Teknovis

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 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

I previously described how Google will photograph the streets of Dublin for Google Street View in Google Street View Comes to Ireland.

This morning I spotted one of the cars taking the photos in the north side of the city! I am hoping that I will be visible when the photos are eventually published online!

The car that was being used was a red hatch-back, and I think that it had Irish registration plates on it. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to take a photo of it using my PDA :(

Tags: Google, Ireland

The latest figures from the IEDR show that a total of 9,781 .ie domains were registered in the first quarter of 2009. Registrations in Q1 2009 were up by 28% compared to Q4 2008. The previous highest number of registrations was recorded in Q1 2008 with 9,092.

For the full story see Record number of new .ie domain registrations in Q1 2009.

I actually think that this is really impressive in the current economic climate!

Tags: Ireland

I read an interesting article about the Irish Government attempting to indirectly tax all computers with Internet access earlier this week. If this is true, I think that it would be a disastrous decision for Ireland!

The full article is New Irish Internet Tax?, and there is more discussion in New Irish Internet Tax?.

Tags: Ireland, Tax

I recently came across a useful Irish income tax calculator called taxcalc.eu.

It has been updated recently to reflect the continuously changing income tax rates. However, I cannot attest to its accuracy :o

Tags: Ireland, Tax

Tonight I had to use the eflow website for the first time. I am lucky that I do not have to ever suffer the M50! This is a motorway that almost circles the capital city (Dublin), and it is the busiest road in Ireland. There is a toll to pass one bridge on the motorway, and until recently you could pay the toll at the bridge using cash. I have never understood why you could not pay using your credit card like most of the EU! Recently a barrier free system was introduced, and infrequent travellers must now pay the toll online within 48 hours.

This morning some Spanish friends of mine arrived in Ireland. They rented a car at the airport, and the set-off for the west of Ireland. I was talking to them this evening by phone to determine if they had passed the toll bridge on the M50. I know that they travelled on the M50, because they told me that they were on a road that looked like a motorway except everybody was parked. Yup – that is the M50 :( However, they were not sure if they crossed the toll bridge.

As a precaution, I got the registration number of their rented car, and I visited the eflow web site. My expectation was that I should be able to enter the registration number, and that the website should tell me what was due. This however is not possible!

Indeed, the website is so bad that I can enter any random Irish registration number and pay for any small number of trips!

So I paid the toll in the end for the rented car, even though I am not sure if it was due or not.

Next I thought that I would phone eflow to try and confirm if the toll was due or not. Unfortunately, eflow only advertise a 1890 phone number. I detest these, as I describe in Say No To 1890!. The national number provided on SayNoTo1890 went to voicemail because it was after 17:00 when I phoned, even though the eflow website states that customer service is open until 23:00 :(

Tags: eflow, Ireland, SayNoTo1890

The Irish Government has finally decided to abandon the badly conceived eVoting system that it purchased several years ago!

Ireland uses a proportional representation system, and it is not uncommon for counting to take several days. Therefore, the eVoting system was intended to produce almost instant results. However, it was determined by an independent commission that the system did not provide a sufficiently secure and verifiable audit trial.

For more details about this story see Gormley scraps e-voting system, or the harshly written Ireland scraps evoting in favour of ‘stupid old pencils’.

I am delighted with this decision, because I think that the purchased eVoting system would have provided fewer verifiable audit facilities than the current paper based system. This is a pity, especially when you consider that a well specified system could have provided a significantly more verifiable audit trial. For example, every voter could have been supplied with a unique random identifier after he/she voted. The voter could then use this number online later to determine this his/her vote was correctly recorded, and contributed to the overall result.

Perhaps the best feature of the paper based voting system is that it provides very entertaining viewing :D

Tags: eVoting, Ireland

I read two interesting articles in the paper earlier this week about Irish people and shopping online.

The first article contains the results of a survey of 1,000 Irish people. The main finding was that Irish consumers spent an average of 1,700€ online in 2008, and that approximately a quarter of these people expect to spend more online in 2009. I certainly spent more than the average online in 2008, but I am probably in the majority who do not believe that this will increase in 2009 :o

Another interesting finding of the survey was that 90% of shoppers believe that they can save money by shopping online. I am certainly agree with this from my experience, and the recent increase in the Irish VAT rate has only exasperated the price differences!

The full article is Shoppers spent average €1,700 online in 2008.

The second article, Downturn speeding up revolution in the way we shop, argues that speed, adaptability, and agility, are the key business traits that will enable companies to survive the current economic downturn. The author then proposes that technology will be the key enabler of these business traits. It is interesting reading, and I share the author’s sentiments!

Tags: Ireland, Tax

I read earlier this week that a man was found guilty of a hit and run in which the victim ultimately died. The man did not deny that the car was involved in the incident, but he did claim that he sold the car before the incident occurred. Therefore, he claimed that it was the new, and unidentified, owner who was guilty of the hit and run.

However, the police presented evidence from a mobile phone company that the man’s mobile phone, and by extension the man, was in the area of the incident at the time of the incident. Indeed, they even knew that the man was on a call at the time of the incident. The full article is Man jailed for fatal Dublin hit and run, but you need to view the video in order to hear about the location based evidence.

I think that it is very interesting the way that mobile phone location information is being increasingly used to solve crime in Ireland.

The first investigation that highlighted the use of location information relating to a mobile phone was the disappearance and death of Robert Holohan. See Holohan search called off for the night for more information.

More recently, mobile phone evidence was used to successfully convict Joe O’Reilly of the murder of his wife. For more about this see Mobile record clashes with O’Reilly alibi and O’Reilly trial hears details of mobile calls. Indeed, in this case the location aspects of the mobile phone evidence were questioned in the unsucessful appeal case, as described in Joe O’Reilly’s appeal is dismissed.

Tags: Ireland, Mobile Phone, Police