Inside View

Caution on One Dollar Charges

MY PHONE VIBRATES INCESSANTLY whenever a minor charge of one dollar is made against my credit card. Some online merchants make that charge when I sign up for a subscription service. Fraudsters also make that kind of charge against credit cardss they have stolen. My phone vibrates because AIB's Fraud Squad rings me straight away after being told of a one dollar charge. I called back to AIB one time and asked how could I decline to pay the charge. Things got ropy. I was told that if I alleged a fraudulent transaction and a later investigation showed I had actually enrolled in a service, I could be added to a blacklist used by the subscription provider. Blacklists always complicate future online purchases. A lot of merchants share information from their own blacklists. AIB basically told me that if I deny a purchase that I have made--even a virtual purchase like a music subscription--I will be investigated and possibly subjected to legal proceedings. At the very minimum, my credit rating can be affected by false claims of fraud.

Why Are Public Walkways Scarce

ONLY ONE OF THE SEVEN towns where I have lived in Ireland has a well-signed and friendly public walkway system. That was Greystone's Cliff Walk and I think it was a well-marked since much of it was hazardously eroded. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed my circuit from Greystones to Bray and back, even at night. In Germany, there were public wanderwegs everywhere and you could earn badges for wandering along them. I got wrapped in faces of cobwebs while on wanderwegs in the morning. In small English towns, I've spotted more “public footpath” signs than bus stops. But in Ireland, there's a constant friction between farmers and housing developers when citizens ask about keeping a line open for school children on their bikes, toddlers in their strollers or culture vultures who visit the Irish landscape. For the summer months, I'm taking on the Cashel Town Council where I live, challenging them to provide at least two toddler-friendly walking circuits that meander around local landmarks. If I don't get the co-operation of local planners, I will cast a Rain Hex over the Rock of Cashel for the month of August. Not having this civic amenity is one reason why Irish teens are leaning into obesity.

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x_ref125mw #hyperlocal

By Their Titles

COMPELLING HEADLINES sell papers and intriguing subject lines often cause people who should know better to click on spammy e-mail. Interesting cover art (such as items emerging from Aoife Duggan's sketchbook at left) also makes me want to click onto media objects and listen to them play their message. As I try to manage a flow of information on a small screen, I hear the sage comment of Neville Hobson inside my head, emphasizing the importance of crafting a compelling title. This good habit becomes a core skill for copywriters who sit in my lectures. One in 20 of these college students forget to include subject lines on their emails and that guarantees the mail will be trapped for a few days behinbd my spam filters. Others insist upon attaching heavy video clips to their emails instead of using Dropbox links. I don't pull down video clips as email but I will click on many links that students recommend.

Today's emails and blog titles included memorable phrases like "toothless execution" of a State statute, an "unstoppable" train of events, "reading the fine print" of a travel site, and getting "good service is a joke". I'm reading all of these items because good copywriters attracted my eyes to the stories.

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Written with Barry Doyle and Sheila Newman in mind.

x_ref125mw #essential

Move Along Qikly

ON MOST SUNDAYS, I buy a few newspapers just before sunrise, read three or four of them, and then just before having breakfast, I make short Qik clips about the Irish Sunday papers. For the first time in two years, I crashed out making Qik work on a Sunday. It's all down to me trying to cobble together some audio cables that were well beyond their best-by date. For the record, I'm blogging about my failure because it helps to have samples of poor quality easily available when teaching third level students about the pitfalls of extemporaneous video streaming. Instead of viewing my Qik clip, I recommend you read Chris Horn's blog and consider the points he makes about transforming industry in Ireland.

Sunday News 21 Mar 10

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Abvortive Qik clip and MP4 version of Sunday Qik News.

x_ref125mw #hyperlocal

Daily Source Code is Back

MORE IMPORTANT THAN St Patrick's Day in Ireland 2010 is Adam Curry's resurrection from podfade. The Podfather landed with a thud in my five-year-old iPod (the device I used to listen to Adam since 2005). He's just as hyperized as before with a brand new life, blasting out live on No Agenda Stream but saved as one of the highest bit rate podcasts on the planet. Adam is doing his DSC without weed and without his compressors, distorters, or cowbell. It's Raw Adam Curry and he's as good as he was in the earliest days of podcasting. But I know Adam Curry isn't everyone's taste and the "explicit" warning on his latest episode is fair notice to anyone who doesn't like the rough and tumble world of real rock and roll. DSC 822 doesn't disappoint. It has more top 40 tracks than podsafe selections, a few stories about Adam's manic life, the mind-altering experiences that come with heavy smoking, the life-altering experience of a new love, and a report from a séance. I like what Adam Curry has done for shared musical experiences and I appreciate him sharing some of his life in the theatre of the mind. Few do it as good as himself. Recommended.

 

DSC 822

We don't need no freaking transmitters.

If I Had a Fiver

IF I HAD A FIVER, it would probably be a BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo because that's the car I'd use to cross the States from coast-to-coast without breaking stride. I reckon the household budget is a decade away from being able to afford the payments and maintenance of a Gran Turismo but that doesn't stop me from wondering what the local BMW dealer is offering people who stop by to look at his lot. So I shot a little Qik clip.

If I had a Fiver

Disclosure: Nobody pays me to write these things but it helps to have good service behind a dependable marquee.

Social Learning Styles

A SOCIAL MEDIA CROSS-FIRE has erupted on Bloggertone when Brian Prenderville wrote that he doesn't care about meaningless tweets. The problem is that "meaningless" to one reader is "intimate" to another. Hence, a cross-fire erupted between social media camps, fueled by the elephant in the room (i.e., paid social media consultancy services). Personally, I like anything that encourages engagement and from the looks of the Bloggertone post and its ensuing cross-tweeting responses, several communication experts and community managers in Ireland will be harvesting interesting points from the blog commentary for use in their own practises.

Qik Coffee Clip

When I Was Deciding to Go to University

I REMEMBER VIVIDLY making a decision that I was going to head west from Pennsylvania to attend college in Colorado. I know where I was because I bit my lip on a bone-jarring bus ride to a track meet in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Back in the early 70s, the world was doing alright without AltaVista, Yahoo! or Google. Life seemed simpler, even with the innuendos that were part of the backstage action during "West Side Story," a play that my high school was doing. The school play was a big deal and so was going out to the movies--you had to because you couldn't rent DVDs or VHS tapes. They didn't exist--but I had several hundred yards of eight-track cassette tapes to rewind every weekend. My youngest brother would pull the tape out of the cassettes and extend the mess all over the living room. So I sat in front of a black and white television and rewound tapes. Most of the time, the TV had snowy reception, so I read the newspaper. I think about all these things because when I was deciding on a third level education, I made my decision in a totally analogue way. No YouTube, no digital downloads, no websites. Just a little brochure that I read when on the bus headed to track meets.

The Green Gene is the Creative One

IRELAND GOT AN OFFICIAL cultural ambassador on St Patrick's Day 2010 as internationally renowned, award-winning actor Gabriel Byrne started working the crowds with his new appointment. As an American living in Ireland, I'd be enthusiastic about the quality and imagination of Irish artists. Although I'm not a professional art critic, I do feet lucky to be able to find the work of mid-career Irish artists in free venues across the country. I snapped the work of Alissa Kleist (at left) in the Limerick City Gallery of Art (a favourite venue) and I work with creative students who may commandeer a white cube for their own digital expression. There's a vibrant part of the Irish art scene that proves to me the creative nature of the green gene. Young conceptual artists, energetic film makers, people writing who wouldn't have written when I first came ashore in Ireland 15 years ago--I've seen that scene emerge when I worked in Arthouse and through Broadway productions that are Irish. American is a giant English-speaking market for Irish culture. It's a market with good will that extends well beyond Paddy's Day. To a great extent, vibrant Irish culture defines the Republic. I think Irish visual culture makes strong indelible mark on what it means to be Irish. I wish Gabriel Byrne good luck in advancing the cause of Irish culture abroad.

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x_ref125mw #create

15 Years of St Patrick's Day in Ireland

I'M IN A SMALL IRISH TOWN FOR Paddy's Day 2010, 15 years from the first St Patrick's Day I watched unfold in Dublin. I remember that first Irish experience because I feet got really cold as I stood on the same patch of concrete nearly three hours. I've learned the value of dressing for the occasion but really appreciate the weather when the sun promises parade temperatures above 10 degrees Centigrade, like today. I'm culling my pinpoints, creating a list of quality places where I'd spend a week enjoying Paddy's Day 2011 because I hope to entice my youngest brother to get a passport and observe his birthday during the St Patrick's Day celebrations in Ireland next year. Mom named him Patrick because his due date was to be today. I had meant to have a whole cross-section of commentary from creative students, sharing what it means to be Irish but got distracted sometime during the third round in the pub. So there are my marching orders: down to our local to enjoy the afters of St Patrick's Day under the Rock of Cashel. And if you can't walk to a place that serves real Guinness, you might enjoy listening to voices of Global Irish.

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My tips: An American View of St Patrick's Day in Ireland from 2009 but still worth considering--and some clever suggestions in the comments and inbound links too.

Previously: St Patrick's Day in Ireland from 2008 on InsideView.ie.

Bonus Link: What St Patrick's Day means in Ireland. And what other Irish bloggers are saying on Paddy's Day.

x_ref125mw #travel