November 2007 Archives

Due to be released in France at the end of January 2008. It will either be hilariously funny and a huge success or a total flop, though, if the teasers are anything to go by, it has a strong cast

It looks like the runup to Christmas this year is going to be pretty hectic!

I'm not going to complain - hectic is good!

At the moment we're in the process of putting the final touches to the new look and feel for the company site. So far the blog and forum have been reskinned and the support desk is in process... I should probably think about redoing all my business cards as well .... Hmmm.. More work !

Since we're switching all the URLs over to the .com we'll also have to update a lot of our ad copy.

Some of the things I've been trying to sort out over the last few weeks have gone extremely well, so well that I was pleasantly surprised. In typical Irish fashion the more complex issues have proven easy to deal with, but the relatively easy ones have been an absolute nightmare (I'll probably go into more detail about some of these issues when I have a chance)

We're also putting the final touches to a couple of projects we've been working on for the last few months. It's all finally beginning to take shape, so hopefully I'll be able to share the details with the public in a few weeks.. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. There's still a lot of work to be done and plenty of testing and re-testing before we'll be happy with it all - sorry if that's all a bit vague!

On a personal front I was down in Cork for the weekend, so I was able to see my mother's new house. It's almost finished, so she's now in the throes of deciding on which type of kitchen to put in. If all goes according to plan she should be able to move in early in the new year. I'll see if I can upload some of the photos I took on Saturday, though they're probably not as high a resolution as I'd have liked. (Note to self - check the n95's settings)

Before that, of course, there's Christmas... I was toying with the idea of heading overseas, but I think that idea's been shelved. I'll be heading off to LA again in January anyway, so I'll spend a reasonably quiet Christmas at home.
My grandfather will be spending a few days with us this year, so it looks like I'll be heading down to Ennis to collect him, while my mother will be dropping him back up.

The guys from Enum 353 are holding a "user day" this week, but I won't be able to attend, which is a pity, as it looks like it could have been interesting.

Grandad has finally let the cat out of the bag!

He swore me to secrecy some time ago about his book deal, but now it's all public and official.

He also walked away with a lump of metal the other evening - a Golden Spider, so he's got two reasons to celebrate.

I may not approve of the Spiders overall, but the blog award part was voted on by the public, so it's a bit more realistic.

Congratulations!

Free is good. When it's a nice bit of software it's more than good - it's excellent!

Camtasia Studio, which is really handy for doing screen captures, is currently available for free.

Simply download the software here and then go here to get a key

I grabbed a copy a few minutes ago and I've already received the key.

More info here

I mentioned a while back how I thought a lot of the Irish conferences were a bit overpriced (by "bit" I mean "a lot" and by "overpriced" I mean "total ripoff").

Last night I got an email from DomainFest, which I will be attending in January.

The conference costs about 400 euro (depending on when you register) for 3 days and that includes keynotes by John Battelle and Peter Hillary. The last DomainFest featured Michael Arrington!

Looking at some of the other international conferences this seems to be a recurring theme, and ICANN conferences are 100% free!

Is it just me, or is including your qualifications in your email signature a bit pretentious?

CD Wow are giving away money off vouchers. (no that's not my affiliate ID but the link from their email)

I only got a 1 euro off one, but maybe someone else will be luckier!

Richard spotted that Google Local has expanded to include Ireland.

For any company that has a physical shopfront / presence it's a nice little feature, though I'm not sure how well it will work for companies that operate almost entirely online.

When I was in the US a few weeks ago I found that most of the larger retailers had made the most of their listings, so you could easily find information on bookshops, restaurants and bars using Google Maps.

Will this also mean that Google update the maps and satellite data for Ireland more often? I hope so, as the satellite shots of our office are woefully out of date!

I started work on GuestHouses.ie before I headed off to LA. It's not going to change anyone's life, but hopefully it will grow into something worthwhile!
Andrew from RedMoonMedia did a nice header graphic for the site (link to go into footer on my todo list!), but I didn't get a chance to put that up until today. (Thanks to Peter for saving me on that one too!)

Someone posted a link to this as a joke. Unfortunately it sounds all too familiar! Several people I've come across use this kind of babble!

I'm currently trying to sort out a few things with our bankers. A couple of the things are minor. They should be easy to sort out.
A couple of the other things are a bit more complicated, so I more or less expect them to be awkward.

However what's proving to be awkward is actually finding the correct channel to deal with them.

If you speak to the branch about X they'll refer you to centre Y. Centre Y refers you back to the branch. So you end up going round in circles.

And why is it that local branch banks can't do email?

Why must I go into their offices and waste their time and mine over simple matters that would have taken a couple of emails to sort out?

I'm getting a small bit frustrated!

For the geekier of you who maybe using Amazon's web services the news that Amazon is now peering with several Irish providers at INEX may come as good news!

You can check the peering matrix here

As I'm running several sites that pull quite a bit of data in from Amazon's backend this is good news !

EDIT: I meant to link to Paul's blog post

Google's pagerank updates are always talking points. Once upon a time, not so very long ago, everyone focussed on PR as being the "end", but over the last couple of years that focus has definitely shifted.

The latest update, which seems to have kicked in towards the end of last month, has left a lot of people very confused about things, though everyone seems to think that selling text links maybe the cause.

Tom analysed the shift on a number of high profile sites and noted that many of them dropped significantly.

Richard has zero confidence in the latest update, as it goes against all logic.

I'm not sure where the truth lies, but I've seen some really odd results.

This site has dropped from a PR of 5 to a PR of 3. Donncha seems to have been hit as well - I'm pretty sure he had a PR of at least 5 or 6 previously.

On the plus side some of my other sites have gained.

Films.ie - had a PR of 0, as it was a new site, but is now showing with a PR of 5
MovieForums.eu - as above. Now has a PR of 4

Others are still at zero, such as HostingDirectory.ie

A few others shouldn't have ANY pagerank, but for some demented reason still do!

I guess that shows how little PR should count in the grand scheme of things!

Keith sent me a link to this masterpiece on Gavin's blog

Remember 56k dialup?

Huge "mobile" phones?

Beepers?

Very funny stuff!

Golden Spider bashing might appear to be a national pastime, but I guess it's all down to the size of the target!

This year they've made a small effort to validate their weird choices by letting us, the public, vote on two of the categories. Of course, as Niall found out, the developers who did their site for them aren't exactly the most competent, as they didn't setup the forms to validate properly.

And what level of esteem should you hold web awards that include Template Monster templates?

There's threads on the "wonderful" awards on both CI and IWF. If you want some of the background then read over the thread from last year as well!

Just back in the office this morning after my trip to LA, so I'm trying to wade through the email and snail mail that built up in my absence.

We've extended the EU domain offer, so you can still get a doteu domain for a mere 5 euro!

I've finally made it back home.

I'm here, but my bag isn't!

I would love to say that I had a pleasant trip back, but the best I can come up with is that it was "eventful"

LAX was chaotic and BA made a total mess of handling a delay with an earlier flight. We spent about 4 hours queuing in LAX and our flight took off about two hours later.

Hopefully my bag will turn up tomorrow.....

I'll be flying back to Dublin later today. I've already checked out of the hotel, so now I've just got to kill a couple of hours before facing the "fun" at LAX.
Most of the other delegates have already left Los Angeles, though there are still a few stragglers.

I'm hoping and praying that I'll be able to get some sleep on the flight back and with that in mind I've chosen a reasonably well located seat. I've vowed to avoid window seats.

Roberto Gaetano has just opened the second part of the ICANN board meeting.

Peter Dengate Thrush has been chosen as the new chairman.

ICANN's board meeting is this morning.

Unlike many companies the ICANN board meeting is 100% public.

This is the last board meeting that will be chaired by Vint Cerf, so there is quite a healthy turnout since his successor has not been announced as yet.

Phil from .im lent me his new iphone, so I'm playing with the iPhone plugin for movsbletype. Typing with one finger is an interesting experience!