We’ve been working on some interesting local ventures recently, with two projects in particular worthy of a mention. The first is Perfectpints.com, a website (and soon to be launched iPhone app) that allows you to find a perfect pint wherever you are in the world. Perfectpints.com is the brainchild of Justin Knecht of the Centre of Design Innovation and was selected to the 2010 CEIM enterprise development programme for high-potential start-ups. Beanstalk were responsible for the design of the main site, the perfect blog and perfect store, working from sets of wireframes sketched by Justin. All of the other collaborators on the website are from Sligo and the Northwest — it’s great to see a site like this being built entirely locally. Perfectpints.com is definitely one to watch; it’s already appeared in a number of national radio shows and press writeups.
Sligo Web Design Projects
Wordcamp Ireland — Very Happy Campers
236 people from 9 countries. 35 speakers covering 3 tracks. 50 euro for a 2 day ticket. These are some of the numbers that made the first Wordcamp Ireland such a great event, but the real secret behind it was the fantastically friendly atmosphere that other conferences like this can so easily lack. Last Friday night saw Langtons in Kilkenny open its doors to a crowd of bloggers, techies and curious georges to talk WordPress for the following 48 hours, many of whom wouldn’t set foot outside the hotel until the event was over on Sunday afternoon. This was the first Wordcamp to be held in Ireland, all thanks to the trojan work of the wonderful Sabrina Dent and Katherine Nolan. Read More
Imagine Wimax in Sligo — does it live up to the hype?
When Imagine announced the rollout of their Wimax product a few months ago, I started keeping an eye on their website to see if they’d extend cover to the Northwest. They’ve recently anounced that they’d be covering Sligo, but from what I’ve read about their product so far, it looks like it’s quite a disappointment.
Customising / Configuring the TinyMCE Text Editor in Wordpress
WYSIWYG editors such as the TinyMCE editor used by Wordpress are great in that they allow people with no HTML skills to insert formatted text into web pages. There are times however when it’s best to restrict some of the formatting options to prevent people from messing up the appearance and markup of their pages. For instance, I think it’s a good idea to remove the text colour palette and to disallow the use of H1 and H2 tags in body text as most of our themes use these headings tags once or twice in the template — to use them too much (arguably) isn’t good for the pages SEO.
The default text formatting palette allows users to select any text colour they like (which can have very ugly results!). Heading 1 and Heading 2 tags can also be inserted where they shouldn't be.
Google Focus On Website Speed
There have been rumours floating around in SEO circles that Google would soon be putting weight on website response time as a factor affecting their search engine ranking. It’s now official, the official Google Webmaster Blog published a post today announcing the launch of their new Site Performance tool.
Vodafone Ireland iPhone Price Plans
you might be looking for this post: Comparison of iPhone 4 price plans on Vodafone, Three and O2.
When I heard that Vodafone would be offering the iPhone in Ireland in 2010, I signed up to the news mailing list to get informed of any announcements. Vodafone phoned today to offer an early subscription to the iPhone before it rolls out fully in the near year (I presume they called everyone on their mailing list, I’m not special!). Here’s some of the price plan details:
- Plan 1: €35 per month. 16GB iPhone 3Gs costs €199.No included any network minutes or texts.
- Plan 2: €49.99 per month. 16GB iPhone 3Gs costs €199. 150 any network minutes, 150 any network texts.
- Plan 3: €64.99 per month. 16GB iPhone is ‘free’. 300 any network minutes, 300 any network texts.
Each of these options include 2GB of data download per month, free Vodafone calls and are subject to an 18 month minimum contract. There are more expensive options available but I didn’t get the details.
Looks like Vodafone might give O2 a run for their money.
Comparison of iPhone 4 price plans
As a follow up to the previous post on iphone price plans on Vodafone, here’s the iPhone 4 price comparisons from Ireland’s main carriers:
Read More »