Grannymar

So you want to know what I did.

I attended

I did, and it was fun!

Andy puts us on the list!

Apart from the Tekkie Presentations I learned….

The story of Good Coffee

How to shave by

How to improve my life

Conference Essentials: Water, Internet, Coffee, Electricity,Signs and I will add Loos.

How Mogulus.com works the system used by Richard Jolly to Live Stream the events of the day.

Phil & Davy check the light.

I had the chance to network (did I get that right?) with new people and made new friends, now I have new Blogs to follow.

In the afternoon Darragh Doyle and I led a conversation on Blogging:

What it’s about, how you should (and shouldn’t), how to enjoy it, sharing your stories, selling your brand and ideas, building your audience. Using blogs and social networking together, for your benefit

Quotes from the day:

I really enjoyed your conversation technique. I wouldn’t have said anything otherwise… ~ Phil O’Kane to Darragh.

Barcamp Belfast was great fun yesterday, the event, the presentation, but most of all almost everyone engaging at the event is what made it ~ Davy Mc

Andy, Phil and others put tremendous effort into the preparation for and all during the day. I know that we attendees appreciated their efforts. Many thanks

I came home with booty:

A new T-shirt (Elly have we swapped lives?), a laptop bag, badges and money!

Thanks Andy for the bag it will be put to good use. I found the four ‘AU’ badges and the penny inside one of the pockets, no tenners I promise! I will keep them until the next photo walk.

Darragh I will wear my ‘Hugged’ badge with pride.

P.S. Darragh suggests that all the Toyboys who received ‘A Grannymar Toyboy’ badge should have a photo taken wearing it and post it on their blog and link to me… That boy has some funny ideas I still have a few to pass on.

I look forward to the next BarCamp and hope to see you there.

BarCamp Belfast is almost upon us

Saturday 21st June, 9am - 5pm

Peter Froggatt Centre, Queen’s University Belfast.

These days don’t just happen, we have to thank the lads for beavering away in the background to bring everything together for the duration :

Andy McMillan (t) (goodonpaper.org)
David R. Newman (Queen’s University Belfast)

The programme sounds interesting and I am looking forward to meeting some old faces and new. I will have to behave because the fella Darragh Doyle will report back to Elly if I don’t! I think he is planning to ask me some questions…

The list of attendees has hit 60 but it looks like we women will be well outnumbered. Come on girls, join in the fun, you know you want to!

Anyone know what a Blog is?

Grandad asked a question on Saturday.

The conditions of his release from a short spell in captivity include lying low and not interfering with his neighbours property or staff building workers, shooting Tourists, or ranting and raving about the dedicated and hardworking personnel who so unselfishly and wholeheartedly give of themselves for the good of Ireland by serving in Government. This leaves little for him to do so in his boredom he committed a few short words to the laptop and asked a question.

Now this was either a ploy to check up on the loyalty of his followers, or to get them to do all the work and fill Cyberspace with their answers and keep his stats up. There is also the possibility that the answers would provide meat fodder topics for further blog posts.

The question he posed was ‘Why do I(you) Blog?’

I quickly sent my first thoughts winging over the Interweb:

• • Elly walked me into it.
  • The novelty.
  • Now to keep in contact with all the virtual friends I have made.

Happy enough with that I went about my daily chores. Alas there was no peace, the question haunted me at every twist and turn.

So, Why do I blog?

Yes, the answers above were all correct. Elly did walk or push me into it. I was her guinea pig for Bar Camp South East way back in September ‘06. I did say “what would I want to do that for? and many other unprintable things as well. But we I got there and my first post was two sentences!!!! Yes two.

Elly was more concerned with me learning about Podcasting. I did my best, and my first effort The Favour was all of two or three minutes. Way to long for anyone to suffer listening to such a dreadful voice!

With time I became more comfortable and adventurous, the blog posts grew longer as did the Podcasts. I learned to insert graphics and photos and last week I managed to add a mini video clip.

Slowly, very slowly over time the comments started to arrive. There are some folk who visit and tip-toe away saying nothing, and that is their right, but there are other stalwarts who visit everyday adding their wisdom, another point of view or sense of fun. At this stage I feel they are my friends and I cherish them. Not being able to ‘Run the Roads’, as they say here in Norn Iron, as much as I would like, I appreciate my blogging friends all the more.

Thank you, Elly for the push! Thank you George for your help also (now where are my flags?). I have learned so much since I started, I discovered there is so much more to learn and most important of all plenty more fun to be had.

So in short I blog, and read blogs because:

• I learn from others.
• Ranting or readings rants, raises my blood pressure.
• The laughter is like jogging on the inside.
• The smile some posts put on my face requires the use of more muscles than a frown, and it also keeps the laughter lines curved upwards giving my face a softer look!
• Then there is the ‘T’ word…..

So please visit more, you are good for my health!

Dear Keith, the man with the rib crushing hugs!

My Elly has gone mad altogether! It must be all this Christmas Spirit.

Her latest suggestion is for Me, yes little old me to offer my help with Creative Camp in Kilkenny on Saturday March 8^th 2008. *(GM thinks - Toyboys, plenty of Toyboys)*

Now I ask you why would you want my help and anyway what could I do up here in Norn Iron?

Now darling, if you think of a way to use my talents… don’t tell the daughter or she might want to interfere!

Ever faithful,

Grannymar

Today is not a good day in ‘Lover’s Leap’. In fact it has not proved to be a good week at all. Last Friday my Elly returned from a working week in Israel. She phoned me from Dublin Airport as she waited for her baggage to come through. She always checks in like this a) to see if it is time to claim her inheritance or b) to let me know she has landed safely. We talked until I heard the baggage carousel start up and I let her go to concentrate on that. A little while later I had a text from her to say the case had not come home.

Saturday she was involved at Barcamp Dublin, another long and busy day. The suitcase was delivered on Sunday mid morning so all seemed well.

Monday and Tuesday were spent playing catch up at work while sorting her paperwork for the Visa, and vaccinations required for the next trip in May, which is to Vietnam with a stop off for two weeks on the way in Arizona. Taking the westward route she should come right round the world, passing the date line for the first time and cover 20,800 miles of flying.

Her visit to the Post Office was slow and tedious but the Passport and paperwork were eventually sent on their merry way to London for the Visa Stamp. She returned to her car to discover a parking ticket on the windshield.

Wednesday dawned and the effects of the Vaccinations hit home and she was suffering from a sore arm and rear end! At lunch time a young man decided to be friendly with my Sin-in-Law, far too friendly! He ‘rear ended him’; I think that is the term. The car is a mess I believe. ‘S-i-L’ thought he was un-damaged so did not take my advice and go to his doctor.

This morning ‘S-i-L’ had a very sore neck and Elly’s rear end was swollen, sore and not allowing her to sit down. They both headed to see the doctor and were given medication and told to take it easy today and not to try working.

While I spoke to Elly on the phone this morning she was pacing up and down, ‘S-i-L’ put out his hand to touch her as she passed – to give her a sign of comfort. His hand was about 2” from her bottom when she gave him a ‘Moses’ look, like the look Moses used to part the Red Sea. When Elly does that you BACK OFF!

Tonight they are a little better and the wedding is going ahead!

Get well soon, I love you both!

Way back last year, well not really that long ago I was asked a favour…

You know the kind of thing, three minutes before leaving for school you hear “Oh by the way mum I need £50 for the school trip”, or “a new Badminton racquet” or “my shoes are letting in rain”. How come you are never told the evening before when there is a chance of doing something about the situation? No, it has to be on the doorstep on the way out to school. Nobody ever tells you that motherhood involves being a magician. It is one of those things that are never mentioned.

Well that is how I felt last September when my Elly phoned to say “Mum I need a favour!” She was no longer at school, she had stopped the Badminton and she could afford to buy her own shoes. What on earth could it be? Those of you who have followed my Blog from the beginning will remember that I was to be her ‘case study’ or as I called it ‘guinea pig’ in teaching Granny Pod-casting. A topic she had agreed to speak on at the ‘Barcamp’ in Cork

We began with a lesson on how to set up a Blog site. Well to be exact she sent me several links for subjects to read and places to experiment with, so that I could get started. I chose my template, fonts; colours etc. and Elly later ‘tweaked’ things a little to make it more inviting for anyone who might come across it by accident.

Since her topic was Pod-casting I had to learn how to do that as well. I liked to idea of a Pod-cast as it hid my awful grammar and bad spelling. I found it easier to prepare and type out a piece on my chosen subject and then read it to an imagined audience.

I seem to have flapped about like a non swimmer in a choppy sea between the Blog and the Pod-casts. My subject matter has also seemed ‘Mixed Middling like Hafner’s Pudding’ as my Grandmother used to say. I suppose I have not found a theme for my Blog and have no idea if this is off putting for any readers/listeners out there.

My biggest surprise is that Elly who got me started and my future Son-in-law both experienced Bloggers have not yet as far as I know made a Pod-cast. Why I ask, what are they frightened of? If I can do it why can’t they? I am a great believer in not asking someone to do something that you are not prepared to do yourself.

Come on you two there is nothing to it!

P.S. This was supposed to be a Podcast but Odeo had other ideas!

Yesterday I had some trouble uploading, embedding or whatever the term is when I want to add an Audio Post to my Blog. I am not so sure that it was my entire fault. Google and Firefox were both misbehaving at the time. In frustration I closed down and went to do some manual work in the kitchen. A good wholesome dinner was what I needed to give me the energy to tackle the problem.

Later I had a ‘tekki’ lesson over the phone from ‘Prof Elly’- daughters do have their uses. I suppose it was part payment for the Tee-shirt. Someone at Barcamp South East might let me know!

Now back to this problem of mine. Elly talked me through the steps and they were exactly the ones I had taken earlier, maybe ‘Google’ had eaten dinner and decided to work properly, because everything went as it should and I was able to embed my Audio Post. Now when I get ‘Prof Elly’ on the phone I try to have all my computer problems solved in one session. Somehow in the past few weeks I had lost the ‘Google Reader Subscribe’ tab. This led me to bookmark items and then not be able to find where they had hidden. We played hide and seek and I learned yet again to highlight, drag, hover and drop. Now I have added some sites I use frequently in my toolbar.

My final request was for a magic formula. If I wanted to make reference to another Blog or web site what did I need to do so that the site name appeared in a different colour and underlined allowing readers to link directly to it? I discovered I needed to learn this formula when one day I made reference to Nelly’s Garden. Nelly adds a smile to my face on many a bleak day. Keep up the good work girl.

If I have listened to my teacher and remembered all she told me this post might have some links for you. Maybe if I keep up the good work I might even warrant a mention in the 2008 Irish Blog Awards! I would need to buck up and post on a more regular basis for that. Good luck to all those entered and especially those I have nominated.

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