Archive for January, 2009

Save Nenagh Hospital

Saturday, January 31st, 2009

I’m back home from a “Save Nenagh Hospital” rally earlier on today – I estimated the number of people there to be at least two thousand.

As you might infer, this is quite serious – the Health Service Executive in Ireland have already made the first steps in downgrading and then closing the General Hospital in Nenagh. Already there are plans for numerous cuts, including a proposal to remove 24-hour accident and emergency services at the hospital in favour of the introduction of advance paramedics to partly replace the present service.

The only numbers important to the HSE, it seems, are those balanced on their accounts sheets – not the number of lives that will be lost, the number of minutes late that ambulances will arrive to road accidents, the ill and those in need.

Representatives of the HSE were invited to attend but did not – most likely because they know no matter how they try they can not make sense of their own arguments. In short, they can not justify what they are proposing.

Google for phrases such as “save nenagh hospital” and “friends of nenagh hospital” to see just how serious and important this is – you’ll find links such as this article in the Irish Times (Doctors to fight cuts at Nenagh hospital).

Please add your voice by joining the Save Nenagh Hospital group on facebook, by writing to your political representatives and by writing to the papers.

Don’t let Nenagh become the next Monaghan.

Posted in General, linux, pear, php | Comments Off

7 things…

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

I got tagged by Chuck for this “7 Things” meme. So here are 7 things you may not know about me:

  1. I first met my wife at her house warming party seven years ago – it took four years for anything to happen though! I’m so happy it finally did though!
  2. My first computer was a ZX Spectrum 48K that was bought when I was seven years old – I’ve since progressed through BBC computers, Apple Macs and then onto PCs. I also had a accounts on the WRTC vax – VMS and OSF/1.
  3. I’ve similarly gone through a number of differing computer languages: Basic in various incarnations (ZX Basic, BBC Basic, VB), Z80 Assembler, HyperCard (yes, really), C, C++, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, ColdFusion, Java.
  4. I might be Irish but my surname isn’t.
  5. I read a lot of fantasy: Gemmell, Eddings, Tolkien, Pratchett; though I also enjoy Tom Clancy and Dale Brown novels.
  6. I’m long-sighted in one eye and short-sighted in the other: one good reason why I’ve never been that good at sports.
  7. I am an active PEAR developer.

Tagging Others

I’m supposed to tag 7 other people who then repeat the whole process:

  • Proinnsias Breathnach for being such a good friend all this time. And because he doesn’t blog enough.
  • Kae Verens for having a name that sounds the same as his first inital – and for helping out loads at the IPUG stand at last year’s Irish Opensource Technology Conference.
  • Donncha O Caoimh for his trojan work back in the day with the ILUG CMS and for WordPress mu.
  • Jaime Hemmett for her exuberance and energy she’s brought to the Irish PHP scene.
  • AJ McKee for starting the Irish PHP Users Group in the first place!
  • Justin Mason for Spam Assassin, SiteScooper and being an all round nice guy.
  • Fuzzix for his levity and humour. That plus he’s a ZX head like myself.

Rules

  • Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.

  • Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.

  • Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.

  • Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter

Posted in General, linux, OpenSource, pear, php | 2 Comments »

PHP for Enterprise/Business Whitepaper

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

I’m very proud to have been involved as an editor and help with the translation and update of the AFUP’s PHP en Enterprise livre blanc into the PHP for Enterprise/Business Whitepaper: as far as I know this is the first full English language translation and update of the work done by the Association Française des Utilisateurs de PHP (French PHP Users Group). Also there is a lot of new content in the Whitepaper that with regards to how PHP is now utilised in Enterprise. Figures have been updated and techniques available in later versions of PHP have been referenced.

We’ve had an interesting time translating and updating the content – especially as I don’t know French let alone their idioms. Many thanks to Stéphane Lambert for his boundless energy and devotion to getting us this far!

Thanks also to PEAR President and fellow IPUG member David Coallier who also helped with the translation work and not forgetting Derick Rethans and Peter Keung who also assisted in fine-tuning our work into something a bit more fluent and graceful ;-)

I would be remiss to not mention Blacknight who have sponsored the IPUG from the start – without them there truly would not be a php.ie!

If I’ve left anybody out – please remind me!

All in all, as Chairman of the Irish PHP Users Group, I can say this is an exciting moment for us to have achieved – we’ve given something tangible back to the PHP Community as a whole and to top things off we’ve published the Whitepaper under the Open Licence Content – you may
freely use it if you clearly acknowledge the Irish PHP Users Group and if you retain the Open Content Licence. This means you can localise the Whitepaper to your own language and national figures if you so desire.

Posted in linux, pear, php | 11 Comments »