Categories
technology

340 kbps download speed from NTL

I’ve consistently seen download speeds over 250 kbps over the past week but today I saw 320 – 340 maintained for over 30 seconds in the middle of a long download. After less than a week of using it I’m completely hooked. I’m using the service to monitor various servers we’ve installed in remote locations. Therefore I can’t afford downtime. My previous eircom service sometimes went down, often due to wireless router rather than ADSL problems but the net effect is the same. The consistency of speed and quality of this service over the past week has been remarkable. That’s a huge thumbs up from me (y) 😉

Categories
philosophy

Another thought for today

OK, I’m in a very contemplative mood here and NO I’m not about to give away all my possessions but sometimes it’s important to put material gain into perspective.

  • “The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.”– Albert Einstein
Categories
philosophy

Thought for the Day

People always talk about reputations…

  • “Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of – for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” – Socrates

I’ll further Socrates point by saying that one way to preserve a good reputation is not to engage in any activity where you perceive that your reputation may be damaged regardless of your performance. In IT this is critical as there is often a huge mismatch between the expectations of customers/clients and developers.

Categories
humour

Tall tales from a tall ship

Yesterday, R & I went to see the tall ships race in Waterford harbour in South east of Ireland, where I live. One of our competitors created the website for the waterford leg of the race and credit where credit’s due, it’s very nice indeed. I used my phone to grab the shot below from the crow’s nest of the indonesian ship. There was a surreal party atmosphere on board this boat and I can strongly recommend anybody attending to competition to check out their easy mix of live song and dance, indonesian beer. In our litigious age it was great fun to be allowed to climb up the rigging with R. A word of warning however. The crewmen were dimunitive in stature and my size 13s found it a little bit difficult to find footholds in the rigging. This led to a few hairy moments 60 foot over the River Suir.

crow's nest view of waterford