…It’s back to work the Modus boys go. We’ve been in the office since Tuesday January 4th 2011, so get in touch with us if you need any help, or if you’re looking for a quote or some extra work. Happy new year!

David, Eamon and everyone at Modus would like to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a prosperous new year. Thanks very much for your business in 2010 and we look forward to working with you again in 2011 and beyond. This year, instead of sending Christmas cards, Modus has made a donation to Saint Vincent de Paul.

The Modus offices will be closed from Thursday 23rd December and we re-open on Tuesday 4th January. We have our new support system in place, so the best way to notify us of issues is to email support@modus.ie. You can still  reach us by phone at 087 2807068 (Eamon) and 086 8300943 (David)

Happy Christmas!

The Disability Bray web site is now live at www.disabilitybray.ie. This site is a one-stop-shop for disability-related information in the Bray area, a place to link up online with other local users. The site is run by a committee made up of local groups, led by Bray Area Partnership.

It was set up in response to a need identified by local parents and carers of children with disabilities. They said they wanted a website where they could find all the information they needed in one place that was relevant and specific to the Bray area – so here it is!

We have comprehensively redeveloped and redesigned the website of Mount Temple Comprehensive. The north Dublin school is the alma mater of our own David Henry, as well as the likes of comedian Andrew Maxwell and some band called U2. Checkout www.mounttemple.ie and prepare to be impressed.

OK, Folks, this is it! As Sir Alex Ferguson would say “It’s squeaky bum time”.

The shortlist for the Irish Web Awards has been whittled down to the finalists list and Modus has eight entries vying for awards in six categories.

Well done to phantom.ie,  twelvedoors.com, laoistourism.ie, taxation.ie and imro.ie.

The finalists lists are as follows (Modus clients in red)

Best Radio Website – Sponsored by Wirecard Payment Solutions

• todayfm.com
• 4fm.ie
• phantom.ie
• spin1038.com
• 98fm.com

Best Music Site – sponsored by Poll Daddy

• Muzu.tv
• phantom.ie
• oxegen.ie
• raggedwords.com
• State.ie

Best (Guerilla) Social Media Campaign – Sponsored by ebow

• whatsonni.com
• Call for a General Election
• twelvedoors.com
• weddingdates.ie/WifeCarrying
• acebook.com/lacucina

Best Microsite – Sponsored by ArgusCarHire.com

• twelvedoors.com
• annualreport2009.coillte.ie
• cycle4haiti.com
• buildconf.com
• safefood.eu/christmas

Best Government and Council Website – Sponsored by Exigent Networks

• corkcity.ie
• idaireland.com
• enterprise-ireland.com
• revenue.ie
• dublincitydevelopmentplan.ie
• laoistourism.ie

Best Practice – Sponsored by Surveys.ie

• carsireland.ie
• bonkers.ie
• phantom.ie
• communicraft.com
• taxation.ie
• imro.ie

Roll on Saturday 16^th October!

Modus is delighted to announce that we have a dozen entries shortlisted at the 2010 Realex Irish Web Awards.

Seven individual sites have made the shortlist in nine categories. Some sites have been nominated in multiple categories: Phantom 105.2 was shortlisted in three categories (Best Radio Website, Best Music Site & Best Practice.); IMRO made the shortlist in both the Best SME/Small Business Website category and Best Practice categories; Taxation.ie is down to the shortlist in Best Practice and Most Useful Website in Ireland; twelvedoors.com made the cut in two categories (Best [Guerilla] Social Media Campaign as well as Best Microsite).

i-finance.ie is in the pot for Best New Web Application/Service; moorehawketrilogy.com is up for Best Microsite and laoistourism.ie is in for Best Government and Council Website.

We’ve always snagged a prize at the Irish Web Awards, but we’ve never had so many sites shortlisted. We’re absolutely chuffed. The only thing that could be tricky is we have a few sites going head-to-head in two categories: Phantom 105.2, Taxation.ie and IMRO will all be slugging it out for Best Practice gong and twelvedoors.com and moorehawketrilogy.com will be vying for the title of Best Microsite.

2010 Realex Payment Web Awards takes place in the Mansion House in Dublin on October 16th 2010.

We’d like to congratulate all the other web companies and websites that made the shortlist. Well done!

The full list of our shortlisted sites is:

Best Radio Website

phantom.ie

Best Music Site

phantom.ie

Best New Web Application/Service

i-finance.ie

Best (Guerilla) Social Media Campaign

twelvedoors.com

Best Microsite

twelvedoors.com
moorehawketrilogy.com

Best Government and Council Website

laoistourism.ie

Best SME/Small Business Website

imro.ie

Best Practice

phantom.ie
taxation.ie
imro.ie

Most Useful Website in Ireland

taxation.ie

Several of Modus’ web sites have been nominated for the 2010 Irish Web Awards which take place at the Mansion House, Dublin on 16th October. www.Phantom.ie for Best Radio website and Best Music Site, www.LaoisTourism.ie for Best Government and Council Website,  www.NooneCasey.ie and www.imro.ie for Best SME/Small Business Website, www.Taxation.ie for Most Useful Website in Ireland, www.TwelveDoors.com for Best Arts Website, www.Feadog.ie and www.i-finance.ie for Best eCommerce / Services Website, www.CarlsbergComedyCarnival.com for Best Entertainment Website, and last but not least, www.modus.ie for Most Beautiful Website in Ireland. Well done and good luck to you all.

Update 23rd September 2010 – www.i-finance.ie has been nominated in the Best New Web Application/Service category and www.twelvedoors.com and www.moorehawketrilogy.com are in for the Best Microsite award.

After an embarrassingly long period with a holding page we’ve now completed the modus.ie website using the open source blogging software WordPress.

Why we chose WordPress?

In todays web market there are literally hundreds of Content Management Solutions (CMS), some propitiatory and fee based some free or open source. As you can imagine the cream has risen to the top and the forerunners are being chosen over bespoke solutions more than ever as bespoke work can be a costly option and often tends to age quickly. As with all our clients before we chose the right solution we worked out what we wanted to achieve with our website, the requirements fell into two categories, how best to promote our selves and how to make life easier for our selves. We also thought about the basic functions of our website and what they should be. with www.moduswebsupport.com we have already covered the bases for supporting our clients needs but for modus.ie really the primary goal was a good rank in the search engines, we also need.

Top 15 reasons we chose WordPress over other systems

WordPress was the obvious choice for the following reasons:

1. tt’s user friendly, fast and lightweight
2. it’s SEO friendly
3. there is a WordPress plugin to cover anything that we need
4. we can publish to the social networking sites in real time
5. easy to theme, we are using a customized framework supplied by Rockettheme
6. customizing design and add widgets is relatively easy compared to other CMSs
7. it can run both the website and blog (for our news).
8. RSS feeds have no setup.
9. it’s W3C compliant
10. it has lean and customisable URLs, great for Google
11. it can manage a members only area and password protected areas for privacy.
12. it’s really easy and quick to upgrade, helping to avoiding hacks and other exploits
13. works in all browsers on all platforms
14. we can quickly add a mobile friendly template
15. we can control everything

Do we think that WordPress is the best CMS?

Of course we don’t, that would be like saying cars are the best vehicles when really there not much good at ploughing fields if you happen to be a farmer. When we talk to our clients we always find out what they need to achieve and then match the solution to their needs. We match the solution to the need of the client, for us WordPress ticked the most boxes.

Good news! David Henry from Modus who designed our website has been nominated for Web Developer Excellence in the IIA Net Visonary Awards. If you like phantom.ie then please give him a vote today! It’s only a click away!