For the last couple of months I’ve been beavering away on my first open source application and I’m pleased to say that the first version has now been released.
The project is called KPInator, it’s a business intelligence application that displays key performance indicators (KPIs) in a web browser. In addition the user can set up charts to display historical data.
If you’re in business then you just have to know what your key performance indicators are and what their current values are. If you don’t have this information to hand then you’ve no real idea as to how well your business is doing at any one time. For example, if your business manufactures widgets then you might have a KPI that measures widget production per hour. If widget production per hour falls below a certain level then KPInator will flag this by changing colour.
The application release 0.1.0 is fully functional, if a little rough around the edges. Over the next few weeks I’ll have the sand paper out plus I’ll be enhancing the existing feature set. Please check the KPInator project web site for more updates.
After the wind up of my business I’m going to have for part with my van 
. It’s a Ford Transit Connect with longer wheel base and extra height in the body of the van than the standard model. The engine is a 1.8L turbo diesel injection making for good acceleration off the lights and yet very economical on long journeys.The van is also fitted with the "electric pack" which gives you remote central locking and electric windows.
Registered in February 2008 it’s done only 23,000Km (that’s 14,375 miles in old money).
The all important thing, the price. I’m asking €6,000 or near offer.
OK, here’s a breakdown of the specs:
- Model: Ford Transit Connect T220 LWB High Roof Van
- Engine: 1.8 L TDCi (75PS)
- Body colour: white
- Sliding side door
- Fold down passenger seat and adjustable cage for long loads
- Mileage: 23,000Km (14,375 miles)
- Remote central locking
- Electric windows
- CD player
For more information or to arrange a viewing please email me in the first instance on cts at ctswestcork.com.
Here’s a pic in all her glory.
This is not an easy post to write.
For the last 14 months I’ve been running my own business, Computer Troubleshooters – West Cork. Unfortunately, despite all my best efforts, this simply isn’t paying the bills, let alone putting food on the table. So I’ve decided to wind the company up and look for a fulltime position again.
For me this is a bit like trying to change gear in the middle of taking a sharp corner rather too fast. Life is lurching rapidly towards the curb whilst I’m struggling to keep it under control, not really sure in which direction I’m headed.
One thing I’m hoping is that this post will allow me to transition out of Computer Troubleshooters mode and back into “prospective employee” mode.
At least I should have more time for posting to this blog 
PS. The business is for sale if you’re interested. It’s a franchise business and you’d get it at a fraction of the cost of setting up from scratch. Drop me a line if you’re interested.
Two blogging events coming up in the West Cork area in the near future.
Firstly SOHO Solo West Cork are running a training session on “Blogging & understanding the commercial advantage of Web2 tools” on the morning of the 1st April (no it’s not an April fools joke). The session is on at the Celtic Ross Hotel in Rosscarbery and aims to introduce the business benefits of blogging.
On a similar theme the West Cork Enterprise Board monthly meeting will also be about Blogging For Business. This talk will be given by Damien Mulley who, amongst other things, organizes the Irish Blog Awards. This event is at 19:30 on the 14th April, again in the Celtic Ross Hotel.
I bought this PDA to be my mobile business partner; phone, organizer, web & email on the go. However poor performance and poor quality has led me to replace it with a standard mobile phone after only 7 months. Purchasing this was an expensive mistake.
Review of ETEN Glofiish X800
Rated as 1/5 on Aug 17 2008 by David Hollingworth
I did a lot of research on-line before I bought this product, read lots of reviews, though most of these reviewed what was in the box. Unfortunately I failed to connect with the ETEN European Users forum. Had I done so I would have thought again about buying this device.
What really swayed me towards the X800 was the VGA screen. There’s no doubt that this is much higher resolution than similar products from HTC, Palm, Toshiba & the like available at the time. The reports that the CPU was ’slightly under powered’ didn’t deter me. The lure of the screen pulled me in.
I also wanted a device with Windows Mobile 6 so that I could fully sync my Outlook calendar and use Microsoft Office and other productivity tools. The X800 also came with Spb Mobile Shell which is a great enhancement to the basic Today screen.
So what went wrong? Given that the phone was bought to support my business the reliability problems I experienced rendered it worse than useless.
- The phone would frequently lock up and need rebooting at least once a day. This would often happen when a call was incoming and so this was more than just an inconvenience.
- It would often drop incoming calls when I pressed the answer button. On one occasion someone (Unknown number) tried five times to call in quick succession, every time I pressed answer the line was dead. Another reboot required and probably lost business.
- Call quality was poor with a lot of echo on the line and a lot of static too.
- The camera quality is very poor for a 2 megapixel camera. OK, not essential for business; but it’s something I like to use.
- Often the phone would go completely crazy and start playing an Arctic Monkeys MP3 track at high volume. Most embarrassing when talking to a client and also requiring a reboot to fix.
- The voice command will switch on at random. Turning it off would only temporarily alleviate the problem as it would come back on again a short time later. Another reboot.
- Overall the device is badly underpowered and most operations are sluggish.
- Battery life is dreadful. The phone needs about 2 hours charging a day to last 24 hours. It’s a lot better with all the radios switched off.
- Support from ETEN is very, very poor and really only limited to the occasional release of new firmware. My device had the latest firmware when it was delivered.
Some time after buying the X800 I was surfing the net and came across what has to be the best kept secret ETEN users have, the European users group forum. There’s some real experts on this site providing updated firmware and fixes for the problems the X800 has. I’ve installed a fix for poor screen performance that greatly enhanced the response of the touch screen. However I’ve not tried a firmware upgrade yet as this can completely wreck the phone if it goes wrong.
The Glofiish X800 does have some good features:
- There’s no doubt that the screen is good with a nice VGA resolution.
- Wifi performance is reasonable though Internet Explorer often hangs. This is probably a problem with IE rather than the phone.
So not many redeeming features. I’m now using a fairly basic mobile phone (review to follow) which also syncs with Outlook and gives me a lot more confidence that I’m going to be able to answer all calls and won’t need rebooting. Now I’ve an alternative I might try replacing the firmware with a version from the user group. If this fixes the issues I’ll update this review, otherwise I’ll just continue to use it for wifi access.
Reviews, Technology, Tools
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Business, camera, ETEN, Mobile, PDA, performance, phone, Review, Windows Mobile, X800
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