Conor’s Bandon Blog

For the new blog theme. Like or no like? Like but would prefer a Cork specific image in the header? Don’t like cos it looks like mud?

And while I’m here, we launched blognation Ireland on Monday. It is part of a fast growing global tech news network called blognation and it covers Web 2.0 and Mobile in Ireland. So if you are a techie or in a start-up and you read this blog but not Argolon (you nutter), check out the new site.

The totally revamped StructuredBlogging.org site has gone live. Richard MacManus and the gang have done a tremendous job and I think it is now communicating the whole idea in a far more effective way than it did in the past. They explain it far better than I can here so go and have a read.

If you read this blog regularly, you will have noticed some posts which appear to have more structure than others (mainly my reviews and event notifications). It takes no extra effort for me to do the posts in that form and in fact, in some ways, makes it a lot easier. So even if there was no other upside than making reviews easier to write, I would be happy to make use of the Structured Blogging software.

But the long term aim of the effort is to enable new web-sites and services which can make use of that extra structure and create systems we haven’t even dreamt about yet. This is one of those efforts which is very dependent on average bloggers like me generating the content in the first place so I am happy to do my little bit and get my own benefits too.

Richard very kindly mentioned me in his announcement of the re-vamp, but to be honest I did very little and should have helped more. Also, I have been very remiss in not following up on the structured recipe ideas which was tossed around recently. Unfortunately a new work location with a shockin’ commute is chewing up a lot of my time (and the garden is in a brutal state!). I really do want to get started on this again as there is already discussion on the microformats site about a recipe microformat to which I should contribute.

If you have a Moveable Type or WordPress Blog (not wordpress.com), I really really encourage you to install the Structured Blogging plug-in and play with it. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by its utility. And once some of those new services start being rolled out, you’ll find yourself wayyyy ahead of the game!

If you are interested in some of the ideas on where Marc Canter thinks this is all going, have a read of the roadmap.

The Pubsub guys who do a lot of the work on structured blogging have their own announcement here.

Also, if you wonder about the importance of microformats which underpin structured blogging, well a certain Bill G is a fan.

Finally, Bob Wyman of Pubsub has a superb post on the open web vs the closed web and how structured blogging is part of the open revolution. In fact there are many compelling arguments being made on the structured blogging mailing list which I wish were being re-published by their authors on their blogs.

[tags]StructuredBlogging.org, Structured Blogging, Microformats[/tags]

This site runs on the WordPress blogging platform and uses a “Theme” called Connections Reloaded. The theme defines the look and feel of the site. Ajay D’Souza, the creator of this great theme, has just released v1.5 and I have upgraded to that. So far I have spotted no problems and I like all of the improvements. Still have to get my head around these new WordPress Widgets.
Ajay’s announcement with a list of changes is here.

[tags]Connections Reloaded, WordPress Theme[/tags]

In what I hope is the first of many by high-quality food producers in Ireland, Ummera Smoked Products have launched their own blog. You can find it over at ummera.wordpress.com.

Anthony seems really enthusiastic about using technology to enable him to do business more efficiently and I hope my (ahem) multitude of readers encourage him to keep blogging regularly by providing him with constant feedback. The big news on their blog is the new packaging/labelling which is a major improvement and really catches the eye on the shelf. Their products are available in most good foodie outlets, particularly in Cork, so check out the new labels and let him know what you think.

There is also mention on the blog of the new Farmers Market in Kinsale which I’ll have to check out (even tho Earl from “My Name is Earl” now makes me feel like a girl dressed in pink).

Unfortunately, the main person trying to set up a similar market in Bandon died recently. Hopefully someone else involved in food in the area (Clodagh? Padraigín?) will take up the torch. I’d be more than willing to help but my lack of local contacts and the fact that I don’t work in the business means there would be no point in me trying to kick it off.
But in any case, I’m really thrilled that Anthony has leaped into the world of blogging and is at the vanguard of the next generation of food marketing in Ireland. The fact that he is using wordpress.com developed mainly by Donncha from Cork, is just a bonus!
[tags] Ummera, WordPress.com, Irish Food, Kinsale, Farmers Market[/tags]

The ability to search and find information in blog comments has been identified by many “in the know” as one of the bigger challenges in blogland in 2006. But I have a simpler problem – tracking replies to my comments on other peoples blogs. Those who use WordPress and the “Subscribe to Comments” plug-in like me allow commenters to get e-mails when replies are posted. Unfortunately, we are in the minority.

The other day, CoComment was launched to great buzz. Initially I was dubious – why would I go to yet another web-site to find out about replies to things I have written on someones blog? But I was in a hard-of-thinking mode. These guys provide an RSS Feed of replies to your comments.

For non-techies reading this, it means that you have a pseudo-blog which you track in your blog reader (Thunderbird, Bloglines, Rojo etc) and which consists an aggregation of other peoples replies to your comments on yet other peoples blogs.

Once I realised this, I signed up, and now I just click a button in my browser every time I have written a comment. I can then completely forget about what I have written until someone replies and it appears as a new item in my blog reader. Most excellent. This means they can store all of these comments, which means comments will effectively become searchable. Are they going to offer this themselves or wire into Technorati or even Google?
It is invitation-only right now but there are plenty of nice people handing out those invites so it should be easy enough to get sorted.

[tags]coComment, Subscribe-to-Comments[/tags]

Big big thanks to Dirk over at Economy Size Geek. E-mails with picture attachments sent from my Nokia on the Vodafone Ireland network to this blog were not working with his plug-in. He says that the format from Vodafone is crazy. But he got it working! He is an absolute star for putting all of that effort in to get his code working for one user. Now I just need to get a phone that can take decent pictures…

[tags]Wordpress, Postie, Economy Size Geek, Vodafone Ireland, MMS, Nokia 6230[/tags]

Having a look at the Flock browser to see if it is much cop. So far not bowled away at all. This is a test post from its blogging feature. The whole integration thing just isn’t as slick as I was expecting.

More importantly, I have setup the “Subscribe-to-Comments” plug-in. So now if you add a comment, you can get notified by e-mail if someone else replies. It saves you having to constantly re-check. This is the only one of three plug-ins I tested last night which actually worked. That WordPress-Feedburner one in particular just did not want to play ball.

I’m also testing the “Connections Reloaded” theme which is a big revamp of the one I’m using here (Connections). Looks better, has more features and is a lot better under the hood so I may try switching over tonight.

All for now. Gonna be a looooong day.

UPDATE: I don’t like all the HTML crud it inserts all over my bog standard text. I don’t hink I’ll be using it to blog from now on.

technorati tags: flock, subscribe to comments, wordpress

I’ve been using WordPress Categories as sort of generic Technorati tags. When I remember, I add some post-specific actual tags. I haven’t really been that clear on the difference to be honest.

Lorelle has a big posting on it. And I’m still confused!

Top-tip: Don’t try reading anything technical after spending your lunchtime installing Oracle and testing ETL tools. Maybe I shouldn’t try setting up an automated backup of a subversion repository this afternoon after all.

I think I’ll just continue to make it up as I go along on this tagging mularky (malarky, malarchi, mullerky???)

Haven’t found anything I’m entirely happy with yet. Any opinions on this one?