I live in Cork Ireland, with my wife and three sons. I have lived here since 2000 when I started work at Munster Technological University. I grew up in Cork, but after college I moved around a bit and have lived in Berkeley, California; Limerick; Braga, Portugal; Waterford; Dublin; and Savannah, Georgia. I miss most of the places I’ve lived, but I like Cork a lot. It’s just about the right size for my tastes.

I like to take pictures and I used to take photography very seriously. In 1999 I completed a City & Guilds certificate in Photography at Waterford Institute of Technology. It was fun to take a hobby seriously. But apart from holiday snaps and baby pictures I’m on a break from photography  at the moment. I am waiting for some inspiration and a new camera. I used to teach a night class in Photography and darkroom use, but most people don’t want to use darkrooms anymore.

I like to take pictures of the man made environment and I like the details that I can find in cities when I look hard enough. I’m very interested in the graphic qualities of the man-made environment. My last big project was documenting found  typography in Porto. For a number of years I’ve been collecting pictures of street covers from around the world.

I work as a lecturer at Munster Technological University. I teach computer science and IT Law courses at a variety of levels. Before working at CIT I taught multimedia at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) and at Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). Before teaching I worked on interactive projects and even worked as a technical writer for Macromedia for a few months. I miss working in multimedia but I am starting to think that as the technology becomes easier to use the field is best left to design professionals.

I am interested in digital video compression. I wrote my Master’s thesis on Block Matching Algorithms. That was way back in 1995. But I’m surprised how many hits my thesis still gets after all this time. It still gets referenced in papers, patents, and books.  I suspect with the roll out of digital TV around the world, people are curious about how digital video works.

I am interested in podcasting. Ironically, I used to never listen to the radio when I was younger. Now I listen to radio programs from all over the world as well as from RTE in Ireland. I started putting recordings of my lectures online in 2001. Since then that process has become easier. In 2007 & 2008 I offered a course on web development that was delivered primarily online. This was an interesting experiment.

I am interested in trade mark law. I completed an LLM in IT & IP Law in 2016. My Masters thesis was on Moral Bars to Trade Mark Registration. I am currently working towards a PhD in trade mark law