Jun 11
22

Telephone Mailbox Full

I just wanted to let the public know that due a sudden increase in inquiries over the past 2 weeks that our telephone system in the office has been blocked and no new messages have been allowed to be recorded. We have cleared the messages and within a day or two they are full again.

We will endeavour to keep the lines clear as much as possible during this busy time and also don’t forget that you can get us on our Dublin number on Tel: 01 4433074 and preferably by email by emailing

dave [at] cada media.ie

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Jun 11
15

Geting Your Business Online Workshop

This is great to see. So many enterprise boards around Ireland pushing to get businesses online. It’s astonishing how few businesses still dont have a website or a website presence.

If you are in the market for a website then why not get a FREE one from the website listed or by making an appointment with these guys and take part in their workshop.

Attend a 1/2 day workshop and learn how to create your own website in just 30 minutes

Wednesday 29th June, 2pm to 5pm
Westgate Computer Centre, Wexford
Fee: €25

Getting Irish Business Onlinewww.gettingbusinessonline.ie is a partnership between Google, Blacknight Internet Solutions, An Post and the County & City Enterprise Boards and is targeting the 40% of Irish SMEs including sole traders that do not have a website or an online presence. The campaign is calling on all businesses that do not have a website to log on to www.gettingbusinessonline.ie where they can create their own business website for free.

Click here to register for the workshop or to find out more

 

Posted in Recession in Ireland Website Design by admin. No Comments

Jun 11
14

Fixing Email Issues?

An interesting day in terms of technical support and helping IT companies workout how email is pointed around the world from server to server, IP Address to IP address. I have found that over the 12 years in the email business that there are many email problems that can be found quickly . . once you know where to look.

We operate thousands of emails on our servers and our spam filtering service has taught me much about mail servers and MX records too. Today we received a call from an IT company setting up a cloud solution for a company. They were looking for advice on how to insert A Records and MX Records and then looking at how long it takes to come into place etc.

We were able to help them out quickly and the final comment was . “ah that’s amazing.brilliant, Thanks”. I was glad to help (and the invoice is emailed already by pdf !)

Now the interesting part for me was that for one company cloud solutions and email management seems a very complex issue and yet for others its just a case of asking the right person.  This is about the third time in a month that I find business offering solutions that they dont seem to really understand fully and the worst part about it is that it is the Client that suffers.

So my point, If you have email problems, ask the right people. Call Dave Jordan of Cada Media Ltd today on 053 9430748

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Jun 11
14

What is Cloud Computing?

At an early morning networking meeting today I was one of the audience receiving a 10 minutes presentation from the owner of a local computer business. Glassgoraman Computers is run by John Timmons, a native of Dublin and living near Gorey for the past 13 years or so.  John has a background computer hardware, broadband and software suites such as Lotus Notes etc.

So this morning John told us about the history of the “cloud”,  where it came from and where it’s going. He started off by explaining that it has been there all along, we use it everyday. Its really another name for the Internet. It has many different shapes/forms/definitions but to the average small to medium sized business it a place to centralise your company information.

From basic tools as Dropbox and Google Apps to enterprise systems to run complete businesses online using dedicated servers in Data Centres, such as the one this Blog is stored on.

The choices of Cloud Solutions or Web Solutions vary from business to business and it can be said that they all have one factor in common, They reduce costs.

No longer needed are the costly inhouse servers that require onsite expertise and daily backups etc. Now simply use your website hosting to host your

  • Website
  • Applications
  • Accounts

The web is not just WWW.

Nowadays it is common for businesses like ourselves to offer customers the full service web solutions that allow you to operate your business remotely. John spoke about the business with only 1 person to companies with thousands can take advantage of the cloud.

It is common to now see web address such as

docs.companyname.ie

private.companyname.ie

billing.companyname.ie

This is where a company has put their business online and used their website to be more than a brochure and staff can login and access company files, reports and even do the accounts from any remote location.  It suits one-man-bands to large organisation like GAA who have thousands of users in a Cloud enviroment.

“Pay As You Go Internet”

John mentioned that it is like “pay as you go” on the mobile phones and if you think of it like that then being billed for a service by the amount you use it is a better method of charging for usage. Removing the need to expensive hardware and the in-house support needed means that companies can just use the Internet to save their files and know that they are also secure and backed up at the same time.  And speaking of phones, most cloud solutions are capable of being used on a Mobile Phone, Laptop, Pc, iPad, iPhone etc. Remember the information is stored on the Internet so if you loose your phone or laptop you dont loose your information!

Why Now?

Because it saves money, cut costs and is a fraction of the price of putting in alternatives such as an in-house server, backup-drive, server licence and support plans with a local IT crowd in your area.

Well done John on the presentation and lets hope that more businesses in Wexford move to the cloud.

www.glasgorman.com for more information about Glasgorman computers

So if you are interested in getting your business online then why not talk to John Timmons of glasgorman computers or myself Dave Jordan of Cada Media and see how we can help your business cut costs and take control of your IT systems

In the mean time, here’s a few links to get you thinking!

http://www.dropbox.com/

http://www.openstack.org/

http://www.apple.com/icloud/

http://opennebula.org/

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud/default.aspx

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html

http://aws.amazon.com

Posted in cloud computing by admin. 1 Comment

Jun 11
10

Free Online Backup site?

I was talking to a customer yesterday and he told me he backs up all his office files to a external hard disk and he carries that home with him each week and takes it away on holidays with him when he’s out of the country.

I asked him had he heard of the Internet and we joked as he is a new client of our and then we talked about just using the Internet to store his files. He thought that the internet was just for emails and websites and when I described the security involved in a Data Centre he then couldn’t believe that we store websites there instead of our customers office files.

We do.

I told him we are a digital storage business for companies who wish to use the Internet for online storage of their company documents including, images, videos, text files, accounts files etc. Our servers based in the Data Electronics Centre and we TeraBytes of space available.

There are alternatives of course that offer great free storage of files online. The free accounts have a limit to the amount of space you can have the availability is usually not 100% as their service level agreement can be as lower.

DropBox.com is one of those great free online storage sites that allows you to get up to 2,000MB of free space and up to 100Gb’s for about $200 per year.

So if you are looking to find a cheap or free online storage solutions then check out www.dropbox.com otherwise if you are looking for a full business solution for your company then call Dave Jordan of Cada Media Ltd

The Web is Everywhere, Be part of it !

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Jun 11
8

Why use open source?

http://www.opensource.org/ is a website to promote the use of open source software and is an initiative that Cada Media Ltd have long been advocates of even since I was working as a programmer in Dublin in the Mid 90′s. Back then one of our team, a Russian guy called kyrill was asking the management to move to open source and put our code on-line for other developers to take up and use. It sounded crazy to the owners at the time as they had patents on the software and earned money each time it was sold, but it needed to be revamped and we didnt have the numbers needed to re-write the code from scratch.

£250,000 a year!

This was one of the programmers salary and without this guy the company wouldn’t have been able to continue. He had written the code in such a way that no-one else understood it easily and that code is often written in many files, so it would take a new programmer up to six months to get their head around what was previously written or coded.

Open up this code to other users via the Internet and then the program could have gained wings and been developed in various languages and additional features made. This is exactly the life cycle of open source. You upload the computer code to the internet, another programmer reads it and improves on it and passes it along.

International Skills at Local Level

Collective collaboration has meant that for small businesses such as our own, by using open source software has meant that we can use knowledge of programmers around the world without the overheads. Yesterday, whist giving a training session in a content management/ portal system called Joomla, the person being trained discovered that their are thousands of websites running on Joomla and their is a wealth of resources online for him to study.

New Customers

By adapting this open source early on has meant that we can actually get customers easily and they are not afraid of being locked into a particular package with licensed software as with other content management systems. For instance did you know 12% of the worlds website are run using wordpress.org ?

For more information on how open source software can help run your business whilst reducing costs and increasing efficiency then call Dave Jordan of Cada Media today on 053 9430748

http://www.opensource.org/

More Blog post about open source

http://blog.cadamedia.ie/websitedesign/open-source/

http://blog.cadamedia.ie/2010/02/do-people-still-use-microsoft-office/

http://blog.cadamedia.ie/2009/11/how-to-impress-your-boss-in-a-recession/

http://blog.cadamedia.ie/2009/09/what-email-program-to-use/

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Jun 11
8

Facebook facial recognition feature !

Yes, you may have heard the rumours that Facebook are now automatically “Tagging” photos of people who use this social network for image sharing. The Giant of social networking with an estimated 700 million users has a new feature to read an image and use facial recognition software to “Tag” or mark an individual.

Big Brother!

There may be data protection issues involved here as I can image that being “tagged” is bad enough when its a photo you didnt know was taken. Then to find out it was put on-line.  But for it to be promoted online must be a final straw for some Facebook users.

To Change the Facebook setting (yet again, we seem to be doing these every few weeks these days) you will need to go to “Customise Setting” – > Suggest photos of me to friends”. Or go to the help Centre and read up on your privacy settings.

For more information on how to use social media for work, life and business call Dave Jordan on 053 9430748

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May 11
27

Web Marketing Strategy Guide

A busy week this week with over 8 meetings with potential customers and again it was clear that companies really do need help in guiding them through the maze of ideas the internet has to offer. But a few key factors need to be addressed first.

What is the purpose of the website, do you want a website to:

  1. Look nice and show customers a style and image?
  2. Generate real sales leads?
  3. Earn money online?
  4. Sell Products?

These questions have sub categories but they are the basis of setting up a web marketing strategy and getting the true benefit of investing in your brand. The investment you make needs to be planned and measured. Your brand can be made or lost in the blink of an eye if you do it wrong on-line.

Learning these factors in web design and marketing is a process that I have worked on over the past 15 years and hundreds of campaigns later. So if you hear about someone offering you web design services and these questions don’t come up. . . Walk away and give Cada Media a call on 053 9430748

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May 11
24

Happy Birthday blog!

Blog for Business

Our company blog is 3 years old this week. I started a blog a year before that but started out too ambitious and tried to write a novel for each blog post and it died after about 3 month. 1,500 words per post was not me, it didnt suit my style of writing or thinking and Miss Lee & Mr McMahon would have been proud of the writing as I never wrote as much until I left school.

Dyslexia Rules KO !

Even something like not being able to write can be helped by computers, because,  as I write this little red line is appearing under the words and then with one magic click of a button the spell checker has fixed and amended the content. Putting my thoughts and ideas online has had a massive effect on the business, it has brought in new clients and allowed business to see who they are hiring. People often call the office saying that they were just reading my blog and they wanted to know more about a particular topic. This builds up into trust. This trust can leads into a business relationship and now many of our clients have been with us since we started in March 1999.

8 Minutes later.

We’ve had calls to the office within 8 minutes of publishing an article with irate callers asking who writes the blog and can they talk to them immediately. Our items have been picked up by Daily Newspapers, Television Stations and Radio Stations, Organisations and foreign companies wanting to know if they could do business with us and avail of our knowledge.

New VAT Rates!

In 2008 I wrote a small piece about the new vat rates that the government of the time had changed. It got great coverage in the media as apparently I was the one talking about it on-line whist others had not mentioned it on their websites for days and even weeks. So I got a number of good hits and those turned into work as businesses needed their websites updated to reflect the new vat rates in their on-line shops.

Paper Never Refuses Ink.

This is true for digital media too, anyone can publish. I’m nothing new or special. I just publish a blog to help educate customers and potential clients about how we work and they type of people they would be dealing with.  A blog in the right hands can be of benefit to a business, but in the wrong hands and untrained ( Remember I worked in the newspapers and publishing industry) hands it can turn into a scary rant or worse, never updated news section of your site.

Use it or Delete it.

I’ve talked about how old blogs that are left unattended on sites can have a negative effect on a business as they show a customer that their is nothing new or changed about your business. So if you have a blog and you dont use it, get rid or it, change strategy.

If you would like to become a “blogger” why not set up your own blog on www.Blogger.com or http://blog.com/

If you would like to know more about blogging for business then give me a call. 053 9403748

 

 

 

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May 11
24

Web Strategy by Cada Media Ltd

This morning at a business networking meeting in Gorey, Co. Wexford I was delighted to receive a testimonial from a long-time customer of ours for work we recently completed on her website and helping to get more out of the Internet by using Cloud Computing.

Spell Check Editorial Services.

Deirdre O’Flynn heads up this content writing business here in the South East and she has many years experience in writing Annual Reports, Brochures and of course in modern times Ezines and website content. Deirdre asked us to revamp her site in terms of looks and give it a fresh feel with her new logo. In looking at the sites new layout and design we also talked about her use of the site and how communication is key these days.

Keeping focused.

The average user reading a website will stay a much shorter time than a reader of a newspaper and Deirdre’s background in Journalism comes into play in getting Your point across that little bit faster in her editing skills. She understands that getting a website is good, getting good copy of great, being able to keep your users on your website is fantastic.

These skills and her need to be able to use this technology at its most efficient lead us to help Spell Check Editorial move into the Clouds. This ability to now store all Emails, Documents, Calendars etc online now puts Deirdre and her team in control over their core product . . . Words. Everything they do can now be accessed online and stored digitally.

No longer the need to drive to an office to edit a file or store your calendar in a printed diary that has fallen between the seats of the car. Its simply stored online and to access your data you just need a laptop or a smart-phone.

We helped Deirdre set these up and make sure they all synchronised on her phone, keeping her in touch and up to date with her clients, allowing her to do what she does best . . .Words.

Thanks for the Testimonial Deirdre, I really appreciate it.

Dave.

PS, Spell Check Editorial Services can be found at www.spellcheckeditorial.com

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May 11
13

Friday the 13th Computer problems

For those of you worried about today’s date and having issues with your technology please remember that today in not the same as the millenium bug issues we had 11 years ago. There are simple and practical solutions to avoiding major computer problems today.

GraphJam.com

The good people at GraphJam.com have given a nice graph to help with the probability and the solutions for fixing issues that arise with computing technology today. Enjoy Friday the 13th !!!!!

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May 11
9

Getting Irish businesses Online Campaign

Great to see Fine Gael and media partners putting into effect their promise about getting Ireland to be a digital hub of Europe.  They are working on this campaign to get Irish businesses to register a domain name and set up a small website and get the site live in 24 hours. Fro details see the Google Video below.

http://www.gettingbusinessonline.ie/

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May 11
4

Beauty Salon Wexford

Azure Health & Beauty Salon are based on the Clonattin Road in Gorey, Co, Wexford. They are a family run business with a great personality. Working with Helen Byrne was a pleasure and helping them revamp their website and give them a better footing on the Internet has been a pleasure. Their old website was fine, a basic HTML “old school” style of site that was a brochure to their Health Salon here in Gorey.

Redesign the Website.

Our brief was to update the site to a content management system that is easy to use and will allow them to update the site with special offers and change products and prices as needs be. We have given them a wordpress based site that allow just this. We have also designed for them a handful of extra headers that will be easily changed as they change the site to suit each season.

We would like to thank Helen & Tom the team at Azure Beauty for their help with the sites content and we wish them the best with the new site. I’ll be checking in from time to time to make sure its up to date guys to login and keep your customers informed of new products and services you have to offer:

Services Provided:

  • Web Strategy
  • Web Design:
  • Web Marketing
  • Training

www.AzureBeauty.com

 

 

Posted in Content Management Some of our Clients Website Design by admin. No Comments

Apr 11
28

Wicklow Leader now Wicklow Partnership!

Well this isn’t strictly correct as they have been amalgamated with two other bodies for a while now, but as of from today the website is now switched over. That is www.WicklowLeader.ie is now pointing to www.WicklowPartership.ie Ok , not so exciting as you think, but hey this is what we do and its important to get it right !

Anyway, We have been working on the new site for a while now and we recommended to the guys there that when changing names to remember that search engines too like to be notified of changes of address and not just postmen! So we launched the newly created site today with what I will call site pointers from the old pages to the new site. This will stop the 404 error pages and very cleanly allow you to navigate to the new sites.

This is one of the suggested methods when you are working with Google for instance that they request that you do this to help the transition to the new address. Its polite to them and to your users who could get lost easily.

We also recommended to them to keep the old domain name for a while to aid this transition. Simply dropping a domain name and grabbing a new one is ok for some, but if you are interested in your viewers and the people looking for you on-line then redirecting an old name to the new name is they way to go.

The new site is all content managed allowing the members of staff there to update the site easily with news/ events and edit every aspect of the site. I would like to thank Brian Kehoe and his dedicated team for their help on the sites content and its structure.

Services Provided:

Domain name Registration

Web Hosting

Website Design

Content Management

Web Stategy

www.wicklowpartnership.ie

 

Posted in blog Some of our Clients Website Design by admin. No Comments

Apr 11
27

Benefits of an online shop

In a meeting today I was demonstrating an online shop to a business and showing them how the administration panel would look like and then potential customer noticed that there were 318 customers on the site at the one time as the system shows us the number of users online.

How many people fit into your shop?

Then the potential customer realised that with an online shop you are not restricted to the amount of people you can have in your shop. Where as a traditional retail unit is restricted by the physical size of a premises. “This is amazing and we are definately going to set up the shop” was the result of the meeting.

So the next time you are talking to a shop owner, mention to them the benefits of “Clicks and Mortar” and then instead of building an extension that they could actually fit more customers in if they went online!

Ecommerce works, Be Part of it. Call Dave Jordan on 053 9430748 for details.

 

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