Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Firefox 3.0 becomes the most popular web browser in Europe

For the first time, Mozilla Firefox 3.0 became the most popular web browser in Europe, overtaking Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0, according to web analytics firm StatCounter.
According to StatCounter, Firefox 3.0 took 35.05pc of the European web browser market, followed by 34.54pc for IE 7.0.
“The move is partly explained by a small switch from IE 7.0 usage to IE 8.0, but also by growing market share overall by Firefox 3.0,” explained Aodhan Cullen, CEO and founder StatCounter.

The data shows that Firefox is closing the gap, and is now just 10pc behind all IE versions in Europe.”
The StatCounter analysis is based on four billion pageloads per month. StatCounter is one of the largest website traffic monitoring companies in the world, with over two million members globally. Over 40pc are located in the US with 25pc in Europe.

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Friday, March 27, 2009

Eco Week - Monday 30th Mar - 4th Apr

South Dublin County Council is proud to announce its fifth annual Eco Week, which will be launched by the Mayor of South Dublin County, Councillor Marie Corr on Tuesday 31st March.

Eco-Week runs from Monday 30th March to Saturday 4th, April. The week long festival aims to raise awareness of environmental issues and provide some solutions in an engaging, enjoyable and practical way.

Sorcha O’Brien, South Dublin County Council’s Environmental Awareness Officer said “ there are over 100 events taking place through out the County for ECO-week so there is something for everyone from Community Groups to Schools, Householders to Individuals. This year the launch of ECO-Week coincides with the South Dublin County Environmental Schools competition award ceremony. This adds greatly to ECO-Week as the competition encourages students of all ages to learn about environmental issues and to express themselves artistically.

Some of the ECO-Week highlights range from, Eco-Easter Arts & Crafts Sessions, Naturalists Dale Treadwell, Don Conroy and Eric Dempsey, to Composting Workshops, environmental themed movies, Tallaght’s Eco-Shop and the Smoothie Bike.

In addition a series of lunchtime lectures will take place and exhibitions will be on display in County Hall and South Dublin County Library branches during the week. Topics include Ecological Footprints and Climate Change.

All events are free so come along and discover how to reduce the size of your eco-footprint.

For more information on ECO-Week or to book a place at an event please visit http://www.southdublin.ie/ or contact the Environmental Awareness Section, South Dublin County Council or your local library.

SWAN Family Support - Coffee Morning

COFFEE MORNING
At SWAN FAMILY SUPPORT ORGANISATION

Springfield Shopping Centre
On 8th April 2009 from 10.00am to 12.00pm
All welcome

http://connect.southdublin.ie/swanfamilysupport/

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

National Spring Clean 2009


National Spring Clean is Ireland’s largest anti litter initiative. The campaign is organised by An Taisce and supported by South Dublin County Council. National Spring Clean is open to all, from individuals to community groups such as residents’ associations or Tidy Towns committees, development associations, sporting organisations, youth groups, schools and businesses.
National Spring Clean takes place during the ‘Spring Clean’ month of April. Everyone who registers their campaign will be sent a free clean up kit which contains information which will help to them organise their clean up event, posters, colour coded refuse sacks, protective gloves and tabards to keep participants clean.
You can register for the campaign directly via the National Spring Clean website at http://www.nationalspringclean.org/, or by calling the National Spring Clean hotline on 01 4002220.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Biggest – and greenest – movie premiere launched online

More than 16,000 people in 60 cinemas simultaneously attended the premiere of new environmental movie, The Age of Stupid, aided and abetted by internet technology created by a Belfast internet-streaming firm.
The film, which premiered on Sunday, also had a global audience of up to 100,000 people, who logged on to view the broadcast at www.ageofstupid.net
The online premiere was enabled by Switch New Media, a Belfast technology firm.
The film launch is being cited as the greenest-ever movie premiere as Age of Stupidgenerated just 1pc of the total average CO2 emitted by similar-sized Hollywood extravaganzas. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Microsoft to release Internet Explorer 8 today

Microsoft’s latest web browser, Internet Explorer (IE) 8, will be available from noon in the east coast of the US today, and from 5pm in Ireland and the UK, the company has announced.
The new browser can be downloaded in 25 languages at www.microsoft.com/ie8 at 12pm EDT (-5 GMT).
Microsoft stressed that the new browser will chiefly tackle the security concerns of the growing internet public.
A study commissioned by Microsoft and the National Cyber Security Alliance, and conducted by Harris Interactive, revealed 91pc of adults in the US are concerned about online threats in the current economic climate, and 78pc are more likely to choose a web browser with built-in security than they were two years ago. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Monday, March 16, 2009

Lucan St. Patricks Day Parade

This year Lucan St. Patricks Day Parade are expecting approx 12,000 locals to cheer on the 1,500 participants from local organisations who are participaiting in the St. Patrick’s Day festivities in Lucan. The weather forecast is looking good and they are expecting a fine day and lots of "craic".
The parade assembles at Tesco at 2pm and is led off at 3pm by the Colour Party 65th Reserve Inf. Battalion. They are followed by a sea of colour featuring Irish Dancers, Marching Bands, African Drums, Clowns, Cartoon characters and lots more.
The Lucan St. Patrick's Day Parade is a "Non-Profit" organisation grant aided by South Dublin County Council and donations from local Business. The Lucan St. Patrick's Day Parade website is hosted by Connect an initiative of South Dublin County Council which allows local communities to use technologies in innovative ways for better ends and to shape internet content to be more relevant to local interests and needs. Read More

Courtesy: Lucan St. Patricks Day Parade

Friday, March 13, 2009

Patrick's Day festivities in the palm of your hand

VISITORS ATTENDING the St Patrick’s Day festival this year can keep a guide to events in the palm of their hand with a new mobile application to track the festivities.
Developed by MobaNode in conjunction with the St Patrick’s Day Festival, it can be downloaded directly to a mobile phone or through a PC from
www.stpatricksfestival.ie.
“What we built was a mobile festival guide that can be downloaded to your mobile phone,” said MobaNode founder Shane McAllister.
“Everybody has a mobile phone – there’s 120 per cent penetration in Ireland alone. It’s the ideal medium on which to provide content related to your event.”
The application includes an interactive map with details of where and when each event takes place, and supplies information such as ticket prices and times. Read More

Courtesy: Irish Times

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

New site helps Irish practise the mother tongue

With St Patrick’s Day on the way there is no better time to pick up the 'cúpla focal' or couple of words and 14 March sees the official launch of www.TalkIrish.com - a social networking site designed to help members learn, teach and share the Irish language in an online environment.
The social networking site compliments the existing Irish Blog Awards-nominated 'Focal An Lae' or Word of the Day blog which gives a pronunciation podcast as well as flashcard service.

Much like any other social networking site you can build a profile, uplaod images and get talking to other people, but presumably you are encouraged to maintain your status update and discussions 'as Gaeilge' as much as you can!
With more then 50,000 native speakers in Ireland alone and many more scattered to the four corners of the globe it is hoped that Belfast-based TalkIrish.com will become a forum for them to gather, speak and learn.

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Over 2,000 students to participate in SciFest 2009

The organisers of SciFest have said they expect over 2,000 students expected to enter this year's SciFest event.
SciFest is a one-day festival of science which is held in Institutes of Technology all over the country as a regional equivalent of the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, with local second level students demonstrating their projects and participating in a competition.
SciFest has been created to cater for the excess demand and provides an additional forum for students who wish to exhibit their work and experience the excitement of sharing their findings with other like-minded students. Read More

Courtesy: RTE

Social media embraces Ideas Campaign for economic recovery

The Ideas Campaign, which is calling on the people of Ireland to propose solutions that will help rebuild the economy, has evolved into a multi-social media endeavour spreading to sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ammado and IGOpeople.
The genesis for the Ideas Campaign began in February and, in weeks, Aileen O’Toole, former editor of the Sunday Business Post and managing director of web consultancy AMAS, began seeking volunteers on LinkedIn, focusing specifically on people who had just been made redundant. A campaign manager was appointed on 25 February and, by last week, the need to generate good ideas for economic recovery that focus on solutions, not problems became an item on RTÉ’s Prime Timeand Morning Ireland. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Chat app to feature on iGoogle

Google’s iGoogle portal is to add a chat widget that will allow users to enjoy instant messaging alongside other favourite applications.
Similar to the chat feature on Gmail, people will be able to send instant messages to their colleagues, friends and family straight from their iGoogle page.Until now, Gmail’s chat programme hasn’t been available on iGoogle, where everything else from weather reports, Gmail, multiple RSS feeds and other widgets could be displayed on a single web page. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic

Google reveals three million communities of followers on Blogger blogs

Since Google launched its Following feature during the autumn to help bloggers connect with fans of its blog and discover communities of people with the same interests, some three million communities are now linking with each other.
According to Google, there is one new person following a blog every second.
The company has announced it is integrating the Blogger Following feature with Google Friend Connect to give blogs expanded visibility across the web, as followers join other sites and share activities with friends. Read More

Courtesy: Silicon Republic