NewMovies.ie — Live Online

June 10, 2009

So here it is today, as promised i have launched my new website: newmovies.ie There has definitely been a lot of work put into creating this site. The site actually is running on open source software, Joomla! 😀

Up until now i had never used Joomla! before in my life. I always thought it was very complex and i was not ready to get into learning the way it works. Now however after over a month of toying around with Joomla! i am now confident with how it works, where everything is and also how some parts of the layout code work.

So in case its not obvious what this site is about i am going to give a bit of a brief summary on what it is and what it has. First off the site revolves around Films/Movies, more importantly the latest movies being released to cinemas. At the moment we have about 40 film trailers on the website and also a few film reviews.

These numbers will begin to rise over the next few weeks as we will be adding more and more content. Most movie sites focus on when films will be coming out in the United States, however not too many, i can only think of one other, actually focus just on what movies will be coming out in Ireland.

So if you are from Ireland, like us, you will definitely enjoy this site because you will see all the latest films that will be coming to our cinemas. Currently we list the current films in the cinemas and also we have a few films that were previously in the cinema and also have a few films that will be coming in the near future. There will however be a lot of new films added soon to the site because that is the whole concept of the ‘new’ part of newmovies.ie

Anyway there is a lot more i could say, instead why not go over and have a look at the site, maybe sign up, or just to our newsletter. You can even submit movie reviews, rate movies and also there is a forum where you can go to discuss your favorite films and actors!

Now Thats Great Customer Care!

June 07, 2009
Vodafone Logo Red
Image by itBox24 via Flickr

Yesterday morning I received a call from Vodafone. They said they were just going to ask a few questions to make sure that I was getting the best service available. So I decided I would have a listen, usually I hate these conversations, but since it was early in the morning I didn’t really mind 😀

They just asked me if I knew about all the services available to me such as, cheap calls when going abroad, a €2 IOU service for when I was out of credit and also free calls and texts! Of course I already knew all about this, but I let the man on the phone go on about it for a while 😉 I just wanted to hear if there was anything that I did not already know about.

I already signed up to all of these services that he was offering me, if he had of checked my record he would of seen this and could of saved himself a call, but sure it’s always great to let people do their job!

So as a kind of good will gesture, at the end of the call he told me that Vodafone would like to offer me a €20 voucher for their online store, I was not expecting this at all and all I had to do was give them my e-mail address so they could send me it. And within a few hours I got the voucher.

I am really glad I listened to that call now 😀 I will remember that next time I get that kind of call, it pays to listen! So if you happen to be on the Vodafone network and get this call, apparently they are calling a few of their customers, I recommend that you listen to what they have to say. It is worth the few minutes 😀

A Good Idea For A WordPress Plugin/Feature

June 03, 2009
180_9804 No9 plug-in
Image by Kate loves Bar Pt via Flickr

I was thinking that when it comes to writing a blog post, at least once i will make a spelling mistake. Usually i will save the post as a draft and then pop over to see a preview of how the post will look once i finally publish it. I would then read through the full post and look for any spelling mistakes that i may have done and not noticed.

I always find at least one. I was thinking that a great plugin/feature that could be made or implemented into wordpress would be the abilitly to edit the post live when viewing your site. So the concept of this would be that it would only work if you were logged into you site and then view the site while logged in, it would be great that if i was looking at a post that i could just click the text and edit it live without having to continuously flick to and from the post editor, it would save a lot of time and would be such a convenience.

That is just a thought i was having, as far as i know this has not been made for wordpress yet, and if it has i would love to know how i can do it 😀

If i had any idea how to go about making a wordpress plugin i reckon i would try and make one like this as i  am sure a lot of people would benefit from a live text editior for wordpress.

Samsung SyncMaster 2233bw Monitor Review

April 30, 2009

So today my new Samsung SyncMaster 2233bw monitor arrived.  I ordered it exactly one week ago and it is here already, now that is really fast. The last time i ordered something from Pixmania it took about 4 weeks!, but that delay was caused by the high amount of packages that were being sent since it was Christmas time.

Shortly after i arrived home from college today i got a phone call, it turned out to be the DHL delivery man, he was looking for directions. It was great i had’nt expected it to be delivered today, I had thought it might of come on friday. So i got the package after signing for it and straight away begun to open it 😀

From the appearence of the box it didnt look like it was going to be very big, but by the time i had it opened and set up it looked pretty big and impressive. But once it was finally switched on, i really noticed the difference. The screen resolution is 1680 x 1050 pixels.It is really bright and displays the different colours brilliantly. Also it is 22″ in size and and has built in features such as MagicBright, MagicColor and so on. Also it has a built in sleep timer so it wont be wasting any power, you just simply set how long you want before it shuts off, simple 🙂

samsung syncmaster 2233bw monitor

So in the box was the monitor (Obviously), a VGA cable, a DVI cable, power cord, cleaning cloth, manual, warranty card and a driver disc. It was really easy to set up and was definitly worth the €169 that i paid 😀

When i was going to order this new monitor i wanted one that had support for DVI, i recently noticed that i had a port for a DVI connection and decided that when i was going to change the screen that i would like it to support DVI, since DVI outputs a higher quality picture. Up until now i have been using the VGA cable, which is basically standard with most monitors. Also i kept in mind that i wanted the new monitor that i ordered to be in widescreen format, because i was getting tired of my old monitor, it was square and when you are looking at a monitor all day, it is best to have a nice big screen with a really crisp picture 😀

So I would definitly recommend buying this monitor,  all of this for only €169, it is definitly worth it. You can get it over at Pixmania.

Driving Lessons

April 26, 2009

Tomorrow i will be going out on my first driving lesson with a driving instructor. I have however been out before with my dad but now the time has come to get my few lessons to get ready to take the driving test for the full licence.

I am looking foward to taking this lesson because i am eagar to start to drive out on my own. I have also got something that will inspire me to want to learn fast. This week i went and bought a car 😀 its my first car and at the moment i cannot drive it 🙁 basically because i do not have a full licence and it is now unacceptable to be driving around with a provisional licence.

I have allready been online with various different insurance companys to see what there best quote for me will be. It is not easy trying to get insurance when you car 19! I have however found that the prices vary a lot from company to company. My lowest quote so far for a full year’s insurance is about €1,300. Which is not too bad considering my age and i only have the provisional licence.

I looked ahead for next year’s insurance for when the time will come for renewal and the price looks better. It drops by about €300 just for the fact that i will be 20, one year seems to make a massive difference, but the way they begin to see it i reckon is that you are no longer a ‘teenager’ and should be more wise when it comes to driving.

Anyway i have no picture of my car taken yet so when i do i might just post it up here some day.