Inside View from Ireland

Mason on Gmail

TAINT -- Justin Mason played around with Gmail and makes a very interesting observation: "GMail does not create HTML mail -- all mail composed through their composer is sent as text/plain only. This is very interesting, because it suits me just fine. HTML mail causes so many more problems than it solves, especially when full-featured web browser components are used to display it, IMO. I get to see the security exploits this enables, every day in my anti-spam work. But it's also very significant that nobody else has commented on it -- nobody misses it!

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Justin Mason -- "More thoughts on Gmail"
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More scumbags of the Internet

KILKENNY -- I have set my Sony Clie's calendar alarm to 0800 every weekday because that's a good time to check my blogs to view the work of scumbags on the Internet who live to append unwelcome spam comments at the bottom of posts. The latest batch of scumbags comes from Germany where they're using dial-in nodes to copy-and-paste dozens of link-heavy items as comments. These scumbags can work around the Typepad restriction of "no links in comments." So I've opened a Typepad Help Ticket to ask the superusers to strip another form of tag from the allowable listing. At the moment, I think all angled brackets should be purged from blog comment sections. It would reduce the usefulness of spamming a blog with gratuitous links.

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Writing for the Web

CROFSBLOGS -- We are at the tail end of a successful year in the evolution of the first year writing class at Tipperary Institute where we have concluded yet again that a focus on "writing for the Web" is a worthwhile one. If anything, this focus proves you can learn to produce content by following a formula for immediate or embargoed release. That's a conclusion probably shared by Crawford Kilian at Capilano College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

ICT Expo for Dummies

DUBLIN -- On his whirlwind tour of the annual ICT Expo, James Corbett said, "Good show but a few hours was plenty, for me at least, to see it all. My memory of the Comms show 4 years ago was that it was rather bigger." Ditto.

However, if your show goal is to rekindle business contacts, scavenge giveaway items, dig behind the facades, and introduce employers to potential staff, you need to spend six hours working the stands, sitting in sessions (who could miss Doc Searls?), baldly claiming promotional items, and blagging your way into receptions around the corner at the sumptuous Four Seasons. The inherent value in each of these activities lies in the appreciation that the un-show is as valuable as the set pieces on the showroom floor.

Bootleg Bowie

BOWIE -- David Bowie, scheduled to play in Ireland in a gig that will dwarf all others, wants bootleg fans up front. He is offering a new Audi for the most creative theft of any classic song taken from Reality to create a "mash-up" track that uses vocals from one song superimposed over the backing tracks of another.

CrystalTech bought out

CRYSTAL TECH -- I have been well-served by a knowledgeable and professional staff at CrystalTech, benefiting from faster turn-around on my questions than from any other Internet vendor. CrystalTech offered a public forum well before any other ISP where both current customers as well as potential customers can freely ask questions, seek information and exchange problems and solutions to those problems. CrystalTech keeps customersnd services further keeping customers "in the loop" as changes occur.

So when I heard that Newtek Business Services were aquiring CrystalTech, I got concerned.

Qucklinks from LinuxWorld Ireland

ICT EXPO -- Doc Searls will open his keynote address with trick question. It comes in a variety of flavours, normally involving a question like "How many use Microsoft software?" Since he lugs around a Powerbook Heatshield, he often asks "How many use Apple Macs?" When confronting suits with IT budgets, he sometimes asks, "How many use Linux?" If the audience has more suits than open collars, few hands show. So he rolls with a punchline: "Who uses Google?" And that means every raised hand uses Linux.

Irish DIY software developers

ICT EXPO -- As I well appreciate after monitoring software development projects, almost everything in software is a series of projects. That's the message delivered by Doc Searls to the ICT Expo in Dublin. Searls draws parallels between builders and the software industry.

• Software mostly belongs to architects.
• In both realms, it's mostly about who does the work and how.
• A huge part of software is DIY.

DIY is the way software wants to work.

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Doc Searls -- DIY-IT: How Open Source is turning IT into a Do-It-Yorself marketplace."
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Quicklinks to the B-Side

DUBLIN -- One of the best things about going to events like the ICT Expo is you can trade stuff. I scavenge things like mouse pads, cables, SIM data savers, mobile phone covers, Wired magazines, hardcover books and bags with logos then trade the loot later. One of the other useful things to trade is bookmarks, links, presentations, and sca. (You have to know the lingo to appreciate the sca.) When I encounter a beamable friend, I often get some Palm data that leads me into crevices of the Internet, like these gems nicked from Joe Schumacher in Harlem.

Business Banking Ireland

ICT EXPO -- One of the most interesting things about Information Technology events is the level of discussion that greets the curious. So when I wanted to find out more about business banking in Ireland, I started by looking behind the counter of Red Sky, the specialists who can get you profit from technology. They do the business for one of Ireland's most resilient sectors--the banking industry.

There's is a long story, worth unfolding in front of budding software developers, but the catch phrase is simple:

Track everything worth doing.

Red Sky offers innovative ways to use websites to attract, convert and retain customers. Their case studies are required reading for anyone investing more than €5000 in developing or running a website. You need to know what people do when they visit so that you can convert those visits into paying revenues.

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Red Sky -- "Client case studies" in attracting, converting and retaining customers.
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