Are you ready for Vista?

Some of my Vista-Links:

Consumers in No Hurry for Vista Upgrade
Backup Tool in Vista "worst utility ever"

New South Wales steers clear of Vista

Have I become anti-Windows(r)?

Microsoft Vista is not an option

Why Not to Buy Vista: 4 "Reasons" to Dump Linux

Windows screwup forces Ubuntu shift

It's the end of the line for Microsoft: sorry, Mr Gates, you've just been Googled

Ten things Linux distros get right (that MS doesn't)

ElectricNews.net:News:Don't rush into Vista, schools told

Peter Gutmann on Vista DRM -- Interview

Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers)

Rivals attack Vista as illegal under EU rules

ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack

Vista's legal fine print raises red flags
Green Party asks: Who has the key to your Vista PC?

EEN writes: "Almost half of IT professionals feel that migrating to Microsoft Vista constitutes a distraction from more important issues, according to a survey of 150 British technology experts by emedia's Rapid Research service. Just over half (54 percent) of respondents suspect that application incompatibility will "cause pain" to those migrating to Microsoft's latest operating system, while nearly two-thirds cite cost as a pressure point. In areas other than security, respondents expect Vista to bring improvements to desktop infrastructure optimisation (49 percent), finding and using information (42 percent) and enabling a mobile workforce (30 percent). However, just under half of respondents expect their organisation to migrate to Vista in the foreseeable future, and more than a quarter (27 percent) expect Vista to have no impact on their business within the next 18 months."

Benefits of the new Ennis Bypass

This morning, while going into town to give my daughter a lift to her job in Ennis, we drove over the new by-pass. (What's the correct spelling, btw?) When we waited at the obnoxious traffic lights, we watched a car on the north side slowing down, stopping and even pulling back to find the missing exit into town! Poor fella was probably trapped like many others coming from Shannon and trying to get into Ennis but having missed the last exit near Dromoland ...

Anyway, a few minutes later in Ennis, I was really suprised how little traffic was on the old N18 towards Clarecastle and beyond. Fellow coworkers reported the same surprise this morning about a calm Ennis during early rush hours! However, there was quite a backlog further towards the joining of old and new N18. It was somewhat ironic to watch all the cars on the new road rushing by while we were standing or crouching along the dirty old main road ...

Broadband - the Never Ending Nightmare ...

... for progressive inhabitants of rural Ireland. Since we moved to our lovely, secluded spot in Spancelhill in 2005, I was looking for options to get it. Knowing that phone-line-based DSL would be out of the equation for a long, long time (well, short in Eircom speak), I was always checking for any development in the wireless sector. Wimax seemed to be the fashion of the age, but it never reached as far as Spancelhill and always requires "Line-of-Sight" to the mast.

However, I kept checking the coverage areas of the likes of Irish Broadband, Digiweb and others, but they all confined their services to the bigger towns and cities for the time being. I also registered my interest with them, just in case a miracle would happen. But then in late autumn of 2006, I read a newsflash of "3" or "Three", the latest addition to the small list of mobile phone providers in Ireland. And they were going to provide a decent Internet connection via the Third Generation (3G) mobile phone network. Terms like GPRS, EDGE and HSPDA started to spin around my head, and I eventually got myself registered for this. How this all was coming about is another story. Meanwhile we have it and it's quite ok so far. But more is to come! Watch the space.

Opening of the Ennis Bypass

Today was the long awaited opening of the Ennis Eastern Bypass. The Minister for Transport should have opened the new road at around 12:30, so I used my lunch break to take a look. But unfortunately, the delaying game was played again, and I had to return to my workplace without success.

The first delay in this saga goes back to the late eighties, but this is not to be covered here, also the next try to launch the bypass about 6 or 7 years ago. Then, heavily advertised by Clare County Council last year, the "first phase" of the bypass was due to be opened before Christmas 2006, but adverse weather conditions were blamed for the last delay of nearly 5 weeks. Which is nothing compared to the 20 years some people might have waited for it in downtown...

Talking about the "First Phase" - I'm sure today many drivers coming from the Limerick/Shannon (south) direction were surprised that the shiny new bypass had a big joke for them at hand when they realized they had to go all the way to Barefield once they ended up on it! How is that? Well, in their unfailing wisdom the responsible people decided to leave out the exits on the new bypass and wait until the very end of the last phase to provide them to us poor motorists! Can you believe that? And there was no sign at the Dromoland interchange apart from the well disguised hint on the roadsigns that the Dromoland exit also leads to Ennis! You could watch the cars slowing down like sheep smelling food near the yet to be build western link (which will be opened in two phases, with the most important link to bypass Clarecastle being the last!) trying to find their first exit! Then again, when approaching the Tulla Road, where everybody was expecting the long lasting works at the link road to be finished, they realized here again that they were duped! So they kept on going towards Barefield. There, nearly everybody tried to get off, proofing that most of them were caught by surprise and were not heading towards Gort or beyond, which would be the only reason to use the new bypass at the moment!

Anyway, I took my first ride from work and also took a few photos:

Ennis Bypass Opening 26 Jan 2007

The Limerick Blogger also writes on this topic.