The Axe and the Curtain

I picked the wrong time to power down my machine, turn off the mobile and do something.
When I did hear, it was from theRTE radio news and not from friends of mine being hit.

Sorry guys. I'll be around during the week if you want to talk about life outside.

take care,
Will

I'll say this for RTÉ, they were the first off the mark.

tags : news jobs motorola Cork redundancy RTE closure

Sorry Elly

I knew I forgot something...

Elly's talk on Dealing with Death & Divorce in today's Digital World.
The reason I missed it is because there was nothnig in my notes. The talk raised lots of questions but no answers. And a few jokes about talking about divorce while planing a wedding.

Barcamp Dublin (the link won't work, but I half expect it to be that one) will have to get Simon McGarr to cover it.

take care,
Will

tags :
ellybabes tuppenceworth Simon McGarr Death & Divorce overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland

After the show is over

After the BarCamp it is traditional at an Irish tech conference to head for the Bar.
Geoffs Bar and restaurant got the attendees. And the food was good, However the conversation was better.

Things which came up..
Laura and Damien on Nitpickers
and
The main difference between an Irtish talk and an US one. At the Irish conference you talk to a small puddle of faces. At an American conference you a talk to a large sea of laptops.

take care,
and I have a follow on for the morning

Will

overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland

Baby type

Looking at someone having difficulty balancing a laptop in one hand while typing it with the other..
"Has anyone thought of doing a baby carrier type thing for your laptop"
"That would be so sad." / "That would be so cool!"

-- differing simultaneous opinions

overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland

Salted bookmarks

"You have your opinion and I have mine, We disagreed last Barcamp... on camera too" -- small disagremment during the Pecha Kucha.

The last item on the timetable of Barcamp SouthEast Ireland was the Pecha Kucha (which no one can pronounce). The idea is that you have 20 slides for 20 seconds each... and you have to talk about it.

Since no one has any slides prepared, the site delicious.salted.com gets opened up and the speaker types in their username for delicious. Then the last 20 sites they bookmarked in del.icio.us show up for the person to talk about why they bookmarked it.

I did it again this time. I don't have a delicious account... so i typed in a random name (this time the user Will existed) and spoke about the next 20 sites which appeared.
I think I did OK.

However, it's a bit of a dangerous site... I mean I could get ANYTHING. I also can find out the last 20 sites anyone had bookmarked if I know their user name.

Scary?

Will


tags :
Pecha Kucha delicious delicious.salted.com del.icio.us security scary overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland

Dictatorships, hard disks and fur

"Oh yeah they are getting bigger"
"In the terra and peta"
"As in animal rights"
"Yeah"
"Petabytes does sound like a tech-animal testing group"
-- hard disk talk in case you didn't figure it out


The next talk I wanted to see what James Corbett's "How blogging got me a dictatorship". A few people pointed out that the talk is probably called "How blogging got me a directorship" but I prefer my version, and from the little bit I know Keith Bohanna who manned the whiteboard used for the constantly rescheduling conference, I think he'd like the idea.

It didn't happen. I wanted to see how blogging can be used in taking over a country... unless he meant the The people’s Ard Fheis.

take care,
Will

tags : terra peta harddisk eirepreneur James Corbett dictatorship directorship Keith Bohanna people’s Ard Fheis overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland

Podcasting at Barcamp

"Radio stations have listeners but podcasters have subscribers" -- Conn Ó Muíneacháin describes the radio causal and the podcast dedicated difference in the two audio types.

Next up at BarCamp SouthEast Ireland I had to decide between seeing Donncha O'Caoimh’s Wordpress talk (thankfully Argolon has videos of this talkso I get to see it and it's podcasted here.) or the podcast session. From the quote you can figure out which one I went to.

Bernie Goldbach is interesting to see in person, but arriving mid talk was a bad idea (the talk also clashed with Laurence's talk). I'm not too sure how it went, however Bernie's podcast Inside View number 49 covers all the details. In fact his talk was putting together the podcast during the talk. And talking about what he would do with the finished podcast. Still recording and then editing the podcast in front of the group is impressive. If you are interested, check the inside view podcast.

Next up was Conn's talk (which is covered in the Inside view 50 podcast ... see you may not have to attend the conference to get the conference).

The crux of Conn's talk is noise versus signal. Get as little noise in the recording at the start because every step of the way puts more noise in to the recording.

He did go through a lot more... which reminds me, Hey 2IGTV guys ... go to gigavox.com, download the Levelator and use the thing on your podcast. Please! Getting good levels on the recording was part of Conn's talk.

Conn and Bernie also talked about good examples of podcasts ... I need to check out insidepr.ca, twistimage.com and Alex Gibson for something I can't read in the hurried notes I took at the talk. Yup, not a laptop user at a tech conference... I go old school pencil and paper.

I also know I have to NOT go to podsafe.com, because if I do I'm going to loose weeks...

take care,
Will

tags : radio stations radio podcast edgecast Conn Ó Muíneacháin Conn O Muineachain Donncha O Caoimh wordpress Bernie Goldbach Inside View podcasting recording gigavox levelator insidepr twistimage the persuaders Alex Gibson podsafe overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland

Overheard Free

"Microsoft, Powerpoint, Free" -- Tom Doherty describes the most sought for search terms on SeminarBank.com

tags : overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland

We're all individualised personas

"It's a Dell... you're allowed to drop it" -- handhelds going crash in the room.

Laurence Veale's personas and scenarios. Laurence who works for iQ Content came next in my attended talks at Barcamp SouthEast Ireland.

The details of his talk are in the links above.

The ideas is think about the users of your site. Not as a type. Get fairly specific.
Work out the goals of the user, what does he or she want from your site (e.g. check the search logs to see what is actually looked for). The idea isn't that different from the marketing profiles used for products. I'm not talking about ABC1 type profiles but the more detailed profiles used in the tribe splitting of a market.

Sensible idea, however I've just never considered using it in designing for the tribes.

take care,
Will

tags : Dell Laurence Veale personas iQ Content web design marketing profiles tribes overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland

Stop the press

"No Don't put me through to the press department, I rang up to complain!" -- Damien Mulley on the downside of being recognised by the telecoms industry.

I arrived at Barcamp SouthEast Ireland in time to miss most of Damien Mulley's presentation on "Pissing People Off: Experiences from running a lobby group". The secret seem to be avoiding the nit pickers and actually do something rather than considering the next move.

I volunteered some of my time if he wanted it. Bad mouth, no biscuit for you.

take care,
Will


tags :
Ireland Offline Broadband Damien Mulley overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland

Balls overheard

"Hey, can I put my balls in your bag?"

It's funny in a very juvenile way... and I'm not mature. I think the person to blame is Tom Corcoran but everyone who attended Barcamp Southeast Ireland got a set of juggling balls.

Sometime during the lunch break there was a sort of tutorial in the fine art of juggling... and good workshops on getting hit by random balls, getting food out of the way of balls and chasing after dropped balls.

The snickering can stop now...
Will

tags : overheard Tom Corcoran Barcamp Barcamp Southeast Barcamp Southeast Ireland BarcampSoutheastIreland juggling balls juggling

hey ho hey ho

it's off to Barcamp Southeast Ireland I go... (I know it doesn't fit the song, deal with it)

Looking forward to pestering Bernie Goldbach discussing with Ellybabes and pissing off Damien Mulley (hey its the subject of his talk).

See you there

Will

tags : Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland

Something Goody from Big Brother

Well if there is one thing to come out of the racial discrimination incident(s) of Celebrity Big Brother is that after Jade Goody's outburst to Shilpa Shetty is that there is unlikely to be any more Jade in the papers and mags.

I mean when even Channel 4 describe her as a reality TV star, Jade hasn't much going for her. No, that's not true. She had this huge likable factor. Well that's shattered.

She's cost Channel 4 and Endemol their sponsorship contract with Carphon Warehouse. She's also had her perfume pulled from at least one store chain. With probably more to follow. And her attempt at backtracking is worse.

All this time Shilpa Shetty is living up to her quote... "I have zero expectations. The only thing I really hope to keep is my self-respect and my dignity."

And despite over 20,000 complaints to Ofcom (UK) and questions asked in the UK and Indian governments the ratings are going through the roof.

And all this from a guy without a telly or really caring about the show (I still hope Starbuck senior wins).

take care,
Will

tags :
Well if there is one thing to come out of the racial discrimination incident(s) of Celebrity Big Brother is that after Jade Goody's outburst to Shilpa Shetty is that there is unlikely to be any more Jade in the papers and mags.

I mean when even Channel 4 describe her as a reality TV star, Jade hasn't much going for her. No, that's not true. She had this huge likeable factor. Well that's shattered.

She's cost Channel 4 and Endemol their sponsorship contract with Carphon Warehouse. She's also had her perfume pulled from at least one store chain. With probably more to follow. And her attempt at backtracking is worse.

All this time Shilpa Shetty is living up to her quote... "I have zero expectations. The only thing I really hope to keep is my self-respect and my dignity."

And despite over 20,000 complaints to Ofcom (UK) and questions asked in the UK and Indian governments the ratings are going through the roof.

And all this from a guy without a telly or really caring about the show (I still hope Starbuck senior wins).

take care,
Will

Well if there is one thing to come out of the racial discrimination incident(s) of Celebrity Big Brother is that after Jade Goody's outburst to Shilpa Shetty is that there is unlikely to be any more Jade in the papers and mags.

I mean when even Channel 4 describe her as a reality TV star, Jade hasn't much going for her. No, that's not true. She had this huge likeable factor. Well that's shattered.

She's cost Channel 4 and Endemol their sponsorship contract with Carphone Warehouse. She's also had her perfume pulled from at least one store chain. With probably more to follow. And her attempt at backtracking is worse.

All this time Shilpa Shetty is living up to her quote... "I have zero expectations. The only thing I really hope to keep is my self-respect and my dignity."

And despite over 20,000 complaints to Ofcom (UK) and questions asked in the UK and Indian governments the ratings are going through the roof.

And all this from a guy without a telly or really caring about the show (I still hope Starbuck senior wins).

take care,
Will

racial discrimination Celebrity Big Brother Jade Goody Shilpa Shetty Channel 4 reality TV reality TV star Endemol Carphone Warehouse perfume Ofcom Starbuck senior Dirk Benedict

He exists

I've just had the TV license inspector around.

I always thought he was just a scare tactic...

Just as well I never bothered getting either a TV or a license.

Will

tags :
TV television television license

McEvoy Culpa

And to think I defended morons like Brian McEvoy and the Cork Street Racing team of "Boy Racers".

Actually these are the kids that John Curran wants to see as the owners of crushed cars. I know that the Gardai are taking the issue as a pretty big case, so you never know, that wish might be granted yet.

take care,
Will

tags : Brian McEvoy Cork Street Racing Boy Racers John Curran Garda

Paging Lorelei Kitsune

I rang LAX airport at 4am trying to contact Ms Lorelei Kitsune as she got off her flight from Las Vegas McCarran International Airport on Southwest's flight 608. And its all Ellybabes fault.

Why?

Well she posted this video from Las Vegas from the 8th of January. (go on and watch it, I'll wait).
Apart from the fact that it would be a great way to have a different fireworks event on the Lee (waterworks?) the "event" and Loki are part of the Vanishing Point game (which is really a marketing event for Microsoft and the Microsoft Windows Vista launch.

The games is (are?) a series of puzzles, each one solved reveals a further clue. The plot of the game means that all the puzzles are created by a lady nicknamed Loki. And as solved from the Vanishing Point Wiki she is Ms Kitsuame... who would be flying on Southwest Airlines flight 608.

Well it didn't work for me as I got lost in automated phone hell in LAX.

Can anyone check the flight manifest to see if the character was booked to fly (or actually did fly) on the flight or not? I know she's not a real person, but given the nature of the puzzle, I half expect someone form wither Microsoft or AMD to be on the flight and respond to the page.

She is due to fly again on American Airlines flight 1308 from LAX to Austin International Airport in Texas. No idea why. There isn't an event due in Austin.

Oh yes, there is a closer event. London, UK at Trafalgar Square (probably outside the gallery) at 7pm on January 20, and at either 6pm or 7pm in front of the West side of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany something is going to happen.

Now, if we could get the dark lady herself (or at least a MS rep (Mr Burke or Ms Dillon hint Hint)) could attend Barcamp South East Ireland on January 20 during the competition time) and bring a nice puzzle box for the hordes to digest... that would be great.

And finally, Elly. I want to bother you and ask you about an idea I'm calling the Carny Girls book. Actually you and Donnacha. however I want to play with you oldbones work (and how is she... she hasn't posted for a while and I rally hope that fact has nothing to do with your talk at Barcamp).

take care,
Will

p.s. Loki, if you really want to vanish, I know a few ways to do it.


tags : LAX airport Ms Lorelei Kitsune Lorelei Kitsune Las Vegas McCarran International Airport Southwest Airlines 608 Ellybabes Las Vegas Loki Vanishing Point game Vanishing Point marketing Microsoft Microsoft Windows Vista Windows Vista Vista AMD American Airlines
1308 Austin International Airport London Waterford Trafalgar Square Brandenburg Gate Berlin Barcamp South East Ireland Barcamp Ireland Barcamp puzzle box Carny Girls

The Lady Slays a tune

Who cares about the iPhone then there is Buffy Season 8 on the way.

I guess Joss Whedon is my Master Now.

yippie
Will

tags : iPhone Buffy season 8 Buffy The Vampire Slayer Buffy Joss Whedon

Spokesperson

I finally kept one of my new year resolutions... namely to cycle every day I'm at home.
Despite being here for 5 days, and getting nearly there twice I finally took the bike out.

I'm out of shape and the hills are steep...
However I'll just have to get back on the bike when daylight hits again.

Oh, and since TheFairLady asked, I'll have to post "What I did on my Christmas Holidays" once I finish typing it.

take care,
Will

tags : new year resolution resolution cycle bike bicycle

What is a gay penguin's favourite movie?

Brokebeak Mountain...

Some cracker jokes just don't work.

Yes I'm back from the big smoke of Dublin, and it's only now that I have internet access.

Now can someone please explain to me why all the "kids" in Dublin are tucking the bottom of their pants (jeans, tracksuit bottoms etc.) in to their socks to replicate the "jogpants" look of a primary school uniform?

take care,
Will

tags :
penguin Brokebeak Mountain Christmas crackers cracker jokes Dublin fashion