Tuesday, 14 December 2010

Tonight's speaker

Phil O'Kane or Iced Coffee will speak tonight at Blog Standard about his blogging and hosting methods.

We are meeting at the Seamus Heaney Centre (48 University Road) at 7.00.

This is open to anyone who blogs or is interested in blogging.

Monday, 6 December 2010

It's working!

The Nov 30 meeting was a bit shambolic on account of the computer deciding to upload something, crash and then go through System Restore. Alaninbelfast had a wee 3g notebook with him which got us through some of the embarrassment of talking to people about how to set up a blog and not being able to show them much.
And there was me trying to impress Tara West and Ruth Jackson!
Icedcoffee and Filmplicity turned up and Icedcoffee made a case for using hosted Wordpress instead of the free version.
The big choice for starters is whether to use Wordpress or Blogger. There are other options too, like Tumblr and Posterous. I like Blogger - which this site is on - because it allows the embedding of code for audio and video that may be hosted on other free sites, while free Wordpress rejects most of it, though it allows Youtube.

A beginner on Wordpress may get ambitious later on and find s/he can't post items that are hosted elsewhere. I have found ways round this for audio, using plugins, but I love doing slideshows with Soundslides and I can't post them there.

But I think Icedcoffee is right and that's the way I have gone in setting up a new site for the Writer in Residence position at QUB. I picked the domain name first, bought it from the host I use for The Street and ArtsTalk and then set up a site with Wordpress. The host is JustHost which allows unlimited space.

The new site is The Writer's Log.

Anyway, the next meeting of Blog Standard will be on December 14. I'll have more details before that. I will also post information to my facebook page.

Thursday, 25 November 2010

The Next Meeting

Blog Standard will convene next on Tuesday Nov 30 at 7.00pm at the Seamus Heaney Centre, 48 University Road Belfast.

It would help if all those who want to come would post a comment below or email: mal.odoherty@qub.ac.uk

The focus of this meeting will be on helping raw beginners to get started at setting up a blog but experienced bloggers and podcasters are welcome for the experience that they will be able to share.

Blog Standard is an initiative by the Writer in Residence at Queen's University, Belfast.

Tuesday, 23 November 2010

Wednesday, 17 November 2010

We Have Started.

We had the first meeting of Blog Standard last night at the Seamus Heaney Centre, convened by me, Malachi O'Doherty, as Writer in Residence.
The seminar room, which normally caters for gatherings of intense poets comparing metaphors and scansion was taken over by bloggers and new media activists and you would almost have heard the wainscotting groan, if there was any.
We had presentations from Moochin Photoman, Ian Livingstone and Alaninbelfast.
They showed their blogs and talked about their intentions and creative motivations.
We had about fifteen people there, some of them old hands at blogging and podcasting, some novices.
I played clips from my slideshows on The Street, making the case that you get better images with a stills camera and better audio with a separate recorder; which isn't to say I won't use video in the future.
We decided to devote the next session to an introductory workshop, to get the beginners started, hoping that some of the more experienced ones with little to learn will come and chip in some tips on blogging platforms, host sites, kit and creative approach.
That meeting will be on Tuesday November 30th, again in the Heaney Centre, at 7.00pm.
If you want to come and you weren't at last night's meeting, please post a message below or email me directly at mal.odoherty@qub.ac.uk

Tuesday, 9 November 2010

First Meeting

Blog Standard is an initiative by the Writer in Residence at Queen's University, Belfast - that's me, Malachi O'Doherty.
The aim is to foster discussion among bloggers, podcasters and all sorts of creative internet and new media activists.
Let's talk about what we are doing and where we are going with our democratised broadcast and publishing technology.
If you want to be part of Blog Standard, come to the first meeting at the Seamus Heaney Centre, 48 University Road, Belfast on Tuesday November 16 at 7pm.
All the better if you have a blog, slideshow, video or podcast to share and can tell us how you set it up and what you hope to achieve with it.
Blog Standard will be a pooling of ideas about blogging, the potential, the philosophies, the technology, the fun.
And you are welcome.

Monday, 25 October 2010

The Journey

Do you remember the Amstrad PCW or Wordperfect 5.1?
The journey from the typewriter through the internet and into the Cloud has been a long and rapid one for the first generation to turn digital.




Sunday, 24 October 2010

Hello everybody..

I have just been appointed Writer in Residence at Queen's University Belfast. I hope to use the post to raise questions about how the new media interact with the old. I want to pull in bloggers and podcasters and all sorts of new media artists and exponents to reflect with me on where we are going and to exchange ideas and techniques and to drink wine together.
You will hear more about this.

Monday, 21 June 2010

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

A Walk Around Belfast

Belfast is being reshaped by its culture warriors. Militants and former paramilitary activists are branding their messages and writing them on the walls. But the state wants to stay out of that quarrel and all new public art is devoid of ethnic or historical association.