I have been working hard over the last few months establishing a small iPhone and Mac development studio called Digital Robot Software.
Digital Robot Software will be going live on March 10th with a website launch which will contain details of current and future projects. I have also been working closely with an extremely talented designer who is doing the branding for the company which should give it a strong presence.
Digital Robot Software will also be at this years SXSW conference with 11 other Northern Ireland based companies who I am sure many of you will be familiar with:
Airpos
David Rice
Filmtrip Ltd
Good on Paper
No More Art
Sonic Academy
The Design Zoo
Lee Munroe
Frank Design & Communications Ltd
This is great news for Digital Robot Software as it will enable a wide exposure of the companies services and will hopefully produce a range of clients and new skills from the available workshops and presentations.
A NISXSW Ning network has been established so all participating companies can easily communicate and so that others can follow us during the conference.
Another site niatsxsw.com has also been established to give complete profiles of the 12 companies including podcasts company backgrounds and will also be updated regularly.
If you are interested in following us on our journey to SXSW you can follow the websites and also the hastag #NISXSW on Twitter.
On Saturday February 6th the first Super Happy Dev Castle (SHDC) took place in Northern Ireland. Super Happy Dev House (SHDH) started as a hackathon event for developers and anyone interested in development, technology and geekery in a relaxed and extremely motivating environment.
You may be wondering why this event was called SHDC and not SHDH, the reason for this is because the first event was hosted by Blaine Cook who not only happens to be an extremely nice person and world renowned developer but also happens to live in a castle. In addition to Blaine hosting the event, two local developers David Wilson and Steven Holdsworth were organising it and deserve a pat on the back for making the event a success.
The criteria for the day was to bring along a laptop, beer, Unix books and big smiles! This was clearly not an issue as there was a great turn out (around 30 people) all working on exciting and state of the art projects.
A fantastic Spotify playlist and IRC room were quickly implemented at the start of the event and proved to be popular as they lasted for the duration, and I am still listening to the playlist in work this week.
Working in this environment proved to be an interesting experience, as new creative ideas where constantly being discussed and analysed, in addition to many laughs and what can only be described as one or two moments of madness (probably due to the beer)!
Many thanks to Blaine and Maureen for being such great hosts and keeping us topped up with great pizza and amazing coffee.
Some of the guys hacking code at SHDC
I have been thinking about some New Year’s resolutions for 2010 so I have composed the following list.
1. Learn to use my Canon 450D properly
2. Finish my iPhone apps and get them in the app store
3. Attend SXSW in March (flights and platinum badge already purchased)
4. Attend WWDC in June
5. Experiment with more software development design patterns
6. Get digitalrobotsoftware.com up and running
7. Produce better quality blog posts
8. Develop a desktop application for OS X
9. Run more often
10. In 2009 I have met a lot of great people so I aim to meet lots more in 2010
As New Year’s resolutions are notorious for not being maintained, I have made this list realistic and by the time we reach 2011 hopefully these goals will have been achieved.
Last week I received the Adobe CS4 Web Premium software which I won at the Build Conference, a massive thanks to Giant Training and Adobe for this.
The following is the complete story:
On November 5th I attended the Build conference in Belfast, during the event Ian Sayers from Giant Training held a prize draw for the chance to win a copy of Adobe CS4 Web Premium or Design Premium worth a whopping £1500. I was extremely lucky when Eric Meyer pulled my name out of the box, I seriously couldn’t believe I had won and opted for CS4 Web Premium.
With CS4 a wide range of new and exciting opportunities have presented themselves. I am currently developing several iPhone applications which will now have their entire interface redesigned in PhotoShop which will give them a much more professional presence.
As an amateur photographer I will now have the ability to add a new dimensions to my photos in addition to designing and developing a new website to showcase them.
These tools will significantly help me on a daily basis with all my personal development and design projects.
Many thanks to Giant Training and Adobe!
Jonathan Cusick
I have had an incredibly lucky streak this year where I managed to win an iPhone 3GS at Refresh Belfast which was provided by Ecliptic Labs and then a CS4 Web Premium applications package at the Build Conference from Ian Sayers at Giant Training.
Jase Bell has now created an iPhone app proposal that I feel if developed should be implemented in competitions across the land!
Although in all seriousness I have been extremely lucky at these two events and I am putting both the iPhone and CS4 suite to very good use. Hopefully there will be a post here in the not to distant future referring to the launch of an iPhone application.
On Thursday November 5th the first Build conference was held in Belfast’s Waterfront Studio.
The atmosphere during Build was fantastic, a really positive vibe was emanating from the audience all day. The speakers did interesting and informative presentations, we even learned how to open a banana thanks to Tim Van Damme, I can’t believe we were doing it wrong all this time.
In case anyone missed the lineup of speakers, they are all top class:
Eric Meyer
Tim Van Damme
Mark Boulton
Wilson Miner
Andy Budd
Ryan Sims
I was also very lucky during the Build conference as I won a copy of Adobe CS4 Web premium (for Mac OS X) from Giant Training, thanks to a prize draw where Eric Meyer picked my out of a box.
The Build after party was also made of the stuff of legends, many beers were had and I met so many great people who I hope to see again next time!
A great job by Andy Good/McMillan on organising Build, it has been the most informative and fun conference I have had the pleasure to attend. Already I am looking forward to the next Build!
Conference pass.
Tim Van Damme getting things started with the first presentation.
The Build conference got off to a great start last night with a screening of the documentary Objectified by Gary Hustwit in the Black Box. Free pizza and beer were served throughout the screening and the evening was rounded off in style at the Malmaison.
What It Is:
Build is a conference which has been constructed for designers and digital ninjas, it will take place on Thursday November 5th at the Waterfront Studio in Belfast.
Build has been fully organised by Andy McMillan (@goodonpaper).
Who Is Speaking:
The lineup of speakers are of the highest caliber in the business and this will be a great opportunity to learn from the best:
Eric Meyer
Tim Van Damme
Mark Boulton
Wilson Miner
Andy Budd
Ryan Sims
A full list of the topics which will be covered can be found in the speakers section of the Build site.
Surrounding Events:
Unlike most conferences Build has a full week of events which will surround the main conference. These are not your typical events and include a showing of the popular documentary Objectified, a lecture by Airside, a BarCamp unconference and of course the Build after party. Complete listings for the events and registration details can be found over at the Build schedule.
Workshops:
Build also gives you the opportunity to register for a range of workshops on Wednesday November 4th. The workshops include Accessibility 2.0 with Philip Strain from Ecliptic, HTML 5 and CSS 3 with Chris Murphy and Nik Persson (Web Standardistas) and Guerrilla Usability Testing with Andy Budd from Clearleft.
Tickets:
If you are interested in attending Build it is still not to late, so grab a ticket while you can.
Roundup:
With only a week to go before the conference gets underway, the buzz is beginning to hit the streets and I, for one can’t wait.
Hope to see you there!
Lookaly is a new service that has been developed in order to act as a gateway for people based in Belfast and Northern Ireland to share their experiences of goods and services provided by local businesses.
When you first visit Lookaly the first thing that will standout is the design, this has clearly been taken very seriously and a lot of thought placed on making the user experience as smooth as possible through a clean and well structured interface.
The businesses that are available for browsing have been placed into a range of categories which include:
Automotive
Eating, Drinking and Nightlife
Financial and Legal
Leisure and Sports
Public Services, Education and Careers
Travel and Transportation
Once you have located the business you are interested in you can simply view all the reviews, photos and contact details that are associated with it. If you own a business or have an experience you want to share I would highly recommend adding it to their directory, so far it has helped me several times on choosing where to go for lunch in Belfast.
Lookaly also provides a blog which covers topics such as local events, products and of course businesses.
Another nice feature from Lookaly comes from utilising the social networking platform Twitter, they will often tweet a summary of reviews that have been posted, so it is a good idea to follow @Lookaly if you are a Twitter user.
Overall I think Lookaly is an extremely useful service and I am looking forward to seeing it grow as more businesses are added to the directory.