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Hi All,

Our Support Ticket System which is powered by www.freshbooks.com is currently down for some maintenance.  Any customers unable to log a support ticket and who requires IT support please call our Support line on 01-6854666.  We apologise for any inconvenience caused and our provider is working hard to bring the system back online as soon as possible.

If you would like to check the status of the Freshbooks system at any time just log onto

http://status.freshbooks.com/

Thanks again for using our online ticket system.  It is these technologies that help Damson give our customers the best support possible.

Fintan Murphy

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Sales Director

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.

Fintan Murphy

Damson Technologies

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.

Read article  in full here>>>

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.

Feel like spreading the word in your organisation?

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.