Conor's Blog

Buh-bye

2007-08-25T23:18:00.000+01:00

As the date on my last post shows, I'm not updating this blog anymore. And because I'm not updating the blog I'm not visiting the blog that much anymore.

So, if you know me and you come across this blog you're probably better off mailing me or contacting me on one of the various sites where I have a profile than by leaving comments here!

Peace,
C

What are you doing in Delhi airport?

2007-04-18T21:09:00.000+01:00

I get so many hits on my blog from people searching for things like "How to get a taxi from Delhi airport?" or "How much to tip Delhi airport taxi drivers" that I thought it would be interesting to ask people what they're doing in Delhi airport.. are they flying in, flying out, from where, to where etc..

So if you've arrived here looking for something about दिल्ली (Delhi) airport post a comment and tell your story and ask your question :o)

Trying out the Hindi transliteration tool :o)

2007-04-15T19:25:00.000+01:00

नमस्ते !!

एह... मेरा नाम Conor है :o)

आप कैसे हो?

Photographing strangers without permission

2007-04-15T19:19:00.000+01:00

This post by Joe Ito reminded me about the same ethical/shyness issue I have when taking photographs. I don't feel comfortable taking a picture of a stranger without first asking their permission. Obviously that can sometimes ruin the photo as the interesting pose or facial expression they had that inspired you to want to photograph them is now gone. On the other hand you never know if someone might get offended (or worse) if you take a photograph without asking first..

A friend of mine, who is a great photographer, photographs without asking permission. She will literally walk up to a person, stand in front of them and take a picture of them. I've even seen her do this without even thanking the person afterwards.. she'll just walk up, shoot, look at the picture on her camera, walk off!

I don't know.. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of those 50/50 things where some people think it's cool and some don't. What do people think? Is it ok to photograph strangers without asking first?

My blog wishlist

2007-02-18T14:22:00.000Z

I would love to find the following types of blogs:

A "China Law Blog" for India
A blog written by a CIO of a large company on IT governance and management etc
A great Six Sigma blog
A great ITIL blog
A great travel blog, possibly focussing on less well known countries (although I guess the definition of "less well known" depends on what continent you're from :o/ )

Little help?

How do you eat yours?

2007-02-18T14:02:00.000Z

I was reading an "old" post by Fred Wilson and I was wondering how often most people read blogs.

I read blogs only at the weekend in a feed reader (FeedDemon) so it means I work (should reading in leisure time be described in such a way?) through the previous week's posts on the 54 blogs I'm subscribed to at the moment (not counting the feeds that are in my "Delete?" folder) every weekend. In reality most of the blogs only get skimmed through or not looked at at all..

My problem with blogs around IT is that most of them cover the same issues (possibly because they're all reading each other) A perfect example was the iPhone launch. If you've seen one iPhone post you've seen them all.. yes it looks cool, yes we know you want one when it comes out, yes we know that it's tough to say whether it'll be a success because no journalist has yet had a chance to use it themselves, yes we know that it's unusual for Steve Jobs to announce a product that won't be available for another year, yes we know the walled garden approach of Apple is not smart (but soooo Apple), yes we know Apple is ignoring the Chinese market by not supporting a stylus for character support.

I would love to switch to subscribing to "review" feeds.. where someone who has more time on their hands than me reads a load of the top blogs and writes posts summarising what people are saying in the blogosphere and links to the best articles. That way I subscribe to a handful of blogs say "American Tech Roundup" (TechCrunch isn't this.. and it's too high volume.. the ideal review blog should have say one big post on "Social Networking Spring 2007" etc. rather than separate posts on individual services) "China Business Review" etc and can get the latest news and thinking a lot quicker and more easily than reading various blogs and trying to keep up with a flood of posts.

I agree with the comments on Fred Wilson's post about blogs too.. too many posts too frequently on a blog makes me switch off and usually unsubscribe. It depends on the blog though.. China Law Blog is very interesting to me so I can't imagine unsubscribing. On the other hand I was only subscribing to TechCrunch out of a desire to have an overview of the latest sites launching and eventually it got too much for me to pay attention to compared with the value it gave me.

ISSA / UCD Irish Cybercrime survey

2007-02-10T17:50:00.000Z

The ISSA / UCD Irish Cybercrime survey for 2006 was released recently.

As someone with an interest in the value and cost of IT for businesses, the cost per incident was very interesting. 75% of correspondents in the survey incurred a cost of over €5,000 to correct security incidents, and 22% of correspondents reported costs of over €100,000.

For anyone inside a company considering the cost of IT security solutions, it's important to consider the cost to the business of downtime (i.e. productivity loss, loss of revenue, etc), the cost of recovering service, as well as the cost of personnel issues resulting from security/legal breaches by employees. Any decent IT security solution can, with the right policies and procedures in place, be worth its weight in gold when compared against the cost incurred from security incidents.

An invitation to participate in the 2007 survey is at the end of the report.

Single sign-on starting to be a reality?

2007-02-10T17:41:00.000Z

I migrated my old Blogger blog to new Blogger today so now I use my Google user account to log in to Blogger. It made me realise that the amalgamation of some of the major services on the web has made single sign-on a bit more of a reality.

For three of the internet services I use (Gmail / Blogger / Orkut) I use a single sign-on. For two others ( Yahoo Mail / Flickr) I use a seperate single-sign on. Maybe in the not-too-distant future we'll just need a single sign-on for each of the big internet companies; Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL? (Of those, I don't use any services from AOL so that's three usernames and passwords to remember for me.. )

Beyond that are the smaller sites such as DCU mail and Redbrick which I guess will always have their own seperate login information? I wonder if Google will ever try extending their authentication services so external services could allow users to log in using Google user credentials? MSN failed getting people to adopt Passport so I can't imagine them trying again any time soon.

Just a thought.. one less username for me to remember now, yay! :o)

(Incidentally, I like the new Blogger!! Better spell checking tool and more features in the text editor!)

Cultural understanding when traveling on business

2007-01-28T22:05:00.000Z

I never thought I'd recommend that the comments on a post are worth reading as much as the post itself but then I read this excellent article: "How not to be a cultural knucklehead in a global business world"

In the post Pamela Slim gives some great points which are worth noting if you have to deal with people from different cultures on a regular basis or travel a lot for business (or for holidays!). The many many comments on the post also include some great tips and they're definitely worth reading.

I'm going to try to avoid copying the points already made in that post and the comments but I'll add my two cent here.

There are three ways in which cultural insensivity can cause you problems:

You inadvertently offend people;

You just come across as stupid or ignorant; or

You live up to your own national stereotype.

For the first one, I think the fundamental point for dealing with people from other cultures is to be sensitive to them and pay attention for any cues that you're offending them (something I myself have been guilty of not doing diligently in the past!). Being sensitive to other people is a good point, especially because the same things that might get you into trouble with someone from a different culture might also rub someone from your own culture the wrong way too.

Normally people will give the benefit of the doubt to someone if they are a foreigner, so I wouldn't worry about offending people all the time, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

For the second point I've learnt a few rules in the past few years of dealing with people from different countries:

Never think, talk, or act as if you know more about someone else's country than they do. This might sound obvious but if you've been in a country a while or have read something about the politics there you might start inadvertently sounding off about it and give the impression that you think the person from that country doesn't know this stuff already! With politics the general rule about avoiding politics in conversations applies anyway.. you just don't want to go there :o)

People from any country don't always like to spend an entire conversation (or even part of it) talking about their country, their language etc.. usually they just want a normal human conversation about business or whatever.

Similar to point one, but never contradict what someone says about their own country, even if you feel it's wrong or inaccurate. Again this comes off as sounding like you think you know more than them about their own country.

If some or all of this sounds like basic normal conversational tips that's because a lot of multicultural "etiquette" is simply good polite behaviour and good old fashioned judging of people on their merits rather than on their dress or nationality etc.

Sometimes you can't help with your ignorance. You may meet someone from a small town in England that you've never heard of before or couldn't place on a map. Some people do get offended if you know very little about or have never heard of the town or country that they're from. In those situations whether or not the person is offended comes down to that person rather than anything you can do.

The third point is something I've come across myself before and it doesn't relate to insensitivity towards other cultures but rather a lack of awareness about your own. It usually only shows itself when someone from another culture picks you up on something you do or say. An example of this from my experience is when I was giving a class in New York last year, we'd have a morning break and a late afternoon break. On the second day of training the class pointed out to me that I kept saying we'll have a "tea break" when "over here we have coffee breaks." It was also pointed out that I used the phrase "rabbit in the headlights" versus the American "deer in the headlights". These differences were harmless but sometimes you may use a phrase people don't understand without even recognising it or your nationality may carry stereotypes or impressions in peoples' minds that you're not aware of or don't understand the cultural implications of.

Another issue is language. As a native speaker, if you are speaking to people whose first language is not the language you'll be speaking in, then it pays to check that they can understand you. The first time I had to speak to a class of people whose first language was not English I was asked to speak slower by one of the class. On the other hand, it's a delicate balance because you do not want to come off as a condescending LOUD AND SLOW talker. Some people may also find it offensive that you asked if they could understand you ok in the first place ("Are you implying my English is less than fluent!?") I look for the universal facial expression of incomprehension which is usually a good indicator that they either don't get the content you're speaking about or don't understand what you're saying at a linguistic level :o)

I didn't take offence at the New York comments which goes to show that walking on eggshells is not always necessary. Some people will be more easily offended than others. Sometimes you can't help offending people, for instance I had no idea that some people from Latin America find it offensive that Europeans only called citizens of the USA "Americans" until a Mexican friend pointed it out to me one time. What matters in those cases is how you can recover. Like I said above, most people will give foreigners the benefit of the doubt and just like "It's my first day" it's an excuse that works as long as you don't fall back on it more than once..

In summary (as much as one can summarise a rambling post :o)), I don't think that multi-cultural etiquette extends far beyond respecting other people, giving them their space, and not applying your preconceptions to them. I think it also involves a lot of self-awareness of your own cultural bias which only comes from interacting with a lot of different cultures over time, it's not something easily picked up from a book (nothing beats those "woah" moments when you realise something you took for granted was a part of your culture and not a universal thing).

Essential advice for graduates

2007-01-21T15:04:00.000Z

I read this post today and it reminded me of lessons I've learnt in the last few years since college. This advice from David Maister is essential for anyone just joining the workforce. It is maybe a bit more applicable in larger corporate environments but I'm sure most of it applies to anyone who'll have to manage their manager.

The comments have a lot of great advice in them.

Sneak Preview of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival

2007-01-20T21:41:00.000Z

Highlights from their press release:

ONCE
Selected for the Sundance Film Festival, John Carney’s ONCE is a modern-day musical set on the streets of Dublin, starring Glenn Hansard which tells the story of a busker and an immigrant who fall in love over an eventful week, as they write, rehearse and record a number of songs.

CRÉ NA CILLE
CRÉ NA CILLE is the first ever Irish language feature film in JDIFF. It is directed by Robert Quinn whose Dead Bodies was the closing film of the first JDIFF in 2003.

SMALL ENGINE REPAIR
Nominated for five categories including Best Film at the IFTA’s and starring Iain Glen, SMALL ENGINE REPAIR is a comedy drama about a man who goes from small town zero to country and western musical hero. Doug, an aspiring country singer, has spent his life as a loser in a small town with nobody taking his heartbreaking voice and talent as a musician seriously. His wife has left him and only his best friend believes in him. But Doug has one last chance to make it…

Films without distribution that will have their only Irish cinema screening at JDIFF include Woody Allen’s SCOOP which stars Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson; COLOUR ME KUBRICK starring John Malkovich is an insider look at the making of the great director’s last film Eyes Wide Shut and another iconoclast of the cinema, Lars Von Trier has granted a rare screening of his latest work and a return to the black humour of his earlier work with THE BOSS OF IT ALL. New documentaries on show will include French director Philippe Pilard's film, NEIL JORDAN, PORTRAIT.

Some titles that reflect the best available from the current awards season include Zhang Yimou’s epic CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER – a front runner for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and HALF NELSON which stars Ryan Gosling who has received several awards already and may well get an Oscar nomination.

(The all CAPS format is a copy and paste from the press release)

Can't wait to see Curse of the Golden Flower!! :o)

Joost - where's the content?

2007-01-20T13:41:00.000Z

Despite sounding like a sweet and having a name that apparently makes a lot of sense to Dutch people but not much outside the Netherlands, I thought Joost was at least a step up from "The Venice Project" which didn't have much of a ring to it as a desktop application..

I had better get my disclaimer out of the way quickly: I like Joost (the application, not the name). I like the interface. I like having full screen streaming video on my pc. It's a cool concept.

Now back to being a negative nelly :o)

Where is the content? I've been using it since December and there appears to be little or no new content in the past month. I'd like to know what the plan is for Joost long term.. if they are slow to allow user-submitted content and if the content that is there is updated so slowly, the application will die a death. Like a website that isn't updated regularly, who will come back to a streaming tv app that keeps showing the same five programmes on each channel?

So that's how they do it!

2007-01-17T22:03:00.000Z

I've often wondered how "professional" bloggers find the time to blog. Most of them seem to have 9-to-5 jobs and yet they seem to churn out multiple articles a day without, apparently, disrupting their jobs or lives.

Now I have an answer.. at least from one blogger anyway :o)

Fred Wilson from A VC says "Is it because we have all this free time on our hands? No, not really. I write most of my posts between 5am and 6am in the morning when the rest of my house is sleeping."

When you read about the daily routines of senior business people you often see that they get up at some un-Godly hour to either go to the office or exercise or whatever.

Not being much of a morning person (though I can wake up when I have to, like for early morning flights) I wonder if this means I'll never be a senior business executive or famous blogger ;o)

Venice Project invites

2007-01-06T19:06:00.000Z

To anyone who asked me for an invite for the Venice Project I'm afraid that I can't provide them at the moment as I only got issued a couple and they're gone. On top of that I have a few friends who would like invites so they'll get any invites I get ahead of anyone I don't know, sorry :o)

LinkedIn tips

2007-01-06T18:49:00.000Z

Guy Kawasaki has a good list of tips for LinkedIn users.

I've been surprised at the amount of people I know who I've found on LinkedIn. It's a great way to get in touch with former colleagues and acquaintances.

The comments on Guy's article give some tips on how to use LinkedIn more effectively. While I've found the social networking aspect of it interesting, I haven't used it much for networking beyond people I already know. I haven't gotten any job offers or requests to get in touch (i.e. where someone asks you to put them in touch with someone you are linked to) so I'm not sure how big activity across the network is. A friend of mine did get a couple of job offers through it though so it definitely does work for some!

Key to using these types of sites is being active and keeping your profile up to date. A lot of people create an account, add a few links and then never log back in, thus not really getting value out of it. Maybe social networking for business purposes follows the 1% rule and is therefore a bit overhyped?

I think the key thing that LinkedIn seems to be missing is free messaging facilities. At the moment you can't invite someone to your network unless you've worked at the same company or gone to the same college as them or if you know their email address. That makes sense but doesn't allow for getting back in touch with old classmates or colleagues. LinkedIn also doesn't allow existing contacts to message each other within the site, like users can within Bebo or MySpace. I think because of this lack of interaction between users LinkedIn doesn't count as a "social" networking site.

Business relationships are as much social as they are about exchanges of goods or technical knowledge and I think LinkedIn misses that point, which is a shame.

The Venice Project - First impressions

2006-12-31T17:49:00.000Z

Quick post. First impressions of the Venice Project:

Looks very cool when it's loading up the first time :o)

I like the channel interface but it took me a while to find out how to
get out of full screen mode (it takes over the whole monitor).

The Cassy video on the Diddy channel looked like it might cause
epileptic fits but I didn't see any warning before it came on (though I
dunno if MTV would show a warning either?).

The advertising seems very regional.. T-Mobile, some brand of chewing
gum which I'm not sure is out in Ireland. Will advertising be country
based in future? (Update: Advertising is apparently localised but not localised to Ireland yet)

Will it allow user submitted content? The FAQ says they're working on it but has no guidelines yet as to whether there'll be content restrictions (i.e. copyrighted material) or anything like that.

The channels are good for a starter but could be a lot broader. Good coup to get the Diddy channel and some MTV stuff!

The FAQ says that in an hour of viewing approximately 320MB of data is downloaded which is impressive considering your average BitTorrented tv show of 43 minutes will require a download of at least 350MB!

It's that time of year again (Dublin Film Festival)

2006-12-28T21:28:00.000Z

Unfortunately the film listing isn't out yet but the site placeholder is up and they're looking for volunteers!

In previous years the festival has had an excellent line-up of films and I don't expect 2007 to be any different :o)

The festival runs from the 16th to the 25th February 2007.

A quick rant

2006-12-25T20:31:00.000Z

Blogging on Christmas Day.. that's not healthy..

Anyway I just felt like I should get back into blogging. To get started I will use an old reliable: the rant. It's not going to be a big rant or a long rant or an expletive-filled rant. Just a small, plain rant.

Try skimming through this blog -> Gautam Ghosh

At the top you've got so many ads and cluttered graphics. There are actually two ads for Firefox linking to the same url. If they're paid ads I can sort of understand, but still why is someone paying him to have two ads for the same thing?

Moving down a bit, his About Me is hidden between a donate graphic and graphics of his email addresses. The colours of the graphics on the page seem to overpower the colour and font of the text so that when I skim the top of the blog it seems like a lot of colour noise and no actual content.

Further down, the "B-List blogger" link reminds me of those links to nerd code where you can specify what your interests are and then publish them on your home page (remember those?)

The guy last blogged on December 25th 2006. Why is he telling people he won "Indiblog of the year 2004"? I can understand being proud of it but it reminds me of restaurants where you see they won some award a couple of years ago and you think to yourself "Why have they slipped enough to not win it since?" Also, do blog readers actually subscribe to blogs based on awards the blog won two years ago? (Heck, does anyone subscribe to a blog based on an award it won this year??)

I also see he has a Hit Counter? Do they still make those?? I thought people stopped using hit counters because no one ever patched them to deal with the Y2K bug?

All the above issues really made me switch off from the blog, but I have spent so long going through it and nitpicking these issues now that I did finally notice the content :o) Some of the content is pretty decent. I like some of his predictions for 2007 and as an Indophile I always am interested in any takes on Indian business and education, of which he has heaps.

Why Time and Newsweek are wrong

2006-07-23T12:52:00.000+01:00

In an odd bit of either bandwagon hopping or editorial copycatting, Time, Newsweek, and The Economist have had large features within the last few months on the rise of India and Indian business.

Due to a maturing China, worries (mostly in America?) about an undemocratic "Communist" state becoming an economic superpower, and a general desire to be first to spot the next big thing, various pundits are rushing to hype up India as the next big thing.

There are many figures given by said pundits to explain and extrapolate India's rise. Time says, for example, that since 1996 the number of Indian passengers on airlines has risen sixfold and that 50 million people travel on Indian airlines a year. To put that particular figure into perspective however, 50 million is only about 5% of the total Indian population. 95% of Indians don't travel by air at least once a year would be another way to read that factoid.

When comparing China and India, the one main positive where India is claimed to trump China (because it doesn't in other KPIs such as quality of infrastructure, government commitment to genuine development, per capita income, etc. etc.) is that it is "the world's largest democracy". It's never really clear what benefit this is supposed to bring, or why it means that India's rise is inevitable. Indeed people who sing China's praises say that its biggest advantage over India and some other Asian countries is that government's ability to turn on a pin when it comes to making decisions. The Chinese government does not to have to wait to pass legislation and make sure ministerial posts and other favours have been granted to ensure other lawmakers and parties are on board. If anything, being the world's biggest democracy is a disadvantage. Anyone who follows Indian politics will know it's highly fractured and coalition governments are ridiculously huge. To give one indication of the size of Indian government: There are currently 34 cabinet ministers, 7 ministers of state (independent charge), and 38 ministers of state. If anything India's development has been handcuffed by the sheer range of vested interests and local concerns that have to be taken into account before any significant change happens.

A recent BBC article explains why China is still poised to be more successful than India. It's what prompted me to write this post and I think it more succinctly makes the point than I can.

Having said all that however, I wouldn't count India out. The Indian people have a lot of faith in their country and a positive can-do attitude. Indeed if there's one nation on earth more like America than any other in terms of the people and their personality it's India. They just have a long way and a lot of introspection to go through before they achieve the feats the pundits have already laid out for them..

Stencil graffiti?

2006-06-27T22:47:00.000+01:00

This blog has suffered from being neither urgent nor important for me at the moment. Work and other things are taking priority and poor little blogger is a footnote at the bottom of my To Do list..

Anyway I felt I'd update this with something light. Stencil graffiti is my name for graffiti where it looks like the artist used a stencil to create the image. I love good graffiti but I'm not au fait with the various terms so if someone knows the proper term for such a technique I'd be interested to know :o)

Here are some pics of stencil graffiti I've seen while walking around various cities. I have more pics but I seem to have misplaced them.. they might be on my laptop..

(Edit: Images removed from this post to avoid messing up my blog template.. d'oh!)

Hong Kong

Malacca, Malaysia

Mexico City (1)
Mexico City (2)

How the World Works

2006-06-04T17:41:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post about "How the World Works". It's an interesting blog on Salon.com, an American Arts & Politics web magazine.

The content is free apart from having to watch an ad to get to it. I think this is grand as it's quick enough to get through to.

The material is definitely worth it, the journalist Andrew Leonard spends his time researching globalisation, the BRIC countries, and related issues such as global warming and posts up about books he's read and new research papers and items in the news. For anyone interested in globalisation with a middle of the road viewpoint it's an informative read and a good way to start your day. He cuts through a lot of politically or ideologically biased accounts of globalisation and is a staunch defender of globalisation without ignoring the realities of global inequality and the potential for abuse of some global frameworks.

Mexico City (El DF)

2006-05-27T18:18:00.000+01:00

My bags are packed, I don't have to check out for another 45 minutes, and my friends are running late due to home renovation and car issues. What all that means is that I can kill some time with another blog entry :o)

I've been in Mexico City this past week for work and staying in the busy Hotel Presidente Intercontinental, a great hotel which merits a post in itself. It's only my second time in Mexico City (or "El DF" as some of the locals call it.. short for "El Distrito Federal") but this second visit has reaffirmed my love for Mexico and Mexican people.

This morning I realised that I've been in awe of so many cities now that I almost have a top 10 list of cities I'd love to live in. Mexico City is definitely on that list for the same reasons that the other cities are:

Diversity

For me true diversity in a city is not about the percentage of foreign nationals or various ethnicity in the city, but about the diversity of the city itself.. areas which are different in their flavour, from their architecture to their residential, commercial, or industrial composition, sleepy suburban streets far away from the noise of traffic and busy nightlife areas heavy with booming sound systems and packs of beautiful people.

Mexico City has all of that. In fact it's bound to given that it's the world's most heavily populated city, full of various barrios, shopping districts and industrial areas stretching from the valley up into the surrounding hills.

I've only seen a small snapshot of Mexico City. I think you could live here for years and only ever see a fraction of the various areas.

One of my favourite areas is the quiet La Condesa, a leafy area of art studios and the peaceful Parque Espana and Parque Mexico which comes alive in the evenings when the area's bars and restaurants start to fill up.

Another nice area is Polanco, home to a lot of embassies as well as the interesting Anthropological Museum which shows the diversity of Mexico's many indigenous people. Polanco has some very trendy bars, a generous helping of Argentinian restaurants, and a feeling of constant activity.

Contrasting with Polanco and La Condesa is downtown, location of the famous zocalo and the arena for many displays of traditional healing ceremonies which people queue up on the zocalo for. It's also right here that the President celebrates Mexican Independance Day, waving the Mexican flag and shouting "Viva Mexico!"

Getting lost

Another thing I love about big cities is that there's always somewhere off the beaten track, always somewhere you can escape to if the 9 to 5 and relentless consumerism gets too much.

For me in Mexico City, La Condesa was that place.. always quiet and full of shops, restaurants and cafes that seemed to fit into the discreet nature of the place, never standing out too much but being there when you needed them. I'm sure there are many many other places that fit the bill in this city but like I said above, I feel like I've only seen a snapshot of El DF.

Nightlife and Cool, Interesting, or Beautiful People

Maybe I'm somehow shallow or prejudiced, but I think an area's image is improved a lot by the image of the residents and hanger outers of the area. In Mexico City there is a lot of diversity in the people and a lot of hip, odd, or beautiful people to awe you or suprise you.

With nightlife, nothing is worse than a place where going out means going to the same couple of clubs or pubs every weekend. I love big cities for the variety and continual development of the nightlife scene. Mexico City is full of clubs and bars for all musical tastes and social groups from posers to goths.

Weather

The style of life in international cities can vary because of their weather and geographical location. Unlike other cities on my list such as New York or Delhi, Mexico City avoids the extremes and remains comfortable all year round. The only issue is pollution but I've hardly noticed that in my time here (apart from seeing the smog hanging over the city some mornings from my bedroom window).

Ok it's time to check out now but I hope I've described some of the reasons why I love Mexico City and given a good picture of El DF :o)

Change of course

2006-05-21T17:59:00.000+01:00

I'm Conor O' Kane and it's been three months since my last blog entry.

As I said in my last blog entry, I needed to think about whether I wanted to continue blogging, and if I did, what I would blog about.

I'd be lying if I said I had given it a lot of thought, but I have given it some thought. I don't want to blog about IT and areas relating to my work because (a) I don't want to put myself in any risky territory regarding discussion which may be in conflict with my work, and (b) there are a lot of more knowledgeable people out there in relation to IT and I don't want to blog about something where I may sound stupid(er).

So what can I blog about? Well one topic I feel on safer ground talking about and something I have such a passion about that I don't care if I say stupid things is travel. I travel a lot both with work and on holidays and so I feel well placed to offer a soapbox slash high horse opinion on travel and areas such as cultures and globalisation.

So that is what I will mostly blog about from now on. The following caveats, disclaimers, and health warnings apply:

I will namecheck a lot of places and so I'm sorry in advance if I come across as name dropping but I am passionate about travel and will write about what I love.

Some of my posts may be ill-informed, highly opinionated, or downright silly.

Since I work for a large consulting firm, there's a good chance I may mention companies which are clients of my employer. Anything I say is my own personal opinion and is not related to my work or the opinions of my firm.

Unfortunately (but fortunately for my productivity) I don't spend as much time on the Redbrick boards as I used to. With that in mind, if anyone follows up on the boards to my blog there's a good chance that I either won't see the post on the boards before it expires, or won't get around to following up to it before it expires. If you want to draw my attention to something or want to ask a question or make a point then please leave a comment on the blog.

With that out of the way I think I'll post about Mexico :o)

Decision time

2006-02-26T20:29:00.000Z

Homer:
You're right, Marge. Just like the time I could have met Mr. T at the mall. The entire day, I kept saying, 'I'll go a little later, I'll go a little later...' And when I got there, they told me he just left. And when I asked the mall guy if he'll ever come back again, he said he didn't know. Well, I'm never going to let something like that happen again!

After reading the FT Magazine's hype-bursting article on blogging last weekend I was discouraged about maintaining my blog, to say the least. It's an excellent article and it brought thoughts and doubts to the surface which had been nagging me for some time. Just like Homer Simpson in the quote above I had been putting off thinking about what exactly I was going to blog about and what the aim or message or tone of my blog would be. Then when I got to the "mall" (i.e. when I looked at my blog after a year of on again off again blogging) I realised I never had that sit down with my invisible friend to think about why I'm blogging and what I want to blog about.

I had originally wanted to improve my writing skills through practise from writing entries on the blog. The theory being that regular writing would help me get the creative juices flowing and help me put flesh on various ideas and thoughts I have. However I haven't written the articles I wanted to write due to a lack of time to develop the ideas. A tight supply of time and a free flowing supply of laziness and distractions have been my twin weaknesses which I struggle hard to resolve and master.

Shimoda's excellent new blog has taught me that a blog well-written can be interesting even when it's not an established writer doing the writing (as discussed in the FT article). So I am resolved to attempting to improve my blog and slightly change my blogging style.

From now on I will (a) think about what my blog is for, and (b) try to put thought into what I post. There is a large temptation to add exceptions to (b) but for the time being I'll try not to.

m-flo loves Shadow the Hedgehog

2006-02-12T19:41:00.000Z

I read about a lot of new websites and applications but will rarely even look at them unless there's a compelling reason or someone has recommended it to me.

The same went for You Tube which is a video sharing site. You can upload your own videos or just search for and watch other peoples' videos.

I was sent there by a friend to check out the MadTV spoof of "House" - an American tv medical detective show about a rogue doctor who plays by his own rules (as played by Hugh Laurie!). It's an ok show, as far as I can tell having only watched one episode. The spoof is pretty good anyway and pretty accurate, Laurie playing one of those tv characters who people wouldn't tolerate in real life due to his gruff nature and bitter sarcasm.

A few days later I was checking out m-flo's new album "Beat Space Nine" on the iTunes store - another first time visit to a site for me. Since iTunes sell music videos I did a search to see if they had the videos from the new album. Oddly enough they didn't, though they had the album itself. I remembered YouTube and decided to see what a search for "m-flo" threw up there and found a load of videos.

This really showed me how great YouTube is. They even had the video of the remix of Tripod Baby made to promote the new Shadow the Hedgehog game which has the band dancing with Shadow the Hedgehog :o)

Incidentally a search on Google Video throws up only two m-flo videos (one of which looks more like a kareoke video than the real thing).

Bollywood Fight Club!!

2006-02-07T23:17:00.000Z

Bollywood directors are famous for ripping off Hollywood films, but this really takes the biscuit.. A Bollywood version of Fight Club is in the works! Seems to be true.. and it sounds truly awful from the description on the website and Tian's description of the trailers.

PS Also on that Tian.cc website, some hilarious Brokeback Mountain parodies including "Brokeback to the Future". Genius :o)

Imagining a Google future

2006-01-29T13:38:00.000Z

(I'm on a blogging spree today.. don't know why..)

Interesting article on CNN Money with four predictions of Google's future:
1) Google is the media
2) Google is the internet
3) Google is dead
4) Google is God

Fun speculation :o)

On that whole Google China controversy I take issue with both sides of the argument.

It is a shame that there is such censorship in China, however I think people are being unrealistic about how much leverage companies like Google, Yahoo, and MSN have.

These companies basically have two choices: Don't go into China or go into China. If they don't go the Chinese government won't care, they have indigenous alternatives like Baiku. Indeed I read recently that for every American Web 2.0 site there is a Chinese "sister" site doing a similar application. If the companies do go into China, they can only do so with the blessing of the government (as in any other country) and must operate by the laws and regulations imposed by the government.

On the other side, I think it is a bit disingenuous of these companies to say that by being in China they are helping to make information easier to access, or helping improve the internet experience of Chinese consumers. Like I said above there are already local companies doing the same thing. The reason these companies go into China is because there is market pressure on them to enter what will be a huge market (Chinese broadband adoption will pass US broadband by 2008).

If there's one thing the coverage of internet censorship by the big three shows, it's that for all the talk of community generated content, of blogging being a tool of democracy and so on, most information on the internet is controlled at very centralised points. A handful of companies host most of the blogs in the world. A handful of companies are used by people to search the internet. It's very easy to turn off the flow of information should someone powerful enough choose to.

How does Technorati work?

2006-01-29T13:02:00.000Z

Searching for Dublin International Film Festival on Google Blog Search brings up my blog entry about the forthcoming festival. Searching with the same term on Technorati doesn't include my blog entry in the results.

Does anyone know how Technorati search works?

Ok this is weird.. a second ago it was missing my site.. now when I search again it has it there. What's up with that??

If you want to volunteer..

2006-01-29T12:39:00.000Z

When I wanted to do some volunteer work a few years ago I found it really hard to find out how to contact the charities I wanted to work for. When I did contact them the response was less than the "Wow, someone wants to volunteer to work for us!! Great! When can you start?" attitude I expected :o)

Irish NGOs are modernising in terms of the way they manage volunteers. There was an interesting article in the Sunday Tribune today about the ways in which volunteers in the 21st century are different from 20th century volunteers and the challenges facing people who make a new year's resolution to volunteer with an organisation.

In the 20th century volunteers were people with a lot of free time who were willing to give their time to do a job without expecting much and without questioning how the job was done. In the 21st century volunteers are time-poor and demand professionalism from the organisations they volunteer for. They are also more interested in what they can get out of the volunteer role and want to do interesting and challenging work, not staffing a charity clothes shop. At least that's according to a study done by a think-tank in the UK for the British Scout Association.

For willing volunteers the volunteering business can be tough too, they can find that charities may already be over-subscribed with volunteering offers or only hire volunteers at particular times of year. Also, sticking with a volunteering commitment is at least as challenging as any other new year's commitment.

Volunteering Ireland is a great site if you want to look at the various volunteering opportunities available within Ireland and abroad.

Happy Chinese New Year!

2006-01-28T21:33:00.000Z

It's the year of the dog since about five and a half hours ago. At least if you think the Chinese New Year begins at midnight in China. I watched some of the gala event on CCTV over the web but didn't understand a word of it :o)

There was something about picking out names for a couple of pandas too.. I'm not sure what the deal was with that. There was a competition on the website to vote on names for them and if you picked the name which was the most popular then you go into a draw for tickets for the 2008 Olympics. A friend of mine correctly predicted that names (团团 and 圆圆) which were close to the word for "reunification" (团圆 - or is it "reunion"?) would be the most popular, and they were. So now she's in the draw for free Olympics tickets! Guess the Chinese public are keen on bringing Taiwan back into the fold :o)

In previous years there were fairly big Chinese New Year events in Dublin but this year they couldn't get funding so only a few limited events at various venues are on instead. It seems not enough resources from the Chinese community in Ireland were committed to the event in previous years and the council was bearing the organisational burden which is a pity since I can imagine the event would have been even better and more "authentic" if it was organised and run by the community rather than a government department.

I guess the Chinese New Year is more of a family event (as far as my limited knowledge of Chinese New Year goes) so the immigrant community aren't really that interested in going to the trouble of organising stuff to commemorate it?

Dublin International Film Festival

2006-01-26T22:09:00.000Z

Last year's film festival was great, showing many many enjoyable films from around the world. Hopefully this year's will be just as good. The full programme of films is out on Feb 1st.

Davos blogged to bits!

2006-01-25T22:47:00.000Z

It's that time of year again!

The World Economic Forum is on at Davos. It's a big talking shop for the great and the good to discuss what's going on in the world and what's to be done about it.

It's being blogged a lot this year. Mike Rake, Chairman of KPMG, is blogging for the FT. The forum itself has set up a forum blog where various attendees are uploading articles and podcasts.

As with anything remotely related to world affairs or business these days, India and China will get a lot of focus and press at Davos. The Indians seem to have made a splash this year, at least according to the FT, between opening their retail market to increased FDI the day before Davos and then sending triple the amount of representatives to Davos and hosting a lot of the side events and free drinks. The retail news from India is interesting.. I'm looking forward to seeing what affect it will have had when I visit India next. I'm sure Anand Sridharan will have a very informative article on the potential impact in the next while. He's a great blogger and very much a quality over quantity blogger (unlike me, I'm neither ;o)).

Speaking of podcasts.. they seem to be really taking off.. at least based on the fact that some managers in my office are listening to them now. My Dad even listens to podcasts! I think the convenience of podcasts helps them compared with blogs which you have to sit still to read. I'm not a fan of having to pay attention to what I'm listening to when I'm on the move, I prefer music as a background noise and to be left with my own thoughts rather than trying to absorb someone else's. But most people seem to disagree with me on that viewpoint :o)

Why RSS is not email

2006-01-22T21:32:00.000Z

I only found out today that you can sync up NewsGator and FeedDemon so that you can track the feeds you follow in FeedDemon from other computers (props to Plop@rb for that info!). I googled to find out more and came across some interesting articles on why FeedDemon is great and why aggregating RSS via Outlook sucks.

I'm an agnostic in this debate since I've never used an RSS aggregator other than FeedDemon (great product and great brand, call me a typical consumer but it'll be hard to make me switch :o)). However I do like Steve Makofsky's statement that "RSS is not email". In particular I work very much in line with point 2, I specifically fire up my separate blog reading app when I want to read blogs. That way I have a nice clean distinction between time spent reading blogs and time doing anything else. Also it forces me to go out of my way to read blogs rather than if it was embedded in my browser or email client where I might be tempted to "accidentally" slip into reading a few articles.

I wonder how most people fit RSS reading into their workflow. Do most people read blogs in their personal time, or when work is slack, or do you consider it relevant to your job and justify reading it during the work day?

Blog demographics

2006-01-10T22:11:00.000Z

Apparently there are millions of blogs out there. We're told by blog evangelists that blogs are the new media. Yet looking at who is consuming this new media is hard to tell.

Take the popular blogs on Technorati, one of the most popular blog search engines. Of the top ten blogs, three would fall into the popular culture category (Boing Boing, Post Secret, and maybe the Chinese language one at number ten which I have no idea about), two are oriented towards people interested in gadgets, and the other five are blogs about American politics.

Iraq war aside, American domestic politics (Alito nomination, Tom De Lay scandal, etc. etc.) gets very little coverage in the "MSM" outside the US. Therefore the fact that five of the top ten most popular blogs on Technorati are about American politics shows that either a vast majority of the blog consumers are Americans keen on politics or that coverage of American domestic politics is something sorely in demand by citizens of other countries left unsatisfied by the sparse coverage in their national print media.

Actually a strict interpretation of Technorati's ranking mechanism means that what this actually means is that when people who write blogs ("bloggers", if you will) link to content on other blogs (let's not forget that Technorati doesn't count traditional sites in it's ranking, except in the separate news ranking which is also American-domestic-news-heavy) a lot of them link to American domestic political news.

Looking at the top 50 sites as a sample reveals some interesting (and perhaps even meaningless) stats:

37 of the 50 are English language
9 of the 50 are Chinese language
3 are Japanese language
1 is Spanish

Of the nine Chinese blogs, all of them are on MSN Spaces.
Of the top 50 blogs, none of the non-Chinese blogs are on MSN Spaces.

Of the 37 English language blogs, 12 are about American domestic politics (and another one, "Igf", is a disturbing blog which seems to be one long rant about the various political situations in the Middle East with a distinctly anti-Arab slant).

The number of sites linking to these blogs falls from ~19 thousand for the number one blog, Boing Boing, to ~five thousand for the number ten blog, to ~three thousand for the number 50 blog, to ~two thousand for the number 100 blog. Is this the "long tail" in action? A handful of extremely popular/interesting blogs and then a few hundred ones of interest to various sub-demographics?

With nine of the top 50 blogs being Chinese, does this indicate the rise of a parallel internet of Chinese language content? One that is unintelligible to most non-Chinese internet users? Also, what does the popularity of MSN Spaces with the most linked Chinese bloggers mean? Are Chinese internet users getting into blogging through msn messenger? (On my own buddy list I'm noticing more and more people start to use MSN Spaces, some for uploading photos, some for blogging as well)
If we were to look at a broader sample of blogs, would we find the trend similar for most people who have started a blog in the last year or two? Certainly the "My MSN Space" button in MSN Messenger is a great way to give people easy access to their blog, and advertising peoples' blogs through their buddy list contact cards helps spread the meme of blogging like a worm through the international MSN Messenger web of buddies.

There are still lots of unanswered questions about the blogging market and medium such as "Why does it matter to anyone other people who advertise on blogs or own a blogging company?" (to which I answer "Touché") and "Who cares about stupid blogs anyway?". These thoughts I've posted here are my off-the-cuff observations late in the evening on having a bored glance through the Technorati popular blogs. Wan an.

The annoyance of getting a taxi from Delhi airport

2006-01-05T22:58:00.000Z

Sonia Faleiro writes about her experience getting a taxi from Mumbai airport. At first read I could have sworn she was writing about getting a taxi from Delhi airport. It's the exact same experience.

The first-time international traveller to Delhi, unless they have a driver waiting, will nearly always makes the rookie mistake of assuming that they can just walk out the arrivals gate and find a taxi rank. They assume at the taxi rank it will be just like Dublin airport, or Budapest airport, or Mexico City airport where someone is on hand to wave a taxi in and kindly ask you where you want to go and help you put your luggage in the boot and send you on your way with a clean and sober driver.

The reality is there is no taxi rank. If you do pass the money exchange and walk into the arrivals hall, you are landed in India with a couple of men clamouring for your attention asking you "Which hotel?" "Hello, how are you?" "First time in India?" (that last one is Hindi for "Just how gullible are you?"). Their friendliness is merely a sales pitch for a very expensive taxi journey. Don't assume that just because it is expensive you will be driven in a nice car.. you won't. And don't assume because you have told the driver which hotel you are staying in, that you will be brought there. They may decide other hotels pay a better commission and bring you there instead, insisting your hotel is closed or burnt down or was merely a figment of your imagination.

If, on the other hand, you pick up your luggage after getting through immigration and think "Ok, I'll keep my eyes peeled for some sort of tourist information desk or taxi booking desk" you'll spot the taxi booking desk just beyond the customs check. Delhi airport is actually very open plan, you can see the luggage belts from the immigration queue, and can see the arrivals hall from the luggage belts.

At the taxi booking desk you'll find one or two women who make the bookings, and a dozen or so various hangers on and taxi drivers. Once you indicate your desire to book a taxi, one or two of these hangers on (you could call them porters in that they carry your luggage but that really would give you a mental image of someone much neater, tidier, and trustworthy) will take your luggage from you. You won't see your luggage again until it's in the boot of the taxi and the porter is standing there explaining how the exchange rate is 50 rupees to one dollar and therefore since one dollar is such a small amount you should give them one dollar of a tip. There are very poor people in India who live on less than one dollar a day. That should give you some indication of how much of a tip 50 rupees is when you think "How much money would someone poor in need to survive for a day?" and imagine giving that amount to a porter in your own country as a tip.

When you have stated where you want to go and paid the requested amount to one of the women in the taxi booth, she will give you a slip of paper which you are supposed to give to the taxi driver once you reach your destination so that he can prove that he didn't kill you before bringing you to where you wanted to go. Funnily enough, one Delhi airport taxi driver did actually kill an Australian woman about a year ago. He was out of his head on drugs at the time apparently, and the booking system allowed the police to capture him fairly quickly. This goes back to what I said above, you expect a clean and sober driver. Delhi airport taxi drivers are usually neither of these things.

The good news is that there are apparently plans to extend the Delhi metro to the airport. That would be great for both Delhi citizens and local and foreign travellers by taking the monopoly out of the hands of the taxi interests.

BusinessWeek goes online, Fortune goes free

2006-01-04T15:38:00.000Z

Following on from my post yesterday, just a quick bit of news: Fortune, Business 2.0, and Money are putting all their content online for FREE.

I said yesterday that there was plenty of good content online for free, now there's even more. I'll still read Fortune in print though, and happily pay money for it.

BusinessWeek abandons its international editions

2006-01-03T21:22:00.000Z

Rest assured I was on the internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.

Ok so "abandon" is a strong word, what they're doing is moving the international content to their website and stopping printing the international editions. All subscriptions to the international editions will be cancelled and subscribers will be given refunds or given accounts on the businessweek website where they can view the relocated content.

The editorial gives three reasons:

BusinessWeek's online readership has "exploded" and "many" of the readers have told BusinessWeek that they read the content online before the printed edition arrives at their doors.

The only way to "efficiently reach an expanding class of business reader everywhere and especially in emerging markets" is "with digital delivery".

BusinessWeek "can develop a real conversation with you online and accommodate your interests" via blogs, podcasts, yadda yadda...

They are all good reasons so I'll give two main reasons why I'm not sure I'll bother to continue paying money to BusinessWeek if it means that a subscription only gives me access to their content via a computer.

I already spend at least eight hours a day in front of a computer, I don't want to spend another four hours or so reading BusinessWeek content. One of the things I like(d) about BusinessWeek offline is being able to relax at home and read it without having to look at a computer screen. Or read it on the bus, or in a cafe, or on a park bench.. You get the idea.

There is already a lot of similar online content (e.g. BBC, Om Malik, etc.) which is well written and.. free. I like BusinessWeek's content a lot but I'm not sure I could justify paying ÂX a month for content which doesn't differentiate itself enough and which I may not read every month due to time constraints (I'm not in front of my computer when I'm in bed or in front of the tv or on the bus.. these are all times when I can read an "offline" edition).

I find the emerging markets point funny because these (BRIC, Poland, Egypt, Turkey, etc.) are countries where widespread internet access is not as easy to come by as in most Western countries. And yet getting rid of the printed international editions of BusinessWeek is supposed to increase their access to business consumers in those countries?

I started out reading BusinessWeek by buying it in airport newsagents as something to read on the plane. I have an interest in international business and current affairs and its content is great, informative and interesting, but I wonder how young business people and business students will find out about BusinessWeek now that it will no longer (I assume? Or will they hawk the American edition in the newsagents of Dublin, Warsaw, and Beijing?) be available on newsagent shelves?

I don't feel sorry for BusinessWeek, they've made their decision and they'll prosper or perish by it. I feel sorry for myself, because I've lost my subscription to what was a great offline read.

"anti-RSS hype"

2006-01-02T17:42:00.000Z

Hmmm..

Scoble wrote yesterday, in a post titled "The anti-RSS hype", that there's an anti-RSS thread going on at Slashdot (which I don't read myself because it looks so ugly and hard to read). The thread was started because Yahoo and Ipsos did a survey which found that only 4% of users are using RSS.

Scoble is pretty dismissive of this and compares anti-RSS heads to the people who failed to predict the rise of the personal compuer and the people who failed to predict the rise of the GUI.

(Incidentally if you don't know what RSS is then here's a definition)

Now while I'm a fan of blogs, I have to disagree with Scoble's anti-hype hype. First of all, were personal computers and GUIs as hyped as blogs are before they broke into the mainstream? I haven't studied much computing history so someone else is going to have to tell me the answer to that, but I can't imagine they were that hyped?

Secondly, Scoble says in his post

In the meantime, you try to read 743 Web sites in a browser.

Who has the time to read 743 web sites at all? Whether using an RSS feed or using a browser? RSS feeds automate collecting the content, but you still have to read it and follow the links and so on. I don't have time to read blogs daily. Scoble himself writes at least five articles every weekday. Not all of us are paid to publish and read blog content all day long.

I think blogs are useful, and RSS as a way of making it easier to track many blogs is a very useful tool. I think it's not something most internet users need though. How many internet users want to go through a large amount of content online on a daily basis? Most users want to read and write emails, chat with friends, and go online for specific tasks such as uploading photos, searching for jobs, searching for quiz answers, etc.

It's too early to dismiss RSS but equally I think it's too early to dismiss the doubters.

New Year resolution week

2006-01-01T21:33:00.000Z

I only remembered around midnight last night that I should think up some new year's resolutions. In a hurry I scribbled down some resolutions which I lifted from the "lifer" part of my ongoing To Do list. These are the things you mean to do but require a level of commitment which makes them hard to stick with. On top of that they're goals which you can't just do in one go, they're not discrete actions which you can do in one day or a few hours.

So my New Year's resolutions include improving my Chinese, Hindi, and Spanish. Heh... will I actually act on any of those resolutions? Only time will tell..
There's a host of other langauges I want to learn but have decided to just focus on improving the languages that I have a slight grasp of already, as opposed to ones where I literally only have the cúpla focail (like Russian and Japanese).

In the meantime, I've decided that this coming week will be my "New Year Resolution week" where I reflect on what I want from 2006 and make some SMART (Specific, Measurable, Accurate, Realistic, Timely) resolutions.

On a slight tangent, I just googled "SMART" to make sure I had the right words and I note that various websites seem to use different words for the 'A' and 'T' but agree on the rest. Wikipedia disagrees with me and other websites on the 'R'. What do other people think SMART stands for?

Wow.. I wonder if my blogging style will ever vary from rambling babble :o)

Can I have FeedBurner style?

2006-01-01T21:21:00.000Z

I setup my blog on FeedBurner today. FeedBurner acts as sort of a proxy for any RSS feeds to your blog. By sitting in the middle it can log details such as where the visitor came from and what browser/aggregator they are using to view your feed. What can I say, I like stats :o)

Anyway, I looked at my blog as presented at FeedBurner, and I much prefer that style to the style I have on Blogger at the moment! Only thing is it's missing the comments links (it's just a feed and they don't include the comments) so I'll put up with my blog style for now. That FeedBurner style looks a lot easier to read to me though.

Can Mass be made better?

2006-01-01T12:58:00.000Z

Despite the stereotype I've sometimes encountered abroad, most young Irish people don't go to mass every Sunday. This is for various reasons; some don't believe in God, some like the ol' Sunday morning lie-in, some don't want to participate in the Catholic religion (because they have a different faith or are developing their own personal faith). However I think there are some young people who would go if mass was just.. more interesting.

In asking how can mass be made better, I mean how can it be made more interesting and engaging for people. Not just young people but the congregation as a whole.

There are obvious answers: Hold the premieres of big Hollywood films at mass, replace the priest with a celebrity (can you imagine receiving communion off Scarlett Johansson or Colin Farrell?), replace communion bread with a nice fry. These answers aren't quite in keeping with the tone and intention of mass though. So, within the boundaries of taste and respecting the solemnity of the church, how can mass be made more interesting?

I think (from my own personal experience) one thing that can be improved straight away is the presentation skills of the priest. Maybe the Church should require that all priests get involved in Toastmasters so that they become better at writing engaging and interesting sermons. Sometimes the sermons which priests read out sound very much like rote sermons, discussing the holiness of the particular time of year but without really engaging the congregation or keeping them interested.

The atmosphere in the church is also something which contributes to a mass I think. The larger the audience, the more there's a sort of communal feeling which contributes to the experience that everyone has. For masses where there is a smaller attendance maybe there should be smaller churches or a different format for the mass to reinforce that community feeling.

Any other suggestions on how to make mass more interesting for those that would be attracted to the sprituality but put off by the boring-ness of mass?

While I'm on my soapbox..

2005-12-29T21:16:00.000Z

I notice I'd written about Windows Live a while back, so before I close Blogger and go to get a cup of tea I'll write a quick update.

I applied for the Live mail trial a while back. You have to be a US resident (on your msn profile) to qualify for the trial, so it's a good thing I am! *cough* When you apply you get an email to your hotmail account saying "Thank you for applying for the trial blah blah you'll be switched over soon and won't lose any of your mail". I was switched over about three or four weeks after applying for the trial.

Hotmail needed an update. I had a ridiculous 2MB of space. My phone has more memory than that! I kept my Hotmail account for historical reasons; there are some people who only have my hotmail address and I've never bothered asking them to email me from another address. Also I use MSN Messenger and therefore am tied to my hotmail address (at least by virtue of being constantly reminded it exists every time I sign in) whether I like it or not.

Crucially Live mail gives you 2 gigs of space. This means I can stop purging all those old emails which I really didn't want to delete (I'm a total hoarder when it comes to emails..) It also means I can feel comfortable with people sending me attachments now and not have to worry about whether other peoples' mails are bouncing because someone sent me a hilarious animated gif of someone getting horribly mutilated (yes I am that popular to receive emails from more than one person and also to receive animated gifs in my mails).

The amount of space Live mail gives saved my Hotmail account. I was on the verge of moving people to my gmail account solely because of the space. I don't actually like gmail, it just doesn't look nice to me. Looks wise Live mail doesn't differ too much from Hotmail. It appears a lot less cluttered but I think that's due to less ads or different coloured ads on the side and top of the window than anything else.
There is now a preview pane so that you can view your inbox and the content of a mail at the same time. That's about it...

The one thing I miss from Hotmail is the ability to write plain text emails. I can't find an option for it so I assume they've completely removed it from Live mail.

So basically Live mail is Hotmail with 2 gigs of space. For me at least. There are other features which "power users" might appreciate like keyboard shortcuts, drag and drop of emails, etc but for me the crucial difference is the increase in space, and I'm very happy about that. Thanks Microsoft! :o)

Budapest reunion pics!

2005-12-29T21:09:00.000Z

Ok I finally put the Budapest trainee reunion pictures online .. emails to the relevant people to follow :o)

Belated Merry Christmas, and a Timely Happy New Year!

2005-12-29T20:45:00.000Z

Season's Greetings and all that.

I thought I'd catch up on my blog reading, and blogging, over Christmas but it hasn't happened. In 20/20 hindsight it's probably a bit silly to expect to get anything done over the Christmas holidays :o)

Still I'm uploading the Budapest trainee reunion photos this evening and hope to blog again at the weekend (fat chance ;o))

Peace,
C

How to make me not look at a url

2005-12-05T13:43:00.000Z

Post/mail/IM it without explaining what it's about, or with just some comment that only makes sense when you follow the link.

How hard is it to write a sentence or two explaining what the link is about?

Some blogs I like

2005-11-27T17:39:00.000Z

I do have trouble keeping up with the blogs I'm subscribed to, but when I do get time to catch up, these are some of the blogs I like.

Communication Nation is a blog about soft skills, from presentations to dealing with customers to holding meetings or spending your time more effectively.

Presentation Zen is a blog written by a guy living in Japan which discusses presentation skills from a zen perspective. It's not a blog which is updated daily but every post he makes is interesting and educational.

43 Folders is another mix of posts on issues related to time management skills.

India Uncut is a great blog for Indophiles and anyone who wants to keep up with the latest issues in India. The blogger links to a lot of other Indian blogs and I think it's fair to say he has his finger on the pulse of the Indian blogging scene. Just mark the cricket related posts as read ;o)

Two tangential points on this:

1) India Uncut is yet another blog which shows that bloggers who write about political or social issues are still very reliant on the mainstream media for learning about stories in the first place. This is despite some bloggers' dissing of the MSM and claims that bloggers will take over from the MSM in being the source of news stories in the future.

2) If an "Indophile" is a fan of India, then what do you call someone who is a fan of Indonesia?

Welcome to Room 116 is a blog which covers original ad campaigns around the world. This blog links to a lot of cool and imaginative campaigns that I'd have never heard of otherwise.

Computerworld Security News (apologies but I'm linking directly to the feed since I don't have a proper link to the normal website) is good for keeping up to date with security news in the IT field.

Signal Vs. Noise is a design oriented blog with a focus mostly on web applications and web sites and that whole Web 2.0 thing.

I read a fair few other blogs but the above would be the ones which I find consistently interesting.

How do you keep up with blogs?

2005-11-27T11:50:00.000Z

I'd be interested to know how many blogs other people read and how they keep up to date with them, especially those blogs which post multiple articles per day. I have a hard time keeping up because some days I just don't have the time to read the blogs I'm subscribed to.

Live Messenger

2005-11-06T20:52:00.000Z

Catching up on my blog reading and saw Om Malik has a brief comment on Live Messenger plus a screenshot.

This also sounds really cool! I'm not a VOIP user though it would save me a lot of money if I was so it's something I might take up in the near future. (Skype is installed on my home pc but I've never gotten around to testing it).

With all the focus on Google lately it's been easy to forget that Microsoft are still absolutely loaded and have the ability (should they choose) to copy and improve upon existing applications launched by competitors. This Live thing is going to be interesting to see, especially since Microsoft have the infrastructure in place to integrate this stuff with the desktop a lot more easily than Google.

Windows Live

2005-11-06T15:59:00.000Z

Just saw it posted on rb now and it looks very cool.

When I saw you can import an OPML file (i.e. import the list of feeds you're subscribed to in another RSS reader) I thought "Ah typical Microsoft, you probably can't export your feeds from Windows Live" but you can! That's pretty cool.

I think the Windows Live desktop is a good idea but I don't see a way to categorise feeds so you only view, say, security blogs at any one time. Instead it seems like you are expected to just scroll through all the feeds you've added. That can't be right, can it? I don't see a way to mark individual items on a feed as read and therefore hide them either.

You can move stuff around, but only above or below or beside existing stuff, it's not like a proper "desktop".

I can't think of what information I'd like on an online desktop.. Like I wouldn't care about seeing my buddy list while I'm reading emails.. or would I.. hmm.. it's definitely something I'll give a go anyway.

The thing I love about Windows Live is Windows Live Favourites. It's something I've wanted for a long long time.. an easy way to keep track of my favourites no matter what pc I am at. The site also allows you to export your favourites in a format which can be viewed offline as a HTML file. I love it.

The hardest part of trying out new technologies is that to really get the benefit of them (for example, this portable favourites storage idea) you have to change the way you work or use the computer. I am used to storing my favourites in my browser and I don't know if I would bother with the extra step of having to first go to a specific website, then log in before I could save a url. For that reason I can see it being a while before I being to use Live Favourites as a habit. Does anyone know if, when you import favourites, it merges them with existing favourites?

Overall though it's a cool new idea from Microsoft and I'm looking forward to using it more and seeing what gadgets come out for it. The new Live Mail should be cool too. Way too early to say if this is Microsoft just firing out a few small products to try to keep up with Google or whether they genuinely want to get involved in a big way in this area I think.

Random late night post..

2005-10-20T23:27:00.000+01:00

It's been a long time since I last posted and I've been thinking about posting for a while now but have never gotten around to it. What's prompted this spontaneous return to the world of blogging is a late night wait and watch for a Lotus Notes database to replicate for me over my home dsl connection.

Surely they could have some sort of intelligent replication which only updates the _part_ of the file which has changed or which compares the checksums of attached files to see if they need to be uploaded/downloaded again. Guess not..

If I get around to it this weekend I might throw up some new posts, but I've been saying that to myself (and anyone that would listen) for the past few weeks :o)

(PS: Yes I know there is a background replication option, but I'm not smart enough to use it..)

Some comments about Open Source and blogs I hate..

2005-07-30T15:22:00.000+01:00

First of all, blogs like IT Outsourcing Comments are types of blog I hate. Where is the value in just posting up extracts from other pages and links back to those pages?

When people read journo type blogs, or blogs about a specific subject, they expect a certain value in reading the opinion of that person. Some blog which is just a link farm is not that good. In this case it's not so bad because the blogger links to some obscure blogs and mags, but some blogs post up links to CNet and Wired etc. Who doesn't know CNet or Wired? "There's an interesting article on Wired about digital media?? Shit, why didn't I think to look at Wired!"

Anyway on to Open Source stuff..

I read the article on the above blog about "The Advance of Open Source".

I've nothing against open source software but would like to comment on some of the points made in the article.

This whole "advance of open source" idea. It might be ok for cheer leaders to go "Yay! <insert company here> is using Linux!" but what does that mean? I remeber hearing someone on the phone to a client "..it's open source software. That means it's free." Someone makes an application that's usable (i.e. it's not total shit) and is free, where's the victory? It's a no-brainer: You have two products of similar quality, one is free, one costs €100 per seat. Which do you go for?
Companies deciding to use free software over expensive software isn't that much of a moral victory.

When companies start releasing their core intellectual property as open source, then I'll believe they are on board with it. But in this day and age, when we see companies worrying about competitors in China reverse-engineering their products, I can't see companies rushing to release their source code to one and all..

The blogger also says about Firefox

Hence, Open Source is no longer just for geeks but it is slowly but steadily becoming a mainstream thing.

I don't know about that. What is open source besides free software? The whole ideology behind open source software is about the benefits of releasing the code.. but consumers don't care about the code. I've downloaded Firefox.. I'm not even sure if the code came with it. I just use it to surf the web. I couldn't care less whether it's open source or closed source, and I think most non-geek Firefox users would say the same.

Open Source is cool, it's a nice idea. But I don't think that people using free software which happens to be open source is much of an advance for the open source movement.

Update on Global Voices

2005-07-30T14:59:00.000+01:00

My last entry was about Global Voices. I went back there today and see that the page I said was spammed has since been fixed. And on that page I notice that there already was an Ireland page! It was called Republic of Ireland. However that page is now spammed. Brilliant.

When the page gets fixed I'll probably just add the Planet Redbrick link to it. The Ireland page I created is redundant I suppose. Though who calls Ireland the "Republic of Ireland". This came up on the Redbrick newsgroups recently and I forget the conclusion which was something along the lines of it being technically correct (the best kind of correct) and was therefore perfectly acceptable.

I can't imagine any Irish person saying "I live in the Republic of Ireland" when asked where they live, but then again that doesn't mean it's incorrect, especially when in a listing of countries. Very unintuitive for Irish people who might look for the page about their country though.

Global Voices

2005-07-28T15:09:00.000+01:00

Just set up the Ireland page on Global Voices.

Obviously I've just thrown in the Planet Redbrick link. Blatent plug ;o)
Actually I notice that some pages have been spammed to bits. The unfortunate side effect of using a Wiki :o/

I found out about Global Voices from the page about Cambodian blogs. I can't remember where I got the link to that page from.. it's been one of those days.

This particular blog by ThaRum contains an interesting viewpoint on life in Cambodia and especially issues of literacy and the digital divide.

It's a shame that some people can spew so much hyperbole about blogs and how wonderful they are when there are still many many people in the world who cannot read, let alone use a computer.

I see people coming out of a methadone clinic near where I work almost every day. I wonder if they know how to use a computer or have ever used one..

The backlash against blogging

2005-07-24T17:29:00.000+01:00

Even though I blog I tend to be a bit skeptical about the hype around what are effectively just the new "home page" (remember when people had a home page instead of a blog? :o)).

Couple of pages making fun of blogging:
Maddox
Karl Podesta

Blogs are pretty lame but they satisfy some need I have to dump my thoughts into the the great unknown of the internet.. so I'm gonna keep on blogging :o)

A Case-Study in Best Practice for Operating System Management

2005-07-24T17:19:00.000+01:00

Just had a quick read through "A Case-Study in Best Practice for Operating System Management" by Colm MacCárthaigh and Colin Whittaker. I think it's a good introduction to IT operations management to people at lower levels of the IT ladder. It's definitely worth looking at for undergrads and people new to IT administration who want a quick introduction to best practices in the area.

(Disclaimer: I have never been an IT admin, but have audited enough IT departments to know the benefits of best practice)

And yes...

2005-07-20T15:39:00.000+01:00

I realise the irony of only recently making a blog entry about how we will begin to reference each other's posts only for me to be the first one to do it..

I know one airline I'll try to avoid...

2005-07-20T15:33:00.000+01:00

Just read Colm's post about Hapag-Lloyd Express.

As someone with a fear of falling (you might call it a fear of heights.. but a fear of falling is more accurate since I'm not afraid of being high up inside a building or on a bridge where there are railings in place to stop me falling off etc.) I will definitely try to avoid this airline.

My scariest experience with an airline was flying into Frankfurt with Lufthansa one time. We almost landed when it hit serious turbulance and the plane dropped quickly. I hate hate hate that feeling.. the tightness in your chest when every instinct in your body is telling you that you are going to die.

I will never fly with an airline like Hapag-Lloyd if they fly in such a scary manner.

Self-referential link ahoy!

2005-07-18T21:25:00.000+01:00

Haven't blogged in a long time, but felt the need to since Planet Redbrick has been launched!

When I first heard the name I thought Planet Redbrick would be the cool idea Kevin p had years ago about making a map of the world and highlighting the countries that Redbrick members had logged on from. However Planet Redbrick is a page which could also (maybe more accurately) be called Blogosphere Redbrick. It is a collection of blogs by Redbrick members.

I'm there, and so are many other fine people. This is why I've decided to write this post, because I haven't written in so long that none of my blog entries are on the site ;o)

Actually this Planet Redbrick idea might encourage me to blog. Maybe it will create a blogging arms race with people frantically writing blog entries just to keep a presence on the page? I think in time it will definitely start to get infected with the in-jokes from the Redbrick boards ("Planet Redbrick has an army in the Nebucanezar looking for a second INTRA job now?" "Yes, they held off the Russian army with poor people skills.") If we all descend into writing blog entries discussing each other's blogs then we could become as self-referential, elitist, and isolated from reality as some of the American political bloggers (ooh, controversial!). I hope that won't happen, but hopefully a sort of community spirit will emerge to some small enough extent.

Planet Redbrick

Blogs in the weekend papers

2005-04-12T22:46:00.000+01:00

Just a short post..

The Irish Times comes with a magazine on Saturdays. Every week they have a list of what's hot and what's cold. This past Saturday they had "blogs" in the what's cold column :o)

The Sunday Tribune this past weekend had a few articles about what's happening in the world of Irish blogs and seemed to take blogs seriously.

So divided opinions, both equally valid :o)

Lif Up Yuh Leg An Trample

2005-04-12T22:33:00.000+01:00

Posted about Soca and how much I like it on my old blog.
Was googling something and came across this review of a great Soca compilation album: Lif Up Yuh Leg An Trample.

I can't find Soca music in Ireland. Picked this album up in the largest Tower Records store in the world, which is in Shibuya in Tokyo. They have a shelf there for Soca which really surprised and impressed me. Doesn't compare to the 8 shelves of video game and pachinko soundtracks they have though :o)

Why Blog?

2005-04-09T16:39:00.000+01:00

I've been wondering a lot recently about why I should or shouldn't blog. Haven't come up with a good reason yet :o)
I just want to get my opinion out there on the internet I guess. But I've always been opinionated and so it's normal for me to feel compelled to speak in any situation.

I was wondering why more people on Redbrick didn't have blogs. Redbrick is a university computing society. It's actually called a "networking society" but that causes a lot of confusion with the term "networking" in the social sense so I don't use it when explaining Redbrick to people who aren't familiar with it. I have started using FeedDemon in the last few months and had begun to wear the blogger blinkers, seeing the world from a blog reader/writer's perspective. As a society with a very computer literate membership I was surprised Redbrick didn't have a lot more blogs. So I posted to their forum asking why more members didn't have blogs. I asked:

What I find funny (funny odd) is that rb is such a techie forum and yet so few people here have blogs. What's the deal with that? Is blogging not really something that appeals to Irish people?

Here are some of the responses I got:

"I think that blogging doesn't generally appeal to *people*, not
specifically Irish people."

"Well, it's always going to be a niche interest IMO, but it's a particularly interesting one. The idea of self-publishing fully realised, through simple tools."

"I dunno, I tried it two summers ago, for 30 days, as an experiment and it got a reasonable amount of readers - for some reason, but tbh it's a bit "Look at me, I'm interesting, read my thoughts, give me attention" which doesn't really suit the Irish psyche, which no matter how attention-seeking, arrogant and self-centred you really are it's always a no-no to outright appear to be so.

Maybe we Irish have the good sense to realise we're really not all that interesting?"

"For me, it's kind of the same reason I've never really bothered maintaining a website - it would be just one more amongst masses, and I don't consider myself that interesting. ;o)"

"The cross-site blogging messing is just mad. It's like peer-to-peer news. People cutting up newspapers, and passing them around to their friends."

"I've never had an urge to keep a diary... let alone publish it on the interweb....

I think the rb boards fill the "mindless prattle" part of blogging so most people here already have an outlet for it...

I wonders if all these bloggers are old usenet veterans who have just migrated to a new medium, or are they prattle-to-the-masses virgins..."

Hmmm..

There weren't many posts in favour of blogging. I tend to agree with the above sentiments.. and yet I still feel compelled to have a blog.. So maybe it is more a personality thing than people sitting down and going "What can I contribute to the web? Is a blog the best way to go about this?"

When reading some of the leading blogs there is definitely an echo chamber effect. Read enough blogs and you can begin to think that the world does actually blog. In fact, I'd seriously question the signifigance of some of the figures around the amount of blogs on the web. It's probably got more to do with the state of internet publishing today than with a desire to blog regularly or blog for the betterment of mankind. People find blogging tools an easy way to have a homepage which you can use to share jokes, stories, and pictures with friends. In that sense they're not much different to old school "home pages."

Correct me if I'm wrong..

Supercomputing in Ireland

2005-04-09T16:34:00.000+01:00

Not my bag really, but Karl Podesta loves it. He loves it so much that he wants to marry it and have its distributed children. He also loves it so much that he has created a webpage listing current supercomputing projects going on around Ireland.

Check it out, it's an interesting field of computing.

A blog reborn

2005-04-03T20:36:00.000+01:00

Bem-vindo!

After giving up on my blog on Redbrick, and despite niggling doubts as to whether I should blog at all, I have decided to give blogger a go. Hopefully this will be more reliable than my previous blog and I will keep it updated reasonably often. Good intentions and all that.. ;o)

Peace.