Alexia Golez

I’m busy over the next couple of days, so blogging will be light. See you soon!

Elly has some common-sense tips for people doing demos at CrunchLudd. These tips are sound advice if you’re ever demo-ing. She’s also moving into her high-tech heaven house!

While we’re CrunchLudding, I met Brendan of bscene. They’ve a model agency blog. First Irish one I’m aware of.

Interested in co-working in Cork?

The IrishTimes.com has gone live with open access to the paper. No more paywall! How about more blogs? Oh, go on IT fairy! Do it!

Any Irish Twitter males want to strip and become part of a virtual calendar in aid of prostate cancer? Anyone? Just an idea. Maybe it could go on balls.ie.

So Facebook isn’t a walled garden? Hacks that enable data portability. Oh, and Google allows exporting of data too.

Love the idea of a magnetic calendar. What happens when someone is up to mischief and messes with it? How about a badge version?

The wonderful Hanne Hukkelberg with ‘A Cheater’s Armoury’

Here’s a few from the weekend at home.

Photo owned by dichohecho (cc)

I never tire of writing Red Link posts. Even during my recent blogging holiday, I found myself falling across really interesting things and automatically marking them as Red Links. My Del.icio.us bookmarking rocketed. Those of us who do link posts do it in different ways. Now and again, I’ve been asked how I find those links – so here is it.

Read, read and read some more

It goes without saying that the more random blog and site feeds you’re subscribe to, the better your chances of finding neat little links of treasure hidden away. Links that you feel you’d like to share with your friends and readers.

I’ve subscribed to over 600 feeds presently, some that publish new posts a couple of times a week, others at least ten a day. It’s not necessarily the amount of feeds that you follow, rather the range of your feed diet. Always having an open mind and adding new feeds is a good thing. Some new favourites of mine added over the past week include Playpen and It All Started With Carbon Monoxide.

While we’re talking about It All Started.., here’s a cool new tune by Mates of State I found on it.

Mates of State ‘Get Better’

Del.icio.us

Have a spare hour and a Del.icio.us account? How about doing some Del.icio.us hopping? Ever see that label saying “saved by X other people”? Why not press on it and see what other people find interesting and important? Chances are that if they share your views on the importance of one bookmark, they might share similar tastes in other areas. Hop from one person to the next, soon you find yourself discovering cool new blogs, photos and news sources.

I’ve found so many interesting niches of the web by simply taking some time to tune into other Del.icio.us users. I’ve also found brand new people to follow on Del.icio.us based on their bookmarks too.

Twitter

If you’re a regular reader here, you’ll know I like Twitter. Despite the downtime heartache it as been having lately, it’s the most human microblogging service out there. Simply because of the mix of people there. So many people wanting to share ideas, links and news-y bits. Your opportunity to find interesting things on Twitter is only limited by your contact list. Such a human truism.

Direct Asks

This happens now and again. People ask to be Red Linked. I prefer to stumble across links for that Eureka moment, but if it’s something I find interesting and that I think my friends would like to read, then that’s fine.

These are my top four ways of finding links. What are yours?

The Cinemagic International Film Festival is taking place in Belfast from November 13th to 30th. Like last year, it will be running competitions for young filmmakers. Filmmakers must be between the ages of 4 and 25 (yes, a lot of child filmmakers) and will be expected to make original, imaginative shorts. More details here. Via the Northern Ireland Screen.

Laura is organising a tweetup/blog meetup/excuse for beering Friday next, July 4th at the Bull & Castle in Dublin.

Men! * sighs *

UK mobile operators reject EU Commissioner Reding’s proposal to charge users for receiving calls. Good move. How about the Irish operators? Where do they sit?

Selling Jesus. Jesus Wheaties, why not? Edit: Check out the Growing Up Bowie musings too.

Pat using Qik to stream from Jay-Z’s Cork concert. The madman.

Photo owned by not persephone (cc)

Ever find yourself listening to rhetoric or reading posts that eschew modern conveniences at every turn in favour of half-remembered fluffy ideals? The more media I consume, the more I see it. It’s not a case of people stopping to catch breath with their pasts, but more like a cynical device to tune into a collective brainspace.

Don’t believe me? Listen to early morning National radio any weekday. Books good, internet bad. What do mean good old bread and butter pudding isn’t sexy any more? A pox on inside toilets. On the last one, I jest but you get the idea.

In Ireland when introducing oneself, we all do that little dance that involves describing one’s origin in terms of their village. Village is such a powerful indicator of family, place and time. It’s an instant flare for introducing oneself and a catalyst for kicking off conversations. “Oh really, do you remember such and such?”

Expanding this and turning the theory on it’s side, we all really come from fuzzy villages anyway. We originate from villages of shared pop culture DNA. Growing up in Ireland of the 1980’s, how many of us bought Dib Dabs, watched Mary Fitzgerald in “How Do You Do”, read The Four Marys, bought sky-hoppers or saved to buy pirated cassette tapes every Saturday. We all share endless experiences that link us together, binding an invisible web of identity and cultural recognition. Send triggers about music, television or the literature of our youth and we’re bound to tune in. Quite possibly respond in kind too.

I’m beginning to see this on the fringes of blogs too. Yes, a blog is part expression, part vanity – but the growing trend to greasily include cardboard posts on nostalgic themes to boost page views and comments is disappointing. By cardboard posts I mean, posts that have no message or central argument. They ramble aimlessly through pop culture references without resting on a single idea. Nostalgic posts like these are as useful as used condoms. Joycean streams of nonsense wrapped in cosy cultural references that demand comment hugs. No sir, you won’t be getting any hugs from me or any clearthinking reader, for that matter.

Here’s yesterday’s snap. I never tire of toilet humour. Never.