Alexia Blogs

.. to my commenters. I’ve lost some while porting over the export file. XML denies all knowledge despite the interrogations. Sorry. I’ll do my best to right things.

So, I wrote a post yesterday about how licensing content as Creative Commons is good thing. Robert also had a piece about how rights holders ought to think seriously about sharing before they license their work as Creative Commons. My stance hasn’t changed a bit. Sharing is good. I won’t demean the intelligence of rights holders by telling them what to share and what not to share. We all draw the limit somewhere. Knowing where that limit is and sharing still, benefits everyone.

Or does it? I find that some web designers revile Creative Commons, instead of celebrating it. Why? Because some view it (wrongly) as a disruptive force in their business model. Community sharing of graphics and themes is like landing a tonne of pile of bricks outside someone’s house when they want to build an extension. Yes, the raw materials are there, but some serious planning, designing and building needs to be executed. Done with taste and skill. That’s where web designers pop in. The site isn’t a product, rather it’s a side-effect of a web design service. What does it say about the skill-level of a web designer who is scared of Creative Commons? If their business is threatened by the proliferation of free site content, not much. And just to be clear, I speak specifically here on Creative Commons content that is licensed for usage in commercial products.

Wouldn’t clients that dabbled in the past with Creative Commons solutions and have reassessed the professionalism of their web presence, find it much easier to sign-off on improving it by employing web designers? The psychological barrier to entry is lower for them. Good design is not seen as a money-pit, rather as a tangible benefit to their branding story. More business for good designers and great sites for clients. Bad designers sulk in the corner.

It’s awfully nice to see social dinners being kicked off to bring together fresh techie faces around a table. If you are a girl geek and around Dublin next week, Wednesday night the 27th, why not consider coming to the Girl Geek Dinner that Martha is organising. More details here.

Tom is doing some great work organising a blogger dinner in Cork on the eve of the BlogTalk 2008 conference. He’s got some interesting people registered already. Locals, tech heads and a nice mix of international faces too. In Cork on March 2nd, why not go?

Time to bin the well-known relational DBMS model for databases says expert.

Love it. A bus driver is blaming playing the Wii for ‘crippling’ him. Claiming a month of sick leave too.

Ooo - flag burning is no longer a criminal offense in Norway, it appears. Scandinavians are awfully fair-minded

Google Tech Talk with sexpert Violet Blue on how ‘Abstinence Does Not Make the Heart Grow Fonder’

A Northern Chorus ‘Winterize’

They’re back.

Kids in America, get your doodle on Google. Can’t we do something similar here? Perhaps a rude Sandy Kelly doodle for Twenty or something with Ryan in it for Damien.

The Marry-Me iPod Touch, especially for ladies proposing this leap year.

Worldwide pasta shortage on the way?

Suzy watched the boring old IFTA’s like me and spotted yet another Gibson gaff.

Nice NYT piece on charisma and US presidents. Interesting, as we watch Election 08 heat up.

Au Revoir Simone with ‘Dark Halls’. They sound like the Go-Gos with happy keyboards to me.

One of the best parts of interacting in online communities is the way that people produce content and share it. Creative commons licensing of all sorts of digital media really does open doors to kicking off the idea juices of users.

I’ve changed my blog theme thanks to the sharing spirit of the Wordpress theme producers. Yes, I’ve added pieces here and there, but without the sharing process I’d probably still be tearing a little hair out.

So, why not have your designs with the community. Share your snaps on Flickr, your handcrafted Wordpress themes and anything else you’d like to produce. You’re enriching the community. And many more people will see your work.

Full reviews coming of ‘Battle in Seattle’ and ‘There Will Be Blood’ on the way… Such different movies. Completely different.

Nothing to see here. Really. Still in the wars.. Roll on the weekend.

Due to unprecedented demand for seats at the table on March 2nd, Tom Raftery has stepped in to take ownership of this event. It seems everyone going to the BlogTalk conference wants to attend the Blogger dinner. It made sense to change owner of the organisation at this stage. Great for bloggers, great for Cork.

Sorry about the musical chairs, folks. I’ve passed on the list of attendees to Tom. Get in contact with him.

Sign up at the here at the wiki for the Cork Bloggers Dinner.

Us Irish, we’re obsessed with mobile phones. Mobile phone penetration is now estimated at 114% (including all those phones behind radiators or in the couches). Our mobile spend is way ahead of the rest of Europe. So, it’s not surprising to see Irish companies flying the flag over in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress conference. The MWC is the ideal spot for companies to pimp their new gizmos to industry and whet the appetites of gadget zombies.

The Irish contingent include Cubic Telecom, Segala, Mobinode, Relevant M and Ubcam. With the advent of Qik, there’s bound to be lots of live video-blogging streaming live from Barcelona. Qik kings Pat Phelan and Paul Walsh will be behind it, methinks. Why not tune into their streams and get a hand-on-the-pulse report on the conference?