DKIT and the winding road.

Graduation from 3rd





Galway with Amy, Linda & Jean.

Education has been a long and winding road with many hills and potholes along the way. But it was most certainly the best days of my life. From primary school, to secondary and then college. I honestly never taught I make it this far. I really never had much interest in school or studying, I was always the kid mad to go out and play football during lunch with my friends. It was the highlight of every day for me. Making it through 4 years in DKIT college, I honestly never taught I'd see that day.

Trip to Galway with Emer, Jean, Louise & Trevor.

After my leaving cert I came here to DKIT to study construction studies, which I did for a year and did not enjoy. Thankfully I left that course as we can see there ain't much construction work going on in the country at this moment in time. So taking a year out and working as a butcher and barman I realised if I wanted to go any where in life college was the only way forward. I re-applied for college that year and choose hospitality management as I enjoyed working in the bar and felt it may be the rite road to take.

Graduation in 3rd year.

The one major difference in this course and construction was the people I studied with and the lecturers. Everyone knew every ones name and it was much more personal. The lecturers just can't do enough to help you out and any opportunity for work experience they'll push you to go for. Thanks to this I have a great CV with plenty of work experience in big venues such as Croke Park, Iveragh Gardens at the Taste of Dublin, Cross border meetings between North and South leaders in DKIT and the 9 months internship in the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront in the USA. 

Chinese New Year.

So the road has come to a cross roads in my life now. College is over and I wonder what for me next? I will always have good words to say about Dundalk Institute of Technology and the people who work there. Its not the biggest of colleges but in my eyes its the best. I've been left with fond memories of Trips we went on such as the French trip and trips to Galway with class mates. I hope some of the pictures above can capture the good times we had here.

French hit Galway for St.Paddys day.

DKIT has been a major part of my life and I most certainly will never forget it and the special people I met and friends I made for life.

The one song that always will remind me of college. Go raibh mile maith agat DKIT.

Mobile Commerce

To get an idea of mobile commerce and wireless technology please take a quick look at this short informative video.

According to SearchMobileComputing.com "M-commerce (mobile commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services through wireless handheld devices such as cellular telephone and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Known as next-generation e-commerce, m-commerce enables users to access the Internet without needing to find a place to plug in. The emerging technology behind m-commerce, which is based on the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), has made far greater strides in Europe, where mobile devices equipped with Web-ready micro-browsers are much more common than in the United States".



There are many people who do not use a PC outside of the office, but yet they need to receive important emails after office hours. For this reason they keep the mobile at their side all the time. Mobile commerce was made for groups of people like this. M-Commerce allows you to reach the consumer directly, not through there mailbox, fax machine, desk or your secretary, but to your consumer directly, regardless of where they are.

In the Hospitality industry m-commerce has played a massive role for businesses as it allows them to easily stay in touch with customers, suppliers, and employees. Some restaurants and hotels have introduced 'hot spots' or 'WiFi' for the customers to use there mobile wireless devices an example of this is Star Bucks. Hand held devices as seen below are another fine example of the technology moving on at a raped pace. Orders for food, drinks, accommodation and many more can be taken on a hand held device and sent to the required location.

 



Censorship (Should there be free speech online?)

Censorship is very important on the web as inappropriate materials are found on it on a daily basis. In Ireland it has been argued that the government should set up censorship on websites just like China and America. But in saying all this I strongly believe censorship of the Internet is illegal and unauthorised. The Internet is the best place for people to express their opinions and facts.Through twitter, blogs and many many more, people of all natures leave their opinions on all types of matters. I do believe this is good as they may have something to get off there chest or even have information they wish to share.

Corn-Revere once made-known, "on-line systems give people far more genuinely free speech and free press than ever before in human history." In fact, "Freedom of speech" or "Freedom of press" is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. For these reasons, censorship of the Internet is illegal.

In saying all of this the information that children are exposed to on the net should be the responsibility of the parents.

I feel censorship of the web would be a daunting task to monitor. Our government would simply not have the funds to manage such a mammoth task. It would be far to costly as the government would have to invest in large amounts of manpower and time.

In my opinion if the web can be harmful and need censorship, then TV and magazines are the same. On TV for example it shows motion pictures that consist of dangerous examples such as drugs abuse and murders. Magazines for example show pictures of beautiful extremely skinny celebrities and if a plump female were to glance at the picture she may become anorexic.

Usability on the net (using specific examples)

What is Web Usability and what it means for a website?

Web Usability never meant anything to me until now.  After extensive research I now know that it is an approach to make websites easier to use for the end user. The user should be able to navigate around the web page with ease and with the press of a button lead to where they want to go.

According to one researcher Jacob Nielson he states "Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word 'usability' also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process."

He also gives 10 useful steps for homepage usability.These explain who you are and what you do.

1. Include a one sentence tagline.
2. Write a window title with good visibility in search engines and bookmark lists.
3. Group all corporate information in one direction.
4.   Emphasize the Site's Top High-Priority Tasks
5. Include a Search Input Box
6. Show Examples of Real Site Content
7. Begin Link Names with the Most Important Keyword
8. Offer Easy Access to Recent Homepage Features
9. Don't Over-Format Critical Content, Such as Navigation Areas
10. Use Meaningful Graphics

This link at http://www.usability.gov/guidelines is excellent as it shows the exact guidelines for web usability.

The below video also goes into gravel detail on what a website should have to be user friendly.

There are many examples of good and bad web pages. We visit numerous web pages on a daily basis, some of these we navigate about easily but others we cannot do so. For example the below web page shop in paradise is a bad web page as the apperance is not great. There is far too much happening and we are just overwhelmed by everything on the screen. The main navigation is very hard to find and the banner does not stand out. The page length differs on differnt pages which can be very annoying as you got to scroll down for a long time to find what you want.They do have a search input box but we got to click on it first then enter the query.

A good example of web usability is ebay. As you can see from the below screen shot it has a white back ground and not to cluttered. The banner is easy to pick out as it is in differnt font and colour. The main navigation is short and easy to find. The scroll bar isnt to long as you can see which means it wont take long to scroll down.

Remember less can mean more espically when it comes to a web page.

What is Web Standards and what it means to me?

Web standards is really about the different formats and usability options of designing a web page. This was an area I was not aware of and I'm sure many people are not aware of. In my four years of college I have accessed the web on a daily basis with no difficulities and have even set up web pages without taking web standards into account. Those of us who have no difficulty with  poor eyesight or other disabilities have no problem using the web on a daily basis. But we sometimes fail to think of the 10 - 20% population that have disabilities. 10% of males have some form of colour blindness. This fact alone really made me open my eyes to the problems of accessining the web. 

What is web standards? 
Web Standards are in place to ensure everyone has easy access to the information on the web and it also makes web development faster and more enjoyable. Web standards makes it easier for people with special needs to use the web. Blind people may have their computer read web pages to them.

People with poor eyesight may have pages rearranged and magnified for easier reading.
And people using hand-held devices can browse the web just as easily as those using high end workstations. 

 W3C and web standards

A man by the name of Sir Tim Berners-Lee a British physicist and computer scientists and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989, also founder of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1994. This consortium is an international industry dedicated to leading the web to its full potential. W3C has more than 450 member organisations some big name companies such as: Microsoft, American Online, Adobe and many many more. The W3C is the main international standards organisation for the  World Wide Web. W3C continues to expand the reach of the web for everyone regardless of culture or abilities. Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee and W3C they have made the web more user friendly and accesiable for people with disabilities.

This is a link to the W3C web standards page.


Accessibility is a legal requirement: Disability Discrimination Act 1992

The following is a case where Maguire made a complaint to the human rights and equal opportunity commission, alleging that SOCOG had discriminated against him on the grounds of disability, in contravention of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 in three aspects: the failure to provide braille copies of the information required to place orders for Olympic Games tickets; the failure to provide braille copies of the Olympic Games souvener programme; and the failure to provide a web site which was accessible to Maguire.

Maguire v SOCOG

As you can see from the above information web standards are now becoming very important. If your web site is not up to scratch with the correct requirements you are breaching the Disability Discrimination Act of 1992. Now that I have studied about web standrads I intend to look at every website I use and see how user friendly they are and if they match Sir Tim Beners-Lee standrads.

My favourite type of crisps.

Ok so I was having my lunch during the week and I was thinking how brilliant crisps are. I mean, what is a lunch without your favourite bag of crisps keeping your fine sambo company? Below are my favourate type of crisps and I will rate each one out of ten. 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest.

Ireland should be proud of crisps as they were the founder of the first flavoured crisps in the whole world. Tayto Cheese & Onion founded by Joe 'Spud' Murphy took cheese and onion, mixed them together and put them on crisps to make the crisp world a much more delicious place to live in. i think Cheese and Onion Tayto will never get old and I give them a 6/10.

The Real McCoy's ridge cut flame grilled steak what a packet of crisps after eating these you would get the taste of the steak and it would make you feel like you just ate a massive steak dinner. I went through a phase of these and I must say I feel like another packet right now. The Real McCoy deffinately deserves a good 6/10.

Good ould Hula Hoops how can I forget them from days in primary school. I have my triangle sambos in the lunch box and a packet of Hula Hoops. For me it always had to be the salt and vinegar flavour as no other flavour really done it for me. Awh I really do miss that crumching sound when you bite into them, what a great feeling and great memories they bring back. Hula Hoops are going to recieve a 5/10.

Another delight from Tayto were the Chipsticks. They were also an old favourate of mine from school the salt and vinegar flavour would last for ages in your mouth. They probally were the messiest crisps of the lot and they did still to the roof of your mouth or teeth but in my opinion that was the best part about them. I loved sitting in class after my lunch break taking the pieces of crisp out of my teeth from the lunch. Chipsticks I think deserves a good 8/10.

Wheelies the bacon flavour crisps. These were the crisps we always got after a football match as kids. We would get a small bottle of score orange and a packet of Wheelies. They are hard to find now the only way they can be baught is in the mult-packs. I will give the wheel shaped crisps a 7/10.

Chickatees another messy crisp to eat and just like Chipsticks they stick to the top of your mouth. As far as i know they are the only chicken flavoured crisp in the market. Maybe other crisp companies are too CHICKEN to take them on :-). One packet is nice but after that they can get very sickinging. I give them a 5/10.

Now heres some crisps I haven't had in ages. Mega Meanies oh how I loved these crisps and unlike the Chickatees you could eat as many packets and just want more. I remember one day I got a multi-pack of these and I ate 5 packs one after another. That just says how good these bad boys are. I will have to give them a 9/10. What a great packet of crisps.

Now the two best packet of crisps to eat with a sambo have to be Walkers Prawn Cocktail and Hunky Dorys. These crisps both run side by side in my eyes. The only real difference is the ripples in Hunky Dorys. After visisting the Hunky Dorky factory a number of years ago they were the only crisp I would eat. Then Walkers came up with some very clever advertising and I feel for it. I'm sure most of you know about the contraversal advert Hunky Dorys recently used. Well if you don't I have added it in below. I taught it was very very clever, so what they may have got in trouble over it but yet it was the best advertising the company ever had. Two packets of crisps I eat on a regular basis and I give both of them a strong 9/10. 

Now last but no means least Tayto yet again have done it for me. Mighty Munch are hot and spicy and for me they gap between Wheelies, Mega Meanies and Chipsticks. They may not be the best crisp to serve with a sambo but I feel they are the best crisp. They may be hot and spicy but just not too hot and spicy, they most certainaly got a oomph about them that makes me give them the full marks. Mighty Munch deserve 10/10 for me what a packet of crisps.

Technology fast

Ok so here it goes I'm going to give up the Internet, my mobile phone and my emails for 3 days starting at 1pm today. This is really not going to be easy but I know I can do it. So if you guys don't hear from me in a few days you will know why.

Ok so I done it. technology fast from 3pm on Monday 7th March until 3pm Wednesday 9th March.
It wasn't as hard as I taught it was going to be. I have to say I missed my mobile phone much more than I taught I would. The Internet and emails dint bother me as much . The first few hours of the technology fast were weird because I was reaching for my phone in my pocket and thinking I hear it but I didn't even have it on me.
Initially I was having a few problems because I needed my mobile phone on a few occasions to get in contact with people. I know we could use land line phones but the problem was I had all my contact details on my mobile phone. I did realise how much I depended on it and how many people get in contact with me via my mobile phone.

The one time I did miss the internet was for checking my online bank account. I use this to see if my wages have arrived in which saves me traveling down into a busy town and accessing the bank atm. This was very inconvient to me and I realised how important the internet was to me.

This technology fast was a real eye opener for me. I am happy I achieved the full task in hand, it shows I got strong willpower and I can live without technology. But no matter what we do I feel we will never get away from technology. An example of this was obvious to me within the first few hours of my fast when a customer in the pub I work asked me to insert a mobile number into his phone.
When I turned my phone back on Wednesday at 3pm I had 3 missed calls and 4 messages which i was able to reply back to via my mobile phone.

Social Networking / Social Media (Virtual Communities)

Facebook

Flickr

LinkedIn

Twitter

RSS

This is something we see on most websites. It allows us follow the group, company, team or person on social networking sites such as facebook, flickr, linkedin, twitter, Rss and many more.

There are many social media tools companies can use to interact with there customers and exchange information. Businesses are increasingly using these social networking tools because they are low in cost and allow the company to communicate easily.

The majority of generation Y have a social networking site, which I feel is a great thing as it allows our generation to communicate at the touch of a bottom. However with every positive there must be a negative. As with anything involving the Internet there are dangers to consider with social networking. For starters, it creates a place for online predators to gather information. This is a concern especially with myspace or facebook considering the number of teenagers who carelessly list personal information such as their full name, town, school, and post pictures of their houses or car.

Take a look at the video below to see how much the Social media has become a fad and revolutionised the world today.

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A virtual community is a gathering place for people and businesses that do not have a physical existence. Web sites such as secondlife, kaneva and gaiaonline offer a virtual world/community that allow users to create a character of themselves known as an "avatar." Once created, they roam through this online world and interact with other avatars. The avatars represent other people sitting at their computers doing the same thing. Avatars allow people to be whomever they want. Men can become women and vice versa. Older adults can build their avatar to be 17 years old. Basically in a virtual world anything goes and no one can prove otherwise. This just like social networking can be dangerous as people may discise themselves as someone there not and plan to meet up offline. This in my opinion isn't very safe. I personally have no interest in virtual communities for this reason.

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In conclusion I believe social networking / media are playing a massive role in the world today. They are gapping the hole in communication between people in far away countries. An example of this is my friends I made in the USA on work placement. Without the technology and social media I would not be able to stay in contact with all of these wonderful people. Another example of this will be the communication between my fellow international class mates who will travel home after there studies and I most certainally will want to stay in contact with all of them.

Media exposure, how much do I encounter during a week?

Differnt types of media I'm exposed to on a weekly bases include:

• Newspaper (4hrs)
• Radio (10hrs)
• Tv (7hrs)
• Cell phone (8hrs)
•  Bill Boards (1 hr)
• Posters (2hrs)
• Leaflets (2hrs)
• Internet (20hrs) which includes the below:

              Facebook (8hrs)

              Linkedin  (1hr)

              Twitter (2hrs)

              email ( 7hrs)

              Other (2hrs)

Ok so as you can see from the above I am exposed to media on an average of 56 hours a week.This works out about 33% of my time per week is spent exposed to media. That is the same amount of time I sleep per week. This fact really surprised me because no one realises how much they are exposed to media on a daily bases. When our lecturer set us the challenge to count how many hours we were exposed to media I taught to myself sure its probably going to be around 20 or 30. But was I wrong or what.

This task opened my eyes to how much media is out there and how much our lives are controlled by it. For example I listen to radio every morning at my breakfast, then I drive to and from college each day with the radio on and when I work I have the radio on at the weekend. So this is how I counted up my media hours for radio.

What other types of media are you exposed too? Please leave a comment and let me know.

DKIT Rag Week 2011

Line up for DKIT Rag week 2011 is out and tickets on sale. What are you looking forward to this year??
I personally am looking forward to Michelle Reilly having a sing song in her house every day of rag week.
Please let me know what you are looking forward to and what all you guys got tickets for.

Wayne Rooney worth his weight in gold!

Wayne Rooney scored what could possibly be goal of the season on Sat afternoon against Man City. Some say it could possibly be goal of the decade! What other goals really stand out to u in the last decade.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAHgSrCy10Y

Valentines day!

Girls expect gifts on Valentines day but yet they dont think its important to give a gift back to the guy. This day is for both parties involved. Us guys love to recieve presents as much as the girls.
So girls feel free to give gifts to ur men and not expect to be the only ones recieving.