So excluding Galway West’s representatives, that brings the total number of Fine Gael seats to 74, followed by 36 Labour, 19 Fianna Fáil, 14 Independents, 14 Sinn Féin and 4 others. With negotiations between Fine Gael and Labour having begun yesterday, it looks like we’re on our way to seeing a massive coalition government with a majority of up to 112 seats vs 54. This will make it almost impossible for the opposition to win any vote in the Dáil. However, although their numbers will be small, the composition of the opposition is very interesting and extremely varied.

Aside from Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, who differ broadly in terms of policy, the Independents/Others also come from a wide range of backgrounds. From the likes of Stephen Donnelly of Wicklow (elected in the early hours of this morning) to Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan of Roscommon South Leitrim, the differences between opposition TDs and their policies clearly outshadow their similarities.

There is a common thread however following the election, on both sides of the incoming Dáil there’s an appetite for a change to Irish politics. Some may consider the end of 14 years of Fianna Fáil leadership to be change enough, but both Fine Gael and Labour have promised political reform in one form or another (links here and here), and most of the opposition propose more changes, even Fianna Fáil has undergone major upheaval following Mícheál Martin’s new leadership in an effort to save the party, so whatever side you’re on, the new Dáil promises to be a lot less of the same old politics.

So as negotiations continue between Fine Gael and Labour to decide on policy and cabinet positions, and the recount of Galway West’s ballots exhausts us even more, the nation can rest at ease that whether happy with the overall result or not, we have yet again democratically elected our representatives and our voices have been heard, for better or for worse.

The moratorium on the mainstream media comes into effect as I write this, and the final public statements from the party leaders have been made.

Listening to their statements on the News at One, they struck me as stale, uninteresting and over-rehearsed. It could be that I’m disillusioned from paying too close attention to the campaigns over the last few weeks, but I’m not excited by any of the main parties taking power.

Fine Gael are likely to pick up most seats, so the big question is whether they’ll have an overall majority or have to go into coalition with Labour and/or the Green Party. As much as I welcome Fine Gael (they should provide a refreshing change to the Fianna Fáil government that have been inpower the majority of my life), I fear that Fine Gael with an overall majority would be a mistake. The best case scenario (and best is too strong a word) is that Fine Gael go into coalition with the Labour Party.

So, what do I do in the morning with my ballot paper? I honestly don’t know for sure and I imagine my exact order of preference will fluctuate in the next 24 hours. Being in Dún Laoghaire, formerly a very strong Fianna Fáil constituency, means that if you rule them out (or at least rule them down to one seat between Hanafin or Andrews), there’s at least three seats available to candidates that are all promising the popular Obamaism of ‘change’.

Éamon Gimore is likely to top the poll for Labour, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ivana Bacik rides on his coat-tails and pulls in enough transfers to be in the running for a seat. This is great for Labour and hopefully they’ll do similarly well nationally, but I’m disappointed at Gilmore’s would-be surrender in the last few days, and he almost sounds desperate in his plea to not leave Fine Gael as a single party government.

As for Fine Gael then, we have Seán Barrett and Mary Mitchell O’Connor, and I’ll admit that although I’ve been on the other side of the country for most of the campaign, from monitoring local happenings online and talking to people on the ground here, they don’t seem to be making as big an impact as you’d expect from Fine Gael. Barrett will probably pick up a seat anyway (and he’ll get a preference from me), but I’d be surprised if the party has garnered enough support for the second seat.

So if that’s all that the big parties have to offer, what real choice do we have? Fortunately this election has the highest number of Independent candidates running in the nation’s history and Dún Laoghaire is no exception with a total of 5, and a few outspoken Independents will hopefully make up some of Fine Gael’s shortfall if they go into Government with them. However, of the five independents running in Dún Laoghaire (full list of candidates here), only Nicholas Crawford (running under the New Vision banner) and Carl Naughton are contenders for a preference on my ballot.

Richard Boyd-Barrett (People Before Profit) is also running and having made a huge impact in local politics as a councillor, he is bound to pull in a lot of first preferences, but he won’t feature anywhere on my list due to his staunch opposition to Dún Laoghaire’s redevelopment that has in part killed the town when combined with competition from Dundrum.

The final candidate in Dún Laoghaire is Ciarán Cuffe, and as much as people are weary of returning a Green Party TD to office, I personally believe the party should continue to have a say in policy as their last effort was far too fleeting and with the wrong coalition partner to have effected any real change. As for Ciarán himself, I would consider him one of the best representatives the area has ever had on both national and local issues, so regardless of party, he’ll feature near the top of my list.

That’s it then, I have an idea of who’ll feature on my ballot paper, but the order is yet to be finalised.

As for the rest of the country, particularly the ever apathetic youth vote, as long as you’re registered, I implore you to vote tomorrow. Even if you’re as unsure of your preference order as I am, don’t neglect your right to have a say in matters. It’s hypocritical to give out about politicians and then do nothing about it, and the situation in Middle East and North Africa in recent weeks has clearly highlighted the importance of democracy and the power of people.

Polls are open from 0700 until 2200 tomorrow. Best of luck!

So seeing as a lot of the political parties are new to all this Web 2.0* stuff, here’s how it works.

*You shouldn’t call it that, or ever refer to the country as ‘Ireland 2.0′ or I’ll have to make fun of you like this again.

First off, Twitter. Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows users to send short ‘tweets’ (140 characters). These ‘tweets’ appear on your page and in the feed of anyone ‘following’ you. Twitter has huge potential if used correctly and much higher levels of interaction than facebook, and is therefore an essential tool for all politicians.

Twitter Dos

• Get your candidates to sign up to and use Twitter to interact with voters. Most of the parties (and independents) are doing this quite well so far and a fair number of them are now tweeting away to their hearts content.
• Teach them to use it to interact, chat and reply to others.
• Show them what @ replies are and how to see their mentions.
• Explain what a retweet is and what it’s for.
• Explain what hashtags are and how to follow them.
• Show them how to access twitter from their phone and post twitpics.
• Use impartial hashtags like #ge11, #FG, or #SinnFein.
• Link to the twitter profiles of your candidates from your website (like this, not like this)
• Have a twitter feed appear on your website showing your latest tweets.

Twitter Don’ts

• Don’t use your twitter feed as a one sided micro-blog. Interaction is key.
• Don’t ignore hashtags like #rtefl, #vinb and #rte11, there’s a lot of opinions out there worth monitoring (and some not so worth monitoring).
• Don’t sign up and forget about it, get your candidates to use twitter at least once a day during the campaign.
• Don’t make up silly words like ‘twolicy‘. You’re politicians, leave the humour to the jokers.
• Don’t try and convince supporters to spam their followers with hashtags, this is annoying and will only promote more negativity than it’s worth.
• Don’t use hashtags like #votelabour, you’ll only end up starting a one-sided conversation because opponents won’t use it, keep hashtags neutral.

There’s probably no need for me to explain how big facebook is, but with over 1.6 active users, facebook clearly has an enormous amount of potential voters.

Facebook Dos

• Create a seperate facebook page (not profile) for your both your party and for each of your candidates.
• Get your supporters to ‘like’ the page to have it begin to show up in feeds.
• Consider facebook advertising as another means of attracting ‘fans’.
• Link to the facebook page of your candidate from their section of your website (like this, not like this)
• Post photos and videos of events on your wall.
• Allow ‘fans’ to post photos and videos also.

Facebook Don’ts

• Don’t set up personal profiles for politicians, having to be added as a ‘friend’ is an instant turn off.
• Don’t have supporters/campaign staff suggest the page to their friends. This will mostly be considered spamming and is not going to do you any favours.
• Don’t be too heavy handed when it comes to deleting opponents’ comments on the page. Use it as a debate platform instead.
• Supporters may choose to change their profile photos to election posters of their own accord, don’t ask them to.
• Don’t send millions of updates to your ‘fans’ about every single press release you issue.

So apart from facebook and twitter, what else should you be doing? Well, maybe try some of these:

General Dos

• Take inspiration from other succesful campaigns and politicians. There’s plenty to learn from Obama’s succesful presidential bid that drew much media attention from its use of social media, and the UK has plenty of good ideas that you should keep an eye on.
• Use Audioboos, they are a fantastic easy to use audio message service that allows brief updates to be recorded on phone or pc at a candidate’s convenience. See the good example of Simon Coveney.

But not these:

General Don’ts

• Don’t steal things from other sources and blatantly use them as your own without permission. You will get caught out.
• Be careful about everything you say, the internet keeps a record of everything.

Social Media is a lot like walking, tread softly and carefully as you learn and don’t be surprised if you trip up from time to time.

Fortunately, blogs don’t have a character limit, so here’s my full response to anyone who misunderstood the meaning behind it:

Regarding my tweet featured in the University Times this morning (http://goo.gl/CLGXy), at the time I wrote it, reports were still coming in as to what exactly had happened at the march in relation to the clashes with Gardaí. From photos and videos that were appearing fast and frequent on twitter, it seemed clear that there were certain elements at the protest that decided it was their right to drink cans and give abuse to the Gardaí. I can only assume that anyone willing to become involved in a stand-off with the might of Gardaí on horseback and in riot-gear has either had an excess of drink in them or a lack of braincells.

Pricing the poor out of education is certainly not what I meant by the tweet, and I accept that income level probably has nothing to do with the behaviour of those elements on the day, but needless to say, a rise in fees will weed out many of those not willing to take their education seriously, and as far as I’m concerned anyone willing to disrespect our elected officials by throwing eggs, or our Gardaí by clashing with them hasn’t taken their education very seriously up to this point.
From whatever background you come from, everyone should accept that a few thousand euro is more than pocket change, and no one will part with that kind of cash unless they actually wish to pursue third level education seriously. Anyone taking a student protest as an opportunity to drink cans and cause trouble, in my eyes, is someone that would sooner spend their money on anything but further education.

By raising fees (which I do believe should happen), it will weed out people from every social background that aren’t willing to take education seriously. It will also raise some much needed capital for the Government’s coffers, and capital, unlike violent protesters, is something the country is in dire need of.

So far I’ve spent not just minutes, but a few hours on making the app, but a lot of that time has been learning the functionality of the app inventor, as well as its limitations.

And so, to the app itself…

It’s main reason for existence is to provide me with a portable pocket timetable of acts for this weekend’s Electric Picnic, and if anyone else finds it useful, then all the better.

As of right now, 11am Wednesday, the times are due to be announced, so the current version of the app has but a list of acts on each day. I’ll update it this evening however with a breakdown by stage on each day to make it easier than navigating huge lists (and of course I’ll include the announced times).

I’ve also copied code from one of the sample apps in AppInventor, Android, Where’s My Car. This will (once I get it working right) allow you to save the location of your tent by GPS, and theoretically navigate back to it when you’re lost/drunk/blind.

Lastly, I’m putting in links to the Site Maps (these have to be links unfortunately as the app won’t allow embedded images to be zoomed). So far the Arena Map is available, but I’m going to convert the campsite and other maps to jpeg later and include them also.

So here’s the app: http://idirlion.org/ep/EPicnic.apk

And a barcode if you want to scan it directly from your phone.

Feedback appreciated.

Seachas deacrachtaí taistil agus gnóthacht an tréimhse sin, tá mórán eile a bhí sé i gceist agam déanamh fad is a bhíomar saor. Tá ríomhaire nua le ceannach agam (nó cadhnra nua don netbook ar a laghad). Theastaigh uaim mo chuid sean-cluichí ríomhaire a eagrú, ach faraor tá cuid mhaith des na cáblaí ar strae (maraon le mo chuid Lego, ach sin scéal eile).

Ach ar a laghad tá fón nua ceannaithe agam (Samsung Galaxy S), agus tá mé anois ar O2 seachas Meteor, rud a chiallaíonn go mbeidh mé in ann é a úsáid laistigh den teach don chéad uair.

Oh, agus tá an fón nua go h-álainn amach is amach, nach bhfuil?

What you’ll need:

• iPod (or other portable music player) – the bigger the better, anyone with a Classic can consider it money well spent since the invention of Leap-pod.
• Car
• Method of connecting iPod to car (bluetooth, fm dongle, cable etc)

Preparation:

Set your iPod to shuffle, sit someone with good arithmetic skills and eyesight in the passenger seat and hand them the iPod.

Rules:

When you overtake a car, take the last digit from their registration plate and skip forward that many songs (Do this even during a current song).

When a car overtakes you, skip back the number of tracks equal to the last digit of their registration plate (you’ll need to add one to this number because your first press back will leave you on the current song).

That’s pretty much it.

You might not hear all of many songs depending on traffic, or you might hear all of every song if you meet no cars. We played on the M6 to and from Galway and it worked quite well. Sometimes we’d pass two or more cars and have to combine all their reg numbers.

Of course, additional rules can be added as necessary. Foreign regs with letters can be translated to corresponding number (A=1, B=2 etc). And you may want to give each passenger one pass/lock on long journeys if they particularly like/dislike a certain song.

Having to skip away from a good song isn’t always fun, and other times you’ll be stuck with Westlife (which no one but me appreciated) or that stupid Fireflies song (which I hated), but that’s how the game goes, as the proverb says: “Leap-pod is a cruel mistress.”

Similarly to what I’ve done for the Electric Picnic previous years, here she is:

http://idirlion.org/oxegen

I’ll add any additional maps/timetables/stuff as I find them. Enjoy.

EDIT: Also of interest may be swearimnotpaul‘s “cross-reference style” timetable here

EDIT 2: Found a lovely iPhone/Android site by CAD Monkey

EDIT 3: Charles Julienne on twitter has let me add his fantastic time coded pdf to the folder.

All things considered, it has served me well these past two years, and for the price I got it (€350-ish I think), it was money well spent.

Considering my previous laptop, a massive Dell Inspiron 9100 that weighed a ton and had a broken fan that sounded like a jet engine, a portable netbook was a godsend.

It shipped with a crappy linux distro designed for it called Xandros, and it really left a lot to be desired. The menu consisted of a top bar divided into categories of different applications: Office, Internet etc.

Outside of that, the file management was a nightmare, and even opening a shell took far more work than necessary, so I switched to Windows XP.

The hard drive is 20GB consisting of 4GB and 16GB SSDs, so sensibly I installed Windows XP to the smaller drive and used the 16GB for documents etc, and after a bit of playing around with XP’s settings (disabling pagefile, moving Program Files and Documents to the larger drive), Windows XP has stood strong to this day.

Occasionally trying alternative operating systems along the (including a failed attempt at OSX, and a reasonable go at Windows 7 RC), 95% of the time, XP has been perfect.

But when I recently heard of new ‘netbook specific’ operating systems being launched all over the place, I was intrigued. So I decided to try a few as an alternative to XP.

I tried Jolicloud, and it worked ok, but the install to my 8GB SD card meant that the bootloader only worked with a usb plugged in, and it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. It was a bit too cloud based for my liking and lacked a desktop feel.

Secondly, I tried meego, and it wouldn’t even install correctly. I did play around with the live usb and it looked lovely, but again seemed very cloud based, and quite similar to the original Xandros distro.

So as a last resort, I looked up Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Remix. I had tried eeebuntu previously about a year ago, and it seemed promising but it had felt very beta, and wasn’t what I’d call a complete OS.

So I threw it on a usb, and installed it to the SD card, leaving my hard-drives intact with my trusty XP.

And boom:

Ubuntu screenshot

It works swimmingly, no issues getting it to work with any of the hardware, and with the help of this wonderful post by The Silent Number, I now have all the software I need working perfectly.

I did find that Firefox was a little slow, so I exported my bookmarks over to Chromium, and bar the fact that I can’t re-organise the icons in the launcher, it seems great.

I’m going to leave Windows XP on the hard-drive for now, but if a fresh OS means I manage to get a few more months (or even a year, touch wood) out of an old netbook, then I’m as happy as Larry.

Stay tuned…