Ken McGuire

Category: Irish Blogs

  • Irish Blog Awards: Technology Bloggers

    The short lists for the Irish Blog Awards have been announced thanks to the trojan work being put in by the judging group for 2009. On average each blog shortlisted was scored by seven judges. Having seen KilkennyMusic.com and my own blog here drop off at the long list stage (i.e. not shortlisted), I’ll be delighted to “fly the flag” for Kilkenny as The Devious Theatre Company have been shortlisted in the Best Arts and Culture category.

    The top drawer of Irish technology bloggers this year contains

    As in previous years, each individual shortlist has turned up some gems. There’s some regular appearances by certain blogs in their respective categories again joined by several new faces, a great indication of growth in blogging in Ireland and the quality of output of those blogs.

    I’ll be in attendance at the Awards myself on Saturday night and I’m staying over in the hotel so there’s

  • Rhyme Rag, New Poetry Blog In Kilkenny

    Testament that including blog links in your email signatures work, I stumbled onto Rhyme Rag earlier this morning.

    Rhyme Rag is a young poetry publication issued by the Kilkenny Arts Office, directed by local arts officer Mary Butler.

    You can also follow the artist-in-residency blog for No 72 John Street here where Gypsy Ray has recently commenced a four week residency.

  • RoadDeaths.ie Looking For New Owner

    Update August 6th 2012: After four years, the site has a new owner (Mark), a new plan and is now available at RoadDeaths.ie, providing information on road deaths in Ireland and road safety.

    John is closing the door on RoadDeaths.ie, a great mapping project which ran between 2006 and 2007 but hasn’t seen updates in the last nine months or so.

    I had offered in the past to carry the ball but my time constraints are just as bad.

    The site detailed fatal traffic collision reports for 2006 and into 2007, plotting each accident on a map of the country.

    This would be a great project for someone interesting in road deaths in Ireland, mapping, or someone with a desire to improve the facilities already in place. If you’re interested in the project, see the Jaiku note here or visit John’s blog to contact him.

  • Those Irish Blog Awards Winners

    Partly for my own reference for later on, and to give some link love to the winners, here’s the list of those who walked away with the trophies last night.

    I had been featured under Best Technology Blog for kenmc.com while KilkennyMusic.com was included in the Best Music Blog, those categories going to Robin and Nialler9 respectively. Couldn’t go to two nicer lads! Fair play!

    I’m currently shaking off a hangover, getting sorted with some photos from last night as well as the list of names of people I spoke to – yes, I saved them to my phone “just in case” the pints kept flowing. The pints, and shots, flowed until we were pretty much the last ones out the door so I’m glad I kept that list!

    Full flashback / summary later this evening…

  • There Was Blogging, There Was Drinking, There Were Cheers…

    Irish Blog AwardsThat’s how I imagine tonight will run, but not exactly in that order.

    The 2008 Irish Blog Awards are taking place tonight in the Alexander Hotel, Dublin with kick off scheduled for 7:30pm. Having been to the Awards last year I can say that the Alexander is a great venue and anyone going is bound to run into some fantastic people.

    The blog finds itself nominated for in the Best Technology Blog category amongst the likes of Tom Raftery’s Social Media, Donncha O’Caoimh, Alexia Golez, Michele Neylon’s Pensieri, Michelle Gallen, Dave Northey, Inside View from Ireland, Robin Blandford’s ByteSurgery, James Corbett and Chris Horn.

    Word has that list gets shorter again tonight before the awards are announced but it’s been a pleasure to have kenmc.com nominated for the very first time. I’ll also be there with Ross as KilkennyMusic.com found it’s way on the music shortlist though a betting man would put money on Nialler9 doing the double. Not a bad way to round out a week with Super Extra Bonus Party bagging the Choice Music Prize too.

    According to Ross…

    Ken will be the guy to talk to if you basically want to talk about anything from music to technology, sport, you name it. I’ll be standing beside him, the guy with the mohawk, consuming copious amounts of free alcohol and saying things like “what the hell is a blog anyway!?”

    Says he leading the way for staff bloggers at KKM. Either way, we’re going to go and have a bit of craic, wind down after a few hectic weeks on all fronts and mingle with the very best the Irish blogosphere has to offer.

    While having two phones might make me a terrorist, I’ll also be concealing my new Nikon Coolpix S200 so if you’re talking to me, jump in for a picture, sure why not!

    See all y’all tonight.

  • Gone Pink For October

    I might be a few days late with this one but with a few hours down time I’ve thrown together a pink stylesheet for the blog in support of breast cancer awareness for the month of October. More details can be found on PinkForOctober.org.

    Jennifer Farley made reference to some pink designs during the week, while Eoghan McCabe has also “gone pink” for the month of October.

    I’ve no problems at all in sporting a pink design and I’m happy to do it in raising awareness of breast cancer, knowing as well that it can develop in men as well as women.

    Update: Also spotted the iQ Content blog is sporting a pink theme, while Will is going to be posting pink-coloured photos for the remainder of October.

  • Net Visionary Awards Voting Open

    Net Visionary Awards

    The Net Visionary Awards voting is up and running from this morning, a few names in there I’ll recognise, a lot of names in there I won’t recognise.

    Congratulations to everyone nominated, you can vote until October 19th.

    Me, I’m looking forward to the Blog Awards – if anything it’s cheaper to attend 🙂

    Going through the feeds this morning, Michele raises an interesting point or two

  • Aggregating Politics, Getting Political

    Politics In Ireland

    A review of Statcounter over the weekend showed some activity on the blog here, coming through Politics in Ireland in search of the discussion over Keola Donaghy on KCLR on Friday afternoon. Likely, this is due to the mention of a particular Labour Party TD who featured in the radio interview.

    Politics In Ireland, run by Damien Mulley, is now it it’s second iteration with a much improved facelift. Aggregating feeds from blogs political and non, Politics In Ireland allows you track news developments and issues raised online featured the country’s political parties and politicians, the content of which can be broken down by party, constituency and TDs past and present.

    A quick dip into my own constituency (Carlow/Kilkenny) brings up recent mentions by Bernie Goldbach of local Minister For Trade & Enterprise at the launch of Sprit of Enterprise in Tipperary recently.

    Further to tracking the site via RSS feeds for all elements (overall, parties, politicians) you can also grab a javascript widget for your blog or even a WordPress plugin to boot.

    Drop by and see what your local politicians have been up to in the online world.

  • Keith Bohanna And The IIA

    Quick word of congratulations to fellow Kilkenny resident Keith Bohanna who returns to the IIA board following the recent elections.

    It is an honour to have been elected… Nice to be back here after a break – a different and more realistic environment for the board of the IIA to be operating in and I am looking forward to it.

    Fair play good sir.

  • Tipping The Hat To Blognation

    BlognationDelighted to see that Conor O’Neill is behind the launch of the Irish arm of Blognation, which kicked off today. As they say in Ireland, “there’s no better buachaill”. The addition of an Irish element to Blognation means that we’ll be more seeing the latest Web 2.0 developments / tech developments from all around the country.

    The opening post on the blog covers an introduction to the web/tech scene in Ireland at present and lists some of the great web services on offer at the moment. You’ll get the latest tech events in the calendar (though *ahem* PodCamp Ireland isn’t among them yet – September 29th for FREE in Kilkennny) and a lot more besides.

    One thing that jumped out at me from the post is Conor’s mention of the VC scene at present and what some options are.

    The single biggest blocking factor for web startups here continues to be access to capital

    Reason being in that I had a chat (and a sneak preview at the beta service) in Kilkenny today with a Beverly Hills startup (Kilkenny native) who politely offered his thoughts on the VC scene at present and the reason he’s now set up – with funding – in the US. Having watched in on the Auctomatic boys last week and the upcoming Paddys Valley tour in December I can see some of his points!

    The first article though is a great one, well worth the read if you can. Would be a nice place to get some tech company profiling going on if the opportunity presented itself (with Damien currently compiling companies in Ireland) but thats for the editors to decide!

    Anyway, tip of the hat to Conor O’Neill and fair play to Sam Sethi and Blognation for opening a door into the Irish market.

  • Revenge Through Spamming

    I can see a head rolling for this one but by the looks of things, someone at CityJet (possibly but not 100% confirmed) is up shit’s creek with their IP logged as registering Damien Mulley for several dating sites, writing up untrue and possible libellous profiles. Bad form on their part in a big way, all likely stemming from a recent post on IWillNotHold.com about Sky Handling Partners, set up to provide a space to rant on customer service in our fair country.

    No so fair by the looks of this wouldn’t you think?

    If I was one of their web folk lurking around registering someone who has a bone to pick with your company for a very valid reason I’d be cowering about now….. Bloody childish carry on if you ask me.

  • Blog Awards Inspiring New Bloggers

    If the Irish Blog Awards achieved one thing at the weekend it was in inspiring new bloggers to emerge and contribute to the social web. While I’m currently leading the blog count in the KKM team (some of which I think I’m going to trim unfortunately), the other three (pictured amongst the latest flickr upload) have become inspired to blog their own developments and interests.

    Looking forward to Daw’s upcoming blog on sound production techniques and tips (certainly more niche), Mickey’s not ONE but TWO proposed sports blogs and hopefully Ross’s further development of Rants By Ross.

    Amazing what an awards show can bring out in people once you spend a few hours immersed in the company of other drinkers bloggers at a pissup blog awards ceremony.

  • Irish Blog Awards Photos

    I’ve started to upload some photos from the blog awards, I know Ross has a couple as well so I’ll see if I can steal those from him. Here’s Daw and Phil at the bar, prior to heading in to plonk ourselves down for the show.

    More here…

    @Conor – There’s pics of Ross in there too – check the hair!

  • Well, That Was Some Craic (Irish Blog Awards)

    So……..

    Back to the grindstone after the weekend away in Dublinia, gotta say – some craic.I caught Bernie’s post last night on ‘whats the craic’ and there was certainly more than a few pints had in the local! Sure, we didn’t win Best Music, and muchos congratulations to Niall for doing so but I think Ross summed it up really well for the four of us at KilkennyMusic.com when he said

    Tonight is the first time in a year and a half that the four of us are actually out together not working. A year and a half of working our asses off for free and we’re finally gonna get pissed together and just relax.

    …and we certainly took care of both of those.

    Serious congratulations due to all who scored awards on the night, tip of the hat to the girls from Beaut.ie, if the awards show had gone on any longer it is quite possible they would have just kept on winning. Major kudos goes to Mr. Damien Mulley though and there’s nobody in the room who could have complained when Bernie handed his ‘Best Contribution’ award over to Damien.

    Got to catch up with a few people, had a few words with Phil, Ronan, Niall, Bernie (never did that elevator podcast and I hope I didn’t ramble incoherently about FeedBurner for you!), Will (thanks for the tip and sorry didn’t chat longer, or even properly introduce myself – shame on me), good yarn with Keith about the highs and lows of Vista and the fact that I still haven’t posted my iPAQ 6515 review (have a place in mind for that one) but overall it was just a brilliant night for the four of us to unwind, gather a bit of feedback, and drink way too much beer.

    We skipped out of the show shortly after the close of the awards ceremony itself and made tracks for The Lower Deck in Portobello to catch a few bands who had played with KilkennyMusic.com over the past year or so but the KKM blog itself is going to pick that post up from here.

    Again, thanks to everyone who was there, everyone who I spoke to, all the winners, all the nominees, the organisers, the Alexander Hotel, the Mount Herbert Hotel and that poor taxi driver who took us from Camden Street back to the hotel, one lunatic in particular singing “To the left, to the left” all the way home at the top of his voice….

    We’ll be back in force next year 🙂

    PS: Only realised now that I’ve still got that ‘I’m blogging this’ badge glued to my hat…. I’m also going to get some pics up on Flickr today and see what I can salvage that can actually be displayed online without us winding up in court for some reason.

    Update: PAUL!!!! Still gonna hold you to that pint, my fault for not seeking it out earlier in the night and getting a chat with you before we left!

  • Destination Dublin

    Currently loading up the iPod ahead of the roadtrip to Dublin tomorrow lunchtime. Reckon we (the four of us travelling for KilkennyMusic.com) should hit the Big Smoke by 3 or 4pm, out to the hotel to freshen up before letting loose at the bar in the Alexander. As far as I know, I’ll have the camera with me (or at least one of us will) and I’m bringing a digital recorder / digital dictaphone with me as well. Figure we may as well get a KKM podcast made out of the occasion.

    One or two things to sort out but I’m looking forward to the night and delighted to be a part of it.

  • Video: Blog Awards On The Telly

    Courtesy of redmum

  • Booked It, Packed It, F*#ked Off

    No going back now, book the hotel for five of us to make the trip to the Blog Awards. If anything, it’ll be a session and a good night. Considering bringing some kinda of dictaphone and making a KilkennyMusic.com podcast out of the night, after all it will be our 10th podcast (nice to finally hit double figures).

    First place I’m gunning for is the bar where I expect Paul Browne to be on hand with the nicest pint of Heineken in Dublin. Free pints are quite often the nicest pints.

  • Shortlist Revealed For Irish Blog Awards

    Well well well… the nominees are out of the proverbial internet bag for the Irish Blog Awards. While kenmc.com and liverpoolaccess.com didn’t make it this year, I’m delighted to see that KilkennyMusic.com is up there for best music. Just in time for a bundle load of new features that I’ve been working on pretty much ALL weekend. Sick of staring at stylesheets WordPress now at this stage!

    Congratulations to everyone who was nominated, everyone who made the list, everyone who didn’t make the list.

    Time to crack open a Cobra I guess! 😀

  • Last Chance For Vote At Irish Blog Awards

    Yep… thats it, time is almost up on your chance to vote for the likes of kenmc.com, (Best Technology, Best Design), LiverpoolAccess.com (Best Sport), Mobileblogr (Best Technology) and The Kilkenny Music Blog (Best Music).

    If you haven’t voted yet and you’d like to vote for one of my nominations (thanks to those in particular who nominated KilkennyMusic.com and kenmc.com) then take a minute to head over to the voting area. There’s plenty of incentives on offer now including copies of Windows Vista, a trip to New York or Thailand, free pints, design work and more.

    I’m not bribing folk into voting but if you enjoy the daily read across the blogs and fancy a vote then consider this blog! It can be your good deed for the day 😀 If anyone has already voted for them, then thank you very much! 😀

  • New York Here I Come!

    I need somone to FIX the raffle at the blog awards so I get to head to New York! Fantastic offer from eBookers.ie (i’m already an affiliate and have been for a good while). A long weekend in the Big Apple or a week in Thailand? Hell yeah!