Jim Bytes! - An IT Blog

OK, I've made something of an executive decision if you like. I wont be posting any more on our recent trip to Paris on here. From now on I'm going to stick to IT related stuff, providing links to tools resources and the odd opinion.

At some point myself and Melloney will do a "Paris in 5 Days" type guide with all the pics, tips for getting around etc, but probably on a seperate blog or other site. For the last 2 days the Blogger image upload has been acting up (too damn busy all the time ) as has my account at Image-Upload.net so I think this is what has to be done. We've got over 100 digital pics from our recent trip so I think a Flickr account is needed too.

We'll get organised and when it's done I'll post a link here. Meanwhile, you can see some of the pics Melloney put on Flickr here, including the round right tower of Saint Sulpice, the Arc De Triomphe and the spooky catacombs.
You could really cheer Mel up today if you surf on over and leave a nice comment on her blog or pics. Thanks ;-)

Posted by Jim at 7/31/2006 01:10:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

OK folks, I've promised it so below is the details of what we did over our 5 days in Paris with some of the better pics.

Before that just a brief mention of the hottest technology topic on the web over the past 6 months or so, AJAX!!. Find out what it is and start learning how to harness it's power in your own sites and portal based apps at the new Sun Developer Network AJAX Developer Resource Center. For a quick start, watch the 15 mins introduction to AJAX and Java technology video (requires Realplayer).

On to our Paris trip :

Day 1 :

Visited Notre Dame, took the hour long boat trip originating from Pont Neuf, bought some prints and other gifts from les bouquinistes, visited La Samarataine area for some shopping and ended the evening at the Eiffel tower.

A view of the beautiful Musee D'Orsay from the boat we took our cruise down the Seine on. It mat not look it but man that sky was blue and it was hot!






Another view from our boat trip, this time as we passed the Eiffel Tower, marking the half way point of the trip. This was our second time taking this same boat tour, the first being a more gloomy day in July '04. It's worth doing every time you visit.<



Day 2 :

We started out just round the corner from our hotel at the market at Boulevard de Grenelle. It's there every Sunday and Wednesday and is a great place to pick up a gift and mingle with the locals.



We spent the remainder of Sunday morning strolling up and down the Champs Elysees taking in all the sights and shopping, including "Glups", a memorable sweet shop we found on our July '04 visit. We managed to locate it by spotting the "Bird Man" whistling outside the mall entrance. Watch out for him next time you're there and pop into Glups for the best pick 'n' mix in Paris! We made it to the Arc De Triomphe before mid day.


We spent the very hot Sunday afternoon visiting Saint Sulpice, which Da Vinci Code fans will be familiar with as the place that Silas searched for the keystone and murdered Sister Sandrine. It was just as described, and a stark contrast to the almost extravagant beauty of Notre Dame.

We ended the day strolling around Trocadero, taking in the evening crowds still queueing to climb the Eiffel Tower.

More details of our trip to follow...hopefully tomorrow!

Posted by Jim at 7/30/2006 09:56:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

Hey all,
Just a quick update for today but I'm staying on subject with IT and have some gems for you !

Check out ProgrammableWeb for all the latest cutting edge APIs and how best to use them on your website or blog. Mashups and more all in one place with how-to guides and searchable listings, an excellent resource.


Keeping with coding, have a peep here for lots of handy cheat sheets for all you developers out there, including a very handy Google sheet with tips and URLs to tools you never knew existed on Google ...til now!


Finally, something that doesn't work on IE! For those of you who cant visit the Windows Update site for whatever reason ;-) check out WindizUpdate. Download the plug-in for Opera, Firefox (or both) and let it scan and fetch your missing updates.
Ingenius and well worth your time!







Thats all folks.

Posted by Jim at 7/27/2006 11:28:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

Hi all!
I've been on a bit of a downer since we got back from Paris last Thursday, and really busy catching up so just a quick post this evening to say hey and pics and trip details etc to follow through the week.

For now, check out what good use fellow Irish man Gavin Joyce has made of the Digg APIs at Kick.ie, it's a bit short on content at the moment bu tgrowing all the time, so have a look and help out by posting all your news.

Bye for now!

Posted by Jim at 7/24/2006 09:28:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

As I said on Sunday, myself and Melloney have been counting down the days to our second trip to Paris. The bags are now packed and with just last minute checks to do tonight it's all go. It's been really quiet at work for me too so this week has dragged along :-(

I cant concentrate on anything today so here's just a quick mention of some IT news.

Microsoft releasing Dynamics online by end of the year - Steve Balmer says this'll be one of 20 Live services from Microsoft goign online over the next few months. Traditionally you installed Microsoft CRM on internal servers and client browsers connected to it, like so many other products. The product is now being forced to go online due to competition mainly from SalesForce.com The e-CRM arena could be about to get very interesting and I'll be watching like others how this giant fares against the excellent open source alternatives out there.

Worth a read, if only to kill Friday afternoon, is Dion Hinchcliffe's post on blogs and Web 2.0 as an apps platform. See it here.

Finally a mention for an excellent technical blog from a fellow Irish man - Tom Raftery’s I.T. Views

So Dark the Con of Man!

I'm off to see the sights of Paris, til next weekend it's au revoir folks ;-)

Posted by Jim at 7/14/2006 02:25:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

I didn't get to post yesterday because as usual my lunch hour was way too short and I spent most of the evening packing for our Paris trip, now just 2 days away !! So I thought today the theme should be organisation and I'd mention some sites that will help others get organised in their daily grind. All are top class Web 2.0 sites and services.

43 Folders is a site about personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better.

Perhaps an even better site worth a look is Lifehack.org, a well presented daily digest of pointers on productivity, getting things done and lifehacks.

When you've decided what to do and when, stay organised and schedule it all at 30Boxes, a cleverly named top notch online calendaring service.

Finally, if short on inspiration or just bored at work, see what the rest of the world is doing on this curiously interesting site called What Everyone Does.

Thats it for now folks!

Posted by Jim at 7/13/2006 09:10:00 a.m. | Permalink | Comments

Let's start the day with a laugh ...here's some funny error dialogs you're likely to see in your software and favourite websites when programmers and testers get lazy, courtesy of The Daily WTF.

Keeping with the laughs and cheer, Melloney is cheery today cos we've just discovered that one of her favourite childhood programmes is being shown on Nick Jnr.
She has very fond memories of "Button Moon", so I know what we'll be watching at 8.15 tonight!!




Finally, a pressie to keep the day ticking, tunes from the excellent Snow Patrol. Here's their performance from T in the Park in 2004.
Track List:
1. Spitting Games
2. You Are My Joy
3. How To Be Dead
4. Chocolate
5. Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking
6. Ways And Means
7. Run
8. Black and Blue
9. Post Punk Progression
10. Crazy In Love
11. Tiny Little Fractures


That's all folks!

Posted by Jim at 7/11/2006 01:10:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

Hey!

It's been a bit quiet today so just a quick mention of some things I've seen.

It's the 35th anniversary of Project Gutenburg this year and to celebrate, from July 4th to August 4th they're giving free access to the public to the entire site. With everything from Shakespeare to Conan Doyle, including audio books and a tech section, you can search 330,000+ PDF classic eBook titles in 100+ languages. Worth a look!

From the classic to the just plain old, where do all those old pc parts go? Some folks find creative uses for them and here's the evidence. Enjoy the craziness of others !!

Til next time!

Posted by Jim at 7/10/2006 11:09:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments

Hello all !
I thought this was as good a day as any to make a proper start on my blog. Since it's taken so much of my time lately, I've got to mention the World Cup, having just watched Italy win the final on penalties. Congrats to them and I'm sure a few will party hard in Dublin's "Little Italy" tonight! What a way for Zidane's career to come to an end, a real shame for an otherwise giant of the beautiful game. See what happened here



This week is going to be hectic, myself and Melloney are off to Paris on Saturday for a week. I'll hopefully have plenty of photos to post on my return.


Being a Da Vinci Code fan, the Louvre and Saint Sulpice are on the ever growing list of things to see and do this time ;-)

Finally, a mention of some things IT with some great new sites I've found recently.

See how Vista is coming along straight from the Windows Vista development team here.

Get the best breaking IT news from Digg.com.


Bye for now !

Posted by Jim at 7/09/2006 11:00:00 p.m. | Permalink | Comments