I’m constantly hopping around between WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal, trying to figure out which suits particular projects best. Drupal has been promising for some now, but in terms of ‘out of the box’ functionality, it has been limited – on the flipside Joomla! components can be a bit ugly and hard to manipulate, and WordPress is nice and lean, but very limited in scope. Increasingly too, i’m giving more and more thought to post-install considerations, like who the hell can I turn to when things go wrong?
I’ve been keeping a close eye on Compare.ie and some other more niche sites I own, and over the last two weeks or so there’s been an astonishing increase in fancy dress and other such halloween related fare. Halloween costumes are basically outselling any other category by a factor of 3-1. So much for a recession! If thing really were that bad, would people be forking out between £20-£100 on halloween costumes? I don’t think so. Just goes to show that parties, fun, and boozing are – for the most part – recession proof.
Many things are to blame for our global ‘recession’. One of them – in Ireland at least – has been the endless vanity splurge for home buyers. In the past five to ten years we have turned into a nation of people hungry to own our own property, at whatever cost. This in turn has ramped up assumed demand, therefore prices, and the end result for some people is a not so good situation where they’re in negative equity. Thank fuck i’m not one of them. But what else causes unease and uncertainty in markets, causes panic in various economies, and puts pension investments – and other funds from the pockets of every day earners – into jeopardy? Stupid stock trading, that’s what.
Finally my iPhone arrived today (even though o2 managed to do a little bit of a boo-boo and bork up the delivery address). It is amazing. I don’t think i’ve ever picked up a device, out of the box, and managed to find my way around it as quickly and easily as I did with the iPhone. It just makes sense. If there is one tiny flaw to the whole iPhone experience, it is actually the necessity to sign up to the App Store and create an account – with credit card details – to install free applications for your iPhone.
I went onto the excellent Polldaddy earlier to create a poll for Compare.ie, and found it was pretty much ‘down’. I couldn’t log in, and kept coming back again and again without success, until about 7pm GMT. Now the reason is clear, today Automattic announced their acquisition of Polldaddy, and it is fantastic news for Irish Internet companies. Why? Polldaddy was conceived, and is based, in Sligo!
Today, the new Celebrity Gossip website went live, after a few months of design and tweaking by the excellent Juan Cullen from Instinct. I’m extremely happy with the results, and with the framework he has created for some spin off, niche sites. It’s great getting new projects off the ground, and i’ve got heaps of new stuff up and running this year including Compare.ie and Weddingspeeches.ie, and I have a developer working on Competitions.ie as we speak. The back-end of the site has been built already, so i’m just waiting on the design.
O2 finally got back to me today with the great news my iPhone is on the way to me. I opted for the 16GB version of it, in black, and can’t wait to get it. The customer service representative was extremely helpful and changed my tariff over to one which gives me 1GB per month of transfer (should be more than enough), and i’m now even going to save money on my monthly phone bills. What i’m most looking forward to is having absolutely everything at my fingertips – we recently moved most of our tasks software-as-a-solution products, so i’ll have all sorts of information at my fingertips 24/7!
Well, I do and I don’t love Ryanair. Whilst I like their cheap, seat sale rates, I sometimes don’t like the level of service and the tacky interiors of the planes. Granted it’s not such a pain in the arse if you’re on a short flight, but if you’re off to somewhere over an hour away it can get a bit shitty. What I DO like is their marketing / PR / cleverness. I’m reading the latest book about Michael O’Leary at the moment, and the man is hilarious. And now, to top everything they’ve already done, Ryanair are entering the world of music.
When in the states not so long ago, I took a flight with Southwest Airlines who are normally renowned for their hilarity and easy going nature. Whilst the attendants on my flight were very nice and all that, one was a stern looking gent who must have just broken up with his girlfriend, and he was assisted by a little old lady who was nice but not at all witty. However, some others have been luckier than me – I came across this little gem today on Youtube.
I’m a big kid, and of all the toys I had as a kid, I wish I still had my Lego. I think it’s in my attic in my parents house, but i’m scared to ask my Dad to rummage around and find it, cos he might think i’ve lost the head and gone mental. I especially miss my Technics Lego, which I used to build helicopters with motors and pneumatic up and down wings, trucks, and a robot that did nothing but bash into stuff badly. I’m very tempted to just go ahead and buy some new Lego, especially since they’ve just launched a new set – the Lego Taj Mahal.
I’m constantly hopping around between WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal, trying to figure out which suits particular projects best. Drupal has been promising for some now, but in terms of ‘out of the box’ functionality, it has been limited – on the flipside Joomla! components can be a bit ugly and hard to manipulate, and WordPress is nice and lean, but very limited in scope. Increasingly too, i’m giving more and more thought to post-install considerations, like who the hell can I turn to when things go wrong?
