Ken McGuire

Author: Ken McGuire

  • Where art thou Zoomtags?

    So some of you have heard of zoomtags and some of you have not. Basically, while currently in beta, zoomtags works in two ways and anyone familiar with del.icio.us tagging will be comfortable with the service; you get a tag cloud to place on your blog which works in a similar fashion to AdSense generating you a small revenue on a per-click basis, or you can bid for tags in their billboard model.

    This has some interesting points. If you signed up pre-launch, you get 65% of the revenue generated per-click for life. So if I advertised my business at 10c a click, you would make 6.5c on every click, if you registered after the “pre-activation period” you make 50% of the revenue.

    So far so good. But there’s still no sign of them, unless of course you’re in Spain where they’ve geo-targetted the service and started pumping out ads straight away. After all the hype building up to the February 6th launch (where nothing happened), we’re now told that we wait 2-3 weeks…

    Originally we had planned to launch the service on February 6th, 2006, and in a way we’ve done it (we’ll explain it later), however as we explain in our blog we have engaged in several deals with major advertisers, and we feel that it will be best for all affiliates – and consequently with the advertisers as well – to wait until these deals are closed, so that when we activate the service, affiliates will have a much larger variety of tags and ads in their clouds right from the very first day, so as to form appealing tag clouds.

    When are we expecting to activate the service for both, affiliates and advertisers? We believe that within two weeks (three the most) we should be able to close these deals, and the moment it happens, we will activate the service without further delay

    With no action on their blog for almost 3 weeks I’m wondering where’s the service, if you tell people that it will be ready in that same 2-3 weeks? Anyone else heard anything on the matter?

  • Does Microsoft Finally Have The Upper Hand?

    In the war for supremecy between the Xbox and PlayStation, I’m starting to wonder if Microsoft has finally gained the upperhand in the whole console war thing?

    The Xbox 360 is spreading like a bushfire, massive pre-Christmas sales, people simply couldn’t get a console, strong post-Christmas sales keep the 360 going and going – they seem to have all the angles covered, even with the hefty pricetag. Then along comes Sony, hyping up the PS3 since ever, yet now it seems that they may well be facing a delay of anywhere up to six months, or maybe beyond to twelve months.

    Doing some blog surfing at the weekend, I came across Merrill Lynch’s report via engadget that cost-per-unit of the PS3 is going to run around $800 in the US, provided of course that they can get the technology they need (including Blu-ray) ready for their estimated spring launch. With a retail price being touted in the region of $400-$500 it would seem that Sony are going to take a massive hit come launch day.

    Yet, reading through Reuters this morning (article published yesterday) it looks like the console might not hit Irish waters for another 12 months.

    Most analysts took the report in stride as they already expected Sony to launch the PS3 this summer in Japan, followed by a U.S. launch before the Thanksgiving holiday in November. They expect a launch in Europe in early 2007.

    With all this extra breathing room it looks like there’s plenty of time for Microsoft to continue converting fans of Sony’s console over to their way of life. Wouldn’t you think?

  • Broadband still lagging – no way!

    Ireland are still lagging in terms of broadband usage, of which the level of penetration stands at 5.34%, compared with a high of almost 24% in the Netherlands.

    Great what you come across reading Aertel.

    It is a bit shocking though in fairness. God knows we’re slow to get the ball rolling on most things in this country but you’d think people would slowly start to come around to the idea with all these new companies offering BB connections springing up.

    A report from the EU says obstacles remain in Ireland with regard to the further development of competition in the fixed and roadband markets. It says this is especially so because of the limitations on ComReg’s power to enforce decisions.

    Between dodgy Luas lines, a sinking port tunnel and countless other activities that are falling behind time, you think we’ll ever get on top of this whole broadband uptake?

  • And the nominees are…

    The final nominees have been released for the Irish Blog Awards with all categories (bar one or two) trimmed down to five nominated blogs. If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, take the time out to acknowledge some of the best blogs this country has to offer!

  • Voting Kicks Off Monday

    The final voting stage for the Irish Blog Awards kicks off this coming Monday as voting closed tonight with around 1,100 votes cast. Of course, the usual Irish trend of stuffing the ballot box stuck its ugly head above water and the number of legit votes is likely to drop according the Damien Mulley who will also announce the winner of the O2 goodies (i-mode phone) on the same day.

    On another point of interest… whats with all the hype over i-mode? In fairness, its been around for years, YEARS, already and there isn’t anything spectacular that you can do with it anyway. Still, fair play to O2 for sponsoring the prizes and good luck to everyone chosen for Monday. Its been fun to be listed for a while 🙂

  • Fair play to Google

    I was a bit skeptical at first in relation to Google integrating GoogleTalk into GMail – but I’m pretty happy with it. I don’t use it with the webmail front, I prefer the traditional IM interface, but its nice being able to finally chat to a few Mac heads nice and simple without worrying about what version of what software you’re using!

    Bridging the gap – about bloody time 🙂 Seen as they’re busy taking over the world with so many bigger projects… what took them so long?

  • Web 2 Tuesday

    Reminder mails being sent out this morning so its a good time to highlight IrishDev.com’s first joint venture with the IIA in the Morgan in Temple Bar. The lecture will “feature an introduction to Web2.0 Technologies, Business & Marketing implications and code based demonstrations, teaching you to build Web2.0 asynchronous software on .Net and Enterprise Java platforms.”

    The plan of action for the night is as follows…

    • Registration and refreshments
    • Welcome to IIA/IDN and intro to their strategic partnership by Fergal O’Byrne (IIA) and John Brennan (IDN)
    • Introduction to Web 2.0, Definition, Business, Marketing, Software Design, by Fergal Breen and Paul Browne
    • Configure and create an Ajax web application using .Net (Fergal)
    • Configure and create an Ajax web application with Enterprise Java (Paul)
    • How to develop your Web 2.0 Software and sites using Agile techniques
    • Wine reception

    …and booking details, reservations etc. can be made by visiting the event site here.

  • Get a free phone! Wow!!

    Whats all this? I take a day off and find people clambering for votes (vote Ken) in the Irish Blog Awards (where you can vote for me) and find that Damien Mulley has managed to get some O2 goodies which you can win (by voting for Ken) if you get yourself over to the voting website (where you can vote for me in the best technology blog category) and cast some votes (for me) before the initial round of voting (which includes casting a vote for Ken) closes today, Friday February 17th.

    Jokes aside, its an honour to be named amongst your peers for anything at all so even seeing my own name (Ken McGuire, 😉 ) up on that list is good for me.

    But, if you were to vote for Ken McGuire in the Best Technology Blog category then you could nab yourself.

    Did I mention that you can vote for me in…… yeah yeah…..

  • Blogging For Beginners

    I set up kenmc.com as a blog based site back in October last year and in fairness, didn’t really do a whole lot with it. Since shortly before Christmas and moreso since the new year I’ve definitely taken my blogging more serious and continue to blog across 3-4 different sites on a daily/bi-daily basis – all the while, I still consider myself a beginner, and I think its nice to do so. Always learning, always adapting, always beginning.

    So, while I’m in that frame of mind, I might point out that Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger.net has started a Blogging For Beginners series of posts, rehashing some of his older material and exploring new areas. If you’ve never ventured into blogging and you’re considering it, it’s worth a look.

  • New blog features

    Got a little time out this evening to make some additions to kenmc.com, whether you’ll notice them or not! I’ve added a nice Social Bookmarking plugin which covers the likes of Del.icio.us, Digg, Yahoo and a few other spots which comes courtesy of Max Power based of Paul Stamatiou’s work who handcoded the original version. Should help out with keeping track of posts, and it adds a nice splash of colour to the blog 🙂

    I’ve also shifted around the comments to integrate the comment count into the post title (you’ll see the current comment count for each article in brackets) which takes away the link of italic text beneath each post that I never really liked. Nothing like a bit of cleaning on a rainy night….

  • Irish Bloggers In Demand

    Michele Neylon is calling for Irish bloggers who blog business, either for themselves or their company, ahead of the IIA blogging seminar in March. If you’ve got any experiences good or bad go give him a shout here.

  • US In A Cyber Storm

    Cyber security is critical to protecting our nation’s infrastructure, in 5,000 words or less. I can see it coming up on the leaving cert papers in the future, never mind the fact that it’s already being tackled in colleges and ITs across the country. The US government, however, belive it and set about proving it as the Department of Homeland Security in the US have just completed ‘Cyber Storm’, a week-long excercise carried out in the basement of the Secret Service in DC.

    “Cyber Storm reportedly not only tested against attacks by hackers, but also by bloggers – who deliberately spread misinformation in the exercise.” Interesting note about the bloggers. The news comes via BBC, but you’d wonder if the Irish government would ever think along the same lines? Considering that I think the future of terrorism lies beyond bombs – you wipe out the Internet and we’re all done for!

  • Dark Day For Jeeves

    Well, its a dark day for Jeeves – he’s getting the sack. The man (can you call him that) has graced the screens and domain of AskJeeves.com for around a decade, he calls the shots over at BlogLines (they were acquired for an undisclosed price last Autumn) an he’s become an absolute icon and catch phrase among internet users.

    And now, his P45 is in the post. Anyone in need of a famous internet valet for their homepage?

    Update : After writing this post, I came across Save Jeeves via AllEver, as written by a “fan and former employee” speaking in “defense of The Butler”.

  • Proud of second place

    “We’re not number one, but we’re getting there”.

    Can anyone remember what company used that as a motto? Can’t for the life of me remember, but now it’s applying to Sandisk who are proud to state that they are in fact number two, but the company are making the most of being number two behind Apple in the digital audio player market in the US. With a marketing budget nothing like Apple’s, the hype alone could be their best marketing in itself.

    They do make exceedingly good memory cards, Mr. Kipling.

  • Songbird : First Look

    So I got to try Songbird last night, and while it looked great on the outside I’ll admit that I was disappointed at first use. Robbie’s been having problems with his installation and had to source additional dll files he didn’t have which didn’t come with the package at the time (the source code has since been published).

    But the crashing hit my machine as well, not with the editing of track names mind you – I didn’t get that far. I’ve got a sizeable music collection at home. I’ve converted my whole CD collection and have stocked up over 10K tracks on my machine and Songbird must have been looking at me saying “eh….. go way outta that, I’m not counting those”, when scanning my music folder for tracks. 4 seperate occasions it simply breaks down…

    The site, which was down most of yesterday has now resurfaced and is packed with all the details on it. First look for me wasn’t fantastic by any means but with the software still version 0.1, there’s a long way to go yet so I’ll be patient.

  • Songbird goes public

    I’ve been waiting for this for quite a while and delighted that Techcrunch could tell me that Songbird has launched – how did that one slip by me? The site is down at the moment but you can download Songbird by clicking here.

    What is it? At the core, its a media player built on the Firefox engine with an interface not unlike iTunes and is being released for Windows, Mac and Linux – the above version is for Windows, the rest will follow soon enough.

    Songbird plays the Web. Songbird may view Web pages as playlists of MP3s. Soon, Web page authors may publish playlists and transfer MP3s into Songbird in support of digital music stores like eMusic, music subscription services like Yahoo! Music Unlimited, virtual jamming services like Ninjam, playlist sharing services like WebJay and more

    Being based on the Mozilla/Firefox engine, its going to be open to user extensions so we might see this evolve as much as Firefox has. Off to try it this evening – yet another new web toy for Ken to play with….

  • Future Of Web Apps in London

    The Carson Workshop’s Future Of Web Apps summit is underway in London and Emmet Connolly is posting his notes and thoughts via the Web 2.0 Ireland blog. Seems to have a nice little Irish contingent over there, wouldn’t have minded going myself I think! There’s live notes also available here from Futurilla.

  • Share Your Bandwidth

    Take a piece of software, install it on your router, and make free phone calls wherever you go.

    Thats my taking on FON, a company on which Skype has recently laid down a nice chunk of cash in the hope of spreading the VOIP gospel. The core of the idea is that FON intends to become a global wifi hotspot, effectively allowing you to make VOIP calls wherever you go, increasing wifi availability.

    The idea is to install the FON software on your WiFi router, place your antenna next to the window and then share your bandwidth with the rest of the world. Suddenly, you’re a FONero! This status gives you the right to use the bandwidth of any of your FON comrades.

    Of course, you’ll need a FON compatible router as well… go figure. Still, if one was to lurk around the streets of Kilkenny – or any other county for that matter – in the car, driving through the new housing estates looking for houses with an unencrypted wireless broadband connection, is this not the same thing? Takes the fun out of war driving…. (not that I’ve ever participated).

    Release from Skype on the same…

  • Volvo : Peace Of Mind

    It seems the fun never stops at Volvo when it comes to technological developments. According to engadget this morning, Volvo have installed heartbeat sensors as a security mechanism in the new breed of the S80.

    Why would you want a heartbeat sensor? To alert you to a loved one’s medical condition while you drive? No chance!

    The new Volvo S80 Heartbeat Sensor is designed to detect intruders heartbeats, to read their fear, and alert you via a wireless alarm on your key chain to the fact that there’s an intruder lying in the backseat waiting to kidnap you. Seriously. Begs the question of course that if s/he has already figured out how to get into your car without setting off the alarm that they might well have cracked the sensor.

    Peace of mind for the paranoid driver I think!

  • Talkin’ bout gMail

    There’s a whole lot of talk going on about Google tying GMail and GoogleTalk together under the Gmail.com interface. Now, I’m a great fan of GoogleTalk – it’s simple and does exactly what it should. Sure, it could do with an extra feature or two (group chat maybe) but why go messing with the system? The one big plus is that it should help Mac users out if it can be accessed via a web interface.

    Now, its supposed to be launching tomorrow (Wednesday) and I got a lovely little pop up when I opened Googletalk earlier telling me that since Googletalk was going to be integrated with GMail that they would be archiving chat transcripts along with your email. My only thought on this was the advertising. There’s enough people out their unhappy that Google scan your email while it sits on the server in order to deliver targeted adverts in the form of adsense – but would I be right in guessing that the archived conversations are going to be scanned for targeted ads when you look at them?

    I dunno, everybody says that its going to be great – ok, maybe not everybody, but “people” say it will be great, personally, I’ve got my doubts.