Archive for the ‘Blog General’ Category
Posted on June 8, 2008 - by John
A simple idea from Irish Rail
Thanks for the power Irish Rail! They now have power points beside seats on their Limerick to Dublin service, perfect for someone who must have Laptop access on boring 3 hour trips. A+
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Posted on June 8, 2008 - by John
Does ‘rattling on’ damage your blog?
Lorelle points out how frustrating it can be to find misleading post tittles on webfeeds and that those posts usually turn out to be “rattling-on posts” with no relevance to the title.
Of course this also causes mild annoyance to the Google searcher -finding search results with no actual relevance to the topic.While the problem seems to be more with the fact that the title can be misleading in that it never gets to the point, Lorelle has touched on a somewhat sensitive topics for some authors - we like to rant or ‘rattling-on’ a little.
Are these the most popular posts? Does a bear shi* in the woods?
I bet there are a ton of authors who are out and about, come across a predicament and think ‘I’ll rant about that tonight on my blog’, there’s nothing wrong with this, some posts are interesting, others are mind numbingly boring, but at the end of the day it’s your blog so enjoy, if people don’t want to read it move on, I tend to write a few “rattling-on posts” myself.
Below are a few ideas I came up with to prevent too many “rattling-on posts” which I wrote out for myself. Feel free to use or ignore these at will.
- Write about experiences of interest to you and your audience with a positive note, rather than moaning about an issue, although some times this is unavoidable, note what attracts you to your favourite blogs.
- A picture is worth a thousand words - no I don’t mean to put down the book and pick up some magazine rag - on many occasions a picture can say more than the words every could. Have your camera phone on the ready, pictures brighten you up your blog and helps attach a persona to it. The old saying is don’t judge a cover by its cover, but we all do this.
- This brings us to presentation, not so much the theme, we can all pick out the wonderful themes on the net, but keeping it tidy, all those blog-plugins are great fun, but don’t try to cover up bad content with too many nick knacks.
- Use Google Reader - for inspiration.
- Subscribe to johnmryan.com’s blog - because your under my mind control.
I did say it was just a few ideas, feel free to comment in your own ideas on keeping your blog interesting and I’ll update this post if there any good ones.
Posted on June 7, 2008 - by John
Skip Enjoying the Sun & games
Posted on June 4, 2008 - by John
Dublin street writing by eircom
Dublin Street writing by eircom, originally uploaded by johnmryan.
Some people tend to look at the ground while they walk, some do it - avoiding peoples gaze, and others are lost in day dreams, a few fear dog doo on their shoe.
Well those people are now being targeted by advertisements written on the pavement, this seems like a new marketing strategy to sell a product – in this case involves Eircom writing in what I can only hope is semi permanent chalk, advertisements on the pavement all around St Stephens Green area, in frot of the park. Is it really the same as vandalism?
I had to laugh – its now raining!
Posted on May 30, 2008 - by John
Marley and Me
I’m reading a book called Marley and Me, something I picked up at Manchester Airport recently, even though Dublin to Manchester is such a short trip I always have a tradition, if you can call it that, of picking up a book to start on a plane trip - no matter how small the trip. It’s a somewhat interesting book, so far I have made it 1/3 of the way through, its nice to see other people as crazy about pets as me, and if you have a pet, particularly a dog this is one for you. Just did a search on the internet and found an interesting little website the author’s John Grogan created.
Updated: Theres a movie coming!!!
Posted on April 23, 2008 - by John
Trapped for 40 Hours
I saw this on the news recently, here is a clip from youtube.
Posted on January 13, 2008 - by John
Happenings on Irish Rail - Iarnród Éireann
Sorry for the lack of updates, but you can get tired with blogging at times. I am writing this on the train to Dublin, internet - curtsy of O2 Broadband, its holding up – maybe better than me. Irish Rail have been blowing some smoke lately about their new trains, while this one is very clean and new, it seems there has been no effort to work on the actual rail lines, as its bumpier than a teenagers face. That said, I usually drive, or take the bus if I have to, the train is so expensive, its not really worth it.
You have the usual passengers on this train, most notably is the Britney (yes I’ve named her) the girl who whats you to know how great she is, even though we are about 6 seats away the whole carriage knows she is a student, works weekends, has an order with amazon for college books, which she decided to have posted to her aunts house in Meath – even though she lives in Dublin – ‘ she was just was not thinking that day’ - apparently, she was also at a court case recently, not sure why, but apparently the judge warned her not to discuss this in public, when she meets a guy on a night out she does not give him her number but rather her brothers phone number, because when she tries to make up a fake phone number, she always ends up giving out the real number… She must be talking to a ghost however, I cant hear what the other person is saying, I can only assume her friend is speaking in a normal tone.
I’ve just been interrupted to ask if I want coffee- this is new, and not happened on any of my previous Limerick- Dublin trips – a nice touch - I assume its not included in the 45 euro ticket price.
One other thing, there is a woman singing a song, like to one you hear old people singing in those older type pubs where they play ‘45′ and drink sherry. She has stopped now, perhaps to sip her ‘coffee’. I spoke too soon, she is now singing again, but not alone this time - a gentleman has joined her to sing you ‘you will never defeat the IRA’ and ‘Billy don’t be a hero - come back to me’. I can only assume she is intoxicated, and hope she will soon drift off. One plus though it has stopped Britney from yapping her hole off.
We are now at Thurlas,and I love that the automated voice guy said it in Irish first.
Posted on December 11, 2007 - by John
US and WiFi
The US is now monitoring WiFi users under a new approved Bill that forces anyone operating a public WiFi connection to report illegal images sent or received over the network.
There are a few things I don’t understand about this, but I am surprised that this bill was passed so quickly, well maybe not when you consider this (from RTE News) “The Safe Act was passed in the House of Representatives by 409 votes to two. Law makers used a system designed to push legislation through quickly which meant that it did not receive a hearing, was not voted on in committee and was not put up for public review.”
The fines for failing to report illegal traffic is hefty with a maximum fine of up to 205,000 euro. This means of course that ISP’s will be activity monitoring all traffic on their networks, meaning the issue of a freedom of speech and such are invaded. Is this bill simply a way to allow legal monitoring of the public net activity?
Although, this bill will of course allow illegal activity related to these images, to capture the scum involved, but is this the only way? Anyway why only WiFi – is it easier to monitor WiFi?
Posted on August 20, 2007 - by John
Google Alternatives: Is Google getting Greedy?
Today I decided, ‘why not give another search company a chance’, I only use Google, because I am so familiar with it, and to change search providers would be an inconvenience, so I said today I will change my default provider to ‘Live Search’. So I went into internet explorer and changed my settings to Live search, and clicked ok, but for some reason it continued using Google and ignored my request, then one of those little pop up balloons informed me that Google had blocked my request, and this window ( see above) popped up. Now, as you know many people know how to use the internet, but there a majority of users who are terrified of these requests and will just click ok, in the fear that if they change a setting there PC will explode and they will be picking bits of computer of their face for the next year.
Maybe its time people look at other search engines and what they offer – if only to give them a chance, before Google owns everything? The new ask.com looks good, anyone interested in trying it out?
Posted on August 14, 2007 - by John
8 Random things about Moi
Shai did not tag me ( i dont know her) but here goes
1) When it comes to social situations “Fake Nice” is something that drives me crazy, people who try to come across as super nice and friendly, but you know that this is a façade, and that their real personality is not something you want to see.
2) I love to travel – but to date have only been to a handful of places, New York, Brussels, Paris, London.
3) Internet technologies is my real passion.
4) I am a news reader on a local radio station.
5) The smell of fish makes my physically ill – but I can eat prawns and tuna….
6) I love US sitcoms – especially the really crappy ones.
7) I know some people who read this site and think I don’t know!
I want to eventually run my own company.
Posted on August 9, 2007 - by John
Technology Snap
Technology Snap – happens to everyone… even thought it’s a term I made up myself, just five minutes ago! A Technology Snap is when you suddenly get a spout of very back luck - when it comes to technology.
Things start to go wrong. Some people claim that this is simply a random series of bad luck, some claim it’s the result of life pressures, but whatever the reason – technology Snap is not a pleasant experience. Here is my technology snap, feel free to share yours.
This all happened together within a month
- Spilt tea on my partners Nokia – the expensive one with metal casing – Phone destroyed.
- Broke my partners Laptop – because the software package (I was asked to install) was badly designed.
- Lost my iPod (bought got a new one for my BD)
- Work PC stopped working (an IT fault this time)
- Lost data on my server
Despite this I am happy the snap happened because, we got new phones, faster (but cheaper!) laptop and I got a Video iPod, and my work PC is much faster – go productivity.
Oh and I joined Facebook - review coming soon! 
Posted on June 26, 2007 - by John
Apple iPhone
I love Apple stuff, iPods, Mac’s and so on. Usually however, I buy the second generation of their devices, - to give them time to fix some problems and add more features, the iPhone looks too cool for school, and I may buy one (when its released in Ireland) but there are a ‘few’ concerts i do have…..
Posted on May 22, 2007 - by John
Limerick Rant
Once a month I am back in Limerick City – and can I say I love the work that is going on, there seems to be a new development – or a new street even (HAHA). Just take a look at what the junction of Henry Street and Bedford Row – is going to look like, one draw back would seem to be that the new street pavement seems to be very badly damaged by dirt – which looks really stuck in – I hope they can resolve this quickly as it does take from all the hard work that has gone into the re-development of Limerick lately.
Posted on April 27, 2007 - by John
SEO Plugins for Wordpress
I don’t claim to know a whole lot about SEO ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ however, in my travels I have come across some interesting add-ons or ‘plugins’ which help with the SEO task.
Feedburner Replacement Plugin - Not exactly SEO but it does help you get more information on your feed subscribers, by using feedburner magic this plugin simply forwards all your feed traffic to FeedBurner.
SiteMaps - A WordPress plugin that creates an XML-sitemap of your WordPress blog. Remember to rebuild it, if you change URLS, or if you have some files outside the WordPress directory you will need to manually input them.
SEO Title Tags - I used this on one of my blogs previously and it really worked well. It can be used to optimise the Titles of your WordPress site. SEO Title Tag makes is dead-easy to optimize the title tags across your WordPress powered blog.
Those are my three favourite SEO plugins for wordpress- if you have any please comment, and I will update this post.
Now just a note now on the ‘about’ pages on peoples blogs
Wordpress Default Pages
A majority of the most popular and interesting blogs use WordPress, the content management system for blogs, which allows users to write content to their blogs, and customise it as they see fit, but you already knew this! What still surprises me is that many blogs, do not have an ‘About’ page, actually, they do have an about page but they fail to fill it in instead we can see this, default page:
“This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.”
Should I name and shame those, people? No, I suppose I better not, but you know who you are, so update this section or remove it, because it looks terrible, particularly for professional blogs!
