I’m no film buff by any standard. I hold close company with quite a few good friends who are either in love with, or involved with the film industry in Ireland. Friends range from passing interest to full blown career. So much so that I was dragged to went willingly to the Galway Film Fleadh. On first account, this seems a preposterous notion. I’ve seen about 3 films in the last 12 months in the cinema. Anything else I probably saw via illegal manner, and fell asleep before anything finished. I’m a music fan, and unashamedly so, so while I do enjoy a good film, I prefer to see what I want to see, rather then what’s been recommended to me (though often that involves quite a bit of crossover).

Galway was amazing. As my first fleadh, or film festival in general, I was blown away. It wasn’t pompous. There was very little douchebaggery and the films we saw blew my mind. I loved Toy Story 3 as much as the next man/woman/child, but I saw it with the director/producer/writer sitting 3 rows behind me. I’m basically a movie star already. I couldn’t give a toss if bee’s die. I wish they did years ago so Jerry Seinfeld didn’t write a shit film about them. But the Irish produced documentary “Colony” (not to be read as “colon y”) was actually brilliant. And the best domestic film I’ve ever seen will blow everyone’s mind when it gets a general release – The Runway. Not about attractive models, as it turns out. It’s about an aircraft crash in west Chark, bhay.

There was also a huge programme of short films. Sounds terrible. But this was a remarkable display of talent. Mostly, it seemed, young talent, who have a great shot of emerging from the depths of Sony handicams in rural Ireland to become proper big-boy film makers. To celebrate the award-winning ones, Dublin’s filmbase and the Lighthouse cinema showed each winning short yesterday. A good way to spend two Sunday hours.

After this, the plan was to go get some sushi in a place I hadn’t eaten in before, but was informed would be awesome. Then, we would sip wine and perhaps visit the tea gardens on the quays to drink whiskey tea (what else?) and have a strawberry hookah. A lovely plan. But time slipped by at the free wine reception in the Lighthouse cinema. A lot of time slipped by. And a lot of wine slipped into our stomachs. So, pressed for this precious time we had lovely burgers and headed to our next cinematic engagement. An experimental night of, eh, experimental cinema.

I said I like music. I really do. I listen to it for hours everyday. My iPod is probably the one product I own that I would literally lose myself if it were to die or go missing. I listen to everything. Even experimental music. And while, sure, it’s often not coherent enough to become popular, it is interesting enough to listen to and enjoy the talent on show. Even Chopin wrote some awful drivel, but you could listen to it for hours and enjoy how he whizzes his fingers up and down his ivory toolkit.

I’ve never listened to music that was so “experimental” that it offended me. So, reluctantly I went along to this free event of experimental cinema, which was put on as part of a programme of experimental cinema in Dublin to showcase film makers who create pieces without the constraints of scripts.

Count me offended. I’m still incredibly angry about seeing this. It appears cinema might just benefit from having scripts, and perhaps those constraints aren’t so much tying film makers down – but helping them tell a story, or at the very least give them a way to portray a message or idea. This, my friends, was not an example of talent. Not even mish-mashed, well documented cinematic experiences. No, this was all awful. It felt like it was filmed by an 11 year old child who just got his first camera and enjoys eating feces while performing experiments on worms.

The 85 minutes were broken up into several short films. I say short, because the length of time they went on for was short in the sense that they only took 15-20 minutes each. But measuring it in a more quantic manner would have you believe you were going to die of old age at any second. This feeling crept up half way through the first short. Which was about 7 minutes long, and featured 8mm footage of nothing. Literally. Panning up and down with red filters turning on/off repeatedly to the sound of what Tool (the band) would call “an interlude”. This, after 10 minutes of pandering with “technical issues” with the DVD. How the hell do you have “technical issues” with a DVD inside a computer hooked directly to a projector? It’s 2010.

The first piece was so mind numbing, it was obviously the film maker just introducing his off-kilter style before getting into some nitty gritty. Maybe some dialogue, or even people, would follow. But no. Same again. A blue filter featured this time. He’s been honing his “filtering” skills quite a bit, it seems. We see a lot of the sky, to the soundtrack of what sounded like a stick being forcefully strune along a steel fence. I’m sure he thought it was exposing our minds to deep, deep thoughts and awful inner psyche expose. But really, it was just the cinematic equivalent of urine.

I mentioned the film maker. He goes under a monicker MAXIMILIAN LE CAIN that that I won’t embarrass him with by announcing here. He had the physique of Kevin Smith and appeared to enjoy his films while stroking his randomly assorted facial hair like some sort of PHD in “thoughts”. Clearly, I was in awe of his genius and my anger at his work being exhibited in public was just me exposing my deep seated jealousy.

The third piece featured a woman. An actual actor. This was our first real expose of his style. Randomly editing static and colours into his work while playing audio from movies in the 20s/30s which he either stole or has gone out of copyright. The actress is probably very good, but her portrail of some mad bitch rubbing down a fireplace didn’t really say much to me. Though perhaps exposed Max’s (I’m sure he won’t mind me calling him that) penchant for gaping wide holes in rooms. Like the one that appeared in the venue after this piece when about 10% of the people (which is 1 person) left. Let’s not forget the incredibly emotive part of this film, when for 3 minutes there was just a black screen. And no, it wasn’t a technical hitch!

However bad that was, the fourth piece was a doozey. Lights and sounds flickered on and off the screen with absolute randomness. Nothing was being attempted here, except that Maxey had obviously just learned the cut/paste tool in iMovie. Not only that, getting his ginger friend (in glasses and a black coat to look poetic) to whistle over the piece was so emotive it brought me to tears. Either that, or the realisation that I could have been eating sushi while drinking wine and looking forward to tea slowly crept up on me.

Not only was number four a doozey, but in the last 60 seconds another technical hitch occurred. I have a theory as to why this difficult technology (DVD’s) was being so harsh to Maximum. You see, this kind of cinema was filled with such utter lack of talent – and I mean so little talent that he makes Busted look like the kind of band who needed to win the Mercury music prize – that I get the feeling MaxFactor is the kind of guy who prefers to touch himself then have sex because he thinks he’s so talented. He’s the kind of person who looks at himself naked and thinks “oh wow, that’s clearly Jesus in my belly button”. These technical hitches meant that we had to re-watch film number four. At least it gave the crowd time to look at the piece with more introspective mannerisms leave.

Film number five was amazing. Like I said, I’m no film maker. But I have seen films. A lot of great, Irish films – some of which were shot on very little budget but thanks to technology developed in the 90s can be made look good on a big screen. But here, on a medium screen, the film making was awful. In this piece, we look out a window. Either the shot was badly out of focus, or my eyes were voluntarily making themselves go blind to stop the pain of seeing the man in a bathroom do nothing, interlaced with shots of the sky & awful 70s porn. Oh, and there was a Teddy Bear, indicating our spectacled friend from the whistling bit is some sort of toilet paedophile who likes the company of bears. Paedo bears.

We then see a dog on a field. It’s actually the first shot that’s framed well. Behind the dog, which is the best actor so far in the first hour of drivel, there’s a boat coming into harbour. I’m taking this as a metaphor with the interlaced close-up shots of 70s porn.

The guy’s signature move is interlacing old movie bits and audio into random pieces of awfulness. But MaxiPad took the biscuit when he had a girl thoughtfully looking out the window. White-washed thanks to the over exposure. Which is fine. Except he changes the exposure. Mid-shot. Over, and over again. Not even smoothly. It’s like he had just found the button for the first time and decided it needed an audience. This was during a 20 minute sequence of utter rubbish featuring an actress screwing up lines and a rapey-looking bald man “editing” on a clearly turned off Macbook (the logo was on in one bit, then turned off mid-shot, and never came back on).

We then, with about 3 others, left the building before tearing our own eyes out. I went for a stiff drink, but the displeasure of seeing such tripe hasn’t left me. So much so that I’ve written a blog post for the first time in a month. That’s how incensed I am. It’s not that he’s a shit film maker. It’s not even that he think’s he’s fantastic – it’s just that he got an audience to display this and I know that there are so many talented, young and eager film makers in Ireland today who are struggling to get an audience. The only thing that could possibly make this worse is knowing that any of my tax paying money went into TK Maxx’s work in any way, shape — oh, dear, god.

Digg was one of those companies that arrived a few years ago at the right time. Before “social media gurus”, twitter and all the other shit that populates the internet’s desperate modern attempt to become more and more irrelevant with each passing business-web seminar.

The point of Digg was to be a socially powered platform that lets user submit and vote on news stories. At the beginning, it was exclusively tech based but as the site grew, CEO Jay Adelson turned the company around and made it focus on news of all types. Tech, gaming, sport, politics and even celebrity. Their algorithm changes all the time to decide how stories make it to the “front page”, and with V3 the front page of Digg became far more honed for users. So things that appeared on my front page were catered to me. This was, in the main, good. It got the right content to the right people but also removed the “digg factor”. This was a phenomenon whereby sites would get to the front page of digg and then their servers would crash because so much traffic would arrive.

V3 brought terrible things, too. For one, digg is as slow as a pig on muscle relaxants. “Digging” (voting) stories up is a pain because all of these silly scripts run to make it happen and to have a fluid animation. Even a beefy PC or Mac struggles to render all the stuff going on. Even worse is the digg bar, which is a bar that appears at the top of every page, creating a frame below it for the content. So instead of going to a link out of digg, it tries to emulate the StumbleUpon bar to let you navigate around stories on digg. Like the founder and current CEO Kevin Rose said, this bar sucks. It has no interaction with the content below it, it slows things down and is utterly irrelevant.

Welcome, indeed

V4 aims to improve things a lot. A new socially orientated focus brings digg back to its roots. We used to have ‘shouts’, where friends on digg would send messages about stories they liked on the site. Now, in a twitter manner, you can follow users to check out what they like. The front page algorithm is then turned into something that involves seeing what your friends that you follow are up to.

The layout is far more “web 2.0″. Big, rounded fonts, nice big logo’s and tags that the most challenged of web user can understand.

Following friends is easy but doesn't work

There are still plenty of bugs to speak of but this is an alpha build of the site. It’s to be expected. With the new social focus it is odd that one of the bugs is following friends from facebook and twitter. It doesn’t work for some reason. So I’m stuck following the few people I was “friends” with on the original site.

#fail

Furthermore, adding stories to digg is much easier. Now, a lot like the facebook status updater, submitting content is a mere click away. It’ll auto-fill content for you so videos and images are fetched for you, rather then having to submit things as video itself. It’s all much more fluid and intuitive.

Recommended followers could be a good thing when it's properly in place

It also makes use of HTML5, so no more awful slowness caused by tonnes of jQuery, JavaScript and other mucky muck that causes browsers to slow down to a crawl. At least Apple will be delighted with it – no flash!

How it works

Overall this is an improvement. How it impacts stories is another thing. I don’t want to follow people per se, just get content the algorithm chooses for me. I take a very small pool of content from digg these days, so if they can improve how I get content then they’ll have me visiting more often. Regardless, they needed a change – bad.

The new digg

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook

A few years ago I went for a job interview with a certain computer, personal media device, phone and software company. I had a hugely successful pre-interview with the HR girl, who talked me into wanting to chop off my own arm for this job. The interview was going to be the in UK with some big wigs that I had already met through my, at the time, current job. The day before I was to have my real interview, the whole thing was cancelled because the HR company was dropped from the job, and said computer company never got back to me and hired someone else directly.

One of the interesting points the HR manager made with me was that I was open, honest and confident in my abilities. She said whittling down the people to go for an interview was difficult because the company were very picky. So much so that one individual who she thought was a shoe-in previously didn’t get the job because during a presentation (part of the hiring process) he was sweating… a huge negative for this particular client of the HR girl. If Mark Zuckerberg (26 year old CEO & founder of Facebook) had interviewed for this position, based on the interview he gave to AllThingsD last week, he would be fruitfully unemployed.

He was sweating so much so that, for the first time ever, he removed his trademark facebook-branded hoodie in order to cool down while being pursued quite vigorously on privacy issues. His sweating, nervous gesturing, quivering lip and overall miss-handling of the scenario was not that of a CEO in charge of an internet empire, but rather a kid who’s being scolded in school. Some of his answers, when you strip away the quivering, sweat and nervousness were quite good. And often he hit the nail on the head… but because his ability to speak in public is so profoundly weak it all comes across as a bit of a hazy mess that makes me want to join the thousands leaving Facebook daily.

For sure, I agree with Tom Foremski when he says Zuckerberg needs adult supervision in the same way that the founders of Google did, hence former Sun Microsystems man Eric Schmidt leading their company to glory. Larry and Sergei still get to do their thing, and so would Zuckerberg, but having a proper adult who knows what they’re doing means you’re not reckless with decisions.

The other thing about Zuckerberg is, according to one twitter friend of mine, is that he reminds people (or perhaps this one friend alone) of an early Bill Gates. I tend not to agree, in that I don’t think he’s nearly as clever as Bill Gates. Gates dreamed up a way of interacting with your personal computer through a GUI… Zuckerberg dreams of everyone sharing information with each other (or perhaps with the wider web) on one service. Sure, there are apps and connectivity involved with Facebook and its future, but when your number one app is farmville, and Facebook connect allows some developers to pull my private profile information out, I can’t see it as anything but destructive to itself, rather then a stroke of genius a-la Windows in the 90s.

I’ve had this discussion a few times with people, and a fair point has been raised. Am I having a go at Zuckerberg because, like the job interview I mentioned at the top, I didn’t get to work in Facebook when they opened in Dublin? No, not at all. Given the chance I’d probably still work for Facebook. It seems like a good company with a real future, if they stop letting their CEO go out making brash statements and quickly changing very big things with the service, without warning, and to the detriment of its users. Maybe I am a little bitter at not having wonderful chefs make me pizza everyday for lunch in a subsidised canteen. I have a wonderful job now, thankfully.

I see where Facebook is going. Perhaps moreso then others. My background is computer science, and my final year project was/is a search engine that draws data from social media outlets (i.e. user submitted content) rather then web crawled links, like Google. Facebook, in my eyes, is clearly going after this idea. Slowly gathering user data to make it searchable, and ousting Google as the top dog in search. Even my own search engine shows more relevant data then Google when it comes down to popular, recent and relevant topics. Instead of going out to the web to look for information, the information is coming right to the service itself. Searchable, media-rich information. So a link to NYT about Gaza becomes a series of status updates from people in Gaza, with pictures, audio, video etc. all from their phone, in real time. Suddenly, Facebook’s millions of users are far more valuable then first perceived. No longer is it a social media place where people play terrible flash games (not on iPad!) and “Like” things related to celebrities. Now it’s a full on media company, powered by people.

The Google guys

And this is why Zuckerberg needs a CEO to help steer the ship, and not sweat all over himself while stuttering when asked about serious issues relating to your own users. Someone needs to guide the company through the next few years, just like Schmidt did with Larry & Sergey at Google. They still got to do their mad-hatter things, buying random companies and starting services that Google probably shouldn’t have, but Schmidt kept them in check, ensuring they didn’t go wild and run the company into the ground. Facebook could be much bigger then it is now. It’s the only social media outlet to have a real shot at the big time, even moreso then Twitter. But the way they’re going, things are going to go from bad to worse, and before it gets better it’ll lose that part of the userbase with real information to contribute to its future.

I’ve harked on a lot on this blog about Apple, their products I enjoy and a bit of speculation here & there. I’ve also not updated this site in some time, for various reasons but the primary one being laziness in a time of hectic changes in the life I attempt to lead fruitfully.

So, a month ago I caved like a wet cardboard box and bought an iPad. A month later, and I finally had it. That’s a tale in its own right. I purchased from a guy who is of Irish descent (real Irish descent, none of this pseudo-Irish American bull) in New York city. He posted an ad on a site where people do such things, and I responded. He said he would ship one over to me. All good. Except Apple went ahead and sold a million of these things very quickly, making it difficult to acquire a unit. Eventually I gave up and a twitter cohort alerted me to his friend in Cork having one to sell – at retail price. So, a week of wrangling with bank money transfers and UPS arrangements I had a shiny new 64GB Apple iPad.

I went wifi because I don’t want to be tied down to a 3G contract. If I really want to use it on-the-go, I’ll get a mifi box (a utility that allows mobile phones to syphon their 3G signal and broadcast a wifi signal). The iPad, as I’ll explain later, has not been a “mobile device” for me, per se.

So, first thing’s first, to answer Apple’s own commercial question: What is iPad? For you it could be anything. It fits into so many roles for so many different people that it’s hard to nail down. One thing’s for sure, it’s not a “giant iPod touch”, nor is it a “weak Macbook”. It’s neither. Like the keynote that launched the product said, the iPad is an in-between device. It’s not mobile like an iPhone or iPod touch. It’s like a laptop for times when you don’t need the power of a laptop. I, myself, have a Macbook Pro and iMac. My iMac has always been a bit of a media centre at home, a device to browse the internet and watch movies while eating dinners or lazing about, while the Macbook Pro is a workhorse for college because it can be brought into college/work.

Tweetdeck: A nice but broken experience

Now, instead of needing to bring a somewhat hefty Macbook Pro into work or college for times when I merely want to jot notes down or browse the web on lunch, I can bring my decisively lighter iPad which can do all of the things I need it to do fast, efficiently and with a beautiful UI.

I’ve primarily used it as a web device, probably as intended. More and more I’m less reliant on Safari as apps get more sophisticated. Just today I acquired Pulse News Reader, an RSS reader with a stunning interface. This removes the need to visit all those sites on Safari. Rather, I can pull plain text articles from my favourite news sources (mostly tech stuff, mind you). For “real” news, BBC, New York Times and various others have provided stunning news and article apps. No, I haven’t delved into the world of comic books, books or even magazines (e.g. Wired) yet. Partially because I’m not a huge fan of comics and magazines, but also because the price isn’t right yet. €5 for a magazine is a bit steep when it really is a glorified PDF. No one has “nailed” eMagazine design yet. When it happens, I’ll be all over it though.

iBooks are a more intriguing prospect. As someone waiting for the iPad to solve that itch for an eReader, I’ve yet to be entirely convinced. Sure, it’s beautiful. Sure, it’s functional. And sure, the selection is good (if you use a US-based iTunes account) but reading on a backlit LED can do nothing good for ones eyes… particularly my eyes, which are already reduced to 50% HP (nerd joke for the gamers among us). I do want to buy a book to “test drive” iBooks, but I’m not sure what yet. I still love the feeling of reading a real book, and do so regularly unlike, it seems, my peers. One remarkable thing about iBooks is it could save the publishing industry before eReaders have a chance to create mass piracy issues and the DRM problems the music industry still wrestles with. By the time iTunes came along, the music industry was already crying at the hands of pirates, apparently. Now, though, we have a viable option to bail out publishers before things go from slightly murky to down right horrific.

Pulse news reader is a truly incredible app

Games, as expected, are beautiful on iPad. So beautiful it’ll make you throw up at the tosh you’ve put up with before. Remember Snake on Nokia phones? Compared to the iPhone it makes me want to throw up thinking of the time wasted on Nokia’s terribly slow, chunky and laborious gaming effort. Introducing iPad to the mix would make anyone want to burn anything they own, not just from Nokia, but from Finland generally, just in case someone from Nokia had a hand in creating it.

Some games are wonderful experiences from iPhone upgrades. Flight Control is a perfect example of this. It really takes advantage of the visual real estate provided. Some, like Angry Birds HD are just higher resolution versions of the same thing – but at almost ten times the price, which is a disgrace. Hopefully the market shifts the prices downward, as a lot of apps generally (not just games) are priced far above their realistic price for admission. It makes app buying more of a decision, whereas the iPhone 79c typical price for apps makes it a throw-away decision. If the app sucks, oh well. At €10, the decision is far more decisive and involves more consideration as this is a lunch or early bird dinner. Hell, this is two pints in Dublin (or 5 if you’re in a reasonable country).

Flight Control HD is one of the few great upgraded apps to rebuy

Video is beautiful. But we’ve all heard about video. Yes, it’s crisp. Yes, it’s HD. And so on… what is really remarkable is the fact that the speaker on the bottom of it is mind blowingly crisp, clear and audibly superior to anything on the market in terms of mobile devices. This stands up to most laptops, let alone netbooks on the market. Combined with the lush display and this really becomes a brilliant media device. Furthermore, iTunes is really useful here. I don’t use iTunes on the iPhone because I find the experience clunky. On Mac it’s great (PC, not so much)… but on iPad the team behind iTunes really nailed it on the head. The UI is perfect. Other music apps like Pandora take a lot of inspiration from iTunes which is great, too. A bit of uniform UI is not a bad thing in apps on the same platform.

What have I been using it for, though? Well, to recap what I said earlier, this device is an in-between internet and media device. It plays games well for when I’m bored, it does the twitter, browsing and email experience better then anything on the market (computers included) and impresses everyone around me. I don’t need a 3G version because all of my web-based stuff is done at home, in my girlfriends’ home, in work or in college. I can’t see myself using this on the bus. Not yet, anyway.

Daft Punk in the Star Wars Adidas World Cup ad.. in HD!

The only downside to it is that it’s too good. I genuinely mean that. My iPhone 3G, by comparison, feels slow, unresponsive (especially when typing) and cheap. It’s too light compared to the rugged design of the iPad. No doubt all of this leads to a more robust, fast and durable experience with a new iPhone, perhaps being announced next week at WWDC. All in all, it’ll be another expensive year as an Apple consumer in 2010!

Strap on your sympathy hats folks, I’ve a sob story to tell. No, nothing dire, awful or significantly traumatic per se. I’m sitting here in a cool room in a reclined chair sipping a warm mug of tea while contemplating the last week.

Anyone who regularly keeps tabs on me from my Garda Pulse system records or twitter will know that I recently bribed and slept my way into a new high powered job inside Ireland’s only Apple Premium Reseller as a tech nerd. Such a job involves jetsetting off to the UK for training. I needed to become Apple certified in order to be allowed to use Apple resources when repairing Mac units. This is the same type of training Apple Genius bar people do in America. Except while they have weeks to do this training, we have 4 days. This could be our collective brain power being greater then of the average American, or it’s Europeans figured out you can cram the course (or 2 courses, as it was essentially) into 4 days and do it cheaper. Darwin will look after the weaklings.

This training involved an intensive 3 day hardware course. Included was what tools to use, what issues to fix and how to diagnose a sick Mac. All very useful and relevant. Then an exam. Multiple choice questions that are designed to catch out the weary and non-attentive made it a difficult exam, but only getting 2 or 3 questions wrong was a good achievement. This exam was taken on Thursday evening last week.

The online exam is run through a system Apple design. However, while that tab was being used to answer questions in the allotted time slot of two grueling hours, another tab was open with a live feed of news coming about this horrific mass of Icelandic glass-like ash looming over Europe like some sort of evil overseer that was determined to keep the airline industry in debt. I will say this, though, twitter came into its own for the first time ever. The cleverly-titled hashtag #ashtag was not spammed, misused or filled with useless natter. Instead real, relevant information came through to people like me, people who needed this information. I commend twitter users for getting their act together when required and not talking about Justin Bieber – whoever he is.

Royal Mail: Probably not working too well without planes. This was my hotel room view

I had discovered, through the news, that my final day (Friday) may not end as whimsically as I had thought. Indeed, as I followed the press releases and news fodder through to 2.30AM on Friday morning, it was ever-apparent that I would not be flying home. The company were kind enough to pay for me to stay the extra night in the hotel while I tried frantically to find a way home. Which I did.

Saturday. A 6AM start isn’t the best idea after a stressful day of cramming 250 odd pages of software troubleshooting and in-depth looks at OS X before another exam, but so be it. I discovered the best (and only) option for me was to book rail & sail tickets. Fine, except the UK appears to be utterly inept with its use of the internet. Rather then book the tickets and collect them from a machine in the station, they post these tickets to you. Tickets which cannot be purchased if you live in Ireland. So I only used the rail & sail sites to check the timetables to make sure my separate-entity purchases would align in such a way as to get me home.

Fog, or Ash, at 6.30AM on the morning I left

My 7AM private-hire cab arrived as expected and whisked me off to Euston station. While I had booked the cab and ferry online, the Virgin Trains site would not accept my credit card because I did not have a valid UK address that matched my card, despite me trying to tell the system I wasn’t English and was staying in a hotel. It’s incredible that they did not acknowledge us filthy fenians would be trying to get home with their wretched service. The cab driver was lovely, chatty and very London-ish. The hour-long journey didn’t seem so bad as he nipped around short cuts and routes that skipped and hopped past traffic. He told me that his company has 3000 drivers who normally drive business people around to/from airports but currently he was the only one who had work in the last 2 days. The economy, it appears, is buggered.

Euston was a train station. There’s not much to say. It had more platforms then Irish stations but the idea is the same. Stand in the lobby and wait for the big departures signage to tell you which platform to go to for your journey. Holyhead sat on the board for 30 minutes before getting a platform assigned to it. The buzzing people running around, waiting, making calls and generally moping about the wide open area in Euston was a true testament to urban living. Us city-dwellers are like bees. An un-announced negation on how to pass through our grouped expanses shone in the organised chaos of Euston. However, when the platform number came up for Holyhead, it was very apparent that everyone was Irish as the huge crowd suddenly moved to platform 2. Nearly everyone cleared the space within seconds to grab a seat.

Departures board in Euston station, central London

Once we got to the second stop on the train journey the train manager announced the journey was de-classified. This means first class cabins were open for business for anyone to sit in because so many were standing. They apologised over and over again for the fact that so many were using the service as an alternative to flying. Surely they could have anticipated this? It’s a direct train from London to Holyhead port, for god sake. So not only did Virgin trains fail to allow Irish people to use their website, they also stank in terms of organising a train that could carry all the extra passengers. If not for customer service sake, they could have put extra measures in place to make more money. On top of this, the food carriage on the train closed half way through the journey. My senses and ability to focus my brain stopped very quickly, and there was nothing I could do. A huge sense of helplessness overtook as the journey dragged on. I wanted to punch the old woman who was hogging an extra seat for her bag across from me as people stood around her. To top things off, Virgin decided today was the day to have a mid-journey engine change. This added a 15 minute delay to the proceedings. On any other day this would be fine, but on a day when people were scrambling home in a transport disaster, what the hell were Virgin thinking?

The experience on this train shows exactly why Ireland should never privatise anything. These companies didn’t give a shit about their passengers, given the circumstances. Like I said, even ignoring customer service, they could have made extra money by adding more space with a bigger train and running a 5-hour food service for people. Keep in mind the train left Euston at 8:50AM, meaning it’s prime time for people to get some lunch by the time the train finished the journey.

Arriving on a now-packed train that reminded me of Indian trains, Holyhead was a nice break. Getting into Holyhead involves passing beautiful vistas in Wales. And on a sunny day it made for stunning viewing that made me instantly regret not bringing my camera. Once you disembark from the train it’s a mere 5 minute walk from the platform to the ferry check-in. Those of us who managed to pre-book rambled through, but the queues for tickets were so long it was evident there would be disappointment and anger today.

Irish sea was busy with stranded airline passengers

The ferry had a bizarre way of getting foot passengers onto the boat. Rather then have us walk on, we had to get a coach onto the boat. A 2 minute coach journey. And yes, we couldn’t merely walk off either. We had to get on the same coach to get off the boat and get to land when we arrived in Dublin. No explanation why. We were just herded around.

The boating experience was nice because it had nice oceanic views. However, the staff were terrible and the boat appeared unsafely full. Hundreds of tired, grumpy, cranky and confused people were occupying the boat, yet somehow Stena thought it would be good practice to send one of their staff around with a fake ferret to play practical jokes on people. Some laughed it off, but there was a clear sense of contempt for this moron as he floated around from table to table. He also picked the start of the journey to do this. You know, the part where people who’ve been on a train for 5 hours were trying to get some food into their system.

On top of this eejit running around, the small cafeteria had one of the most disinterested, fat bitches I’ve ever seen manning a customer-facing job in my life. She had literally no interest in serving the ever-expanding queue of people seeking refuge from the prick with the ferret. She even managed to scowl openly at the rather wealthy man who gave her a tip. She gave me a dirty look when I asked if I could pay in sterling for my coffee and crisps (which would save me from collapse at that point – I couldn’t even see my money at this point with the disorientation). Why? I have no idea.

Stuffed people trying to get home, finally

The experience of land-based transport is a prime example of why these companies are in tatters. In extraordinary circumstances they failed to step up to the plate and show why people should use them in future. But no, their terrible plans, terrible staff and horrid prices are a keen reminder as to why air travel is still the great white hope of humanities ability to traverse the globe. Keep in mind in times of diaster airlines are scumbags, but they’ve never raised their prices when people really needed their help. Eurostar has raised ticket prices from around €60 to €200 since this. No reason why. They’re just profiteering scumbags.

Finally back home from my odyssey, it feels good. Though I’m a little annoyed that KLM’s findings that it’s safe to fly aren’t being published in the news that prominently. It appears the American idea of news reporting has taken hold here. If it’s not horrifically bad news, it’s not news.

Getting into my house I was greeted with one bit of news. I won the mug from the blacknight competition for my blog post “The Mug.“. Unfortunately the mug arrived smashed up, as per below. Such a shame, though the kind guys at Blacknight reckon they can get a new one out to me. Those folks are good peoples – but stuff from them

Ironic I won this for writing about a mug I had smash on me!

I started in the CompuB outlet today, running around like a normal “expert” since there’s nothing to fix and the work area I’ll have is still being built, it was nice to get going. The store is lovely and a good example of how retail should be done. The Apple methodologies really work here. The colleagues are good people too, which helps. I’m looking forward to working there. Hell, if a company hires you and then pays to send you off on an expensive certification course, you’ve got to be happy, right? Especially in this economy. It’s good to have a job, but a good one? That’s golden.

A new challenge for the month of April is being posed to the citizens of earth, especially the ones using twitter, it seems. 30 days of biking is an initative through the month that begins today.

The rules are simple – ride your bike at least once a day. Those who commute will find the challenge quite easy! If not, then start easy. Just go on a quick cycle around the local area, around the block or to the shops. You don’t have to be a bucket of sweat – take it easy. Plus, with the nice weather due (hopefully!) we should have fine cycling weather. There’s nothing more amazing then going on a brisk cycle along the coast!

The challenge ends on April 30th, but I would encourage anyone who takes it up to actually continue cycling. Dublin cycling figures are up, and continuing. One report called us the new Amsterdam – lets show the Dutch how we do it!

If you’re on twitter, use the hashtag #30daysofbiking when discussing your endeavour. Already it’s a busy hashtag with lots of people taking up the challenge!

For some reason, whenever I proudly announce to a room that I’m a Bayern Munich fan I get groans and disbelief. The groans are the typical “oh god, not another football fan” kind of bemoaning you expect from civilised people. The disbelief comes from football fans. Why? Because as a born-and-bred Dubliner, I’m supposed to support an English team.

I don’t not-support an English team out of any kind of national pride or a deliberate attempt to not support something from those bastards who took control of our precious land for 800 years. No, I’ve no such national pride, and quite enjoy the company of English people. In fact, they can have the land back. It’s not worth much, just ask NAMA.

Rather, having some semblance of family in Germany I’ve always grown up aware of the country, and always liked it. I wanted to learn German in school but was forced to learn the ever-romantic tongue that is French. As lovely as it is to know French, I’ll never try to live in France. I would gladly live in Germany, though. On top of that, German football is the regimented, play-by-play kind of football style that I enjoy. Where a few players stand out because they play with class or style, and get away with it. Premier league teams can’t have that for the most part, because class and style is punished by hard tackling and nasty gameplay.

Liking Bayern is great because they’re a team people know. I don’t have to ‘explain’ why I like them as much as someone who might like Werder Bremen or Leverkusen. But somehow, it still requires more explanation then if I liked Manchester United or Liverpool. Though, my support of a “foreign” team does have its charms. For one, the jerseys are always a little nicer… in part due to the fact that Adidas has quite a large share of Bayern Munich, Inc. Second, I don’t get tied up in the silly bickering between children who fight the cause between “United versus Liverpool” discussions. Third, the Allianz arena is a true marvel of engineering. Something that is somewhat replicated with the new Landsdowne road (or “Aviva Stadium” as it’s now called).

The final thing that is always nice about being a Bayern fan is that Premier League fans consistently under-estimate my team. A team I follow with shocking attention to detail. So much so that I do believe I could manage any team. In fact, the only other team I follow with some obsession is Barcelona. My reasons there are that my lovely other half lived there for some time a few years ago, and has an affinity with the city. That, and the fact that Barcelona is a Spanish team with class, unlike their greasy, monarchy-funded, scumbag counter-parts. And, of course, Messi-ah. Though if it comes down to the Bundesliga or La Liga teams together, Munich will always be the favoured side.

And so we come to tonight, where in the first leg of the champions league double-whammy against Manchester United (a long-heralded fixture of torment for both sides) Bayern disposed of the English side with a relative sense of ease and passion with a second-rate team on the pitch, given their superstars Robben and Schweinsteiger were out due to injury and suspension (respectively). The typical twitter chatter came through, and someone did a quick snap of their timeline, a timeline mainly populated with Irish and English tweeters. When Olic skillfully robbed the United defense of their possession and hammered home a goal to bring the score to 2-1, most twitter users went crazy, lamenting the poor performance of their team (after a rather strong start), and then there was me.

Spot the Bayern fan

See you next week, football fans

A recent development in my life is absolute poverty while studying. This is, in no small part, due to the fact that I have not managed to maintain a proper, full time position in the last few months. Largely due to my lack of interest in such a position. I’ve made enough money through various bits and pieces (particularly with web design and the like) to see myself through. I do not require a lavish lifestyle to get through the day.

I have done interviews for various positions but as picky as I am in where I send my CV, companies appear to be just as picky about the staff they hire. Development places like me but not the fact that I don’t graduate until the end of this year and other places don’t like me because I am still in college (thus rendering their locations at risk of hiring me on a short-term basis). All of this despite my reassurances that I’m not hitching a short ride to bleed a company dry of its cash.

However, in recession Ireland, post-Christmas it’s been rough seas to say the least. Job interviews have come and gone and, despite feeling good about positions, I’ve not had much luck with getting proper full-time work that will accomodate my part-time evening study – which, frankly, takes precedence over any job I may have at any given time. On more then one occasion I’ve been politely fed the line “…but I really look forward to being able to work with you sometime in the future”. Sorry folks, but when I’m declined a job because I dare pursue my education or other such “trivial” matters, I won’t be back to you anytime soon. Regardless of how crap the economy is.

Lucky for me, though, something perfect is on the horizon. No, it has nothing to do with college, development, or software engineering type work at all. Instead, this is a great chance to work in what is likely to be Dublins’ only Apple retail outlet for some time. The plan is to be the “expert” (which Apple’s own stores affectionately title “Genius”) in the store, to help patrons with all manner of issues relating to their Apple hardware, and software. On top of that, the plan is for the company to train me in various areas to then go on and give classes to customers. Such classes would be in products like Final Cut Pro, etc. Sure, it’s not exactly on the same line of thinking as a Computer Science qualification, but it’s a springboard into something later on, and a good CV stocking-filler.

My history with retail work is somewhat sparce, with a part-time job years ago in one of Ireland’s most terrifyingly awful companies: Xtra-Vision. I was a part time sales assistant in my local outlet, and when people weren’t shouting at you for giving them scratched discs and thus ruining their lives, they were trying to rob the place or rob me of any dignity I could muster up in the place. I did make lifelong friends in there, and indeed met my ladyfriend in that hell hole – but never again will I willingly be a customer of theirs, and I will always recommend people avoid getting employment there. Potentially, it is one of the most amazingly badly run companies in the world, with layer upon layer of tosser running the show from store level to executive level. I’ve never seen staff so mal-treated in my entire life. Some time after that I was a sales guy in Currys, which earned me a decent enough wage and a chance to use my knowledge of computers on customers. This made me the top sales guy in our branch months on end, an honour that all Indian and Polish sales people would kill to have. After only a few months of active selling I was promoted into another hell hole, as an assistant manager in their sister-company, PC World.

This, in terms of corporate structure and incompetence, overshadows Xtra-Vision. Not because the people at the top are worse, but because they truly, deeply believe they are the best of the best. Some of them are, though. The directors I worked with for a little bit of time were amazing. The managing director was good when he wanted to be, but the team under them for the most part were utterly awful to deal with – all the way down to the girl who barely spoke English. These are the people who set prices for Irish people to scoff at and drive up north. However bad they may have been (and they weren’t all bad, just enough of them for me to brandish everyone with the same stick) by far the worst group of people involved were the store managers. Scarily, these were the biggest idiots ever created by man. No business sense, no leadership skills and brandishing their managerial roles in stores like it was some sort of societal medal of honour. I’ve never been forced into depressive lack of motivation so quick in my life. Never before do I want to go into work to be given a list of orders by a manager who has never lifted a finger – nor do I want to go into work to remotivate 30 colleagues after being told they’ll be sacked if they keep under-performing. Never again do I want a manager to tell me I should “give up that college stuff, as it’ll do you no good”. And never again do I want to feel helplessly lost at the whim of an awful corporate structure that leaves assistant managers, supervisors and staff without a proper voice – and with horrifically low wages in comparison to their managers.

With that in mind, it might be mad to go back into retail. This time it’s different. They’re delighted I’m in college. They’re delighted I want to work for them… and they’re a smaller company (Dublin will only be store number 3). It also seems they’re spending a lot of time to assemble a proper team of people to run the show and get things moving. The designs for the store are ripped right from the manual of Apple stores (and is, in fact, being approved by Apple, etc.). It is as close to an Apple store without being an Apple store… a dream for nerds like me who own everything Apple make.

And so I come to the crux of this post, 1075 words in. I went for training with this particular outfit in their main store in Limerick, on O’Connell street specifically. To document my vast journey across the rail network of Ireland I brought along my brothers’ Lumix camera… because I wasn’t hauling a 50D on the two-day tour de force.

Heuston Station, see if you can spot the pigeon...

The journey began at 8AM on a bus to town, after which I got the LUAS to Heuston to collect my pre-paid €10 internet ticket. A ticket that otherwise would cost €50. Granted the company was paying, but there’s no need to be an asshole about such things. Of course, the return leg tickets could not be purchased from the store because the Irish Rail website decided to go AWOL when we wanted to book, so the poor company got stiffed with a hefty cost for sending us home. Unnecessarily hefty.

High speed, ish!

The train from Heuston was quick. Very quick. From Heuston to Cork was the full journey, but us poor unfortunates going to Limerick, a city I had not been in since childhood, had to get a connecting train somewhere along the line. Incidentally I had purchased the wrong ticket unknowingly online, from Heuston to Limerick Junction, which is a good hour away from Limerick. Luckily the disgruntled ticket man in Heuston extended my ticket for free.

Metro 2033 - a great read si far

Accompanying me on my journey was a book I have been awaiting the release of for months. Metro 2033 tells the story of a post-apocalyptic community living in the desolate area of the metro underground system in Moscow. It’s one of Russia’s biggest selling modern books, and the English release was delayed several times over to meet the release of the video-game of the same story (that I refuse to play until I have completed all 458 pages). The train journey gave me a chance to get 4 chapters into the gripping story. And my bottle of water helped me through, too. A bottled I purchased not for the contents, but to get 30c change to use the toilets in Heuston.

It is quite ironic that I was reading a post-apocalyptic tale from Russia, as the change-over at Limerick Junction from the speedy, comfortable and modern InterCity train to the Limerick city Commuter train is stark, at the very least. Not only is the train basically a DART (Dublin’s local rail system that covers a tiny bit of the city because our planners are as incompetent as PC World managers), the tracks feel somewhat uneven, so the train jolts around like a dune buggy for most of the hour-long journey. In accordance to the book, it’s also apt that the surrounding area of Limerick Junction is a desolate wasteland. It appears that there is no possibility of this area sustaining life of any form. Chernobyl has more plantlife then this place. It’s no coincidence that the entire journey was kissed by sunshine down, until we reached Limerick Junction.

The 5-star B&B

Eventually we got to Limerick, and I donned my stab-proof vest (the joke being that murders in Limerick, while plentiful, are always carried out with a knife rather then a gun) to make the 5minute walk, accompanied by my iPhone and the Google Maps app, to O’Connell street and to the store where I began my 2 days work.

The training was fun and easy-going. The store was absolutely dead for the most part, with a few queries here and there, some phone calls and some low-cost sales. For the most part it was a chance for us (as I was later joined by a colleague who will also be starting in Dublin when the store opens) to learn the software being used in the stores.

At the end of the first day we went off to our B&B, on the same street, only 10 minutes walk from the store. The B&B was nice, but despite the owner saying there was “wifi… or broadband, whatever it’s called” I couldn’t get a signal. Luckily I could leech from a nearby Eircom users’ connection by using an app to get their WEP key. I then downloaded the second episode of “The Pacific”. The room was nice, had a shower and what not. More hotel-ish then B&Bish. The breakfast was lovely – but I didn’t have it because I woke up at an ungodly early hour and began working on my dissertation. At some point, earphones in my ear, I fell back asleep; waking only with the time to be able to get dressed, have a quick glass of juice and get to work.

In your city, stealing your wifi!

The view from the window

Overall my experience with the job was great. It’s the exact opposite of my previous experiences with retailing. It’s exactly what you’d expect an “Apple” style company to be like. Nonchalant, not trying to pressure people, and in turn, not trying to blame people with things go wrong. Instead they’re just running an honest operation and trying their best to get the best possible staff on board with them.

Limerick was as expected – a giant Tallaght (a notoriously bad area in Dublin). I’m sure it has lovely parts as well as horrific parts, just like Dublin – but if their main street is anything to go by, things are as I suspected in Limerick; barren. Even the store manager commented that the city has been hit hard by the recession. It’s a city I wouldn’t live in. It’s also a city with nothing to visit either. No real drive to push tourism, or business it seems. It’s a perfect poster-boy for decentralisation (where the government departments move to locations other then Dublin to help drive the local economy). It’s no wonder most people live in Dublin, and if they don’t, they live in Cork or Galway instead.

O'Connell Street, in all her glory

It doesn’t help that everyone wears tracksuits, and people the same age of me have a scowling face whenever they came in contact with “proper” people. You know, heathens with nice clothes. Having said that, the majority of customers were lovely and local. It also seems the staff in the shop had developed a fantastic relationship with their customers. Though this is something that I doubt will translate into Dublin, as I would expect that to be a complete madhouse with a huge turnover of customers in and out the door.

This is the only monument we saw

The homeward leg was a bit more entertaining. It felt a little like a holiday as, in the station, we spent the last of our change as if we weren’t going to need euro back in Dublin. All in aid of a horrible coffee and sandwich.

Even the timetable for Limerick station was desolate

Minutes before departure and our train was nowhere to be seen

Limerick station wasn't exactly on a par with Heuston

..and here comes the train, from the bright outside world to the murky depths of Limerick station

The high speed train at Limerick junction was late arriving here, and late into Dublin. Characteristically Irish journey, so...

Blacknight are running a nice little competition to give away one of their now-famed custom mugs, with some t-shirts thrown in for good measure. All they ask to enter is you put up a blog post, or comment on their blog, detailing why you deserve it. Well, I rambled a little bit more then others but the competition ignited something deep within me. A memory from years ago that extends to this very day. It’s an event that seems insignificant, but it really did affect me. And it is honest-to-god true, too.

Perhaps my tale is not as deserving as others above. Perhaps I’m not even the best BlackKnight customer, deserving of free swag (though a few domains and hosting for the last 2 years later, I am at the very least somewhat loyal!). Perhaps, even, I’m not even the most likable person in the world – entirely undeserving of such free gifts.

But here’s my tale…

Ever since I was a young kid I remember not caring too much about football. In fact, it’s only in recent years I’ve taken up an interest in the sport. Bayern Munich are my team of choice. Why? Well, I dislike the premier league. It’s marred in my mind as it gets represented rather poorly by its fans both in the UK itself and here. All of my friends love the EPL. Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal. My friends are a split bunch with no clue who they like most of the time, or why. I like Munich for a simple reason, I’ve family from there and I like their classy style of play and wonderful stadium.

But that’s an aside. As a kid, I didn’t like Bayern Munich. I couldn’t really name footballers, except the really famous ones like Eric Cantona, Robbie Fowler or Roy Keane. Nope, I was hooked on another sport altogether. Formula 1.

The first race I ever saw on TV was the German GP at Hokenheim. Sweeping, long and fast straights leading to tight, winding chicanes. Ripe for overtaking, action and an event not to be missed. The first car that zipped past the camera as I watched was a Ferrari. Brilliant red of the scuderia lighting up the pixels on the TV. So, from here on in I was a lifelong Ferrari fan.

A few years of loyalty (like my loyalty to Blacknight!) later and one Christmas my uncle, who stays with us over the Christmas period every year – a nice tradition we’ve kept up over the years (probably the only tradition my entire family keeps, too) bought me a nice present. I don’t remember what the “big” gift was, that’s how significant the stocking filler was. Yes, it was a two-part gift. No doubt the big gift was lego, or a high-value voucher for HMV. But I don’t recall… all I recall is my lovely black and red Ferrari mug. I only drank warm milk before bed. It wasn’t until I hit my teens that I succumbed to a crippling tea addiction, which has more recently morphed into a full blown coffee ‘problem’.

All those years, with my tastes changing consistently from hot milk to coffee every morning and evening. All those hot drinks poured, spilled and drank. Even though my tastes changed, my mug didn’t. Nope. I still had that Ferrari mug. Hell, it survived the birth of my youngest brother.

Then, a few years ago, as I trapsed back into the kitchen to get a refill of my preferred hot beverage, I went to the end of the hall from the front room I had procured a seat in, one door in my way to get to our back room which leads into the big, extended kitchen on the back of our house, where upon disaster struck. As I reached for the door, clasping the handle with steely determination and using the correct amount of force to pry the door from it’s spring-locked position – my youngest brother popped the door open from the other side, with far more force then he needed to. He was too young to understand the forces required to open doors at that point. He was either too ginger or too hard. This time he was too hard. He yanked the door away from me, but me, still grasping it, fell forward slightly. In the act of re-balancing myself, I lost my footing a little. I needed to get balance, and quick. I needed to reach out and stop myself from falling. I did. But in the act I forgot my precious mug. It crashed to the ground as I saved myself. I tried to pull my leg forward to ease the blow and potentially save it, but it was too late.

My mug was dead. Smashed. Not even into a million pieces. Just large chunks torn from it’s ceramic flesh with surgical precision.

I put up with the typical house mugs bought from Dunnes or whatever pottery shop you get them from. You know the type: shiny, with unoffensive colours strafing the edges in a “hooped” fashion.

A year or two ago my loving girlfriend went ahead and took the plunge to buy me a new mug that caught my eye. It’s not a Ferrari mug. It’s an “F1″ branded mug. It’s a decent substitute. Not as big as my old mug. Not as nice to hold. It also tears a lump from my soul knowing I benefited the pocket of Bernie Ecclestone. It serves coffee as well as a mug can.

I have thought about stealing a large Starbucks mug several times over. But shame and guilt always rear their ugly heads when I attempt to slip my empty (except for left-over foam from my Cappucino), grande-sized mug into my bag in one of their outlets. I just can’t do it.

And so, I write this as a plea. Not as a good example of a person who loves Blacknight (though loyal as I am), but as a person in need. I may not deserve the mug as much as others, but giving me a nice, big, lovingly made Blacknight mug will fill me with the same joy as my old Ferrari one. It’ll also fill me with adequate amounts of caffeine to support my crippling addiction. It will also save Starbucks a few euro on replacing one solitary, but stolen none-the-less, mug.

And yes, that was a true story, written out of sheer boredom.

Literally months have passed since I first signed up to a new hope in social media, or at least that’s how it was sold to me. Threadsy.com is a new system that aims to “pull together” (get it?) various social media outlets and pipe them through a singular web2.0 interface, based on the web. This includes importing email, twitter, facebook and linkedIn accounts so in one, single timeline you see all of your tweets, status updates, emails and what not… all under one collective roof.

Still in closed beta, the system has just begun, but it works flawlessly. I would, as a programmer, be delighted to release this to the public immediately. The interface is smooth and brilliant. I do imagine it cuts out a lot of users of older browsers, or those on weaker systems then mine, as it is quite heavy on the DOM (document object model) stuff.

Email import is easy and intuitive. Much like the Apple Mail client, it'll fetch server data for you in most cases...

The first thing you do when you sign up is import and set up your connections. First it focuses on email. Just like any good email client should do, it only asks for your address and password. After that, it will go get the server details (stmp, imap etc. server addresses) and set it up for you. I’ve a few email addresses (mostly unused, mind) so this is a nice feature.

All my accounts... I am a whore.

Depressingly, for every email account I have, I almost manage a 1:1 ratio of social media accounts. I truly am a disgraceful whore of social media. Just like the email import, threadsy will go find your details for you by using Facebook Connect and OAuth on twitter. LinkedIn seemed to appear at random in my account, perhaps because that is linked by Facebook though this is not explicitly explained by the system. It is also a slightly scary prospect that Facebook potentially knows everything about me. It may also be why I somehow cannot apply for jobs on Facebook…!

The interlude screen explains precisely what's going on, and what threadsy is. Arguably it's a bit late to explain this...

After a brief “loading…” screen, the interface loads, hiding behind a small snapshot explaining exactly what the system does, somewhat making a case as to why you should care about threadsy… and why you should “pull yourself together”, as the title tag goes. Getting rid of this introductory screen, which inconveniently appears after you’ve already imported all of your details, will reveal the full interface. Anyone who’s used web email interfaces will be vaguely at home.

Here you have an inbox, which shows all of your emails, @reply tweets and page messages from Facebook. The filter dictates timeline as the most important aspect of this system, so an @reply will appear above an email, if it was received after the email was sent. You can, however, pop into individual accounts to get their specific inboxes to make things more convenient.

This lies to the left of a smaller (but resizable) tab containing the live feed of data coming from the people you’re connected to on your various systems. From here you can retweet, reply to and comment on (via Facebook) content given by users. It really is a rather good system. Every update (which occurs after some counter, which I have not figured out yet, but appears to be every minute or so) arrives with a cute “chime” sound, which can be disabled thankfully. It is, however, rather unoffensive to listen to. Carefully chosen chime sounds are important. I do enjoy the Facebook chat sound, incidentally. Also incidentally, Facebook chat is only available through the Meebo bar at the bottom of the screen, which also incorporates AIM, GTalk and Myspace IM.

The full interface. Inbox on the left, live feed on the right

It does exactly what it aims to do – pull together all of your social media outlets in one. It’s very smooth, pleasant to use and probably the only web interface for such things that didn’t induce projectile vomiting from my part. The design is smooth and very web-savvy for all the social media hipsters out there. Put simply, it works very well. The only thing it seems to lack is contextual search. In other words, if I see an interesting @reply from a user, I cannot see what tweet they are replying to. An easy thing to fix, undoubtedly. It also does a lot of things (i.e. Facebook) better then Tweetdeck (and also doesn’t have the inconvenience of being an Adobe Air application). If you use a Mac, like me (enter smug look), you can create a desktop application out of the site by using Fluid – a system I’ve discussed here before.

If you want to use it you need to sign up and get added to a special list. Alternatively, I have 10 beta invites available for readers. Just click here and fill in the form and go for it. The reason I’m not tweeting the signup codes etc. is because I want to give preference to readers. Keep in mind there’s only 10 invites, and I’ve no control over who gets them. So please be honest and just sign up for one. You are likely to get 10 invites afterwards yourself if you require more accounts for friends etc. And if you’re feeling generous, post the link to your invite code in the comments below. Social media in action, eh?

Below is a gallery of the threadsy system, including the images I posted above: