Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

Interesting 2008 – Take Aways

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

Late for the party? Totally. But at least I was there.

So Interesting 08 happened a few weeks ago (June 21st 2008) at Conway Hall in London and life has been so hectic that I’ve not had time to talk about it til now. Tom Hopkins blogged his thoughts on it as did Colm “Gold Medal Limbo Dancer” Brophy and Alexia.

The crowd: (Photo by Bowbrick)
Interesting 2008

So what is it? Well it’s a gathering of people that know Russell Davies and who go up on a stage and talk about something they think is interesting for about 3 minutes. Some got 6 mins though! Lots and lots of presentations based on the tastes of these random folks. And it really worked. The talks were all over the place and so brought in new areas for most people. The youngfella who designed the new UK coinage also gave a talk. And the chap that did that amazing Radiohead remix was there too. I went to enjoy myself and to also wonder could we have something like that here too. I think the rules stated no talking blogs, twitter or technology as such.

It was amazingly informal and as Tom above noted the crowd were patient and understanding and amazingly behaved. We gave everyone attention and appreciated their effort. No grub was provided, the attitude being you could find a local cafe at lunch. There was tea and coffee but again it was a help yourself attitude. The whole thing was very English. From the country hall feel to the building, to the bunting, to the singing (yes a sing song), to the tea and nice biscuits and the overall nice to be nice attitude. I loved it.

Roo Reynolds gave the first talk on Lego and also pointed out all the other talks in this post.

There’s also a Rememble Interesting 2008 media timeline.

In the pub after I got to talk to the amazing Dave Funkypancake. Who takes photos. A lot of photos.

Will McInnes. The Robin Hood of social media and analytics.

Also met the rockin Annie Mole who has a blog on the London Underground. Sorry to be all transport geeky but what a great idea for a blog and no wonder it’s hugely popular. Oh and I’m subbed and finding brilliant brilliant stuff on it.

Josie got herself a big chunky tattoo made with marker too. As one does.

So dya think we could have an Interesting for Ireland? What would you talk about?

New Irish Times blogger – Bryan Mukandi

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

Hooray. Bryan will be writing the OutsideIn blog.

Fluffy Links – Wednesday July 2nd 2008

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

Blog Post of the Month should be announced over there later today.

SoundCheck is back and is weekly. Thursdays in Spy. Free in. Cheap booze too.

Charity Poker tournament in Cork on July 5th.

Via MariaA photography exhibition from Boards.ie users.

Zinadoo now allows you to upload video to your mobile site.

Nialler has a nice assortment of music on this post. Check out the bands Heathers and Fleet Foxes.

Zoomii – Check out a very visual way of going through Amazon.

A zettabyte is

Google’s advice on spotting SEO cowboys.

Inside CRM has some great stories on SEO cowboys too.

Via I guess I’m Floating, a quick preview of the new album from Cold War Kids. Great to see YouTube to promote albums:

That PutPlace feeling

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

PutPlace

This is the first of the companies to be covered on The Tuesday Push. PutPlace, as their blurb states does this: “secure, organize and share your digital life”. Think about all the media that you have all over the place: On cameras, iPods, memory cards, portable drives, that old battered laptop you’ve kept as there are some docs on it that you might use someday…

So imagine all of that data was nuked/wiped/drowned. Well PutPlace allows you firstly to see what you have, then sort it, then back it up. Then if you want to push that stuff to another place, you can do that.

That PutPlace feeling is knowing all those digital bits and bobs are sorted. I do like the case studies part of the site. PutPlace is currently in Beta so it’s free to use. They recently opened up to public beta so are looking for testers. So you’ll get 2 gigs of unlimited space (during beta) to back up all your digital pieces and they’ll be backed up in a sensible way, not you just mass uploading stuff from folders.

Please consider trying out and reviewing PutPlace or talk it up on your blog.

The Tuesday Push – Getting word out in a co-ordinated way

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Cheerleaders?  For real?
Photo owned by Micah Sittig (cc)

Shopped this around to a few folks in the Web/Tech scene in Ireland and they liked the idea, so we’re going ahead with it. The Tuesday Push is a way for the small but growing tech community in Ireland to make some noise about ourselves by picking a good example of an Irish Tech Company and highlighting their product(s) every second Tuesday. This co-ordinated way of highlighting our abilities will hopefully get tech companies heard a bit more and also foster more community spirit as we help each other out by getting everyone greater attention. We’ll need as much help from those in the tech scene in Ireland to work with us on this so please tune into participating blogs. Hopefully there’ll be a dedicated space for this project soon as well as a Twitter alert.

The premise is that everyone talks up a company (if they think it deserves to be) on a particular date. Every second Tuesday at it happens. Everyone tech and non tech alike are encouraged to talk about the company so that hopefully a tipping point is reached and a potential investor or journalist or partner hears/reads about the company.

If you want your company/product mentioned, please fill in this linked form. If you have a product announcement too, better again. You might consider timing it for a Tuesday Push. If you do partake please realise that you are encouraged to highlight the company of the week too, not just yourself. The more talking each other up, the better.

Today’s company is PutPlace. A blog post on them shall follow.

Of crisps and chocolate

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

In a discussion on Sunday night with some of the folks from Salesfoce and Coda and other companies, I mentioned the notion of eating chocolate with crisps. It seems the non-Irish (everyone there except me) were a little disconcerted at the idea of having a pack of crisps and eating a chocolate bar at the same time or just after. It appears to be a foreign concept in many parts of the (not so apparently) civilised world.

Questions were flying at me like the time between eating the crisps and then having the chocolate or was it at same time, the flavour of the crisps (when I said cheese and onion there was uproar!) and I was also asked would white chocolate be used. Vile. No.

Who else likes having their crisps and choccies at the same time?

These:
Tayto Mountain
Photo owned by kissmygrandmother (cc)

plus these:
French Chocolate Brownies  0608
Photo owned by ChezDeniseetLaudalino (cc)

= yumm.

Fluffy Links – Tuesday July 1st 2008

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Donncha has a nice video of crazy Kathy Sinnott threatening legal action after Germans caught her signing in to “work” on a Friday morning with all her bags packed to fly away to Ireland and not “work” that day. Apparently she had worked all night instead. Of course!

Marie Boran from SiliconRepublic has restarted her blog – The Strange Quark.

Thomson Safaris – assholes.

Karen Schwartzman, a spokeswoman for the company, had this to say in response to their name being associated with the murder:
“Obviously it’s a tragedy. But the fact this company has had its name associated with this nightmare is another tragedy.”

Mick has a great post on the latest on the Robert McCartney murder.

I’ve signed up for a co-working space in Cork.

Via Kevin, where in Ireland do porn searches come from?

Ewan has a great post on presentations. Study it.

Spiritualized cover True Love Will Find You in the End.

After a massively damaged reputation, Real Networks are starting to claw back some goodwill, thanks in part to blogging.

What is Boing Boing up to with the deletions?

Gotta love Who Fans.

MSTRKRFT – Street Justice

Cowen’s Downfall – 28k views so far

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Made the Irish Times too.

Accolades from YouTube:

#1 – Most Viewed (This Week) – Ireland
#1 – Most Viewed (This Week) – Comedy – Ireland
#1 – Top Rated (This Month) – Comedy – Ireland

#14 – Most Discussed (This Week) – Ireland
#2 – Most Discussed (This Week) – Comedy – Ireland
#80 – Most Discussed (This Month) – Ireland
#6 – Most Discussed (This Month) – Comedy – Ireland
#55 – Most Responded (Today) – Ireland
#3 – Most Responded (Today) – Comedy – Ireland
#38 – Most Responded (This Week) – Ireland
#2 – Most Responded (This Week) – Comedy – Ireland
#25 – Most Responded (This Month) – Comedy – Ireland
#86 – Most Responded (All Time) – Comedy – Ireland
#38 – Most Viewed (This Week) – Comedy – United Kingdom
#80 – Most Viewed (This Week) – Comedy
#83 – Most Viewed (This Week) – Comedy – France
#25 – Most Viewed (This Month) – Ireland
#4 – Most Viewed (This Month) – Comedy – Ireland
#6 – Top Favorites (This Week) – Ireland
#2 – Top Favorites (This Week) – Comedy – Ireland
#24 – Top Favorites (This Month) – Ireland
#3 – Top Favorites (This Month) – Comedy – Ireland
#18 – Top Rated (This Month) – Ireland

Foodie Blogging: The Still Restaurant in the Dylan Hotel

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Had a lovely meal in the Dylan last night. We started with Gazpacho which was presented as a plate with the bread, a basil and cress thingy on the bread and tomato foam around it and then the waitress poured the gazpacho from a mini-jug around the bread:

Gazpacho

For the main meal was Sea Bream with borlotti bean purée & Spanish ham(yay Spain):
Sea Bream

Quenelle of Cheese Cake, with sablé crumble, raspberry coulis and filo crackers:

cheesecake

National Broadband Scheme – Strange Bedfellows

Monday, June 30th, 2008

While rumour on Boards.ie is that the National Broadband Scheme is canceled, despite providers being brought this far, heres some interesting (for me) data about it. Just looking at more FOI’d documents from the Department of Communications and the list of companies and consortiums who applied for the National Broadband Scheme tender:

Wirefree
Eircom
BroadNet (Motorola & Azotel Consortium)
3 Ireland
BT, Wirefree & Avanti Consortium
Avanti Broadband
Crimson Tide
Clearwire, Motorola Consortium
IFA, Motorola Consortium
UPC, Enet, BT Consortium
Smart, Enet, Last Mile, Permanet Consortium