Irish Brands on Twitter

January 22nd, 2010

It’s been some time since people have come to expect companies to have a website. Now, they also expect you to have a social media presence. Read the rest of this entry »

Home Automation

December 14th, 2009

Home automation is a bit of a paradox. It’s all inspired by selective laziness. Such is mankind’s obsession with tools, that we will go through all kind of trials, and spend hours drudging, tinkering and designing, to create a labour-saving device. No more exhausting light switches!

But this is nothing new. Through the ages we’ve come from bonfires, to burning torches, to oil lamps, to light bulbs, so it’s in our nature to try to find the next innovation to make things easier and cleaner.

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WAI ARIA

November 2nd, 2009

We have recently added WAI ARIA landmark roles to accessible.ie, to improve navigation for visitors using assistive technologies. The diagram below shows how the sections of the page are divided into logical chunks. Read the rest of this entry »

Beneficial Games

September 14th, 2009

Combining useful learning with an enjoyable reward system

Computer games get a lot of bad press at times, but they aren’t just for pure entertainment or promoting violence and gore. They can also be used to impart useful skills and communicate ideas. According to Kathy Sierra, the best teaching systems utilize some of the most engaging aspects of games. Read the rest of this entry »

Governments using Google Maps

August 4th, 2009

In an earlier post, we discussed some of the wonderful ways communities are harnessing Google Maps, and now we will look at how governments use them. Government Google maps tend to be official, formal, controlled, and with a fixed budget. This has a somewhat homogenizing effect on the maps governments produce; they tend to have predictable features and reliable, if limited content.
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Communities using Google Maps

July 1st, 2009

Google Maps is a mapping application provided by Google. It’s free of charge, relatively easy to use, and encourages collaboration. These attributes make it incredibly useful for both local and virtual communities. In this article we look at three very different uses of Google Maps by different communities. Read the rest of this entry »