tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54007181884394768782012-01-17T11:14:57.239ZLecturing in Computing at IT SligoJohn Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.comBlogger1591100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-5464071182830550762012-01-05T17:46:00.000Z2012-01-06T01:00:57.814Z

Quo Vadis? This post is all about predicting the future (sadly, not in the Alan Kay way of inventing the future) for the next development platform. At Appsolo, we've developed a number of reasonably complex line-of-business systems with some focus on UI. Coming as we do from a background of MS, we took our .NET knowledge and coupled it with Silverlight to provide a cross-browser, highly

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0Sligo, Co. Sligo, Ireland54.2706008 -8.471643854.2335108 -8.5506078 54.307690799999996 -8.392679800000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-90789139353359535002011-08-04T01:35:00.000+01:002011-08-04T01:35:28.811+01:00

Recently, I switched broadband (and phone) provider to UPC. For what it's worth, a good move - getting consistently 20mb (of 25mb advertised) and no dropouts. One problem though was the fact that the new cable modem/router now resides in a place where my office PCs are not. So I needed a means of getting broadband across the house. The obvious choice was to buy a pair of wifi usb dongles for the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-55655114233712230622010-05-03T20:07:00.001+01:002010-05-03T20:07:49.004+01:00

So you’re frustrated with your own productivity in VS2010 (hey, who isn’t?), take these keyboard shortcuts for a test drive. Pretty soon, you’ll be CTRL-D,O along like a crazy person.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-22022460945519182432010-04-29T14:46:00.001+01:002010-04-29T14:46:02.768+01:00

Gave a workshop today to staff on Delicious, Google Reader and Blogging.Three ways to reach studentsView more presentations from jkelleher.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-49412811940722392232010-04-29T13:49:00.001+01:002010-04-29T13:49:56.052+01:00

Hi there from the workshop.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-49000995634529434592010-04-09T10:51:00.001+01:002010-04-09T10:51:53.202+01:00

An excellent book by brothers Chip & Dan Heath. I couldn’t do it justice in this short post but the essence (for me) is the advice they give to help your message to reach your audience. They boil this advice down to a useful set of six metrics – SUCCESs. The book works well both in the business world and the lecture hall. They litter the book with plenty of convincing stories that hit home and

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-63379020243267387452010-04-08T13:40:00.000+01:002010-04-08T13:42:05.099+01:00

Imagine the apocalypse. Now imagine characters and elements from 80ies games carrying it out. This is exactly what this crazy video portrays, and being a classic games geek myself, if this sort of thing were to happen in real life, I’m not sure whether I’d run or marvel at the sight. It’s all there – Pacman, Tetris, Arkanoid. Once friendly, familiar characters wreak havoc on the buildings,

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-3715932153360943262010-04-03T13:19:00.001+01:002010-04-03T13:19:33.185+01:00

Had I known of this service from Zoomery, I’d have put away my camera last week at MIX10. DeepZoom has always been a solution in search of a problem. Zoomery have happened upon a really commanding use for the technology.   The initial screenshot on the left shows all the slideshows during the conference arranged in categories. Double-clicking zooms in to show the title slide (see right

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-74075485695340367092010-04-03T12:43:00.000+01:002010-04-03T12:43:08.556+01:00

Drowning Sign Fail: "Drowning Sign Fail

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-77737095991356867592010-03-21T19:41:00.001Z2010-03-22T09:33:16.877Z

.prezi-player { width: 520px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; } BSc. in Web Development 2010- We’ve been fortunate in recent years in the Dept. Information Systems at increasing our numbers at well-above average for the sector. We now have streams for Software, Systems & Networking, Games Programming and Database. Two significant areas not yet serviced or needing an

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-16392167065538907552010-03-17T22:43:00.001Z2010-03-29T19:37:59.382+01:00

Joe Marini   Joe begins by drawing for us the distinctions between mobile and desktop use – e.g. very task oriented, not just casual browsing. We expect information to be augmented by location, time – e.g. Avatar search should yield local show times. Also environmental affects (sunlight, noise) are a factor. We should provide the same information to both mobile and desktop but not necessarily

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-28183060514517128652010-03-17T21:27:00.001Z2010-03-17T22:50:14.255Z

Matthias Shapiro     Matthias showed some fairly well known information visualisation techniques (similar to Hans Rosling’s Gapminder). The talk came alive though with the building out live in Blend 4 beta. Following on earlier talks, the VisualStateManager looks very interesting. Obviously, designers are finding SketchFlow and the built-in animation very engaging – not difficult when you

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-244594293595387642010-03-17T18:45:00.001Z2010-03-17T22:50:14.256Z

Grant Skinner Casual gaming on the rise significantly. Market dominated (65%) by women. Social gaming rising exponentially. Developers are taking on the bulk of the work ahead of designers. Big companies are starting to move into the casual games space making opportunities for folk to get paid. Silverlight multiplayer games View more presentations from jkelleher. Facebook dominate the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-81021376124184365462010-03-17T00:11:00.001Z2010-03-18T01:23:21.219Z

Nishant Kothary Sr. Evangelist, MIX Online @rainypixels Following on a popular talk from MIX09 – A website called Desire – Nishant handles the relaunch of the MIX community online – 8 members on the team. The team host talks, contribute to talks and create software. “It’s like the Bloods and the Crips – except it’s the Teals and the Dark Charcoal's'” – comparing gang wars to the problems of

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-73231918871175143502010-03-16T21:29:00.001Z2010-03-22T00:16:08.033Z

  Nikhil Kothari Nikhil Kothari asks a packed room for a show of hands on who has used RIA Services and/or MVVM – about half the room has. He explains that RIA Services simplifies n-tier data driven applications, especially with Silverlight which gives you no choice. It’s a higher level    framework on top of LINQ, WCF and Metadata (as well as Entity Framework and nhibernate) – and scales well

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-11338945003967638042010-03-16T20:30:00.001Z2010-03-17T22:50:14.260Z

Scott Guthrie kicks off today’s talks with a look at the new IE9 Platform Preview. The major point is full HTML 5 support which for now doesn’t amount to much other than plug-in free video. Scott Hanselman takes over to run through the other features which consist of the usual ‘conform to standards’ pledge. IE9 will also make the most of GPU acceleration and several demos showed IE9 hammering

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-44332099185913174052010-03-16T03:00:00.001Z2010-03-17T22:50:14.261Z

Michael Smuga, Albert Shum, Chad Roberts Albert kicks off talking about Metro, a new design language, to frame the discussion about UI decisions on the Windows Phone 7 Series. The key principles being: Principle: Clean, light, Open, Fast Feels fast and responsive focus on primary tasks do a lot with very little fierce reduction of unnecessary elements delightful use of

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-25480828706198508112010-03-15T21:55:00.001Z2010-03-17T22:50:14.262Z

Peter Blois and Christian Schorman Peter ran through a thorough deep dive using Blend 4 beta and a Windows Phone app, a pinball game. He spoke about the benefit of focusing on the visuals without getting stuck with code implementations. The gameplay programming took half day and a few hours per screen design. The phone emulator seems excellent and a totally viable alternative to the actual

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-59088633506573000682010-03-15T21:11:00.001Z2010-03-17T22:50:14.264Z

Listening to Joe Belifore follow-on from the keynote, it’s interesting to hear just how seriously they take the use of scenarios and personas. WinPhone 7 series use the live tiles as the heart of the experience, seeing real info without entering an app – glance-able information. For example, seeing the music I’ve been listening to lately. He talks of the focus on typography over graphics, full

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-36119011022648732222010-03-10T18:09:00.002Z2010-03-10T18:09:48.873Z

Brett Cawley and the first set of Judges at Games Fleadh 2010 from Paul Powell on Vimeo. Brett Cawley entered the long-standing Games Fleadh competition run by Tipperary Institute. Check out the video of his presentation to the judges. Brett is a 2nd year student on the B.Sc. Computing (Software Development) programme. Update: Brett came 2nd in his category just beaten by NUIG (team of 2). He

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-8556670114608156112010-03-10T09:27:00.001Z2010-03-10T09:27:08.639Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-86977322843092671802010-03-04T15:47:00.001Z2010-03-04T15:49:51.175Z

For those attempting to upload their project work to my server (\\jk\jkshares), you may find the following video useful. (Click the small ‘screen’ icon in the lower-right corner of the video to enlarge)

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-58951415532703451442010-03-03T16:02:00.001Z2010-03-03T16:04:54.276Z

  One of the problems with being the resident computer geek is that whenever something that needs doing that’s vaguely connected with IT, you’re the guy in the frame. This time round I volunteered to help out with some publicity for a good friend, promoting her childcare business (Child’s World at Tonaphubble Lane, Sligo – blatant, but well-deserved plug). There is serious competition (yes,

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-17935345664336926922010-02-28T21:24:00.001Z2010-02-28T21:24:04.764Z

Often it helps to see a full fledged commercial application deployed with a particular technology to get a real feel for what that tech is capable of. Billy Hollis with a couple other developers have produced a great showcase of what WPF (and could readily be converted for Silverlight) can do.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-2306167569709962522010-02-28T16:44:00.001Z2010-02-28T16:52:53.042Z

Generally, the job of programming nowadays is to tame complexity, making it accessible to the next maintenance cycle. Now having gotten to grips with WPF/Silverlight and its novel syntactic sugar, it’s time to refocus on the more grown-up issue of scalability. The push to design patterns in recent times is a recognition that there are good ways to go about coding and then there is the ‘it’ll do’

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-87666917636567074932010-02-22T23:31:00.000Z2010-02-22T23:35:42.143Z

Wonderfully conceptualized, beautifully executed public service ad from Sussex Safer Roads.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-78452163404104648062010-02-19T16:21:00.001Z2010-02-19T16:21:47.636Z

One question that (amazingly) wasn’t asked at the launch (actually, more of a teaser) earlier this week of Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series was the development platform. The phone OS is a major piece of work and shows considerable intent on MS’s behalf so the answer to this question matters – certainly so if your business is software development. The mobile phone market is big. Well over a

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-437726856830004552010-02-17T13:41:00.001Z2010-02-17T13:41:42.379Z

Seems it’s lucky number 7 for MS. Windows 7 has notched up 60 million licence sales to end Jan 2010, pushing revenues for that division from $4.06bn to $6.9bn in a single year. Now, they hope ‘7’ will sprinkle some of that magic to their beleaguered phone division. Most believed that MS would postpone the next mobile OS until later in the year but on Monday last, Steve Balmer took the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-59162290852135173182010-02-17T09:29:00.005Z2010-02-17T10:22:55.946Z

Engadget had a good piece today on the updates to MS’s Bing Maps. At TED 2010 last week in Long Beach, Blaise Aguera y Arcas (of SeaDragon fame) presented his recent work on Bing Maps which to my mind right now, has Google Maps on the back foot.Here’s what I like:Using SeaDragon technology, the transition down in zoom level is seamless – no jerky refresh. One layer of zoom is carefully blended

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-7982469967520100852010-02-08T21:21:00.001Z2010-02-08T21:21:45.355Z

Some of you might know Bumptop, which may that tricky move from lab to market and heralds a new interaction style. Enter Barton Smith (no, not the local guys) an industrial designer who brings us Locus – an OS not unlike where I see the iPad going. Locus OS Interface from Barton Smith on Vimeo.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-17087378372858723422010-02-08T21:10:00.001Z2010-02-08T21:10:01.732Z

I’ve been reading an interesting best-seller recently - “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink. As a self-confessed left-brainer (with right-brain ambitions), it can be frightening. As Daniel puts it there are three distinct (and currently realising) threats to the dominance of us logical, sequential, fact-finding folk – Asia, Abundance and Automation. He backs this up too – 350,000 engineering

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-36834753376907683622010-02-04T12:26:00.001Z2010-02-04T12:26:39.335Z

Interface Design Basics (english)View more presentations from Samo Korošec.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-64621817333068659322010-02-04T12:16:00.001Z2010-02-04T12:16:18.441Z

Nice short set of slides on concrete UX advice.User Experience Design in context of Graphic DesignView more presentations from Jiri Jerabek.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-3692068224786893982010-01-21T21:56:00.001Z2010-01-21T21:56:16.734Z

Being a Microsoft developer since birth it’s probably about time that I mentioned how to do what we do from another perspective. I’ve been digesting the various .NET libraries that have grown up over the past 7 or more years and seen the tools develop at pace but the job doesn’t seem to have gotten easier – in fact, it can be overwhelming at times. There always seems to be a (supposedly)

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-57150180937765179652010-01-21T18:54:00.001Z2010-01-21T18:54:10.658Z

Okay, here’s a site I bet you never thought existed or for which there could possibly be no need. Ordinarily, I’d agree but couple it with seamless deployment (thanks to the App Store) and ease of use (thanks to iPhone), you start to think – hey, I might actually use this. RunPee is (are you sitting down?) a site, but more importantly an iPhone app, that gives you useful time-points in a film

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-3863424743321434402010-01-21T18:41:00.001Z2010-01-21T18:41:30.728Z

I’ve always enjoyed Hans Rosling’s talks, most typically at TED, and usually using the Google acquired (2006) GapMinder. Aside from having a fantastic nordic accent and a slight mad-professor/avuncular character, Rosling is endearing and captivating at the same time as he brings life to the huge quantities of raw that we now possess (or have digitised from the ages). The objective of the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-5462429454267810282010-01-19T14:49:00.001Z2010-01-19T14:49:43.031Z

Thanks to Tommy Weir for this one. The NY Times shows a great visualisation of the purchasing patterns for DVDs rented through NetFlicks. It’s like a case study of Edward Tufte and just goes to show that with the right presentation we can sift through great big chunks of raw data to ‘see’ the message. Try it and you’ll find that you can understand why the colour is more saturated in one place

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-2387132044210997562010-01-18T17:53:00.001Z2010-01-18T17:53:11.643Z

And now for some good news. Akamai show in a just-released report that Ireland is racing up the broadband speed charts, up a staggering 73% yoy. What happened? It’ll be interesting how Imagine’s WiMax (now installing in Sligo) helps these numbers next year. Of course what these numbers don’t show is the cost of broadband. Now that would be real change.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-44202919797540016352010-01-14T18:30:00.001Z2010-01-14T18:30:15.308Z

Having just finished another round of interim student project presentations, a common issue that arose was the lack of early design. Putting to one side the usual need to establish the needs of the user, the task coverage etc., the problem of communicating ideas and designs to clients (be they external or the student themselves) was clear as were the consequences of not doing so. Clearly the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-78536732716133574942010-01-14T17:50:00.001Z2010-01-14T17:50:42.759Z

A recent invite on LinkedIn solicited an impressive list of sites to inspire and envy.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-15999592169294414902010-01-14T09:24:00.001Z2010-01-14T09:24:34.532Z

A example of good data visualisation from W3School showing the changes in market share for various browsers since 2002 (Hail, Netscape). It’s interactive so you can hover to explore the detail. Note the near domination of Firefox and the growing Chrome presence. Is it me or does this bear an uncanny resemblance to the Firefox logo?

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-22936279167600709632010-01-11T19:23:00.001Z2010-01-11T19:23:37.875Z

Friendly Bit has a neat step by step description of what happens when you hit that return key on your browser. It certainly raises my respect for the work of a browser (and server) but you have to look at it and wonder who ever thought this up. To be fair to Tim Berners-Lee, much of what we now do through our browser couldn’t have been anticipated. However, it makes me wonder about the whole

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-36471661224059926632010-01-08T21:51:00.001Z2010-01-08T21:51:53.459Z

Okay, I’m going out on a limb here, baring all and all that but I have a pet hate – apostrophe abuse. Yes, I even read “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynn Truss – and enjoyed it. The OatMeal does a good cartoon to help all you folks out there struggling (yea, I know) with where to put the little fellow. So now there’s help for all those who write “its” and always wondered if you could sneak an

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-16188343954183987522010-01-08T21:37:00.001Z2010-01-08T21:37:02.841Z

You know the story – you propose a re-design of a web site or app. Then at some point the client has a eureka moment and thinks he’ll ‘have a go’. How do you tread the delicate path of entreating collaboration with a client while preserving their own design integrity – or just carefully rejecting a daft idea! TheOatMeal.com has a good post on the deteriorating relationship between client and

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-6836744643221895872010-01-08T21:15:00.001Z2010-01-08T21:15:50.043Z

Armin Reller of the University of Augsburg and Tom Graedel of Yale University created this infographic showing the consumption of key minerals and materials and how little stocks remain, particularly if US-like consumption patterns continue.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-43602646771318992432010-01-06T19:40:00.004Z2010-01-06T19:47:19.792Z

This is a talk that photographer Chris Jordan made at TED, a conference of 1000 brilliant minds that convene each year at Monterey, California. Chris paints a fascinating picture of the daily un-noticed excesses that we participate in – albeit on a minute individual basis. However, with nigh on 7 billion of us perpetrating these individual mini-excesses, it mounts up – I’ll never look at a

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-90446949064512498052010-01-06T19:32:00.001Z2010-01-06T19:32:29.074Z

It’s funny how you form an opinion of someone from their writing and then see them ‘in the flesh’ – well, Steve Krug was a surprise. His no-nonsense approach to usability does shine through in this video. He’s a kind of peoples’ hero of basic usability, the kind that ‘lazy developers’ can tolerate. This isn’t the greatest usability video but it’s a reasonable substitute for not reading his

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-7752751634289742372010-01-06T19:27:00.001Z2010-01-06T19:27:18.207Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-15326540555582272622010-01-03T20:12:00.001Z2010-01-03T20:12:15.218Z

About this time each year I tackle the mounting problem of converting camcorder footage to DVD. Right now I use Sony Vegas Platinum which though not as nice as Adobe Photoshop Elements does at least do me the favour of working on 64-bit Win (Adobe, what gives here?). I would have thought that at this stage making a home DVD would be a breeze thanks to better hardware (I run with a decent XPS

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-40938887742139288352009-12-20T22:11:00.001Z2009-12-20T22:11:29.386Z

Microsoft launched .NET in 2000 at TechEd Amsterdam. It represented a paradigm shift for the company and followed a major retrenchment re-focusing on the internet which Gates himself admitted as a blunder, a mis-step. In 2003, we at IT Sligo were looking around for some solutions to the perennial problems – balancing (future) needs of industry (whatever we understood them to be) with the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-68685983701509103452009-12-18T09:55:00.001Z2009-12-18T09:55:54.554Z

Just when you think you have a great solution that ticks all the boxes like a neat elegant bit of code that covers all the options, then along comes some unexpected side effect that scuppers your innovative efforts. Take the introduction of LEDs in traffic lights. Apparently the new lamps are so energy efficient that they’d don’t dissipate enough energy by way of heat to melt the snow that

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-83944882362544233212009-12-17T15:25:00.001Z2009-12-17T15:25:03.829Z

Those who listen to me talk about HCI (Human Computer Interaction) – yea, I know some students don’t have a choice – will know I’m a fan of paper prototyping. Originally proposed by Marc Rettig (interview), it hits a sweet spot for prototyping – ensuring enough detail to be useful (to test users) and not too much that they (and us designers) get bogged down in trivial aesthetic issues (or the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-33535110853962437992009-12-14T21:54:00.000Z2009-12-14T21:55:16.315Z

A snazzy infograph shows us what a day in the internet looks like (get ready for huge numbers), Google Groups gets added to your Google Apps accounts, and the Boxee Box isn't much bigger than a can of Coke.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-531115057975542952009-12-11T11:16:00.001Z2010-02-02T16:35:15.829Z

Camouflage Art by Liu Bolin – inspired by camouflage techniques of animals, this Chinese artist makes some interesting poses.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-16617180800483988142009-12-08T15:53:00.001Z2009-12-08T15:53:46.346Z

So what do you get when you cross Google Street View with some nifty hi-res monitors? Liquid Galaxy is like a tardis – eight vertically arranged large monitors project slightly offset views drawn from the Google street view images, giving the effect of flying through, well, our planet (oh, they do the Moon and Mars too.)

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-52255843100925169822009-12-08T09:20:00.001Z2009-12-08T09:20:54.485Z

Have a look and see if you can figure out how the trick was pulled.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-77989981485500060102009-12-07T19:06:00.001Z2009-12-07T19:06:58.201Z

A collection of future interface paradigms, from gestures and spatial motion (think Project Natal from XBox) to augmented reality devices.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-5650589093383685412009-12-02T09:42:00.000Z2009-12-03T13:11:07.535Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-72973899545163808072009-11-29T17:04:00.001Z2009-11-29T17:04:03.730Z

This Flash visualisation of sales made through eBay during Black Friday (traditionally busiest retail day in States – day after Thanksgiving). It’s interesting to watch the latency in transactions from East to West tracking the sun. The obvious hotspots in the tri-state area and in California glow red-hot making a nice contrast with the fly-over states. For the really curious, you can zoom in to

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-2502462881156986302009-11-29T15:12:00.001Z2009-11-29T15:12:23.701Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-2142050265463029632009-11-28T15:30:00.000Z2009-11-28T15:30:00.151Z

Commoncraft specialise in explanations. This helps you get your head around the changing face of media – how we’re doing it for ourselves, how the like of Rupert Murdoch are struggling with the phase-change.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-40146689804650085462009-11-28T15:07:00.000Z2009-11-28T15:07:00.528Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-37411224937182781322009-11-19T19:55:00.001Z2009-11-19T19:55:41.259Z

Recently we had some thought-provoking discussion about the future of a particular programme. Central to the debate was the skills our future graduate would possess (or should). Working in the tech field, it’s important to try to see as far to the horizon as possible. As Ferris Bueller put it so well: “Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” It

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-30219889092084129632009-11-19T17:55:00.001Z2009-11-19T19:56:54.289Z

Sounds a lot like some notes I get from students.... ;)

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-70788570039531525672009-11-19T17:31:00.001Z2009-11-19T17:31:33.439Z

“Can we change the blue to be more red?” Enjoy some hillarious client queries to web designers!

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-72409153343221352632009-11-19T14:22:00.002Z2009-11-19T19:57:16.907Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-70990707394135765492009-11-19T14:21:00.002Z2009-11-19T19:58:30.415Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-50823890788905347702009-11-15T13:10:00.001Z2009-11-15T13:10:51.813Z

Do you see what I see?

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-29596343530402742192009-11-15T13:03:00.001Z2009-11-15T13:03:26.699Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-34053308630513078732009-11-14T17:41:00.001Z2009-11-14T17:41:27.415Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-23732992529041229072009-11-05T19:20:00.001Z2009-11-05T19:20:51.047Z

Trying to book a set of tickets on www.hawkswell.com today, I eventually gave up – check out the video to see why. And they laughingly charge me €5 extra (for the set) for the privilege! And even this is a discount on the usual charge of €1.50. To think you’d pay money for this kind of interactive experience! Things to watch for: how do I tell what days have any tickets still available?

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-81661005074712715432009-11-04T19:46:00.001Z2009-11-04T19:46:52.016Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-21613355291544811562009-11-04T18:53:00.001Z2009-11-04T18:53:29.137Z

I downloaded Google Chrome this evening, kinda on a whim. I played about with it when it first came out and being somewhat flakey, I happily went back to Firefox. The lack of extensions (LastPass, Delicious, mouse gestures) for Chrome as well as the fact that a good friend of mine works for Mozilla in San Francisco (hi John!) kept me away. Having taken the latest dev release (think late beta) I

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-89806854997198114842009-11-04T18:41:00.001Z2009-11-04T18:41:19.071Z

UX Booth showcase what they see as the future for interfaces. I’ve noted a lot of chatter about augmented reality (thanks to Apple’s iPhone). Yes, we’ve got Project Natal, Voice-based interfaces and MS Surface, but the augmented reality is here and I’m sure Google are viewing with great interest.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-54168814473052753702009-11-04T18:32:00.001Z2009-11-04T18:32:26.310Z

CU3ER is a free client app to help create attractive Flash (swf-based) animated sliders for web pages (typically home pages). Pretty good stuff for $0.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-90119726163338547762009-11-04T18:29:00.001Z2009-11-04T18:29:46.440Z

An excellent post on key aspects of good web design. I particularly liked the discussion on grids and the role they play on virtually all good sites. The author also has a useful post on how to go about setting up a site using a 960 grid. Check out the examples given and see how the grid gives the site structure while not restricting creativity. This is required reading for my HCI students.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-74828884729430452772009-11-04T17:14:00.001Z2009-11-04T17:15:32.048Z

Time.com posted an interesting photo essay recently on life inside GooglePlex in the heart of the Silicon Valley in the south Bar-area. Mozilla lives almost next door. News of the three free gourmet meals a day is a pretty good incentive…

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-37592607175357402972009-11-04T15:07:00.000Z2009-11-04T17:06:42.518Z

Those working on multimedia projects will find a lot of useful sound effects and sound loops (short repeat-play sequences) on FlashKit. These are primarily in mp3 or wav format and of course, work for platforms other than Flash (e.g. Silverlight, XNA etc.). These assets are generally of high quality well suited to games or rich interactive apps. For games, it’s often useful to have some

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-59473734342907371532009-11-03T17:32:00.001Z2009-11-03T17:32:22.263Z

Why You Should Always Be Careful While Using a Forklift [Oops]: " In this video, a hapless Russian warehouse worker destroys about $250,000 of precious, precious vodka in about 3 seconds (he escaped unscathed). Insert Yakov Smirnoff joke here. [English Russia via The Daily What]

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-72732780829189390352009-10-30T01:25:00.001Z2009-11-03T16:28:17.413Z

Logos are tricky things. You think you’ve got it nailed and then it bits back big-time. Let the lesson go out… Or this one for an oriental studies institute in Brazil. Envision a setting sun behind an oriental house says the designer…   Surely (says the designer in defence) you can’t go wrong with the classic ‘pictogram’ popularised by the Olympics many years back: Of course, the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-70191478557656789932009-10-29T16:52:00.001Z2009-11-03T16:34:15.051Z

88 Examples of Incredible Aerial Photography: " When it comes to inspiration then there is no limitation on resources. Photography is one of the key sources of inspiration for some of my past work. Here we talking about Aerial Photography which I find usually amaze me more than anything. If you know how to shoot a photo then you can also change something fairly simple to something creative or

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-16511548124144801752009-10-29T14:39:00.000Z2009-10-29T14:39:04.898Z

Felice Varini's town-sized illusion The buildings in the town of Vercorin in the Swiss Alps contribute to an impressive piece by Felice Varini, called Cercle et suite d'éclats. The pattern was projected on the town from the vantage point, then traced and painted. Photographs from the same spot in daylight make the town look flat, almost like a postcard. What I'd like to know is how he got the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-72874017708599197172009-10-29T14:37:00.000Z2009-10-29T14:37:04.255Z

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-43381016376995934592009-10-29T14:35:00.000Z2009-10-29T14:35:33.617Z

Schwarzenegger Gives California Legislature A Hidden Finger: "There is absolutely no way I’ll be able to make this relevant to tech. But I’m posting it anyway. Our Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, vetoed a California legislative finance bill – AB 1176. The letter is terse and to the point. And the first letter of each line in paragraphs 2-3 are even terser and more to the point. Schwarzeneggers

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-17440460128085972752009-10-29T09:32:00.001Z2009-10-29T09:32:51.760Z

I’m guessing by now you’ve found lil’ old Ireland. I’d like to say we’re falling behind but then we’d have had to be ahead at some point for that to be true. Seriously, we’re behind countries recently emerged from behind the iron curtain. We’re behind Japan (though so is everyone) that’s just about coming out of a 15 year recession. Okay, we’re ahead of Australia but consider the nightmare

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-51834062057038775672009-10-25T08:25:00.001Z2009-10-25T08:26:12.208Z

This collection from Smashing Magazine is a decent snapshot of the state-of-the-nation from a web design perspective.   The designers talk candidly about what seems to be a buoyant industry here-abouts. Decent showcase of sites follows. One thing that raises it head is the perennial designer/developer debate and how third level can best serve the industry. Seems to me the industry churns

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-66586696331881121742009-10-25T08:21:00.001Z2009-10-25T08:21:04.634Z

Bit of a watershed moment this – Obama chooses Drupal for prestigious www.whitehouse.gov

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-86744440029482528002009-10-24T11:29:00.001+01:002009-10-24T11:29:46.632+01:00

Funny ads poking at Windows 7 - ‘new boss, same as old boss’.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-62898646481793620182009-10-22T20:29:00.001+01:002009-10-22T20:29:33.601+01:00

Kuler is a useful web design tool to help identify a complementary collection of colours.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-19239221992766570182009-10-22T09:46:00.001+01:002009-10-22T09:47:24.789+01:00

Most Popular Strip for Oct 21, 2009 - Rank #10:

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-12350659431123340322009-10-22T08:53:00.000+01:002009-10-22T08:53:19.928+01:00

Collectively we spend 8 billion minutes a day on Facebook, according to Mike Schroepfer, CEO of the company. Some 2 billion pieces of content are shared every week, and 2 billion photos are uploaded each month--1.2 million served per second on a "peak day," he said. Five billion calls to Facebook's application program interface (API) were made on Tuesday. It's huge: Schroepfer, Facebook's vice

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-57439192923248002582009-10-21T17:40:00.001+01:002009-10-21T17:40:42.012+01:00

A good example of what Silverlight/WPF can do. Zurich airport provides this real-time display of air traffic on the apron, taxi-ways and runways. The real app runs on their intranet but you can install an XBAP version locally to play with. Windowsclient.net provides fuller details but essentially the display shows the location, destination and passenger loading for each aircraft about the

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-7576124527567095572009-10-21T16:29:00.001+01:002009-10-21T16:29:58.287+01:00

Camera Tattood in Time Lapse (by Another Camera) [Image Cache]: " Dabe Alan is got a vintage gadget tattoo of his own, but he shot the process in time lapse with a very modern Canon 5d Mark ii before editing this video in Final Cut Pro. Ouchies. [Flickr

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-79562298604100584422009-10-21T16:14:00.000+01:002009-10-21T16:14:57.738+01:00

wonderwall: "One of the craziest web interfaces/effects I have seen in a while, over on wonder-wall.com. Intruiging. (via @zachlieberman)"

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-83775561519390698802009-10-18T14:33:00.001+01:002009-10-18T14:33:57.791+01:00

I’ve a Lego Mindstorms NXT full kit for sale. Box is open but Santa seriously misjudged this one so you’ll hardly find a fingerprint. All parts included (manual, disk, test track etc.). These go for €135-€155 on ebay + postage. I’ll take €120. It’ll go for auction in a few days so hurry! Contact me on johnkelleher42@gmail.com

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-79655591340283236682009-10-17T17:15:00.005+01:002009-10-18T11:13:57.485+01:00

Marks and Spencer have had a decent web site for a while now but the latest redesign is worth examining to see how even they have found more mileage from the re-design.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-67390314250411151312009-10-14T10:24:00.000+01:002009-10-14T10:24:03.103+01:00

James Burke provides a decent history of gaming. Barcamp Derry (Side A) - A Brief History of Video Games View more presentations from James Burke.

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-62264141685842015562009-10-12T18:58:00.001+01:002009-10-12T18:58:25.146+01:00

So what do you think of this… Now what if I told you this Silver Swan is from the 18th century and is powered by clockwork?

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-47004424672153284082009-10-12T17:28:00.001+01:002009-10-12T17:28:59.285+01:00

by Vladislav Savov posted Oct 12th 2009 at 7:29AM Endoscopy, or the examination of a person's bowels via a tube-mounted camera, is not exactly the most pleasant medical procedure one could undergo. In 2004, we noted the early stages of a project to alleviate the (literal) pain of the procedure with a spider pill, which -- once swallowed by the hopefully willing patient -- can be remotely

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5400718188439476878.post-484472325013023532009-10-12T14:30:00.000+01:002009-10-12T14:30:47.136+01:00

Most Popular Strip for Oct 12, 2009 - Rank #1"

John Kelleherhttps://profiles.google.com/116482141547251567088noreply@blogger.com0