Jack Franklin is an 18 year old web designer and developer who lives in the beautiful area of England, Cornwall. Having started out with HTML and CSS at the age of just 13, Jack has been extending his skill-set ever since and works regularly with HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP, although his main area of enjoyment lies in jQuery. I asked Jack if he would give us the lowdown on the applications he relies upon as a designer and developer on a daily basis. The Intro…. I picked up my first Mac about a year ago having been an admirer for a number of years. It wasn’t much, an old G5 iMac, 17″ screen but it was mine and I loved it. I did all my website work on there and soon became so fond of some of the apps available. I’ve since moved onto an older Macbook, from 2007,... Similar posts

The Economic Winter Collection has arrived and smart phones may become the must-have accessory this season. It is clear that people are taking more control over their finances; this is both a characteristic and the legacy of any recession. Sophisticated digital banking and personal finance tools have been gradually emerging over the last few years. Integration with banking services is the key link which has provided the biggest challenge. Some institutions have shown more agility than others in this regard. First Direct in the UK have lead the field in providing their customers with convenient access, visibility and control over their Banking services. In return they have been rewarded with a customer satisfaction rating that is well ahead of the field, check out their blog on this.... Similar posts

I am now on holidays in Donegal, in the wild north-west of Ireland, and the next post or two will be a ramble through some of the listening, watching, reading and other stuff you can catch up with on a holiday!MusicHoliday listening breaks many rules of normal music-listening habits, as perhaps it should, as hitherto less significant influences such as the presence of children much of the time come to bear, combined with a general feeling that slightly more upbeat material is appropriate for mood modification purposes, and an overall sense of experimentalism and the need to break from all routine, including usual musical tastes.  So, despite my innate urge to rave about the new National live EP (is 8 tracks an EP?) special on iTunes (will save that for next post),... Similar posts

Yesterday was Féile Lúghnasa, the pre-Christian Irish harvest festival, which is still celebrated at a few locations in Ireland. One time it was held at around 200 sites, nearly always remote, inaccessible places that were on heights, or near water. The festival was dedicated to Lúgh, the young and most brilliant god of the Tuatha de Danann. Lúgh was the god of light, god of arts and crafts, father of inventions and the likes. It was he who saved the harvest by vanquishing Bal, the sun god who was in the process of scorching all the country’s plants and crops with relentless heat. Lúgh was a good time god. His festival was a young peoples gig and it was party central. In the Irish calendar it was the biggest celebration, the harvest was safe and the population could go and boogie.... Similar posts

Please note this is not a sponsored review. This is a tool I’ve recently started to use and thought it may be of interest to some of you. I asked Brian to share the vital info on it’s creation and features. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and Brian will be happy to answer them. A potential new client contacts you to inquire about your awesome freelance service. So you set up a meeting, put your game face on, and get down to business. You and your potential client discuss goals, technical requirements, budget, and so forth. Exciting! Another new business lead! But you haven’t landed the gig just yet… Now it’s time to go back, organize all the information you gathered in your meeting, and put together your proposal. Otherwise known as a... Similar posts

Well, can you Adam-and-Steve it, folks, it’s been thirteen whole days since the last Gaelick news round-up? (I blame a big ol’ heterosexual wedding for that – oh, the oppression! – but stay tuned to Gaelick for more of that anon…) So, what has been happening in that intervening period? Lesbian LOLs? Sapphic surprises? Dishing the dykey dirt? Well, here you are: Poor HAL has been continuing the endurance test that is watching and recapping the Real L Word. She is quite the selfless sister. Oh yes, and we had the 12th July events up in Norn Iron. It’s timely, then, to direct you to an article of ours from a few months back on the love that Orangemen everywhere dare not mention: the fact that William of Orange was (more than likely) a flaming... Similar posts

Today I went back to work after not having to work for the past 7 days! It was great having this last week off, usually I do not get that much time off but since I requested last weekend off I ended up having a full week between when I last worked and today. Anyway, this week I have only to work 3 days and then I am officially on my 2 week summer holidays from work! It is always great having time off and I want to plan a few things to do over these next few weeks. Image via Wikipedia I am not exactly sure yet as to what I want to do, but there is one thing I know I want to do which is go away to Edinburgh for a few days. It would be nice to get away out of the country for a while and this will probably be the only chance I get to go away for the rest of the year. Last year I went to... Similar posts

Earlier this week I published my Top 20 Essential Apps for the iPhone, however no iPhone is complete without a variety of weird and wonderful games to pass the time. From first person shooters to puzzles and role-playing games, the iTunes store has them all. I’ve always been a ‘gamer’ and am probably guilty of spending a little too much time on some of the apps below. Without further ado, here are the games that I’ve come to love, thus far: 1. Angry Birds Is there anyone with an iPhone that doesn’t own this?! Easily one of the most addictive games available, at times you really will get angry with those birds! 2. DoodleJump This is another game I find it hard to put down. Switching between some of the cool themes available, it will have you playing for... Similar posts

In just 10 days the new iPhone 4 will be coming out here in Ireland, almost a month after its release in the US. So will you be getting the new iPhone? I said a while back that this is the time for me to get the iPhone. But since I said that the iPhone has been released and the big antenna flaw ( Dubbed “Antennagate” ) has been discovered. So now I am sure a lot of people have changed their mind on if they want to get the iPhone 4. For me I think my decision is pretty simple, I am going to get the new iPhone, the solution to the antenna problem is to use a case / bumper on the iPhone. A lot of people are complaining that they have to use a cover to have reception. I have no problem with this, because when I get the iPhone I would definitely be getting a case anyway, I already... Similar posts

I’m an iPhone owner at last. I know….it clearly goes against my fangirl status to be so late to the party but honestly, I’ve always thought they were just too expensive. After my contract finished recently I decided it was the right time to upgrade and decided to go for a lovely White 32GB 3Gs and skip ‘antennagate’ iPhone 4! The best thing about the iPhone is of course – the apps. However with hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from, it gets pretty difficult to find the ones that will suit my needs. Without further ado, here are the apps that I’ve found essential, thus far: 1. Twitter It’s been my pick of the Twitter apps both on my mac and iPod Touch since it was released and it’s just as efficient on the iPhone. 2.... Similar posts

WHEN I LOOK BACK at Irish broadsheets from summers past, I know there's less value in purchasing Sunday papers while much of the country is on holiday. So I've limited my Sunday paper round to one quality titlte, the FT Weekend, and made a short video clip as I flicked through its pink pages in search of items of interest. Inside FT Weekend Chocaholics Will Pay More. "A London hedge fund has swept up a large chunk of the world's stocks of cocoa beans, helping to drive prices of the basic ingredient of chocolate to their highest level in 33 years," according to Jack Farchy on the front page of the FT Weekend. Production problems continue in Ivory Coast and cocoa output has fallen short of consumption for four years in a row. Billionaires and NGOs. Bill Gates and... Similar posts

AFTER USING THE SMALLEST Android phone on the planet (the SonyEricsson Xperia X10 Mini at left) for a fortnight, I can proudly assert that it is impervious to the Deathgrip that Steve Jobs showed with the iPhone 4. Even though Apple's newest phone has twice the antenna array, side-by-side practical tests show it has at least one bar less signal strength than the X10 Mini. This does not detract from the iPhone, however, as most of my friends don't use it as a phone. Instead, they consider it to be a smaller version of a iPad and a victory for consumer choice.I think the business press needs to take Steve Jobs to task for some misleading comments that he made while trying to draw RIM and Nokia into an Apple mistake. Jobs is famous for distorting reality. His claims about antenna engineering... Similar posts

Now that the World Cup is over, I’ve been looking at the website stats for my website. Overall, the World Cup saw an almost 200% increase in web traffic as people searched for match information and also running commentary of games in progress. For the duration of the World Cup, June 12th to July 12th I had 63,100 Visitors to the site and 126,900 pages viewed. So for this year there have been 394,000 visitors to the site and over 854,000 page views generated – and hopefully there should be a quarter of a million visitors to the site, and 1,600,000 page views by the end of the year. During the last month I would have thought World Cup topics would overtake other search terms on the site but not necessarily. The top queries to this site were as follows – the keywords are... Similar posts

MusicThis week I have been listening to 'The black dirt sessions' by Deer Tick a lot, mainly following a very good review in Uncut here.  It is really good, and a blast of classic alt-country but yet shot through with something rougher than many of that ilk (as opposed to elk, as opposed to deer), perhaps largely due to the singer's rasping croak which yet captures a softer side quite wonderfully on songs like the quite brilliant piano eulogy 'Goodbye dear friend', the lovely 'The sad sun' and 'Hand in my hand' which opens on a disarming falsetto after the growls that prowl through the rest of the songs.  Opener 'Choir of angels' sets the scene well, with a fuller sound and a lovely melody, as seen below:While the following track '20 miles' has not surprisingly... Similar posts

Irish girls Leigh Lehane & Roisin O’Shea from Ballincollig Gym Club have finished 5th in the Acro World Age Group in the 11 – 16 girls pairs finals in Wroclaw, Poland. Well done!! Shannon Miller speaks out to help with funding for the University of Missouri Extension office. Shawn Johnson and Mario kick off Wii Games Summer 2010 Now, for something completely different! This video has been doing the rounds in emails / Facebook today of an Irish band called The Brilliant Things who were the first band to do a live guitar solo on an iPhone at a music festival Oxegen, in Ireland last weekend. I love my iPhone and technology so the nerd in me LOVES this!!... Similar posts

On a daily basis, i stumble across interesting videos and articles on the web so i’ve decided to start blogging about them once a week. This will probably become a regular thing. I’m blogging 7 days a week, so this will also be a nice ‘break’ for myself as i don’t have to put as much thought in to these posts as i do for others… iphone 4 launch date I said july 23rd was the rumoured launch date for the new iphone 4 here in Ireland. Looks like i was wrong. Movistar (spanish network) have tweeted july 28th is D-Day. James Bond Dead MGM is in the red, so ‘bond 23′ (the next Bond film) gets the axe. It mightn’t be over just yet though as there are talks of a merger between Lionsgate & MGM. Lets hope that does indeed happen as it... Similar posts

The sound of Ohio’s bluesy The Black Keys were the first band many encountered on Oxegen Friday. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney’s blues-rock is the perfect festival starter, giving the assembled punters something to sing ‘na-na-na-na’ along to early when new song ‘Howlin’ For You’ is played. The set draws heavily from their latest and best work to date, Brothers, which refine their standard rocking blues riffs and fuzz-pedal usage. Sadly, there is no material from Blakroc, the band’s earlier album this year which features rappers like Raekwon, Mos Def and Ludacris (now that’s an album we’d love to see live). For only two people, they make an impressive racket (though a friend does help out on bass for a few songs) but were... Similar posts

Rock That Font A blog focusing on typography in rock ‘n’ roll, both old and new. Recommended for design geeks. rockthatfont.com   Musical Rooms Sinéad Gleeson’s blog features interviews with musicians about the space they choose to make music in. The site has posted over 100 interviews with artists like Amiina, Mogwai, Lisa Hannigan and Frightened Rabbit all grilled on their recording spaces. musicalrooms.wordpress.com Belfast Music Newly launched site with info and news on Belfast music produced by Culture Northern Ireland with Belfast City Council. They’ve even produced an iPhone app. How’s that for forward thinking? belfastmusic.org  ... Similar posts

Nice review from Cian on the new Oxegen iPhone app. Really well thought out. I mentioned this on Twitter recently, nope, Lidl are doing hotel breaks. SME and trying Online Marketing? Why not take Doris Murphy’s survey? Bizcamp comes to Galway. Nice to see Enterprise Ireland sponsor it. Even if their local staff believe entrepreneurs are born, not made. Saw Kirsten Rutherford and her Underground Restaurant on the BBC last night. Great idea and she also runs a farmers market in the house and gardens too! The Noisy Idiot Dilemma – first 2 chapters. via Joey Caribou – Odessa... Similar posts