9mmfilm

KitchenForce!

2007-03-01T16:10:00.000Z

My blog here at 9mmfilm.com is all but discontinued now, as I blog over at BifSniff.com and Aonach.com instead.

However, it does still have it's uses, and I would like to take this opportunity to link to KitchenForce.com, a domain which we at Aonach.com will be developing over the coming months.

KitchenForce right now is a blog about Kitchen design, but watch the KitchenForce blog for developments.

Funny Pictures

2006-10-20T01:15:00.000+01:00

Are cartoons funny pictures? At BifSniff.com we produce a weekly cartoon, Bif writes them and I draw them. I also do a lot of the site maintenance etc. I was looking at Funny Pictures as a possible search term recently and wondering if Cartoons fit the bill for that search.

I reckon they do. They're pictures and they're funny. To hell with it. Funny Pictures.

Any thoughts?

Poker T Shirts

2006-09-13T01:18:00.000+01:00

I have moved my poker blog to a new domain - poker-t-shirts.net.
I lashed it up there, but I hope to work on it in my spare time (which I have none of at the moment) and turn it into a thing of beauty.
I will also be creating waaaay more poker t shirts and hence the domain name I chose. My poker t shirts are available at poker.spreadshirt.net

Does Blogger Suck?

2006-08-29T12:24:00.000+01:00

Yes it does. This is a test.

Yoga in Cork

2006-08-12T00:59:00.001+01:00

Unity Yoga are setting up a Yoga centre in Cork, the people behind it, Aria and Daniela are friends of mine and I am helping them with their website, but I have also attended classes with Aria and can vouch for how good she is!

So if you want to practice Yoga in Cork visit their website for more details.

The website is undergoing work as they get up and running so information will be added as they progress - but there is a list of classes available as well as schedules and fees, so there's plenty to check out.

Their list of Yoga classes in Cork City Centre is as follows:
Dynamic Hatha (Beginners)
Dynamic Hatha (Improvers)
Ashtanga
Kundalini
Yoga for Relaxation
Yoga for Men
Yoga for pregnancy
Yoga Therapy
Mother & Baby
Meditation
Chanting
Belly Dance
Self Practice
Open friendly space for your personal practise (for yoga teachers and yoga lovers of any ability)

More details on the site.

Building a House - Animation

2006-07-27T02:15:00.000+01:00

Building a House is a short animated film directed by Emmet O'Neill and written by Brendan O'Connell... Emmet and Brendan both also worked on Crimescene, which you can watch on this site and it features the same main characters - John the Sheep and his sidekick, Fessington.

It's late here, and I'm off to bed, so I won't go into detail - but I'm proud to have been involved in the production of this amazing animation, be sure and watch the Building a House website for details of screenings - it's a great watch.

MSN Messenger Sucks

2006-07-16T17:20:00.000+01:00

I haven't used MSN Messenger in a long time. I tend to use Skype these days, but I suddenly thought of a friend of mine I used to chat to on MSN Messenger so I fired up messenger to see if they were about.

First thing to annoy me was the forced upgrade. I had to upgrade my messenger in order to use it... so I did.

Then I boot it up and I have no contacts, I'm starting again from scratch.

Am I missing something, or did messenger really just force me to upgrade and then not bother to import my contacts????

Ryder Cup

2006-07-08T12:47:00.000+01:00

Ryder Cup? What's Frank doing posting about the Ryder Cup? Isn't that a Sport? No why would Frank be posting about anything to do with Sport, least of all Golf??

Well, it's true, if it wasn't for the very existence of the blog I am about to tell you about I wouldn't even know about the existence of the Ryder Cup Golf Tournament. However, it seems that this big Golf thing is coming to Ireland in September (2006) and my brother and a friend of ours Joe have started blogging about it. They seem to know what they're on about - not that I'd know, but others have commented - and it seems to be full of information on the Ryder Cup.

They have posts on Ryder Cup Teams, travel details, and details on Ryder Cup ticket competitions as well as loads of other news and views on the Golf tournament.

So, if you're into Golf, please give a link (as I have done) to the RyderDiary.com, linking to it with the words 'Ryder Cup'. Many thanks!

Bendito Machine

2006-05-29T03:22:00.000+01:00

Bendito Machine

Thanks to TCAL for pointing this out - lovely and bizarre Flash animation!

Blog exchange ads?

2006-02-19T20:53:00.000Z

I noticed Damien Mulley talking about blog ad exchange ideas, where you display ads for blogs on your site in exchange for having your blog advertised on others blogs. He specifically pointed out Feedshare which does seem like a nice implementation of the idea.

We ran something like this (might have been blogsnob) for a while on BifSniff when we started... was good for starting out, got a couple of clicks here and there, but in the end it's just another ad on your blog and as our search engine traffic grew the amount of clicks coming in from the ad exchange just weren't worth it.

I think with the whole 'community' thing with blogs there would have to be an added dimension to make this idea take off...

For example imagine a scenario where you write a post and before publishing you 'search for ads', this search would take something similar to technorati tags from your post and find related posts - ones that look interesting you approve as ads which then appear at the bottom of your post (or wherever).

A credit system could be worked out so that you get credits for showing ads and blogs with more credits get higher placement on searches for ads...

In other words you link to actual posts that are in someway related to your own post, creating ads that are much more specific and targetted, contextual ads that have been author approved as it were... I imagine something like this would work quite well, although it would take a lot more work to develop I suppose.

Anyway, there's my idle thought for the day.

The MDI Air Car - the world's cleanest car.

2006-01-21T14:42:00.000Z

The MDI Air Car - the world's cleanest car.: "After twelve years of reserch and development, Guy Negre has developed an engine that could become one of the biggest technological advances of this century. Its application to CAT vehicles gives them significant economical and environmental advantages. With the incorporation of bi-energy (compressed air fuel) the CAT Vehicles have increased their driving range to close to 2000 km with zero pollution in cities and considerably reduced pollution outside urban areas."

Any chance they'll actually take off?

I watched the video clip from the BBC but it was disappointing, they seem to have just taken a tiny clip from a full review. And I'm guessing they chose the positive bit...!

Still though, wouldn't it be great?

According to Wired the project is floundering a bit due to lack of investment... the prototypes in existence need work before they deliver on MDI's full promises, but investment is needed to do the work but investors want to see it working before investing and so on and so on...

God I hope somebody gives them money.

You can register your interest in owning an air car on the site, and when they go into production they'll contact you.

Bloggers could help out too by linking to the site if they think it's a good idea, get some buzz going about it.

X-Box Ad worth watching

2005-12-19T00:40:00.000Z

There's some guff about MicroSoft refusing to air it or something which is probably all PR hype, but I love this ad for the X-Box. I don't have an X-Box but I used to regularly play Halo with friends and two networked X-Boxes. This ad captures what I loved about that, the social aspect to it. Worth a watch. Good fun.

Do brand evangelists make us play nicer?

2005-12-14T11:03:00.000Z

I've been meaning to write something on this for ages and just haven't had the time. I don't have the time now either, but just very quickly...

Due in part to Mena Trott's speech, and what people took from it, there has been some renewed discussion on civility in blogs.

It does seem to me that a lot of Bloggers are less civil on their blogs than I believe they would be in a face to face. That's the nature of the medium though isn't it?

Some will argue that it's not less civility, it's more honesty.

Irregardless (as they say on the Sopranos) what is interesting me is the role of the brand evangelist. Say someone has a beef with a product or company, and they blog about that issue - a brand evangelist will probably spot that post (through their RSS search feeds - see here) and respond to it.

Having a person representing that product or company respond to a negative blog post certainly humanises and personalises the issue.

Does this soften the bloggers approach? I guess it depends on the relationship the brand evangelist can engender with the blogger.

It worked for me. Look at my post on Ning's content agreement. Gina Bianchini responded explaining they were hoping to rectify the situation. I have received several emails from Gina explaining there have been delays and the content agreement AFAIK remains the same. But I haven't posted about it since. I'm not saying Gina has intentionally strung me along - not at all. I'm just saying the effect of her contact has been that the only follow up I did to that post was to praise Ning for being on the ball and post about the positive aspects of Ning which I wouldn't have bothered doing otherwise.

Having personal contact with companies is great, and having immediate responses to questions or issues about companies or products is great. Humanising companies is fantastic.

So what's my point? Well right now I think most brand evangelists are actually genuinely reaching out, and that includes Gina from Ning, but I worry that if things move forward the way we're heading, everybody will jump on the bandwagon and most companies will have 'brand evagelists' out there for damage control and saying whatever needs to be said to reduce negative impact and keep people on side.

Maybe I'm being too negative, but once businesses really take to this whole blog thing I think we're going to see a huge dilution of the positive aspects of blogging/response.

I guess all we can do is continue to push for honest blogging and real responses and hope I'm wrong.

RSS feeds - full vs partial

2005-12-14T00:56:00.000Z

Yes, the full feeds vs partial feeds debate rages on. And on. And it gets boring and it gets heated. But it is quite an important debate to be having.

I personally think there is no 'one solution fits all' here.

Robert Scoble brought it up just recently, and for those who don't follow his blog religously here is the text of the comment I left on that particular full vs partial post:

So full vs partial rages on...

I publish full feeds, but only because I have nothing to lose. RSS is taking off, but it's still not largely understood by the average user. To be charging into 'full feeds are right all the time' at this point seems a bit strange to me.

Yes, I want to syndicate my content. But I respect the wishes of those that don't. Whether I subscribe to a partial feed will depend on the quality of the content.

If 'A List Apart' offered partial feeds, I would take them - gratefully (And not want to shoot them...).

Of course, I don't know who *this* post refers to and perhaps there is no reason for them not to have full feeds; but they obviously believe there is.

Are we talking Blogs only here or all RSS content...?

Most blogs at his point are either fluff or self promotional (at some level) - both these purposes have no reason not to publish full feeds...

The issue here, I guess is mostly monetisation.

I think an earlier commenter was fair to point out we need research and stats on full vs partial. I think it might show full feeds result in more subscribers and still get click throughs. I think it might also show that partial feeds, though resulting in less subscribers *might* have more targetted audiences and therefore yield greater results.

If users subscribe to partial feeds it may be because they know it's worth it. If they know it's worth it it may be because they trust the source. If they trust the source they may be more likely potential customers/consumers/whatever.

Maybe. We'll see.

Creative solutions for charity.

2005-12-01T02:30:00.000Z

I often get stopped by people working for charities who want me to set up a direct debit and give them X euro a month.

I am not very good at organising my personal finances and, as a result, I HATE direct debit.

I always say, 'look, I'll give you a lump sum...' but the answer is invariably:
'Sorry, we don't do that.'

'But I want to give you money'

'So set up a direct debit.'

Today was a little different, I had this conversation with a guy from Barnados, he made a compelling argument about Ireland being a rich country and yet we have 1 in 7 children in living in poverty.

He said all he wanted was a tenner a month. I said I'd give him €120 in a lump sum. No can do was the response. I explained why I really didn't like direct debit and he respected that. Then he said, look - make it €150 and I'll make it happen.

At this point, I should interject that I had already established the guy doesn't get commission on individual donations, he works for a flat salary plus bonuses for number of sign ups.

I agreed to donate €150 if he found a way to accept it. He made a call to his team leader to ask if I could set up a direct debit for €150 a month and then cancel after one month. He got a positive reply and that's what he did.

A simple solution, don't know why I never thought of it before and I don't know why none of the other charities that stopped me thought of it before!

That's the kind of simple but effective solution I really admire.

Now all I have to do is remember to cancel it before it bankrupts me!!!

Cork Blogging Dinner with Robert Scoble a great success.

2005-12-01T02:19:00.000Z

I knew the whole 'what to post where' issue would become a headache... I have posted about the blogging dinner on the BifSniff site, because I attended the dinner wearing, primarily, my BifSniff hat.

Here is my brief overview, and here is an interesting conversation I had about the impact of RSS feeds on visit lengths.

Is Blogger breaking your RSS feeds?

2005-11-28T16:44:00.000Z

More and more I am disenchanted with Blogger.

Quite often when I post, Blogger messes up my RSS feeds. I am not alone. This seems to be a bug in Blogger. I have taken to checking my feeds after almost every post. It's really annoying, but it happens that often, that it's necessary. And of course I don't always remember to do it, and people think I have changed my feed to partial feeds or headline only.

With, for example, Robert Scoble saying he only suscribes to full feeds now, this is something worth thinking about.

If Blogger keeps breaking your feeds will you lose potentially valuable readers like Mr. Scoble?

If you're using Blogger, a)Check your feeds and b)Scream at Google/Blogger about this - and blog about it. Please!

Meteor Awards: Vote John Spillane

2005-11-28T13:25:00.000Z

Step 1: Watch the animated video I created for John Spillane's We're Going Sailing

Step2. buy his latest album 'Hey Dreamer' - read my review of the album too if you like!

Step 3: Head over to the Meteor Awards site to vote for John Spillane as Best Irish Male!

Tom R, podcaster extraordinaire.

2005-11-23T11:16:00.000Z

Tom R, the man who got Robert Scoble lined up for the IT@Cork conference, has podcast interviews with both Robert Scoble and Shel Israel - the co-authors of Naked Conversations.

He has now lined up a pretty impressive list of interviewees for his future podcasts.

Be sure to check out Tom's podcast of the Robert Scoble interview and the Shel Israel interview.

I have to admit I haven't listened to them fully myself yet. I just haven't had time. I have a train journey coming up on Saturday and I intend to listen to them both then. They will be the first podcasts I could be bothered listening to!

RSS usability and feed links.

2005-11-22T01:26:00.000Z

Marketing studies have an article on their site about increasing RSS readership.

Most of it is in line with my own thoughts on RSS of late, however it did bring up one point I have been mulling over lately.

It's the issue of placing buttons for subscribing to RSS feeds via individual online RSS aggregators, such as Yahoo! or Bloglines and the like. The article advocates it. And I can understand why.

I agree that RSS should not be a geeky thing, and use of it should be seamless for the end user.

Placement of these kinds of buttons, in theory makes it easy for users of those services to subscribe to your feed.

However, where do you draw the line? If you are expected to place a button on your site for every online aggregator, that will end up being a lot of buttons.

All distracting, and their impact and usefulness diminishing with each addition, as the user searches through endless sidebar buttons for the button relating to the service they use.

Our 'real estate' on the pages of our sites is valuable. Every button and link is a distraction and is vying for attention, furthermore, you probably have other links which other people are telling you need to be top priority.

In addition, will the impetus to develop a truly useful standard for RSS usability exist while we pander to individual online aggregators?

So, I tend to think prioritising a standard type 'SUBSCRIBE' button (and help button) is healthier.

However, I will admit, this is bound to be a contentious issue, and I am open to listening to any reasonable argument for inclusion of all these buttons. But I will say this, it looks like Robert Scoble is on my side. :P

Robert Scoble Interview

2005-11-17T20:16:00.000Z

Tom R has interviewed Robert Scoble. Nice one Tom!

The interview is part of the run up to the IT@Cork conference, at which Robert Scoble is speaking. Charles Handy is speaking too. Congrats to it@Cork for putting together such great keynote speakers.

I have to admit that I haven't listened to the entire interview yet, because I have had a hectic schedule the last few days, but I'm listening to it in chunks!

Also, I'm not going to the IT@Cork conference, but if anyone wants to give me a Christmas present of a ticket do feel free. ;)

7 Secrets of the 80/20 Blogger - Jack of All Blogs

2005-11-17T03:59:00.000Z

7 Secrets of the 80/20 Blogger - Jack of All Blogs:

"4. Become a Google Wunderkind. Delete your archives.
Review all your posts. Clear out the ones that aren't popular. Google will like you even more than ever. If you have less content but more of it is linked. Guess what? You become an overnight google wunderkind. This is something they don't want you knowing. But it works."

Nice post. All worth a read, but I was particularly interested by this point. I don't know how tongue in cheek he may have been, but it makes sense, and is probably true, but, wow, how come a storm hasn't blown up about this... surely it's against all kinds of Blogger ethics and etiquette and god knows what!! :P

I'm not going to do it, by the way. And I wouldn't advocate it unless you give it a lot of thought first. It doesn't strike me as a good practice. But it is food for thought!

RSS feed links placement...

2005-11-17T02:22:00.000Z

Performancing.com have a good article on placing RSS feeds prominently.

When I wrote about increasing the usability of RSS feeds, I came up with a four step plan, but I didn't cover placement of the link:

Use a 'SUBSCRIBE' button.
Include a help button with help page.
Include a link to your feed in the head of your html.
Style your feed.

I always place my feed links prominently, but it didn't occur to me a the time to mention it. Perhaps it should have been a five step plan!

5. Place Subscribe and Help button prominently. :P

According to Yahoo!'s quite recent RSS white paper:

When asked to describe what they thought about RSS in their own words, 24% of "Aware RSS Users" mentioned "ease" or "convenience" as the leading benefit. In addition, 18% claim they value the ability to choose what they want to read. Intriguingly, only 7% mentioned the continuous updating of RSS feeds. These findings suggest that the primary benefit of RSS is efficient access to media sources.

However the report also says "Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users".

Prominent placement of RSS feed link with a help button brings RSS to the attention of your visitors, helps them understand it, and ultimately gives them what they want: easy and convenient access to media sources (that's you!).

Awareness of RSS is going to increase, usability will improve and adoption will take off. Now is the perfect time to help users get the convenience they are looking for: before it's available everywhere!

Blogger.com sucks

2005-11-16T18:31:00.000Z

I'm not a happy camper. I have been a staunch supporter of blogger, and have defended their service many times in blog discussions with Tom R, as he will testify.

I have supported and used Blogger because of the easy set up and user friendly interface.

All well and good if it works. Lately I have had frequent trouble posting and often my feeds decide to revert to partial instead of full, all of their own accord.

On top of that Blogger Support is very poor, standards support is still only halfway there and important blogging features like trackback don't seem to be on the agenda at all. Also, existing features can be changed with little or no warning to existing blogger users (see my post on image upload).

I thought I was on my own. I'm not. Search Google for 'Blogger sucks'. There's a lot of unhappy blogger bloggers out there. And it goes back to April. Blogger seems to periodically just start stumbling around like a druken three legged elephant.

Blogger is owned by Google. Are Google losing their grip? I've been hearing grumblings out there recently about Google and their various products. A lot of people seem to share the concern that Google are becoming just another faceless corporation. That's certainly becoming my view.

if you're starting a blog from scratch, try Wordpress.

Particletree - Dynamic Resolution Dependent Layouts

2005-11-16T15:32:00.000Z

Particletree - Dynamic Resolution Dependent Layouts

Definitely worth a look.

Blogging Rules made to be broken.

2005-11-15T16:58:00.000Z

I have written several posts about blogging, two of note are the recent Small Business Blogging Tips and the less recent Blogging tips for optimum findability.

I stand over both articles, they are good advice. However, and I'm sure everyone realises this, they are not hard and fast rules. They are tips I have found to work for me.

Bif (aka Brendan O'Connell) claims he breaks most of them. And, as the guy who originally got him blogging, you might wonder why I don't pester him about that. It's because I enjoy his breaking of the rules. And because I don't think he breaks as many as he claims.

One tip he definitely ignores is the use of post titles. His titles are not short, are often not descriptive, would never be something someone would search for and usually make no sense. For example: "Tom's 80,000 Defamatory Spaghetti Monsters"

However I find them amusing and intriguing. And they work well with his style of writing. So I don't bother him about it. I think they add to the style of his blog. You have to weigh up the pros and cons of any approach, and in this case I think it's worth keeping Bif's quirky approach in place.

The tips I have written should help you to make an informed decision about how to go about creating and writing your blog, but remember that rules were made to be broken ;)

Small Business Blogging Tips

2005-11-12T11:15:00.000Z

Some people - like Bob Byrne of Clamnuts Comics who had never considered blogging before - take to it like a duck to water. Others, who would like to blog, aren't always so sure where to start.

I put together some thoughts, primarily using Bob as an example, to (hopefully) help some other newbies to business blogging.

Why Business Blogging?

There has been a lot of talk about business blogging, or blogging for business so I'm not going to spend too long on the whys of it, if you want the argument for why Blog from a business perspective then check out Particletree's excellent argument for Small business Blogging.

However, taking Bob's blog as an example, I can quickly say that his blog can

Let people get to know Bob Byrne
Identify him as an authority in Irish Comics
Build a regular readership
Bring search engine traffic into the site

Building Brand

The internet is a great way to build awareness of a small business like Clamnuts Comics. As people find Bob's blog and website, the more he becomes known as one of the key personalities in Irish Comics and the more exposure Clamnuts gets. The goal would be to get to a point that when people think 'Irish Comics' they will think 'Clamnuts'. Bob's blog, ultimately, will help to build his brand.

Distinctive Voices

Bob is extremely lucky in that he has a unique and distinctive style which runs through his comics and all of his blog posts. It may not be to everybodies taste, but it is an essential part of his brand.

You don't have to be as extreme as Bob, but it certainly helps if you have a distinctive voice which reflects your brand.

Blogging Subjects

If you are blogging on a business related blog, then it will be crucial that you blog about subjects related to your business. Some will tell you you should only blog about subjects relevant to your business, but I think that's a personal call that only you can make. Bob, for example, blogs about all kinds of things - which includes items pertinent to his industry.

Blogging about subjects not related to your industry from time to time help your readers build a more rounded image of you, which I believe is a good thing.

However, straying from industry specific topics may require a certain amount of common sense or strategic decision making - for example do you want to tackle a current affairs issue which may be controversial? There would be pros and cons to posting something like this, the safer bet would be to stay away... but if you are an edgy and progressive business with a very specific target client base you may be able to afford to take the risk.

Bob's post on 'Documenting US Soldiers Funerals' as a very good example of posting controversial material. However, Bob's comics themselves tend to be controversial and often political (see cover of Shiznit Issue 2) and as such these kind of posts are not likely to lose Bob any comic readers - if they are offended by this post, they will most likely be very offended by his comics. So it would be my view that he can afford to post material like this. In fact, as someone who shares the views expressed by Bob in this post, I can say it would encourage me to read his comics.

Industry Related Subjects, Targeted Traffic & Passion

Bob recently blogged about the 'Irish Comics Expo 2005'. Searching for 'Irish Comics Expo' in Google brings Clamnuts back in the first few results. So anyone who has heard about the expo and wants to find out more by searching for it on Google will see Bob's site, and may visit it.

This brings visitors who are actively interested in comics to Bob's Clamnuts site.

Bob posted the comics expo article because he wanted to spread the word about the expo, and because he will be there himself.

From what I know of Bob, the fact that it would bring targetted traffic into his site is unlikely to have occurred to him. And that's part of the beauty of Bob's blog - it's not a cynical marketting ploy. Bob loves comics and loves writing about them.

That kind of passion will be picked up by readers too. Just as a cynical attempt to bring targetted traffic will be picked up. if readers come to your site, read your posts and realise it is all just a marketing ploy they will be gone in a flash.

In that case, why am I telling you all this about targetted traffic? Well, i believe that a healthy mix of passion about your subject and understanding of how you can build traffic is the key.

Armed with a passion for your subject and a little understanding about findability and building traffic you are really set for business blogging.

What should I blog about? Using RSS

There won't always be a comics expo, or equivalent in you industry - so what do you blog about?

Well, if you are short on inspiration from time to time here is something you could try. Use RSS.

Get yourself an RSS feed reader if you don't already have one. If you don't know what RSS is, you can read about RSS and feed readers on my page about subscribing to RSS

Now, go to some popular Blog search tools. Such as:

I'm sure there are others, but these will get you started. Next step is to search them for industry related terms. So for example, Bob could go to Google Blog Search and search for 'Comics'. When the results of the search come back, if you scroll down to the bottom of the results you will see "Subscribe: Atom (10 results - 100 results) RSS (10 results - 100 results)".

Click on the RSS '100 results' and you will be taken to a page which displays an RSS feed for your search results. You can now copy the URL of that page into your Feed Reader and 'subscribe' to it and therefore be kept up to date on what bloggers are saying about 'comics'. Repeat excercise for other relevant terms - for example 'Irish Comics' or 'Weird Comics'.

It's a good idea to then do the same with some of the other Blog searches, so you get the best of all of them. When you do a search in IceRocket you'll see a link on the right hand side saying 'RSS 2.0 Feed' and in Feedster it's an orange XML button. But other than the different way the feeds are linked to, it's the same process.

With Technorati, it's slightly different, you have to register with them. Then you do your searches and click on the green button that says "add to watchlist", you can then 'View Watchlist' (again, a green button) and when you view watchlist you'll see a little blue RSS button. This is the link to the feed.

Once you have subscribed to the searches you think will be relevant to your industry using your feed reader, you can open up your feed reader everyday and see what bloggers are saying about your industry.

This is a good way to get good leads on what is going on, what are hot topics, and what people are interested about in your industry.

Be Original

Remember, using RSS is a very valuable way to keep an eye on the scene in your industry as it exists online, but there is no substitute for originality. The danger with using the RSS trick is that you end up always following the crowd, posting links to the same items as everybody else. Use RSS to keep an eye on what's going on, what others are saying - and then 'bounce off' them, posting your own ideas about topics.

Keep an eye on yourself

When you are searching and subscribing, it's also a good idea to include your company name, your own name and other brand related terms pertaining to you. That way you also keep an eye on what people are specifically saying about you... :)

Use your titles

Once you have found something to blog about, remember that the title of your blog post is very important. Posting about something is pointless unless you enable people to find what you have written.

Look at the simple 'Comics Expo' example. Bob writes in the post:

Yes, come meet and greet the cream of the scene. Below is Rob Curley's press release blurb (unedited or corrected, he spells 'of' as 'off' just the way a certain girlfreind of mine does). Beautiful flyer designed by some stud

If Bob had decided to title his post "The cream of the scene" would he now be in the first couple of results for a Google search of "Irish Comics Expo"?

Unlikely. So give some thought to how you want people to find what you write. Make the title short and descriptive and include a phrase you think people will search for.

Key phrases, wording links and outward links

Once you have given some thought to how you might want people to find your post and decided on a phrase, use it in the text of your post. I don't mean spending hours deciding on a phrase either - this is something as you blog more and more you will simply become innately aware of. You will build it into your style of writing.

It is good to pepper your post with the phrase or phrases. Obviously, never force the issue - keep it as natural as you can.

Try to word links in a useful way and, where relevant, worded with your key phrase. So instead of saying "You can read more about the comics expo here" it would be far better to say "You can read more about the comics expo on the clamnuts site."

So the relevance of the link is included in the link itself.

And it is good to include outward links. Don't be afraid of 'losing' readers. I think this is an irrational fear which is disappearing fast (so 1990's) but rest assured that it's a good thing - as long as you are linking to reputable sites with relevant information.

Libel!

Be aware of libel laws if you intend to mention other individuals or companies in your blog. Tom R has a very interesting post on libel which every blogger should read, and Digital Rights Ireland have some legal information on libel which you should also read.

Th-th-th-that's all folks!

Phew. I didn't mean to write such a long post. I hope it's been helpful to somebody!
Feel free to leave comments!

They ARE watching you... you're not paranoid.

2005-11-09T18:04:00.000Z

Data Retention

Data Retention was too boring a title for this post to get your attention I thought... ;) but that's what this is about.

Put simply, the powers that be in Europe want access to your data - who you've been calling and emailing and where you were with your mobile phone!

And if you live in Ireland then you may already be effectively 'under surveilance' - not to be too paranoid about it...!

Digital Rights Ireland have some great articles about Data Retention, a good starting point is:
Data Retention in Europe: The story so far

They provide a sample letter urging your MEP (Member of the European Parliament)to vote against the Data Retention proposal, which you can use to help draft your own letter.

Digital Rights Ireland also give a link to a site where you can identify the MEP you should write to about Data Retention .

And they link to an online petition - data retention is no solution

If you read this, please consider sending a letter. I never write letters but I'm going to write one on this issue. That's a promise. Now I have to do it. ;)

Findability, Web Standards and Accessibility

2005-11-09T02:39:00.000Z

Writing about findability previously I said

While web standards themselves do not equal a more findable site, it is easier to develop a more findable site using web standards. You develop leaner, more organised code. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but organised in the right way, this can allow search engines to access your content easier and determine more easily what your page is all about, which in turn means improved chances of your site being returned in results for relevant searches.

This prompted me to write some tips for findable blogs/websites - but don't take my word for it... I have found some great articles on A List Apart which deal with the same subject...

Using XHTML/CSS for an Effective SEO Campaign
and
High Accessibility Is Effective Search Engine Optimization

Both worth reading.

One small point, "Using XHTML/CSS for an Effective SEO Campaign" advocates using css to do image rollover effects rather than javascript and they point to an article to help you do so - I love that article, but there are some problems with it. If you want to use css to do image rollovers I humbly suggest you read my article on CSS image rollovers which explains the issues and presents the solutions as given to me by Lee Hosty. If you doubt the power of CSS rollovers, check out the Clamnuts comics site where I used CSS to do the main navigation image rollover effects!

IE5 css random content jump

2005-11-08T21:48:00.000Z

A CSS design using nested floated divs may result in content jumping vertically in IE5.

It's a highly random behaviour, sometimes the content will look fine, sometimes the content will jump waaaay down the page.

If you are experiencing this, try changing the innermost div's css from:
float:left/right; to float:inherit;

If it works, please leave a comment to let me know!
Also, if you happen to know WHY this is, please leave a comment!

Thanks!

Box Model Hack - css-discuss

2005-11-08T18:00:00.000Z

Box Model Hack - css-discuss

If you design using CSS you will have come across the Box Model Hack before. The joys.

This page lists some popular hacks to get around the fact that versions of IE before IE6/strict use a different box model. In that model, the padding and borders are counted as part of any assigned 'width' or 'height'.

I am considering using the following solution from this page:

div
{
border: 10px solid;
padding: 10px;
width: 100px !important;
width /**/:140px;
}

Line 5 is read by all browsers. But IE/Win does not implement !important so this value is not given any importance by that browser. Line 6 is hidden only from IE6/Win. Therefore, IE5.x/Win and any other browser that does not properly implement !important will get a width of 140px.

However the following warning is included:

Is this the ultimate solution? It does break the Konqueror on Linux, and What's the difference between these, and where do they not work? It seems like Technique 3 is a nice solution, but is it the ultimate solution? On NS4.8 all the boxes gets broken into small boxes around each word.

Anyone got any comments on this issue?

001 java. net. unknownhostexception

2005-11-07T02:01:00.000Z

Thursday night I had difficulty posting the cartoon on BifSniff Cartoons. Blogger was sluggish, and whenever I tried to post it came back with "001 java.net.unknownhostexception" .

This is not the first time this has happened. I have posted about this Blogger issue previously.

And I obviously wasn't the only one experiencing the problem on Thursday night because I got well over 300 people looking at that post just in the last few days.

And it wasn't anything to do with my service provider because I couldn't post to this blog either and BifSniff and this site are hosted by completely different companies.

If you encounter this problem, please leave a comment here or on my other post and email Blogger about it too.

Clamnuts Comics

2005-11-04T08:44:00.000Z

Clamnuts comics went live late last night. I've been working on this with Bob Byrne, the sole evil genius behind Clamnuts. If you want to know just how evil he is, read his blog!

I'll post more about this project soon, I have to catch a train to Dublin right now.

In the meantime, there's a couple of notes about it on my cartoon blog at BifSniff.com.

Irish Blog Awards

2005-11-03T23:19:00.000Z

Irish Blog Awards

Damien Mulley has started a Blog specifically to get the Irish Blog awards up and running. Go visit and leave comments, ideas, suggestions and all that!

Village Magazine - Ireland's Current Affairs Weekly

2005-11-02T00:56:00.000Z

Village Magazine - Ireland's Current Affairs Weekly

Somebody pointed out the new Village Magazine website which now has content on it.

Which reminds me that I haven't bought it in ages... I should really get back into the habit of buying it and reading it. I might know a bit more of what's going on in the world.

Pinstripe - Spoiltchild business blog

2005-11-02T00:30:00.000Z

Pinstripe - seems like a good blog. Spoiltchild are about to launch a new web application and some of the posts surrounding this process are really interesting.

Campaign Monitor

2005-11-02T00:29:00.000Z

Email Newsletter and List Management Software for Web Designers - Campaign Monitor

Blogging this so I can find it when I might need it!

Campaign Monitor is an email newsletter and list management tool built for web designers who can design great looking emails, but need software to send their campaign, track the results and manage their subscribers

Campaign Monitor's pricing structure couldn't be more simple. There are no setup fees, no monthly fees and no hidden fees.
$5 1 cent/recipient

For each campaign you send with more than 5 recipients, you pay a flat delivery fee of $5 plus 1 cent/recipient. Any campaigns you send to 5 or less people are free of charge.

Let's say you're sending an email newsletter for a client to their database of 4,500 subscribers. To send this newsletter, you will be charged $5 plus a cent for each recipient, $45 in this case, making a total of $50.

All prices are in US dollars.

IE empty div height problem.

2005-10-28T17:30:00.000+01:00

I am working on a design at the moment in which I use empty divs to contain design elements through the use of css background images. It's not the best solution code wise, but it works and if used sparingly, it won't have any massive negative implications.

However I was scratching my head when I had some empty divs with a height of 6 pixels specified. Fine in Firefox, fine in Opera, NOT fine in ie. The heights were way more than 6 pixels.

Luckily I found the solution to the empty div ie problem in two seconds using Google!

The solutions given were as follows (I used method 2):

1) Put a comment inside the div:

2) Put   inside the div and add this to its style: font-size:1px;
line-height:0.

Fight the Bull - Why Business People Speak Like Idiots

2005-10-28T15:12:00.000+01:00

Fight the Bull - Why Business People Speak Like Idiots

Worth a look. Found this through Scoble's blog.

Check out the 'bull blog' which has some funny bullshit examples and anecdotes. The site is by the author of a book called "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots" and the site includes a downloadable piece of software which helps you keep your bullshit in check when writing word documents.

The Daily Show - I love it.

2005-10-26T03:45:00.000+01:00

Fantastic clip on the state of Iraq as described by Bush, his generals and Rumsfeld.

Two for the price of one: incredible tv reporting of floods and Bush's impromptu discussion with soldiers

Hearings about US government response to hurricane Katrina.

More Daily Show clips here.

Ning Content Agreement

2005-10-23T02:11:00.000+01:00

I signed up with Ning, and got developer status. However my idea for an app was thwarted when I read the user agreement on content.

It seems you have to grant a license for commercial use of any content you upload to Ning.

You must be joking me.

I posted the details over on the BifSniff site, because the app was going to be a cartoon battle.

Read all about it on my cartoon blog...

Findability - help people find your site.

2005-10-13T15:30:00.000+01:00

I was asked to have a look at someone's site with a view to giving some pointers on findability today. I was reminded of a post I put together which was rather badly titled "Blogging tips for optimum findability".

The article is relevant to findability in general, I should really revisit and republish it for general consumption, not just regarding blogging.

It touches on the following tips:

Write relevant content often
Use a web standard compliant blog template
Start your content early in your code
Key Words and Phrases
Outward Links

Jarhead - Trailer

2005-10-13T14:38:00.000+01:00

Jarhead - Trailer - Medium

I really liked enjoyed the book 'Jarhead', so I was interested to see they had made a film of it.

It's got a great cast and looks like a film I will go to see. However I worry that the film will only capture the entertaining and funny aspects of the book and might miss the gritty realism so well communicated in the book.

I read the book a good while ago now, but I seem to remember the book giving an incredibly real feeling of what it must be like to be thrown into a warzone. Despite seeing very little action, from what I remember, the book describes the inability to prepare for a warzone, the insane orders that come down from the top, equipment that is unsuitable for the environment, no understanding of geography or culture of the area, and the generally scary reality that these are not altogether the brightest sparks who have been let loose in another country with firearms and little or no understanding of objectives...

iTunes volume control usability

2005-10-13T12:49:00.000+01:00

I just stumbled upon a blog entry about sliders in user interfaces - such as volume sliders. The author points out a Hidden Gem in the iTunes user interface that I have to admit I had never noticed.

Simply place your mouse over the volume slider and you can use the scroll wheel to control the volume.

This is nifty, because it's true - sliders are awkward to use.

The amazing Apple design brand

2005-10-13T12:33:00.000+01:00

Robert Scoble, talking about the Xbox 360, said the fact that Engadget said it was "going to be only game in town" was evidence of the brand damage done to Microsoft by shipping products which were not done as well as the Xbox 360. In other words, Microsoft have it in them to release incredible goods, but often don't take the care to produce them.

The really interesting quote though is the following:

How deep is that brand damage? Well, when the team showed me the Xbox for the first time they said "looks like something Apple designed, huh?"

Apple have always been strong on design, and have always had a coherent brand, but this is an incredible vindication of that approach: to have the Microsoft team proud of a product and refer to is as 'looking like somethink Apple designed'. Wow.

Of course Scoble's reply was 'No, it looks better'.

Even if it does though - it'll take more than one product to redress the gap between MS's design ethos and Apple's...

Dave Winer's Subscribe button...

2005-10-12T21:06:00.000+01:00

Dave Winer advocates the use of the word 'Subscribe'on buttons which lead to RSS feeds rather than 'XML', 'RSS', 'ATOM', 'FEED' or any other term. He says, straightforwardly:

The button should be white on orange and it should say, boldly, SUBSCRIBE.

However his own feed button says 'XML'.
Is this because he advocates a solution which results in an easy subscription process for anyone using any feed reader, and is waiting for the solution before changing his button?

After reading his post, I thought it made absolute sense to go with 'subscribe' (rather than 'XML' as I had at the time). But I had concerns that it was too soon and it it would be perhaps better to wait until a user friendly solution was in place before making the leap.

But in the end I decided 'subscribe' WAS better, right now. And so I changed my button to subscribe and I also added a help button to help inform users about RSS. I posted the results of my research and decisions in the form of a four step plan for making RSS feeds more user friendly.

Yahoo, Blog Search, RSS, Subscribe.

2005-10-11T16:03:00.000+01:00

Myself and Tom R were just discussing Yahoo's 'blog search'. I have it in inverted comments because it is actually Yahoo's news search, which now happens to display results for blogs on the right hand side of the page.

As Tom already pointed out, it is a pretty odd place for them - especially as many Google users are used to that spot being reserved for paid-for results.

It's a Beta, so let's hope for some improvements in the near future - but not only are they on the right hand side, but why are they only in news? Or why in news at all? Why not in the general search area?

Another issue, both Tom and Robert Scoble point out, is the poor search results this 'blog search' returns. But again, I hope this is due to a rushed launch or some such and will improve.

However, in my opinion they get one obvious thing almost right. In the blog results you get:

Post name
blog name
date posted
snippet of post
'my yahoo' features: 'add to my yahoo' and 'save'

It is the Yahoo features I think are of most note here. Each result has a link to subscribe to the blog's RSS feed. Fantastic. It's a pity it's tied only to 'My Yahoo' but that's hardly surprising.

Imagine a world where you do a search on Google and when a result has a feed associated with it a 'subscribe' option is given for that result. This subscribe button, when clicked, would add the feed to your own OPML file (or some such solution) which in turn would result in that feed being added to any and all feed readers you happened to use, desktop or web based.

I'm tired of having to do so many different things to manage so many third party solutions. I'm tired of having to consider putting hundreds of little buttons on my blogs ('subscribe using this', 'subscribe using that') - surely it's not necessary?

I realise Yahoo WANT to have, if possible, a little button with their brand on it on as many sites as possible - but if all RSS subscription buttons resulted in the same predictable and easy to use actions the uptake on RSS would most likely improve massively. According to Yahoo's white paper on RSS:

Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. 12% of users are aware of RSS, and 4% have knowingly used RSS.

I believe it makes sense to drive forward towards a solution where RSS feeds can be managed without major technical know how on the part of the content publisher or the common or garden variety end user.

Tom R tells me that Microsoft are headed this way with their developments in Windows... perhaps he will give us some links to explain further... :)

I just hope Microsoft don't just make this yet another third party solution (albeit a better one) but that they encourage and nurture a new standard.

If you have been reading my blog (which is unlikely, I know) you will realise this post springs from, and owes a lot to Dave Winer's post on Subscribe which I wrote about previously quite a bit as I figured out how best to present my feeds..

Context sensitive search

2005-10-10T12:16:00.000+01:00

Rick Segal on Scoble's search ideas - ScobleSearch.com

Essentially Rick Segal feels it's all about context. Which is fair enough. Rick thinks we should be able to highlight a word in our browsers and right click for context sensitive search option.

I think it sounds great. But it doesn't answer all of Scoble's issues really. After all Google suggest could be seen as a prototype for this type of solution - I know it's not exactly the same, but it's similar enough to use as an example...

Do a search for 'HDTV' in Google suggest, and pretend it immediately suggests 'HDTV manufacturers' and you search for that (in fact you have to type 'HDTV ma' before it suggests manufacturers). The manufacturers still aren't listed. So context isn't everything I'm afraid. You still have to figure out how to weight content differently to the way it is weighted now.

On the other hand a search for 'Robert' in google suggest is a little more promising. It immediately suggests several different Roberts, including Robert Frost and Robert Redford. Interestingly Robert Scoble is not the first Robert suggested. But the real issue here is that there are too many Roberts to list them all in context. So a context sensitive search, to work properly, would have to categorise all the Roberts and suggest something like:

Robert (actors)
Robert (poets)
Robert (companies)
Robert (musicians)

and so on... which means you would potentially need a second tier of suggestions after that, making the interface a little unwieldy.

I don't mean to knock Rick's idea - it's a good one. But in thinking about it I think it's deceptively simple sounding.

Scoble pointed out a quote from John Battelle who says 99% of search users never clicked on advance search. Scoble seems surprised. I'm not surprised really given that we already new most searches are one word searches and don't go past the first few results returned.

Creating an interface to a better search to cater for the average searcher will be a challenge.

Blogger comments - I apologise.

2005-10-10T04:16:00.000+01:00

I feel pretty stupid. I only just realised that emails sent by Blogger to my account when someone comments DO include a link to the precise post they commented on. Why did I never notice? Because the link at the bottom of the email only has the name of the blog as the link text. Therefore I assumed it was a link to the main page of that blog. It is actually a link to the exact post the comment was left on. I can't believe I have been using Blogger over a year and only discovered this now. Yes, I am pretty stupid, but also shouldn't the link indicate in someway that it links to a specific post??

I have to assume that it was always a link to the specific post, and therefore must apologise to Blogger for spreading nasty rumours that comment notification emails did not specifiy which post.

I feel stupid. But I also feel very happy that I no longer have to go trawling through my blog for comments left.

This was a big issue for me and one I often moaned about to anyone who would listen. D'oh!

Now if only Blogger would implement trackbacks and the ability for visitors to subscribe to comments... :)

Search - for a better way

2005-10-09T18:26:00.000+01:00

WARNING - BRAIN DUMP AHEAD!

This post is rather long, unwieldy and scattered, not to mention incomplete... Read it at your own risk! ;)

I dont have time these days to blog about all the things I would like to... this subject has been on my mind the past couple of days. A couple of blogs that I have been checking recently are talking about search. The key personalities involved are Robert Scoble, Dave Winer and Seth Godin.

Dave Winer posted that he thought Google were being careless with their search, making some errors in judgement and not focussing where they should be. Interestingly (to me) his brief comment on Google's blogsearch (trying to segregate RSS instead of embracing it) would seem to be in line with my own views on it; as I posted in Tom R's comments

Do we really need a seperate blog search from Google?
Why not just integrate it into the regular search? After all the so called 'blogosphere' is not really distinct from the 'interweb' it's just a way of publishing to it.[...]I guess that your point that it's a feed search and not a blog search is probably the real issue, but you see where I'm coming from...

To me, whether a site/page has a feed or not is a seperate issue to be worked out by searches, not whether it's a blog or not

But the main point here was that Dave Winer was one of several people who seem to be becoming critical of the lack of forward progress on the search front.

I noticed that Scoble was discussing search, and it was interesting - at first I thought it was baloney, but the more I thought about it the more I... went around in circles.

My interpretation of Scoble's argument

Scoble's argument seems to have two key points, illustrated by the following.

Do a Google search for HDTV: where are the manufacturers?
Do a Google search for Robert: why is scoble more relevant than, say, Robert Redford?

Where are the manufacturers?

This point is based around search engines not returning links to sites which a human would consider highly relevant.
The manufacturers example is interesting. Certainly you would imagine they would be important results in a search for HDTV. Scoble points out that users search using 1 or 2 words generally. It is difficult to find the manufacturers using 1 or 2 word searches. However I tried 'role-playing' some HDTV research and by modifying Scobles search to 'buy hdtv' (which I felt was closer to what he wanted) I was able to get manufacturer information in two or three clicks, by doing a search, following a relevant looking link from a reasonably trustworthy source and then following the navigation in that site through to HDTV models endorsed by that site.

Interestingly, when I later I read Seth Godin's ebook, his new internet venture is based on the fact that this is how searching on the internet works... more on that later!

So search had worked for me in my role-play through logical use of it. And as I commented on Scoble's blog, if I were buying a HDTV the manufacturers would not be my most trusted source. I would rather research and then go to manufacturers. And as Scoble pointed out, part of the problem with Sony's site was that they developed an unfindable flash site.

Is this an integral part of the problem? Search engines search the internet. If companies fail to understand the nature of the internet and how sites are best constructed to allow content to be found and accessed easily, how can search engines be expected to return them as relevant matches for searches?

Would better adherence to web standards in development of all websites show an improvement in search results. Most likely. Almost certainly if coupled with enough meaningful content to demonstrate that your site is an authority on a particular subject.

Is this a utopian vision of the internet? I don't think so. But surely web standards and valuable content are the only problems here? Why don't the manufacturers come up on a search for HDTV? We'd have to ask Google and they tend to be pretty secretive.

Is it fair to lumber the search engines with trying to decipher what it is we want from a search? Yahoo Mindset begins to implement a way to narrow down your results by allowing you to quantify whether your search results should be for research or purchasing purposes.

But to do this properly, I believe, could result in a fairly complex search interface - and I love the simplicity of Google. As must everyone considering their market share.

However, having done some work on Hotel search engines, I am willing to admit there may be a nice solution. I just haven't had the time to even begin to consider what it might be. For example look at Kayak.com and do a hotel search, it has a similar interface to yahoo mindset but with more options. What would the options be on a generic search in order to return more valuable results?

Which Robert is more relevant?

This point revolves around search engines giving higher priority to sites which are of lesser relevance to the searcher.
This is also an interesting point. If you do a Google search for Robert, Robert Scoble's site comes back as number one. Why? I assume because the people publishing content these days, especially with the advent of blogs, are technical types and they have an interest in Robert Scoble and link to him a lot and so Google interprets Scoble's site as being important. Which is fair enough, but you can see how this skew isn't going to suit everyone.

On the other hand, do a Google search for 'Robert actor' and you get a Robert Redford relevant result back as number one, followed closely by other Roberts who are actors such as Rob Lowe and Robert De Niro.

So being a little more specific about what you are looking for helps. I use search a lot and have become quite good at finding what I want by refining my search as I go. But Scoble maintains that educating users is not viable. And I understand where he's coming from, but if a user wants to find Robert Redford related material, and they can't remember his second name, surely they know he's an actor and would know to add that to their search? If the don't, what are the chances they could use a more complex search engine interface?

And how can one develop a more relevant search without making the interface more complex?

How can you discover whether a user wants HDTV manufacturers from a search for 'HDTV' or whether a search for 'Robert' is looking for a friend, an artist, a musician, an actor or a technologist?

Is it all in the algorythm?

Maybe I'm on the wrong track... maybe the answer is not in the interface but in the algorythm. Now, to date people seem pretty impressed with Google's algorythm. But Scoble brought up another interesting point a couple of days after his initial point. He said:

I think bloggers aren't looking at search critically because we LOVE the traffic that Google brings! Translation: we're addicts and we don't want to turn the drug off. Well, I want a better search engine. I don't care anymore if I'm at the top of the list.

Interesting point. After all bloggers have managed to leverage Google's algorythm to their benefit - this is one likely reason why Scoble is number one as he points out. But he wants a better search he says. So the algorythm would have to change.

Well, fair enough. I am not about to start into arguing algoryhtms, but I often find material on the web by searching, finding a blog that posted about the material I am looking for, and am then able to follow a link from that blog to the material I wanted. Often the actual page I am looking for is not as findable as the blog that pointed to it.

Scoble would argue, I'm sure, that a search engine should be built that could find the page I'm looking for directly - and I'm not going to argue that (it would be lovely) but I wonder how you do it. If the page I'm looking for is a flash based page with no search engine optimisation how do we determine that page is relevant? A web standard blog entry which has an amount of relevant content to my search query and points me to that flash page is a life saver to me in this situation.

What about NOT changing algorythms or interfaces?

All this brings me to Seth Godin. As I was thinking about search and whether it needed to be improved and whether the current algorythms gave users relevant results, I downloaded Seth Godin's latest ebook from his blog.
As I read it I was surprised to find it was bizarrely tied into all my thoughts on search! Read this edited extract:

You go to Google. And you type in “buy espresso machine." [...] Of course, you're not ready to buy an espresso machine right this second. [...] Right now, you're just looking. You just want to learn about what's going on. [...]

A few sites down the list, I found that Engadget.com, a site I know and trust, has an article. So you click on it.
It's a pretty worthless article. But you notice that there are literally hundreds of comments [...]

about five comments down, you discover a long, thoughtful post by someone who knows all about espresso
machines. Not everyone is seduced by rational textual argument, but you are, so you get excited. Finally! You're
starting to understand. [...]

So you go to www.coffeegeek.com , which you find through another comment. Nirvana! This is the site that
should have been #1. But alas, it's disorganized and hard to follow. So you spend three hours (I'm not kidding,
three hours) reading up on espresso. Now you're informed, you know what's out there and you've read a few
reviews of different machines. Finally, you know enough to think about buying. [...]

So you go back to your original Google search. And now you click on an ad. You look at that site for a while, hit
Back, click on another ad. After you've clicked on six ads, you decide to go back to coffeegeek and buy a $1,400
espresso machine.

This is how Seth describes the current search cycle during research on the web. Which is at once both similar to my defense of current search engines AND highlights the issues Robert Scoble brings up.

Seth Godin's response is similar to the bloggers response: leverage on existing search algorythms to point to relevant material on a subject and therefore (hopefully) improve search results.

Seth's approach is either genius or idiocy. I don't know whether to admire his solution or jump up and shout that the emporer has no clothes! he advocates a new type of website or web page called 'a lens'. It is basically a one pager on a subject you hold dear to your heart where you provide relevant links and rss feeds. That's it.

UNLIKE A BLOG, just about every single item in a lens is connected to something on the Web. Lenses don't hold content. They point to content. And like all good guides, they comment on what they point to.
So your lens can point to blogs or to predefined Yahoo! searches or to a MapQuest map to your favorite restaurant. Your lens can point to the weather report or to treasured books on Amazon or to your wedding pictures on Flickr. A lens isn't filled with content. It points to content.
And your lens also points to other lenses. Lenses on similar topics. Lenses by people you know and trust. Lenses that are highly rated by Web surfers, and lenses that a lot of other people have linked to.

Seth plans to make it easy to build a lens by providing a service called Squidoo.com. By building this network of lenses with it's own search, Seth hopes people can leverage of the research of their peers to find relevant information.

I hope it works because Seth also hopes to raise a lot of money for charity through this venture - and that I applaud. And it could be the driver to make this crazy idea work too.

Conclusion

Are you crazy? You think I concluded anything? I warned you this was a brain dump!!
I think it's great people are pushing for more search development. I would love to see a better search, but we need to identify the problem with the existing search engines first. Some of the more obvious paths being discussed will, I fear, result in horrible search engines. I do worry that the user trend is to do a one word search and only look at the first couple of results returned. It is not surprising that many techies call for user education rather than changing the search! All in all Google does provide me with the tools to do a good search I think, but in order to do it I have to be willing to refine my search using longer phrases and look beyond the initial page of results. This is not typical searcher behaviour it would seem, but how do you develop a search that caters for such a limited user input while delivering better results?

Ok, ok so my conlusions are as follows:

I am willing to concede that, like all things, search could be improved.
I don't think anyone has identified the exact problem yet.
I don't think the solution will become available until we identify that exact problem.
I believe that web standard implementation of ALL websites will help create better search results.
I worry about making search engines over complex
I worry about pandering to lowest common denominator in user behaviour

Ok... I have to leave this for now, I am just going around in circles and boring anyone who chose to read this to tears. Perhaps I will come back in a few days, read this and clarifiy some of my thoughts.

Subscribe: Presenting user friendly RSS feeds.

2005-09-30T16:54:00.000+01:00

I know I said I was sick of RSS for a while, but this is the last word for a while. I swear. I just thought I should clarify what I learned over the past day or two.

Many sites, and particularly blogs, have feeds associated with them, but lots of people don't know what a feed is or how to use it. If you have a feed it is a good idea to encourage people to subscribe to your feed so that you don't fall off the radar - your feed will deliver your fresh content to them through their feed reader.

But in order to encourage people to subscribe to your feed you need to ensure they know what a feed is and how to use it.

A lot of sites still just have an orange XML button which leads to the raw feed, which to the average visitor will just look like a broken page full of codey garbage.

So, after looking around and doing a small bit of thinking I have put together a four step plan for presenting your feeds to your visitors.

I'm focussing on blogs here because I think if you're reading this it's probably what's most relevant to you, and I'm assuming you are actually publishing a feed already.

Use a 'SUBSCRIBE' button.
Include a help button with help page.
Include a link to your feed in the head of your html.
Style your feed.

1. Use a 'SUBSCRIBE' button.
Use a button that says 'SUBSCRIBE' (rather than XML, FEED or something else) and have that button link directly to your feed.
Dave Winer advocated this and I thought it made a lot of sense. It's a very simple word which people understand. Much more so than XML or FEED. Everybody knows, in general, what it means to subscribe to something. However, they may not know what you mean by subscribe on your site. That's where point 2 comes in:

2. Include a help button with help page.
Next to your SUBSCRIBE button, you should include a help button which links to a page with information about feeds and subscribing. I have written a page which you are free to copy if you wish. My subscribe help page includes some basic information about feeds and feed readers and also includes links to futher reading and of course the links to the feed for my site.

If you would like to use my buttons for points 1 & 2 you are free to do so:

Alan O'Rourke of Spoiltchild has his own implementation of this approach and he too allows people to use his buttons if you prefer them, visit his blog and grab them.

3. Include a link to your feed in the head of your html.
This is fairly easy to do and is done automatically by a lot of blogging software, just check to make sure it's there because it facilitates auto-discovery of your feed. In other words, users can give their feed reader your site url and the feed reader will be able to find your feed automatically.

To check that you have this covered, view the source of the home page of your blog and look for something similar to the following:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="myfeed.rss" title="RSS feed for My Page">
or
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Feed" href="http://www.mysite.com/atom.xml" />

This bit of code should be between the <head> and </head> tags. If it's NOT there you need to add it to your blog template. You'll need to do a bit of research to check what kind of feed your blogging software is using and where it is publishing it to. If you're using blogger then you are using the second example above: atom.xml. Blogger should be including this link in the head though, so if it's not there the simplest thing to do is check your template for missing blogger tags in the head.

4. Style your feed.
This one is the most complex issue and I'm not going to go into it too much detail but I think it is a vital issue so I will provide some links to relevant material.

As I said, a lot of sites provide a link to their feed which is NOT styled and so to the average user it just looks like gobbledygook. What you really want is a solution somthing similar to Microsoft's or the BBC's which clearly tells the visitor where they are and what the page is meant for.

I particularly like the BBC feed because it is extremely clear, explains to the user that they are looking at a feed and provides links for more information.

If you use Blogger, like myself, then this is taken care of, albeit not all that well at the time of writing. It's not clear enough and the link provided is to a page which isn't very clear to the average visitor either.

If you are somewhat technical and have control over your feed, then these articles will be of interest to you:
Making Your RSS Feed Look Pretty in a Browser
Making RSS more presentable with XSLT

Conclusion
Points 1 & 2 are very easy to implement, save the images for the buttons and upload them to your own site, then add the code below to your page but change all the urls to make sure they are correct for your site:

<a href="http://mysite.com/atom.xml"><img src="http://www.mysite.com/images/subscribe.gif" alt="Subscribe to the feed for this page." title="Subscribe to the feed for this page." height="14" width="80" /></a> <a href="http://www.mysite.com/subscribe-info.htm"><img src="http://www.mysite.com/images/help3.gif" alt="What's all this about subscribing?" title="What's all this about subscribing?" height="14" width="14" /></a>

For the help page, you can download this zipped, plain version of my subscribe help page then unzip it and open it in your html editor to edit to your liking.

Or you could just link to this plain version but then your feeds won't be on the page.

Points 3 and 4 are slightly more complex, but the chances are that your blogging software has taken care of these for you. I include them simply because I think it is all four points together make the most usable solution for the time being.

I hope this has been useful to somebody - if you have suggestions or feedback do please leave a comment.

More on making feeds more user friendly

2005-09-30T01:20:00.000+01:00

While hunting around for some more info on this topic I found an implementaion by Microsoft - when you click on the RSS button the feed is preceded by some explanotory text. Now, blogger feeds actually have the same thing, but just not as nicely or well implemented (in my opinion)...

The BBC also use this solution, also in a very clear and informative way for the user. The Blogger implementation just isn't clear enough or informative enough. And they're owned by Google FFS!! Surely they should realise the value of educating people about feeds - they're pushing adsense for feeds on the blogger interface after all! :(

I found an article on using css with feeds to achieve something similar. One shortfallin gof this simple solution is that links do not appear as links.

And another article on using XSLT to allow you even more control over the appearance of your feeds in browsers that support XSLT.

Eric Meyer also has an elegant solution, he has a link to 'Feeds' in his right hand column which leads to a page from which you can choose which feed you would like. If he also had some informative text about feeds it would be something similar to the idea I first had when thinking about feeds.

Obviously I didn't spend enought time researching or thinking when I first got into this, but now I'm making progress... pretty soon I will have uncovered all the lovely solutions people are coming up with for this little issue!

I also found a javascript solution that someone came up with, but I wouldn't be crazy about this approach myself - I think it's more likely to scare people away then help them. But that's just me!

I tend to think simple is best. For now, I personally will probably just go ahead with the subscribe button with the extra help button.

I'm happy with this given that:
1) My blog has a link in the head to my feed which facilitates auto discovery in many feed readers.
2) Blogger does format the feed, even if I do think they could do a better job!
3) Subscribe is more universally understood than just XML (and I might steal Alan O Rourke's lovely implementation)
4) I'll be offering further help with the help button.

And with that, I'm sick of feeds for now!

RSS how to help your site visitors...?

2005-09-29T19:57:00.000+01:00

Ok, so RSS is obviously the in thing right now and everybodies buzzing about it. And yes it's pretty cool and very useful and blah blah blah.

But the problem is, lots of people don't get it. Techies get it I'm sure, and I kind of get it, but let's face it for most of us there are a million things we want/need to be doing and researching RSS isn't top of our priorities.

So what does that little orange button with white writing on it mean to the average visitor to your website or blog? What is XML or RSS? What the hell is a feed? Subscribe? What are they talking about??

Now, on BifSniff.com I went with an orange button that said XML. I chose that approach because I figured those that new what it was would use it and those that didn't might catch up eventually. But at least the button accurately described what lay behind it. If you click the button you get taken to an "Atom formatted XML site feed".

But I'm pretty sure that a lot of people see it and, if we're lucky, think "I wonder what that is...?" and move on.

Also, although I chose the XML button, others use RSS, others have FEED and so on. As I posted already, Dave Winer came up with the idea of having ALL the buttons say 'Subscribe'. After all, that's what it's for ultimately, whatever you call it. This might be a brilliant idea, but as I think Dave is suggesting on his own site, it also really requires a common action to take place on click. In other words, all the buttons might be the same, but ideally the buttons should also all do the same thing.

Ideally, clicking the button would add the feed to whatever you use to read feeds you subscribe to.

I found an article which has some very nice, easy to understand material on aggregators. It also explains that OPML is an "XML format for outlines", going on to explain simply that an OPML file can be used to contain a list of all the feeds you are subscribed to. I imaging Dave Winer hopes that perhaps one day everybody will have a single OPML file for their feeds which any/all feed-readers they use would access thus allowing the 'subscribe' button to simply add a new feed to that one file. But I'm not all that techie so I could be talking through my arse.

As I also already posted, perhaps we could consider an interim solution of simply having the subscribe buttons go to a page which helped educate users about feeds and how to use them and what software/sites we advocate, or how to get the feeds into their existing feed-readers. That solution still appeals to me but it means messing with the current expected action on pressing one of those orange buttons with white text.

So what about having a second button, or link? So now you would have:

OR:

Of course, it's a simple idea, and I'm not the first to think of it - in fact just this second I found an article about RSS which advocates something similar.

The site above is onthe right track, I think, having a page explaining about RSS and allowing people to use the link if they wish. By pulling together easy to understand information about feeds and aggregators with links to relevant material and software, we could create a creative commons licensed page which anyone could use to help site visitors understand about subscribing.

If you think this is a good idea, please leave a comment. Also, feel free to use the buttons above...

Perhaps I will try and grab some time to put together a draft help page for my own sites which others could use if they wanted - I'll keep you posted.

Also, if you are based in Cork and this was of interest to you, you should check out Tom R's IT@Cork event on RSS for non techies.

UPDATE:
Alan of Spoilt Child design has a lovely solution on his site where he uses Subscribe with the term webfeed and also a help button which links to Wikipedia's RSS entry. His help button is a nice simple question mark - so I stole his idea and did up an orangey version... but, hey, I'm giving him full credit! ;)

I don't know if it's necessary to include the term webfeeds or rss as Alan suggests over at Tom's blog, but I do see the validity of the suggestion all the same... for now I haven't nicked that idea though!

Overall, it's a much neater solution, and I think it works very well - I reckon it's a lot clearer than my initial attempt above. So if you want to use this solution Alan has said anyone can use his buttons, or if you prefer the orangey version just take mine below. I'll be implementing this design myself asap I reckon.

Thanks Alan!

more about subscribe...

2005-09-29T18:48:00.000+01:00

Following on from my post about Dave Winer's subscribe idea, and Tom R's recent post and use of the button itself I'm still actually mulling this over... I mean, I love the concept, however my current XML buttons point toward XML feeds of the blogs... so they are probably more correct - right now having a button that says subscribe doesn't actually subscribe you to anything...

Daves idea of having the subscribe button magically add the feed to the users list of feeds would be great, but right now is it too soon for subscribe buttons?

I'm humming and hawing on this one... back and forth. Anyone else have any thoughts...? Am I being too picky?

Should the subscribe button, for now, lead to a (possibly temporary) page which educates the user about feeds and what they can do with them before leading them to the feed itself?? That way the user sees 'subscribe' and clicks on it - they are brought to a page which explains a bit about feeds and rss aggregators and the like and provides links to tools and tutorials maybe and also prominently features the link to the feed they might want to subscribe to...

Unfortunately this would feck with the current standard practice of a button which leads directly to the feed...

I dunnoe. Need to think about it more.

Subscribe!

2005-09-29T13:20:00.000+01:00

I read Tom R's post about an RSS event in Cork, and in the comments he mentioned a Dave Winer post on syndication that I found interesting. Interesting because he is advocating a very simple idea which makes a lot of sense.

Essentially he wants to replace all the various different buttons for syndication with one simple and universal one that says 'subscribe'.

This would replace xml, web feed, rss, blah blah blah and when clicked it would subscribe the user to whatever they are looking at... anyways, read his post about it...

It's a nice idea because it's a simple idea. And it would result in websites doing what they say on the tin rather than relying on user knowledge of your technologies...

In another of the comments a user complained that the 'subscribe' button was hard to make look nice in the white on orange format Dave advocated.

But I disagree:

Bubble Project

2005-09-29T04:19:00.000+01:00

Ji Lee Pleaseenjoy

Artist stuck blank speech bubbles on billboards and passers by filled them in... couple of gems in there...

Poker T-shirts

2005-09-20T00:50:00.000+01:00

In case you have not been following my poker blog, I have decided to design a few Texas Hold Em Poker t-shirts. Why? Just because I was looking for a poker related present for someone recently and there was nothing I could find... I found some t-shirts online but most of them were pretty awful. So I tried to design something i would wear myself. I have four designs so far...I have put them up on Cafe Press and Spreadshirt.

My 'All In' Texas Hold Em Poker T-Shirt Design on Spreadshirt
My 'Pocket Rockets' Texas Hold Em Poker T-Shirt Design on Spreadshirt
My 'Jackson Five' Texas Hold Em Poker T-Shirt Design on Spreadshirt
My 'Dead Man's Hand' Texas Hold Em Poker T-Shirt Design on Spreadshirt

My 'All In' - Texas Hold Em Poker T-Shirt Design on Cafe Press
My 'Dead Man's Hand' - Texas Hold Em Poker T-Shirt Design on Cafe Press
My 'Jackson Five' - Texas Hold Em Poker T-Shirt Design on Cafe Press
My 'Pocket Rockets' - Texas Hold Em Poker T-Shirt Design on Cafe Press

Most of the designs I found out there were a mess, so I opted for simple but stylish. I think they're pretty good myself and so far the feedback has been good... we'll see how it goes.

George Bush's Spin Doctor Speaks

2005-09-18T17:05:00.000+01:00

George Bush's Spin Doctor Speaks

Video of George Bush's spindoctor explaining his strategy... worth a look. Brilliant idea, could have been executed more goodlier.

PostSecret

2005-09-18T16:07:00.000+01:00

Aimles browsing of blogs throws up a load of crap and some interesting stuff. Here's an interesting one:

PostSecret

People create an 'arty' postcard and mail i tin - the card details a secret they have. Some of them are excellent.

kids have the best brains

2005-09-18T15:38:00.000+01:00

Found this blog entry when aimlessly surfing:

purple elephants corner: Sometimes it is best to just go with the flow

Against TCPA

2005-09-15T00:32:00.000+01:00

Against TCPA

Just posting this to remind myself to read up about it at a later date...

particletree - An Argument for Small Business Blogging

2005-09-14T18:17:00.000+01:00

particletree - An Argument for Small Business Blogging

Found this thatnks to Walter who commented on Tom's site...

Well worth a read.

Kanye West criticises Bush on live tv

2005-09-07T03:02:00.000+01:00

Kanye-West-Black-People.mov (video/quicktime Object)

Rapper Kanye West leaves the teleprompter for some heartfelt, and obviously unprepared statements, including 'George Bush doesn't care about black people'. He also says, at the end of an unclear sentence 'they've given them permission to go down and shoot us', which - although he didn't clarify - it seems is true if you read the Guardian.

NBC said "Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him and his opinions in no way represent the views of the network. It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion,"

Some have made the point that it was a selfish act that may have resulted in less donations being made...

But watching the video, aren't you struck by the fact that you are watching a REAL person, feeling REAL emotions about a TERRIBLE situation. Isn't that refreshing? Don't you end up feeling sorry for Mike Myers who valiantly carries on reading the trite crap spewing from the teleprompter?

Don't you think that if celebrities are to be used to encourage us to stump up cash they should be allowed at least tell us what they ACTUALLY think, whether we agree with it or not?

Aren't controversial statements that make us sit up and take note better than the bland and sterile cliches that simply make celebrities mouths move for the sake of it?

NBC are worried about 'one person's opinion' because they ar enot used to having peoples opinions aired on these shows, only NBC's opinion.

More real people on TV I say, more real emotion, more honest opinion, more, more, more.

UPDATE - watch the video of the New Orleans mayor on this page, he also blasts Bush's response...

Where the Buffalo Roam

2005-09-07T00:53:00.000+01:00

My copy of 'Where the Buffalo Roam' arrived and I watched it straight away... only to be pretty disappointed. Pretty awful film, badly directed. HOWEVER... Bill Murray does a GREAT Hunter S Thompson. Or at least to the best of my knowledge he does a great Hunter S.

Two things kept me watching the film to the end. 1) Murrays Performance, and 2) The fact that all or some of it was based on stuff that, scarily, actually may have happened.

Murray sounds EXACTLY like Hunter. I got hold of some recordings of Hunter recently, and listening to him now you'd SWEAR it was Bill Murray.

I was going to blab on here a bit about Johnny Depps performance in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but I'm too tired and who cares anyway - however I will say that I just heard Depp and Benicio Del Toro are back together to film 'The Rum Diary'.

The Dunnes Stores Girl

2005-09-02T03:27:00.000+01:00

You could be forgiven for thinking it's John Spillane season here at 9mmfilm.com, because, well basically - it is.

I've already posted this week about two of John Spillane's three albums - I posted about his first album 'The Wells of the World', and I posted about his latest album 'Hey Dreamer'.

If you read my post about Hey Dreamer, than you know that 'The Dunnes Stores Girl' is a song from that album... well I went to a great John Spillane gig in De Barras in Clonakilty tonight and at the gig John explained that 'The Dunnes Stores Girl' is being released as a single today (Friday 2nd Sept 2005). Not only that, but he will be appearing tonight on 'The Late Late Show' to play it.

He admitted that RTE had, bashfully, suggested he might get his hair cut - and that, much to the chagrin of his rock and roll conscience, he had acquiesced. So it should be a very spruce John Spillane we see tonight performing 'the Dunnes Stores Girl'.

Funnily enough, I have already described 'Dunnes Stores Girl' as a "really strong song, with a real 'single' feel" despite not realising at the time it was, indeed, to be a single...

The words to 'Dunnes Stores Girl' are written by Louis De Paor or 'The Foxy Poet' as John Spillane calls him.... and the story goes that John was boasting that he could write a song about anything and as a result he received a simple challenge from a fan via his website. A regular visitor and commentor on his guestbook, a girl known only as 'The Dunnes Stores Girl' posted the simple challenge 'write a song about me then...'

John, of course, took the challenge to heart and set about writing the song. Only to immediately run into difficulty. He quickly picked up the Gaelic Hit Factory hotline and left a distrought message for Louis... and Louis came to the rescue with the lyrics for 'The Dunnes Stores Girl'.

Or at least that's how the story goes. What this did to John's reputation as being able to write a song about anything, I don't know. But he did write the song about the whales, the song about the world cup, the song about the weeds and there's a hurling song on the way - so I think he's doing alright.

Anyway, the point of all this was really just to say that you should buy the single when it comes out today, but it's late and I have a tendancy to ramble on when it's this hour of the night.

For those of you who are not in Ireland, or for other reasons don't have access to a store selling the single, Amazon.co.uk stock the album that the song is on: Hey Dreamer.

Oh, and by the way, for those of you who might not be aware, Dunnes Stores are a supermarket chain!

Edit: How could I forget that the single also includes 'b-sides' of 'Orca Orca Killer Whale' and a live version of 'Magic Nights in the Lobby Bar' which featured Louis De Paor performing his poem 'An t-Amhráiní'.

'Orca Orca Killer Whale' is a must-have too... it goes down unbelievably well at live gigs, and is a great record of the Summer that three Killer Whales swam right up into the city centre. The event is recorded in a way only John Spillane could pull off - both touching and hysterically funny. Check it out.

Irish Music - John Spillane

2005-08-28T04:06:00.000+01:00

The Wells of the World

John Spillane on iTunes:

John Spillane now has three solo albums:the latest 'Hey Dreamer' I just recently posted about, his second album 'Will We Be Brilliant or What' for which I did a music video for, and his first album 'The Wells of the World'.

It was this first album, 'The Wells of the World', that first got me into John Spillane. My brother had seen John Spillane perform many times and introduced me to the album, and I loved it. I still do. The album is full of truly beautiful songs, and some 'only-John-Spillane-could-pull-this-off' tracks too. By 'only-John-Spillane-could-pull-this-off' I am referring to 'Johnny Don't Go To Ballincollig' and 'The Bank of Ireland Sean Nòs Blues', and I suppose 'Not Too Bad' also.

Only Spillane could pull them off, because despite being intrinsically Cork, I think each song travels well because they also each deal with a more common, globally shared, symptom of the human condition.

While Cork might be particularly famous for being insular, everybody can relate to not wanting loved ones to venture too far from home as in the classic 'Johnny Don't Go To Ballincollig'. 'The Bank of Ireland Sean Nòs Blues' deals with the yearning for bigger things while working a dead-end job and 'Not Too Bad' examines the lack of communication between people on an everyday basis.

While these three songs deal with their subject matter with humour, other songs are somewhat more serious reflections on love, and John Spillane has an incredible ability, through his music, to make you re-live falling in love.

A lot of the songs on this album have that haunting quality that make you think the songs are written about lost loves, or loves so achingly perfect they can't last.

'Everything's Turning To Gold Cathy' is a perfect example of this kind of song,

"and who are we to go golden, through the streets through the islands, through the long days dying, through the shadow... and who are we to go laughing and smiling, who are we to go hoping and dreaming, who are we to go walking like children home... Evrything's turning to gold Cathy."

As though the singer knows he has no right to be experiencing a love so perfect.

'Seachtain' is a gorgeous song in Irish, written by Louis De Paor (a long time collaborator with Spillane) about the sense of loss 'a week after she leaves'. John sings beautifully in Irish, I hope at some stage he releases an album of the songs produced by 'the Gaelic Hit Factory' which comprises of himself and Louis.

Anyone who has been in love will recognise the sentiments described in 'How Beautiful You Are', the chorus of which says 'how beautiful you are, and how strange', and the feeling that it is a gift to be allowed to witness this beauty - 'given to me, given to me to see you so clearly, given to me to see so clear how beautiful you are.'

In 'While They're All Talking' John manages to infuse the song with the excitement of a new love to be explored, of doing something daring and thrilling with someone who has awakened something in you. While the lyrics are brilliant, it is the sense of urgency in the music and in John's voice that makes this song.

There really isn't a bad song on this album. I've mentioned about half of them here, but they're all great. The full track list is as follows:

Johnny don't go to Ballincollig
Everything's Turning to Gold, Cathy
All The Ways You Wander
It Wasn't To Be
Seachtain
How Beautiful You Are
Be True To The Girl
Bank of Ireland Sean-Nos Blues
While They're All Talking
The Land You Love The Best
My Love Will Not Sing for Me
Not Too Bad

At the time of writing, Amazon.co.uk had the album available at a very good price, new, through it's marketplace. Well worth getting. If you're into Irish music at all, you should really have this album. Christy Moore called it 'an undiscovered gem of the 90’s' and he did a version of 'Johnny Don't Go To Ballincollig' on his album 'This Is The Day'.

They also have his latest album, 'Hey Dreamer'.

If you don't know John Spillane at all, check out the music video I made for a song from his second album.

The Old Negro Space Program

2005-08-26T02:54:00.000+01:00

The Old Negro Space Program

An amusing enough short film, in documentary style, about how NASSA (Negro American Space Society of Astronauts) beat NASA to the moon...

John Spillane - Hey Dreamer

2005-08-15T02:15:00.000+01:00

FINALLY ! John Spillane's new album 'Hey Dreamer' is available on Amazon.co.uk

Unfortunately his previous album, 'Will We Be Brilliant or What' is not yet available on Amazon.

I did the animated music video for 'We're Going Sailing' from the album 'Will We Brilliant or What', which is by far the most popular item on this site.

People seem to just connect with the song/animation combination... but you can read more about on the animation page of this site, or on another page where I go into some more detail.

The NEW album 'Hey Dreamer' is a lovely album. A lot of people felt the album 'Will We Be Brilliant or What' was over-produced, but on 'Hey Dreamer' John has pared back the production side of things substantially, and the album is simpler, and more beautiful for it.

When I first heard the album I said to John immediately that I felt it was a stronger album than 'Brilliant or What'. My feeling was that it crept up on you when you weren't looking. It took me a few listens for some of the quieter, subtler tracks to exert their full influence on me.

'Dunnes Stores Girl' is a really strong song, with a real 'single' feel - and I love it, whereas other songs, such as 'Beautiful Tears' are real gems which take a little time to fully take their place in your heart.

I mention 'Beautiful Tears in particular because it is one of my favourite tracks on the album now. The other thing I said to John when I heard the album was that I felt he was singing about things that mattered. The first lines of 'Beautiful Tears' include the lines: 'And the first thing you'll do is to stop pretending [...] there's no need to pretend.' One of the things I have always loved about John Spillane's music is he can sing about the simplest things, which we forget are so important - and his music can remind you of the beauty in the world around you.

I could go into some of the other tracks which really grew on me, such as 'The Only One For Me', but ultimately it's an album well worth listening to.

I'm not so crazy about the 'Mad Woman of Cork' track which was written by Patrick Galvin and put to music by John. It's probably the only track on the album that has gone in the other direction, in that I thought it was grand but over time I like it less and less.

Amazon has the album in the 'World and Folk' section, which I suppose is accurate, he's in the subsection 'Folk Bestsellers', but he's quite hard (for me) to categorise. He's a singer-songwriter I suppose, but that's a label I'm not crazy about. John has strong Irish music influences, and there is some Irish language in 'A Song for Rory Gallagher' - in fact I'm sorry there isn't another song or two with some Irish in them. Louis De Paor and John have written some lovely Irish songs together in a partnership they call 'The Gaelic Hit Factory'.

Anyway, I highly recommend this album - if you want to hear John Spillane, have a look at the 'We're Going Sailing' animation, but bear in mind this is from the previous album 'Will We Be Brilliant or What'.

John, who's a man of his word, approached me about doing an animation for the 'Hey Dreamer' album as he had promised he would when we did 'Sailing' but unfortunately, although we had some lovely ideas, the project didn't come to fruition. Maybe next time.

iTunes Newsletter not working in Ireland?

2005-08-04T16:32:00.000+01:00

Or, 'how iTunes don't want to sell to me.'

Got an email from 'New Music Tuesday' at itunes a while back which I flicked through rapidly and the Marjorie Fair 'Free Download' item caught my eye. So I clicked on it. I was brought to a page which asked if I had itunes. I said I did. I was brought to another page. i got a warning which said an external application must be launched, I ok'd it. itunes opened, I got a warning which said the item I had requested was not available in the Ireland store, would I like to change to the us store? I said yes, I went to the us store and clicked 'get song' on the 'free' tune, and got an error saying the item was not available for purchase in the Ireland store.

What a great user experience.

So, Marjorie Fair, you might be a wonderful band, but I'm not likely to find out anytime soon.

Then I clicked on the Frank Black link and tried to buy one of his tracks. Not available in Ireland store.

Coldplay x&y - not available in Ireland store.

By now I realised something was up. Coldplay x&y IS available in the Ireland store.

I went back to the previosu email I got from them to verify it wasn't just that one email - couldn't buy anything from that either no matter how hard I tried.

Why, in this day and age, did I get an email which included a link to something I'm not entitled to? Surely they could synch the newsletter with my settings?

I went back to the email and looked at the fine print links to see if there was some way to do this manually, but I couldn't find anything...

So I emailed iTunes support, outlining the above. I got back a long stock response of some sort going on about what countries iTunes is available in and what payment types are accepted. Obviously no one had really bothered to read my email and ascertain what the actual problem was.

The sender of the email included the useful information "The selection of music may vary from country to country." before signing off "Sincerely, ¬?"

"Sincerely, ¬?" - brilliant. I feel like a valued customer right now.

So I wrote back. I pointed out that the mail had not addressed the issue I had emailed about and asked that someone review my original mail and come back to me. I was quite polite and thanked them for their time. I also pointed out the mail had come from somebody called "¬?".

Why did I bother.

Another stock-response came back.

"To access the iTunes Music Store that matches your country of residence, please click Choose Store from the left-hand column of the Music Store. You may also scroll down to the bottom of the page, and choose the store from the Choose Store pop-up menu.

You can only purchase music from the iTunes Music Store that matches your country of residence and your billing address. Each country supports credit cards issued by banks in these countries. For example, a Visa card issued in the United States can only be used at the U.S. iTunes Music Store and so on.

The selection of music may vary from country to country."

Again, the email came from the esteemed apple support guru "¬?".

I lashed back one last email - this time, I admit my tone was pretty snotty. I pointed out that I just wanted someone to look at the specific issue of my not being able to buy music fro the links they send me in the newsletter and let me know if this was likely to be due to a problem at their end or stupidity at my end.

I got a response back, again from "¬?":

We have escalated your report to iTunes Music Store engineering and we will send you an email message once we have a resolution. You can expect an update within 24 to 72 hours. Thank you for your patience as we work to make your experience with the iTunes Music Store more enjoyable.

That was the 27th of July at 17:41.

I checked my account setting to see if maybe my country was set incorrectly. I discovered Ireland does not exist as an option to select.

I have since confirmed that it's not just me either. Other users are experienceing this too. Is it everyone in Ireland. Is it everyone who is not in the US? Anyone care to comment? Coz it sure seems like iTunes don't want to!

Update

Got the following response on 09/Aug/05:

Dear Frank,

Thank you for contacting the iTunes Music Store.

o manage your subscription to New Music Tuesdays emails, verify that you have an active network connection, open the Music Store, and click the Account button in the top right-hand corner of the window (this will have your Apple ID or your email address in it). Enter your Music Store account name and password, click View Account, and on the Account information page, click Edit Account Info. You can subscribe or unsubscribe on the Edit Account Information page.

Sincerely,

The iTunes Music Store team
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/

Now, I don't know what this response is supposed to help me with, but it really doesn't help with the issue I'm having, especially since Ireland does not exist as an option for my country of residence... it seems to suggest I should just unsubscribe and stop bothering them.

I did discover that the odd item is available for download in the Irish store, but 99% (rough estimate ;) is not. The fact that the odd item is available suggests to me that indeed this is a mainly American newsletter and that there is nothing wrong with my settings or anything.

So I lashed off a couple of specific questions:

1: Is the newsletter aimed at an american audience and is this why I cannot download most items?
2: Is there a plan for a newsletter which would have all items available for those of us in Ireland?
3: Why is Ireland not available as an option for 'country' in the account area?

UPDATE

Much to my amusement, with my questions still unanswered, I got an email asking me to fill in feedback on my experience in contacting support...

Recently, you contacted iTunes technical support using Apple's online web support form. We're very interested in improving support for iTunes, and we'd love to get your feedback and comments on your recent support experience.

Well, I bet they're sorry they asked now! ;)
I pasted this whole post into the feedback form where they ask for more details. Plus when asked " Please let us know if Apple could have improved any aspect of your support experience. " I answered

Oh my god! YES!!! :)

It seemed to me that I was conversing with someone who had a document in front of them full of 'stock' answers to common problems.

I think they speed read my mail looking for keywords that fit one of the stock answers and lashed the closest thing off to me.

To make matters worse, they must have been using some programme to manage the emails because all the emails I got were signed off from "¬?" - rather than a name.

I don't think ANYBODY yet at Apple made any attempt to read and UNDERSTAND the issue I was describing and CONVERSE with me.

I am left with the feeling that emails into support are looked on as something to get off the desk quickly. Period. No real respect for the customer.

the world won't listen

2005-08-03T01:23:00.000+01:00

the world won't listen

Back in the start of July I took part in this project in the Granary in Cork as part of the 2005 programme.

I sang 'Shakespeare's Sister' - which I pretty much learned while waiting to go in as I hadn't realised in advance that it was only songs from the album 'the world won't listen' and had hoped to sing 'This Charming Man' which is probably my favourite Smiths songs - for reasons of nostalgia!

Anyway, I went in, sang the song into a mic with a camera filming it all in front of me.

Thing is, I have no idea what is done with that film now! So if anyone comes across a video of Cork people singining Smiths songs let me know!

secretGeek

2005-08-02T16:49:00.000+01:00

secretGeek

Most of this site is of no interest to me, but every now and then stuff like the last two posts pop up on it...

James Bach's Blog: No Best Practices

2005-08-02T16:47:00.000+01:00

James Bach's Blog: No Best Practices

This guy is pissed off with people using the term 'best practice' and has written a big long rant about it. But he has a point.

CSS tips and tricks

2005-08-02T16:41:00.000+01:00

CSS tips and tricks, Part 1 | 456 Berea Street

Nothing amazing here, but I found it worth a read to refresh my memory and reinforce some good css habits!

You can't avoid the commercials

2005-08-02T00:32:00.000+01:00

Nice article Eoin pointed out to me the other day. It tied in with the fact Eoin had noticed everybody always seemed to be drinking Heineken on the 'The Wire'!

CNN.com - You can't avoid the commercials - Jul 28, 2005

Speaking of Mr Murray

2005-07-30T01:25:00.000+01:00

I want to see THIS film from 1980: Where The Buffalo Roam

Now, currently amazon.co.uk says this item is going to be released Sept 2005. Thing is, I remember hearing that the soundtrack on some versions has been changed.

One Amazon reviewer says of the region 1 dvd: "For some reaosn or another, the producers of the DVD cheaped out and put some candy-licking 80s mall music in its place because they did not want to pay for the rights to these phenomenol tracks."

However, somebody else mentioned that the one with the crap soundtrack was from 'Anchor Bay Entertainment', whereas the one linked to above is from Universal. So does this mean we'll get the ORIGINAL soundtrack?

Anyone who can shed some light on this PLEASE do!!

And in the meantime, check out these pictures!

I love Bill Murray

2005-07-30T01:24:00.000+01:00

So I was delighted to hear of this forthcoming movie. Directed by Jim Jarmusch, who I used to like a lot but went off a little over time. Some have said this is a 'return to form' for JJ so it could be a good one:

Broken Flowers (2005)

Suicide Bombers

2005-07-29T03:05:00.000+01:00

A chilling article on two counts - the fact that suicide bombings tend to be part of careful strategies, and the fact that the Bush administration may have it so wrong, or at least present it that way. Pity about the 'clever' title. Cheapens an otherwise good article.

What Makes Suicide Bombers Tick?

The Wire

2005-07-28T23:56:00.000+01:00

Ok, if you haven't seen the wire series 1 yet, then go and beg, borrow or steal it now and watch it. It's that simple.

Great TV. I got a present of it for my birthday (thanks Jer & Gem) and was completely hooked straight away. I had seen a couple of episodes here and there, but it was on at an awkward time before so I hadn't followed it.

Damn, it's good. For all kinds of reasons. It's essentially cops and drug dudes, called the wire after the wire taps the cops put on the drug guys phones.

A lot of it is political, the politics of police work and also the politics of the drug world.

The Wire has a very 'real' feel to it. Very compelling stuff... it's completely believable, all the difficulties around doing good police work due to political pressure from 'career cops' and that kind of jazz - then I found this article which explains a lot of why it feels so real.

Great story, great characters, great acting, great direction... for those of you also in Ireland it's now on season three, monday nights, 10.30 TG4.

Some of the stuff in The Wire reminded me of The Sweeney, in the way that they are not afraid to show the un-pc side of police work - cops beating up suspects, cops stealing cash during raids, all that kind of thing... and without painting characters with one single act either - ie if a cop takes cash on a raid he doesn't become 'the-cop-who-takes-money-during-raids', nor is he therefore a bad cop automatically... the series includes some of the complexities of life. Which is nice for a change.

Shades of grey, rather than everything being black and white, good guys vs bad guys.

IMDB says of the Wire: "Many of the minor characters are played by real-life police officers, politicians and former criminals. In fact, many of the former criminals who act on the show were previously arrested by the real-life cops who act on the show."

A quote from tv.com: In New York's Newsday, Diane Werts says: "Most TV crime series aspire to John Grisham's level. 'The Wire' aspires to Dostoevsky's."

Another glowing review can be seen on videovista.net

Also found interesting enough article about how 'The Wire' may be 'too smart' for most viewers.

Anyway, worth a watch. Oh and Bif likes it too.

My poker blog

2005-07-19T03:17:00.000+01:00

Ok, I hope I manage to keep this up, but I am blogging about my poker experiences here.

Organic SEO Wiki - Organic SEO Wiki

2005-07-17T21:39:00.000+01:00

Organic SEO Wiki - Organic SEO Wiki

Thanks to Michele for pointing this out on his blog - a very handy introduction to SEO and a nice checklist if you don't need an introduction!

PokerRoom.com - play poker online

2005-07-16T13:34:00.000+01:00

PokerRoom.com - play poker online, Texas Hold'em , Black Jack, tournaments

Stayed up ALL night playing texas hold-em for play money... bloody addictive. WSOP here I come. ;)

Cork Music Scene

2005-07-14T16:23:00.000+01:00

Some really good music from Cork city on streaming internet radio... pity about some of the awful ads! I've just started listening to it and so far the songs have been really good quality. Makes you realise how many talented musicians etc are out there loacally! How do they all survive?? Fair play to each and every one of them!

Check it out:

Online Alternative Radio Station - Live365 Internet Radio - WMC Rebel Muzak

Poker Chip Shuffle

2005-07-14T12:16:00.000+01:00

Shuffle - Poker Chip Tricks

I started playing poker recently and one day while looking for some tips I came across this. I have no chips to practice with but it looks impressive!

Vestal Design Blog

2005-07-02T02:24:00.000+01:00

Vestal Design Blog

These guys have a great blog with some really interesting links...

Honda Car Ad

2005-06-26T15:40:00.000+01:00

Honda CAr Ad

Some things should be kept to oneself.

2005-06-24T02:15:00.000+01:00

New Image features in Blogger - ech.

2005-06-24T02:12:00.000+01:00

The new image features in Blogger, which I've just noticed are a bit of a pain. I hope they are not leaving them like that...

They result in code bloat, unnecessary javascript, non standard code for XHTML strict and they assume you want every image to be a link... which I don't!
AND it renames your images and creates multiple files on your server instead of just one... AND the code doesn't include width and height properties, which puts a little extra pressure on browsers...

Please god let them not be finished implementing or something...

If we could just have the choice between the new features and the old... it would only have to be another radio button - image inline, no link. And use the old code: a straighforward img tag, no extra junk.

Also I just noticed the spell check dictionary doesn't have Blogger in it! Funny. :)

Sensory Research Limited website goes live.

2005-06-23T00:14:00.000+01:00

Yup, the website for Sensory Research Limited, or SRL, went live today. This is a project myself and Tom R have been working on. I was particularly happy with the logo, which is quite different and exciting.

A Pleasant Exchange

2005-06-22T18:56:00.000+01:00

9mmfilm.com on BBC Collective site

2005-06-17T19:39:00.000+01:00

9mmFilm.com is featured on BBC Collective's web column this week, specifically 'We're Going Sailing' is mentioned.
We're honoured to be mentioned alongside other great animators, a big thanks to BBC collective!
Be sure and check out some of the other sites that get a mention - there's some lovely stuff there.

Foon.co.uk - Hapland 2

2005-06-16T00:41:00.000+01:00

Foon.co.uk - Hapland 2

I have no idea why I stayed at this... but I did, I eventually completed it - it's ridiculously satisfying for something so stupid when you complete it. You have to keep doing it over and over until you work out the right sequence...

I had to google for a couple of hints before I managed to complete it though because I could not figure out how to get rid of the flag hanging over the window.

I think I stayed at it because it really reminded me of some bizarre type of game a friend and I invented in primary school where one person would draw elaborate scenarios like this one and the other had to figure out how to navigate it... I don't even remember the rules but it looked a lot like this.

Antony and the Johnsons

2005-06-02T11:11:00.000+01:00

Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons has a beautiful voice. A friend of mine was playing the album "I am a bird now" when I walked into the room and I was immediately fascinated. His voice is immediately and simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting.

If you haven't come heard them yet (which is probably unlikely - I am always the last to hop on the bandwagon) you have to hear them asap.

See a video for Antony and the Johnsons "Hope There's Someone", by up-and-coming NYC director Glen Fogel. (quicktime format)

The official Antony and the Johnsons site doesn't have a huge amount of interest on it, but it does have biogs and tour dates. I'd love to see them live, but they are not playing in my city... which is crazy, but Cork needs some good music venues and promoters to sort out that issue. I would go see them in Dublin but I'm going to Al Green a couple of days after and I just can't do two trips that close together...

I also found a nice Antony and the Johnsons discography with some small MP3 clips for some of the songs - worth checking out.

The album 'I am a bird now' also features guest vocals from Devenra Banhart, Boy George, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainright and Julia Yasuda.

Well worth getting your hands on.

'For Today I am a Boy' from 'I am a bird now'

Funny Cartoons - a big day

2005-06-02T10:45:00.000+01:00

Today is a big day for BifSniff cartoons. I did a google search for 'Funny Cartoons' and BifSniff Cartoons is on the first page of results, at number ten.

If you've been reading this blog from time to time, then you'll know that this means a lot to us! We optimised the BifSniff site for 'Funny Cartoons', a while back and have been slowly making our way up the Google rankings. You can read about why we optimised for Funny Cartoons here.

You can read about some of the things we did to optimise the site here.

Web standards, some findability optimisation and regular content updates sure do work!

Muppets.com -- Gonzo Stunt Game

2005-05-15T14:45:00.000+01:00

Muppets.com -- Gonzo Stunt Game

Found this through http://www.stormwerks.com/linked/

Just Letters - A browser based multi-user Flash game

2005-05-15T14:36:00.000+01:00

Just Letters - A browser based multi-user Flash game

Don't know if i blogged this before, but I just rediscovered it and I love it... like some bizarre social experiment or something...

try it! It's oddly addictive...

ASABAILEY - BANNED UN AD

2005-05-09T17:27:00.000+01:00

Worth a watch:

ASABAILEY - BANNED UN AD

BifSniff cartoons available for your site...

2005-04-25T19:53:00.000+01:00

You can now display an automatically updating cartoon from BifSniff cartoons on your own blog or website... simply insert a small bit of code on your site and that's it!

We have two sizes, the original large size as can be seen on BifSniff.com, or a smaller size more suitable to small side columns and such.

Here is an example of how the small one looks:

Free, funny cartoons at BifSniff.com!

Details available here.

Rufus Wainwright

2005-03-29T12:42:00.000+01:00

On the phone to my sister recently, she asked me if I listened to Rufus Wainwright. When I said no, she advised me to get hold of some of his music. So I did. That's what I'm listening to now. And now I'm saying to you "have you heard Rufus Wainwright? You should get hold of some of his music."

My sister had warned me that he might take a while to get used to, that sometimes the verses seemed almost tuneless... I liked his stuff straight away though. My first impression was a kind of more accessible young John Cale. Here's a link to the first song on "Want One" which I think is excellent:

Oh What a World - Rufus Wainwright

He now has a new album out - "Want Two" and is doing a tour, including Dublin. I would love to go but I think the date is going to be a problem for me.

Anyway. You should listen to his stuff if you haven't heard it. BTW he is the son of Loudon Wainright III.

Blogging tips for optimum findability

2005-03-22T02:00:00.000Z

Following on from my post about BifSniff Cartoons and findability, I thought I would look a little more at some blogging tips for a more findable Blog.

There is a wealth of information out there, but these are the items that I have found helpful and relevant when creating findable content. I am learning all the time, so this can be taken as work in progress ;)

Now, if you view the source of this site, and some others I have developed you will find that it looks as though I have not been following my own advice... this is either because I have learned more since developing those sites, or because some other objective took priority. However, these guidelines will help you if you follow them.

Remember that findability is all about getting relevant content to people who are interested, so you have to focus on the people who end up reading your content. I tend to use the term Findability for that reason, as opposed to SEO (Search Engine Optmisisation), because SEO sounds focussed on search engines, and sometimes people lose focus on the end user when concentrating on SEO. SEO is a dirty word in some circles, mostly because of bad practises of some SEO 'experts', however even Google who focus on relevant content and advise against any 'tricks' advise:

Create a useful, information-rich site and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.

So... onto the tips:

Write relevant content often

This is the single most important item, however if you have, or are starting, a blog then I am assuming you have relevant content to upload reasonably frequently or you wouldn't need a blog!

Use a web standard compliant blog template.

As I said in the post on BifSniff Cartoons, web standards does not mean a more findable site in and of themselves, however it has been my experience that it is far easier to increase findability with a web standard site. Web standards will encourage you to create leaner and better organised code, which I feel in turn helps search engines interpret your site. If you have well written relevant content which search engines can more easily interpret then it stands to reason you stand a better chance of good search engine rankings for relevant searches.

Start your content early in your code

Try to ensure that your content is not pushed down the page in the source code. Javascript, over-zealous meta tags and various code clutter can push content down the page in your source code.

If you are using, or developing, a web standard blog template, try to ensure your main content is coded first. Most good templates will have taken this into consideration.

If your not sure what I mean, go to one of your blog pages and 'view source' - now read through the xhtml code from the top of the page and see how much you have to read before you hit the first blog post on the page. To give you some kind of guide, on a client site I am developing currently the main content starts around line 28 which I am extremely happy with - however on my own site right here, currently the content starts after line 100... which is still working out quite well, but I think I could probably improve it by taking some of my own advice below... ;)

As long as you ensure you have done everything you can to take out any unnecessary code before the main content you should be ok.

Use external CSS files - Very easy to do, very well documented.

Use external javascript files - as above, this is extremely easy to do, and well documented.

Use only the meta tags you need. Title and description meta tags are probably enough. Keywords is on the way out, you may feel you want to keep it for the moment...I found a good article on meta tags with some great links on it too.

Place your meta tags first in the <head> - Right after the opening head tag put your title meta tag and follow it with your description meta tag.

Key Words and Phrases

A good writing style is essential, you don't have to be Shakespeare, but bear in mind these are tips to help you and should never be used to the detriment of your content - this is extremely important to bear in mind.

Before you begin writing a post, stop and have a think about the subject you are about to write about. If you wish for a specific target audience to find your posts then there are two key factors to consider:

1. Who do you hope to attract.
2. What they would search for.

I talk more about this in the BifSniff Cartoons post, but essentially you might want to think about what someone who has no prior knowledge of your subject would search for.

Do some research using tools such as Overture Keyword Selector and Wordtracker . These tools will help you identify the phrases people are actually searching for around your subject.

When researching, use as many of these tools as you can in order to get a rounded picture of your key phrases.

Not every post needs to be optimised for key words, but for example they may play a crucial role in commercial blogs - or for personal blogs where you want to get the word out about something... so for example if you are a musician with a blog and are posting about your latest song available for download you could optimise for 'music download' and get much higher hits than if you had simply posted about 'my latest song'. To highlight the importance of research, you might find for example that 'music download' is more searched for and has less competition than 'music downloads' - a small difference in phrase which could make all the difference to your traffic.

Once you have identified your keywords or phrases for your post you should also prioritise them. That way you can decide roughly how often to include your words and phrases in your content. Concentrate on your primary key phrase and pepper your other phrases in when you can.

Again, keep your writing style natural, don't hammer in your key phrases such that the piece becomes awkward - you want to highlight the relevant terms for search engines, but always remember it's only so that the right people will find your site, therefore it has to remain engaging and naturally readable.

Use your primary key phrase in your URL - most blogging software will take care of this automatically.

Place your primary key phrase close to the start of your title - so if we take the example of 'music download' your title might become 'Music Download - my latest song now available' or some such. Usually blogs will generate the title tag and url from your post title so as long as you get your post title right the url and title tag are taken care of. The exact system will differ across different software, so keep an eye on it...for example, I have found that Blogger makes the title tag your Blog title followed by your post title. For this reason, on blogs where different posts will target different key words I keep the blog name short in order to keep relevant key words close to the start of the title tag.

Use your key phrases throughout the text - Ideally for optimum findability you should try to have 300 - 500 words and then include your primary key phrase around 4-10 times. This is a very rough guide, and you should always include it naturally. With this amount of content it should be possible. For example with 300 words you should easily manage 3 or 4 paragraphs with your primary key phrase once in each paragraph and that should be enough.

Include primary key phrase early in your first paragraph and late in your last paragraph - So you might start off 'My latest music download is...' and finish your last paragraph with '...and that's what I think makes this a great music download.'

Try to include your keyphrase in text links in content - so for example you might include a link in the content somewhere to 'another great music download site' or link to another of your own songs by having a link to 'another recent music download'

Remember the alt tags - if it's relevant put your keyword in image alt tags.

Headings - if you're writing a longish piece consider breaking into digestable chinks and using headings - you'll have to check how it looks in your blog template and possibly edit your styles to get it looking right. I like to use my primary key phrase in headings as appropriate also... for example see an article I wrote for BifSniff- a regular web page as opposed to a blog, but the idea is the same.

Other stuff - Some people will also tell you to include your primary key phrase once in strong tags, once in emphasis tags and so on, but I rarely find it relevant to do so.

Outward Links

Outward links are important for some search engines, if you can link to relevant and reputable third party sites in your content do so.

Fota House website case study

2005-03-16T23:38:00.000Z

Fota House case study

These are some notes on the Fota House website development undertaken by myself and Tom R. The notes give a rough overview of how we approach a project and also insight into some of the decisions we made regarding the Fota House site.

Anyway, no point talking more about it... go and read it! ;)