A Langers Blog

avoid ryanairs credit card fees

2009-09-17T22:22:00.001+01:00

Mr. O'Leary will love me for this but I just booked a flight and saved paying the 5euro each way/per person charge for using my credit card. It is simple and here is how:

Head over to entropay.com and sign up. Create a virtural card and leave it at that for the moment.
Start booking your Ryanair flight.
Don't add any extra's or bags, just pay for the flight and the web check in fee of 5euro each way/per person.
When you get to the payment screen, select Visa Electron and watch as the total doesn't increase!
Head back over to EntroPay and load your card with the required amount, down to the cent. You will be charged a loading fee, but I will talk about that below*
Copy the details of your new virtural card and paste them into the Ryanair website where they ask you for your Visa Electron Card (I used my own address).
Click Pay!
Once the flight is confirmed go back to the main Ryanair homepage and click manage your booking using Option 3. You can then choose to add more bags or extras. You can use your main Credit Card now as it won't be charged the 5euro handling fee!

*EntroPay charge a fee of 4.95% to load the card. Booking your flight without bags etc will cut down the EntroPay charge as it is a percentage of the amount you are loading. You can pay for the bags with your normal credit card without any fees once the flight is booked.

Please note, this method is only beneficial if the cost of the flight and online check-in is under 202euro per person (404euro for two people etc..), mine was 77.32euro. I believe my maths is sound. Here is what I just paid for my flight using EntroPay:

I know it is only a 6.17euro saving, but because it is Ryanair it is even more sweeter!

On a side note, it has been a long time since a post here, but there have been many over on tumblr! I am also in a position to talk once again about the Amazing Teaching Council of Ireland.... but that's another post!

somas album

2009-05-14T20:24:00.003+01:00

I got an email from Soma a few weeks ago, but i'm only getting around to listening to it now.

Three of my friends, Mezer, Eric and Walshy are in the Band and unfortunately I have only been to one of their gigs so far. I've been listening to their songs all evening, and they're not so bad!

< Begin Press Release >
Soma’s album, “The Somatic LP” is now available to buy for just €5 at the following outlets:

Music Zone, Carrigaline, Co Cork
Plugged Records, Washington Street, Cork
Tower Records, 6-8 Wicklow St, Dublin
For digital download at downloadmusic.ie/soma
From the locker/boot of any of the band members!

There are 11 songs on the album cites influences from The Smashing Pumpkins, The Foo Fighters, Ash, Death Cab for Cutie, Jessica Alba and My Bloody Valentine.

The album was recorded from Nov 08 to Feb 09 in various locations in Cork. The album was mastered in April 09 by Richard Dowling in Limerick who as previously worked with such greats as S Club 7, Rachel Stevens, Steps and Busted. (He has also worked with some unknowns such as David Bowie, The Foo Fighters, The Undertones, Jools Holland and Interpol…ahem!)

Try before you buy, you can listen to the songs at: myspace.com/somamusiccork
< /end >

There was a load of free copies to people who knew them, but apparently I don't get one (something about not trusting me...)
Anyway, if you were wondering who is who on the album cover:

Mezer would be the same as Cindy in the lower left
Eric is the same as Marcia
Walshy is where Bobby is
And lets not forget Dave who is in the same spot as Greg

Head over to their website anyway and have a listen to a few songs!

A mission

2009-03-12T19:44:00.002Z

Sometimes it feels like it is a test to see how long I can go without updating this.

Lots happening on tumblr!

modernize

2009-01-31T16:28:00.036Z

So here is what I've been up to this January

New Years in Kandersteg
Skied and sledded a bit
Been working away at Musgrave
Got my car repaired, twice
Sent away all the details about my degrees to be assessed by the Teaching Council of Ireland
Weekend in Tramore for Teoiny and Sandys Birthday
Started a Wakoopa account
Caught up with a lot of US telly
Managed to see every The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for January
Figured out why he says Repor (It's like there is a silent T like in Colbert)
Started using Twitter a lot more
Been to the cinema
Watched a load of movies
My contract has been renewed till April
Didn't get to play as much Call of Duty as I wanted to
Posted over 170 items on my Tumblr
Been to a few Scout meetings

How has it been for you?

2008

2008-12-31T23:55:00.017Z

A bit late, but here are the stats for 2008. More of an Irish base compared to last year, more subscribers and Mac on the up as well as Firefox. A huge chunk of traffic came from search engines.

Posts: 50
Comments: about 100

Total for 2008:

14,460 - Page Loads
10,964 - Unique Visitors
10,129 - First Time Visitors
835 - Returning Visitors

On average, each day:

40 - Page Loads
30 - Unique Visitors
28 - First Time Visitors
2 - Returning Visitors

kisc gmail gadget

2008-12-19T18:12:00.000Z

If you loved the Kandersteg International Scout Centre Webcam Gadget for iGoogle as much as they did in Switzerland to even mention me on their webcam page:

NEW: ADD THE KISC WEBCAM TO YOUR iGOOGLE PAGES!

Use this fantastic widget to keep an eye at the Centre from your own personalized Google site! To insert the KISC Webcam to your iGoogle, click here! (thanks Darran for creating this widget!).

Well the you will love this! (Thanks for the kudos too!)

K.I.S.C. Webcam in your Gmail!

As you can see, a little version of the Webcam right there in your Gmail, which I have open way more than iGoogle! So here is the step by step guide on how to add it:

Click on Gmail Labs in Settings
Scroll the the bottom and enable: Add any gadget by URL
Click Save
Click on Gadgets in Settings
Paste in the address for the gadget:

http://darranc.googlepages.com/gkiscam.xml

That's it! If you want to move it around, like above chat, go back into Labs and enable: Navbar drag and drop.

Met Éireann Gadget
On the topic of Gmail Gadgets, Peter created a nice Met Éireann Gadget to keep track of the weather!

Add this line to the Gadgets page:
http://www.highonsnow.com/metgadget/metgadget160.xml

my opinion of irish opinions

2008-12-18T18:57:00.001Z

Over two years ago I signed up for Irish Opinions. They take all your details and areas of interest and in turn send you surveys to complete online. Each survey has an estimated completion time, cut off date and reward. They usually last anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes and the reward is usually from €0.50 to €2.50.

This has been an easy deal with the amount of surveys increasing from 1 in 2006, 10 in 2007 to 15 so far this year. I have earned about €40 which I can redeem for HMV, Tesco or Amazon vouchers.

The last few surveys had really annoyed me. I got one this morning that was the final straw!

I received an email as usual telling me there was a survey waiting for me. I clicked on the link, nearly as soon as the email appeared in my inbox. Standard first question pops up; Age and Sex. When I fill it in I get this response.

Thank you for coming through to our survey, unfortunately we already have enough responses for this survey.
We hope to invite you to other surveys in the very near future.
Please wait whilst we register your participation...

This wasn’t the first time this has happened to me, several surveys in the past couple of weeks I didn’t fit the criteria or the quota was already reached. I fired off an email to them asking why they sent me a survey they knew I wouldn’t be able to complete due my age and sex (which they already know). I was fobbed of with a generic reply about sometimes the quota is reached on a survey.

I’m fed up with them wasting my time asking me to do surveys that they would know I can’t complete if they looked at the details and surveys about myself I’ve filled out.

I have decided to cash in my rewards and just stop. Once I receive them I’ll be closing my account. Thanks for Isabel… if that is your real name!

P.S. I sometimes lied on those surveys when they got too long and I just wanted to finish!

dell laptop repair

2008-12-08T18:14:00.001Z

Yesterday, the graphics card on my laptop went again for the second time. I bought it in September 2007 and I got 1 year next day on site repair and 2 years complete collect and return repair.

Last June I had a similar problem and it was fixed the next day by an engineer who came around to the house and replaced the motherboard. Great stuff!

This time around I’m not covered by the on site repair. So I rang support and went along with the various checks they did over the phone. He then said he would send an engineer out to repair it. Great stuff again I thought! So he booked me an engineer for Tuesday.

Photo owned by refeia (cc)

Today I got a phone call from Dell and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello
Dell: Hello Mr. Crowley. This is [Subject Name Here] from Dell.
Me: Hi. How’s it going?
Dell: Good. I’m wondering if you are willing to have your laptop sent to us for repair?
Me: Didn’t you organise an Engineer to come tomorrow and fix it at my home tomorrow?
Dell: Yes we did. But it looks like your warranty doesn’t cover the next day on site call.
Me: How long would it take to get my laptop repaired if I sent it to you?
Dell: About 5 working days.
Me: So I could have it fixed tomorrow or wait 5 more days?
Dell: Yes. We would prefer if you sent it to us.
Me: Right. I prefer the engineer to come tomorrow.
Dell: Ok. You are aware in future you are only covered by our collect and return service.
Me: I know. That’s why I was surprised you were sending someone tomorrow.
Dell: Ok. Thank you Mr. Crowley.
Me: Thank you, bye now!

Score one me not Dell :-)

screw u xbox live

2008-12-05T20:10:00.000Z

Microsoft really knows how to rub some people up the wrong way. This week, my friend Brick got first hand experience of how ridiculous their online gaming system (Xbox Live) runs.

Quick introduction to Xbox Live: When you connect your Xbox to the internet, you register your gamertag (nickname). This gives you a gamercard (like an account id) showing your gamerscore (how many points you earned playing different games). There is two types of memberships; Silver and Gold.
A Silver Account is free and allows you to chat with friends, download content from the marketplace. A Gold Acount allows you to do all that plus play games online with other people and friends. Currently the price for 12 month Gold Membership is €59.99 in Ireland and Europe. However in the United States, this is only $49.99 (~€40)

When Brick was in the States he signed up for a free Silver Account. He created his gamertag and built up a gamerscore playing games. When we returned to Ireland he transferred his account over to his own Xbox 360 and continued to play and earn point on his gamertag.
This week he decided that it was time to get a Gold Account so he could play with his ~~boyfriends~~ friends online. But since he signed up with a US account, it would not be possible for him to pay for it unless he has a US credit card billing address.
He rang Microsoft at Xbox Live to change his account to an Irish one so he could pay for Gold Membership.
He was told: no. It was impossible. They didn't even want to listen to his problem or reason for the request.
The only way he could pay for a Gold Account was to registered a new gamertag. He would loose his gamerscore, stats, friends list and current gamertag (which he was quite attached to).
So Microsoft were refusing to accept €59.99 off him, right there.
A little bit annoyed at them he ploughed on with the online payment system on the Xbox, hoping they wouldn't notice that the billing address for the credit card wasn't in the US.
After his second payment attempt his phone rang. It was his bank wondering about the suspicious activity on his account. He explained his problem to the nice lady on the phone and she turned off all security for his credit card. He then put through the order, this time it was manually authorised, billing his credit card the US amount for a US 12 month Gold Membership, about €40!

So Microsoft wouldn't take the whole €59.99 off him when they had the chance. Instead he ended up paying two thirds that, and next year won't even think about getting in touch with Microsoft when renewing his account! They will keep losing about €20 a year all because they wouldn't play nice on the phone and accommodate him by changing his address!

How To Ruin Xbox Live For Everyone Else

Note on US accounts: There is more free downloadable content in the marketplace than you can get on an Irish account. Brick can access this straight away, but there is no reason why you can't sign up for a free Silver US account and avail of the free stuff. Most of my friends have two accounts!

fake christmas tree

2008-12-02T20:39:00.001Z

Following on from Dec's post on Christmas Trees, I thought i'd share my thoughts. We have always had an artificial/plastic Christmas tree and I don’t see the problem really. There are many advantages to a fake tree:

They pay for themselves the following year
They are safer. They are made with fire resistant materials they don’t go up like dried out trees do
They don’t loose their needles
There isn’t an issue with sap (sticky stuff not anything here)
It is environmentally friendly. And don’t listen to those people who tell you that are from a controlled forest. What happens to your real tree when you’re finished with it? You gotta pay for a wood chopper, or chuck it in a car park/recycling centre and it will set on fire? Right?
They save time. No need to search for a nice tree
They are allergy friendly. Nothing on a fake tree will cause you to sniff your way through the month of December if you suffer any allergies!

There are a few advantages to having a real tree (so my argument is kinda balanced):

Help the local economy
Cheaper to produce.. yes it is true..
The smell of a real Christmas tree.

That last point would be a very strong reason to have a real one. This however can be artificially created too! Just buy a load of Royal Pine car fresheners and stick them around the tree, out of sight. This will give you the real smell you were looking for, without having to go get a real tree!

Anyway, with trees like the following video ... why would you ever consider a real tree again!

P.S. I notice from a comment that they were first invented by those who make toilet brushes! Classy!

google a to z

2008-11-25T07:24:00.000Z

Google Analytics *
www.google.com/analytics
Google Book Search
books.google.com
Google Calendar *
www.google.com/calendar
Google Docs *
docs.google.com
Google Earth *
earth.google.com
Google Finance
finance.google.com
Google Groups
groups.google.com
Google Health
https://www.google.com/health
Google Image Search *
images.google.com
Google Jobs
www.google.com/intl/en/jobs
Knol: a unit of knowledge
knol.google.com
Google Labs *
labs.google.com
Google Maps *
maps.google.com
Google News *
news.google.com
orkut
www.orkut.com
Google Page Creator
pages.google.com
Google Questions & Answers (Russia!)
http://otvety.google.ru/otvety/
Google Reader *
www.google.com/reader
Google Scholar *
scholar.google.com
Google Talk *
www.google.com/talk
Google U.S. Government Search
www.google.com/ig/usgov
Google Video
video.google.com
Google Webmaster Central *
www.google.com/webmasters
Google Lunar X PRIZE
www.googlelunarxprize.org
YouTube *
www.youtube.com
Google Press Center: Zeitgeist
www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

* I use this on a regular basis.
Some others that I use that are not included: AdSense, Alerts, Blogger, Chrome, FeedBurner, Gears, Gmail, iGoogle, Mobile, Pack, Picasa, Toolbar, Translate and of course Web Search!

kc's queue cam

2008-11-24T18:22:00.002Z

Following on from the KISC webcam gadget I made for iGoogle, (which can be found here) I made a similar one for the K.C's Queue Cam.

I know how lazy people are when it comes to things:

Finding the K.C's site and webcam page
Getting the address of the webcam image
Search for a webcam gadget to allow you to put in the address
Adding that to your Google homepage
Then edit it so it shows the KC's Queue Cam

So i've done all the hard work for you. With this gadget you can add it directly to your iGoogle page or to your own site/blog. Enjoy!

teacher training in ireland

2008-11-20T18:00:00.000Z

So now I need some teacher training, to become a teacher and all!

There are a few courses around Ireland that will train you to become a teacher. The main 4 are through the National University of Ireland. Cork (UCC), Galway (NUIG), Maynooth (NUIM) and Dublin (UCD). DCU and Trinity (TCD) also run courses and Limerick (UL) does a nice Business Teacher course too.

So to apply for one the NUI courses, you have to go through a similar process to that of the CAO, through PAC (Postgratuate Applications Centre). You apply for an application ~~form~~ pack and receive it in the post. No online applications here, these guys want to keep it old school!

Be warned, the closing date for entry into the 2009/10 course is December 1st 2008! A whole 9 months before hand.

Photo owned by germanium (cc)

I’m at this point now, just about to get everything together to send it into PAC. Lets just recap on what I’ve had to do... so far:

Request a application pack from PAC.
Paid a € 80 application fee through the bank (not online).
Got an official copy of my results from CIT where I did my undergraduate degree (luckily I still have the originals I obtained from last year for my masters application. It cost me € 20 or something).
Copied my degree results and masters parchment.
Got those photocopies certified as true copies.
Got a stamp for the confirmation post card.
Now just go to the post office to get the evidence of postage page stamped.

This is only the tip of the iceberg with what I'm sure will be a bureaucrats dream. Next time I will tell you about the teaching council of Ireland!!

becoming a teacher

2008-11-19T18:00:00.000Z

Since I don’t have much to blog about these days, I’m going to bring you on the journey of becoming a teacher in Ireland.

First of all, why do I want to become a teacher? Lets look at the pros and cons of going down the road of teaching.

The Cons

Dealing with kids all day
Some kids don’t like to learn
The pay
Bureaucracy
The nicknames
Dealing with parents
Lack of respect among other educated professionals
Car getting keyed
Early mornings
Uncertainty in the current economic climate

The Pros

Teaching people
June
Influencing them to do my bidding once they have grown up (may involve subliminal messaging in my teaching methods.. haven’t quite figured this one out yet.. I’ll keep you posted)
July
Job satisfaction
August
Job security once you have one

Photo owned by sridgway (cc)

So I’ve now talked myself into taking the first steps and consciously making the decision to become a teacher. What is next?

I need to be trained. More next time..

bold blogger

2008-11-05T22:28:00.000Z

So I'm back to give you an update since I've been practically gone for the last month and a bit. Besides that last post which lowered the tone of the blog completely.

Yes I sold out, but I do have a canned response to those emails that I get enquireing about advertising on here and what do you know someone took me up on the offer! Thanks to Mike for writing it, my first guest blogger (kinda)

Anyway, since I was on here last I finally got myself an iPhone and I'm loving it. Besides a slight problem at the start with the side of it and I promptly received a replacement from Apple so they are still my friends for the time being, and o2 haven't been as terrible as they make out (besides ripping me off with my contract.. but i'll live with it)

I've also had a bit of a Holiday when Lena came over to visit, which is a nice break to work work work during the week. We spent the weekend in Dublin, taking advantage of a Getaway Break! You know, so I could experience what I'm working on first hand!

I climbed Carrauntoohil with my Rover Scouts. I've climbed it before, but it was good to get out and up it again. We had an Investiture at the top and all, the First Rover Scouts to be Invested in Douglas and the County!

What else? Oh! Obama won! Thank you America! Mulley puts it brilliantly when he says:

The world watched tonight because this was a world election, with just Americans voting in it. All those people that were frustrated with their lives, their countries, the world around them just wanted a new regime and their American brothers and sisters voted for it tonight. Thank you.

Besides that, work, Scouts and Friends are keeping me too busy to update here as much as I'd want to. I'm a bad blogger. I do however keep a Tumblr going that gets updated every off day with stuff I find. darran.tumblr.com

fitness superstore

2008-10-16T15:30:00.002+01:00

This is my first sponsored post, and I also asked Mike who has an interest in this area to do a review of the website fitness-superstore.co.uk. Here is what he said:

The site provides the customer with a wide range of equipment to choose from regardless if it’s for home use or commercial use. The site informs customers about the equipment they are looking to buy; it outlines what one should look for when buying certain equipment and gives a brief synopsis about the training equipment. There is a wide range of well known and trusted suppliers to choose from, giving the customer the best selection.

The equipment is categorised into fitness equipment (treadmills, exercise bikes, elliptical trainers and many more), gym equipment (barbell and dumbbell weights, multi-gyms, racks and various other types of gym equipment for your home gym), boxing equipment and general sports equipment.

The site also provides the customer with external links regarding weight loss advice and their own fitness tools found on the site. There is a wide range of payment options and a great customer service, which can be confirmed by the many customer testimonials available on the site.

I’m not sure, but if you’re shopping for fitness equipment Ireland doesn’t have any store that would be as specialised as this one!

open letter to o2

2008-09-29T20:11:00.001+01:00

Dear O2 Ireland,

I'm a long time customer of Vodafone, for at least the last 9 years. I've also only had 1 brand of phone, Nokia. I have been a loyal customer to both companies.

Now since you got your monopoly on the iPhone here in Paddy taxed Ireland, and I really want one, the only option for me is to abandon the two companies that have served me well for the last decade.

For the last 2 out of the 11 weeks that the new iPhone has been on sale I have been checking your website for the opportunity to purchase one. Needless to say I haven't been able to as you know well, they are all sold out.

I don't want to hear your beef with Apple and their supply, I do know they are mighty pissed with your rediclous tariffs too and there is no one to blame for that. And I am aware that you will be changing them after Christmas, after all how can Apple target business accounts when faced with the options, a Blackberry easily out matches an iPhone on value!

You have me, a customer who is willing to abandon ship and move networks for something you fought hard to gain exclusive rights to (did ye really have to work so hard on this considering the deal was in the bag once O2 UK got it). Yet, after 11 weeks with the phone on the market, I'm here writing this letter explaining my frustration.

From Wednesday, if there is not any news on your website (last updated nearly 2 weeks ago) I will have no choice but to try and buy an iPhone online, get it unlocked and stay with Vodafone for several more years.

If you loose potential customers like me one at a time and don't care if you do. I guess I'll be glad I join your Company. Hopefully that's not the case..

Kind Regards,

Darran :-)

P.S. I know I won't hear anything from you on this.. but wouldn't it be nice if someone dropped me an email..

cork lan sponsorship

2008-09-28T07:00:00.000+01:00

Any Cork or National based companies out there interested in sponsoring Cork LAN?

Sponsorship can range from:

Name of the event - include your company name in the event name.
Competition sponsorship - "The your company challenge!"
Food Sponsorship - "Today’s meal is brought to you by your company!"
Area for your company at your event - show demo's, answer questions, get your product out there.
T-Shirt sponsorship - Logo of your company on the event’s T-Shirt. We are still looking for Staff T-Shirts, or we can sell CorkLAN ones with your logo on it.
Banners Placement - Put up banners of your company around the room during the event.
WebSite Placement - Your company logo/banner on the Cork LAN website.

Sponsorship can range from one or many of these! We are very interest in competition sponsorship as it is easy to donate prizes, and everyone loves winning stuff!

So if you are interested in even donating a spot prize anything in value from €10 up, please contact us on events@corklan.com and we can organise something!

Thanks and please pass this onto anyone you might know who is willing to help out a new type of event in Cork!

us presidential election post

2008-09-27T12:26:00.004+01:00

This will probably be the only post I do about the US Presidential Election 2008.

First of all, has anyone noticed the connections between the West Wing TV Show and this election?
There is definitely a Santos/Obama and Vinick/McCain link. Considering Santos was based on Obama!
The candidates were also brought to the White House for a chat with the current president before he lands the winner in it for the next 4 year? What about the Republican just about to cancel the debate at the last minute?! Only time will tell, but hopefully Obama's running mate won't die on election night!
The BBC also have a nice article on this here.

On another note, as for Vice-Presential pick. McCain's choice was brilliant! A life safer for his campaign which would have been a walk over for Obama if another white male, stereotypical ticket was on offer from the Republicans! For those guts they deserve a it, if only to show the Democrats you messed up not picking Hillary (Altho if the West Wing parallel continues, Obama might have a chance to still pick her!)

I think this comic sums up a lot too:

So anyway, since I don't have a vote, I'm just going to sit back and watch the American People possibly screw the world over for another 4 years!

cork lan

2008-09-26T09:55:00.001+01:00

With just about two weeks to go, I suppose it is time I mentioned Cork LAN.

Another boring Saturday?

So what is there to do on your average Saturday Night? Go to the Pub, go to the cinema, go to a club or go drinking in a field. That pretty much sums up for your average Cork person. Now here is an option to do something else, something different, and the only reason it is going to fail is because people in Cork don’t like the idea of not going out and including one of more of the above mentioned activities.

Cork LAN is a Local Area Network Party, held for the first time in Cork. We are unaware of any big publicly available LAN parties available in Cork before, so we are gonna claim that this is the first! (Feel free to let us know, and then explain why we weren’t told about it!)

What is it?
A Local Area Network party or LAN party is where a group of people come to one place and hook up their all their computers together and play games and the like. This has also spread over to the gaming consoles with the new network ready machines and online play. A LAN party is a chance for all these people to get together and play games, hang out and have fun.

When?
In two weeks, on Saturday the 11th of October there will be such a party happening in the Cork International Airport Hotel. Doors open early at 10am, but show up whenever you want on the Saturday. We will be kicked out of the room the following morning at 10 making it a 24 hour event!

Open to all!
This is not just for die hard gamers either. We will have Wii’s and Rockband and Guitar Hero too for the casual gamer!

Why not give it a try?
So the main things to take from this post are if you’re into hanging out, playing games, have a free evening and want something different to do, come along and bring a telly, Xbox and a few games! It doesn’t take that much to pack them into the car, we have do it many many times! Bring a group, it's always more fun with friends!

Check out the website for more information and register your interest to get €5 off!
http://www.CorkLAN.com/

our next chief

2008-09-08T19:28:00.003+01:00

I've decided to run my own poll to see what the feeling out there is for the Next Chief Scout of Scouting Ireland.

Who do you think will get it or should get it?

Note: Options in alphabetical order, this has nothing to do with Scouting Ireland and the results of the poll do not reflect the views of it's members and so on, blah blah blah......

my cv

2008-09-05T19:33:00.000+01:00

I'm in the job hunting game these days and no better way to get my CV out there than to put it on my blog! After all, whoever is about to hire me will probably just Google my name and find it anyway!

So if you or someone you know has a job opening and looking to fill it, please take a look at or forward on my CV! I'm interested in anything in the Cork area or beyond and involving IT and/or Business.

My Curriculum Vitae in different formats:

I'm looking for this Job...

free priority boarding

2008-08-31T23:50:00.001+01:00

****WARNING****

This post is only for fun and meant to point out how poor security is and how easy it is to change your boarding card. Changing your boarding card may result in you not being able to board and prosecuted.
****END****

I fly a fair bit with Ryanair. I was reading their in-flight Mag on my recent flight with them to see that there is a glaring mistake in their "aren't we a great airline company" page:

That bit in the middle:

Passengers who avail of our FREE online check-in service enjoy the double benefit of skipping queues at both check-in and boarding, as Check'N'Go passengers automatically receive priority boarding onto their flight.

Besides that mistake and Ryanair stealing €5 from you each way if you want Priority Boarding, I thought what is stopping you editing your own printed off boarding card to give yourself Free Priority Boarding?

It turns out nothing! And I sucessfully managed to skip the queue on my recent trip with a modified Boarding Card. I present to you my:

Guide to Free Priority Boarding in 10 Easy Steps!

1. Book a flight with Ryanair

2. Choose: 0 Bags & Online Check-in And No to being one of the first to board the aircraft:

3. Have a PDF Printer installed on your PC. I use PDF 995, It's Free!

4. Check-in online up to 5 days before your flight and print your boarding card to PDF.

5. Open the PDF in Photoshop (YES! You can do that!)

6. Move the page down a bit to make room for the two new lines:

7. Add the text: PRIORITY BOARDING PASS in Arial, 14pt, Bold Italic.

8. Print the Image to PDF, scale it to A4 size.

9. Open the PDF and then print it to your physical printer.

10. Enjoy FREE Priority Boarding :-)

subcard

2008-08-31T07:06:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I picked up a SubCard from a Subway. Hurray I thought! They are bringing back a loyalty scheme since they discontinued their Subway Stamps!

Lets look at this new "Collect points. Get FREE Subs" deal:

For every 10p [UK] or 15c [ROI] you spend you will receive 1 point.
500 points gets you a regular 6” Sub, wrap or salad
1000 points gets you a 12” Footlong

That means to get a FREE 6” Sub, you must spend at least €75 or £50, and double that for a footlong!

Now lets compare this to their old Sub Club - Customer Appreciation Card:

From what I remember, you got a stamp for every 6” Sub you bought, and 2 for a footlong. Stick them onto the card and when you have all 8, claim for your FREE 6” Sub.

An average price for a 6” varies from about €2.99 to over €4.50.
So lets say you spend on average €3.50 for a 6”.
Then multiply that by 8 to fill the card.
You end up spending €28 to get your FREE 6” Sub, or the equivalent now of 500 points.

So you now have to spend over 2½ time more to get your free Sub. On top of that, this time they have complete and accurate information on where and what you buy in the store from ordering extra cheese to making it a meal!

For me, I don't want to give them all my eating habits, but when I end up spending €150 a little reward would be nice. Do I even want to know when I reach that amount!! Surely for handing them all that delicious customer data their reward wouldn't be as stingy.

jamboree 2008

2008-08-30T14:19:00.002+01:00

The First Irish Scout Jamboree was held in Punchestown this Summer from the 2nd to the ~~10th~~ 9th of August. It was an experience.

This will be a post in pictures because Bloggers auto-save didn't work last night! So I only took my new camera out twice over the Jamboree, at the Opening Cermony, and on the last day. This is due to the fact it was really wet and I was working my ass off for most of it.

The opening ceremony.
So much promise and excitement. It was going to be great.

The box that arrived via coast guard helicopter!

It was Christy inside, our Camp Chief!!

Then lots of stuff happened... and fast forward to the end:

At the end of the couple of days, here is a view of our campsite, after the water receded.

It was way worse this this two days before.

Driving across the campsite.
Impossible to avoid the puddles!

An Taoiseach, at the opening ceremony. Someone took the original video message on their camera phone after catching him after he received communion. He was clearly reading off a sheet of paper. But it was more than we got off our Patron!
So that was the best of my pictures, more on my flickr photostream. I'm not going to get into all the problems there was and mistakes made. There is plenty of discussion on the chat forum.

Overall, It wasn't Great and I think it is silly to even suggest it. I wouldn't even say it was satisfactory. Infact thinking back I don't even want to talk about it much. I'm just posting here incase anyone wanted to know my reaction to it, and in that case.... It was a Shamboree!