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...

Don't Milk Dead Cows (Cashing In On Scottish Culture)

This project is NOT being part-financed by the Scottish government, the European Community, Dumfries and Galloway Leader programme, Dumfries and Galloway Council, Scottish Natural Heritage, etc.

The last thing visitors should see in Dumfries and Galloway is a herd of dying white elephants roaming around the region. If these "cultural" projects were children, Dumfries and Galloway agencies would be guilty of neglect and for failing to give their offspring the tools and skills required for long-term survival and independence.

Knee-jerk reactionaries chasing the magical mystery funding train in order to stave off the inevitable end of a delusion should not be continually rewarded. Sometimes the harder path is to actually produce something through organised work, and to try and maintain those things for the benefit of the many. Even if it means taking a punch on the nose when it goes wrong. Scotland has a reputation for creative musicians, artists and wordsmiths (and people who punch people on the nose). It also has a recent history of manufacturing and production. What is being added to this today?

There seems to be a new Scottish culture set to stifle the progress of the Scottish person: talking shops, big boards, planning committees and partnership agencies, funding vehicles, quangos, and channels for laundering tax-payers' money to trickle it back down to the public after the Directors' cut.

But only for those who can convince the purse-string holders they can bring visitors to Scotland that will line private pockets. The amount of time, energy, talk and money spent on encouraging people who don't already live here to come here and spend money, or start businesses, is in direct contrast to the growing droves of young people who need to leave to find a life opportunity and whose paths are beset on all sides.

How does this serve the long-term future of the people of Scotland and tomorrow's legacy? Concentrate on building an ongoing legacy today. You don't get good milk from a dead cow.

O to live the lives of others
Hands that quickly seize the day
The greatest clearly move in circles
Oblivious they hurtle
Move out of their way

(M. Campbell, circa 1999)

Inaugural blues festival in Thornhill

The end of April heralds the first Blues Festival in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway. Organised by local enthusiasts from its inception last year, the blues band itinerary is now online and you can get tickets using paypal.

If you live in the Thornhill area there are a few outlets selling tickets for the main event in Thornhill Community Centre on the night of Saturday 30th April.

The initial website was a simple wordpress install, slightly customised, to get the Thornhill Blues online. It uses google documents as the source of the embedded spreadsheets. After the festival Callisti would like to improve the website usability and functionality.

Online PDF reader

Handy tool for displaying pdf's in readable format on your website. A bit like the animated pageflip idea which is built using images, this service allows pdf documents to be read in a similar fashion.

So, as a working experiment, the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival brochure for 2011 is now readable on the home page.

The script was generated by Calameo, where you can register to use the service.

Electric boogaloo

...Newspeep...

This October, Callisti welcomes Dumfries and Galloway musical performers Boogaloo to the new hosting service on offer. A customised 'website baker' website inherited from the old Digitl legacy with scope for some fine-tuning and modernisation.

...End Newspeep...

Property maintenance in Dumfries

The Ewart Property Maintenance website was created using a customised wordpress template from thebookofblog.com to provide a simple, navigable website describing property services in Dumfries and Galloway, extending to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Carlisle and Newcastle.

This was not heavily marketed but concentrated on onsite SEO and xml sitemaps to give the content some foundation that could be developed when required. Happily the client is reporting that business is being generated by the site's presence so it is wiping it's own bum or washing it's own face, depending on your idiomatic preference.

Tickets now on sale

Tickets are now on sale for the 2010 Arts Festival in Dumfries and Galloway. The organisation uses a third party booking system called "The Booth" which allows visitors to book from an online allocation of seats at events.

Most of the ticket sales are still available using the ticket hotline number (01387 253383) which is handy for many of the events being run in partnership with other local organisations and venues.

Part of the event itinerary during the festival is the "Fringe" which lists some of the events on during the period of the festival - these are listed as part of a wider range of events being hosted in the region during the arts festival.

Get your story straight

Work has started on The Dead Tree Press initiative to encourage a more balanced reporting of the events and goings-on in Dumfries and Galloway and beyond.

Writers are invited to submit content and articles, cartoons, illustrations, etc., that have a bearing on local, regional and national issues from a local perspective.

The web presence is still in it's formative stage and is open to flexible development to suit the needs of the readership and contributors alike.

Comments welcome!

Wedding balloons

The "wedding industry" has a diverse marketplace given the sophistication and customisation desired by modern lovers who want a perfect day that's just right for them.

Dumfries and Galloway is home to the famous UK wedding capital, Gretna Green - internationally renowned throughout history for being perched on the Scotland-England border. Callisti is now hosting the Balloons for All website which outlines the range of decorative services available to dress any wedding venue and we aim to help the website improve in the coming year.

Fence Post

Callisti is now set up to host Allan Smith Fencing, a regional service in Dumfries and Galloway for fencing work and poles, crash barriers and sleepers.

The website may be getting a spring clean with partnership providers Communications Technology Limited.

Out of the blue and into the black

Work is now starting on the Thornhill Blues website for the Dumfries and Galloway blues festival to be held in 2011. The organisation are bringing well-known blues bands to Thornhill over the holiday weekend in spring so fans that follow the blue trail will have a new date in their calendar.

The organisation is keen to promote its presence on facebook and myspace.

2010 Arts Festival in Dumfries and Galloway

Events for the 2010 arts festival held around Dumfries and Galloway at the end of May are now being listed on the new website.

Callisti teamed up with Weesleekit to develop the new site in time for the festival brochure release and other strategic marketing for the events. There will be a few further developments to the site when more content is provided for us to work with so we can keep improving every year.

This website was built using a very customised Wordpress install as the basis for the CMS. Playing with Custom Fields is fun.

Who's gonna drive you home?

More website transfer action at the weekend means that Callisti now unexpectedly hosts 3 limo websites for Dumfries and Galloway and the Cumbria area.

The Carlisle Pink Hummer has been on the books for a year so the Dumfries Limo and Excalibur Limousine websites effectively make a limo portfolio.

Re: Arthur Pendragon - sometimes you don't have to pull swords from stones, so much as catch them when they fall out.

Allan McNish

Callisti has teamed up with CSS Stellar to provide the web presence for Allan McNish. This is an informative, subscription based website for fans and followers of the successful racing driver who hails from Dumfries and Galloway.

There are some bespoke systems in place on the website which were developed by Peter Graves, a development luminary who Callisti has worked with on several projects to date.

Art events in Dumfries and Galloway

Callisti is pleased to have teamed up with Weesleekit to design and build the new Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival website to be ready for the 2010 calendar of events.

The Arts Festival has been running annually in the region for 30 years and is established in the last week in May. Theatre, comedy, classical and folk music, children's events and film are all part of the events running throughout the region at this time.

The site is still in development so more news will follow...

Holiday property repairs and maintenance

Dumfries and Galloway is a region with a variety of rental properties available: there is a significant tourism market for holiday properties and a large rental market with many 2nd home owners making a business out of visitors to the area.

Alongside this there are caravan parks, holiday log cabins, and various holiday park areas.

There are also commercial letting agents that rent general accommodation.

Ewart Property Maintenance provides a repair and maintenance service for a wide range of these properties, from general DIY and maintenance and upkeep, to fitting kitchens and bathrooms.

Self Catering Log Cabins

One of our website maintenance clients has recently decided to transfer their hosting to Callisti so that all their website management is under one roof.

We are very please to welcome Lochanview on board and hope we can get time off one day to enjoy the hot tub at their lovely self catering log cabins in Kippford, Dumfries and Galloway.

All things Burns

The arts festival in Dumfries and Galloway kicks off on the 22nd May with a group of events celebrating the life and work of Robert Burns who died (and is buried) in Dumfries.

A lot of the press releases from the Arts Festival are picking up on the (debatable) VisitScotland 'Homecoming Scotland' tourism strategy which celebrates the 250th birthday of the Bard.

Tickets for the events can now be bought online at the festival website who recently advertised on the local ITV television channel...

Holiday Cottages in Galloway

Another loverly self catering holiday cottage provider in Galloway joined the Callisti group recently and will enjoy a speedier and helpful website service that they weren't getting from their last provider.

The restored Victorian cottages on the Galloway estate feature enclosed gardens and stable courtyards. You can check availability online and use the booking enquiry system to contact the estate for a holiday in the South West of Scotland.

A domain transfer that could have taken minutes was stretched out over about 5 weeks as mysterious invoices suddenly appeared, confusing hosting charges were quoted, and a general poor response to support requests was noted. Not to worry - karma and all that...

Garden Hammock

Callisti is working on the seasonal hammock project for a local Galloway company and embracing Actinic 9 as an ecommerce solution.

The website design is trying to capture a fresh outdoor feel which should be an improvement to the legacy look of the original website.

Interestingly, the search term 'hammocks' is very seasonal especially in the UK and we are now noticing the rising traffic to the website as the spring equinox approches. Some of the Adwords tools from PPCBully, keywordcountry and keywordspy.com show the value of a click for this keyword and also who the competitors are. Tough market!

As usual we will be applying Callisti SEO philosophy to the site so that the internal housekeeping assists in keeping CPC down and ROI up.