server, so that cannot be the cause either. My friend was able to access fmsv1.rte.ie, so obviously the site is not blocked.

However, I still do not know what is causing the problem :|

Tags: RTE, UCD

I am hearing and reading a lot about Bing this week! Microsoft seems to be putting a lot of resources behind it! I have not tried using it yet. This is mostly because I am happy with Google, so there is no real incentive for me to change my search engine. I previously had very bad experiences with Cuil. (I must write about them here :o )

Today somebody showed me the Maps feature of Bing. I thought that the interface seemed nice, and the satellite photos were good. It certainly is as good as Google Maps.

However, then I was shown the Bird’s Eye view! This really impressed me!

Bird's Eye view of Camp Nou in Bing Maps

Above you can see the Bird’s Eye view of Camp Nou (home of the 2009 Champions League winners).

Tags: Cuil, Google, Microsoft

I read an interesting idea for a B.Sc. in Web Development and Design in Web Development Should Be a Third Level Degree. This idea is particularly interesting because it comes from the Lead Software Developer in Boards.ie, and he previously started, but did not complete, the computing degree course in DCU.

Tags: Boards.ie, DCU

Last week Google announced Google Wave. It is interesting, although I am unsure how successful it will be in reality :o

To learn more about it read Could Google Wave Redefine Email and Web Communication? and Google Wave: A Complete Guide.

Tags: Google

I just discovered two great new ways of using the mouse wheel in Firefox besides scrolling!

• Clicking the mouse wheel while the cursor is over a link opens the link in a new tab! That is great, because I normally right click on links, and then select Open Link in New Tab.
• Clicking the mouse wheel while the cursor is over a tab will close that tab! This is very useful for me, because I changed the location of the close tab button as described in Browser.tabs.closeButtons.

For more Firefox mouse tips see Mouse tips!

Tags: Firefox

There will be local elections in Ireland in early June, so the candidates are currently trying to get as much publicity as possible. The Internet now forms a crucial part of most candidates’ campaigns. However, some candidates have more interesting online presences than others…

Emma Kiernan is an example of such a candidate. Her official web page contains the follow corporate looking photo:

Official Photo of Emma Kiernan

However, until recently Emma Kiernan also had a publicly accessible Facebook account. This contained some less formal photos, such as this one:

Facebook photo of Emma Kiernan

It is debatable which photo is more likely to gain votes for her, but I guess that it depends on which segment of voters she is trying to attract!

This story comes from Elections Thread. Alternatively, I could have posted this article as yet another story of people not realising the loss of privacy associated with Facebook. I expect more similar incidents in the future…

Tags: Facebook, Ireland

I installed OpenOffice (yes – I know it is officially called OpenOffice.org) on my main computer today. My main reason for wanting to try it is that it offers the potential of providing greater interoperability between my current Windows installation and my future Ubuntu installation. I also prefer the philosophy behind the OpenDocument format compared to the Office Open XML format.

The installation process was very straight-forward. However, there were two minor issues that annoyed me:

• The default dictionary in my installation was English (Eire). Unfortunately, this did not seem to suggest any corrections for my incorrectly spelt words :( Luckily English (UK) works perfectly :)
• A quick-launch module is loaded when the system is starting up by default. I hate these quick-launch applications that run permanently! Luckily, it can easily be disabled!

I will update my blog again after I have used it for a while!

Tags: OpenOffice, Ubuntu

One of the web sites that I visit most often using my PDA is Wikipedia.However, I only realised this week that there is an excellent version of the web site that is designed for mobile devices! The address is mobile.wikipedia.org.

m.wikipedia.org also works, but it gives an information rich web page that is more similar to the desktop version of the Wikipedia home page.

Tags: Mobile Phone, PDA, Wikipedia

I discovered some really great new ways to use new tabs and windows in Firefox this week!

I normally like to use a separate window for each web site or topic that I am viewing, and multiple tabs within each window. For example I might use one window for my web mail containing a tab for each web mail account, another window for my favourite news web site containing a tab for each story that I want to read, and another window for something that I am researching containing a tab for each relevant article.

However, sometimes I open tabs in the wrong window and I need to move them to another window. There are two ways of doing this depending on what is required:

• To copy an existing tab to a new window simply drag the tab to the New Window icon in the toolbar
• To copy an existing tab to an existing window drag the tab to the window’s Taskbar Button (without releasing the mouse), wait for the existing window to gain focus, and then drag the tab to the New Tab icon in the toolbar (or to the address bar to replace an existing tab)

I also came across a Firefox add-on called Tab To Window that allows users to move existing tabs to new windows. I think that the advantage of using the add-on is that the tab history is also transferred to the new window.

Tags: Firefox

I regularly use my PDA to access Vodafone‘s Irish website (www.vodafone.ie). I normally do this using a WiFi connection, and I often do it while I am abroad. The main reason I access the web site is to send free text messages.

However, accessing the website on my PDA is really awkward! Indeed, it is one of the worst web sites that I have ever experienced on my PDA! This is particularly surprising when you consider that Vodafone is in the mobile market!

My reasons for disliking the web site, and in particular the My Vodafone portal, are:

• The layout of the web pages is not suitable for narrow screens.
• Some of the web pages rely on JavaScript to provide the functionality.
• Images are used for navigation and functionality, and no alternatives are provided.
• Popups are used! Even on a desktop this is problematic since so many browsers now block popups!

Ideally, it would be nice if Vodafone developed a mobile version of its portal! This could be used as a value added service to drive data revenues!

Tags: Ireland, JavaScript, Vodafone, WiFi