Pimp my laptop

So I got tired of the old grey look of my Toshiba laptop and I decided to give it a bit of a revamp. This is what it looks like now.

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OpenOffice.org’s a pretty decent package

So I was reading Mark O’Sullivan’s comment on my post about Beaumont Hospital where he mentions that Openoffice.org is as good as Microsoft Office. Good enough? Sure, I thought, almost as good, maybe, but as good – really, hard to believe. Anyway, I went and took a look and I’m happy to say, I was surprised by what I found.
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I saw a cheater: the Irish moral zeitgeist

This thread on boards.ie gives an insight into the minds of students sitting Irish state exams at the moment.

I can see that the Internet and availability of information about how to cheat and the likelihood of not getting caught is going to mean that state examining boards will have to be seen to come down a lot more heavily with the rules in future.

Linux in crisis at Beaumont Hospital

There is a story in today’s Irish Times about a dispute between the IT directorand the CEO at Beaumont Hospital over the use of Linux.
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Why banking costs so much

A lot of people wonder, particularly in Ireland: how come the banks make so much money. The question really should be asked: why don’t the banks make far more money than they do? After all, they’re collecting a spread on the interest for all the borrowing in the economy and they’re collecting some sort of transaction fee on every transaction larger than a few hundred euros? Anyway, on to my tale of woe.
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Some phones are just too smart for their own good.

Bernie Goldbach writes about how mobile operators try to keep a lid on phone models that are designed to suit the operator, not the user. Just goes to show, what is good for the operator is not necessarily good for the customer.