Geneva, 10 September 2008. The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator at 10h28 this morning. This historic event marks a key moment in the transition from over two decades of preparation to a new era of scientific discovery.
Image via payzone.ie
I may have identified a possible security weakness with the 3V.ie (online customer account) service. This occurred recently while trying to retrieve my own 3V account details, this weakness would allow any person with prior knowledge that you have a 3V account coupled with your mobile phone number to access your 3V “Online Customer Service” browse your balance & purchase history etc. Here is a summary of user tasks taken from their website:
Online Customer Service
Sign on to the new Online Customer Service section of this 3V website using your email address and personal password to:
You can also find the balance and transaction history for any 3V Vouchers quickly by clicking on the View Transaction History link on the left hand side of this page.
My Pantone Huey monitor calibration system widget
I recently purchased this excellent monitor calibration tool called “huey” from PANTONE® the reason being I was constantly struggling with monitor colour and gamma etc. Having used the Windows based tool “Adobe Gamma” which works to some degree for general calibration but when it comes to editing photos and especially video there was a need to get something that would do the job better so that your colours can be accurate all the time.
Huey (a USB device) was a simple install from the disk and takes only 5 minutes to have it up and running. First it tests the ambient light in your room and adjusts, then it asks you to place the widget on your monitor (it has little suction pads underneath) and goes through a 2 minute process of colour testing, when all is done you replace the widget back in its holder and you can choose an option to have it constantly monitor the changing room light as day becomes night it will automatically adjust your setting seamlessly.
The results are great, my screen colours are now more true and crisp with no gamma haze or overtones there is a confidence knowing what I see is what it is. When it comes to printing this widget really works… no more reds printing as pink etc. what you see on screen will come out on print.
Would I recommend it? Yes for sure its reasonably cheap… I picked up mine on Ebay for about €55.00 including p+p. If you have been having trouble with colours and calibrating give this product a go, you wont be disappointed.
In the past few weeks I have upgraded my WordPress version from 2.3.1 to 2.3.3 and tonight to version 2.5 I must say everything went sweet!
I actually like the new interface it’s much more condensed and customizing the dashboard is simple. The option to upgrade newer plugin versions via FTP is really cool!
The image manager is excellent, I now no longer have to scroll down to the bottom of a post to insert images and the Gallery feature is a welcome. Toggle Full Screen mode is great and eliminates the double scroll bar issues when managing a long post. Just to note I have 7 various plugins on my blog and all work fine after re-activating them.
That’s all I’ve got time for now… must go, play and discover more sweet functions with this upgrade…. 
Thanks to the team at WordPress for all your fine work!
I’ve been a little quiet here on my blog lately, much of the reason is my time is being eating up with the new venture www.YoughalOnline.com. I spoke about this in a previous post well I just want to update on the happenings with that website.
We broadcasted the St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2008 live on the homepage of the site and it was a huge success. We had viewers watching live from the U.S.A, Australia, New Zealand, U.K, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, India, Canada & Ireland. although the live stream was 43mins long I edited the stream down to 9:50secs for the main parts which you can view below.
I’ve come to realise a strange pattern when booking ticket online using ticketmaster.ie First off when I am logged into my account with them and I’m searching for tickets why is it that I can never book the lower advertised (cheap seats) prices? its like those prices don’t exist for online users.
I say this as having bought quiet a lot of tickets this year alone from them. A recent example was buying 2 tickets for a friend for the “Prince” concert in Croke Park this summer. The morning of the sale I was logged in prior to the 8:00am ticket sale and as soon as online booking started I proceeded to book 2 tickets but no matter what way I tried to book I had no choice but pay the premium price of €126.50 + booking fee per ticket as apposed to the much cheaper €66.50 per ticket, I just don’t get it!
Same scenario booking tickets for “Wwe Raw – Wrestlemania Revenge Tour” Belfast, I’m taking my two sons to that event as they are completely into wrestling at the moment, well they’re aged 11 and 8 so it will be a mind blower for them, but tickets for that event were advertised at €20 and €55 per ticket and guess what Yep! I had no choice but pay the premium again online.
Anybody out there manage to book standard tickets with ticketmaster.ie online? I’d like to know?
Just want to announce a new website for Youghal town called www.youghalonline.com
YoughalOnline.com is the website for online community news, with fresh content, local news articles, and photos/video on a daily basis. Developed from an idea by Michael Hussey an excellent local photographer and journalist and myself coming from a web development background. The idea was to keep the content fresh and incorporate photos and video with the news articles, call it a news/photo/video blog. There are several other Youghal related websites but we felt neither updated their sites regularly and their content was stale.
Allowing people to comment and interact with news articles will be a welcome to some people as a way to air their views and also to get users opinions on local issues.
We are developing an online video section which will feature Youghal related videos from around the web coming from sites such as YouTube, Revver, MySpace, Bebo and many others. This video section will also feature live web cam events as they happen.
St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Youghal, 2008 – Live Web Broadcast
To launch the live video section of the site we are broadcasting this years St. Patricks Day parade live, this live cam event has been kindly sponsored by Youghal Bay Seafoods
Just a quick post to say I’ve been “up the walls” with various projects over the past few weeks, a nice tutorial is on its way of my experiences with Google Maps. I’ve been implementing the maps on a property site I’m developing at the moment and had a bit of fun pushing the possibilities there. Also started teaching “Digital Photography” & “Webpage Design” at the local school, these are adult night classes and take some time to prepare but I really like the challenge and of course returning to the basics myself.
I came across this really handy site to convert: PG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF files to vector format, it’s a free online auto-tracer.
Its dead handy if you have a low quailty image or small image of a logo that you need to vectorise for resizing etc. Out put files can be: EPS, SVG, PNG
Read the rest of this entry »
I was busy last weekend shooting a music video for hip-hop artist Sandyman B for a soon to be released track called “I’m In Love”. It is early days for the video and many editing hours to come but I shot some really nice footage which I will blog about over the next few weeks with a few example shots from behind the scenes.
I used my homemade camera crane to take some unusual video angle shots. This crane was built by my friend Frank McQuillan based on on some plans that Frank, Mark Waters and I had come up with in April 2007. It was built as a prototype with wood, roller blade cogs, an old tripod speaker stand and various other bits and pieces. The cost was about €50 for materials.
Below is an example video shot with the homemade jib crane and already it’s been viewed 8,355 + times on YouTube.
I’ve come across this letter on the internet and in emails many times over the years and it never fails to make me laugh. Its an oldie but a goodie and it comes via
“You’ve Got Laughs! The Big Book of Internet Humor” by Al Lowe
Dear Mr. Baker,
As an employee of an institution of higher education, I have few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and me during our commission of duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.
Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know how to network computer systems, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to your employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of “cut and paste” as it is explained to you for the hundredth time.
You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is. Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will.
You wander around the building all day, shiftlessly seeking fault in others. You have a sharp dressed, useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle.
Seeing as this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation; however, I have a few parting thoughts:
Last Sunday I went to McDaids, Midleton, Co. Cork to video an album launch for my friend Bobby Lee, a well respected and talented musician from Ireland. His album “The Future History” has 9 tracks and is available for preview, mp3 download or cd at Cd Baby
Here’s one review describing the album:
Mark Mc Clelland – Backstage Traffic
“The Future History ” Bobby’s current album is a collection of beautifully crafted songs that will take your soul, look after it for a few hours and then hand it back with a smile that says, “Yes everything’s going to be alright.” And you know what? You believe it.
While reading a post in Robert Sweetnams Blog today about the surge of cocaine related deaths this week in Ireland it made me stop and think about the pitfalls of drug abuse in general. There are people who don’t do drugs and wonder why other people do. Its a freedom of choice for those who take drugs such as heroin, cocaine, speed, ecstasy or cannabis etc. its a form of escapism from the normal hum drum of their lives. There’s an inner emptiness that needs to be filled and by taking a drug of choice it fills that void in their lives.
I do feel sorry for the families of those lost and its plain to see that drug abuse affects all classes in life. No doubt modern living and expectations all play a major role as to why people choose to abuse drugs. Some people are happy in their skin and some are not but I don’t think these deaths will send out a message to people to stop, it’s only a matter of time till another person hits the headlines.
This brings me to an article I came across some time ago and for me explains some of the feelings I have expressed above. Take time to read it.
Elizabeth Lesser “Broken Open” page 18
+Kieran McCarthy