Fri, 19 Sep 2008

ITIL

Today I received my certificate that states I am an official, bona fide, Foundation Level accredited ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) type person. Of course, this merely means I have some more exams to do to get to 'Practitioner' level and beyond, but you have to start somewhere :-)

posted at: 22:50 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry

Today it be...

...International Talk Like A Pirate Day... ye scurvy landlubbing sea-dogs, Gerrof me dead-man's chest and take yer bottle of rum with ye, as ye walk the plank and sink through the briney deep to Davey Jones' Locker... etc...
posted at: 16:55 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 10 Sep 2008

Galway Judge says Good Friday Drink Charges 'Ludicrous'

An Irish Times Article details that one Judge Mary Fahy presiding over the Galway District Court noted the facts as proven, that a number of restaurants made wine available for sale with meals last Good Friday, but refused to record convictions.

Judge Fahy stated:

"If people want to go out for a meal on Good Friday I would have thought they could have a drink with their meal. Technically you [the Garda inspector] are correct, but I think myself it is absolutely ludicrous that people on holidays especially cannot have a glass of wine with their meal"

according to the Irish Times report.

As Ireland moves from being an almost exclusively Roman Catholic island, to being a meeting place for peoples from all races and creeds, I think the law needs to catch up - and I can only hope that Judge Mary Fahy will be given credit for her view, rather than the judicial review she could potentially face. The law is there to protect the people, and when adhering to the letter of the law ceases to have that function, it's only right and proper to act. Perhaps this will spur on a much needed review of the archaic Licensing Acts (1833 to 2000) we've been subjected to. I won't be holding my breath though...

posted at: 10:20 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Mon, 08 Sep 2008

Irish Trains

The Irish Rail website says that there are

"No Current Travel Alerts."

Why then, am I sitting on a Drogheda train which has inadvertently been commandeered at Balbriggan to go back into Dublin, cruelly ejecting the smattering of school children who were hoping to get to their school to the North? Commuters in Argentina recently set fire to a train in protest for the awful service. My instinct suggests that's a bit extreme, but what can Dublin commuters do about the shocking travesty they are subjected to morning and evening? Suggestions to the usual blog@signal2noise.ie.
posted at: 09:06 | path: /rants | permanent link to this entry

Sun, 07 Sep 2008

eflow.ie - what a crock!

I live in Dublin and occasionally make use of the M50 motorway, which means I am forced to succumb to the arbitrary and ill conceived notion to make it 'barrier-free.' This evening, I decided I would register my credit card with them, so that they could deduct a toll from me on the rare occasions I traverse their toll plaza. I should not have bothered.

The webpage appears to be designed with some heinous AJAX type architecture, which sends queries back to the server depending on what details you enter. Of course, they've got the whole concept woefully wrong! Instead of allowing me to continue to enter my details - the whole point of using an asynchronous framework like AJAX - it locks the webpage and places a useless and meaningless 'Update in Progress' spinning timer in the centre of the screen. Perhaps since I'm accessing the site over a 3G connection, or perhaps because the website creators are morons, I have now been waiting over 5 minutes for the latest 'Update in Progress' ticker to go away. All in all, there are approximately 44 fieldson the page, of which roughly 35 are required. This should take a little over 120 seconds to fill in - but it looks like I'm going to lose patience for the second time this evening and just close my browser once more, having spent over 20 minutes waiting for the stupid 'Update in Progress' dialog to go away.

Dear criminal masterminds who screw us with M50 tolls, please at least have the decency to FIRE to idiots who failed completely to design your website and have the common courtesy to make paying your exorbitant charges at least a painless experience.

</rant>

posted at: 00:55 | path: /rants | permanent link to this entry