• The Author – Bart Busschots

  

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  Unless otherwise stated, the content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works 3.0 License

  

You hear lots of stuff about how utterly inadequate, mismanaged and generally shambolic the Irish health service is. Those stories are unfortunately true, the experiences of my direct family speak to that. That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised by Naas General Hospital this morning. I’m suffering from a very bad chest infection at the moment which my doctor fears has developed into pneumonia. So he sent me to Naas for a chest X-Ray. I got there at 8:40, was seen by 9:10 and on my way home by 9:20. The place was clean, efficiently run and the staff were very nice. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. I’d gone in expecting the worst, that’s why I had my laptop, 3G card and iPod with me. As it happens I barely had time to check my email!

Lets hope this is a sign of the things to come and not just an isolated case of efficiency in the Irish health system.

[tags]Ireland, healthcare[/tags]

It’s been over a decade since Apple released the last of it’s Newton message pads. The Newton was revolutionary, technically advanced and a head of its time. Technologically it was a marvel, commercially it was a flop. The world simply wasn’t ready. What has changed? I’d suggest that the most important change is not the advent of the iPhone’s amazing touch screen, or it’s fancy graphics capabilities. There are all great but they are not the crucial difference that will make the iPhone a success. That big difference is wireless connectivity. A Newton was a dead-end. The only way to get things in or out of your Newton was by tethering it to your computer. With the iPhone you are permanently connected.

What we’ve seen of the iPhone so far has been fantastic. It’s little brother the iPod Touch is also a fabulous machine. But we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. With the unbelievably full and open SDK released yesterday we’ve seen the birth of the second phase of the iPhone (and the iPod Touch), the point where it becomes more than a cellphone, PDA, mobile internet device & music player. The iPhone has become a real computer you can carry in your pocket. Remember, the iPhone has more computing power than the desktop you were using only a decade ago. The demos during yesterday’s Apple event really brought that home to me, particularly the one by EA Games and SEGA. I hadn’t dared to hope for such an open SDK. I’m so glad my predictions were wrong.

Keep an eye on the iPhone/iPod Touch, we haven’t seen the half of what this great platform can do yet!

[tags]Apple, iPhone, Newton, SDK[/tags]

Tagged with: hardware • review • iPhone • Apple

Rogue Amoeba have updated their freebie menubar app SoundSource. I reviewed the previous version a few months back and this new version is very similar. The big difference is the addition of volume sliders for input, output and system sound sources right in the menubar. This cool new feature is Leopard-only but the new version is still Tiger compatible. All-in-all I think this is a nice update to a free app I use a lot.

[tags]Rogue Amoeba, Sound Source, Freeware[/tags]

Tagged with: OS X • utility • software • review

I tend to avoid web apps because I don’t like having my apps stuck in a tab in a web browser. This makes it hard to command+tab to the app and impossible to assign that app to a particular space. I don’t use GMail but if I did I’m pretty sure I’d be using Mailplane to access it. Fluid is not as advanced as Mailplane but it does allow most webapps to be liberated from your browser.

[tags]Fluid, web applications[/tags]

Read more

Tagged with: utility • web browser • software • review • OS X

This photo was taken on the morning of the 21^st of December 2007 in St. Joseph’s Square on the South Campus of NUI Maynooth. St. Joseph’s Square is at the heart of the historic old campus in Maynooth and is the home of St. Patrick’s College Maynooth as well as NUI Maynooth. As well as housing academic departments the old campus also doubles up as a park for the residents of Maynooth who love to walk in the picturesque grounds.

Click to View Full-Size (1.8MB)

For those of you interested in such things here are some of the technical details of the shot:

• Camera: Nikon D40
• Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
• Exposure: 1/200 Sec
• Focal Length: 18mm
• Focal Ratio: F3.5
• ISO: 400
• Camera Mode: Auto

[tags]Ireland, Maynooth, NUI Maynooth, winter[/tags]

Tagged with: Photo of the Week • winter