We recently got hit by the Bugbear virus. As a result I installed MailScanner, SpamAssassin and Razor on our work mail server and they now scan and process all incoming and outgoing mail. I can't recommend this trio of tools highly enough. Not only did they catch further BugBear hits, they also tag over 90% of the spam I receive so I can filter to trash. Go get em!

Eoin and Jill Pierce have a new baby girl, Aine Elaine Pierce. Born 8.30, Friday October 18th and weighing in at 7lbs. Great news and lets hope she enjoys playing in the new kitchen whenever Eoin finishes it........

I met Dee O'Brolcháin at a housewarming at the weekend and she pointed out that quite a few people didn't know about the Engineers 10 year reunion piccies on this site. Thanks to her efforts, they do now.

I've just found out about IrishWan.org. This is a fantastic idea leveraging 802.11b technology to creat wireless WANs across cities and towns in Ireland. By connecting the Access Points to ADSL, the potential for reducing internet access cost in Ireland by sharing bandwidth and fees is huge. I must dust off the AP I have at home and see about getting myself an omnidirectional antenna. Anyone with wireless equipment and/or ADSL should get involved here.

Another top class site for a snigger. Northern Ireland news like you've never seen it - The Portadown News .

Wow, two birth announcements on the same day. Helen and Frank Roberts had baby James at 19:55 on 20th August, a strapping boy of 9lb 15oz. Whilst Betsy and Brian Montayne had a bouncing baby girl, Sarah Elizabeth, at 21:10 on the same day. Massive congrats to both sets of parents and here's hoping both mothers feel a lot better over the next few days.

The Evil Gerald is still the funniest Irish web-site out there. Not updated as often as I'd like but you really need to check it out anyway.

For those of you looking for the old set of pages which had info on the 10 year reunion of the UCD Engineering Class of 1990, please click here.

I'm now the editor of the Embedded Software Category on dmoz.org. I have just cleared over a years backlog of submissions. I hope from now on that I can publish most submissions in under a week. Check the category out at Embedded_Systems

Kieran Johnston, my brother in law is getting married tomorrow in Cavan to Louise Walshe. Big congrats and best wishes from the Kimmage gang. Let's home Brian's neck brace holds up!

Appearing on search engines is a tough gig. We've been trying to get Advanticus on the various engines for months. It looks like appearing on dmoz is finally the break we have been looking for. So in the next few weeks we should hopefully appear on google.

Mairead McGrath, Paul Kavanagh and myself have founded Advanticus Technologies Limited, focussed on Embedded Software Design Services. Check out our web at Advanticus