If you need sometimes to send someone listing of the contents of a folder (directory) on the hard disk of your Mac, certainly, for that purpose you can use the terminal or a free program written by P-Edge Media named FolderLister. Just run the application and drag the selected folder on its icon in the Dock.

The program can be very useful especially when we need to obtain the listing of folders with a large number of files and subfolders, such as our music collections in iTunes.

a piece of my iTunes collection (with the option “show subfolders” turned on )

The program can be downloaded from: http://www.p-edge.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=1

According to the website of the leading Polish TV news channel TVN24 and German newspaper Die Welt, Central European countries and new members of EU are threaten by the possible economical crush. Die Welt points out the dangers of the strategy of the Polish government to relief the effects of the economical crisis. In fact, the government strategy to save as much money as possible can bust the speed of drop of the value of Polish Zloty by next 10 percent.

The drop is easy to trace even here on my blog. 2 weeks ago I have compared the prices of MacBooks in Ireland and Poland (MacBooks are cheaper…). At that time, 1 Euro was 4.40 PLN. Today 1 Euro is 4.65 PLN. The economical forecast for the next weeks is rather bad. People expect Euro to cost 5 PLN in the couple of weeks.

Following Die Welt: “Weakening currencies will increase value of debt and a strengthened capital flight, which aggravates the already critical economic situation and may lead to further decreases the value of the Zloty, Forint and Crown“. Die Welt blames the governments and the central – national – banks.

Source in Polish: http://www.tvn24.pl/-1,1584910,0,1,polsce-grozi-krach,wiadomosc.html

According to website of TVN24 news channel – tvn24.pl - 48 percent of Polish citizens want to pay in Euro. Most of them expects Euro to be introduced in the next 3 – 4 years. Over half of half of the entire population (52 percent) is of the opinion that introduction of Euro will be profitable in the long term. 41 percent of the respondents are of the opinion that together with introduction of Euro their private economical situation will turn to worse.

Source in Polish: TVN24.pl: http://www.tvn24.pl/12692,1583420,0,1,polowa-polakow-chce-placic-w-euro,wiadomosc.html
Euro Banknotes – Source: Wikipedia

Usually Apple products are realtively more expensive in Poland. Last may 2008, on my Polish blog I compared the prices of MacBooks here in Poland and in Ireland. The difirences in prices were clearly visible at that time. At present, due to the waekness of Polish Zloty (PLN) the prices of new unibody MacBooks are almost the same and they are even cheaper in Poland.

Let’s take the prices of the MacBooks alu unibody available through the website of Apple Ireland and compare them with the prices of the same products available through one of the Polish official Apple reselers – Cortland.

The aluminium 13-inch MacBook.

* Intel Core 2 Duo
* 2GB DDR3 Memory
* 160GB hard drive1
* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
* Standard keyboard
* Aluminium unibody

Apple.ie (Ireland):

Cortland.pl (Poland):

Apple.ie (Apple Ireland): €1,199.00 gross * 4.40 (today’s value of Euro in Polish Zloty) = PLN 5,275.6 gross
Cortland.pl (Cortland online store): PLN 5,122.23 gross / 4.40 = €1,164.14 gross

So we have €1,199.00 (Ireland) vs €1,164.14 (Poland) or PLN 5,275.6 (Ireland) vs 5,122.23 (Poland).

In May 2008 I was considering trip to Ireland to buy a MacBook white. Even with the costs of the 2 days trip it was still cheaper than in Poland. Nowadays it is more expensive for us to go for shopping to Ireland. Maybe UK is still more attractive due to the weakness of Pound Sterling.

Ryanair is going to cut more connections from Poland. According to TVN24.pl 12 connections from 6 Polish cities are to be closed. Ryanair cuts the connections from Gdansk to Bristol and Liverpool, from Szczecin to Bristol, Birmingham, Luton and Liverpool, from Lodz to Liverpool, East Midlands and Shannon, from Poznan to East Midlands, from Wroclaw to Bournemouth and from Katowice to Bristol. Those connections won’t be available in the spring and summer season due to the very high navigation charges in Poland, which occurred in 2008. According to TVN24.pl Ryanair can not accept these costs, while offering the lowest prices. This is about the fees for the assistance during the take offs and landing procedures introduced by Polish Air Navigation Services Agency (Polska Agencja Żeglugi Powietrznej). According to the Ryanair’s spokesman, this will affect the Polish economy and end up in jobs cuts in Ryanair (about 500 employees).

Source in Polish: http://www.tvn24.pl/-1,1582889,0,1,ryanair-zawiesza-loty-do-polski,wiadomosc.html

The markets are still on crisis, every rumor can destroy the worth of each company, especially bank. That has happened to Barclays. The rumor that the British bank will need another injection of pubilc money effected the fall of the value of the symbol of British banking. The share of Barclays is now worth of 70 GBP against the 200 GPB at the begining of the year. The overall value of Barclays is 7 billions GPB that is less than the Polish PKO BP.  The tendency can end up with the nationalisation of some of the banks.

Source: Gazeta.pl: http://gospodarka.gazeta.pl/gospodarka/1,33181,6189331,Trwoga__brytyjski_Barclays_wart_mniej_niz_PKO_BP.html

According to TVN24.pl Business section, production in Poland  decreased by over 4 percent in December 2008. As I mentioned before, the crisis affects mostly automotive, metal and chemical industries. The growing worse production is due to the decreasing demand in the Western Europe especially Germany. Even the faint Polish Zloty is not a solution and relief for the Polish exporters.

Today, Gazeta.pl – online service of the leading Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza – mentioned that Ryanair provide tickets for the flights from Lodz to Shannon and Nottingham only for the period till the end of the March 2009. According to Gazeta.pl the connections to LIverpool and Stockholm are in danger as well. At the same time Ryanair is establishing new connections from other Polish cities and it is going to set up a base for 3 airplanes in Cracow. That means Lodz rather won’t win with the struggle to host the Ryanair’s fleet. The news in Polish are available at Gazeta.pl Lodz section’s site.

Is movement of Dell plant to Lodz from Limerick the answer for possible hold of the flight from Lodz to Shannon? There is still lots of Poles in the regions of Ireland that are better connected with Shannon than Dublin Airport.

According to the TVn24.pl (website of Polish news and business channels) thsouands of jobs to be cut in Poland in the fothcoming months. The massive job losses are predicted in industries such as electonics, wood production, cars, metalurgy and banking. The one of the Polish banks – PKO BP is going to cut 1,7 thousands of jobs. In the Masovia region there job cuts will affect about 10 thousands of employees in 53 companies. 1500 employess is going to loose their jobs in Szczeci, and about 9500 thousands in Katowice, 1116 thousnads in Zielona Góra. Many of mentioned employees have lost their jobs already.

The decision of Dell to close down the plant in Limerick and move the almost entire production and assembly lines to factory in Lodz (in Poland) that was built just 2 years ago, was widely discussed in Ireland. This is the real disaster to the city of Limerick. I guess that about 4 thousands of people is going to loose their jobs in the forthcoming months, but the real impact on jobs and local economy will be more clearly visible in the forthcoming months. Of course bad news for Limerick are good news for Lodz. The plant wil employ more people and this is the chance for the local business. Local and Polish enterprises can co-operate with that big American corporate. For Dell itself the situation is probably even more comfortable. Polish Zloty is falling down day by day. Today 1PLN is 4.31 EU and the average salary in the factories/plants in Lodz is about 1500 – 2000 PLN a month for the ordinary worker. The salaries at Dell plant in Lodz are somewhere between. That means that at the moment the maximum salary is 464 Euro a month and is decreasing together with the worth of Polish Zloty. If we compare the minimum wage in Ireland, which is about 1400 Euro/month it is clearly visible that Dell is saving a lot of money every month. The Dell’s scenario is a warning for the Irish economy – the other international companies can leave Ireland in the nearest future. Actually Dell is not the first company that left Ireland for Poland and Lodz region. Couple of years ago Procter And Gable closed down its factory in Nenagh (North Tipperary) and moved to Aleksandrow Lodzki (satelite town of Lodz). I won’t be surprised if the other intertnational or even Irish ones do the same.