Watch out! The semantic web is on the way, a thought that many (and not just the marketeers) may find daunting . Why? Because system and web app developers that want to take advantage of the semantic web will need to learn a lot of new standards and change the way they work.

I have been studying and working with web standards (XHTML, RDF, ATOM, RSS) for well over 4 years now, something I am glad of,  because recently something struck me. Conventions are arising, for example DOAP, SKOS and others, that are built on top of the Resource Description Framework otherwise known as RDF, if they aren’t, they are usually built on something very similar or related. (more…)

This past weekend we went along to Dublin’s OSS BarCamp. There were some really great talks, Stuart Langridge’s Javascript presentation was a highlight. Jaime Hemmett’s talk on using Git for version control was useful and informative. Paul Biggar’s talk on PHC, the Open Source PHP Compiler, was thought provoking and certainly caused a few grumbles from PHP guys like myself in the audience ;). JD and myself managed to catch up with him after and talk through some of his ideas over a drink. (more…)

Just a quick post to remind the Irish and Dublin web community that OSS Bar Camp is running this coming Saturday 28th March, in DIT Kevin Street. (more…)

Peter Bregman recently posted on Harvard Business blog about
“Why Small Companies Will Win in This Economy”.

It’s a great post, full of common-sense-optimism, that makes a change from the doom-and-gloom we’ve all seen of late. He talks about why decision makers are moving away form bigger companies as their service provider to smaller, more flexible companies. He argues that ultimately this comes down to trust between people, not brands:

Small is the new big. Sustainable is the new growth.
Trust is the new competitive advantage.

(more…)

Nope. Just like our man Elvis, we don’t. We’re going to Soho instead*. This week our homepage got a much needed facelift, and with it comes a new address. We now have a base of operations in Soho, London to compliment our Dublin location.

Our new office can be found at 19 Greek Street (W1D 4DT), which currently houses a few other startups (Hmmm….wondering should it be renamed Geek Street?)  - all thanks to Irish entrepreneur Paul Walsh. But some space in an office does not a company branch make. So, we’re delighted to welcome to echolibre Helgi Þormar Þorbjörnsson.

Helgi comes with the right amount of PHP kickassness that we expect at echolibre; Helgi wirtes for PHP | architect magazine, and being a member of the PHP PEAR Group also rocks. Helgi will be heading up R&D and working with our UK clients, so we’re excited to see what happens in the next few months. We are also looking forward to connecting with the vibrant PHP and Open Source communities in London.

Today, myself and David are off to London for a bunch of meetings, and to meet the rest of the dudes at 19 Greek St.

If you’re a UK based startup and you need a fresh injection of PHP talent to your web app or development team, get in touch on freedom@echolibre.com. If you want to contact me directly, you can skype me on eamon.leonard.

*Yes, any excuse to play some Elvis Costello.

Today the Irish Internet Association announced the setting up of a new working group for web development. The main aim of the group is to educate decision makers on the web development process. This will cover areas such as server-side technologies, front-end technologies, development processes, best practices and standards in web, security and data protection.

Anyone who has ever worked with a client to build a web site or web application will know that there are areas where the client could benefit from having a better understanding of what is involved in the development process. Ultimately, when a client is better advised in these areas, they can make more informed decisions. This also can be beneficial to the development company or freelancer, as it can ensure better communication from the beginning of a project. (more…)

A few days ago we were granted commit access to the kick ass,  award winning Adobe AIR Twitter client Spaz.

We are delighted to be part of another open source project, and one that takes a new and innovative approach to web and desktop development.

The Spaz client is a cross-platform (available on AIR platforms) client that allows people to interact with Twitter in a whole new way. It’s great for both regular computer users in it’s ease of use, and heavy twitter users. For example you have different themes with Spaz but you can also override the CSS design to customise the app’s appearance.

The application supports markdown, it minimizes to system tray on windows, it has a URL shortening helper, retweet functionality, the ability to add favourites, the ability to delete messages, twitpic support, and much more.

You can of course go directly on Spaz’s website and read more about it and try it out

I had lunch with Eoghan and Paul from Contrast earlier today. We had some nice burgers in Bóbó’s — I’m still full. As we were leaving myself and Paul weighed up the pros and cons of tech companies offering that little bit more in recessionary times, and we concluded that companies that do so are likely to fare better in the months ahead. In a recession people expect a bit more value for their money.

OK, so this isn’t rocket science — it’s just a little bit of common sense, and it doesn’t apply solely to the web or tech industry, nor tough economic times for that matter. I think any company that doesn’t try to go that extra mile for their customers are failing to sufficiently differentiate themselves from the competition, and sooner or later that will hurt.
(more…)

In the last year, I’ve been lucky to be able to discuss the topic of leadership in a small start-up company with friends and industry peers alike.

I found that most people tend to either describe what a leader is, or what a leader does, usually based on personal contact with someone they regarded as a “good” leader. However, most seem to find it difficult to actually define what a leader is. Indeed, I can understand this, as there are many types of leaders out there and I think that generally how you tell them apart is not their skills, but what or who it is they’re actually leading.
(more…)

About two weeks ago I was uploading something to skitch.com and saw an inline button. So being a security person myself, I decided to try some XSS on their fields. 1, 2, 3, 4 tries done, I was able to load some of my javascript from a remote host and the nice thing is that this was a public URL. So for fun I sent the URL to a few friends. What that script was really doing was taking their cookies, writing to a file on my server and sending them back to the main page of skitch. So basically what people told me was that the link didn’t work, they were sent to the main page. In the meantime I was finishing my PoC by editing my cookie with their cookies. After about 10 minutes I had changed their first name and last name. (more…)