Category: Internet

It’s been a while since I’ve dropped in on Grazr.com so when I did tonight I figured I’d whip up a handy Grazr window and feed for CreativeCamp.

If you check out the sidebar on the CreativeCamp blog, you’ll see a nice new Grazr window on the right sidebar containing the majority of current attendees blogs. As more people (with blogs) sign up I’ll get them added to the feed as well. If you see anything that needs correcting, just let me know.

You can also grab the Grazr feed itself by clicking here.

It’s no secret that I have a dislike for Dublin. It’s not a place that I frequent all that often but when it comes to social gatherings, in the tech and web industry, it really is the place to be.

Having said that, Cormac Moylan pointed out yesterday that there’s a meetup on for Irish webmasters. There’s a nice, growing list of attendees between Cormac’s post and the thread on the Irish Webmaster Forum.

I also know, for a fact, that my chances of getting to Dublin are zero on Saturday February 9th due to commitments in Kilkenny (I think my next totally free weekend is somewhere around Easter, and at that, I’m gigging in Sligo) but if YOU would like to head along, check out the links above.

Kick-off is scheduled for 7:30pm in the Harbour Master (IFSC), Dublin on Saturday February 9th.

I’m a patient person, but there’s only so long I can spend on hold. Part of my Friday was spent on hold. About three years ago I changed job, spent 21 minutes on hold ringing the tax office trying to get a new certificate and I nearly lost my mind. I used to work broadband support for AOL and hated putting people on hold for any length of time (and rarely did).

That’s why I’m giving the GoDaddy phone support a thumbs up.

I’ve had occasion to ring them in the past, perhaps a year ago or more, when average waiting time could be 10-15 minutes, everything was call > email > call > email > call at an unusual hour (like your mobile ringing after 9pm, given the time difference).

I’ve no idea where the call terminated today but I popped their US sales support number into Skype for a phone call around 11am or so. My reason being that a .eu domain I had registered had slipped by me a week ago and had gone into ‘Quarantine’, according to the EURid whois.

So I dial out, punch through the menu, select sales support, punch in my existing customer number and I’m immediately speaking to an operator. The chap in question, Nick, was quite helpful. I explained the domain had lapsed, was in the redemption period and had disappeared out of my customer account. No problem he says, only been a few days so we’ll charge you the original price for the domain and you’re all set.

Is this now the normal for GoDaddy, that their phone support be so prompt? Or did I just happen to catch them opening the doors? Lord knows in working for AOL there’d be a string of people on hold at 8am in the morning when the phone lines opened.

I’m heading to Amsterdam on Saturday morning for a short break… only there better be an internet cafe open first thing in the morning on Tuesday. Not risking the laptop and going in search of a WiFi connection….

No doubt the website will come crashing down around the ears of those at Ticketmaster…

I’m still gunning for Twitter with lasers but James has produced another mix from the Eireprenuer web-blender with a Twazer of co-worker twitter feeds (web workers) based on postings by Conor O’Neill and Chris Messina.

So much social acitivites of late, some real eye openers coming along, makes for a great time for internet startups and simply suporting fellow web-workers. Interesting times ahead… as ever!

Thought I was having an odd problem with Chorus not being able to display blogger blogs over the weekend, this morning, or still as I type, and didn’t have to look far to see that Twenty is having the same problem with NTL. Of course, NTL being the proud parents of little baby Chorus, everyone ends up missing out. So here I am at home with a load of blogger-based blogs I want to read and regularly read and instead I’m going to twiddle my thumbs and bill Chorus for the time.

Well maybe not, but it does get annoying! I remember Eircom having a similar problem last year where I ended up going through X & Y different proxies to get to certain sites but for a problem to run the bones of a week is a bit of a joke.

And Twenty, I used to work in one of those broadband support call centres (though not NTL) and I’ll agree with everything you’ve said. Nice that they sorted it ten minutes after the blog post but still no blogspot access in Kilkenny! White screens and dropped connections for Kilkenny. Any of you Chorus people locally on the same issue?

I’ve been mulling over the Arts Act Grant application for 2007 for Devious Theatre since this morning and it has only just occurred to me that there is no means by which to submit the application electronically. Forms can be emailed out or picked up from the Arts office but as of yet there’s no means to register your interests online and submit your application for review.

The Arts Council itself doesn’t have this problem – for their revenue grant at the end of 2006 we were able to pick up application forms online, log in to a secure area on the Arts Council‘s own site and upload our finished forms for approval on or before the deadline date.

So why can’t local Arts offices do the same? The Kilkenny County Council‘s own website was the recent subject of a massive overhaul and why it has come on leaps and bounds (believe me, the previous iteration was a disaster of a site and I’ve no problems in saying that) but it still lacks in certain areas – filing grant applications is one of them.

Instead, we’ve got to rely on our trusty postal system to deliver the goods. Fingers crossed we’ll be successful in the application, worked wonders for KilkennyMusic.com last year as we hope will happen this year – the funding really does help to keep the whole thing alive – and with costs already seriously mounting for Devious Theatre in 2007 we hope that we’ll be just as successful there too.

So attention Kilkenny County Council – sort it out!

Some things in life are free, but according to Venture Beat, online backup will never be one of those things – quite possibly due to the fact that advertising oriented business models that would suit free services, just don’t apply to online backup facilities.

But it is the nature of backup that will lead to it not being free…we never view our backed up files online! For this last reason, it is near impossible to derive advertising revenue from online backup and thus it will never* be free.

Food for thought…

I’ve blogged before about my gripes with O2.ie as a website but now it seems Vodafone are falling into that hole as well, as John reveals. I won’t get into the fact that I still think (despite the odd good experience) that the site is still slow and useless at the best of times.

Is anyone genuinely satisfied with the performance of their mobile operator’s website? Wonder how the Tesco mobile service will go when it launches this summer.

The details on the financial split following Google’s purchase of YouTube last year have started to emerge, with co-founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley pocketing over $300m each with the remainder split between investors, YouTube staff and Jawed Karim (he was there at the startup but backed out to finish college – he picks up over $60m for his efforts).

Good God indeed!

Don’t be afraid now…. are you a blogger who plays online poker? You know, the Paddy Power kind or Full Tilt kind? One thing that I haven’t seen coming across any blogs that I read on a daily basis is the mention of online poker. Now, either some people don’t tell others that they’re playing or some people would rather keep that kind of information to themselves or Irish bloggers just plain don’t play online poker.

Now, I’m not much of a poker player, I rather keep my money firmly in my pocket or in the bank where I at least know that the money is still mine. Sure enough, if you’re any way good at cards you can win a few pennies for yourself but I’d rather play it for the laugh.

Now, there’s only so much you can take before you have to try your hand at online poker. All I hear day in, day out from one source or another (namely around work) is poker, poker, poker. “Won a fortune”, “cleanened such and such a person out”, “almost had it”, “head is wrecked”, kickers, trips, hot flushes, cold flushes – whatever. When I say there’s only so much you can take, that pretty much translates into me saying I tried online poker for the first time on Thursday.

I got into a play money game and it was obvious from the outset than nobody gave a rats ass, everyone firing all their chips off in one go. Not being familiar with the on screen options I suddenly found myself out of the game, ticking the wrong option for playing the hand. The second game however, beginners luck or whatever you might call it I went on to win. Only thing is, it took the guts of about 90 minutes to get that far, maybe a bit longer. Seen as poker is one of those games where you’ve got to be paying attention to what goes on around you, I reckon that if you’re into a game you don’t have much time for anything else – that includes blogging.

Now, I also know people who will spend hours online in the evening playing poker, as it happens none of them are really bloggers. People who run poker blogs don’t count either. But I know that if I got into online poker seriously there would be no time at all for blogging.

So I ask, is online poker popular with Irish bloggers? And don’t be afraid to admit it either, its a genuine question. Whether you’re in it for play money or you’re in it to win it. For something that is so popular through the online world, I read little about it through blogs – or is it something that just isn’t worth blogging?

How many times should one have to register or re-register on their mobile operator’s website? After having no joy in trying to log in to the site yesterday I’ve been given this message this morning…

If you have acquired an O2 phone since registering for My o2 then you have a couple of options open to you. You can:

Continue to use your current user name and password when you log in to My O2; this will mean that you can not avail of our free web text service and we can not update your phone details on your My O2 home page.

Re-register for MyO2 using your mobile number; this will mean that you can avail of our free web text service and we will update your phone details on your My O2 home page. You will however have to choose a new o2.ie email address.

In fairness, I’ve been an O2 customer since the old dodgy DOL.ie days. They know I’ve got a phone, hell I only used the website to pay my phone bill during the week – so why re-register? Not as bad as the time I logged in and got someone else’s address book I guess!

All I want to do is send a text message – but no. No text messages, no access to my address book, no access to group contacts… Anyone else having problems with them this weekend? Ever since that big security update last year the site has been nothing short of a pain in the arse to use.

Well well well, looks like Le Web wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Disappointed by the feedback, exclusion of Ireland and other European countries from live polls, dodgy wireless and more. By the sounds of things, its not just the Irish that won’t be going back.

Looks like from today onwards, Ireland’s ever-increasing mobile operator Meteor will be offering their website through Irish – something that none of O2, Vodafone or Three currently do.

Andrew Kelly, speaking for Meteor, said

At Meteor we listen to our customers, and there was the demand for our website to be translated into Irish, so we simply made it happen. We are committed to providing all of our customers with a simple, easy to understand website, and we’re delighted to offer this service to our Irish speaking customers

I think its a shame the other operators don’t do it. When I was in Canada it was hard to find something on a shelf, in a store, or on a sign that wasn’t also written in French as well as English. Why can’t we just do the same over here? At least encourage the language or help people see what some of the most basic words and instructions are?

TJ McIntyre takes a look at some of the issues (legally) surrounding the use of meta tags and keywords, in particular the use of competitors brands and trademarks as keywords in your meta tags.

Trade mark law was not drafted with metatags or keywords in mind, making it difficult to bring these situations within the legislative language. There will be some situations where the trade mark use is legitimate, for example, a company which manufactures spare parts for BMW cars might be entitled to use “spare parts suitable for BMW” in its metatags.

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Just picked up on Adam Maguire‘s article for the Sunday Business Post on how ‘Ireland is a world leader in online legislation’ with focus on Bebo, its Irish use and its co-founder’s (Michael and wife Xochi) visit to Dublin last week for a meet and greet and a few presentations(which was also highlighted on the Bebo homepage recenty).

One quote from Dr Rachel O’Connell states

‘Ireland has been a trailblazer in terms of changing the legislation. Sometimes there can be the perception that we’re following behind everyone else but in fact if you look at policy and regulation, this country has been leading the way in terms of changes

Worth the read on your lunch break…