Fintan speaking on - Cloud Computing&Google Apps (photo by Amanda Webb)
Bizcamp Dublin was held this weekend, Saturday 29th May 2010. The venue was the amazing Guinness Storehouse. What is Bizcamp?
“It’s a chance for us all to lift ourselves out of the gloom of the endless bad news stories. It’s based on the fact that each of us as entrepreneurs have loads to learn from our peers. And we have a lot to share with them as well. There are a lot of great things happening in the Irish Economy – especially in small and medium businesses and this day will be a celebration of those. And a great place to come for people who have lost their jobs and are actively looking at starting up.”
I was lucky enough to be speaking at Bizcamp this year on Cloud Computing and Google Apps. My talk was aimed at the non technical user who wanted to learn about ‘The Cloud’ and its possibilities, but I knew I would get a few technical minds as Bizcamp does tend to attract us geeks.
There is an increased interest in cloud computing from the business community this year. My talk covered everything from what is cloud computing to an overview of Google Apps, one of the worlds leading cloud computing products. Even for the more technical I think they got a greater understanding of the full potential of the Google Apps suite. It can be a challenge to keep up with Google’s many updates to the product, so it’s interesting for people to check out the updates from time to time. I hope everyone learned something from the talk, I know many people were surprised by the number of larger businesses now using Google Apps as their core email solution. There are now over 2 million organisations using Google Apps; including Trinity College, GAA, DCU, Gaiety School of Acting, Telegraph Media, Guardian and Jaguar Landrover
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the organisers Keith Bohanna, Emily Tully, David Scanlon, Alan O’Rourke, Paul Browne, Keith Shirley and Jason Roe for organising this years Bizcamp Dublin. Also a thanks to Amanda Webb for taking some snaps at Bizcamp. You can see the rest of them here and here is a link to Amanda’s site http://www.spiderworking.com
Below I have published the slides of my presentation for those who are interested (on Google presentation of course). If you have trouble viewing the slideshow <<click here>>
The Trading Post is a monthly network for small business owners in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area. The Trading Post meets the 3rd Tuesday of each month. Its aim is to promote small business via the network, exchange ideas with other small business owners & entrepreneurs, and meet business partners, suppliers and customers.
This month Damson Technologies founder Fintan Murphy will be exploring Cloud Computing and its benefits to Irish businesses. Cloud computing is all the buzz at the moment and many small businesses are unaware of what exactly it means to them and how they might use some of these tools to save money or increase their efficiency. The advent of this new form of communication and collaboration is a significant and exciting revolution in computing. Imagine you were a carpenter and someone had just invented the electric saw…you’d want to know about it right?
If you would like to join us on Tuesday eveing email angela@dlrceb.ie with your details
A little bit about Fintan
Fintan Murphy is a Technology Consultant and Founder of Damson Technologies. Fintan has a Diploma in Business Analysis and Consultancy from the National College of Ireland and recently received a certificate in Leadership Management from I.L.M. He has worked in the Technology Sector for almost 8 years. His company Damson Technologies are Google Apps Authorised resellers and work closely with the Google Enterprise Team here in Ireland. Some of Damson’s notable clients include Buena Vista International, Atex-EHL group, Volker Infra and Complete Highway Maintenance Ltd. Damson recently appeared in Business Plus magazine discussing the benefits of Google Apps and how Irish businesses can benefit from using cloud computing in their organisations.
Fintan is a member of the Business Analysts Association of Ireland. He is a Gold Member of Business Network International (BNI) and has just finished his second term as Membership Coordinator. Fintan speaks at business and technology events on topics such as Cloud Computing and Social Media. Fintan also speaks to parent groups at local schools about “Being a Parent in the Digital Age”. Fintan lives in Clondalkin with his partner Lesley and their one year old son Ruairi. When he’s not working Fintan enjoys rock climbing, kayaking and off-roading.
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As part of my BNI networking group we are asked to give a positive contribution each week. This can include a referral, a testimonial, bringing a visitor, or feedback on a one2one you had with a member during the week.
The idea is not just to bring business to other members, but to create a positive environment everyone feels part of. On that note, I have decided to to share a testimonial for one of our members on our blog.
This year we were lucky enough to have our pensions managed by Richard Cotter from Growth Investments. What I liked about Richard was his approachability on the subject. Pensions had been explained to us and talked over in our office many times, but Richard made the matter simple, easy to understand and even a little interesting.
Richard explained the pros and cons of the different fund options, our choices and where he thought we should invest our money. A year on we have to put some money aside for our future and feel safe in the knowledge that we made the right decision in getting Growth Investments to manage our money. We also have income protection which will pay our wages in the event an accident or illness prevents us from working. Being self employed with a young family this gives me great peace of mind.
I would recommend anyone considering a pension, retirement or looking for income protection to talk to Richard as no doubt it will be of benefit.
Silicon Republic reports Irish-owned international provider of engineering to the manufacturing and energy sector LotusWorks has deployed Google Apps Premier Edition across its workforce.
Following a serious downtime incident on its current email system LotusWorks moved its 100 users to Google’s Enterprise messaging and collaboration system. This guaranteed them improved uptime, reduced IT costs and increased employees ability to collaborate and communicate.
“Our legacy system was supported here in Ireland,” explained Gary Gilgan, IT manager, LotusWorks. “We decided to look at an alternative after we experienced a serious outage incident in Ireland which affected our business operations in the US.”
Google now help 3000 organisations per day move to Google Apps to save money and increase efficiency in their business.
If you would like to know more about how Google Apps can help your business or to arrange a demo contact our team today on +353 1 685 466 or complete our contact form.
Paul Cassidy, Google Enterprise Team, & Fintan Murphy, Damson Technologies
06/11/09 — Damson Technologies, a Cloud Computing sytems integrator specialist, today announced it has become an authorised reseller of the Google Apps™ suite of communication and collaboration tools.
Damson Technologies joins the Google Apps Authorised Reseller program as a solutions provider of Google Apps Services and will extend the power of Google by helping customers gain added value from their Google Apps deployments. Damson Technologies offers a series of products and services around deployment, data migration, system integration, training and support for the Google Apps suite.
“Damson is leading the way in moving Irish businesses into the cloud,” said Fintan Murphy, Sales Director, Damson Technologies. “We are delighted to be working with Google to bring the benefits and cost savings of Google Apps and hosted services to Irish businesses. The Google Apps Reseller program will help us enhance the value of Google Apps for our clients.”
Google Apps brings simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools to organizations. With Google Apps, users can use applications such as Gmail™ webmail service, Google Talk™ instant messaging service, Google Calendar™ calendaring service, Google Docs™ program, Google Sites™ web application, and Google Video™ for business on their own domain to work together more effectively. Best of all, it’s all hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software to download, install or maintain.
The Google Apps Reseller program includes resellers, consultants and independent software vendors that sell, service and customize Google Apps Premier Edition for their customers. Damson Technologies received training, support and deployment services from Google, as well as access to APIs for integrating Google Apps into their customers’ business operations. Damson Technologies is able to retain a close relationship with their customers in order to provide additional service and support. The businesses receiving Google Apps will benefit from the additional attention to their specific needs.
Founded in 2003, Damson Technologies is a cloud computing system integrator specialist providing solutions to the Irish market. We deliver services and products that enable organisations to reduce cost and risk by leveraging cloud computing solutions. For more information on Damson Technologies service offerings please visit www.damson.ie.
Welcome to our new technology blog and relaunched website. Our intention is to use this blog as a place to share our thoughts and practical experiences with technology and to communicate what’s going on with Damson.
With that in mind, I decided a useful first series of posts would be to document our experiences in creating the new website.
This site is built entirely on the WordPress platform. Why WordPress?
WordPress is a flexible, powerful and extendable web publishing platform. If you are interested in setting up and managing your own website you should give it serious consideration. WordPress is used to power thousands of professional and personal websites across the web. The software itself is free and open source, with literally thousands of plugins available which extend it’s capabilities enormously. The WordPress developer community is large and enthusiastic, ensuring plugins and software are kept up to date, with regular updates adding new features. Many hosting companies provide simple setup procedures for setting up WordPress on your website. A short list can be found here. If you prefer a solution closer to home and wish to use an Irish webhost Blacknight Solutions provide simple WordPress installs and come recommended by many in the Irish blogging community.
Most importantly WordPress is designed for ease of use, meaning the user can easily add new pages, blog posts, themes or plugins themselves.
Step One: The Setup
If your webhost provides a simple ‘One-Click’ setup procedure for WordPress then you are in luck. For any non-technical users out there I recommend using a service like this. Alternatively if you want to get your feet wet before taking the plunge wordpress.com offer hosted wordpress blogs similar to Google’s Blogger. Here you can quickly setup a blog and take the software for a test drive and see for yourself if it suits your purposes.
If you wish to delve into the technical aspects of setting up the WordPress software on your site then I recommend familiarising yourself with the installation instructions on the WordPress site.
Step Two: Choosing a Theme
The toughest decision for us in setting up our WordPress site was deciding on a design. With WordPress it is possible to change the design or ‘skin’ of your site easily using themes. Themes come in an almost inexhaustible supply of design options. There are thousands of theme options to choose from. Separating the wheat from the chaff can be difficult and not all WordPress themes are created equal. A good webdesign company who are familiar with WordPress will be able to create a custom designed skin or theme for your wordpress installation. However, here at Damson we enjoy a challenge and like to get our hands a little dirty so we opted for the next best thing, a premium theme.
WordPress themes tend to come in two main flavours, premium and free. A premium theme is one designed and sold by a wordpress developer and will generally come with some customised features, good documentation and some level of aftersales support. Premium themes are aimed primarily at the business market and prices range considerably depending on the quality and the license you require. There are many premium WordPress theme designers out there and we looked at some excellent designs from companies such as iThemes and others. Eventually we decided on a design from WooThemes which closely matched our design specifications and needs. Not only do WooThemes produce some really fantastic looking designs, they also provide excellent documentation and support for customising their products. Being able to customise a theme easily and without breaking it should be a key factor in any decision you make regarding design choice. A premium theme may look amazing on screen before you make a purchase, but if it’s not easily customizable with your logos and content in order to make it your own, then you probably will be unhappy with the end product. Thankfully many premium theme designers provide one or two free themes on their sites. This allows you to look under the hood and get a feel for how customizable their products are.
Areas to look at when choosing a theme include:
Ease of customization (will it break if I change this image/colour/font?)
Customer support (if available)
Documentation (Help files, FAQ’s etc.)
Widgets support (those little accessories, gadgets and buttons on the sidebar and frontpage)
Well, that’s your lot for today, questions and comments are welcome below.
Tomorrow – Optimizing your WordPress installation and choosing the right plugins.
