Okay, I don’t believe in being an alarmist about hacking, but if you’ve got an Amazon account, a Google account or an iCloud account, you need to read this chilling Wired article. In the space of a few hours, tech reporter Mat Honan had his iPhone and MacBook wiped (including the only copies of all his photos of his…
Here are a few really useful articles I’ve come across in the last couple of weeks, all of which have to do with developments in the business. I’ll stick them in here in the order of the events they refer to: Eoin Purcell’s written an interesting article on who he sees as the winners and losers in the ongoing…
When it comes to technology, I often think companies with powerful new applications can fail to see the difference between ‘Can we?’ and ‘Should we?’. As private companies develop increasingly bottomless resources for storing our most personal information, we, their customers, should constantly be asking how much of this is really necessary, and how much we are giving away…
This is a bit of a mental week (I’m in eight different places this week alone – more, if you count individual libraries in a county), but I wanted to post a few things before I forgot. First off, if you’re a budding new author – or indeed a frustrated old one – Irish PEN are hosting a panel…
This post is a tribute to my Power Mac G4, a machine with which I have had a long and tumultuous working relationship; a machine I have cursed almost as often as I’ve admired. Hold onto your hats, ‘cos this could get a bit nerdy. Despite the numerous break-ups (and one or two break-downs) this Mac and I have…
To recap from Part 1 (of my ambitious and epic blog trilogy) what a publisher traditionally does for a writer is: first, they take that story on. That approval is, in itself, a recognition that the story is of a reasonable quality. Then they hone it into something they can sell, produce the printed matter and distribute it to…