Eircom has announced that the cost of fixed line rental is to increase by EUR1.18 per month. The former incumbent announced the rise in line rental charges and several other price increases on Thursday evening. Under Eircom’s new pricing system line rental will cost EUR25.36 per month. The telecoms operator said the average phone bill will increase by 3.6 percent as a result of the new charges. The new prices will come into effect from 30 July.

“Eircom has not increased line rental in over three years. As with any other utility operating in the Irish market, we continue to face the challenges of increased business costs, higher wages and the need to continuously invest in our network,” said Rex Comb, chief executive of Eircom.

Aside from line rental, the cost of making calls will also increase. There will be changes across the board with charges for local and national daytime, evening and weekend calls all to rise by between 4.8 percent and 4.9 percent. Charges for broadband and international calls will remain unchanged.

Toshiba has announced a new projector in its line, which is equiped with WiFi and some other great features at an affordable price. The TW355U projector supports wireless-G WiFi network. As it’s WiFi, there is no need to hook it upto any network cables in order to send files from nearby pc’s or laptops. It does however still give you the option to do this if necessary.

You can also do your presentation without using a computer. Thanks to its USB port, which can you then plug a USB storage device loaded with the presentation slides and having it play back from it directly. Some other features include a 3,500 lumen brightness level, a 2,000:1 contrast ratio, a resolution of 1,024 x 768, and input acceptance of up to 1080i. The Toshiba TW355U ships now at a price of US$2,199.

This optical mouse can be used as a mini computer Hi-Fi speaker to play music as well. And when you flip the cover of the mouse it magically transforms to a fully functional keypad which features an LCD screen. With this you can make and receive VoIP calls in a jiffy. It supports various VoIP services like Skype, VoIPDiscount, FreeCall and NetAppel. As a mouse it functions with 800dpi optical sensor.

When you use the USB Skype Mouse as a VoIP, the morph sports a multi-language supported backlit LCD (128 x 64 pixel) and has a hands-free speakerphone feature. Costing US$32.00, product page is Here

Walking up to a department store’s fabric counter, a pretty girl asked, “I want to buy this material for a new dress. How much does it cost?”

The girl snapped up the package, pointed to a little old man standing beside her, smiled and said. “Grandpa pay the man.”

Salaries in Dublin have traditionally been higher than the rest of the country in some sectors, but how much higher are they really and does it pay to live and work in our nation’s Capital?

CareerWise Recruitment has reviewed the spread of salaries across the country and compared the results against house prices. Based upon research by John King, Senior Consultant, there are some interesting conclusions: “One would expect a Dublin weighting on all salaries and this is certainly the case in specific sectors such as IT consulting and Finance where we see a 15-20% differential. For all positions reviewed in the Life Science, Pharmaceutical and Electronics sectors, the salary scales were identical across Dublin and the regions.”

Looking at the asking prices for your average 3-Bed house across the country:

Dublin: €460,000
Cork and Galway: €339,000
Regions: €267,000

With the average cost to buy a house in Dublin being over 70% higher than the rest of the country, how far does your salary stretch? A typical engineer earning €50k would have a monthly take home pay of approximately €3,500. Based on the figures above, his or her mortgage in Dublin would cost €2,700 per month, in Cork or Galway it would be €2,000 and elsewhere it could be as low as €1,600.

Taking a snap shot of roles advertised on a leading Recruitment website, there were 19,000 roles on offer in Dublin compared with than 8,000 through out the rest of the country. So while the bulk of the opportunities are in Dublin, there is still plenty of scope in Cork, Limerick, Galway and beyond.

It does, however, raise a critical point for the incoming government. The new Government needs to look seriously at investment outside of Dublin. This means better roads, rail connections, hospitals, schools, Internet/Broadband as well as greater emphasis on more job creation in the regions.

So if quality of life, affordable housing and disposable income are important to you then perhaps you should look to the regions?

Luke’s wife bought a new line of expensive cosmetics guaranteed to make her look years younger. After a lengthy sitting before the mirror applying the “miracle” products she asked, “Darling, honestly what age would you say I am?”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Luke interrupted. “I haven’t added them up yet.”

Fancy wireless headphones, but don’t have a bluetooth enabled player? You can buy headphones with the bluetooth transmitter included, but these tend to be low-capacity components. Everything you need is included in the box to pair it with your player, including a 3.5mm extension lead, if your headphone socket is inaccessible.

The iBluon connects using the latest Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP/AVRCP protocols, allowing it to pair with any suitable headphones or speakers. It’s got a 6 hour battery life for playback and a 120 hour standby time. Weights just 15 grams, so it won’t add any undue weight to your player!

• 6 hour playtime
• 120 hour standby
• Bluetooth 2.0 compliant
• A2DP/AVRCP
• Extension cord included
• USB cable included for charging

Costs Just £29.99 – Get One Here