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My name is Dave and I'm a technophobe

Dave Fanning? A technophobe? Surely not. Yet here’s what he said in an interview I recently conducted with him (which didn’t make it to the paper)...

“I'm more of a technophobe than some people realise. I'm really fascinated by gadgets but I can't work anything. I'm in the ha’penny place with every piece of gadgetry.

“There are so many connections and leads in the house now that I just don't know which one is for what.

“I have an advantage over other people who get way behind when they're apart from their gadgets and mobiles. I'm so far behind that it doesn't affect me when I go away for a week. I don't have a Blackberry and I can’t use nine tenths of what my phone can do.

"I never played computer games. When I was in the Belfield UCD bar, I played Pong. I was quite good at that. But then Pac Man came in and that was too advanced for me.

“The fact that so many new things are not compatible with products out before, there is definitely a world wide scam going on, no doubt. Everything has built-in obsolesence. Whether it's iPods or computer gear, there's so much stuff that's meant to break after a certain amount of time, I really believe that."

60 second review: the most jargon-laden IT book on the market

And it's called SOA For Profit, A Manager's Guide To Success With Service Oriented Architecture (published by IBM and Sogeti, 250 pages).

I was given this to review. It has proven to be fascinating. How is it possible to pass off such dense, preposterous jargon as a commercially viable book? It discusses 'best practice' in service-oriented architecture. But it's full of this:

"Experience shows that service orientated infrastructure is required, consisting of a self-secured, self-healing, self-configuring and self-optimising standardised communication layer which supports the transformation from a vertical, siloed, application-driven infrastructure into a more horizontal driven approach." (-- Page 174)

And this:

"Both the IT-centric and human-centric services are externalised in the same manner, and the service contract defined by the interface abstracts [sic] the origin of the service." (-- Page 122)

Even the foreword to the book, written by Sogeti chief executive Luc-Francois Salvador, will baffle IT managers seeking practical advice:

"I am convinced that SOA is not only a tactical means of implementing information technology, it also stands for a much more strategic approach of supporting a redesign of organisations in a process-orientated fashion, delivering on the promise of business agility, inherently supported by information systems that not only enable but inspire business change," writes Salvador. "SOA stands for a state of mind that is of great influence on the collaboration between business management and IT to achieve the goal of greater business agility," he continues. "Business agility can only be achieved when the focus shifts from functional, departmental stovepipes towards cross boundary business processes."

Departmental stovepipes?

IBM wants your tech ideas

Got an idea? IBM wants to hear it. Its latest venture, an 'innovation centre' in Damastown, West Dublin wants to take very early stage start-ups and college projects and try to match them up with venture capital money.

A little known fact about the company is that it has more patents acepted than any other company in the world: about 3,000 a year. That's at least 50 times the number of patents accepted by the entire Irish university sector. Read this story for how dismal our patent filing record is in Irish academia.

Notes from a mental case

There are some people who believe that they are simply cursed with technology. That over and above all reasonable glitches, they simply give off bad vibes which make gadgets, IT and electronics fail all around them.
I have a different affliction: I believe that some brands of mobile phone bring me bad karma. Specifically, Nokia.
About a month ago I switched back to one (the E65, reviewed below) from a Sony Ericsson W880i. To say that my personal life has been turned upside down since then is an understatement.
Specifically, where my phone used to bring me messages of hope and positivity, it has morphed into a weapon of doom. Texts have turned incendiary. Calls have left me fighting uphill battles. Even the weather has turned into a disaster.
And the only difference I can ascertain in my circumstances is my phone.
Is my using a Nokia E65 sparking a mini Chaos theory in the environment around me? Is it possible, even, that others have suffered a downturn in their fortunes in the last month? Should I, for the sake of peace of mind, just give in to this superstitious hunch and switch back to the W880i?
I feel like the paranoid football supporter (which I am) who sits watching a penalty shoot-out, convinced that my thoughts, actions, or attitude have some minor effect on the outcome 1,000 miles away.
I feel, ridiculously, that my using this piece of tech has disturbed some harmonious continuum and I've wreaked a cosmic backlash.
Ridiculous? No question. Laughable? Undeniably.
Wrong, though?

60 second review: Nokia E65

The E65 slider phone has one feature I hadn't used before: the 'Message Reader'. This 'reads' back your text messages in a choice of two voices (male or female). It's quite smart insofar as it recognises certain commonly used text abbreviations, like 'btw' (by the way) and reads them as if they were spelled out. Its only limitation is that it can't be targeted at a certain message (ie it starts at the beginning of your inbox and just works its way down).

The E65's negatives?

The buttons on the front of the phone are positioned in a way that's probably more awkward than most other Nokia models I've used. And there are too many: 15 buttons (not including the keypad) on the front, with another four on the side (the camera/volume controls) and the on/off button on top.
Another significant downside is that the web browser has cut out unexpectedly on me several times. I'd go as far as to describe it as being unreliable.
The other (slight) downside is that the software continues to be fairly slow at running through commands. For example, backing out of the messaging programme seems to take ages (I count 5 seconds as being ages).

Now the positives.

It has loads and loads of applications. Nokia really is out in front when it comes to business phones -- only Sony Ericsson's high-end smartphones can rival them. Though only 2 megapixels, the camera's decent, too. Wi-fi's here, but no radio (that I can find).

The other very nice thing about the phone is the material it's made from: feels like a sort of hard leather. Very nice to touch and a welcome break from cheap plastic alloys.

The phone costs €460 sim-free or about €250 on contract.

O2: for little people?

It seems that O2's new broadband service is being aimed at little people. This press photo was sent out on foot of its announcement yesterday.

Broadband boss: Eamon Ryan's a man we can do business with

The new Minister for Communications used to think that state-funded metropolitan area networks were a flop and a "spectacular waste of public money". So now that he's the Minister responsible for this €200 million investment, where does that leave E-Net, the company that runs these 'money-wasting' projects?

Unperturbed, according to Conal Henry, E-Net's chief executive (pictured). "I think the Minister may have changed his thinking a bit on this," he told me. "He's well qualified to look at the situation sensibly." Is Minister Ryan just being pragmatic or has he genuinely changed his mind on these issues?

O2 launches 3.6Mbs broadband for €40 per month

O2 has followed Vodafone and 3 Ireland in launching a HSDPA broadband service. It is the most expensive service of the three, at €40 per month (unless you buy other O2 services too). Here's the press release they put out today:

"O2 Broadband, through a wireless USB modem, will enable up to 10GB of data to be downloaded as standard per month, with no additional charges for occasional usage in excess of this. O2 is the first mobile provider in Ireland not to automatically charge customers if they exceed the 10GB usage limit, subject to fair usage policy.
The service will initially be available for a three month introductory price of €15 per month for those with an existing O2 post-pay voice connection or for new post-pay customers taking a voice connection (Post-pay Price Plan Active Live 150 or above). It will be €20 for all other customers. Following the three month promotional period, the monthly cost is €30 (with voice connection -- Post-pay Price Plan Active Live 150 or above). For all other customers the cost is €40 per month. The USB modem will be priced from €69 (all prices quoted are inclusive of VAT)."

NTL, Digiweb lead official advertisement complaints

UPC (NTL, Chorus) and Digiweb star in the latest round of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland. Digiweb was rapped twice for its fairly misleading ads claiming phone rental and broadband for €20 per month with "no gimmicks" (the gimmick turned out to be a €90 installation fee, limited availability and a flexible definition of the term "phone line rental").
NTL boasted that its "first three months subscription" were "free". Except not on its Value Broadband range, which the ASAI took exception to. It was also advertising a free three month broadband package in Waterford after the offer had expired.
Other companies listed included Magnet (for the Kathryn Thomas parody in its ads), IFA Telecom (for representing that its service was available in every rural location, which it isn't) and Chorus (for alleging that its competition didn't carry several channels that it did).
Meanwhile, Dell has fallen foul of the British Advertising Standards Authority for not pointing out in its ads that connection cables don't come with its printers. (Picture courtesy of Showbiz Ireland.)

Why it pays to shop around

Case in point: Motorola's KRZR K1. Price on Phonesonline.ie -- €364. Price on Expansys.ie -- €181.