While they sound like they might come out of Bills Boardroom (youse’ve won a noigh o’ TIE CUKERY), thankfully, Oxfam’s BioEtic range of skincare products were not in fact produced by a panel of feckin’ eejits pretending they know how to do ‘business’. Nope, these fair trade beauty goodies are certifiably pro, as well as certified organic. They avoid animal-derived ingredients, are cruelty-free, non-polluting and come in recyclable packaging. Natural ingredients used include cocoa butter, shea butter, ginkgo biloba, Peruvian maca and aloe vera. Yum! With body cream and butter plus sugar scrub on hand for body pampering, the range also includes a night cream and a handcream. We’ve got FIVE of those gorgeous BioEtic sets you see above to give away,... Similar posts

In a post I wrote in July of last year I celebrated the availability of email as a communications tool and described how it had changed my working (and indeed social) life. Back then, and maybe until last month, I assumed that email would continue to grow and would also play an important part in the students’ learning experience. Indeed an Australian report of 2003 placed some emphasis on the academic uses of email. But in this most unpredictable age, things may turn out differently. Last month at a meeting here in the university some colleagues explained that they had found that the use of email by students was in steep decline. Whereas in the recent past announcements issued by email would have reached the target audience quickly and reliably, their experience now was that a... Similar posts

Same deal as this. Here’s my article for the second issue of this year’s TCD Miscellany. Ah. Back to college. The old grind again. Like we never left. I was surprised at just how enthusiastic I was during Freshers’ week. I was genuinely looking forward to being back. Mainly because college gives me a reason to get up and get dressed. A reason to shave other than getting rid of the itchiness. A bit of structure to my days. I was beginning to hope and dream again. I’m gonna go to every lecture! I’m gonna study during the year instead of just cramming before exams! I’m gonna go to the gym all the time! Hell, may as well give Schols a go! Thing is, lectures start early and are shit. Studying seems unnecessary and shit. The gym would require me bringing in changes of... Similar posts

After last night's Ireland versus France game concluded with a frankly absurd judgement by the ref with regards to Theirry Henry's handball some are calling for a boycott of Gillette products if Mr. Henry continues to be one of their cover boys. Mr. Manuel Yoacham, wrote on this blog : "I think Gillette needs to implement some damage control, and quick" and to be fair he has a point, a lot of Irish people are calling for him to be banished to a dark hole somewhere. I think the problem is that while this memory will last forever in the hearts and minds of the Irish, I suspect the distaste with Henry will by temporary elsewhere. Gillette create adverts that can be run anywhere in the world because they have some pretty recognised cover boys. This means they only have to make one advert to... Similar posts

Another empty summer. There has and will be loads written and said about what happened last night. Here are some of my favourites already.Niall wrote an excellent piece on why we should take positives from last night:http://sarxos.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/a-salute-to-the-boys-in-green/My own epic poem on culch.ie:http://www.culch.ie/2009/11/19/on-the-main-an-epic-tragedy-in-six-halves/Blathnaid encourages you to complain (without swearing) to FIFA:http://www.culch.ie/2009/11/19/handballgate-a-nation-in-mourning/My favourite of the Facebook groups:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thierry-Henry-should-play-GAA/198139629574?ref=nf&v;=wallDave and Siobhan from Dublin's 98 fm do a pastiche of 'Beat... Similar posts

I just realised I actually published 99 Posts on the SEO Consultant blog. So this is the 100th blog post. I thought I should do something special here, like an ‘Anniversary’ or something similar. 100 blog posts is a milestone for a blog. Not the first and certainly not the last milestone. So this blog post with the really fancy title: 100 Best SEO Blog Posts, isn’t really a list of the best SEO related blog posts. It is the 100 SEO blog posts that I wrote and published. Good or bad – you can judge yourself! So here is the list of the 100 Best Blog Posts: SEO Software Performance Related SEO Are the Right People on Your Marketing Team? Search Marketing Online Marketing Budget Internet Marketing Strategy: Content Why Social Networking? SEO Expert SEO Books SEO Optimization SEO... Similar posts

out of time Originally uploaded by orvalrochefort It looks like it might be the end of the road for my laptop. I wrote last year how it failed spectacularily but with a lot of hair-pulling and a systems CD I was able to save the day. It was fine again for a year or so, no blue screens, no issues of great report. However this summer (when engaged in writing my thesis of all times) it started to blue screen again. Yesterday things got serious. I couldn't even access safe mode, it stalled before opening, error was avgrkx86.sys. I was eventually able to access the desktop (don't ask me how, sheer luck maybe), having completed a scan of the computer that found serious system erors, and I renamed that file. This allowed me restart the laptop and access safe mode. I tried to do a system... Similar posts

Paul Cullen wrote this story back in September, Stepping out in the €27.99 suit, when it was one of their websites top stories early in the morning. It even made the rounds of Twitter for a while as well. The cheap Lidl suit story has been around for a while – I think it first came out back in October 2008. What struck me more about this story was the reference to the Canali jacket being sold by Louis Copeland for 38 times the cost of the Lidl suit. That’s a jacket – not a full suit – for over €1,000. Fair enough the jacket is made of wool and not polyester, and that it has a “breastpiece made from the hair of a female horse’s tail” (top of my shopping list when I look for a jacket, I have to admit!), and that “some” of the sewing is hand done,. My question is... Similar posts

Today I had occasion to visit both a post office and a Garda (police) station. I should maybe add that there was no connection between these two, and that I was at liberty to enter and leave the Garda station by my own free will (in case you were worried). But they did have one thing in common: notices in the Polish language. Well, of course they also had notices in English, and some in Irish; but what struck me was that there were several in Polish. We don’t yet know whether the influx of Polish (and other central and Eastern European) nationals in the course of the current decade is a temporary demgraphic phenomenon or whether these immigrants will stay for the long term; and if they do, we cannot yet tell how integrated they will become, and therefore to what extent their... Similar posts

Soren Kierkegaard is the father of existentialism but also a badass hard to understand writer. Part of difficulty comes from the fact that the melancholy Dane is rarely read within the context of his profound Christian faith. It is a bit like trying to understand the music of Rage Against the Machine without admitting their politics into the conversation. Frankly, the songs just seem weird and noisy if you don’t know what socialism is. I read a great essay by Peter Bolt on the topic of Kierkegaard and anxiety that clarified a lot of things for me, a guy who naturally loves Soren but often doesn’t know what he is getting at. So I thought I’d sum it up here as best I can to remind me quickly in the future if ever the needs be. Understanding Soren is not helped by the way... Similar posts

So we’re not going to South Africa but our exit from the World Cup qualifying stages was not as straight forward as I thought. I wrote earlier that I’d be happy to eat my words and there’s a massive helping of humble pie in front of me now. A pair I dismissed earlier, Keith Andrews and Glenn Whelan, were immense. Captain Robbie Keane worked his socks off and Damien Duff recaptured past glories. How Liam Lawrence is not a regular at Stoke is beyond me, he was our most creative spark. As we found out though when Thierry Henry switched to Gaelic Football in setting up Gallas for the crucial goal, football is a funny old game some times. It just proves that we can do it when it matters. A side that was outclassed on Saturday night gave the French the fright of their lives in... Similar posts

This week O’Dowd’s Little Dublin on the Plaza is celebrating its 13th Anniversary with specials and treats every night in the popular Irish pub. Tonight Wednesday, November 18, 2009 there is a whiskey tasting followed by the weekly performance of Eddie Delahunt doing his annual performance of Happy Birthday to the pub. The music starts at 8pm, and throw an ish on there. The 13th Anniversary means it’s just 3 years since I wrote about O’Dowd’s 10th Anniversary You can also enter the draw for the VIP table plus $250 at O’Dowd’s on St Patrick’s Day 2010. The drawing will take place next Sunday when that Dublin Delahunt fella is playing again. Expect Eddie to toast the Irish football team tonight, ideally because they will have just qualified... Similar posts

Who's fooling who? Football: Watching Ireland play France last Saturday night was a painful experience and I fear tonight’s return game in the Stade de France could be even worse. It’s a strange feeling heading into a game holding little faith in the team you support, but as Trappatoni’s side take to the pitch in Paris later my expectations will be at rock bottom. A negative coach, mediocre players and a French side playing for themselves, not their loony manager, does not bode well for our chances. It should be taken for granted that we will be more positive in our approach tonight, but you wonder if after a stultifying qualification process do these guys even remember what it’s like to be gung-ho in a green jersey anymore. They’ve definitely received... Similar posts

i was in town one afternoon in early july 2003. i had to drop something to the department of education for my brother. in the evening i met my friend to go to a play written by a friend of ours. in the interim, i picked up muzik magazine – it had p diddy on the cover! his much-lauded let’s get ill was, apparently, about to reshape the dance music universe. well, with the benefit of hindsight, we all know that never happened… more important was the free cd that came with the magazine. i think i’d heard of the dj, erol alkan, a few months previously in the sunday times magazine, as one to watch. those profiles are all well and good, but mean nothing if you can’t hear what he’s about. this cd changed all that. the section of my diary entry (yes, i keep a... Similar posts

I am reading a wonderful book called My Philosophical Development by Bertrand Russell - I picked up a 1959 first edition in a wonderful second hand bookshop, Trinity Books in Carrick On Shannon.  This is like a beginners guide to Russell by himself and, in it he traces his thinking down through the years. There is a particularly poignant section where Russell reproduces copies of his notes from his teenage years.  He writes (p280): Just before and just after my 16th birthday, I wrote down my beliefs and unbeliefs, using Greek letters and phonetic spelling for the purposes of concealment. What Russell was at pains to conceal at this young age were his doubts about religion and the existence of God.   What troubled him was not necessarily the social consequences but... Similar posts

I wrote previously, Are the Competition Authority happy to be merged with the National Consumer Agency?, about how it was unlikely that the Competition Authority of Ireland were unlikely to be happy about their proposed merger with the National Consumer Agency. I wonder is that the reason we’ve yet to see the actual paperwork from the Minister in charge, Mary Coughlan, TD, to actually make the merger happen. It looks like the different reactions from each of these quangos to the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employments proposal for a Consumer Ombudsman is going to cause further friction – coming as it does close to the time (apparently) when the merger is due to actually happen. This article recently in the Irish Times from Paul Cullen, Agencies at odds over code of conduct... Similar posts

We make decisions about websites in nanoseconds these days. I’ll leave sites instantly for a number of reasons, maybe even something as small as the font or the logo. First impressions are everything and in this new world of the instant web with masses of information we are constantly scanning looking for the perfect match to our content needs. I read blogs constantly both for pleasure and for work and I have a quick process that I go through to establish just how powerful the blog is and how much trust I will be placing in it. I know not everybody will agree with this but these are the things I look for and scan in a matter of seconds to see if the blog I am on is reputable and should be trusted. Very superficial I know but really this is no different to casting an eye over a... Similar posts

Today’s announcement by Harlequin, a division of Toronto-based Torstar Corporation and one of the USA’s top romance genre publishers, to launch their self-publishing imprint, Harlequin Horizons, follows on from last week’s announcement of their partnership with leading self-publishing service provider, Author Solutions Inc, to launch a digital-only publishing imprint, Carina Press. Today’s news of Harlequin’s entry into self-publishing services—a further extension of their new partnership with Author Solutions Inc—sees the launch of Harlequin Horizons and looks to be a similar venture to the one ASI has with leading Christian trade publisher, Thomas Nelson, when it launched its self-publishing imprint, WestBow Press in October. While nothing has changed in regards to the... Similar posts

I wrote the following screed after cleaning our bathrooms and bedrooms carefully enough to remind me of the all the little things that I would fix, if it were my property. I am both landlord and tenant at this moment, and it’s an interesting way to see the world of real estate for rent. To the landlord who aspires to competence: Every building contains hundreds of minor errors, invisible faults, and premature wear spots. These details are the devils that threaten your investment, the principal capital itself. Some of your residents will bring important problems to your attention, conditions which will cost you hundreds of thousands of euros/dollars/pounds in the future. Furthermore, the most consequential problems appear to be petty as renter’s complaints. An unsealed shower... Similar posts