I had a great St. Patrick’s week/day this year. It was a bit of an odd one as it’s my first year living in the city centre whilst the Paddy’s day festival was on.

I’ve recently moved into an apartment, located on Capel Street with Louise. Before you ask, yes the noise from the street can be a pain sometimes. For anyone who doesn’t know, Capel Street is a small one way street that is located directly at the end of one of our main pedestrianised shopping streets Henry Street. We are just far enough away to avoid most of the hustle and bustle. To be honest, the benefits of being so central really outweigh any of the negative stuff.

Last year I was invited to the grand stand by the guys at Pix.ie. I got some amazing photos but it was a bit of a pain not being able to leave the grand stand without having to walk through the parade. This years Paddy’s day was a bit of an interesting one. I was invited by Eamon Leonard to watch the parade from his office roof top. We had such an amazing view! His office is located in the middle of Dame Street, just a stones throw from Dublin’s City Hall.

To be honest it was a bit bizarre.. We some how managed to get sandwiched between a pack of Greenpeace folk and a few anarchists who liked the idea of waving massive Palestinian flags! They were the types who seemed to think it was wise to stand on a railing in front of a directional mobile phone  antenna. They also seemed to take pleasure in risking life and limb jumping over a set of roof top spikes to get on to the roof of the five story building next door.  The things that people do sometimes boggle the mind!

What was hilarious was when one of the anarchist guys started selling some sort of raffle vouchers in support of Shell to Sea campaign. At this point, Louise started cracking up. For anyone who doesn’t know, Louise is a mechanical engineer who is building a pipeline for a power station in the UK. I’m sure you can see why she wasn’t too impressed. Be warned, don’t bring up the subject of pipelines or pigging a pipe around Louise.

We were also invited by Darragh Doyle (Official Guinness Storehouse Ambassador) to Guinness store house for their festival party. They had the usual diddly dancing, DJs and live music including Rattle & Hum, Jimmy Smyth, The Gravel Walk and Sliotar. There is nothing like a few pints of Guinness, but I couldn’t help noticing that many of the people there looked like they were bored out of their tree! At least that was until Rattle & Hum (Spotify Link), U2 cover band kicked off.

All in all it was a fun day. Check out our photos from this year.

For anyone who doesn’t already know, Peter Donegan is blogger who is obsessed with everything green. I have a lot of time for Peter and his greener events.

I did horticulture in school but always felt like I only had a summary view of the world of horticulture. After a lengthy phone conversation and a number of tweets Peter decided to try his hand at a DIY gardening course. I thought it was a wonderful Idea and signed myself and my other half Louise up straight away.

Peter has one space left available for March 20th. So make sure to drop him a line if your interested.

“Basically: this is for the [wo]man, parent, adult, child who wants to do a bit of green living but not farming. Enough to have summer salads, fresh herbs, maybe even some fruit – at the same time logic enough that you’ll watch footie/ daytime tv and go out rather than hug trees. You’d like a bit of green, you need a place to start but without getting bamboozled – and let it grow from here….”

Peter’s gardening course:

• A one day crash course from 9.30am – 3.30pm
• The first day/ date is Saturday March 20th
• Cost of materials only to be covered set at €60 per person
• You take home what you make on the day
• Lunch will be included
• To take place in Ballyboughal [it's near Swords/ North Dublin ]
• Numbers will be limited to a maximum 8 people only

I have room for three people in my car, if anyone needs a lift from Dublin city center.

Peter Donegan’s  garden group is also planning a boat trip to Ireland’s eye. They are meeting outside The Bloody Stream pub, Howth, Co. Dublin on April 18th, Sunday at 11.30 am. Cost For Boat Trip from Island Ferries is €15 return.  For more details on the boating trip check out Peter’s blog post.

The lives of others was an experimental blog that was started back on March 18th 2008. What made this blog compelling was an anonymous format that provided the ultimate freedom to share or to speak, to mention the unmentionable and to explore feelings and emotion. Almost two years on and the site has now closed its doors to new secrets.

The reaction in comments on the lives of others blog and on twitter has been quite strong. Many were wondering why a blog which was nominated for an Irish blog award is closing its doors. Many have speculated that the such an anonymous medium could actually cause a lot of headaches in terms of moderation. Who knows .. but RIP the lives of others.

However there is some good news. Anothers Life, a website that provides a similar format has come to the rescue. I set up the site with the aim of keeping the this medium alive. The new site has no connection with lives of others, other than the anonymous format that is used.

The site has been available for 24 hours and has already received a number of posts. Pop over to Anothers Life and start sharing your unmentionables! You can also follow Anothers Life on twitter @anotherslife.

As part of the latest round of ad-hoc meet-ups in Dublin (Ireland) .. we decided to run another Blogger-Twitter-Whatever (BTW) meetup.

The plan is to meet in the KOH, Cocktail Lounge (Dublin) at 7pm on Thursday 29th April. KOH is located on the fashionable Millennium Walkway, which is a pedestrianised street running from the river Liffey to the Jervis street Luas stop.

We are charging a small fee to attend. This fee entitles you to admission and a voucher for a free cocktail. All of the net proceeds of from the event will be going to our nominated charity St. Francis Hospice who provide specialist palliative care to patients with advanced Cancer and Motor Neurone Disease.

Discounted Early Bird Ticket is €10 until April 15th 2010. A payment option will also be displayed when you register.

We have space for up to 150 people this time round, so it would be great if you could bring some people along with you. more the merrier!  There will be finger food and 2 a special on cocktails. Id really appreciate if everyone could give this one a big push!!

Short URL: http://short.ie/btwapr29

Weedle

Weedle the new job search thing is due to launch later today. I was at the Weedle preview last night and it looked kind of cool

Basically  Weedle are another social network but are a mixture of a golden pages and a social network.  Think of it as a slicker linkedin where you can quite easily see what individual to use for a task/skill based on your Weedle network.

For example, if everyone I know on Weedle uses the same physiotherapist and I go looking for a physiotherapist, Weedle factor this into the search. Its kind of a smart way to find useful people for useful stuff.

I had a ton of questions about reviews, ratings, weightings of results that the team were more than happy to talk about. The Weedle team seemed to have an answer for nearly everything we through at them!

So pop over to Weedle.com later today and check them out.

The plan is to meet in the Le Cirk, 32 Dame Street from 5pm on Tuesday 16th Feb. We will get food, drinks and well .. whatever! I’d really appreciate if everyone could give this one a big push!!

Short URL: http://short.ie/btwfeb16th

In Sabrina’s words:  “If you can come, wonderful; if you cannot, we’ll raise a glass to Debbie in your name. Our Internet world can be a little fractured so please take a minute and if there’s someone you think might like the information on how and where to pay their respects to Debbie, do let them know the time and place.”

BTW Meetup:
Tuesday, Tuesday 16th February 5 PM onwards
Le Cirk, 32 Dame Street [web]
Buses from Glasnevin: 140 [map]

Please RSVP below.

Funeral Arrangements:
Viewings: Sunday and Monday until 8 PM
Kirwans, 21-23 Fairview Strand, Dublin 3 [map]
Service: Tuesday, 23 March, 2010 at 2 PM
Glasnevin Crematorium Chapel [map]
Burial immediately following.

Donations in lieu of flowers to Aoibhneas Women’s Refuge, Coolock, Dublin 17.  See RIP.ie notice.

We might also do a whip around on the night for Aoibhneas Women’s Refuge (in lieu of flowers).

-

The event have ended - no more registrations are allowed.

-

Total Attendees: 12

#	Name
Bio
1.	jason roe
2.	Sabrina
3.	Lee Kutner
4.	Brian Kenny
5.	Sinéad Cochrane
6.	Fergal Byrne
7.	Blaithin
8.	Anthony Mc Guinness
9.	Christian
10.	Alastair McDermott
11.	John Lowes
12.	Joe Haugh

I’ve managed to get involved with helping to organise another barcamp. We have done barcamps, bizcamps and all that jazz, now its time for Artcamp. The main idea being to help bridge the divide between the artist and technology community. Both artists and technology community have a lot in common and even more learn from each other. Now seems like a great time to start creating,innovating and collaborating in new and exciting ways.

ArtCamp is a user generated unconference for creatives. Calling all creatives from visual arts, film, theatre, design, dance, literature, photography, media, IT, music and technology to a free conference/gathering in Dublin Spring 2010. ArtCamp is an opportunity for all creatives, artists, entrepreneurs and innovators to come together, share experiences, and possibly create new value from  the day. It’ll be a chance to meet up with people who’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt – members of the creative community, business community and representatives from the relevant agencies.  Come along to ArtCamp, who knows what new opportunities might present themselves?

People tend to associate *Camps with the Web and the technology start-ups, but our aim is to try and embrace as much of the Irish creative community as possible. We want to see people from all streams – artists, musicians, writers, dancers, actors, administrators, curators, arts workers and technology and media professionals, coders, designers, project managers, finance, operations, HR, legal, delivery specialists, R&D, marketing – and yes, even tech! Ireland Inc. has a wealth of creativity, knowledge and acumen, more than enough to help us out of these troubled times. By attending (and, more importantly, contributing!) you can help make ArtCamp the first “good news story” of 2010.

More details on Artcamp.

Its been nearly a month since my last blog post! God, time flys.  I have been taking part in Movember for the last month. Movemeber encourages men to grown facial hair, with the aim of raising money for action prostate cancer and the Irish  cancer society. Its a great cause and you can make a donation, I already have about €145.

When I was at Sinéad Keogh’s chocolate party, myself and Rick O’Shea got into a conversation about the “growing” trend in beards. I have no doubt that Movember has kicked off this trend and has given men an excuse to let go and take a break from shaving.

This got us thinking about domain names and to my surprise the first domain name beard.ie was available. On a second glance so was beards.ie, talk about luck! Within 48 hours I had the domain registered and a quick blog up. I rounded up volunteers to on Twitter help out with the site. Within an hour of the request I had rag-tag team willing to help out (Dena Walker, Stephen O’Leary, Fearghal O’Nuallain, Robbie Cousins).

The blog and the idea of a man blog has taken legs and it seems its going in a new and exciting direction. Keep an eye out for new new developments. Check out Beard.ie.

As part of the latest round of ad-hoc meet-ups in Dublin (Ireland) .. we decided to run another Blogger-Twitter-Whatever (BTW) meetup. This time in con junction with the guys in Connector.. It seemed like a good idea to pool our resources.

The plan is to meet in the The Purty Kitchen from 7:30pm on Thursday 29th Oct. (The Purty Kitchen is located on east essex street in temple bar. The theme is fancy dress .. Dress up or wear a mad hat! mad hatter party

We will get food, drinks and well .. whatever! It would be great if you could bring friends and work colleagues along more the merrier!  Id really appreciate if everyone could give this one a big push!!

Register Below.. I will send out a reminder RSVP the week before the meet-up.

Event is closed - no more registrations allowed.

Total Attendees: 22

#	Name
Bio
1.	Phil
2.	Marc McEntegart
3.	Sinéad
4.	Leo
5.	conor
6.	Dave Davis
7.	DJ Spider
8.	John Hickey
9.	peter donegan
10.	bngr
11.	Marie Boran
12.	Bríd
13.	Sarah K
14.	Oisin O' Reilly
15.	Julie de B.
16.	Greg Fry
17.	Cyril Pasteau
18.	Joanna Barry
19.	Ellen
20.	@IanQuigley
21.	Rob Cumiskey
22.	Gerard Cunningham

*Photo by nexthttp

Photo by Steve A

As part of the latest round of ad-hoc meet-ups in Dublin (Ireland) .. we decided to run another Blogger-Twitter-Whatever (BTW) meetup.

The plan is to meet in the Kudos Bar at The Clarion hotel (IFSC) from 7pm on Thursday 3rd September. (The Kudos Bar is located in the clarion hotel in the IFSC). We will get food, drinks and well .. whatever! We have space for up to 150 people this time round, so it would be great if you could bring friends and work colleagues along more the merrier!  Id really appreciate if everyone could give this one a big push!!

There will be Finger food and 2 for 1 cocktails on the night.

Register Below.. I will send out a reminder RSVP the week before the meet-up.

The event have ended - no more registrations are allowed.

Total Attendees: 157

#	Name
Bio
1.	Jason Roe
2.	Steph
3.	Amanda Gribbon
4.	Mark Kearns
5.	Jennifer Farley
6.	Greg Fry
7.	Norman Newell
8.	Tommie Lehane
9.	Roseanne
10.	Damien Sheridan
11.	Fred
12.	Niamh Smith
13.	Kate Southall
14.	Siobhan Cully
15.	bridget connaughton
16.	Dav Waldron
17.	Angel Luis Gonzalez
18.	Cormac Moylan
19.	Maryrose Lyons
20.	Matt Finucane
21.	Dave Davis
22.	Fergal Byrne
23.	Michael Conlon
24.	Billy waters
25.	Annemarie
26.	Stewart Curry
27.	Mark Swaine
28.	John Braine
29.	Dena
30.	Ellie Doyle
31.	Lauren Fisher
32.	Sarah O'Farrell
33.	Helen Treacy
34.	Amy
35.	Sam Warren
36.	Darragh
37.	Raul
38.	Amanda Webb
39.	Ciara Feely
40.	Owen
41.	Stephen Boyce
42.	Joanna Barry
43.	Alan Costello
44.	Darren Byrne
45.	Naoise McNally
46.	John Hickey
47.	David Branigan
48.	Gina Porreco
49.	Christian
50.	Emily Barry
51.	Deryck Tormey
52.	Emma Kytzia
53.	Sir Maxi of Cane
54.	The Jelly Monster
55.	Eoin Kennedy
56.	Joe Molloy
57.	Will Knott
58.	Aislinn O'Connell
59.	Charlotte
60.	Conor Lynch
61.	Marcus Mac Innes
62.	Facundo V
63.	Leo Fogarty
64.	Ben McRedmond
65.	Simon Palmer
66.	Gillian Carolan
67.	Eamon Collins
68.	Caelen King
69.	Phil Boyle
70.	Barbara Barry
71.	Sabrina McNamee
72.	Sarah
73.	Frank Bradley
74.	Aidan Mc Carron
75.	Eric Nieudan
76.	Sinéad Mc Donald
77.	Brendan Hughes
78.	Kate_Sheehy
79.	Oisin D Walsh
80.	Fiona Ashe
81.	Phil Smith
82.	Pauline
83.	Helen Shaw
84.	Lorraine Fretwell
85.	Karolina
86.	sharon
87.	Eamon Leonard
88.	mandatory
89.	Marc McEntegart
90.	Adam McCarthy
91.	Gerard Cunningham
92.	Merrill
93.	David Behan
94.	David Maybury
95.	Maire Hanley
96.	Thaedydal
97.	David Brady
98.	Joerg Steegmueller
99.	Máire Byrne
100.	Lorraine Larkin
101.	Ian Quigley
102.	Richard Hearne
103.	Julie de B.
104.	Dan Cunningham
105.	Sinéad
106.	Eoin Pluinceid
107.	Bngr
108.	Claire
109.	Sarah-Louise
110.	Pat Timlin
111.	Kyle Tunney
112.	Ian Cleary
113.	Michael Flanagan
114.	Ciaran (Meetingsbooker.com)
115.	Gary Mullan
116.	Sasha Wilson
117.	Niall Harbison
118.	Charles Hogan
119.	Angela Carr
120.	Niamh Redmond
121.	Keith Nolan
122.	Sarah Kavanagh
123.	David Cochrane
124.	Aidan McLaughlin
125.	Lee Kutner
126.	Brian Kenny
127.	Orla Duncan
128.	Anne-Marie O'Sullivan
129.	Eolaí
130.	Susana
131.	Donal
132.	Kevin Noonan
133.	Iarfhlaith Kelly
134.	vishal vatsa
135.	David Gargan
136.	Rob Cumiskey
137.	Stephen Kenealy
138.	Bharat Sharma
139.	Rory Wallace
140.	Ronan Murphy
141.	Denis Cody
142.	Robbie Cousins
143.	Emilio
144.	Cyril Pasteau
145.	Claire Boyles
146.	Vicki
147.	Dull
148.	Elaina O Neill
149.	una coleman
150.	Siofra Conaty
151.	Daniel Doody
152.	Jamie Stanton
153.	Ciara kerrigan
154.	Charlotte Mulvey
155.	Ross Duggan
156.	Aoife Ni Chionnaith
157.	Marie Boran

REGISTER FOR EVENT

Finger food
2 for 1 cocktails.

I’ve been neglecting my blog for a little while. Like everyone else, the whole micro blogging thing (@jasonroe) is what has been keeping me going. I’m making a commitment here and now to go back “old school” again and resume blogging. You really cant beat a blog in terms of flexibility. There have been so many occasions where I wanted to write more than 140 characters, but the thought of having to go through the motions bored me to death.

This blog, its identity and who I am has changed a lot since I started blogging. Originally I wanted a place to chat about what I do in work, web design and development stuff. Well who would have guessed, but talking about that stuff after a day in the office bored me to tears. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do but to be honest, I hate talking about work outside of work. I would much prefer to have a good long chat about business than the technical side of what I do.

Now seemed like a better time than any. Those of you who know me personally, will know I have had big changes going on over the last few months. These changes have been personal and work related.  A lot has changed, but hopefully I have gained something from going through the motions! This year has been some ride! With that In mind and a fresh start on the horizon, this blog is going to be changed into a personal blog. Before it was a bit of work and personal, but now anything goes people! In time, Ill set up a work related blog for my Business Spartix Solutions. Keep an eye out for that.

Now I need your help and advice, I need to change the tag line on my blog from “Web Design, Development and SEO Advice” to something a bit more interesting. I’m looking for your suggestions!  Themes include: change, life, events and stuff ill be doing during the net year! LOL so a bit vague.

* Photo by by apesara

About Jason Roe

Jason Roe is an internet consultant specialising in web development, search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media. He has worked in the internet and technology sector for the last six years and has been involved in a number of high profile web development projects such as CRO.ie, Independent.ie and Herald.ie as well as recent social media innovations by Enterprise Ireland.

Jason is a strong advocate of blogging, coworking, and the development of regional events, networking and training opportunities for people in the internet and technology sector. He is active at the grassroots level and is involved in organising BTW (Blogger-Twitter-Whatever) meetups and Bizcamp.ie.

Jason Roe’s aims in running in the 2009 IIA Board election

Jason is a strong advocate of the ‘get out and push’ mentality that the internet community and industry represents. With this in mind, he believes strong leadership and people with innovative new approaches are key to dealing with the challenges IIA members will face during the economic downturn.

In the context of a knowledge economy, Jason believes that the IIA and its members can play a key role in securing the growth of this industry into the future.

Jason’s aim is to get on board with the IIA and facilitate the changes that are required to make this happen.

Issues Jason Roe will address as an IIA board member

If elected, areas that Jason will be paying extra attention to are:

• The encouragement and continued development of regional events, networking and training opportunities for all members.
• The improvement of how IIA members and the benefits of membership of the IIA are  promoted.
• Enhanced communication with enterprise boards, local chambers of commerce and government bodies such as Enterprise Ireland and the IDA.
• Equipping members with the tools and opportunities to achieve international growth and to help them to ‘think outside of the box’ in terms of international exports.
• Leveraging the strengths of other organisations, both domestic and international, to benefit IIA members.
• Creating opportunities for micro sponsorship to facilitate new marketing opportunities for all members, including start-ups.

How to vote

Voting is open to all members of the IIA. Each member company’s voting user can cast 5 votes in the Election. When you log in to vote, you will be presented with each of the candidates’ photographs and 100-word bios. These will be arranged in alphabetical order by surname.

The voting system allows your nominated voting users to vote from 9am on Friday 17th July until 5pm on July 30th.  If you do not know who your Voting User is please log in to view your company profile. If you need any changes made to your voting user you should email board2009@iia.ie. If you have forgotten your IIA password you can reset it.

Use your Vote to select the IIA Board ( http://iia.ie/vote/ )

I would appreciate your vote. Please spread the word about my IIA nomination.

Jason Roe,
www.jason-roe.com

–

Comments are closed, feedback can be sent to jason@jason-roe.com. You can also contact me direct via phone on 01 685 44 33.

I’m sure you have probably all heard about this by now.. It seems there was a bit of a burn out going on over at boards.ie yesterday in the bargain alerts forum.

Littlewood Ireland aka Shop Direct Ireland Limited had advertised a “Compaq mini desktop with 21.5in monitor”  for €69.99 on their website. 34 pages later, it seemed like the little wood had all but gone up in flames! It turned out that this “bargain” was actually a pricing error on the part of Shop Direct.

It looks like all of the order have now been canceled. I’m no consumer expert! but id love to know what you think about this.  Is it fair for a companies terms & conditions to allow this kind of thing to happen?

There are some unconfirmed reports that suggest that a number of users received their item by phoning up and switching to express delivery.

I filed a complaint with the national consumer agency. Let see what they have to say. I cant see how €549 turned into €69 .. is this a case of false advertising?

* Photo by millicent_bystander.

As part of the latest round of ad-hoc meet-ups in Dublin (Ireland) .. we decided to run another Blogger-Twitter-Whatever (BTW) meetup.

The plan is to meet up at Howl at the Moon from 6pm on Thursday 11th June. (Howl at the Moon is Located on Lower Mount Street,  just off Merrion square). We will get food, drinks and well .. whatever! We are moving to a new venue as we needed a bit more space!  The guys at Howl at the moon are even giving us free platters of food.

Please pass this on ( http://short.ie/btw-june ) and Invite your Lunatic Badge friends.

Tweet This!

Register Below.. I will send out a reminder RSVP the week before the meet-up.

Total Attendees: 53

#	Name
Bio
1.	Aislinn O\'Connell
2.	Tommy Collison
3.	Darragh
4.	Bohoe
5.	Dena
6.	Claire Boyles
7.	colin
8.	Phil
9.	keith nolan
10.	Jason Roe
11.	Steph
12.	conor lynch
13.	Campbell Scott
14.	Rick
15.	John Hickey
16.	Eoin Kennedy
17.	Darren Byrne
18.	Roseanne Smith
19.	Gillian
20.	Jennifer
21.	Christian
22.	Maxi Cane
23.	Anton Mannering
24.	David McCloskey
25.	James Larkin / Forbairt
26.	Matt Finucane
27.	Raul
28.	Lauren Fisher
29.	Charles Hogan
30.	Kas
31.	The Big Switch (@thebigswitchirl @eoinos @brandire
32.	Emma Kytzia
33.	Emily Barry
34.	Petrina Timoney
35.	Dave Walker
36.	Bob
37.	Naoise McNally
38.	Dave Davis
39.	Niamh Redmond
40.	Cyril Moloney
41.	Lily Collison
42.	Fergal Byrne
43.	Marie Boran
44.	Amy
45.	David Gargan
46.	Alan Costello
47.	Neil
48.	Pete
49.	David Quaid
50.	Gav
51.	Ciara
52.	David Branigan
53.	shaz

Event is closed - no more registrations allowed.

The pitch:

Up until this morning TDs made 249,489 speeches, and asked 160,503 questions which received written responses. On average, TDs are producing 507 speeches and 326 written answers per sitting day.

Sadly you won’t have had access to information like this before, since the Houses of the Oireachtas publishes the Dáil record primarily on an illegible website ridden with elementary display errors.

At KildareStreet.com you can:

• Read a dramatically-more-legible version of the Dáil Record going back to January 2004,
• Search that record using a fabulous search engine which I didn’t
  write – you can restrict searches to speeches or written questions, or
  by speaker, or by date or date range,
• Sign up for email alerts for when a search query you’re interested
  changes, or whenever a TD of your choosing says something or asks a
  question which generated a written reply, and
• Subscribe to RSS feeds for individual TDs or for search queries.

The site will be updated the day after each sitting day shortly after the Oireachtas publishes that day’s first report version in XML. RSS feeds and emails are generated shortly after that.

John notes, that the site still contains bugs.. so be careful about jumping to early conclusions

The Dáil has now really gone web 2.0, with a bang!!

ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.

Scribefire Review – Blog Application

Speakers include Facebook – speaking at the largest Internet industry event in Ireland to date – Google, dotMobi and Realex Payments. Id be up for going to Ronan Harris’s (Google) talk on Analytics and Conversion tracking. Colm Long from Facebook is another one to watch out for.

The guys at the IIA have offered my readers a 20% discount for the event. (That includes members and non members). We all love saving a few quid.

To avail of this enter the code “ cong004 ” book by the 17th April (Tomorrow) to avail of the early bird price.

11.40am – Ronan Harris – Online Sales & Operations Director, Google, will examine the role Analytics and Conversion Tracking plays in getting far better results online.

As Director of Online Sales and Operations, Ronan drives Google’s online sales and account management for advertisers across EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
Ronan began his career by earning a degree in electronic engineering at University College Dublin, from where he was recruited by Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation to work at their Information Storage Products division in Japan.  He went on to spend 9 years in Japan working in consulting and technology, and returned to Ireland in 2001 to work in private equity before joining Google.

12.20pm – Colm Long – Director of Online Operations, Facebook, will detail how Irish businesses can use Facebook’s platform to connect with new customers and maximize their return on investment in online advertising.

Colm joined Facebook as Director of Online Operations in January 2009, leading online operations and sales at its EMEA headquarters, which has just opened in Dublin.Previously, Colm worked in senior positions at Barclaycard International and French online stockbroker,  Self Trade. A native of Derry, Northern Ireland, Colm earned a bachelor’s degree in Applied Linguistics from University of Brighton.

Meteor don’t pitch this product as supported on Ubuntu / Linux.. but I found a number of blog/forum posts that suggest that the Huawei E180 usb modem used by Meteor works out of the box. The real question was .. once you had the device recognised, what configuration did you need to get it to work?

I offered €50.00 of my hard earned coffers to the person who could tell me how to get  Meteor Broadband to go working (naively) on the Huawei E180 in Ubuntu.

Update .. I got it working!!

I hope this is of help to someone else..

I needed usb_modeswitch to enable the usb modem (see install) ..  then I had to do a modprobe:

sudo /sbin/usb_modeswitch.sh

sudo lsusb

sudo /sbin/modprobe usbserial vendor=0×12d1 product=0×1003

Settings:

Within Network manager, under point to point connections:

Connection Type GPRS/UTMS

The APN (access point name) for meteor is  broadband.mymeteor.ie – no username / password required.

Phone number is *99# (if even required)

My modem port is /dev/ttyUSB0

The strange thing is that the modem would not work until I topped up the phone and ran the installer on a windows PC. I’m not sure if it was the lack of funds or what .. but before I connected to a windows PC it couldn’t even make a connection.

While waiting check out ..

–

Contents of usb_modeswitch.sh:

#!/bin/sh

# close these FDs to detach from udev

exec 1<&- 2<&- 5<&- 7<&-

sh -c “sleep 4; /usr/bin/usb_modeswitch” &

exit 0

Id like to say a big thanks to everyone who came to the April BTW in Dublin. We had over 58 people show up!! I hope you all had a great time. Photos via Fergal Byrne are up on pix.ie. We hope to run the Dublin BTW aka Blogger-Twitter-Whatever (BTW) meetup. event every two months.

To mix it up a bit I also wanted to run a Cork event in parallel. Please blog and TWEET THIS on twitter.

The venue is the Boardwalk Bar & Grill, We will be meeting at 6pm sharp. Directions here.

By Lucinda O’Sullivan

What is BTW?

BTW stands for Blogger – Twitter – Whatever .. The first BTW meet-up was held on November 2008. The aim of the meet-up is to open up our “niche web community” to a wider audience. BTW is an informal gather of people who are interested in (but not limited to) bloging, social media and the web. There is no agenda or rules .. people turn up, enjoy themselves and meet new faces.

Ok so this is a bit of an experiment. We had a lot of people from Cork who couldn’t come to BTW Dublin yesterday. I absolutely feckin love Cork, so we decided to bring BTW to them.

So here is the deal. We will be doing a BTW meet-up in cork on Saturday 25th April. The venue is still to be decided. It’s a Saturday instead of a Thursday so that some of the Dublin peoples can come down. No flying Ryanair!!!

I will need a bit of help on the ground down there, so let me know if you are interested in arranging a venue. I have put another order in for badges!!

For the moment if you are interested please register below.

The event have ended - no more registrations are allowed.

Total Attendees: 17

#	Name
Bio
1.	Jason Roe
2.	Tommy Collison
3.	John Henry Donovan
4.	Stephen Spillane
5.	Joe Scanlon
6.	Elaine Rogers
7.	Margaret Jordan
8.	Branedy
9.	Joseph O'Brien
10.	Claire Spillane
11.	Simon Whelband
12.	Ciara Crossan
13.	Jason Kinsella
14.	Ann Donnelly
15.	Jacobo de Vera
16.	Fergus O'Rourke
17.	Julian

*Cork Bonded Warehouses by anaxila

The plan is to meet up at the Porter House central from 6pm on Thursday 2nd April. (Porther house central – bottom of grafton street, across from the molly malone statue). We will get food, drinks and well .. whatever!

Register Below .. I will send out a reminder RSVP the week before the meet-up.

As a bonus, I have some freebies from Wordpress via @donncha to give away (badges and stickers). They never made it to the last BTW ..  but can be seen below!

Special bonus.. I will give away Lunatic badges (Limited Editions) to the first 35 people who register (and turn up on the day).

Total Attendees: 65

#	Name
Bio
1.	jason roe
2.	Alan Costello
3.	James Larkin
4.	Tom O'Connor
5.	TheChrisD
6.	Elly Parker
7.	Darren
8.	McAWilliams
9.	Anthony McG
10.	Aislinn O'Connell
11.	Will Knott
12.	redmum
13.	Robin Blandford
14.	Roger Galligan
15.	raptureponies
16.	bridget connaughton
17.	Darragh Curran
18.	The Beer Nut
19.	Chris Nelson
20.	Thom
21.	Dave Davis
22.	Philth
23.	Kate Southall
24.	Merrill Goussot
25.	Joe Scanlon
26.	Rick
27.	Darragh
28.	John
29.	peter donegan
30.	Emily Tully
31.	Steph
32.	Michael Hinds
33.	dena
34.	Matt Finucane
35.	Jaime Hemmett
36.	Anton Mannering
37.	colin
38.	Ken Cheah
39.	Bngr feck I missed out on a badge
40.	Sarah Williams
41.	Debbie
42.	dotthe
43.	Fintan Murphy
44.	Amy Long
45.	Ben
46.	Alastair McDermott
47.	Marie Boran
48.	Jennifer
49.	Sinead Cochrane
50.	Thomas Brunkard
51.	Fionn
52.	Jan Schmidt
53.	Fi
54.	Roseanne Smith
55.	Ach go háirithe
56.	Keith Nolan
57.	Joe Molloy
58.	Justin Mason
59.	Peter Lee
60.	Kevin Noonan
61.	Kas
62.	Kas
63.	David McCloskey
64.	Ross Duggan
65.	Eolaí

The event have ended - no more registrations are allowed.

.

I’m loving this! Check out what the guy’s from Made In Hollywood sent me today, a Lunatic Bloggers polystyrene sculpture in the shape of an aeroplane.

I’m surprised that no one has blogged this yet! IQ Content have announced a “Dans le merde” €10,000 prize for the best business plan for a web app.

In his “Yet another web app or successful business?” talk Morgan compared Ireland of 1977 with the Ireland of 2009. As in 1977 Ireland is currently “dans le merde”. But at iQ Content we’re not interested in adding to all the bad news. We want to tell a better story. Better for everyone. Better for Ireland.

This is why we’ve announced the iQ Prize. What is it? It’s €10,000 for the best business plan for a web app.

Morgan’s speech was truly inspiring! iQ deserve a lot of respect for their contribution to the web community. I’ve always been a huge fan of iQ content, but even more so now. Good on you guys! I’m even tempted to submit one of my own

Please pass this message on! Re-tweet, Re-blog .. whatever .. just get out and push for this one!

wings by dine photo by c’est pas du gâteau

As part of my patriotic duty as an Irish citizen, I would humbly like to invite every possible tourist (with a bit of Irish in them) back to Ireland for paddy’s day (17th March) . After all, where better to experience an authentic Irish festival then in Ireland. Now would be an ideal time to book a cheap flight and affordable accommodation. So why not drum up a bit of support and pass this on to everyone you know!

Check out the Irish St Patrick’s Festival (12th-17th March) and pix.ie for more info (also thank the pix.ie Sponsor, Canon) . You can follow paddy’s day via twitter at @stpatricksfest

What better way to do that, but to post up your review of the hotel on Trip Advisor ( http://short.ie/cia-hotel ) and on Louder Voice.  After all,  they did practically let us take over the hotel for a night! Id personally like to say a big thank-you to all the staff who put up with us.

Make sure to pass on this message and feel free to re-blog / repost. I think they really made us all feel welcome!!

Also .. Say a big thanks to @rickoshea – vote for him in the Meteor Awards – all you have to do is click here: http://short.ie/vote4rick

Last week, I went to a really interesting session about hotels and bogging set up by Ciara Feely. Keith Bohanna was speaking to a group of hoteliers about promoting themselves via blogs / twitter.

I found it quite interesting that the first barrier for most of the hoteliers was the lack expertise to set up a branded hotel blog. With that in mind, I decided to come up with this offer.

For a limited time, I am offering a number of Irish hoteliers the chance to get a blog installed / customised* free of charge. To top that off.. If you are a small hotel / b&b , I will also give you a free one-to-one crash course on twitter.

If you are in the hotel space and looking for a blog I would love to hear from you. If you know anyone in the tourism space who might be interested please pass this ton to them.

*Customised, refers to making your new blog look and fit with your existing hotel branding / website.

BIG hello to all the Ryanair staff

I worked out what had triggered this series of events. While trying to avoid the dreaded Ryanair credit card charges, I jumped into the Ryanair Voucher section. There are no card charges on vouchers, so it can be a good way to avoid extra fees.

At the same time I had the booking window open on the Services section of the booking. When I went back to the Confirm / Select page all the prices had changed to 0.00.

Pass this on!! .. See you all on Saturday at the Irish Blog Awards!!

CLARIFICATION: I did not claim to complete the booking process for a free flight. I found a bug that showed a 0.00 price listed beside a flight. Orders could not go past the passenger details page.  See the less than constructive comments left by Ryanair staff below.

Update: I have changed the title from “FREE” to 0.00.

I’m loving this! Check out what the guy’s from Made In Hollywood sent me today!

PS: Pass this on to any freelancers looking for space.

Ballpark prices are €250-€350 per person all inclusive. Hot desks prices not yet defined.

Email: jason.roe@gmail.com or phone 087 94 80 532.

I didn’t make the short long list   .. FAIL! but coworking.ie did make it…

Pop on over to the facebook page and make sure to Invite your friends to join.

I’m not too sure about the Candlelit Vigil bit, maybe that’s to keep people warm?

We hope to do another official meet-up on the 16th of Jan, more details to follow. That said, I will be meeting up with people some time in Dec too. Invite only, sorry guys!

On another note, as the Geansai Gorm competition is nearing a close, bluejumperireland.com has joined forces with the recently banned bluejumperirish.com site (in an attempt to pool some link juice resources). Also, as part of our newly invented blogger foreign exchange programme.. I will be joining in as one of the first contributors on “This Week on Irish Blogs” from Roger Galligan (aka IrishBlogs.ie)

The agency was set up last June by Fiona Roche, publicity manager for Lillie’s Bordello and the Porterhouse Group along with her business partner, photographer, Darren Butler. So far they have signed up 35 models, many of whom are well known in Ireland and a number of whom have featured on the international circuit.

The launch event, at Dakota in South William Street, starts at 7pm with cocktails and canapés and continues with a glittering display of designer labels by ten of the agency’s leading models.

Back to the calling on fashion / entertainment bloggers. If any of you fancy any invite to this exclusive event please let me know.

I made this with a heap of brushes in photoshop .. let me know if you like it.  I can confirm that I did not hurt my Geansai Gorm while making this!

DOWNLOAD 1024 x 768

DOWNLOAD 1680 x 1050

It has been suggested that we go for food, followed by drinks. As a bonus, I have some freebies from Wordpress via @donncha to give away (badges and stickers).

If you are interested, drop me an email on jason@jason-roe.com or Leave a comment below.

So far @lexia, Darragh, @czajkowski @mcawilliams, Alan O’Rourke , Elly Parker, Dave Davis, Justin Mason,  Niall Kitson, Anthony,@forbairt @PixieVonDust @TheChrisD @prendio2 @dan.oneill, Neil , Marie and  starfire are on board.. If i missed anyone please drop me a comment..

UPDATED PLAN

The plan is to meet up at the Porter House central from 6pm on Thursday 27th. (PH central located at the bottom of grafton street, across from the molly malone statue).  We will get food, drinks and have our chats. After this (maybe 8:30/9pm ish) we might move on to Soundcheck, South William Street. It seems that Rick O’Shea is doing a DJ thing, we shall be acting as a rent a mob! – the rent

PS: I have approched a sponsor to give us some free drinks and/or food for the night. More info to come laters. Sponsor is a no show! May I suggest that everyone must to buy me 1 pint, per person, per hour

I would also really appreciated if anyone attending could slap up a blog post / and or tweet about this!

View Larger Map

On another note Geansai Gorm has been launched by Damien Mulley, its basically a S E O competition to see who can rank for the term Geansai Gorm also known as Geansaí Gorm and can be translated from Irish to blue jumper.

My Gorm entry had some issues because of DNS problems. The site is not showing up yet and was only verified yesterday evening after the DNS holding page expired from googles DNS cache. Take a look at Google for the upcoming pages.

I assumed that when I moved to a blacknight VPS about 6 months ago something went a bit AWOL. I had a look at the server for CPU usage, memory, write speed & mysql and everything seemed to be fine. The main issue turned out to be with wordpress or a WP plugin.

When I looked at my wordpress database tables and noticed that I had 14,000 rows in the wp_options table. The rows consisted of rss requests from magpie. After I cleared them out I have seen an instant boost. The mysql query to do this is

Delete from `wp_options` where `option_name` LIKE ‘rss_%’;

This got me thinking about how I can speed up the blog a bit more. First port of call was wp-supercache.

Second thing I looked at was moving all my static files over to a CDN (content delivery network). I already had an Amazon s3 account setup, so I set up a new bucket with a CNAME’ed sub domain. I kept the same directory structure and redirected all css, gif, jpg, png & js files over to the s3.

PS: S3 is not a true CDN .. see amazon cloudfront for a real CDN solution.

After all the tweaks I have reduced page load time from 15 seconds to 4/5 seconds.

Let me know if you spot any issues.

I will be there on the night with Carol Sweeny representing the Independent Digital Team. Pop over to us and have a chat .. my mug shot is over here (No, I couldn’t find a better photo!).

PS: thanks to Justins post for reminding me to blog this.