Archive for February, 2006

iReland + iRMA + iPod = iACriminal?

Thursday, February 23rd, 2006

iWent
iBought
iPlayed
iRipped
iWenttoJail
iReland + iRMA + iPod = iACriminal?

Free the MP Three!

Bernard is having problems getting t-shirts printed because Café Press are acting all lawyery. I think he should look for another crowd to sell his t-shirts. Café Press are not going to fuck with Apples lawyers. Find an Irish source and print them locally.

If anyone wants to steal my idea of text for an mp3 campaign, work away. Just send me a free t-shirt. Black, large, soft material (Hey, I’m still a tough guy!).

Free the MP Three!

Pre Awards Tech Event – march 11th

Thursday, February 23rd, 2006

James mentions the pre-Blog Awards tech event being planned. I’ve handed over planning of this to Bernie or rather I suggested it to him that he do it and I legged it. The plan is that the geeks have a small tech event talking about a few things. James will talk OPML and feedgrazing, John Handelaar will talk about his Fax My TD/Vocal Voter project and someone from Microsoft will present IE7 and RSS integration. Bernie will line up one or two more people as well. Hopefully there’ll be a wiki up where people can register to go. I doubt I’ll be able to make it as I have the Awards themselves to play with.

Time will be 1500-1700. Location yet to be decided though it could be in or near the Alexander Hotel as the Blog Awards are moving there.

EDIT: Thatgirl suggests a more social get together for the non-techy people before the Awards. Having half the audience drunk will give it an authentic Jerry Springer feel. Nooooo!

How not to interact with the press – El Paso gives an example

Thursday, February 23rd, 2006

It seems that someone from the Sunday Times contacted El Paso about a story they carried and instead of helping them out they replied with a post claiming the Times were trying to steal their story and added:

Kate, nothing personal but the Sunday Times as a British newspaper has never done Dundalk any favours over the years so our reply is GO TO HELL.

How utterly backward thinking. One would think that if you blog something you’d want more coverage. Hidden agenda or not getting a story more attention is a good thing. If El Paso were worried about being misrepresented then do what I do and post the whole content of emails sent to the paper so there can be no misunderstandings. Readers of the Sunday Times are not dumb and I’m sure can make up their own minds. If one person read the story and it enabled more public discussion then it is a positive thing. Would you treat your fellow bloggers with the same small-minded contempt? And bloggers wonder why the press are wary of them!

Digital Rights – Public Lecture on Government Threats to Privacy TCD Feb 24th

Tuesday, February 21st, 2006

Digital Rights talk on Government and Privacy. Feb 24th. TCD. Worth going if you’re around Dublin.

Please register for the Blog Awards

Tuesday, February 21st, 2006

Damn you success! It seems there might be a LOT more people coming to the awards than initially expected so can anyone that wants to go register their attendance as soon as possible. I’ll be booking a new location judging by these numbers by end of week. Yikes. Not like I had enough to stress me!

I am not the child from Oliver but I thank you

Tuesday, February 21st, 2006

So yes, I’m not that child who, as it happens, was also called Oliver. There have been a few posts, most recently Simon’s suggesting that there should be a whip-around of some sort for me. No need. My hotel stay is now being paid for by Microsoft Ireland and I am hugely grateful. A big thank you to Clare Dillon for making the no-strings attached offer. But have I told you how I’d prefer all my readers to use Internet Explorer to view my site and … 😉 Nope, Microsoft just like us bloggers so they have asked for nothing in return, like many other people who have kindly offered to paypal me money and so forth. Thank you everyone.

Just to be clear, my transparency post was not me with cap in hand, more me just being upfront with costs and what it takes to run an event like this. I have talked to other people who look like they are going to run some other interesting award events and hopefully my post helped them out.

Thanks for all the offers of financial assitance but I should be ok. However the best thing to do to help me is just tell as many friends of yours about the event and if you personally know people in the press, try and encourage them to do a story on blogging. You could also try and get more people to blog especially if you think their voice would bring something new and different to the community.

Speaking of sponsors, I’m toying with the idea that I’ll only accept sponsorship next year from companies that have a blog or employees that blog. That’ll make things interesting. 😉

Wavehunt is looking for sponsors

Monday, February 20th, 2006

My friend Charlie is running an event called Wavehunt and is currently looking for sponsors. Anyone want to sponsor this “exercise a nerd” event? 🙂

Blurb:

WaveHunt is a high-tech manhunt using a moving wireless computer network on the streets of Dublin, Ireland.

Inspired by the DefCon Running Man competition, WaveHunt is a fun event for Ireland’s technical community that will test your network and direction finding skills, and possibly even win you some prizes!

Thanks for the book

Monday, February 20th, 2006

Thanks for the book whoever sent it to me. Interesting choice.

Regulatory Craft

The sad fact is that I’ll probably enjoy reading this book on regulation. As an aside, anyone else think the cover is slightly Goatse-esque?

Irish Blog Awards Short List

Monday, February 20th, 2006

Short List is here.

Can’t blog me love – Via Steven – Excellent

Friday, February 17th, 2006

The Richard and Fiona show. A love song.

I knew I’d infect someone else with the blogging/song mashups.

Nice one Steven.