Ozonesoft codecrafter

Last night’s Tweetup turned out to be more enjoyable than I had anticipated. Funny how exchanging 140 character long messages over a few days helps to break the ice… or maybe it was the delicious red wine! You can read reviews at Maryrose’s, Alexia’s or even read Elly’s account of her taxi trip back home.

Stay tuned for the next one and join us on twitter in the meanwhile!

This morning’s OpenCoffee Club Dublin was streamed live on ustream.tv, following in the footsteps of Limerick’s OCC. You can read reviews of the event from the participants and from the viewers. Some reported technical difficulties to either get the stream or participate in the chat room but overall the feedback is quite positive. As a participant I must admit I felt a bit camera conscious!

Alistair, Eoghan, Paul at the OCC Dublin

Dublin Tweets - meeting since 1932

Alexia (@lexia) and I were playing with the idea of organising a meeting for Irish tweets when we met at Dublin’s last Open Coffee Club. Since a few other tweets have registered interest — Elly (@ellybabes), Maryrose (@maryrose), Eoghan (@eoghanmccabe), Eamon (@eamonleonard) — we’re going ahead:

Dublin’s first Tweetup will take place next Thursday, the 16^th of August at 9pm, in La Taverna Di Bacco.

I am trying to get an idea of the number of people who will be attending to book the place if necessary, so please drop me a comment if you’re interested (don’t forget to include your Twitter id). You’re welcome to join whether you’re a veteran tweet or a Twitter skeptic!

Updated 15:50: registered the event on Upcoming.

Eoghan McCabe is organising the third OpenCoffee Club Dublin. The event will take place in the Morrison Hotel, from 9am next Thursday (21/06).

The last edition was a very fruitful experience for me and I wouldn’t want to miss this one! If you get the chance to free yourself for a couple of hours next Thursday morning, drop by, grab a coffee and join us!

Best of all, Eoghan intends to make this a regular meeting, every two Thrusdays, in the Morrison.

Earlier today, I was contacted by Ladislav Martinčík to take part in Ostrava on Rails, the first Czech Ruby on Rails conference. I doubt I’ll be able to travel for the occasion, but as a member of the Ruby community, I’d happily help them spread the word.

They are currently looking for speakers, fancy your chance?

I found this little pearl of FUD in METRO:

Four in every five blogs on popular websites contain potentially offensive content, such as pornography, new research claims. Computer software firm ScanSafe, which commissioned the report, also found more than one in every 20 blogs, especially popular with children and teenagers, contain potentially catastrophic computer viruses, spyware or other harmful programmes¹ that can steal private or confidential information. It also found that more than half of all children surveyed had looked at websites carrying adult material.

— METRO — Monday, April 23, 2007 — page 9.

I have only one thing to add: BOO!

1. I left the typo… I didn’t want to pervert the original message!

Back from BarCamp! What a day!

Let’s get the only negative point out of the way: the wireless network was utterly unusable. I doubt a single IP packet left the building… or that any made it in!

BarCamp is an occasion to meet people. You meet people you know — I bumped into a few colleagues from previous jobs (really enjoyed seeing you again guys!) and into a large portion of the Ruby Ireland group —, and people you did not — Krishna De, Sean Foley… too many to name here!

BarCamp is also an occasion to learn. Several presentations take place at the same time. You have to make your choice! Here is a short resume of the presentation I followed:

• Conor Halpin, from LeCayla, gave an interesting and entertaining talk on SaaS. I had never seen a CEO putting on a straightjacket to explain common pricing strategies! Le clou du spectacle was Conor’s escape from the contraption while proclaiming — I paraphrase — LeCayla unlocks your SaaS pricing potential!
• Darren Barefoot gave a witty and interactive presentation about memes and social medium. Darren is the author of the famous get a first life site. When it comes to memes, he’s got the credentials! Too bad the wireless network didn’t cooperate for the live examples.
• Eoghan McCabe, another member of Patchwork passionately presented Web Usability 101. The video, tracking the eye movements of a person browsing a site, was, excuse the pun, an eye opener. (Eoghan if you’re reading, I wouldn’t mind a trick or two to improve this site… I actually just noticed my links aren’t underlined)
• Paul Campbell, yet another Patchwork member, presented an introduction to Rails. He wowed a couple of members in the audience when he improvised a hands-on demonstration of how he works with Rails!
• Uldis Bojars, from DERI, gave me a lot of food for thoughts with his presentation on the semantic web. SIOC seems full of promises. I intend to keep a close eye on this.

After a full day of presentations, most people migrated to the Lord Edward to rehydrate (hum… hum… this is BarCamp Ireland after all!). I took the opportunity to get a few lessons in blogging by Red Mum and Tom Raftery. A few more chats, a few more drinks and it was time to come home.

Thanks to Joe Drumgoole, Elly Parker, Paul Walsh, Eoghan McCabe and Paul Browne for organising BarCamp Dublin!

I will be attending BarCamp Ireland tomorrow (Saturday, the 21^st of April) at the Digital Hub in Dublin. I’ve been impatiently looking forward to this event for a couple of weeks, and I’m eager to meet the other participants.

If you’re around, don’t hesitate to come up to me and we’ll have a chat!

The RubyIreland group finally has a website of its own! Aidan Finn, Chris McGrath and I put in a group effort to come up with this little gem (I just couldn’t resist the pun!):

RubyIreland.com is powered by Mephisto, on a cluster of Mongrel. We use the Lucid theme (check out the color changing widget for a more Irish theme!). I am quite proud of my effort on the logo, a bit less with the tagline!