Digital Orchard

So What ‘IS’ the Story Behind W3C’s Adoption of HTML5?

Hugh O'Carroll — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 05:33:23 +0000

Our friends at W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), the body which looks after web standards, was once squarely behind the XHTML 2.0 standard. They wanted the web to be strictly standardized. However, browser vendors observed was that very few web developers actually developing XHTML to the correct standard, if they were even doing it all! [...]

SEO Vs Usability: Which is more important for your website?

Hugh O'Carroll — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:53:07 +0000

Almost everyday (thankfully in the current economic climate) we get calls to the Digital Orchard office requesting our SEO services to help improve a business website’s search engine rankings. However, after briefly reviewing these sites, in many cases it becomes immediately clear that the site requires a complete usability makeover before it is optimized for [...]

How To Attract More Followers on Twitter

Hugh O'Carroll — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:33:59 +0000

So, you want to grow the number of followers you have on Twitter? (Why? I hear the more cynical among you ask… that’s a whole other post!) Here are some pointers; 1. Get Tweeting! - Engage with your existing followers. Be interesting. Ask questions. Make comments. It seems obvious, but you’ll only get out of twitter [...]

Google switches to new search index: Caffeine

Hugh O'Carroll — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:01:24 +0000

According to an internal Blog, Google today announced that it has rebuilt the search engine to deliver 50% fresher results from an even larger collection of Web content possible. This new ‘Caffeine’ index now captures real-time data, video and richer content. In a nutshell, ‘Caffeine’ is designed to continually index the Web. When information is [...]

Why not make Clonmel one giant Wi-Fi Hotspot?

Hugh O'Carroll — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:48:53 +0000

For those of you who are not Irish, Clonmel is the biggest inland town in Ireland with a population of roughly 20,000 souls. As school children, we learned this fact and it was always a source of pride with which we taunted our peers from smaller surrounding towns like Cahir and Carrick-on-Suir. In addition to [...]

What is HTML5? And Why does It Matter?

Hugh O'Carroll — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:21:02 +0000

“Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. [...]

Clonmel Animal Bedding Company, Delehanty Shavings, launches new Website

Hugh O'Carroll — Mon, 10 May 2010 14:03:22 +0000

Digital Orchard has just completed a new site for Delehanty Shavings, a major supplier of animal bedding to the Equine, Poultry and Canine Industries. All of their quality wood shavings are produced from Coillte sourced timber. Once acquired, their timber is shaved, kiln dried, sterilised and baled to the highest standard to ensure the comfort [...]

Google now factors ‘Website Speed’ into Rankings

Hugh O'Carroll — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:27:50 +0000

In addition to the other 200 signals that Google uses in determining search rankings, Google is now factoring your website’s speed, according to Google’s Matt Cutts in his popular Search Engine Blog. Cutts goes on to explain that site owners should not be unduly alarmed about this site speed addition, pointing out that the rankings [...]

The first unboxing of the new iPad (Video)

Hugh O'Carroll — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:35:44 +0000

Andy Ihnatko, tech writer for the Chicago Sun Times provides the first iPad unboxing: Read the full review article here. Print PDF

The next big Social Networking Trend?…Foursquare

Hugh O'Carroll — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:12:14 +0000

Location-based social networking is experiencing exponential growth at the moment! This is primarily because most phones now have GPS functionality which means that it is easy for application developers to allow you to determine your exact physical location and in turn provide location-based status updates to your social network (i.e. Facebook Friends, Twitter Followers etc.). One [...]