I'm pretty sure myself and Bitzi discussed a plot not unlike this a few years ago. As a joke.

But if you do want to read what sounds like a complete load of shit, click here. Oh, and donna informs me that the murderer turns out to be the second coming of jesus, who can turn water into wine. COME ON!!

Everything is Possible - Click here for more home videos

Do you think if girls wear a fake tan in Northern Ireland, they are making a political statement?

I'm working in Derry for the next couple of weeks. I don't usually work outside of Dublin, but duty calls and all that. I feel like a travelling salesman. I'm staying in a shithole travelodge (room nothing like photos), I'm away from my comforts (i.e. Donna), and I'm tired from the drive up this morning (got up at 5.20am, poo) and working all day.

However, no matter where you are, its easy to make it feel like home. So I've bought 2 days of wifi from bitbuzz, and just got some dominos delivered. And there seems to be millions of channels on the telly.


Still, makes you appreciate your own home.

The original "Heartbeats" by The Knife. Love this video.


Heartbeats from The Knife on Vimeo.

Informative as it is hilarious. Link.

While there are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes sexual innuendo, there have been many mass-debates on the topic, and now the general principles at the root of the topic are firm and well-rounded.

Lolz indeed.

Being a "rogue" in a company large, small or even one person in size can be a great way to get stuff done and ultimately work out to everyones advantage. I am always one for encouraging the rattling of cages. Questioning middle and upper management decisions can result in a better run organisation and sometimes respect from your peers and seniors.

The main reason behind this is the fact that they hired you in the first place. You were hired for your unique skills at a technical level and interpersonal level. Each person in an organisation is usually better than every other person in at least 1 specific skill. The decisions on this technology or niche should come on advisement from this person. But may not be the case where you work.

At times it can be worth being an Intrapreneur to just get something changed or done where too many meetings and management decisions will delay the work or stop it in its track altogether. You'll need a passion for what you believe in, and that has to be evident to convince your peers the advantages of your actions.

I have found myself questioning or saying "no" to my seniors at times. The reason being that I know more about the results of the request than the person asking. People respect no, and they people notice of no. If you question something, you can make it better.

Get yourself out of the "Yes man" rut and start saying no. Always ask why, and say no to yourself and to others.*

*Results may vary. Side affects include anal leakage.

We went to the Liffey Valley on Sunday, and were presented with this. So there was a load of snow saturday night, so when all these people arrived, they had to guess where the spaces were.

Snow melts = Hilarious and every one looked like douches.

There were some even funnier ones when we came back out and the carpark had emptied some more. Looked like drunk parking.

Bit of a pipe dream really. Money can be made from Blogging, some make a lot of money. But most don't.

On that day more than 500,000 people hit my site—by far the biggest day I'd ever had—and through Google's AdSense program I earned about a hundred bucks.

That's not very inspiring. I seriously figured more people clicked on ads. I don't click on ads, in fact I've managed to stick them in my blind spot on most sites I visit, so I guess I can't assume everyone else does.

It would be great to be able to make money directly from blogging, but realistically, the only main value that can come from a blog is to be able to sell yourself as a writer/designer/developer or someone competent in your professional field. When it boils down to it, this value should be worth more to you than ad revenue. Building relationship with your readers, and converting them into paying clients should be the goal of a professional blogger. In fact a personal (?) bloggers goal should be to build relationships too.

One month I made €4.36 in google ads, and I was stoked. Still haven't reached the €100 mark after almost 5 years writing BahFlafBurb, so have yet to actually get money (Major party when that cheque comes!!). I guess I'll just have to put up with the enjoyment of having an outlet and some reliable readers and commenters.

My tip? Like other networking platforms, focus on quality content that sells you as a person/professional.

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I told this theory to Blackie last Friday night on the way to a party.

1. You're driving along (usually) a thin rural road

2. You miss your turn into a housing estate or house or whatever.

3. You decide you need to do a really shitty turnabout that takes ages and would piss off anyone who driving behind you, in fact if you tried it they might think you're just pulling in and try pass you out, but its too thin a road. So they're frustrated sitting while you try and turn while waving and awkwardly smiling.

4. But you're Irish, so you don't want to piss them off, and just keep driving.

5. You take a random left. They're still behind you.

6. You take a random right turn. They're still behind you. Fuck sake!

7. Eventually you take a turn they THEY DON'T. Woot! But now...

8. You've taken so many random turns you can't remember the way back, and you're stuck in a world of random rights. FOREVER.

Number 8 is a tiny teeny bit not in any way real, but it scared the shit out of you didn't it. Yeah, thought so. Dick.

Oh yeah, and after I told Blackie about it, we experienced it first hand, about 10 minutes later, because we didn't really know where the party was. Hilarious!

Note: This post has been in draft since October 2006. But my views have changed very little, which is nice. My grammar has changed though, so I've made a few adjustments to reflect that.

There are many programmers/software developers out there who take a requirements spec, design what the spec says, and deliver the product which is what the client wants, right?

Software is for people, the people who use it. Not the people who wrote the spec. It is vital to understand the original business need rather than the software need. In most cases a non technical committee wrote this spec, and from that you can be sure that it is bloated, likely with after thoughts. It doesn't take much time to ask for more, but it takes more time to create it and even more time than that to avoid it when using it.

Spend time with the user. Don't ask them what they want, but observe and try to understand what they need. If you spend time with the customer/end user of the software, you will quickly realise that the core business need is much simpler than the spec your recieved.

I work as an software consultant in an IT Outsourcing company, based in Dublin. Software development is not one of the companies core markets, but we do have a need for small systems to help with our business processes.

When I recieve a spec, I read it once, then head to the person who needs the application. I spend time with them, watching their work, and what they do daily. I ask them their expectations for the system, and tell them my ideas. I know this is not ideal when a spec is from an external client, but if it can be built into the requirements building process, this can work to the advantage of all parties involved, ultimately to the end users satisfaction.

I have been using twitter. Who hasn't. But I don't think I've been using it as much as other people.

I'm asking who is twitter for, rather than what is it for. I know whats it's for, but I'm finding it difficult to see where the value is. If I am looking for a Taxi and 1 taxi comes along, then I am satisfied. If 20 taxis come along, I was still only looking for 1 so, the other 19 are wasted on me.

I read twitter at most once a day, and I would like to see 1 page of updates from a people I find interesting on the web. Instead I get to see half of a conversation with someone I don't know and 15 updates from 1 person about how they got on the bus, off the bus, in the door, kettle is on, that was a lovely cup of tea, etc.

I don't even think I would be able to update as much as some if I tried, because I work for a living, and spend time doing things for people who pay me. Is twitter about networking or is it just another excuse to cry out for attention. It's bad enough that your changing your Facebook profile photo twice a day, and hating on original youtube clips. Who are you people? Live an offline life please.

Quality, not quantity. Please.

I signed up to Blacknight hosting last month. I've been moving my personal sites across from Register365 with the view of moving some client sites soon. It's been a great experience so far.

I get replies from support, not just replies, but replies that seem to be from an intelligent person whos primary goal is to help me resolve the problem I contacted them about. Its a strange feeling, something I'm not completely used to yet.

The control panel is fantastic. Really well structured, easy to use, very responsive and the range of applications (wordpress, cms, commerce, etc) available to install on my sites is also handy, which have regular version updates and a specific area for pushing updates to existing applications.

I moved to Blacknight because I was frustrated with the support, quality of service and uptime (or lack there of). Luke has been counting the amounts of times all our sites were unavailable and the number is around 5 times since november 2008, each averaging 3 hours. Not acceptable.

I even was getting support from some of the guys in blacknight before moving who gave me a discount code through twitter after I hinted on moving to them from R365. Talk about finger on the pulse. They're impressing me so far.

If you're in the market (or not in my case), and you want to support a great Irish company, get on it.