Paul Walsh, the chief executive and founder of software company Segala, only launched his personal blog last week but he has a long and chequered history as a blogger.

Prior to this, his company blog (http://segala.com/blog/) was his main outlet and the site of many a heated debate in Irish and international blogging circles.

As an example of how much interaction Walsh's blog attracts, a post last November suggesting the establishment of a representative association for the Irish digital media industry attracted 74 posts.

The topic of that post is one that is dear to Walsh - how to foster and support Irish technology start-ups.

Never short of an opinion, he's been critical of State agencies such as Enterprise Ireland for their lack of understanding of web business models.

He's also had a pop at TechLudd, a new networking event in Dublin inspired by the recent Paddys Valley trip to California, suggesting it's half-baked and potentially damaging to the Ireland Inc brand.

Some of Walsh's best posts are the longer, detailed ones where he offers useful pieces of technical advice, like how to manage your privacy settings on Facebook, or get Twitter working on your iPhone.

But everyone loves a controversy and so when Walsh lets fly the rest of the bloggers sit up and take notice.

Walsh has even managed to get noticed by the Chinese authorities and his musings no longer pass through the great firewall of China following a post earlier this month on the death of a Chinese blogger - apparently at the hands of municipal inspectors.

It would be disingenuous to give the impression that Walsh is purely negative or reactionary.

His post RoboBraille Rocks!, complimenting a tool that translates computer files into Braille, is a good example of his enthusiasm for all that is best about technology and the web.

Walsh intends to use the company blog for matters relevant to Segala such as the semantic web, accessibility and standards, while his personal blog will be where he discusses social media, web 2.0 and other web and mobile trends.

For most people, dividing your time between two blogs may result in diluting your efforts. I doubt that will be a problem for Paul Walsh.