Copacetic

Its all happening this week on the conference front in Dublin.

From Tuesday through Friday we have the Irish Web Technology Conference hosted at the Cineworld Complex on Parnell Street. Fergus Burns and Conor O’Neill will be presenting and I would suggest you also try and catch Paddy Holohan of Newbay. Paddy has made more money from software in the last twenty years than is probably legal . If you are really stuck, you could kill and hour with this guy.

The IWTC unfortunately clashes with two other great events I want to attend this week as well. XCellerate 2008 is a tabled as “Bringing Silicon Valley to Ireland” but seems to heavily focussed on an (impressive) lineup of irish presenters including Brian Caulfield, Chris Horn, Bernie Cullinane and Shay Garvey.

Its only a half day affair so in theory you could nip across to The Ballsbridge Court (aka the Berkeley Court) for the morning if you wanted to catch up on what appears to be a ISA conference from 5 years ago, dug up and dusted off.

The real clash comes with the ISA Conference next day which has some great speakers but the worst website I have ever seen (did I say website, web page! more like). Guy Kawasaki, the ex Apple Evangelist, A-list blogger and sometimes VC at Garage Ventures is paired with Anthony Williams the co-author of Wikinomics. These are world class speakers and its a real coup for the ISA to get them to come to Ireland. The ISA Conference is hosted at the O’Reilly Institute, UCD in Belfield.

Then to cap it all off on Saturday we have the Irish Blog Awards, organised by Irelands most prolific blogger, Damien Mulley for the third year in a row. This will held at the Alexander Hotel in Dublin (just behind Trinity). Entrance fee is €10 and a good night is guranteed for all.

Don’t even get me started on BlogTalk 2008 which kicks off on Sunday in Cork.

Prices are as follows:

• IWTC : Four Days, 41 speakers : €245 but €189 if you pre-register online
• XCellerate 2008 : Half Day, €100 or 450 bundle which gives you access to the ISA Conference
• ISA Conference : Members €250, Non members €300, Incubation Centre Member €200
• BlogAwards : €10 on the door

I think the keepers are the IWTC for the scope of its presenters, the ISA conference for Guy and Anthony and the BlogAwards because Damien sensibly organised it not to clash with anyone else.

I shot this picture in my local Tesco’s supermarket recently. This is the printer cartridge aisle. I know printer ink is more expensive than vintage champagne (or human blood for that matter). But this enormous mountain of ink is only a tiny representative sample of the totality of form factors for ink delivery out there.

Each time Dell or IBM or HP produce a new printer they seem bound by some crazed anti-reuse cancer to produce a completely brand new delivery system.

The obsession with eluding the cartridge refillers (who are doing the planet and our pockets a great service) must stop and some kind of move to a standardised delivery system has to be the future for this industry.

Can you say carbon footprint?