Reverb Studios Blog

Web Designer Versus Client

Leon — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:35:27 +0000

Every now and then a situation comes up for me whereby a web design client will question a website graphical element or logo I’ve designed and suggest something different.

Fine normally, I’m open to different views and criticisms but what if they want something that is clearly wrong or what if they presume to know better than me even though they’ve presumably hired me for my expertise!?

Should I stand my ground or let the client ruin the site and have my name on crap? Is the customer always right?

Vote now..

Leon.

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WALCOT B&B

Leon — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:47:34 +0000

Website design for Walcot Bed and Breakfast, Co. Offaly.

Live March 2010 www.walcotbedandbreakfast.com

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Wordpress Banner Ads Plugin Review

Leon — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:00:09 +0000

Review of the Wordpress Banner Ads Plugin

Blogs in general (including some of my own posts here!) are some of the most trafficked sites on the net and the first thing that pops into most people’s heads when it comes to monetizing that traffic is advertising. I’ve been using some of Tribulant’s excellent Wordpress plugins and was delighted to see that they had a Banner Advert plugin as I needed one for a new online venture AboutLeitrim.ie.Tribulant’s Ad plugin is compatible with the current version of Wordpress (2.9.2 as I write this) and goes in easily in the usual way. Here’s a quick rundown on what the plugin can do:

Multiple Predefined and Custom Ad Sizes & Zones.
Multiple Sidebar Widgets.
Manual Embedding/Hardcoding into your theme.
Page and Post Embedding.
Order or Random Ads
Static Image, Text and Flash Ads supported.
Integrated Ad Banner Upload.
HTML and Google AdSense supported.
Banner URL’s.
Ajax Ad Rotation with Time setting.
Impressions, Click and CTR Tracking.

Some standout features for me are:

Template embedding of Banners and zones.
Ad Ordering or Random rotation (you choose).
Click Tracking.
Ad placement/Zone flexibility.
Ad duration settings.

The click tracking might be a method of charging your advertising clients per click or view rather than monthly, weekly etc..

The plugin is very reasonably priced at $30 and perfectly stable. Full demos are available on the Tribulant site.

Get it HERE.

Rated 4/5 on Mar 4 2010

Vote on Leon’s reviews at LouderVoice

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Moving House Checklist and Tips

Leon — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:18:40 +0000

We are in the middle of our 5th house move in 7 years so are well practiced! It occurred to me while ticking off things that I needed to do that I should document the process both for my own benefit (we may well be moving again soon!) and for the benefit of others. I’d like to present a list of things like Addresses you might need to change, how and who to contact to change them, etc..

Address Updates:

You will probably need to contact the following a week or 2 before your move in order to change your address details on file. I’ve included the organization/bill name, how to contact them and other relevant details beside each listed item. (This list is based on my own utility setup and might not include all companies.)

Bank of Ireland Bank Accounts/Visa/Loans – You’ll need to visit your home branch or put details in a letter (Company headed paper for Business accounts).
Permanent TSB – Over the phone.
House/Car Insurance – Phone as close to moving day as possible. You may be able to change your details online too.
Car Tax/NCT – Send in your amended License certificate (VLC). Changes will automatically go to the NCT office within a week or 2.
ESB – Ring in meter reading and close old account the day you move out of old house. Ring in readings and open new account in new house soon as you move in.
Eircom/Broadband – Ring in to move your account. Takes about a week to switch on a line int he new house and activate broadband. You will loose your number if you’re switching exchanges.
O2/Mobile – Should be able to change online or ring.
Tesco Clubcard – Phone or email.
Sky - Phone in details. You might have to install equipment at the new address and update your landline with them.
Health Board/Hospital/Doctor – Phone in new details.
Oil/Gas – Phone in details. You may also have to give meter readings in old and new addresses and open/close accounts.
Vets/Dog licenses – Phone in new details to receive license and immunization notices. An Post issue dog licence reminders.
Revenue/Tax – Phone or post in details to your local tax office.
TV License – Email or phone your local head post office.
Life Insurance – Phone the insurance company or your bank if with them as part of a mortgage.
Business – Update your address with all clients who have outstanding bills.
Website – If you’re in business and have a website don’t forget to update your contact details anywhere they appear online (Google yourself!).
eBay/Paypal – If you use either of these services, it’s very important you change your address quickly to receive goods and payments.

Tips:

Dump stuff you don’t need before moving (we will definitely do this next time!).
Write out a list of things to do well in advance of moving.
Change to paperless billing to make address changes less required.
Start picking up cardboard boxes from local shops well in advance.
Book your van and help if required a few weeks before. Having a van is invaluable and not too expensive.
Move essential stuff like beds, food, etc.. last.
Clean the old house if rented as best you can to improve the chances of getting your deposit back!

Hope this all helps.

Leon.

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Reverb Studios Reviews Suggestion

Leon — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:00:24 +0000

Customer Reviews of a companies products or services have become a very big deal online in recent years. Research has shown that if someone reads a positive review of your offering or service online they will be most of the way to buying from you!

On my own blog, the Reviews Category consistently gets more hits than any other and I myself would always look for reviews before buying anything.

I have recently setup a partnership with Ireland’s leading supplier of Review software for websites, LouderVoice. They can supply you with very simple to use plugins for your site that will allow visitors and clients to Rate your service or product and leave comments directly on your site. These reviews can be displayed prominently and should lead to greater sales conversions and excellent customer feedback. Customer reviews can also be routed to Twitter and Facebook for maximum exposure for your site.

Visit www.LouderVoice.com/About for more detailed information or to signup.

Please use the Partner code LV-REVERBSTUDIOS if you decide it’s for you!

Leon.

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Twitter Poll: About People or Search Engines?

Leon — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:44:55 +0000

This post was prompted by something I read on an email list and on Linkedin the other day where the author seemed to have the view that Twitter was more about Search Engines than People. His argument was that Twitter is far too ‘noisy’ for people to actually read and interact but that Google could find it’s way around Twitter a lot easier and index content from it. It was therefore good practice in the author’s eyes that businesses auto feed to twitter in the hope of getting indexed and neglect the social aspect altogether. Here is the author’s summation at the end of his article:

the most important readers of your Twitter Business posts are the Search Engines

Here’s my own conflicting and simple opinion on the best way to use Twitter:

READ other people’s tweets and get excellent and relevant info for free.
Return the favor and give your own valuable content to your followers.
Interact with people on Twitter and make valuable friends and business connections.
Brand your business effectively.

I think the above will guarantee longer lasting benefits to your business than simply hammering twitter for SERPS although this is beneficial too of course! Google has publicly stated that it will be indexing ‘live’ content from social networks even more in the near future. Here’s a recent article from the Google Blog about this:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/relevance-meets-real-time-web.html

What’s your opinion?

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New Cuil Search Engine

My Web Design Process Explained

Leon — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:00:01 +0000

Most potential new web design clients seem to ask the same question: What’s involved in setting up a web site? How does it all work?. Here’s a screen video tutorial I’ve prepared to help explain. I’ve included a synopsis underneath:

In summation so..

The step by step process I personally use is as follows:

Choose a Domain Name/Web Address in consultation with the client. Use an Availability checker and Google’s Keyword Tool to help choose.
I purchase the Web Address on behalf of the client and setup Website Hosting for them.
I install the Website Framework/CMS and plugin the template.
Client picks a Design Template upon which to base the look and feel of the site.
Client provides text and image content.
Client adjustments/suggestions.
Site goes live.
Client pays (sometimes!).

Simple, Fast and Efficient I think.

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Daft.ie iPhone App Review

Leon — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:33:39 +0000

Review of Daft.ie iPhone App

We’ve been looking for a house to rent or buy for ages now and I also have an iPhone, so app = handy being able to browse or search homes while in bed or while out and about actually lookin for houses ‘manually’. I’ve tried a few different property apps including MyHome’s and PropertyNews but the Daft one wins hands down.

Propertynews, while feature rich seems to have a Northern Irish/UK bias and I don’t like the map based navigation of MyHome. I prefer a simple list.

Here are the features and reasons I like the Daft app:

Ease and speed of use.
List type results with images and main details.
Photo viewer.
Comprehensive search filters.
“Nearby” Searches.
Maps.
Quick links to Call or Email agents.
Bookmark properties.
Sales & Rentals.
Sorting.

Hope we find a home to buy soon, only looking for about 7 years now..

Leon.

Rated 4/5 on Feb 21 2010

Vote on Leon’s reviews at LouderVoice

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Social Networking, Ego and Religion

Leon — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:20:06 +0000

I’ve recently been thinking about Social Networking in terms of Ego and Religion of all things!

I believe Blogging, Tweeting and Facebook status updating is one big ego trip. What better validation of one’s self can there be than sending out a message to hundreds of listeners and having them ‘Like this’, Retweet or comment positively on it!?

The Parallels between social networking and organized religion are hard to ignore in my opinion. With most networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, etc..its’ all about Following people and spreading messages. Followers could otherwise be referred to as disciples who subscribe to the preachings of the Blogger/Messianic figure and by aggreeing with his views and reccommending to others thus follow his particular Gospel.

Then there’s the networking or connecting aspect which is akin to joining a group or Cult which has in place as it’s leader the group founder or Moderator.

Summation? Social Networking is the newest Religion!

Leon

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FREE Webtexts with Jelly SMS

Leon — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:40:28 +0000

Most of us are probably aware of the 250 or 300 free webtexts we are allowed each month from mobile operators like O2 and Vodafone. You basically login to Vodafone.ie or O2.ie and send your free text. Pretty handy eh? Well I’ve always found those websites slow, confusing and awkward so it was happy days when I came across the Jelly SMS iPhone App and started using it. Quick and simple. I then found out there was a PC program that done the same thing just as easily – Jelly SMS Desktop App. It also imported my Outlook contacts so all in all pretty impressive.

Well done guys.

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KOMPLETT BLOG REDESIGN

Leon — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:48:56 +0000

Blog re-design and transfer for Komplett.ie

It was great to be contacted by the guys at Komplett, Ireland’s biggest online Tech store and a multinational player in Europe, to redesign their existing blog. Their old one existed on Wordpress.com and was pretty inflexible. Moving to a standalone version of Wordpress has opened up the site and allowed for a higher level of design and functionality through theming and plugins. The new blog should better accommodate the wealth of excellent articles they’ve written .

Here’s some more info on the new design from Komplett themselves.

It’s nice that a job like this can come to little old Leitrim. Thanks guys.

PS – Credit to Frank Prendergast for the Engadget style Top Stories widget!

Live February 2010 – www.KomplettBlog.ie

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Online (Earned!) Media and Dublin Web Summit

Leon — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:00:24 +0000

Had a good, educational and inspiring day in Dublin yesterday!

In the morning I caught Damien Mulley’s talk on the benefits of Social/Online Media and although I’m fairly heavily involved in this area already there was plenty to learn, proved by all the notes I took! The new idea is that you have to “earn” your online space and give great value in return for followers, connections, search rankings and sales leads.

Damien covered the basic and advanced reasoning and features behind the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and gave some great stats on just how important and effective this whole area has become for businesses.

Of particular interest to me was when Damien spoke about the amount of targeting you can do in both Facebook Ads and also Status updates. It was also nice to hear him suggest that websites weren’t a thing of the past just yet and that they need to be optimized correctly. His movie and comments (below) on exactly where people look in Google search results was sobering. It seems if you’re not in the top 4 or 5 then forget it!

Following a nice lunch and catch up with an old friend in The Cedar Tree Lebanese restaurant it was over to Trinity (slightly drunk!) for the well attended and anticipated Dublin Web Summit.

Matt Mullenweg's Nexus One Photo!

Matt Mullenweg’s appearance at the summit was what brought me to Dublin from Leitrim. How could I not go see and hear the man who has revolutionized my business!? He created and continues to work on my CMS of choice, Wordpress. A legend. He didn’t disappoint either with a lively talk and fantastic shoes! He was responsible for one of the quotes of the night – “Learn to code. Scripting is the new literacy.” I hope to take up that particular challenge.

The summit was interesting, inspiring and educational with excellent and entertaining talks from all speakers and was well chaired by RTE’s Mark Little. Craig Newmark of Craigs List said: “We need a business culture that doesn’t stigmatise failure,”. Final and best quote of the night came from Wired UK’s editor, Ben Hammersley who said: “Whatever you do, make it Beautiful”.

Off to change the world now!

Leon.

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Domain and Hosting Renewal Advice

Leon — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:03:49 +0000

I’m prompted to write this after a recent experience with a client who ignored my once yearly invoice for Domain and Hosting renewal a little too long (one of many!). If you have a website then you will almost definitely get a yearly or monthly bill from either your hosting company or web designer for 2 things at least:

Domain or Website Address Renewal
Website Hosting

You never actually own your web site address you just rent it for periods but once you are renting it no one else can have it.

Your hosting is also rented and this is basically website space you rent so the files/pages (and emails) on your site have somewhere to exist and be shown to the world.

You need to make sure you pay these bills as soon as the invoice comes in because if you don’t and possibly without warning, your web address could expire automatically and your site will go down. If it’s expired longer than the few weeks grace period you get then you’ll be faced with a hefty bill to recover it. If you wait a couple more months you can avoid the hefty bill and your address might come back up for registration but anyone else could buy it too. All this time your site will be down.

NB – Don’t rely on your web or hosting company to pay the bill on your behalf, sort things out for you or chase you too much for the money. They will often have a lot less to lose than you if your site goes down.

I personally have a policy of not paying to renew clients domains/hosting until I receive payment first.

Leon.

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Business Startup Advice

Leon — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:40:57 +0000

Maybe I’m qualified to give business startup advice or maybe I’m not but here’s what’s worked for me so far!

I would highly recommend starting your own business, especially in the current climate. You know it’s unlikely you’ll ever be happy in your 9 to 5, doing the same thing day in day out and all for the benefit of someone else. Working for yourself means no more boss looking over your shoulder, no more restrictions on your time, no more journey times (if you can work at home!), no more repetition (self employment is never boring!). However you might also be saying goodbye to a regular wage and some security!

Here’s the best advice I can give to anyone unhappy in their current job and dreaming of working for themselves..

For a start I’d recommend not starting any old business on the basis that “there’s money in it”. You might make a lot of money relatively quickly but eventually, if it’s not something you like doing, then you will loose interest and might end up in the same situation as in your old day job.

Sit down and think about what you like doing best in life or what you know most about (normally the same thing) and investigate if you can possibly make money out of it. If your main hobby is Tiddlywinks maybe it might not be so obvious but who’s to say there isn’t a gap int he market for new Tiddlywinks games!?

Next, approach your local Enterprise center and ask for some startup support. They’ll probably help you write a business plan which is a tedious job but it helps you think through your business and see where it might head. They should also help with identifying a target market and supplying training courses to help you gain the skills you might need.

Consider giving away very cheaply or even freely your first few products/services just to get them out there and of course try to generate some publicity everywhere you can especially online.

Working for yourself is definitely not the easier option but of course if it works out it will be far more rewarding in the long run. Who wouldn’t love to be working for themselves, from home at something they love!?

Leon.

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Avatar 3D Review

Leon — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:15:15 +0000

Review of Avatar 3D

Took my time going to see this but finally managed to catch it last weekend in the Gaiety Cinema Sligo. It was difficult to avoid all the hype about this film in the last few months and the danger was that it would never live up to its hype. Some early reports suggested as is common with these films that the whole thing was FX and no plot. Well I’m happy to say that for me and my 3 fellow cinema goers it lived up to all expectations and surpassed them!

We got in a bit late some 10 mins after the film started and turned to confront a 3D bespectacled audience which was a bit surreal! Looking at the film without our freely supplied (and get to keep!) 3D glasses wasn’t possible but when I put them on my jaw dropped. I think maybe the last time I saw anything in 3D was a Commodore 64 shoot ‘em up back in the 80’s and maybe some roller coaster thing at Funderland about as long ago so this was a new experience for me.

Looking at a 3D movie like Avatar on a big screen (and in the front row too!) makes you feel like like you’re in the movie and the action surrounds you, helped by the surround sound too no doubt. It was hard to resist reaching out to try grab stuff and lookin like a twat to all behind! Several times during the movie we had to duck and dive to avoid gas cannisters and the like! The “Bioluminescent ” nighttime forest was absolutely gorgeous and you just wanted to be there running around the trees with the scantily clad (and rather sexy I thought!) Na’vi natives. 3D apart the film was a glorious, panoramic technological achievement along the lines of Beowulf or the recent Christmas Carol which if I understand it correctly use a combination of motion capture and CGI to create ultra realism.

In Avatar, gone are the wonky eyes and rigid movement of previous GCI flicks and the facial closeups were incredibly detailed. The action was smooth and some of the scenery and interactions were breathtaking and tear inducing not because of the emotion of the scene but the sheer beauty of it.

The story was a classic big cinema tale with superb action sequences, underdogs standing up, love, acceptance etc..with currently relevant “Green”, “Data Sharing” and “Networking” themes and strangely (but refreshingly) for once the US army were the bad guys and the strange Alien Na’vi race turned out winners. Perhaps the Bio Electrical, shared knowledge, live forest in the film is indicative of where Social Networking will eventually lead!

Go see it if you havn’t..awesome.

Leon.

Bioluminescent

Rated 5/5 on Jan 27 2010

Vote on Leon’s reviews at LouderVoice

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Complete Beatles Chords & Lyrics

Leon — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:42:39 +0000

Here’s a handy PDF for Beatles lovers and musicians, the entire Beatles catalogue of songs with lyrics and chords!

Credit to Sergio Palumbo for compilation.

Enjoy!

Beatles Complete Guitar

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Where The Streets Have No Name, Kinda!

Leon — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:45:19 +0000

Dug this recording out of an old pile on the computer. It’s me, Karl and Frank from about 2005 in Leitrim. We intended to record the whole U2 song properly but something went funny just after the start. It became an epic, delay laden instrumental with Asian influences and manic laughing!

It’s 13 mins long but bare with it, it’s funny near the end… We were sober, honest..

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All I Want Is You U2

Wordpress Visual Manual

Leon — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:54:43 +0000

In addition to the many Wordpress Video Tutorials I have on this Blog, I’d like to provide a simple, downloadable and printable PDF instruction manual on how to do some of the most common and basic things in Wordpress. The PDF is a series of 12 annotated screenshots form version 2.9.1 of Wordpress which is the latest version at the time of writing this article.

Download the Wordpress Manual PDF

Get the Free Adobe Reader to view this PDF if you havn’t already.

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Wonderful Tonight Clapton

Leon — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:30:14 +0000

Michael on Bass, Me on Acoustic and Lead Guitar and Eimear singing. Recorded and mixed in Reverb Studios.

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All I Want Is You U2

Leon — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:29:30 +0000

Me on Acoustic and Lead Guitar, Michael on Bass and Bongos and managed to get my partner Eimear singing! Recorded and mixed in Reverb Studios.

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Where The Streets Have No Name, Kinda!

Add a Contact Form in Wordpress

Leon — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:50:50 +0000

Here’s a video tutorial on how to add a contact or enquiry form to a wordpress page or post using the Contact Form 7 plugin.

* Update: The value pasted into the “Mail – From” field and the “Message Body” should be [name] and not [text* name] as outlined in the video.

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Website Effectiveness

Leon — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:06:42 +0000

Well done on having a website for your business but is it doing what it should, ie generating hits and sales leads? Here’s a few things you should really be doing to measure and improve your website’s effectiveness if you feel its not doing anything for you:

SEO

Are you sure your site has been properly optimised to do as well as it possibly can in search results. Have you got the right keywords, url and relative content? Here’s some more info on SEO.

Call to Action

You need to decide what the most important part/page of your site is and make sure its easily accessible. That might mean putting a call to action button or link in a prominent place so visitors are left in no doubt about what to do or where to go to enquire or buy your products.

Analytics

You should have some decent system of checking your website stats to see how many visits you are getting, at what times, for how long, what pages viewed, what keywords used, etc.. I use Google Analytics for this. It’s free and fairly comprehensive.

Refferal URL

You should have some kind of form on your site with a question that asks people where they came from or how they found your site. Also, if someone rings, get into the habit of asking them how they found your number.

Internet & Social Media Marketing

Once you’ve done all of the above you need to tell the world about your website and product/service and the best methods of doing that these days are the likes of Blogging, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and Online Advertising.

Website ineffectiveness can be caused by ignoring the above but it might also be a reflection on your product or market so don’t rule that out!

Leon.

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The Beatles – Blackbird

Leon — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:44:55 +0000

Had a bit of time over Christmas as you do and learned this excellent Beatles song after hearing Paul McCartney play it live in the O2 just before Christmas. It’s just me singing and playing acoustic guitar.

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Wordpress and Realex Integration

Leon — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:30:33 +0000

I am very pleased to announce that proper Credit Card and Laser transactions using Realex processing can now be taken on Wordpress powered sites via the Shopping Cart plugin from Tribulant. I think this is a significant development considering both the recent popularity of Wordpress as a full website content management and E-commerce system and the position Realex occupies as one of the world’s most popular credit card processors. I am also glad to have personally initiated, advised and funded the integration.

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Paul McCartney O2 Dublin Review

Leon — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:10:23 +0000

Looked forward to this gig greatly. It’s not often you get to see a Beatle live and my favorite one at that!

The luas extension to the O2 from our Tallaght base was dead handy and we arrived in good time on a freezing night to grab a warming coffee and find our seats, or so we thought! It turned out that between the time I chose my seats while booking priority tickets online to the time I paid, I managed to go from securing great seats to standing only. Pretty disappointing as I vowed never to stand at a gig again after U2 in Slane. Bad back you see. I was pretty pissed of for a while as I thought I booked seats and I don’t know why there was a block and seat number on the printed tickets? Sure enough by the end of the night I was in agony both from standing and from the bitch beside me who seemed to think she was the only one at the gig and flailed around whacking everyone close to her..

Moaning out of the way, it was an awesome gig. The countdown started with an incredible, vertically scrolling montage/slideshow of images from the 60’s inluding many photos and press cuttings of the Beatles and other big names and events from the era including Hendrix and Joplin.

Being someone who makes these kinds of slideshows myself but on a much smaller scale, I could really appreciate the work that went into all the cutouts and layout. The whole thing lasted about 20 mins and played to a backing track of Beatles remixes. Very impressive.

Paul and his excellent band came on at about 8:30 and started off with “Magical Mystery Tour” complete with psychedelic video backgrounds. He then spent the next two and a half hours going through only part of an awesome back catalog of Beatles and Wings tunes with some if his solo stuff thrown in as well as one or 2 covers including a bit of Hendrix!

Highlights for me included, a very emotional solo, acoustic tribute to Lennon “Here Today”, an explosive (literally) version of “Live and Let Die”, “Something” (played partly on Ukulele!), an acoustic version of “Blackbird” and all the great piano standards like “Hey Jude”, “Long and Winding Road” and “Let it Be”. I counted 5 different instruments played equally well by Paul. Bass, Guitar, Ukulele, Mandolin and Piano. Pity he didn’t give the Drums a bash although the band drummer was excellent.

McCartney was on form all night and was his usual wise cracking self and threw in quite a few phrases as gaeilge, with decent pronunciation, the least you’d expect from a lad from “Ireland’s real capital, Liverpool” as he cheekily said!

The band returned for 2 encores at the end and the night didn’t seem to to take much out of a guy pushing 70. You got the feeling he could have gone on all night. I would happily have listened all night too if it wasn’t for my back giving in..

Definitely a gig to remember and great to have seen a living legend. Here’s some Pics, Video and a Setlist:

[View with PicLens]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTwgomqOUhQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8yUSK1UOl4

Magical Mystery Tour
Drive My Car
Jet
Only Mama Knows
Flaming Pie
Got To Get You Into My Life
Let Me Roll It/Foxy Lady (tribute to Jimi Hendrix!)
Highway
Long And Winding Road
(I Want To) Come Home
My Love (tribute to Linda)
Blackbird
Here Today (moving tribute to “friend John”)
Dance Tonight (one of his best recently written songs!)
And I Love Her
Eleanor Rigby (great)
Something (started off with solo ukulele!)
Mrs Vandebilt
Sing the Changes
Wonderful Christmas Time (he had to do 1 xmas song!)
Band on the Run (great version!)
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Back in the USSR
I’ve Got a Feeling (great riff!)
Paperback Writer
A Day in the Life/Give Peace a Chance
Let It Be
Live and Let Die (explosive!)
Hey Jude

Encore1
Day Tripper
Lady Madonna
Get Back

Encore 2
Yesterday (awesome!)
Helter Skelter
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Leon.

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Name and Fame!?

Leon — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:29:42 +0000

My Name and Shame category, where I name companies who havn’t paid me or who offer a lousy service has generated a lot of talk lately. It seems to have had the desired effect from my point of view in that several companies have been alerted to the articles I wrote about them and have reacted angrily!

Hopefully they now know they can’t completely get away with some of the things they try to and presuming they are not totally stupid they should take a look at their operation and make sure they don’t piss people off in the future. So I’m really helping them!

However, I have also been advised not to moan too much about companies in case it ends up reflecting badly on me in some way. To that end I am now going to write some articles about the good service I have received from certain companies.

It wont be as much fun, but it’s only fair!

Stay tuned…

Leon.

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Ticket Scams and Google Accountability

Leon — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:26:34 +0000

Lots of talk today about fans of Miley Cyrus (or their parents!) getting ripped off by fake ticket sites as they desperately try to secure seats for their kids. The usual rules apply when buying anything online:

Only buy from secure “https” URL’s.
Only buy from well known sites.
Don’t buy tickets from an untrusted or unknown source no matter how pro it looks.
Ticketmaster.ie is the only place you should really be buying tickets from for major gigs in Ireland.
Visit the Ticketmaster.ie site only by typing it in your browser as opposed to clicking a link in an email or search result.

However, there is another issue here and one that I was reading about only yesterday – SEO is dead, long live SEO in which the author talks about Google turning a blind eye to cynical and possibly illegal practices whereby companies buy links and use dirty tricks to get themselves up the search engine results at the expense of more honest companies who use traditional SEO methods.

What happens in our problem above is that people Google “Miley Cyrus Tickets” or whatever and as well as the legitimate sites coming up in results, you also see a number of fake or “phishing” sites that may only just have been put up a few weeks ago or may even be using Google AdWords to get to the top of the pile.

The question is, should the search engines be doing more to vet or block out these kinds of sites and by doing so wrestle control of the web and safe browsing back from these criminals?

I think so..

Leon.

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Advertising in Leitrim

Leon — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:02:00 +0000

I’m running a new site www.AboutLeitrim.ie which aims to collect and display all kinds of Leitrim News from Property and Jobs to Entertainment and Local Services information. I hope that this site will become a great resource for anyone interested in Leitrim, living and doing business in it, or maybe considering a move here. It’s well on the way to achieving this.

Over the last few months since the site was launched it has generated more and more traffic. Here are some stats for the past couple of months:

I’d like to offer a 30% discount on the Advertising Rates to both my Leitrim Based clients and members of the Leitrim Business Network. You can Contact Me if you are interested in this offer or require further information.

Advertising online is fast becoming the most efficient way to spend marketing resources and having an ad on a well trafficked and relevant site like AboutLeitrim.ie should be very useful.

Regards,

Leon.

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Add a Gallery to Wordpress using NextGen

Leon — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:42:21 +0000

In this tutorial, I’ve tried to explain the relatively simple process of adding a nice, pro looking photo gallery to a Wordpress Post or Page using the well known and excellent NextGen Gallery Plugin.

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Average Web Design Costs UK and Ireland

Leon — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:23:11 +0000

Here’s an interesting statistical analysis of the average cost of having website work done in this part of the world, whether it be e-commerce, basic brochure with CMS or just a one pager:

www.thewebdesignblog.co.uk/web-resources/share-your-web-design-prices-anonymously

I’m glad to say I’m way below the average cost of a finished site and about the average for hourly rates!!

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