So I’d like to get a subscription to the new NFL Magazine and maybe a few others, but the price of $60 a year for an subscription here in Ireland is crazy, especially when it’s $20 for the States. Fair enough shipping is expensive but what’s mad is I can’t get a subscription to their digital copy without a full subscription. This seems to be a tactic used to push/keep up subscription numbers which dictate advertising numbers.

So is there a service out there that will purchase the subscription for me in the States and provide me with the digital access? I don’t care what they do with the magazines. I’d happily pay $10 a year for this per subscription and it would save me a fortune in shipping costs!

EDIT: I just found these guys http://www.reship.com/Default.aspx so I’ve emailed them to see if they can do it.

Filed under: Uncategorized by rossmulcahy

About Hub House – www.hubhouse.org

Opening in November 2011, Hub House is both a house and an office space, where teams come together, projects get worked on and businesses get started. Think “Little mansion” meets “tech hub”. There is space for 5 people to live in the House full time. This is the core of The Hub – a big house, which will be separate from the work space. There are 5 double rooms, living areas, TVs and sofas, a big kitchen, a laundry room etc. A bedroom with additional working space in the office is only €600 / month.

The house is located just off the M50 at Cabinteely, a 5 minute walk from the green line Luas (30 mins to Stephen’s Green), with parking spots for 12 cars.

We’re aiming to create an atmosphere that blends really ambitious, productive, innovative work with a fun, relaxed place to live – we have super high speed internet, but we also have a 5-a-side pitch in the garden. There will be all night hackathons, but also beers and bbqs. A Halloween party, a tech networking evening, movie nights, a hackathon and a halo tournament are all in the works for the next few months.

The House also has a large working space for non-residents. This is the ideal set up for a new venture – a working space with loads of like minded people to bounce ideas off, but without having to pay full rent for an office. Non residents can get a desk in the office for only €150 per month. This also includes full access to the house facilities including the training & mentoring we provide (run by Create Ireland)

Here are a few of the businesses that members of House Hub are already working on:

* Minders.ie – A daft.ie for childminders and parents

* CherryText – A Facebook app for free webtexts

* Amp Music Marketing – An online marketing agency for the music business

* Popsleds.com – Importing sleds from China for the big snow this winter!

* Zulunotes.com – An online resource for Leaving Cert  Study Notes

* Early Entrepreneurs – A “Young Entrepreneurs” project which raises money for charity

* A few others still in development, too secret to share!

If you are a developer, designer or tech entrepreneur and want to live and/or work in a space like this please get in touch, you can come for a tour and I can tell you all the finer details.

Peter

e: peter@amp.ie

m: 086 3559129

Filed under: Uncategorized by rossmulcahy

If you’re using WordPress and want to insert some sharing links for some of the most popular social site across the web you could go the easy route and instal a plugin. But if you want the links diretly in your template I’ve compiled the links for a few of the most used sites:

Facebook

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?
u=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink())?>
&t=<?php echo urlencode(get_the_title()) ?>"
target="_blank">Share on Facebook</a>

Twitter

<a href="http://twitter.com/home?
status=Currentlyreading <?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()) ?>
" title="Click to share this post on Twitter" target="_blank"
>Share on Delicious</a>

LinkedIn

<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?
mini=true&url=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()) ?>
&title=<?php echo urlencode(get_the_title()) ?>
&source=<?php get_home_url(); ?>" target="_blank">
Share on LinkedIn</a>

Digg

<a href="http://digg.com/submit?
phase=2&url=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()) ?>
&title=<?php echo urlencode(get_the_title()) ?>
" target="_blank">Share on Digg</a>

Reddit

<a href="http://reddit.com/submit?
url=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()) ?>
&title=<?php echo urlencode(get_the_title()) ?>"
target="_blank">Share on Reddit</a>

Tumblr

<a href="http://www.tumblr.com/share/link?
url=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()) ?>
&name=<?php echo urlencode(get_the_title()) ?>"
target="_blank">Share on Tumblr</a>

StumbleUpon

<a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?
url=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()) ?>"
target="_blank">Share on StumbleUpon</a>

Delicious

<a href="http://www.delicious.com/save?
url=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()) ?>"
target="_blank">Share on Delicious</a>

Filed under: Wordpress by rossmulcahy

I wrote this on my lunch so it is very hastily put together so excuse my jumping from topic to topic, not fully citing sources and being very ranty in general. (You may gather I don’t like record companies or organizations like RIAA and IMRO)

To whom it may concern,

As published in the Sunday Business Post on 3rd of July http://thepost.ie/technology/reality-bytes-57179.html , Adrian Weckler says that a new law is in consultation period which would give power to the music industry to shut down websites who may be involved with file sharing. How can this be legal? You’re going to let private industry dictate what should and should not be seen on the internet? Disgraceful!

How about you protect the Irish consumer first? We don’t even have a fair use law in this country – so technically iTunes & Mp3 players are illegal! Also concert prices have gone through the roof here in the last ten years, we are currently one of the most expensive countries in Europe to attend a concert in – this is to make up for losses in music sales so I’d imagine this legislation will force the record companies to lower these prices also? Or are we gonna let the music industry have their cake and eat it too?

The draconian music industry in it’s current guise is in it’s death throes, why would the government step in to protect an industry like this – one that constantly screws over the little guy to squeeze every penny out of it’s musicians?

Let’s not forget the incompetence of ISP’s and IRMA already this year when they falsely accused 300 eircom customers of illegally downloading music, and we should trust these people to have a say in what sites they think should be on the internet?
http://torrentfreak.com/isp-wrongfully-sent-300-first-strike-letters-to-innocents-110617/

If you look at Minister Bruton’s intention with this review, you can see this change completely misses the point:

“The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton T.D. has decided to conduct a Review of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 to identify any problems that might be perceived to create barriers to innovation. The Review will seek submissions from interested parties and make recommendations to resolve any problems identified. The Minister expects to receive the Final Report from the Review Committee by the end of 2011.”

You wil notice that since the popularity of piracy has risen it is the only time in the music industry’s long history that it has really innovated and faced the fact that it has to change to meet this new digital world we live in, if it were up to the record companies we would still be buying CDs so they can make their mechanical royalties off the artists. Let’s not forget in the 80s we were told ‘Home taping is killing music’ yet sales went on to double through the 90s, and that piracy has shown to increase the likelihood of an album sale. Also is this really the right message to send out for this new Ireland the government talks about:

“Is your industry dying because times and technologies have moved on? Think you need to innovate? No! Don’t bother, just lobby the government to change the laws to suit your business model” – FG & Labour government

Let’s not forget how the record companies are happy to break the law when it suits them
(http://torrentfreak.com/warner-music-director-caught-in-piracy-110620/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal ) and that no money from a piracy payout has ever gone to an artist!

How long before we block Wikipedia because encyclopedia sales are down?

I would love to have a full conversation about this with you, as I believe the current government is completely uninformed regarding technology and the open nature of the internet and therefor it would be irresponsible to make these types of laws.

Regards,

Ross Mulcahy
Castleknock, Dublin 15

Filed under: Uncategorized by rossmulcahy

So after a week and a bit of finding and fixing bugs, thanks to some very helpful twitter followers and boards.ie and reddit users for helping out, I’ve now got Premier League Trivia in the Android Market.

I’d love to hear any more feedback on it, I’m sure there are one or two things that have been missed!

Filed under: Android by rossmulcahy

Download now

I’ve finally got my Premier League Trivia App into good enough shape (well in a ship early, ship often sense) to start some beta testing and I’d love your feedback!

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Android by rossmulcahy

If you login to the Android Developer Console today you should see a new link underneath your active installs percentage. This stats page presents a whole host of statistics, for example here are some stats for my Liverpool FC Songs app:

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Android by rossmulcahy

On January 22nd I uploaded my first app to the Android Market, Liverpool FC Songs is a very simple app that has lyrics to ten Anfield fan favourites and links to the best versions of these songs being sung in Anfield on YouTube. Since the apps functionality was quite limited and I was just testing the waters of the Android Market, I decided to give the profit from this app to the Hillsborough Justice Campaign. The app is currently priced at €0.99, Google takes 30c from every App purchase and then a fee of 3.4% and 0.35c for monthly processing fees.

As of today, the 13th of March, I have had 99 orders of the app through the Android Market, with no promotion of the app at all. Of these 99 orders 15 have been cancelled through Google’s 15 minute return time and 2 have been cancelled due to payment being declined.

Of the 72 complete orders, 62 are currently active installs although for some reason the Android Market’s breakdown is 91 total installs and 62 active (68%); this seems a little unfair as Google may be using the percentage of active installs as a ranking factor in the Android Market search.

So from the last 7 weeks in the Android Market, Liverpool FC Songs has earned about €47.64 for the Hillsborough Justice Campaign – not a great deal but for an app that doesn’t do much earning €6 a week isn’t too bad.

Using the experience of creating and launching this app I’m hoping to launch a game soon after Paddys Day, this will be a Premier League Trivia app with a twist – keep an eye on the blog or on @rossmulcahy on Twitter for more updates!!

Filed under: Android by rossmulcahy

One of my friends has set up an online CV for himself, it’s very slick and pretty good way to higher your online presence.

He’s also launched his blog discussing news related to his work. Will works as an Online Marketing Professional with experience working in both display and ppc advertising as well as SEO.

Filed under: Uncategorized by rossmulcahy

If you have read the Sunday Times article, “War on Pirates” written by Mark Tighe today, you may have seen some of my quotes, I just want to clarify a few comments I made.

Firstly I said:

“I’ve moved into a new place and I’ve decided not to get the only broadband available here — Eircom or Magnet — because they both go through Eircom exchanges.

I have since seen an article that says ALTO, whose members include members include BT Ireland, Magnet Networks, NTL, Chorus, Smart Telecom, Budget Telecom, Cable & Wireless, Colt Telecom, Complete Networks, Digiweb, ESB Telecoms, Verizon, and 3 Pay Plus, will not be party to the agreements Eircom has made with record labels. So I was wrong about Magnet’s customers information being used by Eircom in this “exercise”.

Secondly with regards my downloading I said

He admits downloading “seven to 10 albums a month” but insists he would then buy three or four of those that he liked. He estimates he has downloaded about 80 gigabytes of music.

While I did say I had downloaded about 80 gigabytes of music, I intended to say that my song library was that size, and that is made up of my converted CDs, of which I have hundreds, and legally downloaded music from iTunes, eMusic and  AllofMP3. The music I don’t buy, I will delete. I also don’t share music on services like RapidShare or BitTorrent.

Filed under: Uncategorized by rossmulcahy