Co-founder of Last.fm to speak at BlogTalk 2008 on 4th March

I am happy to announce that Michael Breidenbrücker, co-founder of Lovely Systems and of Last.fm Ltd., will be our fourth keynote speaker at BlogTalk 2008 in Cork (he will speak on Tuesday week).

Michael has been actively involved in interactive digital media since 1999 and is widely recognised for his expertise in the areas of interaction design and product development. Lovely Systems is a web technologies company providing localised video portals serving hundreds of gigabytes of video each day. Their latest service is Zoomer.de, which was launched last week. Last.fm was incorporated in 2002 as an internet radio station and music community website, and the related Audioscrobbler music recommendation system was fully merged into Last.fm in 2005. The company was acquired by CBS Interactive in May 2007. You can read more about Last.fm on their Wikipedia page.

Unfortunately, Rashmi Sinha is now unable to speak at this event. Hopefully Rashmi can present at BlogTalk 2009!

Advertisement

Inbox crises / JMJ / i102-104 tests

Inbox crises

After clearing another few hundred e-mails out of my inbox on the plane to London yesterday, and realising that Thunderbird’s tagging of messages wasn’t really doing anything useful for me, I’ve now created five subfolders of my inbox with various levels of priority. I hope this works better, because things have been out of control lately…

JMJ

I booked a ticket for Jean-Michel Jarre at the National Concert Hall in March. Yay!

i102-104 tests

I haven’t heard anyone playing Tangerine Dream on the radio (apart from myself!), but i102-104 (a new station launching in February) are looping them as part of their test transmissions.

Interviewed on Morning Ireland last week

Along with Joe Zefran of rté.ie, John Waters from the Irish Times, former DCU student Deirdre Reynolds, Gráinne Barry of anotherfriend.com, and Dr. Siobhan Barry from Cluan Mhuire, I took part in a panel hosted by Richard Downes on RTÉ Radio 1’s “Morning Ireland” show last week to discuss the phenomenon of online social networking.

You can listen to the show using the RTÉ site’s real audio archive or via my MP3 recording from digital satellite (I’m on at 17m30s and 26m30s).

Two wi-fi toys…

…that I bought recently are the Logik IR100 Internet Radio, and the Belkin VoIP Skype Cordless Phone.

The Logik IR100 Internet Radio does what it says on the tin – it allows you to listen to radio stations over the Internet. I bought it from PC World for €120, and there are models from Morphy Richards and Philips in Argos that do much the same thing (although they are more expensive – one of them has an SD slot for recording programmes). The Logik box is very easy to install: turn it on and it shows a list of available wi-fi networks for you to connect to (both open and encrypted). The radio uses the Reciva service, which is basically a big directory of radio stations (like the Shoutcast directory). It can stream MP3, Real Audio or Windows Media-based stations. There are five preset buttons where you can store your favourite stations, and another nice feature is the fact that it can detect any Windows shares or UPnP servers on your LAN, and stream any music files from those shared servers (I have a UPnP on my Dreambox, and it works fine with that). So far, I’ve found it very good and easy to use. My main problem seems to be with stations that drop every now and again (even national ones like RTÉ), so I’m trying to figure out if it is my network connection or something else…

The Belkin VoIP Skype Cordless Phone is a little bit different from most Skype phones that you see in the shops, in that it does not require you to have a USB link to your PC (it connects straight to a wi-fi connection). I got it from PC World for €130, but there is a similar product on Skype.com for €139. It comes preinstalled with custom Skype software so that, like the radio, it’s simply a matter of turning it on and it will detect local wi-fi networks. After connecting to wi-fi, it’s very similar to PC-based Skype clients – you logon with your Skype ID and password, and can see your Skype credit and contacts list along with their online status. There is no instant messaging facility, but if you want to contact someone by voice and happen to be near a wi-fi connection without a PC, it’s a very useful gadget…

Galway dominates Online Trader category of the Net Visionary awards

I was driving back to Galway on Monday morning and I heard my name being mentioned on Galway Bay FM in relation to the IIA Net Visionary Awards 2006 which are being held next week.

When I looked up the nominations shortlist, I saw that the other two people in my category are also from Galway – Des Kenny from kennys.ie, and Richard Moyles from mattress.ie / furniture.ie – so someone from Galway is going to win 🙂

Another nice gadget, the NOXON iRadio

NOXON iRadio :: TerraTec Electronic GmbH :: clever gear for a smart world

I saw this reviewed in Galway Now magazine, it’s a device for listening to internet radio stations via your broadband / wireless at home.  The NOXON iRadio also has a built-in speaker, and doesn’t require a PC to operate.  Neato!

No-One Left to Argue With? There's Always the Reliable Jackeen-Culchie Divide…

Today FM‘s Ray D’Arcy Show (or rather Tuesday guest griper Ian O’Doherty) gave a passing mention to boards.ie two days ago and the usual tensions between those members who are from the capital and those who are not.

Why do we need to hear this old chestnut of “Dublin’s better” again? O’Doherty claims that everyone in Ireland outside Dublin really wants to live there because it’s so great. Sorry, it’s not. I was born in Dublin and lived there when I was a youngling, and even when I go back now I’m glad to go to Tower Records / HMV / Forbidden Planet / Starbucks and then get the hell out after a few hours. For me, it’s like going to the mall… Great for a bit, unbearable after that.

An tImeall ar an Raidió

An tImeall has become the first Irish independent podcast to be broadcast on licensed radio in the country. Conn, an alumni of NUI Galway, has agreed to broadcast An tImeall via Flirt FM, Galway’s college radio station. More details below (as Gaeilge!):

Cuirtear tús inniu le comhchraoladh ar an bpodchraoladh laethúil Gaeilge An tImeall, ar stáisiún raidio na mac léinn sa Ghaillimh, Flirt FM. Is é An tImeall an chéad phodchraoladh neamhspleách in Éirinn a chraolfar ar an raidio.

Tom Murphy's Interview on Ryan Tubridy Last Month

Better late than never, I was supposed to upload this radio clip of Tom Murphy and Oliver Boyce being interviewed about online poker and boards.ie last month (20060316a.mp3).

Here’s the boards.ie thread about the interview and the official show page has a link to some site called boardsup.ie?! 🙂

The Last Ambient Zone, For Now

I broadcast my last Ambient Zone show on Flirt FM last Wednesday; it was a sad day but I have lots of good memories including “shows that worked” and interviews, etc. over the past 9 or 10 years. I started off the show with the same 35 minutes of music from my first show in 1997, and then had some of the “most played” songs from the show (I cheated a bit by performing an SQL “group by name” on the tracks database table to see what those top tracks were!).

I finished off the show with 8:07 from the seminal ambient electronica album 76:14 by Global Communication; a fitting end I think to the current run. Who knows, I may be back someday, and if not live on air there’s always podcasting… Thanks to my audience for their support over the years and of course for listening.