John Lawlor

The Twittersphere was loaded tonight with Tweeters complaining about a major failure in Eircom’s DNS service. I have been having ongoing problems with Eirom, which is one of Ireland’s main ISPs, and have little satisfaction in getting my problems resolved. It is clear from tonight’s events that I am not alone. I had to rely on O2′s mobile broadband service for much of the evening.

Thanks to a number of Tweeters, I was referred to OpenDNS, which is a provider of free security and infrastructure services that make the Internet safer through integrated Web content filtering, anti-phishing and DNS. I had to sign up for a free account, which was very easy to do and took just a few minutes. Once this was done, I changed the DNS entries in my broadband router and I was up and running on the web again.

I am still looking forward to the day when I can dispense with Eircom’s “service” all together.

What has your experience with Eircom’s broadband service been? Leave a comment and let me know, though I expect I already know the answer.

I discovered this great programme from Evernote over the weekend. Available in both free and premium editions, it enables users with an Evernote account to store snippets of information, thoughts, pictures, documents, etc on the web. I regularly write notes and post-its to myself but often lose, mislay or simply forget about them. With Evernote, all those notes can now be stored simply and conveniently in one place on the Web for later processing. It is also possible to share your online notes with other Evernote users.

The service is available on a wide range of platforms, which is one of its most attractive features. There is a client for Windows and Mac, a version for the iPhone and other smartphones, a browser service and an email service. This means that it is pretty easy to capture and store a note, picture or document on any device no matter where you are. I tried to install it on my Blackberry but had problems with the Blackberry software. However, it was not a problem, as there is a mobile web version as well and the email service can be used with equal convenience.

The free service is pretty generous. It gives 40Mb of storage a month, which should be plenty to capture and store short notes or a few pictures. You can later move them into your preferred tool or system, or delete them when you have dealt with them. The subscription service costs $5 per month or $45 per year and gives 500 Mb of storage, more options and added security. I’m going to stick to the free service for the moment and see how it goes.

So why not check it out and if you like it, leave a comment and let me know.

ActiveWords, is a computer desktop productivity tool that automates many common activities that users perform every day. As you type, ActiveWords logs each word, even if a text editor is not being used. Once the appropriate function key (F8) is pressed, the action associated with that key word is performed. Actions can be any of the following:

• Substitute text
• Launch a programme
• Open a document
• Navigate to an Internet site
• Send an email
• Open a folder
• Run a script.

This is a great time saver and I have become a fan already. It cuts out a lot of pointing and clicking and makes life on the desktop just that little bit easier.

I use the keyword “outlook”, followed by F8 to open Outlook. I email several people regularly and by associating a keyword with them, in seconds I can open up a new Outlook email already addressed to them. I also use a few documents regularly and a short keyword opens each of them for me. There are a number of add-ons available for the product that are quite useful. These provide pre-defined keywords and menus for use with popular Internet services such as Google, MSN and Yahoo.

At the moment, I understand that ActiveWords is only available for the Windows platform.

You can download a free 60-day trial from the ActiveWords website. I was very pleased, shortly after downloading the programme, to be contacted by Buzz Bruggeman, one of the owners of the business, offering to go through the programme with me on a Skype call. Now that’s what I call service!

So why not check it out and if you like it, leave a comment and let me know.