Chickens attacking Bailey

I decided to see how bailey (my dog) and chickens would get on together, he was a bit nervous getting too close. I got out my camera to take a picture of the two of them together, you can imagine my shock when I saw this image in the lens. I took picture then quickly ran to save bailey.

Facebook

As part of my degree at Tipperary Institute studying Multimedia and Communications we looked at social networking sites. This was a necessary part of our course. There are various social networking sites which provide various functions. Bebo is extremely popular with most students in the college. Recently I started using Flickr and Facebook. Facebook is my social networking site of choice. It has a great choice of applications which you can add to your profile.

Flickr is my favourite photo site but I also use webshots I have an album in webshots showing a slideshow of my favourite animal photos on first page of my website.

Internet and Holidays

Some people would prefer a complete break from laptops and internet while on holidays. I prefer to have access on holidays. Recently on a holiday in Malta, I was lucky enough to have wi-fi in hotel and they also had two computers in lobby to use. They charged more for wi-fi access than to use their computers. It was interesting to see various people keeping up to date with their bebo pages. Personally I like to post photos to my flickr site and look at various information relating to the holiday and keeping up with news online.

This year my college results were out while I was on holidays, as Malta is 1 hour ahead of Ireland I had an extruciating wait till 09:00hrs Irish time to get results. So I was there in the lobby waiting and then at 09:01 got the results. I was delighted with my results as I got a distinction. I was going round the pool with a big fat grin on my face that morning.

Michel Foucault- Author Function.

Michel Foucout deals with authorship who really owns project. This has raised a few eyebrows within the multimedia class that I attend. As part of our 3rd year we have to create a project students will be creating games and other sellable applications.

They need to know their rights as a student as to how much the college owns and how much they own, after all the students have spent the time creating it both in and out of the classroom. Most of the time spent on these projects is work done at home not in class. I guess I was been naive thinking if i created it, then i owned it after all i wrote the code and spend my weekends working on it.

I teach computers and if one of my students gets a job because i have imparted knowledge onto them does that mean i should get a cut of their wages or if i design a website with someone give them ideas who owns it then, does the customer own it because they paid me to show them how to design a site or do I own it because I had the ideas and helped them design it. I know in the real world I would certainly not own it i am being paid to teach them and give them ideas but don't we pay our lecturers too we all have to pay an enrolment fee every year.

Dog Microchipping

My dog Bailey got micro chipped today, its the first time I have micro chipped a dog, I believe its important because recently my dog was stolen and 6 weeks later still no sign of her. Maybe if she was chipped there might be a chance of getting her back.

Chipping is quite painless for dog, it involved putting a needle into the dogs neck/bag. The needle is wider than a normal needle so there is a little blood but not too much. My details are sent off with the serial code so if any vets, dog wardens or rescue centres find the dog and scan him they can contact me immediately.

There has been a spate of stolen animals in the area in the last few week. We live in a quiet area with less than 20 houses on our road and already 5 dogs have been taken and 2 horses. Only this week my neighbour came out to see 2 teenagers lifting her dog out of the garden and luckily she asked them what they were doing, and got the dog back.

Java Conference

A group from the software development class and myself and Philip Bourke (lecturer) went to the java conference in Cork. It was a great conference, Simon Ritter from Sun gave some talks on open sourcing java and about the new versions of java i.e SE6 and SE7. It was very informative and fun too. Adrian spoke about Spring product. There was alot of people there from the industry too. Can't wait for the next one..

Social Networking

Todays world is so different to when I was growing up. Nowadays we have online friends, we game online, talk online have cameras and microphones connected to our pcs and generally can talk to anyone around the world. This technology is very cheap all you need is a pc connected to the internet and all these services are completely free. I use msn messenger to text my brother in uk, to see his kids on webcam it means I can keep up to date with them without travelling over and back. I also use it to keep in contact with old work colleagues and friends.One of mates lives about 1 mile away but I talk to her online more than I get to meet her. Its quicker its free and dead handy. Theres bebo and myspace I have accounts on both but don't use them anymore, I have found lots of people who I personally have no interest in wasting my time talking to. Skype is pretty similar but there are a few people who I would chat to there. I know one person who lives in Italy and I regularly talk to him on skype via text and the odd time plug in microphone and talk. So is it a good or bad thing social networking, there are parts of it that are excellent and save alot of time and money. I enjoy relaxing at home watching tv whilst talking to friends online. I can do several things at once which for me is great. On the other hand I have found that some unsavoury characters do try to contact you and annoy you but it is very easy to ignore them. I use the internet for what I like and the parts I do not like I keep away from.

Internet for over 50s

Recently a few of my parents friends have gotten presents of laptops for their birthdays. I have been called on to teach them the basics like getting online emailing etc. Its great to see the joy in their eyes when they manage to surf for information and realise how fast it is to search information online compared to previous methods.

Virtual World of Politics

Election Blogging

I think its great that politicans are blogging online. It helps to get more information on latest news, you get to see information that you need quite simply. In todays latest news about same sex marriages, I can get more insight into what way the politicans are thinking and by looking at various blogs, it allows me to give comments via blogs to politicans directly. It also allows the politicians to show their personality to the general public. It allows different people to interact in a central area about the latest issues with direct access to politicans.

Robert Scoble Podcast coming to Cork

I will be meeting Robert Scoble in Cork next Wednesday at a dinner organised for some bloggers. Tipperary Institute is planning to bring a group of bloggers.

The following is a link to the podcast between Tom Rafferty and Robert Scoble talking about blogging and technology. They talk about Robert coming to Cork next week.
They talk about how to use blogging in business. How it revolutionised the way businesses now look at the blogs to find out how people think about their products. His afternoon talk will be on future of social software, like mapping is getting big.
http://www.tomrafteryit.net/scoble_interview.mp3

1st post

I am a 2nd year multimedia student in Tipperary Institute. I teach computers part time. I come from an engineering background and have 10 years IT experience. I want to work in the more development side using all different technologies.

I live in the country, i love chatting on laptop, getting new gadgets, photography and suduko.

My fav subjects are programming in java and web design and learning new languages and os.

I use yahoo 360.