Live from Ireland
Usually when people talk about ads on blogs the focus is on Adsense. But some blogs make money from Pay per post articles. So in the interests of journalism I looked into this.
Conclusion: Its too tacky, even for Ambrand.com, plus ahem the returns are too low, and are paid is US Dollars which are laughably worthless at the moment.
Parrots imitating speech? pff thats old news. But the Lyre Bird doing sound effects now thats impressive. Check out the Michael Winslow of the avian community. It makes noises that no human could make.
One of my friends runs a busy “Guesthouse”, although its central location and high standards mean it might as well be called a Hotel. The property uses a pen and ink booking system.
So unless you want to phone or walk-in any electronic inquiry you make will have a lag of say 1 hour at best, i.e. they check email, check the book, reply. Today that just doens’t cut it. Any potential guest will have meanwhile found examplecorporatehotel.com and will have been able to confirm availability in 5 seconds and booked in 5 more with his credit card.
I have been trying various “Front desk” software programs.
When running a hotel there are a few key functions you will need in software.
ASI Frontdesk
Support: An American address, with Indian employees. There are a few bugs in the software. Like most things made for the American market the address field expects a two letter state abbreviation (eg CA) and a character zipcode (90210 with or without 1234). An Irish address can fill neither of those fields and the software does not truncate the final address on the letter head, leaving nasty spaces. Overall the software is badly designed.
I’ll keep trying and report more…
I remember how a few years ago it became stylish to order bottled water in a Restaurant or Bar. Moreover the brand chosen was supposed to sent a message. Would sir prefer Ballygowan or Perrier? We can laugh at such showiness, and our laughter is supported by the environmental lobby.
Why should water be transported from one country to another wasting finite fossil fuels, when it is freely available from the nearest tap. Further consider the fossil fuels wasted in creating the plastic or glass bottles which may not be recycled.
So why don’t we drink from the nearest tap? well bottled water does have advantages.
Actually thats it, never mind the health stuff its fluff. Here at Ambrand.com we have thought of one other advantage of bottled water that we have not seen mentioned elsewhere. Perhaps it is an advantage that is only manifest in Ireland. So here goes…
In the the public buildings, towns, cities of Ireland there are no drinking fountains. So, if you want something to quench your thirst you must spend mone, and considering how bad Coca Cola is supposed to be for you we recommend water, which of course comes in a bottle. We couldn’t care less if the water came from a tap in a factory yesterday or a spring in France last week, we must buy bottled water. Unless you go into a Pub and ask for a glass of tap water, but then there will be an awkard silence while the barman wonders if he should charge you and how much. But perhaps a Bar is the place to go, because another problem in Ireland is its lack of public toilets.
Daybreak - one of the many franchise brands in the Musgrave Plc stable - is Ireland’s newest convenience store chain. The name already adorns 120 stores.
But it seems Musgrave Plc did not devote any of their franchise fees to purchasing the logical domain name daybreak.ie
The reason perhaps lies in the recency of the name. A sole trader trading as Daybreak appears to have registered the domain before - although because the IEDR do not include a registration date in their WHOIS output we cannot be sure. The domain daybreak.ie has a single Frontpage Express style HTML page with a mobile phone number for a course.
Had the domain been a gTLD - com/net/org/info/biz - I imagine Musgrave Plc would have made an offer, but in our experience offers are rarely made for .ie domains. There is little data on the IEDR website over how a sale would be handled.
Regardless of the interactions - if any - between the sole trader and Musgrave Plc the ultimate action of the latter was to register daybreak.eu
In the franchised retail business image is everything. Shopfitters love this, as their bread and butter is ripping out last years shade of plastic signage and installing this years, from the psychologist approved plans. It thus doesn’t gel that Musgrave Plc would not splash out on the .ie for appearances sake.
.eu is not a ccTLD, yet is it not a gTLD, it falls somewhere in between perhaps it will make sense if the branch expands into the UK, although a .eu can do more harm than good in a euro-skeptic country.
Food for though.
When I say UCC I refer to my alma mater of University College Cork, Ireland. Since the library extension circa 2006 on entering the building there is a turnstyle that only unlocks when an RFID card is put near a reader.
The automatic way to get a card is to become
But what happens after graduation, what if you want to consult some works of excellence from time to time? Well, the Graduates Association website boasts one can then one must be engaged in scholarly research but
Those criteria exclude everything for example
Needless to say when I make my (further) millions I will not be donating any to the Cork University Foundation.
If you have managed to get a card please let me know how you swung it.
It is often said that Irish people have a “yearning” for land - a deep need to own a piece of land. Well now thanks to apieceofireland.com “you can own “your very own corner of the Emerald Isle”, for the resonable fee of USD 35 - the currency choice appealing to Irish-Americans, and being available from low-cost virtual terminal providers. you can own “your very own corner of the Emerald Isle”.
Being young, and living in Ireland in the so-called Celtic Tiger years, I can only rent a house, or land. So I thought the pleasure of actual ownership was a pipedream whose realisation was postponed until the next recession. Thus apieceofireland.com interested me greately. But before parting with my hard earned cash on a seemingly too good to be true adventure in trade I had to investigate.
Why is is so cheap?
It is only a square foot of land, but still it can be your square foot.
Freehold or leasehold?
If you rent land you are said in legal terms to hold land “leasehold”, etymology thus explains why a rental agreement between a landlord and tenant is called a lease.
Now if you actually own land you are said to hold it “freehold”, and of course this is the aspirational ultimate.
apieceofireland does not specify if the sale is freehold or leasehold, so while buyers receive a certificate, is it decorative or substantive?
Web search
I then searched for apieceofireland.com. This releaved they have an affiliate scheme that may not be worthwhile. It alsorevealed a comparison to moon land sales.
The purchase
I paid by PayPal knowing that it would be easier to get a refund from then over WorldPay. But the Worldpay logo was reassuring as it is harder for a merchant to get approval.
An hard backed envelope arrived 5 calendar days later by unregistered post.
Typos
On the Cert “…Macroom Land Trust Herby grants unto [my name]”. Possibly a delibrate typo for Hereby, the resultant sentence makes no sense, there is no legal entity known as Macroom Land Trust Herby, and there is no man known as Herby.
On the Cert Barony has a capital letter, but cork doesn’t, Province does, but country doesn’t, they should all have capital letters at the start.
Cosmetics
On the cert change the “seal” is a printed image. A rubber stamp or embossing would be nicer.
The sellers signature on the introduction letter does not match his signature on the Cert. A viewing of The Companies Registration Office Form RBN1 for “Macroom Land Trust” shows the signature on the Certificate is the real one.
Land Registry
I checked the Property Registration Authority online service for the coordinates of the field. Co-ordinates 1.918167, -9.077333. I wanted to see that 1) It was owned by the seller prior to my purchase 2) It was now owned by me.
But alas
Go to www.networksolutions.com and check if a random domain is available (I tried f5ke00gpl.com and it was). Sit back for 5 minutes. Then do a WHOIS using your favourite third party service and you will see that NetSol have registered the domain, and if you want it you’ll have to buy it from them.
This is called domain “front running” and if we might play devils advocate for a moment it is a very slick idea, but alas it calls forth too many memories of another Verisign service “wildcard domains“.
Unfortunately we cannot waste NetSols money because
a) it is believed to be limitless
b) the registration costs them noting, as it uses the ICANN typo “domain tasting” loophole.
A domain so-registered seems to last for four days. But leaving it “expire” in the hopes of using another registrar is risky. Many automated squatters snap up domains that expire.
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