Fergus Cassidy

FRIDAY 28 JANUARY 2005 23.45 (GMT)
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:::: OFFSIDE...

Fellow journalist Roy Webster is making a defiant stand against attempts to censor him.

For the last 28 years, Roy has been reporting on Wroxham Football Club - based in Norfolk, England - for the Norwich Evening News and The Pink 'Un.

But last September, the club barred him from the ground alleging he made repeated adverse reports and personal comments about the club.

Undeterred, Roy climbed a ladder at the bottom of a friend's garden which overlooks Wroxham's ground. A platform was subsequently erected which has space for a chair.

He told the Evening News: "I'm getting into the winter of my life now [he's 71] and I've got to drag myself up a ladder. I can do it now but I don't know for how much longer.

"I have had a lot of support and have got justice on my side. I was shocked by the ban. I couldn't see any serious grounds for taking this action, people can't believe it".

The National Union of Journalists is pursuing the issue with the Norfolk FA.


MONDAY 17 JANUARY 2005 23.55 (GMT)
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:::: BOARDS BOOM...

Tom Murphy (DeVore) reflects on a great 2004 for all the gang at Boards.ie:

"We cannot withstand the growth we had last year again this year. If our level of growth even just repeated itself this year we'd have the busiest site in the country. Twice as busy as Ryanair.com. We havent a chance of surviving that as we are, we can hear the creaks already and by 2006 we'll collapse under our own weight."

There's also a thread discussing 2005 and beyond.

While I think of it, Wikipedia has an excellent history of Boards.ie to date written by Adam Jewell (amp).



MONDAY 3 JANUARY 2005 23.15 (GMT)
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:::: SOFT OPTION...

In June last year, the Irish minister for communications said he was proposing a national register of 3G mobile phones as part of measures aimed at protecting minors.

Some of the operators have indicated that they may provide 'adult services' on 3G networks. Rather than face them down, however, the government prefers to trample on privacy rights.

The idea of a register is probably unworkable and lets the operators off the hook by taking away responsibility for content on their walled-garden networks.

Unlike in Israel where the government recently amended 3G operators' licences to restrict access to soft porn. Adults can get such 'services' by entering a code. This is similar to the way most premium landline services operate.


::: YESTERDAY'S SUNDAY TRIBUNE COLUMN...
SUMMIT UP:This year will see an attempts to strengthen governmental control over the internet.


MONDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2005 01.45 (GMT)
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::: LIST MANIA..

The last blog entry pushed me into compiling a best-effort list of the growing number of internet and computer-related groups and/or associations active in Ireland.


SATURDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2005 01.45 (GMT)
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::: I WISH...

1) More web sites had an 'about' page, clearly visible.
Especially blogs. A name, contact addy and what the blog is about. Anonymity is fine, but accidental is not the same thing.

2) More people would put dates on stuff posted to the web. Makes it much easier to decide on relevance of material.


WEDNESDAY 2 FEBRUARY 2005 01.45 (GMT)
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::: SOLDER SOLDIER...

From the ground up; a greenfield deployment in Liberia is the title of the next talk organised by the System Administrators' Guild of Ireland.

Col Brian McQuaid and Comdt. Ciaran Motherway, both from the Communications and Information Services Corp, will describe the Irish army's experiences with deployment on UN duty in Liberia beginning in 2003, and just how far removed from an air-conditioned, climate-controlled comms room it's possible to get.

It's on Tuesday 8 February in the Walton lecture theatre, the Arts building, Trinity College, Dublin at 7pm.


THURSDAY 31 MARCH 2005 23.35 (GMT+1)
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:::: JOURNAL LIST...

Boards.ie has been the home of journals for quite a while. The journals have now become more widely available to read with the addition of individual RSS feeds.

You can read new postings, which are aggregated, as well as get each journal's RSS feed here.


THURSDAY 17 MARCH 2005 23.45 (GMT)
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:::: TOG BLOG E...

For the day that's in it, I found a list of Irish blogs at Blogwise.com.

Submitted by bloggers, the list includes blogs based in Ireland and/or written by Irish people living elsewhere.

At over 170 blogs, it's quite a read.


WEDNESDAY 16 MARCH 2005 23.55 (GMT)
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:::: SUBSCRIPTION DESCRIPTION...

Peter Weigl from Comwreck.com has asked the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs to take action against Eircom over its 'Net Subscription' service.

Full story in Comwreck's blog.


TUESDAY 15 MARCH 2005 02.15 (GMT)
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:::: CRIME TO MISS THIS...

Places for the Irish Cybercrime Forum 2005 are being reserved fast and I'm not surprised.

It's got a great line-up of speakers: Howard Schmidt, chief security officer at Ebay; Detective Inspector Paul Gillen, head of the Computer Crime Investigation Unit at the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation (GBFI); Detective Superintendent Eugene Gallagher, deputy director of the GBFI and Ed Gibson, assistant Legal Attache at the US Embassy in London and Supervisory Special Agent with the FBI

The event takes place on Thursday 31 March at Jurys Ballsbridge, Dublin running from 2pm until around 6pm. It's hosted by the Irish chapter of the Information Systems Security Association and Fortinet.

More information, including booking a place, can be found at ISSA Ireland. Oh and it's open to all and free. But do it fast.


SUNDAY 13 MARCH 2005 01.55 (GMT)
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:::: NEW KID ON THE BLOG 2...

WordPress again provides the software for two more sites based in Ireland that offer free blog set-up and hosting services.

They are Blogs.ie and Blogsome.com.


WEDNESDAY 9 MARCH 2005 01.45 (GMT)
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:::: NEW KID ON THE BLOG...

Irishblogs.com has just gone online offering a free blog hosting service.

There's no charge, because advertising revenue comes from ads on the blogs, which IrishBlogs.com reserves the right to publish.

Under the wing of Blacknight Internet Solutions, the site can get blogs up and running quickly and it's easy to use.

The blogging software is WordPress MU, a version created by Donncha O'Caoimh.


TUESDAY 8 MARCH 2005 02.45 (GMT)
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:::: ON THE RECORD...

Recently I emailed some questions to someone I hoped could be a second source for a story I was researching.

I use email quite a lot for this, either to clarify something and/or get comments from someone with the required expertise. I also ask them to let me know if there are comments which are 'off the record' and not for publication.

So far most people are very helpful. But I got a reply back today and at the end of the message the person wrote: 'In email, nothing is off the record'.

I don't see why not. If I tape an interview over the phone and the person asks that something be 'off the record', it is and I'll never use it. Same applies to email.

Just because a record exists of what was said or written doesn't mean the end of 'off the record' remarks. Breaking a source's trust does.


:::: SUNDAY'S TRIBUNE COLUMN...

SING THEORY: Physicist and performer Lynda Williams' strives to blend science and entertainment.