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This is both annoying and embarassing.

My Facebook account was hacked earlier this afternoon and the "charming" hacker has been telling my contacts that I need money - it's basically a 419 scam.

I've already reported the issue to Facebook

To clarify:

- I'm not in London or anywhere else overseas. I'm currently in Carlow
- I haven't been mugged or had my wallet stolen
- I don't use Western Union or any such services. If I wanted your money I'd either ask or encourage you to spend more money with us!

Hopefully I'll be able to get this resolved in a timely fashion.

I suspect my Facebook account password was a bit too weak and was bruteforced..

UPDATE: I've finally regained control of the account and will be using much stronger passwords in the future (there's a blog post or two in that tale!)

The recent publication of the Ryan report on child abuse has revealed a side to Ireland that makes me ashamed to hold an Irish passport.

The following clip from an Irish current affairs show is very disturbing and shows a very brave abuse victim going into some detail of what he went through.

To whoever put this up on Youtube - thank you!

Since I wrote this article for the Sunday Business Post supplement and it's currently not available online I thought I might as well republish the unedited version. (The edited version might make more sense!)

Here it is...

Every time you open a newspaper of magazine these days there seems to be articles encouraging you to use various "social networking" websites to improve your business and your life. Personally I think a lot of it is hype, but I still think most of them can be useful tools.

One of the first "social networking" sites I joined was LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been around for several years, but I've noticed a lot more interest being shown in it in over the last year.
So what is it?
In many respects LinkedIn is "the" business networking site.
While Bebo may be aimed at a younger crowd, Linkedin is designed for working professionals.

So why should you use Linkedin?

That depends on you, but whether you are happily employed, running your own business or looking for that next challenge meeting new people with similar interests is always a good move.
Over the last couple of years I've used LinkedIn several times to arrange meetings with industry partners in advance of conferences. I've got back in touch with people I went to school with and even managed to track down people I worked with over 15 years ago. I've also been able to use Linkedin to build up a network of contacts that are happy to lend a hand when you ask them. (Just remember it is a two way street!) A lot of people I know on LinkedIn use it for getting recommendations, so being on there obviously increases your chances of being recommended!

Unlike Facebook, for example with its annoying vampires and ghouls, the site is focussed on building relationships between business contacts. It may not be as "exciting" and "interactive" as Facebook, but it maintains its focus.

A basic LinkedIn account doesn't cost anything. If you choose to upgrade to one of the paid options you can get a lot more information about who has been viewing your profile and you also get access to more tools that allow you to contact other users directly. With the free option you can get basic information about who has been looking at your profile, while a paid membership gives you full details. If, like me, you aren't using LinkedIn to actively find sales leads, then you probably don't need the paid options.

So what kind of things can you put on there?

The key thing with LinkedIn is your profile. Everything else takes a back seat. If you want a lot of privacy then it probably isn't the place for you! Sure, you don't have to share sensitive information, but in order to use the site effectively you need to have a complete profile.

People do business with other people. While it is obvious that very big brands have their own attractions it's also clear to me at least that I base a lot of decisions on the personality of my contact. I don't need to like a sales person but if I do it certainly helps. And this personal aspect is central to the site.

You're actively encouraged to maintain as complete a profile as possible and to keep your profile up to date. I've seen quite a few people use their LinkedIn profile as an alternative to a CV. Not only does it show all the usual skills and experience but it will also show what other people think of this person. So you get the CV and the references all in one place and putting a photo on your profile helps. You can easily link to your profile in your email signature or put one of the little buttons on your website or blog.

While member profiles on a lot of sites are distinctly lacking in clear information most LinkedIn profiles are comprehensive and clear. If someone asks to "connect" with me on LinkedIn I can easily find out who they are and decide if I want to interact with them. Your profile page is a lot more than just a business card. You can provide as much professional information as possible and also include information about your interests. The more detail you provide the more likely you are to be found by people either looking for you or looking for someone like you. You can also provide links to your external websites and RSS feed (eg. Your business or personal blog) while also sharing your personal interests.

So how can you use it?
If you are looking for a job you can browse current job openings. If you're looking to make a sale then you need to be careful how you approach things. The gentle indirect approach is usually best. So you could, for example, join one of the many industry groups or invest some time in answering questions from other LinkedIn members on the site. In either case by building up a network of contacts and getting yourself "known" you increase your visibility and thus your chance of either getting hired or making that sale. If you are looking for a personal contact in a faceless corporation then you might be able to leverage your existing relationships. Think of it as being akin to the six  degrees of separation. If I don't know someone directly chances are someone in my extended network might. A contact today might be a sales lead tomorrow. In my own experience it has helped when choosing providers for a whole range of services, such as mobile phones and even coffee!

You can also use the groups feature within LinkedIn to find people who share common interests and the group discussion boards are a great way to swap ideas and opinions on relevant topics. You can see which groups a person is in via the little badges that get displayed on their profile. The key thing each and every time is that you aren't distracted with irrelevant rubbish, which can be major problem with a lot of other social networking sites.
There are a few applications you can choose to use which will do things like pull in blog posts from your contacts or friends' Amazon reading lists, but they are totally unobtrusive.

Giving and receiving recommendations is one of the more powerful tools. I am always happy to recommend people and services that I've had a good personal experience with. Doing this via LinkedIn makes it public and also helps other people to gauge how "valued" you and your contacts are. If I make a recommnedation for a product or a service then I have to feel confident that it will deliver, because if it doesn't it will reflect badly on me. So, I won't leave a recommendation on someone's profile unless I've had direct experience of them or their services. Most people on LinkedIn won't either.

Personally I find the service to be very useful and depending on how you use it you may find it incredibly helpful too. Since it won't cost you anything other than a bit of time to setup a profile there's nothing to lose.

Again last night I was reminded just how terrible the kitchen knives I own are. Slicing up a bit of pork shouldn't be that hard, but every time I have to do it the knives I'm using make it feel like a massive chore.

So can anyone out there recommend some knives? (For the kitchen obviously!)

I don't mind spending money on a set that will "do the job" and last, but I don't think I can take much more of the ones I currently have!

The BBC have a serious online presence which probably costs them a fortune to maintain every year.

None of the Irish political parties have an online presence that comes anywhere near it (and you wouldn't really expect them to either... )

But when an Irish political party blatantly rips off the BBC's design and thinks they can get away with it, what kind of message does that send?

They then try to cover their tracks, but obviously don't do a particularly convincing job of it.

Now the thing that leaves me practically speechless is the attitude of the politicos that emanates from their comments on both of Steph's posts:

Get over it Steph. The site is brilliant. Its really is superb. Its online, it works, and its not going anywhere.

As a matter of fact, the site online now, was ready to go last week, the .org site up yesterday was a bit of a teaser based on some very early work.

I think its great. Don't think anybody else other than yourself and Dave Cochrane of p.ie are even the slightest bit bothered. My two cents, appreciate a brilliant website when you see it!

So the message is what exactly?

(Irish) Political parties don't have to abide by copyright rules?

As I already learnt, they seem to think that they can abuse email without any censure, so why would design or any other intellectual property matter?

Of course the funny thing is that they don't do a particulary good job of protecting their own IP.

Both finegael.tel and fiannafail.tel are registered to the same person.. I somehow doubt if that person has any links to either party and most certainly not both ...

Today being the 1st of April the media is awash with jokes and tricks. Some are very clever, some not so much.

Unfortunately today was also the day that we had scheduled an upgrade of the software that runs a lot of our business.. and as luck would have it the upgrade was not without its "issues".

Not really the best day for me to be playing pranks or to be one the receiving end of them...

Maybe next year ...

When you run your own business you can end up becoming heavily invested in your business' success and failure. Comments and feedback, both positive and negative, might affect you more than you would like to admit.

Over the last few years the company I founded has grown from operating out of a bedroom (or two) to having a fulltime staff of close to 20.

Over the years we've improved some things, made a total mess of others, delighted some people and really annoyed others. (In many instances the "love" and "hate" is directed at me personally, as I am the most visible person associated with the company).

The harsh reality is that no matter what you do you cannot and will not please everyone all of the time.

Since I'm interested in my industry I track certain keywords on Twitter, so watching people talking about some of our competitors can be very enlightening.
 GoDaddy, which is simply massive in terms of its customer base, proves my point.
Just watch how people react to them over a 24 hour period.
You will see both ends of the scale.
They're all talking about the same company during the same time period, so it's really fascinating (to me at least) to watch.

Like any site, technicaljobs.ie isn't going to be an overnight success.

Sure, it would be great if it was, but if it was easy then everyone would do it!

However it is nice to see that a few people have started posting jobs on the site.

There are currently 9 jobs listed, which is a very small number admittedly, but it's a start.

Checking the website's statistics isn't overly encouraging, but "Rome wasn't built in a day"...

It is getting some search engine traffic, but not a huge amount.


So it's a bit of a catch 22 - no traffic means no job posts, which in turn means no content, which means no search engine results and no traffic ....

I hate spam.

It's a tactic used by lazy uninventive scumbags.

I don't like politicians that much and consider most of them to be seriously overpaid.


So when I got hit with a spam from the Irish Green Party today to my personal email address I saw red.


Here's the spam itself (screenshot with personal details removed):





I love the way they wanted to "be sure" that I got their unsolicited junk.

I am not interested in the Green Party. I have never expressed any interest in them. I have not asked to be added to any of their mailing lists, so why the hell are they sending me this rubbish?

Funnily enough the contact details on their website include one for data protection - its' as if they were expecting a backlash from their spamming:




Well done Green Party - any chance of ever getting a vote from me is gone!

Morons!

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So it's now 2009 - Happy New Year to everyone!

Here's hoping it will be a good one.....