Back in February a collection of rogues and vagabonds made their way across the water to Rathlin Island. Officially the plan was to discuss the next Jigs and Rigs festival. Whilst we did hold such a discussion, the other motive was to have a good old get-together, eat some fine food, go for a few good walks, and generally make merry, dance around like eejits, and have a good old laugh.

Below is a little photo-journal from the weekend.

Gallery

Related posts:

1. Silence punctuated by a barbecue
2. Rathlin
3. WordPress 2.5 Gallery Templating

Up to 76Mb download speed
Up to 19Mb upload speed

I’m pretty chuffed with that. Compared to my broadband speeds this time last year that’s approximately 70 times faster on the download end of things.

I’m also pretty happy about my “truly unlimited” connection. Below is my usage for the past month.

I have been uploading all of my music collection to Google Play Music, which explains the massive upload usage. Sadly Google Play Music is limited to 20,000 tracks so I’m stuck with under half my music collection uploaded and they don’t appear to be offering any option for increasing your allowance.

Related posts:

1. Nice Hi-speed Footage
2. Google Maps vs Bing Maps in Cambodia
3. QotD: DJ Me

The process went something like this:

1. Register new Skype In number based in the states.
2. Set up US proxy to login to Google Voice
3. Apply for new Google Voice number using my US Skype In number as verification
4. Cancel US Skype In number
5. Setup Skype to redirect calls to Google Voice number

What was the purpose of this? It meant that if I didn’t have Skype on (which, due to the unreliability of their Android app, I often didn’t), any missed calls would be routed to Google Voice at no cost and I’d at least get a notification via Gmail of the missed call, or at best a free transcript of the message. Considering that I was 7 hours ahead of most of my clients, this was handy for keeping track of any potential emergencies. Yes I could have just re-routed my calls directly to my Cambodian mobile, but at a cost, and at the danger of being woken up at 2am by a client who just wanted to check in on progress or something mundane that didn’t require immediate attention.

So what’s the problem?

Well, the problem is that Google Voice does a horrendous job of guessing what people are saying. I don’t know whether this is a more generic issue, or whether its exaggerated by the fact that I’m getting it to transcribe Irish accented voice mails.

Check this most recent transcription out:

Dallas teaching here. Just wanted to web page town and Yeah, Monday, at the sorry it’s Tuesday noon today night i can assure that kind of [phone number redacted], Latrice okay. No one quotes at the moment coming through tomorrow. Yeah but I will talk tonight and content. All of the website, so all the time. If you have a good online presence. Let’s just got back at the topic of the here and community back punk rock. Bye bye.

“… and community back punk rock. Bye bye.” What an awesome way to finish your voice mail.

Ultimately the message turned out to be from a client who thought their website might be down (if it was, this particular client should be calling their hosting company not me as we don’t handle their hosting anymore). I’m quite sure that there is no realistic way you could gather that from the above transcription.

It looks like voice transcription has a long way to go..

Related posts:

1. Skype F me in the A once again
2. Google with a hint of Yahoo
3. Google start waving

There’s a few small glitches that I’ve noticed, but overall the new look is a definite improvement, and, based on some quick testing this morning, I think it will result in a more fluid user-experience and faster note browsing and creation.

Glitches

1. For the life of me I cannot find options for premium offline notebooks. I’m quite certain it used to be an option in main settings, but I’ve gone through each screen there and can’t see it. This is a little unfortunate as I was meaning to set one of my notebooks up for offline use before I go abroad.
2. The hardware menu button no longer functions at all (I think). I’ve checked it pretty much everywhere in the app and it does nothing. Obviously for devices without a dedicated menu button this isn’t an issue, but it should still get a response for those phones that do still have dedicated menu buttons.
3. Long press actions only work on individual notes, not notebooks or tags. Feels like there should be some options on long-pressing a notebook (move, make available offline, rename).

Quick video overview

Gallery

Related posts:

1. Chrome for Android Beta released
2. Posting from Android
3. Can someone recommend an Evernote alternative?

We pay €15 a month, or €180 a year, to use this antiquated system which is convoluted, not user friendly, and only works correctly in Internet Explorer. They’ve been assuring us that a new system will be “rolling out soon” on and off for the past 4 years.

We’re currently investigating other options that might yield slightly lower yearly charges and a better system to boot.

Woeful.

The hilarious thing is that all of their literature, demos and tutorials never dare to show this antiquated system, they’re clearly too ashamed to actually show customers in advance the UI horror they’re going to deal with. Instead they stick with meaningless PR shots of happy trendy young customers on their computer smiling. Clearly the man pictured in the brochure to the right is actually watching a cute cat video on YouTube, because if he was using Bank of Ireland’s “Business On-Line” system he’d be much more likely to be in tears (or at a minimum, his visage would be beset with a furrowed brow and an ever-darkening grimace).

Related posts:

1. An Post: Making no sense is our business
2. Skype F me in the A once again
3. The disparity of US and EU software pricing models

There’s a video they recorded comparing the stock keyboard with Swift Key and whilst it’s a little cheesy it does give you an idea how useful it is in speeding up your touch screen typing.

I’ve just downloaded the beta so will be testing it out over the next few days.

What’s your preferred Android keyboard?

Links

• Announcement: http://www.swiftkey.net/swiftkey-3-beta-smart-space-ui-themes
• Download: http://vip.swiftkey.net/sk3beta
• Tablet Download: http://vip.swiftkey.net/sk3tabletbeta

Related posts:

1. Chrome for Android Beta released
2. WordPress 3.2 Beta 2 (and 3.1.3) released
3. Picasa 3 Beta

They’re titled as being iPad “HD retina display” wallpapers, but don’t let that fool you, you definitely don’t need an iPad to enjoy these. I have one set on my Galaxy S2, and have downloaded the lot and resized them to fit on my rotating desktop wallpapers.

Download them from Simon’s website here, and I include small versions of them below so you can get an idea what they’re like, but I’ll leave the downloading of the full-resolution to Simon’s links, so get on over there if you like these.

HD patterned wallpapers

Related posts:

1. Don’t be too instant. Google might not like it.
2. Foot tapping gospel goodness
3. Pat Phelan sparks off some iPhone ire

Busy with work

This is the primary reason – I’ve been run off my feet with work. We’ve had a bunch of sub-contracting work come in which has been great as it tends to be less complicated than a full client job.

I’ve also been doing some consultation work for Cricket Ireland. Whilst I’d love to be doing a full web development job for them I felt it better to not tender for the job as it would have precluded my younger brother, who works there as marketing director, from being involved in the decision process. The job went to Eye Killer who definitely had the strongest overall pitch. The new website should be launching soon and I think it will be very cool.

I’ve also been learning a whole chunk of new things in preparation for a few upcoming jobs – stretching my brain has felt good.

Composing again

I’m thrilled to say that music production is coming along very well and I’ve got the bare bones of an album worked out. I still have a couple of tracks to work out but hopefully I’m not too far off fine-tuning and then getting stuck into a full mixdown and mastering process.

Not taking so many photographs

This isn’t such a high point. I realised that I was a month behind my photo processing and shouldn’t continue to take daily photographs whilst I’m stuck with such a backlog. I’ll try to find some spare time to get through that backlog so I can get out daily again. I’m hoping the next item will help with that.

New screens!

Delighted that, following the death of my old Samsung 24″ screens, I’ve picked up two beautiful 23″ Asus IPS panels. So far the colour is excellent and I’m really looking forward to tackling the previous point on the new sumptuous beauties.

Happy and settled in Ballycastle

Overall very content here in Ballycastle. See a few old Force 10 heads every once in a while and loving the wild north coastline!

Related posts:

1. A hard day’s coding
2. And we’re getting somewhere
3. Barrahghhghhha

The web designer needs to keep in mind the client’s potential user base, the sort of market they want to capture, the wisest SEO approach, methods to channel users into a call to action and much more. It is a skill set that any good web designer has been honing for a long time, and will continue to improve and alter as long as they work in this area.

The point

The point being, when a client hires a web professional to create their website, the client should have a relatively minor amount of influence on the design process. Why? It is not the client’s skill set.

The analogy

Allow me to make a small analogy.

When you give a watch to be fixed by a watchmaker you don’t stand over his shoulder saying:

Ermmm, I don’t think it’s that cog mate, try the other one.

The proviso

It seems to me that it’s also required of the web designer to find the best way to handle client feedback, to explain in plain English their reasons for complicated choices in the design and function of a website, choices which are being made with a background of years of experience in designing websites, using websites, and researching best practice on ever-evolving technologies.

At the same time it is also necessary for the web designer to listen to the client to glean important information from their experience and skill set – namely how their business works and how to best appeal to their user base. This is something which the client should know intimately.

The exoneration

It might seem that, as I am a web designer, I am venting frustration. I do not see it that way.

I do feel that it is my job to handle client feedback. I must take it on board and, if I feel it will be detrimental to their end product, I must explain my reasons with language that is easy to understand for a non-technical person.

However, I also feel it is worthwhile sharing my little analogy above in the hope that someone might read this and, if they ever require the services of a web designer, might take an extra moment to consider the advice provided during the planning and construction of their new website.

Photo by Sergei Golyshev on Flickr

Related posts:

1. Watch out – even you could be guilty of spamming.
2. The 24 hour job that is web design
3. Dare not though profane in Amazon

Dropbox pricing hugely undercut

Well Google have flexed their muscles here and have hammered Dropbox on cloud storage pricing. Please note I’m rounding up from the stupid 99c pricing..

So, as you can see Google Drive is undercutting Dropbox by 1/4 of the price.

Google Drive pricing has gone up

Whilst their pricing is much cheaper than Dropbox, it’s actually quite a big raise in price. I’m currently grandfathered on a plan that gave me 80GB for $20 a year. The nearest plan to that now is 100GB for $5 a month, so that’s $60 a year.

Now I feel stupid for not having predicted this and upgraded my storage plan before the announcement.. just check the comparison:

I’d have quite happily paid $100 a year for 400GB! Now I’m not so sure – it’d cost me $240 a year instead.

Anyway, more to come on this announcement soon – including how to create symbolic links to work within the Google Drive fixed folder structure.

Below is the announcement video for your viewing pleasure, and you can read more on the Official Google Blog.

Related posts:

1. Missing Hard Drive Space?
2. Filter Google Results by Date
3. Google with a hint of Yahoo