Will Knott

I’m skipping the OCC BBQ Dragons’ Den posts for a quick push for this guy (on the right)

This slightly worried looking gentleman is Marcus MacInnes of pix.ie. Marcus is getting a bit of a push by the Irish tech blogger scene, and well, I’m pushing too. Why, because its a service and site I actually use.

All (well, almost all) of my photographs that I’ve posted here this year have been hosted on Pix.ie. I love the site. Yes, I’ve abandoned Flickr over Pix.ie, so I must be committing some kind of photoblogging sin. (As soon as their API links to Moo I’ll have no reason to use the other site.)

So what do you get on Pix.ie? A beautiful looking site (yes I love the album unfurls when you hover over them. Just look for yourself). They also have a custom album for the “Pink for October” which I can assure you I’ll be using for the online bits of my Pink paper push (its the skin setting in the “profile settings” section).

The servers are optimised constantly and performance is paramount (and yes Marcus can and will talk about the database tips and schemes needed to perform his miracle of bit shuffling if you ask nicely. you may want to sit down first) and I think the pictures are nicer too. The site also caters for using those embedding and resizing their images off the site (like me) and ease of uploading.

In short, pix.ie is being too nice to me.

Its also going to get me out of the house and visit places, well Guinness actually. Of course I really need to start using its social bits more. I’d better start now.

take care,
Will Knott

Oh, and for the record, I’m the large blue thing next to him. Spoiling the photo as usual.

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More Open Coffee Club BBQ photos, this time from the Dragons’ Den.

This is E. Alana James, Ed.D. of Reinventing Life facing down the Dragons.

She is opening a consulting business whose purpose is to facilitate the NGOs or charity organizations’ communication process to include dynamic web interaction and social media tools.

The result of a few hours of consulting can be a redistribution of communication and communication methods, so that clients, funders and all interested parties gain easy access to the benefits of the organization. This redesigned process will result in increased support, especially important during low economic times and will make use of free or open source internet technologies.

I should have more from the den tomorrow,
take care,
Will Knott

Dear photobloggers. I want you to do something. Raise cash for the Irish Cancer Society!

Most of you are at least aware of the internet phenomena that is Pink for October. This is a breast cancer awareness programme, where websites and blogs go pink for the month, and photobloggers show pink photos for the month.

However, it occurred to me that the one thing this internet outreach does not do is actually help cancer charities. So lets fix this.

Last time I was in Cork city I called in here…

my local Irish Cancer Society shop. I’m not sure if the Castle Street shop in cork city is unusual, but they tend to have big window displays. So I chatted with the manager (nice lady) about making a window display using pink photos for October. In Cork, the Jazz festival will have its own display, but since she hadn’t planned anything from the start of the month until the festival, she is willing to display the photos.

However it might be worth going one better… donate the photos to the charity not just for display, but to be sold and raise money for the charity.

And while photos of pink objects might sell, portraits will sell, to the subject at least.

My plan is to go to the streets of Cork with model release forms and approach people wearing pink (anything pink from a splash of pink lipstick, to a pink bow in the hair or a pink tie). Explain to the subject why I’m taking the photos and if they would be willing to pose and (under no obligation) buy the photo (I’m thinking €5 at most) from the Cancer charity shop and have the photo displayed online. With a bit of publicity I suspect there would be volunteers lined up on the streets.

Personally I would like to perform a selective colourisation on the photograph so that its a black and white photo with only the pink coloured, but that isn’t a requirement.

Then in the middle of September, present the collection of A4 printouts to the charity shop for display and sale.

So what am I asking you to do?

1. Go to your nearest Cancer Charity shop (In Ireland it’s the Irish Cancer Society, I’m not sure what it is in Northern Ireland let alone the rest of the world)
2. Ask the manager of that shop if he or she would be willing to accept the donation of photographs as part of the “Pink for October Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign“, display and sell the photos. You might have to explain the Pink for October story and that model release forms will be produced.
3. Take the photographs. Print the photographs. Yes some time and expense will be involved. Anything worth doing involves a bit of an outlay.
4. If you wish, do put some identifying marks (like a web address to the online version of the photo) on the printouts. A Pink for October logo and link should also be included.
5. Present the photographs (and at least offer the release forms) on (or around) Friday September 19 2008 to the charity shop so that the manager has time to display the photographs. (I can see Kilkenny photoblogers being a little later if they want to include a Podcamp Ireland photowalk)

So, is this a dumb idea?

At the moment I’m looking for a little help with this. Could you help me with…

• Commitment to join in. You have over two months to do something this year
• The wording for the model release form. I’m not sure how it should be worded and what details are required.
• Would I (or anyone else doing the street portraits) need a licence of some kind? If so where and how would I go about getting one?
• While I’m willing to print out my photos myself, does anyone know of a willing printer?
• Anything else I should know about?

Happy snapping,
Will Knott

update September 3 2008. The 2008 Pink for October Ireland portraits won’t be happening. Details in this post.

This post has changed direction several times in the last three days.

At first I was going to write about green issues. What happened was that I bumped in to a pair of representatives for Change.ie, a government run site for creating a plan of action for environmental change and reducing Ireland’s (and maybe the world’s) carbon footprint. I told the reps that I was surprised that there hadn’t been blogger outreach to other blogs concerning green issues, and pointed out a few that I knew of.

One rep asked me to e-mail in the details of the sites, the idea was to get something of an aggregator going.

The first person who came to mind was Ms. Phoebe Bright…

who seems slightly miffed in this photo about what happened next.

Phoebe presented at the recent Open Coffee BBQ about energy, energy demand and a technological solutions to change the thinking currently driving our consumption habits. Well worth a read if you weren’t at teh presentation.

Also, how can I forget Greennav. Actually I did, which is why I e-mailed in the links. Greennav is an odd mix of a group blog in that anyone can add to it. So its one better than an aggregator, is something of a community. And yes its full of green hints and tips.

Even the landscape gardener Peter Donegan has added a collection of green hints and tips to his site.

And now a change in direction.

Ladies and gentlemen. Get them together, as the response from the government sources was “that’s nice, anyone can blog, go ahead”. Or a “we’ll do nothing thank you”.

This is one of those areas where we should collaborate, and double, nay triple the voices to get the messages, and actions out there. A green meme. Not just an internet meme but a get off our backsides and do something about it meme.

I’m just not sure what.

But its this tendency for collaboration which brings me to to the next change of directions, sponsored by Twenty Major and Adrian Weckler.

They have complained about the fact that …

1. We’re not angry and fighting enough. (But Mr Weckler things me are too angry).
2. We aim for consensus
3. We don’t do enough investigative journalism
4. Bloggers seem to be people who are fake

Well lets see.

I know that I don’t intend to ever get close to Granddad without a stab-proof vest, but the Irish blog-sphere is a small place. If you don’t count Bebo blogs, you could fit most of the Irish bloggers in a medium hotel for an awards ceremony. Because we are a small group, the chances of prolonged bickering are few. Grudges can be held, but so can tongues. And the word “community” tends to hold sway. (Besides, Twitter is the place for small short-lived Irish fire fights). And besides, Barcamps, Tweet-ups, Open Coffee clubs, photo-walks and general get-togethers happen enough to prevent full blown flame wars that lead to bits going missing.

As for a consensus. Well, the early Irish bloggers were either techies, or non-technical people in the technology industry (sometimes in the one person). In this world, standards mean a lot. Consensus gets the job done. And could a barcamp exist without consensus?

As for people who aren’t and don’t aspire to be investigative journalists not doing enough investigative journalism for Mr Wreckler’s liking. Well, circular logic only gets you so far. Maybe you would be willing to teach us the way, and teach us, using your blog or course, on how to do these investigations. I think a few hundred well trained (even if we are bored, lonely or angry) bloggers might do you some justice. (Besides you forgot about Maman Poulet teaching journalists how to do their jobs when it came to Michael Lynn).

And finally, “bloggers are fake”. Now he’s not talking about fiction blogs, nor blogs maintained by a fictional (or pseudonymous) character. He’s talking about people who create great blogs, to get employment, and once employed, stop blogging. I can only assume that he means people who want to write for a living, and are using their blog as a portfolio in the same way that an artist creates work for themselves, to get their own style (or voice) and use that portfolio as a way to become a writer.

Well, if they exist, and I actually expect that they do, then more luck to them. If the only reason they wrote was to get someone to pay for the writing, then isn’t it better that they stop blogging?

Can we all agree to that?

take care,
Will Knott

As much as I love XKCD sometimes I just don’t get the joke

Then Darragh Doyle goes and explains everything with an embedded video.

But sometimes, things go together a little too well (and sing along)

take care,
Will

So King Damien wants us to go and do our own “Fluffy Links”.

I can do that…

On the odd but technical front we have a game of the 80’s classic “Defender”. But an odd twist on it. Ok how about making it really really small. Say 16×16 pixels.? And what about putting it in the favicon of the site instead of in a page. And lets make it playable too? (Knott warning, doesn’t work in all browsers, and I’m sure it won’t work in the iPhone).

On the technical and might just be useful front, how about a “Multicolr Flickr search“? Its a search tool for Flickr which selects “interesting” (their quotes) pictures from Flickr based on colr.. I mean color… I mean colour. Dang this spelling. Consider that my entry in to the Redmum colour post challenge.

On the self-referential front (and the fact that I think I need a photo in every post), Conor O’Neill has a shot of me taking the shot below of him.

And since there isn’t a fluffy due to the Mulley man going to see The Dark Knight, let me offer you “ItsJustSomeRandomGuy“’s take of the expectation of the movie in the “I’m a Marvel and I’m a DC“. He’s been doing these for a while.

So did it meet expectations?

take care,
Will Knott

at Open Coffee Club Barbecue in Terryglass

Let me know if you don’t want to be identified.

take care,
Will Knott

Meet Emer,

The disclosing Sabrina Dent is Emer’s mammy. And both attended the Open Coffee BBQ in Terryglass.

I expect the details of OCC BBQ II will be with us shortly.

Well that was fun. Head knackering fun, but fun none the less.

The Open Coffee Club BBQ took place last night. And thank you to Evert Bopp for setting up the event, getting the people in Terryglass, and supplying the food.

Actually, getting the food and the chef in one place. The meat was supplied by SulMeat.com, a Tralee based supplier is responsible for the ribs, smothered in Deborah Hadley’s own Spicendipity Two Brew BBQ sauce before cooking (so good, bones were nibbled). She also supplied the brownies (that mostly the kids found), the mix for which is also available. I’m sure we’ll find out how the Belfast co-working boys handle the cooking.

Conor O’Neill is also responsible for the first BBQ sitting during the talks.

The technical bits and talks beforehand were really good (waiting for the slide packs to become available), and I’m currently annotating the photos I took, including the competitors of the “Dragon’s Den” contest, won by the talented Daudi Kutta of Pitchside Products for his GAA design products.

The meeting people and associating online tags with faces (Do I really look like my twitter avatar?) around the glowing coals was also fun. But eventually the cold got to most of the crowd.

Now, I need more sleep,
take care,
Will Knott

These daisies managed to grow through the concrete on the loading docks of the old Southern Fruit warehouse.

Yes, I wandered a bit around there with the camera before the public entered to see the Corcadorca show.

take care,
Will Knott