Archive for the 'Ramblings' Category

On the other side of the bar

Published
by
Adam
on June 28, 2008
in Life and Ramblings
. 0 Comments

So, I started work in the bar in work. I look upon it as a graduation of sorts, even though I’m only wearing a different colour uniform! I’m liking it so far and am getting to grips with how everything works, although admittedly I haven’t been on until finish on any of the days yet! The latest I’ve been working is 2am which was for the Newtown Debs, which brought back some painful memories from when I was at the other side of the bar the year before, ordering triples by the minute!

The night started off with mostly everyone being responsible, as did mine from what I can remember but within moments I could point out the people who were going to be absolutely hammered by the end of the night. There was one guy in particular who reminded me of myself this time last year. He kept ordering obscure drinks that he was trying for the first time and when he could no longer afford them, he started doing straight vodka!

I had discovered Sambucha for the first time at my own Debs and whereas everyone else was ordering pints of Heineken etc, I was ordering 3 shots of Sambucha! It didn’t take long for me to realise that if I moved from the bar, I’d just fall onto the ground - so I spent the rest of my night (the keyword being MY) holding myself up at the bar. Of course, people started buying me drinks because I was standing by the bar and I managed to drink enough to make me think I didn’t need the support of the counter to stand up straight - I did!

My own Debs night drew to a close at about half one in the morning, while the music was still playing and the bar still serving - I’m such a lightweight! I distinctly remember being in my hotel room at that time getting sick all over the carpet to the sound of “Sweet Dreams” with my date nowhere to be seen! The fact that girls were offering me head for free drink the other night really shows just how badly I messed up my Debs night!

Thursday nights Debs was a cakewalk so to speak. Only 90 odd people. We’re catering for 350 or so in the coming weeks. I have no doubt that there will be about 50 odd people like me at that Debs. At least I had the decency not to get sick on the dancefloor or piss myself like people did the other night!

Betdaq spinup

Published
by
Adam
on June 21, 2008
in Ramblings
. 0 Comments

I haven’t had much time for poker over the past few days, but I happened upon a thread on Boards.ie which had a BetDaq rep offering free money and rake races and what not. Never one to turn down free money, I created an account and for my €25 deposit, got an additional €50! How bad! And that was before I even sat at the tables!

I first sat at the .10/.20 tables and started playing it like a tournament, once I doubled up I moved up levels. I was running quite hot, getting it all in with AcTc vs AK vs Kc8c and hit my ten on the flop and got myself the nut flush draw! Talk about a flop people dream of! I was also a set magnet, hitting sets on 3 occassions and flopping quads once!

Soon enough I was playing 1/2 with €400 and bought in half stacked to two tables. I’m quite happy that the standard is terrible at 1/2 and people were calling my 3bets with suited connectors which would have been fine if I had a full stack in front of me as they would have had sufficient implied odds to try hit a sneaky two pair. Unfortunately for me, the only reason why I know they were calling my 3bets with suited connectors was because I stacked off with overpairs twice, both times after they hit a sneaky fucking two pair.

That brought my bankroll down to €200 and I’ve decided to try run over the .25/.50 tables… with 4 buyins! All I need to do is keep running good and getting my money in good and when I don’t do that… suck out! Is that too much to ask for? C’mon… ONE TIME!

The Progression Of Bebo

Published
by
Adam
on June 21, 2008
in Ramblings
. 1 Comment

Over two years a go - in fact, 2 years and four months a go - I was “barred” from using the PC in the house “because my eyes would go square!”. Of course, I found a way to get my daily internet fix and in this time started using the upstart social networking site Bebo, which at the time had a small userbase and had little features. Bebo has since grown to become the largest social network in Ireland, and one of the largest in the world and has recently been acquired by AOL for the princely sum of $850m! Not bad for a site that only two years ago was struggling to make it’s mark, hidden amongst a vast array of “MySpace Clones!”.

Two years and four months a go, I noticed a blatant security and privacy flaw on Bebo. In fact, I blogged about it at the time and it received a lot of attention, doing the rounds on all the social-bookmarking sites which were also growing in popularity. In fact, A search for “Bebo” on Google ranked my blog first! The end result of my lobbying was that Bebo created a two-tier friendship system which is now known as Direct Friends and Indirect Friends. Direct Friends see your contact details, indirect friends don’t! A simple, but pivotal change in what was to be Bebos’ rise to the top of the social networking ladder!

Michael Birch said it on my blog that Bebo was initially a contact sharing website but had morphed into a full-scale social networking site like MySpace. By implementing the necessary changes needed to ensure that only direct friends could see your contact details, Bebo allowed themselves to target and explore new markets, now as a social networking site! Bebo soon rose in popularity thanks to its ease of use, speed, reliability and the fact that it was something new - a change from MySpace.

Bebo then started making headlines worldwide, but for all the wrong reasons. With a lack of political scandals, Bebo appeared on RTEs PrimeTime. All the stories worldwide focused on the common sight of pornography and underage drinking, but I often wonder had I not inspired the changes to the site, how the media would have reacted to being readily being able to get the contact details of teenagers! Bebo got lucky in that when the spotlight swung their way, they weren’t standing there in their underwear and had implemented just enough changes to avoid being totally torn apart by the media!

Having successfully negotiated the hurdle that is the media circus, Bebo started to make a drive to the top. Firstly they introduced skins and while they were initially thin on the ground, they finally allowed users to customise their page in a one click process. They then expanded this to allow for user created skins which had to be accepted by Bebo themselves. This ensured that a small quantity of high quality skins became available but skins were slow to be released and people slanted towards the same type of skins meaning that soon everybody’s page started to look the same again! This all changed when Bebo allowed any member to release skins! Granted, the quality of the skins has dropped like a stone but now there’s no shortage of user-created content and if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can follow a simple tutorial and have your own within minutes! I even made my own!

Once Bebo introduced skins, they followed in the footsteps of MySpace and launched Bebo Bands. It initially boasted a small selection of relatively unknown bands, some were pretty good, some were awful. Some would argue that it hasn’t taken off at all, but its constantly growing as bands and record labels realise that an exclusive presence on the dominant MySpace simply isn’t enough! Bebo then tried their hand at becoming a place for authors to showcase their work. It got the support of a few mainstream authors but I got the feeling that Bebo was trying too hard to be too many things! In the end, Bebo Authors became an outlet for depressed teenagers poetry and much like the themes in the said poems, Bebo Authors died a slow death.

Interestingly, while MySpace had an open development community for widgets, Bebo decided to close theirs. At least initially. Whereas on MySpace anyone could theoretically create an application for their homepage, Bebo required developers, usually big advertisers, to pay for exclusivity. While this was like printing money for them, it deviated from the trend that was towards being driven by user-created content. Some could argue that having closed development was a good thing as it meant that users pages weren’t cluttered with nonsensical widgets and those that were there, served a valid purpose! Bebo have since released their development kit and now pages are filled with widget after widget. It may be annoying to have to navigate through widget infested profiles, but at the end of the day it’s what people want and Bebo have met this demand!

So, of everything I’ve just mentioned, what’s my feature introduced to Bebo? I’m going to be a bit strange and say the visitor tracking map! It’s not that I want to keep tabs on who’s checking up on me, but I think Bebo hit the nail on the head as it satisfies our curiousity and tackles a security issue too!

Where will Bebo go in the future? I posted by own outlook of the future of social networking two years a go and was totally wrong, so I’m not even going to guess!

Where am I on Google?

Published
by
Adam
on June 19, 2008
in Bebo, Geekiness and Ramblings
. 0 Comments

So, as you can probably notice, I’ve changed the design of my site slightly. It looks slightly better and it’s easier for me to create new “insightful” posts! Yeah, right! Anyway, the flipside to this new design is that now when I search for my name on Google, I’m nowhere to be seen! Previously, my Bebo page was the second entry for Adam Murphy listed on Google!

In trying to figure out why it disappeared, I noticed that the new design didn’t have my “Social” section with links to my profiles on various sites. It’s strange how my link from Adams Rants to my Bebo profile is what appears to have warranted such a high ranking for my Bebo page, yet Adams Rants doesn’t seem to be appearing in any of my searches for “Adam Murphy”.

I’m now a mission to become the highest ranked Adam Murphy on Google by practicing some search engine optimisation as well as purchasing a domain name “adam-murphy.info”. A little vain? Perhaps. But it’s always nice to have your name high up in the search engines!

Another Resurrection!

Published
by
Adam
on February 12, 2008
in Poker and Ramblings
. 0 Comments

It’s been over 5 months since I last posted on this hallowed piece of webspace. My last entry was in the middle of Summer as I struggled to make something out of nothing and bonuswhore my way to 1k playing online poker. In that 5 months a lot has happened. Firstly, “life rake” took care of my ambitions to reach the magic 1k mark with a quick flurry of unfortunately timed friends birthdays whittling down my bankroll to something so laughable that I began to see Blackjack as a quick way to make money! The mental and physical state of being “El Busto” shortly followed.

Poker wasn’t the only thing that changed in my life! I’ve also begun life as a third level student pursuing the world of marketing as a viable career. I wish I could say that I’ve been a model student, attending every lecture under the sun and contributing tonnes of innovative thinking to the course. But alas, I’d be lying if I said I was and in reality my attendance is poor and my effort is minimal!

Five months on from my last post, I’ve suddenly been bitten by the bug and have that desire to post once again! It’s through this blog that I hope to resurrect my poker bankroll and you’ll be seeing me post critical and honest reviews of my sessions in the hope of being able to maintain a high standard of self-discipline that will hopefully see me progress from the micro-levels of present to that $1/$2 games by time the Summer is around. It’s also only natural that the blog will also become an outlet for my thoughts on marketing. Who knows, I might even have something decent and worthwhile to say about the field should I start attending my lectures!

I have high hopes for AdamsRants this time around. This time I’m doing more than resurrecting a blog - I’m resurrecting my career! Of course we’ll have to wait and see if there’s any truth behind that but I hope that you’ll be with me every step of the way!

Three Support - A Positive Experience

Published
by
Adam
on August 17, 2007
in Geekiness and Ramblings
. 0 Comments

I remember back in May when I was choosing a new phone provider, one of the companies that my friends were urging me to stay away from was the relative newcomer to the Irish market - Three. All over the net there were horror stories about poor customer support that only got worse after they outsourced their call centre to India. Apparently they didn’t want to even know about you after you bought your phone, let alone help you with any problems that you may be having and on the odd occasion where you did by chance get through to an agent who was willing to help, you found that you couldn’t understand them or be understood! Nevertheless, I opted to plunge for them, hoping that a) nothing would go wrong and b) if it did, their customer care could solve it! 3 months down the road, something did go wrong but I’m happy to say that my experience with 3 Support is a positive one…

I was impressed with almost every aspect of Three’s services. While their call tariffs were expensive, their texts were cheap and cheerful and I was saving a massive amount of money compared to my previous operator, O2. I was particularly fond of their “walled-garden” which offered tonnes of 3G services free of charge and I made certain to buy their data package addon which allowed me to access any website for as little as €5.99 per month! However, I did always feel that the term they dubbed their service - “Mobile Broadband” - was a little too generous as oftentimes pages would load up at a snails pace as their remote proxy struggled to process requests and oftentimes died just as you had managed to page you wanted!

I wasn’t really that bothered about it, because I didn’t really use it that much but it was when I was suddenly asked to reverify my age that I started to get a bit frustrated. Three require that all customers who wish to have access to “almost every website” must first go into a Three store with a passport so that their account can be verified. That’s fair enough but I verified my age in May and now it was asking me to do it again! It was around this time that I spotted this vast thread on Boards.ie which seemed to indicate that Three were now taking people off of their web proxy by request!

I sent Three customer care an email and within an hour I was contacted by a Three representative who apologised for the Age Verification issue and said that Tech support were provisioning measures that would mean that I wouldn’t have to verify my age again and also they were going to update my account so that I would no longer be using their proxy! The only downside to it was that I would have to wait up to 48 hours for these changes to take place but I suppose it was going to be worth it!

The next day I decided to check and see if I was off the godforsaken proxy and when I went to visit a site, it loaded instantly! I also went to download the GMail web app which was, like all other third party apps, blocked by Three. It worked! I then tried the Opera Mini mobile web browser and it worked flawlessly! Opera Mini really will change the way I can browse. It introduces a tonne of interesting and efficient features to help enhance my web browsing experience and I can see myself using it for a while to come!

So congratulations to Three for coming up trumps when the day that I had been dreading finally came and I had to contact you! Three have been taking a lot of slack lately regarding their mobile broadband service and their efforts to help people with issues but I can safely say that this was a reassuring experience for me and my approval rating for Three has never been as high!

Bebo Introduce Visitor Tracking Map.

Published
by
Adam
on July 12, 2007
in Bebo and Ramblings
. 15 Comments

bebo

I noticed this a few days a go and was surprised that the guys over at Mashable didn’t pick up on it. The map, which is accessible here, allows users to check who has been visiting their profile within the last 24 hours and where they hail from.

This has been a feature that many web-security experts have been recommending be implemented on Bebo and other social networks for a long time. I would be inclined to agree with them as a feature such a this allows more transparency and can potentially cut down on the phenomenon which has become known as “Bebo Stalking”. Think about it, would you hypothetically stalk someone if they knew you were doing it? Most likely not.

It may seem like an innocent addition but such a feature gives users increased information about their profile which can be used to keep them safe but what I really like about it is that it also adds to the Bebo experience as a whole. It’s nice to be able to see who’s been visiting your profile and by using the Google Maps interface they can potentially add more features to it in the future such as a social connections map which could map out how many of your visitors are connected to each other.

The only complaint I have about the addition is that users have the option to set themselves as private and are actually set to private by default. I would have preferred if all users under the age of 18 were set to private (and were warned about the dangers of setting their profiles to public) while over 18 year olds should automatically have their profiles set to public. This, I believe, would further add to the Bebo experience and enhance the effectiveness of Bebos security.

visitormap.JPG

The Irish Oral

Published
by
Adam
on April 17, 2007
in Ramblings
. 3 Comments

It’s amazing just how much effort a person can put in when they are under pressure. I realised at about 7pm last night the importance of the Irish orals (worth 25% of overall Irish exam) and for about 6 hours I was doing nothing but preparing reams of material that I could use - Myself, My Family, My House, My School, My Hobbies, My Job, My Future. Basic stuff you might think and so it should be, but for someone who has despised the very idea of being taught a language that they have hated for a good fourteen years, the task of preparing this “basic” material isn’t as easy as one might have initially thought!

So this morning I walked into school, jaded tired, and under the impression that my usual last minute spurt just wouldn’t be enough. I was soon called into the room and could feel my heartrate increasing with every word I read from the Sliocht but managed to at least control the pitch of my voice so I didn’t sound like the quivering mess my heart was telling me that I was! Thankfully I didn’t mess up one word and even remembe

Where can I find a nice restaurant at 1am?

Published
by
Adam
on March 7, 2007
in Local, News and Ramblings
. 0 Comments

Looking to grab a bite to eat with you and yours on at 1am? Well then I recommend heading down to your nearest Abrakababra branch. Forgive me though, in all my times in the local Abrakebabra, I cannot once remember the place looking like it’s supposed to in it’s latest advertising campaign.


Surely I was never that drunk to not notice a family sitting down to a meal at 1am? Now if the ad had fights, people stealing food, vomitting and passing out it might just be believeable!

Download Almost Any Song Off The Internet For Free! - Updated!

Published
by
Adam
on January 6, 2007
in Adam Investigates, Geekiness, Learn Something New, Music, Ramblings and Thinking
. 103 Comments
As of June 2007, RadioBlogClub have updated their web application which blocks this method from working. I’ll try find a workaround in the coming weeks

A few months a go, I published a quick how-to guide about downloading music for free from the RadioBlogClub website. After trying many sites and various methods of downloading songs, I decided on RadioBlogClub because of its ease of use and more importantly its vast selection of songs which far surpassed the offering of any other sites that I came across. If you are after more popular songs, you’ll probably have an easier time by going to BlogDigger.com who have a powerful media search tool which allows you to uncover songs embedded in blog posts from around the world! But as I said, it’s only really useful for very popular songs.

Times were good for music downloaders for a couple of months until RadioBlogClub caught on to this exploitation and, as already mentioned, started encrypting the URLs to their songs. For months I haven’t been near the internet, so haven’t had an opportunity to tackle this but now that I’ve managed to find a spare 10 minutes, why don’t you join me as I once again explain How To Download Almost Any Song off The Internet For Free!


1. Visit The Site


CLICK HERE (opens in a new window)


2. Search



In the search box type the name of the band (or song) that you are looking for. In this case I’m searching for “Snow Patrol”, a band that I recommend each and every one of you check out :).


3. Select the Song You Want



You are now presented with a list of songs available for that band. When you see the song that you like, click its blue play button to the left of it.

Look towards the right column and you’ll notice that something like the above has appeared.


4. Find The Song Code



In the grey box, there’s lots of “HTML” code. For those who are familiar with this guides previous outing, you’ll know that this is the part where you’re meant to select a particular bit of code. So select, like I have done in the picture, the bottom lines of the code beginning with “FlashVars”. Make sure that you select EVERYTHING after this and then continue.


5. Paste The Code Into AdamsRants Code Stripper


Check out My Code Stripper which will decrypt the music code. (opens in a new window)

Paste the code into the First box. Now you must butcher the code! Erase everything BEFORE the “http” and AFTER the “.rbs” and you’ll end up with something like this:
.
Now press the “DECRYPT” button which were convert the encrypted code into easily understood code like this:

6. Download

Now you can copy and paste the code into your address bar. Once you have done this, press enter and you will be asked to save it! You are almost there….


6. BUT WAIT!


After downloading the song, you may notice that Windows doesn’t know what to open it in, this is because the file ends in “.rbs” which isn’t recognised by Windows. However, this is only a basic ploy to stop people downloading the song because it’s actually a “.mp3″ which has been renamed to fool people! What you need to do is raname the file! Note: It’s been reported that unix based operating systems will automagically realise that it’s an mp3.


A “.rbs” file.


Right click the file and select “Rename”.


Change the file extension to “.mp3″.


VOILA!

Double click the file and it will now open in your preferred Media Player. It might seem a bit daunting to have to do this for every song, but you’ll soon get the hang of it!

A lot of people previously commented that this is a very longwinded system, but I’d have to disagree. After the first few songs, you’ll be able to download songs in no time at all once you get used to it which makes it perfect for situations where you’re asked to listen to a certain song by a friend but don’t fancy having to wade through the unreliable LimeWire or download the full album from BitTorrent.

Some people also commented on the sound quality which usually weighs in at 92kbps. The good news is that this means it takes seconds to download. The bad news is that audiophiles will be disappointed. This isn’t Dolby Surround Enhanced Audio that we’re downloading here. It’s slightly less than CD quality which, in my opinion, is perfect for phones or small MP3 Players with little space!

In the past, people tried to make some further addons to this hack such as an automated downloader. Once again people are welcome to make an any further additions to this exploit, but remember, if you’re leaving a comment, please leave some form of contact!

If you like what I’ve done, as a token of your appreciation, I’d be very grateful if you could find it within your hearts to feed me for a day by donating a euro or two :)