Damien Mulley

Brent is back.

UPDATE: IFilm had to take them down.

“I heard the hammer cock,” John said. Let’s say somebody breaks into your apartment at gunpoint. Let’s say that they seem likely to kill you or your roommate. Let’s say you happen to have a samurai sword on hand.

ComReg have a survey of businesses here. It says great things about use of broadband and other such stuff.

This is what ComReg press released:

The ComReg survey revealed that, of those businesses connected to the Internet, 74% of
SMEs and 85% of corporate firms use some form of broadband – most commonly DSL.
The survey, of over 550 businesses in Ireland, was conducted on behalf of ComReg by
Millward-Brown IMS in May and June, 2006. Other highlights of the survey results
include:

• Over 40% of business customers switched telecoms service provider in the past, with
almost 20% switching in the past 12 months. However, almost half of those who
previously switched fixed-line provider claim to have switched back to their original
provider,

• Over 96% of businesses that provide mobile phones to their employees use Vodafone
or O2 packages,

• Two-thirds of SMEs and three-quarters of corporate firms use their mobile phone
while in the office – even when they may have access to a nearby fixed-line telephone,

• Half of all SMEs and corporate firms are using IT-based business applications which
require a broadband speed connection, and

Here’s my dose of REALITY and stuff ComReg never stuck into their PR:

Facts:

* Half of all Corporates have complained at least once to their phone service provider in the past year (Page 19)

* 1/3 of all SMEs have complained at least once to their phone service provider in the past year. (Page 19)

* 48% of SMEs do not have broadband. 52.5% of SMEs are on broadband. 73% of SMEs use the Internet. Of them 72% use broadband products. (Page 39) The rest are still on antiquated Internet products which are not broadband – 19% on dialup, 9% on ISDN and 2% on Satellite

* 1/3 of SMEs who tried to get broadband could not not. (pg 46) This reflects a survey from the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland from 2005 which stated 30% of SMEs who tried to get broadband could not.

Why is a neutral regulator talking up some facts and spinning any bad news? Something is rotten.

Paige writes about the Dunne Report and her opinion of some doctors and consultants. This is another one of these reports that needs to be put online. Can someone do so?

If monitoring phone records, bank accounts, emails and search habits were what alerted authorities to the activities of the alleged terrorists today, then is Data Retention a good thing? Let the secret service hold and access the data, not a Garda.

How do you convince a scared public that this data should not be handed over to authorities to do what they want?

Just got this back from Bank of Ireland:

Thank you for your application regarding IT vacancies, which we received today. We are currently reviewing your CV against our requirements. Should your details match our current requirements we will contact you to arrange an interview – we would expect this to be within two weeks. If you do not hear from us within that timeframe, it means that on this occasion your details did not match our requirements. As these requirements change we may have a need for someone with your skills and capability in the future. We will therefore retain your details on file for a period of three months.

Good to hear. Especially since I didn’t apply for a job with them in the past 3 or 4 years, if ever. I’ve not actually applied for any job in years. Happy where I am. Well done there BOI!

There are now apparently 308 people subscribed to this blog. I’m shocked. I thought I had about 47 readers. Rob got me to install some feedburner plugin thing so I could see how many are subscribed to this blog. I’m sure many of you subscribed recently due to a certain Google post and are expecting more wit. Well, stay tuned because I’m working on something else which you may find funny and useful. Also I have one or two other interesting projects on the go as well which should be ready to launch in the next few weeks. Yeah I know, suspense is killing you all!

Sing up to blog at the UK Labour conference. Labour UK really ought to be careful after the Liberman toppling. Wonder what the selection criteria will be? Will Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale sign up? Will we see the same here from any party? Depends on the gag reflex?

On this Jewish version of Valentine’s Day, the How to use Google to get a girl and get laid post has been translated into Hebrew and published in the tech section of nrg Maariv. Here it is updated and in Hebrew. I’m quite honoured that it has now been translated. It probably reads best in the original Klingon though.