A hug from Innocent Smoothies on a rainy afternoon

It's the little things like this video that innocent drinks posted that can turn a day around...

I'm a self confessed innocent smoothies addict. I read their blog, get their newsletter and drink their drinks. I could have done with one today (no time) but they posted this today in their daily thoughts and it's almost as good (in a virtual kind of way).



Can't help but wonder if it would work in Dublin though? Would (could) you dare??

There'll be no excuse for not knowing

Bebo and Twitter taking over my life...

I read today in the ever informative Silicon Republic that Bebo is going mobile.

Between them and Twitter, pretty soon only "I couldn't get online" will be my only excuse for not knowing what my (online) friends are up to...

Serious Fun with Bandanas to be had May 12th

On Sunday May 12th, grab a Bandana for Barretstown and have Serious Fun.







This year's Serious Fun Day for Barretstown should see something a bit different to the usual pins and flowers and ribbons and wristbands on the streets. There's a Barretstown Bandana!

Barretstown are hoping to raise €100,000 on the day to bring more kids with cancer and other serious illness to the castle. The bandanas are on sale in Smyths Toystores from April 28th.

It's a very visible way of showing support for one of the most deserving children's charities I've ever had the pleasure of being involved with. Bit of (serious) fun too!

At only €2.00 each, buying one is a great way to ensure that children from Ireland, the UK and 21 European countries can continue to have fun at that magical place.

You can order a box of 50 for your office or workplace by calling +353 (0)45 864 115 or emailing serious.fun@barretstown.org.

Each year there are 12,000 new cases of childhood cancer in Europe. Barretstown can currently help up to 1,600 children with serious illnesses and family members each year. And boy, do they help! The results are evident.

Just to maintain these numbers, they have to raise €5 million each year and 96% of this money comes from companies and individuals. Every little bit helps.

I'll definitely be wearing one or two. And buying them for friends... and strangers...

Would you be bothered twittering on?

Twitter: now you can see EXACTLY what I'm thinking (when (and if) I post it).

This whole Interweb 2.0 is great. Thanks to Bebo, I can see how Orla's doing in Australia, thanks to Flickr I can share my photos and see other friends' ones, I can catch up with people on Vox.com, thanks to Yahoo answers I can find out things like this, thanks to netvibes I can have my own homepage almost the way I want it and thanks to Last.fm I can groove while writing this (as Stephen so kindly put it) "waffle".

Twitter.com takes the waffle part to the next level. It's people's thoughts as they post them from around the world. I'd heard about it but Donncha joining up made me go and have a look...

Here's a really good post for newcomers about it. So it's people doing what people used to do way back in the day when blogs were weblogs. Enter text. Hit submit. It's a stripped down version of Bebo and My Space and it lets you see where your friends are and what they're doing - if they post. If they can be bothered. I have. Not sure if I will again though...

Twittervision helps you follow them around on Google Maps. "Interesting" is probably not the exact word I'd use, but from a web 2.0 angle you have to give it to them - they're certainly connecting the world!

So here I am... another page with my name on it. What am I doing now? Posting on Twitter that I've posted this here of course...

Personality tests taken to the next level

According to my VisualDNA™ I'm a go getting escape artist love bug apparently!

Way back in the day I remember a certain delight in those emails that you'd fill in honestly from 1 to 52 with your colours and so on and then scroll down to see what they meant.

Then came the online tests, which had a certain appeal for me but I could never find a good one I agreed with (or was happy to share with anyone else).

And today I've tried this test and got my results. Not a bad summation and fun to do as well.

Given all the recent talk about online profiles damaging career prospects, I hope this personality test just highlights my good points (assuming I have any at all...)

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

"They have all the best land and all the best jobs"

Langerland.com - coming soon to a TV screen near you!

Delighted to hear that the genius folk over at Langerland.com have been commissioned for a TV series. Another great example of web based creativity crossing the divide into "mainstream media" - by which I mean a form my folks have a chance of seeing.

I hadn't realised I'd been working with the main designer of the extremely funny cartoons - I think he was a bit scared by how enthusiastically I quoted certain lines...

When we were over in London, this cartoon came out and became a staple view, with both the English and Irish laughing at it - or maybe the English just laughing at us laughing at it.

It's a distinctly Irish humour - thankfully. All too rare on good sites today.

They're hiring at the moment. I'm emailing now to see if they need a bastardised Kilkenny-Dublin-years-of-elecution hybrid voice over for any of their features...

Joost a little note about Internet TV

Beta to test now and improve than sign up too late and complain...

I'd heard the buzz about Joost a while ago, but have signed up to be an official beta tester. Admittedly they sent me the invite a while ago but only got around to downloading it today.

Apparently, Joost™ is a new way of watching TV on the internet, which "uses new and established technologies to provide the best of both the internet and TV worlds".

Sounds interesting. I shall post more when I know more...

I ran into an old colleague recently who is now with O2 and he showed me their new mobile TV sets. The picture quality was fantastic, the handset quite like the Nokia NGage and I'm sure there'll be a market for it.

Personally though I'm waiting for a big wireless broadband improvement in Dublin which means I can use sites like Go Fish or YouTube and when I'm in a conversation and say (as I am too prone to doing) "Ah there's a great clip online to show that" I can show them no matter where I am...

Bring on the iPhone!

Where else would you get it?

I just wanna dance - more creativity from the monkeys with typewriters...

I've always loved the uniqueness of the web, in that people do/create/share things on here that have never been done or possible to do before and that realistically we may not have ever heard about.

It's only online I'd have seen this video from Avenue Q, read these unintentionally funny comic strips and watched the amazing Hunter Hayes perform "something called Jambalaya" - all well worth a look!

I suppose there are both positive and potentially negative aspects, but overall it's a real treat to see something "cool" or to share someone's love of what they've found. It used to be butterflies and rhyming cadences, now it's generally YouTube videos.

When Steve sent me this link I visited straight away. He only sends me good stuff. While I may not share his effusive enthusiasm about it, here again is something that can only have been shared online, on YouTube (I shudder to think about the copyright complexities on this one) and was also done by someone with obvious passion for what they do. I wish I had the creativity.

It was originally created for a background screen at Gay Pride, but sure if you weren't there you wouldn't have seen it...

Definitely not one for the kids (contains an expletive) and probably not for office loud speakers. The song was never commercially released (understandable but a pity) but this made me question all the recent controversy about You Tube copyright. If we could use more stuff like this legally - and appropriately - where would people's creativity take us?