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Back in early 2008 myself and Eoghan O’Brien ran RagRadio. The setup consisted of a PC for playing music, two CD decks, 3 stage mics and a mixing desk. We took the mixer output and ran it into a laptop which encoded it, shipped it off to Icecast and broadcast our little radio station to the Internet. It was during Rag week and we interviewed a few bands who were floating around; Fred, The Saw Doctor’s and Messiah J.

We peaked at about 24 concurrent listeners and averaged 6 if memory serves.

I fell in love, ian – The Internet Audio Network was founded. That summer I went to the US on a J1. Armed with my iRiver and a borrowed SM-57 I took off on an interview hunt. With the ian domain registered and a stack of business cards I attended HOPE and DEFCON, as a member of the press. Through sheer brass neck I landed a few interviews, including the only press interview at DEFCON that year with the team captain of the winning capture the flag team.

When I came back to Limerick I bought a Zoom H4 for ian. I traveled to 25c3 and FOSDEM ‘09 on a determined content hunt. The game was on.

Last summer the semblance of a website came together and a podcast started: ITFreely. It was recorded over Skype with Gareth, Joe and Patrick. We had no idea what we were doing but had one rule: keep it under half an hour. The first two shows were an amazing shambles, they’re not going public (maybe for a year anniversary or Christmas Special bonus show).

While all this tech oriented content chasing was going on a second itch presented itself to me – the music business. I set out to find musicians to interview.

My interest here was in the future of the music industry, how piracy is really affecting music, and what an upcoming artist should brace themselves for. I got into the VIP area of Oxegen, was at the debut single launch of an Irish pop band, traveled to London to interview an Israeli outfit in the Ministry of Sound, and had a smattering of back-stage chat’s. Neck and business cards.

As I was coming to NUIG in September I contacted the local campus radio station – FlirtFM. I secured two half hour FM shows, off the back of the content I had put online. ITFreely ported from a collection of bedroom’s to a modern studio broadcast over the FM (at 12:30pm on Wednesdays, just so you know). Joe took a work related sabbatical and Gareth started a night course in Law, so myself and Patrick were joined by Shane Tuohy, Niall Campbell and Andy Regan.

Niall joins me on the second show to talk about rights, lawsuits and piracy from a Music point of view, we call the show Talk Like A Pirate. Unfortunately as we include copy-righted music in the show we can’t freely distribute it online, or Podcast it, but you can tune into the web-stream live (Tuesdays at 12:30pm).

In the last few week’s we’ve really started to settle into a groove with ITFreely. We’ve tried to concentrate less on opinion and comment, and more on original research. We’ve had Lecturers on the show, representatives from companies and organisation’s, started to do live streaming of the pre-record sessions, set up IRC channels for live feedback during the show, got onto iTunes, and set up a Facebook group and Twitter feed to keep in contact with you. We even got some intro music.

We’re learning production values the hard way, through trial and error. We’re getting there, but we’re a long way off before ITFreely become’s the show it could be. We want to bring you a though provoking and interesting weekly show about some aspect of Irish or Global Tech.

This is where we need your help. We need you to let us know when the show is dull and what just isn’t working. We’ll post a laptop sticker to anyone who give us some feedback, leaves us a comment or sends us a mail (any good economist will tell you that humans are incentive driven).

So check out our back catalogue, sign up to the mailing list, and most importantly, let us know what you think.

We’re out of our public Alpha. We’re entering our public Beta. Hop on board.

I own a Blackberry Storm (9500) and my dad has a Curve (8900). Both phones allow you to turn off data when roaming (Manage Connections -> Mobile Network Options -> Data Services), so that you don’t rack up expensive data charges (useful, I’m told, in places like Switzerland). However, this means you don’t get your e-mail.

The Curve has 802.11 b/g (Wi-Fi), but we were having trouble connecting to AP’s. It turns out that by turning off data for the Cell part of the phone, you turn off data for the whole device, meaning that the phone will never get an IP address, even with DHCP off (and manually assigning a valid static IP).

So, to get your Email (and other data apps that support Wi-Fi) working abroad follow these steps:

1. Turn OFF data, go to another country
2. When you want to check your mail, turn OFF the Mobile network
3. Turn ON Wifi
4. Turn ON Data
5. Scan for a Wi-Fi network and associate with it
6. Get your mail
7. Turn OFF Data
8. Turn OFF Wi-Fi
9. Turn ON Mobile network

The “Data Services” option should only turn off data transmissions over the Mobile network, not disable the IP stack (which I think it may be doing). Hopefully this bug is fixed in OS 5, I’ve not tried it yet.

I organised a panel for HAR2009 on Organising a Con. The recordings are up (Video: OGV, MP4; Audio: MP3).

It was a great airing ground on starting and running a con, on both ends of the size scale. Topics covered included money, volunteers, speakers, AV, location, t-shirts, event insurance, delegation, social aspects and sleeplessness.

Anyone interested in running a con (new or existing) should take a look to pick up tips from people who’ve seen the challenges and share their insights on how to clear the hurdles.

Those sitting on the panel were:

• Emmanuel Goldstein (H.O.P.E., Hacker con, NYC – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• Rop Gonggrijp (GHP, HEU, HIP, HAL, WTH, Dutch Hacker Camps, The Netherlands – Wikipedia)
• Andreas Kupfer (FrOSCon, Free/Open Source Con, Germany – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• Philip Paeps (FOSDEM, Free/Open Source Developer Meeting, Belgium – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• Stuart Langridge (Lugradio Live, Linux/Free Software con, UK & US – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• David “h1kari” Hulton (ToorCon, Information Security con/camp, San Diego – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• Esther Schneeweisz (PlumberCon, Hacker con, Austria – Homepage)
• Christian van den Bosch (SotM, Open Street Map con, UK, Ireland, The Netherlands – Homepage)
• Travis Goodspeed (Neighborcon, Con-in-a-Bar, US – Homepage)
• David Dolphin (Skycon, University society con, Ireland – Homepage)

I’ve just realised, in all the Skycon ‘09 bustle, I never said thank you to anyone. So, here goes.

First off I’d like to thank my committee, without them it would have all been a scattered mess. They are Eoghan O’Brien, Gavin Fitzgerald, John Flanagan, Mark Brennan, and Mark Kohls. Each had their own jobs which they pulled off incredibly well, and I’m very glad to have worked with them as a team.

I’d like to say a big thank you to all our speakers, who made the weekend what it was. They are Alan J. Guinane, Christian van den Bosch, Ciarán Maher, David Malone, Eoin McLoughlin, Evert Bopp, Jeff Gough, John Lunney, Lorraine Morgan, Martha Rotter, Mel Gorman, Neil Fahey, and Randall Munroe.

Next up are the various groups who sponsored Skycon ‘09. Without their support there is no way we could have done it. The groups are, AIB, Microsoft, The University of Limerick Computer Science and Information Systems Department, and The University of Limerick Sports and Arts Fund.

I’d like to thank the people who worked behind the scenes to make sure everything flowed smoothly; Paul Lee for his assistance, patience and motivation, Annette McElligott for offering us the use of the CSIS building, the staff in the Kilmurry Lodge Hotel, who accommodated us perfectly, ULTV for recording the two tracks, and John the CSIS porter.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped publicise Skycon ‘09; Gareth Eason and Joe Johnson who wrote blog posts promoting the event, Niall Campbell who managed our Facebook group, and all the people who twittered about skycon.

A special thanks to Sarah Ní Riain for her awesome xkcd cake. Sarah, you rock.

Thank you to everyone for coming, particularly those who travelled to Limerick for the event. It was great to catch up with some old friends and make news one too.

All in all the day was alot of fun, to both organise and attend, and I look forward to the next Skycon.

P.S. colmmac has some great photos up on flickr.

P.P.S. I’ve posted the Table Quiz that accompanied the meal.

Christmas was a sleepless affair this year (thanks lenny).

I left home shortly after 03:00 to catch a 03:30 bus. Hugh arrived in the airport shortly after I did, wondering if security would accept a boarding pass scribbled on the back of an exam paper (the printer was out of paper and ink). The flight flew by, mainly due to my comatose state.

The hostel we’re staying in (Heart of Gold Hostel – Berlin, in reference to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) is superb; the staff are friendly, movies on a projector, beds for €15 a night, beer on tap all night. How bad?

We called around to the BCC late in the afternoon to pick up tickets early, to avoid tomorrows queues. We met Mitch and went for dinner in a great, cheap Thai place, which had buckets of vegetarian options.

I’ve made a point of talking very little about the people I’ve met at previous conferences, out of respect for their privacy.

I remember one of the press rules at Defcon was that should a human want to attend anonymously then they should be free to do so. Defcon will not take your name or ask for ID. All participants are asked to respect all other participants, nobody should capture any other humans attribute without that humans express permission. So, no photos unless you get permission from everyone in the frame, no audio/video recordings unless every human recorded has given permission to be recorded. A quiet room is provided for recordings. Speakers are generally excluded from this privacy amnesty, they’ll generally already be associated with the con due to being a speaker. Just don’t harass the speakers.

I remember hearing stories from old Defcons where if a flash went off people would come over to you and insist the photo was deleted/film destroyed.

Despite the cons tagline being “nothing to hide” these people are very serious about the security of personal information relating to them and privacy too. With good reason

Looking back, nothing remarkable happened on the Week of the 21st. I worked a lot. That’s about it. I settled into a groove. Got frustrated with a tourist (he was taking way too long to order… over 20 seconds *grin*) and gave some more directions.

On the Weekend of the 25th artemis’ brother came down to NY again. On the Friday night we hit the Mars Bar (which ended with me sleeping on the couch again) and on Saturday we went to a very expensive nightclub, Marquee. It was the first time I’ve seen a $9,000 bottle of champagne on sale.

Was also at Ignite NYC on the 29th where I met up with Gus again. Unfortunately it was held in a club and so artemis was turned away for not having ID. The worthwhile talks were:

• Jessica Bruder (author, journalist-at-large) – How to be an Undercover Hooker (reprising her talk on taking an NYPD course)
• Rose White (Yarnivore) – Weird and wonderful knitting — graffiti and science and art combined!
• Audacia Ray (Village Voice’s Naked City) – Porn as a front runner in technology innovations
• Natalie Jeremijenko (NYU XDesign) – A bomb shelter for the climate crisis
• Dustyn Roberts (NYU’s ITP, Honeybee Robotics) – Flying High with Engineers Without Borders (on building a Kite Aerial Photography rig for mapping in Kenya)
• Limor Fried (ladyada) & Phillip Torrone (Make & Citizen Engineer) – Open source hardware, hacking SIM cards, modding a payphone for fun and for profit.
• Nick Bilton (NY Times, NYC Resistor) – The Future of News

I took a trip up to Toronto to visit sith on the 1st of August. I went up the CN tower with its scary glass floor, explored the brewery region, had two very nice meals and saw the Farmers Market. I also had lunch a few weeks later with sith in the Wild Onion on his trip around Ireland.

The following week I prepared myself for a trip to Las Vegas for DEFCON 16. I had an awesome time at DEFCON, met loads of interesting people and had a great time. If I had to choose between DEFCON and H.O.P.E. I’d pick DEFCON. While H.O.P.E. may have had better talks/speakers, DEFCON was amazing socially. The parties were awesome and the after parties back in hotel rooms were full of the most interesting conversations I’ve had in years. I also went to see Penn&Teller and The Blue Man Group.

Billy arrived in NY the week after DEFCON. The same week my family had their passports stolen in Spain, within hours of landing in the country. They were in my Dads Laptop bag, his laptop, my sisters phone and camera and all the families passports were stolen from the rental car at a motorway service station while they were inside getting something to eat. They eventually got temporary single use passports from a consulate and were able to get home.

I went to see Regina Spektor in McCarren Pool, supported by Albert Hammond Junior. There are several videos of the Gig up on Youtube. I heard a bunch of new songs and songs I hadn’t heard before. The highlight for me were Poor Little Rich Boy, Ghost of Corporate Future and a beatbox version of Hotel Song.

I came back to Limerick the following week. Overall I feel that my time in New York was very worthwhile. With 24hour public transport and food available almost as regularly the city feels like an extension of a college campus. As a knock on effect it is possible that offices don’t have closing times, and so often all-nighters were pulled as deadlines approached. People in New York live so they can work, not work so they can live.

I helped polarice pack Skynet flyers into Orientation packs. I showed three groups around the college durring Orientation week, Woodwork, Law & Accounting and Ethnochoreology students. All groups were great and I wish them the best of luck in UL.

My update frequency has gone down in the last few weeks, mostly because I’ve been busy working and doing real life stuff.

I travelled to Washington, DC on the weekend of the 11^th. I discovered the hard way that if you show up 20 minutes before a train is about to leave in the US, you’ll pay $400 for a return ticket.

Washington is a nice city to see. It some great free museums, a clean Subway and a few nifty landmarks. Despite this it’s still hotter than NYC and will cause dehydration if you stay outside for any length of time.

I visited The White House, The Lincon Memorial, The Smithsonian Institute (which contained a Jim Henson exhibit) and the National Air and Space Museum. Fun was had in all places and I’d like to spend more time in the Air&Space Museum.

On Saturday evening I witnessed my first baseball game. I wasn’t particularly impressed. The Astros (2nd worst team) played the Nationals (the worst team) in the poorer of the two leagues. It seemed that the crowd had to be engaged at every possible moment, if things dulled down on the pitch the crowd were instructed to clap, cheer, “root“, stand, sing, dance or make general fools of themselves. Hannah explained that the US has ADD, and with such entertainment being a constant climax of stimulation it’s not hard to see why or how.

On Monday I visited a nice French restaurant for Agnès’ birthday & a Bastille Day celebration. After I left I went back to the office for a few more beers with my bosses. Around 2am we left and went to find food/beer. We wound up in an Irish Pub called Muldoons. It turned out that I knew the barman, he was the guy who invited us back to the recording studio/loft a few weeks back. We stayed until we got kicked out.

Nothing interesting happened on Tuesday or Wednesday, that I can remember.

On Thursday night, at Midnight, I went to see the new Batman Movie, along with the two Chris’, Edgar and Sven. It was pretty damn good.

Friday Morning I wandered off to the H.O.P.E. conference (Hackers on Planet Earth) run by the 2600 people. I’ve read the 2600 magazine as often as I can for over 5 years now and I’ve been listening to Off the Hook and Off the Wall weekly for over a year. Out of all the tech based media outlets available 2600 provides (in my opinion) the greatest mixes of tech, political and privacy issues; blended with a great sense of humour. It may not be as technically in-depth as others, but it more than makes up for it, due to the fun attitude that goes along with the articles/discussions/talks.

I met a bunch of cool people at the confrence, everyone from speakers to vendors, organisers to security guards, press people to attendees; and everyone inbetween. I learnt some useful skills, got some free stuff, discovered some things I never knew existed and had alot of fun.

Despite the conference, Friday night consisted of another trip to the Mars Bar, and on Saturday Night we celebrated Agnès’ birthday again, in a nice trendy bar called Tribe. The music was OK (a bit loud) and the place was small, but there was nothing obnoxious about it that would turn me away. A fun night was had by all.

I saw one cockroach this last 12 days on Wall St (outside the Exhange).

Work has been hectic the last two weeks, I’ve been working 12+ hour days to get a CMS finished for a client, but thankfully it’s all done and finished now (let’s just hope there are no fatal bugs, like uploading a GIF will DROP a table or something else weird).

Agnès arrived in NY on Tuesday. Herself and artemis dropped up to the office and we sat around chatting for a few hours. I also met up with Agnès on Saturday afternoon for Lunch.

I’ve noticed a bizzarity in social event attendance etiquette. I’m not sure if it’s a New York thing or an American thing (I’m told it’s a New York thing) but saying you’ll attend x social event and actually attending it mean two completely different things.

On each of social outings I’ve had with American folk only 0-25% of them have shown up. Even for a co-workers birthday (which was joined with a going away party, as we weren’t going to she her for a few months) only about a quarter of the people who said they’d show up actually came. I suppose it’s something I’m just not used to, if you say you’ll be somewhere, you’d better have a good reason for not showing. Sure, you may be late, that’s almost expected, but to not show up, with no excuse? To not even call or text to say that you cant make it after you’ve made a commitment seems very aloof.

Also, there is a certain amount of suspicion and second guessing of ones motives in social encounters. A lady in a Subway station a few weeks back asked if a certain line stopped at a particular station. I told her that I didn’t know. I then tried to make small talk by saying that I’d just arrived, that the city was new to me and the I had only really taken one of the lines. I was glared at, as it to say “I only asked you for directions, nothing more. How dare you try and talk to me”.

Anyway, I went to see Infected Mushroom on Saturday in Webster Hall. It’s a really cool venue. There was Rap/Hip-Hop playing in the basement, trance/house on the ground floor, the band were playing on the Ballroom (which has a balcony for VIPs) and there was some Minimal Techno in an Upstairs room. There was also an EBM DJ playing before and after Infected Mushroom in the Ballroom. Infected Mushroom are a band who I’ve been into for about a year and I’m quite glad I saw them, considering I missed a free Coldplay gig and a Freezepop concert. I hope to get a few more gig’s in before I head home; I have my eye on Regina Skeptor, Bloc Party and Foo Fighters.

On Monday I wandered over to artemis’ to watch Dexter. I’ve also been watch a bit of Curb your Enthusiasm with my flatmates, Greg and Nanda. Both shows are pretty good and this has been the first time I’ve seen either.

I got a new phone on Saturday, a Nokia N70 (Music Edition). It’s a small step up from the 6680, but it’s got a better camera, more RAM and an Active Standby screen (which Vodafone decided the 6680 didn’t need, so they stripped it out). All my apps from the 6680 also just worked straight away when I pop’d my old card into the new phone, which was really handy. I also picked up a BL-6C (at last) and a Bluetooth Keyboard. Here’s a great list of S60 handsets (maintained by Steve Litchfield) which I’ve used for reference since I’ve owned an N-Gage.

I went to my first Movie Premier/screener on Wednesday. Some of the nice people in Media at Large gave us tickets. It’s called The Rocker and is basically a story about Pete Best. In a hilarious coincidence it actually contains Pete Best, playing a cameo role. There was one line I found amusing where a bland hippstr type is referred to as “[...] like Abercrombie are making people”.

I’ve just watched Once twice, the second time with the commentary. It’s been the first time in years that I’ve liked a film enough to watch it a second time, with the commentary. It’s a film everyone should watch.

I saw one more cockroach in the basement. I don’t consider two in a month to be an infestation but apparently the germphobic upstairs thinks otherwise and has asked the landlord to get the building fumigated. Germphobia is another big thing I’ve noticed over here, but I’ll leave my comments on that till another day.

Just incase I (or any of you) need it in the furure, here is the link to the USIT/SEVIS/CIEE J1handbook for 2008 (and a local mirror on Skynet).

On Monday I mooched over to artemis’ and watched The City of Lost Children. It’s an odd film.

Arriving home on Monday I discovered that Greg and Nanda had moved all the furniture in. Took the day off on Tuesday, bought a bed, assembled some furniture, rang SEVIS to make sure I wasn’t going to be deported and tidied up some loose ends. Life in New York is incredibly busy and it can sometimes be hard to find time to do the washing without taking a day off to catch up.

Wednesday started off in an uninteresting manner: work as per usual, tapping away at some SQL and Javascript (and other bit’s in-between). It finished with a job offer (which I wont be able to take up unfortunately, due to not living in NY permanently) and a Launch Party for a new Media Production house, Media at Large, down the corridor. I met a bunch of cool people and had a great chance to network.

More mooching happened after the launch party and artemis introduced me to the Fables series of Comics by lending me Legends in Exile, which I devoured on the Subway home. I’ve never been much of a comic book person but I’ve recently started on the House of Mystery series (written by Bill Willingham too) and quite enjoi it.

Friday evening consisted of firstly meeting up with Francescia, then headed into town for drinks in the Mars Bar (see last week for a description of same). Saturday morning I woke up on artemis’ couch again (in bad shape). On Saturday afternoon I watched Labyrinth (which consists of mostly puppets and crotch) and some Black Books (fantastic comedy staring Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey). Then went home and got ready to head out to Lilianas birthday party.

Amy Brennan, a fantastic friend who I’ve know since birth, is in New York for the summer too and came out on Saturday night. It was fantastic to catch up with Amy, to chat about Waterford, our respective courses, how life has been these last few years, our impressions of Americans, &c. We wound up finding our way to a loft in Brooklyn which an Irish guy lived in with his mates. They had a rocking practice space / recording studio in the loft and myself and Amy stayed up for most of the night playing drums/bass and drinking.

On Sunday afternoon I wandered into Midtown and stumbled upon the NYC LGBT Pride parade. Lots of colour, lots of music, some great crowd participation and an overall fun atmosphere was the order of the day.

On Monday night I tried to convince my sister to buy an ASUS Eee PC instead of a Macbook. I think Creative Zen support in XP and not in OSX may have been the deciding factor. Also popped around to artemis’ to watch Dexter, which I hadn’t seen before. I’ve only seen two episodes and while I find the show to be engrossing and compelling I find it hard to emphasise with Dexter (perhaps because I’m not a sociopath).

I saw one cockroach durring the week while doing laundry in the basement.