Paul O'Flaherty

Pictures from Sundays Mobile Alabama Tweetup

While I was across the pond Sara and I had a chance to visit the Mobile Alabama TweetUp and meet some seriously awesome peeps.

The pictures below were taken by Alli Flowers (@Alli_Flowers) who not only attended the tweetup but hung out with Sara and the kids all day (supervised visitation sucks) while I was off shooting pool with Frank Bolton (@gfb3) and his lovely wife Cheryl.

I just wanted to post some of Alli’s pictures here and tell everyone how great it was to meet you all and that I can’t wait to see you all again when I come over for good.

Frank, Cheryl and their niece (? Sorry can’t remember your name ?? )

Paul (@mobilehairstore), Charles Martin (@Chazon64), Frank Bolton, Heather Wigen (@wigenout), Gillis Jones (@Gillis57)

Sara, Gillis, Heather, Myself with Brian Wright (@BrianWright) hiding behind me.

Facing the camera: Charles Martin, Andrea Wright (@alwright1), Brian Wright.

Paul, Charles Martin

Sara, myself, Brian Wright, Jimmy Nguyen (@Jbob180) and Gillis.

You can see all of Alli’s pictures from the Sunday night Mobile Alabama TweetUp on Picasa.

Again, thanks to everyone for a wonderful night, it was great to meet you all and I can’t wait to do it again!!

How not to do a twitter (or any profile) page!

I’m sitting here, thinking about my recent trip to see Sara (more about that later) and going through my email following back the interesting folks who’ve followed me on twitter since I’ve been away.

I got to thinking about the fact that I need to redesign my twitter profile page (and finish this blog.. again later.) when I came across this profile, which is a prime example of how not to do a twitter page (or any web page for that matter).

Here’s a hint for you: if I can’t read it, I’m not going to follow you back.

Brand yourself – Don’t give away your biggest asset online!

I’ve been online for a long time. Some of you have teenage kids that weren’t even a sperm in their fathers testes when I started surfing the tubes and one thing, that admittedly took me a long time to learn, but which will always stay with me, is that YOU are your brand and your biggest asset on line is your followers.

When you sign up to be part of, oh, lets say a blogging group called “BiggieBloggers” what is the value to you in adopting that name as part of your twitter brand? Why on earth would you call yourself “Paul_BiggieBloggers” or “NBrain_BiggieBloggers”?

The answer is little to none. You’re only making yourself invisible in the folds of someone else’s robes.

When you do something like that you are handing over all of the value you create as you build your network around their brand.

Stick with your own identity, build your brand around you. Allow yourself to become the asset that is desired by whomever is courting you to become part of your group.

Your followers are a valuable asset, and if you brand yourself as part of any one particular organization or group you won’t be able to easily take your followers with you when you move on.

It may seem like it’s incredibly easy to change your username in twitter to something more suited to you when you’re finished with a certain organization, and to be honest it is, but when you do that, you loose so much recognition. You loose so many people who associate you with your username, your brand.

I think it’s best, from the very start to try to stick to one username, at most 2, (in my case “pauloflaherty” and “oflaherty”)  and be pervasive with them across the web in order to build your own brand, value and maintain your own identity.

Companies, networks, organizations and fads will come and go, but your name will always be your brand.

Twitter is getting hacked???

Sara just spotted what appears to be hacking of twitter accounts. Check out these screengrabs of @bobbyzeez and @BabyPatches.

As you can see a twitter search for the term “mikey” is displaying a huge number of accounts being compromised that is increasing very very rapidly.

My advice for now, is to sign out of the web interface, change your password and see what happens.

UPADATE: 17th April 20:49

It appears that this is a resurgence of the Mikeyy worm from last week (albeit with somewhat different output! See this mashable post for details of how to deal with it.

First The Pirate Bay, next Google?

You might think I’m taking the piss but I assure you that I’m not. I’ve just read the AP piece about the 4 guys from The Pirate Bay getting convicted for facilitating users to illegally download music, movies and video games.

Now, while I fully believe that this ruling will be overturned by the higher Swedish courts, I find myself asking what happens if it isn’t? Who will be the next target, and as I look at the extract from the ruling by Judge Tomas Norstrom quoted in the piece I can’t help think that the next target will be any and every reasonably functional search engine.

The court found the defendants guilty of helping users commit copyright violations by providing a Web site with "sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the Web site."

So, the pirate bay boyos provided a website with:

• sophisticated search functions – Google et all.
• simple download – Just do a search for an mp3 or video on Google and see how easy it is to download one.
• storage capabilities – Gmail on it’s own gives you almost 7GB, through extensions (GSpace) and other apps (Gmail Drive & Gmail FS). Not to mention the fact that you can send up to 20mb as an attachment making it ridiculously easy to email that downloaded song to all your friends.
• Tracker – okay, Google doesn’t have a tracker but then again it doesn’t need one, it’s got the most comprehensive index of the internet in existence.

Okay maybe I am jumping the gun a little, but I really don’t think so. The entertainment industry is a monolithic conglomeration of companies that would rather litigate than innovate and have proven time and time again that the pursuit of money and protecting their outdated business model is all that matters to them. What better direction to take than to go after those with the deepest pockets? Especially now that they have a precedent ruling against what is essentially just a search engine.

Abandoned or parked? Male or female driver?

I took this picture from one of the first floor windows at work yesterday. Your looking down at the very busy main road running along the front of Cobh. My question to you, dear readers, is do you think this car is parked or abandoned, and was it a male or female driver?

Lesbians, Burger buns, loading bays and pool

I didn’t have a means to be online at work yesterday but it didn’t stop me for having my usual barrage of nonsensical moments. As I was armed with my iPod Touch I did manage to jot some of them down and create the following mess of randomness which didn’t make it onto my twitter stream.

If I was a brain eating zombie I’d starve to death here…

There should be a minimum walking speed. 1 mile a year is head wrecking!

Why are asylum seekers allowed vote in local elections?

Daytime talk radio is absolute shite!

Mmnn…. Brain? Nope – I was wrong! Just another cauliflower!

Wonder if Sara’s awake yet? You awake babe?

It’s not supposed to rain inside! Oh fuck! Hope Anthony is up for moving the pool table.

New sport -  under water billiards?

Quit banging the fecking door!

How many people will suffer eye injuries from self absorbed twats with umbrellas today?

Ooh we get to squeeze Anthony’s buns again today!

Watching Anthony squeeze his buns never gets old!

“Morning. Not committing any fraud today?”

Why do they call it a loading bay when they mostly unload stuff? Or is “unloading bay” to kinky sounding?

Overheard: “Every real man is a lesbian at heart!”

Why are people around here  wearing duffle coats with the hoods up and shorts? Indoors!!!

Google Web History doesn’t make any (Ad)Sense

Perhaps some of you Google Gurus can help me clear up a a little confusion I’m having with Google Web History.

Sara and I have checked our history viewing certain web pages and have noticed that that not only does an entry appear for every page visited, but also there is an associated entry for every Google AdSense module on the page. What gives? Why the heck do I need to know what AdSense modules were on the pages I visited?

I can understand if it displays the ones I clicked on, but when I’ve been a cheap ass bugger and not clicked on any, why display them?

Just for the record both Sara and I have been using Firefox with the Google Toolbar installed and have seen the same occurrence happen even when we visit our own blogs.

Can anybody shed any light on this and removed the cloud of confusion which currently surrounds us…

Here’s a screen grab of my web history, followed by Sara’s:

Maybe Lecter had it right?