Patrick O'Beirne's blog (circa 1993)

Thu, 21 Aug 2008

Our eco-study holiday


In August Megan and I went on a course with Archipelagos Aigaiou about Mediterranean flora on the Greek island of Ikaria and followed up by a few days holiday.
The course was a fascinating insight into the nature of the island and the science of botany and dendrology. As well as conventional classroom lectures and laboratory examination of specimens that we collected, we went on guided field trips to the Rhanti forest and the Halaris River gorge. Our professor was the botanist Halil Cakan of Cukurova University in Turkey. (On a social note, this illustrates how young scientists can set up normal relations between Greece and Turkey, where there is a long and troubled past, even within living memory.)
Ikaria is an amazing island, unusually green for a Greek island, even in the dry month of August. There are still lakes and reservoirs, and an abundance of pipes strung across the landscape carrying water to the farms.
The Rhanti (Radi) forest is the largest forest of Quercus Ilex holm oak or hollyoak left in the Mediterranean, with some trees 500 years old. Free-roaming goats eat young tree shoots, so the forest is not being renewed as much as it could be. It appears that unlike the tethered and cared-for goats that we saw elsewhere on the island, these are simply owned to claim EU grants, and left to fend for themselves. Archipelagos have prepared a video on the consequences of goat breeding on natural environment of Radi forest
We also saw evidence of bark beetle infestation giving the "metro-map" tracks in the cambium (the growing layer of cells just under the bark) similar to those that we saw in the Banff national park in Canada.
We also walked on one of the hiking trails in Ikaria and I hope to upload some of our photographs later. Because Ikaria has few beaches, it is not spoiled by drunk tourists, so it is mainly favoured by Greek holidaymakers escaping the heat of Athens.
We finished by visiting our friends in Athens who looked after us with true Greek hospitality. As well as the usual museums, we joined thousands of visitors going to see the full harvest moon rise over the Acropolis.

http://www.archipelago.gr/en/FieldCourses/MediterraneanDendrology/tabid/76/Default.aspx

Archipelagos, Institute of Marine & Environmental of the Aegean Sea, is a Greek non-profit, non-governmental, environmental organization. It has been active since 1998 in several parts of the Greek Seas (Ionian Sea, Sporades, Central Aegean, Lybian Sea, Eastern Aegean). Since 2000, Archipelagos' field of action has focused on the eastern Aegean, having its main research base on the island of Ikaria but with activity covering the whole of the Aegean Sea. Archipelagos action combines scientific research into the biodiversity of the marine and terrestrial environment of the Aegean Sea and islands, with efficient conservation work, in which the local communities have an active part.


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Wed, 30 Jul 2008

PraxIS August 2008


August 2008

1) Risk & Security
     Security flaws plague majority of e-banking sites
     The risks of marketing your marketing
     The $100,000 keying error
     The risks of hacking

2) ICT for Development
     IEEE Computer Journal on Computing in Developing Economies

3) Spreadsheets
     Eusprig 2008 conference report
     More spreadsheet error stories in the news

4) Off Topic
     Ecological Holidays

15 Web links in this newsletter

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PraxIS Newsletter July 2008


www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0807.htm

1) Risk & Security
What to do if you suspect or discover fraud

2) Quality
Presentations available on Software Testing

3) Spreadsheets
Eusprig 2008
XLTest: A New Addin for Spreadsheet Checking

4) Off Topic
Don't blame me, I voted ...
5 Web links in this newsletter

At Eusprig 2008 I'll be announcing my new XLTest add-in for auditing spreadsheets and looking for beta testers.
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Fri, 13 Jun 2008

Spreadsheet Hell!


A breakfast briefing for all Chartered Accountants and colleagues
Date: Thursday, 26th June 2008.
Time: Full Irish breakfast, 7.30am. Presentations 8am sharp, followed by Q&A. Ends 9.30 approx.
Venue: Hilton Hotel, Charlemont Place, Dublin 2.
Cost: €50 per person CPD: 1.5 hours
The Chartered Accountants IT Services Committee is pleased to host this morning session. Regulatory pressure for compliance and risk management has created a dependence on spreadsheets which is increasingly seen as a weakness that needs to be controlled. However, the sheer scale of their use raises considerable practical challenges in discovery, risk assessment, evaluation, and the control of their development, maintenance, and use.
These presentations present research and experience into the causes of expensive mistakes from uncontrolled spreadsheets and describes evolving good practice in both end-user training and management action to reduce risk.
Contents: Risk and spreadsheet hell : The Spreadsheet control problem : End User Computing (EUC) issues : Publicly reported problems and what caused them : Real data from those who actually checked : Evolving good practice recommendations and skills certification : Good practice in detecting and preventing errors : The appropriate level of review and testing : Software tools, product screenshots : Summary
Patrick O’Beirne, B.Sc. (NUI) MA (Lancs) FICS, is Managing Director of Systems Modelling Ltd. His current engagements include consulting on spreadsheet compliance methods, best practices in model development, in-depth training in model audit and review, as well as IT consultancy. He is current chair of the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group (EuSpRIG) and of SoftTest Ireland, and a Fellow of the Irish Computer Society. He has advised two certification bodies on the content of a syllabus for a new certification in good spreadsheet practices. His latest book is Spreadsheet Check and Control (Systems Publishing, ISBN 190540400X)
Dave Carpenter BBS, FCA, is Chief Executive of Q-Validus, a leading provider of international certification and management services, offering a customized mix of consulting, item and test development, data management, training, research and software tools to meet the unique needs of its clients. He previously held the position of Chief Executive of the ECDL-Foundation, the worldwide governing body for the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL), and its international counterpart the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL), certification programme.
Booking Form

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Mon, 09 Jun 2008

Eusprig 2008 Programme


www.eusprig.org
An Overview of Spreadsheet Analytics; Tom Grossman
Automating Spreadsheet Discovery & Risk Assessment; E. Perry
Controlling End User Computing Applications- a case study; Jamie Chambers
End User Computing in AIB Capital Markets: A Management Summary; Andrew McGeady
End-User Behaviour Analysis: Supporting Debugging Tool Design and Evaluation; Bishop, McDaid
EuSpRIG and Education and Training; D. Chadwick
Evaluation of an Intelligent Assistive Technology for Voice Navigation of Spreadsheets; Derek Flood, Kevin McDaid, Brian Bishop
Excel and the Accounting and Finance Professional; P Brown, P Alliy
Information and Data Quality in Spreadsheets; Patrick O'Beirne
In Pursuit of Spreadsheet Excellence; G. Croll
Metrics-Based Spreadsheet Visualization; Karen Hodnigg
Overview and Results of DidaTab project; Francois-Marie Blondel, Eric Bruillard
Reducing Spreadsheet Risk with FormulaDataSleuth; Bill Bekenn and Ray Hooper
Revisiting the Panko-Halverson Taxonomy of Spreadsheet Errors; Ray Panko
Self-checks in spreadsheets: a survey of current practice; D. Colver
Spreadsheet Applications - Rules of Engagement; Dick Moffat
Spreadsheet Components For All; J. Paine
Spreadsheet modeling for solving combinatorial problems: The vendor selection problem; Pandelis G. Ipsilandis

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Wed, 04 Jun 2008

PraxIS June 2008


1) Risk & Security
     E-Voting Banned by Dutch Government
     Medical IT risks

2) Quality
     June SoftTest Ireland events

3) Spreadsheets
     Eusprig 2008 programme announced
     Another Excel problem solved
     ICAI Spreadsheet Risk briefing

4) Off Topic
     Quotes

8 Web links in this newsletter

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Mon, 26 May 2008

25 Aug, 2007: BH200 Vista not working


Dell Bluetooth headset woes

I have a Inspiron E1405/640M with Vista Business Dell Truemobile 355 Bluetooth + EDR Driver date 21/06/2006 version 6.0.6000.16398 Bluetooth headset BH200

I've read various forums such as
http://www.notebookforums.com/thread178221.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=137370
and the Dell support troubleshooter: "Problems With the Dell BH200 Bluetooth 2.0 EDR Stereo Headset"

I posted that method to the Dellcommunity.com forum but my question is:

Why do I have to go through this rigmarole EVERY TIME I turn on the laptop? Surely once installed it should recognise the headset the next time I turn it on? Bluetooth was supposed to make interfacing easier. With the old plug-in mike+earpieces all I had to do was plug them in and they worked. Maybe I should go back to them.

UPDATE: The method I described in my last post does not work any more. I downloaded what seems to be the latest patch, R140135, but when I run setup I get 

 
---------------------------
Bluetooth Software
---------------------------
This installer be run on Windows Vista only.
---------------------------
If that message had 'Aaarrr' in front of it that would be talk-like-a-pirate software, but I presume the word 'must' is missing. Which is useless as I *am* running Vista Business.

I have an email into tech support, got the automated answer, still waiting for a specific answer.

Still waiting, 2 weeks later....
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Sep 27,2007: Excel 2007 float bug at 65535


 microsoft.public.excel is discussing this problem:

multiply 850 by 77.1 and Excel displays the result to be 100000

David Gainer's Excel blog says: The Problem
This issue was introduced when we were making changes to the Excel calculation logic in the Office 2007 time frame. Specifically, Excel incorrectly displays the result of a calculation in 12 very specific cases (outlined below). The key here is that the issue is actually not in the calculation itself (the result of the calculation stored in Excel's memory is correct), but only in the result that is shown in the sheet. Said another way, =850*77.1 will display an incorrect value, but if you then multiply the result by 2, you will get the correct answer (i.e. if A1 contains "=850*77.1", and A2 contains "=A1*2", A2 will return the correct answer of 131,070).
So what, specifically, are the values that cause this display problem? Of the 9.214*10^18 different floating point numbers (floating point on wikipedia) that Excel 2007 can store, there are 6 floating point numbers (using binary representation) between 65534.99999999995 and 65535, and 6 between 65535.99999999995 and 65536 that cause this problem. You can't actually enter these numbers into Excel directly (since Excel will round to 15 digits on entry), but any calculation returning one of those results will display this issue if the results of the calculation are displayed in a cell. All other calculation results are not affected.

Other posts on that blog show how the value of 100000 can be propagated rather than just be a display problem.
Joel Spolsky gives his explanation at http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/09/26b.html
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PraxIS Feb 2008


 http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0802.htm 
1) Risk & Security
    Societe Generale 
2) Bank Direct Debit fraud
    Jeremy Clarkson's challenge taken up
3) Spreadsheets
    New certification on safe spreadsheeting being tested 
4) Off Topic
    Schadenfreude
15 Web links in this newsletter

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Thu, 22 May 2008

Praxis March 2008 newsletter


 http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0803.htm 
1) Risk & Security
     171,324 Irish blood donor records stolen
     Followup to l'affaire Kerviel
2) Quality
     Software & Systems Quality Conferences Dublin, 5th March 2008
     SoftTest Ireland events April 1,2,3 
3) Spreadsheets
     Jim Kaplan's AuditNet newsletter features spreadsheet tools
     OSU Spinoff RedRover launches its Excel audit product
4) Off Topic
     Interesting Photos of the day 
13 Web links in this newsletter

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ISSA Ireland Friday, May 23rd at 12:30


The topic for Friday's meeting is "Meeting Compliance and Audit Requirements while Minimising Effort" and our 3 speakers are as follows:

Sean Carey is Head of Internal Audit at Postbank, Ireland's newest bank recently launched by An Post and Fortis Bank. Sean has a keen interest in information security and on May 23rd will give an auditors perspective on information security, explaining how best to demonstrate compliance internally.

Mike Harris is Director of Risk Advisory Services for Ernst & Young and has worked in information security for over 10 years. At this event Mike will speak on the topic "Achieving Compliance by Improving Security", looking at how to develop overall security framework based on a standard such as ISO 27001 and how this can both improve security and demonstrate compliance.

Eoin Fleming leads the financial services security practice for HP Services and was formerly Chief Security Architect for HP Ireland. Eoin has recently worked with a number of customers to automate compliance checks and on Friday he will outline the possibilities and limits of automated compliance.

For more details or to register for this event please see http://www.issaireland.org/meetings. This is an open meeting, free of charge and anyone with an interest in the topic is welcome to attend.
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Tue, 13 May 2008

IIA Congress Social Networking Free Ticket Draw May 15


Barry from IrishDev.com has a prize to give away!
This Thursday, the Irish Internet Association have their annual one day congress in Croke Park.
http://www.iia.ie/events/event/155/iia-congress-2008/
Entitled Beyond Websites: Business Uses of Social Networking and New Media, the event will explore of the explosion of social networking sites into our lives, and the impact it's had on business, successful integration of social networking into organisations' business models and why it takes its rightful place as part of any company's business tools.
Sponsors include teen network Bebo, and IGOpeople.com, Ireland's newest business network which is launching beta at the event.
Members Competition So, exclusive to IrishDev.com, we have three tickets (worth 345euro) to give away!
To win, go to the IIA website where you will find the answer to the following question - Who is the CEO of IGOpeople.com? Then simply email your answer to Barry at IrishDev period com
We'll pull the three winners submitted by 9am tomorrow.
IOTC 2008
Lastly, don't forget about our next tech event of 2008, the Irish Open Source Technology Conference on June 18 - 20th. The blog is live and the website, where people will be able to watch the event live goes up with full schedule on June 1st - don't forget to register for IOTC event alerts for chances of complimentary passes etc.
http://iotc.firstport.ie/
Supported by leading open source companies SugarCRM ,and OpenApp, I can tell you is that we have some very special people coming to share knowledge over the three days including Ireland's Youngest ever Tech Millionaire!
Barry Alistair
Commercial Director
Be my Friend on Facebook
T: LoCall 1890 812 100 / International +353 1 775 1700
Skype: beeps66
IrishDev.com
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Fri, 09 May 2008

Praxis May 2008


http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0805.htm

1) Risk & Security
Aer Lingus 5-euro flights to the US from test data leaked to web
Data Protection Commissioner Unprotected
Irish Computer Society Privacy Forum Launch
ICS Security Professionals Network presents ISO27001

2) Software Industry
SoftTest Ireland for software testers
Accounting for nothing

3) Spreadsheets
Eusprig 2008
Safety in Numbers
The bigger picture

4) Off Topic
$5/hr for Excel skills?!

17 links in this newsletter

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Mon, 07 Apr 2008

PraxIS April 2008


April 2008

1) IT news
     Heathrow Terminal 5
     Irish Microsoft Technology Conference

2) Software Testing
     SQC Dublin conference
     SoftTest Ireland events

3) Spreadsheets
     Presentation

4) Off Topic
     The Voice of the Tube

18 Web links in this newsletter


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Thu, 21 Feb 2008

171,324 Irish blood donor records stolen


There has been plenty of coverage of this data loss, but most have focused on the claims of strong encryption. Only a few professionals have asked why data to be used for software testing was not anonymised. Daragh O'Brien of the IAIDQ comments on his blog: http://obriend.info/2008/02/21/more-thoughts-on-the-ibts-data-breach/ "Your unencrypted, non-anonymised data could have been on the laptop when it was stolen."

How timely: http://www.issaireland.org/meetings Irish Chapter of the Information Systems Security Association Next meeting will be held on Friday Feburary 22nd and all are welcome to attend: Security Breach Reporting and Impact February 22nd, Ballsbridge Court (formerly the Berkeley Court), 12 noon
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Software & Systems Quality Conferences Dublin, 5th March 2008


http://www.sqs-conferences.com/ire/program/programme.htm

9.00 - 9.45 Conference opening by: Tom Kitt TD Government Chief Whip and Information Society Minister

9.45 - 10.30 KEYNOTE The Quality Ecosystem Colm Butler Department of AnTaoiseach, Information Policy Unit

11.15 - 12.00 Testing During The Development Phase Using OpenSource Tools Richard Thompson Liberty IT

The Quality Challenge for joined up Government - A Criminal Justice Case Study Mary Scullion Northern Ireland Civil Service

Performance Testing - From Best Efforts to Best Practice Patricia Costelloe AIB

From The Trenches: A Microsoft Testing Perspective Martha Rotter Microsoft Share DSI's Experience of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition Peter Buckley DeCare Systems Ireland

12.00 - 12.45 Panel Discussion "Software Testers: Perceptions and Professionalism" Mary Cleary Irish Computer Society iCS

Test-Driven Development: Ensuring Quality From a Developer Perspective Jedidja Bourgeois Microsoft

Performance Stress Testing: Activity Profiling Fergal Downey/ Emer McVeigh HBOS

An intensive case study of test offshoring Paul Cronin SQS

12.45 - 1.45 LUNCH

Automation strategies for different lifecycle approaches Ken Brennock Insight

The Practitioner's View of Test Automation Jiri Machala QASight/Moravia IT

1.45 - 2.30 KEYNOTE Formula One is a Sport which Revolves around Testing and Quality Mark Gallagher Eddie Jordan's Formula One Team

2.30 - 3.00 COFFEE BREAK

The Application Performance Lifecycle Elma Cusack Hewlett-Packard

3.00 - 3.45 Testing in a Service Oriented Architecture Dave Rigler SQS

Making Sure Information Quality Matches Software Quality Daragh O'Brien International Association for Information & Data Quality (IAIDQ)

End-User Computing: Risks in Spreadsheets Patrick O'Beirne SoftTest Ireland

(repeats) From The Trenches: Share DSI's Experience of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition

3.45 - 4.30 The Truth about Outsourcing Looking Forward to Outsourcing 2.0 Arpit Kaushik Crystals Design Limited

Green Testing: The Race Against Waste Joan Jordan o2

Virtualisation of Test Environments Mark Scully/ Sean O'Sullivan Irish Stock Exchange

Caught In The Middle Testing - the 'No Mans Land' between Systems Test and UAT on Vendor-supplied software Adrienne Reddan Delphi Technologies

4.30 - 5.15 Successful Fusion of Tailored Process Improvement and Capability Building Oliver Lawrence British Energy

Running a centralised Performance testing service in an Ecommerce World Peter Pinto Friends Provident

SQuaRE standard Michael O'Duffy The Centre for Software Engineering

Requirements-Driven Testing: The Clear Solution for Improving Application Quality Fergal McGovern Compuware
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Wed, 13 Feb 2008

New Yahoogroup subscription hijack


I'm a moderator for a few Yahoogroups and I've noticed on one particular group that a new pattern has emerged. I get a subscription to approve, and the email address looks genuine. But it is accompanied by an automatic reply email from the address with an "I'm out of the office" message.

Obviously spammers have realised that these addresses are genuine and can be used for a week or two, until the person returns, to attempt to get access to other lists of email addresses such as Yahoogroups.

On the other hand, unless they also have access to that email address to pick up the confirmation from YG, I don't see how they can access the group or retrieve any challenge email from the moderator - unless there's a way to sign in on the web using just an email address.
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Mon, 07 Jan 2008

PraxIS January 2008


1) IT Risk & Quality
Bad Health Informatics can Kill
HMRC manual on data protection was protected data
Frequently Avoided Questions about IT auditing
15th EuroSPI Conference, Dublin, Sep 2008

2) Euro Changeover
Cyprus and Malta switch to euro cash

3) Spreadsheets
Office 2003 update quietly zaps older file formats
Seattle Accountant offers free book on Excel for MBA
Dave Hawley's Golden Rules for Excel Development

4) Off Topic
My 2008 photo calendar

13 Web links in this newsletter


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Mon, 24 Dec 2007

Christmas greetings


Have a peaceful Christmas season and success in 2008!

Watercolour of holly by Megan O'Beirne


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Thu, 13 Dec 2007

PraxIS Dec 2007


December 2007

1) Risk & Security
    The biggest data loss in history ... so far
     and more...

2) Quality
    Software Test Process Improvement

3) Spreadsheets
    Excel User Conference
    Excel tips & tricks
    Manager and Auditor perspectives

4) Off Topic
    A friend passes away

14 Web links in this newsletter


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Mon, 05 Nov 2007

Irish Java Technology Conference


There are now only two days remaining to IJTC day and lots of exciting news!
First you can avail of discount booking (189 instead of 245), offer by logging on to http://IJTC.FirstPort.ie/Book.aspx or calling +353 01 775 1700
Second, we are offering a late-student offer. Attend one or both conference days (Thu/Fri) for only 50 Euro - student ID required.
You probably already know about our competition to win a private, champagne audience with Joel Spolsky on Wednesday night at 30,000 feet over the Irish Sea. Everyone that registers is in with a chance to win.
Joel Spolsky is presenting the Keynote address. That's followed by a Panel Discussion on the "Future of Java", chaired by ENN's Ralph Averbuch and featuring James Strachan, CTO of IONA. Over 18 guest speakers, including Java stars from IONA, SUN, Apache, Red Hat, Interface21 and Microsoft will lecture on subjects ranging from Enterprise, Web, Desktop and Mobile Application Development to iPhone, SUN Spots and Robotics. A full list of speakers and lectures is available at the IJTC web site http://IJTC.FirstPort.ie
THE IJTC TEAM
IrishDev.com & DubJUG.org
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Thu, 01 Nov 2007

PraxIS Nov. 2007


www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0711.htm 
1) Risk & Security
     Standard of Good Practice for Information Security download
     Cyber Security Awareness Resource Center downloads 
     Pirate copies of books
     Audit Technology Conference, London 20-21 Nov
2) Irish news
     Ireland Corporate Enforcer impatience with compliance
     ICS Security Professionals' Network Seminar, 5 Nov
     SoftTest Ireland Presentation by O2 and AGM, 8 Nov
3) Spreadsheets
     Excel User Conference Cambridge, Nov 29 - Dec 1
     SPRIG sleepless at INFORMS, Seattle, 5 & 7 Nov
     Did you spot a spreadsheet error from a mile away?
     Excel oddities, annoyances, quirks
     ScanXLS continues to be enhanced
     VBA Code Quality - Project Analyser
4) Off Topic
     Giveaway of the day freeware
13 Web links in this newsletter

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Wed, 31 Oct 2007

ISACA Ireland Conference 2007 Fri Nov 2, 2007


http://www.isaca.ie/

The ISACA Ireland Conference 2007 will be address the theme "Focus on Data Privacy: Threats, Enforcement and Opportunities"


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Mon, 29 Oct 2007

Excel oddities


Some annoyances I came across in Excel and VBA:
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Tue, 09 Oct 2007

PraxIS October 2007


October 2007

1) Risk & Security
     Nedap voting machines de-certified in The Netherlands
     Phishy education

2) Testing
     Holistic Test Analysis and Design
     Software & Systems Quality Conferences in London and Dublin

3) Spreadsheets
     65535 calculation bug in Excel 2007 cell display

4) Off Topic
     Mnemonics and pangrams

21 Web links in this newsletter


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Mon, 10 Sep 2007

PraxIS newsletter Sep 2007


www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0709.htm

1) Irish Computer Society 50 years awards
     Your vote is wanted!

2) prax0709.htm#Quality
     Free Software Testing Seminars in Ireland

3) Spreadsheets
     Apple Numbers introduced

4) Off Topic
     Tech Gripes

5 Web links in this newsletter


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Wed, 05 Sep 2007

Final days of August 2007 vacation in Alberta


Banff Centre for the Arts

We went to a couple of the concerts of the Banff International String Quartet Competition. Megan liked the Tin Alley quartet from Australia and indeed they were the winners on Sept 2nd. I find Bartok rather severe for my tastes, but John Largess, violist with the Miró Quartet (winners of BISQC 1998), provided a very good background to the music. You can listen to the performances on the CBC Concerts on Demand archive.

There were some fun events, such as an informal evening gig by the participants in the Richard Armstrong vocal workshop. We tried out some experiments at Look Again, a collaboration between the artists and the Science Communications people. I didn't enjoy the TV production which was a panel discussion. The chair did not pursue any points in depth, for example the comment by the sociologist - that calling for public debate about nanotechnology is little help because ordinary people are not up to speed with science - could have been taken up by the scientist on the panel, and the audience. A dancer described how a scientist helped her team incorporate dolphin movements into their repertoire; but the host then put her on the spot by asking her to do a dance about nanotechnology for the audience. She got the audience to make movements from large to small, which to my eyes looked like something from kindergarten. I suppose I was being too serious in expecting some audience interaction at a more cerebral level, such as taking part in the debate.

Calgary visit


The name 'Calgary' is said to mean 'clear running water' in Gaelic. In fact, according to a post to the Gaelic-L Archives : 
However the correct Gaelic translation for the phrase would be 
*t-suthain shoilleir* or *uisge shoilleir*. 
Long before the formation of the NWMP, James Macleod had visited Calgary Bay
on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, where his sister's relatives through marriage
owned a small castle named Calgary House. 
The original name in Gaelic was *Cala-ghearridh*,
with the first part *Cala*, meaning "harbour" or "bay", and the second part,
*ghearridh*, meaning "preserved piece of pasture", "enclosed pature", or "farm".
Stayed in 5 Calgary Downtown Suites, very happy with them. Enjoyed a lunch with Guinness at the James Joyce Pub. The Calgary Tower is $12 each just to go 500 feet up. The vertigo-inducing glass floor is the only real attraction there, other office buildings must have similar views. Sundog Tours airport shuttle charges $15 each and takes 1 hour because they call to every hotel. A taxi costs $34 and takes 15 mins so is better for two people.

The Glenbow Museum had a good exhibition of Native Indian life, Niitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life in the Blackfoot Gallery. The exhibition Mavericks shows the life and times of famous Calgarians, almost all white. The original inhabitants had a panel on some walls saying how it looked from the their point of view.

Drumheller trip

We took a Hammerhead tour to the Badlands - Horshoe Canyon, the Hoodoos, Drumheller, the ferry, and the prairies. Very enjoyable.
Tyrrell Museum - a wonderful show of archaeology from the formation of life through to the dinosaurs and stopping just before humans appeared, very well curated, we took two hours to visit and didn't have time to walk in the badlands.

My Photos: Flickr.com/probeirne

My Videos: YouTube.com/probeirne


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Sat, 25 Aug 2007

Creative Zen Missing Feature


MP3 concept of Albums

It's amazing that a modern MP3 player like the Creative Zen VPlus can't do what disk changers have been doing for decades, right up to CD changers.

They say to use playlists, but that only works from a collection on the PC to the Zen. It does not apply to a Zen which has been filled from different PCs or where I did not store the music on the PC. The Zen only lists music by artist, not album so I can't even copy it back to a PC with album integrity in order to create a playlist.

Playlists are also double work - I'd have to maintain the playlist everytime I add or delete an album on the player.

All we need is a simple option:

Continuous album play Y/N
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Google Desktop annoying beep


After a lot of searching on "why does my computer beep" This is a loud POST-type beep, not a normal Windows sound which can be suppressed by turning the volume down. My version of Google Desktop is 5.0.0611.10655-en-GB-pb Thanks to Gert http://www.vantslot.be/gertdotnet/ I found http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=58591 February 22, 2007 Google Desktop 4.5 (5.0.0702.07034) All Languages, Consumer and Enterprise Security update Fixed beeping issue related to PDF indexing
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Tue, 21 Aug 2007

Frobisher: Three characters in search of an ending


I enjoyed the production of the new opera Frobisher by John Estacio & John Murrell produced by Kelly Robinson and the Calgary Opera at the Banff Centre for the Arts on Sunday 12 Aug 2007.

In the tradition of musicals about theatrical people, this Opera is based on movie people.

The theme is the American Dream, the belief in a new start, and a place to make it in.

Musically, it passed by without much sticking; unlike a musical, in opera there are no big tunes to go away humming. The rising tritone for 'Paradise' was pretty obviously taken from Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, maybe aimed at an audience raised on the 2001 movie.

The music sung was modern but accessible, reminding me of Britten. Estacio's musical language also depicted the Elizabethan court in a way that suggested the time without being a literal merry-down quotation. The chorus of unfortunate seamen had the simplest tune like a sea-shanty.

The performers' voices and diction were very able for this material, so I'd be quite happy to hear the Calgary Opera troupe again. If I saw this opera again, I'd like to pay more attention to the music. My main occupation the first time was catching the words. Although the diction was excellent, I still missed enough words to have to look up at the text display. If I waited until I knew I had missed something, looking up would be too late, it would have already moved on. So I took to glancing at it every few seconds to catch what was coming up. As I was in row C, third from the front, not only had I to crick my neck up quite a bit to see the text, but also the light for the conductor's podium was spilling into my eyes. So if you're going to the Eric Harvie Theatre, book well ahead to get the good seats.

The Wagmanites, the coterie of assistants to the film producer Wagman, was played as a tribute to big musical chorus numbers, entertaining, moving non-stop, very well staged. And ironically although the Elizabethan courtiers were just effete, the modern hangers-on chorus was given the job of stating the main principle of operation for all the characters: appeal to the heart, not the brain.

This key principle of salesmanship was used by Frobisher to get Good Queen Bess to open her purse and once again give the gold and the men for a speculative voyage. Frobisher pitched to Queen Elizabeth what she wanted – prestige, a way to China by the west. Michael projected his own dream on Frobisher, that of a new world where men (what, on their own?) could start again. Of course, we now know that if we humans did discover Paradise, we would be the serpent. He did capture Anna with this dream, though. Anna used the pitch to appeal to Wagman's vanity.

One line which drew a laugh from the audience which I am guessing would mainly consist of academics and Canadians is that of Anna's mother Jessica who said that Wagman would probably not know her because she was a teacher and Canadian. This reference to the self-deprecating Canadian character brought a chuckle.

The plot was fast moving and very well constructed – at no point were we confused between the then and the now, between Frobisher in the 1570s or his ghost  appearing to Anna now, and other cinematic cutaways in the plot.

Michael was dispatched from the story fairly quickly but not from the stage. He was portrayed as vain 'I have dreams to bestow on you, Anna', and self-centred, saying 'love you' (misremembered by Anna as 'I love you') while walking off leaving her alone, and foolish, going on his own without communications or distress signals.

The only moment that I wished would move on a bit was Anna's aria about her love for Michael. As his character had not been developed, except perhaps in the most unflattering way possible, we had no reason to see why she would feel that way for a guy like that. Unless, of course, we were meant to see that as her infatuation.

Anna was the romantic character, in love with an ideal. So was Michael and he projected that on to Frobisher, explaining his search for gold as a search for Eden.

The twist in the story was to offer us three endings.

The first was the classical tragedy, where the romantic heroine goes off to die in the snow pursuing a dream. In real life, anyone who did take off their clothes in the Arctic and lie on the ice would die in a few minutes anyway.

The second was the feel-good Wagman ending. Frobisher returns, apologies for not finding glory but Queen Bess decides that with his experience he's just the man to take on the Pope and the Spaniards in an Armada.

The third was the comforting ending where Anna was in fact alive. Unsaid, I assume that she was immediately rescued by the party of filmmakers, perhaps using modern technology. In older days, that scene would have to be shown, and would include her acceptance of her misguided adventure and her blindness, in true moral tale fashion.  Today's audience would be assumed to fill in that for themselves. The Candide-like ending showed her accepting that only in life can you dream, as her mother looked approvingly on.

Politics

In the third, bourgeois, ending, Anna was now shown as a tame domesticated woman (making stew, however inexpertly) rather than the wild spirit she was before.

For an opera set in the Arctic there was no appearance of an Inuit character in a voice role. Only the sanitised 'ancient Inuit voices'. According to the programme, these were the unseen chorus doing the heavenly voices background. That may have been clear to Canadians who might recognise the language but it was not explicitly shown as such in the opera. I wonder why Inuit voices have to be 'ancient'. Maybe ancient voices are safer, unlike the contemporary more uncomfortable voices. In New Age terms, a romantic like Anna would want to hear voices of encouragement anyway, rather than the more realistic voices of real Inuits who would tell her to get back immediately before she froze to death.

Perhaps one could imagine other endings, which maybe is the point of the opera – to start us thinking and speculating.

Patrick O'Beirne, 13 Aug 2007

Link: http://www.banffcentre.ca/frobisher/


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Banff music and dance


Some quick notes on other events we attended:

Sat 4 Aug, Young Dancers, an end-of-term presentation of what they could do in classical and jazz dance. Very impressive, especially as some were very young, aged 12 and 13. Only three male dancers.

Tue 7 Aug, Summer music in St. George's in the Pines, Banff. A nice mix of song and string quartet including an amusing piece "Don't let that horse eat that violin"

Wed 15 Aug, Mighty Popo. Blues, African singer, drummer, guitar. Easy listening for a summer evening, although described as 'acoustic' this was in fact heavily amplified.

Sat 18 Aug Banff Festival Orchestra conducted by Alain Trudel, with Anton Kuerti as soloist in Brahms' second piano concerto.
http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/Media_Releases/2007/0810_anton_kuerti.asp
The orchestra of young players was assembled for a four-week run. Alain Trudel looked to be just the kind of conductor I'd like to be in front of, economical and supportive. At this event, Anton Kuerti was awarded the Banff Centre's prestigious National Arts Award of a prize and a residency. The small orchestra, with reflecting sound panels behind them, was projected into a rather dry acoustic, and the piano also sounded lighter than expected. I am used to larger scale recordings of this piece with a heroic wash of sound, so it was like I was hearing the detail for the first time. The effect was that of a niche boutique wine rather than a heavy claret. The third movement was played almost like chamber music, in a contemplative manner.

The second piece was Shostakovich's 9th Symphony which gave individual members of the orchestra a chance to shine. They obviously relished the perky tune with a hint of the danse macabre.


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Dance, Talks, and more at Banff Centre


Sun Aug 19 The Dance of Life - Keeping Pace

The Banff centre promotes artistic activity as an alternative to the hard-skills component of most management training centres. The marketing term they use is Leadership Development rather than the '80's Management Development. The programs are for corporate, government, Aboriginal, arts, and not-for-profit (NfP) sectors. The series on Leading Creatively included conversations on Leadership Jazz, Extreme Leadership, the Ecology of Business, Leading in a world of Climate Change, and the Dance workshop that we attended.

This was at the end of a weekend where about eight people worked with a dance company Motus O Dance to develop their attention to movement and body. The facilitator asked the audience to describe some situation they recently encountered on their way to Banff and the group improvised actions to illustrate it. They did well, and when I asked how they knew what to do together, one participant said that they had learned to pay deep attention to what was going on, and they expected the skills they learned here to be of use back in the workplace.

I asked a member of Motus O how they worked with engineers and IT people (think of Dilbert and Dance...) and he illustrated a way in which they elicited moves from a group recently that avoided embarrassment and withdrawal by playing back gestures natural to the people, actions which they were already able to own.

It was an interesting and enjoyable couple of hours.
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Sat, 18 Aug 2007

Banff New Media Institute


The BNMI students and artists held open events as part of the Banff Summer Arts Festival in August 2007 to showcase some of their work. These are works in progress so we don't expect finished quality, more a demonstration of what is currently being explored.

Aug 9, Aboriginal Animation.

Videos created by First Nations people using the facilities of the BNMI. Some were simple drawings with a voice track, others more complete animations. I don't remember the details now but it provided an insight into their lives and stories.

It was followed by a three-dimensional simulation projection of a story about a Raven. Developed in Maya, it used all the techniques - 3D glasses, immersive projection on three walls, and the floor will be worked on next. The person interacting used the joystick to control navigation, similar to video games. Afterwards some kids enjoyed playing with it while I went backstage to have a look at the technology. They intend that this could be made available over ordinary broadband, which in Canada means a lot, as it's one of the most connected countries in the world.

Aug 16, Interactive Screen

1) "Chain Reaction" (c.15 minutes) a performance by Animals of Distinction.

The audience stood around two black-clad girls lying on the floor under a video projector. A black-and-white animation started like a fractal growth, a Monty Python ornament, or a continuously growing plant tendril. Loud music pounded from the speakers. The dancers leapt every few seconds around the floor but staying to the floor plane, a kind of horizontal ballet. Towards the end, a cartoon of a bear was briefly projected and then the tendril drawing resumed. It was described as "a real-time game of snakes and ladders ... unfolds between animation and performers". I was not aware of any game element and lost interest when there appeared to be little variation in activity after the first few minutes.

2) "Streaming Video" (8:00) and "Winterscape" (15:30) by Jim Bizzocchi Ambient video is designed to be as easy to ignore as to notice. These videos showed a pleasing sequence of cleverly masked dissolves among water landscape and winter scenes respectively, to a xylophone background. It's a kind of video Musak, suitable for wallpaper in visitor centres or shopping malls or TV intermissions. It was very pleasant although in the darkened projection room where we had to pay attention to it, it was somewhat like having to watch screensavers.

3) "The Subliminal Organism as a Limnological Feather Vane" (19:00) by Noel Begin A ground-pounding machine was shown in closeup (so close you could catch the dust in your throat) and slow-motion, with the sound slowed too. Plants from the Banff National Park, and extreme close ups of insects featured. The bizarre sound track featuring for example phone answering machine messages raised laughs from the audience. Nice photography, but I think it could be cut to one-half the length.

4) Another piece was inserted here featuring routine and excessively long shots of the Rockies with very prominent road noise. If the intention was to make the point that this nature park is a noisy place by the roadside, all I can say is "Yes, we know", and the point could have been made in 30 seconds rather than 15 minutes.

5) "I have seen the future" by Cam Christiansen (6:00)

A story of bored street kids taunting a father & son playing tennis, told from the son's point of view, who reflected on his own younger life. The video was computer generated including mouth animation matched to words. The words were heard in a song played live by a guitarist. This was introduced as "experimental", which is probably a euphemism for "we didn't bother rehearsing the sync", as a musician accompanying a silent movie is as old as film itself. Still, it was relief to see a video that actually told a story.

My own pictures and videos of our trip to Banff are amateur but just for interest they can be seen at Flickr and Youtube
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Fri, 27 Jul 2007

PraxIS August 2007


1) IT Risk & Security
Risks from untested medical spreadsheets
Spreadsheets latest spam message carriers

2) Quality
Spreadsheet & Data Quality

3) Spreadsheets
Report from Eusprig 2007 conference
The Bug Hunt results

4) Off Topic
Spreadsheets considered harmful :-)
11 Web links in this newsletter


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Mon, 02 Jul 2007

PraxIS July 07: Audit Guides, ISO 27K Guides, Automation, Chance, Eusprig 2007


1) Risk & Security
     Global Technology Audit Guide (GTAG)
     Guidance to ISO 27K Information Security Management Standards
2) Software Testing
     Automated Scripts push my buttons
3) Just read these a second time
     
4) Spreadsheets
     Eusprig 2007 in Greenwich July 11-13
5) Off Topic
     'Canada' explained to foreigners
10 Web links in this newsletter
ISSN 1649-2374 This issue online at http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0707.htm
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Wed, 06 Jun 2007

PraxIS June 2007


ISSN 1649-2374 This issue online at http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0706.htm

1) Risk and Security
Quality Schadenfreude
Bogus reports of Canadian 'spy coin'
Ryanair check-in site exposes data
US Intelligence embeds spreadsheet in PPT

2) Software Testing
SoftTest Ireland member survey

3) Web Content
How does your site look to a spam sniffer?
What visitors to your web site care about

4) Spreadsheets
Tip: Converting text numbers to values
New companies in Spreadsheet Control market
Eusprig 8th Annual Conference
Excel User Conferences this Autumn (Fall)

5) Off Topic
How to write a scientific paper ( ...not)



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Fri, 04 May 2007


PraxIS May 2007

ISSN 1649-2374 This issue online at http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0705.htm

1) IT Risk & Security
     Raising awareness of Information Risk
     Profile of a Fraudster
     Oxley Unhappy with SOX
     Hidden in plain sight
  2) What does the data say?
     Social Statistics blogs
  3) Ireland
     Irish Computing History: the Digital Media Archive
  4) Spreadsheets
     MS Excel Quality Wish List
     On Error GoTo @##^! - sample chapter for VBA developers
     Training course, software, book
  5) Off Topic
     Two stories of customer service
     19 Web links in this newsletter
 
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Mon, 09 Apr 2007

PraxIS April 2007


1) Risk & Security
     Biggest credit card theft - so far
     Consequences - the stick
     Human Error

2) ScanXLS 2007
     List all your spreadsheet files with an overview of their contents

3) Spreadsheet Best Practices training course
     Learn how to detect and prevent errors

4) Spreadsheet news
     New products, free downloads

5) Off Topic
     Photos and short video clips from Iceland

20 Web links in this newsletter



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Tue, 20 Mar 2007

Iceland photographs and movies


I have now uploaded my photographs of Iceland to Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/probeirne

and the videos to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/PROBeirne
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Tue, 06 Mar 2007

PraxIS February 2007


ISSN 1649-2374 This issue online at http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0702.htm

1) Risk & Security
The ISSA / UCD Irish Cybercrime Survey
'Certified' Cheque Scams
DST March 11 = Y2.007K ?
2) Quality
Fourth Information Quality Forum, Dublin
3) ICS News
When Irish I.T.s are smiling
4) Spreadsheets
Free contributions to the Eusprig yahoogroup
5) Off Topic
Google Map Trek
Solzhenitsyn's advice for life
16 Web links in this newsletter


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