Ken McGuire

Author: Ken McGuire

  • Happy 21st Gary

    Just a quick unrelated post to say “Happy Birthday” to my younger brother, Gary, who finally turns 21 today!

    And also to mon pére whose birthday it was midweek.

    Might I say… its about bloody time!

  • Hanging New Photographs

    Up until yesterday I hadn’t touched my photoblog since late June so at about 10pm last night I got a massive case of Spring-cleaning fever just as we head into the cold months of the year.

    This of course means that I’ve deleted all the content from my old iteration of the photoblog (which was basically a rehash of content I publish(ed) on DeviantART), launched it with a new theme and some new works (archives here).

    Ten photos or so on it now and definitely more suiting of my actual style and interests (gigs, people) than anything else. Trying to update it daily (or at least schedule a load of posts in advance), been meaning to try showcase some of my more recent stuff since, well, around the time I lost interest in the last iteration!

    The theme works really well at higher resolutions (1280*1024), just a simple photoblog theme I picked up and will eventually get around to tweaking to my liking…. The original theme, Nishita, can be downloaded here.

  • Is Page Rank Really Important?

    Are you concerned about your Page Rank? Or do you really know what it is?

    People that have been blogging for some time, or are familiar with the way websites work and Google works will have heard the term Page Rank at least once in their lifetime. In more recent times Page Rank has really become a golden currency around the web – the higher your Page Rank, the better your chances are of swapping links with someone, earning revenue from advertising, getting traffic through your site or blog.

    This article that I picked up this morning looks a little at the two sides of the coin that is Google Page Rank – and if you still don’t know what it is all about then its worth a quick read with your morning cup of tea.

  • 9 Rules Round Five For October

    Blogging community 9Rules.com has announced their fifth round of submissions will take place for a 24 hour period starting on October 25th (midnight – EST).

    Find out more here…

  • First It Was Dell And Google, Now Its Yahoo And HP

    Earlier in the year Dell announced a partnership with Google for all new machines shipping out of Dell – a machine’s browser homepage would default to a special Google landing page offering Dell and Google products and news.

    Now, according to the Taipei Times, Yahoo have snapped up HP (having already snapped up ACER to the same deal) to have browsers on new HP desktop and laptop models in Europe default to the Yahoo homepage. Users in the US will have a cobranded HP Yahoo toolbar preinstalled on their machine.

    I’m not at all fond of the Yahoo toolbar or any other toolbar for that matter (if I can’t get it in my Firefox bookmarks bar or search for it in the top left on one of the FF searches then I’m not too bothered). All the same, its a good deal for Yahoo as continue to battle it out with Google for search engine domination, HP being the second largest global PC manufacturer behind Dell.

  • Stopping (Or helping to curb) Blog Content Theft

    If you’re a WordPress user, you might be interested in this….

    Digital Fingerprints is the launch of a new plugin for WordPress aimed at tracking blog content theft. It won’t prevent people from copying and pasting material directly from your blog, but it will surely annoy those who republish others RSS feeds into their own blog for the sake of content.

    The plugin injects a “digital fingerprint” manually into your posts which is seen only in your feeds, not in the post itself.

    Maxpower.ca has the full post and all the details.

  • Taking Friday At 88mph

    Not too often I get to do nothing on a Friday night thanks to this baby, especially of late with the birthday and the relaunch… so tonight I get to take Friday at 88mph and mark the fact that I just picked up the 4-DVD set of Back To The Future.

    Found this clip as well on YouTube… very well put together and perfect choice of song. Give it a watch if you’ve a spare five minutes…

  • BarCamp Tomorrow

    I won’t be in attendance though at this late stage of the game it triggers my interest but making the journey to Cork isn’t on the cards for me tomorrow. However, it is on the cards for a nice sizeable chunk of the Irish blogging community, many of whom I check in on on a daily basis, which is actually a pity as a pint in Cork (come on… it says BeerCamp on the bottom!) would be tasty.

    Anyway, those people still not in the know….

    Barcamp is a technology-focused, ad-hoc gathering of passionate folks who want to share, interact and spread the love around what they spend their days and nights toiling away on. It is an informal gathering of people from technical and business backgrounds, where information and experiences are exchanged. The event is geared towards sharing knowledge and learning from others and there is a policy of encouraging active participation in all discussions.

    Its free for the day (find your own parking / accommodation / look after your own bar tab) and kicks off just after 9am tomorrow in the Webworks building on Eglinton Street (come up Patricks Quay, swing over the bridge and go straight on (don’t turn right for the Bus Station) and you’ll run onto Eglinton Street in a minute or so (near enough to the city hall).

    There’s a shed load of (nice and polite Ken) talks going on and it looks to be a fantastic turnout. Keep an eye on the official site and the blog as well, updating during the day no doubt, while we can also expect plenty of feedback from the many participants and attendees. There’s free WiFi going too…

    Rumour has it theres some food on in Wagamama tonight (great restaurant I might add)… though its already getting late. Keep an eye on the blog for updates.

  • Rate Your Hospital (Yet Another Rating Website)

    Kilkenny (St. Lukes) averages out about 62%…. Ardkeen (Waterford Regional) averages out at 58%… considering that hospitals should be aiming for 85% + to be in the good books on the site, what can you find out about your hospital.

    Check RateMyHospital.ie (yet another rating website)

  • First Woman Entrepreneur Of The Year

    Good sign of the times this as Anne Heraty has scooped the Ernst And Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award.

    Via Aertel…

    Anne Heraty, founder and chief executive of CPL Resources, has become the first woman to win the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

    She was named as winner of the international category before receiving the coveted overall title last night.

  • Sexify Your PC And Win Big

    That seems to be the message coming out of Intel in the news today as they’re offering up to US$1m for “designers and manufacturers who can come up with sexier alternatives to the big, beige box” (according to the BBC).

    Now, I’ve seen PC’s modded into toasters, remote control cars (ever seen linux run on a toaster).

    Now maybe thats not exactly what they’re after. But with over €250,000 given to the winner to help mass-produce the new machine (which has to run on Intel’s Core 2 Duo chips) there’s no doubt to be a wave of interesting entries.

  • What Kind Of Person Are You?

    One for the internet uers among us (I think that counts for everything if you’re reading the blog!)…

  • Creative Links for 2006-09-28

    • Soccer statistics from almost 100,000 players and nearly 500,000 games. Great stats available on the Premier League going back to 1992/93, as well as other national leagues and competitions.
    • R.S.S.S.F. stands for Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. It was originally founded as NERSSSF (for Northern European Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation) in January 1994 by three regular contributors to the rec.sport.soccer newsgroup. The sheer vo

  • Wanted: Digital Video Camera Suggestion

    I’m considering the purchase of a digital video camera, mid range camera in the region of €1500 tops. If anyone can suggest anything that would be worth looking into for less than that kind of money (like the €500-€1000) range then I’m all ears. Camera’s main purpose would be shooting gigs, so I’m looking at high quality under low lighting. Audio capture doesn’t have to be fantastic as the end result would use feeds recorded via the desk.

  • Help Yourself At 6pm

    If you’re in Kilkenny today at 6pm and fancy dropping into Langton’s on John Street, you might just be able to Help Yourself as Aidan (Event Ireland) and Keith (Bohanna Consulting) kick off a new series of monthly talks (presumably in Harry’s Bar inside Langtons) aimed at local businesses.

    Help Yourself is a way for businesses in Kilkenny to get a gentle introduction to various bits of the internet without techie speak and in the company of like minded people. It is a network with a monthly talk/seminar and an online resource with additional backup for the talks.

    The talks are being supported by the Kilkenny County Enterprise Board and each talk will feature a rotation between Aidan and Keith for the main topic of discussion, as well as a guest speaker for 20 minutes discussing their own personal internet-related experiences. Guest speaker for tonight is local businessman John Ellis of E-Insurance Ireland. John will be speaking on the success of his own website and lessons he has learned from it.

    Tonight’s main topic for discussion will be domain names and email associated with those domains. (e.g. having your own .com or .ie but using an eircom.net address or other free provider).

    You can find out more at HelpYourself.ie

  • Quality Broadcast Material Online From RTÉ

    Looks like RTE have joined the internet exchange, INEX, and are looking to “deliver quality broadcast material over the internet in a more efficient manner”.

    You think that they’ll be charging the average internet user for accessing this “quality broadcast material”. It’d sure beat the hell out of paying a TV license fee, and at this stage of proceeds I get enough enjoyment out of watching material online than paying attention to whatever is on the telly.

    No mention of what this quality broadcast material is exactly, though I wouldn’t mind seeing someone develop new program material for RTE to be distributed strictly on an online basis.

    For those of you who don’t know who INEX are, they’re the Internet Neutral Exchance Association, based out of Dublin.

    Our objective is to provide high-speed, reliable and resilient IP traffic exchange facilities for both Irish and International organisations, allowing them to route IP traffic efficiently thereby providing faster, more reliable and lower-latency internet access for their customers.

  • KilkennyMusic.com Relaunches

    Been a quiet week in the blogging sense as literally all my spare time during the week has gone into relaunching KilkennyMusic.com. The site had previously been working on a PHPNuke 7.8 install with phpBB integrated for the forums…. no more!

    After pulling the site down last Tuesday in the very wee hours of the morning, it has relaunched this morning on a Joomla install. Most of the work involved was in getting all the users and forum posts migrated to the new setup, then spending a good bit of time templating up the site (and the forums to match) before getting all the components installed.

    For anyone who is interested, the site is running the latest version of Joomla with the latest version of phpBB backing the forums. Community Builder looks after the members and integrates well with the forums. That too has had a bit of work done to it to cater for pulling in users posts from the forums, linking their avatars, providing each member with their own homepage and guestbook setup (MySpace comments style). There’s a new free classifieds area, post up some photos, sell your bits and pieces. The photo galleries and Artists Area of the site have been revamped thanks to some new components (thought slightly lacking in content as I’ve to load the backups in today). There’s new live chat features, blogs, podcasts going in this week, free mp3 downloads, KKM radio… and more besides!

    The site now also boasts our new online magazine, ‘Sound System’ which has been made free to non-members as well, we’ve got interviews from some nice bands on the horizon (Laminate, Republic Of Loose, Fugazi, Yo La Tengo and more), a few new writers on board (or just people who were on board before but are now adopting a writers position as well) and overall the site – performance-wise and user-wise has improved a hell of a lot from its PHPNuke incarnation last week.

    If you’re interested in the music, or you’re based in Kilkenny, do drop in and register – its free!

    My thanks to everyone involved in KKM with me behind the scenes, to all the bands that have joined us for live sets during the past 12 months, to the Kilkenny Arts Office and the Arts Council for approving KKM for the Arts Acts Grant for 2006 and to everyone else that we’ve met along the way.

    Why the relaunch?

    We turned 1 year old on September 19th… gotta put something nice on for your birthday! Maybe now I can actually get to bed at a decent hour!

  • Yahoo Hackday Next Weekend

    Visit the Yahoo Hack Day website and you’ll be a little thrown by the following message….

    Sbe gur yngrfg arjf nobhg Lnubb! Bcra Unpx Qnl, ernq gur Unpx Qnl oybt! Yvaxf: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 N O P Q R S Jr’ir bcrarq hc Lnubb! sebz gur vafvqr bhg jvgu bhe jbeyq-erabjarq Unpx Qnl, naq sebz gur bhgfvqr va guebhtu gur Lnubb! Qrirybcre Argjbex. Abj jr’er bcravat hc Lnubb! vgfrys gb n fryrpg tebhc bs unpxref naq fcrpvny thrfgf sbe n jrrxraq srfgviny bs unpxvat, pnzcvat (lrf, gur gragf-va-gur-bhgqbbef xvaq–jr unir ernyyl, ernyyl avpr tenff!), zhfvp, naq tbbq gvzrf.Jr’yy xvpx guvatf bss ba Sevqnl, Frcgrzore 29gu jvgu n serr nyy-qnl qrirybcre jbexfubc (qrgnvyf).

    Mouse over it though and everything is ok… Clever touch.

    The weekend comprises of a series of workshops and speeches, while the night time is given over to “hacking” teams, developers coming together to work out on the lawn at Yahoo or huddled inside the main building. Coders and developers will have their chance to demo their projects on Saturday evening.

    Among those giving talks and/or workshops:

    • Rasmus Lerdorf, creator of PHP;
    • Douglas Crockford, inventor of JSON;
    • Andy Baio and Gordon Luk, co-founders of Upcoming.org;
    • Cal Henderson, Engineering manager for Flickr;
    • Matt Sweeney, author of the YUI Library’s Animation Utility and Dom Collection;
    • Keynote by Bradley Horowitz, head of product strategy for Yahoo!;

    Sounds very interesting indeed….

  • Google Video Ads – I’m Impressed

    Just a quick note on Google’s video ads through AdSense – I’m impressed.

    After posting this morning (Probability = 0.0000001%), the blog refreshed, and low-and-behold the AdSense block to the right of the top post (top of column two) was now playing a video. Short and snappy, a self-promotion video for Google on some of the benefits of AdSense, but the first time that I’d seen a video served through AdSense since they launched the more interactive ads.

  • Probability = 0.0000001%

    Just a little something for the office on a Friday….