Archive for November, 2006

Technorati down?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 30/11/2006
in Search Engines
. 2 Comments

Anyone else having trouble getting in to Technorati today?

My attempts to get in in the last 10 minutes or so are timing out.

UPDATE: It seems to be up again. I wonder what that was all about.

How to advertise to me

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 30/11/2006
in Browsers and Web 2.0
. 11 Comments

Advertising any product to me is becoming more and more difficult. It is not just me, there is a growing number of people who are discovering ways to skip ads almost completely in their daily lives.

In my own case, I honestly can’t remember the last time I bought a newspaper but it would be years ago. I prefer to get all my news online.

I use the Firefox plugin Adblock to ensure I don’t see most ads online (see below)

This is the ENN site viewed without the Adblock plugin
Site viewed without Adblock

This is the same ENN site viewed using the Adblock plugin
Site viewed with Adblock

I used to listen to quite a bit of radio when I was on the road. Now however, I fill my iPod with podcasts before setting off on any journey and listen to those instead. This means that I am listening to content of my selection, relevant to my work, and I am not at the whim of whatever presenter happens to be on the radio.

I watch a decreasing amount of television. The TV I do watch tends to be DVDs or movie channels with no ads. I’d potentially watch a little more TV if I had Sky+ (similar to Tivo) but it is waaaaaaay too expensive.

And yes, before anyone says it, I do see the irony of posting this on a site who’s hosting is being paid for by Google ads!

So if you were an advertiser, trying to get your brand/message through to me (and people like me), how would you go about it?

it@cork 2006 conference review

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 30/11/2006
in IT@Cork and Technology
. 4 Comments

[At the outset, let me say that any comments I make on this event will be coloured by the fact that I was one of the organisers!]

Ok, with that out of the way, I think yesterday’s event was a tremendous success! There were over 250 people attended (Catherine can give me exact numbers but I think 250 is pretty close to the ball park).

The speakers were almost all great, both in terms of the content and the delivery. Tom Corcoran sums the day up nicely on the RAI Centre blog.

The speaker’s slides will be up on the it@cork site in the next couple of days and I hope to get the recordings of the talks from the a/v company and podcast them on the it@cork blog in the coming weeks.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the day the great success it was.

My wi-fi died!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 30/11/2006
in Technology
. 1 Comment

The wi-fi died on my laptop early in the it@cork conference yesterday so I was unable to live blog the event, as I had hoped.

I’m not sure why, I paid for 24 hours wi-fi from the Eircom network there but I couldn’t get any access after the first break.

I will be publishing podcasts of all the speaker’s talks on the it@cork blog in the coming weeks.

it@cork 2006 Conference - Jacques-Etienne Grandjean

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 29/11/2006
in IT@Cork, Microsoft and Technology
. 6 Comments

Jacques-Etienne Grandjean is the Senior Director, Comm Sector Western Europe of Microsoft. Jean-Etienne’s presentation title is “Are Desktop Applications the way of the past?”

Jacques-Etienne is unfortunately doing a sales job on Microsoft Live rather than addressing the actual title of his talk. Not once, even when discussing search, did he mention any of Microsoft’s competitors.

Shame really ‘cos, while Microsoft are behind in this space, a couple of their Live offerings are quite good but not mentioning the better products of their competitors, devalues all of Microsoft’s Live offerings.

it@cork 2006 Conference - Eddie Hobbs

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 29/11/2006
in IT@Cork and Technology
. 6 Comments

Eddie Hobbs led off the talks at the it@cork conference this morning. His talk focussed heavily on energy and the coming energy crisis. What is the Irish government’s plan when oil reaches $200 per barrel? [Hint: it is up there with their dealing with an asteroid hitting Dáil Eireann plan].

The average distance food travels in the US from field to fork is 1,500 miles. How will the rise in oil hit that? If you are in airline stocks, get out of it!

Money will flow to businesses that help businesses become more energy efficient. Also there will be a move to longevity in products - repair rather than dispose of faulty goods.

When selling to investors, avoid tech jargon, put the financials on a CD and concentrate on telling a compelling story.

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