Accessible Procurement Toolkit available

July 31, 2006 · Posted in Uncategorized · 2 Comments 

Web developers are invited to comment on the draft Accessible Procurement Toolkit produced by the National Disability Authority (NDA). The toolkit will provide guidance to public bodies on how to include accessibility requirements when buying IT services, including websites. It provides sample text for inclusion in RFTs, advice on the development process and assessing suppliers.

The NDA would like to know whether the guidance is sensible from the point of view of Web solution providers. Will the suggested processes work in practice? Is anything in the toolkit at variance with accepted wisdom and development practice?

You can read the draft toolkit at http://tinyurl.com/h5xs3. If you want please leave a comment here of send comments to Dónal Rice at the NDA (accessIT@nda.ie).

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Broadband but not as we know it

July 28, 2006 · Posted in Uncategorized · 1 Comment 

Some of you may have heard Tony O’Reilly, in his role as incumbent Chairman of eircom, talk about how people did not really understand broadband and that it was a mistake to think that Ireland was not well serviced in this technology. Damien Mulley of Ireland Offline was suitably restrained and professional in his rebuttal O’Reilly’s comments. It is of major concern that the Chairman of our main telecoms infrastructure company thinks that Ireland’s broadband availabilty is “adequate”.

What is more worrying is that he also stated that the public don’t understand broadband. No, we do understand it – its just that 35% of us do not get it. When Pierre Danon takes the Chairman’s chain of office it can only be hoped that a different philosophy will pervade. Having met him recently and heard his views on the subject I am hopeful he will deliver.

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Net Visionary Awards

July 21, 2006 · Posted in Uncategorized · Comment 

We are putting together the 2006 Net Visionary Awards to be held on 23 November this year. There are only four categories of the 15 available left to sponsor. If your comapny is interested in being involved please email fergal@iia.ie for more details. Last year’s event was a sell out and we will will be taking bookings early this year.

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Sky Broadband available – just not in Ireland

July 21, 2006 · Posted in Uncategorized · 6 Comments 

Some of you will have received a letter from James Murdoch, CEO of Sky, offering you money off a Sky Plus or HD box. The reason for the offer is a sweetner to also inform you that Sky’s much vaunted broadband service will not be rolled out in Ireland yet “due to signiicant differences in the telephine network”.

The do say they are working towards offering a service “as soon as possible”. I was certainly hoping that Sky would muscle in on the market here. They have the reach and the audience and it might rattle a few cages as well. No details are gven as to what the offering will be, or the price points, but we will watch the UK space. Any thoughts or observations?

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Concerns over internet safety guidelines

July 1, 2006 · Posted in Uncategorized · 1 Comment 

The Indo’s Silicon Republic were looking for comments about the proposed new safety guidelines for schools, which may require parents to give permission for their children to access the internet in school. I gave my two cents worth. The article is here – interested to hear your views on this and make any suggestions of your own.

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