Grazing CreativeCamp

It’s been a while since I’ve dropped in on Grazr.com so when I did tonight I figured I’d whip up a handy Grazr window and feed for CreativeCamp.

If you check out the sidebar on the CreativeCamp blog, you’ll see a nice new Grazr window on the right sidebar containing the majority of current attendees blogs. As more people (with blogs) sign up I’ll get them added to the feed as well. If you see anything that needs correcting, just let me know.

You can also grab the Grazr feed itself by clicking here.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up to date with kenmc.com. Maybe some of my earlier posts will interest you too! Thanks for visiting kenmc.com!

Meetup For Irish Webmasters

It’s no secret that I have a dislike for Dublin. It’s not a place that I frequent all that often but when it comes to social gatherings, in the tech and web industry, it really is the place to be.

Having said that, Cormac Moylan pointed out yesterday that there’s a meetup on for Irish webmasters. There’s a nice, growing list of attendees between Cormac’s post and the thread on the Irish Webmaster Forum.

I also know, for a fact, that my chances of getting to Dublin are zero on Saturday February 9th due to commitments in Kilkenny (I think my next totally free weekend is somewhere around Easter, and at that, I’m gigging in Sligo) but if YOU would like to head along, check out the links above.

Kick-off is scheduled for 7:30pm in the Harbour Master (IFSC), Dublin on Saturday February 9th.

GoDaddy Phone Support

I’m a patient person, but there’s only so long I can spend on hold. Part of my Friday was spent on hold. About three years ago I changed job, spent 21 minutes on hold ringing the tax office trying to get a new certificate and I nearly lost my mind. I used to work broadband support for AOL and hated putting people on hold for any length of time (and rarely did).

That’s why I’m giving the GoDaddy phone support a thumbs up.

I’ve had occasion to ring them in the past, perhaps a year ago or more, when average waiting time could be 10-15 minutes, everything was call > email > call > email > call at an unusual hour (like your mobile ringing after 9pm, given the time difference).

I’ve no idea where the call terminated today but I popped their US sales support number into Skype for a phone call around 11am or so. My reason being that a .eu domain I had registered had slipped by me a week ago and had gone into ‘Quarantine’, according to the EURid whois.

So I dial out, punch through the menu, select sales support, punch in my existing customer number and I’m immediately speaking to an operator. The chap in question, Nick, was quite helpful. I explained the domain had lapsed, was in the redemption period and had disappeared out of my customer account. No problem he says, only been a few days so we’ll charge you the original price for the domain and you’re all set.

Is this now the normal for GoDaddy, that their phone support be so prompt? Or did I just happen to catch them opening the doors? Lord knows in working for AOL there’d be a string of people on hold at 8am in the morning when the phone lines opened.

Better Be An Internet Cafe In Amsterdam

I’m heading to Amsterdam on Saturday morning for a short break… only there better be an internet cafe open first thing in the morning on Tuesday. Not risking the laptop and going in search of a WiFi connection….

No doubt the website will come crashing down around the ears of those at Ticketmaster…

A Twazer Delight

I’m still gunning for Twitter with lasers but James has produced another mix from the Eireprenuer web-blender with a Twazer of co-worker twitter feeds (web workers) based on postings by Conor O’Neill and Chris Messina.

So much social acitivites of late, some real eye openers coming along, makes for a great time for internet startups and simply suporting fellow web-workers. Interesting times ahead… as ever!

Hey Chorus, Whats The Story?

Thought I was having an odd problem with Chorus not being able to display blogger blogs over the weekend, this morning, or still as I type, and didn’t have to look far to see that Twenty is having the same problem with NTL. Of course, NTL being the proud parents of little baby Chorus, everyone ends up missing out. So here I am at home with a load of blogger-based blogs I want to read and regularly read and instead I’m going to twiddle my thumbs and bill Chorus for the time.

Well maybe not, but it does get annoying! I remember Eircom having a similar problem last year where I ended up going through X & Y different proxies to get to certain sites but for a problem to run the bones of a week is a bit of a joke.

And Twenty, I used to work in one of those broadband support call centres (though not NTL) and I’ll agree with everything you’ve said. Nice that they sorted it ten minutes after the blog post but still no blogspot access in Kilkenny! White screens and dropped connections for Kilkenny. Any of you Chorus people locally on the same issue?

Online Filing Facility Needed For Local Authority Grants

I’ve been mulling over the Arts Act Grant application for 2007 for Devious Theatre since this morning and it has only just occurred to me that there is no means by which to submit the application electronically. Forms can be emailed out or picked up from the Arts office but as of yet there’s no means to register your interests online and submit your application for review.

The Arts Council itself doesn’t have this problem - for their revenue grant at the end of 2006 we were able to pick up application forms online, log in to a secure area on the Arts Council’s own site and upload our finished forms for approval on or before the deadline date.

So why can’t local Arts offices do the same? The Kilkenny County Council’s own website was the recent subject of a massive overhaul and why it has come on leaps and bounds (believe me, the previous iteration was a disaster of a site and I’ve no problems in saying that) but it still lacks in certain areas - filing grant applications is one of them.

Instead, we’ve got to rely on our trusty postal system to deliver the goods. Fingers crossed we’ll be successful in the application, worked wonders for KilkennyMusic.com last year as we hope will happen this year - the funding really does help to keep the whole thing alive - and with costs already seriously mounting for Devious Theatre in 2007 we hope that we’ll be just as successful there too.

So attention Kilkenny County Council - sort it out!

No Such Thing As Free Online Backup

Some things in life are free, but according to Venture Beat, online backup will never be one of those things - quite possibly due to the fact that advertising oriented business models that would suit free services, just don’t apply to online backup facilities.

But it is the nature of backup that will lead to it not being free…we never view our backed up files online! For this last reason, it is near impossible to derive advertising revenue from online backup and thus it will never* be free.

Food for thought…

Mobile Operators Sites Pissing People Off

I’ve blogged before about my gripes with O2.ie as a website but now it seems Vodafone are falling into that hole as well, as John reveals. I won’t get into the fact that I still think (despite the odd good experience) that the site is still slow and useless at the best of times.

Is anyone genuinely satisfied with the performance of their mobile operator’s website? Wonder how the Tesco mobile service will go when it launches this summer.

Big Pay Day For YouTube Founders

The details on the financial split following Google’s purchase of YouTube last year have started to emerge, with co-founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley pocketing over $300m each with the remainder split between investors, YouTube staff and Jawed Karim (he was there at the startup but backed out to finish college - he picks up over $60m for his efforts).

Good God indeed!

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