My number one vote went to Gary Mullan: Prosperity. Garry is a great guy and has contributed lot to the IIA in recent years. His company is well recognised in the digital recruitment space and he has been successfully reaching out to the grass roots community for a number of years. Id be delighted to see Garry on the board.

My second Vote went to Bob Curran : Buy4Now. I don’t know Bob personally but I believe that his experience with e-commerce in Ireland would be invaluable to the IIA. There are a number of successfully e-commerce player in Ireland and Buy4Now are one of the industry leaders in this space.

My third vote went to David Walsh: Eircom Business. Again, I don’t know David personally but I have met him at least one of the IIA board meetings. I have wanted to see at least one of the Irish telecoms companies on the board for some time now. I believe with David on the board that we will have a much more direct line of communication (excuse the pun) into the life and sole of the connectivity that powers our industry.

How to vote

Voting is open to all members of the IIA. Each member company’s voting user can cast 4 votes in the Election. When you log in to vote, you will be presented with each of the candidates’ photographs and 100-word bios. These will be arranged in alphabetical order by surname.

The voting system allows your nominated voting users to vote from 9am on 7th Oct – 21st Oct.  If you do not know who your Voting User is please log in to view your company profile. If you need any changes made to your voting user you should email members@iia.ie. If you have forgotten your IIA password you can reset it.

Use your Vote to select the IIA Board ( http://iia.ie/vote/ )

They would appreciate your vote. Please spread the word about the IIA nomination.

When I opened the first bag, it seemed to be really dark roasted. I thought it was a bit strange as one of the ones I ordered was described as medium roast. When I opened the second bag all I could smell was burnt coffee. In my opinion it may have been over roasted.

Last Friday (before 12am), I popped them an email. It was fairly light stuff, I was asking them could there have been an issue with the roast and that it was much darker than I had expected. I heard nothing back from them.

So today I decided to try them both. To be fair, the first one was a bit darker than anything I had tasted in the IFSC. The second one was just discussing. So I decided id tweet about my option. I was still waiting on a reply.

OK, I admit, It was a bit blunt .. but then I get a reply from @BadgerAndDodo on twitter.

I found this really bad form. It seemed like really amazing example of poor customer engagement. They had every opportunity to resolve the issue. After my last experience with poor customer engagement I was cracking up!

I was an advocate of theirs up until 19:04 today. I could forgive them for a bad batch of coffee but I cant forgive them for treating me badly. You can see the fallout on twitter here.. You can also read more feedback from socialmediaexpert.ie ..

After a while, they delete the tweet and then I received this:

Hi Jason,

We take complaints very seriously, investigate every case thoroughly and
do not take your comments lightly. However, we will not merely refund or
replace orders until we can ascertain where the problem is and what went
wrong. I received your email on the Friday afternoon, and although we try
to take some time out on weekends, I had already looked into your issue
... that is, before logging online today and reading your tweet about our
coffee now "being overroasted to shit" and "smelt like crap" - forgive me
if I took this personally !

I found this early public conviction on twitter nasty, unfair and uncalled
for. Yes, I got defensive and got my back up as I am passionate about
quality in coffee and goto great lengths to satisfy customers. I felt
hardly done by as I hadn't been given a fair amount of time to reply to
your complaint. My only mistake was that I didn't email you to let you
know I was on the case.

Our assessment of your email complaint is as follows.

- a roasted coffee bean that will crush under pressure of thumb is not an
indication of it being "over roasted to shit";
- The batch records for both Red Rock and Yirgacheffe indicate that
nothing was wrong;
- That same batch of red Rock went out to various cafe customers, who
report nothing out of the ordinary with the quality of coffee;
- There were no complaints from others who were part of that same batch.

Conclusion: I have done all that I can from our end as per our refund and
returns policy, we ask that you return the coffee for further analysis.
Obviously we will reimburse your card for any out of pocket expenses
should the beans be found to be faulty, and replace your order. From our
own quality control perspective, we need to look into this issue as there
may quite well be an issue with say An post, packaging or who know what -
but we need to determine what went wrong and where.

Regards,

Brock

Its this kind of impersonal crap that gets me so worked up. Jesus, talk about making a bad situation worse. I was about to write a reply and then I decided is just write up a blog post. Was I wrong to share my opinion publicly? Should a company talk to its customs online in this way?

Id love to hear your opinion.

—

Updated: 2nd Feb, I’ve had a bit of time to chill out. In reflection, I may have been out order with the public hanging. The guys in Baddger and DoDo were trying their best to respond given the circumstances. I didn’t like that particular blend.. but each to their own!  Pop over to their website and try for yourself and tell me if I was wrong.

That was almost 2 years ago now, what a Weigh2Live .. So why am I showing you this photo then you might ask? Well, you may or may not notice.. but I’m quite chubby in that photo. To tell the truth, that photo was taken when I was at my heaviest weight. I was topping 23 stone at at Height of 5′ 10. You can do the maths on that one. I hear the BIM calculators ringing in at a morbidly obese level. My god, did it feel morbid!

Just after that photo, I decided to do something about my “extra” weight. When you put it into context, I was almost 2x my recommended weight (11-13 st). Its not like I haven’t tried to control my weight. I’ve been quite broad since I was child. I think at one point or another growing up I tried just about every diet under the sun. It turns out some worked for me and some didn’t. I tried to exercise too and without trying to make excuses, I found that quite difficult.

When I was 17 my weight was at about 19.5 st. At that point in my life it was the highest it had ever been. For the first time I had found something that seemed to work. It was a high protein / low carbohydrate combination with buckets of fats on top. It seemed like a dream diet as you could eat whatever you wanted, you would never feel hungry and the weight just fell off. It was the first time I realised that I had an addiction to carbohydrates and refined sugars.  The diet had some down sides!  Your breath had a horrible smell, eating so much protein without any fiber had side effects and by the end of it I was having palpitations in my heart. So when I got to 17.5 st I stopped, the diet was not sustainable. Life went on and I was content for a while.

Year by year, the pounds crept back on. There is a huge catch 22 when you go over a certain tipping point in terms of weight. You have very little energy, exercise becomes very uncomfortable and dieting is an uphill battle as you are feeding an unquenchable appetite. The normal lines I heard bantered around at the time from friends and family were “Eat well, Stay active, Plan and track your progress”. That’s all well and good, but given I was experiencing the above I found those kind of statements quite unhelpful. My issues is less to do with eating crap food and more to do with the balance of proteins, carbohydrates and sugars.

When I see this Weigh2Live shit from Europe or the government it breaks my heart. I wish they would spend less time insulting people like me and more time informing people about the root causes of our weight epidemic. Why bother spending money creating or reinforcing stereotypes! Its not a bloody safe food campaign… oh wait it is! When are they going to put an advert on the TV that sings the virtues of a wholemeal wrap over a slice of white doorstep bread, informs people about substituting high starch veg with low GI alternatives or explains how to prevent the effects of hypoglycemia. People need support not criticism.

Two years ago I tried the diet again without much success as I couldn’t get the same results. So I went for some help. I heard about a magic pill that fixed everything. It was on prescription and cost a small fortune. I tried it and it did seem to work at the start. I took it on and off for about 6 months. I had six month prescription and I only ended up only taking 1 months supply. It was horrible, the side effects were worse than you could ever imagine and I told nobody! These tables would make any sane person suicidal in 3 easy steps! I turned my life upside down in that year as I quit a well paid job, ended a long term relationship and moved homes. The tablets were later withdrawn from the market as they caused “High blood pressure”.

I had lost 2 stone in the process but it was a high price to pay. I accept that It was a kick start that got me going again but it was the low carb stuff that kept me on track. So I was back to 19.5 st, the same weight as when I was  17. Not bad I thought and Life went on again. You guessed it, the weight started climbing again and stopped at 20.5 when I realised what was going on. I joined a Gym and started to build up my fitness a bit thinking it would level out again. It turns out it didn’t and I quit.

Then earlier last year I ran into some health issues. It was the first time that I had ever felt my weight causing health problems. It turns out I had 2 prolapsed disks in my spine. They were pressing on nerves and and resulted in me being unable to walk without agonizing pain. It started off as a pain in one of my feet. It was like i had twisted my ankle but I hadn’t . Its the kind of thing that would swap from one foot to the other at random. Very scary stuff as I was unable to walk and was rushed into the matter hospital. They thought i might need surgery to fuse some disks in my spine. Shocking stuff. In the end they decided not to. But suggested that I take some pressure off my back. I needed to loose to weight and fix some posture stuff.

So I’m sure we are both stating to see a pattern here. We have identified how to remedy my weight loss issues but we never really addressed the root cause of why the weight creeps back on. My health issues in the fore front of my mind, I wanted to lick this once and for all.

I decided to do a weight management programme. I’m sure you have heard about them on the radio. I’m not going to mention names as that’s not what this post is about. They work on your motivation and look at the underline issues. The “why” and “how” is addressed. So I’m glad to say its working. Its not as fast as my own previous efforts but it feels less detrimental towards my health. You cant help the bad breath but I’ll live with that. I’m back down to 19.5st and have set a goal of 15st. Its been an epic struggle over Christmas but its Okay to drop the ball as long as you pick it up again. I have a long way to go, but at least I’m started down the road. My back pain has reduced and its looking positive on the health front.

I hope someone finds this useful..Maybe you will find a better Weigh2Live from my experiences.

This is me now..

Please excuse the random inserts of Weigh2Live.. I’m sure you can guess why its there.

It’s that time of year .. The Christmas break is over and everyone is getting back to what they do best. By the sound of it, the vast majority of people in Ireland had a miserable Christmas. Between the bad weather, the lack of water and the countries transport grinding to a halt Christmas was bound to be a bit colorful for you in some way or another!

That said, everyone I’ve talked to seems to think 2011 will be a good year.. or at least better than last year.  With all the doom and gloom over the last while, its nice to hear people being so up beat. I have a great feeling about this year!

Before Christmas, I had the pleasure of joining a new coworking space in Dublin called Amworks. The Amworks space has been up and running for about a year now, so its been around a while. If you haven’t heard of the coworking concept before you should pop over to coworking.ie. Its a bit like an office share but on steroids (not in a sweaty body builder way). 

I previously had the pleasure of being involved in the Mount Street coworking space run by the guys at MIP. I left Mount Street after a couple of the guys I had become friends with emigrated. I hung in there for a while but It didn’t have the same vibe for me when they left. Most of the people that are in Mount Street love the place. To top it all off I had a change of direction last year when I decided to take a full time role with a company. It turns out that it didn’t really work out as we weren’t the right fit for each other. I’m glad that I took the role as it put me back on the right course in terms of what I want to do in life. I think this was the jolt in the arm that I needed to look at life in a new light!

So I found my self back doing my own thing again. Its like nothing had really changed, except now I was busier than ever. When I moved apartment last year, we went for a two bedroom apartment in a central location. My plan was to use the extra bedroom as my office and justify the extra cost of a nicer place that way.

It turns out that I found myself back in a situation that I have found myself in time and time again. Anyone who works for themselves will tell you, when you are starting out, one of the toughest things about working for yourself is the sense of isolation. Unless your out on the road all day, chatting with people or something like that you tend to feel the walls are closing in. If your in more of a desk bound situation, its much more difficult to get your social kicks from work.

So I decided to go back to coworking again and Alan from Amworks was keen to have me in the space. So far it’s been a breath of fresh air. The space is fantastic, the people are both passionate and inspiring and the undercurrent is buzzing. If you want to check it out, pop into one of the casual working events called Jelly  that they run every few weeks. There is one this Friday 10am-6:30.. its totally free to attend check it out.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have time (I was making time). What happened was, I started getting a lot negative feedback about the posts.  People didn’t seem to like to hear snippets from my day. I had a ton of people unsubscribe from my email and RSS updates, so I decided to cut my losses and stop.

I started on a bad note by saying I didn’t care about the quality of my posts. That was a big mistake as readers want quality not quantity. I knew this before I started, so I should have listened to that inner voice that said.. “Oi! cop on Jason!”. For some reason the voice sounded a bit like Peter.

Maybe its because myself and Louise had a podcast session in the car on the way back from Cork (*cough* the Kingdom?! or rebel county or something.. ). The session consisted of a mixture of Stuff you should know, Stuff mom never told you and the Sodcast. I have the words “reduce, reuse, recycle” going through my head as I write this ..

So on that note, I’m going to start again.. This time, I’m only going to post once or twice a week. The plan is to cover 365 days but spread it out over a few posts. Hopefully it wont be overkill and I’ll keep the quality up. I’m going to remove all the #BTD stuff too and just put it in the 365 category.

Id love to hear your feedback.

Its that time of year again!

11 days until Movember! Who wants to join the beard.ie team?

All team members will get access to post updates on beard.ie. Its a great way to support men’s health and raise funds for some amazing charity’s !

The team consists of 4 people so far:

• Ian Quigley
• Fergal Byrne
• Leslie Gilmour
• Myself

Pop over and register to join our team! Then pop back here and drop me an email jason @ jasonroe.me

You can also make a donation over here.

My first video cast thing.. check it out and give me feedback in the comments or via email hello@jasonroe.me

BTW on the 29th of July

Dublin milkman

Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest SEO of them all?

Bizcamp Galway

Boards Deals

Dave Davis from Redfly @ Google

Lemonade Film

Oxegen iPhone app

My Oxegen schedule for Sunday

Resilient as ever, I decided to jump back on the self employment horse and get stuck in. The last week has been quite intense. I’ve been spreading the word that I’m back and Ive been blown away with the support. It’s like I never left! It blows my mind, how supportive the community is in Ireland. Everyone just seems to look out for one another and pick each other up when we fall. Its a really refreshing!

So whats coming next?

Well I’m back doing freelance web development, SEO and social media engagement.  I’m actively looking for new and exciting projects. Let me know if you have something in mind. Email hello@jasonroe.me or give me a call on +353 (0)1 485 36 49

I’m also planning a BTW meetup for the end of the month. Peter suggested that it could be the one year anniversary. I haven’t been keeping track as I just do them for fun. An anniversary BTW sounds way better anyway Keep an eye out over the next week as ill be posting up the details. I’m trying to sort out the venue at the moment. The date is provisionally Thursday the 29th July.

A few of us are exploring the idea of running an event for freelancers. The idea is to create an event where people can meet up and chat to other freelancers and self employed people. Its always great to make new connections and find new people to collaborate with. Dena has suggested that we show the lemonade movie. “Lemonade is an inspirational film about 16 advertising professionals who lost their jobs and found their calling, encouraging people to listen to that little voice inside their head that asks, “What if?”” Check it out.

We have a lot of work to get done with the IIA. I hope to get a lot more hands on within the organisation over the next few months.

I’m also exploring the feasibility of a new business. Its strange how you start to get inspired by simple ideas like Dublin Milkman. Before you ask, no I’m not getting into milk. Louise (my better half) is being really supportive and is making sure the plan is rock solid. At the moment, shes the the one and only stake holder. That kind of support is worth more than any cash lump sum!

So that’s all for now. Normal service Resumes.

Comments about the video from Anthony McG:

The Apprentice
The first sketch I wrote was based off the Irish version of The Apprentice. I had aspirations to have it filmed on the actual set and have the real Bill involved but we couldn’t get it sorted in time (although we tried). The majority of filming on both The Apprentice and The Death of Blogging was done in one day around Dublin. We actually only committed to filming The Apprentice after talking to comedian Eric Lalor that afternoon.

The shoot involved Jason Roe joining us to play the role of Brian Purcell, Steph tanning it up to play Jackie Lavin and Niamh playing Bill’s secretary. If your wondering why Eric’s suit jacket is so big then you won’t be suprised to hear that it was actually Jason’s. Jen took us through a number of takes filming the opening couch scene and then the boardroom itself to get the footage she needed. It really came together in the edit with Jen using the voiceover, titles and end really well. Quite happy with how it worked out.

You can view the 6 videos here in full on Youtube.

NAMA (LIMITED EDITION)

Well, it’s started, NAMA has begun the process of bailing out the banks, the first batch of loans bought at a discount of 47% which leaves us with even less. In honour of this we have a special limited edition NAMA tee of our own at a special discount price, yep you guessed it, a whopping 47% off.

PS: I want one!

I received this email today from my house mate Stephen. We live in Christchurch, quite close to a lot of churches. With all the bell ringing, Stephen gets a bit frustrated ! See his mail below:

From: Stephen Kirk
Date: 2009/11/27
Subject: Bell Ringer vacancies
To: Ringingmaster@cccdub.ie

Good Evening,

After listening to a litany of bell ringing from about 19:15 to 21:00 thus far I decided to do a search on Christchurch and noticed your advertising for bell ringers, now I have some objections to this. I appreciate the fine art of bell ringing as much as the next man and under different circumstances I might even be a fan.

However I live on cook street which happens to have a very high density of churches and monastic buildings surrounding it, in fact if it wasn’t for the methadone clinic and the roving bands of junkies and scumbags I’d definitely rate the general cook street/Christchurch area as at least the third holiest place I’ve ever been.

Now to the crux of the problem, I don’t have much of an objection to the the training and appointment of new bell ringers but to the fact that there going to be doing all that bell ringing in such a close vicinity to my ear drums.

Now you may say “Hey wait just a minute now, how can you object to such fine melodies as ‘dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun’”, and I agree it’s quite catchy, but it’s not the quality of the “music” it’s the duration and time at which it’s played, now the hour or so of bell ringing (practice I’m guessing) on a Friday is quite irritating after a week of work, but it’s the barrage of bells at 9:30 on a Sunday morning that are the reason for my thus far understated rage, because I really really like to sleep, it’s right up there with my love of food and I’m guessing your love of bells.

Now I guess I should try come up with some solutions and not just moan through this whole email,

1. Cover your bells in fabric to dull the noise, you get all the fun of pulling on your bells without anyone hearing.

2. Supply me with some sort of super quadruple glazing windows around my apartment, although the neighbours may get jealous and want some too, I’ll keep it just between us if you decide to fit them though.

3. I could use earplugs but they hurt if you keep them in too long, thought I’d just add that to show I’ve give the matter some thought.

4. Perhaps start competing in tug of war with each other while listening to some prerecorded bells noises, it has all the exertion of bell ringing with the noise of bells and the added fun of healthy competition.

5. Practice during the week, if you love bells enough you’ll make the time to get your hands on them.

6. Perhaps purchase some smaller bells they look like they’d be great fun maybe even a tambourine or a triangle, expand your horizons.

7. Now this is slightly related to point 6, take up a real musical instrument!

I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, you are no doubt a bell enthusiast and the idea of round the clock bell ringing in the convenience of your own home is no doubt right now making you salivate, I’m not saying your sexually perverted or anything, it’s not like your a priest (unless you are, although I think Christchurch is a godless protestant church so you may be a vicar), you just really love bells, pulling them, watching them sway back and forth over and over and maybe evening giving your bells a good rub and shine now and again, but you have to see it from my point of view the downsides of bells far outweigh the benefits in this day and age, you see I’ve got this handy thing called a watch so one of the main original purposes of the bell is quite useless to me as at any time of the day i can look at my watch, phone, computer, TV, cooker etc etera etcetera and see the exact time to the second and in some cases the millisecond if I really need that accuracy; your past time is becoming quite outdated, maybe you should take up some extra praying instead I hear it’s great fun.

Oh and in case you didn’t get the subtle humour throughout this email I’m suggesting that your playing with bells so much because you subconsciously love balls.

PS. If it isn’t the Christchurch bells making all the noises, please disregard this email, and point me towards the person I need to introduce to my Hurley.

Best Regards and a Merry Christmas,
Stephen.

*Photo by diathesis

Its been nearly a month since my last blog post! God, time flys.  I have been taking part in Movember for the last month. Movemeber encourages men to grown facial hair, with the aim of raising money for action prostate cancer and the Irish  cancer society. Its a great cause and you can make a donation, I already have about €145.

When I was at Sinéad Keogh’s chocolate party, myself and Rick O’Shea got into a conversation about the “growing” trend in beards. I have no doubt that Movember has kicked off this trend and has given men an excuse to let go and take a break from shaving.

This got us thinking about domain names and to my surprise the first domain name beard.ie was available. On a second glance so was beards.ie, talk about luck! Within 48 hours I had the domain registered and a quick blog up. I rounded up volunteers to on Twitter help out with the site. Within an hour of the request I had rag-tag team willing to help out (Dena Walker, Stephen O’Leary, Fearghal O’Nuallain, Robbie Cousins).

The blog and the idea of a man blog has taken legs and it seems its going in a new and exciting direction. Keep an eye out for new new developments. Check out Beard.ie.

Photo by Steve A

I’ve been neglecting my blog for a little while. Like everyone else, the whole micro blogging thing (@jasonroe) is what has been keeping me going. I’m making a commitment here and now to go back “old school” again and resume blogging. You really cant beat a blog in terms of flexibility. There have been so many occasions where I wanted to write more than 140 characters, but the thought of having to go through the motions bored me to death.

This blog, its identity and who I am has changed a lot since I started blogging. Originally I wanted a place to chat about what I do in work, web design and development stuff. Well who would have guessed, but talking about that stuff after a day in the office bored me to tears. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do but to be honest, I hate talking about work outside of work. I would much prefer to have a good long chat about business than the technical side of what I do.

Now seemed like a better time than any. Those of you who know me personally, will know I have had big changes going on over the last few months. These changes have been personal and work related.  A lot has changed, but hopefully I have gained something from going through the motions! This year has been some ride! With that In mind and a fresh start on the horizon, this blog is going to be changed into a personal blog. Before it was a bit of work and personal, but now anything goes people! In time, Ill set up a work related blog for my Business Spartix Solutions. Keep an eye out for that.

Now I need your help and advice, I need to change the tag line on my blog from “Web Design, Development and SEO Advice” to something a bit more interesting. I’m looking for your suggestions!  Themes include: change, life, events and stuff ill be doing during the net year! LOL so a bit vague.

* Photo by by apesara

About Jason Roe

Jason Roe is an internet consultant specialising in web development, search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media. He has worked in the internet and technology sector for the last six years and has been involved in a number of high profile web development projects such as CRO.ie, Independent.ie and Herald.ie as well as recent social media innovations by Enterprise Ireland.

Jason is a strong advocate of blogging, coworking, and the development of regional events, networking and training opportunities for people in the internet and technology sector. He is active at the grassroots level and is involved in organising BTW (Blogger-Twitter-Whatever) meetups and Bizcamp.ie.

Jason Roe’s aims in running in the 2009 IIA Board election

Jason is a strong advocate of the ‘get out and push’ mentality that the internet community and industry represents. With this in mind, he believes strong leadership and people with innovative new approaches are key to dealing with the challenges IIA members will face during the economic downturn.

In the context of a knowledge economy, Jason believes that the IIA and its members can play a key role in securing the growth of this industry into the future.

Jason’s aim is to get on board with the IIA and facilitate the changes that are required to make this happen.

Issues Jason Roe will address as an IIA board member

If elected, areas that Jason will be paying extra attention to are:

• The encouragement and continued development of regional events, networking and training opportunities for all members.
• The improvement of how IIA members and the benefits of membership of the IIA are  promoted.
• Enhanced communication with enterprise boards, local chambers of commerce and government bodies such as Enterprise Ireland and the IDA.
• Equipping members with the tools and opportunities to achieve international growth and to help them to ‘think outside of the box’ in terms of international exports.
• Leveraging the strengths of other organisations, both domestic and international, to benefit IIA members.
• Creating opportunities for micro sponsorship to facilitate new marketing opportunities for all members, including start-ups.

How to vote

Voting is open to all members of the IIA. Each member company’s voting user can cast 5 votes in the Election. When you log in to vote, you will be presented with each of the candidates’ photographs and 100-word bios. These will be arranged in alphabetical order by surname.

The voting system allows your nominated voting users to vote from 9am on Friday 17th July until 5pm on July 30th.  If you do not know who your Voting User is please log in to view your company profile. If you need any changes made to your voting user you should email board2009@iia.ie. If you have forgotten your IIA password you can reset it.

Use your Vote to select the IIA Board ( http://iia.ie/vote/ )

I would appreciate your vote. Please spread the word about my IIA nomination.

Jason Roe,
www.jason-roe.com

–

Comments are closed, feedback can be sent to jason@jason-roe.com. You can also contact me direct via phone on 01 485 36 49

I’m sure you have probably all heard about this by now.. It seems there was a bit of a burn out going on over at boards.ie yesterday in the bargain alerts forum.

Littlewood Ireland aka Shop Direct Ireland Limited had advertised a “Compaq mini desktop with 21.5in monitor”  for €69.99 on their website. 34 pages later, it seemed like the little wood had all but gone up in flames! It turned out that this “bargain” was actually a pricing error on the part of Shop Direct.

It looks like all of the order have now been canceled. I’m no consumer expert! but id love to know what you think about this.  Is it fair for a companies terms & conditions to allow this kind of thing to happen?

There are some unconfirmed reports that suggest that a number of users received their item by phoning up and switching to express delivery.

I filed a complaint with the national consumer agency. Let see what they have to say. I cant see how €549 turned into €69 .. is this a case of false advertising?

* Photo by millicent_bystander.

The pitch:

Up until this morning TDs made 249,489 speeches, and asked 160,503 questions which received written responses. On average, TDs are producing 507 speeches and 326 written answers per sitting day.

Sadly you won’t have had access to information like this before, since the Houses of the Oireachtas publishes the Dáil record primarily on an illegible website ridden with elementary display errors.

At KildareStreet.com you can:

• Read a dramatically-more-legible version of the Dáil Record going back to January 2004,
• Search that record using a fabulous search engine which I didn’t
  write – you can restrict searches to speeches or written questions, or
  by speaker, or by date or date range,
• Sign up for email alerts for when a search query you’re interested
  changes, or whenever a TD of your choosing says something or asks a
  question which generated a written reply, and
• Subscribe to RSS feeds for individual TDs or for search queries.

The site will be updated the day after each sitting day shortly after the Oireachtas publishes that day’s first report version in XML. RSS feeds and emails are generated shortly after that.

John notes, that the site still contains bugs.. so be careful about jumping to early conclusions

The Dáil has now really gone web 2.0, with a bang!!

ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.

Scribefire Review – Blog Application

Speakers include Facebook – speaking at the largest Internet industry event in Ireland to date – Google, dotMobi and Realex Payments. Id be up for going to Ronan Harris’s (Google) talk on Analytics and Conversion tracking. Colm Long from Facebook is another one to watch out for.

The guys at the IIA have offered my readers a 20% discount for the event. (That includes members and non members). We all love saving a few quid.

To avail of this enter the code “ cong004 ” book by the 17th April (Tomorrow) to avail of the early bird price.

11.40am – Ronan Harris – Online Sales & Operations Director, Google, will examine the role Analytics and Conversion Tracking plays in getting far better results online.

As Director of Online Sales and Operations, Ronan drives Google’s online sales and account management for advertisers across EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
Ronan began his career by earning a degree in electronic engineering at University College Dublin, from where he was recruited by Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation to work at their Information Storage Products division in Japan.  He went on to spend 9 years in Japan working in consulting and technology, and returned to Ireland in 2001 to work in private equity before joining Google.

12.20pm – Colm Long – Director of Online Operations, Facebook, will detail how Irish businesses can use Facebook’s platform to connect with new customers and maximize their return on investment in online advertising.

Colm joined Facebook as Director of Online Operations in January 2009, leading online operations and sales at its EMEA headquarters, which has just opened in Dublin.Previously, Colm worked in senior positions at Barclaycard International and French online stockbroker,  Self Trade. A native of Derry, Northern Ireland, Colm earned a bachelor’s degree in Applied Linguistics from University of Brighton.

I’m loving this! Check out what the guy’s from Made In Hollywood sent me today, a Lunatic Bloggers polystyrene sculpture in the shape of an aeroplane.

I’m surprised that no one has blogged this yet! IQ Content have announced a “Dans le merde” €10,000 prize for the best business plan for a web app.

In his “Yet another web app or successful business?” talk Morgan compared Ireland of 1977 with the Ireland of 2009. As in 1977 Ireland is currently “dans le merde”. But at iQ Content we’re not interested in adding to all the bad news. We want to tell a better story. Better for everyone. Better for Ireland.

This is why we’ve announced the iQ Prize. What is it? It’s €10,000 for the best business plan for a web app.

Morgan’s speech was truly inspiring! iQ deserve a lot of respect for their contribution to the web community. I’ve always been a huge fan of iQ content, but even more so now. Good on you guys! I’m even tempted to submit one of my own

Please pass this message on! Re-tweet, Re-blog .. whatever .. just get out and push for this one!

wings by dine photo by c’est pas du gâteau

As part of my patriotic duty as an Irish citizen, I would humbly like to invite every possible tourist (with a bit of Irish in them) back to Ireland for paddy’s day (17th March) . After all, where better to experience an authentic Irish festival then in Ireland. Now would be an ideal time to book a cheap flight and affordable accommodation. So why not drum up a bit of support and pass this on to everyone you know!

Check out the Irish St Patrick’s Festival (12th-17th March) and pix.ie for more info (also thank the pix.ie Sponsor, Canon) . You can follow paddy’s day via twitter at @stpatricksfest

What better way to do that, but to post up your review of the hotel on Trip Advisor ( http://short.ie/cia-hotel ) and on Louder Voice.  After all,  they did practically let us take over the hotel for a night! Id personally like to say a big thank-you to all the staff who put up with us.

Make sure to pass on this message and feel free to re-blog / repost. I think they really made us all feel welcome!!

Also .. Say a big thanks to @rickoshea – vote for him in the Meteor Awards – all you have to do is click here: http://short.ie/vote4rick

BIG hello to all the Ryanair staff

I worked out what had triggered this series of events. While trying to avoid the dreaded Ryanair credit card charges, I jumped into the Ryanair Voucher section. There are no card charges on vouchers, so it can be a good way to avoid extra fees.

At the same time I had the booking window open on the Services section of the booking. When I went back to the Confirm / Select page all the prices had changed to 0.00.

Pass this on!! .. See you all on Saturday at the Irish Blog Awards!!

CLARIFICATION: I did not claim to complete the booking process for a free flight. I found a bug that showed a 0.00 price listed beside a flight. Orders could not go past the passenger details page.  See the less than constructive comments left by Ryanair staff below.

Update: I have changed the title from “FREE” to 0.00.

I’m loving this! Check out what the guy’s from Made In Hollywood sent me today!

PS: Pass this on to any freelancers looking for space.

Ballpark prices are €250-€350 per person all inclusive. Hot desks prices not yet defined.

Email: jason.roe@gmail.com or phone 087 94 80 532.

I didn’t make the short long list   .. FAIL! but coworking.ie did make it…

Pop on over to the facebook page and make sure to Invite your friends to join.

I’m not too sure about the Candlelit Vigil bit, maybe that’s to keep people warm?

We hope to do another official meet-up on the 16th of Jan, more details to follow. That said, I will be meeting up with people some time in Dec too. Invite only, sorry guys!

On another note, as the Geansai Gorm competition is nearing a close, bluejumperireland.com has joined forces with the recently banned bluejumperirish.com site (in an attempt to pool some link juice resources). Also, as part of our newly invented blogger foreign exchange programme.. I will be joining in as one of the first contributors on “This Week on Irish Blogs” from Roger Galligan (aka IrishBlogs.ie)

The agency was set up last June by Fiona Roche, publicity manager for Lillie’s Bordello and the Porterhouse Group along with her business partner, photographer, Darren Butler. So far they have signed up 35 models, many of whom are well known in Ireland and a number of whom have featured on the international circuit.

The launch event, at Dakota in South William Street, starts at 7pm with cocktails and canapés and continues with a glittering display of designer labels by ten of the agency’s leading models.

Back to the calling on fashion / entertainment bloggers. If any of you fancy any invite to this exclusive event please let me know.

It has been suggested that we go for food, followed by drinks. As a bonus, I have some freebies from WordPress via @donncha to give away (badges and stickers).

If you are interested, drop me an email on jason@jason-roe.com or Leave a comment below.

So far @lexia, Darragh, @czajkowski @mcawilliams, Alan O’Rourke , Elly Parker, Dave Davis, Justin Mason,  Niall Kitson, Anthony,@forbairt @PixieVonDust @TheChrisD @prendio2 @dan.oneill, Neil , Marie and  starfire are on board.. If i missed anyone please drop me a comment..

UPDATED PLAN

The plan is to meet up at the Porter House central from 6pm on Thursday 27th. (PH central located at the bottom of grafton street, across from the molly malone statue).  We will get food, drinks and have our chats. After this (maybe 8:30/9pm ish) we might move on to Soundcheck, South William Street. It seems that Rick O’Shea is doing a DJ thing, we shall be acting as a rent a mob! – the rent

PS: I have approched a sponsor to give us some free drinks and/or food for the night. More info to come laters. Sponsor is a no show! May I suggest that everyone must to buy me 1 pint, per person, per hour

I would also really appreciated if anyone attending could slap up a blog post / and or tweet about this!

View Larger Map

On another note Geansai Gorm has been launched by Damien Mulley, its basically a S E O competition to see who can rank for the term Geansai Gorm also known as Geansaí Gorm and can be translated from Irish to blue jumper.

My Gorm entry had some issues because of DNS problems. The site is not showing up yet and was only verified yesterday evening after the DNS holding page expired from googles DNS cache. Take a look at Google for the upcoming pages.

I will be there on the night with Carol Sweeny representing the Independent Digital Team. Pop over to us and have a chat .. my mug shot is over here (No, I couldn’t find a better photo!).

PS: thanks to Justins post for reminding me to blog this.

I added support for vodafone.ie free texts. You can now receive a SMS message (via vodafone.ie free text) when someone sends you a reply or direct message.

Try out the plugin and let us  know what you think!

J.

So going for FREE are the following gems.. Please drop me a comment or contact me.

Special Edition Using Linux®, Sixth Edition by David Bandel; Robert Napier – isbn 0789725436 – http://my.safaribooksonline.com/0789725436

This latest version of Special Edition Using Linux shows how to install, configure, use, and network the latest generation of freeware Linux operating systems. The authors focus mostly on the freeware version of Red Hat Linux 5.1, though Caldera OpenLinux 1.2 and other popular distributions also receive attention.

Networking for Dummies by Doug Lowe -ISBN 0764507729 (Would be a great piss take!)

http://lincolnbookfest.bookcrossing.com/isbn/0764507729

no computer stands alone. Whether you want to hook up to the Internet, set up a business network, or have your home PCs work together, this book will help.

“Networking For Dummies,” 5th Edition provides valuable updates on the latest tools and trends in networking including Windows 2000, NetWare 5.1, Linux 6.2, and home networking.
Learn C Now (Paperback) by Augie Hansen – isbn 1556151306

http://www.amazon.com/Learn-C-Now-Augie-Hansen/dp/1556151306

E-business (R)evolution, The (Paperback) – ISBN 013085123x

http://www.amazon.com/E-business-R-evolution-Daniel-Amor/dp/013085123X

Presents the complete executive briefing on all aspects of e-business, including e-commerce. Discusses planning and implementation techniques that work, marketing, transactions, and legal issues; avoiding the pitfalls, and portals, search engines, and online community-building. Softcover. DLC: Electronic commerce.

Developing Microsoft Excel 95 Solutions: With Visual Basic for Applications (Paperback) by Eric Wells (Author) – ISBN 1556158939

http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Microsoft-Excel-Solutions-Applications/dp/1556158939

Corel LINUX OS Starter Kit: The Official Guide – Joseph Merlino ISBN 0072124598

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1175747797&searchurl=isbn%3D0072124598

Windows Nt Server 4 Security Handbook (Paperback) by Lee Hadfield (Author), David Hatter (Author), Dave Bixler (Author) ISBN 078971213x

The only book on the market on security alone, Windows NT Server Security Handbook teaches administrators not only how to build a secure NT-based network but also how to add NT to NetWare and UNIX networks. – Covers all the facets of designing, administering and enhancing a secure NT Server

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Nt-Server-Security-Handbook/dp/078971213X

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DAMNATIONS [IMPORT] (Paperback) ISBN  0099498812

http://www.amazon.com/ONE-HUNDRED-DAMNATIONS-ANDREW-HARMAN/dp/0099498812

Soul Music (Discworld Novel) (Paperback) – ISBN  0552140295

Start Your Own Business – Suggested Reference Books ISBN 1860762670

http://www.dublincity.ie/RecreationandCulture/libraries/Library%20Services/Business_Information/Pages/business_books.aspx

Norway (Country Guide) (Paperback) ISBN 1740595203

http://www.amazon.com/Norway-Country-Guide-Anthony-Ham/dp/1740595203

Well that may or may not be true, but I thought it would be an intresting post. Being honest, Im not sure why this came into my head today.

There are some people online who I would like to say thanks to…

This list in no paticular order.

I first met Laura aka @czajkowski at Skycon down in Limerick some time back. A while ago she helped my find an N95 via #linux, Thanks! PS: she also introduced me to pear cider…

I contacted James Corbett aka @EirePreneur out of the blue in relation to coworking. He was one of many people I randomly emailed asking for some help with the project. Thankfully he accepted the request with open arms. When we last checked the site has over 150 active memebers (real people based on our coworking survey). Since then, we have watched the spawning of a number of coworking locations within Ireland. Without people like James and others this may never have happened. Thanks!

From what I remember, I met Damien Mulley via Michele Neylon god knows how long ago. Hes always been a straight shooting no nonsense kinda guy. Via the blog awards, Damien donated 1000 euro of the procedes to st francis hospice (my charity of choice). Thanks dude, a lot more than I ever expected!

Michele Neylon and all his crew in blacknight have kept me a float hosting wise for the last 5 years or more. I may just be a client, but it never feels like that with these guys. As Dave Davis always says, “they are one of the good guys”.

Feel free to pass this blogish gesture on to someone else.. Its good to say thanks.