Archive for the ‘blogs’ Category

Fluffy Links – Thursday September 13th

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

Happy Birthday Elana!

Keith is on the IIA board. Congrats!

Fuck off EU. EU wants to block certain web searches.

Fuck off Poland. Get arrested for Google bombing.

Interesting new image search engine called Behold.

I love clever ideas like this. Turn a used coke can into a safe syringe disposal unit.

And another clever idea. An ice cream vending machine that gives you more goodness if it detects stress.

Fab photo from Pygment.

Fab photo from Caitriona.

Via You Aint’ no Picasso: Iron Man trailer. Uses the songs “Iron Man” and “Hey man, nice shot.” Lame. However the trailer other than that is fucking cool:

Weird Japanese Fanta ads. I like the DJ one:

Nooooooooooooooooooooo *Gasp of air* ooooooooooo *coughing fit * uuuhhhhhh. No.

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

Swearing Lady is signing off. Go and protest and stuff.Pretend you’re french so you can burn cars out and the like.

Personal Domain Names come to Ireland – Kinda

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

Straight from the PR company of the Irish Domain Registry:

From Wednesday, 31st October, 2007, if you are John P. Smith you can get one of the following domains on a first come, first serve basis:

An applicant named ‘John Paul Smith’ can register the following alternatives:

· Johnsmith.ie [first name / surname]
· Johnpaulsmith.ie [first name / middlename / surname]
· John-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / surname]
· John-paul-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / middlename / hyphen / surname]
· Johnpsmith.ie [first name / middle initial / surname]
· John-p-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
· Jsmith.ie [first initial / surname]
· Jpsmith.ie [first initial / middle initial / surname]
· Jp-smith.ie [first initial / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
· J-smith.ie [first initial / hyphen / surname]
· J-p-smith.ie [first initial / hyphen / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
· Paulsmith.ie [middle name / surname]
· Paul-smith.ie [middle name / hyphen / surname]
· Psmith.ie [middle initial / surname]
· P-smith.ie [middle initial / hyphen / surname]

Also:

To obtain a Personal Domain Name (PDN), applicants will need to supply any one of the following documents. The name in the document supplied must match exactly the domain name applied for eg a document showing Mr. John Smith is not acceptable if the domain name required is johnnysmith.ie

Irish applicants:-

· Irish passport

· Irish driver’s licence

· Irish revenue / social welfare document showing PPS number

· Irish birth certificate

· Irish marriage certificate

· Irish utility bill (e.g: NTL, Chorus, SKY / ESB, Airtricity / Bord Gais / Eircom / Vodafone, O2, Meteor, 3 – bill pay phones only).

Northern Ireland applicants:-

· UK driver’s licence with Northern Ireland address.

· HM Revenue & Customs / Northern Ireland Social Security Agency document showing National Insurance number

· Northern Ireland birth certificate

· Northern Ireland marriage certificate

· Northern Ireland utility bill (e.g: NTL, Chorus, SKY, UTV Internet / NIE, Airtricity / British Gas / BT / Vodafone, O2, 3, T-Mobile, Orange, BT – bill pay phones only).

Fluffy Links – Wednesday September 12th 2007

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

Congrats to John on his launch fo SocialMedia.net

Elevator Love Letter – Might feed your Blogorrah needs. Certainly catty enough. Props to Oisin for alerting me to this.

New Irish blog on Satnav stuff.

Think I’ll get this 1TB portable hd, though 500GB for 99 euros is nice too.

Gotta love Vista

Ooops. Google accidently released a private video on the future of Google Reader and feeds.

Cos we all want fake sunroofs.

Via Una, forget the story about that gobshite Kathy Griffin, the bit I like is that the sketch Dick in a box won an Emmy but the Emmy people did not know how to present the win. Here’s the origina, yeah 26Million views:

Via the Rickster, is this fantastic trailer for the horror flick Black Sheep, first we had Snakes on a Plane, now we have mutant killer sheep:

Sharron Shannon was on the radio yesterday and talked about an Irish dancer/freestyler called Nathan Pilatzke that dances at her show, this is a mySpace video of Nathan and his brother John:
dancing part 1
And them on YouTube:

Dublin based covers band to play 21st?

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

Know of any? Friend is looking for one and doesn’t know where to start.

Online Edge Seminar – Thu September 20th, Digiweb Blanchardstown

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

I’ll be one of those giving a talk at Digiweb‘s Online Edge Seminar on Thursday week.

Some details:

Online Edge Seminar

3PM to 5PM on Thursday 20th September in Digiweb Blanchardstown office.

Speakers:

Hoping to tour their data centre too and see if this mobile broadband solution of theirs is vapourware or not.

Feist – Tuesday 25 Sep 2007 in Tripod

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

Fiest is playing on Tuesday September 25th in Tripod in Dublin. G’wan, get tickets. Or try and win some from Nialler.

Via Russell Beattie, live on letterman singing 1234 :

Fluffy Links – Tuesday September 11th 2007

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

Via Seán. iPhone, iPhone Nano, iPhone Shuffle.

Solved! The lyrics to the battles song – atlas.

If I don’t get an Arcade Fire ticket on Friday I’ll be pissed. I’ll be one of the ones Jim describes.

As seen everywhere: Pitchfork gives music 6.8 out of 10.

Staying with music. Ringles? Seriously? Ringtones on a cd and a single.

Looks like call boxes in the UK could be scrapped with mobile penetration so high. Ireland to follow?

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos – Redneck Edition:

How to deal with death:

Guinness Storehouse – No bar unless you get grub

Monday, September 10th, 2007

Looking at new location for Blog Awards. Looked at the Guinness Storehouse. No bar allowed unless people have a substantial meal due to the Diageo reponsible drinking initiative. They will of course supply the food, for a price. Waiting on price for Gravity Bar for post event boozeup.

StartupCamp/Tech Audition Ireland/Some other name

Monday, September 10th, 2007

Myself and Conor O’Neill, Walter Higgins, Tom Corcoran, Joe Drumgoole and Keith Bohanna have been discussing the idea of creating a kind of showcase event in the next while. The idea is to have a competition which will hopefully have 16 Irish Tech startups show off their wares in front of a judging panel comprised of VCs and tech people from Ireland, UK, Europe and the States and around this event itself would be talks about how to start a business and the various lessons that need to be learned.

There’s a huge lot of stuff that needs to be done though. We’re currently hunting for a location. Digital Hub and Alexander Hotel are options. We are also trying to line up judges and until we have them we can’t confirm a date OR a venue. Chicken and an egg really. One European judge has said she’d get involved. We are also looking for sponsors.

I would think we will need serious sponsorhip money if we have to cover the traveling costs of the judges and we want to give a great prize. We’re hoping that the majority of judges will themselves be VCs and we want to use the event to show off the emerging talent of the Irish tech industry. We do want to see companies get investment, afterall. Know any VCs that would make good judges? I’m currently working on getting a media partner for this event too. My fav part of this is everyone has to send in a video of their pitch so the website should be a bit of fun and will get everyone talking and get attention for everyone that enters.

The organising of this has been hard going and I’m disappointed that many companies will only get involved if their competitors are not involved. Getting enough interest internationally is another issue too and I had hoped to use the Paddy’s Valley trip as a way of talking up the Irish Tech Startups but finding people willing to go to Paddy’s Valley apart from the usual suspects, has been really tough, almost like pulling teeth.

Perhaps we need a more established partner like the Irish Venture Capital Association or someone like that to get involved or perhaps, we are planning too big and for the first few years of this we should grow this “organically” and let the name and reputation build by starting off with a small prize and with local judges. I really do wonder with the lack of feedback from Enterprise Boards and Incubation Centres when contacting them about various things including Paddy’s Valley, whether there are enough quality startups that we could show off to international investors without them saying “Just these 10? That’s all of them?”

Feedback on this is most welcome.

Here’s the current one-sheeter:

What is StartupCamp/Tech Audition Ireland?

A one day competition to find the best new technology service/company in Ireland. Judged by international and national peers. 16 companies will be invited to present their products to a panel of judges. They have a total of 15 minutes to show off their idea and answer questions from the panel.

When: To be decided

Prize: Cash prize.

How to apply: See website for further details.
All companies have to send in an “Audition Tape” to be considered. Judges will then select the best 16 who will go forward on the day to the final round. No restrictions with regard to companies being incorporated, trading, revenue generating but this is for emerging companies/startups.