Rants & Ramblings of an Irishman in Exile
Quick plug for Brian - he’s set up a travel blog documenting his latest S&M ritual….err road trip. You can find it at:
He’s already hit the future birthplace of Captain Kirk and will no doubt have many more wonderful adventures in store 
Technorati Tags: Brian, bapper, bmw, motorbike, road trip, baptacular, Captain Kirk
It’s been a long time since I posted - one of those things where I just haven’t felt like it…..however since I finally got off my ass and decided to upload some pictures, I thought I would let people know they were up. On Flickr as usual:
While I was at it, I upgraded to Wordpress 2.5 - not sure how I like the new interface yet, but we shall see, maybe tryingt o make a decision will get me to post a bit more often 
I don’t often toot the company horn (or comment on it at all in fact - this is definitely a personal site and I like the separation) but the fact that they have open-sourced this tool is one of the coolest things we have done in a while. The tool is PageTest and for those IE users (or just IE testers) starved for a Firebug type plugin, it is well worth a look.
As well as being available to install to your local PC we use it via a web interface to run tests from multiple locations and browser versions without the need to install them all or have multiple machines. In these dark times of layoffs and plunging stock prices it’s nice to see AOL doing some things not focused on the almighty dollar. Long may it continue.
Technorati Tags: AOL, open source, pagetest, Internet Explorer, firebug
So, finally an update now that I am on vacation and have time for things like blog entries. First of all, a few new pictures of us out in Arlington before Jenny and I fled back to Ireland for the holidays, I waited until the end of the night to break the camera out, so everyone is nice and merry (yours truly included). Here’s a good one, I like to think I said something witty and hilarious to cause the reactions:
As for the old country - I arrived home yesterday and am still randomly falling asleep/unable to sleep due to jet lag, but other than that all is well. It’s great to be backk home and see everyone - next up, shopping
Technorati Tags: Ireland, pictures, four courts, arlington
Since I ended up working from home today I was able to meet Jen in DC at a reasonable hour and so we went in to check out the new Kogod Courtyard in DC. It is quite impressive - I can’t wait to see that roof when it snows
Here’s one with some nice lighting and (conveniently), the name of the place (click for full size):
As usual, the full set can be found on Flickr.
Technorati Tags: Kogod Courtyard, Washington DC
First off, Synergy is a fantastic application - if you have more than one monitor and more than one machine, then get it and love it - since i got it set up I can’t figure out how I lived without it. You can see it here (writing this very post) running on 3 machines and 4 screens (counting the laptop) - for the record that is on 2 Macs and one Linux machine, though it will work with windows too.
I have a single desktop across all 4 - to switch between machines I just drag the mouse to that screen. Copy and paste works between the machines, with no problems. There is very occasional lag between the server (linux) and the clients (the 2 Macs) but nothing that would cause me to reconsider using it - the benefits are far too great.
For more on the geek front, I came across this story, “The case of the 500 mile e-mail” which made me laugh and shows exaclty the kind of random crap that can end up coming in when you are in my line of work, although I must admit that my problems have never been quite as interesting or had quite as novel an explanation
I found an excellent article describing how to analyze a cracked Linux machine - I’ve had some experience with similar efforts on Windows in the past, but (so far) have been lucky enough not to have to do it on a Linux/Unix host. Serves as a good guide on how to break down a crack step by step, though the elementary mistakes made by the cracker certainly made things easier - it would not have been hard to do this in a way that would have been far more difficult to detect/correct.
So, for all of those people that think that non-Windows machines are bullet proof, take note.
I will be traveling to Ohio later today for business, and besides the fact that there is another Dublin there (where I will be staying in fact) I have absolutely no knowledge of the area - in fact I just now found out where it actually was besides a vague impression of it being west-ish of here. I mean, it doesn’t have Rocky Steps even
Still, besides the work stuff, I’m sure that a good time will be had by all. I mean, the place has bars right?
If anyone has any suggestions on what I should get up to in Columbus/Dublin, then by all means leave a comment.
I found this site quite a while back, but had completely forgotten about it. For those that don’t know what it is, the recently released mini-movie is pretty cool and explains what the site does pretty well. I’d love to know how many cards are truly people’s secrets and how many are just people being artistic and/or clever, I’ve found I enjoy the site more if I suspend my disbelief and just go with it
Oh, and one more thing - Dear America, please sort out the value of your currency, the exchange rates are getting ridiculous, that is all.
Technorati Tags: Post Secret, rant, currency
Well, the Amazon delivery fairies have arrived and delivered my XBox 360 Elite, hence it’s tough to justify staying in work :) I can’t wait to plug this into the new TV and see the 1080p HDMI output in all its glory, since that was my main reason for choosing one of the true next-gen consoles over the Wii - I am one of the few people that can actually use the greater capabilities. I’m also pretty curious about the XBox Live service that comes with it since it is the most commonly touted “superior” feature over the PS3.
I bought it to keep me company while Jenny is away - she got to Dublin safely and was pretty pleased with the new Aer Lingus direct flight from Dulles - they have a nice new Airbus 330, decent service and it knocked a good 4 hours off the total travel time. Matt also arrived back in Seattle safely, so good news all around, though the house does now feel a little empty.
Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, Jenny, Aer Lingus, Dublin
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