Author Archives: ambyrne

  You don’t need to spend a lot of money on tech and gadgets to automate things in your smart life. In this episode I do a quick introduction to the IFTTT, If this then that service which allows you to connect 2 services together and automate when something happens on one, do something on…
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I’m generally a big fan of Amazon, but they seem to have some strange views about Ireland which I can’t wrap my head around. I’ve had challenges around Prime Video, unusual shipping policies as well as their domain name in general. While I’m trying to integrate a lot of the Amazon Smart Echo System into…
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Controlling Radio Frequency and Infrared devices in your smart home is a breeze with the help of a couple of little devices from a company called Broadlink. In this video I’ll briefly discuss 2 of their products which can help you to automate and control everything from TVs to fans, gates and garage doors from…
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Over the last couple of years I’ve been upgrading my apartment and adding smart technology. Sometimes though things don’t go according to plan and, with any DIY there are pitfalls and mistakes. This week I wanted to flush mount some Amazon Echos into the ceilings in my bathrooms, unfortunately i hit a snag not to…
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  This week I take a brief look at the new Alexa and Echo devices from Amazon’s September 2019 Alexa Event. I’ll look at the devices from a very quick first impression and which I’d be likely to buy and why. Links to some of these devices below: New Echo 3rd Generation: https://amzn.to/2oxE4SV Echo Dot…
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  I’ve been in the unfortunate position of having a minor flood in my apartment. Being a techie guy, I wanted to see if I could use smart technology to help me out and hopefully prevent this from happening again. With that in mind I look at sensors and more specifically water leak sensors and…
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In this episode I’ll talk about the pros and cons of smart locks. I’ll address some of the security concerns as well as point out that the idea is really not a new concept. I’ll go off on a little ramble about how some locks work and point out the differences in types of locks…
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FQdMq7GssU   In this quick unboxing I look at smart WiFi power strips. I’ve purchased several of these and they are quick and easy to use, but the possibilities are endless.   In this video I show the unboxing of a 4×4 Strip with 4 Plug Sockets and 4 USBs which can be controlled from…
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In a slight change of pace, I discuss the things that I do and don’t carry in my Smart Life. Using technology and simplifying my life, I’ve reduced the things that I have to keep in my pockets as well as the things I have to worry about. No, with a combination of smart and…
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In this video I unbox the new Ring Door View Cam, designed for apartments and homes where physically wiring a doorbell camera would not be possible. I quickly go through the unboxing of the device and install it on my apartment door. I’ll follow up with a review and discussion of the features and functions…
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This week I look at Smart Plugs and smart power strips. With these add-ons to your smart home, you can make even non-smart devices smart with the ability to switch on and off as well as set routines and timers using the SmartLife mobile app, or voice control with Amazon Echo or Google hub. I’ve…
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Go to the YouTube Channel here. In this video I will talk about smart lighting solutions and highlight the option that I’ve installed in my home, the Philips Hue lights. Although there are many companies producing smart lighting, Philips have probably the easiest setup and installation as well as a simple app which is user friendly…
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Go to the YouTube Channel here. This is the first video in my new series called Andy’s Smart Life where I discuss smart technology, internet of things, taking control of your digital life and my efforts to make my life more fun and simplified through the use of gadgets and technology. In this first video…
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Whether its our personal account or personal inbox, e-mail is a challenge to manage these days. The idea was that electronic mail was to reduce the amount of things we got in the post and make life easier, but today we are bombarded with newsletters, spam, adverts and countless other things that clog our folders…
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Living in Ireland I’ve always been struck by the fact that it seems that little bit more difficult sometimes to get the products and services that I’m looking for. This isn’t something new. Since I was a child and wanted to join the Lego club I found challenges based on the fact that I was…
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Much as I’m not into sports one of my favorite movies is the classic American football movie Any Given Sunday. If you haven’t had the chance, its one of those movies that might initially put some people off with the premise, a jaded coach trying to pull his team back together and get them over…
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Science fiction is full of stories of killer machines and the rise of the robots which often gives us this overblown idea that the technology of the future will be malicious and out to end the human race. We’ve even had people warning about the dangers of the rise of artificial intelligence and how this…
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While wearable haven’t had the impact on the public and even in the technology space that may were hoping for there is still hope for electronics that are on our person or even embedded within us. From chips under the skin to fitness bands there’s no shortage of different ideas that are being researched, but…
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In the past auto dialers were used by sales and marketing companies, scammers as well as schools to do everything from plugging products, trying to skim money or even announcing snow days. While these were useful there was no mistaking the prerecorded message that you were hearing and no real interaction took place. In more…
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We’re all increasingly living in isolation. It seems like such a contradiction given the perceived importance and focus on social media in our lives, but the last few years have made me reevaluate the actual interactions we have with people and the way in which we connect with others. I would regard myself as a…
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Much as I’m not a fan, I can’t help but be impressed at Mark Zuckerberg’s performance in his testimony in the US in the last couple of weeks. He’s remained calm and patient and explained and defended Facebook and technology companies in general well and effectively in the face of some tough challenges, not the…
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There’s something really interesting I’ve noticed when looking at online surveys and questionnaires in the last few weeks. If you read the questions out loud and really think about them, sometimes, and only sometimes, you can you guess what the answer is they are looking for, It’s one of those interesting things that I come…
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There are some industries that you don’t typically think of as being innovative, for example you may think that the only change in the dairy industry in the last 50 years is moving from glass bottles to paper cartons, and in truth you’d be forgiven for thinking this at times. Let’s begin though with what…
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Okay, maybe read a little bit, but you don’t have to read the whole thing. We’re all guilty of setting unrealistic goals for ourselves. We’ve all had ideas that we thought were going to be the best thing we’ve ever done, and yet, more often than not, we don’t follow through. Perhaps we keep saying…
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Over the last few weeks and months I’ve been asked by a lot of people about the content and layout of their CV, and, it’s still true that this couple of pages that describes your experience and skills is incredibly important, but it’s not the only way that potential employers and companies find out about…
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Some in the media in the US are hoping that the latest mass shooting in Florida might finally change the conversation on gun control from non-existent to at least something resembling common sense, and that this time around some sort of compromise can be reached where, for the most part, people are happy. With movements…
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This week saw yet another mass shooting in the United States, and like so many before, this one was committed in a school by someone who should have no business owning a gun, let alone an assault rifle capable of so much death and destruction, and yet this is the USA of today. Guns have…
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Elon Musk is planning on conquering the final frontier. It’s no secret that I’m fascinated by the SpaceX works as well as everything else he is working on, but recently none has captured the imagination more than the launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket in the last few days. Musk, in his usual o.t.t antics,…
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It’s a strange thing for someone like me, who is very anti-paper and pro everything technology to find a strange fascination with all things cardboard. If this seems to you as the reader a massive contradiction, I have no choice but to put my hands up and agree. But, before you start laughing and asking…
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We’ve talked about our pitch and pace. We’ve talked about smiling and we’ve even looked at the way we emphasis words to affect the meaning and message we get across, but what about energy? This may seem a little vague, but all of the things we’ve looked at in the previous posts are for nothing…
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In previous posts I talked about tone of voice and pitch and pace when dealing with clients over the phone, but let’s see how emphasis can change the meaning of words and impact the message we’re trying to get across. A great example I learned years ago is the simple sentence “I never said he…
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I’d like to make it very clear at this point that a lot of these techniques and observations in the last few posts are very small stepping-stones. They are small little LEGO bricks that, when put on top of each other, put altogether and used consistently and effectively, will build to the picture of a…
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In previous posts I talked about the preparation time that a customer has in advance of calling your business when they have a question or an issue. I also talked about the fact that a lot of the interaction is lost when you lose the face to face and body language aspect of the communication….
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When a client or customer calls your business, within the first 15 seconds, the customer has decided whether or not they like us or not. It’s all about first impressions like in face to face communications, and it’s all the more vital when it’s over the phone to build a connection with the person on…
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If you are running a business, no mater how big or small, you may end up dealing with challenging calls when things go wrong. This isn’t necessarily because you’ve done something bad, but no business should ever expect to have a 100% success rate with every customer, and the first thing most people will do when…
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We’ve all been there. Our notification counter on the little envelop icon showing a number that makes us dread clicking. Our unread e-mails have spiraled to a level where we think we’ll never possibly be able to read them all. You know 90% is probably junk, be it spam, newsletters from that home wares shop…
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There’s been a certain amount of criticism directed at the film industry over the last few years. Setting aside some of the scandals and more unseemly things that seem to happen in show business, the films they are producing are also subject to discussion. On several occasions lately I’ve seen actors and celebrities state that…
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Social media is a double-edged sword for many people. The ability to connect with people from your past or over long distances is making the world smaller and more connected, but at the same time the pitfalls and potential challenges of being constantly online are ever-present and more and more public when things go wrong….
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There’s a long-held belief that people have that in their career the trajectory has to be always upward. It’s the assumption that a lot of us make when we enter the jobs market or begin working for the first time that if we work long enough, and hard enough of course, that we will progress…
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While I still have many years before my daughter starts school I couldn’t help thinking about the prospect the other day. Primarily as the need to enroll children up to the local or chosen school is needed earlier and earlier in their lives, so I found myself wandering in my mind back to when I…
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I have new-found respect and admiration for all parents in the last year. I always knew that becoming a parent was a tough job and that it no other job is like it and in truth its something I had wondered about how I would deal with if and when the situation arose for me….
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Another technology that we’re going to hear a lot about in 2018 is the gene therapy system CRISPR. Like many of the advances in science and tech that I have talked about previously, this one has been talked about and at times speculated in sci-fi television and movies for years. While many people hear about…
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It’s no secret that the cost of smartphones has gone up in the last few years, and the logical reason is because of all the bells and whistles that you now get from your handheld devices. The truth is that the internal hardware of your phone has come on leaps and bounds even in the…
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I made the decision shortly before Christmas to put my blogging on pause, thinking that there couldn’t be much happening over the holiday period that wouldn’t be massively interesting. How wrong I was, I missed so much. In the tech world it seemed like companies decided to sneak in last-minute bombshells and interesting stories just…
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If you’re a fan of Terminator 2, you can’t help but be swept up in the idea of liquid metal. In case you haven’t seen the film, a machine from the future, sent back to kill the leader of the human resistance in his youth, can form itself into various shapes by virtue of the…
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While I love the new gadgets and tech that comes on the market, I’ve definitely been fascinated lately by the number of retro consoles and boxes out there that emulate old Super Nintendo systems or Sega Mega Drives, or even old arcade games. There’s something really cool on top of the nostalgia to go back…
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GDPR is on its way, but what is it? You’ve probably at some point or another come across something about the Data Protection Act or some other form of regulation that protects personal data from being misused, sold or otherwise tampered with or exploited. It’s often the case that when consumers have disagreements with companies…
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Much of the technology I look into and implement in my own home tends to be smart home technology. Voice command systems, motion sensors and the like, and, even though at first it was a bit of a novelty, through repetitive use, I really have found them beneficial in day-to-day life. At the same time…
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There’s this old image of two guys digging a diamond mine and both look exhausted. Both are near to pockets of diamonds, but neither know this and one has decided to quit right before hitting the goal. It’s designed to teach people the importance of perseverance and that you should keep trying your best as…
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Okay, so the title of this post not only gives away the purpose, but is probably for many people a bit obvious, but I do want to put a little bit of a spin on it. Most good project managers and team leaders in any business will tell you that whenever you have a task…
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It used to be the case that when big companies decided to engage in rivalry on the public stage the consumer could reap the benefits. It was a great way of increasing competition, getting greater brand awareness, and it often lead to reduced prices or better value for the customer. Take the examples of Burger…
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So we’ve been set a goal or a target. In previous posts I discussed how we needed to visualize success in order to get ourselves in the right mindset for getting to 100%. I also discussed how aiming beyond the target could help us from that ever destructive fatigue towards the end of a target…
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I’ve always loved space exploration. Since I was a child I’ve looked up and marveled at just how big the universe above us really is and hoped one day to see a time when humanity set foot on another planet or made contact with something beyond ourselves. It may seem like a dream or science…
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One of the biggest challenges of hitting a goal is the strange phenomenon that as we reach 70% / 80% of the objective, people, particularly sales people seem to slow down. Perhaps its the fatigue and the work and effort that’s been put in so far in hitting what they’ve already hit. It’s a strange…
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Last Sunday market 25 years since the first SMS was sent and it’s fitting that the message sent from engineer Neil Papworth’s computer was to a then director of Vodafone Richard Jarvis was ‘Merry Christmas’ as it kicked off a huge new revenue stream for Vodafone and for telecoms companies as a whole. From those humble beginnings…
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Years ago I worked for a company that had really tough sales targets. Achieving them was a challenge for everyone on my team and often we faced the thought in our minds that we would never possibly hit the goal we were striving for. Fortunately I was training with a group in the UK that…
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I’d say for most people today when you hear the word startup the images that come to mind are of tech companies or guys huddled in a garage somewhere. Or if you believe the myth that all IT startups get huge funding right off the bat, you might think of brightly colored office spaces where…
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There are many things you need to watch out for when you’re online today. From scam e-mails to people phishing for your credit card details there are pitfalls when you’re browsing that thankfully have been well publicized and we are more and more aware of. But there are other things to be aware of that…
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It’s the same with everyone I suppose. As our lives progress and we get busy with everything else that comes along we lose touch with people. It’s the usual way of things, and no matter how close you are in school, college or whatever, things change. It’s not always possible to sustain the relationships and…
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Let’s face it, it’s a little bit artificial to use a keyboard. You may be very proficient at typing, but I’m sure everyone would prefer another way of interacting with their computer. Or then again maybe not, perhaps the idea of using the keyboard helps remind us that we are using a piece of technology…
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As the Christmas period is approaching, laptops and PC’s are going to be on many people’s wish lists, either for themselves or for others. The level of choice out there is huge, and I’ve previously posted about the specifications and the requirements you might look for when buying a new device, but one of the…
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I’ve heard a few people grumbling over the last few days that they don’t ‘get’ Black Friday. It’s one of those strange phenomena we have imported from the US and kind of just forgotten that fact. Although its been a huge deal in the States for years, particularly in retail, I’ve only really taken notice…
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Outside of the technology and start-up space, one of my passions is for drama. I’ve always loved to act for as long as I can remember and even have memories as a child of putting on little shows and plays for family and friends before properly treading the boards in secondary school during school plays…
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You may or may not have heard conversations in the last few days around net neutrality and if you’re thinking it’s something tech related, or only effecting businesses and giants like Google or Facebook I’m going to be the barer of some bad news; this is a big deal for all of us. I’m picking…
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I’m a fan of Elon Musk, or at the very least I’m a fan of his vision for the future. Green energy, life on Mars and a truly self-sustaining way of living. That hasn’t stopped me from acknowledging that he is reportedly difficult to work with, demanding and even controversial. More than that his optimism…
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Back in 2012 I bought myself a Samsung Note 2, which, at the time was the answer to all my mobile concerns. It was a phone, a miniature tablet and a writing device all at once, and although the functionality is nothing like what you would expect today, this device packed a punch. Within a…
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Today with micro-transactions you are paying again for a game you already own. When I was a kid buying a new computer game was a big deal. I still remember vividly the day I saw the box for Monkey Island 2 and, it being about 6 weeks away, I starting dropping hints for my birthday…
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I’ve talked in previous posts about my move to turn my home into a truly smart apartment and in the process of this I’ve been looking into smart locks. Let’s start from where a lot of my fondness for technology and gadgets comes from, my hatred of something else, in this case keys. I’ve always…
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Doctors prescribing medications have lots to think about, be it the dosage that the person will receive, whether its counter indicated with some other drug that they are taking, side effects the patient might suffer as well as dozens of other considerations that they may have before they take out their prescription pad. You would…
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The day after Halloween the shops had already started to change their displays from the customary ghosts and witches to festive Christmas decorations, cut outs of Santa Claus and his reindeer and so on and so forth, which really frustrated me for some reason more this year than ever before. It almost seemed that when…
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Over the past few weeks the conversation about the TV licences has reared its head again in Ireland with different people from different sides making cases for and against the increasingly controversial levy that households are expected to pay. If you are reading this from outside Europe you might be a bit confused. Why a…
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Between now and Christmas there will be an up surge in people buying laptops, both for themselves and for family and friends. Many small businesses will also consider replacing and updating in the sales that seem to inevitably follow the holiday season, and, although there’s plenty of choice out there, there are some pitfalls to…
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I come across a lot of people who have great ideas on a regular basis. In fact the truth is that everyone has really good ideas from time to time, but so many of us there is this failure to act on these ideas that hangs over us. This can be some pipe dream that…
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About 10 years ago there was a big move by large companies in Ireland to follow the trends they were seeing coming from the US and in particular the blue chip and high value tech companies in terms of how they treat culture in the work place. Ireland, like much of the world still had…
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Everyone has probably had the same experience, a lost phone full of photos, a laptop that just packs it in for no apparent reason or even a keydrive that gets misplaced with some important documents. The chances of loosing data that is critical or images and files that have sentimental value like family photos being…
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A new tool against your money being taken and your identity being stolen is a really old one, the humble shredder. Time was the idea of identity theft made for good movies and heist films, and the idea of the con man seemed a little detached from reality, you got the usual fishing attempts from…
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Twitter is one of those weird companies that I can never really get a handle on. They are global brand which has a recognition that would probably rival the likes of McDonald’s these days, and yet the platform still seems to be having difficulty actually making all that much money. Anyone who has looked into…
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The old adage goes that you should try to do at least one thing every day that scares you, and while, at this time of year that might mean putting on cheesy horror films or going through a scary show, what it really means is do something that pushes you outside your comfort zone. It’s…
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Like many people I’m sick of hearing the phrase ‘fake news’ thrown about by politicians, disgraced producers and anyone who generally disagrees with the tone or content that a certain broadcaster or news medium decides to put to the public. While the term isn’t necessarily new, it’s definitely been coined to maximum effect by the…
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Given that I’ve been watching a lot of science fiction movies over the past few weeks it’s no surprise that as an early adopter in technology feel slightly frustrated at times with the progress we’ve made toward certain ideas. I’m not for one second saying that we should all have flying cars or be able…
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There has been so much talk in recent weeks and months about the advancement of Artificial Intelligence, or AI and for the most part it seems that people want the technology to move forward with the assumption that it will be of benefit to humanity. The current thinking is that AI will create better self-driving…
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When they were first brought to the attention of the public smart watches seemed to be the new darling of the gadget world. Take something that virtually everyone wears and make it smart, not only that but make it something that people would actually like to have smart functionality in, unlike the ill-fated Google Glass…
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Seems like the title of this post is a bit of a no-brainer. If I’m not home, how can I get a courier into my house? We’ll believe it or not that is what Amazon are proposing over in the US. While it will probably be months if not years before we see them offering…
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Something that I’ve always been surprised at is that, although there are many different options and suppliers, prepaid credit cards, particularly in Ireland seem to not have ever achieved the traction that i would have expected. There’s the obvious benefit for those who do not have a normal credit card from a bank or financial…
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Over the past few weeks we’ve seen news reports of high-profile hacks and data breaches from even the most seemingly security conscious companies such as Yahoo, Microsoft and more. We’ve even had a major US agency responsible for credit scores and financial rating admit to letting more than 143 million users details, not only of…
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We have a fascination today with payment services it seems. Although most of us are looking for ways of saving money for the most part, we are at times living a contradiction when it comes to how easy we want it to be when we do want us to part with our money. It’s an…
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There’s been so much talk of Bitcoin in the last couple of years, even to the point where it’s now being mentioned in TV shows and has slowly but surely become a topic of conversation when people mention everything from gaming, to gambling to illegal activities. But what is Bitcoin, and will it have an…
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A couple of decades ago not having any computer experience was something that was a non issue when going for a job interview. Even when I was growing up, it was the exception rather than the rule to be asked if you had working knowledge of a PC, but as time went on this changed…
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For most people, the idea of messing around with a piece of computer hardware might seem alien in the same way that trying to do anything with a car engine is to me, but recently several devices and kits have been released to the market that mean even the most novice techie, following a set…
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Up until a few years ago I had a really good job. It was one of those jobs that before I got it I believed was my dream job, and in truth for the first 3 or 4 years I enjoyed pretty much every minute. It was well paid, challenging and enabled me to work…
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Full disclosure before you continue reading this post, I’m not a fan of Apple and I can’t say that I ever have been. I’ve long-held the belief that they are one of the best companies in the world when it comes to marketing their products as well as being brilliant at design, but although they…
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Watching the new Star Trek series on Netflix the other night a thought struck me, I’m still a geek. It wasn’t the first time I had the idea pop into my head, it was just the co-incidence of simultaneously getting a message on Facebook from someone I went to school with. These things will all…
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Virtual Reality is one of those technologies which keeps coming around and yet somehow until recently never really seemed to find its footing. The main reasons for this were the technology itself which just wasn’t fluid enough to make for a really immersive experience, and the other major issue, its expensive, cumbersome and generally a…
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Living in an apartment means that space is limited at this leads to the occasional clear out of clothes, old pots and pans, and most recently DVD’s and books. Before the bibliophile’s get up in arms, please be prepared to hear me out. I do love books, I enjoy reading and I confess that over…
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There are many things I would have liked to learn in school, and a lot of things I know that can’t be learned or taught in these environments, but today I was reflecting on the first time I really thought about mental health. I remember having a discussion in primary school about how, even surrounded…
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I used to get a lot of calls on my mobile. I mean a lot. I’ve had the same number since as far back as I was about 13 and this means that there are so many people who have my contact details from old school friends, casual acquaintances, not to mention people I’ve worked…
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Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes, we’ve all heard the quote made famous by Steve Jobs during the Think Different campaign from Apple but who are today’s crazy ones and how are they making our world different? More importantly are they forcing us…
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The universal translator has been a familiar trope of science fiction works for as long as I can remember as the idea provides the writer the ability to get past the language barriers that would make much of their stories more cumbersome, or altogether impossible. The act of travelling to an alien world and allowing…
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At some point or another we’ve had the experience of misplacing our phones. For most people it’s an inconvenience as we know we’ve left if somewhere in our room, apartment, house or whatever, but what happens when this comes at a time when its really needed, or worse, a time when it’s a genuine emergency….
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WeDevelop would like to congratulate and wish the best of luck to our current Managing Director and co-founder Andy Byrne who has been appointed Chief Operations Officer for PlayTank.net. PlayTank is a social collaboration tool, on a mission to democratize innovation which enables participants to easily extract components of an innovation concept and reuse them in…
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So the novelty of the first few weeks in business began to wear off and the reality of what was in front of us began to loom for the first time. We needed to balance the need to get clients, keep money rolling in with trying to create the best service and solution for the…
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It was January 2015…. We were away and running. The business had a small number of clients and things were on the up and up. Through a little bit of wrangling by one of the team we had even managed to secure an office above a shop in the city centre. We felt like a…
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As I arrived in the office on the first day back in 2016 I couldn’t help get that sinking feeling. Sure the business had ended on a high when we broke for christmas on the 18th of December, but even after a couple of weeks off I couldn’t help but feel tired. I’m delighted to…
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Interview with Redg Snoddgrass, CEO Wearable World for InspiredStartups.com For this interview for inspiredstartups, Andy chats with Redg Snodgrass, the founder and CEO at Wearable World, Silicon Valley incubator focused on seed stage Wearable Technology and IoT based companies. Redg is also on the founding team of SKOUT, global mobile social network for meeting new people. Redg puts on…
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