The point is, their work and creative field pushed yours and you became a better designer for it. So last week when we received a call from Dublin City Council asking us if we were interested in information on a new networking initiative specifically for the creative industy in Dublin, we signed up to  ‘CreativeD ‘ almost immediately.

If you’re involved in the creative sector, then this is an invaluable opportunity to be involved in something focussed specifically on your industry whose remit is to

“define, develop and promote creative businesses and ensure that individually and collectively the creative industries become a significant force in our  new economy.”

The first event is held in October at the Digital Hub and is titled ‘Capitalize on your Creativity’.

Details on CreativeD can be found on the Dublin City Council Web site. I think it’s a great initiative by DCC and a welcome development for Irish Creativity.

Another nice suprise was Typeform in Dublin arriving seconds later to deliver scans of the next 150 paintings that we are getting ready for the Texaco Children’s Art Competition website. When I mentioned the Google car, he said there were a few of them pottering about!

Click the screenshot for full details.

Contract/Freelance Web Interface Designer

Conicidentally, I worked with Eamonn in a Software company just before he left to head up DAFT. I was creating icons and GUI designs for his Engineering team at the time and can confirm that you will be dealing with some very talented people who know their interface design!  Now that he is managing DAFT, I’m not sure you’ll be dealing with Eamonn himself but I’m certain there will be a keen eye cast on any GUI developments. I’ve always maintained that one of the reason the DAFT web site was streets ahead of other Irish property portals was it’s clean front-end design and usability. With a founder who has a background in Software Engineering and a familiarity with GUI design, I think DAFT’s website  has benefitted right from the start.

Anyway, good luck if you apply. It looks like a great gig to have on the books.

I’m helping a friend get two very basic holding pages together for her choir prior to an appearance on the Late Late show this Friday.

The Specular Choir

Inishowen Gospel Choir

I’m hoping to get these two tiny sites Googled and indexed by Friday. Finger’s crossed!

And I thought their motto was ‘Don’t be evil’!

• 11. Content license from you
• 11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
• 11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
• 11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.
• 11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.

For such a new service, the range of content they’ve lined up from the Networks is quite impressive. Having watched a few minutes of CSI NY already, I can see how appealing this will be for both viewers and publishers. Sure, YouTube is great if you want to watch the odd silly videos through your browser. But what if you want to watch something a little more produced, informative and professional from your own desktop?

Here’s the official blurb from Adobe.

Pick the episodes you love to watch, and Adobe® Media Player software will track new episodes and download them so you can watch whenever you want.

• Catalog — Discover new Internet TV shows and video podcasts from leading media companies.
• Personal Videos — Stream, download, manage, and play your personal collection of rich media videos right from your desktop.
• My Favorites — Automatically download new episodes of your favorite shows and video podcasts.
• New Episodes — Quickly manage and play new episodes from your favorite shows and video podcasts when and in whatever order you choose.

 We are also involved in some really nice work for Dublin City Council, The National Botanic Gardens, The Office of Public Works and more…

More soon!

An open letter to Apple
I’m writing to you on behalf of millions of people who walk around wired to little tech devices and won’t leave the house without them. No, I’m not talking about the iPod — and that’s the point. While your brilliant product line enhances the lifestyle of (100) millions, I’m talking about the little devices that keep us alive, the people with chronic conditions.
Let’s talk about diabetes, the disease that affects 20 million Americans, and I’m one of them…
by Amy Tenderich

Good design is problem solving regardless of the medium. Wether it’s print, pixel or product design, the world relies on designers to bring creative and fresh ideas to new or everday problems. So when blogger Amy Tenderich posted her “Open Letter to Steve Jobsâ€? in April imploring Apple to bring their renowned product and interface design to a device that is used by over 20 million Americans it took San Fran company, Adaptive Path to step up and have a go.

Charmr – Diabetes Management Device by Adaptive Path

Charmr – Interface designs by Adaptive Path

Here are some links

• Amy’s open letter to Steve Jobs
• How we got involved by Adaptive Path
• Video of the design concept for Diabetes Management Device (Charmr)
• Charmr interaction and visual design by Adaptive Path

Enjoy!

Custom illustrations are a great way to bring something unique to your web site and can really enhance content heavy websites.

I’ll upload the other illustrations later in the week and possibly a screen grab of the new website which is being designed by EdenWeb. The other illustrations in the series are for

• Coastal
• Wetlands & river corridors
• Gardens
• Woodlands, trees & hedgerows
• and Grasslands habitats.

Contact me directly for more information. All work is copyright EdenWeb>Peter Knight.

On Friday I spent a few hours at Microsoft’s European Product Development Centre in Dublin with Reeves Little previewing project Gatineau and running through some of the new features being built into their upcoming website Analytics program.

I’d been a fan (and customer) of analytics company and product, DeepMetrix for several years and was interested to see how the product had evolved since the technology was bought by Microsoft in 2006 and what exactly Microsoft had brought to the analytics mix. Reeves is part of the team in Dublin that are building some new components into the product and was kind enough to ask me over and get involved in some user testing and sign up for the upcoming BETA programme.

I have to say, it’s looking really good for Microsoft’s foray into the web analytics arena.

The Gatineau user interface is looking fantastic and detailed levels of reporting now include info on visitor age and gender and will be invaluable for anyone selling goods or services across the web particularly those operating within specific demographics and eCommerce clients. Reeves pointed out that all of the age and gender info is pulled anonymously from Live ID to help avoid privacy issues.

An NDA prevents me from saying too much but I also got to play with several new modules that are being integrated into the BETA. Microsoft have created some very interesting ways to view visitor paths, funnel data , keyword and page view information.

Gatineau is planned to hit the web in late summer ‘07 and we’re looking forward to being involved in the Beta programme and doing some tyre kicking across our own sites.

More screenshots and info on Microsoft Analytics available over at the following websites.

• http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/want-to-see-gatineau.html
• http://www.liesdamnedlies.com/2007/07/microsoft-gatin.html
• http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/archives/2007/07/23/gatineau-finally-revealed-with-screenshots/
• http://www.liveside.net/blogs/main/archive/2007/07/23/a-sneak-peek-at-gatineau-microsoft-s-web-analytics-tool.aspx

Reeves’s den over at Microsoft Ireland!

Photographers were asked to submit pictures on the theme of ‘on the beach’ and there were more than 1000 entries submitted.
Visit Derek Knight Photography for more great travel, documentary, music, corporate and commercial photography.

The first paragraph reads

In the US today there will be only one technology story: the iPhone [/FIRSTPAR]

Obviously, thats meant to signal the end of the First Paragraph.
Just a little thing I spotted today that made me smile a little!

If you post on a competitors web site, do you have the courtesy not to add your own link? Does it matter and should you care?

Personally, I do care and therefore when posting on other designers web blogs I tend not to link back to my site. At least I shouldn’t have and won’t be any more. Just professional courtesy…

Photograph by Derek Knight Photography
Experience WOW

Fixed it. There was a stray DIV tag in one of my posts.

Voting is open for the 2006 NetVisionary Awards. If you work with us, like our work or just want to make us happy, you can vote for EdenWeb under the Web Designer Excellence category.
Thanks
Peter

Thanks for reading!

• Designed an email newsletter for a UK hi-tech company to be distibuted via the Vertical Response plugin for SalesForce.
• Consulted with a friend/marketing manager of a Mobile Communications company on their Google AdWord campaign and gave tips on how to increase potential traffic from approx 3,505 monthly searches to 1,734,159 potential customers per month!
• Put the finishing touches to a flash-based presentation for an Irish hi-tech company.
• Completed designs for the web site of an Irish County Enterprise Board, Innovation & Technology Centre.
• Started work on the design of a new web site for an Irish Landscape Architectural practice.
• Launched Phase2 of a new website for a Dublin metal fabrication company.
• Analysed the results of an SEO project for a UAE client. They’re now on pages 1-3 for several highly competitive and vital key phrases and site traffic has increased by over 30%.
• Launched a new homepage for above UAE client.
• Updated the site of a Recruitment firm to integrate with an Irish Jobs portal.
• Got the go ahead to develop a new homepage based upon 3 designs submitted to a UK hi-tech client.
• Created and submitted a XML sitemap to Google SItemaps for a client who is changing their site layout and doesn’t want to loose their high rankings for their 1st page positions.

Doesn’t anyone take holidays in July anymore :O)

Now, no company in the world is immune to bad PR and despite our best efforts, sometimes clients do slip through the cracks and recieve less than astounding service. You apply this to one of the biggest companies in the world and you’ve got a lot of very mixed experiences in their customer history. But often in customer care, it’s not what we do or the mistakes we make – it’s how we deal with those mistakes, admit we’re wrong and give the client some incentive to stick with you. In DELL’s case they’re listening to this feedback, encouraging dialogue and bravely stepping out into the blogosphere.
So whats the deal with bloggers and blogging? Whats all the neg-heading and why is there so much of it going on?

A friend in the industry described blogging as ‘the digital equivalent of complaining about the toilet seat being left up’. And with blogging turning into a very public toilet it’s not easy to see why blogs are getting a bad name. Too much negativity, too many unfounded complaints, too much competitor-bashing, too manyfingers pointed too hastily before facts are established.

It seems some people can’t wait for a chance to populate their own blog with something negative (and very public) about a company just so they can have a daily posting. Now i’ve no problem with complaining (believe me!) and blogs are a great place to highlight injustices wether corporate or ortherwise but i’m wondering…is the blogosphere just turning into a very large public toilet where nobody will want to go in a couple of years?

Do we need a etiquette for negative blogging? If we’ve a complaint, is it better to throw it our there, get it syndicated, let it spread like wildfire, permalink it, link-bait it and let it build.

Or do we build and follow an agreed procedure before we post on a very public, active pltaform…

Disclaimer: I’ve no connection with Dell and no experience of them at all apart from drolling over their amazing 2407 FPW monitors :O) I believe thie blog is a positive step and hope they learn loads from it.

See the blog at http://adwords.blogspot.com/ for further details.