Increase Your Online Ranking

One of the most frequent questions we get asked here at ideabubble web development Studio is how do I gain a number one placing in search engine rankings? Well here are a few hints?

1. Submit your site to online free directories
2. Write an article related to your site and submit it to article sites
3. Sign up to forums in your field and leave comments with a link to your site
4. Create a monthly newsletter
5. Access Social networks and set up a Accounts for your business, ie. Facebook, twitter, MySpace etc

Most important of all is to remember that whatever you do, do it well.

HTML versus Plain Text emails.

Many of our clients ask the question whether or not they should use plain text versus HTML when sending an email. Well here are a few pointers to take note.

What is meant by HTML\Plain Text emails?

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and it is the dominant language for Web pages. It helps you to see different headings, paragraphs, lists, embedded images, interactive forms, etc. It's like a script code that may look confusing to you, but when you have it all in regular view, you can see everything you need to see. On the other hand, plain text is just text and it's completely unformatted with no fancy work.

What is the purpose of an email?

The main purpose of an email is to communicate a message in a quick and convenient fashion.

Benefits of Using HTML

1. You are able to use various graphics and images in order to gain the audience's attention.
   

Down sides of Using HTML

1. Messages with HTML embedded take up more disk space and are therefore slower to respond. 
   
2. Differing audiences have varied systems soothe use of HTML increases the chances of your message being corrupt and illegible
   
3. It is possible to be infected by virus's that attach themselves to the HTML code. These viruses are programmed to activate upon opening of the message.
   
4. There is also a privacy issue with using HTML. HTML email can be used to surreptitiously gather information about you and send it back to ANY web site. A web bug can be inside the HTML code. The web bug acts just like the FBI's bugs or wire taps. It listens to you, records your actions and reports back to headquarters.
   

So in short if you just want to communicate a message my advice is to use plain text where ever possible and avoid the use of HTML.

Note: Remember to change your settings on your email to: "view as plain text" 

Sarah O'Kennedy's Brand New Website Goes Live

ideabubble Web Development Studio launches Sarah O'Kennedy's brand new website.

Sarah O'Kennedy's new website offers its viewers, an array of gems such as clips of Sarah's new album titled "The Irish Wedding Album" alongside video footage of her enchanting duet with Anuna. Audiences are now able to order her new album or even book that very special day with just a few clicks of the mouse.

ideabubble Web Development Studios, Your web Development Partner

Floating our bubble in September 2008, as a small Web Development studio we provide for you, our customers, a full and comprehensive web development package.
Nestled in the Technology park here in Limerick, with close ties with other web development studios in the area such as Digino in Ballina/Killaloe, and further afield webtrade in Dublin, we will bring together all our expertise so to demystify the whole process of web Development.

We will create your new website using the latest innovations in design and development, while always ensuring the highest level of customer satisfaction.

Feel free to contact us to discuss your website Design and Development requirements.

Salamandar's New Coat

Another bubble has emerged from the ideabubble pond with the launch of Salamandar.net.
Salamandar the Irish language drama company contacted us in their quest for a new look. From their stationary all the way to their new website, Salamandar has shed its old scales for the new, to the envy of its suitors.

Choosing Your Web Development Partner

When shopping for your website, how do you choose which Web Development company to go with? Do I go with the big company with their expansive portfolio or do I go with the smaller studios and their customer centric approach?
Well here are a few pointers to take note before you sign on the dotted line:

1. Credentials - Make a shortlist of web design companies with potential
2. Experience - Spend some time looking at their portfolios and Testimonials
3. Contact - Are they local? Meet them and see if you like them.
4. Make sure they understand business (not just how to build a website)
5. Vision - Do they understand how to target customers?
6. Shop around - Make your final assessment of their proposal and cost
7. Contract - Ensure a detailed contract with timelines is agreed
8. Ongoing Support - Will it cost, is it available 24 hours a day?

There is also a list of Website Design and Development awards that you can have a look out for when choosing your Web Development Partner such as:

Digital Media Awards
Golden Spider Awards
Inspired Awards
Favourite Website Awards
Interactive Media Awards
Web Awards
Webby Awards

Smartfixsolutions Gets a Brand New "Brand"

Downing their work belts for the PC, identifying the necessity of Brand management in today's highly competitive marketplace, the boys at smartfix solutions contacted us to develop a Brand Strategy for their product.
Recognising the need to of having a well thought out Brand Concept of identifying their own personal Brand Personality and Image and conveying this to the marketplace in the most effective way given the tools in ideabubble's arsenal, was something that they felt was essential to gain that all important competitive advantage.

Web Design Team Expansion

I just wanted to take a little time to introduce myself the newest member of the ideabubble team. I have been handed over the exciting role of Online Marketing Developer known to all as the "Marketing Guy". So whether it is colours for your new logo or even ideas for your Online Marketing Strategy, I will be only happy to help get the creative juices flowing. I look forward to working with you in the very near future.

Maurice
"Your Marketing Guy"

Mary Immaculate Students Union goes digital

The Students Union at Limerick's teacher training college Mary Immaculate have an exciting new website.

Developed by ideabubble using the Joomla! Content Management System (CMS) the website features a wide range of features including Event Calendars, Photo Galleries, Blogs and more. The CMS was completely tailored from theme to content to meet the detailed specification provided by the students union. The website features the strong new colourful branding developed by Limerick designers Neville Design.

The new website has been a huge success since its launch in September 2008 with the students who use the website to stay informed about the Students Union activities, services and support.

For more information visit www.misu.ie.

N-Rich Holistic Centre gets a facelift

Ita from N-Rich was looking for a facelift for her old website and a total rebrand of her existing brand. Looking forward to a whole series of massage and shiatsu courses too! :)

Solicitors Dunmanway goes to no.3

We gave Catherine our Search package option in her purchase of her website and in only a couple of weeks she has already seen the results!

She is ranked No.1 (in GOOGLE.COM) for "Commercial & Company Law Cork" and "Solicitors Dunmanway"(in GOOGLE.COM + GOOGLE.IE)

I love it when things just work. :)

Photo Clocks goes live

Danny was looking for a complete brand and online presence that screamed his product.:) A home made timber clock that allows you to put a picture on the front of working clock. We also developed a "Build your own clock" feature which is just perfect we feel (of course!). I love his product I think it will do very well! Best of luck Danny such a pleasure working with you.

Screen Printers new website is now live

Congratulations to all the team in Screen Printers with the successful launch of their brand new website.

Screen Printers (formally Screengrafix) has a thriving printing, promotional and sign manufacturing business based on return custom and word of mouth promotion with customers throughout the country and wanted to build on this success by developing a brand new online solution.

Mike contacted us to complete a full re design of his current marketing material starting off with his logo right through to the design and development of his new Website.

We would like to wish Mike and his team continued success for the future.

O'Brien and Company Solicitors goes live!

We launch Catherines new website for her practice in Dunmanway today! She wanted a website that had a legal feel and that spoke all things to do with solicitors. We think its the legal eagle of results! :)

PHP versus ASP.NET for Website Development

If you want to develop a website and you are confused between PHP and ASP.Net to be used as a basis for your website development, turn to any experienced web development company and they will probably offer you one or the other. However, to make things easy for you, I think I should discuss a little about the basic differences between these two scripting languages that have caught the web developers’ fancy so very often.

Well, actually, both ASP.NET and PHP have dominated the website development market these days. Have a closer look on any website, chances are there it might have been developed either PHP or ASP.NET technology for sure.

PHP or Hypertext Preprocessor is an open source scripting language. It is designed specifically for web development and can be embedded into HTML. Although, initially, PHP was developed to run using Apache web server especially for UNIX or LINUX operating systems, later the scripting language was available to run on Windows server.

ASP.NET or Active Server Page.NET is a component of Microsoft.NET framework and is used widely for dynamic website development. Though ASP.NET is relatively new as compared to PHP, but it has gained popularity among web programmers due to its robustness and faster performance. However, some web development firms that use PHP extensively swear by its easily understandable codes and better compatibility with the web server.

However intense the debate may go among the ASP.NET and PHP professionals in the web development Limerick firms, nothing short of a candid comparison between the two scripting solutions is worth discussing here to find out the potential benefits inherent to these two languages.

The relatively simple language of PHP has its own advantages as well as disadvantages. As the language was initially developed using C programming language, it’s simple to write code in this language but on the down side the language hasn’t been updated much. Hence some programmers feel it as a monotonous and cumbersome task while coding for website development using PHP.

On the contrary, Microsoft supports up to 63 languages to run on its framework. Hence ASP.net has lots of options to choose from when it comes to programming language. Some of the prominently used languages are VB.net, C#, J#, C++.

Both PHP and ASP.NET are equally capable when it comes to object oriented programming (OOP). Since all the dynamic website development projects are done based on OOPS concept, it’s another reason for the growing popularity of these languages among the web development companies.

However when it comes to support for the database management system, PHP is a unanimous choice for programmers. Websites such as WordPress and Wikipedia that maintain their mammoth database in MySQL, prefer to use PHP because of its better compatibility with the database. Similarly another database management system SQLite is better compatible with PHP as the database is contained in a C programming library. Even ASP.NET performs well with other databases, but it’s more compatible with SQL Server database which is a Microsoft product.

Since PHP is an open source programming language, it’s free for anyone to use who wants to develop PHP applications. Even though ASP.NET is not free, Microsoft has adopted a good strategy to remain in competition. Starting from Windows 98, ASP.NET extensions are available freely with all Windows platforms.

ASP.NET is a complied language and hence it takes a bit longer time to process as the codes written are converted into binary format and retrieved from memory. But PHP is a runtime interpreted language and hence shows better speed and efficiency. However, the ultimate robustness of ASP.NET overshadows the slight longer time it takes for execution of codes.

When it comes to hosting charge, both PHP and ASP.net are at par with each other. Basically the charge for hosting a website depends upon this fact that how much space the website requires. However, if you consult any experienced web development company (such as ourselves ?), they will help you with the lowest hosting charges possible.

So in a nutshell, even though both ASP.NET and PHP have their own advantages as well as flaws, it’s a fact that both the languages are widely used for website development. In fact, many web development sites are developed using either ASP.Net or PHP.

Logo Design - what it involves

A logo is the presentation of any business brand. In other words, it is a reflection of what your business stands for and hence, plays a vital role in defining your corporate image. If the logo is outdated or fails to echo your corporate brand image, chances are you might lose potential clients. Most business companies understand the importance of logo. Today, companies won’t mind spending time and money on logo design as they are sure it will pay dividends in the long run. To cater to their needs, many new logo designing companies are invading the logo design market everyday.

Logo design blogs are a great medium to promote business. Hence, it’s not really quite surprising to find the reason why so many logo design and web design companies are joining the blogging bandwagon each and every day. Logo design blogs are where you can talk about your creative ideas and share good links or just talk about some logo design blogs that catch your fancy.

I wanted to conduct a little research on the top web design and logo design blogs in and out Ireland to find what they are mostly writing about. The findings were pretty interesting and I am actually impressed with some of the logo design blogs that are worth mentioning here.

There is one major aspect of logo designing that we generally overlook. While most people prefer simple logo designs, logos need to be very complicated to look different. In fact, many of the reputed logos are unique because of their simplicity. Interestingly, a logo is considered as a good logo if it is describable, scalable, memorable and managed to catch the fancy of the viewers without being overdone with colour application. One of the logo design blogs discuses that your logo is your visual identity and it presents every aspect how your brand is visually presented to your audience. In fact, graphic design principles and visual communication standards are used for examining and evaluating logo designs.

Understanding and applying symbols for visual communication is the idea behind logo designing. With the growing demand for a brand designing more and more people are waking up towards a potential career as graphic designer. Universities are now offering specific course through which one can learn various aspects of logo designing. I appreciate the graphic design blogs that are useful for the budding as well as the expert graphic designers. If you are looking for a company offering services on Logo designing in Ireland consider the factors that can fetch good results out of your brand.

On my personal opinion, before going for logo designing, it’s very important to understand the product and the target market. Then comes the creative aspect of logo designs. Creativity is your ability to combine ideas in a distinctive way and present them in a way that generates admiration from viewers. That’s what we strive to do here at ideabubble is to impress and adorn admiration from the masses!

Contact us to discuss your logo design needs and we will offer a very competitive quote with guaranteed quality.