Tag Archives: When-in-Ireland

UCC students blogging

Damien Mulley has the scoop about the latest development at University College Cork. All students will be given blogs!

While that’s great news for blogging in Ireland, I’m disappointed that they didn’t choose WordPress Mu. I had a quick look around a few blogs and noticed a few things:

  • They do have permanent links, but links to articles are only in the sidebar “Recent Posts” block. The title of each post is not linked, and neither is the timestamp.
  • Permanent links aren’t very descriptive being of the form “/blogs/Username/item_x.htm” where x is a number.
  • It looks like trackbacks and pings aren’t supported so it will be just a little harder for blog owners to participate in blog conversations with others.
  • What will happen when a student finishes college? Will they be able to export their work? On another level, who owns the work? Student or College?

I have to disagree with Bernie’s comment about what value for money colleges get from hosting blogs. Bebo and MySpace are only two of the many companies offering their own proprietary website platforms. A college weblog has an unbreakable link to that institution. Colleges are places for learning which is quite different from the profit motive of any and every commercial company out there. The more exposure students get to blogging the better they will be at dealing with this phenomenon in the future. Not to mention the older students who are not in the demographic targeted by commercial interests.

Fred and the Nail Drivers

Great news for music fans this summer! The Spiegeltent is returning to Cork as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival 2006!
Fred The Band are playing there on June 20th. Tickets are 15 Euro.
The Nail Drivers will play in the Angler’s Rest on June 17th in a charity event so get along and support them! See you there!
Here are a few pictures of the Nail Drivers from a while back. They played a blinder at my wedding and I definitely recommend them!

kick.ie – Irish news, community driven.

kick.ie is a site like digg.com but for Irish news and sites.
They linked to my photoblog which is how I became aware of it.
Tim O’Reilly’s attack on IT@Cork for using the term “Web 2.0” as their conference name is shocking. They have a trademark on the phrase “Web 2.0” so be careful about labeling your website or blog posts!

Rage on the road

“Who’s calling me now, must be one of the lads about tonight. No Gardai around, answer phone. Damn bend, must slow down… There they are in that garage! I better stop the car in the middle of the road and shout at them! What the f*ck! The guy behind me blowing his horn at me? F*cker, who does he think he is?”

I’m sure that’s what was going through the mind of the driver in front me who braked suddenly and stopped in the middle of the road to shout abuse at his friends in another car. Lovely.

The Rising, by Langerland

Even if you’re not Irish or don’t know anything about Irish history you’ll still probably find The Rising funny. It’s a short animation featuring the main players of the 1916 Rising as members of the R Team as they battle today’s politicians and institutions!
Warning, sense of humour required. I bet someone will ring Joe Duffy’s show to complain about this over the next few days!

Are Eircom calling you?

I just got off the phone with a man named Brendan saying he wasn’t from Eircom tele-sales who proceeded to say, “You aren’t a customer of Eircom’s any more” or something similar. Before he could say anything else I informed him that I was fairly certain this was an illegal act ringing me because we’d signed up to the National Do Not Call Registry National Directory Database (thanks Adam!). He quickly apologised but I’m still angry. We signed up to that list way back in November 2005 and despite some delay by UTV I know we’re on it now.

If I remember correctly, this was the second time he rang. The last time being several months ago. It’s not often you get a sales-pitch from someone with a country accent! Unfortunately I don’t remember his surname or his company.

The list hasn’t stopped the recorded message scams however. As soon as I hear that recorded voice or a ringing phone line I hang up.
The Data Protection Commission has a useful faq too.

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