Today is the last day for nominations for the 2010 Irish Blog Awards. This year the awards are hitting the road again, taking place in the Radisson Blu in Galway on Saturday March 27th.
As usual I’m leaving it until the last minute to get the nominations in, and if you’re like me then you’ve got until 3pm today to get yours in.
Of course if you’re looking for a nice arts and culture blog, take a gander at The Devius Theatre Company 😉
Check out the Blog Awards site to make your nominations.
THE SECRET of Kells has been on a good roll of late. Hell, it’s been on a good roll since the movie premiered last Spring. Of course, nothing says “good roll” than rolling on up to the Oscars as Cartoon Saloon’s The Secret Of Kells has been nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 82nd annual Academy Awards. See full list of nominees here.
If Glen Hansard can do it, maybe the “luck of the Irish” can rub off as the Tomm Moore directed movie goes up against Corlaine, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Princess & The Frog and Up (which I loved in the cinema).
Congratulations to Tomm, Paul and everyone else at the Saloon who worked on the production, both in Ireland and overseas. It’s great to see another company from Kilkenny making a serious mark on the global stage.
photo credit: petter palander
SPEED NETWORKING, by definition, can be described as
A method of making a potential business contact by briefly talking to people at an organized event and exchanging contact details.
We’ve all been there, we’ve all done it. Networking opportunities are available every day of the week and we’ve had and seen some great successes out of contacts made on Open Coffee mornings, BarCamps, PodCamps, BusinessCamps, CreativeCamps and more. While the bigger events usually mean a day trip away to Dublin / Cork / Galway or elsewhere, a new dedicated speed networking event has been announced a little closer to home.
Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce intend holding it’s first of four speed networking events in the Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel on the 9th February 2010 from 6-8pm. There is no charge for Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce members or Kilkenny County Enterprise Board clients.
Those interested in attending the first of the speed networking nights should contact Billy O’ Neill at (056) 7752767 or email billy.oneill@kilkennychamber.ie or visit www.kilkennychamber.ie.
Of course, if you don’t want to wait until next Monday, why not join the table at Kilkenny Open Coffee this Wednesday morning at 11am in the Kilkenny Cafe at Market Cross Shopping Centre. Admittedly I’ve always preferred the informal networking opportunities presented by the likes of Open Coffees and BarCamps to those of organised networking events but with more and more people starting to go out on their own, it can pay to get out and get talking, whether formally or informally.
GONE ARE the days of getting out of the arrivals area of Dublin airport, crossing the road to the pay stations for the car park before getting on the bus, and passing out at the total displayed on the machine for your few days parking.
Gone too, seemingly, are the days of needing to use your credit card to get in and out of the car park in Dublin airport to validate payments made online.
In fact, so easy was the process that I had to follow up with airport parking online this morning to make sure that I’d been charged for the weekend’s stay in Long Term Red and that they realised the van was in fact now out of the carpark and not lingering in section D12 any more.
Admittedly it’s been a while since I’ve had to drive to the airport, I would usually opt for JJ Kavanagh’s door-to-door service for the airport spin but seeing as I was heading away on Friday and needed more time in Kilkenny than a bus schedule would allow me, it made sense to make the drive to Dublin Airport. Parking was booked and paid for by credit card on Thursday night and on arrival on Friday lunchtime, there was no need for cards or tickets or receipts – simply pull up at the barrier, your registration is scanned, transcribed and displayed on the barrier screen and in you go.
No problem I thought, just don’t lose the credit card in Scotland as you’ll need it on the way out.
But no. On returning last night, albeit close to three hours late and one failed take-off attempt in Aberdeen in horrendous snow and ice, I joined the queue getting out of the car park and no sooner had the barrier come down in front of me then it was up again. So quick was the process that I went off with the receipt of payment for the car in front of me and though the barriers had actually stayed up and maybe there was a fault.
Following things up this morning and all was well in the world, checkout confirmed at the Red exit for 8:54pm, card charged the right amount and payment details available for printing on the the DAA site, fears of parking charges building up allayed. Certainly makes the whole parking thing a hell of a lot easier.
THIS WEEK has been a grand week so far in terms of plotting and planning for the business year ahead. I’d told myself I would take until January to explore a few online options for contact management, entry-level CRM apps, anything that could be tied back to the iPhone.
This morning was the turn of signing up for the Salesforce 7-day trial for their contact manager.
I’m looking for a service that will manage my own business contacts, plus that of the theatre and music side of my work life, and those for another project I’m rolling out over the course of the year. It’s got to be web based, have some element of grouping or tagging and an iPhone app or handy desktop app linking back to the web end of things are a serious plus. More to the point, it’s got to low cost on an annual basis.
Salesforce have a contact manager available online that I’m going to explore over the next couple of days, making use of a seven day trial. Ultimately the service costs $60 a year, or monthly at $5 a month and while I’ve not yet had the chance to play around with it, I had a call from one of their pre-sales team within a half hour of registering online to talk through a few things, introduce the service, suss out my needs and offer further calls if needs be.
Can’t say that I’ve had that happen before so it’s certainly left an impression. We’ll see what happens in a week or so.
Of course, recommendations are always welcome…
FOLLOWING ON from yesterday’s foray into the world of online food shopping it’s safe to say that everything arrived, is packed away in the fridge or press and I’m stocked for the week.
From looking at the food on the table (in the above picture), *almost* everything arrived as ordered. As a follow up, I’ve broken the process down to a few areas.
Delivery
On the website I was quoted €4 for delivery, the window chosen being 10:30am to 12:30pm today. True to their word, at 11:50am the driver turned up with two crates, dropped them for unpacking on the table, got me to sign for the delivery and off he went. Charge on the bottom of the receipt reads €4. The bottom of the receipt also indicates that the goods were scanned and paid for at 11:16am this morning, so that’s a pretty good turn around (i.e. the dairy side of the order wasn’t out of the fridge all that long). Might be worth noting too that I didn’t order any frozen food and I’m trying to refrain from ordering anything frozen at all for the year. So far so good.
Substitution
Superquinn provide product substitution on your shopping list, where something you’ve ordered isn’t available. In my case, it was the beef strips for the stir fry. This is possibly due to ordering the beef strips as part of their online meal deal offering beef strips or diced chicken, plus fresh stir-fry veg as a bundle. Knowing I had some chicken in the freezer anyway, I opted for the beef, which now appears to have been unavailable in Superquinn Kilkenny.
That said, the diced chicken was available and it will certainly do. When ordering online, you do have the option of instructing your personal shopper *not* to substitute a product if it’s out of stock and if I was really picky I could have asked for beef regardless, break the special offer etc.
Pricing
On their website, it is noted that
Today’s price is an estimated total and may differ slightly from the original order value due to variables such as weight estimations for meat and produce, weekly specials, price changes or stock deletion
.
My order, at “today’s price”, yesterday, was estimated at €51.04. The final price, including delivery, came to €53.48 and there were a few differences on the final receipt.
The onions were ordered, I’d looked for 700g, the bag coming in at around 550g thus shaving a few cent from the order. Prices fluctuated here and there but most notably in the offers that weren’t adhered to. The site also has various price reductions running up to January 26th including 90c off packet soups (didn’t appear on the receipt), 89c off rocket salad (again, no go), 79c off fresh soup (no go), 95c off lemongrass noodles (again, no discount)… adding up to €3.53, plus the cost of the green tea jumped from €1.89 to €3.99 giving a total increase in prices to €5.63, yet the final discrepancy just €2.44.
Given there were certain things in the order that won’t need to be ordered again next week, I would expect things to balance out in week two and keep in line with my €50 p/w budget.
Overall
Overall, I’ve been impressed with it. Like I indicated yesterday, the online ordering process is a breeze, there’s full details available on everything going into your shopping basket and on delivery they provide you with a list of everything that was delivered
It would be nice if the printed dockets included notes on what was substituted, or differences in pricing, but other than that, I’m set for the week, didn’t have to leave the house and I’m willing to give it another lash next week.
FOOD SHOPPING online. That’s what I’m resorting to. Or perhaps, changing to. Judging from the time between this tweet and the confirmation email I received from Superquinn, I’m guessing my entire weekly shop was done in around 17 minutes.
No driving across town. No parking. No queuing. No impulse buying (okay, maybe a little with the breakfast cereal) and all within a €1 shout of my weekly budget.
The Background
Budgeting is something I’ve got to do more of this year, both through the business and with personal finances. In that regard, a lot of attention was turned towards my food shopping spend during the week. If 2008 was a year for regular grocery shopping, 2009 was a year of convenience shopping. Forget about bringing lunches to work, just nip across the road to the shop near the office and drop €30-40 a week on bits and bobs from the tea / salad / hot food bar. Forget about planning any kind of dinners for the week, just drop into SuperValu on the drive home and pick up something – anything. Or failing that, spring for a takeaway. Week in, week out, same old story. So between the office eating habits, mixed dinner shoping and takeaways I reckon I burned somewhere in the region of €3,700, with maybe €3,300 or so going on convenience lunch and dinner shopping.
So this year, I’ve given myself a budget of €50 for the week to cover food shopping. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, the whole lot. Estimating for 48 weeks of the year that’s €2,400, almost a €1,000 of a difference. I’m hoping too, I can stick to it through online shopping.
The Shopping
The choice was pretty easy in the end. The small local shops like Centra, Freshco etc. are too small for online ordering. SuperValu and Dunnes (both located in Kilkenny city environs) don’t offer such a service. I’ll shop at Lidl but it would be for something very specific (their fresh veg is quite good). There’s no Tesco in Kilkenny, at least of yet, so the only possibility as I see it was to shop at Superquinn. They’ve long been installed in Kilkenny but again, if you’re going food shopping there you need to allocate plenty of time between getting into the multistorey, shopping, the mad queues etc.
So, I skip on over to Superquinn.ie, sign myself up in two minutes, complete the registration for the Superclub card and away I go.
The process is quite straight forward. Shop by department or browse through categorised special offers. Or if you’re feeling adventurous, go for one of their pre-made shopping lists (e.g. New Mum & Baby, Organic, Superior Quality etc.). So I begin to browse, working my way through fruit & veg, meats, groceries, going for what’s tried and trusted or what usually forms part of the weekly-ish shopping.
The layout is as you would expect, and want, to find. Each item displayed gets a box or product shot, the price and choice to add to basket. Once you’ve got the product in the basket you’re able to add notes to yourself or add it to your favourite items, remembered for the next time you shop. Dig a little deeper into the product itself and you’ll get full description, serving suggestions, cooking instructions, ingredients and nutrition information.
You’re also able to add product-specific notes to your personal shopper (assuming this is the person who will be filling your shopping from the store), including whether you would like an item substituted or not.
Skip to the end and within that 17 minute window I’ve completed my weekly shopping, picked my delivery window of 10:30-12:30 tomorrow (Tuesday) – as opposed to a “click and collect” service – and managed to squeeze in eevrything I wanted, and delivery, for an estimated €51.02. Payment options are available for both credit and laser cards. It says estimated, I guess, to allow for substitution or non-substitution, as the case may be, of items on your shopping list. The full shopping list is stored online and emailed direct to your account and I’ll be checking it against the arrival tomorrow.
Why I’ve not opted to food-shop online before I’m not sure but if anything, I managed to stick to the budget (plus or minus a euro) and likely got an hour back in the day for the time spent online. With the list saved for next week’s shopping, barring any small changes, I would imagine there would be more time saved in the day.
I’ll follow up with a part two tomorrow, providing the shopping arrives when it says it should…
Little bit of a cross-post redirection play here to and article I’ve penned for Devious Theatre over on the blog. In prepping a series of articles for the group around some of the technologies we use to keep ourselves afloat and assist our daily workloads, an article in today’s Irish Times has me drawn back to pub theatre with fond memories of our first production, Heart Shaped Vinyl, back in August 2006.
The return of pub theatre (by Peter Crawley in The Ticket) and how we too will drink to pub theatre.
THE DEVIOUS theatre company, one of my other / many hats, have announced details of our first major production in 2010, Dario Fo’s Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! and I’ll be on KCLR96FM around 4:15pm afternoon chatting about the show. You can tune in via KCLR96FM.com (live stream link).
We do a lot of things online as a company, given we have no physical premises as such (bar sharing each others offices for the odd rehearsal / recording session). We blog, we connect, we share videos, tweet, hold our meetings online, use private forums for staff discussion, provide online resources, scripts and schedules for cast and crew, we advertise (and have completed a few useful Facebook ad campaigns), we podcast, we’ve an online CRM setup for managing contacts and suppliers and a whole lot more besides. The next logical step of course was to start selling tickets online.
I had long thought about it for the group, given the wide variety of venues we’ve performed in, the growing and varying audiences we’re attracting show-on-show, and the difference in management for pre-bookings or box office practice per venue that it would be good to introduce something online that we could manage ourselves, cost effectively as well.
Enter Eventbrite, which within ten minutes of using I had our December performance of Accidental Death of an Anarchist up and running, with five nights of tickets to buy for, connected out to our Facebook profile to plug the event there and (add on another five minutes or so) tickets available via DeviousTheatre.com with their embedding service.
So with a new show on the horizon and tickets gone to the printers, we figured we’d do exactly the same for our production of Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! in March.
There were a lot of plusses for using the service. To start with, it opened the door to a potential new revenue stream for the group. We decided that 2010 would be the year we focus on turning the group towards a business, the first step for us in bringing the company “professional” (join the queue for the debate between amateur and professional theatre) and as such, revenue streams have to be looked at. We spend a lot of time, as a group, online in promoting and documenting our shows and we felt that online ticket sales would give us the ability to reach those that are the more serious web users, those au fait with booking online. We also wanted a way to provide ticket sales to people traveling from out of town, those who couldn’t travel to Kilkenny before the box office closed at six, or those who didn’t want to give credit card details over the phone. On both, accounts, it worked.
That was the test – would it work. I would have considered it a success if one person had bought one ticket online, at least we know it worked. But one turned into three, turned into 17 and more as the weekend theatregoers turned up with their pre-printed tickets (made available by Eventbrite), our door staff crossing off the checklist of those who registered and paid for tickets online (also made available by Eventbrite) and as a plus for us, we had immediate access for funds to use online in advance of the production. As the payments go from Eventbrite to our Paypal account, and we’re avid eBay users for sourcing props for shows over the years, we’ve created a stream of income we didn’t quite have before.
For some of those people attending Accidental Death of an Anarchist, who bought their tickets online, it was their first time to see one of our productions – a further success in my eyes. Would they have come to the show or traveled 30 miles to Kilkenny if they hadn’t been able to buy their tickets online? Maybe, maybe not, but they came. And as a bonus, we’ve decided that those who did purchase tickets online for our first show will receive a nice discount on the online purchases if they want to buy tickets for Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! online. A token gesture for us, yes, but at the same time we’re hoping it would encourage people to return again and enjoy another night at the theatre.
The tickets for Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay are on sale. You can pick them up online here and here. There is a booking fee of €1.07 per ticket sold online, something that we’re also able to manage ourselves and it’s how Eventbrite (much like the credit card companies or physical theatres) will make their money from box office sales. When Eventbrite deliver funds per show / ticket sold, those funds include the booking fee. Post-event we’re invoiced from Eventbrite to recoup the booking fee, and again, it’s a straight Paypal transaction. Outside of that, there’s no other cost involved. No membership fee, no setup fee, nothing.
So we add online ticket sales to our bow, and we know that it works. I’m still tempted into doing an online theatre production, or live-streaming one of our own productions but we’ll have to talk to the licensing powers that be about that one.
And yes, I’m sure there are other ticket-selling resources available but we’ve tried Eventbrite, made it work, had it generate revenue and open a whole other realm of online promotion for the group so we’re happy to keep going with it.
Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! runs at the Set Theatre, John Street, Kilkenny from Wednesday March 10th to Sunday March 14th 2010. Tickets available online priced €13 ex booking fee. Keep an eye on DeviousTheatre.com for more details.
THE SECRET of Kells has been included in the shortlist for Best Film at the 7th Annual Irish Film & Television Awards. The product of years of hard work by local studio (Kilkenny) Cartoon Saloon, the animated feature has been going great guns on the international film circuit over the past year so it’s no surprise to see it included in the running for the IFTAs.
This vibrant animation is a spirited retelling of the provenance of Ireland’s mosted cherished artefact, the Book of Kells. With the Viking hordes approaching, the monks of Kells are forced to turn their attention from transcripbing manuscripts to building barricades. The future of the precious book is in jeopardy and it falls to Brendan, young nephew of the abbot Cellach, to save the day.
The Secret of Kells is Cartoon Saloon’s first feature film and was directed by Tomm Moore with Nora Twomey as his co-Director.
Congratulations to Tomm, Paul Young (producer, who is also working with us at The Devious Theatre Company in the upcoming Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay) and all involved both in Ireland and overseas on the continued success of the movie.
If you’re interested in hearing from the director himself, I produced a series of podcasts for the Kilkenny Arts Festival last year, one of them being a post-screening Q&A session with director Tomm Moore. Grab it here via iTunes.
MY OLD haunting ground of Young Irish Film Makers recently announced details of their second 24-hour film festival dubbed Caffeine and it’s taking place this coming Friday January 15th.
The goal is simple. You have 24 hours in which to script, shoot, edit and upload a short film to YouTube, with your entry to be no longer than five minutes.
The competition got a good reception locally when it ran last year (YIFM being based here in Kilkenny) but as it’s an online competition, the doors are open to everyone. But, of course, you can’t just go shooting a film about anything. The organisers of the competition will email all teams prior to kick-off on Friday evening with a small list of objects that must be included in your short and must be relevant to the overall plot.
For more details on Caffeine 2010, read this article. To register yourself, or a team, for this year’s festival please click here.
The video above is the winning short from 2009, Sclever, produced by Slackless Productions. The winning team included Stephen Colfer, Sarah Walsh, Conor Barry, Richie Cody and John Doran.
Note: Young Irish Film Makers is an innovative Irish film training and production studio where young people aged 10-18 have the opportunity to create and communicate their ideas and stories by making feature films for international television and the internet. I sit on the board of directors for Young Irish Film Makers.
THE N95 just “ain’t what it used to be” to me any more. When I picked up the handset close on two years ago it was a revolution for me. High quality digital camera (5MP), wifi, and easy use of Twitter and Qik through the S60 apps.
When I picked up the iPhone 3G last May, not long before the release of the 3GS in June, my N95 usage in departments camera, browser and video started to dip noticeably. This largely due to my O2 mobile broadband sim virtually living inside my iPhone instead of the USB modem for the past seven months or so.
And while I’m happy out twittering away from the iPhone or going about my daily online business, the one thing that I was hoping would come about was the facility to stream video, using Qik, without having to either a) jailbreak the iPhone or b) upgrade to the 3GS.
A quick dip into the app store last night, spurred on by this blog post, which I had missed over the festive period, and we’re back in business.
There are two versions of the Qik app available – one for iPhone 3G and one for iPhone 3GS. I’m running the latest firmware available on the iPhone 3G and the video above went off this morning without a hitch.
I’ve also shied away from Qik after my O2 billing fiasco in the summer, a 3 minute Qik clip in Connolly Station at the start of the Kilkenny Arts Festival wound up costing me a few hundred euro – lesson well learned in bringing the wrong sim card with me that day. I’m hoping, given the success of the first video this morning that I might be a bit more fortunate on the live video front this year.
The app itself works a charm, the interface very straight forward, one-button record and you’re set. As per your profile on Qik.com you can tie in your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or other social accounts, broadcast live or record offline to store videos on the iPhone and distribute later, use the GPS to share your location with the video (by city, street or precisely), and like the S60 version you can make use of the chat.
I wouldn’t install it unless I knew I had the use of it and with Devious Theatre about to kick into action tomorrow for another two straight months, the return of the One Take Sessions (music series I run in Kilkenny), the multitude of festivals happening locally during the year, I’ll be looking forward to capturing – and making use of – video moments throughout 2010.
Try it for yourself, it’s available in the App store since December 24th and it’s going for the grand ole price of free.
All that remains for me to do is upgrade the N95… keeping the eyes peeled for a nice android handset.
photo credit: Lucy James Photography
OPEN COFFEE. It’s not just about wifi. In fact, it’s not about wifi at all. It’s not a gathering of people around laptops, programming in the corner of a coffee shop. It’s not over elaborate demos of bandwidth-heavy project developments. At least those points are valid for Kilkenny anyway.
Open Coffee is about the people.
The people who are working for themselves. The people who are working online or in an online-connected environment. The people who want to learn or share internet experiences whether personal or professional.
Yes, the wifi helps and if it’s available it will likely get used to pull email during the morning, allow people check in to the office, push photos out to twitter etc. But at the end of the day, it’s the conversation that counts.
Barring the odd slip of an iPhone onto the table when the conversation turned to Foursquare yesterday at Kilkenny Open Coffee, there wasn’t a hint of a laptop or netbook to be seen. Mobile phone reception in our current venue is dour at the best of times, but it’s the conversation that counts. Further insights into dbTwang, technical writing for the US markets, outsourcing to South Africa, travel in Prague, location-based services, iPhone app development and more were up for discussion yesterday. All over a few pots of tea before everyone went back to their homes and offices for another month.
For me personally, I take it as a great chance to get out of the office, if just to meet up with familiar and new faces – once in a month – for a tea and a chat. Spending as long as I do in the office or working from the house (both by myself), it does good to get out and about when the opportunity presents itself.
If you’re thinking on coming along next month, we’ll likely be getting together on Wednesday February 3rd, same OCC time, same OCC channel. Details here and map here. Actually, rumour has we’ll be bringing it forward to 11am instead of 11:30am to suit those who take the train and give out free pens.
If it’s your first time going along, don’t worry about a laptop. Bring a pen and paper, or a business card, or just yourself.
photo credit: Maria Keays
TOMORROW WILL mark the first anniversary of Open Coffee in Kilkenny.
The first Wednesday of every month in Kilkenny sees a gathering of local business types, entrepreneurs, homeworkers, techies, non-techies and more meet for coffee at Kilkenny Cafe in the Market Cross Shopping Centre, usually from 11:30am to about 1pm. Tomorrow, being the first Wednesday of the month, will be no different.
The last twelve months have seen mornings of 2-3 people through to double figures. There’s nothing strict about the gathering – you don’t have to be involved in a technology startup, you don’t have to be a web designer or web worker, you don’t even have to be from Kilkenny. People drop in, people drop out, some people come along for a half hour, some people stay for the morning and beyond but whoever is there on the day, the conversation is always good with the ideas and chats in plentiful supply.
Of course, the majority of us that go along to the morning would drive, so weather-pending, we’ll have a nice turnout for tomorrow morning.
If you’re in the neighbourhood, have a story to tell, a business idea to plug, want to get out of the house or office and grab a cup of tea or coffee with people working (quite possibly) in a similar space to yourself, then drop along to the Kilkenny Cafe in Market Cross any time from 11:30am to 1pm. We’re usually found up in the meeting area at the back, in on the right. There’s free wifi, usually a few offers on tea, scones, lunches or whatever you’re into food and beverage-wise.
For those driving, there’s parking available in the Market Cross car park with entrances off James’ Street or Parliament Street, while for those walking you can enter Market Cross via James’ Street or High Street with the Kilkenny Cafe located on the ground floor in the corner, next to Penney’s.
See here for a map or visit KilkennyOpenCoffee.com to find out what’s been happening at the last few meetups.
photo credit: Let Ideas Compete
FIRST THEY upgraded the trains. Then there was the new seats and the power points (offset possibly by the increase in food and ticket prices for the trains themselves). Now it looks like Irish Rail users on the Dublin – Cork – Dublin service will be able to available of wireless internet access, free of charge, courtesy of Irish Rail and Airappz.
Sure enough, they won’t be the first to offer wifi access on public transport with several coach operators around the country, including Kavanagh’s here in Kilkenny, offering on-board wifi but the development is something that has been long hoped for and though trialling for six months will hopefully stick around and get rolled out across the new fleet.
The trail installation will be for a complete trainset for the duration of the trail. After these 6 months Irish Rail will (together with Airappz) evaluate the usage & performance data and based on this they will decide whether or not to put the provision of a fleet-wide wifi service out to public tender.
I’ve never been one to take long journeys on the bus and up until I started driving I would almost always look to take the train, or a connection of trains to reach my destination. Though the cost of tickets has gone through the roof (I was shocked to pay €32 earlier in the week for a return to Dublin from Kilkenny, let alone the cost of a return from Cork to Dublin – €78.50 monthly return at time of writing), the train is still relied on by thousands of business commuters around the country, particularly those living outside of but working in Dublin.
Watching tweets over the last few months and years from those testing out mobile broadband dongles on the train to much joy / sorrow depending on what mobile operator you’re with and /or where on the map you’re passing through, I could only hope that the wifi service that will be rolled out on the Cork – Dublin line will be strong, consistent and ultimately be taken up by passengers and Irish Rail alike, paving the way for rollouts on other lines.
When I’m not driving, and Dublin bound (like this weekend gone), the train is still preferred. And if I could get a solid connection to work from without having to rely on mobile signal, I’d certainly be a happy traveller.
Congratulations to Evert Bopp, more good news for an Irish company.
Christmas Day at Lough Talt, lake frozen for the first time in “many a year”
FOR THE past three years I reckon I’ve told myself I’d get out, get some more photos, actually start pushing them out online as well.
On holiday in October I picked myself up a Canon IXUS 120IS and it’s gone a long way to re-invigorate the hobby photographer in me. I’m still using the D70 for commercial work but having the small one in the pocket made such a difference over the Christmas and has left me with a great stack of photos to sift through and upload in the next day or two.
Though not jinxing things for myself, it might be high time turned some attention on my neglected photoblog.
These (above and below) are from my winter wonderland, or Lough Talt, Co. Sligo, where I’d made the longer-than-usual-thanks-to-the-weather drive to be with the family for Christmas.
When I’d first picked up the D70, I was genuinely amazed and impressed by the technology within the camera. Flash forward a few years and skip over to the Canon compact and I’ve been left incredibly impressed all over again. In the whole of Christmas, and the two months or so that I’ve had the camera, I don’t think I’ve taken it off the automatic setting – the camera literally doing all the work for you and producing a fantastic quality image at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as happy behind a full SLR in crafting a photograph as I am in whipping a compact out of my jacket to catch a snap there-and-then but there’s a lot to be said for the marriage of technology, quality and convenience in this case.
Whether it’s enough to egg me towards revisiting my photoblogging, we’ll have to see. It could be fun though…
Christmas Eve at Lough Talt, Co. Sligo
TAKING ADVANTAGE of being in Dublin for the day or two, I finally got around to trying out Foursquare, having signed off before boarding the train a half hour ago.
First thoughts? Not too bad at all, Bernie Goldbach having already paved a way for me (seemingly) around Grafton Street and Stephen’s Green – this coming from the tips that were pushed through to me depending on where I checked in e.g. “as you are close to Brown Thomas…” etc.
That type of user input could come in handy. A tip from Bernie had me check out the top floor of BT, one from Una M had me scouting the massive mirrors in The Morrison on Ormonde Quay, and other tips coming through suggested helpful staff or places to eat.
Given the type of shopping we were at for the day it was primarily clothes shops that were hit, the frequency at which I checked in (“nothing here, let’s try the next shop up” etc.) wasn’t appreciated by the application, twice being accused of cheating my way around Dublin.
Tips aside, I can see and appreciate where the fear or security element may creep in. (See Niall H’s post from earlier today on privacy concerns ovre geolocation servies). A recent Christmas dinner with Keith, John and Frank Bradley arose conversation of social media savvy criminals and having my own home broken into a few years back (possibly due to my well advertised-online gig schedule), I would certainly be more aware of broadcasting my every location and every move. But things have changed about the house, new alarms fitted (and annoyingly loud), some people now sharing so there’s usually someone there around he clock. For those not in that position, or given the ability to broadcast your location instantly via Twitter or Facebook, are we starting to give too much away and putting ourselves at risk to certain unsavoury elements as a result?
Also, from my travels around Dublin today I was able to piece together where certain offices were, who the bloggers were within them, and given the mayors of certain eateries, where their breakfast or lunch breaks might be taken, or where they might be found during the evening if they’ve checked in for a pint in X on more than one occasion. Does it give way to unwanted profiling, or again allowing too much information about ourselves out into the open?
I had opted not to integrate Twitter / facebook to Foursquare or Gowalla, which I had been trying at the same time, more so not to be bugging people who follow my online activity with my every move – the in-built social side of Foursquare (friends) should and does take care of that. But again, while I’m happy tweeting and blogging away about where I might be off to or where I’ve been of late, I’m still not 100% on the notion of pushing absolutely everything about my whereabouts online.
Privacy matters aside, the offers I was alerted to while walking around the likes of Grafton Street and Dawson Street, though none were availed of, also show me that Dublin businesses are starting to get on board with geolocation, offering rewards for the use of location-based services that bring you through their doors. Some offered free cocktails, one a free three course meal for your birthday if checking in, others offering combinations of offers for the mayor of a particluar establishment.
If the likes of Foursquare was opened up to cover Ireland on a whole, or add a few ports-of-call outside Dublin, I might be more tempted to engage it as a way to avail of updates and offers from businesses in the locality but I’ll assume all in good time. Time in itself that might get me more comfortable in sharing my exact whereabouts with the rest of the world.
By the way, if you’re heading to Dublin tomorrow or in the next few days, it’s colder than cold up there. While the streets had begin to thaw today and the council had been out to grit a few paths, it’s still messy underfoot and icey around the ears. Wrap up warm.
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Post started on WP2.1 on the iPhone somewhere between Dublin and Athy and wrapped up back at the ranch where it’s an awful lot handier to get photos and links in on the laptop.
IT’S THE start of a new year, a new decade. A chance to review the last 365 days and plan, or attempt to plan, for the next.
Sure enough, there’s a lot I’m going to do this year between work, theatre, travel, music, business as usual really.
What I missed throughout the year was a regular sense of blogging, something I’ve thorougly enjoyed over the past five years and something I plan to return to with much more vested interest in 2010.
For now, it’s the first day of a new year and those reading this I will assume are both alive and well. That’s the way it should be 🙂
To each and all I hope the new year does you well and you the same. Get up and get out, get on with your projects, turn your hobby into something new, open new doors and meet new faces. All the time while you’re doing it, have a blast as well.
K
Photo via Twitpic, © Gav Reilly
Alas poor Supermacs, I knew ye well.
The taxi was called after nine for a few Christmas pints, having braved the drive from Sligo a few hours previous. The driver said “there must be something up” in town, evident by the large pillar of smoke rising over the skyline but by the time we reached the parade, restrictions were well underway. A quick detour around the town and five minutes later I’m standing on High Street watching Supermacs burn.
I remember when it opened, back in primary school at the time with some lads in the class tearing off in to town to be amongst the first few in the door and get themselves a free burger. Supermacs arrival in Kilkenny was massive, equaled, I guess, in size by the damage caused during last night’s blaze. For over an hour I found myself standing on High Street, blocked by the guards from venturing past the post office, watching on as a good half dozen units of the fire brigade went to work on containing the fire and stopping it spreading to the adjoining shops and apartments. Their efforts, if you read the Kilkenny People (here and here), were successful albeit having to return to a rekindled blaze in the early hours of the morning.
For many a year (before my appetite, diet and perhaps, sense, prevailed), Supermacs was a favoured haunt for secondary school Friday lunches or as a destination for post-pub grub on a night out.
The glass roof is gone, “other aspects of the building” have collapsed and ultimately it looks gutted but thankfully, not one person was hurt, injured or worse in the blaze.
Alas, poor Supermacs, we knew ye well.
