Number of the Beast

Here's how to find it

http://www.upcitemdb.com/

Undead Tree Press

The examples looks good though at Columnizer jQuery Plugin

2016 has 366 days

Frustrating as it may seem, 366 simply does not divide easily into 2016. It won't be until 2196 that the hexagonal factor relationship will be meaninglessly true yet significant to some. There is to be an election in Scotland this year which will impact on operations directly and indirectly, purely on a resource basis, but this should pass after May to allow some reasonable outputs. In saying that, future predictions seldom factor in the giveashitometer effect (copyright R Allen some time ago?). By now it is becoming clear that this post is self-referential.

NextGen $base-url

Wordpress gallery plugin NextGen has an odd feature if you're using the lightbox option in that URLs are stored mysteriously even after migrating a site to a new domain and updating any stored reference in the database (e.g. using the Serialized PHP Search Replace script)

There is a fix from 2013 by deltafactory on GitHub Gist but this specific issue has popped up on a few forums where the $base_url doesn't change readily.

The only obvious sign that something is awry are the missing images on the lightbox frame:

lightbox-ico-loading.gif

lightbox-btn-close.gif

lightbox-btn-prev.gif

lightbox-btn-next.gif

lightbox-blank.gif    

Another Bank Email Scam

And while you're at it...

http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/viewThreatOutbreakAlert.x?alertId=30633

An attachment stuck to a message like this:

Check attached form.

Johnnie_Warren

Portfolio Manager

Commercial Banking Support

Thames Gateway Commercial Office

2nd Floor, Riverbridge House, Anchor Boulevard,

Crossways, Dartford, Kent  DA2 6SL

Depot Code 023

Tel:  01322 969595

Fax: 01322 521264

email: Johnnie_Warren@rbs.co.uk

Supporting your business ambitions – www.natwest.com/ahead

This information is classified as Confidential unless otherwise stated.

The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, Registered in Scotland No. 90312. Registered Office: 36 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh EH2 2YB

Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.

etc
etc
etc

Companies House - Scam email 2013

Be on the lookout for messages like this (from 3rd September 2013)...

"This message has been generated in response to the company complaint submitted to Companies House WebFiling service.

(CC01) Company Complaint for the above company was accepted on 03/09/2013.

The submission number is P91LS8OK22UZJW0

Please quote this number in any communications with Companies House. 

All WebFiled documents are available to view / download for 10 days after their original submission. However it is not possible to view copies of accounts that were downloaded as templates.

Not yet filing your accounts online? See how easy it is..."

There is a message on the Companies House website with their official warning

We have been made aware that random emails claiming to be from Companies House with a zipfile mail attachment are being sent. These mails have not been generated by Companies House and we strongly advise you not to open the attachment. Our customers should be assured that the details we hold have not been compromised.

Scam Alert: 03/09/13 12pm

Companies House

Big Bang and Balls

Assisting Dumfries Rugby Club with their transition to a new website so that the secretary and club members charged with keeping the information up to date have a more streamlined system (wordpress, typically) to make things easier. The nature of sport clubs means there are considerations on how scheduled future information is managed ('fixtures') but it also has to be easy for ordinary users to enter and update the information as required.

One of the longer term time-savers is the built in wordpress media library which removes multi-stage media upload processes from earlier content management systems.

Incidentally, what's the latest on the webmaker movement as it is happening in Scotland (North West) as per https://webmaker.org/events/202

Dodgy emails to look out for July 2013

If you get one of these email messages from Dun and BradStreet about your business credit rating - don't open it just delete it.

More advice from the REAL company can be found here:

http://www.dnb.com/company/important-notice.html

From Minis to Volkswagens

Callisti is happy to promote Dumfries and Galloway based Ross Wylie, the racing driver who is gathering momentum as he achieves on-track success. The website started out when he was transitioning from Karts to the Mini Cooper competition in 2012 and now he has attracted interest from Volkswagen with whom he is competing in the VW Scirocco R-Cup for the 2013 season.

Event Search Engine - Daybees

Finally a decent event search engine - "Daybees". This is called a vertical search engine and has over 230 categories with 1.5million events or happenings at any given time in its rolling database of future fixtures.

It's a live beta launch and has already garnered interest from New York Times, Wired, and other online publications as it attempts to tap into the event-based search which seems to be the hardest one to achieve and maintain.

Moving WordPress installations

You must check this out Search Replace DB if you're moving to a new server or especially URL...

Of course check the WordPress Codex - keeps you comforted all the way through the process.

For Sale in Dumfries

Update: now that the Facebook timeline has been updated, Dumfries and Galloway For Sale Free and Wanted (DAGFSFAW) has now served its initial purpose of providing an alternative to the Facebook Group. The WordPress and BuddyPress website has had a recent purge of bogus spammy users so has been cleaned up with new security and moderation in place. Existing genuine users are still able to post and comment and the registration via Facebook is still operational. There are now some adsense ads from Google on the site as part of an experimental assessment of visitor behaviour.

Ebay Shop Customisation - lower expectations or spend loads of money

Great stuff - blogger has a new look! The minimal contribution for today is to allude to how non-straightforward it is to customise ebay shops. You need a custom page template but they only really work for custom pages and not the category or product display. For those you either need to totally disable all ebay page furniture so that the optional additional html on the product listing displays properly. As for using script or jquery - possible but awkward. As soon as you enable any ebay header/banner, category listing, boxes, etc it totally restricts your customisation options. Maybe via ebay developer tools or some pro software these things are more straightforward but suspect you'll end up with about 5 tabs open in your browser when 2 would do. Ebay navigation between the user account and the shop management system is heavy to say the least.

This sporting life - Dumfries and Galloway

Ross Wylie is another talented sportsman from Dumfries and Galloway. Following in the successful footsteps of racing drivers Allan McNish and David Coulthard, there must be something conducive to developing talents for racing cars in the south of Scotland.

The new Ross Wylie Racing website is to mark the start of Ross racing Mini's in the 2012 season. This is a progression from his successful kart racing years in the UK and Europe and he has had to work hard to show that being slightly older than his peers is not going to be a barrier to success.

Callisti is looking forward to developing the website and integrating some interesting in-car video footage showing what really happens during races...

Arts Events in Dumfries and Galloway 2012

The Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival kicks off on 25th May 2012 this year with the events now listed on the arts website.

A Calameo feature allows the print version of the event listings brochure to be viewed, downloaded and printed from the screen, and some recent Flickr images have been updated by the dgartsfest staff.

Tickets will be available to buy online on 16th March via ticketweb - this seems to change every year so the wordpress custom fields need tweaked to suit. In previous years it has used TheBooth and also the PatronBase ticketing system provided by the now defunct Dumfries and Galloway Arts.

Luckily the DG Arts Festival is forced to stay within a strict budget so isn't able to go bust or into administration every few years!

Pre-pack Wordpress Templates

Callisti is using the Platform template for WordPress but is re-considering this to allow full customisation of the desired Callisti theme. Currently some customisations would need to be made to the core Platform files to get everything just righ, which makes future updating more arduous as these changes could get overwritten.

Using the child-theme approach would allow for core WordPress and plug-in files to be automatically updated without causing conflict with the Callisti theme.

It's also been noticed that some plug-ins are starting to experience memory fails when executing certain processes but this could be in part a setting in php.ini or htaccess. Further consideration required.

Yum Yum - Free Italian Pizza Offers

A few quick tidy-ups for the Ivanos Italian website resulted in a WordPress MailChimp plugin being used to add a double opt-in registration widget for fans of Pizza in the Dumfries area.

Subscribers only will be eligible for the free pizza offers highlighted in the newsletter for menu and "special offer" updates.

Much cappuccino was imbibed during this process.

Facebook domination of web page screen real-estate

A simple Facebook page was created for Sledges.co.uk with some information about the Aviemore-based outdoor shop in the Scottish highlands, along with some product images from the different sections: wooden sledges, snowshoes, budget sledges, etc.

The latest step was to add and test the like button for each of the products on the e-commerce website so that visitors could share products with friends within their own facebook worlds. Also a link from website to facebook page seemed obligatory!

The emerging trend is that wee facebook icon links and like buttons (and associated html5, og meta-tags, etc) are getting peppered across more and more sites on the internet. Facebook can piggyback on the hard work people put in on driving relevant traffic to their websites by siphoning off "social" activity by visitors.

Rivendell B&B - Dumfries

This required some admin work - sorting out Facebook accounts and pages, TripAdvisor accounts and widgets, customising Wordpress themes, and inevitably the transfer of hosting to Callisti services from the legacy provider (see earlier posts.)

The B&B website features an online booking widget and calendar for visitors to book without having to speak to a human directly and in their own time. Not all the rooms are available online so if you're looking for a Bed and Breakfast break you can resort to telephone calls and emails. Or like they did in olden days, turn up at the door and ask.

The design was influenced mainly by the Rivendell team to match their existing offline marketing materials.

Chime.in (beta)

The third way in 'rich-media' posting - this can link with facebook and twitter accounts. Currently trying it out (chime.in beta) tentatively after an automated email from Mixx. Naturally there's a mobile app and you can edit your profile, etc.

Kind of like twitter UI but nicer looking. Not sure where it will fit alongside linkedin, google+, facebook and twitter but maybe it offers something more holistic.

Claim your usernames now before they get taken!