I know that I made a bit of a fuss yesterday on my personal blog about the price of Snow Leopard being just under 45% higher in the EU then in the US. But let’s get real. This is going to effect almost nobody’s buying decision. Specially those of you who LIVE in the US. So I thought that I would link to a few different ways that you can save yourself some moolah when buying. (Sorry to those who don’t live in the US. The UK version of Amazon doesn’t seem to be listing any savings.)

First way I found was through Amazon. They are selling it for $24.99 which is a fairly tiny saving, but a saving none the less. The folks at MacMall are also selling it for that price.

The Snow Leopard Family Pack is also reduced in price on both Amazon and MacMall, down too $43.99.

If the Mac Box is what you are after, Amazon and MacMall will do you a deal on that as well! Save a round $20 by clicking the links!

One interesting point to note is that it was not Amazon, but MacMall who instigated these savings. Amazon just matched the price. But are these rather insignificant savings enough to stop you from just walking down to the local shop and purchasing a copy yourself? I know that I will!

If you have any other places to get Snow Leopard on the cheap, link to them in the comments!

Tags: Apple, geek

My good friend Charly, the guy who wrote that amazing stock email to his ISP and others (feel free to use it) hand delivered a letter to the IRMA today. Again, he is letting me publish it online for those who want to download it themselves, edit their name in, and post or deliver it themselves. The full text of the letter is below (Just click “Read More), and you may download a .ODT (Open Office file. Works in Word and Pages, as far as I know) copy of the letter here.

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Tags: blackout, eircom, Facebook, twitter

A friend of mine, Charles Julienne, just sent me the email he sent to a fair few important people in the Irish ISP world ( Sent to ispai@eircom.net, and CCed to irma_piracy@irma.ie, irma_copyright@irma.ie, eamon.ryan@oireachtas.ie, minister@dcenr.gov.ie, board@edri.org, information@eff.org). I really liked it, and thought that I would post it up here, slightly edited, as a draft for your letter to your ISP. It is also a great idea to CC all the other email addresses listed here as well, just to get your point across.

Of course, read through the entire thing, edit bits which don’t apply to you, add bits which do. Also check out the bit in bold. This is some really interesting information there.

Please click Read More to get the draft of the letter.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am a long-time loyal customer of yours. I am writing because I am concerned about recent news regarding IRMA’s relationship with your company.

It would seem that they are seeking to become self-appointed censors of Irish Internet communications. I do not think that a third-party company should be permitted to arbitrarily decide which Internet sites Eircom users are allowed to visit. Will IRMA want to block sites that merely link to copyrightable material, proxy sites that circumvent the block, blogs that criticize its actions? This is a very slippery slope and should be nipped in the bud.

I understand IRMA’s concern about Internet piracy. Artists need to be paid for their hard work. It is an important issue in this day and age, and it must be addressed correctly. Censorship is not the answer. It is avoiding the issue. As has always happened in these cases, pirates will be able to circumvent bans and it will be the legitimate, paying customers who are inconvenienced and have their free speech restricted the most. We need solutions that work, not knee-jerk reactions that are doomed to fail. I would recommend you read the EFF’s whitepaper on a better way forward for online music. http://www.eff.org/wp/better-way-forward-voluntary-collective-licensing-music-file-sharing

There are opportunities here that are being missed. I think it would be for the benefit of both artists and music fans if a solution could be found that combines the technologies developed by the pirates with a fair system for paying artists.

There was a very similar case in Italy where ISPs were forced to block The Pirate Bay’s website after pressure from the music industry (the result was that Italian traffic to the site increased by 5%) . The ban was judged illegal in court under European Directive, 2000/31 CE which is also applicable in Ireland.

If this ban goes ahead, Eircom and indeed Ireland will have a tarnished image on the world stage as a place where misguided efforts to protect revenue supercede freedom of communication. I would also be strongly considering abandoning my Eircom subscription, and I imagine many other people will too.

Please, make the right choice. The world is watching. Your decision will have an important impact on the future of the Internet in Ireland.

Yours faithfully,

*Insert name here*

Tags: blackout, eircom, Facebook, twitter

This is a quick blog post, as it is getting rather late at night.

First, if you have no idea what is going on, you NEED to check out two places. Firstly, BlackOutIreland.com, which should hopefully be online tomorrow. This site, run by somebody with MUCH more free time then me (Ben McRedmond – He will be much more active with this then I will, due to my huge lack of free time with exams, and his over abundance of free time with lack of said exams) will soon contain the best source of information on the blackout. Secondly my previous blog post which might answer some of your questions.

Now, a roundup of what has happened in the last 24 hours.

• BlackKnight got sent one of the nasty IRMA letters they have been sending out to all the ISPs. Ignoring the fact that BlackKnight is NOT an ISP, it is a really interesting read. The Register have a pretty thorough dissection of it, so I won’t go into too much detail here.
• Several members of the #blackoutIRL group are seeking legal guidance as to what should happen next.
• As I mentioned before, Ben is starting up a dedicated Blackout Ireland site. Him and Ben Chapman are also organizing some leaflets, possible public demonstrations and the organizers of Blackout Ireland are working on something cool enough to blow your socks off. Can’t say much more now, but if it happens, it will HAPPEN!
• It has been decided that Blackout Ireland will run from Black Thursday (5th of March) for one whole week. If you are taking part, please use one of the three “official” Blackout Ireland avatars I posted in my previous post, or grab one of one of your twitter friends. (The avatars are of course not just for Twitter. Myspace, Facebook, MSN, whatever!)

Now, what I am really here to talk to you about.

After my previous blog post, I got a fair few emails. Most of these were from awesome readers like you, wanting to know more information. Hopefully Ben can sort that out for you. One or two, however, were from some very interesting people. Those who follow me on twitter may have noticed me splurging about a member of a company deeply involved in internet service providing sending me an email of support. This was cool, but not the coolest email I got.

I got an email from a source who wishes to remain anonymous. I trust this source though, and did some rummaging. He is legit.

This guy is somebody VERY high in one of ISPs. And he is on our side. We have been having a good old conversation, and he sent me the following warning:

FYI please encourage people to write/email their ISP asking them to
stand up to this. Contacting Eammon Ryan is great but that’s about
long-term action. In the short term, ISPs are deciding this week what
to do and taking legal advice, so if they hear from their users it
will make a difference. In general, people can write/email for the
attention of “Regulatory Affairs Manager“.

ISPs are deciding NOW what to do. If we want to put a stop to this madness sooner rather then later, we need to act NOW.

What can you do right now is head on down to the ISPAI member’s page and find the contact details for your ISP. Send them a polite email stating how worried you are about this new development. Learn about what is going on, why we are protesting it and what harm it can bring to the whole Irish internet system.

Notify your local media. Soon I shall be posting a blogpost about some ways of doing this, but just ring up your local news station and talk to them about the Blackout. Write letters to your local free newspaper. Wave your arms around. Jump up and down. Do whatever it takes to get this news into the mouth of the public.

Tags: blackout, eircom, Facebook, twitter

As some of you may have noticed, Twitter and Facebook were under Blackout orders for the past while. Everywhere you looked, you would find avatars completely black. This was to protest the Guilt Upon Accusation law which was coming into effect in New Zealand which would basically disconnect anybody in New Zealand from the Internet if they were even accused of downloading copyright content. While you can read much more about this (Partially successful – they postponed the law) protest here, this post is to suggest something similar for Ireland.

From SBPost.ie,

Irish Internet users are to be blocked from accessing music swapping websites, as Internet service providers bow to pressure from the music industry. Eircom, the country’s biggest Internet provider, is to start blocking its Internet customers from accessing music swapping.

What’s more, the Irish Recorded Music Association (the Irish RIAA) has told all the other ISPs to follow suit or face legal action. Add this to the new three strike rule Eircom imposes on it’s users, and madness may well break out.

If the music industry is successful, Ireland will become the first European country to completely block access to hundreds of file-sharing websites.

I think that it is time for Ireland to try a similar tack to show Eamon Ryan TD and the Irish Media. Here are a few ideas on how to protest this without spending much time on it at all.

1. Make a totally black avatar and set it as your avatar across as many sites as you can. In case you are lazy, I have attached a few at the end of this blog post.
2. If you use Twitter, search for the tag #BlackoutIRL and keep watch there.
3. If you are on Facebook, write a note about the blackout and get all your friends to blackout their avatar as well. In fact, just copy-paste this entire blog post if you want. It’s not copyright, after all.
4. Contact Minister Eamon Ryan about this important communications issue. Tell him how important this issue is, and how he needs to stop it. His details are as follows. Please be polite.

Eamon Ryan TD
Dáil Éireann
Leinster House
Kildare Street
Dublin 2
Ireland

Tel: 01 – 618 3097

Fax: 01 – 618 4363

His site is at www.greenparty.ie/people/eamon_ryan (side note- that site really needs cleaning up. Apparently his phone number is “http://www.eamonryan.ie“. His email address is eamon.ryan@oireachtas.ie, if you are not going to send a letter. Again, please be polite, and thanks to James Cooley for pointing these out in the comments!

The IRMA may be contacted at 353 1 280 65 71

Much more information can be found about this at the following places

http://torrentfreak.com/music-industry-orders-bittorrent-blackout-090223/

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS-qqqs=news-qqqid=39782-qqqx=1.asp

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0217/1224241279708.html

Here are the pre designed avatars I made. If you want to use one of them, go ahead. Right-click the image, and press “Save image as”

Tags: blackout, eircom, Facebook, twitter

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.9MB)

View From The Quad #113 – Walk like an Olympian can be downloaded for free at www.ViewFromTheQuad.com

Hello and welcome to this fine episode of View From The Quad! Today on the show we cram as much content into our allotted time as we possibly can, covering diverse topics such as new iPod rumors, PC Guy’s secret long lost brother and how to become an Olympic contender. If you have the money. And the will to work out a lot, of course.

Sponsor:  Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit “http://www.gotomeeting.com/podcast”

Links

—

http://gizmodo.com/5040318/10-gadgets-that-help-you-play-like-an-olympian – Things to make you feel like an olympic competitor. Or not…

http://totallylookslike.com/2008/08/21/john-hodgman-totally-looks-like-dr-bunsen-honeydew/ PC Guy’s secret alter ego?

http://gizmodo.com/5040823/kevin-rose-ipod-rumors-price-cut-new-itunes-80-features-and-tall-rounded-nano – Kevin Rose’s iPod predictions.

Vote for me in the European Podcast Awards!
—–
Starting WoW and View From the Quad have both been entered into the European Podcast Awards, and now they need YOUR help to get through! Please vote for Starting WoW by clicking http://tinyurl.com/67hqzo, clicking “Vote” and then by giving 5 stars for each catagory. Then, if you have the time, vote for VFTQ by going to http://tinyurl.com/63n3zd and voting in the same way. If you only vote for one of my podcasts, vote for SWoW please. Thanks!

Tags: ipod rumor, olympics

Warning: If you do not wish to read an article which MAY feature in episode 110 of VFTQ, please do not read on.

I sit at my desk, drinking my first cup of good tea in three weeks. And I don’t want to be.

I want to be sitting in an overcrowded canteen at 8 AM, drinking overbrewed orange-twinged rubbish which I got from a huge vat. I want to be sitting at the very same over-crowded canteen eating undercooked chips, sloppy oily pizza and drinking water from a plastic cup. I want to be lying in the grass at ten to ten, holding somebody’s hand and laughing about something silly.

In short, I want to be in CTYI again. But I never shall.

For the past nine years, I have spent a portion of my summer at Dublin City University. Here, I have done college level courses over a short period of time. For the past four years, I have spent three weeks residential in the campus and done what amounts to the entire first year of a college course.

In 2005, I did 21st Century Science. 2006, Game Theory. 2007 brought Speculative Fiction Writing, and this year, I did an intensive course in Journalism.

During this course, I learnt about the many aspects of being a journalist. We watched films, documentaries and a writer for the Irish Independent explain the ins and outs of daily journalistic life. We created a 26 page newspaper entitled The American Pie. For this paper, I interviewed Paul Howard (Ross O’Carroll Kelly), made jelly in a bucket and even went to Dublin Zoo. The course was fantastic, Andrew Payne was an awesome instructor and it broke the really high standards usually set for CTYI courses.

However, it was not all about the course. Imagine this:

You are locked into a bubble with almost everything you need in it, along with around 249 other people. Here, hardly any news of the outside world gets in, and hardly any news of inside the bubble gets out.

The people in the bubble with you are all in the top 95th percentile in literature comprehension and maths. They wander around in bathrobes, argue about the validity of the Large Hadron Collider as a weapon and spend the entire three weeks pretending to be pirates. Crazy people. Fun people.

These are MY people. Geeks, Geniuses, whatever you decide to call them, they are fun to be around.

During Passionfruit, a little spoken of event for people who are too old to return to CTYI the following year, me and about 30 other guys and girls spoke, one at a time, about how CTYI has changed our lives. It was done in confidence, so I can’t share what others said. I can say what I told though.

I would not be this Cian Mac Mahon without CTYI. View From The Quad, Starting WoW, StuffSlasherSaw, my MINE submissions: All of these would not exist was it not for CTYI. 5 years ago, if you were to shove a microphone in my face, I would probably lash out at you. I hated being on camera, never mind editing my mistakes later. CTYI has brought out the loud-mouth in me, given me inspiration for short stories, projects, comedy pieces and articles. You would not be reading this right now were it not for the Computer Programming teacher who introduced me to Q-basic six years ago.

I would not have had the chance to meet all these amazing people were it not for CTYI. You all know who you are, and had I not met you, I would be a very different person. Some of you made me think about the bigger picture, what I want to be in the future years, some of you made me feel amazing and some of you are the best friends I could ever ask for.

This is all done now though. Never again will I be able to call myself a student of the Irish Center for Talented Youth. Never again will I drink the tea, eat the pizza and lie under the sky, next to the four walls we call The Quad, sharing the feeling with a friend. Maybe in three years I will go back and sit, nervous, in front of Colm O’Reilly as he decides if I am good enough to become a Residential Assistant and join the legion of the strange once again.

There are a few things which have gone wrong in the last year or so with Apple. In my mind, the main one was charging for the iPod Touch update a few months back, hearing the uproar and then deciding to charge AGAIN for the June update.

However, some would say that Apple’s move to get Safari 3.1 out into the Bill Gates ruled world of Windows computers was walking a little far over the line.

More after the jump.

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