Recently in design Category
Image by Irish Typepad via Flickr
Enterprise Ireland seem to be funding a Template Monster clone, which is linked into Digiweb. Why should tax payers be paying for another Eoin Costello project? If it's commercially viable shouldn't it be able to stand on its own two feet? And does the world really need another template monster?
Why would anyone in their right mind pay that kind of money for a such a horrific "design" when so many free site building tools would do as good a job if not better?
Ammado are a very odd business. Judging by what people have been saying this morning it looks like they spammed quite a few bloggers this morning (Justin Mason, Donncha O Caoimh and Damien Mulley that I know of). I have an account with them, so while I thought the email looked dodgy I wasn't going to complain to them formally.
Twitter has been down more than up over the last few days. If anyone wants an invite to jaiku I have a few.. If you want to see what people are blathering about check out Twit.ie (love the name!) which pulls in the latest posts from both jaiku and twitter from an ever growing list of Irish based users.
UPDATE: Justin has blogged about Ammado and also points out that they're signed up to Habeas!
UPDATE 2: Someone from Ammado has posted an "apology" in the comments on Justin's blog. I'm beginning to see a pattern emerging here..
UPDATE 3 - Looks like quite a few people weren't that impressed with being "targetted" by Ammado: Alexia, Maman Poulet, Damien,
The ICT Excellence awards have been announced.
Unfortunately they have a website. I say unfortunately as it is truly horrendous.
If this is one of Ireland's premier awards I'd hate to see what the bad ones are like....
Unfortunately they have a website. I say unfortunately as it is truly horrendous.
If this is one of Ireland's premier awards I'd hate to see what the bad ones are like....
The Royal Mint has unveiled the new designs for the UK coins. They look really nice, though I guess this means they won't be joining the Eurozone anytime soon :)
You can order a variety of mint sets via their site - if you're insanely rich go for the Platinum ones, whereas mere mortals can opt for base metal ones.
You can order a variety of mint sets via their site - if you're insanely rich go for the Platinum ones, whereas mere mortals can opt for base metal ones.
I signed up for a StumbleUpon account nearly 3 years ago. Of course I lost the login details and ended up creating another account last year, which I then forgot about. Bernie was inviting people to connect with him earlier this evening, so I dugout the original emails...
While I can appreciate that StumbleUpon is free and useful it's got some really annoying UI / "user experience" glitches.
Why does the main page invite me to "join" when I'm already logged in?
Why does the "invite friends" screen insist on sending emails to people instead of actually searching for them? There is an option to find people via their email address, but it's well and truly buried.
The invite friends email isn't particularly well crafted either. Instead of sending you to a page to join OR login it forces you to signup, so Bernie's emails earlier this evening will probably have frustrated a load of other people (unintentionally on his part).
Jaiku has been offline for most of today, which is a pity. It looks like they're having hardware or database issues again. Pity, as its interface is so much nicer to use than Twitter.
Travian UK have restarted server 1, so hopefully I'll fare a bit better. I'm currently being slaughtered on the speed server :(
While I can appreciate that StumbleUpon is free and useful it's got some really annoying UI / "user experience" glitches.
Why does the main page invite me to "join" when I'm already logged in?
Why does the "invite friends" screen insist on sending emails to people instead of actually searching for them? There is an option to find people via their email address, but it's well and truly buried.
The invite friends email isn't particularly well crafted either. Instead of sending you to a page to join OR login it forces you to signup, so Bernie's emails earlier this evening will probably have frustrated a load of other people (unintentionally on his part).
Jaiku has been offline for most of today, which is a pity. It looks like they're having hardware or database issues again. Pity, as its interface is so much nicer to use than Twitter.
Travian UK have restarted server 1, so hopefully I'll fare a bit better. I'm currently being slaughtered on the speed server :(
Apple's latest bit of hardware, The Time Capsule, sounds like an interesting concept.
It's a combination of wireless backup unit for Mac clients and also acts as a wireless base station.
Two versions are available:
It might prove attractive for some people, though I'll probably discover that there are cheaper alternatives out there without the Apple logo :)
It's a combination of wireless backup unit for Mac clients and also acts as a wireless base station.
Two versions are available:
- 500 Gb
- 1 Terrabyte
It might prove attractive for some people, though I'll probably discover that there are cheaper alternatives out there without the Apple logo :)
Much to my amazement not only was this blog shortlisted for the awards under "Best Technology Blog", but the company blog was shortlisted under the "Best Business Blog" category.
Best of luck to all the nominees and maybe I'll see you on the night - if not I'm sure someone from the Blacknight crew will be in attendance....
The person who deserves all the credit, however, is Mr Mulley himself. I honestly don't know how he finds the time or the energy to get involved with so many things!
On a slight aside, Eoghan did an interesting analysis of the slightly longer list of nominees comparing page "weight". It makes for interesting reading, especially if you're in a country with not so impressive broadband coverage (ie. Ireland - in case that was too subtle!).
Of course the problem is trying to strike the balance.
Images and other multimedia can brighten up a site (or blog) quite a bit.
I've been using images in my posts here more and more over the last year or so and the company blog gets an interesting (IMHO) variety of stock photos added to most of the posts. The problem is when the extras start to detract from the user experience. Javascript maybe enabled by most people, but do you have to have THAT much scripting to render a simple page with a bit of text? Probably not...
Best of luck to all the nominees and maybe I'll see you on the night - if not I'm sure someone from the Blacknight crew will be in attendance....
The person who deserves all the credit, however, is Mr Mulley himself. I honestly don't know how he finds the time or the energy to get involved with so many things!
On a slight aside, Eoghan did an interesting analysis of the slightly longer list of nominees comparing page "weight". It makes for interesting reading, especially if you're in a country with not so impressive broadband coverage (ie. Ireland - in case that was too subtle!).
Of course the problem is trying to strike the balance.
Images and other multimedia can brighten up a site (or blog) quite a bit.
I've been using images in my posts here more and more over the last year or so and the company blog gets an interesting (IMHO) variety of stock photos added to most of the posts. The problem is when the extras start to detract from the user experience. Javascript maybe enabled by most people, but do you have to have THAT much scripting to render a simple page with a bit of text? Probably not...
I don't keep track of the US post office's stamp releases, though I really ought to, as they release some really lovely stamps every year.
They did a set of Star Wars themed stamps which look really tasty:
They did a set of Star Wars themed stamps which look really tasty:
James from ForbairtMedia did a lovely job on the new logo for Technology.ie. The style is simple, but hopefully effective. I like it anyway, so that's a start!
You can see it over on the forum - thanks James!
(James was the genius behind the films.ie design as well)
You can see it over on the forum - thanks James!
(James was the genius behind the films.ie design as well)
