A Last Weekend to Remember

June 16, 2008 James Connors

And yes, I do remember it! Does that set the tone for the rest of the post or what??

Anyways, allow me to get to the story. Friday last, I had taken the day to work from home. I did some writing, worked out a bit of my reports and the like when not tending to the feast I was preparing. Scott and Lauren were off to their friends in Wexford for the weekend leaving Alison and I to our own devices in the apartment.

We had decided to do Powers Court Gardens in Co Wicklow on Saturday and Ryan would be coming too. Due to bad weather, the call was made to push it all back to Sunday which was fine with me. Unfortunately, they changed their mind at 8:30 in the morning and I wasn't so much interested in getting my butt out of bed on Saturday morning. So they set off on their own adventure but I wanted some fun myself. So begins the epic day that followed.

I decided that it being my last weekend in Ireland and all, that I would go out and do a marathon of the Porterhouse pubs. There are four in Ireland so they would be my stops for the day. The furthest away was in Bray - about an hour's journey on the DART (commuter rail) south of the city. I arrived in town and wandered around until I was able to find my way to the pub. It was a bit of a cave - dark with red lights to shed some light without making it bright.

I sampled their Porterhouse Red Ale while reading their little primer on the different types of beer and how they are made (Did you know a Lager is a "bottom fermented" beer?). I followed that pint up with a glass of their Porterhouse Plain Porter - so clean and smooth. The whole while Seamus, the bartender, and I had struck up quite the conversation. We were watching the rugby and chatting up the waitresses while sharing favorite brews and stories of the good 'ole days. After those were down I took my leave and decided to hike the big hill with a cross on it at Bray Head.

Let's just say that it was an hour or so later of walking that I noticed I hadn't come across a trail head and was making my way around the far side of the hill. Clearly, I had missed the boat on this one. Oh well - it was a good 10km jaunt to the next town over by way of a gorgeous seaside trail. After chatting up an old Irish fellow at the DART station, it was time to head back to Dublin City Center.

Upon arrival in the city I grabbed some food quickly and took note of the abundance of goth kids running around in their black, metal addorned clothing. One group rolled into the restuarant basically carrying one girl. She couldn't hold herself up let alone keep her head from flopping onto the table with flexibility that would make Gumby jealous. Being the concerned citizen I am, I made sure to tell the Guarda so she could get some medical attention (either on the verge of alcohol poisoning or had some serious drugs in her) and it was only about half six at this point.

To Porterhouse Central next where I ordered a Temple Brau - tasty for sure. More rugby to be seen and at that point I noticed another guy watching the match by himself. Side note -the match was international rugby for the Barclays cup and was being played in Chicago. Jeff, the guy's name, was a financial planner working for a Boiler Room sort of company and had dreams of going out on his own. Anyways, we talked a good bit and when he said he was home to the wife and kids I took my opportunity to part ways and head to the second to last Porterhouse in Temple Bar. Of course, it was on Jeff's way so he came too.

Now, mind you that I'm a responsible adult and all that but I felt rather uncomfortable with letting this guy buy me a couple pints. I didn't think that he was going to drug me, nor was he trying to take me home. To me, it was more like the guy wanted someone to drink with and since I was "on holiday" (as he put it) I wasn't allowed to buy a single drink. This was new territory for me. I've never had someone else buy me a drink that wasn't later reciprocated etc... I guess when you're as cool as me you've got to get used to that (HAHA BIG JOKE). He introduced me to an excellent Polish Strong Beer - Okocim Mocne (7% ABV) that was absolutely tasty.

To Temple Bar we go where he again refuses to let me buy a round for the two of us. We siddled up to a table and enjoyed some modern Celtic music - very cool. They had all sorts of traditional instruments alongside guitars and drums. A very interesting sound. Speaking of instruments - I've made a promise to myself. If I can teach myself to play the guitar this summer and stay at it, and really dedicate time to it as I've been neglecting to ever since that day mom and I got my Dean Exotica. If I can do that and really be true to it all, then I'll buy myself some uilleann pipes because I've been absolutely taken away by their sound and their songs.

From Porterhouse Temple Bar, Jeff steared me to the Brazen Head - Dublin's oldest pub situated on what would have been the outskirts of old Duvlin - the Nordic settlement. He got the Guinness and I got the seats. We ended up sharing a table with a Montreal transplant and a migrated Limey. They were good fun though it was a bit odd when the lady was probing to see if Jeff or I were cops - she wanted to light up a joint right there in the open air bar... which she did.

From the Brazen Head, I took my leave from Jeff - good luck to that merry soul. Thank you for the pints, my friend. I met up with my old roommate from UCD, Fergal. It was his last night in Dublin before heading back to Luxombourg with his family Sunday morning. After the hellos and a bathroom stop at Burger King on lower O'Connell, we headed our way to the Porterhouse North. It was the first time I had walked through the North Side - definitely an experience.

Upon our arrival at Porterhouse North, I walked in no problem despite my cargo pants and hiking boots... and Fergs was stopped immediately even though he was well kept (for him at least). I love not getting carded - it'll be a real change when we get back to the States. This time around I ordered myself the Oyster Stout, a beer that I had sipped before and could actually taste the seafood - GROSS! This time around, it was great but I'm not sure whether that was something to do with my current state or if my taste buds had really just changed that much. Oh dear it's going be interesting to come back to the States and the crappy beer etc etc.

Anyways, the cap of the night came next. We headed out the back of the clubby pub to their patio since it was a nice night out. Almost as soon as we sat down at a table, a bit of a fight broke out right behind me. Anyone who knows me well knows I'm very protective and can act like the security guard. Well before I knew it I was on my feet holding this drunk back so he wouldn't pummell this much smaller guy. When said drunk started to try to hit me I decided it was time to put an end to it. I told the guy we were going down and I *gently* brought the guy to the ground and *lightly* put my knee on his back to keep him from going anywhere. The bouncers came in as I was getting a good round of applause and they took care of boucning then entire group.

I had gone back to my beer when a LARGE black bouncer was coming towards me. All I could think of was theat he was going to bounce me for taking the drunk down and that I'd not get to finish my drink :-( sad thoughts, I know. Quite the opposite, the bouncer told me to talk with the waitress and that she'd take care of me for the rest of the night. Needless to say, I buy another drink that night - completely not expected but whole heartedly appreciated! Thanks, Porterhouse bouncer!

So for an entire day of travel, food, drink, and fun I had spent less than 20 Euro when I ought to have spent at least triple that for all the craic that had been had. It was an amazing ni Fergal and I capped it off by taking one last photo before parting ways and then I headed north and walked my ass home. I would say it was a learning experience and a confidence boosting night - I couldn't have asked for a better Saturday.

So back to work - I have the reseach report for work, a presentatifo them as well. Then there is that journal entry thing that I need to do for BU as well as their research report... this last week has inevitably come down to crunch time as it usually does with me. I need to learn how to plan this stuff out better!

A Weekend Of Lasts

June 13, 2008 James Connors

Image via Wikipedia

This is our last weekend in Ireland...

This thought screamed through my head this morning as I woke up. Tomorrow is the last full Saturday that we'll be in the country, the last Sunday, Monday et all, following too. This weekend is last bit of our European adventure. I'm left stunned at all we did. I'm stunned with all that I've done. I came here saying "no judgement" and "no regrets" so it's been a few days that I've been thinking back through trying to evaluate my successes on that account.

It's time to remember the great times, the trying times, the hard times, the late nights of laughs, and the early mornings of tears. It's been a trip filled with a lot of firsts and a lot of lasts. Funny how the time seems to have been stolen back away from us. It was just yesterday that I was feeling the same bits of anxiety as I prepared to embark on this adventure in January... I have those feelings again. What will Boston, the US, the summer have in store for us - for me?

At the same time, I feel myself getting ramped up for production. I fell into this semester from the highest functioning lifestyle that I've ever experienced. Needless to say, my Irish lifestyle did not match the fervor of that pace. Having completed a number of phone interviews in the last few days, the first few conference calls for Accenture and some student groups, I'm reminded what it feels like to be back "on edge." Listening to my fellow interns address the analysts on the call while my mic was muted gave me the first example of how we Americans are always "on edge." They sounded tense, wound up but held back - like a mouse trap ready to spring. Is that really how we are?

This weekend will be busy with seeing my Irish friends and saying goodbye to them. We have the International Street Performers Championship going on too - I hope to make it over to Marrion Square for that one. Here's one that I never thought I'd find here in Ireland - International Gay Rugby Championship. I was on the bus with one team and helped steer them to the pitches the other day. In any event, they will be playing for an international cup this weekend just a few hundred meters away from our accomodation.

My projects are on their way to completion. I was able to collect over 115 responses to my online survey regarding student experience - that was amazing! Thank you to all that participated. That will be going into my research project that I will present to my office on Tuesday and hand in a report on Thursday. Also due on Thursday will be my research project comparing the Irish and American teaching methods at University as well as a internship journal. So, needless to say there will be a lot of working to be done... and of course, as soon as I say that the roommates are telling me that we're going to some gardens. So stay tuned for further info, I guess.

PS - photos are now up at my new flickr account.

America Can Learn A Thing or Two; Part One

June 6, 2008 James Connors

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This will be the first of a few posts that I wanted to throw together that address some of the lessons that I think the United States can learn from countries like Ireland. CNET published a story about how green technology could make Europe a technology power house - story found here. At the same time, this is a chance to try BlogDesk as a remote blogging software tool.

Anyone that has gone outside of the United States will know that we waste a lot of energy (in the US). I have a feeling that I'm going to be a little shocked upon my return. Maybe, just maybe, someone with some pull will read this and make some changes. It's really not hard to conserve a little bit but making change is the difficult bit.

I'll address some background first. The Irish consider themselves "hardy folk" as Mary McClosky put it upon our first meeting. They keep the heat down, take short showers, turn out the lights when not needed, and unplug appliances when not in use. It's an attitude of conservation brought on because electricity costs are EXCRUTIATING.

Not only does Europe pay amazingly high prices for gasoline, equivalent to ~ $8.20/gallon, but the energy costs are easily twice what we pay in the US. Just looking around cities in Europe, it is clear that costs are a significant issue on everyone's mind - there are barely any cars on the roads and many that are use diesel fuel instead of unleaded gasoline.

What these environmental factors breed is a culture of conservation. The "hardiness" is less about being strong willed and more about being sensible. I've learned that it is possible to use all that you need and not overuse. In reality, it's very easy to do but hard to keep in mind. Just keeping in mind that I should unplug the computer or turn off the lights has been a large change mentally for me just because I've been so conditioned to not care.

One thing that Ireland has that makes this easy is that every outlet has a circuit-breaker in it with a switch. I can shut off the power just by throwing the switch and it keeps power from flowing to the machine or appliance. It's stupid simple but apparently is too difficult for Americans to ever want to implement.

Take aways from today's entry would be:

Foster a mindset of conservation
Use what you need and no more
Unplug when done
Switch off when leaving
Find circuit breaking plugs to manage power leaks

Thanks very much for reading and I'll see you next time!

Conducting Research on Student Experience - Please Help

June 6, 2008 James Connors

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Second post for the day - I'm asking for your help.

As part of my time abroad, I am required to do a fair bit of research. I am currently working on a research project looking into a concept known as "student experience" and I need your help. All I'm asking for is that you take 5 minutes to take a very short survey.

URL: Help me with my research

The above URL will bring you to survey monkey where I have put together a 5 minute survey. Please take a few moments to fill it out and help me with my research but also help companies and institutions improve the experience that students, faculty, administrators, and parents have when dealing with the administration. It only takes five minutes or less.

15 Days To Go

June 6, 2008 James Connors

I promise that I will write more... I promise, promise, promise.

As the headline says, our program has 15 days remaining before we leave the Emerald Isle for the harsh realities of the United States. I don't mean that to be a negative statement but rather a sobering fact. We've been in a world where a dollar means nothing, where cars run on the wrong side of the road, where it rains every day (almost). Returning to Boston is going to be a shock to our system much the same way arriving in Dublin was - but we're "normal here" (not many of us are actually normal to begin with so... I'm not sure how to put that into thought, sorry).

Our impending departure illicits a whole plethora of emotions, mostly panic. There are a mulitude of things to wrap up here before I can even think about heading home. Our internships have projects that need to be delivered (more on mine in a few), we have a portfolio and research project for BU that no one has even looked at. On top of that, I just don't want to leave. I like the abstract world that we live in. My decisions here don't necessarily have real-world impact. Allow me to unpack that.

First, our grades don't matter. They do, but they don't. Whatever mark that we earn from University College Dublin is then passed through a matrix to yield a conversion to the "American" system. That matrix tells me that a 70% is an A... you tell me if you wouldn't laugh a little bit. Euros are funny money. Long past are the days that we were converting the currency in our minds. Pints are well over $7 USD and just hopping on the bus feels like an investment (over $2.70 each way). On top of all that, I speak differently. It's sloppy, inprecise, and sort of bugs me. I'll say something such as, "Oh, he was acting like a fool, like" and my questions no longer have the proper syllabic emphasis, e.g. questions don't end with your voice being "high" we sort of put it in the middle.

Did I mention that my rambling has gotten worse? That sentence was how many lines long... geez.

The moral of the story is that we're changed but it's as if we're in a playground. Our choices here don't impact our career (in theory). Mostly, I'm thinking of my internship with that thought. I'm using this experience as an opportunity to practice being at a real internship, practice for Accenture and EMC this summer. It's actually really helpful to see what I'll be able to get away with and what won't fly even whenconsidering what the different expectations will hold. I guess it's like I get to expell all the bad habits now... to include blogging while at work (oops).

So now that the kvetching is over, let's talk shop a little bit. I've been living in another culture for so long, I sometimes forget that all of you are sort of watching this game from the bleechers. I love Ireland. Despite the ups and downs in my personal life and the various other concerns that have come up, this semester will go down in my Wikipedia page as one of the best experiences ever. I am eternally grateful to my parents, Paul, Laura, and Brian, for their unending support, latenight phonecalls (my time, not theirs) - I could not have been here in Dublin without their support.

By the way, remember that melodramatic post a while ago about needing to find that "BIG" answer... some sort of wholistic change? Well I found it. Let me tell you a secret - it was with me the whole time. Basically, I got a dose of reality - some would call it a good smattering of perspective. Not only have I finally grown to see my parents as good friends instead of those people that try to embarrass me all the time, but I've found myself. I've found the internal value in myself that doesn't require external validation for me to know that I'm me and that's really ok.

While my world no longer plays like a Las Vegas slot machine, I can tell there are going to be many, many new adventures to be had and all I have to do is be patient for them. Hopefully you all will be a part of that with me. I intend to quintuple efforts for this blog between now and my return. There will be a few post-return entries that will hopefully have some interesting stories. Then I'll be archiving these posts into my other blog, http://www.jamesmconnors.com under their own tags so they don't disappear when the jamesindublin domain expires. Thank you for stopping by - I hope to see you next time!

Starting A "Real" Job

May 15, 2008 James Connors

I've started a new chapter in my time here in Ireland. With exams now over, it's time that I turned my eyes away from the pages of notes and stick my head into the wild world of business. Yes, that's right, I'm at my new job... internship, work placement - whatever you want to call it. I just posted up a bit on how the whole exam thing went down... very interesting indeed. I'm currently mooching my lunch as much as possible and have the entire room of the office to myself. So, what am I doing? I'm working as a management intern at Campus IT ltd. Their main offices are in Dublin, Ireland with another office in the UK. It's an interesting company - they build software applications on top of Oracle database programs and sell them to colleges and universities. The real wonder is how they can exist when the market is so small. Since there are probably as many college in all of Ireland as there is in the Boston metro zone, I would say that their market is rather small.

What am I doing here? Well, it's not computers and it's not finance either. I'm actually going to be running a research project on what makes up a student's experience. Since their market is primarily the administration of these large colleges and universities, the student experience they talk about is the one that is tied to the differing models of administrative back-ends. I think it could be an interesting project and will definitely be a good conversation piece for future interviews. My role will be lead project manager, interviewer, head researcher, presenter, and coffee guy.

In reality, though, I'll have the opportunity to stretch this oddly creative brain of mine to try new things and experiment with the way I think. Having no background in sales, marketing, or market research, I wouldn't think that I'd be a good fit for the role BUT we had that amazing thing called the Cross Functional Core Curriculum! Hurray for Boston University School of Management and your ability to make me stretch my mind further and further every year.

I'll keep you all posted on the outcomes of the research and periodic updates for sure!

Wow - Long Time, No Write

March 14, 2008 James Connors

Sorry to keep you all hanging. There's really no reason for not posting - I've been having a great time relaxing in the past while since writing last. Brief overview of what's been going on to catch up quickly: 1 - Last week was the last week of class before our break. It was really uneventful except for the first bit of work that I've really needed to do. It was a term paper for our Irish history class and it's worth 30% of the grade. I'll be sure to let you all know how it went. I wrote about the causes of the 1641 Rebellion in Ireland. It was just like most of the other rebellions in Ireland (unsuccessful) except that it was the first look of the North vs. South and Catholic vs. Protestant conflicts that have been in headlines over the last few years. Needless to say that I did a lot of research for a 2000 word essay and got lost in the beheamouth that is James Joyce Library (HUGE - think Boston Public Library on steroids).

2 - Last weekend I went down to see parents and cousins in the southern portion of the island. Castle Island, Co Kerry where they called home. There was a lot of catching up, a bit of harmless birthday partying, and lots of relaxing. It was really great to see all those that I hadn't seen in 9 years now. How things have changed, but oddly stayed the same in some ways. I ended up doing some work online for one set of cousins while fixing a couple computer issues with another. I guess it's just my currency with which I can pay the family back for all their hospitality and the like.

3 - Currently, as of 5pm yesterday, I'm in the historic Amsterdam City. I met Grace, long time best-friend, at the airport last night then journeyed through the city to find our hotel. It's a cute little boutique hotel (Hotel Piet Hein) situated in the quiet and quaint depths of the museum district. Things here have been great so far and I'm going to be writing more for sure. So stay tuned and come back often for updates (I mean it).

Thanks for staying subscribed and keeping up to date. Just a reminder - if you want to get in touch, don't hesitate to email me at james.m.connors@gmail.com or leave a comment here.

My Article (Original Version) for the UCD Observer: "Nano Nano"

February 28, 2008 James Connors

What is nanotechnology? Well, it is all about small stuff. It started about ten years ago when scientists started experimenting with what they called "Bucky balls." These microscopic, molecule size materials were made entirely from carbon. They promised to be an interesting field of research and to this day have yielded some amazing advances for computing and science in general. These Bucky balls have some interesting properties. They are tiny - to give a scale of the size, a pinhead could hold over 3000 buck balls. They are incredibly strong and can conduct electricity too. Since that time, scientists and engineers have explored and developed novel and innovative uses for these miniscule Lego blocks. About two years ago, researchers managed to form these carbon nano-structures into what are now called nanotubes. They are long hollow chains of carbon molecules in a particular mesh structure. These engineered structures are considered some of the strongest and most robust materials known on earth. They can also be manipulated into useful structures. Scientists have used them to make molecular toilet bowls and other structures just to prove it can be done. All fun aside, researchers have found very useful ways to use and transform nano-tubes into nano-wires and other structures for industry. The following three technologies are some technologies already on the market or nearly to market that all of us can benefit from.

Nano-wire Capacitors

Current batteries use chemicals to store electrical charges. Unfortunately, the amount of charge batteries can hold is limited because the chemicals swell when energized. Also, after many charge-discharge cycles, the chemicals tend to wear out and become unusable. Nano-wire capacitors stand to change the way we store energy forever. Instead of using chemicals, these batteries would use bundles of miniscule nano-wires. Capacitors are limited by the surface area of the circuits storing the charge - nano-wires, being so small, have TONS of surface areas. Nano-wire batteries would be the same size as our current batteries but could store 6 times the charge and would never suffer from "memory" or wear out. Think about not having to charge your phone for weeks at a time? Don't need that charger for your next trip, now would you?

Nano-particle Solar Panels

Today, the world derives less than 10% of its power from renewable or green sources. Of that, most is hydroelectric. One reason for is that solar cells have been incredibly hard to make and prohibitively expensive. A new US company, Nanosolar, has developed a novel way of producing cheap, efficient, and flexible solar cells. They use nano-particles in an ink that is then printed on sheets of conductive foil. When compared to traditional photocells today, Nanosolar's cells produce pay for themselves in a few months where others take years to make back the money invested in them. These new cells come in two flavors, one geared towards utilities companies, the other to manufacturers. The manufacturer side is a flexible cell that can be cut to exact size and used on almost any surface. This means streetlights could power themselves, bike lights do not need replacement batteries, and your car roof can keep the car battery charged when the engine is not running.

Nano-wire Generators

Ever wished that you could put all of your walking and motion into better use? Well, an emerging technology promised to do just that. A new sort of fabric is in development that uses nano-wires woven into fabric with Kevlar casings and brushes (microscopic mind you). Like industrial generators, when these brushes move, they create static electricity with the nano-wires, which then conduct that energy to a battery or nano-wire capacitor. Next time you go for a run, you could charge your iPod so you will have tunes all through your work out. For those with prosthetics, nano-wire generators promise to provide power for more advanced electronics and motors thus improving quality of life. Just think, your next static shock could just power up your dead mobile phone or give an artificial heart a few more thumps.

Mind the Step...

February 19, 2008 James Connors

Ireland3 054 Ireland3 056 Welcome back from the break. Sorry about that, I was just crashing last night. As some may have noted on my fitness blog at http://surelybonds.blogspot.com, I have decided to start training for a marathon. Yesterday was the first day and even at just 3 miles, I was tired (we had just had 2 hours of softball practice - I am not that bad haha).

Last night, I made a couple revisions to the PHP coding of the website so now you have a date in the message feed around all of the items. I hope that this will help those of you out that were not quite clear on the dates. Sorry about that, it was part of the template I used and did not really do much modification before I left. I also posted up the article that I wrote for the Observer. Since then, they have asked me to come on board as a bit of a regular columnist in the science and technology field. Therefore, that has been kind of interesting. I submitted an article about nano-technology this afternoon - it will be posted up once published next week. In any event, I will continue here with the trip to Galway picking up with our tour of the Cliffs of Moher.

Flash back to Saturday night, there were two different camps when it came to deciding which tour company to take. One company got us back at "approximately 5:30" and came highly recommended by the hostel staff; it also was supposed to pick us up right there at the hostel. However, we needed to make it on a 6pm bus back to Dublin... The other company got us back at about 5pm but was not as recommended citing some customer service issues, was 2 hours shorter and departed on the other side of the city centre. Well, the camps were divided between the two and those that wanted to take the "better" tour knew that there were other options to get back on later buses or trains - we would just have to pay for the ticket again.

Needless to say, we ended up going to the "other" tour that got us back by 5pm because it was the safer bet and those that wanted it were not willing to compromise. I understand that but I really did not want to split the group up and I also wanted to enjoy the 20 euro that I would be paying to see the sights... Fortunately, for us, our tour was amazing. Billy, the coach driver and tour narrator, flung our agile bus around mountain switchbacks like a La Mans driver. He didn't seem to have any regard for the winding roads and charged forwards with the sort of determination a middle aged woman might have to get home when they need to pee (I remember that lmc...).

In any event, when I called to confirm the location for departure on Sunday morning, the owner/operator told us to stay put at our hostel and that he would come pick us up. Five minutes later, we were whisked away in a nice mini coach and delivered to the loading area for the main tour. I had a slight feeling that this tour was going to be better than we had heard. At this point, I bumped into a bunch of friends from the softball club that were also in the city for the weekend. We chatted a bit and then parted ways to get onto our respective tour company's buses. Our coach was not nearly full; each of us had our own row and got to spread out comfortably. This was a godsend because those of us with long legs rarely get comfortable on the cramped seats of the coaches here in Ireland.

Before we knew it, we were rushing past beautiful scenery as we headed south out of the city. It was still early and the morning fog still held the harbor but we could tell there would be better conditions to come. Our first stop would be an area known as the Burren. Billy explained to us that it was named such for the abundance of limestone rock that scoured the hills. Indeed, the landscape looked much like the alpine zones of high mountains with little more than scrub brush and grasses filling in the space between rocks. We let off some passengers at a welcome center for a preordered "walk" around the hills. I couldn't help but think of it as the Australian "walk about" where we just sort of wandered through the brush and such forth until we found what we were looking for. For the rest of us, we held on for dear life as Billy launched our nimble craft up some treacherous switchbacks and hills as we climbed the side of hill to reach a welcome center for some natural caves. Unfortunately, the tour was not included in our tour costs so I decided that once you see one set of caves, they are really all about the same. Mammoth Cave National Park pretty much got me set with all of that and the caves in Colorado Springs that we visited during basic training gave can't really be topped.

After dining on a latte - can I just say that this country is in love with its espresso drinks!? I mean I cannot get a regular filter coffee for the life of me. Instead, they hand me a café Americano and I am sorry, but that is not the same. Anyways, we left that facility passing an aviary that some researchers were trying to preserve and train hunting birds for public display. We then had to bypass the next stop because of road works - another thing this country has an awful lot going on. If there is so many road works, why do the roads still stink? I mean it really ought not to take 4 hours for us to cross this country... it's not that wide! Our backup was a spot called the corkscrew hill, which as you might guess had more switchbacks but also offered a beautiful view back down the valley. I am not sure that the pictures do it any justice because of the haze.

Next, we were dropped off at the cliffs - dropped because the city had decided to raise coach-parking costs from 5 euro to 60 euro per bus. In protest, the tour companies are boycotting the parking area. Anyways, the first thing we noticed was that the visitor center was built into the hill - that was pretty cool. The next was the odd look of built up steps and ramps around the edge of the field. It looked something more akin to the Great Wall of China rather than the dramatic landfall that everyone calls it. Ironically, the Cliffs of Moher are not the tallest cliffs in the country - they are about a third the size of those found in the northwest coastline near Ulster province.

We trekked up to the walls that contained us in the publicly owned areas. They kept us back from the edge by about 10 feet but even so, the view was absolutely amazing. Looking in each direction the site was just as majestic as the professional postcard photographers make them out to be. Craggy cliffs shaded in grey as far as the horizon to the south and a hill with a small castle to the north. Many photos and scenery shots were taken to be sure. A couple of us BU students ventured farther down the coastline and finally past the public area on a well-trodden path with a series of signs that were ironic. First was a Samaritans sign that read, "Feeling depressed? We care" and gave their helpline number. Good to know that I can call someone while I am enjoying freefall before hitting the rocks and water below. Next was a large national park style sign that proclaiming that we were entering private property. Finally, an even larger sign asked us not to go beyond that point. Well, we went past that point and with about a thousand of our best friends that day and the millions that have already gone before us, we pressed on further down the cliffs.

Now, we no longer had the fences holding us back and one false step would easily send us sliding down the mud and into the abyss below. I trod carefully. We took many more photos and had some great shots of the coast and cliffs since there were no fences to get in the way. I have posted all of the shots back up onto flickr and facebook so take your choice - links are to the right hand side in my blogroll. It was about time to get going so we headed back to the visitor center to avail ourselves of the restrooms and then headed for the gift shop (The visitor center "experience" was something like 12 euro... not happening. There were the standard knickknacks and Chinese made Irish gifts etc - we left without purchasing anything. Back to the bus for us.

We made another stop two stops on the way back to Galway. One, a nice rocky shoreline with 30ft cliffs on the edges, the other had an old castle. I think I slept through the second one, oops. We made it back to Galway in record time thanks to Billy's lead foot. We were so early that we caught the citylink bus at 5pm instead of waiting an hour for the 6. Good thing too because the bus hit traffic and made us about an hour behind schedule. It was to home and to bed that we went since all of us were about to get into bed on the bus already.

Well thanks for reading the annals of my journey over the weekend. This week I have got another article for the Observer - turned in today - a hiking trip to the Wicklow Mountains and Glendaloch on Saturday. We are also launching our private beta of my newest adventure with MinuteFix at http://www.minutefix.com where we offer community based IT support at per minute rates. If your problem isn't solved you don't pay anything. So we are off to Irish History class here in a little bit but I wanted to get this written and posted up now that I am back from grocery shopping in the city center. I hope you are all well and in good health. Thinking of you all!

Next Generation Financial Tool with MINT

October 7, 2007 James Connors

Adding Another Hat

August 16, 2007 James Connors

Some of you may know that I recently accepted a new position as the Network and Web Administrator for Generations Incorporated. If you've read this blog for long, you know also that I'm currently working desktop support for Boston University. It's about 10:30 here in Boston and I was thinking about the transition in skills and knowledge of a job such as this. Desktop support with Information Systems Planning and Support has been a really great experience where I've learned a great deal from the technical aspects to time management and relationship maintenance. These are all skills that I'm able to apply to this new organization I'm working with. Unfortunately, as a student employee and the nature of the desktop support position, I have not learned much in the way of server technology. Sure, this means that Generations Inc (GI) took a bit of a gamble with me since their prior admin was basically a brain-child genius. On the other hand, having worked in an environment where you don't always see the whole picture or deal with users that honestly don't know what happened, I have learned the ability to troubleshoot problems. Perhaps this, the ability to systematically find problems and resolve them in an orderly fashion, has been the greatest benefit I've gained from my work with ISPS.

Troubleshooting skills aside, I face a large learning curve when it comes to specific technology such as Windows 2003 Server, Windows Small Business Server, Terminal Services Server, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. These particular OS's are my bread and butter - the daily grind if you will. My primary tasks on a day to day basis are communicated via the task application of outlook and revolve around server maintenance and backup, desktop user support (similar to my position with ISPS), and longer term research and development projects.

I think I'll mention a couple of the projects I'm working on right now. The first, a full inventory and audit of computer assets, users, policies, and infrastructure. This is a rather basic concept - figure out what we have, where it is, and who uses it, then make changes as necessary. Since we're such a small shop, it won't be difficult to get any one bit of information but to do the updates and remediation that I think will be necessary, I expect that I'll need some out of hours time. The other big project I'm working on is to align mobile computing to our network where users with Blackberries will be able to sync with our servers or perhaps Windows Mobile devices will use the AirSync technology. I'm still in the research phase for this project, gathering the raw numbers and information to then present to the directors in a report.

So what spurned all of this? Well, I was bored for one. I'm in the midst of a book that teaches the Windows 2003 Server information in a crash course sort of way. I've been reading about installing, domain controllers, all sorts of bits about network infrastructure that I just needed a bit of a break and here I am. In any case, I will bring this to a close. I know I haven't been writing often but I think that my more regimented schedule will do well for my publishing cycle.

Thank you to all that continue to read and support City Streets, my professional blog and website!

DARPA Brings New Meaning to the Mobile Web

June 18, 2007 James Connors

A wired blog article broke news about the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) newest public project. These little pals are robotic wireless access points, or more properly - autonomous, mesh networked, wireless extension units. The agency sees the future of the glorified lego mindstorms robots as being expendable units for soldiers to deploy as they move, thereby extending the multitudinous information technologies available to field commandos. Each robot must be less than $100 per unit on small production runs, must have a long service life of 7 - 14 days while on batteries (they won't be recharged), and they must be intelligent. Swarm technologies have been used in robot demonstrations where each unit is aware of each other and actually work together by passing information from unit to unit to achieve the objective. These units would be able to heal the network, should an individual unit shutdown or be destroyed.

I found myself wondering about these technologies. I feel that the most difficult requirement to satisfy will be the cost measure. I'm sure that some University has been working on just such a project somewhere but otherwise, how could a corporation hope to make and $$ on this? There won't be any support because they're throw away and self programming. There won't be any parts market for the same reason so all of their costs for production and development must be paid off within the sale price. Of course, like every government contract, this project will be going to the lowest bidder.

The hardest part of the hardware will be designing a router that will interface with both the data and voice networks of the military (NIPRnet and SIPRnet plus many others that were not declassified at my time in the Air Force) while at the same time being able to communicate with the other units in the area. The truss and chassis will probably be a lightweight metal with treads of some sort. The battery unit will invariably be the largest portion of the entire unit since it will need to power both the propulsion unit and the router technology. But these hardware issues can surely utilize market technologies without needing in house development.

Software will be a different issue all together. Not only will the routers have to recognize where information is going and coming from, but they'll need to know where the other units are such that they can cross route information without having to go back to the main servers in order to facilitate faster data transfers. Each robot will need to have a broad understanding of the current network coverage as well as the holes in reception and be able to navigate to improve connection strength and safety. Fortunately, DARPA is looking for these units to fit into the urban warfare environment where coverage must be robust with respect to structures and shorter distances rather than the more open distances of desert or wilderness environments. Perhaps the military will integrate the GPS system into the unit providing waypoints for the robots to traverse but this would increase costs and incur further programming time for what was supposed to be a zero-configuration project.

In summary, I think that this particular project will be a new step for DARPA by showing their interest in disposable network technology (tolerance for it falling into enemy hands with no plan for recovery by US forces... can you say self destruct?) as well as their continued insurmountable cost positions. Let's get real... even if a company was going to get further gov't contracts as a result of this, there is no way they'll be able to fulfill the mission specs while simultaneously staying within the price point for each unit.

Microsoft Office LIVE Focus Group

May 22, 2007 James Connors

PremiseToday was the first time that Redmond has reached out to put money into my pocket. About a week ago, I received a phone call asking me to work with a market research firm to speak about their product - Microsoft Office Live. The whole program is software as a service - in other words, you pay for programs as if they were a subscription with varying levels of functionality and support for different price points. I think the whole concept is ok in form but Microsoft's implementation has been horrific at best - they seem to get that, hence the focus groups targeting users that signed up but then almost never went back.

Body Upon arrival at a rather interesting office building, I was asked once again to screen and answer questions that pertained to the study. It's ok... I guess, but it was the third time that I was screened (the first at the initial interview request and the second upon the confirmation of the appointment). I understand the need to be thorough but I think it's a bit much to answer the same questions three times over. The desk attendants showed me to a waiting area with some warm sandwiches and soda. As more people arrived, it became clear that they weren't going to take everyone and lo and behold they took only three of the crowd that had assembled.

I didn't hear what became of the others because I was called into the room for the focus group. There was the stereotypical mirrored glass behind which researchers were scrutinizing our every move and phrase. This is normal to me now since I have completed a number of different focus groups around the Boston area. The warmup questions were similar and always landed just short of what we were there to discuss. I think that it was an interesting contrast between we three chosen ones - one artist lady that didn't know anything about computers that AOL didn't tell her - one would be start-up guy that thought he knew everything about computers but had a financial advisor's background - and then me, the college kid that works in IT working towards a degree in MIS. It was clear that I had the most technical knowledge of the bunch. I'm not making that distinction because I'm "better" so to speak but rather because they drew a good diverse background - a fair cross section of the possible future users.

An hour later we had decided that the program wasn't useful because it was too hard to navigate and wasn't giving the user what it needed when it needed it. In other words it wasn't user friendly or intuitive. As a group we had given the researchers some targeted feedback that I think was worth our $130 honoraria... If I do say so myself. It will be interesting to watch over the next few months to see if anything from our small panel actually makes it to the end product at Microsoft.

With that, I bid you adue - I'm hoping that these will come more often now that final exams are over for me. I definitely appreciate your readership and hope that you stay tuned!

Choose Shared Hosting Wisely

March 29, 2007 James Connors

What do we look for in a hosting service? Are there any certain characteristics that one needs to consider when making their decisions regarding where they will land their homepage. Here are a few things that I thought about when I was looking for a hosting service.

Price Value
Reputation
Customer Service
Ease of Use

Price Value What are you getting for what you're paying for? This the measure that basically indicated what services you should be receiving for the money that you're paying to the hosting service. These benefits would consist of, in their most basic form, the hard disk space provided, the bandwidth allowed, an interface panel, some mail services (maybe), and other assorted benefits. Many current hosting companies are engaging in something known as oversale advertising. That is to say that they are promising more benefits than any person could possibly use. A sample of a benefits page can be found here.

Reputation This is the word of mouth opinions of others regarding the service, benefits, and the general feel of a company. Some people will look at websites such as http://finance.yahoo.com to research their companies while others will cruise to forums to discuss their experiences wtih others in forums like these DreamHost Forums.

Customer Service Generally speaking, this is a topic that one can only research by asking other people about their experiences. Occasionally companies will post their support systems online or at the very least leave contact information for their support system. Things to look for here are the methods of contact - do they have support phone numbers or is it strictly email support? This is definitely a question that you need to ask because some users don't have a tolerance for delayed response to support requests - Developers or web designers especially.

Ease of Use Another personal tolerance characteristic. Most personal blogging or recreational users would rather have an easy to use interface that might not provide the "power user" interfaces that higher level developers would want. On the other hand, the power user will become rather frustrated if they don't get the options that they need. Carefully consider what you need and choose accordingly. Some hosts have customizable interfaces that a user can choose which interface (technical or simple) they feel is most appropriate.

The moral of the story is to do your homework and choose wisely. It's dangerous to believe all the hype and advertising without asking the questions behind the ad. Does the host have dedicated support? How has their customer satisfaction been over the last 5-10 years? What kind of uptime are they showing? Is there a SLA - a Service Level Agreement? What about dedicated servers? Think clearly and ask questions. As always, if you have questions, send me a message at james.m.connors@gmail.com and I'll be happy to discuss or assist your hosting quest.